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
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
him the Plagues that are threatned in it And if any shall take away from it his part shall be taken out of the book of life Rev. 22.18 19. The perfection of the Scriptures is a point which Protestants have alwaies held as that which as it is most true so it is their most sure defence against all the assaults of Rome and others And this is what the Ancient Fathers tried Doctrines by of old and reprov'd Hereticks by what was written Although according to the Education or disposition of those that opposed them they wanted not but made use of Arguments from Reason and Philosophy and the natural Religion of mankind Now the Scripture being a safe because it is a true Rule and true because given to us by Authority from God who gave sufficient testimony to it by inspiring and encouraging the deliverers of it and farther it is attested by signs and wonders and divers Miracles And a safe rule it is because it has all that tends to the perfection of our natures and the saving of our souls and is compleat in the delivery of all the Articles of the Christian Faith and all the necessary Rules of life And is declared to be standing and perpetual as well to abolish the old Law to the Jews as to open a door of hope to the Gentiles and to obviate all the contradictions of either Nay it sufficiently becomes its own interpreter when men are assisted by those ordinary advantages which Education and the grace of God gives them If they consult their Guides diligently compare one place with another and are humble and modest in their enquiries How then can we believe every Spirit Rashly receiving Opinions at adventure since this standing Rule may be contradicted by them or opposed under a seeming shelter of its own whilst men wrest it to others ruine as well as to their own destruction Secondly To believe every Spirit is to unman our selves render us ridiculous and expose us to the contempt and scorn of all considering men in the world For since not only S. John but continual experience assures us that there are false Prophets in the world and that they vent contrary Doctrines to those that are true To attempt to believe every Spirit is to attempt impossibilities And this is not only foolish but unreasonable since no man can possibly believe contradictory Opinions to be at the same time true But suppose they are received successively to one another Yet it argues great levity and inconstancy in men to be carried about with every wind of Doctrine want of judgment to be so easily persuaded and that they were careless in their first choice who are so readily prevailed upon for a second That they never were setled upon the old foundation who on all occasions remove to a new and were not true to their first Love who cannot be constant upon the sight of another but alter their affections upon every view of a new face and are pleased with all the parts of variety Now these are blemishes in the minds of men mutable tempers without any considerable reason being blots and a disparagement to mankind whose rational souls give them the priviledge of thinking and enable and admonish them to consider well before they chuse And when thus they have by argument and judgment made their choice They are not to be easily moved from it Unless upon as wise and deliberate thoughts and stronger reasons than those by which they yielded to the truth of the first Opinion they remove from it and chuse another He that is unsetled in his mind or no longer fix'd than another object is presented creates such disturbances to himself that he makes his life troublesom and tragical and is much to be pitied if his unquietness will permit him to stay at home and not make others share with him and lamented by all those who know the sweetness of settlement and resolution that have considered what they can upon fitting circumstances part with And what they are resolved to adhere to with all the hazards of their lives and Fortunes Alas the wavering man has no peace though for his own reputation he may often pretend it But as S. James saies he is like a wave of the Sea driven with the wind and toss'd Jam. 1.6 Like a diseased sick man upon his Bed he tumbles about from place to place and carries always a Wind-mill in his head which grinds him according as the wind veers and turns He neglects his Calling if he has any Or if he has none better employments to drive with a strange Phanatic fury about the world ready to overturn all he meets with to enquire concerning news and projects that he may embrace all and be true to neither And so the man renders himself unfit to be either a friend or a Christian and becomes a fool by those methods by which he would yet be accounted wise But he that has well measured his principles by the rule of Gods word and has distinguished betwixt what is fundamental and what is circumstantial who has bound his life to a stake dyed daily in his own thoughts and resolved well when it is Religious to suffer decently How far he is able upon just occasion to comply with the commands of men vested in lawful Authority and where the points and limits are beyond which he must not step a foot But if he perish he will perish there that so he may not eternally perish This man stands unmoved at tempests and storms does his duty according to his station and the just commands of his lawful Superiours And if the Heavens fall justice shall alwayes be done by him He can be otherwise than his place requires unconcerned at seeming tempests that threaten or that thunder which begins the storm He knows when his life or estate or liberty must be Sacrificed when by lawful Authority willingly and when by unlawful it must be by force taken And therefore goes on cheerfully and faithfully as far as he can on the side of Law and just Authority putting it in Execution and stops when an higher Rule will permit him to go no further And certainly as this prevents all anticipation of evil so is it such a steady and well considered resolution that is more manly and rational than to be driven like the Clouds in the Air and to be alwayes like the Sea in motion sometimes forward and sometimes backward without any fixed rest or quiet Or by being so ready to believe every Spirit to entertain none kindly as we ought Thirdly We must not believe every Spirit because if we give our selves too great a liberty it will be difficult indeed impossible to discern those that are true from the false If we once get into the Wilderness we may travel forty years there and neither know when we are in or out of the way and wander about God knows whither We may murmure and repine and blame each other whilst the fault
