De Veritate Resolving several Questions there included or implyed HAving let fall the mention of that noble Authors Treatise it came into my mind that it having never been answered might be thought unanswerable and so the more considerable Therefore I adjoin so much of my Animadversion as the cause in hand requireth And First I must give the Author the Honor of his great Learning and strength of wit Secondly I must confess that the Teachers of the Church have been too often such as have given him the scandal which he so oft expresseth as more regarding their Interest than Truth and not making clear the truth which they have taught and often wronging it by their omissions or additions or unsound explications Thirdly I confess the body of his Treatise containeth many very considerable things in order to the disquisition of truth especially about the sutableness of the faculties to the object the conditions requisite to a true apprehension and somewhat about the nature of truth it self Though that which he calleth Veritas apparentiae I had rather call Evidentia Veritatis rei And I am not willing to think that I have as many different faculties as there are different plants in my Garden or Books in my Study or Sentences in those Books And in several things I miss that accurateness which he pretendeth to But these I shall pass by Page 217. he saith An vero aliud praeter Paenitentiam quidem convenientius detur medium unde justitiae divinae sit factum satis non est hic in animo exponere Hoc solummodo dicimus quicquid in adversam partem a quibusdam suggeratur quod nisi sola penitentia fide in Deum vitia scelera quaecunque eliminari possint Justitiae Divinae Bonitas Divina adeo sit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ut non sit ulterius quo provecetur nullum universale ita patere vel olim patuisse remedium ut fuerit quo confugeret misera ex peccati sensu languentium turba vel haberet unde gratiam pacem illam internam conciliaret tandem in id deveniendum sit ut quosdam immo longe majorem hominum partem inscios nedum invitos creaverit damnaverit Deus Opt. Max. Quod adeo horrendum Providentiae Bonitati immo Justitiae Divinae incongruum sonat ut mitiori immo equiori sententia dicendum sit totum humanum genus ex paenitentia semper habuisse media unde Deo acceptum esse potuit quibus si exciderit non jam ex Dei bene placito sed ex proprio hominum peccato perditionem uniuscujusque ex titisse nec per deum stetisse quo minus salvi fierent The first Question then is Quest 1. Whether if Christ and not onely our Repentance and belief in God be taken for a sacrifice and price given to God for mans Redemption it will follow that most of the world are damned by Gods will without any Remedy to which they covld have recourse for salvation Answ First It is strange that men should be left Remediless if Christ and not onely their Repentance be the Remedy Surely if Christ had given sinners nothing yet he hath taken nothing from them Secondly We all confess the universal necessity of Repentance But this is partly coordinate as the end and partly subordinate as an effect and therefore not contrary to the necessity of a Redeemer Repentance is our conversion and our begun Recovery from sin And will it follow that the Physician is unnecessary because health and recovery are necessary Yea and sufficient in their kind Thirdly How doth it follow that the Remedy was not Universal when Redemption by Christ was universal Christ so far died for all men as by his death he procured them any Grace But he procured Grace though not equal Grace for all You confess an universal Grace and yet an inequallity of benefits we say that Grace was procured by Christ Do we narrow it at all by saying Christ procured it Fourthly I perceive some mens mis-explication of these things was your snare and scandal First We distinguish between Christs procurement of our pardon and salvation by his sacrifice and merit with God and Christ as the object of mans faith or as Believed in by man We do not make the latter so universally necessary as the former For we hold that Infants are saved that believe not But we hold that no one is saved for whom Christ did not satisfie Gods Justice and merit salvation Secondly And that this much causlessly offend you not we say That this satisfaction and merit consisteth not in an identity or gradual proportion of Christs pains or sufferings to all mankinds but in an Aptitude of his Sacrifice and Righteousness to attain the ends of God the sovoraign of the world the demonstration of his truth holiness and right cousness together with triumphant love and mercy better than the remediless damnation of all the sinning world would have done Read but Master Trumans Great Propitiation which sheweth you the true ends of the sacrifice of Christ and this unjust offence will vanish Thirdly And we maintain as is said that the merit and Propitiation wrought by Christ is not to make our Repentance needless But to procure it and to make it effectual to its ends He giveth us Repentance and Remission of sins You confess that we may and must make a New Covenant with God upon our Repentance In that Covenant God promiseth us Grace as we consent to be his servants and children Now if Christ did procure and as Gods General Administrator Give us that promise of pardon and salvation to the truly Penitent doth not this more oblige us to Repentance and not less And the merit of Repentance if you will so call it with the Ancients is quite of another order rank and nature than the merit of Christ It s one thing for the Innocent son of God to merit Repentance and pardon to all