Covenant of Grace confirming his Doctrine by abundant uncontrolled Miracles contemning the World he exposed himself to the malice and fury and contempt of sinners and gave up himself a Sacrifice for our sins and a Ransom for us in suffering death on a Cross to reconcile us to God He was buryed and went in Soul to the Souls departed And the third day he rose again having conquered death And after forty dayes having instructed and authorized his Apostles in their Office he ascended up into Heaven in their sight where he remaineth Glorified and is Lord of all the chief Priest and Prophet and King of his Church interceding for us teaching and governing us by his Spirit Ministers and Word 5. The New Law and Covenant which Christ hath procured made and sealed by his Blood his Sacraments and his Spirit is this That to all them who by true Repentance and Faith do forsake the Flesh the World and the Devil and give up themselves to God the Father Son and Holy Spirit their Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier he will give Himself in these Relations and take them as his reconciled Children pardoning their sins and giving them his grace and title to Everlasting Happiness and will glorifie all that thus persevere But will condemn the unbelievers impenitent and ungodly to everlasting punishment This Covenant he hath commanded his Ministers to proclaim and offer to all the World and to baptize all that consent thereunto to invest them Sacramentally in all these benefits and enter them into his holy Catholick Church 6. The Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son did first inspire and guide the Prophets Apostles and Evangelists that they might truly and fully reveal the Doctrine of Christ and deliver it in Scripture to the Church as the Rule of our Faith and Life and by abundance of evident uncontrolled Miracles and gifts to be the great witness of Christ and of the truth of his holy Word 7. Where the Gospel is made known the HOLY SPIRIT doth by it illuminate the minds of such as shall be saved and opening and softening their hearts doth draw them to believe in Christ and turneth them from the power of Satan unto God Whereupon they are joyned to Christ the Head and into the Holy Catholick Church which is his Body consisting of all true Believers and are freely justified and made the Sons of God and a sanctified peculiar people unto him and do Love him above all and serve him sincerely in holiness and righteousness loving and desiring the Communion of Saints overcoming the Flesh the World and the Devil and living in Hope of the coming of Christ and of Everlasting life 8. At death the Souls of the Justified go to Happiness with Christ and the Souls of the wicked to misery And at the end of this World the Lord Jesus Christ will come again and will raise the Bodies of all men from the dead and will judge all the World according to the good or evil which they have done And the righteous shall go into Everlasting Life where they shall see Gods Glory and being perfected in Holiness shall love and praise and please him perfectly and be loved by him for evermore and the Wicked shall go into Everlasting punishment with the Devil II. According to this Belief we do deliberately and seriously by unfeigned consent of Will take this One God the infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness the Father Son and Holy Spirit for our only God our reconciled Father our Saviour and our Sanctifyer and resolvedly give up our selves to him accordingly entering into his Church under the hands of his Ministers by the solemnization of this Covenant in the Sacrament of Baptism And in prosecution of this Covenant we proceed to stirre up our DESIRES by daily PRAYER to God in the Name of Christ by the help of the Holy Spirit in the order following 1. We desire the glorifying and hallowing of the Name of God that he may be known and loved and honoured by the World and may be well-pleased in us and we may delight in Him which is our ultimate end 2. That his Kingdom of Grace may be enlarged and his Kingdom of Glory as to the Perfected Church of the sanctified may come That Mankinde may more universally subject themselves to God their Creator and Redeemer and be saved by him 3. That this Earth which is grown too like to Hell may be made liker to the Holy ones in Heaven by a holy conformity to Gods Will and Obedience to all his Laws denying and mortifying their own fleshly desires wills and minds 4. That our Natures may have necessary support protection and provision in our daily service of God and passage through this World with which we ought to be content 5. That all our sins may be forgiven us through our Redeemer as we our selves are ready to pardon wrongs 6. That we may be kept from Temptations and delivered from sin and misery from Satan from wicked men and from our selves Concluding our Prayers with the joyfull Praises of God our Heavenly Father acknowledging his Kingdom Power and Glory for ever III. The Laws of Christian PRACTICE are these 1. That our Souls do firmly adhere to God our Creator Redeemer and Sanctifyer by Faith Love Confidence and Delight that we seek him by desire obedience and hope meditating on himself his word and works of Creation Redemption and Sanctification of Death Judgement Heaven and Hell exercising Repentance and mortifying sin especially atheism unbelief and unholiness hardness of heart disobedience and unthankfulness pride worldliness and flesh-pleasing Examining our hearts about our Graces our Duties and our sins Watchfully governing our thoughts affections passions senses appetites words and outward actions Resisting temptations and serving God with all our faculties and glorifying him in our Hearts our Speeches and our Lives 2. That we worship God according to his Holiness and his Word in Spirit and Truth and not with Fopperies and Imagery according to our own devices which may dishonour him and lead us to Idolatry 3. That we ever use his Name with special Reverence especially in appealing to him by an Oath abhorring prophaneness perjury and breach of Vows and Covenants to God 4. That we meet in Holy Assemblies for his more solemn Worship where the Pastors teach his Word to their Flocks and lead them in Prayer and Praise to God administer the Sacrament of Communion and are the Guides of the Church in Holy things whom the people must hear obey and honour especially the Lords Day must be thus spent in Holiness 5. That Parents educate their Children in the Knowledge and Fear of God and in obedience of his Laws and that Princes Masters and all Superiours govern in Holiness and Justice for the glory of God and the common good according to his Laws And that Children love honour and obey their Parents and all Subjects their Rulers in due subordination unto God 6. That
must give light to Christianity and prepare men to receive it And they think to know what is in Heaven before they will learn what they are themselves and what it is to be a man Cond 4. Get a true Anatomy Analysis or Description of Christianity in your minds for if you know not the true nature of it first you will be lamentably disadvantaged in enquiring into the truth of it For Christianity well understood in the quiddity will illustrate the mind with such a winning beauty as will make us meet its evidence half-way and will do much to convince us by its proper light Cond 5. When you have got the true method of the Christian doctrine or Analysis of faith begin at the Essentials or primitive truths and proceed in order according to the dependencies of truths and do not begin at the latter end nor study the conclusion before the premises Cond 6. Yet look on the whole scheme or frame of causes and evidences and take them entirely and conjunct and not as peevish factious men who in splenish zeal against another sect reject and vilifie the evidence which they plead This is the Devils gain by the raising of sects and contentions in the Church he will engage a Papist for the meer interest of his sect to speak lightly of the Scripture and the Spirit and many Protestants in meer opposition to the Papists to sleight Tradition and the testimony of the Church denying it its proper authority and use As if in the setting of a Watch or Clock one would be for one wheel and another for another and each in peevishness cast away that which another would make use of when it will never go true without them all Faction and contentions are deadly enemies to truth Cond 7. Mark well the suitableness of the remedy to the disease that is of Christianity to the depraved state of man and mark well the lamentable effects of that universal depravation that your experience may tell you how unquestionable it is Cond 8. Mark well how connaturally Christianity doth relish with holy souls and how well it suiteth with honest principles and hearts so that the better any man is the better it pleaseth him And how potently all debauchery villany and vice befriendeth the cause of Atheists and unbelievers Cond 9. Take a considerate just survey of the common enmity against Christianity and Holiness in all the wicked of the world and the notorious war which is every where managed between Christ and the Devil and their several followers that you may know Christ partly by his enemies Cond 10. Impartially mark the effects of Christian doctrine where ever it is sincerely entertain'd and see what Religion maketh the best men and judge not of serious Christians at a distance by false reports of ignorant or malicious adversaries And then you will see that Christ is actually the Saviour of souls Cond 11. Be not liars your selves lest it dispose you to think all others to be liars and to judge of the words of others by your own Cond 12. Be-think you truly what persons you should be your selves and what lives you should live if you did not believe the Christian doctrine or if you doe not believe it mark what effect your unbelief hath on your lives For my own part I am assured if it were not for the Christian doctrine my heart and life would be much worse than it is though I had read Epictetus Arrian Plato Plotinus Jamblichus Proclus Seneca Cicero Plutarch every word and those few of my neighbourhood who have fallen off to infidelity have at once fallen to debauchery and abuse of their nearest relations and differed as much in their lives from what they were before in their profession of Christianity though unsound as a leprous body differeth from one in comeliness and health Cond 13. Be well acquainted if possible with Church-History that you may understand by what Tradition Christianity hath descended to us For he that knoweth nothing but what he hath seen or receiveth a Bible or the Creed without knowing any further whence and which way it cometh to us is greatly disadvantaged as to the reception of the faith Cond 14. In all your reading of the holy Scriptures allow still for your ignorance in the languages proverbs customs and circumstances which are needful to the understanding of particular Texts and when difficulties stop you be sure that no such ignorance remain the cause He that will but read Brugensis Grotius Hammond and many other that open such phrases and circumstances with Topographers and Bochartus and such others as write of the Animals Utensils and other circumstances of those times will see what gross errors the opening of some one word or phrase may deliver the Reader from Cond 15. Vnderstand what excellencies and perfections they be which the Spirit of God intended to adorn the holy Scriptures with and also what sort of humane imperfections are consistent with these its proper perfections that so false expectations may not tempt you into unbelief It seduceth many to infidelity to imagine that if Scripture be the word of God it must needs be most perfect in every accident and mode which were never intended to be part of its perfection Whereas God did purposely make use of those men and of that style and manner of expression which was defective in some points of natural excellency that so the supernatural excellency might be the more apparent As Christ cured the blind with clay and spittle and David slew Goliah with a sling The excellency of the means must be estimated by its aptitude to its end Cond 16. If you see the evidences of the truth of Christianity in the whole let that suffice you for the belief of the several parts when you see not the true answer to particular exceptions If you see it soundly proved that Christ is the Messenger of the Father and that his word is true and that the holy Scripture is his word this is enough to quiet any sober mind when it cannot confute every particular objection or else no man should ever hold fast any thing in the world if he must let all go after the fullest proof upon every exception which he cannot answer The inference is sure If the whole be true the parts are true Cond 17. Observe well the many effects of Angels ministration and the evidences of a communion between us and the spirits of the unseen world for this will much facilitate your belief Cond 18. Over-look not the plain evidences of the Apparitions Witches and wonderful events which fall out in the times and places where you live and what reflections they have upon the Christian cause Cond 19. Observe well the notable answers of Prayers in matters internal and external in others and in your selves Cond 20. Be well studied at home about the capacity use and tendency of all your faculties and you will find that your very nature pointeth you up to
another life and is made only to be happy in that knowledge love and fruition of God which the Gospel most effectually leads you to Cond 21. Mark well the prophesies of Christ himself both of the destruction of Jerusalem and the successes of his Apostles in the world c. and mark how exactly they are all fulfilled Cond 22. Let no pretence of humility tempt you to debase humane nature below its proper excellency lest thence you be tempted to think it uncapable of the everlasting sight and fruition of God The devils way of destroying is oftentimes by over-doing The proud devil will help you to be very humble and help you to deny the excellency of reason and natural free-will and all supernatural inclinations when he can make use of it to perswade you that man is but a subtil sort of bruit and hath a soul but gradually different from sensitives and so is not made for another life Cond 23. Yet come to Christ as humble learners and not as arrogant self-conceited censurers and think not that you are capable of understanding every thing as soon as you hear it Cond 24. Judge not of the main cause of Christianity or of particular texts or points by sudden hasty thoughts and glances as if it were a business to be cursorily done but allow it your most deliberate sober studies your most diligent labour and such time and patience as reason may tell you are necessary to a learner in so great a cause Cond 25. Call not so great a matter to the trial in a case of melancholy and natural incapacity but stay till you are fitter to perform the search It is one of the common cheats of Satan to perswade poor weak and melancholy persons that have but half the use of their understandings to go then to try the Christian Religion when they can scarce cast up an intricate account nor are fit to judge of any great and difficult thing And then he hath an advantage to confound them and fill them with blasphemous and unbelieving thoughts and if not to shake their habitual faith yet greatly to perplex them and disturb their peace The soundest wit and most composed is fittest for so great a task Cond 26. When upon sober trial you have discerned the evidences of the Christian verity record what you have found true and judge not the next time against those evidences till you have equal opportunity for a full consideration of them In this case the Tempter much abuseth many injudicious souls when by good advice and soberest meditation they have seen the evidence of truth in satisfying clearness he will after surprise them when their minds are darker or their thoughts more scattered or the former evidence is out of mind and push them on suddenly then to judge of the matters of immortality and of the Christian cause that what he cannot get by truth of argument he may get by the incapacity of the disputant As if a man that once saw a mountain some miles distant from him in a clear day should be tempted to believe that he was deceived because he seeth it not in a misty day or when he is in a valley or within the house Or as if a man that in many days hard study hath cast up an intricate large account and set it right under his hand should be called suddenly to give up the same account anew without looking on that which he before cast up when as if his first account be lost he must have equal time and helps and fitness before he can set it as right again Take it not therefore as any disparagement to the Christian truth if you cannot on a sudden give your selves so satisfactory an account of it as formerly in more clearness and by greater studies you have done Cond 27. Gratifie not Satan so much as to question well resolved points as oft as he will move you to it Though you must prove all things till as learning you come to understand them in their proper evidence time and order yet you must record and hold fast that which you have proved and not suffer the devil to put you to the answer of one and the same question over and over as often as he please this is to give him our time and to admit him to debate his cause with us by temptation as frequently as he will which you would not allow to a ruffian to the debauching of your wife or servants and you provoke God to give you up to errour when no resolution will serve your turn After just resolution the tempter is to be rejected and not disputed with as a troublesome fellow that would interrupt us in our work Cond 28. Where you find your own understandings insufficient have recourse for help to some truly wise judicious Divine Not to every weak Christian nor unskilful Minister who is not well grounded in his own Religion but to those that have throughly studied it themselves you may meet with many difficulties in Theology and in the Text which you think can never be well solved which are nothing to them that understand the thing No Novice in the study of Logick Astronomy Geometry or any Art or Science will think that every difficulty that he meeteth with doth prove that his Author was deceived unless he be able to resolve it of himself but he will ask his Tutor or some one versed in those matters to resolve it and then he will see that his ignorance was the cause of all his doubts Cond 29. Labour faithfully to receive all holy truths with a practical intent and to work them on your hearts according to their nature weight and use For the doctrine of Christianity is scientia affectiva practica a doctrine for Head Heart and Life And if that which is made for the Heart be not admitted to the Heart and rooted there it is half rejected while it seemeth received and is not in its proper place and soil If you are yet in doubt of any of the supernatural Verities admit those truths to your hearts which you are convinced of else you are false to them and to your selves and forfeit all further helps of grace Object This is but a trick of deceit to engage the affections when you want arguments to convince the judgment Perit omne judicium cum res transit in affectum Answ When the affection is inordinate and over-runs the judgment this saying hath some truth but it is most false as of ordinate affections which follow sound judgment For by suscitation of the faculties such affections greatly help the judgment and judgment is but the eye of the soul to guide the man and it is but the passage to the will where humane acts are more compleat If your wife be taught that conjugal love is due to her husband and your child that filial love and reverence is due to his father such affections will not blind their judgments but contrarily they do