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
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
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
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
upon those heads that are always soft and therefore fit to receive any Who have no notions of things fixed and setled but the images and representations that are the Book in which they read all their Propositions interfere with each other and are either confused or else are crumbled and broken in pieces Besides Religion is of that nature that if we play with it as a thing indifferent or change the true Principles for those that are false We either lose it quite in the midst of variety or 't is with great difficulty if ever we recover it This the Apostle plainly tells us Heb. 6.4 It is impossible or as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there signifies very difficult for those who were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted of the good word of God and the powers of the world to come If they shall fall away to renew them again unto repentance Hence is it that our Saviour charges men to take heed what they hear Mar. 4.24 And S. Paul exhorts men to hold fast the form of sound words 2 Tim. 1.13 And S. Jude urges that we should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the Saints third ver of his Epistle Let us therefore that are grounded in our Religion behave our selves as men that are resolved And not by any means be frightned from our Faith by the ghastly looks the bold threats or the pretences of new Revelations from any But let those Scriptures we have already received and our shorter Creeds drawn from them be the standing and perpetual Rule of our Faith For variety will disturb us while we live and almost distract us when we come to die and in all probability deprive us of our future happiness We cannot but be sensible of the dreadful condition of those men that are ready to depart out of this before they have prepared for another world Who have all their guilts standing round about them and affrighting them with their gastly appearances when they are toss'd and tumbled upon a Bed of sickness when they can see nothing but death before them and the dismal prospect of a blacker and worse state beyond it And when to all this miserable and frightful scene of things shall be added inward pangs and convulsions of mind doubled and heightned either by the falshood or uncertainty of those Principles by which we direct our eyes in this view How tragical and horrid must our condition be When our Spirits that should support us under the infirmities of our bodies are so wounded within us that they are a torment to themselves and our own doubts and vexatious uncertainties about those Principles of Religion that can only guide us through the Chambers of death and let in the light from some glorious Regions beyond the grave so increase upon us that we are miserably tortured betwixt hope and fear when our setled belief of future things can only render our passage pleasant and our condition tolerable Now since a settlement of our Principles in matters of Religion is of greater concernment to us than the settlement of our Estates Because these only serve to defray the charges of our Bodies whilst they ride Post through a shorter stage when those prepare us for and enter us into Heaven and must maintain us through all the Ages of an endless Eternity And since the Principles of Christianity are the most excellent in themselves and have the best evidence of their Divine Authority of any precepts of Religion extant in the World And we have exhibited in Sacred Writ a method to find out what has been revealed from Heaven Let mens pretences be what they will under whatsoever plausible denomination Who that is rational will not conclude it to be both his duty and his interest if he has a veneration for God or a due reverence and regard to his own being to settle himself upon the foundations of Christianity and upon these to build his belief and practice till at last through the merit of the great Redeemer of men he reaches Heaven Not to pluck the Stars out of the Firmament but by the will and favour of Almighty God to ascend above them and enjoy an happiness suitable to mans glorified capacity in those blisful Regions that can neither admit of a decay or period but shall continue their state and to true Christians their happiness in them through all the endless unmeasurable spaces of a boundless and incomprehensible Eternity And now to conclude this exhortation with Arnobius's Argument and persuading Rhetorick at the latter end of his First Book against the Gentiles If men have gentle souls capable of impression they cannot under pretence of other rules offer any injury to Christ nor reproach his Religion but embrace both if but upon this account only that they promise to them prosperous things Things to be wished for and earnestly desired Can any one refuse to give honour and obedience to the Son of God who was the Messenger of glad tidings who vanquished the shades and darkness of the grave and brought life and immortality to light