must needs be so too for ours is the same with theirs Evangelically considered their Types Sacrifices Prophecies and Ordinances referring to Christ who is the very substance of the Christian Religion The Mosaical Law of the Old Testament what is it else but Evangelium reconditum a veiled Gospel And the Gospel in the New Testament what is it but Lex Revelata the Law of the Old Testament revealed And thus it appears that the Christian Religion is the most Ancient Secondly If we look at the means and way of Atonement and Propitiation held forth in the Christian Religion it must needs appear to be the most Wise and Reasonable of any Religion The Eternal God or Supreme Being as He is full of Love and Mercy so He is Just and Righteous His Justice is infinite as Himself is He will so shew Mercy as that He will appear to be infinitely Just toward the the Offendor and therefore in Reason there must be some way or means of Satisfaction and Atonement found out or else God and Man being separarated by Sin could not be reunited The wiser sort among the Heathens were convinc'd by the Light of Reason That Man being alienated from God and not able of himself to come to God in regard of his darkness and ignorance there is a necessity of some way or means of cleansing and atonement Hence came the multitude of their Sacrifices and Oblations especially when any great Plague or Judgment was upon them But now that Christ the Son of God who is equal with God should be this way or means by giving up himself a Sacrifice for Sin of this they were wholly ignorant Is it so that the Justice of God offended by Sin is infinite Then it is but reasonable that this infinite Justice should have infinite reparation and satisfaction which neither Angels nor Men being but finite Creatures can give to the infinite God And therefore unless the Mediator or Days-man that takes up the difference between God and man be himself the infinite God as well as man such an infinite Satisfaction cannot be given This way or means being contrived and found out only by the wise infinite God and clearly held forth in the Christian Religion and in no other Religion besides it must needs be even by the Light of Reason the best and safest and truest Religion as that which vindicates the Honour of the great God and gives true peace and security to man Thirdly The Glorious Miracles wrought by Christ may convince any man's reason of the Truth of the Christian Religion Not only Josephus and other Jews besides him but also divers Heathen Authors and some of Christ's greatest Adversaries do acknowledge His Miracles Julian the Apostata as great an Enemy as he was confess'd that Jesus cured the Blind and the Lame and delivered some from Devils that were possessed in Bethsaida and Bethany Pilate himself in a Letter of his to the Emperor Tiberius witnesseth That Jesus gave sight to the Blind cleansed the Lepers healed them that were diseased delivered them that were possessed from Devils over-ruled the Waters raised the Dead and rose again Himself from the dead after three days Hereupon Tertullian bids the Senate and People of Rome read their own Commentaries and search their Records where they shall find the Miracles of Jesus which if they had not been sufficiently known to be true and real Tertullian himself in this Case might have been easily convicted of lying and forgery These Miracles of Christ were wrought not in one or two places but in many not in a corner but in the open view of the World and were attended with such Majesty and Power that there are thousands that will rather die on a Rack than deny or gainsay the same Jesus wrought great Miracles saith Josephus and although He was Crucified and put to death yet His Disciples forsook him not but did cleave unto him And as He Himself wrought many Miracles when he was upon Earth so His Disciples after He was gone from them by His power and virtue did likwise effect such Miracles as fill'd the World with the fame of them and were a special means to convert whole Kingdoms to Christ If any be so absurd and impudent as to deny the Miracles of Christ then I would ask of them whether it be not a great and strange Miracle That so many Nations and in them so many Wise and Learned men should follow and adore a poor contemptible man without Miracles and should be willing to die for Him even for Him that died a cursed ignominious Death upon the Cross If His Miracles were not great and far surmounting the Nature and capacity of a meer Man if they were not divine and supernatural can any sober man imagin that so many thousands would be so far convinc'd and perswaded by them as to die joyfully and triumphantly for the Name and Honour of this Jesus Is it a Miracle to work upon a man by touching him and much more without touching him and most of all without seeing him Then what a Miracle is it to work powerfully in the Hearts of whole Nations a far off without once seeing them and to touch them without coming at them and to convert and draw them to Himself without touching them with His Hand Yea but say some very absurdly and irrationally Christ and His Apostles wrought Miracles by the help of Magick Let such vain men resolve us if ever they knew or heard of a Magician that wrought such Miracles and came with such power and efficacy upon the Hearts of all sorts of men after his death as Jesus did And as for His Apostles what gain or advantage could they get by exercising this Magick No considerate man will attempt any great matter but for some end or other Now what Profit what Preferment what Honour in this World got they by it Nay did it not procure them much Hatred Danger Imprisonment Torments and at last Death it self Magicians usually hide themselves and conceal their Art when they are pursued for it But did the Apostles do so What a strange kind of Magick is this that will needs be known and exercised even in despite of the rage of Rulers and People yea of Death it self Doubtless 't is very remarkable that as in Moses time God so ordered in His wise Providence that there should be many great Magicians in Egypt that He might make His own Power the more evident So in the times of Christ and His Apostles there was great store of them in Judaea Rome and other places that a difference might be put between the Illusions of Satan and the miraculous Works of God Pliny reports that there were never more Magicians in the World than in the Reign of Nero which was the time of spreading the Gospel by Christ's Apostles neither was the vanity of that Art as he saith ever more apparently known than at that time If therefore this Art of Magick did never
A SEASONABLE DISCOURSE OF THE Right Vse and Abuse OF REASON In MATTERS of RELIGION By PHILOLOGUS Ratio recta est Ratio lumine Spiritus Sancti directa LONDON Printed for Thomas Passinger at the Three Bibles on London-Bridge 1676. To the Right Honorable AND Virtuous LADY the Lady MARCHIONESS OF WORCESTER MADAM 'T IS truly observed That Worldly Greatness without Virtue and Goodness is nothing else but the vigour of Vice having both mind and means to be uncontrollably vicious But Nobility joyned with Virtue renders the person truly Honorable the true stamp of Nobility and Honour being upon the minds of men who are not so much to be valued by the grandeur of their outward Estates or Titles as by their inward Goodness Virtue and seriousness in Religion is commendable in all persons and at all times but more especially in persons of Your rank and quality at this time and in this Nation wherein alas Atheism Scepticism Drollery and all manner of Prophaneness aboundeth amongst those that would be thought to excel all others in Wit and Courage and Gallantry and who should give a far better Example to their Inferiors This Atheism and Irreligion which now aboundeth hath been partly occasioned by the uncharitable unchristian heats and animosities of men of contrary Opinions and Sentiments in matters of Religion together with those great Scandals which we can never sufficiently lament that have been given by some Professors of the Gospel in these Nations Hence men of proud spirits and corrupt principles have taken occasion to doubt and question all kind of Religion and to look on it only as a Political device and invention which doth no further oblige than the Humane Laws of several Countries do authorize it But though these common Scandals have been the occasion yet the true ground at the bottom of such mens prejudice and scepticism is the strictness and purity of the Christian Religion which of all Religions is the most holy and spiritual and which they find lays too great a restraint upon their exorbitant Lusts and carnal Passions To be good in bad times to be virtuous and pious in an Age wherein Vice and Wickedness is so generally countenanced and practised This Madam adds a great lustre to your Goodness and Virtue And indeed your greatest Interest and Happiness which I doubt not but you are sensible of consists in being truly serious and religious this is the whole Duty of Man to fear God and keep His Commandments Eccles 12.13 The serious practice of Religion is that which every considerate person after all his other disquisitions will find to be his chief Interest and that which doth deserve his utmost care and diligence This is the whole of Man or as the Septuagint reads it this is all this indeed should be the great Design of Man as being most profitable and advantageous to him Go on Madam in the strength of the grace of God and add Virtue to Virtue that your last days and last works may be your best days and best works and that you may practically confute the Atheists of our times who walk and talk and live and die as if there were no God in the World no certainty no seriousness in Religion These persons are under a Judicial Blindness desperately rebelling not only against the Light of Gospel-revelation but against that Light of Reason which is in them God has given them Reason and Understanding Eyes that they might see Hearts that they might understand but they wilfully shut their Eyes against that Light of Reason and so by the just Judgment of God it is taken from them and they given up to blindness of mind and hardness of heart and to the greatest Spiritual Plagues and Judgments 'T is to be admired seeing there are such convincing Reasons and Demonstrations even from the Light of Nature against Atheism and Infidelity that there should be any such Creatures upon the face of the Earth as these Atheists and Scepticks when certainly there are none such in Hell for the Devils themselves believe and tremble so that in this respect they are worse than the Devils And though they pretend to be the Wits of the Times yet for my part I am of opinion with the Noble Mirandula That there is no Atheist in the World that is in his wits the rational Souls of such Monsters being sunk down into meer sensuality and brutishness Plutarch that grave Moralist Lib. de Superstit stiles Irreligion a kind of stupor whereby men are as it were deprived of their senses And that it is an exceeding improper thing to ascribe true Reason to those who do not acknowledge and adore the Deity And Cicero that wise Philosopher and Orator De Nat. Deor. lib. 2. saith he can hardly think that man to be in his right mind who is destitute of Religion And again why should any one stile such an one a Man who by what he sees in the World is not convinced of a Deity and a Providence and of the Adoration which he owes to that Deity And the Satyrist * Juv. Sat. 15. speaking of Religion and the sense of divine things saith Separat hoc nos A grege multorum atque ideo venerabile soli Sortiti ingenium Divinorumque capaces 'T is this which doth distinguish us from brute Creatures that we have Souls capable of divine impressions So that such persons have no just pretence to Reason who renounce Religion or turn it into meer Scepticism But however some men for a little time may offer violence to their Reason and Conscience whilst they prosper in this World yet when they are once alarm'd by a violent Sickness or some other great affliction which at one time or other they shall be expos'd unto then will the sense of a Deity and of Eternal Wrath and Punishment seize upon them with so much the greater force and power which they shall never be able to shake off Hi sunt qui trepidant ad omnia fulgura pallent We may truly say of the Atheists of our times as Plato doth of Tyrants If any person could but see thorowly into their Souls he should find them all their lives full of fear guilt and torments Pectus inuste deformant maculae vitiisque inolevit Imago Doth now saith an excellent Author the conquest of Passions forgiving of Injuries doing good self-denial humility patience under crosses which are the real expressions of Piety speak nothing more noble and generous than a luxurious malicious proud and impatient Spirit Is there nothing more becoming and agreeable to the Soul of Man in exemplary Piety and a holy well-ordered conversation than in the lightness and vanity not to say rudeness and debauchery of those whom the World accounts the greatest Gallants Is there nothing more graceful and pleasing in the sweetness candor and ingenuity of a truly Christian temper and disposition than in the revengeful implacable Spirit of such whose honour is fed by the blood of
Society is also endowed with a power to maintain it self in Peace and Purity which cannot be without some way or other to decide Controversies and remove Scandals Now this is agreeable to the light of Nature and Reason when such differences arise in the Society either that the lesser number should acquiesce in the determination of the greater for Pars major jus habet universitatis The greater part hath the power of the whole or else which indeed is founded upon the Law of Nature there must be a subordination of powers in Congregations and a right of Appeal granted to an injured person from the lower and subordinate Power to the higher and superiour And in order to a redress of wrongs and ending Controversies our Reason will tell us that Appeals must not be infinite but there must be some Power or other from whence there shall be no appeal And truly it is against the natural reason and right of every man for any particular Society under what denomination soever so to ingross all Ecclesiastical power into their own hands that no liberty of appeals for redress can be made from them This is to usurp upon and invade the Civil and Religious Rights of Christians for it leaves men under a causeless Censure without any Authorative vindication of them from it And it is not much better in this Case and more agreeable to Reason to have matters in controversie either as to Doctrine or Practice judiciously debated and determined in a grave pious Assembly or Synod than by two or three men who perhaps by their parts or Popular interest without any sufficient ground from Scripture and Reason can easily sway those Societies or Congregations that are of their particular Opinion and so be it right or wrong the supposed Offendor must be determined by it Shall it be thought rational and fit that every particular Society though consisting but of a few persons shall have power over its own members to determine Controversies arising between them But yet if one or many of these particular Societies shall erre and go astray there shall be no Authorative power left for deciding what shall be done in this Case Surely if Christ who is the wise Governor of His Church hath made sufficient provision for the Cases of particular persons he hath also made sufficient provision in a rational way for the Cases of particular Societies Thus we have briefly shewed what use may be made of the Light of Reason both in Civil and Ecclesiastical Societies we shall now briefly declare how it may be proved by Reason That there is a God or supreme Being That the Soul of Man is Immortal That the Christian Religion is the only true Religion and That the Scriptures are the Word of God which Points you may find proved at large by Reason in the Learned Books of Lessius Morney Grotius and Sir Charles Woseley a Gentleman so well qualified and employed that I could heartily wish that our English Gentry would Imitate him CHAP. IX The light of Reason proves that there is a God THere is no Nation so Barbarous saith the Heathen Orator (h) Cicero de Natura Deorum no people so savage in whom there resteth not this perswasion That there is a God Even those Nations which in other respects seem very little to differ from bruit Beasts yet keep up and maintain a kind of Religion and Worship and have some sense of the Eternal Godhead impress'd upon their Hearts Yea Idolatry it self is a substantial proof of this perswasion for how willingly doth Man abase himself to honour other Creatures above himself when he will rather worship a Block or a Stone than to have no God at all Hence it appears that this imprinted perswasion of the Godhead is of great force and impossible to be quite oblitegated and razed out of the mind of Man To come to the knowledge of an Eternal Deity there are two ways namely by Faith and by Reason Faith indeed is the much better and nearer way for our Reason is much weakned and depraved and God Himself who is the supreme Being is infinitely above our Reason No man can make a perfect demonstration by his Reason in natural things he cannot fully demonstrate that his Father is his Father or that he is his Son so that in these and the like things there is a necessity of some faith or belief If a man tell you that he hath seen such or such a place he can make no demonstrative reason of it for the circumstances are not capable of demonstration In this Case there must be belief and much more in Religious and Divine matters Howbeit the Light of Reason so far as it reacheth for it is but an inferiour derivative Light like the light of the Moon and Stars will prove unto us that there is a God or supreme Being The Creatures afford Arguments and our Reason gathers by the force of those Arguments that there is a God First It may be clearly proved and made evident to our reason by the Frame of this great Universe even those things which the Eye seeth and the Ear heareth Rom. 1.20 Suppose a man forty years old who had never seen the beauty of this World before should now behold it would not the sight thereof make him wonder and inquire after the maker and contriver of it and force him to conclude that Man being not able to perform such a great and glorious work it must needs be effected by one that is infinitely wiser and better and more able than Man And who should that be but God Himself Who can cause such a consent and agreement amongst the Creatures so different and contrary one to another hot and cold moist and dry but this wise and sovereign Commander As in a Musical Instrument on which are twenty dissonant strings whence comes the Harmony but from some excellent skilful Musician that had the tuning of it Whence comes the fitting and composing of one thing to another but from this wise God As we say he is an Artist that fits the Wheels of a Watch one to another and 't is the skill of a Joyner or Smith which makes curious Tools and Works one fitted to another the sheath to the knife and the scabberd to the sword Whence comes the dependance of the Creatures one upon another and their mutual help and assistance one of another but from God! Beasts nourish Men the Grass nourisheth them and the Influence or Dew of Heaven maketh the Grass to grow and all from God Hos 2.21 These things can no more come to pass by accident than a multitude of Letters cast together by chance can without the Art of man make a Poem or History and therefore they direct us even by the light of reason to a supreme Providence Secondly It is proved by the Original of all things whence is this Original but of God As for Man he must needs be made by God for the Father that
the Flesh and forforsaking the good of this World which a man would not do if he had not the hope of Immortality in which he findeth the recompence of his losses yea this very perswasion of the Souls Immortality made some Heathens willingly suffer death for the safety of their Countrey If our last End were only in this Life then all that we do should be for this last End to aim at it to procure it and never to cross it Doubtless it were great folly and madness in men to undergo so many hard things as they do if they had not a perswasion in their Hearts of this Immortality and if their hope were only in this Life of all men they should be most miserable But they are perswaded that the Soul is Immortal and they find that this World wherein they now converse is too steril and empty to fill the vastness and limit the desires thereof It must be the possession of an immortal infinite immutable good that must satisfie their Understandings and Wills both which faculties aim at the chiefest and highest object The Vnderstanding is carried ad summam Causam to the first of Truths and the Will ad summum Bonum to the last of Ends And therefore He only which is the First and the Last can satisfie the vast desires of the Soul Sixthly Upon this ground the Soul must needs be Immortal because God is just A man may as well say that there is no God at all as to say that God is unjust Now then God being the just Judge of all it behoves him to punish the Wicked and to reward the Just but if God did not this in another life he should never do it for in this life the Wicked flourish and the Just are oppressed Therefore as God is just there remains another Life after this wherein the Souls of the Just shall be rewarded and the Souls of the Wicked shall be punished If the Soul were Mortal forasmuch as in this World wicked men prosper in their Wickdeness and good men as to their outward being perish in a way of Righteousness how should the Justice of God who is the Supreme Being and whose ways are ways of Righteousness be vindicated Seventhly It may satisfie the Reason of any man that the Soul is Immortal since there is an universal consent and agreement of all Nations of the Earth in one or other kind of Religion and the Worship of some Deity which is raised out of this hope That that God whom they worship will reward their Piety if not here yet in another Life Nulla gens adeò extra leges est projecta ut non aliquos Deos credat saith Seneca Hence proceeded those Fictions of the Poets touching the Elysian Fields or places of Happiness for men of honest and well ordered lives and places of Torment for the wicked and irreligious It must needs be a visible Character of a a Deity imprinted in the Soul an irresistible principle in Man's nature that must constrain it unto those sundry Religious Ceremonies observed among all Nations wherein even in places of Idolatry some were so irksom and repugnant to Nature and others so void of Reason as that nothing but a firm and deep perswasion of a Divine Judgement and of their own Immortality could ever have imposed them upon their Consciences And besides this consent of men unto Religion in general we find it also unto this one part thereof namely the Immortality of the Soul All the wisest and best reputed Philosophers for Learning and Honesty and even Barbarians Infidels and savage people have discern'd it by the glimmerings of the Light of Reason CHAP. XI The verity and excellency of the Christian Religion evinc'd by Reason THe Light of Reason is of excellent use to convince Heathens and Infidels of the truth of the Christian Religion there being no Religion at this day professed throughout the World that hath so much reason in it and for it as the Christian Religion hath if we consider the way of cleansing and expiating Sin by Christ the dignity and excellency of the Person of the Mediator the exactness of Divine Justice which requires Satisfaction the Rewards and Punishment prescribed and appointed by the Christian Religion the excellent Doctrine and Instructions thereof the Exemplary Life of Christ and His Apostles How many things in our Religion are witnessed to and approved in the Writings of the most Rational and Learned Heathens and how the greatest Enemies of the Christian Religion as Julian Porphyry and others were once Christians and came to renounce the same meerly through Pride and Discontent If these and other things relating to our Religion be but duly weighed it will appear even to the Eye of Reason that there is much Truth and Excellency therein and that other Religions are but fictitious and vain having no rational Consistence in them But we will handle this matter more particularly though with as much Brevity as possibly we can First The Antiquity of the Christian Religion proveth it to be the true Religion Prima sunt vera verum est prius That is most true which is most antient Seeing the true Religion is the way whereby Man must come to God and have Communion with him and is copula relationis between God and Man it must needs be as Antient as Man is As for the Writings of most of the Heathens unless it be those that are forged and suppositious they are but of yesterday in comparison of Moses the Law-giver under God to the Jews even Orpheus the first Heathen Poet was eight hundred years after Moses as Strabo Plutarch and Diodorus Siculus testifie The most Antient Records of the Heathens began in Solon's time which was in the time of Esdras the Romans had their Religion from the Graecians and the Graecians from Caecrop an Egyptian and the Carthaginians had theirs from Cadmus a Phoenician Now these two Countries Egypt and Phoenicia with the Mediterranean Sea do compass about Judaea and therefore any man that 's rational may easily perceive that all their Religion came from the Jews This is sufficiently demonstrated by several Writers of ours and particularly by Mr. Gale in his late Books so that it would be superfluous for me to enlarge upon this subject When the Wise men of Greece ask'd their Gods whence the knowledge of Arts and Sciences should come they received this Answer Solus utique Chaldaeus sapiens and Orpheus their antient Poet tells us that when God was angry He destroyed the World committed the Truth uni Chaldaeo And Plato in his Epimenides referreth all uni Barbaro If it be demanded who this Chaldean this Barbarian should be the Egyptians call him Theut which signifieth a Stranger meaning Abraham for so Origen against Celsus and Josephus against Appian say plainly that when the Heathen Nations used to Conjure they would make use of Abraham's Name saying Per Deum Abraham Well then if the Jewish Religion be Ancient ours
