the subversion of his Gospel when his infinite understanding could baffle their arguments and his visible Miracles rebuke their folly in setting up any Doctrine for Divine that contradicted what he delivered certainly much more now when the Gospel is delivered and Miracles for its confirmation are ceased And men are not now to expect new but to believe the old Nay when the Gospel it self is often perverted to evil designs and under a pretence of mens Offering to God they Sacrifice to the Devil The Church is now and our Religion in it like a Ship at Sea toss'd in a storm and through the Providence of God we are put into a Creek to careen and repair Let us examine therefore all the leaky parts of the Vessel and supply all the defects of Masts or rigging before we put to Sea again And mind what Passengers we take in that they may neither blow us up nor sink us As the Apostle warns the Ephesians so must I admonish you that no man deceive you with vain words Ephes 5.6 As if any wickedness by what authority soever coloured could free those who teach or practise it from the revenge of Heaven For because of these things saies the Apostle cometh the wrath of God on the children of disobedience Here indeed in this world good men frequently suffer the same temporal evils with the bad Because being in the same community and the offence being that of the whole Society when the greater part become vicious the Wheat is sindged by those flames that burn the chaff For the separation of these is not compleated till a future state renders justice exact and glorious And communities must be punished here because in the other life these shall cease and every man bear his own burden It becomes us therefore since we must every one then answer for our selves to examine well our belief and practice and not to deceive our own souls in being led by the false principles of another Hence is it that S. Paul advises that every man examine himself before he partakes at the Lords Table 1 Cor. 11.28 And in the second Epist 13 th Chap. 5 th vers he exhorts men to examine themselves whether they are in the faith and to prove their own selves And that a man should try his own work that he may have rejoycing in himself alone and not in another Because every one shall bear his own burthen Gal. 6.4 5. But yet because many things in Religion are placed beyond the examination of every man whose duty 't is to embrace them I must here lay down some directions and rules to limit such as may be otherwise apt to be extravagant and extend this duty of trying Spirits beyond their own power and capacity And 1. We that discourse of the Christian Religion and are fully convinced that it is true must take it as it is expressed to the world in those Books of Scripture in which it is contained Now these acquaint us that there are some set apart to be Guides to others and therefore distinguish the Church into Pastors and people Into those that are Guides and those that are to be conducted by them Into learned and unlearned But because all rules guide men no farther than they are designed To render these proper and effectual all collateral and subordinate helps are to be used in the application of the Rule We must take therefore the help of the Learned and rely on their honesty and skill in those things which an inferiour Education without such Miracles as are not now reasonably to be expected cannot capacitate men to reach Nor can they pass a judgement upon those things which they have not the advantage of knowing Thus that the Scriptures are truly Translated must be taken for granted by those that cannot understand the Originals And the Books which we receive as the Rule of Faith and directions for mens lives must be supposed to have been written by those inspired men whose names they bear among those that have not leisure nor skill enough to prove them to be so by any argument or authority And when these principles are setled 2. The Scriptures having some points more difficult to be understood we must farther make use of our Guides and those whom our Saviour has appointed over us to interpret to us such points in Religion which we are not capable of unridling our selves and not adventure above our strength in judging things which we have not learned This becomes the natural modesty of mankind and is more especially agreeable to that humility of mind and those docile dispositions which become the Gospel The contrary humours and actions of men are what make so many Schisms in the Church and lay them open to the errors and impostures of those who out of ignorance or design easily prevail upon and lead the simple In plain things such as most of the duties of Religion are every man of an ordinary capacity may well be able to judge for himself But if they will enter into Controversie especially such as have puzled the learned 't is no wonder that they are led into mistakes and their own obstinacy added to their ignorance makes their error become an Heresie Or if men will proceed in those things of which they might be capable of understanding by false measures and courses which are irregular not relying at all on those helps and aids which reason dictates and God hath both appointed and allowed 'T is no wonder then that they impose upon themselves by false reasoning instead of true or that they may be fit to receive the impressions of others when designing men impose upon them by any fallacious and alluring pretensions 3. Even in plain cases when private men that are not distinguished by any publick character judge for themselves they ought to confine their opinions to themselves and permit them only to have an influence on their own actions they having no more power to impose them on others than other private men have to impose theirs on them For all private men being in this respect equal none has authority to trouble others but they must leave them to their own reason and choice which is the same liberty that they claim themselves by vertue of the natural priviledge of men 4 It must be supposed antecedently to the trial of the Doctrines of men that pretend to inspiration that under the same claim and title some are true and some false For if all were true there would be no need of trying Spirits But we must contrary to the Apostles caution believe all who confidently affirm that they are inspired from above Yet our own experience sufficiently informs us that opposite Doctrines at the same time have been and are still vented in the world with the same confidence with the same pretension And we know that the parts of a contradiction cannot at the same time be true And therefore one being false must by search and trial be
of the Law So the Church among the Christians has the Gospel committed to her custody and has a power to determine in indifferent matters To order all the circumstances in Religion for decency order and edification and Authority to restrain such Controversies as tend to make a Schism and separation and dissolve that unity which Christians are frequently exhorted to keep So that although the Church be a witness and keeper of Holy Writ yet as it ought not to decree any thing against the same So besides the same ought it not to enforce any thing to be believed for necessity of salvation as our Church declares in her twentieth Article I shall not deny nor could I without singular pride and Arrogance but that Fathers and Councils and all Congregations of holy and judicious Christians much more Bishops and Governours of the Church treating about a point in Religion attempted to be introduced a new or being old is controverted in the world are with great deference to be attended to For every mans reason will urge this obligation to himself That his own judgement is rendered suspected when it opposes the common and united determination of persons that cannot justly be reproached with want either of skill or honesty And 't is ordinary for men to mistrust the sight of their own eyes when a multitude of others having the same advantage cannot behold what a single person pretends to see And in Religious affairs and such matters as are of great moment when persons of learning piety and authority in the holy Church of Christ assemble with solemnity and have a real intention to employ with all faithfulness and diligence those parts which God has bless'd and encreased to them by the advantage of a peculiar education and study invoking a Divine influence upon their endeavours to find out the truth and meaning of any difficult and controverted proposition We have great reason to incline to the belief of what these shall deliver for truth Unless the contrary be so apparent to us upon sufficient enquiry that there is no cause of hesitation at all This being the moderate opinion of our own Church we are opposed in it both by the Papist and Fanatick The former asserts that major est autoritas Ecclesiae quam Scripturae That the Authority of the Church is greater than that of the Scripture And that Traditiones sunt pari pietatis affectu cum Scripturis recipiendae Their Traditions are to be received with the same affection and devotion as the Scriptures And truly the latter come not far short of these but as much confine when it is in their power the belief as well as practice of their members to the determination of their Assemblies and little differ from the Roman infallibility in the end and design For if any Churches among our selves do yet affirm as they have formerly declared that the Kirk of Scotland was to be the pattern of their Reformation then I am sure they expect the same submission both in opinion and practice to their Assemblies determinations as a Popish Council do to their Canons or the Pope himself to his Decrees For to the Assembly held at Glasgow 1638 they swore that for judgement and practice they would adhere to the Determination of it though perhaps they knew not what it would determine But to leave the persons of those that stretch the power of a Church beyond the Authority God has given her There are three Reasons which plainly shew that any Church or Council of men cannot lay down any Propositions which derive their utmost Authority from themselves that may be the ultimate Rules by which the Doctrines and Opinions of others are to be judged 1. Because God to whom our Religion relates has appointed a rule that being superiour to the inventions of men must bind their fancies and opinions in these things and determine their Faith with those general actions that are deem'd Religious To what purpose were the Scriptures given to the World if they were not to be Rules and Directions to men Nay God being the Creator of all things and in reason claiming the Supreme Sovereignty over the things which he has made It is in his power to impose what Laws he will upon the world and 't is most suitable to his goodness to reveal them That men may not err for want of knowledge nor their thoughts contradict the will of their Maker Now this he has done in the holy Scriptures which are sufficiently authorized by his own Sanction in that Miracles attended their first publication which are as it were the Broad Seal of Heaven that prove them Gods own Act and Deed when they no way contradict the natural Notions and the prime foundations of the Religion of men The Scriptures therefore being thus given and confirmed to us must either be our Supreme Direction and an infallible guide in matters of Religion or else they were deliver'd to no purpose or to cheat and delude mankind The former consists not with the wisdom of God and the latter would contradict both his goodness and his truth All the difficulty then will be whether this Rule is sufficient to guide us in the Doctrine and practice of Religion so that we need not any new inspiration or any rules to be superadded beyond the sence of Scripture it self to conduct men in their way to Heaven And consequently whether we may by them judge of all Doctrines and Opinions without the help of the Roman infallibility or what is the same in another dress the unerring Spirit of the Enthusiast But admitting the Scriptures to be of Divine Authority they themselves are a sufficient testimony of their own perfection whilst they declare that they proceeded from Divine inspiration to be profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect throughly furnish'd unto all good works 2 Tim. 3.16 2. No Canons or Decrees of whatever bears the name of Church or Council can be a Rule of trying Doctrines in Religion so as to be ultimate and Supreme Because all the conclusions and propositions of these are themselves the Doctrines and Opinions of men either with or without the pretence of inspiration and all Doctrines are to be tried themselves For this must be included as I have sufficiently proved in S. John's direction try the Spirits whether they are of God That therefore which is subject to an higher Tribunal cannot be it self the highest nor what is appointed solely to aid us in our trial and examination of Opinions nor the utmost Rule by which we must examine them Lastly If the Doctrines of the Prophets and Apostles of old nay of Christ himself the Saviour of the World were lyable to the examinations of men it being natural to mankind to try the truth of any Propositions before they believe them Then certainly no assembly of men can now in reason pretend such authority to impose their own
