singularly by his Spirit who from the testimony of the Scriptures perceiving the errors into which such as bear the name of Christians are faln may instruct and teach them and then become authorized by the people's joyning with and accepting of their ministry only Most of them also will affirm that the Spirit herein is subjective and not objective But they say that where a Church is reformed Obj. such as they pretend the Ptotestants Churches are there an ordinary orderly call is necessary and that of the Spirit as extraordinary is not to be sought after alledging that res aliter se habet in ecclesia constituenda quam in ecclesia constituta that is there is a difference in the constituting of a Church and after it is constitute I answer this objection as to us saith nothing seeing we accuse Answ. and are ready from the Scriptures to prove the Protestants guilty of gross errors and needing reformation as well as they did and do the Papists and therefore we may justly lay claim if we would to the same extraordinary call having the same reason for it and as good evidence to prove ours as they had for theirs As for that Maxime viz. that the case is different in a constituting Church and a Church constituted I do not deny it and therefore there may be a greater measure of power required to the one than to the other and God in his Wisdom distributes the same as he seeth meet but that the same immediate assistance of the Spirit is not necessary for ministers in a gathered Church as well as in gathering one I see no solid reason alledged for it For sure Christs promise was to be with his children to the end of the world and they need him no less to preserve and guide his Church and Children than to gather and beget them Nature taught the Gentiles this Maxime Non minor est virtus quam quaerere parta tueri Englished thus For to defend what you attain Requires no less strength than to gain For it is by this inward and immediate operation of the Spirit which Christ hath promised to lead his Children with into all Truth and to teach them all things that Christians are to be led in all steps as well last as first which relates to Gods Glory and their own Salvation as we have heretofore sufficiently proved and therefore need not now repeat it And truly this device of Satan whereby he has got people to put the immediate guidings and leadings of Gods Spirit as an extraordinary thing a far off which their Fore-fathers had but which they now are neither to wait for nor expect is a great cause of the growing Apostacy upon the many gathered Churches and is one great reason why a dry dead barren lifeless spiritless ministry which leavens the people into the same death doth so much abound and is so much overspreading even the Protestant nations that their preachings and worships as well as whole conversation is not to be discerned from Popish by any fresh living zeal or lively Power of the Spirit accompanying it but meerly by the difference of some notions and opinions Obj. § XII Some unwise and unwary Protestants do sometimes object to us that if we have such an immediate call as we lay claim to we ought to confirm it by miracles Answ. But this being an objection once and again objected to the primitive Protestants by the Papists we need but short return the answer to it that they did to the Papists to wit that we need not miracles because we preach no new Gospel but that which is already confirmed by all the miracles of Christ and his Apostles and that we offer nothing but that which we are ready and able to confirm by the testimony of the Scriptures which both already acknowledge to be true And that John the Baptist and divers of the Prophets did none that we hear of and yet were both immediately and extraordinarily sent This is the common Protestant answer therefore may suffice in this place though if need were I could say more to this purpose but that I study brevity § XIII There is also another sort of Protestants to wit the English Independents who differing from the Calvinistical Presbyterians and denying the necessity of this succession or the authority of any National Church take another way affirming that such as have the benefit of the Scriptures any company of people agreeing in the principles of Truth as they find them there declared may constitute among themselves a Church without the authority of any other and may choose to themselves a Pastor who by the Church thus constitute and consenting is authorized requiring only the assistance and concurrence of the Pastors of the neighbouring Churches if any be not so much as absolutely necessary to authorize as decent for orders sake Also they go so far as to affirm that in a Church so constitute any gifted Brother as they call them if he find himself qualified thereto may instruct exhort and preach in the Church though as not having the Pastoral office he cannot administer that they call their Sacraments To this I answer that this was a good step out of the Babylonish darkness and no doubt did proceed from a real discovery of the Truth and from the sense of a great abuse of the promiscuous National gatherings Also this preaching of the Gifted Brethren as they called them did proceed at first from certain lively touches and movings of the Spirit of God upon many But alas because they went not forward that is much decayed among them and the motions of Gods Spirit begin to be denyed and rejected among them now as much as by others But as to their pretended Call from the Scripture I answer The Scripture gives a meer declaration of true things but no call to particular persons so that though I believe the things there written to be true and deny the errors which I find there testified against yet as to these things which may be my particular duty I am still to seek and therefore I can never be resolved in the Scripture whether I such a one by name ought to be a Minister And for the resolving this doubt I must needs recur to the inward and immediate testimony of the Spirit as in the Proposition concerning the Scriptures more at large is shewn § XIV From all this then we do firmly conclude that not only in a general apostasie it is needful men be extraordinarily called and raised up by the Spirit of God but that even when several assemblies or Churches are gathered by the Power of God not only into the belief of the Principles of Truth so as to deny Errors and Heresies but also into the Life Spirit and Power of Christianity so as to be the Body and House of Christ indeed and a fit Spouse for him that he who gathers them doth also for the preserving them in a lively fresh and powerful condition
to be soothed up and lulled asleep in thy sins by the flattering of Court-Parasits who by their fawning are the ruin of many Princes There is no King in the World who can so experimentally testifie of Gods Providence and Goodness neither is there any who rules so many free People so many true Christians which thing renders thy Government more honourable thy self more considerable than the accession of many Nations filled with slavish and superstitious Souls Thou hast tasted of prosperity and adversity thou know'st what it is to be banished thy Native Countrey to be over-ruled as well as to rule and sit upon the Throne and being oppressed thou hast reason to know how hateful the Oppressor is both to God and man If after all these Warnings and Advertisements thou dost not turn unto the Lord withal thy Heart but forget him who remembered thee in thy distress and give up thy self to follow Lust and Vanity surely great will be thy condemnation Against which snare as well as the temptation of those that may or do feed thee and prompt thee to evil the most excellent and prevalent remedy will be to apply thy self to that Light of Christ which shineth in thy Conscience which neither can nor will flatter thee nor suffer thee to be at ease in thy sins but doth and will deal plainly and faithfully with thee as those that are followers thereof have also done GOD Almighty who hath so signally hitherto visited thee with his love so touch and reach thy heart ere the day of thy visitation be expired that thou mayst effectually turn to him so as to improve thy place and station for his Name So wisheth so prayeth Thy faithful Friend and Subject ROBERT BARCLAY From Ury the place of my Pilgrimage in my Native Country of Scotland the 25 of the Month called November in the YEAR 1675. R. B. Unto the Friendly Reader wisheth Salvation FOrasmuch as that which above all things I propose to my self is to declare and defend the Truth for the service whereof I have given up and devoted my self and all that is mine therefore there is nothing which for its sake by the help and assistance of God I may not attempt And in this confidence I did sometime ago publish certain Propositions of Divinity comprehending briefly the chief Principles and Doctrines of Truth which appearing not unprofitable to some and being beyond my expectation well received both by Foreigners though dissenting from us albeit also opposed by some envious ones did so far prevail as in some part to remove that false and monstruous Opinion which lying fame and the malice of our adversaries had implanted in the minds of some concerning us and our Doctrines In this respect it seem'd to me not fit to spare my pains and labour Therefore being acted by the same measure of the Divine Spirit and the like design of propagating the Truth by which I published the Propositions I judg'd it meet to explain them somewhat more largely at this time and defend them by certain arguments Perhaps my method of writing may seem not only different but even contrary to that which is commonly used by the men called Divines with which I am not concerned for that I confess my self to be not only no imitator and admirer of the School-men but an opposer and despiser of them as such by whose labour I judg the Christian Religion to be so far from being bettered that it is rather destroyed Neither have I sought to accommodate this my work to itching Ears who desire rather to comprehend in their head the sublime notions of Truth than to imbrace it in their heart For what I have written comes more from my heart than from my head what I have heard with the Ears of my Soul and seen with my inward Eyes and my hands have handled of the Word of Life And what hath been inwardly manifested to me of the things of God that do I declare not so much minding the Eloquence and Excellency of Speech as desiring to demonstrate the efficacy and operation of Truth and if I err sometime in the former it is not great matter for I act not here the Grammarian or the Orator but the Christian and therefore in this I have followed the certain Rule of the Divine Light and of the Holy Scriptures And to make an end what I have written is written not to feed the Wisdom and Knowledge or rather vain pride of this world but to starve and oppose it us the little Preface prefix'd to the Propositions doth shew which with the title of them is as followeth THESES THEOLOGICAE To the Clergy of what sort soever unto whose hands these may come but more particularly to the Doctors Professors and Students of Divinity in the Universities and Schools of Great Brittain whether Prelatical Presbyterian or any other ROBERT BARCLAY a Servant of the Lord God and one of those who in derision are called Quakers wisheth unfeigned Repentance unto the acknowledgment of the Truth FRIENDS UNto You these following Propositions are offered in which they being read and considered in the fear of the Lord you may perceive that simple Naked Truth which Man by his Wisdom hath rendred so obscure and mysterious that the World is even burthened with the great and voluminous Tractates which are made about it and by their vain jangling and Commentaries by which it is rendred a hundred fold more dark and intricate than of it self it is which great Learning so accounted of to wit your School Divinity which taketh up almost a mans whole Life-time to learn brings not a whit nearer to God neither makes any man less wicked or more righteous than he was Therefore hath God laid aside the Wise and Learned and the Disputers of this World and hath chosen a few despicable and unlearned Instruments as to Letter-learning as he did Fisher-men of old to publish his pure and naked Truth and to free it of these Mists and Fogs wherewith the Clergy hath clouded it that the People might admire and maintain them And among several others whom God hath chosen to make known these things seeing I also have received in measure Grace to be a Dispencer of the same Gospel it seemed good unto me according to my duty to offer unto you these Propositions tho short yet are weighty comprehending much and declaring what the true ground of knowledge is even of that knowledge which leads to life Eternal which is here witnessed of and the Testimony thereof left unto the Light of Christ in all your Consciences Farewel R. B. The First Proposition Concerning the true Foundation of Knowledge SEing the height of all happiness is placed in the true knowledg of God This is Life Eternal to know the true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent the true and right understanding of this foundation and ground of knowledge is that which is most necessary to be known and believed in the first place
and really to have conquered Asâ—â— and overcome Pompey c. This knowledg then of Christ which is not by the Revelation of his own Spirit in the heart is no more properly the knowledg of Christ than the pratling of a Parret which has been taught a few words may be said to be the voice of a man for as that or some other Bird may be taught to sound or utter forth a rational sentence as it hath learned it by the outward ear and not from any living principle of reason actuating it So just such is that knowledg of the things of God which the natural and carnal man hath gathered from the words or writings of Spiritual men which are not true to him because conceived in the natural Spirit and so brought forth by the wrong Organ and not proceeding from the Spiritual Principle no more than the words of a man acquired by art and brought forth by the mouth of a Bird not proceeding from a rational Principle are true with respect to the Bird that utters them Wherefore from this Scripture I shall further add this Argument If no man can say Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost then no man can know Jesus to be the Lord but by the Holy Ghost But the First is true Therefore the Second From this argument there may be another deduced concluding in the very terms of this assertion thus If no man can know Jesus to be the Lord but by the Holy Ghost then can there be no certain knowledg or Revelation of him but by the Spirit But the First is true Therefore the Second § VII The third thing affirmed is That by the Spirit God always revealed himself to his Children For making appear of the truth of this assertion it will be but needful to consider God's manifesting himself towards and in relation to his Creatures from the beginning which resolves it self always herein The First step of all is ascribed hereunto by Moses Gen. 1.2 And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the Waters I think it will not be denied that God's converse with man all along from Adam to Moses was by the immediate manifestation of his Spirit And afterwards through the whole tract of the Law he spake to his Children no otherwaies which as it naturally followeth from the Principles above proved so it cannot be denied by such as acknowledg the Scriptures of Truth to have been written by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost For these writings from Moses to Malachy do declare that during all that time God revealed himself to his Children by his Spirit But if any will object that after th dispensation of the Law God's method of speaking was altered I answer first that God spake alwayes immediatly to the Jewes in that he spake always immediatly to the High-Priest from betwixt the Cherubins who when he entered into the Holy of Holys returning did relate to the whole People the voice and will of God there immediately revealed So that his immediate speaking never ceased in any age Secondly from this immediate fellowship were none shut out who earnestly sought after and waited for it in that many besides the High-Priest who were not so much as of the kindred of Levi nor of the Prophets did receive it and speak from it as it is written Numb 11.25 Where the Spirit is said to have rested upon the seventy Elders which Spirit also reached unto two that were not in the Tabernacle but in the Camp whom when some would have forbidden Moses would not but rejoiced wishing all the Lord's people were Prophets and that he would put his Spirit upon them verse 29. This is also confirmed Neh. 9. Where the Elders of the People after their return from captivity when they began to sanctifie themselves by fasting and prayer in which numbring up the many mercies of God towards their Fathers they say ver 20. Thou gavest also thy good Spirit to instruct them and ver 30. Yet many years didst thou forbear and testifie against them by thy Spirit in thy Prophets Many are the sayings of Spiritual David to this purpose as Psal. 51.13 Take not thy Holy Spirit from me uphold me with thy free Spirit Psal. 139.7 Whither shall I go from thy Spirit Hereunto doth the Prophet Isaiah ascribe the credit of his Testimony saying chap. 48. v. 16. And now the Lord God and his Spirit hath sent me And that God revealed himself to his children under the New Testament to wit to the Apostles Evangelists and primitive Disciples is confessed by all How far now this yet continueth and is to be expected comes hereafter to be spoken to § VIII The fourth thing affirmed is that these Revelations were the object of the Saints faith of old This will easily appear by the definition of Faith and considering what its object is For which we shall not dive into the curious and various notions of the School-men but stay in the plain and positive words of the Apostle Paul who Hebr. 11. describes it two ways Faith saith he is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen which as the Apostle illustrateth it in the same chapter by many examples is no other but a firm and certain belief of the mind whereby it resteth and in a sence possesseth the substance of some things hoped for through its confidence in the promise of God And thus the Soul hath a most firm evidence by its faith of things not yet seen nor come to pass The object of this faith is the promse word or testimony of God speaking to the mind Hence it hath been generally affirmed that the object of Faith is Deus loquens c. That is God speaking c. Which is also manifest from all these Examples deduced by the Apostle throughout that whole Chapter whose Faith was founded neither by that outward testimony nor upon the voice and writing of man but upon the revelation of Gods Will manifest unto them and in them as in the Example of Noah ver 7. thus By Faith Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet moved with fear prepared an Ark to the saving of his House by the which he condemned the World and became Heir of the Righteousness which is by Faith What was here the object of Noahs Faith but God speaking unto him He had not the Writings nor Prophesyings of any going before nor yet the concurrence of any Church or People to strengthen him and yet his Faith in the Word by which he contradicted the whole World saved him and his House Of which also Abraham is set forth as a singular Example being therefore called the Father of the Faithful who is said against hope to have believed in hope In that he only willingly forsook his Fathers Countrey not knowing whether he went In that he believed concerning the coming of Isaac though contrary to natural probability But above all In that he refused not
