us which is unâ—evealed in the Word and that to be doubtful which is darkly â—evealed Then the Contentions of the Church about the Mysteâ—ies of the Divine Decrees the nature of Internal Grace and way â—nd maner of the Spirits working c. will be more calmly managed Two things have set fire on the Church and been the plagues of it his thousand yeers and more First Englarging our Creed and making more Fundamentals â—hen God hath done Master Parker and Ludovicus Crocius have fully proved That the Creed for a long time contained no more â—hen Christs words in Matth. 28. do teach To beleeve in the Father Son and Holy Ghost and no more were they baptized â—nto Secondly Delivering our Creeds and Confessions in our own Humane phrase When men have learned more maners and humility then to acâ—use the Language of God as too general and obscure and have more dread of God and compassion on themselves then to make those Fundamentals which God never made so And when they reduce their Creed and Confessions first To their due extent or length secondly And to Scripture phrase and take this onely for a Touchstone of the Orthodox then and not tell then shall the Church have peace about Doctrinals If my judgment much fail not It seems to me no hainous Socinian motion which is so cryed out against of Chillingworths making viz. That every man subscribe to the whole Scripture as Gods Word with a promise to do his best for the right understanding of it No doubt many a Heretick would so subscribe and lurk under a false interpretation and so he may do also by their Humane Canons But I forget my self in thus digressing Reader As thou lovest thy Comforts thy Faith thy Hope thy Safety thine Innocency thy Soul thy Christ thine Everlasting Rest Love Read Study Stick close to Scriptures Farewel Jan. 18. 1649. THE SAINTS Everlasting REST. PART II. CHAP. I. SECT I. WE are next to proceed to the confirmation of this Truth which though it may seem needless in regard of its own clearness and certainty yet in regard of our distance and infidelity nothing more necessary But you will say To whom will this endeavour be usefull They who believe the Scriptures are convinced already and for those who believe it not how will you convince them Answ. But sad experience tels us that those thaâ— believe do believe but in part and therefore have need of further confirmation and doubtless God hath left us Arguments sufficient to convince unbelievers themselves or else how should we preach to Pagans Or what should we say to the greatest part of the world that acknowledg not the Scriptures Doubtless the Gospel should be preacht to them and though we have not the gift of miracles to convince them of the truth as the Apostles had yet we have arguments demonstrative and clear or else our preaching to them would be vain we having nothing left but bare affirmations Though I have all along confirmed sufficiently by testimony of Scripture what I have said yet I will here briefly add thus much more That the Scripture doth clearly assert this Truth in these six wayes 1. It affirms That this Rest is fore-ordained for the Saints and the Saints also fore-ordained to it Heb. 11.16 God is not ashamed to be called their God for he hath prepared for them a City 1 Cor. 2.9 Eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor heart conceived what God hath prepared for them that love him which I conceive must be meant of these preparations in heaven for those on earth are both seen and conceived or else how are they enjoyed Mat. 20.23 To sit on Christs right and left hand in his Kingdom shall be given to them for whom it is prepared And themselves are called Vessels of mercy before prepared unto glory Rom 9.23 And in Christ we have obtained the inheritance being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after to the counsel of his own will Ephes. 1.11 And whom he thus predestinateth them he glorifieth Rom. 8.30 For he hath from the beginning chosen them to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth 2 Thes. 2.13 And though the intentions of the vnwise and weak may be frustrated and without counsel purposes are disappointed Prov. 15.22 yet the thoughts of the Lord shall surely come to passe and as he hath purposed it shall stand The Counsel of the Lord standeth for ever and the thoughts of his heart to all generations Therefore blessed are they whose God is the Lord and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance Psal. 33.11 12. Who can bereave his people of that Rest which is designed them by Gods eternall purpose SECT II. SEcondly the Scripture tels us that this Rest is Purchased as well as Purposed for them or that they are redeemed to this Rest. In what sense this may be said to be purchased by Christ I have shewed before viz. Not as the immediate work of his sufferings which was the payment of our debt by satisfying the Law but as a more remote though most excellent fruit even the effect of that power which by his death he procured to himself He himself for the suffering of death was crowned with glory yet did he not properly die for himself nor was that the direct effect of his death Some of those Teachers who are gone forth of late do tell us as a piece of their new discoveries that Christ never purchased Life and Salvation for us but purchased us to Life and Salvation Not understanding that they affirm and deny the same thing in severall expressions What difference is there betwixt buying liberty to the prisoner and buying the prisoner to liberty betwixt buying life to a condemned malefactor and buying him to life Or betwixt purchasing Reconciliation to an enemy and purchasing an enemy to Reconciliation But in this last they have found a difference and tell us that God never was at enmity with man but man only at enmity with God and therefore need not be reconciled Directly contrary to Scripture which tels us that God hateth all the workers of iniquity and that he is their enemy And though there be no change in God nor any thing properly called Hatred yet it sufficeth that there is a change in the sinners relation and that there is something in God which cannot better be expressed or conceived then by these termes of enmity and hatred And the enmity of the Law against a sinner may well be called the enmity of God However this differenceth betwixt enmity in God and enmity in us but not betwixt the sense of the forementioned expressions So that whether you will call it purchasing life for us or purchasing us to life the sense is the same viz. By satisfying the Law and removing impediments to procure us Title to and Possession of this Life It is
but to resolve our faith into some humane Testimony even to lay our foundation upon the sand where all will fall at the next assault It s strange to consider how we all abhor that piece of Popery as most injurious to God of all the rest which resolves our faith into the Authority of the Church And yet that we do for the generality of professors content our selves with the same kinde of faith Onely with this difference The Papists believe Scripture to be the Word of God because their Church saith so and we because our Church or our Leaders say so Yea and many Mininisters never yet gave their people better grounds but tell them which is true that it is damnable to deny it but help them not to the necessary Antecedents of Faith If any think that these words tend to the shaking of mens faith I answer First Onely of that which will fall of it self Secondly And that it may in time be built again more strongly Thirdly Or at least that the sound may be surer setled It s to be understood that many a thousand do profess Christianity and zealously hate the enemies thereof upon the same grounds to the same ends and from the same inward corrupt principles as the Jews did hate and kill Christ It is the Religion of the Countrey where every man is reproached that believes otherwise they were born and brought up in this belief and it hath increased in them upon the like occasions Had they been born and bred in the Religion of Mahomet they would have beeen as zealous for him The difference betwixt him and a Mahometan is more that he lives where better Laws and Religion dwell then that he hath more knowledg or soundness of apprehension Yet would I not drive into causless doubtings the soul of any true Believer or make them believe their faith is unsound because it is not so strong as some others Therefore I add some may perhaps have ground for their beliefe though they are not able to expresse it by argumentation and may have Arguments in their hearts to perswade themselves though they have none in their mouths to perswade another yea and those Arguments in themselves may be solid and convincing Some may be strengthened by some one sound Argument and yet be ignorant of all the rest without overthrowing the truth of their Faith Some also may have weaker apprehensions of the Divine authority of Scripture then others and as weaker grounds for their Faith so a lesse degree of assent And yet that assent may be sincere and saving so it have these two qualifications First If the Arguments which we have for believing the Scripture be in themselves more sufficient to convince of its truth then any Arguments of the enemies of Scripture can be to perswade a man of the contrary And do accordingly discover to us a high degree at least of probability Secondly And if being thus far convinced it prevailes with us to chuse this as the onely way of life and to adventure our souls upon this way denying all other and adhering though to the losse of estate and life to the Truth of Christ thus weakly apprehended This I think God will accept as a true Beliefe But though such a faith may serve to salvation yet when the Christian should use it for his consolation he will finde it much faile him even as leggs or arms of the weak or lame which when a man should use them do faile him according to the degrees of their weakness or lameness so much doubting as there remaines of the Truth of the word or so much weakness as there is in our believing or so much darkness or uncertainty as there is in the evidence which perswades us to believe so much will be wanting to our Love Desires Labors Adventures and especially to our joyes Therefore I think it necessary to speak a little and but a little to fortifie the believer against temptations and to confirme his faith in the certain Truth of that Scripture which containes the promises of his Rest. CHAP. III. SECT I. ANd here it is necessary that we first distinguish betwixt 1. The subject matter of Scripture or the doctrine which it contains 2. And the words or writings containing or expressing this doctrine The one is as the blood the other as the veins in which it runs Secondly We must distinguish betwixt 1. the substantiall and fundamentall part of Scriptureâ— doctrine without which there is no salvation and 2. the circumstantiall and less necessary part as Genealogies Successions Chronology c. Thirdly Of the substantiall fundamentall part 1. Some may be known and proved even without Scripture as being written in nature it self 2. some can be known onely by the assent of Faith to Divine Revelation Fourthly Of this last sort 1. some things are above Reason as it is without Divine Revelation both in respect of their Probability existence and futurity 2. others may be known by meer Reason without Divine Testimony in regard of their Possibility and Probability but not in regard of their existence or futurity Fifthly Again matter of Doctrine must be distinguished from matter of fact Sixthly Matter of fact is either 1. such as God produceth in an ordinary way or 2. extrordinary and miraculous Seventhly History and Phophesie must be distinguished Eighthly We must distinguish also the books and writings themselves 1. between the maine scope and those parts which express the chief contents and 2. particular words and phrases not expressing any substantialls Ninthly Also it s one question 1. whether there be a certain number of books which are Canonicall or of Divine Authority and 2. another question what number there is of these and which particular books they are Tenthly The direct expresse sense must be distinguished from that which is only implyed or consequentiall Eleventhly We must distinguish Revelation unwriten from that which is writen Twelfthly and Lastly We must distinguish that Scripture which was spoke or written by God immediatly from that which was spoke or writ immediatly by man and but mediatly by God And of this last sort 1. Some of the instruments or penmen are known 2. Some not known Of those known 1. Some that spoke much in Scripture were bad men 3. others were godly And of these some were 1. More eminent and extraordinary as Prophets and Apostles 2. Others were persons more inferiour and ordinary Again as we must distinguish of Scripture and Divine Testimony so must we also distinguish the apprehension or Faith by which we do receive it 1. There is a Divine Faith when we take the Testimony to be Gods own and so believe the thing testified as upon Gods word Secondly There is a Human Faith when we believe it meerly upon the credit of man 2. Faith is either first implicit when we believe the thing is true though we understand not what it is or secondly explicit when we believe and understand
Doctrinals as Justin Martyr Irenaeus Origen against Celsus Tertullians Apolog. c. As Also Philo Josephus Eusebius and others for History Me thinks it is preposterous to see men study so long the meaning of Gods Word before they know whether it be Gods Word or not As the Italians Melancthon mentioneth That would prove Christ was in the Bread before they believed well that he was in Heaven It is no questioning the Truth of Scripture to perswade men to the rightest course to be assured of its Truth I confess my self much offended at some mens doctrine who cry down Reason and Tradition here as if they were enemies to God and his Word and cry up nothing but Scripture and the Spirit Just like the Antinomians in the doctrine of Certainty of Salvation who cry up the Witness of the Spirit and cry down the trying by Signes and Evidences of Sanctification As if these were contrary which are co-ordinate If I had wanted either Reason Tradition or the help of the Spirit I should never have beleeved the Truth of the Scripture I confess for my part I cannot boast of any such Testimony or Light of the Spirit nor Reason neither which without Tradition would have made me beleeve that the Book of Canticles is Canonical and writ by Solomon and the Book of Wisdom Apocryphal and writ by Philo as some think or that Saint Pauls Epistle to the Loadiceans which is in the end of Bruno and others were not Canonical as well as Johns second and third Some men as soon as they hear talk of Reason and Tradition here they zealously cry out It is Socinianism and Popery Scripture is Gods written infallible Law Reason is the Eye by which I must read it The Spirit is the Physitian to cure the blindness of this Eye and in a common sense The very Life and Spirits The Church is the chief but not the onely House where these Records are kept Tradition hath chiefly three Offices It is to the unlearned where Scripture is The Proclaimer of it It is to the learned the Hand that delivereth it to them It is to some that never heard of Scripture a Herauld to proclaim the doctrine which it containeth And why must these needs be set together by the ears May they not yea must they not stand together and further each other The name of Antichrist Socinianism Arminianism for the things I renounce my self hath almost affrighted some men out of their Faith and others out of their Wits Is it any derogation from the Law to say A man must receive it from the hand that bringeth it and read it with his eyes c. A learned godly Divine is offended with Canterbury for these words Reason and ordinary Grace superadded by the help of Tradition do sufficiently enlighten the Soul to discern That Scriptures are the Oracles of God and he saith Here is the Socinians sound or right Reason before the Illumination of the Spirit and to please the Arminians ordinary or universal Grace comes in and the name of Tradition to please the Popish party And what all these are like to do without the special Grace of the Holy Spirit I leave it to any Protestant to judg But what will any Christian deny that there is such a thing as ordinary Grace or that Tradition is necessary to deliver us the Scriptures or hath every man special Grace who beleeveth Scripture to be Gods Word Is it not possible for an unregenerate man to beleeve that What kinde of Preaching would such a man use to Indians Turks or Infidels Are not men sanctified by the Word and must they be sanctified by a Word which they beleeve not that so they may beleeve it Indeed he that saith we may not onely know but know perfectly or know to Salvation without special Grace is mistaken But usually a common Grace and common Knowledg go before Special The same godly Divine against these words of Master Chillingworth The Scripture is not to be beleeved finally for it self but for the matter contained in it So that if men did beleeve the Doctrine contained in the Scripture it should no way hinder their Salvation not to know whether there were any Scripture or no saith I thought it had been necessary to have received those material Objects or Articles of our Faith upon the Authority of God speaking in the Scriptures I thought it had been Anabaptistical to have expected any Revelation but in the Word of God c. I should rather for my part think thus That the immediate Revelation of Scripture from God was not to me but to the first Witnesses and Penmen The way of Conveyance to us is another thing and is a Revelation too The best way is by Scripture which without Tradition no man would ever see or hear of Where this is not to be had there meer Tradition may save and is a Revelation sufficient to Salvation and not Anabaptistical Though Traditional unwritten doctrines to make up the defects of Scripture I abhor And I should ask the Dissenter first Whether men were not saved before Moses without Scripture And as Doctor Usher well observeth One reason why they might then be without it was the facility and certainty of Tradition For Methuselah lived many hundred yeers with Adam and Sem lived long with Methuselah and Isaac lived fiftie yeers with Sem So that three men saw all from the Beginning of the World till Isaacs fiftieth yeer Secondly And were not many saved by the Apostles doctrine many yeers before the New Testament was written And Jews before while the old was almost lost Thirdly What if some Ethiopians Armenians or Papists should by meer Tradition beleeve in Christ and who dare say That they may not should they not be saved He that saith No contradicteth Christ who saith That whosoever beleeveth in him shall not perish which way soover he came by it Will you hear Irenaeus in this who lived before Popery was born Lib. 3. cap. 4. Quid enim siquib de aliqua modica quaestione disceptatio esset Nonne oporteret in antiquissimas recurrere Ecclesias Mark he saith not Ad Romanam Ecclesiam vel ad unam principem in quibus Apostoli conversati sunt ab eis de praesenti quaestione sumere quod certum re liquidum est Quid autem si neque Apostoli quidem Scripturas reliquissent nobis nonne oportebat ordinem sequi Traditionis quam tradiderunt iis quibus committebant Ecclesias Cui Ordinationi assentiunt multae gentes barbarorum eorum qui in Christum credunt sine charactere vel atramento Scriptam habentes per spiritum in cordibus suis salutem veterem Traditionem diligenter custodientes c. Hanc fidem qui sine literis crediderunt quantum ad Sermonem nostrum barbari sunt quantum autem ad sententiam consuetudinem conversationem propter fidem perquam sapientissimi sunt placent Deo c. Sic per illam
give them such rejoycings in it and yet never bestow it on them It cannot be Nay doth he give them the earnest of the inheritance Eph. 1.14 And Seal them with the Holy Spirit of promise Eph. 1.13 And yet will he deny the full possession These absurdities may not be charged on an ordinary man much less on the Faithfull and Righteous God SECT VI. SIxthly And Lastly The Scripture mentioneth particularly and by name those who have entered into this Rest. As Henoch who was taken up to God So Abraham Lazarus the thief that was crucified with Christ c. And if there be a Rest for these sure there is a Rest for all believers CHAP. II. Motives to study and preach the Divine Authority of Scripture SECT I. THus much may suffice where the Scripture is believed to confirm the truth of the point in hand viz. The certain futurity of the Saints Rest. And for Pagans and Infidels who believe not Scripture it is besides the intention of this discourse to endeavor their conviction I am endeavouring the consolation and edification of Saints and not the information and conversion of Pagans Yet do I acknowledg the subject exceeding necessary even to the Saints themselves for Sathans assaults are oft made at the foundation and if he can perswade them to question the verity of Scripture they will soon cast away their hopes of Heaven But if I should here enter upon that task to prove Scripture to be the infallible word of God I should make too broad a digression and set upon a work as larg as the maine for whose sake I should undertake it Neither am I insensible of how great difficulty it would prove to manage it satisfactorily and how much more then my ability is thereto requisite Yet lest the tempted Christian should have no relief nor any Argument at hand against the temptation I shall adventure upon a confirming Argument or two but I shall premise first a word of entreaty to my brethren of the Ministery to preach this a little more to their people And that not any body but some of the choicest whom God hath especially furnished for such a task would be pleased in a full Treatise to undertake it To which end I give them some of the Reasons of my request entreating the Lord to enable and perswade some of them to the work 1. I desire them to consider whether any thing yet published be neer compleat or such as the weight of the subject requires Whether much more may not be said and is necessary to be said then is yet said by any that hath writ on this subject 2. Whether if Christians who have opportunity do their duty would it not be a singular part of their work to endeavour the conversion of Pagans and Infidels And as I said before without some Arguments to demonstrate to them the verity of Scripture how are we furnished for such a work Or what have we to say but naked affirmation Yea how can we maintain the credit of Christianity if we were put to dispute the case with an unbeliever 3. Whether the assertion of some of our Divines that a naturall man without the extraordinary Testimony of the Spirit cannot be perswaded of the verity of Scripture notwithstanding all Arguments that can be produced be not very derogatory to the Authority of Scripture and do not justifie the world in their unbeliefe for it is not their sin to deny assent to that which hath not sufficient evidence As if we confessed to them we have not Arguments to convince you but you must be convinced by the Spirit without Arguments as if the Spirit did not deal with us as rationall creatures and did perswade without Argument and not by it As if many wicked men did not believe the truth of Scripture Yet I confesse ther 's great difference betwixt naturall and Spirituall beliefe 4. Is not this the ground-work of the whole Fabrick of Christianity And the very foundation of our faith And therefore should it not be timely and soundly laid and frequently and clearly taught 5. Is not Faith a rational Act of a rational Creature And so the Understanding proceeds discursively in its production And is not that the strongest Faith which hath the strongest Reasons to prove the Testimony to be valid upon which it resteth and the clearest apprehension and use of those Reasons And the truest Faith which hath the truest Reasons truly apprehended and used And must not that on the contrary be a weak or false faith which receives the Verity and Validity of the Testimony from weak or false Grounds though the Testimony of it self be the truest in the world Our Divines use to say concerning love to Christ that it is not to be measured by the degree of Fervor so much as by the Grounds and Motives so that if a man should love Christ upon the same Reasons as a Turk loves Mahomet it were no true love if he love him upon false grounds it must needs be a false love and if upon common grounds it can be but a common love And is it not then as clear that to believe in Jesus Christ upon the grounds that a Turk believes in Mahomet or to believe Scripture upon the same reasons that the Turk believes the Alcoran is no true Faith Supposing that both have the like verity of their Reasons 6. Is the generality of Christians able to give any better then some such common reason to prove the verity of Scripture Nay are the more exercised Understanding sort of Christians able by sound Arguments to make it good if an Enemy or a Temptation put them to it Nay are the ordinary sort of Ministers in England able to do this Let them that have tried judg 7. Can the Superstructure be firm where the Foundation is Sandy And can our Affections and Actions be sound and strong when our belief of Scripture is unsound or infirm Sure this Faith will have influence into all For my own part I take it to be the greatest cause of coldness in Duty weakness in Graces boldness in Sinning and unwillingness to die c. that our Faith is either unsound or infirm in this point Few Christians among us for ought I finde have any better then the Popish implicit faith in this point nor any better Arguments then the Papists have to prove Scripture the Word of God They have received it by Tradition godly Ministers and Christians tell them so it is impious to doubt of it and therefore they believe it And this worm lying at the root causeth the languishing and decay of the whole yet is it usually undiscerned for the root lieth secret under ground But I am apt to judg that though the most complain of their uncertainty of salvation through want of assurance of their own Interest and of the weakness of the applying Act of Faith yet the greater cause of all
their sorrows and that which shakes the whole building is the weakness of their faith about the truth of Scripture though perhaps the other be more perceived and this taken notice of by few There may be great weakness and unsoundness of belief where yet no doubtings are perceived to stir Therefore though we could perswade people to believe never so confidently that Scripture is the very Word of God and yet teach them no more reason why they should believe this then any other book to be that Word as it will prove in them no right way of believing so is it in us no right way of teaching 8. There is many a one who feels his faith shake here who never discovers it To doubt of our Evidences is taken for no great disgrace and therefore men more freely profess such doubts nay and some perhaps who are not much troubled with them because they would be thought to be humble Christians But to question the truth of Scripture is a reproachful Blalphemy and therefore all that are guilty here speak not their doubts 9. Is not the greatest battery by all sort of enemies especially made against this Foundation The first place that the Papist assaults you in is here How know you the Scripture to be the Word of God The Seekers who are the Jesuits By blows though they yet know not their own father will accoast you with the like question How know you that your Scripture and your Ministery is of God The Familists and Libertines do spit their venom here And some Christians by experience are able to testifie that Satans temptations are most violent here Yea and our own carnal deluded Reason is aptest of all to stumble here They talk of a Toleration of all Religions and some desire that the Jews may have free commerce amongst us it will then be time for us I think to be well armed at this point Let the ordinary Professors of our Time who are of weak judgments and fiery spirits look to it how they will stand in such assaults least as now when they cannot answer a Separatist they yield to him and when they cannot answer an Antinomian they turn Antinomians so then when they can much less answer the subtil Arguments of a Jew against Christ and the Gospel they should as easily turn Jews and deny Christ and the verity of the Gospel The Libertines among us think it necessary that we should have such a Toleration to discover the unsound who hold their faith upon Tradition and Custome I am no more of their mindes in this then of his who would have a fair Virgin to lye with him and try his Chastity and make its victory more honorable But if we must needs have such a triall its time to look to the grounds of our belief that we may be ready to give a reason of our Hope 10. However though I were mistaken in all this yet certain I am that the strengthening of our faith in the verity of Scripture would be an exceeding help to the joy of the Saints and would advance their confident hopes of Rest. For my self if my faith in this point had no imperfection if I did as verily believe the Glory to come as I do believe that the Sun will rise again when it is set O how would it raise my desires and my joyes what haste should I make how serious should I be how should I trample on these earthly vanities and even forget the things below How restless should I be till I were assured of this Rest and then how restless till I did possess it How should I delight in the thought of death and my heart leap at the tidings of its approach How glad should I be of the bodies decaies to feel my prison moulder to dust Surely this would be the fruit of a perfect belief of the truth of the Promise of our eternal Rest. Which though it cannot be here expected yet should we use the most strengthening means and press on till we had attained SECT II. THus much I have purposely spoken as to stir up Christians to look to their faith so especialiy to provoke some choise servant of Christ among the multitudes of Books that are written to bestow their labors on this most needful Subject and all Ministers to preach it more frequently and clearly to their people Some think it is Faiths honor to be as credulous as may be and the weaker are the rational grounds the stronger is the faith and therefore we must believe and not dispute Indeed when it s once known to be a Divine Testimony then the most credulous soul is the best But when the doubt is whether it be the Testimony of God or no a man may easily be over-credulous Else why are we bid believe not every spirit but try them whether they be of God or not And how should the false Christs and false Prophets be known who would deceive were it possible the very Elect to be given up of God to believe a lye is one of the sorest of Gods Judgments Some think the onely way to deal with such temptations to Blasphemy is to cast them away and not to dispute them And I think the direction is very good so it be used with some distinction and caution The Rule holds good against reall Blasphemy known to be such but if the person know it not how shall he make use of this Rule against it Further it is supposed that he who knows it to be Blasphemy hath Arguments whereby to prove it such else how doth he know it Therefore here lyes the sin when a man is by sufficient evidence convinced or at least hath Evidence sufficient for conviction that it is a Divine Testimony and yet is still cherishing doubts or hearkning to temptations which may feed those doubts when a man like Balaam will take no answer But he who will therefore cast away all doubts before he hath Arguments sufficient against them or could ever prove the thing in Question he doth indeed cast aside the temptation but not overcome it and may expect it should shortly return again It is a methodicall cure which prevents a relapse Such a neglecter of temptations may be in the right and may as well be in the wrong but however it is not right to him because not rightly believed Faith alwayes implies a Testimony and the knowledg usually of the matter and Author of that Testimony Divine Faith hath ever a Divine Testimony and supposeth the knowledg of the matter when the Faith is particular but always of the Author of that Testimony An implicite Faith in God that is a believing that all is true which he testifieth though we see no reason for it from the evidence of the matter this is necessary to every true Believer But to believe implicitly that the Testimony is Divine or that Scripture is the Word of God this is not to believe God
to stir against the Lord. O how the reviews of this vvill feed the flames of Hell With vvhat rage vvill these damned wretches curse themselves and say Was damâ—nation vvorth all my cost and pains vvas it not enough that I perished through my negligence and that I sit still vvhile Satan played his game but I must seek so diligently for my own perdiâ—tion Might I not have been damned on free-cost but I must purchase it so dearly I thought I could have been saved without so much ado and could I not have been destroyed without so much ado How wel is all my care and pains and violence now requited Must I work out so laboriously my own damnation vvhen God commanded me to vvork out my Salvation O if I had done as much for Heaven as I did for Hell I had surely had it I cried out of the tedious vvay of Godliness and of the painful course of Duty and Self-denial and yet I could be at a great deal more pains for Satan and for death If I had loved Christ as strongly as I did my pleasures and profits and honors and thought on him as often and sought him as painfully O how happy had I now been But justly do I suffer the flames of Hell who would rather rather buy them so dear then have Heaven on free cost when it was purchased to my hands Thus I have shewed you some of those thoughts which will aggravate the misery of these wretches for ever O that God would perswade thee who readest these words to take up these thoughts now seasonably and soberly for the preventing of that unconceivable calamity that so thou mayest not be forced in despite of thee to take them up in Hell as thy own Tormentor It may be some of these hardened wretches will jest at all this and say How know you what thoughts the damned in Hell will have Ans. First VVhy read but the 16 of Luke and you shall there finde some of their thoughts mentioned Secondly I know their understandings will not be taken from them nor their conscience nor Passions As the Joyes of Heaven are chiefly enjoyed by the Rationall soul in its Rationall actings so also must the pains of Hell be suffered As they will be men still so will they act as men Thirdly Beside Scripture hath plainly foretold us as much that their own thoughts shall accuse them Rom. 2.15 and their hearts condemn them And we see it begun in despairing persons here CHAP. III. They shall lose all things that are comfortable as well as Heaven SECT I. HAving shewed you those considerations which will then aggravate their misery I am next to shew you their Additonall losses which will aggravate it For as Godliness hath the promise both of this life and that which is to come and as God hath said that if we first seek his Kingdom and Righteousness all things else shall be added to us so also are the ungodly threated with the loss both of spiritual and of corporal blessings and because they sought not first Christs Kingdom and righteousness therefore shall they lose both it and that which they did seek and there shall be taken from them even that little which they have If they could but have kept their present enjoyments they would not much have cared for the loss of Heaven let them take it that have more minde of it But catching at the shadow and loosing the substance they now finde that they have lost both and that when they rejected Christ they rejected all things If they had lost and forsaken all for Christ they would have found all again in him for he would have been all in all to them But now they have forsaken Christ for other things they shall lose Christ and that also for which they did forsake him But I will particularly open to you some of their other losses SECT II. FIrst They shall lose their present presumptuous conceit and belief of their Interest in God and of his favour towards them and of their part in the merits and sufferings of Christ. This false Belief doth now support their spirits and defend them from the terrors that else would seiz upon them and fortifie them against the fears of the wrath to come Even as true Faith doth afford the soul a true and grounded support and consolation and enableth us to look to Eternity with undaunted courage So also a false ungrounded Faith doth afford a false ungrounded comfort and abates the trouble of the considerations of Judgment and damnation But alas this is but a palliat salve a deceitful comfort what will ease their trouble when this is gone VVhen they can Believe no longer they will be quieted in minde no longer and rejoyce no longer If a man be neer to the greatest mischief and yet strongly conceit that he is in safety his conceit may make him as cheerfull as if all were well indeed till his misery comes and then both his conceit and comforts vanish An ungrounded perswasion of happiness is a poor cure for reall misery VVhen the mischief comes it will cure the mis-belief but that belief can neither prevent nor cure the mischief If there were no more to make a man happy but to believe that he is so or shall be so happiness would be far commonner then now it is like to be It is a wonder that any man who is not a stranger both to Gospel and Reason should be of the Antinomian faith in this who tell us that faith is but the believing that God loveth us and that our sins are already pardoned through Christ that this is the cheif thing that Ministers should preach that our Ministers preach not Christ because they preach not this that every man ought thus to believe but no man to question his Faith whether he believe truly or not c. But if all men must believe that their sins are pardoned then most of the world must believe a lye And if no man ought to question the truth of his faith then most men shall rest deluded with an ungrounded belief The Scripture commandeth us first to believe for remission of sins before we believe that our sins are remitted If we believe in Christ that is accept him cordially for our Saviour and our King then we shall receive the pardon of sins The truth is we have more ado to Preach down this Antinomian faith then they have to Preach it up and to Preach our people from such a believing then they have to preach them to it I see no need to perswade people so to believe the generality are strong and confident in such a belief already Take a congregation of 5000. persons and how few among them all will you finde that do not believe that their sins are pardoned and that God loves them Especially of the vilest sinners who have least cause to believe it Indeed as it is all the work of those men to perswade
