The exemplary justification of Abraham by faith is written in the old Testament for our sakes Rom 4.23 24. Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we believe in him that raysed up Jesus our Lord from the dead The examples of the old Testament are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come 1 Cor 10.11 Not now to labour further in the proof hereof by an induction of particulars the usefulness of the old Testament to those that live under the New we haue asserted once for all and that concerning all that part of Sacred writt Rom 15.4 For whatsoever things were written afore time were written for our learning that wee through patience and comfort of the Scripture might have hope John 5.39 The Jewes in the time of Christ are Commanded to search the Scripture which necessarily proceeds of the Scriptures of the old Testament the new as then not being extant After the time of Christ we hear the Testimony of the new Testament concernning the profitableness of the Old 2 Tim 3.16 17. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good workes Understand this as spoken of the holy Scriptures known by Timothy of a child which must necessarily be the Old Testament CHAP. 2. Of the Signal Nature of the Quakers and other false Teachers arising and prevailing among the people of God AS the Soveraigne Lord and onely wise God is both the disposer and interpreter So hath he given unto his servants to be discerners of the times The Scriptures held forth many occurrents of providence Significative of the state of religion of the respective condition of the profession thereof as also of Gods more remarkable administration unto his people whether with relation unto his Predictions permissive or comminatory or both Hence we read of signes of the times Mat 16.3 Of good times in the place cited Of evill times Mat 24.33 This trueth the Psalmist mentions as of acknowledg'd notable moment in Israel Psal 74.9 We see not our signes The not discerning herof as it is a matter of blame but how is it ye discern not this time Luke 12.56 So in the discerning thereof is a matter of praise And the Children of Issachar which were men which had understanding of the time to know what Jsrael ought to do The heads of them were two hundred and all their brethren were at their Commandement 1. Chron. 12.32 Consortative unto the good awing unto the bad was that seasonable word of an Ancient who when terror had surprised the hearts of thousands by reason of that fearfull earth-quake which in Julians time threw up the very foundation of the temple then about to be reedified by the Apostate-Emperour told them that this amazing strange accident to them was but the accomplishment of that prophecie Verily I say unto you there shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down Full of presence of Spirit in a time of Calamity was that speech where with Lupus a Bâ—shop is reported to have greeted the enemy Attilas then depopulating laying wast his countrey I rejoyce saith he that you are come safe whom I judge to be the scourge of the Lord of my God sent to chastise his people The good man howsoever others hearts might faile under their fears both of present â—â—â—e of everlasting burnings looking at the King of the Hunnes not as a weapon of destruction according to his own desire but as a rod of correction in the hand of God and choosing affliction rather then iniquity gathers meat out of the eater False Teachers and false Prophets are signal i. e they are signes that the time is come when God will inflict vindicative spiritual-justice upon the non-receivers of the Trueth in the love of it They are executioners of spiritual justice punishing the non-reception of the trueth with deception by their lyes They are instrumental executioners of Justice to punish the non-reception of the trueth dispensed by the Ministers of Christ with deception by and reception of a ly disseminated by the ministers of Satan This solemn and by reason to the iniquity of the times both awfull and seasonable trueth the Reader is desired the rather to attend the proof of Aâ—aâ— besides other sinners laden with the guilt of the escape of a blasphemous Syrian rejects the trueth in the mouth of Micaiah the Lords Prophet diswading him from going against Ramoth-Gilead This God visited by giving him up to believe a ly in the mouth of the false Prophets commissioned to perswade him to go to Ramoth-Gilead unto his destruction 1 Kings 22.19 -23. I am come in my Fathers name and ye receive me not if another shall come in his own name him ye will receive John 5.43 The awfull trueth contained in this text will be the better seen by resolving it into four propositions 1. Christ came unto sinners i. e. tendered himself to them according to the Covenant of grace and that according to the appointment of the Father an external unparallelled mercy But last of all he sent unto them his Son saying surely