Farewell vain World As thou hast been to me Dust a Shadow those I leave with thee The unseen Vitall Substance I committ To him that 's Substance Light Life to it The Leaves Fruit here dropt are holy seed Heaven's heirs to generate to heale feed Them also thou wilt flatter molest But shalt not keep from Everlasting Rest THE REASONS OF THE Christian Religion The FIRST PART OF GODLINESS Proving by NATVRAL EVIDENCE the Being of GOD the Necessity of HOLINESS and a future Life of Retribution the Sinfulness of the World the Desert of Hell and what hope of Recovery Mercies intimate The SECOND PART OF CHRISTIANITY Proving by Evidence Supernatural and Natural the certain Truth of the CHRISTIAN Belief and answering the Objections of Vnbelievers First meditated for the well-setling of his own Belief and now published for the benefit of others By RICHARD BAXTER It openeth also the true Resolution of the Christian Faith Also an APPENDIX defending the Soul's Immortality against the Somatists or Epicureans and other Pseudo-philosophers LONDON Printed by R. White for Fran. Titon at the three Daggers in Fleet-street 1667. TO THE CHRISTIAN READER BEcause there are some who judging of others by themselves will say what need this labour among Christians to prove a God a Life to come and the Truth of the Gospel Or at least what need is there of it after so much already written I take my self obliged to give you an account of this attempt For my own Reason is much against over-doing and wasting our little time in things superfluous which is but enough for necessary things But it hath recorded this among the indubitata Boni rarò nimis optimi nunquam indifferentes saepissimè mali semper The true Reasons of this work are no fewer than these following 1. Quod cogitamus loquimur That which is most and deepest in my thoughts is aptest to break forth to others Man is a communicative Creature Though it be to my shame I must confesse that necessity through perplexed thoughts hath made this Subject much of my Meditations It is the Subject which I have found most necessary and most usefull to my self And I have reason enough to think that many others may be as weak as I. And I would fain have those partake of my satisfaction who have partaked of my difficulties 2. I perceive that because it is taken for a shame to doubt of our Christianity and the Life to come this hindereth many from uttering their doubts who never get them well resolved but remain half Infidels within whilest the Ensigns of Christ are hanged without and need much help though they are ashamed to tell their needs And prudent Charity will relieve those who are ashamed to beg 3. As the true knowledge of God is the beginning and maintainer of all holinesse and honesty of Heart and Life so latent Atheisme and Infidelity in the mindes of Hypocrites in the Church is the root of their prophanenesse dishonesty and wickednesse Did they seriously Believe as Christians they would not live as the Enemies of Christianity I take it therefore to be the surest and most expeditious Cure of the security presumption pride perfidiousnesse sensuality and wickednesse of these Hypocrites to convince them that there is a God and a Life to come and that the Gospel is true 4. And this prophaneness and sensuality tendeth to greater Infidelity They that will not live as they profess to Believe may most easily be drawn to Believe and profess as they are willing to live And therefore this Prognostick commandeth me to endeavour to prevent mens open profession of Infidelity lest the present torrent of ungodlinesse selfishnesse malice uncharitablenesse perjury treachery faction whoredom and other sensualities should fall into this gulf or one that is not much unlike it 5. The best complain of the imperfection of their Faith And too many good Christians especially if Melancholy surprise them are haunted with such temptations to Atheisme blasphemy and unbelief as make their lives a burden to them And one that hath heard so many of their complaints as I have done is excusable for desiring to relieve them It hath many a time been matter of wonder to me to observe that there is scarce one deep melancholy person among ten religious or not religious before but is followed with violent suggestions to doubt of the God-head and of the truth of the Gospel or to utter some word of Blasphemy against God And he that must pray Lord increase my Faith and help my Unbelief must use other means as well as pray 6. The imperfection of our Faith even about the Gospel and the Life to come is the secret root of all our faults of the weaknesse of every other grace of our yielding to temptations and of the carelesnesse badnesse and barrennesse of our Lives So Transcendent are the Concernments of the Life to come that a certain clear and firm belief of them would even deride temptations and bear down all the trifles of this World by what names or titles soever dignified as things not worthy of a look or thought What manner of person will that man be in all holy Conversation and Godliness who believing that all these things must be dissolved doth look for the coming of Christ and for the Blessed Consequents 2 Pet. 3.11 12 14. 2 Thess 1.10 O what a life would that man live what Prayers what Prayses what holy discourse would employ his tongue with what abhorrence would he reject the baits of sin who did but see but once see those unseen and future things which every Christian professeth to believe How contemptibly would he think and speak both of the pleasures and the sufferings of this dreaming life in comparison of the everlasting things What serious desires and labours and joyes and patience would such a sight procure How much more holy and Heavenly would it make even those that by the purblind World are thought to exceed herein already And if we took our Belief to be as certain as our sight Believing would do greater matters than it doth I oft think what one told me that an Infidel answered him when he asked him How he could quiet his Conscience in such a desperate state saith he I rather wonder how you can quiet your Conscience in such a common careless course of life believing as you do If I believed such things as you do I should think no care and diligence and holiness could be enough 7. The Soul in flesh is so much desirous of a sensitive way of apprehension and sensible things being still before us do so increase this Malady and divert the minde from spiritual things that we have all great need of the clearest evidence and the most suitable and frequent and taking explication of them that possibly can be given us not only to make us Believe things unseen but to make us serious and practical and affectionate about the things which in a
when they have here and in other such writings found our fundamentals proved let them hereafter excuse our superstructure and not think that every Sermon must be spent in proving our Christianity and Creed In the first part of this Book I give you no testimonies from the Christian writings or authorities because I suppose the Reader to be one that doth not believe them and my business is only to prove Natural Verities by their proper evidence But lest any should think that there is not so much legible in Nature because the wisest Heathens saw it not I have cited in the margin their attestations to most particulars to shew that indeed they did confess the same though less distinctly and clearly than they might have done as I have plainly proved But being many years separated from my Books I was forced to do this part less exactly than I would have done had I been near my own or any other Library Again I seriously profess that I am so confident of the just proofs and evidences of truth here given that I fear nothing as to frustrate the success but the Reader 's Incapacity through half-wittedness or wickedness or his Laziness in a cursory and negligent perusal of what is concisely but evidently proposed It 's true that Seneca saith Magna debet esse eloquentia quae in vitis placet I may adde Et Veritatis evidentia quae caecis malignis vel ignavis prodest And who feeleth not the truth of Hierom's words ad Paul Nunquam benefit quod fit praeoccupato animo Be true and faithful to your selves and to the Truth and you shall see its Glory and feel its Power and be directed by it to everlasting Blessedness This is his End who is Octob. 31. 1666. An earnest desirer of Mankind's Felicity RICHARD BAXTER TO THE HYPOCRITE READERS Who have the Name of Christians and the Hearts and Lives of andVnbelievers IT is the great Mercy of God to you that you were born of Christian Parents and in a Land where Christianity is the professed Religion and under Governours and Laws which countenance it But this which should have helped you to the intelligent and serious entertainment of Religion hath been abused by you to detain you from â—t You have contented your selves to have Religion in your Princes and your Parents Precepts in Libraries and Laws and to say over some of these by â—ote whilest you banished it from your Hearts and Lives if not also from your sober thoughts and understanding And having indeed no Religion of your own because the labour of understanding and obeying it seemed too dear a price to purchase it you â—ve thought it most serviceable to your quietness and your reputation to seem to be of the Religion of your Parents or your King be it what it will This is indeed the common course of the rude and irreligious Rabble in all Nations of the World O that I might be your effectual Monitor to awaken you to consider what you have been doing and yet if you are Men to suffer your Reason to look behinde you within you and before you and seriously think what it is to be in Heaven or Hell for ever and prudently to manage your own Concernments Can you think that that man hath any Religion who hath no God Or hath he indeed a God who preferreth his lust or wealth or honour or any thing in the World before him Or that is not devoted to his Obedience and his Love Is he a God that is not better than the Pleasures of the Flesh and World Or that is not greater than a mortal man or is not fully sufficient for you Did you know what you did when you owned your Baptismal Vow and Covenant which is when you usurp the name of Christians and joyn in visible communion in the Church Do you know what it is to believe that there is a God and a Life to come and to renounce the Flesh the World and the Devil and give up your selves to a Saviour and a Sanctifyer Or can you think while you are awake and sober that Perfidiousness will save you and be taken by God instead of Christianity will God accept you for a perjured Profession to be that and do that which never came into your hearts Is Hypocrisie a Virtue And will Lying bring a man to Heaven Christianity is such a Believing in Christ to bring us unto God and everlasting Glory as maketh the Love of God the very Nature of the Soul and thankefull obedience its Employment and a Heavenly Minde and Life to be its Constitution and its Trade and the Mercies of this Life to be but our Travelling-helps and Provisions for a better and the Interest of fleshly lust to be esteemed but as dross and dung Is this the Life which you live or which you hate I beseech you Sirs as you regard the reputation of your Reason tell us why you will professe a Religion which you abhorre or why will you abhorre a Religion which you professe why will you Glory in the part of a Parrot or an Ape to say over a few words or move your Bodies while you detest the humane part to know and love and live to God Do you live only to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgement of God who will render to every one according to his deeds Rom. 2.5 6. Do you professe your selves Christians only for self-condemnation to be Witnesses against your selves in Judgement that you wilfully lived unchristian lives What is there in the World that you are so averse to as to be seriously that which you professe your selves to be Who hate you more than those that are that in heart and life which you call your selves in customary words or that are serious in the Religion which you say your selves you hope to be saved by Read Matth. 23.29 30 31. why do you honour the dead Saints and abhorre the living and would make more Martyrs while you keep Festivals of Commemoration of those that others made Quae est illa Justitia sanctos colere sanctitatem contemnere Primus gradus Pietatis est Sanctitatem diligere Chrysost in Matth. 24. Christ hath not more bitter Enemies in the World than some of you who wear his Livery Turks and Heathens are more gentle to true Christians and have shed lesse of their blood than Hypocrite Christians have done The Zeal of the Pharisees consumed many whom the Clemency of the Romans would else have spared Be it known to all the Infidel World who detest Christianity because of your wickednesse that you are none of us Christ renounceth you Matth. 7.22 23. and we renounce you They may as well hate Philosophy because some vagrant Sots have called themselves Philosophers or have sailed with Aristotle or Plato in the same Ship They may as well hate Physick because many ignorant Women and Mountebanks have profess'd it They may as well reproach
the flames of Troy that ript up his own Mother that he might see the place where once he lay Did Caligula think so Did Commodus Caracalla Heliogabalus think so Did the Spaniards think so by the Indians who are said by their own Writers to have murdered in forty two years space no less than fifty millions of them Did King Philip think so who put his own Son and Heir to death by the Inquisition besides so many thousands more in Spain and the Low Countreys by that and other wayes How full of such bloody instances is the World If it were a Tyrants interest that kept him under some moderation to the people of his own Dominions it might yet possibly leave him a bloody destroyer of other Nations in his Conquests The World hath not wanted men that think the lives of many thousands a little sacrifice to a proud design or furious passion and are no more troubled at it than a Pythagorean would be to kill a Bird. It hath had such as Sylla Messala Catiline and the Conquerours of Jerusalem who as Josephus saith crucified so many thousands till they wanted Crosses for men and place for Crosses besides the greater numbers famished Obj. But if Chief Governours be under no Law they are under Covenants by which they are obliged Answ What shall make their Covenants obligatory to their consciences if they be under no government of God The reason why mens Covenants bind them is because they are under the government of God who requireth all men to keep their Covenants and condemneth Covenant-breakers But if God had never commanded Covenant-keeping nor forbad Covenant-breaking they could never be matter of duty or sin So that this Doctrin that God hath made no Laws for man and is not his Governour doth leave all Soveraigns from under the least conscientious restraint from any acts of cruelty or injustice and tendeth to deliver up the world to be a sacrifice to their lusts when it is the government of the universal Soveraign that is their restraint § 9. VI. If God have not the Soveraignty over all the world then no man on earth can have any Governing Power But Princes and Rulers have a Governing Power Therefore the Soveraignty is in God The reason of the major is because Kings can have no power but what they receive from some or other there is no effect without a cause And if they receive it it is either from God or Man as the Original Not from Man for the people themselves have no governing power to use or give as to the government of Commonwealths for their personal power over themselves is of another species and cometh short of this in many respects as else-where I have proved And if it were otherwise yet they have nothing themselves but derivatively from God as is proved before and therefore they themselves must have their power from him from whom they are and have all that they possess But God cannot give that which he hath not himself either formally or eminently Therefore he hath governing power formally or eminently or else no Prince or Man or Angel can have any no more than they can have being or reason without him And though his power be transcendent his exercise of it must be according to the capacity of the subject and therefore morally by Laws and Executions So that as all things else in the creature are derived so is power And as in beings aut Deus aut nihil is an undeniable truth so as to governing power or Soveraignty either it is Primitively Supremely and Transcendently in God or there is none in any Prince or Parents for if they have it not from Him they can have none at all Obj. Governing by Laws is caused by humane impotency because man is not every where present nor of power to effect himself in and by others all the things which he commandeth But were man Omnipresent and Omnipotent as God is he would make all men do well and not command them to do it Therefore it is so in the Government of God Answ It is granted that man is impotent and God Omnipotent and Omnipresent and therefore that God could indeed do as is here intimated even make all men do well and not command it But 1. it is apparent that de facto he doth not so 2. And his wisdom being more eminently to be manifested in the work of Government than his Omnipotency doth shew us partly why he doth not so even because the sapiential way is more suitable to his ends and to the subject Creation did most eminently glorifie or manifest Omnipotency Government doth most eminently glorifie God's Omniscience or Wisdom as our Perfection or Glorification will most eminently manifest and glorifie his Love and Goodness Each Attribute shineth most eminently in its proper work and mans conceits must not confound this perfect order Yet let it be here noted that all this while I meddle not with the controversie of the Liberty of man's will and so whether God's sapiential government by Laws do operate also by necessitation and Physical causation as the natural motions of the Orbs or the artificial motions of an Engine I only argue that whether God thus operate by his Government by secret necessitation or not yet it is most certain that he governeth Morally and useth the Means of Doctrin Laws and Judgments which might consist with Physical necessitating efficacy in all that do obey indeed if God's wisdom and man's freedom of will did inferr nothing to the contrary But if it had been granted that all God's government is by Physical efficacy it would stand good nevertheless that Laws and Judgment are part of the means which he maketh so effectual But yet I shall go further in the next Argument § 10. VII Experience satisfieth all the rational world that there is de facto a course of Duty appointed by God for men which they do not eventually fulfil Therefore there is not only a Moral Government which is effectual but also which is separated from necessitating efficacy They that deny this and plead for Physical Government only must affirm that nothing is any man's Duty but what he actually performeth and that nothing is any man's sin which he doth or omitteth to do that is that there is no sin or moral evil in the world For all that God Physically effecteth is good and they suppose him to have no Law which commandeth any thing but what he Physically effecteth and he will not Physically effect that which he forbiddeth And if there be no such thing as moral evil or sin in the world then no man should fear any or avoid any Let but a man leave any thing undone if it be nourishing his children defending his King loving God or man and he may thence conclude that it never was his duty Let him but do any thing that he hath a mind to if it be killing Father or Mother or his Prince or Friend
