vain a bubble the honour of man and the glory of this world is will not be offended at the King of Saints because his Kingdom is not of this World And he that knoweth any thing of the difference between God and the Creature Heaven and Earth will not despise the Eternal Jehovah because he weareth not a silken Coat and dwelleth not in the guilded Palaces of a Prince If Earthly Glory had been the highest it had been the glory of Christ And if he had come to make us happy by the rich mans way Luk. 16. To be cloathed in Purple and Silk and faring sumptuously every day then would he have led us this way by his example But when it is the work of a Saviour to save us from the flesh and from this present evil World the Means must be suited to the end Obj. XII But it is a very hard thing to believe that person to be God Incarnate and the Saviour of the World who suffered on a Cross as a Blasphemer and a Traytor that usurped the Title of a King Answ The Cross of Christ hath ever been the stumbling-block of the proud and worldly sort of men But it is the confidence and consolation of true Believers For 1. It was not for his own sins but for ours that he suffered Even so was it prophesied of him Isa 53.4 Surely he hath born our griefs and carryed our sorrows yet did we esteem him stricken of God and afflicted But he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed All we like Sheep have gone astray we have every one turned to his own way and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all And it is impudent ingratitude to make those his sufferings the occasion of our unbelief which we were the causes of our selves and to be ashamed of that Cross which we laid upon him by our sins It is not worth the labour to answer the slanders of his accusers about his usurpation of a Kingdom when they believed it not themselves He was above a worldly Kingdom And it could be no blasphemy for him to say that he was the Son of God when he had so fully proved it by his works 2. His suffering as a reputed Malefactor on a Cross was a principal part of the merit of his Patience For many a man can bear the corporal pain who cannot so far deny his honour as to bear the imputation of a Crime For the innocent Son of God that was never convict of sin to suffer under the name of a Blasphemer and a Traytor was greater condescention than to have suffered under the name of an innocent person 3. And in all this it was needfull that the Saviour of Mankinde should not only be a Sacrifice and Ransom for our sinfull Souls but also should heal us of the over-love of Life and Honour by his Example Had not his self-denyal and patience extended to the loss of all things in this World both life it self and the reputation of his righteousness it had not been a perfect example of self-denyal and patience unto us And then it had been unmeet for so great a work as the cure of our Pride and love of Life Had Christ come to deliver the Jews from Captivity or to make his Followers great on Earth as Mahomet did he would have suited the Means to such an End But when he came to save men from pride and self-love and the esteem of this World and to bring them to Patience and full obedience to the will of God and to place all their happiness in another life true Reason telleth us that there was no example so fit for this end as Patient submission to the greatest sufferings The Cross of Christ then shall be our glory and not our stumbling-block or shame Let the Children of the Devil boast that they are able to do hurt and to trample upon others The Disciples of Christ will rather boast that they can patiently endure to be abused as knowing that their Pride and Love of the World is the enemy which they are most concern'd in conquering Obj. XIII It was but a few mean unlearned persons who believed in him at the first And it is not past a sixth part of the World that yet believeth in him And of these few do it judiciously and from their hearts but because their Kings or Parents or Countrey are of that Religion Answ 1. As to the Number I have answered it before It is no great number comparatively that are Kings or Lords or Learned men and truly judicious and wise will you therefore set light by any of these Things excellent are seldom common The Earth hath more Stones than Gold or Pearls All those believed in Christ who heard his word and saw his works and had wise considerate honest hearts to receive the sufficient evidence of truth The greater part are every where ignorant rash injudicious dishonest and carryed away with prejudice fancy custom error and carnal interest If all men have means in its own kind sufficient to bring them to believe to understand so much as God immediately requireth of them it is their fault who after this are ignorant and unbelieving and if it prove their misery let them thank themselves But yet Christ will not leave the success of his undertaking so far to the will of man as to be uncertain of his expected fruits He hath his chosen ones throughout the World and will bring them effectually to Faith and Holiness to Grace and Glory though all the Powers of Hell do rage against it In them is his delight and them he will conform to his Fathers will and restore them to his Image and fit them to love and serve him here and enjoy him for ever And though they are not the greater number they shall be the everlasting demonstration of his Wisdom Love and Holiness And when you see all the worlds of more blessed Inhabitants you will see that the Damned were the smaller number and the Blessed in all probability many millions to one If the Devil have the greater number in this World God will have the greater number in the rest 2. It was the wise design of Jesus Christ that few in comparison should be converted by his personal converse or teaching and thousands might be suddenly converted upon his Ascension and the coming down of the Holy Ghost Both because his Resurrection and Ascension were part of the Articles to be believed and were the chiefest of all his Miracles which did convert men And therefore he would Rise from the dead before the multitude should be called And because the Spirit as it was his extraordinary Witness and Advocate on Earth was to be given by him after he ascended into glory And he would have the World see that the Conversion of men to Faith and Sanctity was not the
kept it out of the world and saved the Individuals from it will confess that man's interest is not the Measure of God's goodness especially considering what consequents also follow sin both here and hereafter 3. And as to this lower part of the Vniverse how many Nations of the Earth are drown'd in woful ignorance and ungodliness how few are the wise and good and peaceable When God could have sent them Learning and Teachers and Means of Reformation and have blessed all this Means to their deliverance So that the far greater part of this lower world hath not so much good as God could give them and the infirmities of the best do cause their dolorous complaints It is certain that God is infinitely good and that all his works also are good in their degree but withall it is certain that God in himself is the Simple Primitive Good and that created goodness principally consisteth in a conformity to his Will which is the standard and measure of it § 16. God as considered in the Infinite Perfections of his Nature and his Will is most Amiable and the object of our highest love § 17. But he is not known by us in those Perfections as seen in themselves immediately but as demonstrated and glorified expressively in his works in which he shineth to us in his goodness § 18. His works therefore are made for the apt revealing of himself as amiable to the intelligent part of his Creation They are the Book in which he hath appointed us to read and the Glass in which he hath appointed us with admiration to behold the Infinite power Wisdom and Goodness of the Creator and in which we may see that he is not only our Chief Benefactor but the Vltimate Object of our Love and so the End of all our Motions § 19. This third Relation of God to us as our Chief Good efficiently and finally is the highest and most perfective to us but is not separated from the former two but they are all marvelously conjunct and concur in the production of most of the subsequent effects of Gods providence As the Elements are conjuct but not confounded in mixed bodies and in themselves are easily to be distinguished where they are not divided and their effects sometimes also distinct but usually mix'd as are the causes so is it in the case of these three Great Relations though God's Propriety extend further than his Government because Inanimates and Bruites are capable of one and not of the other yet as to the Rational Creatures they are in reality of the same extent God is as to Right the Owner and the Ruler of all the world and also their real Benefactor and quoad debitum their ultimate end But as to consent on their parts none but the godly give up themselves to him in any one of these Relations In order of Nature God is first our Owner and then our Ruler and our chief Good or End His work in the first Relation is Arbitrary Disposal of us his work in the second is to Govern us and in the third Attraction and Felicitating But he so Disposeth of us as never to cross his rules of Government and so governeth us as never to cross his absolute Propriety and attracteth and felicitateth us in concent with his Premiant act of Government and all sweetly and wonderfully conspire the perfection of his works § 20. All these Relations are oft summed up in one name which principally importeth the last which is the persective Relation but truly includeth both the former and that is That GOD is Our FATHER As the Rational Soul doth ever include the Sensitive and Vegetative Faculties so doth God's Fatherly Relation to us include his Dominion and Government A Father is thus a kind of Image of God in this Relation For 1. he hath a certain Propriety in his children 2. He is by nature their rightful Governour 3. He is their Benefactor for they are beholden to him for their being and well-being Nature causeth him to love them and bindeth them again to love him And the Title OVR FATHER which art in Heaven includeth all these Divine Relations to us but specially expresseth the Love and Graciousness of God to us Obj. But I must go against the sense of most of the world if I take God to be infinitely or perfectly good for operari sequitur esse He that is perfectly good will perfectly do good But do we not see and feel what you said before The world is but as a wilderness and the life of man a misery We come into the world in weakness and in a case in which we cannot help our selves but are a pity and trouble to others we are their trouble that breed us and bring us up we are vexed with unsatisfied desires with troubling passions with tormenting pains and languishing weakness and enemies malice with poverty and care with losses and crosses and shame and grief with hard labour and studies with the injuries and spectacles of a Bedlam world and with fears of death and death at last Our enemies are our trouble our friends are our trouble our Rulers are our trouble and our inferiours children and servants are our trouble our possessions are our trouble and so are our wants And is all this the effect of perfect Goodness And the poor Bruits seem more miserable than we they labour and hunger and die at last to serve our will we beat them use them and abuse them at our pleasure And all the Inanimates have no sense of any good and which is worst of all the world is like a Dungeon of ignorance like an Hospital of mad-men for folly and distractedness like a band of Robbers for injury and violence like Tygers for cruelty like snarling Dogs for contention and in a word like Hell for wickedness What else sets the world together by the ears in wars and bloudshed in all generations what maketh peace-makers the most neglected men what maketh vertue and piety the mark of persecution and of common scorn how small a part of the world hath knowledge or piety And you tell us of a Hell for most at last Is all this the fruit of perfect Goodness These thoughts have seriously troubled some Answ He that will ever come to knowledge must begin at the first Fundamental Truths and in his enquiry proceed to lesser Superstructures and reduce uncertainties and difficulties to those points which are sure and plain and not cast away the plainest certain truths because they over-take some difficulties beyond them The true method of enquiry is that we first try whether there be a God that is perfectly Good or not If this be once proved beyond all controversie then all that followeth is certainly reconcilable to it for Truth and Truth is not contradictory Now that God is perfectly Good hath been fully proved before He that giveth to all the world both Heaven and Earth and all the Orbs all that Good whether Natural
Gracious or Glorious which they possess is certainly Himself better than all the world for he cannot give more Goodness than he hath this is not to be denied by any man of reason therefore it is proved that God is perfectly Good Besides his Perfections must needs be proportionable we know that he is Eternal as is unquestionably demonstrated we see by the wonderful frame of Nature that he is Omnipotent and Omniscient and then it must needs be that his Goodness must be commensurate with the rest Therefore to come back again upon every consequent which you understand not and to deny a fundamental principle which hath been undeniably demonstrated this is but to resolve that you will not know By this course you may deny any demonstrated truth in Mathematicks when you meet with difficulties among the superstructed consequents Let us therefore methodically proceed We have proved that God is the cause of all the Goodness in the world in Heaven and Earth and therefore must needs be Best himself And it is certain that all the sins and calamities which you mention are in the world and that the creature hath all those imperfections therefore it is certain that these two Verities are consistent what ever difficulty appeareth to you in the reconciling them Thus far there is no matter of doubt And next we are therefore certain that the Measure of God's Goodness is not to be taken from the Creatures interest And yet we know that his Goodness inclineth him to communicate goodness and felicity to his creatures for all the Good in the world is from him It remaineth therefore that he is good necessarily and perfectly and that he doth all well whatsoever he doth and that there is in the Creature a higher Goodness than its own felicity even the Image of God's Power Wisdom and Goodness in which his Holiness and Justice have their place And that this Goodness of the Universe which consisteth in the Glorious appearances of God in it and the suitableness of all to his Will and Wisdom includeth all things except sin which are contained in your objection and that punishment of sinners though it be malum physicum to them is a moral good and glorifieth God's Justice and Holiness and even the permission of sin it self is good though the sin be bad And yet that God will also glorifie that part of his Goodness which consisteth in Benignity for he hath an amor beneficentiae of which the creature only is the object but of his amor complacentiae he himself is the chief object and the creature but the secondary so far as it participateth of Goodness And Complacency is the essential act of Love Think but what a wonderful Fabrick he hath made of all the Orbs composed into One World and can you possibly have narrow thoughts of his Goodness He hath placed more Physical Goodness in the nature of one silly Bird or Fly or Worm than humane wit is able to find out much more in Plants in Beasts in Men in Sea and Land in the Sun and fixed Stars and Planets Our understandings are not acquainted with the thousandth thousandth thousandth part of the Physical goodness which he hath put into his creatures there may be more of the wonderful skill and power and goodness of God laid out on one of those Stars that seems smallest to our sight than millions of humane intellects if united were able to comprehend And who knoweth the number any more than the magnitude and excellency of those Stars What man can once look up towards the Firmament in a Star light night or once read a Treatise of Astronomy and then compare it with his Geography and compare those far more excellent Orbs with this narrower and darker world we live in and not be wrapt up into the astonishing admiration of the Power Wisdom and Goodness of the Creator When the anatomizing of the body of one man or beast might wrap up any considerate man into Galen's admiration and praises of the Maker and how many myriades of such bodies hath God created and how much more excellent are the forms or souls than any of those bodies And how little know we how incomparably more excellent the nature of Angels may be than ours and what glorious Beings may inhabit the more glorious Orbs and yet can you think meanly of the Creator's Goodness O but you say that all these lower Creatures have still the forementioned sorrows and imperfections I answer you 1. They were not made Gods but Creatures and therefore were not to be perfect 2. It is the corrupt and blinded sensual mind which crieth out for want of sensible pleasure and can see no goodness in any thing but this but true reason telleth any man that hath it that our sensible pleasure is a thing too low to be the highest excellency of the creature and to be the ultimate end of God and that the glory of the whole world even the inanimate parts as well as the animate shewing the glory of the Infinite Creator is the excellency of the world What if the Sun and Stars and Earth and Sea the Fire and Air have no feeling have they therefore no goodness but what is a Means to the sensible delights of lower things Hath a Worm more goodness than the Sun if it have more feeling These are the madnesses of sensual men May not an excellent Limner Watch-maker or other Artificer make a Picture a Watch or Musical Instrument meerly for his own delight and may he not delight in the excellency of it though you imagine him to have no need of it or of the delight And what is the excellency of such a Picture but to be the full demonstration of the Author's skill in the most full representation of the thing resembled Will you say that he hath done no good because he made not his Picture sensible and made not its pleasure his ultimate end Those things which in particulars we call Bad are Good as they are parts of the Universal frame as many darknings and shadowings in a Picture may conduce to make it beautiful The eye is a more excellent part of the body than a finger or a tooth and yet it maketh to the perfection of the whole that there be fingers and teeth as well as eyes So it doth to the perfection of the world that there be Men and Beasts and Plants as well as Angels and poor men as well as rich and sick man as well as sound and pain as well as pleasure Our narrow sight that looketh but on a spot or parcel of God's work at once doth judge according to the particular interest of that parcel and so we would have no variety in the world but every thing of that species which we think best But God seeth all his works at once uno intuitu and therefore seeth what is best in reference to the glory of the Universe and seeth what variety is beautiful and
their lives to rob and kill as if they were of little worth yea when they know that they must die how desperately go they to the gallows and how little make they of their lives It s true as was aforesaid that nature abhorreth death but we see among Souldiers that he that at first is timerous when he hath been used a while to kill men or to see them kill'd by thousands groweth senseless almost regardless of his life and will make as it were a jest of death And when it is so ordinary a thing with men to kill birds and fishes and beasts for their daily food and pleasure why should they not easily bear their own if they look for nothing after death A beast loveth his life as well as we and our death is no more painful than theirs and we should have as much courage as a beast Especially men that live a poor and miserable life on earth would little fear that death which endeth it and so humane Government it self would be in vain He that would have an instrument to revenge him on his enemy to kill his Governour or do any villany in the world if it were not for fear of another world might find enow among Poor villains that by misery or melancholly are a-weary of their lives At least as long as they run but a hazard like a Souldier in fight and may possibly scape by craft or flight or friends or strength what wickedness will they not commit What Prince so just that hath not some rebellious Subject or some Enemy that seeks his life What man so good that is not maliced by some Who hath mony or an estate which one or other doth not desire and if there were nothing but death and annihilation to restrain men what Prince what person had any security of his life or estate If a Rogue once grow but sensual and idle he will deliberately resolve I will venture my life to live in pleasure rather than live in certain toil and misery a short life and a sweet is better than a longer which is miserable and must end at last We see if once men be perswaded that they shall die like beasts that they are not much troubled at it because they think that when they have no being they shall have no fear nor care nor grief nor trouble nor pain nor want And though right improved Reason which hath higher expectations makes a greater matter of the loss of them yet sensual men so brutine themselves that they grow contented with the felicity of a Bruit and are not much troubled that they have no more Annihilation therefore certainly is a penalty utterly insufficient even to keep any common Order in the World as I proved before And therefore it is certain that the penalty inflicted hereafter will be greater than Annihilation And if so it must contain with the Being of the Creature a suffering worse than the loss of Being § 35. The Belief of a Hell or endless punishment being that which is de facto the restraint of the Obedient part of the World and that which proveth too weak with the Disobedient part it thence followeth that a Hell or endless punishment will be inflicted The Reasons I have given before 1. Because that Experience sheweth that the Threatning of Hell is necessary in the Law therefore it self is necessary in the execution 2. Because God doth not govern the World by deceit § 36. God will inflict more punishment for the final rejection of his Government than Kings do for treason and rebellion against thousands There is no proportion between God and Man and between a fault against God and against Man Therefore if racks torments and death be justly inflicted for Treason against a King much more may be expected for rebellion against God Obj. But mens sins do God no hurt as they do the King Answ They do wrong where they do no hurt It is not for want of Malignity in sin but through the perfections of God that they do not hurt him But they displease him and injure him and they hurt the World and the sinner himself who is not his own A Child is to be corrected for many faults which do his Father no harm It is not hurting God that is the Cause that sin is punished Obj. But God is mercifull as well as just Answ True and therefore he shewed mercy to sinners in the day of Mercy And it is for the contempt and abuse of mercy that he condemneth them If the Mercy abused had been less the sin and punishment had been less A mercifull King and Judge will hang a Murderer or Traytor Mercy to the good requireth punishment of the bad Gods Attributes are not contrary He is mercifull to the due Objects of mercy and hath penal Justice for the Objects of that Justice Obj. But after this life the ends of punishment cease therefore so will the punishment For there will be none in the next World to be warned by it nor any further sin to be restrained unless it be a Castigatory Purgatory for the sinner himself Answ 1. I have proved that the Law was necessary to the Government of this World And if it was necessary that God say everlasting death shall be the wages of sin then his Truth and Justice make the execution necessary afterwards 2. When this life is ended we look for a New Heaven and a New Earth wherein dwelleth righteousness And the penalties of the sinners of this World may be a means of that righteousness of the next as the punishment of the Devils is a warning to us and proposed to us for our terror and restraint 3. How little know we whether thousands of the Orbs which we see are not inhabited and whether the penalties of Earthly sinners may not be a warning to any of those superiour Worlds God hath not acquainted us with all the uses that he can make of sinners punishments And therefore when Nature telleth us what is due it is folly to say it will not be because God hath no use for it Obj. But Hell is a cruelty which expresseth tyranny rather than wise justice Answ That 's but the voice of Folly partiality and guilt Every thief that is hanged is like enough to think the same of his own Punishment and Judge If you think it such a cruelty why was not the threatning of it enough to govern you and to counterpoise a Feather the trifles of sordid fleshly pleasure Why did you choose it in the choice of sin were you not told of it and was not Life and Death offered to your choice Would you choose that which you think it is cruelty to inflict who is it that is cruel to you but your selves Why will you now be so cruel to your own souls and then call God cruel for giving you your choice O sinners as you are wise as you are men as ever you care what becometh of you for ever
