on his truth and mercies But God will not lose his knowledge of me nor turn away his mercy from me The foundation of God standeth sure having this seal the Lord knoweth them that are his and let him that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity 2 Tim. 2.19 He can call me his Child when I doubt whether I may call him Father He doubteth not of his right to me nor of his graces in me when I doubt of my sincerity and part in him Known unto God are all his works Act. 15.18 What meaneth Paul thus to describe a state of grace Gal. 4.9 Now after ye have known God or rather are known of of God but to notify to us that though our knowledge of God be his grace in us and our evidence of his love and the beginning of life eternal Joh. 17.3 yet that we are loved and known of him is the first and last the foundation and the perfection of our security and felicity He knoweth his Sheep and none shall take them out of his hand When I cannot through pain or distemper remember him or not with renewed Joy or Pleasure he will remember me and delight to do me good and to be my Salvation 8. And though the belief of the unseen World be the principle by which I conquer this yet are my conceptions of it lamentably dark A Soul in flesh which acteth as the form of a body is not furnished with such images helps or light by which it can have clear conceptions of the state and operations of separated Souls But I am known of God when my knowledge of him is dark and small And he knoweth whither it is that he will take me what my state and work shall be He that is preparing a place for me with himself is well acquainted with it and me All Souls are his and therefore all are known to him He that is now the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob as being living with him while they are dead to us will receive my departing Soul to them and to himself to be with Christ which he hath instructed me to commend into his hands and to desire him to receive He that is now making us living Stones for the new Jerusalem and his heavenly temple doth know where every one of us shall be placed And his knowledge must now be my satisfaction and my peace Let unbelievers say How doth God know Psal 73.11 But shall I doubt whether he that made the Sun be Father of lights and whether he know his dwelling and his continued works Be still O my Soul and know that he is God Psal 40.10 and when he hath guided thee by his counsel he will take thee to Glory and in his Light thou shalt have Light And though now it appear not to sight but to Faith only what we shall be yet we known that we shall see him as he is and we shall appear with him in glory And to be KNOWN of God undoubtedly includeth his PRACTICAL LOVE which secureth our Salvation and all that tendeth thereunto It is not meant of such a knowledge only as he hath of all things or of such as he hath of the ungodly And why should it be hard to thee O my Soul to be perswaded of the love of God Is it strange that he should love thee who is Essential Infinite love Any more than that the Sun should shine upon thee which shineth upon all capable recipient objects though not upon the uncapable which through interposing things cannot receive it To believe that Satan or wicked men or deadly Enemies should love me is hard But to believe that the God of love doth love me should in reason be much easier than to believe that my Father or Mother or dearest friend in the World doth love me If I do not make and continue my self uncapable of his complacence by my wilful continued refusing of his grace it is not possible that I should be deprived of it Prov. 8.17 I love them that love me Psal 146.8 The Lord loveth the righteous John 16.27 2. Why should it be hard to thee to believe that he loveth thee who doth good so universally to the World and by his love doth preserve the whole Creation and give all Creatures all the good which they possess When his mercy is over all his works and his Goodness is equal to his wisdom and his power and all the World is beautified by it shall I not easily believe that it will extend to me The Lord is good to all Psal 145.9 Luk. 18.19 None is good essentially absolutely and transcendently but he alone Psal 33.5 The Earth is full of the goodness of the Lord Psal 52.1 The goodness of God endureth continually He is good and doth good Psal 119.68 And shall I not expect good from so good a God the cause of all the good that is in the World 3. Why should I not believe that he will love me who so far loved the World yea his Enemies as to give his only begotten Son that whoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Joh. 3.16 Having given me so precious a gift as his Son will he think any thing too good to give me Rom. 8.32 yea still he followeth his Enemies with his mercies not leaving himself without witness to them but filling their hearts with food and gladness and causing his Sun to shine on them and his Rain to fall on them and by his goodness leading them to repentance 4. Why should I not easily believe his love which he hath sealed by that certain gift of love the Spirit of Christ which he hath given The giving of the Holy Ghost is the shedding abroad of his love upon the heart Rom. 5. I had never known desired loved or served him sincerely but by that Spirit And will he deny his name his mark his seal his Pledge and Earnest of Eternal life Could I ever have truly loved Him his Word his Ways and Servants but by the reflection of his love shall I question whether he love those whom he hath caused to love him When our love is the surest gift and token of his love shall I think that I can love him more than he loveth me or be more willing to serve him than he is willing and ready to reward his Servants Heb. 11.6 1 Joh. 3.24 and 4.13 5. Shall I not easily hope for good from him who hath made such a covenant of Grace with me in Christ Who giveth me what his Son hath purchased who accepteth me in his most beloved as a member of his Son Who hath bid me ask and I shall have And hath made to Godliness the promise of this life and that to come and will with-hold no good thing from them that walk uprightly Will not such a Gospel such a Covenant such promises of love secure me that he loveth me while I consent unto his covenant terms 6. Shall I not easily believe
be deceived is a Contradiction For then it is not the same Thing It is not that which we call now formally Sense and Intellect or Sensation and Intellection And Contradictions are not things for Omnipotency to be tryed about God can make a man to be no Intellectual Creature But thereby he maketh him no man For to be a man and not Intellectual is a contradiction And so it is to be men and yet to have no Sense nor Intellect that can truly perceive sensible Objects as before qualified Therefore they unman all the World on pretext of asserting the power of God. 2. But suppose that all Sense be fallible and Intellection of things sensible yet it is the first and only entrance of all things sensible into the mind or knowledge of man And therefore we must take it as God hath given it us for we can have no surer No sensible thing is in the Intellect which was not first in the Sense Whether my Eyes and Ears and Taste be fallible or not I am sure I have no other way to perceive their Objects but by them I must take them and use them as they are All the words and definitions in the World will not give any man without sensation a true conception of a sensible Object 3. Such absurd suppositions therefore are not to be put What if God should tell you by his Word that all the senses of all men are deceived in one thing or in all things would you not believe him It is not to be supposed that God will give us all our Senses and Intellective perception by them to be our discerner of things sensible and then bid us not believe them for they are false unless he told us that all our perceptions are false and our whole Life is but deceit And I further answer if God tell me so it must be by some word or writing of Man or Angel or Himself And how should I know that word but by my sense But the great answer which seemeth to satisfie Bellarmine and the rest is that sense is no judge of Substances but of Accidents only therefore it is not deceived But 1. It is false that sense perceiveth not substances It is not only colour quantity figure which I see nor only roughness and smoothness which I feel nor only sweetness which I taste but it is a coloured extended figured substance which I see a rough or smooth substance which I feel and a sweet substance which I taste And if the Accident were the only primary object the Substance is the secondary and certain Else no one ever saw a Man a Tree a Bird a Plant the Earth a Book or any substance but only the colour quantity or figure of them no man ever felt or touched a Body but only the Accidents of it 2. And I pray you tell me how Substances come to the understanding if they were never in the sense Prove a Substance without sensation as a medium if you can Do you perceive any Substances Intellectually or not If not why pretend you that there are any if yea it must be either as Conclusions or as Intellectual Principles which are both Logical complex Objects and therefore not substances or as the immediate immaterial objects of Intellection which is only the Souls own acts or what is by Analogy gathered from them or else the objects of sense it self It can be none of the former therefore it must be the latter And how can the understanding find that in sense which was never there If it be said that it is there but by Accidents I answer 1. That is false though said by many I do as immediately touch substance as accidents though not substance without the accidents 2. Whether it be there by the mediation of the accidents or immediately it self we are sure that the understanding no otherwise receiveth it than as the sense transmitteth it we must know material substance as it is sensed or not at all We see then what a pass this Roman Religion bringeth the World to That they may be Christians they must believe and swear by the Trent Oath that they are not men and that they may have Faith they must renounce their Senses and that they may be sure Gods Word is true and the Churches decrees they must be sure that they are sure of nothing and how then are they sure of that And while they subvert all the order of Nature in the World they pretend that God can do it and therefore we are to believe that he doth it meerly because these Doctors can call themselves the Church and then can so expound the Scripture When it is Gods setled order in Nature that a Man as an Animal shall have Sense to perceive things sensible by and as a Man shall have understanding to receive from the Imagination and Sense these objects we must now suppose that God hath quite overturned the course of Nature either by making sense no sense or the object no object or the medium no fit medium and yet this is to be believed by Men that have nothing but the same senses to tell their understandings that it is written or spoken or that there is a Man in the World. Suppose we grant it to be no contradiction and therefore a thing that God can do no man can question but that he must do it as a Miracle by altering and overturning Natures course And shall we fain 1. Miracles to become ordinary things through all the Churches in the World and every day in the week or every hour to be done 2. And Miracles to be made a standing Church Ordinance 3. And every one in the Church even all the wicked and every Mouse that eateth the Host to be partaker of a Miracle 4. Yea that every such Man and Mouse may all the week long live on a continued Miracle while Accidents without substance do nourish them and turn to Flesh and Blood 5. And all this ordinary course of Miracles to be wrought at the will of every Priest be he never so ignorant or wicked a Man 6. And yet the same words spoken by the holiest of the Protestant Pastors will not do the Miracle 7. But if a Papist Priest should be unduely ordained or forge his own orders sobeit the Church think him truly ordained he can do the Miracle All this must be believed And the Plague of all is all men must be Burnt as Hereticks or exterminated that cannot believe all this and disbelieve their Senses And yet worse all temporal Lords must be dispossest of their Dominions who will suffer any such to live therein and not exterminate them An Epicure and a sensual Infidel who think man is but of the same species of Brutes do but unman us and leave us the Honour of being Animals or Brutes But the Papists do not leave us this much but must reduce us to a lower order and teach us to deny our sense it self and Torment
