only means of grace though therefore the sole ministry of the word were insufficient to ingenerate virtue yet when in conjunction with prayer Sacraments c. there is no reason to argue it of such insufficiency especially when even those Scriptures themselves teach us that where all these outward means are vouchsafed that inward supernatural divine power which we call the Holy Spirit Accompanies if it be not withstood and by frequent quenching finally impeded to work the excellent effect we speak of It is then notwithstanding this suggestion most reasonable necessary and available to virtue to Worship God by hearing and searching Scripture Sect. 5 To those three offices specified if any other so purely of positive nature may be added amongst what we Christians pretend to be in strictness obligatory to all I take the most likely to be publick confession of Faith It is plain that upon occasion the Scripture doth require it And the laws and practice of our Church make it a daily part of our publick worship Now as to it we say that if the principles of Faith are in their own nature apt to oblige and incite to virtue as already declared then certainly inasmuch as every close and frequent view of premises more intimately imprints their conclusions the solemn repetition and owning those Doctrines must needs draw out that their influence and make them more fresh and livelily operative upon our minds to all virtue Besides what an eternal obligation to perseverance and constancy in the Christian Faith and so to all virtue consequent from it that is certainly all natural virtue whatsoever must this lay upon us that we have all so often before God Angels and men professed and avowed our serious belief and adhaesion to these principles Who can easily turn Apostate from what he hath so sacredly and so frequently upon so great evidence as all intelligent persons have of the Christian Faith given full assent and consent unto Plain then it is upon a particular view of all the offices of positive worship which Christians pretend to that besides the stamp of divine authority their conduciveness to virtue makes them most reasonable and necessary For a close then to this second part of our discourse Inasmuch as these holy offices spoken of are to be by all Christians some of them every day and therein more than once all of them except baptism often repeated nor doth any one pay the worship he owes according to the rule we hold to if he once or seldom pray meditate hear communicate and confess and Inasmuch as it is already evident every due iteration of each of them makes deeper impressions of or towards virtue it is I had almost said beyond contradiction proved that who so addicts himself to the due and orderly practice of the Christian positive worship that is is devout must thereby attain unto and grow in all natural as well as Christian virtue And then let them look to it who cry up natural virtue as the only true or necessary worship of the supreme God how they will approve themselves either friends to virtue which they pretend so much to admire or worshipers of God to whom they would seem the only true and rational devotes Surely the imaginary honour which they think they thus give to virtue is but a very unproportionable recompence for that real damage which it must needs sustain by having all those offices lifted out which God appointed the Church ever practiced and by long practice found to be the most sovereign means and preservatives of virtue and without which it would presently languish into an empty name having little footing or interest any where saving only in mens discourse And then as to God it is not easy to see how they can approve themselves worshipers Sect. 3 of him when they deny at least decry vilify and slight that worship which his infinite wisdom contrived and his sovereign authority enacted as most proper not only to express in a way acceptable to him the homage which we owe but to secure to us what only can constitute us happy holy and virtuous minds Chap. III. Of the third general head § 1. A positive worship certain from Scripture and Scripture certain from the truth of Christian Religion § 2. The truth of the Christian Religion evident from the History of it § 3. Before Christ § 4. Evident from the History of it in the time of Christ and his Apostles § 5. Evident from the History of its progress and state since § 6. A recapitulatory conclusion of the whole Sect. 1 THE sum of what we have hitherto cleared is that there must be some worship of divine institution and positive nature and that all those offices of such worship which Christians observe are most reasonable to be observed because necessary as so many means to the propagating virtue But though something hath been said above on the refutative part to vindicate the Holy Scripture or the Christian Oracles from those imputations and exceptions which are brought by some in common against all divine revelation which in the end asserts those offices which holy Scripture prescribes unto us to be of divine institution yet little or nothing hitherto hath been brought in a probative way to evince either the divine Authority of Scripture or of those offices from thence Now the divine right of the offices cannot I presume be doubted admiting the divine authority or truth of Scripture or in case it should we have made it sufficiently evident from Scripture as to each particular in another tract to Method for private Devotion which this discourse refers And then generally the truth of Scripture cannot be questioned admitting the truth of Christian Religion For if there be any such thing amongst mankind as a true Religion besides that Religion which is supposed natural as we have above proved there is that Religion must be the true one which the supreme God ordained So that to say the Christian is the true Religion is to say that it was ordained by God If therefore Christian Religion were ordained by God as it must be confest it was if it be the true Religion then must those Oracles or Records which do contain the particulars or offices whereof this Religion is made up contain such things as the supreme God enjoined to men which is all that at present we mean by the general truth of Scripture I have used the term of general truth to avoid what might be objected touching various readings which if various and so various as we know they are in both Testaments some must be false but this as above said prejudices not our cause So that in fine to say the Christian is the true Religion and to say holy Scripture is of divine authority or true in our sense is but one and the same thing For all Christians in common do agree that Scripture contains the essentials and body of their Religion and all who acknowledge
moving glories distinguishing most exactly times and seasons and by their influence on Earth causing Spring and Summer Autumn and Winter I could contemplate all these as one while bright and open-faced so at other times veild by Clouds the sweat of that mass which they surround which Clouds when fully mature I could conceive certainly directed by so uncertain a Convoy as the Winds to discharge themselves sometimes of an happy and impregnating burden on the thirstier and more parched places of the Globe from whence they ascended where they fall as a wellcome blessing sometimes as a dreadful and vindictive load on more guilty coasts and persons whom yet not seldom they only threaten and diverted spend themselves on Rocks Seas or Deserts to the warning and joy of their trembling Spectatours All this and much more while mine Eye and mind run over it would be hard for me not to think with my self of all this vast and wondrous Fabrick and of me who contemplate and in a great measure enjoy it there must certainly be some other end than that I and a Company like my self should come into this so glorious Theatre to eat and drink and sleep and play some other odd pranks for threescore years and ten and then go out in darkness and uncertainty leaving our room to such succeeding trifles as our selves Some other end sure there must be of us than that this noble intelligent reasoning part of us which we call a Soul should after experiment and judgment of some sensations upon which it hath built so great variety of Sciences and conjectures only set in nothing and our so curiously wrought and Organized Bodies meerly become meat for the Worms which they breed and those Worms presently dying in dust the Ashes of all be but the sport of the next Wind before which they happen to be driven Some other end of Heaven and Heavenly bodies of Earth and Sea and all their motions and influences than to be only spectatours or contributaries to such pitiful events as these And yet no other end is there except there be a God and Virtue and Immortality Again That glorious Man by a blind lucky hit of rambling dusts should come to be and by the same all this goodly provision for his accommodation when I who am an intelligent being and all the wisest studied persons of the greatest insight into Nature and the differences of Bodies are not able by all contrived or as far as I can yet see contriveable mixtures of matter to produce one blade of