that will Repent And another thing by Repenting through his grace to perform the Condition of the further Grace of pardon or salvation Fourthly And yet further to heal your unjust offence we do not hold that Christ maketh God more merciful than he was or that his Redemption is the first cause of our recovery and salvation causing God to be willing who was unwilling before But that Gods love and mercy and his own good will is the first cause which gave us Christ for a Redeemer as a second cause an effect of his love and the Head of all the means of our Recovery and the true meriting cause of that Grace and salvation which God will give us Nor so meriting as to change God but so meriting as to remove the Impediments of his grace as to the Communication and as to become the sittest Instrument of the Fathers love and mercy by whom to Govern the lapsed world and to communicate grace and life to sinners Fifthly And yet
all which and much more it appeareth that the Apostles though then in a state of Justification had a very general and defective knowledge of the Office of Christ and that though his Prophetical Office was ordinarily believed Joh. 4. The Samaritane woman could say when the Messiah cometh he will tell us all things and a temporal Kingdom expected yet his spiritual Kingdom and especially his Priestly office by his sacrifice death resurrection heavenly intercession for all the old Types and Sacrifices was little understood by the Disciples Yea he sometimes sorbad them and others to tell men that he was the Christ because the great evidences of his Resurrection Ascension and Spirit by which it was to be evinced were yet to come And we believe not that all that were saved before had more knowledge than the Apostles so that though all the faithful Jews believed in the promised seed even the Messiah as one that was to be sent to be their Deliverer and Saviour yet it was by a saith that was very general and far from that distinctness which after the Resurrection of Christ was required of all to whom the Gospel was promuglate which I have said the more of to you lest you think that we hold what we do not and so take occasion to erre by supposing us to err Clemens Alexandrinus Justin Martyr Arnobius Lactantius and other old Christians do go yet further then yet I have conceded to you And our very learned Dr. Twisse doth argue that God could have saved the world without a Redeemer if he had pleased because he saved the faithful under the old Testament without any existent Mediator except God himself or any existent sacrifice or merit or intercssion of him and because he saveth Infants without faith But for the first I take it to be at best too great temerity or audacity to dispute whether God could have done things better or otherwise which he has done so well of which I have said more in my Premonition before my Treatise called the unreasonableness of Infidelity Though I know that Wallaeus and many other learned Protestants say the same And as for Infants they are not saved without the Sacrifice and grace of the Redeemer though they know him not nor are they in the Covenant without the faith of their Parents or Owners which is as their own And if the Spirit of the Prorphets be called the Spirt of Chrict 1 Pet. 1. 11. And the reproach of Moses was the reproach of Christ Heb. 11. 26. We may much more conclude of the ordinary Believers before his coming that Christs Interest and his Spirits operations and help extended much further than mens understanding of him his undertaking and his future work No doubt but the eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that had undertaken mans Redemption and thereupon was our Lord Redeemer gave even to Socrates Plato Cicero Seneca Antonine Epistotus Plutarch c. What light and mercy they had though they understood not well from whom or upon what grounds they had them Ninethly And also we hold that the Jews were not the whole of Gods Kingdome or Church of Redeemed ones in the world as I have fully proved elsewhere But that as the Govenant was made with all mankind so amongst them God-had other Servants besides the Jews Though it was they that had the extraordinary benediction of being his peculiar sacred People Tenthly And we hold that as the Jews had by Promises Prophesies and Types more means to know God and the Messiah to come than other Nations so they were answerably obliged to more knowledge and faith than other Nations were that had not nor could have their means If then all the world be under the first Covenant of Grace and if you confess this to proceed from the wisdome and goodness of God and that men are bound so to believe and if Christ since his Incarnation hath diminished none of the mercies of God to the world but rather greatly increased them and so where the Gospel is not preached nor cannot be had they that refuse it not are in no worse case than they were before how can you say that they are Remediless if Christ be the ransome and remedy We know that all men partake of a great deal of mercy from God after the notorious demerit of their sin We know that this mercy telleth them aloud that God dealeth not with them according to the first Law of Innocency They see he pardoneth them they feel that he pardoneth them in part that is that he useth them not as they deserve We know that all this mercy obligeth them to hope that he will yet be further merciful and to repentance obedience thankfulness and love We know that the Heathen are no left as the Divels without remedy but all the Nations are under Divine obligations to use certain means which have a tendency to their recovery