Duty 4. Things to be believed or matter of Faith As for the Historical part of that Book how hath it bidden defiance to Time to discover any just Exception Nay even the Enemies of Truth have own'd and confirm'd the matters of Fact therein contained And many profane Writers who either knew not of or have not rightly acknowledged the Scriptures have nevertheless inserted into their own Stories the same things therein contained as is well known and hath been oft observed by those that look into Books And though the Divine History bears such Authority and Majesty in its Style that it needs not the Confirmation of Prophane ones yet the Testimony of Adversaries against themselves is always considerable And hath not much of the Prophetick part been verified to the amazement of all those that duly consider it How many and how punctually were the Prophesies concerning our Redemption by Christ How plain was that concerning the Type thereof namely Israels deliverance from Egyptian Slavery Gen. 15. verse 13 14. and yet how wonderfully fulfill'd many hundreds of Years after they were fore-told But I am not at leisure to enlarge upon these things many Learned Men have done it more especially the incomparable Sir Charles Wolseley And then for the Preceptive part containing Rules of Life and Manners it is so Rooted in the Nature of things so obvious to Sense so agreeable to Reason so beneficial to the World and so confirmed by the Experience of all Men whose Faculties are not depraved That Heaven and Earth shall pass away before one jot or tittle thereof shall fail or be found deficient Lastly The Divine Mysteries therein revealed as the Doctrine of the Trinity the Incarnation of the Blessed Jesus c. though they are above our Capacity to explain the Nature of them yet are they so suitable to Gods Goodness and do make such a Harmony of Divine Attributes that Reason it self will rather from thence infer the truth of their being than that they cannot be because we understand not the manner how they are How could God be Just if Justice were not satisfied And could be Merciful if all Men were to be damned How could lost Man Redeem himself Or how could he be saved if he should suffer for himself But now in the Person of our Blessed Redeemer the Law is satisfied Justice is done and even thereby Mercy doth the more eminently appear God is glorified and Man is not left to perish in his iniquity If a Man will be so morose as to urge that Three in one Eternal Generations a Virgins Conception and the like sound so harsh to Humane understanding that they cannot be true He may after the same rate conclude that there is no such thing as Humane Generation since the Nature and process thereof is very obscurely if at all understood That there are no Souls because it is not yet agreed whether they are immediately Created of God or they are Ex traduce or Pre-existent No such thing as Milk in a Womans Breast since Anatomists are confounded with difficulties to find what Matter it is made of or by what secret Chanels conveyed thither In so much that one very Learned Writer in that Faculty flies to the force of Imagination to produce it No such thing as Quantity because no Man ever yet could demonstrate unexceptionably whether it be infinitely divisible or ultimately resolvable into indivisibles No Bodies in the World since no Man knows what kind of Original Particles they are made of These and many things more as to the manner how they are have difficulties attending them which are insuperable and incomprehensible And methinks it is somewhat hard that we should do things our selves and see many things before our Eyes of which we can give no tolerable account and should yet think that God cannot do somewhat more than we can apprehend and should be so inclinable to reject even God himself his Word and all his Works of Wonder if they will not accommodate themselves to our little understandings From these considerations and many more that will occur to any impartial thinking Man it doth appear beyond all possibility of doubting that the Scripture is most certainly true and if so it must be the Word of God for it testifieth of it self that it is given by Divine Inspiration Never did any Book contain so much Wisdom Kindness and Usefulness to the Sons of Men as it doth Summ up the whole World together except the Bible and what is taken out of it and the Total will neither afford you half so many Excellent Rules and Observations for the government of Mens Lives nor one thousand part of that clear discovery of Divine Truth which that Book contains Shall we now say that this Book is a Forgery a Cheat and Imposture of the Devil For so it must be if it be not the Word of God And what follows Why that a Corrupt Tree brings forth good Fruit and that most pure and wholsome Streams proceed from a putrid Fountain That truth is falshood that good is evil and that light is darkness He that denies the Scriptures to be the