Doctrines upon the World as Rules for all to submit unto without any farther examination And if they must be examined at all it must be by something of greater credit and authority in the World Now that the Prophets of old were to be tryed whether true or false is plain to any that will give themselves leisure to consider not only that otherwise there could be no such thing as a false Prophet in the determination of men true and false having the same evidence but that God himself gave directions under the Old Testament how to know the one from the other Deut. 13.1 and chap. 18.22 which rules had been vain and insignificant if by these men were not to try them Hence is it that those that attribute great authority to Christian General Councils do not think their Canons obligatory unless the things included in them bind antecedently by their own nature or a superiour Law till they are received in those Nations and Churches to which they are sent 2. As the Doctrines of the Prophets were to be examined so were also those of the Apostles Hence was it that S. Paul who was extraordinarily called to be an Apostle God himself supplying him with Unction and Ordination by giving him authority from Heaven and our Saviour descending by an apparition from the Clouds to invest him with dignity and power Hence it was I say that this great Apostle in his Call dignified beyond his Brethren commends the Bereans Acts 17.11 because they searched and examined his Doctrines whether they were true or false by those Scriptures they had already received and by comparing his Doctrines with the Natural Religion of Mankind with what our Saviour and other Apostles preached and most probably with the Scriptures of the Old Testament that they might be assured that what he delivered was consonant to that which was there exhibited concerning the Messias And therefore these were of more pliable and ingenuous and gentile tempers than those of Thessalonica who were more regardless of these concerns as S. Chrysostom comments upon this Text. 3. The Doctrines even of our Saviour himself though never man spake like him were lyable to examination by those that heard before they entertain'd them And certainly if any might recommend propositions upon his own authority he might who was the Wisdom of the Father in whom all fulness dwelt Nay the fulness of the Godhead was as it were inclosed in his own body Yet he bids the Jews to search the Scriptures and to consider how well his Person and his Doctrines agreed with the antient Predictions in relation to him and accordingly either to receive or reject him For these sayes he are they which testifie of me And in them ye think ye have eternal life John 5.39 So that it is plainly evident from the beginning that no Doctrines under pretence of what inspiration soever were to be received by men without examination But as those of the Apostles were to be compared with what our Saviour delivered his again to be measured not only by his own divine authority but this also was to be proved by the Law and the Prophets and the Prophets themselves by those Rules which God had given to the Jews to judge by So is there not reason that the doctrines of men pretending to Christianity under what authority soever they are published should still be examined by a superiour Rule even by what the primitive Planters of our Religion have left for our perusal and direction viz. the doctrine of Christ and his holy Apostles which priviledge whatever Romanists plead for themselves to hide from or deny to others is the greatest cruelty and irreligion Enough it is to render any doctrine suspected that thus hides and runs to corners and avoids all the tryals of men And we have great reason to mistrust those who take away mens judgement of discretion valuing them only like Beasts that perish whilst they are not perswaded but whip'd to their work and many times cripled under their burden when yet they know not what they carry Thus I have though more largely than my first thoughts designed not only stated the use and authority of the Church in her Synods and Councils in the examination of Doctrines and Opinions but shewed you withal that as their Decrees are not infallible so neither are they the highest Rules by which we judge of the Doctrines of men Had it been otherwise when our Saviour came to plant his Gospel the infallibility of the Jewish Sanhedrim had justly condemned him for an Impostor and all the Christian Religion deliver'd and authorized by him had proved only a Fable and a Dream CHAP. VII THe most considerable Adversaries that oppose this way of stating the Churches Authority in determining points of Faith seem to many to be the Romanists and therefore this Chapter will briefly confute their high pretences to a strange Infallibility by which they have introduced as strange Doctrines into the Christian Religion And indeed there was never a Law yet so plainly penn'd but that the inventions of men who make it their business to render Laws both Divine and humane subservient to their Secular interests will blunt its edge and endeavour to make it their own property by altering or over-urging its design The same use has been made of Texts of Scripture by the two Opponents of the Church of England enlarging or diminishing the Infallibility promised to the Apostles that it may the better countenance their own pretences Some restraining the promises expressing the holy Spirits miraculous assistance in the guiding the Sacred Pen-men of the Gospel to the Roman Church And others extending it to every man of their own persuasion or at least to the Ministers and Elders of their Churches I shall here therefore spend a few leaves to shew that the Papists can have no ground in the Scripture to build their infallible determinations on nor any reason at all to maintain their infallibility I know not how it comes to pass that other Churches must forfeit their interests in the promises of the Gospel that the Romanists may proudly arrogate them to themselves Or any reason why the right of others must sneak or stoop to their bold usurpations As if their Church could not well be Head of the World unless we allow it to have all the Brains too and dash them out of the Sculls of others to fill their head till their understandings become incomprehensibly infallible that all the race of Christians in the world may receive Rules only from them and give up the natural freedom of their minds to enlarge the Pope's Empire and Authority As if they only were like the Jews of old to whom were committed the Oracles of God And these they might either keep to themselves or allow them to others as they see occasion This makes a reproof to them like Rebellion against a Prince a crime so great that nothing but death can sufficiently expiate Among them
unto swift destruction 2 Pet. 2.1 And if there were not great caution to be used in relation to mens Principles and Belief Faith would not have been made the condition of the Gospel nor the qualification to justifie a sinner 3. By a strict examination of Principles and Doctrines we may preserve the peace of our own consciences For if conscience in things pertaining to Religion consists in the agreement of our notions with the will of God revealed unto men Then the trial of Opinions under whatever pretence they seem to be conveyed by this rule and accordingly either rejecting or receiving them must much conduce to the peace and quiet of our own minds which are regulated by the same rule by which we examine Doctrines and Opinions And can there be a greater advantage to men on Earth than full satisfaction and a quiet conscience settled upon an unalterable and firm foundation Contentment in the enjoyments of this world is that which makes the meanest Peasant as happy as his Prince and creates a level amongst mankind How much greater delight then must that satisfaction advance men to which relates to things of an everlasting concernment that causes the pangs of death ro vanish and the fears of Hell and torment to depart that carries us with all steadiness and peace through all the billows and storms of the World into that blessed Haven of rest and tranquillity where we shall know no trouble any more This is enjoying a perpetual Feast a pleasure beyond the greatest sensuality exceeding what men can otherwise possess or as much as invent or think upon For what are then all the concernments or advantages of the world when in matters of Religion I am fix'd and setled If I live in misery it cannot be long nature will soon have spun her thread if no accident cuts it off And if having my Religion fixed upon such Principles which cannot deceive me I regulate my actions by their directions death must then be welcome to me because it gives me the fruits of my hope and enters me into the joy of my Master who from earth having suffered an antecedent separation of soul and body entered visibly into his own glory and has made a passage to the same for those who live in the belief of what he has revealed and the practice of that Religion which in fulness of faith and indisputable assurance they have had a well grounded confidence in 4. This trial and examination of the Doctrines and Opinions of others will make men endeavour to live without disturbance in that Society of which they are members Nothing disturbs the Government of the world so much as doubtings and disputes about Religion But this when found out by a regular enquiry and truly established in the minds of men gives the greatest and most effectual checks to all the breaches made upon enclosures and those irregularities and invasions that are committed upon the properties of men This forbids the Prince to be a Tyrant and admonishes the Subjects to be obedient to the Laws to become Subject for conscience sake and not to rebel against the powers of this world lest they receive damnation in the next Rom. 13. But when men are apt to entertain the furious Principles of others when conveyed to them under the specious pretence of Spirit and inspiration With what ease are they ensnared when they are either lazy or refuse to examine There is nothing then so ruinous to Society nothing that puts men more into confusion nothing that dissolves the bands of Community and breaks Order into a Chaos but they will attempt under the covert of Religion and conclude they do service unto God when they are immediately offering to the Devil For the sence of Religion being the greatest tye upon mankind what will they not attempt or suffer when their actions let them be never so full of villany shall under pretence of the authority or inspirations of others be adopted into the number of vertues and heroick acts and their sufferings be advanced to Martyrdom Justice shall be violated when it shall be the act of Religion to gain a Crown from the head of him that rightly wears it And then they will make a way to the accomplishment of their design though they pave it throughout with the carkasses of the slain But if such Principles that ruine Religion under its name are well examined and submitted to the trial of reason and the Scriptures and new inspirations are measured by those that are old We shall easily conclude that such a Doctrine cannot come from God that teaches men to do the works of the Devil nor the Principles that tend to confusion among mankind ever proceed from a God of Order But they are upon the first audit to be damn'd to the place from whence they took their original and must be concluded to come from Hell which thus fire and consume the world And so you see that the several advantages which accrew to men upon trial of those that pretend to inspiration may be so many incouragements to the thing and so many arguments to recommend the duty to all those who by the Devil and his agents do not love to be led captive Finally To what purpose were faculties given to us that are able to judge and according to judgment to make our choice in matters of Religion if by a pretence of any ones inspiration the natural powers of our souls must cease or else be rendred useless They being suspended by a pretension of authority that without examination cannot appear to us to be Divine Nay why should the Apostle impose such a task upon us which without the use of every mans particular faculties becomes impossible No choice will then be left in Religion to the generality of men But it will become a necessary thing and we are bound like machins to move alwayes by the impulse of another nay quite contrary to what we were obliged before if the pretender to inspiration change his note and playes to us on a contrary string Would it not be strange for any man to preach to and exhort stones Or argue to one that were not capable of any impression Or could S. John be so unreasonable as to impose the trial of Spirits on men that either have no faculties to examine or have their senses tied up by a superiour power Must all false Prophets be rejected and is there a necessity of mens believing what Doctrines have been revealed from Heaven and must they not yet try the Spirits and use their own faculties to examine them To deny this may indeed be suitable to some Doctrines of the Church of Rome Yet it cannot but be plain to a Protestant or any other reasonable man that has not his faculties given him in vain that such arguing and such belief serve only to justifie imposture under the pretence of truth and to blind mens eyes that they may be led into a ditch This is to
they were commanded by God to be worn to remember them of the Law as well as to difference the Jews from other Nations and to prevent Idolatry as often as they look'd upon these Fringes which the God of Israel commanded them to wear Numb 15.38 Scrupulous were these men in relation to all the circumstances of Religion but they regarded not so much the substance of it nor what these things were ordain'd to signifie and represent We read of some in the Apostles dayes that had a form of Godliness who yet denied the power thereof 2. Tim. 3.4 And this continues still in the World and will so long as Religion is capable of being vailed with hypocrisie and one man cannot discern the inside of another 'T is but being strict in outward appearance and a wicked man may be accounted a Saint and if open and scandalous sins be avoided mens inside may be full of rottenness and corruption and they be canonized still Thus the Devil may be taken for an Angel of light if he can but hide his malice and his flames And men may cheat their Neighbours commit adultery or secret murder if their actions escape the notice of others and they make not themselves a spectacle to the world This the Ministers of Sathan do like him acting deeds of darkness within whilst yet a Candle is hung out at their doors that are earnest for reformation in other men but do not at all reform themselves only they endeavour to cover those faults which yet they will not strive to amend If they bless God with their mouths they care not if they blaspheme him in their hearts because their business is not to recommend themselves to God but unto those men whom they designingly delude God himself complains of such Atheistical hypocrites that turn things upside down that seek to hide their counsel from the Lord and their works are in the dark They draw near me sayes God with their mouth and with their lips do honour me but have remov'd their heart far from me Isai 29.13 And there is yet sufficient cause of lamenting the sad state of Professors of Christianity who are still beguiled with good words into ill practices and under a pretence of Religion are drawn to renounce it But yet in the midst of such various Principles preached to the World with noise and confidence with great zeal though little reason which therefore as an enemy some disgrace and vilifie they distract the minds of those that are unsetled disturb the peace of all Society both Civil and Religious draw men into Heresie and Schism and every evil work and make them think those Prophets inspired with the breath of God that swell only with their own passion and disgorge themselves in fire and brimstone among mankind And the Doctrines that cause these disorders they manage with such art and such suitable applications and have so many plausible pleas to the World by which they spread them with too