and Apostolical Tradition and there found our actings from whence their order and origation began 8. IT is true Bellarmine reproches this discourse as erroneous but whatever it might be in the inference which Saint Cyprian drew from it in it self it was not so For Saint Austin tho sufficiently engag'd against Saint Cyprian's conclusion allows the position as most Orthodox saying in the fourth Book of Baptism c. 35. Whereas he admonishes to go back to the fountain that is the Tradition of the Apostles and thence bring the stream down to our times 't is most excellent and without doubt to be don 9. THUS Eusebius expresses himself in his second Book against Sabellius As it is a point of sloth not to seek into those things whereof one may enquire so 't is insolence to be inquisitive in others But what are those things which we ought to enquire into Even those which are to be found in the Scriptures those things which are not there to be found let us not seek after For if they ought to be known the holy Ghost had not omitted them in the Scripture 10. ATHANASIUS in his Tract of the Incarnation saies It is fit for us to adhere to the word of God and not relinquish it thinking by syllogisms to evade what is there clearly deliver'd Again in his Tract to Serap of the holy Ghost Ask not saies he concerning the Trinity but learn only from the Scriptures For the instructions which you will find there are sufficient And in his Oration against the Gentiles declares That the Scriptures are sufficient to the manifestation of the truth 11. AGREEABLE to these is Optatus in his 5. Book against Parmen who reasons thus You say 't is lawful to rebaptize we say 't is not lawful betwixt your saying and our gain-saying the peoples minds are amus'd Let no man believe either you or us All men are apt to be contentious Therefore Judges are to be call'd in Christians they cannot be for they will be parties and thereby partial Therefore a Judg is to be lookt out from abroad If a Pagan he knows not the mysteries of our Religion If a Jew he is an enemy to our baptism There is therefore no earthly Judg but one is to be sought from heaven Yet there is no need of a resort to heaven when we have in the Gospel a Testament and in this case celestial things may be compar'd to earthly So it is as with a Father who has many children while he is present he orders them all and there is no need of a written Will Accordingly Christ when he was present upon earth from time to time commanded the Apostles whatsoever was necessary But as the earthly father finding himself to be at the point of death and fearing that after his departure his children should quarrel among themselves he calls witnesses and puts his mind in writing and if any difference arise among the brethren they go not to their Fathers Sepulcher but repair to his Will and Testament and he who rests in his grave speaks still in his writing as if he were alive Our Lord who left his Will among us is now in heaven therefore let us seek his commands in the Gospel as in his Will 12. THUS Cyril of Ierus Cat. 4. Nothing no not the least concernment of the divine and holy Sacraments of our Faith is to be deliver'd without the holy Scripture believe not me unless I give you a demonstration of what I say from the Scripture 13. SAINT Basil in his Book of the true Faith saies If God be faithful in all his sayings his words and works they remaining for ever and being don in truth and equity it must be an evident sign of infidelity and pride if any one shall reject what is written and introduce what is not written In which Books he generally declares that he will write nothing but what he receives from the holy Scripture and that he abhors from taking it elsewhere In his 29. Homily against the Antitrinit Believe saies he those which are written seek not those which are not written And in his Eth. reg 26. Every word and action ought to be confirm'd by the testimony of the divineâ—y inspir'd Scriptures to the establishment of the Faith of the good and reproof of the wicked 14. SAINT Ambrose in the first Book of his Offic. saies How can we make use of any thing which is not to be found in Scripture And in his Instit. of Virgins I read he is the first but read not he is the second let them who say he is second shew it from the reading 15. GREG. Nyssen in his Dial. of the soul and resurrect saies 'T is undeniable that truth is there only to be plac'd where there is the seal of Scripture Testimony 16. SAINT Jerom against Helvidius declares As we deny not that which is written so we refuse those which are not written And in his Comment on the 98. Ps. Every thing that we assert we must shew from the holy Scripture The word of him that speaks has not that autority as Gods precept And on the 87. Ps. Whatever is said after the Apostles let it be cut off nor have afterwards autority The one be holy after the Apostles the one be eloquent yet has he not autority 17. SAINT Austin in his Tract of the unity of the Church c. 12. acknowledges that he could not be convinc'd but by the Scriptures of what he was to believe and adds they are read with such manifestation that he who believes them must confess the doctrin to be most true In the second Book of Christian doctrin c. 9. he saies that in the plain places of Scripture are found all those things that concern Faith and Manners And in Epist. 42. All things which have bin exhibited heretofore as don to mankind and what we now see and deliver to our posterity the Scripture has not past them in silence so far forth as they concern the search or defence of our Religion In his â—ract of the good of Widowhood he saies to â—ulian the person to whom he addresses What shall I teach you more then that we read in the Apostle for the holy Scripture settlos the rule of our doctrin that we think not any thing more then we ought to think but to think soâ—erly as God has dealt to every man the mesure of Faith Therefore my teaching is only to exâ—ound the words of this Doctor Ep. 157. Where â—ny subject is obscure and passes our compreâ—ension and the Scripture do's not plainly afford its help there human conjecture is presumâ—â—ous in defining 18. THEOPHILUS of Alex. in his second Paschal homily tells us that 't is the suggestion of a diabolical spirit to think that any thing besides the Scripture has divine autority And in his third he adds that the Doctors of the Church having the Testimony of the Scripture lay firm foundation of their doctrin 19. CHRYSOSTOM in his third Homily
tho one rose again from the dead Luke 16. 31. THE LIVELY ORACLES GIVEN TO US Or the Christians Birth-right and Duty in the custody and use of the HOLY SCRIPTURE SECT I. The several Methods of Gods communicating the knowledg of himself GOD as he is invisible to human eies so is he unfathomable by human understandings the perfection of his nature and the impotency of ours setting us at too great a distance to have any clear perception of him Nay so far are we from a full comprehension that we can discern nothing at all of him but by his own light those discoveries he hath bin pleas'd to make of himself 2. THOSE have bin of several sorts The first was by infusion in mans creation when God interwove into mans very constitution and being the notions and apprehensions of a Deity and at the same instant when he breath'd into him a living soul imprest on it that native religion which taught him to know and reverence his Creator which we may call the instinct of humanity Nor were those principles dark and confus'd but clear and evident proportionable to the ends they were design'd to which were not only to contemplate the nature but to do the will of God practice being even in the state of innocence preferrable before an unactive speculation 3. BUT this Light being soon eclips'd by Adams disobedience there remain'd to his benighted posterity only som faint glimmerings which were utterly insufficient to guide them tho their end without fresh aids and renew'd manifestations of God to them It pleas'd God therefore to repair this ruine and by frequent revelations to communicate himself to the Patriarchs in the first Ages of the World afterwards to Prophets and other holy men till at last he reveled himself yet more illustriously in the face of Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 4. 6. 4. THIS is the one great comprehensive Revelation wherein all the former were involv'd and to which they pointed the whole mystery of Godliness being compris'd in this of Gods being manifested in the flesh and the consequents thereof 1 Tim. 3. 16. whereby our Savior as he effected our reconciliation with God by the sacrifice of his death so he declar'd both that and all things else that it concern'd man to know in order to bliss in his doctrin and holy life And this Teacher being not only sent from God Jo. 3. but being himself God blessed for ever it cannot be that his instructions can want any supplement Yet that they might not want attestation neither to the incredulous world he confirm'd them by the repeted miracles of his life and by the testimony of those who saw the more irrefragable conviction of his Resurrection and Ascension And that they also might not want credit and enforcement the holy Spirit set to his seal and by his miraculous descent upon the Apostles both asserted their commission and enabled them for the discharge of it by all gifts necessary for the propagating the Faith of Christ over the whole World 5. THESE were the waies by which God was pleased to revele himself to to the Forefathers of our Faith and that not only for their sakes but ours also to whom they were to derive those divine dictats they had receiv'd Saint Stephen tells us those under the Law receiv'd the lively Oracles to deliver down to their posterity Act. 7. 38. And those under the Gospel who receiv'd yet more lively Oracles from him who was both the Word and the Life did it for the like purpose to transmit it to us upon whom the ends of the world are come By this all need of repeted Revelations is superseded the faithful deriving of the former being sufficient to us for all things that pertain to life and godliness 2 Pet. 1. 3. 6. AND for this God whose care is equal for all successions of men hath graciously provided by causing Holy Scriptures to be writ by which he hath deriv'd on every succeeding Age the illuminations of the former And for that purpose endowed the Writers not only with that moral fidelity requisite to the truth of History but with a divine Spirit proportionable to the great design of fixing an immutable rule for Faith and Manners And to give us the fuller security herein he has chosen no other pen-men of the New Testament then those who were the first oral Promulgers of our Christian Religion so that they have left to us the very same doctrin they taught the Primitive Christians and he that acknowledges them divinely inspir'd in what they preach'd cannot doubt them to be so in what they writ So that we all may injoy virtually and effectively that wish of the devout Father who desir'd to be Saint Pauls Auditor for he that hears any of his Epistles read is as really spoke to by Saint Paul as those who were within the sound of his voice Thus God who in times past spake at sundry times and in diverse manners to our Fathers by the Prophets and in the later daies by his son Heb. 1. 1 2. continues still to speak to us by these inspir'd Writers and what Christ once said to his Disciples in relation to their preaching is no less true of their writings He that despiseth you despiseth me Luk. 10. 16. All the contemt that is at any time flung on these sacred Writings rebounds higher and finally devolves on the first Author of those doctrins whereof these are the Registres and Transcripts 7. BUT this is a guilt which one would think peculiar to Infidels and Pagans and not incident to any who had in their Baptism listed themselves under Christs banner yet I fear I may say of the two parties the Scripture has met with the worst treatment from the later For if we mesure by the frequency and variety of injuries I fear Christians will appear to have out-vied Heathens These bluntly disbelieve them neglect nay perhaps scornfully deride them Alas Christians do this and more they not only put contemts but tricks upon the Scripture wrest and distort it to justify all their wild phancies or secular designs and suborn its Patronage to those things it forbids and tells us that God abhors 8. INDEED so many are the abuses we offer it that he that considers them would scarce think we own'd it for the words of a sensible man much less of the great omniscient God And I believe 't were hard to assign any one so comprehensive and efficacious cause of the universal depravation of manners as the disvaluing of this divine Book which was design'd to regulate them It were therefore a work worthy another inspired writing to attemt the rescue of this and recover it to its just estimate Yet alas could we hope for that we have scoffers who would as well despise the New as the Old and like the Husbandmen in the Gospel Mat. 21. 36. would answer such a succession of messages by repeting the same injuries 9. To such as these 't is I confess