Word of God must quit his Sense his Reason and his Conscience that he may admit of these Conclusions To which it may be added That all the malicious and cunning Adversaries of God and true Religion all the Pagans Popes and Hellish Apostates all the Devils themselves and their incarnate Brethren the Jesuits with all their Subtilty and Contrivance have not been able to destroy nor discredit that Book No nor to Corrupt it neither in any such degree but that still there remains good Copies thereof in several Languages And though there may be deficiency and Humane frailty in some Readings and Versions as to some particular words yet is not that any blemish unto or diminution of the Beauty and Excellency of the whole but may rather teach us to value it the more For since neither the failings of some nor the fraud of others hath availed in Sixteen hundred years to do any substantial dammage to that Book it is a convincing Argument that Divine Providence hath been engaged for it's preservation If it should be here objected That since there are so many various Readings of the Scriptures it may be doubtful which of them is the best I readily grant it but then there can be no doubt but that every one of them for the main Substance of it is the Word of God Let us suppose Religio Medici to be turned into several Laguages there may be divers faults in every one of them as is observed to be in the Latine Copy and some of them very gross ones But will any body from thence infer that Sir Tho. Brown is not the Author For though indeed he is not the Author of those Errors wherein the true Sense of some particular Words is mistaken Yet since they are not such nor so many as to evacuate the design and scope of the Book
A Short and Plain ANSWER TO TWO QUESTIONS I. Where was your Religion before Luther II. How know you the Scriptures to be the Word of God By a Protestant LONDON Printed by T. N. for Jonathan Hutchinson Bookseller in the City of Durham 1682. SIR I Have received your Letter wherein you seem to be at a loss for a ready and pertinent Answer to Two capping Questions by which the Papists are wont to puzle and confound those silly Souls whom they compass Sea and Land to make Proselites I know you are well satisfied that Popery is a grand Cheat upheld by fraud and violence and hath nothing truly Rational to Recommend it But yet sometimes a Man of honesty and good Principles may be at a stand to render a satisfying Reason of his Belief and to obviate the cunning Craftiness of those who lie in wait to deceive I suppose moreover you cannot expect any thing from me but what hath been said before and what is infinitely better perform'd in some hundreds of Printed Books already extant than any Scribling of mine will ever amount unto But yet since Men oftimes make most use of those Reasons which arise in their own Minds by thinking and Meditation I shall for my own satisfaction rather than for yours note down as briefly and plainly as I can such Answers to those two Questions you mention as shall at present occur to my Thoughts which nevertheless I shall communicate to you if perhaps they may be worth your Acceptance The first is Where was your Religion before Luther To this the Answer will be very short and easie but then it will cast the whole stress of the Business upon the later Question I say then That our Religion as to the Rules and Principles of it was before Luther where it hath been ever since in the Scriptures And as to the Profession of it it hath been own'd and maintain'd by the Faithful in all Ages namely such as have been kept by the Power of God through Faith unto Salvation against whom the Gates of Hell and Rome have not been able to prevail The Protestant Religion we contend for is nothing else but Christianity uncorrupted which was in its greatest purity before ever the Pope was heard of in the World And Popery that we oppose is Christianity adulterated or rather Paganism Christianized which was in the Cradle when the Mistery of Iniquity began to work and grew up to be the Man of Sin when Popes had gull'd the World into so much Slavery as to endure their trampling upon Princes And this truth as it appears in great measure from the Fathers and Historians of the Church and from all Antiquity that hath had the good fortune to escape the Expurgatory Index so it is more especially and most evidently manifest from the Scriptures which makes way for the second Question which is the main Subject of this Epistle namely How know you the Scriptures to be the Word of God With this Question chiefly they think to undo the simpler sort of Hereticks as they are pleased to speak and 't is not impossible but some weak and unsteady Minds may be shaken by it For since we never heard God vocally pronounce it nor ever saw him deliver it unto the World as his Act and Deed they would have us so easie and credulous as to believe that there is no way to be assured of its being his Word but