much success over the minds of men That it must fully convince us of a necessity to use diligence in our enquiries and to try the Spirits whether they are of God and so much the more because many false Prophets are gone out into the world And thus I have done with the Arguments and Reasons why we should examine the Doctrines of those that come to preach Religion among us let their pretensions of Authority be what they will Though they arise as high as inspiration and aver their Commission to be from Heaven CHAP. VI. I Proceed now to my second Particular proposed about this duty of trying Spirits And that is to give you some Directions how to know when Doctrines propounded as coming from God are indeed revealed from Heaven and the Deliverers to be believed as inspired from above and accordingly to be entertained in the world Now because men are apt sometimes to rely on false characters of trial and there being several marks set up by men of various humours and interests to guide them in their way to Heaven by which they pretend they are able to direct themselves and others and try Doctrines and Opinions I shall make some brief reflections on them that no prejudice may remain to hinder us from embracing the true methods of trying mens Propositions in Religion Especially those who come with so great an authority as inspiration And 1. We meet with many in the world who suppose what they call the Church which they make as narrow and little as they can to be either that into which they ultimately resolve their Faith or at least to have such Authority as to determine all points in Religion and what rules are to be accepted as Divine and therefore by her judgment all Spirits and Doctrines are to be tried and determined But this Guide will many times be uncertain Nay false too if a Society of men called the Church agree upon such Principles as are erroneous which we find a thing not impossible when our present experience may inform us that Rome which would be the only Church and many separate Congregations in the World who yet assume the honour of a Church err in Articles of the Christian Faith and in many wayes of Discipline and Manners And this is no wonder at all when we consider that a Church is a Society of men and that every man is capable of error and that all Councils are managed by votes and these many times are given wrong not only through ignorance or inadvertency but humour and interest so far prevail in the opinions of many that we cannot yield their determinations to be infallible Especially since we often find great Assemblies managed by the tricks and devices of a few whose designs being beyond the reach of the multitude draw them by degrees into the consent to what had they foreseen they would never have yielded Were the promises indeed of an infallible direction from the Spirit of God made to all ages of the Church and tied to the Assemblies which Christians call Councils we could not reasonably dispute their determinations but must obey them But the promises of this nature being confined to the first planters of the Gospel that were to publish an infallible Rule to the world and neither made nor useful to future Generations but only to prove the certainty of the Gospel to which every Christian is to submit both his Faith and Practice it being a rule in all things necessary to salvation The things now ordained by any Church or Society of men whatever authority they may claim above us as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority unless it may be declared that they may be taken out of holy Scripture And therefore General Councils may err and have err'd in things pertaining to God as our Church declares in the twenty first Article 'T is true indeed the Church of the Jews had the Oracles of God committed to them They were custodes legis the keepers
their Governours Opinions enacted into Laws for the true dictates of the Holy Ghost inspiring the Pope or presiding at their Councils and infallibly assisting in their determinations But none of these things taken as they are propounded can possibly be a safe Rule much less the highest conduct in matters of Religion When we shall consider that though they may be helps to judge upon the view of the Rule Yet phancy and opinion may frequently be mistaken for reason illumination Conscience nay the dictates of the holy Spirit it self and according to the common inferences about these matters are so concluded and believed by men that consult their own faculties But this will yet be more evident if we consider 1. That the holy Spirit of God does not in any ages since he inspired those that delivered the Scriptures to be the rule of life either illuminate or direct mankind in the things relating to their eternal peace in any other manner than 1. By those Scriptures allowing the faculties of human nature and the general propositions of Religion among mankind which he inspired the Sacred Pen-men to record 2. By inclining as well as authorizing some men being prepared by education and study to continue a succession of that Ministry which our Saviour appointed to endure to the end of the World to explain the difficulties in Religion unto others And 3. Confirming by a secret and inexplicable operation which is easily believed by all that affirm Gods Grace or Providence and in consequence his Being the propositions contained in the Scriptures unto the minds of men and inclining their faculties to believe and embrace them Which influence is obtained by prayer to him that is of a docil disposition as well as given in our Sacred Baptism till such time as we either resist or renounce it all which shall be more evident before I make an end Now none of these though great priviledges can intitle any to that illumination or immediate guidance which wild men make the rule of their faith and conductor of their actions But they may mistake and be confident in it their own phancy and high opinion proceeding either from thoughtfulness or disposition for immediate motions from the Spirit of God And 2 As for the consciences of men if they mistake them not for phancy opinion or a strong persuasion of their own minds they are nothing but the agreement of our judgements with Gods word for thus much 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imports which is knowledge with another and includes the relation of our understandings to a Rule These are so far therefore from being a rule themselves that they are to be governed by another and cannot be proper consciences without it Being therefore guided by a Superiour Rule they cannot be safe conductors themselves and if conscience as taken by those that plead hardest for it were once allowed its full latitude phancy interest and the humours and impious mistakes of men would pass for conscience and a safe guide and introduce such a medly and mixture in Religion that every one under the covert of this would do what is good in his own eyes even as when there was no King in Israel The Church of Christ would be turned into a Babel and our houses of Prayer into dens of Thieves being fill'd with nothing but Sacriledge and confusion Thirdly Some make such Providence as crowns their opinions with success to be an argument that their opinions are true But to evince the invalidity of this needs no other than this observation That when the same things are covered with a Cloud their Authors punished or the propagation of their tenets becomes improsperous the same men will not admit of the same argument Nor permit others to defend their opinions by the same medium with which they prov'd their own When the Sun for a season shines upon them and the Heavens smile then behold the hand of the Lord is with them But when a prosperous ray refreshes others and they receive not the countenance they had before but have the frowns and discouragements of Superiors Behold now wickedness is seated in high places The holy Seed are led into the Wilderness and persecution attends the Elect of God and Canaanites possess the Holy Land But if success were an argument for inspiration and smiling Providences a rule to judge Doctrines by Numa Pompilius might have had an argument for the inspirations from his Nymph Aegeria and for the truth of his Religion he establish'd among the Romans The Jews might have been lost in the Wilderness and have justified the making their Gods to go before them They had ceased to have the marks of a Church and would not have been the people of the Lord when they were carried into Egypt or Babylon Nay by this they might have justified their condemning the great Messiah and Pilate and the Roman Guards might have had an argument for executing him The Primitive Christians must be condemned and the Apostles inspiration be proved an imposture if a dark Providence be that by which the Doctrines of men are to be judg'd Mahomet must have been deemed a true Prophet when he gathered so many Proselytes in the East And the great Turk be yet as holy as he has been for the most part prosperous in the World Nay Popery it self must then be embraced if the glory and prosperity of opinions must prove them true and success becomes the measure of Religion This is a way to justifie all lucky Usurpations To determine right and wrong by combate and the longest Sword may justly measure out the largest Possession and the property of mankind must submit to power A Rebel then may lawfully possess his Sovereings Throne if he has strength enough to force the brightest Majesty to an exchange And if this principle be fully pursued the men that own it may bow the Knee and say to an Usurper God save the King This will make many times the greatest Villany to have more Authority than Virtue and Innocence and force true Religion to be vanquished by a false Nay he that by this rule is taken for a Prophet to day may be an Impostor to morrow though he continues in the delivery of the same Doctrine Because a man may receive Hosanna's from the multitude and their cry shall shortly be Crucifie him Crucifie him These things are the subject of common observation It was holy Davids long ago And it will be so to the end of the world whatever Jews or Millenaries may dream That the wicked will sometimes be in great power when the righteous hang down their head like a bulrush When the Psalmist spake of the prosperity of the wicked He observ'd for some time that there were no bands in their death but their strength was firm and sound They were not in trouble like other men but plagued less than those that were better Therefore pride compass'd them as a chain and violence covered them as a garment their
upon those heads that are always soft and therefore fit to receive any Who have no notions of things fixed and setled but the images and representations that are the Book in which they read all their Propositions interfere with each other and are either confused or else are crumbled and broken in pieces Besides Religion is of that nature that if we play with it as a thing indifferent or change the true Principles for those that are false We either lose it quite in the midst of variety or 't is with great difficulty if ever we recover it This the Apostle plainly tells us Heb. 6.4 It is impossible or as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there signifies very difficult for those who were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted of the good word of God and the powers of the world to come If they shall fall away to renew them again unto repentance Hence is it that our Saviour charges men to take heed what they hear Mar. 4.24 And S. Paul exhorts men to hold fast the form of sound words 2 Tim. 1.13 And S. Jude urges that we should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the Saints third ver of his Epistle Let us therefore that are grounded in our Religion behave our selves as men that are resolved And not by any means be frightned from our Faith by the ghastly looks the bold threats or the pretences of new Revelations from any But let those Scriptures we have already received and our shorter Creeds drawn from them be the standing and perpetual Rule of our Faith For variety will disturb us while we live and almost distract us when we come to die and in all probability deprive us of our future happiness We cannot but be sensible of the dreadful condition of those men that are ready to depart out of this before they have prepared for another world Who have all their guilts standing round about them and affrighting them with their gastly appearances when they are toss'd and tumbled upon a Bed of sickness when they can see nothing but death before them and the dismal prospect of a blacker and worse state beyond it And when to all this miserable and frightful scene of things shall be added inward pangs and convulsions of mind doubled and heightned either by the falshood or uncertainty of those Principles by which we direct our eyes in this view How tragical and horrid must our condition be When our Spirits that should support us under the infirmities of our bodies are so wounded within us that they are a torment to themselves and our own doubts and vexatious uncertainties about those Principles of Religion that can only guide us through the Chambers of death and let in the light from some glorious Regions beyond the grave so increase upon us that we are miserably tortured betwixt hope and fear when our setled belief of future things can only render our passage pleasant and our condition tolerable Now since a settlement of our Principles in matters of Religion is of greater concernment to us than the settlement of our Estates Because these only serve to defray the charges of our Bodies whilst they ride Post through a shorter stage when those prepare us for and enter us into Heaven and must maintain us through all the Ages of an endless Eternity And since the Principles of Christianity are the most excellent in themselves and have the best evidence of their Divine Authority of any precepts of Religion extant in the World And we have exhibited in Sacred Writ a method to find out what has been revealed from Heaven Let mens pretences be what they will under whatsoever plausible denomination Who that is rational will not conclude it to be both his duty and his interest if he has a veneration for God or a due reverence and regard to his own being to settle himself upon the foundations of Christianity and upon these to build his belief and practice till at last through the merit of the great Redeemer of men he reaches Heaven Not to pluck the Stars out of the Firmament but by the will and favour of Almighty God to ascend above them and enjoy an happiness suitable to mans glorified capacity in those blisful Regions that can neither admit of a decay or period but shall continue their state and to true Christians their happiness in them through all the