them to perceive its holyness and worth Where it is indeed sincerely practised And is most dishonoured and misunderstood through the wickedness of Hypocrites who profess it As the Impress on the Wax doth make the Image more discernable than the Sculpture on the Seal but the Sculpture is true and perfect when many accidents may render the Impressed image imperfect and faulty So is it in this case To a diligent Enquirer Christianity is best known in its Principles delivered by Christ the Author of it and indeed is no otherwise perfectly known because it is no where else perfectly to be seen But yet it is much more visible and taking with unskilfull superficial Observers in the Professors Lives For they can discern the good or evil of an action who perceive not the nature of the Rule and Precepts The vital form in the Rose-tree is the most excellent part but the beauty and sweetness of the Rose is more easily discerned Effects are most sensible but causes are most excellent And yet in some respect the Practice of Religion is more excellent than the Precepts in as much as the Precepts are Means to Practice For the end is more excellent than the Means as such A poor man can easilyer perceive the worth of Charity in the person that cloatheth and feedeth and relieveth him than the worth of a treatise or sermon of Charity Subjects easily perceive the worth of a wise and holy and just and mercifull King or Magistrate in his actual Government who are not much taken with the Precepts which require yet more perfection And among all descriptions historical Narratives like Zenophons Cyrus do take most with them Doubtless if ever the Professors of Christianity should live according to their own Profession they would thereby overcome the opposition of the World and propagate their Religion with greatest success through all the Earth Because no man can well judge of the Truth of a doctrine till he first know what it is I think it here necessary to open the true nature of the Christian Religion and tell men truly what it is Partly because I perceive that abundance that profess it hypocritically by the meer power of Education Laws and Custom of their Countrey do not understand it and then are the easilyer tempted to neglect or contemn it or forsake it if strongly tempted to it even to forsake that which indeed they never truely received And because its possible some Aliens to Christianity may peruse these lines Otherwise were I to speak only to those that already understand it I might spare this description § 7. The CHRISTIAN RELIGION containeth two Parts 1. All Theological Verities which are of Natural Revelation 2. Much more which is supernaturally revealed The supernatural Revelation is said in it to be partly written by God partly delivered by Angels partly by inspired Prophets and Apostles and partly by Jesus Christ himself in person § 8. The supernatural Revelation reciteth most of the Natural because the searching of the great Book of Nature is a long and difficult work for the now-corrupted dark and slothfull minde of the common sort of men § 9. These supernatural Revelations are all contained 1. Most copiously in a Book called The Holy Bible or Canonical Scriptures 2. More summarily and contractedly in three Forms called The Belief The Lords Prayer and the Ten Commandements and most briefly and summarily in a Sacramental Covenant This last containeth all the Essential parts most briefly and the second somewhat fuller explaineth them and the first the holy Scriptures containeth also all the Integral parts or the whole frame § 10. Some of the present Professors of the Christian Religion do differ about the authority of some few Writings called Apocrypha whether they are to be numbred with the Canonical Books of God or not But those few containing in them no considerable points of doctrine different from the rest the controversie doth not very much concern the substance or doctrinal matter of their Religion § 11. The sacred Scriptures are written very much Historically the Doctrines being interspersed with the History § 12. This sacred Volume containeth two Parts The first called The Old Testament containing the History of the Creation and of the Deluge and of the Jewish Nation till after their Captivity As also their Law and Prophets The second called The New Testament containing the History of the Birth and Life and Death and Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ The sending of his Apostles the giving of the Holy Ghost the course of their Ministry and Miracles with the summ of the doctrine preached first by Christ and then by them and certain Epistles of theirs to divers Churches and persons more fully opening all that doctrine § 13. The summ of the History of the Old Testament is this That in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth with all things in them Viz. That having first made the Intellectual superiour part of the World and the matter of the Elementary World in an unformed Mass he did the first day distinguish or form the active Element of Fire and caused it to give light The second day he separated the rarified Passive Element called Fire expanding it from the Earth upwards to be a separation and medium of action between the superiour and inferiour parts The third day he separated the rest of the Passive Element Earth and Water into their proper place and set their bounds and made individual Plants with their specifick forms and virtue of generation The fourth day he made the Sun Moon and Starrs for Luminaries to the Earth either then forming them or then appointing them to that Office but not revealing their other uses which are nothing to us The fifth day he made Fishes and Birds with the power of generation The sixth day he made the terrestrial Animals and Man with the like generative Power And the seventh day he appointed to be a Sabbath of Rest on which he would be solemnly worshipped by Mankinde as our CREATOR Having made one Man and one Woman in his own Image that is with Intellects Free-will and executive Power in wisdom holiness and aptitude to Obey him and with Dominion over the sensitive and vegetative and inanimate Creatures he placed them in a Garden of pleasure wherein were two Sacramental Trees one called The Tree of Life and the other the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil And besides the Law of Nature he tryed him only with this positive prohibition that he should not eat of the Tree of Knowledge Whereupon the Devil who before this was fallen from his first state of innocency and felicity took occasion to perswade the Woman that Gods Threatning was not true that he meant not as he spake that he knew Man was capable of greater Knowledge but envyed him that happiness and that the eating of that Fruit was not the way to death as God had threatned but to Knowledge and
we do nothing against our Neighbours Life or Bodily welfare but carefully preserve it as our own 7. That no man defile his Neighbours wife nor commit Fornication but preserve our own and others Chastity in thought word and deed 8. That we wrong not another in his Estate by stealing fraud or any other means but preserve our Neighbours Estate as our own 9. That we pervert not Justice by false witness or otherwise nor wrong our neighbour in his Name by slanders backbiting or reproach That we lie not but speak the truth in love and preserve our neighbours right and honour as our own 10. That we be not selfish setting up our selves and our own against our Neighbour and his good desiring to draw from him unto our selves But that we love our Neighbour as our selves desiring his welfare as our own doing to others as regularly we would have them do to us forbearing and forgiving one another loving even our enemies and doing good to all according to our power both for their Bodies and their Souls This is the Substance of the CHRISTIAN RELIGION § 15. II. The summ or Abstract of the Christian Religion is contained in three short Forms The first called The Creed containing the matter of the Christian Belief The second called The Lords Prayer containing the matter of Christian Desires and hope The third called The Law or Decalogue containing the summ of Morall Duties which are as followeth The BELIEF 1. I believe in God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth 2. And in Iesus Christ his only Son our Lord who was conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified dead and buried descended to Hell the third day he rose again from the dead he ascended into Heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty from thence he shall come again to judge the quick and the dead 3. I believe in the Holy Ghost the Holy Catholick Church the Communion of Saints the Forgiveness of sins the Resurrection of the body and the Life Everlasting The LORDS PRAYER Our FATHER which art in Heaven hallowed be thy Name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil For thine is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever Amen The Ten COMMANDEMENTS God spake all these words saying I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the Land of Egypt out of the house of bondage 1. Thou shalt have no other Gods before me 2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven Image or any likeness of any thing in Heaven above or that is in the Earth beneath or that is in the water under the Earth Thou shalt not vow down thy self to them nor serve them For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God visiting the iniquities of the Fathers upon the Children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my Commandements 3. Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain 4. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy six dayes shalt thou labour and do all thy work but the Seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God in it thou shalt not do any work thou nor thy Son nor thy Daughter thy Man-servant nor thy Maid-servant nor thy Cattel nor the Stranger that is within thy gates For in six dayes the Lord made Heaven and Earth the Sea and all that in them is and rested the Seventh day wherefore the Lord blessed the Seventh day and hallowed it 5. Honour thy Father and thy Mother that thy dayes may be long upon the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee 6. Thou shalt not kill 7. Thou shalt not commit Adultery 8. Thou shalt not Steal 9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy Neighbour 10. Thou shalt not covet thy Neighbours House thou shalt not covet thy Neighbours Wife nor his Man-servant nor his Maid-servant nor his Oxe nor his Ass nor any thing that is thy Neighbours § 16. The ten Commandements are summed up by Christ into these two Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and might and Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self § 17. These Commandements being first delivered to the Jews are continued by Christ as the summ of the Law of Nature only instead of Deliverance of the Jews from Egypt he hath made our Redemption from sin and Satan which was thereby typified to be the fundamental motive And he hath removed the memorial of the Creation-Rest from the seventh day-Sabbath to be kept on the Lords day which is the first with the Commemoration of his Resurrection and our Redemption in the solemn Worship of his holy Assemblies § 18. III. The briefest Summary of the Christian Religion containing the Essentials only is in the Sacramental Covenant of Grace Wherein the Penitent Believer renouncing the Flesh the World and the Devil doth solemnly give up himself to God the Father Son and Holy Spirit as his only God his Father his Saviour and his Sanctifier engaging himself hereby to a Holy life of Resignation Obedience and Love and receiving the pardon of all his sins and title to the further helps of grace to the favour of God and everlasting life This Covenant is first entered by the Sacrament of Baptisme and after renewed in our communion with the Church in the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ So that the Christian Religion is but Faith in God our Creator Redeemer and Sanctifyer producing the hope of Life Everlasting and possessing us with the love of God and Man And all this expressed in the genuine fruits of Patience Obedience and Praise to God and works of Charity and Justice unto Man § 19. That all this Religion might be the better understood received and practised by us the Word of God came down into Flesh and gave us a perfect Example of it in his most perfect Life in perfect holiness and innocency conquering all temptations contemning the honours riches and pleasures of the World in perfect patience and meekness and condescension and in the perfect Love of God and Man When perfect Doctrine is seconded by Perfect Exemplariness of Life there can be no greater Light set before us to lead us out of our state of darkness into the everlasting Light And had it not been a pattern of holy Power Wisdom and Goodness of Self-denyall Obedience and Love of Patience and of Truth and Prudence and of contempt of all inferiour things even of Life it self for the Love of God and for Life eternal it
And seeing a guilty condemned sinner can hardly love that God who in justice will damn and punish him nothing can be more congruous and effectual to man's recovery to God than that God should be represented to him as most amiable that is as one that is so willing to pardon and save him as to do it by the most astonishing expressions of love in such an Agent and Pledge and Glass of Love as Jesus Christ The whole design of Christ's Incarnation Life Death Resurrection Ascension and Intercession is but to be the most wonderful and glorious declaration of the goodness and love of God to sinners that as the great frame of the Universe demonstrateth his power so should the Redeemer be the demonstration of his love That we may see both the wise contrivances of his love and at how dear a rate he is content to save us that our lives may be employed in beholding and admiring the glory of his love in this incomprehensible representation That we may love him as men that are fetch'd up from the very gates of hell and from under the sentence of condemnation and made by grace the heirs of life § 17. Especially to have a quickning Head who will give the Spirit of grace to all his members to change their hearts and kindle this holy love within them is most congruous to accomplish mans recovery So dark are our minds and so bad our hearts so strong are our lusts and so many our temptations that bare teaching would not serve our turn without a Spirit of light and life and love to open our eyes and turn our hearts and make all outward means effectual § 18. The Commission of the Gospel-Ministry to preach this Gospel of pardon and salvation and to baptize Consenters and gather and guide the Church of Christ with Fatherly love is also very congruous to the state of the world with whom they have to do § 19. It is congruous to the state of our trembling Souls that are conscious of their former guilt and present unworthiness that in all their prayers and worship of God they should come to him in a Name that is more worthy and acceptable than their own and offer their services by a Hand or Intercessor so beloved of God Though an impious soul can never expect to be accepted with God upon the merits of another yet a penitent soul who is conscious of former wickedness and continued faults may hope for that mercy by grace through a Redeemer of which he could have less hopes without one § 20. It is congruous to their state who have Satan their accuser that they have a Patron a High priest and Justifier with God Not that God is in danger of being mistaken by false accusation or to do us any injustice but when our real guilt is before his face and the malice of Satan will seek thereupon to procure our damnation there must also be just reasons before him for our pardon which it is the office of a Saviour to plead or to present that is to be God's Instrument of our deliverance upon that account § 21. It is exceeding congruous to our condition of darkness and fear to have a Head and Saviour in the possession of Glory to whom we may commend our departing souls at the time of death and who will receive them to himself that we may not tremble at the thoughts of death and of eternity For though the infinite goodness of God be our chief encouragement yet seeing he is holy and just and we are sinners we have need of a mediate encouragement and of such condescending love as is come near unto us and hath taken up our nature already into heaven A Saviour that hath been on earth in flesh that hath died and rose and revived and is now in the possession of Blessedness is a great emboldner of our thoughts when we look towards another world which else we should think of with more doubting fearful and unwilling minds To have a friend gone before us who is so Powerful so Good and hath made us his Interest to think that he is Lord of the world that we are going to and hath undertaken to receive us to himself when we go hence is a great reviving to our amazed fearful departing souls § 22. And it is very congruous to the case of an afflicted persecuted people who are misrepresented and slandered in this world and suffer for the hopes of a better life to have a Saviour who is the judge of all the world to justifie them publickly before all and to cause their righteousness to shine as the light and to turn all their sufferings into endless joys § 23. And it seemeth exceeding congruous to reason seeing that the Divine Essence is an inaccessible Light that we should for ever have a Mediator of Fruition as well as of Acquisition by whom the Deity may shine in communicated Glory and Love to us for evermore and that God be for evermore eminently delighted and glorified in Him than in us as he excelleth us in dignity and all perfections even as in One Sun his Power and Glory is more demonstrated than in a world of Worms Whether all these things be true or not I am further to enquire but I find now that they are very congruous to our condition and to Reason and that if they be so no man can deny but that there is wonderful Wisdom and Love to man in the design and execution and that it is to man a very desirable thing that it should be so And therefore that we should be exceeding willing to find any sound proof that it is so indeed though not with a willingness which shall corrupt and pervert our judgments by self-flattery but such as will only excite them to the wise and sober examination of the case The EVIDENCES of the VERITY we shall next enquire after CHAP. VI. Of the WITNESS of JESVS CHRIST or the demonstrative Evidence of his Verity and Authority THough all that is said may be a reasonable preparative to faith it is more cogent evidence which is necessary to convince us that Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the world That a man appearing like one of us is the Eternal Word of God incarnate is a thing which no man is bound to believe without very sound evidence to prove it God hath made Reason essential to our Nature it is not our weakness but our natural excellency and his Image on our nature Therefore he never called us to renounce it and to lay it by for we have no way to know Principles but by an Intellectual discerning them in their proper Evidence and no way to know conclusions by but by a rational discerning their necessary connexion to those principles If God would have us know without reason he would not have made us reasonable creatures man hath no way of mental discerning or knowledge but by understanding things in their proper evidence to