object that is A visible object II. The other extream of some of the same men is that yet Faith is not true and certain if it have any doubtfulness with it Strange That these men cannot only see what is invisible Believe what is inevident as to its truth that is incredible but also believe past all doubting and think that the weakest true believer doth so too Certainly there are various degrees of faith in the sincere All have not the same strength Christ rebuketh Peter in his fears and his disciples all at other times for their little faith When Peters faith failed not it staggered which Abrahams did not Lord increase our Faith and Lord I believe help my unbelief were prayers approved by Christ I will call a prevalent belief which can lay down Life and all this world for Christ and the hopes of Heaven by the name of certainty which hath various degrees But if they differ de nomine and will call nothing certainty but the highest degree they must needs yet grant that there is true saving faith that reacheth to no certainty in their sense Yea no man on Earth then attaineth to such a certainty because that every mans faith is imperfect To conclude Though all Scripture in itself that is indeed the true Canon be equally true yet all is not equally certain to us as not having equal evidence that it is Gods word But of that in the next Chapter of the uncertainties Chap. 6. What are the unknown things and uncertainties which we must not pretend a certain knowledge of SOmewhat of this is said already Cap. 3. But I am here to come to more particular instances of it But because that an enumeration would be a great Volume of it self I shall begin with the more general that I may be excused in most of the rest or mention only some particulars under them as we go I. A very great if not the far greatest part of that part of Philosophy called Physicks is uncertain or certainly false as it is delivered to us in any methodist that I have yet seen whether Platonists Peripateticks Epicureans the Stoicks have little but what Seneca gives us and Barlaam Collecteth I know not whence as making up their Ethicks and what in three or four Ethical writers is also brought in on the by and what Cicero reporteth of them or in our Novelists Patricius Telesius Campanella Thomas White Digby Cartesius Gassendus c. Except those whose modesty causeth them to say but little and to avoid the uncertainties or confess them to be uncertainties To enumerate instances would be an unseasonable digression Gassendus is large in his Confessions of uncertainties I think not his Brother Hobs and his second Spinosa worth the naming Nor the Paracelsians and Helmontians as giving us a new Philosophy but only as adding to the old There needs no other testimony of uncertainty to a man that hath not studied the points himself than their lamentable difference and confutation of each other in so many very many things even in the great Principles of the Science Yet here no doubt there are certainties innumerable certainties such as I have before described We know something certainly of many things even of all sensible objects But we know nothing perfectly and comprehensively not a worm not a Leaf not a Stone or a Sand not the Pen Ink or Paper which we write with not the hand that writeth nor the smallest particle of our bodies not a hair or the least accident In every thing nearest us or in the world the uncertainties and incognita are far more than that which we certainly know II. If I should enumerate to you the many uncertainties in our common Metaphysicks yea about the Being of the Science and our common Logick c. It would seem unsuitable to a Theological discourse And yet it would not be unuseful among such Theologues as the Schoolmen who resolve more of their doubts by Aristotle than by the Holy Scriptures doubtless as Aristotles Predicaments are not fitted to the kinds of beings so many of his distributions and orders yea and precepts are arbitrary And as he left room and reason for the dissent of such as Taurellus Carpenter Jacchaeus Gorlaeus Ritschel and abundance more so have they also for mens dissent from them Even Ramus hath more adversaries than followers Gassendus goeth the right way by suiting verba rebus if he had hit righter on the nature of things themselves Most novel Philosophers are fain to make new Grammars and new Logicks for words and notions to fit their new conceptions as Campanella and the Paracelsians Helmontians and if you will name the Behmenists Rosicrucians Weigelians c. Lullius thought he made the most accurate Art of notions and he did indeed attempt to fit words to things but he hath mist of a true accomplishment of his design for want of a true method of Physicks in his mind to fit his words to As Cornelius Agrippa who is one of his chief commentators yet freely confesseth in his lib. de Vanitate Scientiarum which now I think of I will say no more of this but desire the Reader to peruse that laudable book and with it to read Sanchez his Nihil Scitur to see uncertainty detected so he will not be led by it too far into Scepticism As also Mr. Glanviles Scepsis Scientifica As for the lamentable uncertainties in Medicine the poor world payeth for it Anatomy as being by ocular inspection hath had the best improvement And yet what a multitude of uncertainties remain Many thousands years have millions yearly died of Feavers and the medicating them is a great part of the Physicians work and yet I know not that ever I knew the man that certainly knew what a Feaver is I crave the pardon of the Masters of this noble art for saying it It is by dear experience that I have learnt how little Physicians know having passed through the tryal of above thirty of them on my own Body long ago meerly induced by a conceit that they knew more than they did and most that I got was but the ruine of my own body and this advice to leave to others Highly value those few excellent men who have quick and deep conjecturing apprehensions great reading and greater Experience and Sober Careful Deliberating minds and had rather do too little than too much But use them in a due conjunction with your own experience of your self But for the rest how Learned soever whose heads are dull or temper precipitant or apprehensions hasty or superficial or reading small but especially that are young or of small experience love and honour them but use them as little as you can and that only as you will use an honest ignorant Divine whom you will gladly hear upon the certain Catechistical Principles but love not to hear him meddle with Controversies So use these men in common easie cases if necessary and yet there the less
and celebrate the Lords Supper provoking one another to Love and to good works 3. Be it known to you that these three Summaries come to us with fuller Evidence of Certain Tradition from God than the rest of the Holy Scriptures Though they are equally true they are not equally Evident to us And this I thus prove 1. The Body of the Scriptures were delivered but one way but the Covenant Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue are delivered two ways They are in the Scripture and so have all the Evidence of Tradition which the Scriptures have And they were besides that delivered to the memories of all Christians If you say that the Creed is not in the Scripture or that the Scripture is not altered as it is I answer 1. That it is in the Scripture as to the matter signified in as plain words even of the same signification 2. There is no alteration made but a small addition which is no disparagement to it because the ancient substance of it is still known and the additions are not new made things but taken out of Scripture And if yet any Heretick should deny that God is Wise and Good and Just and Merciful it were no dishonour to the Creed nor weakening of its certainty to have these attributes yet added to it 2. These Summaries as is said were far ancienter than the rest of the New Testament as written and known and used long before them 3. These Summaries being in every Christians mind and memory were faster held than the rest of the Scriptures Therefore Parents could and did teach them more to their Children You never read that the Catechizers of the people did teach them all the Bible nor equally ask them who Jared or Mehaleel or Lamech was as they did who Christ was Nor put every History into the Catechism but only the Historical Articles of the Creed 4. Therefore it was far easier to preserve the purity of these Summaries than of the whole Body of the Scriptures For that which is in every mans memory cannot be altered without a multitude of reprovers Which makes the Greeks since Photius keep such a stir about Filioque as to think that the Latines have changed Religion and deserved to be separated from for changing that word But no wonder that many hundred various Readings are crept into the Bible and whole Verses and Histories as that of the Adulterous Woman are out in some that are in others For it is harder to keep such a Volume uncorrupt than a few words Though writing as such is a surer way than memory and the whole Bible could never have been preserved by memory Yet a few words might especially when they had those words in writings also 5. Add to this that the Catechistical Summaries aforesaid were more frequently repeated to the people at least every Lords day Whereas in the reading of the Scriptures one passage will be read but seldom perhaps once or twice in a year And so a corruption not so easily observed 6. And if among an hundred Copies of the Scripture ten or twenty only should by the Carelesness of the Scribes be corrupted all the rest who saw not these Copies would not know it and so they might fall into the hands of Posterity when many of the sounder might be lost 7. And Lastly The danger of depravation had no end For in every age the Scripture must be written over anew for every Church and person that would use it And who that knoweth what writing is could expect that one Copy could be written without errors and that the second should not add to the errors of the 1st as Printers now do who print by faulty Copies And though this danger is much less since Printing came up that is but lately And the mischiefs of Wars and Heretical Tyrants burning the truest Copies hath been some disadvantage to us Obj. Thus you seem to weaken the Certain incorruption of the Scriptures Ans No such thing I do but tell you the case truly as it is The wonderful Providence of God and care of Christians hath so preserved them that there is nothing corrupted which should make one Article of faith the more doubtful I assert no more depravation in them than all confess but only tell you how it came to pass and tell you the greater certainty that we have of the Essentials of Religion than of the rest And whereas every man of brains confesseth that many hundred words in Scripture by Variety of Copies are uncertain I only say that it is not so in the Essentials And I do not wonder that Virgil Ovid Horace Cicero c. Have not suffered such depravations For 1. It is not so easy for a Scribes error to pass unseen in oratione ligata as in oratione soluta in verse as in prose 2. And Cicero with the rest was almost only in the hands of Learned men whereas the Scriptures were in the hands of all the Vulgar Women and Children 3. And the Copies of these Authors were comparatively but few Whereas every one almost got Copies of the Scripture that was able And it 's liker that some depravation should be found among ten thousand Copies than among a hundred So that I have proved to you that the Creed Lords Prayer Commandments and Covenant of Baptism are not to be believed only because they are in the Scripture but also because they have been delivered to us by Tradition and so we have them from two hands as it were or ways of Conveyance and the rest of the Scriptures but by one for the most part I will say yet more because it is true and needful If any live among Papists that keep the Scripture from the people or among the poor Greeks Armenians or Abassines where the people neither have Bibles commonly nor can read or if any among us that cannot read know not what is in the Bible yea if through the fault of the Priest any should be kept from knowing that ever there was a Bible in the world Yet if those persons by Tradition receive the baptismal Covenant the Creed Lords Prayer and Commandments as Gods Word and truly believe and Love and Practice them those persons shall be saved For they have Christs promise for it And the very Covenant itself is the Gift of Christ and Life to consenters Whereas he that knoweth all the Scripture can be saved only by consenting to and performing this same Covenant But having greater helps to understand it and so to Believe it and Consent he hath a great advantage of them that have not the Scripture And so the Scripture is an unspeakable mercy to the Church And it is so far from being too little without the supplement of the Papists Traditions and Councils as that the hundredth part of it as to the bulk of words is not absolutely it self of necessity to Salvation Yet I say more If a man that hath the Scripture should doubt of some Books of it whether