History of Christs Passion unto such who living in the places of the World where the outward preaching of the Gospel is unknown have well improved the first and common Grace For as hence it well follows that some of the old Philosophers might have been saved so also may some who by Providence are cast into those remote parts of the World where the knowledg of the History is wanting be made partakers of the Divine Mystery if they receive and resist not that Grace a manifestation whereof is given to every man to profit withal This most certain Doctrine being then received that there is an Evangelical and Saving Light and Grace in all the vniversality of the Love and Mercy of God towards Mankind both in the Death of his Beloved Son the Lord Jesus Christ and in the manifestation of the Light in the heart is established and confirmed against all the Objections of such as deny it Therefore Christ hath tasted death for every man not only for all kind of men as some vainly talk but for every man of all kinds the benefit of whose Offering is not only extended to such who have the destinct outward knowledg of his death and sufferings as the same is declared in the Scriptures but even unto those who are necessarily excluded from the benefit of this knowledg by some inevitable accident Which knowledg we willingly confess to be very profitable and comfortable but not absolutely needful unto such from whom God himself hath withheld it yet they may be made partakers of the mystery of his death though ignorant of the history if they suffer his Seed and Light inlightening their hearts to take place in which Light communion with the Father and the Son is enjoyed so as of wicked men to become holy and lovers of that Power by whose inward and secret touches they feel themselves turned from the Evil to the Good and learn to do to others as they would be done by in which Christ himself affirms all to be included As They have then falsly and erroneously taught who have denyed Christ to have dyed for all men so neither have They sufficiently taught the Truth who affirming him to have died for all have added the absolute necessity of the outward knowledg thereof in order to obtain its saving effect Among whom the Remonstrants of Holland have been chiefly wanting and many other assertors of Vniversal Redemption in that they have not placed the extent of his Salvation in that Divine and Evangelical Principle of Light and Life wherewith Christ hath inlightened every man that cometh into the World which is excellently and evidently held forth in these Scriptures Gen. 6.3 Deut. 30.14 Joh. 1.7 8 9 16. Rom. 10.8 Tit. 2.11 HItherto we have considered mans fall'n lost corrupted and degenerated condition Now it is fit to inquire how and by what means he may come to be freed out of this miserable and depraved condition which in these two Propositions is declared and demonstrated which I thought meet to place together because of their affinity The one being as it were an explanation of the other As for that Doctrine which these Propositions chiefly strike at to wit absolute reprobation according to which some are not afraid to assert That God by an eternal and immutable decree hath predestinated to Eternal Damnation the far greater part of Mankind not considered as made much less as fall'n without any respect to their Disobedience or Sin but only for the demonstrating of the Glory of his Justice and that for the bringing this about he hath appointed these miserable Souls necessarily to walk in their wicked ways that so his justice may lay hold on them And that God doth therefore not only suffer them to be liable to this misery in many parts of the world by withholding from them the preaching of the Gospel and knowledg of Christ but even in those places where the Gospel is preached and Salvation by Christ is offered whom though he publickly invite them yet he justly condemns for disobedience albeit he hath with held from them all Grace by which they could have laid hold on the Gospel viz. because he hath by a secret will unknown to all men ordained and decreed without any respect had to their disobedience or sin that they shall not obey and that the offer of the Gospel shall never prove effectual for their Salvation but only serve to aggravate and occasion their greater condemnation I say as to this horrible and Blasphemous Doctrine or cause is common with many others who have both wisely and learnedly according to Scripture Reason and Antiquity refuted it Seeing then that so much and so well is said already against this Doctrine that little can be superadded except what hath been said already I shall be short in this respect Yet because it lies so in opposition to my way I cannot let it altogether pass § I. First We may safely call this Doctrine a novelty seeing the first Four Hundred Years after Christ there is no mention made of it for as it is contrary to the Scriptures Testimony and to the Tenor of the Gospel so all the Antient Writers Teachers and Doctors of the Church pass it over with a profound Silence The first Foundations of it were laid in the later writings of Augustin who in his heat against Pelagius let fall some expressions which some have unhappily gleaned up to the establishing of this error thereby contradicting the Truth and sufficiently gain-saying many others and many more and frequent expressions of the same Augustine Afterwards was this Doctrine fomented by Dominicus a Friar and the Monks of his Order and at last unhappily taken up by John Calvin otherwise a man in divers respects to be commended to the great staining of his reputation and defamation both of the Protestant and Christian Religion which though it received the Degrees of the Synod of Dort for its confirmation hath since lost ground and begins to be exploded by most men of Learning and Piety in all Protestant Churches However we should not quarrel for the silence of the Antients paucity of its assertors or for the learnedness of its Opposers if we did observe it to have any real bottom in the writings or sayings of Christ and the Apostles and that it were not highly injurious to God himself to Jesus Christ our Mediator and Redeemer and to the Power Vertue Nobility and Excellency of his Blessed Gospel and lastly unto all mankind § II. First It is highly injurious to God because it makes him the author of Sin which of all things is most contrary to his nature I confess the assertors of this Principle deny this Consequence but that is but a pure illusion seeing it so naturally follows from their Doctrin and is equally ridiculous as if a man should pertinaciously deny that one and two makes three For if God has decreed that the reprobated ones shall perish without all respect to their evil
of this World but subject to every ordinance of man for Conscience sake Secondly In that in the hottest times of persecution and the most violent prosecution of those Laws made against Meetings being cloathed with Innocency they have boldly stood to their testimony for God without creeping into holes or corners or once hiding themselves as all other Dissenters have done but daily met according to their custom in the publick places appointed for that end so that none of thy Officers can say of them that they have surprized them in a corner overtaken them in a private Conventicle or catched them lurking in their secret chambers nor needed they to send out spies to get them whom they were sure daily to find in their open assemblys testifying for God and his Truth By which those that have an eye to see may observe their Christian patience and courage constancy and suffering joyned in one more than in any other People that differ from them or oppose them And yet in the midst of those troubles thou canst bear witness that as on the one part they never sought to detract from thee or to render thee and thy Government odious to the people by nameless and scandalous Pamphlets and Libels so on the other hand they have not spared to admonish exhort and reprove thee and have faithfully discharged their Consciences towards thee without flattering words as ever the true Prophets in antient times used to do to those Kings and Princes under whose Power Violence or Oppression was acted And albeit it be evident by experience to be most agreeable both to Divine Truth and Humane Policy to allow every one to serve God according to their Consciences nevertheless those other Sects who for the most part durst not peep out in the times of Persecution while these innocent People stood bold and faithful do now combine in a joynt Confederacy notwithstanding all the former Janglings and Contentions among themselves to render us odious seeking unjustly to wrest our Doctrine and Words as if they were inconsistent both with Christianity and civil Society so that to effectuat this their work of Malice against us they have not been ashamed to take the help and commend the Labours of some invidious Socinians against us So do Herod and Pontius Pilate agree to Crucifie Christ. But our practice known to thee by good experience to be more consistent with Christianity and civil Society and the peace and welfare of this Island than that of those that thus accuse us doth sufficiently guard us against this Calumny that we may indeed appeal to the testimony of thy Conscience as a witness for us in the face of the Nations These things moved me to present the world with a brief but true account of this Peoples Principles in some short Theological Propositions which according to the will of God proving successful beyond my expectation to the satisfaction of several and to the moving in many a desire of being farther informed concerning us as being every where evil spoken of and likewise meeting with publick opposition by some as such will alwayes do so long as the Devil rules in the children of disobedience I was thereby further engaged in the liberty of the Lord to present to the world this Apology of the Truth held by those People which because of thy interest in them and theirs in thee as having first appeared and mostly increased in these Nations under thy rule I make bold to present unto thee Thou know'st and hast experienced their faithfulness towards their God their patience in suffering their peaceableness towards the King their honesty plainness and integrity in their faithful warnings and testimonies to thee and if thou wilt allow thy self so much time as to read this thou may'st find how consonant their Principles are both to Scripture Truth and right Reason The simplicity of their behaviour the generality of their condition as being poor men and illiterate the manner of their procedure being without the wisdom and policy of this World hath made many conclude them fools and mad men and neglect them as not being capable of Reason But tho it be to them as their Crown thus to be esteemed of the wise and great and learned of this world and though they rejoyce to be accounted fools for Christs sake yet of late some even such who in the worlds account are esteemed both wise and learned begin to judge otherwise of them and find that they hold forth things very agreeable both to Scripture Reason and true Learning As it is inconsistent with the Truth I bear so it is far from me to use this Epistle as an Engine to flatter thee the usual design of such works and therefore I can neither dedicate it to thee nor crave thy Patronage as if thereby I might have more confidenne to present it to the World or be more hopeful of its success To God alone I owe what I have and that more immediately in matters Spiritual and therefore to him alone and to the Service of his Truth I dedicate whatever work he brings forth in me to whom only the praise and honour appertains whose Truth needs not the Patronage of worldly Princes his Arm and Power being that alone by which it is propagated established and confirmed But I found it upon my Spirit to take occasion to present this Book unto thee that as thou hast been often warned by several of that People who are inhabitants of England so thou may'st not want a seasonable Advertisement from a Memher of thy antient Kingdom of Scotland and that thou may'st know which I hope thou shalt have no reason to be troubled at that God is raising up and increasing that People in that Nation And the Nations shall also hereby know that the Truth we profess is not a work of Darkness nor propagated by stealth and that we are not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ because we know it to be the Power of God unto Salvation and that we are no wayes so inconsistent with Government nor such disturbers of the Peace as our Enemies by traducing us have sought to make the world believe we are for what to thee I dare appeal as a witness of our peaceableness and Christian Patience Generations to come shall not more admire that singular step of Divine Providence in restoring thee to thy Throne without outward Blood-shed than they shall admire the increase and progress of this Truth without all outward help and against so great opposition which shall be none of the least things rendring thy Memory remarkable God hath done great things for thee he hath sufficiently shewn thee that it is by him Princes rule and that he can pull down and set up at his pleasure He hath often faithfully warned thee by his Servants since he restored thee to thy Royal Dignity that thy Heart might not wax wanton against him to forget his Mercies and Providences towards thee whereby he might permit thee
The Second Proposition Concerning Immediate Revelation Seeing no man knoweth the Father but the Son and he to whom the Son revealeth him and seeing the Revelation of the Son is in and by the Spirit therefore the Testimony of the Spirit is that alone by which the true knowledge of God hath been is and can be only revealed who as by the moving of his own Spirit converted the Chaos of this World into that wonderful order wherein it was in the beginning and created Man a living Soul to rule and govern it so by the Revelation of the same Spirit he hath manifested himself all along unto the Sons of Men both Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles which Revelations of God by the Spirit whether by outward voices and appearances Dreams or inward objective manifestations in the heart were of old the formal object of their Faith and remaineth yet so to be since the object of the Saints Faith is the same in all ages though set forth under divers Administrations Moreover these divine inward Revelations which we make absolutely necessary for the building up of true Faith neither do nor can ever contradict the outward Testimony of the Scriptures or right and found Reason Yet from hence it will not follow that these Divine Revelations are to be subjected to the examination either of the outward Testimony of the Scriptures or of the natural reason of Man as to a more noble or certain rule or touchstone for this Divine Revelation and inward Illumination is that which is evident and clear of it self forceing by its own evidence and clearness the well disposed understanding to assent irresistibly moving the same thereunto even as the common Principles of natural Truths move and incline the mind to natural assent Such as are these that the whole is greater than the part that two contradictory sayings cannot be both true or false which is also manifest according to our adversaries Principle who supposing the possibility of inward Divine Revelations will nevertheless confess with us that neither Scripture nor found Reason will contradict it and yet it will not follow according to them that the Scripture or found Reason should be subjected to the examination of the Divine Revelations in the Heart The Third Proposition Concerning the Scriptures From these Revelations of the Spirit of God to the Saints have proceeded the Scriptures of Truth which contain 1. A faithful Historical Account of the Actings of God's People in divers Ages with many singular and remarkable Providences attending them 2. A Prophetical Account of several things whereof some are already past and some yet to come 3. A full and ample account of all the chief Principles of the Doctrine of Christ held forth in divers pretious declarations exhortations and sentences which by the moving of God's Spirit were at several times and upon sundry occasions spoken and written unto some Churches and their Pastors Nevertheless because they are only a Declaration of the Fountain and not the Fountain it self therefore they are not to be esteemed the principal ground of all Truth and Knowledge nor yet the adequate primary Rule of Faith and Manners Nevertheless as that which giveth a true and faithful Testimony of the first Foundation they are and may be esteemed a secondary Rule subordinate to the Spirit from which they have all their excellency and certainty for as by the inward Testimony of the Spirit we do alone truly know them so they testifie that the Spirit is that guide by which the Saints are led into all Truth Therefore according to the Scriptures the Spirit is the first and principle Leader And seeing we do therefore receive and believe the Scriptures because they proceeded from the Spirit therefore also the Spirit is more originally and principally the Rule according to that received maxim in the Schools Propter quod unumquodque est tale illud ipsum est magis tale Englished thus That for which a thing is such that thing it self is more such The Fourth Proposition Concerning the Condition of Man in the fall All Adam's Posterity or Mankind both Jews and Gentiles as to the first Adam or earthly man is fallen degenerated and dead deprived of the sensation or feeling of this inward Testimony or Seed of God and is subject unto the power nature and Seed of the Serpent which he sows in mens hearts while they abide in this natural and corrupted State from whence it comes that not their words and deeds only but all their imaginations are evil perpetually in the sight of God as proceeding from this depraved and wicked Seed Man therefore as he is in this state can know nothing aright yea his thoughts and conceptions concerning God and things Spiritual until he be disjoyned from this evil Seed and united to the Divine Light are unprofitable both to himself and others Hence are rejected the Socinian and Pelagian Errors in exalting a Natural Light as also the Papists and most of Protestants who affirm that Man without the true Grace of God may be a true Minister of the Gospel Nevertheless this Seed is not imputed to Infants until by transgression they actually joyn themselves therewith for they are by Nature the children of Wrath who walk according to the Power of the Prince of the Air The Fifth and Sixth Proposition Concerning the Vniversal Redemption by Christ and also the Saving and Spiritual Light wherewith every Man is enlightened The Fifth Proposition God out of his Infinite love who delighteth not in the death of a sinner but that all should live and be saved hath so loved the world that he hath given his only Son a Light that whosoever believeth in him should be saved who enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world and maketh manifest all things that are reproveable and teacheth all temperance righteousness and godliness and this Light enlighteneth the hearts of all in a day in order to Salvation if not resisted Nor is it less universal than the seed of sin being the purchase of his death who tasted death for every Man For as in Adam all die even so in Christ all shall be made alive The Sixth Proposition According to which principle or Hypothesis all the Objections against the universality of Christ's death are easily solved neither is it needful to recur to the Ministry of Angels and those other miraculous means which they say God makes use of to manifest the Doctrine and History of Christ's passion unto such who living in those places of the world where the outward preaching of the Gospel is unknown have well improved the first and common Grace For hence it well follows that as some of the old Philosophers might have been saved so also may now some who by Providence are cast into those remote parts of the world where the knowledg of the History is wanting be made partakers of the Divine Mystery if they receive and resist not that Grace a manifestation whereof is given
