sincerely shall be Justified and Saved there is requisite in us 1. A Certainty of Knowledg That such a Proposition is written in Scripture 2. A Certainty of Assent or Faith That this Scripture is the Word of God and True Also in respect of the Minor Proposition But I do sincerely Believe or Love c. there is requisite 1. A Certainty of the Truth of our Faith in point of Being 2. And a Certainty of its Truth in point of Morality or Congruence with the Rule or its Right-being And then followeth Assurance which is the Certainty that the Conclusion Therefore I am Justified c. followeth necessarily upon the former Premises Here also you must carefully distinguish betwixt the several degrees of Assurance All Assurance is not of the highest degree It differs in strength according to the different degrees of Apprehension in all the forementioned Points of Certainty which are necessary thereunto He that can truly raise the foresaid Conclusion That he is Justified c. from the Premises hath some degree of Assurance though he do it with much weakness and staggering and doubting The weakness of our Assurance in any one point of the premises will accordingly weaken our Assurance in the Conclusion Some when they speak of Certainty of Salvation do mean only such a Certainty as excludeth all doubting and think nothing else can be called Certainty but this high degree Perhaps some Papists mean this when they deny a Certainty Some also maintain That Saint Paul's Plerophory or full Assurance is this Highest degree of Assurance and that some Christians do in this life attain to it But Paul calls it Full Assurance in comparison of lower degrees and not because it is perfect For if Assurance be perfect then also our Certainty of Knowledg Faith and Sense in the â—â—â—mises must be perfect And if some Grace perfect why not all and so we turn Novatians Catharists Perfectionists Perhaps in some their Certainty may be so great that it may overcome all sensible doubting or sensible stirrings of Unbelief by reason of the sweet and powerful Acts and Effects of that Certainty And yet it doth not overcome all Unbelief and Uncertainty so as to expel or nullifie them but a certain measure of them remaineth still Even as when you would heat cold water by the mixture of hot you may pour in the hot so long till no coldness is felt and yet the water may be far from the highest degree of heat So faith may suppress the sensible stirrings of unbelief and Certainty prevail against all the trouble of uncertainty and yet be far from the highest degree So that by this which is said you may Answer the Question What Certainty is to be attained in this Life and what Certainty it is that we press men to labour for and expect Furthermore you must be sure to distinguish betwixt Assurance it self and the Joy and Strength and other sweet Effects which follow Assurance or which immediately accompany it It is possible that there may be Assurance and yet no comfort or little There are many unskilful but self-conceited Disputers of late fitter to manage a club then an Argument who tell us That it must be the Spirit that must Assure us of our Salvation and not our Marks and Evidences of Grace That our comfort must not be taken from any thing in our selves That our Justification must be immediately believed and not proved by our Signs or Sanctification c. Of these in order 1. It is as wise a Question to ask Whether our Assurance come from the Spirit or our Evidences or our Faith c as to ask whether it be our meat or our stomack or our teeth or our hands that feed us Or whether it be our Eye-sight or the Sun-light by which we see things They are distinct Causes all necessary to the producing of the same Effect So that by what hath bin said you may discern That the Spirit and Knowledg and Faith and Scripture inward Holines and Reason and inward Sense or Conscience have all several parts and necessary uses in producing our Assurances which I will shew you distinctly 1. To the Spirit belong these particulars 1. He hath indited those Scriptures which contain the promise of our Pardon and Salvation 2. He giveth us the habit or power of Believing 3. He helpeth us also to Believe Actually That the Word is true and to receive Christ and the priviledges offered in the promise 4. He worketh in us those Graces and exciteth those Gracious Acts within us which are the Evidences or Marks of our interest pardon and Life He helpeth us to perform those Acts which God hath made to be the Condition of Pardon and Glory 5. He helpeth us to feel and discover these Acts in our selves 6. He helpeth us to compare them with the Rule and finding out their qualifications to Judg of their Sincerity and Acceptation with God 7. He helpeth our Reason to Conclude rightly of our State from our Acts. 8. He enliveneth and heighteneth our Apprehension in these particulars that our Assurance may accordingly be strong and lively 9. He exciteth our Joy and filleth with comfort when he pleaseth upon this Assurance None of all these could we perform well of our selves 2. The Part which the Scripture hath in this Work is 1. It affordeth us the Major Proposition That whosoever Believeth Sincerely shall be saved 2. It is the Rule by which our Acts must be tryed that we may Judg of their Moral Truth 3. The Part that Knowledg hath in it is to Know that the foresaid Proposition is written in Scripture 4. The Work of Faith is to Believe the Truth of that Scripture and to be the matter of one of our chief Evidences 