other persecuting Emperours devised most exquisite Torments to be inflicted on the poor Christians and put thousands of them to a cruel death and yet for all this Christianity prevailed and the Kingdom of Christ was enlarged Which is an undoubted Proof and Demonstration even to the Eye of Reason of the Truth and Excellency of the Christian Religion and that the Kingdom of Christ is most divine and powerful and not worldly weak and carnal That this Jesus who was born in the little Countrey of Judaea subdued by the Romans of poor Parents in a sorry Village destitute of Friends and of all Worldly helps and advantages should give Law to and Conquer the World by His Gospel or the Word of His Kingdom is not this wonderful And would ye know what He promiseth His Subjects and Followers Why instead of great matters that they might expect in this Life He tells them plainly what great Afflictions and Tribulations they must endure for His sake if they will follow Him and be His Disciples indeed they must expect to be persecuted reproached scourged imprisoned and put to death Whereas other Kings and Monarchs promise great Dignities and Preferments in the World to their followers this King on the contrary by the Doctrine of the Cross drew the Nations to Him other Monarchs Conquer by killing their Enemies this King Conquered by dying for His Enemies the death other Monarchs is the decay and ruine of their Kingdoms and Conquests but the death of Jesus hath established and enlarged His Kingdom and is the life and happiness of His Subjects Who seeth not therefore by the Light of Reason a humane weakness in the greatness of Worldly Empires and a divine power in the weakness of Christ's Kingdom When He died and was buried His Kingdom seem'd to die and to be buried with Him a few poor despised Followers He had and these were at their wits end when their Lord and Master was Crucified and laid in the Grave Well but at length they open their mouths and boldly teach men to believe on Jesus who was Crucified and Buried but is now Risen again and to suffer for His sake And if they be forbidden they will rather die than not Preach and own this Crucified Jesus hereupon they are accused and brought before Magistrates where they own their Crime as their Adversaries term'd it and are not asham'd of it and is not this admirable Other Malefactors are tormented to make them confess their fault and these are tormented to make them conceal it those hold their peace to save their lives these die for speaking and yet by this strange way and means Christ that was crucified spreads His Kingdom and fills the whole World with it Out of weakness he brings forth strength and out of death he brings forth life And who can thus draw one contrary out of another Who can thus overcome by yielding who can thus trample upon and triumph over his Enemies by dying but Jesus in whom the power of the Eternal God was and whose Kingdom is not of this World but Divine and Heavenly Whilst He lived upon Earth He was despised and rejected but after His death He is worshipped as God even to this day and His true Followers will rather die a thousand deaths than deny His Eternal Godhead and Kingdom And may not this one Consideration if there were no more touching the Kingdom of Christ wherein it far excels the Kingdoms of this World serve to convince any sober rational man of the verity and efficacy of the Christian Religion Sixthly What strange Conversions and Changes have been wrought by the Gospel of Christ in the Hearts and Lives of some of the most eminent and famous men for Learning and Parts How were they wrought upon and converted by the plain Preaching of weak simple men Even by the foolishness of Preaching as the World counts it that so the divine power and excellency of this Jesus and of the Christian Religion might the more appear Paul befor his Conversion was counted a wise and learned man and was in great reputation so that Porphyry the famous Philosopher saith of him that it was great pity such a man should be a Christian yet when Paul had received the greatest Authority and raged most against the Gospel and Kingdom of Christ he was wonderfully converted and turned quite another way and was glad to tread many a weary step and to endure many great difficulties for the Gospels sake Origen also a man of great Learning and knowledge in Philosophy and the Arts being converted by a divine power to the Christian Religion was content to be a poor Catechist in Alexandria and was every day in danger of death when he might have been with his fellow Plotinus in great Authority and Favour had it not been for his Christian profession Surely it must needs be some Divine and Heavenly power that did thus prevail upon these men and upon many other Wise and Learned men that might be mentioned Never was there such wonderful Conversions in any Religion as in this never such sound Repentance and Reformation never such true Justice Fortitude and Constancy in Affliction even to Death and Martyrdom as in this so that it was commonly said of the Christians Soli Christiani mortis contemptores Seventhly 'T is an Argument of the Truth and Excellency of the Christian Religion That it hath been so much opposed and persecuted from time to time by the rage and cruelty of the Devil and wicked men As it was commonly said of that Monster Nero a Persecutor of Christians That it must needs be a good and excellent thing which so wicked a man hated The more wicked and ungodly men are the more they hate that which is Divine and which most resembles the Holy God Now no Religion or Profession in the World hath been so desperately hated and persecuted by wicked ungodly wretches as the Christian Religion and yet the more it has been opposed and trampled upon by them the more it has prevailed and flourished even in despight of their rage and malice What a miserable end did befal Herod and other great Persecutors of this Religion Many of which did vindicate Christ and His Truth at and by their death when the Hand of God was heavy upon them though they had raged against Him in their life time and done whatever they could to root out His Kingdom and People Nay Satan himself the greatest Persecutor of all hath witnessed for the Christian Religion against himself All the Art Magick which he invented could never Conjure or call up Christ Plotinus and Apollonius and other great Magicians that rais'd up the Image of Jupiter and other Heathen Gods though they assayed with all their skill and power to bring up the Image of Christ yet could they never effect it for Christ is not subject to their power being infinitely above them 'T is well known to the Heathens that at the Birth and Death of
this Jesus their Idol-Gods fell down and their Oracles at Delphos Dodon and other places were stricken dumb Insomuch as Porphyrie himself confesseth and bewaileth that since the time that Jesus was Worshipped they have had no benefit at all by any of their Gods The Voice that was heard in the Air in the Reign of Tiberius Caesar about the time of Christ's death commanding the Master of the Ship to cry aloud that the Great God Pan is dead upon which followed great screechings and lamentations in the Air we find mentioned in divers credible Authors Lactantius tells us that when the Heathens offered Sacrifice to their Gods the very presence of a Christian would dash and spoil their Mysteries and thereupon came that speech which we read in Lucian If there be any Christian here let him depart hence This Jesus hath made such work amongst the Idol-Gods that Augustine cries out Where are your Gods where are your Prophets where are your Oracles where are your Sacrifices are they not ceased If Christ the Ark of God comes in place Dagon the great Idol must needs fall down Now the Christian Religion hath three great Enemies in the World Heathens Jews and Mahumetans against whose Religion or rather Superstition we will speak a few words to shew the unreasonableness and absurdity thereof And First * I. Reasons against the Heathenish Idolatry touching the Heathen Gods we have this to say against them in a way of Reason which may be much more enlarged That they must needs be vain and even ridiculous since by the confession of their own Learned Writers these Gods or rather Devils did command Images to be erected to them and told the fashion that they were of And is not this absurd and unbecoming the Majesty of a Deity seeing the true and infinite God who dwells in the Light inaccessible cannot be resembled by any Shape What did these Dunghil-Gods of theirs chiefly command and forbid but outward corporeal things Whereas the true God is a Holy Glorious Spirit who commands the Spirits of men and chiefly requires spiritual Worship and Obedience These Gods of theirs were not of Vniversal use nor were they good for all things One forsooth was good for Medicine and another for Wisdom and another for War whereas the true God is an Universal perfect Good The Religion of these Heathen Gods consisted only in offering Frankincense and Spices and outward Oblations which could never cleanse the Soul of man from its spots and defilements And therefore when Cyril told Julian the Apostata that Sin defileth the Soul and that outward and bodily things could never wash away the inward filthiness and corruption of the Spirit this made Julian stagger for he could not tell how to answer it What shall we say further Are not the Parents Birth and Manners of these goodly Deities particularly set down by their own Poets and Philosophers and by divers of the Ancient Fathers and our own Modern Writers and is it not ridiculous for any man to believe that these were true Gods Nay truly they were not only Men whom the Heathens Worshipped but wicked men the worst and vilest of men given up to Whoredom and Drunkenness and Cruelty and all manner of vice and wickedness Yea they were Devils and wicked Spirits that appeared in the likeness of Men and commanded themselves to be worshipped So absurd and irrational were some of these poor Heathens that they did not only worship wicked Men and Devils but even Beasts also an Ox a Dog a Crocodile yea Onions and Garlick O monstrous folly and madness How did the Devil bewitch them What horrid cruelty did he exercise upon them commanding them to sacrifice Men and Women to him when he was grievously offended with them as he doth at this day in some Heathenish Countries But when he was more mild and gentle then forsooth he must have Stage-Plays Musick Dancing and the like Pastimes to make him merry Behold here the Vanity and Brutishness of the Heathenish Idolatry Secondly As for the Jews * II. Against the Jewish Religion they are most unreasonable in their Enmity against Christ and the Christian Religion The truth of the Old Testament is acknowledged by them as well as by us though they do not rightly and spiritually understand it by reason of the veil which is upon their Hearts to this day So blind and so deluded they are as to hold that the true Messias is yet to come that Jesus is not the Messias and that when the Messias first comes he shall be great in the World and have a Princely Court and Attendants at Jerusalem and that he shall subdue all the Enemies of the Jews Now truly these are but vain dreams and fancies of theirs and quite contrary to Scripture and Reason In Jacob's Prophesie concerning the Messias Gen. 49.10 we read that the Scepter was not to depart from Judah nor a Law-giver from between his Feet till Shiloh come by which Shiloh is meant the true Messias But the Scepter was then newly departed when Jesus came and therefore He is the true Shiloh or Messias The Scepter as is well known was in Judah till the Captivity and after the Captivity it continued till Aristobulus and Hircanus who contending for it were both of them dispossessed of it and Herod an Idumaean and a stranger was invested with the Royal Dignity and then came Christ as was long before prophesied after whose coming the Jews were dispersed and scattered throughout the Earth so that now there is no distinct Tribe of Judah but they are all mingled one with another the Roman Emperors still labouring to root out the Jews and especially the Tribe of Judah which made them to confound their Genealogies That the seventy Weeks referring to the coming of the true Messias Dan. 9.24 are long since determined he that runs may read it and yet the Messias not come if we will believe the obstinate Jews In their Talmud we read that the Disciples of Hillel whom they highly esteem perceiving the first seven Weeks in Daniel to fall out so justly they looked for the coming of the Messias in those days being long before the full time because they had read in the Prophecy of Isaiah that the Lord would shorten those days And immediately before the Incarnation of our Saviour we find that there was a general expectation of the coming of the Messias amongst the Jews as appears by their continual sending to John Baptist to know whether he himself was the Messias or they must expect another And about this time also which may be a further proof that the Messias is already come there were more false Christs and deceivers such as Judas Theudas Gaulonites Barcosba as the Scriptures and Josephus with other Writers bear witness than was ever before or since How came it to pass that the glory of the second Temple Hag. 2.10 was greater than the glory of the first Was it not by the coming and
subtilty of Antiochus Nero Dioclesian Julian the Apostate and other cruel and subtil Persecutors and notwithstanding that Egyptian darkness of Popery Error and Ignorance which overspread the World for some hundred years since Christ and his Apostles during which time these sacred Writings were laid aside and contemned and blind Ignorance extolled as the Mother of Devotion Fifthly The very Stile of the Scripture argues the divine Authority thereof By the Stile we do not understand the external superficies of words and phrases but the whole order contexture and frame thereof which fitly agreeth to the dignity of the speaker and the nature of the Argument treated of and is excellently and wisely tempered according to the capacity and condition of them for whose sake it was written Indeed every Prophet and Apostle almost had a peculiar Stile God making use of their several faculties and abilities Isaiah is Eloquent and sweet David affectionate Solomon Accurate Jeremiah vehement and more rough and so it may be said of the several Apostles and Evangelists that their Stile is somewhat different but all of them divine and Heavenly The Majesty and excellency of the Stile appears in that Majestick Title and dignity which the Author of the Holy Scriptures doth justly challenge to himself the which imports Independency of nature and essence Supereminency of power and soveraignty and excellency both of properties and works and is further displayed in the manner of teaching which is used in the Holy Scriptures commanding promising and threatning things above sense and reason In this Book there are hidden Mysteries divine and supernatural Truths such as exceed all humane capacity revealed unfolded without Argumentation or Rhetorical motives of perswasion and we are required to understand and beleive them relying only upon the Truth and credit of the Revealer God the great and absolute Soveraign requires in his word such and such things to be done such and such duties to be performed by the Sons of men with great strictness and severity and yet brings no argument to perswade or confirm the equity of these commands but only the will of the Commander which though it becomes not man to do yet it well becomes the Majesty of God In this Book also promises are made of good things to come whereof there is no humane probability nor reason given to assure us of the performance thereof but I the Lord have spoken it and I will do it In the manner of threatning also the like majesty and Soveraign Authority may be observed throughout the Scriptures which you shall not meet with in meer humane writings God commands and threatens without respect of persons be they what they will be 't is all one to him he prescribes his Laws to all men Magistrates and Rulers Schollers and Soldiers to whole Kingdoms and States commanding and requiring what is distastful to their fleshly nature and interest and forbidding what they approve and commend promising them not Earthly Honours and Riches but Life Eternal if they be obedient to the Gospel and threatning them not with Rack or Gibbet but with eternal Death and Torments if they disobey Neither let any man be offended with the low and humble manner of speech used in holy Scripture for it was penned for the use and benefit of the unlearned as well as the learned for those of weak parts as well as for those of strong parts and abilities And though the phrase or manner of speech be plain yet the matter is high and excellent profound and unutterable Plainness and perspicuity doth best become the truth A Pearl needs no painting True beauty needs not a whorish dress to set it forth nor needs the truth of God to be supported or underpropt with forraign aids for it is of it self sufficient to uphold and sustain it self It becomes not the Majesty of a Prince to play the Orator this would be more pedantick in him then in a person more inferior Though the Scripture seems to be plain in word and phrase yet it is great in power No writings of men be they never so well set forth with Wit Learning and Ornaments of Rhetorick can so enlighten the mind move the will pierce the heart and stir up the affections as the word of God doth Nor do the Scriptures want Eloquence if the matter be well weighed no other writing can equalize them The Song of Moses the beginning of the Prophesie of Isaiah and other portions of Scripture in variety and force of divine Eloquence do far exceed and transcendall other Authors Greek or Latine that are extant though never so excellently indited and penned yet it may be easily discerned that the one was written by a Divine the other by a humane Spirit Sixthly the wonderful powerful effects of this doctrine more then any other do clearly demonstrate even to an eye of reason the divine Authority thereof for it inlighteneth the understanding discovereth clearly the evil of sin and the vanity of the Creature converteth the Soul convinceth the gainsayer terrifieth the Conscience of a sinner quickeneth and reviveth the wounded Spirit manifesteth the thoughts of the heart man casteth down strong holds and the power of Satan and remains invincible notwithstanding all the opposition of men and devils for though the nature thereof be contrary to the will and wisdome of the flesh and world yet still it hath prevailed and overcome The enemies that have opposed this doctrine were many and mighty and subtil the Devil the Roman Emperor the learned Philosophers the zealous Jews and the common people being stirred up by them have with incredible fury and falshood and vigilancy endeavoured the utter abolition of it but could never do it This doctrine conquers where it comes either it converts or destroys its Adversaries And what manner of persons are they whom God chuseth as his Heralds and Embassadors to publish this doctrine are they great and many are they learned and wise are they potent and mighty in the world No no they are in number but few in outward appearance simple rude poor and weak despised of men things that are not in the judgment of men by these God hath confounded things that are and through their preaching the Cross of Christ hath subdued many Nations to himself in a little time a great part of this habitable world was converted and brought to the obedience of faith so that Paul filled all places from Jerusalem to Illyricum with the sound of the Gospel Nor is it to be forgotten that the Jews though wasted with many and great Slaughters and though they had and still have a desperate Enmity against Christ and the Christian Religion yet the Scriptures of the old Testament have alwayes remain'd safe and entire in their custodie even when the Hebrew language did lye almost unknown and had perished altogether had not God provided for the true Religion by the care of those Jews so that will they nill they they shall be instrumental
or inflict eternal death and condemnation by the word of his power but the eternal God Ninthly The end of the Scriptures is divine namely the Glory of God and the Salvation of man not so much Corporal and Temporal as Spiritual and Eternal The Doctrines precepts promises prohibitions narrations threatnings punishments and rewards thereof are all referred finally and ultimately to the praise and glory of God the supreme being and chiefest good which shews plainly that they are divine and from above And to speak truth and reason what is more equal and just then that all things should return thither from whence they had their first rise and Original for of him and through him and to him are all things to whom everlasting glory is due from all Creatures Rom. 11.36 The Scripture plainly points out to man what true blessedness is wherein it consists and where and how it is to be had and enjoyed namely in the everlasting vision and fruition of God in Heaven which men may attain unto by the true knowledge of Christ in whom God is reconciled and well pleased And this is a firm and clear demonstration of the divine Authority and excellencie of the Scriptures for what is more agreeable to the wisdome bounty mercy goodness and power of God then to restore man fallen and to make him partaker of eternal bliss and happiness and who can shew to man how he may be restored and admitted into the favour of God having offended his glorious majesty who can direct and lead him in the way to true bliss and happiness but God who is wisdome and goodness it self and who hath effectually done it in and by his Son the essential Word and by the Scriptures which are the written word of God These Arguments and demonstrations whether they be severally or joyntly considered by us do as strongly prove and evince that the Christian Religion is the only true Religion and that the Scriptures are the word of God as any reason can prove that there was is and ought to be any true Religion or Rule to walk by in matters that concern Religion and the worship of the Deity and therefore may serve to convince and satisfie the reason of any sober man touching the divine Authority of the Religion and Laws of Christ CHAP. XIII Of the Use of Reason in the interpretation of Scripture and judging of Controversies EVery Christian should so far improve his Reason as not to be impos'd upon in matters of faith by the meer dictates of men be they Princes be they Popes be they Councels be they never so learned or pious he ought not in aliorum sententias pedibus potius quam cordibus ire Reason and Judgment in these matters should go before and make way for his practice As there are some that vainly magnifie and lift up the Reason of man above the Spirit of God in judging of the Authority and mind of God in the Scriptures so there are others and more especially that Bestial Antichristian Kingdome of the Papacy that would transform reasonable men and Christians into sensitive and irrational Creatures by the deceit and Legerdemain of a Popish Implicit credulity which commands men to put out their Lamps to pluck out their eyes and in a manner to renounce their Senses Reason and understandings and so to follow their leaders blindfold wheresoever they go And I could wish there were not too much of this Implicit faith and blind devotion amongst Protestants yea and amongst some that seem more forward and zealous then others at least for a party The Ranting Romanists tells us with noise and clamour enough of a visible supreme Tribunal and an infallible head of the Church here upon Earth who is to regulate all persons and determine all controversies though never so much against the rules of Scripture and Reason others of them more prudent and moderate resolve the final Judgment of Controversies into the determination of a general Council and all of them generally make the Authority of the Scriptures to depend wholly upon the judgment of their Church Hence was that impudent saying of Bayly the Jesuite that without the Authority of the Church he would believe St. Mathew no more then Titus Livius a Heathen Author And Stapleton is so much for a blind Implicit obedience in contempt of Reason that he tells us plainly the people are so subjected to the Sentences of their Pastors that if their Pastors err in any thing the people may and ought to err in obedience to them And again as the Jews were to believe Christ saith he so are we simply and in every thing to believe the Church of Rome whether it teacheth Truth or Error O monstrous Is not this a base Tyranny a Brutish unreasonable act of theirs when they go about to make us believe that to be white which we know to be black that to be true which we know to be false there are some indeed amongst them more rational and sober who would not have private Christians put out their eyes but make use of their Reason and Judgment in reading the Scriptures and judging of Controversies The examination and trial of Doctrines concerning faith saith Gerson belongeth not only to the Pope and Councils but to every Christian also that is grounded in the knowledge of the Scripture because every Christian is a fit Judge of that which he knoweth And the saying of Panormitan another of their Doctors is well known that one faithful man though he be but a private man is more to be believed then the Pope or a whole Council if he have better Reason and Scripture Authority on his side Chrisostome in answer to this Objection that there are so many and so great dissentions amongst Christians that we know not of what opinion to be of nor whom to believe hath these remarkable words Tell me hast thou any Reason or Judgment for it is not the part of a man barely to receive whatsoever he heareth but if thou diligently mark the meaning thou mayst throughly know that which is good when thou Buyest a Garment though thou hast no skill in weaving yet thou sayest not I cannot buy it they deceive me but thou dost what thou canst to come to the true knowledge of it say not then I am no Scholler and will be no Judge I can condemn no opinion for this is but a shift and a cavil and therefore let us not use it for these things are easie to them that endeavour after true knowledge Hath not every Christian a reasonable Soul an understanding faculty which God hath endued him with that thereby he might search and try and discern the things that differ To what end hath God set up this light in mans Soul if he must not use it in searching the Scriptures and trying Doctrines but must give way to Sloth and Ignorance Is not this to transform man into a Beast and is it not Brutish ness and folly in him thus to
