Doctrines upon the World as Rules for all to submit unto without any farther examination And if they must be examined at all it must be by something of greater credit and authority in the World Now that the Prophets of old were to be tryed whether true or false is plain to any that will give themselves leisure to consider not only that otherwise there could be no such thing as a false Prophet in the determination of men true and false having the same evidence but that God himself gave directions under the Old Testament how to know the one from the other Deut. 13.1 and chap. 18.22 which rules had been vain and insignificant if by these men were not to try them Hence is it that those that attribute great authority to Christian General Councils do not think their Canons obligatory unless the things included in them bind antecedently by their own nature or a superiour Law till they are received in those Nations and Churches to which they are sent 2. As the Doctrines of the Prophets were to be examined so were also those of the Apostles Hence was it that S. Paul who was extraordinarily called to be an Apostle God himself supplying him with Unction and Ordination by giving him authority from Heaven and our Saviour descending by an apparition from the Clouds to invest him with dignity and power Hence it was I say that this great Apostle in his Call dignified beyond his Brethren commends the Bereans Acts 17.11 because they searched and examined his Doctrines whether they were true or false by those Scriptures they had already received and by comparing his Doctrines with the Natural Religion of Mankind with what our Saviour and other Apostles preached and most probably with the Scriptures of the Old Testament that they might be assured that what he delivered was consonant to that which was there exhibited concerning the Messias And therefore these were of more pliable and ingenuous and gentile tempers than those of Thessalonica who were more regardless of these concerns as S. Chrysostom comments upon this Text. 3. The Doctrines even of our Saviour himself though never man spake like him were lyable to examination by those that heard before they entertain'd them And certainly if any might recommend propositions upon his own authority he might who was the Wisdom of the Father in whom all fulness dwelt Nay the fulness of the Godhead was as it were inclosed in his own body Yet he bids the Jews to search the Scriptures and to consider how well his Person and his Doctrines agreed with the antient Predictions in relation to him and accordingly either to receive or reject him For these sayes he are they which testifie of me And in them ye think ye have eternal life John 5.39 So that it is plainly evident from the beginning that no Doctrines under pretence of what inspiration soever were to be received by men without examination But as those of the Apostles were to be compared with what our Saviour delivered his again to be measured not only by his own divine authority but this also was to be proved by the Law and the Prophets and the Prophets themselves by those Rules which God had given to the Jews to judge by So is there not reason that the doctrines of men pretending to Christianity under what authority soever they are published should still be examined by a superiour Rule even by what the primitive Planters of our Religion have left for our perusal and direction viz. the doctrine of Christ and his holy Apostles which priviledge whatever Romanists plead for themselves to hide from or deny to others is the greatest cruelty and irreligion Enough it is to render any doctrine suspected that thus hides and runs to corners and avoids all the tryals of men And we have great reason to mistrust those who take away mens judgement of discretion valuing them only like Beasts that perish whilst they are not perswaded but whip'd to their work and many times cripled under their burden when yet they know not what they carry Thus I have though more largely than my first thoughts designed not only stated the use and authority of the Church in her Synods and Councils in the examination of Doctrines and Opinions but shewed you withal that as their Decrees are not infallible so neither are they the highest Rules by which we judge of the Doctrines of men Had it been otherwise when our Saviour came to plant his Gospel the infallibility of the Jewish Sanhedrim had justly condemned him for an Impostor and all the Christian Religion deliver'd and authorized by him had proved only a Fable and a Dream CHAP. VII THe most considerable Adversaries that oppose this way of stating the Churches Authority in determining points of Faith seem to many to be the Romanists and therefore this Chapter will briefly confute their high pretences to a strange Infallibility by which they have introduced as strange Doctrines into the Christian Religion And indeed there was never a Law yet so plainly penn'd but that the inventions of men who make it their business to render Laws both Divine and humane subservient to their Secular interests will blunt its edge and endeavour to make it their own property by altering or over-urging its design The same use has been made of Texts of Scripture by the two Opponents of the Church of England enlarging or diminishing the Infallibility promised to the Apostles that it may the better countenance their own pretences Some restraining the promises expressing the holy Spirits miraculous assistance in the guiding the Sacred Pen-men of the Gospel to the Roman Church And others extending it to every man of their own persuasion or at least to the Ministers and Elders of their Churches I shall here therefore spend a few leaves to shew that the Papists can have no ground in the Scripture to build their infallible determinations on nor any reason at all to maintain their infallibility I know not how it comes to pass that other Churches must forfeit their interests in the promises of the Gospel that the Romanists may proudly arrogate them to themselves Or any reason why the right of others must sneak or stoop to their bold usurpations As if their Church could not well be Head of the World unless we allow it to have all the Brains too and dash them out of the Sculls of others to fill their head till their understandings become incomprehensibly infallible that all the race of Christians in the world may receive Rules only from them and give up the natural freedom of their minds to enlarge the Pope's Empire and Authority As if they only were like the Jews of old to whom were committed the Oracles of God And these they might either keep to themselves or allow them to others as they see occasion This makes a reproof to them like Rebellion against a Prince a crime so great that nothing but death can sufficiently expiate Among them
will yet remain in our selves and our very travail becomes our punishment till at last we die and perish in a Wilderness which becomes the enterance to greater darkness Alas the Christian Religion though much debauched by the corrupt intermixtures and disgraced by the vicious lives of men is not now to be revealed to the world nor are its Records so hidden or lost that the Principles of it are no where to be found nor are men yet so blockish and unlearned that they cannot read so as to understand them If men were so blind those that are as blind might lead them into the ditch But the principles of Christianity besides what was revealed in the Old Testament are now above sixteen hundred years standing and have been handed down from age to age with their original records And therefore this Religion becomes matter of fact not invention And all the question must now be What was at first delivered The wise and grave reason of men must not controll the Wisdom of God nor make another thing of that which God sent his Son to declare to the World and has been conveyed to us with as great a certainty as any thing antecedent to the time we live in We are not now by discourse or inspiration to make to our selves another Gospel under the notion or pretence of the old This is not a thing subject to the Maxims of every squirting and half-witted Philosopher nor to be moulded according to the intrigues and designs of a subtle and projecting Statesman It is not to be spued out of the mouth of the Leviathan nor cunningly to be fleered out of the Works of Plato nor blended with any Doctrines of Epicurus that may prepare men for an indulgence to their vice or perswade them to disbelieve some of the greatest and most substantial points of Christianity Our Religion is now too old to be made new nor must we model that which has run through so many Ages by any tricks or devices of our own nor must it be servant to any mens ambition as if their secular interest or opinion were to be their guide or phancy putting on the name and garb of conscience were to be a Rule for such as call themselves Christians To the Law and to the Testimony sayes the Prophet if any speak not according to this rule it is because they have no light in them Isa 8.20 And we have a more sure word of Prophecy sayes S. Peter Epist 2. Chap 1. ver 19. whereunto you do well that ye take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place If we forsake therefore the tryal of the Doctrines and Pretences of men by the Scriptures which rightly understood are our only safe Rule we have no way to distinguish a bold pretender from him who is inspired from above If such persons were now to be expected after the Canon of Scripture the Rule for mens lives have been so long ago compleated For by inclining to believe any new revelation beyond the Scripture we suppose that an insufficient Rule the sufficiency of which true English Church Protestants have alwayes defended with success And if the revelation be contrary unto it it makes that Spirit that dictated the first a lyar if the latter be received and supposed true But grant what men of such an easie belief and such speedy resolutions that admit of as speedy changes would without any proof have yielded to them Yet I would fain know how men in their circumstances are able any way to satisfie themselves concerning the proposition which they pretend to be inspired in and thereby authorized to deliver unto others I am afraid confidence will be their only argument to recommend it to others and opinion interest and a strong presumption or what is worse Atheism and Knavery to themselves For 1. supposing the Spirit of God in its Dictates unto men alwayes uniform and consistent with it self how can there be different inspirations to prescribe various Rules opposite to each other at the same time for men to guide their belief and conversations The Apostle tells us that as there is but one God and one Lord with undoubted authority over the whole World so there is but one Spirit to influence the minds of men one Baptism that enters them into the Church of Christ and but one Faith to be embraced by them And therefore the Church is but one Body Eph. 4.4 5 6. How then can we reasonably admit the pretence of any mans inspiration that avers he speaks from the Dictates of the Spirit which is within him to publish any Rules of Religion different from what we have received before And if such a pretender means only his own Spirit the soul which acts within the body we can understand no more than his judgement and opinion Though phrases by such canting are rendered equivocal to startle the infirm but are foreign to our purpose when reflected on by considering men We well know that the design of Christianity was to unite the World under one profession and in religious affairs to subject it to the same rules of life How then can any with Religion or modesty pretend another inspiration for new directions when the former if they were ever true are sufficiently in the New Testament declared to be perpetual and obligatory till Christs coming to judgement when he shall pass sentence upon the whole World and deliver us into our everlasting states no less than his Mediatory Kingdom back unto the Father These are such inconsistent things that none but mad men can now expect any inspirations to deliver new Doctrines to the World 2. I would fain learn of any bold man that publishes under a pretence of inspiration new Doctrines different from the old how he knows himself to be inspired We find those that were formerly so besides some certain token to themselves which neither we nor our pretenders can now give a certain account of though we may some probable conjectures could work Miracles for the settlement of belief both in themselves and others But no such things appear now though lying wonders are published to the World carrying only the testimony of those that invent the story or others that are hired to sacrifice the truth to the confidence of an impostor and therefore one would think such things as these should at the utmost only deceive the simple whilst they that ensnare them having other designs beyond their reach vent what they do not believe themselves that they may accomplish their own carnal ends by the religious easiness and simplicity of others For upon the view of those various Sects visible either abroad or among our selves that any way pretend to be inspired to what they deliver to others we find them publishing by this authority doctrines to be believed and Rules of life quite different nay opposite to one another and pursue each other according to the advantages they receive with a greater eagerness and hotter