5. Our Holiness and true Faith as they are Marks and Evidences are the very Medium of our Argument from which we Conclude 6. Our Conscience and internal Sense do acquaint us with both the Being and Qualifications of our inward Acts which are this Medium and which are called Marks 7. Our Reason or Discourse is Necessary to form the Argument and raise the Conclusion from the Premises and to compare our Acts with the Rule and Judg of their Sincerity c. So that you see our Assurance is not an Effect of any one single Cause alone And so neither meerly of Faith by Signs or by the Spirit From all this you may gather 1. What the Seal of the Spirit is to wit the Works or fruits of the Spirit in us 2. What the testimony of the Spirit is for if it be not some of the forementioned Acts I yet know it not 3. What the Testimony of Conscience is And if I be not mistaken the Testimony of the Spirit and the Testimony of Conscience are two concurrent Testimonies or Causes to produce one and the same Effect and to afford the Premises to the same Conclusion and then to raise our Joy thereupon So
veterem Apostolorum Traditionem ne in conceptionem quidem mentis admittunt quodcunque Haereticorum portentiloquium est I have been the larger in proving an Immortal Life after this because I finde none doubt of the Authority of Scripture but they doubt of the Immortality of the Soul too among us This joyned with the Evident Vanity of all other Religions is an excellent medium to confirm us in the Christian Religion For if we must be happy or miserable for ever sure there is some true Religion teaching the way to Happiness That all other Religions are false any man that lives out of the dust and smoke of prejudice may see with one eye That there is a future Happiness or Misery is evident to Nature or else how would all Nations so universally acknowledg it The Ancient Barbarians beleeved the Immortality of the Soul as of the Getae Herodotus witnesseth Lib. 4. And of the Egyptians Diodorus Siculus l. 1. Biblioth numb 93. The very Inhabitants of Guiny Virginia Guiana Peru Chyna Mexico c. do beleeve a happiness and misery hereafter As Descrip. Reg. Afric Guineae cap. 21.44 Acosta lib. 5. c. 7 8. Hug. Linscot part 1. cap. 25. Jo. Lerius cap. 16. Sir Walter Rawleigh c. witness What Poet speaks not De Tartaro Campis Elisiis manibus And Philosophers of best note except Galen Epicurus Plinius c. As for Pythagoras and his Master Pherecides the Druides the Indian Brachmanes Socrates Plato Cicero Seneca they all acknowledg it Lege Marsil Ficinum de Immort Animae Yea Aristotle himself as is evident De anima lib. 1. context 65 66. Lib. 2. context 21. Lib. 3. context 4 6 7 19 20. Yet we must not take the same course with all men to convince them of Scripture Authority We must first deal with an Atheist In habitu Philosophico before we plead or directly prove Scripture Authority of which see learned Ludovicus Crocius Syntagm l. 1. p. 126. The validity of that Humane Testimony which here we have most use for dependeth not on any Authority thereto conferred from God as Romanists fondly imagine but on men as sensible rational and of common honesty The Testimony of the enemies is more strong then of friends Strabo witnesseth Lib. 16. Geogra of Moses and the ancient Israelites That they were truly righteous and godly men So doth Josephus testifie of John Baptist and James And Pliny of the Primitive Christians Lib. 10. Epist. 101. But I pass these as not intending a full handling of this subject The best that I know already extant on it is Grotius and Du Plessis and I would some able man would do yet more For my own part I have had so many rare convincing experiences of the fulfilling of Promises to me and answering Prayers by wonders of unusual Providences That serve mightily to conform me by seconding my Arguments And were it fit to speak so much of my own matters I would produce them for the confirming of others Were it not to digress I should here express my admiration That so many learned men should lean towards Rome meerly upon a conceit That there is a flat necessity of some Vltimately Decisive Judicial Expounder of Scripture and that must needs be their Church For they think it abominable that every man should be Judg. At present I would but know of them First Whether they speak of Fundamental plain places of Scripture or of more obscure and of less moment For the former First Where there is such Plainness there needs a Teacher to the Ignorant but not a Judg Among Christians Fundamentals are no Controversies Secondly And if the Judg mistake in Fundamentals if we obey him we must renounce our Faith Secondly If the Pope or his Councel of Prelates be Judg how shall all people in the Kingdoms of the World know what Exposition they give Hear their voices they cannot If by their written Canons who shall expound them to the people If another Pope or Councel who shall expound their Exposition and so in Infinitum I do not see but God speaks as plainly as the Councel of Trent and as easie to be understood Thirdly Doth the Pope and Prelates know the meaning of Scripture by rational means or by Euthusiasm or by some Superior Judg If by rational means why may not as learned Doctors know it as well by the same If by some other Judg Who is it If they beleeve Scripture or the Sense of it upon their own Authority who will regard such self idolizing wretches Fourthly If there be a means left of God for a true deciding all Controversies and resolving all difficulties