grass will not cannot enter into my head And yet all this must be true except there be a God Though haply every one is not able thus to express or set down his reasoning yet few or none I say apt to be infested with this suggestion who are not able to think the substance of this and much more to the same purpose and after all to return home again with all their Atheistical ratiocinations baffled and non-plust themselves wrapt into admiration of the incomprehensible Creatour of all and his almost alike incomprehensible works which temper if it be attain'd for this time the temptation is dasht and devotion is likely to proceed If this remedy seem above the reach of any who is infested with the evil we design to cure let him consider his own thoughts of such suggestions as these when he is in his most serious and sedate temper and so a more competent judge of such matters than at other times Is he not then as really perswaded of the being of a God and a World to come and his concernment touching such things as touching his own being Doth he make any more doubt to repent and pray and use all holy means to secure to himself a portion in that future immortal bliss than he doth at other times to eat and sleep for the maintenance of this present life Nay is he not ready to account the present life and all accidents and circumstances of it Dreams scarce realities at all in comparison of that to come and its weightier concernments And doth he not almost with amazement wonder at those men if any such he know who through their oppressions of Conscience and Gods just permission and judgment have arrived at that unnatural state that they perceive and as they pretend at least seem to put no difference at all between good and evil Virtue and Villany What have those men done with their reason thinks he and common sense What hellish black Arts have they found out and used to metamorphose reasonable Souls into such Monsters Devils nay into worse than Devils For Devils have some remorse of evil though fruitless and possibly only penal whereas these men avow themselves even beyond that Besides are not these his most constant as well as his most serious sentiments Whereas the contrary ramble into his mind as strangers upon some strange occurrence or disastrous temper of mind the other dwell there as Natives and sway not only his Soul but as is professed at least in a manner Mankind In sum then If in our best hours and temper we are so deeply convinc't in our own brests of the reality of Religion that we are amazed any should be void of the sense of it which we both have and cannot but judge natural to all men as hath by experience of all ages been found and therefore stands as ever a concluded Maxim If this I say we cannot but find by consulting our own mind and reflecting upon its better and more constant state shall we suffer our selves to be led away or debauch't with that suggestion which we shall instantly wonder that either our selves or any of mankind could make a shift to be so contradictious to themselves and nature as to admit Shall we not rout and conjure away the fiend upon its first appearance and so much more vehemently pursue our course of Piety and Devotion by how much more monstrous the diversion of it was which Satan attempted upon us We have then thus a double remedy and both rational both effectual if applied home to this first evil Sect. 4 To this possession of the nullity of Religion a kin is that of the needlessness of so much Religion Supposing Religion a reality yet general virtue that is to be fair and honest men is as much as God requires of mankind or men need concern themselves to perform and as to the Scriptures requiring more those Books may either not be what they pretend the word of God but only the Advices of some good old men and so will not enforce the necessity of so laborious a Religion Or if all Scripture should be true yet we see several Doctors of several professions in all ages differently interpreting it Many of the stricter passages which seem precepts may be only counsels and belonging to some in an higher degree which if we follow we may be eminenter Christians but if we do not provided we keep to some easier
their Religion true must because it is the substance of what is contained in Scripture acknowledge the great things which Scripture contains to be true that is revealed or prescribed from above It remains then now only to prove that the Christian is the true Religion which were very needless did we intend to be large it having been infinitely better done by many hands than we can pretend to But in regard what we design is brief and we trust may be satisfactory such a proof will not be needless to such who it may be have not or cannot peruse larger and more elaborate works Sect. 2 I say then that the meer frame of the History of Christian Religion lieth so that no man can rationally disbelieve that that Religion came from God that is is the true Religion And this will distinctly appear if we consider what of History was extant touching Christian Religion before the time that Christ was born and then what the state of this Religion was under Christ and his Apostles and lastly what its progress and state hath been in the World ever since Within each and much more within all of these several periods there is so much of sacred story certain and undeniable as will beyond controversy evince the divine original of Christian Religion Sect. 3 First As to what of the History of Christian Religion was extant in the World before Christs coming thereinto It may possibly seem improper language to talk of the History of any thing not yet supposed in being such as Christian Religion which took its rise as well as denomination from Christ must be confest to be before Christs coming But if we consider that Christianity supposes Judaism once to have been the true Religion and builds upon and perfects it it cannot be said but Judaism being long before extant a great part of Christianity was so also The moral part of the Jewish Law Christianity only advanceth and reinforceth it addeth haply somewhat to it it disanulleth nothing at all Of the ceremonial part of the Jewish Law made up of certain typical observations and offices Christianity exhibits the real substance that is whatsoever truths were delivered of old to the Jew under shadows the Gospel plainly speaketh out So that even many of the Christian truths or doctrinals may have been said extant before Christ though in a different manner from that wherein they are now known These things therefore considered it is not unreasonable to speak somewhat of the History of Christianity extant before Christ Now that I say whatever it is delivers so much as makes up an undeniable evidence of the truth of Christian Religion I mean of its divine original First it cannot by any man of reason be denied but as there are at present a scattered race of men which call and profess themselves Jews so the forefathers of these were a very antient people and that both these and they have or had many odd customs and usages of living different from other Nations all which they have observed and in part still do with most religious veneration as pretending that they were enacted by a Law delivered from Heaven and consigned in certain Books by the hand of Moses their Lawgiver by divine direction It cannot secondly be denied that such a man as Moses a very long time ago did live and that amongst the first and most antient Monuments of all learning or letters is that arcane volume wherein Moses comprized that law For besides that we have the Book in our hands and the tradition of the Jews living in multitude of Books which we credit in other things we have mention of Moses and of his laws and the antient state and customs of the Jews Yea we find Moses Law translated into other tongues some hundred of years before the birth of Christ all which are arguments beyond contradiction of the truth of its being before extant Nor thirdly can it be denied that besides the Books of Moses the Jews had long before Christs time certain other Books which they did and their posterity still do believe to have been written by men commissioned and inspired by God to expound that law to them and acquaint them of other mysteries I mean they had the Books of the Prophets particularly of Isaiah Jeremiah Daniel the Psalms and the rest He that believes any thing of History that he reads cannot disbelieve this Now these things being granted if we compare Christianity the truths and doctrines of it with what is extant in those Books we must needs acknowledge what is contended for It is certain the Books of Moses did foretel that a Prophet God should raise a man as Moses was who should come with greater Authority than he did and must accordingly be more hearkened unto and regarded It is plain he specifies that Prophet should be of the seed of Abraham and that by Isaacs posterity and more particularly of the tribe of Judah but not born till the Scepter was departed from Judah The Prophets yet are more express they specifie the very place of his Birth Bethlehem the time of it a multitude of circumstances and actions of his life and then the time and