they are only the adequate form or record of that which is strictly and primarily called our Religion or Christianity For there are divers particular Books of the New Testament which contain much more than is essential to Christianity And many appurtenances and histories and genealogies and circumstances are there recorded which are indeed subservient helps to our Religion but are not strictly our Religion it self 8. As the use of the Scripture must thus be judged of according to the purpose of the holy Spirit so the Perfection of the Scripture must be judged of in relation to its intended use It was not written to be a systeme of Physicks nor Oratory nor to decide grammatical Controversies about words but to record in apt expressions the things which God would have men to know in order to their faith their duty and their happiness And in this respect it is a perfect word But you must not imagine that it is so far the word of God himself as if God had shewed in it his fullest skill and made it as perfect in every respect both phrase and order as God could do And if you meet in it with several words which you think are less grammatical logical or rhetorical than many other men could speak and which really savour of some humane imperfection remember that this is not at all derogatory to Christianity but rather tendeth to the strengthening of our faith For the Scriptures are perfect to their intended use And God did purposely chuse men of imperfect Oratory to be his Apostles that his Kingdom might not be in word but in power and that our faith might not be built upon the wisdom and oratory of man but on the supernatural operations of the Almighty God As David's sling and stone must kill Goliah So unlearned men that cannot out-wit the world to deceive them shall by the Spirit and Miracles convince them Looking for that in the Scripture which God never intended it for doth tempt the unskilful into unbelief 9. Therefore you must be sure to distinguish the Christian Religion which is the vital part or kernel of the Scriptures from all the rest And to get well planted in your mind the summ of that Religion it self And that is briefly contained in the two Sacraments and more largely in the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Decalogue the summaryes of our Belief Desire and Practice And then wonder no more that the other parts of Scripture have some things of less moment than that a man hath fingers nails and hair as well as a stomach heart and head 10. Distinguish therefore between the Method of the Christian Religion and the Method of the particular Books of Scriptures The Books were written on several occasions and in several Methods and though that method of them all be perfect in order to their proper end yet is it not necessary that there be in the Method no humane imperfection or that one or all of them be written in that method which is usually most logical and best But the frame of Religion contained in those Books is composed in the most perfect method in the world And those systemes of Theology which endeavour to open this method to you do not feign it or make it of themselves but only attempt the explication of what they find in the holy Scriptures Synthetically or Analytically Though indeed all attempts have yet fallen short of any full explication of this divine and perfect harmony 11. Therefore the true Order of settling your faith is not first to require a proof that all the Scriptures is the Word of God but first to prove the marrow of them which is properly called the Christian Religion and then to proceed to strengthen your particular belief of the rest The contrary opinion which hath obtained with many in this Age hath greatly hindered the faith of the unskilful And it came from a preposterous care of the honour of the Scriptures through an excessive opposition to the Papists who undervalue them For hence it comes to pass that every seeming contradiction or inconsistency in any Book of Scripture in Chronology or any other respect is thought to be a sufficient cause to make the whole cause of Christianity as difficult as that particular text is And so all those Readers who meet with great or inseparable difficulties in their daily reading of the Scriptures are thereby exposed to equal temptations to damning infidelity it self So that if the Tempter draw any man to doubt of the standing still of the Sun in the time of Joshua of the life of Jonas in the belly of the Whale or any other such passage in any one Book of the Scriptures he must equally doubt of all his Religion But this was not the ancient method of faith It was many years after Christs resurrection before any one Book of the New Testament was written and almost an Age before it was finished And all that time the Christian Churches had the same Faith and Religion as we have now and the same foundation of it That is the Gospel preached to them by the Apostles But what they delivered to them by word of mouth is now delivered to us in their writings with all the appurtenances and circumstances which every Christian did not then hear of And there were many Articles of the Christian Faith which the Old Testament did not at all make known As that this Jesus is the Christ that he was born of the Virgin Mary and is actually crucified risen and ascended c. And the method of the Apostles was to teach the people the summ of Christianity as Paul doth 1 Cor. 15.3 4 c. and Peter Act. 2. and to bring them to the belief of that and then baptize them before they wrote any thing to them or taught them the rest which is now in the holy Scriptures They were first to Disciple the Nations and baptize them and then to teach them to observe all things whatever Christ commanded And the main bulk of the Scriptures is made up of this last and of the main subservient histories and helps And accordingly it was the custom of all the Primitive Churches and ancient Doctors to teach the people first the Creed and summ of Christianity and to make them Christians before they taught them so much as to know what Books the Canonical Scriptures did contain For they had the summ of Christianity it self delivered down collaterally by the two hands of tradition 1. By the continuation of Baptism and publick Church-professions was delivered the Creed or Covenant by it self And 2. By the holy Scriptures where it was delivered with all the rest and from whence every novice was not put to gather it of himself but had it collected to his hand by the Churches And you may see in the writings of all the ancient defenders of Christianity Justin Athenagoras Talianus Clemens Alexandrinus Arnobius Theoph. Antioch Lactantius Tertullian â—usebius Augustine c.
the Scripture it self it is evident that the Churches and the Apostles used this day accordingly And it hath most infallible history impossible to be false that the Churches have used it ever to this day as that which they found practised in their times by their appointment And this is not a bare narrative but an uninterrupted matter of publick fact and practice So universal that I remember not in all my reading that ever one enemy questioned it or ever one Christian or Heretick denyed or once scrupled it So that they who tell us that all this is yet but humane testimony do shew their egregious inconsiderations that know not that such humane testimony or history in a matter of publick constant fact may be most certain and all that the nature of the case will allow a sober person to require And they might as well reject the Canon of the Scriptures because humane testimony is it which in point of fact doth certifie us that these are the very unaltered Canonical Books which were delivered at first to the Churches Yea they may reject all the store of historical tradition of Christianity it self which I am here reciting to the shame of their understandings And consider also that the Lords day was settled and constantly used in solemn worship by the Churches many and many years before any part of the New Testament was written and above threescore years before it was finished And when the Churches had so many years been in publick possession of it who would require that the Scriptures should after all make a Law to institute that which was instituted so long ago If you say that it might have declared the institution I answer so it hath as I have shewed there needing no other declaration but 1. Christs commission to the Apostles to order the Church and declare his commands 2. And his promise of infallible guidance therein 3. And the history of the Churches order and practice to shew de facto what they did And that history need not be written in Scripture for the Churches that then were no more than we need a revelation from Heaven to tell us thas the Lords day is kept in England And sure the next Age needed no supernatural testimony of it and therefore neither do we But yet it is occasionally oft intimated or expressed in the Scripture though on the by as that which was no further necessary So that I may well conclude that we have better historical evidence that the Lords day was actually observed by the Churches for their publick worship and profession of the Christian Faith than we have that ever there was such a man as William the Conquerour in England yea or King James much more than that there was a Caesar or Cicero 8. Moreover the very Office of the Pastors of the Church and their continuance from the beginning to this day is a great part of the certain tradition of this Religion For it is most certain that the Churches were constituted and the Assemblies held and the worship performed with them and by their conduct and not without And it is certain by infallible history that their office hath been still the same even to teach men this Christian Religion and to guide them in the practice of it and to read the same Scriptures as the word of truth and to explain it to the people And therefore as the Judicatures and Offices of the Judges is a certain proof that there have been