Tradition but by the Book of the Law found in the Temple that Josiah was both excited to reform Religion and instructed how to do it 2 Kings 22. 10. And had not that or som other copy bin produc'd they had bin much in the dark as to the particulars of their reformation which that they had not bin convei'd by Tradition appears by the sudden startling of the King upon the reading of the Law which could not have bin had he bin before possest with the contents of it In like manner we find in Nehemiah that the observation of the Feast of Tabernacles was recover'd by consulting the Law the Tradition whereof was wholly worn out or else it had sure bin impossible that id could for so long a time have bin intermitted Neh. 8. 18. And yet mens memories are commonly more retentive of an external visible rite then they are of speculative Propositions or moral Precepts 30. THESE instances shew how fallible an expedient mere oral Tradition is for transmission to posterity But admit no such instance could be given 't is argument enough that God has by his own choice of writing given the preference to it Nor has he barely chosen it but has made it the standard by which to mesure all succeeding pretences 'T is the means he prescribes for distinguishing divine from diabolical Inspirations To the Law and to the Testimony if they speak not according to this Word there is no light in them Isai. 8. 20. And when the Lawier interrogated our Savior what he should do to inherit eternal life he sends him not to ransac Tradition or the cabalistical divinity of the Rabbins but refers him to the Law What is written in the Law how readest thou Luk. 10. 26. And indeed throout the Gospel we still find him in his discourse appealing to Scripture and asserting its autority as on the other side inveighing against those Traditions of the Elders which had evacuated the written Word Ye make the Word of God of none effect by your Tradition Mat. 15. 6. Which as it abundantly shews Christs adherence to the written Word so 't is a pregnant instance how possible it is for Tradition to be corrupted and made the instrument of imposing mens phancies even in contradiction to Gods commands 31. AND since our blessed Lord has made Scripture the test whereby to try Traditions we may surely acquiesce in his decision and either embrace or reject Traditions according as they correspond to the supreme rule the written Word It must therefore be a very unwarrantable attemt to set up Tradition in competition with much more in contradiction to that to which Christ himself hath subjected it 32. Saint Paul reckons it as the principal privilege of the Jewish Church that it had the Oracles of God committed to it i. e. that the holy Scriptures were deposited and put in its custody and in this the Christian Church succeeds it and is the guardian and conservator of holy Writ I ask then had the Jewish Church by vertue of its being keeper a power to supersede any part of those Oracles intrusted to them if so Saint Paul was much out in his estimate and ought to have reckon'd that as their highest privilege But indeed the very nature of the trust implies the contrary and besides 't is evident that is the very crime Christ charges upon the Jews in the place above cited And if the Jewish Church had no such right upon what account can the Christian claim any Has Christ enlarg'd its Charter has he left the sacred Scriptures with her not to preserve and practice but to regulate and reform to fill up its vacancies and supply its defects by her own Traditions if so let the commission be produc'd but if her office be only that of guardianship and trust she must neither substract from nor by any superadditions of her own evacuate its meaning and efficacy and to do so would be the same guilt that it would be in a person intrusted with the fundamental Records of a Nation to foist in fuch clauses as himself pleases 33 IN short God has in the Scriptures laid down exact rules for our belief and practice and has entrusted the Church to convey them to us if she vary or any way enervate them she is false to that trust but cannot by it oblige us to recede from that rule she should deliver to comply with that she obtrudes upon us The case may be illustrated by an easy resemblance Suppose a King have a forreign principality for which he composes a body of Laws annexes to them rewards and penalties and requires an exact and indispensable conformity to them These being put in writing he sends by a select messenger now suppose this messenger deliver them yet saies withall that himself has autority from the King to supersede these Laws at his plesure so that their last resort must be to his dictats yet produces no other testimony but his own bare affirmation Is it possible that any men in their wits should be so stupidly credulous as to incur the penalty of those Laws upon so improbable an indemnity And sure it would be no whit less madness in Christians to violate any precept of God on an ungrounded supposal of the Churches power to dispense with them 34. AND if the Church universal have not this power nor indeed ever claim'd it it must be a strange insolence for any particular Church to pretend to it as the Church of Rome do's as if we should owe to her Tradition all our Scripture and all our Faith insomuch that without the supplies which she affords from the Oracle of her Chair our Religion were imperfect and our salvation insecure Upon which wild dictates I shall take liberty in a distinct Section farther to animadvert SECT VI. The suffrage of the primitive Christian Church concerning the propriety and fitness which the Scripture has towards the attainment of its excellent end AGAINST what has bin hitherto said to the advantage of the holy Scripture there opposes it self as we have already intimated the autority of the Church of Rome which allows it to be only an imperfect rule of Faith saying in the fourth Session of the Council of Trent that Christian faith and discipline are contain'd in the Books written and unwritten Tradition And in the fourth rule of the Index put forth by command of the said Council the Scripture is declar'd to be so far from useful that its reading is pernicious if permitted promiscuously in the vulgar Tongue and therefore to be withheld insomuch that the study of the holy Bible is commonly by persons of the Roman Communion imputed to Protestants as part of their heresy they being call'd by them in contemt the Evangelical men and Scripturarians And the Bible in the vulgar Tongue of any Nation is commonly reckon'd among prohibited Books and as such publicly burnt when met with by the Inquisitors and the person who is found with it
on the first of the Thessal asserts that from the alone reading or hearing of the Scripture one may learn all things necessary So Hom. 34. on Act. 15. he declares A heathen comes and saies I would willingly be a Christian but I know not who to join my self to for there are many contentions among you many seditions and tumults so that I am in doubt what opinion I should chuse Each man saies what y say is true and I know not whom to believe each pretends to Scripture which I am ignorant of 'T is very well the issue is put here for if the appeal were to reason in this case there would be just occasion of being troubled but when we appeal to Scripture and they are simple and certain you may easily your self judg He that agrees with the Scripture is a Christian he that resists them is far out of the way And on Ps. 95. If any thing be said without the Scripture the mind halts between different opinions somtimes inclining as to what is probable anon rejecting as what is frivolous but when the testimony of holy Scripture is produc'd the mind both of speaker and hearer is confirm'd And Hom. 4. on Lazar Tho one should rise from the dead or an Angel come down from heaven we must believe the Scripture they being fram'd by the Lord of Angels and the quick and dead And Hom. 13. 2 Cor. 7. It is not an absurd thing that when we deal with men about mony we wil trust no body but cast up the sum and make use of our counters but in religious affairs suffer our selves to be led aside by other mens opinions even then when we have by an exact scale and touchstone the dictat of the divine Law Therefore I pray and exhort you that giving no heed to what this or that man saies you would consult the holy Scripture and thence learn the divine riches and pursue what you have learnt And Hom. 58. on Jo. 10. 1. 'T is the mark of a thief that he comes not in by the dore but another way now by the dore the testimony of the Scripture is signified And Hom. on Gal. 1. 8. The Apostle saies not if any man teach a contrary doctrin let him be accurs'd or if he subvert the whole Gospel but if he teach any thing beside the Gospel which you have receiv'd or vary any little thing let him be accurs'd 20. CYRIL of Alex. against Jul. l. 7. saies The holy Scripture is sufficient to make them who are instructed in it wise unto salvation and endued with most ample knowledg 21. THâ—ODORET Dial. 1. I am perswaded only by the holy Scripture And Dial. 2. I am not so bold to affirm any thing not spoken of in the Scripture And again qu. 45. upon Genes We ought not to enquire after what is past over in silence but acquiesce in what is written 22. IT were easy to enlarge this discourse into a Volume but having taken as they offer'd themselves the suffrages of the writers of the four first Centuries I shall not proceed to those that follow If the holy Scripture were a perfect rule of Faith and Manners to all Christians heretofore we may reasonably assure our selves it is so still and will now guide us into all necessary truth and consequently make us wise unto salvation without the aid of oral Tradition or the new mintage of a living infallible Judg of controversy And the impartial Reader will be enabled to judg whether our appeal to the holy Scripture in all occasions of controversy and recommendation of it to the study of every Christian be that heresy and innovation which it is said to be 23. IT is we know severely imputed to the Scribes and Pharisees by our Savior that they took from the people the key of knowledg Luk. 11. 52. and had made the word of God of none effect by their Traditions Matt. 15. 6. but they never attemted what has bin since practiced by their Successors in the Western Church to take away the Ark of the Testament it self and cut of not only the efficacy but very possession of the word of God by their Traditions Surely this had bin exceeding criminal from any hand but that the Bishops and Governors of the Church and the universal and infallible Pastor of it who claim the office to interpret the Scriptures exhort unto and assist in the knowledg of them should be the men who thus rob the people of them carries with it the highest aggravations both of cruelty and breach of trust If any man shall take away from the words of the Book of this prophecy saies Saint John Revel 22. 19. God shall take away his part out of the Book of Life and out of the holy City and from the things which are written in this Book What vengeance therefore awaits those who have taken away not only from one Book but at once the Books themselves even all the Scriptures the whole word of God SECT VII Historical reflections upon the events which have happen'd in the Church since the with-drawing of the holy Scripture 'T WILL in this place be no useless contemplation to observe after the Scriptures had bin ravisht from the people in the Church of Rome what pitiful pretenders were admitted to succeed And first because Lay-men were presum'd to be illiterate and easily seducible by those writings which were in themselves difficult and would be wrested by the unlearned to their own destruction pictures were recommended in their steed and complemented as the Books of the Laity which soon emprov'd into a necessity of their worship and that gross superstition which renders Christianity abominated by Turks and Jews and Heathens unto this day 2. I would not be hasty in charging Idolatry upon the Church of Rome or all in her communion but that their Image-worship is a most fatal snare in which vast numbers of unhappy souls are taken no man can doubt who hath with any regard travail'd in Popish Countries I my self and thousands of others whom the late troubles or other occasions sent abroad are and have bin witnesses thereof Charity 't is true believes all things but it do's not oblige men to disbelieve their eies 'T was the out-cry of Micah against the Danites Jud. 18. 24. ye have taken away my Gods which I have made and the Priest and are gon away and what have I more but the Laity of the Roman communion may enlarge the complaint and say you have taken away the oracles of our God and set up every where among us graven and molten Images and Teraphims and what have we more and 't was lately the loud and I doubt me is still the unanswerable complaint of the poor Americans that they were deni'd to worship their Pagod once in the year when they who forbad them worship'd theirs every day 3. THE Jews before the captivity notwithstanding the recent memory of the Miracles in Egypt and the Wilderness and the first