they be the Word of God as of Ruth Judges Joshua Chronicles c. Yea if he doubted of all the Old Testament and much of the New yet if he believe so much as containeth all the Covenant of Grace and the foresaid Summaries though he sin and lose much of his helps yet he may and will be saved if he sincerely receive but this much The reason is before given Though no man can believe any thing truly who believeth not all that he knoweth to be Gods Word yet a man may doubt whether one thing be Gods Word who doubteth not of another by several occasions And here you see the Reason why a particular or explicite Belief of all the Scripture it self was never required of all that are baptized nor of all or any man that entered into the Ministry For the wisest Doctor in the world doth not attain so high For no man hath a particular explicite Belief of that which he doth not understand For it is the matter or sence that we believe and we must first know what that sence is before we can believe it to be true And no man in the World understandeth all the Scripture Yea more it is too much to require as necessary to his Ministry a subscription in General that he implicitely believeth all that is in that Bible which you shall shew him For 1. Many faults may be in the Translation if it be a Translation 2. Many errors may be in the Copy as aforesaid Nay such a subscription should not as absolutely necessary be required of him as to all the real Word of God. For if the man by error should doubt whether Job or the Chronicles or Esther were Canonical and none of the rest I would not be he that should therefore forbid him to Preach Christs Gospel I am sure the ancient Church imposed no such terms on their Pastors when part of the new Testament was so long doubted of and when some were chosen Bishops before they were Baptized and when Synesius was chosen a Bishop before he believed the Resurrection I would not have silenced Luther Althamer or others that questioned the Epistle of James What then shall we say of the Roman insolence which thinketh not all the Scripture big enough but Ministers must also subscribe to many additions of their own yea and swear to Traditions and the Expositions of the Fathers and take whole Volumes of Councils for their Religion No wonder if such men do tear the Churches of Christ in pieces 1. By this time I hope you see to what use Baptism and the Summaries of Religion are 2. And of how great use Catechizing is 3. And that Christianity hath its essential parts 4. And how plain and simple a thing true Christianity is which constituteth the Church of Christ And how few things as to knowledge are necessary to make a man a Christian or to Salvation Multitudes of opinions have been the means of turning Pastors and People from the holy and diligent improvement of these few truths in our practice where we have much to do which might take up all our minds and time Chap. VIII Inference 2. Of the use of Catechizing THough it be spoken to in what is said I would have you more distinctly here note the use of Catechizing 1. It collecteth those few things out of many which the Ignorant could not themselves collect 2. It collecteth those necessary things which all must know and believe that will be saved 3. It containeth those Great practical things which we have daily use for and must still live upon which are as Bread and Drink for our food Other things may be well added the more the better which God hath revealed But our Life and our comfort and our Hope is in these 4. And it giveth us the true method or order of holy truths which is a great advantage to understand them Not but that the things themselves have the same orderly respect to one another in the Scripture but they are not delivered in the same order of words Therefore 1. Catechisms should be very skilfully and carefully made The true fundamental Catechism is nothing else but the Baptismal Sacramental Covenant the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Commandments the Summaries of our Belief Desires and Practice And our secondary Catechism must be nothing else but the plain expositions of these the first is a Divine Catechism the second is a Ministerial Expository Catechism And here 1. O that Ministers would be wiser at last than to put their superfluities their controversies and private opinions into their Catechisms and would fit them to the true end and not to the interest of their several sects But the Roman-Trent Catechism and many more of theirs must needs be defiled with their trash and every sect else must put their singularities into their Catechisms so hard is it for the aged decrepit body of the diseased Church for want of a better concoction of the common essentials of Christianity to be free from these heaps of inconcocted crudities and excrementitious superfluities and the many maladies bred thereby I deny not but a useful controversie may be opened by way of Question and Answer But pretend it not then to be what it is not Milk for Babes Him that is weak in the Faith receive but not to doubtful disputations The Servant of the Lord must be apt to teach but must not strive 2. And it is not commonly believed how great skill is needful to make a Catechism that the method may be true and that it may neither be too long for the memory nor too short for the understanding for my part it is the hardest work save one which is the full methodizing and explaining the whole body of Divinity that ever I put my hand to And when all 's done I cannot satisfy my self in it II. Why is not Catechizing more used both by Pastors and Parents I mean not the bare words unexplained without the sence nor the sence in a meer rambling way without a form of words But the words explained O how much fruit would poor Souls and all the Church receive by the faithful performance of this work would God but cure the prophaneness and sloth of unfaithful Pastors and Parents which should do it But I have said so much of this in my Reformed Pastor that I may well forbear more here Chap. IX Inference 3. The true Preservative of puzled Christians from the Errours of false Teachers who vehemently sollicite them to their several parties IT is the common out-cry of the World. How shall we know which side to be on And who is in the right among so many who all with confidence pretend to be in the right Ans Your Preservative is obvious and easie but men usually bestow more labour and cost for Error and Hell than for Truth and Heaven Pretend not to Faith or knowledge before you have it and you are the more safe SUSPEND your judgments
ordinary for self-conceited Persons to ruine their own Estates and Healths and Lives When they are rashly making ill Bargains or undertaking things which they understand not they rush on till they find their error too late and their Poverty Prisons or ruined Families must declare their sin For they have not humility enough to seek Counsel in time nor to take it when it is offered them What great numbers have I heard begging relief from others under the confession of this sin And far more even the most of Men and Women overthrow their Health and lose their Lives by it Experience doth not suffice to teach them what is hurtful to their Bodies and as they know not so you cannot convince them that they know not Most Persons by the excess in quantity of food do suffocate Nature and lay the Foundation of future Maladies And most of the Diseases that kill men untimely are but the effects of former Gluttony or Excess But as long as they feel not any present hurt no man can perswade them but their fulness is for their Health as well as for their Pleasure They will laugh perhaps at those that tell them what they do and what Diseases they are preparing for Let Physicians if they be so honest tell them It is the perfection of the nutritive Juices the Blood and nervous Oyl which are the causes of Health in man Perfect Concoction causeth that perfection Nature cannot perfectly concoct too much or that which is of too hard digestion While you feel no harm your Blood groweth dis-spirited and being but half concocted and half Blood doth perform its Office accordingly by the halves till crudities are heaped up and obstructions fixed and a Dunghil of Excrements or the dis-spirited humours are ready to take in any Disease which a small occasion offereth either Agues Feavers Coughs Consumptions Pleurisies Dropsies Colicks and Windiness Head-achs Convulsions c. or till the Inflammations or other Tumors of the inward Parts or the torment of the Stone in Reins or Bladder do sharply tell men what they have been doing A clean Body and perfect Concoction which are procured by Temperance and bodily Labours which suscitate the Spirits and purifie the Blood are the proper means which God in the course of nature hath appointed for a long and healthful Life This is all true and the reason is evident and yet this talk will be but despised and derided by the most and they will say I have so long eaten what I loved and lived by no such rules as these and I have found no harm by it Yea if Excess have brought Diseases on them if Abstinence do but make them more to feel them they will rather impute their illness to the Remedy than to the proper cause And so they do about the quality as well as the quantity Self-conceitedness maketh men uncureable Many a one have I known that daily lived in that fulness which I saw would shortly quench the Vital Spirits and fain I would have saved their Lives but I was not able to make them willing Had I seen another assault them I could have done somewhat for them but when I foresaw their death I could not save them from themselves They still said they found their measures of eating and drinking between Meals refresh them and they were the worse if they forbore it and they would not believe me against both Appetite Reason and Experience And thus have I seen abundance of my acquaintance wilfully hasten to the Grave And all long of an unhumbled self-conceited understanding which would not be brought to suspect it self and know its error 2. And O how often have I seen the dearest Friends thus kill their Friends even Mothers kill their dearest Children and too oft their Husbands Kindred Servants and Neighbours by their self-conceit and confidence in their ignorance and error Alas what abundance empty their own Houses gratifie covetous Landlords that set their Lands by Lives and bring their dearest Relations to untimely ends and a wise man knoweth not how to hinder them How oft and oft have I heard ignorant Women confidently perswade even their own Children to eat as long as they have an Appetite and so they have vitiated their Blood and Humours in their Childhood that their Lives have been either soon ended or ever after miserable by Diseases How oft have I heard them perswade sick or weak diseased Persons to eat eat eat and take what they have a mind to when unless they would Poyson them or cut their Throats they could scarce more certainly dispatch them How oft have these good Women been perswading my self that eating and drinking more would make me better and that it is Abstinence that causeth all my illness when Excess in my Childhood caused it as if every wise Woman that doth but know me knew better what is good for me than my self after threescore years experience or than all the Physicians in the City And had I obeyed them how many years ago had I been dead How ordinary is it for such self-conceited Women to obtrude their skill and Medicines on their sick Neighbours with the greatest confidence when they know not what they do yea upon their Husbands and their Children One can scarce come about sick Persons but one Woman or other is perswading them to take that or do that which is like to kill them Many and many when they have brought their Children to the Grave have nothing to say but I thought this or that had been best for them But you 'l say They do it in love they meant no harm I answer so false Teachers deceive Souls in Love. But are you content your selves to be kill'd by Love If I must be kill'd I had rather an Enemy did it than a Friend I would not have such have the guilt or grief Love will not save mens lives if you give them that which tends to kill them But you 'l say We can be no wiser than we are If we do the best we can what can we do more I answer I would have you not think your selves wiser than you are I would write over this word five hundred times if that would cure you About matters of Diet and Medicines and Health this is it that I would have you do to save you from killing your selves and your Relations 1. Pretend not to know upon the report of such as your selves or in matters that are difficult and beyond your skill or where you have not had long consideration and experience Meddle with no Medicining but what in common easy cases the common judgment of Physicians and common Experience have taught you 2. If you have not Money to pay Physicians and Apothecaries tell them so and desire them to give you their counsel freely and take not on you to know more than they that have studied and practised it all their riper part of their lives 3. Suspect your understandings and consider how much there may be
