of Children in general and their inception of a new life so in special he seemeth to respect them as Disciples set Children to School and their business is to hear and learn all day They set not their wits against their Masters and do not wrangle and strive against him and say It is not so we know better than you But so abominably is humane nature corrupted by this Intellectual Pride that when once Lads are big enough to be from under a Tutor commonly instead of Learning of others they are of a teaching humour and had rather speak two hours than hear one And set their wits to contradict what they should learn and to conquer those that would instruct them and to shew themselves wiser than to learn to be more wise and we can scarce talk with Man or Woman but is the wisest in the Company and hardliest convinced of an errour But two things here I earnestly advise you 1. That you spend more time in Learning than in Disputing Not but that disputing in its season is necessary to defend the Truth But usually it engageth mens wits in an eager opposition against others and so against the truth which they should receive And it goeth more according to the ability of the disputants than the merits of the cause And he that is worsted is so galled at the disgrace that he hateth the truth the more for his sake that hath dishonoured him and therefore Paul speaketh so oft against such disputing and saith that the Servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle and apt to teach and in meekness instruct opposers I would ordinarily if any Man have a mind to wrangle with me tell him If you know more of these things than I if you will be my Teacher I shall thankfully hear and learn and desire him to open his Judgment to me in its fullest evidence And I would weigh it as the time and case required And if I were fully satisfied against it I would crave leave to tell him the reasons of my dissent and crave his patient audience to the end And when we well understood each others mind and reasons I would crave leave then to end in peace unless the safety of others required a dispute to defend the Truth 2. And my specially repeated counsel is that you suspend your judgment till you have cogent evidence to determine it Be no further of either side than you know they are in the right cast not your self into other mens opinions hastily upon slight reasons at a blind adventure If you see not a Certainty judge it not Certain If you see but a Probability judge it but Probable Prove all things and hold fast that which is good The Bereans are commended for searching the Scripture and seeing whether the things were so which Paul had spoken Truth feareth not the light It is like Gold that loseth nothing by the fire Darkness is its greatest Enemy and Dishonour Therefore look before you leap you are bid Believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they be of God. Stand still till you know that the ground is safe which you are to tread on When Poysoners are as Common as Physicians you will take heed what you take It 's safer when once you have the essentials of Christianity to take too little than too much For you are sure to be saved if you are meer true Christians but how far Popery Antinomianism c. may corrupt your Christianity is a controversie Wish them that urge you to forbear their haste in a matter of everlasting consequence These are not matters to be rashly done And as long as you are uncertain profess your selves uncertain and if they will condemn you for your ignorance when you are willing to know the truth so will not God. But when you are certain resolve in the strength of God and hold fast whatever it cost you even to the death and never fear being losers by God by his Truth or by Fidelity in your Duty PART II. Of true saving Knowledge I. Causing our Love to God. II. Thereby Qualifying us for his Love. 1 Cor. 8.3 But if any man Love God the same is known of him Chap. I. Knowledge is to be estimated more by the end it tendeth to than by it self HAving done with that Epidemical mortal disease SELF-CONCEITEDNESS or PREFIDENCE or overhasty judging and Pretending to know that which we know not which I more desire than hope to cure I have left but a little room for the nobler part of my Subject True saving Knowledge because the handling of it was not my principal design The meaning of the Text I gave you before The true Paraphrase of it is as followeth As if Paul had said You overvalue your barren notions and think that by them you are wise whereas Knowledge is a means to a higher end is to be esteemed of as it attaineth that end And that end is to make us Lovers of God that so we may be known with Love by him For to Love God and be beloved by him is mans felicity and ultimate end and therefore that which we must seek after and live for in the world and he is to be accounted the wisest man that loveth God most when unsanctified Notions Speculations will prove but folly This being the true meaning of the Text I shall briefly speak of it by parts as it containeth these several Doctrines or Propositions Doct. 1. Knowledge is a means to a higher end according to which it is to be estimated Doct. 2. The End of Knowledge is to make us Lovers of God and so to be known with Love by him Doct. 3. Therefore knowledge is to be valued sought and used as it tendeth to this holy blessed end Doct. 4. And therefore those are to be accounted the wisest or best-knowing men that Love God most and not those that are stored with unholy knowledge For the first of these that Knowledge is a means to a higher end I shall first open it and then prove it I. Aquinas and some other Schoolmen make the Vision or Knowledge of God to be the highest part of mans Felicity And I deny not but that the three faculties of mans Soul Vital Activity Intellect and Will as the Image of the Divine Trinity have a kind of inseparability and coequality And therefore each of their perfections and perfect Receptions from God and operations on God is the ultimate end of man But yet they are Distinguishable though not divisible and there is such an Order among them as that one may in some respects be called the Inceptor and another the Perfecter of humane operations and so the Acts of one be called a means to the Acts of the other And thus though the Vision or Knowledge of God be one inadequate conception if not a part of our ultimate end yet the Love of God and Living to God are also other conceptions or parts of it yea
and whether the Episcopi Gregis or eorum Praesides or true Evangelists or Apostolical General Bishops disarmed and duely chosen be any injury to the Church And whether the Jews had not been a National Christian Church under the Twelve Apostles and Seventy if they had not rejected him that would have gathered them as the Hen gathereth her Chickens under her Wings They that cannot deny that Christ setled a Superior Rank of Ministers appointing them besides their Extraordinaries the work of Gathering and Over-seeing many Churches promising therein to be with them to the end of the World and that only Matthias must make up the National number of such though Justus had been with Christ as well as he must be the Provers that this Rank and Imparity was reversed by him that did Institute it if they affirm it And not without proof charge Christ with seeming levity and mutability as setling a Form of Ministry and Government which he would have continue but one Age Much less must they impose such an unproved affirmation as the terms of Church Concord Woe woe woe how effectually hath Satan almost undone the Christian World by getting in naughty Ministers and Magistrates where he could not utterly Extirpate Christianity by Arms Thereby making Rulers and Preachers the Captains of the malignant Enemies of seriousness in that Religion which they Profess and Preach themselves And if in such Hypocrisie they Convert a Soul they hate him as an Enemy for believing them And thereby tempt Religious Men to mistake the Crime of the naughty Preacher as the fault of the Office and to oppose the Office for the Persons sake and so Ministry and Christianity is despised by too many The shutting of their Church Doors and condemning to Scorn and Beggery and Jails those that were as