have But it is ten to one a private Christian cannot make use of the same because he doth not understand the Original Languages much less the Criticisms of them and the customs of the places and people related to Nor perhaps is so mighty well versed in Scripture as by comparing one place with another to be able to collect the true sense of all In this case it is easie to see the inconvenience of substituting this Rule only to judge by because it self is perplexed and equally pleaded by both and every common Christian cannot tell which of the Two it favoureth most 2. Another thing pretended as a sure Rule to judge by in this case is a single person for whom we know what kind of men plead mightily and contend highly that God hath vested him with Infallibility and designed him to be that lively Oracle to which the Church in all its doubts ought to resort and with whose determinations all men should rest satisfied and be concluded And I must needs say were there any such person there were a short and easie way of silencing all disputes in the world But against this I offer only these two considerations 1. First That every man must be sure of this Infallibility or else he can never with any steddiness remit all his doubts to his Infallibility But we not only see that a great many of men plainly deny it and almost all mightily doubt of it But 2. Secondly are mightily satisfied that no man ever can be sure of it not only because God himself hath not declared a syllable of any such thing which he certainly would have done had it been true it being a thing of such infinite moment and so mightily concerning the world to know But also because it is evident that such persons have mightily erred and nothing is more familiar than for one Pope to contradict the determinations and repeal the Sanctions of another And also because they that most eagerly contend for this do not know how to tell us when we are to judge him Infallible and when not And indeed the effects of this pretence have been so monstrously pernicious as to prejudice sufficiently all sober men against it who consider that this very thing hath had a mighty hand in debauching Christian Religion to those horrid degrees which we sadly see at this day 3. General Councils And I confess I am one of those who have a mighty veneration for what just and lawful Councils shall determine and I think it would be of great advantage to the peace of the Church if all men had so too But then I do not see why these should be appealed to as the only Rule or Judges in these things Not only because they cannot be pretended to be Infallible for they are men and may erre and they actually have done so But also should we allow them a kind of Infallibility for absolute they cannot pretend to yet it will not be easie for every single person to know what they have determined and upon every difference that arose new Councils must be Convened which is a thing next to impossible 4. An immediate Spirit which though some men so mainly contend for in this Age and many have done formerly there having been few or no Ages of the Church in which there have not been Enthusiasts and pretenders to Divine Impulses and Revelations yet there are these two eternal exceptions against it 1. That nothing more exposeth men to the delusions of that crafty Spirit of error than this doth And it is most certain that pretences to expectations of and reliances on it have been one of the chief causes of many ancient Heresies and of those woful differences that are at present among us And the wildest errors that have infested the Church have been fathered upon it 2. Secondly That this also is to be tried by something else as S. John enjoyns Verse 1. of this Chapter telling us that many false Spirits are gone out into the world and therefore making it necessary for all that would not be deluded by them to make carefully a trial of them And if the Spirit it self be to be tried it is not a Rule to try all things by 5. Antiquity And there is no doubt but the streams are always purest that are nearest to the fountain and Christianity flourished in its purity and truth for some Centuries at the first And if men would search Antiquity and let the Primitive times determine for them there would not be so many contests as there are in the Christian Church But there is this unhappy and invincible exception against it that it is mighty difficult and next to impossible to know what Antiquity believed and practised in many cases We have but very little left us of the three first Centuries And the greatest Scholars and they that have travelled farthest in the search of Antiquity are at a mighty loss as to the knowledge of them and therefore how every private Christian should be able upon all occasions to have recourse to it and still have it in readiness to judge all things by is very hard to determine 6. Catholick Tradition for which some men contend both eagerly and sharply and have racked ingenuity to say all that can be said for it and for what reasons we know And I do most readily acknowledge that a great deference ought to be had to it and a greater than generally is But still after all that can be said there are these two exceptions against it First That men cannot tell us what is a Catholick Tradition and what