sincerely shall be Justified and Saved there is requisite in us 1. A Certainty of Knowledg That such a Proposition is written in Scripture 2. A Certainty of Assent or Faith That this Scripture is the Word of God and True Also in respect of the Minor Proposition But I do sincerely Believe or Love c. there is requisite 1. A Certainty of the Truth of our Faith in point of Being 2. And a Certainty of its Truth in point of Morality or Congruence with the Rule or its Right-being And then followeth Assurance which is the Certainty that the Conclusion Therefore I am Justified c. followeth necessarily upon the former Premises Here also you must carefully distinguish betwixt the several degrees of Assurance All Assurance is not of the highest degree It differs in strength according to the different degrees of Apprehension in all the forementioned Points of Certainty which are necessary thereunto He that can truly raise the foresaid Conclusion That he is Justified c. from the Premises hath some degree of Assurance though he do it with much weakness and staggering and doubting The weakness of our Assurance in any one point of the premises will accordingly weaken our Assurance in the Conclusion Some when they speak of Certainty of Salvation do mean only such a Certainty as excludeth all doubting and think nothing else can be called Certainty but this high degree Perhaps some Papists mean this when they deny a Certainty Some also maintain That Saint Paul's Plerophory or full Assurance is this Highest degree of Assurance and that some Christians do in this life attain to it But Paul calls it Full Assurance in comparison of lower degrees and not because it is perfect For if Assurance be perfect then also our Certainty of Knowledg Faith and Sense in the â—â—â—mises must be perfect And if some Grace perfect why not all and so we turn Novatians Catharists Perfectionists Perhaps in some their Certainty may be so great that it may overcome all sensible doubting or sensible stirrings of Unbelief by reason of the sweet and powerful Acts and Effects of that Certainty And yet it doth not overcome all Unbelief and Uncertainty so as to expel or nullifie them but a certain measure of them remaineth still Even as when you would heat cold water by the mixture of hot you may pour in the hot so long till no coldness is felt and yet the water may be far from the highest degree of heat So faith may suppress the sensible stirrings of unbelief and Certainty prevail against all the trouble of uncertainty and yet be far from the highest degree So that by this which is said you may Answer the Question What Certainty is to be attained in this Life and what Certainty it is that we press men to labour for and expect Furthermore you must be sure to distinguish betwixt Assurance it self and the Joy and Strength and other sweet Effects which follow Assurance or which immediately accompany it It is possible that there may be Assurance and yet no comfort or little There are many unskilful but self-conceited Disputers of late fitter to manage a club then an Argument who tell us That it must be the Spirit that must Assure us of our Salvation and not our Marks and Evidences of Grace That our comfort must not be taken from any thing in our selves That our Justification must be immediately believed and not proved by our Signs or Sanctification c. Of these in order 1. It is as wise a Question to ask Whether our Assurance come from the Spirit or our Evidences or our Faith c as to ask whether it be our meat or our stomack or our teeth or our hands that feed us Or whether it be our Eye-sight or the Sun-light by which we see things They are distinct Causes all necessary to the producing of the same Effect So that by what hath bin said you may discern That the Spirit and Knowledg and Faith and Scripture inward Holines and Reason and inward Sense or Conscience have all several parts and necessary uses in producing our Assurances which I will shew you distinctly 1. To the Spirit belong these particulars 1. He hath indited those Scriptures which contain the promise of our Pardon and Salvation 2. He giveth us the habit or power of Believing 3. He helpeth us also to Believe Actually That the Word is true and to receive Christ and the priviledges offered in the promise 4. He worketh in us those Graces and exciteth those Gracious Acts within us which are the Evidences or Marks of our interest pardon and Life He helpeth us to perform those Acts which God hath made to be the Condition of Pardon and Glory 5. He helpeth us to feel and discover these Acts in our selves 6. He helpeth us to compare them with the Rule and finding out their qualifications to Judg of their Sincerity and Acceptation with God 7. He helpeth our Reason to Conclude rightly of our State from our Acts. 8. He enliveneth and heighteneth our Apprehension in these particulars that our Assurance may accordingly be strong and lively 9. He exciteth our Joy and filleth with comfort when he pleaseth upon this Assurance None of all these could we perform well of our selves 2. The Part which the Scripture hath in this Work is 1. It affordeth us the Major Proposition That whosoever Believeth Sincerely shall be saved 2. It is the Rule by which our Acts must be tryed that we may Judg of their Moral Truth 3. The Part that Knowledg hath in it is to Know that the foresaid Proposition is written in Scripture 4. The Work of Faith is to Believe the Truth of that Scripture and to be the matter of one of our chief Evidences 5. Our Holiness and true Faith as they are Marks and Evidences are the very Medium of our Argument from which we Conclude 6. Our Conscience and internal Sense do acquaint us with both the Being and Qualifications of our inward Acts which are this Medium and which are called Marks 7. Our Reason or Discourse is Necessary to form the Argument and raise the Conclusion from the Premises and to compare our Acts with the Rule and Judg of their Sincerity c. So that you see our Assurance is not an Effect of any one single Cause alone And so neither meerly of Faith by Signs or by the Spirit From all this you may gather 1. What the Seal of the Spirit is to wit the Works or fruits of the Spirit in us 2. What the testimony of the Spirit is for if it be not some of the forementioned Acts I yet know it not 3. What the Testimony of Conscience is And if I be not mistaken the Testimony of the Spirit and the Testimony of Conscience are two concurrent Testimonies or Causes to produce one and the same Effect and to afford the Premises to the same Conclusion and then to raise our Joy thereupon So
in my own words but in his that I know you dare not dis-regard 1 Thes. 5.11 12 13. Wherefore comfort your selves together and Edifie one another even as also ye do And we beseech you Brethren to know them which labour among you and are Over you in the Lord and admonish you And to esteem them very highly in Love for their Works sake and be at peace among your selves Obey them that have the Rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your Souls as those that must give an account that they may do it with Joy and not with grief for that is unprofitable for you Heb. 13.17 Thus you see part of your duty for the Salvation of others SECT XVIII ANd now Christian Reader seeing it is a Duty that God hath laid upon every man according to his ability thus to exhort and reprove and with all possible diligence to labour after the Salvation of all about him judg then whether this work be conscionably performed Where shall we find the man almost among us that setteth himself to it with all his might and that hath set his heart upon the Souls of his brethren that they may be saved Let us here therefore a little enquire What may be the Causes of the gross neglect of this Duty that the Hinderances being discovered may the more easily be overcome 1. One Hinderance is Mens own Gracelesness and Guiltiness They have not been ravished themselves with the heavenly delights how then should they draw others so earnestly to seek them They have not felt the wickedness of their own natures nor their lost condition nor their need of Christ nor felt the transforming renewing work of the Spirit How then can they discover these to others Ah that this were not the case of many a learned Preacher in England and the causes why they preach so frozenly and generally Men also are guilty themselves of the sins they should Reprove and this stops their mouth and maketh them ashamed to reprove 2. Another Hinderance is A Secret Infidelity prevailing in mens hearts Whereof even the best have so great a measure that causeth this duty to be done by the halves Alas Sirs we do not sure believe mens Misery We do not believe sure that the threatnings of God are true Did we verily believe that all the unregenerate and unholy shall be eternally tormented as God hath said Oh how could we hold our tongues when we are among the unregenerate How could we chuse but burst out into tears when we look them in the face as the Prophet did when he looked upon Hazael Especially when they are our kindred or friends that are near and dear to us Thus doth secret unbelief of the truth of Scripture consume the vigour of each grace and duty Oh Christians if you did verily believe that your poor carnal ungodly neighbors or wife or husband or child should certainly lie for ever in the flames of Hell except they be throughly recovered and changed and that quickly before death do snatch them hence Would not this make you cast off all discouragements and lie at them day and night till they were perswaded and give them no rest in their carnal state How could you hold your tongue or let them alone another day if this were soundly believed If you were sure that any of your dear friends that are dead were now in Hell and perswading to repentance would get him out again would you not perswade him day and night if you were in hearing And why should you not do as much then to prevent it while he is in your hearing but that you do not believe Gods Word that speaks the danger Why did Noah prepare an Ark so long before and perswade the world to save themselves but because he believed God that the flood should come and therefore saith the Holy Ghost By faith Noah prepared the Ark. And why did not the world hearken to his perswasion and seek to save themselves as well as Noah but because they did not believe there would be any such deluge They see all fair and well and therefore they thought that threatenings were but wind The rich man in Hell cries out Send to my brethren to warn them that they come not to this place of torment He felt it and therefore being convinced of its truth would have them prevent it But his brethren on earth they did not see and feel as he and therefore they did not believe nor would have been perswaded though one had risen from the dead I am afraid most of us do believe the predictions of Scripture but as we believe the predictions of an Almanack which telleth you that such a day will be rain and such a day wind you think it may come to pass and it may be not and so you think of the predictions of the damnation of the wicked Oh were it not for this cursed Unbelief our own Souls and our neighbors would gain more by us then they do 3. This faithful dealing with men for their Salvation is much Hindered also by our want of Charity and Compassion to mens Souls We are hard-hearted and cruel towards the miserable and therefore as the Priest and the Levite did by the wounded man we look on them and pass by Oh what tender heart could endure to look upon a poor blind forlorn sinner wounded by sin and captivated by Satan and never once open our mouths for his recovery What though he be silent and do not desire thy help himself yet his very misery cries aloud Misery is the most effectually suitor to one that is compassionate If God had not heard the cry of our Miseries before he heard the cry of our prayers and been moved by his own pity before he was moved by our importunity we might have long enough continued the slaves of Satan Is it not the strongest way of arguing that a poor Lazare hath to unlap his sores and shew them the passengers all his words will not move them so much as such a pitiful sight Alas what pitiful sights do we dayly see The Ignorant the prophane the neglecters of Christ and their Souls their sores are open and visible to all that know them and yet do we not pity them You will pray to God for them in customary duties that God would open the eyes and turn the hearts of your ignorant carnal friends and neighbors And why do you not endeavor their conversion if you desire it And if you do not desire it why do you ask it Doth not your negligence convince you of hypocrisie in your prayers and of abusing the high God with your deceitful words Your neighbors are neer you your friends are in the house with you you eat and drink and work and walk and talk with them and yet you say little or nothing to them Why do you not pray them to consider and return as well as pray God to convert and turn them
my companions in this observation That they are usually men least acquainted with a Heavenly life who are the violent disputers about the circumstantials of Religion He whose Religion is all in his opinions will be most frequently and zealously speaking his opinions And he whose Religion lyes in the Knowledg and love of God in Christ will be most delightfully speaking of that time when he shall enjoy God and Christ. As the body doth languish in consuming fevers when the native heat abates within and an unnatural heat inflaming the external parts succeeds so when the zeal of a Christian doth leave the internals of Religion and fly to ceremonials externals or inferior things the soul must needs consume and languish Yea though you were sure your opinions were true yet when the chiefest of your zeal is turned thither and the chiefest of your conference there laid out the life of grace decays within your hearts are turned from this heavenly life Not that I would perswade you to undervalue the least truth of God nor that I do acknowledg the hot disputers of the times to have discovered the truth above their Brethren but in case we should grant them to have hit on the Truth yet let every Truth in our thoughts and speeches have their due proportion and I am confident the hundreth part of our time and our conference would not be spent upon the now common Theams For as there is an hundred truths of far greater consequence which do all challenge the precedencie before these so many of those Truths alone are of an hundred times neerer concernment to our souls and therefore should have an answerable proportion in our thoughts Neither is it any excuse for our casting by these great fundamental Truths because they are common and known already For the chief improvment is yet behind and the soul must be daily refreshed with the Truth of Scripture and the goodness of that which it offereth and promiseth as the body must be with its daily food or else the known Truths that lye Idle in your Heads will no more nourish or comfort or save you then the bread that lies still in your Cupboards will feed you Ah he is a rare and pretious Christian who is skilled in the improving of well known truths Therefore let me advise you that aspire after this Joyous Life spend not too much of your thoughts your time your zeal or your speeches upon quarrels that less concern your souls But when hypocrits are feeding on huskes or shels or on this heated food which will burn their lips far sooner then warm and strengthen their hearts then do you feed on the Joys above I could wish you were all understanding men able to defend every truth of God and to this end that you would read and study controversie more and your understanding and stability in these dayes of tryal is no small part of my comfort and encouragment But still I would have the chiefest to be chiefly studyed and none to shoulder out your thoughts of Eternity The least controverted points are usually most weighty and of most necessary frequent use to our souls For you my neighbors and friends in Christ I bless God that I have so little need to urge this hard upon you or to spend my time and speeches in the Pulpit on these quarrels as I have been necessitated to my discontent for to do elsewhere I rejoyce in the wisdome and goodness of our Lord who hath saved me much of this labor 1. Partly by his tempering of your spirits to sincerity 2. Partly by the doleful yet profitable example of those few that went out from us whose former and present condition of spirit makes them stand as the pillar of Salt for a continual terror and warning to you and so to be as useful as they were like to be hurtful 3. Partly by the confessions and bewailings of this sin that you have heard from the mouth of the Dying advising you to beware of changing your fruitful society for the company of deceivers I do unfeignedly rejoyce in these providences and bless the Lord who thus establisheth his Saints Study well those precepts of the Spirit Rom. 14.1 Him that is weak in the faith receive but not to doubtful disputations 2 Tim. 2.23 But foolish and unlearned questions avoid knowing that they do gender strifes And the servant of the Lord must not strive Tit. 3.9 But avoid foolish questions and genealogies and contentions and strivings about the Law for they are unprofitable and vain 1 Tim. 6.3 4 5. If any man teach otherwise and consent not to wholesome words even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the doctrine which is according to godliness he is proud knowing nothing but doting about questions and strifes of words whereof cometh envy strife railing evil surmisings perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth supposing that gain is godliness From such withdraw thy self SECT V. 5. AS you value the comforts of a heavenly Life take heed of a proud and lofty spirit There is such an Antipathy between this sin and God that thou wilt never get thy heart neer him nor get him neer thy heart as long as this prevaileth in it If it cast the Angels from heaven that were in it it must needs keep thy heart estranged from it If it cast our first parents out of Paradise and separated between the Lord and us and brought his curse on all the creatures here below it must needs then keep our hearts from Paradise and increase the cursed seperation from our God Believe it hearers a proud heart and a Heavenly heart are exceeding contrary Entercourse with God will keep men low and that lowliness will further their entercourse when a man is used to be much with God and taken up in the study of his glorious attributes he abhors himself in dust and ashes and that self-abhorrance is his best preparative to obtain admittance to God again Therefore after a soul-humbling day or in times of trouble when the soul is lowest it useth to have freest access to God and savour most of the life above He will bring them into the wilderness and there he will speak comfortably to them Hos. 2.14 The delight of God is in a humble soul even him that is contrite and trembleth at his word and the delight of a Humble soul is in God and sure where there is mutual delight there will be freest admittance and heartiest welcome and most frequent converse Heaven would not hold God and the proud Angels together but a humble soul he makes his dwelling and surely if our dwelling be with him and in him and his dwelling also be with us and in us there must needs be a most neer and sweet familiarity But the soul that is proud cannot plead this priviledg God is so far from dwelling in it that he will not admit it to any neer access
no further There are in his Kingdom things that offend and men that work iniquity which the Angels at the last day shall gather out and cast into the Lake of fire There are fishes good and bad in his net and tares with wheat in his field The son of Perdition is one of those given to Christ by the Father though not as the Rest these be not the people of God my Text speaks of 2. But God hath a Peculiar People that are his by special vocation cordial acceptation of Christ internal sincere covenanting sanctified by the blood of the Covenant and Spirit of Grace so far as not only to be separated from open Infidels but from all unregenerate Christians being Branches in Christ bearing fruit and for these remains the Rest in my Text. 1. To be Gods people by a forced Subjection i. e. under his dominion is common to all persons even open enemies yea Devils this yeelds not comfort 2. To be his by a verbal Covenant and profession and external Call is common to all in and of the visible Church even Traytors and secret enemies yet hath this many priviledges as the external seals means of grace common mercies but no interest in this Rest. 3. But to be his by election union with Christ and special interest as before mentioned is the peculiar property of those that shall have this Rest. SECT III. Quest. BUt is it to a determinate number of persons by name or onely to a people thus and thus qualified viz. persevering Beleevers without determining by Name who they are Ans. I purposely in this Discourse omit controversies onely in a word thus 1. It is promised only to persevering Beleevers and not to any particular persons by name 2. It is purposed with all the conditions of it and means to it to a determinate Number called the Elect and known by name which I prove thus 1. There 's few will deny that God foreknows from eternity who these are and shall be numerically personally by name 2. To purpose it only to such and to know that only these will be such is in effect to purpose it only to these 3. Especially if we know how little Knowledg and Purpose in God do differ 4. However we must not make his knowledg active and his purpose idle much less to contradict each other as it must be if from eternity he purposed salvation alike to all and yet from eternity knew that only such and such should receive it 5. To purpose all persevering Beleevers to salvation and not to purpose faith and perseverance absolutely to any particular persons is to purpose salvation absolutely to none at all SECT IV. Quest. TO Is it to the people of God upon Certainty or only upon possibility Ans. If only possible it cannot thus be called theirs 1. While they are only elect not called it is certain to them we speak of a certainty of the object by Divine purpose for they are ordained to eternal life first and therefore beleeve and not first beleeve and therefore elected 2. When they are called according to his purpose then it is certain to them by a certainty of promise also as good as if they were named in that promise for the promise is to Beleevers which they may know themselves to be and though it be yet upon condition of overcoming and abiding in Christ and enduring to the end yet that condition being absolutely promised it still remaineth absolutely certain upon promise And indeed if Glory be ours onely upon a condition which condition depends chiefly on our own wills it were cold comfort to those that know what mans will is and how certainly we should play the Prodigals with this as we did with our first stock But I have hitherto understood that in the behalf of the Elect Christ is resolved and hath undertaken for the working and finishing of their faith and the full effecting his peoples salvation and not onely gives us a feigned sufficient grace not effectual leaving it to our wills to make it effectual as some think So that though still the Promise of our Justification and Salvation be Conditional yet God having manifested his purpose of enabling us to fulfil those Conditions he doth thereby shew us a Certainty of our Salvation both in his Promise and his Purpose CHAP. II. This Rest Defined SECT I. NOw let us see 1. What this Rest is 2. What these people of God and why so called 3. The truth of this from other Scripture Arguments 4. Why this Rest must yet Remain 5. Why onely to this people of God 6. What use to make of it 1. And though the sence of the Text includes in the word Rest all that ease and safety which a Soul wearyed with the burthen of sin and suffering and pursued by Law Wrath and Conscience hath with Christ in this life the Rest of Grace yet because it chiefly intends the Rest of eternal Glory as the end and main part I shall therefore confine my Discourse to this last DEFINITION REst is The end and perfection of motion The Saints Rest here in Question is The most happy estate of a Christian having obtained the end of his course SECT II. 1. I Call it the estate of a Christian though Perfection consists in Action as the Philosopher thinks to note both the Active and Passive fruition wherein a Christians blessedness lies and the established continuance of both SECT III. 2. I Call it the most happy estate to difference it not onely from all seeming happiness which is to be found in the enjoyment of creatures but also from all those beginnings foretastes earns first fruits and imperfect degrees which we have here in this life while we are but in the way It is the Chief Good which the world hath so much disputed yet mistaken or neglected without which the greatest confluence of all other good leaves a man miserable and with the enjoyment of which all misery is inconsistent SECT IV. 3. I Call it the estate of a Christian where I mean onely the sincere Regenerate Sanctified Christian whose Soul having discovered that excellency in God through Christ which is not in the world to be found thereupon closeth with him and is cordially set upon him I do not mean every one that being born where Christianity is the Religion of the Country takes it up as other fashions and is become a Christian he scarce knows how or why Nor mean I those that profess Christ in words but in works deny him I shall describe this Christian to you more plainly afterward It is an estate to which many pretend and that with much confidence and because they know it is onely the Christians therefore they all call themselves Christians But multitudes will at last know to their eternal sorrow that this is onely the Inheritance of the Saints and onely those Christians shall possess it who are
of suffering for Christ when he usually appears most manifestly to his people Didst thou never see one walking in the midst of the fiery furnace with thee like to the Son of God If thou do know him value him as thy life and follow on to know him and thou shalt know incomparably more then this Or if I do but renew thy grief to tell thee of what thou once didst feel but now hast lost I counsel thee to Remember whence thou art fallen and Repent and do the first works and be watchful and strengthen the things which remain and I dare promise thee because God hath promised thou shalt see and know that which here thine Eye could not see nor thy Understanding conceive Beleeve me Christians yea beleeve God You that have known most of God in Christ here it is as nothing to that you shall know It scarce in comparison of that deserves to be called Knowledg The difference betwixt our knowledg now and our knowledg then will be as great as that between our fleshly bodies now and our spiritual glorified bodies then For as these bodies so that knowledg must cease that a more perfect may succeed Our silly childish thoughts of God which now is the highest we reach to must give place to a manly knowledg All this saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 13.8 9 10 11 12. Knowledg shall vanish away For we know in part c. But when that which is perfect is come then that which is in part shall be done away When I was a childe I spake as childe I thought as a childe I understood as a childe but when I became a man I put away childish things For now we see through a glass darkly but then face to face Now I know in part but then I shall know even as also I am known Marvel not therefore Christian at the sence of that place of John 17.3 how it can be life eternal to know God and his Son Christ You must needs know that to enjoy God and his Christ is eternal Life and the souls enjoying is in knowing They that savor only of earth and consult with flesh and have no way to try judg but by sense and never were acquainted with this Knowledg of God nor tasted how gracious he is these think it 's a poor happiness to know God let them have health and wealth and worldly delights and take you the other Alas poor men they that have made tryal of both do not grudg you your delights nor envy your happiness but pity your undoing folly and wish O that you would come near and taste and try as they have done and then Judg Then continue in your former mind if you can For our parts we say with that knowing Apostle though the speech may seem presumptuous 1 John 5.19 20. We know that we are of God and the whole world lieth in wickedness And we know that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is True and we are in him that is True in his Son Jesus Christ This is the true God and eternal Life Here one verse contains the sum of most that I have said The Son of God is come to be our Head and Fountain of Life and so hath given us an understanding that the Soul may be personally qualified and made capable to know him God that is True the Prime Truth and we are brought so near in this enjoyment that we are in him that is True not properly by an essential or personal union but we are in him by being in his Son Jesus Christ. This we have mentioned is the only True God and so the fittest object for our understanding which chuseth Truth and this knowing of him and being in him in Christ is eternal life SECT VII ANd doubtless the Memory will not be Idle or useless in this Blessed work If it be but by looking back to help the soul to value its enjoyment Our knowledg will be enlarged not diminished therefore the knowledg of things past shall not be taken away And what is that knowledg but Remembrance Doubtless from that height the Saint can look behind him and before him And to compare past with present things must needs raise in the Blessed Soul an unconceiveable esteem and sense of its Condition To stand on that Mount whence we can see the Wilderness and Canaan both at once to stand in Heaven and look back on Earth and weigh them together in the ballance of a comparing sense and judgment how must it needs transport the soul and make it cry out Is this the purchase that cost so dear as the blood of God No wonder O blessed price and thrice blessed Love that invented and Condescended Is this the end of Believing Is this the end of the Spirits workings Have the Gales of Grace blown me into such a Harbour Is it hither that Christ hath enticed my Soul O blessed way and thrice blessed end Is this the Glory which the Scripture spoke of and Ministers preached of so much Why now I see the Gospel indeed is good tydings even tydings of peace and Good things tydings of great Joy to all Nations Is my mourning my fasting my sad humblings my heavy walking groanings complainings come to this Is my praying watching fearing to offend come to this Are all my afflictions sickness languishing troublesom physick fears of Death come to this Are all Satans Temptations the worlds Scorns and Jeers come to this And now if there be such a thing as Indignation left how will it here let fly O vile nature that resisted so much and so long such a blessing Unworthy Soul Is this the place thou camest so unwillingly towards Was Duty wearisom Was the world too good to lose Didst thou stick at leaving all denying all and suffering any thing for this Wast thou loath to dye to come to this O false Heart that had almost betrayed me to Eternal flames and lost me this Glory O base flesh that would needs have been pleased though to the loss of this felicity Didst thou make me to question the truth of this Glory Didst thou shew me Improbabilities and draw me to distrust the Lord Didst thou question the Truth of that Scripture which promised this Why my soul art thou not now ashamed that ever thou didst question that Love that hath brought thee hither That thou wast Jealous of the faithfulness of thy Lord That thou suspectest his Love when thou shouldst only have suspected thy self I hat thou didst not Live continually transported with thy Saviours Love and that ever thou quenchedst a motion of his Spirit Art thou not ashamed of all thy hard thoughts of such a God Of all thy mis-interpreting of and grudging at those providences and repining at those ways that have such an end Now thou art sufficiently convinced that the ways thou calledst Hard and the Cup thou calledst Bitter were