they will reverence my Son 2. They received not the Son though sent unto them in the Fathers name As the Gospell is the great command so the rejection of the Gospel is the great sin If I had not come and spoken unto them they had not had sinn but now they have no cloak for their sin John 15.22 3. Upon the rejecting of the Doctrine of the great Teacher there are teachers supposed to come in their own name A famine of the word of trueth is a sore judgment Amos 8.11 But these teachers are worse then no teachers Accursed ominous 4. That those who received not Christ comming in his Fathers name will receive teachers comming in their own name No better Teacher no such teacher no other teacher then he was whom they refused Scarce any if any worse teachers then those whom they received T is not so ready to say whether their unbelief or belief was more dreadfull Wofull is their condition when the teacher is accursed Gal. 1.9 and the hearer bewitched Gal. 3.1 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusions that they shall believe a ly that they all might be damned who believed not the trueth but had pleasure in unrighteousness 2 Thes 2.11 12. See here the non receivers of the trueth in the love of it punished both with a penal and effectual mission of deceivers That this tremendous dispensation may have the deeper impression upon our hearts we find the Vindictive hand of God upon the contempt of the Gospel mentioned thrice in one chapter and that also sometime as a forerunner of the
destruction of a nation Mat 24.5 For many shall come in my name saying I am Christ False teachers shall come and lest any should think their comming notwithstanding happily they shall not prevail it is added and shall deceive many Again verse 11. Many false prophets shall arise Forget not again what followeth and shall deceive many So verse 24. For there shall arise false Christs and false Prophets and shall shew great signes wonders in so much that if it were possible they should deceive the very Elect. Hereunto if with some learned interpreters we understand by the end mentioned Mat 24. that famous period destruction of the Nation of the Jewes we may not unaptly annex that of the Apostle 1 John 2.18 in the judgment of some as attesting unto Mat 24.3 6 33 34 Namely that these grand-deceivers were fore-runners of the then ensuing misery of that nation Little children it is the last time as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come even now there are many Antichrists whereby we know that it is the last time The summ is that the doctrines of Devils audaciously disseminated by numerous false teachers pretending themselves to be immediately sent of God are SIGNAL or are signes of evill times in four respects i. e. They signifie four things 1. Greater light then Ordinary foregoing 2. The non-reception of that light by many in the love of it 3. The Judicial giving up of many non-recivers of the Trueth in the love of it to believe their lyes 4. Sometimes at least also a National Calamity impending when the prementioned iniquities are in Conjunction with other crying sinns without Repentance Sinning against the Gospel is very sinfull The Gospel is a constitution or effect tempered of the Grace of God and the blood of Christ ingredients neither of which are to be found in the Law So much as the Gospel excelleth the Law so much is sinning against the Gospel aggravated compared with sinning against the Law Sinning against the Gospel is yet heightned by circumstances that it is given to us after the transgression of the Law Given to some transgressors and not unto others Of them to whom it is given dispensed with greater light to some then to others What Nation gloryed in these priviledges above our own our selves being witnesses From the kind of sinning If the non-reception of the trueth in the love of it exposeth unto this vindictive deception according to what dreadfull degree shall they be counted obnoxious who persevere in scandals under the light Count it pleasure to riot in the day time yea fear not to commit that abomination in Israel of turning the grace of God into wantonness From the doctrine of free grace drawing a licence to sin to take their fill of lust and that without the guilt of sin without the conscience of sin yea with a pretended conscience of obedience In a word to feast the old man unto the highest with the blood of Jesus and compleat the mystery of iniquity by the mystery of the Gospel As the non-reception of the trueth of the Gospel is a fearfull sin so the fruit thereof is a fearfull evill Their unbelief is fearfull their belief is fearfull Vnbelief of the trueth is iniquity Belief of a ly is both iniquity folly The trueth they unbelieve is a trueth of the greatest wisdom The ly which they believe is an object of the greatest vanity To believe the trueth is a great mercy 1 Cor. 7.25 At one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithfull To believe a destructively is a great judgment 2 Thes 2.11 12. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusions that they should believe a ly that they all might be damned who believed not the truth Not to believe Christ is to make him an Impostor remarkable is divine justice that the issue of such unbelief should be the believing of Impostors So legible is divine justice in that they who forsake the way of salvation should choose the way of damnation that the folly of that wisdom may be manifest whose wisdom is to disacknowledg the Wisdom of God and that the glory of that wisdom may be ever adored the contempt wherof delivereth the contemners unto such finall folly These lying Spirits with other like Pests howsoever inconsiderable despicable looked at as in themselves yet if looked at as messengers of Divine wrath witnesses of guilt and impenitence instruments of penalty and commissionated to do effectual execution they are now represented under a formidable aspect and become objects of great terrour God can plague Egypt with lice and make locusts wormes grashoppers a matter of horror unto Judah though there remained but wounded men amongst the Caldeans yet should they rise up every man in his tent burne this Citty with fire Alas t is sin that armes justice and disarmes the sinner When there is a concurrence of delinquency and authority the meanness of the executioner aggravates not extenuates the anguish of the malefactor What more formidable then a penall and vindictive-permission of a delusion-destructive Upon Gods willing the permission of sin sin falleth out infallibly Upon this antecedent Adam when all mankind was conteined in that one man yet in innocency is deceived sinneth away not only the Image of God from his posterity but also sinneth mankind into the guilt of eternal death The woman which thou gavest to be with me gave mee of the tree and I did eat Upon a permission penal-corrective Peter falleth as shamefully before the temptation of a poor maid as he engaged confidently No merveil then if upon a permission penal-vindictive foregoing we read and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him i. e. the Beast whose names are not written in the book of the life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world And that Christ warneth us of the perill thereof as such which threatens to deceive if it were possible the very Elect. The strength of false prophecy lay not in the argument of the speaker but in the affection of the hearer My people love to have it so Jer. 5.32 The conjunction of a Judicial dispensation with a pleasing error an itching ear presents a sufficient reason why men otherwise rational are intoxicated with doctrines most irreligious irrational Why the success of false teachers at times hath been such as hath exceeded their own expectation Hence was the ground of that old saying of the Monk insulting over the peoples credulity Si mundus vult decipi decipiatur If the world will be deceived let it be deceived When the Duke of Saxony affected with Muncer's crying out under the severity of his tortures said unto him truely Muncer you indure at present but think also upon the ruine of so many poor people which at this day by occasion of your seduction are slain He answered after a laughing manner they would so have it Whether it were more wickedly done
may be an heretick who is neither dogmatist schismatick or seditious neither teaching his errours as truthes nor causing irregular separation from Church-Cōmunion nor sowing seeds of discord or mutiny in the Common-wealth By Quiet heresy or heresy alone understand heresy although uttered and not retracted yet without endeavour either directly or indirectly tending to induce others to receive their errours As also without disturbance of publick order either ecclesiastical or Civil This divers godly-learned do not only exempt from the number of Capitals but also seeme Cautious if not silent concerning subjecting it to any Corporal punishment By Heresy Turbulent understand heresy both uncured and incorrigible i. e. in Coniunction either with Teaching lyes in the name of the Lord. Or with disturbance of publick-order whether Ecclesiastical or Civil This is not only heretical but also pestilential and here is a season wherein it is the duety of the Civil-Magistrate to put forth his Coercive power as the matter shall require in the defence of Religion Order Church common-wealth So farr is our doctrine from asserting subiection of the Conscience to the Coercive power of the Magistrate as that we look at it as irrational to extend his power unto the error of Conscience as such We subiect not the bare proposal owning of heresie if cured as obnoxious unto Civil authority We affirm not that it belongs to the Magistrate to inflict any punishment for quiet heresie We affirm not quiet heresie to fall within the necessary obiect of