Who alwayes preached such Doctrines as cannot hurt the minds of any but fill them with a more secure expectation O ingratum impium seculum as he goes on O ungrateful and wicked Generation If a Physician should come to you out of a far Country and should promise you such an universal Medicine that would infallibly cure you of all diseases would you not presently run after him pay all the signals of Courtship and Honour and receive him with all kindness and hospitality Would ye not wish his Medicines to be infallible by the application of which you are promised freedom from those miseries that attend your bodies even to the utmost period of your age Nay though the thing were yet doubtful would you not being inflamed with the love of your own welfare commit your selves to his conduct and not obstinately refuse to drink even his unknown potion in hope of your own health and safety Eluxit atque apparuit Christus rei maximae nunciator c. Christ the proclaimer of great tidings has now shined and appeared in the World What cruelty then what barbarous inhumanity what insuperable pride is it with a supercilious disdain to contemn him who brings such glad tidings unto men Let us embrace therefore his joyful Message give credit to that which affords such hope and pay all reverence and honour to him who is the messenger of him that made us Who came into the World to seek and to save that which was lost And to give to us eternal life Men may if they please contradict the kind promises of our Saviour and suppose a future state impossible But 't is more impossible for any man to prove his denial Or with any certainty to convince himself that there is no such state of men hereafter Since
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
unto swift destruction 2 Pet. 2.1 And if there were not great caution to be used in relation to mens Principles and Belief Faith would not have been made the condition of the Gospel nor the qualification to justifie a sinner 3. By a strict examination of Principles and Doctrines we may preserve the peace of our own consciences For if conscience in things pertaining to Religion consists in the agreement of our notions with the will of God revealed unto men Then the trial of Opinions under whatever pretence they seem to be conveyed by this rule and accordingly either rejecting or receiving them must much conduce to the peace and quiet of our own minds which are regulated by the same rule by which we examine Doctrines and Opinions And can there be a greater advantage to men on Earth than full satisfaction and a quiet conscience settled upon an unalterable and firm foundation Contentment in the enjoyments of this world is that which makes the meanest Peasant as happy as his Prince and creates a level amongst mankind How much greater delight then must that satisfaction advance men to which relates to things of an everlasting concernment that causes the pangs of death ro vanish and the fears of Hell and torment to depart that carries us with all steadiness and peace through all the billows and storms of the World into that blessed Haven of rest and tranquillity where we shall know no trouble any more This is enjoying a perpetual Feast a pleasure beyond the greatest sensuality exceeding what men can otherwise possess or as much as invent or think upon For what are then all the concernments or advantages of the world when in matters of Religion I am fix'd and setled If I live in misery it cannot be long nature will soon have spun her thread if no accident cuts it off And if having my Religion fixed upon such Principles which cannot deceive me I regulate my actions by their directions death must then be welcome to me because it gives me the fruits of my hope and enters me into the joy of my Master who from earth having suffered an antecedent separation of soul and body entered visibly into his own glory and has made a passage to the same for those who live in the belief of what he has revealed and the practice of that Religion which in fulness of faith and indisputable assurance they have had a well grounded confidence in 4. This trial and examination of the Doctrines and Opinions of others will make men endeavour to live without disturbance in that Society of which they are members Nothing disturbs the Government of the world so much as doubtings and disputes about Religion But this when found out by a regular enquiry and truly established in the minds of men gives the greatest and most effectual checks to all the breaches made upon enclosures and those irregularities and invasions that are committed upon the properties of men This forbids the Prince to be a Tyrant and admonishes the Subjects to be obedient to the Laws to become Subject for conscience sake and not to rebel against the powers of this world lest they receive damnation in the next Rom. 13. But when men are apt to entertain the furious Principles of others when conveyed to them under the specious pretence of Spirit and inspiration With what ease are they ensnared when they are either lazy or refuse to examine There is nothing then so ruinous to Society nothing that puts men more into confusion nothing that dissolves the bands of Community and breaks Order into a Chaos but they will attempt under the covert of Religion and conclude they do service unto God when they are immediately offering to the Devil For the sence of Religion being the greatest tye upon mankind what will they not attempt or suffer when their actions let them be never so full of villany shall under pretence of the authority or inspirations of others be adopted into the number of vertues and heroick acts and their sufferings be advanced to Martyrdom Justice shall be violated when it shall be the act of Religion to gain a Crown from the head of him that rightly wears it And then they will make a way to the accomplishment of their design though they pave it throughout with the carkasses of the slain But