they were the Residences thereof yet the ignorant Vulgar gave direct Worship thereto The Earth also was worshipped and particular Mountains Vallies Rivers Islands where evil Spirits had appeared but where they had fixed Oracles they liked better to have the Worship immediate to themselves as more congruous to Human Reason and more difficult to be disswaded The Vulgar did not so soon give direct Worship to Pictures as to Statues representing these imagined Deities to the Life not only in the shape of Man but in other terrible Shapes in which the Devils did appear as hath lately been evident among the Savage People in America who have their evil Gods who appear in Bodies of terrible Aspect and oft-times severely beat them and therefore they worship them with howling and great Terror Other evil Spirits transformed themselves into Angels of Light and appeared benign and favourable both to attain their Adoration and Trust and both pretended an Omniscience and gave Responses of the most uncertain and important Events of which they had most probable Conjectures knowing the Interests and Inclinations of those Persons who had Rule in publick Affairs and on whom they had Influence and in other things giving dark or dubious Responses which might be applied to any Event The Insolence also of some powerful Men made them affect to be adored and esteemed Gods which the Heathen Roman Emperors frequently did and some of the most flagitious of them were so impudent as to be adored when alive and at distance and had Temples and Altars consecrated to them The misapplied Gratitude to the Inventers of those things that are of great and common use to Mankind or those who were admired for their Dexterity in Government or Gallantry in War gave their Ghosts the Esteem to be accounted Gods Demi-Gods or Heroes unto which evil Spirits were very concurring so to seduce The Poets with their Poetical Fictions and the Pleasantness of their Verses did powerfully work upon the Imaginations of People and thereby radicate and increase the Belief of these Absurdities yet they kept still a Distinction and Subordination to the great God whom they called Zeus as the Fountain of Life They did also attribute to their Gods the greatest Vices and Infirmities of Men as Sleeping Recreation Consultation Faction Intrigues Quarrels and not only upon their own Interest but as they partied different Nations and Persons The more judicious counted these but Fables and though few durst express their Mind of the only true God for danger of the seduced Rabble yet many of the Philosophers did There were few of these false Gods that had the Dedication of Temples but were worshipped at Rivers Mountains or other places from which Voices or some extraordinary Signs were heard or seen there at last it came to that height of Absurdity that all believed that wheresoever they would make up an Image or a Statute a Deity would take up Residence there and be their Protector and answer their Prayers Yea the ruder sort ador'd Stocks and Stones and the vilest of Creatures as Deities without the Opinion of any resident Spirit so that not only every Nation but every City and Family had their different Gods These Abominations came to that height that the World became asham'd and wearied of them and would have quit them if their Priests who had Honour and Profit by them had not co-operated with evil Spirits to support them The Romans made it an Interest of State to acknowledg the Deities of all the Nations that they subdued the better to keep them under Obedience It was not Reason but Interest that supported the Plurality of Gods The Silver-smiths of Ephesus did with Tumult and Fury cry up Diana of the Ephesians but their Leader did more ingenuously tell those of his Trade than the rest of the Multitude that by making the Shrines of Diana they had their Wealth In this Condition was the World except among the Jews where Religion was turned to a meer Formality and corrupted with Man's Inventions pretended to be Divine Traditions when Christ came to bring Life and Immortality to light which did hardlier obtain with the Jews than with the Gentiles who were become so irrational in their Worship and therefore the great Apostle of the Gentiles doth not make use of Signs and Miracles but of Reason and the Light of Nature to convince them to know the only true God For they sought Wisdom but the Jews could not be convinced without Miracles to forsake their Ceremonial Worship which they became grosly to mistake as if it had been a perpetual Institution sufficient of it self to purge away Sin So the Light of Nature concerning the only true God revived and made way for the Gospel whereby the Multiplicity of Gods is no where to be found but among the barbarous Nations who kept no Correspondence or Commerce with the rest of the World such as the wildest Tartars the Chineses Japoneses and Americans The clearing up of the true meaning of the Old Testament from the Jews fond Mistake of the Prophecies of the Messia convinced many even by the Light of Nature that God behoved to be just but if without Satisfaction to his Justice he could have pardoned one Sin he might have also pardoned all Sin and so have been without Punitive Justice therefore there was necessity that the Messiah ought to suffer for Sinners The Antiquity and the Reasonableness of the Christian Religion broke much of the Obstinacy both of the Jews and Gentiles and