is not so at least they can instance but in very few things that have unexceptionably been owned for such since few things have ever been pretended such about which there have not been great disputes and sharp contentions Secondly Tradition is so very liable to corruption and so very many plain instances can be given of its degeneracy Besides all which the same inconvenience still presseth here too for how all private Christians should be able to guide themselves by this cannot easily be shewed 7. The authority of that Church of which a man is a present member And there is no doubt but every man ows a great respect to this and should not but in mighty plain and great instances ever think contrary to it and there is as little doubt but it would be mighty advantagious and of great use and benefit for men to be ready to be concluded by the determinations and Symbols and Canons of it and I little question but a private Christian erring with this shall have a great deal to plead for himself and shall have great abatements made for his Error at the last day But yet there are some exceptions against this being made an only Rule to judge by and amongst others these two 1. That a man doth not know his own Church to be Infallible for there is not any such promise made to any particular Church
so for another I can the more easily comply with your commands and minister something towards this great purpose because it so falls out that I shall but recollect my thoughts and transcribe with very little variation what I have delivered not long ago in my own Congregation on this subject And therefore I must beg you to accept some Sermon-Notes instead of a formal Letter and to pardon me that I address to you as one of my own People Only Sir my respects will not suffer me to thrust you into the common croud something will be added which was not then delivered and you will perceive it by being addressed only to your self PIETY The Best Rule of ORTHODOXY CHAP. I. The great need of every Christians taking heed of Error The difficulty in our present circumstances of doing so The greatness of that Charity that endeavours to assist in order thereunto The pitching upon a Rule whereby every man may do from that place of the Apostle S. John 1 John 4.6 HE that seriously considers what the condition of Religion is at this day in that part of the World that calls it self Christian how almost all the Congregations therein are divided among themselves and have considerable differences upon the account of which they separate each from other forming themselves into distinct Societies according to their different Sentiments and ways of Worship And withal considers how confident all parties are of the truth and safety of their own way with how much clamour and noise they plead for it and with how much confidence they declaim against all that is opposite to it While he is certain that some yea a great many of them are certainly mistaken it being impossible that so many and so very contrary ways should all be true He I say that seriously considers all this may very well subscribe to the reasonableness of that excellent advice of our Blessed Lord when predicting these things Take heed and beware that no man deceive you Mat. 24.4 And may very well look upon the Ingemination not only as designed to enhance his care that he be not deceived but as an intimation also how difficult it will be to avoid his being so And truly he that hath any due regard to his own Soul or any just sense of the present state of things must needs subscribe to the justness of the Ingemination upon both accounts For the welfare of the Soul in all its actings doth mightily depend upon the Principles that it chuseth to act by and these are only then safe when they are the results of a sound and right judgment which that judgment can never be that is Imposed upon by deceit and cheated by Error So that the necessity of attending unto the Caution upon that sole account is very great And yet that necessity is heightened much by the other for where there are various ways that offer themselves to us and none of these want their specious pretences but are recommended to us with all possible art and confidence there the chusing and hitting upon the right must needs be difficult and the avoiding deception not very easie The Consideration of these two things hath caused me oftentimes with some more than ordinary concern to reflect upon the Condition of a private ordinary Christian at this time and with a great deal of pity to compare his state to that of a Traveller in an unknown road full of many various and different turnings which must not only needs distract and puzle his thoughts which of them to chuse but create in him a great deal of fear lest he chuse amiss And as compassion naturally engageth to charity and pitying a mans misery prompts us to thoughts how to redress it So I have many times thought with my self that man would do a good office and a thing hugely conducive to the welfare of men that could pitch upon and prescribe a way how to remedy this great Inconvenience with ease and safety For as the erecting the Statuae Mercuriales by the Ancient Romans in all common Roads upon which were not only steps by which Travellers might mount their Beasts and go on but