if such Principles that ruine Religion under its name are well examined and submitted to the trial of reason and the Scriptures and new inspirations are measured by those that are old We shall easily conclude that such a Doctrine cannot come from God that teaches men to do the works of the Devil nor the Principles that tend to confusion among mankind ever proceed from a God of Order But they are upon the first audit to be damn'd to the place from whence they took their original and must be concluded to come from Hell which thus fire and consume the world And so you see that the several advantages which accrew to men upon trial of those that pretend to inspiration may be so many incouragements to the thing and so many arguments to recommend the duty to all those who by the Devil and his agents do not love to be led captive Finally To what purpose were faculties given to us that are able to judge and according to judgment to make our choice in matters of Religion if by a pretence of any ones inspiration the natural powers of our souls must cease or else be rendred useless They being suspended by a pretension of authority that without examination cannot appear to us to be Divine Nay why should the Apostle impose such a task upon us which without the use of every mans particular faculties becomes impossible No choice will then be left in Religion to the generality of men But it will become a necessary thing and we are bound like machins to move alwayes by the impulse of another nay quite contrary to what we were obliged before if the pretender to inspiration change his note and playes to us on a contrary string Would it not be strange for any man to preach to and exhort stones Or argue to one that were not capable of any impression Or could S. John be so unreasonable as to impose the trial of Spirits on men that either have no faculties to examine or have their senses tied up by a superiour power Must all false Prophets be rejected and is there a necessity of mens believing what Doctrines have been revealed from Heaven and must they not yet try the Spirits and use their own faculties to examine them To deny this may indeed be suitable to some Doctrines of the Church of Rome Yet it cannot but be plain to a Protestant or any other reasonable man that has not his faculties given him in vain that such arguing and such belief serve only to justifie imposture under the pretence of truth and to blind mens eyes that they may be led into a ditch This is to
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
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
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
their Governours Opinions enacted into Laws for the true dictates of the Holy Ghost inspiring the Pope or presiding at their Councils and infallibly assisting in their determinations But none of these things taken as they are propounded can possibly be a safe Rule much less the highest conduct in matters of Religion When we shall consider that though they may be helps to judge upon the view of the Rule Yet phancy and opinion may frequently be mistaken for reason illumination Conscience nay the dictates of the holy Spirit it self and according to the common inferences about these matters are so concluded and believed by men that consult their own faculties But this will yet be more evident if we consider 1. That the holy Spirit of God does not in any ages since he inspired those that delivered the Scriptures to be the rule of life either illuminate or direct mankind in the things relating to their eternal peace in any other manner than 1. By those Scriptures allowing the faculties of human nature and the general propositions of Religion among mankind which he inspired the Sacred Pen-men to record 2. By inclining as well as authorizing some men being prepared by education and study to continue a succession of that Ministry which our Saviour appointed to endure to the end of the World to explain the difficulties in Religion unto others And 3. Confirming by a secret and inexplicable operation which is easily believed by all that affirm Gods Grace or Providence and in consequence his Being the propositions contained in the Scriptures unto the minds of men and inclining their faculties to believe and embrace them Which influence is obtained by prayer to him that is of a docil disposition as well as given in our Sacred Baptism till such time as we either resist or renounce it all which shall be more evident before I make an end Now none of these though great priviledges can intitle any to that illumination or immediate guidance which wild men make the rule of their faith and conductor of their actions But they may mistake and be confident in it their own phancy and high opinion proceeding either from thoughtfulness or disposition for immediate motions from the Spirit of God And 2 As for the consciences of men if they mistake them not for phancy opinion or a strong persuasion of their own minds they are nothing but the agreement of our judgements with Gods word for thus much 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imports which is knowledge with another and includes the relation of our understandings to a Rule These are so far therefore from being a rule themselves that they are to be governed by another and cannot be proper consciences without it Being therefore guided by a Superiour Rule they cannot be safe conductors themselves and if conscience as taken by those that plead hardest for it were once allowed its full latitude phancy interest and the humours and impious mistakes of men would pass for conscience and a safe guide and introduce such a medly and mixture in Religion that every one under the covert of this would do what is good in his own eyes even as when there was no King in Israel The Church of Christ would be turned into a Babel and our houses of Prayer into dens of Thieves being fill'd with nothing but Sacriledge and confusion