they were commanded by God to be worn to remember them of the Law as well as to difference the Jews from other Nations and to prevent Idolatry as often as they look'd upon these Fringes which the God of Israel commanded them to wear Numb 15.38 Scrupulous were these men in relation to all the circumstances of Religion but they regarded not so much the substance of it nor what these things were ordain'd to signifie and represent We read of some in the Apostles dayes that had a form of Godliness who yet denied the power thereof 2. Tim. 3.4 And this continues still in the World and will so long as Religion is capable of being vailed with hypocrisie and one man cannot discern the inside of another 'T is but being strict in outward appearance and a wicked man may be accounted a Saint and if open and scandalous sins be avoided mens inside may be full of rottenness and corruption and they be canonized still Thus the Devil may be taken for an Angel of light if he can but hide his malice and his flames And men may cheat their Neighbours commit adultery or secret murder if their actions escape the notice of others and they make not themselves a spectacle to the world This the Ministers of Sathan do like him acting deeds of darkness within whilst yet a Candle is hung out at their doors that are earnest for reformation in other men but do not at all reform themselves only they endeavour to cover those faults which yet they will not strive to amend If they bless God with their mouths they care not if they blaspheme him in their hearts because their business is not to recommend themselves to God but unto those men whom they designingly delude God himself complains of such Atheistical hypocrites that turn things upside down that seek to hide their counsel from the Lord and their works are in the dark They draw near me sayes God with their mouth and with their lips do honour me but have remov'd their heart far from me Isai 29.13 And there is yet sufficient cause of lamenting the sad state of Professors of Christianity who are still beguiled with good words into ill practices and under a pretence of Religion are drawn to renounce it But yet in the midst of such various Principles preached to the World with noise and confidence with great zeal though little reason which therefore as an enemy some disgrace and vilifie they distract the minds of those that are unsetled disturb the peace of all Society both Civil and Religious draw men into Heresie and Schism and every evil work and make them think those Prophets inspired with the breath of God that swell only with their own passion and disgorge themselves in fire and brimstone among mankind And the Doctrines that cause these disorders they manage with such art and such suitable applications and have so many plausible pleas to the World by which they spread them with too much success over the minds of men That it must fully convince us of a necessity to use diligence in our enquiries and to try the Spirits whether they are of God and so much the more because many false Prophets are gone out into the world And thus I have done with the Arguments and Reasons why we should examine the Doctrines of those that come to preach Religion among us let their pretensions of Authority be what they will Though they arise as high as inspiration and aver their Commission to be from Heaven CHAP. VI. I Proceed now to my second Particular proposed about this duty of trying Spirits And that is to give you some Directions how to know when Doctrines propounded as coming from God are indeed revealed from Heaven and the Deliverers to be believed as inspired from above and accordingly to be entertained in the world Now because men are apt sometimes to rely on false characters of trial and there being several marks set up by men of various humours and interests to guide them in their way to Heaven by which they pretend they are able to direct themselves and others and try Doctrines and Opinions I shall make some brief reflections on them that no prejudice may remain to hinder us from embracing the true methods of trying mens Propositions in Religion Especially those who come with so great an authority as inspiration And 1. We meet with many in the world who suppose what they call the Church which they make as narrow and little as they can to be either that into which they ultimately resolve their Faith or at least to have such Authority as to determine all points in Religion and what rules are to be accepted as Divine and therefore by her judgment all Spirits and Doctrines are to be tried and determined But this Guide will many times be uncertain Nay false too if a Society of men called the Church agree upon such Principles as are erroneous which we find a thing not impossible when our present experience may inform us that Rome which would be the only Church and many separate Congregations in the World who yet assume the honour of a Church err in Articles of the Christian Faith and in many wayes of Discipline and Manners And this is no wonder at all when we consider that a Church is a Society of men and that every man is capable of error and that all Councils are managed by votes and these many times are given wrong not only through ignorance or inadvertency but humour and interest so far prevail in the opinions of many that we cannot yield their determinations to be infallible Especially since we often find great Assemblies managed by the tricks and devices of a few whose designs being beyond the reach of the multitude draw them by degrees into the consent to what had they foreseen they would never have yielded Were the promises indeed of an infallible direction from the Spirit of God made to all ages of the Church and tied to the Assemblies which Christians call Councils we could not reasonably dispute their determinations but must obey them But the promises of this nature being confined to the first planters of the Gospel that were to publish an infallible Rule to the world and neither made nor useful to future Generations but only to prove the certainty of the Gospel to which every Christian is to submit both his Faith and Practice it being a rule in all things necessary to salvation The things now ordained by any Church or Society of men whatever authority they may claim above us as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority unless it may be declared that they may be taken out of holy Scripture And therefore General Councils may err and have err'd in things pertaining to God as our Church declares in the twenty first Article 'T is true indeed the Church of the Jews had the Oracles of God committed to them They were custodes legis the keepers
of the Law So the Church among the Christians has the Gospel committed to her custody and has a power to determine in indifferent matters To order all the circumstances in Religion for decency order and edification and Authority to restrain such Controversies as tend to make a Schism and separation and dissolve that unity which Christians are frequently exhorted to keep So that although the Church be a witness and keeper of Holy Writ yet as it ought not to decree any thing against the same So besides the same ought it not to enforce any thing to be believed for necessity of salvation as our Church declares in her twentieth Article I shall not deny nor could I without singular pride and Arrogance but that Fathers and Councils and all Congregations of holy and judicious Christians much more Bishops and Governours of the Church treating about a point in Religion attempted to be introduced a new or being old is controverted in the world are with great deference to be attended to For every mans reason will urge this obligation to himself That his own judgement is rendered suspected when it opposes the common and united determination of persons that cannot justly be reproached with want either of skill or honesty And 't is ordinary for men to mistrust the sight of their own eyes when a multitude of others having the same advantage cannot behold what a single person pretends to see And in Religious affairs and such matters as are of great moment when persons of learning piety and authority in the holy Church of Christ assemble with solemnity and have a real intention to employ with all faithfulness and diligence those parts which God has bless'd and encreased to them by the advantage of a peculiar education and study invoking a Divine influence upon their endeavours to find out the truth and meaning of any difficult and controverted proposition We have great reason to incline to the belief of what these shall deliver for truth Unless the contrary be so apparent to us upon sufficient enquiry that there is no cause of hesitation at all This being the moderate opinion of our own Church we are opposed in it both by the Papist and Fanatick The former asserts that major est autoritas Ecclesiae quam Scripturae That the Authority of the Church is greater than that of the Scripture And that Traditiones sunt pari pietatis affectu cum Scripturis recipiendae Their Traditions are to be received with the same affection and devotion as the Scriptures And truly the latter come not far short of these but as much confine when it is in their power the belief as well as practice of their members to the determination of their Assemblies and little differ from the Roman infallibility in the end and design For if any Churches among our selves do yet affirm as they have formerly declared that the Kirk of Scotland was to be the pattern of their Reformation then I am sure they expect the same submission both in opinion and practice to their Assemblies determinations as a Popish Council do to their Canons or the Pope himself to his Decrees For to the Assembly held at Glasgow 1638 they swore that for judgement and practice they would adhere to the Determination of it though perhaps they knew not what it would determine But to leave the persons of those that stretch the power of a Church beyond the Authority God has given her There are three Reasons which plainly shew that any Church or Council of men cannot lay down any Propositions which derive their utmost Authority from themselves that may be the ultimate Rules by which the Doctrines and Opinions of others are to be judged 1. Because God to whom our Religion relates has appointed a rule that being superiour to the inventions of men must bind their fancies and opinions in these things and determine their Faith with those general actions that are deem'd Religious To what purpose were the Scriptures given to the World if they were not to be Rules and Directions to men Nay God being the Creator of all things and in reason claiming the Supreme Sovereignty over the things which he has made It is in his power to impose what Laws he will upon the world and 't is most suitable to his goodness to reveal them That men may not err for want of knowledge nor their thoughts contradict the will of their Maker Now this he has done in the holy Scriptures which are sufficiently authorized by his own Sanction in that Miracles attended their first publication which are as it were the Broad Seal of Heaven that prove them Gods own Act and Deed when they no way contradict the natural Notions and the prime foundations of the Religion of men The Scriptures therefore being thus given and confirmed to us must either be our Supreme Direction and an infallible guide in matters of Religion or else they were deliver'd to no purpose or to cheat and delude mankind The former consists not with the wisdom of God and the latter would contradict both his goodness and his truth All the difficulty then will be whether this Rule is sufficient to guide us in the Doctrine and practice of Religion so that we need not any new inspiration or any rules to be superadded beyond the sence of Scripture it self to conduct men in their way to Heaven And consequently whether we may by them judge of all Doctrines and Opinions without the help of the Roman infallibility or what is the same in another dress the unerring Spirit of the Enthusiast But admitting the Scriptures to be of Divine Authority they themselves are a sufficient testimony of their own perfection whilst they declare that they proceeded from Divine inspiration to be profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect throughly furnish'd unto all good works 2 Tim. 3.16 2. No Canons or Decrees of whatever bears the name of Church or Council can be a Rule of trying Doctrines in Religion so as to be ultimate and Supreme Because all the conclusions and propositions of these are themselves the Doctrines and Opinions of men either with or without the pretence of inspiration and all Doctrines are to be tried themselves For this must be included as I have sufficiently proved in S. John's direction try the Spirits whether they are of God That therefore which is subject to an higher Tribunal cannot be it self the highest nor what is appointed solely to aid us in our trial and examination of Opinions nor the utmost Rule by which we must examine them Lastly If the Doctrines of the Prophets and Apostles of old nay of Christ himself the Saviour of the World were lyable to the examinations of men it being natural to mankind to try the truth of any Propositions before they believe them Then certainly no assembly of men can now in reason pretend such authority to impose their own