of Life and the naked to be cloathed from above for the children to come to their Fathers house and the dis-joyned members to be conjoyned with their Head me thinks this should be seldom unseasonable When the Atheistical world began to insult and question the Truth of Scripture promises and ask us Where is now your God where is your long lookt for glory where is the promise of your Lords coming O how seasonable then to convince these unbelievers to silence these scoffers to comfort the dejected waiting believer will the appearing of our Lord be we are oft grudging now that we have not a great share of comforts that our deliverances are not more speedy and eminent that the world prospers more then we that our prayers are not presently answered not considering that our portion is kept to a fitter season that these are not always Winter fruits but when Summer comes we shall have our Harvest We grudg that we do not finde a Canaan in the VVilderness or cities of Rest in Noahs Ark and the songs of Sion in a strange Land that we have not a harbor in the main Ocean or finde not our home in the middle way and are not crowned in the midst of the fight have not our Rest in the heat of the day and have not our inheritance before we are at age and have not Heaven before we leave the Earth and would not all this be very unreasonable I confess in regard of the Churches service the removing of the Saints may sometimes appear to us unseasonable therefore doth God use it as a Judgment and therefore the Church hath ever prayed hard before they would part with them and greatly laid to heart their loss Therefore are the great mournings at the Saint departures and the sad hearts that accompany them to their graves but this is not especially for the departed but for themselves and their children as Christ bid the weeping women Therefore also it is that the Saints in danger of death have oft begged for their lives with that Argument What profit is there in my blood when I go down to the Pit Psal. 30.9 Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead shall the dead arise and praise thee shall thy loving kindness be declared in the grave or thy faithfulness in destruction shall thy wonders be known in the dark and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness Psal. 88.10 for in death there is no remembrance of thee in the grave who shall give thee thanks Psal. 6.5 And this was it that brought Paul to a streight because he knew it was better for the church that he should remain here I must confess it is one of my saddest thoughts to reckon up the useful instruments when God hath lately called out of his Vineyard when the Loyterers are many and the Harvest great and very many Congregations desolate and the people as sheep without shepherds and yet the laborers called from their work especially when a door of Liberty and opportunity is open we cannot but lament so sore a judgment and think the removal in regard of the Church unseasonable I know I speak but your own thoughts and you are too ready to over-run me in application I fear you are too sensible of what I speak and therefore am loath to stir in your sore I perceive you in the posture of the Ephesian Elders and had rather abate the violence of your passions our applications are quicker about our sufferings then our sins and we will quicklier say This loss is mine then This fault is mine But O consider my dear friends hath God any need of such a worme as I cannot he a 1000 wayes supply your wants you know when your case was worse and yet he provided Hath he work to do and will he not finde instruments And though you see not for the present where they should be had they are never the further off for that Where was the world before the creation and where was the promised seed when Isaac lay on the Altar Where was the Land of Promise when Israels burden was increased or when all the old stock save only two were consumed in the Wilderness Where was Davids Kingdom when he was hunted in the Wilderness or the Glory of Christs Kingdom when he was in the Grave or when he first sent his 12. Apostles How suddenly did the number of Labourers encrease immediately upon the Reformation by Luther and how soon were the rooms of those filled up whom the rage of the papists had sacrificed in the flames Have you not lately seen so many difficulties overcome and so many improbable works accomplished that might silence unbelief one would think for ever But if all this do not quiet you for sorrow and discontent are unruly passions yet at least remember this suppose the worst you fear should happen yet shall it be well with all the Saints your own turnes will shortly come and we shall all be hous'd with Christ together where you will want your Ministers and friends no more And for the poor world which is left behind whose unregenerate state causeth your grief why consider shall man pretend to be more merciful then God Hath not he more interest then we both in the Church and in the world and more bowels of compassion to commiserate their distress There is a season for Judgment as well as for mercy and if he will have the most of men to perish for their sin and to suffer the eternal tormenting flames must we question his goodness or manifest our dislike of the severity of his judgments I confess we cannot but bleed over our desolate congregations and that it ill beseems us to make light of Gods indignation but yet we should as Aaron when his sons were slain hold our peace and be silent because it is the Lords doing And say as David If I and his people shall finde favor in the eyes of the Lord he will bring me again and shew me them and his Habitation But if he thus say I have no delight in thee behold here am I let him do with me as seemeth good unto him I conclude then that whatsoever it is to those that are left behinde yet the Saints departure to themselves is usually seasonable I say usually because I know that a very Saint may have a death in some respect unseasonable though it do translate him into this Rest. He may dye in Judgment as good Josiah he may die for his sin For the abuse of the Sacrament many were weak and sickly and many fallen asleep even of those who were thus Judged and chastened by God that they might not be condemned with the world He may die by the hand of publike Justice or die in a way of publike scandal He may die in a weak degree of grace and consequently have a less degree of glory He may die in smaller improvements of his talents and so be Ruler but
rising of the Sun excludes the darkness yet is not the negative part to be slighted even our freedom from so many and great Calamities Let us therefore look over these more punctually and see what it is that we shall there Rest from In general It is from all evil Particularly First from the evil of Sin secondly and of suffering First It excludeth nothing more directly then sin whether original and of Nature or actual and of Conversation For there entereth nothing that defileth nor that worketh abomination nor that maketh a lie when they are there the Saints are Saints indeed He that will wash them with his heart blood rather then suffer them to enter unclean will now perfectly see to that he who hath undertaken to present them to his Father not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but perfectly holy and without blemish will now most certainly perform his undertaking What need Christ at all to have died if Heaven could have contained imperfect souls For to this end came he into the world that he might put away the works of the divel His Blood and Spirit have not done all this to leave us after all defiled For what communion hath light with darkness and what fellowship hath Christ with Belial He that hath prepared for sin the torments of Hell will never admit it into the Blessedness of Heaven Therefore Christian never fear this if thou be once in Heaven thou shalt sin no more Is not this glad news to thee who hast prayed and watched and labored against it so long I know if it were offered to thy choice thou wouldst rather chuse to be freed from sin then to be made heir of all the world VVhy wait till then and thou shalt have thy desire That hard heart those vile thoughts which did lie down and rise with thee which did accompany thee to every duty which thou couldst no more leave behinde thee then leave thy self behinde thee shall now be left behinde for ever They might accompany thee to death but they cannot proceed a step further Thy understanding shall never more be troubled with darkness Ignorance and Error are inconsistent with this Light Now thou walkest like a man in the twilight ever afraid of being out of the way Thou seest so many Religions in the VVorld that thou fearest thy one cannot be onely the right among all these Thou seest the Scripture so exceeding difficult and every one pleading it for his own cause and bringing such specious Arguments for so contrary Opinions that it intangleth thee in a Labarinth of perplexities Thou seest so many godly men on this side and so many on that and each zealous for his own way that thou art amazed not knowing which way to take And thus do doubtings and fears accompany darkness and we are ready to stumble at every thing in our way But then will all this darkness be dispelled and our blinde understandings fully opened and we shall have no more doubts of our way VVe shall know which was the right side and which the wrong which was the Truth and which the Error O what would we give to know cleerly all the profound Mysteries in the Doctrine of Decree of Redemption of Justification of the nature of Grace of the Covenants of the Divine Attributes c. VVhat would we not give to see all dark Scriptures made plain to see all seeming contradictions reconciled Why when Glory hath taken the vail from our eyes all this will be known in a moment we shall then see clearly into all the controversies about Doctrine or Discipline that now perplex us The poorest Christian is presently there a more perfect Divine then any is here We are now through our Ignorance subject to such mutability that in points not fundamental we change as the Moon that it is cast as a just reproach upon us that we profess our Religion with Reserves and resolvedly settle upon almost nothing that we are to day of one opinion and within this week or moneth or yeer of another and yet alas we cannot help it The reproach may fall upon all mankinde as long as we have need of daily growth Would they have us beleeve before we understand or say we beleeve when indeed we do not shall we profess our selves resolved before we ever throughly studied or say we are certain when we are conscious that we are not But when once our Ignorance is perfectly healed then shall we be setled resolved men then shall our reproach be taken from us and we shall never change our judgment more then shall we be clear and certain in all and cease to be Scepticks any more Our Ignorance now doth lead us into Error to the grief of our more knowing Brethren to the disturbing of the Churches quiet and interrupting her desireable harmonious consent to the scandalizing of others and weakning of our selves How many an humble faithful Soul is seduced into Error and little knows it Loath they are to erre God knows and therefore read and pray and confer and yet erre still and confirmed in it more and more And in lesser and more difficult points how should it be otherwise He that is acquainted amongst men and knows the quality of Professors in England must needs know the generality of them are no great Scholars nor have much read or studied Controversies nor are men of profoundest natural parts nor have the Ministers of England much preached Controversies to them but were glad if their hearers were brought to Christ and got so much knowledg as might help to Salvation as knowing that to be their great work And can it be expected That men voyd of Learning and strength of parts unstudied and untaught should at the first on set know those Truths which they are almost uncapable of knowing at all when the greatest Divines of clearest Judgment acknowledg so much difficulty That they could almost finde in their hearts sometimes to profess them quite beyond their reach Except we will allow them to lay aside their divine Faith and take up an humane and see with other mens eyes the weight and weakness of Arguments and not with their own It cannot be thought That the most of Christians no nor the most Divines should be free from erring in those difficult points where we know they have not Head-peeces able to reach Indeed if it were the way of the Spirit to teach us miraculously as the Apostles were taught the knowledg of Tongues without the intervening use of Reason or if the Spirit infused the acts of Knowledg as he doth the immediate knowing Power then he that had most of the Spirit would not onely know best but also know most but we have enough to convince us of the contrary to this But O that happy approaching day when Error shall vanish away for ever VVhen our understandings shall be filled with God himself whose light will leave no darkness in
And seldom doth a Minister live to see the ripeness of his people but one soweth and planteth another watereth and a third reapeth and receiveth the increase Yet were all this Duty delightful had we but a due proportion of strength But to informe the old ignorant sinner to convince the stubborne and worldly wise to perswade a wilful resolved wretch to prick a stony heart to the quick to make a rock to weep and tremble to set forth Christ according to our necessity and his Excellency to comfort the soul whom God dejecteth to clear up dark and difficult Truths to oppose with convincing Arguments all gainsayers to credit the Gospel with exemplary Conversations when multitudes do but watch for our halting O who is sufficient for these things So that every Relation State Age hath variety of Duty Every conscientious Christian cryes out O the burden or O my weakness that makes it so burdensom But our remaining Rest will ease us of the burden Then will that be sound Doctrine which now is false that the Law hath no more to do with us that it becomes not a Christian to beg for pardon seeing all his sins are perfectly pardoned already that we need not fast nor mourn nor weep nor repent and that a sorrowful Countenance beseems not a Christian Then will all these become Truths SECT XVIII 10. ANd lastly we shall Rest from all those sad affections which necessarily accompany our absence from God The trouble that is mixt in our desires and hopes our longings and waitings shall then cease We shall no more look into our Cabinet and miss our Treasure look into our hearts and miss our Christ nor no more seek him from Ordinance to Ordinance and enquire for our God of those we meet our heart will not lie in our knee nor our souls be breathed out in our requests but all concluded in a most full and blessed Fruition But because this with the former are touched before I will say no more of them now So you have seen what we shall Rest from SECT XIX NInthly The ninth and last Jewel in our Crown and blessed Attribute of this Rest is That it is an Eternal Rest. This is the Crown of our Crown without which all were comparatively little or nothing The very thought of once leaving it would else imbitter all our joys and the more would it peirce us because of the singular excellencies which we must forsake It would be a Hell in Heaven to think of once loosing Heaven As it would be a kinde of Heaven to the damned had they but hopes of once escaping Mortality is the disgrace of all sublunary delights It makes our present life of little value were it not for the reference it hath to God and Eternity to think that we must shortly lay it down How can we take delight in any thing when we remember how short that delight would be That the sweetness of our Cups and Morsels is dead as soon as they are once but paâ—â— our taste Indeed if man were as the beast that knows not his suffering or death till he feel it and little thinks when the knife is whetting that it is making ready to cut his throat then might we be merry till death forbids us and enjoy our delights till they shall forsake us But alas we know both good and evil and evil foreknown is in part endured And thus our knowledg encreaseth our sorrows Eccles. 1.18 How can it chuse but spoil our pleasure while we see it dying in our hands how can I be as merry as the jovial World had I not mine eye fixed upon eternity when methinks I foresee my dying hour my friends waiting for my last gasp and closing mine eyes while tears forbid to close their own Methinks I hear them say He is dead Methinks I see my Coffin made my Grave in digging and my Friends there leaving me in the dust And where now is that we took delight in O but methinks I see at the same view that Grave opening and my dead revived Body rising Methinks I hear that blessed voyce Arise and live and die no more Surely were it not for eternity I should think man a silly piece and all his life and honor but contemptible I should call him with David A vain shadow and with the Prophet Nothing and less then nothing and altogether lighter then vanity it self It utterly disgraceth the greatest glory in mine eyes if you can but truly call it Mortal I can value nothing that shall have an end except as it leads to that which hath no end or as it comes from that love which neither hath beginning nor end I speak this of my deliberate thoughts And if some ignorant or forgetful soul have no such sad thoughts to disturb his pleasure I confess he may be merrier for the present But where is his mirth when he lieth dying Alas it s a poor happiness that consists onely in the Ignorance or Forgetfulness of approaching misery But O blessed eternity where our lives are perplexed with no such thoughts nor our joys interrupted with any such fears where we shall be pillars in Gods Temple and go out no more O what do I say when I talk of Eternity Can my shallow thoughts at all conceive what that most high expression doth contain To be eternally blessed and so blessed Why surely this if any thing is the resemblance of God Eternity is a piece of Infiniteness Then O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory Days and Nights and Yeers Time and End and Death are words which there have no signification nor are used except perhaps to extol eternity as the mention of Hell to extol Heaven No more use of our Calendars or Chronology All the yeers of our Lord and the yeers of our lives are lost and swallowed up in this Eternity While we were servants we held by lease and that but for the term of a transitory life but the Son abideth in the House for ever Our first and earthly Paradise in Eden had a way out but none that ever we could finde in again But this eternal paradise hath a way in a milky way to us but a bloody way to Christ but no way out again For they that would pass from hence to you saith Abraham cannot A strange phrase would any pass from such a place if they might Could they endure to be absent from God again one hour No but upon supposal that they would yet they could not O then my soul let go thy dreams of present pleasures And loose thy hold of Earth and Flesh. Fear not to enter that estate where thou shalt ever after cease thy Fears Sit down and sadly once a day bethink thy self of this Eternity Among all thine Arithmetical numbers study the value of this infinite Cypher which though it stand for nothing in the vulgar account doth yet contain all our Millions
contrary with thee or if no such work be found within thee but thy soul be a stranger to all this and thy conscience tell thee it is none of thy case The Lord have mercy on thy soul and open thine eyes and do this great work upon thee and by his mighty power overcome thy resistance For in the case thou art in there is no hope What ever thy deceived heart may think or how strong soever thy false hopes be or though now a little while thou flatter thy soul in confidence and security Yet wilt thou shortly finde to thy cost except thy through conversion do prevent it that thou art none of these people of God and the Rest of the Saints belongs not to thee Thy dying hour draws neer apace and so doth that great day of separation when God will make an everlasting difference between his people and his enemies Then wo and for ever wo to thee if thou be found in the state that thou art now in Thy own tongue will then proclaim thy wo with a thousand times more dolor and vehemence then mine can possibly do it now O that thou wert wise to consider this and that thou wouldst remember thy latter end That yet while thy soul is in thy body and a price in thy hand and day light and opportunity and hope before thee thine ears might be open to instruction and thy heart might yield to the perswasions of God and thou mightest bend all the powers of thy soul about this great work that so thou mightest Rest among his People and enjoy the inheritance of the Saints in Light And thus I have shewed you who these People of God are SECT VII ANd why they are called the People of God you may easily from what is said discern the Reasons 1. They are the People whom he hath chosen to himself from eternity 2. And whom Christ hath redeemed with an absolute intent of saving them which cannot be said of any other 3. Whom he hath also renewed by the power of his grace and made them in some sort like to himself stamping his own Image on them and making them holy as he is holy 4. They are those whom he embraceth with a peculiar Love and do again love him above all 5. They are entered into a strict and mutual Covenant wherein it is agreed for the Lord to be their God and they to be his People 6. They are brought into neer relation to him even to be his Servants his Sons and the Members and Spouse of his Son 7. And lastly They must live with him for ever and be perfectly blessed in enjoying his Love and beholding his Glory And I think these are Reasons sufficient why they particularly should be called his People The Conclusion ANd thus I have explained to you the subject of my Text and shewed you darkly and in part what this Rest is and briefly who are this People of God O that the Lord would now open your eyes and your hearts to discern and be affected with the Glory Revealed That he would take off your hearts from these dunghil delights and ravish them with the views of these Everlasting Pleasures That he would bring you into the state of this Holy and Heavenly People for whom alone this Rest remaineth That you would exactly try your selves by the foregoing Description That no Soul of you might be so damnably deluded as to take your natural or acquired parts for the Characters of a Saint O happy and thrice happy you if these Sermons might have such success with your Souls That so you might die the death of the Righteous and your last End might be like his For this Blessed Issue as I here gladly wait upon you in Preaching so will I also wait upon the Lord in Praying FINIS THE SAINTS Everlasting REST. The Second Part. Containing the Proofes of the Truth and Certain futurity of our REST. And that the Scripture promising that Rest to us is The perfect infallible Word and Law of God For the Prophesie came not in old time by the will of man but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost 2 Pet. 1.21 Verily I say unto you till heaven and earth pass one jot or one title shall in no wise pass from the Law till all be fulfilled Mat. 5.18 They have Moses and the Prophets let them hear them If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded though one rose from the dead Luk. 16.29 31. Ego solis iis Scripturarum libris qui jam Canonici appellantur didici hunc timorem honoremque deferre ut nullum eorum authorum scribendo aliquid errasse firmissimè credam Aug. Ep. 9. ad Hieron Major est hujus Scripturae Authoritas quam omnis humani ingenii perspicacitas August li. 15. super Genes ad liter London Printed by Rob. White for T. Vnderhill and F. Tyton and are to be sold at the sign of the Bible in great Woodstreet and at the three Daggers in Fleetstreet 1649. To my dearly beloved Friends The Inhabitants of BRIDGNORTH Both Magistrates and People Richard Baxter Devoteth this Part of this TREATISE In Testimony of his unfeigned love to them who were the first to whom he was sent as fixed to publish the Gospel And in thankfulness to the Divine Majesty who there priviledged and protected him HUmbly beseeching the God of Mercy both to save them from that spirit of Pride Separation and Levity which hath long been working among them and also to awake them throughly from their negligence and security by his late heavy judgments on them And that as the flames of War have consumed their houses so the Spirit of God may consume the sin that was the cause And by those flames they may be effectually warned to prevent the everlasting flames And that their new-built houses may have new-born Inhabitants And that the next time God shall search and try them he may not finde one house among them where his Word is not daily studied and obeyed and where they do not fervently call upon his Name TO THE READER IT was far from my thoughts when I first begun it to have so enlarged this as to be a Part entire Most of it dropt from my Pen besides my first purpose Had I intended to say so much of the Authority of Scripture I should have stayed till I had the benefit of a Library that I might have furnished it better with Humane Testimony which I here insist on as so necessary Though our History of the first and second Century be lamentably imperfect yet much for the ends here mentioned may be produced I would not have young Students begin with the large Volumns of later Fathers but I could wish they would read betime the Writers of the three first Centuries especially those that argue for the Christian Faith or mix matters of Fact with their
strength of Faith but ordinarily to the very beeing of Faith and Churches 20. Not that the present Possession of Scripture is of absolute necessity to the present beeing of a Church not that it is so absolute necessary to every mans salvation that he read or knew this Scripture himself But that it either be at present or have been formerly in the Church that some knowing it may teach it to others is of absolute necessity to most persons and Churches and necessary to the well-beeing of all 21. Though negative unbelief of the authority of Scripture may stand with salvation yet positive and universal I think cannot Or though Tradition may save where Scripture is not known yet he that reads or hears the Scripture and will not believe it to be the Testimony of God I think cannot be saved because this is now the clearest and surest Revelation And he that will not believe it will muchless believe a Revelation more uncertain and obscure 22. Though all Scripture be of Divine Authority yet he that believeth but some one Book which containeth the substance of the Doctrine of salvation may be saved much more they that have doubted but of some particular Books 23. They that take the Scripture to be but the Writings of godly honest men and so to be only a means of making known Christ having a gradual precedency to the Writings of other godly men and do believe in Christ upon those strong grounds which are drawn from his Doctrine Miracles c. rather then upon the Testimony of the Writing as being purely infallible and Divine may yet have a Divine and saving faith 24. Much more those that believe the whole Writing to be of Divine inspiration where it handleth the substance but doubt whether God infallibly guided them in every circumstance 25. And yet more those that believe that the Spirit did guide the Writers to Truth both in Substance and Circumstance but doubt whether he guided them in Orthography or whether their Pens were as perfectly guided as their minds 26. And yet more may those have saving Faith who onely doubt whether Providence infallibly guided any Transcribers or Printers as to retain any Copy that perfectly agreeth with the Autograph 27. Yet do all these in my judgment cast away a singular prop to their faith and lay it open to dangerous assaults and doubt of that which is a certain truth 28. As the Translations are no further Scripture then they agree with the Copies in the Original Tongues so neither are those Copies further then they agree with the Autographs or Original Copies or with some Copies perused and approved by the Apostles 29. Yet is there not the like necessity of having the Autographs to try the Transcripts by as there is of having the Original Transcripts to try the Translations by For there is an impossibility that any Translation should perfectly express the sense of the Original But there is a possibility probability and facility of true Transcribing and grounds to prove it true de facto as we shall touch anon 30. That part which was written by the Finger of God as also the substance of Doctrine through the whole Scriptures are so purely Divine that they have not in them any thing humane 31. The next to these are the words that were spoken by the mouth of Christ and then those that were spoken by Angels 32. The Circumstantials are many of them so Divine as yet they have in them something Humane as the bringing of Pauls Cloak and Parchments and as it seems his counsel about Marriage c. 33. Much more is there something Humane in the Method and Phrase which is not so immediatly Divine as the Doctrine 34. Yet is there nothing sinfully Humane and therefore nothing false in all 35. But an innocent imperfection there is in the Method and Phrase which if we deny we must renounce most of our Logick and Rhetorick 36. Yet was this imperfect way at that time all things considered the fittest way to divulge the Gospel That is the best Language which is best suited to the Hearers and not that which is best simply in it self and supposeth that understanding in the Hearers which they have not Therefore it was Wisdom and Mercy to fit the Scripture to the capacity of all Yet will it not therefore follow that all Preachers at all times should as much neglect Definition Distinction Syllogisme c. as Scripture doth 37. Some Doctrinal passages in Scripture are onely Historically related and therefore the relating them is no asserting them for truth and therefore those sentences may be false and yet not the Scripture false yea some falshoods are written by way of reproving them as Gehezies Lye Sauls Excuse c. 38. Every Doctrine that is thus related onely Historically is therefore of doubtful credit because it is not a Divine assertion except Christ himself were the Speaker and therefore it is to be tried by the rest of the Scripture 39. Where ordinary men were the Speakers the credit of such Doctrines is the more doubtful and yet much more when the Speakers were wicked of the former sort are the Speeches of Jobs friends and divers others of the later sort are the Speeches of the Pharisees c. and perhaps Gamaliels counsel Act. 5.34 40. Yet where God doth testifie his Inspiration or Approbation the Doctrine is of Divine Authority though the Speaker be wicked As in Balaams Prophesie 41. The like may be said of matter of Fact for it is not either necessary or lawful to speak such words or do such actions meerly because men in Scripture did so speak or do no not though they were the best Saints for their own speeches or actions are to be judged by the Law and therefore are no part of the Law themselves And as they are evil where they cross the Law as Josephs swearing the Ancients Polygamy c. so are they doubtful where their congruence with the Law is doubtful 42. But here is one most observable exception conducing much to resolve the great doubt whether Examples binde Where men are designed by God to such an Office and act by Commission and with a promise of Direction their Doctrines are of Divine Authority though we finde not where God did dictate and their Actions done by that Commission are currant and Exemplary so far as they are intended or performed for Example and so Example may be equivalent to a Law and the Argument a facto ad jus may hold So Moses being appointed to the forming of the old Church and Commonwealth of the Jews to the building of the Tabernacle c. his Precepts and Examples in these works though we could not finde his particular direction are to be taken as Divine So also the Apostles having Commission to Form and Order the Gospel Churches their Doctrine and Examples therein are by their general Commission warranted and their practice in stablishing the Lords Day in setling the
Officers and Orders of Churches are to us as Laws still binding with those limitations as Positives onely which give way to greater 43. The ground of this Position is because it is inconsistent with the Wisdom and Faithfulness of God to send men to a work and promise to be with them and yet to forsake them and suffer them to err in the building of that House which must indure till the end of the world 44. Yet if any of these Commissioners do err in their own particular conversations or in matters without the extent of their Commission this may consist with the faithfulness of God God hath not promised them infallibility and perfection the disgrace is their own but if they should miscarry in that wherein they are sent to be a rule to others the Church would then have an imperfect Rule and the dishonor would redound to God 45. Yet I finde not that ever God authorized any meere man to be a Lawgiver to the Church in Substantials but onely to deliver the Laws which he had given to Interpret them and to determine Circumstantials not by him determined 46. Where God owneth mens Doctrines and Examples by Miracles they are to be taken as infallibly Divine much more when Commission Promise and Miracles do concur which confirmeth the Apostles Examples for currant 47. So that if any of the â—ings or Prophets had given Laws and formed the Church as Moses they had not been binding because without the said Commission or if any other Minister of the Gospel shall by Word or Action arrogate an Apostolical priviledg 48. There is no verity about God or the chief happiness of man written in Nature but it is to be found written in Scriptures 49. So that the same thing may in these several respects be the object both of Knowledg and of Faith 50. The Scripture being so perfect a Transcript of the law of Nature or Reason is much more to be credited in its supernatural Revelations 51. The probability of most things and the possibility of all things contained in the Scriptures may well be discerned by Reason it self which makes their Existence or Futurity the more easie to be believed 52. Yet before this Existence or Futurity of any thing beyond the reach of Reason can be soundly believed the Testimony must be known to be truly Divine 53. Yet a belief of Scripture Doctrine as probable doth usually go before a belief of certainty and is a good preparative thereto 54. The direct express sense must be believed directly and absolutely as infallible and the consequences where they may be clearly and certainly raised but where there is danger of erring in raising consequences the assent can be but weak and conditional 55. A Consequence raised from Scripture being no part of the immediate sense cannot be called any part of Scripture 56. Where one of the premises is in Nature and the other onely in Scripture there the Conclusion is mixt partly known and partly believed That it is the Consequence of those premises is known but that it is a Truth is as I said apprehended by a mixt Act. Such is a Christians concluding himself to be justified and sanctified c. 57. Where through weakness we are unable to discern the Consequences there is enough in the express direct sense for salvation 58. Where the sense is not unstood there the belief can be but implicit 59. Where the sense is partly understood but with some doubting the Belief can be but conditionally explicit that is we believe it if it be the sense of the Word 60. Fundamentals must be believed Explicitly and Absolutely CHAP. IIII. The first Argument to prove Scripture to be the Word of God SECT IIII. HAving thus shewed you in what sense the Scriptures are the word of God and how far to be believed and what is the excellency necessity and authority of them I shall now adde three or four Arguments to help your Faith which I hope will not onely prove them to be Divine Testimony to the substance of Doctrine though that be a usefull work against our unbelief but also that they are the very written Laws of God and a perfect Rule of Faith and duty My Arguments shall be but few because I handle it but on the by and those such as I finde little of in others writings least I should wast time in doing what is done to my hands 1. Those writings and that Doctrine which were confirmed by many real Miracles must needs be of God and consequently of undoubted Truth But the books and Doctrine of Canonicall Scripture were so confirmed Therefore c. Against the major proposition nothing of any moment can be said For it s a Truth apparent enough to nature that none but God can work real Miracles or at least none but those whom he doth especially enable thereto And it is as manifest that the Righteous and Faithfull God will not give this power for a seal to any falshood or deceit The usuall Objections are these First Antichrist shall come with lying wonders Answ. They are no true Miracles As they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Thess. 2.9 lying in sealing to a lying doctrine so also in being but seeming and counterfeit Miracles The like may be said to those of Pharaohs Magicians and all other Sorcerers and Witches and those that may be wrought by Satan himself They may be wonders but not Miracles Object 2. God may enable false Prophets to work Miracles to try the world without any derogation to his Faithfulness Answ. No for Divine power being properly the attendant of Divine Revelation if it should be annexed to Diabolicall delusions it would be a sufficient excuse to the world for their believing those delusions And if Miracles should not be a sufficient seal to prove the Authority of the witness to be Divine then is there nothing in the world sufficient and so our Faith will be quite overthrown Object But however Miracles will no more prove Christ to be the Son of God then they will prove Moses Elias or Elisha to be the Son of God for they wrought Miracles as well as Christ. Answ. Miracles are Gods seal not to extoll the person that is instrumentall nor for his glory but to extoll God and for his own Glory God doth not entrust any creature with this seal so absolutely as that they may use it when and in what case they please If Moses or Elias had affirmed themselves to be the sons of God they could never have confirmed that affirmation with a Miracle for God would not have sealed to a lye Christs power of working Miracles did not immediatly prove him to be the Christ. But it immediately proved his Testimony to be Divine and that Testimony spoke his nature and office So that the power of Miracles in the Prophets and Apostles was not to aâ—â—est to their own greatness but to the truth of their Testimony conâ—â—rning Christ.