what he exerciseth by men though extraordinarily he sometime otherwise interpose And how easie and ordinary it is for subtil men to do much wickedness and never be discovered needs no proof The like we may say in some measure of those secret duties of heart and life which have neither reward nor notice in this life and if observed are usually turned into matter of reproach The Minor needeth no more proof when we have proved already that God is our Governour It is certain that the secret acts of heart and life are as much under his government as the open and therefore shall have equal retribution § 3. III. If there were no life of retribution after this the sins of the Great ones and Rulers of the world and all others that by strength could make their part good would be under no sufficient Justice But the sins even of the greatest and strongest are under sufficient justice Therefore there is a life of retribution after this The Major is clear by experience The sins of all the Sovereigns of the earth are rarely under sufficient justice in this life If there were no punishment hereafter what justice would be done upon a Tamerlane a Bajazet a Mahumed a Dionysius an Alexander a Caesar a Marius a Sylla a Sertorius and many hundred such for all the innocent bloud which they have shed for their pride and self-exalting What justice would be done on Kings and Emperours and States that have none above them for all their lusts and filthiness their intemperance and sensuality their oppression and cruelty I know that God doth sometimes punish them by Rebels or by other Princes or by sickness in this life but that is no ordinary course of justice and therefore not sufficient to its ends Ordinarily all things here come alike to all And what justice would be done upon any Rebels or Robbers that are but strong enough to bear it out Or upon any that raise unrighteous Wars and burn and murder and destroy Countries and Cities and are worse than plagues to all places where they come and worse than mad dogs and bears to others If they do but conquer instead of punishment for all this villany they go away here with wealth and glory The Minor is past question Therefore certainly there is another life where conquering rewarded prospering domineering sin shall have its proper punishment § 4. IV. If God rule not man by the hopes and fears of certain Good and Evil hereafter he ruleth him not according to his Nature But God doth rule man according to his Nature Ergo. The Minor needeth no proof The Major is proved by experience The nature of man is to be most moved with the hopes and fears of Good and Evil after death Otherwise death it self would comparatively seem nothing to us No other creature hath such hopes and fears If you ask how I can tell that I answer as I can tell that a Tree doth not hear and a Stone doth not feel or see because there is no appearance of such a sense whose nature is to make it self manifest by its evidences where it is Bruits shew a fear of death and love of life but of nothing further of which there is evidence enough to quiet a mind that seeketh after truth though not to silence a prating caviller This will be further improved under that which followeth § 5. V. If the world cannot be governed according to its nature and God's Laws without the hopes and fears of Good and Evil after death then the objects of such hopes and fears is certain truth But the Antecedent is true Therefore so is the Consequent That the nature of man requireth a Moral Government and not only a Physical motion is already proved Physical motion only determineth the agent to act and produceth the act it self quoad eventum Moral Government doth institute for the subject a debitum agendi habendi and judgeth him accordingly If there were no Government but Physical motion there were no debitum in the world neither officii praemii vel poenae vel jus possidendi vel injuria no right or wrong For Physical motion doth equally produce the act in perjury murder treason adultery as in good deeds and it never produceth an act which eventually never is Therefore there should be nothing a Duty but what cometh to pass if Physical motion were all the Government Government then there must be and what God requireth of all by nature I have shewed before Now that there is a moral impossibility of the performance of this in any sincerity so as to intimate any laudible Government of the world I shall further prove 1. If according to the present temper of man there be no motives which would ever prove sufficient to resist all the temptations of this life to keep us in true obedience and love to God unto the end without the hopes and fears of Good and Evil after death then cannot the world be governed according to God's Laws without such hopes and fears of futurity But the Antecedent is true Ergo so is the consequent If God had prescribed man a course of duty in his Laws as to obey and love him upon terms of fleshly suffering and had not given man such motives as might rationally prevail for the performance his Laws had been all in vain He that hath made Holiness our indispensible duty hath certainly left us motives and rational helps to perform it But so many and great are the temptations of this life and so strong is our sense and so great are the sufferings of the obedient that in this our imperfection we could never go through them without the motives which are fetch'd from another life 1. It would weaken the hands of the best as to their duty it would embolden them to sin it would give victory to all strong temptations Let every Reader but consult with his own soul and though it be granted that virtue should be chosen for its own sake how dear soever it may cost yet let him without lying say what he thinketh he should be and do in case of temptations if he knew that he had no life to live but this I am not sure but I will freely confess what I think most that now are honest would be and do First They would observe how little difference God maketh between the obedient and disobedient in his providence and how ordinarily his present judgements are not much to be feared And hence they would think that he maketh no great matter of it what they either are or do and so their very love of Virtue would be much debilitated Nay the sufferings of the virtuous would tempt them to think that it is no very desirable way and though still they would have something within them which would tell them that honesty and temperance and piety are good yet the natural love of themselves is so deeply planted in them and so
that the object of those hopes and fears are certain truths which are so necessary to the government of the world and this needeth no other proof but this If God can govern the world without a course of deceit and lying then the objects of these necessary hopes and fears are true But God can govern the world without a course of deceit and lying Ergo. The Major is evident because to govern by the hopes and fears of falshoods or things that are not when those hopes and fears are not only of God but made necessary to Government is to govern by deceit and lying or if it had not been by falshood uttered but falshood permitted the Minor is certain For if God cannot govern without such a course of deceit it is either for want of Power or of Wisdom or of Goodness that is Holiness and Benignity of Will But the Omnipotent wanteth not Power and the Omniscient wanteth not Wisdom to find out true and suitable means and he that is Optimus wanteth neither Holiness to love truth and hate falshood nor Benignity to love his Creature and therefore needeth no such means And he that believeth that God himself doth govern the world by a cheat even by the hopes and fears of fictions will sure think it best to imitate his God and to govern and trade and live accordingly This argument was à necessitate ad ordinem the next shall be only from God's actual government § 6. VI. If God do de facto govern the world by the hopes and fears of Good and Evil in another Life then the object of those hopes and fears is certain But God doth de facto so govern Ergo. The Major is proved as before for that which proved that God can govern without falshood proved also that he doth govern without it It belongeth only to the Impotent the Ignorant or the Bad to use such means Obj. May not a Parent or Physician honestly deceive a Child or Patient for his recovery to health why then may not God do so Answ 1. They do it through insufficiency to attain their end by a better means but the Omnipotent and Omniscient hath no such insufficiency 2. They may not lie or utter any untruth to do it though they may hide some truth by words which he is apt to mistake But if the world be governed by such hopes and fears of futurity it is hard to think whence they should fetch the object but from some divine revelation in nature 3. A whole course of Government of all the rational world by so sorry an instrument as deceit and falshood is more inconsistent with the nature and perfections of God than a particular act of deceit in a work of necessity and charity is with the nature of imperfect man The Minor is proved in the answer to the last objections and by the common experience of the world Obj. How little doth the hopes and fears of another world do with the most Do you not see that fleshly interest ruleth them and therefore they are what the Great ones would have them be who can help or hurt them Answ 1. I have proved how much worse it would be ◠that restraint which these hopes and fears make were taken off 2. That this restraint is general in all Nations almost of the earth though the prevalency of sin do much enfeeble it 3. That Rulers themselves are under some of these restraints in their Law-making and Judgement Though fleshly interest much prevail against it there are some remnants of secret hopes or fears in the consciences of sinners which keep up so much good as is yet left and keep men from those villanies in which they might hope to escape all sufferings from men § 7. VII If God himself kindle in the best of men desires to know him love him and enjoy him perfectly hereafter then such desires shall attain their end But God himself doth kindle such desires in the best of men Ergo And consequently there is such a Life to come Here 1. I must prove that the best men have such desires 2. That God kindleth them 3. That therefore he will satisfie them 1. And for the first the Consciences of all Good men are my witnesses whose desires to know God better to love him and please him more and to enjoy his Love is as the very pulse and breath of their souls For this they groan and pray and seek for this they labour wait and suffer If you could help them to more of the Knowledge and Love of God you would satisfie them more than to give them all the wealth and honours of the World Their Religious lives their labours prayers contemplations and sufferings prove all this and shew for what they long and live Obj. But this is caused by the power of a deluded fantasie which seeketh after that which is not to be had What if you fall in Love with the Sun Will it prove that you must be loved by it see it and enjoy it in the life to come Answ 1. To the similitude Either the Sun is a rational free Agent or not If it be it is either the chief Agent or a dependent Instrument If it were the first as it is not I should owe my self totally to it in the exercise of all the powers given me as is aforesaid And if it gave me such Desires I might suppose it was not in vain But if it give me nothing but as an Instrument or dependent Cause I owe it nothing but in subserviency to the first Cause But in such subserviency if God had commanded me to love and honour it as a Lover of Mankinde and a Rational Benefactor and had placed any of my duty or felicity in seeking perfection in that love and honour I should obey him and expect an answerable benefit But if it be no intelligent Agent or I cannot know that it is so then I can owe it no other respect but what is due to a natural Instrument of God 2. To the matter That these desires are not from a deluded fantasie but the work of God I prove 1. In that I have fully proved them already to be our Duty by the Law of Nature To love God with all the heart and might and consequently to desire to love him and please him and enjoy him in perfection that is in the utmost of our capacity is a proved duty 2. In that the Best men are the possessors of it And the more all other Virtues and Obedience do abound the more this aboundeth And the more any are vicious impious sensual worldly the less they have of these desires after God 3. They encrease in the use of holy means appointed by God and they decay by evil means All sin is against it and all obedience doth promote it 4. It is found most suitable to the tendency of our faculties as their only perfection The only true advancement of Reason
natural Image on the Will of Man The Will cannot determine it self without the conduct of an Intellect and without an Object in esse cognito nor without Divine sustentation and universal influx But it can determine it self to the moral species which is but the mode of action to this rather than that in the comparative proposal without any pre-determining efficient for such none of the former are And God having made such a self-determining creature took delight to govern him according to his nature by the sapiential moral means of Laws of what he doth more to cause Good than Evil and other such incident questions I must now put them off to a fitter place § 2. God planted in man's mind a natural inclination to Truth and Goodness and to his own felicity and an averseness to falshood and to evil and to his own misery and hurt that these lying deeper than his liberty of choice might be a pondus to his motions and help him the more easily and stedfastly to obey and to adhere to and prosecute his proposed happiness and end § 3. Accordingly God formed his holy Law with a perfect fitness to these faculties and inclinations furnishing it wholly with truth and goodness and fitting all things in it to the benefit of man as is proved before § 4. This Law had a sufficient promulgation being legible on the face of the whole Creation within our view and specially on the nature of man himself from whence his duty did result § 5. And God was pleased to make as legible the most rational powerful motives to love and obedience that can be imagined by man that no tempter might possibly bid the ten thousandth part so much for our love and obedience as he had bid and assured us of himself § 6. From all this it is most evident that God made us not sinners though he made us men but that man being defectible abused his liberty and turned from God and brought corruption and misery upon himself § 7. He that will understand God's Justice aright must consider of these forty intrinsick evils that are in sin which nature it self declareth 1. In its formal nature it is the violation of a perfect righteous Law 2. It is a contempt or denial of God's governing authority over us 3. It is the usurping of the government of our selves which we denied to God 4. It is a denial or contempt of the wisdom of God as if he had erred in the making of his Laws and knew not so well what is just and meet and good for us as we our selves and were not wise enough to govern a lump of animated clay 5. It is an exalting of our folly into the Throne of the Divine Wisdom as if we had more wisdom than he that made us and knew better what is just and meet and what is fit or good for our selves and could correct God's Laws and make our selves a better Rule 6. It is a denial or contempt of the Goodness of God as if he had ensnared us by his Law and envied our happiness and forbad us that which would do us good and put us upon that which will do us hurt and so would seduce us into calamity and were an enemy to our welfare 7. It is a preferring our naughtiness before His Goodness as if we could do better in regulating our selves than God and could make a better choice for our selves than his Laws have made And as if our wills were fitter than God's to be the Rule of good and evil 8. It is a denial or contempt of his Holiness and Purity which is contrary to sin as health to sickness as if by our deeds we would perswade the world that God is as Satan a lover of sin and an enemy to Himself and Holiness 9. It is a denial or contempt of God's propriety as if we were not his own and he had not power to dispose of us as be list or it is a robbing him of the use and service of that which is absolutely his own 10. It is a claiming of propriety in our selves as if we were at our own disposal and might do with our selves and our faculties as we list 11. It is a belying or contempt of the great and gracious Promises of God and of the wonderfull mercy which he manifesteth in them by which he doth binde and allure us to Obedience As if he did not mean as he speaketh or would not make good his Word to the Obedient 12. It is a falsifying or contempt of his dreadfull Threatnings as if he did not intend any execution of them but made them only as a deceitfull terror to frighten men from sin for want of better means 13. It is a denyal or contempt of the dreadfull future Judgement of God as if he would never call men to any account nor judge them according to his Laws 14. It is a denying the Veracity of God as if he were a Lyar and Deceiver and did not intend the things which he speaketh As if his Precepts were but a false pretension and he were indeed indifferent what we did and were not to be believed in his predictions promises or threats 15. It is a contempt of all the Mercies even of this life which flesh it self doth overvalue As if protection provision deliverances comforts were not so much to be regarded as our Concupiscence nor were not of weight enough to bind us to obey so mercifull a God and as if Ingratitude were no Crime 16. It is a contempt of those Castigatory Afflictions by which God driveth men from sin by giving them a taste of the bitterness of its fruits 17. It is a contempt of all the examples of his Mercy and his Judgements upon others by which he hath shewed us how good he is and how just a punisher of sin 18. It is a contempt of all the inward motions and strivings of God which sinners oft feel perswading them to forbear their sin and to seek after God 19. It is a contempt of Conscience which beareth witness for God against their sins 20. It is a contempt of all the Instructions and advise of wise and good men who are required by God and Nature to warn men and perswade them from their sins 21. It is a contempt of the Example of all Obedient Virtuous Persons whose Lives instruct them and reprove them 22. It is a contempt of Virtue it self which is contrary to sin and whose proper worth commandeth Love 23. It is a contempt of Gods Omnipresence when we will sin in his very presence and of his Omniscience when we will sin when we know that he seeth it 24. It is a contempt of the Greatness and Almightiness of God when a silly Worm dare sin against him who upholdeth the World and can do Justice on him in a moment as if we could make good our part against him 25. It is a contempt of the attractive Goodness of God by