And we know that God biddeth no man to use his means in vain Fourthly Let us therefore first debate this Case with any unbeliever that hath your objections Whether you have any fault to find with the Christian Doctrine of the way of mans salvation for the first 4000 years before the Incarnation of our Lord If you have First Is it with the Author Secondly Or with the terms and conditions of life First The Author then was none but God The eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wisdome and word did interpose to prevent the execution of strict Justice by resolving to glorifie Love and Mercy Do you deny the being of Gods eternal wisdome or word Do you deny him to be God himself Or a Divine subsistence dream that it is but some Accident in God No your fair description of God p. 210. dischargeth you from the imputation of so gross an error You will say that the Divine power and goodness interposed as well as the Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wisdome and word True Opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt in divisa but so that each hath an eminency in his own work though not as separated or a solitary principle or cause The Father and Divine Vital Active Power was eminently glorified in the Creation The Son and Divine wisdome is eminently glorified in the making of the Remedying Medicine And the Divine Love and Spirit is eminently glorified in the operation of it to the Health and Salvation of the Soul The son and the wisdome or word doth not finish all the work himself but with the Father and Divine power sendeth the holy Spirit and communicateth to man the Love of God And all together will be glorified in our glorification Secondly And if it be the terms of life that do offend you First It is either the terms of satisfying the Justice of God Secondly Or the terms of conveying the benefits to man First For the first there is nothing in it to give offence For we dream not of any extrinsecal agent or action much less that which
therefore where Revelation was not few were wise or virtuous And the Philosophers themselves were all to pieces among themselves and their disagreements and doubtfulness tended to the gulfe of utter Scepticisme Now as nothing is more necessary than Religion as you well profess so Religion consisteth very little in the sensible apprehension of of present existences but in the knowledge of things absent or insensible things past and especially things to come the Happiness to be attained and the misery to be escaped Now if all the Poor unlearned Men and Women in the World must have known all these things only by natural discourse how little Religion would have been in the World when the Philosophers knew so little themselves And though your learning and understanding made the immortality of the Soul so clear to you and the rewards and punishments of another life as that you number it with the common notices yet were not the old Philosophers themselves so commonly agreed on it as they should have been much less all the common People And if you say that now almost all the world believeth it I answer it is Gods great mercy that it is so But consider whether it be not more by the way of believing than of naturall instinct or knowledge For all the Christians and all the Mahometans who believe the words of Moses and Christ also take it by the way of believing And so do most of the Heathens The Japonians have their Amida and Zaca The Chinenses the Indians the Siamenses the Peguans c. have all their Prophets And the very Savages of all the West-Indies or America have their Idols Oracles or Wizards whom they far more depend on than their natural discourse about things Invisible Past or Future So that really if Commonuess go with you for a proof that any point is of natural instinct and certainty as a Notitia Communis this will be one of the chiefest of them that Religion consisting in the notice of and due respect to things absent invisible past and future is to be maintained in the world by divine Revelation and Faith and not by the immediate evidence of things nor by meer discursive Collections from things so evident So that Mans weakness with the quality of the Objects maketh Revelation so necessary that without it the vulgar who are the main body of the World would have next to no Religion And on the contrary how easie and pleasant and satisfactory is it for all these poor People yea to the most learned to have these mysterious truths brought by Revelation to their hands Now through Gods mercy all our common People Women and Children Servants and day-Labourers may know more with ease than ever Democritus Epicurus Antisthenes Zeno yea Socrates Plato or Aristotle could reach by all their studies to the last More I say of Religious necessary knowledge Tenthly And this being so necessary and so great a mercy to mankind I wonder that you put it not among your common notices that God being perfect in love and wisdom and having made man purposely to be Religious here and happy hereafter will certainly provide for his Religion and Happiness so necessary and so excellent a means as Revelation is God being the Father and Lover of light and of Souls and the Devil being the Prince and Friend of darkness Consider whether you may not strongly infer from the very nature of God and the nature and necessity of man and the other communications of Gods mercies to the world that he will certainly give them this great mercy also Eleventhly It is certain that God hath ways of communicating light to mans understanding immediately and not only by extrinsick sensible objects The Father of