those Laws by which they judge especially if they had been also the weekly publick Readers and Expounders of them and so much more is it in our case 9. And the constant use of the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ hath according to his appointment been an infallible tradition of his Covenant and a means to keep him in remembrance in the Churches For when all the Churches in the world have made this Sacramental Commemoration and renewed covenanting with Christ as dead and risen to be their constant publick practice here is a tradition of that faith and Covenant which cannot be counterfeit or false 10. To this we may add the constant use of Discipline in these Churches it having been their constant law and practice to enquire into the faith and lives of the members and to censure or cast out those that impenitently violated their Religion which sheweth that de facto that Faith and Religion was then received and is a means of delivering it down to us Under which we may mention 1. Their Synods and Officers 2. And their Canons by which this Discipline was exercised 11. Another tradition hath been the published confessions of their Faith and Râ—lâ—gâ—on in those Apologies which persecutions and calumnies have caused them to write 12. And another is all those published Confutations of the many heresies which in every age have risen up and all the controversies which the Churches have had with them and among themselves 13. And another is all the Treatises Sermons and other instructing writings of the Pastors of those times 14 And another way of tradition hath been by the testimony and sufferings of Confessors and Martyrs who have endured either torments or death in the defence and owning of this Religion In all which waies of tradition the doctrine and the matter were joyntly attested by them For the Resurrection of Christ which is part of the matter of fact was one of the Articles of their Creed which they suffered for And all of them received the holy Scriptures which declare the Apostles miracles and they received their faith as delivered by those Apostles with the confirmation of those miracles So that when they professed to believe the doctrine they especially professed to believe the history of the life and death of Christ and of his Apostles And the Religion which they suffered for and daily professed contained both And the historical Books called the Gospels were the chief part of the Scripture which they called The Word of God and the Records of the Christian Religion 15. To this I may add that all the ordinary prayers and praises of the Churches did continue the recital of much of this history and of the Apostles names and acts and were composed much in Scripture phrase which preserved the memory and professed the belief of all those things 16. And the festivals or other dayes which were kept in honourable commemoration of those Apostles and Martyrs was another way of keeping these things in memory Whether it were well done or not is not my present enquiry only I may say I cannot accuse it of any sin till it come to over-doing and ascribing too much to them But certainly it was a way of transmitting the memory of those things to posterity 17. Another hath been by the constant commemoration of the great works of Christ by the dayes or seasons of the year which were annually observed How far here also the Church did well or ill I now meddle
not But doubtless the observing of anniversary solemnities for their commemoration was a way of preserving the memory of the acts themselves to posterity How long the day of Christs Nativity hath been celebrated I know not Reading what Selden hath said on one side and on the other finding no currant Author mention it that I have read before Nazianzene and finding by Chrysostome that the Churches of the East till his time had differed from the Western Churches as far as the sixth of January is from the 25 of December But that is of less moment because Christs birth is a thing unquestioned in it self But we find that the time of his fasting forty daies the time of his Passion and of his Resurrection and the giving of the Holy Ghost were long before kept in memory by some kind of observation by faâ—ts or festivals And though there was a controversie about the due season of the successive observation of Easter yet that signified no uncertainty of the first day or the season of the year And though at first it was but few daies that were kept in fasting at that season yet they were enough to commemorate both the forty daies fasting and the death of Christ 18. And the histories of the Heathens and enemies of the Church do also declare how long Christianity continued and what they were and what they suffered who were called Christians such as Plinies Celsus Porphyry Plotinus Lucian Suâ—tonius and others 19. And the constant instruction of Children by their Parents which is Family-tradition hath been a very great means also of this commemoration For it cannot be though some be negligent but that multitudes in all times would teach their children what the Christian Religion was as to its doctrine and its history And the practice of catechizing and teaching children the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Decalogue and the Scriptures the more secured this tradition in families 20. Lastly A succession of the same Spirit which was in the Apostles and of much of the same works which were done by them was such a way of assuring us of the truth of their doctrine and history as a succession of posterity teleth us that our progenitors were men The same spirit of Wisdom and Goodness in a great degree continued after them to this day And all wrought by their doctrine and very credible history assureth us that many miracles also were done in many ages after them though not so many as by them Eusebius Cyprian Augustine Victor Vlicensis Sulpitius Severus and many others shew us so much as may make the belief of the Apostles the more easie And indeed the Image of Gods WISDOM GOODNESS and POWER on the souls of all true Christians in the world successively to this day considered in it self and in its agreement with the same Image in the holy Scriptures which do imprint it and in its agreement or sameness as found in all Ages Nations and Persons is such a standing perpetual evidence that the Christian Religion is Divine that being still at hand it should be exceeding satisfactory to a considerate Believer against all doubts and temptations to unbelief And were it not lest I should instead of an Index give you too large a recital of what I have more fully written in my foresaid Treatise I would here stay yet to shew you how impossible it is that this Spirit of Holiness which we feel in us and see by the effects in others even in every true Believer should be caused by a word of falshood which he abhorreth and as the Just Ruler of the world would be obliged to disown I shall only here desire you by the way to note that when I have all this while shewed you that the SPIRIT is the great witness of the truth of Christianity that it is this spirit of Wisdom Goodness and Power in the Prophets in Christ in the Apostles and in all Christians expressed in the doctrine and the practices aforesaid which I mean as being principally the Evidences or objective witness of Jesus Christ and secondarily being in all true Believers their teacher or illuminater and sanctifier efficiently to cause them to perceive the aforesaid objective Evidences in its cogent undeniable power And thus the Holy Ghost is the promised Agent or Advocate of Christ to do his work in his bodily absence in the world And that in this sense it is that we Believe in the HOLY GHOST and are baptized into his Name and not only as he is the third person in the Eternal Trinity And therefore it is to be lamented exceedingly 1. That any Orthodox Teachers should recite over many of these parts of the witness of the SPIRIT and when they have done tell us that yet all these are not sufficient to convince us without the testimony of the Spirit As if all this were none of the testimony of the Spirit and as if they would perswade us and our enemies that the testimony which must satisfie us is only some inward impress of this Proposition on the mind by way of inspiration The Scriptures are the Word of God and true Overlooking the great witness of the Spirit which is his special work and which our Baptism relateth to and feigning some extraordinary new thing as the only testimony And it is to be lamented that Papists and quarrelling Sectaries should take this occasion to reproach us as Infidels that have no true grounded faith in Christ as telling us that we resolve it all into a private inward pretended witness of the Spirit And then they ask us who can know that witness but our selves and how can we preach the Gospel to others if the only cogent argument of faith be incommunicable or such as we cannot prove Though both the Believing soul and the Church be the Kingdom of the Prince of Light yet O what wrong hath the Prince of Darkness done by the mixtures of darkness in them both So much for the first Direction for the strengthening of Faith which is by discerning the Evidences of Truth in our Religion CHAP. VIII The rest of the Directions for strengthening our Faith I Shall be more brief in the rest of the Directions for the increase of Faith and they are these Direct 2. Compare the Christian Religion with all other in the world And seeing it is certain that some way or other God hath revealed to guide man in his duty unto his end and it is no other you will see that it must needs be this 1. The way of the Heathenish Idolaters cannot be it The principles and the effects of their Religion may easily satisfie you of this The only true God would not command Idolatry nor befriend such ignorance errour and wickedness as doth constitute their Religion and are produced by it as its genuine fruits 2. The way of Judaism cannot be it For it doth but lead us up to Christianity and bear witness to Christ and of it self is evidently insufficient its