manner of his death the destruction of Jerusalem and dispersion of the Jews on this occasion the success of his doctrine both in his life not to be regarded and after his Death to take in the whole inhabited World To instance in one particular Prophecy Daniel in express terms tells us that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem unto Messiah the Prince should be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks should the street be built again and the Wall even in troublous times And after threescore and two weeks should the Messiah be cut off but not for himself and the people of a Prince to come should destroy the City and the sanctuary and after the end of the War desolations were determined What is more plain than that the time of the restauration of the Jews of the Birth of the Messiah of his Death and perhaps its design of the destruction of Jerusalem and desolation of the Country is foretold If any one say this is in obscure and Aenigmatical terms I answer it is in such as all Prophecies of like nature use to be writ and that there is the same reason for the mysteriousness of prophetical language as God had for not making man prescient I do not here conceive needful to answer that old calumny of Porphyry that the prophecy of Daniel was writ after those things were done For we will suppose it must be writ either by a plagiary Jew or Christian Jew would not write what must be so much against himself as to make him and his Country-men the murtherers of the Messiah and had Christian writ it it would never have been received by the Jews as we know it both now long hath been and is I will only add one thing more before
and to God most acceptable worship I assert the positive offices of Christian Worship to be necessary as most natural proper means for the implanting growth and security of Virtue In the third supposing none who admit the truth of Scripture or of Christian Religion can deny or doubt the particular offices of Christian Worship to be of Divine Institution from the irrefragable evidence of Christian Religion and so of the substance of Scripture I assert the aforesaid offices of Christian Worship necessary as being prescribed or matter of particular precepts And being I apprehended very reasonable evidence was given for making good all these assertions I added that these offices were Reasonable as well as Necessary In the second discourse though my design may seem to engage me more with the affections and Will than Understanding yet being I judged the best mean for swaying them to be dealing effectually with Reason and Judgment I have therefore endeavoured that the particular processes in each case might carry such weight of reason in them as might approve them to any considerative and intelligent mind and so in a manner enforce their practice or at least leave the neglectour unexcusable They consist therefore of particulars all or most of them supposing us Christians in our own power and besides natural and proper to the cases for which they are prescribed as remedies and lastly enforced by the common and most demonstrable principles of Religion I do acknowledge I often herein proceed upon particular foundations which Holy Scripture Administers proper to the respective design I prosecute But I take that to be little less legitimate proceeding when it is argued from propositions before evinced as the truth of Revelation and Scripture is supposed to be by the former discourse than if it were argued from principles self evident This is all the recommendation of or Apology for my following work which I had or thought necessary to make I have therefore now only to beseech of God that it may be as successful as I wish't it and of the Reader that it may be as honestly and innocently entertained as I meant it and I doubt not much of the happy event of either where it shall be read with an honest design of practice more than Censure A PRACTICAL DISCOURSE Of the more common IMPEDIMENTS OF DEVOTION AND THE CHRISTIAN WORSHIP With their respective REMEDIES 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Musonius Philosoph apud A. Gellium LONDON Printed by J. M. for John Martyn at the Bell in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1671. THE CONTENTS Of the several Chapters of the First Part. Chap. I. Sect. 1. THE design of the Discourse § 2. The mischiefs arising from the neglect of Devotion briefly touched § 3. Whence the Impediments of it Spring § 4. The method of the discourse p. 1. Chap. II. § 1. The Devil one Authour of the Impediments of Devotion § 2. 1. By prepossessing mens minds with Atheistical sansies Such as 1. that of the Vanity or uncertainty of Religion § 3. Remedies against this prepossession § 4. 2. Of the needlessness of so much Religion § 5. Remedies against this conceit § 6. Of the hindrances the Devil gives us in divine Worship 1. By extravagant thoughts injected § 7. Their Remedies § 8. 2. By instilling spiritual pride § 9. Its Remedies p. 7. Chap. III. § 1. Impediments of Divine Worship from the World 1. Cares and business § 2. Remedies herein § 3. 2. Pleasures in general § 4. A general Remedy § 5. Pleasures particular first City Pleasures 1. Company § 6. Remedies § 7. A necessary caution in society touching evil communication § 8. 2. The entertainments of the Stage § 9. The case of going to Plays determined § 10. Advise for Remedy § 11. Of more private Masques and Balls § 12. 2. Country Pleasures Hunting § 13. Advise for remedy § 14. Hawking Horseracing c. when immoderate § 15. Gaming too much though at home § 16. Remedies § 17. Intellectual pleasures when Impediments temperated § 18. Worldly Vanities Impediments § 19. Vanity in Apparel stated § 20. Remedies by way of disswasion p. 46 47. Chap. IV. § 1. The sum of Impediments arising from corrupt nature § 2. Sloth and Sensuality § 3. Remedies hereof § 4. Perswasives to the former practice § 5. Vnsetledness of mind and imployment Impediments § 6. Their Remedies § 7. Passion and Inordinate affection Impediments § 8. Their Remedies p. 141. Chap. V. § 1. The former generals useful in particular cases not named § 2. Schism prejudicial to Piety and a grievous sin § 3. Remedies thereof § 4. The conclusion of the whole discourse p. 200. THE CONTENTS Of the several Chapters of the Second Part. Chap. I. A Fuller proposal of the first Sect. 1. point viz. That some positive worship there must be and three propositions to evince it § 2. The first proposition proved § 3. An objection answered § 4. A second answered § 5. An illustration of the insufficiency of reason to bring men generally to virtue out of History § 6. A third objection answered § 7. The second proposition proved § 8. The third proposition proved § 9. Objections in common against revelation and divine records answered p. 235. Chap. II. § 1. That the Christian positive worship is reasonable and necessary as a mean to Virtue § 2. The proposition made good touching Prayer in all its parts and kinds § 3. The same made good as to the Sacraments § 4. As to the Ministry of the word § 5. And Confession of Faith p. 292. Chap. III. § 1. A positive worship certain from Scripture and Scripture certain from the truth of Christian Religion § 2. The truth of the Christian Religion evident from the History of it § 3. Before Christ § 4. Evident from the History of it in the time of Christ and his Apostles § 5. Evident from the History of its progress and state since § 6. A recapitulatory conclusion of the whole p. 333 A PRACTICAL DISCOURSE Of the more common IMPEDIMENTS OF DEVOTION And Divine Worship with their REMEDIES Chap. I. § 1. The design of this discourse § 2. The Mischiefs arising from neglect of Devotion briefly touched § 3. Whence the Impediments of it spring § 4. The method of the discourse Sect. 1 AS in other points of our Christian Duty so especially in Devotion and Divine Worship that we meet with many lets and diversions there is none but is apt to complain though haply very few so circumspect against them as is behoveful for their prevention or removal The discovery in particular what the usual Impediments of Devotion are and what their respective Remedies is the design of this discourse Sect. 2 The mischief which accrues unto us by being diverted or taken off from the more constant and devout paying Divine Worship is both various and of great weight First we are hereby debarred or deprived of the vast and manifold goods which are the fruits and proper consequences of such