to lend them light to judg of them but aids to back and defend them 7. OF this there is no Book of controversy that do's not give notorious proof The Socinian can easily over-look the beginning of Saint John that saies The Word was God Jo. 1. 1. and all those other places which plainly assert the Deity of our Savior if he can but divert to that other more agreeable Text that the Father is greater then I. Among the Romanists Peters being said to be first among the Apostles Mat. 10. 2 and that on that Rock Christ would build his Church Mat. 16. 18. carries away all attention from those other places where Saint Paul saies he was not behind the very chiefest of the Apostles 2 Cor. 11. 5. that upon him lay the care of all the Churches 2 Cor. 11. 28. and that the Church was not built upon the foundation of som one but all the twelve Apostles Revel 21. 14. So it fares in the business of the Eucharist This is my body Mat. 26. 26. carries it away clear for Transubstantiation when our Saviors calling that which he drunk the fruit of the vine Mat. 26. 29. and then Saint Pauls naming the Elements in the Lords Supper several times over Bread and Wine The Bread that we break is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ the Cup that we bless is it not the Communion 1 Cor. 10. 16. And again He that eats this Bread and drinks this Cup unworthily c. 1 Cor. 11. 29. can make no appearance of an Argument 8. THUS men once engag'd ransac for Texts that carry som correspondency to the opinions they have imbibed and those how do they rack and scrue to bring to a perfect conformity and improve every little probability into a demonstration On the other side the contrary Texts they look on as enemies and consider them no farther then to provide fences and guards against them So they bring Texts not into the scales to weigh but into the field to skirmish as Partizans and Auxiliaries of such or such opinions 9. BY this force of prepossession it is that that sacred Rule which is the mesure and standard of all rectitude is it self bow'd and distorted to countenance and abet the most contrary tenets and like a variable picture represents differing shapes according to the light in which you view it And sure we cannot do it a worse office then to represent it thus dissonant to it self Yet thus it must still be till men come unbiast to the reading of it And certainly there is all the reason in the world they should do so the ultimate end of our faith is but the salvation of our souls 1 Pet. 1. 9. and we may be sure the Scripture can best direct us what Faith it is which will lead us to that end 10. WHY should we not then have the same indifference which a traveller hath whether his way lie on this hand or that so as it be the direct road to his journies end For altho it be infinitly material that I embrace right principles yet 't is not so that this should be right rather then the other and our wishes that it should be so proceed only from our prepossessions and fondness of our own conceptions then which nothing is more apt to intercept the clear view of truth It therefore nearly concerns us to deposit them and to give up our selves without reserve to the guidance of Gods Word and give it equal credit when it thwarts as when it complies with our own notions 11. WITHOUT this tho we may call Scripture the rule of Faith and judg of controversies yet 't is manifest we make it not so but reserve still the last appeal to our own prejudicat phancies and then no wonder tho we fall under the same occaecation which our Savior upbraids to the Jews that seeing we see not neither do we understand Mat. 13. 14. For he that will not be sav'd Gods way will hardly be so by his own He that resolves not impartially to embrace all the Scriptures dictats comes to them as unsincerely as the remnant of the Jews did to Jeremiah to inquire of the Lord for them which he no sooner had don but they protest against his message Jer. 42. 20. and may expect as fatal an event 12. BUT there are a set of men who deal yet more insincerely with the Word that read it insidiously on purpose to collect matter of objection and cavil that with a malicious diligence compare Texts in hope to find contradictions and read attentively but to no other end then to remark incoherences and defects in the stile which when they think they have started they have their design and never will use a quarter of the same diligence in considering how they may be solv'd or consulting with those who may assist them in it For I think I may appeal to the generality of those who have rais'd the loudest clamors against the Scripture whether they have endeavor'd to render themselves competent judges of it by inquiring into the Originals or informing themselves of those local Customs peculiar Idioms and many other circumstances by which obscure Texts are to be clear'd And tho I do not affirm it necessary to salvation that every man should do this yet I may affirm it necessary to him that will pretend to judg of the Bible and he that without this condems it do's it as manifest injury as a Judg that should pass sentence only upon the Indictment without hearing the defence 13. AND certainly there cannot be any thing more unmanly and disingenuous then for men to inveigh and condemn before they inquire and examin Yet this is the thing upon which so many value themselves assuming to be men of reason for that for which the Scripture pronounces them brute beasts viz. the speaking evil of those things they understand not 2 Pet. 2. 12. Would men use due diligence no doubt many of those seeming contradictions would be reconcil'd and the obscurities clear'd and if any should after all remain he might find twenty things fitter to charge it on then want of verity or discourse in the inspir'd writers 14. ALAS what human writing is there of near that Antiquity wherein there are not many passages unintelligible And indeed unless modern times knew all those national customs obsolete Laws particular Rites and Ceremonies Phrases and proverbial Sayings to which such ancient Books refer 't is impossible but som passages must remain obscure Yet in these we ordinarily have so much candor as to impute their unintelligibleness to our own ignorance of those things which should clear them the improprieties of stile to the variation that times make in dialects or to the errors of Scribes and do not presently exclame against the Authors as false or impertinent or discard the whole Book for som such passages 15. AND sure what allowances we make to other Books may with more reason be made to the
Psal. 138. 2. cannot brook that we should make it vile and cheap play and dally with it And if it were a capital crime to convert any of the perfume of the Sanctuary to common use Ex. 30. 32. can we think God can be pleas'd to see his more sacred Word the theme of our giddy mirth and have his own words echoed to him in profane drollery 52. BUT besides 't is to be consider'd that this wanton liberty is a step to the more solemn and deliberate contemt of Gods word custom do's strangely prescribe to us and he that a while has us'd any thing irreverently will at last bring his practice into argument and conclude that there is no reverence due to it God knows we are naturally too apt to slight and easy apprehensions of sacred things and had need to use all Arts and Instruments to impress an awe upon our minds 53. IT will sure then be very unsafe for us to trifle with them and by so undue a familiarity draw on that contemt which we should make it our care to avoid The wise man saies he that contemns small things shall fall by little and little Eccl. 19. 1. And tho no degree of irreverence towards God or his Word can be call'd a small thing absolutely consider'd yet comparatively with the more exorbitant degrees it may and yet that smaller is the seed and parent of the greatest It is so in all sins the kingdom of Satan like that of God may be compard ' to a grain of mustard seed Mat. 13. 31. which tho little in it self is mighty in its increase 54. No man ever yet began at the top of villany but the advance is still gradual from one degree to another each commission smoothing and glibbing the way to the next He that accustoms in his ordinary discourse to use the sacred Name of God with as little sentiment and reverence as he do's that of his neighbor or servant that makes it his common by-word and cries Lord and God upon every the lightest occasion of exclamation or wonder this man has a very short step to the using it in oaths and upon all frivolous occasions and he that swears vainly is at no great distance from swearing falsely It is the same in this instance of the Scriptures He that indulges his wit to rally with them will soon come to think them such tame things that he may down-right scorn them And when he is arriv'd to that then he must pick quarrels to justify it till at last he arrive even to the height of enmity 55. LET every man therefore take heed of setting so much as one step in this fatal circle guard himself against the first insinuation of this guilt and when a jest offers it self as a temtation let him balance that with a sober thought and consider whether the jest can quit the cost of the profanation Let him possess his mind with an habitual awe take up the Bible with solemner thoughts and other kind of apprehensions then any human Author and if he habituate himself to this reverence every clause and phrase of it that occurs to his mind will be apter to excite him to devout ejaculations then vain laughter 56. IT is reported of our excellent Prince King Edward the sixth that when in his Council Chamber a Paper that was call'd for happen'd to lie out of reach and the Person concern'd to produce it took a Bible that lay by and standing upon it reacht down the Paper the King observing what was don ran himself to the place and taking the Bible in his hands kissed it and laid it up again Of this it were a very desirable moral that Princes and all persons in autority would take care not to permit any to raise themselves by either a hypocritical or profane trampling upon holy things But besides that a more general application offers its self that all men of what condition soever should both themselves abstain from every action that has the appearance of a contemt of the holy Scripture and also when they observe it in others discountenance the insolence and by their words and actions give Testimony of the veneration which they have for that holy Book they see others so wretchedly despise 57. BUT above all let him who reads the Scripture seriously set himself to the practice of it and daily examin how he proceeds in it he that diligently do's this will not be much at leisure to sport with it he will scarce meet with a Text which will not give him cause of reflection and provide him work within his own brest every duty injoin'd will promt him to examin how he has perform'd every sin forbid will call him to recollect how guilty he has bin every pathetic strain of devotion will kindle his zeal or at least upbraid his coldness every heroic example will excite his emulation In a word every part of Scripture will if duly appli'd contribute to som good and excellent end And when a thing is proper for such noble purposes can it be the part of a wise man to apply it only to mean and trivial Would any but an Idiot wast that Soveraign Liquor in the washing of his feet which was given him to expel poison from his heart And are not we guilty of the like folly when we apply Gods word to serve only a ludicrous humor and make our selves merry with that which was design'd for the most serious and most important purpose the salvation of our souls And indeed who ever takes any lower aim then that and the vertues preparatory to it in his study of Scripture extremely debases it 58. LET us therefore keep a steady eie upon that mark and press towards it as the Apostle did Phil. 3. 