inscriptions also to direct them which were the right paths was then accounted and is to this day remembred as a very high instance of the kindness and candor of that great people So certainly the doing the like in this case for the poor Christian Traveller would be so much the greater instance of charity by how much his way is more perplex'd and intricate and the danger of his erring the greater and more momentous He that shall undertake to do this for him may well expect his prayers for his success and if he should erre in doing his utmost in it may as well hope for his compassion and pardon If it can be done it is really a great benefit and the design of it a great charity and if a man chance to erre in it yet an error that results from charity may well expect a gentle and candid censure How to do this hath been a thing that hath long lain upon my thoughts and a case that I have much consulted about I have been thinking what expedient to pitch upon what to substitute that might bear the stress of such an Enquiry what Oracle to erect to which men might safely commit the resolution of all difficulties of this nature and with confidence repair unto for a full and safe satisfaction in them What the issue of all these consultations and thoughts hath been I have determined this Lent to acquaint you withal And I shall take the rise of what I purpose to deliver to you of this nature from the words of the great S. John 1 John 4.6 who lived to see the actual accomplishment of his Lord 's great prediction that false Prophets should come into the world and had the honour to be the great prescriber of Antidotes against the infection of those deceivers And in that very place where he purposely undertakes this doth prescribe what I am now going to insist upon as a sure remedy a certain Criterion by which we may judge Hereby know we the Spirit of truth and the Spirit of error CHAP. II. The Collection drawn from the preceeding Text. Piety the best Rule of Orthodoxy The sense in which the Proposition is to be understood Two Postulata's in order to the proof of it God hath provided such a Rule for men to judge by and the reasons urging a belief that he hath done so This Rule must be for the benefit and guidance of all men FOR these words of S. John I think we may safely draw this Collection Piety is the best Rule of Orthodoxy or plainer thus The Conduciveness of Doctrines unto Godliness is the best and safest Rule by which to judge the truth of them But before I enter immediately upon the larger handling of this Proposition I shall stay you a little while that I may give you the
is well when they do and in many cases mighty prudent to seek the Law at his mouth consult him often in our doubts and difficulties and not be too peremptory in our own conclusions But yet I think no man can with reason believe that God ever intended these to be the only Oracles to which every Christian should repair and content himself with the responses of I think I could urge inconveniences against this which the whole Conclave would be something puzled to solve As God hath endued every man with a Soul and that Soul with an understanding and that understanding with power of judging and discerning things that differ and commanded every man to be faithful to this Talent and diligent in improving and encreasing his stock of light that thereby he may be able to take the better heed he be not deceived So doubtless he hath substituted a way by which every man may do this and hath not intended the benefit of it to be confined only to some few particular persons It hath been long since objected and designed to reproach the holy Scriptures that they are very plain and content themselves with familiar representations of things accommodated to vulgar capacities and not fit to satisfie the enquiries and exercise the curiosity of deep speculators and subtil Philosophers And the truth of the objection hath been willingly granted as to the main and yet the honour and excellency of them for that reason vindicated and Gods goodness thereupon magnified and exalted who foreseeing that the greatest part of his followers would not be great Clerks and deep Scholars but illiterate and plain men hath mercifully consulted their weakness and complied with it and provided for it And he that considers that God values the Soul of one man equally with anothers and desires equally the Salvation of all will presently conclude that therefore he hath consulted the benefit of all men and not set up a rule to judge truth by which should be mighty obscure and intricate and very few only some learned men should be able to reap benefit from Thus much therefore we have gained from this Text both that God hath left us a way by which to know Truth from Error and that this is such a way as all men may improve and make use of to the same end CHAP. III. Two ways propounded for the proof of the Assertion Scripture and Reason This Text improved largely to this purpose and Matth. 