esse which was dependent in fieri which are Contradictions 2. The effects in the admirable frame and nature and motions of the Creation declare that the Creator is infinitely wise The smallest insect is so curiously made and so admirably fitted and instructed to its proper end and uses The smallest Plants in wonderfull variety of shapes and colours and smells and qualities uses and operations and beautifull flowers so marvellously constituted and animated by an unseen form and propagated by unsearchable seminal vertue The smallest Birds and Beasts and creeping things so adorned in their kinds and so admirably furnished for their proper ends especially the propagation of their species in love and sagacity and diligence to their young by instinct equaling in those particulars the reasonable creature The admirable composure of all the parts of the body of Man and of the vilest Beast and Vermine The quality and operation of all the Organs humours and spirits The operations of the Minde of man and the constitution of Societies and over-ruling all the matters of the World with innumerable instances in the creature do all concurr to proclaim that man as mad as madness can possibly make him in that particular who thinketh that any lower cause than incomprehensible wisdom did principally produce all this And that by any bruitish or natural motion or confluence of Atomes or any other matter it could be thus ordered continued and maintained without the infinite wisdome and power of a first Cause superiour to meer natural matter and motion What then should we say if we had a sight into the inwards of all the Earth of the nature and cause of Minerals and of the forms of all things If we saw the reason of the motions of the Seas and all other appearances of Nature which are now beyond our reach Yea if we had a sight of all the Orbs both fixed Starrs and Planets and of their matter and form and order and relation to each other and their communications and influences on each other and the cause of all their wonderous motions If we saw not only the nature of the Elements especially the active Element Fire but also the constitution magnitude and use of all those thousand Suns and lesser Worlds which constitute the universal World And if they be inhabited if we knew the Inhabitants of each Did we know all the Intelligences blessed Angels and holy Spirits which possess the nobler parts of Nature and the unhappy degenerate Spirits that have departed from light and joy into darkness and horrour by departing from God yea if we could see all these comprehensively at one view what thoughts should we have of the wisdom of the Creator And what should we think of the Atheist that denyeth it We should think Bedlam too honourable a place for that man that could believe or durst say that any accidental motion of subtile matter or fortuitous concourse of Atomes or any thing below a Wisdom and Power infinitely transcending all that with Man is called by that name was the first Cause and is the chief continuer of such an incomprehensible frame § 18. The first Cause must needs be infinitely Good By Goodness I mean all essential Excellency which is known to us by its fruits and appearances in the Creature which as it hath a Goodness natural and moral so is it the Index of that transcendent Goodness which is the first cause of both This goodness is incomparably beyond that which consisteth in a usefulness to the creatures good or Goodness of Benignity as relative to Man And it is known better by the meer name as expressing that which Nature hath an intrinsick sense and notion of than by definitions As sensible qualities light colour sound odour sweet bitter c. are known by the name best which lead to the sensitive memory which informeth the Intellect what they are As the mention of things sensible entereth the definition of sense and the mention of sense doth enter the definition of things sensible and yet the object is in order of nature before the act And as Truth must enter the definition of Intellection and Intellection the definition of Truth and yet Truth is in order before Intellection and contemporary with the Intellect so is it between Goodness and the Will But if we speak of uncreated Good and of a created Will then Good is infinitely antecedent to that Will But the Will which is created hath a nature suited to it and so the notion of Excellency and Goodness is naturally in our estimative faculty and the relish of it or complacency in it is naturally in the Will so far as it is not corrupted and depraved As if I knew a man that had the wisdom and virtue of an Angel my estimation calleth him Excellent and Good and my Will doth complacentially cleave to him though I should never look to be the better for him my self or if I onely heard of him and never saw him or were personally beholden to him That God is thus infinitely Excellent and Good the Goodness of his Creatures proveth for all the goodness that is in Men and Angels Earth and Heaven proceedeth from him If there be any Natural Goodness in the whole Creation there must be more in the Creator If there be any Moral Goodness in Men and Angels there must be more in eminency in him For he can make nothing better than himself nor give to creatures what he hath not § 19. The Goodness of the first Being consisting in this infinite Perfection or Excellency containeth his Happiness his Holiness and his Love or Benignity § 20. The HAPPINESS of the first Being consisteth 1. In his BEING HIMSELF 2. In his KNOWING HIMSELF 3. In his LOVING and ENJOYING HIMSELF The most perfect Being must needs be the most Happy and that in Being what he is his own Perfection being his Happiness And as Knowledge in the Creature is both his Perfection and Delight so the transcendent