in Scripture then why are not all resolved and why are we not perfect in knowledg The plain Truth is Christ is the onely proper Judg himself and hath left us his Laws and Magistrates to see that we obey them and Ministers to teach us the meaning of them Every man of these is bound to judg rightly of the Sense of these Laws every particular man that he may obey them And if he mistake he sineth and must answer it to God and in some cases to Magistrates and Overseers The Magistrate is to judg rightly when any is punishable and if he erre he must answer it to the Supream and he to God The Ministers are to judg rightly of the Sense of Scripture that they may teach them others and admonish and censure accordingly and if they mistake they are in Synods to consult for Information and in cases of difficulty beyond their own reach to obey the Decrees of such a lawful Synod But to expect a final decisive Judgment of all Controversies on Earth is vain And that Synods should be too bold in determining what God hath left doubtful and utterly uncertain is destructive to the Vnitie and Peace of the Church rather then conducible And for men to beleeve any of their Conclusions or obey any of their Canons when we are sure That they are contrary to the Word of God this were to change our Master and take them for Christ the Prophet who are but his Ambassadors and Vshers in his School When we have disputed and contended our selves aweary and wrangled the Church into flames and ashes yet that which God hath spoken obscurely and so left difficult in it self will remain obscure and difficult still And that which is difficult through the weakness and incapacity of the Readers will be far better cleared by a rational Explication then by a â—are Canon O when will the Lord once perswade his Churches â—o take his Scripture Laws for the onely Canon of their Faith â—nd that in their own naked Simplicity and Evidence without â—he Canons and Comments of men which are no parts of our Creed but helps to our understandings and bounds to our practice 〈◊〉 matters circumstantial which God hath left to mans determinaâ—ion When will the Lord perswade us not to be wise above what 〈◊〉 written but to acknowledg that to be beyond
that such a Latine or Greek word hath such a signification when will he learn or how will he know Nay how do the most learned linguists know the signification of words in any language and so in the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures but only upon the credit of their Teachers and Authors And yet certaine enough too in the maine Tradition is not so useles to the world or the Church as some would have it Though the Papists do sinfully plead it against the sufficiency of Scripture yet Scriptures sufficiency or perfection is only in suo genere in its owne kind and not in omni genere not sufficient for every purpose Scripture is a sufficient rule of Faith and life but not a sufficient means of conveying it self to all generations and persons If humane Testimony had not been necessary why should Christ have men to be witnesses in the beginning And also still instruments of perswading others and attesting the verity of these sacred records to those that cannot otherwise come to know them And doubtles this is a chief use of Ministers in the Church and the great end of God in the stating and continuing that function that what men are uncapable of believing explicitly with a faith properly Divine that they might receive implicitly and upon the word of their Teachers with a humane faith Every man should labor indeed to see with his own eyes and to know all that God hath revealed and to be wiser eâ—en his Teachers but every man cannot bestow that time and pains in the study of Languages and Sciences without which that knowledg is not now attained We may rather wish then hope that all the Lords people were Prophets The Church of Christ hath been long in a very doleful plight betwixt these two extreams taking all things upon trust from our teachers and taking nothing upon trust And yet those very men who so disclaime taking upon trust do themselves take as much upon trust as others Why els are Ministers called the eyes and the hands of the body Stewards of the mysteries and of the house of God Overseers Rulers and Governers of the Church And such as must give the children their meat in due season Fathers of their people c. Surely the clearly known Truth and Duty must be received from any one though but a childe and known errror and iniquity must be received from none though an Angel from Heaven What then is that we are so often required to obey our Teaching Rulers in Surely it is not so much in the receiving of new instituted Ceremonies from them which they call things indifferent But as in all professions the Scholar must take his masters Word in learning till he can grow up to know the things in their own evidence and as men will take the words of any aâ—tificers in the matters that concern their own trade and as every wise patient will trust the judgement of his Physitian except he know as much himself and the Client will take the word of his Lawyer so also Christ hath ordered that the more strong and knowing should be teachers in his school and the young and ignorant should believe them and obey them till they can reach to understand the things themselves So that the matters which we must receive upon trust from our teachers are those which we cannot reach to know our selves and therefore must either take them upon