more fully revealed for the next two thousand years by Moses first in a typical Gospel the adumbration of the grace to come and then by the Prophets especially Isaiah Micah Daniel and Malachi in plainer predictions And then came John Baptist the fore-runner and Christ the Messiah and the Spirit upon the Apostles and finished the Revelation So that it may appear to be all one frame contrived and indicted by one Spirit And the effects of it have been according to these degrees of the Revelation And the end of the world whether at the end of the last two thousand years or when else God pleaseth will shortly shew the unbelieving themselves that the period shall fulfill what is yet unfulfilled to the least jot and tittle CHAP. V. The Image of Gods Goodness II. THE second part of Gods Image on our Religion is that of his matchless GOODNESS The whole systeme of it is the harmonious expression of GODS HOLINESS and LOVE The particulars I must but name lest I be too long 1. The Author of it Jesus Christ was perfectly Good himself being God and man sinless in nature and in life living and dying and rising to do good and making it his office and his work even in Heaven to do mankind the greatest good 2. The Matter of the Christian Religion is GOD himself the infinite Good The use of it is to teach men to know God and to bring us to him To which end it maketh a fuller discovery of his blessed nature attributes and works than is any where else to be found in this world 3. The utmost End of it is the highest imaginable the pleasing and glorifying of God For he that is the Beginning of all must needs be the End of all 4. It leadeth man to the highest state of felicity for himself which is an End conjunct in subordination to the highest There can be no greater happiness imaginable than the Christian Religion directeth us to attain 5. It placeth our happiness so certainly and clearly in that which is happiness indeed that it directeth mans intentions and desires and leaveth them no longer to the old variety of opinions about the chiefest good Nature perfected and working by its perfectest acts upon the most perfect object and receiving the most full communications from him and this for ever must needs be the most perfect felicity of man To have all our faculties fully perfect and to live for ever in the perfect light and love of God and to be accordingly beloved of him this is the end of Christianity 6. To this end the whole design of the Christian Religion is to make man good and to cure him of all evil and to prepare him justly for that blessed state 7. To that end the great work of Jesus Christ is to send down the sanctifying Spirit of God to make men new creatures and to regenerate them to the Nature of God himself and to a heavenly mind and life That they may not only have precepts which are good but the power of God to make them good and a heavenly principle to fit them for Heaven 8. To that end the principal means is the fullest revelation of the love of God to man that ever was made and more than is any where else revealed All the design of Christianity is but to shew God to man in the fullest prospect of his Goodness and unmeasurable Love that so he may appear more amiable to us and may be more beloved by us that Loving Goodness may make us good and make us happy 9. To encourage us to Love and Goodness God doth in the Gospel give us the pardon of all our sins as soon as ever we turn to him by Faith and Repentance Though we have deserved Hell he declareth that he will forgive us that desert If we had come to Hell before we had been redeemed I think we should have taken that Religion to be good indeed which would have brought us the tydings of forgiveness and shewed us so ready a way to escape 10. And this mercy is given by an Vniversal Covenant offered to all without exception And the Conditions are so reasonable that no one can have any just pretence against them It is but to accept the mercy offered with a believing thankfull mind as a condemned man would do a pardon And what can be more suitable to our miserable state 11. And to bring us to all this and make us holy Christ hath given us a most holy word and doctrine perfectly holy in its precepts and in its prohibitions and all the subservient histories and narratives And he hath added the perfect pattern of his holy life that our Rule and Example might agree 12. So good is this word that it calleth us to the highest degree of Goodness and maketh Perfection it self our duty that our duty and happiness may agree and we may not have liberty to be bad and miserable but may be every way bound to our own felicity And yet so good is this Covenant of Grace that it taketh not advantage of our infirmities to ruine us but noteth them to humble us in order to our cure And iâ— accepteth sincerity though it command perfection And Christ looketh not at our failings as a severe Judge but as a Physician and a tender Father 13. So good is our Religion that the great thing which it requireth of us is to prefer the greatest good before the lesser and not to be like children who take it for their riches to fill their pin-box or like foolish Merchants who had rather trade for truth thâ—n for gold The great businesâ— of Christian preceptâ— is to make us know that we are capable of better things than meat and drink and lust and sports and wealth and worldly honours that the Love of God and the felicity of the soul in Grace and Glory may be preferred before the pleasure of a Swine And is not that good which calleth us up to the greatest good and will not allow us to be such enemies to our selves as to take up with the lesser 14. Yea when we have most it still engageth us to seek more And will not allow us to take up with a low degree of grace or with a little measure of the greatest good But to shew that God would have us to be still better and to have more it is made our duty still to ask more and still to press higher and labour to be better Asking in prayer is made our daily work and Gods giving and our receiving may be our daily blessedness 15. The mercies here provided for us extend both to soul and body For though we may not prefer the less before the greater yet we shall have it in its place If we seek first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness and labour first for the food which never perisheth all other things shall be added to us We shall have then to do us good but not to do us hurt For
abroad the world And then how the Roman Empire was brought in and subdued to Christ and Crowns and Scepters resigned to him and all this according to his own prediction that when he was lifted up he would draw all men to him and according to the predictions of his Prophets But that which I would especially open is the POWER which is manifested in the work of the Spirit on the souls of men both then and to this day Hitherto what I have mentioned belonging to the Scripture it self it is to be taken as part of our Religion objectively considered But that which followeth is the effect of that even our Religion subjectively considered To observe how God maketh men Believers and by believing sanctifieth their hearts and lives is a great motive to further our own believing Consider the work 1. As it is in it self 2. As it is opposed by all its enemies and you may see that it is the work of God 1. As the Goodness so also the Greatness of it is Gods own Image It is the raising up of our stupid faculties to be lively and active to those holy uses to which they were become as dead by sin To cause in an unlearned person a firmer and more distinct belief of the unseen world than the most learned Philosophers can attain to by all their natural contemplations To bring up a soul to place its happiness on things so high and far from sense To cause him who naturally is imprisoned in selfishness to deny himself and devote himself entirely to God to love him to trust him and to live to him To raise an earthly mind to Heaven that our business and hope may be daily there To overcome our pride and sensuality and bring our senses in subjection unto reason and to keep a holy government in our thoughts and over our passions words and deeds And to live in continual preparation for death as the only time of our true felicity And to suffer any loss or pain for the safe accomplishment of this All this is the work of the POWER of God 2. Which will the more appear when we consider what is done against it within us and without us what privative and positive averseness we have to it till God do send down that Life and Light and Love into our souls which is indeed his Image How violently our fleshly sense and appetite strive against the restraints of God and would hurry us contrary to the motions of grace How importunately Satan joyneth with his suggestions What baits the world doth still set before us to divert us and pervert us And how many instruments of its flattery or its cruelty are still at work to stop us or to turn us back to invite our affections down to Earth and ensnare them to some deluding vainty or to distract us in our heavenly design and to aâ—right or discourage us from the holy way And if we think this an easie work because it is also reasonable do but observe how hardly it goeth on till the POWER of God by grace accomplish it what a deal of pains may the best and wisest Parents take with a graceless child and all in vain what labours the worthiest Ministers lose on graceless people and how blind and dead and senseless a thing the graceless heart is to any thing that is holy even when reason it self cannot gainsay it And God is pleased oft-times to weary out Parents and Masters and Ministers with such unteachable and stony hearts to make them know what naturally they are themselves to bring them to the more lively acknowledgement of the POWER which is necessary to renew and save a soul But having spoken at large of this in the formentioned Treatise I shall take up with these brief intimations 19. And the preservation of that Grace in the soul which is once given us is also an effect of the POWER of God Our strength is in the Lord and in the power of his might Eph. 6.10 It is our Lord himself who is the Lord of life and whose Priesthood was made after the power of an endless life Heb. 7.16 who giveth us the Spirit of Power and of Love and of a sound mind 2 Tim. 1.7 or of received wisdom for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is sound understanding received by instruction And this text expresseth the three parts of Gods Image in the new Creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And as Power is given us with Love and Wisdom so Power with Love and Wisdom do give it us and Power also must preserve it 1 Pet. 1.5 We are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation 2 Tim. 1.8 According to the power of God who hath saved us The Gospel is the Power of God that is the instrument of his Power to our salvation Rom. 1.16 So 1 Cor. 1.18 To us that are saved it is the power of God because Christ whom it revealeth is the power and wisdom of God v. 24. And thus our faith standeth in the power of God 1 Cor. 2.5 2 Cor. 6.7 And the Kingdom of God in us doth consist in power 1 Cor. 4.20 The mind of man is very mutable and he that is possessed once with the desires of things spiritual and eternal would quickly lose those desires and turn to present things again which are still before him while higher things are beyond our sense if the Power and Activity of the divine life did not preserve the spark which is kindled in us Though the doctrine of Perseverance be controverted in the Christian Church yet experience assureth us of that which all parties are agreed in Some hold that all true Christians persevere and some hold that all confirmed Christians persevere that is those who come to a strong degree of grace but those that think otherwise do yet all grant that if any fall away it is comparatively but a very few of those who are sincere When none would persevere if Omnipotency did not preserve them 20. Lastly The POWER of God also doth consequently own the Christian Religion by the Preservation of the Church in this malicious and opposing world as well as by the preservation of grace in the soul which will be the more apparent if you observe 1. That the number of true Christians is still very small in comparison of the wicked 2. That all wicked men are naturally by the corruption of nature their enemies because the precepts and practice of Christianity are utterly against their carnal minds and interests 3. That the doctrine and practice of Christianity is still galling them and exciting and sublimating this enmity into rage And God doth by persecutions ordinarily tell us to our smart that all this is true 4. That all carnal men are exceeding hardly moved from their own way 5. That the Government of the Earth is commonly in their hand because of their numbers and their wealth For it is commonly the rich that rule and the rich are usually bad
multitude of ceremonies being but the pictures and alphabet of that truth which Jesus Christ hath brought to light and which hath evidence which to us is more convincing than that of the Jewish Law 3. The Mahometane delusion is so gross that it seemeth vain to say any more against it than it saith it self unless it be to those who are bred up in such darkness as to hear of nothing else and never to see the Sun which shineth on the Christian world and withall are under the terrour of the sword which is the strongest reason of that barbarous Sect. 4. And to think that the Atheisme of Infidels is the way who hold only the five Articles of the Vnity of God the duty of obedience the immortality of the soul the life of retributior and the necessity of Repentance is but to go against the light For 1. It is a denyal of that abundant evidence of the truth of the Christian Faith which cannot by any sound reason be confuted 2. It is evidently too narrow for mans necessities and leaveth our misery without a sufficient remedy 3. Its inclusions and exclusions are contradictory It asserteth the necessity of Obedience and Repentance and yet excludeth the necessary means the revealed Light and Love and Power by which both Obedience and Repentance must be had It excludeth Christ and his Spirit and yet requireth that which none but Christ and his Spirit can effect 4. It proposeth a way as the only Religion which few ever went from the beginning as to the exclusions As if that were Gods only way to Heaven which scarce any visible societies of men can be proved to have practised to this day Which of all these Religions have the most wise and holy and heavenly and mortified and righteous and sober persons to profess it and the greatest numbers of such If you will judge of the medicine by the effects and take him for the best Physician who doth the greatest cures upon the souls you will soon conclude that Christ is the way the truth and the life and no man cometh to the Father but by him John 14.6 Direct 3. Think how impossible it is that any but God should be the Author of the Christian Religion 1. No good man could be guilty of so horrid a crime as to forge a volume of delusions and put Gods Name to it to cheat the world so blasphemously and hypocritically and to draw them into a life of trouble to promote it Much less could so great a number of good men do this as the success of such a cheat were it possible would require There is no man that can believe it to be a deceit but must needs believe as we do of Mahomet that the Author was one of the worst men that ever lived in the world 2. No bad man could lay so excellent a design and frame a Doctrine and Law so holy so self denying so merciful so just so spiritual so heavenly and so concordant in it self nor carry on so high and divine an undertaking for so divine and excellent an end No bad man could so universally condemn all badness and prescribe such powerful remedies against it and so effectually cure and conquer it in so considerable a part of the world 3. If it be below any good man to be guilty of such a forgery as aforesaid we can much less suspect that any good Angel could be guilty of it 4. And if no bad man could do so much good we can much less imagine that any Devil or bad spirit could be the author of it The Devil who is the worst in evil could never so much contradict his nature and overthrow his own Kingdom and say so much evil of himself and do so much against himself and do so much for the sanctifying and saving of the world He that doth so much to draw men to sin and misery would never do so much to destroy their sin And we plainly feel within our selves that the spirit or party which draweth us to sin doth resist the Spirit which draweth us to believe and obey the Gospel and that these two maintain a war within us 5. And if you should say that the good which is in Christianity is caused by God and the evil of it by the Father of sin I answer either it is true or false If it be true it is so good that the Devil can never possibly be a contributor to it Nay it cannot then be suspected justly of any evil But if it be false it is then so bad that God cannot be any otherwise the Author of it than as he is the Author of any common natural Verity which it may take in and abuse or as his general concourse extendeth to the whole Creation But it is somewhat in Christianity which it hath more than other Religions have which must make it more pure and more powerful and successful than any other Religions have been Therefore it must be more than common natural truths even the contexture of those natural truths with the supernatural revelations of it and the addition of a spirit of power and light and love to procure the success And God cannot be the Author of any such contexture or additions if it be false 6. If it be said that men that had some good and some bad in them did contrive it such as those Fanaticks or Enthusiasts who have pious notions and words with pride and self-exalting minds I answer The good is so great which is found in Christianity that it is not possible that a bad man much less an extreamly bad man could be the Author of it And the wickedness of the plot would be so great if it were false that it is not possible that any but an extreamly bad man could be guilty of it Much less that a multitude should be sound at once so extreamly good as to promote it even with their greatest labour and suffering and also so extreamly bad as to joyn together in the plot to cheat the world in a matter of such high importance Such exceeding good and evil cannot consist in any one person much less in so many as must do such a thing And if such a heated brain sick person as Hacket Nailer David George or John of Leyden should cry up themselves upon prophetical and pious pretences their madness hath still appeared in the mixture of their impious doctrines and practices And if any would and could be so wicked God never would or did assist them by an age of numerous open miracles nor lend them his Omnipotency to deceive the world but left them to the shame of their proud attempts and made their folly known to all Direct 4. Study all the Evidences of the Christian Verity till their sense and weight and order be throughly digested understood and remembred by you and be as plain and familiar to you as the lesson which you have most thoroughly learned It is not once or twice reading
he that readeth Law-books or Philosophy or Medicine it is to learn Law Philosophy or Physick so whenever you read the Gospel meditate on Christ or hear his Word if you are askt why you do it be able to say I do it to learn the Love of God which is no where else in the world to be learnt so well No wonder if Hypocrites have learned to mortifie Scripture Sermons Prayers and all other means of grace yea all the world which should teach them God and to learn the letters and not the sense But it is most pittiful that they should thus mortifie Christ himself to them and should gaze on the glass and never take much notice of the face even of the Love of God which he is set up to declare Direct 4. Therefore congest all the great discoveries of this Love and set them all together in order and make them your daily study and abhor all doctrines or suggestions from men or devils which tend to disgrace diminish or hide this revealed Love of God in Christ Think of the grand design it self the reconciling and saving of lost mankind Think of the gracious nature of Christ of his wonderful condescention in his incarnation in his life and doctrine in his sufferings and death in his miracles and gifts Think of his merciful Covenant and Promises of all his benefits given to his Church and all the priviledges of his Saints of pardon and peace of his Spirit of Holiness of preservation and provision of resurrection and justification and of the life of glory which we shall live for ever And if the Faith which looketh on all these cannot yet warm your hearts with love nor engage them in thankful obedience to your Redeemer certainly it is no true and lively Faith But you must not think narrowly and seldom of these mercies not hearken to the Devil or the doctrine of any mistaken Teachers that would represent Gods Love as vailed or ecclipsed or shew you nothing but wrath and flames That which Christ principally came to reveal the Devil principally striveth to conceal even the Love of God to sinners that so that which Christ principally came to work in us the Devil might principally labour to destroy and that is our love to him that hath so loved us Direct 5. Take heed of all the Antinomian Doctrines before recited which to extol the empty Name and Image of Free Grace do destroy the true principles and motives of holiness and obedience Direct 6. Exercise your Faith upon all the holy Scriptures Precepts Promises and Threatnings and not on one of them alone For when God hath appointed all conjunctly for this work you are unlike to have his blessing or the effect if you will lay by most of his remedies Direct 7. Take not that for Holiness and Good Works which is no such thing but either mans inventions or some common gifts of God It greatly deludeth the world to take up a wrong description or character of Holiness in their minds As 1. The Papists take it for Holiness to be very observant in their adoration of the supposed transubstantiated Host to use their reliques pilgrimages crossings prayers to Saints and Angels anointings Candles Images observation of meats and daies penance auricular confession praying by numbers and hours on their beads c. They think their idle ceremonies are holiness and that their hurtful austerities and self-afflictings by rising in the night when they might pray as long before they go to bed and by whipping themselves to be very meritorious parts of Religion And their vows of renouncing marriage and propriety and of absolute obedience to be a state of perfection 2. Others think that Holiness consisteth much in being rebaptized and in censuring the Parish-Churches and Ministers as Null and in withdrawing from their communion and in avoiding forms of prayer c. 3. And others or the same think that more of it consisteth in the gifts of utterance in praying and preaching than indeed it doth and that those only are godly that can pray without book in their families or at other times and that are most in private meetings and none but they 4. And some think that the greatest parts of Godliness are the spirit of bondage to fear and the shedding of tears for sin or finding that they were under terrour before they had any spiritual peace and comfort or being able to tell at what Sermon or time or in what order and by what means they were converted It is of exceeding great consequence to have a right apprehension of the Nature of Holiness and to escape all false conceits thereof But I shall not now stand further to describe it because I have done it in many Books especially in my Reasons of the Christian Religion and in my A Saint or a Bruit and in a Treatise only of the subject called The character of a sound Christian Direct 8. Let all Gods Attributes be orderly and deeply printed in your minds as I have directed in my book called The Divine Life For it is that which must most immediately form his Image on you To know God in Christ is life eternal John 17.3 Direct 9. Never separate reward from duty but in every religious or obedient action still see it as connext with Heaven The means is no means but for the end and must never be used but with special respect unto the end Remember in reading hearing praying meditating in the duties of your callings and relations and in all acts of charity and obedience that All this is for Heaven It will make you mend your pace if you think believingly whither you are going Heb. 11. Direct 10. Yet watch most carefully against all proud self-esteeming thoughts of proper merit as obliging God or as if you were better than indeed you are For Pride is the most pernicious vermine that can breed in gifts or in good works And the better you are indeed the more humble you will be and apt to think others better than your self Direct 11. So also in every temptation to sin let Faith see Heaven open and take the temptation in its proper sense q. d. Take this pleasure instead of God sell thy part in Heaven for this preferment or commodity cast away thy soul for this sensual delight This is the true meaning of every temptation to sin and only Faith can understand it The Devil easily prevaileth when Heaven is forgotten and out of sight and pleasure commodity credit and preferment seem a great matter and can do much till Heaven be set in the ballance against them and there they are nothing and can do nothing Phil. 3.7 8 9. Heb. 12.1 2 3. 2 Cor. 4.16 17. Direct 12. Let Faith also see God alwaies present Men dare do any thing when they think they are behind his back even truants and eye-servants will do well under the Masters eye Faith seeing him that is invisible Heb. 11. is it that sanctifieth heart and life As
other The Fanaticks or Enthusiasts who raâ—l against us for trying the Spirit by the Scriptures when as the Spirit was the Author of the Scriptures do but rave in the dark and know not what they say For the Essence of the Spirit is every where and it is the effects of the Spirit in both which we must compare The Spirit is never contrary to it self And seeing it is the Sunshine which we here call the Sun the question is but where it shineth most whether in the Scripture or in our hearts The Spirit in the Apostles indited the Scriptures to be the Rule of our faith and life unto the end The Spirit in us doth teach and help us to understand and to obey those Scriptures Was not the Spirit in a greater measure in the Apostles than in us Did it not work more compleatly and unto more infallibility in their writing the Scriptures than it doth in our Vnderstanding and obeying them Is not the seal perfect when the impression is oft imperfect Doth not the Master write his Copy more perfectly than his Scholars imitation is though he teach him yea and hold his hand He that knoweth not the Religious distractions of this age will blame me for troubling the Reader with the confutation of such dreams But so will not they that have seen and tasted their effects 4. Hence we may learn that he that would know what the Christian Religion is indeed to the honour of God or their own just information must rather look into the Scripture to know it than into Believers For though in Believers it be more discernable in the kind as mens lives are more conspicuous than Laws and Precepts and the impress than the seal c. yet it is in the Laws or Scriptures more compleat and perfect when in the best of Christians much more in the most it is broken maimed and confused 5. This telleth us the reason why it is unsafe to make any men Popes or Councils or the holiest Pastors or strictest people the Rule either of our faith or lives Because they are all imperfect and discordant when the Scripture is concordant and compleat He that is led by them may erre when as the Scripture hath no errour And yet it is certain that even the imperfect knowledge and grace of faithful Pastors and companions is of great use to those that are more imperfect than they to teach them the Scriptures which are more perfect than they all 6. Hence we see why it is that Religion bringeth so much trouble and so little comfort to the most or too many that are in part Religious Because it is lame and confused in them Is it any wonder that a dâ—splaced bone is painful or that a disordered body is sick and hath no great pleasure in life or that a disordered or maimed watch or clock doth not go right O what a life of pleasure should we live if we were but such as the Scripture doth require and the Religion in our hearts and lives were fully agreeable with the Religion described in the Word of God 7. And hence we see why most true Christians are so querulous and have alwaies somewhat to complain of and lament which the sensless or self-justifying hypocrites overlook in themselves No wonder if such diseased souls complain 8. And hence we see why there is such diversity and divisions among Believers and such abundance of Sects and Parties and Contentions and so little Unity Peace and Concord And why all attempts for Unity take so little in the Church Because they have all such weakness and distempers and lameness and confusedness and great disproportions in their Religion Do you wonder why he liveth not in peace and concord and quietness with others who hath no better agreement in himself and no more composedness and true peace rt home Mens grace and parts are much unequal 9. And hence we see why there are so many scandals among Christians to the great dishonour of true Christianity and the great hinderance of the conversion of the Infidel Heathen and ungodly world What wonder if some disorder falshood and confusion appear without in words and deeds when there is so much ever dwelling in the mind 10. Lastly Hence we may learn what to expect from particular persons and what to look for also publickly in the Church and in the world He that knoweth what man is and what godly men are but as well as I do will hardly expect a concordant uniform building to be made of such discordant and uneven materials or that a set of strings which are all or almost all out of tune should make any harmonious melody or that a number of Infants should constitute an Army of valiant men or that a company that can scarce spell or read should constitute a learned Academy God must make a change upon individual persons if ever he will make a great change in the Church They must be more wise and charitable and peaceable Christians who must make up that happy Church state and settle that amiable peace and serve God in that concordant harmony as all of us desire and some expect CHAP. XII How to use Faith against particular sins THE most that I have to say of this is to be gathered from what went before about Sanctification in the general And because I have been so much longer than I intended you must bear with my necessary brevity in the rest Direct 1. When temptation setteth actual sin before you or inward sin keeps up within look well on God and sin together Let Faith see Gods Holiness and Justice and all that Wisdom Goodness and Power which sin despiseth And one such believing sight of God is enough to make you look at sin as at the Devil himself as the most ugly thing Direct 2. Set sin and the Law of God together and then it will appear to be exceeding sinful and to be the crooked fruit of the tempting Serpent You cannot know sin but by the Law Rom. 7.14 c. Direct 3. Set sin before the Cross of Christ Let Faith sprinkle his blood upon it and it will die and wither See it still as that which killed your Lord and that which pierced his side and hanged him up in such contempt and put the gall and vinegar to his mouth Direct 4. Forget not the sorrows and fears of your conversion if you are indeed converted Or if not at least the sorrows and fears which you must feel if ever you be converted God doth purposely cast us into grief and terrours for our former sins that it may make us the more careful to sin no more lest worse befall us If the pangs of the new birth were sharp and grâ—â—vous to you why will you again renew the cause and drink of those bitter waters Râ—member what a mad and sad condition you were in while you lived according to the flesh and how plainly you saw it when your eyes were opened And
