Drake We agree with you in Religion against the Portugals that we must not worship flocks and stones Fuller's Holy State in the Life of Sir Francis Drake out of a M.S. of one of his company What a scandal is such Worship against the Christian cause Act. 9.31 As for the grand controversie of per se aut per alium read Grotius de Imper. pag. 290 291. Nam illud quod quis per alium facit per se facere videtur ad eas duntaxat pertinet actiones quarum causa efficiens proxima à jure indefinita est Dr. Jer. Taylor of Repent â—ref I am sure we cannot give account of Souls of which we have no notice Leg. Athanas Patri Constantine de necessaria Episcop residentia Si vis Deorum speciem apprehendere proprietates Animae rationalis ultimae cogita oppositas in perfectione Diis attribue Jamblit de Myster per Ficiâ— * When Machumet had taken Constantinople and demanded of the Patriarch an account of the Christian saith Georg. Scholarius alias Gennadius then Patriarch wrote that brief summary which you may find in Mart. Crusius his Turco Graec. l. 2. Hist Eccles p. 10 c. which very well openeth the mystery of the Trinity and of Christianity with seven reasons of it Trâ— Platâ— and Aristotle were of one opinion abode the Soul Mirandula and Mars Ficinus upon Priscians â—heophrastus de Anima have largely laboured to evince Galen is known to speak many objections against Plato and the Soul's immortality but in other places he speaketh doubtfully And if really Neâ—esius had those words out of such a book of Galen as he citeth de Ani. c. 2. p. 481. he would then seem to have thought better of the Rational Soul Plotinus his last words were as Porphyry saith in his life I am now returning that which is Divine in us to that which is Divine in the Universe The Platonists opinion that the Soul is all the Man and that Animus cujusque is est quisque is incomparably more probable and of honester tendency than theirs that think the Body is all the Man Qui putant hominem esse ex Anima corporeque compositum consequenter utile à justo sejungunt Qui vero hominem esse animam conjungunt Proclus de Anim. doem per Ficin What then will they hold and do that think man is tantum corpus For as Proclus there saith and Cicero oft most Philosophers agree that vivere secundum suam naturam is man's great duty and felicity Therefore as men differ about man's Nature they will differ about his Duty and felicity They that think he is all Body will describe his work and his happiness accordingly a truth of sad and desperate consequence The truth is as Fire is per essentiam a moving enlightning heating substance so the soul is per essentiam a Life or Vital Principle and therefore as Porphyry argueth for the soul to die is for life it self to die or that which is per essentiam life to cease to be what it is Quibusdam qui ne ignem calere putant nisi cum manu contrectarint nihil credendum esse placet quod supra progredientem naturam videatur Multorum quoque studia tardantur quod id credere noluit quod minus sub â—orum cognitionem cadit quae errorum pravitas ex ingeniorum imbecilitate defluxit siquidem cum sensuum angustiae ex quibus hominem agnitio eruitur in externorum sensilium genere versentur satis notum esse debet his tanquam compedibus intelligentiae cursum retardari divinaque capessere nequire Paul Cartesâ—n 1 Sent. dis 9. p. 22. Read the Mystic Aegypt Chald. Philos to prove that souls are not corporeal and Nemesius and Mammertus If the soul be nothing but Matter and Motion then no man is the same this year as he was the last For Matter is in fluxu continuo as they object themselves anon We have not the same slesh and bloud to day which we lately had and the motion of this instant is not the same with the motion which succeedeth in the next So that no man's soul and consequently no man is long the same and so as I have said after Kings will lose their titles to their Crowns and all men to their lands as being not the same who were born heirs to them And there must be no rewards or punishments unless you will reward and punish one for another's faults And they need no more to fear the pain or death which will befall them than that which befall their neighbour because it is not the man that now is who must undergo it Nor should any man have a wife or child of his own one year together If they like not these consequents let them either prove that Identifying Matter and Motion are permanent or grant that some other permanent thing doth identifie the person See this as the argument of Ammonius and Numenias prest by Nemesius de Anim. c. 2. p. 477. Vid. Clean this argumenta pro animae corporeitate à Nemesio profligata ibid. p. 479 c. If the doctrine of Matter and Motion only were true there would never be any true miracles in the world but all things go on from motion to motion as the first touch did put them into a necessity whereas however the world hath been deluded by many fictions yet many certain miracles there have been Whether the removing of the mountain by saith mentioned by M. Paulus Venetus J. 1. cap. 18. be true or not and the non-dissolution of excommunicate bodies in Constantinople mentioned in Mart. Crusius his Hist Eccles Turco graec l. 2. with multitudes of the likes which most Historians have c. Yet certainly that there have been some such hath been fully proved unto many Those that fly to this ingenita dispositio vel pondus will in other words grant that Nature form or quality which they deny And those that grant nothing to move but former motion must needs make some degrees of motion daily to diminish in the World one thing or other still ceasing its motion and all motion within our knowledge having such constant impedition that before this time we may think all things would have stood still if their opinion were true If they say that the Sun or some superior Movers renew the motion of things inferior I grant it But that is because it hath a moving nature For if they say that the Sun it self hath not the least impedition to diminish the degrees of its motion they speak not only without any proof but contrary to our observation of all things known and to their own opinion who make the Air impeditive to other motions and the effluvia of other Globes to be impeditive to the Sun Sane ignis aër aqua terra suapte natura carent anima cuicunque horum adest anima hoc vita utitur peregrina Alia vero praeter haec nulla sunt corpora Plotin Ennead
God in great and solemn Assemblies Many Hearts are like many pieces of Wood or Coals which flame up greatly when set together which none of them alone would do And it is a fuller signification of Honour to God when his Creatures do purposely assemble for his solemn and most reverent Praise and Worship And therefore Nature shewing us the reasons of it doth make it to be our duty § 14. Nature telleth us that it is evil to cherish false opinions of God or to propagate such to others to slander or blaspheme him to forget him despise him or neglect him to contemn his Judgements or abuse his Mercies to resist his instructions precepts or sanctifying motions And that we should alwayes live as in his sight and to bend all our powers entirely to please him and to think and speak no otherwise of him nor otherwise behave our selves before him than as beseemeth us to the infinite most blessed and holy God § 15. Nature telleth us that in Controversies between Man and Man it is a rational means for ending strife to appeal to God the Judge of all by solemn Oaths where proof is wanting And that it is a hainous crime to do this falsly making him the Patron of a lie or to use his name rashly unreverently prophanely or in vain All this being both against the Nature of God and of our speech and of humane society is past all doubt unnatural evil § 16. Nature telleth us that God should be worshipped heartily sincerely spiritually and also decently and reverently both with soul and body as being the Lord of both § 17. It telleth us also that he must not be worshipped with sin or cruelty or by toyish childish ludicrous manner of Worship which signifie a minde that is not serious or which tend to breed a low esteem of him or which are any way contrary to his Nature or his will § 18. Nature telleth us that such as are endued with an eminent degree of holy wisdom should be Teachers of others for obedience to God and their salvation As the Soul is more worth than the Body and its welfare more regardable so charity to the Soul is as Natural a duty as to the body which cannot better be exercised than in communicating holy wisdom and instructing men in the matters of highest everlasting consequence § 19. Yea Nature teacheth that so great a work should not be done slightly and occasionally only as on the by but that it should be a work of stated office which tried men should be regularly called to for the more sure and universal edification of Mankind Nature telleth us that the greatest works of greatest consequence should be done with the greatest skill and care and that it is likest to be so done when it is made a set Office intrusted in the hands of tried men for it is not many that have such extraordinary endowments and if unfit persons manage so great a work they will marr it and miss the end and that which a man taketh for his Office he is liker to take care of than that which he thinks belongeth no more to him than others and how necessary Order is in all matters of weight the experience of all Governments Societies and Persons may soon convince us § 20. Nature telleth us also that it is the duty of such Teachers to be very diligent serious and plain and of Learners to be thankful willing studious respectful and rationally-obedient as remembring the great importance of the work For in vain is the labour of the Teachers if the Learners will not do their part the Receiver hath the chief benefit and therefore the greatest part of the duty which must do most to the success § 21. Nature telleth men that they should not live loosely and ungoverned but in the order of governed Societies for the better attainment of the ends of their Creation as is proved before § 22. Nature telleth us that Governours should be the most wise and pious and just and merciful and diligent and exemplary laying out themselves for the publick good and the pleasing of the universal Sovereign § 23. It teacheth us also that Subjects must be faithful to their Governours and must honour and obey them in subordination to God § 24. Nature telleth us that it is the Parents duty with special love and diligence to educate their children in the knowledge fear and obedience of God providing for their bodies but preferring their souls § 25. And that children must love honour and obey their Parents willingly and thankfully receiving their instructions and commands § 26. Nature also telleth us that thus the Relations of Husband and Wife should be sanctified to the highest ends of life and also the Relation of Master and Servant and that our callings and labours in the world should be managed in pure obedience to God and to our ultimate end § 27. Nature teacheth all men to love one another as servants of the same God and members of the same universal Kingdom and creatures of the same specifick nature There is somewhat amiable in every man for there is something of God in every man and therefore something that it is our duty to love And that according to the excellency of man's nature which sheweth more of God than other inferiour creatures do and also according to their additional virtues Loveliness commandeth love and love maketh lovely This with all the rest afore-mentioned are so plain that to prove them is but to be tedious § 28. Nature telleth us that we should deal justly with all giving to every one his due and doing to them as we would be done by § 29. Particularly it telleth us that we must do nothing injuriously against the life or health or liberty of our neighbour but do our best for their preservation and comfort § 30. Man being so noble a creature and his education so necessary to his welfare and promiscuous unregulated generation tending so manifestly to confusion ill education divisions and corruption of mankind and unbridled exercise of lust tending to the abasement of reason and corruption of body and mind Nature telleth us that carnal copulation should be very strictly regulated and kept within the bounds of lawful marriage and that the contract of marriage must be faithfully kept and no one defile his neighbours bed nor wrong another's chastity or their own in thought word or deed This proposition though Boars understand it not is proved in the annexed reasons Nothing would tend more to houshold divisions and ill education and the utter degenerating and undoing of mankind than ungoverned copulation No one would know his own children if lust were not bounded by strict and certain Laws and then none would love them nor provide for them nor would they have any certain ingenuous education Women would become most contemptible and miserable as soon as beauty faded and lust was satisfied and