Magistratical Cognisance but leave it unto free disquisition We know that it belongeth not unto the Magistrate to compel any man to be a believer nor to punish any for not being a believer But we believe it belongs to him in case to punish a Blasphemer or turbulent hereticks who seeth not a wide difference between these Wee through grace abhorre prejudicing the liberty of Conscience in the least measure and account such report of us to be a slander And through the same grace Wee both dread and beare witness against liberty of heresy liberty to Blaspheme the Blessed Trinity the Person and Office of Christ the holy-Scripture the tabernacle of God and those that dwell in heaven Howsoever fallaciously transformed into mis-represented under the plausible vizard of liberty of conscience falsly so called We say Religion is to be perswaded with Scripture-reasons not Civil weapons with Arguments not with punishments But Blasphemies immediate and heresies carried on with an high hand and persisted in are to be suppressed with weapons punishments where reasons arguments cannot prevail We distinguish between Heresie Quiet and alone Turbulent i. e. Incorigible accompanied with soliciting the people to apostacy from the Faith of Christ to defection from the Churches to Sedition in the Common-wealth And that after due meanes of conviction and Authoritative Prohibition We subject not any to Civil or Corporal punishment for heresie if quiet and alone We do not inflict any Church-censure in case of heresie without doctrinal conviction on the Churches part and contumacy on the delinquents part foregoing In case of Heresie incorrigible in conjunction with endeavours to seduce others thereunto and tending to the disturbing of Publick-order we accknowledg it to be the pious wisdom of the Magistrate to proceed gradually and where gentler meanes may rationally be looked at as effectual there to abstain from the use of any severer remedie And according to this method hath been the gradual proceeding of the Magistrate here with those hitherto incorrigible Quakers who from England have unreasonably and insolently obtruded themselves upon us 1. Instructing them 2. Restraining them untill an opportunity of their returne 3. Publishing a law to warne and prohibite both them and all others of their sect from cōming into this Iurisdiction otherwise to expect the house of Correction And in case they returned yet again then to loose one of their eares c. At last upon experience of their bold contempt of these inferior restraints that after their being sent away againe again they continue to returne yet again and again to the seducing of diverse the disturbance vexation hazard of the whole Colonie The Court finding the Law passed to be an insufficient fence against these persons proceeded to a Sentence of Banishment Their restraint before the Law published was but restraint in the Prison until an opportunity of shipping them away They who after the Law was published would that notwithstanding break in upon us from England or other forraign parts by Rode-Island after their correction received and discharging their daes might return again to the Island if they pleased The wolfe which ventures over the wide Sea our of a ravening desire to prey upon the sheep when landed discovered taken hath no cause to complain though for the security of the flock he be penned up with that door opening unto the fold fast shut but having another door purposely left open whereby he may depart at his pleasure either returning from whence he came or otherwise quitting the place Their Sentence of Banishment as Circumstanced by an Impartial and equal eye may be looked upon as an Act which the court was forced unto Se defendend in defence of Religion themselves the Churche and this poor State and People from Ruine which the principles of confusion daylie and studiously disseminated by them threatned to bring all unto if not seasonably prevented Exile from a wildernes from a place of exile though voluntarie from a place confinement whereunto would indeed justly be counted exile is an easie exile Object If it be the trueth of God which is pleaded for it is below the trueth to stand in need of the defence of man God can defend the cause of Religion without his help Answ Whether this obiection savour more of Inchantment then an argument i. e. whether it be looked upon as a meer argument or doth not rather give cause to call to mind the witchcraft practised sometimes upon the Galatians is with the Reader whose senses are excercised in discerning good evill to consider That a malefactor especially such who chooseth sin rather then suffering pleadeth for impunity why should it seem strange But to attempt the representing of the application of the remedy of iniquity as iniquity Antichristianism persecution is indeed a device and that as empty of reason as full of transgression A piece of the sophistry of the Prince of darkness to charm that sword into a perpetual scabbard by a sallacie the dexterous vigorous use wherof puts away the evill committed from and for the time to come prevents the committing of evill in Israel But Christians especially Church-members should not be ignorant of his devices 2 Cor 2.11 The Jewes acted with a spirit of mockery hardned their hearts desperatly by putting the tryal of Christ upon a false discovery Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the Cross that we may see and believe Mark 15.32