Omniscience of the Creator must needs be both part of his Perfection as distinguished by our narrow minds and such felicity as may be called Eminently his Delight though what God's Delight is we know not formally And as Love or Complacency is the perfective operation of the Will and so of the Humane Nature in Man and is his highest final and enjoying acts of which all Goodness is the object so there must be something in the Perfection of the first Cause though not formally the same with Love in Man yet eminently so called as knowable to us by no other name And this complacency must needs be principally in Himself because He himself is the Infinite and onely Primitive Good and as there was primitively no Good but Himself to Love so now there is no Good but derived from Him and dependent on Him And as his Creature of which anon is obliged to love Him most so he must needs be most amiable to Himself Self-love and self-esteem in
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
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
disconsolate Disciples who had but lately sinfully forsaken him He giveth them no upbraiding words but meltingly saith to her Go to my brethren and say unto them I ascend unto my Father and your Father to my God and your God He after this familiarly converseth with them and instructeth them in the things concerning the Kingdom of God He maketh an Vniversal Pardon or Act of Oblivion in a Covenant of Grace for all the world that will not reject it and appointeth Messengers to preach it unto all and what ever pains or suffering it cost them to go through all with patience and alacrity and to stick at nothing for the saving of mens souls He gave the holy Spirit miraculously to them to enable them to carry on this work and to leave upon record to the world the infallible narrative of his Life and Doctrine His Gospel is filled up with matter of consolation with the promises of mercy pardon and salvation the description of the priviledges of holy Souls justification adoption peace and joy and finally He governeth and defendeth his Church and pleadeth our cause and secureth our interest in Heaven according to the promises of this his word Thus is the Gospel the very Image of the Wisdom and Goodness of God And such a Doctrin from such a Person must needs be Divine 2. And the Method and Style of it is most excellent because most suitable to its holy ends not with the excellency of frothy wit which is but to express a wanton fancy and please the ears of aery persons who play with words when they should close with wisdom and heavenly light such excellency of speech must receive its estimate by its use and end But as the end is most Divine so the light that shineth in the Gospel is Heavenly and Divine the Method of the Books themselves is various according to the time and occasions of their writing the objections against them are to be answered by themselves anon But the Method of the whole Doctrin of Christianity set together is the most admirable and perfect in the world beginning with God in Unity of Essence proceeding to his Trinity of Essential Active Principles and of Persons and so to his Trinity of Works Creation Redemption and Regeneration and of Relations of God and Man accordingly and to the second Trinity of Relations as he is our Owner Ruler and Chief Good And hence it brancheth it self into a multitude of benefits flowing from all these Relations of God to Man and a multitude of answerable duties flowing from our Correlations to God and all in perfect method twisted and inoculated into each other making a kind of cirulation between Mercies and Duties as in mans body there is of the arterial and venal bloud and spirits till in the issue as all Mercy came from God and Duty subordinately from man so Mercy and Duty do terminate in the Everlasting Pleasure of God ultimately and man subordinately in that mutual love which is here begun and there is perfected This method you may somewhat perceive in the description of the Christian Religion before laid down 3. And the style also is suited to the end and matter not to the pleasing of curious ears but to the declaring of heavenly mysteries not to the conceits of Logicians who have put their understandings into the fetters of their own ill-devised notions and expect that all men that will be accounted wise should use the same notions which they have thus devised and about which they are utterly disagreed among themselves But in a Language suitable both to the subject and to the world of persons to whom this word is sent who are commonly ignorant and unlearned and dull That being the best Physick which is most suitable to the Patients temper and disease And though the particular Writers of the Sacred Scriptures have their several Styles yet is there in them all in common a Style which is spiritual powerfull and divine which beareth its testimony proportionably of that Spirit which is the common Author in them all But of this more among the Difficulties and Objections anon But for the discerning of all this Image of God in the Doctrine of Jesus Christ Reason will allow me to expect these necessary qualifications in him that must discern it 1. That before he come to supernatural Revelations he be not unacquainted with those natural Revelations which are antecedent and should be foreknown as I have in this book explained them with their evidence For there is no coming to the highest step of the Ladder without beginning at the lowest Men ignorant of things knowable by Natural Reason are unprepared for higher things 2. It is reasonably expected that he be one that is not treacherous and false to those Natural Truths which he hath received For how can he be expected to be impartial and faithfull in seeking after