Spirits who communicateth so much to the corporeal world is not further from Souls nor more out of love with them But if there be any difference may rather be thought to hold a neerer more immediate communion with them than with Bodies and to be himself to the mind what the Sun is to the Eye and more Twelfthly It is certain that God can give the standers by that have no Revelation immediately themselves a fully satisfactory attestation or proof of the truth of another mans Revelations He that denyeth this maketh God to be impotent Thirteenthly It is certain that the Attestation which I described in the Reasons of Christian Religion was such supposing that such were given viz. In the Antecedent Testimony of fulfilled Prophesie the Constitutive Testimony of Gods Spirit apparent in the effects on Christ person and on his Gospel And the Concomitant Testimony of all his Miracles and Resurrection and Ascension And the subsequent Testimony of the Spirit on the Apostles their Miracles and doctrine and on the souls of all serious Christians to the worlds end These are things set all together First Which none but God could do Secondly And which God would not do to deceive the world Thirdly Yea which God would not permit to be done to deceive them in so high a matter Because he is the Omnipotent Omniscient Gracious Governour of the world And if these Testimonies were not of God it were impossible to know any Testimony to be of God And seeing wâ—â—â— have no surer it would be mans Duty to Believe and Obey and be Ruled by a Lie And if it be our Duty to Believe God to be so defective either in Power Wisdome or Goodnesse Holinesse Truth Justice or Mercy as to rule the World and the best of the World in the greatest matters by lying and deceit as if he wanted better means What Wit can devise any remedy against such deceit as shall be so attested as aforesaid Or if deceit can be perceived how can it be mans Duty to Believe it seeing mans Intellect is naturally made for Truth and abhorreth falshood And how can it be Good to Obey Deceit and Lyes And when the Devil is the Father of Lies what blasphemy is it to charge them on God By this it will be apparent that the Question must be in the upshot whether there be a God or no God and so whether there be any thing or nothing Fourteenthly There is some Moral Historical Evidence of the truth of things past which is as certain and much more satisfactory than the Natural Evidence of Conclusions raised by a long series of argumentation Yea some which is truly a Natural Evidence though it depend on the credit of free Agents The proof and reasons I have given in the Treat First The Will though free is Quaedam Natura and hath its Natural propensity to known good as the understanding also is and hath its Natural propensity to Truth And the understanding is not free of it self but acteth per modum Naturae Secondly There are some of the acts of the Will it self which are so free as yet to be necessary As to will Good sub ratione boni to will our own Felicity and nill our own misery to will Life and
and foretasts of the glory which Christ hath purchased and promised If you know no such thing in your self as this you have resisted the Holy Ghost or Quenched the Spirit And if you would not have him dwell and operate in your heart no wonder if you cannot see him in the holy word And if you would not consent that he Rule your Mind and Life no wonder if you deny him also in that word which he did make to Rule you If you question the Real existence of these several Testimonies of Gods Spirit First Those that were given to Christ and his Apostles I have plainly proved to you in the Treatise were delivered down to the world three waies 1. By the most credible humane Testimony to produce a humane Faith 2. By such a Connexion and such Circumstances of those humane Testimonies as amount to a Natural Infallible Certainty As we have of the Wars in England and that there was such a man as K. Charles K. James c. and that our Laws were made by the King and Parliament that London was burnt that there is such a City c. even to them that see not any of these 3. By new Divine Attestations to these Attestations so that there concurreth First A full humane Faith Secondly A Natural Certainty Thirdly A Divine Faith to the ascertaining us that Christ did die rise ascend work miracles give the Spirit and by it the Apostles wrought the like Secondly And the other two Testimonies still shew themselves They are yet in Being The sacred Gospel is among is and on it the Life Light Love fore-described The Believers sanctified by this Gospel are among us and have within them the Impressed Life Light Love We see it where distance selfishness prejudice or malignity hindereth not shining though as through a Lanthorn and working though imperfectly in others And they that have it may so feel it in themselves as will preserve them against the Cavils of Unbelievers As the Great Creator hath his standing Testimony in the Natural Conscience of mankind which in despight of the Devil shall keep up some Natural Religion in the world And they that have not a written Law are a Law unto themselves shewing that God hath a Law in their hearts So the Gracious Redeemer hath his standing Witness in the sanctified even his holy Spirit the Divine Nature the New Creature the Image of God the Father Son and Spirit dwelling in them by Divine Life Light and Love so as shall keep up a Church of holy ones to Christ in despight of all the powers of Hell even the spirits of Death of Darkness and of Malignity And so much for the Validity of Gods Attestation III. All then that