them to perceive its holyness and worth Where it is indeed sincerely practised And is most dishonoured and misunderstood through the wickedness of Hypocrites who profess it As the Impress on the Wax doth make the Image more discernable than the Sculpture on the Seal but the Sculpture is true and perfect when many accidents may render the Impressed image imperfect and faulty So is it in this case To a diligent Enquirer Christianity is best known in its Principles delivered by Christ the Author of it and indeed is no otherwise perfectly known because it is no where else perfectly to be seen But yet it is much more visible and taking with unskilfull superficial Observers in the Professors Lives For they can discern the good or evil of an action who perceive not the nature of the Rule and Precepts The vital form in the Rose-tree is the most excellent part but the beauty and sweetness of the Rose is more easily discerned Effects are most sensible but causes are most excellent And yet in some respect the Practice of Religion is more excellent than the Precepts in as much as the Precepts are Means to Practice For the end is more excellent than the Means as such A poor man can easilyer perceive the worth of Charity in the person that cloatheth and feedeth and relieveth him than the worth of a treatise or sermon of Charity Subjects easily perceive the worth of a wise and holy and just and mercifull King or Magistrate in his actual Government who are not much taken with the Precepts which require yet more perfection And among all descriptions historical Narratives like Zenophons Cyrus do take most with them Doubtless if ever the Professors of Christianity should live according to their own Profession they would thereby overcome the opposition of the World and propagate their Religion with greatest success through all the Earth Because no man can well judge of the Truth of a doctrine till he first know what it is I think it here necessary to open the true nature of the Christian Religion and tell men truly what it is Partly because I perceive that abundance that profess it hypocritically by the meer power of Education Laws and Custom of their Countrey do not understand it and then are the easilyer tempted to neglect or contemn it or forsake it if strongly tempted to it even to forsake that which indeed they never truely received And because its possible some Aliens to Christianity may peruse these lines Otherwise were I to speak only to those that already understand it I might spare this description § 7. The CHRISTIAN RELIGION containeth two Parts 1. All Theological Verities which are of Natural Revelation 2. Much more which is supernaturally revealed The supernatural Revelation is said in it to be partly written by God partly delivered by Angels partly by inspired Prophets and Apostles and partly by Jesus Christ himself in person § 8. The supernatural Revelation reciteth most of the Natural because the searching of the great Book of Nature is a long and difficult work for the now-corrupted dark and slothfull minde of the common sort of men § 9. These supernatural Revelations are all contained 1. Most copiously in a Book called The Holy Bible or Canonical Scriptures 2. More summarily and contractedly in three Forms called The Belief The Lords Prayer and the Ten Commandements and most briefly and summarily in a Sacramental Covenant This last containeth all the Essential parts most briefly and the second somewhat fuller explaineth them and the first the holy Scriptures containeth also all the Integral parts or the whole frame § 10. Some of the present Professors of the Christian Religion do differ about the authority of some few Writings called Apocrypha whether they are to be numbred with the Canonical Books of God or not But those few containing in them no considerable points of doctrine different from the rest the controversie doth not very much concern the substance or doctrinal matter of their Religion § 11. The sacred Scriptures are written very much Historically the Doctrines being interspersed with the History § 12. This sacred Volume containeth two Parts The first called The Old Testament containing the History of the Creation and of the Deluge and of the Jewish Nation till after their Captivity As also their Law and Prophets The second called The New Testament containing the History of the Birth and Life and Death and Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ The sending of his Apostles the giving of the Holy Ghost the course of their Ministry and Miracles with the summ of the doctrine preached first by Christ and then by them and certain Epistles of theirs to divers Churches and persons more fully opening all that doctrine § 13. The summ of the History of the Old Testament is this That in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth with all things in them Viz. That having first made the Intellectual superiour part of the World and the matter of the Elementary World in an unformed Mass he did the first day distinguish or form the active Element of Fire and caused it to give light The second day he separated the rarified Passive Element called Fire expanding it from the Earth upwards to be a separation and medium of action between the superiour and inferiour parts The third day he separated the rest of the Passive Element Earth and Water into their proper place and set their bounds and made individual Plants with their specifick forms and virtue of generation The fourth day he made the Sun Moon and Starrs for Luminaries to the Earth either then forming them or then appointing them to that Office but not revealing their other uses which are nothing to us The fifth day he made Fishes and Birds with the power of generation The sixth day he made the terrestrial Animals and Man with the like generative Power And the seventh day he appointed to be a Sabbath of Rest on which he would be solemnly worshipped by Mankinde as our CREATOR Having made one Man and one Woman in his own Image that is with Intellects Free-will and executive Power in wisdom holiness and aptitude to Obey him and with Dominion over the sensitive and vegetative and inanimate Creatures he placed them in a Garden of pleasure wherein were two Sacramental Trees one called The Tree of Life and the other the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil And besides the Law of Nature he tryed him only with this positive prohibition that he should not eat of the Tree of Knowledge Whereupon the Devil who before this was fallen from his first state of innocency and felicity took occasion to perswade the Woman that Gods Threatning was not true that he meant not as he spake that he knew Man was capable of greater Knowledge but envyed him that happiness and that the eating of that Fruit was not the way to death as God had threatned but to Knowledge and
errour it is a way that reason teacheth all men in the trying of any questioned point to reduce it to those that are unquestionable and see whether or no they accord with those And to mark the unquestionable Ends of Religion and try how it suiteth its means thereunto And therefore men of all sober professions have their determinate principles and ends by which they try such particular opinions as Christians do by their analogy of faith And in this trial of Christianity I shall tell you what I find it § 1. I find in general that there is an admirable concord between Natural Verity and the Gospel of Christ and that Grace is medicinal to Nature and that where Natural light endeth Supernatural beginneth and that the superstructure which Christ hath built upon Nature is wonderfully adapted to its foundation This is made manifest in all the first part of this Treatise Reason which is our Nature is not destroyed but repaired illuminated elevated and improved by the Christian faith Free-will which is our Nature is made more excellently free by Christianity Self-love which is our Nature is not destroyed but improved by right conduct and help to our attainment of its ends The Natural part of Religion is so far from being abrogated by Christianity that the latter doth but subserve the former Christ is the way to God the Father The duty which we owe by Nature to our Creator we owe him still and Christ came to enable and teach us to perform it the love of God our Creator with all our hearts is still our duty and faith in Christ is but the means to the love of God and the bellows to kindle that holy fire The Redeemer came to recover us to our Creator He taketh not the Book of the Creatures or Nature out of our hands but teacheth us better to read and use it And so it is through all the rest § 2. I find also that the state of this present world is exceeding suitable to the Scripture-character of it that it is exceeding evil and a deluge of sin and misery doth declare its great necessity of a Saviour and sheweth it still to be a place unmeet to be the home and happiness of Saints Of all the parts of God's Creation this earth doth seem to be next to Hell certainly it is greatly defiled with sin and overwhelmed with manifold calamities and though God hath not totally forsaken it nor turned away his mercy as he hath done from Hell yet is he much estranged from it so that those who are not recovered by grace are next to devils And alas how numerous and considerable are they to denominate it an evil world Those that Christ calleth out of it he sanctifieth and maketh them unlike the world and his grace doth not give them a worldly felicity nor settle them in a Rest or Kingdom here but it saveth them from this world as from a place of snares and a company of cheaters robbers and murderers and from a tempestuous Sea whose waves seem ready still to drown us I. I find it is a world of Sin II. And of Temptation III. And of Calamity I. For Sin it is become as it were its nature it liveth with men from the birth to the grave It is an ignorant world that wandereth in darkness and yet a proud self-conceited world that will not be convinced of its ignorance and is never more furiously confident than when it is most deceived and most blind Even natural wisdom is so rare and folly hath the major vote and strength that wise men are wearied with resisting folly and ready in discouragements to leave the foolish world unto it self as an incurable Bedlam so fierce are fools against instruction and so hard is it to make them know that they are ignorant or to convince men of their mistakes and errours The Learner thinks his Teacher doteth and he that hath but wit enough to distinguish him from a bruit is as confident as if he were a Doctor The Learned themselves are for the most part but half-witted men who either take up with lazie studies or else have the disadvantage of uncapable temperatures and wits or of unhappy Teachers and false principles received by ill education which keep out truth so that they are but fitted to trouble the world with their contentions or deceive men by their errors and yet have they not the acquaintance with their ignorance which might make them learn of such as can instruct them but if there be among many but one that is wiser than the rest he is thought to be unfit to live among them if he will not deny his knowledge and own their errours and confess that modesty and order require that either the highest or the major vote are the masters of truth and all is false that is against their opinions It is an Atheistical ungodly world that knoweth not its Maker or forgetteth contemneth and wilfully disobeyeth him while in words it doth confess him and yet an hypocritical world that will speak honourably of God and of vertue and piety of justice and charity while they are neglecting and rejecting them and cannot endure the practice of that which their tongues commend almost all sorts will prefer the life to come in words when indeed they utterly neglect it and prefer the fleshly pleasures of this life They cry out of the vanity and vexation of the world and yet they set their hearts upon it and love it better than God and the world to come they will have some Religion to mock God and deceive themselves which shall go no deeper than the knee and tongue in forms or ceremonies or a dissembled affection and profession But to be devoted absolutely to God in self-resignation obedience and love how rare is it even in them who cannot deny but the Law of Nature it self doth primarily and undeniably oblige them to it Their Religion is but self-condemnation while their tongues condemn their hearts and lives It is a sensual bruitish world and seemeth to have hired out their reason to the service of their appetites and lusts gluttony and excess of drink and sports and plays and gaming with pride and wantonness and fornication and uncleanness and worldly pomp and the covetous gathering of provision for the flesh to satisfie these lusts is the business and pleasure of their lives and if you tell them of Reason or the Law of God to take them off you may almost as well think to reason a hungry Dog from his carrion or a lustful Boar to forbear his lust And it is a Selfish world where every man is as an idol to himself and affected to himself and his own interest as if he were all the world drawing all that he can from others to fill his own insatiable desires loving all men and honouring and esteeming and praising them according to the measure of their esteem of him or their
like have more noble and blessed Inhabitants Look to them if you would see his Love in its most glorious demonstration Justice also must be demonstrated if men will sin And if Hell be quite forsaken and Earth which is next it be partly forsaken of the favour of God for all that God may gloriously demonstrate his Love to a thousand thousand-fold more subjects of the nobler Regions than he doth demonstrate his Justice on in Hell or Earth But these two things I gather for the confirmation of my Faith 1. That the sin and misery of the World is such that it groaneth for a Saviour And when I hear of a Physician sent from Heaven I easily believe it when I see the wofull World mortally diseased and gasping in its deep distress The condition of the World is visibly so suitable to the whole Office of Christ and to the Doctrine of the Gospel that I am driven to think that if God have mercy for it some Physician and extraordinary help shall be afforded it And when I see none else but Jesus Christ whom Reason will allow me to believe is that Physician it somewhat prepareth my minde to look towards him with hope 2. And also the Evil of this present World is very suitable to the Doctrine of Christ when he telleth us that he came not to settle us here in a state of Prosperity nor to make the World our Rest or Portion but to save us from it as our enemy and calamity our danger and our Wilderness and trouble and to bring up our hearts first and then our selves to a better World which he calleth us to seek and to make sure of Whereas I finde that most other Religions though they say something of a Life hereafter yet lead men to look for most or much of their felicity here as consisting in the fruition of this World which experience tells me is so miserable § 3. Moreover I finde that the Law of entire Nature was no more suitable to Nature in its integrity than the Law of Grace revealed by Christ is suitable to us in our lapsed state so that it may be called the Law of Nature-lapsed and restorable Naturae lapsae restaurandae Nature entire and Nature depraved must have the same pattern and rule of perfection ultimately to be conformed to because lapsed man must seek to return to his integrity But lapsed or corrupted man doth moreover need another Law which shall first tend to his restoration from that lost and miserable state And it was no more necessary to man in innocency to have a suitable Law for his preservation and confirmation than it is to man in sin and guilt to have a Law of Grace for his pardon and recovery and a course of means prescribed him for the healing of his Soul and for the escaping of the stroke of Justice The following particulars further open this § 4. It seemeth very congruous to Reason that as Monarchy is the perfectest sort of Government which it is probable is even among the Angels so Mankinde should have one universal Head or Monarch over them Kingdoms have their several Monarchs but there is surely an Universal Monarch over them all we know that God is the primary Soveraign but it is very probable to Nature that there is a subordinate Soveraign or general Administrator under him It is not only the Scriptures that speak a Prince of the Devils and of Principalities and Powers and Thrones and Dominions among the happy Spirits and that talk of the Angels that are Princes of several Kingdoms Dan. 10. but even the Philosophers and most Idolaters have from this apprehension been drawn to the worship of such as an inferiour kinde of Deity And if man must have a subordinate universal King it is meet that it be one that is also Man As Angels and Devils have Principals of their own sort and nature and not of others § 5. It seemeth congruous to Reason that this Head be one that is fitted to be our Captain Generall himself to lead us by Conduct Precept and Example in our warfare against those Devils who also are said to have their Prince and General As Devils fight against us under a Prince of their own nature so is it congruous that we fight against them under a Prince of our own nature who hath himself first conquered him and will go on before us in the fight § 6. It is congruous to Reason that lapsed Man under the guilt of sin and desert of punishment who is unable to deliver himself and unworthy of immediate access to God should have a Mediator for his restoration and reconciliation with God If any be found fit for so high an Office § 7. And it is congruous to Reason that this Mediator be one in whom God doth condescend to Man and one in whom man may be encouraged to ascend to God as to one that will forgive and save him And one that hath made himself known to man and also hath free access to God § 8. It is congruous to Reason that lapsed guilty darkened sinners that know so little of God and of his Will and of their own Concernments and of the other World should have a Teacher sent from Heaven of greater Authority and Credit than an Angel to acquaint us with God and his will and the Life that we are going to more certainly and fully than would be done by Nature only That this is very desireable no man can doubt How gladly would men receive a Letter or Book that dropt from Heaven Or an Angel that were sent thence to tell them what is there and what they must for ever trust to Yea if it were but one of their old acquaintance from the dead But all this would leave them in uncertainty still and they would be doubtfull of the credit and truth of any such a Messenger And therefore to have one of fuller Authority that shall confirm his Word by unquestionable attestations would very much satisfie men I have proved that Nature it self revealeth to us a Life of Retribution after this and that Immortality of Souls may be proved without Scripture But yet there is still a darkness and unacquaintedness and consequently a doubting and questioning the certainty of it upon a carnal minde And it would greatly satisfie such if besides meer Reason they had some proof which is more agreeable to a minde in flesh and might either speak with some credible Messenger who hath been in Heaven and fully knoweth all these matters or at least might be certainly informed of his Reports And indeed to men that are fallen into such a dark depravedness of Reason and such Strangers to God and Heaven as mankind is it is become needful that they have more than natural light to shew them the nature the excellency and certainty of the happiness to come or else they are never like so to love and seek it and prefer it before all
