when they have here and in other such writings found our fundamentals proved let them hereafter excuse our superstructure and not think that every Sermon must be spent in proving our Christianity and Creed In the first part of this Book I give you no testimonies from the Christian writings or authorities because I suppose the Reader to be one that doth not believe them and my business is only to prove Natural Verities by their proper evidence But lest any should think that there is not so much legible in Nature because the wisest Heathens saw it not I have cited in the margin their attestations to most particulars to shew that indeed they did confess the same though less distinctly and clearly than they might have done as I have plainly proved But being many years separated from my Books I was forced to do this part less exactly than I would have done had I been near my own or any other Library Again I seriously profess that I am so confident of the just proofs and evidences of truth here given that I fear nothing as to frustrate the success but the Reader 's Incapacity through half-wittedness or wickedness or his Laziness in a cursory and negligent perusal of what is concisely but evidently proposed It 's true that Seneca saith Magna debet esse eloquentia quae in vitis placet I may adde Et Veritatis evidentia quae caecis malignis vel ignavis prodest And who feeleth not the truth of Hierom's words ad Paul Nunquam benefit quod fit praeoccupato animo Be true and faithful to your selves and to the Truth and you shall see its Glory and feel its Power and be directed by it to everlasting Blessedness This is his End who is Octob. 31. 1666. An earnest desirer of Mankind's Felicity RICHARD BAXTER TO THE HYPOCRITE READERS Who have the Name of Christians and the Hearts and Lives of andVnbelievers IT is the great Mercy of God to you that you were born of Christian Parents and in a Land where Christianity is the professed Religion and under Governours and Laws which countenance it But this which should have helped you to the intelligent and serious entertainment of Religion hath been abused by you to detain you from â—t You have contented your selves to have Religion in your Princes and your Parents Precepts in Libraries and Laws and to say over some of these by â—ote whilest you banished it from your Hearts and Lives if not also from your sober thoughts and understanding And having indeed no Religion of your own because the labour of understanding and obeying it seemed too dear a price to purchase it you â—ve thought it most serviceable to your quietness and your reputation to seem to be of the Religion of your Parents or your King be it what it will This is indeed the common course of the rude and irreligious Rabble in all Nations of the World O that I might be your effectual Monitor to awaken you to consider what you have been doing and yet if you are Men to suffer your Reason to look behinde you within you and before you and seriously think what it is to be in Heaven or Hell for ever and prudently to manage your own Concernments Can you think that that man hath any Religion who hath no God Or hath he indeed a God who preferreth his lust or wealth or honour or any thing in the World before him Or that is not devoted to his Obedience and his Love Is he a God that is not better than the Pleasures of the Flesh and World Or that is not greater than a mortal man or is not fully sufficient for you Did you know what you did when you owned your Baptismal Vow and Covenant which is when you usurp the name of Christians and joyn in visible communion in the Church Do you know what it is to believe that there is a God and a Life to come and to renounce the Flesh the World and the Devil and give up your selves to a Saviour and a Sanctifyer Or can you think while you are awake and sober that Perfidiousness will save you and be taken by God instead of Christianity will God accept you for a perjured Profession to be that and do that which never came into your hearts Is Hypocrisie a Virtue And will Lying bring a man to Heaven Christianity is such a Believing in Christ to bring us unto God and everlasting Glory as maketh the Love of God the very Nature of the Soul and thankefull obedience its Employment and a Heavenly Minde and Life to be its Constitution and its Trade and the Mercies of this Life to be but our Travelling-helps and Provisions for a better and the Interest of fleshly lust to be esteemed but as dross and dung Is this the Life which you live or which you hate I beseech you Sirs as you regard the reputation of your Reason tell us why you will professe a Religion which you abhorre or why will you abhorre a Religion which you professe why will you Glory in the part of a Parrot or an Ape to say over a few words or move your Bodies while you detest the humane part to know and love and live to God Do you live only to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgement of God who will render to every one according to his deeds Rom. 2.5 6. Do you professe your selves Christians only for self-condemnation to be Witnesses against your selves in Judgement that you wilfully lived unchristian lives What is there in the World that you are so averse to as to be seriously that which you professe your selves to be Who hate you more than those that are that in heart and life which you call your selves in customary words or that are serious in the Religion which you say your selves you hope to be saved by Read Matth. 23.29 30 31. why do you honour the dead Saints and abhorre the living and would make more Martyrs while you keep Festivals of Commemoration of those that others made Quae est illa Justitia sanctos colere sanctitatem contemnere Primus gradus Pietatis est Sanctitatem diligere Chrysost in Matth. 24. Christ hath not more bitter Enemies in the World than some of you who wear his Livery Turks and Heathens are more gentle to true Christians and have shed lesse of their blood than Hypocrite Christians have done The Zeal of the Pharisees consumed many whom the Clemency of the Romans would else have spared Be it known to all the Infidel World who detest Christianity because of your wickednesse that you are none of us Christ renounceth you Matth. 7.22 23. and we renounce you They may as well hate Philosophy because some vagrant Sots have called themselves Philosophers or have sailed with Aristotle or Plato in the same Ship They may as well hate Physick because many ignorant Women and Mountebanks have profess'd it They may as well reproach
him who will live such a Holy Life 114 CHAP. XIV That there is a Life of Retribution after this proved 119 CHAP. XV. Of the Intrinsecal Evils of SIN and of the PERPETVAL PVNISHMENT due to the Sinner by the undoubted Law of Nature 156 CHAP. XVI Of the present sinfull and miserable state of the World 176 CHAP. XVII What Naturall Light declareth of the Mercy of God to Sinners and of the Hopes and Means of Mans Recovery 182 PART II. Of CHRISTIANITY and Supernatural Revelation CHAP. I. OF the need of a clearer Light or fuller Revelation of the Will of God than all that hath been opened before p. 191 CHAP. II. Of the several RELIGIONS which are in the World 198 CHAP. III. Of the CHRISTIAN RELIGION and 1. What it is 204 CHAP. IV. Of the Nature and PROPERTIES of the Christian Religion 229 CHAP. V. Of the CONGRVITIES in the Christian Religion which make it the more easily credible and are great Preparatives to Faith 241 CHAP. VI. Of the WITNESS of JESVS CHRIST or the great demonstrative Evidence of his Verity and Authority viz. The SPIRIT In 4. parts 1. Antecedently by PROPHECY 2. Constitutively and Inherently the Image of God on his Person Life and Doctrine 3. Concomitantly by the Miraculous Power and Works of Christ and his Disciples 4. Subsequently in the actual Salvation of men by Renovation Opened Notes added 258 CHAP. VII Of the subservient Proofs and Means by which the forementioned Evidences are brought to our certain knowledge 302 How we know the antecedent Prophetical Testimony and the Constitutive Inherent Evidence How we know the Concomitant Testimony of Miracles 1. By Humane Testimony 2. By Evidence of Natural Certainty 3. By Divine attestation in the Testifyers Miracles The Proofs of that Divine attestation with the Witnesses 1. In the holy Constitution of their Souls and Doctrine 2. In their Miracles and Gifts 3. In the success of their Doctrine to mens sanctification How the Churches testimony of the Disciples Miracles and Doctrine is proved 1. By most credible Humane Testimony 2. By such as hath Natural Evidence of Certainty 3. By some further Divine attestation The way or Means of the Churches attestation and Tradition The Scriptures proved the same which the Apostles delivered and the Churches received How we may know the 4th part of the Spirits Testimony viz. The Successes of Christian Doctrine to mens sanctification What Sanctification is and the acts or parts of it Consectaries from p. 302. to 350 CHAP. VIII Of some other subservient and Collateral Arguments for the Christian Verity 350 CHAP. IX Yet Faith hath many Difficulties to overcome What they are and what their Causes 365 CHAP. X. The Intrinsecal Difficulties in the Christian Faith resolved or 24 Objections against Christianity answered 371 to 424 CHAP. XI The Extrinsecal Difficulties or 16 more Objections resolved 424 CHAP. XII The reasonable Conditions required of them who will overcome the Difficulties of Believing and will not undoe themselves by wilfull Infidelity 444 The summ of all in an Addresse to God 453 457 CHAP. XIII Consectaries I. What Party of Christians should we joyn with or be of seeing they are divided into so many Sects 464 CHAP. XIV II. Of the true Interest of Christ and his Church and the Souls of Men of the means to promote it and its Enemies and Impediments in the World Which being only named in brief Propositions should be the more heedfully perused by those that dare pretend the Interest of Religion and the Church for the proudest or the most dividing practices and those which most directly hinder the successefull preaching of the Gospel the pure Worshipping of God and the saving of Mens Souls 466. The Conclusion or an Appendix defending the Souls Immortality against the Somatists or Epicureans and other Pseudo-philosophers OBJECTION I. MAtter and Motion only may do all that which you ascribe to Souls p. 495 OBJECT II. By Sense Imagination Cogitation Reason you cannot prove the Soul to be incorporeal and immortal because the Bruits partake of all these 523 OBJECT III. Humane Souls are but Forms and Forms are but the qualities or modes of Substances and therefore perish when seperated from Bodies 535 OBJECT IV. The Soul is material and consequently mortal because it dependeth upon matter in its Operations and therefore in its Essence 539 OBJECT V. No immaterial Substance moveth that which is material as a principle of its Operations but the Soul so moveth the Body Ergo 540 OBJECT VI. The Soul in our sleep acteth irrationally according to the fortuitous motion of the spirits Ergo 543 OBJECT VII Reason is no proof of the Souls Immateriality because Sense which the Bruits have is the more perfect apprehension 543 OBJECT VIII Sensation and Intellection are both but Reception The Passivity therefore of the Soul doth shew its Materiality 544 OBJECT IX There is nothing in the Intellect which was not first in the Sense c. Ergo the Soul that can reach but things corporeal is such it self 547 OBJECT X. That which things Corporeal work on is Corporeal but c. 551 OBJECT XI That is not incorporeal which knoweth not it self to be so nor hath any notion but Negative and Metaphorical of Incorporeal Beings 551 OBJECT XII The Soul is generated Ergo corruptible 555 OBJECT XIII Omne quod oritur interit That which is not eternal as to past duration is not eternal as to future duration But c. 567 OBJECT XIV You have none but Moral Arguments for the Souls Immortality 568 OBJECT XV. You seem to confess that it is not the endless duration of the Soul but only a future state of Retribution which you can prove from Nature alone 568 OBJECT XVI Both Soul and Body are like a Candle in fluxu continuo Ergo being not long the same are uncapable of a Life of Retribution 569 OBJECT XVII The Soul returneth to the Anima Mundi or Element of Souls and so loseth its Individuation and is uncapable of Retribution 571 OBJECT XVIII The Fictions of the Platonists about their several Vehicles and such like do make their Doctrine the more to be suspected 574 OBJECT XIX The Souls actings will not be such as they are now by Corporeal Spirits and Idea's Ergo it will be uncapable of Retribution 578 OBJECT XX. The belief of the Souls Immortality doth fill men with fears and draw them to superstition and trouble the Peace of Kingdoms c. 579 In Objection about the Worlds Eternity What Christianity saith about it 582 The Testimony of Socrates and Zenocrates of the Souls Immortality 589 â—icero's Doctrine and his redargution of the Somatists at large 590 The Stoicks neerness to the Doctrine of Christianity with their particular Moral Tenets and their Praises by the Learned and Pious Mr. T. Gataker 595 The Stoicks Platonists and other Philosophers opinion of the sufficiency of Virtue to be Mans Felicity against the Epicurean Doctrine of Pleasure Vindicated It importeth a
would not have been a full exemplification of his Doctrine nor a perfect Revelation of it to the World Example bringeth Doctrine neer our Senses and thereby maketh it more clear and powerfull § 20. It is the undertaken Office of Jesus Christ to send the Holy Spirit into Believers mindes and to write out the substance of this Law upon their hearts and give them such holy and heavenly inclinations that it may become as it were a Natural Law unto them and they obey it with love facility and delight though not in perfection till they arrive at the state of Perfection So much to shew WHAT the Christian Religion is CHAP. IV. Of the Nature and Properties of the Christian Religion HAving understood the matter and words of the Christian Religion before I proceeded any further I thought it meet to pass a judgment upon the nature temperament constitution and properties of it And therein I found that which must needs be a great preparative to belief § 1. And first I found that it is a most holy and spiritual Religion resolved into the most excellent Principles and Ends glorifying God and humbling man and teaching us the most divine and heavenly life in the love and patient service of our Creator 1. It is most Holy for it calleth us up entirely unto God and consisteth in our absolute dedication and devotedness to him 2. It is most Spiritual leading us from things carnal and terrene and being principally about the government of the Soul and placing all our felicity in things spiritual and not in fleshly pleasures with the Epicureans and Mahometans It teacheth us to worship God in a spiritual manner and not either irrationally toyishly or irreverently And it directeth our lives to a daily converse with God in holiness 3. The Principles of it are the three Essentialities of God in Unity viz. the Infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness and the three grand Relations of God to Man as founded in his three most famous works viz as our Creator our Redeemer and our Regenerater or Sanctifier and the three great Relations arising from Creation and also from Redemption viz. as he is our Owner our Ruler and our Benefactor or chiefest Good and End 4. The Ends of the Christian Religion I find are proximately the saving of man from Satan and the Justice of God the sanctifying them to God and purifying them from sin the pardon of their sins and the everlasting happiness of their Souls in the pleasing and fruition of God for ever In a word it is but the redeeming us from our carnal self the world and the devil to the love and service of our Creator 5. Nothing can be spoken more honourably of God in all his perfections in the language of poor mortals than what the Christian Religion speaketh of him 6. And no Religion so much humbleth man by opening the malignity both of his original and actual sin and declaring the displeasure of God against it 7. It teacheth us who once lived as without God in the world to live wholly unto God and to make nothing of all the world in comparison of him 8. And it teacheth us to live upon the hopes of heaven and fetch our motives and our comforts from it § 2. I find that the Christian Religion is the most pure and clean and utterly opposite to all that is evil There is no vertue which it commendeth not nor duty which it commandeth not nor vice which it condemneth not nor sin which it forbiddeth not The chief thing in it which occasioneth the rebellion and displeasure of the world against it is the purity and goodness of it which is contrary to their sensual nature and as Physick to their licentious lives would it indulge their vices and give them leave to sin they could endure it § 3. Particularly it most vehemently condemneth the grand vices of Pride Worldliness and Sensuality and all their polluting and pernicious fruits 1. No Religion doth so much to teach men Humility and make Pride appear an odious thing It openeth the malignity of it as it lifteth up the mind against God or Man it condemneth it as Satans image it giveth us a multitude of humbling precepts and motives and secondeth them all with the strangest example of condescension and lowliness in Christ that was ever presented to the view of man Whereas I find even in the famousest of the Roman Heathens that a great deal of pride was taken for a virtue and men were instructed and exhorted to be proud under pretence of maintaining and vindicating their honour and true Humility was taken for disgraceful baseness and men were driven from it by the scorn not only of the vulgar but of Philosophers themselves 2. And there is no Religion that is fitted so much to the destruction of Worldliness or of the love of Riches as Christianity is for it teacheth men most effectually the vanity of the world it appointeth them a holy life so hateful to worldly men as will occasion them to feel the vexation of the world it openeth to them the hopes of a life so much better as may teach them to take all the wealth and glory of this world for a shadow a feather or a dream It condemneth worldly love as the sin inconsistent with the love of God and the certain mark of a drossy unsanctified miserable soul It setteth before us such an example of Christ as must needs shame worldliness with all true believers 3. And for Sensuality it openeth the shame of its beastiality and maketh the carnal mind and life to be enmity to God and the contrary to that spiritual mind and life which is the property of all that shall be saved It strictly and vehemently condemneth all gluttony and excess of drink all ryotting and time-wasting needless sports all fornication and ribald talk and wanton carriage words or thoughts Whereas I find among Heathens and Mahometans that inordinate sensuality was much indulged excess of eating and drinking was made a matter of no great blame time-wasting Plays were as little accused as if men had no greater matter to do in the world than to pass away time in some sensual or fantastical delight either by fornication or many wives at once their lust was gratified and so their minds were debased polluted and called down and made unfit for spiritual contemplation and a holy life From whence no doubt it came to pass that they were so dark about things spiritual and divine and so overspread with errors about many plain and necessary things § 4. There is no Religion which so notably detecteth and disgraceth the sin of SELFISHNESS nor so effectually teacheth SELF-DENIAL as the Christian Religion doth It maketh man understand the nature of his corrupt depraved state that it is a falling from GOD to SELF and that his recovery lieth in returning from SELF to GOD. It sheweth him how selfishness is the principle of divisions enmity
and peace If you say that the contrary appeareth in the practice of Christians I shall answer that with the rest of the objections by themselves I shall only say now That if this that I have laid down be certainly the doctrin of Christ then it is as certain that the contrary is contrary to Christianity and that so far such persons are no Christians It is hypocrites that take up the name of Christians for worldly advantage and are no Christians indeed who live thus contrary to the nature and precepts of Christianity which they profess § 10. The Christian Religion is most exactly just in its Rules and Precepts and vehemently condemneth all injustice fraud persecution and oppression What juster Rule can there be than to suit all our actions to the perfect Law of Primitive Justice and to do as we would be done by What more effectual principle of Justice can there be than Charity and Self-denial to love all men for God and to account our neighbours welfare as our own Bring all men but to love their neighbours as themselves and they will have little inclination to cruelty oppression fraud or any other injuries And when Heaven is made the reward of Justice and Mercy and Hell the reward of Injustice and Cruelty we have the greatest Motives that humane nature is capable of § 11. The Christian Religion is the most excellent Rule for order and government in the world and for the peace of Kingdoms and their stability in that it prescribeth the only method of true Government and condemneth both impiety and tyranny in the Governours and all sedition and rebellion in the subjects 1. It setteth Government on the only foundation the Authority which men receive from God and teacheth men to rule as the Officers of the Universal King in due subordination to him for his glory and according to his Laws and letteth them know that they have no power but from God and therefore none against him and that they must be judged by him themselves for all their Government and that all oppression tyranny and persecution will be to their own confusion in the end 2. It teacheth Subjects to honour their Superiours and to obey them in all things in which they disobey not God and to be patient under all oppressions and to avoid all murmurings tumults and rebellions and this for fear of God's condemnation And certainly these are the most powerful means for peace and for the happy order and government of Societies § 12. The Christian Religion greatly condemneth all fierceness and impatience and discontentedness and requireth a meek and patient frame of minde and therefore must needs conduce to the forementioned Vnity and Peace § 13. It is wholly for sincerity and uprightness of heart and greatly condemneth all hypocrisie It giveth Laws for the very disposition of the minde and for the government of the secretest thoughts affections and actions and condemeth every sin which the World observeth not or condemneth not § 14. I finde that the Christian Religion is not fitted to any Worldly designs but only to the sanctifying of mens hearts and lives and the saving of their Souls Christ did not contrive by dominion or riches to win the ungodly multitude to be his admirers but by holy Precepts and Discipline to make his Disciples good and happy Mahomet took the way of violence and fleshly baits and blinde obedience to bring in the multitude and to advance a Worldly Kingdom But Christ goeth the clean contrary way He calleth men to a life of Self-denyal and patient suffering in the World he calleth them to contemn the riches honours and pleasures of the World and to forsake all even life it self for him and telleth them that they can on no lower terms than these be Disciples He hath set up a Discipline in his Church to cast out all Drunkards Fornicators Covetous-persons Railers and other such scandalous sinners who are impenitent and will have none in his true mystical Church but such as are truly holy nor none in his visible Church but such as are professed to be so He turneth away all that come not up to his spiritual and holy terms and he casteth out all that notoriously violate them if they do not repent § 15. The Christian Religion containeth all things Necessary to mans happiness and taketh men off unprofitable speculations and doth not overwhelme the mindes of men with multitudes of needless things It is for the most things unnecessary as well as uncertain with which the Philosophers have troubled the World They have lost true wisdom in a Wilderness of fruitless controversies But Christianity is a Religion to make men holy and happy and therefore it containeth these necessary substantial Precepts which conduce hereunto And it taketh men off unnecessary things which else would take up their mindes and talk and time from things necessary And so it s suited to the generality of men and not only to a few that have nothing else to do but wander in a Wilderness of vain Speculations and it is fitted to Mans best and ultimate end and not to a phantastical delight § 16. It tendeth to exalt the minde of man to the most high and heavenly elevation that it is capable of in this life For it teacheth men as is aforesaid to live in the Spirit upon the things above in the continual Love of God and desires and endeavours for everlasting glory Than which mans minde hath nothing more high and honourable and excellent to be employed about § 17. It leadeth men to the joyfullest Life that humane Nature is capable of on Earth For it leadeth us to the assurance of the Love of God and of the pardon of all our sins and of endless glory when we die It assureth us that we shall live for ever in the sight of the glory of God with Jesus Christ and be like the Angels and be perfected in holiness and happiness and be employed in the Love and Praises of God for evermore It commandeth us to live in the foresight of these everlasting Pleasures and to keep the taste of them alwayes upon our mindes and in daily meditation on the Love of God to live in the daily Returns of Love and to make this our continual Feast and Pleasure And can the minde of man on Earth have higher and greater delights than these § 18. The Christian Religion forbiddeth men no Bodily pleasure but that which hindereth their greater pleasure and tendeth to their pain or sorrow nor doth it deny them any earthly thing which is truly for their good Indeed it taketh the bruitish appetite and flesh to be an unfit Judge of what is truly good and desireable for us And it forbiddeth much which the Flesh doth crave Because either it tendeth to the wrong of others or the breach of order in the World or to the corrupting of mans minde and diverting it from things sublime and