and various instances these exceptions do but confirm the general truth that such there are I have said so much of them in two other Writings that I shall now say no more but this That those Judges ordinarily condemn them to die who themselves have been most incredulous of such things that so great numbers were condemned in Suffolk Norfolk and Essex about twenty years ago that left the business past all doubt to the Judges Auditors and Reverend Ministers yet living who were purposely sent with them for the fuller inquisition That the testimonies are so numerous and beyond exception recorded in the many Volumes written on this subject by the Malleus Maleficorum Bodin Remigius and other Judges who condemned them that I owe no man any further proof than to desire him to read the foresaid Writings wherein he shall find Men and Women Gentlemen Scholars Doctors of Divinity of several qualities and tempers all confessedly guilty and put to death for this odious sin And he shall find what compacts they made with the Devil promising him their Souls or their service and renouncing their Covenant with God All which doth more than intimate that men have Souls to save or lose and that there is an Enemy of Souls who is most sollicitous to destroy them or else to what end would all this be When people are in wrath and malice desirous of revenge or in great discontents or too eagerly desirous after overhasty knowledge in any needless speculation the Devil hath the advantage to appear to them and offer them his help and draw them into some contract with him implicit at least if not explicit I have my self been too incredulous of these things till cogent evidence constrained my belief Though it belong not to us to give account why Satan doth it or why upon no more or why God permitteth it yet that so it is in point of fact it cannot be rationally denyed And therefore we have so much sensible evidence that there is a happiness and misery after this life which the Devil believeth though Atheists do not 2. And though some are as incredulous of Apparitions yet evidence hath confuted all incredulity I could make mention of many but for the notoriety I will name but two which it is easie to be satisfied about The one is the Apparition in the shape of Collonel Bowen in Glamorganshire to his Wife and Family speaking walking before them laying hold on them hurting them in time of Prayer the man himself then living from his Wife in Ireland being one that from Sect to Sect had proceeded to Infidelity if not to Atheism and upon the hearing of it came over but durst not goe to the place The thing I have by me described largely and attested by learned godly Ministers that were at the place and is famous past contradiction 2. But to name no more he that will read a small Book called The Devil of Mascon written by Mr. Perreand and published by Dr. Peter Moulin will see an instance past all question The Devil did there for many months together at certain hours of the day hold discourse with the inhabitants and publikely disputed with a Papist that challenged him and when he had done turn'd him and cast him down so violently that he went home distracted He would sing and jest and talk familiarly with them as they do with one another He would answer them questions about things done at a distance and would carry things up and down before them and yet never seen in any shape All this was done in the house of the said Mr. Perreand a Reverend faithfull Minister of the Protestant Church in the hearing of persons of both Professions Papists and Protestants that ordinarily came in for above three months at Mascon a City of France And at last upon earnest Prayer it ceased Mr. Perreands piety and honesty was well known and attested to me by the Right Honourable the Earl of Orrery now Lord President of Munster in Ireland and attested to the World by his most learned worthy honourable Brother Mr. Robert Boyl in an Epistle before the Book neither of them persons apt to be over-credulous of such unusual things yet both fully satisfied of the truth of this story by Mr. Perreands own Narratives with whom they were very familiar See the other Testimonies cited in my Saints Rest Part 2. Q. But how doth this signifie that there is any future state for man Answ 1. Commonly these Apparitions do expresly referr to some sin or duty which are regardable in order to a further Life Sometimes they come to terrifie Murderers or other great Offenders and sometimes the Devil hath killed men outright which yet were no more painfull than another death if it fetcht not their souls into a greater misery sometimes they are used to tempt people to sin to witchcraft to revenge to idolatry and superstition to which use they are common among many of the Indians And all this intimateth some further hurt which sin doth men after this present life which they take not here for their pain but their pleasure 2. Many of these Apparitions say that they are the souls of such and such persons that have lived here If it be so then the question is granted And whether it be so I suppose is to us uncertain For why a condemned Soul may not appear as well as Satan notwithstanding that both of them are in that state of misery which is called Hell I yet could never hear any sure proof But because this is uncertain 3. At least it sheweth us that these evil Spirits are neer us and able to molest us and therefore are ordinarily restrained and that their natures are not as to any elevation so distant from ours but that a converse there may be and therefore that it is very probable that when the souls of the Wicked are separated from their bodies they shall be such as they or have more converse with them and that the good Spirits shall be the companions of the souls of men that here were not far unlike themselves When we perceive that we live among such invisible Spirits it is the easier to believe that we shall live with such of them hereafter as we are most like 3. I may adde to these the instance of satanical Possessions For though many diseases may have of themselves very terrible and strange effects yet that the Devil I mean some evil Spirit doth operate in many is past all contradiction some will speak Languages which they never learnt some will tell things done far off some will have force and actions which are beyond their proper natural ability Most great Physicians how incredulous soever have been forced to confess these things and abundance of them have written particular instances And the manner of their transportations their horrid blasphemies against God with other carriages do commonly intimate a life to come and a desire that Satan hath to
themselves as being wholly his own 3. It absolutely subjecteth the Soul to God and sitteth up his Authority as absolute over our thoughts and words and all our actions And maketh the Christians life a course of careful obedience to his Laws so far as they understand them 4. It taketh up a Christians mind with the thankful sense of his Redemption so that the pardon of his sins and his deliverance from hell and his hopes of everlasting glory do form his soul to a holy gratitude and make the expressions of it to be his work 5. It giveth man a sense of the love of God as his gracious Redeemer and so of the goodness and mercifulness of his Nature It causeth them to think of God as their greatest Benefactor and as one that loveth them and as LOVE it self and so it reconcileth their estranged alienated minds to him and maketh the love of God to be the very constitution and life of the Soul 6. It causeth men to believe that there is an everlasting Glory to be enjoyed by holy Souls where we shall see the glory of God and be filled with his love and exercised in perfect love and praise and be with Christ his Angels and Saints for evermore It causeth them to take this felicity for their portion and to set their hearts upon it and to make it the chief care and business of all their lives to seek it 1. It causeth them to live in the joyful hopes and foresight of this blessedness and to do all that they do as means thereunto and thus it sweetneth all their lives and maketh Religion their chief delight 8. It accordingly employeth their thoughts and tongues so that the praises of God and the mention of their everlasting blessedness and of the way thereto is their most delightful conference as it beseemeth travellers to the City of God and so their political converse is in heaven 9. And thus it abateth the fears of death as being but their passage to everlasting life And those that are confirmed Christians indeed do joyfully entertain it and long to see their glorified Lord and the blessed Majesty of their great Creator 10. It causeth men to love all sanctified persons with a special love of complacency and all mankind with a love of benevolence even to love our neighbours as our selves and to abhor that selfishness which would engage us against our neighbours good 11. It causeth men to love their enemies and to forgive and forbear and to avoid all unjust and unmerciful revenge It maketh men meek long-suffering and patient though not impassionate insensible or void of that anger which is the necessary opposer of sin and folly 12. It employeth men in doing all the good they can it maketh them long for the holiness and happiness of one another's souls and desirous to do good to those that are in need according to our power 13. This true Regeneration by the Spirit of Christ doth make those Superiours that hath it even Princes Magistrates Parents and Masters to Rule those under them in holiness love and justice with self-denial seeking more the pleasing of God and the happiness of their Subjects for soul and body than any carnal selfish interest of their own and therefore it must needs be the blessing of that happy Kingdom Society or Family which hath such a holy Governour O that they were not so few 14. It maketh subjects and children and servants submissive and conscionable in all the duties of their Relations and to honour their Superiours as the Officers of God and to obey them in all just subordination to him 15. It causeth men to love Justice and to do as they would be done by and to desire the welfare of the souls bodies estates and honour of their neighbours as their own 16. It causeth men to subdue their adpetites and lusts and fleshly desires and to set up the government of God and sanctified Reason over them and to take their flesh for that greatest enemy in our corrupted state which we must chiefly watch against and master as being a Rebel against God and Reason It alloweth a man so much sensitive pleasure as God forbiddeth not and as tendeth to the holiness of the soul and furthereth us in God's service and all the rest it rebuketh and resisteth 17. It causeth men to estimate all the wealth and honour and dignities of the world as they have respect to God and a better world and as they either help or hinder us in the pleasing of God and seeking immortality and as they are against God and our spiritual work and happiness it causeth us to account them but as meer vanity loss and dung 18. It keepeth men in a life of watchfulness against all those temptations which would draw them from this holy course and in a continual warfare against Satan and his Kingdom under conduct of Jesus Christ 19. It causeth men to prepare for sufferings in this world and to look for no great matters here to expect persecutions crosses losses wants defamations injuries and painful sicknesses and death and to spend their time in preparing all that furniture of mind which is necessary to their support and comfort in such a day of trial that they may be patient and joyful in tribulation and bodily distress as having a comfortable relation to God and Heaven which will incomparably weigh down all 20. It causeth men to acknowledge that all this grace and mercy is from the love of God alone and to depend on him for it by faith in Christ and to devote and refer all to himself again and make it our ultimate end to please him and thus to subserve him as the first Efficient the chief Dirigent and the ultimate final Cause of all of whom and through whom and to whom are all things to whom be Glory for ever Amen This is the true description of that Regenerate Sanctified state which the Spirit of Christ doth work on all whom he will save and that are Christians indeed and not in Name only And certainly this is the Image of God's Holiness and the just constitution and use of a reasonable Soul And therefore he that bringeth men to this is a Real Saviour of whom more anon II. And it is very considerable by what means and in what manner all this is done It is done by the preaching of the Gospel of Christ and that in plainness and simplicity The curiosity of artificial oratory doth usually but hinder the success as painting doth the light of windows It was a few plain men that came with spiritual power and not with the entising words of humane wisdom or curiosities of vain Philosophy who did more in this work than any of their successors have done since As in Naturals every thing is apt to communicate its own nature and not anothers heat causeth heat and cold causeth cold so wit by communication causeth wit and common learning causeth common