Wisdom of the Soul produced by his Light and Wisdom by which we know the difference between Good and Evil and our Reason is restored to its dominion over fleshly sense It is the Goodness of the Soul by which it is made suitable to the Eternal Good and fit to know him love him praise him serve him and enjoy him And therefore nothing lower than his Goodness can be its principal Cause 2. It subserveth the Interest of God in the World And recovereth the apostate Soul to himself It disposeth it to honour him love him and obey him It delivereth up the whole man to him as his own It casteth down all that rebelleth against him It casteth out all which was preferred before him It rejecteth all which standeth up against him and would seduce and tempt us from him And therefore it is certainly his work 3. Whose else should it be Would Satan or any evil cause produce so excellent an effect would the worst of beings do the best of works It is the best that is done in this lower world Would any enemy of God so much honour him and promote his interest and restore him his own would any enemy of mankind thus advance us and bring us up to a life of the highest honour and delights that we are capable of on earth and give us the hopes of life eternal And if any good Angel or other Cause should do it all reason will confess that they do it but as the Messengers or Instruments of God and as second causes and not as the first Cause for otherwise we should make them gods For my own part my Soul perceiveth that it is God himself that hath imprinted this his Image on me and hath hereby as it were written upon me his Name and Mark even HOLINESS TO THE LORD and I bear about me continually a Witness of Himself his Son and holy Spirit a Witness within me which is the Seal of God and the pledge of his love and the earnest of my heavenly inheritance And if our Sanctification be thus of GOD it is certainly his attestation to the truth of Christ and to his Gospel for 1. No man that knoweth the perfections of God will ever believe that he would bless a deceiver and a lie to be the means of the most holy and excellent work that ever was done in the world If Christ were a Deceiver his crime would be so execrable as would engage the Justice of God against him as he is the righteous Governour of the world And therefore he would not so highly honour him to be his chiefest instrument for the worlds Renovation He is not impotent to need such instruments he is not ignorant that he should so mistake in the choice of instruments he is not bad that he should love and use such Instruments and comply with their deceits These things are all so clear and sure that I cannot doubt of them 2. No man that knoweth the mercifulness of God and the Justice of his Government can believe that he would give up Mankind so remedilesly to seduction yea and be the principal causer of it himself For if besides Prophecie and a holy Doctrine and a multitude of famous Miracles a Deceiver might also be the great Renewer and Sanctifier of the world to bring man back to the obedience of God and to repair his Image on Mankind what possibility were there of our discovery of that deceit Or rather should we not say he were a blessed Deceiver that had deceived us from our sin and misery and brought back our straying souls to God 3. Nay when Christ fore-told men that he would send his Spirit to do all this work and would renew men for eternal life and thus be with us to the end of the world and when I see all this done I must needs believe that he that can send down a Sanctifying Spirit a Spirit of Life a Spirit of Power Light and Love to make his Doctrine in the mouths of his Ministers effectual to mens Regeneration and Sanctification is no less himself than God or certainly no less than his certain Administrator 4. What need I more to prove the Cause than the adequate effect When I find that Christ doth actually save me shall I question whether he be my Saviour When I find that he saveth thousands about me and offereth the same to others shall I doubt whether he be the Saviour of the world Sure he that healeth us all and that so wonderfully and so cheaply may well be called our Physician If he had promised only to save us I might have doubted whether he would perform it and consequently whether he be indeed the Saviour But when he performeth it on my self and performeth it on thousands round about me to doubt yet whether he be the Saviour when he actually saveth us is to be ignorant in despite of Reason and Experience I conclude therefore that the Spirit of Sanctification is the infallible Witness of the Verity of the Gospel and the Veracity of Jesus Christ 5. And I entreat all that read this further to observe the great use and advantage of this testimony above others in that it is continued from Generation to Generation and not as the gift and testimony of Miracles which continued plentifully but one Age and with diminution somewhat after this is Christ's witness to the end of the world in every Country and to every Soul yea and continually dwelling in them For if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Rom. 8.9 He that is not able to examine the History which reporteth the Miracles to him may be able to find upon his Soul the Image of God imprinted by the Gospel and to know that the Gospel hath that Image in it self which it imprinteth upon others and that it cometh from God which leadeth men so directly unto God and that it is certainly his own means which he blesseth to so great and excellent ends 6. Note also that part of the work of the Spirit of God in succeeding the Doctrine of Jesus Christ doth consist in the effectual production of Faith it self for though the work be wrought by the Reasons of the Gospel and the Evidences of Truth yet is it also wrought by the Spirit of God concurring with that evidence and as the internal Efficient exciting the sluggish faculties to do their office and illustrating the understanding and fitting the will to entertain the truth for the difficulties are so great and the temptations to unbelief so subtil and violent and our own indisposedness through corruption the greatest impediment of all that the bare Word alone would not produce a belief of that lively vigorous nature as is necessary to its noble effects and ends without the internal co-operation of the Spirit So that Christ doth not only teach us the Christian Faith and Religion but doth give it us and work it in us by his Spirit And he that can do
so doth prove the Divine approbation of his Doctrine without which he could not have the command of mens Souls 7. Note also that the Gospel proposeth to the Soul of man both Truth and Goodness and the Truth is in order to the Good and subservient to it That Christ is indeed the Saviour and his Word infallibly true is believed that we may be made partakers of his Salvation and of the Grace and Glory promised And when the Spirit by the Gospel hath regenerated and renewed any Soul he hath given him part of that grace in possession and hath procreated in him the habitual love of God and of holiness with a love to that Saviour and holy Word which brought him to it So that this Love is now become as a new Nature to the Soul and this being done the Soul cleaveth now as fast to Christ and the Gospel by Love as by Belief not that love becometh an irrational causless love nor continueth without the continuance of Belief or Belief without the Reasons and Evidence of Verity and Credibility But Love now by concurrence greatly assisteth Faith it self and is the faster hold of the two so that the Soul that is very weak in its Reasoning faculty and may oft lose the sight of these Evidences of truth which it did once perceive may still hold fast by this holy Love As the man that by reasoning hath been convinced that hony is sweet will easilier change his mind than he that hath tasted it so Love is the Souls taste which causeth its fastest adherence to God and to the Gospel If a caviller dispute with a loving child or parent or friend to alienate their hearts from one another and would perswade them that it is but dissembled love that is professed to them by their relations and friends Love will do more here to hinder the belief of such a slander than Reason alone can do and where Reason is not strong enough to answer all that the caviller can say yet Love may be strong enough to reject it And here I must observe how oft I have noted the great mercy of God to abundance of poor people whose reasoning faculty would have failed them in temptations to Atheism and Infidelity if they had not had a stronger hold than that and their Faith had not been radicated in the Will by Love I have known a great number of women who never read a Treatise that pleaded the Cause of the Christian Religion nor were able to answer a crafty Infidel that yet in the very decaying time of Nature at fourscore years of age and upward have lived in that sense of the Love of God and in such Love to him and to their Saviour as that they have longed to die and be with Christ and lived in all humility charity and piety such blameless exemplary heavenly Lives in the joyfull expectation of their Change as hath shewed the firmness of their Faith and the Love and Experience which was in them would have rejected a temptation to Atheism and Unbelief more effectually than the strongest Reason alone could ever do Yet none have cause to reproach such and say Their Wills lead their Vnderstandings and they customarily and obstinately believe they know not why for they have known sufficient reason to believe and their understandings have been illuminated to see the truth of true Religion and it was this knowledge of Faith which bred their Love and Experience but when that is done as Love is the more noble and perfect operation of the Soul having the most excellent object so it will act more powerfully and prevailingly and hath the strongest hold Nor are all they without Light and Reason for their belief who cannot form it into arguments and answer all that is said against it Obj. But may not all this which you call Regeneration and the Image of God be the meer power of fantasie and affectation and may not all these people force themselves like melancholy persons to conceit that they have that which indeed they have not Answ 1. They are not melancholly persons that I speak of but those that are as capable as any others to know their own minds and what is upon their own hearts 2. It is not one or two but millions 3. Nature hath given man so great acquaintance with himself by a power of perceiving his own operations that his own cogitations and desires are the first thing that naturally he can know and therefore if he cannot know them he can know nothing If I cannot know what I think and what I love and hate I can know nothing at all 4. That they are really minded and affected as they seem and have in them that love to God and Heaven and Holiness which they profess they shew to all the world by the effects 1. In that it ruleth the main course of their lives and disposeth of them in the world 2. In that these apprehensions and affections over-rule all their worldly fleshly interest and cause them to deny the pleasures of the flesh and the profits and honours of the world 3. In that they are constant in it to the death and have no other mind in their distress when as Seneca saith Nothing feigned is of long continuance for all forc'd things are bending back to their natural state 4. In that they will lay down their lives and forsake all the world for the hopes which faith in Christ begetteth in them And if the objectors mean that all this is true and yet it is but upon delusion or mistake that they raise these hopes and raise these affections I answer This is the thing that I am disproving 1. The love of God and a holy mind and life is not a dream of the Soul or a deliration I have proved from Natural reason in the first Book that it is the end and use and perfection of man's faculties that if God be God and man be man we are to love him above all and to obey him as our absolute Sovereign and to live as devoted to him and to delight in his love Man were more ignoble or miserable than a beast if this were not his work And is that a dream or a delusion which causeth a man to live as a man to the ends that he was made for and according to the nature and use of his reason and all his faculties 2. While the proofs of the excellency and necessity of a holy life are so fully before laid down from natural and supernatural revelation the Objector doth but refuse to see in the open light when he satisfieth himself with a bare assertion that all this is no sufficient ground for a holy life but that it is taken up upon mistake 3. All the world is convinced at one time or other that on the contrary it is the unholy fleshly worldly life which is the dream and dotage and is caused by the grossest error and deceit Object But how
the rude and ignorant part of the world All the truth which any Philosopher teacheth is God's truth and it is no wonder if a God of so much goodness do bless his own truth according to its nature and proportion who ever be the messenger of it Whether the success of Philosophy be ever the true sanctification and salvation of any souls is a thing that I meddle not with it belongeth not to us and therefore is not revealed to us But it is visible in the Gospel that all that part of practical doctrine which the Philosophers taught is contained in the doctrine of Christ as a part in the whole and therefore the impress and effect is more full and perfect as the doctrine and the impress and effect of the Philosophers doctrine can be no better than the cause which is partial and defective and mixt with much corruption and untruth All that is good in the Philosophers is in the doctrine of Christ but they had abundance of false opinions and idolatries to corrupt it when Christianity hath nothing but clean and pure So that as no Philosopher affirmed himself to be the Saviour so his doctrine was not attested by the plenary and common effect of Regeneration as Christ's was but as they were but the Ministers of the God of Nature so they had but an answerable help from God who could not be supposed however had they wrought miracles to have attested more than themselves asserted or laid claim to Object But Mahomet ventured on a higher arrogation and pretence and yet if his doctrine sanctifie men it will not justifie his pretences Answ 1. It is not proved that his Doctrine doth truly sanctifie any 2. The effect which it hath can be but lame defective and mixt with much vanity and error as his doctrine is for the effect cannot excell the cause 3. That part of his doctrine which is good and doth good is not his own but part of Christs from whom he borrowed it and to whom the good effects are to be ascribed 4. Mahomet never pretended to be the Son of God and Saviour of the World but only to be a Prophet Therefore his cause is much like that of the Philosophers forementioned saving that he giveth a fuller testimony to Christ 5. If Mahomet had proved his Word by antecedent Prophesies Promises and Types through many ages and by inherent purity and by concomitant Miracles and by such wonderfull subsequent communications of renewing sanctifying grace by the Spirit of God so ordinary in the World we should all have had reason to believe his Word But if he pretend only to be a Prophet and give us none of all these proofs but a foppish ridiculous bundle of Non-sense full of carnal doctrines mixt with holy truth which he had from Christ we must judge accordingly of his Authority and Word notwithstanding God may make use of that common truth to produce an answerable degree of Goodness among those that hear and know no better These Objections may be further answered anon among the rest And thus much shall here suffice of the great and cogent Evidences of the truth of the Christian Faith CHAP. VII Of the subservient proofs and means by which the forementioned Evidences are brought to our certain knowledge THE witness of the Spirit in the four wayes of Evidence already opened is proved to be sure and cogent if first it be proved to be true that indeed such a witness to Jesus Christ hath been given to the World The Argument is undenyable when the Minor is proved He whose Word is attested by God by many thousand years predictions by the inherent Image of God upon the frame of his doctrine by multitudes of uncontrolled Miracles and by the success of his Doctrine to the true Regeneration of a great part of the World is certainly to be believed But such is Jesus Christ Ergo I have been hitherto for the most part proving the Major Proposition and now come to the Minor as to the several branches § 1. I. The Prophetical Testimony of the Spirit is yet legible in the Promises Prophesies and Types and main design of the Old Testament § 2. The Books of Holy Scripture where all these are sound are certain uncorrupted records thereof preserved by the unquestioned tradition and care and to this day attested by the generall confession of the Jewes who are the bitterest enemies to Christianity There are no men of reason that I have heard of that deny the Books of Moses and the Psalms and the Prophets c. to be indeed those that went under those titles from the beginning And that there can be no considerable corruption in them which might much concern their testimony to Christ the comparing of all the Copies and the Versions yet extant will evince together with the testimony of all sorts of enemies and the morall impossibility of their corruption But I will not stand to prove that which no sober adversary doth deny To these Books the Christians did appeal and to these the Jews profess to stand § 3. II. The constitutive inherent image of God upon the Gospel of Christ is also still visible in the Books themselves and needeth no other proof than a capable Reader as afore described § 4. The preaching and Writings of the Ministers of Christ do serve to illustrate this and help men to discern it but adde nothing to the inherent perfection of the Gospel for matter or for method § 5. III. The testimony of the age of Miracles fore-described can be known naturally no way but by sight or other senses to those present and by report or history to those absent § 6. The Apostles and many thousand others saw the Miracles wrought by Christ and needed no other proof of them than their senses The many thousands who at twice were fed by Miracle were witnesses of that The multitude were witnesses of his healing the blinde the lame the paralitick the Demoniacks c. The Pharisees themselves made the strictest search into the cure of the man born blinde Joh. 9. and the raising of Lazarus from the dead and many more His miracles were few of them hid but openly done before the World § 7. The Apostles and many hundreds more were witnesses of Christs own Resurrection and needed no other proof but their sense At divers times he appeared to them together and apart and yielded to Thomas his unbelief so farre as to call him to put his finger into his side and see the print of the Nails He instructed them concerning the Kingdom of God for forty dayes Act. 1. He gave them their Commission Mar. 16. Mat. 28. Joh. 21. He expostulated with Peter and engaged him to feed his Lambs He was seen of more than five hundred brethren at once And lastly appeared after his ascension to Paul and to John that wrote the Revelations § 8. The Apostles also were eye-witnesses of his ascension Act. 1. What he had foretold