more Truth who is unfaithfull to that which he is convinced of or that he should receive that Truth which he doth not yet know who is false to that which he already knoweth Or that he should discern the evidence of extraordinary Revelation who opposeth with enmity the ordinary light or Law of Nature Or that God should vouchsafe his further light and conduct to that Man who willfully sinneth against him in despight of all his former teachings 3. It is requisite that he be one that is not a stranger to himself but acquainted with the case of his heart and life and know his sins and his corrupt inclinations and that guilt and disorder and misery in which his need of mercy doth consist For he is no fit Judge of the Prescripts of his Physician who knoweth not his own disease and temperature But of this more anon § 8. III. The third way of the Spirits witness to Jesus Christ is Concomitantly by the miraculous gifts and works of Himself and his Disciples which are a cogent Evidence of Gods attestation to the truth of his Doctrine § 9. By the Miracles of Christ I mean 1. His miraculous actions upon others 2. His miracles in his Death and Resurrection 3. His predictions The appearance of the Angel to Zachary and his dumbness his Prophesie and Elizabeth's with the Angels appearance to Mary the Angels appearance and Evangelizing to the Shepherds the Prophesie of Simeon and of Anna the Star and the testimony of the wise Men of the East the testimony of John Baptist that Christ should baptize with the Holy Ghost and with Fire and that he was the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World These and more such I pass by as presupposed At twelve years of age he disputed with the Doctors in the Temple to their admiration At his Baptism the Holy Ghost came down upon him in the likeness of a Dove and a voice from Heaven said Thou art my beloved Son in Thee I am well-pleased When he was baptized he fasted forty dayes and nights and
them they saw him fulfill § 9. All these eye-witnesses were not themselves deluded in thinking they saw those things which indeed they did not see For 1. They were persons of competent understanding as their Writings shew and therefore not like Children that might be cheated with palpable deceits 2. They were many the twelve Apostles and 70 Disciples and all the rest besides the many thousands of the common people that only wondered at him but followed him not One or two may be easilyer deceived than such multitudes 3. The matters of fact were done neer them where they were present and not far off 4. They were done in the open light and not in a corner or in the dark 5. They were done many times over and not once or twice only 6. The nature of the things was such as a juggling deluding of the senses could not serve for so common a deceit As when the persons that were born blinde the lame the Paralitick c. were seen to be perfectly healed and so of the rest 7. They were persons who followed Christ and were still with him or very oft and therefore if they had been once deceived they could not be so alwayes 8. And vigilant subtile enemies were about them that would have helped them to have detected a deceit 9 Yea the twelve Apostles and 70 Disciples were employed themselves in working Miracles healing the sick and Demoniacks in Christs own life-time and rejoyced in it And they could not be deceived for divers years together in the things which they saw and heard and felt and also in that which they did themselves Besides that all their own Miracles which they wrought after Christs ascension prove that they were not deceived 10 There is no way left then but one to deceive them and that is if God himself should alter and delude all their senses which it is certain that he did not doe For then he had been the chief cause of all the delusion and all the consequents of it in the World He that hath given men sight and hearing and feeling will not delude them all by unresistable alterations and deceits and then forbid them to believe those lies and propagate them to others Man hath no other way of knowing things sensible but by sense He that hath his senses sound and the object proportionate and at a just distance and the medium fit and his understanding sound may well trust his senses especially when it is the case of many And if sense in those cases should be deceived we should be bound to be deceived as having no other way of knowing or of detecting the deceit § 10. Those that saw not Christ's miracles nor saw him risen received all these matters of fact from the testimony of them that said they saw them Having no other way by which they could receive them § 11. Supposing now Christs Resurrection and Miracles to be true it is certain that their use and obligation must extend to more than those that saw them even to persons absent and of other generations This I have fully and undenyably proved in a Disputation in my Book against Infidelity by such arguments as these 1. The use and obligation of such Miracles doth extend to all that have sufficient evidence of their truth But the Nations and generations which never saw them may have sufficient evidence of their truth that they were done Ergo the use and obligation doth extend to such The Major is past all contradiction He that hath sufficient evidence of the truth of the fact is obliged to believe it The Minor is to be proved in the following Sections 2. The contrary doctrine maketh it impossible for God to oblige the World by Miracles according to their proper use But it is not impossible Therefore that doctrine is false Here note that the use and force of miracles lyeth in their being extraordinary rather than in the Power which they manifest For it is as great an effect of Omnipotency to have the Sun move as