these things and to expound all these Solemnities Laws and Ceremonies to them so that the frame of Church and State and Families was a preservative hereof 5. But to pass by all the rest in the Old Testament the Incarnation of Christ was such a work of Omnipotent Love as caâ—not by us be comprehended That God should be united to humanity in person that humanity should thus be advanced into union with the Deity and Man be set above the Angels that a Virgin should conceive that men from the East should be led thither to worship an Infant by the conduct of a Star which Caesarius thinketh was one of those Angels or Spirits which are called a flame of fire Psal 104.4 That Angels from Heaven should declare his nativity to the Shepherds and celebrate it with their praises that John Baptist should be so called to be his forerunner and Elizabeth Zachary Simeon and Anna should so prophesie of him That the Spirit should be seen descending on him at his Baptism and the voice be heard from Heaven which owned him that he should fast forty daies and nights and that he should be transfigured before his three Disciples on the Mount and Moses and Elias seen with him in that glory and the voice from Heaven again bear witness to him These and many such like were the attestations of Divine Omnipotency to the truth of Christ 6. To these may be next joyned the whole course of miracles performed by Christ in healing the sick and raising the dead and in many other miraculous acts which are most of the substance of the Gospel-history and which I have recited together in my Reasons of the Christian Religion see Heb. 2.2 3 4. 7. And to these may be added the Power which was given over all the creatures to Christ our Mediatour All power in Heaven and Earth was given him Joh. 17.2 13.3 Mat. 28.19 Rom. 14.9 Ephes 1.22 23. He was made Head over all things to the Church and all principalities and powers were put under him And this was not barely asserted by him but demonstrated He shewed his power over the Devils in casting them out and his power over Angels by their attendance and his power of life and death by raising the dead and his power over all diseases by healing them and his power over the winds and waters by appeasing them and his power over our food and natures by turning water into wine and by feeding many thousands miraculously yea and his power over them into whose hands he was resolved to yield himself by restraining them till his hour was come and by making them all fall to the ground at his name and his power over Sun and Heaven and Earth by the darkening of the Sun and the trembling of the Earth and the rending of the Rocks and of the Vail of the Temple Mat. 27.45 51. And his power over the dead by the rising of the bodies of many Mat. 27.52 And his power over the Saints in Heaven by the attendance of Moses and Elias and his power to forgive sins by taking away the penal maladies and his power to change hearts and save souls by causing his Disciples to leave all and follow him at a word and Zacheus to receive him and believe and the thief on the cross to be converted and to enter that day into Paradise 8. And his own Resurrection is an undoubted attestation of Divine Omnipotency If God gave him such a victory over death and raised him to life when men had killed him and rolled a stone upon his Sepulchre and sealed and guarded it there needeth no further evidence of the Power of God impressing and attesting the Christian Religion than that which ascertaineth to us the truth of Christs Resurrection For he was declared to be the Son of God by POWER by resurrection from the dead Rom. 1.4 9. And his bodily appearance to his congregated Disciples when the doors were shut his miracle at their fishing his walking on the Sea his vanishing out of their sight Luke 24. when he had discoursed with the two Disciples his opening their hearts to understand his Word c. do all shew this part of Gods Image on our Religion even his Power 10. And so doth his bodily ascending into Heaven before the face of his Disciples Acts 1. 11. But especially the sending down the Holy Ghost upon his Disciples according as he promised To cause them that were before so low in knowledge to be suddenly inspired with languages and with the full understanding of his own will and with unanimity and concord herein this made his Disciples the living monuments and effects of his own Omnipotency Acts 2. 12. And accordingly all the miracles which they did by this power recorded partly in the Acts of the Apostles or rather the Acts of Paul by Luke who was his companion which you may there read and no doubt but other Apostles in their measures did the like as Paul though they are not recorded for they had all the same Promise and Spirit This is another impression of POWER 13. Whereto must be added the great and wonderful gifts of communicating the same Spirit or doing that upon which God would give it to those converted Believers on whom they laid their hands which Simon Magus would fain have bought with money Acts 8. To enable them to speak with tongues to heal diseases to prophesie c. as they themselves had done which is a great attestation of Omnipotency 14. And the lamentable destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans foretold by Christ was an attestation of Gods POWER in the revenge or punishment of their unbelief and putting Christ to death 15. And so was the great fortitude and constancy of Believers who underwent all persecutions so joyfully as they did for the sake of Christ which was the effect of the corroborating Power of the Almighty 16. And so was the Power which the Apostles had to execute present judgements upon the enemies of the Gospel as Elimas and Simon Magus and on the abusers of Religion as Ananias and Saphyra and on many whom they excommunicated and delivered up to Satan 17. The same evidence is found in Christs Legislation as an universal Soveraign making Laws for heart and life for all the world Taking down the Laws of the Jewish Polity and Ceremonies which God by Moses had for a time set up Commanding his Ministers to proclaim his Laws to all the world and Princes and people to obey them And by these Laws conferring on Believers no less than forgiveness and salvation and binding over the impenitent to everlasting punishment 18. But the great and continued impress of Gods Power is that which together with his Wisdom and Love is made and shewed in the conveâ—sion of mens souls to God by Christ You may here first consider the numbers which were suddenly converted by the preaching of the Apostles at the first And in how little time there were Churches planted
not But doubtless the observing of anniversary solemnities for their commemoration was a way of preserving the memory of the acts themselves to posterity How long the day of Christs Nativity hath been celebrated I know not Reading what Selden hath said on one side and on the other finding no currant Author mention it that I have read before Nazianzene and finding by Chrysostome that the Churches of the East till his time had differed from the Western Churches as far as the sixth of January is from the 25 of December But that is of less moment because Christs birth is a thing unquestioned in it self But we find that the time of his fasting forty daies the time of his Passion and of his Resurrection and the giving of the Holy Ghost were long before kept in memory by some kind of observation by faâ—ts or festivals And though there was a controversie about the due season of the successive observation of Easter yet that signified no uncertainty of the first day or the season of the year And though at first it was but few daies that were kept in fasting at that season yet they were enough to commemorate both the forty daies fasting and the death of Christ 18. And the histories of the Heathens and enemies of the Church do also declare how long Christianity continued and what they were and what they suffered who were called Christians such as Plinies Celsus Porphyry Plotinus Lucian Suâ—tonius and others 19. And the constant instruction of Children by their Parents which is Family-tradition hath been a very great means also of this commemoration For it cannot be though some be negligent but that multitudes in all times would teach their children what the Christian Religion was as to its doctrine and its history And the practice of catechizing and teaching children the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Decalogue and the Scriptures the more secured this tradition in families 20. Lastly A succession of the same Spirit which was in the Apostles and of much of the same works which were done by them was such a way of assuring us of the truth of their doctrine and history as a succession of posterity teleth us that our progenitors were men The same spirit of Wisdom and Goodness in a great degree continued after them to this day And all wrought by their doctrine and very credible history assureth us that many miracles also were done in many ages after them though not so many as by them Eusebius Cyprian Augustine Victor Vlicensis Sulpitius Severus and many others shew us so much as may make the belief of the Apostles the more easie And indeed the Image of Gods WISDOM GOODNESS and POWER on the souls of all true Christians in the world successively to this day considered in it self and in its agreement with the same Image in the holy Scriptures which do imprint it and in its agreement or sameness as found in all Ages Nations and Persons is such a standing perpetual evidence that the Christian Religion is Divine that being still at hand it should be exceeding satisfactory to a considerate Believer against all doubts and temptations to unbelief And were it not lest I should instead of an Index give you too large a recital of what I have more fully written in my foresaid Treatise I would here stay yet to shew you how impossible it is that this Spirit of Holiness which we feel in us and see by the effects in others even in every true Believer should be caused by a word of falshood which he abhorreth and as the Just Ruler of the world would be obliged to disown I shall only here desire you by the way to note that when I have all this while shewed you that the SPIRIT is the great witness of the truth of Christianity that it is this spirit of Wisdom Goodness and Power in the Prophets in Christ in the Apostles and in all Christians expressed in the doctrine and the practices aforesaid which I mean as being principally the Evidences or objective witness of Jesus Christ and secondarily being in all true Believers their teacher or illuminater and sanctifier efficiently to cause them to perceive the aforesaid objective Evidences in its cogent undeniable power And thus the Holy Ghost is the promised Agent or Advocate of Christ to do his work in his bodily absence in the world And that in this sense it is that we Believe in the HOLY GHOST and are baptized into his Name and not only as he is the third person in the Eternal Trinity And therefore it is to be lamented exceedingly 1. That any Orthodox Teachers should recite over many of these parts of the witness of the SPIRIT and when they have done tell us that yet all these are not sufficient to convince us without the testimony of the Spirit As if all this were none of the testimony of the Spirit and as if they would perswade us and our enemies that the testimony which must satisfie us is only some inward impress of this Proposition on the mind by way of inspiration The Scriptures are the Word of God and true Overlooking the great witness of the Spirit which is his special work and which our Baptism relateth to and feigning some extraordinary new thing as the only testimony And it is to be lamented that Papists and quarrelling Sectaries should take this occasion to reproach us as Infidels that have no true grounded faith in Christ as telling us that we resolve it all into a private inward pretended witness of the Spirit And then they ask us who can know that witness but our selves and how can we preach the Gospel to others if the only cogent argument of faith be incommunicable or such as we cannot prove Though both the Believing soul and the Church be the Kingdom of the Prince of Light yet O what wrong hath the Prince of Darkness done by the mixtures of darkness in them both So much for the first Direction for the strengthening of Faith which is by discerning the Evidences of Truth in our Religion CHAP. VIII The rest of the Directions for strengthening our Faith I Shall be more brief in the rest of the Directions for the increase of Faith and they are these Direct 2. Compare the Christian Religion with all other in the world And seeing it is certain that some way or other God hath revealed to guide man in his duty unto his end and it is no other you will see that it must needs be this 1. The way of the Heathenish Idolaters cannot be it The principles and the effects of their Religion may easily satisfie you of this The only true God would not command Idolatry nor befriend such ignorance errour and wickedness as doth constitute their Religion and are produced by it as its genuine fruits 2. The way of Judaism cannot be it For it doth but lead us up to Christianity and bear witness to Christ and of it self is evidently insufficient its
Tim. 6.17 4.10 Psal 49.6 52.7 But yet because the hypocrite knoweth that he cannot live here alwaies but must die and his riches must be parted with at last and heareth of a life of glory afterwards he would fain have his part in that too when he can keep the world no longer And so he taketh both together for his part and hope viz. as much bodily happiness as he can get in this world and Heaven at last when he must die not knowing that God will be all our portion and felicity or none and that the world must be valued and used but for his sake and in subordination to him and a better world 5. Yet some hypocrites seem to go further though they do not for they will seem even to themselves to resign goods and life and all things absolutely to the will of God But the reason is because they are secretly perswaded in their hearts that their resignation shall no whit deprive them of them and that God will never the more take it from them but that they may possess as much present corporal felicity in a life of Religion as if they lived in the dangerous case of the ungodly or at least that they may keep so much as not to be undone or left to any great sufferings in the world or at least their lives may not be called for For they live in a time when few suffer for Christ and therefore they see little cause to â—eâ—r that they should be of that smaller number and it is but being a little the more wise and cautelous and they hope they may scape well enough And if they had not this hope they would never give up all to Christ But like persons that will be liberal to their Physician they will offer a great deal when they think he will not take it but if they thought he would take all that is offered they would offer less Or as if a sick person should hear that such a Physician will give him no very strong or loathsome Physick and therefore when the Physician telleth him I will be none of your Physician unless you will absolutely promise to take every thing which I shall give you He promiseth that he will do it but it is only because he supposeth that he will give him nothing which is troublesome And if he find his expectation crost he breaketh his promise and â—aith If I had known that he would have used me thus I would never have promised it him So hypocrites by promise give up themselves absolutely to God and to bâ— wholly at his will without excepting life it self But their hearts do secretly except it For all this is because they doubt not but they may save their earthly prosperity and lives and be Christians too And if once Christ call them to suffer death for him they shew then what was the meaning of their hearts To reassume the former similitude If Christ on earth should offer to convey you to a Kingdom at the Antipodes where men live for ever in glorious holiness if you will but trust him and go in his Ship and take him for your Pilot Here one saith I do not believe him that there is such a place and therefore I will not go that is the Infidel Another saith I like my merry life at home better than his glorious holiness that 's the open worldling and prophane Another saith I will live in my own Country and on my own estate as long as I can and when I find that I am dying and can stay here no longer that I may be sure to lose nothing by him I will take his offer Another saith I will go with him but I will turn back again if I find any dangerous storms and gulfs in the passage Another saith I will take another Ship and Pilot along with me lest he should fail me that I may not be deceived Another saith I am told that the Seas are calm and there is no danger in the passage and therefore I will absolutely trust him and venture all but when he meets with storms and hideous waves he saith This is not as I expected and so he turneth back again But another the true Christian saith I will venture all and wholly trust him And so though he is oft afraid in dangers when he seeth the devouring gulfs yet not so fearful as to turn back but on he goeth come on it what will because he knoweth that the place which he goeth to is most desirable and mortality will soon end his old prosperity and he hath great reason to believe his Pilot to be trusty By all this you may see how it cometh to pass that Christ who promiseth life to Believers doth yet make self-denyal and forsaking all that we have even life it self to be also necessary and what relation self-denyal hath to faith Luke 14.26 3â— Nearer by far than most consider You may see here the reason why Christ tryed the rich man Luke 18.22 with selling all and following him in hope of a reward in Heaven And why he bid his Diciples Luke 12.33 Sell that ye have and give alms provide your selves bags which wax not old a treasure in the Heavens which faileth not And why the first Christians were made a pattern of entire Christianity by selling all and laying down at the Apostles feet And Ananias and Saphira were the instances of Hypocrisie who secretly and lyingly kept back part You see here how it comes to pass that all true Christians must be heart-martyrs or prepared to die for Christ and Heaven rather than forsake him You may plainly perceive that Faith it self is an Affiance or Trusting in God by Christ even a Trusting in God in Heaven as our felicity and in Christ as the Mediator and the Way and that this Trust is a venturing all upon him and a forsaking all for God and his promises in Christ And that it is one and the same Motion which from the terminus à quo is called Repentance and forsaking all and from the terminus ad quem is called Trust and Love They that are willing to see may profit much by this observation and they that are not may quarrel at it and talk against that which their prejudice will not allow them to understand And by all this you may see also wherein the strength of Faith consisteth And that is 1. In so clear a sight of the evidences of truth as shall leave no considerable doubtings Mat. 21.21 So Abraham staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief but was strong in faith giving glory to God Rom. 4. 2. In so confirmed a Resolution to cleave to God and Christ alone as leaveth no wavering or looking back that we may say groundedly with Peter Though I die I will not deny thee which doubtless signified then some strength of faith And as Paul I am ready not only to be bound but to die for the Name of the Lord
this Treatise are so unlike understand 1. That they are for various uses The first Part to make men willing by awakening perswasions and the rest to direct them in the exercises of Faith who are first made willing 2. That I write not to win thy praise of an artificial comely Structure but to help souls to Holiness and Heaven and to these ends I labour to suit the means 3. That the first Sermon was published long ago and the Bookseller desiring me to give him some additions to it I thought meet first to make up the exciting part in the same style and then to add a Directory for the practice of judicious Believers 2. And if it offend thee that the second Part containeth but such matter as I have already published in my Reasons of the Christian Religion understand 1. That I perceived that that Treatise was neglected by the more unlearned sort of Christians as not descending enough to their capacities and that it would be useful to the confirmation of their Faith to draw forth some of the most obvious Arguments in as plain a manner and as briefly as I could that length nor obscurity might not deprive them of the benefit who are too slothfull or too dull to make use of more copious and accurate discourse 2. And I knew not how to write a Treatise of the Uses of Faith which should wholly leave out the Confirmations of Faith without much reluctancy of my Reason 3. And again I say I can bear the dispraise of Repetition if I may but further mens Faith and Salvation 3. And if it offend thee that I am so dull in all the Directive part I cannot well do both works at once awaken the Affections and accurately direct the mind for practice Or at least if I had spoken all those Directions in a copious applicatory Sermon style it would have swelled the Book to a very tedious costly volume And Affection must not too much interpose when the Judgment is about its proper work And being done in the beginning it may be the better spared afterward 4. If it offend you that I open the Life of Faith in somewhat an unusual manner I answer for my self that if it be Methodical true and apt for use I do that which I intend And on a subject so frequently and fully handled it were but an injury to the Church to say but the same which is said already Mr. John Ball Mr. Ezekiel Culverwell and Mr. Samuel Ward in a narrower room have done exceeding well upon this subject If you have nothing more than they have said read their Books only and let this alone 5. If it offend you that the Directions are many of them difficult and the style requireth a slow considerate Reader I answer the nature of the subject requireth it and without voluminous tediousness it cannot be avoided Blame therefore your unprepared ignorant minds and while you are yet dull of hearing and so make things hard to be uttered to your understanding because you have still need of Milk and cannot digest strong meat but must again be taught the principles of the oracles of God Heb. 5.11 12 13 14. think not to gâ—t knowledge without hard study and patient learning by hearing nothing but what you know already or can understand by one hasty reading over lest you discover a conjunction of slothfulness with an ignorant and unhumbled mind Or at least if you must learn at so cheap a rate or else stick still in your Milk and your Beginnings be not offended if others out-go you and think knowledge worthy of much greater diligence and if leaving the principles we go on towards perfection as long as we take them along with us and make them the life of all that followeth while we seem to leave them And this we will do if God permit Heb. 6.1 3. R. B. Feb. 3. 1669. The Contents of the first Part. The SERMON WHat Faith is page 2. The Text opened p. 4. The grounds of the certaâ—nty of Faith briefly intimated p. 5 c. Why God will have us live by Faith and not by sight p. 1â— c. Use 1. To inform us what a Christian or Believer is described p. 15 Use 2. The Reason why Believers are more serious in matters of Religion than unbelievers are Use 3. Of Examination p. 29 The misery of unbelievers p. 30 Marks of a true Faith p. 32 Use 4. Exhortation to the serious exercise of Faith p. 37 Some assisting suppositions p. 38 How those will live who thus believe opened in certain Questions p 4â— Motives to live by a foreseeing Faith on things not seen p. 45 The Conclusion 1. Exhorting to live by Faith 2. And to promote this life in others p. 46. The Additions Cap. 1. The conviction and reproof of Hypocrites Who live contrary to the Faith which they profess 48 Cap. 2. A general Exhortation to live as Believers 56 Cap. 3. An exhortation to the particular duties of Believers 63 The Contents of the Second Part. Chap. 1. The Believers Directory must shew him I. How to strengthen Faith 2. How to use it And I. For the first the order of the presupposed Natural Verities is briefly mentioned 8â— Chap. 2. The true Method of enquiry into the supernatural evidences of Faith and the Rules therein to be observed 87 Chap. 3. The proper Evidence of Faith The SPIRIT and the Image of God himself 97 Chap. 4. The Image of Gods Wisdom on the Christian Religion It 's wonderful Method opened in thirty instances Six more instances 99 Chap. 5. The Image of Gods Goodness and Holiness on the Christian Religion in thirty instances 108 Chap. 6. The Image of Gods Power upon the Christian Religion in twenty instances 115 Chap. 7. The means of making known all this to us infallibly How the first witnesses knew it How the next Age and Churches knew it How we know it Twenty special historical Traditions of Christianity and matters of fact What the Spirits Witness to Christianity is 125 Chap. 8. Twelve further Directions to confirm our Faith 136 Chap. 9. Twenty General Directions how to use Faith or to live by it when it iâ— confirmed What Christian Faith is Errours about it 148 The Contents of the third Part. Chap. 1. How to live by Faith on God 168 Chap. 2. How to live by Faith on Jesus Christ 188 Abuses of the Doctrine of Redemption The extent of it Of Christs Office His Merits and Sacrifice Example c. Chap. 3. How to live by Faith on the Holy Ghost Of the Trinity Several doubts resolved about believing in the Holy Ghost Of giving the Spirit His operations Whether Love to God or Faith in Christ go first exactly answered And consequently whether Faith or Repentance be first Of the Spirit in Christ and the Apostles Of sufficient Grace How Faith procureth the Spirit Whether desires of grace be grace 20â— Chap. 4. How to live by faith as to Gods Commandâ— The admirable