my understanding by the testimony of my senses concerning their own proper objects where there is a true medium and a just distance If this which thus seems to me to be Bread and Wine may yet not be so but the substantial Body and Blood of our Lord Then I can have no sufficient evidence that the Christian Doctrine was revealed from Heaven For the proof of this depending upon the certainty of those Miracles which were at the first wrought for the confirmation of it And these depending upon the certainty of their senses who were then eye-witnesse to the Miracles And if the senses of all mankind may together be deceived about this Sacrament the same possibility might make them so when the Miracles were wrought to prove the Gospel And then we have no certainty of our Religion but the whole Gospel may prove a fable and its greatest confirmation be nothing but an imposture This is enough to make the sin against the Holy Ghost to be introduced into the World with pomp and ceremony and to render it authentick by an infallible authority If it be said that in relation to the first confirmation of the Gospel our senses were free and then could not be deceived But that now since the Christian Religion was sufficiently authorized this very Doctrine thus confirmed tyes up our senses since 't is rational to submit them to Divine revelation I Answer That if the New Testament did any where thus impose upon the faculties of men It would 1. Be difficult upon the same grounds for me to believe that mine eyes were not imposed upon when I read the words 2. Supposing that I did read them true And that were sufficiently confirmed that I understood what I read Yet since no other Text can be pleaded for Transubstantiation besides This is my Body Why must I of necessity understand that by these words I am commanded to believe contrary to my senses When by a plain and easie construction agreeable to the usual Sacramental phrases particularly those which were used about the Passeover my senses are still left unto their liberty And no more than saying This is my Body That is This Bread represents or signifies my Body will express the sence and baffle the Objection 'T is so common to parallel this expression with I am the vine the way the door and That Rock was Christ This is my Covenant This Cup is the New Testament c. Where the Verbs are construed by represented signified and the like That I am ashamed we should be put to continued repetitions by the daily appearance of a baffled Adversary Thus we see by these three instances of erroneous determinations of the Church of Rome that if ever they had infallibility they have lost it Unless truth and error are reconciled and infallible falshood be a proper expression Seventhly If notwithstanding all the premisses the Romanists will yet hold the conclusion and affirm themselves to be infallible We must call upon them to prove it by Miracles For this can no way become the priviledge of the Church of Rome but by immediate inspiration to those that pretend it And whoever pretends to inspiration ought to prove it by Miracle when the Scripture does not command us to believe it The Apostles proved their infallibility by Miracles We must demand therefore the same from those that will pretend to the same priviledge Since the promises they challenge to themselves are compleated in the Apostles Nay 't will not be enough to tell stories instead of Miracles Nor to produce something done among them of which the cause being behind the Curtain no natural account can be given But they must be attended with such circumstances as may sufficiently prove them to be Divine And when this is accomplished which is impossible the infallibility pretended must be proved necessary to the Salvation and conduct of men Otherwise we shall doubt of the Miracles themselves because they confirm an unnecessary thing and what supposes the insufficiency of the Scriptures I might add more Heads of Argument but these are sufficient to baffle the strength of this proud Capitol CHAP. VIII HAving in the former Chapter spent a very large Parenthesis upon the Roman Infallibility for fear that I may not be well understood by some whose unthinking honesty may make them jealous of their power and cause them to conclude that I allow not Authority enough to Synods and Councils And that being no more than a private Minister I assume too much judgment to my self in making use of my faculties without leave I answer that I have sufficient leave from the Articles and Canons established in the Protestant Church of England for what I have already wrote concerning this matter Yet I shall farther explain the same thing to shew that I am willing to attribute as much Authority and Honour to the best established Church in the World and the Governours of it as any man can possibly do who does not pluck out his eyes to do them service Therefore notwithstanding what has been said of the Roman Infallibility I readily yield that Fathers and Councils and all Congregations of holy and judicious Christians much more the Bishops and Governours of the Church solemnly assembled to treat concerning the truth or falshood of any Point introduced into Religion are reverently to be attended to Reason urging a regard to those who by the advantage of study or the prospect they have obtained from an higher ground and according to the age in which they live are probably capacitated to assist our judgments and to determine a Controversie better than our selves When persons of learning piety and Authority also in the Church of Christ shall assemble in his name with a real intention to find out the truth of any difficult and disputed Proposition humbly begging the Divine assistance and blessing on their endeavours We have great Reason to incline to their determinations when neither secular interests or a blind passion or the force of others gains their Votes and procures their assent Nay when these are our own lawful Governours though nothing can force our belief we may in an improper sence call their determinations infallible quoad nos Because for the peace and Government of the Church to avoid Schism and to preserve an Ecclesiastical union among us it will be necessary that they bind us not to contradict them publickly by any external solemn act since we our selves have our assent virtually implied in Canons or Laws made by those who publickly represent us Although we are not obliged to believe every Proposition thus determined to be exactly true Unless it be propounded to us with sufficient evidence to convince our judgements if we have abilities to enquire into the Proofs themselves To restrain the external acts and discourses of men when they oppose the publick Sanctions and constitutions of those who are fixed in such places of Authority is plainly necessary to keep peace and order in any
A DISCOURSE Concerning the TRIAL OF SPIRITS WHEREIN Inquiry is made into Mens Pretences to Inspiration for publishing Doctrines in the Name of God beyond the Rules of the Sacred Scriptures In opposition to some Principles and Practices of Papists and Fanaticks As they contradict the Doctrines of the Church of England defined in her Articles of Religion established by her Ecclesiastical Canons and confirmed by ACTS of PARLIAMENT By THOMAS PITTIS D.D. one of His Majesties Chaplains in Ordinary London Printed by B.W. for E. Vize at the Bishop's Head over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil 1683. To the Right Worshipful Sr. Edward Worseley Knight Colonel of one of the Regiments of the Country Militia and Deputy Governour of the ISLE of WIGHT Honoured Sir HAving an unexaminable opportunity of publishing such Tracts as this And having formerly by your Father been presented to the Rectory of the Parish of Gatcomb in the Bounds of which your Mansion House is seated and in which you live having the right of Advowson undoubtedly in your self I cannot but present these Papers to you as being the Inheritor of your Fathers Estate and Vertues too and of his great kindness to me in particular which you yet on all occasions continue and increase by succeeding heaps of favours I need not relate the Loyalty of your Family it bearing date with its Antiquity and has been so manifested to the present World that a Memorial of mine would be its disparagement and upbraid the memory of mankind All know whose brains are not sunk into Oblivion how you would have redeemed King Charles the First that most Pious Martyr of ever blessed memory when he was a Prisoner in Carisbrook Castle from the present insolence of the worst of men to whom by violence he was enthral'd and the designed mischiefs that were likely to befal him from persons that thirsted after Royal Blood who were most monstrous and irreconcileable enemies to mankind and Caesar You had prudently laid your design and were honestly ready accoutred and prepared and at your Post at the appointed hour But alas all miscarried through the base treachery of other men to your misfortune and much bigger grief After this you were forced to wander and exile your self And 't was happy for us that survive your misfortune that you came off so Since the return of our present and most gracious Sovereign with whom you were also expell'd by the rage and malice of a Pack of unreasonable and malicious men your great modesty and unalterable affection to the Island in which you make so considerable a Figure in which I have the priviledge and honour of a Native has been the only cause of your not being removed into a larger Sphere But now your age and the greatness of your Merits together with your old Protestant Church of England Principles to which you are honestly and severely addicted will hardly permit you to suffer an exchange in this World though I alwayes wish'd it 'till you advance to the Glory of the next I dare not any longer be thus burdensome to your modesty and contentment that covet retirement in defiance of all your very large capacities But yet Sir give me leave to pray from the true resentments of a grateful mind that the great God who is far exalted above all Beings would continue to preserve your most Loyal and exceedingly devout self Your most Vertuous and extraordinarily pious and modest Lady and the two Gentile and excellent Branches happily sprung and nourished too from You who are the root of both much longer than I in this World shall be capable of remaining Dear SIR Your most affectionate and most humble Servant Tho. Pittis London Nov. 1. 1683. A DISCOURSE Concerning the TRIAL OF SPIRITS CHAP. I. THE Third Person in the Sacred Trinity one God blessed for ever is frequently abused by the pretences of men to such Revelations as are inconsistent with the truths of the Gospel and many Doctrines of the Christian Religion which the Holy Ghost at first inspired men to deliver And though this began in the Apostles days when the mystery of iniquity by the Gnostick defection began to work Yet it has continued and improved men in their villanies throughout the several Ages of the Church Nay so far that Treason and Murder and open Rebellion are consecrated by those that pretend to be inspired and they blasphemously make the Holy Spirit of God that breaths forth peace and quietness upon the World to become the Patron of the greatest and most disturbing impieties that ever infested the Societies of mankind This though we have been loth to believe it we are now convinc'd of by a woful experience an experience which had been purchased by our utter ruine unless Gods Providence assisting and favouring the wisdom of our Superiours encouraged by some Loyal and unwearied resolutions had happily prevented it We have two sorts of men both pretending to an infallible inspiration though on different grounds that ruine and destroy the Principles of Christianity under a shew to advance them And though we were unwilling to think that men who seem'd at so great a distance from each other should ever reach to join hand in hand and that the same principle should reconcile such different pretensions Yet as Samson's Foxes were joined together by their Tails though their heads looked away from one another So now we see those that breath inspirations from the Pope and they that boast more immediate ones from Heaven confederating though before expected by the most observing and considerate men to house the corn and tares together that Gods Harvest may become their own and they may reap where they never sowed And certainly when such attempts both by a separate and united force are made against all Order and Religion intitling God to the Patronage of a lie making the Spirit of Truth to contradict himself and crucifying Christ under a pretence to exalt him when our own Kingdoms are ready to be destroyed by cheating us out of our Properties and our Lives with a specious shew of advancing the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and to lift up his Scepter our Soveraign's must first be broken in pieces when disorders tending to subversion and ruine are plainly legible in the affairs of men coals are blowing to set all our Houses on fire and we tread those paths that will lead us to confusion and all this while men profess to be serving a God of Order when multitudes pretend to be sent from God that speak contrary to his written word and have no other Miracle to prove their Principles but the strangeness of their villany in rooting up the Laws of Nature and Society when so much brass is currant amongst us instead of gold and our silver is every day exchang'd for dross and we are ready to be made the companions of Owls or what is worse of Thieves and Murderers 't is high time to bring forth the Touchstone to enquire into the