especially in Corporations to the discharge of their duty to God c. 19. The Crucifying of the World by the Cross of Christ c. in quarto 20. A Call to the Unconverted to Turn and Live and accept of mercy while mercy may be had as ever they would find mercy in the day of their extremity From the Living God To be read in Families where any are unconverted in twelves 21. Of Saving Faith That it is not only gradually but specifically distinct from all Common Faith The Agreement of Richard Baxter with that very Learned consenting Adversary that hath maintained his Assertion by a pretended Confutation in the end of Serjeant Shepherds Book of Sincerity and Hypocrisie in quarto 22. Directions and Perswasions to a sound Conversion c. in octavo 23. The Grotian Religion discovered at the invitation of Mr. Thomas Pierce in his Vindication With a Preface vindicating the Synod of Dort from the calumnies of the new Tilenus and David Peter c. and the Puritans and Sequestrations c. from the censures of Mr. Pierce in octavo 24. Confirmation and Restauration the necessary means of Reformation and Reconciliation c. in octavo 25. Five Disputations of Church-Government in quarto 26. A Key for Catholicks to open the jugling of the Jesuites and satisfie all that are but truly willing to understand whether the Cause of the Roman or Reformed Churches be of God and to leave the Reader utterly unexcusable that after this will be a Papist in quarto 27. A Treatise of Self-denyal in quarto 28. His Apology against the Exceptions of Mr. Blake Kendall Crandon Eires L Moulin in quarto 29. The unreasonableness of Infidelity in four parts c. in octavo 30. The Worcester-shire Petition to the Parliament for the Ministry of England defended c. in quarto 31. His Holy Common-wealth or Political Aphorisms opening the true Principles of Government c. in octavo 32. His Confession of Faith c. in quarto 33. His humble Advice or the heads of those things which were offered to many honourable members of Parliament in quarto 34. The Quakers Catechism or the Quakers questioned in quarto 35. An account of his present Thoughts concerning the Controversies about the perseverance of the Saints in quarto 36. His Letter to Mr. Drury for Pacification in quarto 37. The Safe Religion or three Disputations for the Reformed Catholick Religion against Popery c. in octavo 38. Catholick Unity or the only way to bring us all to be of one Religion c. in twelves 39. The true Catholick and Catholick Church described c. in twelves 40. The Successive Visibility of the Church of which Protestants are the soundest members c. in octavo 41. The Sermon of Repentance 42. Of Right Rejoycing 43. Sermon of Faith before the King 44. Treatise of Death 45. The Vain Religion of the Formal Hypocrite c. in several Sermons preached at the Abbey in Westminster in twelves 46. Two Sheets for Poor Families c. 47. Short Instructions for the sick a sheet 48. A Saint or a Bruit c. in quarto 49. The mischief of Self-ignorance and benefit of Self-acquaintance in octavo 50. Universal Concord c. in octavo 51. The last work of a Believer c. in twelves 52. The Divine Life in three Treatises The first of the Knowledge of God The second of Walking with God The third of Conversing with God in Solitude in quarto 53. The Reasons of the Christian Religion c. 54. Directions for weak distempered Christians to grow up into a confirmed state of grace c. 2. The Characters of a sound confirmed Christian written to imprint on mens minds the true Idea or Conception of Godliness and Christianity in octavo These Books following are also printed for Nevill Simmons at the three Crowns near Holborn Conduit THE Novelty of Popery opposed to the Antiquity of true Christianity By Peter Dumoulin D. D. in folio A Commentary or Exposition upon the five Books of Moses together with the following Books Joshua Judges Ruth first and second of Samuel first and second of Kings and first and second of Chronicles in folio The Beauty of Magistracy in an Exposition on Psal 82. By Thomas Hall B. D. The Souls Looking-glass wherein a man may discern what estate his soul stands in towards God and what evidences he hath for Heaven c. By Edward Bury late Minister of great Bolas in Shropshire in octavo The Profit of Godliness set forth in five Sermons on 1 Tim. 4.8 The unprofitableness of worldly gain in four Sermons on Mark 8.36 37. The Parable of the barren Figg-tree in seven Sermons on Luke 13.6 7 8 9. Victorious Violence in two Sermons on Matth. 11.12 By Thomas Brindall late Minister of Walshall in Staffordshire in octavo The Girdle of Holy Resolution in two Sermons on 1 Pet. 1.13 By William Gearing Minister of the Gospel in quarto The Love-sick Spouse in four Sermons on Cant. 2.5 By William Gearing Minister of the Gospel in quarto A Discourse on Prodigious Abstinence occasioned by the twelve months fasting of Martha Tayler By John Reynolds in quarto The Dead Pastor yet speaking in two Sermons preached on Bartholmew day Aug. 24. 1662. in Bewdley Chappel By Henry Osland then Minister there in octavo The Christians daily Walk a sheet By the same Author A Sinners Justification on the Lord Jesus Christ the Lord our Righteousness in several Sermons By Obadiah Grew D. D. late Minister in Coventry in octavo The Repenting Sinner pardoned being a brief Relation of the wicked life and penitent death of James Wilson of Wolverhampton in Staffordshire in octavo The English School or the readiest way to teach children or elder persons to read spell and rightly pronounce English fitted to the use of common English-Schools illustrated with five brass Cuts By Tobias Ellis in octavo FINIS LET the Reader know that whereas the Bookseller hath in the Catalogue of my Books named my Holy Common-Wealth or Political Aphorisms I do hereby recall the said Book and profess my Repentance that ever I published it and that not only for some by-passages but in respect of the secondary part of the very scope Though the first part of it which is the defence of God and Reason I recant not But this Revocation I make with these proviso's 1. That I reverse not all the Matter of that Book nor all that more than ONE have accused As e. g. the Assertion that all humane Powers are Limited by God And if I may not be pardoned for not defying DEITY and HUMANITY I shall preferr that ignominy before their present Fastus and Triumph who defie them 2. That I make not this Recantation to the Military fury and rebellious pride and tumult against which I wrote it nor would have them hence take any encouragement for impenitence 3. That though I dislike the Roman Clergies writing so much of Politicks and detest Ministers medling in State matters without necessity or a certain call yet I hold it not simply unbeseeming a Divine to expound the fifth Commandment nor to shew the dependance of humane Powers on the Divine nor to instruct Subjects to obey with judgement and for Conscience sake 4. That I protest against the judgement of Posterity and all others that were not of the same TIME and PLACE as to the mental censure either of the BOOK or the REVOCATION as being ignorant of the true reasons of them both Which things Provided I hereby under my hand as much as in me lyeth reverse the Book and desire the World to take it as non-Scriptum April 15. 1670. R. B. What true Christian Faith is See Dr. â— Stillingfleet of Satisfaction on this point
that they used the method which I now direct you to And if you consider it well you will find that the miracles of Christ himself and all those of his Apostles after him were wrought for the confirmation of Christianity it self immediately and mostly before the particular Epistles or Books were written and therefore were only remotely and consequentially for the confirmation of those Books as such as they proved that the Writers of them were guided by the infallible Spirit in all the proper work of their office of which the writing of the Scriptures was a part 1. Therefore settle your belief of Christianity it self that is of so much as Baptism containeth or importeth This is more easily proved than the truth of every word in the Scriptures because there are controversies about the Canon and the various readings and such like And this is the natural method which Christ and his Spirit have directed us to and the Apostles and the ancient Churches used And when this is first soundly proved to you then you cannot justly take any textual difficulties to be sufficient cause of raising difficulties to your faith in the essentials But you may quietly go on in the strength of faith to clear up all those difficulties by degrees I know you will meet with some who think very highly of their own mistakes and whose unskilfulness in these things is joyned with an equal measure of self conceitedness who will tell you that this method smells of an undervaluing of the Scripture But I would advise you not to depart from the way of Christ and his Apostles and Churches nor to cast your selves upon causeless hinderances in so high a matter as Saving Faith is upon the reverence of the words of any perverted factious wrangler nor to escape the fangs of censorious ignorance We cannot better justifie the holy Scriptures in the true Method than they can in their false one And can better build up when we have laid the right foundation than they can who begin in the middle and omit the foundation and call the superstructure by that name 2. Suspect not all Church-history or Tradition in an extreme opposition to the Papists who cry up a private unproved Tradition of their own They tell us of Apostolical Traditions which their own faction only are the keepâ—rs of and of which no true historical evidence is produced And this they call the Tradition of the Church But we have another sort of Tradition which must not be neglected or rejected unless we will deny humanity and reject Christianity Our Traditio tradens or active Tradition is primarily nothing but the certain history or