let me begin to plead it with your consciences Are you Believers Do you live the life of Faith or not Do you live upon things that are unseen or upon the present visible baits of sensuality That you may not turn away your ears or hear me with a sluggish sensless mind let me tell you first how nearly it concerneth you to get this Question soundly answered and then that you may not be deceived let me help you toward the true resolution 1. And for the first you may perceive by what is said that saving Faith is not so common as those that know not the nature of it do imagine All men have not faith 2 Thes 3.2 O what abundance do deceive themselves with Names and shews and a dead Opinion and customary Religion and take these for the life of faith 2. Till you have this faith you have no special interest in Christ It is only Believers that are united to him and are his living Members and it is by faith that he dwelleth in our hearts and that we live in him Ephes 3.17 Gal. 2.20 In vain do you boast of Christ if you are not true Believers You have no part or portion in him None of his special Benefits are yours till you have this living working Faith 3. You are still in the state of enmity to God and unreconciled to him while you are unbelievers For you can have no peace with God nor aâ—â—ess unto his favour but by Christ Rom. 5.1 2 3 4. Ephes 2.14 15 17. And therefore you must come by faith to Christ before you can come by Christ unto the Father as those that have a special interest in his love 4. Till you have this Faith you are under the guilt and load of all your sins and under the curse and condemnation of the Law For there is no Justification or forgiveness but by Faith Act. 26.18 Rom. 4 5 c. 5. Till you have this sound Belief of things unseen you will be carnal minded and have a carnal end to all your actions which will make those to be evil that materially are good and those to be fleshly that materially are holy Without Faith it is impossible to please God Rom. 8.5 8 9. Prov. 28.9 Heb. 11.6 6. Lastly Till you have this living Faith you have no right to Heaven nor could be saved if you die this hour Whoever believeth shall not perish but have everlasting life He that believeth on him is not condemned but he that believeth not iâ— condemned already He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life and he that bâ—lieveth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abidâ—th on him Joh. 3.16 18 36. You see if you love your selves it concerneth you to try whether you are true Believers Unless you take it for an indifferent thing whether you live for ever in Heaven or Hell it 's best for you to put the question close to your consciences betimes Have you that Faith that serves instead of sight Do you carry within you the evidence of things unseen and the substance of the things which you say you hope for Did you know in what manner this question must be put and determined at judgement and how all your comfort will then depend upon the answer and how near that day is when you must all be sentenced to Heaven or Hell as you are found to be Believers or Vnbelievers it would make you hearken to my counsel and presently try whether you have a saving Faith 2. But lest you be deceived in your trial and lest you mistake me as if I tryed the weak by the measure of the strong and laid all your comfort upon such strong affections and high degrees as fight it self would work within you I shall briefly tell you how you may know whether you have any faith that 's true and saving though in the least degree Though none of us are affected to that height as we should be if we had the sight of all that we do believe yet all that have any saving belief of invisible things will have these four signs of faith within them 1. A sound belief of things unseen will cause a practical estimation of them and that above all earthly things A glimpse of the heavenly glory as in a glass will cause the soul deliberately to say This is the chief desirable felicity this is the Crown the Pearl the Treasure nothing but this can serve my turn It will debase the greatest pleasures or riches or honours of the world in your esteem How contemptible will they seem while you see God stand by and Heaven as it were set open to your view you 'l see there 's little cause to envy the prosperous servants of the world you will pitty them as miserable in their mirth and bound in the fetters of their folly and concupiscence and as strangers to all solid joy and honour You will be moved with some compassion to them in their misery when they are braving it among men and domineering for a little while and you will think alas poor man Is this all thy glory Hast thou no better wealth no higher honour no sweeter pleasures than these husks With such a practical judgement as you value gold above dirt and jewels above common stones you will value Heaven above all the riches and pleasures of this world if you have indeed a living saving faith Phil. 3.7 8 9. 2. A sound belief of the things unseen will habitually incline your wills to embrace them with consent and complacence and resolution above and against those worldly things that would be set above them and preferred before them If you are true believers you have made your choice you have fixâ— your hopes you have taken up your resolutions that God must be your portion or you can have none that 's worth the having that Christ must be your Saviour or you cannot be saved and therefore you are at a point with all things else they may be your Helps but not your Happiness you are resolved on what Rock to build and where to cast anchor and at what port and prize your life shall aim You are resolved what to seek and trust to God or none Heaven or nothing Christ or none is the voice of your rooted stable resolutions Though you are full of fears sometimes whether you shall be accepted and have a part in Christ or no and whether ever you shall attain the Glory which you aim at yet you are off all other hopes having seen an end of all perfections and read vanity and vexation written upon all creatures even on the most flattering state on earth and are unchangeably resolved not to change your Master and your hopes and your holy course for any other life or hopes Whatever come of it you are resolved that here you will venture all Knowing that you have no other game to play at which you are not sure to lose and that you
wonder that such men can believe themselves when they say they do indeed believe the Gospel And shews what a monster the blind deceitful heart of an impenitent sinner is In good sadness can they think that they truly believe that God is God and yet so wilfully disobey him that Heaven is Heaven and yet prefer the world before it that Hell is Hell and yet will venture upon it for a lust or a thing of nought What! believe that there is at hand a life of endless joy and no more mind it but hate them that set their hearts upon it Do they believe that except a man be converted and new born he shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven as Christ hath told them Matth. 18.3 John 3.3 5. and yet never trouble their minds about it to try whether they are converted and new born or not Do they believe God that no man shall see him without holiness Heb. 12.14 and yet dare they be unholy and perhaps deride it Do they believe that Christ will come in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power 2 Thes 2.8 9. and yet dare they disobey the Gospel Do they take God for their absolute Lord and Governour while they will not so much as meditate on his Laws but care more what a mortal man saith or what their flesh and carnal reason saith than what he saith to them in his holy Word Do they take Christ for their Saviour and yet would not be saved by him from their sins but had rather keep them Do they take the Holy Ghost for their Sanctifier while they will not have a sanctified heart or life and love it not in those that have it Do they take Heaven for their endless home and happiness while they neither mind nor seek it in comparison of the world And do they take the world for vanity and vexation while they mind and seek it more than Heaven Do they believe the communion of Saints while they fly from it and perhaps detest and persecute it Is light and darkness more contrary than their words and deeds And is not HYPOCRISIE as visible in their practice as Christianity in their profession It is the complexion of their Religion HYPOCRITE is legibly written in the forehead of it They proclaim their shame to all that they converse with When they have said they believe the life to come they tell men by your ungodly worldly lives that they are dissemblers When their tongue hath loudly said that they are Christians their tongue and hand more loudly say that they are Hypocrites And when they profess their Faith but now and then in a lifeless outside piece of worship they profess their Hypocrisie all the day long in their impious neglect of God and their salvation in their carnal speeches in their worldly lives and in their enmity to the practice of the same Religion which they profess Their Hypocrisie is a web so thin and so transparent that it leaves their nakedness open to their shame They have not Profession enough to make a considerable cover for their unbelief They hide but their tongues the rest even heart and all is bare O the stupendious power of self love the wonderful blindness and stupidity of the ungodly the dreadfulness of the judgement of God in thus dâ—serting the wâ—lful resisters of his grace That ever men in other things of seeming wisdom should be such strangers to themselves and so deceived by themselves as to think they love the thing they hate and to think that their hearts are set upon Heaven when they neither love it nor the way that leadeth to it but are principally bent another way that when they arâ— strangers or enemies to a holy life they can yet make themselves believe that they are holy and that they seek that first which they never seek and make that the drift and business of their lives which was never the serious business of an hour O Hypocrites ask any impartial man of reason that sees your lives and hears your prayers whether you pray and live like men that believe that Heaven or Hell must be their reward Ask your families whether they perceive by your constant prayer and diligent endeavours and holy conversations that your hearts are set on a life to come It was a cutting answer of a late Apostate to one that told him of the unreasonableness of Infidels that denyed the life to come saith he There 's none in the world so unreasonable as you Christians that believe that there is an endless life of joy or misery to come and do no more to obtain the one and escape the other Did I believe such a life as this I would think all too little that I could do or suffer to make it sure Who sees the certainty greatness and eternity of the Crown of Life in the resolvedness fervency and constancy of your holy labour You take up with the picture of Sermons and Prayers and with the name of Christianity and holy obedience A little more Religion you will admit than a Parrot may learn or a Poppet may exercise Compare your care and labour and cost for Heaven and for this world That you believe the flattering deceitful world we see by your daily solicitousness about it You seek it you strive for it you fall out with all that stand in your way you are at it daily and have never done But who can see that you seriously believe another world you talk idly and wantonly and proudly by the hours but you talk of Heaven and holiness but by the minutes You do not turn the glass when you go to your unnecessary recreations or your vain discourse or at least you can stay when the glass is run But in hearing the most necessary truths of God or in praying for everlasting life the hour seems long to you and the tedious Preacher is your weariness and molestation You do not feast and play by the glass but if we do not preach and pray by it exactly but exceed our hour though in speaking of and for eternity we are your burden and put your languid patience to it as if we were doing you some intollerable wrong In worldly matters you are weary of giving but seldom of receiving you grudge at the asker but seldom at the giver But if the gift be spiritual and heavenly you are a weary to hear talk of it and expostulate the case with him that offereth it and he must shew by what authority he would do you good If by serious holy conference he would further your preparations for the life to come or help you to make sure of life eternal he is examined what power he hath to meddle with you and promote your salvation And perhaps he is snappâ—shly told he is a
sinful world and flesh linger not now as unwilling to depart repent not of thy choice when all that the world can do for thee is past repent not of thy warfare when thou hast got the victory nor of thy voyage when thou art past the storms and waves and ready to land at the haven of felicity Thus Faith may sing our Nunc dimittis when the flesh is lothest to be dissolved But we must live by faith if we would thus die by faith Such a death doth not use to be the period of a fleshly worldly life nor of a careless dull and negligent life Nature which brought us into the world without our forecast or care will turn us out of the world without it But it will not give us a joyful passage nor bring us to a better world without it It costeth worldlings no small care to die in an honourable or plentiful estate that they may fall from an higher place than others and may have something to make death more grievous and unwelcome to them and may have a greater account to make at Judgement and that their passage to Heaven may be as a Camels through a Needle And may a believing joyful death be expected without the preparations of exercise and experience in a believing life Nature is so much afraid of dying and an incorporated soul is so incarcerated in sense and so hardly riseth to serious and satisfying apprehensions of the unseen world that even true Believers do find it a work of no small difficulty to desire to depart and be with Christ and to die in the joyful hopes of faith A little abatement of the terrours of death a little supporting hope and peace is all that the greater part of them attain instead of the fervent desires and triumphant joyes which the lively belief of endless glory should produce O therefore make it the work of your lives of all your lives your greatest work your constant work to live by faith that the faith which hath first conquered all the rest of your enemies may be able also to overcome the last and may do your last work well when it hath done the rest CHAP. I. Directions how to live by Faith And first how to strengthen Faith And secondly the natural Truths presupposed to be considered THe Directions which I shall give you as helps to live by Faith are of two ranks 1. Such as tend to the strengthening of your Faith 2. Such as tell you how to use it The first is the greatest part of our task for no man can use that faith which he hath not nor can use more of it than he hath And the commonest reason why we use but little is because we have but little to use But on this subject supposing it most weighty I have written many Treatises already The second part of the Saints Rest The Unreasonableness of Infidelity And last of all The Reasons of the Christian Religion Besides others which handle it on the by And somewhat is said in the beginning of this discourse But yet because in so great a matter I am more afraid of doing too little than too much I will here give you an Index of some of the chief Helps to be close together before you for your memories to be the constant fuel of your Faith In the work of Faith it is first needful that you get all the prerequisite Helps of Natural Light and be well acquainted with their Order and Evidence and their Vsefulness to befriend the supernatural revelations For it is supposed that we are men before we are Christians We were created before we were redeemed And we must know that there is a God before we can know that we have offended him or that we need a Saviour to reconcile us to him And we must know that we have reasonable souls before we can know that sin hath corrupted them or that grace must sanctifie them And we must know that whatsoâ—ver God saith is true before we can believe that the Scripture is true as being his revelation Faith is an act of Reason and Believing is a kind of knowing even a knowing by the testimâ—ny of him whom we believe because we have sufficient reason to believe him 2. And next we must be well acquainted with the evidence of supernatural Truth which presupposeth the foresaid Natural Verities I shall set both bâ—fore you briefly in their order 1. Think well â—f the nature of your souls of their faculties or pâ—wers their excellency and their proper use And then you will find that you are not meer brutes who know not their Creatâ—ur nor live noâ— by a Law nor think not of another world nor â—â—ar any â—â—fferings after death But that you have reasâ—n free-will and executive power to knâ—w your Maker and to live by â—ule aâ—d to hope for a Reward in another life and to fear a pâ—nâ—shmeâ—t hereafter And that as no wise Artificer maketh any thing in vain so God is mâ—ch less to be thought to havâ— given you such souls and faculties in vain 2. Coâ—sidâ—r next how all the world declareth to you that there is a Gâ—d whâ— is infiniteâ—y pâ—werful wise and good And thaâ— it is not possible that all things which we see should have no cause or that the derived Power and Wisdom and Goodnesâ— of the creature should not proceed from that which is more excellent in the first and total cause Or that God should give more than he had to give 3. Consider nexâ— in whâ—t Relation such a creature must needs stand to such a Creatour If he made us of Nâ—â—hing 〈◊〉 is not pâ—ssible but that he must be 〈◊〉 Owner and wâ— aâ—d all things absolutely his Own And if he be our Maker and Owner and be infinitely powerful wise and good and we be Reasonable-free-agents made to be guided by Laws or Moral Means unto our end it is not possible but that we should stand related to him as subjects to their rightful Governour And if he be our Creatour Owner and Ruler and also infinitely Good and the grand Benefactor of the world and if the nature of our souls be to Love Good as Good it cannot be possible that he should not be our End who is our Creatour and that we should not be related to him as to the Chiefest Good both originally as our Benefactor and finally as our End 4. And then it is easie for you next to see what duty you owe to that God to whom you are thus related That if you are absolutely his Own you should willingly be at his absolute dispose And iâ— he bâ— your Soveraign Ruler you should labour most diligently to know his Laws and absolutely to obey them And if he be infinitely Good and your Benefactor and your End you are absolutely bound to Love him most devotedly and to place your own felicity in his Love All this is so evidently the duty of man to God by nature that nothing but madness can deny
many waies apparent and also of the communion which they have with man And when we find also an intellectual nature in our selves why should we not believe that our likeness of nature doth infer our likeness in our future duration and abode 9. And mark well but the inward and outward temptations which solicite all the world to sin and what notable Evidences there be in many of them of an invisible power and you will easily believe that man hath a soul to save or lose which is of longer duration than the body 10. Lastly If yet there be any doubt consider but of the sensible Evidences of Apparitions Witchcraft and Possessions and it cannot chuse but much confirm you Though much be feigned in histories of such things yet the world hath abundant evidence of that which was certainly unfeigned See the Devil of Mascon Mr. Mompessons story lately acted and published Remigius Bodins Danaeus c. of Witches Lavater de Spectris and what I have written elsewhere CHAP. II. The true Method of enquiry into the supernatural Evidences of Faith and Rules therein to be offered WHen you have thus seen what evidence there is of GOD and his Government and of a life of reward and punishment hereafter and of the natural obligations which lie on man to a holy just and sober life and of the depraved state of the world which goeth so contrary to such undoubted duty and how certain all this is even by natural revelation proceed next to consider what supernatural revelation God hath added both to confirm you in the same Truths and to make known such other as were necessary for mankind to know Where I must first direct you in the true Method of Enquiry and then set before you the things themselves which you are to know 1. Think not that every unprepared mind is immediately capable of the Truth either this or any other except the first principles which are nota per se or are next to sense All truth requireth a capacity and due preparation of the recipient The plainest principles of any Art or Science are not understood by novices at the first fight or hearing And therefore it were vain to imagine that things of the greatest distance in history or profundity in doctrine can be comprehended at the first attempt by a disused and unfurnished understanding There must be at least as much time and study and help supposed and used to the full discerning of the evidences of faith as are allowed to the attainment of common Sciences Though grace in less time may give men so much light as is necessary to salvation yet he that will be able to defend the Truth and answer Objections and attain establishing satisfaction in his own mind must ordinarily have proportionable helps and time and studyes unless he look to be taught by miracles 2. Remember that it is a practical and heavenly doctrine which you are to learn It is the Art of loving God and being happy in his love And therefore a worldly sensual vicious soul must needs be under very great disadvantage for the receiving of such a kind of Truths Do not therefore impute that to the doubtfulness of the Doctrine which is but the effect of the enmity and incapacity of your minds How can he presently rellish the spiritual and heavenly doctrine of the Gospel who is drowned in the love and care of contrary things Such men receive not the things of the Spirit They seem to them both foolishness and undesirable 3. Think not that the history of things done so long ago and so far off should have no more obscurities nor be liable to any more Objections than of that which was done in the time and Country where you live Nor yet that things done in the presence of others and words spoken in their hearing only should be known to you otherwise than by historical evidence unless every Revelation to others must have a new Revelation to bring it to each individual person in the world And think not that he who is a stranger to all other helps of Church-history should be as well able to understand the Scripture-history as those that have those other helps 4. Think not that the narrativt of things done in a Country and Age so remote and to us unknown should not have many difficulties arising from our ignorance of the persons places manners customs and many circumstances which if we had known would easily have resolved all such doubts 5. Think not that a Book which was written so long ago in so remote a Country in a language which few do fully understand and which may since then have several changes as to phrases and proverbial and occasional speeches should have no more difficulties in it than a Book that were written at home in the present Ages in our Country language and the most usual dialect To say nothing of our own language what changes are made in all other tongues since the times that the Gospel was recorded Many proverbial speeches and phrases may be now disused and unknown which were then most easie to be understood And the transcribing and preserving of the Copies require us to allow for some defects of humane skill and industry therein 6. Vnderstand the different sorts of Evidence which are requisite to the different matters in the holy Scriptures The matters of fact require historical evidence which yet is made infallible by additional miracles The miracles which were wrought to confirm our history are brought to our knowledge only by other history The Doctrines which are evident in nature have further evidence of supernatural revelation only to help us whose natural fight is much obscured But it is the supernatural Doctrines Precepts and Promises which of themselves require supernatural revelation to make them credible to man 7. Mistake not the true Vse and End of the holy Scriptures 1. Think not that the Gospel as written was the first Constitutive or Governing Law of Christ for the Christian Churches The Churches were constituted and the Orders and Offices and Government of it settled and exercised very many years together before any part of the New Testament was written to them much more before the writing of the whole The Apostles had long before taught them what was commanded them by Christ and had settled them in the order appointed by the Holy Ghost And therefore you are not to look for the first determination of such doctrines or orders in the Scripture as made thereby but only for the Records of what was done and established before For the Apostles being to leave the world did know the slipperiness of the memory of man and the danger of changing and corrupting the Christian Doctrine and Orders if there were not left a sure record of it And therefore they did that for the sake of posterity 2. You must not think that all is essential to the Christian Religion which is contained in the holy Scriptures Nor that
they are only the adequate form or record of that which is strictly and primarily called our Religion or Christianity For there are divers particular Books of the New Testament which contain much more than is essential to Christianity And many appurtenances and histories and genealogies and circumstances are there recorded which are indeed subservient helps to our Religion but are not strictly our Religion it self 8. As the use of the Scripture must thus be judged of according to the purpose of the holy Spirit so the Perfection of the Scripture must be judged of in relation to its intended use It was not written to be a systeme of Physicks nor Oratory nor to decide grammatical Controversies about words but to record in apt expressions the things which God would have men to know in order to their faith their duty and their happiness And in this respect it is a perfect word But you must not imagine that it is so far the word of God himself as if God had shewed in it his fullest skill and made it as perfect in every respect both phrase and order as God could do And if you meet in it with several words which you think are less grammatical logical or rhetorical than many other men could speak and which really savour of some humane imperfection remember that this is not at all derogatory to Christianity but rather tendeth to the strengthening of our faith For the Scriptures are perfect to their intended use And God did purposely chuse men of imperfect Oratory to be his Apostles that his Kingdom might not be in word but in power and that our faith might not be built upon the wisdom and oratory of man but on the supernatural operations of the Almighty God As David's sling and stone must kill Goliah So unlearned men that cannot out-wit the world to deceive them shall by the Spirit and Miracles convince them Looking for that in the Scripture which God never intended it for doth tempt the unskilful into unbelief 9. Therefore you must be sure to distinguish the Christian Religion which is the vital part or kernel of the Scriptures from all the rest And to get well planted in your mind the summ of that Religion it self And that is briefly contained in the two Sacraments and more largely in the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Decalogue the summaryes of our Belief Desire and Practice And then wonder no more that the other parts of Scripture have some things of less moment than that a man hath fingers nails and hair as well as a stomach heart and head 10. Distinguish therefore between the Method of the Christian Religion and the Method of the particular Books of Scriptures The Books were written on several occasions and in several Methods and though that method of them all be perfect in order to their proper end yet is it not necessary that there be in the Method no humane imperfection or that one or all of them be written in that method which is usually most logical and best But the frame of Religion contained in those Books is composed in the most perfect method in the world And those systemes of Theology which endeavour to open this method to you do not feign it or make it of themselves but only attempt the explication of what they find in the holy Scriptures Synthetically or Analytically Though indeed all attempts have yet fallen short of any full explication of this divine and perfect harmony 11. Therefore the true Order of settling your faith is not first to require a proof that all the Scriptures is the Word of God but first to prove the marrow of them which is properly called the Christian Religion and then to proceed to strengthen your particular belief of the rest The contrary opinion which hath obtained with many in this Age hath greatly hindered the faith of the unskilful And it came from a preposterous care of the honour of the Scriptures through an excessive opposition to the Papists who undervalue them For hence it comes to pass that every seeming contradiction or inconsistency in any Book of Scripture in Chronology or any other respect is thought to be a sufficient cause to make the whole cause of Christianity as difficult as that particular text is And so all those Readers who meet with great or inseparable difficulties in their daily reading of the Scriptures are thereby exposed to equal temptations to damning infidelity it self So that if the Tempter draw any man to doubt of the standing still of the Sun in the time of Joshua of the life of Jonas in the belly of the Whale or any other such passage in any one Book of the Scriptures he must equally doubt of all his Religion But this was not the ancient method of faith It was many years after Christs resurrection before any one Book of the New Testament was written and almost an Age before it was finished And all that time the Christian Churches had the same Faith and Religion as we have now and the same foundation of it That is the Gospel preached to them by the Apostles But what they delivered to them by word of mouth is now delivered to us in their writings with all the appurtenances and circumstances which every Christian did not then hear of And there were many Articles of the Christian Faith which the Old Testament did not at all make known As that this Jesus is the Christ that he was born of the Virgin Mary and is actually crucified risen and ascended c. And the method of the Apostles was to teach the people the summ of Christianity as Paul doth 1 Cor. 15.3 4 c. and Peter Act. 2. and to bring them to the belief of that and then baptize them before they wrote any thing to them or taught them the rest which is now in the holy Scriptures They were first to Disciple the Nations and baptize them and then to teach them to observe all things whatever Christ commanded And the main bulk of the Scriptures is made up of this last and of the main subservient histories and helps And accordingly it was the custom of all the Primitive Churches and ancient Doctors to teach the people first the Creed and summ of Christianity and to make them Christians before they taught them so much as to know what Books the Canonical Scriptures did contain For they had the summ of Christianity it self delivered down collaterally by the two hands of tradition 1. By the continuation of Baptism and publick Church-professions was delivered the Creed or Covenant by it self And 2. By the holy Scriptures where it was delivered with all the rest and from whence every novice was not put to gather it of himself but had it collected to his hand by the Churches And you may see in the writings of all the ancient defenders of Christianity Justin Athenagoras Talianus Clemens Alexandrinus Arnobius Theoph. Antioch Lactantius Tertullian â—usebius Augustine c.