or Better than they are and they would have others think so too As for Pride of Beauty or Clothing or such like corporeal things and appurtenances it is the Vice of Children and the more shallow and foolish sort of Women But Greater things make up a Greater sort of Pride O what a number of all Ranks and Ages do live in this great sin of Pride of Wisdom or an Over-valued Understanding who never feel or lament it 11. Moreover your Prefidence prepareth you for Scepticism or doubting of the most certain necessary Truths Like some of our Sectaries who have been falsly confident of so many Religions till at last they doubt of all Religion He that finds that he was deceived while he was an Anabaptist and deceived when he was a Separatist and deceived while he was an Antinomian or Libertine and deceived when he was a Quaker is prepared to think also that he was deceived when he was a Christian and when he believed the Immortality of the Soul and the Life to come When you have found your Understandings oft deceive you you will grow so distrustful of them as hardly ever to believe them when it is most necessary He that often lyeth will hardly be believed when he speaketh truth And all this cometh from believing your first and slight apprehensions too easily and too soon and so filling up your minds with lyes which when they are discovered make the Truth to be suspected Like some fanciful lustful Youths who hastily grow fond of some unsuitable unlovely person and when they know them cannot so much as allow them the conjugal affection which they are bound to 12. Lastly Consider what a shame it is to your Understandings and how it contradicteth your pretence of Knowledge For how little knoweth that man who knoweth not his own Ignorance How can it be thought that you are like to know great matters at a distance the profundities sublimities and subtilties of Sciences who know not yet how little you know Chap. 16. Proofs of the Little Knowledge that is in the world to move us to a due distrust of our understandings IF you think this sin of a Proud Understanding and Pretended Knowledge doth need for the cure a fuller discovery of its vanity I know not how to do it more convincingly than by shewing you How little True Knowledge is in the world and consequently that all Mankind have cause to think meanly of their Understandings I. The great Imperfection of all the Sciences is a plain discovery of it When Mankind hath had above 5000 years already to have grown to more perfection yet how much is still dark and controverted and how much unknown in comparison of what we know But above all though nothing is perfectly known which is not methodically known yet how few have a true methodical knowledge He that seeth but some parcels of Truth or seeth them but confusedly or in a false method not agreeable to the things doth know but little because he knoweth not the place and order and respects of Truths to one another and consequently neither their composition harmony strength or use Like a Philosopher that knew nothing but Elements and not mixt bodies or animate beings Or like an Anatomist that is but an Atomist and can say no more of the body of a man but that it is made up of Atoms or at most can only enumerate the similar parts Or like a man that knoweth no more of his Clock and Watch but as the pieces of it lie on a heap or at best setteth some one part out of its place which disableth the whole Engine Or like one that knoweth the Chess-men only as they are in the Bag or at best in some disorder Who will make me so happy as to shew me one true Scheme of Physicks of Metaphysicks of Logick yea of Theology which I cannot presently prove guilty of such mistake confusion misorder as tendeth to great errour in the subsequent parts I know of no small number that have been offered to the world but never saw one that satisfied my understanding And I think I scarce know any thing to purpose till I can draw a true Scheme of it and set each compounding notion in its place II. And the great Diversity and Contrariety of Opinions of Notions and of Methods proveth that our Knowledge indeed is yet but small How many Methods of Logick have we How many Hypotheses in Physicks yea how many contentious Volumes written against one another in Philosophy and Theology it self What loads of Videtur's in the Schoolmen How many Sects and Opinions in Religion Physicians agree not about mens Lives Lawyers agree not about mens Estates no nor about the very fundamental Laws If there be a Civil War where both sides appeal to the Law there will be Lawyers on both sides And doth not this prove that we know but little III. But mens rage and confidence in these Contrarieties doth discover it yet more Read their contentious writings of Philosophy and Theology observe their usage of one another what contempt what reproach what cruelties they can proceed to The Papist silenceth and burneth the Protestant the Lutheran silenceth and revileth the Calvinist the Calvinist sharply judgeth the Arminians and so round And may I not judge that this wisest part of the world is low in Knowledge when not the vulgar only but the Leaders and Doctors are so commonly mistaken in their greatest Zeal And that Solomon erred not in saying The fool rageth and is confident IV. If our knowledge were not very low the long experience of the World would have long ago reconciled our Controversies The strivings and distractions about them both in Philosophy Politicks and Theology have torn Churches and raised Wars and set Kingdoms on Fire and should in reason be to us as a Bone out of Joint which by the pain should force us all to seek out for a cure And sure in so many thousand years many Remedies have been tryed The issues of such disingenuous-ingenious Wars do furnish men with such experience as should teach them the cure And yet after so many years War of wits to be so witless as to find no End no Remedy no Peace doth shew that the wit of man is not a thing to be proud of V. The great mutability of our apprehensions doth shew that they are not many things that we are certain of Do we not feel in our selves how new thoughts and new reasons are ready to breed new conjectures in us and that looketh doubtful to us upon further thoughts of which long before we had no doubt Besides the multitudes that change their very Religion every studious Person so oft changeth his conceptions as may testifie the shallowness of our minds VI. The general barbarousness of the World the few Countreys that have polite Learning or true Civility or Christianity do tell us that knowledge in the World is low When besides the vast unknown Regions of the World
themselves to be how easy were it for them to agree among themselves and equally to distribute the charge of two or three Armies which might quickly shake in pieces the Turks Dominions and recover Constantinople and free the Greek Church from their Captivity XII And what need we more than every days miscarriages to tell us of our folly Do we not miss it in one degree or other in almost all that we take in hand Hence cometh the ruine of Estates the ill education of Children the dissentions among Neighbours and in Families Parents have scarce wit enough to breed and teach a Child Nor Husbands and Wives to live together according to their Relations nor Masters to teach their Servants If I write a Book how many can find folly and errour in it And I as easily in theirs If I Preach how many faults can the silliest Woman find in it And I as many perhaps in other mens Do we live in such weakness and shall we not know it XIII And the uncureableness of ancient errours is no small evidence of our folly If our ancestors have but been deceived before us though their errour be never so Palpable we plead their venerable antiquity for an honour to their Ignorance and mistakes The wisdom of wise ancestors almost dieth with them But the errours of the mistaken must be Successive lest they be dishonoured We will deny reason and deny Scripture and deny sense for fear of being wiser for our Souls than some of our forefathers were XIV The self-destroying courses of mankind one would think should be enough to evince mans folly Who almost suffer but by themselves Few sicknesses befall us which folly brings not on us by excess of Eating or Drinking or by sloth or some unwise neglect Few ruines of Estates but by our own folly Few calamities in Families and Relations but by our selves What Churches distracted and ruined but by the Pastors and Children of the Church themselves What Kingdom ruined without its own procurement It need not be said Quos perdere vult Jupiter hos dementat It is enough to say Insaniam eorum non curat If he cure not our madness we shall certainly destroy our selves Whose hands kindled all the flames that have wasted the Glory Wealth and Peace of England in State and Church except our own Were they Forreign Enemies that did it and still keep open our wounds or is it our selves And yet are we wise men XV. But the greatest evidence in all the world of the madness of Mankind is the obstinate self-destruction of all the ungodly Consider but 1. The weight of the Case 2. The plainness of the Case 3. The means used to undeceive them 4. And yet the number of the madly erroneous and then bethink you what man's Understanding is 1. It is their Souls and everlasting Hopes that are cast away It is no less than Heaven and Endless Happiness which they reject It is no better than Hell and Endless Misery which they run into and are these men in their wits 2. It is themselves that do all this neither Man nor Devils else could do it They do it for nothing What have the wretches for their Salvation a few cups of drink a filthy Whore a little preferment or provision for a corruptible flesh which must shortly lie and rot in darkness The applause and breath of flatterers as silly as themselves O profane persons worse than Esau who will fell their birth-right for so poor a morsel Come see the madness of Mankind It is a doubt to them whether God or a filthy lust should be more loved and obeyed It is a doubt with them whether Heaven or Earth be better worth their labour Whether Eternity or an inch of Time whether a Soul or a perishing Body should be more cared for Are these wise men Did I say It is a doubt yea their choice and practice sheweth that at the present they are resolved Vanity and shadows and dreams are preferred Heaven is neglected They are lovers of pleasure more than God They set less than a Feather in the ballance against more than all the world and they chuse the first and neglect the latter This is the wise world 3. And all this they do against common reason against daily teaching of appointed Pastors against the Judgment of the Learnedest and Wisest men in the world against the express Word of God against the obligation of daily mercies against the warnings of many afflictions against the experience of all the world who pronounce all this Vanity which they sell their Souls for even while men die daily before their Eyes and they are certain that they must shortly die themselves while they walk over the Church-yard and tread on the Graves of those that went before them yet will they take no warning but neglect God and their Souls and sin on to the very death 4. And this is not the case only of here and there one we need not go to Bedlam to seek them Alas in how much more honoured and splendid habitations and conditions may they be found In what reverend and honourable garbs And in how great numbers throughout the world And these are not only Sots and Idiots that never were told of better things but those that would be accounted witty or men of Learning and venerable aspect and esteem But this is a subject that we use to Preach on to the people it being easie by a multitude of arguments to prove the Madness of all ungodly persons And is this nothing to humble us who were naturally like them and who so far as we are sinners are alas too like them still XVI And the fewness of wise men in all Professions doth tell us how rare true Wisdom is Among men whose Wisdom lieth in Speculation where the Effects of it do not openly difference it much from Prefidence the difference is not commonly discerned A prating Speculator goeth for a wise man But in Practicals the difference appeareth by the Effects All men see that among Physicians and Lawyers those that are excellent are few And even among the Godly Preachers of the Gospel O that it were more easie and common to meet with men suited to the majesty mystery greatness necessity and holiness of their works that speak to God and from God like Divines indeed and have the true frame of found Theology ready in their Heads and Hearts and that in publick and private speak to sinners as beseemeth those that believe that they and we are at the door of Eternity and that we speak and they hear for the life of Souls and that are uncertain whether ever they shall speak again Alas Lord thy Treasure is not only in Earthen Vessels but how ordinarily in polluted Vessels and how common are empty sounding Vessels or such as have Dirt or Air instead of holy Treasure And as for Philosophers and Judicious Speculators in Divinity do I need to say that the number is too small