usage of the universal Christian Church as Baptism the Lords day the Ministry the Church Assemblies and the daily Church exercises which are certain proofs what Religion was then received by them And 2. The Scriptures themselves Our Traditio tradita is nothing else but these two conjunctly 1. The Christian Religion even the Faith then professed and the Worship and Obedience then exercised 2. The Books themselves of the holy Scriptures which contain all this with much more But we are so far from thinking that Apostolical Oral Tradition is a supplement to the Scriptures as being larger than them that we believe the Scriptures to be much larger than such Tradition and that we have no certainty by any other than Scriptural Tradition of any more than the common matters of Christianity which all the Churches are agreed in But he that will not believe the most universal practice and history of the Church or world in a matter of fact must in reason much less believe his eye-sight 13. When you have soundly proved your foundation take not every difficult objection which you cannot answer to be a sufficient cause of doubting For if the fundamentals be proved truths you may trust to that proof and be sure that there are waies of solving the seeming inconsistent points though you are not yet acquainted with them There are few Truths so clear which a sophister may not clog with difficulties And there is scarce any man that hath so comprehensive a knowledge of the most certain Truths as to be able to answer all that can be said against it 14. Come not to this study in a melancholy or distracted frame of mind For in such a case you are ordinarily incapable of so great a work as the tryal of the grounds of Faith And therefore must live upon the ground-work before laid and wait for a fitter time to clear it 15. When new doubts arise mark whether they proceed not from the advantage which the tempter findeth in your minds rather than from the difficulty of the thing it self And whether you have not formerly had good satisfaction against the same doubts which now perplex you If so suffer not every discomposure of your minds to become a means of unbelief And suffer not Satan to command you to dispute your faith at his pleasure For if he may chuse the time he may chuse the success Many a man hath cast up a large account well or written a learned Treatise or Position well who cannot clear up all objected difficulties on a sudden nor without Books tell you all that he before wrote especially if he be half drunk or sleepy or in the midst of other thoughts oâ— business 15. When you are once perswaded of the truth of Christianity and the holy Scriptures think not that you need not study it any more because you do already confidently believe it For if your faith be not built on such cogent evidence as will warrant the conclusion whether it be at the present sound or not you know not what change assaults may make upon you as we have known them do on some ancient eminent Professors of the strictest Godliness who have turned from Christ and the belief of immortality Take heed how you understand the common saying of the Schools that Faith differeth from Knowledge in that it hath not Evidence It hath not evidence of sense indeed nor the immediate evidence of things invisible as in themselves but as they are the conclusions which follow the principles which are in themselves more evident It is evident that God is true and we can prove by good evidence that the Christian Verity is his Revelation And therefore it is evident though not immediately in it self that the matter of that word or revelation is true And as Mr. Rich. Hooker truly saith No man indeed believeth beyond the degree of evidence of truth which appeareth to him how confidently soever they may talk I remember that our excellent Vsher answered me to this case as out of Ariminensis that faith hath evidence of Credibility and science hath evidence of Certainty But undoubtedly an evidence of Divine Revelation is evidence of Certainty And all evidence of Divine Credibility is evidence of Certainty though of humane faith and credibility the case be otherwise 16. Yea think not that you have
work on earth And that some should do the extraordinary work in laying the foundation and leaving a certain Rule and Order to the rest and that the rest should proceed to build hereupon and that the wisest and the best of men should be the Teachers and Guides of the rest unto the end 24. And how necessary was it that our Sun in glory should continually send down his beams and influence on the earth even the Spirit of the Father to be his constant Agent here below and to plead his cause and do his work on the hearts of men and that the Apostles who were to found the Church should have that Spirit in so conspicuous a degree and for such various works of Wonder and Power as might suffice to confirm their testimony to the world And that all others as well as they to the end should have the Spirit for those works of Love and Renovation which are necessary to their own obedience and salvation 25. How wisely it is ordered that he who is our King is Lord of all and able to defend his Church and to repress his proudest enemies 26. And also that he should be our final Judge who was our Saviour and Law-giver and made and sealed that Covenant of Grace by which we must be judged That Judgement may not be over dreadful but rather desirable to his faithful servants who shall openly be justified by him before all 27. How wisely hath God ordered it that when death is naturally so terrible to man we should have a Saviour that went that way before us and was once dead but now liveth and is where we must be and hath the keyes of death and Heaven that we may boldly go forth as to his presence and to the innumerable perfected spirits of the just and may commend our souls to the hands of our Redeemer and our Head 28. As also that this should be plainly revealed and that the Scriptures are written in a method and manner fit for all even for the meanest and that Ministers be commanded to open it and apply it by translation exposition and earnest exhortation that the remedy may be suited to the nature and extent of the disease And yet that there be some depths to keep presumptuous daring wits at a distance and to humble them and to exercise our diligence 29. As also that the life of faith and holiness should have much opposition in the world that its glory and excellency might the more appear partly by the presence of its contraries and partly by its exercise and victories in its tryals and that the godly may have use for patience and fortitude and every grace and may be kept the easilier from loving the world and taught the more to desire the presence of their Lord. 30. Lastly And how wisely is it ordered that God in Heaven from whom all cometh should be the end of all his graces and our duties and that himself alone should be our home and happiness and that as we are made by him and for him so we should live with him to his praise and in his love for ever And that there as we shall have both glorified souls and bodies so both might have a suitable glory and that our glorified Redeemer might there be in part the Mediatour of our fruition as here he was the Mediatour of acquisition I have recited hastily a few of the parts of this wondrous frame to shew you that if you saw them all and that in theâ—r true order and method you might not think strange that Now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places is made known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God Ephes 2.11 which was the first part of Gods Image upon the Christian Religion which I was to shew you But besides all this the WISDOM of God is expressed in the holy Scriptures thesâ— several waies 1. In the Revelation of things past which could not be known by any mortal man As the Creation of the world and what was therein done before man himself was made Which experience it self doth help us to believe because we see exceeding great probabilities that the world was not eternal nor of any longer duration than the Scriptures mention in that no place on earth hath any true monument of ancienter original and in that humane Sciences and Arts are yet so imperfect and such important additions are made but of late 2. In the Revelation of things distant out of the reach of mans discovery So Scripture History and Prophecy do frequently speak of preparations and actions of Princes and people afar of 3. In the Revelation of the secrets of mens hearts As Elisha told Gebeâ—i what he did at a distance Christ told Nathaniel what he said and where So frequently Christ told the Jews and his Disciples what they thought and shewed that he knew the heart of man To which we may add the searching power of the Word of God which doth so notably rip up the secrets of mens corruptions and may shew all mens hearts unto themselves 4. In the Revelation of contingent things to come which is most frequent in the Prophecies and Promises of the Scripture not only in the Old Testament as Daniel c. but also in the Gospel When Christ foretelleth his death and resurrection and the usage and successes of his Apostles and promiseth them the miraculous gifts of the Spirit and foretold Peters thrice denying him and foretold the grievous destrâ—ction of Jerusalem with other such like clear predictions 5. But nothing of all these predictions doth shine so clearly to our selves as those great Promises of Christ which are fulfilled to our selves in all generations Even the Promises and Prophetical descriptions of the great work of Conversion Regeneration or Sanctification upon mens souls which is wrought in all Ages just according to the delineations of it in the world All the humblings the repentings the desires the faith the joyes the prayers and the answers of them which were foretold and was found in the first Believers are performed and given to all true Christians to this day To which may be added all the Prophecies of the extent of the Church of the conversion of the Kingdoms of the world to Christ and of the oppositions of the ungodly fort thereto and of the persecutions of the followers of Christ which are all fulfilled 6. The WISDOM of God also is clearly manifested in the concatenation or harmony of all these Revelations Not only that there is no real contradiction between them but that they all conjunctly compose one entire frame As the age of man goeth on from infancy to maturity and nature fitteth her endowments and provisions accordingly to each degree so hath the Church proceeded from its infancy and so have the Revelations of God been suited to its several times Christ who was promised to Adam and the Fathers before Moses for the first two thousand years and signified by their Sacrifices was
