prevent and assist us nor reasonably attempt to doe without this hope § 4. Farther yet the Resurrection of Christ hath the power of a pattern to us and is so made use of and typified in baptisme as an engagement and obligation to us to transcribe that divine copie into our hearts and to rise to newness of life And accordingly that seems to be the importance of the phrase Rom. 10.9 believing in the heart that God raised Christ from the dead there being no more necessary to the superstructing all piety on that one foundation but to sink down the belief of that one Article from the brain to the heart to reduce it effectually to practise CHAP. VI. Other Articles of Belief in Christ § 1. BEside these two a whole calogue and climax of Articles we have set down 1 Tim. 3.16 made manifest in or by the flesh justified by the Spirit seen of Angels preached among the Gentiles believed on in the world received up with glory And these altogether seem to be that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 truth v 15. as elsewhere Faith of which the Church was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a pillar and establishment to sustain and keep it as a pillar firmly set up on the basis sustains and upholds the fabrick laid upon it from sinking or falling For so this truth deposited in the Church or with the Governours thereof such as Timothy there was to be conserved and upheld by that means And it is farther observable in that place that it is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the mysterie of Piety and that a great one signifying the price and value of these articles principally to consist in this that they tend mightily to the begetting of piety in our hearts and so are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the articles of our initiation or of our religion into which we are initiated by baptisme as the foundation on which all our Christian practise which alone deserves the name of piety and is opposed to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 impiety is superstructed and built afterward § 2. This will be more visible by surveying the severals 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God manifest by the stesh God was so intent upon this work of revealing and declaring his will to men in order to bringing home sinners to repentance so very desirous that men should reform and live and not sin and perish eternally that to inforce this on us at the greatest possible advantage he was pleased himself to assume and manifest his will in or by our Flesh and so not only God from heaven but God visible on earth to preach reformation among us and if this be not able to make impression on us it is not imaginable that all the preaching of men or Angels that any inferior method should be of force to doe it From whence it was that all the Devil's countermines in the first ages were designed purposely against this one Article the Deity or Godhead of Christ incarnate making all that he did and suffered here an appearance no reality in opposition to which is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so oft repeated by Ignatius the reality and verity of Christ's eating and suffering and rising c. and every branch of such heresie took off as farre as it was believed from the necessity of Christian life not only by implying him to be an Impostor if he were not truly what he oft affirmed himself and was by the Apostles affirmed to be the Messias i. e. the eternal son of God and God blessed forever but by evacuating that great obligation and engagement to reform our lives taken from the authority and Godhead of him that had sought and sollicited it so earnestly and came down from heaven and assumed our flesh upon that one errand or embassie to reveal himself more convincingly among us § 3. Had it been only a Prophet though never so great and extraordinarily furnished with signes and wonders he had been but a servant of God and there were many experiences and precedents among their forefathers of the resisting of such but the personal descent of God himself and his assumption of our flesh to his divinity more familiarly to insinuate his pleasure to us to admonish and invite and denounce judgments and even to weep over those that would yet be obstinate was an enforcement beyond all the methods of wisdome that were ever made use of in the world § 4. For God I say himself to doe all this and to descend so low to so mean an estate and to a much meaner usage a shameful contumelious death to work this work most effectually upon men was a wonderful act of grace wisdome a secret a mysterie indeed beyond all former waies infinitely considerable towards this of turning from every evil § 5. And upon this score the doctrine of the antient and modern Arians and Photinians which so industriously lessens the divinity of Christ in pretense of zeal to God the Father to whom they will not permit him to be equal must consequently take off extremely from this Mysterie of Piety this foundation of a good life laid in the eternal God's coming down to preach it to us And as it is a direct contradiction to those places wherein Christ is called God Act. 20.28 Tit. 2.13 wherein he and his Father are affirmed to be one Joh. 10.30 1 Joh. 5.7 wherein the known title of the God of Israel never named in their services but it was answered by all with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God blessed forever is by the Apostles attributed to Christ Rom. 9.5 as also Heb. 13.21 1 Pet. 4.11 5.11 2 Pet. 3.18 Rev. 1.6 and which as Proclus saith convinceth all the heresies concerning Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and walls up the newly invented waies of injury and contumely against him So it is a great diminution and abatement of the force of that fundamental argument whereon God thought fit that the renovation of the world should be