that they used the method which I now direct you to And if you consider it well you will find that the miracles of Christ himself and all those of his Apostles after him were wrought for the confirmation of Christianity it self immediately and mostly before the particular Epistles or Books were written and therefore were only remotely and consequentially for the confirmation of those Books as such as they proved that the Writers of them were guided by the infallible Spirit in all the proper work of their office of which the writing of the Scriptures was a part 1. Therefore settle your belief of Christianity it self that is of so much as Baptism containeth or importeth This is more easily proved than the truth of every word in the Scriptures because there are controversies about the Canon and the various readings and such like And this is the natural method which Christ and his Spirit have directed us to and the Apostles and the ancient Churches used And when this is first soundly proved to you then you cannot justly take any textual difficulties to be sufficient cause of raising difficulties to your faith in the essentials But you may quietly go on in the strength of faith to clear up all those difficulties by degrees I know you will meet with some who think very highly of their own mistakes and whose unskilfulness in these things is joyned with an equal measure of self conceitedness who will tell you that this method smells of an undervaluing of the Scripture But I would advise you not to depart from the way of Christ and his Apostles and Churches nor to cast your selves upon causeless hinderances in so high a matter as Saving Faith is upon the reverence of the words of any perverted factious wrangler nor to escape the fangs of censorious ignorance We cannot better justifie the holy Scriptures in the true Method than they can in their false one And can better build up when we have laid the right foundation than they can who begin in the middle and omit the foundation and call the superstructure by that name 2. Suspect not all Church-history or Tradition in an extreme opposition to the Papists who cry up a private unproved Tradition of their own They tell us of Apostolical Traditions which their own faction only are the keepâ—rs of and of which no true historical evidence is produced And this they call the Tradition of the Church But we have another sort of Tradition which must not be neglected or rejected unless we will deny humanity and reject Christianity Our Traditio tradens or active Tradition is primarily nothing but the certain history or usage of the universal Christian Church as Baptism the Lords day the Ministry the Church Assemblies and the daily Church exercises which are certain proofs what Religion was then received by them And 2. The Scriptures themselves Our Traditio tradita is nothing else but these two conjunctly 1. The Christian Religion even the Faith then professed and the Worship and Obedience then exercised 2. The Books themselves of the holy Scriptures which contain all this with much more But we are so far from thinking that Apostolical Oral Tradition is a supplement to the Scriptures as being larger than them that we believe the Scriptures to be much larger than such Tradition and that we have no certainty by any other than Scriptural Tradition of any more than the common matters of Christianity which all the Churches are agreed in But he that will not believe the most universal practice and history of the Church or world in a matter of fact must in reason much less believe his eye-sight 13. When you have soundly proved your foundation take not every difficult objection which you cannot answer to be a sufficient cause of doubting For if the fundamentals be proved truths you may trust to that proof and be sure that there are waies of solving the seeming inconsistent points though you are not yet acquainted with them There are few Truths so clear which a sophister may not clog with difficulties And there is scarce any man that hath so comprehensive a knowledge of the most certain Truths as to be able to answer all that can be said against it 14. Come not to this study in a melancholy or distracted frame of mind For in such a case you are ordinarily incapable of so great a work as the tryal of the grounds of Faith And therefore must live upon the ground-work before laid and wait for a fitter time to clear it 15. When new doubts arise mark whether they proceed not from the advantage which the tempter findeth in your minds rather than from the difficulty of the thing it self And whether you have not formerly had good satisfaction against the same doubts which now perplex you If so suffer not every discomposure of your minds to become a means of unbelief And suffer not Satan to command you to dispute your faith at his pleasure For if he may chuse the time he may chuse the success Many a man hath cast up a large account well or written a learned Treatise or Position well who cannot clear up all objected difficulties on a sudden nor without Books tell you all that he before wrote especially if he be half drunk or sleepy or in the midst of other thoughts oâ— business 15. When you are once perswaded of the truth of Christianity and the holy Scriptures think not that you need not study it any more because you do already confidently believe it For if your faith be not built on such cogent evidence as will warrant the conclusion whether it be at the present sound or not you know not what change assaults may make upon you as we have known them do on some ancient eminent Professors of the strictest Godliness who have turned from Christ and the belief of immortality Take heed how you understand the common saying of the Schools that Faith differeth from Knowledge in that it hath not Evidence It hath not evidence of sense indeed nor the immediate evidence of things invisible as in themselves but as they are the conclusions which follow the principles which are in themselves more evident It is evident that God is true and we can prove by good evidence that the Christian Verity is his Revelation And therefore it is evident though not immediately in it self that the matter of that word or revelation is true And as Mr. Rich. Hooker truly saith No man indeed believeth beyond the degree of evidence of truth which appeareth to him how confidently soever they may talk I remember that our excellent Vsher answered me to this case as out of Ariminensis that faith hath evidence of Credibility and science hath evidence of Certainty But undoubtedly an evidence of Divine Revelation is evidence of Certainty And all evidence of Divine Credibility is evidence of Certainty though of humane faith and credibility the case be otherwise 16. Yea think not that you have
done the settling of your faith when once you have found out the soundest evidences and are able to answer all Objections For you must grow still in the fuller discerning and digesting the same evidences which you have discerned For you may hold them so loosely that they may be easily wrested from you And you may see them with so clear and full a knowledge as shall stablish your mind against all ordinary causes of mutation It is one kind or degree rather of knowledge of the same things which the Pupil and another which the Doctor hath I am sure the knowledge which I have now of the evidences of the Christian Verity is much different from what I had thirty years ago when perhaps I could say neer as much as now and used the same Arguments 17. Consider well the great contentions of Philosophers and the great uncertainty of most of those Nations to which the Infidels would reduce our faith or which they would make the test by which to try it They judge Christianity uncertain because it agreeth not with their uncertainties or certain errours 18. Enslave not your Reason to the objects of sense While we are in the body our souls are so imprisoned in flesh and have so much to do with worldly things that most men by averseness and disuse can hardly at all employ their minds about any higher things than sensitive nor go any further than sense conduceth them He that will not use his soul to contemplate things invisible will be as unfit for believing as a Lady is to travel a thousand miles on foot who never went out of her doors but in a Sedan or Coach 19. Where your want of learning or exercise or light doth cause any difficulties which you cannot overcome go to the more wise and experienced Believers and Pastors of the Church to be your helpers For it is their office to be both the preservers and expounders of the sacred Doctrine and to be the helpers of the peoples faith The Priests lips should preserve knowledge and they should seek the Law at his mouth for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts Mal. 2.7 20. Lastly Faithfully practise with Love and alacrity what you do believe lest God in justice leave you to disbelieve that which you would not love and practise So much to direct you in the method of your endeavours for the getting and strengthening of faith CHAP. III. The Evidences of Faith THese things in the Order of your enquiry being presupposed proceed to the consideration of the Evidences themselves which fully prove the Christian Verity And here omitting the preparatory considerations recited at large in my Reasons of the Christian Religion I shall only set before you the grand Evidence it self with a brief recital of some of those means which bring it down to our notice in these times The great infallible witness of CHRIST is the SPIRIT of GOD or the Holy Ghost Or that divine operation of the Holy Spirit which infallibly proveth the attestation of God himself as interesting him in it as the principal cause As we know the Coin of a Prince by his image and superscription and know his acts by his publick proper Seal And as we know that God is the Creatour of the world by the Seal of his likeness which is upon it Or as we know the Father of a child when he is so like him as no other could beget So know we Christ and Christianity to be of God by his unimitable image or impression The Power Wisdom and Goodness of God are the essentialities which we call the Nature of God These in their proper form and transcendent perfection are incommunicable But when they produce an effect on the creature which for the resemblance may analogically be called by the same names the names are logically communicable though the thing it self which is the Divine Essence or Perfections be still incommunicable But when they only produce effects more heterogeneal or equivocal then we call those effects only the footsteps or demonstrations of their cause So GOD whose Power Wisdom and Goodness in it self is incommunicable hath produced intellectual natures which are so like him that their likeness is called his Image and analogically yet equivocally the created faculties of their Power Intellect and Will are called by such names as we are fain for want of other words to apply to God the things signified being transcendently and unexpressibly in God but the words first used of and applied to the creature But the same God hath so demonstrated his Power and Wisdom and Goodness in the Creation of the material or corporeal parts of the world that they are the â—estigia and infallible proofs of his causation and perfections being such as no other cause without him can produce but yet not so properly called his Image as to his Wisdom and Goodness but only of his Power But no wise man who seeth this world can doubt whether a God of perfect Power Wisdom and Goodness was the maker of it Even so the person and doctrine of Christ or the Christian Religion objectively considered hath so much of the Image and so much of the demonstrative impressions of the Nature of God as may fully assure us that he himself is the approving cause And as the Sun hath a double Light Lux Lumen its essential Light in it self and it s emitted beams or communicated Light so the Spirit and Image of God by which Christ and Christianity are demonstrated are partly that which is essential constitutive and inherent and partly that which is sent and communicated from him to others In the person of Christ there is the most excellent Image of God 1. Wonderful Power by which he wrought miracles and commanded Sea and Land Men and Devils and raised the dead and raised himself and is now the glorious Lord of all things 2. Wonderful Wisdom by which he formed his Laws and Kingdom and by which he knew the hearts of men and prophecied of things to come 3. Most wonderful Love and Goodness by which he healed all diseases and by which he saved miserable souls and procured our happiness at so dear a rate But as the essential Light of the Sun is too glorious to be well observed by us but the emitted Light is it which doth affect our eyes and is the immediate object of our sight at least that we can best endure and use so the Essential Perfections of Jesus Christ are not so immediately and ordinarily fit for our observation and use as the lesser communicated beams which he sent forth And these are either such as were the immediate effects of the Spirit in Christ himself or his personal operations or else the effects of his Spirit in others And that is either such as went before him or such as were present with him or such as followed after him Even as the emitted Light of the Sun is either that which is next to its
Essence or that which streameth further to other creatures And this last is either that which it sendeth to us before its own appearing or rising or that which accompanieth its appearing or that which leaveth behind it as it setteth or passeth away so must we distinguish in the present case But all this is but One Light and One Spirit So then I should in order speak 1. Of that Spirit in the words and works of Christ himself which constituteth the Christian Religion 2. That Spirit in the Prophets and Fathers before Christ which was the antecedent light 3. That Spirit in Christs followers which was the concomitant and subsequent Light or witness And 1. In those next his abode on earth And 2. Of those that are more remote CHAP. IV. The Image of Gods Wisdom 1. AND first observe the three parts of Gods Image or impress upon the Christian Religion in it self as containing the whole work of mans Redemption as it is found in the works and doctrine of Christ 1. The WISDOM of it appeareth in these particular observations which yet shew it to us but very defectively for want of the clearness and the integrality and the order of our knowledge For to see but here and there a parcel of one entire frame or work and to see those few parcels as dislocated and not in their proper places and order and all this but with a dark imperfect sight is far from that full and open view of the manifold Wisdom of God in Christ which Angels and superiour intellects have 1. Mark how wisely God hath ordered it that the three Essentialitieâ— in the Divine Nature Power Intellection and Will Omnipotency Wisdom and Goodness and the three persons in the Trinity the Father the Word and the Spirit and the three Causalities of God as the Efficient Directive and final Cause of whom and through whom and to whom are all things should have three most eminent specimina or impressions in the world or three most conspicuous works to declare and glorifie them viz. Nature Grace and Glory And that God should accordingly stand related to man in three answerable Relations viz. as our Creatour our Redeemer and our Perfecter by Holiness initially and Glory finally 2. How wisely it is ordered that seeing Mans Love to God is both his greatest duty and his perfection and felicity there should be some standing emâ—nent means for the attraction and excitation of our Love And this should be the most eminent manifestation of the Love of God to us and withall of his own most perfect Holiness and Goodness And that as we have as much need of the sense of his Goodness as of his Power Loving him being our chief work that there should be as observable a demonstration of his Goodness extant as the world is of his Power 3. Especially when man had fallen by sin from the Love of God to the Love of his carnal self and of the creature and when he was fallen under vindictive Justice and was conscious of the displeasure of his Maker and had made himself an heir of Hell And when mans nature can so hardly love one that in Justice standeth engaged or resolved to damn him forsake him and hate him How wisely is it ordered that he that would recover him to his Love should first declare his Love to the offender in the fullest sort and should reconcile himself unto him and shew his readiness to forgive him and to save him yea to be his felicity and his chiefest good That so the Remedy may be answerable to the disease and to the duty 4. How wisely is it thus contrived that the frame and course of mans obedience should be appointed to consist in Love and Gratitude and to run out in such praise and chearful duty as is animated throughout by Love that so sweet a spring may bring forth answerable streams That so the Goodness of our Master may appear in the sweetness of our work and we may not serve the God of Love and Glory like slaves with a grudging weary mind but like children with delight and quietness And our work and way may be to us a foretaste of our reward and end 5. And yet how meet was it that while we live in such a dark material world in a body of corruptible flesh among enemies and snares our duty should have somewhat of caution and vigilancy and therefore of fear and godly sorrow to teach us to rellish grace the more And that our condition should have in it much of necessity and trouble to drive us homeward to God who is our rest And how aptly doth the very permission of sin it self subserve this end 6. How wisely is it thus contrived that Glory at last should be better rellished and that man who hath the Joy should give God the Glory and be bound to this by a double obligation 7. How aptly is this remedying design and all the work of mans Redemption and all the Precepts of the Gospel built upon or planted into the Law of natural perfection Faith being but the means to recover Love and Grace being to Nature but as Medicine is to the Body and being to Glory as Medicine is to Health So that as a man that was never taught to speak or to go or to do any work or to know any science or trade or business which must be known acquisitively is a miserable man as wanting all that which should help him to use his natural powers to their proper ends so it is much more with him that hath Nature without Grace which must heal it and use it to its proper ends 8. So that it appeareth that as the Love of Perfection is fitly called the Law of Nature because it is agreeable to man in his Natural state of Innocency so the Law of Grace may be now called the Law of depraved Nature because it is as suitable to lapsed man And when our pravity is undeniable how credible should it be that we have such a Law 9. And there is nothing in the Gospel either unsuitable to the first Law of Nature or contradictory to it or yet of any alien nature but only that which hath the most excellent aptitude to subserve it Giving the Glory to God in the highest by restoring Peace unto the Earth and Goodness towards men 10. And when the Divine Monarchy is apt in the order of Government to communicate some Image of it self to the Creature as well as the Divine Perfections have communicated their Image to the Creatures in their Natures or Beings how wisely it is ordered that mankind should have one universal Vicarious Head or Monarch There is great reason to believe that there is Monarchy among Angels And in the world it most apparently excelleth all other forms of Government in order to Vnity and Strength and Glory and if it be apter than some others to degenerate into oppressing Tyranny that is only caused by the great corruption of humane
work on earth And that some should do the extraordinary work in laying the foundation and leaving a certain Rule and Order to the rest and that the rest should proceed to build hereupon and that the wisest and the best of men should be the Teachers and Guides of the rest unto the end 24. And how necessary was it that our Sun in glory should continually send down his beams and influence on the earth even the Spirit of the Father to be his constant Agent here below and to plead his cause and do his work on the hearts of men and that the Apostles who were to found the Church should have that Spirit in so conspicuous a degree and for such various works of Wonder and Power as might suffice to confirm their testimony to the world And that all others as well as they to the end should have the Spirit for those works of Love and Renovation which are necessary to their own obedience and salvation 25. How wisely it is ordered that he who is our King is Lord of all and able to defend his Church and to repress his proudest enemies 26. And also that he should be our final Judge who was our Saviour and Law-giver and made and sealed that Covenant of Grace by which we must be judged That Judgement may not be over dreadful but rather desirable to his faithful servants who shall openly be justified by him before all 27. How wisely hath God ordered it that when death is naturally so terrible to man we should have a Saviour that went that way before us and was once dead but now liveth and is where we must be and hath the keyes of death and Heaven that we may boldly go forth as to his presence and to the innumerable perfected spirits of the just and may commend our souls to the hands of our Redeemer and our Head 28. As also that this should be plainly revealed and that the Scriptures are written in a method and manner fit for all even for the meanest and that Ministers be commanded to open it and apply it by translation exposition and earnest exhortation that the remedy may be suited to the nature and extent of the disease And yet that there be some depths to keep presumptuous daring wits at a distance and to humble them and to exercise our diligence 29. As also that the life of faith and holiness should have much opposition in the world that its glory and excellency might the more appear partly by the presence of its contraries and partly by its exercise and victories in its tryals and that the godly may have use for patience and fortitude and every grace and may be kept the easilier from loving the world and taught the more to desire the presence of their Lord. 30. Lastly And how wisely is it ordered that God in Heaven from whom all cometh should be the end of all his graces and our duties and that himself alone should be our home and happiness and that as we are made by him and for him so we should live with him to his praise and in his love for ever And that there as we shall have both glorified souls and bodies so both might have a suitable glory and that our glorified Redeemer might there be in part the Mediatour of our fruition as here he was the Mediatour of acquisition I have recited hastily a few of the parts of this wondrous frame to shew you that if you saw them all and that in theâ—r true order and method you might not think strange that Now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places is made known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God Ephes 2.11 which was the first part of Gods Image upon the Christian Religion which I was to shew you But besides all this the WISDOM of God is expressed in the holy Scriptures thesâ— several waies 1. In the Revelation of things past which could not be known by any mortal man As the Creation of the world and what was therein done before man himself was made Which experience it self doth help us to believe because we see exceeding great probabilities that the world was not eternal nor of any longer duration than the Scriptures mention in that no place on earth hath any true monument of ancienter original and in that humane Sciences and Arts are yet so imperfect and such important additions are made but of late 2. In the Revelation of things distant out of the reach of mans discovery So Scripture History and Prophecy do frequently speak of preparations and actions of Princes and people afar of 3. In the Revelation of the secrets of mens hearts As Elisha told Gebeâ—i what he did at a distance Christ told Nathaniel what he said and where So frequently Christ told the Jews and his Disciples what they thought and shewed that he knew the heart of man To which we may add the searching power of the Word of God which doth so notably rip up the secrets of mens corruptions and may shew all mens hearts unto themselves 4. In the Revelation of contingent things to come which is most frequent in the Prophecies and Promises of the Scripture not only in the Old Testament as Daniel c. but also in the Gospel When Christ foretelleth his death and resurrection and the usage and successes of his Apostles and promiseth them the miraculous gifts of the Spirit and foretold Peters thrice denying him and foretold the grievous destrâ—ction of Jerusalem with other such like clear predictions 5. But nothing of all these predictions doth shine so clearly to our selves as those great Promises of Christ which are fulfilled to our selves in all generations Even the Promises and Prophetical descriptions of the great work of Conversion Regeneration or Sanctification upon mens souls which is wrought in all Ages just according to the delineations of it in the world All the humblings the repentings the desires the faith the joyes the prayers and the answers of them which were foretold and was found in the first Believers are performed and given to all true Christians to this day To which may be added all the Prophecies of the extent of the Church of the conversion of the Kingdoms of the world to Christ and of the oppositions of the ungodly fort thereto and of the persecutions of the followers of Christ which are all fulfilled 6. The WISDOM of God also is clearly manifested in the concatenation or harmony of all these Revelations Not only that there is no real contradiction between them but that they all conjunctly compose one entire frame As the age of man goeth on from infancy to maturity and nature fitteth her endowments and provisions accordingly to each degree so hath the Church proceeded from its infancy and so have the Revelations of God been suited to its several times Christ who was promised to Adam and the Fathers before Moses for the first two thousand years and signified by their Sacrifices was
godliness is profitable to all things having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come 1 Tim. 4.7 8. 6.6 16. And the future perfect Goodness may invite us to present imperfect Goodness the Promises of the Gospel do second the Precepts with the strongest motives in the world so that everlasting blessedness and joy is made the reward of temporal sincerity in faith love and obedience And if Heaven it self be not a reward sufficient to invite men to be good there is none sufficient 17. Yea the penalties and severities of the Christian Religion do shew the Goodness of it When God doth therefore threaten Hell to save men from it and to draw them up to the obedience of the Gospel Threatned evil of punishment is but to keep them from the evil of sin and to make men better And he that will testifie his hatred of sinful evil to the highest doth shew himself the greatest enemy of it and the greatest lover of good and he that setteth the sharpest hedge before us and the terrible warnings to keep us from damnation doth shew himself most willing to save us 18. So good is Christianity that it turneth all our afflictions unto good It assureth us that they are sent as needful medicine however merited by our sin And it directeth us how to bear them easily and to make them sweet and safe and profitable and to turn them to our increase of holiness and to the furtherance of our greatest good Heb. 1 to 13. Rom. 8.18 2 Cor. 4.16 17 18. 19. It also stablisheth a perpetual office even the sacred Ministry for the fuller and surer communication of all this good forementioned In which observe these particulars which shew the greatness of this benefit 1. The persons called to it must by Christs appointment be the wisest and best of men that can be had 2. The number of them is to be suited to the number of the people so that none may be without the benefit 3. Their work is to declare all this forementioned Goodness and Love of God to man and to offer them all this grace and mercy and to teach them to be holy and happy and to set before them the everlasting joyes 4. The manner of their doing it must be with humility as the servants of all with tender love as Fathers of the flock with wisdom and skill lest their work be frustrate with the greatest importunity even compelling them to come in as men that are loth to take any denyal and with patient enduring all oppositions as those that had rather suffer any thing than the peoples souls shall be unhealed and be damned and they must conrinue to the end as those that will never give up a soul as desperate and lost while there is any hope And all this must be seconded with their own example of holiness temperance and love Acts 20. 2 Tim. 2.24 25. Matth. 22.8 9. 20. So good is our Religion that nothing but doing good is the work in which it doth employ us Besides all the good of piety and self-preservation it requireth us to live in love to others and to do all the good in the world that we are able Ephes 2.10 Mat. 5.16 6.1 2 c. Titus 2.14 Gal. 6.7 8 9. Good works must be our study and our life Our work and our delight Even our enemies we must love and do good to Mat. 5.44 Rom. 12.19 20 21. And sure that doctrine is good which is purposely to employ men in doing good to all 21. So good is Christianity that it favoureth not any one sin but is the greatest condemner of them all It is all for knowledge against hurtful ignorance it is all for humility against all pride for self-denyal against all injurious selfishness for spirituality and the dominion of true Reason against sensuality and the dominion of the flesh for heavenliness against a worldly mind for sincerity and simplicity against all hypocrisie and deceit for love against malice for unity and peace against divisions and contentions for justice and lenity in superiours and obedience and patience in inferiours for faithfulness in all relations Its precepts extend to secret as well as open practices to the desires and thoughts as well as to the words and deeds It alloweth not a thought or word or action which is ungodly intemperate rebellious injurious unchaste or covetous or uncharitable Mat. 5. 22. All the troublesome part of our Religion is but our warfare against evil against sin and the temptations which would make us sinful And it must needs be good if all the conflicting part of it be only against evil Gal. 5.17 21 23. Rom. 6. 7. 8.1 7 8 9 10 13. 23. It teacheth us the only way to live in the greatest and most constant joy If we attain not this it is because we follow not its precepts If endless joy foreseen and all the foresaid mercies in the way are not matter for continual delight there is no greater to be thought on Rejoycing alwaies in the Lord even in our sharpest persecutions is a great part of Religious duty Phil. 3.1 4.4 Psal 33.1 Zech. 10.7 Mat. 5.11 12. Deut. 12.12 18. 24. It overcometh both the danger and the fear of death and that must be good which conquereth so great an evil and maketh the day of the ungodly's fears and utter misery to be the day of our desire and felicity Rom. 6.23 1 Cor. 15.55 Col. 3.1 4. Phil. 3.21 25. It obligeth all the Rulers of the world to use all their power to do good against all sin within their reach and to make their subjects happy both in body and in soul Rom. 13.3 4 5 6. 26. It appointeth Churches to be Societies of Saints that holiness and goodness combined may be strong and honourable 1 Cor. 1.1 2.1 1. Heb. 3.13 1 Thes 5.12 13. That holy Assemblies employed in the holy love and praises of God might be a representation of the heavenly Jerusalem Col. 2.5 27. It doth make the Love and Vnion of all the Saints to be so strict that the mercies and joyes of every member might extend to all All the corporal and spiritual blessings of all the Christians yea and persons in the world are mine as to my comfort as long as I can love them as my self If it would please me to be rich or honourable or learned my self it must please me also to have them so whom I love as my self And when millions have so much matter for my joy how joyfully should I then live And though I am obliged also to sorrow with them it is with such a sorrow only as shall not hinder any seasonable joy 1 Cor. 12. 28. In these societies every member is bound to contribute his help to the benefit of each other so that I have as many obliged to do me good as there be Christians in the world at least according to their several opportunities