me who I know canst neither be deceived or by any falshood or seduction deceive On thee therefore O my dear Redeemer do I cast and trust this sinful soul with Thee and with thy holy Spirit I renew my Covenant I know no other I have no other I can have no other Saviour but thy self To thee I deliver up this soul which thou hast redeemed not to be advanced to the wealth and honours and pleasures of this world but to be delivered from them and to be healed of sin and brought to God and to be saved from this present evil world which is the portion of the ungodly and unbelievers to be washed in thy Bloud and illuminated quickned and confirmed by thy SPIRIT and conducted in the ways of holiness and love and at last to be presented justified and spotless to the Father of spirits and possessed of the glory which thou hast promised O thou that hast prepared so dear a medicine for the clensing of polluted guilty souls leave not this unworthy soul in its guilt or in its pollution O thou that knowest the Father and his Will and art nearest to him and most beloved of him cause me in my degree to know the Father acquaint me with so much of his will as concerneth my duty or my just encouragement leave not my soul to groap in darkness seeing thou art the Sun and Lord of Light O heal my estranged thoughts of God! is he my light and life and all my hope and must I dwell with him for ever and yet shall I know him no better than thus shall I learn no more that have such a Teacher and shall I get no nearer him while I have a Saviour and a Head so near O give my faith a clearer prospect into that better world and let me not be so much unacquainted with the place in which I must abide for ever And as thou hast prepared a Heaven for holy souls prepare this too-unprepared soul for Heaven which hath not long to stay on earth And when at death I resign it into thy hands receive it as thine own and finish the work which thou hast begun in placing it among the blessed Spirits who are filled with the sight and love of God I trust thee living let me trust thee dying and never be ashamed of my trust And unto Thee the Eternal Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son the Communicative LOVE who condescendest to make Perfect the Elect of God do I deliver up this dark imperfect soul to be further renewed confirmed and perfected according to the holy Covenant Refuse not to bless it with thine indwelling and operations quicken it with thy life irradiate it by thy light sanctifie it by thy love actuate it purely powerfully and constantly by thy holy motions And though the way of this thy sacred influx be beyond the reach of humane apprehension yet let me know the reality and saving power of it by the happy effects Thou art more to fouls than souls to bodies than light to eyes O leave not my soul as a carrion destitute of thy life nor its eyes as useless destitute of thy light nor leave it as a senseless block without thy motion The remembrance of what I was without thee doth make me fear lest thou shouldest with-hold thy grace Alass I feel I daily feel that I am dead to all good and all that 's good is dead to me if thou be not the life of all Teachings and reproofs mercies and corrections yea the Gospel it self and all the liveliest Books and Sermons are dead to me because I am dead to them yea God is as no God to me and Heaven as no Heaven and Christ as no Christ and the clearest evidences of Scripture verity are as no proofs at all if thou represent them not with light and power to my soul Even as all the glory of the world is as nothing to me without the light by which it 's seen O thou that hast begun and given me those heavenly intimations and desires which flesh and bloud could never give me suffer not my folly to quench these sparks nor this bruitish flesh to prevail against thee nor the powers of hell to stifle and kill such a heavenly seed O pardon that folly and wilfulness which hath too often too obdurately and too unthankfully striven against thy grace and depart not from an unkind and sinful soul I remember with grief and shame how I wilfully bore down thy motions punish it not with desertion and give me not over to my self Art thou not in Covenant with me as my Sanctifier and Confirmer and Comforter I never undertook to do these things for my self but I consent that thou shouldest work them on me As thou art the Agent and Advocate of Jesus my Lord O plead his cause effectually in my soul against the suggestions of Satan and my unbelief and finish his healing saving work and let not the flesh or world prevail Be in me the resident witness of my Lord the Author of my Prayers the Spirit of Adoption the Seal of God and the earnest of mine inheritance Let not my nights be so long and my days so short nor sin eclipse those beams which have often illuminated my soul Without thee Books are senseless scrawls studies are dreams learning is a glow-worm and wit is but wantonness impertinency and folly Transcribe those sacred precepts on my heart which by thy dictates and inspirations are recorded in thy holy word I refuse not thy help for tears and groans but O shed abroad that love upon my heart which may keep it in a continual life of love And teach me the work which I must do in Heaven refresh my soul with the delights of holiness and the joys which arise from the believing hopes of the everlasting Joys Exercise my heart and tongue in the holy praises of my Lord. Strengthen me in sufferings and conquer the terrors of death and hell Make me the more heavenly by how much the faster I am hastening to heaven and let my last thoughts words and works on earth be likest to those which shall be my first in the state of glorious immortality where the Kingdom is delivered up to the Father and GOD will for ever be All and In all of whom and through whom and to whom are all things To whom be glory for ever Amen CHAP. XIII Consectaries 1. What Party of Christians should we joyn with or be of seeing they are divided into so many Sects I Shall briefly dispatch the Answer of this Question in these following Propositions § 1. GODLYNESS and CHRISTIANITY is our only Religion and if any party have any other we must renounce it § 2. The Church of Christ being his Body is but One and hath many Parts but should have no Parties but Vnity and Concord without Division § 3. Therefore no Christian must be of a Party or Sect as such that is as
yet is as obligatory and as much if not more than a Law which maketh it more than the Duty of a Subject to answer love and goodness with gratitude and love so that if per impossibile you suppose that we had no other obligation to God but this of love and goodness or abstract this from the rest I question whether it be not most eminently morall and whether the performance of it do not morally fit us for the highest benefits and felicity and the violation of it merit not morally the rejections of our great Benefactor and the withdrawing of all his favours to our undoing But this Controversie my Cause is not much concerned in as I have said because the same God is our Soveraign also § 2. The duty which we specially owe to God in this highest Relation is LOVE which as such is above obedience as such The difference of Understandings and Wills requireth Government and obedience that the understanding and will of the superiour may be a Rule to the subjects But LOVE is a Concord of Wills and so farr as LOVE hath caused a concord there is no use for Government by Laws and Penalties And therefore the Law is not made for a Righteous man as such that is so far as Love hath united his Soul to Virtue and separated it from sin he need not to be constrained or restrained by any Penal Laws no more than men need a Law to command them to eat and drink and preserve their lives and forbear self-destruction But so far as any man is unrighteous or ungodly that is hath a will to sin or cross or averse to Goodness so far he needeth a penal Law which therefore all need while they remain imperfect Nature hath made Love and Goodness like the Iron and the Load-stone The Vnderstanding doth not so ponderously incline to Truth as the Will doth naturally to Good For this being the perfect act of the Soul the whole inclination of Nature goeth after it Therefore Love is the highest duty or noblest act of the Soul of Man the end and perfection of all the rest § 3. The essential act of this LOVE is COMPLACENCIE or the Pleasedness of the minde in a suitable Good But it hath divers effects concomitants and accidents from whence it borroweth divers Names § 4. The LOVE of Benevolence as it worketh towards the felicity of another is the Love of God to man who needeth him but not of Man to God who is above our benefits and needeth nothing § 5. Our LOVE to God respecteth him either 1. as our Efficient 2. Dirigent 3. or final Good which hath accordingly concomitant duties § 6. I. Our LOVE to God as our Chief good efficiently containeth in it 1. A willing Receiving Love 2. A Thankfull Love 3. A Returning devoted serving Love which among men amounts to retribution § 7. 1. An absolute dependent Beneficiary ought with full dependance on his Totall Benefactor to Receive all his Benefits with Love and willingness An undervaluing of Benefits and demurring or rejecting them is a great abuse and injury to a Benefactor Thus doth the ungodly World against all the Grace and greatest mercies of God They know not the worth of them and therefore despise them and will not be intreated to accept them but take them for intollerable injuries or troubles as a sick Stomack doth its Physick and Food because they are against their fleshly Appetites An open heart to receive Gods mercies with high esteem beseemeth such Beneficiaries as we § 8. 2. Thankfulness is that Operation of Love which the light of Nature hath convinced all the World to be a duty and scarce a man is to be found so bruitish as to deny it And our Love to God should be more thankfull than to all the World because our Receivings from Him are much greater than from all § 9. 3. Though we cannot requite God true gratitude will devote the whole man to his Service Will and Honour and bring back his Mercies to him for his use so far as we are able § 10. II. Our LOVE to our DIRIGENT Benefactor is 1. A fiducial Love 2. A love well-pleased in his conduct 3. A following Love Though it belongeth to God chiefly as our sapiential Governour to be the Dirigent Cause of our Lives Yet he doth it also as our Benefactor by a commixture of the effects of his Relations § 11. 1. So infinite and sure a Friend is absolutely to be Tristed with a General Confidence in the Goodness of his Nature and a particular Confidence in the Promises or significations of his good-will Infinite Good cannot be willing to deceive or disappoint us And if we absolutely Trust him it will abundantly conduce to our holiness and peace § 12. 2. We must also love his Conduct his Precepts and his holy Examples and the very way it self in which he leadeth us All that is from him is good and must be loved both for it self and for him that it cometh from and for that which it leadeth to All his Instructions helps reproofs and all his conducting Means should be amiable to us § 13. 3. Love must make us cheerfully follow him in all the wayes which by Precept or Example he is pleased to lead us And so to follow him as to love the tokens of his presence and footsteps of his will and all the signs of his approbation And with an Heroick fortitude of Love to rejoyce in sufferings and venture upon dangers and conquer difficulties for his sake § 14. III. Our LOVE to GOD as our final Good is 1. A Desiring LOVE 2. A seeking LOVE and 3. A full complacential delighting Love which is the perfection of us and all the rest And accidentally it is sometimes a Mourning Love § 15. 1. Man being but in Via under the efficiency and conduct of Love to final Love and Goodness hath his End to intend and his means to use and therefore Love must needs work by Desire § 16. So far as a man is short of the thing desired Love will have some sense of want and so far as we are crossed in our seekings and frustrate in any of our hopes it will be sorrowfull § 17. 2. Man being appointed to a course and life of Means to his last end must needs be employed in those Means for the Love of that End And so the main work of this life is that of a Desiring seeking Love § 18. 3. The complacential delighting LOVE hath three degrees The first in Belief and Hope The second in foretaste and The third in full enflamed exercise § 19. 1. The well-grounded Hope of the foreseen Vision and fruition of the Infinite Good which is our End must needs possess the considerate minde with a delight which is somewhat answerable to that Hope § 20. 2. When the Soul doth not only Hope for its future end but also at present close with God subratione finis in the exercise