superstructed and how much soever the contrary hereticks the modern Socinians have pretended to the maintenance of Piety 't is certain they have by this taken out one principal stone from the foundation of it the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here God made manifest by the flesh which could not be affirmed of Christ if he were not first God before he was thus made manifest by the means of his incarnation § 5. The next stone in this foundation is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God's having been justified by the Spirit i. e. the several waies of conviction which were used in the world by the Spirit of God to give authority to all that was revealed by Christ as the will and commands of God Such was 1. the visible descent of the Spirit of God upon him at his baptisme Mat. 3. which as preparative to his entring on the exercise of his prophetick office Mat. 5. c. was the divine
nobler coin and to continue to be enjoy'd to all eternity when beside the liberal harvest of satisfactions for any the most trivial losse or suffering submitted to upon Christ's command or advise the hundred fold more in this life we are secured to reap in another world everlasting unperishable felicities and when to the empty nauseous afflicting pleasures of sin for some one shortest moment attended immediately with a farre more durable shame and then followed with an immortal endlesse gnawing death that is all jawes but no stomach shall remain by way of arrear a sharp yet sullen payment to all eternity when every play or jest of sin shall engage us in that perpetual earnest and after the transitory joy is forgotten or loathed the irreversible sentence of endlesse woe is expected instantly and infallibly to come out and with it an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the store-houses of ease or mercy sealed up all drops to cool or oceans to quench our misery Then certainly upon this perswasion duly rooted not in the brain but heart an ordinary orator may suffice to superstruct an admission of the precepts of Christ and induce in a rational creature a willingnesse to be happy here by a patient bearing of a gentle desireable yoke that so he may be blessed eternally § 29. And so we have taken a cursorie view of the several Articles of the most antient and shortest Creed and therein exemplified the propriety of our definition of Fundamentals and having the Apostles judgment in their preachings to confirm us in the truth that the laying of so large a foundation was deemed necessary to their designe of planting the same fruits in all soils piety probity and purity in a nation of hypocritical Jewes and a world of Idolatrous polluted Gentiles we have already shewed how unnecessary it is to enquire whether any single sinner of either of those provinces might not possibly be reduced to Christian life without some one of these explicitely and actually considered and so have no temptation to inlarge this Chapter by any such consideration CHAP. IX Of the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds together and severally of the Nicene § 1. HAving view'd the Apostles Creed and of it premised this one thing that it was a complete Catalogue of all that they being directed by the holy Ghost in their ministerie thought fit to lay the foundation of Christian obedience in every Church and consequently that there was no more in their opinion necessary in order to this end of working reformation in the world It will from this datum demonstratively follow either that there is in the two other Creeds the Nicene and Athanasian nothing materially different from that which the Apostles Creed had contained nothing really superadded to it or else that that superaddition was not in the Apostles estimation necessary to this end and consequently that if at the forming of them it were by the following Church thought necessary to be thus made or still continues to be so this must arise from some fresh emergent one or more which had been observable in the Church after the Apostles time § 2. And which of these two is the truth it will not be uneasie to define For though the omission of some words which had been retained in the Apostles Creed doe not signifie much for it is certain that they were while retained in that and are still now they are left out in following Creeds eternally and unquestionably true in the sense wherein the Apostles and their successors understood them nor indeed any more then that they were virtually contained in other words still continued as the descent to hades under that of his suffering and burial and not rising till the third day and the Communication of Saints under the Catholick Church with the Epithet of Apostolick added to it or else that they were not necessary to be repeated because already familiarly known and confessed and not question'd by those hereticks against whom the variations were designed as in the Athanasian Creed the Articles of the holy Ghost so largely set down in four branches in the Nicene Creed and the three Articles attending that of the holy Ghost in the Apostles Creed are all omitted yet those words which in the later Creeds were superadded to the former were apparently designed by the Compilers for some special use either by way of addition or interpretation to fense the Catholick orthodox Faith from the corruptions and depravations or else from the doubtings and contradictions of hereticks § 3. Thus in the Nicene Creed the two additions in the first Article the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one prefixed to God and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and of all things visible and invisible were upon prudent deliberation and considering interposed the first of them on occasion of the Arians in one respect and both of them in another respect by reason of the Gnostick and Valentinian and such like