holy Duties such as are a tender Heart a watchful and resolved Conscience the preventions and assistances of Grace Joy and Peace through Hope besides those which are more common blessings preservation success of our affairs and the like all which he who thinks not an unvalueable loss is uncapable to value any thing and utterly devoid of Christian sense And secondly we are hereby involved in as great a guilt as the negligence of God and our greatest concernments can carry in it together thirdly with the dismal consequents of that negligence disorder of mind decay of our spiritual estate an heedless and senseless spirit fit for any yea the most outragious temptations to fix upon together with other evils not easie to be reckoned up The consideration of all which so great and various mischiefs as it should awaken and excite us to a diligent search and examination what hinderances we commonly meet with and to all conscientious care and diligence to lay aside every weight to remove or prevent every impediment or disturbance so it may suggest to us whence all these come and be in some degree helpful to us not only to discover what in particular are our proper lets and impediments but also more generally to take a survey what may be obstructive in common to us and others For could we at once see each Numerical let which we and others have been infested with it is certain we might say of every one an Enemy hath done this None but such who design our ruin would wilfully hinder us in the greatest means of our safety Sect. 4 In order then to the taking a full and impartial view of the common and more frequent hinderances of Devotion and Divine Worship though to each particular man his own Conscience is the best guide and the search and examination of that the surest mean to find out his peculiar Plagues in this Case yet to us who must search as neer as we can for all it seems likely to be the most successful and comprehensive method to enquire what each of our spiritual Enemies contributes to keep us off or divert us from our duty in this behalf And according to the discovery we can make of any particular evil we shall forthwith endeavour to apply its cure or proper redress Chap. II. § 1. The Devil one Authour of the Impediments of Devotion § 2. 1. By prepossessing mens minds with Atheistical Fansies Such as 1. that of the Vanity or uncertainty of Religion § 3. Remedies against this prepossession § 4. 2. Of the Needlessness of so much Religion § 5. Remedies against this conceit § 6. Of the hindrances the Devil gives us in divine worship 1. by extravagant thoughts injected § 7. Their Remedies § 8. 2. by instilling spiritual pride § 9. Its remedies Sect. 1 OF our Spiritual Enemies the first is the Devil touching whom it is certainly true that men ordinarily in the estimating the Original of their own sins are apt to give the Devil more than his due and as if they would pay him in his own Coin turn false accusers even of him Though therefore we must beware of this Injustice yet is it most justly resolved that there are some hindrances of Devotion of which the Devil is the Authour As an Argument of which it is observable that the Prophet representing Joshua the high Priest standing Zach. 3. 1. before the Angel of the Lord or addressing himself to God brings in Satan also standing at his right hand And the same enmity that brought him thither to resist him was not undoubtedly wanting what it could to hinder him Now of these impediments of Devotion which we may with justice impute unto the Devil there are two sorts the one precedent by which he hinders us from it the other concomitant by which he hinders us in it Sect. 2 Of the first sort as far forth as I can see is his possessing us with incredulous and Atheistical Fansies and Notions Such as first Of the Vanity or uncertainty of Religion He suggests to us that all Religion is but a crafty design upon credulous Mankind for some secular and politick respect or at least that it may be such and that it is not evident it is not such And then why is all this wast of good time and pains Why this retrenching our selves of freedom and pleasures And on the contrary macerating our selves with devotional and mortifying endeavours and continual watchfulness and sollicitude of mind Why should I abuse my self into vexation and exchange real delicious enjoyments for the Dreams of a future and imaginary bliss These things though we hear often from some of degenerate mankind yet came they originally from the great father of lies and he it is who both often suggests them to our remembrance and imploys many agents to disseminate and vent them in the world under the most taking methods Sect. 3 Of this poyson the most proper and effectual Antidote or remedy will be a solid and rational satisfaction and conviction of our own minds touching the great Foundations of Religion particularly Of the being of a God the reality of what we call good and evil virtue and vice the immortality of the Soul and different estates in that immortal life I confess my self not at all of their minds who think it needless or nugatory by natural reason to demonstrate such common principles of all Religion I love dearly to find my reason baffled into Faith and enforced to conclude either Religion real or contradictious propositions together true This takes from none the advantage of a freer or as some may please to style it a nobler Faith Any may believe on other inducements who can or will but secures such whose natures are more averse from credulity in a firm perswasion of the truth of Christianity which perswasion thus founded may stand unshaken in a thousand shocks as well of temptation as opposition when the credulous Faith may either totter or undermined sink Possibly what I direct to may by some be thought unpracticable by the common sort who are presumed unable to conclude these fundamentals upon principles of meer natural reason a thing which they so little understand But to that I say there are very few or none to whom this temptation is incident and consequently whom I direct thus to oppose it who have not natural Logick enough from such premises as I would have them propound to conclude what I would have them rationally satisfied of Though I could not artificially make Syllogisms yet in a serious and considerative state of mind I could in a silent Evening walk forth and view the Earth adorned with Herbs and Flowers and Trees and Fruits furrowed with Channels wherein run Rivers and Brooks and Springs to water its best and most needy parts inhabited by variety of living Creatures for all which its fruitful Womb brings forth proper nourishment I could after behold in the vast empty over mine head a multitude of
observations we are Christians still and in a secure condition Nay in this reformed Age do not they who pretend to the purest reformation of doctrine teach we are justified by Faith alone without works and good works are only necessary as tokens of gratitude and not as having any influence no not as a condition to our justification before God And thus long if we may have Heaven and so much of the pleasures and licentious converse of this World too why should we abridge our selves of either All this is certainly a diabolical Stratagem the old trick again practised and a fine plausible giving God the Lye as at first to our Mother Eve Yea hath God said ye shall not eat of every Tree of the Garden Is any pleasant liberty or latitude of life forbidden you Ye shall not surely dye For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil That is in words more apposite to our age and purpose affecting and practising the more unconcerned and aery Religion you shall be Christians of a freer and more generous strain than the narrow-sould Orthodox or Devotes Sect. 5 Now for the preventing or dispossessing this wicked conceit it will be necessary First That I do what I can for the rational satisfying my self of the truth of Scripture and the indispensable necessity which lies on us who have Scripture to conform our lives to the commands and rules thereof Somewhat hath been spoken to this purpose in the discourse before of which the sum is that supposing the providence and justice of God it is necessary that he have revealed his will to Mankind and especially for their direction by what acts and how he will be worshiped that the holy Scripture pretends to have given us direction in this case and that it is most reasonable to admit what it to this purpose prescribes For we find it in possession of an infallible authority in matters of Religion We find it ever hath been so since known to be extant This Authority it hath gained not only by the sublinity of its matter and style from its harmony and particularly the concord of events with the predictions of them but especially from its Authours who were known in their generations for inspired men most of them by the miracles done by them who themselves saw what they related or received in command from God what they prescribed This the Christian Church in those daies who saw the miracles and had opportunity to search into the truth of every circumstance receiving and delivering down to us and in many especially more primitives ages sealing the truth of what they saw and delivered with their own bloud nothing of what Scripture in such Cases propounds to us ought in reason and equity any more to be doubted by us than if we our selves had seen these very miracles done or heard these commands promulg'd from Heaven And as to all objections which diabolical Agents have brought in against Divine Oracles we find the Devil hath thereby only destroyed his own work they ly strong against the old Heathenish Oracles and the way of their delivery against Mahumetan and such like impostures but holy Scripture either they cannot assail at all or if they do their assault only bespeaks first its Authours malice and then impotence Further as to the indispensableness