the less do forfeit his mercies by their inhumane and irrational ingratitude and abuse Which is the sin of all proud covetous voluptuous persons the ambitious fornicators gluttons drunkards and lovers of sports recreations idleness or any pleasure as it turneth them from God § 34. Above all other sin we should most take heed of the inordinate love of any creature for it self or for our carnal self alone because it is most contrary to our love to God which is our highest work and duty § 35. Those mercies of God are most to be valued desired and sought which shew us most of God himself or most help up our love to him § 36. We must love both our natural selves and neighbours the bad as well as the good with a love of benevolence desiring our own good and theirs But at the same time we must hate our selves and them so far as wicked with the hatred of Displicency and with the love of Complacency must only so far love our selves or others as the Image of Divine Goodness is in us or them I speak not of the meer natural passion of the parent to the child which is common to man and beast nor of the exercises of love in outward acts for those may be directed by God's commands to go more to one as a wicked child that hath less true amiableness in him But all holy love must be suited to the measures of the truest object § 37. The love of God should be with all our soul and with all our might not limited suppressed or neglected but be the most serious predominant action of our souls How easie a matter is it to prove Holiness to be naturally mans greatest duty when love to God which is the summ of it is so easily proved to be so All the reason in the world that is not corrupted but is reason indeed must confess without any tergiversation that it is the most great and unquestionable duty of man to love God above all yea with all our heart and soul and might And he that doth so shall never be numbred by him with the ungodly for those are inconsistent § 38. The exercises of love to God in complacency desire seeking c. should be the chief employment of our thoughts For the thoughts are the exercise of a commanded faculty which must be under the power of our will and the ultimate end and the exercises of love to it should daily govern them And what a man loveth most usually he will think of with his most practical powerful thoughts if not with the most frequent § 39. The love of God should employ our tongues in the proclaiming of his praise and benefits and expressing our own admiration and affection to kindle the like in the souls of others For the same God who is so amiable hath given us our speech with the rest of his benefits and given it us purposely to declare his praise Reason telleth us that we have no higher worthier or better employment for our tongues and that we should use them to the best The tongues of men are adorned with language for charitable and pious communication that they may be fit to affect the hearts of others and to kindle in them that sacred fire which is kindled in themselves Therefore that tongue which is silent to its Makers praise and declareth not the Goodness and Wisdom and power of the Lord and doth not divulge the notice of his benefits condemneth it self and the heart that should employ it as neglecting the greatest duty it was made for § 40. The lives of Gods Beneficiaries should be employed to his praise and pleasure and should be the streaming effects of inward love And all his mercies should be improved to his service from a thankful heart All this hath the fullest testimony of reason according to the rules of proportion and common right To whom should we live but to him from whom and by whom we live What but our ultimate end should be principally intended and sought through our whole lives A creature that hath all from God should in love and gratitude bring back all to him and thus we make it more our own § 41. This Life of Love should be the chiefest Delight and Pleasure of our Souls which all other pleasure should subserve and all be abhorred which contradicteth it Nothing is easilier confessed by all than the desirableness of Delight and Pleasure and the most excellent object which most be most beloved must be our chief delight for Love it self is a delighting act unless some stop do turn it aside into fears and sorrows Nothing can it self be so delectable as God the chiefest Good and no employment so delectable as loving him This therefore should be our work and our recreation our labour and our pleasure our food and feast Other delights are lawful and good so far as they further these delights of holy love by carrying up our hearts to the original and end of all our mercies and delights But nothing is so injurious to God and us as that which corrupteth our minds with sensuality and becometh our Pleasure instead of God § 42. The sense of the present imperfection of our Love should make us long to know God more and to love him and delight in him and praise him in perfection to the utmost extent of our capacities If it be so good to love God then must the highest degree of it be best and reason teacheth us when we feel how weak our Knowledge and Love is to long for more yea for perfection § 43. Thus hath Reason shewed us the end and highest felicity of man in his highest duty To Know God to Love him and Delight in him in the fullest Perfection and to be Loved by him and be fully pleasing to him as herein bearing his Image is the felicity and the ultimate end of man LOVE is mans final act excited by the fullest Knowledge and God so beheld and enjoyed in his Love to us is the final Object And here the Soul must seek its Rest Obj. But quae supra nos nihil ad nos God indeed is near to Angels but he hath made them our Benefactors and they have committed it to inferiour Causes there must be suitableness as well as excellency to win love we find no suitableness between our hearts and God And therefore we believe not that we were made for any such employment And we see that the far greatest part of mankind are as averse to this life of Holiness as our selves and therefore we cannot think but that it is quite above the nature of man and not the work and end which he was made for Answ 1. Whether God have made Angels or Rulers or Benefactors or what love or honour we owe them as his Instruments is nothing to our present business For if it be granted that he thus useth them it is most certain that he is nevertheless
what he exerciseth by men though extraordinarily he sometime otherwise interpose And how easie and ordinary it is for subtil men to do much wickedness and never be discovered needs no proof The like we may say in some measure of those secret duties of heart and life which have neither reward nor notice in this life and if observed are usually turned into matter of reproach The Minor needeth no more proof when we have proved already that God is our Governour It is certain that the secret acts of heart and life are as much under his government as the open and therefore shall have equal retribution § 3. III. If there were no life of retribution after this the sins of the Great ones and Rulers of the world and all others that by strength could make their part good would be under no sufficient Justice But the sins even of the greatest and strongest are under sufficient justice Therefore there is a life of retribution after this The Major is clear by experience The sins of all the Sovereigns of the earth are rarely under sufficient justice in this life If there were no punishment hereafter what justice would be done upon a Tamerlane a Bajazet a Mahumed a Dionysius an Alexander a Caesar a Marius a Sylla a Sertorius and many hundred such for all the innocent bloud which they have shed for their pride and self-exalting What justice would be done on Kings and Emperours and States that have none above them for all their lusts and filthiness their intemperance and sensuality their oppression and cruelty I know that God doth sometimes punish them by Rebels or by other Princes or by sickness in this life but that is no ordinary course of justice and therefore not sufficient to its ends Ordinarily all things here come alike to all And what justice would be done upon any Rebels or Robbers that are but strong enough to bear it out Or upon any that raise unrighteous Wars and burn and murder and destroy Countries and Cities and are worse than plagues to all places where they come and worse than mad dogs and bears to others If they do but conquer instead of punishment for all this villany they go away here with wealth and glory The Minor is past question Therefore certainly there is another life where conquering rewarded prospering domineering sin shall have its proper punishment § 4. IV. If God rule not man by the hopes and fears of certain Good and Evil hereafter he ruleth him not according to his Nature But God doth rule man according to his Nature Ergo. The Minor needeth no proof The Major is proved by experience The nature of man is to be most moved with the hopes and fears of Good and Evil after death Otherwise death it self would comparatively seem nothing to us No other creature hath such hopes and fears If you ask how I can tell that I answer as I can tell that a Tree doth not hear and a Stone doth not feel or see because there is no appearance of such a sense whose nature is to make it self manifest by its evidences where it is Bruits shew a fear of death and love of life but of nothing further of which there is evidence enough to quiet a mind that seeketh after truth though not to silence a prating caviller This will be further improved under that which followeth § 5. V. If the world cannot be governed according to its nature and God's Laws without the hopes and fears of Good and Evil after death then the objects of such hopes and fears is certain truth But the Antecedent is true Therefore so is the Consequent That the nature of man requireth a Moral Government and not only a Physical motion is already proved Physical motion only determineth the agent to act and produceth the act it self quoad eventum Moral Government doth institute for the subject a debitum agendi habendi and judgeth him accordingly If there were no Government but Physical motion there were no debitum in the world neither officii praemii vel poenae vel jus possidendi vel injuria no right or wrong For Physical motion doth equally produce the act in perjury murder treason adultery as in good deeds and it never produceth an act which eventually never is Therefore there should be nothing a Duty but what cometh to pass if Physical motion were all the Government Government then there must be and what God requireth of all by nature I have shewed before Now that there is a moral impossibility of the performance of this in any sincerity so as to intimate any laudible Government of the world I shall further prove 1. If according to the present temper of man there be no motives which would ever prove sufficient to resist all the temptations of this life to keep us in true obedience and love to God unto the end without the hopes and fears of Good and Evil after death then cannot the world be governed according to God's Laws without such hopes and fears of futurity But the Antecedent is true Ergo so is the consequent If God had prescribed man a course of duty in his Laws as to obey and love him upon terms of fleshly suffering and had not given man such motives as might rationally prevail for the performance his Laws had been all in vain He that hath made Holiness our indispensible duty hath certainly left us motives and rational helps to perform it But so many and great are the temptations of this life and so strong is our sense and so great are the sufferings of the obedient that in this our imperfection we could never go through them without the motives which are fetch'd from another life 1. It would weaken the hands of the best as to their duty it would embolden them to sin it would give victory to all strong temptations Let every Reader but consult with his own soul and though it be granted that virtue should be chosen for its own sake how dear soever it may cost yet let him without lying say what he thinketh he should be and do in case of temptations if he knew that he had no life to live but this I am not sure but I will freely confess what I think most that now are honest would be and do First They would observe how little difference God maketh between the obedient and disobedient in his providence and how ordinarily his present judgements are not much to be feared And hence they would think that he maketh no great matter of it what they either are or do and so their very love of Virtue would be much debilitated Nay the sufferings of the virtuous would tempt them to think that it is no very desirable way and though still they would have something within them which would tell them that honesty and temperance and piety are good yet the natural love of themselves is so deeply planted in them and so