to endeavour to imprint Characters on the Air you may inscribe more durable Divinity on the dust which every wind drives to and fro or impress more lasting footsteps on the Shore which the next Tide washes away S. Jude tells us at the 12 th Verse of his Epistle that they are Clouds without water without any weight to ballance them and are not only light as the Air but as inconstant too S. Peter sayes that they are Wells without water Clouds that are carried with a tempest but yet such to whom the midst of darkness is reserved for ever 2 Pet. 2. ch 17. Certainly such men must needs be wrong who by frequent shifting declare to the world that they do not know which opinion is right but like sticks and straws are carried with the stream and alwayes swim down with the River Their faith must needs stagger who thus expose it to every stroke and certainly he must dye and perish that with a naked breast is willing to receive all the wounds that his adversaries will give him If such men are to be deem'd religious sober men would become prophane and if these are they that make a Church the more rational part will enter into a Conventicle or any place distant from these What! must a man be a Fool to become a Prophet or cannot he be spiritual unless he be mad Must Religion that brings peace to the world be the only bone of contention among men which they cast at one anothers heads Shall that which teaches us self-denyal patience humility and obedience be pleaded for a breach of all these Shall our Saviour's Kingdom be of this World notwithstanding his own protestation to the contrary Or those that are zealous for the Doctrine of S. Paul propagate it by that Sword which yet S. Peter was rebuked for using Will men be bold to assume to themselves the names of Christians and yet act more cruelties than the Turks Or call the holy Jesus their Master and yet openly violate all his Laws Can they bow their knees to him and yet presently carry him away to be crucified Can men think it reasonable that a faith should be manured with the blood of others that was planted at first in the Martyrdom of Believers Or can any be supposed to have received power from on high to constitute our Saviour a divider of inheritances when he himself has refused the Office and gave the person a rebuke that desired him to accept it by asking him that question Luke 12.14 Man who made me a judge or a divider over you In vain is it for men designing disturbances in the World to pretend that they follow the commands of Heaven when they knock the Crown of our Saviour against their Sovereigns or fight withone Scepter against the other unless they can reach high enough to pull the Sun and the Stars from the Firmament that no light may shine upon the World Or void the Gospel by inspiration The Protestant world is too wise now to be again thus fool'd Men must chuse a night for such designs as these and stay yet a little longer if they intend to meet with Bats and Owles The age is not dark and melancholy enough to bring in Monkery among these nor has ignorance that Mother of Popish devotion yet sufficiently prepared our minds to receive the Doctrines of Papists or Enthusiasts Nor are the brains of rational and sober men yet beat out that there may be room for Dreams and Visions Nor have we so forgotten the Scriptures as to be guided only by pretended inspiration or to be frighted out of our Faith and Principles by every new and unexpected apparition Nor are we so ignorant of mens devices as to be baffled out of our Religion by those that are deceived themselves Or to accomplish designs of malice or ambition would subtily endeavour to impose on others We know the difference betwixt virtue and vice and have a Rule to judge Doctrines and Preachers by and know how to judge of those that now pretend to present inspiration and those that follow such pretenders And we well hope that we shall not twice in the same age be catch'd and entangled in the same snare To prevent which dismal and fatal ruine permit me in the last place to exhort you to what I cannot command with the sacred Apostle though the World was then also to be gain'd by intreaty as appears by his kind compellation Beloved A word that is used I will not say practised too by men that love fornication in Religion and too often without a metaphor by those who are far differrent from the spirit and life of our Apostle Yea so often that it takes up time in their discourses fills the room of sence and is therefore worn out and as they manage it is grown ridiculous Yet let me exhort men that are beloved of the Lord and not without reason by me also and all honest Christians not to believe every Spirit not to be so soft and easie when you have received a standing Rule so well proved and conveyed to the world to admit of new Doctrines that contradict it or to attend persons that boldly assume as if they were inspired with an equal confidence as if all were Apostles There are many in the world that from S. Paul's advice to prove all things keep themselves in the midst of doubts and perplexities and never love to travel long but where Clouds cover the face of Heaven and attend only to such Doctrines whose darkness keeps them in perpetual ignorance and so the sound is grateful only when it is uncertain And thus with them to prove all things is only to hear without examination and never to hold fast that which is good At this rate a ravening Wolf may be received though he has not so much as sheeps cloathing and to be real Worshippers of an Asses Head with which both Jews and Primitive Christians were falsly charged would be a thing of great merit and honour But shall the cause of God be any longer a cloak for the malice of the Devil the infernal Lake be placed in the Skies or men that have their wits about them mistake the flames of Hell for Heaven Shall the Devil lead us with as good assurance as if he were an Angel of light Or any walk by so loose a principle as cannot distinguish betwixt false Prophets and true Many men are such strange fatalists that they become altogether indifferent in their Choice and concluding their Fortunes to be written on their foreheads they care not whether they make any at all This is an Opinion which when in its consequence pursued will make those that really espouse it and with equal reason to be as regardless of temporal welfare as they are of their eternal and take a great deal of pains and care either to do ill or nothing at all to any purpose Then indeed men might as securely go into a Pest-house as
what it will that no subtilty may circumvent us nor creeping into houses lead the silly women captive nor cause us to stray after them We know the Devil is both cunning and diligent and that he suits his temptations to the various interests and dispositions of men that he walks about like a roaring Lion but 't is only to seek whom he may devour 1 Pet. 5.8 The Scribes and Pharisees were pains-taking men For they compassed Sea and Land to make a proselyte but when they had made him he became twice more the child of Hell than themselves Matth. 23.15 Let us not then under the pretence of new discoveries forsake that which has been from the beginning but let the same mind be in us which was in Christ Jesus and according to S. Pauls advice Rom. 16.17 18. Let us mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine we have learned and avoid them because they are such as serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Then as it follows the God of peace shall bruise Sathan under our feet shortly Let us live in that unity which our holy Religion prescribes to us not raise or abett disturbances in the world but endeavour to fulfil S. Pauls joy and make our Ministers task easie in being like minded having the same love being of one accord and of one judgement that nothing be done through strife or vain glory Philip. 2. at the beginning For if we are drawn by hearkening to the various pretences of men that yet account themselves inspired to be alwayes biting and devouring one another we shall be consumed one of another And this we are not only in our own age taught by experience but the Apostle has long ago admonished men of this Gal. 5.15 Let us live therefore like those that have professed rules of faith and conversation endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace And then if we thus live in this world we shall be entertained in the glory of the next CHAP. IV. HAving thus discours'd the Apostles Caution and evidenced to you that every one that pretends to Revelation is not to be believ'd I proceed to the second particular I propounded which contains a Direction how we may disentangle our selves from those perplexities and different opinions that various men under the same pretension puzzle us withal But try the Spirits whether they are of God Now as this is a metaphorical expression taken from those who bring Metals to the Touchstone that they may discern the difference betwixt them that they may be able to value them proportionably to their worth So to try the Spirits is to examine the Doctrines that such pretenders deliver to the world and to discern betwixt true and false and accordingly judge whether they are from God or no. It was the duty of the Priests under the Law to shew the people the difference betwixt holy and prophane and to cause men to discern betwixt the clean and the unclean Ezek. 44.23 And the duty is continued under the Gospel in relation to the Doctrines and pretensions of men For as our Saviour foretold that many false Prophets would arise in his Name with pretensions to his power and authority so we find them too suddenly after this prediction to have gone abroad into the World and even yet continuing their boldness and impiety dividing the Church and not only troubling particular men but whole Societies overturning Thrones dissolving Government amongst mankind and raising confusions not only in Secular but Religious affairs To prevent therefore such unsufferable disturbances that Religion may not cover malice or ambition nor give any countenance to the humours or impieties of men we must endeavour to preserve this entire without any mixtures of villany or imposture and by some certain characters know what properly belongs to it that we may not lye open to the fancies or designs of those who cunningly ruine our principles and profession And since new Lights are continually exposed to the view of men which they too easily gaze at till their eyes are dazled we must endeavour to distinguish these blazing Comets from the true and fixed Stars in the Firmament by which we are to be guided on Earth and directed in our way to Heaven We must try both Doctrines and those that publish them whether they are of God because many false Prophets are gone out into the world If you will take an old Apostles advice against the pretended infallibility of new he advises you to prove all things but still to hold fast that which is good 1 Thess 5.21 We must try the Doctrines Opinions Examples nay even the Actions of all pretenders to revelation for by their fruits ye shall know them sayes our Saviour And what we call Tender Consciences as well as those that are very raw being rubb'd often by reason of their former commissions when they are not guided by a well balanced judgement are most apt to have secret combats within themselves and to be sensible of the least touch upon them For the best things in this World have some inconvenience still attending them and that which in some cases is good with other circumstances becomes evil and most men that have an itch upon their ears have had a scab first upon their minds The best Gold is most ductile and a Tender Conscience if the judgement be not the governour of the affections is easily enslaved to such principles as suit with passion and make impressions on the temperaments and bodily dispositions of men A seal we know makes the fairest and most lasting impression upon such Wax as is first softned and a tender Conscience where the head is as soft as the passions plyable easily receives the next Image though to the blotting out and defacing the old We had need therefore when any man comes under a pretence of some new inspiration to examine well both the person and his doctrine and receive to our own the skill of others especially those whom God has set over us in the Lord we may otherwise forsake the true Israel when Ephraim and Manasseh shall combine together or singly encounter it And we have been lately and are not yet out of danger so vex'd with parties different from one another whilst one extreme rides the other that the caution against believing every Spirit cannot too often be repeated nor our trial of all Preachers and Doctrines be too frequently urged and practised Our Saviour gives his Disciples a caution who yet had the view of those Miracles which we only believe that they should take heed that no man deceive them Mat. 24.4 that they might not entertain a secret enemy instead of a bosom friend And certainly we have much more reason to beware now although there were false pretenders then For if they durst when our Saviour was in the world design
the subversion of his Gospel when his infinite understanding could baffle their arguments and his visible Miracles rebuke their folly in setting up any Doctrine for Divine that contradicted what he delivered certainly much more now when the Gospel is delivered and Miracles for its confirmation are ceased And men are not now to expect new but to believe the old Nay when the Gospel it self is often perverted to evil designs and under a pretence of mens Offering to God they Sacrifice to the Devil The Church is now and our Religion in it like a Ship at Sea toss'd in a storm and through the Providence of God we are put into a Creek to careen and repair Let us examine therefore all the leaky parts of the Vessel and supply all the defects of Masts or rigging before we put to Sea again And mind what Passengers we take in that they may neither blow us up nor sink us As the Apostle warns the Ephesians so must I admonish you that no man deceive you with vain words Ephes 5.6 As if any wickedness by what authority soever coloured could free those who teach or practise it from the revenge of Heaven For because of these things saies the Apostle cometh the wrath of God on the children of disobedience Here indeed in this world good men frequently suffer the same temporal evils with the bad Because being in the same community and the offence being that of the whole Society when the greater part become vicious the Wheat is sindged by those flames that burn the chaff For the separation of these is not compleated till a future state renders justice exact and glorious And communities must be punished here because in the other life these shall cease and every man bear his own burden It becomes us therefore since we must every one then answer for our selves to examine well our belief and practice and not to deceive our own souls in being led by the false principles of another Hence is it that S. Paul advises that every man examine himself before he partakes at the Lords Table 1 Cor. 11.28 And in the second Epist 13 th Chap. 5 th vers he exhorts men to examine themselves whether they are in the faith and to prove their own selves And that a man should try his own work that he may have rejoycing in himself alone and not in another Because every one shall bear his own burthen Gal. 6.4 5. But yet because many things in Religion are placed beyond the examination of every man whose duty 't is to embrace them I must here lay down some directions and rules to limit such as may be otherwise apt to be extravagant and extend this duty of trying Spirits beyond their own power and capacity And 1. We that discourse of the Christian Religion and are fully convinced that it is true must take it as it is expressed to the world in those Books of Scripture in which it is contained Now these acquaint us that there are some set apart to be Guides to others and therefore distinguish the Church into Pastors and people Into those that are Guides and those that are to be conducted by them Into learned and unlearned But because all rules guide men no farther than they are designed To render these proper and effectual all collateral and subordinate helps are to be used in the application of the Rule We