greatest concernment as that instanced in here Knowing the Lord that is with a practicall knowledge such as changes the heart and converts is so much the work of God himself and of the holy spirit as of the principall and chiefe agent that the subordinate instruments who contribute under God by the will and institution of God to that work are scarce considerable It is well knowne this being the promise of the New Covenant the time of opening and beginning of which was after the death and resurrection of Christ as Heb. 8. Christ became the mediator of a better Covenant It is knowne I say that in those times in the course of which we live there was the institution of Apostles Prophets Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the worke of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ Ephes 4. and 2 Tim. 4.2 Paul commanded him there To preach the Word and to be instant in season and out of season and Rom. 10. How shall they beleeve in him of whom they have not heard and how shall they heare without a preacher so that gifts and Offices and teaching were judged by the holy Ghost extreame necessaries to faith holinesse and the right knowledge of God in Christ This notwithstanding in respect of that great part the holy spirit acts the agency and working of men deserves scarce a thought or mention so as on that consideration it may be sayd not to be And it is not unusuall as elsewhere so in Scripture phrase that that should be affirmed of one and denâ—ed of others which more illustriously or more frequently appeares in that one though in some sort it be common with others It is certaine Isaack loved Jacob and Esau too but because he more loved Esau it s sayd Isaack loved Esau and Rebecca loved Jacob Gen. 25.28 And though Christ loved all the Disciples it is said notwithstanding that John was the Disciple whom Jesus loved But especially that place of Matth. 15. where Christ sayes He was not sent but to the lost sheepe of the house of Israel and yet if Christ were not sent as well to the Gentiles as to the Jewes it were little for our comfort The preaching of the Word how necessary soever to the begetting of faith for how can they beleeve in him on whom they have not heard and how can they heare without a Preacher yet how little doth it contribute and how truely may so great an effect be sayd to bee alone from God What can the sound of words doe but strike the eare but it is the unction that must affect the heart 'T is not the noyse of a voice without but something within that produces such great and mighty effects The great weight that turnes the ballance and that ignea vis that fire that inflames the mind and carryes it up to God to move after God to follow God is some greater and higher thing then the voyce of man or sound of words and is nothing else but the unction within us and the voyce of God himselfe In a word it is the effect of that which is here and more particularly in Isaiah promised That they should be all taught of God which place as it is expounded and applyed by our Saviour the best Expositor will give the surest witnesse to the exposition we have given of this The place is John 13.45 It is written in the Prophets they shall be all taught of God every man therefore that hath heard and hath learned of the Father cometh to me Our Saviour seemes to have respect to the place we have been speaking of all this while where God undertakes to do so much as he makes the Ministry of man in comparison nothing or more especially to that place in Isaiah 54.13 where the Prophet speaking of the restauration of the Church affirmes that their Children shall bee taught of God Now when our Saviour comes to apply and improve this passage of the Prophet doth he reject the Ministry of man as a thing of no use altogether carnall and unprofitable Doth he reprobate Preaching Exhortation and Doctrine No such thing He himselfe Preach't that hee was the Messiah that was to come and he sent our Apostles and Disciples to Teach and Baptize promising great rewards to those that shall not onely prophesie but shall receive a Prophet in his Name so farre was hee from abolishing the use of the Ministry or the Agency or assistance of men in that great worke of begetting and improving faith but tells the Jewes to whom he spake and who were offended with him for the meannesse of his birth and condition that the reason why they beleeved not was because they fell not under that great promise To be taught of God That no man could come to him except the Father drew him That teaching of God was especially necessary and that drawing of God that secret language and those invisible Cords without which all the words of man no of the man Jesus would doe no good nor contribute effectually to so great and high an end as comming to Jesus Christ and beleeving in him So as cleerly the use of this and other Scriptures of this kind is farre from excluding the Ministry of man and the use of the Scriptures and other Ordinances which the wisedome of God in the dayes of this new Covenant hath made extreamely necessary and usefull to us but to shew us where we must expect the Energy force and power which as an infusion into these Ordinances must produce these blessed effects and to give us an account of the difference that is found amongst men under the same Ordinances and dispensations that some come to God in Christ and forsake all things for him and others lye still dead in their sinnes for want of this Unction this being taught of God and of this strong and powerfull drawing which our Saviour speaks of in this place Having spoken that which is sufficient to the places last treated on I come now to that which I first