of obedience to Scripture can I think that my Creatour in whose hands I am as Clay in the hands of a Potter hath made a Law and signified nay and justified it too to the World from Heaven by Miracles and that I poor trifle may safely choose whether I will take notice of it or no and when I have notice of it possibly whether I will or no may securely pick and choose out of it obey it only in what I please or perhaps at pleasure disobey and neglect the whole These are extravagancies which will find no Harbour or reception in my serious thoughts If this remedy seem needless because the poison hath not yet so prevail'd as that the Antidote needs to be taken in so deep then secondly Let me from holy Scripture satisfy my self of the undoubted necessity of good works in order to my acceptance before God and future bliss and that that Faith which justifies is not such a trust which regards not but includes the endeavour of impartial obedience as a formal and essential part of it that is that if this endeavour be not in the Faith which I have is no longer a justifying Faith And particularly under obedience let me consider how undispensably due unto God is a daily homage from me which is directly contrary to what the Devil by this suggestion would possess me of And for the See Method of Pr. Devot Part. II. Ch. 1 2. enforceing these truths upon me it is very probable I am not or need not be destitute of means proper and particular enough if I will be at pains to use them It may be proper thirdly for any whom this suggestion attempts to consider how far the present age comes short either of the Primitive or middle Christian Ages in the matter of Devotion How much time and pains have ancient Christians spent in Prayer and self-denial and mortification in comparison of what we do And should Devotion but so decrease proportionably in a future Age or to as it hath done of late into what a nothing would it dwindle Nay let us but at present look over Sea and be taught our interest even from our enemy What watchings what fastings what prayers what mortifying discipline in the Roman Church Many walking Skeletons almost instead of men amongst them Certainly diligence is not Popery too and as our Saviour forbids not the Pharisees Righteousness when he condemns their ostentation and superstitious will-worship so neither if the Roman-Catholicks are more severe to their flesh than needs can we seriously view their conscientious observance and constancy in their Devotion but it will truly upbraid the laxness and negligence of most of our people Let us blush therefore that having a purer Faith and Order of Worship than they we should be so far the worse observers of it Lastly It may not be improper to oppose also to this suggestion our thoughts when we are in our gravest most impartial and clear state of mind And do we at such times imagine our selves guilty of over-doing our Duty in point of Devotion When we have considered how many years we have spent without any serious Devotions or thoughts of God how many and grievous interruptions our present course suffers how difficult it is by all to keep our selves but in tolerable temper Do we think we have taken upon our selves too hard tasks of Prayer and penitence and such performances Alas we think the contrary And are we not then wont to accuse our selves of vile Unchristian sloth worldlyness vanity and manifold vitiousnesses of mind
with one more dreadful from a terrible and offended God whose wrath will burn too and in the lowest Hell Take ye the unprofitable Servant and bind him hand and foot and cast him into outer darkness where shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth Now how can such trifling Spirits consider these things and not resolve to fix themselves in the pursuit of sober good Verily though they should somewhat doubt of the truth of Religion and the World to come yet methinks they should be ashamed so to reproach themselves and reason as to live to no purpose Common ingenuity and the sense of that honour they owe to themselves should put them on some serious thoughts and if they doubt whether Christianity be a truth or concern them really yet at least to search whether it be not so and employ their mind a while in the consideration of that which if haply it should be their greatest concern as in the judgment of all serious men it is they are most miserable for having so long neglected That therefore secondly let me beseech them they would consider and examine whether in truth Religion be not a reality To this purpose let them be intreated to turn back to Chapter the second Section the third and to peruse with attention what is there said to this matter To which only I add this demand which I beseech them seriously to put to their own Consciences Can they possibly think there is no such thing as humane happiness That is that mankind was made or is either to no end or else only to be miserable Or if they grant an happiness can they conceive that all the happiness attainable by man lies in airy rambles of mind and a general unconcernedness or prosecution only of empty trifles Will not even common sense and reason tell them happiness must rather ly in a sedate fixedness of mind or such a temper which man reflecting upon approves in himself and acquiesces in that is to say in serious Virtue a thing which such persons are very much strangers to and have little thought on And then is not true Virtue but only another name for being religious Thirdly Religion then being allowed to be a reality as I do not doubt but upon due consideration of what I have before desired may be considered it will I only further beseech such persons to consider how miserably behind hand they are in the matters of greatest necessity and of truest concernment to themselves of any thing in the World How many sins have they which ly unrepented of who never yet seriously thought of repenting any How many lusts to be mortified who never yet heeded that they wore any such thing And what a World of work have they to do who never yet so much as attempted any thing of the serious work of life In a word therefore I beseech them to peruse and consider what hath been abovesaid to the idle man the case of both is alike and the same considerations and remedies are most pertinent and applicable unto both and will I doubt not where closely laid to heart bring the vainest spirit to the serious practice of devotion which we have elsewhere laid down and by that to true and endless Beatitude Sect. 7 The last sort of Impediments in sacred things arising from our selves is Passion and inordinate affection the violent and lasting disturbances whereof put many besides not only their holy but common duties leaving in them little of man but the shape and that to sometimes strangely disguised Those passions which more commonly thus tyrannize over the Soul are love and anger and grief I am content to distinguish love from lust and to take it for the affecting a single person in order to an honest marriage Where it is otherwise it is most extravagantly inordinate But even this in many younger persons obtains a strange dominion over the Soul usurping their thoughts and time and employing them wholy in Visits Rhimings Apparelling little purveyances for gratification of the Paramour fears hopes complaints and innumerable like phantasticks to all which not only devotion but even sleep and food many times give place In like manner the angry man meditates only revenge rowls in his mind the circumstances of the affront neglect or injury he hath suffered inveighs rails perhaps curseth rageth and indulges the turbulent quest of wrath till it commences malice or a setled hate and then as it shall at any time by fits revive it will be able to command both thoughts and time and all his powers In many is grief no less tumultuous especially that conceived for loss of friends We may frequently observe bereaved ones strangely transported into an heedlessness both of God and themselves thinking of little but the actions or persons of their deceas'd beloveds impatient of any other discourse and besotting themselves with continued moans and tears and so both diverted from and indisposed for sacred imployments Now as to all these or any other affections we are to esteem them inordinate first when they disturb and blind reason and mans practical judgment whether they do that by tamer prejudices injected or by more boisterous commotions Or secondly when though they have not prevailed to blind reason and Conscience in its Process yet they overbear all its genuine dictates usurp its power and command the headlong man by them become a demy-brute into what ever they suggest Sect. 8 The cure of this evil must be by mortifying and mastering the Usurper Which that we may the surer do we must first consider his power The shorter his reign hath been the more easily will he be deposed First if we remember our selves only to have been now and then in a passionate fit our business will be only to prevent that passions recurring But secondly if the inordinacy of passion be become customary and habituate not only preventive means must be used but extirpatory In the former case I say we are chiefly to take care for the preventing inordinacy of the returning passions which we find to have infested us And that will be done first by studying the particular occasions which have raised passion to such excess and either avoiding as far as may be the things themselves which have been so unhappily instrumental or arming our selves and providing if they cannot be conveniently avoided which till we have a little mastery of our selves were safer to manage them with temper and calmness We must resolve it shall not be in the power of each Child and trifle to disturb our quiet and reason To this purpose we are to consider what it is in us which hinders such temperate management possibly some other lust whence come Wars and fightings amongst you but from your lusts c. and then care must be taken for the removing and mortifying that For instance in the case of anger Reflecting on my self possibly I find I have or too ordinarily do betray a pitiful and impotent Spirit