14. walk by that rule the holy Scripture proposes faithfully and diligently observe its precepts that we may finally partake its promises To this end continually pray we in the words of our holy mother the Church unto Almighty God who has caus'd all holy Scripture to be written for our learning that we may in such wise hear them read mark learn and inwardly digest them that by patience and comfort of his holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting Life which he has given in our Savior Jesus Christ. THE CONTENTS SECTION Sect. 1. The several methods of Gods communicating the knowledg of himself Pag. 1. Sect. 2. The divine Original Endearments and Autority of the Holy Scripture p. 9. Sect. 3. The Subject Matter treated of in the holy Scripture is excellent as is also its end and design p. 63. Sect. 4. The Custody of the holy Scripture is a privilege and right of the Christian Church and every member of it which cannot without impiety to God and injustice unto it and them be taken away or empeacht p. 123. Sect. 5. The Scripture has great propriety and fitness toward the attainment of its excellent end p. 145. Sect. 6. The suffrage of the primitive Christian Church concerning the propriety and fitness which the Scripture has toward the attainment of its excellent end p. 165. Sect. 7. Historical reflexions upon the events which have happen'd in the Church since the with-drawing of the holy Scripture p. 180. Sect. 8. Necessary Cautions to be us'd in the reading of the holy Scripture p. 193. FINIS
if such an unparallel'd love in God may not as much affect us as the slight benefactions of every ordinary friend if it cannot so much recommend him to our regard as to rescue his word from contemt and dispose us to receive impressions from it especially when his very speaking is a new act of his kindness and design'd to our greatest advantage 13. BUT if all he has don and suffer'd for us cannot obtain him so much from us we must surely confess our disingenuity is as superlative as his love For in this instance we have â—o plea for our selves The discourses of men â—tis true may somtime be so weak and irrational that tho kindness may suggest pity it cannot reverence But this can never happen in God whose wisdom is as infinite as his love He talks not at our vain rate who often talk only for talkings sake but his words are directed to the most important ends and addrest in such a manner as befits him in whom are all the tresures of wisdom and knowledg Col. 2. And this is our third consideration the wisdom of the Speaker 14. How attractive a thing Wisdom is we may observe in the instance of the Queen of Sheba who came from the utmost parts of the earth as Christ saies Mat. 12. 42. to hear the Wisdom of Solomon And the like is noted of the Greek Sages that they were addrest to from all parts by persons of all ranks and qualities to hear their Lectures And indeed the rational nature of man do's by a kind of sympathetic motion close with whatever hath the stamp of reason upon it But alas what is the profoundest wisdom of men compar'd with that of God He is the essential reason and all that man can pretend to is but an emanation from him a ray of his Sun a drop of his Ocean which as he gives so he can also take away He can infatuate the most subtil designers And as he saies of him self makes the diviners mad turns the wise men back and makes their wisdom foolishness Esay 44. 25. 15. How impious a folly is it then in us to Idolize human Wisdom with all its imperfections and despise the divine yet this every man is guilty of who is not attracted to the study of sacred Writ by the supereminent wisdom of its Author For such men must either affirm that God has not such a superâ—minency or that tho he have in himself he â—ath noth exerted it in this writing The former is down-right blasphemy and truly the â—â—ter is the same a little varied For that any â—hing but what is exactly wise can proceed â—â—om infinite wisdom is too absurd for any â—an to imagin And therefore he that â—harges Gods Word with defect of wisdom â—ust interpretatively charge God so too For â—â—o 't is true a wise man may somtimes speak â—olishly yet that happens thro that mixture of ignorance or passion which is in the most knowing of mortals but in God who is a pure Act and essential Wisdom that is an impossible supposition 16. NAY indeed it were to tax him of folly beyond what is incident to any sensible man who will still proportion his instruments to the work he designs Should we not conclude him mad that should attemt to fell a mighty Oak with a Pen-knife or stop a Torrent with a wisp of Straw And sure their conceptions are not much more reverend of God who can suppose that a writing design'd by him for such important ends as the making men wise unto salvation 2 Tim. 3. 15. the casting down all that exalts it self against the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10. 5. should it self be foolish and weak or that he should give it those great Attributes of being sharper then a two edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit of the joints and marrow Heb. 4. 14. if its discourses were so flat and insipid as som in this profane Age would represent them 17. 'T IS true indeed 't is not as the Apostle speaks the wisdom of this world 1 Cor. 2. 6. The Scripture teaches us not the arts of undermining Governments defrauding and circumventing our brethren but it teaches us that which would tend much more even to our temporal felicity and as reason promts us to aspire to happiness so it must acknowledg that is the highest wisdom which teaches us to attain it 18. AND as the Holy Scripture is thus recommended to us by the wisdom of its Author so in the last place is it by his truth without which the other might rather raise our jealousy then our reverence For wisdom without sincerity degenerates into serpentine guile and we rather fear to be ensnar'd then hope to be advantag'd by it The most subtil addresses and most cogent arguments prevail not upon us where we suspect som insidious design But where wisdom and fidelity meet in the same person we do not only attend but confide in his counsels And this qualification is most eminently in God The children of men are deceitful upon the weights Psal. 62. 9. Much guile often lurks indiscernibly under the fairest appearances but Gods veracity is as essentially himself as his wisdom and he can no more deceive us then he can be deceiv'd himself He is not man that he should die Num. 23. 19. He designs not as men often do to sport himself with our credulity and raise hopes which he never means to satisfy he saies not to the seed of Jacob seek ye me in vain Ex. 45. 19. but all his promises are yea and Amen 2 Cor. 1. 20. He is perfectly sincere in all the proposals he makes in his Word which is a most rational motive for us to advert to it not only with reverence but love 19. AND now when all these motives are thus combined the autority the kindness the wisdom the veracity of the speaker what can be requir'd more to render his words of weight with us If this four-fold cord will not draw us we have sure the strength not of men but of that Legion we read of in the Gospel Mar. 5. 9. For these are so much the cords of a man so adapted to our natures nay to our constant usage in other things that we must put off much of our humanity disclaim the common mesures of mankind if we be not attracted by them For I dare appeal to the breast of any sober industrious man whether in case a person who he were sure had all the fore-mention'd qualifications should recommend to him som rules as infallible for the certain doubling or trebling his estate he would not think them worth the pursuing nay whether he would not plot and study on them till he comprehended the whole Art And shall we then when God in whom all those qualifications are united and that in their utmost transcendencies shall we I say think him below our regard when he proposes the improving our interests not by the scanty proportions
so can expect no foreign attestation and secondly it has all along rested on the fidelity of its keepers which has bin either a single person or at best som small number at a time whereas the Scriptures have bin witness'd to by persons of all Nations and those not single but collective Bodies and Societies even as many as there have bin Christian Churches thro out the world And the same that are its Attestors have bin its Guardians also and by their multitudes made it a very difficult if not an impossible thing to falsify it in any considerable degree it being not imaginable as â— shew'd before from St. Austin all Churches shall combine to do it and if they did not the fraud could not pass undetected and iâ— no eminent change could happen much less could any new any counterfeit Gospel be obtruded after innumerable Copies of the first had bin translated into almost all Languages and disperst throout the world 52. THE Imperial Law compil'd by Justinian was soon after his death by reason of the inroads of the Goths and other barbarous Nations utterly lost in the Western world and scarce once heard of for the space of five hundred years and then came casually to be retriv'd upon the taking of Amalfis by the Pisans one single Copy being found there aâ— the plundering of the City And the whole credit of those Pandects which have ever since govern'd the Western world depends in a manner on that single Book formerly call'd the Pisan and now after that Pisa was taken by the Florentines the Florentine Copy But notwithstanding this the body of the Civil Law obtains and no man thinks it reasonable to question its being really what it pretends to be notwithstanding its single and so long interrupted derivation I might draw this parallel thro many other instances but these may suffice to shew that if the Scripture might find but so much equity as to be tried by the common mesures of other things it would very well pass the test 53. BUT men seem in this case like our â—ate Legislators to set up new extraregular Courts of Justice to try those whom no ordinary rules will cast yet their designs require should be condemn'd And we may conclude 't is not the force of reason but of prejudice that makes them so unequal to themselves as to reject the Scripture when they receive every thing else upon far weaker grounds The bottom of it is they are resolv'd not to obey its Precepts and therefore think it the shortest cut to disavow its autority for should they once own that they would find themselves intangled in the most â—nextricable dilemma that of the Pharisees about John Baptist If we say from heaven he will say why then did you not believe him Mat. 21. 