Court of his own Conscience and in reference to his own faith and practice he should so examine and judge of the things that relate thereunto as to be fully perswaded in his own mind Rom. 14.5 He should so prove all things as to hold fast that which is good 1 Thes 5.21 Thus Christ in his infinite wisdome goodness and faithfulness hath given two sorts of judgment to his Church and people One publick belonging to an Assembly of Godly Pastors and Elders for of that which the Prophets teach let the Prophets judge and the Spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets The other is a more private personal judgment which concerns all the faithful who are to judge of what is taught and to try the Spirits in both these judgments we should remember that Christ hath committed nothing to the Church but the ministry of giving judgment for as touching the Soveraignty of Judgment and Authority it belongs only to him Councels may expound and declare the doctrine of the Scriptures but they have no power from Christ to make any new Doctrines or Articles of faith And every Christian ought in a rational way to judge of their determinations according to the word of God and not yeild blind obedience thereunto for this were to unchristian yea to unman himself Of this opinion are all the Protestant Churches in general and particularly the Church of England (k.) See Rogers on 39. Articles P. 103. who maintains that every sound member of the Church hath Authority from Christ to judge in controversies of faith and so to imbrace truth and avoid error The Church as a faithful witness should give Testimony of the Doctrine of Christ but ought not to judge the word nor to judge otherwise then Gods word judgeth General Councels consisting of men that are not infallible may err The things therefore that are ordained by general Councels do so far bind as they are Consonant to the word of God and no further for we are not to ground our faith upon them but only upon the Authority of Gods word Now that such a rational judgment or a judgment in foro interno as hath been asserted belongs to every Christian so as he may and ought to make use of his Reason in judging of the Doctrines of Religion and of Ecclesiastical Laws and determinations is thus proved and demonstrated First From those plain Texts of Scripture Take heed that no man deceive you Mat. 24.4 Prove all things and hold that which is good 1 Thes 5.21 Beloved believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they are of God 1 Joh. 4.1 He that is Spiritual judgeth all things yet he himself is judged of no man 1 Cor. 2.15 Which Texts together with many other that might be alledged do not only concern publick Ministers but also private Christians yea chiefly them as being most in danger to be seduced Secondly This hath been also the approved practice of the faithful thus to search the Scriptures and try the Spirits and exercise their Spiritual Senses that they might discern things that differ Heb. 5.14 The Bereans are counted more noble then others because they searched the Scriptures and tryed Pauls Doctrine by the Scriptures though he spake from an infallible Spirit Acts 17.11 The Church at Ephesus is commended for trying them that said they were Apostles and were not and finding them lyers and deceivers after tryal Rev. 2.2 And Christ tells us that his true Sheep will follow him for they know his voice but a stranger they will not follow but will flee from him Joh. 10.4 5. Now this they could not do unless they did exercise a rational judgment in matters of faith Thirdly Every Christian is to give an account of his faith and practice to God yea he should be alwayes ready to give an Answer to every man that asketh him a Reason of the hope which is in him 1 Pet. 3.15 But how can he do this rationally and understandingly without tryal and examination If he be found to embrace whatever his superiors shall impose upon him truly then the blind implicite faith of the Collier will serve well enough Is this according to the Scripture which tells us that we cannot truly believe unless we have knowledge That every man should be perswaded in his own mind concerning the things which he doth believe and practice and that whatsoever is not of faith is sin Fourthly How shall a Christian cleanse his heart and wayes but by taking heed thereto according to the word of God Psal 119.9 How shall he walk as a Child of light unless the word be a Lamp to his feet and a light to his paths Psal 119.105 How can he walk wisely and Circumspectly as he ought to do understanding what the will of God is as the Apostle speaks Ephes 5.17 if we do not allow him a judgment of discretion and discerning in matters of this nature that so he may try Spirits and Doctrines Fifthly were it the duty of a private Christian to receive all Doctrines that are proposed to him by his Superiors without tryal and examination then could not he be justly charged with sin and guilt who receiveth error in stead of truth from those that are above him in dignity and Authority but we find that this will not excuse him If the Blind lead the Blind both shall fall into the pit Luk. 6.39 and we are to fly from Strangers and not hearken to the words of those Prophets that speak the visions of their own hearts and not out of the mouth of the Lord Jer. 23.16 We must not believe every Spirit but beware of false Prophets and Seducers which no Christian can avoid upon good grounds unless he pass a rational judgment upon them and their Doctrines Why was Ephraim oppressed and broken in judgment but because he willingly walked after the Commandment of his Ruler and Governor corrupting the worship of God and did not impartially examine and judge of the same by the rule of Gods word Hos 5.11 Sixthly God hath furnished a Christian with abilities for this end with Reason as man he hath a reflexive faculty which Beasts have not he hath a rational understanding Soul which is the Candle of the Lord that enableth him to compare one thing with another and to deduce genuine inferences and conclusions from such premises as are laid down and propounded And then further God hath not only given his people the light of humane Reason and understanding as rational men but hath also infus'd into them a principle of divine light and knowledge as Christians to search and try the Doctrines of Religion whether they be true or false God hath given them a Spiritual unction or understanding as the Apostle speaks 1 John 2.27 Chap. 5.20 that they may know him who is truth it self and they need not that any man teach them but as this anointing teacheth them which is truth and is no lye If any man
this Divine knowledge and assurance illuminating our understanding renewing our wills and sanctifying our hearts and affections In which sence the Spirit of God in the Scripture is to us a Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation opening the eyes of our understandings that we may see by a spiritual light the excellency of those divine Mysteries that are in the Word of God Ephes 1.17 18. Now this Doctrine of ours is no such Circle as the Papists pretend it to be but a plain and strait way for a sober Christian to walk in Thus How know you that the Scriptures are Gods Word We answer By the Scriptures themselves by that wonderful light and excellency of truth and holiness that shineth in them here we would rest and go no further But yet if we be asked How we come to see this light We answer It is by the only work of the Spirit of God giving us eyes to see and hearts to embrace and love the light If we be further urged for some are thus importunate But how know you that you do indeed perceive such a heavenly light as you speak of Or how can you make it appear to others that you are not deceived Now truly this is but a vain question it being an absurd thing to demand a reason of sense which is as if one should ask him that gazeth on the Sun How know you that you see the light Why he is certain that he sees it and knows that he is not deceived though he cannot convince a blind man of it and if in case he that is blind requires him that sees to prove unto him by sound argument that he beholds such an object he demands an impossible thing of him unless he could give him eyes to see it Some of the most learned Papists after all their disputing and wrangling are driven at last to acknowledge this inward illumination and testimony of the Spirit of God Stapleton himself even in that Book where he defends the Authority of the Church saith That the godly are brought to faith by the voice of the Church but being once brought and enlightened with the light of divine Inspiration then they believe no more for the Churches voice but because of the heavenly light And again in the last Book that ever he wrote against learned Whitaker he tells us plainly That the inward perswasion of the holy Ghost is so necessary and effectual for the believing of every object of faith that without it neither can any thing by any man be believed though the Church testified with it a thousand times and by it alone any matter may be believed though the Church held her peace or were never heard Hereby it appears that we may be infallibly assured of the divine Authority of the Scriptures though the Authority and testimony of the Church be not so regarded by us as the Papists would have it But yet when we have to do with Infidels and Atheists that scoff at this divine light and inward testimony of the Spirit we have more Reason on our side as hath been shewed at large to convince them and to prove that the Christian Religion is the true Religion and that the Scriptures do contain the Word and Laws of the most high God then any other Religion nay then all other Religions in the world As for the inward testimony of the Spirit witnessing the divine authority of the Scripture and how it is to be considered take these following Rules * Rules concerning the Spirits testimony for preventing mistakes First That the Spirit of God doth assuredly perswade the Conscience of a Christian that the Scriptures are the Word of God not by an immediate Vision or Revelation under which pretence Satan transforming himself into an Angel of light hath deluded and ensnared many poor souls but by enlightening the eyes of our understanding to behold the light writing the Law in our hearts and inward parts as God hath promised in the new Covenant sealing up the Promises to our souls and causing us experimentally to feel the powerful effects thereof Secondly This divine supernatural perswasion wrought in Believers by the Spirit of God is more certain and more satisfactory then can be proved by our weak imperfect Reason or expressed in words for things doubtful may be proved but as for things that are in themselves most clear and certain we say they need no rational proof or demonstration as the shining of the Sun which discovers it self by its own light needs not be confirmed by any rational Arguments to him that hath his eyes open to see the light thereof Thirdly It is such a testimony and demonstration of the divine Authority of the Scriptures as is certain and manifest to him that hath the Spirit for it makes it self evident where it comes but this is private and particular not publick and common testifying only to him who is endued therewith but not convincing others nor confirming doctrines to them In this case men must have recourse to the visible standing Rule to the written Law and Testimony if any man speak not according to this let him pretend never so much to the inward testimony and revelation of the Spirit it is because the light and truth of God is not in him Fourthly This testimony of the Spirit therefore is not to be severed from the Word which is the Instrument of the holy Ghost and his publick authentick testimony Nor is it injurious to the Spirit of God to be tried by the Word seeing there is a mutual relation and correspondence between the truth of the party witnessing and the truth of the thing witnessed And this holy Spirit the Author of the Scriptures is every where like unto and doth every where agree with himself as it is in a pair of Indentures there is no difference at all between them but the very same things that are mentioned in the one are also mentioned in the other so it is between the Spirit revealing and the truths of God revealed in the Scriptures Fifthly The testimony of the Spirit doth not teach or assure all and every one of the letters syllables and words of the Scriptures which are only as a vessel to carry and convey the heavenly light unto us but it doth seal in our hearts the saving truth contained in those sacred Writings into what language soever they be translated Hence it is that the Apostle tells the Corinthians that they are the Epistle of Christ written not with Ink but with the Spirit of the living God not in Tables of stone but in the fleshly Tables of the heart 2 Cor. 3.3 Sixthly and lastly The Spirit of God doth not lead them in whom he dwelleth and witnesseth absolutely and at once into every truth of God so as utterly to dispel all ignorance and darkness out of the soul but he leadeth them into all truth necessary to salvation and by degrees John 16.12 13. Being a free voluntary Agent he worketh when and
where and in what measure he pleaseth so that holy men partakers of the same Spirit in several degrees may err and mistake in some things and dissent one from another in matters that are not fundamental And thus we have given you some Rules to prevent mistakes touching the inward testimony and revelation of the Spirit of God It will not be amiss now to reflect a little yet without any rankor or bitterness against the persons of men upon their opinion that derogate from the Spirit of God and divine revelation and set up Reason as a Judge in matters of Religion and so resolve their Faith finally into Reason CHAP. XV. Briefly shewing when Reason is rightly used and when abused to the prejudice of the Spirits Testimony in the Scripture NO discreet rational man will deny the use of Reason in judging matters Civil and Religious in the sence formerly declared and proved If you will shew your self a man and not a beast a judicious understanding Christian and not a Child in knowledge and judgment then you must make use of your Reason in examining those matters that are propounded to you whether Civil or Religious but yet if you admit Reason to be the only Rule or Standard to measure the Mysteries of Faith by and to judge of and comprehend the most divine supernatural Doctrines and Truths of Christ then you ascribe too much to Reason and too little to the Spirit of God and Faith Eye hath not seen nor ear heard saith the Apostle neither have entred into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him And as none know the things of a man save the spirit of a man which is in him even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 2.9 11. The rational Creature is a competent Judge of things meerly rational but the spiritual man only in whom the Spirit of God dwelleth can rightly and spiritually discern and judge of things that are meerly spiritual and supernatural and therefore we must take heed that we confound not the Spirit and Faith of the Gospel with our natural Reason nor prejudice the divine Authority of the Scriptures by ascribing too much to Reason as we ought not to take from Reason that which is due to her in reference to divine matters First Then we acknowledge that Reason is the eye of mans Soul or that Organ which lets into his Soul that divine light and testimony of God which begets Faith and upon which Faith doth rest it self and into which it is finally resolved Reason is not the object on which our Faith resteth but that faculty which being sanctified takes in the light of Faith which leads us to Christ and the things that are heavenly and supernatural The judgment and determination of the Word of God inspired by the Spirit of God is that wherein we finally rest as the rule of our Faith and the light of divine Understanding and Reason sanctified is that whereby a Christian judgeth of spiritual things God in his Word speaks to reasonable Creatures not to brute beasts who by way of discourse weighing what goes before and what follows the Text and comparing Scripture with Scripture do come to a right understanding of the will and mind of God therefore we are commanded as men that have reason in us to search the Scriptures to try the Spirits and to judge what the Apostles say These are acts of Reason and Judgment by the help whereof we are enabled to give a sober rational account of our own Faith and to convince the Adversaries and gain-sayers If you be to deal with an Adversary that hates the Christian Religion how can you think to perswade him to Christianity unless you shew him a reason as indeed the Christian Religion is the wisest and most rational Religion If you say your Church is the true Church you must give a reason for it or else no discreet man will believe you seeing many pretend to the true Church that do not belong to it If you urge a Scripture for your opinion sober men will rationally judge whether it be agreeable to your sence and interpretation or not and accordingly will embrace or reject your opinion It concerns every man as he tenders the peace and salvation of his own soul to be certain of the truth of his Religion And seeing there are so many opinions and such variety of perswasions in the world touching matters of Religion we ought to consider which perswasion hath the best and surest grounds for it that we may with peace and safety venture our souls upon it Now this we cannot well do unless we make use of our Reason in comparing one thing with another that we may embrace the truth and reject error Secondly Though there are mysteries of Faith which Reason cannot comprehend yea in their proper nature they are contrary to the dictates of natural Reason Ex nihilo nihil fit saith Reason and Ex nihilo omnia fiunt saith Faith The dead cannot return again to life saith Reason Thy dead bones shall live again and this mortality shall put on immortality saith Faith yet the rational Soul of man being overpower'd and acted by a higher principle even by the Spirit of God sees the greatest reason in the world to believe these and all other divine supernatural mysteries and truths because the Scripture revealeth them to be of God and from God Is it not meet and reasonable and well becoming us that are rational Creatures to believe the God of Truth speaking to us in his Word though what he speaks seem never so unreasonable never so contrary to flesh and blood Yet Reason will tell us this That all that God speaks for from this pure Fountain can proceed nothing but pure streams is true and good divine and heavenly whatever our corruption saith to the contrary So then our Faith must be resolved into the divine truth and authority of Gods Word and our Reason captivated and subjected unto this higher principle to believe what we find revealed in the Scriptures because it is revealed and comes from the God of truth that cannot lye Thirdly As I have reason to believe all that God speaks in general as being the God of truth so I have reason also to believe in particular that the doctrine of Scripture is Gods revealed Mind and Will Nor is it sufficient to a well-grounded Faith for a man to say he believes all that God reveals to be true but he must also believe that the mysteries contained in the holy Scriptures are the things which God hath revealed for his salvation 'T is true according to the Judgment of our Divines that Faith may rightly be said to be a firm assent without evidence of many things in themselves which we do believe but yet the medium by force whereof we are drawn to believe must be evident unto us As now if I be asked by an enemy
of the Christian Religion Why I believe the Incarnation Death and Resurrection of Christ I answer Because Gods Word testifieth of them as things most certain and true If he ask me further How know you that God hath revealed these things I answer By infallible signs and testimonies from Heaven beyond all humane power as hath been shewed Chap. 12. of this Treatise by which mans reason may be convinced that those writings are of God and so I can prove that a Christian hath more reason for his Religion then any other whether Jew or Turk or Heathen Fourthly Though in these respects that have been mentioned our Reason may be of very good use in reference to spiritual and divine things yet we must not make our Reason the rule and measure of our Faith in matters that are beyond our Reason As for example there is a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead as the Scripture assures us Matth. 28.19 1 John 5.7 Shall I now reject this great Mystery because it corresponds not with the dictates of my Reason and Understanding and say with those self-will'd Socinians that because it is impossible to Reason that three should be one God therefore I will not believe this great Truth But only interpret it thus that these three agree in one and are one by consent of minds and wills for so a thousand men may be one And again If because I cannot conceive or comprehend by my Reason how Christ and his Father can be one in substance and essence therefore I will find out another interpretation which may agree with my Reason though it be contrary to the mind of God in the Scriptures and to the Articles of the Christian Faith Truly this is to set Reason in the Chair or Throne above the Spirit of God in the Scriptures and so the sacred Scripture or Divine testimony shall vail Bonnet to our Sense and Reason and not we to the Authority of God in his Word Now this is the practice of curious proud Wits who will not believe any thing be it never so sublime and mysterious unless forsooth it be made evident to their shallow understandings Hence it is that they consult with the dictates of Reason about the chiefest Articles of Faith and accordingly expound them or rather pervert them denying and rejecting the Person and Offices of Christ the Doctrine of satisfaction and propitiation by Christ the Resurrection of the same Individual body the absolute Decrees of God and other Mysteries of the like nature and so at length God leaving them to their own vain reasonings and the wicked imaginations of their own hearts they become meer Atheists Indeed every Christian as hath been said ought to give a Reason of the Faith and Hope that is in him but we must put a difference between giving a reason of our believing and a reason of the thing believed I believe the Doctrine of the Trinity That Christ is consubstantial and coessential with the Father that he was incarnate and born of a Virgin that Jacob was loved and Esau rejected before they had done either good or evil and the reason and ground of my belief is because the same is written in the infallible Word of God But now to demonstrate and evidence these high Truths and Mysteries to humane Reason from the nature of things or otherwise to disbelieve them this is a course destructive to the Christian Faith and Religion There are some things that are evident in themselves as the Principles of Geometry that every whole and entire thing is bigger then a part of it and the like But then there are other things that are not evident in themselves but are revealed and made known to us both that they are and what they are by a forreign medium without the compass of the things themselves Of this sort are all those things which we are perswaded of by the report of others and this is that certainty of knowledge which we have of things that are believed the truth of which in themselves appeareth not to us nor is seen of us And in this respect Faith is truly said to be an assent without evidence upon the credit of the Revealer In these things our Reason reacheth but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that such things are the Truth of God but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is hid from us we cannot shew a reason how such things should be Thus to tye our Faith to Reason and form our belief by the dictates of reason so as to refuse to believe any thing without evidence from the nature of the thing it self demonstrated and made known to our Reason argues much pride and self-confidence setting up our Reason above the Will of God * Against subjecting the Scripture to Reason revealed and arraigning the sacred Scriptures at the Bar of our Reason Now this is not to be admitted but to be rejected by all Christians and that upon these Grounds and Considerations First Because our Reason and Understandings are but weak and shallow in the knowledge of the Mysteries of Nature and we are much more ignorant and blind in the mysteries of Grace and in things that are divine and supernatural John 1.5 1 Cor. 1.19 20. 1 Cor. 2.11.14 1 Cor. 13.12 When the world by all its wisdom and reason knew not God in Christ It pleased God saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 1.21 by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe Yea not only in the men of the world but in the most eminent Saints there is still much blindness in their understandings and much perverseness in their wills and in the reasonings of their hearts against the Truths of God Now these vain and carnal and foolish reasonings of ours should be regulated and corrected by the Word of God Mans Reason should not presume to regulate the Word but the Word of God should regulate and correct mans Reason The Word is the rule and not our Reason for that which is to be regulated cannot be the rule to regulate Secondly To bring Scripture to the Bar of our Reason and so make Reason the Judge in divine mysteries is exceeding preposterous for this were to subordinate and make subject that which is much superiour to that which is far inferiour that which is perfect and without error to that which is imperfect and erroneous Now certainly that which is weak and corrupt is not fit to judge that which is holy and perfect nor is that which is subject to errors and mistakes as mans Reason is fit to regulate and judge the Word of God which is all light and all truth and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works 2 Tim. 3.16 17. As John the Baptist said to Christ (n) Mr. Lyford on Heb. 5.13 14. cap. 1. pag. 28. I have need to be baptized of thee and comest thou to me that am
the Galatians hath many notable sayings touching Faith and Reason In this case of believing the Gospel saith he we must silence Reason which is an enemy to Faith which also in temptations of sin and death leaneth not to the righteousness of Faith for thereof it is utterly ignorant but to her own righteousness Now as soon as the Law and Reason joyn together Faith loseth her Virginity for nothing fighteth more strongly against Faith then the Law and Reason The Gospel leadeth us beyond and above the light of the Law and Reason into the deep secrets of Faith where the Law and Reason have nothing to do Again If ye will believe Reason Reason will tell you that such things as God hath promised are impossible foolish weak absurd things What more absurd foolish and impossible then that Abraham should have a Son in his old age of the barren and dead Body of Sarah But now Faith killeth Reason and slayeth that Beast which the whole World and all Creatures cannot kill Thus Abraham killed it by Faith in the Word of God which promised him a Son To this word Reason yielded not straitway but fought against Faith in him judging it to be an absurd impossible thing but Faith wrestled with Reason and at length got the victory Abraham killed and sacrificed Reason that most pestilent enemy of God and so must all the godly do There are many things in Scripture that are quite cross and contrary to the apprehensions of corrupt Reason and 't is the great work of the Spirit of God to subdue and captivate our Reason to the authority of the Word of God and the obedience of Faith The weapons of our warfare saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 10.4 5. are mighty through God for the pulling down of strong holds casting down reasonings and every high thing that exalteth it self against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ Those strong holds that stand out against the Gospel are especially two namely the greatness and power of worldly Princes and Rulers and also the reasonings and argumentations of the learned Orators and Philosophers both these must be subdued and captivated to the obedience of Faith Men must be led away like Captives saith Judicious Calvin on the Text from their own Reason and Will The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reasonings is very emphatical Quo vocabulo (z) Estius in 2 Cor. 10.4 5. significantur non qualescunque cogitationes sed quae fiunt ratiocinando disceptando dum adhibito judicio rationis animus examinat aliquid de eo pronuntiat sit ne verum an falsum bonum an malum Here we may see plainly that our Reason must be conquered and captivated to the obedience of the Gospel or else there can be no true Faith Indeed Reason and Faith may well walk together provided that Reason give Faith the upper-hand We must not say they are the words of a noble Writer who makes great use of Reason to prove the truth of the Christian Religion (a) Morney de veritat Christi Religio That because Reason doth not comprehend this or that point of Religion therefore we we should not believe it for this were a measuring of Faith by Reason whereas we ought to believe the Mysteries of God that are beyond our Reason To believe on God through Christ what is it else but to submit our reason and understanding to God And thus our Reason must be a servant to Faith and must stoop to the power of Faith Faith must not be abased and stoop to the measure of Reason Now when and wherein humane Reason and Knowledge is perverted and abused and so comes to be prejudicial and dangerous shall be here briefly represented in a ew particulars and so we will shut up this discourse of the right use and abuse of Reason * How and wherein humane Reason is abused and perverted First It is then dangerous and destructive to the divine Purity of the Christian Religion when the Opinions and Sentiments of some Learned Philosophers and Rationalists that are contrary to the Doctrine of the Gospel are imposed upon us as true as namely the Worlds Eternity the Stoical Fate Purgatory after this life the denial of the Resurrection of the Body worshipping of Angels and the like having a shew of Reason Wisdom and Humility Col. 2 18 23. Secondly When those Principles of Nature and Philosophy which are true in an ordinary way are perverted and abused to the rejecting of those Gospel-truths that are above Nature These Maxims and Positions of Philosophers That of nothing nothing can be made That of privation to a habit there is no regression That a Virgin cannot conceive though they are naturally and Physically true yet in Divinity and Christianity they ought not to be admitted God created the World of nothing our blessed Saviour without the help of Man was born of a Virgin as the Scripture assures us God calleth the things that are not as if they were Rom. 4.17 These bodies of ours after they are resolved into dust shall be raised up again and made like to the glorious Body of Christ according to the working of God whereby he is able even to subdue all things to himself Phil. 3.21 Here Faith in Gods Omnipotency must be exercised and Reason must give way to Faith Indeed mans Reason as now it stands is so far from taking the just measure of Faith which transcendeth natural Strength and Reason that it cannot so much as take the just and full measure of Nature nor of the least of Gods Creatures in regard of that ignorance and darkness that is in every one of us and therefore it is a great error to believe no further then Reason can measure and comprehend For what a great way doth the truth of spiritual and divine things extend beyond our Reason And even Reason it self will lead us to this Point namely That we should believe beyond Reason I mean those things which no meer natural understanding or capacity can reach or attain to and that when these things are revealed by God to men which Reason could never have comprehended no not even when it was at the best the same Reason which could never have found them out makes us to allow of them it being reasonable and fit for us to believe whatsoever God hath revealed to be true And herein Reason teacheth us that which she her self neither knew nor believed namely by leading us to the most infallible Teacher whom we ought to hear and believe Thirdly It is then dangerous when a Christian boasts of his humane Reason and Knowledge and is elated and puffed up therewith undervaluing and slighting all others as if their Reason and Knowledge were not comparable to his and so it becomes a vain windy thing Knowledge saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 8.1 puffeth up but love edifieth Vain man would be wise as it is in Job 11.12 though he