so that the godly Christians are in their power 6. That all the Hypocrites that are among our selves have the same sinful nature and enmity against holiness and are usually as bitter against the power and practice of their own profession as open Infidels are 7. That Christianity is not a fruit of nature Non nati sed facti sumus Christiani said Tertullian And therefore if Gods Power preserved not Religion the degenerating of the Christians children from their Parents mind and way would hasten its extinction in the world 8. And as it is a Religion which must be taught us so it requireth or consisteth in so much wisdom and willingness and fortitude of mind that few are naturally apt to receive it because folly and badness and feebleness of mind are so common in the world And as we see that Learning will never be common but in the possession of a very few because a natural ingenuity is necessary thereto which few are born with so would it be with Christianity if Divine Power maintained it not 9. And it is a Religion which requireth much time and contemplation in the learning and in the practising of it whereas the world are taken up with so much business for the body and are so slothful to those exercises of the mind which bring them no present sensible commodity that this also would quickly wear it out 10. And then the terms of it being so contrary to all mens fleshly interest and sense in self-denyal and forsaking all for Christ and in mortifying the most beloved sins and the world putting us to it so ordinarily by persecution this also would deter the most and weary out the rest if the Power of God did not uphold them That which is done by exceeding industry against the inclinations and interest of nature will have no considerable number of practisers As we see in horses and dogs which are capable with great labour of being taught extraordinary things in the semblance of reason And yet because it must cost so much labour there is but one in a Country that is brought to it But though the truly religious are but few in comparison of the wicked yet godly persons are not so few as they would be if it were the work of industry alone God maketh it as a new nature to them and which is very much to be observed the main change is oft-times wrought in an hour and that after all exhortations and the labours of Parents and Teachers have failed and left the sinner as seemingly hopeless And thus I have shewed you 1. That our Religion objectively taken is the Image of Gods WISDOM GOODNESS and POWER and thereby fully proved to be from GOD. 2. And that our Religion subjectively taken is answerably the Spirit or impress of POWER and of LOVE and of SOVND VNDERSTANDING and is in us a constant seal and witness to the truth of Christ CHAP. VII The means of making known all this infallibly to us I Suppose the evidence of divine attestation is so clear in this Image of God on the Christian Religion which I have been opening that few can doubt of it who are satisfied of the historical truth of the facts and therefore this is next to be considered How the certain knowledge of all these things cometh down to us The first question is whether this Doctrine and Religion indeed be the impress of Gods WISDOM and his GOODNESS and POWER supposing the truth of the historical part This is it which I think that few reasonable persons wil deny For the doctrine is legible and sheweth it self But the next question is it which I am now to resolve How we shall know that this Doctrine was indeed delivered by Christ and his Apostles and these things done by them which the Scriptures mention And here the first question shall be How the Apostles and all other the first witnesses knew it themselves For it is by every reasonable man to be supposed that they who were present and we who are 1668 years distance could not receive the knowledge of the matters of fact in the very same manner It is certain that their knowledge was by their present sense and reason They saw Christ and his miracles They heard his words They saw him risen from the dead They discoursed with him and eat and drunk with him They saw him ascending up bodily to Heaven They need no other Revelation to tell them what they saw and heard and felt If you had asked them then Hâ—w know you that all these things were said and done they would have answered you Because we saw and heard them But we were not then present we did not see and hear what they did Nor did we see or hear them who were the eye-witnesses And therefore as their senses told it them so the natural way for our knowledge must be by derivation from their sense to ours For when they themselves received it in a way so natural though not without the help of Gods Spirit in the remembring recording and attesting it we that can less pretend to inspiration or immediate revelation have small reason to think that we must know the same facts by either of those supernatural waies Nor can our knowledge of a history carryed down through so many ages be so clearly satisfactory to our selves as sight and hearing was to them And yet we have a certainty not only infallible but so far satisfactory as is sufficient to warrant all our faith and duty and sufferings for the reward which Christ hath set before us Let us next then enquire How did the first Churches know that the Apostles and other Preachers of the Gospel did not deceive them in the matter of fact I answer They had their degrees of assurance or knowledge in this part of their belief 1. They had the most credible humane testimony of men that were not like to deceive them But this was not infallible 2. They had in their testimony the evidence of a natural certainty It being naturally impossible that so many persons should agree together to deceive the world in such matters of fact at so dear a rate in the very place and age when the things were pretended to be done and said when any one might have presently evinced the falshood if they had been lyars about the twice feeding of many thousands miraculously and the raising of the dead and many other publick miracles and the darkness at his death and the rending of the Rocks and Vail of the Temple and the Earth-quake and the coming down of the Holy Ghost upon themselves with many the like they would have been detected and confuted to their confusion And we should have read what Apologies they made against such detections and confutations And some of them at least at their death would have been forced by conscience to confess the plot 3. But to leave no room for doubting God gave those first Churches the addition of his own supernatural
attestation by the same threefold impress of his Image before described 1. In the holy Wisdom and Light which was in their doctrine 2. In the holy Love and Piety and Purity which was conspicuous in their doctrine and in their lives 3. And in the evidences of divine Power in the many gifts and wonders and miracles which they wrought and manifested And these things seem a fuller testimony than the miracles of Christ himself For Christs miracles were the deeds of one alone and his resurrection was witnessed but by twelve chosen witnesses and about five hundred other persons and he conversed with them but forty daies and that by times But the miracles of the Disciples were wrought by many and before many thousands at several times and in many Countreys and for many and many years together and in the sight and hearing of many of the Churches So that these first Churches had sight and hearing to assure them of the divine miraculous attestation of the truth of their testimony who told them of the doctrines miracles and resurrection of Christ And all this from Christs solemn promise and gift John 14.12 Verily verily I say unto you He that believeth on me the works that I do shall he do also and greater works than these shall he do because I go to the Father But if it be demanded How did the next Christians of the second age receive all this from the first Churches who received it from the Apostles I answer by the same evidence and with some advantages For 1. They had the credible humane testimony of all their Pastors Neighbours Parents who told them but what they saw and heard 2. They had a greater evidence of natural infallible certainty For 1. The doctrine was now delivered to them in the records of the sacred Scriptures and so less liable to the misreports of the ignorant forgetful or erroneous 2. The reporters were now more numerous and the miracles reported more numerous also 3. They were persons now dispersed over much of the world and could not possibly agree together to deceive 4. The deceit would now have been yet more easily detected and abhorred 3. But besides this they had also the supernatural testimony of God For the Apostles converts received the same spirit as they had themselves And though the miracles of other persons were not so numerous as those of the Apostles yet the persons were many thousands more that wrought them All this is asserted in the Scripture it self as Gal. 3.3 4. 1 Cor. 14. 