to stand still Now if miracles oblige none to believe but those that see them then every man in every City Countrey Town Family and in all generations to the end of the World must see Christ risen or not believe it and must see Lazarus risen or not believe it and must see all the miracles himself which oblige him to believe But this is an absurdity and contradiction making Miracles Gods ordinary works and so as no miracles 3. They that teach men that they are bound to believe no Miracles but what they see do deprive all after-ages of all the benefit of all the miraculous works of God both Mercies and Judgements which their forefathers saw But God wrought them not only for them that saw them but also for the absent and after-times 4. By the same reason they will disoblige men from believing any other matters of fact which they never saw themselves And that is to make them like new comers into the World yea like Children and Fools and to be uncapable of Humane Society 5. This reasoning would rob God of the honour of all his most wonderous works as from any but those that see them so that no absent person nor following age should be obliged to mention them believe them or honour him for them which is absurd and impious 6. The World would be still as it were to begin anew and no age must be the wiser for all the experiences of those that have gone before if we must not believe what we never saw And if men must not learn thus much of their Ancestors why should they be obliged to learn any thing else but Children be left to learn only by their own eye-sight 7. If we are not bound to believe Gods wonderous works which have been before our dayes then our ancestors are not bound to tell them us nor we to be thankfull for them The Israelites should not have told their Posterity how they were brought out of the Land of Egypt nor England keep a day of Thanksgiving for its deliverance from the Powder-plot But the consequent is absurd Ergo so is the antecedent What have we our tongues for but to speak of what we know to others The love that Parents have to their Children will oblige them to acquaint them with all things usefull which they know The Love which men have naturally to truth will oblige them to divulge it Who that had but seen an Angel or received instructions by a Voice from Heaven or seen the dead raised would not tell others what he had seen and heard And to what end should he tell them if they were not obliged to believe it 8. Governments and Justice and all humane converse is maintained by the belief of others and the reports and records of things which we see not Few of the Subjects see their King Witnesses carry it in every cause of Justice Thus Princes prove their Successions and
all this is at all incredible But it is indeed incredible till conscience have humbled him that the Thief or Murderer should like this penalty or think well of the Judge or that a sinner who judgeth of good and evil in others as Dogs do by the interest of his throat or flesh and thinks them good only that love him and bad that hurt him and are against him should ever believe that it is the amiable goodness of God which causeth him in justice to condemn the wicked 2. But yet let not misunderstanding make this seem harder to you than indeed it is Do not think that souls in hell are hanged up in flames as beasts are hanged in a butchers shambles or that souls have any pain but what is suitable to souls and that 's more than bodies bear It is an affliction in rational ways which falls on rational spirits Devils are now in torment and yet have a malignant kingdom and order and rule in the children of disobedience and go up and down seeking whom they may devour We know not the particular manner of their sufferings but that they are forsaken of God and deprived of his complacential love and mercy and have the rational misery before described and such also as shall be suitable to such kind of bodies as they shall have And while they are immortal no wonder if their misery be so Object VII Who can believe that the damned shall be far more than the saved and the devil have more than God How will this stand with the infinite goodness of God Answ I have fully answered this before in Part 1. chap. 11. and should now adde but this 1. In our enquiries we must begin with the primum cognita or notissima as aforesaid that God is most good and also just and punisheth sinners is before proved to be among the notissima or primum cognita and therefore it is most certain that these are no way contradictory to each other 2. And if it be no contradiction to God's goodness to punish and cast off for ever the lesser part of the world then it is none to punish or cast off the greater part The inequality of number will not alter the case 3. It is no way against the goodness of humane Governours in some cases to punish even the greater number according to their deserts 4. Can any man that openeth his eyes deny it in matter of fact that the far greater part of the world is actually ungodly worldly sensual and disobedient Or that such are meet for punishment and unmeet for the love and holy fruition of God When I see that most men are ungodly and uncapable of Heaven is it not harder to reason to believe that these shall have that joy and employment of which they are uncapable than that they shall have the punishment which agreeth with their capacity desert and choice Must I believe that God's enemies shall love him for ever meerly because they are the greater number If one man that dieth unrenewed be capable of heaven another is so and all are so Therefore I must either believe that no impenitent ungodly person is saved or that all be saved The number therefore is nothing to the deciding of the case 5. Can any man in his wits