and capacities by prayer and such distant means if they can do no more And the Religion which giveth every man so great an interest in the good of all others and engageth all men to do good to one another is evidently good it self 1 Cor. 12. Ephes 4.15 16. 29. And all this good is not destroyed but advantaged and aggravated accidentally by our sin So that where sin abounded there grace did superabound Rom. 5.15 16 17 18 19. Grace hath taken occasion by sin to be Grace indeed and to be the greater manifestation of the goodness of God and the greater obligation for gratitude to the sinner 30. Lastly All this Goodness is beautified by harmony it is all placed in a perfect order One mercy doth not keep us from another nor one grace oppose another nor one duty exclude another As it is the great declaration of Mercy and Justice wonderfully conspiring in God Mercy so used as to magnifie Justice Justice so used as to magnifie Mercy and not only so as to consist so also it worketh answerably on us It setteth not Love against filial fear not joy against necessary sorrow nor faith against repentance nor praise and thanksgiving against penitent confession of sin nor true repentance against the profitable use of the creatures nor the care of our souls against the peace and quiet of our minds nor care for our families against contentedness and trusting God nor our labour against our necessary rest nor self-denyal against the due care of our own welfare nor patience against due sensibility and lawful passion nor mercy to men against true justice nor publick and private good against each nor doth it set the duty of the Soveraign and the Subject the Master and the Servant the Pastor and the Flock nor yet their interest in any contrariety but all parts of Religion know their place and every duty even those which seem most opposite are helpful to each other and all interests are co-ordinate and all doth contribute to the good of the whole and of every part Ephes 4.2 3 15 16. And now peruse all this together but let it have more of your thoughts by far than it hath had of my words and then determine indifferently whether the Christian Religion bear not the lively Image and superscription of GOD the prime essential GOOD But all this will be more manifest when we have considered how POWER hath in the execution brought all this into effect CHAP. VI. The Image of Gods Power III. THE third part of Gods Image and superscription on the Christian Religion is his POWER And as mans own corruption lyeth more in the want of Wisdom and Goodness than of Power therefore he is less capable of discerning God in the impressions of his Wisdom and Goodness than of his Power seeing therefore he is here most capable of conviction and acknowledging the hand of God I shall open this also in the several parts in some degree 1. In the history of the Creation the Omnipotency of God is abundantly set forth which is proved true both by the agreeableness of the history to the effects and by much subsequent evidence of the Writers Veracity 2. The same may be said of Gods drowning the old world and the preserving of Noah and his family in the Ark. 3. And of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah with fire from Heaven 4. The many miracles done by Moses upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians and in the opening of the Red Sea and in the feeding of the Israelites in the wilderness and keeping their cloths from wearing for forty years and the pillar which went before them as a fire by night and a cloud by day for so long time and the darkness and thunder and trembling of the Mount at the giving of the Law with the rest of the Miracles then done not in a corner or before a few but before all the people who were perswaded to receive and obey the Law by the reason of these motives which their eyes had seen And if all this had been false if no plagues had been shewed on Egypt if no Red Sea had opened if no Pillar had gone before them if no such terrible sights and sounds at Mount Sinai had prepared them for the Law such reasons would have been so unfit to have perswaded them to obedience that they would rather with any reasonable creatures have procured scorn And to shew posterity that the history of all this was not forged or to be suspected 1. They had the Law it self then delivered in two Tables of stone to be still seen 2. They had a pot of Manna still preserved 3. They had the miracle-working Rod of Moses and Aaron kept likewise as a monument 4. They had an Ark of purpose to keep these in and that in the most inviolable place of worship 5. They had the brazâ—n Serpent till Hezekiah broke it still to be seen 6. They had the song of their deliverance at the Red Sea for their continued use 7. They had set feasts to keep the chief of all these things in remembrance They had the feast of unleavened bread which all Israel was to observe for seven daies to keep the remembrance of their passing out of Egypt in so great haste that they could not stay to knead up and make their bread but took it as in meal or unready dough They had the feast of the Passeover when every family was to eat of the Paschal Lamb and the door posts to be sprinkled with the blood to keep in remembrance the night when the Egyptians first born were destroyed and the Israelites all preserved And if these had been instituted at that time upon a pretended occasion which they knew to be untrue they would rather have derided than observed them If they had been afterwards instituted in another generation which knew not the story the beginning would have been known and the fiction of the name and institution of Moses would have been apparent to all and the institution would not have been found in the same Law which was given by Moses And it could not have been so expresly said that the Israelites did all observe these feasts and solemnities from the very time of their deliverance but in those times when the forgery began all would have known it to be false 8. And they had many other words and ceremonies among them and even in Gods Publick Worship which were all used to keep up the memory of these things 9. And they had an office of Priesthood constantly among them which saw to the execution and preservation of all these 10. And they had a form of civil Policy then established and and the Rulers were to preserve the memory of these things and the practice of this Law and to learn it themselves and govern by it so that the very form of the Common-wealth and the order of it was a commemoration hereof And the Parents were to teach and tell their children all
so that the godly Christians are in their power 6. That all the Hypocrites that are among our selves have the same sinful nature and enmity against holiness and are usually as bitter against the power and practice of their own profession as open Infidels are 7. That Christianity is not a fruit of nature Non nati sed facti sumus Christiani said Tertullian And therefore if Gods Power preserved not Religion the degenerating of the Christians children from their Parents mind and way would hasten its extinction in the world 8. And as it is a Religion which must be taught us so it requireth or consisteth in so much wisdom and willingness and fortitude of mind that few are naturally apt to receive it because folly and badness and feebleness of mind are so common in the world And as we see that Learning will never be common but in the possession of a very few because a natural ingenuity is necessary thereto which few are born with so would it be with Christianity if Divine Power maintained it not 9. And it is a Religion which requireth much time and contemplation in the learning and in the practising of it whereas the world are taken up with so much business for the body and are so slothful to those exercises of the mind which bring them no present sensible commodity that this also would quickly wear it out 10. And then the terms of it being so contrary to all mens fleshly interest and sense in self-denyal and forsaking all for Christ and in mortifying the most beloved sins and the world putting us to it so ordinarily by persecution this also would deter the most and weary out the rest if the Power of God did not uphold them That which is done by exceeding industry against the inclinations and interest of nature will have no considerable number of practisers As we see in horses and dogs which are capable with great labour of being taught extraordinary things in the semblance of reason And yet because it must cost so much labour there is but one in a Country that is brought to it But though the truly religious are but few in comparison of the wicked yet godly persons are not so few as they would be if it were the work of industry alone God maketh it as a new nature to them and which is very much to be observed the main change is oft-times wrought in an hour and that after all exhortations and the labours of Parents and Teachers have failed and left the sinner as seemingly hopeless And thus I have shewed you 1. That our Religion objectively taken is the Image of Gods WISDOM GOODNESS and POWER and thereby fully proved to be from GOD. 2. And that our Religion subjectively taken is answerably the Spirit or impress of POWER and of LOVE and of SOVND VNDERSTANDING and is in us a constant seal and witness to the truth of Christ CHAP. VII The means of making known all this infallibly to us I Suppose the evidence of divine attestation is so clear in this Image of God on the Christian Religion which I have been opening that few can doubt of it who are satisfied of the historical truth of the facts and therefore this is next to be considered How the certain knowledge of all these things cometh down to us The first question is whether this Doctrine and Religion indeed be the impress of Gods WISDOM and his GOODNESS and POWER supposing the truth of the historical part This is it which I think that few reasonable persons wil deny For the doctrine is legible and sheweth it self But the next question is it which I am now to resolve How we shall know that this Doctrine was indeed delivered by Christ and his Apostles and these things done by them which the Scriptures mention And here the first question shall be How the Apostles and all other the first witnesses knew it themselves For it is by every reasonable man to be supposed that they who were present and we who are 1668 years distance could not receive the knowledge of the matters of fact in the very same manner It is certain that their knowledge was by their present sense and reason They saw Christ and his miracles They heard his words They saw him risen from the dead They discoursed with him and eat and drunk with him They saw him ascending up bodily to Heaven They need no other Revelation to tell them what they saw and heard and felt If you had asked them then Hâ—w know you that all these things were said and done they would have answered you Because we saw and heard them But we were not then present we did not see and hear what they did Nor did we see or hear them who were the eye-witnesses And therefore as their senses told it them so the natural way for our knowledge must be by derivation from their sense to ours For when they themselves received it in a way so natural though not without the help of Gods Spirit in the remembring recording and attesting it we that can less pretend to inspiration or immediate revelation have small reason to think that we must know the same facts by either of those supernatural waies Nor can our knowledge of a history carryed down through so many ages be so clearly satisfactory to our selves as sight and hearing was to them And yet we have a certainty not only infallible but so far satisfactory as is sufficient to warrant all our faith and duty and sufferings for the reward which Christ hath set before us Let us next then enquire How did the first Churches know that the Apostles and other Preachers of the Gospel did not deceive them in the matter of fact I answer They had their degrees of assurance or knowledge in this part of their belief 1. They had the most credible humane testimony of men that were not like to deceive them But this was not infallible 2. They had in their testimony the evidence of a natural certainty It being naturally impossible that so many persons should agree together to deceive the world in such matters of fact at so dear a rate in the very place and age when the things were pretended to be done and said when any one might have presently evinced the falshood if they had been lyars about the twice feeding of many thousands miraculously and the raising of the dead and many other publick miracles and the darkness at his death and the rending of the Rocks and Vail of the Temple and the Earth-quake and the coming down of the Holy Ghost upon themselves with many the like they would have been detected and confuted to their confusion And we should have read what Apologies they made against such detections and confutations And some of them at least at their death would have been forced by conscience to confess the plot 3. But to leave no room for doubting God gave those first Churches the addition of his own supernatural
attestation by the same threefold impress of his Image before described 1. In the holy Wisdom and Light which was in their doctrine 2. In the holy Love and Piety and Purity which was conspicuous in their doctrine and in their lives 3. And in the evidences of divine Power in the many gifts and wonders and miracles which they wrought and manifested And these things seem a fuller testimony than the miracles of Christ himself For Christs miracles were the deeds of one alone and his resurrection was witnessed but by twelve chosen witnesses and about five hundred other persons and he conversed with them but forty daies and that by times But the miracles of the Disciples were wrought by many and before many thousands at several times and in many Countreys and for many and many years together and in the sight and hearing of many of the Churches So that these first Churches had sight and hearing to assure them of the divine miraculous attestation of the truth of their testimony who told them of the doctrines miracles and resurrection of Christ And all this from Christs solemn promise and gift John 14.12 Verily verily I say unto you He that believeth on me the works that I do shall he do also and greater works than these shall he do because I go to the Father But if it be demanded How did the next Christians of the second age receive all this from the first Churches who received it from the Apostles I answer by the same evidence and with some advantages For 1. They had the credible humane testimony of all their Pastors Neighbours Parents who told them but what they saw and heard 2. They had a greater evidence of natural infallible certainty For 1. The doctrine was now delivered to them in the records of the sacred Scriptures and so less liable to the misreports of the ignorant forgetful or erroneous 2. The reporters were now more numerous and the miracles reported more numerous also 3. They were persons now dispersed over much of the world and could not possibly agree together to deceive 4. The deceit would now have been yet more easily detected and abhorred 3. But besides this they had also the supernatural testimony of God For the Apostles converts received the same spirit as they had themselves And though the miracles of other persons were not so numerous as those of the Apostles yet the persons were many thousands more that wrought them All this is asserted in the Scripture it self as Gal. 3.3 4. 1 Cor. 14. 12. and many places And he that should have told them falsly that they themselves had the spirit of extraordinary gifts and miracles would hardly have been believed by them And all this also the following Ages have themselves asserted unto us The question then which remaineth is How we receive all this infallibly from the subsequent Ages or Churches to this day The answer to which is still by the same way with yet greater advantages in some respects though less in others As 1. We have the humane testimony of all our ancestors and of many of our enemies 2. We have greater evidence of natural certainty that they could not possibly meet or plot together to deceive us 3. We have still the supernatural divine attestation though rarely of miracles yet of those more necessary and noble operations of the Spirit in the sanctification of all true Believers which Spirit accompanieth and worketh by the doctrine which from our ancestors we have received More distinctly observe all these conjunct means of our full reception of our Religion 1. The very Being of the Christians and Churches is a testimony to us that they believed and received this Religion For what maketh them Christians and Churches but the receiving of it 2. The ordinance of Baptism is a notable tradition of it For all that ever were made Christians have been baptized And Baptism is nothing but the solemn initiation of persons into this Religion by a vowed consent to it as summarily there expressed in the Christian Covenant And this was used to be openly done 3. The use of the Creed which at Baptism and other sacred seasons was alwaies wont to be professed together with the Lords Prayer and the Decalogue the summaries of our faith desire and practice is another notable tradition by which this Religion hath been sent down to following Ages For though perhaps all the terms of the Creed were not so early as some think thus constantly used yet all the sense and substance of it was 4. The holy Scriptures or Records of this Religion containing integrally all the doctrine and all the necessary matter of fact is the most compleat way of tradition And it will appear to you in what further shall be said that we have infallible proof that these Scriptures are the same which the first Churches did receive what ever inconsiderable errours may be crept into any Copies by the unavoidable oversight of the Scribes 5. The constant use of the sacred Assemblies hath been another means of sure tradition For we have infallible proof of the successive continuation of such Assemblies and that their use was still the solemn profession of the Christian Faith and worshipping God according to it 6. And the constant use of Reading the Scriptures in those Assemblies is another full historical tradition For that which is constantly and publickly read as the doctrine of their Religion cannot be changed without the notice of all the Church and without an impossible combination of all the Churches in the world 7. And it secureth the tradition that one set day hath been kept for this publick exercise of Religion from the very first even the Lords day besides all occasional times The day it self being appointed to celebrate the memorial of Christs Resurrection is a most currant history of it as the feast of unleavened bread and the Passeover was of the Israelites deliverance from Egypt And the exercises still performed on that day do make the tradition more compleat And because some few Sabbatarians among our selves do keep the old Sabbath only and call still for Scripâ—ure proof for the institution of the Lords day let me briefly tell them that which is enough to evince their errour 1. That the Apostles were Officers immediately commissioned by Christ to disciple the Nations and to teach them all that Christ commanded and so to settle Orders in the Church Mat. 28.19 20 21. Acts 15. c. 2. That Christ promised and gave them his Spirit infallibly to guide them in the performance of this commission though not to make them perfectly impeccable John 16.13 3. That de facto the Apostles appointed the use of the Lords day for the Church Assemblies This being all that is left to be proved and this being matter of fact which requireth no other kind of proof but history part of the history of it is in the Scripture and the rest in the history of all following Ages In
the Scripture it self it is evident that the Churches and the Apostles used this day accordingly And it hath most infallible history impossible to be false that the Churches have used it ever to this day as that which they found practised in their times by their appointment And this is not a bare narrative but an uninterrupted matter of publick fact and practice So universal that I remember not in all my reading that ever one enemy questioned it or ever one Christian or Heretick denyed or once scrupled it So that they who tell us that all this is yet but humane testimony do shew their egregious inconsiderations that know not that such humane testimony or history in a matter of publick constant fact may be most certain and all that the nature of the case will allow a sober person to require And they might as well reject the Canon of the Scriptures because humane testimony is it which in point of fact doth certifie us that these are the very unaltered Canonical Books which were delivered at first to the Churches Yea they may reject all the store of historical tradition of Christianity it self which I am here reciting to the shame of their understandings And consider also that the Lords day was settled and constantly used in solemn worship by the Churches many and many years before any part of the New Testament was written and above threescore years before it was finished And when the Churches had so many years been in publick possession of it who would require that the Scriptures should after all make a Law to institute that which was instituted so long ago If you say that it might have declared the institution I answer so it hath as I have shewed there needing no other declaration but 1. Christs commission to the Apostles to order the Church and declare his commands 2. And his promise of infallible guidance therein 3. And the history of the Churches order and practice to shew de facto what they did And that history need not be written in Scripture for the Churches that then were no more than we need a revelation from Heaven to tell us thas the Lords day is kept in England And sure the next Age needed no supernatural testimony of it and therefore neither do we But yet it is occasionally oft intimated or expressed in the Scripture though on the by as that which was no further necessary So that I may well conclude that we have better historical evidence that the Lords day was actually observed by the Churches for their publick worship and profession of the Christian Faith than we have that ever there was such a man as William the Conquerour in England yea or King James much more than that there was a Caesar or Cicero 8. Moreover the very Office of the Pastors of the Church and their continuance from the beginning to this day is a great part of the certain tradition of this Religion For it is most certain that the Churches were constituted and the Assemblies held and the worship performed with them and by their conduct and not without And it is certain by infallible history that their office hath been still the same even to teach men this Christian Religion and to guide them in the practice of it and to read the same Scriptures as the word of truth and to explain it to the people And therefore as the Judicatures and Offices of the Judges is a certain proof that there have been those Laws by which they judge especially if they had been also the weekly publick Readers and Expounders of them and so much more is it in our case 9. And the constant use of the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ hath according to his appointment been an infallible tradition of his Covenant and a means to keep him in remembrance in the Churches For when all the Churches in the world have made this Sacramental Commemoration and renewed covenanting with Christ as dead and risen to be their constant publick practice here is a tradition of that faith and Covenant which cannot be counterfeit or false 10. To this we may add the constant use of Discipline in these Churches it having been their constant law and practice to enquire into the faith and lives of the members and to censure or cast out those that impenitently violated their Religion which sheweth that de facto that Faith and Religion was then received and is a means of delivering it down to us Under which we may mention 1. Their Synods and Officers 2. And their Canons by which this Discipline was exercised 11. Another tradition hath been the published confessions of their Faith and Râ—lâ—gâ—on in those Apologies which persecutions and calumnies have caused them to write 12. And another is all those published Confutations of the many heresies which in every age have risen up and all the controversies which the Churches have had with them and among themselves 13. And another is all the Treatises Sermons and other instructing writings of the Pastors of those times 14 And another way of tradition hath been by the testimony and sufferings of Confessors and Martyrs who have endured either torments or death in the defence and owning of this Religion In all which waies of tradition the doctrine and the matter were joyntly attested by them For the Resurrection of Christ which is part of the matter of fact was one of the Articles of their Creed which they suffered for And all of them received the holy Scriptures which declare the Apostles miracles and they received their faith as delivered by those Apostles with the confirmation of those miracles So that when they professed to believe the doctrine they especially professed to believe the history of the life and death of Christ and of his Apostles And the Religion which they suffered for and daily professed contained both And the historical Books called the Gospels were the chief part of the Scripture which they called The Word of God and the Records of the Christian Religion 15. To this I may add that all the ordinary prayers and praises of the Churches did continue the recital of much of this history and of the Apostles names and acts and were composed much in Scripture phrase which preserved the memory and professed the belief of all those things 16. And the festivals or other dayes which were kept in honourable commemoration of those Apostles and Martyrs was another way of keeping these things in memory Whether it were well done or not is not my present enquiry only I may say I cannot accuse it of any sin till it come to over-doing and ascribing too much to them But certainly it was a way of transmitting the memory of those things to posterity 17. Another hath been by the constant commemoration of the great works of Christ by the dayes or seasons of the year which were annually observed How far here also the Church did well or ill I now meddle