Whatsoever any man affirmes to me and works a real Miracle to confirme it I must needs take my self bound 〈◊〉 believe him Object But what if some one should work miracles to confirme a Doctrine contrary to Scripture Would you believe it Doth not Paul say if an Angel from Heaven teach any other Gospel let him be accursed Answ. I am sure God will never give any false teacher the power of confirming his Doctrine by Miracles else God should subscribe his name to contradictions The appearance of an Angel is no Miracle though a wonder Secondly But the maine assault I know will be made against the Minor proposition of the Argument and so the question will be de facto whether ever such Miracles were wrought or no I shall grant that we must not here argue circularly to prove the Doctrine to be of God by the miracles and then the miracles to have been wrought by the Divine Testimony of the Doctrine and so round But yet to use the Testimony of the History of Scripture as a humane Testimony of the matter of fact is no circular arguing SECT II. TOward the confirmation of the Minor therefore I shall first lay these grounds That there is so much certainty in some Humane Testimony that may exclude all doubting or cause of doubting or there is some Testimony immediately Humane which yet may truly be said to be Divine That such Testimony we have of the Miracles mentioned in Scripture If these two be cleared the Minor will stand firme and the maine work here will be done First I will therefore shew you that there is such a certainty in some Humane Testimony Both experience and Reason will confirme this First I would desire any rationall man to tell me Whether he that never was at London at Paris or at Rome may not be certaine by a Humane faith that there are such Cities For my own part I think it as certaine to me nay more certaine then that which I see and I should sooner question my own sight alone then the eyes and credit of so many thousands in such a case And I thinke the Scepticks Arguments against the certainty of sense to be as strong as any that can be brought against the certainty of such a Testimony Is it not somewhat more then probable think you to the multitudes that never saw either Parliament or King that yet there is such an Assembly and such a person May we not be fully certaine that there was such a person as King James as Queen Elizabeth as Queen Mary c. here in England Yea that there was such a man as William the Conqueror May we not be certaine also that he conquered England With many other of his actions The like may be said of Julius Caesar of Alexander the Great c. Sure those that charge all humane Testimony with uncertainty do hold their lands then upon an uncertaine tenure Secondly It may be proved also by reason For if 1. the first testifiers may infallibly know it and 2. also by an infallible means transmit it to posterity and 3. have no intent to deceive then their Testimony may be an infallible Testimony But all these three may be easily proved I had thought to have laid down here the Rules by which a certaine Humane Testimony may be discerned from an uncertaine but you may easily gather them from what I shall lay down for the confirmation of these three Positions For the first I suppose none will question whether the first testifiers might infalliby know the truth of what they testifie If they should let them consider First If it be not matter of Doctrine much lesse abstruse and difficult points but only matter of fact then it s beyond doubt it may be certainly known Secondly If it be those also who did see and hear and handle who do testifie it Thirdly If their senses were sound and perfect within reach of the object and having no deceiving medium Fourthly Which may be discerned 1. If the witnesses be a multitude for then it may be known they are not blind or deaf except they had been culled out of some Hospitalls especially when all present do both see and hear them 2. When the thing is done openly in the day-light 3. When it is done frequently and neer at hand for then there would be full opportunity to discover any deceit So that in these cases it is doubtless sense is infallible and consequently those that see and hear are most certaine witnesses 2. Next let us see whether we may be certaine that any Testimony is sincere without a purpose to deceive us And I take that for undoubted in the following cases 1. Where the party is of ingenuity and honesty 2. And it is apparent he drives on no designe of his own nor cannot expect any advantage in the world 3. Nay of his Testimony will certainly undo him in the world and prove the overthrow of his ease honour estate and life 5. And if it be a multitude that do thus testifie How can they do it with an intent to deceive 6. And if their severall Testimonies do agree 7. And if the very enemies deny not this matter of fact but only refer it to other causes then there is no possibility of deceit as I shall further anon evince when I apply it to the Question Thirdly VVe are to prove that there are infallible means of transmitting such Testimony down to posterity without depraving any thing substantiall And then it well remaine an undoubted truth that there is a full certainty in some humane Testimony and that to posterity at a remote distance Now this tradition is infallible in these cases 1. If it be as beforesaid in matter of fact only which the meanest understandings are capable of apprehending 2. If it be also about the substance of actions and not every small circumstance 3. And also if those Actions were famous in their times and of great note and wonder in the world and such as were the cause of publike and eminent alterations 4. If it be delivered down in writing and not only by word of mouth where the change of speech might alter the sense of the matter 5. If the Records be publike where the very enemies may see them yea published of purpose by Heralds and Ambassadors that the world may take notice of them 6. If they are men of greatest honesty in all Ages who have both kept and divulged these Records 7 And if there have been also a multitude of these 8. And this multitude of severall countries where they could never so much as meet to agree upon any deceiving councells much lesse all accord in such a design and lest of all be able to manage it with secrecy 9. If also the after preservers and divulgers of these records could have no more self-advancing ends then the first testifiers 10. Nay if their divulging and attesting these records did utterly ruinate in the
called Christians so named from him do remain Thus far Josephus a Jew by Nation and Religion who wrote this about eighty six years after Christ and fourteen years before the death of St. John Himself being born about five or six years after Christ. 20. Consider also how that every Age hath afforded multitudes of VVitnesses who before were most bitter and violent enemies And divers of these men of note for Learning and place in the world How mad was Saul against the Truth Surely it could be no favour to the Cause nor over-much credulity that caused such men to witness to the death the truth of that for which they had persecuted others to the death but a little before Nor could childish Fables or common flying Tales have so mightily wrought with men of Learning and Understanding For some such were Christians in all Ages 21. Nay observe but the Confessions of these Adversaries when they came to believe How generally and ingenuously they acknowledg their former ignorance and prejudice to have been the cause of their unbelief 22. Consider also how unable all the enemies of the Gospel have been to abolish these sacred Records They could burn the Witnesses by thousands but yet they could never either hinder their succession or extinguish these Testimonies 23. Nay the most eminent Adversaries have had the most eminent ruine As Antiochus Herod Julian with multitudes more This stone having faln upon them hath ground them to powder 24 It were not difficult here to collect from unquestioned Authors a constant succession of VVonders at least to have in several Ages accompanied the Attestation of this Truth and notable judgments that have befaln the persecutors of it And though the Papists by their Fictions and Fabulous Legends have done more wrong to the Christian Cause then ever they are able to repair yet unquestionable History doth afford us very many Examples And even many of those actions which they have deformed with their fabulous additions might yet for the substance have much truth And God might even in times of Popery work some of these wonders though not to confirm their Religion as it was Popish yet to confirm it as the Christian Religion for as he had then his Church and then his Scripture so had he then his special Providences to confirm his Church in their belief and to silence the several enemies of the Faith And therefore I advise those who in their inconsiderate zeal are apt to reject all these Histories of Providences meerly because they were written by Papists or because some Witnesses to the Truth were a little leavened with some Popish errors that they would first view them and consider of their probability of Truth or Falshood that so they may pick out the Truth and not reject all together in the lump least otherwise in their zeal against Popery they should injure Christianity And now I leave any man to judg whether we have not had an infallible way of receiving these Records from the first VVitnesses Not that every of the particulars before mentioned are necessary to the proving or certain receiving the Authentick Records without depravation for you may perceive that almost any two or three of them might suffice and that divers of them are from abundance for fuller confirmation SECT IV. ANd thus I have done with this first Argument drawn from the Miracles which prove the Doctrine and VVritings to be of God But I must satisfie the Scruples of some before I proceed First Some will question whether this be not 1. To resolve our faith into the Testimony of man 2. And so to make it a Humane faith And so 3. To jump in this with the Papists who believe the Scripture for the Authority of the Church and to argue Circularly in this as they To this I Answer First I make in this Argument the last Resolution of my faith into the Miracles wrought to confirm the Doctrine If you ask why I believe the Doctrine to be of God I Answer because it was confirmed by many undeniable Miracles If you ask why I believe those Miracles to be from God I Answer because no created power can work a Miracle So that the Testimony of man is not the Reason of my believing but onely the means by which this matter of Fact is brought down to my Knowledg Again Our Faith cannot be said to be Resolved into that which we give in Answer to your last Interrogation except your Question be onely still of the proper grounds of Faith But if you change your Question from what is the Ground of my Faith to what is the means of conveying down the History to me Then my faith is not Resolved into this means Yet this means or some other equivalent I acknowledg so necessary that without it I had never been like to have believed 2. This shews you also that I argue not in the Popish Circle nor take my faith on their common Grounds For First When you ask them How know you the Testimony of the Church to be Infallible They prove it again by Scripture and ther 's their Circle But as I trust not on the Authority of the Romish Church onely as they do no nor properly to the Authority of any Church no nor onely to the Testimony of the Church but also to the Testimony of the enemies themselves So do I prove the validity of the Testimony I bring from Nature and well known Principles in Reason and not from Scripture it self as you may see before 3. There is a Humane Testimony which is also divine and so an Humane Faith which is also divine Few of Gods extraordinary Revelations have been immediate The best Schoolmen think none of all but either by Angels or by Jesus himself who was man as well as God You will acknowledg if God reveal it to an Angel and the Angel to Moses and Moses to Israel this is a divine Revelation to Israel For that is called a divine Revelation which we are certain that God doth any way Reveal Now I would fain know why that which God doth naturally and certainly Reveal to all men may not as properly be called a Divine Revelation as that which he Reveales by the Spirit to a few Is not this Truth from God That the Senses apprehension of their Object rightly stated s certain as well as this Jesus Christ was born of a Virgin c. Though a Saint or Angel be a fitter Messenger to Reveal the things of the Spirit yet any man may be a Messenger to reveal the things of the flesh An ungodly man if he have better Eyes and Ears may be a better Messenger or Witness of that matter of Fact which he seeth and heareth then a godlier man that is blinde or deaf especially in cases wherein that ungodly man hath no provocation to speak falsly and most of all if his Testimony be against himself I take that Revelation whereby I know
give men such powerfull warning to beware of his snares and such excellent means to conquer himself would the Devil lay such a design for mens salvation would he shew them their danger and direct them to escape it would he so mightily labor to promote all Truth and goodness and the happiness of mankinde as the Scripture doth Let any man tell me what book or project in the world did ever so mightily overthrow the Kingdome of Satan as this book and this Gospell-designe And would Satan be such an enemy to his own Kingdome Fourthly If Satan were the author he would never be so unweariedly and subtilly industrious to draw the world to unbelief and to break the Laws which this book conteineth as his constant temptations do sensibly tell many a poor soul that he is Would he be so earnest to have his own words rejected or his own Laws broken I think this is all clear to any man of Reason SECT II. SEcondly That no meer men were the inventers of Scriptures I prove thus If men were the devisers of it then it was either good men or bad but it was neither good men nor bad therefore none Though goodness and badness have many degrees yet under some of those degrees do all men fall Now I will shew you that it could be neither of these And first Good men they could not be For you might better say that Murderers Traytors Adulterers Parricides Sodomites c. were good men rather then such To devise Laws and father them upon God to feign Miracles and father them upon God to set themselves up in the place of God to say their word is the word of the Lord to promise eternal salvation to those that obey them to threat damnation to those that obey them not to draw the world into a course so destructive to all their worldly happiness upon a promise of happiness in another world which they cannot give to endeavor so egregiously to couzen all mankind If all this or any of this be consistent with common honesty nay if it be not as horrible wickedness as can be committed then I confesse I have lost my reason Much lesse then could such a number of Good men in all ages till 〈…〉 were finished be guilty of such unexpressible crimes 〈…〉 will it here be any evasion to say they were men of a 〈…〉 temper partly good and partly bad for these are not 〈…〉 of a middle nature nor such as will stand with any remâ—â—nts of ingenuity or humanity We have known wicked persons too many and too bad yet where or when did we ever know any that attempted any so more-then-Hellish an enterprize False Prophets have sent abroad indeed particular falshoods But who hath adventured upon such a systeme as this Mahomets example indeed comes neerest to such a villany Yet doth not be pretend to the hundreth part so many Miracles nor so great as the Scripture relateth nor doth pretend to be God nor any more then a great Prophet trusting more to his sword for successe then to the Authority or truth of his pretended Revelations Not denying the truth of much of the Scriptures but adding his Alcoran partly drawn from Scripture and partly fitted with fleshly liberties and promises to his own ends And doth not every man among us take that act of Mahomet to be one of the vilest that the Sun hath seen And judg of the man himself accordingly So that I think it beyond doubt that no one good man much lesse so great a number as were the penmen of Scripture could devise it of their own brain and thrust it on the world Secondly And it is as certaine that no bad men did devise the Scriptures Could wicked deceivers so highly advance the glory of God and labour so mightily to honour him in the world Would they have so vilified themselves and acknowledged their faults Could such an admirable undeniable spirit of holiness righteousness and self-deniall which runs through every veine of Scripture have been inspired into it from the invention of the wicked Would wicked men have been so wise or so zealous for the suppressing of wickedness Or so earnest to bring the world to Reformation Would they have been such bitter adversaries to their own wayes and such faithfull friends to the ways that they hate Would they have vilified the ungodly as the Scripture doth And pronounced eternall damnation against them Would they have extolled the godly who are so contrary to them And proclaimed them a people eternally blessed Would they have framed such perfect and such Spirituall laws And would they have laid such a design against the flesh And against all their worldly happiness as the scope of the Scripture doth carry on It s needless sure to mention any more particulars I think every man of the least ingenuity that considers this or deliberately vieweth over the frame of the Scriptures will easily confesse that it is more then probable That it was never devised by any deceiving sinner much less that all the penmen of it in severall Ages were such wicked deceivers So then if it was neither devised by good men nor by bad men then sure by no men and consequently must of necessity proceed from God SECT III. SEcondly That it proceeded not meerly from man I also prove thus That which was done without the help of humane learning or any extraordinary endowments of nature and yet the greatest Philosophers could never reach neer it must needs be the effect of a Power supernaturall But such is both the doctrine and the Miracles in Scripture therefore c. It is only the Antecedent that here requires proof which consists of these two branches both which I shall make clear First That the doctrine of Scripture was compiled and the Miracles done without the help of much humane learning or any extraordinary naturall endowments Secondly That yet the most learned Philosophers never could reach neer the Gospel Mysteries nor ever work the Miracles that were then done But I shall say most to the Doctrine For the proof of the former consider First The whole world was in the times of Moses and the Prophets comparatively unlearned A kinde of learning the Egyptians then had and some few others especially consisting in some small skill in Astronomy But it was all but barbarous ignorance in comparison of the Learning of Greece and Europe Those Writings of greatest Antiquity yet extant do shew this See also Dr. Hackwell as before 2. As rare as Learning then was yet did God chuse the unlearned of that unlearned time to be instruments and Penmen of his choisest Scriptures David who was bred a Shephard is the Penman of those divine unmatchable Psalms Amos is taken from a Heardsman to be a Prophet 3. But especially in those latter Ages when the world was grown more wise and learned did God purposely chuse the weak the foolish the unlearned to confound them A company
of poor Fishermen Tentmakers and such like must write the Laws of the Kingdom of Christ must dive into the Spiritual Mysteries of the Kingdom must silence the Wise and Disputers of the world and must be the men that must bring in the world to believe Doubless as Gods sending David an unarmed Boy with a Sling and a Stone against an armed Gyant was to make it appear that the victory was from himself So his sending these unlearned men to Preach the Gospel and subdue the world was to convince both the present and future generations that it was God and not man that did the work 4. Also the course they took in silencing the learned adversaries doth shew us how little use they made of these Humane helps They disputed not with them by the precepts of Logick Their Arguments were to the Jews the Writings of Moses and the Prophets and both to Jews and Gentiles the miracles that were wrought They argued more with deeds then with words The blinde the lame the sick that were recovered were their visible Arguments The Languages which they spake the Prophesies which they uttered and other such supernatural gifts of the holy Ghost upon them these were the things that did convince the world Yet this is no president to us to make as little use of Learning as they because we are not upon the same work nor yet supplied with their supernatural furniture 5. The reproaches of their enemies do fully testifie this who cast it still in their teeth that they were ignorant and unlearned men And indeed this was the great rub that their Doctrine found in the world it was to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness and therefore it appeared to be the power of God and not of man This was it that they discouraged the people with Do any of the Rulers or Pharisees believe on him but this people that know not the Law are accursed 6. To conclude The very frame and stile of these sacred Writings doth fully tell us that they were none of the Logicians nor eloquent Orators of the world that did compose them This is yet to this day one of the greatest stumbling blocks in the world to hinder men from the reverencing and believing the Scriptures They are still thinking sure if they were the very words of God they would excell all other Writings in every kinde of excellency when indeed it discovereth them the more certainly to be of God because there is in them so little of man They may as well say If David had been sent against Goliah from God he would sure have been the most compleat souldier and most compleatly armed The words are but the dish to serve up the sense in God is content that the words should not onely have in them a savor of Humanity but of much infirmity so that the work of convincing the world may be furthered thereby And I verily think that this is Gods great design in permitting these pretious spirits of divine Truths to run in the veines of infirm Language that so men may be convinced in all succeeding ages that Scripture is no device of Humane Policy If the Apostles had been learned and subtil men we should sooner have suspected their finger in the contrivance Yea It is observable that in such as Paul that had some Humane Learning yet God would not have them make much use of it least the excellency of the Cross of Christ should seem to lye in the inticing words of mans wisdom and least the success of the Gospel should seem to be more from the ability of the Preacher then from the Arm of God Besides all this It may much perswade us that the Apostles never contrived the Doctrine which they Preached by their sudden and not premeditated setting upon the work They knew not whether they should go nor what they should do when he calls one from his Fishing and another from his Custome They knew not what course Christ would take with himself or them no not a little before he leaves them Nay they must not know their imployment till he is taken from them And even then is it revealed to them by parcels and degrees and that without any study or invention of their own even after the coming down of the Holy Ghost Peter did not well under stand that the Gentiles must be called All which ignorance of his Apostles and suddenness of Revelation I think was purposely contrived by Christ to convince the world that they were not the contrivers of the Doctrine which they Preached SECT IV. 2. LEt us next then consider how far short the learned Philosophers have come of this They that have spent all their days in most painful studies having the strongest natural endowments for to enable them and the learned Teachers the excellent Libraries the bountiful incouragement and countenance of Princes to further them and yet after all this are very Novices in all spiritual things They cannot tell what the happiness of the Soul is nor where that happiness shall be enjoyed nor when nor how long nor what are the certain means to attain it nor who they be that shall possess it They know nothing how the world was made nor how it shall end nor know they the God who did create and doth sustain it but for the most of them they multiply feighned Deities But I shall have occasion to open this more fully anon under the last Argument CHAP. VI. The third Argument SECT I. MY third Argument whereby I prove the Divine Authority of the Scriptures is this Those Writings which have been owned and fulfilled in several Ages by apparent extraordinary Providences of God must needs be of God But God hath so owned and fulfilled the Scriptures Ergo They are of God The Major Proposition will not sure be denied The direct consequence is That such Writings are approved by God and if approved of him then must they needs be his own because they affirm themselves to be his own It is beyond all doubt that God will not interpose his Power and work a succession of Wonders in the world for the maintaining or countenancing of any forgery especially such as should be a slander against himself All the work therefore will lye in confirming the Minor Where I shall shew you first By what wonders of Providence God hath owned and fulfilled the Scriptures And secondly How it may appear that this was the end of such Providences 1. The first sort of Providences here to be considered are those that have been exercised for the Church universal Where these three things present themselves especially to be observed first The Propagating of the Gospel and raising of the Church secondly The Defence and continuance of that Church thirdly The improbable ways of accomplishing these And first Consider what an unlikely design in the judgment of man did Christ send his Apostles upon To bid a few ignorant Mechanicks Go