12. and many places And he that should have told them falsly that they themselves had the spirit of extraordinary gifts and miracles would hardly have been believed by them And all this also the following Ages have themselves asserted unto us The question then which remaineth is How we receive all this infallibly from the subsequent Ages or Churches to this day The answer to which is still by the same way with yet greater advantages in some respects though less in others As 1. We have the humane testimony of all our ancestors and of many of our enemies 2. We have greater evidence of natural certainty that they could not possibly meet or plot together to deceive us 3. We have still the supernatural divine attestation though rarely of miracles yet of those more necessary and noble operations of the Spirit in the sanctification of all true Believers which Spirit accompanieth and worketh by the doctrine which from our ancestors we have received More distinctly observe all these conjunct means of our full reception of our Religion 1. The very Being of the Christians and Churches is a testimony to us that they believed and received this Religion For what maketh them Christians and Churches but the receiving of it 2. The ordinance of Baptism is a notable tradition of it For all that ever were made Christians have been baptized And Baptism is nothing but the solemn initiation of persons into this Religion by a vowed consent to it as summarily there expressed in the Christian Covenant And this was used to be openly done 3. The use of the Creed which at Baptism and other sacred seasons was alwaies wont to be professed together with the Lords Prayer and the Decalogue the summaries of our faith desire and practice is another notable tradition by which this Religion hath been sent down to following Ages For though perhaps all the terms of the Creed were not so early as some think thus constantly used yet all the sense and substance of it was 4. The holy Scriptures or Records of this Religion containing integrally all the doctrine and all the necessary matter of fact is the most compleat way of tradition And it will appear to you in what further shall be said that we have infallible proof that these Scriptures are the same which the first Churches did receive what ever inconsiderable errours may be crept into any Copies by the unavoidable oversight of the Scribes 5. The constant use of the sacred Assemblies hath been another means of sure tradition For we have infallible proof of the successive continuation of such Assemblies and that their use was still the solemn profession of the Christian Faith and worshipping God according to it 6. And the constant use of Reading the Scriptures in those Assemblies is another full historical tradition For that which is constantly and publickly read as the doctrine of their Religion cannot be changed without the notice of all the Church and without an impossible combination of all the Churches in the world 7. And it secureth the tradition that one set day hath been kept for this publick exercise of Religion from the very first even the Lords day besides all occasional times The day it self being appointed to celebrate the memorial of Christs Resurrection is a most currant history of it as the feast of unleavened bread and the Passeover was of the Israelites deliverance from Egypt And the exercises still performed on that day do make the tradition more compleat And because some few Sabbatarians among our selves do keep the old Sabbath only and call still for Scripâ—ure proof for the institution of the Lords day let me briefly tell them that which is enough to evince their errour 1. That the Apostles were Officers immediately commissioned by Christ to disciple the Nations and to teach them all that Christ commanded and so to settle Orders in the Church Mat. 28.19 20 21. Acts 15. c. 2. That Christ promised and gave them his Spirit infallibly to guide them in the performance of this commission though not to make them perfectly impeccable John 16.13 3. That de facto the Apostles appointed the use of the Lords day for the Church Assemblies This being all that is left to be proved and this being matter of fact which requireth no other kind of proof but history part of the history of it is in the Scripture and the rest in the history of all following Ages In
multitude of ceremonies being but the pictures and alphabet of that truth which Jesus Christ hath brought to light and which hath evidence which to us is more convincing than that of the Jewish Law 3. The Mahometane delusion is so gross that it seemeth vain to say any more against it than it saith it self unless it be to those who are bred up in such darkness as to hear of nothing else and never to see the Sun which shineth on the Christian world and withall are under the terrour of the sword which is the strongest reason of that barbarous Sect. 4. And to think that the Atheisme of Infidels is the way who hold only the five Articles of the Vnity of God the duty of obedience the immortality of the soul the life of retributior and the necessity of Repentance is but to go against the light For 1. It is a denyal of that abundant evidence of the truth of the Christian Faith which cannot by any sound reason be confuted 2. It is evidently too narrow for mans necessities and leaveth our misery without a sufficient remedy 3. Its inclusions and exclusions are contradictory It asserteth the necessity of Obedience and Repentance and yet excludeth the necessary means the revealed Light and Love and Power by which both Obedience and Repentance must be had It excludeth Christ and his Spirit and yet requireth that which none but Christ and his Spirit can effect 4. It proposeth a way as the only Religion which few ever went from the beginning as to the exclusions As if that were Gods only way to Heaven which scarce any visible societies of men can be proved to have practised to this day Which of all these Religions have the most wise and holy and heavenly and mortified and righteous and sober persons to profess it and the greatest numbers of such If you will judge of the medicine by the effects and take him for the best Physician who doth the greatest cures upon the souls you will soon conclude that Christ is the way the truth and the life and no man cometh to the Father but by him John 14.6 Direct 3. Think how impossible it is that any but God should be the Author of the Christian Religion 1. No good man could be guilty of so horrid a crime as to forge a volume of delusions and put Gods Name to it to cheat the world so blasphemously and hypocritically and to draw them into a life of trouble to promote it Much less could so great a number of good men do this as the success of such a cheat were it possible would require There is no man that can believe it to be a deceit but must needs believe as we do of Mahomet that the Author was one of the worst men that ever lived in the world 2. No bad man could lay so excellent a design and frame a Doctrine and Law so holy so self denying so merciful so just so spiritual so heavenly and so concordant in it self nor carry on so high and divine an undertaking for so divine and excellent an end No bad man could so universally condemn all badness and prescribe such powerful remedies against it and so effectually cure and conquer it in so considerable a part of the world 3. If it be below any good man to be guilty of such a forgery as aforesaid we can much less suspect that any good Angel could be guilty of it 4. And if no bad man could do so much good we can much less imagine that any Devil or bad spirit could be the author of it The Devil who is the worst in evil could never so much contradict his nature and overthrow his own Kingdom and say so much evil of himself and do so much against himself and do so much for the sanctifying and saving of the world He that doth so much to draw men to sin and misery would never do so much to destroy their sin And we plainly feel within our selves that the spirit or party which draweth us to sin doth resist the Spirit which draweth us to believe and obey the Gospel and that these two maintain a war within us 5. And if you should say that the good which is in Christianity is caused by God and the evil of it by the Father of sin I answer either it is true or false If it be true it is so good that the Devil can never possibly be a contributor to it Nay it cannot then be suspected justly of any evil But if it be false it is then so bad that God cannot be any otherwise the Author of it than as he is the Author of any common natural Verity which it may take in and abuse or as his general concourse extendeth to the whole Creation But it is somewhat in Christianity which it hath more than other Religions have which must make it more pure and more powerful and successful than any other Religions have been Therefore it must be more than common natural truths even the contexture of those natural truths with the supernatural revelations of it and the addition of a spirit of power and light and love to procure the success And God cannot be the Author of any such contexture or additions if it be false 6. If it be said that men that had some good and some bad in them did contrive it such as those Fanaticks or Enthusiasts who have pious notions and words with pride and self-exalting minds I answer The good is so great which is found in Christianity that it is not possible that a bad man much less an extreamly bad man could be the Author of it And the wickedness of the plot would be so great if it were false that it is not possible that any but an extreamly bad man could be guilty of it Much less that a multitude should be sound at once so extreamly good as to promote it even with their greatest labour and suffering and also so extreamly bad as to joyn together in the plot to cheat the world in a matter of such high importance Such exceeding good and evil cannot consist in any one person much less in so many as must do such a thing And if such a heated brain sick person as Hacket Nailer David George or John of Leyden should cry up themselves upon prophetical and pious pretences their madness hath still appeared in the mixture of their impious doctrines and practices And if any would and could be so wicked God never would or did assist them by an age of numerous open miracles nor lend them his Omnipotency to deceive the world but left them to the shame of their proud attempts and made their folly known to all Direct 4. Study all the Evidences of the Christian Verity till their sense and weight and order be throughly digested understood and remembred by you and be as plain and familiar to you as the lesson which you have most thoroughly learned It is not once or twice reading