or hearing or thinking on such a great and difficult matter that will make it your own for the stablishing of your faith He that will understand the art of a Sea-man a Souldier a Musician a Physician c. so as to practise it must study it hard and understand it clearly and comprehensively and have all the whole frame of it printed on his mind and not only here and there a scrap Faith is a practical knowledge We must have the heart and life directed and commanded by it We must live by it both in the intention of our end and in the choice and use of all the means Whilest the Gospel and the Reasons of our Religion are strange to people like a lesson but half learned who can expect that they should be settled against all temptations which assault their faith and able to confute the tempter We lay together the proofs of our Religion and you read them twice or thrice and then think that if after that you have any doubting the fault is in the want of evidence and not in your want of understanding But the life of faith must cost you more labour than so study it till you clearly understand it and remember the whole method of the evidence together and have it all as at your fingers ends and then you may have a confirmed faith to live by Direct 5. When you know what are the sorest temptations to unbelief get all those special arguments and provisions into your minds which are necessary against those particular temptations And do not strengthen your own temptations by your imprudent entertaining them Here are thâ—ee things which I would especially advise you to â—gainst temptations to unbelief 1. Enter not into the debate of so great a business when you are uncapable of it Especially 1. When your minds are taken up with worldly business or other thoughts have carryed them away let not Satan then surprize you and say Come now and question thy Religion You could not resolve a question in Philosophy nor cast up any long account on such a sudden with an unprepared mind When the Evidences of your faith are out of mind stay till you can have leisure to set your selves to the business with that studiousness and those helps which so great a matter doth require 2. When sickness or melancholy doth weaken your understandings you are then unfit for such a work You would not in such a case dispute for your lives with a cunning sophister upon any difficult question whatsoever And will you in such a case dispute with the Devil when your salvation may lye upon it 2. When your faith is once settled suffer not the Devil to call you to dispute it over again at his command Do it not when his suggestions urge you at his pleasure but when God maketh it your duty and at his pleasure Else your very disputing with Satan will be some degree of yielding to him and gratifying him And he will one time or other take you at the advantage and assault you when you are without your arms 3 Mark what it is that Atheists and Infidels most object against Christianity but especially mark what it is which Satan maketh most use of against your selves to shake your faith And there let your studies be principally bent that you may have particular armour to defend you against particular assaults And get such light by communication with wiser and more experienced men as may furnish you for that use that no objection may be-made against your faith which you are not alwaies ready to answer This is the true sense of 1 Pet. 3.15 Sanctifie the Lord God in your hearts and be ready alwaies to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear Direct 6. Mark well those works of God in the world which are the plain fulfilling of his Word God doth not make such notable difference by his Judgements as shall prevent the great discoveries at the last and make his Assize and final Judgement to be unnecessary by doing the same work before the time But yet his Providences do own and bear witness to his Word and he leaveth not the world without some present sensible testimonies of his soveraign government to convince them and restrain them 1. Mark how the state of the sinful world agreeth to Gods description of it and how maliciously Godliness is every where opposed by them and how notably God still casteth shame upon sinners so that even in their prosperity and rage they are pittied and contemned in the eyes of all that are wise and sober and in the next generation their names do rot Psal 15.3 4. Prov. 10.7 And it is wonderful to observe that sin in the general and abstract is still spoken of by all as an odious thing even by them that will be damned rather than they will leave it And that Vertue and Godliness Charity and Justice are still praised in the world even by them that abhor and persecute it 2. And it is very observable how most of the great changes of the world are made By how small contemptible and unthought of meanâ— Especially where the interest of the Gospel is most concerned The instance of the Reformation in Luther's time and many others nearer to our daies would shew us much of the conjunction of Gods works with his Word if they were particularly and wisely opened 3. The many prodigies or extraordinary events which have fallen out at several times would be found to be of use this way if wisely considered A great number have fallen out among us of late years of real certainty and of a considerable usefulness But the crafty enemy who useth most to wrong Christ and his Cause by his most passionate injudicious followers prevailed with some over-forward Minister of this strein to publish them in many volumes with the mixture of so many falshoods and mistaken circumstances as turned them to the advantage of the Devil and ungodliness and made the very mention of Prodigies to become a scorn 4. The strange deliverances of many of Gods servants in the greatest dangers by the most unlikely means is a great encouragement to faith And there are a great number of Christians that have experience of such The very manner of our preservations is often such as forceth us to say It is the hand of God 5. The notable answer and grant of prayers of which many Christians have convincing experience is also a great confirmation to our faith of which I have before spoken 6. The three sensible evidences formerly mentioned compared with the Scriptures may much perswade us of its truth I mean 1. Apparitions 2. Witches 3. Satanical possessions or diseases which plainly declare the operation of Satan in them of all which I could give you manifold and proved instances These and many other instances of Gods providence are great means to help us to believe his Word
the term from which and the former from the respect to part of the term to which the soul is moving And Faith is oft taken as containing somewhat of Love and Desire in it and he that will without any prejudice and partiality study Paul where he opposeth Faith and Works as to our Justification shall find by his almost constant naming the Works of the Law or by the context and analysis that indeed his chief meaning is to prove that we are justified by the Christian Religion and must be sâ—ved by it and not by the Jewish which the adversaries of Christianity then pleaded for and trusted to Direct 12. Set not the helps of Faith as if they were against Faith but understand their several places and offices and use them accordingly Do not like those ignorant self-conceited Hereticks who cry out It is by Believing and not by Repenting or Reading or Hearing Sermons or by Praying or by forbearing sin or by doing good that we are justified and therefore it is by Faith only that we are saved the same which is sufficient for our Justification being sufficient for our salvation seeing the Justified cannot be condemned and Justification and Salvation are both equally ascribed to Faith without the works of the Law by the Apostle For we are justified only by such a Faith as is caused by Gods Word and maintained and actuated by Hearing Reading Meditation Prayer and Sacraments and as is accompanied by Repentance and worketh by Love and is indeed the beholding of those invisible and glorious motives which may incite our Love and set us on good works and obedience to our Redeemer And he that by negligence omitteth or by errour excludeth any one of these in the Life of Faith will find that he hath erred against his own interest peace and comfort if not against his own salvation And that he might as wisely have disputed that it is his eyes only that must see his way and therefore he may travel without his legs Direct 13. Take heed left a misconceit of the certainty of some common Philosophical Opinions should make you stagger in those Articles of Faith which seem to contradict them Not that indeed any truths can be contrary one to another For that which is true in Philosophy is contrary to no one truth in Theology But Philosophers have deceived themselves and the world with a multitude of uncertainties and falsities and by straining them to subtil niceties and locking them up in uncouth terms have kept the common people from trying them and understanding them and thereby have made it their own prerogative explicitely to erre and the peoples duty not to contradict them but to admire that errour as profound parts of learning which they cannot understand And then their conclusions oft go for principles which must not be gainsayed when they are perhaps either false or non-sense And then when they meet with any thing in Scripture which crosseth their opinions the reputation of humane folly maketh them despise the wisdom of God I have given you elsewhere some instances about the immortality of the soul They know not what Generation is they do not know it nor what are the true principles and elements of mixt bodies nor what is the true dâ—fference between immaterial and material substances with an hundred such like And yet some expect that we should sacrifice the most certain useful truths to their false or uncertain useless suppositions which is the true reason why Paul saith Col. 2.8 9 10. Beware lest any man spoil you through Philosophy and vain deceit not true Philosophy which is the true knowledge of the works of God but the vain models which every Sect of them cryed up after the tradition of men that is the opinions of the Masters of their Sects after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily and ye are compleat in him See Act. 17.18 It is Christ who is the kernel and summary of the Christian Philosophy who is therefore called The Wisdom of God 1 Cor. 1.24 30. both because he is the heavenly Teacher of true Wisdom and because that true Wisdom consisteth in knowing him And indeed even in those times the several Sects of Philosophers accounted much of each others principles to be erroneous and the Philosophers of these times begin to vilifie them all and withall to confess that they have yet little of certainty to substitute in the room of the demolished Idols but they are about their experiments to try if any thing in time may be found out Direct 14. Especially take heed lest you be cheated into Infidelity by the Dominicans Metaphysical Doctrine of the necessity of Gods Physical predetermining promotion as the first total cause to the being of every action natural and free not only in genere actionis but also as respectively and comparatively exercised on this object rather than on that I add this only for the learned who are as much in danger of Infidelity as others and will use it to the greater injury of the truth I will meddle now with no other reasons of my advice but what the subject in hand requireth If God can and do thus premove and predetermine the mind will and tongue of every lyar in the world to every lye or material falshood which ever they did conceive or speak there will be no certainty of the Gospel nor of any Divine Revelation at all Seeing all such certainty is resolved into Gods Veracity that God cannot lye And God speaketh not to us by any but a created voice and if he can thus predetermine others to those words which are a lye rather than to the contrary which are true there would be no certainty but he may do so by Prophets and Apostles and let them tell you what they will of the greater certainty of Inspirations and Miracles than of Predeterminations it will be found upon tryal that no man can prove or make it so much as probable that any inspiration hath more of a Divine Causation than such a premoving predetermination as aforesaid doth amount to much less so much more as will prove that one is more certain than the other This Doctrine therefore which undeniably whatever may be wrangled taketh down Christianity and all belief of God or man is not to be believed meerly upon such a Philosophical conceit that every Action is a Being and therefore must in all its circumstances be caused by God As if God were not able to make a faculty which can determine its own comparative act to this rather than to that by his sustentation and universal precausation and concourse without the said predetermining premotion When as an Action as such is but a modus entis and the comparative exercise of it on this rather than on that is but a modus vel circumstantia modi And they leave no work for gracious determination because that natural determination doth
the first so it is the Goodness of God which must be more studied by a Believer than his Power or his Wisdom because the impress of it is more necessary to us in our lapsed state 2. They have false thoughts of Gods Goodness who make it to consist only or chiefly in a communicative inclination ad extra which we call Benignity For he was as Good from Eternity before he made any creature as he is since And his Goodness considered as essential in himself and as his own perfection is infinitely higher than the consideration of it as terminated on any Creature Man is denominated good from his adaptation to the will of God and not God chiefly from his adaptation to the commodity or will of man And they do therefore debase God and deifie his creature who make the creature the ultimate end of GOD and it self and not God the ultimate end of the creature And they might as well make the creature the Beginning also of it self and God And yet this sottish notion taketh much with many half-witted Novelists in this Age who account themselves the men of ingenuity And they have also false thoughts of the Goodness of God who think that there is nothing of communicative Benignity in it at all For all the good which God doth he doth it from the Goodness of his Nature Thou art good and doest good Psal 119.68 And his doing good is usually expressed by the phrase of being good to them The Lord is good to all Psal 145.9 Psal 25 8 86.5 Object But if communicative Benignity be natural to God as his Essential Goodness is then he must do good per modum naturae ad ultimum potentiae and then the world was from Eternity and as good as God could make it Answ 1. Those Christian Divines who do hold that the Vniverse was from Eternity and that it is as good as God can make it do not yet hold that it was its own original but an eternal emanation from God and therefore that God who is the beginning of it is the ultimate end and eternally and voluntarily though naturally and necessarily produced it for himself even for the pleasure of his will And therefore that Gods Essential Goodness as it is in it self is much higher than the same as terminated in or productive of the Universe And that no mixt bodies which do oriri interire are generated and corrupted were from eternity and consequently that this present systeme called the world which is within our sight was not from eternity But that as spring and fall doth revive the plants and end their transitory life so it hath been with these particular systemes the simpler and nobler parts of the Universe continuing the same And they held that the world is next to infinitely good and as good as it is possible to be without being God and that for God to produce another God or an infinite good is a contradiction And that all the baser and pained and miserable parts of the world are best respectively to the perfection of the whole though not best in and to themselves As every nuck and pin in a watch is necessary as well as the chief parts And that all things set together it is best that all things be as they are and will be But of this the infinite Wisdom who seeth not only some little parts but the whole Universe at one perfect view is the fittest Judge 2. But the generality of Divines do hold the contrary and say that it is natural to God to be the Alsufficient pregnant good not only able to communicate goodness but inclined to it as far as his perfection doth require but not inclined to communicate in a way of natural constant necessity as the Sun shineth but in a way of liberty when and in what degrees he pleaseth which pleasure is guided by his infinite Vnderstanding which no mortal man can comprehend and therefore must not ask any further reason of the first reason and will but stop here and be satisfied to find that it is indeed Gods Will and Reason which causeth all things when and what they are and not otherwise And that God hath not made the Universe as good in it self as by his absolute Power he could have made it But that it is best to be as it is and will be because it is most suitable to his perfect Will and Wisdom And this answer seemeth most agreeable to Gods Word And as you must see that your thoughts of Gods Goodness be not false so also that they be not diminutive and low As no knowledge is more useful and necessary to us so nothing is more wonderfully revealed by God than is his amiable Goodness For this end he sent his Son into flesh to declare his Love to the forelorn world and to call them to behold it and admire it John 1 8 9 10. 3.16 1 John 3.1 Rev. 21.3 And as Christ is the chief glass of the Fathers Love on this side Heaven so it is the chief part of the office of Faith to see Gods Love and Goodness in the face of Christ Let him not reveal his Love in vain at so dear a rate and in a way of such wonderful condescension Think of his Goodness as equal to his greatness And as you see his greatness in the frame of the world so his goodness in the wonderful work of mans Redemption and Salvation Let Faith beholding God in Christ and daily thus gazing on his goodness or rather tasting it and feasting on it be the very summ of all your Religion and your lives This is indeed to live by Faith when it worketh by that Love which is our holiness and life Direct 13. Let not Faith overlook the Books of the Creation and the wonderful demonstrations of Gods Attributes therein Even such revelations of Gods goodness and fidelity as are made in Nature or the works of Creation are sometimes in Scriptures made the objects of faith At least we who by the belief of the Scriptures do know how the worlds were made Heb. 11.2 3. must believingly study this glorious work of our great Creator All those admirations and praises of God as appearing in his works which David useth were not without the use of faith Thus faith can use the world as a sanctified thing and as a glass to see the glory of God in while sensual sinners use it against God to their own perdition and make it an enemy to God and them so contrary is the life of Faith and of Sense He hath not the heart of a man within him who is not stricken with admiration of the Power and Wisdom and Goodness of the incomprehensible Creator when he seriously looketh to the Sun and Stars to Sea and Land to the course of all things and to the wonderful variety and natures of the particular creatures And he hath not the heart of a Believer in him who doth not think O what
to despise the Idol of the ungodly and to lay that under our feet which is nearest to their heart and to be able without impatiency to be scorned spit upon buffeted and abused to be poor and of no reputation among men and though not to enslave our selves to any but if we can be free to use it rather 1 Cor. 7.21 yet to be the loving and voluntary servants of as many as we can to do them good and not to desire to have a great retinue and to be such voluntary burdens to the world as to be served by many while we serve none as if we who are taught by Christ and Nature that it is more honourable to give than to receive and to be helpful unto many than to need the help of many would declare our impotency to be so great that when every poor man can serve himself and others we are and had rather be so indigent as not to live and help our selves without the help of many servants yea scarce to undress and dress our selves or to do any thing which another can do for us Only such persons are willing to eat and drink and sleep for themselves and to play and laugh and to sin for themselves but as to any thing that 's good and usefull without their present sensitive delight they are not only unserviceable to the world but would live like the lame or dead that must be moved and carryed about by others Among Christs servants he that is the chief must be the chief in service even as a servant unto all Luke 22.26 Matth. 23.11 And all by love must serve one another Gal. 5.13 4. His submission unto death and conquest of the natural love of life for a greater good even the pleasing of God and the Crown of Glory and the good of many in their salvation To teach us that not only the pleasures of life but life it self must be willingly laid down when any of these three ends require it Matth. 20.28 John 10 11. 15.13 1 John 3.16 Joh. 10.17 Acts 20.24 Matth. 10.39 16.25 Mark 14.26 Phil. 2.30 1 John 3.16 Rev. 12.11 Direct 16. Let Faith behold Christ in his relation to his universal Church and not unto your selves alone 1. Because else you overlook his most honourable relation It is more his glory to be the Churches Head and Saviour than yours Ephes 5.23 1.21 22. And 2. You else overlook his chief design and work which is for the perfecting and saving of his body Ephes 1.23 Col. 1.24.18 And 3. Else you overlook the chief part of your own duty and of your conformity to Christ which is in loving and edifying the body Ephes 4.12 16 Whereas if you see Christ as the undivided and impartial Head of all Saints you will see also all Saints as dear to him and as united in him and you will have communion by faith with them in him and you will love them all and pray for all and desire a part in the prayers of all instead of carping at their different indifferent manner and forms and words of prayer and running away from them to shew that you disown them And you will have a tender care of the unity and honour and prosperity of the Church and regard the welfare of particular Brethren as your own 1 Cor. 12. throughout John 13.14 34. 15.12 17. Rom. 13.8 stooping to the lowest service to one another if it were the washing of the feet and in honour preferring one another Rom. 12.10 Not judging nor despising nor persecuting but receiving and forbearing one another Rom. 14. throughout 15.1 2 3 4 7 8. Gal. 5.13 6.1 2 3. Ephes 4.2 32. Col. 3.13 Edifying exhorting and seeking the saving of one other 1 Thes 5.11 4.9 18. Heb. 3.13 10.24 Not speaking evil one of another James 4.11 Much less biting and devouring one another Gal. 5.15 But having compassion one of another as those that are members one of another 1 Pet. 3.8 Rom. 12.5 Direct 17. Make all your opposition to the temptations of Satan the world and the flesh by the exercise of Faith in Christ From him you must have your weapons skill and strength It is the great work of Faith to militate under him as the Captain of our salvation and by vertue of his precepts example and Spirit to overcome as he hath overcome Of which more anon Direct 18. Death also must be entertained and conquered by Faith in Christ We must see it as already conquered by him and entertain it as the passage to him This also will be after spoken to Direct 19. Faith must believe in Christ as our Judge to give us our final Justification and sentence us to endless life Rom. 14.9 10. John 5.22 24 25. Direct 20. Lastly Faith must see Christ as preparing us a place in Heaven and possessing it for us and ready to receive us to himself But all this I only name because it will fall in in the last Chapters CHAP. III. Directions to live by Faith on the Holy Ghost THis is not the least part of the life of Faith If the Spirit give us Faith it self then Faith hath certainly its proper work to do towards that Spirit which giveth it And if the Spirit be the worker of all other grace and Faith be the means on our part then Faith hath somewhat to do with the Holy Ghost herein The best way that I can take in helping you to believe aright in the Holy Ghost will be by opening the true sense of this great Article of our Faith to you that by understanding the matter aright you may know what you are here both to do and to expect Direct 1. The name of the Holy Ghost or Spirit of God is used in Scripture for the third person in the Trinity as constitutive and as the third perfective principle of operation and most usually as operating ad extra by communication And therefore many Fathers and ancient Divines and Schoolmen say That the Holy Ghost the third person and principle is THE LOVE OF GOD which as it is Gods Love of himself is a constitutive person or principle in the Trinity but as it is pregnant and productive it is the third principle of operation ad extra and so that it is taken usually for the pregnant operative Love of God And thus they suppose that the Divine POWER INTELLECT and WILL or Wisdom and Love are the three constitutive persons in themselves and the three principles of operation ad extra To this purpose writeth Origen Ambrose and Richardus the Schoolman but plainlier and fullier Damascene and Bernard and Edmundus Cantuariensis and Potho Prumensis cited by me in my Reasons of the Christian Religion page 372 373 374. Augustine only putteth Memory for Power by which yet Campanella thinketh he meant Power Metaphys par 2. l. 6. c. 12. art 4. pag. 88. what Caesarius and many other say de triplici lumine I pass by The Lux
in with the heavenly Spirit in his own way when we set our selves to be most heavenly Heavenly thoughts are the work which he would set you on and the Love of God is the thing which he works you to thereby And nothing will so powerfully inflame the soul with the Love of God as to think that we shall live in his Love and Glory for ever more Set your selves therefore to this work and it will be a sign that the Spirit sets you on it and you may be sure that he will not be behind with you in a work which both he and you must do To this sense the Apostle bids us pray in the Holy Ghost Jude 20. Because though prayer must be from the Spirit which is not in our power yet when we set our selves to pray it is both a sign that the Spirit exciteth and a certain proof that he will not be behind with us but will afford us his assistance Direct 29. Conveâ—se with those who have most of the Spirit as far as you can attain it And that is not those that are most for revelations or visions or that pretend to extraordinary illuminations or that set the Spirit against the Word or that boast most of the Spirit in contempt of others But those who are most humble most holy and most heavenly who love God most and hate sin most Converse with such as have most of the Spirit of love and heavenliness is the way to make you more spiritual as converse with learned men is the way to learning For the Spirit giveth his graces in the use of suitable means as well as he doth his common gifts Jude 20 21. Heb. 10.24 25. 3.13 Ephes 4.12 15 16. Direct 30. Lastly The right ordering of the body it self is a help to our spirituality A clean and a chearful body is a fitter instrument for the Spirit to make use of than one that is opprest with crudities or dejected with heavy melancholy Therefore especially avoid two extreams 1. The satisfying the lusts of the flesh and clogging the body with excess of meat or drink or corrupting the fantasie with foolish pleasures 2. And the addicting your selves to distracting melancholy or to any disconsolate or discontented thoughts And from hence you may both take notice of the sense of all that fasting and abstinence which God commandeth us and of the true measure of it viz. as it either fitteth or unfitteth the body for our duty and for our ready obedience to the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 9.27 I keep under my body and bring it into subjection lest by any means when I have preached to others I myself should be a cast away Rom. 13.12 13 14. Let us walk honestly as in the day not in rioting and drunkâ—nness not in chambering and wantonness not in strife and envying but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh for lust Pampering the body and addicting our selves to the pleasing of it turneth a man from spirituality into bruitishness and savouring or minding the things of the flâ—sh destroyeth both the relish and minding of the things of the Spirit Rom. 8.5 6 7 8. And a sowre discontented melancholy temper is contrary to that alacrity requisite in Gods service and to those which the Comforter is to work in us So much for living by Faith on the Holy Ghost CHAP. IV. Directions how to exercise Faith upon Gods Commandments for Duty IT being presupposed that your Faith is settled about the truth of the Scriptures in general by the means here before and elsewhere more at large described you are next to learn how to exercise the Life of Faith about the Precepts of God in particular and herein take these helps Direct 1. Observe well how suitable Gods Commands are to reason and humanity and natural revelation it self and so how Nature and Scripture do fully agree in all the precepts for primitive holiness This is the cause why Divines have thought it so useful to read Heathen Moralists themselves that in a Cicero a Plutarch a Seneca an Antonius an Epictetus c. they might see what testimony nature it self yieldeth against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men See Rom. 19 20 c. But of this I have been larger in my Reasons of the Christian Religion Direct 2. Observe well how suitable all Gods Commandments are to your own good and how necessary to your own felicity All that God commandeth you is 1. To be active and use the faculties of your souls in opposition to Idleness 2. To use them rightly and on the highest objects and not to debase them by preferring vanity and sordid things nor to pervert them by ill doing And are not both these suitable to your natural perfection and necessary to your good 1. If there were one Law made that men should lie or stand still all the day with their eyes shut and their ears stopped and their mouths closed and that they should not stir nor see nor hear nor taste and another Law that man should use their eyes and ears and limbs c. which of these were more suitable to humanity and more easie for a â—ound man to obey though the first might best suit with the lame and blind and sick and why should not the goodness of Gods Law be discerned which requireth men to use the higher faculties the Reason and Elective and Executive Powers which God hath given them If men should make a Law that no one should use his Reason to get Learning or for his Trade or business in the world you would think that it were an institution of a Kingdom of Bedlams or a herd of beasts And should not you then be required to use your Reason faithfully and diligently in greater things 2. And if one Law were made that every man that traveleth shall stumble and wallow in the dirt and wander up and down out of his way and that every man that eateth and drinketh should feed on dirt and ditch-water or poyson c. And another Law that all men should keep their right way and live soberly and feed healthfully which of these would fit a wise man best and be easiest to obey or if one Law were made that all Scholars shall learn nothing but lies and errours and another that they shall learn nothing but truth and wisdom which of them would be more easie and suitable to humanity Though the first might be more pleasing to some fools Why then should not the goodness of Gods Laws be confessed who doth but forbid men learning the most pernicious errours and wandering in the maze of folly and wallowing in the dirt of sensuality and feeding on the dung and poyson of sin Is the love of a harlot or of gluttony drunkennenss rioting or gaming more suitable to humanity than the Love of God and Heaven and Holiness of Wisdom Temperance and doing good To a Swine or a Bedlam it may be more suitable but not