The question is not concerning God's Power but concerning his Will God can preserve his Truth immediatly without any external meanes but his pleasure is ordinarily to doe it mediately Hence he surrounded the Arke according to divine Institution with a double fence both Ecclesiastical and Civil God can also save man immediately from evils committed against the second Table but hee ordinarily effects it by the helpe of the magistrate The injurie done unto the trueth hurteth man whose welfare depends upon the imbracing of it It hurts not God nor the Trueth in it self but only in the estimation of man As Satan is permitted to raise up men to be offendors so Christ raiseth up men to be defenders thereof to manifest that through Grace the Trueth hath even amongst men as great lovers as it hath haters When there was no Christian Magistrate God watched over the cause of Religion in an extraordinary manÌ„er The continuance of the gift of miracles together with the then recent fresh memory therof conducing not a little for that end But extraordinarie gifts ceasing and the Christian Magistrate succeeding God now expects the Civil power in an ordinary way of Providence to be subservient therunto God can bring up his sons daughters without making any use of Civil power but it hath pleased him to appoint Kings to be nursing Fathers and Queens to be nursing Mothers unto them They are but ill nurses who seing the danger of those committed to their trust so much as in them lyeth save not their nurse-lings from the poyson of the destroyer A late memorable testimony of Gods owning blessing Civil Authority in the defence of Religion who so consulteth History shall find in the many flourishing Citties and Churches with other places of name in upper Germany Helvetia lower Germany and else where Saved from the pestilence of the Heretical and blasphemous sectaryes of the last Centurie then destroying at noone-day with and not without the interposal of Civil-Authority and that not once nor twice but frequently by the very sentence of Banishment Lysander's counsel of old was when the lions skin will not hold out to piece it with a fox-skinne Why should it seeme strange that men speaking doctrines of devils and lies in hypocrisie having their Conscience seared with an hot iron and therefore past feelling of spiritual weapons object may that serve their turn against obnoxiousnes to Civill weapons of which they remain only sensible that so priviledged with impunity they may proceed in their madness without all restraint That ancient stratagem of destroyers otherwise often frustrated in their attempts to open their way unto their flock by endeavouring the removal of the keepers is famously notable from Demosthenes's recital of the folly of the sheep sometimes delivering up the doggs that kept them at the motion of the wolves Whereby he stayed the Athenians from delivering up their Orators unto Alexander upon his proposal out of whose hands they had been instrumental to save the City Should the People not of Athens but of Sion suffer themselves to be abused by heretical deceivers destroyers into a persuasion that whil'st it is Lawfull for them under a praetence to invade it is unlawfull for Civil power to defend Religion they would render themselves more like those sheep in the Fable then men of understanding in Israel not to make regular seasonable use of the meanes instituted blessed unto such an end in time of danger is to Tempt not to Trust God That God makes use of Civil power consequently of man is not from his need of him but his favour to him Not from defect of power but abundance of Goodness Notwithstanding God could save his people without the assistance of man and both could and did save them without Meroz yet curse yee Meroz said the Angel of the Lord curse ye bitterly the Inhabitants thereof because thy came not to the help of the Lord to the help of the Lord against the mighty Judg. 5.23 If Esther seeth her opportunity and that she is come to the Kingdom for such a time Good But if she altogether hold her peace God can cause enlargement and deliverance to arise to the Jewes from another place Albeit as the Heterodoxie of the Sectaries pre-mentioned in the last Centurie was universal corrupting the whole body of Religion so also Quakerism as to the substaÌ„ce therof their geniune offspring be in like manner a total heresie yet