before a Sunshine day and that God delighteth to work by contraries and to walk in the clouds and to hide the birth in the womb till the very hour of deliverance that I am the less afraid of all this Our unbelief hath been silenced with wonders so oft that I hope we shall trust him the better while we live I know the Sword is a most heavy plague and War is naturally an enemy to Vertue and Civility and wo be to them that delight in bloud or use the Sword but as the last remedy and that promote not Peace to the utmost of their power I know also how unsatisfied many are concerning the lawfulness of the war which hath been managed This is not a time or place to satisfie such I have attempted that largely in another audience And as I cannot yet perceive by any thing which they object but that we undertook our defence upon most warrantable grounds so am I most certaine that God hath wonderfully appeared through the whole And as I am certain by sight and sense that the extirpation of Piety was the enemies great designe which had so far succeeded that the generality of the most able Ministers were silenced Lectures and Evening Sermons on the Lords Day suppressed Christians imprisoned dismembred and banished the Lords Day reproached and devoted to Pastimes that it was as much as a mans estate at lest was worth to hear a Sermon abroad when he had none or worse at home to meet for prayer or any godly exercise and that it was a matter of credit and a way to preferment to revile at and be enemies against those that were most consciencious and every where safer to be a Drunkard or an adulterer then a painfull Christian and that multitudes of humane Ceremonies took place when the worship of Christs institution was cast out besides the slavery that invaded us in civil respects so am I most certain that this was the work which we took up Arms to resist and these were the offenders whom we endeavoured to offend And the generality of those that scruple the lawfulness of our war did never scruple the lawfulness of destroying us nor of that dolefull havock and subversion that was made in the Churches of Christ among us though now perhaps they will acknowledg some of our persecutors miscariages The fault was that we would not dye quietly nor lay down our necks more gently on the block nor more willingly change the Gospel for the Mass-book and our Religion for a fardle of Ceremonies nor betray the hopes of our Posterity to their wils As Dalilah by Sampson so do they by us They accuse us that we do not love them because we will not deliver up our strength that they may put out our eyes and make us their slaves Now the former dangers and miseries are forgotten and the groans of the godly under persecution and of the land under the departure of their freedomes are not heard men begin to forget the state they were in and to be incompetent judges of the former engagement And as bad as they deeme the successe hath yet been sure I am many hundred congregations that were in darknesse and are now in light and multitudes of souls who by these means have been already converted and brought to the knowledge and love of Christ are real Testimenies of our happy change Beside the high hopes of the far greater spreading of the Gospel and the foundation that is laid for the happiness of Posterity I am no Prophet nor well skilled in the interpretation of Scripture prophesies yet the clear and deep engagements of God in this work which I have so evidently discerned do strongly perswade me that in despite of all the policy and hopes of our enemies and of all our own unworthiness folly miscarriages and errors yet God will end this work in mercy and make the Birth which we travell with more beautifull then our slanderous enemies or our unbelieving hearts do yet imagine and that the records of the wonders of this our Age shall even convince the world of the truth of the Promises and consequently That the Scripture is the very word of God In the mean time me thinks I hear Christ as it were saying to me as in my personall so in the Churches dangers and distresses as he did to Peter What I do thou knowest not now but thou shalt know hereafter SECT III. THirdly Consider also of the strange judgements which in all ages have overtaken the most eminent of the enemies of the Scriptures Besides Antiochus Herod Pilate the persecuting emperours especially Julian Church Histories will acquaint you with multitudes more Foxes book of Martyes will tell you of many undeniable remarkable judgements on those adversaries of pure Religion the Papists whose greatest wickedness is against these Scriptures subjecting them to their Church denying them to the people and setting up their Traditions as equall to them Yea our own times have afforded us most evident examples Sure God hath forced many of his enemies to acknowledg in their anguish the truth of his threatnings and to cry out as Julian Vicisti Galilee SECT IV. FOurthly Consider also the eminent Judgements of God that have befallen the vile transgressors of most of his Laws Besides all the voluminous Histories that make frequent mention of this I refer you to Doctor Beard his Theatre of Gods Judgments and the book entituled Gods Judgements upon Sabbath-breakers And it is like your own observation may adde much SECT V. FIfthly Consider further of the eminent providences that have been exercised for the bodies and states of particular believers The strange deliverance of many intended to Martyrdome As you have many instances in the Acts and Monuments besides those in Eusebius and others that mention the stories of the first persecutions If it were convenient here to make particular mention of mens names I could name you many who in these late wars have received such strange preservations even against the common course of nature that might convince an Atheist of the finger of God therein But this is so ordinary that I am perswaded there is scarce a godly experienced Christian that carefully observes and faithfully recordeth the providences of God toward him but is able to bring forth some such experiment and to shew you some such strange and unusuall mercies which may plainly discover an Almighty disposer making good the promises of this Scripture to his servants some in desperate diseases of body some in other apparent dangers delivered so suddenly or so much against the common course of nature when all the best remedies have failed that no second cause could have any hand in their deliverance Sixthly And Lastly Consider the strange and evident dealings of God with the souls and consciences both of believers and unbelievers What pangs of hellish despaire have many enemies of the truth been brought to How doth God extend the spirits of
eternity They were gray with age and study before they could come to know that which a childe of seven year old may now know by the benefit of â—cripture But all men live not to such an age therefore this is no sufficient means Secondly Observe also how uncertain they were when all was done what they speak rightly concerning God or the life to come in one breath they are ready to unsay it again in another as if their speeches had faln from them against their wils or as Caiphas his confession of Christ. They raise their Conclusions from such uncertain Premises that the Conclusions also must needs be uncertain Thirdly Observe also how rare that Knowledg was among them It may be in all the world there may be a few hundreds of learned Philosophers and among those there is one part Epicures another Peripateticks c. that acknowledg not a future Happiness or Misery And of those few that do acknowledg it none knows it truly nor the way that leads to it How few of them could tell what was mans chief good And those few how imperfectly with what mixtures of falshood we have no certainty of any of them that did know so much as that there was but one God For though Socrates dyed for deriding the multitude of gods yet there is no certain Record of his right belief of the Unity of the Godhead Besides what Plato and Plotinus did write of this that was found there is far greater probability that they had it from Scripture then meerly from Nature and Creatures For that Plato had read the VVritings of Moses is proved already by divers Authors The like may be said of Seneca and many others So that if this means had contained any sufficiency in it for salvation yet it would have extended but to some few of all the learned Philosophers And what is this to an universal sufficiency to all mankinde Nay there is not one of all their exactest Moralists that have not mistaken Vice for Vertue yea most of them give the names of Vertue to the foulest Villanies such as Self-murder in several cases Revenge a proud and vainglorious affectation of Honor and Applause with other the like so far have these few learned Philosophers been from the true Knowledg of things Spiritual and Divine that they could never reach to know the principles of common honesty Varro saith That there were in his days two hundred eighty eight Sects or Opinions among Philosophers concerning the chief good VVhat then should the multitudes of the vulgar do who have neither strength of wit to know nor time and books and means to study that they might attain to the height of these learned men So that I conclude with Aquinas that if possibly Nature and Creatures might teach some few enough to salvation yet were the Scriptures of flat necessity for first the more commonness secondly and more easiness and speediness thirdly and the more certainty of Knowledg and Salvation SECT VII BUt here are some Objections to be Answered First VVere not the Fathers till Moses without Scripture Answer First Yet they had a Revelation of Gods VVill beside what Nature or Creatures taught them Adam had the Doctrine of the Tree of Knowledg and the Tree of Life and the Tenor of the Covenant made with him by such Revelation and not by Nature So had the Fathers the Doctrine of Sacrificing for Nature could teach them nothing of that therefore even the Heathens had it from the Church Secondly All other Revelations are now ceased therefore this way is more necessary Thirdly And there are many Truths necessary now to be known which then were not revealed and so not necessary Object 2. Doth not the Apostle say that which may be known of God was manifest in them c. Answ. This with many other Objections are fully scanned by many Divines to whom I refer you particularly Dr. Willet on Rom. 1.14.20 c. Onely in general I Answer There is much difference between knowing that there is a God of eternal power which may make the sinner unexcusable for his open sin against Nature which the Apostle there speaks of and knowing sufficient to salvation How God deals then with the multitudes that have not the Scripture concerning their eternal state I leave as a thing beyond us and so nothing to us But if a possibility of the salvation of some of them be acknowledged yet in the three respects above mentioned there remains still a necessity of some further Revelation then Nature or Creatureâ— do contain And thus I have manifested a necessity for the welfare of man Now it would follow that I shew it necessary for the Honor of God but this follows so evidently as a Consectary of the former that I think I may spare that labour Object But what if there be such a necessity Doth it follow that God must needs supply it Answ. Yes to some part of the world For first It cannot be conceived how it can stand with his exceeding Goodness Bounty and Mercy to make a world and not to save some Secondly Nor with his VVisdom to make so many capable of salvation and not reveal it to them or bestow it on them Thirdly Or to prepare so many other helps to mans Happiness and to lose them all for want of such a sufficient Revelation Fourthly Or to be the Governor of the world and yet to give them no perfect Law to acquaint men with their duty and the reward of obedience and penalty of disobedience SECT VIII HAving thus proved that there is certainly some written Word of God in the world The last thing that I have to prove is That there is no other writing in the world but this can be it And first There is no other Book in the world that ever I heard of that doth so much as claim this Prerogative and Dignity Mahomet calleth himself but a Prophet he acknowledgeth the truth of most of the Scripture and his Alcoran contradicteth the very light of Nature Aristotle Plato and other Philosophers acknowledg their Writings to be meerly of their own study and invention What book saith Thus saith the Lord and This is the word of the Lord but this So that if it have no Competitor there needs not much to be said Secondly What other book doth reveal the Mysteries of God of the Trinity of God and man in one person of Creation of the Fall the Covenants their Conditions Heaven Hell Angels Devils Temptations Regeneration VVorship c. Besides this one book and those that profess to receive it from this and profess their end to be but the confirming and explaining the Doctrine of this Indeed upon those subjects which are below the Scripture as Logick Arithmetick c. other books may be more excellent then it as a Taylor may teach you how to make a Cloak better then all the Statute-Books or Records of Parliament But
should be so it would be somewhat a sad uncomfortable doctrine to the godly at their death to think of being deprived of their glory till the resurrection and somewhat comfortable to the wicked to think of tarrying out of hell so long But I am in strong hopes that this doctrine is false yea very confident that it is so I do believe that as the soul separated from the body is not a perfect man so it doth not enjoy the Glory and happiness so fully and so perfectly as it shall do after the Resurrection when they are again conjoined What the difference is and what degree of Glory souls in the mean time enjoy are too high things for mortals particularly to discern For the great question what place the souls of those before Christ of Infants and of all others since Christ do remaine in till the Resurrection I think it is a vain enquiry of what is yet beyond our reach It is a great question what Place is But if it be only a circumstant body and if to be in a place be only to be in a circumstant bodâ— or in the superficies of an ambient body or in the concavity oâ— that superficies then it is doubtfull whether spirits can be properly said to be in place We can have yet no clear conceivings of these things But that separated souls of Believers do enjoy unconceivable Blessedness and Glory even while they remain thus separated from the body I prove as followeth Beside all those Arguments for the souls Immortality which you may read in Alex. Rosse his Philosophicall Touchstone part lâ—st 1. Those words of Paul 2 Corin. 5.8 Are so exceeding plain that I yet understand not what tolerable exception can be made agaiâ—st them Therefore we are alwayes confident knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord For we walk by faith not by sight we are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord What can be spoken more plainly so also the 1 2 3 4. verses of the same Chapter 2. As plain is that in Philip. 1.23 For I am in a streight betwixt two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better What sense were in these words if Paul had not expected to enjoy Christ till the Resurrection Why should he be in a streight Or desire to depart Should he be with Christ ever the sooner for that Nay should he not have been loath to depart upon the very same grounds For while he was in the flesh he enjoyed something of Christ but being departed according to the Socinians doctrine he should enjoy no thing of Christ till the day of Resurrection 3. And plain enough is that of Christ to the thief This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise The dislocation of the word this day is but a gross evasion 4. And sure if it be but a Parable of the Rich man in hell and Lazarus yet it seemes unlikely to me that Christ would teach them by such a Parable as seemed evidently to intimate and suppose the souls happiness or misery presently after death if there were no such matter 5. Doth not his Argument against the Sadduces for the Resurrection run upon this supposition That God being not the God of the dead but of the living therefore Abraham Isaac and Jacob were then living i. e. in soul and consequently should have their bodies raised at the Resurrection 6. Plain also is that in the Revelations chap. 14. vers 13. Blessed are the dead that dye in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit that they may Rest from their labors and their works do follow them i. e. close as the garments on a mans back follow him and not at such a distance as the resurrection For if the blessedness were only in Râ—sting in the Grave then a beast or a stone were as blessed Nay it were evidently a curse and not a blessing For was not life a great Mercy was it not a greater mercy to enjoy all the comforts of life to enjoy the fellowship of the Saints The comfort of the ordinances And much of Christ in all To be imployed in the delightfull work of God and to edifie his Church c. Is it not a curse to be so deprived of all these Do not these yeeld a great deal more sweetness then all the troubles of this life can yeeld us bitterness Though I think not as some that it is better to be most miserable even in hell then not to be at all yet it is undeniable that it is better to enjoy life and so much of the comforts of life and so much of God in comforts and afflictions as the Saints do though we have all this with persecution then to lye rotting in the grave if that were all we could expect Therefore it is some further blessedness that is there promised 7. How else is it said That we are come to the Mount Zion the City of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem to an innumerable company of Angels to the generall Assembly and Church of the first born which are written in Heaven and to God the judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect Heb. 12.22 23. Sure at the Resurrection the body will be made perfect as well as the spirit To say as Lushington doth that they are said to be made perfect because they are sure of it as if they had it is an evasion to grosly contradicting the Text that by such commentaries he may as well deny any truth in Scripture To make good which he as much abuseth that of Philip. 3.12 8. Doth not Scripture tell us that Henoch and Elias are taken up already And shall we think they possess that Glory alone 9. Did not Peter and James and John see Moses also with Christ on the Mount Yet the Scripture saith Moses dyed And is it likely that Christ did delude their senses in shewing them Moses if he should not partake of that glory till the Resurrection 10. And is not that of Stephen as plain as we can desire Lord Jesus receive my spirit Sure if the Lord receive it it is neither asleep nor dead nor annihilated but it is where he is and beholds his Glory 11. The like may be said of that Eccles. 12.7 The spirit shall return to God who gave it 12. How else is it said that we have eternall life already John 6.54 and that the knowledg of God which is begun here is eternall life John 17.3 So 1. John 5.13 And he that believeth on Christ hath everlasting life John 3.36 John 6.47 He that eateth this bread shall not dye vers 50. For he dwelleth in Christ and Christ in him vers 56. And as the Son liveth by the Father so he that eateth him shall live by him vers 57. How is the Kingdom of God and of heaven which
Praising of God They never tasted sweetness in things of that nature Or what care they for being deprived of the Fellowship of Angels and Saints They could spare their company in this world well enough and why may they not be without it in the world to come To make these men therefore to understand the truth of their future condition I will here annex these two things 1. I will shew you why this forementioned loss will be intollerable and will be most tormenting then though it seem as nothing now 2. I will shew you what other losses will accompany these which though they are less in themselves yet will now be more sensibly apprehended by these sensual men And all this from Reason and the truth of Scripture 1. Then That this loss of heaven will be then most tormenting may appear by these considerations following First The Understandings of the ungodly will be then cleared to know the worth of that which they have lost Now they lament not their loss of God because they never knew his excellency nor the loss of that holy imployment and society for they were never sensible what they were worth A man that hath lost a Jewel and took it but for a common stone is never troubled at his loss but when he comes to know what he lost then he lamenteth it Though the understandings of the damned wil not then be sanctified as I said before yet will they be cleared from a multitude of errors which now possess them and mislead them to their ruine They think now that their honor with men their estates their pleasures their health and life are better worth their studies and â—â—â—our then the things of another world which they never saw but when these things which had their hearts have left them in misery and given them the slip in their greatest need when they come to know by experience the things which before they did but read and hear of they will then be quite in another minde They would not believe that water would drown till they were in the sea nor that the fire would burn till they were cast into it but when they feel it they will easily believe All that error of their minde which made them set light by God and abhor his worship and vilifie his people will then be confuted and removed by experience their knowledg shall be increased that their sorrows may be increased as Adam by his fall did come to the knowledg of Good and Evil so shall all the damned have this increase of knowledg As the knowledg of the excellency of that Good which they do enjoy and of that Evil which they have escaped is necesâ—sary to the glorified Saints that they may rationally and truly enjoy their glory so is the knowledg of the greatness of that good which they have lost and of that evil which they have procured to themselves necessary to the tormenting of these wretched sinners for as the joyes of heaven are not enjoyed so much by the bodily senses as by the intellect and affections so it is by understanding their misery and by affections answerable that the wicked shal endure the most of their torments for as it was the soul that was the chiefest in the guilt whether positively by leading to sin or onely privatively in not keeping the Authority of Reason over Sense the Understanding be guilty I will not now dispute so shall the soul be chiefest in the punishment doubtless those poor souls would be comparatively happy if their understandings were wholly taken from them if they had no more knowledg then Ideots or bruit beasts or if they knew no more in hell then they did upon earth their loss and misery would then less trouble them Though all knowledg be Physically good yet some may be neither Morally good nor good to the owner Therefore when the Scripture saith of the wicked that They shall not see life Joh 3.36 nor see God Heb. 12.14 The meaning is they shall not possess life or see God as the Saints do to enjoy him by that sight they shall not see him with any comfort nor as their own but yet they shall see him to their terror as their enemy and I think they shall have some kinde of eternal knowledg or beholding of God and heaven and the Saints that are there happy as a necessary ingredient to their unutterable calamity The rich man shall see Abraham and Lazarus but afar off as God beholdeth them afar off so they shal they behold God afar off Oh how happy men would they now think themselves if they did not know that there is such a place as heaven or if they could but shut their eyes and cease to behold it Now when their knowledg would help to prevent their misery they will not know or will not read and study that they may know Therefore then when their knowledg will but feed their consuming fire they shall know whether they will or no as Toads and Serpents know not their own vile and venemous nature nor the excellent nature of man or other creatures and therefore are neither troubled at their own nor desirous of ours so is it with the wicked here but when their eyes at death shall be suddenly opened then the case will be suddenly altered They are now in a dead sleep and they dream that they are the happiest men in the world and that the godly are but a company of precise fools and that either heaven will be theirs as sure as anothers or else they may make shift without it as they have done here but when death smites these men and bids them awake and rowseth them out of their pleasant dreams how will they stand up amazed and confounded How will their judgments be changed in a moment and they that would not see shall then see and be ashamed SECT II. 2. ANother reason to prove that the loss of heaven will more torment them then is this Because as the Understanding will be cleared so it will be more enlarged and made more capacious to conceive of the worth of that Glory which they have lost The strength of their apprehensions as well as the truth of them will be then encreased What deep apprehensions of the wrath of God of the madness of sinning of the misery of sinners have those souls that now endure this misery in comparison of those on earth that do but hear of it what sensible apprehensions of the worth of life hath the condemned man that is going to be executed in comparison of what he was wont to have in the time of his prosperity Much more will the actual deprivation of eternal blessedness make the damned exceeding apprehensive of the greatness of their loss and as a large Vessel will hold more water then a shell so will their more enlarged understandings contain more matter to feed their torment then now their shallow capacity can do SECT III. 3.