Jesus Acts 21.13 3. In so strong a fortitude of soul as to venture and give up our selves our lives and all our comforts and hopes into the hand of Christ without any trouble or sinful fears and to pass through all difficulties and tryals in the way without any distrust or anxiety of mind These be the characters of a strong and great degree of faith And you may note how Heb. 11. describeth Faith commonly by this venturing and forsaking all upon the belief of God As in Noah's case verse 7. And in Abraham's leaving his Countrey v. 8. And in his sacrificing Isaac v. 17. And in Moses forsaking Pharaoh's Court and chusing the reproach of Christ rather than the pleasures of sin for a season v. 24 25 26. And in the Israelites venturing into the Red Sea v. 29. And in Rebab's hiding the spies which must needs be her danger in her own Countrey And in all those who by faith subdued Kingdoms wrought Righteousness obtained Promises stopped the mouths of Lions quenched the violence of fire escaped the edge of the sword out of weakness were made strong O hers were tortured not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection and others had tryal of cruel mockings and scourgings yea moreover of bonds and imprisonments they were stoned they were sawn asunder were tempted were slain with the sword they wandered about in Sheep skins and Goat skins being destitute afflicted tormented of whom the world was not worthy They wandered in Desarts and Mountains and in Deus and Caves of the earth And in Heb. 10.32 33 c. They endured a great fight of affliction partly whilst they were made a gazing flock both by reproaches and afflictions and partly whilst they became companions of them that were so used And took joyfully the spoiling of their goods knowing in themselves that they had in Heaven a better and an enduring substance And thus the just do live by faith but if any man draw back my soul shall have no pleasure in him saith the Lord. See also Rom. 8.33 36 37 c. These are the Spirits descriptions of faith but if you will rather take a whimsical ignorant mans description who can only toss in his mouth the name of FREE GRACE and knoweth not of what he speaketh or what he affirmeth or what that name signifieth which he cheateth his own soul with instead of true Free Grace it self you must suffer the bitter fruits of your own delusion For my part I shall say thus much more to tell you why I say so much to help you to a right understanding of the nature of true Christian Faith 1. If you understand not truly what Faith is you understand not what Religion it is that you profess And so you call your selves Christians and know not what it is It seems those that said Lord we have eaten and drunken in thy presence and prophesied in thy Name did think they had been true Believers Matth. 7.21 22. 2. To erre about the nature of true Faith will engage you in abundance of other errours which will necessarily arise from that as it did them against whom James disputeth James 2.14 15 c. about Justification by Faith and by Works 3. It will damnably delude your souls about your own state and draw you to think that you have saving Faith because you have that fancy which you thought was it One comes boldly to Christ Mat. 8.19 Master I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest But when he heard The Foxes have holes and the Birds have nests but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head we hear no more of him And another came with a Good Master what shall I do to inherit eternal life Luke 18.18 as if he would have been one of Christs Disciples and have done any thing for Heaven And it 's like that he would have been a Christian if Free Grace had been as large and as little grace as some now imagine But when he heard Yet lackest thou one thing sell all that thou hast and distribute to the poor and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven Come follow me he was then very sorrowful for he was very rich Luke 18.21 22 23. Thousands cheat their souls with a conceit that they are Believers because they believe that they shall be saved by Free Grace without the faith and grace which Christ hath made necessary to salvation 4. And this will take off all those needful thoughts and means which should help you to the faith which yet you have not 5. And it will engage you in perverse disputes against that true faith which you understand not And you will think that you are contending for Free Grace and for the Faith when you are proud knowing nothing but sick or doting about questions which engender no better birth than strifes railings evil surmisings perverse disputings c. 1 Tim. 6.4 5. 6. Lastly You can scarce more dishonour the Christian Religion nor injure God and our Mediatour or harden men in Infidelity than by fathering your ill-shapen fictions on Christ and calling them the Christian or Justifying Faith Direct 29. Take not all doubts and fears of your salvation to be the proper effects and signs of unbelief Seeing that in many they arise from the misunderstanding of the meaning of Gods Promise and in more from the doubtfulness of their own qualifications rather than from any unbelief of the Promise or distrust of Christ It is ordinary with ignorant Christians to say that they cannot believe because they doubt of their own sincerity and salvation as thinking that it is the nature of true faith to believe that they themselves are justified and shall be saved and that to doubt of this is to doubt of the Promises because they doubtingly apply it Such distresses have false principles bought many to But there are two other things besides the weakness of faith which are usually the causes of all this 1. Many mistake the meaning of Christs Covenant and think that it hath no universality in it and that he died only for the Elect and promiseth pardon to none but the Elect no not on the condition of believing And therefore thinking that they can have no assurance that they are Elect they doubt of the conclusion And many of them think that the Promise extendeth not to such as they because of some sin or great unworthiness which they are guilty of And others think that they have not that Faith and Repentance which are the condition of the promise of pardon and salvation And in some of these the thing it self may be so obscure as to be indeed the matter of rational doubtfulness And in others of them the cause may be either a mistake about the true nature and signs of Faith and Repentance or else a timerous melancholy causeless suspition of themselves But which of all these soever be the cause it is something different from proper unbelief or distrust of God
the Attributes of God are the seal which must make his Image on us so the apprehension of his presence setteth them on and keepeth our faculties awake Direct 13. Be sure that Faith make Gods acceptance your full reward and set you above the opinion of man Not in self-conceitedness and pride of your self-sufficiency to set light by the judgment of other men That is a heinous sin of it self and doubled when it is done upon pretence of living upon God alone But that really you live so much to God alone as that all men seem as nothing to you and their opinion of you as a blast of wind in regard of any felicity of your own which might be placed in their love or praise Though as a means to Gods service and their own good you must please all men to their edification and become all things to all men to win them to God Gal. 1.10 11. Rom. 15.1 2. Prov. 11.30 1 Cor. 9.22 10.33 yea and study to please your Governours as your duty Titus 2.9 But as man-pleasing is the Hypocrites work and wages so must the pleasing of God be ours though all the world should be displeased Matth. 6.1 2 3 5 6 c. 2 Tim. 2.4 1 Cor. 7.32 1 Thes 4.1 2 Cor. 5.8 9. 1 Thes 2.4 1 John 3.22 Direct 14. Let the constant work of Faith be to take you off the life of sense by mortifying all the concupiscence of the flesh and over-powering all the objects of sense The neerness of things sensible and the violence and unreasonableness of the senses and appetite do necessitate Faith to be a conflicting grace It s use is to illuminate elevate and corroborate Reason and help it to maintain its authority and government The life of a Believer is but a conquering warfare between Faith and Sense and between things unseen and the things that are seen Therefore it is said that they thâ—â— are in the flesh cannot please God because the flesh bâ—ing the predominant principle in them they most savour and mind the things of the flesh and therefore they can do more with them than the things of the Spirit can do when both are set before them Rom. 8.5 6 7 8. Direct 15. Let Faith set the example first of Christ and next of his holiest servants still before you He that purposely lived among men in flâ—sh a life of holiness and patience and contempt of the world to be a pattern or example to us doth expect that it be the daily work of Faith to imitate him and therefore that we have this Copy still before our eyes It will help us when we are sluggish and sit down in low and common things to see more noble things before us It will help us when we are in doubt of the way of our duty and when we are apt to favour our corruptions It will guide our minds and quicken our desires with a holy ambition and covetousness to be more holy It will serve us to answer all that the world or flesh can say from the contrary examples of sinning men If any tell us what great men or learned men think or say or do against Religion and for a sinful life it is enough if Faith do but tell us presently what Christ and his Apostles and Saints and Martyrs have thought and said and done to the contrary Mat. 11.28 29. 1 Pet. 2.21 John 13.15 Phil. 3.17 2 Thes 3.9 1 Tim. 4.12 Ephes 5.1 Heb. 6.12 1 Thes 1.6 2.14 Direct 16. Let your Faith set all graces on work in their proper order and proportion and carry on the work of holiness and obedience in harmony and not set one part against another nor look at one while you forget or neglect another Every grace and duty is to be a help to all the rest And the want or neglect of any one is a hinderance to all As the want of one wheel or smaller particle in a clock or watch will make all stand still or go out of order The new creature consisteth of all due parts as the body doth of all its members The soul is as a musical instrument which must neither want one string nor have one out of tune nor neglected without spoiling all the melody A fragment of the most excellent work or one member of the comliest body cut off is not beautiful The beauty of a holy soul and life is not only in the quality of each grace and duty but much in the proportion feature and harmony of all Therefore every part hath its proper armour Ephes 6.11 12 13 14. And the whole armour of God must be put on Because all fulness dwelleth in Christ we are compleat in him as being sufficient to communicate every grace Epaphras laboured alwaies fervently in prayers for the Colossians that they might stand perfect and compleat in all the Will of God Col. 4.12 James 1.4 Let patience have her perfect work that ye may be perfect and entire wanting nothing We oft comfort our selves that though we want the perfection of degrees yet we have the perfection of parts or of integrity But many are fain to prove this only by inferring that he that hath one grace hath all but as to the discerning and orderly use of all they are yet to seek CHAP. XI Of the Order of Graces and Duties BEcause I find not this insisted on in any Writers for the peoples instruction as it ought I will not pass over so needful a point without some further advertisement about it I will therefore shew you 1. What is the compleatness and the harmony to be desired 2. What are our contrary defects and distempers 3. What are the causes of them and what must be the cure 4. Some useful Inferences hence arising I. He that will be compleat and entire must have all these Graces and Duties following 1. A solid and clear understanding of all the great the needful and practical matters of the sacred Scriptures 2 Tim. 3.16 And if he have the understanding of the Scripture languages and the customs of those times and other such helps his understanding of the Scripture will be the more compleat Acts 26.3 If he have not he must make use of other mens 2. A settled well grounded Belief of all Gods supernatural Revelations as well as the knowledge of natural verities 3. Experience to make this knowledge and belief to be satisfactory powerful and firm Especially the experience of the Spirits effectual operations in our selves by the means of this word Rom. 5.4 8.9 Gal. 4.6 4. The historical knowledge of the Scripture matters of fact and how God in all ages since Scripture times hath fulfilled his Word both promises and threatnings and what Christ and Satan Grace and Sin have been doing in the world Therefore the Scripture is written so much by way of history and therefore the Jews were so often charged to tell the history of Gods works to their children 1 Cor. 10.1 2 6 7
is above Gods nor can bind us against him but it is all received from him and subordinate to him 51. No Humane Power can bind us to the destruction of the society which it governeth because the publick or common good is the end of Government 52. The Laws of Kings and the Commands of Parents Masters and Pastors in cases where they have true Authority do bind the soul primarily as well as the body secondarily But not as the primary but the secondary bond It is a wonderful and pittiful thing to read Divines upon this point Whether the Laws of men do bind the conscience what work they have made as in the dark when the case is so very plain and easie some are peremptory that they do not bind conscience and some that they do and some calling their adversaries the Idolizers of men and others again insinuating that they we guilty of treason against Kings who do gainsay them when surely they cannot differ if they would 1. The very phrase of their question is non-sense or very unfit Conscience is but a mans knowledge or judgment of himself as he is obliged to his duty and the effects and consequently of the obligations which lie upon him It is a strange question whether I am bound in knowledge of my self But it were a reasonable question whether I be bound to know or whether I know that I am bound It is the whole man and most eminently the Will which is bound by Laws or any Moral Obligations The man is bound But if by conscience they mean the soul it is a ridiculous question For no bonds can lie upon the body immediately but Cords or Iron or such like materials The soul is the first obliged or else the man is not morally obliged at all If the sense of the question be whether it be a Divine or a Religious obligation which mens commands do lay upon us The answer is easie 1. That Man is not God and therefore as humane it is not Divine 2. That Mans Government is Gods institution and Men are Gods Officers and therefore the obligation is Religious and Instrumentally or Mediately Divine Either mens Laws and Commands do bind us or not If not they are no Laws nor authoritative Acts If they do bind either it is primarily by an authority originally in themselves that made them and then they are all gods And then there is no God Or else it is by derived authority If so God must be the Original or still the Original must be God And then is the high way any plainer than the true answer of this question viz. That Princes Parents c. have a governing or Law-giving power from God in subordination to him and that they are his Officers in governing And that all those Laws which he hath authorized them to make do bind the soul that is the man immediately as humane and instrumentally or mediately as Divine or as the bonds of God As my Covenant bind my self to conscience if you will so speak rather than that they bind my conscience so do men a Laws also bind me You may as well ask whether the writing of my pen be its action or mine and be an animate or inanimate act which is soon resolved 53. To conclude these Rules as the just impress of the Spirit and Image of God upon the soul is Divine Life Light and Love communicated from God by Jesus Christ by the holy Spirit to work in us and by us for God in the soul and in the world and by Christ to bring us up at last to the sight and fruition of God himself so this Trinity of Divine principles must be inseparably used in all our internal and external duties towards God or men and all that we do must be the work of Power and of Love and of Wisdom or a sound mind 2 Tim. 1.7 II. Having been so large in opening the Order of our Duties I must be briefer than our case requireth in telling you our Disorders or contrary disease O what a humbling sight it would be if good Christians did but see the pittiful conâ—â—sions of their minds and lives They find little melody in their Religion because there is little harmony in their apprehensions affections or conversations If the displacing one wheel or pin in a clock will so much frustrate the effect it is a wonder that our tongues or lives do ever go true which are moved by such disordered parts within that were it not that the Spirit of grace doth keep an order where it is essential to our Religion between the End and the Means c. we should be but like the parts of a watch pulled in pieces and put up together in a bag But such is Gods mercy that the body may live when many smaller veins are obstructed so that the Master vessels be kept clear I. There are so few Christians that have a true method of Faith or Divinity in their understandings even in the great points which they know disorderly that it is no wonder if there be lamentable defectiveness and deformity in those inward and outward duties which should be harmoniously performed by the light of this harmonious truth And no Divine in the world can give you a perfect Scheme of Divinity in all the parts but he is the wisest that cometh neerest to it Abundance of Schemes and Tables you may see and all pretending to exactness But every one palpably defective and confused even those of the highest pretenders that ever I have seen And one errour or disorder usually introduceth in such a Scheme a confusion in all that followeth as dependant on it Some confound Gods Attributes themselves nay who doth not They confound the Three great Essential Principles with all the Attributes by similitude called Modal and Negative and they use to name over Gods Attributes like as they put their money or chess-men into a bag without any method at all Some confound Gods Primary Attributes of Being with his Relations which are subsequent to his Works and with his Relation-Attributes Some confound his several Relations to man among themselves and more do confound his Works as they flow from these various Relations The great works of the Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier and their several designs significations and effects are opened obscurely and in much confusion The Legislative Will of God de debiâ—â— institutive which is it that Damascene Chrysostome and the School-men mean by his Antecedent will if they speak properly which ever goeth before mans actions duties or sins or as the Fathers called them merits or demerits is confounded by many with the acts of his Judgment and Execution called his consequent Will because it ever presupposeth mens precedent actions Or his works as Law-giver Judge and Executioner are oft confounded And so are the Orders of his Precepts Promises and penal Threats and the Conditions of his Promises and the order of his Precepts among themselves and of his Promises
heard one lunatick person say I am for health and not for medicine and another I am for medicine and not for the taking of it and another I am for the Physick and not for the Physician and another I am for the Physician and not the Physick and another I am for the Physick but not for health Or as if they contended at their meats I am for meat but not for eating it and I am for putting it into my mouth but not for chewing it or I am for chewing it but not for swallowing it or I am for swallowing it but not for digesting it or I am for digesting it but not for eating it c. Thus is Christ divided among a sort of ignorant proud Professors and some are for his Sacrifice and some for his Intercession some for his Teaching and some for his Commands and some for his Promises some for his Blood and some for his Spirit some for his Word and some for his Ministers and his Church and when they have made this strange proficiency in wisdom every party claim to be this Church themselves or if they cannot deny others to be parts with them of the Mystical Church yet the true ordered Political disciplined Church is among them the matter of their claim and competition and one saith It is we and the other no but it is we and the Kitchin and the Cole-house and the Sellar go to Law to try which of them is the House Thus when they have divided Christs garments among them and pierced if not divided himself they quarrel rather than cast lots for his coat 7. I perceive this Treatise swelleth too big or else I might next shew you how partial men are in the sense of their dangers 8. And in the resisting of Temptations he that scapeth sensuality feareth not worldliness or he that feareth both yet falleth into Heresie or Schism and he that scapeth errours falleth into fleshly sins 9. And what partial regard we have of Gods mercies 10. And how partial we are as to our Teachers and good Books 11. And also about all the Ordinances of God and all the the helps and means of grace 12. And how partial we are about good works extolling one and sensless of another and about the opportunities of good In a word what lâ—me apprehensions we have of Religion when men are so far from setting all the parts together in a well-ordered frame that they can scarce forbear the dividing of every part into particles and must take the food of their souls as Physick even like Pills which they cannot get down unless they are exceeding small III. The Causes of this Calamity I must for brevity but name 1. The natural weakness of mans mind doth make him like a narrow-mouthed bottle that can take in but a little at once and so must be long in learning and receiving 2. The natural laziness and impatience of men will not give them leave to be at such long and painful studies as compleatness of knowledge doth require 3. The natural pride of mens hearts will not give them leave to continue so long in a humble sense of their emptiness and ignorance nor to spend so many years in learning as Disciples but it presently perswadeth them that their first apprehensions are clear and right and their knowledge very considerable already and they are as ready to dispute and censure the ignorance of their Teachers if not to teach others themselves as to learn 4. The poverty and labours of many allow them not leisure to search and study so long and seriously as may bring them to any comprehensive knowledge 5. The most are not so happy as to have judicious methodical and laborious Teachers who may possess them with right principles and methods but deliver them some truths with great defectiveness and disorder themselves and perhaps by their weakness tempt the people into pride when they see that they are almost as wise as they 6. Most men are corrupted by company and converse with ignorant eâ—roneous and self-conceited men and hearing others perhaps that are very zealous make something of nothing and make a great matter of a little one and extolling their own poor and lame conceits they learn also to think that they are something when they are nothing deceiving themselves Gal. 6.3 4. 7. Most Christians have lost the sense of the need and use of the true Ministerial Office as it consisteth in personal counsel and assistance besides the publick Teaching and most Ministers by neglecting it teach them to overlook it 8. Every man hath some seeming Interest in some one Opinion or Duty or Way above the rest and selfishness causeth him to reel that way that interest leadeth him 9. Education usually possesseth men with a greater regard of some one opinion duty way or party than of the rest 10. The reputation of some good men doth fix others upon some particular waies or notions of theirs above others 11. Present occasions and necessities sometime do urge us harder to some means and studies than to others especially for the avoiding of some present evil or easing of some present trouble and then the rest are almost laid by 12. Some Doctrines deeplier affect us in the hearing than others and then the thoughts run more on that to the neglect of many thing as great 13. Perhaps we have had special experience of some Truths and Duties or Sins more than others and then we set all our thoughts about those only 14. Usually we live with such as talk most of some one duty or against some one sin more than all the rest and this doth occasion our thoughts to run most in one stream and confine them by hearing and custom to a narrow channel 15. Some things in their own quality are more easie and near to us and more within the reach of sense And therefore as corporal things because of their sensibility and nearness do possess the minds of carnal men instead of things spiritual and unseen even so Paul and Apollo and Cephas this good Preacher and that good Book and this Opinion and that Church-society and this or that Ordinance do possess the minds of the more carnal narrow sort of Christians instead of the harmony of Christian truth and holy duty 16. Nature it self as corrupted is much more against some truths and against some duties internal and external than against others And then when those that it is less averse to are received men dwell on them and make a Religion of them wholly or too much without the rest As when some veins are stopped all the blood is turned into the rest or when one part of the mould is stopped up the metal all runneth into the rest and maketh a defective vessel Or when one part of the seal is filled up before it maketh a defective impression on the wax Therefore the duties of inward self-denial humility mortification and heavenliness are almost left out in the Religion