25. If they confess the Scriptures divine they must be self-condemn'd in not obeying them And truly men that have such preingagements to their lust that they must admit nothing that will disturb them do but prevaricate when they call for greater evidences and demonstrations for those bosom Sophisters will elude the most manifest convictions and like Juglers make men disbelieve even their own senses So that any other waies oâ— evidence will be as disputable with them as those already offer'd which is the thirâ— thing I proposed to consider 54. IT has bin somtimes seen in popular mutinies that when blanks have bin seâ— them they could not agree what to ask and were it imaginable that God should so far court the infidelity of men as to allow them to make their own demands to set down what waies of proof would perswade them I doubt not there are many have obstinacâ— enough to defeat their own methods as weâ— as they now do Gods 'T is sure there is 〈◊〉 ordinary way of conviction left for them tâ— ask God having already as hath also bâ— shew'd afforded that They must therefore resort to immediat revelation expect in stant assurances from heaven that this Booâ— we call the Bible is the word of God 55. MY first question then is in whaâ— manner this revelation must be made to appear credible to them The best account wâ— have of the several waies of revelation 〈◊〉 from the Jews to whom God was pleasâ— upon new emergencies signally to revel himself These were first dreams secondly visions by both which the Prophets received their inspiration Thirdly Vrim and â—hummim Fourthly the Bath-col as they â—erm it Thunder and voice from Heaven Let us consider them distinctly and see whether our Sceptical men may not probably find â—omwhat to dispute in every one of these And first for dreams it is among us so hard to distinguish between those that arise from constitution prepossession of phancy diabolical or divine infusion that those that have the most critically consider'd them do rather difference them by their matter then any certain discriminating circumstances and unless we had som infallible way of discerning â—ur dependence on them may more probably â—etray then direct us 'T is unquestionable that usually phancy has the greatest stroke in them And if he that should commit himself â—o the guidance of his waking phancy is not like to be over-wisely govern'd what can we expect from his sleeping All this and more may doubtless be soberly enough objected against the validity of our common dreams 56. BUT admit there were now such divine dreams as brought their evidence along with them yet sure 't is possible for prejudic'd men to resist even the clearest convictions For do we not see som that have made a shift â—o extinguish that natural light those notions which are interwoven into the very frame and constitution of their minds that so they may sin more at ease and without reluctancy and sure 't is as possible for them to close their eies against all raies from without too to resist revelation as well as instinct and more likely by how much a transient cause is naturally less operative then a permanent An instance of this we have in Balaam who being in these nightly visitations prohibited by God to go to Balack and thoâ— he knew then what he afterwards saies Num 23. 19. that God was not a man that he should lie nor the son of man that he should repent yeâ— he would not take God at his first word but upon a fresh bait to his covetousness tries again for an answer more indulgent to his interest Besides if God should thus revele himself to som particular persons yet 't is beyond all president or imagination that he should do it to every man and then how shall those who have these dreams be able to convince others that they are divine 57. 'T IS easy to guess what reception â— man that produces no other autority would have in this ludicrous Age he would certainly be thought rather to want sleep then to have had revelations in it And if Jacob and the Patriarchs who were themselves acquainted with divine
we perform our parts of the condition it gives us the most certain assurance engages Gods veracity that he will not fail on his By this it gives us support against all the adversities of life assuring us the sufferings of it are not worthy to be compared with the glory we expect Rom. 8. 18. yea and against the terrors of death too by assuring us that what we look on as a dissolution is but a temporary parting and we only put off our bodies that they may put of corruption and be clothed with immortality 28. THESE and the like are the doctrins the holy Scripture offers to us and we may certainly say they are faithful sayings and worthy of all acceptation 1 Tim. 4. 15. The notions it gives us of God are so sublime and great that they cannot but affect us with reverence and admiration and yet withall so amiable and endearing that they cannot but raise love and gratitude affiance and delight 29. AND which is yet more these milder Attributes are apt to inspirit us with a generous ambition of assimilation excite us to transcribe all his imitable excellencies in which the very Heathens could discern consisted the accomplishment of human felicity 30. AND then the knowledg it gives us of our selves do's us the kindest office imaginable keeps us from those swelling thoughts we are too apt to entertain and shews us the necessity of bottoming our hopes upon a firmer foundation and then again keeps us from being lazy or secure by shewing us the necessity of our own endevors In a word it teaches us to be humble and industrious and whoever is so ballasted can hardly be shipwrackt 31. THESE are the excellencies of the doctrinal part of Scripture which also renders them most aptly preparative for the preceptive And indeed so they were design'd the Credenda and the Agenda being such inseparable relations that whoever parts them forfeits the advantage of both The most solemn profession of Christ the most importunate invocations Lord Lord will signify nothing to them which do not the things which he saies Mat. 7. And how excellent how rational those precepts are which the Scripture proposes to us from him is our next point of consideration 32. THE first Law which God gave to mankind was that of nature And tho the impressions of it upon the mind be by Adams fall exceedingly dimm'd and defac'd yet that derogates nothing from the dignity and worth of that Law which God has bin so far from cancelling that he seems to have made it the rule and square of his subsequent Laws so that nothing is injoin'd in those but what is consonant and agreable to that The Moral Law given in the Decalogue to the Jews the Evangelical Law given in the Gospel tho Christians have this natural Law for their basis and foundation They licence nothing which that prohibits and very rarely prohibit any thing which it licences 33. 'T IS true Christ in his Sermon on the Mount raises Christians to a greater strictness then the Jews thought themselves oblig'd to but that was not by contradicting either the natural or moral Law but by rescuing the later from those corruptions which the false glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees had mixt with it and reducing it to its primitive integrity and extent In a word as the Decalogue was given to repair the defacings and renew the impressions of the natural Law so the precepts of the Gospel were design'd to revive and illustrate both And accordingly we find Christ in the matter of divorce calls them back to this natural Law In the beginning it was not so Mat. 19. 8. I say not but that even these natural notions are in som instances refin'd and elevated by Christ the second Adam being to repair the fall of the first with advantage but yet he still builds upon that ground-work introduces nothing that is inconsistent with it 34. AND this accordance between these several Laws is a circumstance that highly recommends Scripture precepts to us We cannot imagin but that God who made man for no other end but to be an instrument of his glory and a recipient of all communicable parts of his happiness would assign him such rules and mesures as were most conducive to those ends And therefore since the Scripture injunctions are of the same mould we must conclude them to be such as tend to the perfection of our being the making us what God originally intend us and he that would not be that will certainly chuse much worse for himself 35. I know there have bin prejudices taken up against the precepts of Christ as if they impos'd unreasonable unsupportable strictnesses upon men and som have assum'd liberty to argue mutinously against them nay against God too for putting such natural appetites into men and then forbidding them to satisfy them 36. BUT the ground of this cavil is the not rightly distinguishing of natural appetites which are to be differenc'd according to the two states of rectitude and depravation those of the first rank are the appetites God put into man and those were all regular and innocent such as tended to the preservation of his being nature in its first integrity mesuring its desires by its needs Now Christs prohibitions are not directed against these he forbids no one kind of these desires And tho the precept of self-denial may somtimes restrain us in som particular acts yet that is but proportionable to that restraint Adam was under in relation to the forbidden tree a particular instance of his obedience and fence of his safety So that if men would consider nature under this its first and best notion they cannot accuse Christ of being severe to it 37. BUT 't is manifest they take it in another acception and mean that corruption of nature which inordinatly inclines to sensitive things and on this account they call their riots their luxuries appetites put into them by God whereas 't is manifest this was superinduced from another coast The wise man gives us its true pedigree in what he saies of death which is its twin-sister By the envy of the devil came death into the world Wis. 2. 24. And can they expect that Christ who came to destroy the works of the devil 1 Joh. 3. 8. should frame Laws in their favor make Acts of toleration and indulgence for them This were to annul the whole design of his coming into the world which was to restore us from our lapst estate and elevate us to those higher degrees of purity which he came not only to â—rescribe but to exemplify to us 38. BUT in this affair men often take nature â—n a yet wider and worse notion and under natural desires comprehend whatever upon any sort of motive they have a mind to do The awe of a superior the importunity of a companion custom and example make men do many ill things to which their nature would never promt them nay many times such as their nature
tho but of a City or Nation have proportionably acquir'd a greater esteem But those who have aspir'd to be universal benefactors to do somthing for the common benefit of the world their fame has commonly teach'd as far as their influence men have reverenc'd nay somtimes according to the common excesses of mans nature ador'd them Many of the heathen deities especially their demi-gods having bin only those persons who by introducing som useful Art or other part of knowledg had oblig'd mankind So we see what a natural gratitude men are apt to pay to worthy and generous designs And if we will be content but to stand to this common award of our nature the Scripture will have the fairest claim imaginable to our reverence and thankfulness upon this very account of the excellency of its designs 76. NOR need we borrow the balance of the Sanctuary to weigh them in we may do it in our own scales for they exactly answer the two properties above mention'd of profit and diffusiveness which in secular concerns are the standard rules of good designs For first it is the sole scope and aim of Scripture the very end for which 't was writ to benefit and advantage men and that secondly not only som small select number som little angle or corner of the world but the whole race of mankind the entire Universe and he that can imagin a more diffusive design must imagin more worlds also 77. NOW for the first of these that it is the design of the Scripture to benefit men we need appeal but to Scripture it self which surely can give the best account to what ends 't is directed and that tells us it is to make us wise unto salvation 2 Tim. 3. 15. In which is comprehended the greatest benefit that mans nature is capable of the making us wise while we live here and the saving us eternally And this sure is the most generous the most obliging design that 't is possible even for the Creator to have upon the creature and this is it which the holy Scripture negotiates with us 78. AND first the making us wise is so inviting a proposal to humanity that we see when that was much wiser then now it is it caught at a fallacious tender of it the very sound of it tho out of the devils mouth fascinated our first Parents and hurried them to the highest disobedience and certainest ruin And therefore now God by the holy Scriptures makes us an offer as much more safe as it is more sincere when he sends his Word thus to be a lamp to our feet and a light to our paths Ps. 119. 