so doth prove the Divine approbation of his Doctrine without which he could not have the command of mens Souls 7. Note also that the Gospel proposeth to the Soul of man both Truth and Goodness and the Truth is in order to the Good and subservient to it That Christ is indeed the Saviour and his Word infallibly true is believed that we may be made partakers of his Salvation and of the Grace and Glory promised And when the Spirit by the Gospel hath regenerated and renewed any Soul he hath given him part of that grace in possession and hath procreated in him the habitual love of God and of holiness with a love to that Saviour and holy Word which brought him to it So that this Love is now become as a new Nature to the Soul and this being done the Soul cleaveth now as fast to Christ and the Gospel by Love as by Belief not that love becometh an irrational causless love nor continueth without the continuance of Belief or Belief without the Reasons and Evidence of Verity and Credibility But Love now by concurrence greatly assisteth Faith it self and is the faster hold of the two so that the Soul that is very weak in its Reasoning faculty and may oft lose the sight of these Evidences of truth which it did once perceive may still hold fast by this holy Love As the man that by reasoning hath been convinced that hony is sweet will easilier change his mind than he that hath tasted it so Love is the Souls taste which causeth its fastest adherence to God and to the Gospel If a caviller dispute with a loving child or parent or friend to alienate their hearts from one another and would perswade them that it is but dissembled love that is professed to them by their relations and friends Love will do more here to hinder the belief of such a slander than Reason alone can do and where Reason is not strong enough to answer all that the caviller can say yet Love may be strong enough to reject it And here I must observe how oft I have noted the great mercy of God to abundance of poor people whose reasoning faculty would have failed them in temptations to Atheism and Infidelity if they had not had a stronger hold than that and their Faith had not been radicated in the Will by Love I have known a great number of women who never read a Treatise that pleaded the Cause of the Christian Religion nor were able to answer a crafty Infidel that yet in the very decaying time of Nature at fourscore years of age and upward have lived in that sense of the Love of God and in such Love to him and to their Saviour as that they have longed to die and be with Christ and lived in all humility charity and piety such blameless exemplary heavenly Lives in the joyfull expectation of their Change as hath shewed the firmness of their Faith and the Love and Experience which was in them would have rejected a temptation to Atheism and Unbelief more effectually than the strongest Reason alone could ever do Yet none have cause to reproach such and say Their Wills lead their Vnderstandings and they customarily and obstinately believe they know not why for they have known sufficient reason to believe and their understandings have been illuminated to see the truth of true Religion and it was this knowledge of Faith which bred their Love and Experience but when that is done as Love is the more noble and perfect operation of the Soul having the most excellent object so it will act more powerfully and prevailingly and hath the strongest hold Nor are all they without Light and Reason for their belief who cannot form it into arguments and answer all that is said against it Obj. But may not all this which you call Regeneration and the Image of God be the meer power of fantasie and affectation and may not all these people force themselves like melancholy persons to conceit that they have that which indeed they have not Answ 1. They are not melancholly persons that I speak of but those that are as capable as any others to know their own minds and what is upon their own hearts 2. It is not one or two but millions 3. Nature hath given man so great acquaintance with himself by a power of perceiving his own operations that his own cogitations and desires are the first thing that naturally he can know and therefore if he cannot know them he can know nothing If I cannot know what I think and what I love and hate I can know nothing at all 4. That they are really minded and affected as they seem and have in them that love to God and Heaven and Holiness which they profess they shew to all the world by the effects 1. In that it ruleth the main course of their lives and disposeth of them in the world 2. In that these apprehensions and affections over-rule all their worldly fleshly interest and cause them to deny the pleasures of the flesh and the profits and honours of the world 3. In that they are constant in it to the death and have no other mind in their distress when as Seneca saith Nothing feigned is of long continuance for all forc'd things are bending back to their natural state 4. In that they will lay down their lives and forsake all the world for the hopes which faith in Christ begetteth in them And if the objectors mean that all this is true and yet it is but upon delusion or mistake that they raise these hopes and raise these affections I answer This is the thing that I am disproving 1. The love of God and a holy mind and life is not a dream of the Soul or a deliration I have proved from Natural reason in the first Book that it is the end and use and perfection of man's faculties that if God be God and man be man we are to love him above all and to obey him as our absolute Sovereign and to live as devoted to him and to delight in his love Man were more ignoble or miserable than a beast if this were not his work And is that a dream or a delusion which causeth a man to live as a man to the ends that he was made for and according to the nature and use of his reason and all his faculties 2. While the proofs of the excellency and necessity of a holy life are so fully before laid down from natural and supernatural revelation the Objector doth but refuse to see in the open light when he satisfieth himself with a bare assertion that all this is no sufficient ground for a holy life but that it is taken up upon mistake 3. All the world is convinced at one time or other that on the contrary it is the unholy fleshly worldly life which is the dream and dotage and is caused by the grossest error and deceit Object But how
and to dwell within us The Scripture often calleth Christ the Wisdom of God and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is both the Ratio Oratio the Internal and Expressed or Incarnate Word And he that understandeth that by the holy Ghost which is said in Scripture to be given to believers is meant the habitual or prevalent LOVE to GOD will better understand how the holy Ghost is said to be given to them that already have so much of it as to cause them to believe Abundance of Hereticks have troubled the Church with their self-devised opinions about the Trinity and the Person and Natures of Christ and I am loth to say how much many of the Orthodox have troubled it also with their self-conceited misguided uncharitable zeal against those whom they judged Hereticks The present divisions between the Roman Church the Greeks the Armenians Syrians Copties and Ethiopians is too sad a proof of this and the long contention between the Greeks and Latins about the terms Hypostasis and Persona 5. And I would advise the Reader to be none of those that shall charge with Heresie all those School-men and late Divines both Papists and Protestants who say that the Three Persons are Deus seipsum intelligens Deus à seipso intellectus Deus à seipso amatus though I am not one that say as they nor yet those holy men whom I have here cited Potho Prumensis Edmundus Archiepisc Cantuariensis Parisiensis and many others who expresly say that Potentia Sapientia Amor are the Father Son and holy Ghost 6. But for my own part as I unfeignedly account the doctrine of the Trinity the very summ and kernel of the Christian Religion as exprest in our Baptism and Athanasius his Creed the best explication of it that ever I read so I think it very unmeet in these tremendous mysteries to go further than we have God's own light to guide us And it is none of my purpose at all to joyn with either of the two fore-mentioned parties nor to assert that the mysterie of the blessed Trinity of Hypostases or Persons is no other than this uncontroverted Trinity of Essential Principles All that I endeavour is but as aforesaid to shew that this Doctrine is neither contradictory incredible nor unlikely by shewing the vestigia or Image of it and that which is as liable to exception and yet of unquestionable truth And if the three Hypostases be not the same with the Trinity of Principles aforesaid yet no man can give a sufficient reason why Three in One should not be truly credible and probable in the one instance when common natural reason is fully satisfied of it in the other He must better understand the difference between a Person and such an Essential Principle in Divinis than any mortal man doth who will undertake to prove from the Title of a Person that one is incredible or unlikely when the other is so clear and sure or rather he understandeth it not at all that so imagineth For my part I again from my heart profess that the Image or Vestigia of Trinity in Unity through the most notable parts of Nature and Morality do increase my estimation of the Christian Religion because of the admirable congruity and harmony Object II. But who is able to believe the Incarnation and Hypostatical Vnion If you should read that a Kings Son in compassion to poor flies or fleas or lice had himself become a flie or flea or louse had it been in his power to save their lives would you have thought it credible And yet the condescension had been nothing to this as being but of a creature to a creature Answ This is indeed the greatest difficulty of faith but if you do not mistake the matter you will find it also the greatest excellency of faith 1. Therefore you must take heed of making it difficult by your own errour think not that the Godhead was turned into man as you talk of a man becoming a flie nor yet that there was the least real change upon the Deity by this incarnation nor the least real abasement dishonour loss injury or suffering to it thereby For all these are not to be called difficulties but impossibilities and blasphemies There is no abatement of any of the Divine Perfections by it nor no confinement of the Essence but as the soul of man doth animate the body so the Eternal Word doth as it were animate the whole humane Nature of Christ As Athanasius saith As the reasonable soul and humane flesh do make one man so God and Man are one Christ and that without any coarctation limitation or restriction of the Deity 2. And this should be no strange Doctrine nor incredible to most of the Philosophers of the world who have one part of them taught that God is the Soul of the world and that the whole Universe is thus animated by him and another part that he is the Soul of Souls or Intelligences animating them as they do bodies That therefore which they affirm of all cannot by them be thought incredible of one And it is little less if any thing at all which the Peripateticks themselves have taught of the assistant Forms Intelligences which move the Orbs and of the Agent Intellect in man and some of them of the universal soul in all men And what all their vulgar people have thought of the Deifying of Heroes and other men it is needless to recite Julian himself believed the like of Aesculapius None of these Philosophers then have any reason to stumble at this which is but agreeable to their own opinions And indeed the opinion that God is the Soul of souls or of the Intellectual world hath that in it which may be a strong temptation to the wisest to imagine it Though indeed he is no constitutive form of any of those creatures but to be their Creator and total efficient is much more What Union it is which we call Hypostatical we do not fully understand our selves but we are sure that it is such as no more abaseth the Deity than its concourse with the Sun in its efficiencies Object But what kin are these assertions of Philosophers to yours of the Incarnation of the Eternal Word and Wisdom of God Answ What was it but an Incarnation of a Deity which they affirmed of Aesculapius and such others And they that thought God to be the Soul of the world thought that the world was as much animated with the Deity as we affirm the humane Nature of Christ to have been yea for ought I see whilst they thought that this soul was parcelled out to every individual and that Matter only did pro tempore individuate they made every man to be God incarnate And can they believe that it is so with every man and yet think it incredible in Christianity that our humane Nature is personally united to the Divine I think in this they contradict themselves 3. And it is
not sincerely receive these precepts if they let them not into the heart and answer them not with these affections And here is the great difference between the faith of an honest sanctified Plowman and of a carnal unsanctified Lord or Doctor the one openeth his heart to the doctrine which he receiveth and faithfully admitteth it to its proper work and so embraceth it practically and in love and therefore holdeth it fast as a radicated experienced truth when he cannot answer all cavils that are brought against it The other superficially receiveth it into the brain by meer speculation and treacherously shuts up his heart against it and never gave it real rooting and therefore in the time of trial loseth that unsound superficial belief which he hath God blesseth his word to the heart that honestly and practically receiveth it rather than to him that imprisoneth it in unrighteousness Cond 30. Lastly if yet any doubts remain bethink you which is the surest side which you may follow with least danger and where you are certain to undergo the smallest lâ—ss It is pity that any should hesitate in a matter of such evidence and weight and should think with any doubtfulness of Christianity as an uncertain thing But yet true Believers may have cause to say Lord help our unbelief and encrease our faith And all doubting will not prove the unsoundness of belief The true mark to know when Faith is true and saving notwithstanding all such doubtings is the measure of its prevalency with our hearts and lives That belief in Christ and the life to come is true and saving notwithstanding all doubtings which habitually possesseth us with the love of God above all and resolveth the will to prefer the pleasing of him and the hopes of heaven before all the treasures and pleasures of this world and causeth us in our endeavours to live accordingly And that faith is unsound which will not do this how well soever it may be defended by dispute Therefore at least for the resolving of your wills for choice and practice if you must doubt yet consider which is the safest side If Christ be the Saviour of the world he will bring Believers to Grace and Glory and you are sure there is nothing but transitory trifles which you can possibly lose by such a choice For certainly his precepts are holy and safe and no man can imagine rationally that they can endanger the soul But if you reject him by infidelity you are lost for ever for there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin but a fearful looking for of judgment and fire which shall devour his adversaries for ever There is no other Saviour for him who finally refuseth the only Saviour And if you doubted whether faith might not prove an error you could never see any cause to fear that it should prove a hinderance to your salvation for salvation it self is an unknown thing to most that do not believe in Christ and no man can well think that a man who is led by an age of such miracles so credibly reported to us to believe in one that leadeth up souls to the love of God and a holy and heavenly mind and life can ever perish for being so led to such a guide and then led by him in so good a way and to so good an end AND thus Reader I have faithfully told thee what reasonings my own soul hath had about its way to everlasting life and what enquiries it hath made into the truth of the Christian faith I have gone to my own Heart for those reasons which have satisfied my self and not to my Books from which I have been many years separated for such as satisfie other men and not my self I have told thee what I believe and why Yet other mens reasonings perhaps may give more light to others though these are they that have prevailed most with me Therefore I desire the Reader that would have more said to peruse especially these excellent Books Camero's Praelectiones de Verâ—o Dei with the Theses Salmurienses and Sedanenses on that subject Grotius de Veritate Religionis Christianae Marsilius Ficinus de Relig. Christ cum notis Lud. Crocii Lodovicus Vives de Verit. Fid. Christ Phil. Morney du Plessis de Verit. Fid. Christ John Goodwin of the Authority of the Scriptures Campanella's Savonarola's Triumphus Crucis both excellent Books excepting the errors of their times Raymundus de Sabundis his Theologia Naturalis Micrelli Ethnophronius an excellent Book Raymundus Lullius Articul Fid. Alexander Gill out of him on the Creed Mr. Stillingfleet's Origines Sacrae a late and very worthy labour Dr. Jackson on the Creed Mr. Vincent Hatecliffe's Aut Deus aut Nihil for the first part of Religion passing by Lessius Parsons and abundance more and Common Place-books which many of them treat very well on this subject And of the Ancients Augustine de Civitate Dei Eusebii Preparatio Demonstratio Evangelica are the fullest and almost all of them have somewhat to this use as Justin M. Athenagoras Tatianus Tertullian Clemens Alexand. Origen against Celsus c. Cyprian Lactantius Athanasius Basile Gr. Nazianzene Nyssen c. For my own part I humbly thank the Heavenly Majesty for the advantages which my education gave me for the timely reception of the Christian faith But temptations and difficulties have so often called me to clear my grounds and try the evidences of that Religion which I had first received upon the commendation of my Parents that I have long thought no Subject more worthy of my most serious faithful search and have wondred at the great number of Christians who could spend their lives in studying the superstructures and wrangling about many small uncertainties to the great disturbance of the Church's peace and found no more need to be confirmed in the faith In this enquiry I have most clearly to my full satisfaction discerned all those natural evidences for GODLINESS or HOLINESS which I have laid down in the first part of this Book And I have discerned the congruous superstruction and connection of the CHRISTIAN Religion thereunto I have found by unquestionable experience the sinful and depraved state of man and I have discerned the admirable suitableness of the remedy to the malady I have also discerned the attestation of God in the grand evidence the HOLY SPIRIT the ADVOCATE or Agent of Jesus Christ viz. 1. The antecedent evidence in the Spirit of Prophecie leading unto Christ 2. The inherent constituent evidence of the Gospel and of Christ the Image of God in the Power Wisdom and Goodness both of Christ and of his doctrine 3. The concomitant evidence of Miracles in the Life Resurrection and Prophecies of Christ and in the abundant Miracles of the Apostles and other his Disciples through the world 4. The subsequent evidence in the successes of the Gospel to the true sanctification of millions of souls by the powerful efficacy of Divine co-operation I have spent most
Farewell vain World As thou hast been to me Dust a Shadow those I leave with thee The unseen Vitall Substance I committ To him that 's Substance Light Life to it The Leaves Fruit here dropt are holy seed Heaven's heirs to generate to heale feed Them also thou wilt flatter molest But shalt not keep from Everlasting Rest THE REASONS OF THE Christian Religion The FIRST PART OF GODLINESS Proving by NATVRAL EVIDENCE the Being of GOD the Necessity of HOLINESS and a future Life of Retribution the Sinfulness of the World the Desert of Hell and what hope of Recovery Mercies intimate The SECOND PART OF CHRISTIANITY Proving by Evidence Supernatural and Natural the certain Truth of the CHRISTIAN Belief and answering the Objections of Vnbelievers First meditated for the well-setling of his own Belief and now published for the benefit of others By RICHARD BAXTER It openeth also the true Resolution of the Christian Faith Also an APPENDIX defending the Soul's Immortality against the Somatists or Epicureans and other Pseudo-philosophers LONDON Printed by R. White for Fran. Titon at the three Daggers in Fleet-street 1667. TO THE CHRISTIAN READER BEcause there are some who judging of others by themselves will say what need this labour among Christians to prove a God a Life to come and the Truth of the Gospel Or at least what need is there of it after so much already written I take my self obliged to give you an account of this attempt For my own Reason is much against over-doing and wasting our little time in things superfluous which is but enough for necessary things But it hath recorded this among the indubitata Boni rarò nimis optimi nunquam indifferentes saepissimè mali semper The true Reasons of this work are no fewer than these following 1. Quod cogitamus loquimur That which is most and deepest in my thoughts is aptest to break forth to others Man is a communicative Creature Though it be to my shame I must confesse that necessity through perplexed thoughts hath made this Subject much of my Meditations It is the Subject which I have found most necessary and most usefull to my self And I have reason enough to think that many others may be as weak as I. And I would fain have those partake of my satisfaction who have partaked of my difficulties 2. I perceive that because it is taken for a shame to doubt of our Christianity and the Life to come this hindereth many from uttering their doubts who never get them well resolved but remain half Infidels within whilest the Ensigns of Christ are hanged without and need much help though they are ashamed to tell their needs And prudent Charity will relieve those who are ashamed to beg 3. As the true knowledge of God is the beginning and maintainer of all holinesse and honesty of Heart and Life so latent Atheisme and Infidelity in the mindes of Hypocrites in the Church is the root of their prophanenesse dishonesty and wickednesse Did they seriously Believe as Christians they would not live as the Enemies of Christianity I take it therefore to be the surest and most expeditious Cure of the security presumption pride perfidiousnesse sensuality and wickednesse of these Hypocrites to convince them that there is a God and a Life to come and that the Gospel is true 4. And this prophaneness and sensuality tendeth to greater Infidelity They that will not live as they profess to Believe may most easily be drawn to Believe and profess as they are willing to live And therefore this Prognostick commandeth me to endeavour to prevent mens open profession of Infidelity lest the present torrent of ungodlinesse selfishnesse malice uncharitablenesse perjury treachery faction whoredom and other sensualities should fall into this gulf or one that is not much unlike it 5. The best complain of the imperfection of their Faith And too many good Christians especially if Melancholy surprise them are haunted with such temptations to Atheisme blasphemy and unbelief as make their lives a burden to them And one that hath heard so many of their complaints as I have done is excusable for desiring to relieve them It hath many a time been matter of wonder to me to observe that there is scarce one deep melancholy person among ten religious or not religious before but is followed with violent suggestions to doubt of the God-head and of the truth of the Gospel or to utter some word of Blasphemy against God And he that must pray Lord increase my Faith and help my Unbelief must use other means as well as pray 6. The imperfection of our Faith even about the Gospel and the Life to come is the secret root of all our faults of the weaknesse of every other grace of our yielding to temptations and of the carelesnesse badnesse and barrennesse of our Lives So Transcendent are the Concernments of the Life to come that a certain clear and firm belief of them would even deride temptations and bear down all the trifles of this World by what names or titles soever dignified as things not worthy of a look or thought What manner of person will that man be in all holy Conversation and Godliness who believing that all these things must be dissolved doth look for the coming of Christ and for the Blessed Consequents 2 Pet. 3.11 12 14. 2 Thess 1.10 O what a life would that man live what Prayers what Prayses what holy discourse would employ his tongue with what abhorrence would he reject the baits of sin who did but see but once see those unseen and future things which every Christian professeth to believe How contemptibly would he think and speak both of the pleasures and the sufferings of this dreaming life in comparison of the everlasting things What serious desires and labours and joyes and patience would such a sight procure How much more holy and Heavenly would it make even those that by the purblind World are thought to exceed herein already And if we took our Belief to be as certain as our sight Believing would do greater matters than it doth I oft think what one told me that an Infidel answered him when he asked him How he could quiet his Conscience in such a desperate state saith he I rather wonder how you can quiet your Conscience in such a common careless course of life believing as you do If I believed such things as you do I should think no care and diligence and holiness could be enough 7. The Soul in flesh is so much desirous of a sensitive way of apprehension and sensible things being still before us do so increase this Malady and divert the minde from spiritual things that we have all great need of the clearest evidence and the most suitable and frequent and taking explication of them that possibly can be given us not only to make us Believe things unseen but to make us serious and practical and affectionate about the things which in a