heard and did things which were nothing so for so long together nor yet so subtile as to be able to lay such a deceiving plot and carry it on so closely to the end And they that suspect the Apostles and first Disciples to be the Authors of the plot will not suspect all the Churches too For if there were Deceivers there must be some to be deceived by them If Christ deceived the Disciples then the Disciples could not be wilfull deceivers themselves For if they were themselves deceived they could not therein be wilfull deceivers And then how came they to confirm their testimony by Miracles If the Apostles only were deceivers then all the Disciples and Evangelists who assisted them must be deceived and not wilfull deceivers And then how came they also to do miracles If all the Apostles and Disciples of the first Edition were wilfull Deceivers then all the Churches through the World which were gathered by them were deceived by them and then they were not wilsul deceivers themselves which is all that I am now proving having proved before that they were not deceived § 47. 2. If they had been cunning enough it is most inprobable that so many thousands in so many Nations should be so bad as to desire and endeavour at such a rate as their own temporal and eternal ruine to deceive all the world into a blasphemy without any benefit to themselves which might be rationally sufficient to seem a tempting compensation to them § 48. For all these Churches which witnessed the Apostles Miracles 1. Did profess to believe lying and deceiving to be a heinous sin 2. And to believe an everlasting punishment for liars 3. They were taught by their Religion to expect calamity in this world 4. They had experience enough to confirm them in that expectation Therefore they had no motive which could be sufficient to make them guilty of so costly a deceit For 1. Operari sequitur esse A man will do ill but according to the measure that he is ill and as bad as humane nature is it is not yet so much depraved as that thousands through the world could agree without any commodity to move them to it to ruine their own estates and lives and souls for ever meerly to make the world believe that other men did miracles and to draw them to believe a known untruth And 2. as free as the will is it is yet a thing that hath its nature and inclination and cannot act without a cause and object which must be some apparent good Therefore when there is no good-appearing but wickedness and misery it cannot will it So that this seemeth inconsistent with humane nature § 49. And the certain history of their lives doth shew that they were persons extraordinary good and conscionable being holy heavenly and contemners of this world and ready to suffer for their Religion and therefore could not be so extremely bad as to ruine themselves only to do mischief to the world and their posterity § 50. And their enemies bare them witness that they did and suffered all this in the hopes of a reward in heaven which proveth that they were not wilful liars and deceivers for no man can look for a reward in heaven for the greatest known-villany on earth even for suffering to cheat all the world into a blasphemy Even Lucian scoffeth at the Christians for running into sufferings and hoping to be rewarded for it with a life everlasting § 51. 3. If they had been never so cunning and so bad yet was it impossible that they should be able for the successful execution of such a deceit as will appear by all these following evidences § 52. 1. It was impossible that so many thousands at such a distance who never saw each others faces could lay the plot in a way of concord but one would have been of one mind and another of another § 53. 2. It is impossible that they should agree in carrying it on and keeping it secret through all the world if they had accorded in the first contrivance and attempts § 54. 3. It is impossible that all the thousands of adversaries among them who were eye-witnesses and ear-witnesses as well as they should not discover the deceit All those Parthians Medes Elamites and other Country-men mentioned Act. 2. were not Christians and the Christians though many were but a small part of the Cities and Countries where they dwelt And Paul saith that Tongues and Miracles were for the sake of unbelievers and unbelievers were ordinarily admitted into the Christian assemblies and the Christians went among them to preach and most of the miracles were wrought in their sight and hearing § 55. 4. It is impossible that the falling out of Christians among themselves among so many thousands in several Nations should never have detected the deceit if they had been all such deceivers § 56. 5. It is impossible but some of the multitudes of the perverted exasperated separating or excommunicate Hereticks which were then in most Countries where there were Christians and opposed the Orthodox and were opposed by them should have detected this deceit if it had been such § 57. 6. It is impossible but some of the Apostates of those times who are supposed to have joyned in the deceit would have detected it to the world when they fell off from Christianity § 58. 7. It is scarce possible among so many thousands in several Lands that none of their own consciences living or dying should be constrained in remorse and terrour to detect so great an evil to the world § 59. 8. Much more impossible is it that under the conscience of such a villany they should live and suffer and die rejoycingly and think it a happy exchange to forsake life and all for the hopes of a reward in heaven for this very thing § 60. 9. Lastly it is impossible that these thousands of Christians should be able to deceive many more than themselves into the belief of the same untruths in the very time and place where the things were said to be done and where the detection of the deceit had been easie yea unavoidable Christianity was then upon the increase they that were converted did convert more than themselves Suppose in Jerusalem Ephesus Corinth Rome c. some thousands believed by the preaching of the Apostles in a few years at the first in a few years more there were as many more added Now supposing all this had been but a cheat if the Christians had told their neighbours Among us unlearned men speak in the Languages of all Countries they cast out devils they cure all diseases with prayer and annointing they prophesie and interpret Tongues they do many other miracles and the same Spirit is given to others by their imposition of hands and all this in the Name and by the Power of Jesus would not their neighbours easily know whether this were true or not And if it were false would they not
be cast out except when it may hazard the Church § 45. The means of increasing the Church must ultimately be intended alwayes to the increase of the Church mystical for Holiness and Salvation § 46. These means are 1. All the fore-mentioned means of holiness for holiness is the Church's glory the Image of God which will make it illustrious and beautiful in the eyes of men when they are sober and impartial and will do most to win them home to Christ 2. Especially the great abilities holiness patience and unwearied diligence of the Ministers of Christ is a needful means 3. The advancements of Arts and Sciences doth much to prepare the way 4. The agreement and love of Christians among themselves 5. Love to the infidels and ungodly and doing all the good we can even to their bodies 6. A spiritual pure rational and decent worshipping of God 7. And the concord of Christian Princes among themselves for the countenancing and promoting the labours of such Preachers as are fitted for this work § 47 The hinderances then of the Church's increase and of the conversion of the heathen and infidel world are 1. Above all the wickedness of professed Christians whose falshood and debauchery and unholiness perswadeth the poor Infidels that Christianity is worse than their own Religion because they see that the men are worse that live among them And 2. the badness of the Pastors especially in the Greek and Latine Churches and the destruction of Church-discipline and impurity of the Churches hereupon together with the ignorance and unskilfulness of most for so great a work is a great impediment 3. The defectiveness in Arts and Sciences 4. The many divisions and unbrotherly contentions of Christians among themselves either for Religion or for worldly things 5. Not devoting our selves and all that we have to the winning of Infidels by love and doing them good 6. A carnal irrational or undecent manner of worshipping God for they will contemn that God whose worship seemeth to them ridiculous and contemptible 7. The discords wars or selfishness of Christian Princes who unite not their strength to encourage and promote this noble work but rather hinder it by weakening the hands of the labourers at home 8. Especially when the very Preachers themselves are guilty of covetous or ambitious designs and under pretence of preaching Christ are seeking riches or setting up themselves or those that they depend on These have kept under the Church of Christ and hindred the conversion of the world till now § 48. The attempts of the Jesuits in Congo Japon and China were a very noble work and so was the Portugal Kings encouragements but two things spoiled their suceess which Protestants are not liable to 1. That when they took down the Heathens Images they set them up others in the stead and made them think that the main difference was but whose Image they should worship And withall by their Agnus Dei's and such like trinkets made Religion seem childish and contemptible 2. But especially that they made them see that while they seemed to promote Religion and to save their souls they came to promote their own wealth or the Popes dominion and to bring their Kings under a forein power § 49. The honest attempts of Mr. Elliots in New-England is much more agreeable to the Apostles way and maketh more serious spiritual Christians But the quality of place and people and the greatness of wants doth hinder the multiplication of Converts And higher attempts were very desireable § 50. The translating of fit Books into the language of the Infidels and dispersing them may in time prove the sowing of a holy fruitful seed § 51. Prosperity useth greatly to encrease the Church extensively in the number of visible members and adversity and persecution to encrease it intensively by increasing holiness in the tried and refined Therefore God useth to send vicissitudes of prosperity and adversity like Summer and Winter to the Churches that each may do its proper work § 52. Every true Christian should daily lament the common infidelity and impiety of the world that the interest of true Christianity is confined into so narrow a room on earth and to pray with his first and earnestest desires that more labourers may be sent forth and that God's Name may be hallowed his Kingdom come and his will be done on earth that it may be liker Heaven which now is grown so like to Hell But yet to comfort himself in considering as is before said that as this earth is to all the nobler world but as one mole-hill to all England so if God had forsaken all it had been but as the cutting off a cancer from a man or as the casting away of the paring of his nails in comparison of all the rest Therefore should we long for the coming of our Lord and the better world which we have in hope HOW long Lord holy and true how long Come Lord Jesus come quickly Amen For we according to his promise look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness 2 Pet. 3.11 12 14. Exod. 6.12 Behold the children of Israel have not hearkned to me how then shall Pharaoh hear me Ezek. 3. Not to many people of a strange speech and of an hard language whose words thou canst not understand surely had I sent thee to them they would have hearkned unto thee But the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee for they will not hearken unto me for all the house of Israel are impudent and hard-hearted Octob. 16. 1666. THE CONCLUSION Defending the Soul's Immortality against the Somatists or Epicureans and other Pseudophilosophers THough in this Treatise I have not wilfully balked any regardable objections which I thought might stick with an intelligent Reader about the truth of the things here delivered yet those which are proper to the Somatical irreligious sect of Philosophers I thought fitter to put here as an Appendix by themselves that they might not stop the more sober in their way As to the Subject and Method of this Discourse it consisteth of these four parts 1. The proof of the Deity and what God is 2. Of the certain obligations which lie upon man to be holy and obedient to this God 3. The proofs of a life of Retribution hereafter where the holy and obedient shall be blessed and the unholy and disobedient punished 4. The proofs of the verity of the Christian faith For the first of these that there is a God though I have proved it beyond all rational contradiction yet I have dispatched it with haste and brevity because it is to the mind as the Sun is to the eye and so evident in all that is evident in the world that there needeth nothing to the proving of it but to help the Reader to a rational capacity and aptitude to see that which all the world declareth The common argument from the effects
operosa multo quidem faciliora Certè ita temere de mundo effutiunt ut mihi quidem nunquam hunc admirabilem coeli ornatum qui locus est proximus suspexisse videantur Where he brings in this passage as from Aristotle that if we should imagine men to have lived in some Dungeon or Cavern in the Earth and never to have seen the Sun or Light or World as we do and if there should be a doubt or dispute among them whether there be a God and if you should presently bring up these men into our places where they might look above them and about them to the Sun and Stars and Heaven and Earth they would quickly by such a sight be convinced that there is a God But as he truly addeth Assiduitate quotidiana consuetudine oculorum assuescunt animi neque admirantur neque requirunt rationes earum rerum quas semper vident perinde quasi novitas nos magis quam magnitude rerum debeat adexquirendas causas excitare But I suppose it will be granted me that the first mover doth more than meerly move the effects of Wisdom and Goodness being so legible on all the World but you 'l say that to do it wisely and to attain good ends by it c. is but the modus of action with the effect and therefore matter and motion rightly ordered may be nevertheless sufficient to all effects To which I answer that the Creatures motion requireth not only that the Creator move them but that he place and order them and move them rightly and that he remove and overcome impediments c. Therefore there is necessary in the first mover both Wisdom and Love as well as Power And neither his Power Wisdom or Love are Locomotion in himself And this much being proved that in every motion there is Divine Power Wisdom and Love which is more than matter and motion it self I proceed next to enquire 5. Do you think there is any thing existent in the World besides matter and motion or not As to meer site and figure and other such order or modes of matter I know you will not deny them to have now a being as well as motion But is there no different tendency to motion in the parts of matter Is there not in many Creatures a Power an Inclination or aptitude to motion besides motion it self Is there not a reason à priore to be given why one Creature is more agile and active than another and why they act in their various wayes Why is fire more active than earth and a Swallow than a Snail If you say that the different ratio motus is in some extrinsecal agent only which moveth them you will hardly shew any possibility of that when the same Sun by the same virtue or motion as you will say is it that moveth all And if it were so you must go up to the first Cause to ask for the different motions of those movers when our enquiry now is de natura moventium motorum Creatorum If you say that it is the Ratio recipiendi in the different magnitudes or positions of the parts of matter which is the cause of different motions I would know 1. Whether this difference of magnitude and figure and site being now antecedently necessary to different motions was not so heretofore as well as now If you say No you feign without proof a state of things and order of Causes contrary to that which all mens sense perceiveth to be now existent And who is the wiser Philosopher he that judgeth the course and nature of things to be and have been what he now findeth it till the contrary be proved or he that findeth it one thing and feigneth it sometime to have been another without any proof That which is now antecedently necessary to diversity of motion it 's like was so heretofore 2. And then how could one simple equal act of God setting the first matter into motion cause such an inequality in motions to this day if it be true that you hold that only that which is moved or in motion it self can move and that motion is all that is necessary to the diversity 3. Either the first matter was made solid in larger parcels or all conjunct or in Atomes If it was made first in Atomes then Motion caused not Division If it was made conjunct and solid then motion caused not conjunction and solidity And if the first division or conjunction site and figure of matter was all antecedent to motion and without it we have no reason to think that it is the sole Cause of all things now But surely quantity figure and site are not all that now is antecedent to motion Doth not a man feel in himself a certain Power to sudden and voluntary motion He that sate still can suddenly rise and go And if you say that he performeth that sudden motion by some antecedent motion I answer that I grant that but the question is whether by that alone or whether a Power distinct from motion it self be not as evidently the Cause For otherwise the antecedent motion would proceed but according to its own proportion It would not in a minute make so sudden and great an alteration I can restrain also that motion which some antecedent motion e.g. passion urgeth me to Surely this Power of doing or not doing is somewhat different from doing it self A power of not-moving is not motion And what is the Pondus which Gassendus doth adde to magnitude and figure as a third pre-requisite in Atomes I perceive he knoweth not what to make of it himself But in conclusion it must be no natural Gravity by which the parts are inclined to the whole in themselves but the meer effect of pulsion or traction or both At the first he was for both conjunct pulsion of the Air and traction of the Atomes from the Earth But of this he repented as seeing impulsionem aeris nullam esse and was for the traction of Atoms alone Than which his Friends conceit of the pulsive motion of the Sun in its Diastole or whatever other motion is the cause doth seem less absurd But that man that would have me believe that if a Rock were in the air or if Pauls Steeple should fall the descent would be only by the traction of the hamuli of invisible Atomes or by the pulsion of Air and Sun conjunct must come neerer first and tell me how the hamuli of atomes can fasten upon a marble rock and how they come to have so much strength as to move that rock which no man can move in its proper place if there be no such thing as strength or power besides actual motion and why it is that those drawing atomes do move so powerfully Earthwards when at the same time it is supposed that as many or more atomes are moving upwards by the Suns attraction and more are moved circularly with the Earth why do not these stop or