following hereticks whose heathen and Poetical Theologie taken from Hesiod and Orpheus and Philistion had rendred them necessary For that those hereticks beginning with their Simon and Helena had introduced a plurality of Gods and so made the Profession of the Vnitie part of the symbolum that should discriminate the Orthodox from them and affirmed that their Aeones or Angels were begotten by Helena Simon 's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first cogitation and that the world was created by them and that the God of the Jewes was but one of those Angels and a great deal of the like appears by Irenaeus l. 1. c. 22. And these two intersertions were clear explications of the Apostles old form God the Father Ruler of all Maker of heaven and earth which sufficiently contained an acknowledgment of the Vnitie for how else could he be monarch or Ruler of all and also asserted him the Creator of all the Angels who were certainly comprehended under the heaven and earth the phrase of Scripture to denote the world but yet was capable of more light by these more explicite words visible and invisible to exclude the contradictions of hereticks § 4. And though the Creed in the ancient Apostolick form were sufficient for any man to believe professe yet when the Church hath thought meet to erect that additional bulwark against hereticks the rejecting or denying the truth of those their additions may justly be deemed an interpretative siding with those antient or a desire to introduce some new heresies And though good life might have been founded without those additions if on such occasions they had never been made yet the pride or singularity or heretical designe of opposing or questioning them now they are framed being themselves unreconcileable with Christian charity and humility are destructive of the fabrick directly and interpretatively of the very foundation and is therefore justly deemed criminous and lyable to Censures in the Church of God § 5. So likewise the Oneness of our Lord Jesus Christ as before
and the explicite unshaken belief of all that is revealed to him by God be the strict duty of every Christian and the disbelieving of any such affirmation of Gods is sin and damnable yet the foundation being that which supports the superstructure to which it relates immediately and without the intervention of any thing else 't is certain that eternal blisse is not immediatly superstructed on the most orthodox beliefs but as our Saviour saith if ye know these things happy are ye if ye doe them the doing must be first superstructed on the knowing or believing before any happinesse or blisse or heaven can be built on it and without all question the agenda the things that are to be done works of piety and justice c. are as necessarily required to found our blisse to bring us to heaven as the belief of any the most pretious Articles can be supposed to be and therefore it may be justly feared that the title of Fundamentals being ordinarily bestowed on and confined to the doctrines of faith hath occasioned that great scandal or block of offence in the Church of God at which so many myriads of solifidians have stumbled and fallen irreversibly by conceiving heaven a reward of true opinions of which vicious practises though never so habitually and indulgently continued in to the last would never be able to deprive them which as it hath been the disjoyning of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 most excellent yoke of faith and good works and hath betrayed many knowing men to most unskilful and ridiculous presumptions and securities in sin so can it not well be provided against without the discovering and renouncing of this false and substituting a truer state of this question § 9. Secondly If this were the notion of Fundamentals there could be no certain way of judging what are such the excuse of invincible ignorance being in the farre greatest number of men ready to be confronted against the necessity of their believing all the severals of any such supposeable Catalogue And for that suppletorie of an implicite belief which is by the Romanist conceived to be of use and sufficient for those who are not capable of an explicite whatsoever degree of truth can be conceived to be in that it must be founded in the contradictorie to the present pretension for were it once granted that the belief of such articles were fundamental to heaven it were not imaginable that they which have not heard should ever arrive thither When that which by S. Paul's authority is become a known maxime was before demonstrable in it self and is so supposed by his argument Rom. 10.14 that faith cometh by hearing and that they cannot believe what they have not heard Many other inconveniences there are consequent to this stating of this question and particularly that of which our experience hath given us evident demonstration that by those which thus state it there hath never yet been assigned any definite number or Catalogue of Fundamentals in this sense but I shall no farther enlarge on them § 10. The other notion of Fundamentals is that whereon I shall more confidently pitch as that which will remove in stead of multiplying difficulties and accord all which either the Scriptures or the Antients have asserted on this subject thereby understanding that which was deemed necessary to be laid by the Apostles and other such Master-builders as a foundation to the peopling or replenishing or bringing in proselytes to the Church and so to the superstructing Christian obedience among men In which respect it is that as the Church of Corinth and so any other society that hath received the faith of Christ is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God's plantation 1 Cor. 3.9 so it is also called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God's building a structure erected by his artificers § 