deny that it is as sure that God permitteth sin in the world as that the Sun shineth on us yea that he permitteth that universal enormous deluge of wickedness which the world groaneth under at this day And that this sin is the souls calamity and to a right judgment is much worse than punishment what ever beastly sensuality may gainsay If then the visible wickedness of the world be permitted by God without any impeachment of his goodness then certainly his goodness may consist with punishment which as such is good when sin is evil And much of this punishment also is but materially permitted by God and executed by sinners upon themselves 6. The wisdom and goodness of God saw it meet for the right government of this world to put the threatnings of an everlasting punishment in his Law and how can that man have the face to say it was needless or too much in the Law with whom it proved not enough to weigh down the trifling interests of the flesh And if it was meet to put that penalty in the Law it is just and meet to put that Law into execution how many soever fall under the penalty of it as hath been proved 7. The goodness of God consisteth not in a Will to make all his creatures as great or good and happy as he can but it is essentially in his infinite perfections and expressively in the communication of so much to his creatures as he seeth meet and in the accomplishment of his own pleasure by such ways of Benignity and Justice as are most suitable to his Wisdom and Holiness Man's personal interest is an unfit rule and measure of God's goodness 8. To recite what I said and speak it plainlier I confess it greatly quieteth my mind against this great objection of the numbers that are damned and cast off for ever to consider how small a part this earth is of God's creation as well as how sinful and impenitent Ask any Astronomer that hath considered the innumerable number of the fixed Stars and Planets with their distances and magnitude and glory and the uncertainty that we have whether there be not as many more or an hundred or thousand times as many unseen to man as all those which we see considering the defectiveness of man's sight and the Planets about Jupiter with the innumerable Stars in the Milky way which the Tube hath lately discovered which man's eyes without it could not see I say ask any man who knoweth these things whether all this earth be any more in comparison of the whole creation than one Prison is to a Kingdom or Empire or the paring of one nail or a little mole or wart or a hair in comparison of the whole body And if God should cast off all this earth and use all the sinners in it as they deserve it is no more sign of a want of benignity or mercy in him than it is for a King to cast one subject of a million into a Jail and to hang him for his murder or treason or rebellion or for a man to kill one louse which is but a molestation to the body which beareth it or than it is to pare a mans nails or cut off a wart or a hair or to pull out a rotten aking tooth I know it is a thing uncertain and unrevealed to us whether all these Globes be inhabited or not but he that considereth that there is scarce any uninhabitable place on earth or in the water or air but men or beasts or birds or fishes or flies or worms and moles do take up almost all will think it a probability so near a certainty as not to be
I prove you foolish in your Infidelity And if you will conjecture then that there may as many of those other Regions be damned 1. You shew your selves much more harsh in your censures than the Christians are whose harshness you are now reproving Yea you conjecture this without all ground or probability And will you say then For ought I know it may be so Ergo Christianity is incredible Can a groundless conjecture allow any rational man such a Conclusion Obj. But you say your selves that many of the Angels fell and are now Devils Answ But we say not how many we never said that it is the whole number of the Glorious Inhabitants of all the superiour World who are called Angels as Messengers or Officers about man we know not how small a part of them comparatively it may be And of them we know not how few fell Augustine conjectured that it was the tenth part but we have no ground for any such conjecture Obj. But it is incredible that the World should perish for one mans sin whom they never knew nor could prevent Ans 1. To them that know what Generation is and what the Son is to the Father it is not incredible at all that the unholy Parents do not beget holy Children nor convey to them that which they have not themselves nor yet that God should hate the unholy Nor that the Parents choice should signifie much for their Childrens state who have no wills of their own fit for actual choice nor that restored imperfect holiness should not be conveyed to Children by natural propagation which came to the Parents by Regeneration nor that the Children of Traytors should be disinherited for their Fathers faults nor that the Children of Drunkards and Gluttons should be naturally diseased 2. No man in the World doth perish for Adams sin alone without his own Though we judge the case of Infants to allow you no exception yet to carry the controversie to them into the dark and to argue à minus notis is not the property of such as seek impartially for truth Christ hath procured a new Covenant upon which all those that hear the Gospel shall again be tryed for life or death And those that hear it not have divers means which have a tendency to their recovery and are under undenyable Obligations to use those means in order to their recovery which if they do not faithfully they perish for their own sin Should it not make Christianity the more easily credible when certain experience assureth us how prone