both because the former is legible in many Authors and the latter obvious from the penns and tongues of the present Dogmatists and because the scope of this discourse is chiefely practical the Reader may soon perceive way other errors omitted the principal heads of their doctrine are herein onely considered It remaineth that all orders persons amongst us respectively Sanctifie God according unto the prescript of Scripture and that at such a time in the regular excercise whereof wee may secure our selves of a greater blessing then the adversary threatens trouble Vnto former trials of our love unto the trueth by leaving of our countrey kinred and Fathers house and by the sufferings of this wilderness God in his wisdome now addeth this of trying us by false doctrine That this divine fatal season appointed for the revealing of the thoughts of many hearts through the judicial discovery of not a few who have had a name that they lived by their defection to heresie may amongst the rest of the Saints be also through Grace New-Englands manifestation to be approved That the evill example of the Apostacie of formerly fellow-professors may as sometimes the like did with the Apostles John 6. bring forth so much the more zealous luculent a confession of the Trueth As the enmity of opposers increaseth so the testimony of the witnesses increaseth Though the Beast blasphemeth the witnesses overcome Ye are of God little children and have overcome him because greater is hâ—e that is in you then he that is in the world 1 John 4.4 The Apostacie of Adam ends in the confession of Adam The apostacy of both reprobate Angels men ends in the confession of the Elect. The Apostacy from the Covenant of workes ends in the most Illustrious confession of the Covenant of Grace The greatest Apostacie in a farr greater confession The threatning example of the revolt of many disciples with that of Judas foreseen superadded notwithstanding Christ well knowing how to improve the apostacy of hypocrites unto the furtherance of his interest in the very height of the scandal put forth that question triumphantly not timerously Then said Jesus unto the Twelve will yee also goe away The Rule of doctrine discipline and order is the Center of Christianitie Sincere and grave spirits are like grave bodies they cannot rest out of their Center i e. the Rule Religion admitts of no eccentrick motions Doctrine and actions not according to Rule when quickened with erroneous zeal are but runÌ„ing so much the faster out of the way This people bought the trueth with Realities Countrey Relations Estates oportunities as to the things of this life were Realities should wee now sell it for that which is not Bread yea for Fanatick Frantick worse then sick ImaginatioÌ„s What advantage will it be to have departed from praelacie to ataxie From the Tradition of man unto delusions not onely contrarie to Scripture but also unworthie rational men Many momentous are the peculiar considerations whereby wee are engaged in our respective stations to own our profession stand in the regular and effectual defence of the trueth with perseverance unto the end in both It concerneth N. -E alwayes to remember that Originally they are a Plantation Religious not a plantation of Trade The profession of the purity of doctrine worship discipline is written upon her forehead A spot of this vast Jeshimon converted into Corn-fields Orchards streets inhabited and a place of Merchandize cannot denominate New-England All these notwithstanding if shee fall away from her profession call her Ichabod the Glory is departed In such case what was said of Samnium sometime a famous Citty in Italy viz that they could not find Samnium in Samnium will be verified concerning these Churches viz that N. -E is not to be found in N. -E God forbid that after N. -E hath now shined twenty years and more like a light upon an Hill it should at last go out in the snuff of Morellianism The converting of these and the like meditations into so many Nayles Goades is not the least part of the scope of this poor Script but the work of that one Shepheard in the effectual looking unto whom for wisdom faithfulness in such a season the welfare of his few â—heep in this wilderness doth in a great degree depend That wheresoever the Trueth lyeth in the points now controverted between the godly-Orthodox of the Presbiterian and Congregational way which the day will declare We may yet when we shall ly in dust leâ—ve this report to posterity that as we renounced the pollutioÌ„s under Episcopacie on the one hand So we kept far from the Tents of Morellianism Scepticism and confusion on the other hand And also that having given in our Testimonie against the Heterodoxies Heresies and Blasphemies of this Generation We both lived and dyed in the FAITH and ORDER of the Gospel Err. page 33 l. 17. Read Pastors Teachers are to continue c Pastors Teachers are Church-Offic erg FINIS