7.16 of which a full Explication is endeavoured HAving thus prepared the way to the proof of the forenamed Assertion in the preceeding Chapter I shall now address directly to it in this And two ways I shall endeavour to give strength to the truth of it by 1. By Scripture 2. By Reason and Argument warranted by Scripture 1. I begin with the confirmation of this from holy Scripture which indeed is the chiefest way of proving this truth and before all other things fit to determine this controversie For since we have reason with all due humility and gratitude to acknowledge this to be a full sufficient and perfect revelation of the will of God to man in which all necessary directions to happiness are contained and whatever else is needful to make the man of God perfect throughly furnished unto all good works 2 Tim. 3.17 as S. Paul warrants us to believe So if God have provided such a way for men to judge Truth and Error by he hath doubtless given some intimation of it in these Divine Inspirations and Records Now what these speak of this matter I shall endeavour to acquaint you And first as from this place of S. John I have taken occasion to raise 1 John 4.6 so I shall now try what there is in it to confirm the Assertion Which that I may distinctly and clearly do I must desire you to read the precedent verses and consider what the Apostle is designing in them And that you will easily find to be this an endeavour to confirm those he writes to in the true faith of Christ that they might not be drawn from it by any pretences and particularly by those great pretences to the Spirit that were then so common amongst all seducers especially the Gnosticks as indeed it hath been ordinary ever since almost amongst all Hereticks that have infested the Church This caution of not believing all these pretences he expresly mentions verse 1. and by an excellent Argument enforceth because there are many false Prophets are gone out into the world Now in order to this trial and discovery of the Spirits and the Doctrines issuing from them he layeth down these three chief rules in the following discourse The first whereof is the free confessing of Jesus Christ and faith in him in times of persecution the lawfulness and prudence of denying of whom when trouble and danger threatned a man for so doing was one of the great doctrines of the Gnosticks This he treats of verse 2 3. and then subjoyns a commendation of these Christians and congratulates with them that they had avoided the infection of these false teachers shewing withal what had assisted them to do so and why they should persist in their care against them verse 4 5. The second rule is laid down in this Text the intendment of which I shall presently acquaint you more fully with But because this is general he instanceth thirdly in a particular of Christian purity and obedience viz. true charity to our Brethren which he insists on in the following part of the Chapter I am not concern'd to insist upon either the first or third rule so as largely to explain them but chiefly upon the second for the ensuring of which there needs but only the right understanding of the word Hear He that is of God heareth us And that by this expression is intended obeying cannot seem strange to any that will remember that it is the common word by which obedience is generally expressed in the Sacred Idiom The places in which it is thus used are too many to be named and the commonness of the phrase too great to need it So that by hearing us is meant obeying our doctrine which is of God as he speaks i. e. pure and holy like its blessed Author hath nothing of worldly greatness or secular interest and design in it but only of piety and purity and self-denial and contempt of the world c. and this is an argument of its being truly Divine and a Rule by which also to judge whatever doctrine is so or the contrary That doctrine that is truly of God is all for holiness and obedience and purity while the other is for worldly advantages and suited to common Interests and hereby know we the Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Error in all instances of doctrines i. e. all doctrines that are conducive to real holiness are of God proceed from the Spirit of Truth and every doctrine that inclines to the contrary doth certainly
proceed from the Spirit of Error Now if you think that I am injurious in referring thus the trial of Spirits and doctrines only to this one Rule while I have told you before that S. John layeth down Two more in this Chapter to the same purpose I shall readily confess the charge but without any Imputation of injustice yea shall take advantage from hence the more to strengthen this Assertion and to lay down this as the chief and principal Rule forasmuch as both the others do relate to it and are instances of it For a free undaunted confessing of Christ in times of danger and loving cordially our Brethren are both of them chief branches of Christian vertue and holiness and indeed as they are almost above all other things commanded by our Saviour so they have the choicest and most endearing encouragements annexed to them So then the Argument from this place will be very clear and concluding for in that very place where S. John enjoyns the trial of Spirits and Doctrines he layeth down this as the great Rule for that trial and though he add Two other Rules also yet they are but particulars and branches of this great one And then the whole of the Apostles directions in this case amounts to thus much Whatever doctrine doth conduce to make men truly holy especially encourageth to the