even Infants are to sin and how universally the World is drown'd in wickedness and then to finde so admirable and suitable a Remedy revealed Obj. But Punishment is to warn others from sinning But after this life there will be none to warn therefore there will be no punishment because the end of punishing ceaseth Answ 1. It is a false position that punishment is only or chiefly to be a warning to others It is chiefly for the ultimate end of Government which secundum quid among men is the bonum publicum but simpliciter in Gods Government it is the Glorifying or demonstration of the Holiness and Justice of God the universal Governour to the pleasure of his holy will 2. It is the Penalty as Threatned in the Law and not the penalty as executed which is the first necessary means to deterre others from offending And then the execution is secondarily necessary because the Law must be fulfilled It is not the actual hanging of a murderer which is the first necessary instrument or means to restrain murderers But it is the Penalty in the Law which saith that Murderers shall be hanged And the commination of the Law would be no restraint if it were not that it relateth to a just execution So that it was necessary to the restraint of sinners in this world that God should threaten Hell in his Law And therefore it is necessary that he execute that Law or else it would be delusory and contemptible 3. How know we who shall survive this present World to whom God may make mans Hell a warning Are not the Devils now set out in Scripture for a warning to Man And how know we what other Creatures God hath to whom these punished sinners may be a warning Or whether the New Earth wherein Righteousness must dwell according to Gods Promise 2 Pet. 3.12 13. shall not have use of this warning to keep them in their righteousness As long as all these things are probable and the contrary utterly uncertain how foolish a thing is it to go from the light of a plain Revelation and Scripture and argue from our dark uncertainties and improbabilities against that light And all because self-love and guilt doth make sinners unwilling to believe the truth So much for the Objection against Hell Obj. VIII But it is incredible that all those shall be damned that live honestly and soberly and do no body harm if they do not also live a holy and heavenly life and forsake all for another World Answ It is but selfishness and blindness which maketh men call him an honest man and speak lightly of his wickedness who preferreth the dung and trifles of this World before his Maker and Everlasting glory What if a pack of Murderers Thieves and Rebels do live together in love and do one another no harm shall that excuse their murders or rebellions and give them the name of honest men What is the Creature to the Creator what greater wickedness can man commit than to deny despise and disobey his Maker and to preferre the most contemptible vanity before him and to choose the transitory pleasure of sinning before the endless fruition of his God what is wronging a Neighbour in comparison of this wrong shall a sinner refuse his everlasting happiness when it is offered him and then think to have it when he can possess the pleasure of sin no longer and all because he did no man wrong Doth he think to refuse Heaven and yet to have it If he refuse the Love of God and perfection of Holiness he refuseth Heaven It is so far from being incredible that the unholy should be damned and the Holy only saved that the contrary is impossible I would not believe an Angel from Heaven if he should tell me that one unholy Soul in sensu composito while such shall be saved and have the heavenly felicity because it is a meer contradiction For to be blessed in Heaven is to be happy in the perfect Love of God And to love God without Holiness signifieth to love him without loving him Are these the Objections of unbelief Obj. IX The Resurrection of these Numerical Bodies when they are devoured and turned into the substance of other bodies is a thing incredible Answ 1. If it be neither against the Power the Wisdom or the Will of God it is not incredible at all But it is not against any of
advantage of honour to his mercy and in the fullest demonstration of that love and goodness which may win our love And where will you find this done but in Jesus Christ alone 2. You must distinguish between Anger and Justice when God is said to be angry it meaneth no more but that he is displeased with sin and sinners and executeth his governing-justice on them 3. You must distinguish between sufferings in themselves considered and as in their signification and effects God loved not any mans pain and suffering and death as in it self considered and as evil to us no not of a sacrificed beast but he loveth the demonstration of his truth and justice and holiness and the vindication of his Laws from the contempt of sinners and the other good ends attained by this means and so as a means adapted to such ends he loveth the punishment of sin Object XV. It is a suspicious sign that he seeketh but to set up his name and get disciples that he maketh it so necessary to salvation to believe in him and not only to repent and turn to God Answ He maketh not believing in him necessary sub ratione finis as our holiness and love to God is but only sub ratione medii as a means to make us holy and work us up to the love of God He proclaimeth himself to be the Way the Truth and the Life by whom it is that we must come to the Father and that he will save to the uttermost all that come to God by him Heb. 7.25 Joh. 14.6 So that he commandeth Faith but as the bellows of Love to kindle in us the heavenly flames And I pray you how should he do this otherwise Can we learn of him if we take him for a deceiver Will