must take therefore the help of the Learned and rely on their honesty and skill in those things which an inferiour Education without such Miracles as are not now reasonably to be expected cannot capacitate men to reach Nor can they pass a judgement upon those things which they have not the advantage of knowing Thus that the Scriptures are truly Translated must be taken for granted by those that cannot understand the Originals And the Books which we receive as the Rule of Faith and directions for mens lives must be supposed to have been written by those inspired men whose names they bear among those that have not leisure nor skill enough to prove them to be so by any argument or authority And when these principles are setled 2. The Scriptures having some points more difficult to be understood we must farther make use of our Guides and those whom our Saviour has appointed over us to interpret to us such points in Religion which we are not capable of unridling our selves and not adventure above our strength in judging things which we have not learned This becomes the natural modesty of mankind and is more especially agreeable to that humility of mind and those docile dispositions which become the Gospel The contrary humours and actions of men are what make so many Schisms in the Church and lay them open to the errors and impostures of those who out of ignorance or design easily prevail upon and lead the simple In plain things such as most of the duties of Religion are every man of an ordinary capacity may well be able to judge for himself But if they will enter into Controversie especially such as have puzled the learned 't is no wonder that they are led into mistakes and their own obstinacy added to their ignorance makes their error become an Heresie Or if men will proceed in those things of which they might be capable of understanding by false measures and courses which are irregular not relying at all on those helps and aids which reason dictates and God hath both appointed and allowed 'T is no wonder then that they impose upon themselves by false reasoning instead of true or that they may be fit to receive the impressions of others when designing men impose upon them by any fallacious and alluring pretensions 3. Even in plain cases when private men that are not distinguished by any publick character judge for themselves they ought to confine their opinions to themselves and permit them only to have an influence on their own actions they having no more power to impose them on others than other private men have to impose theirs on them For all private men being in this respect equal none has authority to trouble others but they must leave them to their own reason and choice which is the same liberty that they claim themselves by vertue of the natural priviledge of men 4 It must be supposed antecedently to the trial of the Doctrines of men that pretend to inspiration that under the same claim and title some are true and some false For if all were true there would be no need of trying Spirits But we must contrary to the Apostles caution believe all who confidently affirm that they are inspired from above Yet our own experience sufficiently informs us that opposite Doctrines at the same time have been and are still vented in the world with the same confidence with the same pretension And we know that the parts of a contradiction cannot at the same time be true And therefore one being false must by search and trial be
all Churches must be infallible or none especially all that are able to derive their succession from any Apostle or Apostolical men that were once Bishops and presided there And if so then the Church of Jerusalem must be infallible because S. James the less was appointed their Bishop either by our Saviour himself as some say or else immediately by the Apostles as others The Church of Alexandria because this was the Bishoprick of S. Mark must become as infallible as that of Rome That of Constantinople because founded by S. Andrew That of Ephesus because S. John was seated there Nay those also of Smyrna Pergamus Thyatira Sardis Philadelphia and Laodicea because this Apostle laid the foundations of them Nay and our own Church of Britain too which our adversaries will hardly yield infallible because Simon the Zelot preached here wrought many Miracles and at last suffered Martyrdom for the Faith of Christ and our Native Soil has the honour of his Bones if the Greek Menologies may obtain any credit amongst men But to bring this business nearer to an head If this infallibility will not be allowed to all Churches of the Apostles planting nor to those over which they more especially presided as they certainly will never yield it whose interest it is to keep it unto themselves Yet why should not Antioch become infallible which was a Church of S. Peter's planting at least seven years before he came to Rome Must the elder Sister become a fool that the younger may appear infallible Or must we deny the priviledge of Antioch because it would invalidate that of Rome The latter seems their most probable conjecture though 't is easily proved S. Peter was at Antioch but eagerly disputed whether ever he was at Rome But allowing S. Peter to have been at Rome and not only so but to have been Bishop there and the present Pope to be his Successor which yet is hard for them to prove especially when the Succession is to be traced through their Anti-Popes and Pope Joan must become an Holy Father too How came this promise of infallibility to be fixed only upon S. Peter when it was spoken to the whole Apostolical College If you will say that the infallibility can be fixed but in one and that we may as well discourse of many Omnipotents as many Infallibles and certainly 't is to be proved with equal success were the infallibility not capable of restraint Yet why must it be fixed upon S. Peter and not on any other of the Apostles S. Paul though a later Apostle has as much to plead for a settlement of it upon the Gentiles as ever S. Peter to fix it upon the Jews Nay the Romanists themselves have greater reason to derive it from S. Paul than ever they had for deriving it from S. Peter Unless they acknowledge themselves to succeed the Circumcision of which S. Peter was only Bishop But perhaps they will plead Infallibility from Supremacy and afterwards if occasion serves plead Supremacy from Infallibility again Yet still S. Paul will bid as fair for the Supremacy too if we take time to examine his Plea Saint Paul was not only designed to his Apostleship by the Grace of God before he had any merit in himself being a chosen Vessel to bear Christ's Name amongst the Gentiles when he was appointed to his Office from his Mothers Womb Gal. 1.15 But his Conversion was attended with Miracles and from a Persecutor when the design was laid and his malice big against the Christian Church he was struck down with a dart from Heaven and convinced by that Light which made him blind He was brought to this Religion with Pomp and Ceremony and ushered into the Church with a train of circumstances that were Heralds to his honour and proclaimed him great Acts 9. Nor was he greater in his Apostleship than in his sufferings For after a large Catalogue of his miseries 2 Cor. 11. he made the Tragedy compleat by his death He was thrown into Prison with S. Peter And if Baronius may be credited the Pillars are yet remaining at which they were both bound and scourg'd And had he not been a Roman he might have been crucified with S. Peter But being such like a Person of Honour he was beheaded In the time he lived he laboured more abundantly than the rest of the Apostles 1 Cor. 15.10 Nor was he in any respect behind the very chief of them 2 Cor. 11.5 He neither yielded to the argument of interest when he received his first conviction nor did he when he was baptized or illuminated from above and by inspiration had received a sufficient Commission to preach the Gospel go to derive his authority from the Apostles as if he had been inferiour unto them But he straightway preached Christ in the Synagogues though to the amazement of all that heard him Acts 9.20 21. He was not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ though his former zeal another way might be and was objected to him And that he might sufficiently evidence the truth and the honour of his Apostleship he went into the untrodden paths of the World where none had adventured to preach the same Doctrine before him For so sayes he have I strived to preach the Gospel not where Christ was named lest I should build upon anothers foundation Rom. 15.20 All this we have drawn into a narrow compass Gal. 1.16 17. But it pleased God who separated me from my mothers womb and called me by his grace to reveal his Son in me that I might preach him among the heathen Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood neither went I up to Jerusalem to those which were Apostles before me As he was most justly stiled The Apostle of the Gentiles For the care of all their Churches lay upon him and I hope the Romans were not then Jews let them be whatever they will since and came more upon him every day 2 Cor. 11.28 He opposed the principal Officers of the Church at Jerusalem and gave no place by subjection no not for an hour since they that seemed to be somewhat added nothing in conference to his knowledge but perceived him to be appointed the Apostle of the Gentiles as well as S. Peter was the Apostle of the Jews when they came to Antioch he withstood Peter to the very face because sayes he he was to be blamed for that both he himself had dissembled with the Jews and had perswaded James and Barnabas into the same compliance And upon the whole neither of them walked according to the truth of the Gospel And all this difference was upon no smaller point than this that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but by the faith of Jesus Christ Gal. 2. 'T is plain S. Paul had here in a proper sense the right hand of fellowship not only in that they admitted him into the society of the Apostles but they gave him the preheminence among them And S. Peter
choice that if they will sin it may be their own act and deed Why should we think that he has chained them so fast one to another that they cannot err or wander out of the way unless they break that link which ties them all to an Infallible Chair But alas such is our condition here that we may as well expect to free mankind from the commission of sin as to restrain all men from error Nay there is as great a necessity that the lives of men should be void of the one as there is that they should be free from the other As much reason there is for men to be holy in all manner of conversation as there is for all to be sound in the faith since if we have faith we may have it to our selves but the actions of our lives have an influence upon others Why therefore should there not be an irresistible power set up to restrain men from vice as well as a standing infallibility to keep them from error Since God then who will judge men hereafter for those things which are properly their own has not thought it fitting to set up the one I cannot but suspect that he never designed to fix the other but to leave men to their own faculties to which he has added sufficient assistances to judge and to chuse fairly for themselves And therefore methinks 't is more reasonable to believe that since men cannot pretend to both it would be more modest to pretend to neither especially since we have no authority whatever power any have gained or usurped among us from reason or revelation to advance any among the Race of men to be an infallible Judge in Religion farther than his sentence proceeds according to the Laws of the Gospel And by this I cannot find that he has done any more beyond the faculties we have received as we are men than to give us a Rule sufficient to judge Doctrines by and Laws by which we are to govern our practice together with some superadded means to help our judgments and direct our Opinions by the Authority of Magistrates who are an Ordinance of God by the instructions of his Ministers who are also of Divine institution and the common assistances of his Holy Spirit to guide us into all necessary truths which tend to the promotion of our eternal happiness And so the final success is left to our own liberty and choice either in a refusal or compliance with them Because I cannot believe but that God acts suitable to the nature of human creatures in all his general dispensations to men that so he may in our future state with equal justice inflict punishment or give us a reward according to his promise And indeed to write strictly to be sound in the Faith would not be praise worthy if it were so ordered that we could not err Nor need S. Paul have so carefully exhorted to this if we might have been so easily preserved from all diseases and deviations in Religion by the infallibility of S. Peter and those who plead their Title from him I am sure that an Apostle acquaints the Church of Corinth that there must be also Heresies among them that they who are approved may be made manifest 1 Cor. 11.19 By which he proves and fore-tells matter of fact though he does not signifie Gods approbation but only his permission of them And the reason why he suffered error and division to be introduced among them by the perverseness or curiosity of any was that such as united in the true Faith might brighten and shine forth with the greater glory and like the Sun in the Firmament might triumph over Clouds and darkness There is no foundation therefore to erect the Popish infallibility on nor for any Church to set up such a Tribunal among themselves Having thus as I hope cleared my self from any great and unpardonable miscarriage in this point I shall briefly proceed in reflecting upon some mistakes of others that are false Rules to judge Doctrines and Spirits by Wherein private Enthusiasts are most notoriously guilty These smell Popery at a distance and can hardly promote any design without pretending that it is suddenly to be introduced into the most Protestant and best established Church in the World But they too publickly discover themselves to be Popishly affected who are very apt to