right taking up the Cross of Christ and a cordial constant love to our Brethren that doctrine issueth from the Spirit of Truth and whatever doctrine is contrary either to these Two single Christian vertues or to it in general doth certainly proceed from the Spirit of Error and this I take to be the natural and true purport of S. John in this Text. But I would not have you think that he is singular in this or without good authority for what he saith we shall find he had sufficient warrant from his great Master Christ Jesus as we may clearly see if we consider that speech of Christ Mat. 7.16 20. By their fruits ye shall know them In the preceding Verses our Saviour is forewarning his Disciples of the coming of false Prophets into the world and of the very specious pretences that they should make to deceive people by Having done this and caution'd against them he layeth down in this place a Rule to know and discover them by which Rule is very positive and plain and twice repeated that we should not doubt of it or forget it By their fruits ye shall know them i. e. by the natural consequences and fruits of their doctrines by such conclusions as do naturally and by right arguing follow from them So that the trial of Prophets is to be made by trial of their doctrines and these are to be tried by the natural consequences and effects of them not by what a man can discover in the professors or venters of such doctrines for these many times are very close and subtil Hypocrites and lead their lives with very great heed and wariness wearing the Sheeps skin to conceal the Wolfs heart and always putting on the form of godliness to cover their malicious and rotten designs and no wonder for Satan can transform himself into an Angel of light but by the natural consequences and effects of the doctrines For otherwise it were almost utterly impossible to make a discovery of doctrines by this Rule since all men do not live up exactly to the consequences of their own Tenets One man may have a right faith and yet lead a wicked life and another may have a rotten false belief in some particulars and yet be tolerably well in his life And there is no doubt but many a well-meaning man may embrace an Error in simplicity without understanding rightly what the mischievous consequences of it are yea perhaps without ever practising those consequences Men may be honest and yet careless and be imposed upon and so on the contrary too but I shall say more to this hereafter In the mean time we may rest satisfied that our Saviour means by fruits such things as are the natural consequences and proper products of such doctrines and this he clears and assures the truth and reasonableness of by an excellent and well known comparison and indeed it holds true both ways men do not gather Grapes from Thorns nor Figs from Thistles nor do Vines yield the Berries of Thorns nor doth the Doune of Thistles grow upon Fig-trees For though it be possible and God knows too common too for a man to detain the truth in unrighteousness Rom. 1.18 yet the unrighteousness issues from the man not from the truth And though a Heretick may possibly be eminent in some good things yet his heart is to be praised for it not his head i. e. his goodness is not the effect of his Error nor upon any account at all ascribable to it So then if we keep us to our Saviours sense the Rule is true and will never deceive us Those doctrines that design nothing but to make men pure and holy and conscientious and strictly regardful of our Christian duty cannot but issue from the Spirit of Truth and Satan can never be contributive to a doctrine that tends so much to the overthrow of his design and great Interest in the world But whatever doctrines or broachers of them do any way infuse into men or encourage and prompt them to any Impiety any Sin let their shews be never so specious their pretences never so fair yet those Prophets are false Prophets and those doctrines fumes from Hell whose great design it is to corrupt mens manners debauch their lives and keep them from the love and practice of piety This is all that I have to offer from these Two places of the New Testament and truly I think what hath been offered enough to confirm the Collection and to gain the assent of every good Christian to the truth of it CHAP. IV. The old Testament cited also for the proof of this and two great considerations added to give more Evidence to it This the rule to try Prophets by of old and the best Criterion of a true Divine Miracle THE former Chapter having acquainted you with some proofs for this out of the New Testament I shall proceed to add some to them also out of the Old For this is no new thing nor unknown to the Jews in time of old but it was deliver'd to them also as the great Rule to judge by in this case of which I take that place of the Prophet to be clear evidence To the Law and to the Testimony Isaiah 8.20 and if they speak not according to this Rule it is because there is no light in them In the preceding Verses the Prophet is inveighing against and condemning the attending to any extraordinary pretenders to knowledge or revelations such as Wizards and Necromancers and those that consulted familiar Spirits And in this Verse he layeth down a Rule by which to try all revelations and