in its proper evidence is very hard to them that have no more than the light of nature Obj. But what difficulty is there in these few precepts that all men may not easily learn them Thou shalt love God above all and repent of sin and set thy heart upon the Life to come and love thy neighbour as thy self c. Answ There is no difficulty in learning these words But 1. There is great difficulty in learning to understand the sense and certain truth of that which is contained in them To know what God is so far as is necessary to our obedience and love and to know what it is in him which is so amiable and to know that there is a Life to come and what it is and to know what is God's will and so what is duty and what is the sin which we must repent of these are more difficult Generals are soon named but it is a particular understanding which is necessary to practice 2. And it is hard to see that certainty and attractive Goodness in these things as may draw the mind to the practical embracements of them from the love of other things An obscure doubtful wavering apprehension is not strong enough to change the heart and life § 4. These difficulties in the meer natural way of Revelation will fill the learned world with controversies and those controversies will breed and feed contentions and eat out the heart of practical godliness and make all Religion seem an uncertain or unnecessary thing This is undoubtedly proved 1. In the reason of the thing 2. And in all the worlds experience so numerous were the controversies among Philosophers so various their Sects so common their contentions that the world despised them and all Religion for their sakes and look'd on most of them but as Mountebanks that set up for gain or to get Disciples or to shew their wit Practical piety died in their hands Obj. This is a consequent not to be avoided because no way hath so resolved difficulties as to put an end to controversies and sects Answ Certainly clearness is more desirable than obscurity and concord and unity than division Therefore it concerneth us to enquire how this mischief may be amended which is it that I am now about § 5. These difficulties also make it so long a work to learn God's will by the light of Nature only that the time of their youth and oft of their lives is slipt away before men can come to know why they lived It is true that it is their own fault that causeth all these inconveniencies but it s as true that their disease doth need a cure for which it concerneth them to seek out The life of man is held upon a constant uncertainty and no man is sure to live another year and therefore we have need of precepts so plain as may be easily and quickly learnt that we may be always ready if death shall call us to an account I confess that what I have transcribed from nature is very plain there to one that already understandeth it but whether the diseased blindness of the world do not need yet something plainer let experience determine § 6. That which would be sufficient for a sound understanding and will is not sufficient to a darkned diseased mind and heart such as experience telleth us is found throughout the world To true reason which is at liberty and not enthralled by sensuality and error the light of nature might have a sufficiency to lead men up to the love of God and a life of holiness But experience telleth us that the reason of the world is darkned and captivated by sensuality and that few men can well use their own faculties And such eyes need spectacles such criples need crutches yea such diseases call for a Physician Prove once that the world is not diseased and then we will confess that their natural food may serve the turn without any other diet or Physick § 7. When I have by natural Reason silenced all my doubts about the Life to come I yet find in my self an uncouth unsatisfactory kind of apprehension of my future state till I look to supernatural evidence which I perceive is from a double cause 1. Because a Soul in flesh would fain have such apprehension as participateth of sense 2. And we are so conscious of our ignorance that we are apt still to suspect our own understandings even when we have nothing to say against the conclusion What I have said in the first part of this Book doth so fully satisfie my Reason as that I have nothing to say against it which I cannot easily discern to be unsound and yet for all that when I think of another world by the help of this natural light alone I am rather amazed than satisfi'd and am ready to think All this seemeth true and I have nothing of weight to say against it but alas how poor and uncertain a thing is man's understanding how many are deceived in things that seem as undeniable to them How know I what one particular may be unseen by me which would change my judgment and better inform me in all the rest If I could but see the world which I believe or at least but speak with one who had been there or gave me sensible evidence of his veracity it would much confirm me Sense hath got so much mastery in the Soul that we have much ado to take any apprehension for sure and satisfactory which hath not some great correspondency with sense This is not well But it is a disease which sheweth the need of a Physician and of some other satisfying light § 8. While we are thus scopt in our way by tediousness difficulty and a subjective uncertainty about the end and duty of man the flesh is still active and sin encreaseth and gets advantage and present things are still in their deceiving power and so the Soul groweth worse and worse § 9. The Soul being thus vitiated and perverted by sin is so partial slothful negligent unwilling superficial deceitful and â—usâ—dâ—n in its studies that if the evidences of life everlasting besâ— and clear and satisfying to others it will over-look them or not perceive their certainty § 10. Though it be most evident by common experience that the nature of man is lamentably depraved and that sin doth over-spread the world yet how it entred and when or which of our progenitors was the first transgressor and cause no natural light doth fully or satisfactorily acquaint me § 11. And though Nature tell me that God cannot damn or hate a Soul that truly loveth him and is sanctified yet doth it not shew me a means that is likely considerably to prevail to sanctifie Souls and turn them from the love of present transitory things to the love of God and Life eternal Though there be in nature the discovery of sufficient Reasons and Motives to do it where Reason is not
world they are that sort of men that are likest unto Beasts except some few at Siam China the Indian Bannians the Japonians the Ethnick Persians and a few more The greatest deformity of Nature is among them the least of sound knowledge true policy civility and piety is among them Abominable wickedness doth no where so much abound So that if the doctrin and judgment of these may be judged of by the effect it is most insufficient to heal the diseased world and reduce man to holiness sobriety and honesty § 6. I find that these few among the Heathens who attain to more knowledge in the things which concern man's duty and happiness than the rest do commonly destroy all again by the mixture of some dotâ—ges and impious conceits The Literali in China exel in many things but besides abundance of ignorance in Philosophy they destroy all by denying the immortality of the Soul and affirming rewards and punishments to be only in this life or but a little longer At least none but the Souls of the good say some of them survive and though they confess One God they give him no solemn worship Their Sect called Sciequia or Sciacca is very clear for the Vnity of the Godhead the joys of Heaven and the torments of Hall with some umbrage of the Trinity c. But they blot all with the Pythagorean fopperies affirming these Souls which were in joy or misery after a certain space to be sent again into Bodies and so to continue through frequent changes to eternity to say nothing of the wickedness of their lives Their third Sect called Lauru is not worth the naming as being composed of fopperies and sorceries and impostures All the Japonian Sects also make the world to be eternal and Souls to be perpetuated through infinite transmigrations The Siamenses who seem the best of all and nearest to Christians have many fopperies and worship the Devil for fear as they do God for love The Indian Bramenes or Bannians also have the Pythagorean errors and place their piety in redeeming Bruits because they have Souls which sometimes were humane The Persians dispersed in India who confess God and Heaven and Hell yet think that these are but of a thousand years duration And it is above a thousand years since they believed that the world should continue but a thousand years and then Souls be released from Hell and a new world made § 7. Their great darkness and uncertainties appear by the innumerable sects and differences which are among them which are incomparably more numerous than all that are found in all parties in the world besides I need not tell you of the 288 Sects or Opinions de summo bono which Varro said was in his days The difference which you may find in Laertius Hesechius and others between the Cynicks Peripateticks Academicks Stoicks Scepticks Epicureans c. with all their sub-divisions are enow In Japan the twelve Sects have their subdivisions In China the three general Sects have so many subdivisions that Varenius saith of them Singuli fontes Iabentibus paulatim seculis à fraudum magistris in tot maeandros derivati sunt ut sub triplici nomine trecentae mihi sectae inter se discrepantes numerari posse videantur sed hae quotidianis incrementis augentur in pejus ruunt Petrus Texeica saith of the Indians In Regno Gazeratensivarii sunt ritus sectae incolarum quod mirum vix familiam invenias in qua omnes congruant alii comedunt carnem alii nequaquam alii comedunt quidem sed non mactant animalia alii nonnulla tantum animalia comedunt alii tantum pisces alii tantum lac herbas c. Johan a Twist saith of the Indian Bramenes Numerantur sectae praecipui nominis octoginta tres sed praeter has minus illustrium magna est multitudo ita ut singulae familiae peculiarem fere foveant religionem It were endless to speak of all the Sects in Africa and America to say nothing of the beastly part of them in Brasil the Cape of good hope that is Soldania and the Islands of Cannibals who know no God nor Government nor Civility some of them They are not only of as many minds as countries but of a multitude of sects in one and the same country § 8. I find not my self called or enabled to judge all these people as to their final state but only to say that if any of them have a holy heart and life in the true love of God they shall be saved but without this no form of Religion will save any man be it never so right § 9. But I find it to be my duty to love them for all the good which is in them and all that is true and good in their Religion I will embrace and because it is so defective to look further and try what I can learn from others There is so much lovely in a Cato Cicero Seneca Antonine Epictetus Plutarch c. in the Religions of Siam in the dispersed Persian Ethnicks in India in the Bramans or Bannians of India in the Bonzii of Japan and divers others in China and else-where that it obligeth us not only to love them benevolently but with much complacence And as I will learn from Nature it self what I can so also from these Students of Nature I will take up nothing meerly on their trust nor reject any doctrin meerly because it is theirs but all that is true and good in their Religions as far as I can discern it shall be part of mine and because I find them so dark and bad I will betake me for further information to those that trust to supernatural Revelation which are the Jews Mahumetans and the Christians of which I shall next consider a-part § 10. II. As to the Religion of the Jews I need not say much of it by it self the Positive part of their doctrine being confessed by the Christians and Mahumetans to be of Divine Revelation and the negative part their denying of Christ is to be tryed in the tryall of Christianity The Reasons which are brought for the Christian Religion if sound will prove the Old Testament which the Jews believe it being part of the Christians Sacred Book And the same reasons will confute the Jews rejection of Jesus Christ I take that therefore to be the fittest place to treat of this subject when I come to the proofs of the Christian Faith I oppose not what they have from God I must prove that to be of God which they deny § 11. III. In the Religion of the Mahumetans I finde much good viz. A Confession of one only God and most of the Natural parts of Religion a vehement opposition to all Idolatry A testimony to the Veracity of Moses and of Christ that Christ is the Word of God and a great Prophet and the Writings of the Apostles true All this therefore where Christianity is approved