must be embraced And there is no doubt but God hath made use of Mahumet as a great Scourge to the Idolaters of the World as well as to the Christians who had abused their sacred priviledges and blessings Whereever his Religion doth prevail he casteth down Images and filleth mens mindes with a hatred of Idols and all conceit of multitude of Gods and bringeth men to worship one God alone and doth that by the sword in this which the preaching of the Gospel had not done in many obstinate Nations of Idolaters § 12. But withall I finde a Man exalted as the chief of Prophets without any such proof as a wise man should be moved with and an Alcoran written by him below the rates of common Reason being a Rhapsody of Nonsence and Confesion and many false and impious doctrines introduced and a tyrannical Empire and Religion twisted and both erected propagated and maintained by irrational tyrannical means As which discharge my reason from the entertainment of this Religion 1. That Mahomet was so great or any Prophet is neither confirmed by any true credible Miracle nor by any eminency of Wisdom or Holiness in which he excelled other men nor any thing else which Reason can judge to be a Divine attestation The contrary is sufficiently apparent in the irrationality of his Alcoran There is no true Learning nor excellency in it but such as might be expected among men of the more incult wits and barbarous education There is nothing delivered methodically or rationally with any evidence of solid understanding There is nothing but the most nauseous repetition an hundred times over of many simple incoherent speeches in the dialect of a drunken man sometimes against Idolaters and sometimes against Christians for calling Christ God which all set together seem not to contain in the whole Alcoran so much solid usefull sense and reason as one leaf of some of those Philosophers whom he opposeth however his time had delivered him from their Idolatry and caused him more to approach the Christian Faith 2. And who can think it any probable sign that he is the Prophet of truth whose Kingdom is of this World erected by the Sword who barbarously suppresseth all rational enquiry into his doctrine and all disputes against it all true Learning and rational helps to advance and improve the Intellect of man and who teacheth men to fight and kill for their Religion Certainly the Kingdom of darkness is not the Kingdom of God but of the Devil And the friend of Ignorance is no Friend to Truth to God nor to mankinde And it is a sign of a bad Cause that it cannot endure the light If it be of God why dare they not soberly prove it to us and hear what we have to object against it that Truth by the search may have the Victory If Beasts had a Religion it would be such as this 3. Moreover they have doctrines of Polygamy and of a sensual kinde of Heaven and of murdering men to increase their Kingdoms and many the like which being contrary to the light of Nature and unto certain common Truths do prove that the Prophet and his doctrine are not of God 4. And his full attestation to Moses and Christ as the true Prophets of God doth prove himself a false Prophet who so much contradicteth them and rageth against Christians as a blood-thirsty Enemy when he hath given so full a testimony to Christ The particulars of which I shall shew anon CHAP. III. Of the CHRISTIAN RELIGION and First What it is § 1. IV. THE last sort of Religion to be enquired into is CHRISTIANITY in which by the Providence of God I was educated and at first received it by a humane Faith upon the word and reverence of my Parents and Teachers being unable in my Childhood rationally to try its grounds and evidences I shall declare to the Reader just in what Order I have received the Christian Religion that the Inquisition being the more clear and particular the satisfaction may be the greater And it being primarily for my own use that I draw up these Papers I finde it convenient to remember what is past and to insert the transcript of my own experiences that I may fully try whether I have gone rationally and faithfully to work or not I confess that I took my Religion at first upon my Parents word And who could expect that in my Childhood I should be able to prove its grounds But whether God owned that method of Reception by any of his inward light and operations and whether the efficacy of the smallest beams be any proof of the truth of the Christian Faith I leave to the Reader and shall my self only declare the naked history in truth § 2. In this Religion received defectively both as to Matter and Grounds I found a Power even in my Childhood to awe my Soul and check my sin and folly and make me carefull of my salvation and to make me love and honour true wisdom and holiness of life § 3. But when I grew up to fuller use of Reason and more distinctly understood what I had generally and darkly received the power of it did more surprize my minde and bring me to deeper consideration of spiritual and everlasting things It humbled me in the sense of my sin and its deserts and made me think more sensibly of a Saviour It resolved me for more exact Obedience to God and increased my love to God and increased my love to persons and things sermons writings prayers conference which relished of plain resolved Godliness § 4. In all this time I never doubted of the Truth of this Religion partly retaining my first humane Belief and partly awed and convinced by the intrinsick evidence of its proper subject end and manner and being taken up about the humbling and reforming study of my self § 5. At last having for many years laboured to compose my mind and life to the Principles of this Religion I grew up to see more difficulties in it than I saw before And partly by temptations and partly by an inquisitive mind which was wounded with uncertainties and could not contemptuosly or carelesly cast off the doubts which I was not able to resolve I resumed afresh the whole inquiry and resolved to make as faithfull a search into the nature and grounds of this Religion as if I had never been baptized into it The first thing I studyed was the Matter of Christianity What it is and the next was the evidence and certainty of it of which I shall speak distinctly § 6. The Christian Religion is to be considered 1. In its self as delivered by God 2. In its Reception and Practice by men professing it In its self it is Perfect but not so easily discernable by a stranger In the Practisers it is imperfect here in this life but more discernable by men that cannot so quickly understand the Principles and more forcibly constraineth
them to perceive its holyness and worth Where it is indeed sincerely practised And is most dishonoured and misunderstood through the wickedness of Hypocrites who profess it As the Impress on the Wax doth make the Image more discernable than the Sculpture on the Seal but the Sculpture is true and perfect when many accidents may render the Impressed image imperfect and faulty So is it in this case To a diligent Enquirer Christianity is best known in its Principles delivered by Christ the Author of it and indeed is no otherwise perfectly known because it is no where else perfectly to be seen But yet it is much more visible and taking with unskilfull superficial Observers in the Professors Lives For they can discern the good or evil of an action who perceive not the nature of the Rule and Precepts The vital form in the Rose-tree is the most excellent part but the beauty and sweetness of the Rose is more easily discerned Effects are most sensible but causes are most excellent And yet in some respect the Practice of Religion is more excellent than the Precepts in as much as the Precepts are Means to Practice For the end is more excellent than the Means as such A poor man can easilyer perceive the worth of Charity in the person that cloatheth and feedeth and relieveth him than the worth of a treatise or sermon of Charity Subjects easily perceive the worth of a wise and holy and just and mercifull King or Magistrate in his actual Government who are not much taken with the Precepts which require yet more perfection And among all descriptions historical Narratives like Zenophons Cyrus do take most with them Doubtless if ever the Professors of Christianity should live according to their own Profession they would thereby overcome the opposition of the World and propagate their Religion with greatest success through all the Earth Because no man can well judge of the Truth of a doctrine till he first know what it is I think it here necessary to open the true nature of the Christian Religion and tell men truly what it is Partly because I perceive that abundance that profess it hypocritically by the meer power of Education Laws and Custom of their Countrey do not understand it and then are the easilyer tempted to neglect or contemn it or forsake it if strongly tempted to it even to forsake that which indeed they never truely received And because its possible some Aliens to Christianity may peruse these lines Otherwise were I to speak only to those that already understand it I might spare this description § 7. The CHRISTIAN RELIGION containeth two Parts 1. All Theological Verities which are of Natural Revelation 2. Much more which is supernaturally revealed The supernatural Revelation is said in it to be partly written by God partly delivered by Angels partly by inspired Prophets and Apostles and partly by Jesus Christ himself in person § 8. The supernatural Revelation reciteth most of the Natural because the searching of the great Book of Nature is a long and difficult work for the now-corrupted dark and slothfull minde of the common sort of men § 9. These supernatural Revelations are all contained 1. Most copiously in a Book called The Holy Bible or Canonical Scriptures 2. More summarily and contractedly in three Forms called The Belief The Lords Prayer and the Ten Commandements and most briefly and summarily in a Sacramental Covenant This last containeth all the Essential parts most briefly and the second somewhat fuller explaineth them and the first the holy Scriptures containeth also all the Integral parts or the whole frame § 10. Some of the present Professors of the Christian Religion do differ about the authority of some few Writings called Apocrypha whether they are to be numbred with the Canonical Books of God or not But those few containing in them no considerable points of doctrine different from the rest the controversie doth not very much concern the substance or doctrinal matter of their Religion § 11. The sacred Scriptures are written very much Historically the Doctrines being interspersed with the History § 12. This sacred Volume containeth two Parts The first called The Old Testament containing the History of the Creation and of the Deluge and of the Jewish Nation till after their Captivity As also their Law and Prophets The second called The New Testament containing the History of the Birth and Life and Death and Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ The sending of his Apostles the giving of the Holy Ghost the course of their Ministry and Miracles with the summ of the doctrine preached first by Christ and then by them and certain Epistles of theirs to divers Churches and persons more fully opening all that doctrine § 13. The summ of the History of the Old Testament is this That in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth with all things in them Viz. That having first made the Intellectual superiour part of the World and the matter of the Elementary World in an unformed Mass he did the first day distinguish or form the active Element of Fire and caused it to give light The second day he separated the rarified Passive Element called Fire expanding it from the Earth upwards to be a separation and medium of action between the superiour and inferiour parts The third day he separated the rest of the Passive Element Earth and Water into their proper place and set their bounds and made individual Plants with their specifick forms and virtue of generation The fourth day he made the Sun Moon and Starrs for Luminaries to the Earth either then forming them or then appointing them to that Office but not revealing their other uses which are nothing to us The fifth day he made Fishes and Birds with the power of generation The sixth day he made the terrestrial Animals and Man with the like generative Power And the seventh day he appointed to be a Sabbath of Rest on which he would be solemnly worshipped by Mankinde as our CREATOR Having made one Man and one Woman in his own Image that is with Intellects Free-will and executive Power in wisdom holiness and aptitude to Obey him and with Dominion over the sensitive and vegetative and inanimate Creatures he placed them in a Garden of pleasure wherein were two Sacramental Trees one called The Tree of Life and the other the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil And besides the Law of Nature he tryed him only with this positive prohibition that he should not eat of the Tree of Knowledge Whereupon the Devil who before this was fallen from his first state of innocency and felicity took occasion to perswade the Woman that Gods Threatning was not true that he meant not as he spake that he knew Man was capable of greater Knowledge but envyed him that happiness and that the eating of that Fruit was not the way to death as God had threatned but to Knowledge and
we do nothing against our Neighbours Life or Bodily welfare but carefully preserve it as our own 7. That no man defile his Neighbours wife nor commit Fornication but preserve our own and others Chastity in thought word and deed 8. That we wrong not another in his Estate by stealing fraud or any other means but preserve our Neighbours Estate as our own 9. That we pervert not Justice by false witness or otherwise nor wrong our neighbour in his Name by slanders backbiting or reproach That we lie not but speak the truth in love and preserve our neighbours right and honour as our own 10. That we be not selfish setting up our selves and our own against our Neighbour and his good desiring to draw from him unto our selves But that we love our Neighbour as our selves desiring his welfare as our own doing to others as regularly we would have them do to us forbearing and forgiving one another loving even our enemies and doing good to all according to our power both for their Bodies and their Souls This is the Substance of the CHRISTIAN RELIGION § 15. II. The summ or Abstract of the Christian Religion is contained in three short Forms The first called The Creed containing the matter of the Christian Belief The second called The Lords Prayer containing the matter of Christian Desires and hope The third called The Law or Decalogue containing the summ of Morall Duties which are as followeth The BELIEF 1. I believe in God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth 2. And in Iesus Christ his only Son our Lord who was conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified dead and buried descended to Hell the third day he rose again from the dead he ascended into Heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty from thence he shall come again to judge the quick and the dead 3. I believe in the Holy Ghost the Holy Catholick Church the Communion of Saints the Forgiveness of sins the Resurrection of the body and the Life Everlasting The LORDS PRAYER Our FATHER which art in Heaven hallowed be thy Name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil For thine is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever Amen The Ten COMMANDEMENTS God spake all these words saying I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the Land of Egypt out of the house of bondage 1. Thou shalt have no other Gods before me 2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven Image or any likeness of any thing in Heaven above or that is in the Earth beneath or that is in the water under the Earth Thou shalt not vow down thy self to them nor serve them For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God visiting the iniquities of the Fathers upon the Children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my Commandements 3. Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain 4. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy six dayes shalt thou labour and do all thy work but the Seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God in it thou shalt not do any work thou nor thy Son nor thy Daughter thy Man-servant nor thy Maid-servant nor thy Cattel nor the Stranger that is within thy gates For in six dayes the Lord made Heaven and Earth the Sea and all that in them is and rested the Seventh day wherefore the Lord blessed the Seventh day and hallowed it 5. Honour thy Father and thy Mother that thy dayes may be long upon the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee 6. Thou shalt not kill 7. Thou shalt not commit Adultery 8. Thou shalt not Steal 9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy Neighbour 10. Thou shalt not covet thy Neighbours House thou shalt not covet thy Neighbours Wife nor his Man-servant nor his Maid-servant nor his Oxe nor his Ass nor any thing that is thy Neighbours § 16. The ten Commandements are summed up by Christ into these two Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and might and Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self § 17. These Commandements being first delivered to the Jews are continued by Christ as the summ of the Law of Nature only instead of Deliverance of the Jews from Egypt he hath made our Redemption from sin and Satan which was thereby typified to be the fundamental motive And he hath removed the memorial of the Creation-Rest from the seventh day-Sabbath to be kept on the Lords day which is the first with the Commemoration of his Resurrection and our Redemption in the solemn Worship of his holy Assemblies § 18. III. The briefest Summary of the Christian Religion containing the Essentials only is in the Sacramental Covenant of Grace Wherein the Penitent Believer renouncing the Flesh the World and the Devil doth solemnly give up himself to God the Father Son and Holy Spirit as his only God his Father his Saviour and his Sanctifier engaging himself hereby to a Holy life of Resignation Obedience and Love and receiving the pardon of all his sins and title to the further helps of grace to the favour of God and everlasting life This Covenant is first entered by the Sacrament of Baptisme and after renewed in our communion with the Church in the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ So that the Christian Religion is but Faith in God our Creator Redeemer and Sanctifyer producing the hope of Life Everlasting and possessing us with the love of God and Man And all this expressed in the genuine fruits of Patience Obedience and Praise to God and works of Charity and Justice unto Man § 19. That all this Religion might be the better understood received and practised by us the Word of God came down into Flesh and gave us a perfect Example of it in his most perfect Life in perfect holiness and innocency conquering all temptations contemning the honours riches and pleasures of the World in perfect patience and meekness and condescension and in the perfect Love of God and Man When perfect Doctrine is seconded by Perfect Exemplariness of Life there can be no greater Light set before us to lead us out of our state of darkness into the everlasting Light And had it not been a pattern of holy Power Wisdom and Goodness of Self-denyall Obedience and Love of Patience and of Truth and Prudence and of contempt of all inferiour things even of Life it self for the Love of God and for Life eternal it
wrath contentions envy malice covetousness injustice oppression wars uncharitableness and all the iniquity of the world And how self is the grand enemy of God and Man and of the Publick good and peace and contrary to the love of God and our neighbour and the Common-wealth It giveth us so many precepts for self-denial as no other Religion did ever mention and such an example against it in Jesus Christ as is the astonishment of Men and Angels And therefore all other Religions did in vain attempt the true purifying of heart and life or the pacifying of the divided minds of men while they let alone this sin of selfishness or lightly touch'd it which is the root and heart of all the rest § 5. No Religion doth so much reveal to us the Nature of God and his works for Man and Relations to him as the Christian Religion doth And doubtless that is the most excellent doctrine which maketh known God most to mans mind and that is the best Religion which bringeth man nearest to his Creator in love and purity Few of the Heathens knew God in his Unity and fewer in the Trinity of his Essential Primalities many question'd his particular Providence and Government they knew not man's relation or duty to him while they were distracted with the observance of a multitude of Gods they indeed had none Though God be incomprehensible to us all yet is there a great deal of the glory of his perfections revealed to us in the light of Christianity which we may seek in vain with any other sort of men § 6. No Religion doth so wonderfully open and magnifie and reconcile God's Justice and Mercy to Mankind as Christianity doth It sheweth how his Justice is founded in his Holiness and his governing Relation it justifieth it by opening the purity of his Nature the evil of sin and the use of punishment to the right government of the world and it magnifieth it by opening the dreadfulness and certainty of his penalties and the sufferings of our Redeemer when he made himself a Sacrifice for our sins By the revelation of justice sin and misery it revealeth the wonderful greatness of Gods mercy it openeth those operations and effects of it which Heathenism and Mahometanism are utter strangers to they speak diminutively both of Mercy and Justice and cannot tell how to make God merciful without making him vnjust nor to make him just without obscuring the glory of his mercy which is peculiarly set forth in the work of Redemption and the Covenant of Grace and promise of everlasting Blessedness § 7. The Christian Religion openeth many other parts of holy doctrine which are unknown to men that learned them not from thence Such as the doctrin of the Creation and the Fall and of original sin and of Justification Sanctification Adoption and the right worshipping of God of which mention is made before more distinctly § 8. No Religion can be more Charitable for it wholly consisteth in the love of God and one another and in the means to kindle and maintain this love The whole Law of Christ is fulfilled in love even in loving God for himself above all and our neighbours as our selves for the sake of God yea our enemies so far as there is any thing amiable in them The end of all the Commandments is love out of a pure heart and a good conscience and unfeigned faith And all Christians are obliged to love each other with a pure heart and fervently yea to shew that love which they profess to Christ himself by the loving of one another How frequently and earnestly is this great duty pressed by Christ and his Apostles how great a stress doth he lay upon it He maketh it the evidence of our love to God He promiseth salvation to it He forbiddeth selfishness that it may not hinder it He commandeth us to live in the constant expression of it and to provoke one another to love and to good works He hath made himself the most matchless and wonderful example of it He hath told us that according to mens charity he will judge them at the last day How dry and barren are all Religions and Writings that we have ever come to the knowledge of in the world in the point of love and the fruits of love in comparison of the Gospel of Jesus Christ § 9. I find that the Christian Religion is most for Vnity and Peace of any Religion in the world most vehemently commanding them and appointing the fittest means for the attaining of them 1. All Christians are commanded to be of one mind to think the same things and speak the same things and discord and division and contention is earnestly forbidden them and condemned and all occasions which may lead them thereunto 2. And they have one Head and Centre one God and Saviour who is their common Governour End and Interest in whom therefore they may all unite when most others in the world do shew a man no further end than self-preservation and so while self is each mans end and interest there are as many ends as men and how then is it possible that such should have any true unity and concord But to every true Christian the pleasing and glorifying of God and the promoting of his Kingdom for the salvation of the world is above all self-interest whatsoever and therefore in this they are all united And though they all seek their own felicity and salvation it is only in the seeking of this higher end which is finis amantis sed creaturae amantis creatorem the end of a lover which desireth unity and respecteth both the lover and the beloved but it is not the end of the love of equals but of the creature to the Creator who therefore preferreth his beloved before himself in his intentions So that it is only this holy centring in God that can ever make men all of a mind and agree the disagreeing world While Self is every mans end they will have such constant contrariety of interests that it will be impossible for them to agree but covetousness ambition and sensuality will keep them in factions contentions and wars continually Moreover it is Christianity that most urgeth and effectually giveth a hearty love to one another and teacheth them to love their neighbours as themselves and to do as they would have others to do by them and this is the true root and spring of concord And it is Christianity which most teacheth the forgiving of wrongs and loving of enemies and forbearing that revenge which Heathens were wont to account an honour And it is Christianity which teacheth men to contemn all the riches and honours of the world which is the bone that worldly dogs do fight for and the great occasion of their strife and it teacheth them to mortifie all those vices which feed mens divisions and contentions So that if any man live as a Christian he must needs be a man of unity
spiritual or putting it out of relish with that which is our true felicity or the way thereto It is only on such accounts and in such cases as these that Christ forbiddeth us the pleasures of the flesh And so will Parents restrain the appetites of their Children and Physicians of their Patients and every wise man will restrain his own when present sensual pleasure tendeth to greater future pain The satisfying delights of man can be no where but in the love of God and in a heavenly life and in the foresight of endless joyes and in the knowledge and means which lead to these And the unwholsom luscious pleasures of the Flesh do greatly tend to draw down the minde and corrupt the affections and dull our desires and endeavours towards these higher things And therefore our Saviour doth strictlyer here dyet us than is pleasing to diseased Souls But he loveth not our sorrows or pains nor envyeth us any desireable pleasure He came not to torment us but to save us from torment If he forbid us any delight it is because he would have us have better and more which that would keep us from If he teach us to deny our Honour with men it is but that we may have Honour with God and Angels If he call us from our present wealth and profit it is but to secure our Everlasting Riches and prevent our loss All his Precepts are wholly fitted to our own good though our good be not the highest ultimate end but the Glory and Pleasure of our Maker § 19. There cannot possibly be any higher motives to sincere piety and honesty given to the World than the Christian Religion sets before them even the joyes of Heaven and the pains of Hell and all the pleasures and priviledges of an holy life And therefore it must needs be the powerfull means to all that is truly good and happy § 20. It stronglyest fortifieth the minde of Man against the power of all temptations For as it enervateth the Temptation by teaching us to mortifie the lusts of the flesh and to contemn the World so it alwayes counterpoiseth it with the Authority of God the Joyes of Heaven the punishment of Hell which are in the ballance against all the pleasures of sin as a Mountain is against a Feather § 21. It affordeth us the most powerfull Supports and Comforts in every suffering that we may bear it patiently and with joy For it assureth us of the Love of God and of the pardon of our greater sufferings It sheweth us how to be gainers by all and sheweth us the glory and joy which will be the end of all § 22. It affordeth us the greatest Cordials against the fears of death For it assureth us of endless happiness after death And if a Socrates or Cicero or Seneca could fetch any comfort from a doubtfull conjecture of another life what may a Christian do that hath an undoubted assurance of it and also of the nature and greatness of the felicity which we there expect And why should he fear dying who looks to pass into endless pleasure And therefore Christianity conduceth not to pusillanimity but to the greatest fortitude and nobleness of minde For what should daunt him who is above the fears of sufferings and death § 23. It containeth nothing which any man can rationally fear can be any way a hinderance to his salvation This will be more cleared when I have answered the objections against it § 24. It containeth nothing that hath the least contrariety to any Natural Verity or Law but contrarily comprehendeth all the Law of Nature as its first and principal part and that in the most clear and legible character superadding much more which Naturalists know not So that if there be any good in other Religions as there is some in all it is all contained in the Christian Religion with the addition of much more There is no truth or goodness in the Religion of the Philosophers the Platonists the Stoicks the Pythagorean Bannians in India the Bonzii in Japan or those in Siam China Persia or any other parts nor among the Mahometans or Jews which is not contained in the Doctrine and Religion of the Christians § 25. Accordingly it hath all the reall Evidence which the true parts of any other Religion hath with the addition of much more supernatural evidence For all that is justly called the Law of Nature which is the first part of the Christian Religion is evidenced by the light of Nature and this Christians have as well as others and all that is of true supernatural Revelation they have above others by its proper evidence § 26. The style of the Sacred Scripture is plain and therefore fit for all and yet Majestical and Spiritual suited to its high and noble ends Were it expressed in those terms of Art which the Masters of each sect have devised to transmit their opinions to posterity by they would be fit for none but those few who by acquaintance with such terms esteem themselves or are esteemed learned men And yet the men of another sect might little understand them For most new Sect-masters in Philosophy devised new terms as well as new principles or opinions Though at Athens where the principal Sects were near together the diversity was not so great as among them at a further distance yet was there enough to trouble their disciples He that understandeth Zoroaster and Trismegistus may not understand Pythagoras and he that understandeth him may not understand his follower Plato and he that understandeth him may not understand Aristotle and so of Telesius Parmenides Anaxagoras Aristippus Antisthenes Zeno Chrysippus Heraclitus Democritus Pyrrho Epicurus with all the rest And among Christians themselves the degenerated Hereticks and Sectaries that make their own opinions do make also their own terms of Art so that if you compare the Valentinians Basilidians Apollinarians c. and our late Wigelians Paracelsians Rosicrucians Belimenists Familists Libertines Quakers c. you shall find that he that seemeth to understand one Sect must learn as it were a new language before he can understand the rest So that if the Scripture must have been phrased according to Philosophers terms of art who knoweth to which Sect it must have been suited and every day there riseth up a Campanella a Thomas White c. who are reforming the old terms and arts and making both new so that nothing which is of universal use as Religion is can be fitted to any such uncertain measure Christ hath therefore dealt much better with the world and spoken plainly the things which the simple and all must know and yet spoken sublimely of things mysterious heavenly and sublime This is the true nature and character of Christianity CHAP. V. Of the Congruities in the Christian Religion which make it the more easily credible and are great preparatives to Faith BEcause Truth is never contrary to it self nor agreeable with