we follow his example if we believe him not to be our pattern Will we obey him if we believe not that he is our Lord Will we be comforted by his gracious promises and covenant and come to God with ever the more boldness and hope of mercy if we believe not in his Sacrifice and Merits Shall we be comforted at death in hope that he will justifie us and receive our souls if we believe not that he liveth and will judge the world and is the Lord of life and glory Will you learn of Plato or Aristotle if you believe not that they are fit to be your Teachers Or will you take Physick of any Physician whom you trust not but take him for a deceiver Or will you go in the Vessel with a Pilot or serve in the Army under a Captain whom you cannot trust To believe in Christ which is made so necessary to our justification and salvation is not a dead opinion nor the joyning with a party that cryeth up his name But it is to become Christians indeed that is to take him unfeignedly for our Saviour and give up our selves to him by resolved consent or covenant to be saved by him from sin and punishment and reconciled to God and brought to perfect holiness and glory This is true justifying and saving faith And it is our own necessities that have made this faith so necessary as a means to our own salvation And shall we make it necessary for our selves and then quarrel with him for making it necessary in his Covenant Object XVI If Christ were the Son of God and his Apostles inspired by the holy Ghost and the Scriptures were God's Word they would excel all other men and writings in all true rational worth and excellency whereas Aristotle excelleth them in Logick and Philosophy and Cicero and Demosthenes in Oratory and Seneca in ingenious expressions of morality c. Answ You may as well argue that Aristotle was no wiser than a Minstrel because he could not fiddle so well nor than a Painter because he could not limn so well or than a harlot because he could not dress himself so neatly Means are to be estimated according to their fitness for their ends Christ himself excelled all mankind in all true perfections and yet it became him not to exercise all mens arts to shew that he excelleth them He came not into the world to teach men Architecture Navigation Medicine Astronomy Grammar Musick Logick Rhetorick c. and therefore shewed not his skill in these The world had sufficient helps and means for these in Nature It was to save men from sin and hell and bring them to pardon holiness and heaven that Christ was incarnate and that the Apostles were inspired and the Scriptures written and to be fitted to these ends is the excellency to be expected in them and in this they excell all persons and writings in the world As God doth not syllogize or know by our imperfect way of ratiocination but yet knoweth all things better than syllogizers do so Christ hath a more high and excellent kind of Logick and Oratory and a more apt and spiritual and powerful style than Aristotle Demosthenes Cicero or Seneca He shewed not that skill in methodical healing which Hippocrates and Galen shewed But he shewed more and better skill when he could heal with a word and raise the dead and had the power of life and death so did he bring more convincing evidence than Aristotle and perswaded more powerfully than Demosthenes or Cicero And though this kind of formal learning was below him and below the inspired messengers of his Gospel yet his inferiour servants an Aquinas a Scotus an Ockam a Scaliger a Ramus a Gassendus do match or excel the old Philosophers and abundance of Christians equalize or excel a Demosthenes or Cicero in the truest Oratory 2. His mercy had a general design for the salvation of all sorts and ranks of men and therefore was not to confine it self to a few trifling pedantick Logicians and Orators or those that had learned to speak in their new-made words and phrases but he must speak in the common Dialect of all those whom he would instruct and save As the Statutes of the land or the Books of Physick which are most excellent are written in a style which is fitted to the subject matter and to the Readers and not in Syllogisms or terms of Logick so was it more necessary that it should be with the doctrine of salvation The poor and unlearned were the greatest number of those that were to be converted and saved by the Gospel and still to use the holy Scriptures 3. There is greater exactness of true Logical method in some parts of the Scripture as e. g. in the Covenant of Faith the Lord's Prayer and the Decalogue than any is to be found in Aristotle or Cicero though men that understand them not do not observe it The particular Books of Scripture were written at several times and on several occasions and not as one methodical system though the Spirit that indited it hath made it indeed a methodical system agreeably to its design but if you saw the doctrines
Apostles may cause variety of style and other accidental excellencies in the parts of the holy Scriptures and yet all these parts be animated with one soul of Power Truth and Goodness But those men who think that these humane imperfections of the Writers do extend further and may appear in some by-passages of Chronologies or History which are no proper part of the Rule of Faith and Life do not hereby destroy the Christian cause For God might enable his Apostles to an infallible recording and preaching of the Gospel even all things necessary to salvation though he had not made them infallible in every by-passage and circumstance no more than they were indefectible in life As for them that say I can believe no man in any thing who is mistaken in one thing at least as infallible they speak against common sense and reason for a man may be infallibly acquainted with some things