spie errors in the Pope and yet so transfer them to themselves and steal them away that they may have the Monopoly of them and retale them to others under new names when they are in the possession of another Master These will not allow the Pope to be infallible but are apt to conclude themselves to be so And thus they fetch Candles from Romes Altars that they may set them up in their own Breasts As if there were no difference betwixt the holy Spirits guiding men into truth and walking by the light of their own fires What either a disease and weakness in their bodies or their minds has made a representation of to their phancies so long till their brooding thoughts have at last produced something which they may justly call their own These things they are apt to think or at least to say are the dictates of the Spirit and accordingly they will adventure to guide themselves and impose their own enjoyed phancies upon other men But if every thing of this nature and mens wild discourses the effect of this were to receive the stamp of Divine Authority and become infallible guides of action So strange a confusion would be made among us and such a monstrous Babel would be erected that Trowels would be call'd for instead of Morter and men would cry out for Bricks before they had gotten Straw to make them Their tongues would be so various and unintelligible that a Teutonick language could never reconcile them nor be able to discover them nor give marks to know the first Builders by when they are dispersed into divers Countries But every mans head would still tilt against another and bring a kind of damnation upon the World The Society of Devils would be more regular than men who must live without God or Beelzebub The births of reason would be deem'd abortive and the fruits of madness would receive the characters of sobriety and discretion The greatest Lunaticks would be most Religious and we should pay the greatest veneration to a Fool. But since things are not come to this pass yet I shall briefly examine a very few false Rules by which some among us satisfie themselves in the tryal of Spirits and guidance of themselves First There are some that build much on what they stile the Return of prayer when they have made a Fast the Prologue to contention and a long Prayer has been the Breakfast when they resolved to dine upon Widows houses yet they have too frequently thought or at least endeavoured to cause others to believe that what has happened after their prayer has been the return from
knew himself to be Fore-runner our Saviour returned no answer but this Go your way sayes he and tell John what things ye have seen and heard how that the blind see the lame walk the lepers are cleansed the deaf hear the dead are raised to the poor the Gospel is preached Luke 7.22 By this intimating that such Miracles were sufficient to convince him that he was the Messiah to whom such power was given from above Thus he endeavours also to convince the Jews by the argument of his Miracles The same works that I do bear witness of me that the Father hath sent me John 5.36 Now as by this argument our Saviour proved his own Commission so when he sent forth his Apostles and the first Planters of his Religion into the World he gave to them the same power to work Miracles for confirmation of their Doctrine Heal the sick sayes he cleanse the lepers raise the dead cast out Devils Matth. 10.8 And accordingly they proved their Doctrine to be Divine and confirmed their Commissions to the World preaching as S. Paul did 1 Cor. 2.4 not so much by Logical argument or in the manner of the Grecian Philosophers way of reasoning But in demonstration of the Spirit and of power When they argued from the Old Testament to the New and did Miracles to confirm all This has been Gods method in the World of evidencing his Mission of Prophets unto men to declare his Messages to them by which he attested his own inspirations which the most confident affirmations of the persons inspired without such plain and publick attestations could never have created a belief of Especially if they delivered Articles of Faith and things not demonstrable to the reason of mankind Thus when God gave Moses authority to lead and preside over the Israelites he endued him with a power to work Miracles to attest his Commission Exod. 4. And when the Prophets were to make any new Revelation to Princes or people or when God sent them on any strange errand he added confirmation to their authority by giving them power to fore-tell something which he brought to pass or else to work some extraordinary Sign or Miracle that those to whom the Message was sent might be convinced that God sent the Prophet But yet because it is often so difficult for men to distinguish betwixt a Miracle and a Wonder who know not the utmost power of Art or Nature Especially they are ignorant of the skill and force of Devils God has still in the last place given Rules for our farther direction in this weighty affair That the fancies of men may not by any subtilty whatsoever be impos'd upon with the seeming authority of Divine Inspiration God knew that the Devil would endeavour in this to imitate the Divine Power as well as appear like an Angel of light when either might impose delusions upon the World That the art and industry of designing men might by a previous acquaintance with Natural Causes so alter their simplicity by mixtures and experiment or meet with such a strange disposition of nature lucky to them as by the application of these to the present conjunction of their own intentions they might take advantage to insinuate their subtile and false Doctrines into the minds of the vulgar or credulous and many times into those that were more rational and learned Or else by a fortunate prediction of something that might come to pass assume to themselves the honour and authority of Prophets and then impose upon and delude the World For the prevention therefore of such great and otherwise unavoidable mischiefs the most gracious God out of his infinite love to mankind has given them three other Rules by which they might and may measure Prophets and their Doctrines 1. If any pretended their authority by fore-telling things to come If they fail'd in any of their Predictions 't was a sign that God never sent them to deliver that which the Prediction was an argument to confirm And that not only because the great God never confirms his Truths to the World by falshood or deceit But because he has cautioned us not to believe them In the 18 th of Deut. v. 22. When a Prophet speaketh in the Name of the Lord if the thing follow not nor come to pass this is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken but the Prophet hath spoken it presumptuously Thou shalt not be afraid of him 2. Supposing that one who took upon him the name of a Prophet and should work Wonders as Antichrist and others under the New Testament for confirmation of his Doctrine and Authority Yet if his Doctrines tend to the evacuating principles implanted in the minds of men and destroying the reasonable propositions of the Natural Religion of mankind it was an apparent sign of a false Prophet For sayes the Text If there arise among you a Prophet or a Dreamer of dreams and giveth thee a sign or a wonder and the sign or the wonder come to pass whereof he spake unto thee saying Let us go after other Gods which thou hast not known and let us serve them Thou shalt not hearken to the words of that Prophet or that Dreamer of dreams Deut. 13. at the beginning 3. In relation to both Natural and Instituted Worship God having now given us a Rule no pretension of Prophecy or Miracle must ever draw us into the opinions of men that thwart or contradict the Divine Establishments already confirmed by the same argument And this is evident partly from that fore-quoted Text Deut. 13. where the reasons why that false Prophet should not be received that endeavoured to draw men from the innate Principles of Natural Religion are 1. Because God by permitting that false Prophet proved mens stedfastness in Religion 2. Because whatever Signs and Wonders were done to confirm a Doctrine men were so far to adhere to the true God as to walk after him and to fear him to keep his commandments to obey his voice to serve and to cleave unto him But this is yet more fully proved from Isa 8.20 When any should endeavour to draw the people unto Wizards and to such as had familiar Spirits The Prophet advises them to try all by the Law and the Testimony because if any speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them And if these directions were good under the Law much more will they satisfie any reasonable men under the Gospel this being the last publick declaration of Gods Will that he intends to make to mankind till the final period and general dissolution For though we sayes the Apostle or an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel let him be accursed Gal. 1.8 And he tells the World that at the final period God shall judge the secrets of men according to the Gospel Rom. 2.16 Therefore the Gospel is to be the standing Law to the end of the World Nor needs there any other it being the
end of the Mosaick Constitutions and such a compleat System of Divinity as is sufficient to make a man perfect throughly furnished to every good work and thereby to prepare him for that eternal inheritance that fadeth not away And thus I have now considered all the chief parts of what I design and with all faithfulness according to my knowledge discharg'd my self The discourse on such a point has been long but I hope it will not prove unuseful in such times as these in which truth is blended and beset with error Strange Doctrines have insinuated into the minds of men And we are now sailing betwixt Sylla and Charybdis and God knows which may swallow us When truth like pure and clean Wheat is put betwixt two Mill-stones that seem to joyn to grind it in pieces And Religion like our Saviour upon the Cross is almost crucified betwixt two Thieves But blessed be God his Providence is over all his works and through his help we hope for deliverance from all our troubles For vain is the help of man without him CHAP. X. HAving hitherto for the most part treated concerning False Spirits and argued against the pretences to inspiration among Papists and Fanaticks and given some directions by which we may be able to discern what inspiration is true and what false That it may not be objected against the body of this Discourse that I have left neither Soul nor Spirit to animate it but have hinted only some operation of the Divine Spirit and restrained that to the first Age of the Christian Religion as if it were not needful for future Generations to guide men into all truth I shall spend some Sheets to prove That as there were Promises that the Holy Spirit of God should conduct men after our Saviours Ascension so that these Promises were made good by the apparent Descent of the Holy Ghost And to shew in what manner the Sacred Spirit informed the Apostles and the first Publishers of the Christian Doctrines And how he still influences the minds of men in the understanding and receiving them The Wilderness of this World is very thick of Briars and Thorns that scratch and tear the Church of Christ in her passage through it And since the most who profess themselves to be Christians agree in the design and end of their journey Yet because we are apt to fall out by the way and differ about the determination of the paths that lead thither Hence is it that I have hitherto endeavoured to hinder men of good intentions and different judgements from entertaining a delusion by reason of any shortness in their sight that they may not be deceived by their own fancies or the suggestions of others and so miscarry in their greatest concernments and fall short of eternal happiness hereafter And lest we should complain as if we were in this errable state of life left without sufficient means to conduct us to the great end of all our Religion And in the glorifying of God to save our souls I shall now shew some things before hinted more plainly and openly That we are not left without sufficient conduct from the Holy and true Spirit of God But that he was in the World at the first delivery of the Doctrines and Rules of life expressed in the Writings of the New Testament and still continues to influence the minds and actions of men In order to the discharging this that I am now to engage in I shall first prove That the Holy Ghost did come according to the Predictions of the Prophets and the Promise of our Saviour For 1. He came upon our Saviour himself 2. He inspired and comforted his Apostles and the first Planters of the Christian Religion And 3. He still influences the hearts and minds of those that seek and do not resist him First That this Holy Spirit rested upon our Saviour accompanying him throughout the actions of his life none that pretends to the embracement of Christianity can possibly contradict For his Miracles attest this Divine residency and loudly proclaim it to Ages and Generations And if there had not been this irrefragable testimony yet that there was such a Divine impression upon his mind the purity of his Doctrine and the holiness of his life sufficiently attested and that the Divine Spirit inspired and did assist him As his Conception was by the power of the Holy Ghost so did it continually breath upon him through all the periods of his whole life It gave a visible attestation to his Person and Doctrine and witnessed his Commission to the World when at his Baptism it descended in the shape of a Dove and lighted upon him Matth. 3.16 And this was seconded by an audible voice loudly thundering from the very Skies This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased In his life he had the Spirit without measure John 3.34 He was not limited to the same proportions of power and assistance with S. John who preached the Doctrine of Repentance and by this prepared the way for the Messiah Nor with those Prophets of old who were inspired at sundry times and in diverse manners to whom divine and unaccountable impulses were neither constant in their method or continuance But the Holy Spirit accompanied our Saviour throughout the several stages of his life so that he could upon any emergent occasion make discovery of it to others and alwayes knew it to be resident in himself he carried it with him to his Cross and Death to support him in his misery and to cause him to triumph over his temptations and enemies It hovered as it were over his Grave guarding his body with a security beyond the Souldiers power and at last raised him with triumph from the dead Rom. 8.11 and thus baffled the arguments for infidelity Secondly This Spirit promised came also upon the Apostles of our Saviour In the second of the Acts at the beginning It descended with noise and a glorious splendor and came with such a train of solemnity and its appearance was so gay and pompous that it amused Nations and confounded the multitude It shook the great place of their assembly and sate gloriously in the shape of a Cloven Fiery Tongue upon the head of each Apostle giving them at once a character to distinguish them from others and ability to execute that Commission which our blessed Saviour had before given them They were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other Tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance Here was the Prophecy of Joel accomplished that God would pour out his Spirit upon all flesh when the Holy Ghost thus descended with power in the lap of a Cloud with a rushing wind to blow open the doors of mens hearts that the King of Glory might come in It came with Cloven Fiery Tongues to teach the Apostles to sound forth the Gospel to all the World with a becoming zeal and warm affection The Tongues were Cloven that