propounded out of 2 Pet. 1.19 but this yet wee have gained already if wee assent to the expositions given that the highest teachings we are capable of in this life the teachings of God and of the anointings of the spirit are nothing of Supersedeas to the teachings of others or to our owne reading and meditation in the Word of God So as according to the truth already made out this Scripture will receive the easier accommodation First It is generally believed that those two Epistles were written to the Jewes of whom Peter was more particularly the Minister and the Apostle that this second Epistle was writ to the same persons to whom the first was appeares by the first Verse of the third Chapter This second Epistle beloved I now write unto you c. Now the first Epistle is intituled To the Strangers scattered abroad which James in his inscription calls The twelve Tribes scattered abroad James
A PLEA for the Vse of Gospell Ordinances Against the Practice And Opinions of certain men of these times Unto which is added By way of an illustrious Instance A Vindication of the Ordinance of BAPTISME AGAINST Mr. Dels Booke ENTITULED The Doctrine of Baptismes Wherein it 's proved That the Ordinance of Baptism is of Gospel Institution and by Divine appointment to continue of use in the Church to the end of the World By HEN LAURENCE Esq Beware least any man spoyle you through Philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men after the Rudiments of the world and not after Christ Col. 2.8 London printed by M. S. for Livewell Chapman at the Crown in Popes-head Alley 1652. TO My most Deare and most Honoured Mother the LADY LAWRENCE Most Honoured Mother WEE heare much of late of certain civil Hereticks they call the LEVELLERS Men who by pretending Salus Populi and the common good would render their owne share in the World better then it is And finding as their Lots are cast community more advantageous to them then propriety would take away all those troublesome bounds and metes which Laws or Customes have established upon particular rights that all things might be reduced to their Primitive as they pretend and Originall Community I designe not the processe of these Men at this time how great soever their crime may be and great enough certainly it will be judged if this Charge be true But the Charge that this Discourse intends is against another and more audacious kind of Levellers spirituall Levellers men that would levell God and as it was the vanity and ambition of Adam to make himselfe like God so it is the presumption and pride of these men to make God like them We have formerly had to doe with some who would bring the Justice of God to the modell and scantling of their justice which hath been the occasion of that great controversie with the Pelagians and their followers the Arminians And now we are importun'd by a Generation of men who would subject the wisedome of God to the modell and scantling of their wisedome would give lawes to God for the government and Oeconomy of his owne house and judge all at an undue and under rate that lye not levell with their either reason or fancy And because selfe-love making up in us all defects men are usually reasonably well satisfied with their own wisdomes howsoever others are and that as the Scripture sayes Vaine Man would be wise though Man bee as a wild Asses Colt Hence it is that men who have not learned sufficiently that the foolishnesse of God is wiser then men and therfore if any man would be wise he must become a foole that he may be wise men that have not been taught this of God are vying stil with God for wisedome and are extreamely scandalized at his method of saving men by the foolish and base and weake and despised meanes of Preaching with all other Ordinances and Institutions Our Saviour and Master taught us better by his owne example when considering of the reason why God had hid the great things of the Gospell from the wise and learned men of the World and revealed them to Babes He resolved it easily into the good pleasure of God Even so Father for so it pleased thee But these will rather dispute it out with God and Men then they will suffer such a blemish to their wisedome as the ayde and assistance that these foolish and weake and base despised things as the Scripture cals them brings with them And yet because it is hard to make an open Warre against God and apparent and evident truths held forth in his Word they imploy all the pittance of wisedome they have to this great worke of Levelling either in wholly taking away the use of the Scriptures to themselves and others of their elevation or by so mincing and altering them by their liberty of allegorizing Which you must beleeve although it be nonsence to be the Mystery of the History as they call it as they make them speake what they judge in wisedome they should since of themselves and naturally they are farre from speaking what they would But I shall trouble you no farther most Honoured Mother with prefacing having given you a short account who they are and what it is that this discourse pretends against as the title tels you what it pretends to I am not I thanke God so vaine as to imagine that this Essay should convert this kind of men especially such as are highest flowne and who having beene accustomed to defie reason and Scripture doe not use to bee satisfied when they are answered But I am not without hopes through the grace of God but that it may be of use to some truly godly for these temptations are fitted to persons and places of light who have not known the depths of Sathan nor are yet effectually insnared by these stratagems and wiles of the Devill And I am assured it will