third that men become happy by the determination and allotment of God that must be either respective or irrespective If irrespective then our second consequent stands and God is unjust in damning or allotting misery that is the highest punishment without respect to sin If it be respective to the persons lives manners or tempers then somewhat is required of men in order to their happiness viz. that they be virtuous or some such thing upon respect unto which God will adjudge such persons unto happiness which is the thing we contend for It remaineth then that God requireth something of man in order to his happiness Sect. 4 But if it be said that God indeed doth require something of men in order to bliss but yet that only such which generally mens reason will suggest to them without revelation as to that I say that it agreeth not with the principles before in common supposed and I may add also not with what hath been evinced in the answer to the former objection First it agreeth not with the principles before in common supposed for it is agreed if not proved that he requires of man to be virtuous now that a man in a pure natural estate and unacquainted with any Divine Oracles should attain an exact or sufficient knowledge of all necessary virtues is unreasonable to affirm and contrary to the experience of mankind There are two things as to virtue necessary to be known to bring a man to the practice of it First the nature and particular kinds of it and secondly the obligation which lies upon men to pursue it And who is ignorant of either of these two either can or will never be virtuous Now though we who stand upon the top of the hill have even by reason a prospect of both these that is having consulted Divine Oracles and humane Monuments touching these matters see the connexion and dependance of virtue and happiness and again the reasonableness as well as the nature of particular virtues yet that those who grope after truth in the black and foggy bottoms of barbarity or Heathenism have sufficiency of light by innate reason without the raies of Revelation to see all this is I say extravagant to affirm and contrary to what we see by plain matter of fact to have happened For consult the attainments of such as we speak of What dismal shapes would virtue wear a face as grim as a Gorgon and which would make us over-run it if it did not astonish us too much were we only to receive it by the Pour-traicture of some of our old Druids or other like forreign Masters of the barbarous philosophick Morals An Aristides it may be in an Athens a civilized place and a City long devoted to all literature and enquiries reasoned himself into strict justice but this too with much more rigour and Cynicism than he needed And a Socrates it may be himself into more universal virtue But had these even with such advantages the knowledge of all necessary or if they had can it be said they saw the indispensable obligation which lay upon them to the practice of all they knew How then did Socrates when he had arrived at the sense of the intolerableness of Idolatry and the Heathenish Worship and more sober notions of the deity yet in a manner to his last frequent their publick Altars and Temples To take him in the words of his most Zealous Patriot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Xenophon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He sacrificed to their Gods both at home and at their common City Altars He used too the very Heathenish Divination How then also doth our deservedly admired Stoick give it as a Precept It is indeed the principal matter Epictetus of all Religion to have true conceptions of the Gods 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Notwithstanding all men ought to offer drink-Offerings and Sacrifices and first-fruits according to their Country usage Evident it is these the best of the natural Morallists either knew not that Worshiping of Idols and Devils when they knew the true God was an intolerable evil or that they dissembled it and taught contrary It must needs be granted by all not to speak yet of a positive Worship that some acknowledgment or natural Worship of the true God is a necessary part of virtue These men though having some knowledge of the nature and being of the true God not that we read of worship him on the contrary worship false Gods and teach that men should do so Which certainly they never would have done had they either sufficiently known that to be virtue or the indispensableness of their own obligations to it And yet alas what are these to the Mass of Mankind Two or three to Millions of Legions Had these extraordinary persons reasons raised by all their advantages and in all probability from traditions which if pursued to their Fountain head most likely derived from revelations and Scripture been a sufficient guide to virtue as to them yet could we not but conclude revelation necessary to the rest of mankind that is to all the World except three or four But we find it reasonable to conclude even these men ignorant of some necessary Virtues that is of what was of such concernment to them as that their happiness did depend thereupon Nor can we Christians conclude these men saved by Gods common way but by a more than ordinary act of grace Almighty mercy dispensing with their ignorance possibly their infelicity more than fault and pardoning those vices in them which were its natural consequents Sect. 5 This point of the insufficiency of meer natural light to lead men generally to virtue and so its insufficiency also to bring them to happiness will be more clearly illustrated by the history of mankind in those ages wherein they had little or none other guidance which although it be no where extant save in Scripture yet being that we here produce it as an illustratory and corroborative rather then a principal proof no adversary can justly tax us of prevaricating for our touching upon it Between the Creation a point supposed to be agreed on and the Floud if any such there were that is for the space of about 1657. years it is not pretended there were extant any such things as divine Oracles for the guide of humane life And if it be said the tradition of the Creation and of God and of the dictates of right reason could not but be much fresher in the World than without supernatural means they were likely to be in after Ages because two or three mens lives might reach from the beginning beyond the end of the supposed old World so that several persons alive at or little before the floud might be able to report what they immediately learnt of Adam their Father or Grand Father whom undoubtedly some of them might personally have known this is only an advantage to our cause For if natural reason with the help of so lively
prodigious fire and smoak ascending from the Mount as if it had been one great flaming Furnace and then a lasting Earthquake were the preparatory and precedaneous state to the promulgation of this great law or Oracle Now these what natural power could effect And would the supernatural divine power effect or permit effected to the abuse of his darling mankind Again we pretend when our Lord was on Earth there was at several times what the Jews called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a voice from Heaven and amongst them looked on as the most sacred and uncontroulable kind of Oracles there was I say such a voice owning him and attesting his mission but this not pronouncing the Christian Law but declaring our Lord commissioned by the supreme God to that Office who being man might speak articulately and God as we pretend infallibly And hereof at several times multitudes were hearers and witnesses all which could not always conspire in being extatick or delirious These are the great if not the sole articulate Oracles we pretend to Now admitting the truth of the History of these the imputation of fraud in the matter is most unreasonable And for the truth of the History there is not only the same evidence as for all History but as we shall hereafter see much greater We receive Histories upon tradition or those mens who were present at the doing those things knowing and reporting them Now as we pretend all those things to have been deliver'd by