them that the Cure had been to have made them more Religious and not less And that the true Belief of a Life to come is the end the motive the poise of all wise and regular actions and of Love and Peace of right Government and obedience and of justice mercy and all that is lovely in the world An OBJECTION about the Worlds Eternity HAving said thus much about the point which I thought most considerable I shall answer an Objection about the Worlds Eternity because I perceive that it sticks with some Obj. We finde it the harder to believe the Scripture and the Christian Doctrine because it asserteth a thing which Aristotle hath evinced to be so improbable as is the Creation of the World within less than 6000 years When no natural reason can be brought to prove that the World is not eternall Answ 1. It is you that are the affirmers and therefore on whom the natural proof is incumbent Prove if you can that the World is eternal Were it not tedious I should by examining your reasons shew that they have no convincing force at all 2. There is so much written of it that I am loth to trouble the Reader with more I now only again referre the Reader to Raymundus Lullius desiring him not to reject his arguments if some of them seem not cogent seeing if any one of all his multitude prove such it is enough 3. I now only desire that the Controversie between the Christian and the Infidel may be but rightly stated And to that end do not charge Christianity with any School-mans or other confident persons private opinions nor suppose Christ or Scripture to determine any thing which they do not determine 1. Christianity and Scripture do not at all determine whether the whole Universe was created at the same time when this our Heaven and Earth was But only that the Systeme or World which we belong to the Sun and Moon and Starrs and Earth were then created Nay a great part of the ancient Doctors and of the most learned late Expositors on Gen. 1. do expound the Heavens which God is said to create as being only the visible Heavens and not including the Angels at all And others say that by In the beginning is meant ab initio rerum and that the Heavens there meant being the Angelical Habitations and the Earth as without form were both ab initio rerum before the six dayes Creation which began with the making of Light out of the pre-existent Heavens or Chaos I think not this opinion true but this liberty Christian Doctors have taken of differing from one another in this difficult point But they utterly differ about the time of the creation of Angels on Gen. 1. and on Job 1. and consequently whether there were not a World existent when this World was created 2. Or if any that seeth more than I can prove the contrary yet it is certainly a thing undetermined by Scripture and in the Christian Faith whether there were any Worlds that had begun and ended before this was made That God is the maker of Heaven and Earth and of all things visible and invisible is most certain But whether this Heaven and Earth which now is was the first which he hath made is a thing that our Religion doth not at all meddle with They that with Origen affirm that there were antecedent worlds are justly blamed on one side not for speaking things false but things uncertain and unrevealed and for corrupting Christianity by a mixture of things alien and doubtfull And those who affirm that there were no antecedent worlds are as much culpable on the other side if not more on the same account and upon further reasons On the one side we know that God needeth nothing to his own felicity but is perfectly sufficient for himself and that he createth not the World ex necessitate naturae as an agent which acteth ad ultimum posse And on the other side we know that though he hath a Goodness of self-perfection unspeakably more excellent than his Benignity as Related to man not that one Property in God is to be said more excellent than another in it self but that quoad Relationem there is an infinite difference between his Goodness in Himself and his Goodness only as Related to his Creatures and measured by their interest yet we confess that his Fecundity and Benignity is included in his own Goodness and that he delighteth to do Good and is communicative and that he doth Good ex necessitate voluntaria ex naturae perfectione without coaction it being most necessary that he do that which his Infinite wisdom saith is best which made Th. White de Mundo say that God did necessarily make the World and necessarily make it in time and not ab aeterno and yet all this most voluntarily because he doth necessarily do that which is best in the judgement of his Wisdom And we deny not that if a man will presume to give liberty to his Reason to search into unrevealed things that it will seem to him very improbable that he who is Actus purus of Infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness and who now taketh pleasure in all his works and his delights are with the Sons of men should from all Eternity produce no Creature till less than 6000 years ago when a thousand years with him are but as a day and that he should resolve to have Creatures to all Eternity who as to future duration shall be so like to Himself when from all Eternity he had no Creature till as it were five or six dayes agoe Christians are apt to have such thoughts as these as well as you when they look but to rational probabilities But they hold that all these matters whether there were antecedent worlds and how many and of what sort and of what duration whether this was the first are matters unrevealed which they ought not to trouble the world or themselves with prying into or contending about And they finde that they are unfruitfull speculations which do but overwhelme the minde of him that searcheth after them when God hath provided for us in the Christian Faith more plain and sure and solid and wholsom food to live upon 3. And if it be unrevealed in Scripture whether before this there was any other World we must confess it unrevealed whether there were any emanant or created Entity which God did produce from all Eternity considered quoad durationem only For the Scripture saith no more of one than of the other And if there were one moment dividing Eternity only imaginarily in which there had been nothing but God we must equally confess an Eternity in which there was nothing but God because Eternity hath no beginning 4. But Christianity assureth us of these two things 1. That certainly there is no Being besides God but what was created produced or totally caused by Him And that if any Creature were eternal as to
is a sin against God what a thing will Man be and what a Hell will Earth be Deny the Law of Nature and you turn men loose to every villany and engage the World to destroy it self and set all as on fire about their ears For if God only move us Physically there is neither virtue nor vice good nor evil in a moral sense But what God moveth a man to that he will do and what he doth not move him to he will not do and so there being only motion and no motion action and no action there will be no Duty and no obligation and so no Moral good or evil § 5. II. If God should Rule us only by Physical motion and not by Laws he should not rule man as man according to his Nature But God doth rule man according to his Nature Therefore not only by Physical motion Otherwise Man should not differ from Inanimates and Bruits A stone is to be moved Physically and a Bruit by the necessitating objects of sense But Man hath Reason which they have not and he is a free Agent And therefore though God concurr to his Physical motion as such yet he must move him as Rational by such objects and such proposals and arguments and means as are suited to Reason By presenting things absent to his understanding to prevail against the sense of things present and by teaching him to preferre greater things before lesser and by shewing him the commodity and discommodity which should move him God would not have made him Rational if he would not have Governed him accordingly § 6. III. If the way of physical motion alone is not so excellent and suitable as the way of Moral Government by Laws also then God doth not only move man physically and leave it to Magistrates to Rule as Morally But the antecedent is true Therefore so is the Consequent God doth not omit the more excellent and choose a lower way of Government and leave the more excellent way to man And that the Minor is true appeareth thus The way which is most suitable to the object or subject of Government is the most excellent way But such is the Moral way by Laws The other Beasts are as capable subjects of as men and Trees as either Wisdom and Justice are eminently glorified in the Moral way And Omnipotency it self also appeareth in Gods making of so noble a Creature as is governable by Reason without Force § 7. IV. If God were not the Soveraign Ruler of the World there could be no Government of mens hearts But there is a government of hearts Therefore God is the Ruler of the World Man knoweth not the Hearts of those whom he governeth And therefore he can take no cognisance of heart-sins or duties unless as they appear in words or deeds And therefore he maketh no Law for the government of hearts But the Heart is the Man and a bad heart is the fountain of bad words or acts and is it self polluted before it endeavoureth the injury of others He that thinks all indifferent that is within him is himself so bad that it is the less wonder if being so indifferent yea so vitiated within he think nothing evil which he hath a minde to do He that thinketh that the heart is as good and innocent which hateth his God his King his Friend his Parents as that which loveth them and that it is no duty to have any good thought or affection but only for the outward actions sake nor any sin to be malicious covetous proud deceitfull lustfull impious and unjust in his cogitations contrivances and desires unless as they appear in the acts doth shew that he hath himself a heart which is too suitable to such a Doctrine But Nature hath taught all the World to judge of men by their Hearts as far as they can know them and not to take the Will which is the first seat of Moral Good or Evil to be capable of neither Good nor Evil. Therefore seeing Hearts must be under Government it must not be man but the heart-searching God that must be their Governour § 8. V. If God were not the Governour of the World all earthly Soveraigns would be themselves ungoverned But they are not ungoverned Therefore God is their Governour and so the Governour of the World The Kings and States that have Soveraign power through all the World are under no humane Government at all Though some of them are limited by Contracts with their people But none have so much need to have the benefit of Heart-government none have so strong Temptations as they And no mens actions are of so great importance to the welfare or misery of the World If the Monarchs of the Earth do take themselves to be left free by God to do what they list what work will be made among the people If they think it no duty to be just or mercifull or chaste or temperate what wonder if they be unjust and cruel and filthy and luxurious and use the People for their own ends and lusts and esteem them as men do their Dogs or Horses that are to be used for their own pleasure or commodity What is the present calamity of the World but that the Heathen and Infidel Rulers of the World are so ignorant and sensual and have cast off the fear of God and the sense of his Government in a great degree when yet most of them have some conviction that there is a God who Ruleth all and to whom they must be accountable What then would they be if they once believed that they are under no Government of God at all If they should oppress their Subjects and murder the innocent it would be no fault For where there is no Government and Law there is no transgression No one forbiddeth it to them and none commandeth them the contrary if God do not For the people are not the Rulers of their Rulers nor give them Laws And Neighbour Princes and States are but Neighbours Therefore if they should sacrifice peace and honesty liberties lives and Kingdoms to their lusts no man could say They do amiss or violate any sort of Law Obj. But the fear of Rebellions and the peoples vindicating their liberties would restrain them Answ Only so far as they feel themselves unable to do hurt As a man is restrained from killing Adders lest they sting him And the advantage of their place doth usually empower them to make desolations if they have a minde to it And great mindes will not easily bear a popular restraint And indeed the honester and better any people are the more undisposed are they to rebell And therefore Tyrants may with smallest danger and fear destroy them Obj. But their own interest lieth in the peoples welfare and therefore there is no danger of such miseries Ans Did Nero think so that wished Rome had but one neck that set the City on fire that he might sing over it Homers Poem of
and he may be sure that it is no sin because he hath done it for if God forbid it not it is no sin nay he may make it an effect of God's government But this consequence is so false and horrid that no Nation on earth receiveth it and Cannibals themselves abhor it who eat not their friends but strangers and enemies § 11. VIII If God be not the Governour of the world by Laws then no man need to fear or avoid any thing forbidden by the Laws of Man who can either keep it secret by Wit or keep himself from humane revenge by Power But the consequent is false therefore so is the Antecedent The reason of the consequence is evident because where no humane revenge is to be feared there no punishment at all is to be feared if God be no Governour of the world but those that can hide their actions by craft or make them good by power need not fear any humane revenge therefore they need to fear none at all upon the Atheists grounds And if that be so 1. How easie is it for cunning malice to burn a Town to kill a King to poison wife or children and to defraud a neighbour and never be discovered If this be so then Thieves Adulterers Traitors when they are detected have failed only in point of wit that they concealed it not and not in point of honesty and duty 2. And then any Rebel that can get enow to follow him hath as good a cause as the King that he rebelleth against and if he conquer he need not accuse himself of doing any wrong And then there will be nothing for conscience to blame any man for nor for one man to accuse another of but witlesness or impotency And then the Thief must suffer only for want of strength or cunning and not because he did any wrong § 12. IX If there be no Government by God there can be no true Propriety but Strength and he that is strongest hath right to all that he can lay hold on But the Consequent is false therefore so is the Antecedent The consequence is undeniable for if there be no Divine Government there is no Law but Humane and no man can have any Right besides Strength to make Laws for any other whomsoever For if God have no Government and Law he constituteth no Debitum vel Jus no Dueness or Right And man can have no Right to govern others if he have no Governour to give any If God do give Right to Govern he thereby maketh obedience to that Governour a duty and he that constituteth or instituteth Right and Duty governeth And if God give men No Right to Govern they can have none And then if Strength be all their Title any man that can get as much Strength doth get as good a Title and may seize upon the Lives the Lands and Estates of Prince or People and give Laws to the weaker as others before gave Laws to him And so there will utter confusion and misery be let in upon the world As in the Poet's description of the degenerate Age Vivitur ex raptu non hospes ab hospite tutus c. Reason would have nothing to say against strength the great Dog would have the best title to the bone Melior mihi dextera lingua est Dummodo pugnando superem tu vince loquendo Ovid. Met. The honest poor and peaceable would have such a peace with thieves and strong ones Cum pecore infirmo quae solet esse lupis Ovid. § 13. If God govern not the world then meer Communities are uncapable of Right or Wrong and no man is bound in duty to spare his brother's life or state But the Consequent is false therefore so is the Antecedent By a Community I mean a company of men that have yet set up no Government among them If God be not their Governour such have none at all and so are under no moral obligation for Covenants themselves cannot bind if there be no superiour obligation requiring man to stand to his Covenants Obj. Then God's Covenants to man do not bind him Answ Not at all by proper obligation as if it were his Duty to keep them and his Sin to break them for God is not capable of duty or sin But yet improperly they may be called Obligations because they are the demonstrations of his Will which the perfection of his Nature will not let him violate It would be an imperfection if God should break promise though not a sin or crime And therefore it is impossible for God to lie Obj. But suppose we say that Man is under no other obligations than a Beast and that among men there is no proper right or wrong duty or fault yet men by confederacies without any other Government would settle Rules for the safety of cohabitation and converse and for love of themselves would forbear wronging others And this is all the Law of Nature that Man hath above Bruits Answ Those Confederacies would no further oblige them than their Interest required them to observe them Still by this rule a man is left free to kill wife and children if he be weary of them which no neighbour being wronged by none will seem obliged to revenge still he that is the stronger is left to do his worst without fault to seize upon other mens estates and to depose Kings and destroy them and all the world would be in a state of war Or if self-interest keep some quiet for a time it would be but till they had strength and opportunity to do otherwise He is not fit for humane society who would tell all about him I take my self free to defraud and murder any of you as soon as my own safety and interest will allow it me And no man that thus taketh a man for a beast can expect any better usage than a beast himself any further than self-love shall restrain others from abusing him nor can he plead any better title to his estate nor exemption from the violence of the stronger And it will also follow that honesty is nothing but self-preserving policy and that blasphemy and impiety against God need not be feared or avoided nor any thing as a fault but only as a folly exposing the person himself to danger Incest Perjury Lying might be impudencies but not any crimes Obj. If you supposed them in God they would be but imperfections and not crimes and why should you judge othewise of them in Man Answ Because the absolute perfection of his Nature is instead of a Law to God who hath no Superiour But man hath a Superiour and hath an imperfect nature which is therefore to be regulated by the wisdom and will of that perfect Superiour And moreover if Man have reason and wisdom above a Beast which maketh him capable of knowing Right and Wrong and of being moved by the things that are evident to reason though not to sense and if he
them have their right and part And this is the common reward or benefit of obedience and fidelity Besides which some great exploits are usually rewarded with some special praemium In humane Kingdoms as such the End is no higher than the Beginning Temporal Governours give but temporal Rewards The felicities of the Kingdom which are the ends of Government as they are from Man are but temporal and our share in them is all our Reward from men But the original and end of the Kingdom of God are higher and of further prospect The benefits of fidelity are greater as shall be further proved But let it be noted that this Objection saith nothing against a life of Punishment Governours never leave their Precepts without this sanction And he that believeth future Punishment will easily believe a future Reward Let it also be noted that Paternal Government hath evermore Rewards in the strictest sense that is a special favour and kindness shewed to the Childe that is specially obedient and so the rest according to their measures But the Kingdom of God is A PATERNALL KINGDOM as is proved That God will make in his Retributions a just difference between the good and bad is proved from his Justice in Government If his Laws make no difference then men are left at liberty to keep or break them nor can it rationally be expected that they should be kept Nor could he be said so much as to love or approve or justifie the obedient more than the rebellious But so unholy a Nature and so indifferent between sin and duty and so unwise and unjust in governing is not to be called God Either he justly differenceth or he doth not Govern That God maketh not a sufficient differencing Retribution in this life is the complaint of some and the confession of almost all the World The bad are commonly the greatest and the Lords and Oppressors of the Just The Turks the Tartarians the Moscovites the Persians the Mogull and more such brutish Monarchs who use the people as the slaves of their pride and lust do take up the far greatest part of the Earth Few places are so good where Goodness exposeth not men to sufferings from the rabble of the vulgar if not from the Governours slanders and abuses are the common lot of those that will differ from the carnal wilde rebellious Rout. And poverty pain sickness and death do come alike to all The sensual that have wit enough so far to bridle their lusts as to preserve their health do usually live longer than more obedient men And they deny themselves none of those fleshly pleasures which the obedient do continually abstain from Obj. But do you not ordinarily say that Vice bringeth its punishment with it in its natural effects and Obedience its Reward Is not the life of a Glutton and Drunkard punished by poverty and shame and sickness And is not Godliness a pleasure in it self If it be our highest end and Happiness to love God and please him then sure the beginnings of it here must have more good than all the pleasures of sin and so God maketh a sufficient difference here Answ Some Vices that are sottishly managed do bring poverty shame and sickness but that may easily be avoided by a vicious wit Gluttony and drunkenness may fall short of sicknesses Fornication and adultery and incest may be managed with greater craft Pride and ambition may attain dominion and wealth Theft may be hid and cheating and fraud may make men rich and free them from the pinching wants and cares and the temptations to discontent and contention of the poor Malice may delight it self in secret revenges in poysonings murderings and such like without any worldly hurt to the transgressour A Tiberius a Nero a Caligula a Domitian a Commodus a Heliogabalus a Sardanapalus may be on the Throne when a Socrates a Seneca a Cicero a Cato a Demosthenes is put to death yea when a Paul or Peter an Ignatius a Cyprian are sacrificed to their bloody rage Yet it is true that all this while they want the dignity and comfort of the Just But while they value it not and feel not the want of it they take it not for a punishment but choose it as a felicity And as for the present Rewards of Virtue to speak impartially I verily think that if there were no life to come Virtue and Holiness were rationally more eligible But that is much because God is an End above our selves And for our own content in many Holiness would give the minde more pleasure than all fleshly pleasure and worldly greatness could counterpoise But with many others whose afflictions are very heavy and pains and poverty very great and who are grievously tormented by cruel persecutors and perhaps a Melancholy constitution may forbid them much delight it is hard to say that if they durst let loose themselves to all sin which maketh for their fleshly interest their Pleasure would not be much greater While the Soul is in flesh it unavoidably partaketh of the pain or pleasure of the flesh Therefore the torment of the Stone or Strangury or of a Rack or Strappado will reach the Soul And the operations of the Soul being in and by the body a tormented body will hinder those Contemplations which should feed our Joy and also hinder the Joy of those Contemplations Most Christians enjoy little comfort in Holiness through the very cares of this life and the weakness of Grace and power of Corruptions and doubts and fears which do attend them Much less would they have much comfort if they were here tormented and miserable in body and had no hope of another life In some sense we may say that Heaven is begun on Earth because Holiness is begun But the Heaven on Earth is the hope and reflection of the Heaven indeed and is soon gone if that be gone as the light here ceaseth when the Sun is set God seen and loved in a glass doth more differ as to us from God as seen and loved in the intuition of his Glory than the heart of man is now able to conceive The difference may be well called specifical as to our actions yea transcendently such Let any man in torment without any hope of Heaven be Judge And though Honesty without the Pleasure and Comforts of it be still better and more eligible yet while mans Reason and Virtue is so weak and his sense and appetite so strong and his body hath so much power upon his minde it is very few that the meer Love of Virtue would prevail with if that Virtue were never to come to a higher degree than this It is undoubtedly true that the Delights of Holiness are incomparably more desireable as we have them in this life than Kingdoms and all the pleasures of the flesh But that is principally because that this life is the passage to a better and hath relation to so glorious a reward The least fore-thought of