to every man to profit withal This certain Doctrine then being received to wit that there is an Evangelical and saving Light and Grace in all the universality of the Love and Mercy of God towards mankind both in the death of his beloved Son the Lord Jesus Christ and in the manifestation of the Light in the heart is established and confirmed against all the Objections of such as deny it Therefore Christ hath tasted death for every man not only for all kinds of men as some vainly talk but for every one of all kinds the benefit of whose offering is not only extended to such who have the distinct outward knowledg of his death and suffering as the same is declared in the Scriptures but even unto those who are necessarily excluded from the benefit of this knowledg by some inevitable accident which knowledg we willingly confess to be very profitable and comfortable but not absolutely needful unto such from whom God himself hath withheld it yet they may be made partakers of the mystery of his death tho ignorant of the History if they suffer his Seed and Light inlightning their hearts to take in which Light communion with the Father and the Son is enjoyned so as of wicked men to become holy and lovers of that power by whose inward and secret touches they feel themselves turned from the evil to the good and learn to do to others as they would be done by in which Christ himself affirms all to be included As they have then falsly and erreonously taught who have denyed Christ to have died for all Men so neither have they sufficiently taught the Truth who affirming him to have died for all have added the absolute necessity of the outward knowledg thereof in order to the obtaining its saving effects Among whom the Remonstrants of Holland have been chiefly wanting and many other Assertors of universal Redemption in that they have not Placed the extent of this salvation in that Divine and Evangelical Principle of Light and Life wherewith Christ hath enlightned every man that comes into the world which is excellently and evidently held forth in these Scriptures Gen. 6.3 Deut. 30.14 John 1.7 8 9. Rom. 10.8 Tit. 2.11 The Seventh Proposition Concerning Justification As many as resist not this Light but receive the same in them is produced a holy pure and spiritual birth bringing forth holiness righteousness purity and all these other blessed fruits which are acceptable to God by which holy birth to wit Jesus Christ formed within us and working his works in us as we are sanctified so are we justified in the sight of God according to the Apostles words But ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God Therefore it is not by our works wrought in our will nor yet by good works considered as of themselves but Christ who is both the gift and the giver and the cause producing the effects in us who as he hath reconciled us while we were enemies doth also in his wisdom save us and justifie us after this manner as saith the same Apostle elsewhere according to his mercy he hath saved us by the washing of Regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost The Eighth Proposition Concerning Perfection In whom this holy and pure birth is fully brought forth the body of death and sin comes to be crucified and removed and their hearts united and subjected unto the truth so as not to obey any suggestion or temptation of the evil one but to be free from actual sinning and transgressing of the Law of God and in that respect perfect yet doth this perfection still admit of a growth there remaineth ever in some part a possibility of sinning where the mind doth not most diligently and watchfully attend unto the Lord. The Ninth Proposition Concerning Perseverence and the possibility of falling from Grace Altho this Gift and inward Grace of God be sufficient to work out Salvation yet in those in whom it is resisted it both may and doth become their Condemnation Moreover in whom it hath wrought in part to purifie and sanctifie them in order to their further Perfection by disobedience such may fall from it and turn it to wantoness making Shipwrack of Faith and after having tasted of the Heavenly Gift and been made Partakers of the Holy Ghost again fall away yet such an increase and stability in the Truth may in this Life be attained from which there can not be a total Apostacy The Tenth Proposition Concerning the Ministry As by this Gift or Light of God all true knowledge in things Spiritual is received and revealed so by the same as it is manifested and received in the heart by the strength and power thereof every true Minister of the Gospel is ordained prepared and supplied in the work of the Ministry and by the leading moving and drawing hereof ought every Evangelist and Christian Pastor to be led and ordered in his labour and work of the Gospel both as to the place where as to the Person to whom and as to the times when he is to Minister Moreover who have this Authority may and ought to Preach the Gospel tho without human Commission or Literature as on the other hand who want the Authority of this Divine Gift however Learned or Authorized by the Commissions of Men and Churches are to be esteemed but as deceivers and not true Ministers of the Gospel also who have received this holy and unspotted Gift as they have freely received so are they freely to give without hire or bargaining far less to use it as a Trade to get Money by it yet if God hath called any from their Imployments or Trades by which they acquire their livelihood it may be lawful for such according to the liberty which they feel given them in the Lord to receive such Temporals to wit what may be needful to them for Meat and Cloathing as are freely given them by those to whom they have Communicated spirituals The Eleventh Proposition Concerning Worship All true and acceptable worship to God is offered in the inward and immediate moving and drawing of his own Spirit which is neither limited to places times or Persons for tho we be to worship him always in that we are to fear before him yet as to the outward signification thereof in Prayers Praises or Preachings we ought not to do it where and when we will but where and when we are moved thereunto by the secret Inspirations of his Spirit in our hearts which God heareth and accepteth of and is never wanting to move us thereunto when need is of which he himself is the alone proper Judg all other worship then both Praises Prayers and Preachings which man sets about in his own will and at his own appointment which he can both begin and end at his pleasure do or leave undone as himself
for this vain Opinion they had of their knowledg hindered them from the true knowledg and the mean people who were not so much preoccupyed with former principles nor conceited of their own knowledg did easily believe Wherefore the Pharisees upbraid them saying Have any of the Rulers or Pharisees believed in him But this people which know not the Law are accursed This is also abundantly proved by the experience of all such as being secretly touched with the call of God's Grace unto them do apply themselves unto false Teachers where the remedy proves worse than the disease because instead of knowing God or the things relating to their Salvation aright they drink in wrong Opinions of him from which it 's harder to be dis-intangled than while the Soul remains a blank or tabala rasa For they that conceit themselves wise are worse to deal with then they that are sensible of their ignorance Nor hath it been less the device of the Devil the great Enemy of Mankind to perswade Men into wrong notions of God than to keep them altogether from acknowledging him the latter taking with few because odious but the other having been the constant ruin of the World for there hath scarce been a Nation found but hath had some notions or other of Religion so that not from their denying any Deity but from their mistakes and misapprehensions of it hath proceeded all the Idolatry and superstition of the world yea hence even Atheism it self hath proceeded for these many and various opinions of God and Religion being so much mixed with the guessings and uncertain judgments of men have begotten in many the opinion that there is no God at all This and much more that might be said may shew how dangerous it is to miss in the first step All that come not in by the door are accounted as Thieves and Robbers Again how needful and desireable that knowledge is which brings Life Eternal Epictetus sheweth saying excellently well cap. 38. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Know that the main foundation of piety is this to have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 right opinions and apprehensions of God This therefore I judged necessary as a first Principle in the first place to affirm and I suppose will not need much further explanation nor defence as being generally acknowledged by all and in these things that are without controversie I love to be brief as that which will easily commend it self to every Man's reason and Conscience and therefore I shall proceed to the next Proposition which tho it be nothing less certain yet by the malice of Satan and ignorance of many comes far more under debate The Second Proposition Of Immediate Revelation Seeing no man knoweth the Father but the Son and he to whom the Son revealeth him Matt. 11.27 And seeing the revelation of the Son is in and by the Spirit therefore the Testimony of the Spirit is that alone by which the true knowledge of God hath been is and can be only revealed who as by the moving of his own Spirit he disposed the chaos of this World into that wonderful order wherein it was in the beginning and created man a living Soul to rule and govern it so by the revelation of the same Spirit he hath manifested himself all along unto the sons of Men both Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles which revelations of God by the Spirit whether by outward voices and appearances dreams or inward objective manifestations in the heart were of old the former object of their faith and remain yet so to be since the object of the Saints faith is the same in all ages tho held forth under divers administrations Moreover these divine inward revelations which we make absolutely necessary for the building up of true faith neither do nor can ever contradict the outward testimony of the Scriptures or right and sound Reason yet from hence it will not follow that the Divine revelations are to be subjected to the Test either of the outward testimony of the Scriptures or of the natural reason of Man as to a more noble and certain rule and touchstone for this Divine revelation and inward illumination is that which is evident and clear of it self forcing by its own evidence and clearness the well disposed understanding to assent irresistibly moving the same thereunto even as the common principles of natural truths do move and incline the mind to a natural assent As that the whole is greater than its part That two contradictorys can neither be both true nor both false § I. IT is very probable that many carnal and natural Christians will oppose this Proposition who being wholly unacquainted with the movings and actings of God's Spirit upon their hearts judge the same nothing necessary and some are apt to flout at it as ridiculous Yea to that highth are the generality of all Christians apostatized and degenerated that tho there be not any thing more plainly asserted more seriously recommended nor more certainly artested to in all the writings of the Holy Scriptures yet nothing is less minded and more rejected by all sorts of Christians than Immediate and Divine Revelation in so much that once to lay claim to it is matter of reproach Whereas of old none were ever judged Christians but such as had the Spirit of Christ Rom. 8.9 But now many do boldly call themselves Christians who make no difficulty of confessing they are without it and laugh at such as say they have it Of old they were accounted the Sons of God who were led by the Spirit of God ibid. verse 14. But now many averr themselves Sons of God who know nothing of this leader and he that affirms himself so led is by the pretended Orthodox of this Age presently proclaimed a Heretick the reason hereof is very manifest viz because many in these dayes under the name of Christians do experimentally find that they are not acted nor led by Gods Spirit yea many great Doctors Divines Teachers and Bishops of Christianity commonly so called have wholly shut their ears from hearing and their eyes from seeing this inward Guide and so are become strangers unto it whence they are by their own experience brought to this strait either to confess that they are as yet ignorant of God and have only the shadow of knowledg and not the true knowledg of him or that this knowledg is acquired without immediate revelation For the better understanding then of this proposition we do distinguish betwixt the certain knowledg of God and the uncertain betwixt the spiritual knowledg and the literal the saving heart-knowledg and soaring airy head-knowledg The last we confess may be divers obtained but the first by no other way then the inward immediate manifestation and revelation of Gods Spirit shining in and upon the heart inlightning and opening the understanding § II. Having then proposed to my self in these propositions to affirm those things which relate to the true and effectual knowledg which brings
life eternal with it therefore I have affirmed and that truely that this knowledg is no otherways attained and that none have any true ground to believe they have attained it who have it not by this revelation of Gods Spirit The certainty of which truth is such that it hath been acknowledged by some of the most refined and famous of all sorts of Professors of Christianity in all ages who being truly upright-hearted and earnest seekers of the Lord however stated under the disadvantages and epidemical errors of their several sects or ages the true seed in them hath been answered by Gods love who hath had regard to the Good and hath had of his elect ones among all who finding a distast and disgust in all other outward means even in the very principles and precepts more particullary relative to their own forms and societies have at last concluded with one voice that there was no true knowledg of God but that which is revealed inwardly by his own Spirit whereof take these following testimonies of the Ancients 1. It is the inward Master saith Augustin that teacheth it is Christ that teacheth it is inspiration that teacheth where this inspiration and unction is wanting it is in vain that words from without are beaten in And therefore for he that created us and redeemed us and called us by faith and dwelleth in us by his Spirit unless he speaketh unto you inwardly it is needless for us to cry out 2. There is a difference faith Clemens Alexandrinus betwixt that which any one saith of the Truth and that which the Truth it self interpreting it self saith A conjecture of Truth differeth from the Truth it self a similitude of a thing differeth from the thing it self it is one thing that is acquired by exercise and discipline and another thing which by power and faith Lastly the same Clemens saith Truth is neither hard to be arrived at nor is it impossible to apprehend it for it is most nigh unto us even in our houses as the most wise Moses hath insinuated 3. How is it saith Tertullian that since the Devil always worketh and stirreth up the mind to iniquity that the work of God should either cease or desist to act Since for this end the Lord did send the Comforter that because human weakness could not at once bear all things knowledg might be by little and little directed formed and brought to perfection by the holy Spirit that Vicar of the Lord. I have many things yet saith he to speak unto you but ye can not as vet bear them but when that Spirit of Truth shall come he shall lead you into all Truth and shall teach you these things that are to come But of his works we have spoken above What is then the administration of the Comforter but that discipline be derived and the Scriptures revealed c. 4. The Law saith Hierom is spiritual and there is need of a revelation to understand it And in his epistle 150 to Hedibia question 11. he saith the whole epistle to the Romans needs an interpretation it being involved in so great obscuritys that for the understanding thereof we need the help of the Holy Spirit who through the Apostle dictated it 5. So great things saith Athanasius doth our Saviour daily he draws unto piety perswades unto vertue teaches immortality excites to the desire of heavenly things reveals knowledg from the Father inspires power against death and shews himself unto every one 6. Gregory the Great upon these words he shall teach you all things saith that unless the same Spirit sit upon the heart of the hearer in vain is the discourse of the doctor let no man then ascribe unto the man that teacheth what he understands from the mouth of him that speaketh for unless he that teacheth be within the tongue of the Doctor that 's without laboureth in vain 7. Cyrillas Alexandrinus plainly affirmeth that men know that Jesus is the Lord by the Holy Ghost no otherwise than they who tast honey know that it is sweet even by its proper quality 8. Therefore saith Bernard we daily exhort you Brethren by speech that ye walk the ways of the heart and that your Souls be always in your hands that he may hear what the Lord saith in you And again upon these words of the Apostle Let him that glorieth glory in the Lord with which threefold vice saith he all sorts of religious men are less or more dangerously affected because they do not so diligently attend with the ears of the heart to what the Spirit of Truth which flatters none inwardly speaks This was the very basis and main foundation upon which the primitive Reformers walked Luther in his book to the Nobility of Germany saith This is certain that no man can make himself a Doctor of the holy Scripture but the holy Spirit alone And upon the Magnificat he saith No man can rightly understand God or the Word of God unless he immediately receive it from the Holy Spirit neither can any one receive it from the Holy Spirit except he find it by experience in himself and in this experience the Holy Ghost teacheth as in his proper school out of which school nothing is taught but meer talk Philip Melanchton in his Annotations upon the 6. of John Who hear only an outward and bodily voice hear the creature but God is a Spirit and is neither discerned nor known nor heard but by the Spirit and therefore to hear the voice of God to see God is to know and hear the Spirit by the Spirit alone God is known and perceived Which also the more serious to this day do acknowledg even all such who satisfie themselves not with the superfice of Religion and use it not as a cover or art Yea all these who apply themselves effectually to Christianity and are not satisfied until they have found its effectual work upon their hearts redeeming them from Sin do feel that no knowledge effectually prevails to the producing of this but that which proceeds from the warm influence of God's Spirit upon the heart and from the comfortable shinings of his Light upon their understanding and therefore to this purpose a late modern Author saith well videlicer Doctor Smith of Cambridge in his select discourses To seek our Divinity meerly in Books and Writings is to seek the living among the dead we do but in vain many times seek God in these where his Truth is too often not so much enshrined as entombed Intra te quaere Deum seek God within thine own Soul he is best discerned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plotinus phraseth it by an intellectual touch of him We must see with our eyes and hear with our ears and our hands must handle the Word of Life to express it in St. John 's words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Soul it self hath its sense as well as the Body And therefore David
own Eternal Word and Power so no Creature has access again unto him but in and by the Son according to his own express words No man knoweth the Father but the Son and he to whom the Son will reveal him Matth. 11.27 Luk. 10.22 And again he himself saith I am the Way the Truth and the Life no man cometh unto the Father but by me Joh. 14.6 Hence he is fitly called the Mediator betwixt God and Man For having been with God from all Eternity being himself God and also in time partaking of the nature of man through him is the goodness and love of God conveighed to mankind and by him again man receiveth and partaketh of these mercies Hence is easily deduced the probation of this first Assertion thus If no man know the Father but the Son and he to whom the Son will reveal him then there is no knowledge of the Father but by the Son But no man knoweth the Father but the Son Therefore there is no knowledge of the Father but by the Son The first part of the antecedent are the plain words of Scripture The consequence thereof is undeniable except one would say that he hath the knowledge of the Father while yet he knows him not which were an absurd repugnance Again If the Son be the Way the Truth and the Life and that no man cometh unto the Father but by him then there is no knowledg of the Father but by the Son But the first is true Therefore the last The antecedent are the very Scripture words The consequence is very evident For how can any know a thing who useth not the way without which it is not knowable But it is already proved that there is no other way but by the Son so that who so uses not that way cannot know him neither come unto him § VI. Having then laid down this first Principle I come to the second viz. That there is no Knowledg of the Son but by the Spirit or that the Revelation of the Son of God is by the Spirit Where it is to be noted that I alwayes speak of the saving certain and necessary Knowledge of God which that it cannot be acquired otherwayes than by the Spirit doth also appear from many clear Scriptures For Jesus Christ in and by whom the Father is revealed doth also reveal himself to his Disciples and Friends in and by his Spirit as his manifestation was sometimes outwards when he testified and witnessed for the Truth in this World and approved himself faithful throughout So being now withdrawn as to the outward man he doth teach and instruct mankind inwardly by his own Spirit he standeth at the door and knocketh and who so heareth his Voice and openeth he comes in to such Rev. 3.20 Of this Revelation of Christ in him Paul speaketh Gal. 1.6 in which he placeth the excellency of his Ministry and the certainty of his Calling And the Promise of Christ to his Disciples Lo I am with you to the end of the World confirmeth this same thing for this is an inward Presence and Spiritual as all acknowledg But what relates hereto will again occur I shall deduce the proof of this Proposition from two manifest places of Scripture The first is 1 Cor. 2.11 12. What man knoweth the things of a man save the Spirit of a man which is in him Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God Now we have received not the Spirit of the World but the Spirit which is of God that we might know the things which are freely given us of God The Apostle in the verses before speaking of the wonderful things which are prepared for the Saints after he hath declared that the natural man cannot reach them adds that they are revealed by the Spirit of God ver 9 10. giving this reason for the Spirit searcheth all things even the deep things of God And then he bringeth in the comparison in the verses above mentioned very apt and answerable to our purpose and Doctrine that as the things of a man are only known by the Spirit of man so the things of God are only known by the Spirit of God that is that as nothing below the Spirit of man as the Spirit of Brutes or any other Creatures can properly reach unto nor comprehend the things of a man as being of a more noble and higher Nature so neither can the Spirit of man or the natural man as the Apostle in the 14 verse subsumes receive nor discern the things of God or the things that are Spiritual as being also of a higher Nature which the Apostle himself gives for the reason saying neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned So that the Apostles words being reduced to an argument do very well prove the matter under debate thus If that which appertaineth properly to man cannot be discerned by any lower or baser Principle than the Spirit of man then cannot these things that properly relate unto God and Christ be known or discerned by any lower or baser thing than the Spirit of God and Christ. But the First is true Therefore also the Second The whole strength of the argument is contained in the Apostles words before mentioned which therefore being granted I shall proceed to deduce a second argument thus That which is Spiritual can only be known and discerned by the Spirit of God But the Revelation of Jesus Christ and the true and saving knowledg of him is Spiritual Therefore the Revelation of Jesus Christ and the true and saving knowledge of him can only be known and discerned by the Spirit of God The other Scripture is also a saying of the same Apostle 1 Cor. 12.3 No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost The Scripture which is full of Truth and answereth full well to the inlightned understanding of the Spiritual and real Christian may perhaps prove very strange to the carnal and pretended follower of Christ by whom perhaps it hath not been so diligently remarked Here the Apostle doth so much require the Holy Spirit in the things that relate to a Christian that he positively averrs we cannot so much as affirm Jesus to be the Lord without it which insinuates no less than that the Spiritual Truths of the Gospel are as lyes in the Mouths of carnal and unspiritual men for though in themselves they be true yet are they not true as to them because not known nor uttered forth in and by that Principle and Spirit that ought to direct the mind and actuat it in such things they are no better than the counterfeit representations of things in a comedy neither can it be more truly and properly called a real and true knowledg of God and Christ than the actings of Alexander the great and Julius Caesar c. if now transacted upon a Stage might be called truly and really their doings or the persons representing them might be said truly