disconsolate Disciples who had but lately sinfully forsaken him He giveth them no upbraiding words but meltingly saith to her Go to my brethren and say unto them I ascend unto my Father and your Father to my God and your God He after this familiarly converseth with them and instructeth them in the things concerning the Kingdom of God He maketh an Vniversal Pardon or Act of Oblivion in a Covenant of Grace for all the world that will not reject it and appointeth Messengers to preach it unto all and what ever pains or suffering it cost them to go through all with patience and alacrity and to stick at nothing for the saving of mens souls He gave the holy Spirit miraculously to them to enable them to carry on this work and to leave upon record to the world the infallible narrative of his Life and Doctrine His Gospel is filled up with matter of consolation with the promises of mercy pardon and salvation the description of the priviledges of holy Souls justification adoption peace and joy and finally He governeth and defendeth his Church and pleadeth our cause and secureth our interest in Heaven according to the promises of this his word Thus is the Gospel the very Image of the Wisdom and Goodness of God And such a Doctrin from such a Person must needs be Divine 2. And the Method and Style of it is most excellent because most suitable to its holy ends not with the excellency of frothy wit which is but to express a wanton fancy and please the ears of aery persons who play with words when they should close with wisdom and heavenly light such excellency of speech must receive its estimate by its use and end But as the end is most Divine so the light that shineth in the Gospel is Heavenly and Divine the Method of the Books themselves is various according to the time and occasions of their writing the objections against them are to be answered by themselves anon But the Method of the whole Doctrin of Christianity set together is the most admirable and perfect in the world beginning with God in Unity of Essence proceeding to his Trinity of Essential Active Principles and of Persons and so to his Trinity of Works Creation Redemption and Regeneration and of Relations of God and Man accordingly and to the second Trinity of Relations as he is our Owner Ruler and Chief Good And hence it brancheth it self into a multitude of benefits flowing from all these Relations of God to Man and a multitude of answerable duties flowing from our Correlations to God and all in perfect method twisted and inoculated into each other making a kind of cirulation between Mercies and Duties as in mans body there is of the arterial and venal bloud and spirits till in the issue as all Mercy came from God and Duty subordinately from man so Mercy and Duty do terminate in the Everlasting Pleasure of God ultimately and man subordinately in that mutual love which is here begun and there is perfected This method you may somewhat perceive in the description of the Christian Religion before laid down 3. And the style also is suited to the end and matter not to the pleasing of curious ears but to the declaring of heavenly mysteries not to the conceits of Logicians who have put their understandings into the fetters of their own ill-devised notions and expect that all men that will be accounted wise should use the same notions which they have thus devised and about which they are utterly disagreed among themselves But in a Language suitable both to the subject and to the world of persons to whom this word is sent who are commonly ignorant and unlearned and dull That being the best Physick which is most suitable to the Patients temper and disease And though the particular Writers of the Sacred Scriptures have their several Styles yet is there in them all in common a Style which is spiritual powerfull and divine which beareth its testimony proportionably of that Spirit which is the common Author in them all But of this more among the Difficulties and Objections anon But for the discerning of all this Image of God in the Doctrine of Jesus Christ Reason will allow me to expect these necessary qualifications in him that must discern it 1. That before he come to supernatural Revelations he be not unacquainted with those natural Revelations which are antecedent and should be foreknown as I have in this book explained them with their evidence For there is no coming to the highest step of the Ladder without beginning at the lowest Men ignorant of things knowable by Natural Reason are unprepared for higher things 2. It is reasonably expected that he be one that is not treacherous and false to those Natural Truths which he hath received For how can he be expected to be impartial and faithfull in seeking after more Truth who is unfaithfull to that which he is convinced of or that he should receive that Truth which he doth not yet know who is false to that which he already knoweth Or that he should discern the evidence of extraordinary Revelation who opposeth with enmity the ordinary light or Law of Nature Or that God should vouchsafe his further light and conduct to that Man who willfully sinneth against him in despight of all his former teachings 3. It is requisite that he be one that is not a stranger to himself but acquainted with the case of his heart and life and know his sins and his corrupt inclinations and that guilt and disorder and misery in which his need of mercy doth consist For he is no fit Judge of the Prescripts of his Physician who knoweth not his own disease and temperature But of this more anon § 8. III. The third way of the Spirits witness to Jesus Christ is Concomitantly by the miraculous gifts and works of Himself and his Disciples which are a cogent Evidence of Gods attestation to the truth of his Doctrine § 9. By the Miracles of Christ I mean 1. His miraculous actions upon others 2. His miracles in his Death and Resurrection 3. His predictions The appearance of the Angel to Zachary and his dumbness his Prophesie and Elizabeth's with the Angels appearance to Mary the Angels appearance and Evangelizing to the Shepherds the Prophesie of Simeon and of Anna the Star and the testimony of the wise Men of the East the testimony of John Baptist that Christ should baptize with the Holy Ghost and with Fire and that he was the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World These and more such I pass by as presupposed At twelve years of age he disputed with the Doctors in the Temple to their admiration At his Baptism the Holy Ghost came down upon him in the likeness of a Dove and a voice from Heaven said Thou art my beloved Son in Thee I am well-pleased When he was baptized he fasted forty dayes and nights and
senses these present things will be a strong temptation to us Prosperity and plenty wealth and honour ease and pleasure are accommodated to the desires of the flesh partly to its natural appetite and much more to it as inordinate by corruption And the flesh careth not for Reason how much soever it gainsay And then all these entising things are neer us and still present with us and before our eyes when Heavenly things are all unseen And the sweetness of honour wealth and pleasure is known by feeling and therefore known easily and by all when the goodness of things spiritual is known only by Reason and believing All which laid together with sad experience do fully shew that it must be a very great work to overcome this World and raise the heart above it to a better and so to sanctifie a soul 2. And worldly men do rise up against this Holy work as as well as worldly things Undenyable experience assureth us that through all the World ungodly sensual men have a marvellous implacable hatred to Godlyness and true mortification and will by flattery or slanders or scorns or plots or cruel violence do all that they are able to resist it So that he that will live a holy temperate life must make himself a scorn if not a prey The foolish wit of the ungodly is bent to reason men out of Faith Hope and Holiness and to cavill against our obedience to God and to disgrace all that course of life which is necessary to salvation And it is a great work to overcome all these temptations of the foolish and furious World Great I say because of the great folly and corruption of unregenerate men on whom it must be wrought though it would be smaller to a wise and considerate person To be made as an Owl and hunted as a Partridge or a beast of Prey by those that we converse with when we might have their favour and friendship and Preferments if we would say and do as they this is not easie to flesh and blood But its easie to the Spirit of God 3. The Devil is so notoriously an enemy to this sanctifying work that it is a strong discovery that Christ was sent from God to do it What a stir doth he first make to keep out the Gospel that it may not be Preached to the Nations of the World And where that will not serve what a stir doth he make to debauch Christs Ministers and corrupt them by ignorance heresie error schism domineering pride sensuality covetousness slothfulness and negligence that they may do the work of Christ deceitfully as if they did it not Yea and if it may be to win them to his service to destroy the Church by Oppression or Division under pretense of serving Christ And what cunning and industry doth this Serpent use to insinuate into great ones and Rulers of the Earth a prejudice against Christ and Godliness and to make them believe that all that are seriously Godly are their enemies and are against some interest of theirs that so he might take the sword which God hath put into their hands and turn it to his own service against him that gave it How cunning and diligent is he to seduce men that begin to set themselves to a Religious life into some false Opinions or dividing Sects or scandalous unjustifiable practice that thereby he may triumph against Christ and have something to say against Religion from the faults of men when he hath nothing to say against it justly from it self and that he may have something to say to those Rulers and People with whom he would fain make Religion odious How cunningly doth he engage ungodly men to be his Servants in seducing others and making them such as they are themselves and in standing up for sin and darkness against the light and life of Faith So that ungodly men are but the Souldiers and Preachers of the Devil in all parts employed to fight against God and draw men from holiness and justice and temperance to sin and to damnation So that it is a very discernable thing that Satan is the Head of one party in the World as the Destroying Prince of Darkness and deceit and that Christ is the Head of the other party as the Prince of light and truth and holiness And that there is a continued war or opposition between these two Kingdoms or Armies in all parts and ages of the World of which I have fullyer treated in another Book If any shall say How know you that all this is the work of Satan I shall have fitter occasion to answer that anon I shall now say but this that the nature of the work the tendency of it the irrationall erroneous or brutish tyrannical manner of doing it the internal importunity and manner of his suggestions and the effects of all and the contrariety of it to God and Man will soon shew a considerate man the author Though more shall be anon added V. All this aforegoing will shew a reasonable man that the Spirits Regenerating work is such as is a full attestation of God to that Doctrine by which it is effected And if any now say How prove you that all this is to be ascribed to Jesus Christ any more than to Socrates or to Seneca or Cicero I answer 1. So much truth of a sacred tendency as Plato or Pythagoras or Socrates or any Philosopher taught might do some good and work some reformation according to its quality and degree But as it was a lame imperfect doctrine which they taught so was it a very lame imperfect reformation which they wrought unlike the effects of the Doctrine and Spirit of Jesus Christ I need to say no more of this than to desire any man to make an impartial and judicious comparison between them And besides much more he shall quickly finde these differences following 1. That the Philosophers Disciples had a very poor dark disordered knowledge of God in comparison of the Christians and that mixt with odious fopperies either blasphemous or idolatrous 2. The Philosophers spake of God and the Life to come almost altogether notionally as they did of Logick or Physicks and very few of them Practically as a thing that mans happiness or misery was so much concerned in 3. They spake very jejunely and dryly about a holy state and course of life and the duty of Man to God in resignation devotedness obedience and love 4. They said little comparatively to the true humbling of a Soul nor in the just discovery of the evil of sin nor for self-denyall 5. They gave too great countenance to Pride and Worldliness and pleasing the senses by excess 6. The Doctrine of true Love to one another is taught by them exceeding lamely and defectively 7. Revenge is too much indulged by them and loving our Enemies and forgiving great wrongs was little known or taught or practised 8. They were so pitifully unacquainted with the certainty