upon the Authority of the Church and that no Church but theirs can have that Authority But this Plea is as far from satisfying an inquisitive Mind as my Arguments are like to be from convincing our Adversaries Now if any unlearned well meaning Person shall happen to be attackt by this or any such like Question and shall doubt of his own ability to repel the Sophistry whereby they are wont to manage their needy Cause I should advise him to deal with them as our Saviour sometime did with the captions and impertment Jews namely to answer their Question by asking another As Who gave you Authority to call in question the Scriptures How dare you insinuate doubts into any Christians mind concerning the Truth and Authority of that Book which is the Rule of our Duty both to God and Man Away with these too curious Questions of which a Fool may ask more than a Wise Man can tell how to answer It argues a desperate Cause and a Religion highly suspicious that cannot be maintain'd otherwise than by such Pleas as tend to make Men Atheists But though it be safe and prudent for some People to put them off in this manner yet without any tergiversation I shall address my self to answer directly so soon as I have propounded a Query or two which I think will tend to introduce an Answer to this grand Question of theirs I demand therefore of our Adversaries How they know that the Sun shines or that there are any Bodies in the World Why may not all the Objects we discern about us be certain Phantasms only or Apparitions of the Brain which have no real Existence in Nature Or how come we to be assured that our whole Life is any more than a Dream For since in our Dreams we verily believe the truth and reality of such things as we laugh at when we are awake Why may we not hereafter awake into another State of Life in which we shall conclude our Life past to have been a meer shadow If they will answer these Enquiries according to the Nature of their own Principles then all the proof we are to expect is only this We have heard many People say this and tother Or Thus we have been taught by our Parents or by our Tutors and Governours and we believe them and trouble our selves no further In this manner they would have us to speak in the Case of the Scriptures They will not allow us to expect or to endeavour any Rational satisfaction in the point it is enough if we can but gape so wide as to swallow that Trojan Horse of Papal Authority But verily we are not yet perswaded to make our selves Brutes for the Catholick Cause that is we are unwilling to lay aside our own Senses and Humane Faculties to commit the whole Reason and Conduct of our Lives to he said and she said And surely he that should pretend to dispute and yet so palpably beg the Question would gain to be laught at instead of a Conclusion Upon supposition therefore that they would be a little more Philosophical and Gentile in answering my Questions in case they were propounded to them I will endeavour the like according to my small skill in answer to theirs And that I may deal as civilly as I can I shall insist particularly upon none but the first between which and this Question of theirs I will run a Parallel and attempt to shew that by the same Arguments they will prove that the Sun gives Light I will prove the Scriptures to be the
oftimes Canonized for the greatest Saints One would be apt to suspect they Worship no other Deity but the Pope and that whilst they pronounce his Holiness the secret Reservation may be his Wickedness I have heard indeed of a Pope that made this Question unless perhaps it were spoken by way of Exclamation Quantum lucri ista fabula de Christo nobis peperit And this seems to be the proper language of that Church For if they did believe the New Testament to be ought but a Fable they could not allow those Doctrines and Practices that are every where visible amongst them For I reckon that imposing upon the Conscience things unrevealed and beyond all possibility of belief upon no less penalty than the Inquisition here and Damnation hereafter is the very next door to Infidelity and Atheism How can he be said to believe the Truth that would force another to believe a Lie So that whilst our Adversaries would seem to question the grounds upon which we assent unto the Scriptures it 's more than probable they themselves do not believe them at all I nothing doubt for all that but there are within the Romish Church thousands of pious and devout Souls whose Education and other unhappy Circumstances God will in great Mercy consider and though under gross Error and much Ignorance will bring them through the power of his Grace unto Salvation If their Foundation be upon the Rock though they have built thereon Hay and Stubble they may indeed suffer loss but shall escape utter Ruine I think too there are amongst them some Learned Men as the Jansenists and perhaps some others whose Lives and Principles are far better than the rest