but inward and immediate revelation as we have before proved Their example can be no ways applicable to us except we believe in God as they did that is by the same object The Apostle clears this yet further by his own example Gal. 1.16 where he saith so soon as Christ was revealed in him he consulted not with flesh and blood but forthwith believed and obeyed The same Apostle Heb. 13.7 8. where he exhorteth the Hebrews to follow the faith of the Elders adds this reason considering the end of their conversation Jesus Christ the same to day yesterday and for ever hereby notably insinuating that in the object there is no alteration If any now object the diversity of Administration I answer that altereth not at all the object for the same Apostle mentioned this diversity three times 1 Cor. 12.4 5 6. centreth always in the same Object the same Spirit the same Lord the same God But further if the object of Faith were not one and the same both to us and to them then it would follow that we were to know God some other way than by the Spirit But this were absurd Therefore c. Lastly this is most firmly proved from a common and received maxim of the School-men to wit Omnis actus specificatur ab objecto every act is specified from its object from which if it be true as they acknowledg tho for the sake of many I shall not recur to this argument as being too nice and Scholastick Neither lay I much stress upon those kind of things as being that which commends not the simplicity of the Gospel If the object were different then the faith would be different also Such as deny this Proposition now adays use here a distinction granting that God is to be known by his Spirit but again denying that it is immediate or inward but in and by the Scriptures in which the mind of the Spirit as they say being fully and amply expressed we are thereby to know God and be led in all things As to the negative of this assertion that the Scriptures are not sufficient neither were ever appointed to be the adequate and only rule nor yet can guide or direct a Christian in all those things that are needful for him to know we shall leave that to the next Proposition to be examined What is proper in this place to be proved is that Christians now are to be led inwardly and immediatly by the Spirit of God even in the same manner though it befal not to many to be led in the same measure as the Saints were of old § X. I shall prove this by divers Arguments and first from the Promise of Christ in these words Joh. 14.16 And I will pray the Father and he will give you another Comforter that he may abide with you for ever 17. Even the Spirit of Truth whom the World cannot receive because it seeth him not neither knoweth him but ye know him for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you Again ver 26. But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance and 16.13 But when that Spirit of Truth shall come he shall lead you into all Truth for he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear he shall speak and shall declare unto you things to come We have here first who this is and that is divers wayes expressed to wit The Comforter the Spirit of Truth the Holy Ghost and sent of the Father in the Name of Christ. And hereby is sufficiently proved the fottishness of those Socinians and other carnal Christians who neither know nor acknowledge any internal Spirit or Power but that which is meerly Natural by which they sufficiently declare themselves to be of the World who cannot receive the Spirit because they neither see him nor know him Secondly Where this Spirit is to be He dwelleth with you and shall be in you And Thirdly What his Work is He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance and guide you into all Truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As to the First Most do acknowledge that there is nothing else understood than what the plain words signifie which is also evident by many other places of Scripture that will hereafter occur Neither do I see how such as affirm otherwayes can avoid Blasphemy For If the Comforter the Holy Ghost and Spirit of Truth be all one with the Scriptures then it will follow that the Scriptures is God seeing it is true that the Holy Ghost is God If these Mens reasoning might take place where ever the Spirit is mentioned in relation to the Saints thereby might be truly and properly understood the Scriptures Which what a non-sensical Monster it would make of the Christian Religion will easily appear to all Men. As where it is said A Manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal it might be rendred thus A manifestation of the Scriptures is given to every man to profit withal What notable sense this would make and what a curious interpretation let us consider by the sequel of the same chapter 1 Cor. 12.9 10 11. To another the gifts of Healing by the same Spirit to another the working of Miracles c. But all these worketh that one and the self same Spirit dividing to every man severally as he will What would now these great masters of Reason the Socinians judge if we should place the Scriptures here instead of the Spirit Would it answer their Reason which is the great guide of their Faith Would it be good and sound Reason in their Logical Schools to affirm that the Scriptures divideth severally as it will and giveth to some the gift of Healing to others the working of Miracles If then this Spirit a manifestation whereof is given to every man to profit withal be no other than that Spirit of Truth before-mentioned which guideth into all Truth this Spirit of Truth cannot be the Scriptures I could infer an hundred more absurdities of this kind upon this sottish Opinion but what is said may suffice For even some of themselves being at times forgetful or ashamed of their own Doctrine do acknowledge that the Spirit of God is another thing and distinct from the Scriptures to guide and influence the Saints Secondly That this Spirit is inward in my opinion needs no interpretation nor commentary He dwelleth with you and shall be in you This indwelling of the Spirit in the Saints as it is a thing most needful to be known and believed so is it as positively asserted in the Scripture as any thing else can be If so be the Spirit of God dwell in you saith the Apostle to the Romans 8.9 and again Know ye not that ye are the Temple of the Holy Ghost and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you 1 Cor. 6.19 Without this the
it are answered § XIII The most usual is that these Revelations are uncertain But this bespeaketh much ignorance in the opposers for we distinguish betwixt the thesis and the hypothesis that is betwixt the proposition and supposition For it is one thing to affirm that the true and undoubted Revelation of God's Spirit is certain and infallible and another thing to affirm that this or that particular person or people is led infallibly by this Revelation in what they speak or write because they affirm themselves to be so led by the inward and immediate Revelation of the Spirit The first is only by us asserted the latter may be called in question The question is not who are or are not so led but whether all ought not or may not be so led Seeing then we have already proved that Christ hath promised his Spirit to lead his Children and that every one of them both ought and may be led by it If any depart from this certain Guide in deeds and yet in words pretend to be led by it into things that are not good it will not from thence follow that the true guidance of the Spirit is uncertain or ought not to be followed no more than it will follow that the Sun sheweth not light because a blind man or one who wilfully shuts his Eyes falls into a ditch at Noon day for want of Light or that no words are spoken because a deaf man hears them not or that a Garden full of fragrant Flowers has no sweet smell because he that has lost his smelling doth not savour it the fault then is in the Organ and not in the Object All these mistakes therefore are to be ascribed to the weakness or wickedness of men and not to that Holy Spirit Such as bend themselves most against this certain and infallible Testimony of the Spirit use commonly to alledge the example of the old Gnosticks and the late monstruous and mischievous actings of the Anabaptists of Munster all which toucheth us nothing at all neither weakens a whit our most true Doctrine Wherefore as a most sure Bullwark against such kind of assaults was subjoyned that other part of our Proposition thus Moreover these Divine and inward Revelations which we establish as absolutely necessary for the founding of the true Faith as they do not so neither can they at any time contradict the Scriptures Testimony or found Reason Besides the intrinsick and undoubted Truth of this assertion we can boldly affirm it from our certain and blessed Experience For this Spirit never deceived us never acted nor moved us to any thing that was amiss but is clear and manifest in its Revelations which are evidently discerned of us as we wait in that pure and undefiled Light of God that proper and fit Organ in which they are received Therefore if any reason after this manner That because some wicked ungodly devilish men have committed wicked actions and have yet more wickedly asserted that they were led into these things by the Spirit of God Therefore no man ought to lean to the Spirit of God or seek to be led by it I utterly deny the consequence of this Proposition which were it to be received as true then would all faith in God and hope of Salvation become uncertain and the Christian Religion be turned into meer Scepticism For after the same manner I might reason thus Because Eve was deceived by the lying of the Serpent Therefore she ought not to have trusted to the promise of God Because the old World was deluded by evil Spirits Therefore ought neither Noah nor Abraham nor Moses to have trusted the Spirit of the Lord. Because a lying Spirit spake through the four hundred Prophets that perswaded Achab to go up and fight at Ramoth Gilead Therefore the Testimony of the true Spirit of Micajah was uncertain and dangerous to be followed Because there were seducing Spirits crept into the Church of old Therefore it was not good or uncertain to follow the Anointing which taught all things and is Truth and no Lye Who dare say that this is a necessary consequence Moreover not only the Faith of the Saints and Church of God of old is hereby rendered uncertain but also the Faith of all sorts of Christians now is liable to the like hazard even of those who seek a foundation for their Faith elsewhere than from the Spirit For I shall prove by an inevitable argument ab incommodo i. e. from the inconveniency of it that if the Spirit be not to be followed upon that account and that men may not depend upon it as their Guide because some while pretending thereunto commit great evils that then nor Tradition nor the Scriptures nor Reason which the Papists Protestants and Socinians do respectively make the rule of their Faith are any whit more certain The Romanists reckon it an error to celebrate Easter any other ways than that Church doth This can only be decided by Tradition And yet the Greek Church which equally layeth claim to Tradition with her self doth it otherwise Yea so little effectual is Tradition to decide the case that Polycarpus the Disciple of John and Anicetus the Bishop of Rome who immediately succeeded them according to whose example both sides concluded the question ought to be decided could not agree Here of necessity one behoved to err and that following Tradition Would the Papists now judg we dealt fairly by them if we should thence aver that Tradition is not to be regarded Besides in a matter of far greater importance the same difficulty will occur to wit in the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome for many do affirm and that by Tradition that in the First Six Hundred Years the Roman Prelates never assumed the Title of Vniversal Shepherd nor were acknowledged as such And as that which altogether overturneth this presidency there are that alledg and that from Tradition also that Peter never saw Rome and that therefore the Bishop of Rome cannot be his Successor Would ye Romanists think this sound reasoning to say as ye do Many have been deceived and erred grievously in trusting to Tradition Therefore we ought to reject all Traditions yea even those by which we affirm the contrary and as we think prove the Truth Lastly in the Council of Florence the chief Doctors of the Romish and Greek Churches did debate whole Sessions long concerning the Interpretation of one Sentence of the Council of Ephesus and of Epiphanius and Basilius neither could they ever agree about it Secondly as to the Scripture the same difficulty occurreth the Lutherans affirm they believe Consubstantiation by the Scripture which they Calvinists deny as that which they say according to the same Scripture is a gross error The Calvinists again affirm absolute reprobation which the Arminians deny affirming the contrary wherein both affirm themselves to be ruled by the Scripture and Reason in the matter should I argue thus then to the Calvinists Here the
herewith Nay certainly Obedience is better than Sacrifice and it is not our doing that which is good simply that pleaseth God but that good which he wille thus to do Every Member hath its particular place in the Body as the Apostle sheweth 1 Cor. 12. If then I being the foot should offer to exercise the office of the hand or being the hand that of the tongue my service would be troublesome and not acceptable and instead of helping the Body I should make a Schism in it So that that which is good for another to do may be sinful to me for as Masters will have their Servants to obey them according to their good pleasure not only in blindly doing that which may seem to them to tend to their Masters profit whereby it may chance the Master having business both in the field and in the house that the Servant that knows not his Masters will may go to the field when it is the mind of the Master he should stay and do the business of the house Would not this Servant then deserve a reproof for not answering his Master's mind And what Master is so sottish and careless as having many Servants leaves them in such disorder as not to assign each his particular station and not only the general term of doing that which is profitable which would leave them in various doubts and no doubt end in confusion Shall we then dare to ascribe unto Christ in the ordering of his Church and Servants that which in man might justly be accounted disorder and confusion The Apostle sheweth this distinction well Rom. c. 12. v. 6 8. Having then Gifts differing according to the Grace that is given us whether Prophecy let us Prophecy according to the proportion of Faith or Ministry let us wait on our Ministrings or he that teacheth on teaching or he that exhorteth on exhortation Now what Scripture Rule sheweth me that I ought to exhort rather than prophecy or to minister rather than teach Surely none at all Many more difficulties of this kind occur in the Life of a Christian. Moreover that which of all things is most needful for him to know to wit whether he really be in the Faith and an heir of Salvation or no the Scripture can give him no certainty in neither can it be a Rule to him That this knowledg is exceeding desirable and comfortable all do unanimously acknowledg besides that it is especially commanded 2 Cor. 13. v. 5. Examine your selves whether ye be in the Faith prove your selves Know ye not your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you except you be reprobates and 2 Pet. 1.10 Wherefore the rather Brethren give all dilligence to make your calling and election sure Now I say what Scripture Rule can assure me that I have true Faith that my calling and election is sure If it be said by comparing the Scripture marks of true faith with mine I demand wherewith shall I make this observation what shall ascertain me that I am not mistaken It cannot be the Scripture That 's the matter under debate If it be said My own Heart How unfit a judg is it in its own case and how like to be partial especially if it be yet unrenewed Doth not the Scripture say that it is deceitful above all things I find the promises I find the threatnings in the Scripture but who telleth me that the one belongs to me more than the other The Scripture gives me a meer declaration of these things but makes no application so that the assumption must be of my own making thus as for example I find this Proposition in the Scripture He that believes shall be saved thence I draw this assumption But I Robert believe Therefore I shall be saved The minor is of mine own making not expressed in the Scripture and so a humane conclusion not a Divine position so that by my Faith and assurance here is not built upon a Scripture position but upon a humane Principle which unless I be sure of elsewhere the Scripture gives me no certainty in the matter Again if I should pursue the argument further and seek a new medium out of the Scripture the same difficulty would occur thus He that hath the true and certain marks of true Faith hath true Faith But I have those marks Therefore I have true Faith For the assumption is still here of my own making and is not found in the Scriptures and by consequence the conclusion can be no better since it still followeth the weaker proposition This is indeed so pungent that the best of Protestants who plead for this assurance ascribe it to the inward Testimony of the Spirit as Calvin in that large citation cited in the former Proposition so that not to seek further into the Writings of the primitive Protestants which are full of such expressions even the Westminster confession of Faith affirmeth chap. 18. sect 12. This certainty is not bear conjecture and probable perswasion grounded upon fallible hope but an infallible assurance of Faith founded upon the Divine Truth of the promise of Salvation the inward evidences of these Graces unto which these promises are made the Testimony of the Spirit of Adoption witnessing to our Spirits that we are the Children of God which Spirit is the earnest of our Inheritance whereby we are sealed to the day of Redemption Moreover the Scripture it self wherein we are so earnestly pressed to seek after this Assurance doth not at all affirm it self a rule sufficient to give it but wholly ascribeth it to the Spirit as Rom. 8.16 The Spirit it self beareth witness with our Spirit that we are the Children of God 1 Joh. 4.13 Hereby do we know that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us of his Spirit and 5.6 And it is the Spirit that beareth witness because the Spirit is truth § IV. Lastly That cannot be the only principle nor chief rule which doth not universally reach every individual that needeth it to produce the necessary effect and from the use of which either by some innocent and sinless defect or natural yet harmless and blameless imperfection many who are within the compass of the visible Church and may without absurdity yea with great probability be accounted oft he Elect are necessarily excluded and that either wholly or at least from the immediate use thereof But it so falls out frequently concerning the Scriptures in the case of deaf People Children and Ideots who can by no means have the benefit of the Scriptures Shall we then affirm that they are without any rule to God-ward or that they are all damned As such an Opinion is in it self very absurd and inconsistent both with the Justice and Mercy of God so I know no sound reason can be alledged for it Now if we may suppose any such to be under the New Covenant Dispensation as I know none will deny but that we may suppose it without any absurdity we