be accepted by you my Deare Mother to whom I present it not only upon that just account that you commanded it and the commands of Parents to their Children are of the highest Prerogative But because it will be satisfaction to you to see the Asserting and Vindicating of those things indeavored which have so much of truth and God in them and in a time when the profession and practice of them is expos'd not onely to the insultings of men openly and professedly prophane but which is lesse sufferable and more abominable to the scorne and contempt of such as would be esteemed Saints of the highest elevation But Wisedome is justified of her Children whose condition is very easily supportable with this assurance That as Christ was in the World so are they in the World and if Their life be hid with Christ in God when Christ who is their life shall appeare they shall appeare with him in glory I am Most Honoured Mother Your most obedient Sonne and Most Humble Servant Henry Lawrence A VINDICATION OF THE SCRIPTURES And Christian Ordinances NOTHING seems more to speak the misery of these evil and calamitous times in which we live then the extreame debordment of extravagant Opinions in matters of Religion diverse of which tend not onely directly to the undermining of Holinesse and Christian Religion which by the grace of God hath been long acknowledged and professed in this Kingdome but to the subversion also and destruction of civill society and communion with men as men The rise of which exorbitancy so far as my observation leads me is laid First in a slighting of the Ordinances of worship as things lesse profitable and usefull and more befitting Children then grown men and then according to the nature of errour which is easily multiplying and increasing for one absurdity granted a hundred will follow and grow out of it in a reprobating and utter casting of those Ordinances as things hurtfull and destructive to the nature of
of Saintship and altogether unproper and unmeet for that state of growth and perfection which they pretend to have attained unto This wile of the Devill is not by all good men easily and at the first observed not doe they consider that by a shew of rationall and spirituall pretences he deprives them at last of all the Ordinances and Institutions of God that his inspirations and revelations may be in stead of them and he at last may be all in all unto them For I beseech you what else is the effect of those methods in these men in whom he hath gained most upon this way but a forme of unsound words by which evill communication they corrups good manners stuffing their Preachings and Writings with an uncouth and most unsavory gibberish or jergon language which the Scriptures owne not which rationall and truely spirituall men understand not till at last growing bolder in the vanities of their minds and expressions they come to this to which some of them are come to make themselves Christ and God and to stile themselves the Lord of Hosts Blasphemies unheard of in other ages and such as are capable of astonishing the most debauch't and prophane spirits and such as tend not onely to the utter subversion of all Religion but as a necessary consequence of that to the destruction and dissolution of all bands of civill government Notwithstanding the horrour of these things yet I must professe when I thinke seriously of them I cannot but rest satisfied in the wisedome and goodnesse of God to his who by letting them see the miserable consequences and effects of opinions so depraved as the casting aside of all Ordinances of worship and yet of that seeming holinesse and spiritualnesse as the pretence of a more immediate and spirituall converse with God is are bounded and kept in order by these exorbitancies and taught that which the Scripture teacheth frequently that The weaknesse of God is stronger then men and the foolishnesse of God is wiser then men and therefore if any will be wise for all these vanities arise from nothing but from a carnall and vaine Philosophating about spirituall things he must become a foole that hee may be wise Now as to be instrumentall to turne sinners and such as erre from the truth from the errour of their ways is a thing of the greatest concernment and highly acceptable to God so is it no way of more consideration then in such errings and mistakings as are about the fundamentals of Religion and Worship and which are so fertile of ill as having gained once a prevalency and authority there is no stoppe or bounds to any thing which a vaine and carnall heart deluded and imboldened by the Devill shall broach to the World for good Doctrine That which immediately debauches the spirit of men this way is as I said a slighting and undervaluing of the Ordinances of worship and holy Institutions and after that a despising and abhorring of them as things carnall and unbecomming a spirituall and raised state But that which is yet a deeper and more bottome root of this untoward production is Secondly Low and meane thoughts of the holy Scriptures the Word of God or which is as bad and arises from the same root of pride and vanity such a bold and ridiculous allegorizing of them under a colour of going farre enough from the Letter and understanding the mystery of them as they obtrude upon you all the vaine reasonings of a carnall heart and that as the Preachings and Writings of these times will abundantly witnesse with such folly and madnesse as that after that rate a man may not despaire to see the Turkish Alcoran brought out of the New Testament or if there be any greater the greatest absurdities and follies that ever entered into the heart of any ignorant or carnall man since