in captivity yet how unlikely they are to prevail with others both Reason and Experience fully testifie § 12. And whereas God's special mercy and grace is necessary to so great a change and cure and this grace is forfeited by sin and every sin deserveth more punishment and this sin and punishment must be so far forgiven before God can give us that grace which we have forfeited Nature doth not satisfactorily teach me how God is so far reconciled to Man nor how the forgiveness of sin may be by us so far procured § 13. And where as I see at once in the world both the aâ—oâ—ing of sin which deserveth damnation and the abounding of mercy to these that are under such deserts I am not satisfi'd by the halt of Nature how God is so far reconciled and the ends of Government and Justice attained as to deal with the world so contrary to its deserts § 14. And while I am in this doubt of God's reconciliation I am ready still to fear list present forbearance and mercy â—rt aâ—iâ—val and will end at last in greater misery However I find it hard if not impossible to come to any certainty of 〈◊〉 pardon and salvation § 15. And while I am thus uncertain of pardon and the love of God it must needs make it an insuperable difficulty to me to love God above my self and all things for to love a God that I think will damn me or most probably may do it for ought I know is a thing that man can hardly do § 16. And therefore I cannot see how the guilty world can be sanctifi'd nor brought to forsake the sin and vanities which they love as long as God whom they must turn to by love doth seem so unlovely to them § 17. And every temptation from present pleasure commodity or honour will be like to prevail while the love of God and the happiness to come are so dark and doubtful to guilty misgiving ignorant Souls § 18. Nor can I see by Nature how a sinner can live comfortably in the world for want of clearer assurance of his future happiness For if he do but say as poor Seneca Cicero and others such Its most like that there is another life for us but we are not sure it will both abate their comfort in the fore-thoughts of it and tempt them to venture upon present pleasure for fear of losing all And if they were never so confident of the life to come and had no assurance of their own part in it as not knowing whether their sins be pardoned still their comfort in it would be small And the world can give them no more than is proportionable to so small and momentany a thing § 19. Nor do I see in Nature any full and suitable support against the pain and fears of sufferings and death while men doubt of that which should support them § 20. I must therefore conclude that the Light and Law of Nature which was suitable to uncorrupted reason and will and to an undepraved mind is too insufficient to the corrupted vitiated guilty world and that there is a necessity of some recovering medicinal Revelation Which forced the very Heathens to fly to Oracles Idols Sacrifices and Religious Propitiations of the gods there being scarce any Nation which had not some such thing though they used them not only uneffectually but to the increase of their sin and strengthning their presumption as too many poor ignorant Christians now do their Masses and other such formalities and superstitions But as Arnobius saith adv Gentes l. 7. Crescit enim multitudo peccantium cum redimendi peccati spes datur facile itur ad culpas ubi est venalis ignoscentium gratia He that hopeth to purchase forgiveness with mony or sacrifices or ways of cost will strive rather to be rich than to be innocent CHAP. II. Of the several Religions which are in the world HAving finished my enquiries into the state and book of Nature I found it my duty to enquire what other men thought in the world and what were the reasons of their several beliefs that if they knew more than I had discovered by what means soever I might become partaker of it § 1. And first I find that all the world except those called Heathens are conscious of the necessity of supernatural Revelation yea the Heathens themselves have some common apprehension of it § 2. Four sorts of Religions I find only considerable upon earth The meer Naturalists called commonly Heathens and Idolaters The Jews The Mahometans and the Christians The Heathens by their Oracles Augures and Aruspices confess the necessity of some supernatural light and the very Religion of all the rest consisteth in it I. § 3. As for the Heathens I find this much good among them That some of them have had a very great care of their Souls and many have used exceeding industry in seeking after knowledge especially in the mysteries of the works of God and some of them have bent their minds higher to know God and the invisible worlds That they commonly thought that there is a Life of Retribution after death and among the wisest of them the summe of that is to be found though confusedly which I have laid down in the first Part of this Book Especially in Seneca Cicero Plutarch Plato Plotinus Jamblicus Proclus Porphyry Julian the Apostate Antoninus Epectetus Arrian c. And for their Learning and Wisdom and Moral Virtues the Christian Bishops carried themselves respectfully to many of them as Basil to Libanius c. And in their days many of their Philosophers were honoured by the Christian Emperours or at least by the inferiour Magistrates and Christian people who judged that so great worth deserved honour and that the confession of so much Truth deserved answerable love especially Aedesius Julianus Cappadox Proaeresius Maximus Libanius Acacius Chrysanthus c. And the Christians ever since have made great use of their Writings in their Schools especially of Aristotle's and Plato's with their followers § 4. And I find that the Idolatry of the wisest of them was not so foolish as that of the Vulgar but they thought that the Vniverse was one animated world and that the Vniversal Soul was the only Absolute Sovereign God whom they described much like as Christians do and that the Sun and Stars and Earth and each particular Orb was an individual Animal part of the Vniversal world and besides the Vniversal had each one a subordinate particular Soul which they worshipped as a subordinate particular Deity as some Christians do the Angels And their Images they set up for such representations by which they thought these gods delighted to be remembred and instrumentally to exercise their virtues for the help of earthly mortals § 5. I find that except these Philosophers and very few more the generality of the Heathens were and are foolish Idolaters and ignorant sensual brutish men At this day through the
Exaltation whereupon the woman seeing the beauty of the Fruit and desiring Knowledge believed the Devil and did eat of that which God forbad The sin being so hainous for a new-made Rational Creature to believe that God was false and bad a lyar and envious which is indeed the nature of the Devil and to depart from his Love and Obedience for so small a matter God did in Justice presently sentence the Offenders to punishment yet would not so lose his new-made Creature nor cast off Mankind by the full execution of his deserved punishment but he resolved to commit the Recovery and Conduct of Mankind to a Redeemer who should better perform the work of salvation than the first Man Adam had done the work of adhaesion and obedience This Saviour is the Eternal Wisdom and Word of God who was in due time to assume the Nature of Man and in the mean time to stay the stroke of Justice and to be the invisible Law-giver and Guide of Souls communicating such measures of mercy light and spirit for their recovery as he saw fit Of whom more anon so that henceforward God did no longer Govern man as a spotless innocent Creature by the meer Law of entire-Nature but as a lapsed guilty depraved Creature who must be pardoned reconciled and renewed and have Laws and Means made suitable to his corrupted miserable state Hereupon God published the Promise of a Saviour to be sent in due time who should confound the Devil that had accused God of falshood and of envying the good of man and had by lying murdered mankind and should overcome all his deceits and power and rescue God's injur'd Honour and the Souls of sinners and bring them safe to the everlasting blessedness which they were made for Thus God as man's Redeemer and not only as his Creator governeth him He taught Adam first to worship him now by Sacrifice both in acknowledgment of the Creator and to teach him to believe in and expect the Redeemer who in his assumed humanity was to become a Sacrifice for sin This Worship by Sacrifice Adam taught his two sons Cain and Abel who were the early instances types and beginnings of the two sorts of persons which thence-forward would be in the world viz. The holy Seed of Christ and the wicked Seed of Satan Cain the elder as corruption now is before Regeneration offering the fruits of his land only to his Creator and Abel the younger sacrificing the firstlings of his flock of sheep to his Redeemer with a purified mind God rejected the offering of Cain and accepted the sacrifice of Abel Whereupon Cain in imitation of the Devil envied his Brother and in envy slew him to foretell the world what the corrupted nature of man would prove and how malignant it would be against the sanctified and what the holy Seed that are accepted of God must look for in this world for the hope of an everlasting blessedness with God After this God's patience waited on mankind not executing the threatned death upon their bodies till they had lived seven or eight or nine hundred years a piece which mercy was abused to their greater sin the length of their lives occasioning their excessive sensuality worldliness and contempt of God and life eternal so that the number of the holy Seed was at last so small and the wickedness of mankind so great that God resolved to drown the world Only righteous Noah and his family eight persons he saved in an Ark which he directed him to make for the preservation of himself and the species of Aereal and Terrestrial Animals After which Floud the earth was peopled in time from Noah to whom God gave Precepts of Piety and Justice which by tradition came down to his posterity through the world But still the greater part did corrupt their ways and followed Satan and the holy Seed was the smaller part of whom Abraham being exemplary in holiness and righteousness with his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob God did in special approbation of their righteousness renew his gracious covenant with them and enlarge it with the addition of many temporal blessings and special priviledges to their posterity after them promising that they should possess the Land of Canaan and be to him a peculiar people above all the people of the earth The children of Jacob being afterward by a famine removed into Egypt there multiplied to a great people The King of Egypt therefore oppressed them and used them as slaves to make his brick by cruel impositions Till at last God raised them up Moses for a deliverer to whom God committed his message to the King and to whom he gave power to work miracles for their deliverance and whom he made their Captain to lead them out of Egypt towards the promised Land Ten times did Moses with Aaron his Brother go to Pharaoh the King in vain though each time they wrought publick miracles to convince him till at last when God had in a night destroyed all the first-born in the land of Egypt Pharaoh did unwillingly let the Seed of Jacob or Israel go But repenting quickly he pursued after them with his Host and overtook them just at the Red-sea where God wrought a miracle opening the Sea which the Israelites past through on dry ground but the King with his Host who were hardned to pursue them were all drowned by the return of the waters when the Israelites were over Then Moses led them on in the Wilderness towards the promised Land but the great difficulties of the Wilderness tempted them to murmuring against him that had brought them thither and to unbelief against God as if he could not have provided for them This provoked God to kill many thousands of them by Plagues and Serpents and to delay them forty years in that Wilderness before he gave them the Land of Promise so that only two which came out of Egypt Caleb and Joshua did live to enter it But to confute their unbelief God wrought many miracles for them in this Wilderness He caused the Rocks to give them water He fed them with Manna from above Their shooes and cloaths did not wear in forty years In this Wilderness Moses received from God a Law by which they were to be governed In mount Sinai in flames of fire with terrible thunder God appeared so far to Moses as to speak to him and instruct him in all that he would have him do He gave him the chief part of his Law in two Tables of Stone containing Ten Commandments engraven thereon by God himself or by Angelical ministration The rest he instructed him in by word of voice Moses was made their Captain and Aaron their High Priest and all the Forms of God's Worship setled with abundance of Laws for Sacrifices and Ceremonies to typifie the Sacrifice and Reign of Christ When Moses and Aaron were dead in the Wilderness God chose Joshua Moses his Servant
agreeableness to his opinions ways or interest self-love self-conceit self-esteem self-will and self-seeking is the soul and business of the world And therefore no wonder that it is a divided and contentious world when it hath as many ends as men and every man is for himself and draweth his own way No wonder that there is such variety of apprehensions that no two men are in all things of a mind and that the world is like a company of drunken men together by the ears or of blind men fighting with they know not whom and for they know not what And that ignorant sects and contentious wranglers and furious fighters are the bulkie parts of it And that striving who shall Rule or be Greatest or have his will is the worlds employment It is a dreaming and distracted world that spend their days and cares for nothing and are as serious in following a feather and in the pursuit of that which they confess is vanity and dying in their hands as if indeed they knew it to be true felicity they are like children busie in hunting butterflies or like boys at foot-ball as eager in the pursuit and in over-turning one another as if it were for their lives or for some great desirable prize or liker to a heap of Ants that gad about as busily and make as much ado for sticks and dust as if they were about some magnificent work Thus doth the vain deceived world lay out their thoughts and time upon impertinencies and talk and walk like so many Noctambulo's in their sleep they study and care and weep and laugh and labour and fight as men in a dream and will hardly be perswaded but it is reality which they pursue till death come and awake them Like a Stage-play or a Poppet-play where all things seem to be what they are not and all parties seem to do what they do not and then depart and are all disroab'd and unmask'd such is the life of the most of this world who spend their days in a serious jeasting and in a busie doing nothing It is a malignant world that hath an inbred radicated enmity to all that virtue and goodness which they want they are so captivated to their fleshly pleasures and worldly interests that the first sight approach or motion of reason holiness mortification and self-denial is met by them with heart-rising indignation and opposition in which their fury beareth down all argument and neither giveth them leave considerately to use their own reason or hearken to anothers there are few that are truly wise and good and heavenly that escape their hatred and beastly rage And when Countries have thought to remedy this plague by changing their forms of Government experience hath told them that the vice and root of their calamity lieth in the blindness and wickedness of corrupted nature which no form of Government will cure and that the Doves that are governed by Hawkes and Kites must be their prey whether it be one or many that hath the Sovereignty Yea it is an unthankful world that in the exercise of this malignant cruelty will begin with those that deserve best at their hands He that would instruct them and stop them in their sin and save their souls doth ordinarily make himself a prey and they are not content to take away their lives but they will among their credulous rabble take away the reputation of their honesty and no wisdom or learning was ever so great no innocency so unspotted no honesty justice or charity so untainted no holiness so venerable that could ever priviledge the owners from their rage or make the possessors to escape their malice Even Jesus Christ that never committed sin and that came into the world with the most matchless love and to do them the greatest good was yet prosecuted furiously to a shameful death and not only so but in his humiliation his judgement was taken away and he was condemned as an evil doer who was the greatest enemy to sin that ever was born into the World He was accused of Blasphemy for calling himself the Son of God of Impiety for talking of destroying the Temple and of Treason for saying he was a King And his Apostles that went about the World to save mens Souls and proclaim to them the joyfull tydings of salvation had little better entertainment wherever they came bonds and afflictions did abide them And if they had not been taught to rejoyce in tribulations they could have expected little joy on earth And it was not only Christians that were thus used but honesty in the Heathens was usually met with opposition and reproach as Seneca himself doth oft complain Yea how few have there been that have been famous for any excellency of wit or learning or any addition to the Worlds understanding but their reward hath been reproach imprisonment or death Did Socrates die in his bed Or was he not murdered by the rage of wicked Hypocrites Plato durst not speak his minde for fear of his Masters reward Aristippus left Athens ne bis peccarent in Philosophiam not only Solon but most benefactors to any Common-wealth have suffered for their beneficence Demosthenes Cato Cicero Seneca could none of them save their lives from fury by their great learning or honesty Yea among nominal Christians he that told them of an Antipodes was excommunicated by the Papal Authority for an Heretick And a Savonarola Arnoldus de Villa Nova Paulus Scaliger c. could not be wiser than their Neighbours but to their cost No nor Arias Montanus himself Campanella was fain in prison to compile his New Philosophy and with the pleasure of his inventions to bear the torments which were their sowre sauce Even Galilaeus that discovered so many new Orbs and taught this World the way of clearer acquaintance with its neighbours could not escape the Reverend Justice of the Papalists but must lie in a Prison as if O sapientia had been written on his doors as the old Woman cryed out to Thales when he fell into a ditch while he was by his instrument taking the height of a Starr And Sir Walter Rawleigh could not save his head by his Learned History of the World but must be one part of its History himself nor yet by his great observation how Antipater is taken for a bloody Tyrant for killing Demosthenes and how Arts and Learning have power to disgrace any man that doth evil to the famous Masters of them Peter Ramus that had done so much in Phylosophy for the Learned World was requited by a butcherly barbarous murder being one of the 30000 or 40000 that were so used in the French Massacre And many a holy person perished in the 200000 murdered by the Irish It were endless to instance the ungratefull cruelties of the World and what entertainment it hath given to wise and godly men even those whom it superstitiously adoreth when it hath murdered them And in all