wise and faithful as themselves unless fearing heinous sin made them worse should have been by the Persecutors long and deeply thought on twenty eight years ago and ever since by them that believe that Christ will judge them And so should all Doctrines and Practices that tend to unwarrantable separations and divisions by others Things of this moment should not be ventured on nor Papists made both Lords and Executioners by our distracted Combates with each other and the miserable Nation and undone Church left to no better a remedy than a non putaremus and to hear the worldly Tyrants and the tempted Sufferers accusing each other and disputing when the House is burnt who was in the fault I think he was most faulty that could most easily have helped it and would not But if Great and Rich Men will be the strength of the Factious as they have most to lose they may be the greatest losers All this hath been said to tell you how nearly the Doctrine of this Book for necessary Doubting and a humble Understanding and for Christian Love and against pretended Knowledge and rash Judging doth concern the duty and safety of this Nation Church and State. My late Book of the English Nonconformity fully evinceth this and more but blinding Prejudice Worldliness and Faction give leave to few of the guilty to read it I rest your much obliged Servant Rich. Baxter July 31. 1689. TO THE READER Reader UPon the Review of this Book written long ago I find 1. That it is a Subject as necessary now as ever Experience telling us that the Disease is so far from being Cured that it is become our publick shame and danger and if the wonderful Mercy of God prevent it not is like to be the speedy confusion and ruine of the Land. 2. As to the manner of this writing I find the effects of the failing of my Memory in the oft repeating of the same things with little diversification But I will not for that cast it away considering 1. That perhaps oft repeating may make the matter the better remembered and if it do the work intended no matter though the Author be not applauded 2. And men may think justly that what is oft repeated dropt not from the Author inconsiderately nor is taken by him to be small and useless but is that digested Truth which he would most inculcate 3. And those who blame their weakness who accuse the Church Liturgy of too much repetition I suppose will not be much offended with it in our Writings while the dulness and forgetfulness of many Readers maketh it needful Aug. 3. 1689. Rich. Baxter THE CONTENTS The First Part. 1 Cor. 8.2 3. CHap. 1. The Text opened What Philosophy Paul depresseth and why Ch. 2. What Wisdom and Esteem of it are not here condemned Ch. 3. What Pretended Knowledge is condemned and what Learning or Philosophy it is which Paul disliked further opened with thirty Reasons Ch. 4. What are the Certainties which must be known and held fast and why where Certainty is distinctly described Ch. 5. Of the various Degrees of Certainty Ch. 6. What are the unknown things or Uncertainties which we must not pretend a certain Knowledge of even Scripture Truths Ch. 7. The first Inference The True Reason and Usefulness of the Christian simplicity in differencing the Covenant and the Principles of Religion from the rest of the holy Scriptures Ch. 8. Infer 2. Of the Use of Catechizing Ch. 9. Infer 3. The true Preservative of puzzled Christians from the Errours of false Teachers who draw them to their several Parties Ch. 10. Infer 4. What is the great Plague and Divider of the Christian World. Ch. 11. The common discoveries of Mens proud self-conceited understanding and of pretended Knowledge Ch. 12. Of the mischievous effects of this proud pretence of more Knowledge than men have Ch. 13. The Commodities of a suspended Judgment and humble understanding which pretendeth to no more Knowledge or Certainty than it hath Ch. 14. The Aggravations of the Sin of Prefidence Ch. 15. Special Aggravations of it in Students and Pastors Ch. 16. Twenty clear proofs of the little Knowledge that is in the World to move us to a due distrust of our understandings Ch. 17. Infer 5. It is not the dishonour but the praise of Christ and his Apostles and the Gospel that they speak in a plain style and manner of the certain necessary things without the Vanity of School Uncertainty and unprofitable Notions Ch. 18. Infer 6. The true and false ways of restoring the Churches and healing our Divisions hence opened and made plain Ch. 19. Of the causes of Prefidence or proud pretended Knowledge in order to the Cure. Ch. 20. Objections Answered Ch. 21. Directions for the Cure. The Second Part. CHap. 1. Knowledge is a means to a higher End according to which it is to be estimated Ch. 2. The End of Knowledge is to make us Lovers of God and so to be known of him Ch. 3. Therefore Knowledge is to be sought valued and used as it tendeth to our Love of God. Ch. 4. Therefore they are the wisest and best knowing Men that Love God best and not
and Kill them that will not do it And what is it that must perswade us to all this Why meerly a Hoc est corpus meum as expounded by the Councils of Laterane and Trent And is not Davids I am a Worm and no Man Psal 22.6 as plain yea and that in a Prophecy of Christ Must we believe therefore that neither David nor Christ was a Man but a Worm Is not I am the Vine and ye are the Branches Joh. 15.1 2. as plain Must Sense be renounced and ordinary Miracles believed for such words as these And doth not Paul call it Bread after consecration three times in the three next verses And is not he as good an expositor of Christs Words as the Council of Trent And when did God work Miracles which were meer objects of belief against sense Miracles were done as sensible things thereby to confirm Faith and that which no sense perceived was not taken for a Miracle To conclude when the Apostle saith that Flesh and Blood cannot enter into the Kingdom of God plainly speaking of them formally as now called and not as they signify Sin and consequently that Christs Body is now in Heaven a Spiritual Body and not formally Flesh and Blood yet must the Bread and Wine be turned into his Flesh and Blood on Earth when he hath none in Heaven And by their Doctrine no Baker nor Vintner is secured but that a Priest may come into his Shop or Celler and turn all the Bread and Wine in it into Christs Body and Blood yea the whole City or Garrison may thus be deprived of their Bread and Wine if the Priest intend it and yet it shall not be so in the Sacrament it self if the Priest intend it not But I have staid too long in this XIV Next to the Act of Cogitation and Volition itself and to the most certain Objects of Sence there is nothing in all the World so Certain that is so Evident to the Intellect as the Being of God He being that to the Mind which the Sun is to the Eye certainliest known though little of him be known and no Creature comprehend him XV. That God is True is part of our knowing him to be perfect and to be God and therefore is most certain XVI That Man is made by God and for God that we owe him all our Love Obedience and Praise that we have all from him and should please him in the use of all with many such like are Notitiae Communes Certain Verities received by Nature some as Principles and some as such evident conclusions as are not to be doubted of XVII That the Scripture is the Word of God is a certain Truth not sensible nor a Natural Principle but an Evident conclusion drawn from that Seal or Testimony of the Spirit Antecedent Concomitant Impressed and Consequent which I have oft opened in other Treatises XVIII That the Scripture is True is a Certain Conclusion drawn from the two last mentioned premises viz. That God is True Verax and that the Scripture is his Word XIX Those Doctrines or sayings which are parts of Scripture evidently perceived so to be by Sense and Intellective perception are known to be True by the same Certainty as the Scripture in general is known to be true XX. To conclude then there are two sorts of Certain Verities in Theology 1. Natural Principles with their certain consequents 2. Scripture in General with all those assertions which are Certainly known to be its parts And all the rest are to be numbred with uncertainties except