the World stood He therefore that would indeavour the recovery of these men or prevent the fallings and disorders of others in these matters of greatest concernment had need speake something to such errings as are about the Scriptures And First Not to speake if there bee any such of those that question the Divine Authority of Scripture as if it had not God for its Author and Originall that which I shall speake something to is that Opinion which seemes to be received amongst some as if it were a straitning to the spirit of God and indignity offered to it to bring spirituall revelations to the touch-stone and Examen of the Scriptures On the other side to me the Scripture seems amongst others to have tâ—o excellent ends for our advantage the one as other Ordinances of God to be a Medium of his owne setting up and which he delights to use for the conveying of himselfe to our spirits in inlightening and sanctifying us and making us partakers of the Divine nature The other to be a certaine and fixt Standard to which we may bring any thing that is broacht under the name of spirituall truth and may thereby as the Scripture sayes Try the spirits whether they be of God may know the voyce of God from the voyce of the Devill and the voyce of the holy spirit and good Angels from that of Satan even when he transformes himselfe into an Angel of light Nor is this any indignity offered to the spirit of God as is before pretended since he is confined to no Rule but what is of his owne forming If the Scriptures were a rule formed by man or by Angels it were unsufferable to subject the spirit of God to any rule so infinitely below it selfe but All Scripture being of Divine inspiration holy men of God speaking as they were moved by the holy Ghost as it is of great use to us against the wiles of the Devill so it is a particular honour to the spirit of God which by the meanes of such a Standard and rule appeares ever like it selfe that is uniforme and constant and which is a high attribute of God without variablenesse and shadow of changing From this good understanding betweene the spirit of God and the word of God the Scriptures dictated by the same spirit it is that in all matter of faith and worship and all things spirituall the appeale is still to the Scriptures as to the visible and lawfull Judge So Christ convincing the Jewes of their sin of unbeliefe tels them There is one that accuseth them even Moses for he wrote of him John 5.45 And as for the Jewes so for all others our Lord saith That he that rejecteth him and receiveth not his word hath one that judgeth him the Word saith hee that I have spoken the same shall judge him in the last day So Paul gloryes in this that the Thessalonians received the word spoken by them not as the word of man a thing subject to exceptions and limitations but as it is in truth the word of God which effectually worketh in them that beleeve 1 Thes 2.13 Hence when
them and admonish them of such things as hee writ then altogether lay foundations or deliver principles that are new to them and with which they are not acquainted Therefore Verse 24. hee admonisheth them that that might remaine with them which they have heard from the beginning as intending rather to confirme what they knew already and have been taught from the beginning by the word and spirit then to add in this exhortation any thing in which they were raw and unprincipled But because John sayes here that they have an unction from the spirit and know all things and Vers 27 that they need not that any man should teach them To conclude that therefore they needed no other Ministry or teaching but the spirit neither Scriptures nor Prophesies were to make John himselfe ridiculous For wherefore did he labour in this Doctrine and wherefore did he teach them at all if there were no need at all of his teaching when Paul sayes as he doth 1 Thes 4.9 Touching brotherly love there is no need that I write unto you for yee your selves are taught of God to love one another Doth he forbeare therefore to exhort the Saints to that duty or rather shew that he need not doubt of the successe of that Doctrine of brotherly love which he and other Apostles inculcates exceedingly because they have a principle taught them by God himselfe and his holy spirit that renders them apt to receive any hints or intimations that way It is a great piece of Oratory when yee can perswade your hearers that the things ye would inforce and make out more fully they assent unto already Therefore John here professes that hee wrote to them because they knew the truth already and upon that very ground that they were taught and did know and that they needed not teaching he was incouraged to the Doctrine and exhortation he gave them It is one of the best arguments we draw from reason to prove there is a God and in the vertue of which we use many others that this point is a thing they need not to be taught this they are all taught of God no man so barbarous no Nation so remote from the knowledge and converse with others that hath not this ingrafted in their nature this notwithstanding we doe not cease to multiply arguments to this purpose to confirme and draw out that principle into use and practice of which there is so faire a beginning layd deep even in the nature of every man living The summe is besides what I have sayd in the beginning that the Apostle would use them to bring all things to the Examen of the spirit and that he would improve the confirmation of the truth of his Doctrine by the principles already layd in them by the spirit of God he uses these expressions that they know all things and need not that any man teach them but as the same anoynting