and blessedness of the Life to come that they say nothing of it that is ever likely to make any considerable number set their hearts on Heaven and to live a heavenly Life 9. They were so unacquainted with the nature and will of God that they taught and used such a manner of Worship as tended rather to delude and corrupt men than to sanctifie them 10. They medled so little with the inward sins and duties of the heart especially about the holy Love of God and their goodness was so much in outward acts and in meer respect to men that they were not like to sanctifie the Soul or make the Man good that his actions might be good but only to polish men for Civil Societies with the addition of a little Varnish of Superstition and Hypocrisie 11. Their very style is either suitable to dead speculation as a Lecture of Metaphysicks or sleight and dull and unlike to be effectual to convert and sanctifie mens Souls 12. Almost all is done in such a disputing sophistical way and clogg'd with so many obscurities uncertainties and self-contradictions and mixt in heaps of Physical and Logical Subtilties that they were unfit for the common peoples benefit and could tend but to the benefit of a few 13. Experience taught and still teacheth the World that Holy Souls and Lives that were sincerely set upon God and Heaven were strangers amongst the Disciples of the Philosophers and other Heathens Or if it be thought that there were some such among them certainly they were very few in comparison of true Christians and those few very dark and diseased and defective with us a Childe at ten years old will know more of God and shew more true piety than did any of their Philosophers with us poor women and labouring persons do live in that holiness and heavenliness of minde and conversation which the wisest of the Philosophers never did attain I spake of this before but here also thought meet to shew you the difference between the effect of Christs doctrine and the Philosophers 2. And that all this is justly to be imputed to Christ himself I shall now prove 1. He gave them a perfect pattern for his holy obedient heavenly Life in his own person and his conversation here on Earth 2. His Doctrine and Law requireth all this holiness which I described to you You finde the Prescript in his Word of which the holy Souls and Lives of men are but a transcript 3. All his Institutions and Ordinances are but means and helps to this 4. He hath made it the condition of mans Salvation to be thus holy in sincerity and to desire and seek after perfection in it He taketh no other for true Christians indeed nor will save any other at the last 5. All his comforting Promises of mercy and defence are made only to such 6. He hath made it the Office of his Ministers through the World to perswade and draw men to this Holiness And if you hear the Sermons and read the Books which any faithfull Minister of Christ doth preach or write you will soon see that this is the business of them all And you may soon perceive that these Ministers have another kinde of preaching and writing than the Philosophers had more clear more congruous more spiritual more powerfull and likely to win men to Holiness and Heavenliness When our Divines and their Philosophers are compared as to their promoting of true Holiness verily the latter seem to be but as Glow-worms and the former to be the Candles for the Family of God And yet I truly value the wisdom and virtue which I finde in a Plato a Seneca a Cicero an Antonine or any of them If you say our advantage is because coming after all we have the helps of all even of those Philosophers I answer mark in our Books and Sermons whether it be any thing but Christianity which we preach It is from Christ and Scripture that we fetch our Doctrine and not from the Philosophers we use their helps in Logick Physicks c. But that 's nothing to our Doctrine He that taught me to speak English did not teach me the Doctrine which I preach in English And he that teacheth me to use the Instruments of Logick doth not teach me the doctrine about which I use them And why did not those Philosophers by all their art attain to that skill in this Sacred work as the Ministers of Christ do when they had as much or more of the Arts than we I read indeed of many good Orations then used even in those of the Emperour Julian there is much good and in Antonine Arrian Epictetus Plutarch more And I read of much taking-Oratory of the Bonzii in Japan c. But compared to the endeavours of Christian Divines they are poor pedantick barren things and little sparks and the success of them is but answerable 7. Christ did before hand promise to send his Spirit into mens Souls to do all this work upon all his Chosen And as he promised just so he doth 8. And we finde by experience that it is the preaching of Christs doctrine by which the work is done It is by the reading of the sacred Scripture or hearing the Doctrine of it opened and applyed to us that Souls are thus changed as is before described And if it be by the medicines which he sendeth us himself by the hands of his own Servants that we are healed we need not doubt whether it be he that healed us His Doctrine doth it as the instrumental Cause for we finde it adapted thereunto and we finde nothing done upon us but by that Doctrine nor any remaining effect but what is the impression of it But his Spirit inwardly reneweth us as the Principal cause and worketh with and by the Word For we finde that the Word doth not work upon all nor upon all alike that are alike prepared But we easily perceive a voluntary distinguishing choice in the operation And we finde a power more than can be in the words alone in the effect upon our selves The heart is like the Wax and the Word like the Seal and the Spirit like the hand that strongly applyeth it We feel upon our hearts that though nothing is done without the Seal yet a greater force doth make the impression than the weight of the Seal alone could cause By this time it is evident that this work of Sanctification is the attestation of God by which he publickly owneth the Gospel and declareth to the World that Christ is the Saviour and his Word is true For 1. It is certain that this work of Renovation is the work of God For 1. It is his Image on the Soul It is the life of the Soul as flowing from his Holy Life wherein are contained the Trinity of Perfections It is the Power of the Soul by which it can overcome the Flesh the World and the Devil which without it none is able to do It is the
to put honour on a scandalous sinner or seem to dishonour Gods Works by mentioning such an object of them And I have much observed that whatever wonder I ever knew done in answer to Prayer or attestation of any good the Devil hath with marvellous subtilty endeavoured by some error or scandal of men to turn it all against Christ and to his own advantage But yet God declareth the truth of his Promises by the deliverances of his Servants and the granting of prayers which are put up to him in the name of Christ I will not dispute whether these actions shall be called Miracles or not It is enough for my purpose if they be but attesting Providences All Church-History telleth us of many such heretofore how great things have been done and deliverances wrought upon Christians earnest Prayer to God The success of the Thundering Legion in the Army of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus in Germany is commonly mentioned You may see it in the Apolog. of Justin Martyr and Tertullian See more in Pamelius's Notes on Tertull. N. 64. Cyprian saith to Demetrius pag. 328 of the Christians casting out of Devils O si audire velles videre quando a nobis adjurantur torqientur spiritalibus flagris verborum tormentis de obsessis corporibus ejiciuntur quando ejulantes gementes voce humanâ potestate divinâ flagella verbera sentientes venturum judicium confitentur Veni cognosce vera esse quae dicimus quia sic Deos colere te dicis vel ipsis quos colis crede aut si volueris tiâ—i credere de te ipso loquetur audiente te qui nunc tuum pectus obsedit Videlis nos rogari ab eis quos tu rogas tamen ab eis quos tu adoras videbis sub manu nostra stare vinctos tremere captivos quos tu suspicis veneraris ut Dominos certè vel sic confundi in istis erroribus tuis poteris cum conspexeris audieris deos tuos quid sint interrogatione nostra statim prodere c. But it were tedious to recite all that Antiquity telleth us of this kinde Later times have their testimonies also Bayname could tell the Papists that burned him in the midst of his flames Lo ye Papists here is a Miracle I feel no more pain in this fire than in a bed of Down it is as sweet to me as a bed of Roses Bishop Farrar could say when he went to the fire If I stirre in the fire believe not my doctrine and accordingly remain'd unmoved Many more you may see in Martyrologies and Church-history It was the mercifull Providence of God to Mris. Honywood who in her passionate self-accusations when the Minister was perswading her of the pardon of her sin threw the glass which was in her hand up to the wall saying she was as certainly an hypocrite as that glass would break and it fell to the ground and remained unbroken They were convincing Providences which God exercised on the leading women of the Familistical Sect which troubled New-England when one of them Mris. Dyer brought forth a Monster that had the parts of Man Beast Birds and Fishes and the other their Prophetess Mris. Hutchinson brought forth about thirty mishapen lumps or births at once and thereby the Land was awakened and delivered from the danger My own deliverances by prayer because they were my own I think not fit here to express Nor many other persons that were familiar with me some yet living and some dead Nor would I mention such small things as corporal deliverances and cures but only because they are matters of sense and somewhat unusual and not as supposing them the great matters which Christians have to look after or expect in answer to their prayers they are far greater things which prayer brings to all true Christians the strength of the Spirit against temptations the mortification of those sins which nature constitution temperature custom and interest would most strongly draw them to the special assistances of God in duty the information of the mind by a light which sheweth the evidence of truth in a special clearness the resolution of doubts the conquest of passions the elevation of the soul in divine love and praises the joy of the holy Ghost and comfortable thoughts of the coming of Christ and our endless blessedness with God in Heaven These are the Answers of Prayer which are the fulfilling of the promises of Christ and which are of greater moment than Miracles of which we have ordinary experience § 7. VII It confirmeth my belief of the Gospel to observe the connaturality and suitableness which it hath to the best holiest souls that by how much the better in true honesty and charity and heavenliness any man is by so much the more is the Gospel beloved pleasant and suitable to him as humane food is to humane nature My much converse in the world with men of all sorts but most with the persons now described hath given me opportunity to be fully assured of the truth of this experiment beyond all doubt And that which is the best in man is certainly of God and therefore that which is suitable and connatural to the best in man must be of God also § 8. VIII It confirmeth my belief of the Gospel to find it so very suitable to the worlds diseases necessities and business to reconcile them to God and fill them with love and heavenly mindedness which other Religions do meddle with so little and superficially and ineffectually § 9. IX The matter of the Gospel is so holy and spiritual and against all sin and evil spirits that it is incredible that evil spirits or very bad men should be the inventers of it And yet to forge so many miracles and matters of fact and call a man God and to perplex the world with needless delusory strictnesses and to father all this on God himself would have been a villany so transcendent that none but men extremely bad could do it Therefore it must needs be the design of Heaven and not of Men. § 10. X. When I deeply consider the evidence of verity in the Gospel it hath as much to convince me as I could have chosen or desired § 11. 1. If I had been put myself to choose by what means God should open to man the things of the unseen world I could have desired no more than that a messenger might come to us from heaven to tell it us unless we had either sight and sense or immediate vision and fruition And I am fully satisfied 1. That spiritual things are invisible and are no objects of corporeal sense 2. That it is not meet and honourable to God's Wisdom and Justice to govern rational free Agents in via by sight and sense It would be no trial or thanks to the most sensual wretch to forbear his sin if Heaven and Hell were open to his sight 3. That spiritual vision and