105. to teach us all that is good for us to know our affectation of ignorance will be more culpable then theirs of knowledg if we do not admire the kindness embrace the bounty of such a tender 79. NOW the making us wise must be understood according to the Scripture notion of wisdom which is not the wisdom of this world nor of the Princes of this world which come to â—ought as the Apostle speaks 1 Cor. 2. 5. but that wisdom which descends from above Ja. 3. 17. which he there describes to be first pure then peaceable gentle and easy to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisy Indeed the Scripture usually comprehends these and all other graces under Wisdom for it makes it synonymous to that which includes them all viz. the fear of the Lord. Thus we find throout the whole Book of Proverbs these us'd as terms convertible In short Wisdom is that practical knowledg of God and our selves which engages us to obedience and duty and this is agreeable to that definition the Wise man gives of it The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way Pro. 14. 8. Without this all the most refin'd and aerial speculations are but like Thales's star-gazing which secur'd him not from falling in the water nay betrai'd him to it In this is all solid wisdom compris'd 80. THE utmost all the wise men in the world have pretended to is but to know what true happiness is and what is the means of attaining it and what they sought with so much study and so little success the Scripture presents us with in the greatest certainty and plainest characters such as he that runs may read Hab. 2. 2. It acquaints us with that supreme felicity that chief good whereof Philosophy could only give us a name and it shews us the means marks us out a path which will infallibly lead us to it Accordingly we find that Solomon after all the accurate search he had made to find what was that good for the sons of men he shuts up his inquest in this plain conclusion Fear God and keep his commandments for God shall bring every work unto judgment Eccles. 12. 13 14 The regulating our lives so by the rules of Piety as may acquit us at our final account is the most eligible thing that falls within human cognizance and that not only in relation to the superlative happiness of the next world but even to the quiet and tranquillity of this For alas we are impotent giddy creaâ—ures swai'd sometimes by one passion somâ—imes by another nay often the interfearing of our appetites makes us irresolute which we are to gratify whilst in the interim their â—trugling agitates and turmoils the mind And what can be more desirable in such a â—ase then to put our selves under a wiser conduct then our own and as opprest States â—se to defeat all lesser pretenders by becoming homagers to som more potent so for us to deliver our selves from the tyranny of our â—usts by giving up our obedience to him whose service is perfect freedom 81. WERE there no other advantage of the exchange but the bringing us under fixt and determinat Laws 't were very consideraable Every man would gladly know the terms of his subjection and have som standing â—ule to guide himself by and Gods Laws are â—o we may certainly know what he requires of us but the mandats of our passions are â—rbitrary and extemporary what pleases them to day disgusts them to morrow and we must alwaies be in readiness to do we know not what and of all the Arbitrary governments that men either feel or fear â—his is doubtless the most miserable I wish our apprehensions of it were but as sensible and then we should think the holy Scripture did us the office of a Patriot in offering us a rescue from so vile a slavery 82. AND that it do's make us this offer is manifest by the whole tenor of the Bible For first it rowzes and awakes us to a sense of our condition shews us that what we call liberty is indeed the saddest servitude that he that committeth sin is the servant of sin Jo. 8. 34. that those vices which pretend to serve and gratify us do really subdue and enslave us and fetter when they seem to embrace and
whereas the will in all other oppressions retains its liberty this tyranny brings that also into vassallage renders our spirits so mean and servile that we chuse bondage are apt to say with the Israelites Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians Ex. 14. 12. 83. AND what greater kindness can be don for people in this forlorn abject condition then to animate them to cast off this yoke and recover their freedom And to this are most of the Scripture exhortations addrest as may be seen in a multitude of places particularly in the sixth chapter to the Romans the whole scope whereof is directly to this purpose 84. NOR do's it only sound the alarm put us upon the contest with our enemies but it assists us in it furnishes us with that whole armor of God which we find describ'd Eph. 6. 13. Nay further it excites our courage by assuring us that if we will not basely surrender our selves we can never be overpower'd if we do but stand our ground resist our enemy he will fly from us Ja. 4. 7. And to that purpose it directs us under what banner we are to list our selves even his who hath spoil'd principalities and powers Col. 2. 15. to whose conduct and discipline if we constantly adhere we cannot miss of victory 85. AND then lastly it sets before us the prize of this conquest that we shall not only recover our liberty manumit our selves from the vilest bondage to the vilest and cruellest oppressors but we shall be crown'd for it too be rewarded for being kind to our selves and be made happy eternally hereafter for being willing to be happy here 89. AND sure these are terms so apparently advantageous that he must be infinitly stupid foolish to destruction that will not be thus made wise unto salvation that despifes or cavils at this divine Book which means him so much good which designs to make him live here generously and according to the dignity of his nature and in the next world to have that nature sublimated and exalted made more capacious of those refin'd and immense felicities which there await all who will qualify themselves for them who as the Apostle speaks by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality eternal life Rom. 2. 7. 87. BUT besides the greatest and principal advantages which concern our spiritual interest it takes in also the care of our secular directs us to such a managery of our selves as is naturally apt to promote a quiet and happy life It s injunction to live peaceable with all men keeps us out of the way of many misadventures which turbulent unruly spirits meet with and so secures our peace So also as to wealth it puts us into the fairest road to riches by prescribing diligence in our callings what is thus got being like sound flesh which will stick by us whereas the hasty growth of ill-gotten wealth is but a tumor and impostume which the bigger it swells the sooner it bursts and leaves us lanker then before In like manner it shews us also how to guard our reputation by providing honest things not only in the sight of God but also in the sight of men Cor. 8. 28. by abstaining even from all appearance of evil 1 Thes. 5. 22. and making our light shine before men Mat. 5. 16. It provides too for our ease and tranquillity supersedes our anxious cares and sollicitud's by directing us to cast our burden upon the Lord Psal. 55. 22. and by a reliance on his providence how to secure to our selves all we really want Finally it fixes us in all the changes supports us under all the pressures comforts us amidst all the calamities of this life by assuring us they shall all work together for good to those that love God Ro. 8. 28. 88. NOR do's the Scripture design to promote our interests consider'd only singly and personally but also in relation to Societies and Communities it gives us the best rules of distributive and commutative Justice teaches us to render to all their dues Ro. 13. 7. to keep our words to observe inviolably all our pacts and contracts nay tho they prove to our damage Psa. 15. 4. and to preserve exact fidelity and truth which are the sinews of human commerce It infuses into us noble and generous principles to prefer a common good before our private and that highest flight of Ethnic vertue that of dying for ones Country is no more then the Scripture prescribes even for our common brethren 1 To. 3. 16. 89. BUT besides these generals it descends to more minute directions accommodated to our several circumstances it gives us appropriate rules in reference to our distinct relations whether natural civil ecclesiastical or oeconomical And if men would but universally conform to them to what a blessed harmony would it tune the world what order and peace would it introduce There would then be no oppressive Governors nor mutinous Subjects no unnatural Parents nor contumacious Children no idle Shepherds or straying Flocks none of those domestic jars which oft disquiet and somtimes subvert families all would be calm and serene and give us in reality that golden Age whereof the Poets did but dream 90. THIS tendency of the Scripture is remarkably acknowledg'd in all our public Judicatories where before any testimony is admitted we cause the person that is to give his testimony first to lay hold of with his hands then with his mouth to kiss the holy Scriptures as if it were impossible for those hands which held the mysteries of Truth to be immediatly emploi'd in working falsehood or that those lips which had ador'd those holy Oracles should be polluted with perjuries and lies And I fear the civil Government is exceedingly shaken at this day in its firmest foundation by the little regard is generally had of the holy Scriptures and what is consequent thereto the oaths that are taken upon them 91. 'T IS true we are far remov'd from that state which Esaiah prophecied of under the Gospel tho we have the Bible among us that when the Law should go forth of Sion and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem they should heat their swords into plow-shares and their spears into pruning hooks Es. 2. 4. but that is not from any defect in it but from our own perversness we have it but as the Apostle speaks in another sense as if we had it not 1 Cor. 7. 29. We have it that is use it to purposes widely different from what it means Som have it as a Supersedeas to all the duty it injoins and so they can but cap texts talk glibly of Scripture are not at all concern'd to practice it som have it as their Arsenal to furnish them with weapons not against their spiritual enemies but their secular applying all the damnatory sentences they there find to all those to whose persons or opinions they have prejudice And som have it as a Scene of their mirth