this wickedness it is wilfull and stupid and incorrigible and ordinary means do little to the Cure Thus is it a sinfull evil World II. And it is a Tempting World that would make all bad as it is it self Whereever the sanctifying Truth of God doth come to illuminate and reform men the World is presently up in arms against it and fighteth against that which would save mens Souls as if it were a Plague or Enemy that would destroy them Princes think it is against their interest and the people finde that it is against their lusts And so the sin of Tyranny keepeth the Gospel out of the greatest part of the World and popular fury resisteth it where it cometh The Empires of the Turks and Tartarian and China are sad instances of the success of Tyranny against the means of mens salvation And the Empire of Japan hath given the World an instance of such unparallel'd cruelty to that end as maketh the persecutions of Nero and Dioclesian and even the Popish Inquisition and almost the Massacres of Piedmont France and Ireland to seem very merciful acts of Charity What rage what inhumane fury hath been shewed through all the World to keep out Knowledge and keep the Nations in their darkness and misery and forbid relief But for Error and Deceit Idolatry and Superstition how industriously are they propagated Empire and Arts Power and Learning are employed to deceive and undoe the World And though Empire be Gods Ordinance and Arts his gifts they are turned against him in the farr greatest part of the Earth and Satan is served by them as if they had been ordain'd by him Almost every Countrey hath their proper opinions and a Religion fitted to resist Religion He that is an Idolater or a Mahometan or Infidel would make more And they that are against all serious Religion are as eager to make others of their minde as if it were a work of charity or commodity And he that is endeavouring to undoe Souls is as vehement in it as he that is endeavouring to save them He that hath any passion or corrupt affection is as inclinable to convey it to another as fire is to kindle fire or one that hath the Plague to infect his Neighbour Covetousness ambition voluptuousness lust and wrath and revenge are all contagious Rioters think it strange if we run not with them into all excess The very noise of their impertinent talk and business and the great adoe that they make in doing nothing is a great diverter of those that are about them from serious business and sober consideration They keep men so busie about their vanities that they can finde no leisure to remember that they are men or to think what business they have in the World nor where it is that they must dwell for ever And when their folly and selfishness hath set them all together by the ears they must needs draw or drive others into the fire of contention with them They cry Who is on my side who And he that will not be of one party or other but will keep his peace shall lose it by the enmity of all And no man shall be taken for orthodox or honest that will not be of that Faction whose commendation he desireth And when he hath humoured them he shall go for a knave or a reproached person with all the rest A peaceable man shall hardly finde the peace which he desireth to himself but it 's ten to one but he loseth his labour if he would make peace between others especially if he have an honest ambition of extending that blessing to Parties and Countreys or any great and considerable numbers If by tyranny and cruelty by prisons and torments and death they cannot affright men from honesty and the obedience of God at least they will vex them in their way and be as thorns and bryars to them in this Wilderness III. And it is a calamitous miserable World It is void of the comforts of sacred Illumination and of the assured Love of God and of the exercise of wisdom or holiness The delights of Saints in loving God and waiting for eternal Life are unknown to all the multitudes of the ungodly They are confounded and lost in their ignorance and error and tormented with their own passions divisions and contentions Their vices are part of their disquietment and pain though pleasure be their intended end It is a pitifull servitude that they are in to Satan and an endless drudgery that they follow in serving their covetousness pride and lust and a tiresome task to care and labour to make provision for their fleshly appetites and wills They are led captive by Satan to do his will and yet in doing it they do their own and are in love with their Captivity and glory in their Chains They are engaged daily against God and Mercy against their Happiness and their Friends that would procure it and think him their Enemy that would make them wiser They go under the guilt of all this sin and they have no assurance of pardon or deliverance And God overtaketh them many times with bodily distresses here Sicknesses and pains consume men and torment them Warrs and plagues do send them by thousands out of the World which they took for their felicity Fire and famine piracy and robbery and fraud impoverish them The frustrations of their hope torment them And yet under all they are hardened against God and fall not out with their sin and folly but with the Justice of Heaven and with its instruments or rather with all that beareth the Image of the Holiness of God This is the visible condition of this World Obj. If you say How can all this stand with the infinite Goodness of God I have answered it before It sheweth you that it is not this World which is the great demonstration of the Goodness or Love of God from whence we must take our estimate of it by the effects If you will judge of the Kings splendour and bounty and clemency will you go seek for examples and demonstrations of it in the Gaol and at the Gallows or rather at the Court Hell is as the Gallows and Earth is as the Gaol Measure not Gods bounty and mercy by these It is no sign of unmercifulness in God that there are Flies and Worms and Toads and Serpents on Earth as well as Men nor that Earth was not made as indefectible as Heaven And when men have drown'd themselves in sin it is no want of Goodness in God but it is Goodness it selfe which causeth the demonstrations of his Justice on them This World is not so much to all Gods Creation as a wen or wart upon a Mans body is to the whole body And if it were all forsaken of God as it hath forsaken him it were proportionably no more than the cutting off such a wart or Wen. God hath many thousand thousand thousand times more capacious Regions which it 's
like have more noble and blessed Inhabitants Look to them if you would see his Love in its most glorious demonstration Justice also must be demonstrated if men will sin And if Hell be quite forsaken and Earth which is next it be partly forsaken of the favour of God for all that God may gloriously demonstrate his Love to a thousand thousand-fold more subjects of the nobler Regions than he doth demonstrate his Justice on in Hell or Earth But these two things I gather for the confirmation of my Faith 1. That the sin and misery of the World is such that it groaneth for a Saviour And when I hear of a Physician sent from Heaven I easily believe it when I see the wofull World mortally diseased and gasping in its deep distress The condition of the World is visibly so suitable to the whole Office of Christ and to the Doctrine of the Gospel that I am driven to think that if God have mercy for it some Physician and extraordinary help shall be afforded it And when I see none else but Jesus Christ whom Reason will allow me to believe is that Physician it somewhat prepareth my minde to look towards him with hope 2. And also the Evil of this present World is very suitable to the Doctrine of Christ when he telleth us that he came not to settle us here in a state of Prosperity nor to make the World our Rest or Portion but to save us from it as our enemy and calamity our danger and our Wilderness and trouble and to bring up our hearts first and then our selves to a better World which he calleth us to seek and to make sure of Whereas I finde that most other Religions though they say something of a Life hereafter yet lead men to look for most or much of their felicity here as consisting in the fruition of this World which experience tells me is so miserable § 3. Moreover I finde that the Law of entire Nature was no more suitable to Nature in its integrity than the Law of Grace revealed by Christ is suitable to us in our lapsed state so that it may be called the Law of Nature-lapsed and restorable Naturae lapsae restaurandae Nature entire and Nature depraved must have the same pattern and rule of perfection ultimately to be conformed to because lapsed man must seek to return to his integrity But lapsed or corrupted man doth moreover need another Law which shall first tend to his restoration from that lost and miserable state And it was no more necessary to man in innocency to have a suitable Law for his preservation and confirmation than it is to man in sin and guilt to have a Law of Grace for his pardon and recovery and a course of means prescribed him for the healing of his Soul and for the escaping of the stroke of Justice The following particulars further open this § 4. It seemeth very congruous to Reason that as Monarchy is the perfectest sort of Government which it is probable is even among the Angels so Mankinde should have one universal Head or Monarch over them Kingdoms have their several Monarchs but there is surely an Universal Monarch over them all we know that God is the primary Soveraign but it is very probable to Nature that there is a subordinate Soveraign or general Administrator under him It is not only the Scriptures that speak a Prince of the Devils and of Principalities and Powers and Thrones and Dominions among the happy Spirits and that talk of the Angels that are Princes of several Kingdoms Dan. 10. but even the Philosophers and most Idolaters have from this apprehension been drawn to the worship of such as an inferiour kinde of Deity And if man must have a subordinate universal King it is meet that it be one that is also Man As Angels and Devils have Principals of their own sort and nature and not of others § 5. It seemeth congruous to Reason that this Head be one that is fitted to be our Captain Generall himself to lead us by Conduct Precept and Example in our warfare against those Devils who also are said to have their Prince and General As Devils fight against us under a Prince of their own nature so is it congruous that we fight against them under a Prince of our own nature who hath himself first conquered him and will go on before us in the fight § 6. It is congruous to Reason that lapsed Man under the guilt of sin and desert of punishment who is unable to deliver himself and unworthy of immediate access to God should have a Mediator for his restoration and reconciliation with God If any be found fit for so high an Office § 7. And it is congruous to Reason that this Mediator be one in whom God doth condescend to Man and one in whom man may be encouraged to ascend to God as to one that will forgive and save him And one that hath made himself known to man and also hath free access to God § 8. It is congruous to Reason that lapsed guilty darkened sinners that know so little of God and of his Will and of their own Concernments and of the other World should have a Teacher sent from Heaven of greater Authority and Credit than an Angel to acquaint us with God and his will and the Life that we are going to more certainly and fully than would be done by Nature only That this is very desireable no man can doubt How gladly would men receive a Letter or Book that dropt from Heaven Or an Angel that were sent thence to tell them what is there and what they must for ever trust to Yea if it were but one of their old acquaintance from the dead But all this would leave them in uncertainty still and they would be doubtfull of the credit and truth of any such a Messenger And therefore to have one of fuller Authority that shall confirm his Word by unquestionable attestations would very much satisfie men I have proved that Nature it self revealeth to us a Life of Retribution after this and that Immortality of Souls may be proved without Scripture But yet there is still a darkness and unacquaintedness and consequently a doubting and questioning the certainty of it upon a carnal minde And it would greatly satisfie such if besides meer Reason they had some proof which is more agreeable to a minde in flesh and might either speak with some credible Messenger who hath been in Heaven and fully knoweth all these matters or at least might be certainly informed of his Reports And indeed to men that are fallen into such a dark depravedness of Reason and such Strangers to God and Heaven as mankind is it is become needful that they have more than natural light to shew them the nature the excellency and certainty of the happiness to come or else they are never like so to love and seek it and prefer it before all
villanies though they call it railing nor will he flatter proud rebellious dust though they call flattery a necessary civility nor will he give leave to his Messengers to leave sin in honour and to let the proud do what their list and quietly damn themselves and others without plain reproof though it be called unreverent sawciness or sedition 2. And he that considereth how little Title Caesar had to the Kingdom of the Jews and that the sword alone is a better proof of force and strength than of Authority and is a Plea which an Usurper may have on his side will rather praise the submission and peaceableness of Christ than blame him as disloyal But for the doctrin of Obedience in general who hath ever taught it more plainly and pressingly than Christ and his Apostles 2. The Gospel or doctrin of Christ it self also hath the very Image and Superscription of God I will not say imprinted on it for that is too little but intrinsecally animating and constituting it which is apparent in the Matter and the Method and the Stile 1. The Matter and Design containeth the most wonderful expression of the Wisdom of God that ever was made to man on earth All is mysterious yet admirably fit consistent and congruous as is before declared That a world which is visibly and undeniably fallen into wickedness and misery should have a Redeemer Saviour and Mediator towards God! That he should be one that is near enough to God and unto us and hath the nature of both that he should be the second Adam the Root of the Redeemed and Regenerate that God should give all mercy from himself from his own bounty and fulness and not as unwilling be perswaded to it by another and therefore that the Redeemer be not any Angel or intermediate person but God himself that thus God come nearer unto man who is revolted from him to draw up man again to Him that he lose not the world and yet do not violate his governing Justice that he be so merciful as not to be unrighteous nor permit his Laws and Government to be despised and yet so just as to save the penitent renewed souls that he give man a new Law and conditions of salvation suitable to his lapsed guilty state and leave him not under a Law and conditions which were fitted to the innocent that he revealed himself to the apostate world in that way which only is fit for their recovery that is in his admirable love and goodness that so love might win our love and attract those hearts which under guilt and the terrors of condemning justice would never have been brought to love him that guilty souls have such evidence of God's reconciliation to encourage them to expect his pardon and to come to him with joy and boldness in their addresses having a Mediator to trust in and his Sacrifice Merits and acceptable Name to plead with God that Justice and Mercy are so admirably conjoyned in these effects that Satan and the world and death should be so conquered in a suffering way and man have so perfect a pattern to imitate for self-denial humility contempt of honour wealth and life and exact obedience and resignation to the will of God with perfect love to God and man that the world should be under such an universal Administrator and the Church be all united in such a Head and have one in their nature that hath risen from the dead to be in possession of the glory which they are going to and thence to send down his Spirit to sanctifie them and fit them for Heaven and afterward to be their Judge and to receive them unto blessedness and that sinners now be not condemned meerly for want of innocency but for rejecting the grace and mercy which would have saved them that we have all this taught us by a Messenger from Heaven and a perfect rule of life delivered to us by him and all this sealed by a Divine attestation that this doctrin is suited to the capacity of the weakest and yet so mysterious as to exercise the strongest wits and is delivered to us not by an imposing force but by the exhortations and perswasions of men like our selves commissioned to open the evidences of truth and necessity in the Gospel All this is no less than the Image and wonderful effect of the Wisdom of God And his Goodness and Love is as resplendent in it all for this is the effect of the whole design to set up a Glass in the work of our Redemption in which God's Love and Goodness should be as wonderfully represented to mankind as his Power was in the works of Creation Here sinful man is saved by a means which he never thought of or desired he is fetch'd up from the gates of hell redeemed from the Sentence of the righteous violated Law of God and the execution of his Justice The Eternal Word so condescendeth to man in the assumption of our nature as that the greatness of the love and mercy incomprehensible to man becomes the greatest difficulty to our belief He revealeth to us the things of the world above and bringeth life and immortality to light He dwelleth with men He converseth with the meanest He preacheth the glad tidings of Salvation to the world He refuseth not such familiarity with the poorest or the worst as is needful to their cure He spendeth his time in doing good and healing all manner of bodily diseases He refuseth the honours and riches of the world and the pleasures of the flesh to work out our salvation He beareth the ingratitude and abuse of sinners and endureth to be scorned buffeted spit upon tormented and crucified by those to whom he had done no greater wrong than to seek their salvation He maketh himself a Sacrifice for sin to shew the world what sin deserved and to save them from the deserved punishment God had at first decreed and declared that death should be the punishment of sin and Satan had maliciously drawn man to it by contradicting this threatning of God and making man believe that God would falsifie his word and that he did envy man the felicity of his advancement to be liker God in knowledge And now Christ will first justifie the truth and righteousness of God and will demonstrate himself by dying in our stead that death is indeed the wages of sin and will shew the world that God is so far from envying their felicity that he will purchase it at the dearest rate and deliver them freely from the misery which sin and Sathan had involved them in Thus Enemies are reconciled by the sufferings of him whom they offended even by his sufferings in the flesh whose Godhead could not suffer and by his death as Man who as God was most immortal As soon as he was risen he first appear'd to a Woman who had been a sinner and sent her as his first messenger with words of love and comfort to his
interest of their sect or cause and party 6. Nor by your own partial interest which will make you judge of men not as they are indeed and towards God but as they either answer or cross your interests and desires 7. Nor must you judge of all by some that prove hypocrites who once seemed sincere 8. Nor must you judge of a man by some particular fall or failing which is contrary to the bent of his heart and life and is his greatest sorrow 9. Nor must you come with a fore-stalled and malicious mind hating that holiness your self which you enquire after for malice is blind and a constant false interpreter and a slanderer 10. You must know what Holiness and Honesty is before you can well judge of them These conditions are all so reasonable and just that he that liveth among religious honest men and will stand at a distance unacquainted with their lives and maliciously revile them upon the seduction of false reports or of interest either his own interest or the interest of a faction and will say I see no such honest and renewed persons but a company of self-conceited hypocrites this man 's confirmed infidelity and damnation is the just punishment of his wilful blindness partiality and malice which made him false to God to truth and to his own soul § 107. It is not some but All true Christians that ever were or are in the world who have within them this witness or evidence of the Spirit of Regeneration As I have before said Christ will own no others Rom. 8. 4 5 6 7 8 9. 2 Cor. 5.17 Luk. 14.26.33 If any man have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his If any man be in Christ he is a new creature old things are passed away behold all things are become new He that forsaketh not all that he hath cannot be my disciple Gal. 5.24 They that are Christs have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts Indeed the Church visible which is but the congregate Societies of professed Christians hath many in it that have none of this Spirit or grace but such are only Christians equivocally and not in the primary proper sense 1 Joh. 5.7 8 9 10. There are three that bear record in heaven the Father the Word and the holy Ghost and these three are one And there are three that bear witness on earth the Spirit and the Water and the Blood and these three agree in one If we receive the witness of men the witness of God is greater for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself He that believeth not God hath made him a liar because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son § 108. The more any one is a Christian in degree the more he hath of this witness of the sanctifying Spirit in himself and the holier he is § 109. The nearer any Philosopher or others are like to Christians the nearer they come to this renewed Image of God § 110. As this Image of God the holiness of the soul is the very end and work of a true Saviour so the true effecting of it on all true Christians is actually their begun salvation and therefore the standing infallible witness of Christ which should confound unbelief in all that are indeed his own This which I spake of the fore going Chapter is a testimony in every holy soul which the gates of hell shall not prevail against He that undertaketh to cure all of the Plague or Stone or Gout or Fever that will take his medicines and be ruled by him is certainly no deceiver if he do that which he undertaketh He that undertaketh to teach all men Arithmetick Geometry Astronomy Musick c. who will come and learn of him is certainly no deceiver if he do it What is it that Jesus Christ hath undertaken Think of that and then tell me whether he be a deceiver He never undertook to make his Disciples Kings or Lords or rich or honourable in the world nor yet to make them the best Logicians Orators Astronomers Mathematicians Physicians Musicians c. but to make them the best men to renew them to the love of God in holiness and thereby to save them from their sins and give them repentance unto life Nor hath he promised this to all that are baptized or called Christians but only to those that sincerely consent to learn of him and take his counsel and use the remedies which he prescribeth them And is it not certain that Christ doth truly perform this undertaking How then can he be a deceiver who doth perform all that he undertaketh Of this all true Christians have a just demonstration in themselves which is his witness Object But Christ undertaketh more than this even to bring us to everlasting blessedness in heaven Answ It is our comfort that he doth so but me-thinks its easie to believe him in that if he perform the rest For 1. I have proved in the first part of this Book that by the light of nature a future life of retribution must be expected and that man is made for a future happiness 2. And who then should have that happiness but the holy and renewed souls Doth not natural reason tell you that so good a God will shew his love to those that are good that is to those that love him 3. And what think you is to be done to bring any man to heaven but to pardon him and make him holy 4. And the nature of the work doth greatly help our faith For this holiness is nothing but the beginning of that happiness When we find that Christ hath by his Spirit begun to make us know God and love him and delight in him and praise him it is the easier to make us believe that he will perfect it He that promiseth to convey me safely to the Antipodes may easily be believed when he hath brought me past the greatest difficulties of the voyage He that will teach me to sing artificially hath merited credit when he hath taught me the gradual tones the Scale of Musick the Sol-fa-ing the Cliffs the Quantity the Moods the Rules of time c. He that causeth me to love God on earth may be believed if he promise me that I shall love him more in heaven And he that causeth me to desire heaven above earth before I see it may be believed when he promiseth that it shall be my great delight when I am there It is God's work to love them that love him and to reward the obedient and I must needs believe that God will do his work and will never fail the just expectations of any creature All my doubt is whether I shall do my part and whether I shall be a prepared subject for that felicity and he that resolveth this resolveth all He that will make me fit for