Prophetical certainty of Inspiration which I pass by Chap. V. Of the several Degrees of Certainty 1. AS Certainty is taken for Truth of Being it admitteth of no Degrees All that is True is equally True. 2. But Certainty of Evidence hath various degrees none doubteth but there are various degrees of Evidence all the doubt is whether any but the highest may be called Certainty And here let the Reader first remember that the question is but de nomine of the name and not the thing And next the Evidence is called Certain because it is Certifying aptitudinally It is apt to certify us 3. And then the question will be devolved to subjective Certainty whether it have various degrees For if it have so then the Evidence must be said to have so because it is denominated respectively from the Apprehensive Certainty And here de re it must be taken as agreed 1. That Certainty is a certain Degree of apprehension 2. That there are various degrees of apprehension 3. That no Man on Earth hath a perfect Intellectual apprehension at least of things Moral and Spiritual For his apprehension may be still increased and those in Heaven have perfecter than we 4. That there are some degrees so low and doubtful as are not fit to be called Certainty 5. That even these lowest degrees with the greatest doubting are yet often True apprehensions and whenever they are True they are Infallible that is not deceived Therefore this Infallibility which is but not to be deceived is indeed one sort of Certainty which is so denominated Relatively from the natural Truth or Certainty of the object But it is not this sort of Certainty which we enquire after 6. Therefore it followeth that this subjective certainty containeth this Infallible Truth of perception and addeth a degree which consisteth in the satisfaction of the mind 7. But if the mind should be never so confident and satisfied of a falshood this deserveth not the name of Certainty because it includeth not Truth For it is a Certain perception of Truth which we speak of and Confident erring is not Certainty of the Truth 8. As therefore the degrees of doubting are variously overcome so there must needs be various degrees of Certainty 9. When doubting is so far overcome as that the mind doth find rest and satisfaction in the Truth it may be called Certainty But when doubting is either prevalent and so troublesome as to leave us wavering it is not called Certainty 10. It is not the forgetting or neglect of a difficulty or doubt nor yet the wills rejecting it which is properly called Certainty This quieteth the mind indeed but not by the way of ascertaining Evidence Therefore ignorant people that stumble upon a truth by chance with confidence are not therefore Certain of it And those that take it upon trust from a Priest or their Parents or good peoples Opinion are not therefore Certain of it Nor they that say as some Papists Faith hath not evidence but is a Voluntary reception of the Churches Testimony and meritorious because it hath not Evidence Therefore though I see no cogent Evidence I will believe because it is my duty Whether this mans Faith may be saving or no I will not now dispute but certainly it is no Certainty of apprehension He is not Certain of what he so believeth This is but to cast away the doubt or difficulty and not at all
by Certainty to overcome it 11. When a man hath attained a satisfying degree of perception he is capable still of clearer perception Even as when in the heating of water after all the sensible cold is gone the water may grow hotter and hotter still So after all sensible doubting is gone the perception may go clearer still 12. But still the Objective Certainty is the same that is There is that Evidence in the object which is in suo genere sufficient to notifie the thing to a prepared mind 13. But this sufficiency is a respective proportion and therefore as it respecteth mans mind in common it supposeth that by due means and helps and industry the mind may be brought certainly to discern this Evidence But if you denominate the sufficiency of the Evidence from its respect to the present disposition of mens minds so it is almost as various as mens minds are For recipitur ad modum recipientis and that is a certifying sufficient Evidence of truth to one man which to a thousand others is not so much as an Evidence of probability Therefore mediate and immediate sufficiency and certainty of Evidence must be distinguished From all this I may infer 1. That though God be the Original and End of all Verities and is ever the First in ordine essendi efficiendi and so à Jove principium in methodo syntheticâ yet he is not the primum notum the first known in ordine cognoscendi nor the beginning in methodo inquisitivâ though in such Analytical methods as begin at the ultimate end he is also the first Though all truth and evidence be from God yet two things are more evident to man than God is and but two viz. 1. The present evident objects of sense 2. Our own internal Acts of Intellective Cogitation and Volition And these being supposed the Being of God is the third evident Certainty in the World. 2. If it be no disparagement to God himself that he is less certainly known of us than sensibles and our Internal acts de esse it is then no disparagement to the Scripture and supernatural Truths that they are less certainly known Seeing they have not so clear evidence as the Being of God hath 3. The certainty of Scripture Truths is mixt of almost all other kinds of certainty conjunct 1. By sense and Intellective perception of things sensed the Hearers and See-ers of Christ and his Apostles knew the words and Miracles 2. By the same sense we know what is written in the Bible and in Church History concerning it and the attesting matters of Fact And also what our Teachers say of it 3. By certain Intellectual inference I know that this History of the words and fact is true 4. By Intellection of a natural principle I know that God is true 5. By inference I know that all his Word is true 6. By sense I know Intellectually receiving it by sense that this or that is written in the Bible and part of that word 7. By further inference therefore I know that it is true 8. By Intuitive knowledge I am certain that I have the Love of God and Heavenly desires and a Love of holiness and hatred of sin c. 9. By certain inference I know that this is the special work of the Spirit of Christ by his Gospel Doctrine 10. By experience I find the predictions of this Word fulfilled 11. Lastly By Inspiration the Prophets and Apostles knew it to be of God. And our certain Belief ariseth from divers of these and not from any one alone 5. There are two extreams here to be avoided and both held by some not seeing how they contradict themselves I. Of them that say that Faith hath no Evidence but the merit of it lyeth in that we believe without Evidence Those that understand what they say when they use these words mean that Things evident to sense as such that is Incomplex sensible objects are not the objects of Faith. We live by Faith and not by sight God is not visible Heaven and its Glory Angels and perfected Spirits are not visible Future Events Christs coming the Resurrection Judgment are not yet visible It doth not yet appear that is to sense what we shall be Our Life is hid from our own and others senses with Christ in God. We see not Christ when we rejoice in him with joy unspeakable and full of glory Thus Faith is the evidence of things not seen or evident to sight But ignorant Persons have turned all to another sense as if the objects of Faith had no ascertaining Intellectual Evidence When as it is impossible for mans mind to understand and believe any thing to be true without perceiving evidence of its truth as it is for the Eye to see without Light. As Rich. Hooker saith in his Eccl. Pol. Let men say what they will men can truly believe no further than they perceive Evidence It is a natural Impossibility For Evidence is nothing but the perceptibility of the Truth And can we perceive that which is not perceptible It 's true that evidence from Divine Revelation is oft without any Evidence ex natura rei But it may be nevertheless a fuller and more satisfying evidence Some say there is Evidence of Credibility but not