teaches them and that he writes to them because they know the truth already Both to avoyd the seeming to deale with them as learners and beginners altogether unprincipled and untaught when as the things were such as were built upon principles layd into them by the anoynting of the spirit as also to fetch an effectuall rise of arguments for the assenting to such things as they knew and were taught already as there is no better bottome argument as I sayd to prove there is a God then this that they know it already being all taught it of God nor no better foundation to the exhortation of brotherly love with which the Scripture abounds above any one thing then that which Paul layes in the place above quoted out of the Thessalonians That there is no need to bee taught that For that they are all taught of God to love one another We say it is the part of a wise man Rerum manifestarum causas quaerere and it is especially the duty of those who have the care of instructing others to improve principles already lodged into them of which the foundations are most generally and most cleerly layd by the holy spirit in all the Saints for those commonly are of the greatest use and concernment So as here will be no good warant to depart from the use of Scripture or the Ministry of teaching for which God hath in all times and in these particularly in which John wrote indued men with gifts and power to follow vaine Enthusiasmes unlesse we wil put ridiculous and contradictory actions and wayes upon the Doctrines of this holy Apostle and the dictates of the holy spirit Having largely and sufficiently I hope opened these words I proceed now to those other texts I quoted out of Isaiah and Jeremiah That of Jeremiah is in Chap. 31. Vers 31. c. which is certainly a Prophesie of those times in which the Apostle John lived and of that state of the Church in which in the place before discussed he speaks Here the Prophet as it was usuall with the Prophet Isaiah and the rest rising from the Type to the Antitype having before discoursed of the inlarging and bettering of the condition of the Israelites he fals naturally and easily into the discourse of the times of the Gospell and New Testament Behold the day's come saith the Lord that I will make a new Covenant c. what this Covenant is not hee tells you Verse 32. Not the Covenant hee made with their Fathers when he brought them out of the Land of Aegypt What that Covenant was we shall not need here to consider of but then Verse 33. hee tells you what his Covenant shall be I will put my Law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts and I will bee their God and they shall be my people and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour and every man his brother saying Know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them saith the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sins no more The great benefit of this New Covenant in opposition to the Old lyes in this that in this New Covenant God doth not onely propound the tearmes but ingages himselfe to performe the condition whereas the Old Covenant set before you life and death good and evill but ingaged you to the performance of the good without assistance for the Law was without you or to the suffering of evill But in the new Covenant the Law is within written in your hearts by which you are made holy and disposed for all good If you sinne as if any man sayes he has no sin he deceives himselfe and the truth is not in him He will forgive your iniquity and remember your sin no more And because the knowledge of God and his wayes is of the greatest consideration to us for our happinesse and holinesse ye shall be enlightened have the holy unction and be taught of God This inlightening especially in things of the
which is administred to us by the mediation of Ordinances which are outward and subjected to our senses Answ 3 But then thirdly I would have these men consider the true nature and reason of this word spirituall as it stands in order to the discourse wee have in hand The notion of spirituall lies not in this that one is more raised and improved in parts then another as when the French say C'est vn homme bien spirituel they meane a man of good parts or of a raised spirit Though I very much feare that this goes farre for spirituall with many and a great deale of that language and converse which is called spirituall is nothing but the expressions of men of a more raised reason or exoticke and extravagant fancy which because the language is unusual goes amongst a great many ignorant and well meaning men for spirituall as appeares by their inordinate affecting certaine preachings and writings which a sober holy and indeed spirituall man would looke upon with other eyes Wherein the lucke is that such kind of Authors are best and most readily understood by those who as the Apostle saith are ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth which suites very happily with such Teachers who as the same Apostle saith Know neither what they say nor wherof they affirme Spiritualnesse therefore lies not in the following or affecting such Preachers or Authors or wayes as come under a shew of raised or improved reason or fancy Nor doth it lye in this that such waies or worship are more proportionable or more suitable to the guise and fashion of the next or a more raised state If any one could by the spirit of prophesie or divine revelation peepe into another World and see what the converse of that shall be such a search would be of excellent use to us as it was to the Prophets of old who inquired and searched diligently after the times that were to come 1 Pet. 1.10 But would be no warrant