granted that place the Scriptures themselves give it I do freely concede to the Scripture the second place even whatsoever they say of themselves Which the Apostle Paul chiefly mentions in two places Rom. 15.4 Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope 2 Tim. 3.15 16 17. The Holy Scriptures are able to make wise unto Salvation through Faith which is in Christ Jesus All Scripture given by inspiration from God is profitable for correction for instruction in righteousness that the Man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto every good work For tho God do principally and chiefly lead us by his Spirit yet he sometimes conveys his comfort and consolation to us through his Children whom he raises up and inspires to speak or write a word in season whereby the Saints are made instruments in the hand of the Lord to strengthen and encourage one another which do also tend to perfect and make them wise unto Salvation and such as are led by the Spirit cannot neglect but do natural love and are wonderfully cherished by that which proceedeth from the same Spirit in another because such mutual emanations of the heavenly Life tend to quicken the mind when at any time it is overtaken with heaviness Peter himself declares this to have been the end of his writing 2 Pet. 1.12 13. Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you alwaies in remembrance of those things tho ye know them and be established in the present Truth Yea I think it meet as long as I am in this Tabernacle to stir you up by putting you in remembrance God is Teacher of his People himself and there is nothing more express than that such as are under the New Covenant they need no man to teach them yet it was a fruit of Christ's Ascension to send Teachers and Pastors for perfecting of the Saints So that the same work is ascribed to the Scriptures as to Teachers the one to make the man of God perfect the other for the perfection of the Saints As then Teachers are not to go before the teaching of God himself under the New Covenant but to follow after it neither are they to rob us of that great priviledg which Christ hath purchased unto us by his Blood so neither is the Scripture to go before the teaching of the Spirit or to rob us of it Secondly God hath seen meet that herein we should as in a looking glass see the conditions and experiences of the Saints of old that finding our experience answer to theirs we might thereby be the more confirmed and comforted and our hope strengthened of obtaining the same end that observing the Providences attending them seeing the snares they were liable to and beholding their deliverances we may thereby be made wise unto Salvation and seasonably reproved and instructed in righteousness This is the great work of the Scriptures and their service to us that we may witness them fulfilled in us and so discern the stamp of God's Spirit and ways upon them by the inward acquaintance we have with the same Spirit and work in our hearts The prophecys of the Scripture are also very comfortable and profitable unto us as the same Spirit inlightens us to observe them fulfilled and to be fulfilled For in all this it is to be observed that it is only the Spiritual Man that can make a right use of them they are able to make the man of God perfect so it is not the natural Man and whatsoever was written aforetime was written for our comfort our that are the believers our that are the Saints concerning such the Apostle speaks for as for the other the Apostle Peter plainly declares that the unstable and unlearned wrest them to their own destruction these were they that were unlearned in the Divine and heavenly learning of the Spirit not in humane and School Literature of which we may safely presume that Peter himself being a Fisher-man had no great skill for it may with great probability yea certainly be affirmed that he had no knowledg of Aristotles Logick which both Papists and Protestants now degenerating from the simplicity of Truth make hand-maid of Divinity as they call it and a necessary introduction to their carnal natural and humane Ministry By the infinite obscure labours of which kind of men mixing in their heathenish stuff the Scripture is rendred at this day of so little service to the simple People whereof if Jerom complained in his time now twelve hundred years ago Hieron Ep. 134. ad Cypr. tom 3. saying It is wont to befall the most part of learned Men that it is harder to understand their expositions than the things which they go about to expound what may We say then considering those great heaps of commentarys since in ages yet far more corrupted § VI. In this respect above mentioned then we have shown what service and use the Holy Scriptures as managed in and by the Spirit are of to the Church of God wherefore we do account them a secondary rule Moreover because they are commonly acknowledged by all to have been written by the dictates of the Holy Spirit and that the errors which may be supposed by the injury of times to have slipt in are not such but that there is a sufficient clear Testimony left to all the essentials of the Christian faith we do look upon them as the only fit outward judg of Controversies among Christians and that whatsoever doctrine is contrary unto their Testimony may therefore justly be rejected as false And for our parts we are very willing that all our Doctrines and Practices be tryed by them which we never refused nor ever shall in all controversies with our adversaries as the Judg and Test. We shall also be very willing to admit it as a positive certain Maxim That whatsoever any do pretending to the Spirit which is contrary to the Scriptures be accounted and reckoned a delusion of the Devil For as we never lay claim to the Spirit 's leadings that we may cover our selves in any thing that is evil so we know that as every evil contradicts the Scriptures so it doth also the Spirit in the first place from which the Scriptures came and whose motions can never contradict one another though they may appear sometimes to be contradictory to the blind Eye of natural Man as Paul and James seem to contradict one another Thus far we have shown both what we believe and what we believe not concerning the Holy Scriptures hoping we have given them their due place But since they that will needs have them to be the only certain and principal Rule want not some shew of arguments even from the Scripture it self though it no where call it self so by which they labour to prove their Doctrin I shall briefly lay them down by way of Objections and answer them before I make an end of this
though we should extend that of the Revelation beyond the particular Prophecy of that book it cannot be understood but of a new Gospel or new Doctrines or of restraining man's Spirit that he mix not his humane words with the Divine and not of a new revelation of the old as we have said before The Fourth Proposition Concerning the Condition of Man in the fall All Adam's posterity or mankind both Jews and Gentiles as to the first Adam or earthly man is faln degenerated and dead deprived of the sensation or feeling of this inward Testimony or Seed of God and is subject unto the Power Nature and Seed of the Serpent which he soweth in mens hearts while they abide in this natural and corrupted estate from whence it comes that not only their words and deeds but all their imaginations are evil perpetually in the sight of God as proceeding from this depraved and wicked Seed Man therefore as he is in this state can know nothing aright yea his Thoughts and Coneptions concerning God and things Spiritual until he be disjoyned from this evil Seed and united to the Divine Light are unprofitable both to himself and others Hence are rejected the Socinian and Pelagian errors in exalting a Natural Light as also the Papists and most of Protestants who affirm that man without the true Grace of God may be a true Minister of the Gospel Nevertheless this Seed is not imputed to Infants until by Transgression they actually joyn themselves therewith for they are by Nature the Children of Wrath. Who walk according to the Power of the Prince of the Air and the Spirit that now worketh in the Children of disobedience having their conversation in the lusts of the flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind Eph. 2. § I. HItherto we have discoursed how the True knowledg of God is attained and preserved also of what use and service the Holy Scripture is to the Saints We come now to examine the state and condition of Man as he stands in the fall what his capacity and power is and how far he is able as of himself to advance in relation to the things of God Of this we touch'd a little in the beginning of the second Proposition but the full right and through understanding of it is of great use and service because from the ignorance and altercations that have been about it there have arisen great and dangerous errors both on the one hand and the other While some do so far exalt the light of Nature or the faculty of the natural man as capable of himself by virtue of the inward will faculty light and power that pertains to his Nature to follow that which is good and make real progress towards Heaven And of these are the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians of old and of late the Socinians and divers others among the Papists Others again will needs run into another extream to whom Augustin among the Antients first made way in his declining age through the heat of his Zeal against Pelagius not only confessing men uncapable of themselves to do good and prone to evil but that in his very Mothers-womb and before he commits any actual Transgression he is contaminate with a real guilt whereby he deserves eternal Death in which respect they are not afraid to affirm that many poor Infants are eternally damned and for ever endure the Torments of Hell Therefore the God of Truth having now again revealed his Truth that good and even Way by his own Spirit hath taught us to avoid both these extreams That then which our proposition leads us to treat of is First What the condition of man is in the Fall and how far uncapable to meddle in the things of God And Secondly that God doth not impute this evil to Infants until they actually joyn with it that so by establishing the Truth we may overturn the errors on both parts And as for that Third thing included in the proposition it self concerning these Teachers which want the Grace of God we shall refer that to the Tenth Proposition where that matter is more particularly handled § II. As to the First not to dive into the many curious Notions which many have concerning the Condition of Adam before the fall all agree in this that thereby he came to a very great loss not only in the things which related to the outward man but in regard of that true Fellowship and Communion he had with God This loss was signified to him in the Command For in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely dye Gen. 2.17 This death could not be an outward death or the dissolution of the outward man for as to that he did not dye yet many Hundred Years after so that it must needs respect his Spiritual Life and Communion with God The consequence of this fall besides that which relates to the fruits of the Earth is also expressed Gen. 3.24 So he drove out the man and he placed at the East of the Garden of Eden Cherubims and a Flaming Sword which turned every way to keep the way of the Tree of Life Now whatsoever literal signification this may have we may safely ascribe to this Paradise a mystical signification and truly account it that Spiritual Communion and Fellowship which the Saints obtain with God by Jesus Christ to whom only these Cherubims give way and unto as many as enter by him who calls himself the door So that though we do not ascribe any whit of Adam's guilt to men until they make it theirs by the like acts of Disobedience yet we cannot suppose that men who are come of Adam naturally can have any good thing in their Nature as belonging to it which he from whom they derive their Nature had not himself to communicate unto them If then we may affirm that Adam did not retain in his Nature as belonging thereunto any will or light capable to give him knowledg in Spiritual things then neither can his posterity For whatsoever real good any man doth it proceedeth not from his nature as he is a man or the Son of Adam but from the Seed of God in him as a new visitation of Life in order to bring him out of this natural condition So that though it be in him yet it is not of him and this the Lord himself witnessed Gen. 6.5 where it is said he saw that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually which words as they are very positive so are they very comprehensive Observe the emphasis of them First there is every imagination of the thoughts of his heart so that this admits of no exception of any Imagination of the thoughts of his heart Secondly is only evil continually it is neither in some part evil continually nor yet only evil at sometimes but both only evil and always and continally evil which certainly excludes any good as a proper effect of mans heart naturally For that
worse condition than the devils in hell For these were sometimes in a capacity to have stood and do suffer only for their guilt whereas many millions of men are for ever tormented according to them for Adams sin which they neither knew of nor ever were accessary to It renders them worse than the Beasts of the Field of whom the Master requires not more than they are able to perform and if they be killed death to them is the end of sorrow whereas man is for ever tormented for not doing that which he never was able to do It puts him into a far worse condition than Pharoah put the Israelites for though he with-held Straw from them yet by much labour and pains they could have gotten it But from men they make God to with hold all means of Salvation so that they can by no means attain it Yea they place mankind in that condition which the Poets feign of Tantalus who oppressed with thirst stands in water up to the chin yet can by no means reach it with his tongue and being tormented with hunger hath Fruit hanging at his very Lips yet so as he can never lay hold on them with his Teeth and these things are so near him not to nourish him but to torment him So do these men they make the outward Creation of the work of Providence the smitings of the Conscience sufficient to convince the Heathens of sin and to condemn and judg them but not at all to help them to Salvation They make the preaching of the Gospel the offer of Salvation by Christ the use of the Sacraments of Prayer and good works sufficient to condemn those they account reprobates within the Church serving only to inform them to beget a seeming faith and vain hope yet because of a secret impotency which they had from their Infancy all these are wholly ineffectual to bring them the least step towards Salvation and do only contribute to render their condemnation the greater and their torments the more violent and intollerable Having thus briefly removed this false Doctrin which stood in my way because they that are desirous may see it both Learnedly and Piously refuted by many others I come to the matter of our Proposition which is that God out of his infinite love who delighteth not in the death of a sinner but that all should live and be saved hath sent his only begotten Son into the World that whosoever believeth in him might be saved which also is again affirmed in the sixth Proposition in these words Christ then tasted Death for every Man of all kinds Such is the evidence of this Truth delivered almost wholly in the express words of Scripture that it will not need much probation Also because our assertion herein is common with many others who have both earnestly and soundly according to the Scripture pleaded for this Universal Redemption I shall be the more brief in it that I may come to that which may seem more singularly and peculiarly ours § VI. This Doctrin of Universal Redemption or Christs dying for all Men is of it self so evident from the Scripture Testimony that there is scarce found any other Article of the Christian Faith so frequently so plainly and so positively asserted It is that which maketh the preaching of Christ to be truly termed the Gospel or an annunciation of glad tydings to all Thus the Angel declared the birth and coming of Christ to the Shepherds to be Luk. 2.10 Behold I bring you good tydings of great joy which shall be to all People He saith not to a few People Now if this coming of Christ had not brought a possibility of Salvation to all it should rather have been accounted bad tydings of great sorrow to most People neither should the Angel have had reason to have sung Peace on Earth and good will towards men if the greatest part of mankind had been necessarily shut out from receiving any benefit by it How should Christ have sent out his to preach the Gospel to every Creature Mark 16.15 a very comprehensive Commission that is to every Son and Daughter of mankind Without all exception he commands them to Preach Salvation to all repentance and remission of sins to all warning every one and exhorting every one as Paul did Col. 1.28 Now how could they have preached the Gospel to every Man as became the Ministers of Jesus Christ in much assurance if Salvation by that Gospel had not been possible for all what if some of those had asked them or should now ask any of these Doctors who deny the Universallity of Christ's death and yet preached it to all promiscuously hath Christ dyed for me How can they with confidence give a certain answer to this question If they give a conditional answer as their principal obligeth them to do and say If thou repent Christ hath dyed for thee doth not the same question still recur Hath Christ dyed for me so as to make repentance possible for me To this they can answer nothing unless they run in a Circle whereas the feet of those that bring the glad tidings of the Gospel of Peace are said to be beautiful for that they preach the common Salvation repentance unto all offering a door of mercy and hope to all through Jesus Christ who gave himself a ransom for all The Gospel invites all and certainly by the Gospel Christ intended not to deceive and delude the greater part of Mankind when he invites and cryeth saying Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest If all then ought to seek after him and to look for Salvation by him he must needs have made Salvation Possible to all for who is bound to seek after that which is impossible Certainly it were a mock of men to bid them do so And such as deny that by the death of Christ Salvation is made possible to all men do most blasphemously make God mock the World in giving his servants a commission to preach the Gospel of Salvation unto all while he hath before decreed that it shall not be possible for them to receive it Would not this make the Lord to send forth his servants with a lye in their Mouth which were Blasphemous to think commanding them to bid all and every one believe that Christ died for them and had purchased life and Salvation Whereas it is no such thing according to the forementioned Doctrin But seeing Christ after he arose and perfected the work of our Redemption gave a commission to preach Repentance remission of Sins and Salvation to all it is manifest that he dyed for all For he that hath Commissionated his servants thus to Preach is a God of Truth and no Mocker of poor Mankind neither doth he require any of Man that which is simply impossible for him to do for that no Man is bound to do that which is impossible is a principle of Truth ingraven in every mans mind