errour it is a way that reason teacheth all men in the trying of any questioned point to reduce it to those that are unquestionable and see whether or no they accord with those And to mark the unquestionable Ends of Religion and try how it suiteth its means thereunto And therefore men of all sober professions have their determinate principles and ends by which they try such particular opinions as Christians do by their analogy of faith And in this trial of Christianity I shall tell you what I find it § 1. I find in general that there is an admirable concord between Natural Verity and the Gospel of Christ and that Grace is medicinal to Nature and that where Natural light endeth Supernatural beginneth and that the superstructure which Christ hath built upon Nature is wonderfully adapted to its foundation This is made manifest in all the first part of this Treatise Reason which is our Nature is not destroyed but repaired illuminated elevated and improved by the Christian faith Free-will which is our Nature is made more excellently free by Christianity Self-love which is our Nature is not destroyed but improved by right conduct and help to our attainment of its ends The Natural part of Religion is so far from being abrogated by Christianity that the latter doth but subserve the former Christ is the way to God the Father The duty which we owe by Nature to our Creator we owe him still and Christ came to enable and teach us to perform it the love of God our Creator with all our hearts is still our duty and faith in Christ is but the means to the love of God and the bellows to kindle that holy fire The Redeemer came to recover us to our Creator He taketh not the Book of the Creatures or Nature out of our hands but teacheth us better to read and use it And so it is through all the rest § 2. I find also that the state of this present world is exceeding suitable to the Scripture-character of it that it is exceeding evil and a deluge of sin and misery doth declare its great necessity of a Saviour and sheweth it still to be a place unmeet to be the home and happiness of Saints Of all the parts of God's Creation this earth doth seem to be next to Hell certainly it is greatly defiled with sin and overwhelmed with manifold calamities and though God hath not totally forsaken it nor turned away his mercy as he hath done from Hell yet is he much estranged from it so that those who are not recovered by grace are next to devils And alas how numerous and considerable are they to denominate it an evil world Those that Christ calleth out of it he sanctifieth and maketh them unlike the world and his grace doth not give them a worldly felicity nor settle them in a Rest or Kingdom here but it saveth them from this world as from a place of snares and a company of cheaters robbers and murderers and from a tempestuous Sea whose waves seem ready still to drown us I. I find it is a world of Sin II. And of Temptation III. And of Calamity I. For Sin it is become as it were its nature it liveth with men from the birth to the grave It is an ignorant world that wandereth in darkness and yet a proud self-conceited world that will not be convinced of its ignorance and is never more furiously confident than when it is most deceived and most blind Even natural wisdom is so rare and folly hath the major vote and strength that wise men are wearied with resisting folly and ready in discouragements to leave the foolish world unto it self as an incurable Bedlam so fierce are fools against instruction and so hard is it to make them know that they are ignorant or to convince men of their mistakes and errours The Learner thinks his Teacher doteth and he that hath but wit enough to distinguish him from a bruit is as confident as if he were a Doctor The Learned themselves are for the most part but half-witted men who either take up with lazie studies or else have the disadvantage of uncapable temperatures and wits or of unhappy Teachers and false principles received by ill education which keep out truth so that they are but fitted to trouble the world with their contentions or deceive men by their errors and yet have they not the acquaintance with their ignorance which might make them learn of such as can instruct them but if there be among many but one that is wiser than the rest he is thought to be unfit to live among them if he will not deny his knowledge and own their errours and confess that modesty and order require that either the highest or the major vote are the masters of truth and all is false that is against their opinions It is an Atheistical ungodly world that knoweth not its Maker or forgetteth contemneth and wilfully disobeyeth him while in words it doth confess him and yet an hypocritical world that will speak honourably of God and of vertue and piety of justice and charity while they are neglecting and rejecting them and cannot endure the practice of that which their tongues commend almost all sorts will prefer the life to come in words when indeed they utterly neglect it and prefer the fleshly pleasures of this life They cry out of the vanity and vexation of the world and yet they set their hearts upon it and love it better than God and the world to come they will have some Religion to mock God and deceive themselves which shall go no deeper than the knee and tongue in forms or ceremonies or a dissembled affection and profession But to be devoted absolutely to God in self-resignation obedience and love how rare is it even in them who cannot deny but the Law of Nature it self doth primarily and undeniably oblige them to it Their Religion is but self-condemnation while their tongues condemn their hearts and lives It is a sensual bruitish world and seemeth to have hired out their reason to the service of their appetites and lusts gluttony and excess of drink and sports and plays and gaming with pride and wantonness and fornication and uncleanness and worldly pomp and the covetous gathering of provision for the flesh to satisfie these lusts is the business and pleasure of their lives and if you tell them of Reason or the Law of God to take them off you may almost as well think to reason a hungry Dog from his carrion or a lustful Boar to forbear his lust And it is a Selfish world where every man is as an idol to himself and affected to himself and his own interest as if he were all the world drawing all that he can from others to fill his own insatiable desires loving all men and honouring and esteeming and praising them according to the measure of their esteem of him or their
Wisdom of the Soul produced by his Light and Wisdom by which we know the difference between Good and Evil and our Reason is restored to its dominion over fleshly sense It is the Goodness of the Soul by which it is made suitable to the Eternal Good and fit to know him love him praise him serve him and enjoy him And therefore nothing lower than his Goodness can be its principal Cause 2. It subserveth the Interest of God in the World And recovereth the apostate Soul to himself It disposeth it to honour him love him and obey him It delivereth up the whole man to him as his own It casteth down all that rebelleth against him It casteth out all which was preferred before him It rejecteth all which standeth up against him and would seduce and tempt us from him And therefore it is certainly his work 3. Whose else should it be Would Satan or any evil cause produce so excellent an effect would the worst of beings do the best of works It is the best that is done in this lower world Would any enemy of God so much honour him and promote his interest and restore him his own would any enemy of mankind thus advance us and bring us up to a life of the highest honour and delights that we are capable of on earth and give us the hopes of life eternal And if any good Angel or other Cause should do it all reason will confess that they do it but as the Messengers or Instruments of God and as second causes and not as the first Cause for otherwise we should make them gods For my own part my Soul perceiveth that it is God himself that hath imprinted this his Image on me and hath hereby as it were written upon me his Name and Mark even HOLINESS TO THE LORD and I bear about me continually a Witness of Himself his Son and holy Spirit a Witness within me which is the Seal of God and the pledge of his love and the earnest of my heavenly inheritance And if our Sanctification be thus of GOD it is certainly his attestation to the truth of Christ and to his Gospel for 1. No man that knoweth the perfections of God will ever believe that he would bless a deceiver and a lie to be the means of the most holy and excellent work that ever was done in the world If Christ were a Deceiver his crime would be so execrable as would engage the Justice of God against him as he is the righteous Governour of the world And therefore he would not so highly honour him to be his chiefest instrument for the worlds Renovation He is not impotent to need such instruments he is not ignorant that he should so mistake in the choice of instruments he is not bad that he should love and use such Instruments and comply with their deceits These things are all so clear and sure that I cannot doubt of them 2. No man that knoweth the mercifulness of God and the Justice of his Government can believe that he would give up Mankind so remedilesly to seduction yea and be the principal causer of it himself For if besides Prophecie and a holy Doctrine and a multitude of famous Miracles a Deceiver might also be the great Renewer and Sanctifier of the world to bring man back to the obedience of God and to repair his Image on Mankind what possibility were there of our discovery of that deceit Or rather should we not say he were a blessed Deceiver that had deceived us from our sin and misery and brought back our straying souls to God 3. Nay when Christ fore-told men that he would send his Spirit to do all this work and would renew men for eternal life and thus be with us to the end of the world and when I see all this done I must needs believe that he that can send down a Sanctifying Spirit a Spirit of Life a Spirit of Power Light and Love to make his Doctrine in the mouths of his Ministers effectual to mens Regeneration and Sanctification is no less himself than God or certainly no less than his certain Administrator 4. What need I more to prove the Cause than the adequate effect When I find that Christ doth actually save me shall I question whether he be my Saviour When I find that he saveth thousands about me and offereth the same to others shall I doubt whether he be the Saviour of the world Sure he that healeth us all and that so wonderfully and so cheaply may well be called our Physician If he had promised only to save us I might have doubted whether he would perform it and consequently whether he be indeed the Saviour But when he performeth it on my self and performeth it on thousands round about me to doubt yet whether he be the Saviour when he actually saveth us is to be ignorant in despite of Reason and Experience I conclude therefore that the Spirit of Sanctification is the infallible Witness of the Verity of the Gospel and the Veracity of Jesus Christ 5. And I entreat all that read this further to observe the great use and advantage of this testimony above others in that it is continued from Generation to Generation and not as the gift and testimony of Miracles which continued plentifully but one Age and with diminution somewhat after this is Christ's witness to the end of the world in every Country and to every Soul yea and continually dwelling in them For if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Rom. 8.9 He that is not able to examine the History which reporteth the Miracles to him may be able to find upon his Soul the Image of God imprinted by the Gospel and to know that the Gospel hath that Image in it self which it imprinteth upon others and that it cometh from God which leadeth men so directly unto God and that it is certainly his own means which he blesseth to so great and excellent ends 6. Note also that part of the work of the Spirit of God in succeeding the Doctrine of Jesus Christ doth consist in the effectual production of Faith it self for though the work be wrought by the Reasons of the Gospel and the Evidences of Truth yet is it also wrought by the Spirit of God concurring with that evidence and as the internal Efficient exciting the sluggish faculties to do their office and illustrating the understanding and fitting the will to entertain the truth for the difficulties are so great and the temptations to unbelief so subtil and violent and our own indisposedness through corruption the greatest impediment of all that the bare Word alone would not produce a belief of that lively vigorous nature as is necessary to its noble effects and ends without the internal co-operation of the Spirit So that Christ doth not only teach us the Christian Faith and Religion but doth give it us and work it in us by his Spirit And he that can do
or let fall some confutations of them in their Epistles to the Churches but there are no such things at all § 28. 10. Seeing it is so heinous a crime to divulge lies in multitudes of matters of fact to deceive the world into a blasphemy it is scarce possible that the consciences of so many persons of so much piety as their writings prove should never be touched with remorse for so great a villany either in life or at the hour of death and force some one of them to detect all the fraud if they had been guilty of it There is a natural conscience in the worst of men much more in the best which will at some time do its office and will constrain men to confess especially their heinous crimes and especially at the time of death when they see that their lies will serve their worldly interest no more and especially if they be men that indeed believe another life Now consider if the Apostles and Disciples had been deceivers how heinous a crime they had committed 1. To affirm a man to be God incarnate and to be the Saviour of the world on whom all men must trust their souls c. if he had been but a deceiver 2. To make such abundance of lies in open matters of fact 3. To frame hereupon a new Law to the world 4. To overthrow the Law of Moses which was there in force 5. To abuse the intellects of so many thousand persons with such untruths and to call the world to such a needless work as the Christian Religion would be if all this were false to put the world upon such tasks as forsaking all for Christ 6. To draw so many to lose their lives in martyrdom to attest a lie 7. To lose their own time and spend all their lives and labour upon so bad a work All these set together would prove them far worst than any thieves or murderers or traitors if they knew it to be a lie which they preached and attested There are now no men known on earth even in this age of villanies guilty of such a heinous crime as this And let any man that readeth the Apostles writings or considereth of their lives and deaths consider whether it be not next to an impossibility that so many and such persons should go on in such a way upon no greater motives of benefit than they expected nay through such labours reproach and sufferings and not one of them to the death be constrained by conscience to detect the fraud and undeceive the world § 29. 11. Lastly it is not possible that so many thousands of such persons as they presently converted should ever have been perswaded to believe their reports of these matters of fact in a time and place where it was so easie to disprove them if they had been false For 1. The understanding is not free as the will is but only participative in quantum à voluntate imperatur and a man cannot believe what he will nor deny belief to cogent evidence though against his will The Intellects acts as in themselves are necessitated and per modum naturae 2. And all these new converts had understandings which were naturally inclined to truth as truth and averse to falshood and they had all self-love and they all embraced now a doctrine which would expose them to suffering and calamity in the world And therefore both nature and interest obliged them to be at the labour of enquiring whether these things were so or not before they ran themselves into so great misery And the three thousand which Peter converted at his first Sermon must also take the shame of being murderers of their Saviour and for this they were pricked at the heart And Paul must be branded for a confessed persecutor and guilty of the bloud of Stephen And would so many men run themselves into all this for nothing to save the labour of an easie enquiry after some matters of publick fact How easily might they go and be satisfied whether Christ fed so many thousand twice miraculously and whether he healed such as he was said to heal who were then living and whether he raised Lazarus and others from death who were then living and whether the earth trembled and the vail of the Temple rent and the Sun was darkned at his death And whether the witnesses of his Resurrection were sufficient And if none of this had been true it would have turned them all from the belief of the Apostles to deride them Object Is not the unbelief of the most a greater reason against the Gospel than the belief of the smaller number is for it Answ No 1. Because it is a negative which they were for and many witnesses to a negative is not so good as a few to an affirmative 2. Most of them were kept from the very hearing of the Apostles which should inform them and excite them 3. Most men every where follow their Rulers and look to their worldly interest and never much mind or discuss such matters as tend to their salvation especially by the way of suffering and disgrace 4. We believe not that the unbelieving party did deny Christ's miracles but fathered them upon the devil therefore even their testimony is for Christ only they hired the Souldiers to say that Christ was stoln out of the Sepulchre while they slept of which they never brought any proof nor could possibly do it if asleep § 29. III. I have proved Christ's Miracles to be 1. Credible by the highest humane faith 2. Certain by natural evidence there being a natural impossibility that the testimonies should be false 3. I am next to prove that they are certain by supernatural evidence which is the same with natural evidence as in the effect but is called supernatural from the way of causing it § 30. The same works of the SPIRIT inherent concomitant and subsequent were the infallible proof of the truth of the Disciples testimony of Christ his Person Miracles and Doctrine § 31. I. They were persons of holy lives and holiness is the lively impress or constitution of their doctrine now visible in their writings What was before said of the Doctrine of Christ himself is true of theirs And as the Kings Coyn is known by his Image and Superscription or rather as an unimitable author is known by his Writings for matter method and style even so is Gods Spirit known in them and in their doctrine § 32. II. Their miraculous gifts and works were so evident and so many and uncontrolled as amount to an infallible proof that Gods are his Witness in the World and sheweth the most infallible proof of his assertions § 33. 1. Their gifts and miracles were many in kinde as their sudden illumination when the Spirit fell upon them and knowing that which they were ignorant of before Their prophesying and speaking in languages never before learn'd by them and interpreting such prophesies and languages their dispossessing
unjust that the fullest evidence for their Justification doth but seem to aggravate their faults and nothing is so great a Crime as their highest Virtues Or if their Justification be undenyable they rage the more because they are hindered from making them suffer as deeply in their Names as in their Bodies These things are no more questionable than the Warrs of Alexander or Caesar the World having longer proof and fuller evidence of them § 15. And ordinarily God himself so ordereth it that his faithfullest Subjects shall be the deepest sufferers in this life § 16. Therefore self-denyal mortification contempt of the World and patience under manifold sufferings from God and Man are necessary to all who will be faithfull to God in the unquestionable duties before described It is tryed Friendship and Obedience which is most valuable And unwholsom pleasures though preferred by the foolish Patient are forbidden by our wise Physician that they hinder not our health and greater Pleasures § 17. Therefore if Worldly fleshly pleasures were our end and chief Good the best men would have the smallest measure of them Obj. But you restrain man further than God restraineth him and binde him to more than God bindeth him to and make superstition to seem his duty and then raise these consequences from such Premises Answ What I mean by sin and duty I have so fully opened before and proved to be such by the light of Reason that this Objection hath no place Even the sober Heathens the Greek Philosophers and Romane Worthies found and confessed all this to be true If there be any thing in the Life before described which all sound Reason doth not justifie and command let him that is able manifest so much If not it is no superstition to live as a man that is governed by God and led by Reason and to do that which all our faculties were made for And for austerities I have pleaded for none which are not become needfull to our own preservation and felicity As a Patient will endure a strict dyet and exercise and blood-letting and bitter Physick for his health It is not any affected unprofitable austerities that I plead for but those which are for our good and fit us for our duty and keep the flesh from rebelling against Reason and keep Man from living like a Beast Even less than many of the Philosophers plead for and he that useth but thus much which is needfull will finde it both opposed as unsufferable by the World and murmured against by his suffering and displeased Flesh and that the Soul cannot do its duty but at a considerable cost and trouble to the Body Though there may be an evil masked and cunningly moderated which men call Goodness which may be had at a cheaper rate But saith Seneca truly Non est Bonitas pessimis esse meliorem CHAP. XIV That there is a Life of Retribution after this TO know whether there be a Life after this for men to receive Rewards or Punishments in is a matter of greatest importance to Mankinde to be fully resolved in upon which depend our Comforts and our Religion and without which we know not what to expect to hope for or to fear nor what to intend and seek after through our lives nor how to order our hearts or actions This therefore I shall inquire into by the help of Reason and Natural evidence as one that would not be deceived nor deceive in so great a matter And I shall pass by those arguments which are commonly fetcht from the Souls immateriality and independence upon matter and other such like which are commonly to be found in Physicks and Metaphysicks as being not such as my present method leadeth me to and shall make use of such as are the necessary consectaries of the certain Truths already proved Object But whatever Rationalities may be drawn from the Divine Attributes to prove a future state yet it depending wholly on the Divine Will and the Divine Will being absolutely free we can have no rational inducements to bring us to any sufficient knowledge of it but by a clear Revelation of the Divine Will Answ Is the Law of Nature no clear Revelation of Gods will or is it a Law without any Rewards or Penalties It depended on Gods will whether man should be his Subject or no obliged to obey him But doth it follow therefore that it cannot be proved By making him a Rational free Agent and sociable placed among occasions of good and evil God did reveal that it was his will that Man should be his Subject and obey him One action of God doth oft reveal his will concerning another Those Attributes of God which signifie his Relation to us do reveal much of his will concerning what he will do with us in those Relations And though his will be free his perfections consist not with falshood and mutability If in freedom you include indetermination then when we prove the determination of it ad unum you will plead no longer that it is free no more than it is yet free whether he will make the World § 1. I. He that is the most Righteous Governour of the World making a just difference by Rewards and Punishments between the obedient and the wicked which yet he maketh not in this life will certainly make it after this life But God is the most Righteous Governour of the World making a just difference by Rewards and Punishments between the obedient and the wicked which yet he maketh not in this life Therefore he will make it after this life That God is the Governour of the World in a proper sense by Laws and Moral Government is proved And that he is Righteous is contained in the Perfections of his Nature To deny either of these is to deny him to be God That his Laws of Nature have not only Precepts of Duty but sanctions of Reward and Punishment is also proved And further may be thus 1. If there be no Rewards or Punishments there is no Judgement or Execution But there is Judgement and Execution for they are parts of Government Ergo 2. Without Rewards and Punishments Precepts would be vain to such as us and uneffectual as to their ends But God hath not made his Laws in vain Ergo. Obj. Governours use not to give men Rewards for their Obedience subjects must obey without Reward Answ It is not the Name but the Thing that we enquire of Call it a Benefit if you had rather All Government is upheld by Rewards and Punishment Reward is either that which is common to all obedient Subjects or such as is specially proper to some All subjects that are faithfull have title to protection and approbation and justification against all false accusations and to their share in that peace and felicity of the Common-wealth which is the end of the Government And some Commonwealths having far greater felicities than others accordingly the Subjects of