Thirdly Some make such Providence as crowns their opinions with success to be an argument that their opinions are true But to evince the invalidity of this needs no other than this observation That when the same things are covered with a Cloud their Authors punished or the propagation of their tenets becomes improsperous the same men will not admit of the same argument Nor permit others to defend their opinions by the same medium with which they prov'd their own When the Sun for a season shines upon them and the Heavens smile then behold the hand of the Lord is with them But when a prosperous ray refreshes others and they receive not the countenance they had before but have the frowns and discouragements of Superiors Behold now wickedness is seated in high places The holy Seed are led into the Wilderness and persecution attends the Elect of God and Canaanites possess the Holy Land But if success were an argument for inspiration and smiling Providences a rule to judge Doctrines by Numa Pompilius might have had an argument for the inspirations from his Nymph Aegeria and for the truth of his Religion he establish'd among the Romans The Jews might have been lost in the Wilderness and have justified the making their Gods to go before them They had ceased to have the marks of a Church and would not have been the people of the Lord when they were carried into Egypt or Babylon Nay by this they might have justified their condemning the great Messiah and Pilate and the Roman Guards might have had an argument for executing him The Primitive Christians must be condemned and the Apostles inspiration be proved an imposture if a dark Providence be that by which the Doctrines of men are to be judg'd Mahomet must have been deemed a true Prophet when he gathered so many Proselytes in the East And the great Turk be yet as holy as he has been for the most part prosperous in the World Nay Popery it self must then be embraced if the glory and prosperity of opinions must prove them true and success becomes the measure of Religion This is a way to justifie all lucky Usurpations To determine right and wrong by combate and the longest Sword may justly measure out the largest Possession and the property of mankind must submit to power A Rebel then may lawfully possess his Sovereings Throne if he has strength enough to force the brightest Majesty to an exchange And if this principle be fully pursued the men that own it may bow the Knee and say to an Usurper God save the King This will make many times the greatest Villany to have more Authority than Virtue and Innocence and force true Religion to be vanquished by a false Nay he that by this rule is taken for a Prophet to day may be an Impostor to morrow though he continues in the delivery of the same Doctrine Because a man may receive Hosanna's from the multitude and their cry shall shortly be Crucifie him Crucifie him These things are the subject of common observation It was holy Davids long ago And it will be so to the end of the world whatever Jews or Millenaries may dream That the wicked will sometimes be in great power when the righteous hang down their head like a bulrush When the Psalmist spake of the prosperity of the wicked He observ'd for some time that there were no bands in their death but their strength was firm and sound They were not in trouble like other men but plagued less than those that were better Therefore pride compass'd them as a chain and violence covered them as a garment their
reason to the belief of the Gospel which was proved Divine by the testimony and revelation of the Spirit if sufficient means were not afforded them to know and distinguish Divine Revelation from imposture and pretences The things delivered were above the reach of humane reasonings and Philosophy then gave check to their belief and custom and education had impress'd them with different nay contrary notions of things It must be supposed therefore antecedently to their reception of the Gospel that as S. Paul was able to give them evidence that those Doctrines he delivered to them were revealed from Heaven so there were some Methods and Rules by which they might be able to know the revelation and not receive it upon his bare testimony Nay to what purpose would it be for S. John to direct men to try the Spirits if we had not sufficient means to know whether they were from God or no Fifthly This must be granted too that there are false Pretensions and Doctrines of men vented in the World under the notion of true And true and false under the same pretence of inspiration The Apostle tells us that many false Prophets are gone out into the world And our Saviour to prevent a rash belief and thereby an Apostasie from the Gospel or trusting in another Messiah acquaints the World that there would arise false Christs and false Prophets Mark 13.22 And therefore they should not believe and entertain them although according to their different principles and designs they should cry out Lo here is Christ or Lo there And S. Peter tells us that as there were false Prophets formerly amongst the people so there should be false Teachers among the Christians who should privily bring in damnable heresies denying the Lord that bought them and that many should follow their pernicious wayes 2 Pet. 2.1 2. Nay S. Paul tells us of those who in a voluntary humility and worshipping of Angels intruded into those things which they never saw being vainly puffed up in their fleshly minds who yet departed from the head Christ himself who is the head of the Church making the coming to God by the Mediatory application to an Angel a demonstration of their humility and so rejecting the intercession of our Saviour the only Mediator betwixt God and man Col. 2.18 But our own Age is so fruitful in examples of this kind that the possibility of mens false pretences to revelation and of their venting corrupt Doctrines to the World needs no other argument to prove it than