of the glorious Dispensation of the Gospel of Christ appear all at once the work of the first Witnesses being more to restifie against and discover the abuses of the Apostasie than to establish the Truth in purity He that comes to build a new City must first remove the old Rubbish before he can see to lay a new Foundation and he that comes to a House greatly polluted and full of Dirt will first sweep away and remove the Filth before he put up his own good and new Furniture The dawning of the day dispells the Darkness and makes us see the things that are most conspicuous but the distinct discovering and discerning of things o as to make a certain and perfect observation is reserved for the arising of the Sun and its shining in full brightness And we can from a certain Experience boldly affirm that the not waiting for this but building among yea and with the old popish rubbish and setting up before a full purgation hath been to most Protestants the foundation of many a mistake and an occasion of unspeakable hurt Therefore the Lord God who as he seeth meet doth communicate and make known to man the more full evident and perfect knowledg of his everlasting Truth hath been pleased to reserve the more full discovery of this glorious and Evangelical Dispensation to this our Age albeit divers testimonies have thereunto been born by some noted men in several Ages as shall hereafter appear and for the greater augmentation of the Glory of his Grace that no man might have whereof to boast hath raised up a few despicable and illiterate men and for the most part Mechanicks to be the Dispensators of it by which Gospel all the scruples doubts hesitations and objections above mentioned are easily and evidently answered and the justice as well as mercy of God according to their Divine and Heavenly Harmony are exhibited established and confirmed according to which certain Light and Gospel as the knowledge thereof hath been manifested to us by the Revelation of Jesus Christ in us fortified by our own sensible experience and sealed by the testimony of the Spirit in our Hearts we can confidently affirm and clearly evince according to the testimony of the Holy Scriptures the following points § XI First That God who out of his infinite love sent his Son the Lord Jesus Christ into the World who tasted Death for every man hath given to every man whether Jew or Gentile Turk or Scythian Indian or Barbarian of whatsoever Nation Countrey or Place a certain day or time of visitation during which day or time it is possible for them to be saved and to partake of the Fruit of Christs Death Secondly That for this end God hath communicated and given unto every man a measure of the Light of his own Son a measure of Grace or a measure of the Spirit which the Scripture expresses by several names as sometimes of the Seed of the Kingdom Mat. 13.18.19 The Light that makes all things manifest Eph. 5.13 The Word of God Rom. 10.18 or Manifestation of the Spirit given to profite withal 1 Cor. 12.7 a Talent Mat. 25.15 a little Leaven The Gospel preached in every Creature Col. 1.23 Thirdly That God in and by this Light and Seed invites calls exhorts and strives with every man in order to save them which as it is received and not resisted works the Salvation of all even of those who are ignorant of the Death and Sufferings of Christ and of Adam's Fall both by bringing them to a sense of their own misery and to be sharers in the Sufferings of Christ inwardly and by making them partakers of his Resurrection in becoming Holy Pure and Righteous and recovered of their sins by which also are saved they that have the knowledg of Christ outwardly in that it opens their understanding rightly to use and apply the things delivered in the Scriptures and to receive the saving use of them But that this may be resisted and rejected in both in which then God is said to be resisted and pressed down and Christ to be again crucified and put to open shame in and among men and to to those as thus resist and refuse him he becomes their condemnation First then according to this Doctrine the Mercy of God is excellently well exhibited in that none are necessarily shut out from Salvation and his Justice is demonstrated in that he condemns none but such to whom he really made offer of Salvation affording them the means sufficient thereunto Secondly This Doctrin if well weighed will be found to be the Foundation of Christianity Salvation and Assurance Thirdly It agrees and answers with the whole tenor of the Gospel Promises and Threats and with the Nature of the Ministry of Christ according to which the Gospel Salvation Repentance is commanded to be preached to every Creature without respect of Nations Kindreds Families or Tongues Fourthly It magnifies and commends the merits and death of Christ in that it not only accounts them sufficient to save all but declares them to be brought so nigh unto all as thereby to be put into the nearest capacity of Salvation Fifthly It exalts above all the Grace of God to which it attributeth all good even the least and smallest actions that are so ascribing thereunto not only the first beginnings and motions of good but also the whole conversion and salvation of the Soul Sixthly It contradicts overturns and enervates the false Doctrine of the Pelagians Semi-Pelagians Socinians and others who exalt the Light of Nature the liberty of mans will in that it wholly excludes the natural man from having any place or portion in his own Salvation by any acting moving or working of his own until he be first quickned raised up and acted by God's Spirit Seventhly As it makes the whole Salvation of Man solely and alone to depend upon God so it makes his condemnation wholly and in every respect to be himself in that he refused and resisted somewhat that from God wrestled and strove in his heart and forces him to acknowledg God's just Judgment in rejecting him and forsaking of him Eighthly It takes away all ground of Despair in that it gives every one ground of hope and certain assurance that they may be saved neither doth feed any in security in that none are certain how soon their day may expire and therefore it is a constant incitement and provocation and lively incouragement to every man to forsake evil and close with that which is good Ninthly It wonderfully commends as well the certainty of the Christian Religion among Infidels as it manifests its own verity to all in that it s confirmed and established by the experiences of all men seeing there was never yet a man found in any place of the Earth however barbarous and wild but hath acknowledged that at some time or other less or more he hath found somewhat in his heart reproving him for some things evil which he hath
done threatning a certain horror if he continued in them as also promising and communicating a certain peace and sweetness as he hath given way to it and not resisted it Tenthly It wonderfully sheweth the excellent Wisdom of God by which he hath made the means of Salvation so universal and comprehensive that it is not needful to recur to those miraculous and strange ways seeing according to this most true Doctrine the Gospel reacheth all of whatsoever condition age or nation Eleventhly It is really and effectively though not in so many words yet by deeds established and confirmed by all the Preachers Promulgators and Doctors of the Christian Religion that ever were or now are even by those that otherways in their judgment oppose this Doctrine in that they all wherever they have been or are or whatsoever people place or Country they come to do preach to the people and to every individual among them that they may be saved intreating and desiring them to believe in Christ who hath died for them so that what they deny in the general they acknowledg of every particular there being no man to whom they do not preach in order to Salvation telling him Jesus Christ calls and wills him to believe and be Saved and that if he refuse he shall therfore be condemned and that his condemnation is of himself such is the Evidence and Virtue of Truth that it constrains its Adversaries even against their wills to plead for it Lastly According to this Doctrine the former argument used by the Armenians and evited by the Calvinists concerning every mans being bound to believe that Christ died for him is by altering the assumption rendred invincible thus That which every man is bound to believe is true But every man is bound to believe that God is merciful unto him Therefore c. This assumption no man can deny seeing his mercys are said to be over all his works And herein the Scripture every way declares the mercy of God to be in that he invites and calls Sinners to Repenance and hath opened a way of Salvation for them so that though those men be not bound to believe the History of Christ's Death and Passion who never came to know of it yet they are bound to believe that God will be merciful to them if they follow his ways and that he is merciful unto them in that he reproves them for evil and incourages them to good Neither ought any man to believe that God is unmerciful to him or that he hath from the beginning ordained him to come into the World that he might be left to his own evil inclinations and so do wickedly as a means appointed by God to bring him to eternal Damnation which were it true as our Adversaries affirm it to be of many thousands I see no reason why a man might not believe for certainly a man may believe the Truth As it manifestly appears from the thing itself that these good and excellent consequences follow from the belief of this Doctrine so from the probation of them it will yet more evidently appear To which before I come it is requisite to speak somewhat concerning the state of the controversie which will bring great Light to the matter For from the not right understanding of a matter under debate sometimes both arguments on the one hand and objections on the other are brought which do no way hit the case and hereby also our sense and judgment therein will be more fully understood and opened § XII First then by this day and time of Visitation which we say God gives unto all during which they may be saved we do not understand the whole time of every mans Life though to some it may be extended even to the very Hour of Death as we see in the example of the Thief converted upon the Cross but such a season at lest as sufficiently exonereth God of every mans condemnation which to some may be sooner and to others latter according as the Lord in his Wisdom sees meet So that many men may out-live this day after which there may be no possibility of Salvation to them and God justly suffers them to be hardened as a just punishment of their unbelief and even raises them up as Instruments of Wrath and makes them a Scourge one against another Whence to men in this condition may be fitly applied those Scriptures which are abused to prove that God incites men necessarily to sin this is notably express'd by the Apostle Rom. 1. from ver 17. to the end but especially ver 28. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledg God gave them up to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient That many may out live this day of Gods gracious visitation unto them is shewn by the Example of Esau Heb. 12.16.17 who sold his Birth right so he had it once and was capable to have kept it but afterwards when he would have inherited the Blessing he was rejected This appears also by Christs weeping over Jerusalem Luke 19.42 saying If thou hadst known in this thy day the things that belong unto thy peace but now they are hid from thine Eyes Which plainly imports a time when they might have known them which now was removed from them though they were yet alive but of this more shall be said hereafter § XIII Secondly By this Seed Grace and Word of God and Light wherewith we say every man is enlightened and hath a measure of it which strives with them in order to save them and which may by the stubbornness and wickedness of mans will be quenched bruised wounded pressed down slain and crucified We understand not the proper Essence and Nature of God precisely taken which is not devisible into parts and measures as being a most pure simple Being void of all composition or division and therefore can neither be resisted hurt wounded crucified or slain by all the efforts and strength of men But we understand a Spiritual Heavenly and invisible Principle in which God as Father Son and Spirit dwells a measure of which Divine and Glorious Life is in all men as a Seed which of its own nature draws invites and inclines to God and this we call Vehiculum Dei or the Spiritual Body of Christ the Flesh and Blood of Christ which came down from Heaven of which all the Saints do feed and are thereby nourished unto Eternal Life And as every unrighteous Action is witnessed against and reproved by this Light and Seed so by such actions it is hurt wounded and slain and resiles or flees from them even as the Flesh of Men flees from that which is of a contrary nature to it Now because it is never separated from God nor Christ but where ever it is God and Christ are as wrapped up therein Therefore and in that respect as it is resisted God is said to be resisted and where it is born down God is said
called them he also justified and whom he justified them he also glorified This is commonly called the golden chain as being acknowledged to comprehend the method and order of Salvation And therefore if justified were not understood here in its proper signification of being made just sanctification would be excluded out of this chain And truly it is very worthy of observation that the Apostle in this succinct and compendious account makes the word justified to comprehend all betwixt calling and glorifying thereby clearly insinuating that the being really righteous is that only medium by which from our calling we pass to glorification All for the most part do acknowledg the word to be so taken in this place and not only so but most of those who oppose are forced to acknowledg that as this is the most proper so the most common signification of it thus divers famous Protestants do acknowledg We are not saith D. Chamierus such impertinent esteemers of words as to be ignorant nor yet such importunat Sophists as to deny that the words of Justification and Sanctification do infer one another ye we know that the Saints are chiefly for this reason so called because that in Christ they have received remission of sins and we read in the Revelation Let him that is just be just still which cannot be understood except of the fruit of inherent righteousness Nor do we deny but perhaps in other places they may be promiscuously taken especially by the Fathers I take saith Beza the name of Justification largely so as it comprehends whatsoever we acquire from Christ as well by imputation as by the efficacy of the Spirit in sanctifying us So likewise is the word of Justification taken Rom. 8.30 Melancthon saith that to be justified by Faith signifies in Scripture not only to be pronounced just but also of unrighteous to be made righteous Also some chief Protestants though not so clearly yet in part hinted at our Doctrin whereby we ascribe unto the Death of Christ remission of Sins and the work of Justification unto the Grace of the Spirit acquired by his Death Martinus Boraeus explaining that place of the Apostle Rom. 4.25 Who was given for our sins and rose again for our justification saith There are two things beheld in Christ which are necessary to our justification the one is his death the other is his arising from the dead By his death the sins of this world behoved to be expiated By his rising from the dead it pleased the same goodness of God to give the Holy Spirit whereby both the Gospel is believed and the Righteousness lost by the fault of the first Adam is restored And afterwards he saith The Apostle expresseth both parts in these words Who was given for our sins c. In his Death is beheld the satisfaction for sin in his Resurrection the gift of the Holy Spirit by which our Justification is perfected And again the same man saith elsewhere Both these kinds of Righteousness are therefore contained in Justification neither can the one be separate from the other So that in the definition of Justification the merit of the blood of Christ is included both with the remission of sins and with the gift of the Holy Spirit of Justification and Regeneration Martinus Bucerus saith Seeing by one sin of Adam the world was lost the Grace of Christ hath not only abolished that one sin and death which came by it but hath together taken away those infinite sins and also led into full justification as many as are of Christ so that God now not only remits unto them Adam 's sin and their own but also gives them therewith the Spirit of a solid and perfect Righteousness which renders us conform unto the Image of the First begotten And upon these words by Jesus Christ he saith We alwaies judg that the whole benefit of Christ tends to this that we might be strong through the gift of Righteousness being rightly and orderly ordained with all vertue that is restored to the Image of God And lastly William Forbes our Countrey man Bishop of Edinburgh saith Whensoever the Scripture makes mention of the Justification before God as speaketh Paul and from him besides others Augustin it appears that the word justify necessarily signifies not only to pronounce just in a Law sense but also really and inherently to make just because that God doth other waies justifie a wicked man than earthly Judges For he when he justifies a wicked or unjust man doth indeed pronounce him as these also do but by pronouncing him just because his judgment is according to Truth he also makes him really of unjust to become just And again the same man upon the same occasion answering the more rigid Protestants who say that God first justifies and then makes just he adds But let them have a care least by too great and empty subtilty unknown both to the Scripture and the Fathers they lessen and diminish the weight and dignity of so great and divine a benefit so much celebrated in the Scripture to wit justification of the wicked For if to the formal reason of justification of the ungodly doth not at all belong his justification so to speak i. e. his being made righteous then in the Justification of a sinner although he be Justifyed yet the stain of sin is not taken away but remains the same in his Soul as before Justification And so dotwithstanding the benefit of Justification he remains as before unjust and a sinner and nothing is taken away but the guilt and obligation to pain and the offence and enmity of God through non imputation But both the Scriptures and Fathers do affirm that in the Justification of a sinner their sins are not only remitted forgiven covered not imputed but also taken away blotted out cleansed washed purged and very far removed from us as appears from many places of the Holy Scriptures The same Forbes shews us at length in the following chapter that this was the confessed judgment of the Fathers out of the writings of those who hold the contrary opinion some whereof out of him I shall note as first Calvin saith that the judgment of Austin or at least his manner of speaking is not throughout to be received who although he took from man all praise of righteousness and ascribed all to the Grace of God yet he refers Grace to Sanctification by which we are regenerate through the Spirit unto newness of life Chemnitius saith that they do not deny but that the Fathers take the word justifie for renewing by which works of righteousness are wrought in us by the Spirit And pag. 130. I am not ignorant that the Fathers indeed often use the word justifie in this signification to wit of making just Zanchius saith that the Fathers and chiefly Austin interpret the word justifie according to this signification to wit of making just so that according to them to he justified