endless unmeasurable spaces of a boundless and incomprehensible Eternity And now to conclude this exhortation with Arnobius's Argument and persuading Rhetorick at the latter end of his First Book against the Gentiles If men have gentle souls capable of impression they cannot under pretence of other rules offer any injury to Christ nor reproach his Religion but embrace both if but upon this account only that they promise to them prosperous things Things to be wished for and earnestly desired Can any one refuse to give honour and obedience to the Son of God who was the Messenger of glad tidings who vanquished the shades and darkness of the grave and brought life and immortality to light Who alwayes preached such Doctrines as cannot hurt the minds of any but fill them with a more secure expectation O ingratum impium seculum as he goes on O ungrateful and wicked Generation If a Physician should come to you out of a far Country and should promise you such an universal Medicine that would infallibly cure you of all diseases would you not presently run after him pay all the signals of Courtship and Honour and receive him with all kindness and hospitality Would ye not wish his Medicines to be infallible by the application of which you are promised freedom from those miseries that attend your bodies even to the utmost period of your age Nay though the thing were yet doubtful would you not being inflamed with the love of your own welfare commit your selves to his conduct and not obstinately refuse to drink even his unknown potion in hope of your own health and safety Eluxit atque apparuit Christus rei maximae nunciator c. Christ the proclaimer of great tidings has now shined and appeared in the World What cruelty then what barbarous inhumanity what insuperable pride is it with a supercilious disdain to contemn him who brings such glad tidings unto men Let us embrace therefore his joyful Message give credit to that which affords such hope and pay all reverence and honour to him who is the messenger of him that made us Who came into the World to seek and to save that which was lost And to give to us eternal life Men may if they please contradict the kind promises of our Saviour and suppose a future state impossible But 't is more impossible for any man to prove his denial Or with any certainty to convince himself that there is no such state of men hereafter Since
value of things before we receive them that counterfeit coin may not claim the same priviledge with what is instamp'd with Caesar's Image nor an enterance opened for the Pope of Rome riding in a Kirk born on the backs of those that know not what they carry that they may bring Popery in triumph to us like the Grecians lodged in the belly of that Wooden and insensible Horse that entred Troy and sacked the City and so gain'd that by an easie strategem which ten years siege could not effect For these and such like reasons if men will now hearken to any I have chosen this Subject to Discourse on that if possible we may separate the chaff from the wheat distinguish betwixt the Doctrines of Apostles and those of Devils and mark out the Spirit of Antichrist that it may be known from that of our Saviour that names may no longer confound things nor Satan be received by any of us though he transforms himself into an Angel of light lest we mistake that for Samuel in his Mantle which only the Witch of Endor raises And therefore let us not believe every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they are of God because many false Prophets are gone into the world And from these words I shall raise my Discourse In this Epistle S. John endeavours to confirm Christians in the profession and practice of the Christian Religion notwithstanding all Objections to the contrary and therfore gives them sufficient caution to beware 1. Of such Heresies as destroy the foundation such as interfer'd with the great Doctrines and Authority of the Messiah such as under some great pretences of purity and preciseness might introduce Factions and Schisms and dissolve that strict love and union which ought to be among the Professors of the Gospel These things some were prone unto in the first and early times of Christianity As soon as the Church had put forth leaves the Caterpillars were ready to devour them 2. Because the Church of Christ was planted in the midst of Jewish Superstition and Heathen Idolatry and a Sect was now sprung up in the world that under the names of Christians had provided Principles which in times of danger might equally suit with both or either and so could shelter themselves from one storm and raise another if the wind blew from either quarter The Apostle therefore bids men to beware of Idolatry this being a plain renunciation of their Religion as Heresie would both maim and wound it Little children sayes he keep your selves from Idols and what he closes his Epistle with is what we all close our prayers with And that we may be also delivered from the insinuations or Society of both these sorts let all the people say Amen From the consideration of this design of our Apostle we may plainly see how suitable this whole Epistle is to the present humours and distractions among us and how soon were the advice imbraced it would cure us of those languishing distempers under which we seem to faint and die The extremities of disease vex and torture us and no sooner have we got off a cold fit which makes us almost shake and shiver into ashes but the hot one comes on which fires and almost is ready to consume us Nay a strange mixture of both encounter us rather than we shall recover and live and those things which the vigour and strength of our constitution is able to baffle whilst separate and apart being conjoined create a new disease which troubles the Physician and puts him to the utmost of his skill though I hope it will never be able to baffle him or leave us to be a prey to vermine or the great disease and pest of men Let us follow the rules of this Apostle that what ever injuries our bodies may suffer which in too many are Martyrs already by the great fears and uncertainties of their minds our souls may be safe and secure and kept unblameable to the coming of the Lord Jesus Let us be united in our common profession not staggered with the high pretences of others nor let us yet relax our diligence from the discourses of any that will at all adventures be secure among our selves But whatever notions of infallibility on the one hand or present and particular inspiration on the other shall be presented to us to debauch us from our Principles Let us well examine before we believe receive nothing that may contradict natural Religion or what is superadded in the word of God that publick and plainly declared revelation to which there need no additions to make the man of God wise unto salvation But let us follow the Apostles advice and try the Spirits whether they are of God because many false Prophets are gone out into the world By the word Spirit here is plainly meant any one that under a pretence of Inspiration or assistance from the Spirit publishes any new Doctrine to the world in the age of the Gospel and so includes both Papists and Enthusiasts The one tying the Spirit to the Chair of the Pope the other to their own Dreams and Phancies And this interpretation as it is generally assented to is plain and open to every man that will either consider the scope of the Epistle or the reason of this advice of the Apostle why we should not believe every Spirit because many false Prophets are come forth into the world and therefore we are to examine the Doctrines which any pretender to the Spirit teaches lest we are led by the authority of any into snares that may captivate and destroy our souls Now although this caution of Saint John primarily relates to the Gnostick defection yet it is a direction to all Ages and may guard us from all the pretensions of men that under a specious authority from the Spirit of truth vent false Doctrines to the World in any period of the Christian Religion Because both the Duty and the Argument to inforce it will be of a perpetual concernment as long as false Prophets come forth into the world Yet because the Gnosticks are most immediately reflected on as being the Antichrist so early appearing in the Christian world to defeat this Religion under a denomination from it boasting some extraordinary knowledge when they were men both ignorant and vile we must enquire into the particular reason why the Apostle in this place cautions men to beware of these whose faults were so scandalous that they seem manifest to all The reason of this next to that which is more general the proneness of men to any error that may gratifie themselves and become either their security or pleasure is the same why the sin against the Holy Ghost shall neither be forgiven in this world nor in the world to come because the Gnosticks plainly destroyed the Gospel although by a different Argument from the former The former against whom that severe though deserved Sentence was pronounced invalidated all our Saviours Miracles which proved
him the Plagues that are threatned in it And if any shall take away from it his part shall be taken out of the book of life Rev. 22.18 19. The perfection of the Scriptures is a point which Protestants have alwaies held as that which as it is most true so it is their most sure defence against all the assaults of Rome and others And this is what the Ancient Fathers tried Doctrines by of old and reprov'd Hereticks by what was written Although according to the Education or disposition of those that opposed them they wanted not but made use of Arguments from Reason and Philosophy and the natural Religion of mankind Now the Scripture being a safe because it is a true Rule and true because given to us by Authority from God who gave sufficient testimony to it by inspiring and encouraging the deliverers of it and farther it is attested by signs and wonders and divers Miracles And a safe rule it is because it has all that tends to the perfection of our natures and the saving of our souls and is compleat in the delivery of all the Articles of the Christian Faith and all the necessary Rules of life And is declared to be standing and perpetual as well to abolish the old Law to the Jews as to open a door of hope to the Gentiles and to obviate all the contradictions of either Nay it sufficiently becomes its own interpreter when men are assisted by those ordinary advantages which Education and the grace of God gives them If they consult their Guides diligently compare one place with another and are humble and modest in their enquiries How then can we believe every Spirit Rashly receiving Opinions at adventure since this standing Rule may be contradicted by them or opposed under a seeming shelter of its own whilst men wrest it to others ruine as well as to their own destruction Secondly To believe every Spirit is to unman our selves render us ridiculous and expose us to the contempt and scorn of all considering men in the world For since not only S. John but continual experience assures us that there are false Prophets in the world and that they vent contrary Doctrines to those that are true To attempt to believe every Spirit is to attempt impossibilities And this is not only foolish but unreasonable since no man can possibly believe contradictory Opinions to be at the same time true But suppose they are received successively to one another Yet it argues great levity and inconstancy in men to be carried about with every wind of Doctrine want of judgment to be so easily persuaded and that they were careless in their first choice who are so readily prevailed upon for a second That they never were setled upon the old foundation who on all occasions remove to a new and were not true to their first Love who cannot be constant upon the sight of another but alter their affections upon every view of a new face and are pleased with all the parts of variety Now these are blemishes in the minds of men mutable tempers without any considerable reason being blots and a disparagement to mankind whose rational souls give them the priviledge of thinking and enable and admonish them to consider well before they chuse And when thus they have by argument and judgment made their choice They are not to be easily moved from it Unless upon as wise and deliberate thoughts and stronger reasons than those by which they yielded to the truth of the first Opinion they remove from it and chuse another He that is unsetled in his mind or no longer fix'd than another object is presented creates such disturbances to himself that he makes his life troublesom and tragical and is much to be pitied if his unquietness will permit him to stay at home and not make others share with him and lamented by all those who know the sweetness of settlement and resolution that have considered what they can upon fitting circumstances part with And what they are resolved to adhere to with all the hazards of their lives and Fortunes Alas the wavering man has no peace though for his own reputation he may often pretend it But as S. James saies he is like a wave of the Sea driven with the wind and toss'd Jam. 1.6 Like a diseased sick man upon his Bed he tumbles about from place to place and carries always a Wind-mill in his head which grinds him according as the wind veers and turns He neglects his Calling if he has any Or if he has none better employments to drive with a strange Phanatic fury about the world ready to overturn all he meets with to enquire concerning news and projects that he may embrace all and be true to neither And so the man renders himself unfit to be either a friend or a Christian and becomes a fool by those methods by which he would yet be accounted wise But he that has well measured his principles by the rule of Gods word and has distinguished betwixt what is fundamental and what is circumstantial who has bound his life to a stake dyed daily in his own thoughts and resolved well when it is Religious to suffer decently How far he is able upon just occasion to comply with the commands of men vested in lawful Authority and where the points and limits are beyond which he must not step a foot But if he perish he will perish there that so he may not eternally perish This man stands unmoved at tempests and storms does his duty according to his station and the just commands of his lawful Superiours And if the Heavens fall justice shall alwayes be done by him He can be otherwise than his place requires unconcerned at seeming tempests that threaten or that thunder which begins the storm He knows when his life or estate or liberty must be Sacrificed when by lawful Authority willingly and when by unlawful it must be by force taken And therefore goes on cheerfully and faithfully as far as he can on the side of Law and just Authority putting it in Execution and stops when an higher Rule will permit him to go no further And certainly as this prevents all anticipation of evil so is it such a steady and well considered resolution that is more manly and rational than to be driven like the Clouds in the Air and to be alwayes like the Sea in motion sometimes forward and sometimes backward without any fixed rest or quiet Or by being so ready to believe every Spirit to entertain none kindly as we ought Thirdly We must not believe every Spirit because if we give our selves too great a liberty it will be difficult indeed impossible to discern those that are true from the false If we once get into the Wilderness we may travel forty years there and neither know when we are in or out of the way and wander about God knows whither We may murmure and repine and blame each other whilst the fault