other The Fanaticks or Enthusiasts who raâ—l against us for trying the Spirit by the Scriptures when as the Spirit was the Author of the Scriptures do but rave in the dark and know not what they say For the Essence of the Spirit is every where and it is the effects of the Spirit in both which we must compare The Spirit is never contrary to it self And seeing it is the Sunshine which we here call the Sun the question is but where it shineth most whether in the Scripture or in our hearts The Spirit in the Apostles indited the Scriptures to be the Rule of our faith and life unto the end The Spirit in us doth teach and help us to understand and to obey those Scriptures Was not the Spirit in a greater measure in the Apostles than in us Did it not work more compleatly and unto more infallibility in their writing the Scriptures than it doth in our Vnderstanding and obeying them Is not the seal perfect when the impression is oft imperfect Doth not the Master write his Copy more perfectly than his Scholars imitation is though he teach him yea and hold his hand He that knoweth not the Religious distractions of this age will blame me for troubling the Reader with the confutation of such dreams But so will not they that have seen and tasted their effects 4. Hence we may learn that he that would know what the Christian Religion is indeed to the honour of God or their own just information must rather look into the Scripture to know it than into Believers For though in Believers it be more discernable in the kind as mens lives are more conspicuous than Laws and Precepts and the impress than the seal c. yet it is in the Laws or Scriptures more compleat and perfect when in the best of Christians much more in the most it is broken maimed and confused 5. This telleth us the reason why it is unsafe to make any men Popes or Councils or the holiest Pastors or strictest people the Rule either of our faith or lives Because they are all imperfect and discordant when the Scripture is concordant and compleat He that is led by them may erre when as the Scripture hath no errour And yet it is certain that even the imperfect knowledge and grace of faithful Pastors and companions is of great use to those that are more imperfect than they to teach them the Scriptures which are more perfect than they all 6. Hence we see why it is that Religion bringeth so much trouble and so little comfort to the most or too many that are in part Religious Because it is lame and confused in them Is it any wonder that a dâ—splaced bone is painful or that a disordered body is sick and hath no great pleasure in life or that a disordered or maimed watch or clock doth not go right O what a life of pleasure should we live if we were but such as the Scripture doth require and the Religion in our hearts and lives were fully agreeable with the Religion described in the Word of God 7. And hence we see why most true Christians are so querulous and have alwaies somewhat to complain of and lament which the sensless or self-justifying hypocrites overlook in themselves No wonder if such diseased souls complain 8. And hence we see why there is such diversity and divisions among Believers and such abundance of Sects and Parties and Contentions and so little Unity Peace and Concord And why all attempts for Unity take so little in the Church Because they have all such weakness and distempers and lameness and confusedness and great disproportions in their Religion Do you wonder why he liveth not in peace and concord and quietness with others who hath no better agreement in himself and no more composedness and true peace rt home Mens grace and parts are much unequal 9. And hence we see why there are so many scandals among Christians to the great dishonour of true Christianity and the great hinderance of the conversion of the Infidel Heathen and ungodly world What wonder if some disorder falshood and confusion appear without in words and deeds when there is so much ever dwelling in the mind 10. Lastly Hence we may learn what to expect from particular persons and what to look for also publickly in the Church and in the world He that knoweth what man is and what godly men are but as well as I do will hardly expect a concordant uniform building to be made of such discordant and uneven materials or that a set of strings which are all or almost all out of tune should make any harmonious melody or that a number of Infants should constitute an Army of valiant men or that a company that can scarce spell or read should constitute a learned Academy God must make a change upon individual persons if ever he will make a great change in the Church They must be more wise and charitable and peaceable Christians who must make up that happy Church state and settle that amiable peace and serve God in that concordant harmony as all of us desire and some expect CHAP. XII How to use Faith against particular sins THE most that I have to say of this is to be gathered from what went before about Sanctification in the general And because I have been so much longer than I intended you must bear with my necessary brevity in the rest Direct 1. When temptation setteth actual sin before you or inward sin keeps up within look well on God and sin together Let Faith see Gods Holiness and Justice and all that Wisdom Goodness and Power which sin despiseth And one such believing sight of God is enough to make you look at sin as at the Devil himself as the most ugly thing Direct 2. Set sin and the Law of God together and then it will appear to be exceeding sinful and to be the crooked fruit of the tempting Serpent You cannot know sin but by the Law Rom. 7.14 c. Direct 3. Set sin before the Cross of Christ Let Faith sprinkle his blood upon it and it will die and wither See it still as that which killed your Lord and that which pierced his side and hanged him up in such contempt and put the gall and vinegar to his mouth Direct 4. Forget not the sorrows and fears of your conversion if you are indeed converted Or if not at least the sorrows and fears which you must feel if ever you be converted God doth purposely cast us into grief and terrours for our former sins that it may make us the more careful to sin no more lest worse befall us If the pangs of the new birth were sharp and grâ—â—vous to you why will you again renew the cause and drink of those bitter waters Râ—member what a mad and sad condition you were in while you lived according to the flesh and how plainly you saw it when your eyes were opened And
Stand in awe and sin not Offer the sacrifices of righteousness Psal 51.17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit Matth. 9.13 12.7 Learn what this meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice Eccles 5.1 Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God and be more ready to hear than to offer the sacrifice of fools for they know not that they do evil All this telleth us that fools and hypocrites while they disobey Gods Law do think to make up all with sacrifice or to appease God with offering him something that is excellent But the acceptable Worshipper cometh to God as a penitent a learner resolving to obey as a Receiver of mercy and not a meriter Direct 2. Over-value not therefore the manner of your own Worship and over-vilifie not other mens of a different mode And make not men believe that God is of your childish humour and valueth or vilifieth words and orders and forms and ceremonies as much as self-conceited people do If one man hear another pray only from the habits of his mind and present desires he reproacheth him as a rash presumptuous speaker that talketh that to God which he never fore-considered As if a beggar did rashly ask an alms or a corrected child or a malefactor did inconsiderately beg for pardon unless they learn first the words by rote or as if all mens converse and the words of Judges on the Bench were all rash or the counsel of a Physician to his Patient because they use not books and forms or set not down their words long before And if another man hear a form of prayer especially if it be read out of a Book and especially if it have any disorder or defect he sticketh not to revise it and call it false Worship and mans Inventions and perhaps Idolatry and to fly from it and make the world believe that it is an odious thing which God abhorreth And why so Are your words so much more excellent than the words of others Or doth the Book or Press or Pen make them odious to God Or are all words baâ— which are resolved on before-hand Is the Lords Prayer and the Psalms all odious because they are book-forms Or doth the command of other men make God hate them Let Parents take heed then of commanding their children prescribed words Nay rather let them take heed lest they omit such prescripts Or is it the disorder or defects that makes them odious Such are not to be justified indeed where-ever we find them But woe to us all if God will not pardon disorders and defects and accept the prayers that are guilty of them Many a time I have heard such forms of prayers whose disorders and defects I have much lamented and done my part to have cured and yet I durst not so reproach them as to say God will not accept and hear them Or that it is unlawful to joyn in communion with them And many a time I have heard as sad disorder in extemporate prayers sometimes by wrong methods or no method at all sometimes by vain repetitions sometimes by omitting the chiefest parts of prayer and