11. That this hath been esteemed the due and proper acception of this word I shall testifie by this one evidence which I acknowledge to have given me the first hint of this notion the words of the great Champion of the Catholick Faith set down in the Councel of Nice S. Athanasius in Epist ad Epictetum where speaking of the Confession of Faith established by the Canons of that Councel against the Arian and other Hereticks he hath these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The faith confessed by the Bishops in that Synod according to the divine Scriptures is of it self sufficient for the averting of all impiety and the establishment of all piety in Christ These words of that eminent Father of the Church might be of some farther use toward the due understanding of the articles of the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds but at the present the advantage of them will be but general that the way of measuring and defining the necessity of any articles of faith the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 necessaries to be known as Justine Martyr speaks placing under that head the Creation of the world the framing of man the immortality of the soul and judgment to come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 9. is by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sufficiencie of them to enable the teacher to perswade good life to supplant those vices which Christ came to banish out of the world and to radicate those virtues which he came on purpose to implant among men which is directly that notion or Character of Fundamentals which we have now given thereby signifying those articles of the Faith on which all the parts of Christian piety and obedience and none of impiety or disobedience may be regularly superstructed or in consequence to which being once revealed and believed all rational or considering men when Christian life is proposed to them must discern themselves obliged to entertain it to forsake in every branch their unchristian courses of sin and to betake themselves to an uniform obedience to the commands of Christ From whence I suppose it is that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 building or edifying is used every where in the New Testament for improving or advancing in Christian practise and the duties of good life as laying the foundation is preaching the faith of Christ among them 1 Cor. 3.11 On which saith Theophylact 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. After we shall have received the Foundation of Faith i. e. the Faith of Christ as the Foundation we build upon it every one good actions of all sorts and degrees as he there specifies making the Christian actions of life to be the superstructure to which this Foundation referres and in relation to which it is called a Foundation So Theophylact on Heb. 6.1 makes the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their being instructed in the Faith of Christ to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to deal only in the beginning the elements the first and most imperfect rudiments 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as novices beginners they that are but now upon their entrance are wont to be conversant in whereas the
affixt to it by some Romanists and pay this ready obedience to it into the same snare of heresie or Impiety or both § 4. For of this we have too frequent experience how hard it is to dispossesse a Romanist of any doctrine or practise of that present Church for which he hath no grounds either in Antiquity or Scripture or Rational deductions from either but the contrary to all these as long as he hath that one hold or fortresse his perswasion of the Infallibility of that Church which teacheth or prescribeth it And indeed it were as unreasonable for us to accuse or wonder at this constancy in particular superstructed errors be they never so many whilst the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this first great comprehensive falsity is maintained as to disclaim the conclusion when the premises that duly induce it are embraced And then that other errors and guilts of the highest nature neither are nor shall be entertained by those that are thus qualified for them must sure be a felicity to which this doctrine hath no way intitled them and that for which they can have no security for one hour but by renouncing that principle which equally obligeth to the belief of truths and falshoods embracing of commendable and vitious practises worshipping of Christ in Heaven and under the species of bread the son and of the mother of God when they are once received and proposed to them by that Church § 5. But in stead of any fuller view of these I shall mention some few of those which our closer and later experience hath made most familiar to us and given us reason to look on with a quickness of sense and dread but those such as being not entred into the Confessions of any national Church are not properly chargeable either on Papists or Protestants but on particular dogmatizers on both parties From whom the doctrines being infusible into all it will be more necessary to forewarn all of the danger of them § 6. Such is first the perswasion of the Solifidians that all religion consists in believing aright that the being of Orthodox as that is opposed to erroneous opinions is all that is on our part required to render our condition safe and our persons acceptable in the sight of God § 7. This is a perswasion frequently observable in those that are forward to separate from all who differ in matters of Doctrine from them who place sanctity in their opinions as generally hereticks doe and make the dissents of other men the characters of animal carnal Gospellers And the influence of this on the matter in hand the superstructing Christian life upon our Faith is most evident For if we should give that