unreasonableness of such men and their lamentable state who shutting their eyes against the Sun create a perpetual night to themselves and love to wander in darkness and error by being of such unsteady tempers such easie and unmanly resolutions shifting Churches and Opinions at every turn concluding every Apparition to be an Angel of Light and the dreams of men to be inspirations And though principles of various shapes and faces are presented by men with the same confidence and pretence of inspiration yet too many are so inconsiderate and easie as to admit all by a continued succession and live altogether in a circle as if they were fix'd like one of the Philosophers intelligences in an Orb turning it round and riding themselves about with it Or rather chained by some Magical charm that they are condemned to run about the circle and yet are never able to stand still long enough to disentangle themselves And what a dismal state of life is this never to possess rest and quiet How pitiable is the condition of a man that has his mind alwayes toss'd and ruffled who has got such a paralytical distemper as keeps his head alwayes jogging who entertains no principles long and yet Religion is his perpetual burden And well may it be so to him who loads himself with such variety These men put a veil over their own eyes and blindfold themselves that they may either be led by others or stumble on they know not whither These discern not truth from falshood nor make any difference betwixt opinion and demonstration who every day are intangled in the midst of snares and absurdity and wander about in a wild wilderness when they think they are travelling through an inhabited Countrey They are like Fowls flying in the air who are hamper'd in Nets which others have placed on Poles to catch them when they think they are mounted above hazard and danger 'T is a dreadful Judgement when God that gave men souls to discern shall for their own wilful blindness deliver them up to the power of delusion to believe a lye especially when we shall reflect upon what the Apostle informs us will be the consequence That they may be damned who believe not the truth 2 Thess 2.11 We find that this must naturally become the effect of such a wild principle And the experience which we have of the irregularities and crimes of such persons sufficiently informs us that their ways in this world lead down to the Chambers of Death and in the other to the Vaults of Hell Unless the greatest Villanies may be consecrated by such hallowed pretences and wickedness may change its nature by adding the highest degree to it when men make God the Author of it Then indeed the Government of Christ will quickly be inconsistent with that of our Soveraign the Kirk may beat the Throne in pieces and men may snatch away the Kings Crown to cover their own heads withal And it may be after a while an intrenchment on the Triple Crown to be the Sovereign of three Kingdoms The dismal consequences of such an unreasonable and loose opinion we have no cause yet to forget Or if they had escaped our memories and were buried in oblivion the Authors of them being afraid they should remain hid will cause them to revive by fresh instances that Charity it self may no longer cover them but their repeated crimes may at once renew and preserve their Principles God has permitted the pretenders to these new inspirations at once almost to make a plain discovery of themselves and yet he strengthens the hands of Authority to obviate the designs of both and has caused the Religion of his own Church taking its measures by the rules of the Gospel to shine when it was almost covered with a Cloud Lift up your eyes then and behold its glory Not to envy but to delight in it Always to profess such a Faith as is Primitive and Apostolical that delivers no other Principles to the world but what our Saviour did before what his Apostles commented on and a Faith that their followers liv'd by Principles that intrench not upon the rights of Secular Powers that do not interfere with the just and lawful Maxims of State that give no countenance to ambitious usurpations nor any disturbances to the peace of the world that are not wild and extravagant but teach men humanity and obedience that countenance no cruelties or murders but rebuke the inordinate appetites of men give a check to vice and incourage virtue that men passing the time of their sojourning here in the fear of God and justice and charity with their Neighbours thwarting neither the Prerogative of the King nor priviledge of the Subject may die with true peace of conscience in the favour of God and gain a compleat rest from their labours when their gracious dispositions and habits shall be rewarded with eternal glory Let us then having thus fixed our Rules and Doctrines attended with such ample rewards continue stedfast in the profession of this Faith and contend earnestly for it since it is what was formerly delivered to the Saints Let not novelties that drag such vice and irreligion after them that begin with Treason and end in Blood be any more named among us with delight But let every one that names the name of Christ depart from such iniquity as turns the world upside down and makes its proselytes the real and continued troublers of Israel as well as a sure plague to themselves who vex all that give ear to them with the perplexing passions of hopes and fears about their eternal happiness so much that they lose all temporal peace themselves and scare and disturb other men whilst they keep them by their pretended inspirations in perpetual doubts and uncertainties of mind For when they endeavour to believe every Spirit it is very certain they can believe none and so they abandon Gods Religion and their own peace and run a round of endless perplexities and contradictions 2. From the Apostles Caution and my discourse from it we may easily judge of those persons without the pretence of an extraordinary infallibility that run after every new Doctrine like weather-cocks are turned with every wind and follow after every Light though it be but Will with a Wisp or Jack in a Lanthorn that brings them upon Precipices or leads them into Boggs These men having vitiated their fight disposed their organs for all impressions and enlarged their eyes by frequent goggles beyond all proportion that no new object may escape them receive false representations of things with the same greediness that they receive true and so mistake a Paper-Kite for a wandering Comet and an enkindled Meteor for a true Star Hecuba is as acceptable to them as Helen and they embrace a Cloud instead of Juno To endeavour to fix Principles in them is but writing on the face of waters and to endeavour to digest the thoughts of these into standing propositions is
considered together brings the promise of the Spirit and infallibility to the Apostles under determinate restraints and limitations But 2. This will further appear if we compare the promise of guiding into all truth with that other relating to the Holy Ghost Joh. 14.26 where the Apostles are told that he should teach them all things more plainly those which our Saviour had delivered and bring those things to their memory which they might forget though before declared He shall teach you all things sayes he and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you So that it appears that the Apostles had not the Spirit without measure though they may be said to be filled with the Holy Ghost And that this promise of infallibility to them was made in a limited and restrained sense Secondly Supposing the promises of Infallibility were made in never so enlarged a sense yet they are to be restrained to the persons to whom they were at first made as to the unerring conduct and I might easily make it appear that they cannot in their full sence concern any but the Apostles themselves and the first Preachers of the Christian Religion Because the end of this extraordinary inspiration was to make them capable of prescribing to us an infallible and unerring rule Which being accomplished there is no farther occasion of an infallible inspiration For to what end should this be continued to one or a certain number of men unless they were upon new emergencies to deliver new Doctrine to the world If it be necessary to the understanding of what has been already prescribed the Laws of the Gospel will not only want one of the most excellent qualifications of a Law that it be plain and easily intelligible But the same necessity will argue infallibility useful to all which renders it thus necessary unto some For if it be therefore necessary to some that they may become Guides to others Since their conduct in relation unto others must consist in advice and declaring that sence of the Law which could not be understood without them all which must be expressed by word or writing every man has as much need of infallibility that he may not misunderstand the interpretation as any have to prevent their misapprehensions of the Law if there can be no peace without infallibility Now that all men have not infallibility is as readily yielded as it is to be proved that the Pope has none Thirdly If there were now this infallibility amongst men there must be a perpetual revelation For if the perfection of the humane nature could here render any men infallible we may well conjecture that many might have been in every age that might have been Directors to the rest Or if it had been founded in humane nature why should not an equal perfection render all mankind infallible Either of them being granted will invalidate the necessity of a Divine Revelation and turn the word of God into a story and do despight to the spirit of grace if rendering it useless and a fable will do it For to what end should any men be inspired when they were before infallible in themselves The infallibility therefore which we discourse of must proceed from a strong and certain inspiration And whatever is delivered by vertue of this is of equal authority with the Scriptures themselves And then none can be safe in his life or fortunes when ever any inspired man makes it his pleasure to take them away Nay if we are conscientious we must yield them up upon demand lest haply we may be found fighters against God And this appears in the Romanists themselves as well as others taught by them The more conscientious any of them are the more readily do they yield to the impositions of their superiours and they have reason for it if they think them to be absolutely infallible For no private evidence of a thing must subvert their faith in the Churches determination and so much the more triumphant is their faith by how much the more it captivates their understandings As it is so much the more meritorious by how much the less it has of evidence So the greater the Objections are that meet and encounter the Churches determinations their faith is rendered the more glorious and full of victory Let the Doctrine then be never so wicked in it self or consequences the conscientious believer of the point of Roman Infallibility must neither see the one nor the other But renounce all the evidence of his reason and if occasion be as there is sometimes of his senses too For what evidence can reasonably be attended to that bears a testimony against that which is infallible This then must be a ready method to change the nature of good and evil and the eternal Law instamp'd upon our minds if the mutation proceeds from the Roman Chair Nay the nature of things need not be changed if the Pope please to change their names Men may borrow then and never pay if he pleases to cancell the debt Ruining families and overturning Kingdoms will become noble and a glorious exploit Nay religious acts when he is at leisure to adopt them into the number Burning Cities and murdering Princes shall be accounted means of propagating the Gospel if he please once to determine that we may do evil that good may come of it And blowing up the Estates of Kingdoms is presently holy if he will but sanctifie the Powder and Canonize the man that has the courage to attempt it So powerful is this Doctrine of Roman Infallibility that it can change the Devil into an Angel of Light And let the Pope himself be never so wicked his determinations are all true and good and he may remain his Holiness still He may subvert by degrees or all at once the whole Doctrine of Christianity though from thence he receives his pretensions of authority if he pleases to declare it a Fable when it shall no longer comport with his advantage Nay he has already so blended it with the Religion of the Jews and practice of the Heathens that Christianity is so buried in an heap of rubbish that 't is an hard matter to gather it up out of such a great confusion of ruines The substance is lost in the midst of Ceremony internal devotion is interrupted by a pompous Scene of Pageantry and Shew and yet the evidence of our senses must be rejected in the Doctrine which they so much applaud in practice And yet Fourthly Notwithstanding all the Roman pretences to Infallibility If there are any promises made of it they do as well concern other Churches as themselves For if these promises were made to the Apostles in general as is very plain from the circumstances of their delivery if they were not terminated in them but reached also the whole succession of those by vertue of whom Christs promise was made good of being with the Apostles alwayes to the end of the world Then either