remaineth doubtful or further to be spoken to is What it is that God hath thus attested by the Holy Ghost And First We are sure it is not nothing It is not nothing that all this is done for nor nothing that maketh this change on souls Secondly We are sure it can be no less than the Truth of the Person Office and Doctrine of Christ himself He hath certainly by this proved his own Verity and Veracity for his own Miracles and Resurrection were seals affixed hereunto Thirdly We are sure that the same Gospel spoken by himself was confirmed also when spoken or written by his Disciples Else the same should be sure and not sure Fourthly We are sure that the Apostles Miracles c. confirmed all their Commissioned work I have proved this in my Treatise of the Lords Day Whatever Christ Promised them the Spirit for that he gave them the Spirit for He that findeth his Promise with the Performance may know that it was the Promise which was Performed Therefore our work is to find out that Promise And First We find their Commission Mat. 28. 19 20. Go and Disciple me all Nations Baptizing them into the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost Teaching them to observe all things whatever I have Commanded you And the Promise is Lo I am with you alwaies to the end of the world And Joh. 16. 7 12 13 14 15. It is expedient for you that I go away for if I go not away the Advocate will not come unto you But if I depart I will send him unto you I have yet many things to say unto you but you cannot bear them now Howbeit when he the spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all the truth For he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear that he shall speak and he shall shew you things to come He shall glorifie me for he shall receive of mine and shew it unto you Luk. 24. 49. And behold I send the promise of my Father upon you But tarry ye in the City of Jerusalem till ye be endued with power from on high so Act. 1. 5. Ye shall be Baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence Verse 8. But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you and ye shall be witnesses to me both in Jerusalem and to all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth John 17. 8. I have given to them the words which thou gavest me and they have received them Verse 17 18. Sanctifie them through thy truth thy word is truth As thou hast sent me into the world so I have also sent them into the world And for their sakes I sanctifie my self that they also might be sanctified through the truth John 14 26. But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name he shall teach you all things bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you Adde to these the Texts which mention the Performance of these Promises as John 20. 22. Act. 2. Act. 15. 28. Heb. 2. 3 4. So great salvation which at first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by them that heard him God also bearing them witness both with signes and wonders and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will 1 Pet 1 12. The things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the Gospel unto you by the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven Rom. 15. 19 20. Through mighty signs and wonders by the power of the Spirit of God so that from Jerusalem and round about by Illyricum I have fully preached the Gospel of Christ Gal. 3. 2. This onely would I learn of you Received ye the Spirit by the works of the Law or by the hearing of Faith By all this it is evident that the Spirit was given them to enable them to understand the Gospel and to preach it to the world to remember all that Christ had taught them to help them to deliver the Covenant of Grace and draw men into it and Baptize them To gather Churches and to teach them to observe all that
it was before his incarnation They that neither have nor could have the Covenant of Grace in the last edition are under it as they were before in the first edition further than as their after sins have deprived them of any of its benefits Therefore the coming of Christ hath not narrowed the Church nor repealed or diminished any grace that before was given but added much more Secondly When there was more Grace to be given it was needful that the Condition should be suited to it Would you rather be without the Graces and benefits than be obliged to Believe would you be cured by one that you would not believe nor take for your Physician would you be taught by one that you will not believe or take for your Teacher would you be ruled by one that you will not believe is your Ruler IInd I have proved to you that God bideth no man believe either without a meet object or meet evidence of the credibility yea the certain verity of that which he is commanded to believe And the belief required of us is but a means to our love of God and our belief of the everlasting glory and consequently is needful to our further duty to our perfection and our felicity Do you not think your self that the greatest demonstrations of the Divine Love are fittest to breed Love in us to God And is not this wonderful work of mans Redemption a wonderful demonstration of Gods Love If you say that it is incredible because wonderful and incomprehensible I answer you It is the more credible because so wonderful I cannot believe that any thing is a work of God especially one of his great transcendent works which mortal man can comprehend The work of the Father and of Omnipotency in Creation is wonderfully will you therefore say that there is no world The work of the Holy Ghost in Regeneration is wonderful c. especially in