of Certainty Not of natural Certainty indeed But in Divine Revelations though not in humane evidence of Credibility is Evidence of Certainty because we are certain that God cannot lie And to say I will believe though without Evidence of Truth is a contradiction or hypocritical self-deceit For your will believeth not And your understanding receiveth no Truth but upon evidence that it is Truth It acteth of itself per modum naturae necessarily further than it is sub imperio Voluntatis And the will ruleth it not despotically Nor at all quoad Specificationem but only quoad exercitium All therefore that your will can do which maketh Faith a moral Virtue is to be free from those vicious habits and acts in itself which may hinder faith and to have those holy dispositions and acts in itself which may help the understanding to do its proper Office which is to believe evident truth on the testimony of the revealer because his Testimony is sufficient Evidence The true meaning of a good Christian when he saith I will believe is I am truly willing to believe and a perverse will shall not hinder me and I will not think of suggestions to the contrary But the meaning of the formal hypocrite when he saith I will believe is I will cast away all doubtful thoughts out of my mind and I will be as careless as if I did believe or I will believe the Priest or my Party and call it a believing God. Evidence is an essentiating part of the Intellects act As there is no Act without an Object so there is no object sub formali ratione objecti without evidence Even as there is no sight but of an Illustrated
A man of credit or an impudent Liar Both may be equal in confident asserting and in the plausibility of the narrative Meer humane belief therefore must be uncertain From whence we see the pitiful case of the subjects of the King of Rome for so I must rather call him than a Bishop Why doth a Lay-man believe Transubstantiation or any other Article of their Faith Because the Church faith it is Gods Word What is the Church that saith so It is a faction of the Popes perhaps at Laterane or forty of his Prelates at the Conventicle of Trent How doth he know that these men do not lie Because God promised that Peters Faith should not fail and the Gates of Hell should not prevail against the Church and the Spirit should lead the Apostles into all truth But how shall he know that this Scripture is Gods Word And also that it was not a total failing rather than a failing in some degree that Peter was by that promise freed from Or that the Spirit was promised to these Prelates which was promised to the Apostles Why because these Prelates say so And how know they that they say true Why from Scripture as before But let all the rest go How knoweth the Lay-man that ever the Church made such a decree That ever the Bishops of that Council were lawfully called That they truely represented all Christs Church on Earth That this or that Doctrine is the decree of a Council or the sence of the Church indeed Why because the Priest tells him so But how knoweth he that this Priest saith true or a few more that the man speaketh with there I leave you I can answer no further but must leave the credit of Scripture Council and each particular Doctrine on the credit of that poor single Priest or the few that are his companions The Lay-man knoweth it no otherwise Q. But is not the Scripture it self then shaken by this seeing the History of the Canon and incorruption of the Books c. dependeth on the word of Man Ans No. 1. I have elsewhere fully shewed how the Spirit hath sealed the substance of the Gospel 2. And even the matters of fact are not of meer humane Faith. For meer humane Faith depends on the meer honesty of the reporter but this Historical Faith dependeth partly on Gods attestation and partly on Natural proofs 1. God did by Miracles attest the reports of the Apostles and first Churches 2. The consent of all History since that these are the same writings which the Apostles wrote hath a Natural Evidence above bare humane Faith. For I have elsewhere shewed that there is a concurrence of humane report or a consent of history which amounteth to a true Natural Evidence the Will having its Nature and some necessary acts and nothing but necessary ascertaining causes could cause such concurrence Such Evidence we have that K. James Q. Elizabeth Q. Mary lived in England that our Statute books contain the true Laws which those Kings and Parliaments made whom they are ascribed to For they could not possibly rule the Land and over-rule all mens interests and be pleaded at the Bar c. without contradiction and detection of the fraud if they were forgeries though it 's possible that some words in a Statute Book may be misprinted There is in this a Physical Certainty in the consent of men and it depends not as humane Faith upon the honesty of the reporter but Knaves and Liars have so consented whose interests and occasions are cross and so is it in the case of the history of the Scripture Books which were read in all the Churches through the World every Lords day and contenders of various opinions took their Salvation to be concerned in them VIII Those things must needs be uncertain to any man as to a particular Faith or Knowledge which are more in number than he may possibly have a distinct understanding of or can examine their Evidence whether they be certain or not For instance the Roman Faith containeth all the Doctrinal decrees and their Religion also all the Practical decrees of all the approved General Councils that is of so much as pleased the Pope such power hath he to make his own Religion But these General Councils added to all the Bible with all the Apocrypha are so large that it is not possible for most men to know what is in them So that if the question be whether this or that Doctrine be the Word of God and the proof of the affirmative is because it is decreed by a General Council this must be uncertain to almost all men who cannot tell whether it be so decreed or no Few Priests themselves knowing all that is in all those Councils So that if they knew that all that is in the Councils is Gods Word they know never the more whether this or that Doctrine e. g. the immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary c. be the Word of God. And if a Heathen knew that all that is in the Bible is the Word of God and knew not a word what is in it would this make him a Christian or Saint him You may object that most Protestants also know not all that is in the Scripture Ans True nor any one And therefore Protestants say not that all that is in the Scripture is necessary to be known to Salvation but they take their Religion to have essential parts and integral parts and accidents And so they know how far each is necessary But the Papists deride this distinction and because all truths are equally true they would make men believe that all are equally Fundamental or Essential to Christianity But this is only when they dispute against us at other times they say otherwise themselves when some other interest leads to it and so cureth this impudency It were worthy the enquiry whether a Papist take all the Bible to be Gods Word and de fide or only so much of it as is contained particularly in the decrees of Councils If the latter then none of the Scripture was de fide or to be particularly believed for above 300 years before the Council of Nice If the former then is it as necessary to Salvation to know how old Henoch was as to know that Jesus Christ is our Saviour IX Those things must needs be uncertain which depend upon such a number of various circumstances as cannot be certainly known themselves For instance the common rule by which the Papist Doctors do determine what particular Knowledge and Faith are necessary to Salvation is that so many truths are necessary as are sufficiently propounded to that person to be known and believed But no man living learned nor unlearned can tell what is necessary to the sufficiency of this proposal Whether it be sufficient if he be told it in his Childhood only and at what Age Or if he be told it but once or twice or thrice or how oft whether by a Parent or