that no temporal punishment or reward can be too great for some crimes and for some atchievments Read but the Statute-books and this will be soon found And that the offences which are against the Infinite Majesty deserve incomparably sorer punishments than any against men as such is past all question As also that love and fidelity and duty to God is incomparably more laudable § 16. XVI If there were no life of retribution after this it would follow that man is more to be feared and obeyed than God and so hath the far greater and higher hand in the Moral Government of the world But the consequent is absurd and blasphemous Ergo so is the Antecedent The argument is clear and past all contradiction The reason of the Major or consequence is Because though God can destroy any wicked man at his pleasure yet all the world's experience sheweth us that ordinarily in this life he doth no such things If a strange judgment overtake some wicked man it is an unusual thing and next to a miracle And usually all things come alike to all the good and the bad die of the same disease the deceitful and the wicked prosper in the world as much as others if either suffer more usually it is the best Videtis quam prospera navigatio à Diis datur sacrilegis saith Dionysius Thunder-bolts strike so few that it is scarce rational much to fear them If one fall under some extraordinary judgement many hundred scape But on the other side Kings and States do ordinarily do execution on those that displease them and break their Laws The case of a Daniel is so rare that it would be no rule to direct a rational course by If the King should forbid me praying as he did Daniel or command me to worship his Image as he did the other three witnesses reason and self-preservation would require me to obey him for its ten to one but he would execute his wrath on me and its an hundred to one God would not deliver me here God suffered thirty or forty thousand to be murdered at once by the French Massacre under Charls 9. He suffered two hundred thousand to be murdered by the Irish Papists He suffered many to be burned in Queen Mary's days He suffered yet greater Havock to be made of the poor Waldenses and Alligenses He suffered most cruel inhumane torments and death upon thousands of innocent persons to change the new-planted Religion in Japan He therefore that careth for his life and peace will think it far safer to venture on the present executions of God than of his King or Enemy or any one that is strong enough to ruine him If I lived under the Turkish Empire and were commanded to deny Christ and to renounce my Baptism and to subscribe that my Baptismal Vow doth not oblige me or any way to lie or be perjur'd or sin against God self-preservation would bid me Venture on the sin for it is an hundred to one but God will spare thee and it is an hundred to one but that the Prince will punish and destroy thee if thou obey him not How few that knew there were no life to come would not rather venture to please a Tyrant or a Robber than God and more fear to displease them and would not by perjury or any commanded villany save himself from their fury and cruelty and would not study more to flatter and humour them than to obey their God And so Man should have the chief government of the world while Man's rewards and punishments were so much more notable than God's Man would be feared and obeyed before God that is Man would be taken for our God These things are clear undeniable truths If there were no life to come self-love and reason would make man more obedient to Man than God and so make Gods of flesh and bloud But whether this be the tendency of the Government of God let Reason judge § 17. XVII A very probable argument may be fetched from the number and quality of intellectual spirits He that looketh to the vast and numerous and glorious Orbs which are above him and thinks of the glorious receptacles of a more glorious sort of creatures and then considereth that we are intellectual agents made to love and honour God as well as they and considers further both the Benignity of God and the communion which those other Orbs have with us will think it probable that we are in progress towards perfection and that we that are so like them may be capable of their happiness § 18. XVIII If in this life God have little of the praise and glory of his works from those whom he created for it but contrarily be much dishonoured by them then there is another life in which he will be more honoured by them But the antecedent is true Ergo so is the consequent What a glorious fabrick hath God set man to contemplate and how little of it is here known so that Philosophy is found to be but a searching and wrangling about things which no man reacheth and yet an inquisitive desire we have And therefore sure there is a state in which these works of God shall be better known of us and God shall have the honour of them more than now His Laws also prescribe us excellent duties and his Servants are very excellent persons according to his own description But our infirmities our errors or divisions our miscarriages and scandals do so dishonour him and his ways that the glory of them is much obscured and blasphemers reproach him to his face and Godliness which the Law of Nature teacheth is derided as a foolish thing and as the meer effect of superstitious fear Now though all this doth no hurt to God yet he is capable of wrong who is uncapable of hurt And it is not to be believed that he will finally put up all this at his creatures hands and never vindicate his honour not never more shew the glory of his Grace his Image his Justice and Judgments than he now doth § 19. XIX The constant testimony of conscience in all men that have not mastered Reason by Sensuality and the common consent of all that are worthy to be called Men in all Ages and Countries upon earth doth shew that the life to come is a truth which is naturally revealed and most sure § 20. XX. The enemy of Souls doth against his will give man a four-fold reason to judge that there is a life of Reward and Punishment hereafter viz. 1. By Compacts with Witches 2. By Apparitions 3. By Satanical Possessions 4. By all kind of subtil importunate temptations which evidence themselves 1. Though some are very incredulous about Witches yet to a full enquiry the evidence is past question that multitudes of such there be Though many are wronged and some may be thought so foolish or melancholy as not to know what they say against themselves yet against such numerous
world they are that sort of men that are likest unto Beasts except some few at Siam China the Indian Bannians the Japonians the Ethnick Persians and a few more The greatest deformity of Nature is among them the least of sound knowledge true policy civility and piety is among them Abominable wickedness doth no where so much abound So that if the doctrin and judgment of these may be judged of by the effect it is most insufficient to heal the diseased world and reduce man to holiness sobriety and honesty § 6. I find that these few among the Heathens who attain to more knowledge in the things which concern man's duty and happiness than the rest do commonly destroy all again by the mixture of some dotâ—ges and impious conceits The Literali in China exel in many things but besides abundance of ignorance in Philosophy they destroy all by denying the immortality of the Soul and affirming rewards and punishments to be only in this life or but a little longer At least none but the Souls of the good say some of them survive and though they confess One God they give him no solemn worship Their Sect called Sciequia or Sciacca is very clear for the Vnity of the Godhead the joys of Heaven and the torments of Hall with some umbrage of the Trinity c. But they blot all with the Pythagorean fopperies affirming these Souls which were in joy or misery after a certain space to be sent again into Bodies and so to continue through frequent changes to eternity to say nothing of the wickedness of their lives Their third Sect called Lauru is not worth the naming as being composed of fopperies and sorceries and impostures All the Japonian Sects also make the world to be eternal and Souls to be perpetuated through infinite transmigrations The Siamenses who seem the best of all and nearest to Christians have many fopperies and worship the Devil for fear as they do God for love The Indian Bramenes or Bannians also have the Pythagorean errors and place their piety in redeeming Bruits because they have Souls which sometimes were humane The Persians dispersed in India who confess God and Heaven and Hell yet think that these are but of a thousand years duration And it is above a thousand years since they believed that the world should continue but a thousand years and then Souls be released from Hell and a new world made § 7. Their great darkness and uncertainties appear by the innumerable sects and differences which are among them which are incomparably more numerous than all that are found in all parties in the world besides I need not tell you of the 288 Sects or Opinions de summo bono which Varro said was in his days The difference which you may find in Laertius Hesechius and others between the Cynicks Peripateticks Academicks Stoicks Scepticks Epicureans c. with all their sub-divisions are enow In Japan the twelve Sects have their subdivisions In China the three general Sects have so many subdivisions that Varenius saith of them Singuli fontes Iabentibus paulatim seculis à fraudum magistris in tot maeandros derivati sunt ut sub triplici nomine trecentae mihi sectae inter se discrepantes numerari posse videantur sed hae quotidianis incrementis augentur in pejus ruunt Petrus Texeica saith of the Indians In Regno Gazeratensivarii sunt ritus sectae incolarum quod mirum vix familiam invenias in qua omnes congruant alii comedunt carnem alii nequaquam alii comedunt quidem sed non mactant animalia alii nonnulla tantum animalia comedunt alii tantum pisces alii tantum lac herbas c. Johan a Twist saith of the Indian Bramenes Numerantur sectae praecipui nominis octoginta tres sed praeter has minus illustrium magna est multitudo ita ut singulae familiae peculiarem fere foveant religionem It were endless to speak of all the Sects in Africa and America to say nothing of the beastly part of them in Brasil the Cape of good hope that is Soldania and the Islands of Cannibals who know no God nor Government nor Civility some of them They are not only of as many minds as countries but of a multitude of sects in one and the same country § 8. I find not my self called or enabled to judge all these people as to their final state but only to say that if any of them have a holy heart and life in the true love of God they shall be saved but without this no form of Religion will save any man be it never so right § 9. But I find it to be my duty to love them for all the good which is in them and all that is true and good in their Religion I will embrace and because it is so defective to look further and try what I can learn from others There is so much lovely in a Cato Cicero Seneca Antonine Epictetus Plutarch c. in the Religions of Siam in the dispersed Persian Ethnicks in India in the Bramans or Bannians of India in the Bonzii of Japan and divers others in China and else-where that it obligeth us not only to love them benevolently but with much complacence And as I will learn from Nature it self what I can so also from these Students of Nature I will take up nothing meerly on their trust nor reject any doctrin meerly because it is theirs but all that is true and good in their Religions as far as I can discern it shall be part of mine and because I find them so dark and bad I will betake me for further information to those that trust to supernatural Revelation which are the Jews Mahumetans and the Christians of which I shall next consider a-part § 10. II. As to the Religion of the Jews I need not say much of it by it self the Positive part of their doctrine being confessed by the Christians and Mahumetans to be of Divine Revelation and the negative part their denying of Christ is to be tryed in the tryall of Christianity The Reasons which are brought for the Christian Religion if sound will prove the Old Testament which the Jews believe it being part of the Christians Sacred Book And the same reasons will confute the Jews rejection of Jesus Christ I take that therefore to be the fittest place to treat of this subject when I come to the proofs of the Christian Faith I oppose not what they have from God I must prove that to be of God which they deny § 11. III. In the Religion of the Mahumetans I finde much good viz. A Confession of one only God and most of the Natural parts of Religion a vehement opposition to all Idolatry A testimony to the Veracity of Moses and of Christ that Christ is the Word of God and a great Prophet and the Writings of the Apostles true All this therefore where Christianity is approved
like have more noble and blessed Inhabitants Look to them if you would see his Love in its most glorious demonstration Justice also must be demonstrated if men will sin And if Hell be quite forsaken and Earth which is next it be partly forsaken of the favour of God for all that God may gloriously demonstrate his Love to a thousand thousand-fold more subjects of the nobler Regions than he doth demonstrate his Justice on in Hell or Earth But these two things I gather for the confirmation of my Faith 1. That the sin and misery of the World is such that it groaneth for a Saviour And when I hear of a Physician sent from Heaven I easily believe it when I see the wofull World mortally diseased and gasping in its deep distress The condition of the World is visibly so suitable to the whole Office of Christ and to the Doctrine of the Gospel that I am driven to think that if God have mercy for it some Physician and extraordinary help shall be afforded it And when I see none else but Jesus Christ whom Reason will allow me to believe is that Physician it somewhat prepareth my minde to look towards him with hope 2. And also the Evil of this present World is very suitable to the Doctrine of Christ when he telleth us that he came not to settle us here in a state of Prosperity nor to make the World our Rest or Portion but to save us from it as our enemy and calamity our danger and our Wilderness and trouble and to bring up our hearts first and then our selves to a better World which he calleth us to seek and to make sure of Whereas I finde that most other Religions though they say something of a Life hereafter yet lead men to look for most or much of their felicity here as consisting in the fruition of this World which experience tells me is so miserable § 3. Moreover I finde that the Law of entire Nature was no more suitable to Nature in its integrity than the Law of Grace revealed by Christ is suitable to us in our lapsed state so that it may be called the Law of Nature-lapsed and restorable Naturae lapsae restaurandae Nature entire and Nature depraved must have the same pattern and rule of perfection ultimately to be conformed to because lapsed man must seek to return to his integrity But lapsed or corrupted man doth moreover need another Law which shall first tend to his restoration from that lost and miserable state And it was no more necessary to man in innocency to have a suitable Law for his preservation and confirmation than it is to man in sin and guilt to have a Law of Grace for his pardon and recovery and a course of means prescribed him for the healing of his Soul and for the escaping of the stroke of Justice The following particulars further open this § 4. It seemeth very congruous to Reason that as Monarchy is the perfectest sort of Government which it is probable is even among the Angels so Mankinde should have one universal Head or Monarch over them Kingdoms have their several Monarchs but there is surely an Universal Monarch over them all we know that God is the primary Soveraign but it is very probable to Nature that there is a subordinate Soveraign or general Administrator under him It is not only the Scriptures that speak a Prince of the Devils and of Principalities and Powers and Thrones and Dominions among the happy Spirits and that talk of the Angels that are Princes of several Kingdoms Dan. 10. but even the Philosophers and most Idolaters have from this apprehension been drawn to the worship of such as an inferiour kinde of Deity And if man must have a subordinate universal King it is meet that it be one that is also Man As Angels and Devils have Principals of their own sort and nature and not of others § 5. It seemeth congruous to Reason that this Head be one that is fitted to be our Captain Generall himself to lead us by Conduct Precept and Example in our warfare against those Devils who also are said to have their Prince and General As Devils fight against us under a Prince of their own nature so is it congruous that we fight against them under a Prince of our own nature who hath himself first conquered him and will go on before us in the fight § 6. It is congruous to Reason that lapsed Man under the guilt of sin and desert of punishment who is unable to deliver himself and unworthy of immediate access to God should have a Mediator for his restoration and reconciliation with God If any be found fit for so high an Office § 7. And it is congruous to Reason that this Mediator be one in whom God doth condescend to Man and one in whom man may be encouraged to ascend to God as to one that will forgive and save him And one that hath made himself known to man and also hath free access to God § 8. It is congruous to Reason that lapsed guilty darkened sinners that know so little of God and of his Will and of their own Concernments and of the other World should have a Teacher sent from Heaven of greater Authority and Credit than an Angel to acquaint us with God and his will and the Life that we are going to more certainly and fully than would be done by Nature only That this is very desireable no man can doubt How gladly would men receive a Letter or Book that dropt from Heaven Or an Angel that were sent thence to tell them what is there and what they must for ever trust to Yea if it were but one of their old acquaintance from the dead But all this would leave them in uncertainty still and they would be doubtfull of the credit and truth of any such a Messenger And therefore to have one of fuller Authority that shall confirm his Word by unquestionable attestations would very much satisfie men I have proved that Nature it self revealeth to us a Life of Retribution after this and that Immortality of Souls may be proved without Scripture But yet there is still a darkness and unacquaintedness and consequently a doubting and questioning the certainty of it upon a carnal minde And it would greatly satisfie such if besides meer Reason they had some proof which is more agreeable to a minde in flesh and might either speak with some credible Messenger who hath been in Heaven and fully knoweth all these matters or at least might be certainly informed of his Reports And indeed to men that are fallen into such a dark depravedness of Reason and such Strangers to God and Heaven as mankind is it is become needful that they have more than natural light to shew them the nature the excellency and certainty of the happiness to come or else they are never like so to love and seek it and prefer it before all
know without this were to know without knowledge Faith is an act or species of knowledge it is so far from being contrary to reason that it is but an act of cleared elevated reason it is not an act of immediate intuition of God or Jesus Christ himself but a knowledge of the truth by the divine evidence of its certainty they that wrangle against us for giving reason for our Religion seem to tell us that they have none for their own or else reprehend us for being men If they had to do with them who make God to be but the Prime Reason would they say that Faith is something above Reason and therefore something above God I believe that our Reason or Intellection is far from being univocally the same thing with God's but I believe that God is Intellection Reason or Wisdom eminenter though not formaliter and that though the name be first used to signifie the lower derivative Reason of many yet we have no higher to express the Wisdom of God by nor better notion to apprehend it by than this which is its Image I conclude therefore that § 1. The Christian Religion must be the most Rational in the world or that which hath the soundest reason for it if it be the truest And the proof of it must be by producing the evidences of its truth § 2. The evidence which Faith requireth is properly called Evidence of credibility § 3. When we speak of Humane Faith as such Credibility is somewhat short of proper Certainty but when we speak of Divine Faith or a Belief of God evidence of Credibility is evidence of Certainty § 4. The great Witness of Jesus Christ or the demonstrative Evidence of his Verity and Authority was The HOLY SPIRIT § 5. The Word or Doctrin of Jesus Christ hath four several infallible testimonies of God's Spirit which though each of them alone is convincing yet all together make up this one great Evidence that is 1. Antecedently 2. Constitutively or Inherently 3. Concomitantly and 4. Subsequently of which I shall speak in course § 6.1 Antecedently the Spirit of Prophecy was a Witness to Jesus Christ Under which I comprehend the prediction also of Types He that was many hundred years before yea from age to age fore-told to come as the Messiah or Saviour by Divine prediction of Promises Prophesies and Types is certainly the true Messiah our Saviour But Jesus Christ was so foretold Ergo. 1. For Promises and Prophesies Gen. 3.15 presently after the Fall of Adam God said I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel As it is certain that it was Satan principally and the Serpent but instrumentally that is spoken of as the deceiver of Eve so it is as plain that it was Satan and his wicked followers principally and the Serpent and its seed only as the instruments that are here meant in the condemnation And that it is the seed of the woman by an excellency so called that is primarily here meant and under him her natural seed secondarily is proved not only by the Hebrew Masculine Gender but by the fulfilling of this Promise in the Expository effects and in other Promises to the like effect The rest of the Promises and Prophesies to this purpose are so many that to recite them all would swell the Book too big and therefore I must suppose that the Reader perusing the Sacred Scripture it self will acquaint himself with them there only a few I shall repeat Gen. 22.18 In thy seed shall all the Nations of the earth be blessed Gen. 49.10 The Scepter shall not depart from Judah nor a Law-giver from between his feet until Shiloh come The whole second Psalm is a Prophecy of the Kingdom of Christ Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing The Kings of the earth set themselves and the Rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his Annointed c. Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Sion I will declare the decree the Lord hath said unto me Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee Ask of me and I will give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession Be wise therefore O ye Kings be learned ye Judges of the earth serve the Lord with fear and rejoyce with trembling Kiss the Son lest he be angry and ye perish c. Psal 16.10 For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption Psal 22.16 17 18. Dogs have compassed me the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me they pierced my hands and my feet I may tell all my bones they look and stare upon me they part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture Psal 69.21 They gave me also gall for my meat and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink Isa 53. Who hath believed our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed for he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground he hath no form nor comeliness and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him He is despised and rejected of men a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and we hid as it were our faces from him he was despised and we esteemed him not Surely he hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows yet we did esteem him stricken smitten of God and afflicted But he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed All we like sheep have gone astray we have turned every one to his own way and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all He was oppressed and he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before the shearers is dumb so he opened not his mouth He was taken from prison and from judgment and who shall declare his generation For he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people was he stricken and he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death because he had done no violence nor was any deceit in his mouth Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him he hath put him to grief When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin he shall see his seed he shall prolong his days and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand He shall see of the travel of his soul and shall be satisfied by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justifie many for he shall bear their iniquities Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoil
disconsolate Disciples who had but lately sinfully forsaken him He giveth them no upbraiding words but meltingly saith to her Go to my brethren and say unto them I ascend unto my Father and your Father to my God and your God He after this familiarly converseth with them and instructeth them in the things concerning the Kingdom of God He maketh an Vniversal Pardon or Act of Oblivion in a Covenant of Grace for all the world that will not reject it and appointeth Messengers to preach it unto all and what ever pains or suffering it cost them to go through all with patience and alacrity and to stick at nothing for the saving of mens souls He gave the holy Spirit miraculously to them to enable them to carry on this work and to leave upon record to the world the infallible narrative of his Life and Doctrine His Gospel is filled up with matter of consolation with the promises of mercy pardon and salvation the description of the priviledges of holy Souls justification adoption peace and joy and finally He governeth and defendeth his Church and pleadeth our cause and secureth our interest in Heaven according to the promises of this his word Thus is the Gospel the very Image of the Wisdom and Goodness of God And such a Doctrin from such a Person must needs be Divine 2. And the Method and Style of it is most excellent because most suitable to its holy ends not with the excellency of frothy wit which is but to express a wanton fancy and please the ears of aery persons who play with words when they should close with wisdom and heavenly light such excellency of speech must receive its estimate by its use and end But as the end is most Divine so the light that shineth in the Gospel is Heavenly and Divine the Method of the Books themselves is various according to the time and occasions of their writing the objections against them are to be answered by themselves anon But the Method of the whole Doctrin of Christianity set together is the most admirable and perfect in the world beginning with God in Unity of Essence proceeding to his Trinity of Essential Active Principles and of Persons and so to his Trinity of Works Creation Redemption and Regeneration and of Relations of God and Man accordingly and to the second Trinity of Relations as he is our Owner Ruler and Chief Good And hence it brancheth it self into a multitude of benefits flowing from all these Relations of God to Man and a multitude of answerable duties flowing from our Correlations to God and all in perfect method twisted and inoculated into each other making a kind of cirulation between Mercies and Duties as in mans body there is of the arterial and venal bloud and spirits till in the issue as all Mercy came from God and Duty subordinately from man so Mercy and Duty do terminate in the Everlasting Pleasure of God ultimately and man subordinately in that mutual love which is here begun and there is perfected This method you may somewhat perceive in the description of the Christian Religion before laid down 3. And the style also is suited to the end and matter not to the pleasing of curious ears but to the declaring of heavenly mysteries not to the conceits of Logicians who have put their understandings into the fetters of their own ill-devised notions and expect that all men that will be accounted wise should use the same notions which they have thus devised and about which they are utterly disagreed among themselves But in a Language suitable both to the subject and to the world of persons to whom this word is sent who are commonly ignorant and unlearned and dull That being the best Physick which is most suitable to the Patients temper and disease And though the particular Writers of the Sacred Scriptures have their several Styles yet is there in them all in common a Style which is spiritual powerfull and divine which beareth its testimony proportionably of that Spirit which is the common Author in them all But of this more among the Difficulties and Objections anon But for the discerning of all this Image of God in the Doctrine of Jesus Christ Reason will allow me to expect these necessary qualifications in him that must discern it 1. That before he come to supernatural Revelations he be not unacquainted with those natural Revelations which are antecedent and should be foreknown as I have in this book explained them with their evidence For there is no coming to the highest step of the Ladder without beginning at the lowest Men ignorant of things knowable by Natural Reason are unprepared for higher things 2. It is reasonably expected that he be one that is not treacherous and false to those Natural Truths which he hath received For how can he be expected to be impartial and faithfull in seeking after more Truth who is unfaithfull to that which he is convinced of or that he should receive that Truth which he doth not yet know who is false to that which he already knoweth Or that he should discern the evidence of extraordinary Revelation who opposeth with enmity the ordinary light or Law of Nature Or that God should vouchsafe his further light and conduct to that Man who willfully sinneth against him in despight of all his former teachings 3. It is requisite that he be one that is not a stranger to himself but acquainted with the case of his heart and life and know his sins and his corrupt inclinations and that guilt and disorder and misery in which his need of mercy doth consist For he is no fit Judge of the Prescripts of his Physician who knoweth not his own disease and temperature But of this more anon § 8. III. The third way of the Spirits witness to Jesus Christ is Concomitantly by the miraculous gifts and works of Himself and his Disciples which are a cogent Evidence of Gods attestation to the truth of his Doctrine § 9. By the Miracles of Christ I mean 1. His miraculous actions upon others 2. His miracles in his Death and Resurrection 3. His predictions The appearance of the Angel to Zachary and his dumbness his Prophesie and Elizabeth's with the Angels appearance to Mary the Angels appearance and Evangelizing to the Shepherds the Prophesie of Simeon and of Anna the Star and the testimony of the wise Men of the East the testimony of John Baptist that Christ should baptize with the Holy Ghost and with Fire and that he was the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World These and more such I pass by as presupposed At twelve years of age he disputed with the Doctors in the Temple to their admiration At his Baptism the Holy Ghost came down upon him in the likeness of a Dove and a voice from Heaven said Thou art my beloved Son in Thee I am well-pleased When he was baptized he fasted forty dayes and nights and
senses these present things will be a strong temptation to us Prosperity and plenty wealth and honour ease and pleasure are accommodated to the desires of the flesh partly to its natural appetite and much more to it as inordinate by corruption And the flesh careth not for Reason how much soever it gainsay And then all these entising things are neer us and still present with us and before our eyes when Heavenly things are all unseen And the sweetness of honour wealth and pleasure is known by feeling and therefore known easily and by all when the goodness of things spiritual is known only by Reason and believing All which laid together with sad experience do fully shew that it must be a very great work to overcome this World and raise the heart above it to a better and so to sanctifie a soul 2. And worldly men do rise up against this Holy work as as well as worldly things Undenyable experience assureth us that through all the World ungodly sensual men have a marvellous implacable hatred to Godlyness and true mortification and will by flattery or slanders or scorns or plots or cruel violence do all that they are able to resist it So that he that will live a holy temperate life must make himself a scorn if not a prey The foolish wit of the ungodly is bent to reason men out of Faith Hope and Holiness and to cavill against our obedience to God and to disgrace all that course of life which is necessary to salvation And it is a great work to overcome all these temptations of the foolish and furious World Great I say because of the great folly and corruption of unregenerate men on whom it must be wrought though it would be smaller to a wise and considerate person To be made as an Owl and hunted as a Partridge or a beast of Prey by those that we converse with when we might have their favour and friendship and Preferments if we would say and do as they this is not easie to flesh and blood But its easie to the Spirit of God 3. The Devil is so notoriously an enemy to this sanctifying work that it is a strong discovery that Christ was sent from God to do it What a stir doth he first make to keep out the Gospel that it may not be Preached to the Nations of the World And where that will not serve what a stir doth he make to debauch Christs Ministers and corrupt them by ignorance heresie error schism domineering pride sensuality covetousness slothfulness and negligence that they may do the work of Christ deceitfully as if they did it not Yea and if it may be to win them to his service to destroy the Church by Oppression or Division under pretense of serving Christ And what cunning and industry doth this Serpent use to insinuate into great ones and Rulers of the Earth a prejudice against Christ and Godliness and to make them believe that all that are seriously Godly are their enemies and are against some interest of theirs that so he might take the sword which God hath put into their hands and turn it to his own service against him that gave it How cunning and diligent is he to seduce men that begin to set themselves to a Religious life into some false Opinions or dividing Sects or scandalous unjustifiable practice that thereby he may triumph against Christ and have something to say against Religion from the faults of men when he hath nothing to say against it justly from it self and that he may have something to say to those Rulers and People with whom he would fain make Religion odious How cunningly doth he engage ungodly men to be his Servants in seducing others and making them such as they are themselves and in standing up for sin and darkness against the light and life of Faith So that ungodly men are but the Souldiers and Preachers of the Devil in all parts employed to fight against God and draw men from holiness and justice and temperance to sin and to damnation So that it is a very discernable thing that Satan is the Head of one party in the World as the Destroying Prince of Darkness and deceit and that Christ is the Head of the other party as the Prince of light and truth and holiness And that there is a continued war or opposition between these two Kingdoms or Armies in all parts and ages of the World of which I have fullyer treated in another Book If any shall say How know you that all this is the work of Satan I shall have fitter occasion to answer that anon I shall now say but this that the nature of the work the tendency of it the irrationall erroneous or brutish tyrannical manner of doing it the internal importunity and manner of his suggestions and the effects of all and the contrariety of it to God and Man will soon shew a considerate man the author Though more shall be anon added V. All this aforegoing will shew a reasonable man that the Spirits Regenerating work is such as is a full attestation of God to that Doctrine by which it is effected And if any now say How prove you that all this is to be ascribed to Jesus Christ any more than to Socrates or to Seneca or Cicero I answer 1. So much truth of a sacred tendency as Plato or Pythagoras or Socrates or any Philosopher taught might do some good and work some reformation according to its quality and degree But as it was a lame imperfect doctrine which they taught so was it a very lame imperfect reformation which they wrought unlike the effects of the Doctrine and Spirit of Jesus Christ I need to say no more of this than to desire any man to make an impartial and judicious comparison between them And besides much more he shall quickly finde these differences following 1. That the Philosophers Disciples had a very poor dark disordered knowledge of God in comparison of the Christians and that mixt with odious fopperies either blasphemous or idolatrous 2. The Philosophers spake of God and the Life to come almost altogether notionally as they did of Logick or Physicks and very few of them Practically as a thing that mans happiness or misery was so much concerned in 3. They spake very jejunely and dryly about a holy state and course of life and the duty of Man to God in resignation devotedness obedience and love 4. They said little comparatively to the true humbling of a Soul nor in the just discovery of the evil of sin nor for self-denyall 5. They gave too great countenance to Pride and Worldliness and pleasing the senses by excess 6. The Doctrine of true Love to one another is taught by them exceeding lamely and defectively 7. Revenge is too much indulged by them and loving our Enemies and forgiving great wrongs was little known or taught or practised 8. They were so pitifully unacquainted with the certainty
by Miracles and therefore certain by a certainty of Divine belief § 21. I. They that observe in the Writings of the said Disciples the footsteps of eminent piety sincerity simplicity self-denyal contempt of the World expectation of a better World a desire to please and glorifie God though by their own reproach and sufferings mortification love to souls forgiving enemies condemning lyars with high spirituality and heavenly-mindedness c. Must needs confess them to be most eminently credible by a humane Faith They being also acquainted with the thing reported § 22. II. 1. That the Apostles were not themselves deceived I have proved before 2. That the Report was theirs the Churches that saw and heard them knew by sense And how we know it I am to shew anon 3. That they took their own salvation to lie upon the belief of the Gospel which they preached is very evident both in the whole drift and manner of their Writings and in their labours sufferings and death And that they took a Lie to be a damning sin He that doth but impartially read the Writings of the Apostles and Evangelists will easily believe that they believed what they preach'd themselves and lookt for salvation by Jesus Christ Much more if he further consider of their forsaking all and labouring and dying in and for these expectations And Nature taught them as well as Christ to know that a Lie was a damning sin They teach us themselves that Lyars are without as Dogs and not admitted into the Kingdom of God And that God needeth not our Lie to his Glory nor must we do evil that good may come by it Therefore they could never think that it would help them to Heaven to spend their labours and lay down their lives in promoting a known lie to deceive the World § 22. 4. That they expected temporal ruine by their Religion without any worldly satisfaction is manifest both in Christs prediction telling them that it would be so and in the tenour of his Covenant calling them to forsake life and all if they will be his Disciples and in the history of their own lives and labours in which they met with no other usage than was thus foretold them Many of them had not much wealth to lose but every man naturally loveth his ease and peace and life And some of them though not many had Worldly riches as Zacheus Joseph of Arimathea c. and commonly they had possessions which they sold and laid down the price at the Apostles feet And the Apostles had ways of comfortable living in the world instead of all this they underwent reproach imprisonments scourgings and death Commodity or preferment they could not expect by it Object But to men that had been but low in the world the very applause of the people would seem a sufficient satisfaction for their sufferings To be Teachers and have many followers is a thing that some people would venture liberty and life for Answ Lay all these following things together and you may be certain that this was not the case 1. Even women and many that were not teachers were of the same belief 2. The Teachers did all of them set up their Lord and not themselves but deâ—ased and denied themselves for his honour and service 3. Their way of teaching was in travel and labour where they must deny all fleshly ease and pleasure and so must have nothing but bare applause if that had been it which they sought after 4. They suffered so much reproach and shame from the unbelievers who were the rich and ruling party as would have much over-ballanced their applause among believers They were persecuted imprisoned scourged scorned and made as the off-scouring of the world 5. They were so many that no single person was like to be carried so far with that ambition when his honour was held in equality with so many 6. One of the great vices which they preach'd and wrote against was pride and self-seeking and over-valuing men and following sect-masters and crying up Paul Apollo or Cephas c. And those that thus sought to set up themselves and draw away Disciples after them were the men whom they especially condemned 7. If they had done as this objection supposeth they must have all the way gone on against their certain knowledge and conscience in teaching lies in matter of fact And though some men would go far in seeking followers and applause when they believe the doctrine which they preach themselves yet hardly in preaching that which they know to be false the stirrings of conscience would torment some of them among so many and at last break out into open confession and detection of the fraud 8. And if they had gone thus violently against their consciences they must needs know that it was their Souls as well as their lives and liberties which they forfeited 9. And the piety and humility of their writings sheweth that applause was not their end and prize if they had sought this they would have fitted their endeavours to it whereas it is the sanctifying and saving of souls through faith in Jesus Christ which they bent their labours towards 10. So many men could never have agreed among themselves in such a scatter'd case to carry on the juggle and deceit without detection Now tell us if you can where ever so many persons in the world so notably humble pious and self-denying did preach against pride man-pleasing and lying as damnable sins and debase themselves and suffer so much reproach and persecution and go through such labour and travel and lay down their lives and confessedly hazard their souls for ever and all this to get followers that should believe in another man by perswading men that he wrought miracles and rose from the dead when they knew themselves that all were lies which they thus laboriously divulged If you give an instance in the Disciples of Mahomet the case was nothing so no such miracles attested no such witnesses to proclaim it no such consequents of such a testimony none of all this was so but only a Deceiver maketh a few barbarous people believe that he had Revelations and was a Prophet and being a Souldier and prospering in War he setteth up and keepeth up a Kingdom by the Sword his Preachers being such as being thus deluded did themselves believe the things which they spake and found it the way to worldly greatness § 24. 5. That the witnesses of Christ were men of honesty and conscience is before proved 6. That it was not possible for so many persons to conspire so successfully to deceive the world is manifest from 1. their persons 2. their calling 3. their doctrine 4. and their manner of ministration and labours 1. For their Persons they were 1. Many 2. Not men of such worldly craft and subtilty as to be apt for such designs 3 Of variety of tempers and interests men and women 2. For their Callings the Apostles knew the
it is God's own attestation I have shewed before § 66. I have opened the validity of the Apostles testimony of the Resurrection and miracles of Christ and the first Churches certain testimony of the miracles of the Apostles both of them having a three-fold certainty Moral Natural and Supernatural In all which I have supposed that such a testimony the Churches have indeed given down to their posterity which is the thing that remaineth lastly to be here proved § 67. The doctrine and miracles of Christ and his Apostles have been delivered us down from the first Churches by all these following ways of history 1. By delivering to us the same writings of the Apostles and Evangelists which they received from their hands themselves as certain truth and delivered down as such to us even the holy Scriptures of the New Testament They that believed their words believed their writings and have told us their belief by preserving them for posterity as Sacred Verities In the holy Scriptures the life and death and doctrine of Christ is contained with the doctrine of the Apostles and so much of the history of their Preaching and Miracles as Luke was an eye-witness of or had certain knowledge of who was commonly Pauls companion by which we may partly judge of the Acts of the rest of the Apostles And if the Churches had not believed all these they would not have delivered them as the infallible Writings of the inspired Apostles to their Posterity § 68 2. The very successive Being of Christians and Churches is the fullest history that they believed those things which made them Christians and Churches which was the doctrine and miracles of Christ A Christian is nothing else but one that receiveth the Doctrine Resurrection and Miracles of Christ as certain truth by the preaching and Miracles of his great Witnesses the Apostles so many Christians as there ever were so many believers of these things there have been It was this Doctrine and Miracles that made them Christians and planted these Churches And if any man think it questionable whether there have been Christians ever since Christs time in the World All history will satisfie him Roman Mahometan Jewish and Christian without any one dissenting voice Pliny Suetonius Tacitus Marcellinus Eunapius Lucian and Porphyry and Julian and all such enemies may convince him He shall read the history of their sufferings which will tell him that certainly such a sort of persons there was then in the World § 69. 3. The succession of Pastors and Preachers in all generations is another proof For it was their office to read publickly and preach this same Scripture to the Church and World as the truth of God I speak not of a succession of Pastors in this one City or that or by this or that particular way of ordination having nothing here to do with that But that a certain succession there hath been since the dayes of the Apostles is past question For 1. Else there had been no particular Churches 2. Nor no baptism 3. Nor no publick Worship of God 4. Nor no Synods or Discipline But this is not denyed § 70. 4. The continuance of Baptism which is the kernel or sum of all Christianity proveth the continuance of the Christian Faith For all Christians in Baptism were baptized into the vowed belief and obedience of the Son and Holy Ghost as well as of the Father § 71. 5. The delivering down of the three breviate Symbols of Faith Desire and Duty the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue is the Churches delivery of the Christian Religion as that which all Christians have believed § 72. 6. The constant communion of the Church in solemn Assemblies and setting apart the Lords Day to that use was a delivery of the Christian Faith which those assemblies all professed to believe § 73. 7. The constant preaching and reading of these same Scriptures in those Assemblies and celebrating there the Sacrament of Christs death and the custom of open professing their Belief and the Prayers and praises of God for the Resurrection and Miracles of Christ are all open undenyable testimonies that these things were believed by those Churches § 74. 8. The frequent disputes which Christians in all ages have held with the adversaries of the Scripture and Christianity do shew that they believed all these Scriptures and the Doctrines and Miracles therein contained § 75. 9. The Writings of the Christians in all ages their Apologies Commentaries Histories Devotional treatises all bear the same testimony that we have these things by their tradition § 76. 10. The Confessions Sufferings and Martyrdom of many in most ages do bear the same testimony that they believed this for which they suffered and that posterity received it from them § 77. 11. The Decrees and Canons of the Synods or Councils of the Bishops of the Churches are another part of the history of the same belief § 78. 12. Lastly the decrees and laws of Princes concerning them are another part of the history shewing that they did believe these things § 79. And if any question whether our Scriptures which contain these histories and doctrines be indeed the same which these Churches received and delivered from the Apostles he may easily be convinced as followeth § 80. 1. Various Copies of it in the Hebrew and Greek text were very quickly scattered about the World and are yet found in all Nations agreeing in all material passages § 81. 2. These Scriptures were translated into many Languages of which there are yet extant the Syriack Arabick Ethiopick Persian c. which agree in all material things § 82. 3. It was the stated Office of the Ministers in all the Churches in the World to read these Scriptures openly to the People and preach on them in all their solemn Assemblies And a thing so publickly maintained and used could not possibly be altered materially § 83. 4. All private Christians were exhorted to read and use the same Scriptures also in their Families and in secret § 84. 5. This being through so many Nations of the World it was not possible that they could all agree upon a corruption of the Scriptures nor is there mention in any history of any attempt of any such agreement § 85. 6. If they would have met together for that end they could not possibly have all consented Because they were of so many mindes and parties and inclinations § 86. 7. Especially when all Christians by their Religion take it to be matter of damnation to adde to or diminish from these sacred Writings as being the inspired Word of God § 87. 8. And every Christian took it for the rule of his Faith and the Charter for his heavenly Inheritance and therefore would certainly have had his action against the Corrupters of it As the Laws of this Land being recorded and having Lawyers and Judges whose calling is continually to use them and men holding their Estates and safety by them if any would alter them all