heaven hath overcome the greatest difficulty of my belief and I should the more easily believe that he will do the rest and that I shall surely come to heaven when I am fit for it Object But Christ doth not only undertake to regenerate and to save us but also to justifie us and this by a strange way by his Sacrifice and Merits Answ The greater is his wisdom and goodness as made known to us I am sure an unpardoned unrighteous person is uncapable of felicity in that state and I am sure I cannot pardon my self nor well know which way else to seek it And I am sure that so excellent and holy a person is fitter to be well-beloved of God I than But I pray you remember 1. That he undertaketh not to pardon or justifie any man whom he doth not renew and sanctifie 2. And that all his means which seem so strange to you are but to restore God's Image on you and fit you for his love and service And this we can testifie by experience that he hath done in some measure in us and if I find his means successful I will not quarrel with it because it seemeth strange to me A Physician may prescribe me remedies for some mortal disease which I understand not but seem unlike to do the cure but if I find that those unlikely means effect it I will not quarrel with him nor refuse them till I know my self to be wiser than he and have found out some surer means It is most evident then that he who saveth us is our Saviour and he that saveth us from sin will save us from punishment and he that maketh us fit for pardon doth procure our pardon and he that causeth us to love God above all doth fit us to enjoy his love and he that maketh us both to love him and to be beloved by him doth prepare us for heaven and is truly the MEDIATOR § III. Four or five Consectaries are evident from this which I have been proving 1. That we have left no room for their insipid cavil who say that we flie to a private spirit or conceit or Enthusiasm for the evidence of our faith There are some indeed that talk of the meer perswasion or inward active testimony of the Spirit as if it were an inward word that said to us This is the word of God But this is not it which I have been speaking of but the objective testimony or evidence of our Regeneration which could not be effected but 1. by a perfect doctrine and 2 by the concurrent work or blessing of God's Spirit which he would not give to confirm a lie The Spirit is Christ's witness in the four ways fore-mentioned and he doth moreover cause me to believe and increase that faith by blessing due means But for any Enthusiasm or unproved bare perswasion we own it not § 112. II. That Malignity is the high-way to Infidelity As the holiness of his members is Christ's last continued witness in the world so the malicious slandering and scorning at godly men or vilifying them for self-interest or the interest of a faction is the devils means to frustrate this testimony § 113. III. That the destruction of true Church-discipline tendeth to the destruction of Christianity in the world by laying Christ's Vineyard common to the Wilderness and confounding godly and the notoriorsly ungodly and representing Christianity to Pagans and Infidels as a barren notion or a common and debauching way § 114. IV. That the scandals and wickedness of nominal Christians is on the same accounts the devils way to extirpate Christianity from the earth § 115. V. That the great mercy of God hath provided a sure and standing means for the ascertaining multitudes of holy Christians of the truth of the Gospel who have neither skill nor leisure to acquaint themselves with the History of the Church and records of Antiquity nor to reason it out against a learned subtil caviler from other extrinsick arguments Abundance of honest holy souls do live in the fervent love of God and in hatred of sin and in sincere obedience in justice and charity to all men and in heavenly desires and delights who yet cannot well dispute for their Religion nor yet do they need to flie to believe as the Church believeth though they know not what or why nor what the Church is But they have that Spirit within them which is the living witness and Advocate of Christ and the seal of God and the earnest of their salvation not a meer pretense that the Spirit perswadeth them and they know not by what evidence nor yet that they count it most pious to believe strongliest without evidence when they least know why but they have the spirit of Renovation and Adoption turning the very bent of their hearts and lives from the world to God and from earth to heaven and from carnality to spirituality and from sin to holiness And this fully assureth them that Christ who hath actually saved them is their Saviour and that he who maketh good all his undertaking is no deceiver and that God would not sanctifie his people in the world by a blasphemy a deceit and lie and that Christ who hath performed his promise in this which is his earnest will perform the rest And withall the very love to God and Holiness and Heaven which is thus made their new nature by the Spirit of Christ will hold fast in the hour of temptation when reasoning otherwise is too weak O what a blessed advantage have the sanctified against all temptations to unbelief And how lamentably are ungodly Sensualists disadvantaged who have deprived themselves of this inherent testimony If two men were born blinde and one of them had been cured and had been shewed the Candle-light and twilight how easie is it for him to believe his Physician if he promise also to shew him the Sun in comparison of what it is to the other who never saw the light CHAP. VIII Of some other subservient and Collateral Arguments for the Christian Verity HAving largely opened the great Evidence of the Christian Verity viz. The SPIRIT in its four wayes of testifying Accidentally Inherently Concomitantly and Subsequently I shall more briefly recite some other subservient Arguments which I finde most satisfactory to my own understanding § 1. I. The natural evidence of the truth of the Scripture about the Creation of the World doth make it the more Credible to me in all things else For that is a thing which none but God himself could reveal to us For the Scripture telleth what was done before there was any man in being And that this World is not eternal nor of any longer continuance is exceeding probable by the state of all things in it 1. Arts and Sciences are far from that maturity which a longer continuance or an Eternity would have produced Guns and Printing are but lately found out The body of man is not yet well Anatomized
And that so great a change and so holy a life is necessary to salvation hath proved a difficulty to some § 11. 9. The doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body is one of the greatest difficulties of all § 12. 10. So is Christ's coming into the World so late and the revealing of his Gospel to so few by Prophecy before and by Preaching since § 13. 11. So also was the appearing Meanness of the Person of Christ and of his Parentage place and condition in the World together with the manner of his birth § 14 12. The manner of his sufferings and death upon a Cross as a Malefactor under the charge of Blasphemy Impiety and Treason hath still been a stumbling-block both to Jews and Gentiles § 15. 13. So hath the fewness and meanness of his followers and the number and worldly preeminence and prosperity of unbelievers and enemies of Christ § 16. 14. The want of excellency of speech and art in the holy Scriptures that they equall not other Writings in Logical method and exactness and in Oratorical elegancies is a great offence to unbelievers § 17. 15. As also that the Physicks of Scripture so much differeth from Philosophers § 18. 16. As also the seeming Contradictions of the Scripture do much offend them § 19. 17. And it offendeth them that Faith in Christ himself is made a thing of such excellency and necessity to salvation § 20. 18. And it is hard to believe that present adversity and undoing in the World is for our benefit and everlasting good § 21. 19. And it offendeth many that the doctrine of Christ doth seem not suited to Kingdoms and Civil Government but only for a few private persons § 22. 20. Lastly the Prophesies which seem not intelligible or not fulfilled prove matter of difficulty and offence There are intrinsecal difficulties of Faith § 23. II. The outward adventitious impediments to the Belief of the Christian Faith are such as these 1. Because many Christians especially the Papists have corrupted the doctrine of Faith and propose gross falshoods contrary to common sense and reason as necessary points of Christian Faith as in the point of Transubstantiation § 24. 2. They have given the World either false or insufficient reasons and motives for the belief of the Christian Verity which being discerned confirmeth them in Infidelity § 25. 3. They have corrupted Gods Worship and have turned it from rational and spiritual into a multitude of irrational ceremonious fopperies fitted to move contempt and laughter in unbelievers § 26. 4. They have corrupted the doctrine of Morality and thereby hidden much of the holyness and purity of the Christian Religion § 27. 5. They have corrupted Church-history obtruding or divulging a multitude of ridiculous falshoods in their Legends and Books of Miracles contrived purposely by Satan to tempt men to disbelieve the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles § 28. 6. They make Christianity odious by upholding their own Sect and power by fire and blood and inhumane Cruelties § 29. 7. They openly manifest that ambition and worldly dignities and prosperity in the Clergy is their very Religion and withall pretend that their party or Sect is all the Church § 30. 8. And the great disagreement among Christians is a stumbling-block to unbelievers while the Greeks and Romans strive who shall be the greatest and both they and many others Sects are condemning unchurching and reproaching one another § 31. 9. The undisciplined Churches and wicked lives of the greatest part of professed Christians especially in the Greek and Latine Churches is a great confirmation of Infidels in their unbelief § 32. 10. And it tempteth many to Apostasie to observe the scandalous errors and miscarriages of many who seemed more godly than the rest § 33. 11. It is an impediment to Christianity that the richest and greatest the learned and the far greatest number in the World have been still against it § 34. 12. The custom of the Countrey and Tradition of their Fathers and the reasonings and cavils of men that have both ability and opportunity and advantage doth bear down the truth in the Countreys while Infidels prevail § 35. 13. The Tyranny of cruel persecuting Princes in the Mahometane and Heathen parts of the World is the grand Impediment to the progress of Christianity by keeping away the means of knowledge And of this the Roman party of Christians hath given them an incouraging example dealing more cruelly with their fellow-Christians than the Turks and some Heathen Princes do So that Tyranny is the great sin which keepeth out the Gospel from most parts of the Earth § 36. III But no Impediments of Faith are so great as those within us As 1. the natural strangeness of all corrupted mindes to God and their blindeness in all spiritual things § 37. 2. Most persons in the World have weak injudicious unfurnished heads wanting the common natural preparatives to Faith not able to see the force of a reason in things beyond the reach of sense § 38. 3. The carnal minde is enmity against the Holiness of Christianity and therefore will still oppose the receiving of its principles § 39. 4. By the advantages of Nature Education Custom and Company men are early possest with prejudices and false conceits against a life of Faith and Holiness which keep out reforming truths § 40. 5. It is very natural to incorporated Souls to desire a sensible way of satisfaction and to take up with things present and seen and to be little affected with things unseen and above our senses § 41. 6 Our strangeness to the Language Idiomes Proverbial speeches then used doth disadvantage us as to the understanding of the Scriptures § 42. 7. So doth our strangeness to the Places and Customs of the Countrey and many other matters of fact § 43. 8. Our distance from those Ages doth make it necessary that matters of fact be received by humane report and Historical Evidence And too few are well acquainted with such History § 44. 9. Most men do forfeit the helps of Grace by wilfull sinning and make Atheism and Infidelity seem to be desireable to their carnal Interest and so are willing to be deceived and forsaking God they are forsaken of him flying from the Light and overcoming Truth and debauching Conscience and disabling Reason for their sensual delights § 45. 10. Those men that have most need of means and help are so averse and lazy that they will not be at the pains and patience to read and conferre and consider and pray and use the means which is needfull to their information but settle their judgement by slight and slothfull thoughts § 46. 11. Yet are the same men proud and self-conceited and unacquainted with the weakness of their own understandings and pass a quick and confident judgement on things which they never understood It being natural to men to judge according to what they do actually apprehend and not according to what they should
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
perfidious as cruel and contentious insomuch as among the Turkish Mahometans and the Indian Banians the wickedness of Christians is the grand cause that they abhor Christianity and it keepeth out your Religion from most Nations of the earth so that it is a proverb among them when any is suspected of treachery What do you think I am a Christian And Acosta witnesseth the like of the West-Indies Answ 1. Every man knoweth that the vulgar rabble who indeed are of no Religion will seem to be of the Religion which is most for their worldly advantage or else which their Ancestors and Custom have delivered to them And who can expect that such should live as Christians who are no Christians You may as well blame men because Images do not labour and are not learned wise and virtuous We never took all for Christians indeed who for carnal interest or custom or tradition take up the bare name and desire to be called Christians rebels may affect the name of loyal subjects and thieves and robbers the name of true and honest men Shall loyalty truth and honesty therefore be judged of by such as them Nothing can be more unrighteous than to judge of Christianity by those hypocrites whom Christ hath told us shall be condemned to the sorest punishment and whom he hateth above all sorts of sinners What if Julian Celsus Porphyry or any of these objectors should call themselves Christians and live in drunkenness cruelty perjury or deceit is it any reason that Christ should be reproached for their crimes Christianity is not a dead opinion or name but an active heavenly principle renewing and governing heart and life I have before shewed what Christianity is 2. In the Dominions of the Turks and other Infidel Princes the Christians by oppression are kept without the means of knowledge and so their ignorance hath caused them to degenerate for the greater part into a sensual sottish sort of people unlike to Christians And in the Dominions of the Moscovite tyranny hath set up a jealousie of the Gospel and suppressed Preaching for fear lest Preachers should injure the Emperour And in the West the usurpation and tyranny of the Papacy hath lock'd up the Scriptures from that people in an unknown tongue that they know no more what Christ saith than the Priest thinks meet to tell them lest they should be loosened from their dependance on the Roman Oracle And thus Ignorance with the most destroyeth Christianity and leaveth men but the shadow image and name For belief is an intellectual act and a sort of knowing and no man can believe really he knoweth not what If any Disciples in the School of Christ have met with such Teachers as think it their vertue and proficiency to be ignorant call not such Christians as know not what Christianity is and judge not of Christ's doctrine by them that never read or heard it or are not able to give you any good account of it But blessed be the Lord there are many thousand better Christians Object XIII But it is not the ignorant rabble only but many of your most zealous Professors of Christianity who have been as false as proud and turbulent and seditious as any others Answ 1. That the true genuine Christian is not so you may see past doubt by the doctrine and life of Christ and his Apostles And that there are thousands and millions of humble holy faithful Christians in the world is a truth which nothing but ignorance or malice can deny 2. Hypocrites are no true Christians what zeal soever they pretend There is a zeal for self and interest which is oft masked with the name of zeal for Christ It is not the seeming but the real Christian which we have to justifie 3. It is commonly a few young unexperienc'd novices which are tempted into disorders But Christ will bring them to repentance for all before he will forgive and save them Look into the Scripture and see whether it do not disown and contradict every fault both great and small which ever you knew any Christian commit If it do as visibly it doth why must Christ be blamed for our faults when he is condemning them and reproving us and curing us of them Object XIV The greater part of the world is against Christianity Heathens and Infidels are the far greater part of the earth and the greatest Princes and learnedst Philosophers have been and are on the other side Answ 1. The greater number of the world are not Kings nor Philosophers nor wise nor good men and yet that is no disparagement to Kings or learned or good men 2. The most of the world do not know what Christianity is nor ever heard the reasons of it and therefore no wonder if they are not Christians And if the most of the world be ignorant and carnal and such as have subjected their reason to their lusts no wonder if they are not wise 3. There is no where in the world so much learning as among the Christians experience puts that past dispute with those that have any true knowledge of the world Mahomitanism cannot endure the light of learning and therefore doth suppress or sleight it The old Greeks and Romans had much learning which did but prepare for the reception of Christianity at whose service it hath continued ever since But barbarous ignorance hath over spread almost all the rest of the world even the learning of the Chinenses and the Pythagoreans of the East is but childishness and dotage in comparison of the learning of the present Christians Object XV. For all that you say when we hear subtil arguings against Christianity it staggereth us and we are not able to confute them Answ That is indeed the common case of tempted men their own weakness and ignorance is their enemies strength But your ignorance should be lamented and not the Christian cause accused it is a dishonour to your selves but it is none to Christ Do your duty and you may be more capable of discerning the evidence of truth Object XVI But the sufferings which attend Christianity are so great that we cannot bear them in most places it is persecuted by Princes and Magistrates and it restraineth us from our pleasures and putteth us upon an ungrateful troublesome life and we are not souls that have no bodies and therefore cannot sleight these things Answ But you have souls that were made to rule your bodies and are more worthy and durable than they and were your souls such as reason telleth you they should be no life on earth would be so delectable to you as that which you account so troublesome And if you will chuse things perishing for your portion be content with the momentary pleasures of a dream you must patiently undergo the fruits of such a foolish choice And if eternal glory will not compensate what ever you can lose by the wrath of man or by the crossing of your fleshly minds you
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