Shall we then take these for friendly actions Or rather wish we had spent this time in praying together oâ— admonishing one another O why should we sell such a lasting incomprehensible Joy for one tast of a seeming pleasure Come as we have sinned together let us pray together before we stir that God would pardon us And let us enter into a promise to one another that we will do thus no more but will meet together with the godly in the worship of God and help one another toward Heaven as oft as we have met for our sinfull metriments in helping to deceive and destroy each other This would be the way to prevent this sorrow and a course that would comfort you when you look back upon it hereafter VVho would spend so many dayes and yeers and thoughts and cares and be at so much cost and pains and all to please this flesh for a moment which must shortly be most loathsome stinking rottenness and in the mean time neglect our pretious souls and that state which we must trust to for ever and ever To be at such pains for that pleasure which dyes in the enjoying and is almost as soon gone as come and when we have most need of comfort will be so far from following us as our happiness that it will be perpetual fuel to the flames which shall torment us O that men knew but what they desire when they would so fain have all things suited to the desires of the flesh They would have Buildings VValks Lands Cloathes Diet and all so fitted as may be most pleasing and delightful VVhy this is but to desire their temptations to be increased and their snare strengthened Their Joyes will be more carnall and how great an enemy carnal Joy is to spiritual experienced men can quickly tell you If we took the flesh so much for your enemy as we do professe we could not so earnestly desire and contrive to accommodate it and so congratulate all its contentments as we do CHAP. IV. The greatness of the torments of the damned discovered SECT I. HAving thus shewed you how great their Loss is who are shut out of Rest and how it will be aggravated by those Additional losses which will accompany it I should next here shew you the greatness of those Positive sufferings which will accompany this loss But because I am to Treat of Rest rather then of Torment I will not meddle with the Explication of the quality of those sufferings but onely shew their greatness in some few brief discoveries lâ—st the careless sinner while he hears of no other punishment but that of loss before mentioned should think he can bear that well enough by his own resolvedness and so flatter himself â—â—hopâ— of a tollerable hell That there are besides the loss of Happiness such actuall sensible Torments for the damned is a matter beyond all doubt to him that doth not doubt of the truth of the Scripture and that they will be exceeding great may appear by these Arguments following First From the principal Author of them which is God himself As it was no less then God whom the sinner had offended so it is no less then God that will punish them for their offences He hath prepared those torments for his Enemies His continued Anger will still be devouring them His Breath of Indignation will kindle the flames His Wrath will be an intollerable burden to their souls O if it were but a creature that they had to do with â—hey might better bear it for the Penalty would be answerable to the Infirmity of him that should inflict it A childe can give but an easie stroak but the stroaks of a Gyant will be answerable to his strength Wo to him that fals under the stroaks of the Almighty They shall feel to their sorrow That it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God It were nothing in comparison to this if all the world were against them or if the strength of all creatures were united in one to inflict their penalty They had now rather venture upon the displeasure of God then to displease a Landlord a Master a Friend a Neighbour or their own Flesh but then they will wish a thousand times in vain that they had lost the favor of all the world and been hated of all men so they had not lost the favor of God for as there is no life like his Favor so is there no death like his displeasure O what a consuming fire is his Wrath If it be kindled here and that but a little how do we wither before it as the grass that is cut down before the Sun How soon doth our strength decay and turn to weakness and our beauty to deformity Churches are rooted up Common-wealths are overthrown Kingdoms depopulated Armies destroyed and who can stand before his wrath Even the Heavens and the Earth will melt at his Presence and when he speaks the word at his great Day of Accompt they will be burnt up before him as a scrole in the fire The flames do not so easily run through the dry Stubble or consume the Houses where its violence hath prevailed as the wrath of God will feed upon these wretches O they that could not bear a Prison or a Gibbet or Fire for Christ no nor scarce a few scorns from the mouths of the ignorant how will they now bear the devouring fire SECT II. 2. THe place or state of torment is purposely ordained for the glorifying of the Attribute of Gods Justice As all the Works of God are great and wonderful so those above all which are specially intended for the eminent advancing of some of his Attributes When he will glorifie his Power he makes the worlds by his Wisdom The comely order of all and singular creatures declare his Wisdom His Providence is shewn in sustaining all things and maintaining Order and attaining his excellent ends amongst the confused perverse tumultuous agitations of a world of wicked foolish self-destroying Miscreants When a spark of his Wrath doth kindle upon the earth the whole world save onely eight persons are drowned Sodom Gomorrah Admah and Zeboim are burnt with fire from heaven to ashes The sea shuts her mouth upon some The earth doth open and swallow others The Pestilence destroyeth them up by thousands The present deplorable estate of the Jews may fully testifie this to the world And yet the glorifying of the two great Attributes of Mercy and Justice is intended most eminently for the life to come As therefore when God will purposely then glorifie his Mercy he will do it in a way and degree that is now incredible and beyond the comprehension of the Saints that must enjoy it so that the blood of his Son and the enjoyment of himself immediately in Glory shall not be thought too high an honor for them So also when the time comes that he will purposely manifest his Justice it shall appear to
tells us plainly who shall be saved and who shall not So that if men would but first search the Word to find out who be these men that shall have Rest and what be their properties by which they may be known and then next search carefully their own hearts till they find whether they are those men or not how could they chuse but come to some Certainty But alas either men understand not the nature and use of this duty or else they will not be at the pains to try Go through a Congregation of a thousand men and how few of them shall you meet with that ever bestowed one hour in all their lives in a close Examination of their title to Heaven Ask thy own Conscience Reader When was the time and where was the place that ever thou solemnly tookest thy heart to task as in the sight of God and examined it by Scripture Interrogatories Whether it be Born again and Renewed or not Whether it be Holy or not Whether it be set most on God or on creatures on Heaven or on Earth and didst follow on this Examination till thou hast discovered thy Condition and so past sentence on thy self accordingly But because this is a Work of so high Concernment and so commonly neglected and mens Souls do so much languish every where under this neglect I will therefore though it be Digressive 1. Shew you That it is possible by trying to come to a Certainty 2. Shew you the hinderances that keep men from trying and from Assurance 3. I will lay down some Motives to perswade you to it 4. I will give you some Directions how you should perform it 5. And lastly I will lay you down some Marks out of Scripture by which you may try and so come to an infallible Certainty Whether you are the People of God for whom this Rest Remaineth or no. And to prepare the way to these I will a little first open to you what Examination is and what that Certainty is which we may expect to attain to SECT III. THis Self-Examination is An enquiry into the course of our lives but more especially into the inward Acts of our Souls and trying of their Sincerity by the Word of God and accordingly Judging of our Real and Relative Estate So that Examination containeth severall Acts 1. There must be the Tryal of the Physical Truth or Sincerity of our Acts That is An enquiry after the very Being of them As whether there be such an Act as Belief or Desire or Love to God within us or not This must be discovered by Conscience and the internal sense of the Soul whereby it is able to feel and perceive its own Acts and to know whether they be Real or Counterfeit 2. The next is The Tryal of the Moral Truth or Sincerity of our Acts Whether they are such as agree with the Rule and the Nature of their Objects This is the discursive work of Reason comparing our Acts with the Rule It implyeth the former knowledg of the Being of our Acts and it implyeth the knowledg of Scripture in the point in question and also the Belief of the Truth of Scripture This Moral Spiritual Truth of our Acts is another thing far different from the Natural or Physical Truth as far as a Mans Being differeth from his Honesty One man loveth his wife under the notion of an harlot or only to satisfie his lust Another loveth his wife with a true Conjugal Affection The former is True Physical Love or true in point of Being but the latter only is True Moral Love The like may be said in regard of all the Acts of the Soul There is a Believing Loving Trusting Fearing Rejoycing all True in point of Being and not counterfeit which yet are all false in point of Morality and right-being and so no gracious Acts at all 3. The third thing contained in the Work of Self-Examination is The Judging or Concluding of our Real Estate that is of the habitual temper or disposition of our Hearts by the quality of their Acts Whether they are such Acts as prove a Habit of Holiness or only some slight Disposition or whether they are only by some Accident enticed and enforced and prove neither Habit nor Disposition The like also of our Evil Acts. Now the Acts which prove a Habit must be 1. Free and chearful not constrained or such as we had rather not do if we could help it 2. Frequent if there be opportunity 3. Through and Serious Where Note also That the Tryal of the Souls Disposition by those Acts which make after the End as Desire Love c. to God Christ Heaven is always more Necessary and more Certain then the tryal of its Disposition to the Means only 4. The last Act in this Examination is To Conclude or Judg of our Relative Estate from the former Judgment of our Acts and Habits As if we find sincere Acts we may Conclude that we have the Habits so from both we may Conclude of our Relation So that our Relations or Habits are neither of them felt or known immediately but must be gathered from the knowledg of our Acts which may be felt As for Example 1. I enquire whether I Believe in Christ or Love God 2. If I find that I do then I enquire next whether I do it sincerely according to the Rule and the Nature of the Object 3. If I find that I do so then I conclude that I am Regenerate or Sanctified 4. And from both these I conclude that I am Pardoned Reconciled Justified and Adopted into sonship and title to the Inheritance All this is done in a way of Reasoning thus 1. He that Believes in Spiritual Sincerity or He that Loves God in Spiritual Sincerity is a Regenerate Man But I do so Believe and Love Therefore I am Regenerate 2. He that Believes in Sincerity or He that is Regenerate for the Conclusion will follow upon either is also Pardoned Justified and Adopted But I do so Believe or I am Regenerate Therefore I am Justified c. SECT IV. THus you see what Examination is Now let us see what this Certainty or Assurance is And indeed It is nothing else but the Knowledg of the forementioned Conclusions that we are Sanctified Justified shall be Glorified as they arise from the premises in the work of Examination So that here you may observe how immediately this Assurance followeth the Conclusion in Examination and so how necessary Examination is to the obtaining of Assurance and how conducible thereunto Also that we are not speaking of the Certainty of the Object or of the thing in it self considered but of the Certainty of the Subject or of the thing to our Knowledg Also you may observe that before we can come to this Certainty of the Conclusion That we are Justified and shall be Glorified there must be a Certainty of the Premises And in respect of the Major Proposition He that Believeth
acquainted then in their own brests 3. Besides many come to the work with forestalling conclusions They are resolved what to judge before they Try They use the duty but to strengthen their present conceits of themselves and not to find out the truth of their condition Like a bribed Judge who examines each party as if he would Judge uprightly when he is resolved which way the cause shall go before hand Or as perverse disputers who argue only to maintain their present opinions rather then to try those opinions whether they are right or wrong Just so do men examine their hearts 4. Also men are partial in their own Cause They are ready to think their great sins small and their small sins to be none their gifts of nature to be the work of Grace and their gifts of common grace to be the special grace of the Saints They are straight ways ready to say All these have I kept from my youth And I am rich and increased c. Rev. 3.17 The first common excellency that they meet with in themselves doth so dazle their eyes that they are presently satisfied that all is well and look no further 5. Besides most men do search but by the halves If it will not easily quickly be done they are discouraged and leaveoff Few set to it and follow it as beseems them in a work of such moment He must give all diligence that means to make sure 6. Also men try themselves by false Marks and Rules not knowing wherein the truth of Christianity doth consist some looking beyond and some short of the Scripture standard 7. Moreover there is so great likeness betwixt the lowest degree of special grace and the highest degree of Common Grace that it is no wonder if the unskilful be mistaken It is a great Question whether the main difference between special grace and common be not rather gradual then specifical If it should be so as some think then the discovery will be much more difficult However to discern by what principle our affections are moved and to what ends and with what sincerity is not very easie there being so many wrong Ends and motives which may excite the like Acts. Every grace in the Saints hath its counterfeit in the Hypocrite 8. Also men use to Try themselves by unsafe Marks either looking for a high degree of grace instead of a lower degree in sincerity as many doubting Christians do or else enquiring only into their outward Actions or into their inward Affections without their ends motives and other qualifications The sure evidences are Faith Love c. that are Essential parts of our Christianity and that lie neerest to the heart 9. Lastly Men frequently miscarry in this work by setting on it in their own strength As some expect the Spirit should do it without them so others attempt it themselves without seeking or expecting the help of the Spirit both these will certainly miscarry in their Assurance How far the Spirits Assistance is necessary is shewed before and the several Acts which it must perform for us SECT X. FUrther Causes of doubting among Christians Because the Comfort of a Christians life doth so much consist in his Assurance of Gods Special Love and because the right way of obtaining it is so much controverted of late I will here proceed a little further in opening to you some other Hinderances which keep true Christians from Comfortable Certainty besides the forementioned Errors in the Work of Examination Though I would still have you remember and be sensiâ—le That the neglect or slighty performance of that great duty and not following on the seaâ—ch with Seriousness and Constancy is the most common Hinderance for ought I have yet found I shall add now these Ten more which I find very ordinary Impediments and therefore desire Christians more carefully to Consider and Beware of them 1. One Common and great Cause of doubting and uncertainty is The weakness and small measure of our Graces A little Grace is next to None Small things are hardly discerned He that will see a small needle a hair a mote or atome must have clear light and good eyes But houses and Towns and Mountains are easily discerned Most Christians content themselves with a small measure of Grace and do not follow on to spiritual strength and manhood They Believe so weakly and Love God so little that they can scarce find whether they Believe and Love at all Like a man in a swoun whose pulse and breathing is so weak and obscure that it can hardly be perceived whether they move at all and consequently whether the man be alive or dead The chief Remedy for such would be To follow on their duty till their Graces be increased Ply your work Wait upon God in the use of his prescribed means and he will undoubtedly bless you with Increase and Strength Oh that Christians would bestow most of that time in getting more Grace which they bestow in Anxious doubtings whether they have any or none And that they would lay out those Serious Affections in Praying and seeking to Christ for more Grace which they bestow in fruitless Complaints of their supposed Gracelesness I beseech thee Christian take this advice as from God And then when thou Believest strongly and Lovest fervently thou canst not doubt whether thou do Believe and Love or not No more then a man that is burning hot can doubt whether he be warm or a man that is strong and lusty can doubt whether he be alive Strong Affections will make you feel them Who loveth his friend or wife or child or any thing strongly and doth not know it A great measure of Grace is seldom doubted of Or if it be you may quickly find when you seek and try SECT XI 2. ANother Cause of uncomfortable living is That Christians look more at their present Cause of Comfort or Discomfort then they do at their Future Happiness and the way to attain it They look afâ—er Signs which may tell thâ—m what they are more then they do at Pâ—ecepts which tell them what they should do They are very desirous to know whether they are Justified and beloved or not but they do not think what course they should take to be Justified if they be not As if their present Case must needs be their Everlasting Case and if they be now unpardoned there were no Remedy Why I beseech thee consider this Oh doubting Soul What if all were as bâ—d as thou dost fear and none of thy sins were yet pardoned Is not the Remedy at hand May not all this be done in a moment Dost thou not know that thou mayst have Christ and pardon when ever thou wilt Call not this a loose or strange doctrine Christ is willing if thou be willing He offereth himself and all his benefits to thee He presseth them on thee and urgeth thee to accept them He will condemn thee and destroy thee if thou
and how tenderly he is affected toward thee 3. It will quicken thy desires after him when thou art once sure of thy Interest in him 4. It is the most excellent Fountain of Continual Rejoycing Hab. â— 17 18 19. 5. It will confirm thy Trust and Confidence in God in the greatest straits Psal. 89.26 and 46.1 2 3 c. 6. It will fill thy heart with Thankfulness 7. It will raise thee in the high delightful work of Praise 8. It will be the most excellent help to a Heavenly Mind 9. It will exceedingly tend to thy Perseverance in all this He that is sure of the Crown will hold on to the End when others will be tired and give up through discouragement All these sweet effects of Assurance would make thy Life a kind of Heaven on Earth Seeing then that Examination of our states is the way to this Assurance and the Means without which God doth not usually bestow it doth it not Concern us to fall close to this Searching Work SECT IX I Would not have bestowed this time and labour in urging you with all these fore-going Considerations but that I know how backward man is to this duty And though I am certain that these Motives have weight of Reason in them yet experience of mens unreasonableness in things of this Nature doth make me Jealous lest you should lay by the Book when you have read all this as if you had done and never set your selves to the practise of the duty Reader Thou seest the Case in hand is of greatest moment It is to know Whether thou shalt Everlastingly live in Heaven or Hell If thou hast lived hitherto in dark uncertainty it is a pitiful case but if thou wilfully continue so thy Madness is unexpressible And is it not wilfully when a through Tryal might help thee to be Resolved and thou wilt not be perswaded to be at so much pains What sayst thou now Art thou fully resolved to fall upon the Work Shall all this labour that I have bestowed in perswading thee be lost or no If thou wilt not obey I would thou hadst never read these lines that they might not have aggravated thy guilt and silenced thee in Judgment I here put this special Request to thee in behalf of thy Soul nay I lay this charge upon thee in the Name of the Lord That thou defer no longer but take the next opportunity that thou canst have and take thy Heart to task in good earnest and think with thy self Is it so Easie so Common and so Dangerous to be Mistaken Are there so many wrong ways Is the heart so guilâ—ful Why then do I not search into every corner and ply this work till I know my state Must I so shortly undergo the Tryal at the Bar of Christ And do I not presently fall on Trying my self Why what a case were I in if I should then miscarry May I know by a little diligent Enquiry now and do I stick at the labour And here set thy self to the duty Object But it may be thou wilt say I know not how to do it Ans. That is the next Work that I come to to give thee Directions herein but alas it will be in Vain if thou be not resolved to practise them Wilt thou therefore before thou goest any further here promise before the Lord to set thy self to thy power upon the speedy performing of the duty according to these Directions which I shall lay down from the Word I demand nothing unreasonable or impossible of thee It is but That thou wouldst presently bestow a few hours time to know what shall become of thee for ever If a neighbor or common friend desire but an hours time of thee in conference or in labour or any thing that thou mayst help them in thou wouldst not sure deny it How much less shouldst thou deny this to thy self in so great a Case I pray thee take this request from me as if upon my knees in the Name of Christ I did prefer it to thee And I will betake me upon my knees to Christ again to beg that he will perswade thy heart to the Duty And in hope that thou wilt practise them I will here give thee some Directions CHAP. IX Containing Directions for Examination and some Marks for Tryal SECT I. I Will not stand here to lay down the Directions necessary for preparation to this Duty because you may gather them from what is said concerning the Hinderances For the Contraries of those Hinderances will be most necessary Helps Only before you set upon it I advise you moreover to the Observation of these Rules 1. Come not with too peremptory Conclusions of your selves before-hand Do not Judg too confidently before you Try Many Godly dejected Souls come with this Pre-judging to the work concluding certainly that their state is Miserable before they have Tryed it And most wicked men on the contrary side do conclude most confidently that their state is good or tolerable at the least No wonder if these both miscarry in Judging when they pass the Sentence before the Tryal 2. Be sure to be so well acquainted with the Scripture as to know what is the Tenor of the Covenant of Grace and what are the Conditions of Justification and Glorification and consequently what are sound Marks to Try thy self by and wherein the Truth of Grace and Essence of Christianity doth consist 3. And it will not be unuseful to write out some of the chief and those Scriptures withall which hold them forth and so to bring this Paper with you when you come to Examination 4. Be a constant observer of the temper and motions of thy heart Almost all the difficulty of the work doth lie in the true and clear discerning of it Be watchful in observing the Actings both of Grace and Corruption and the circumstances of their Actings as how frequent how violent how strong or weak were the outward incitements how great or small the impediments what delight or loathing or fear or reluctancy did go with those Acts by these and the like observations you may come to a more infallible knowledg of your selves 5. Be sure you set upon the work with a serious rouzed wakened Soul apprehensive of how great concernment it is 6. And lastly Resolve to judg thy self impartially neither better nor worse then thou art but as the Evidence shall prove thee SECT II. BEing thus provided then set to the business and therein observe these Directions following which I will mention briefly that lying close together you may be able to view and observe them the more easily 1. Empty thy minde of all thy other cares and thoughts that they do not distract or divide thy mind This work will be enough at once of it self without joyning others with it 2. Then fall down before God and in hearty prayer desire the assistance of his Spirit to discover to thee the plain truth of thy
dare search no further for fear of being counted a Novellist or Heretick or lest he bear their curse for adding to or taking from the common conceits So that Divinity is become an easier study then heretofore We are already at a Neplus ultra It seemeth vain when we know the opinions in credit to search any further We have then nothing to do but easily to study for popular Sermons nor is it safe so much as to make them our own by looking into and examining their grounds lest in so doing we should be forced to a dissent So that Scholars may easily be drawn to think that it is better to be at a venture of the common belief which may be with ease then to weary and spend themselves in tedious studies when they are sure beforehand of no better reward from men then the reputation of Hereticks Which is the lot of all that go out of the common rode So that who will hereafter look after any more truth then is known and in credit except it be some one that is so taken with admiration of it as to cast all his reputation overboard rather then make shipwrack of his self-prized Merchandize Yet most wonderful is it that my Christian especially so many godly Ministers should arrogate to themselves the high prerogatives of God! viz. to be the Rule and Standard of Truth I know they will say that Scripture is the Rule but when they must be the peremtory Judges of the sense of that Scripture so that in the hardest controversies none must swarve from their sense upon pain of being branded with Heresie or error what is this but to be the Judges themselves and Scripture but their servant The final ful decisive interpretation of Lawes belongeth to none but the Lawmakers themselves For who can know another mans meaning beyond his expressions but himself And yet it increaseth my wondering that these Divines have not forgotten the late arrogancy of the prelates in the same kinde under which some few of themselves did suffer Nor yet how constantly our Divines that write against the Papists do disclaim any such living final decisive Judge of controvesies but make Scripture the only Judg O what mischief hath the Church of Christ suffered by the enlarging of her Creed While it contained but twelve Articles believers were plain and peaceable and honest But a Christian now is not the samâ— thing as then Our heads shall swell so big like children that have the rickets that all the body fares the worse for it Every new Article that was added to the Creed was a new engine to stretch the brains of believers and in the issue to â—end out the bowels of the Church It never went so well with the Church since it begun as Erasmus saith of the times of the Nicene counsel reâ— ingâ—niosam fore Christianum esse to be a matter of so much wit and cunning to be a Christian. Not but that all our wit should be here imployed and controversies of difficulty may be debated but when the decision of these must be put into our Creed and a man must be of the faith that the Church is of it goes hard Me thinks I could read Aquinas or Scotus or Bellarmine with profit ut Philosophiam et Theologiam liberam but when I most make them all parts of my Creed and subscribe to all they say or else be no Catholick this is hard dealing I know now we have no Spanish inquisition to fire us from the truth But as Crynâ—us was wont to say Fontifici Romano Erasmum plus nocuiss◠〈◊〉 quam Lutherum stomachando so some mens reproaches may do more then other mens persecutions And it is not the least aggravation of these mens arrogancie that they are most violent in the points that they have least studyed or which they are most ignorant in Yea and that their cruel reproaches are usually so incessant that where they once fasten they scarce â—ver loose again having learned the old lesson to be sure to accuse boldly for the scarre will remain when the wound is healed Yea some will not spare the same of the dead but when their souls have the happiness of Saints with God their names must have the stain of Heresie with men More ingenuity had Charles the Emperor when the Spanish souldiers would have digged up the bones of Luther Sinite ipsum inquit quiescere ad diem resurrectionis et judicium omnium c. Let him rest saith he till the resurrection and the final Judgment if he were a Heretick he shall have as severe a Judg as you can desire These are the extreams which poor England groaneth under And is there no remedy Besides the God of Peace there is no remedy Peace is fled from mens Principles and Judgments and therefore it is a stranger to their Affections and practises no wonder then if it be a stranger in the Land both in Church and State If either of the forementioned extreams be the way to Peace we may have it or else where is the man that seeketh after it But I remember Luthers Oracle and fear it is now to be verified Hâ—c perdent Religionem Christianam 1. Oblivio beneficiorum ab Evangelio acceptorum 2. Securitas quae jam passim ubique regnat 3. Sapientia mundi quae vult omnia redigere in ordinem impiis mediis Ecclesiae paci consulere Three things will destroy the Christian Religion First Forgetfulness of the benefits we received by the Gospel Secondly Security Thirdly The wisdom of the world which will needs reduce all into Order and look to the Churches peace by ungodly means The zeal of my spirit after Peace hath made me digress here further then I intended But the sum and scope of all my speech is this Let every conscionable Minister study equally for Peace and Truth as knowing that they dwell both together in the golden mean and not at such a distance as most Hotspurs do imagine and let them believe that they are like to see no more success of their labors then they are so studious of Peace and that all wounds will let out both blood and spirits and both Truth and Godliness is ready to run out at every breach that shall be made among the people or themselves and that the time for the Pastures of Profession to be green and for the Field of true Godliness to grow ripe for the Harvest and for the Rose of Devotion and Heavenliness to be fragrant and flourish it is not in the blustering stormy tempestuous Winter but in the calm delightful Summer of Peace O what abundance of excellent hopeful fruits of Godliness have I seen blown down before they were ripe by the impetuous windes of wars and other contentions and so have layen troden under foot by Libertinism and sensuality as meat for Swine who else might have been their Masters deligh In a word I never yet saw the Work of the Gospel