more accurate than any Logical Author doth prescribe And the Lords Prayer and Decalogue especially will prove this when truly opened And the Doctrine of of the Trinity and the Baptismal Covenant is the Foundation of all true method of Physicks and Morality in the World. What if a novice cannot Anatomize Cicero or Demosthenes doth it follow that they are immethodical Brand-miller and Flaccher upon the Scripture Text and Steph. Tzegedine Sohnius Gomarus Dudley Fenner and many others upon the Body of Theology have gone far in opening the Scripture Method But more may be yet done VI. Consider also that the Eternal Wisdom Word and Son of God our Redeemer is the Fountain and giver of all Knowledge Nature to be restored and Grace to restore it are in his hands He is that true Light that lighteneth every one that cometh into the World The Light of Nature and Arts and Sciences are from his Spirit and Teaching as well as the Gospel Whether Clemens Alexandrinus and some other Ancients were in the right or not when they taught that Philosophy is one way by which men come to Salvation it is certain that they are in the right that say it is now the gift of Christ And that as the Light which goeth before Sun-rising yea which in the night is reflected from the Moon is from the Sun as well as its more glorious Beams So the Knowledge of Socrates Plato Zeno Cicero Antonine Epictetus Seneca Plutarch were from the Wisdom and Word of God the Redeemer of the World even by a lower gift of his Spirit as well as the Gospel and higher illumination And shall Christ be thought void of what he giveth to so many in the World VII Lastly Let it be considered above all that the grand difference between the teaching of Christ and other men is that he teacheth effectively as God spake when he Created and as he said to Lazarus Arise He giveth wisdom by giving the Holy Ghost All other Teachers speak but to the Ears but he only speaketh to the Heart Were it not for this he would have no Church I should never have else believed in him my self nor would any other seriously and savingly Aristotle and Plato speak but words but Christ speaketh LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE in all Countreys through all Ages to this day This above all is his witness in the World. He will not do his work on Souls by ludicrous enticing words of the Pedantick wisdom of the World but by illuminating Minds and changing Hearts and Lives by his effectual operations on the Heart God used not more Rhetorick nor Logick than a Philosopher when he said only Let there be Light but he used more Power Indeed the first Chapter of Genesis though abused by Ignorants and Cabalists hath more true Philosophy in it than the presumptuous will understand as my worthy Friend Mr. Samuel Gott lately gone to God hath manifested in his excellent Philosophy excepting the style and some few presumptions But operations are the glorious Oratory of God and his wisdom shineth in his works and in things beseeming the Heavenly Majesty and not in childish Laces and Toys of Wit. Let us therefore cease quarrelling and learn wisdom of God instead of teaching and reprehending him Let us magnifie the mercy and wisdom of our Redeemer who hath brought Life and Immortality to light and certified us of the matters of the World above as beseemed a Messenger sent from God and hath taught us according to the matter and our capacity and not with trifling childish notions Chap. XVIII Inference VI. The true and false ways of restoring the Churches and healing our Divisions hence opened and made plain HAving opened to you our Disease it is easie were not the Disease it self against it to discern the Cure. Pretended knowledge hath corrupted and divided the Christian World. Therefore it must be CERTAIN VERITIES which must Restore us and Unite us And these must be Things PLAIN and NECESSARY and such as God hath designed to this very use or else they will never do the work One would think that it should be enough to satisfie men of this 1. To read Scripture 2. To peruse the terms of Concord in the Primitive Church 3. To peruse the sad Histories of the Churches Discord and Divisions and the Causes 4. To peruse the state of the World at this day and make use of Universal Experience 5. To know what a Christian is what Baptism is and what a Church is 6. To know what Man is and that they themselves and the Churches are but Men. But penal and sinful Infatuation hath many Ages been upon the minds of those in the Christian World who were most concerned in the Cure and our sin is our misery as I think to the damned it will be the chief part of their Hell. But this subject is so great and needful and that which the Wounds and Blood of the Christian World do cry for a skilful Cure of that I will not thrust it into this corner but design to write a Treatise of it by it self as a second part of this This Book is since Printed with some Alteration and called The true and Only way of the Concord of the Churches Chap. XIX Of the Causes of this Disease of Prefidence or Proud Pretended Knowledge in order to the Cure. THE Cure of Prefidence and pretended knowledge could it be wrought would be the Cure of Souls Families Churches and Kingdoms But alas how low are our hopes yet that may be done on some which will not be done on all or most And to know the causes and oppugn them is the chief part of the Cure so far as it may be hoped for 1. The first and grand cause is the very Nature of ignorance it self which many ways disableth men from knowing that which should abate their groundless confidence For 1. An ignorant man knoweth but little parcels and scraps of things And all the rest is unknown to him Therefore he fixeth upon that little which he knoweth and having no knowledge of the rest he cannot regulate his narrow apprehensions by any conceptions of them And all things visible to us not light it self excepted which as seen by us is Fire incorporated in Air being Compounds the very Nature or Being of them is not known where any Constitutive part is unknown And in all Compounds each part hath such relation and usefulness to others that one part which seemeth known is it self but half known for want of the knowledge of others Such a kind of knowledge is theirs that knowing only what they see do take a Clock or Watch to be only the Index moving by the Hours being ignorant of all the causal parts within Or that know no more of a Tree or other Plant than the Magnitude Site Colour Odour c. Or that take a man to be only a Body without a Soul or the Body to be only the Skin and Parts discerned by the Eye in converse
though they do some job of present service the next way at the end we shall find that they did more harm than good And that to say the contrary and that men will cease to be Christians unless they be kept to it by deceit is the way to downright infidelity And yet that you may see how much more than ordinary I favour the weaknesses of such I will here answer a great question Quest Whether a Man can have true saving Faith who believeth the Gospel or Scripture to be Gods word and Christ to be the Saviour of the World upon reasons or grounds not sure nor cogent and concluding yea possibly not true for the most part Ans He that readeth Mr. Pinks excellent Sermons and many other such Divines will find them thus describing the Faith of Hypocrites that they conclude have no true saving Faith that they believe in Christ but on the same or like reasons as a Turk may believe in Mahomet that is because the most the greatest the Learnedst and the best and all the Countrey are of their minds and in that way their Parents did educate them in For my part I easily confess 1. That such a belief which buildeth on unsound grounds is wanting proportionably in its own soundness 2. And that it should not be rested in 3. Much less cherished against all counsels that would cure it 4. And that though uncertain reasons are 1. The first 2. And the most prevailing with him afterwards yet every true Believer discerneth some intrinsick Signs of Divinity at least as probable in the Word it self But yet supposing that wrong motives be his chief and that he discerneth not that in the word it self which most prevaileth with him I am of opinion that 1. If the end of such a Believer be sound the reducing of the Soul to God and attainment of Glory and the perfect Love of God. 2. And if that man unfeignedly believe all that is Gods Word to be true 3. And if he believe all the substance of the Gospel to be Gods word though by an unsound and non-concluding medium as his chief 4. And if he by this belief be brought himself to the actual love of God as God This unsound Believer is sound in the Essentials of Christianity and shall be saved The objection is An uncertain yea deceived belief upon false suppositions is no true belief and therefore cannot save I answer There is a double Truth in such a belief 1. That all Gods Word is true 2. That this Gospel is Gods Word and Christ is the Messiah You will say that there can be no more no surer no better in the Conclusion than is in the weaker of the Premises I answer I grant it And all that will follow is that the Conclusion is not necessary from these Premises and that the believer was mistaken in the reason of his inference and that he concluded a truth upon an unsound medium I grant all this and consequently that his Faith hath some unsoundness or diseasedness in it But for all this I see not but such a believer may be saved 1. Because Christs promise is that whoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life without excepting such as are drawn to it by non-cogent arguments And he that will put in an exception against the Covenant of Grace must prove it or be injurious to Christ to his Gospel and to mens Souls 2. Because by experience I find that it is but a small part of serious Godly Christians who believe the Scriptures upon cogent evidence or at least many do not But abundance take it upon trust from Godly Preachers or Parents and go on without much examining of their grounds And are not able to bring a cogent proof of the Divinity of the Scriptures when they are called to it And I am not willing to conclude so great a part of humble upright Christians to Damnation as know not such reasons for their Faith as would hold good in strict disputation Not that our Charity must bend the Scripture to it But that Scripture commandeth such Charity and it no where condemneth any man that believeth upon uncogent reasons For he that doth so may yet firmly Trust on Jesus Christ and firmly believe that the Gospel is true as being the very Word of God and may take Heaven for his Portion and Love God as God and therefore may be saved Though yet I think it impossible that any man should truly believe the Scriptures and not perceive in them some Characters of Divinity which as an intrinsical Evidence much encourage and induce him to believe them And-though this secret gust and perception be not the medium that he useth in arguing or be not the chief yet it may have an effectual force with his Soul to hold him close to Christ But if you suppose the man to have no Spiritual sight and tast of a difference between Gods Word and a common Book then he cannot be supposed to be a sound believer As a man that hath one ingredient in his medicine which is effectual may be cured though in the composition the main bulk be vanities or as a debtor that hath many insufficient sureties may do well if he have one sufficient one though he more trust the rest or as a mans cause may go for him in Judgment that hath one or two good Witnesses and twenty bad ones which he put more trust in and as he truly proveth his position who bringeth one sound argument for it and twenty bad ones So I think that the common way of the illiterate in believing is first to believe Gods Word to be his Word by humane Faith and after upon trial to find a Spiritual light and goodness in the Word it self and by both together to believe that it is Gods Word And the worser reasons may be the more powerful with him and yet not destroy the sincerity of his Faith. Nor doth this make his Faith meerly humane For the Question now is not why he believeth God's Word to be True trusteth on it For that is because it is God's Word discerned by him so to be but he that by an insufficient Medium at least with a Better though less understood doth take it to be God's may yet by a Divine Faith believe it because he judgeth it his Word If a man should counterfeit himself an Angel from Heaven and come in some splendid deceitful appearance in the night to an Heathen and tell him that he is sent from God to bring him this Bible as his Certain Word and if the man receive it and believe it on his credit to the death and by that Believing it be brought to see an excellency and credibility and taste a spiritual sweetness in it and be brought by it as he may be to Holiness and the Love of God that man shall be saved though I cannot say that the Intrinsick Evidence of the Word alone would have