be born like a wild Asses Colt In the Hebrew there is an elegant Paranomosia Vain man or as the word may be rendered hollow or empty man though he be foolish and ignorant would seem to be wise and rational if he knew how Doubtless God will curse and blast that profane wit and knowledge which despiseth the simplicity of Christs Gospel and will not captivate it self to the obedience of Faith Fourthly When the reasonings or rational argumentations of men are unseasonably and excessively used in divine things the nature of the matter not requiring it then are such reasonings dangerous Hence some of the Fathers are justly censured and the Schoolmen much more for mixing and adulterating the Truths of the Gospel with the Reasons of Philosophers which are no better then Paralogisms and Impostures if mixed with and added to the pure Word of God and the great and glorious Mysteries of Christ Fifthly Then do men abuse their humane Reason and Knowledge when they use needless subtilties quirks and quidditties in debating the great Truths of the Gospel which should rather be humbly believed admired and adored then subtilly disputed Even amongst the Heathens themselves and in all Religions they have had some sacred Mysteries and Secrets that were to be adored and not curiously pried into and disputed by the subtil reasonings of men and whoever did profanely dispute thereof were severely punished Sixthly and Lastly Mans Reason is abused and perverted and proves to be of dangerous consequence when it is made not only an Instrument but a Judge in matters of Faith some there are that seem to depress Reason too much but on the other side the Socinians exalt it too high for they make it not only an Instrument but a Judge and thereupon reject and contemn the greatest mysteries of the Christian Religion because they cannot fathom and comprehend them by their Reason 'T is true there are some that say Religio est summa ratio and there are great learned Men that have endeavoured to prove the truth of the Christian Religion by the Light of Reason and certainly if we can by Reason prove that there is any Religion at all we may by the same reason prove the truth and excellency of the Christian Religion as I have shewed in this Treatise but yet mans Reason is but a weak glimmering uncertain thing in comparison of Faith Ratio recta est ratio lumine Spiritus sancti directa Nor must we confound the Instrument and the Judge Holy Truths Scripture Truths and Mysteries they are divine and supernatural though hammered out and improved by Reason As the Smith that takes Golden plate and beats it into what shape he pleaseth his Hammer doth not make it to be Gold for so it was before but only Gold of such a shape so Reason doth not make a Truth divine or add any thing to the divine authority of it but only holds it forth and declares it in such a way or method It is with Faith and Reason saith a Learned man as with the mould that is at the root of a barren fruitless tree take the mould out and throw in dung or other compost and then put the mould in again and it will much help the tree which hindered it before thus lay aside Reason at first and receive the Truth of God by Faith and afterward improve Faith by Reason and so it will be of excellent use to a Christian Divine Truths are not founded on Reason but on the Authority of God in the Scriptures yet Reason may help to bear them up as you see the Elm or Wall bear up the Vine but the Elm or Wall doth not bring forth the fruit only the Vine doth that As long therefore as the Light of Nature and Reason is not the Rule but ruled and squared by the Word of God as it ought to be there is no danger but when mans Reason is made the Rule and divine Mysteries are vassaliz'd and subjected thereunto this must needs be preposterous and dangerous and therefore to be abhorr'd and avoided by all sober Christians whose Faith should not stand in humane Wisdom and Reason but in the Demonstration and Power of the Spirit of God FINIS Books sold by Thomas Passenger at the three Bibles on London-Bridge A French and English Dictionary composed by Mr. Randolph Cotgrave Folio A Mirror or Looking-glass for Saints and Sinners shewing the justice of God on the one and his mercy towards the other Set forth in some thousand of examples by Sam. 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Montelion Knight of the Oracle Hodders Arithmetick in twelves Ovid de tristibus in English Bishop Hall's Soliloquies in twelves The Poems of Ben. Johnson Junior A plain and familiar Exposition of the ten Commandments by John Dod. A TABLE of the chief Heads of this TREATISE CHAP. I. Of distinguishing betwixt Faith and Reason Page 1 1. HEre is shewed that it requires much spiritual Skill rightly to distinguish them 2. That Morality is one thing and Christianity another CHAP. II. Shewing that Reason is useful both in Civil and Divine things Yet withal 't is presupposed Page 4 1. That the Light of Reason in us is much darkened 2. That it wrangles against the greatest Mysteries of the Gospel 3. That men of great Reason and parts have promoted the greatest errors CHAP. III. How far the Light of Reason extendeth Here is shewed Page 6 1. That this light is but a derivative light like the light of a Candle and not like the light of the Sun 2. 'T is but a diminutive light 3. 'T is notwithstanding a quiet and peaceable light so far as it goes 4. 'T is an ascendant light and cannot find the chiefest good in things below CHAP. IV. How the Heathen Philosophers themselves have complain'd of great defects in Nature and Reason Page 13 1. Here are several Instances given 2. Solomon himself was sensible of much darkness though his intellectual Lamp burnt far brighter then others 3. Christians should not magnifie the light and power of Nature the defects whereof are acknowledged by moral Heathens CHAP. V. Of them that give too little to the Light of Reason As Page 15 1. Such as will not admit of a rational discourse in matters of Religion 2. Such as rely on Enthusiasms 3. Such as hold an annihilation of the faculties of the Soul in Regeneration 4. Such as will not be regulated by Reason in civil Circumstances relating to worship but cause disorder and confusion in Church-Assemblies CHAP. VI. Of those that ascribe too much to Reason As Page 18 1. The Socinians who reject the greatest mysteries of the Gospel because they cannot comprehend them by their corrupt Reason 2. Pellagius and his followers whereof there are many in our times who derogate from the Grace of God and extol the power of Nature CHAP. VII Of the use of humane Reason in civil matters Here is shewed Page 21 1. That it is the most rational and prudent way to be governed by known Laws 2. That such Laws are best as are most agreeable to Reason and tend most to the publick good 3. That the most rational Men are fittest to be Law-makers 4. That such are also of best ability and capacity to administer the Laws and Government CHAP VIII Of the exercise of Reason in Church affairs Page 27 1. Reason suggests that men should joyn together in Societies for the visible worship of God 2. That there should be order and Government in these Societies and that all should not be Rulers but some should obey 3. That such as administer the worship of God in Religious Societies should have due reverence and maintenance 4. That every Christian ought to joyn himself to a Chureh-society that he may visibly worship God with others 5. That men ought not to assign any other Conditions of Church-communion then what Christ hath prescribed in his Word 6. That such as are admitted into a Church-society should freely consent to be governed by the Laws and Rules thereof 7. That they should remain in such a Society and not break off communion on slight grounds 8. That all things in Church assemblies should be administred with much seriousness and gravity that so the Ordinances of God may be rendred majestical 9. That there must be some way or other for determining differences arising in such Societies Here is shewed 1. That Appeals are founded upon the Law of Nature and Reason 2. That it is a more rational and prudent way to have Controversies determin'd by a grave Assembly of godly learned Pastors then by a few ingaged persons in a particular Society CHAP. IX The Light of Reason proves that there is a God Page 40 1. By the frame of this World 2. By the Original of all things here it is demonstrated that the Creatures cannot have their being or beginning from themselves 3. That there must be a first Cause or Mover of all else there would be before every Mover another Mover and so in infinitum 4. It appears to the eye of Reason that there is a God by the distinction of good and evil 5. By the great and glorious Miracles that have been wrought in the World 6. By the wise governing and ordering of the several Creatures and the plentiful provision that is made for them 7. By the testimony of mans Conscience which sheweth that there is a supreme Judge that commandeth the inward thoughts and bindeth the Conscience 8. By the vast desires and capacity of mans Soul which will not be satisfied without the enjoyment of the chiefest good 9. By the continual assaults of Satan who would utterly extinguish the knowledge of God in men 10. By the wonderful preservation of the Church of God which though it hath been as a burning Bush yet it is not consumed This Principle That there is a God hath shewed it self even in Atheists especially in three Cases 1. When they have been surrounded with difficulties 2. In the time of bodily sickness 3. When old age comes and multitude of years teach them experience CHAP. X. The immortality of the Soul of man proved by Reason Page 54 1. Because it abstracts from that which it understands all quantity quality time place c. 2. Because the Soul receives impressions of Immortality and is spiritual in its operations 3. No mortal corruptible thing can satisfie the desires of the Soul 4. If Mans Soul were not immortal then the sensitive Creatures would excel Man 5. The Soul is not subject to motion being most perfect when most free from motion therefore she is not corruptible 6. Another Reason is taken from the Justice of God 7. From the universal consent of all Nations in one kind of Religion or other CHAP. XI The truth of the Christian Religion proved by Reason Page 62 1. From the Antiquity of it 2. From the excellent way and means of atonement and propitiation held forth therein 3. From the glorious divine Miracles and Works of Christ and his Apostles Objections against the same answered 4. From the precious excellent Doctrine and Life of Jesus 5. From the nature and success of Christs Kingdom 6. From the strange Conversions that have been wrought by the Christian Religion 7. From the desperate opposition of Satan and his Instruments against it notwithstanding which it hath still prevailed Here is discovered the unreasonableness and absurdity 1. Of the heathenish Idolatry 2. Of the Jews Enmity against Christ and the Christian Religion 3. Of the Mahumetan Superstition CHAP. XII The Divine
their Enemies Is it not more truly honourable and glorious to serve that God who commandeth the whole World than to be a slave to those Passions and Lusts which put men upon continual hard service and torment them for it when they have done it Were there nothing else to commend Religion to the minds of men besides the tranquility and calmness of spirit that serene and peaceable temper which follows a good Conscience wheresover it dwells it were enough to make men welcom that Guest which brings such good entertainment with it Whereas the amazements horrors and anxieties of mind which at one time or other haunt such who prostitute their Consciences to a violation of the Laws of God and the Rules of rectified Reason may be enough to perswade any rational person that Impiety is the greatest folly and Irreligion the greatest madness The wisest and greatest of men in all Ages at or not long before their death when freest from worldly designs and sensual delights have owned that God and His Truth which they did not embrace and acknowledge as they ought to have done in their lives and the nearer death did approach to them the more serious were they in Religion and did disclaim and abandon those Atheistical and irreligious courses wherewith they or some of them had been formerly entangled Nimrod the Founder of the Assyrian Monarchy when carried away by Spirits at his death as Annius in his Berosus relates the Story cryed out Oh one year more Oh one year more before I go into the place from whence I shall not return Ninus that great King next from Nimrod save Belus at his Death left this Testimony Look on this Tomb and hear where Ninus is whether thou art an Assyrian a Mede or an Indian I speak to thee no frivolous nor vain matters Formerly I was Ninus and lived as thou doest I am now no more than a piece of earth All the Meat that I have like a Glutton devoured all the Pleasures that I like a Beast enjoyed all the beautiful Women that I so notoriously abused all the Riches and Glory that I so proudly possessed I am now deprived of And when I went into the invisible state I had neither Gold nor Horse nor Chariot I that wore the rich Crown of Gold am now poor Dust Cyrus the Persian left this Memento behind him to all Mankind as Plutarch and others tell us Whosoever thou art O O Man and whence-soever thou comest for I know thou wilt come to the same condition that I am in I am Cyrus who brought the Empire to the Persians Do not I beseech thee envy me this little piece of ground which covereth my Body Alexander the Great who conquered the World was at last as we find in Plutarch Curtius and others so possessed with the sense of Religion that he was under much trouble and anxiety of spirit and look'd upon every little matter as portentous and ominous so dreadful a thing saith Plutarch is the contempt of God which sooner or later filleth all mens minds with fears and terrors Julius Caesar who Conquered so many Nations and at last subdued and possessed the Roman Empire could not Conquer himself and his own Conscience which troubled him with Dreams and terrified him with Visions putting him upon Sacrificing and consulting all sorts of Priests and Augures though he found comfort from none in so much as a little before he died he was as heartless as the ominous Sacrifice was that he offered professing to his most intimate Friends That since he had made an end of the Wars abroad he had no Peace at home The like may be said of Tiberius Caesar Nero and other Roman Emperours Hadrian the Emperour celebrated his own Funerals carrying before him his Coffin in triumph when he lived and when he was a dying cried out lamentably Animula vagula blandula quae abibis in loca Ah poor Soul whither wilt thou go what will become of thee Thus the greatest Princes have especially near their latter end a deep sense of Religion of the Souls Immortality and their Eternal estate in another World Nor did ever any Prince Captain or Law-giver go about any great matter but at length he was glad to take in the assistance of a God as Numa Lycurgus Solon Scipio and others Titus and Nerva two Roman Emperours had such serious thoughts and were so sensible of a Deity in the Government of the World that neither of them as the Historian saith was ever seen to smile or play Septimius Severus that Victorious Roman Emperour having had experience of the vanity of this Worlds Riches and Greatness said at his Death I have been all things and it profiteth me nothing Charles the Fifth that Famous German Emperour after twenty three pitch'd Battels six Triumphs four Kingdoms won and eight Principalities added to his other Dominions resigned all these in his life time to his Son and betook himself to a retired life and to his private Devotions This great and wise Prince had his own Funeral Celebrated beforre his face and left this Testimony of the Christian Religion That the sincere profession of it had in it those sweets and joys which the Courts of Princes were strangers to grounding his hope and assurance of Salvation upon the sole Righteousness and Satisfaction of Christ his Mediator and not upon his own Works and to this purpose divers little Papers were written by him and found immediately after his Death as is Recorded by an Author who wrote the Life of Don Carlos his Grand-child Philip the Third King of Spain lying on his death-bed the last of March 1621 sent thrice at Midnight for Florentius his Confessor who gravely exhorting him patiently to submit to the will of God the King could not choose but weep saying Lo now my fatal hour is at hand but shall I obtain eternal felicity at which words great grief and trouble of mind seising on the King he said to his Confessor You have not hit upon the right way of healing Is there no other Remedy Which words when the Confessor understood of his Body the King replied Ah ah I am not solicitous for my Body or temporary Disease but for my Soul Cardinal Wolsey that Great Minister of State who for some years gave Law to England and to other Nations poured out his Soul in these sad words Had I been as diligent to serve my God as I have been to please my Prince He would not have forsaken me now in my gray Hairs Sir Francis Walsingham that great and wise Statesman towards the latter end of his Life grew very melancholy and wrote to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh to this purpose We have lived enough to our Countrey to our Fortunes and to our Sovereign it is now high time we begin to live to our selves and to our God In the multitude of Affairs which have passed through our Hands there must needs be great miscarriages for which a whole Kingdom cannot
make our Peace Hereupon some Courtiers being sent to divert Sir Francis Ah said he while we laugh all things are serious round about us God is serious when He preserveth us and hath patience towards us Christ is serious when He dieth for us the Holy Ghost is serious when He striveth with us the Holy Scripture is serious when it is read before us Sacraments are serious when they are administred unto us the whole Creation is serious in serving God and us They are serious in Heaven and Hell and shall a man that hath one foot in his Grave jest and laugh Sir Philip Sidney his Son-in-Law that brave accomplish'd Knight whom Queen Elizabeth call'd her Philip and the Prince of Aurange his Master whose Death was lamented in Verse by the then Kings of France and Scotland and by the two famous Universities of Oxford and Cambridge repented at his death of writing his Pembrokes Arcadia and would have committed it to the flames himself to prevent the kindling of unlawful heats in the youthful Readers of it leaving this farewel amongst his Friends Above all things govern your Wills and Affections by the Will and Word of God In me behold the end of this World and all its vanities Sir John Mason Privy Counsellor to several Princes upon his death-bed spake thus to some of his Friends I have seen five Princes and been Privy Counsellor to four of them I have observed the most remarkable Occurrences in Forein parts and been present at most transactions for thirty years together And I have learned this after so many years Experience That Seriousness is the greatest Wisdom Temperance the best Physick a good Conscience is the best Estate and were I to live again I would change the Court for a Cloister my Privy Counsellors Employment for an Hermit 's Retirement and the whole Life I lived in the Palace for one Hours Enjoyment of God in the Chappel all things else forsake me besides my God and my Duty The Lord Henry Howard that Learned Earl of Northampton being troubled with Atheistical thoughts and suggestions put them all off with this Consideration viz. If I could give any account how my self or any thing else had a being without God how there came so uniform and so constant a consent of Mankind of all ages tempers and educations otherwise differing so much in their apprehensions about the being of God the Immortality of the Soul and Religion I could then be an Atheist And when it was urged that Religion was a State-policy to keep men in awe he replied That could not be true for the greatest Politicians have sooner or later felt the power of Religion in the grievous lashes of their Consciences and the dreadfulness of their apprehensions about that state wherein they must live for ever Cardinal Richlieu that great Politician after he had governed the Affairs of Europe many years together confessed to Peter du Moulin a Learned Minister of the Reformed Church in France That being forced upon many irregularities in his life time by that which they call Reason of State he could not tell how to satsifie his conscience for several things and therefore had many Temptations to doubt and disbelieve a God another World and the Immortality of the Soul and by that distrust to relieve his aking Heart but in vain for so strong said he were the apprehensions of God in his Soul so clear the impressions of a Deity upon the frame of the World so unanimous the consent of Mankind so powerful the convictions of his Conscience that he could not but taste the power of the World to come and so live as one that must die and so die as one that must live for ever And being asked one day why he was so sad he answered Monsieur Monsieur the Soul is a serious thing it must be either sad here for a moment or be sad for ever Cardinal Mazarine his Successor who had for several years managed the Crown of France and the greatest Affairs of Christendom discoursing one day with a Sorbon Doctor concerning the Souls Immortality and Mans Eternal estate he wept repeating that Emperours saying O my poor Soul whither wilt thou go and immediately calling for his Confessor he vowed ten Hours of the Day for Devotion seven for Rest four for Repasts and but three for Business saying one day to the Queen Mother Madam your favours have undone me and were I to live again I would be a Capuchin rather than a Courtier Salmasius that great Scholar whom the Learned men of his time never mention without some title of praise and commendation left this World with these words in his mouth Oh I have lost a world of time that most precious thing in the World whereof had I but one year longer to live it should be spent in David 's Psalms and Paul 's Epistles Oh Sirs speaking to his Friends that were about him Mind the World less and God more all the Learning in the World without Piety and the true fear of God is nothing worth The fear of the Lord that is wisdom and to depart from evil that is understanding The Learned Grotius after many Publick Embassies and Imployments managed and performed by him at home and abroad and after his many elaborate Writings in Divinity and other Sciences having taken an exact Survey of the Hebrew Greek and Latin Learning concluded his life with this Protestation That he would give all his Learning and Honour for the plain Integrity and harmless Innocency of Jean Vrick who was a devout poor man that spent eight Hours of his time in Prayer eight in Labour and but eight in Sleep and other necessaries And complaining to one that admired his astonishing Labours and Industry he uttered these words Ah vitam perdidi operosè nihil agendo And to another Friend that desired him according to his great Wisdom and Learning to shew him briefly what he should do he gave him only this direction Be serious Persons of great Estate and Dignity in this World must expect nevertheless to meet with great crosses and disappointments of which doubtless your Honour hath had and will have more and more experience in this vale of tears Now as the Sacred Scriptures do abundantly furnish us with grounds and motives of Patience and submission to the Will and Providence of God in every condition and under every dispensation so there are divers Heathen Moralists who have from the Light of Reason and moral Prudence propounded many excellent Arguments and Considerations to perswade us thereunto Especially Epictetus who though lame and old sickly and deformed poor and under servitude being a Slave to Epaphroditus one of the Roman Courtiers yet was he an excellent Philosopher and a man of a most noble and generous spirit some of whose excellent Sayings to this purpose I shall here recite This wise Moralist speaking of the unreasonableness of murmuring at any cross Events whatsoever hath this passage Dissertat lib. 3.