better without it than with it neither had they been worthy of blame for losing that which in it self was evil But the Apostle expressly adds and of a good Conscience which shews it was real neither can it be supposed that men could truly attain a good Conscience without the operation of Gods Saving Grace far less that a good Conscience doth consist with a seeming false and hypocritical faith Again these places of the Apostle being spoken by way of regret clearly import that these attainments they had faln from were good and real not false and deceitful else he would not have regreted their falling from them And so he saith positively they tasted of the Heavenly Gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost c. not that they seem'd to be so which sheweth this objection is very frivolous Secondly they alledge Phil. 1.6 Being confident of this very thing Obj. that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ c. and 1. Pet. 1.5 who are kept by the Power of God through faith unto Salvation These Scriptures Answ. as they do not affirm any thing positively contrary to us so they cannot be understood otherwise than as the condition is performed upon our part seeing Salvation is no other ways proposed there but upon certain necessary conditions to be performed by us as hath been above proved and as our adversaries also acknowledg as Rom. 8. v 13. For if ye live after the flesh ye shall dye but if ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live And Heb. 3.14 We are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end For if these places of the Scripture upon which they build their objection were to be admitted without these conditions it would manifestly overturn the whole tenor of their exhortations throughout all their writings Some other objections there are of the same nature which are solved by the same answers which also because largely treated of by others I omit to come to that testimony of the Truth which is more especially ours in this matter and is contained in the latter part of the Proposition in these words yet such an increase and stability in the Truth may in this life be attained from which there cannot be a total apostasie § IV. As in the explanation of the fifth and sixth Propositions I observed that some that had denyed the errors of others concerning reprobation and affirmed the universality of Christs death did notwithstanding fall short in sufficiently holding forth the truth and so gave the contrary party an occasion by their defects to be strengthened in their errors so may it be said in this case As upon the one hand they err that affirm that the least degree of true and saving grace cannot be faln from so do they err upon the other hand that deny any such stability to be attained from which there cannot be a total and final apostasie And betwixt these two extreams lieth the Truth apparent in the Scriptures which God hath revealed unto us by the testimony of his Spirit and which also we are made sensible of by our own sensible experience And even as in that former controversie was observed so also in this the defence of Truth will readily appear to such as seriously weigh the matter for the arguments upon both hands rightly applied will as to this hold good and the objections which are strong as they are respectively urged against the two opposite false opinions are here easily solved by the establishing of this Truth For all the arguments which these alledge that affirm there can be no falling away may well be received upon the one part as of these who have attained to this stability and establishment and their objections solved by this concession so upon the other hand the arguments alledged from Scripture testimonies by those that affirm the possibility of falling away may well be received of such as are not come to this establishment though having attained a measure of true grace Thus then the contrary batterings of our adversaries who miss the Truth do concur the more strongly to establish it while they are destroying each other But lest this may not seem to suffice to satisfie such as judge it always possible for the best of men before they dye to fall away I shall add for the proof of it some brief considerations from some few testimonies of the Scripture § V. And first I freely acknowledge that it is good for all to be humble and in this respect not over confident so as to lean to this to foster themselves in iniquity or lye down in security as if they had attained this condition seeing watchfulness and diligence is of indispensible necessity to all mortal men so long as they breath in this world for God will have this to be the constant practice of a Christian that thereby he may be the more fit to serve him and the better armed against all the daily temptations of the Enemy For since the wages of sin is death there is no man while he sinneth and is subject thereunto but may lawfully suppose himself capable of perishing Hence the Apostle Paul himself saith 1 Cor. 9.27 But I keep under my body and bring it into subjection lest that by any means when I have preached to others I my self should be a cast-away Here the Apostle supposeth it possible for him to be a cast-away and yet it may be judged he was far more advanced in the inward work of regeneration when he wrote that Epistle than many who now adays too presumptuously suppose they cannot fall away because they feel themselves to have attained some small degree of true Grace But the Apostle makes use of this supposition or possibility of his being a cast away as I before observed as an inducement to him to be watchful I keep under my body lest c. Nevertheless the same Apostle at another time in the sense and feeling of God's holy Power and in the dominion thereof finding himself a conqueror therethrough over sin and his Souls enemies maketh no difficulty to affirm Rom. 8.38 For I am perswaded that neither death nor life c. which clearly sheweth that he had attained a condition from which he knew he could not fall away But secondly it appears such a condition is attainable because we are exhorted to it and as hath been proved before the Scripture never proposeth to us things impossible Such an exhortation we have from the Apostle 2 Pet. 1.10 Wherefore the rather brethren give diligence to make your calling and election sure And though there be a condition here proposed yet since we have already proved that it is possible to fulfil this condition then also the promise annexed thereunto may be attained And since where assurance is wanting there is still a place left for doubtings and despairs if we
men without that art and rules or sophistical learning deduce a certain conclusion out of true Propositions which scarce any man of Reason wants we deny not the use of it and I have sometimes used it in this Treatise which also may serve without that Dialectical art As for the other part of Philosophy which is called Moral or Ethicks it is not so necessary to Christians who have the rules of the Holy Seriptures and the Gift of the Holy Spirit by which they can be much better instructed The Physical and Metaphysical part may be reduced to the arts of Medicine and the Mathematicks which have nothing to do with the essence of a Christian Minister And therefore the Apostle Paul who well understood what was good for Christian Ministers and what hurtful thus exhorted the Colossians Col. 2.8 Beware lest any man spoil you through Philosophy and vain deceit And to his beloved Disciple Timothy he writes also thus 1 Tim. 6.20 O Timothy keep that which is committed to thy trust avoiding profane and vain babblings and oppositions of science falsly so called § XXI The third and main part of their literature is School Divinity a monster made up betwixt some Scriptural notions of Truth and the Heathenish terms and maximes being as it were the Heathenish Philosophy Christianized or rather the literal external knowledge of Christ Heathenized it is man in his first faln natural state with his devilish wisdom pleasing himself with some notions of Truth and adorning them with his own serpentine and worldly wisdom because he thinks the simplicity of the Truth too low and mean a thing for him and so despiseth that simplicity wheresoever it is found that he may set up and exalt himself puffed up with this his monstrous birth it is the devil darkening obscuring and veiling the knowledge of God with his sensual and carnal wisdom that so he may the more securely deceive the hearts of the simple and make the Truth as it is in it self despicable and hard to be known and understood by multiplying a thousand hard and needless questions and endless contentions and debates all which whoso perfectly knoweth he is not a whit less the servant of sin than he was but ten times more in that he is exalted and proud of iniquity and so much the further from receiving understanding or learning the Truth as it is in its own naked simplicity because he is full learned rich and wise in his own conceit and so those that are most skilled in it wear out their day and spend their precious time about the infinite and innumerable questions they have feigned and invented concerning it A certain learned man called it a two-fold discipline as of the race of the centaurs partly proceeding from Divine sayings partly from Philosophical reasons A thousand of their questions they confess themselves to be no ways necessary to Salvation and yet many more of them they could never agree upon but are and still will be in endless janglings about them The Volumes that have been written about it a man in his whole age though he lived very old could scarce read and when he has read them all he has but wrought himself a great deal more vexation and trouble of Spirit than he had before These certainly are the words multiplied without knowledge by which counsel hath been darkened Job c. 38. v. 2. They make the Scripture the text of all this Mass and it 's concerning the sense of it that their voluminous debates arise But a man of a good upright heart may learn more in half an hour and be more certain of it by waiting upon God and his Spirit in the heart than by reading a thousand of their Volumes which by filling his head with many needless imaginations may well stagger his faith but never confirm it and indeed those that give themselves most to it are most capable to fall into error as appeareth by the example of Origen who by his learning was one of the first that falling into this way of interpreting the Scriptures wrote so many Volumes and in them so many errors as very much troubled the Church Also Arius led by this curiosity and humane scrutiny despising the simplicity of the Gospel fell into his error which was the cause of that horrible Heresie which so much troubled the Church methinks the simplicity plainness and brevity of the Scriptures themselves should be a sufficient reproof for such a science and the Apostles being honest plain illeterate men my be better understood by such kind of men now than with all that mass of scholastick stuff which neither Peter nor Paul nor John ever thought of § XXII But this invention of Satan wherewith he began the Apostasie hath been of dangerous consequence for thereby he at first spoiled the simplicity of Truth by keeping up the Heathenish learning which occasioned such uncertainty even among those called Fathers and such debate that there are few of them to be found who by reason of this mixture do not only frequently contradict one another but themselves also And therefore when the Apostasie grew greater he as it were buried the Truth with this vail of darkness wholly shuting out people from true knowledg and making the learned so accounted busie themselves with idle and needless questions while the weighty Truths of God were neglected and as it were went into desuetude Now though the grossest of these abuses be swept away by Protestants yet the evil root still remains and is nourished and upheld and upon the growing hand that this science is kept up and deemed necessary for a Minister for while the pure learning of the Spirit of Truth is despised and neglected and made ineffectual man 's faln earthly wisdom is upheld and so in that he labours and works with the Scriptures being out of the Life and Spirit those that wrote them were in by which they are rightly understood and made use of And so he that is to be a Minister must learn this art or trade of merchandizing with the Scriptures and be that which the Apostle would not be to wit a trader with them 2 Cor. 2.17 That he may acquire a trick from a verse of Scripture by adding his own barren notions and conceptions to it and his uncertain conjectures and what he hath stoln out of Books for which end he must have of necessity a good many by him and may each Sabbath day as they call it or oftner make a Discourse for an hour long and this is called the preaching of the word whereas the Gift Grace and Spirit of God to teach open and instruct and to preach a word in season is neglected and so man's arts and parts and knowledg and wisdom which is from below set up and established in the Temple of God yea and above the little Seed which in effect is Antichrist working in the Ministry and so the Devil may be as good and able a Minister as the
consequences have ensued as makes the Christian Religion odious and hateful to Jews Turks and Heathens The professors of Christianity do chiefly divide in this matter into three opinions The first is of those that say the substance of the bread is transubstantiated into the very substance of that same body flesh and blood of Christ which was born of the Virgin Mary and crucified by the Jews so that after the words of Consecration as they call them it is no more bread but the body of Christ. The second is of such as say the substance of the Bread remains but that also that body is in and with and under the bread so that both the substance of the bread and of the body flesh and blood of Christ is there also The third is of those that denying both these do affirm that the body of Christ is not there corporally or substantially but yet that it is really and sacramentally received by the faithful in the use of bread and wine but how or what way it 's there they know not nor can they tell only we must believe it is there yet so that it is only properly in Heaven It is not my design to enter into a refutation of these several opinions for each of their Authors and Assertors have sufficiently refuted one another and are all of them no less strong both from Scripture and Reason in refuting each their contrary parties opinion than they are weak in establishing their own for I often bave seriously observed in reading their respective writings and so it may be have others that all of them do notably in so far as they refute the contray opinions but that they are mightily pained when they come to confirm and plead for their own Hence I necessarily to conclude that none of them had attained to the Truth and Substance of this mystery Let us see if Calvin after he hath refuted the two former opinions be more successful in what he affirms and asserts for the Truth of his opinion who after he hath much laboured in overturning and refuting the two former opinions plainly confesseth that he knows not what to affirm instead of them for after he has spoken much and at last concluded that the body of Christ is there and that the Saints must needs partake thereof at last he lands in these words sect 32. But if it be asked me how it is I shall not he ashamed to confess that it is a secret too high for me to comprehend in my Spirit or explain in words Here he deals very ingenuously and yet who would have thought that such a man would have been brought to this strait in the confirming of his opinion considering but a little before in the same chap. sect 15. he accuseth the School-men among the Papists and I confess truly in that they neither understand nor explain to others how Christ is in the Eucharist which shortly after he confesseth himself he cannot do If then the School men among the Papists do neither understand nor yet can explain to others their Doctrine in this matter nor Calvin can comprehend it in his Spirit which I judg is as much as not to understand it nor express it in words and then surely he cannot explain it to others then no certainty is to be had from either of them There have been great endeavours used for reconcilement in this matter both betwixt Papists and Lutherans Lutherans and Caluinists yea and Calvinists and Papists but all to no purpose and many forms and manners of expressions drawn up to which all might yield which in the end proved in vain seeing every one understood them and interpreted them their own way and so they did thereby but equivocate and deceive one another The reason of all this contention is because they all wanted a clear understanding of the Mystery and were doting about the shadow and the externals For both the ground and matter of their contest lies in things intrinsick from and unnecessary to the main matter and this hath been often the policy of Satan to busie People ond amuse them with outward signs shadows and forms making them contend about that while in the mean time the Substance is neglected yea and in contending for these shadows he stirs them up to the practice of malice heat revenge and other vices by which he establisheth his Kingdom of Darkness among them and ruins the Life of Christianity for there has been more animosity and heat about this one particular and more blood shed and contention than about any other And surely they are little acquainted with the state of Protestants affairs who know not that their contentions about this have been more hurtful to the Reformation than all the opposition they met with from their common Adversaries Now all those uncertain and absurd opinions and the contentions therefrom arising have proceeded from their all agreeing in two general errors concerning this thing Which being denyed and receeded from as they are by us there would be an easie way made for Reconciliation and we should all meet in the one Spiritual and true understanding of this mystery and as the contentions so would also the absurdities which follow from all the three forementioned opinions cease and fall to the ground The first of these errors is in making the communion or participation of the body flesh and blood of Christ to relate to that outward body vessel or temple that was born of the Virgin Mary and walked and suffered in Judea whereas it should relate to the Spiritual body flesh and blood of Christ even that heavenly and celestial Light and Life which was the food and nourishment of the regenerate in all ages as we have already proved The second error is in tying this participation of the body and blood of Christ to that Ceremony used by him with his Disciples in the breaking of bread c. as if it had only a relation thereto or were only enjoyed in the use of that Ceremony which it neither hath nor is For this is that bread which Christ in his Prayer teaches to call for terming it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the supersubstantial bread as the Greek hath it and which the Soul partakes of without any relation or necessary respect to this ceremony as shall be hereafter proved more at length These two errors being thus laid aside and the contentions arising therefrom buried all are agreed in the main positions viz. first that the body flesh and blood of Christ is necessary for the nourishing of the Soul Secondly that the Souls of believers do really and truly partake and feed upon the body flesh and blood of Christ. But while men are not content with the Spirituality of this Mystery going in their own wills and according to their own inventions to strain and wrest the Scriptures for to tie this Spiritual communion of the flesh and blood of Christ to outward bread and wine and such like
this is against your profession As if indeed so to do were very consistent with theirs wherein though they speak the Truth yet they give away their cause But if they can find any under our name in any of those evils common among themselves as who can imagine but among so many thousands there will be some chaff since of twelve Apostles one was found so be a devil O! how will they insult and make more noise of the escape of one Quaker than of an hundred among themselves § II. But there are some singular things which most of all our adversaries plead for the lawfulness of and allow themselves in as no ways inconsistent with the Christian Religion which we have found to be no ways lawful unto us and have been commanded of the Lord to lay them aside though the doing thereof hath occasioned no small sufferings and buffetings and hath procured us much hatred and malice from the world And because the nature of these things is such that they do upon the very sight distinguish us and make us known so that we cannot hide our selves from any without proving unfaithful to our testimony our tryals and exercises have herethrough proved the more numerous and difficult as will after appear These I have laboured briefly to comprehend in this Proposition but they may more largely be exhibited in those Six following Propositions 1. That it is not lawful to give to men such flattering Titles as your Holyness your Majesty your Eminency your Excellency your Grace your Lordship your Honour c. nor use those flattering words commonly called COMPLEMENTS 2. That it is not lawful for Christians to kneel or prostrate themselves to any man or to bow the body or to uncover the head to them 3. That it is not lawful for a Christian to use superfluities in apparel as are of no use save for ornament and vanity 4. That it is not lawful to use games sports plays nor among other things Comedies among Christians under the notion of recreations which do not agree with Christian silence gravity and sobriety for laughing sporting gaming mocking jesting talking c. is not Christian liberty nor harmless mirth 5. That it is not lawful for Christians to swear at all under the Gospel not only not vainly and in their common discourse which was also forbidden under the Mosaical Law but even not in Judgment before the Magistrate 6. That it is not lawful for Christians to resist evil or to war or fight in any case Before I enter upon a particular disquisition of these things I shall first premise some general considerations to prevent all mistakes and next add some general considerations which equally respect all of them I would not have any judg that hereby we intend to destroy the mutual relation that either is betwixt Prince and people Master and servant Parents and children nay not at all We shall evidence that our Principle in these things hath no such tendency and that these natural relations are rather better established than any ways hurt by it Next let not any judge that from our opinion in these things any necessity of levelling will follow or that all men must have things in common Our Principle leaves every man to enjoy that peaceably which either his own industry or parents have purchased to him only he is thereby instructed to use it aright both for his own good and that of his brethren and all to the Glory of God In which also his acts are to be voluntary and no ways constrained And further we say not hereby that no man may use the creation more or less than another For we know that as it hath pleased God to dispense it diversly giving to some more and some less so they may use it accordingly The several conditions under which men are diversly stated together with their educations answering thereunto do sufficiently shew this the servant is not the same way educated as the Master nor the Tennant as the Land-lord nor the rich as the poor nor the Prince as the Peasant Now though it be not lawful for any however great abundance they may have or whatever their education may be to use that which is meerly superfluous yet seeing their education has accustomed them thereunto and their capacity enables them so to do without being profuse or extravagant they may use things better in their kind than such whose education hath neither accustomed them to such things nor their capacity will reach to compass them For it is beyond question that whatever thing the Creation affords is for the use of man and the moderate use of them is lawful yet per accidens they may be unlawful to some and not to others As for instance who by reason of his estate and education hath been used to eat flesh and drink wine to be cloathed with the finest wool if his estate bear it and he use it neither in superfluity nor immoderately he may do it and perhaps if he should apply himself to feed or be cloathed as are the peasants it might prejudice the health of his body and nothing advance his Soul But if a man whose estate and education had accustomed to both courser food and rayment should stretch himself beyond what he had or were used to to the manifest prejudice of his Family and Children no doubt it would be unlawful to him even so to eat or be cloathed as another in whom it is lawful for that that other may as much mortified and have denyed himself as much in coming down to that which this aspires to as he in willing to be like him aspires beyond what he either is able or hath accustomed to The safe place then is for such as have fulness to watch over themselves that they use it moderately and rescind all superfluities being willing so far as they can to help the need of those to whom Providence hath allotted a smaller allowance Let the brother of high degree rejoyce in that he is abased and such as God calls in a low degree to be content with their condition not envying those brethren who have greater abundance knowing they have received abundance as to the inward man which is chiefly to be regarded And therefore beware of such a temptation as to use their calling as an engine to be richer knowing they have this advantage beyond the rich and noble that are called that the Truth doth not any ways abase them nay not in the esteem of the world as it doth the other but that they are rather exalted thereby in that as to the inward and spiritual fellowship of the Saints they become the brethren and companion of the greatest and richest and in this respect let him of low degree rejoyce that he is exalted These things premised I would seriously propose unto all such as mind in reality to be Christians indeed and that in nature and not in name only whether it were not desirable and would not