fervency and devotion for them For if ye being evil sayes our Saviour know how to give good gifts unto your children how much more shall your heavenly Father give the holy Spirit to them that ask him Luke 11.13 And since God is so bountiful to us let us not be wanting to our selves For when we shall with retirement consider how numerous and potent our sins are which must all in their habits be mortified and subdued how many turbulent or inticing temptations we have to oppose that are ready every day to conquer us and steal invisibly to our most secret entertainments how many passions we have to calm and moderate which upon every suitable and tempting occasion endeavour to make an insurrection against our reason How many personal and relative duties we are to perform in a wise and pious ordering our conversation how the suggestions of our own flesh the injections of Sathan and the malice and defilements of the world will endeavour to oppose and obstruct our progress When we consider the black passage of death and the grave and God knows what dismal encounters we may meet with in our way to them What fears will then suddenly arise to baffle our hopes and make our faith ready to expire And upon the whole when we reflect upon our weakness and miserable infirmity In a word When we consider how much work we have to do how little time to perform it and what great disproportion there is betwixt our duty and our power It will not only appear that it is high time to awake out of sleep to rise and be doing But to take the Armour of God for our defence and to pray to Heaven for the assistance of the Spirit Since this appears to be so necessary in relation to our weakness and our duty And certainly what is so necessary for our safe conduct to that Haven where we would be and which God designs for our eternal rest and shelter from all tempests and future storms There is no reason why we should distrust the Spirits influence and operation Nor to make our selves uncapable of the favour by testifying our unwillingness to receive it by perpetually opposing and disputing against it For Lastly this influence of the holy Spirit upon the minds of holy and good men is from the Scripture infallibly certain to those that at once both want and beg it and do prepare themselves for the reception of it Why otherwise should our Saviour give this assurance to his Disciples that God gives the holy Spirit to those that ask him Nay what becomes of those promises in the Scripture that engage Gods truth and faithfulness to assist good men in the discharge of their duty and to support them under all their misery and misfortune if we were altogether left to our selves to pursue the dictates of our own reason and to stand only upon our own leggs without any superiour help or influence The Apostle tells us that the Spirit does help our infirmities Rom. 8.26 But this would be false if we had either none that required his assistance Or that he would not condescend to supply our wants S. John makes this vinculum unionis this bond of union betwixt Christ and us the Spirit of God to be a character by which we may distinguish our selves Because he has given us of his Spirit 1 John 4.13 And S. Paul fully agrees with S. John For sayes he if any man has not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Rom. 8.9 I know with what great industry these and other Texts have been restrained to that Divine temper of mind by which we know and discern our condition This indeed being the gracious effect of the holy Spirits co-opperating with our endeavours is by no means to be separated in our judgment upon our selves And we have no other way to judge of the cause but by this Divine and glorious effect But yet where this is visible in an holy life and virtuous actions we have no reason to exclude the cause Especially when it is principally included in the expression For the Apostle supposes this Spirit that Christians have to be the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead Nay a branch also of that power which shall hereafter raise us too For it follows He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken our mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwells in us Because our Bodies are here the Temples of the Holy Ghost God will not suffer them to remain eternally in their ruiues But will hereafter re-edifie and raise them because they were once the habitation of his Spirit Hence are Believers said to be sealed with the holy Spirit of promise which is the earnest of their inheritance Ephes 1.13 And therefore they are advised in the same Epistle not to grieve this holy Spirit of God whereby they are sealed unto the day of their redemption Eph. 4.30 Now though we may be said to be sealed up for Heaven by a Divine temper of mind upon Earth that this prepares us for future glory and that if this disposition be not in us we are none of Christs Yet it would be as harsh a speech as can be admitted in any language to say that this holy temper of mind shall raise us up at the last day Since the wicked are then raised too Or to say that any man voluntarily grieves this Divine temper and disposition of mind when the man then grieves himself These expressions therefore must certainly intend more than this And they can scarcely admit of a fair interpretation without expounding them of the holy Spirit of God which now co-operating with our faculties produces in us divine tempers and dispositions and so prepares us for that inheritance which he shall raise us up from our graves to possess The Holy Ghost was first promised to the Apostles and Christian Disciples under the names and notion of a Comforter and the Spirit of truth and how could he be both or either if he did not influence their minds with joy and knowledge The Spirit it self sayes the Apostle bears witness with our Spirits that we are the children of God Rom. 8.16 It did not only testifie unto others by those Miracles that did confirm their Religion and consequently proved those that did sincerely embrace it to be born of God as well as their Religion But it evidenced these things also to their own consciences by a sacred benediction and a Divine and more immediate concurrence with them when they compared their lives with the Rules of their Religion And consequently proves to them that they were heirs of God and coheirs with Christ which is the argument the Apostle is there prosecuting to give them comfort in the midst of tribulation and to animate their courage and resolution against the sufferings of that present time The graces and virtues visible in a Christians life are said in Scripture to be the fruits of the Spirit
Gal. 5.22 Not only that they are the fruits of the Gospel which is sometimes phrased by the word Spirit in opposition to those legal observations which being carnal ordinances are called flesh But they are so the fruits of the Spirit that as he first dictated the Rule so does he also concurr to the actions If the Evil Spirit could carry Christ to be tempted in the Wilderness Shall we not think the good Spirit could relieve him too If the Prince of the power of the Air can be a Spirit working in the children of disobedience Ephes 2.2 Shall we conclude the Holy Ghost less active or powerful to work in those who resign their wills by the direction of his Laws to his most sacred and safe conduct The promise of life and eternal salvation is made to us upon this condition that through the Spirit we mortifie the deeds of the body Rom. 8.13 And though many things concur with the influences of the holy Spirit to effect so great and victorious triumphs Yet all causes act with a dependence upon this glorious power which works in us both to will and to do when we prepare our selves for its reception by endeavouring what in us layes to work out our salvation with fear and trembling Philip. 2.12 13. Preaching Prayers Meditation and hearing the word of God are ordinary means to convert a sinner from the error of his way And yet S. Paul though he sufficiently magnifies the Preachers Office sayes that we are only workers together with God 2 Cor. 6.1 And 't is well for us all when God assists and blesses our endeavours And God grant that those who attend such sacred institutions being swift to hear may never be so swift also as to depart without a blessing Having thus both asserted and explained the coming of the holy Spirit to influence men the certainty of its operation and the necessity of its influence which makes up this Chapter of my discourse I shall close it with a brief request to all who desire so to approve themselves to God here that they may not be rejected by him hereafter That they would use all possible diligence to obtain and keep the blessing and influence of this holy Spirit which gives them such great assistance in sanctifying their minds and ordering all the actions of their lives That they would well use the grace they have received that so they may be capable of more in the hour of trial and at the day of temptation That they would pray frequently for new supplies of aid and assistance And that they would never by a vicious and unholy life grieve the Spirit and cause it to desert them lest through too much confidence in themselves they at last prove both Cowards and Apostates CHAP. XI HAving in the former Chapter in some measure proved that the Holy Spirit of God descended according to the predictions of the Prophets and the promise of our Saviour I shall now enquire into his work and business in this world amongst men who were rational and intellectual Beings Who might as some men are apt to think have well enough propagated Christian Doctrine when they had heard it from our Saviours own mouth and had for some time daily conversation with him Without any other new assistance besides the miraculous gift of tongues And what employment the Spirit of God could possibly have among other men As they will not be Religious enough to know So truly they are yet very much to seek However I shall adventure without calling any men names to shew according to my steady and long continued though mean thoughts what the sacred Spirit of God has done and yet does to guide men into the wayes of truth In the promises where Christ who was truth it self engages for the Spirits corning into the World in a more plentiful manner than in foregoing periods He seems to be described as a person different from the Father and the Son And I shall instance in one eminent promise to this purpose John 16.13 Howbeit when he the Spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all truth Now that our great and most blessed Redeermer of men speaks of a person here And not of what is said to be an afflatus divinus only as some have interpreted this place to void the Doctrine of the most glorious Trinity Which is the great and I had almost said the distinguishing Article of the Christian Faith is plain from the terms of this Text Because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is prefix'd to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He the Spirit of truth And this latter part which is a Periphrasis does but acquaint us who the Person was Even the Holy Ghost the third Person in the most Glorious Trinity God blessed for evermore Now this profound mystery of the Trinity however inexplicable it may seem to be in all particulars to the understandings of men who are loth to think that any Beings are above their great capacities and reasonings Yet it has been alwayes believ'd by the Orthodox through all the Ages of the Christian Church And it is a point sufficient if there were no other to baffle the Heathen Objection against our Religion viz. That it cannot be Divine because there is no Mystery in it But I design not to treat in this discourse with any that own not Christ to be the Messiah The great King and Saviour of the World And therefore shall only acquaint the Reader That Jesus himself seems to take great care to insinuate and fix this fundamental point in the particular promises of the Holy Ghost Lest any persons mighty in reason and wonderful in argument should refuse to believe such a Mystery as this when apparently revealed because their own reason is not able to conclude the thing or their language cannot fully explain it In the fourteenth of Saint Johns Gospel the sixteenth Verse our blessed Saviour acquaints his Disciples for their comfort and encouragement with this great promise I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter that he may abide with you for ever Even the Spirit of truth Here is one praying another sending and a third given So is it also at the twenty sixth Verse of the same Chapter But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you Here is the Father sending in the Sons name or upon his account the Holy Ghost to teach the Apostles those things which our Saviour had more briefly hinted to them And such things also which the Apostles through prejudice could not then receive And to bring those parts of the Christian Doctrine to their remembrance which they through human frailty might forget That so they might be fitted to be the publishers and the sacred and infallible Pen-men of the most excellent Principles of the Christian Religion And that