our perfection in Glory And will you say therefore that there is no Sanctification or Glorification so the work of the Son and Divine wisdome and word incarnate is wonderful And it is the fitter to be thought a work of God And would you not say your self that if God should send an Angel from Heaven to tell you his will and tell you what is good and evil and to tell you the certainty of the life to come and the Joyes thereof would it not be a singular help to your Belief of all these things revealed if he did but give you sufficient proof that he is sent of God What perversness is it then to quarrel with Gods greatest mercy as incredible meerly because it is wonderful and great and therefore fit for God to give Thefore observe here the error of those men that overlook the Benefit and taking all Duty for a Burden dispute against the necessity of the Duty whereas all our Duty is our Benefit like the duty of feasting rejoycing receiving money or honour when given us And the true state of our Question should be Whether all they that by the Gospel have the offer of a Saviour and Salvation and all those treasures of mercy which are brought to mankind by Christ above what they had before his incarnation are bound to believe that procurement and offer and to accept so great a gift When the same men that question this can be willing to accept of wealth and honours without disputing whether they may not live without them and will say Quis insimentis inops oblatum respuit aurum And he that can make a sorry shift with a Candle will not dispute whether it be his duty to open his Windows let in the light of the Sun It is Riches of Mercy which all they dispute against who think they speak against the necessity of some difficult duty Thirdly And remember again that your self confess an Inequality of Gods Benefits and that he is not bound to give them to all alike though there were no inequality of demerit in the Receivers If then he give more to the Church by Christ Incarnate then he did before his Incarnation or more than he giveth to the world that never hear the Gospel their Eye should not be evil because he is good much less ours who receive the benefit Fourthly And I am glad that all that you require of God for All the world is but that their Salvation or Damnation may be brought to their own free choice and not their perdition be a thing unavoidable by Gods meer will without their culpable mischoosing And all this we maintain as well as you And you can never prove that the Christian Religion doth deny it Nay tell me if you can what mercy your doctrine giveth to all the world which ours giveth them not Do you say that they are not under the meer Law of Innocency made with Adam but under the Law of grace which after was given him so do we But you say that this Law of Grace is the Law of Nature Let not names abuse us It is not the Law of Innocent Nature But it is so fitted to mans Lapsed State and doth also so fitly express the Gracious Nature of God and also hath such evidences in Gods merciful providence and dealing with the sinful world that in all these respects if you call it the Law of Lapsed and reprieved nature under its reparation we will not contend about the name But you say that all men may be saved if they reject not their salvation so say we that all should be judged according to that means and Law that is given them their Consciences accusing or excusing them in the day when Christ shall judge the world as the Gospel telleth us And none perish now for the meer sin of Adam nor meerly for want of the Innocency required by the first Law but for the refusing and abusing some mercy purchased by Christ which had an apt tendency to their Repentance and Recovery But you lay the main stress on this that All men may be saved by true saith in God and true Repentance without believing in a Crucified Christ And we say that no man in the world shall perish that hath true faith in God and true Repentance For all such do Love God as God and do devote themselves to his glory to obedience and Love and do hate sin as sin and so are holy And God cannot cast that Soul into Hell that loveth him and beareth his Image Holiness hath so much of God and Heaven in it that this would be to cast Heaven and Gods Image into Hell and to jumble Heaven and Hell together Do we not then grant you as much as you can reasonably desire Tell us but what Heathens or Mahometans are Holy truly penitent for all sin and devoted to God in obedience and love and we will grant you that they shall all be saved But you were ware that we would tell you that this Repentance and holiness is not a thing which sinful
knew whether all were true or not But also they did all in the power of the same Spirit which Christ did work by doing such Miracles as Christ had done And this not a few nor in a Corner but in many Countries of the world and that by many thousand Christians in one kind or other tongues healing prophecie or the like as well as the Apostles The certainty of which fact is attested by the very existence of all the Churches converted by it with all their Baptismes Professions and the rest of the Tradition before named No Christian of all this multitude by any terrours death time was brought to the last to repent and say that he had deceived the world by a lie Many Apostates falling off for fear of sufferings but none with any such recantation No adversary confuting the History but commonly confessing most of it with more such evidence which I have open'd in the Treat and must not oft repeat lest I be tedious And that which is still the Natural Evidence is that There is still