the word of others or not receive them at all so that if these Rulers and Stewards do require us to believe when we know not our selves whether it be truth or not or if they require us to obey when we know not our selves whether it be a duty commanded by God or not here it is that we ought to obey them For though we know not whether God hath revealed such a point or commanded such an action yet that he hath commanded us to obey them that Rule over us who preach to us the word of God this we certainly know Heb. 13.7 Yet I think not we are so strictly tyed to the judgement of a weak Minister of our own as to take his word before anothers that is more Judicious in a neighbour congregation Nor do I think if we see but an appearance of his erring that we should carelessely go on in believing and obeying him without a diligent searching after the Truth even a liklyhood of his mistake must quicken us to further enquiry and may during that enquiry suspend our belief and obedience For where we are able to reach to know probabilities in divine things we may with diligence lightly reach to that degree of certainty which our Teachers themselves have attained or at least to understand the Reason of their Doctrine But still remember what I said before that fundamentals must be believed with a Faith explicit Absolute and Divine And thus I have shewed you the flat necessity of taking much upon the Testimony of man And that some of these humane Testimonies are so certaine that they may well be called Divine I conclude all with this intimation You may see by this of what singular use are the monuments of Antiquity and the knowledg thereof for the breeding and strengthening of the Christian faith especially the Histories of those times I would not perswade you to bestow much time in the reading of the Fathers in reference to their judgement in matter of Doctrine Gods word is a sufficient Rule and latter times have afforded far better Expositors But in reference to matters of fact for confirming the Miracles mentioned in Scripture and relating the wonderfull providence since I would they were read an hundred times more Not onely the writers of the Church but even the Histories of the enemies and all other antiquities Little do most consider how usefull these are to the Christian faith CHAP. V. The second Argument SECT I. I Come now to my second Argument to prove Scripture to be the word of God And it is this If the Scriptures be neither the invention of Devils nor of men then it can be from none but God But that it is neither of Divels nor meerly of men I shall now prove for I suppose none will question the major proposition First Not from Divels for first they cannot work Miracles to confirm them Secondly It would not stand with Gods Soveraignity over them or with his goodness Wisdome and Faithfulness in governing the world to suffer Satan to make Laws and confirm them with wonders and obtrude them upon the world in the name of God and all this without his disclaiming them or giving the world any notice of the forgery Thirdly Would Satan speak so much for God So seek his Glory as the Scripture doth would he so vilifie and reproach himself and make known himself to be the hatefullest and most miserable of all creatures would he so fully discover his own wiles his Temptations his methods of deceiving and
dare search no further for fear of being counted a Novellist or Heretick or lest he bear their curse for adding to or taking from the common conceits So that Divinity is become an easier study then heretofore We are already at a Neplus ultra It seemeth vain when we know the opinions in credit to search any further We have then nothing to do but easily to study for popular Sermons nor is it safe so much as to make them our own by looking into and examining their grounds lest in so doing we should be forced to a dissent So that Scholars may easily be drawn to think that it is better to be at a venture of the common belief which may be with ease then to weary and spend themselves in tedious studies when they are sure beforehand of no better reward from men then the reputation of Hereticks Which is the lot of all that go out of the common rode So that who will hereafter look after any more truth then is known and in credit except it be some one that is so taken with admiration of it as to cast all his reputation overboard rather then make shipwrack of his self-prized Merchandize Yet most wonderful is it that my Christian especially so many godly Ministers should arrogate to themselves the high prerogatives of God! viz. to be the Rule and Standard of Truth I know they will say that Scripture is the Rule but when they must be the peremtory Judges of the sense of that Scripture so that in the hardest controversies none must swarve from their sense upon pain of being branded with Heresie or error what is this but to be the Judges themselves and Scripture but their servant The final ful decisive interpretation of Lawes belongeth to none but the Lawmakers themselves For who can know another mans meaning beyond his expressions but himself And yet it increaseth my wondering that these Divines have not forgotten the late arrogancy of the prelates in the same kinde under which some few of themselves did suffer Nor yet how constantly our Divines that write against the Papists do disclaim any such living final decisive Judge of controvesies but make Scripture the only Judg O what mischief hath the Church of Christ suffered by the enlarging