cap. 26. What reason have I saith he to fight against God Why should I desire things not desireable He that gave hath power to take away and why should I resist This would not only be great folly in me to oppose one that is much stronger but great injustice likewise to fight against a Benefactor We have received all that we have and our very being from Him and why should we take it so heinously if He be pleased to resume something back again And speaking further of the reasonableness of mens resigning up themselves to God's disposal he saith Quis vero es tu aut unde venisti aut quare Do you consider what you are and whence you came and upon what business Did not He give you a being in the World endue you with such a nature put you into such a condition wherein you should be subject to His government and disposal Did not He appoint the time and place and part which you are to act upon the Theatre of this World And this is properly your Business to apply your self to the fittest means for performing the part allotted to you and not to take upon you to murmur or repine against it for it doth not belong to us to choose our parts but to act them Would it not better become us to go off the Stage with adorations and praises of God for so much as He hath permitted us to hear and see rather than mutining against Him because we had no more And in another place he suggests this Consideration That our condition whilst we are in this World is militant wherein every one is without reluctancy to submit to the Orders of his great Captain or General in whatever He shall appoint whether or no it be to dig in the Trenches or to stand upon the Watch or to fight Every man cannot be a Commander and a Common Souldier is to obey not to dispute or offer Counsel If thou maist refuse the condition or work assigned thee why may not another do so too And according to this what Order could there be in the World And again If God would have me saith Epictetus to be sick or poor I will be content to be so whatever Employment he will design for me I will not decline it and whatever He would not have me be or do I will be against it likewise And in another place he hath this excellent passage If I had been made a Nightingale or a Swan saith he I should have employed the time of my life in such a way as is sutable to the condition of those Creatures but being made a Man capable of serving and worshipping that Deity from whom I had my being 't is but reason I should apply my self to this as being my proper work and business and therefore hereunto will I devote my self as to that Employment to which I am chiefly designed I am now as to the condition of my Body lame and old and under servitude Yet still he concludes it to be his Duty wholly to devote himself to the praises and worship of that God who was the Author of his being That must needs be much more desireable saith this Heathen Moralist Epictetus which is chosen by the wisdom of God than that which I choose A reluctancy against the divine Will is the ground of all irreligion and Atheism in the World Why may not a man refuse to obey God in what He commands as well as to submit to Him in what He inflicts and then what ground can there be for any pretence to Religion We should all of us saith he conform our minds to the Will of Providence and most willingly follow whithersoever He shall lead us as knowing it to proceed from the best and wisest contrivance I do in my Judgment more consent to that which God would have than to that which mine own inclination doth lead unto I would desire and will just so and no otherwise than as He doth And in another place Use me saith he as Thou pleasest I do fully consent and submit to it and shall refuse nothing which shall seem good unto Thee Lead me whither-ever Thou wilt put me into what condition Thou pleasest Must I be in a private not in a publick station in poverty not in wealth I will not only consent to it but make it my business to Apologize for it to justifie and maintain before all men such Thy dealing with me to be most fitting and advantageous to my condition To the same purpose another Heathen Moralist to mention no more Antoninus Lib. 10. cap. 25. saith That man is to be esteemed a Fugitive and an Apostate who runs away from his Master Now the great Law-giver who governs the World is our common Master and Ruler and His Will is the only Law we are to submit unto And therefore for a man to be angry or grieved because things fall not out according to his desire what is this but revolting from the supreme Governour of the World and declaring enmity against Him And again If God saith he do not take particular notice of and care for me and my affairs why do I at any time pray to Him And if He doth exercise a special Providence towards all Events no doubt but He doth consult well and wisely about them nor would He suffer any hurt or prejudice to befal me unless it were for a greater good upon some other account and in this I ought to acquiesce And in another place saith the same Author I refer every thing that befals me to God as the Contriver of it by whom all Events are disposed in a wise Order Now what are these great and excellent Sayings of these two wise Philosophers and other grave Moralists that might be mentioned but the same in effect with those divine Sayings in the Sacred Scriptures Psal 25.10 Job 1. 15 17. and 2.10 Exod. 34.6 1 Sam. 3.18 Lam. 3.22 39. Job 5.7 and 34.31 and 40.4 and 33.12 13. Psal 39.9 and 8.4 and 94.12 and 118.18 and 119.75 2 Sam. 15.26 Isa 45.9 and 64.8 Heb. 12.5 8 10 11. Prov. 19.3 Rom. 8.28 and 9.20 1 Cor. 10.13 and 11.32 2 Cor. 1.5 Rev. 3.19 Religion to use the words of a late Learned Bishop * Dr. Wilkins Bishop of Chester hath a firm and deep foundation in the Nature and Reason of Mankind But yet we must not so exalt Reason or the Principles of natural Religion as to derogate in the least from the necessity and usefulnss of divine Revelation or to extenuate the great and unparallel'd Blessing and Benefit of the Christian Religion and the Doctrine of the Gospel of Christ which though it transcends yet it is not contrary to the Dictates and Sentiments of Reason For it is but reasonable that we should acquiesce in the Testimony and Authority of God the supreme Being who neither can nor will deceive us We should not despise any of those Advantages saith the grave Author of The whole
Duty of Man * Causes of the Decay of Christianity cap. 9. pag. 255. which may improve our Reason exalt the Man and depress the Beast in us Yet sure we shall derogate very impiously from Christ's Prophetick Office if we allow not Divinity to be the supreme and noblest Science such as is to be served and attended not regulated and governed by those inferiour But that just order seems now to be inverted Divine Learning is brought down to Humane and the simplicity of Christian Doctrine so perplexed and confounded with Philosophical Niceties that Plato and Aristotle are become the Umpires of our Religion and we must go ask Heathens how far we shall be Christians Those deep things of God as the Apostle calls them 1 Cor. 2.10 and of which he pronounces the Natural man an incompetent Judge are yet brought before that Tribunal subjected to be scanned by Rules of Art but alas our Line is too short to sound those Depths Thus far he Madam This Book which is Dedicated to Your Honour treats of the Right Use and Abuse of Reason in Divine matters There are two extremes which men are apt to run into some ascribe too much to Natural Light and Reason in Religious concernments and others ascribe too little As we should give to God the things that are God's and to Caesar the things that are Caesar's according to that saying of our Blessed Saviour Matth. 22.21 so we should give to Faith the things that belong to Faith and to Reason the things that belong to Reason And herein Madam You may meet with some Passages in this Treatise if You please to peruse it which may by the Blessing of God minister some Light and Direction to You. OF THE RIGHT USE ABUSE OF REASON IN MATTERS of RELIGION CHAP. I. Of distinguishing between Faith and Reason AS it requires much spiritual skill and judgment rightly to distinguish between the Law and the Gospel the Covenant of works and the Covenant of grace to give the Law its due and the Gospel its due whereupon Luther was wont to say That he who can thus distinguish is the best Divine So truly it requires much spiritual skill and wisdom rightly to distinguish between the Light of Nature and the Light of Grace between Reason and Faith in matters of Religion That as Christ bids us render unto God the things that are Gods and to Caesar the things that are Caesars So we should give unto Faith the things that are Faith's and to Reason the things that are Reason's To Faith her full scope and latitude and to Reason also her just bounds and rights May we not wish that many great Professors of the Gospel did but equalize in their practise as to moral Justice and Faithfulness some Heathens that were only endued with the Light of Reason and moral Virtues Did not these go further with their Candle-light than the other do with their Sun-beams And will they not rise up in judgment against them that do so grosly abuse the Light of the Gospel which infinitely transcends the Light of Nature Perhaps this may be the reason why some vain Scriblers in our days place Religion chiefly in natural Improvements and moral Virtues because there is so little moral Justice and Honesty amongst Men yea amongst many forward Professors morality will go very far But yet though Men be unjust and exceeding defective in their morals we should not therefore derogate from the Spirit and Grace of God we should not confound Nature and Grace Divinity and Philosophy Faith and humane Reason Christ and Socrates Paul and Plato Nor the Church of God and the Christian Religion with the School of Aristotle For this sinful mixture and composition the Schoolmen are worthily blamed who by advancing Aristotle in their Writings and ascribing too much to moral Virtues have exceedingly darkned the purity of the Gospel and in a manner quite excluded the righteousness of Christ as Mediator and the gracious powerful operations of His Spirit Erasmus himself speaking of the Arians saith a Hoc ipso fuere pestilentiores quod Aristotelicis argutiis essent instructi Erasmus That they were the more dangerous and pestilent because they were so much acquainted with the Aristotelian Subtilties The like may be said of some curious Philosophical Wits and Pens in this divided Church and Nation who have in effect transformed the Gospel of Christ into a meer System of Morality Indeed a true sincere Christian is the most just and moral of any man but it is not his moral Virtues and Endowments but his Spiritual union with Christ that makes him accepted with God and puts him into a state of Salvation Let Reason be permitted with the Gibeonites to hew wood and draw water for the Sanctuary but let it not rush into the Holy of Holies into the Bosom-secrets of God into the deep Mysteries of the Gospel Reason may not come into these Seas except she strike her top-sail here she must submit and captivate her self to the obedience of Faith There is reason indeed for that which faith believeth b Dr. Preston on the Attributes of God but yet reason must be help'd by faith and rais'd up to Spiritual Objects by divine revelation As one that hath dim Eyes can see better by the help of Spectacles and to chuse a right Jewel we use the Skill of a Lapidary so if we would yield a firm assent to Divine Truths and Principles we must be help'd with light from above even with divine and supernatural Revelation Otherwise we shall give but a weak and doubtful assent thereunto which we call Opinion The works of Creation and the light of Natural Reason enabling us to discern the Characters of God stamped upon the Creatures will prove That there is a God or Supreme Being But as for those Truths that are meerly Supernatural as the Trinity of Persons the Hypostatical Union in Christ and other great Mysteries of the Gospel these are only known by revelation and have no prints or foot-steps in the Creatures to discern them by of which we shall speak more fully and particularly in the following part of this Treatise CHAP. II. Shewing that Reason though much weakned is of good use both in civil and divine things LEt it be granted which will not be denied by any sober Christian 1. That the light of Reason is exceedingly darkned and clouded that the Eye of Reason is weakned and vitiated that with Leah she is blear-eyed That this daughter of the morning is fallen from her primitive beauty from her original vigor and perfection And so fallen that she cannot savingly apprehend or comprehend the things of God Yea 2. Reason as it is now corrupted and perverted in man doth oppose the Gospel of Christ and wrangle against the mysteries of Salvation which it doth not understand 3. That the foulest and blackest Errors that ever were broached in the Church of Christ have shrowded themselves under the fair
the hands of many And those things that are made crooked by power and force mis-employed are rectified and made straight by reason and Counsel rightly weighing the disposition of the People and what is practicable as to time place persons and other circumstances Noscenda natura vulgi est saith Seneca quibus modis temperantur habeatur The nature and disposition of the people is to be prudently observed and by what means they may be temperately ruled otherwise there can be no rational consistency of Government The wisest men that ever treated of Civil Governments have taught us that a State or City where moral virtue and prudence is banished and vice and prophaneness encouraged cannot long continue and prosper and that it is much better and more rational to gain the love and good will of the People by making wholesom Laws and by the exercise of wisdom and clemency which usually confirmeth and assureth the State than to keep them in awe by rigour and severity Although in some Cases and at some times there is more need of severity whereof the most rational experienced persons are best able to judge Firmissimum id Imperium quo obedientes gaudent saith the wise Historian (e) Tit. Liv. Dec. That Empire is most firm where the Subjects so obey as that they rejoyce Nor must we judge of the reason and wisdom of Counsels or of the sufficiency and capacity of Persons by Success and Events which oftentimes fall out alike to wise men and fools nay the latter sometimes have more success in their heady unadvised Enterprizes than the former in their discreet and prudent Counsels Eccl. 9.2 And therefore it was a wise Answer that was given to some persons that marvelled and were astonish'd at the ill success of their Business considering with how wise and mature deliberation it was undertaken that they were Masters of their deliberations but not of the success of their affairs for that was in the power of the Supreme Cause and Being which seems to sport it self with all our fairest Designments and Counsels overthrowing in a moment that which hath been for a long time projected and deliberated and in outward appearance strongly fortified as to future Events CHAP. VIII Of the Exercise of Reason and humane Prudence in Church matters LEt it be granted that the Essentials of Worship and Church Government are Jure divino and may be evinc'd and demonstrated from Scripture yet doubtless as to the outward Exercise and Administration thereof the Light of Reason and Moral Prudence is of excellent use if we will so manage matters in the Church of God as to honour the Christian Religion and derive a due Reverence thereunto And indeed whatever the several Parties pretend as they are now distinguish'd by several names which is a thing to be much lamented yet all of them make use of Reason and humane Prudence in one kind or other in their several Church Administrations though some more and others less according to their capacities The Light of Nature and Reason if attended to and improved by those that are members of Churches and Christian Societies will teach them to walk orderly and to maintain Peace and Unity yea in many respects it will be exceeding helpful unto them First Reason it self will suggest unto us (f) Dr. Stilling-fleet his Irenicum That there must be a Society and joining together for the visible Worship of God Gen. 4.26 As the number of Men increas'd so they grew into Societies that they might more conveniently worship the Lord all men generally agreeing in some kind of Worship though differing as to the manner and object of it The very Heathens had this from the Light and Law of Nature that they look'd on a peculiar distinct Society as necessary for the Worship and Honour of that Deity which they served They did not only consider themselves in a private personal relation and capacity but as members of a Society engaged to attend on the Worship of God in that Society And indeed Man is a sociable creature who loves to joyn and associate himself with those of his own kind if he had all other Comforts of life and wanted Society he would think himself miserable This sociableness of Man's nature is much improved by Religion which is that strong ligament that knits and joyns Societies together and without which no Commonwealth can long subsist Reason and Experience tells us that Religion hath had and still hath a very great Influence upon all Societies and Governments and from the Light of Reason we may gather that the more God is worshipped in Societies the greater honour redounds unto Him and certainly we should worship God in such a way as makes most for His honour and glory Secondly Reason will also tell us that Societies for the Worship of God should be maintain'd and govern'd in the most convenient manner so as Truth and Peace and Order may be preserved There must be some distinction of persons and a superiority of Power and Order placed in some persons over others in a Society or else it cannot long subsist or be maintain'd in peace Though the form of Church Government and the manner of Investing Church Governors in and with their Authority be not determined by the Light of Reason and Law of Nature yet that there should be a governing Power in a Society for the preservation of it is a dictate of the Law of Nature if all be Rulers then every man is sui juris and none will obey and so there can be no Society no Order no Government forasmuch as there is no subordination no superiority nor inferiority all being equals In all Societies Civil Military Ecclesiastical yea in Families which are the smallest Societies there are Governours and governed Rulers and ruled where every one is a Governour there can be no Government and where every one is a Ruler there can be no Order but Confusion and therefore in every Society that is regulated by Reason as there are some to rule so there are others to obey And thus it is in Religious Societies for God is the God of Order and not of Confusion in his Churches Are all Apostles are all Prophets are all Teachers are all Governours If the whole Body were an Eye where were the hearing if the whole were hearing where were the smelling But God hath set the several members every one in their places in the Body or Society even as it pleased him 1 Cor. 12.17 18 29. 1 Cor. 14.33 Thirdly The Light of Reason will also convince us That the persons employed in the immediate Service and Worship of God who administer Holy things to us and are entrusted with the power of Office for governing the Society should have respect and reverence yea and maintenance too rendered unto them by the members of the Society answerable to the nature of their Employment This has been generally practised in all Nations and Countries where there has beeen
any appearance of the face of Religion and may it not be feared that even the Turks and Heathens many of which do exceedingly reverence and honour those that administer their religious Rites and Service will rise up in judgment against many forward Professors of the Gospel who do on the other side as much contemn and despise their Ministers affording them neither countenance nor maintenance which is quite contrary to the Light of Nature and Reason whilst they pretend to the Light of the Gospel and supernatural Revelation The Apostle plainly shews even by Arguments taken from the Light of Nature 1 Cor. 9.7 that the Ministers of the Gospel who labour in the Lord's Vineyard should have due maintenance and encouragement As Tyranny in Church Officers is dangerous and destructive on the one hand swallowing up the liberties of Christian Societies so a Contemptible mendicant Ministry such a Ministry as is enslaved to the dictates and humours of the People is as dangerous and destructive if not more dangerous and destructive to Religion on the other hand as our own reason and daily experience will tell us Fourthly Societies for the solemn Worship of God being agreeable to the Light of Nature and Reason as well as to the Holy Scriptures we may hence gather that every Christian is under an Obligation to joyn himself to one Church-society or other where he may solemnly worship God according to his Judgment and Conscience and not walk at random without rule and order for as he should worship God in secret so being a member or part of the Church of God which is a Body politick he ought to manifest it by being visibly united to other parts of the Body And although Churches are much divided and corrupted at this day yet seeing there are many true Churches of Christ and some of them purer and more agreeable to his own Judgment than others he is bound by the Ordinance of God and this the very light of Nature and Reason will also suggest unto him to joyn and adhere to that Society which he judgeth to be most pure and most agreeable to the Rule of Scripture and his own professed Principles All Nations throughout the World that acknowledge a Deity are convinc'd even by the light of Nature that it is their duty to associate themselves with others for the participation of those Religious Rites and Ordinances that belong to the Worship of that Deity which they acknowledge Fifthly It is an irrational absurd thing and argues an Imposing spirit as any rational impartial man may easily judge to make that to be a ground and condition of Church Communion which the most holy wise God hath not required in His Word What will men be wiser than God will they lay Burthens on the Consciences of their Fellow-Christians where God hath left them free As this practice of theirs opposeth the Word of God and the Christian moderation of the purest Primitive Church so it riseth up with a high hand against the Light of Reason which would have us do no more to others in things of this nature than we would have them do unto us What reason can be given why Christians now should not stand upon the same terms and grounds of Church Communion which they did in the times of Christ and His Apostles Or that they should be bound up to more than Christ hath obliged them unto Or that any should be excluded from Church Communion who have Communion with Christ and shall be admitted into His heavenly Kingdom Surely this is unreasonable The question is not whether the things commanded and required be lawful or no nor whether Indifferencies may be determin'd by the Church or the Magistrate But Whether those persons do in a rational way consult the Advancement of the Protestant Cause the Churches Peace and Unity and the benefit of Brotherly Communion who suspend it upon such things as God hath not made the Ground of Church-Communion and is contrary to the Example and Practice of Christ and His Apostles for they would lay no other Burthen upon the Churches besides the things that were necessary Acts 15.29 Doubtless the main Inlet of those Divisions and Confusions that have been and are yet in the Christian World was and is by adding other Conditions of Christian Communion than Christ hath appointed Hereof none are more guilty though none more apt to accuse and condem others than the Schismatical Church of Rome who by adding to the Rule of Faith and to the true Grounds of Church Communion hath caused no small Trouble to the Churches of Christ which come to be establish'd in Peace not by rigorous Impositions but by mutual forbearance and condescention in such Indifferencies as are not determined in Scripture And this our own reason will tell us that the Unity and Peace of the Church lies not so much in a bare Uniformity in Opinion and Practice touching these things as in an unity of Love and Affection and a prudent forbearance and moderation for which Christian moderation the Primitive Church is much commended and herein we should imitate her She judged it saith the Ecclesiastical Historian (g) Sozom. Hist Eccles l. 7. cap. 19. and that very justly a foolish and frivolous thing for those that agree in the weighty matters of Religion to separate from one anothers Communion for the sake of some petty Customs and Observations For Churches agreeing in the same Faith often differ in their Rites and Customs And withall he tells us of many Cities and Villages in Egypt not only differing from the Customs of the famous Church of Alexandria but from all other Churches besides in their publick Assemblies on the Evenings of the Sabbath and receiving the Eucharist after Dinner And thus they freely allowed liberty unto and did not rigorously Impose upon dissenters in matters of this nature carrying themselves towards them with much moderation and sweetness of deportment without making such observances in Worship as were disputable and not clearly determined in Scripture the Indispensable Conditions of Communion with a particular Church And what reason can be alledged for such Injunctions Is not the Rule of Church Communion plainly laid down and fix'd by Christ himself to the things which he hath Commanded Matth. 28.19 20. After this when some persons would have impos'd the Mosaical Rites and Ceremonies for which there was yet more Ground than for our Impositions the Apostle bids the Churches stand fast in their liberty so as not to be the servants of men in these things yea and after the Apostles days when Victor Bishop of Rome would have imposed on other Churches in the point of observing Easter he was worthily condemned by Irenaeus and others If it be lawful for any persons or Churches to assign unscriptural conditions of their Communion will it not hence follow That Christ hath fixed no certain Rule of Communion among Christians which doubtless he hath done as appears plainly in the Scriptures And if