and sellers from Christs Temple their merchandize is exposed without shame and their signs set forth and the trade of getting preferments openly professed and it is enough to wipe off all the shame to put some venerable titles upon this Den of thieves But the Lord whom we wait for will once more come and cleanse his Temple But who may abide the day of his coming for he is like a refiners fire and like fullers sâ—pe and will throughly purge the Sons of Levi Mal. 3.1 2 3 4. If talking against worldliness would prove that the world is overcome and that God is dearest to the soul then Preachers will be the happiest men on earth But it 's easier to commend God than to love him above all and easier to cry out against the world than to have a heart that is truly weaned from it and set upon a better world Object 10. But all this belongeth only to them that are in prosperity but I am poor and therefore it is nothing to me Answ Many a one loveth prosperity that hath it not And such are doubly sinful that will love a world which loveth not them Even a world of poverty misery and distress Something you would have done if you had had a full estate and honour and fleshly delights to love Nay many poor men think better of riches and honour than those that have them because they never tryed how vain and vexatious they are and if they had tryed them perhaps would love them less The world is but a painted Strumpet admired afar off but the neerer you come to it and the more it 's known the worse you will like it Is it by your own desire that you are poor or is it against your wills Had you not rather be as great and rich as others Had you not rather live at ease and fulness And do you think God will love you ever the better for that which is against your wills Will he count that man to be no worldling that would fain have more of the world and cannot and that loveth God and Heaven no better than the rich Nay that will sin for a shilling when great ones do it for greater summs who can be more unfit for Heaven than he that loveth a life of labour and want and misery better Alas it is but little that the greatest worldlings have for their salvation But poor worldlings sell it for less than they and therefore do despise it more Direct 4. Let the true nature and aggravations of the sin of worldliness be still in your eye to make it odious to you As for instance 1. It is true and odious Idolatry Ephes 5.5 Col. 3.5 To have God for our God indeed is to love him as our God and to delight in him and be ruled by him Who then is an Idolater if he be not one who loveth the world and delighteth in it more than in God or esteemeth it fitter to be the matter of his delight and is ruled by it and seeketh it more Isa 55.1 2 3. 2. It is a blasphemous contempt of God and Heaven to prefer a dung hill world before him To set more by the provisions and pleasures of the flesh than by all the blessedness of Heaven It is called prophaneness in Esau to sell his birth-right for one morsel Heb. 12.16 What prophaneness is it then to say as worldlings hearts and lives do The satisfying of my flesh and fansie for a time is better than God and the Joyes of Heaven to all eternity 3. It is a sin of Interest and not only of Passion and therefore it possesseth the very Heart and Love which is the principal faculty of the soul and that which God most reserveth for himself No actual sin which is but little loved is so heinous and morâ—al as that which is most loved Because these do must exclude the Love of God Some other sins may do more hurt to others but this is worst to the sinner himself We justly pitty poor Heathenish Idolaters and pray for their conversion and I would we did it more But do not you not think that our hypocrite-worldlings do love their riches and their honours and pleasures better than the poor Heathens love their Idols They bow the knee to a creature and you entertain it in your heart 4. It is a sin of deliberation and contrivance which is much worse than a surprize by a sudden temptation You plot how you may compass your voluptuous covetous and ambitious ends Therefore it is a sin that standeth at the furthest distance from Repentance and is both voluntary and a settled habit 5. It is a continued sin Men be not alwaies lying though they be never so great lyars nor alwaies stealing if they be the most notorious thieves nor alwaies swearing if they be the profanest swearers But a worldly mind is alwaies worldly He is alwaies committing his Idolatry with the world and alwaies denying his Love to God 6. It is not only a sin about the means to a right end as mischosen waies of Religion may be but it is a sin against the End it self and a mischusing of a false pernicious End And so it is the perverting not only of one particular action but even of the bent and course of mens lives And consequently a mis-spending all their time 7. It is a perverting of Gods creatures to a use clean contrary to that which they are given us for and an unthankful turning of all his gifts against himself He gave us his creatures to lead us to him and by their loveliness to shew his greater loveliness and to taste in their sweetness the greater sweetness of his love And will you use them to turn your affections from him 8. It it a great debasing of the soul it self to fill that noble Spirit with nothing but dirt and smoak which was made to know and love its God 9. It is an irrational vice and signifieth not only much unbelief of the unseen things which should take up the soul but also a sottish inconsiderateness of the vanity and brevity of the things below It is an unmanning our selves and hiring out our reason to be a servant to our fleshly lusts 10. Lastly It is a pregnant multiplying sin which bringeth forth abundance more The love of money is the root of all evil 1 Tim. 6.9 10. Therefore Direct 5. Let the mischievous effects of this sin be still befâ—re your eyes As for instance 1. It keepeth the heart strange to God and Heaven The Love of God and of the world are contrary 1 John 2.15 3.17 James 4.4 So is an earthly and a heavenly conversation Phil. 3.18 19 20. And the laying up a treasure in Heaven and upon Earth Matth. 6.19 20 21. And the living after the flesh and after the Spirit Rom. 8.1 5 6 13. Ye cannot possibly serve God and Mammon nor travel two contrary waies at once nor have two contrary felicities till you have two hearts
Stand in awe and sin not Offer the sacrifices of righteousness Psal 51.17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit Matth. 9.13 12.7 Learn what this meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice Eccles 5.1 Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God and be more ready to hear than to offer the sacrifice of fools for they know not that they do evil All this telleth us that fools and hypocrites while they disobey Gods Law do think to make up all with sacrifice or to appease God with offering him something that is excellent But the acceptable Worshipper cometh to God as a penitent a learner resolving to obey as a Receiver of mercy and not a meriter Direct 2. Over-value not therefore the manner of your own Worship and over-vilifie not other mens of a different mode And make not men believe that God is of your childish humour and valueth or vilifieth words and orders and forms and ceremonies as much as self-conceited people do If one man hear another pray only from the habits of his mind and present desires he reproacheth him as a rash presumptuous speaker that talketh that to God which he never fore-considered As if a beggar did rashly ask an alms or a corrected child or a malefactor did inconsiderately beg for pardon unless they learn first the words by rote or as if all mens converse and the words of Judges on the Bench were all rash or the counsel of a Physician to his Patient because they use not books and forms or set not down their words long before And if another man hear a form of prayer especially if it be read out of a Book and especially if it have any disorder or defect he sticketh not to revise it and call it false Worship and mans Inventions and perhaps Idolatry and to fly from it and make the world believe that it is an odious thing which God abhorreth And why so Are your words so much more excellent than the words of others Or doth the Book or Press or Pen make them odious to God Or are all words baâ— which are resolved on before-hand Is the Lords Prayer and the Psalms all odious because they are book-forms Or doth the command of other men make God hate them Let Parents take heed then of commanding their children prescribed words Nay rather let them take heed lest they omit such prescripts Or is it the disorder or defects that makes them odious Such are not to be justified indeed where-ever we find them But woe to us all if God will not pardon disorders and defects and accept the prayers that are guilty of them Many a time I have heard such forms of prayers whose disorders and defects I have much lamented and done my part to have cured and yet I durst not so reproach them as to say God will not accept and hear them Or that it is unlawful to joyn in communion with them And many a time I have heard as sad disorder in extemporate prayers sometimes by wrong methods or no method at all sometimes by vain repetitions sometimes by omitting the chiefest parts of prayer and sometimes in the whole strein by turning a prayer into a Sermon to the hearers or a meer talk or narrative to God that had little of a prayer in it save very good matter and honest zeal And though this prayer was more disorderly than the forms which perhaps in that prayer were accused of disorder yet durst I not run away from this neither nor say it is so bad that God will not hear it nor good men should have no comunion in it It is easie but abominable to fall in love with our own and to vilifie that which is against our opinion and to think that God is of our mind and is as fond of our mode and way as we are and as exceptious against the way or words of other men as childish pievish Christians are Look on your Book and read or learn your prayer in words saith one or else God will not hear you Look off your Book and read not or learn not the words saith another or God will not hear you But oh lamentable that both of them tremble not thus to abuse God and add unto his Word and to prophesie or speak falsly against their brethren in his Name nor to reproach the prayers which Christ presenteth from his servants to the Father and which notwithstanding their defects are his delight Direct 3. Offer God nothing as worship which is contrary to the perfection of his Nature as far as you can avoid it And yet feign not that to be contrary to his nature which he commandeth For then it is certain that you misunderstand either his nature or command Direct 4. Never come to the Father but by the Son and dream not of any immediate access of a sinner unto God but wholly trust in Christs mediation Receive the Fathers will from Christ your Teacher and his commands from Christ your King and all his mercies from Christ your Head and the Treasury of the Church and your continual Intercessor with God in Heaven And put all your prayers praises duties alms into his hand that through him alone they may be accepted of God Direct 5. Understand well how far the Scripture is a particular Rule as to the substance of Gods Worship and how far it is only a general Rule as to the circumstances that so you may neither offer God a Worship which he will not accept nor yet reject or oppose all those circumstances as unlawful which are warranted by his general commands Of which I have said enough elsewhere Direct 6. Look first and most to the exercise of inward grace and to the spiritual part of Worship for God will be worshiped in spirit and in truth and hateth the Hypocrite who offereth him a carkass or empty shell and ceremony and pomp or length of words instead of substance and draweth neer him with the lips without the heart And yet in the second place look carefully also to your words and order and outward behaviour of the body For God must be honoured with soul and body And order and reverend solemnity is both a help to the affections of the soul and a fit expression of them Never forget that hypocritical dead formality and ignorant self-conceited fanatical extravagancies are the two extreams by which the Devil hath laboured in all ages to turn Christs Worship against him and to destroy the Church and Religion by such false Religiousness The poor Popish Formalists on one side mortifie Religion and turn it into a carkass and a comely Image that hath any thing save life And the Fanaticks on the other side do call all the enormities of their proud and blustering fancies by the name of spiritual devotion and do their worst to make Christianity to seem a ridiculous fancy to the world Escape both these extreams as ever you will escape the dishonouring of God the dividing and
especially in Corporations to the discharge of their duty to God c. 19. The Crucifying of the World by the Cross of Christ c. in quarto 20. A Call to the Unconverted to Turn and Live and accept of mercy while mercy may be had as ever they would find mercy in the day of their extremity From the Living God To be read in Families where any are unconverted in twelves 21. Of Saving Faith That it is not only gradually but specifically distinct from all Common Faith The Agreement of Richard Baxter with that very Learned consenting Adversary that hath maintained his Assertion by a pretended Confutation in the end of Serjeant Shepherds Book of Sincerity and Hypocrisie in quarto 22. Directions and Perswasions to a sound Conversion c. in octavo 23. The Grotian Religion discovered at the invitation of Mr. Thomas Pierce in his Vindication With a Preface vindicating the Synod of Dort from the calumnies of the new Tilenus and David Peter c. and the Puritans and Sequestrations c. from the censures of Mr. Pierce in octavo 24. Confirmation and Restauration the necessary means of Reformation and Reconciliation c. in octavo 25. Five Disputations of Church-Government in quarto 26. A Key for Catholicks to open the jugling of the Jesuites and satisfie all that are but truly willing to understand whether the Cause of the Roman or Reformed Churches be of God and to leave the Reader utterly unexcusable that after this will be a Papist in quarto 27. A Treatise of Self-denyal in quarto 28. His Apology against the Exceptions of Mr. Blake Kendall Crandon Eires L Moulin in quarto 29. The unreasonableness of Infidelity in four parts c. in octavo 30. The Worcester-shire Petition to the Parliament for the Ministry of England defended c. in quarto 31. His Holy Common-wealth or Political Aphorisms opening the true Principles of Government c. in octavo 32. His Confession of Faith c. in quarto 33. His humble Advice or the heads of those things which were offered to many honourable members of Parliament in quarto 34. The Quakers Catechism or the Quakers questioned in quarto 35. An account of his present Thoughts concerning the Controversies about the perseverance of the Saints in quarto 36. His Letter to Mr. Drury for Pacification in quarto 37. The Safe Religion or three Disputations for the Reformed Catholick Religion against Popery c. in octavo 38. Catholick Unity or the only way to bring us all to be of one Religion c. in twelves 39. The true Catholick and Catholick Church described c. in twelves 40. The Successive Visibility of the Church of which Protestants are the soundest members c. in octavo 41. The Sermon of Repentance 42. Of Right Rejoycing 43. Sermon of Faith before the King 44. Treatise of Death 45. The Vain Religion of the Formal Hypocrite c. in several Sermons preached at the Abbey in Westminster in twelves 46. Two Sheets for Poor Families c. 47. Short Instructions for the sick a sheet 48. A Saint or a Bruit c. in quarto 49. The mischief of Self-ignorance and benefit of Self-acquaintance in octavo 50. Universal Concord c. in octavo 51. The last work of a Believer c. in twelves 52. The Divine Life in three Treatises The first of the Knowledge of God The second of Walking with God The third of Conversing with God in Solitude in quarto 53. The Reasons of the Christian Religion c. 54. Directions for weak distempered Christians to grow up into a confirmed state of grace c. 2. The Characters of a sound confirmed Christian written to imprint on mens minds the true Idea or Conception of Godliness and Christianity in octavo These Books following are also printed for Nevill Simmons at the three Crowns near Holborn Conduit THE Novelty of Popery opposed to the Antiquity of true Christianity By Peter Dumoulin D. D. in folio A Commentary or Exposition upon the five Books of Moses together with the following Books Joshua Judges Ruth first and second of Samuel first and second of Kings and first and second of Chronicles in folio The Beauty of Magistracy in an Exposition on Psal 82. By Thomas Hall B. D. The Souls Looking-glass wherein a man may discern what estate his soul stands in towards God and what evidences he hath for Heaven c. By Edward Bury late Minister of great Bolas in Shropshire in octavo The Profit of Godliness set forth in five Sermons on 1 Tim. 4.8 The unprofitableness of worldly gain in four Sermons on Mark 8.36 37. The Parable of the barren Figg-tree in seven Sermons on Luke 13.6 7 8 9. Victorious Violence in two Sermons on Matth. 11.12 By Thomas Brindall late Minister of Walshall in Staffordshire in octavo The Girdle of Holy Resolution in two Sermons on 1 Pet. 1.13 By William Gearing Minister of the Gospel in quarto The Love-sick Spouse in four Sermons on Cant. 2.5 By William Gearing Minister of the Gospel in quarto A Discourse on Prodigious Abstinence occasioned by the twelve months fasting of Martha Tayler By John Reynolds in quarto The Dead Pastor yet speaking in two Sermons preached on Bartholmew day Aug. 24. 1662. in Bewdley Chappel By Henry Osland then Minister there in octavo The Christians daily Walk a sheet By the same Author A Sinners Justification on the Lord Jesus Christ the Lord our Righteousness in several Sermons By Obadiah Grew D. D. late Minister in Coventry in octavo The Repenting Sinner pardoned being a brief Relation of the wicked life and penitent death of James Wilson of Wolverhampton in Staffordshire in octavo The English School or the readiest way to teach children or elder persons to read spell and rightly pronounce English fitted to the use of common English-Schools illustrated with five brass Cuts By Tobias Ellis in octavo FINIS LET the Reader know that whereas the Bookseller hath in the Catalogue of my Books named my Holy Common-Wealth or Political Aphorisms I do hereby recall the said Book and profess my Repentance that ever I published it and that not only for some by-passages but in respect of the secondary part of the very scope Though the first part of it which is the defence of God and Reason I recant not But this Revocation I make with these proviso's 1. That I reverse not all the Matter of that Book nor all that more than ONE have accused As e. g. the Assertion that all humane Powers are Limited by God And if I may not be pardoned for not defying DEITY and HUMANITY I shall preferr that ignominy before their present Fastus and Triumph who defie them 2. That I make not this Recantation to the Military fury and rebellious pride and tumult against which I wrote it nor would have them hence take any encouragement for impenitence 3. That though I dislike the Roman Clergies writing so much of Politicks and detest Ministers medling in State matters without necessity or a certain call yet I hold it not simply unbeseeming a Divine to expound the fifth Commandment nor to shew the dependance of humane Powers on the Divine nor to instruct Subjects to obey with judgement and for Conscience sake 4. That I protest against the judgement of Posterity and all others that were not of the same TIME and PLACE as to the mental censure either of the BOOK or the REVOCATION as being ignorant of the true reasons of them both Which things Provided I hereby under my hand as much as in me lyeth reverse the Book and desire the World to take it as non-Scriptum April 15. 1670. R. B. What true Christian Faith is See Dr. â— Stillingfleet of Satisfaction on this point
to be humbled in more and yet at the heart be dangerously proud The other instance is in the common separating Spirit of Sectarians and in particular in those called Quakers in these times For against commanded separation from sin by self-preservation or discipline I am far from speaking Their great pretence of singularity is to avoid and detest the Pride of others they cry out against Pride as much as any Their garb is plain humility and self-emptiness and poverty of spirit is their profession And yet when they are so ignorant that they can scarce speak sense and when they understand not the Catechism or Creed but have need to be taught which are the principles of the Oracles of God they think they are taken into the counsels of the Almighty they think they abound in the Spirit and in wisdom in revelations and in holiness and the wisest and holiest of Christs Ministers and People who are as far above them in knowledge and godliness as the aged are above a stammering Infant are proudly despised by them and openly and impenitently reviled and railed at as ignorant fools and ungodly worldly self-seeking men and as the deceivers of the people and as void of the Spirit which could never proceed to the height that we have seen it and which their words and writings utter at this day without a very strange degree of Pride and such as either maketh men mad or is made by madness or little less And here note also that it is no wonder if Religious Pride can despise the common applause of the world and bear a great deal of ignominy from the vulgar because they have learnt so much as to know that wicked men are fools and base and their judgment is no great honour or dishonour to any man and that godly men only are truly wise and their judgment most to be regarded And therefore it is with them whom they think highliest of themselves that they desire to be thought highliest of and it is among the Religious sort that Religious Pride doth fish for honour even as men that are proud of their Learning do hunt after the applause of learned men and can despise the judgment of the unlearned vulgar as quite below them I know that this last instance of Pride is not alwaies an attendant of Prosperity But oft it is a kind of wantonness thence arising which is much restrained in suffering times And being speaking of the rest I thought not meet to pass it by Direct II. Vnderstand which are the ordinary effects and characters of Pride that you may not live in it and perish by it whilst you thought you had overcome it At this time having said more of it elsewhere I shall recite but these marks of prosperous Pride and shew the contrary signs of lowliness 1. The high-minded are self-willed and much addicted to rule and domineer They would have their own wills in all their own matters and are hardly brought to submit to the judgment and will of others Obeying goeth quite against their grain any further than they like the commands of their superiours And if they are in any hope of reaching it they aspire to be the Governours of others that they may still stand uppermost and have their will in all the matters about them as well as in their own If there be a place of Power and Preferment void the proud man is the forwardest expectant and maketh no great question of his fitness but thinketh that he is injured if he be put by how worthy a man soever be preferred before him He snuffs and scorns at inferiours that stick at his most sinful and unreasonable commands and thunders out the charge of Rebellion or Schism against those that question his infallibility or that will stick at obeying him before God and against him as if he had been born to rule and other men to obey him and all do him wrong who fall not down and worship not his will at the first intimation Though perhaps he be but a Minister of Christ who should be as a little child and the servant of all and should stoop to the feet of the poorest of the flock and should receive the weak and bear with their infirmities yet Pride will there lift up the head and forget all the humbling examples and admonitions of Christ and will either seek to draw Disciples after it by speaking perverse things Acts 20.30 or forget 1 Pet. 5.3 Neither us being Lords over Gods heritage but examples to the flock But on the contrary the poor in spirit are readier to obey than rule as knowing that ruling requireth the greater parts and graces and are enclined to think others to be fitter for places of Teaching or Authority than themselves further than clear experience constraineth them to know the contrary For in honour they prefer others instead of striving to be preferred before others They have a tractable humble yielding disposition except when they are tempted to sin They are gentle and easie to be entreated James 3.17 and can submit themselves to one another yea and be their voluntary subjects 1 Pet. 5.5 Ephes 5.21 Yet not becoming unnecessarily the servants of men but chusing it rather when they may be free They are as little children in that they expect not rule but to be ruled Matth. 18.3 They have learned to serve one another in love Gal. 5.13 and take it not for Christian love that can do good only upon terms of equality and cannot stoop to voluntary service They can go two mile with him that compelleth them to go one No man more obedient when you command not sin For as he affecteth not to be called Master or Rabbi or to have the highest seat or name Mat. 23.11 c. So he hath learnt not to please himself but to please others for their good to edification Rom. 15.2 Especially if he be a Pastor of the Church though he do by an excelling light and love and good life keep up the true honour of his calling yet is he the more averse to Lord it over the flock because he knoweth that he must be an example to them And it is not an example of pride but of lowliness which Christ did give and he must give and therefore both are joyned together 1 Pet. 5.3 5. 2. The Proud do make too great a matter of that honour which perhaps may be their due They plot for it they set their hearts upon it If they are slighted or others preferred before them their countenances are cast down as Cains or they are troubled as Haman or they will revenge it as Cain and as Joab upon Abner Touch their honour and you touch their hearts Despise them and you torment them or make them your enemies But the Poor in spirit regard their honour as they do other matters of this world that is with moderation and so far as it is conducible to the honour of Religion or their Country or to the
service and business of their lives They will not be Prodigals of that which they may serve God by and they will not be over desirous of that which may be a bait to Pride and a snare to their souls though it gratifie the fleshly fancy They will seek it as if they sought it not and possess it as if they possest it not remembring how vain a thing man is and how little his thoughts or breath can do to make us happy God is so great in a Believers eye and man and worldly vanity is so small that a lowly mind can scarce have room and time to regard the honour which is the proud mans portion because he is taken up with honouring his God and esteeming the honour which consisteth in his approbation Therefore it is tolerable to him to be made of no reputation to be laden with reproaches to be spit upon and buffeted to be made as the scorn and offâ—scouring of the world and to have his name cast out as an evil doer so he be not an evil doer indeed 1 Cor. 4.13 Luke 6.22 Whatever you think of him or whatever you say of him he knoweth that it is little of his concernment your favour is not his felicity nor are you the Judge whose sentence must finally decide his cause He humbleth himself and therefore can endure to be humbled by others He chuseth the lowest place himself and therefore can endure to be low 1 Cor. 4.3 4 5. Luke 14.11 18.14 14.10 3. The high-minded are ashamed to be thought to come of a low descent or that their Parents or Ancestors were poor And if their Ancestors were rich and great that little honour doth help to elevate their minds because they want that personal worth which is honourable indeed they are fain to adorn themselves with these borrowed feathers But the lowly know that if Riches prove such a hinderance of salvation and so few of the rich proportionably are saved as Christ hath told us it can be no great honour to be the off-spring of the rich It is a sad kind of boast to say my Ancestors are liker to be in Hell than yours or if any of them be in Heaven they came thither as a Camel through a needles eye We know we are all of the common earth and there our flesh will all be levelled and our noblest blood will turn to the common putrefaction We are all the seed of sinful Adam our Father was an Amorite and our Mother an Hittite Ezek. 16.3 And good men have used humbly to lament their forefathers pride and wickedness instead of boasting of their worldly wealth as you may read Neh. 9.16 39. Dan. 9. 4. The high-minded are ashamed to be thought poor themselves Because wealth is the Idol which they most honour they think that it will most honour them Because they see that most men admire and honour it in the world therefore they being of the world do judge as the world and confirm themselves to its opinion Even the poor that is proud is ashamed of his poverty and would be fain accounted rich But the lowly are not ashamed to say with Peter Acts 3.6 Silver and gold have I none while they have better riches to rejoyce in They are glad when with Paul they can say We are poor but making many rich 2 Cor. 6.10 They will not deny or cast away any riches which God doth lend them because as his Stewards they must be accountable for them to their Lord. But they take it to be no shame to be liker Christ than Croesus or liker his Apostles than the Prelates and Cardinals of Rome or to be of those poor that are poor in spirit who are rich in faith and heirs of Heaven James 2.5 Matth. 5.3 Nor is it any desirable honour to have our salvation so much hindered and hazarded as the rich have God and Angels and wise men do think never the worse of a good man for being poor 5. The high-minded are therefore usually addicted to some excess in ornaments and apparel because they would be taken to be rich and comely unless when their Pride worketh some other way Yea if they be never so mean and poor they would seem by their clothing to be somewhat richer than they are or would be rich in hypocrisie or outward appearance except it hinder their relief They that wear soft clothing were wont to dwell in the houses of Kings Matth. 11.8 but now they dwell in the houses of most Citizens Tradesmen Husbandmen yea of Ministers themselves wives children and servants are commonly sick at once of this disease And though it be one of the lowest and foolishest games which Pride hath to play yet women and children and light-headed youths do make up the greater number for this vanity while the pride of the graver wiser sort doth turn it self to greater things But the lowly who are not ashamed to be poor are not ashamed of poor apparel Though they are not for uncleanliness nor for an affected singularity for ostentation of humility yet they had rather go below their rank than above it as taking Pride to be a greater shame and hurt than poverty If their clothing be convenient to their health and use and not offensive to others it sufficeth them and a patch or a rent or a garment that is old will not make them blush they have learnt 1 Pet. 3.3 Whose adorning let it not be that outward of plating the hair or of wearing of gold or of putting on of apparel but the hidden man of the heart in that which is not corruptible even of a meek and quiet spirit which is in the sight of God of great price 6. The high-minded have high thoughts of worldly pomp and wealth and greatness and think of such as excel in these with great esteem and reverence They bow to the man that hath the gold Ring and the gay apparel while they slight the bâ—st and wisest that are poor They bless the Covetous whom the Lord abhorreth Psal 10.3 And they think if they be poor and low themselves how brave a thing is it to be high and rich And had far rather be rich than gracious and be higher in the world than to have a lowly mind But the humble have learnt of Christ to be meek and lowly Matth. 11.29 and are still learning it of him more and more They had rather have Pauls heart that counted all things as loss and dung for Christ and learned to abound and to suffer want and in every state to be content than to be lifted up with worldly vanity They know that it is better to be of a humble spirit with the lowly than to divide the spoils with the proud Prov. 16.19 And as the brother of low degree being sanctified Believer that can use all for God must rejoyce when he is exalted so must the brother of high degree when he is made low Jam. 1.9 10. They pitty a