By doing thus the Church notoriously declared that they took not all the Scripture to be equally necessary to be understood but that the Govenant of Grace and the Catechism explaining it is the Gospel it self that is the Essence of it and of the Christian Religion and that all the rest of the Scriptures contain but partly the Integrals and partly the Accidents of that Religion He is the wisest man that knoweth Most and Best and every man should know as much of the Scriptures as he can But if you knew all the rest without this the Covenant of Grace and its explication it would not make you Christians or save you But if you know this truly without all the rest it will. The whole Scripture is of great use and benefit to the Church It is like the body of a man which hath its Head and Heart and Stomach c. And hath also Fingers and Toes and flesh yea Nails and Hair. And yet the Brain and Heart it self fare the better for the rest and would not be so well Seated separate from them Though a man may be a man that loseth even a Leg or Arm. So is it here But it is the Covenant that is our Christianity and the duly Baptized are Christians whatever else they do not understand These are the things that all must know and daily live upon The Creed is but the Exposition of the three Articles of the Baptismal Covenant I believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Though the Jews that had been bred up to a preparing knowledge were quickly baptized by the Apostles upon their Conversion Acts 2. Yet no man can imagine that either the Apostles or other Ministers did use to admit the Ignorant Gentiles into the Covenant of God without opening the meaning of it to them or Baptize them as Christians without teaching them what Christianity is Therefore Reason and the whole Churches subsequent Custom assure us that the Apostles used to expound the three great Articles to their Catechumens And thence it is called The Apostles Creed Marcus Bishop of Ephesus told them in the Florentine Council as you may see Sgyropilus that we have none of the Apostles Creed And Vossius de Symbolis besides many others hath many Arguments to prove that this so called was not formally made by the Apostles Bishop Usher hath opened the changes that have been in it Sandford and Parker have largely de Descensu shewed how it came in as an Exposition of the Baptismal Articles Others stifly maintain that the Apostles made it But the case seemeth plain The Apostles used to call the Baptized to the profession of the same Articles which Paul hath in 1. Cor. 15.1 2 3 c. and varied not the matter All this was but more particularly to profess Faith in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Two or three further Expository Articles are put into the Creed since Otherwise it is the same which the Apostles used not in the very syllables or forms of words but in the same sense and the words indeed being left free but seldom much altered because of the danger of altering the matter Of all the Antientest Writers not one repeateth the Creed in the same words that we have it nor any two of them in the same with one another Irenaeus once Tertullian twice hath it all in various words but the same sense That of Marcellus in Epiphanius cometh nearest ours called the Apostles and is almost it Afterward in Ruffinus and others we have more of it Yet no doubt but the Western Churches at least used it with little variation still The Nicene Creed is called by some Antients the Apostles Creed too And both were so for both are the same in sense and substance For it is not the very words that are truly fathered on the Apostles About 30â— years a go Mr. Ashwel having published a Book for the Necessity and Honour of the Creed I wrote in the Postscript to my Reformed Pastor Ed. 2. a Corrective of some passages in which he seemeth to say too much for it or at least to depress the Scripture too much in comparison of it But long experience now telleth me that I have more need to acquaint men with the Reasons and Necessity of the Creed Seeing I find a great part of ignorant Religious people much to slight the use of it and say It is not Scripture but the work of man Especially taking offence at the harsh translatiâ—n of that Article He descended into Hell. which from the beginning it 's like was not in It is the Kernel of the Scripture and it is that for which the rest of the Scripture is given us even to afford us sufficient help to understand and consent to the Covenant of Grace that our Belief our Desires and our Practice may be conformed principally to these Summaries It is not every Child or Woman that could have gathered the Essential Articles by themselves out of the whole Scripture if it had not been done to their hands Nor that could have rightly methodized the Rule of our desires or gathered the just heads of natural duty if Christ had not done the first in the Lords Prayer and God the second in the Decalogue Obj. But I believe these only because the Matter of the Creed and the words also of the other two are in the Scripture and not on any other Authority Ans If you speak of the Authority of the Author which giveth them their truth it is neither Scripture nor Tradition but God for whose Authority we must believe both Scripture and them But if you speak of the Authority of the Deliverers and the Evidence of the Delivery be it known to you 1. That the Creed Lords Prayer Decalogue and the Baptismal Covenant have been delivered down to the Church from the Apostles by a distinct Tradition besides the Scripture Tradition Even to all the Christians one by one that were Baptized and admitted to the Lords Table and to every particular Church So that there was not a Christian or Church that was not even Constituted by them 2. Be it known to you that the Church was long in possession of them before it had the Scriptures of the New Testament It 's supposed to be about eight years after Christ's Ascension before Matthew wrote the first Book of the New Testament and near the year of our Lord one hundred before the Revelation was written And do you think that there were no Christians or Churches all that while Or that there was no Baptism Or no Profession of the Christian Faith in distinct Articles No Knowledge of the Lords Prayer and Commandements No Gospel daily preached and practised What did the Church-assemblies think you do all those years No doubt those that had Inspiration used it by extraordinary gifts But that was not all Those that had not did preach the Substance of the Christian Religion contained in these forms and did Pray and Praise God
the Reformation must be presently answerable to the apprehension of the evil Yea sometimes the very injudicious sort of zealous people make the cry of the greatness of this or that corruption how Antichristian and intolerable it is And then the Reformation must satisfie this vulgar errour and answer the cry and expectation of the people I would here give instances of abundance of mis-reformings which all need a Reformation both in Doctrine Discipline and Worship but that I reserve it for another Treatise if I live to finish it and can get it printed called Over-doing is Undoing 12. Lastly This Vice of pretended certainty and knowledge hath set up several false terms of Christian Unity and Peace and by them hath done more to hinder the Churches Peace and Unity than most devices ever did which Satan ever contrived to that end by this Church-tearing Vice abundance of falshoods and abundance of things uncertain and abundance of things unnecessary have been made so necessary to the Union and Communion of the Churches and their Members as that thereby the Christian World hath been grinded to powder by the names and false pretences of Unity and Peace Just as if a wise Statesman would advise his Majesty that none may be his Subjects that are not of one Age one Stature one Complexion and one Disposition that so he might have Subjects more perfectly concordant than all the Princes on Earth besides and so might be the most Glorious Defender of Unity and Peace But how must this be done Why command them all to be of your mind But that prevaileth not and yet it is undone Why then they are obstinate self-will'd Persons Well but yet it is undone Why lay Fines and Penalties upon them Well but yet it is undone All the Hypocrites