our own experience Nor need we rake in the dust of false Prophets in past Ages when we have to our great grief and trouble living monuments on which these things are to be read and seen Yet Sixthly Notwithstanding all this we must maintain that there is such a thing as true inspiration This is plainly implied by S. John to whom I must adhere For it would be ill Logick to infer that because the Apostle adviseth us not to believe every Spirit therefore we should give credit unto none But rather that some are to be believed Especially when we take in his direction with it Try the Spirits whether they are of God This argues that some Doctrines came from Heaven and some men were inspired from above although many false Prophets were gone abroad into the world Should the contrary be held by any among us it would not only invalidate the Doctrine of Moses and the Prophets under the Old Testament But of Christ and his Apostles under the New it would conclude the intercourse betwixt God and men to be an impossible Chimera and turn all Divinity into a Fable And at once render our time mis-spent and lost whilst I am writing and others reading such Doctrines as these and all disputes concerning any positive and instituted Religion the foolish talkings and inventions of men that busie themselves to deceive others and give trouble to their own flesh When mans reason might supply all But such a phancy I suppose to be too wild and extravagant to be admitted in such an age of the world as this Especially among those who have frequented Christian Assemblies and have heard discourses proving the truth of the Old Testament or the New That have read the Jews Arguments for their Law or the Christian Fathers Apologizing for the Religion of the Gospel Nor indeed can any deny the truth of Gods conversing with men that reject not his Omnipotence or else doubt of the nature and capacity of their own souls To be sure they must deny the Scriptures to be the Word of God and affirm all his appearances to men to be a fable Since from them we are assured that all Scripture was given by inspiration from God 2 Tim. 3.16 And therefore to men that acknowledge this I must be supposed to direct this discourse as well as S. John does in the Text so frequently recited who supposes that there is a Divine inspiration before he advises men to separate the pretences of false Prophets from the Doctrines of those that are true 'T is in vain otherwise to perswade men to exercise their faculties assisted by Rules or to make any discrimination at all where there is no foundation for the conclusion of a difference Seventhly Therefore The trial of the Doctrines and Rules of men pretending inspiration having thus far been brought on towards a conclusion The determination of our assent and choice in matters of such huge and vast moment on which the welfare of our souls depends must be directed by what sufficiently without fallacy evidences those Doctrines which we receive from others or are led into the belief of from our own reasonings are certainly such as came from God and that we are not imposed upon by our own temperament or the subtilty of others The evidence therefore for a Divine revelation must be greater and stronger than any argument framed to the contrary Because in all the discoveries of truth my belief is to be determined according to evidence and the greatest probability guides the rational choice of men And all that act suitably to themselves embrace the proposition that comes nearest to truth and certainty But where two things seem equal in their proof a rational man only hesitates and doubts and gives up his assent to neither And therefore had the Magicians of Egypt equall'd the Miracles Moses wrought in the presence of Pharaoh as well as they did in turning rods into Serpents and Rivers into blood and causing Froggs to come up before him They need not at that time have acknowledg'd Moses's power disproportionable to their own nor distinguished their own Miracles from his by saying This is the finger of God And Pharaoh himself might have had an equal argument to detain the Israelites as they had for the command of God to depart out of the Land of Egypt But when the Miracles on their side far exceeded the Wonders on the other his own resolution became his Law and Pharaohs
wonder of his Disciples at a Doctrine of his that seemed harsh and difficult tells them that with God all things are possible Matth. 19.26 The possibility therefore of a thing prepares us for the belief of any proposition when either certainty or greater probabilities do not plainly determine the contrary Now what does not imply a contradiction that it should be is possible to be But the Holy Spirits operation upon the minds of men does not imply any contradiction And therefore it must be at least a possible supposition that it may be so Nay further what has been is certainly possible to be But that there has been such influences upon the minds of men the sacred Inspirations of the Prophets and Apostles do abundantly evince And to assert the contrary must shake the very foundation of Religion and invalidate the whole Canon of Scripture And certainly if it admits no contradiction to affirm Spirits working upon Bodies it must be less to suppose one Spirit to operate upon another there being a nearer affinity betwixt their natures and a greater capacity to apprehend the notices they receive from one another For if the Soul of one man may apprehend what are the thoughts of another when they are expressed by the words of the tongue or some external signs and representations There is as great a probability that there may be more easie and quicker methods for one soul to converse with another were they freed from their bodies than by the mediation of external senses which may and often do convey false representations to the mind And therefore for the holy Spirit of God to influence the minds and affections of men is not