If God were not more willing of our company then we are of his how long should we remain thus distant from him And as we had never been sanctified if God had stayed till we were willing so if he should refer it wholly to our selves it would at least be long before we should be glorified I confesse that Death of it self is not desirable but the souls Rest with God is to which death is the common passage And because we are apt to make light of this sin and to plead our common nature for to patronize it let me here set before you its aggravations and also propound some further considerations which may be useful to you and my self against it SECT II. ANd first consider What a deal of gross infidelity doth lurk in the bowels of this sin Either paganish unbelief of the truth of that eternal blessedness and of the truth of the Scripture which doth promise it to us or at least a doubting of our own interest or most usually somewhat of both these And though Christians are usually most sensible of the latter and therefore complain most against it yet I am apt to suspect the former to be the main radicall master sin and of greatest force in this business O if we did but verily believe that the promise of this glory is the word of God and that God doth truly mean as he speaks and is fully resolved to make it good if we did verily believe that there is indeed such blessedness prepared for believers as the Scripture mentioneth sure we should be as impatient of living as we are now fearful of dying and should think every day a yeer till our last day should come We should as hardly refrain from laying violent hands on our selvs or from the neglecting of the means of our health and life as we do now from overmuch carefulness and seeking of life by unlawful means If the eloquent oration of a Philosopher concerning the souls immortality and the life to come could make his affected hearer presently to cast himself head long from the rock as impatient of any longer delay what would a serious Christians belief do if Gods Law against self murder did not restrain Is it possible that we can truly believe that death will remove us from misery to such glory and yet be loth to dye If it were the doubts of our own interest which did fear us yet a true belief of the certainty and excellency of this Rest would make us restless till our interest be cleared If a man that is desperately sick to day did believe he should arise sound the next morning or a man to day in despicable poverty had assurance that he should to morrow arise a prince would they be afraid to go to bed Or rather think it the longest day of their lives till that desired night and morning come The truth is though there is much faith and Christianity in our mouths yet there is much infidelity and paganisme in our hearts which is the maine cause that we are so loth to dye SECT III 3. ANd as the weakness of our Faith so also the coldness of our Love is exceedingly discovered by our unwillingness to dye Love doth desire the neerest conjunction the fullest fruition and closest communion Where these desires are absent there is only a naked pretence of Love He that ever felt such a thing as Love working in his brest hath also felt these desires attending it If we love our friend we love his company his presence is comfortable his absence is troublesome when he goes from us we desire his return when he comes to us we entertain him with welcome and gladness when he dyes we mourn and usually over-mourn to be separated from a faithful friend is to us as the renting of a member from our bodyes And would not our desires after God be such if we really loved him Nay should it not be much more then such as he is above all friends most lovely The Lord teach us to look closely to our hearts and take heed of self-deceit in this point For certainly what ever we pretend or conceit if we love either Father Mother Husband Wife Childe Friend Wealth or life more then Christ we are yet none of his sincere Disciples When it comes to the tryall the question will not be Who hath preached most or heard most or talked most but who hath loved most when our account is given in Christ will not take Sermons Prayers Fastings no nor the giving of our goods nor the burning of our bodies in stead of love 1 Cor. 13.1 2 3 4 8 13. 16.22 Ephes. 6.24 And do we love him and yet care not how long we are from him If I be deprived of my bosom friend me thinks I am as a man in a wilderness solitary and disconsolate And is my absence from God no part of my trouble and yet can I take him for my chiefest friend If I delight but in some Garden or Walk or Gallery I would be much in it If I love my Books I am much with them and almost unweariedly poaring on them The food which I love I would often feed on the clothes that I love I would often wear the recreations which I love I would often use them the business which I love I would be much employed in And can I love God and that above all these and yet have no desires to be with him Is it not a far likelier sign of hatred then of love when the thoughts of our appearing before God are our most grievous thoughts and when we take our selves as undone because we must die and come unto him Surely I should scarce take him for an unfeigned friend who were as well contented to be absent from me as we ordinarily are to be absent from God Was it such a joy to Jacob to see the face of Joseph in Egypt and shall we so dread the sight of Christ in glory and yet say we love him I dare not conclude that we have no love at all when we are so loth to die But I dare say were our love more we should die more willingly Yea I dare say Did we love God but as strongly as a worldling loves his wealth or an ambitious man his honor or a voluptuous man his pleasure yea as a drunkard loves his swinish delight or an unclean person his bruitish lust We should not then be so exceeding loth to leave the world and go to God O if this holy flame of love were throughly kindled in our brests in stead of our pressing fears our dolorous complaints and earnest prayers against death we should joyn in Davids Wilderness-lamentations Psal. 42.1 2. As the Hart panteth after the water-brooks so panteth my soul after thee O God My soul thirsteth for God for the living God when shall I come and appear before God The truth is As our knowledg of God is exceeding
tell me what difference between this fools expressions and thy affections I doubt not but thou hast more wit then to speak thy minde just in his language but man remember thou hast to do with the searcher of hearts It may be thou holdst on in thy course of duty and prayest as oft as thou didst before it may be thou keepest in with good Ministers and with godly men and seemest as forward in Religion as ever But what is all this to the purpose Mock not thy soul man for God will not so be mocked What good may yet remain in thee I know not but sure I am thy course is dangerous and if thou follow it on will end in dolor Methinks I see thee befooling thy self and tearing thy hair and gnashing thy teeth when thou hearest thy case laid open by God Thou fool this night shall they require thy soul from thee and then whose are all these things Certainly so much as thou delightest and restest on Earth so much is abated of thy delights in God Thine earthly minde may consist with thy profession and common duties but it cannot consist with this Heavenly duty I need not tell thee all this if thou wouldst deal impartially and not be a traitor to thy own soul thou knowest thy self how seldom and cold how cursory and strange thy thoughts have been of the joyes hereafter ever since thou didst trade so eagerly for the world Methinks I even perceive thy conscience stir now and tell thee plainly that this is thy case hear it man O hear it now least thou hear it in another maner when thou wouldest be full loth O the cursed madness of many that seem to be religious who thrust themselves into multitude of employments and think they can never have business enough till they are loaded with labors and clogged with cares That their souls are as unfit to converse with God as a man to walk with a mountain on his back and till he hath even transformed his soul almost into the nature of his drossie carkass and made it as unapt to soare aloft as his body is to leap above the Sun And when all is done and they have lost that Heaven they might have had upon Earth they rake up a few rotten arguments to prove it lawful and then they think that they have salved all though these sots would not do so for their bodies nor forbear their eating or drinking or sleeping or sporting though they could prove it lawful so to do though indeed they cannot prove it lawful neither They miss not the pleasures of this Heavenly Life if they can but quiet their Consciences while they fasten upon lower and baser pleasures For thee O Christian who hast tasted of these pleasures I advise thee as thou valuest their enjoyment as ever thou wouldst taste of them any more take heed of this gulf of An earthly minde For if once thou come to this that thou wilt be rich thou fallest into temptation and a snare and into divers foolish and hurtful lusts it is Saint Pauls own words 1 Tim 6.9 Set not thy minde as Saul on the Asses when the Kingdom of Glory is before thee Keep these things as thy upper Garments still loose about thee that thou maist lay them by when ever there is cause But let God and Glory be next thy heart yea as the very blood and spirits by which thou livest Still remember that of the Spirit The friendship of the World is enmity with God Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the World is the enemy of God Jam. 4.4 And 1 John 2.15 Love not the world nor the things in the world If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him This is plain dealing and happy he that faithfully receives it SECT III. 3. A Third hinderance which I must advise thee to beware is The company of ungodly and sensual men Not that I would disswade thee from necessary converse or from doing them any office of Love especially not from endeavouring the good of their souls as long as thou hast any opportunity or hope Nor would I have thee conclude them to be Dogs and Swine that so thou maist evade the duty of Reproof Nor yet to judg them such at all as long as there is any hope of better or before thou art certain they are such indeed much less can I approve of the practice of those who because the most of the world are naught do therefore conclude men Dogs or Swine before ever they faithfully and lovingly did admonish them yea or perhaps before they have known them or spoke with them and hereupon they will not communicate with them in the Lords Supper but separate from them into distinct Congregations I perswade thee to no such ungodly separation As I never found one word in Scripture where either Christ or his Apostles denied admittance to any man that desired to be a Member of the Church though but onely prosessing to Repent and Believe so neither did I ever there finde that any but convicted Hereticks or scandalous ones and that for the most part after due admonition were to be avoided or debarred our fellowship And whereas it is urged That they are to prove their interest to the priviledges which they lay claim to and not we to disprove it I Answer if that were granted yet their meer professing to Repent and Believe in Christ is a sufficient evidence of their interest to Church member-ship and admittance thereto by Baptism supposing them not admitted before and their being Baptized persons or members of the universal visible Church into which it is that they are Baptized is sufficient evidence of their interest to the Supper till they do by Heresie or Scandal blot that Evidence which Evidence if they do produce yea though they are yet weak in the Faith of Christ who is he that dare refuse to receive them And this after much doubting dispute and study of the Scriptures I speak as confidently as almost any truth of equal moment So plain is the Scripture in this point to a man that brings his Understanding to the model of Scripture and doth not bring a model in his brain and reduce all he reades to that model The door of the visible Church is incomparably wider then the door of heaven and Christ is so tender so bountiful and forward to convey his grace and the Gospel so free an offer and invitation to all that surely Christ will keep no man off if they will come quite over in spirit to Christ they shall be welcome If they will come but onely to a visible Profession he will not deny them admittance there because they intend to go no further but will let them come as neer as they will and that they come no further shall be their own fault and so it is not his readiness to admit such nor the openness of the door of his visible Church
abuse their bodies and neglect their health did wrong the flesh onely the matter were small but they wrong the soul also As he that spoils the house doth wrong the inhabitant When the body is sick and the spirits do languish how heavily move we in these Meditations and Joyes Yet where God denieth this mercy we may the better bear it because he oft occasioneth our benefit by the denial CHAP. VI. Containing the Description of the great Duty of Heavenly Contemplation SECT I. THough I hope what is already spoken be not unuseful and that it will not by the Reader be cast aside yet I must tell you that the main thing intended is yet behinde and that which I aimed at when I set upon this Work I have observed the Maxime that my principal end be last in execution though it was first in my intention All that I have said is but for the preparation to this The Doctrinal part is but to instruct you for this the rest of the Uses are but introductions to this The Motives I have laid down are but to make you willing for this The Hinderances I mentioned were but so many blocks in the way to this The general Helps which I last delivered are but the necessary Attendants of this So that Reader If thou neglect this that follows thou dost frustrate the main end of my design and makest me lose as to thee the chief of my labor I once more intreat thee therefore as thou art a man that makest conscience of a revealed duty and that darest not wilfully resist the Spirit as thou valuest the high delights of a Saint and the soul ravishing exercise of heavenly Contemplation as all my former moving Considerations seem reasonable to thee and as thou art faithful to the peace and prosperity of thine own soul that thou diligently study these Directions following and that thou speedily and faithfully put them into practice Practice is the end of all sound Doctrine and all right Faith doth end in duty I pray thee therefore rosolve before thou readest any further and 〈…〉 here as before the Lord that if the following Advice be wholsome to thy soul thou wilt conscionably follow it and seriously set thy self to the Work and that no laziness of spirit shall take thee off nor lesser business interrupt thy course but that thou wilt approve thy self a Doer of this Word and not an idle hearer onely Is this thy promise and wilt thou stand to it Resolve man and then I shall be encouraged to give thee my Advice if I spread not before thee a delicious feast if I set thee not upon as gainful a trade and put not into thy hand as delightful an imployment as ever thou dealt'st with in all thy life then cast it away and tell me I have deceived thee onely try it throughly and then judg I say again if in the faithful following of this prescribed course thou dost not finde an increase of all thy graces and dost not grow beyond the stature of common Christians and art not made more serviceable in thy place and more pretious in the eyes of all that are discerning if thy soul enjoy not more fellowship with God and thy life be not fuller of pleasure and solace and thou have not comfort readier by thee at a dying hour when thou hast greatest need then throw these Directions back in my face and exclaim against me as a deceiver for ever Except God should leave thee uncomfortable for a little season for the more glorious manifestation of his Attributes and thy integrity and single thee out as he did Job for an example and mirror of constancy and patience which would be but a preparative for thy fuller comfort Certainly God will not forsake this his own Ordinance thus conscionably performed but will be found of those that thus diligently seek him God hath as it were appointed to meet thee in this way Do not thou fail to give him the meeting and thou shalt finde by experience that he will not fail SECT II. THe duty which I press upon thee so earnestly I shall now deâ—scribe and open to thee for I suppose by this time thou art ready to enquire What is this so highly extolled work Why it is The set and solemn acting of all the powers of thy soul upon this most perfect object Rest by Meditation I will a little more fully explain the meaning of this description that so the duty may lye plaine before thee 1. The general title that I give to this duty is Meditation Not as it is precisely distinguished from Cogitation Consideration and Contemplation but as it is taken in the larger and usual sense for Cogitation on things spiritual and so comprehending consideration and contemplation That Meditation is a duty of Gods ordaining not only in his written Law but also in nature it self I never met with the man that would deny But that it is a duty constantly and conscionably practised even by the godly so far as my acquaintance extends I must with sorrow deny it It is in word confessed to be a Duty by all but by the constant neglect denyed by most And I know not by what fatal customary security it comes to passe that men that are very tender conscienc't towards most other duties yet do as easily overslip this as if they knew it not to be a duty at all They that are presently troubled in minde if they omit but a Sermon a Fast a Prayer in publique or private yet were never troubled that they have omitted Meditation perhaps all their life time to this very day Though it be that duty by which all other duties are improved and by which the soul digesteth Truths and draweth forth their strength for its nourishment and refreshing Certainly I think that as a man is but half an hour in chewing and taking into his stomack that meat which he must have seven or eight hours at least to digest so a man may take into his understanding and memory more Truth in one hour then he is able well to digest in many A man may eat too much but he cannot digest too well Therefore God commandeth Joshua That the book of the Law depart not out of his mouth but that he Meditate therein day and night that he may observe to do according to that which is written therein Josh. 1.8 As Digestion is the turning of the raw food into chyle and blood and spirits and flesh So Meditation rightly mannaged turneth the Truths received and remembred into warm affection raised resolution and holy and upright conversation Therefore what good those men are like to get by Sermons or providences who are unacquainted with and unaccustomed to this work of Meditation you may easily judge And why so much preaching is lost among us and professors can run from Sermon to Sermon and are never weary of hearing or reading and yet have such languishing starved souls I know
no truer nor greater cause then their ignorance and unconscionable neglect of Meditation If a man have the Lientery that his meat pass from him as he took it in or if he vomit it up as fast as he eates it what strength and vigor of body and senses is this man like to have Indeed he may well eat more then a sounder man and the small abode that it makes in the stomack may refresh it at the present and help to draw it out a lingering languishing uncomfortable unprofitable life And so do our hearers that have this disease perhaps they hear more then otherwise they needed and the clear discovery and lively delivery of the Truth of God may warm and refresh them a little while they are hearing and perhaps an hour or two after and it may be it may linger out their Grace in a languishing uncomfortable unprofitable life But if they did hear one hour and meditate seven if they did as constantly digest their Sermons as they hear them and not take in one Sermon before the former is well concocted they would finde another kinde of benefit by Sermons then the ordinary sort of the forwardest Christians do I know many carnal persons do make this an Argument against frequent preaching and hearing who do it meerly from a lothing of the word and know far less how to Meditate then they know how understandingly to hear Only they pretend Meditation against often hearing because that beeing a duty of the minde you cannot so easily discern their omission of it These are sick of the Anorexia and Apepsy they have neither appetite nor digeston the other of the Boulimos they have appetite but no digestion SECT III. 2. BUt because Meditation is a general word and it is not all Meditation that I hear intend I shall therefore lay thee down the difference whereby this Meditation that I am urging thee to is discerned from all other sorts of Meditation And the difference is taken from the Act and from the object of it 1. From the Act which I call The set and solemn acting of all the powers of the soul. 1. I call it the Acting of them for it is Action that we are directing you in now and not relations or dispositions yet these also are necessarily presupposed It must be a soul that is qualified for the work by the supernatural renewing grace of the spirit which must be able to perform this Heavenly exercise It s the work of the Living and not of the dead It s a work of all others most spiritual and sublime and therefore not to be well performed by a heart that 's meerly carnal and terrene Also they must necessarily have some relation to heaven before they can familiarly there converse I suppose them to be the sons of God when â— perswade them to love him and to be of the family of God yeâ— the spouse of his Son when I perswade them to press into his presence and to dwell with him I suppose them to be such as have title to Rest when I perswade them to rejoyce in the Meditation of Rest. These therefore being all presupposed are not the duty here intended and required But it is the bringing of their sanctified dispositions into Act and the delightful reveiwing of theiâ— high relations Habits and Powers are but to enable us to Action To say I am able to do this or I am disposed to do it doth neiâ—ther please God nor advantage our selves except withal we really do it God doth not regenerate thy soul that it may be able to know him and not know him or that it may be able to believe and yet not believe or that it may be able to love him and yet not love him But he therefore makes thee able to know to believe and love that thou mayest indeed both know believe and love him What good doth that power which is not reduced into Act Therefore I am not now exhorting thee to be an able Christian but to be an Active Christian according to the degree of that ability which thou hast As thy store of money or food oâ— rayment which thou lettest lye by thee and never usest doth theâ— no good but to please thy fancy or raise thee to an esteem in the eyes of others so all thy gifts and powers and habits which lye still in thy soul and are never Acted do profit or comfort thee little or nothing but in satisfying thy fancy and raising thee to the repute of an able man so far as they are discernable to the standers by SECT IV. 1. I Call this Meditation The acting of the powers of the Soul meaning the soul as Rational to difference it from the cogitations of the soul as Sensitive the Sensitive soul hath a kinde of Meditation by the common sense the Phantasie and Estimation The fleshly man mindeth the things of the flesh If it were the work of the Ear or the Eye or the Tongue or the Hands which I am setting you on I doubt not but you would more readily take it up but it is the work of the soul for bodily exercise doth here profit but little The soul hath its labor and its ease its business and its idleness its intention and remission as well as the body And diligent students are usually as sensible of the labor and weaâ—â—ness of their spirits and brain as they are of that of the members of the body This action of the soul is it I perswade thee to SECT V. 3. I Call it the acting of All the powers of the soul To difference it from the common Meditation of Students which is usually the meer imployment of the Brain It is not a bare thinking that I mean nor the meer use of Invention or Memory but a business of a higher and more excellent nature when Truth is apprehended only as Truth this is but an unsavory and loose apprehension but when it is apprehended as Good as well as True this is a fast and delightful apprehending As a man is not so prone to live according to the Truth he knows except it do deeply affect him so neither doth his soul enjoy its sweetness except Speculation do pass to Affection The Understanding is not the whole soul and therefore cannot do the whole work As God hath made several parts in man to perform their several Offices for his nourishing and life so hath he ordained the faculties of the soul to perform their several Offices for his spiritual life the Stomack must chy lisy and prepare for the Liver the Liver and Spleen must sanguify and prepare for the Heart and Brain and these must beget the vital and animal spirits c. so the Understanding must take in Truths and prepare them for the Will and it must receive them and commend them to the Affections The best digestion is in the bottome of the Stomack the Affections are as it were the bottome of the soul and
or the frequency of the understandings apprehensions this Truth doth make a deeper impression so is longer retained which impâ—â—ssion and retention we call memory And as truth is thus variously presented to the understanding and received by it so also is the goodness of the object variously represented to the will which doth accordingly put forth its various acts When it appeareth only as good in it self and not good for us or suitable it is not the object of the will at all but only this Enuntiation It is good is passed upon it by the Judgment and withal it raiseth an admiration at its excellency If it appeare evil to us then we Nill it But if it appear both good in it self and to us or suitable then it provoketh the affection of Love If the good thus loved do appear as absent from us then it exciteth the passion of Desire If the good so Loved and Desired do appear possible and feasible in the attaining then it exciteth the passion of Hope which is a compound of Desire and Expectation when we look upon it as requiring our endeavor to attain it and as it is to be had in a prescribed way then it provokes the passion of courage or boldness and concludes in resolution Lastly if this good be apprehended as present then it provoketh to delight or Joy If the thing it self be present the Joy is greatest If but the Idea of it either through the remainder or memory of the good that is past or through the fore-apprehension of that which we expect yet even this also exciteth our Joy And this Joy is the perfection of all the rest SECT II. SO that by this time I suppose you see both what are the objects that must move our affections and what powers of the soul apprehend these objects you see also I doubt not what affections you must excite and in what order it is to be done Yet for your better assistance I will more fully direct you in the several particulars 1. Then you must by cogitation go to the memory which is the Magazine or Treasury of the understanding thence you must take forth those heavenly doctrines which you intend to make the subject of your Meditation for the present purpose you may look over any promise of eternal life in the Gospel any description of the glory of the Saints or the very Articles of the Resurrection of the body and the Life everlasting some one sentence concerning those Eternal Joyes may afford you matter for many yeers Meditation yet it will be a point of our wisdom here to have always a stock of matter in our memory that so when we should use it we may bring forth out of our treasury things new and old For a good man hath a good Treasury in his heart from whence he bringeth forth good things Luke 6.45 and out of this abundance of his heart he should speak to himself as well as to others Yea if we took things in order and observed some Method in respect of the matter and did Meditate first on one Truth concerning Eternity and then another it would not be amiss And if any should be barren of Matter through weakness of memory they may have notes or books of this subject for their furtherance SECT III. 2. WHen you have fetcht from your memory the matter of your Meditation your next work is to present it to your Judgment open there the case as fully as thou canst set forth the several ornaments of the Crown the several dignities belonging to the Kingdom as they are partly laid open in the beginning of this Book Let judgment deliberately view them over and take as exact a survey as it can Then put the question and require a determination Is there happiness in all this or not Is not here enough to make me blessed Can he want any thing who fully possesseth God Is there any thing higher for a creature to attain Thus urge thy judgment to pass an upright sentence and compel it to subscribe to the perfection of thy Celestial happiness and to leave this sentence as under its hand upon Record If thy senses should here begin to mutter and to put in a word for fleshly pleasure or profits let judgment hear what each can say weigh the Arguments of the world and flesh in one end and the Arguments for the preheminence of Glory in the other end and judg impartially which should be preferred Try whether there be any comparison to be made which is more excellent which more manly which is more satisfactory and which more pure which freeth most from misery and advanceth us highest and which dost thou think is of longer continuance Thus let deliberate judgment decide it and let not Flesh carry it by noise and by violence And when the sentence is passed and recorded in thy heart it will be ready at hand to be produced upon any occasion and to silence the flesh in its next attempt and to disgrace the world in its next competition Thus exercise thy Judgment in the contemplation of thy Rest thus Magnifie and Advance the Lord in thy heart till a holy admiration hath possessed thy Soul SECT IV. 3. BUt the great work which you may either promise or subjoyn to this as you please is To exercise thy belief of the truth of thy Rest And that both in respect of the truth of the Promise and also the truth of thy own Interest and Title As unbelief doth cause the languishing of all our Graces so Faith would do much to revive and actuate them if it were but revived and actuated it self Especially our belief of the verity of the Scripture I conceive as needful to be exercised and confirmed as almost any point of Faith But of this I have spoken in the Second Part of this Book whither I refer thee for some confirming Arguments Though few complain of their not believing Scripture yet I conceive it to be the commonest part of unbelief and the very root of bitterness which spoileth our Graces Perhaps thou hast not a positive belief of the contrary nor dost not flatly think that Scripture is not the Word of God that were to be a down-right Infidel indeed And yet thou maist have but little belief that Scripture is Gods Word and that both in regard of the habit and the act It s one thing not to beleeve Scripture to be true and another thing positively to beleeve it to be false Faith may be idle and suspend its exercise toward the Truth though it do not yet act against the Truth It may stand still when it goes not out of the way it may be asleep and do you little service though it do not directly fight against you Besides a great deal of unbelief may consist with a small degree of Faith If we did soundly beleeve That there is such a Glory that within a few days our eyes shall behold it O what passions would it
raise within us Were we throughly perswaded That every Word in the Scripture concerning the unconceivable joyes of the Kingdom and the unexpressible Blessedness of the life to come were the very Word of the Living God and should certainly be performed to the smallest tittle O what astonishing apprehensions of that life would it breed what amazing horror would seize upon our hearts when we found our selves strangers to the conditions of that life and utterly ignorant of our portion therein what love what longings would it raise within us O how it would actuate every affection how it would transport us with joy upon the least assurance of our title If I were as verily perswaded that I shall shortly see those great things of Eternity promised in the Word as I am that this is a chair that I sit in or that this is paper that I write on would it not put another Spirit within me would it not make me forget and despise the world and even forget to sleep or to eat And say as Christ I have meat to eat that ye know not of O Sirs you little know what a through belief would work Not that every one hath such affections who hath a true Faith But thus would the acting and improvement of our Faith advance us Therefore let this be a chief part of thy business in Meditation Produce the strong Arguments for the Truth of Scripture plead them against thy unbelieving nature answer and silence all the cavils of infidelity Read over the Promises study all confirming Providences call forth thine own recorded experiences Remember the Scriptures already fulfilled both to the Church and Saints in former ages and eminently to both in this present age and those that have been fulfilled particularly to thee Get ready the clearest and most convincing Arguments and keep them by thee and frequently thus use them Think it not enough that thou wast once convinced though thou hast now forgot the Arguments that did it no nor that thou hast the Arguments still in thy Book or in thy Brain This is not the acting of thy Faith but present them to thy understanding in thy frequent meditations and urge them home till they force belief Actual convincing when it is clear and frequent will work those deep impressions on the heart which an old neglected forgotten conviction will not O if you would not think it enough that you have Faith in the habit and that you did once beleeve but would be daily setting this first wheel a going Surely all the inferior wheels of the Affections would more easily move Never expect to have Love and Joy move when the foregoing Grace of Faith stands still And as you should thus act your assent to the Promise so also your Acceptation your Adherence your Affiance and your Assurance These are the four steps of Application of the Promise to our selves I have said somewhat among the Helps to move you to get Assurance But that which I here aim at is That you would daily exercise it Set before your Faith the Freeness and the Universality of the Promise Consider of Gods offer and urging it upon all and that he hath excepted from the conditional Covenant no man in the world nor will exclude any from Heaven who will accept of his offer Study also the gracious disposition of Christ and his readiness to entertain and welcome all that will come Study all the Evidences of his love which appeared in his sufferings in his preaching the Gospel in his condescention to sinners in his easie conditions in his exceeding patience and in his urgent invitations Do not all these discover his readiness to save did he ever yet manifest himself unwilling remember also his faithfulness to perform his engagements Study also the Evidences of his Love in thy self look over the works of his Grace in thy soul If thou do not finde the degree which thou desirest yet deny not that degree which thou findest look after the sincerity more then the quantity Remember what discoveries of thy state thou hast made formerly in the work of self-examination how oft God hath convinced thee of the sincerity of thy heart Remember all the sonner testimonies of the Spirit and all the sweet feelings of the favor of God and all the prayers that he hath heard and granted and all the rare preservations and deliverances and all the progress of his Spirit in his workings on thy soul and the disposals of providence conducing to thy good The vouchsafing of means the directing thee to them the directing of Ministers to meet with thy state the restraint of those sins that thy nature was most prone to And though one of these considered alone may be no sure evidence of his special love which I expect thou shouldst try by more infallible signes yet lay them altogether and then think with thy self Whether all these do not testifie the good will of the Lord concerning thy salvation and may not well be pleaded against thine unbelief And whether thou maist not conclude with Sampsons Mother when her husband thought they should surely die If the Lord were pleased to kill us he would not have received an offering at our hands neither would he have shewed us all these things nor would as at this time have told us such things as these Judg. 13.22 23. SECT V. â— WHen thy Meditation hath thus proceeded about the truth of thy Happiness the next part of the work is to meditate of its Goodness That when the Judgment hath determined and Faith hath apprehended it may then past on to raise the Affections 1. The first Affection to be acted is Love the object of it as I have told you is Goodness Here then here Christian is the Soul reviving part of thy work Go to thy Memory thy Judgment and thy Faith and from them produce the excellencies of thy Rest take out a copy of the Record of the Spirit in Scripture and another of the sentence registred in thy Spirit whereby the â—â—anscendent glory of the Saints is declared Present these to thy affection of Love open to it the Cabinet that contains the Pearl shew it the Promise and that which it assureth Thou needest not look on Heaven through a multiplying Glass open but one Casement that Love may look in Give it but a glimpse of the back parts of God and thou wilt finde thy self presently in another world Do but speak out and Love can hear do but reveal these things and Love can see It s the bruitish love of the world that is blinde Divine love is exceeding quick sighted Let thy Faith as it were take thy heart by the hand and shew it the sumptuous buildings of thy Eternal Habitation and the Glorious Ornaments of thy Fathers house shew it those Mansions which Christ is preparing and display before it the Honors of the Kingdom Let Faith lead thy heart into the presence of God and draw as neer as possibly thou