of her Creed While it contained but twelve Articles believers were plain and peaceable and honest But a Christian now is not the samâ— thing as then Our heads shall swell so big like children that have the rickets that all the body fares the worse for it Every new Article that was added to the Creed was a new engine to stretch the brains of believers and in the issue to â—end out the bowels of the Church It never went so well with the Church since it begun as Erasmus saith of the times of the Nicene counsel reâ— ingâ—niosam fore Christianum esse to be a matter of so much wit and cunning to be a Christian. Not but that all our wit should be here imployed and controversies of difficulty may be debated but when the decision of these must be put into our Creed and a man must be of the faith that the Church is of it goes hard Me thinks I could read Aquinas or Scotus or Bellarmine with profit ut Philosophiam et Theologiam liberam but when I most make them all parts of my Creed and subscribe to all they say or else be no Catholick this is hard dealing I know now we have no Spanish inquisition to fire us from the truth But as Crynâ—us was wont to say Fontifici Romano Erasmum plus nocuiss◠〈◊〉 quam Lutherum stomachando so some mens reproaches may do more then other mens persecutions And it is not the least aggravation of these mens arrogancie that they are most violent in the points that they have least studyed or which they are most ignorant in Yea and that their cruel reproaches are usually so incessant that where they once fasten they scarce â—ver loose again having learned the old lesson to be sure to accuse boldly for the scarre will remain when the wound is healed Yea some will not spare the same of the dead but when their souls have the happiness of Saints with God their names must have the stain of Heresie with men More ingenuity had Charles the Emperor when the Spanish souldiers would have digged up the bones of Luther Sinite ipsum inquit quiescere ad diem resurrectionis et judicium omnium c. Let him rest saith he till the resurrection and the final Judgment if he were a Heretick he shall have as severe a Judg as you can desire These are the extreams which poor England groaneth under And is there no remedy Besides the God of Peace there is no remedy Peace is fled from mens Principles and Judgments and therefore it is a stranger to their Affections and practises no wonder then if it be a stranger in the Land both in Church and State If either of the forementioned extreams be the way to Peace we may have it or else where is the man that seeketh after it But I remember Luthers Oracle and fear it is now to be verified Hâ—c perdent Religionem Christianam 1. Oblivio beneficiorum ab Evangelio acceptorum 2. Securitas quae jam passim ubique regnat 3. Sapientia mundi quae vult omnia redigere in ordinem impiis mediis Ecclesiae paci consulere Three things will destroy the Christian Religion First Forgetfulness of the benefits we received by the Gospel Secondly Security Thirdly The wisdom of the world which will needs reduce all into Order and look to the Churches peace by ungodly means The zeal of my spirit after Peace hath made me digress here further then I intended But the sum and scope of all my speech is this Let every conscionable Minister study equally for Peace and Truth as knowing that they dwell both together in the golden mean and not at such a distance as most Hotspurs do imagine and let them believe that they are like to see no more success of their labors then they are so studious of Peace and that all wounds will let out both blood and spirits and both Truth and Godliness is ready to run out at every breach that shall be made among the people or themselves and that the time for the Pastures of Profession to be green and for the Field of true Godliness to grow ripe for the Harvest and for the Rose of Devotion and Heavenliness to be fragrant and flourish it is not in the blustering stormy tempestuous Winter but in the calm delightful Summer of Peace O what abundance of excellent hopeful fruits of Godliness have I seen blown down before they were ripe by the impetuous windes of wars and other contentions and so have layen troden under foot by Libertinism and sensuality as meat for Swine who else might have been their Masters deligh In a word I never yet saw the Work of the Gospel
received as a Saviour Mediator Redeemer Reconciler Intercessor c. And all the precepts of Scripture being backed with so many promises and threatenings every one intended of God as a motive to us do imply as much If any think they should be distinguished as two several ends and Gods glory preferred so they separate them not asunder I contend not SECT X. 5. IN the Definition I call a Christians Happiness the end of his Course thereby meaning as Paul 2 Tim. 4.7 the whole scope of his life For as Salvation may and must be our end so not onely the end of our faith though that principally but of all our actions for as whatsoever we do must be done to the glory of God whether eating drinking c. so must they all be done to our Salvation That we may beleeve for Salvation some will grant who yet deny that we may do or obey for it I would it were well understood for the clearing of many controversies what the Scripture usually means by Faith Doubtless the Gospel takes it not so strictly as Philosophers do but in a larger sence for our obedience to all Gospel precepts To beleeve in his name and to receive him are all one but we must receive