my understanding by the testimony of my senses concerning their own proper objects where there is a true medium and a just distance If this which thus seems to me to be Bread and Wine may yet not be so but the substantial Body and Blood of our Lord Then I can have no sufficient evidence that the Christian Doctrine was revealed from Heaven For the proof of this depending upon the certainty of those Miracles which were at the first wrought for the confirmation of it And these depending upon the certainty of their senses who were then eye-witnesse to the Miracles And if the senses of all mankind may together be deceived about this Sacrament the same possibility might make them so when the Miracles were wrought to prove the Gospel And then we have no certainty of our Religion but the whole Gospel may prove a fable and its greatest confirmation be nothing but an imposture This is enough to make the sin against the Holy Ghost to be introduced into the World with pomp and ceremony and to render it authentick by an infallible authority If it be said that in relation to the first confirmation of the Gospel our senses were free and then could not be deceived But that now since the Christian Religion was sufficiently authorized this very Doctrine thus confirmed tyes up our senses since 't is rational to submit them to Divine revelation I Answer That if the New Testament did any where thus impose upon the faculties of men It would 1. Be difficult upon the same grounds for me to believe that mine eyes were not imposed upon when I read the words 2. Supposing that I did read them true And that were sufficiently confirmed that I understood what I read Yet since no other Text can be pleaded for Transubstantiation besides This is my Body Why must I of necessity understand that by these words I am commanded to believe contrary to my senses When by a plain and easie construction agreeable to the usual Sacramental phrases particularly those which were used about the Passeover my senses are still left unto their liberty And no more than saying This is my Body That is This Bread represents or signifies my Body will express the sence and baffle the Objection 'T is so common to parallel this expression with I am the vine the way the door and That Rock was Christ This is my Covenant This Cup is the New Testament c. Where the Verbs are construed by represented signified and the like That I am ashamed we should be put to continued repetitions by the daily appearance of a baffled Adversary Thus we see by these three instances of erroneous determinations of the Church of Rome that if ever they had infallibility they have lost it Unless truth and error are reconciled and infallible falshood be a proper expression Seventhly If notwithstanding all the premisses the Romanists will yet hold the conclusion and affirm themselves to be infallible We must call upon them to prove it by Miracles For this can no way become the priviledge of the Church of Rome but by immediate inspiration to those that pretend it And whoever pretends to inspiration ought to prove it by Miracle when the Scripture does not command us to believe it The Apostles proved their infallibility by Miracles We must demand therefore the same from those that will pretend to the same priviledge Since the promises they challenge to themselves are compleated in the Apostles Nay 't will not be enough to tell stories instead of Miracles Nor to produce something done among them of which the cause being behind the Curtain no natural account can be given But they must be attended with such circumstances as may sufficiently prove them to be Divine And when this is accomplished which is impossible the infallibility pretended must be proved necessary to the Salvation and conduct of men Otherwise we shall doubt of the Miracles themselves because they confirm an unnecessary thing and what supposes the insufficiency of the Scriptures I might add more Heads of Argument but these are sufficient to baffle the strength of this proud Capitol CHAP. VIII HAving in the former Chapter spent a very large Parenthesis upon the Roman Infallibility for fear that I may not be well understood by some whose unthinking honesty may make them jealous of their power and cause them to conclude that I allow not Authority enough to Synods and Councils And that being no more than a private Minister I assume too much judgment to my self in making use of my faculties without leave I answer that I have sufficient leave from the Articles and Canons established in the Protestant Church of England for what I have already wrote concerning this matter Yet I shall farther explain the same thing to shew that I am willing to attribute as much Authority and Honour to the best established Church in the World and the Governours of it as any man can possibly do who does not pluck out his eyes to do them service Therefore notwithstanding what has been said of the Roman Infallibility I readily yield that Fathers and Councils and all Congregations of holy and judicious Christians much more the Bishops and Governours of the Church solemnly assembled to treat concerning the truth or falshood of any Point introduced into Religion are reverently to be attended to Reason urging a regard to those who by the advantage of study or the prospect they have obtained from an higher ground and according to the age in which they live are probably capacitated to assist our judgments and to determine a Controversie better than our selves When persons of learning piety and Authority also in the Church of Christ shall assemble in his name with a real intention to find out the truth of any difficult and disputed Proposition humbly begging the Divine assistance and blessing on their endeavours We have great Reason to incline to their determinations when neither secular interests or a blind passion or the force of others gains their Votes and procures their assent Nay when these are our own lawful Governours though nothing can force our belief we may in an improper sence call their determinations infallible quoad nos Because for the peace and Government of the Church to avoid Schism and to preserve an Ecclesiastical union among us it will be necessary that they bind us not to contradict them publickly by any external solemn act since we our selves have our assent virtually implied in Canons or Laws made by those who publickly represent us Although we are not obliged to believe every Proposition thus determined to be exactly true Unless it be propounded to us with sufficient evidence to convince our judgements if we have abilities to enquire into the Proofs themselves To restrain the external acts and discourses of men when they oppose the publick Sanctions and constitutions of those who are fixed in such places of Authority is plainly necessary to keep peace and order in any
choice that if they will sin it may be their own act and deed Why should we think that he has chained them so fast one to another that they cannot err or wander out of the way unless they break that link which ties them all to an Infallible Chair But alas such is our condition here that we may as well expect to free mankind from the commission of sin as to restrain all men from error Nay there is as great a necessity that the lives of men should be void of the one as there is that they should be free from the other As much reason there is for men to be holy in all manner of conversation as there is for all to be sound in the faith since if we have faith we may have it to our selves but the actions of our lives have an influence upon others Why therefore should there not be an irresistible power set up to restrain men from vice as well as a standing infallibility to keep them from error Since God then who will judge men hereafter for those things which are properly their own has not thought it fitting to set up the one I cannot but suspect that he never designed to fix the other but to leave men to their own faculties to which he has added sufficient assistances to judge and to chuse fairly for themselves And therefore methinks 't is more reasonable to believe that since men cannot pretend to both it would be more modest to pretend to neither especially since we have no authority whatever power any have gained or usurped among us from reason or revelation to advance any among the Race of men to be an infallible Judge in Religion farther than his sentence proceeds according to the Laws of the Gospel And by this I cannot find that he has done any more beyond the faculties we have received as we are men than to give us a Rule sufficient to judge Doctrines by and Laws by which we are to govern our practice together with some superadded means to help our judgments and direct our Opinions by the Authority of Magistrates who are an Ordinance of God by the instructions of his Ministers who are also of Divine institution and the common assistances of his Holy Spirit to guide us into all necessary truths which tend to the promotion of our eternal happiness And so the final success is left to our own liberty and choice either in a refusal or compliance with them Because I cannot believe but that God acts suitable to the nature of human creatures in all his general dispensations to men that so he may in our future state with equal justice inflict punishment or give us a reward according to his promise And indeed to write strictly to be sound in the Faith would not be praise worthy if it were so ordered that we could not err Nor need S. Paul have so carefully exhorted to this if we might have been so easily preserved from all diseases and deviations in Religion by the infallibility of S. Peter and those who plead their Title from him I am sure that an Apostle acquaints the Church of Corinth that there must be also Heresies among them that they who are approved may be made manifest 1 Cor. 11.19 By which he proves and fore-tells matter of fact though he does not signifie Gods approbation but only his permission of them And the reason why he suffered error and division to be introduced among them by the perverseness or curiosity of any was that such as united in the true Faith might brighten and shine forth with the greater glory and like the Sun in the Firmament might triumph over Clouds and darkness There is no foundation therefore to erect the Popish infallibility on nor for any Church to set up such a Tribunal among themselves Having thus as I hope cleared my self from any great and unpardonable miscarriage in this point I shall briefly proceed in reflecting upon some mistakes of others that are false Rules to judge Doctrines and Spirits by Wherein private Enthusiasts are most notoriously guilty These smell Popery at a distance and can hardly promote any design without pretending that it is suddenly to be introduced into the most Protestant and best established Church in the World But they too publickly discover themselves to be Popishly affected who are very apt to spie errors in the Pope and yet so transfer them to themselves and steal them away that they may have the Monopoly of them and retale them to others under new names when they are in the possession of another Master These will not allow the Pope to be infallible but are apt to conclude themselves to be so And thus they fetch Candles from Romes Altars that they may set them up in their own Breasts As if there were no difference betwixt the holy Spirits guiding men into truth and walking by the light of their own fires What either a disease and weakness in their bodies or their minds has made a representation of to their phancies so long till their brooding thoughts have at last produced something which they may justly call their own These things they are apt to think or at least to say are the dictates of the Spirit and accordingly they will adventure to guide themselves and impose their own enjoyed phancies upon other men But if every thing of this nature and mens wild discourses the effect of this were to receive the stamp of Divine Authority and become infallible guides of action So strange a confusion would be made among us and such a monstrous Babel would be erected that Trowels would be call'd for instead of Morter and men would cry out for Bricks before they had gotten Straw to make them Their tongues would be so various and unintelligible that a Teutonick language could never reconcile them nor be able to discover them nor give marks to know the first Builders by when they are dispersed into divers Countries But every mans head would still tilt against another and bring a kind of damnation upon the World The Society of Devils would be more regular than men who must live without God or Beelzebub The births of reason would be deem'd abortive and the fruits of madness would receive the characters of sobriety and discretion The greatest Lunaticks would be most Religious and we should pay the greatest veneration to a Fool. But since things are not come to this pass yet I shall briefly examine a very few false Rules by which some among us satisfie themselves in the tryal of Spirits and guidance of themselves First There are some that build much on what they stile the Return of prayer when they have made a Fast the Prologue to contention and a long Prayer has been the Breakfast when they resolved to dine upon Widows houses yet they have too frequently thought or at least endeavoured to cause others to believe that what has happened after their prayer has been the return from