for thy disobedience Wretched unbelieving heart Tell a fool or tell a Tyrant or tell some false and flattering man of drawing their subjects by false promises and procuring obedience by deceitful means But do thou not dare to charge the Wise Almighty Faithful God with this Above all men it beseems not thee to doubt either of this Scripture being his infallible Word or of the performance of this Word to thy self Hath not Argument convinced thee may not thy own experience utterly silence thee How oft hath this Scripture been verified for thy good how many of the promises have been performed to thee hath it not quickened thee and converted thee hast not thou felt in it something more then humane would God perform anothers promise or would he so powerfully concur with a feigned word If thou hadst seen the miracles that Christ and his Apostles wrought thou wouldst never sure have questioned the truth of their doctrine why they delivered it down by such undoubted testimony that it may be called Divine as well as Humane Nay hast thou not seen its Prophecies fulfilled hast thou not lived in an age wherein such wonders have been wrought that thou hast now no cloak for thy unbelief hast thou not seen the course of Nature changed and works beyond the power of nature wrought and all this in the fulfilling of this Scripture hast thou so soon forgotten since nature failed me and strength failed me and blood and spirits and flesh and friends and all means did utterly fail and how Art and Reason had sentenced me for dead and yet how God revoked the sentence and at the request of praying believing Saints did turn thee to the Promise which he verified to thee And canst thou yet question the truth of this Scripture hast thou seen so much to confirm thy faith in the great actions of seven yeers past and canst thou yet doubt Thou hast seen signes and wonders and art thou yet so unbelieving O wretched heart Hath God made thee a promise of Rest and wilt thou come short of it and shut out thy self through unbelief Thine eyes may fail thee thy ears deceive thee and all thy senses prove delusions sooner then a promise of God can delude thee Thou maist be surer of that which is written in the Word then if thou see it with thine eyes or feel it with thy hands Art thou sure thou livest or sure that this is Earth which thou standest on art thou sure thine eyes do see the Sun As sure is all this glory to the Saints as sure shall I be higher then yonder stars and live for ever in the Holy City and joyfully sound forth the praise of my Redeemer if I be not shut out by this evil heart of unbelief causing me to depart from the living God And is this Rest so sweet and so sure O then what means the careless world Do they know what it is they so neglect did they ever hear of it or are they yet asleep or are they dead Do they know for certain that the Crown 's before them while they thus sit still or follow trifles undoubtedly they are quite beside themselves to minde so much their provision in the way and strive and care and labor for trifles when they are hasting so fast to another world and their eternal happiness lies at stake Were there left one spark of VVit or Reason they would never sell their Rest for toil nor sell their Glory for worldly vanities nor venture Heaven for the pleasure of a sin Ah poor men That you would once consider what you hazard and then you would scorn these tempting baits O blessed for ever be that love that hath rescued me from this mad bewitching darkness Draw neerer yet then O my soul bring forth thy strongest burning Love here 's matter for it to work upon here 's something truly worth thy loving O see what beauty presents it self Is it not exceeding lovely is not all the beauty in the world contracted here is not all other beauty deformity to it Dost thou need to be perswaded now to love Here 's a feast for thine eyes a feast for all the powers of thy soul dost thou need to be intreated to feed upon it Canst thou love a little shining Earth canst thou love a walking piece of clay and canst thou not love that God that Christ that Glory which is so truly and unmeasurably lovely Thou canst love thy friend because he loves thee And is the love of thy friend like the love of Christ Their weeping or bleeding for thee doth not ease thee nor stay the course of thy tears or blood But the tears and blood that fell from thy Lord have all a soveraign healing vertue and are waters of Life and Balsam to thy faintings and thy sores O my soul If love deserve and should procure love what incomprehensible love is here before thee Pour out all the store of thy affections here and all is too little O that it were more O that it were many thousand times more Let him be first served that served thee first let him have the first born and strength of thy love who parted with strength and life in love to thee If thou hast any to spare when he hath his part let it be imparted then to standers-by See what a Sea of love is here before thee cast thy self in and swim with the arms of thy love in this Ocean of his love Fear not least thou shouldst be drowned or confirmed in it Though it seem as the scalding furnace of lead yet thou will finde it but mollifying oyle Though it seeme a furnace of fire and the hottest that ever was kindled upon earth yet is it the fire of love and not of wrath a fire most effectual to extinguish fire never intended to consume but to glorifie thee venture into it then in thy believing meditations and walk in these flames with the Son of God when thou art once in thou wilt be sorry to come forth again O my soul what wantest thou here to provoke thy love Dost thou love for excellency why thou seest nothing below but baseness except as they relate to thy enjoyments above Yonder is the Goshen the region of light this is a Land of palpable darkness Yonder twinkling Stars that shining moon the radiant Sun are all but as the Lanthorns hanged out at thy fathers house to light thee while thou walkest in the dark streets of the earth But little dost thou know ah little indeed the glory and blessed mirth that is within Dost thou love for suitableness why what person more suitable then Christ his Godhead his manhood his fulness his freeness his willingness his constancy do all proclaime him thy most suitable friend What state more suitable to thy misery then that of mercy or to thy sinfulness and baseness then that of honor and perfection What place more suitable to thee then heaven Thou hast had a sufficient
may please God in some respect secundum quid as Ahabs Humiliation A flat necessity both of coming to God as the End or our chief Good and to Christ as the way to the Father * Viz. As it is put for all obedience to the Commands proper to the Gospel Which part of this turning goes first The terminus a quo considerable before the terminus ad quâ—m in order of nature Object Answ. § 5. As the Will turns from evil so at the same time to God and the Mediator 1 To the Godhead in order of Nature 2 To the Mediator as the way which is by Faith John 14.6 Acts 20.21 5.31 11.18 26.20 What justifying Faith is It s proper Act is the Acceptation of Christ offered * So Doctor Prestons judgment is and Master Woollis against the Lord Brook p. 94. It is an Accepting of Christ offered rather then the belief of a Proposition affirmed So that excellent Philosopher and Divine Love to Christ whether it be not Essential to justifying Faith See more of this in the Positions of Justification Love to Christ must be the strongest Love Luke 14.26 Doctor Sibbs Souls Conflict Justifying Faith is the Accepting Christ both for Saviour and Lord. So that our Subjection to Christ as our Lord is part of that Faith which justifieth How this differs from the abhorred doctrine of the Socinians you may see in the Aphorisms of Justification What Christ doth for us upon our Acceptance Covenanting with Christ is an essential part of our actual Conversion and of our Christianity Next Christ delivereth himself to the sinner and he delivereth himself up to Christ. Lastly The believer persevereth in this Covenant and all the forementioned grounds of it to the death Heb. 10.29 Matth. 24.13 Revel 2.26 27. 3.11 12. John 15.4 5 6. 8.31 15.9 Col. â— 23 Rom. 11.22 § 6. The Application of this Description by way of Examination Whether thy Infant Baptism will serve or no I am sure thy Infant Covenant will not now serve thy turne But thou must Actually enter Covenant in thy own person John 15.4 5 6. Matth 24.13 Heb. 10.38 39. * I speak not this to the dark and clouded Christian who cannot discern â—hat which is indeed within him Deut. 32.29 § 7. Why called People of God 1 By Election 2 Special Redemption 3 Likeness to him 1 Pet. 1.16 4 Mutual Love 5 Mutual Covenanting 6 Neer Relations 7 Future Cohabitation ☜ §. 1. Confirmation from other Scriptures The Truth confirmed from other Scriptures 1 Affirming the Saints to have been predestinate to this glory Isa. 14.24 2 That it is procured for them by the blood of Christ. Paul Hobson * I confesse the later is the more proper expression and oftner used in the Scriptures Exod. 23.22 Psal. 11.5 Psal. 5.5 Isa. 63.10 Lam. 2.5 Paul Hobson Iâ—a 53.11 § 3. 3 It is promised to them § 4. 4 The means and motions towards it do prove that there is such an end * Mr. Burroughs thinks this is meant of the violence of persecution but Lukes phrase coâ—â—uteth that § 5. 5 So do the beginnings fâ—â—â—tasts earnests and seals 2 Cor. 1.22 5.5 §. 6. 6 Some have entered it already § 1. ☜ a I mean not an absolute necessity as if what is said were not convincing b I believe Mr. Eliot in New England will have more comfort in his work for those Indians then we in England in our controversies and contentions about inferiour things c By Testimony I mean not the cure of the understandings disability for that 's necessary either by common grace to work a common Faith or by speciall grace for speciall Faith Doct. Presion on Attributes pag. 57. d I mean it is now to us the onely ordinary sufficient means of revealing Christ. Religio 〈◊〉 Chiâ—â—â—â— pâ—r Apostâ—los tradiâ—a Scripta est super scripta Prophetarum Apostolorum fundata Dr. Sutlive Contra Bellarm. de Monach pag. 11. See Dr Jackson of Saving Faith Sect. 2. cap. 2. pag. 143. c. See this more fully in Dr. Preston on the Attributes pag. 61 62 63 64. Yet we acknowledg it belongs to the Church first To be a Witness and Keeper of the Scriptures secondly To judg and discern betwixt Scriptures which are true and genuine and which are false and supposititious or Apocryphal thirdly To divulge and preach the Scriptures fourthly To expound and interpret them Dr. Whitaker De Sacra scriptura Q. 3. contr 1. cap. 2. pag. 203 204. * I would fain know of any Papist why their Church believes the Scripture to be the Word of God If the Laiety must believe it upon the authority of the Church and this Church be the Pope and his Clergy then it followeth that the Pope and Clergy believe it on their Authority As Paraeus in Thâ—mat Seculari xv Et quia Papa solus vel cum praelatis est Ecclesia ideo Papa praelati Scripturis credunt propler seipsos lâ—icos voluit crâ—dere Scripturis propter Papam praelatos a Sicut in Poloniá ubi non solum preces recitant â—ala criminosa contra Christianos corum magistratus continentes sedetiam aâ—dacter sâ—â—e on â—â— christianorum metu imprimunt quaecunque volunt ut testatur Buxtorsius Synagogae Judaicae c. 5 p 170. 1 Pet. 3.15 b As Graserus when he saw his legs begin to swell with a Dropsie said Euge Deo sit laus gloria quod jam mea instet liberatio horula gratissima Melch. Adam in vita Graseri § 2. Impias argumentationes si ratio refutare non possit fides irridere debet quae ratiocinationes evertit in captivitatem redigit omnem intellectum in Christi obsequium August * Though 〈◊〉 extend 〈…〉 far as 〈…〉 a Sequor te non quâ— duâ—is sed quo trahis inquit Scaliger ad Câ—rdanum in Exercit * He that doubts of this let him see Dr. Jackson of Saving Faith pag. 146.147 And Mr Pinkes Sermons of the Sincerity of Love to Christ * Articulus 6. fidei Judaicae sic se habet Credo perfectâ fide quod omne quodcunque prophetae docuerunt locuti fuerunt veritas sincera sit Oâ—tvus autem sic Credo perfecta fide quod lex tota perinde ut ea bodierno tempore in manibus nostris est it a per Deum ipsummet Mosi tradita sit vid. Buxtorf Synagogae Judaicae cap. 1. pag. 4.5 § 1. § 2. The word Foundation being a Metaphor is to be banished dispute till first explained a Ad benè esse fidei perfectionem b Necessitate praecepti * Primario propter se Secundario propter aliud A facto ad jus ad licitum vel debitum non valet Argum. As Peter Gal. 2.11 12.13 § 1. 2 Tim. 3.16 * Donum Miraculorum linguarum dandarum fuisse extraordinarium et a solis Apostolis peculiari privelegio dato a Christo
attamen ex cis confirmari possumus credâ—re Pet. Martyr Loci Commun cap. 8 pag. 38. vid. plura ibidem f Non per alios dispositionem salutis nostrae cognovimus quam perâ— eos per quos Evangelium pervenit ad nos quod quidem tunc preconiavêrunt postea verò per Dei voluntatem in Scripturis nobis tradiderunt fundamentum columnam fidei nostrae futurum Irenaeus adver haeres l. 3. c. 1. * Aquin. summ 3. q. 55. 2. c. §. 5. What the sin against the Holy Ghost is * How Hunnius was assaulted with this temptation that he had sinned against the holy Ghost you may read in his life and death And it is stil a common temptation Matth. 12.24 c. Mar 3.28 Joh 5.39 33. 45 46 47. Joh. 15 22.24 a Act 3.17 b 1 Cor. 2.8 * Nunc non ut olim sunt necessaria miracula priusquam crederet mundus necessaria fuere ad hoc ut mundus crederet ut August de Civit. Dei lib. 22. c. 8. §. 6. * Yet do I believe that that of 2 Pet. 1.20 is generally mistaken as if the Apostle did deny private men the liberty of interpreting Scriptures even for themselves When it is in regard of the object and not of the interpreter that the Apostle calleth it Private As if he should say The Prophets are a sure Testimony of the Doctrine of Christianity but then you must understand that they are not to be interpreted of the Private men that spoke them for they were but types of Christ the Publique person so Psal. 2. 16. c. are to be interpreted of Christ and not of David only a private person and but a type of Christ in all so that Peter answereth the Question of the Eunuch in Acts 8. Of whom doth the Prophet speak of himself privately or some other more publike man This is I think the true meaning of Peter c The Vse of Church Governours and Teachers and how far they are to be obeyed d Oportet discentem credere Aristot. in Analytic post e Tit. 1.7 1 Cor. 4.1 1 Cor. 12.16.17.21 Luke 12.42 Heb. 13.3.17.24 1 Tim. 3.5 Act. 20.28 1 Tim. 3. â— 5. 1 Pet. 5.2 1 Cor. 4.15 d Haec duo dictat ipsa ratio Primò In mysteriis quae superant rationem non nitendum esse ratiocinantis Logicá sed Revelantis authoritate Secundò In consequentiis deducendis aut obscuris in Religione interpretandis magis fidendum esse caetui in nomine Domini legitimè congregatis quam privatis spiritibus seorsim sapientibus recalcitrantibus Doct. Prideaux Lect. 22. de Auth. Eccl. pag. 361. See Doctor Jackson Eternall truth of Scripture lib. 2. chap. 1.2 3 4 5 6. * I may say of many of them for doctrine as Fulbeck of Bracton Britton c. Direct p. 27. There be certaine ancient writers whom as it is not unprofitable to read so to relye on them is dangerous their books are Monumenta adorandae rubiginis of more reverence then authority Argument 2. § 1. I take it for granted that good Angels could not be guilty of forging the Scripture § 2. Not of man * Mahâ—mâ—â— was 〈…〉 by the Arabian soldiers for their commander In his Alcoâ—an he confesseth himself to be a sinner an Idolater an Adulterer given to Lechery His Laws run thus Avenge your selves of your enemies Take as many wives as you can keep and spare not Kill the Infidels he that fighteth lazily shall be damned and he that killeth most shall be in Paradise He saith that Christ had the Spirit and Power of God and the soul of God and that he is Christs servant See Alcoran Azoar 2.3.6 Also Azoar 18.4.11.13 He confesseth that Christ is the Spirit and word and messenger of God that his doctrine iâ— perfect that it enlighteneth the old Testament and that he came to confirm it yet denyeth him to be God Magnus fuit Sanctus magnus Dei amicus magnus propheta c. Vide Thom. Bradwardin de Causa Dei lib. 1. cap. 1. Corol. part 32. § 3. Vid. Wigandum in Method ante comment in mino prophetas Joh. 7 48.49 Acts 10. § 4. Argum. 3. §. 1. Object §. 2. * Cum Romani in victoriosae antiquitatis memoriam templum singulari schemate a facere decrevissent ab omni illâ deorum immo daemoniorum multitudinâ— quaesierunt usquequo durare pusset tam excellentis operis tam operosa constructio Responsum est Donec virgo pareret Illi ad impossibilitatem Oraculum retorquentes templum aeternum solennem illam machinam vocaverunt Nocte autem cum virginali thalamo virginius flos Mariae egressus est ita cecidit confractum est illud mirabile et columnarium opus ut vix appareant vestigia ruinarum Bernard in Natal Domini Serm. 23. 1 Sam. 7.12 * To speak my heart All that I fear is lest Master Herbert be a true Prophet and the Gospel be in its solar motion travelling for the West and American parts and qultting its present places of residence and unworthy professours and possessours And then farewell England But else not §. 3. * Not that Miracles are still necessary but speciall providences do much confirme Nec jam opus est Miraculus cum in omnem terram verbum sonuerit Doct. Humfredus Jesiutis part 1. pag. 114. §. 4. * About the time of the silencing of Ministers how many Churches in England were torne at once with terrible lightning and almost no place else but Churches were touched especially in the lower part of Devonshire where many were scorched maimed and some their brains struck out as they sat in Church And at the Church of Anthony in Cornwall neer Plimouth on Witsunday 1640. See the Relation in Print §. 5. * Was it not neer a Miracle that God wrought for Mistris Honywood when she threw the glass up to the wall saying if this glassbreak not I may be saved c. and yet took it up whole §. 6. Psal. 2.2 3 4 5. a Morneâ— Grotius Doct. Jaâ—â—son Parsons Resolut part 2. c. b Ask them in New England whether Mistris Hutchinsons and Mistris Dyers most hideous monstrous births were not convincing providences against their Antinomian Anti-scriptural heresies as if God from heaven had spoke against them and yet Old England will not take warning See Nicephor Eccl. hist. Tem. 1. li. 4. cap. 13. where Tertulli Jul. Capitolinus Orosius c. do mention c The Legion of Malta in the time of Mar. Aurelius who procured by prayer both Thunder on the enemies and raine for the Army See the Epist. of M. Aurelius in Justin Martyrs Apolo Xiphitin in Vita Aurelij Melch. Adam in vita Myconij Recorded by Sozom. and others Jam. 5.13 14 15 16. Psal. 73.26 August de Civitate Dei lib. 33. Argum. 4. §. 1. §. 2. Lege Epistolam Vâ—ssii de Samuele apparente Saulo in Joan Beverovitii Epistolis Et D. Prideaux Hypomnemata pag. 261 262
your souls to this blessed Work and that when death comes it may finde you so imployed that I may see your faces with joy at the Bar of Christ and we may enter together into the Everlasting Rest. Amen Your most affectionate though unworthy Teacher Rich. Baxter Kederminster Jan. 15. 1649. To the Right Worshipful Sir Thomas Rous Baronet with the Lady Jane Rous his VVife Right Worshipful THis First Part of this Treatise was written under your Roof and therefore I present it not to you as a gift but as your own Not for your Protection but for your Instruction and Direction for I never perceived you possessed with that evil spirit which maketh men hear their Teachers as their Servants to censure their Doctrine or be humored by them rather then to learn Nor do I intend this Epistle for the publishing of your Vertues You know to whose judgment you stand or fall It is a small thing to be judged by mans judgment If you be sentenced as Righteous at the Bar of Christ and called by him the Blessed of his Father it matters not much by what name or title you are here called All Saints are low in their own esteem and therefore thirst not to be highly esteemed by others He that knows what Pride hath done in the World and is now doing and how close that hainous sin doth cleave to all our Natures will scarce take him for a friend who will bring fewel to the fire nor that breath for amicable which will blow the coal Yet he that took so kindly a womans box of oyntment as to affix the History to his Gospel that where-ever it was read that good Work might be remembred hath warranted me by his example to annex the mention of your Favors to this Treatise which have many times far exceeded in cost that which Judas thought too good for his Lord. And common ingenuity commandeth me thankfully to acknowledg That when you heard I was suddenly cast into extream weakness you sent into several Counties to seek me in my quarters and missing of me sent again to fetch me to your house where for many moneths I found a Hospital a Physitian a Nurse and real Friends and which is more then all daily and importunate Prayers for my recovery and since I went from you your kindnesses still following me in aboundance And all this for a man that was a stranger to you whom you had never seen before but among Souldiers to burden you And for one that had no witty insinuations for the extracting of your favors nor impudency enough to return them in flatteries yea who had such obstructions betwixt his heart and his tongue that he could scarce handsomly express the least part of his thankfulness much less able to make you a requital The best return I can make of your love is in commending this Heavenly Duty to your Practice wherein I must intreat you to be the more diligent and unwearied because as you may take more time for it then the poor can do so have you far stronger temptations to divert you it being extreamly difficult for those that have fulness of all things here to place their happiness really in another life and to set their hearts there as the place of their Rest which yet must be done by all that will be saved Study Luke 12.16 to 22. and 16.19 25. Matth. 6.21 How little comfort do all things in this world afford to a departing soul My constant prayer for you to God shall be That all things below may be below him in your heart and that you may throughly master and mortifie the desires of the flesh and may daily live above in the Spirit with the Father of Spirits till you arrive among the perfected Spirits of the Just. Your much obliged Servant Rich. Baxter The Contents of the First Part. CHAP. I. THE Text explained pag. 1 2 3 Qu. Doth this Rest remain to a determinate number of persons Elect Or only to believers in generall p. 4 Qu. Is it theirs only in possibility or in certainty p. 5 Chap. 2. The definition of Rest And of this Rest. p. 6 Qu. Whether to make the obtaining of Rest and avoiding misery the end of our duties be not Legall or Mercenary Answered p 8 9 Chap. 3. Twelve things which are presupposed to this Rest. p. 12 c. Chap. 4. What this Rest containeth 1. Cessation from all that motion which is the means to attain the end p. 20 2. Perfect freedom from all evill p. 21 3. The highest-degree of personall Perfection p. 22 4. Our nearest fruition of God the chief Good p. 23 5. A sweet and constant action of all the powers in this fruition p 28 As 1. Of the Senses and Tongue and whole Body p. 29 2. Of the Soul And 1. Vnderstanding As 1. Knowledg p. 30 2. Memory p. 33 2. Affections As by Love p. 35 2. By Joy p. 39 This Love and Joy will be mutuall p. 41 Chap. 5. The four great antecedents and preparatives to this Rest. p. 44 1. The coming of Christ. p. 45 2. Our Resurrection p. 51 3. Our justification in the great Judgment p. 57 4. Our solemn Coronation and Inthroning p. 65 Chap. 6. This Rest tryed by nine Rules in Philosophy or Reason and found by all to be the most excellent state in generall p. 69 Chap. 7. The particular excellencies of this Rest. p. 76 1. It s the fruit of Christs blood and enjoyed with the purchaser ibid. 2. It is freely given us p. 78 3. It is the Saints peculiar p. 81 4. In association with Angels and perfect Saints p. 83 5. Yet its Joys immediate from God p. 87 6. It will be a seasonable Rest. p. 91 7. And a sutable Rest 1. To our Natures 2. Desires 3. Necessities p. 97 8. A perfect Rest 1. In the sincerity of it 2. And universality p. 101 1. Of good enjoyed 2. And of the evill we are freed from ibid. We shall Rest 1. From sin and that 1. Of the Vnderstanding p. 102 2. From sin of Will Affection and Conversation p. 105 2. From suffering Particularly 1. From all doubts of Gods love p. 106 2. From all sense of his displeasure p. 107 3. From all Satans Temptations p. 108 4. From temptations of the world and flesh p. 110 5. From Persecutions and abuses of the world p. 112 6. From our own divisions and dissentions p. 116 7. From participating in our brethrens sufferings p. 121 8. From all our own personall sufferings p. 125 9. From all the labour and trouble of duty p. 128 10 From the trouble of Gods absence p. 129 9. As it will be thus perfect so Everlasting p. 129 c. Chap. 8. The People of God described The severall parts of the description opened and therein many weighty controversies briefly touched And lastly the description applyed by way of examination p. 134. to 164 The Contents of the Second Part. CHAP. I. THE Certain truth
of this Rest proved by Scripture p. 167 Chap. 2. Perswasions to study and preach the divine authority of Scripture p. 174 Chap. 3 Certain distinctions concerning Scripture p. 184 Sixty Positions concerning Scriptures ibid. Chap. 4. The 1. Argument to prove Scripture the Word of God p. 191 That arguing from Miracles testified by man is no Popish resolving our faith into humane testimony p. 206 The excellency of this argument from Miracles p. 208 What the sin against the Holy Ghost is ibid. The necessity of using humane Testimony p. 210 The use of Church-governours and Teachers and how far they are to be obeyed p. 211 The excellent use of Antiquities for matter of fact p. 213 Chap. 5. The 2. Argument to prove Scripture Gods Word p. 214 Chap. 6. The 3. Argument to prove Scripture Gods Word p. 221 Chap. 7. The 4. Argument to prove Scripture Gods Word p. 235 Of extraordinary Temptations p. 237 Of Apparitions p. 238 Of Sateâ— is possessing and tormenting mens bodies p. 241 Of Witches and the devils compacts with them p. 243 The necessity of a written Word p. 245 Chap. 8. This Rest remaineth to none but the People of God p. 252 Chap. 9. Whether separated Souls enjoy Rest before the Resurrection Proved that they do in a great measure by 20. Arguments p. 257 The Contents of the Third Part. CHAP. I. THE first Vse Shewing the unconceivable misery of the wicked in their loss of this Rest. p. 265 The greatness of their loss 1. They lose all the personall perfection of Soul and Body which the Saints have p. 268 2. They lose God himself p. 270 3. They lose all those spirituall delightfull affections by which the blessed do feed on God p. 272 4. They lose the society of Angels and Saints p. 273 Chap. 2. The aggravations of the wickeds loss of Heaven p. 276 1. Their understandings will be cleared to know its worth p. 277 2. And also enlarged to have deeper apprehensions of it p. 279 3. Conscience will fully apply it to themselves ibid. 4. Their effections will be more lively and enlarged p 281 5. Their memories strong to feed their torment p. 283 Ten things concerning their loss of this Rest which it will for ever torment them to remember p. 285 to 298 Chap. 3. Aggravations from the losses which accompany the loss of Rest. p. 299 1. They shall lose their present presumptuous conceit of Gods favour to them and of their part in Christ. p. 300 2. They shall lose all their Hopes p. 303 3. They shall lose their present ease and peace p. 311 4. They shall lose all their carnall mirth p. 315 5. And all their sensuall contentments and delights p. 316 Chap. 4. The greatness of the damneds torments opened p. 319 By eight aggravations of them to p. 328 The certain truth of these torments ibid. The intollerableness of this loss and torment discovered by ten questions p. 332 Chap. 5. The second Vse Reproving the generall neglect of this Rest and exciting to the utmost diligence in seeking it p. 339 1. To the worldly minded that cannot spare time p. 340 2. To the prophane ungodly presumptuous multitude p. 343 3. To lazy formall self-deceiving Professors p. 344 And of these 1. To the opinionative hypocrite 2. And the worldly hypocrite ibid. p. 345 4. To the godly themselves for their great negligence Magistrates Ministers and People p. 35â— Chap. 6. An exhortation to the greatest seriousness in seeking Rest. p. 349 Twenty lively rationall considerations to quicken us up to the greatest diligence that is possible to p. 350 Ten more very quickening considerations p. 365 Ten more very quickening by way of question p. 369 Ten more peculiar to the godly to quicken them p. 374 Chap. 7. The third Vse Perswading all men to try their title to this Rest and directing them in this tryall p 380 Self-examination defined and explained p. 386 The nature of Assurance or certainty of Salvation opened How much and what the Spirit doth to the producing it And what Scripture what Knowledg what Faith what Holiness and Evidences what Conscience or internall sense and what Reason or discourse do in this work p. 388 What the seal of the Spirit is What the testimony of the Spirit and what the testimony of Conscience p. 391 Against the common distinction of certainty of Evidence and of adherence p. 392 That we are justified and beloved of God is not properly to be believed much less immediatly and by all men ibid. That Assurance may be here attained though not perfect Assurance p. 393 Hinderances that keep from examination 1. Satan p 39â— 2. Wicked men p 397 3. Hinderances in our own hearts p. 398 Hinderances of Assurance in those that do examine p. 400 Further causes of want of Assurance among the most of the godly themselves p. 402 1. Weakness and small measure of Grace p. 403 2. Looking more what they are then what they should do to be better ibid. 3. Mistaking or confounding Assurance and the joy of Assurance p. 405 4. Ignorant of Gods way of conveying Assurance p. 406 5. Expecting a greater measure then God usually giveth here p. 407 6. Taking up comfort in the beginning on unsound or uncertain grounds when yet perhaps they have better grounds and do not see them and then when the weakness of their grounds appear they cast away their comforts too as if all were nought p. 408 7. Imperfection of Reason and naturall parts p. 409 8. The secret maintaining some known sin p. 410 9. Growing lazy in the spirituall part of duty and not keeping graces in constant action p. 411 10. Prevalency of Melancholy in the body p. 414 Chap. 8. An Exhortation to examine our title to Rest. p. 415 Severall Motives to p. 428 Chap. 9. A direction how to manage the work of Self-examination throughly that it may succeed p. 428 Two marks whereby you may infallibly Judg. p. 434 Chap. 10. The fourth Vse The Reasons of the Saints afflictions in this life p. 439 Some Considerations to help us to bear them joyfully drawn from their reference to this Rest. p. 441 Some objections of the afflicted answered p. 452 Chap. 11. An Exhortation to those that have got Assurance of this Rest or title to it to do all that possibly they can to help others to the like p. 458 Here is shewed 1. wherein the duty doth consist p. 459 Directions are added for right performance p. 464 Besides the great duty of private exhortation we must help them to enjoy use and improve the publique Ordinances p. 475 2. The common Hinderances of faithfull endeavours to save mens souls p. 482 Some objections against this duty answered p. 488 Motives to perswade all Christians to this duty p. 491 Chap. 12. An advice to some more especially to help others to this Rest Prest largely on Ministers and Parents p. 501 And 1. To men of ability 2. Or interest 3. Physitians 4. Rich men