several persons who in plain sort saw or heard and so intimately understood them so it is very considerable that there was never tradition so antient Lasting and uninterrupted none ever so Vniversal and which hath run through all the habitable or civilized World none so Autoritative as having been in all Ages received and delivered by many the wisest men who were least apt to be deceived and the best who can be least suspected of the design of deceiving no tradition I say can in all these points match that with which the History of Scripture comes to us Not to mention that most of the primitive witnesses of those things sealed the truth of their testimonies by their own bloud Now that so many men should conspire together to embrace violent and shameful ends that with them Heaven should combine to work miracles in their time and after them to fulfil their predictions that in all Ages many the most wise and sober persons should agree with themselves and those testimonies of Heaven and Martyrs to abuse themselves and Mankind is a thing which who can believe may be justly said to have together forfeited both his reason and ingenuity It is reasonable then to receive the Scripture as to the general matter of History and that being received as a truth it is not possible to believe the great divine Oracles can be the frauds of a particular crafty Priest nor therefore is Christianity or the Oracles we pretend to lyable to this challenge To proceed to that point which challengeth us to make out that these Oracles were designed to oblige all mankind I answer it is impertinent And all we say or need to say is that they oblige all to whom they come with such a sufficient evidence of their verity as delivered And as to those to whom they thus come not those very Oracles declare they shall be judged by another Law none being to be judged by these Laws save those who had them In the mean time those who make these challenges against them must confess themselves bound to receive Christianity because they cannot or will not pretend ignorance of what they plead against As to all that now remains of what is charged against us the sum is that admitting what we have hitherto contended for it is questionable whether these Oracles sincerely descend to us whether there are not various alterations and interpolations To which we say it is certain holy Scripture whose general verity we have hitherto found no reason to challenge expresly requires us to receive the substance of Christian Religion under pain of eternal Torments And it is as certain that it pretends to deliver that substance touching letters or particles we contend not Now that God should require of us to receive the sum of Christian Religion under such pain and yet not by his providence order that it should come sincerely to us or suffer that in its essentials it should descend only corrupted is again irreconcileable with justice and goodness still we should be damned for what we could not help We must therefore conclude Scripture in the necessaries and substantials of Christian Religion sincere and uncorrupt Various lections in this point need not create us trouble for they are seldom or never in passages asserting a substantial or if one Text which asserts a substantial be so variously read as that the matter is thence dubious there are others which assert it in which there is not that dubiousness Not to mention that those very various lections are in several regards an argument of the Scriptures being in this sense sincere Inasmuch as they speak first that great care with which Scripture hath been ever kept when the least variations from the received reading have been so religiously that I do not say superstitiously noted and beside secondly the multitude of Copies that even in antient time were extant and dispersed which make it very impossible that all could be corrupted and finally thirdly the concord of all Copies as to substantials which are an evidence de facto that Scripture is not corrupted Scripture then being not liable to those exceptions which are brought in common against Divine Oracles it is reasonable to admit its verity and consequently to receive what it prescribes in Divine Worship which was the latter part of our third proposition And so that first and fundamental assertion is made good That there are offices of divine worship by positive right and somewhat necessary to salvation besides purely moral Virtue Chap. II. § 1. That the Christian positive worship is reasonable and necessary as a mean to Virtue § 2. The proposition made good touching Prayer in all its parts and kinds § 3. The same made good as to the Sacraments § 4. As to the Ministry of the word § 5. And Confession of Faith Sect. 1 IT follows now that we view particularly what these offices are and evidence none of them to have been causelesly or arbitrarily imposed none of them to want a wholesome reason or not to have such a design upon the obliged as might alone without the imposers injunction commend each to our acceptance We have already intimated the particular offices to be prayer attendance on the Sacraments and the Word to which as beforesaid we may not unfitly add the making solemn confession of our Christian Faith The particular Texts which enjoin each we suppose it not needful to alledge That which we are to make out touching them is that their institution is
reception which their witness in most places would find All the profit pleasure reputation then which they could forecast to themselves was a complication of troubles torments and death being laught at by wise and foolish in a word the want of all things but miseries And who would go about with a devised ly on such terms The very story it self suffers us not to believe them abused that they should a considerable time behold him discourse with him eat and drink with him handle his body and this several times done and by several persons by the eleven Disciples altogether by above five hundred at once is not consistent with the nature of a delusory Phantome That they should be besides themselves is as incredible all their other actions speak them not only discreet but virtuous And do mad men go about working miracles and succeed in the perswadeing the practice of their own madness to the wisest and greatest of their Spectatours and hearers It remains then that they testified what they knew to be true that they had seen and spoke with their risen Lord and consequently that Christ did indeed rise from the dead as he had promised than which there cannot be a greater testimony from any matter of fact of the truth of that Religion he planted For that Christ should preach a new Religion that he should affirm it was from Heaven that he should work miracles to prove it so that he should witness it to death and by death yet foretelling to the World death should not be able to hold him that he should accordingly at the time foretold arise again and shew himself that he should take witness hereof so publickly that he should send others to preach what he had done and confirm all by their miracles as he said greater than himself had wrought all which things descend to us by such notorious evidence that we cannot with any reason disbelieve any one point of them that I say all these should be and yet all a cheat no one can think who thinks not God and providence such also which thought cannot be supposed incident the blackest Devil Now then it only remains to consider the History of Christian Religion its state and progress since the departure of these great founders and witnesses of it And here we shall take notice only of two considerables both of them of undeniable truth First That it is reported and believed throughout all the Christian World that the above mentioned Disciples of our Saviour did not only by word of mouth preach and witness the Christian Doctrine but some of them consign it in Books which Books are constantly reported to have been received as the genuine works of their reputed Authors in the first and next Ages to them who had the best opportunities of examining them and in all Ages since succeeding And we find by those numerous Doctours who have written of those Books that they have been in all Ages most religiously kept and are the same for substance now as ever and finally that all in all Ages who professed to believe Christianity except some vitious lewd persons who would be denominated from that name but cast off the thing have appealed to these Books as the records of their Faith and so still doth the present Christian Age. If this Religion then ever were true we cannot considering the premises but believe it is still true for the present Christianity is consonant to the records of the old and those records still the same for substance as ever Lastly Let us consider how innumerable the Proselytes of Christiany for this sixteen hundred and odd years have been and how vastly numerous they still are It is undeniable that Christian Religion hath travelled through most or all the known and habited World Every Country sheweth Monuments of it Yea there hath been a new Religion partly made out of it which now is received in a very considerable part of the World I mean