Creatures we may rationally conclude that there is a supreme Power and Governour thereof which is God What shall I say further on this subject if enough were not already said methinks this should convince and satisfie the Reason of any man living if he have but a spark of Reason left in him that all Nations generally in every Age time and place of the World have acknowledged that there is a God The Heathens themselves could not endure them that denied a supreme divine Power for this cause they put to death that great Philosopher Socrates and others as supposing them guilty of this horrid Crime The Nations that have no true knowledge of God do at this day adore Stocks Stones brute Beasts and the basest creatures rather than they will have no Deity no Religion at all They are zealous and forward in the Worship of their Idols which shews that though they acknowledge not the true God yet they understand by the Light of Nature and Reason that there is a Supreme Being to whom divine Worship is due And as for such as have even studied and endeavour'd to gratifie the Devil to the utmost by becoming meer Atheists they could never so blot this fundamental Truth and Principle out of their Consciences but that the Majesty of God hath affrighted them and been a terrour to them So then the universality of this perswasion in all places proveth that there is an Eternal Deity in as much as there is no History that sheweth the Manners and and Customs of any People or Countrey but it likewise sheweth their Religion yea all both new and antient Commonwealths had always something or other which they Worshipped and called in their Language GOD But as touching Atheism we can easily shew and would take the pains to shew it but that it is already done in the Writings of others the very time and place and persons when and where and by whom it was first forged which is a sufficient Argument against it such an Argument as may for ever silence the Atheists of our times which are as so many wild Beasts fit to be destroyed 'T is true there are some wicked wretches that do desperately harden their own Hearts and drown themselves over Head and Ears in sensual Delights and Pleasures but yet if God put His Bridle into their Mouths which he will do at one time or other those sparks and notions which God hath implanted in every man's Soul shall break forth and appear and the darkness shall not always obscure the light In these three Cases especially this Principle will shew it self even in those Atheistical spirits that have endeavoured to suppress and extinguish it First When they are surrounded and compassed about with difficulties and dangers and must needs fall into the hands of their Enemies unless they be preserved by a Divine power then though they were never so wicked and Atheistical before yet now as the Tragoedian observes they will fall down on their Knees and pray to a Deity they will cry peccavi and confess there is a God indeed There was a Controversie betwixt the Stoicks and Peripateticks the Stoicks held that Man had no Passions in him but the Peripateticks were of a contrary opinion Now it fell out upon a time that when a Stoick and a Peripatetick were sailing together in one Ship there arose upon a sudden a great Tempest the Stoick began to look pale and the Peripatetick observing it argues thus against him Thou look'st pale Stoick and therefore thou art not without Passions he could not free himself of fear when he was in danger to be cast away So although the Atheist in his jollity amongst his Companions belch forth sometimes that there is no God yet in his distress he is enforced to grant a Deity Secondly This Principle will manifest it self even in Atheists when they are opprest with Sickness and bodily distempers as there was an Atheist call'd Diogenes who being much afflicted with the pain of the Strangury detested his former Opinion And Thirdly When Old age comes upon them they grow more wise and sober So we read of one Cephalus in Plato who said to Socrates that whilst he was a young man he never thought that there was any Styx but now in his old age he came to doubt and question What if there be one This indeed may confute all Atheists as a manifest unanswerable Argument proving that there is a God because the greatest Atheists that denied him in their lives have acknowledged and approved him in their deaths Pherecydes an Assyrian being merrily disposed at a Banquet amongst his Friends bragg'd how long he had lived and had never done Sacrifice to any God but his end was miserable for he was devoured of Lice Diagoras for his damnable Opinion was the cause of the destruction of the whole Countrey Meles in revenge of his Atheism Lucian that scoffing Atheist going to Supper abroad and having left his Dogs fast bound as he went when he returned home having railed against God and His Word his Dogs broke loose fell upon him and tore him in pieces Machiavel rotted in the Prison at Florence as the Italians write Appian scoffing at Religion and chiefly at Circumcision had an Ulcer in the same part of his Body as Josephus reporteth Julian the Apostata being pierced in the Bowels with an Arrow from Heaven pull'd out the Arrow and receiving the Blood that came out of the wound cast it into the air saying Vicisti Galilaee and so died raging Many others besides these might be mentioned who though they acted like Atheists in their lives yet justified God in their deaths CHAP. X. The Immortality of the Soul of Man proved by Reason AS it hath been already demonstrated by the Light of Reason that there is an Eternal God or Supreme Being so it may be evinc'd by Reason that Man's Soul is Immortal and indeed the one of these depends upon and bears witness to the other The spiritualness and immortality of the Soul of Man and that it may and doth subsist without the Body is clearly held forth in the Sacred Scriptures Gen. 2.7 Eccles 12.7 Matth. 10.28 Luke 16.22 23. and 23.43 Rom. 8.10 11. 2 Cor. 5.6 7 8. Phil. 1.21 23. Heb 12.23 Rev. 6.9 10 11. into which the Faith of a Christian must be finally resolved But besides this Divine Testimony we have also the Testimony of the Light of Reason First then Let us consider that the Soul of Man when it understands any thing it abstracts from that which it understands all quantity quality place and time changing it into a more Immaterial and Intelligible nature As the Stomach when it receives meat changeth the outward accidents of the nourishment into its own nature whereby it becomes Flesh and Blood so the Soul when it conceives any thing separates it from the gross matter and conceives it universally in the Mind or Understanding If a Man looks on a Horse he sees him of
flourish more in Princes Courts than in the times of the Apostles why did not one or other step forth to vanquish or convict them before the Magistrates Origen not to mention here other Learned men that were converted to Christ was himself a great Philosopher and fellow-Disciple to Plotinus who is highly commended by the Philosophers can any sober man imagine that he and others of great judgment and abilities would suffer themselves like so many fools and mad men to be led with vain Illusions Or to attribute those things to God's special miraculous Operation which depended wholly upon Natural Causes Especially seeing that both Origen and also Cyprian before their Conversion to Christ had professed the Art of Magick If it be further said that the Apostles were influenced by pride and vain-glory in doing what they did how happeneth it then that each of them did not cause himself to be worshipped and adored as the Idol-gods and Mahomet did If they were so vain-glorious in their works as is pretended why did they not make use of their own Names and exalt themselves but refer all to Jesus and give him the power and glory of all who was so much despised by the great men of the World Surely this must needs be from God and from a divine power and not from Satan nor from Men. Fourthly Let a man but rationally consider the Life and Doctrine of Jesus who is the Author and substance of the Christian Religion and he will be convinc'd of the verity and excellency of it What was the Life and Conversation of Jesus upon Earth even by the confession both of Jews and Gentiles but the very pattern of Virtue and Piety What was it but the very Body of the Legal Types and shadows and the substance of the Predictions and Prophecies concerning the Messias How wise how patient how meek and humble how loving and compassionate to Mankind How holy and heavenly minded how diligent faithful and impartial was he in the Work of God He did neither flatter the greatest nor discourage the meanest but delivered the whole Counsel of God without respect of persons What a publick spirit what self-denial what excellent Virtues and Graces did Jesus shew forth both in His Actions and Sufferings His Enemies themselves being Judges Insomuch that Porphyry acknowledged Him to be a most Excellent Man though saith he the Christians are to blame to Worship Him as God And Pilate's Wife desired that her Husband might not meddle with that Just man To His painful Death which He suffered for us He went as a Sheep to the slaughter not opening His mouth and prayed most affectionately for His Enemies upon the Cross Father forgive them for they know not what they do Never was there such an Example of Virtue and Holiness as Jesus was and therefore how can any man of reason think that he should be the Author or Founder of a false Religion As for His Doctrine and Instructions there cannot be any found out or devised more excellent and precious Never man spake as He spake What was the continual subject of His Preaching and Discourse but the evil of Sin the vanity of this World the goodness and mercy of God in pardoning the Sinner the excellency of Holiness and Righteousness the glory and happiness of Heaven He teacheth not His Disciples how to obtain the Riches Honours and Pleasures of this World how to be great amongst men and to seek the praise and applause of men how to Conquer Kingdoms and subdue Nations by the material Sword But he teacheth them how to deny themselves and take up the Cross and follow Him how to be Crucified to the World and the Flesh to lay up Treasures in Heaven to forgive their Enemies and do good to them that despitefully use them Was there ever such Heavenly Doctrine such Excellent Instructions as proceeded out of His mouth If we look to the Precepts in Man's Laws as those amongst the Lacedemonians Athenians Romans they neither command all good nor forbid all evil The Laws of men are limited according to time place and persons As the Wise men of Persia answered the King who would have married his own Sister That indeed there was a Law that a man might not marry his own Sister but yet they found another Law That the King might do what he would and so by this means he shall have more liberty to sin than his Subjects But now on the contrary the Laws of the Christian Religion do command all that is good and forbid and restrain all that is evil the Precepts thereof are general and impartial to all persons to the King as well as the Subject to the Master as well as the Servant to the rich as well as the poor wthout exception No other Religion or Doctrine reacheth the Heart and inward man but only this Where can we find another Law that hath in it Non concupisces Thou shalt not lust which striketh at the very root and core of corruption Other Laws teach men to advance and enlarge their worldly interest and power and to be in favour with Princes But the Precepts of the Christian Religion teach us to forsake the world and not seek great things for our selves nor be ambitious of the favour of great men but to live above it And as God Himself is a Spirit and doth chiefly require the Heart so that Worship which pleaseth Him must be spiritual and such a Worship is prescribed and commanded by the Laws of Christ whereas all other Religions in the World as they proceed from man so man himself being Corporeal the Worship that he chiefly prescribeth must be Corporeal also and not Divine and Spiritual as the Christian Religion chiefly requires Other Religions attribute the praise to man either in whole or in part but the Christian Religion attributeth all to God as the highest Truth the chiefest Good and ultimate End of all Fifthly The nature and success of Christ's Kingdom may serve to convince any man's reason that the Christian Religion is divine and heavenly By what weak means by what contemptible Instruments hath Christ advanced and enlarged his Kingdom How hath he from time to time confounded things that are by things that are not Whereas men will have apt Instruments to every action and the Matter also well dispos'd to work upon Christ chooseth weak and unapt Instruments for carrying on His work in the World not the Wise and Noble and Learned of the World but Poor simple men to be His Apostles and Ambassadors and then for the Matter which they were to work upon namely the World it was altogether unprepared both Jews and Gentiles hating Christ and His Apostles Vlpian the chiefest Lawyer Galen the chiefest Physician Porphyry and Plotinus the chiefest Philosophers then living were desperate Enemies to them and wrote Books against Christ and the Christian Religion Julian the Emperour forbad Schools of Learning to the Christians in hatred of Christianity and the
presence of Christ For outwardly the first Temple was far more glorious than the second and therefore the second must be made more glorious in some other other respect Nor could the destruction of the second Temple which yet we read of Luke 19.44 and likewise in the History of Josephus fall out before but must needs be since the coming of the true Messias Suidas reports this from one Theodosius a Noble Jew That before Christ sharply rebuked the Pharises they marvelling at His wise Questions and Answers made Him one of the Priests without which He being of the Tribe of Judah could not have been suffered to Preach at Nazareth and Capernaum and registred His Name in these words Jesus the Son of the Living GOD and of the Virgin Mary which Register was preserved at the sacking of Jerusalem and afterward laid up in the City Tiberias The Jews themselves have been miserably deceived in prefixing the time of the coming of the Messias so that in this matter they are become ridiculous one to another there is now no Bethlehem where the Messias should be born if He be not already come The Prophecies are clearly fulfilled and those dreadful Judgments threatned against the Jews for rejecting the Messias manifestly even in the view of the Word brought upon them Vespasian at the Siege of Jerusalem offered them Peace but they would not accept of it he made his entrance into their City at Cedron where they took Christ on the same Feast-day that Christ was taken and whipped them where they whipped Christ and sold twenty Jews for a penny as they had sold Christ for thirty pence and thus they were punished in the same kind that they had sinned against God Are they not Vagabonds at this day throughout the World hated of all men for crucifying Christ Having no Temple no City no fixed Worship no setled Government neither Civil nor Ecclesiastical And though they attempted by the Assistance of Julian that wicked Emperor to Build again their City and Temple yet their Attempt came to nothing but was destroyed by Fire from Heaven And now poor Wretches they abide and have been so for many hundred years without a King and without a Sacrifice and without an Ephod and without Teraphim Hos 3.4 And whereas they vainly expect that the Messias at His first coming will be an outward glorious Prince like the Princes of this World this is quite contrary to many Texts in the Old Testament which they pretend to believe and which assure us that the Messias shall come in great meekness and lowliness Zach. 9.9 That He shall be wounded and pierced for the sins of the People and that their iniquities shall be laid upon Him Psal 22.16 17 18. Isa 53.4 5.6 That He who is the Shepherd and God's fellow shall be smitten by the Sword of the Lord and that the Messias shall be cut off and slain Zach. 13.7 Dan. 9.26 Out of these and the like Texts in the Old Testament the Ancient Rabbins do generally gather that the true Messias should be such a person and so dealt with as is described in these places and that His Kingdom should be Divine and Spiritual and should not consist in outward worldly pomp and magnificence By what hath been already said and much more that might be alledged any rational sober man may easily perceive how vain and unreasonable how blind and contumacious the Jews are at this day in denying Jesus to be the true Messias and in maligning and opposing the Christian Religion Thirdly and lastly Against the Doctrine of Mahomet and the Turkish Religion * III. Against the Turkish Superstition there is enough if not more than enough alledged to convince any man of reason that it is but of yesterday and a meer Fable if compared with the Antiquity and Truth of the Christian Religion And that Mahomet himself their great Prophet was a vile wicked wretch and Impostor whom God suffered in His just judgment to delude and even besot the World because they had abused the precious Gospel of Christ Mahomet's Doctrine forsooth is so hardy and so unquestionable that it must not be disputed of which is a sufficient evidence of the vanity and falseness of it The Money is good say they but you must not bring it to the Touchstone to try it nor must you weigh it whereas Truth loveth trial and fears no colours Their foolish Alchoran which contains the body and substance of their Heresie is stuffed with vain Fables and false Tales fit for Fools and Children so that Andraeas Maurus a Saracen and a Bishop besides many other Writers noteth at least nine hundred Untruths in this wicked Alchoran whereof two in the Eighth Section are exceeding gross and palpable One that Abraham was the Son of Lazarus the other that Mary the Mother of Christ was the Sister of Aaron both which are manifest untruths And what shall we think that the God of Truth and Wisdom will regard such false Tales and fopperies in His Worship as are found in this Alchoran Be it far from us to entertain such a thought of God How gross and sensual and foolish are many things mentioned therein as Sect. 16. where Mahomet said that he felt the Hand of God seventy times colder than Ice Is this becoming the Holy Majesty of God And again that one Angel hath seven thousand Heads and that the Devil is Circumcised and such like ridiculous stuff which a Rational discreet man would be asham'd of If we look to the Promises and Rewards of this Religion they refer to Pleasures that are meerly carnal and sensual fit for none but Sardanapalus Heliogabalus and such like monstrous Epicures that have lost their Wits and Reason If we consider the Precepts of this Religion we shall find that they are indulgent to Perjury Adultery and other wickedness A Turk may have four Wives and five Concubines he must not be accused though never so wicked under four Witnesses This wicked Religion of theirs allows Men to couple themselves with Beasts and to spoil one anothers Goods and therefore it is false wicked and to be abhorred And as for the Miracles which the Turkish Religion pretends unto they have no Authentick testimony nor possibility of Truth in them in the judgment of any sober Rational man Take one Instance for all which is this that an Angel when he was a Child opened his Heart and took out that lump of Blood which is the Cause of Sin And then for the way and means of propagating this Religion it is not like that of the Christians Spiritual and Divine by the efficacy of the Gospel of Peace and Reconciliation But 't is Carnal and Wicked by Cruelty and Compulsion killing men that are of a different Religion so that he is the most religious amongst them that can shed most Blood and destroy most Christians And this shews even to an Eye of Reason that the Mahumetan Religion is a meer Imposture and a
most wicked Superstition CHAP. XII The divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures proved by Reason THe Laws of God as we have heard differ much from the Laws of men these command only the outward man but the divine Laws reach the Spirit and command the inward man which Laws are Recorded in the Sacred Scriptures now that these Holy Writings are the word of God and do contain the Laws of God and the Rule of our Faith and practice may be proved by Reason so far as may convince a Heathen or Infidel that there is such a divine Authority and Efficacy in these Writings as are not to be found in any other First then let it be granted as it hath been clearly demonstrated that there is one living and true God and that this God is to be honoured and adored by his reasonable Creatures with that service and worship which becomes him Then it will undeniably follow That there must be some Revelation made by God himself touching that way of worship wherein he will have us obey him this is practic'd by all wise Princes and States who govern their Subjects in a way of Reason and of Prudence for who can know what pleaseth God but he himself and they to whom he makes known his will and pleasure Now then supposing some Revelation of Gods will in order to that service which he will accept if the Scripture be not this Revelation where then shall we find it Let any man if he can shew some other or better manifestation concerning the will and worship of the great and Holy God then what he hath made known in his Written word Nothing can be the standing unerring Rule of our Faith but what God himself hath made so That which is the Rule must be the law of our Beleif and who can make a Law of this nature but God himself 'T is unreasonable to imagine that any men or Creatures can prescribe to us what we are to beleive concerning God unless God himself make known his will and publish his Laws Secondly As for the Scriptures of the Old Testament which are received and imbraced as the word of God both by Jews and Christians let us rationally consider how the Church of the Jews who were the peculiar People of God to whom were committed the Oracles of God Rom. 3.2 have witnessed these Books to be divine and Supernatural Have they not from time to time for many Ages together in their greatest misery and affliction constantly acknowledged and contended for the divine Authority thereof whenas by only denying the same they might have had not only liberty but great preferments in the World And is it not very observable that though the Princes high Preists and others amongst the Jewes persecuted the Prophets and despised their words whilst they lived yet they received their Writings as Prophetical and Divine when they where dead and since blindness and obstinacy came upon the Jewes notwithstanding their great enmity and hatred to the Christian Religion and the Professors thereof yet the Scriptures of the Old Testament yea those very Texts that do evidently confirm the truth of the Christian Religion are kept pure and uncorrupt amongst them Thirdly The Christian Church which embraceth both the Books of the Old and New Testament have witnessed and do still witness to the divine Authority thereof even to the Death the whole Vniversal Church of God even from the first Penning of the Scriptures till this very day have all along professed that these Books are divine and Thousands of them have Sealed the same with their blood this Testimony is of great weight and force though it be not so infallible and effectual to perswade and satisfie the Conscience as the Testimony of the Holy Ghost himself Of all humane Testimonies whereby the Author of any Book that hath is or ever shall be extant can be proved or evinced so as to satisfie mans Reason the Testimony of the Universal Church of God concerning this Book is the greatest and most satisfactory both in respect of the multitude wisdom honesty and faithfulness of the witnesses and the likelyhood constancy and uninterrupted continuance of the Testimony it self Is it probable in a way of Reason that so good and wise a God should suffer so many honest well meaning People to be so long abused and deceived by a false or feigned Book fathered upon himself such a horrid Imposture the God of truth will not endure to lye hid and undiscovered for so many hundred years Christians of all sorts and conditions Noble and Ignoble Rich and Poor Learned and unlearned Married and unmarried Old and Young throughout the World for a long time together have endured the most grievous and exquisite torments that the Devils could invent or the malice of men find out for the defence of this truth and that with great constancy and alacrity with an undaunted heart and merry countenance And can any sober man think that so many thousand persons and some of them of great quality learning and prudence that might have lived bravely and carried a great part in this World should suffer so many and so great things out of meer weakness pride vaine glory discontent or that they should suffer for a fable that hath no Truth nor reality in it This Testimony which is taken from the great sufferings Christian patience joy and courage of the Martyrs is not meerly humane for that courage and cheerfulness which they shewed in the midst of their Torments was not from the strength of humane Nature and reason but it was from above and supernatural Fourthly God hath confirmed the divine Authority of the Scriptures in the view of the World by many great wonders and Miracles from Heaven such as Satan himself cannot imitate such as exceed the power of any yea of all the Creatures in the World such as the most malitious subtil Enemies of God's truth could not deny to be divine These Miracles hath the Lord openly wrought by the hands of Moses the Prophets and Apostles which as they were sufficient to confirm the divine Authority of the Scriptures to them who were eye-witnesses thereof so the undoubted and clear Narration of them is to us an invincible Argument that the Word and Gospel of Christ is from Heaven and not from men the Lord witnessing thereunto both by Signs and wonders and with divers Miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will Heb. 2.4 What shall I say of the Antiquity of the Scriptures and the Doctrine contain'd therein which of all Writings and Doctrines that have been taught and published is the most Ancient In all other Writings and Records the Doctrine of the Creation and fall of man is omitted which yet is particularly and plainly set down in the Scriptures And truly it is admirable to Consider how the power and wisdom and goodness of God have appeared in preserving his written Word and Laws to this day notwithstanding the rage and