only rendered possible But a very probable and easie supposition Though whilst we remain in these bodies 't is all one as to the being of the thing whether we conjecture for it can be no more the influence to be made immediately upon the soul or by percussions on or dispositions of the nerves and by determining the Spirits so as to make representations to the mind to cause in it desire or aversation and from hence just and proportionable actions suitable to the design of the holy Spirit But Secondly this influence and operation of the holy Spirit is not only possible but necessary too if we consider our own weakness and infirmity or the circumstances we are frequently surrounded with in this vale of tears and region of misery We have still a proneness and propensity to sin notwithstanding our being washed by an holy Baptism and dipt in the sacred Laver of regeneration And though grace were then conveyed to us and power to perform our part of the Covenant which at last gives us the possession of the promise Yet this cannot well be apprehended to be tied about us with such indissoluble bonds as not to forsake us upon the violation of our vow when by sinful courses we rescind Gods obligagation to us Or if there were no forfeiture to be made Yet we cannot apprehend this Grace and Spirit given us at the first to be so constantly and powerfully residing in us as never to need any new supplies or accessions of degrees Or to be like our souls alwaies tied continually to invigorate us without any new influences from above God governs the World by his Providence and supports this great systeme of Beings by the constant and continued influences of his Power impressing things by his Divine concurrence to accomplish the end and design of their beings to continue their stated motions and order and to repair their decayes by a new and uninterrupted succession Now it would not be more false and unsuitable to his nature to suppose him at first to have put things into their orderly motions and to impregnate nature with all the power at once that shall at any time be requisite for its support and conduct when things are subject to such various misadventures that it is impossible for any but himself to foresee Than it would be to suppose him to give a child in his sacred Baptism sufficient strength to influence his whole life and afterwards leave him to his conflicts and misfortunes without any new assistances from above This would still make the Great and infinite Being of the World instead of a wise and active God nothing but an idle and lazy Spectator We need not then pray for grace and continued accessions of strength and power But only use those words of David Cast us not away from thy presence and take not thy holy Spirit from us Psal 51.11 The Apostles and Primitive Disciples of our Saviour were sensible of new accessions or incomes from the Spirit as the difficulties increased which they encountered For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us sayes S. Paul so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ 2 Cor. 1.5 And when we shall consider that our assistances are necessary in proportion to our duties or our sufferings all men being not in the same circumstances but some have an easier passage to an eternal rest and a blessed eternity than others who are made a spectacle to the world who have greater difficulties to encounter a longer race to run upon the Earth and are surrounded with a larger number of duties and perplexities certainly God who is the God of all grace will reasonably give the influences of his Spirit suitable to the degrees of mens necessities and the employments or conflicts that his most wise Providence calls them unto As the Apostles were not sufficient of themselves to preach the Christian Doctrine to the World and to obviate those difficulties that attended the publication so neither can any of us in our ordinary course of affairs in the World being placed in the midst of snares and temptations keep consciences void of offence without the influences of Gods grace and the assistances of his Spirit S. Paul justifies himself to the Corinthians by giving them a prospect of his joy and innocence Our rejoycing is this sayes he the testimony of a good conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God we have had our conversation in the world and more abundantly to you wards 2 Cor. 1.12 And when in the third Chapter he re-assumes the argument lest they should think that all was effected by his own power he introduces also this acknowledgement Not that we are sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves but our sufficiency is of God ver the 5 th God is not an hard and austere Master to reap where he did not sow nor to gather where he did not scatter He expects an account of his own talents which every one does or may receive in proportion to his wants and necessities that he may grow up unto that measure of stature to which Christ has appointed him in the world And doubless we may obtain Divine helps If men have but that love to themselves as to pray with
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