the Grace of God so far prevailed that a great part of the World imbraced and cleaved unto the Christian Religion upon its own account not only without but against all Worldly Interest in that they did even exceed in the desire of Martyrdom But when the Roman Emperors accepted of and established the Christian Religion whereby worldly Interests did attend it in a short time the Roman Empire which then did extend it self to the far greatest part of what was known to be habitable of the World in a great part received it more as the Law of the Empire than as the Law of Christ and were instrumental to make it look as like the Pagan Superstition as they could whereby great Corruption both in Opinion and Practice did ensue In place of the Heathenish Sacrifices the Eucharist was made the Sacrament of the Altar the Presbyters were made Priests and in place of the Heathens Demi-Gods came the Canonized Saints and not only their Ghosts in Heaven but the Relicks of their Bodies upon Earth were brought in to share with God in Adoration without any other but a verbal Distinction for both Prayers and Praises were plentifully perform'd to them and multitudes of Temples dedicated to them Albeit Peter even when present would not suffer Cornelius to kneel before him nor Paul and Barnabas those who offered to sacrifice to them convincing them with that one Reason That they were Men Nor would the glorious Angels accept of such Service as
yet at his right Hand there is Fulness of Joy and Pleasures for evermore that is in the State of Glory But there may be even here so much Joy from meditating upon God which all other Objects cannot parallel much less exceed or extinguish 9. The Scripture doth frequently inculcate the Benefit of knowing God of remembring him of meditating upon his Perfections his Laws and Dispensations and gives it as the Character of the Wicked that they know not God that they remember not God that they have him not before their Eyes whom to know is Life everlasting This is Life eternal to know God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent The Knowledg of God cannot formally be Life eternal but it is the Mean necessary to attain it because it doth excite that Joy in which it doth chiefly consist It is said of the Wicked that God is not in all their Thoughts that is so far as they can shun and that they will have no Thoughts of the most High the Thoughts of God crush their sinful Inclinations and Pleasures which fall before them as Dagon did before the Ark of God Job gives it as a discriminating Test between the Godly and the Hypocrite only knowable by every Man of himself when he says of the Hypocrite Will he delight himself in the Almighty Will he always call upon God 10. There is a Knowledg of God by the Light of Nature by Acquisition in Improvement of the Light of Nature and Experience by Revelation of that which hath no Principle in the Light of Nature by spiritual Illumination whereby spiritual things are discernable which the natural Man cannot know because they are spiritually discerned and his Notions of them are but as those of a Country from a Map and according to these several kinds of Knowledg must the different kinds of Meditation and the different Degrees of Joy Love Reverence Obsequiousness and Confidence in God arise and the true Humility of the Soul of Man not so much by debasing it below its true Value but by exalting God and perceiving the Infinite Distance of Perfection betwixt the two which may equally be between two Objects by heightning the one or by depressing the other The Monkish Humility is much in disgracing humane Nature which is not without reflecting upon its Author and doth not only loath humane Nature in so far as sinful The Stoicks fall into the like Fault by looking upon all Affections as vitious Perturbations not endeavouring to rule and use them but to root them out as if a Horse should not be made use of because some ill-managed Horse will kick off his Master or break his Bridle and run away or as if a Sail should not be used because sometimes it oversets a Ship Indeed weak or vitiated Minds were better if they wanted all Affections to be their Servants than having them to be their Masters 11. The natural Knowledg of God improved by Industry and Experience goeth a great way even in Religion for the Light of the natural Conscience convinceth a Man that there is one and only one God who is the just Judg of all rational Creatures and knoweth their most secret Thoughts and that he rules them and the whole World and that they find in their Souls a Rule of their Life a Quiet and Pleasure in their Conscience when they keep it and a Terror when they break it yea they have the natural Notion of the Mercy and Forgiveness of God to penitent Sinners and they think that every Man can repent if he please but they are utterly confounded and at a loss when they consider the Consistency of the Justice and Mercy of God how all might repent and all be forgiven and yet that God is entirely just and fully abhors Sin The Entry of Reveal'd Religion discovering a Messias or Mediator delivering his People from their Sins by his Sufferings is no small Confirmation of the Truth of that Religion inducing a strong Probability of it though nothing but the Divine Illumination can breed a full Perswasion of it nor give Warrant to force the imbracing and professing it as may be done for the Light and Law of Nature as well