have not the Spirit of Christ dwelling in him he is none of his The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him and to them it is given by the father to know the mysteries of the kingdome of God Mat. 13.11 Hereby saith the Apostle we know the things that are freely given us of God even by his Spirit which searcheth all things yea the deep things of God 1 Cor. 2.10 For a man professing the knowledge of Christ to swallow down without tryal or consideration all that he reads and hears if it comes from a person that he admires which yet is the practice not only of the blind Papists but of many seeming zealous Protestants that are too much addicted to a party Non est opus virilis intelligentiae sed puerilis inscitiae this rather becomes the simplicity and ignorance of a Child then the wisdome and understanding of a serious Christian Luther speaking of the blind implicite faith and obedience too of the Church of Rome tells us that 't is such an opinion and practice as renders a man Brutist and deprives him of Reason and man-hood and for this wicked opinion and practice of theirs namely for exercising an absolute dominion over the Faith and Consciences of men the Roman Prelates deserve to be driven out of the number of the faithful as Wolves and Tyrants But what shall every private Spirit will you say take this upon him Is not this to judge his Judges and to pass Sentence upon his Superior To which we answer that those persons be they never so great and learned judge of divine things by a private Spirit who depend upon their own corrupt Reason and Fancy and accordingly judge and determine and not he though but a private Christian that is taught of God and judgeth of the points of Religion by and according to the word of God Nor do we say that every private man is to judge by way of Authority in foro publico a publick Authoritative disquisition and tryal in matters of Religion is one thing and a private rational Christian examination is another 't is one thing judicare to judge of mine own acts and another thing judicem agere to act as a Judge Indeed the Spiritual man judgeth all things but how not in a juridical Authoritative way but only so far as concerns his calling and capacity if he be a private Christian Rational judgment belongs to him but Magistratica and Ministerial judgment belongs to others that are in a more publick capacity and office And therefore in this case he is to try and judge with much modesty and humility not rashly and headily as being self-conceited and leaning too much to his own understanding Let him walk orderly and keep his place and station giving due respect and reverence to Christian Magistrates and godly Pastors and submitting to them in the Lord Heb. 13.7 17. And this will be a means to preserve the Church of Christ from Anarchy and Confusion Thus we have shewed how the Scriptures may be proved by the light of Reason to be the word of God and that every Christian ought to exercise himself in searching the Scriptures and judging of Doctrines but yet we must distinguish between those external rational Arguments which are brought to prove the divine Authority of the Scriptures and the internal Testimony of the Spirit of God in the Scripture which is the most clear certain infallible publick Testimony and of it self worthy to be believed for it is the Testimony of God himself Hereof we shall treat more particularly in the following Chapter CHAP. XIV Of the Internal Testimony of the Spirit of God witnessing the divine Authority of the Scripture ALthough there are rational arguments which have been already mentioned to prove the Scriptures to be the word of God yet the inward Testimony of the holy Ghost himself is necessary to assure us of the divine Authority thereof which Testimony is better and more certain then all our Reason for as God is a sufficient witness of himself in his own word so the hearts and Consciences of men will never be fully satisfied that the Scriptures are by divine inspiration till the same be sealed and confirmed to them by the inward Testimony of the Holy Ghost till then they will be much in the dark often doubting and wavering notwithstanding all other reasons and proofs (l.) Calv. Instit Lib. 1. Chap. 7. S. 5. We should so believe the Scripture for it self and in regard of the Testimony of the Spirit of God witnessing the same as not to subject the divine Authority thereof to our Reasons and demonstrations When our understandings are once powerfully convinced and enlightned by the Spirit of God which endited the holy Scriptures then do we not believe by our own judgment or Reason or other mens that the Scripture is from God and by divine inspiration but above all humane Reason and Judgment we hold it most certain even as if we beheld the majesty of God himself there present John 4.42 And having attained this we seek not after humane Arguments to rest our faith upon but as a thing that admits of no doubt or dispute we take it for granted and do fully captivate and submit our Judgment and Reason to it such therefore is the perswasion of a true Spiritual Christian of the Authority of God in the Scriptures far different from other mens as requireth no humane Reason such is his knowledge and certainty as hath the best Reason for it even that wherein the mind more assuredly and stedfastly resteth then upon any humane Testimonies or Reasons whatsoever Such is the inward Spiritual experience of the power and wisdome and goodness of God in the holy Scriptures that if all the World should oppose the same yet he is fully resolved to give credit and adhere thereunto By nature every man is blind in Spiritual things and ignorant of the mind and mysteries of God and therefore though the Scripture be a shining light in it self yet unless our understandings be opened and enlightned we cannot behold it no more then a blind man can see the Sun when it shineth The Spirit of God is the Author of supernatural light and faith by the inspiration thereof were the Scriptures first written the secrets and mysteries of God are fully known unto and effectually revealed by this Spirit The same law and word which is written in the Scriptures this Spirit doth also write and impress upon the hearts of them that are endued therewith and therefore the Testimony of this Spirit where it comes in power must needs fully perswade and assure the heart and Conscience of a Christian that the Scripture is the infallible word of God As in other Sciences there are alwayes some principles per se nota indemonstrabilia whence other things are proved and demonstrated so it is in Divinity which is the most excellent Science all conclusions in point of faith and practice
are proved by the Scriptures but as for the Scriptures they prove and evidence themselves sufficiently to the judgment of every true Christian by their own light manifesting their divine Original They are primum visibile not like colour that cannot be seen till light make it apparent but like light it self which maketh all other things manifest and it self too by its own proper quality Now then if a true believer should be ask'd why he believes the Articles of the Christian Religion he may truly answer thus because they are revealed in the holy Scriptures If it be further demanded how he can assure himself that the Scriptures are the word of God he may answer that he knows it by the Scriptures themselves the Spirit of God enlightning his understanding to see those lively characters of divine truth which are imprinted upon those sacred Volumes If yet it be further demanded how he knows whether that is the right meaning of such or such a place of Scripture he may likewise truly say that he knows it by the Scriptures which being diligently examined and compared together do plainly discover to the humble teachable Soul their own true sense and meaning in the things which concern everlasting Salvation And thus the faith of a Christian is finally and ultimately resolved into the infallible word of God or a divine Testimony and into nothing less As for the Authority and Testimony of the Church and the judgments and writings of the Godly learned they are good helps to make us see the Truth but no causes why we believe it this we do for its own sake not for their sayings or determinations which if they do not accord with the Scriptures we ought not to assent thereunto Though we should give due Reverence to the Assemblies of Godly judicious men and thoroughly examine and weigh with humility and self-denyal the grounds of our dissent from them yet the bare Authority of men though never so eminent for learning and piety should not command our assent to any Article of Religion that shall be proposed to us For our faith should not stand in the wisdome of men as the Apostle speaks but in the power of God and the Testimony and demonstration of his Spirit 1 Cor. 2.4 5. The first and chiefest ground whereon is built the certainty of faith's assent is the infallible truth and Authority of divine Revelation because God hath said it we are to believe it and assent to it for whatsoever God saith is true now this is a principle of Nature and Reason which is deeply ingraven into the heart and Conscience of every Rational man that God himself is so infinitely wise that he can be ignorant of nothing nor can any Creature circumvent and over-reach him and withal he is so infinitely good holy and just that no lye or untruth can proceed from him wisdome it self cannot be deceived truth it self cannot deceive and God is both And therefore wheresoever any Revelation is certainly known or believed to be of God there the reasonable Creature doth fully assent to the truth of things revealed But now the great question will be how we know infallibly that God is the Author of the Scriptures and that what we find written therein is of divine inspiration the very Oracles of God Here lyes the great yea the irreconcileable difference between the Church of Rome and us for whereas we maintain according to the truth that the Scriptures are known to be of God by themselves and by their own light and power they hold that we cannot be certain of their divine Authority but by the Testimony of the Church which as they say doth infalliby propose unto us what is to be believed and what is not to be believed And so by this means our faith shall be resolved either into nothing at all for they differ exceedingly about the Church representative and the supreme Judge of controversies here on Earth or at the furthest it shall be resolved but only into humane Authority and so shall be but a humane faith That Circle which they falsly charge upon us (m.) Mr. W. Pemble nature and properties of grace and faith P. 210 211. they themselves are guilty of and can never be dis-intangled therefrom by their Principles For ask a Romanist why do you believe that the Pope cannot err he will tell you because the Scripture saith so thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build my Church and I have prayed that thy faith may not fail and the like Texts of Scripture But how know you that this is the infallible word of God and that your interpretation is the right sence and meaning of these places To this he answers because the Pope and the Councel of Trent say so or as some of them hold because the Pope only saith so or as others of them because a general Councel saith so If we further urge him yea but how know you infallibly that the Pope and Councel do not err in saying so he will answer you because the Scripture affirms they cannot err for thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build my Church c. And thus they run round in a Circle (n.) The Popish Circle described and are so intangled that the wisest and most learned of them know not how to deliver themselves Indeed they accuse us with open mouth as if we were intangled in a Circle running round from the Scriptures to the Spirit and again from the Spirit to the Scriptures as thus how know you the Scriptures to be the word of God by the Spirit revealing the same to my heart and Conscience but how know you this Revelation of the Spirit to be true By the Scriptures which testifie that the secret of the Lord is revealed to them that fear him But then further how know you this and the like places of Scripture to be the word of God we know it by the Spirit which reveals to us the things that are freely given us of God And thus they pretend that they have caught us in a Circle but they greatly mistake us though we do not mistake their Doctrine we teach indeed that we know the Scriptures infallibly to be the word of God by the Spirit of God inwardly revealing and testifying the truth of them to our Consciences But what kind of Revelation or Testimony is this It is not any inward suggestion or immediate inspiration different from those Revelations of Divine truth that are in the Scriptures themselves as if the Spirit of God did by a second private immediate Revelation assure me of the truth of those former Revelations contained in the Scriptures we have no warrant for this in an ordinary way but the Spirit of God reveals and testifies to our Consciences the divine Authority and truth of the Scriptures by removing those impediments that hindred as namely our ignorance and unbelief and by bestowing upon us those graces that make us capable of
far thy inferiour So may our Reason say to the blessed Word of God I am far inferiour to thee and have need to be regulated and reformed by thee and comest thou to me No no it is my greatest honour to submit my self to thee and thy Divine Authority Thirdly Upon this ground also mans Reason is denyed to be the Rule and Judge in matters of Faith because one man cannot prove infallibly to another man that his Reason is the right Reason in such a case He pretends Reason so do I A third man comes and pretends to as much Reason as either of us and experience shews that divers men yea good men have different Reasons and different apprehensions in many points of Religion Nor can a man be certain that this or that is the true meaning of a Text if he have nothing to assure him thereof but the appearance and probability of his own Reason for others that differ from him think they have and may really have as much or more Reason on their side then he Indeed if we compare our own Reason with the Reason and Authority of other men which have decreed thus and thus then must we give the preheminence to our own Reason when a clearer evidence is propounded and presented to our Reason for every one is to judge for himself with a judgment of discretion and discerning as hath been formerly proved and 't is unreasonable and absurd for a man to assent to a lesser evidence when a clearer evidence is propounded to him 'T is true there are not many that are well able to judge for themselves in the Controversies of Religion and therefore God hath provided spiritual Guides and Shepherds to go before them and help them but yet Christians must not resign up their wits and senses to follow them where-ever they go if they would lead us blindfold we should not put out our eyes to follow them but should rationally and impartially weigh and consider the grounds of their doctrine and practice Doth such a godly learned man tell you that this is firm ground you may go safe upon it And do you see it to be so by the eye of your Reason enlightened by the Spirit of God Then you may follow him as a man of judgment and understanding and not like a beast that is led he knows not whither and herein you have the advantage of his Reason and of your own too CHAP. XVI Of the difference between the meer rational and spiritual men and their knowledge and acts about spiritual things THe light of Reason should be made use of and improved by every Christian in searching the Scriptures and trying Spirits and Doctrines yet so as we must not confound the principles knowledge and operations of the natural man or meer rational man with the principles knowledge and operations of the spiritual man There is a twofold knowledge of spiritual things a natural or rational knowledge and a spiritual and supernatural knowledge The former is but Historical as when a man reads of such a Country in a History or sees it only in a Map at a great distance but was never there himself to take a full view of it and report the things that are there of his own certain knowledge The latter kind of knowledge is intuitive or a knowledge of spiritual vision beholding the things themselves in the light of Gods Spirit distinctly and at hand No Creature or created thing can go beyond its sphere or comprehend that which is beyond its capacity The vegetative creature cannot reach so far as the sensitive nor the sensitive so far as the rational nor can the meer rational creature comprehend that which the spiritual man doth Such as are alive to God and have spiritual union and conjunction with Christ the second Adam the quickening Spirit live and act from a higher principle and in another kind then meer natural or rational men do The soul of the natural man acts his body and the more he improves the light of reason the more rational and considerate he is in his actings and operations But the soul of the spiritual man is under the power of Gods Spirit and the glorious operations thereof and as far as Gods Spirit is above the spirit of man so far is the life of Grace or the life of the spiritual man above that of Nature 'T is true saith Luther (o) Luth. Com. on Gal. cap. 2. v. 20. that I live in the flesh but this life whatever it is I esteem as no life for indeed it is no true life but a shadow of life under that which another liveth that is to say Christ who is my true spiritual life which life thou seest not but only hearest and I feel as thou hearest the wind but knowest not from whence it comes or whither it goes even so thou seest me speaking eating walking sleeping and doing other things as other men do and yet thou seest not my true life This spiritual life which far transcends the meer natural or rational life must be discerned spiritually the spiritual man hath a white stone in which his name is written which none can read but himself He is the Son of God an Heir of Heaven therefore the world knows him not even as we know not the Sons of Princes were they amongst us who dwell in Countreys far remote from us but his life which now is hid with Christ in God shall fully appear when Christ appears in glory Col. 3.3 4. First Then the spiritual man hath Christ formed in him by the holy Ghost Christ is in him the hope of glory and he lives the life of Christ which a meer rational man doth not there is a spiritual supernatural principle or ability planted in him which still remains and abides and which differs much from natural habits for these are partly and sometimes wholly acquired by use and frequent practise whereas this spiritual principle is not gotten or acquired but infused nor can it be utterly lost as natural habits may but abides for ever John 14.16 Sometimes 't is called the Seed of God which shall grow up to perfection 1 John 3.9 Sometimes a Fountain yielding continual supplies of Grace John 4.14 sometimes from the Author from whom it is derived 't is called the life of Christ 2 Cor. 4.10 11. and sometimes the new birth or being regenerated and born again John 3.5 7. Doubtless it is a most powerful spiritual principle which raiseth and elevateth the soul far above natural strength and reason Those Creatures that have no higher principles and faculties then sense use them sensually but as for man who enjoyes the fame faculties under the command of a reasonable Soul he useth them rationally but when he is new born and becomes a spiritual man those faculties of the understanding will and affections which when they had no other command but Reason had no more but rational operations being now governed and acted by the Spirit of
Fifthly God hath in his infinite Wisdom concatenated and knit together the means and the end in the links of that Golden chain of salvation Rom. 8.30 so that none shall be saved and glorified but such as are predestinated to be conformable to the Image of Christ such as are effectually called justified and sanctified through Christ And again whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard And how shall they hear without a Preacher And how shall men preach except they be sent Rom. 10.13 14. So then those moral Heathens to whom the Gospel is not sent who are not effectually called and converted by the Spirit of Christ so as to be made conformable to his Image cannot be saved by all their moral vertues and improvements Sixthly The Lord is a holy and righteous God of purer eyes then to behold the least iniquity with approbation he loveth righteousness and hateth sin nor will he justifie any person at his Tribunal but such an one as either hath a perfect righteousness of his own which no man hath or is found in Christ cloathed with his righteousness who was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5.21 Now this way of Justification is divine and supernatural far transcending the capacity of the most moral Heathens Adam himself in the state of Innocency looked for Justification by works and by his own personal righteousness and not by the righteousness of another so that indeed this Gospel-way of Justification is not only opposite to man fallen but to man before the fall It was never in mans Nature or Reason to seek for Justification by a righteousness without him and therefore if God had not revealed this way of Justification in and by his Gospel we nor the wisest men in the world should never have thought of it That the most virtuous men that are if ever they be truly justified and accepted as well as the most vitious persons must be justified before God not by working but by believing not by the improvement of their moral vertues but by faith in a cruc fied Christ resting wholly upon him in the sense of their sin and misery for pardon and salvation The true Gospel righteousness as it is wholly of Gods procuring so it is also of his revealing And as other mysteries of the Christian Religion are far above the reason and capacity of a natural or moral man so is this also All the Aristotles and Plato's all the learned rational Philosophers in the world could never have thought of such a way as this for the justification of sinners And therefore this righteousness of God is said to look down from Heaven and to be revealed from faith to faith Rom. 1.17 Seventhly No meer rational or moral man can be saved unless he be reconciled and reunited to God from whom he is seperated by sin Now this reconciliation and reunion must be by and through Christ or not at all for he is the only Mediator between God and man who took on him the nature of man and so joyn'd it to God by the indissolvable tye of the Hypostatical union And whoever will be saved must be united to God through him by the mystical bond of his Spirit which Christ received for and communicates to all the Elect that shall be saved so that unless a man be he Jew or Gentile have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in him and be quickened by the same Spirit that raised Christ from the grave he is none of his Rom. 8.9 11. unless he be transplanted out of the old stock the first Adam and made one spirit with the Lord Jesus the second Adam it is not all his moral vertues and endowments if he were a thousand times more vertuous then he is that will bring him to Heaven Eighthly To hold that a Heathen may be saved by the improvement of his moral vertues without faith in Christ the Mediator is such an opinion as is attended with many absurdities for if this were so then should the true Church of God partly consist of such Members as have no faith nor knowledge of Christ at all or else such shall be saved as do not belong to the Catholick Church of Christ but are strangers to it whereas the Scripture assures us that the Lord adds unto his Church such as shall be saved Acts 2.47 It will also follow from this absurd opinion that Christ dyed in vain and that the preaching of the Gospel or Doctrine of Reconciliation by Christ is in vain as to a number of persons that shall be saved if they may attain salvation by the improvement of the light of Nature and Reason without the knowledge of Christ as Mediator which certainly is not revealed in and by the moral vertues and writings of the Heathen Philosophers much less by the Sun Moon and Stars but by the preaching of the Gospel According to this Opinion another way and much easier and more agreeable to flesh and blood then true faith in Christ self-denyal and resignation of the Soul to him would be found out for mans salvation and then we need no longer admire the riches of Gods Grace and Wisdom in the Redemption and Salvation of Sinners by Faith in Christ which yet is the great mystery of the Gospel Hence it is that some vain men in our dayes are so affected and transported with the moral vertues of the Heathen Philosophers that they make little or no difference in their Books and Sermons between these and the Graces of Gods Spirit which are wrought in the Saints as if to preach the Gospel of Christ and exhort Christians to the exercise of Evangelical Faith Repentance Love and other Graces were only to read unto them a Lecture of moral Philosophy Morality is one thing and Christianity is another whoever they be that go about by their moral vertues and works to appease the just and holy God or to comprehend him out of Christ the Mediator will be dazled with the brightness of his Glory and overwhelmed with the greatness of his Power For no man hath seen God at any time the only begotten Son which is in the Bosom of the Father he hath revealed him John 1.18 But perhaps it will be said (*) Objections answered That the Gentiles which had not the Law did by Nature the things contained in the Law it being written in their hearts Rom. 2.14 And therefore they might be saved If we apply these words of the Apostle to the unconverted Gentiles for there are those that expound the Text of the converted Gentiles then we answer That there is a natural and a supernatural inscription or writing in the hearts of men the one is ratione luminis naturalis by means of that natural light and Reason that is in man which
to the Senate and if being there it should be required of him to give his advice he would speak freely that which his Conscience commanded him Being further threatened by the Emperor that if he spake his mind so freely he should dye for it Did I ever tell you said he to the Emperor that I was immortal Do you what you will and I will do what I ought to do It is in your power unjustly to put me to death and in me to dye constantly The noble Lacedemonians being threatened with hard and cruel usage if they did not presently yield themselves and their Country to King Phillip who came against them with a great power one in the name of the rest answered thus What hard dealing can they suffer that fear not to dye And being told that King Phillip would break and hinder all their designs What say they will he likewise hinder us from dying And after this when Antipater cruelly threatened them what he would do unto them if they did not comply with his demands answered If thou threaten us with any thing that is worse then death death shall be welcome to us These were men guided and acted only by the light of Reason and moral Vertues which raised them above the threatnings of their greatest enemies and the fear of death And should not Christianity the best and most excellent Religion as hath been sufficiently proved in this Treatise much more ennoble our spirits and raise our hearts above all slavish fears If we be Christians and Believers we may then argue and reason spiritually from Faith in the Word and Blood of Christ which the most moral Heathens could never attain unto against the slavish fear of death in this manner Two Arguments from Scripture against the fear of death First Did not our blessed Saviour dye and rise again for this end to deliver us not only from the cursed effects of death and from the Devil as the Executioner thereof but also from the fear of death that thereby he might cure us of this fear and raise us above it Heb. 2.14 15. Yea and this was long since foretold and prophesied that Christians applying the victory of Christ over death should be so far from fearing death that they should tread upon this Enemy and insult over him Isai 25.8 Hos 13.14 compared with 1 Cor. 15.54 55. Secondly Hath not God wrought us for the self-same thing that we being made new creatures by the gracious operation of the holy Ghost might aspire unto glory and immortality which we cannot fully enjoy till we dye for we must be absent from the body that we may be present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5.5 8. Thirdly 'T is a condition which our Lord and Master puts us into when he first admits us to be his Disciples That we must deny our own lives for his sake and not only be content to take up the Cross in other respects but our lives should not be dear to us when he calls for them Luke 14.26 We pray that Gods Kingdom may come namely the Kingdom of Glory as well as that of Grace and by death we must enter into this Glory We are born again saith the Apostle to a lively hope of this glorious Inheritance 1 Pet. 1.3 4. Now if we be afraid of the time and means of our translation thither how then do we hope for it after a lively manner Fourthly Have we not the examples of the godly before us even a Cloud of Witnesses who have desired to dye and were above the fear of death Gen. 49.18 Phil. 1.21 23. Luke 2.29 Psal 14.7 2 Cor. 5.2 7. Yea the whole Church of Christ and general Assembly of the Saints love his appearing and earnestly desire that he would come quickly 2 Tim. 4.8 Rev. 22.17 20. How unbecoming is it for a Christian to fear death with a slavish fear For hereby he dishonours God and disgraceth his Religion as if it did not afford sufficient incouragements and supports against this fear Some Heathens as we have heard that had not the true knowledge of Christ have dyed couragiously and undauntedly And shall a Christian whose life is hid with Christ in God and who is risen with Christ and sits together with him in heavenly places be affraid to dye 'T is the property of wicked men to dye unwillingly their death is compell'd and not voluntary And shall ours be so too Shall we be afraid of a shadow we that are passed from death to life and shall live for ever because Christ ever lives The seperation of the Soul from God is death indeed but the seperation of the Soul from the Body to a ttue Believer is but the shadow of death If we be in love with life why do we not effect that life which is eternal and desire to be dissolved that we may be possessed of it Fifthly Shall we in this case be worse then Children or mad Men neither of which fear death Shall not Reason and Religion prevail more with us then Ignorance and Madness with them Do we that are the peculiar People of God rather desire to remain in Egypt or in the doleful irksome Wilderness for this World is no better then to enter into Canaan yea into the heavenly Canaan where we shall be at perfect rest Is not death ordinary and common amongst Christians Do not some of our Friends and Neighbours dye dayly Adam had more reason to fear death then we for he never saw man dye an ordinary death before him but for us to be afraid to dye who see thousands dye before us is the more intollerable The whole Creation groans waiting for the liberty of the Sons of God and earnestly longing for this change Rom. 8.21 22. And shall we be worse then the brute Beasts and other Creatures and afraid of that Porter that opens the door to our own everlasting happiness Hath not this Enemy which seems terrible to us been often foyl'd and vanquished Hath he not been beaten by Christ and thousands of his Saints And shall it be terrible to us to encounter a vanquished disarm'd Enemy whose strength and power is destroyed 'T is in vain if we think to shun that which cannot be avoided for it is appointed unto all men once to dye death is the way of all flesh and there is no discharge from this War What man is he that liveth and shall not see death Heb. 9.27 Psal 89.48 Eccles 8.8 And therefore we must resolve couragiously to meet and encounter this Enemy for we cannot avoid him if we go not to him he will come to us so that we shall be unavoidably ingaged in this conflict sooner or later Sixthly Why should a Christian fear or be troubled considering what a gain and advantage death will be to him For it puts a period to all those tempests and storms those boysterous temptations passions and afflictions with which his life was continually tossed and incumbred and brings him to a