to alter or change from the way of life or worship of the present state for then Jeroboam had hit it though not in his end perhaps yet in the thing who by altering the times and places of worship did but anticipate Gospell practice when it should be lawfull every where and at all times and seasons to offer up sacrifices acceptable and agreeable to God Then also it had beene more spirituall in the last state or times of the Jewes to signifie Christs death by breaking of bread then by slaying of Oxen or by worshipping God without Preistly adornments and ceremonies rather then with them Some of the Prophets Isaiah particularly and David saw farre into the way of that state that was then to come yet neither did the one nor the other nor any of the holy Prophets disswade from the practice of the ceremonies or ordinances of that time though such as the Apostle since hath called beggarly rudiments but incouraged and exhorted still to the constant persevering in them onely blamed them when they were alone without holinesse of life and conversation and faith in God which they all tended to and taught who of all the Prophets understood the way of a spirituall converse more then David as appeares by his frequent calling upon the spirit bemoaning the absense of glorying in the enjoyment of it and yet this excellent and spirituall David thought it not a carnall and unspirituall thing to converse with God in the Ordinances of that state wherein he lived though he saw so clearly and happily into another and better but longed after the ceremonious worship of those times and envied even the condition of the Sparrowes that found a resting in Gods house and by Gods Altar from which he was excluded And if we consider it particularly how absurd would such a thing be the wise God hath fitted the liquour to the vessell our way of converse with him in things spirituall according to our present receptive faculty how ridiculous would it be to suite the garment of a man to a childs body or because a child hath a principle in him that is rationall to labour in that uncapable age to improve that principle by rationall discourses and discipline So and much more absurd and vaine is it to suite and proportion the converse of a future and more raised state to the lownesse and incapacity of a former and more weake and childish one yet nothing is more frequently done by these men wee have beene speaking of by which meanes it fals out that being wholy unfit for the converse of a more excellent and future state and neglecting and sleighting that way of converse which God hath made their portion for the present they loose the blessing of their present state and all those influences which God conveyes to us by mediums of his owne fitting and in stead of increasing in light which they so much pretend to they grow vaine in their imaginations and have their foolish hearts darkened as their abominable and cursed opinion evidently makes appeare by that Prince of darknesse who transformes himselfe into an Angell of light So that to conclude it is the word of institution for the present state in which we live that gives the notion of spiritualnesse to Ordinances and actions and neither the vanity of our reasonings nor a pretended or reall sight into the state of those times that are to come Coroll To all this and as a Corollary to this discourse I would adde this That never any state or way of worship was changed without a very great visibility and notoriety to those whom it concerned When by the hands of Moses there was but a graduall change and a greater formalizing of the worship of the same Covenant no man will denie me but that it was by the appointment of God made so visible and so publike as there was nothing left of obscuritie or doubtfulnesse in it Moses the Minister of so great a change was a man who had his Letters of credence from Heaven written in the most visible Characters a man that wrought ordinarily many and great miracles that was owned by God by many heavenly apparitions and yet besides all this when the rule of life and worship was given God himselfe talked to them from Heaven as he sayes Exod. 20.22 and after the greatest preparation of the people for receiving those heavenly Oracles that there might be no doubt but that they were from God Mount Sinai whither the people assembled was altogether in a smoake because the Lord descended upon it in fire and the smoake thereof ascended as the smoake of a Furnace and the whole mount quaked greatly and when the voyce of the Trumpet sounded long and waxed lowder and lowder God answered him by a voyce Verse 18 19. Of which voice of God the people were so assured As they besought Moses that he would speake with them and that God might not speake with them least they
Christ would convince the Sadduces of the Resurrection he told them They erred not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God Matth. 