sometimes in the whole strein by turning a prayer into a Sermon to the hearers or a meer talk or narrative to God that had little of a prayer in it save very good matter and honest zeal And though this prayer was more disorderly than the forms which perhaps in that prayer were accused of disorder yet durst I not run away from this neither nor say it is so bad that God will not hear it nor good men should have no comunion in it It is easie but abominable to fall in love with our own and to vilifie that which is against our opinion and to think that God is of our mind and is as fond of our mode and way as we are and as exceptious against the way or words of other men as childish pievish Christians are Look on your Book and read or learn your prayer in words saith one or else God will not hear you Look off your Book and read not or learn not the words saith another or God will not hear you But oh lamentable that both of them tremble not thus to abuse God and add unto his Word and to prophesie or speak falsly against their brethren in his Name nor to reproach the prayers which Christ presenteth from his servants to the Father and which notwithstanding their defects are his delight Direct 3. Offer God nothing as worship which is contrary to the perfection of his Nature as far as you can avoid it And yet feign not that to be contrary to his nature which he commandeth For then it is certain that you misunderstand either his nature or command Direct 4. Never come to the Father but by the Son and dream not of any immediate access of a sinner unto God but wholly trust in Christs mediation Receive the Fathers will from Christ your Teacher and his commands from Christ your King and all his mercies from Christ your Head and the Treasury of the Church and your continual Intercessor with God in Heaven And put all your prayers praises duties alms into his hand that through him alone they may be accepted of God Direct 5. Understand well how far the Scripture is a particular Rule as to the substance of Gods Worship and how far it is only a general Rule as to the circumstances that so you may neither offer God a Worship which he will not accept nor yet reject or oppose all those circumstances as unlawful which are warranted by his general commands Of which I have said enough elsewhere Direct 6. Look first and most to the exercise of inward grace and to the spiritual part of Worship for God will be worshiped in spirit and in truth and hateth the Hypocrite who offereth him a carkass or empty shell and ceremony and pomp or length of words instead of substance and draweth neer him with the lips without the heart And yet in the second place look carefully also to your words and order and outward behaviour of the body For God must be honoured with soul and body And order and reverend solemnity is both a help to the affections of the soul and a fit expression of them Never forget that hypocritical dead formality and ignorant self-conceited fanatical extravagancies are the two extreams by which the Devil hath laboured in all ages to turn Christs Worship against him and to destroy the Church and Religion by such false Religiousness The poor Popish Formalists on one side mortifie Religion and turn it into a carkass and a comely Image that hath any thing save life And the Fanaticks on the other side do call all the enormities of their proud and blustering fancies by the name of spiritual devotion and do their worst to make Christianity to seem a ridiculous fancy to the world Escape both these extreams as ever you will escape the dishonouring of God the dividing and
sufferers it will cause us to possess our souls in patience and to let it have its perfect work 8. It will much overcome the fears of death It is no small abatement of them that Cicero and such honest Heathens had to think of the thousands of their worthiest Ancestors and that they were to go the common way of all mankind But how much more may it encourage a Believer to think that he is not only to go the way of all the world through the gate of mortality but the way also which all Gods Saints have gone save Henoch and Elias who are now in Heaven Thus died all the Prophets and the holy men of God yea Jesus Christ himself before us that death might be conquered when it seemed to have conquered Heb. 2.14 9. It will do much to raise us from hypocritical reserves and temporizings and from lukewarmness and resting in low degrees When our conversation is with the holy ones above we shall have upon our minds an ambition to attain to their degrees and to do Gods will on Earth as it is done in Heaven It will much encline us to the highest and noblest sort of duty which the spirits of the just made perfect do perform He that converseth only with his own sad tempted sinful heart and with tempted faulty mourning Christians may learn to confess and mourn and weep and pray But he that also converseth with glorified spirits will be so rapt up with their heavenly melody that he will learn and long to love God more fervently to praise him more chearfully and to give him thanks more abundantly for his mercies Heaven-work is learnt by a heavenly mind in the use of a heavenly conversation 10. And to look much at our Brethren that are now in glory will also fill our lives with pleasures and make our Religion our continual joy and will help us to a foretaste of Heaven on Earth For we shall as it were take our selves to be almost with then and their melodies will be our delight and love to them will make their joyes to be our own And though it is the sight of God and our Mediatour by faith which must be our chiefest hope and joy yet while we are here men in flesh yea more when we have laid by flesh and blood the presence of all the blessed spirits and heavenly host will be a great though subordinate part of our heavenly felicity and delight Direct 6. When you have gone thus far consider what obligations lie upon you to converse by Faith with your Brethren in Heaven and to look up frequently to their state and work 1. Your necessary Love to God requireth it For as your Love to him must be shewed by your loving his Image in your Brethren so it requireth you to love them most that are likest God or else you love them not for his likeness And it requireth you to love them most whom God loveth most and that is those that are likest him and nearest him And he that loveth God in his creatures and loveth any one truly for God must love the Angels and perfected Spirits best because they love him best and are nearest him and likest to him and are also most beloved by him 2. The common nature of Love and Humanity requireth it For it requireth us to love that best which is best as is said But the blessed ones in Heaven are better than any here on Earth and therefore should be better loved 3. The nature of our Love to the Saints requireth it For if we love them as Saints and Godly we shall love those most that are most holy and that is the blessed ones above And if we love them most we shall certainly mind them and converse with them by Faith and not be voluntary strangers to them 4. It is part of that heavenly conversation which is commended to us Phil. 3.20 21. When it is said that our conversation is in Heaven it signifieth that our Burgeship is there and our interest and great concerns are there and our dwelling is there and our trading and thriving business is there and for it and our friends and fellow-citizens and those that we daily trade and converse with in love and familiarity are there even as our God and our Head and our Inheritance is there He never knew a heavenly conversation that pretending there to know God alone hath no converse with his holy ones that attend him and doth not live as a member of their society in the City of God that doth not with some delight behold their holiness unity and order c. 5. The honouring of God and our Redeemer doth require it that we daily converse with the Saints in Heaven Because it is in them that God is seen in the greatest glory of his Love and it is in them that the Power and Efficacy and Love of our dear Redeemer most appeareth You judge now of the Father by his Children and of the Physician by his Patients and of the Builder by the House and of the Captain by his Victories And if you see no better children of God than such childish crying feeble froward diseased burdensome ones as we are you will rob him of the chief of this his honour And if you look at none of the Patients of our Saviour but such lame and languid pained groaning diseased half-cured ones as we you will rob him of the glory of his skill and cures And if you look but to such an imperfect broken fabrick as the Church on Earth you will dishonour the Builder And if you look to no other Victories of Christ and his Spirit but what is made in this confused dark and bedlam world you will be tempted to dishonour his conduct and his conquests But if you will look to his Children in Heaven who are perfected in his Love and Likeness and to Christs Patients which are there perfectly cured and to his Building in the heavenly unity and glory and to all his Victories as there compleat then you will give him the glory which is his due Rev. 21. 22. 2 Thes 1.10 11 12. 6. So also you will dishonour Religion and the Church if you converse not with the Saints above For the reasons last given For you will judge of the Church and of Religion by such imperfect things as here you see where men turn Religion to the service of their worldly interests and ends and fight for ambition faction tyranny usurpation and worldly lusts under the sacred names of Religion and the Church and for the pretended Love of Christ and one another do tear the Church into shreds and worry and hunt and devour one another You will be tempted to be Infidels if you do not here converse with the sincere humble holy charitable Christians and look up to Heaven to perfect souls And then you will see a Church that is truly amiable holy unanimous and glorious in perfect Love 7. If you look not up to