the Heart and the Brain and in these God hath placed the natural vital and animal spirits These spirits are carried by the veins arteries and Nerves the veins carry the vital spirits from the Liver the arteries carry the natural spirits from the Heart and the nerves carry the animal spirits from the Brain The several members of the body are helpful and serviceable one to another the superiour rule the inferiour as the Eyes guide and direct the whole Body and the inferiour support and uphold the superiour as the Feet Legs and Thighs support the whole Body and as for the middle members they defend the Body and provide things necessary for it as we see in the Hands and Arms. This variety of the members of the body sheweth the excellent Wisdom of God for if all were an Eye where would the seeing be 1 Cor. 12.15 So excellent is the body of man that there are sundry members thereof which God ascribes to himself as the Head the Heart the Eyes the Ears the Feet to express his Attributes to us yea God hath made the body of man a Temple for himself to dwell in and the Son of God hath assumed the body of man in one person to his Godhead a dignity which the Angels are not called unto After the making of man he left nothing unmade but to make himself man Secondly Man is curiously wrought and contrived in respect of his rational immortal Soul and those two noble faculties the Understandtng and the Will wherein man far excels all the sensitive Creatures The rational Soul is the better part of man more worth then all the World besides Mark 8.36 37. What is the body of man without the soul but a dead Trunk an empty Case 'T is the soul that is the pearl or precious jewel the creation infusion and operations whereof are like a curious piece of Embroydery well becoming the Creator and Contriver thereof who is a simple immaterial immortal Spirit the Spirit of spirits the Supream and Soveraign Spirit the God and Father of Spirits Numb 16.22 Bless God O man that hath given thee a reasonable Soul and inspired thee with an immortal Spirit wherein thou far excellest other Creatures For First The reasonable Soul of man can conceive of things by the light of understanding as well as by sense yea it can conceive of things that never were in the Senses as things absent which the Senses never saw nor apprehended it can conceive of things spiritual and immaterial as Angels and Spirits yea of the divine Attributes of God and that which is invisible by the things that are visible we come to the knowledge of God who is invisible Rom. 1.20 Secondly The rational Soul is able to reflect upon its self and its own acts and operations which no meer sensitive Creature can do it understands that it doth understand and knows that it doth know And this understanding and knowledge of the rational Soul is large and extensive for it can in a moment go over almost the whole World and view it all as it were at once whereas the Senses are limited and confined to a very narrow compass Thirdly The rational Soul can invent things that were never before in being What strange things for number and skill and variety are daily invented and contrived by mans wit and reason by which also many great matters both Civil Military and Ecclesiastical are ordered and regulated This is that Candle of the Lord which searcheth all the inward parts of the Belly Prov. 20.27 And God hath set the World in mans heart in regard of that reason and understanding that is in him Eccles 3.11 Fourthly The excellency of the reasonable Soul of man appears in this that his understanding after a sort is made one with and becomes the things that are understood in that it conceives a true Image and Idea of the things to be understood and herein the rational Soul doth somewhat resemble God himself who hath the perfect Idea of all other things in himself so the Soul of man doth as it were form Worlds of things within it self Fifthly The excellency of the rational Soul appears in that divine thing called Conscience which is more then a thousand Witnesses yet subordinate to a higher Tribunal beings Gods Deputy for God is greater then Conscience 1 John 3.20 No man be he never so great and potent can alwayes bribe Conscience but it will give an impartial verdict at one time or other either accusing or excusing him In these and other particulars men may contemplate the excellency of Reason and praise God for the exercise of it Thirdly and lastly The rational Soul of man becomes much more excellent and is like a curious piece of Embroydery by a new Creation being made partaker of the Divine Nature whereas by sin the Soul of man was corrupted and alienated from the Life of God yet now being born again of the Spirit of God and Christ being spiritually formed therein it recovers the Image of God and is restored to a holy fellowship and communion with him and will be a curious excellent Piece indeed when she is perfectly transformed as she shall be into the divine Image and cloathed with Glory and Immortality Psal 45.14 2 Cor. 5.2 Let us now briefly recapitulate the Heads of this Discourse * A Recapitulation of the several Heads touching Faith and Reason so far as we have proceeded It requires much spiritual Skill as hath been said rightly to distinguish between them and give to each its due though mans Reason be much weakened and obscured yet a good use may be made thereof both in Civil and Divine things There is a light in Reason though far inferiour to that of Faith How far this Light of Reason extendeth we have shewed The best Heathen Philosophers were sensible of great defects and languishings in their natural Reason and Abilities though they ascribed too much thereunto Some there are amongst Christians that give too little to Reason in Religious and Ecclesiastical concerns but others more generally offend in giving too much and therefore we have here declared how and in what respects Reason and moral Prudence should be exercised by us both in Civil and Church affairs The Light of Reason proves that there is a God or Supreme being and that the Soul of man is immortal and also the truth of the Christian Religion and the divine Authority of the Scriptures and is of excellent use in comparing and interpreting the Scriptures and judging of Controversies But though Reason be useful in these respects yet the internal testimony of the holy Ghost doth principally witness the divine Authority of the Scriptures and satisfie Conscience touching the same Here is shewed when it is that Reason is rightly used and when abused to the prejudice of the Spirits testimony in the Scripture and likewise the difference betwixt the meer rational and spiritual man and their knowledge faith and operations in and about
spiritual things that none can be saved by the meer improvement of natural Light and Reason and yet notwithstanding the rational intellectual delights of Philosophers and Scholars do far excel all earthly and sensitive pleasures yea the Light of Reason but especially the Light of Faith enables a man to bear affliction and arms him against the excessive fear of death And lastly That Mans Reason and the due exercise of it is a great mercy which should be thankfully acknowledged by us Having gone thus far we shall now by the Lords assistance briefly sum up and comprehend in these two last Chapters the substance of what we intended to say concerning Faith and humane Reason CHAP. XXI Shewing distinctly in some particulars the use of humane Reason and Knowledge in reference to the Christian Religion FOr the better opening and clearing of this great Point to the satisfaction of the Christian Reader we shall first premise a few Considerations and then afterward shew particularly what good use may be made of humane Reason and Knowledge in divine matters I. Consider That the Light of Nature and Reason is not near so clear and bright in us since the Fall as it was in Adam before the Fall but is much darkned Eclipsed and depraved even in those that are most rational and moral whereas it was perfectly implanted in Adam's heart and nature we have but only some fragments of it remaining in us This is so evident in Scripture and Experience that it is generally acknowledged by all Christians When Sense is deceived (Å¿) Weems Portrait of the Image of God Reason corrects Sense but when Reason errs as she often doth in divine and religious matters she cannot cure her self but her Mistriss Divinity must come in and teach her Sarah being old God promised her a Son this she laughed at as being contrary to her Reason in which respect she thought it impossible that a Woman so stricken in years should have a Child but Faith corrected her corrupt Reason she believed by Faith that which her Reason could not take up and comprehend Thus also Nicodemus failed in his reasoning against the mystery of Spiritual regeneration II. Consider That the Light of Nature or natural Reason the Light of Faith or Grace and the light of Glory should be carefully distinguished by us and put in their several places and spheres Reason is but as the light of a Candle a glimmering diminutive derivative light Faith is as the light of a Star which is a far clearer and brighter light but the light of Glory is most perfect as the light of the Sun wherein we shall see God as he is and behold him face to face Lumen naturae (t) Vid. Rob. Baron excercitat de triplici Lumine est quo ea cognoscimus quae solis naturae viribus sine auxilio Dei speciali intelligi a nobis dijudicari possunt lumen fidei est quo ea cognoscimus intelligimus quae Deus in verbo suo nobis patefecit lumen gloriae est quo beati spiritus in Coelis clare perspicue vident gloriosissimam Dei essentiam III. Consider That although some Truths and Mysteries do far transcend the Light of Nature and Reason yet there is nothing true in Divinity that crosseth the truth of Reason as it is the remnant of Gods Image in us Indeed when by Reason we take up a Truth and by Faith we believe the same Truth if in this case Reason claim the first place she is to be blamed as being not a dutiful Handmaid to Faith As for the Doctrine of the Trinity the Incarnation and hypostatical Union in Christ the great mystery of Predestination c. though these may be said to be above the Light of Reason yet they are not contrary or contradictory thereunto 't is the greatest Reason in the World that the Creature should believe and rest in the divine infallible testimony and revelation of his Creator There are some things in Divinity mixtly divine other things are meerly divine In those things that are mixtly divine Reason may be of use yet only in the second place Primo creduntur postea intelliguntur as a man first believes the Souls immortality and then he begins to take up the same by Reason here Reason must not go before but follow Faith for that which I believe I believe it ex authoritate dicentis relying upon the truth of him that saith it and all the evidence I get by Reason is nothing to this certitude If Reason should go before as an Usher to make way to Faith we should never believe and hereupon the Schoolmen say well Rationes praecedentes minuunt fidem sed rationes subsequentes augent fidem Reason going before Faith weakens Faith but coming after it strengthens Faith Reason makes not the matter more sure Ex parte veritatis dictantis sed ex parte inlectus assentientis In respect of God the Speaker but in respect of the weakness of our understanding for by this access of further knowledge it is more confirmed But now in things that are meerly and purely divine and supernatural Quae cadunt directe sub fide which fall directly under Faith as those high mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation of Christ what can Reason or Philosophy do here but admire these depths which she can never reach unto Hence it is that God is pleased sometimes to work effectually upon some learned Infidels not by the eloquence and subtil reasonings of learned Divines but by the plain downright discourses of Christians of meaner Parts To this purpose that Story is remarkable which we read of Divers Learned men having long endeavoured by strength of Reason and Argument to perswade an Infidel to be baptized into the Faith of Christ he being learned also did evade all their Arguments at length a grave pious Man amongst them of no repute for Philosophical learning stands up and bespeaks him with some downright affectionate expressions which wrought so effectually upon him that he presently submitted to the Truth in these words (v) Donec audiebam rationes humanas humanis rationibus repugnabam caeterum simul atque audivi Spiritum loquentem cessi Spiritui Whilst I heard only humane Reasons I opposed the same with humane Reasons but when I heard the voice of the Spirit of God speaking powerfully I presently yielded to that powerful voice 'T is also reported of learned Junius that before his Conversion whilst as yet he was no better then an Atheist meeting a plain Countryman and discoursing with him about Religion he observed him to speak so experimentally and with so much affection as made him conclude that certainly there was something more in the Christian Religion then his humane Learning and Reason had yet discovered and this was a special means of his Conversion IV. Consider That the same Object may be and is known both by the Light of Nature and Reason and also by the Light
excell'd in humane Knowledge Moses that man of God was learned in all the Wisdom of the Egyptians Acts 7.22 which was an ornament to him and fitted him for his imployment Paul that great Apostle was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel Acts 22.3 and did abound in humane Knowledge and Learning though he counted it loss for the excellency of the Knowledge of Christ Phil. 3.8 And the most eminent Instruments for God in his Church since the times of the Apostles have been men of great Reason and Learning as Athanasius Basil Jerome Cyprian Augustine Luther Melancton Pucer Calvin Jewel Reynolds c. Secondly The Penmen of holy Scripture make use of it in that accurate method those figurative Expressions Rhetorical Proprieties of words insinuating Proems and rational Argumentations which we meet with in the Bible The Apostle Paul deduceth an Inference from a common principle of Philosophy Acts 17.28 29. and quotes the sayings of some Heathen Writers Thirdly Secular Learning Reason and Knowledge being sanctified by the Spirit of God helps a man to understand the Grammatical literal sence which is the true sence of the Scriptures We meet with Physicks in Genesis with Ethicks in the Proverbs and with many Allusions in other parts of Scripture to the nature of Beasts and Birds and likewise with Allusions to the Customs of the Babylonians Jews Persians Romans therefore the knowledge of the Histories of those Nations and their Governments are very useful Fourthly The knowledge of the times by the Olympiads and other wayes of computation wherein humane Authors minister much light is necessary in an ordinary way for the right understanding of Scripture Chronology and the Prophesies of Daniel and the Revelation as appears by the Writings of learned Mede and others Fifthly The knowledge of the Original tongues Hebrew and Greek in which the sacred Scriptures were first penned doth greatly help us to understand the right sense of Scripture wherein there are some Texts which cannot be so fully and emphatically rendered in any vulgar Translation And yet we do not say that this knowledge is absolutely necessary in a Preacher of the Gospel for Augustine himself one of the most eminent amongst the Fathers had but little skill in the Greek tongue and none at all in the Hebrew And so it hath been with divers godly painful Ministers from time to time whose faithful labours notwithstanding God hath blessed with great success Sixthly Humane Learning and Reason is profitable and useful for instructing and convincing Pagans and Heathens who do not yet acknowledge the Christian Faith and divine Authority of the Scriptures Thus divers of the Ancient Fathers as Tertullian Origen Lactantius Basil Cyril Augustine c. confuted the learned Heathen Philosophers out of their own Writings as David killed Goliah with his own Sword And in latter times Aquinas Grotius Morney and others have most learnedly and excellently improved the true sayings of the Heathen Philosophers against themselves and have demonstrated the verity and reasonableness of the Christian Religion which is also endeavoured in this Treatise Seventhly Granting the Scripture to be the infallible Word of God as it is generally acknowledged all Christians we ought to exercise our Reason in searching these sacred Books looking into the Grammar of the Scripture or the forms of expression to find out the truth of them and having an eye to the Logick of the Scripture to the scope context and consent thereof comparing Scripture with Scripture and interpreting the more obscure places by the clearer according to the Analogy of Faith that so we may be able to discern and judge of things that differ Ephes 5.17 1 Thes 5.21 Acts 17.11 Heb. 5.14 which is the duty of every true Christian as hath been proved in the twelfth Chapter of this Treatise In which respect we hold that there is a very good use of Reason (w) Haec autem exploratio atque examinatio doctrinarum fieri non potest nisi adhibito rationis judicio quae judicat de veritate consequentiarum per sua principia de veritate rerum non innitendo principiis sibi notis extra verbum Dei sed in Scriptura sacra traditis B. Daven in Coll. 2. 8. so far are we from teaching that men in searching into the meaning of the Scriptures must become either Fools or Mad-men or Enthusiasts Eighthly and lastly We acknowledge that the Light of Nature and Reason is necessary both in religious and moral things as it is seated in man every man that comes into the world being enlightened by the God of Nature John 1.9 And this Light of Nature and Reason is necessary in two respects First As a passive qualification of the subject for Faith and Repentance for there cannot be Faith and Repentance in a Stone or Beast that wants the Principle of Reason this makes man in a passive capacity fit for Grace although he hath no active ability for it And then secondly It is necessary by way of an Instrument for we cannot believe or apprehend Christ unless we have a principle of Reason in us it being without controversie that an act of understanding or knowledge doth alwayes accompany true Faith Through Faith saith the Apostle Heb. 11.3 we understand that the Worlds were framed by the Word of God CHAP. XXII Wherein humane Reason comes far short and is abused in reference to Divine things HAving in the Chapter immediately going before mentioned divers particulars wherein humane Reason and knowledge is serviceable to the interest of Christianity we shall now in the last place tell you particularly and plainly wherein humane Reason and Knowledge comes far short in matters divine and supernatural summing up in a little room what hath been more largely set forth on this subject both in this and other Treatises * The defects that are in mans Reason First then the great Mystery of the Trinity the Incarnation of the Son of God and Justification of Sinners by his Righteousness cannot be found out by the Light of Nature and Reason it never entered into the heart of a natural man to conceive of them but these things are of meer supernatural revelation 1 Cor. 2.9 10. Though it be true that when through Faith we have believed them Reason will also subscribe to the truth of them as being revealed by the God of truth who cannot lye yet all the Reason of Men and Angels could never have found out nor come to the knowledge of these Mysteries if God himself had not revealed them There are some Articles of our Faith that are both believed and taken up by Reason as namely that there is a God that the World was created by him and that the soul of man is immortal but then there are other Articles of our Faith which are only believed as the mystery of the Trinity the Incarnation of Christ c. which our weak reason cannot take up or apprehend There is a wonderful depth in the mysteries of the
Authority of the sacred Scriptures proved by Reason Page 97 1. Because no other or better Revelation of Gods Will can be produced 2. The Old Testament hath been throughout all Ages witnessed to and wonderfully preserved by the Jews 3. The whole universal Church of Christ have all along witnessed the Divine Authority of the Old and New Testament even to the death 4. God hath confirmed the Authority thereof by great and strange Miracles from Heaven 5. The Scriptures are the most antient and authentical of any writing 6. The stile order contexture and frame of the Scripture shew the Divine Authority thereof 7. Another Reason is taken from the wonderful powerful effects of the Doctrine of the Scriptures 8. From the admirable harmony and consent thereof 9. The matter treated of therein is divine and wonderful Here are mentioned five notes of a Divine Power 10. The end which the Scriptures aim at is divine and heavenly CHAP. XIII Of the use of Reason in the interpreting of Scripture and judging of Controversies Page 110 1. Here is a discovery of the unreasonableness of the Popish implicite Faith and blind Obedience 2. Their Doctrine of Transubstantiation is made apppear 1. To be against Sense 2. Against Reason 3. Against Faith 3. 'T is also shewed that there is a twofold Judgment in matters of Religion one in foro publico another in foro privato 4. That every private Christian ought to make use of his Reason and to exercise a Judgment of discretion in trying Spirits and Doctrines This is proved by six cogent Arguments Objections against this tenet and practise answered CHAP. XIV Of the Internal testimony of the Holy Ghost proving the Divine Authority of the Scriptures Page 123 1. It is here shewed that this Testimony is more satisfactory to the Conscience then all other proofs 2. That a Christians Faith should be ultimately and finally resolved into the Testimony of the Holy Ghost and not into the Testimony of the Church which is but humane 3. The Popish Circle is described and the Protestant Doctrine herein vindicated 4. Some Rules and Cautions concerning the Testimony of the Spirit are here propounded to prevent mistakes CHAP. XV. Shewing when Reason is rightly used and when abused to the prejudice of the Spirits Testimony in the Scriptures Page 133 1. Reason is the Organ which lets into the Soul the Light of Faith 2. It being overpowered by the Spirit of God sees the greatest reasonableness in the Truths and Wayes of Christ 3. Reason is exceeding useful in maintaining the Doctrine of Christ 4. Nevertheless we should not make Reason the Judge in Divine matters nor subject the Authority of the Scriptures to our Reason as Socinians do Three Arguments against it CHAP. XVI Of the difference betwixt the meer rational and spiritual man and their Acts about spiritual things Here is shewed Page 142 1. That the Spiritual man hath Christ formed in him and lives the life of Christ which the meer rational man doth not 2. That the divine Principle which acts the Spiritual man is more then the improvement of the most excellent natural and rational abilities 3. That man is passive in the new spiritual Birth and cannot by all his Reason discern how this spiritual life is wrought 4. How and wherein the spiritual Mans Acts and Operations do far transcend the meer rational Mans. 5. They differ in the nature and effects of their Faith in reference to Christ and the Promises in five Particulars CHAP. XVII Proving that none can be saved by the meer improvement of the Light of Reason Page 152 1. Divers of the Fathers and some modern Writers have err'd in this Point 2. Four things are laid down for the better opening of it God might reveal his Son if he so pleased in an extraordinary way to some Heathens 3. It is proved by nine Arguments that no rational moral Heathen can be saved without faith in Christ as Mediator One or two material Objections answered CHAP. XVIII Of rational and intellectual delights Here is shewed Page 16â— 1. That every being chuseth to it self some kind of pleasure As 1. God who is the chiefest Being 2. The Angels 3. Men that have rational Souls 4. The sensitive Creatures 2. In what particulars the delights of Reason and of the Mind do far excel the pleasures of the Body CHAP. XIX Shewing that Reason and much more Faith doth fortifie a man against the excessive fear of death Page 172 1. Here are eight Considerations drawn from Reason against the slavish fear of death 2. Seven Arguments are also drawn from Faith in the Word of God against the fear of death 3. The famous sayings of some dying Christians are mentioned CHAP. XX. That humane Reason and the due exercise thereof is a great mercy Page 187 1. This is opened in some particulars 2. It is here shewed that man who hath a reasonable Soul is wonderfully made like a curious piece of Embroydery 1. In respect of his Body and the members thereof 2. In respect of his rational Soul wherein Man far excels other Creatures Five things mentioned relating to the excellency of the reasonable Soul 3. In respect of his new spiritual Birth and participation of the Divine nature CHAP. XXI A Recapitulation of particulars touching the use of humane Reason and Knowledge in reference to the Christian Religion Page 195 1. Here are five Considerations premised 2. The excellency and use of humane Reason and Knowledge is particularly held forth As 1. Some that have been famous Instruments in the Church of God have abounded therein 2. The Penmen of the holy Scriptures make use of it 3. It helps us to understand the Grammatical literal sense and the Chronology and Prophesies of Scripture 4. It 's useful for convincing Heathens and Infidels 5. In trying Spirits and Doctrines comparing Scripture with Scripture 6. As a passive qualification of the subject for Faith and Repentance in which case there must be a Principle of Reason CHAP. XXII How and in what respects Reason comes short and is abused in Divine things Page 206 1. Reason cannot discover the mystery of the Trinity Incarnation of Christ c. 2. Nor the sinfulness and corruption of mans heart and nature 3. It cannot prescribe the true worship of God 4. Nor enable us perfectly to perform natural and civil Actions without the general assistance of God 5. Our assent to the Gospel should be the assent of Faith and not of meer Reason 6. The Scripture and not Reason is the Rule for a Christian to walk by in spiritual matters he must be crucified to his Reason Here is also shewed in six particulars when and wherein humane Reason and Knowledge is abused and so becomes dangerous to the Christian Religion