that they should read natural Philosophy to the World He did not intend to teach them to call the Stars by their names or that they should by virtue of his instruction know their several motions distances or altitudes He did not intend Aphorisms in Physick Or to give to them Geometrical proportions Nor to breed them curious and expert Artificers though some of these have made themselves Apostles Nor to teach them the numbers of Arithmetick Or the Astrological signatures of things or times and seasons For these were not for them to know because the Father had put them into his own power Acts 1.7 And therefore as they were never so proud and bold so neither were they so unlucky as the Pope who must needs condemn a point in Geography and the tenet of Antipodes for a destroying Heresie So little did he know the universal Empire he pretended to that he did not understand the extent of it nor the Figure or Bounds or Inhabitants of that Earth over which he yet pretended an Authority The Holy Ghost therefore guided the Apostles into those truths only in Divinity which included the full Doctrine of the Gospel which our Saviour delivered that they might be able to preach them to the present age and commit them to writing for the use of all succeeding Generations The Spirit was not given to them to make them great Historians or Philosophers but Christians and to capacitate them to be the planters and founders of Churches not the posts and standards of dispute Or to be the leaders of Sects and Factions in Philosophy They were to erect a Pillar of truth setled upon a firm foundation Christ himself supporting the Building and this neither for Pasquins or Poetry but for a Rule and directory of standing Religion and Devotion CHAP. XII THE souls of men whilst hous'd in these bodies of clay are darkned and obscured notwithstanding all the windows of sense to let in the light of external objects to an intercourse with the mind For supposing our senses could alwayes make true and exact representations to our souls which yet we know are often deceived yet these could only convey such things as are the proper objects of the souls of men Those of an higher and more exalted nature that are not capable of an image must needs escape the perception of our outward senses and if reason it self when most disentangled from those fetters which our senses too often impose should endeavour to make propositions and inferences about the essences of those things whose spiritual natures evade our sense our notions could not be adequate to the things themselves nor could we fully comprehend what is infinite nor have a positive Idea of spiritual Beings though reason might conclude their existence Hence is it that all our definitions and descriptions of these are therefore imperfect because negative and though we may conclude what they are not we never could by humane power yet resolve compleatly what they are which makes Divine Revelation necessary and that we should have faith beyond our reason though we never believe without reason to assure us of the authority we confide in This being therefore our state and condition in this World we must as well praise Gods Goodness as admire his Power for sending us that Spirit of Truth which guides us into all truth that is necessary to conduct us to eternal happiness Now this Promise I told you I would consider two wayes 1. As it related to the Apostles and first Disciples of our Lord and Saviour 2. As it concerns the whole Church of Christ that is or shall be militant on the earth The first of these is already dispatched And therefore I now proceed to the second To view the Promise of the Spirits guidance as it concerns the Church throughout the several Ages and Periods of the Christian World I have already proved the divine influence on the minds of men though its immediate operation is too difficult to be explained as to the manner of its energy and work and that we have no reason to disbelieve the thing for that we know not the manner of its operation What therefore is now to be discoursed supposing the truth of its influence in general and that extraordinary assistance he gave unto the Apostles is How the Holy Spirit of God possesses the minds of those with truth who make themselves by holy dispositions and a due exercise of their rational faculties capable to receive it and what truths those are that the Spirit of God guides men into As to the first supposing that which has been already proved That the Apostles were inspired from above to receive a full revelation of those truths by opening their understandings and quickning their memories that concern the salvation of mankind and that they committed them to writing faithfully recording them for the use of posterity and that these are to be standing rules for all ages and generations to come I cannot find any other method the Spirit has used or does continue to guide the ages succeeding the Apostles into all truth but what is contained in these three particulars 1. By those Scriptures which he inspired the Apostles to publish and deliver 2. By inclining the hearts of some men to continue that Ministry which must endure to the end of the world And 3. By confirming those truths contained in the Scriptures unto the minds of men by co-operating with the external ministration by an internal work upon the understanding will and affections of those who are inclinable in the day of his power First then The Spirit of truth guides us into all truth by those Scriptures Christ and his Apostles delivered to be the standing rules for posterity These are those lively Characters in which we may read the Nature of God and the directions of our lives These are such an infallible rule of truth that they certainly guide those into it who soberly and conscientiously apprehend and follow them They convey peace of conscience here which is a thing valuable above Crowns and Kingdoms and hereafter give us such possessions as infinitely transcend the power of our thoughts and exceed all humane expectations These Holy Scriptures contain such a compleat body of Doctrine that they need not any additions to be made to them Let their own sense be but sufficiently explained and if they are permitted to speak their own mind they will neither want Apocrypha nor Traditions nor any new Revelation neither to render them a compleat System of Divinity Mens own Doctrines and not Christs want Traditions to confirm them and 't is the pride and covetousness of a Sect of men that would make all Christians groan with their burden and void Gods Word with their own pretensions however they are varnished with the plausible Epithets of ancient and Apostolical that make such additions to the Scriptures But the Holy Scriptures which were at first given by inspiration of God are able of themselves
phrensie And then their pretensions grow so big that they become proportionably tall too till they aspire to the storming the Walls of Heaven attempting to blow open the everlasting Gates that they may pry into those things which are lock'd up from the inquiries of men And thus being puff'd and swelled up it proves only to be Tympany and disease when we think we have true conceptions and when our own thoughts have raised our fancies we conclude that the Spirit overshadows us and our obscure opinions or strange propositions raised by the sudden transports of our minds are too often with confidence enough boldly averred to be the immediate dictates of the Holy Ghost Want of true and ingenuous education and thereby the more exact assistances of reason causes many of those who would be accounted more spiritual than other men to think themselves inspired from above when an unusual fear a sudden joy or a powerful disease has brought Convulsions into their Nerves and seised their reason and judgement with a Palsie so that all their notions are jog'd into a confusion and their faculties can neither embrace or pursue their proper objects But by what means soever the thoughts or expectations of such men are lifted to an height waiting for an impulse sighing and groaning for an unusual influence Vain are those hopes where there is no promise and uncertain that rule of determination of things which appears to be fallible and deceitful And yet thus are all the expectations of those who think the Spirit guides them into truth by other means than what I have already shewed you or to any rules and measures of religious actions than what are plainly laid down in the Word of God or thence drawn by a fair and truly Logical deduction If you should be at the trouble to examine a little all the pretended impulses of men their great variety will evince their folly and their opposition to each other their deceit and falshood Is there any Sect pretending to Enthusiasm that does not peremptorily and with the greatest confidence assert the Spirits internal seal to their principles although just opposite to each other and all perhaps contrary to the Scripture This is the great fountain which yet divides into so many streams whose waters all have different tastes according to the chanels in which they run and the variety of soil through which they pass This is made the cause of separation which in it self is still but one This makes men divide from one another and all from that Church to which they should belong proving each others Doctrines erroneous and all still by the same Spirit As if the God of order delighted in division and different Religions like variety of creatures proclaimed Gods Wisdom and his Power When he has now enjoyn'd one faith to the whole World and sent his Son to set up his Banner for all Nations to flock to it Divers Languages indeed were once a character of inspiration from the Holy Ghost but different Creeds were never yet the fruits of him that is but one That truth which the Spirit guides men into can be no other than the plain uniform rules of the Gospel and whoever pretends to any inspiration to deliver a Doctrine different from this blasphemes the Holy Ghost and makes God a lyar whilst he pretends his inward seal publickly to attest an open falshood But if there were such a thing as the Spirits impulse in these ages of Christianity we should have some certain characters by which we might know it as the Prophets and Apostles must be suppos'd to have had and if we make it an argument to convince others we must work Miracles to attest its original The latter none of the Enthusiasts pretend to Or when ever their madness has attempted this testimony no sooner do they dubb themselves by the names of Prophets but they are discovered to be plain Cheats If they pretend a way to evidence to themselves that they are inspired with a divine breath to give them a warrant for doctrine or action not consonant to the Writings of the Apostles it does not only render the Scriptures insufficient but makes God to contradict himself and wounds that Eternal Truth of the Deity into which we ultimately resolve our belief But let us come to the examination of the impulse it self and we shall perceive in the midst of what uncertainties such men must be miserably toss'd who suppose what they deem such to be sufficient warrant for what they then think on and propose to themselves What strange and impious actions have been the consequences of such supposals I need not now relate because they have made such noise and ruines among our selves that they are still fresh among us But to proceed with this supposed impulse or impression upon mens minds by which deserting the Scriptures some Enthusiastical men will take the measures of their doctrines or actions I know not what they mean by it unless it be the heightning our perswasion making our belief of a thing bold and strong and our resolutions to act and maintain it fix'd and zealous And if this be what they make a rule or a character of the Spirits guidance since we find but little difference when we view this supposed operation in persons of various nay opposite principles we must either conclude what all deliver under this pretence to be true or else it is not safe to conduct any The former is too wild a position for any that pretend to sobriety to espouse and therefore the latter must be true Besides every mans reason may sufficiently inform him that our perswasions and determinations of things become as well setled and fix'd and have their various elevations or depressions as well by the strength or weakness of arguments duly weighed and attended to as by any impulse which can be imagined How then shall we be able to know what our reason dictates and what we are confirmed in by strength of argument from what the Holy Spirit now seals by an impulse or impression upon our minds How shall we distinguish betwixt a strong fancy a setled opinion and this pretended inspired Doctrine Nay how can we difference without recurring to the eternal Laws of good and evil which will render this new impulse useless the impressions of the Spirit from a secret temptation and a subtile suggestion from him who is our greatest adversary If we dare adventure to be so Critical as to pretend to new discoveries and such a rare ability to distinguish betwixt the motions which these several impulses make Since there can be but one sort of action in the spirits of a man if the perception be not above reason miraculous the same convulsions and percussions on the Nerves to cause the soul to understand and believe whether it be a truth or falshood that is represented a truth from God or a diabolical delusion How can the rarest and most artificial Enthusiast distinguish betwixt