who is not so in all An Historian may infallibly acquaint me that there was a Fight at Lepanto at Edge-hill at York at Naseby or an Insurrection and Massacre in Ireland and Paris c. who cannot tell me all the circumstances of it or he may infallibly tell men of the late Fire which consumed London though he cannot tell just whose houses were burnt and may mistake about the Causers of it and the circumstances A Lawyer may infallibly tell you whether your cause be good or bad in the main who yet may misreport some circumstances in the opening of it A Physician in his Historical observations may partly erre as an Historian in some circumstances yet be infallible as a Physician in some plain cases which belong directly to his Art I do not believe that any man can prove the least error in the holy Scripture in any point according to its true intent and meaning but if he could the Gospel as a Rule of Faith and Life in things necessary to salvation might be nevertheless proved infallible by all the evidence before given Object XVIII The Physicks in Gen 1. are contrary to all true Philosophy and suited to the vulgars erroneous conceits Answ No such matter there is sounder doctrine of Physicks in Gen. 1. than any Philosopher hath who contradicteth it And as long as they are altogether by the ears among themselves and so little agreed in most of their Philosophy but leave it to this day either to the Scepticks to deride as utterly uncertain or to any Novelist to form anew into what principles and hypothesis he please the judgment of Philosophers is of no great value to prejudice any against the Scriptures The sum of Gen. 1. is but this That God having first made the Intellectual Superiour part of the world and the matter of the Elementary world in an unformed Mass or Chaos did the first day distinguish or form the active Element of Fire and caused it to give Light The second day he separated the attenuated or rarifi'd part of the passive Element which we call the Air expanding it from the earth upwards to separate the clouds from the lower waters and to be the medium of Light And whether in different degrees of purity it fill not all the space between all the Globes both fixed and planetary is a question which we may more probably affirm than deny unless there be any waters also upwards by condensation which we cannot disprove The third day he separated the rest of the passive Element Earth and Sea into their proper place and bounds and also made individual Plants in their specifick forms and virtue of generation or multiplication of individuals The fourth day he made the Sun Moon and Stars either then forming them or then making them Luminaries to the earth and appointing them their relative office but hath not told us of their other uses which are nothing to us The fifth day he made inferiour Sensitives Fishes and Birds the inhabitants of Water and Air with the power of generation or multiplication of individuals The sixth day he made first the terrestrial Animals and then Man with the power also of generation or multiplication And the seventh day having taken complacency in all the works of this glorious perfected frame of Nature he appointed to be observ'd by mankind as a day of rest from worldly labours for the worshipping of Him their Omnipotent Creator in commemoration of this work This is the sum and sense of the Physicks of Gen. 1. And here is no errour in all this what ever prejudice Philosophers may imagine Object XIX It is a suspicious sign that Believing is commanded us instead of knowing and that we must take all upon trust without any proof Answ This is a meer slander Know as much as you are able to know Christ came not to hinder but to help your knowledge Faith is but a mode or act of knowing How will you know matters of History which are past and matters of the unseen world but by believing If you could have an Angel come from heaven to tell you what is there would you quarrel because you are put upon believing him if you can know it without believing and testimony do God biddeth you believe nothing but what he giveth you sufficient reason to believe Evidence of credibility in Divine faith is evidence of certainty Believers in Scripture usually say We know that thou art the Christ c. You are not forbidden but encouraged to try the spirits and not to believe every spirit nor pretended prophet Let this Treatise testifie whether you have not Reason and evidence for Belief it is Mahomet's doctrine and not Christ's which forbiddeth examination Object XX. It imposeth upon us an incredible thing when it perswadeth us that our undoing and calamity and death are the way to our felicity and our gain and that sufferings work together for our good At least these are hard terms which we cannot undergoe nor think it wisdom to lose a certainty for uncertain hopes Answ Suppose but the truth of the Gospel proved yea or but the Immortality and Retribution for Souls hereafter which the light of Nature proveth and then we may well say that this Objection savoureth more of the Beast than of the Man A Heathen can answer it though not so well as a Christian Seneca and Plutarch Antonine and Epictetus have done it in part And what a dotage is it to call things present Certainties when they are certainly ready to pass away and you are uncertain to possess them another hour who can be ignorant what haste Time maketh and how like the Life of man is to a dream What sweetness is now left of all the pleasant cups and morsels and all the merry hours you have had and all the proud or lustfull fancies which have tickled your deluded fleshly mindes Are they not more terrible than comfortable to your most retired sober thoughts and what an inconsiderable moment is it till it will be so with all the rest