that had no Religion are of the Religion which is uppermost and the rest are uncured Why require more Bricks of them and let them have no Straw and tell them that their Religion is their idleness stubbornness and pride and let your little Finger be heavier than your Fathers Loins But hearken young Counsellors Jeroboam will have the advantage of all this and still the sore will be unhealed Why then Banish them and Hang them that obey not till there be none left that are not of one mind But Sir I pray you who shall do it and who shall that one man be that shall be left to be all the Kingdom You are not such a Fool as to be ignorant that no two men will agree in all things nor be perfectly of the same complexion If there must be One King and but One Subject I pray you who shall that one Subject be I hope not he that counselleth it Neque enim Lex justior ulla est quà m necis artifices arte perire suâ But hark you Sir shall that one Man have a Wife or not If not the Kingdom will die with him if yea I dare prognosticate he and his Wife will not be in all things of a mind If they be take me for a mistaken man. By this Vice of pretended knowledge and certainty it is that the Papacy hath been made the Center of the Unity of the Universal Church Unity we must have God forbid else There is no maintaining Christianity without it But the POPE must be PRINCIPIUM UNITATIS And will all Christians certainly Unite in the Pope Well and Patriarchs must be the Pillars of Unity But was it so to the Unity of the first Churches Or is it certain that all Christians will Unite in Patriarchs But further all the Mass of Gregory the too great and all the Legends in his Dialogues or at least all the Doctrines and Ceremonies which he received and the form of Government in his time must be made necessary to Church Union Say you so But it was not all necessary in the Apostles times nor in Cyprian's times no nor in Gregory's own times much of those things being used arbitrarily And what was made necessary by Canons of General Councils in the Empire mark it was never thereby made necessary in all the rest of the Churches And are you sure that meer Christians will take all these for certain truths Why if they will not Burn and Banish them This is as Tertullian saith solitudinem facere pacem vocare But hark Sir this way hath been tryed too long in vain Millions of Albigenses and Waldenses are said by Historians to be kill'd in France Savoy Italy Germany c. The French Massacre killed about Forty or Thirty Thousand The Irish Massacre in that little Island killed about Two Hundred Thousand But were they not stronger after all these cruelties than before Alas Sir all your labour is lost and your party is taken for a Blood-thirsty Generation and humane Nature which abhorreth the Blood-thirsty ever after breedeth Enemies to your way This is the effect of false Principles and terms of Unity and Peace contrived by proud self-conceited men that think the World should take their Dictates for a Supream Law and obey them as the Directive Deities of Mankind If all this be not enough to tell you what proud pretended certainty is read over the Histories of the Ages past and you shall find it written in Ink in Tears in blood in Mutations in Subversions of the Empires and Kingdoms of the World in the most odious and doleful Contentions of Prelates Lacerations of Churches and Desolations of the Earth And yet have we not experience enough to teach us Chap. XIII The Commodities of a suspended judgment and humble understanding which pretendeth to no more Knowledge or Certainty than it hath THE commodities of an humble mind which pretendeth not to be Certain till he is Certain you may gather by contraries from the twelve forementioned mischiefs of prefidence which to avoid prolixity I leave to your collection Moreover I add 1. Such a humble suspended mind doth not cheat it self with seeming to have a knowledge a Divine Faith a Religion when it hath none It doth not live on air and dreams nor feed on shadows nor is puft up with a tympanite of vain conceits instead of true substantial wisdom 2. He is not prepossessed against the Truth but hath room for Knowledge and having the teachableness of a Child he shall receive instruction and grow in true Knowledge when the proud and inflated wits being full of nothing are sent empty away 3. He entangleth not himself in a seeming necessity of making good all that he hath once received and entertained He hath not so many Bastards of his own Brain to maintain as the prefident hasty judgers have which saveth him much sinful study and strife 4. He is not liable to so much shame of mutability He that fixeth not till he feel firm ground nor buildeth till he feel a Rock need not pull down and repent so oft as rash presumers 5. Unless the World be Bedlam mad in proud obtrudings of their own Conceits methinks such
certain truth But taking it for a thing probable which may be true for ought you know and which you must hope is true and this in different degrees according to the different degrees of the Persons credibility If you hear men confidently report any News in these times when half that we hear oft proveth false you may believe the reporter as a fallible Person that is believe that he doth not wilfully Lie and so not uncivilly contradict him and yet suspend your belief of the thing it self and whether he took it up rashly on uncertain rumors But if you hear a man speak evil of another behind his Back when the thing is not notorious and certain otherways the Law of Justice and Charity obligeth you not to believe him but to suspend your belief till you hear both sides or have surer proof yea and to suspend not with an indifferency but with a hope that it is not true which he speaketh Obj. XIII But then I shall be as uncharitable in judging the Reporter who perhaps is a godly man to be a Liar and Slanderer as I should be in believing that the other is guilty Ans 1. I say not that you are to conclude that certainly he lieth and that it 's false but to suspend your belief and to hope that it 's false 2. He that maketh himself the accuser of another man behind his Back in a way of talk doth expose himself to that disadvantage and maketh it our duty to begin our charitable Opinion on the side of him that is accused and rather to hope that he is innocent caeteris paribus than the accuser For God forbiddeth backbiting and slandering and biddeth us speak evil of no man. And he that in our hearing backbiteth and speaketh evil how godly otherwise soever without a clear necessary cause doth forfeit our Charity and Belief more than a man can do whom we do not see or hear For if I was bound to judge him innocent before this backbiting I am bound so to judge him still Therefore I do but continue that good Opinion of my Neighbour which I was bound to And that I must suspect the backbiter of a Lie is the consequent of his own act and long of himself For I cannot believe contraries And it is not his backbiting which will disoblige me from my former duty of judging the other innocent So that it is the reporter that casteth away the reputation of his own veracity Obj. XIV When you have written all this against pretended knowledge who is more guilty than your self Who so oppresseth his Reader with distinctions Are all your large Writings evident certainties Even those Controversies in which you have so many Adversaries Ans I put in this objection because I have a Book called Methodus Theologiae which I know will occasion such thoughts in many Readers But 1. It is one thing to assert uncertainties and another thing to anatomize and distinctly and methodically explain a certain truth In all my large writings if you find that I call any thing certain which is uncertain that is which I give not ascertaining evidence of acquaint me with the particulars and I shall retract them 2. I never perswaded any man to write or say no more than all men certainly know already no not all Learned Divines For then how should we receive edification Subjective certainty is as various as mens Intellects where no two are of a size And objective certainty must be tryed by the evidence and not by other mens consenting to it Nor must a Major Vote of Dissenters go for a