A Sellius his milkie Veines and Pecquets Receptacle of the Chyle and Bartholines Glandules and the Vasa Lymphatica are of late discovery Galilaeus his Glasses and his four Medicaean Planets and the Lunary mutations of Venus and the strange either opacous parts and shape of Saturn or the proximity of two other Stars which mishape it to our sight the shadowy parts of the Moon c. with the innumerable Stars in the Via Lactea c. were all unknown to former ages Gilberts magnetical discoveries I speak not of those questionable Inferences which Campanella and others contradict the nature of many Minerals and Plants the chief operations and effects of Chymistry abundance of secrets for the cure of many diseases even the most excellent medicaments are all of very late invention Almost all Arts and Sciences are encreasing neerer towards Perfection Ocular demonstrations by the Telescope and sensible experiments are daily multiplyed Yea the World it self is not all discovered to any one part but a great part of it was but lately made known even to the Europeans whose knowledge is greatest by Columbus and Americus Vesputianus and it is not long since it was first measured by a Circumnavigation If the World had been eternall or of much longer duration than the Scripture speaketh it is not credible that multiplyed experiences would not have brought it above that Infancy of knowledge in which it so long continued Obj. Cursed Warrs by Fire and Depopulation consume all Antiquities and put the World still to begin anew Answ It doth indeed do much this way but it is not so much that Warre could do For when it is in one Countrey others are free and some would fly or lie hid or survive who would preserve Arts and Sciences and be teachers of the rest Who can think now that any Wars are like to make America or Galilaeus's Stars unknown again or any of the forenamed Inventions to be lost 2. Moreover it is strange if the World were eternall or much elder than Scripture speaketh that no part of the World should shew us any elder Monument of Antiquity no engraven Stones or Plates no Mausolus Pyramids or Pillars no Books no Chronological Tables no Histories or Genealogies or other Memorials and Records I know to this also cursed Warrs may contribute much But not so much as to leave nothing to inquisitive Successors § 2. II. It greatly confirmeth my belief of the Holy Scriptures to finde by certain experience the Original and Vniversal pravity of mans nature how great it is and wherein it doth consist exactly agreeing with this Sacred Word when no others have made such a full discovery of it This I have opened and proved before and he is a stranger to the World and to himself that seeth it not Were it not lest I weary the Reader with length how fully and plainly could I manifest it § 3. III. The certain observation of the universal Spiritual Warre which hath been carryed on according to the first Gospel between the Woman's and the Serpent's seed doth much confirm me of the truth of the Scriptures Such a contrariety there is even between Cain and Abel Children of the same Father such an implacable enmity throughout all the World in almost all wicked men against Godliness it self and those that sincerely love and follow it such a hatred in those that are Orthodoxly bred against the true power use and practice of the Religion which they themselves profess such a resolute resistance of all that is seriously good and holy and tendeth but to the saving of the resisters that it is but a publick visible acting of all those things which the Scripture speaketh of and a fulfilling them in all ages and places in the sight of all the World Of which having treated largely in my Treatise against Infidelity of the sin against the Holy Ghost I referre you thither § 4. IV. It much confirmeth me to finde that there is no other Religion professed in the World that an impartial rational man can rest in That man is made for another life the light of Nature proveth to all men And some way or other there must be opened to us to attain it Mahometanisme I think not worthy a confutation Judaisme must be much beholden to Christianity for its proofs and is but the introduction to it inclusively considered The Heathens or meer Naturalists are so blinde so idolatrous so divided into innumerable sects so lost and bewildred in uncertainties and shew us so little holy fruit of their Theology that I can incline to no more than to take those natural Verities which they confess and which they cast among the rubbish of their fopperies and wickedness and to wipe them clean and take them for some part of my Religion Christianity or nothing is the way § 5. V. It much confirmeth me to observe that commonly the most true and serious Christians are the holyest and most honest righteous men and that the worse men are the greater enemies they are to true Christianity And then to think how incredible it is that God should lead all the worst men into the truth and leave the best and godlyest in an error In small matters or common secular things this were no wonder But in the matter of Believing worshipping and pleasing God and saving of Souls it is not credible As for the belief of a Life to come no men are so far from it as the vilest Whoremongers Drunkards perjured persons Murderers Oppressors Tyrants Thieves Rebels or if any other name can denote the worst of men And none so much believe a Life to come as the most godly honest-hearted persons And can a man that knoweth that there is a God believe that he will leave all good men in so great an error and rightly inform and guide all these Beasts or living walking images of the Devil The same in a great measure is true of the friends and enemies of Christianity § 6. VI. It hath been a great convincing argument with me against both Atheisme and Infidelity to observe the marvelous Providences of God for divers of his servants and the strange answer of Prayers which I my self and ordinarily other Christians have had I have been and am as backward to ungrounded credulity about wonders as most men that will not strive against knowledge But I have been oft convinced by great experience and testimonies which I believed equally with my eye-sight of such actions of God as I think would have convinced most that should know as much of them as I did But few of them are fit to mention For some of them so much concern my self that strangers may be tempted to think that they savour of self-esteem and some of them the factions and parties in these times will by their interest be engaged to distaste And some of them have been done on persons whose after scandalous Crimes have made me think it unfit to mention them lest I should seem
And that so great a change and so holy a life is necessary to salvation hath proved a difficulty to some § 11. 9. The doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body is one of the greatest difficulties of all § 12. 10. So is Christ's coming into the World so late and the revealing of his Gospel to so few by Prophecy before and by Preaching since § 13. 11. So also was the appearing Meanness of the Person of Christ and of his Parentage place and condition in the World together with the manner of his birth § 14 12. The manner of his sufferings and death upon a Cross as a Malefactor under the charge of Blasphemy Impiety and Treason hath still been a stumbling-block both to Jews and Gentiles § 15. 13. So hath the fewness and meanness of his followers and the number and worldly preeminence and prosperity of unbelievers and enemies of Christ § 16. 14. The want of excellency of speech and art in the holy Scriptures that they equall not other Writings in Logical method and exactness and in Oratorical elegancies is a great offence to unbelievers § 17. 15. As also that the Physicks of Scripture so much differeth from Philosophers § 18. 16. As also the seeming Contradictions of the Scripture do much offend them § 19. 17. And it offendeth them that Faith in Christ himself is made a thing of such excellency and necessity to salvation § 20. 18. And it is hard to believe that present adversity and undoing in the World is for our benefit and everlasting good § 21. 19. And it offendeth many that the doctrine of Christ doth seem not suited to Kingdoms and Civil Government but only for a few private persons § 22. 20. Lastly the Prophesies which seem not intelligible or not fulfilled prove matter of difficulty and offence There are intrinsecal difficulties of Faith § 23. II. The outward adventitious impediments to the Belief of the Christian Faith are such as these 1. Because many Christians especially the Papists have corrupted the doctrine of Faith and propose gross falshoods contrary to common sense and reason as necessary points of Christian Faith as in the point of Transubstantiation § 24. 2. They have given the World either false or insufficient reasons and motives for the belief of the Christian Verity which being discerned confirmeth them in Infidelity § 25. 3. They have corrupted Gods Worship and have turned it from rational and spiritual into a multitude of irrational ceremonious fopperies fitted to move contempt and laughter in unbelievers § 26. 4. They have corrupted the doctrine of Morality and thereby hidden much of the holyness and purity of the Christian Religion § 27. 5. They have corrupted Church-history obtruding or divulging a multitude of ridiculous falshoods in their Legends and Books of Miracles contrived purposely by Satan to tempt men to disbelieve the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles § 28. 6. They make Christianity odious by upholding their own Sect and power by fire and blood and inhumane Cruelties § 29. 7. They openly manifest that ambition and worldly dignities and prosperity in the Clergy is their very Religion and withall pretend that their party or Sect is all the Church § 30. 8. And the great disagreement among Christians is a stumbling-block to unbelievers while the Greeks and Romans strive who shall be the greatest and both they and many others Sects are condemning unchurching and reproaching one another § 31. 9. The undisciplined Churches and wicked lives of the greatest part of professed Christians especially in the Greek and Latine Churches is a great confirmation of Infidels in their unbelief § 32. 10. And it tempteth many to Apostasie to observe the scandalous errors and miscarriages of many who seemed more godly than the rest § 33. 11. It is an impediment to Christianity that the richest and greatest the learned and the far greatest number in the World have been still against it § 34. 12. The custom of the Countrey and Tradition of their Fathers and the reasonings and cavils of men that have both ability and opportunity and advantage doth bear down the truth in the Countreys while Infidels prevail § 35. 13. The Tyranny of cruel persecuting Princes in the Mahometane and Heathen parts of the World is the grand Impediment to the progress of Christianity by keeping away the means of knowledge And of this the Roman party of Christians hath given them an incouraging example dealing more cruelly with their fellow-Christians than the Turks and some Heathen Princes do So that Tyranny is the great sin which keepeth out the Gospel from most parts of the Earth § 36. III But no Impediments of Faith are so great as those within us As 1. the natural strangeness of all corrupted mindes to God and their blindeness in all spiritual things § 37. 2. Most persons in the World have weak injudicious unfurnished heads wanting the common natural preparatives to Faith not able to see the force of a reason in things beyond the reach of sense § 38. 3. The carnal minde is enmity against the Holiness of Christianity and therefore will still oppose the receiving of its principles § 39. 4. By the advantages of Nature Education Custom and Company men are early possest with prejudices and false conceits against a life of Faith and Holiness which keep out reforming truths § 40. 5. It is very natural to incorporated Souls to desire a sensible way of satisfaction and to take up with things present and seen and to be little affected with things unseen and above our senses § 41. 6 Our strangeness to the Language Idiomes Proverbial speeches then used doth disadvantage us as to the understanding of the Scriptures § 42. 7. So doth our strangeness to the Places and Customs of the Countrey and many other matters of fact § 43. 8. Our distance from those Ages doth make it necessary that matters of fact be received by humane report and Historical Evidence And too few are well acquainted with such History § 44. 9. Most men do forfeit the helps of Grace by wilfull sinning and make Atheism and Infidelity seem to be desireable to their carnal Interest and so are willing to be deceived and forsaking God they are forsaken of him flying from the Light and overcoming Truth and debauching Conscience and disabling Reason for their sensual delights § 45. 10. Those men that have most need of means and help are so averse and lazy that they will not be at the pains and patience to read and conferre and consider and pray and use the means which is needfull to their information but settle their judgement by slight and slothfull thoughts § 46. 11. Yet are the same men proud and self-conceited and unacquainted with the weakness of their own understandings and pass a quick and confident judgement on things which they never understood It being natural to men to judge according to what they do actually apprehend and not according to what they should
you before the judgment-seats Christianity teacheth us to lament the sin of Tyranny the grand crime which keepeth out the Gospel from the Nations of Infidels and Pagans through the earth and eclipseth its glory in the Popish Principalities It teacheth us to resist tyrannical Usurpers in the defence of our true and lawful Kings But if it teach men patiently to suffer rather than rebelliously resist that is not from baseness but true nobleness of spirit exceeding both the Greek and Roman genius in that it proceedeth from a contempt of those inferiour trifles which they rebell for and from that satisfaction in the hopes of endless glory which maketh it easie to them to bear the loss of liberty life or any thing on earth and from obedience to their highest Lord. But in a lawful way they can defend their Countries and liberties as gallantly as ever Heathens did Object IX If your Religion had reason for it what need it be kept up by cruelty and bloud how many thousands and hundred thousands hath sword and fire and inquisition devoured as for the supporting of Religion and when they are thus compelled how know you who believeth Christianity indeed Answ This is none of the way or work of Christianity but of that sect which is raised by worldly interest and design and must accordingly be kept up In Christ's own family two of his Disciples would have called for fire from heaven to consume those that rejected him but he rebuked them and told them that they knew not what manner of spirit they were of and that he came not to destroy mens lives but to save them Will you now lay the blame of that consuming zeal on Christ which he so rebuketh The same two men would have been preferred before the rest to sit at his right hand and his left hand in his Kingdom and his Disciples strove who should be the greatest Did Christ countenance this or did he not sharply reprehend them and tell them that they must not have titles and domination as secular Princes have but be as little children in humility and their greatness must consist in being greatliest serviceable even in being servants to all If men after this will take no warning but fight and kill and burn and torment men in carnal zeal and pride and tyranny shall this be imputed to Christ who in his doctrine and life hath form'd such a testimony against this crime as never was done by any else in the world and as is become an offence to unbelievers Object X. We see not that the Leaders in the Christian Religion do really themselves believe it Pope Leo the tenth called it Fabula de Christo What do men make of it but a Trade to live by a means to get Abbies and Bishopricks and Benefices and to live at ease and fleshly pleasure and what do Secular Rulers make of it but a means to keep their subjects in awe Answ He that knoweth no other Christians in the world but such as these knoweth none at all and is unfit to judge of those whom he knoweth not True Christians are men that place all their happiness and hopes in the life to come and use this life in order to the next and contemn all the wealth and glory of the world in comparison of the love of God and their salvation True Pastors and Bishops of the Church do thirst after the conversion and happiness of sinners and spend their lives in diligent labours to these ends not thinking it too much to stoop to the poorest for their good nor regarding worldly wealth and glory in comparison of the winning of one soul nor counting their lives dear if they may but finish their course and ministery with joy Luk. 15. Act. 20. Heb. 13.7.17 c. They are hypocrites and not true Christians whom the objection doth describe by what names or titles soever they be dignified and are more disowned by Christ than by any other in the world Object XI Christians are divided into so many sects among themselves and every one condemning others that we have reason to suspect them all for how know we which of them to believe or follow Answ 1. Christianity is but One and easily known and all Christians do indeed hold this as certain by common agreement and consent they differ not at all about that which I am pleading for there may be a difference whether the Pope of Rome or the Patriarch of Constantinople be the greater or whether one Bishop must rule over all and such like matters of carnal quarrel but there is no difference whether Christ be the Saviour of the world or whether all his doctrine be infallibly true and the more they quarrel about their personal interests and by-opinions the most valid is their testimony in the things wherein they all agree it is not those things which they differ about that I am now pleading for or perswading any to embrace but those wherein they all consent 2. But if they agree not in all the Integrals of their Religion it is no wonder nor inferreth any more than that they are not all perfect in the knowledge of such high and mysterious things and when no man understandeth all that is in Aristotle nor no two interpreters of him agree in every exposition no nor any two men in all the world agree in every opinion who hold any thing of their own what wonder if Christians differ in many points of difficulty 3. But their differences are nothing in comparison of the Heathen Philosophers who were of so many minds and ways that there was scarce any coherence among them nor many things which they could ever agree in 4. The very differences of abundance of honest Christians is occasioned by their earnest desire to please God and do nothing but what is just and right and their high esteem of piety and honesty while the imperfection of their judgments keepeth them from knowing in all things what it is which indeed is that good and righteous way which they should take If children do differ and fall out if it be but in striving who shall do best and please their father it is the more excusable enemies do not so ideots fall not out in School-disputes or Philosophical controversies swine will not fall out for gold or jewels if they be cast before them in the streets but it 's like that men may 5. But the great sidings and factions kept up in the world and the cruelties exercised thereupon are from worldly hypocrites who under the mask of Christianity are playing their own game And why must Christ be answerable for those whom he most abhorreth and will most terribly condemn Object XII You boast of the holiness of Christians and we see not but they are worse than Heathens and Mahometans they are more drunken and greater deceivers in their dealings as lustful and unclean as covetous and carnal as proud and ambitious as tyrannical and
must give light to Christianity and prepare men to receive it And they think to know what is in Heaven before they will learn what they are themselves and what it is to be a man Cond 4. Get a true Anatomy Analysis or Description of Christianity in your minds for if you know not the true nature of it first you will be lamentably disadvantaged in enquiring into the truth of it For Christianity well understood in the quiddity will illustrate the mind with such a winning beauty as will make us meet its evidence half-way and will do much to convince us by its proper light Cond 5. When you have got the true method of the Christian doctrine or Analysis of faith begin at the Essentials or primitive truths and proceed in order according to the dependencies of truths and do not begin at the latter end nor study the conclusion before the premises Cond 6. Yet look on the whole scheme or frame of causes and evidences and take them entirely and conjunct and not as peevish factious men who in splenish zeal against another sect reject and vilifie the evidence which they plead This is the Devils gain by the raising of sects and contentions in the Church he will engage a Papist for the meer interest of his sect to speak lightly of the Scripture and the Spirit and many Protestants in meer opposition to the Papists to sleight Tradition and the testimony of the Church denying it its proper authority and use As if in the setting of a Watch or Clock one would be for one wheel and another for another and each in peevishness cast away that which another would make use of when it will never go true without them all Faction and contentions are deadly enemies to truth Cond 7. Mark well the suitableness of the remedy to the disease that is of Christianity to the depraved state of man and mark well the lamentable effects of that universal depravation that your experience may tell you how unquestionable it is Cond 8. Mark well how connaturally Christianity doth relish with holy souls and how well it suiteth with honest principles and hearts so that the better any man is the better it pleaseth him And how potently all debauchery villany and vice befriendeth the cause of Atheists and unbelievers Cond 9. Take a considerate just survey of the common enmity against Christianity and Holiness in all the wicked of the world and the notorious war which is every where managed between Christ and the Devil and their several followers that you may know Christ partly by his enemies Cond 10. Impartially mark the effects of Christian doctrine where ever it is sincerely entertain'd and see what Religion maketh the best men and judge not of serious Christians at a distance by false reports of ignorant or malicious adversaries And then you will see that Christ is actually the Saviour of souls Cond 11. Be not liars your selves lest it dispose you to think all others to be liars and to judge of the words of others by your own Cond 12. Be-think you truly what persons you should be your selves and what lives you should live if you did not believe the Christian doctrine or if you doe not believe it mark what effect your unbelief hath on your lives For my own part I am assured if it were not for the Christian doctrine my heart and life would be much worse than it is though I had read Epictetus Arrian Plato Plotinus Jamblichus Proclus Seneca Cicero Plutarch every word and those few of my neighbourhood who have fallen off to infidelity have at once fallen to debauchery and abuse of their nearest relations and differed as much in their lives from what they were before in their profession of Christianity though unsound as a leprous body differeth from one in comeliness and health Cond 13. Be well acquainted if possible with Church-History that you may understand by what Tradition Christianity hath descended to us For he that knoweth nothing but what he hath seen or receiveth a Bible or the Creed without knowing any further whence and which way it cometh to us is greatly disadvantaged as to the reception of the faith Cond 14. In all your reading of the holy Scriptures allow still for your ignorance in the languages proverbs customs and circumstances which are needful to the understanding of particular Texts and when difficulties stop you be sure that no such ignorance remain the cause He that will but read Brugensis Grotius Hammond and many other that open such phrases and circumstances with Topographers and Bochartus and such others as write of the Animals Utensils and other circumstances of those times will see what gross errors the opening of some one word or phrase may deliver the Reader from Cond 15. Vnderstand what excellencies and perfections they be which the Spirit of God intended to adorn the holy Scriptures with and also what sort of humane imperfections are consistent with these its proper perfections that so false expectations may not tempt you into unbelief It seduceth many to infidelity to imagine that if Scripture be the word of God it must needs be most perfect in every accident and mode which were never intended to be part of its perfection Whereas God did purposely make use of those men and of that style and manner of expression which was defective in some points of natural excellency that so the supernatural excellency might be the more apparent As Christ cured the blind with clay and spittle and David slew Goliah with a sling The excellency of the means must be estimated by its aptitude to its end Cond 16. If you see the evidences of the truth of Christianity in the whole let that suffice you for the belief of the several parts when you see not the true answer to particular exceptions If you see it soundly proved that Christ is the Messenger of the Father and that his word is true and that the holy Scripture is his word this is enough to quiet any sober mind when it cannot confute every particular objection or else no man should ever hold fast any thing in the world if he must let all go after the fullest proof upon every exception which he cannot answer The inference is sure If the whole be true the parts are true Cond 17. Observe well the many effects of Angels ministration and the evidences of a communion between us and the spirits of the unseen world for this will much facilitate your belief Cond 18. Over-look not the plain evidences of the Apparitions Witches and wonderful events which fall out in the times and places where you live and what reflections they have upon the Christian cause Cond 19. Observe well the notable answers of Prayers in matters internal and external in others and in your selves Cond 20. Be well studied at home about the capacity use and tendency of all your faculties and you will find that your very nature pointeth you up to
another life and is made only to be happy in that knowledge love and fruition of God which the Gospel most effectually leads you to Cond 21. Mark well the prophesies of Christ himself both of the destruction of Jerusalem and the successes of his Apostles in the world c. and mark how exactly they are all fulfilled Cond 22. Let no pretence of humility tempt you to debase humane nature below its proper excellency lest thence you be tempted to think it uncapable of the everlasting sight and fruition of God The devils way of destroying is oftentimes by over-doing The proud devil will help you to be very humble and help you to deny the excellency of reason and natural free-will and all supernatural inclinations when he can make use of it to perswade you that man is but a subtil sort of bruit and hath a soul but gradually different from sensitives and so is not made for another life Cond 23. Yet come to Christ as humble learners and not as arrogant self-conceited censurers and think not that you are capable of understanding every thing as soon as you hear it Cond 24. Judge not of the main cause of Christianity or of particular texts or points by sudden hasty thoughts and glances as if it were a business to be cursorily done but allow it your most deliberate sober studies your most diligent labour and such time and patience as reason may tell you are necessary to a learner in so great a cause Cond 25. Call not so great a matter to the trial in a case of melancholy and natural incapacity but stay till you are fitter to perform the search It is one of the common cheats of Satan to perswade poor weak and melancholy persons that have but half the use of their understandings to go then to try the Christian Religion when they can scarce cast up an intricate account nor are fit to judge of any great and difficult thing And then he hath an advantage to confound them and fill them with blasphemous and unbelieving thoughts and if not to shake their habitual faith yet greatly to perplex them and disturb their peace The soundest wit and most composed is fittest for so great a task Cond 26. When upon sober trial you have discerned the evidences of the Christian verity record what you have found true and judge not the next time against those evidences till you have equal opportunity for a full consideration of them In this case the Tempter much abuseth many injudicious souls when by good advice and soberest meditation they have seen the evidence of truth in satisfying clearness he will after surprise them when their minds are darker or their thoughts more scattered or the former evidence is out of mind and push them on suddenly then to judge of the matters of immortality and of the Christian cause that what he cannot get by truth of argument he may get by the incapacity of the disputant As if a man that once saw a mountain some miles distant from him in a clear day should be tempted to believe that he was deceived because he seeth it not in a misty day or when he is in a valley or within the house Or as if a man that in many days hard study hath cast up an intricate large account and set it right under his hand should be called suddenly to give up the same account anew without looking on that which he before cast up when as if his first account be lost he must have equal time and helps and fitness before he can set it as right again Take it not therefore as any disparagement to the Christian truth if you cannot on a sudden give your selves so satisfactory an account of it as formerly in more clearness and by greater studies you have done Cond 27. Gratifie not Satan so much as to question well resolved points as oft as he will move you to it Though you must prove all things till as learning you come to understand them in their proper evidence time and order yet you must record and hold fast that which you have proved and not suffer the devil to put you to the answer of one and the same question over and over as often as he please this is to give him our time and to admit him to debate his cause with us by temptation as frequently as he will which you would not allow to a ruffian to the debauching of your wife or servants and you provoke God to give you up to errour when no resolution will serve your turn After just resolution the tempter is to be rejected and not disputed with as a troublesome fellow that would interrupt us in our work Cond 28. Where you find your own understandings insufficient have recourse for help to some truly wise judicious Divine Not to every weak Christian nor unskilful Minister who is not well grounded in his own Religion but to those that have throughly studied it themselves you may meet with many difficulties in Theology and in the Text which you think can never be well solved which are nothing to them that understand the thing No Novice in the study of Logick Astronomy Geometry or any Art or Science will think that every difficulty that he meeteth with doth prove that his Author was deceived unless he be able to resolve it of himself but he will ask his Tutor or some one versed in those matters to resolve it and then he will see that his ignorance was the cause of all his doubts Cond 29. Labour faithfully to receive all holy truths with a practical intent and to work them on your hearts according to their nature weight and use For the doctrine of Christianity is scientia affectiva practica a doctrine for Head Heart and Life And if that which is made for the Heart be not admitted to the Heart and rooted there it is half rejected while it seemeth received and is not in its proper place and soil If you are yet in doubt of any of the supernatural Verities admit those truths to your hearts which you are convinced of else you are false to them and to your selves and forfeit all further helps of grace Object This is but a trick of deceit to engage the affections when you want arguments to convince the judgment Perit omne judicium cum res transit in affectum Answ When the affection is inordinate and over-runs the judgment this saying hath some truth but it is most false as of ordinate affections which follow sound judgment For by suscitation of the faculties such affections greatly help the judgment and judgment is but the eye of the soul to guide the man and it is but the passage to the will where humane acts are more compleat If your wife be taught that conjugal love is due to her husband and your child that filial love and reverence is due to his father such affections will not blind their judgments but contrarily they do