reason to the belief of the Gospel which was proved Divine by the testimony and revelation of the Spirit if sufficient means were not afforded them to know and distinguish Divine Revelation from imposture and pretences The things delivered were above the reach of humane reasonings and Philosophy then gave check to their belief and custom and education had impress'd them with different nay contrary notions of things It must be supposed therefore antecedently to their reception of the Gospel that as S. Paul was able to give them evidence that those Doctrines he delivered to them were revealed from Heaven so there were some Methods and Rules by which they might be able to know the revelation and not receive it upon his bare testimony Nay to what purpose would it be for S. John to direct men to try the Spirits if we had not sufficient means to know whether they were from God or no Fifthly This must be granted too that there are false Pretensions and Doctrines of men vented in the World under the notion of true And true and false under the same pretence of inspiration The Apostle tells us that many false Prophets are gone out into the world And our Saviour to prevent a rash belief and thereby an Apostasie from the Gospel or trusting in another Messiah acquaints the World that there would arise false Christs and false Prophets Mark 13.22 And therefore they should not believe and entertain them although according to their different principles and designs they should cry out Lo here is Christ or Lo there And S. Peter tells us that as there were false Prophets formerly amongst the people so there should be false Teachers among the Christians who should privily bring in damnable heresies denying the Lord that bought them and that many should follow their pernicious wayes 2 Pet. 2.1 2. Nay S. Paul tells us of those who in a voluntary humility and worshipping of Angels intruded into those things which they never saw being vainly puffed up in their fleshly minds who yet departed from the head Christ himself who is the head of the Church making the coming to God by the Mediatory application to an Angel a demonstration of their humility and so rejecting the intercession of our Saviour the only Mediator betwixt God and man Col. 2.18 But our own Age is so fruitful in examples of this kind that the possibility of mens false pretences to revelation and of their venting corrupt Doctrines to the World needs no other argument to prove it than our own experience Nor need we rake in the dust of false Prophets in past Ages when we have to our great grief and trouble living monuments on which these things are to be read and seen Yet Sixthly Notwithstanding all this we must maintain that there is such a thing as true inspiration This is plainly implied by S. John to whom I must adhere For it would be ill Logick to infer that because the Apostle adviseth us not to believe every Spirit therefore we should give credit unto none But rather that some are to be believed Especially when we take in his direction with it Try the Spirits whether they are of God This argues that some Doctrines came from Heaven and some men were inspired from above although many false Prophets were gone abroad into the world Should the contrary be held by any among us it would not only invalidate the Doctrine of Moses and the Prophets under the Old Testament But of Christ and his Apostles under the New it would conclude the intercourse betwixt God and men to be an impossible Chimera and turn all Divinity into a Fable And at once render our time mis-spent and lost whilst I am writing and others reading such Doctrines as these and all disputes concerning any positive and instituted Religion the foolish talkings and inventions of men that busie themselves to deceive others and give trouble to their own flesh When mans reason might supply all But such a phancy I suppose to be too wild and extravagant to be admitted in such an age of the world as this Especially among those who have frequented Christian Assemblies and have heard discourses proving the truth of the Old Testament or the New That have read the Jews Arguments for their Law or the Christian Fathers Apologizing for the Religion of the Gospel Nor indeed can any deny the truth of Gods conversing with men that reject not his Omnipotence or else doubt of the nature and capacity of their own souls To be sure they must deny the Scriptures to be the Word of God and affirm all his appearances to men to be a fable Since from them we are assured that all Scripture was given by inspiration from God 2 Tim. 3.16 And therefore to men that acknowledge this I must be supposed to direct this discourse as well as S. John does in the Text so frequently recited who supposes that there is a Divine inspiration before he advises men to separate the pretences of false Prophets from the Doctrines of those that are true 'T is in vain otherwise to perswade men to exercise their faculties assisted by Rules or to make any discrimination at all where there is no foundation for the conclusion of a difference Seventhly Therefore The trial of the Doctrines and Rules of men pretending inspiration having thus far been brought on towards a conclusion The determination of our assent and choice in matters of such huge and vast moment on which the welfare of our souls depends must be directed by what sufficiently without fallacy evidences those Doctrines which we receive from others or are led into the belief of from our own reasonings are certainly such as came from God and that we are not imposed upon by our own temperament or the subtilty of others The evidence therefore for a Divine revelation must be greater and stronger than any argument framed to the contrary Because in all the discoveries of truth my belief is to be determined according to evidence and the greatest probability guides the rational choice of men And all that act suitably to themselves embrace the proposition that comes nearest to truth and certainty But where two things seem equal in their proof a rational man only hesitates and doubts and gives up his assent to neither And therefore had the Magicians of Egypt equall'd the Miracles Moses wrought in the presence of Pharaoh as well as they did in turning rods into Serpents and Rivers into blood and causing Froggs to come up before him They need not at that time have acknowledg'd Moses's power disproportionable to their own nor distinguished their own Miracles from his by saying This is the finger of God And Pharaoh himself might have had an equal argument to detain the Israelites as they had for the command of God to depart out of the Land of Egypt But when the Miracles on their side far exceeded the Wonders on the other his own resolution became his Law and Pharaohs
knew himself to be Fore-runner our Saviour returned no answer but this Go your way sayes he and tell John what things ye have seen and heard how that the blind see the lame walk the lepers are cleansed the deaf hear the dead are raised to the poor the Gospel is preached Luke 7.22 By this intimating that such Miracles were sufficient to convince him that he was the Messiah to whom such power was given from above Thus he endeavours also to convince the Jews by the argument of his Miracles The same works that I do bear witness of me that the Father hath sent me John 5.36 Now as by this argument our Saviour proved his own Commission so when he sent forth his Apostles and the first Planters of his Religion into the World he gave to them the same power to work Miracles for confirmation of their Doctrine Heal the sick sayes he cleanse the lepers raise the dead cast out Devils Matth. 10.8 And accordingly they proved their Doctrine to be Divine and confirmed their Commissions to the World preaching as S. Paul did 1 Cor. 2.4 not so much by Logical argument or in the manner of the Grecian Philosophers way of reasoning But in demonstration of the Spirit and of power When they argued from the Old Testament to the New and did Miracles to confirm all This has been Gods method in the World of evidencing his Mission of Prophets unto men to declare his Messages to them by which he attested his own inspirations which the most confident affirmations of the persons inspired without such plain and publick attestations could never have created a belief of Especially if they delivered Articles of Faith and things not demonstrable to the reason of mankind Thus when God gave Moses authority to lead and preside over the Israelites he endued him with a power to work Miracles to attest his Commission Exod. 4. And when the Prophets were to make any new Revelation to Princes or people or when God sent them on any strange errand he added confirmation to their authority by giving them power to fore-tell something which he brought to pass or else to work some extraordinary Sign or Miracle that those to whom the Message was sent might be convinced that God sent the Prophet But yet because it is often so difficult for men to distinguish betwixt a Miracle and a Wonder who know not the utmost power of Art or Nature Especially they are ignorant of the skill and force of Devils God has still in the last place given Rules for our farther direction in this weighty affair That the fancies of men may not by any subtilty whatsoever be impos'd upon with the seeming authority of Divine Inspiration God knew that the Devil would endeavour in this to imitate the Divine Power as well as appear like an Angel of light when either might impose delusions upon the World That the art and industry of designing men might by a previous acquaintance with Natural Causes so alter their simplicity by mixtures and experiment or meet with such a strange disposition of nature lucky to them as by the application of these to the present conjunction of their own intentions they might take advantage to insinuate their subtile and false Doctrines into the minds of the vulgar or credulous and many times into those that were more rational and learned Or else by a fortunate prediction of something that might come to pass assume to themselves the honour and authority of Prophets and then impose upon and delude the World For the prevention therefore of such great and otherwise unavoidable mischiefs the most gracious God out of his infinite love to mankind has given them three other Rules by which they might and may measure Prophets and their Doctrines 1. If any pretended their authority by fore-telling things to come If they fail'd in any of their Predictions 't was a sign that God never sent them to deliver that which the Prediction was an argument to confirm And that not only because the great God never confirms his Truths to the World by falshood or deceit But because he has cautioned us not to believe them In the 18 th of Deut. v. 22. When a Prophet speaketh in the Name of the Lord if the thing follow not nor come to pass this is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken but the Prophet hath spoken it presumptuously Thou shalt not be afraid of him 2. Supposing that one who took upon him the name of a Prophet and should work Wonders as Antichrist and others under the New Testament for confirmation of his Doctrine and Authority Yet if his Doctrines tend to the evacuating principles implanted in the minds of men and destroying the reasonable propositions of the Natural Religion of mankind it was an apparent sign of a false Prophet For sayes the Text If there arise among you a Prophet or a Dreamer of dreams and giveth thee a sign or a wonder and the sign or the wonder come to pass whereof he spake unto thee saying Let us go after other Gods which thou hast not known and let us serve them Thou shalt not hearken to the words of that Prophet or that Dreamer of dreams Deut. 13. at the beginning 3. In relation to both Natural and Instituted Worship God having now given us a Rule no pretension of Prophecy or Miracle must ever draw us into the opinions of men that thwart or contradict the Divine Establishments already confirmed by the same argument And this is evident partly from that fore-quoted Text Deut. 13. where the reasons why that false Prophet should not be received that endeavoured to draw men from the innate Principles of Natural Religion are 1. Because God by permitting that false Prophet proved mens stedfastness in Religion 2. Because whatever Signs and Wonders were done to confirm a Doctrine men were so far to adhere to the true God as to walk after him and to fear him to keep his commandments to obey his voice to serve and to cleave unto him But this is yet more fully proved from Isa 8.20 When any should endeavour to draw the people unto Wizards and to such as had familiar Spirits The Prophet advises them to try all by the Law and the Testimony because if any speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them And if these directions were good under the Law much more will they satisfie any reasonable men under the Gospel this being the last publick declaration of Gods Will that he intends to make to mankind till the final period and general dissolution For though we sayes the Apostle or an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel let him be accursed Gal. 1.8 And he tells the World that at the final period God shall judge the secrets of men according to the Gospel Rom. 2.16 Therefore the Gospel is to be the standing Law to the end of the World Nor needs there any other it being the
wonder of his Disciples at a Doctrine of his that seemed harsh and difficult tells them that with God all things are possible Matth. 19.26 The possibility therefore of a thing prepares us for the belief of any proposition when either certainty or greater probabilities do not plainly determine the contrary Now what does not imply a contradiction that it should be is possible to be But the Holy Spirits operation upon the minds of men does not imply any contradiction And therefore it must be at least a possible supposition that it may be so Nay further what has been is certainly possible to be But that there has been such influences upon the minds of men the sacred Inspirations of the Prophets and Apostles do abundantly evince And to assert the contrary must shake the very foundation of Religion and invalidate the whole Canon of Scripture And certainly if it admits no contradiction to affirm Spirits working upon Bodies it must be less to suppose one Spirit to operate upon another there being a nearer affinity betwixt their natures and a greater capacity to apprehend the notices they receive from one another For if the Soul of one man may apprehend what are the thoughts of another when they are expressed by the words of the tongue or some external signs and representations There is as great a probability that there may be more easie and quicker methods for one soul to converse with another were they freed from their bodies than by the mediation of external senses which may and often do convey false representations to the mind And therefore for the holy Spirit of God to influence the minds and affections of men is not only rendered possible But a very probable and easie supposition Though whilst we remain in these bodies 't is all one as to the being of the thing whether we conjecture for it can be no more the influence to be made immediately upon the soul or by percussions on or dispositions of the nerves and by determining the Spirits so as to make representations to the mind to cause in it desire or aversation and from hence just and proportionable actions suitable to the design of the holy Spirit But Secondly this influence and operation of the holy Spirit is not only possible but necessary too if we consider our own weakness and infirmity or the circumstances we are frequently surrounded with in this vale of tears and region of misery We have still a proneness and propensity to sin notwithstanding our being washed by an holy Baptism and dipt in the sacred Laver of regeneration And though grace were then conveyed to us and power to perform our part of the Covenant which at last gives us the possession of the promise Yet this cannot well be apprehended to be tied about us with such indissoluble bonds as not to forsake us upon the violation of our vow when by sinful courses we rescind Gods obligagation to us Or if there were no forfeiture to be made Yet we cannot apprehend this Grace and Spirit given us at the first to be so constantly and powerfully residing in us as never to need any new supplies or accessions of degrees Or to be like our souls alwaies tied continually to invigorate us without any new influences from above God governs the World by his Providence and supports this great systeme of Beings by the constant and continued