perswasion of theirs the greatest advantage and suppose the doctrines in the belief of which they place so much efficacie to be these very fundamental Doctrines which this Discourse hath defined and specified yet in case the believing of those aright be conceived the one and onely necessary to salvation it is evident that the superstructing of good life the thing to which those doctrines relate and in respect of which they are styled Fundamental is ipso facto become unnecessary § 8. For when it shall be once resolved that Orthodox opinions are able to secure men of God's favour and that being assumed as a principle the search of them being a work of the brain shall generally be discernible as Aristotle observes of the study of the Mathematicks to have nothing repugnant to passions in it and when those articles of belief are conveyed to us with such evidence that we have no temptation to doubt of the truth of them what argument is there remaining to any rational man which can move him so superfluously and unnecessarily to set upon that more laborious and ungrateful task of mortifying lusts of subduing of passions of combating and overcoming the world of offering violence to his importunate vigorous carnal appetites If he that is to be baptized might be admitted to that state of justified Christians and therein to a right of inheriting the kingdome of heaven by a profession of the Articles of his Creed and an undoubted perswasion and belief of the truth of them what an impertinent tyrannie were it to increase his burthen to refuse and delay his admission till he should undertake the whole vow of forsaking the Devil and all his works of keeping God's holy will and commandements and walking in the same all the daies of his life What use even of Prayer of the Sacraments of Charity of Faith it self in any other notion but that wherein he considers it and thinks himself assuredly possessed of it § 9. The issue is clear the Solifidian looks upon his Faith or Articles of his belief as the intire structure not as the Rudiments or Foundation as the utmost accomplishment and end and not only as the first elements of his task and so this Perswasion of his most unhappily but most regularly obstructs and intercepts the building any more upon it which if he conceived himself no farther advanced then the laying a few stones a bare Foundation he would rationally think himself engaged and obliged to prosecute to a farre greater perfection § 10. Hitherto we have considered this perswasion of the Solifidian at the best and fairest advantage and supposed the Opinions on which he so relies to be the true Christian Apostolical and Fundamental Opinions But if we should proceed farther and consider how many other opinions there are abroad in the world which being neither Fundamental nor Apostolical nor arrived so farre as to any fair probability of truth doe yet pretend to be the only sanctified necessary doctrines and such as every man that believes them is a pure Christian professor and whosoever questions or examines the truth of them is to be look'd on as a carnal Gospeller whose arguments though never so unanswerable are to be resisted as so many temptations and many of these in their own nature over and above this Pharisaical opinion of the sanctitie of them very apt to intermit our watch to slacken our diligence to give a Supersedeas to industrie it would be most evident that the Solifidian's perswasions doe most directly and immediately resist God's principal design in revealing his truths obstruct the superstructure of Christian life on this Foundation § 11. But I shall not inlarge on the mention of these any farther then they are likely to fall under some other head of this insuing discourse Mean while it is worth remembring what Epiphanius observes of the Primitive times that wickedness was the only heresie that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 impious and pious living divided the whole Christian world into Erroneous and Orthodox by which we are advertised how farre we are from performing the engagements of our Christianity if we insist so passionately or so intently on the truth of our beliefs as not to proceed to as vigorous a pursuit of
all just sober and godly living to a strict uniform Regulation of our practise according to the obligations of our most holy Faith CHAP. XIII Of the Fiduciarie § 1. THE second obstructive which I shall mention is that of the Fiduciarie that having resolved Faith to be the only instrument of his justification and excluded good works from contributing any thing toward it proceeds to define his Faith to be a full perswasion that the promises of Christ belong to him or an assurance of his particular election Which he that doth and seriously believes himself to conclude aright that he is a true believer or that the only thing which he is obliged to acquire and arrive to is this kinde of full assurance as it excludes all fear or doubting of his estate and yet farther asserts as many doe the prioritie of it in order of time before repentance and so obliges himself to be sure of his election and salvation before he repents or amends his life is fortified and secured by this one deceipt from all obligation that Christian religion can lay upon him to superstruct Christian practise or holy living upon his Faith § 2. For 1. if assurance of his good estate be the one necessary then it is evident that good life which is a thing formally distinct from that assurance is not necessary 2. If his estate be already safe and if it be not then his believing it is the believing a lie and God's command to believe is a command to believe a lie and so one man is justified and saved meerly by giving credit to a falsitie and all others rejected and damned barely upon their not believing the like falsitie then it needs no assistance or supply from good life to make it