Mahumetanism In all these Countries it hath been received by men of all Ages Sexes and conditions poor and rich mighty and mean learned and unlearned It hath made virtuous of the most vitious persons magnanimous even to the contempt of death and rejoicing in it and all its pomps and precedaneous torments of the weakest minds such as those of Women and Children And yet in the mean time nothing so unlikely to have taken as this As to the substance of its more peculiar precepts they are such as thwart all carnal and secular interests They enjoin under the pain of eternal torment and misery the renouncing all that can be dear to man Father Mother Wife Children Brothers Country Estate Honour Pleasure Health in a word life it self in case any or all of them come in competition with Faith or Virtue That is if I must deny Christ or commit any other sin or else not live or not enjoy any thing I count pretious I am enjoined by the Christian law as I would not be damned to quit whatsoever it is I can loose rather than mine integrity Then as to the persons who were sent about with this ungrateful errand our records tell us they were at first a parcel of stupid pusillanimous unlettered mechanick and contemptible men yea after they had been ennobled by their errand and received all the advance and improvement of their minds which inspiration gave them in those very Books which some of them have writ as we believe by inspiration they have left footsteps and evidences of their unskillfullness in humane literature Finally the opposition which this unlikely Doctrine propagated by assertours so unlikely to succeed did at first and during the time of its more considerable propagation receive was such as makes it clearly a miracle that both Doctrine and Doctors were not long ago extinct and darkness and oblivion have dwelt so much as upon the very names of both Jew and Heathan Greek and Barbarian every where making it their business to suppress them as early as might be and before they grew too publick Notwithstanding all which maugre all force and craft this Doctrine run over the World as our Lord foretold it should like lightening without any violence saving what it suffered it succeeded every where The extinguishing its witnesses disseminated and confirm'd it insomuch that it fill'd City and Country Camp and Court and it soon became in a manner as impossible to pitch a mans abode out of the World as out of the Church All which being duly weighed no rational and considerative person can impute this success to any thing but a divine power defending and perswading what it had revealed I do profess this very one thing seems to me sufficient to convince any unbiassed person that Christianity could have no other Authour but the supreme God And that ancient famous Italian Poet had great reason to sing as he doth when bringing in St. Peter Catechizing him touching the reason of his belief of those miracles by
which he had been told Christian Religion was asserted he most acutely answers Se il mondo si rivuolse al Christianesmo Diss'io senza miracoli questo uno E'tal chegli alteri non sonoil centesmo Che tu entrasti pouero digiuno In campo a seminar la buona pianta Che fu gia vite hora è fatta pruno Which if we will transpose the Stanza's as will be more consonant to the order of our last argument we may not unfitly thus render Thou now blest saint then fisher poor forlorn Into the World as a large field didst go An Heavenly plant to sow A plant of old a Vine now turnd a Thorn And had the World prov'd convert and submiss Without miraculous proof to what was taught All miracles are wrought Would not have been the hundredth part of this In sum then if no person considering the progress and state of Christianity since the departure of Christ the great founder thereof can see how 't is possible it should have taken root so deeply and so wide spread its branches as we are by so much of the story of it as is undoubted convinc't it has except a divine power had as well supported and nourished as at first planted it and it be together granted as is supposed to be inconsistent with the goodness or divinity of that giver to uphold foster and propagate the greatest abuse of mankind as Christianity is except it be true that ever was we must then conclude Christian Religion is from God that is is the true Religion Sect. 6 To conclude then the whole Upon the view of the History of Christian Religion before under and since Christ it is plain that within each of these three periods there is so much of it certain and beyond all scruple and question to men who will believe any thing besides their own eyes as enforceth us to conclude Jesus Christ was sent from Heaven and did deliver unto the World the true Religion that is such a worship of the true God as that God blessed for ever approveth of and will accept A thing of this nature I mean matter of fact at so great a distance as it is that Christian doctrine was revealed from Heaven can be proved by no other means but either by visible Monuments of it or by the testimony of others to whom it was first imparted with a satisfactory or sufficient evidence of its being divine handed and delivered down to us This evidence to them must be either that it was delivered by one who they were sure came from Heaven or was confirmed by miracles wrought by Heaven to attest its own doctrine To which we may add as an eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or distinctive mark of any doctrine so pretending the consonancy of such doctrine to the supreme principles of reason sanctity and Justice Each of these evidences have we seen of the truth of Christian Religion There are still extant in the World Monuments of the truth of several points of the History Sepulchres Temples c. which prove there were such persons or Doctors as we pretend Then the testimony is not of one or a few but of many hundreds in the primitive Age of Nations and Ages and in a manner of the whole World since by a constant and invariant tradition The first witnesses had evidences more then can be uttered that the Authour of the Christian doctrine came from Heaven and they saw him return to Heaven and enter into that glory which he promised them and take possession of that power which he told them he was to receive things which befel not the founder of any other Religion no not Moses himself who only was buried no one knew where They saw great and various miracles wrought by him They wrought such themselves as was promised to them they should and all this confest even in the primitive Age by the very Enemies of this Religion The success of this Religion in the World was the greatest miracle of all Then as to those points which the precepts of this Religion impose they are either duties natural or positive The natural by being so are most consonant to reason and though the precepts which enjoin them are rules of higher sanctity and justice than meer reason would or could have given yet being given they are such as it must needs approve And as to all positive offices their reasonableness and conduciveness to virtue we have seen particularly There hath therefore as great evidence been given of the truth of Christian Religion as any matter of this nature can at such distance from its first entrance into the World receive and far greater than of any other past matter of fact whatsoever which we believe Wherefore if we will be just to our reason we must conclude it true And if it be true as above made out Holy Scripture is true also And if that be true then we are obliged as much as by divine Authority we can be to Prayer Sacraments Hearing reading or meditating holy Scripture the particular offices of Christian positive worship And then that opinion which pretendeth it sufficient men live honestly nor need they concern or trouble themselves about going to prayers frequenting Sacraments and Sermons and such devotions is not as it would be thought a more free and generous strain of Christianity but a plain principle of impiety directly injurious to God in breeding men to the neglect of paying him what is his due that is what he requires and subversive of Christian Religion the positive precepts of which of no less divine Authority then the natural it flatly contrariates and lays a Foundation for the neglect or not performance of natural duties while it destroys or lifts out those means and helps which divine wisdom prescribed to further and secure such performance I mean positive offices of worship the great mean to virtue And so we have proved what we undertook the Necessity and Reasonableness of a Positive Worship and particularly of the Christian The End ERRATA NOte the discourses are transposed and the second was intended first Therefore p. 27. l. 12. read discourse following p. 29. l. 7. read primitive p. 33. l. 12. r. two p. 51. l. last r. created p. 53. 19. r. thee p. 65. l. 4. r. maddest p. 77. l. 17. r. run on one p. 105. l. 14. r. game p. 112. l. 2. r. in other p. 118. l. 12. r. plainest p. 121. l. 3. r. mean p. 141. l. 9. r. of emploiment p. 144. l. 12. r. affects p. 148. l. 4. r. act p. 163. l. 7. r. vein p. 167. l. 9. r. persist p. 172. l. 12. r. in six p. 212. ult r. pretendedly