proof of objective uncertainty For Heathens are more than the rest of the World and Mahometans more than Christians and Papists more than Protestants and the ungodly more than the godly and yet this is no proof of our own or the things uncertainty 3. Part of my writings are against uncertainties and to deliver the Church from false Opinions that go for certainties and these are they that have most contradicters And may I not write against false and uncertain Opinions which Religion is corrupted with and defend the ancient simplicity without being guilty of the introduction of uncertainties my self 4. I deny not but I have many things that are uncertain But then I acknowledge them uncertain and treat of them but as they are 5. Lastly If really my writings are guilty of that which I here reprehend false pretended knowledge the sin is never the better for that nor my accusation of it ever the less true nor your duty to avoid it ever the less Think what you will of me so you will but think rightly of sin and duty If I go contrary to my Doctrine and you can prove it take warning by me and do not you the like Chap. XXI Directions for the cure of Pretended Knowledge or Self-conceit THE Cure of this Plague of Prefidence of Pretended Knowledge is it which all the rest is written for and must now be the last in Execution as it was the first in my intention And could men be perswaded to this following course it might be done But natures vitious inclination to the vice and the Commonness and Strength of Temptations to it do make me expect to prevail but with a few Direct I. Labour to understand the true Nature and Principles of Certainty before opened False measures will make you judge Certainties to be Falshoods or Uncertain and Falshoods to be certain truths And when you know the conditions of certainty try all things by them accurately And if any would by art perswade you of the uncertainty of Natures just perceptions by Sense or Intellect remember that be they what they will you have no better or surer They are such as our Creator hath given you to trust to for your use even for the ends of life Direct II. Discern the helps of Knowledge from Knowledge or Certainty itself Believing your Teachers as men and believing Historians according to their Credibility and Reverencing the Judgment of Seniors and of the Church are all preparative helps to Certainty And humane Faith is such as to Divine Faith. But do not therefore think that it is the same Nor give men that prerogative of Infallibility which belongeth to God or to inspired Prophets who prove their word by Gods attestation The belief of Logicians is needful to your understanding Logick and Logick is a great help to your certain discerning of Physical and Metaphysical and Moral Verities And yet many Rules of your Logick may be uncertain and you must not take the helps of your Knowledge for Evidence it self Some think that nothing is known till we have Second notions for it or can define it When things sensible are better known by sensing them and usually second notions deceive men and make them doubt of what they better apprehended without them Be very suspicious of all words or terms 1. As ambiguous as almost all are And therefore he that cannot distinguish them
must needs err by confusion 2. Lest you take the Names for Things most disputes using to carry Controversies de nomine as if they were de re or slide from this into that Dir. III. Therefore also trust not too far to the artificial forms of Argument without or instead of the Evidence of the truth of the thing it self For there are many things supposed to the infallibility of your Art which may not themselves be infallibly true And mans wit is conscious of its own Fallibility and therefore is doubtful lest it should be deceived in its collections and ratiocinations Especially when the Engine hath many tacklings and the Chain many links we are still in doubt lest some one should break But the Evidence of the thing in its own reality which is not wholly laid on the form of an artificial argument which is of great use doth satisfy more Direct IV. Take truths in Order the Principles first and the rest in their true Exurgence and Dependance upon them And take nothing to be well known which is not known not only in a Method but in a Method clearly suitable to the things As Words and Notions so Rules and Methods must be fetcht from the Things and fitted to the Things or they are vain Sense and Intellect must first perceive the things themselves and be your first Tutors in Somatology and Pneumatology And then these must do much in making your Logick The Foot must be the measure of the Shoe. And remember that you have but a half fallacious Knowledge till you know the True Place and Order and Respects of the thing as well as the nature and quality of it in it self and till you can draw up a True Scheme of the things which you know It is dreams that are incoherent Direct V. Let the great Radical Verities have your greatest confidence and not only so but the most of your thoughts and Estimation and time and proportionably let the lesser things have but that share of your Esteem and Time and Studies which they deserve which comparatively will be little And make them the test of what is further offered to you And believe nothing which is certainly contrary to them Argue always à notioribus and reduce not certainties to uncertainties but contrarily Direct VI. Keep all your perceptions distinct according to the distinction of their natures Let both your Books and your Intellects be like an Apothecaries Shop where there are different Boxes with different Titles for different things Let sensible perceptions be by themselves And the Intellective perception of things sensate be by themselves And the Intellective perception of its own and the wills Acts be by themselves And the collection of the nature of Spirits and Intellective Agents thence be by themselves the knowledge of Principles Physical and Moral be by themselves And the certainty of Conclusions be ranked according to the Variety of their degrees The confusion of these different things causeth so confused a kind of Knowledge as is next to no Knowledge and fitter to trouble than to satisfy Direct VII Look to all things or as many as is possible When half is unknown the other half is not half known Respicere ad omnia is proper to God Respicere ad plurima is necessary to the competent wisdom of a man To be of a narrow mind and prospect is the property of the Ignorant and Erroneous He that seeth only a hand or foot knoweth not what a man is by it And he that seeth only a word knoweth not by that what a Sentence is Gods works are all one I know not what we shall see in Commenius his Pansophy which they say is yet to see the Light how far he hath reduced all Sciences to one But I little doubt but they may and should be all reduced to two which are as the Soul and Body that yet make up one man though not one nature viz. 1. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Real part distinguished into that of Substances and of Modes where Morality cometh in c. 2. The Organical part which fitteth words and Notions to Things And I am sure that as the Knowledge of one thing or of many much conduceth to further Knowledge so the Ignorance of one thing conduceth to ignorance and error about others It is here as in the Knowledge of a Clock or Watch or Musical Instrument Know all or you know little and next to none No man is a fit Judge of Church affairs who hath not the State of the World in some good measure in his Eye else he will be like most Sectaries who Judge and Talk and Live as if the World were no bigger than their Synagogues or Sects He must have all the Scripture in his Eye and all the Body of Divinity and all the World in his Eye and God himself who is more than all who will not by a narrow mind be cheated into a multitude of Errours There are abundance of truths unknown to you which were they known would rectify your other Errours D. VIII Conclude not hastily of Negatives You may easilier know that you do know what you do know than know what it is that you do not know It doth not follow that there is no more because you know no more St. John tells you that if all that