prevailed with him without that false belief of a deceiver When it is once become a Sanctifying Belief then there is no doubt but the Man hath better Evidence than the uncertain word of man He hath the witness in himself And it is not a Glorifying Faith till it be a Sanctifying Faith. But the Question is What soundness of Reason or proof that this is God's Word is necessary to make it a Sanctifying Faith at least as most prevalent and trusted in By this you may know what I judge of the Faith of honest illiterate Papists and of illiterate Protestants for a great number of them who live in Love and Obedience to God. And yet to speak both more concisely and distinctly I. I may believe by Historical Tradition all that matter of Fact which those that saw Christ's and the Apostles Miracles and heard their words did know by sense and those that saw not believed on the credit of the reporters II. And yet I may know by reason through God's help that these Miracles and this Scripture Impress and Efficacy are God's attestation and none but God could do it And of this all Believers have some perception in various degrees III. And then we know it to be true because it is sealed by those attestations and is the Word of God. Obj. VII But would you have men take the matters of Fact for uncertain that this is a true Bible and Copy and was given the Church by the Apostles c. and so not pretend to be certain of them Ans I have oft said and elsewhere largely proved that as 1. A Humane Faith of highest probability prepareth the way so 2. These things are known by an Historical Evidence which hath a proper certainty above meer Humane Faith For Humane Faith resteth on mens Veracity or Fidelity which is uncertain But there is a History such as that there is such a City as Rome Venice c. which is evident by a surer ground than mens fidelity even from such a concurrence of consenters and circumstances as will prove a forgery impossible Obj. VIII You seem to favour the Popish Doctrine of Ignorance while you would have all our Knowledge confined to a few plain and easie things and perswade men to doubt of all the rest Ans 1. I perswade no man to doubt of that which he is certain of but not to lie and say he is certain when he is not 2. I am so far from encouraging Ignorance that it is Ignorance of your Ignorance which I reprove I would have all men know as much as possibly they can of all that God hath revealed And if the self-conceited knew more they would doubt more and as they grow wiser will grow less confident in uncertainties It is not knowing but false pretending to know that I am against Do you think that a thousand self-conceited men and women do really know ever the more for saying they know or crying down that Ignorance Doubting and Uncertainty which they have themselves How many a one yea Preachers have cryed down the Popish Doctrine of Uncertainty of Salvation who had no Certainty of their own but their neighbours thought by their lives were certainly in the way to Hell. Obj. IX But you would have men resist the Spirit that convinceth them and make so long a work in doubting and questioning and proving every thing as that Christians will come but to little knowledge in your way Ans They will have the more knowledge and not the less for trying Peremptory confidence is not knowledge The next way here is farthest about Receive all Evidence from God and Man from the Word and Spirit with all the desire and all the delight and all the speed that possibly you can Study earnestly Learn willingly Resist no Light neglect no Truth But what 's all this to foolish conceit that you know what you do not What 's this to the hasty believing of falshoods or uncertainties and troubling the Church and World with self-conceit and dreams I remember two or three of my old acquaintance who suddenly received from a Seducer the Opinion of Perfection that we might be perfectly sinless in this life And because I denied it they carryed it as if I had pleaded for sin against perfection and they presently took themselves to be perfect and sinless because they had got the Opinion that some are such I told them that I desired Perfection as well as they and that I was far from hindering or disswading any from Perfection but wisht them to let us see that they are so indeed and never to sin more in thought word or deed And ere long they forsook all Religion and by Drunkenness Fornication and Licentiousness shewed us their Perfection So here it is not a conceit that men have Faith and Knowledge and quickly saying I believe or turning to the Priest or Party that perswadeth them which maketh them ever the wiser men or true Believers Obj. X. But that may seem certain to another which seemeth uncertain or false to you Therefore every man must go according to his own Light. Ans 1. Nothing is Certain which is not true If that seem True to you which is False this is your Errour And is every man or any man bound to err and believe a falsehood Being is before Knowing If it Be not true you may Think it to be so which is that which I would cure but you cannot Know it to be so much less be Certain of it 2. If it be Certain to you it is Evidently True And if so hold it fast and spare not It is not any mans Certainty but Errour which I oppose Obj. XI But if we must write or utter nothing but Certainties you would have but a small Library Ans 1. The World might well spare a great many uncertain Writings 2. But I say not that you must think say or write nothing but Certainties There is a lawful and in some cases necessary exercise of our understandings about Probabilities and Possibilities The Husbandman when he ploweth and soweth is not certain of an increase 1. But call not that certain which is not 2. And be not as vehement and peremptory in it as if it were a Certainty 3. And separate your Certainties and Probabilities asunder that confusion fill not your minds with Errour Obj. XII While you perswade us to be so diffident of mens reports and to suspend our belief of what men say you speak against the Laws of Converse Ans I perswade you not to deny any man such a Belief as is his due But give him no more If a man profess himself a Christian and say that he sincerely believeth in Christ and consenteth to his Covenant though you may perceive no ascertaining Evidence that he saith true yet you must believe him because he is the only opener of his own mind and the Laws of God and Human Converse require it But what is this believing him Not taking it for a
at the first hearing Take it for granted that your first conceptions of things must alter either as to the Truth or the Evidence or the Order or the Degree Few men are so happy in youth as to receive at first such right impressions which need not after to be much altered When we are Children we know as Children but when we become Men childish things are done away Where we change not our Judgment of the matter yet we come to have very different apprehensions of it I would not have Boys to be meer Scepticks for they must be Godly and Christians But I would have them leave room for increase of knowledge and not be too peremptory with their juvenile conceptions but suppose that a further light will give them another prospect of the same things D. X. Chuse such Teachers if possible as have themselves attained the things you seek even that most substantial Wisdom which leadeth to Salvation For how else shall they teach others what they have not learnt themselves O the difference between Teachers and Teachers between a rash flashy unexperienced proud wit and clear headed well studied much experienced and godly man Happy is he that hath such a Teacher that is long exercised in the ways of Truth and Holiness and Peace and hath a heart to value him D. XI Value Truth for Goodness and Goodness above Truth and estimate all Truths and Knowledge by their usefulness to higher Ends. That is Good as a Means which doth Good. There is nothing besides God that is simply Good in of and for it self all else is only Good derivatively from God the Efficient and as a Means to God the final Cause As a pound of Gold more enricheth than many loads of Dirt so a little Knowledge of great and necessary matters maketh one wiser than a great deal of pedantick toyish Learning No man hath time and capacity for all things He is but a proud fool that would seem to know all and deny his ignorance in many things Even he that with Alstedius c. can write an Encyclopaedia is still unacquainted with abundance that is intelligible For my own part I humbly thank God that by placing my dwelling still as in the Church-yard he hath led me to chuse still the studies which I thought were fittest for a man that is posting to another world He that must needs be ignorant of many things should chuse to omit those which he can best spare Distinguish well between studying and knowing for Use and for Lust For the True Ends of Knowledge and for the bare delight of Knowing One thing is necessary Luke 10.42 And all others but as they are necessary to that one Mortifie the Lust of useless Knowledge as well as other lusts of flesh and fantasie Dying men commonly call it Vanity Remember what a deal of precious Time it wasteth and from how many greater and more necessary things it doth divert the mind and with what wind it puffs men up as is aforesaid How justly did the rude Tartarians think the great Libraries and multitudes of Doctors and idle Priests among the Chinenses to be a foolery and call them away from their Books to Arms as Palafox tells us when all their Learning was to so little purpose as it was and led them to no more high and necessary things D. XII Yet because many smaller parts of Knowledge are necessary to Kingdoms Academies and Churches which are not necessary nor greatly valuable to individual persons let some few particular persons be bred up to an eminency in those studies and let not the generality of Students waste their time therein There is scarce any part of Knowledge so small and useless but it is necessary to great Societies that some be Masters of it which yet the generality may well spare And all are to be valued and honoured according to their several excellencies But yet I cannot have while to study as long as Politian how Virgil should be spelt nor to decide the quarrels between Phil. Pareus and Gruter nor to digest all his Grammatical Collections nor to read all over abundance of Books which I allow house room to Nor to learn all the Languages and Arts which I could wish to know if I could know them without neglecting greater things But yet the excellent Professors of them all I honour D. XIII Above all Value Digest and seriously Live upon the most Great and Necessary Certain Truths O that we knew what Work inward and outward the great Truths of Salvation call for from us all If you do not faithfully value and improve these you prepare for delusion You forget your Premises and Principles God may justly leave you in the dark and give you up to believe a lie Did you live according to the importance of your certain Principles your lives would be filled with fruit and business and delight and all this Great So that you would have little mind or leisure for little and unnecessary things It is the neglect of things necessary which fills the World with the trouble of things unnecessary D. XIV Study hard and search diligently and deeply and that with unwearied patience and delight Unpleasant studies tire and seldom prosper Slight running thoughts accomplish little If any man think that the Spirit is given to save us the labour of hard and long studies Solomon hath spent so many Chapters in calling them to dig search cry labour wait for Wisdom that if that will not undeceive them I cannot They may as well say that God's blessing is to save the Husbandman the labour of plowing and sowing And that the Spirit is given to save men the labour of learning to read the Bible or to hear it or think of it or to pray to God. Whereas the Spirit is given us to provoke and enable us to study hard and read and hear and pray hard and to prosper us herein And as vain are our idle Lads that think that their natural Wits or their Abode and Degrees in the Universities will serve the turn instead of hard studies And so they come out almost as ignorant and yet more proud than they went thither to be Plagues in all Countreys where they come to teach others by example the idleness and sensuality which they learnt themselves and being ignorant yet the honour of their Functions must be maintained and therefore their ignorance must be hid which yet themselves do weekly make ostentation of in the Pulpit where they should be shining lights and when their own Tongues have proclaimed it those of understanding that observe and loath it must be maligned and railed at for knowing how little their Teachers know Nothing without long and hard studies furnisheth the mind with such a stock of truth as may be called real wisdom That God is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him and not of the lazy neglecters of him is the second Principle in Religion Heb. 11.6 They that cannot be at