existent First On the sacred Gospel Secondly On the souls and lives of all serious Christians by its impress the unimitable Image of the Divine Power Wisdome and goodness Life Light and Love as the Divine attestation Only as this noble Author requireth to all true Conceptions and Intellections so do we to this that there be but the necessary conditions in the mind of the receiver And whereas he saith that commonly Miracles are reported a hundred years after Here it was otherwise The Jews were enraged by them for fear of the Romans The Apostles and others wrought them openly Matthew and John that wrote Christs History lived with him and saw what they wrote so did Peter and James Paul wrote what he saw and heard from heaven Luke wrote the Acts of Paul which he saw being his Companion in travels The thousands were converted and Churches in many Countries planted not by bare words but by the Conviction of the Miracles of the Apostles themselves so that every Church and Christian was a History of them And all this they were moved to with the hopes of heaven where truth is known to deny the world and mortifie the flesh and suffer whatever the Gospel would inflict to preserve their hopes and comforts founded in this word of faith XI Quest Whether the common custome of sacrificing throughout the world in all generations were not their actual Confession that the sinner deserved death and that Gods justice required punishment of satisfaction and proceeded not from Divine Revelation in the beginning when God had new made the Covenant of Grace and so was delivered down by Tradition For my part it cannot come into my understanding why else men should think that God is pleased or appeased by the Creatures death or how this should become so common throughout the world And the two exceptions confirm this to be truth First Some Savages in America use no sacrifices But they are such as know not God or so Savage as to have lost all antient Tradition Secondly All the Mahometans and Christians use no bloody sacrifice But that is because First Christians believe that Sacrifices were but types of Christ and that he put an end to them by his perfect Sacrifice 2dly And Mahometans received it from Christ being but Christians degenerate first into Arrians and then into Mahometans and still professing to take Christ for the word and son of God and his word as true onely hating the Christians for saying that he is very God But of this instead of writing after so many I only refer you to their writings And specially to Dr. Owens Latine Tractate on this subject XII Whether Interest make the Judgment of Divines in the Cause of faith more suspicious or contemptible than other mens I put this Question with respect to those words in the Preface Sed neque auspicaciores ubique posterioris istius seculi Scriptores dicendi sunt Fit ita ut pro Regionum fidei diversitate in id potissimum incumbant ne illos domi male multet inopia adeoque non tam quid in se verum quam quid sibi ipsis utile exquirant Non est igitur a larvato aliquo vel stipendioso Scriptore ut verum Consummatum opperiaris Illorum apprime interest ne personam deponant vel aliter quidem sentiant Ingenuus sui arbitrii ista solummodo praestabit Author Answ First It is not to be denyed that there are multitudes of such Carnal Pastors in the Churches that are Christians for the case honour and wealth Secondly But that this should be so with all I shall disprove and prove that none on earth are so credible in this case as Divines First Because they have made it the business of their lives to search out the truth and therefore some of them must be supposed to have the greatest advantages to know it So that for Ability they have no sort of men that are Competitors For diligence and helps are the improvers of understanding And all men are found best at their own profession Lawyers in the Law Physicians in Medicine Philosophers in Philosophy c. And for your self your next words are Nobis tamen ad alia omnia fere quam literarum studia uti oportuit exequenda otium fuit Partim armis in diversis regionibus partim quinquennali Legatione partim negotiis tum publicis tum privatis vacavimus And is not this your disadvantage Who is a good Linguist Lawyer Physician c. that hath had but little leisure for his studies Secondly And as for Will and Interest it is notorious that thousands of the Ministry have so little set by worldly Interest as that it is upon the terms of greatest self-denyal to the flesh that they take up and exercise their office being moved onely by the great Interest of their own and others souls Their voluntary diligent labours their holy lives their contempt of the world may convince any of this that are not blinded by prejudice or malice There are few Learned men in the Reformed Churches but might far better use their studies and labours if they took that for best which is most profitable advancing or pleasing to the flesh Thirdly You had a Brother of your own so holy a man as his sincerity was past exception and so zealous in his Sacred Ministry as shewed he did not dissemble And I suppose had it been necessary you would have so maintained him that he should not have fled from truth for fear of poverty Fourthly What can you think of all those that gave up their lives for the Christian saith and hopes Did they go upon such carnal grounds as you mention Fifthly The revolutions of States and the diversity of Sentiments and especially the Interests of the Carnal part do bring it to pass by Gods over-ruling of all that usually the most serious Christians and Pastors are the sufferers of the age they live in