it is God's own attestation I have shewed before § 66. I have opened the validity of the Apostles testimony of the Resurrection and miracles of Christ and the first Churches certain testimony of the miracles of the Apostles both of them having a three-fold certainty Moral Natural and Supernatural In all which I have supposed that such a testimony the Churches have indeed given down to their posterity which is the thing that remaineth lastly to be here proved § 67. The doctrine and miracles of Christ and his Apostles have been delivered us down from the first Churches by all these following ways of history 1. By delivering to us the same writings of the Apostles and Evangelists which they received from their hands themselves as certain truth and delivered down as such to us even the holy Scriptures of the New Testament They that believed their words believed their writings and have told us their belief by preserving them for posterity as Sacred Verities In the holy Scriptures the life and death and doctrine of Christ is contained with the doctrine of the Apostles and so much of the history of their Preaching and Miracles as Luke was an eye-witness of or had certain knowledge of who was commonly Pauls companion by which we may partly judge of the Acts of the rest of the Apostles And if the Churches had not believed all these they would not have delivered them as the infallible Writings of the inspired Apostles to their Posterity § 68 2. The very successive Being of Christians and Churches is the fullest history that they believed those things which made them Christians and Churches which was the doctrine and miracles of Christ A Christian is nothing else but one that receiveth the Doctrine Resurrection and Miracles of Christ as certain truth by the preaching and Miracles of his great Witnesses the Apostles so many Christians as there ever were so many believers of these things there have been It was this Doctrine and Miracles that made them Christians and planted these Churches And if any man think it questionable whether there have been Christians ever since Christs time in the World All history will satisfie him Roman Mahometan Jewish and Christian without any one dissenting voice Pliny Suetonius Tacitus Marcellinus Eunapius Lucian and Porphyry and Julian and all such enemies may convince him He shall read the history of their sufferings which will tell him that certainly such a sort of persons there was then in the World § 69. 3. The succession of Pastors and Preachers in all generations is another proof For it was their office to read publickly and preach this same Scripture to the Church and World as the truth of God I speak not of a succession of Pastors in this one City or that or by this or that particular way of ordination having nothing here to do with that But that a certain succession there hath been since the dayes of the Apostles is past question For 1. Else there had been no particular Churches 2. Nor no baptism 3. Nor no publick Worship of God 4. Nor no Synods or Discipline But this is not denyed § 70. 4. The continuance of Baptism which is the kernel or sum of all Christianity proveth the continuance of the Christian Faith For all Christians in Baptism were baptized into the vowed belief and obedience of the Son and Holy Ghost as well as of the Father § 71. 5. The delivering down of the three breviate Symbols of Faith Desire and Duty the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue is the Churches delivery of the Christian Religion as that which all Christians have believed § 72. 6. The constant communion of the Church in solemn Assemblies and setting apart the Lords Day to that use was a delivery of the Christian Faith which those assemblies all professed to believe § 73. 7. The constant preaching and reading of these same Scriptures in those Assemblies and celebrating there the Sacrament of Christs death and the custom of open professing their Belief and the Prayers and praises of God for the Resurrection and Miracles of Christ are all open undenyable testimonies that these things were believed by those Churches § 74. 8. The frequent disputes which Christians in all ages have held with the adversaries of the Scripture and Christianity do shew that they believed all these Scriptures and the Doctrines and Miracles therein contained § 75. 9. The Writings of the Christians in all ages their Apologies Commentaries Histories Devotional treatises all bear the same testimony that we have these things by their tradition § 76. 10. The Confessions Sufferings and Martyrdom of many in most ages do bear the same testimony that they believed this for which they suffered and that posterity received it from them § 77. 11. The Decrees and Canons of the Synods or Councils of the Bishops of the Churches are another part of the history of the same belief § 78. 12. Lastly the decrees and laws of Princes concerning them are another part of the history shewing that they did believe these things § 79. And if any question whether our Scriptures which contain these histories and doctrines be indeed the same which these Churches received and delivered from the Apostles he may easily be convinced as followeth § 80. 1. Various Copies of it in the Hebrew and Greek text were very quickly scattered about the World and are yet found in all Nations agreeing in all material passages § 81. 2. These Scriptures were translated into many Languages of which there are yet extant the Syriack Arabick Ethiopick Persian c. which agree in all material things § 82. 3. It was the stated Office of the Ministers in all the Churches in the World to read these Scriptures openly to the People and preach on them in all their solemn Assemblies And a thing so publickly maintained and used could not possibly be altered materially § 83. 4. All private Christians were exhorted to read and use the same Scriptures also in their Families and in secret § 84. 5. This being through so many Nations of the World it was not possible that they could all agree upon a corruption of the Scriptures nor is there mention in any history of any attempt of any such agreement § 85. 6. If they would have met together for that end they could not possibly have all consented Because they were of so many mindes and parties and inclinations § 86. 7. Especially when all Christians by their Religion take it to be matter of damnation to adde to or diminish from these sacred Writings as being the inspired Word of God § 87. 8. And every Christian took it for the rule of his Faith and the Charter for his heavenly Inheritance and therefore would certainly have had his action against the Corrupters of it As the Laws of this Land being recorded and having Lawyers and Judges whose calling is continually to use them and men holding their Estates and safety by them if any would alter them all
A Sellius his milkie Veines and Pecquets Receptacle of the Chyle and Bartholines Glandules and the Vasa Lymphatica are of late discovery Galilaeus his Glasses and his four Medicaean Planets and the Lunary mutations of Venus and the strange either opacous parts and shape of Saturn or the proximity of two other Stars which mishape it to our sight the shadowy parts of the Moon c. with the innumerable Stars in the Via Lactea c. were all unknown to former ages Gilberts magnetical discoveries I speak not of those questionable Inferences which Campanella and others contradict the nature of many Minerals and Plants the chief operations and effects of Chymistry abundance of secrets for the cure of many diseases even the most excellent medicaments are all of very late invention Almost all Arts and Sciences are encreasing neerer towards Perfection Ocular demonstrations by the Telescope and sensible experiments are daily multiplyed Yea the World it self is not all discovered to any one part but a great part of it was but lately made known even to the Europeans whose knowledge is greatest by Columbus and Americus Vesputianus and it is not long since it was first measured by a Circumnavigation If the World had been eternall or of much longer duration than the Scripture speaketh it is not credible that multiplyed experiences would not have brought it above that Infancy of knowledge in which it so long continued Obj. Cursed Warrs by Fire and Depopulation consume all Antiquities and put the World still to begin anew Answ It doth indeed do much this way but it is not so much that Warre could do For when it is in one Countrey others are free and some would fly or lie hid or survive who would preserve Arts and Sciences and be teachers of the rest Who can think now that any Wars are like to make America or Galilaeus's Stars unknown again or any of the forenamed Inventions to be lost 2. Moreover it is strange if the World were eternall or much elder than Scripture speaketh that no part of the World should shew us any elder Monument of Antiquity no engraven Stones or Plates no Mausolus Pyramids or Pillars no Books no Chronological Tables no Histories or Genealogies or other Memorials and Records I know to this also cursed Warrs may contribute much But not so much as to leave nothing to inquisitive Successors § 2. II. It greatly confirmeth my belief of the Holy Scriptures to finde by certain experience the Original and Vniversal pravity of mans nature how great it is and wherein it doth consist exactly agreeing with this Sacred Word when no others have made such a full discovery of it This I have opened and proved before and he is a stranger to the World and to himself that seeth it not Were it not lest I weary the Reader with length how fully and plainly could I manifest it § 3. III. The certain observation of the universal Spiritual Warre which hath been carryed on according to the first Gospel between the Woman's and the Serpent's seed doth much confirm me of the truth of the Scriptures Such a contrariety there is even between Cain and Abel Children of the same Father such an implacable enmity throughout all the World in almost all wicked men against Godliness it self and those that sincerely love and follow it such a hatred in those that are Orthodoxly bred against the true power use and practice of the Religion which they themselves profess such a resolute resistance of all that is seriously good and holy and tendeth but to the saving of the resisters that it is but a publick visible acting of all those things which the Scripture speaketh of and a fulfilling them in all ages and places in the sight of all the World Of which having treated largely in my Treatise against Infidelity of the sin against the Holy Ghost I referre you thither § 4. IV. It much confirmeth me to finde that there is no other Religion professed in the World that an impartial rational man can rest in That man is made for another life the light of Nature proveth to all men And some way or other there must be opened to us to attain it Mahometanisme I think not worthy a confutation Judaisme must be much beholden to Christianity for its proofs and is but the introduction to it inclusively considered The Heathens or meer Naturalists are so blinde so idolatrous so divided into innumerable sects so lost and bewildred in uncertainties and shew us so little holy fruit of their Theology that I can incline to no more than to take those natural Verities which they confess and which they cast among the rubbish of their fopperies and wickedness and to wipe them clean and take them for some part of my Religion Christianity or nothing is the way § 5. V. It much confirmeth me to observe that commonly the most true and serious Christians are the holyest and most honest righteous men and that the worse men are the greater enemies they are to true Christianity And then to think how incredible it is that God should lead all the worst men into the truth and leave the best and godlyest in an error In small matters or common secular things this were no wonder But in the matter of Believing worshipping and pleasing God and saving of Souls it is not credible As for the belief of a Life to come no men are so far from it as the vilest Whoremongers Drunkards perjured persons Murderers Oppressors Tyrants Thieves Rebels or if any other name can denote the worst of men And none so much believe a Life to come as the most godly honest-hearted persons And can a man that knoweth that there is a God believe that he will leave all good men in so great an error and rightly inform and guide all these Beasts or living walking images of the Devil The same in a great measure is true of the friends and enemies of Christianity § 6. VI. It hath been a great convincing argument with me against both Atheisme and Infidelity to observe the marvelous Providences of God for divers of his servants and the strange answer of Prayers which I my self and ordinarily other Christians have had I have been and am as backward to ungrounded credulity about wonders as most men that will not strive against knowledge But I have been oft convinced by great experience and testimonies which I believed equally with my eye-sight of such actions of God as I think would have convinced most that should know as much of them as I did But few of them are fit to mention For some of them so much concern my self that strangers may be tempted to think that they savour of self-esteem and some of them the factions and parties in these times will by their interest be engaged to distaste And some of them have been done on persons whose after scandalous Crimes have made me think it unfit to mention them lest I should seem
fruition is our state in patriâ our end and perfection and not fit for the state of trial and travellers in the way § 12. 2. If I had been to choose who this Messenger should be I could have preferred none before him who is the very Wisdom Truth and Word of God Had it been but an Angel I might have thought that his Indefectibility and Veracity is uncertain to mankind on earth but Wisdom and Truth it self can never lie § 13. 3. If I had been to choose in what way this Messenger should converse with man as an effectual and suitable Teacher of these Mysteries and how the work of Mediation between God and man should be performed I could have desired no fitter way than that he should assume our nature and in that nature familiarly instruct us and be our example and our High Priest toward God by his Merit Sacrifice and Intercession § 14. 4. Had I been to choose what way he should prove his Message to be of God I could not have chosen a more satisfying way than that of Prophecy Sanctity and open numerous and uncontrouled Miracles with his own Resurrection and Ascension and giving the holy Ghost to be his Advocate and Witness continually to the world § 15. 5. I could not have expected that these Miracles should be done in the sight of all the persons in the world in every place and age for then they would be but as common works but rather before such chosen Witnesses as were fit to communicate them to others § 16. 6. Nor could I have chosen a fitter way for such Witnesses to confirm their testimony by than by the same Spirit of holiness and power and by such a stream of Miracles as the Apostles wrought and such success in the actual renovation of their followers § 17. 7. Nor could I well have chosen a more meet and convincing way of History or Tradition to convey down all these things to us than that before described which hath been used by God § 18. 8. Nor could I have chosen any one standing Seal and Witness of Christ so fit for all persons learned and unlearned and to endure through all generations as is the actual saving of men by the real renovation of their hearts and lives by the holy Spirit reclaiming them from selfishness sensuality worldliness and other sin and bringing them up to the Image of God's holiness in love and heavenliness which is the continued work of Christ So that when God hath done all things so as my very reason is constrained to acknowledge best what should I desire more I confess I feel still that my nature would fain be satisfied by the way of sight and sense Could I see heaven and hell I think it would most effectually end all doubts But my Reason is satisfied that it is a thing unmeet and utterly unsuitable to a world that must be morally governed and conducted to their end § 19. XI The temptations of Satan by which he would hinder us from faith love and obedience are so palpable malicious and importunate that they do much to confirm me of the truth and goodness of that word and way which he so much resisteth I think that there are few men good or bad if they will observe both the inward suggestions with which they are oft solicited for matter manner and season and the outward impediments to every good work and invitations to evil which they meet with in their conversations but may be convinced that there are malicious spirits who are enemies to Christ and us and continually by temptations fight against him § 20. XII The Devils contracts with Witches opposing Christ and engaging them to renounce their Baptism and to forsake his ways is some confirmation of the Christian verity That Witches really there are as I said before he that will read Remigius and Bodin only may be satisfied as also the Malleus maleficorum Danaeus c. and the numerous instances in Suffolk and Essex about 21 years ago may further satisfie them And that the Devil draweth them to such renunciations of the Covenant and Ordinances of Christ the many Histories of it are full proof § 21. XIII Though many such reports are fabulous and delusory yet there have been certainly proved in all ages such Apparitions as either by opposition or defence have born some testimony to the Christian faith Of both these last see what I have written in my Treat of Infidelity and in the Saints Rest Part 2. And read Lavater de Spectris Zanchius tom 3. lib. 4 cap. 10. and cap. 20. Daelrio c. And what I said before especially the Narrative called The Devil of Mascon and Dr. Moor of Atheism § 22. XIV The speeches and actions of persons possessed by the Devil usually raging blasphemously against Christ doth somewhat confirm the Christian verity That there are and have been many such there hath been unquestionable evidence See my Saints Rest part 2. page 258 c. Zanchius tom 3. lib. 4. cap. 10. page 288. Forestus de Venenis observ 8. in Schol. Pet. Mart. Loc. Com. Clas 1. cap. 9. Fernel de abdit rerum causis lib. 2. cap. 16. Platerus observ pag. 20. de stupore Doemon c. Tertul. Apol. cap. 23. Cyprian Epis ad Demetrium Origen in Matth. 17. Augustin de Divinat Doemon c. § 23. XV. Lastly the testimony of the enemies of Christianity is some encouragement to faith What conjectures there be that Pythagoras had his knowledge from the Jews and Plato was not a stranger to Moses's writings hath been shewed by many How plain it is that the wiser and better any Heathens have been the nearer they have come in their doctrines to that of Jesus Christ I need not say much to convince the considerate that are men of reading How the Jews were convinced of the miracles of Christ and fled to the accusation of Christ as a Magician is already shewed The wisest and best of the Roman Emperours favoured them Dion Cassius in the life of Nerva Cocceius page 1. saith Caeterum Nerva omnes qui impietatis in Deos rei fuerant eos absolvi voluit exules in patriam reduxit These that were called Impietatis rei were the Jews and Christians who refused to sacrifice to Idols And he addeth Et ne servi de caetero dominos criminarentur edicto vetuit neve liceret aut impietatis aut Judaicae sectae quemquam dehinc insimulari It seemeth by this that when displeased servants would be revenged on their masters they used to accuse them of Christianity or Judaism Trajan did something against the Christians being provoked by the Jews who saith Dion Cassius in vita Trajani did make one Andrew their Captain and about Cyrene murdered of Greeks and Romans above two hundred thousand men But upon Pliny's information of the Christians innocency and unjust sufferings their persecutions were moderated Adrian also was exasperated by the Jews who