for Religion as far as it goes as for other Ends. Something of Religion will arise from the Notion of a Deity convincing that God is to be adored by Acknowledgment of his Power Bounty Justice and Mercy by Supplication for his Favour and the Requisites of Life by Deprecations of his Displeasure Justice and Wrath Praise and Thanksgiving for Benefits received or hoped Much more will result from the improved Knowledg of God by the Light of Nature and yet more by the Probability of his revealed Will. Whereby it cannot but be acknowledged that if these things be true which are contained in Scripture God's Bounty and Mercy to Mankind is far greater than what could be dreamed of from the Light of Nature But all this is far short of the Knowledg arising from the Illumination of the Holy Spirit in the Souls of the Regenerate by which they are capable of a far more glorious and firm Apprehension of the Divine Perfections and Dispensations and a quite other and far greater Joy therein and in the Perswasion of Peace and Reconciliation with God and in the Hope of that Glory which is greater than Ear hath heard or Eye hath seen or hath entred into the Heart of Man to consider 12. The Knowledg of God even in the Renewed hath great Variety of Degrees and it is both the Interest and Duty of all of them to extend it so far as their Capacity and Opportunities do enable them that they may increase their Comfort and strengthen their Faith against the Suggestions of Satan and the Seductions of weak or wicked Men misrepresenting God not so much in his Power and Wisdom as in his Goodness and Purity whereby they do exceedingly incroach upon that Infinite Loveliness whereby he draws and ravishes the Souls of Men and doth not only drive them by the Power of his Soveraignty Some represent God as if his Soveraignty were his highest Perfection and his greatest Interest as despotick Soveraigns represent themselves to be above all Law and to be indifferent whom to save or whom to destroy without any consideration of their Actings but to shew their absolute and arbitrary Power and that they neither love their Subjects nor care for the Love of their Subjects but for their Fear that may make them obey without Reserve How strange is it that so many eminent Divines should represent God as if the Order of his Decrees were not only to glorify some and not for their foreseen Performances by their own Power but to eternally torment the greatest part of his rational Creatures without the consideration of their Sin as coming in not as a Motive from the Foresight thereof but as a Mean to that End Others are amaz'd when they consider the Goodness of God why infinite Duration pass'd before he
being fellow-Servants None of these did insist with a Distinguo that they were not worshipping them with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither is there any Precept or one Example in all the Scripture of praying to an absent Creature I know nothing can be pretended but that when the Scripture was published there was no canonizing of Saints and it 's very far from evidence that all who were canonized were truly Saints much less that their supposed Relicks were true if then Men be worshipping some damned Spirits if that be not Idolatry I know what can be but there is no ground of Confidence that no Pope hath err'd in canonizing which being a matter of Fact they do not pretend Infallibility in it I wish these Men would seriously consider how it is possible to shun the attributing of the incommunicable Perfections of God to Creatures the same Hours of publick Devotion being common through that whole Saint-worshipping Church If some Millions be at once praying to the same Saint can meer Human Nature be raised to that height to hear all those at once when there is not the least ground to believe that they can hear any one of them And suppose their groundless Invention that they see all in speculo Trinitatis yet they cease not to be such a Multitude reflected to their Knowledg at once so that they must make them Gods or else they must acknowledg themselves Idolaters And on their own Grounds it is yet more strange that they wholly neglect Abraham Isaac and Jacob Job Samuel and Daniel whom God hath singled out as the strongest Intercessors and Moses and Aaron whom God hath canonized the Scripture calling him the Saint of God If any Creature were to be worshipped in absence there were most to be said for worshipping Angels which yet is expresly forbidden and with the same Breath all Worship which God hath not required As the Heathens divided among their Gods the several Offices by which they might be useful to Men so they do exceed them in attributing to particular Saints their several Offices not only to Men but to Beasts to all the parts of Men and all their Diseases without the least Pretext of Reason they do not pretend even by their unwritten Traditions that God hath declared any such thing or that these Saints have so declared so that they must not only order all the Saints upon Earth but all the Saints in Heaven If the Saints be adorable how comes it that every one adores what Saint he pleases and neglects the rest And by what Warrant do they assign them their Tasks if it were their Duty to worship all as they do some The Burden of the Jewish Ceremonies were a small matter to theirs The Singularity of the Deity is not incroached upon by the blessed Trinity being in Unity in one