Christ did should be written the World could not contain the Books You cannot therefore conclude from what is recorded that he said and did no more than is recorded Though I am sure against Popery by my sense and intellect that there is real Bread and Wine in the Sacrament I am not sure by sense that there is no spiritual Body of Christ The Negative must be otherwise proved I am sure by my five senses as they are commonly distinguished and numbred that there are existent all the sensible qualities which are their objects But whether the World may not have more sensible qualities suited to many other sort of senses which we have no conception notion or name of is a thing that no mortal man can know You hear many things and know many things by another man which make his cause seem bad But do you know how many more things may be existent unknown to you which if you knew would change your Judgment Allow still room and supposition for abundance of unknown things which may come hereafter to your knowledge and make things seem to you quite other than they do How can you possibly know how much more may be unknown to you If I have a Servant that stayeth out much longer than I expected I may conjecture that he could have no business to stay him but his negligence But there may be many accidents to cause it which I cannot judge of till I hear him speak D. IX Be sure that you suspect your first apprehensions of things and take few conceptions conclusive for certain that are not digested Fasten not over tenaciously upon Opinions in the beginning
Love to the blessed God who is Love it self O happy exchange did I part with all the pleasures of the world for one flame one spark more of the Love of God I hate not my self for my ignorance in the common Arts and Sciences But my God knoweth that I even abhor and loath my self because I love and delight in him no more O what a Hell is this dead and disaffected heart O what a foretast of Heaven would it be could I but feel the fervours of Divine Love Well may that be called the First-fruits of Heaven and the Divine Nature and Life which so uniteth Souls to God and causeth them to live in the pleasures of his Goodness I dare not beg hard for more common knowledge But my Soul melteth with grief for want of Love and forceth out tears and sighs and cries O when will Heaven take acquaintance with my heart and shine into it and warm and revive it that I may truly experience the delightful life of holy Love I cannot think them loathsom and unlovely that are unlearned and want the ornaments of Art. But I abhor and curse those hateful sins which have raised the clouds and shut the windows and hindred me from the more lively Knowledge and Love of God. Would God but number me with his zealous Lovers I would presume to say that he had made me wise and initially happy But alas such high and excellent things will not be gotten with a lazy wish nor will holy Love dwell with iniquity in unholy and defiled Souls But if Wisdom were justified of none but her Children how confidently durst I call my self a Son of Wisdom For all my Reason is fully satisfied that the learned ungodly Doctors are meer fools and the Lovers of God are only wise And O that my Lot may be with such however I be esteemed by the dreaming world Chap. VI. The second Inference To abate our Censures and Contempt of the less Learned Christians and Churches upon Earth I Must confess that Ignorance is the great Enemy of Holiness in the world and the Prince of Darkness in his Kingdom of Darkness oppugneth the Light and promoteth the works of Darkness by it And it is found that where Vision ceaseth the People perish even for lack of knowledge And the ignorantest Countreys are the most ungodly But I must recant some former apprehensions I have thought the Armenians the Syrians the Georgians the Copties the Abassines the Greeks more miserable for want of Polite Literature than now I judge them Though I contemn it not as the Turks do and the Moscovites yet I perceive that had men but the knowledge of the holy Scriptures yea of the summaries of true Religion they might be good and happy men without much more If there be but some few among them skill'd in all the Learning of the world and expert in using the Adversaries weapons against themselves as Champions of the Truth the rest might do well with the bare Knowledge of God and a Crucified Christ It is the malice of assaulting Enemies that maketh all other Learning needful in some for our defence But the New Creature liveth not on such food but on the bread of life and living waters and the sincere Milk of the sacred Word The old Albigenses and Waldenses in Piedmont and other Countreys did many Ages keep up the life and comfort of true Religion even through murders and unparallel'd cruelties of the worldly Learned Church when they had little of the Arts and common Sciences But necessary Knowledge was propagated by the industry of Parents and Pastors Their Children could say over their Catechisms and could give account of the Principles of Religion and recite many practical parts of Scripture And they had much Love and Righteousness and little Division or Contention among them which made the moderate Emperor Maximilian profess to Crato that he thought the Picards of all men on Earth were likest the Apostolick Primitive Churches And Brocardus who dwelt among them in Judea tells us that the Christians there that by the Papists are accounted Hereticks as Nestorians or Eutychians were indeed good harmless simple men and lived in Piety and mortifying Austerities even beyond the very Religious sort the Monks and Fryars of the Church of Rome and shamed the wickedness of our Learned part of the World. And though there be sad mixtures of such Superstitions and Traditions as ignorance useth to breed and cherish yet the great devotion and strictness of many of the Abassines Armenians and other of those ruder sort of Christians is predicated by many Historians and Travellers And who knoweth but there may be among their vulgar more love to God and Heaven and Holiness than among the contentious Learned Nations where the Pastors strive who shall be the greatest and Preach up that Doctrine and Practice which is conformable to their own Wills and worldly Interests and where the people by the oppositions of their Leaders are drawn into several Sides and Factions which as Armies Militate against each other Is not the love of God like to be least where Contentions and Controversies divert the peoples minds from God and necessary saving Truths And where men least love one another And where mutual Hatred Cruelty and Persecution proclaim them much void of that love which is the Christian Badge I will not cease praying for the further Illumination and Reformation of those Churches But I will repent of my hard thoughts of the Providence of God as if he had cast them almost off and had few holy Souls among them For ought I know they may be better than most of Europe And the like I say of many unlearned Christians among our selves we know not what love to God and goodness doth dwell in many that we have a very mean esteem of The Breathings of poor Souls towards God by Christ and their desires after greater holiness is known to God that kindleth it in them but not to us Chap. VII The third Inference By what measures to judge of the Knowledge necessary to Church Communion I Know that there are some that would make Christ two Churches one Political and Congregate as they phrase it and the other Regenerate Or one Visible and the other Invisible And accordingly they say that professed Faith is the qualification of a Member of the Church-Congregate and Obedience to the Pope say the Papists and real love is the qualification of the Church-Regenerate But as there is but one Catholick Church of Christ so is there but one Faith and one Baptism by which men are stated as Members in that Church But as Heart-consent and Tongue-consent are two things but the latter required only as the Expression and Profession of the former so Heart-consenters and Tongue-consenters should be the same men as Body and Soul make not two men but one But if the Tongue speak that consent which is not in the Heart that Person is an Hypocrite and is but