active and must receive the influx of the highest cause before it can act or communicate any thing Therefore as soon as the first mover should cease the rest would be soon stop'd though some active power was communicated to them As we see in a Clock when the poise is down and in a Watch when the spring is down the motion ceaseth first where it first began 4. Can you constrain your reason to imagine that God is the sole principal active cause for the first touch and as it were for one minute or instant while he causeth the first motus and is an unactive being or no cause ever after save only reputativè because he caused the first This is to say that God was God till he made the world and ever since he hath done nothing but left every atom or creature to be God Is God so mutable to do all for one instant and to do nothing ever after 5. The infiniteness and perfection of God fully proveth that all continued motion is by the continuance of his efficiency For it is undeniable that he who made all things is every where or present to all his creatures in the most intimate proximity And it is certain that he cannot but know them all and also that his Benignity maintaineth all their beings and well-beings and therefore that he is not an unactive being but that his power as well as his wisdom and Goodness is continually in act How strangely do these Epicureans differ from Aristotle who durst not deny the Eternity of the World lest he should make God an unactive Being ad extra from Eternity till the Creation When-as these men feign him to have given but one instantaneous push and to have been coetera otiosus or unactive from Eternity Seeing then it cannot by sober reason be denyed that God himself is by a continued Causation the Preserver and intimate first mover of all things it must needs thence follow that matter and motion are still insufficient of themselves and that this is to be none of the Controversie between us but only whether it be any created Nature Power or other Cause by which God causeth motion in any thing or all things or whether he do it by his own immediate Causation alone without the use of any second Cause save meer motion it self so that the insufficiency of Matter and Motion to continual alterations and productions must be confessed by all that confess there is a God 4. It is also manifest in the effect that it is not a meer motion of the first Cause which appeareth in the being and motions of the Creature There is apparently a tendency in the Creatures motion to a certain end which is an attractive Good and there is a certain Order in all motions to that end and certain Laws or Guidances and overrulings to keep them in that Order so that Wisdom and Goodness do eminently appear in them all in their beings natures differences excellencies order and ends as well as Motion the effect of Power 1. It is certain that God who is unmoved himself is the first mover of all 2. And if God were not unmoved but by self-motion caused motion yet he exerteth Wisdom and Goodness in his Creation and Providence as well as Motion 1. He that is Infinite and therefore not properly in any place or space or at least is limited in none can himself by Locomotion move himself in none which methinks none should question And they that make the World infinite or at least indefinite as they call it methinks should not deny the Infinitenesse of God And they acknowledge no motion themselves but Locomotion or migratio a loco in locum But saith Gassendus Vol. 1. pag. 337. Et certè captum omnem fugit ut quippiam quantumvis sit alteri praesens conjunctumque ipsum moveat si in seipso immotum maneat c. Itaque necesse omnino videtur ut cum in serie moventium quorum moventur alia ab aliis procedi in infinitum non possit perveniatur ad unum primum non quod immotum moveat sed quod ipsum per se moveatur Answ You gather from hence that it is the contexture of the most subtile Atomes which is the form and first mover in physical beings But you granted before that God moved those Atomes and also put a moving inclination into them And atomes are far from being unum or primum You said before sufficiat Deum quidem esse incorporeum ac pervadere fovereq universam mundi machinam And if so then movere etiam as well as fovere Either you mean as you speak in confessing a God or not If not it is unworthy a Philosopher to dissemble for any worldly respects whatsoever If you do then Is it beyond your capacity to conceive that God being unmoved moveth all things or not If not why should it be beyond your capacity to conceive the same in a second Order of a second spiritual being The reason as to motion is of the same kinde If yea then either you believe God is the first Mover or not If not withdraw your former Confession If yea what Locomotion for you deny all other can you ascribe to God who is unbounded and infinite what place is he moved from and what place is he moved into And is his motion rectus vel circularis is it one or multifarious or rather will you not renounce all these 2. And as God moveth being unmoved so he doth more than move He moveth Orderly and giveth Rules and Guidances to motion and moveth graciously to the felicity of the Creature and to a desireable end A Horse can move more than a man for he hath more strength or moving power But he moveth not so regularly nor to such intended ends because he hath not wisdom and benignity or goodness as Man hath He that buildeth a House or Ship or writeth such Volumes as Gassendus did doth somewhat more than barely move which a Swallow or a Hare could have done as swiftly And he that looketh on the works of God even to the Heavens and Earth as Gassendus hath himself described them and seeth not the effects of Wisdom and Goodness in the Order and tendency and ends of motion as well as Power in motion it self did take his survey but in his dream saith Balbus in Cicero de Nat. Deor. l. 2. p. 62. Hoc qui existimat fieri potuisse that is for the World to be made by meer fortuitous motion of atomes c. non intelligo cur non idem putet si innumerabiles unius viginti formae literarum aliquo coniciantur posse ex his in terram excussis Annales Ennii ut diâ—inceps legi possint effici quod nescio an in uno quidem versu possit tantum valere fortuna Quod si mundum efficere potest concursus atomorum cur porticum cur templum cur domum cur navem non potest quae sunt minus
to assure us that he will never create any thing hereafter Cannot a workman look on his house and see that it is well done and say I have finished it without obliging him never to build another nor to make any reparations of that as there is cause May not God create a new Heaven and Earth may he not create a new Star or a new Plant or Animal if he please without the breaking of any word that he hath spoken For my part I never saw a word which I could discern to have any such signification or importance The argument from Genes 1. is no better than theirs who from Christ's consummatum est do gather that his death and burial which followed that word were no part of his satisfactory meritorious humiliation On the contrary there have been both Philosophers and Divines who have thought that God doth in omni instanti properly create all things which he is said to conserve of whom the one part do mean only that the being of the creatures is as dependant on his continual causation as the life of the branches is on the tree but that the same substance is continued and not another daily made But there are others who think that all creatures who are in fluxu continuo not per locomotum but ab entitate ad nihilum and that they are all but a continual emanation from God which as it passeth from him tendeth to nothing and new emanations do still make such a supply as that the things may be called the same as a River whose waters pass in the same Channel As they think the beams or light of the Sun doth in omni instanti oriri festinare ad nihilum the stream being still supplied with new emanations Were it not for the overthrow throw of individuation personality rewards and punishments that hence seemeth to follow this opinion would seem more plausible than theirs who groundlesly prohibit God from causing any more new beings But though no doubt there is unto all beings a continual emanation or influx from God which is a continued causation it may be either conservative of the being first caused or else restorative of a being continually in decay as he please for both ways are possible to him as implying no contradiction though both cannot be about one and the same being in the same respect and at the same time And our sense and reason tell us that the conservative influx is his usual way 2. But it is commonly and not without reason supposed that generation produceth things de novo in another sense not absolutely as creation doth but secundum quid by exalting the seminal virtue into act and into perfection New individuals are not made of new matter now created but the corporeal part is only pre-existent matter ordered compounded and contempered and the incorporeal part is both quoad materiam suam metaphysicam formam vel naturam specificam the exaltation and expurgency of that into full and perfect existence which did before exist in semine virtuoso When God had newly created the first man and woman he created in them a propagating virtue and fecundity this was as it were semen seminis by this they do first generare semen separabile which suppositis supponendis hath a fecundity fit to produce a new suppositum vel personam and may be called a person seminally or virtually but not actually formally and properly and so this person hath power to produce another and that another in the same way And note that the same creating word which said Let there be light and Let us make man did say also to man as well as to other creatures Increase and multiply not create new souls or bodies but by generation Increase and multiply which is the bringing of many persons out of two and so on as out of a seminal pre-existence or virtual into actual formal existence He knoweth not the mysteriousness of this wonderful work of God nor the ignorance of mankind who knoweth not that all generation of man bruits or plants hath much that is to us unsearchable And they that think it a dishonour to a Philosopher not to undertake or pretend to render the just causes of this and all other the Phaenomena in nature do but say I will hide the dishonour of my ignorance by denying it that is by telling men that I am ignorant of my ignorance and by aggravating it by this increase and the addition of pride presumption and falsity This much is certain 1. That whatsoever distinct parts do constitute individuals which are themselves of several natures so many several natures in the world we may confidently assert though we understand not whether they all exist separatedly or are found only in conjunction with others 2. We certainly find in the world 1. An intelligent nature 2. A sensitive nature 3. A fiery active vegetative nature 4. A passive matter which receiveth the influx of active natures which is distributed into air and water and earth 3. The most active nature is most communicative of it self in the way of its proper operations 4. We certainly perceive that the Sun and fiery nature are active upon the air water and earth which are the passive Elements And by this activity in a threefold influx Motion Light and Heat do cause the sensible alterations which are made below and so that it is as a kind of life or general form or soul to the passive matter 5. We also find that Motion Light and Heat as such are all different totâ specie from sensation and therefore as such are not the adequate causes of it And also that there is a sensitive nature in every animal besides the vegetative 6. Whether the vegetative nature be any other than the fiery or solar is to man uncertain But it is most probable that it is the same nature though it always work not to actual vegetation for want of prepared matter But that the Sun and fiery nature is eminenter vegetativè and therefore that vegetation is not above the nature of fire or the Sun and so may be an effect of it 7. In the production of vegetatives by generation it is evident that as the fiery active nature is the nearest cause efficient and the passive is the matter and recipient So that this igneous nature generateth as in three distinguished subjects three several ways 1. As in Parentibus semine into which God ab origine in the creation hath put not only a spark of the active virtucus fiery nature in general but also a certain special nature differencing one creature from another 2. The Sun and superiour globes of the fiery nature which cast a paternal though but universal influx upon the foresaid semen 3. The calor naturalis telluris which may be called as Dr. Gilbert and others do its soul or form which is to the seed as the anima matris is to the infant And all these three the
duration yet it is after God in order of being as caused by Him as the shadow is after the substance and as the beams and light are after the Sun or rather as the leaves would be after the life of the Tree if they were conceived to be both eternal One would be an eternal Cause and the other but an eternal Effect 2. It is certain that this present World containing the Sun and Moon and Heavens and Earth which are mentioned Genes 1. is not from Eternity And indeed Reason it self doth make that at least very probable as Revelation makes it certain Which will appear when I have opened the Philosophers opinions on the other side 2. Among your selves there are all these differences and so we have several Cases to state with you 1. Some think that this present Systeme of compounded beings is from Eternity 2. Others think that only the Elements and Heavens and all simple Beings are from Eternity 3. Others think that Fire or Aether only as the Active Element is from Eternity or the incorruptible matter of the Heavens 4. Others think that matter and motion only were from Eternity 5. Others think that only spiritual purer beings Intelligences or Mindes were from Eternity and other things produced immediately by them 6. And there have been those Heathen Philosophers who held that only God was from Eternity Among all this variety of opinions why should any one think the more doubtfully of Christianity for denying some of them which all the other deny themselves Is it a likely thing that any individual mixt body should be eternall when we know that mixt bodies incline to dissolution and when we see many of them oriri interire daily before our eyes And if Man and Beast as to each individual have a beginning and end it must be so as to the beginning of the species for the species existeth not out of the Individuals and some individual must be first And as Bp. Ward argueth against Mr. Hobs If the World be eternal there have infinite dayes gone before e. g. the birth of Christ and then the whole is no greater than the parts or infinity must consist of finite parts The Heavens and the Earth therefore which are compounded beings by the same reason are lyable to dissolution as man is and therefore had a beginning So that the truth is there is no rational probability in any of your own opinions but those which assert the Eternity of some Simple Beings as Matter or Intelligences or an Anima Vniversalis Now consider further that if ever there was a moment when there were no Individuals or mixt Beings but only some universal Soul or Matter then there was an Eternity when there was nothing else For Eternity hath no beginning And then will it not be as strange to your selves to think that God should from all Eternity delight himself in Matter unformed if that be not a contradiction or in an Anima simplex unica without any of all the variegated matter and beings which we now finde besides in Nature as that he should eternally content himself with Himself alone If all individuals of compound beings were not from Eternity what was Either the Egge or the Hen must be first as the old instance is If you will come to it that either Anima unica or Atoms unformed were eternal why should not God as well be without these as be without the formed Worlds What shall a presumptuous minde now say to all these difficulties why return to modesty Remember that as the Bird hath wit given her to build her nest and breed her young as well as man could do it and better but hath no wit for things which do not concern her so man hath reason for the ends and uses of reason and not for things that are not profitable to him and that such looks into Eternity about things unrevealed do but over-whelm us and tell us that they are unrevealed and that we have not one reason for such employments And what is the end of all that I have said Why to tell you that our Religion doth not only say nothing of former worlds but 2. that it also forbiddeth us to say Yea or Nay to such questions and to corrupt our minds with such presumptuous searches of unrevealed things And therefore that you have no reason to be against the Scripture on this account for it doth not determine any thing against your own opinion if you assert not the eternity of this present world or system but it determineth against your presumption in medling with things which are beyond your reach And withall it giveth us a certainty that as in one Sun there is the Lux Radii Lumen so in one God there is Father Son and holy Spirit eternally existent and self-sufficient which quieteth the mind more than to think of an eternity of an Anima or Materia which is not God All this I have here annexed because these Philosophical self-deceivers are to be pitied and to have their proper help And I thought it unmeet to interrupt the discourse with such debates which are not necessary to more sober Readers but only for them who labour of this disease and I know that when they read the first leafe of the book which proveth that man hath a Soul or Mind they will rise up against it with all the objections which Gassendus Mr. Hobs c. assault the like in Cartesius with and say You prove not this Mind is any thing but the subtiler part of Matter and the temperament of the whole To whom I now answer 1. That it is not in that place incumbent on me nor seasonable to prove any more than I there assert 2. But I have here done it for their sakes more seasonably though my discourse is entire and firm without it And I desire the unbelieving Reader to observe that I am so far from an unnecessary incroaching upon his liberty and making him believe that Christianity condemneth all those conjectures of Philosophers which it asserteth not it self that I have taken the liberty of free conjecturing in such cases my self not going beyond the evidence of probability or the bounds of modesty and that I think them betrayers of the Christian cause or very injurious to it who would interess it in matters with what it medleth not and corrupt it by pretending that it condemneth all the opinions in Philosophy which themselves are against Nor am I one that believe that Christianity will allow me that zeal which too hastily and peremptorily condemneth all that in such points do hold what I dislike I do not anathematize as Hereticks all those who hold those opinions which either Stephanus or Guilielm Episc Parisienses condemned in their Articul Contra varios in fide errores though I think many of them dangerous and most very audacious e. g. Quod intelligentia motrix coeli fluit in animas rationales sicut
sunt vires carceris inquit Petrarch l. 1. dial 5. Cato homo virtuti simillimus-qui nunquam recte fecit ut facere videretur sed quia aliter facere non poterat cuique id solum visum est rationem habere quod haberet justitiam Velleius Pater l. 2. Magna pars libertatis est bene moratus venter Senec. Plato saith God is the temperate man's Law and Pleasure the intemperate man's Temperantia voluptatibus imperat alias odit atque abigit alias dispensat ad sanum modum dirigit nec unquam ad illas propter ipsas venit Sen. Scit optimum esse modum cupidorum non quantum velis sed quantum debeas sumere Senec. Animis tenduntur infidiae ab ea quae penitus in omni sensu implicata infidit imitatrix boni voluptas malorum autem mater omnium cujus blanditiis corrupti quae naturâ bona sunt quia dulcedine hac scabia carent non cernimus satis Cic. de leg 1. p. 226. Ampliat aetatis spatium sibi vir bonus hoc est vivere bis vitâ posse priore frui Martial As a summary of what the light of Nature may teach man see the Stoicks Ethicks collected by Barlaam much of which may be found in Seneca and is confessed and praised by Cicero though he chide them for their new words and schism where you will see that the Stoicks were wiser and better men than the Epicureans would have men believe Oculos vigiliâ fatigatos cadentesque in opere detinco Malè mihi esse malo quam molliter si mollis es paulatim effeminatur animus atque in similitudinem otii sui pigritiae in quâ jacet solvitur Dormio minimum brevissimo somno utor satis est mihi vigilare defiisse Aliquando dormisse scio aliquando suspicor Senec. Porro coeli generationis authorem summe Bonum atque excellentissimum asseruit Plato ejus quippe quod sit in rebas conditis pulcherrimum eum esse conditorem quem intelligibilium omnium constet esse praestantissimum Itaque quoniam hujusmodi Deus est coelam vero praestantissimo illi simile est quoniam pulcherrimum cernitur nulli creaturae erit similius quà m Deo soli Laert. in Plat. Nihil est Deo similius gratiis quà m vir animo perfecto bonus qui hominibus caeteris antecellit quod ipse à Diis immortalibus distat Luc Apul. de Deo Socr. Quis dubitare potest mi Lucili quin Deorum immortalium munas sit quod vivimus Senec. Prope Deus est tecum est intus est Ita dico Lucili sacer intra nos spiritus sedet bonorum malorumque nostrorum observator custos Hic prout à nobis tractatur ita nos tractat ipse Bonus verò vir sine Deo nemo est An potest aliquis supra formam nisi ab illo adjatus exurgere Ille dat consilia magnifica erecta in unoquoque bono viro Senec. That the finis cui is properly the ultimate end and the finis cujus is subordinate to it Cicero sheweth in Piso 's speech l. 5. de finib p. 188. In nobis ipsis ne intelligi quidem ut propter aliam quampiam rem verbi gratiâ propter voluptatem nos amemus Propter nos enim illam non propter eam nosmetipsos diligimus Quid est quod magis perspicuum est non modo carum sibi quemque verum etitiam vehementer carum * Chap. 4. Quid enim est aliud natura quà m Deus divina ratio toti mundo partibusque ejus inserta Ergo nihil agis ingratissime mortalium qui te negas Deo debere sed naturae quia nihil natura fine Deo est nec Deus sine natura sed idem est uterque nec distat officio Senec. de Benefic Leg. Aenean Gazeum de Anima 3. P.T. 2 Gr. lat p. 385 386 c. Goodness signifieth more than utility or Pleasure to our selves As when we call a Man a good Man a good Scholar a good Judge c. And so doth evil signifie on the contrary Bonum est quod sui ipsius gratiâ expetendum est Aristot Rhet. 1. Bonum omnis originis ortûs finis est Id. Metaph. l. ae c. 3. Maximum Bonum maxime semper expetendum Aristot 1 Eth. c. 7. Duplex bonum est alterum quod absolute per se bonum sit alterum quod alicui bono sit usui Arist Eth. l. 7. c. 12. Veteres probe summum bonum definierunt id ad quod omnia referuntur Arist Eth. 1. c. 1. It is a saying of Pliny's that as Pearls though they lie in the bottom of the Sea are yet much neerer kin to Heaven as their splendour and excellency sheweth so a godly and generous soul hath more dependance on Heaven whence it cometh than on earth where it abideth Bonum summum est animi operatio secundum virtutom optimam perfectissimam in vitâ perfectâ Aristot Rhet. 1. Tria sunt genera bonorum maxima animi secunda corporis externa tertia Cicero 3. Tuscul Nihil bonum nisi quod honestum nihil malum nisi quod turpe Cicero Att. l. 10. If a man must love his Countrey better than himself then God much more And then self is not to be the highest in our Love Respublica nomen universae civitatis est pro qua mori cui nos totos dare in qua omnia nostra ponere quasi consecrare debemus Cicer 2. de leg Laudandus est is qui mortem oppetit pro Republica qui doceat patriam esse chariorem nobis quam nosmetipsos Estque illa vox inhumana scelerata corum qui negant se recusare quo minus ipsis mortuis terrarum omnium deflagratio consequatur Cicer. 3 de finib It was the erroneous reasoning of the Philosophers to prove the World eternall that Optimum Pulchrum God and the World must be inseparable and so to conclude the Being of that which their fancies think best to be as Ammonius argueth with Zachar. Mytilen whereby they might as well prove as Zach. telleth Ammon that Plato and Aristotle were from eternity and must never die It is foolish to reason against sense and experience or to deny that which is because we think that it should be otherwise Cotta telleth Vellâ—iuâ— That hâ— â—y making â—od 〈◊〉 of â—easâ—s oâ— Man Sâ—â—uâ—it Religâ—o◠〈◊〉 Quidem enim cur Deâ— as humibus â—â—do dicaâ— cum Dâ—i non modo hominibus non consâ—iant sed oâ—niâ—o nihil câ—ent nihil agant At est corum câ—mia quaedam praestanfere natura ut ea debeat ipsa per se adâ—e colendam elicere sapientem This reason is â—oâ— dâ—ed but the goodness of God's Nature pâ—oâ—d by his doing good Quae porro pietas eâ—debetur à quo nihil accepeâ—is aut quid oâ—n no cujus nullum merit mâ—t eâ— debere potest Est enim Pietas Justitia adversus Deos cum