influences of his Power impressing things by his Divine concurrence to accomplish the end and design of their beings to continue their stated motions and order and to repair their decayes by a new and uninterrupted succession Now it would not be more false and unsuitable to his nature to suppose him at first to have put things into their orderly motions and to impregnate nature with all the power at once that shall at any time be requisite for its support and conduct when things are subject to such various misadventures that it is impossible for any but himself to foresee Than it would be to suppose him to give a child in his sacred Baptism sufficient strength to influence his whole life and afterwards leave him to his conflicts and misfortunes without any new assistances from above This would still make the Great and infinite Being of the World instead of a wise and active God nothing but an idle and lazy Spectator We need not then pray for grace and continued accessions of strength and power But only use those words of David Cast us not away from thy presence and take not thy holy Spirit from us Psal 51.11 The Apostles and Primitive Disciples of our Saviour were sensible of new accessions or incomes from the Spirit as the difficulties increased which they encountered For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us sayes S. Paul so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ 2 Cor. 1.5 And when we shall consider that our assistances are necessary in proportion to our duties or our sufferings all men being not in the same circumstances but some have an easier passage to an eternal rest and a blessed eternity than others who are made a spectacle to the world who have greater difficulties to encounter a longer race to run upon the Earth and are surrounded with a larger number of duties and perplexities certainly God who is the God of all grace will reasonably give the influences of his Spirit suitable to the degrees of mens necessities and the employments or conflicts that his most wise Providence calls them unto As the Apostles were not sufficient of themselves to preach the Christian Doctrine to the World and to obviate those difficulties that attended the publication so neither can any of us in our ordinary course of affairs in the World being placed in the midst of snares and temptations keep consciences void of offence without the influences of Gods grace and the assistances of his Spirit S. Paul justifies himself to the Corinthians by giving them a prospect of his joy and innocence Our rejoycing is this sayes he the testimony of a good conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God we have had our conversation in the world and more abundantly to you wards 2 Cor. 1.12 And when in the third Chapter he re-assumes the argument lest they should think that all was effected by his own power he introduces also this acknowledgement Not that we are sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves but our sufficiency is of God ver the 5 th God is not an hard and austere Master to reap where he did not sow nor to gather where he did not scatter He expects an account of his own talents which every one does or may receive in proportion to his wants and necessities that he may grow up unto that measure of stature to which Christ has appointed him in the world And doubless we may obtain Divine helps If men have but that love to themselves as to pray with
Unity of the Body of Christ to encrease our knowledge in the Christian Doctrine and prevent our being deceived and led into error Hence was Timothy's Office which he had received by the Ordination of S. Paul stiled a gift 2 Tim. 1.6 And lest these appointments should not be accounted the products and designation of the Holy Spirit These gifts are attributed to the Spirit Who is in himself one uniform Being though these were divers according to the variety of times and seasons And they are all such manifestations of the Spirit as are given to men to profit withal 1 Cor. 12. Now as Gods Providence Rules the World though we can neither discover his Councels nor are able to account for the manner of his operation As he disposes of Crowns and Kingdoms determines our dayes and disposes our Habitations though these things are accomplished by an order and train of second Causes severally designing and concurring to the end So does the Holy Spirit dispose the way of the Education of some and incline their minds to the Office of Ministers in the Church of Christ that Gods people may not perish for want of knowledge But there may be some alwayes to preach the Word and to convey Christs Doctrine from Generation to Generation That his Church being built upon the true confession of an Holy Faith as on a firm and well fixed Rock the gates of Hell may never be able to prevail against it Matth. 16.16 and 18. Now a sufficient number of such men distinguished by their Education and manner of living from those that are more encompassed with the noise and disturbing affairs of this life being prepared by a previous train of circumstances and having the advantages of their own parts and understandings And being by such means able to see into the notions of those that have gone before them having been used more to reading consideration and retirement than other men and to weigh the just consequences of things They must needs attain a competent ability in the matters of Religion to which they most apply themselves And they may be capable through the assistance of that Spirit who calls and gives them Authority in their Office to become instruments in his hands to guide men into the wayes of truth In all the Arts and Mysteries of the World we deem it a natural way to learn by obtaining one that is skilful himself to teach us the Principles and Grounds of his Knowledge And we more certainly and easily obtain our design when we have such a one to instruct us So is it in matters of Religion 'T is a natural way to inform our selves in those things that concern our Salvation when we have not only an an inspired Rule But men Educated into the knowledge of those things that prepare them for the understanding the Mysteries of Religion and are afterwards appointed by due Ceremony and the direction of the Holy Ghost to guide us into all truth Especially if in the last place we consider that the Spirit of truth confirms those truths contained in the Scriptures unto the minds of men by co-operating with the external appointed Ministrations by an internal work upon the understanding and affections That there is such a thing as a Divine illumination yet continued amongst Christians as our Church owns it by her Prayers so no man can reasonably contradict it Not that it does render any man infallible as the Romanists affirm Nor inspire men with any new Doctrine or Rules of life besides what it has revealed in the Scriptures as some Enthusiasts adventure to determine Yet we must not to avoid the extreams forsake so useful an Article of belief that gives God the glory of his power and keeps us dependent upon him and is so great a foundation of our prayers and praises Truth is not to be forsaken by the Jews because the Samaritans may be of the same opinion Nor shall I like the Jews in Barbary refuse to eat of that Meat which is dress'd by one of a different perswasion Or to drink in the same Cup with a Moor when he is a person of a wholsome Constitution until it has undergone the Ceremony of Washing Truth in this World will be blended with error and 't is the prudence as well as piety of a Christian to make a separation of the Wheat from the Chaff and not to slight and refuse the one because the other has been mix'd with it 'T is true indeed as Mr. Hales expresses it The Promise of the Spirit to the Apostles which should lead them into all truth was made good unto them by private and secret informing their understandings with high and heavenly Mysteries which never entered into the conceit of man And to us this promise is made good because what was written by Revelation in their hearts for our instruction they have written in their Books But yet this is not all the assistance the Spirit gives us For though he does not inspire us with any new Doctrine you he opens our understandings to the apprehension of the old I am far from admitting the conceit of an impulse to be the rule and measure of our lives because we know what mischiefs have overspread the World when propositions have been vailed with such a pretence and it may be our own as well as S. Austin's observation Tanto sunt ad seditionem faciliores quanto sibi videntur spiritu excellere Men are the more prone to sedition by how much the more they seem to excell in their inspiration yet there cannot appear the same danger where the Spirit only assists our understandings to apprehend those truths which are already deliver'd and inclines our wills and affections to embrace them when according to the direction of S. John we are not so credulous as to believe every Spirit but to try the Spirits whether they are of God or no 1 John 4.1 Now then only may we reasonably conclude our understandings to be influenced by the Spirit when our notions agree with the written Word For to the Law and to the Testimony sayes the Prophet if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no morning or light in them Isa 8.20 There are divers means natural in themselves and rationally appointed by Almighty God for the informing men in the truths that concern them Reading meditation and hearing the Word are proper methods to inform our understandings and to guide us into the way of truth But prayer is therefore wont to be superadded not only to compose our minds and make them fit for Divine Contemplation by a sequestration of our thoughts from those external objects that by intermixing themselves with those that are more spiritual confound our Idea's and notices of things and render our minds more loose and extravagant But because Prayer supplicates those aids and assistances of the Spirit that facilitate our apprehensions of truth by removing objects that crumble and disorder them and it
without hypocrisie And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for them that make peace Thus I have endeavoured to free the inspirations of the Holy Spirit from the bold claims of Papists and Fanaticks when they plead its conduct and appropriate it to themselves in those false Doctrines which they publish to the World What now remains to finish this Discourse but only to beg that we would be perswaded to avoid these obstructions to the compleatment and perfection of our Religion and to practise the contrary that may perfect our obedience to the truth that we would give unto God an undivided heart that we would not halt betwixt two opinions and mix Christianity with other principles different from it That we would not think the Cross so grievous to be born when the reward of a Crown is proposed with it That we would not be so fond of our natural dispositions but submit our inclinations to Gods commands that we would more seriously endeavour to make our faith conquer our senses in things that are not their proper objects that the spirituality of that Worship which the Gospel prescribed may be more strictly practised and intended by us That we would endeavour to alleviate the burden of those duties that Christianity prescribes by the rational considerations of their excellency and rewards That we would allow our selves more leisure for consideration and thoughtfulness by a retirement from the hurries and business of the World that we would banish the love of the World from our hearts especially when detracting from the love of God and the interest of Religion That we would distinguish well betwixt zeal and passion and let good things determine our affections That we would not wilfully misunderstand the Gospel to support either a principle or a faction That we would watch against the insinuations and subtilties of the Devil who like a roaring Lyon walks about seeking to devour us That we would beware of pride and obstinacy of mind which hates conviction and strengthens error That we would not be partial in the choice of the duties of Religion since the same authority enjoins all and true obedience must be universal That we would banish coolness and not be indifferent in our choice of Religion but be strict in the examination of our principles that in the proof of all things we may hold fast that which is good Finally That we would not imbibe such Opinions as in their nature or consequences are destructive of Christianity that we may not ruine by particular conclusions what we seem to hold to and profess in the general And Lastly That we would admit such evidences of what Christianity enjoins us to believe as the nature of the things are capable of since the expectation of more is unreasonable and a farther demand is altogether against the Laws of discourse and we require what is impossible to be done This advice if we cordially embrace will prepare us for obedience to the truth and hinder us from being shaken with every wind of Doctrine and toss'd alwayes in the midst of uncertainties our judgements then will be fixed and setled and if we add our sincere endeavours to live according to the principles we receive and pray to God to assist us in our duties we shall gain peace of conscience here and hereafter an eternal Crown of Glory Which God of his infinite mercy grant to us all for Christ Jesus sake to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be ascribed by all rational creatures that are capable of performing it all Glory and Adoration now and for ever Amen FINIS Books Printed for and are to be Sold by Edward Vize at the Sign of the Bishop's Head over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil A Discourse of Prayer Wherein this great Duty is stated so as to oppose some Principles and Practices of Papists and Fanaticks as they are contrary to the Publick Forms of the Church of England established by her Ecclesiastical Canons and confirmed by Acts of Parliament By Thomas Pittis D.D. one of His Majesties Chaplains in Ordinary Advice to the Readers of the Common-Prayer and to the People attending the same With a Preface concerning Divine Worship Humbly offered to Consideration for promoting the greater Decency and Solemnity in performing the Offices of Gods Publick Worship administred according to the Order established by Law amongst us By a well-meaning though unlearned Laick of the Church of England T. S. The Life of the Learned and Reverend Dr. Peter Heylin Chaplain to Charles I. and Charles II. Monarchs of Great Britain Written by George Vernon Rector of Bourton on the Water in Gloucestershire The Crafty Lady Or the Rival of Himself A Gallant Intriegue Translated out of French into English by F. C. Ph. Gent. FINIS