dividing it self from the rest causing schisme or contention in the Body or making a rent unnecessarily in any particular Church which is a part § 4. But when Parties and Sects do trouble the Church we must still hold to our meer Christianity and desire to be called by no other name than Christians with the Epithets of sincerity And if men will put the name of a Party or Sect upon us for holding to Christianity only against all corrupting Sects we must hold on our way and bear their obloquy § 5. What CHRISTIANITY is may be known 1. Most summarily in the Baptismal Covenant in which we are by solemnization made Christians in which renouncing the Flesh the World and the Devil we give up our selves devotedly to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as our Creator Redeemer and Sanctifyer 2. By the ancient summary Rules of Faith Hope and Charity the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Decalogue 3. Integrally in the sacred Scriptures which are the Records of the Doctrine of Christ and the Holy Spirit § 6. But there are many circumstances of Religious Worship which Scripture doth not particularly determine of but only give general Rules for the determination of them as what Chapter shall be read what Text preached on what Translation used what Meeter or Tune of Psalms what time what place what Seat or Pulpit or Cup or other Vtensils what Vesture gesture c. whether we shall use Notes for memory in preaching what method we shall preach in whether we shall pray in the same words often or in various with a book or without with many other In all which the People must have an obediential respect to the conduct of the lawfull Pastors of the Churches § 7. Differing opinions or practices about things indifferent no nor about the meer integrals of Religion which are not Essentials do not make men of different Religions or Churches universally considered § 8. Nothing will warrant us to separate from a Church as no Church but the want of something Essential to a Church § 9. The Essential or Constitutive parts of the Church Catholick or Vniversal are Christ the Head and all Christians as the Members § 10. All sincere and sanctified Christians are the members of the Church mystical invisible or regenerate And all Professors of sincere Christianity that is all Baptized persons not apostatised nor excommunicate are the members of the Church visible which is integrated of the particular Churches § 11. It is essential to particular political Churches that they be constituted of true Bishops or Pastors and of flocks of baptised or professed Christians Vnited in these Relations for holy communion in the worshipping of God and the promoting of the salvation of the several members § 12. It is essential to a true Bishop or Pastor of the Church to be in Office that is in Authority and Obligation appointed by Christ in subordination to him in the three parts of his Offices Prophetical Priestly and Kingly That is to teach the people to stand between them and God in Worship and to guide or or govern them by the Paternal exercise of the Keyes of his Church § 13. He that doth not nullifie or unchurch a Church may lawfully remove from one Church to another and make choice of the best and purest or that which is most suited to his own Edification if he be a Free-man § 14. But in case of such choice or personal removal the Interest of the whole Church or of Religion in common must be first taken into consideration by him that would rightly judge of the lawfulness of the fact § 15. If a Church which in all other respects is purest and best will impose any sin upon all that will have local communion with it though we must not separate from that Church as no Church yet must we not commit that sin but patiently suffer them to exclude us from their communion § 16. True Heresie that is an Error contradictory to an essential Article of the Christian Faith if it be seriously and really held so that the contrary truth is not held seriously and really doth nullifie the Christianity of him that holdeth it and the Church-state of that Congregation which so professeth it But so doth not that fundamental Error which is held but in words through ignorance thinking it may consist with the contrary truth while that truth is not denyed but held majore fide so that we have reason to believe that if they did discern the contradiction they would rather forsake the error than the truth But of this more elsewhere CHAP. XIV Consectary II. Of the true Interest of Christ and his Church and the Souls of Men Of the means to promote it and its Enemies and Impediments in the World SO great and common is the Enmity against Christianity in the World yea against the life and reality of it in all the Hypocrites of the Visible Church that the guilty will not bear the detection of their guilt And therefore the Reader must excuse me for passing over the one half of that which should be said upon this subject because they that need it cannot suffer it § 1. Every true Christian preferreth the Interest of Christ and of Religion before all worldly Interest of his own or any others For he that setteth himself or any thing above his God hath indeed no God For if he be not Maximus Sapientissimus Optimus Greatest Wisest and Best he is not God And if he be not really taken as such he is not taken for their God And he that hath no God hath no Religion And he that hath no Religion is no Christian And if he call himself a Christian he is an Hypocrite § 2. Though we must preferre the Interest of Christ and the Church above the Interest of our Souls yet must we never set them in competition or opposition but in a due conjunction though not in an equality I adde this to warn men of some common dangerous errors in this point some think that if they do but feel themselves more moved with another Ministers preaching or more edified with another way of Discipline they may presently withdraw themselves to that Minister or Discipline without regard to the Unity and good of the Church where they are or whatever publick evil follow it Whereas he that seemeth to deny even to his Soul some present edification for the publick good shall finde that even this will turn to his greater edification And some on the contrary extream have got a conceit that till they can finde that they can be content to be damned for Christ if God would so have it they are not sincere Which is a case that no Christian should put to his own heart being such as God never put to any man All the tryall that God putteth us to is but whether we can deny this transitory life and the vanities
to a soul when it is separated from the corporeal spirits Or if the soul out of the body were as liable as it is by diseases of the body while it is in it to the loss of memory yet all those arguments which prove the Life of Retribution hereafter do fully prove that God will provide it a way of exercise and prevent all those hinderances of memory which may make his Judgment and Retribution void Again therefore I say To argue ab ignotis against clear evidence in matters that our own everlasting joy or sorrow is concerned in so deeply is a folly that no tongue can express with its due aggravations OBJECTION XX. THe belief of the immortality of souls doth fill men with fears and draw them to superstition and trouble the peace of Kingdoms by unavoidable sects in the prosecution of those things which are of such transcendent weight when otherwise men might live in quietness to themselves and others and in promoting of the publick good Answ This is the maddest objection of all the rest but in our days there are men found that are no wiser than to make it I have answered it fully in divers popular Treatises as that called A Saint or a Bruit c. 1. The greatest and best things are liable to the worst abuses Thus you may argue against Reason that it doth but fill mens brains with knavish craft and enable them to do mischief and to trouble the world and to live themselves in cares and fears c. Upon many such reasons Cotta in Cic. de Nat. Deor. doth chide God for making man a rational creature and saith he had been happier without it And were it not for this wit and reason we should have none of these evils which you have here now mentioned Why then is not reason as well as Religion on that account to be rejected On the same reason Philosophy and Learning may be accused as it is with the Turks and Moscovites What abundance of sects and voluminous contentions and tired consuming studies have they caused witness all the volumes of Philosophers and School-men On the same account you may cry down Kings and Civil Government and Riches and all that is valued in the world for what wars and bloudshed hath there been in the world for Crowns and Kingdoms what hatred and contention for honour and wealth If you could make all men swine they would not stir for gold or pearls or if they were dogs they would not fight for Kingdoms and if they be blind and impious worldlings they will not be zealous about Religion unless to dis-spirit it and to reduce it to the service of their fleshly interest which is the hypocrites zeal No man will contend for that which he valueth not But 2. Consider that though dogs will not fight for Crowns they will fight for bones and some times need men of reason to stave them off And though swine fight not for gold they will fight for draff and burst their bellies if they be not governed And though unbelievers and Atheists trouble not the world to promote Religion they set Families Towns and Countries and Kingdoms together by the ears for their worldly pelf and fleshly interest Enquire whether the wars of the world be not most for carnal interest even where Religion hath been pretended and hearken in Westminster-hall and at the Assizes whether most of the contendings there are such as are caused by Religion or by the love of the world and of the flesh And where Religion seemeth to be a part of the cause it is the Atheists and ungodly that are commonly the chief contenders who think it not enough to hope for no life to come themselves but they cannot endure other men that do it because they seem wiser and better and happier than they and by their holiness gall their consciences and condemn them 3. The extremity of this objections impudency appeareth in this above all that it is most notorious that there is no effectual cure for all the villanies of the world but true Religion and shall the cure be made the cause of that disease 1. Read and judge in Nature and Scripture whether the whole matter of Religion be not perfectly contrary to the vices of the world Will it trouble Kingdoms or disquiet souls to love God above all and to honour and obey him and be thankful for his mercies and to trust his promises and to rejoice in hope of endless glory and to love our neighbours as our selves and to do no injustice or wrong to any to forbear wrath and malice lust adultery theft and lying and all the rest expressed in this treatise 2. Is it not for want of Religion that all the vices and contentions of the world are Would not men be better subjects and better servants and better neighbours if they had more Religion Would not they lie and deceive and steal and wrong others less Do you think he that believeth a life to come or he that believeth it not is liker to cut your purse or rob you by the high way or bear false witness against you or be perjured or take that which is not his own or any such unrighteous thing Is he liker to live as a good subject or servant who looketh for a reward in heaven for it or he that looketh to die as a beast doth Is he liker to do well and avoid evil who is moved by the effectual hopes and fears of another life or he that hath no such hopes and fears but thinketh that if he can escape the Gallows there is no further danger Had you rather your servant that is trusted with your estate did believe that there is a life to come or that there is none Nay why doth not your objection militate as strongly against the thief's believing that there will be an Assize For if the belief of an Assize did not trouble him he might quietly take that which he hath a mind to and do what he list but this fills his heart with fears and troubles 3. Compare those parts of the world Brasil and Soldania c. which believe not a life to come if any such there be with those that do and see which belief hath the better effects 4. What is there of any effectual power to restrain that man from any villany which he hath power to carry out or policy to cover who doth not believe a life to come 5. And if you believe it not what will you do with Reason or any of your faculties or your time How will you live in the world to any better purpose than if you had slept out all your life What talk you of the publick good when the denying of our final true felicity denyeth all that is truely Good both publick and private But so sottish and malignant an objection deserveth pity more than confutation Whatever Religious persons did ever offend these men with any reall Crimes I can assure
adjuvante naturâ tamen id quia fortuito fit semper paratum esse non potest Cic. de Or. Etsi ingeniis magnis praediti quidam dicendi copiam sine ratione consequuntur ars tamen dux certior est quà m natura Aliud enim est poetarum more verba fundere aliud ea quae dicas ratione arte distinguere Cic. de sin 4. You may rerceive the Heathens gâ—atâ—ud to God by the â—rdâ— of Cotta◠〈◊〉 Nat. Deor. 3. pag. 109 Numâ— is quod â—onus◠〈◊〉 grat as Dâ—s 〈◊〉 unâ—aâ—n At quod dives quod honoratu quod incolumis Jovemqâ—e Optimum Maximum ob eas res appellant non quod nos justos temperatos sapientes efficiat sed quod salvos incolumes opâ—lentos copiosos Judicium hoc omnium mortalium fortunam à Deo petendam à seipso sumendam esse sapientiam Parvulos nobis natura dedit igniculos quos celeriter in aliis moribus opinionibusque depravatis sic restinguimus ut nusquam naturae lumen appareat Nunc autem simulatque editi in lucem suscepti sumus in omni continuo pravitate versamur ut pene cum lacte nutricis errorem suxisse videamur cum vero parentibus redditi deinde magistris traditi sumus tum ita variis imbuimur erroribus ut vanitati veritas opinioni confirmatae natura ipsa cedat Cic. 3. Tusc Multis signis natura declarat quid velit obsurdescimus tamen nescio quo modo nec ea quae ab ea moventur audimus Cic. Lael Si tales nos natura genuisset ut eam ipsam intueri perspicere eâque optimâ duce cursum vitae conficere possemus haud esset sane quod quisquam rationem doctrinam requireret cum natura sufficeret Nune vero c. Cic. 3. Tusc Quicquid infixum ingenitum est lenitur arte non vincitur Sâ—n. O curvae in terris animae coelestium inanes Quid juvat hoc templis nostros immittere mores Et bona Diis ex hac scelerata ducere pulpâ Persius Non bove mactato coelestia numina gaudent Sed quae praestanda est sine teste fides Ovid. ep â—9 Omne nefas omnemque mali purgamine causam Credebant nostri tollere posse sene c. Ah! nimium faciles qui tristia crimina caedis Fulmineâ tolli posse putatis aquâ Ovid. 2. Fast Multa miser metui quia seei multa proterve Idem In malis sperare bonum nosi innocens nemo solet Senec. Turpe est quicquans mali perpetrare bene autem agere nullo periculo proposito multorum est id vero proprium boni viri est etiam cum periculo suo honestatem in agentem sequi Plut. in Mario At mens sibi conscia facti Praemetuens adhibet stimulos terrerque flagellis Nec videt interea qui terminus esse malorum Possit nec qui sit poenarum denique finis Atque eadem metuic magis haecne in morte gravescant Lucret. 3. Euvaglus saith That Constantine so honoured Sopater the Philosopher that he made him usually sit by him on the same bench Sure the Philosophers were falsly reported to Theoph. Antioch ad Autol. l. 2. p. 137. when he saith that Zeno Diogenes and Cleanthes's Books do teach to eat man's flesh and fathers to be rosted and eaten by the children and sacrificed by them c. Belyirg one another hath been the Devil's means to destroy charity on earth Sed nescio quomodo nil tam absurde dici potest quod non dicatur ab aliquo Philosophorum Cic. Divinat l. 2. p. 183. Sed haec cadem num censes apud cos iplos valere nisi admodum paucos à quibus inventa disputata conscripta sunt Quotus enim quisque Philosophorum invenitur qui sit ita moratus ita animo ac vitâ constitutus ut ratio postulat qui disciplinam suam non ostentationem scientiae sed legem vitae putet qui obtemperet ipse sibi decretis suis pareat Videre licet alius tanta levitate jactatione ut iis fâ—erit non didicisse necleus alioâ— pecuniae cupdoâ— gloriae nonnul los multos lib dinum servos ut cum corum vita mirabibiliter pugnet oratio quod quidem mihi videtur turpissimum Ut enim si Grammaticum se professus quispiam barbare loquatur aut si absurde canat is qui se haberi velit musicum hoc turpior sit quod in eo ipso peccet cujus profitetur scientiam sic Philosophus in ratione vitae peccans hoc turpior est quod in officio cujus magister esse vult labitur artemque vitae professus delinquit in vitâ Cic. Tusc l. 2. pag. 252. In To 4. Bib. Pat extat liber Hieronymi à Sancta Fide ex Judaeo Christiani contra Judaeos Talmud qui ut dicit Approbatio 5000 Judaeos ad fidem convertit pag 742 c. De Mahumetis origine c. vid. fragm ex Anastas Hist Eccl. in B.P. Gr. Lat. To. 2. pag. 289 c. Vid. Theodore Abucare Opuscul Mahumetem non esse ex Deo c. Et Euthymâ—i Zigaben Moamethica What the Christian Religion is judge not by the intruded opinions of any Sect but by the ancient Creeds and Summaries which elsewhere I have recited out of Tertullian and other ancients and which you may finde recited or referr'd to in Usher and Vossius de Symb. See the description of the Christian Faith in Proclus ad Armenios de fide in Bib. Pal. Graecolat To. 1. pag. 311. Also the Catechis of Junilius Africanus de part div Legis Et Hermenopul de Fide Orthod Leg Julian Toletin cont Judaeus Et Rabbi Samuel Marrochiani de adventu Messiae Gen. 1. * Caesarius Dialog 3. Q. 122. thinketh that Adam was forty dayes in Paradise and that therefore Lent is kept to shew our hungring after Paradise But that 's a singular Fansie And after he changed it upon some old mens tradition of a longer time Gen. 2. 3. Transtulit Deus hominem in Paradisum ei undique occasiones suggerens ut cresceret perfectus redderetur declaratus tandem Deus in astra ascenderet Mediam etenim conditionem obtinuit homo nec totus mortalis nec totus immortalis existens verum utriusque extitit particeps Theoph. Autio ad Autol. l. 1. p. 129. Gen. 3.15 Gen. 4. Gen. 5. Gen. 6. 7. Gen. 8 9. 10. 11. Gen. 12 to the end of the Book Exod per totum Exod. Numb Josh per tot Judg. 1 Sam. 1 King 2 King 1 Chron. 2 Chron. Ezra Nehem. Matth. 1 2 c. Luk. 1 2 c. Vid. Procli Homiliam de Nativ Christi interpret Peltano Matth. 4. Luk. 4. Vid. Microlog de Eccles observ cap. 23. All this is written by the four Evangelists Act. 1. Act. 2. Act. 2 3. Act. 9. Act. per tot 1 Cor. 8.4 6. Matth. 28.19 1 Joh. 5.7 1 Tim. 1.17 Ps 139.7
Drake We agree with you in Religion against the Portugals that we must not worship flocks and stones Fuller's Holy State in the Life of Sir Francis Drake out of a M.S. of one of his company What a scandal is such Worship against the Christian cause Act. 9.31 As for the grand controversie of per se aut per alium read Grotius de Imper. pag. 290 291. Nam illud quod quis per alium facit per se facere videtur ad eas duntaxat pertinet actiones quarum causa efficiens proxima à jure indefinita est Dr. Jer. Taylor of Repent â—ref I am sure we cannot give account of Souls of which we have no notice Leg. Athanas Patri Constantine de necessaria Episcop residentia Si vis Deorum speciem apprehendere proprietates Animae rationalis ultimae cogita oppositas in perfectione Diis attribue Jamblit de Myster per Ficiâ— * When Machumet had taken Constantinople and demanded of the Patriarch an account of the Christian saith Georg. Scholarius alias Gennadius then Patriarch wrote that brief summary which you may find in Mart. Crusius his Turco Graec. l. 2. Hist Eccles p. 10 c. which very well openeth the mystery of the Trinity and of Christianity with seven reasons of it Trâ— Platâ— and Aristotle were of one opinion abode the Soul Mirandula and Mars Ficinus upon Priscians â—heophrastus de Anima have largely laboured to evince Galen is known to speak many objections against Plato and the Soul's immortality but in other places he speaketh doubtfully And if really Neâ—esius had those words out of such a book of Galen as he citeth de Ani. c. 2. p. 481. he would then seem to have thought better of the Rational Soul Plotinus his last words were as Porphyry saith in his life I am now returning that which is Divine in us to that which is Divine in the Universe The Platonists opinion that the Soul is all the Man and that Animus cujusque is est quisque is incomparably more probable and of honester tendency than theirs that think the Body is all the Man Qui putant hominem esse ex Anima corporeque compositum consequenter utile à justo sejungunt Qui vero hominem esse animam conjungunt Proclus de Anim. doem per Ficin What then will they hold and do that think man is tantum corpus For as Proclus there saith and Cicero oft most Philosophers agree that vivere secundum suam naturam is man's great duty and felicity Therefore as men differ about man's Nature they will differ about his Duty and felicity They that think he is all Body will describe his work and his happiness accordingly a truth of sad and desperate consequence The truth is as Fire is per essentiam a moving enlightning heating substance so the soul is per essentiam a Life or Vital Principle and therefore as Porphyry argueth for the soul to die is for life it self to die or that which is per essentiam life to cease to be what it is Quibusdam qui ne ignem calere putant nisi cum manu contrectarint nihil credendum esse placet quod supra progredientem naturam videatur Multorum quoque studia tardantur quod id credere noluit quod minus sub â—orum cognitionem cadit quae errorum pravitas ex ingeniorum imbecilitate defluxit siquidem cum sensuum angustiae ex quibus hominem agnitio eruitur in externorum sensilium genere versentur satis notum esse debet his tanquam compedibus intelligentiae cursum retardari divinaque capessere nequire Paul Cartesâ—n 1 Sent. dis 9. p. 22. Read the Mystic Aegypt Chald. Philos to prove that souls are not corporeal and Nemesius and Mammertus If the soul be nothing but Matter and Motion then no man is the same this year as he was the last For Matter is in fluxu continuo as they object themselves anon We have not the same slesh and bloud to day which we lately had and the motion of this instant is not the same with the motion which succeedeth in the next So that no man's soul and consequently no man is long the same and so as I have said after Kings will lose their titles to their Crowns and all men to their lands as being not the same who were born heirs to them And there must be no rewards or punishments unless you will reward and punish one for another's faults And they need no more to fear the pain or death which will befall them than that which befall their neighbour because it is not the man that now is who must undergo it Nor should any man have a wife or child of his own one year together If they like not these consequents let them either prove that Identifying Matter and Motion are permanent or grant that some other permanent thing doth identifie the person See this as the argument of Ammonius and Numenias prest by Nemesius de Anim. c. 2. p. 477. Vid. Clean this argumenta pro animae corporeitate à Nemesio profligata ibid. p. 479 c. If the doctrine of Matter and Motion only were true there would never be any true miracles in the world but all things go on from motion to motion as the first touch did put them into a necessity whereas however the world hath been deluded by many fictions yet many certain miracles there have been Whether the removing of the mountain by saith mentioned by M. Paulus Venetus J. 1. cap. 18. be true or not and the non-dissolution of excommunicate bodies in Constantinople mentioned in Mart. Crusius his Hist Eccles Turco graec l. 2. with multitudes of the likes which most Historians have c. Yet certainly that there have been some such hath been fully proved unto many Those that fly to this ingenita dispositio vel pondus will in other words grant that Nature form or quality which they deny And those that grant nothing to move but former motion must needs make some degrees of motion daily to diminish in the World one thing or other still ceasing its motion and all motion within our knowledge having such constant impedition that before this time we may think all things would have stood still if their opinion were true If they say that the Sun or some superior Movers renew the motion of things inferior I grant it But that is because it hath a moving nature For if they say that the Sun it self hath not the least impedition to diminish the degrees of its motion they speak not only without any proof but contrary to our observation of all things known and to their own opinion who make the Air impeditive to other motions and the effluvia of other Globes to be impeditive to the Sun Sane ignis aër aqua terra suapte natura carent anima cuicunque horum adest anima hoc vita utitur peregrina Alia vero praeter haec nulla sunt corpora Plotin Ennead