a good estate or give him grounds to believe it such 3. If he be justified before he repents and amends his life then nothing can hinder the continuance of his justified estate in case he doe not repent at present nor intercept his salvation in case he doe never repent and this not onely by force of that maxime generally received by these Fiduciaries that he that is once justified can never be unjustified nothing can separate him from the favour of God or interscind his justified estate but without that auxiliarie by all rules of discourse and consequence for he that is this day in a good estate without repentance may be so to morrow by the same reason and so on to the last day and hour of his life Repentance will be no more necessary to the continuance then to the inchoation of his good estate § 3. Or if amendment and good life be affirmed necessary in order to the approving of his faith or justification either to himself or others though not to his justification it self 1. this cannot be reconciled with the Fiduciaries doctrine For his Faith being a full assurance includes that approbation of his justification to himself and so he that hath that already needs not good life to help him to it and for the approving it to others that is perfectly extrinsecal and unnecessary and impertinent to his justification either in the sight of God or in his own eyes for as God judgeth not as man judgeth so neither can man's disapproving of any man be a just reason to move him who believeth he sins and renounces the faith if he permit himself to doubt to admit any the least beginning of doubt of the goodness of his estate or truth of his justification And 2dly 't is God's justification God's pardon of sin the promise or hope of which hath sufficient power to perswade carnal men to forsake sin and enter the rules of Christian life and not the approbation of men § 4. 3dly In case the Fiduciarie were in the right as he must be supposed to think himself to be the men that did not believe him justified should be unrighteous judges passing a judgment contrary to God's judgment and why should the Fiduciarie that supposeth himself to be approved of God without Repentance take such pains to approve himself to man's judgment which the Apostle disclaims being judged by Rom. 8.33 § 5. 4thly How can it reasonably be said that good life is necessary to approve our justification or our Faith when good life is acknowledged to have nothing to doe in the matter of justification and when Faith is so defined as it hath no connotation of repentance or good life If Faith be a full perswasion of my being justified the only humane way for me to approve this to others i. e. to make others believe that I am thus perswaded is to testifie it by word or oath which is the one means agreed on betwixt men to make faith of the truth of any thing which no man knows but my self and if man were supposed to know it it would follow that I should not need means to induce that approbation § 6. The one other imaginable means of approving it to man were the testimonie of God either by voice from heaven or by some other like means of Revelation or by my doing miracles in God's name which might impresse some image of divine authority and veracity upon me And so still good life is not the proper means for that end of approving us to men especially if others believe what the Fiduciarie doth that Faith may be without good works and good works as farre as to the eye of man without Faith for that being granted it follows necessarily that one cannot prove or approve the other § 7. Thus did the Jew by saying and thinking that he had Abraham to his Father perswading himself of his particular irrespective election think it safe first and consequently prudent to run into all foul sins and no more to think himself obliged or concerned by John Baptist's or Christ's or his Apostles perswasions to bring forth fruits of amendment immediately before the judgments of God came out against that people then he had been all the time before Nor could his belief of God his expectation of another life allowed by the Pharisees his obscure belief in the Messiah promised the Law the Prophets the descent of God from heaven the raising Jesus from the dead prevail or gain in upon him as long as he continued to conceive these privileges of Abraham's sons to belong unto him § 8. And in like manner the Christian professor who hath imbibed this Fiduciarie doctrine and is confident of his present and unperishable right in the favour of God when he commits those sins against which the Gospel denounces that they which doe those things shall not inherit the kingdome of God he is if he acknowledge that part of the Gospel and retain the belief of his personal election necessitated to believe those acts when committed by him to cease to be those sins which they would be when another man committed them And then what necessity soever lies on
law and then predetermines the act of transgressing the disobedience the doing contrary to that law that first forbids eating of the tree of knowledge and then predetermins Adam's will to choose and eat what was forbidden is by his decree guilty of the commission of the act and by his law the cause of its being an obliquitie And indeed if the obliquitie which renders the act a sinful act be it self any thing it must necessarily follow that either God doth not predetermine all things or that he predetermines the obliquitie And regularity bearing the same proportion of relation to any act of duty as obliquitie doth to sin it cannot be imagined that the author of the sinful act should not be the author of the obliquitie as well as the author of the pious act is by the disputers acknowledged to be the author of the regularity of it § 33. The complaint of the Gods in Homer will best shut up this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O