Unity of the Body of Christ to encrease our knowledge in the Christian Doctrine and prevent our being deceived and led into error Hence was Timothy's Office which he had received by the Ordination of S. Paul stiled a gift 2 Tim. 1.6 And lest these appointments should not be accounted the products and designation of the Holy Spirit These gifts are attributed to the Spirit Who is in himself one uniform Being though these were divers according to the variety of times and seasons And they are all such manifestations of the Spirit as are given to men to profit withal 1 Cor. 12. Now as Gods Providence Rules the World though we can neither discover his Councels nor are able to account for the manner of his operation As he disposes of Crowns and Kingdoms determines our dayes and disposes our Habitations though these things are accomplished by an order and train of second Causes severally designing and concurring to the end So does the Holy Spirit dispose the way of the Education of some and incline their minds to the Office of Ministers in the Church of Christ that Gods people may not perish for want of knowledge But there may be some alwayes to preach the Word and to convey Christs Doctrine from Generation to Generation That his Church being built upon the true confession of an Holy Faith as on a firm and well fixed Rock the gates of Hell may never be able to prevail against it Matth. 16.16 and 18. Now a sufficient number of such men distinguished by their Education and manner of living from those that are more encompassed with the noise and disturbing affairs of this life being prepared by a previous train of circumstances and having the advantages of their own parts and understandings And being by such means able to see into the notions of those that have gone before them having been used more to reading consideration and retirement than other men and to weigh the just consequences of things They must needs attain a competent ability in the matters of Religion to which they most apply themselves And they may be capable through the assistance of that Spirit who calls and gives them Authority in their Office to become instruments in his hands to guide men into the wayes of truth In all the Arts and Mysteries of the World we deem it a natural way to learn by obtaining one that is skilful himself to teach us the Principles and Grounds of his Knowledge And we more certainly and easily obtain our design when we have such a one to instruct us So is it in matters of Religion 'T is a natural way to inform our selves in those things that concern our Salvation when we have not only an an inspired Rule But men Educated into the knowledge of those things that prepare them for the understanding the Mysteries of Religion and are afterwards appointed by due Ceremony and the direction of the Holy Ghost to guide us into all truth Especially if in the last place we consider that the Spirit of truth confirms those truths contained in the Scriptures unto the minds of men by co-operating with the external appointed Ministrations by an internal work upon the understanding and affections That there is such a thing as a Divine illumination yet continued amongst Christians as our Church owns it by her Prayers so no man can reasonably contradict it Not that it does render any man infallible as the Romanists affirm Nor inspire men with any new Doctrine or Rules of life besides what it has revealed in the Scriptures as some Enthusiasts adventure to determine Yet we must not to avoid the extreams forsake so useful an Article of belief that gives God the glory of his power and keeps us dependent upon him and is so great a foundation of our prayers and praises Truth is not to be forsaken by the Jews because the Samaritans may be of the same opinion Nor shall I like the Jews in Barbary refuse to eat of that Meat which is dress'd by one of a different perswasion Or to drink in the same Cup with a Moor when he is a person of a wholsome Constitution until it has undergone the Ceremony of Washing Truth in this World will be blended with error and 't is the prudence as well as piety of a Christian to make a separation of the Wheat from the Chaff and not to slight and refuse the one because the other has been mix'd with it 'T is true indeed as Mr. Hales expresses it The Promise of the Spirit to the Apostles which should lead them into all truth was made good unto them by private and secret informing their understandings with high and heavenly Mysteries which never entered into the conceit of man And to us this promise is made good because what was written by Revelation in their hearts for our instruction they have written in their Books But yet this is not all the assistance the Spirit gives us For though he does not inspire us with any new Doctrine you he opens our understandings to the apprehension of the old I am far from admitting the conceit of an impulse to be the rule and measure of our lives because we know what mischiefs have overspread the World when propositions have been vailed with such a pretence and it may be our own as well as S. Austin's observation Tanto sunt ad seditionem faciliores quanto sibi videntur spiritu excellere Men are the more prone to sedition by how much the more they seem to excell in their inspiration yet there cannot appear the same danger where the Spirit only assists our understandings to apprehend those truths which are already deliver'd and inclines our wills and affections to embrace them when according to the direction of S. John we are not so credulous as to believe every Spirit but to try the Spirits whether they are of God or no 1 John 4.1 Now then only may we reasonably conclude our understandings to be influenced by the Spirit when our notions agree with the written Word For to the Law and to the Testimony sayes the Prophet if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no morning or light in them Isa 8.20 There are divers means natural in themselves and rationally appointed by Almighty God for the informing men in the truths that concern them Reading meditation and hearing the Word are proper methods to inform our understandings and to guide us into the way of truth But prayer is therefore wont to be superadded not only to compose our minds and make them fit for Divine Contemplation by a sequestration of our thoughts from those external objects that by intermixing themselves with those that are more spiritual confound our Idea's and notices of things and render our minds more loose and extravagant But because Prayer supplicates those aids and assistances of the Spirit that facilitate our apprehensions of truth by removing objects that crumble and disorder them and it
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