no way incredible that God should value man according to his natural worth and usefulness as an intellectual agent capable of Knowing and Loving and Praising him and Enjoying him His creating us such and his abundant mercies to us do abundantly prove the truth of this Nor is it incredible that he should be willing that his depraved creature should be restored to the use and ends of its nature nor is it incredible that God should choose the best and fittest means to effect all this Nothing more credible than all this 4. And it is not incredible at all that the Incarnation of the Eternal Word should be the fittest means for this reparation If we consider 1. What question we should have made of the word of an Angel or any meer creature that should have said he came from God to teach us seeing we could not be so certain that he was infallible and indefectible 2. And how short a creature would have fallen in the Priestly part of Mediation 3. And how insufficient he would have been for the Kingly Dignity and universal Government and Protection of the Church and Judgement of the world 4. And withall that God Himself being the Glorifier of Himself and the Donor of all felicity to us it is very congruous that he should most eminently Himself perform the most eminent of these works of mercy 5. And it much assisteth my belief of the Incarnation to consider that certainly the work that was to be done for man's recovery was the winning of his heart to the Love of God from himself and other creatures and there was no way imaginable so fit to inflame us with love to God as for him most wonderfully to manifest his love to us which is more done in the work of man's Redemption than any other way imaginable so that being the most suitable means to restore us to the love of God it is fittest to be the way of our recovery and so the more credible 6. And it much suppresseth temptation to unbelief in me to consider that the three grand works in which God's Essentialities declare themselves must needs be all such as beseemeth God that is most wonderful transcending man's comprehension And as his Omnipotency shewed it self with Wisdom and Love in the great work of Creation so was it meet that his Wisdom should shew it self most wonderfully in the great work of Redemption in order to the as wonderful declaration of his Love and Goodness in the great work of our Salvation our Regeneration and Glorification And therefore if this were not a wonderful work it were not fit to be parallel with the Creation in demonstrating God's Perfections to our minds Object III. But how incredible is it that humane nature should in a glorified Christ be set above the Angelical nature Answ There is no arguing in the dark from things unknown against what is fully brought to light What God hath done for man the Scripture hath revealed and also that Christ himself is far above the Angels But what Christ hath done for Angels or for any other world of creatures God thought not meet to make us acquainted with There have been Christians who have thought by plausible reasonings from many Texts of Scripture that Christ hath three Natures the Divine and a Super-angelical and a Humane and that the Eternal Word did first unite it self to the Super-angelical nature and in that created the world and in that appeared to Abraham and the other Fathers and then assumed the Humane nature last of all for Redemption And thus they would reconcile the Arrians and the Orthodox But the most Christians hold only two Natures in Christ but then they say that he that hath promised that we shall be equal with the Angels doth know that the nature of Man's Soul and of Angels differ so little that in advancing one he doth as it were advance both and certainly maketh no disorder in nature by exalting the inferiour in sensu composito above the Superiour and more excellent Let us not then deceive our selves by arguing from things unknown Object IV. There are things so incredible in the Scripture-Miracles that it is hard to believe them to be true Answ 1. No doubt but Miracles must be Wonders they were not else so sufficient to be a divine attestation if they were not things exceeding our power and reach But why should they be thought incredible Is it because they transcend the Power of God or his Wisdom or his Goodness Or because they are harder to him than the things which our eyes are daily witnesses of Is not the motion of the Sun and Orbs and especially of the Primum Mobile which the Peripateticks teach yea or that of the Earth and Globes which others teach as great a work as any miracle mentioned in the holy Scriptures Shall any man that ever considered the number magnitude glory and motions of the Fixed Stars object any difficulty to God Is it not as easie to raise one man from the dead as to give life to all the living 2. And are not Miracles according to our own necessities and desires Do not men call for signs and wonders and say If I saw one rise from the dead or saw a Miracle I would believe Or at least I cannot believe that Christ is the Son of God unless he work Miracles And shall that be a hinderance to your belief which is your last remedy against unbelief Will you not believe without miracles and yet will you not believe them because they are Miracles This is but meer perversness as much as to say we will neither believe with Miracles nor without 3. Impartially consider of the proof I have before given you of the certain truth of the matter of Fact that such miracles were really done and then you may see not only that they are to be believed but the doctrine to be the rather believed for their sakes Obj. V. It is hard to believe the Immortality of the Soul and the Life to come when we consider how much the soul dependeth in its operations on the body and how it seemeth but gradually to exceed the bruits Especially to believe the Eternity of it or its joyes when omne quod oritur interit And if Eternity à parte ante be proper to God why not Eternity à parte post Answ 1. The Immortality of the Soul and consequently its perpetual duration and a life of Retribution after this did not seem things incredible to most of the Heathens and Infidels in the World And I have proved it before by evidence of Nature to common Reason So that to make that incredible in Christianity which Philosophers and almost all the World hold and which hath cogent natural evidence is to put out the eye of Reason as well as of Faith 2. And that it hath much use of or dependance on the body in its present operations is no proof at all that when it is out of the body
these Who can say that God is unable to raise the dead who seeth so much greater things performed by him in the daily motion of the Sun or Earth and in the support and course of the whole frame of Nature He that can every Spring give a kinde of Resurrection to Plants and Flowers and Fruits of the Earth can easily raise our bodies from the dust And no man can prove that the Wisdom of God or yet his Will are against our Resurrection but that both are for it may be proved by his Promises Shall that which is beyond the power of Man be therefore objected as a difficulty to God 2. Yea it is congruous to the Wisdom and Governing Justice of God that the same Body which was partaker with the Soul in sin and duty should be partaker with it in suffering or felicity 3. The Lord Jesus Christ did purposely die and rise again in his humane body to put the Resurrection out of doubt by undenyable ocular demonstration and by the certainty of belief 4. There is some Natural Reason for the Resurrection in the Souls inclination to its Body As it is unwilling to lay it down it will be willing to reassume it when God shall say The time is come As we may conclude at night when they are going to bed that the people of City and Countrey will rise the next morning and put on their Cloaths and not go naked about the streets because there is in them a Natural inclination to rising and to cloaths and a natural aversness to lie still or to go uncloathed so may we conclude from the souls natural inclination to its body that it will reassume it as soon as God consenteth 5. And all our Objections which reason from supposed contradictions vanish because none of us all have so much skill in Physicks as to know what it is which individuateth this Numerical Body and so what it is which is to be restored But we all confess that it is not the present mass of flesh and humours which being in a continual flux is not the same this year which it was the last and may vanish long before we die Obj. X. If Christ be indeed the Saviour of the World why came he not into the World till it was 4000 years old And why was he before revealed to so few and to them so darkly Did God care for none on earth but a few Jews or did he not care for the Worlds recovery till the later age when it drew towards its end Answ It is hard for the Governour of the World by ordinary means to satisfie all self-conceited persons of the wisdom and equity of his dealings But 1. it belongeth not to us but to our free Benefactor to determine of the measure and season of his benefits May he not do with his own as he list And shall we deny or question a proved truth because the reason of the circumstances is unrevealed to us If our Physician come to cure us of a mortal disease would we reject him because he came not sooner and because he cured not all others that were sick as well as us 2. The Eternal Wisdom and Word of God the second Person in the Trinity was the Saviour of the World before he was incarnate He did not only by his Vndertaking make his future performances valid as to the merit and satisfaction necessary to our deliverance but he instructed Mankinde in order to their recovery and Ruled them upon terms of grace and so did the work of a Redeemer or Mediator even as Prophet Priest and King before his Incarnation He enacted the Covenant of Grace that whoever repenteth and believeth shall be saved and so gave men a conditional pardon of their sins 3. And though Repentance and the Love of God was necessary to all that would be saved even as a constitutive cause of their salvation yet that Faith in the Mediator which is but the means to the Love of God and to sanctification was not alwayes nor in all places in the same particular Articles necessary as it is now where the Gospel is preached Before Christs coming a more general belief might serve the turn for mens salvation without believing that This Jesus is the Christ that he was conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified dead and buryed and descended to Hades and rose again the third day and ascended into Heaven c. And as more is necessary to be believed since Christs incarnation and resurrection than before so more was before necessary to the Jewes who had the Oracles of God and had more revealed to them than to other Nations who had less revealed And now more is necessary where the Gospel cometh than where it doth not 4. So that the Gentiles had a Saviour before Christs Incarnation and not only the Jewes They were reprieved from Legal Justice and not dealt with by God upon the proper terms of the Covenant of Works or meer Nature They had all of them much of that mercy which they had forfeited which came to them by the Grace of the Redeemer They had time and helps to turn to God and a course of means appointed them to use in order to their recovery and salvation According to the use of which they shall be judged They were not with the Devils left remediless and shut out of all hope under final desperation No one ever perished in any Age or Nation of the World who by believing in a mercifull pardoning holy God was recovered to love God above all And if they did not this they were all without a just excuse 5. The course of Grace as that of Nature doth wisely proceed from low degrees to higher and bringeth not things to perfection at the first The Sun was not made the first day of the Creation nor was Man made till all things were prepared for him The Churches Infancy was to go before its Maturity We have some light of the Sun before it rise much more before it come to the height As Christ now teacheth his Church more plainly when he is himself gone into Glory even by his Pastors whom he fitteth for that work and by his Spirit so did he though more obscurely yet sufficiently teach it before he came in the flesh by Prophets and Priests His work of Salvation consisteth in bringing men to live in Love and Obedience And his way of Teaching them his saving doctrine is by his Ministers without and by his Spirit within And thus he did before his coming in flesh and thus he doth since we that are born since his coming see not his Person any more than they who were born before But we have his Word Ministers and Spirit and so had they His reconciling sacrifice was effectual morally in esse cognito volito before the performance of it And the means of reconciling our mindes to God
effect of any politick Confederacy between him and them but the effect of Gods Power Light and Love so that it should be a great confirmation to our Faith to consider that those multitudes believed by the wonderfull testimony and work of the Holy Ghost upon the Disciples when Christ had been crucified in despight who yet believed not before but were his Crucifiers It was not so hard nor honourable an act to believe in him when he went about working Miracles and seemed in a possibility to restore their temporal Kingdom as to believe in him after he had been crucified among Malefactors He therefore that could after this by the Spirit and Miracles bring so many thousands to believe did shew that he was alive himself and in full power 3. And that the Apostles were mean unlearned men is a great confirmation to our Faith For now it is apparent that they had their abilities wisdom and successes from the Spirit and Power of God But if they had been Philosophers or cunning men it might have been more suspected to be a laid contrivance between Christ and them Indeed for all his Miracles they began to be in doubt of him themselves when he was dead and buryed till they saw him risen again and had the Spirit came upon them and this last undenyable evidence and this heavenly insuperable Call and Conviction was it which miraculously setled them in the Faith 4. And that Saviour who came not to make us Worldlings but to save us from this present evil World and to cure our esteem and love of worldly things did think it meetest both to appear in the form of a poor man himself and to choose Disciples of the like condition and not to choose the worldly wise and great and honourable to be the first attesters of his miracles or preachers of his Gospel Though he had some that were of place and quality in the World as Nicodemus Joseph Cornelius Sergius Paulus c. yet his Power needed not such Instruments As he would not teach us to magnifie worldly Pomp nor value things by outward appearance as the deluded dreaming world doth so he would shew us that he needeth not Kings nor Philosophers by worldly power or wisdom to set up his Kingdom He giveth power but he receiveth none He setteth up Kings and by him they reign but they set not up him nor doth he reign by any of them Nor will he be beholden to great men or learned men for their help to promote his cause and interest in the World The largeness of his mercy indeed extendeth to Kings and all in Authority as well as to the poor and if they will not reject it nor break his bonds but kiss the Son before his wrath break forth against them they may be saved as well as others Psal 2.1 2 9 10. 1 Tim. 2.1 2. But he will not use them in the first setting up of his Church in the World lest men should think that it was set up by the Learning Policy or Power of man 1 Cor. 1.26 27 28 29. and 2.5 6 7 10 13. 13.19 c. And therefore he would not be voted one of the Gods by Tyberius or Adrians Senate nor accept of the worship of Alexander Sevâ—rus who in his Lararium worshipped him as one of his Demi-gods nor receive any such beggarly Deity from man but when Constantine acknowledged him as God indeed he accepted his acknowledgement Those unlearned men whom he used were made wiser in an hour by the Holy Ghost than all the Philosophers in the World And those mean contemned persons overcame the Learning and Power of the World and not by Arms as Mahomet but against Arms and Arguments wit and rage by the Spirit alone they subdued the greatest powers to their Lord. Obj. XIV But it doth sapere scenam sound like a Poetical fiction that God should satisfie his own Justice and Christ should die instead of our being damned and this to appease the wrath of God as if God were angry and delighted in the blood or sufferings of the innocent Answ Ignorance is the great cause of unbelief This objection cometh from many errours and false conceits about the things of which it speaketh 1. If the word Satisfaction offend you use only the Scripture-words that Christ was a Sacrifice an Atonement a Propitiation a Price c. And if this be incredible how came it to pass that sacrificing was the custom of all the world Doth not this objection as much militate against this was God angry or was he delighted in the bloud and sufferings of harmless sheep and other cattel and must these either satisfie him or appease his wrath What think you should be the cause that sacrificing was thus commonly used in all ages through all the earth if it savoured but of poetical fiction 2. God hath no such thing as a passion of anger to be appeased nor is he at all delighted in the bloud or sufferings of the worst much less of the innocent nor doth he sell his mercy for bloud nor is his satisfaction any reparation of any loss of his which he receiveth from another But 1. Do you understand what Government is and what Divine Government is and what is the end of it even the pleasing of the will of God in the demonstrations of his own perfections if you do you will know that it was necessary that God's penal Laws should not be broken by a rebel world without being executed on them according to their true intent and meaning or without such an equivalent demonstration of his Justice as might vindicate the Law and Law-giver from contempt and the imputation of ignorance or levity and might attain the ends of Government as much as if all sinners had suffered themselves And this is it that we mean by a Sacrifice Ransom or Satisfaction Shall God be a Governour and have no Laws or shall he have Laws that have no penalties or shall he set up a lying scar-crow to frighten sinners by deceit and have Laws which are never meant for execution Are any of these becoming God Or shall he let the Devil go for true who told Eve at first You shall not die and let the world sin on with boldness and laugh at his Laws and say God did but frighten us with a few words which he never intended to fulfill or should God have damned all the world according to their desert If none of all this be credible to you then certainly nothing should be more credible than that his wisdom hath found out some way to exercise pardoning saving mercy without any injury to his governing justice and truth and without exposing his Laws and himself to the contempt of sinners or emboldening them in their sins even a way which shall vindicate his honour and attain his ends of government as well as if we had been all punished with death and hell and yet may save us with the great