how unjustly mortal men accuse and charge the Gods saying that their evils are from them when the truth is that they by their own wretchless courses bring mischiefs upon themselves above which their fate or decree of the Gods can be deem'd to have brought upon them And accordingly it is one of the excellent lessons of the Pythagoreans in their golden verses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This thou must know that the evils that men fall under are brought upon them by their own choises On which even Chrysippus the Stoick and great asserter of fate hath thus commented 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Evils or mischiefs come to every man from himself it being certain that by their own incitation they both sin and suffer and that according to their own minde and purpose This being so farre distant from the doctrine of fatality it may well be wondred how Chrysippus that asserted that under the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the chain and the decree and defined it saith Gellius sempiterna quaedam indeclinabilis series rerum catena volvens semetipsa sese implicans per aeternos consequentiae ordines ex quibus apta connexáque est an eternal and unavoidable series and chain of things folding and involving it self within it self by eternal courses of consequence by which it is framed and connected Or in his own dialect that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a natural complication of all things from all eternal one thing following another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that complication being such as cannot be changed could believe himself or reconcile this comment or that verse with his great principles And indeed Cicero hath past a right sentence of it Chrysippus astuans laboránsque quonam pacto explicet fato fieri omnia esse aliquid in nobis intricatur Chrysippus contending and labouring how to reconcile these two propositions that all things are done by fate and yet that something is in our own power is intangled and cannot extricate himself This Master of the Stoicks was prest saith Gellius with these inconvenient consequences of his doctrine of decrees that then the sins of men were not to be charged on their wills but to be imputed to a necessity and pressing which arose from fate that it must be unjust to make laws for the punishing of offenders To which he had nothing to say but this that though if you look upon the first cause all is thus fatally decreed and chain'd yet the dispositions of each man's minde are only so farre subject to fate as is agreeable to their own properties and qualities as saith he when a man tumbles a cylindre or roller down an hill 't is certain that the man is the violent enforcer of the first motion of it but when it is once a tumbling the quality and propriety of the thing it self continues and consummates it In this witty resemblance of that Stoick these three things must be consider'd First that the Cylindre the instance that he thought fit to pitch on is an inanimate livelesse trunk which hath nothing of choise or will in it Secondly that neither the weight of the matter of which 't is made nor the round voluble form of it which two meeting with a precipice or steep declivity doe necessarily continue the motion of it are any more imputable to that dead choisless creature then the first motion of it was supposed to be and therefore thirdly that this cannot be a fit resemblance to shew the reconcileableness of fate with choise or the reasonableness of charging on mens wills what was inevitably produced by their fate or of punishing them for those acts which they are necessarily driven to commit To which purpose it may be remembred that neither is the Cylindre charged with sin whether by God or men nor any punitive law enacted by either against its rolling down the hill nor indeed are such charges or such laws ever brought in or enacted against any actions of any other creature plant or beast till you ascend to man who is supposed to have a will and not to be under such inevitable fatal laws but to be as that excellent man Pomponius Atticus was wont to say the forger of his own fate the framer of his fortune which yet should be as improper to be applied to or affirm'd of a man as of any other creature if all his actions were as irreversibly predetermined as the descent of heavy bodies or the ascending of light i. e. if Chrysippus's Cylindre and the motion thereof were a commodious instance or resemblance of this matter But the truth is the man was acute and dextrous could say as much for the reconciling of contradictions as another and though this last age hath considered this question very diligently and had the advantages of the writings of the former ages to assist them yet he that shall impartially make the comparison will finde that the antient Philosophers have written more subtilely in this matter and are more worth out reading then any of our modern Schools he that shall survey Hierocles on the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ammonius on Aristotles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in shewing the nature of contingent and necessary propositions the Christian Philosopher Boethius lib. 2. de consolatione philosophiae will I believe be convinced of the truth of what I say and when the Master of them Chrysippus was so unable to speak intelligible sense or extricate himself in this business 't will be lesse matter of wonder to us that they which have espoused this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should endevour as improsperously to reconcile this with other notions of piety and to extricate themselves out of a Labyrinth not of fewer but more difficulties God having most clearly revealed to Christian that as he rewardeth every man according to his works so he requireth of him according to what he hath in