and who by an odd kind of fatality preserve their Station in that Church These if they pursue their own Rules and Practice according to what they Write shall not I hope smart with the rest when God comes to visit their iniquity But as for those designing Men whose business it is to prie into the Cabinets of Princes and to influence the Affairs of Kingdoms for the advantage of the Catholick Cause who though Priests affect to be Ministers of State not of Jesus Christ whose Kingdom is not of this World they whose Gospel is Fire and Sword and their glad tidings of Salvation some Bloody Massacre whose Faith is in the Pope and whose Heaven it is to be Courted and Canoniz'd by a Scarlet Whore I look upon these to be a Generation of the vilest Wretches that ever the Earth bore and in a far worse condition than Turks or Pagans And yet these are the Men that would have me receive the Scriptures upon their Credit who are the great Shame and Discredit of that Holy Christian Religion contained therein and whose Lives are one entire contradiction thereunto I suppose it will not be denied that had we no inspired Writings at all to direct us there were nevertheless many reasons to believe the Being of God Scarce any People under Heaven so brutish as not to have some impressions of a Deity Scarce any Person in the World so profligate as not to have some checks of Conscience Besides what Arguments may be drawn from the Beauty of Providence and Harmony of the Creation Now the very Notion of a God includeth Goodness and the Notion of Goodness supposeth a God One is the Stream the other is a Fountain Let any Man trie how he can phansie the Stream that should proceed from no Original Fountain at all It is not imaginable sure that any Creature should be in the World or that good things should be bestow'd upon any Creature but they must proceed from some Original and that can be nothing else but God blessed for ever From whence I argue thus If the invisible things of him from the Creation be clearly seen being understood by the things that are made much more may the visible Characters of Divine Goodness every where evident in the Scriptures be clearly concluded to be from God Will any man object and say Where are those visible Characters of Divine Goodness contained in the Scriptures Many People cannot see them True indeed and there are some too that cannot see the Sun but then they are blind and cannot see any thing at all The Sun illuminates the material visible World and the Scripture gives us a prospect of a Spiritual World and lets us see things Divine but then we must have Eyes and if we complain of darkness in the Meridian light where 's the fault Now if any Man will say he can see no marks nor footsteps of Divine Goodness in the Scriptures I would ask him whether health and vigour of body whether easiness and pleasure of Mind are good things or not And whether he would choose to lie upon a Rack or a Bed of Roses Or suppose a Man by his own default and wilfulness in going astray be fallen into a Pit where he is certain either to be stung with Vermine or to die by wild Beasts or famish to Death Would he not account it a kindness not only to be delivered from the present danger but conducted throughout the remainder of his journey in such a way as is both safe and easie If he answer in the Affirmative he yields the Cause if he deny he must be a Mad Man past all sense of understanding of good or evil Now if I pursue our Adversaries to the Gates of Bedlam they must excuse me if I there bid farewell and follow them no further The summ is this That which teacheth us the best way imaginable to preserve health in our Bodies and peace in our Souls to live comfortably at Home and profitably to our Neighbours to Honour our Creator and know our selves to avoid Misery and attain Happiness must needs be an excellent Rule very much for our good and must proceed from the true Fountain of all Goodness But such is the Scripture therefore it is the Word of God Thus far I have considered the Scripture in reference chiefly to its Utility Let us now observe it a little with respect to its Verity For sometimes it happens that a thing may be useful which yet is not exactly true As for Example Decimal Arithmetick resolves a Question speedily but not altogether exactly yet it will come so near the truth as not to miss the 10000th part of a Farthing And a Clock will follow the Motion of the Sun for a weeks time with the Errour only of some few Minutes but neither the one nor the other in strictness of speech can be said to be true though both are very useful But now if the Scriptures appear to be both useful in the highest degree and infallibly true it must needs speak the very great Perfection of those Sacred Writings They may be distinguished into four parts according as they contain 1. Things related or matter of History 2. Things fore-told or matter of Prophesie 3. Things to be done as matter of Action or