individual God as the Word of God hath fully expressed it It is indeed a Mystery for the Knowledg of which we have no inbred Principle but it is a proper Object of our Faith In many Points of the Christian Religion the Light of Nature goeth a great length in the way of Science by a rational Deduction from self-evident Principles and the exact Harmony between the Light of Nature and the Scripture gives a mutual Confirmation of the truth of both yet both are rather Science than Faith until God by his free Grace endue Men with a sense of Spiritual Things which the natural Man cannot discern because by Nature he hath not that Sense by which they are perceivable There might have been other Objects of Sense and other Senses of these Objects and therefore we need not think it strange that God giveth a new inward Sense to the Regenerate only by which they believe the Trinity in Unity and the Incarnation of the Son of God the Covenant of Redemption and Grace the Mediator's willing and free Submission of himself to suffering in his Human Nature even to Death for Man that God's Justice might so be satisfied and his Purity and Abhorrence of Sin vindicated that free electing Love might take place in which the Elect could attribute nothing to themselves but all unto the free Grace of God The Light of Nature doth or may perswade all Men that God is merciful to penitent Sinners and yet that he is also essentially just and if it could have consisted with his Justice without Satisfaction thereto to pardon one Sin there could be no reason why to pardon one more than another and therefore God might have been without Punitive Justice Justice also differs from Benignity that it keeps a just Proportion between the Sin and the Punishment and therefore if all Sinners deserved Exclusion from God's Favour none of them could satisfy for himself much less could any one receive Pardon and Reconciliation by the Sufferings of all the rest but here the sharpest Natural Reason is confounded and left in the dark till Revelation and Faith step in discovering the Mediator 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose Humanity made him capable to suffer and the Dignity of his Person gave his Suffering an infinite Value and the outward Revelation of it might induce a strong Perswasion that supposing God had so done the Consequence were good and that it were likely that he had so done but to have a true Faith and full Perswasion of it upon Tradition written or unwritten requires more than Reasoning can infer Hence it is that Compulsion is adhibited for Religion so far as the clear Light of Nature goeth because there is the strongest Evidence beyond any other natural Duty in which none are spared from Coaction and Punishment but they are rather heightened by pretending the want of Perswasion because the Light of Nature is full and clear and the diverting the Thoughts or shutting the Eyes of the Understanding can no more excuse than if a Man should deny that there were Light at Mid-day because he would not open his Eyes to let it enter But we are not in that Capacity as to supernatural Light and therefore it is both against Religion and Humanity to compel Men to supernatural and institute Religion where they believe not these revealed Principles from which ordinary Capacities cannot refuse clear Inferences which require not long Deductions Those who pretend the Unity against the Trinity of the Deity because they cannot comprehend it must deny the Incomprehensibility of God which his Word so often asserts yea the whole Tenor of the Word And their pitiful Evasions do too strongly evidence that they only own the Scriptures lest they should be odious and that they have no more than Natural Religion but not the Christian Religion because they imagine God can forgive Sin without all Satisfaction to his Justice which is against the Light of Nature which can neither admit of an injurious God nor of a Justiceless God Those who from the Trinity wave all Reasons against a carnal Presence in the Eucharist
and Reason No Man could know there were any real thing existent beside himself nor what or whence himself were Atheists are come to that height of Impudence as to pretend that they are the Wits of the World who will believe nothing but what is certain and evident and will not believe that there is a God because they see it not evident in which they are evidently the grossest Ignorants as well as the most imprudent Fools Ignorant they are because they found all their Interest upon an inconsistent Lie supposing certainty of Knowledg from themselves when yet they find themselves often deceived yea supposing themselves undeceiveable whereas it is impossible to attain to any certain Rule of Man's Life without supposing a Deity abounding in Truth and which cannot lie or deceive How could any be sure of any outward Impression of Sense for the same Impression may be in the Sense or Brain not from an extrinsick but from an intrinsick Cause Those whose Eyes are vitiated with any unnatural Tincture think they see all Objects painted with certain Colours but falsly Yea the Hypochondriack think they see not only false Colours but even Bodies and Shapes without any extrinsick Impression What strange Sounds doth the disordered Ear represent Taste and Smell may not only be depraved but deprived how then could Certainty be inferred from Sense if it were not presupposed that the Author of Sense