dividing it self from the rest causing schisme or contention in the Body or making a rent unnecessarily in any particular Church which is a part § 4. But when Parties and Sects do trouble the Church we must still hold to our meer Christianity and desire to be called by no other name than Christians with the Epithets of sincerity And if men will put the name of a Party or Sect upon us for holding to Christianity only against all corrupting Sects we must hold on our way and bear their obloquy § 5. What CHRISTIANITY is may be known 1. Most summarily in the Baptismal Covenant in which we are by solemnization made Christians in which renouncing the Flesh the World and the Devil we give up our selves devotedly to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as our Creator Redeemer and Sanctifyer 2. By the ancient summary Rules of Faith Hope and Charity the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Decalogue 3. Integrally in the sacred Scriptures which are the Records of the Doctrine of Christ and the Holy Spirit § 6. But there are many circumstances of Religious Worship which Scripture doth not particularly determine of but only give general Rules for the determination of them as what Chapter shall be read what Text preached on what Translation used what Meeter or Tune of Psalms what time what place what Seat or Pulpit or Cup or other Vtensils what Vesture gesture c. whether we shall use Notes for memory in preaching what method we shall preach in whether we shall pray in the same words often or in various with a book or without with many other In all which the People must have an obediential respect to the conduct of the lawfull Pastors of the Churches § 7. Differing opinions or practices about things indifferent no nor about the meer integrals of Religion which are not Essentials do not make men of different Religions or Churches universally considered § 8. Nothing will warrant us to separate from a Church as no Church but the want of something Essential to a Church § 9. The Essential or Constitutive parts of the Church Catholick or Vniversal are Christ the Head and all Christians as the Members § 10. All sincere and sanctified Christians are the members of the Church mystical invisible or regenerate And all Professors of sincere Christianity that is all Baptized persons not apostatised nor excommunicate are the members of the Church visible which is integrated of the particular Churches § 11. It is essential to particular political Churches that they be constituted of true Bishops or Pastors and of flocks of baptised or professed Christians Vnited in these Relations for holy communion in the worshipping of God and the promoting of the salvation of the several members § 12. It is essential to a true Bishop or Pastor of the Church to be in Office that is in Authority and Obligation appointed by Christ in subordination to him in the three parts of his Offices Prophetical Priestly and Kingly That is to teach the people to stand between them and God in Worship and to guide or or govern them by the Paternal exercise of the Keyes of his Church § 13. He that doth not nullifie or unchurch a Church may lawfully remove from one Church to another and make choice of the best and purest or that which is most suited to his own Edification if he be a Free-man § 14. But in case of such choice or personal removal the Interest of the whole Church or of Religion in common must be first taken into consideration by him that would rightly judge of the lawfulness of the fact § 15. If a Church which in all other respects is purest and best will impose any sin upon all that will have local communion with it though we must not separate from that Church as no Church yet must we not commit that sin but patiently suffer them to exclude us from their communion § 16. True Heresie that is an Error contradictory to an essential Article of the Christian Faith if it be seriously and really held so that the contrary truth is not held seriously and really doth nullifie the Christianity of him that holdeth it and the Church-state of that Congregation which so professeth it But so doth not that fundamental Error which is held but in words through ignorance thinking it may consist with the contrary truth while that truth is not denyed but held majore fide so that we have reason to believe that if they did discern the contradiction they would rather forsake the error than the truth But of this more elsewhere CHAP. XIV Consectary II. Of the true Interest of Christ and his Church and the Souls of Men Of the means to promote it and its Enemies and Impediments in the World SO great and common is the Enmity against Christianity in the World yea against the life and reality of it in all the Hypocrites of the Visible Church that the guilty will not bear the detection of their guilt And therefore the Reader must excuse me for passing over the one half of that which should be said upon this subject because they that need it cannot suffer it § 1. Every true Christian preferreth the Interest of Christ and of Religion before all worldly Interest of his own or any others For he that setteth himself or any thing above his God hath indeed no God For if he be not Maximus Sapientissimus Optimus Greatest Wisest and Best he is not God And if he be not really taken as such he is not taken for their God And he that hath no God hath no Religion And he that hath no Religion is no Christian And if he call himself a Christian he is an Hypocrite § 2. Though we must preferre the Interest of Christ and the Church above the Interest of our Souls yet must we never set them in competition or opposition but in a due conjunction though not in an equality I adde this to warn men of some common dangerous errors in this point some think that if they do but feel themselves more moved with another Ministers preaching or more edified with another way of Discipline they may presently withdraw themselves to that Minister or Discipline without regard to the Unity and good of the Church where they are or whatever publick evil follow it Whereas he that seemeth to deny even to his Soul some present edification for the publick good shall finde that even this will turn to his greater edification And some on the contrary extream have got a conceit that till they can finde that they can be content to be damned for Christ if God would so have it they are not sincere Which is a case that no Christian should put to his own heart being such as God never put to any man All the tryall that God putteth us to is but whether we can deny this transitory life and the vanities
lusts And nature it self doth abhor the notion when it is brought into the light and will hear him with some horrour who shall speak out and say God is not to be chiefly loved for himself nor as he is best in himself nor as my ultimate objective end but only to be loved next my self as a means to my felicity or pleasure as meat drink ease and sport and lust are And virtue or holiness is not to be loved chiefly for it self that is as it is the Image of God and pleasing to him but as it conduceth to my pleasure As Cicero excellently noteth there is a great deal of difference between these two To love vertue as vertue and so to take pleasure in it because it is virtue and To love virtue for pleasures sake more than for its own For he that doth so must say as Cicero chargeth Epicurus plainly to say that Luxury is not to be discommended if it be not unpleasant for the end is the measure and rule to judge of all the means If pleasure as pleasure be best then to him that so continues it to live more pleasedly in whoredom and drunkenness and theft and murder than in godliness and honesty it will be better so to do And virtue and lust or wickedness will stand in competition only in the point of pleasure And then which think you will have the greater party and what a case would mankind be in I am perswaded that the well studying the excellent discourse of Cicero on this point and the reasons which the Stoicks and the rest of the Philosophers give against the Plebeian Philosophers as Cicero calleth them may much conduce to help many Divines themselves to a righter understanding of the same controversie as in Theology they have otherwise worded it Whether God or our own felicity be most to be loved And yet without running into the fanatick extreme of separating the love of God and our selves and calling men to try whether for his glory they can be willing to be damned Only when you read the Philosopher saying that virtue in and for it self is to be loved as our felicity elucidate it by remembring that this is because that vertue in it self is the Image of God and by our felicity they mean the perfection of our natures in respect of the end for which we were made And that as the excellency of my knife or pen yea or my horse is not to be measured by their own pleasure but their usefulness to me because I am their end so is it as to man's perfection as he is made for God and related to him for all that he hath no need of us seeing he can be pleased in us Thus this Philosophical controversie is coincident with one of the greatest in Theologie Though I have displeased many Readers by making this Treatise swell so big by answering so many objections as I have done yet I know that many will expect that I should have made it much greater by answering 1. Abundance of particular objections from Scripture-difficulties 2. And many discourses of several sorts of persons who contradict some things which I have said But I supersede any further labour of that kind for these following reasons 1. It would fill many volumes to do it as the number and quality of the Objections do require 2. Those that require it are yet so lazie that they will not read this much which I have already written as esteeming it too long 3. They may find it done already by Commentators if they will have but the patience to peruse them 4. I have laid down that evidence for the main cause of GODLINESS and CHRISTIANITY by which he that well digesteth it will be enabled himself to defend it against abundance of cavils which I cannot have time to enumerate and answer 5. The scribles of self-conceited men are so tedious and every one so confident that his reasons are considerable and yet every one so impatient to be contradicted and confuted that it is endless to write against them and it is unprofitable to sober Readers as well as tedious to me and ungrateful to themselves To instance but in the last that came to my hands an Inquisitio in fidem Christianoram hujus seculi the name prefixed I so much honour that I will not mention it Page 3. he calleth confidence in errour by the name of certainty as if every man were certain that hath but ignorance enough to over-look all cause of doubting Page 13. He will not contend if you say that it is by divine faith that we believe the words to be true which are Gods and by humane faith by which we believe them to be the words of God He saith that Faith hath no degrees but is alway equal to it self to believe is to assent and to doubt is to suspend assent Ergo where there is the least doubt there is no faith and where there is no doubt there is the highest faith Ergo Faith is always in the highest and is never more or less And yet it may be called small when it is quasi nulla that quasi is to make up a gap in respect of the subject or at least hardly yielded and in regard of the object when few things are believed Page 26. He maketh the Calvinists to be Enthusiasts that is Fanaticks because they say that they know the Scripture by the Spirit as if subjectively we had no need of the Spirit to teach us the things of God and objectively the spirit of miracles and sanctification were not the notifying evidence or testimony of the truth of Christ The same name he vouchsafeth them that hold That the Scripture is known by universal tradition to be God's word and every mans own reason must tell him or discern the meaning of it And he concludeth that if every one may expound the Scripture even in fundamentals then every man may plead against all Magistrates in defence of murder or any other crime as a rational plea and say Why should you punish me for that which God hath bid me do As if God would have no reasonable creature but bruits only to be his subjects As if a man could knowingly obey a Law which he neither knoweth nor must know the meaning of and is bound to do he knoweth not what And as if the Kings subjects must not understand the meaning of the fifth Commandment nor of Rom. 13. Honour thy father and mother and Let every soul be subject to the higher powers and not resist Or as if Kings must govern only dogs and swine or might make murder adultery idolatry and perjury the duty of all their subjects when they pleased because none must judge of the meaning of God's Law by which they are forbidden or as if it were the only way to make men obedient to Kings and Parents to have no understanding that God commandeth any man to obey them nor to know any Law of God that doth
powerful that in most great temptations it would prevail They would venture upon lying and perjury rather than lose their liberty or livelihood or reputation They would do any thing which the Rulers bid them or any one that is stronger than they rather than suffer much for their innocency I think they would not scramble much for riches or high places because a quiet life best pleaseth them but if they had a fancy to any delightful seat or pleasant accommodation they would stretch their consciences hard to get it And to escape poverty and suffering and death they would do I know not what And if their interest required them to do another mischief in order to the publick good for revenge I suppose them not much enclined to they would be as Brutus's and would be confident of the success of subtil and concealed enterprises they would no further resist any great temptation to please their appetites in meats and drinks or their flesh in lust or ease and sports and gaming and such vain pastimes than some other carnal interest contradicting did forbid them And though naturally some men prefer Knowledge before all worldly pleasures yet considering how short a time they should be the better for it and how many toilsome hours they must lay out for it they would rather let it go and take up with the ease and pleasure of the flesh This I fear would be their life for when all the comforts of this life of flesh are laid in the one end of the ballance what should weigh them down but something greater So that if some little restraint of villany might be made by lower motives I appeal to the conscience of the Reader whether he thinks that the fore-proved duties of Resignation Obedience and Love to God above all would ever be performed by any considerable number at least if they knew that they had no life to live but this 2. Yea no tolerable Government at all could be kept up I speak not of God's Physical motion by Omnipotency For 1. The Rulers of the world that have none above them would have little or no restraint and their examples would form the people to all abomination If they feared insurrections they would oppress them the more to disable them And what a world must it be when Lust is the Law to all the Governours And the people would have nothing but the hopes and fears of temporal good or evil to restrain them from any Treason or Rebellion or villany And all those that Princes cannot please would plot revenge or play their game another way and subtil men would think it easie to poison or murder secretly Princes and Nobles and any enemy that stood in the way of their own designs if once they were out of fear of a life to come 3. And all secret villany would be committed without fear secret adulteries theft lying perjury and common honesty could not be maintained for every man's self-interest would be his Law and prevail against all the principles of honesty And all that men would strive for would be either to strengthen themselves in their wickedness that they might be out of fear of humane Justice or else to hide it from the cognisance of man Thus would the world be turned into a resemblance of Hell and men be as much worse than wild beast as their natures were better which are corrupted and all would be in wickedness and confusion without the hopes and fears of another life Obj. But in all this you argue against experience Hath there not been Government and order kept up among Heathens and is there not a Government at this day in all the Kingdoms and Common-wealths throughout the world Answ In all this I speak according to experience For 1. Almost all the world believe a life to come all the Christians all the Mahometans and all the Jews and almost all or most of the known Idolaters and Heathens their very Idolatry intimateth this when they number their deceased Heroes with their gods And though the power of this belief is debilitated with the most and therefore piety and virtue proportionably perisheth yet that common dull belief of it which they have being in a business of unspeakable consequence doth restrain them so far as they are restrained 2. Those that believe it not are yet in an uncertainty and the possibility of rewards and punishments hereafter keepeth up much of the order that is left 3. Those few Countries which believe that there is no life to come or rather those persons in some Countries do proportionably increase or excel in wickedness they give up themselves to sensuality and lusts to pride and covetousness and revenge and cruelty and are usually worse than others as their belief is worse what maketh Cannibals more savage than other people What made a Nero a Heliogabalus c. such swine what made Rome it self at that pass that Seneca saith more died by poison of servants hands and secret murders than by Kings even in days of such great and common cruelty All was because mens consciences were from under the hopes and fears of another life and if all were so then all would live accordingly But it is another kind of life which the Law of God in Nature doth enjoyn us it is another kind of life which I before proved to be all mens duty and whether the world have sufficient means and motives to such a life and could be governed but like men without the hopes and fears of futurity let sober and considerate reason judge Obj. Can it be any worse then it is already what vice or villany doth not every where abound for all the belief of a life to come Answ If it be so bad for all that belief what would it be without if the enervating of it by the lusts of the flesh do loose the reins and leave the world in so much wickedness what would it be if their hopes and fears of another life were gone Now men have a secret witness in their breasts which checketh and restraineth them Now they have Kings and Rulers who having some belief of a life to come do form their Laws accordingly and govern the common people with some respect to that belief Now there are many through the mercy of God who are serious in that belief and live accordingly who are instructors restraints and examples to the rest And from these is that order which is kept up in the world But if all were as those few that have overcome this belief the world would be a Wilderness of savage Beasts and would be so full of impiety villany persidiousness bloodiness and all confusion that we should think it a greater sign of goodness in God to destroy it than to continue it and should think of his Government according to the effects or should hardly believe he govern'd it at all I come now to prove the consequence of the Major Proposition