oft also so over-rule the Hearts of Men and the Course of the World as to make the knowledge and gifts of bad Men serviceable to his Church as wicked Souldiers oft fight in a good Cause and save the lives of better men yet a worldly mind is likest to follow the way of worldly interest and it is but seldom that worldly interest doth suite with and serve the interest of truth and holiness but more commonly is its greatest adversary Therefore most usually it must be expected that such worldly men should be adversaries to the same truth and holiness which their worldly interest is adverse to And hence hath arisen that Proud and Worldly and Tyrannical Clergy which hath set up and maintained the Roman Kingdom under the Name of the Holy Catholick Church and which hath by their Pope and pretended General Councils usurped a Legislative and Executive Power over the whole Christian World and made great numbers of Laws without Authority and contrary to the Laws of Christ multiplying Schisms on pretence of suppressing them and making so many things necessary to the Concord of Christians as hath made such Concord become impossible presumptuously voting other men to be Hereticks while their own Errours are of as odious a kind yea when holy Truth is sometime branded by them as Heresie And when they cannot carry the Judgments Consciences and Wills of all men along in obedience to their Tyrannical Pride and Lust and Interest they stir up Princes and States to serve them by the Sword and Murder and Persecute their own Subjects and raise bloody Wars against their Neighbours to force them to obey these proud Seducers Yea and if Kings and States be wiser than thus to be made their Hangmen or bloody Executioners to the ruine of their best Subjects and their own Everlasting Infamy and Damnation they stir up the foolish part of the Subjects against such Rulers and in a word they will give the World no peace So that I am past all doubt that the Ten Heathen Persecutions so much cryed out of was but a small matter as against the Christians Blood in comparison of what hath been done by this Tyrannical Clergy And the cruelest Magistrates still seem to come short of them in cruelty and seldom are very bloody or persecuting but when a worldly or proud Clergy stirs them up to it And all the Heresies that ever sprang up in the Church do seem to have done less harm on one side than by pretences of Unity Order and Government they have done on the other O how unspeakably have been and still are the Churches Sufferings by a proud and worldly Clergy and by mens abuse of pretended Learning and Authority 5. I will add yet one more considerable mischief that is that your unholiness and carnal minds for all your Learning corrupteth your judgments and greatly hindereth you from receiving many excellent truths and inclineth you to many mortal errours To instance in some particulars 1. About the Attributes and Government of God a bad man is inclined to doubt of Gods particular Providence his holy Truth and Justice and to think God is such a one as he would have him to be Whereas they that have the love of God and goodness have his Attributes as it were written on their Hearts that he is Good and Wise and Holy and Just and True they know by an Experimental certain knowledge which is to them like Nature and Life it self Joh. 17.3 Hos 2.20 Psal 34.8 c. 2. The very truth of the Gospel and Mystery of Redemption is far hardlier believed by a man that never felt his need of Christ nor ever had the operations of that Spirit on his Soul which are its Seal than by them that have the witness in themselves and have found Christ actually save them from their sins Who are regenerated by this holy Seed and nourished by this Milk. 1 Joh. 5.10 11 12. 1 Pet. 1.22 23. and 1 Pet. 2.2 3. Yea the very truth of our Souls Immortality and the Life and Glory to come is far hardlier believed by them who feel no inclination to sucâ— a future Glory but only a propensity to this present Life and the interest and pleasures of it than by them that have a Treasure a Home a Heart and a Conversation in Heaven and that long for nearer Communion with God and that have the Earnest and First-fruits of Heaven within them Math. 6.20 21. Phil. 3.20 21. Col. 4.1 2 3 4. Rom. 8.17 18 19 20. 4. The evil of sin in general and consequently what is sin in particular is hardlier known by a man that loveth it and would not have it to be sin than by one that hateth it and loveth God and holiness above all They that love the Lord hate evil 5. Most Controversies about the Nature of Grace are hardlier understood by them that have it not than by them that have it as a new Nature in them And consequently what kind of Persons are to be well thought of as the Children of God The Pharisees were strict and yet haters of Christ and Christians Many Preach and Write for godliness that yet when it cometh to a particular judgment deride the godly as Hypocrites or Superstitious 6. In cases about the worship of God a carnal Mind how Learned soever is apt to relish most an outside carnal ceremonious way and to be all for a dead formality or else for a proud ostentation of their own Wits Opinions and Parts or some odd singularity that sets them up to be admired as some extraordinary Persons or teacheth their own Consciences so to flatter them When a Spiritual Man is for worshipping God though with all decent Externals yet in Spirit and in Truth and in the most understanding sincere and humble manner and yet with the greatest joy and praise Rom. 8.16 26 c. 7. Specially in the work of self-judging how hard a work have the most Learned that are ungodly truely to know themselves When Learning doth but help their Pride to blind them And yet none so apt to say as the Pharisees John 9.10 Are we blind also And to hate those that honour them not as erroneously as they do themselves And therefore Augustine so lamenteth the misery of the Clergy and saith that the unlearned take Heaven by violence when the Learned are thrust down to Hell with all their learning who are prouder and more self-ignorant Hypocrites in the World expecting that all should bow to them and reverence them and cry them up as wise and excellent men than the Unholy Worldly Fleshly Clergy 8. And in every case that themselves are much concerned in their Learning will not keep them from the most blind in Justice Let the case be but such as their honour or profit or relations and friends are much concerned in and they presently take all Right to be on their side and all these to be honest men that are for them and
Love of God You say if such and such men be suffered this and that disorder and inconvenience will follow But is it a greater thing than Love that you would maintain Is it a greater evil than the destruction of Love that you would avoid Did not Christ prefer mercy before Sabbath rest and before the avoiding familiarity with sinners Pretend nothing against Love that is not better than Love. Obj. But what is this to the Love of God which the Text speaketh of Ans As God is here seen as in a Glass so is he loved He that Loveth not his Brother whom he seeth daily how shall he Love God whom he never saw He that saith he loveth God and hateth his Brother is a Liar What you do to his Brethren you do as to Christ If you can find as full a promise of Salvation to those that observe your Canons Ceremonies Orders or are of your Opinion and Sect as I can shew you for them that Love Christ and his Servants then prefer the former before Love. I know that the Love and Good of Church and State and of many must be preferred before the love and good of few But take heed of their hypocrisie that make these also inconsistent when they are not and make publick good and peace a meer pretence for their Persecutions on one side or their Schisms on the other Love is so amiable to nature itself that few of its Enemies oppose it but under pretence of its own interest and name It is as in love to the Church to mens Souls that the Inquisition hath murdered so many and the Laws de Hereticis comburendis have been made and Executed But this Burning Hanging Tormenting and undoing kind of Love needeth very clear proof to make good its name and pretences before impartial men will take it for love indeed Whatever good you seem to do by the detriment of Love to God and Man you will find it will not bear your charges Chap. 18. Exh. Bend all your Studies and Labours to the exercise and increase of Love both of God and Man and all good works THE greatest best and sweetest work should have the greatest diligence This great Commandment must be obeyed with the greatest care The work of love must be the work of our whole life If you cannot learn to pray and preach no nor to follow a worldly trade without study and much Exercise how think you to be proficients in the love of God without them Do this well and all is done O happy Souls that are habituated and daily exercised in this work Whose new nature and life and study and business is holy Love. 1. How Divine how High and Noble is this life To live in a humble friendship with God and all his holy ones All animals naturally Love their like and converse according to their Love And men as men have as much sociable Love to men as the love of sin and inordinate self-love will allow them And they that truly love God and Holiness and Saints do shew that they have some connatural suitableness to these excellent Objects of their love Nothing more aptly denominateth any man Divine and Holy than Divine and Holy Love. How else should Souls have Communion with God His common Influx all creatures receive In him all live and move and have their being But when his Love kindleth in us a reflecting Love this is felicity itself Yea it is much nobler than our felicity For though our felicity consist in Loving God and being Beloved of him yet it is a far more excellent thing by reason that God is the Object of our love than by reason that it is our felicity Gods interest advanceth it more than ours And though they are not separable yet being distinguishable we should love God far more as God and perfect goodness in himself than as he or this love is our own felicity 2. This life of love is the true improvement of all Gods Doctrines Ordinances Mercies Afflictions and other Providences whatsoever For the use of them all is to lead us up to Holy Love and to help us in the daily exercise of it What is the Bible else written for but to teach us to Love and to exercise the fruits of Love What came Christ from Heaven for but to demonstrate and reveal Gods love and loveliness to man and by reconciling us to God and freely pardoning all our sins and promising us both Grace and Glory to shew us those motives which should kindle Love and to shew us that God is most suitable and worthy of our Love and to fill us with the Spirit of love which may give us that which he commandeth us What is it that we read books for and hear Sermons for but to kindle and exercise holy Love What joyn we for in the Sacred worship of the assemblies but that in an united flame of holy love we might all mount up in praise to Jehovah What is the Lords day separated to but the tidings of love the Sufferings Victories and Triumphs of our Saviours love the Tasts and Prospects of Gods love to us and the lively and joyful exercise of ours to him and to each other What use are the Sacraments of but that being entertained at the most wonderful Feast of Love we should tast its sweetness and pour out the grateful sense of it in holy Thanksgiving and Praise and the exercise of uniting love to one another What are Church Societies or Combinations for but the loving Communion of Saints Which the primitive Christians expressed by selling all and living in a Community of love and stedfastly continuing in the Apostles Doctrine and Fellowship and breaking of bread and Prayer What are all Gods mercies for but that as by Love tokens we should tast that he is Love and Good and should by that tast be inclined to returns of Love Nay what are Civil Societies but loving Communions if used according to their natures Did they not love each other so many Bees would never hive and work together nor so many Pigeons dwell peaceably in one Dove-house nor fly together in so great flocks What is the whole Christian Faith for but the doctrine of holy love believed for the kindling and exercise of our love what is faith itself but the bellows of love What is the excellency of all good works and gifts and endowments but to be the exercises of love to God and man and the incentives of our brethrens Love Without love all these are dead Carkasses and as nothing and without it we our selves are as nothing yea though we give all that we have to the poor or give our bodies like martyrs to be burnt or could speak with the tongue the Orthodoxness and Elegancy of Angels we were but as sounding brass and as a tinkling Cymbal James knew what he said when he said that Faith without works is dead because without love it is dead which those works are but the