were true and would not deceive and therefore hath given his reasonable Creatures Understanding distinct from Sense which can reflect upon its own Apprehensions and perceive the Condition of the Organs and Medium of Sense and make use of the concurring Testimonies of other Senses and the natural self-evident Principles in the Mind and thereby rest in perfect assurance which must explicitly or implicitly rest upon this ground that God the Author of these Faculties is true and cannot deceive and therefore the Creature may securely rest in the Concurrence of them This is yet more evident in the inbred first Principles of Knowledg contemplative or practical How could any certainly believe that these were true if he did not believe the Truth of God that gave them The concurring Testimony of Men through the World could not suffice for that Testimony is known by Sense by Word or Writing yea tho one Man could travel through the whole World and speak with all the Persons in it that were yet by Sense which needs those inbred Principles of Reason to secure it against Error there could no more be firmly concluded than that these Notions being common among People that keep no Intercouse they cannot be from Men but from a superior Cause which yet would not conclude if that Cause were not infallible which could neither be deceived nor deceive As the Truth of God is a necessary Foundation of the Certainty of natural Knowledg it must be no less necessary for the Certainty of revealed Knowledg For if God could lie or deceive how were it possible to know the truth of Revelations and distinguish them from the Illusions of Devils or Men not from Miracles which might be from God's Omnipotence and could not conclude without his Veracity not from the Assertion of the greatest Apostle and most glorious Angel For Paul saith If we or an Angel from Heaven shall preach another Gospel to you let him be accursed which necessarily implies that if a contrary Doctrine were preach'd from God it behoved to overturn his Veracity for otherwise the posterior Testimony of Paul or of an Angel would be derogatory and preferable to the prior It were not possible to know that God were Holy Benign Just Merciful Faithful Wise and Soveraign if he were not absolutely true for it is clear that these could not be believed because God said it if he were not unchangeably true nor could any part of his Holiness or Godlikeness be believed without believing that he is true there being nothing more sutable to the Deity than Truth which being surely believed all his other Perfections must be believed because God that cannot lie hath declared them by Reason and Revelation I am not moved with that Objection against the Apostle's Assertion that God altered the Constitution and Order of the Jewish Church and why might be not then without incroaching upon his Veracity alter the Christian Church The Reason is clear because in the Christian Religion it is a chief part that there is no Name given under Heaven by which Salvation can come but by the Name of Jesus and that there is never another way to be accepted or expected tho by the Annunciation of an Angel from Heaven this was never said of the Jewish Oeconomy The Truth of God being so fundamentally necessary to be believed God in his Wisdom and Goodness hath given the strongest Evidences of it There can be nothing more contrary to the Principles of natural Light than to imagine a lying or deceiving God There is nothing so powerfully and peremptorily asserted in the Scripture as the Truth of God who is called the God of Truth and Christ calleth himself the Truth in abstracto In the Character and Description God gives of himself to Moses he declareth himself merciful and gracious long-suffering and abundant in Goodness and Truth and he is a God full of Compassion and gracious long-suffering and plenteous in Mercy and Truth his Mercy is everlasting and his Truth endureth to all Generations Seldom is the Truth of God mentioned but with his Mercy for Mercy could be of no moment if God's Truth were not absolutely sure By Mercy and Truth Iniquity is purged saith Solomon and Mercy and Truth preserve the King God's Word is frequently called the Word of Truth But that which is most signal to convince us of the Truth of God is that he declareth it is impossible for God to lie Truth doth import 1. The Conformity between the Signs instituted to express Thoughts and the Thoughts whether these Signs be by Word or Writ or by other Signs as beckning with the Hand or the Head or the raising a pleasant Aspect in the Countenance to signify Assent Approbation or Acceptance which is more properly called Sincerity and Truth by such Signs is called Veracity Truth doth also extend to the Conformity between the Thoughts and the Objects thereof and so Truth is said to be in the Heart and to the Conformity of Words spoken or written or other Signs unto things signified tho not conform to the Thoughts or Judgment of him that expresseth them so there may be Veracity without Verity when Words are conform to the Judgment of him that speaketh but not to the thing signified yet both may concur with design to seduce or lead into Error or evil Practice when the Premises are expressed and the Conclusion is left to the Hearer whose Principles or Opinions are known that thence they would infer a wrong and inconsequent Conclusion which when done with design to seduce is no less Deceit than