22.29 and then makes out his assertion by Scripture authority Have yee not read that which was spoken by God unto you And then brings them the very Scripture words I am the God of Abraham c. vers 32. So when Christ would prove himself to be the Messiah he bids them Search the Scriptures John 5.39 You see therefore it is no disparagement to the spirit of God that there is a visible Standard and Rule manifest to all men to which we may have a constant and easie recourse in any doubt or controversie of faith or worship Obj. If any shal object further that though this be not a disparagement or a lessening to the spirit of GOD since the authority of God it selfe and the reason of the thing seems to vindicate it from this Yet the Scriptures are capable of senses and interpretations so various as we see in all experience as it will be difficult to make it a Sandard and Rule of Faith and Worship or a Medium to try the spirits by since it needs the assistance of the spirit to the right interpretation of it selfe Ans I answer that the ignorance or perversnesse of Interpreters can by no meanes take away that Honour from the Scriptures that it should not be the Standard and Rule in things spirituall no more then in civill things the ignorance or peruersenesse of a man in giving the interpretations of the Law should detract from the honour of its being the rule and standard of judging in things civill It is certaine that in respect of the things spoken or in respect of the Speaker the Scripture hath not various and uncertaine senses but it seemes to have so oftentimes in respect of our vanity or ignorance Which leads me into consideration of the second charge I lay to some perverse spirits of these times which by obscure and mysterious Allegories draw a vaile and cast thick Clouds betweene us and the Scriptures and then cry out that they are mysterious obscure darke and hidden but If our Gospel bee hid as the Apostle saith it is hid to them that perish in whom the God of this World hath blinded their eyes Pride or some evill lusting hath blinded their eyes and then they cry out that there is a defect on the part of the object that that is not visible and the way by which they would spiritualize and inlighten it renders it a thousand times darker whilst under a pretence of running far enough from the Letter which they judge carnall and killing they subject it to the vanities and dreamings of every addle head and make the holy Scripture Eccho to the sound that is already in their eares according to that English Proverbe As the foole thinketh so the Bell tincketh But first here they greatly mistake who in alluding to that place of 1 Cor. 3.6 Not of the letter but of the spirit thinke there is an opposition put betwixt the letter of the Gospel and New Testament and the spirituall sense of it for here plainely by Letter is meant the Law and by spirit is meant the Gospel or New Testament in the very letter of it as you have John 1. The Law was given by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ Not as if the Jewes were onely under a literall externall administration which did not affect their spirits God knew how to speake to his in those times but that was not the office of Moses or of the Law which propounded rules of living with promises and threatnings therefore When the Law came sin revived and I dyed saith Paul But the Ministry of the Gospel he cals spirit because the things it declares are quickning enlivening and restoring and such as speaking comparatively also the spirit accompanies much more then it did the Law as being the instrument of the grace of Christ in his Ministry The mistake of this place made Origen first and since very many loose themselves and their auditors in senslesse and idle Allegories supposing that the allegoricall sense was spirituall and the literall killing whereas the literall sense in most scriptures is not onely a spirituall sense but the onely spirituall sense of it and if besides what sense I have given of this place of the Law and the Gospel it reaches further the letter and the spirit is not to be understood of the Exposition of the words but of the fruit and effect of it it then being onely received in the Letter when it affects not the heart nor workes saving changes upon us and then in the spirit when it indeed converts and turnes us and moulds us into that holy frame and forme to which God ordaines his people Now that these expressions of the Spirit and the Letter are meant particularly of the Law and the Gospel appeares evidently in the following verses 7 8 9. For verse 7. speaking of the Letter he calls it The administration of death written and engraven in stones which we know was the Law this hee proves glorious from the glory and shining of Moses countenance In opposition to this he cals the Gospel The ministry of the spirit verse 8. and shews in one point more the excelling glory of this Gospell beyond the Law that it is to abide and remain evermore whereas the other is done away and past verse 10 11. It is true that what the Law is of it self that the Gospel is by accident killing and destructive 2 Corinth 2 16. To the one we are the savour of death unto death c. But though the Gospel be the occasion of damnation to very many notwithstanding it may be called the Spirit or Doctrine of life for as much as God uses it as the instrument or vehiculum of our conversion or new life and that it holds out and offers free reconciliation to us with God whereas the Law taking it simply and alone as it is here taken is the Letter that killeth and the ministry of death prescribing onely an exact rule of life by which comes the knowledge and reviving of sinne which kills without shewing any releife or way to escape And thus have I briefly opened this place which hath been the cause to many of such grosse errings and mistakes But to proceed It is certaine the Scriptures have a plainnesse and easinesse in them to be understood and therefore are said to be A light to our feet and a Lanthorne to our paths and a light shining in a darke place Thy words they give light they give understanding to the simple And if this may be affirmed of the Writings of the Old Testament with much more reason may it be affirmed of those of the New For Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ They had many things formerly in Types and Allegories as things that concerned others more then themselves For it was revealed to them that