these Who can say that God is unable to raise the dead who seeth so much greater things performed by him in the daily motion of the Sun or Earth and in the support and course of the whole frame of Nature He that can every Spring give a kinde of Resurrection to Plants and Flowers and Fruits of the Earth can easily raise our bodies from the dust And no man can prove that the Wisdom of God or yet his Will are against our Resurrection but that both are for it may be proved by his Promises Shall that which is beyond the power of Man be therefore objected as a difficulty to God 2. Yea it is congruous to the Wisdom and Governing Justice of God that the same Body which was partaker with the Soul in sin and duty should be partaker with it in suffering or felicity 3. The Lord Jesus Christ did purposely die and rise again in his humane body to put the Resurrection out of doubt by undenyable ocular demonstration and by the certainty of belief 4. There is some Natural Reason for the Resurrection in the Souls inclination to its Body As it is unwilling to lay it down it will be willing to reassume it when God shall say The time is come As we may conclude at night when they are going to bed that the people of City and Countrey will rise the next morning and put on their Cloaths and not go naked about the streets because there is in them a Natural inclination to rising and to cloaths and a natural aversness to lie still or to go uncloathed so may we conclude from the souls natural inclination to its body that it will reassume it as soon as God consenteth 5. And all our Objections which reason from supposed contradictions vanish because none of us all have so much skill in Physicks as to know what it is which individuateth this Numerical Body and so what it is which is to be restored But we all confess that it is not the present mass of flesh and humours which being in a continual flux is not the same this year which it was the last and may vanish long before we die Obj. X. If Christ be indeed the Saviour of the World why came he not into the World till it was 4000 years old And why was he before revealed to so few and to them so darkly Did God care for none on earth but a few Jews or did he not care for the Worlds recovery till the later age when it drew towards its end Answ It is hard for the Governour of the World by ordinary means to satisfie all self-conceited persons of the wisdom and equity of his dealings But 1. it belongeth not to us but to our free Benefactor to determine of the measure and season of his benefits May he not do with his own as he list And shall we deny or question a proved truth because the reason of the circumstances is unrevealed to us If our Physician come to cure us of a mortal disease would we reject him because he came not sooner and because he cured not all others that were sick as well as us 2. The Eternal Wisdom and Word of God the second Person in the Trinity was the Saviour of the World before he was incarnate He did not only by his Vndertaking make his future performances valid as to the merit and satisfaction necessary to our deliverance but he instructed Mankinde in order to their recovery and Ruled them upon terms of grace and so did the work of a Redeemer or Mediator even as Prophet Priest and King before his Incarnation He enacted the Covenant of Grace that whoever repenteth and believeth shall be saved and so gave men a conditional pardon of their sins 3. And though Repentance and the Love of God was necessary to all that would be saved even as a constitutive cause of their salvation yet that Faith in the Mediator which is but the means to the Love of God and to sanctification was not alwayes nor in all places in the same particular Articles necessary as it is now where the Gospel is preached Before Christs coming a more general belief might serve the turn for mens salvation without believing that This Jesus is the Christ that he was conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified dead and buryed and descended to Hades and rose again the third day and ascended into Heaven c. And as more is necessary to be believed since Christs incarnation and resurrection than before so more was before necessary to the Jewes who had the Oracles of God and had more revealed to them than to other Nations who had less revealed And now more is necessary where the Gospel cometh than where it doth not 4. So that the Gentiles had a Saviour before Christs Incarnation and not only the Jewes They were reprieved from Legal Justice and not dealt with by God upon the proper terms of the Covenant of Works or meer Nature They had all of them much of that mercy which they had forfeited which came to them by the Grace of the Redeemer They had time and helps to turn to God and a course of means appointed them to use in order to their recovery and salvation According to the use of which they shall be judged They were not with the Devils left remediless and shut out of all hope under final desperation No one ever perished in any Age or Nation of the World who by believing in a mercifull pardoning holy God was recovered to love God above all And if they did not this they were all without a just excuse 5. The course of Grace as that of Nature doth wisely proceed from low degrees to higher and bringeth not things to perfection at the first The Sun was not made the first day of the Creation nor was Man made till all things were prepared for him The Churches Infancy was to go before its Maturity We have some light of the Sun before it rise much more before it come to the height As Christ now teacheth his Church more plainly when he is himself gone into Glory even by his Pastors whom he fitteth for that work and by his Spirit so did he though more obscurely yet sufficiently teach it before he came in the flesh by Prophets and Priests His work of Salvation consisteth in bringing men to live in Love and Obedience And his way of Teaching them his saving doctrine is by his Ministers without and by his Spirit within And thus he did before his coming in flesh and thus he doth since we that are born since his coming see not his Person any more than they who were born before But we have his Word Ministers and Spirit and so had they His reconciling sacrifice was effectual morally in esse cognito volito before the performance of it And the means of reconciling our mindes to God
of the World and the pleasures of the flesh for the Love of God and the Hopes of Glory And he that doth thus much shall undoubtedly be saved But to think that you must ask your hearts such a question as whether you can be content to be damned for Christ is but to abuse God and your selves Indeed both Reason and Religion command us to esteem God infinitely above our selves and the Churches welfare above our own because that which is best must be best esteemed and loved But yet though we must ever acknowledge this inequality Yet that we must never disjoyn them nor set them in a positive opposition or competition nor really do any thing which tendeth to our damnation upon any pretense of the Churches good is past all question He that hath made the love of our selves and felicity inseparable from man hath made us no duty inconsistent with this inclination that is with our humanity it self For God hath conjoyned these necessary ends and we must not separate them § 3. The Interest of the Church is but the Interest of the Souls that constitute the Church and to preferre it above our own is but to preferre many above one § 4. He that doth most for the publick good and the Souls of many doth thereby most effectually promote his own consolation and salvation § 5. The Interest of God is the Vltimate End of Religion Church and particular Souls § 6. Gods Interest is not any addition to his Perfection or Blessedness but the pleasing of his Will in the Glory of his Power Wisdom and Goodness shining forth in Jesus Christ and in his Church § 7. Therefore to promote Gods Interest is by promoting the Churches Interest § 8. The Interest of the Church consisteth I. Intensivè in its HOLYNESS II. Conjunctivè harmonicè in its Unity Concord and Order III. Extensivè in its increase and the multiplication of Believers § 9. I. The HOLYNESS of the Church consisteth 1. In its Resignation and submission to God its Owner 2. In its subjection and obedience to God its Ruler 3. In its Gratitude and Love to God its Benefactor and Ultimate End § 10. These acts consist 1. In a right estimation and Belief of the minde 2. In a right Volition Choice and Resolution of the Will 3. In the right ordering of the Life § 11. The Means of the Churches HOLYNESS are these 1. Holy Doctrine Because as all Holiness entereth by the understanding so Truth is the instrumental cause of all § 12. 2. The holy serious reverent skilfull and diligent preaching of this doctrine by due explication proof and application suitably to the various auditors § 13. 3. The holy lives and private converse of the Pastors of the Church § 14. 4. Holy Discipline faithfully administred encouraging all that are godly and comforting the penitent and humbling the proud and disgracing open sin and casting out the proved impenitent gross sinners that they infect not the rest embolden not the wicked and dishonour not the Church in the eyes of the unbelievers § 15. 5. The election and ordination of able and holy Pastors fit for this work § 16. 6. The conjunct endeavours of the wisest and most experienced members of the flock not usurping any Ecclesiastical office but by their wisdom and authority and example in their private capacities seconding the labours of the Pastors and not leaving all to be done by them alone § 17. 7. Especially the holy instructing and governing of families by catechizing inferiours and exhorting them to the due care of their souls and helping them to understand and remember the publick teaching of the Pastors and praying and praising God with them and reading the Scripture and holy books especially on the Lord's day and labouring to reform their lives § 18. 8. The blameless lives and holy conference converse and example of the members of the Church among themselves Holiness begetteth holiness and encreaseth it as fire kindleth fire § 19. 9. The unity concord and love of Christians to one another § 20. 10. And lastly holy Princes and Magistrates to encourage piety and to protect the Church and to be a terrour to evil doers These are the means of holiness § 21. The contraries of all these may easily be discerned to be the destroyers of holiness and pernicious to the Church 1. Vnholy doctrine 2. Ignorant unskilful negligent cold or envious preaching 3. The unholy lives of them that preach it 4. Discipline neglected or perverted to the encouraging of the ungodly and afflicting of the most holy and upright of the flocks 5. The election or ordination of insufficient negligent or ungodly Pastors 6. The negligence of the wisest of the flock or the restraint of them by the spirit of jealousie and envy from doing their private parts in assistance of the Pastors 7. The neglect of holy instructing and governing of families and the lewd example of the governours of them 8. The scandalous or barren lives of Christians 9. The divisions and discord of Christians among themselves 10. And bad Magistrates who give an ill example or afflict the godly or encourage vice or at least suppress it not § 22. To these may be added 1. The degenerating of Religious strictness from what God requireth into another thing by humane corruptions gradually introduced as is seen among too many Friars as well as in the Pharisees of old 2. A degenerating of holy Institutions of Christ into another thing by the like gradual corruptions as is seen in the Roman Sacrifice of the Mass 3. The degenerating of Church-Offices by the like corruptions as is seen in the Papacy and its manifold supporters 4. The diversion of the Pastors of the Church to secular employments 5. The diminishing the number of the Pastors of the Church as proportioned to the number of souls as if one school-master alone should have ten thousand scholars or ten thousand souldiers but one or two officers 6. The pretending of the soul and power of Religion to destroy the body or external part or making use of the body or external part to destroy the soul and power and setting things in opposition which are conjunct 7. The preferring either the imposition or opposition of things indifferent before things necessary 8. An apish imitation of Christ by Satan and his instruments by counterfeiting inspirations revelations visions prophesies miracles apparitions sanctity zeal and new institutions in the Church 9. An over-doing or being righteous over much by doing more than God would have us over-doing being one of the devils ways of undoing When Satan pretendeth to be a Saint he will be stricter than Christ as the Pharisees were in their company Sabbath-rest and ceremonies and he will be zealous with a fiery consuming zeal 10. Accidentally prosperity it self consumeth piety in the Church if it occasion the perdition of the world the Church is not out of danger of it § 23. II. The