body or the fruit of 3. This life of Love is the perfection of mans faculties as to their intended end and use As all the operations of the lower faculties Vegetative and Sensitive are subordinate to the use and operations of the Intellectual part which is the higher so all the Acts of the Intellect itself are but subservient and Dirigent to the Will or Love and Practice The understanding is but the Eye by which the Soul seeth what to love and choose or refuse and what to do or to avoid Love is the highest act of our highest faculty And complacency in the highest infinite good is the highest of all the acts of Love. This is the State of the Soul in its Ripeness and Mellow Sweetness when it is delightful embracing its most desired object and is blessed in the fruition of its ultimate end All other Graces and Duties are Servants unto this They are the parts indeed of the same new creature but the Hands and Feet are not the Heart 4. For Love is the very foretast of Heaven the beginning of that felicity which shall there be perfect In Heaven all Saints shall be as One and all united to their glorious Head as he is united to the Father disparities allowed Joh. 17.24 And what more uniteth Souls than Love Heaven is a state of Joyful Complacence and what is that but Perfect Love The Heavenly work is perfect Obedience and Praise And what are these but the actions and the breath of Love 5. Therefore they that live this life of Love are fitter to die and readier for Heaven than any others Belief is a foresight of it but Love is a foretast the first fruits and our earnest and pledge He that Loveth God and Christ and Angels and Saints and perfect Holiness and Divine Praise is ready for Heaven as the Infant in the womb is ready for birth at the fulness of his time But other Christians whose Love is true but little to their fears and damped by darkness and too much love of the body and this world do go as it were by untimely birth to Heaven and those in whom the love of the body is predominant come not thither in that state at all The God of Grace and Glory will meet that Soul with his felicitating embracements who panteth and breatheth after him by Love And as Love is a kind of Union with the Heavenly Society the Angels who love us better than we love them will be ready to convey such Souls to God. As the living dwell not in the graves among the dead and the dead are buried from among the living so holy Souls who have this life of Love cannot be among the miserable in Hell nor the dead in sin among the blessed 6. Therefore this life of holy Love doth strengthen our Belief it self Strong Reasons that are brought for the Immortality of Souls and the future Glory are usually lost upon unsanctified hearers yea with the Doctors themselves that use them When they have perswaded others that there is a Heaven for Believers and that by Arguments in themselves unanswerable they have not perswaded their own hearts but the predominant Love of Flesh and Earth doth byass their understandings and maketh them think that they can confute themselves Their gust and inclination prevaileth against Belief And therefore the greatest Scholars are not always the strongest Believers But holy Love when it is the Habit of the Soul as it naturally ascendeth so it easily believeth that God that Glory to which it doth ascend The gust and experience of such a Soul assureth it that it was made for Communion with God and that even in this life such Communion is obtained in some degree and therefore it easily believeth that it is Redeemed for it and that it shall perfectly enjoy it in Heaven for ever Though Glory be here but seminally in Grace and this world be but as the womb of that better world for which we hope yet the life that is in the Embrio and seed is a confirming Argument for the perfection which they tend to O that men knew what holy Love doth signifie and foretel As the seed or Embrio of a man becometh not a Beast or Serpent so he that hath the habitual Love of God and Heaven and Holiness is not capable of Hell no more than the Lovers of worldliness and sensuality are capable of present Communion with God and of his Glory God doth not draw mens Hearts to Himself nor kindle Heavenly desires in them in vain He that hath the Spirit of Christ hath the Witness in himself that Christ and his Promises of Life are true 1 John 5.10 11 12. And what is this Spirit but the Habit of Divine and Heavenly Love and its concomitants May I but feel my Soul inflamed with the fervent Love of the Heavenly Perfection surely it will do more to put me quite out of doubt of the certainty of that blessed state than all Arguments without that Love can do 7. And holy Love will be the surest Evidence of our Sincerity which many old Writers meant that called it The Form of Faith and other graces As means as means are informed by their aptitudinal respect unto the End so Love as it is the Final Act upon God the Final Object thus informeth all subordinate Graces and Duties as they are means And as all Morality is subjected in the Will as the proper primary seat and is in the Intellect executive power and senses only by participation so far as their acts are imperate by the Will so Love and Volition being really the same thing it may accordingly be said that nothing is any further acceptable to God than it is Good and nothing is morally Good any further than it is voluntary or willed and to be willed as Good as End or as Means and to be Loved are words that signifie the same No preaching praying fasting c. no fear of punishment no belief of the Truth c. will prove us sincere and justified any further than we can prove that all this either cometh from or is accompanied with Love that is with a Consenting Will. With the heart man believeth unto righteousness Rom. 10. And If thou believe with all thy heart thou mayest be baptized saith Philip to the Eunuch Acts 8. My Son give me thy heart is Wisdom's invitation All 's nothing without the heart that is without willingness or Love. They that love most are sureliest forgiven and have most holiness or grace how unskifull soever they may be in their expressions The sealing Spirit of Adoption is the Spirit of Love and the Abba Father and the unexpressed groans of filial Love are understood and acceptable to God. A Loving Desire after God and Holiness is a better Evidence than the most taking Tongue or largest Knowledge 8. This life of Holy Love will make all our Religion and Obedience easy to us It will give us an alacrity to the performance and a
that he will love me who hath loved me while I was his Enemy and called me home when I went astray and mercifully received me when I returned Who hath given me a life full of precious mercies and so many experiences of his love as I have had Who hath so often signified his love to my Conscience So often heard my prayers in distress and hath made all my life notwithstanding my sins a continual wonder of his mercies O unthankful Soul if all this will not persuade thee of the love of him that gave it I that can do little good to any one yet have abundance of friends and hearers who very easily believe that I would do them good were it in my power and never fear that I should do them harm And shall it be harder to me to think well of Infinite Love and Goodness than for my neighbours to trust me and think well of such a wretch as I What abundance of love-tokens have I yet to shew which were sent me from Heaven to perswade me of my Fathers love and care 7. Shall I not easily believe and trust his love who hath promised me eternal glory with his Son with all his holy ones in Heaven Who hath given me there a great Intercessor to prepare Heaven for me and me for it and there appeareth for me before God Who hath already brought many millions of blessed Souls to that glory who were once as bad and low as I am And who hath given me already the Seal the Pledge the Earnest and the First-fruits of that Felicity Therefore O my Soul if men will not know thee if thou were hated of all men for the cause of Christ and Righteousness If thine uprightness be imputed to thee as an odious crime If thou be judged by the blind malignant World according to its gall and interest If friends misunderstand thee If Faction and every evil cause which thou disownest do revile thee and rise up against thee It is enough it is absolutely enough that thou art known of God God is All and All is nothing that is against him or without him If God be for thee who shall be against thee How long hath he kept thee safe in the midst of dangers and given thee peace in the midst of furious Rage and Wars He hath known how to bring thee out of trouble and to give thee tolerable ease while thou hast carried about thee night and day the usual causes of continual torment His loving kindness is better than life Psal 63.3 but thou hast had a long unexpected life through his loving kindness In his favour is life Psal 30. And life thou hast had by and with his favour Notwithstanding thy sin while thou canst truly say thou lovest him he hath promised that all shall work together for thy good Rom. 8.28 And he hath long made good that promise Only ask thy self again and again as Christ did Peter whether indeed thou love him And then take his love as thy full and sure and everlasting portion which will never fail thee though flesh and Heart do fail For thou shalt dwell in God and God in thee for evermore 1 Joh. 4.12 15 16. Amen FINIS A Catalogue of Books Printed for and Sold by Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chapel A Christian Directory or Body of practical Divinity 1. Christian Ethicks 2. Oeconomicks 3. Ecclesiasticks 4. Politicks Resolving multitudes of Cases on each Subject By Rich. Baxter Folio Mr. Baxters Catholick Theology Folio Mr. Baxters Methodus Theologiae Christianae Folio A Third Volume of Sermons Preached by the late Reverend and Learned Tho. Manton D.D. In two parts Folio A Hundred Select Sermons on several Texts of Fifty on the Old Testament and Fifty on the New. Folio Choice and Practical Expositions on four Select Psalms Folio Both by the Reverend and Learned Tho. Horion D.D. late Minister of St. Hellens London The true Prophecies and Prognostications of Michael Nostrodamus Physician to Henry the Second Francis the Second and Charles the Ninth Kings of France and one of the Best Astronomers that ever were Folio Sixty one Sermons Preached mostly on publick occasions whereof five formerly Printed by Adam Littleton D.D. Rector of Chelsea in Middlesex Folio The Novels and Tales of the Renowned John Boccasio the first Refiner of Italian Prose containing a hundred curious Novels Folio A Key to open Scripture Metaphors in two Volumes By Benjamin Keach and Tho. Delawn Folio The Saints Everlasting Rest or a Treatise of the Blessed State of the Saints in their Enjoyment of God in Glory 4 to The English Nonconformity as under King Charles II. and King James II. Truly Stated and Argued By Richard Baxter 4to A discourse concerning Liturgies By the Late Learned and Judicious Divine Mr. David Clarkson 8vo A discourse of the saving Grace of God. By the late Reverend and Learned David Clarkson Minister of the Gospel 8vo The Vision of the Wheels seen by the Prophet Ezekiel Opened and Applyed Partly at the Merchants Lecture in Broad-street and partly at Stepney on January 31. 1689. being the Day of Solemn Thanksgiving to God for the great Deliverance of this Kingdom from Popery and Slavery By his then Highness the most Illustrious Prince of Orange Whom God raised up to be the glorious Instrument thereof By Matthew Mead Pastor of a Church of Christ at Stepney 4to A Call to the Unconverted to Turn and Live. 12mo The right Method for settled Peace of Conscience and Spiritual Comfort 8vo The Life of Faith in every State. 4to Alderman Ashursts Funeral Sermon 4to A Key for Catholicks to open the juglings of the Jesuits The first part of answering all their common Sophisms The second against the Soveraignty and necessity of General Councils 4to The certainty of Christianity without Popery 8vo Full and easy satisfaction which is the true Religion Transubstantiation shamed 8vo Naked Popery Answering Mr. Hutchinson 4to Which is the true Church A full Answer to his Reply proving that the General Councils and the Popes Primacy were but in one Empire 4to The History of Bishops and their Councils abridged and of the Popes 4to The Cure of Church Divisions 8to A full Treatise of Episcopacy shewing what Episcopacy we own and what is in the English Diocesan frame for which we dare not swear never to endeavour any alteration of it in our places 4to A search for the English Schismatick comparing the Canoneers and Nonconformists 4to An Answer to Mr. Dodwell and Dr. Sherlock confuting an Universal-humane Church Soveraignty Aristocratical and Monarchical as Church Tyranny and Popery and defending Dr. Iz. Barrows excellent Treatise 4to FINIS Had I been supposed to have written this Book to hide my sloth and ignorance men would not have neglected my Methodus Theologie and Catholick Theology thro' meer sloth and saying That it 's too high and hard for them A Country-man having sent his Son