a topic of raillery dress their profane and scurrilous jests in its language and study it for no other end but to abuse it And whilst we treat it at this vile rate no wonder we are never the better for it For alas what will it avail us to have the most soveraign Balsom in our possession if instead of applying it to our wounds we trample it under our feet 92 BUT tho we may frustrate the use we cannot alter the nature of things Gods design in giving us the Scripture was to make us as happy as our nature is capable of being and the Scripture is excellently adapted to this end for as to our eternal felicity all that believe there is any such state must acknowledg the Scripture chalks us out the ready way to it not only because 't is dictated by God who infallibly knows it but also by its prescribing those things which are in themselves best and which a sober Heathen would adjudg fittest to be rewarded And as to our temporal happiness I dare appeal to any unprejudic'd man whether any thing can contribute more to the peace and real happiness of mankind then the universal practice of the Scripture rules would do Would God we would all conspire to make the experiment and then doubtless not only our reason but our sense too would be convinc'd of it 93. AND as the design is thus beneficial so in the second place is it as extensive also Time was when the Jews had the inclosure of divine Revelation when the Oracles of God were their peculiar depositum and the Heathen had not the knowledg of his Laws Ps. 147. ult but since that by the goodness of God the Gentiles are become fellow-heirs Eph. 3. 6. he hath also deliver'd into their hands the deeds and evidences of their future state given them the holy Scriptures as the exact and authentic registres of the covenant between God and man and these not to be like the heathen Oracles appropriated to som one or two particular places so that they cannot be consulted but at the expence of a pilgrimage but laid open to the view of all that will believe themselves concern'd 94. IT was a large commission our Savior gave his Disciples go preach the Gospel to every creature Mar. 16. 15. which in the narrowest acception must be the Gentile world and yet their oral Gospel did not reach farther then the writen for wherever the Christian Faith was planted the holy Scriptures were left as the records of it nay as the conservers of it too the standing rule by which all corruptions were to be detected 'T is true the entire Canon of the New Testament as we now have it was not all at once deliver'd to the Church the Gospels and Epistles being successively writ as the needs of Christians and the encroachments of Heretics gave occasion but at last they became all together the common magazine of the Church to furnish arms both defensive and offensive For as the Gospel puts in our hands the shield of Faith so the Epistles help us to hold it that it may not be wrested out of our hands again either by the force of persecution or the sly insinuations of vice or heresy 95. THUS the Apostles like prudent leaders have beat up the Ambushes discover'd the snares that were laid for us and by discomfiting Satans forlorn hope that earliest Set of false teachers and corrupt practices which then invaded the Church have laid a foundation of victory to the succeeding Ages if they will but keep close to their conduct adhere to those sacred Writings they have left behind them in every Church for that purpose 96. Now what was there deposited was design'd for the benefit of every particular member of that Church The Bible was not committed like the Regalia or rarities of a Nation to be kept under lock and key and consequently to constitute a profitable office for the keepers but expos'd like the Brazen Serpent for universal view and benefit that sacred Book like the common air being every mans propriety yet no mans inclosure yet there are a generation of men whose eies have bin evil because Gods have bin good who have seal'd up this spring monopoliz'd the word of Life and will allow none to partake of it but such persons and in such proportions as they please to retail it an attemt very insolent in respect of God whose purpose they contradict and very injurious in respect of man whose advantage they obstruct The iniquity of it will be very apparent if we consider what is offer'd in the following Section SECT IV. The Custody of the holy Scripture is a privilege and right of the Christian Church and every member of it which cannot without impiety to God and injustice unto it and them be taken away or empeacht BESIDES the keeping of the divine Law which is obsequious and imports a due regard to all its Precepts commonly exprest in Scripture by keeping the commandments hearkning to and obeying the voice of the Lord walking in his waies and observing and doing his statutes and his judgments there is a possessory keeping it in reference to our selves and others in respect whereof Almighty God Deut. 6. and elsewhere frequently having enjoin'd the people of Israel to love the Lord their God with all their heart and with all their soul and with all their might and that the words which he commanded them should be in their heart he adds that they shall teach them diligently to their children and shall talk of them when they sit down in their houses and when they walk by the way and when they lie down and when they rise up and that they bind them for a sign upon their hand and that they shall be as froutlets between their eies and that they shall write them upon the posts of their house and on their gates So justly was the Law call'd the Scripture being writen by them and worn upon the several parts of the body inscrib'd upon the walls of their houses the entrance of their dores and gates of their Cities and in a word placed before their eies wherever they convers'd 2. AND this was granted to the Jews as matter of privilege and favor To them saies Saint Paul Rom. 9. 4. pertaineth the adoption and the glory aud the covenants and the giving of the Law And the same Saint Paul at the 3. chap. 2. v. of that Epistle unto the question what advantage hath the Jew or what prosit is there of circumcision answers that it is much every way chiefly because unto them were committed the Oracles of God This depositum or trust was granted to the Fathers that it should be continued down unto their children He made a covenant saies David Ps. 78. v. 5. with Jacob and gave Israel a Law which he commanded our Fore-fathers to teach their children that their posterity might know it and the children which were yet unborn to the intent that when
or to read therein is subjected to severe penalties 2. FOR the vindication of the truth of God and to put to shame those unhappy Innovators who amidst great pretences to antiquity and veneration to the Scriptures prevaricat from both I think it may not be amiss to shew plainly the mind of the primitive Church herein and that in as few words as the matter will admit 3. FIRST I premise that Ireneus and Tertullian having to do with Heretics who boasted themselves to be emendators of the Apostles and wiser then they despising their autority rejecting several parts of the Scripture and obtruding other writings in their steed have had recourse unto Tradition with a seeming preference of it unto Scripture Their adversaries having no common principle besides the owning the name of Christians it was impossible to convince them but by a recourse to such a medium which they would allow But these Fathers being to set down and establish their Faith are most express in resolving it into Scripture and when they recommend Tradition ever mean such as is also Apostolical 4. IRENEUS in the second Book 47. c. tells us that the Scriptures are perfect as dictated by the word of God and his spirit And the same Father begins his third Book in this manner The disposition of our salvation is no otherwise known by us then by those by whom the Gospel was brought to us which indeed they first preach'd but afterward deliver'd it to us in the Scripture to be the foundation and pillar of our Faith Nor may we imagin that they began to preach to others before they themselves had perfect knowledg as som are bold to say boasting themselves to be emendators of the Apostles For after our Lords Resurrection they were indued with the power of the holy Spirit from on high and having perfect knowledg went forth to the ends of the earth preaching the glad tidings of salvation and celestial praise unto men Each and all of whom had the Gospel of God So Saint Matthew wrote the Gospel to the Hebrews in their tongue Saint Peter and Saint Paul preach'd at Rome and there founded a Church Mark the Disciple and interpreter of Peter deliver'd in writing what he had preach'd and Luke the follower of Paul set down in his Book the Gospel he had deliver'd Afterward Saint John at Ephesus in Asia publish'd his Gospel c. In his fourth Book c. 66. he directs all the Heretics with whom he deals to read diligently the Gospel deliver'd by the Apostles and also read diligently the Prophets assuring they shall there find every action every doctrin and every suffering of our Lord declared by them 5. THUS Tertullian in his Book of Prescriptions c. 6. It is not lawful for us to introduce any thing of our own will nor make any choice upon our arbitrement We have the Apostles of our Lord for our Authors who themselves took up nothing on their own will or choice but faithfully imparted to the Nations the discipline which they had receiv'd from Christ. So that if an Angel from heaven should teach another doctrin he were to be accurst And. c. 25. 'T is madness saies he of the Heretics when they confess that the Apostles were ignorant of nothing nor taught things different to think that they did not revele all things to all which he enforces in the following chapter In his Book against Hermogenes c. 23. he discourses thus I adore the plenitude of the Scripture which discovers to me the Creator and what was created Also in the Gospel I find the Word was the Arbiter and Agent in the Creation That all things were made of preexistent matter I never read Let Hermogenes and his journy-men shew that it is written If it be not written let him fear the woe which belongs to them thad add or detract And in the 39. ch of his Prescript We feed our faith raise our hope and establish our reliance with the sacred Words 6. IN like manner Hippolytus in the Homily against Noetus declares that we acknowledg only from Scripture that there is one God And whereas secular Philosophy is not to be had but from the reading of the doctrin of the Philosophers so whosoever of us will preserve piety towards God he cannot otherwise learn it then from the holy Scripture Accordingly Origen in the fifth Homily on Leviticus saies in the Scripture every word appertaining to God is to be sought and discust and the knowledg of all things is to be receiv'd 7. WHAT Saint Cyprian's opinion was in this point we learn at large from his Epistle to Pompey For when Tradition was objected to him he answers Whence is this Tradition is it from the autority of our Lord and his Gospel or comes it from the commands of the Apostles in their Epistles Almighty God declares that what is written should be obei'd and practic'd The Book of the Law saies he in Joshua shall not depart from thy mouth but thou shalt meditate in it day and night that you may observe and keep all that is written therein So our Lord sending his Apostles commands them to baptize all Nations and teach them to observe all things that he had commanded Again what obstinacy and presumtion is it to prefer human Tradition to divine Command not considering that Gods wrath is kindled as often as his Precepts are dissolv'd and neglected by reason of human Traditions Thus God warns and speaks by Isaiah This people honors me with their lips but their heart is far from me but in vain do they worship me teaching for doctrins the commandments of men Also the Lord in the Gospel checks and reproves saying you reject the Law of God that you may establish your Tradition Of which Precept the Apostle Saint Paul being mindful admonishes and instructs saying If any man teaches otherwise and hearkens not to sound doctrin and the words of our Lord Jesus Christ he is proud knowing nothing From such we must depart And again he adds There is a compendious way for religious and sincere minds both to deposit their errors and find out the truth For if we return to the source and original of divine Tradition human error will cease and the ground of heavenly Mysteries being seen what soever was hid with clouds and darkness will be manifest by the light of truth If a pipe that brought plentiful supplies of water fail on the suddain do not men look to the fountain and thence learn the cause of the defect whether the spring it self be dry or if running freely the water is stopt in its passage that if by interrupted or broken conveiances it was hindred to pass they being repair'd it may again be brought to the City with the same plenty as it flows from the spring And this Gods Priests ought to do at this time obeying the commands of God that if truth have swerv'd or fail'd in any particular we go backward to the source of the Evangelical