to his Brethren Ninthly they object Isa. 65.16 where speaking of the Evangelical times Obj. he saith That he who blesseth himself in the Earth shall bless himself in the God of Truth and he that sweareth in the Earth shall swear by the God of Truth because the former troubles are forgotten and because they are hid from mine Eyes For behold I create new Heavens and a new Earth Therefore in these times we ought to swear by the Name of the Lord. I answer It is ordinary for the Prophets to express the greatest duties of Evangelical times in Mosaical terms as appears among others Answ. from Jer. 31.38 39 40. Ezek. 36.25 and 40. and Isa. 45.23 I have sworn by my self that unto me ever knee shall bowe every tongue shall swear Where the Righteousness of the New Jerusalem the purity of the Gospel with its Spiritual Worship and the profession of the Name of Cbrist are expressed under forms of speaking used to Old Jerusalem under the washings of the Law under the names of Ceremonles the Temple Services Sacrifices Oaths c. Yea that which the Prophet speaks here of Swearing the Apostle Paul interprets it expresly of confession saying Rom. 14.11 For it is written As I live saith the Lord Every knee shall bowe to me and every tongue shall confess to God Which being rightly considered none can be ignorant but these words which the Prophet writes under the Law when the Ceremonial Oaths were in use to wit Every Tongue shall swear whereby the Apostle being under the Gospel when those Oaths became abolished expressed by Every tongue shall confess Tenthly they object But the Apostle Paul approves Oaths used among men when he writes Heb. 6.16 Obj. For men verily swear by the greater and an Oath of Confirmation is to them an end of all strife But there are as many contests fallacies and differences at this time as there were ever Therefore the necessity of Oaths doth yet remain I answer the Apostle tells indeed in this place what men at that time did who lived in controversies and incredulity not what they ought to have done nor what the Saints did who were redeemed from strife and incrudulity and had come to Christ that Truth and Amen of God Moreover he only alludes to a certain custom usual among men that he might express the firmity of the Divine Promise that he might excite in the Saints so much the more confidence in God promising to them not that he might instigate them to swear against the law of God or confirm them in that no not at all for neither doth 1 Cor. 9.24 teach Christians the vain races whereby men often times even to the destruction of their Bodies are wearied to obtain a corruptible prize So neither doth Christ who is the Prince of Peace teach his Disciples to fight albeit he takes notice Luk. 14.31 what it behoveth such Kings to do who are accustomed to fight as prudent warriors therein Secondly as to what pertains to contests perfidies and diffidences among men which our adversaries affirm to have grown to such an height that Swearing is at present as necessary as ever that we deny not at all for we see and daily experience teacheth us that all manner of deceit and malice doth encrease among worldly men and false Christians but not among true Christians but because men cannot trust one another and therefore require Oaths one of another it will not therefore follow that true Christians ought to do so whom Christ has brought to true faithfulness and honesty as well towards God as one towards another and therefore has delivered them from contests perfidies and consequently from Oaths Eleventhly they object We grant that among true Christians there is not need of Oaths Obj. but by what means shall we infallibly know them It will follow then that Oaths are at present needful and that it is lawful for Christians to swear to wit that such may be satisfied who will not acknowledg this and the other man to be a Christian. I answer It is no waies lawful for a Christian to swear whom Christ hath called to his essential Truth Answ. which was before all Oaths forbidding him to swear and on the contrary commanding him to speak the Truth in all things to the honour of Christ who called him that it may appear that the words of his Disciples may be as truly believed as the Oaths of all the worldly men Neither is it lawful for them to be unfaithful in this that they may please others for that they may avoid their hurt for thus the primitive Christians for some ages remained faithful who being required to swear did unanimously answer I am a Christian I swear not What shall I say of the Heathens some of whom arrived to that degree For Diodoris Siculus relates lib. 16. that the giving of the right hand was among the Persians a sign of speaking the Truth and the Scythians as Qu. Curtius relates said in their conferences with Alexander the Great Think not that the Scythians confirm their friendship by swearing they swear by keeping their promises Stobaeus in his third Sermon tells that Solomon said A good man ought to be in that estimation that he need not an Oath because it is to be reputed a lessening of his honour if he be forced to swear Pythagoras in his Oration among other things hath this maxime as that which concerns the administration of the Common-wealth Let no man call God to witness by an Oath no not in judgment but let every man so accustom himself to speak that he may become worthy to be trusted even without an Oath Basil the Great commends Clinias an Heathen that he had rather pay three talents which are about three thousand pound than swear Socrates as Stobaeus relates Serm. 14. had this sentence the duty of good men requires that they shew to the world that their manners and actions are more firm than Oaths the same was the judgment of Isocrates Plato also stood against Oaths in his judgments De Leg. 12. Quintilianus takes notice that it was of old a kind of infamy if any was desired to swear but to require an Oath of a noble man was like an examining him by the Hangman Marcus Aurelius Antonius the Emperor of Rome saith in his description of a good man Such is his integrity that he needs not an Oath So also some Jews did witness as Grotius relates out of Maimonides It is best for a man to abstain from all Oaths The Esseans as Philo Judaeus relates did esteem their words more firm than Oaths and Oaths were esteemed among them as needless things And Philo himself speaking of the third Commandment explains his mind thus viz. It were better altogether not to swear but to be accustomed alwaies to speak the Truth that naked words might have the strength of an Oath And elswhere he saith It is more agreeable to natural Reason altogether to abstain from Swearing
perswading that whatsoever a good man saith may be equivalent with an Oath Who then needs further to doubt but that since Christ would have his Disciples attain the highest pitch of Perfection he abrogated Oaths as a rudiment of infirmity and in place thereof established the use of Truth Who can now any more think that the holy Martyrs and ancient Fathers of the first three hundred years and many others since that tâ—me have so opposed themselves to Oaths that they might only rebuke vain and rash Oaths by the Creatures or heathen Idols which were also prohibited under the Mosaical Law and not also swearing by the True God in Truth and Righteousness which was there commanded as Polycarpus Justin Mart. Apol. 2. and many Martyrs as Eusebius relates Tertullian in his Apol. cap. 32. ad Scap. cap. 1. of Idolatry c. 11. Clem. Alexan. Strom. lib. 7. Origen in Matth. Tract 25. Cypr. lib. 3. Athanas. in pass cruc Dom. Christi Hilarius in Mat. 5.34 Basil. Magn. in Psal. 14. Greg. Nyssenus in Cant. Orat. 13. Greg. Nazian in dial contra juramenta Epiphan ad versus haeres lib. 1. Ambros. de Virg. lib. 3. Idem in Mat. 5. Chrysost in Genes hom 15. Idem hom in Act. Apost cap. 3. Hieronymus Epist. lib. part 3. Ep. 2. Idem in Zach. lib. 2. cap. 8 Idem in Mat. lib. 1. cap. 5. Augustin de serm Dom. serm 28. Cyrillus in Jer. 4. Theodoretus in Deut. 6. Isidor Pelâ—sioâ—a Ep. lib. 1. Epist. 155. Chromatius in Mat. 5. Johan Damascenus l. 3. c. 16. Casiodorus in Psal. 94. Isidorus Hispalensis cap. 31. Antiochus in Pandect script hom 62. Beda in Jac. 5. Haimo in Apoc. Ambros. Ansbertus in Apoc. Theophylactus in Mat. 5. Pascasius Ratbertus in Mat. 5. Otho Brunsfelsius in Mat. 5. Druthmarus in Mat. 5. Euthymius Eugubinus Bilblioth vet patr in Mat. 5. OEcumenius in Jac. c. 5. v. 12. Anselmus in Mat. 5. Waldenses Viclevus Erasmus in Mat. 5. in Jac. 5. Who can read these places and doubt longer of their sense in this matter And who believing that they were against all Oaths can bring so great an indignity to the Name of Christ as to seek to subject again his followers to so great an indignity Is it not rather time that all good men labour to remove this abuse and infamy from Christians Lastly They Object This will bring in fraud and confusion for Impostors will counterfeit probity Obj. and under the benefit of this dispensation will be without fear of punishment I answer There are two things only which oblige a man to speak the Truth Answ. First Either the fear of God in his heart and love of Truth for where this is there is no need of Oaths to speak the Truth Or Secondly the fear of punishment from the Judge Therefore let there be the same or rather greater punishment appointed to those who pretend so great truth in words and so great simplicity in heart that they cannot lie and so great reverence towards the Law of Christ that for Conscience sake they deny to Swear in any wise if they fail and so there shall be the same good order yea greater security against deceivers as if Oaths were continued and also by that more severe punishment to which these false dissemblers shall be liable Hence wicked men shall be more terrified and good men delivered from all oppression both in their liberty and Goods for which cause for their tender Consciences God hath often a regard to Magistrates and their state as a thing most acceptable to him But if any can further doubt of this thing to wit if without confusion it can be practised in the Common-wealth let him consider the state of the United Netherlands and he shall see the good effect of it for there because of the great number of Merchants more than in any other place there is most frequent occasion for this thing and tho the number of those that are of this mind be considerable to whom the States these hundred years have condescended and yet daily condescend yet nevertheless there has nothing of prejudice followed thereupon to the Common-wealth Government or good order but rather great advantage to Trade and so to the Common-wealth § XIII Sixthly The last thing to be considered is revenge and war an evil as opposit and contrary to the Spirit and Doctrin of Christ as Light to Darkness For as is manifest by what is said through contempt of Christ's Law the whole world is filled with various oaths cursings blasphemous profanations and horrid perjuries so likewise through contempt of the same Law the world is filled with violence Oppression Murders ravishing of Women and Virgins Spoilings Depredations Burnings Vastations and all manner of Lasciviousness and Cruelty so that it is strange that men made after the Image of God should have so much degenerated that they rather bear the Image and nature of roaring Lions tearing Tygers devouring Wolves and raging Boars than of rational Creatures endued with reason and is it not yet much more admirable that this horrid Monster should find place and be fomented among those men that profess themselves Disciples of our peaceable Lord and Master Jesus Christ who by excellency is called the Prince of Peace and hath expresly prohibited his children all violence and oâ— the contrary commanded them that according to his example they should follow Patience Charity Forbearance and other vertues worthy of a Christian. Hear then what this great Prophet saith whom every Soul is commanded to hear under the pain of being cut-off Matth. 5. from v. 38. to the end of the chapter For thus he saith Ye have heard that it hath been said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth But I say unto you That ye resist not evil But whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek turn to him the other also And if any man will sue thee at law and take away thy coat let him have thy cloak also And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile go with him twain Give to him that asketh thee and for him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away Ye have heard that it hath been said Thou shalt love thy Neighbour and hate thine Enemy But I say unto you Love your Enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you That ye may be the Children of your Father which is in Heaven for he maketh his Sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust For if ye love them which love you what reward have ye Do not even the Publicans the same And if ye salute your brethren only what do you more than others Do not the Publicans so Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which in heaven is perfect These words with a respect to revenge as the former in the case of
173. concerning the Lord's Prayer 245. to pray without the Spirit is to offend God 249 369. concerning the Prayer of the will in silence 256. see Worship Prayer the Prayers of the People were in the Latin Tongue 207. Preacher see Minister Preaching what it is termed the Preaching of the Word 211 218 233 234. to Preach without the Spirit is to offend God 249. see Worship it is a permanent Institution 291. it is learned as another Trade 218. Predestinated God hath after a special manner predestinated some to Salvation of whom if the places of Scripture which some abuse be understood their objections are easily solved 97. Priest under the Law God spake immediately to the High-Priest 14 27. Priests see Minister of the Law 187. 188 205 220 221. Profession an outward profession is necessary that any be a member of a particular Christian Church 183. Prophecy and to prophecy what it signifies 215 216. of the liberty of prophecying 217. Prophets some Prophets did not miracles 198 199. Protestants the rule of their Faith 30. they are forced ultimately to recur unto the immediate and inward revelation of the Holy Spirit 36. what difference betwixt the execrable deeds of those of Munster and theirs 30 31 32 33. they make Phylosophy the hand-maid of Divinity 50. they affirm John Hus prophecyed of the Reformation that was to be 57. whether they did not throw themselves into many errors while they were expecting a greater light 83. they opposed the Papists not without good cause in the doctrin of Justification but they soon ran into another extreme 130 131. they say that the best works of the Saints are defiled 136. whether there be any difference between them and the Papists in superstitions and manners and what it is 184 185 197 198. what they think of the call of a Minister 188 189 190 191 192 196 197 198 199. it's lamentable that they betake them to Judas for a Patron to their Ministers and Ministry 205. their zeal and endeavours are praised 206. of their School-divinity 210 211. of the Apostles and Evangelists of this time 217. whom they exclude from the Ministry 219. that they Preach to none until they be first sure of so much a year 221. the more moderate of them exclaim against the excessive Revenues of the Clergy 224. tho they had forsaken the Bishop of Rome yet they would not part with old Benefices 226. they will not labour 227. whether they have made a perfect Reformation in worship 231 232. their worship can easily be stopped 251. they have given great scandal to the Reformation 272. they deny water-baptism to be absolute necessary to Salvation 285. of water-baptism 299 300 301. of the flesh and blood of Christ 308 309 310. they use not washing of feet 320. how they did vindicate liberty of Conscience 341. some affirm that wicked Kings and Magistrates ought to be deposed yea killed 342. how they meet when they have not the consent of the Magistrate 248 249. of Oaths and Swearing 372 373. Psalms singing of Psalms 275. Q Quakers i. e. Tremblers and why so called 117 242. they are not contemners of the Scriptures and what they think of them 38 40 41 48 49 50 54 55 89. nor of Reason and what they think of it 91 92. they do not say that all other secondary means of knowledg are of no service 9. they do not compare themselves to Jesus Christ as they are falsly accused 88. Nor do they deny those things that are written in the Holy Scriptures concerning Christ his conception c. 89 141. they were raised up of God to shew forth the Truth 83 84 115 116 126 212 243. their doctrin of Justification is not Popish 129 134 151 158. they are not against meditation 248. their worship cannot be interrupted 250. and what they have suffered 249 252. how they vindicate Liberty of Conscience 346 347. they do not persecute others 349. Their adversaries confess that they are found for the most part free from the abominations which abound among others yet they count those things Vices in them which in themselves they extol as notable Vertues and make more noise about the escape of one Quakea than of an hundred among themselves 351 352. they destroy not the mutual relation that is betwixt Prince and People Master and Servant Father and Son nor do they introduce community of Goods 352 353. Nor say that one man may not use the Creation more or less than another 353. R Ranters the blasphemy of the Ranters or Libertines saying that there is no difference betwixt good and evil 167. Reason what need we set up corrupt reason 23. concerning Reason 30 92 93. Rebekkah 241. Reconciliation how reconciliation with God is made 136 to 141. Recreations see Plays Redemption is considered in a twofold respect First performed by Christ without us and secondly wrought in us 134 135. it is Universal God gave his Only begotten Son Jesus Christ for a Light that whosoever believeth in him may be saved 67 68 103 104. the benefit of his death is not less Universal than the seed of sin 67. there is scarce found any Article of the Christian Religion that is so expresly confirmed in the holy Scriptures 71 72 73 74 75 76. this doctrin was Praached by the Fathers so called of the first 600 years and is proved by the sayings of some 78 79. those that since the time of the Reformation have affirmed it have not given a clear testimony how that benefit is communicated to all nor have sufficiently taught the Truth because they have added the absolute necessity of the outward knowledg of the history of Christ yea they have thereby given the contrary party a stronger argument to defend their precise decree of Reprobation among whom were the Remonstrants of Holland 68 80 81 82. God hath now raised up a few illiterate men to be dispensers of this Truth 89 90 116 117. this doctrin sheweth forth the Mercy and Justice of God 83 84 96 97. it is the foundation of Salvation 84. it answers to the whole tenor of the Gospel promises and threats 84. it magnifies and commends the merits and death of Christ 84. it exalts above all the Grace of God 84. it overturns the false doctrin of the Pelagians Semi-pelagians and others who exalt the Light of Nature and the freedom of man's will 84. it makes the Salvation of man solely to depend upon God and his condemnation wholly and in every respect to be of himself 84. it takes away all ground of Despair and feeds none in security 85. it commends the Christian Religion among Infidels 85. it sheweth the Wisdom of God 85. and it is established tho not in words yet by deeds even by those Ministers that oppose this doctrine 85. it derogates not from the attonement and sacrifice of Jesus Christ but doth magnifie and exalt it 89. there is given to every one none excepted a certain day and time of