among the unbaptiz'd and heathen multitude and learn again the elements of that holy Faith from which he had prevaricated and so in time be render'd capable of the devotions of the faithful and afterward the reception of the Eucharist But when the Scriptures were thought useless or dangerous to be understood and heard it was consequent that the state of Audience should be cut off from Penance and that the next to it upon the self-same principle should be dismist and so the long probation formerly requir'd should be supplanted and the compendious way of pardoning first and repenting afterwards the endless circle of sinning and being absolv'd and then sinning and being absolv'd again should prevail upon the Church Which still obtains notwithstanding the complaints and irrefragable demonstrations of learned men even of the Romish Communion who plainly shew this now receiv'd method to be an innovation groundless and unreasonable and most pernicious in its consequents 9. AND by the way we may take notice that there cannot be a plainer evidence of the judgment of the Church concerning the necessity of the Scriptures being known not only by the learned but mean Christian and the interest they have therein then is the ancient course of Penance establisht by the practice of all the first Ages and almost as many Councils whether general or local as have decreed any thing concerning disciplin with the penitentiary Books and Canons which were written for the first eleven hundred years in the whole Christian world For if even the unbaptiz'd Catechumen and the lapst sinner notwithstanding their slender knowledg in the mysteries of Faith or frail pretence to the privilege thereof had a right to the state of Audience and was oblig'd to hear the Scripture read surely the meanest unobnoxious Laic was in as advantagious circumstances and might not only be trusted with the reading of those sacred Books but might claim them as his birth-right 10. I may justly over and above what has bin hitherto alleg'd impute to the Governors of the same Church and their withholding from the Laity the holy Scripture the many dangerous errors gross ignorances and scandalous immoralities which have prevail'd among them both It is no new method of divine vengeance that there should be like people like Priest Hos. 4. 9. and that the Idol shepherd who led his flock into the ditch should fall therein himself Mat. 15. 14. And as the Prophet Zachary describes it c. 11. 17. The sword shall be upon his arm and upon his right eie his arm shall be clean dried up and his right eie shall be utterly darkned 11. BUT no consequence can be more obviously deducible from that practice then that men should justify the with-holding of the Scripture by lessening its credit and depreciating its worth which has occasion'd those reproches which by the writers of the Church of Rome of best note have bin cast upon it As that it was a Nose of wax a leaden rule a deaf and useless deputy to God in the office of a Judg of less autority then the Roman Church and of no more credit then Esops Fables but for the testimony of the said Church that they contain things apt to raise laughter or indignation that the Latin Translation in the Complutensian Bible is placed between the Hebrew Text and the Septuagint Version as our Savior was at his Crucifixion between two thieves and that the vulgar Edition is of such autority that the Originals ought to be mended by it rather then it should be mended from them which are the complements of Cardinal Bellarmin Hosius Eckius Perron Ximenes Coqueus and others of that Communion words to be answer'd by a Thunderbolt and fitter for the mouth of a Celsus or a Porphyrie then of the pious sons and zealous Champions of the Church of Christ. 12. 'T IS to be expected that the Romanists should now wipe their mouths and plead not guilty telling us that they permit the Scripture to the Laity in their mother Tongue And to that purpose the Fathers of Rhemes and Doway have publisht an English Bible for those of their communion I shall therefore give a short and plain account of the whole affair as really it stands and then on Gods name let the Romanist make the best of their Apology 13. THE fourth rule of the Index of prohibited Books compos'd upon the command and auspice of the Council of Trent and publish'd by the autority of Pius the fourth Sixtus the fifth and Clement the eighth runs thus Since 't is manifest by experience that if the holy Bible be suffer'd promiscuously in the vulgar Tongue such is the temerity of men that greater detriment then advantage will thence arise in this matter let the judgment of the Bishop or Inquisitor be stood to that with the advice of the Curat or Confessor they may give leave for the reading of the Bible in the vulgar Tongue translated by Catholics to such as they know will not receive damage but increase of Faith and Piety thereby Which faculty they shall have in writing and whosoever without such faculty shall presume to have or to read the Bible he shall not till he have deliver'd it up receive absolution of his sins Now to pass over the iniquity of obliging men to ask leave to do that which God Almighty commands when 't is consider'd how few of the Laity can make means to the Bishop or Inquisitor or convince them or the Curat or Confessor that they are such who will not receive damage but encrease of Faith and Piety by the reading of the Scripture and also have interest to prevail with them for their favor herein and after all can and will be at the charge of taking out the faculty which is so penally requir'd 't is easy to guess what thin numbers of the Laity are likely or indeed capable of reaping benefit by this Indulgence pretended to be allowed them 14. BUT besides all this what shall we say if the power it self of giving Licences be a mere shew and really signifies just nothing In the observation subjoin'd to this fourth rule it is declar'd that the Impression and Edition thereof gives no new faculty to Bishops or Inquisitors or Superiors of regulars to grant Licences of buying reading or retaining Bibles publisht in a vulgar Tongue since hitherto by the command and practice of the holy Roman and universal Inquisition the power of giving such faculties to read or retain vulgar Bibles or any parts of Scripture of the Old or New Testament in any vulgar Tongue or also summaries or historical compendiums of the said Bibles or Books of Scripture in whatsoever Tongue they are written has bin taken away And sure if a Lay-man cannot read the Bible without a faculty and it is not in any ones power to grant it 't will evidently follow that he cannot read it And so the pretence of giving liberty owns the shame of openly refusing it but has no other effect
or consequence And if any Romanist among us or in any other Protestant Country enjoies any liberty herein 't is merely by connivance and owed to a fear least the Votary would be lost and take the Bible where it was without difficulty to be had if strictness should be us'd And should Popery which God forbid become paramount the Translations of the Scripture into our Mother Tongues would be no more endur'd here then they are in Spain and they who have formerly bin wary in communicating the Scriptures remembring how thereby their errors have bin detected would upon a revolution effectually provide for the future and be sure to keep their people in an Egyptian darkness that might it self be felt but that allow'd the notices of no other object They would not be content with that composition of the Ammonite to thrust out all the right eies of those that submitted to them 1 Sam. 11. 2. but would put out both as the Philistins did to Samson that they might make their miserable captives for ever grind in their Mill Jud. 16. 21. 15. BUT this heaviest of judgments will never fall upon the reform'd Churches till by their vicious practice and contemt of the divine Law they have deserted their profession and made themselves utterly unworthy of the blessings they enjoy and the light of that Gospel which with noon-day brightness has shin'd among them Upon which account I suppose it may not be impertinent in the next place to subjoin som plain directions and cautionary advices concerning the use of these sacred Books SECT VIII Necessary cautions to be us'd in the reading of the holy Scriptures IT is a common observation that the most generous and sprightly Medicins are the most unsafe if not appli'd with due care and regimen And the remark holds as well in spiritual as corporal remedies The Apostle asserts it upon his own experience that the doctrin of the Gospel which was to som the savor of life unto life was to others the savor of death 2 Cor. 2. 15. And the same effect that the oral Word had then the written Word may have now not that either the one or the other have any thing in them that is of it self mortiferous but becomes so by the ill disposition of the persons who so pervert it It is therefore well worth our inquiry what qualifications on our part are necessary to make the Word be to us what it is in it self the power of God unto salvation Rom. 1. 16. Of these som are previous before our reading som are concomitant with it and som are subsequent and follow after it 2. OF those that go before sincerity is a most essential requisit by sincerity I mean an upright intention by which we direct our reading to that proper end for which the holy Scriptures were design'd viz. the knowing Gods will in order to the practicing it This honest simplicity of heart is that which Christ represents by the good ground where alone it was that the seed could fructify Mat. 13. 8. And he that brings not this with him brings only the shadow of a Disciple The word of God is indeed sharper then a two-edged sword Heb. 4. 12. but what impression can a sword make on a body of air which still slips from and eludes its thrusts And as little can all the practical discourses of holy Writ make on him who brings only his speculative faculties with him and leaves his will and affections behind him which are the only proper subjects for it to work on 3. To this we may probably impute that strange inefficaciousness we see of the Word Alas men rarely apply it to the right place our most inveterat diseases lie in our morals and we suffer the Medicin to reach no farther then our intellects As if he that had an ulcer in his bowels should apply all his balsoms and sanatives only to his head 'T is true the holy Scriptures are the tresuries of divine Wisdom the Oracles to which we should resort for saving knowledg but they are also the rule and guide of holy Life and he that covets to know Gods will for any purpose but to practice it is only studious to entitle himself to the greater number of stripes Luk. 12. 47. 4. NAY farther he that affects only the bare knowledg is oft disappointed even of that The Scripture like the Pillar of fire and cloud enlightens the Israelites those who sincerely resign themselves to its guidance but it darkens and confounds the Egyptians Ex. 14. 20. And 't is frequently seen that those who read only to become knowing are toll'd on by their curiosity into the more abstruse and mysterious parts of Scripture where they entangle themselves in inextricable mazes and confusions and instead of acquiring a more superlative knowledg loose those easy and common notions which lie obvious to every plain well meaning Reader I fear this Age affords too many and too frequent instances of this in men who have lost God in the midst of his Word and studied Scripture till they have renounc'd its Author 5. AND sure this infatuation is very just and no more then God himself has warn'd us of who takes the wise in their own craftiness Job 5. 12. but appropriates his secrets only to them that fear him and has promis'd to teach the meek his way Psal. 25. 9. 14. And this was the method Christ observ'd in his preaching unveiling those truths to his Disciples which to the Scribes and Pharisees his inquisitive yet refractory hearers he wrapt up in parables not that he dislik'd their desire of knowledg but their want of sincerity which is so fatal a defect as blasts our pursuits tho of things in themselves never so excellent This we find exemplifi'd in Simon Magus Acts 8. who tho he coveted a thing in itself very desirable the power of conferring the holy Ghost yet desiring it not only upon undue conditions but for sinister ends he not only mist of that but was after all his convincement by the Apostles miracles and the engagement of his Baptism immerst in the gall of bitterness and at last advanc'd to that height of blasphemy as to set up himself for a God so becoming a lasting memento how unsafe it is to prevaricate in holy things 6. BUT as there is a sincerity of the Will in order to practice so there is also a sincerity of the understanding in order to belief and this is also no less requisit to the profitable reading of Scripture I mean by this that we come with a preparation of mind to embrace indifferently whatever God there reveles as the object of our Faith that we bring our own opinions not as the clue by which to unfold Scripture but to be tried and regulated by it The want of this has bin of very pernicious consequence in matters both of Faith and speculation Men are commonly prepossest strongly with their own notions and their errand to Scripture is not