him as King as well as Saviour therefore beleeving doth not produce subjection as a fruit but contain it as an essential part except we say that Faith receives Christ as a Saviour first and so justifies before it take him for King as some think which is a maimed unsound and no Scripture faith I doubt not but the Soul more sensibly looks at Salvation from Christ then Government by him in the first work yet whatever precedaneous act there may be it never conceives of Christ to Justification nor knows him with the knowledg which is eternal life till it conceive of him and know him for Lord and King Therefore there is not such a difference between Faith and Gospel-obedience or Works as some judg Obedience to the Gospel is put for Faith and Disobedience put for Unbelief usually in the New Testament 6. Lastly I make Happiness to consist in this end obtained for it is not the meer promise of it that immediately makes perfectly happy nor Christs meer purchase nor our meer seeking but the Apprehending and obtaining which sets the Crown on the Saints head when we can say of our work as Christ of the price payd It is finished and as Paul I have fought a good fight I have finished my course henceforth is layd up for me a crown of Salvation 2 Tim. 4.7 8. CHAP. III. What this Rest presupposeth SECT I. FOr the clearer understanding yet of the nature of this Rest you must know 1. There are some things necessarily presupposed to it 2. Some things really conteined in it 1. All these things are presupposed to this Rest. 1. A person in motion seeking Rest. SECT II. 2. AN End toward which he moveth for Rest Which End must be sufficient for his Rest else when 't is obtained it deceiveth him This can be onely God the chief good SECT III. 3. A Distance is presupposed from this End else there can be no motion towards it This sad distance is the woful case of all mankinde since the fall It was our God that we principally lost and were shut out of his gracious presence Though some talk of losing onely a temporal earthly felicity sure I am it was God we fell from and him we lost and since said to be without him in the world and there would have been no death but for sin and to enjoy God without death is neither an earthly nor temporal enjoyment Nay in all men at Age here is supposed not onely a distance from God but also a contrary motion For sin hath not overthrown our Being nor taken away our Motion but our well-being and the Rectitude of our motion When Christ comes with Regenerating Saving Grace he findes no man sitting still but all posting to eternal Ruine and making hast towards hell till by conviction he first bring them to a stand and by conversion turn first their hearts and then their lives sincerely to himself SECT IV. 4. HEre is presupposed a knowledg of the true ultimate End and its excellency for so the motion of the Rational Creature proceedeth An unknown end is no end it is a contradiction We cannot make that our end which we know not nor that our chief End which we know not or judg not to be the chief Good An unknown Good moves not to desire or endeavor Therefore where it is not truly known That God is this End and containeth all good in him there is no obtaining Rest. SECT V. 5. HEre is presupposed not onely a distance from this Rest but also the true knowledg of this distance If a man have lost his way and know it not he seeks not to return If he lose his gold and know it not he seeks it not Therefore they that never knew they were without God never yet enjoyed him and they that never knew they were naturally and actually in the way to Hell did never yet know the way to Heaven Nay there will not onely be a knowledg of this distance and lost estate but also affections answerable Can a man be brought to finde himself hard by the brink of hell and not tremble or to finde he hath lost his God and his Soul and not cry out I am undone Or can such a stupid Soul be so recovered This is the sad case of many thousands and the reason why so few obtain this Rest They will not be convinced or made sensible that they are in point of title distant from it and in point of practice contrary to it They have lost their God their Souls their Rest and do not know it nor will beleeve him that tells them so Who ever travelled towards a place which he thought he was at already or sought for that which he knew not he had lost The whole need not the Physician but they that are sick Mat. 9.12 SECT VI. 6. HEre is also supposed A superiour moving Cause and an influence there-from else should we all stand still and not move a step forward toward our Rest no more then the inferiour wheels in the Watch would stir if you take away the spring or the first mover This primum movens is God What hand God hath in evil Actions or whether he afford the like influence to their production I will not here trouble this Discourse and the Reader to dispute The case is clear in Good Actions If God move us not we cannot move Therefore is it a most necessary part of our Christian Wisdom to keep our subordination to God and dependance on him To be still in the path where he walks and in that way where his Spirit doth most usually move Take heed of being estranged or separated from God or of slacking your
Sanctification must needs precede Justification But if we may call that work of the spirit which infuseth the principle of life or holiness into the soul Sanctification then sanctification must needs go before faith For faith in the habit is part of that principle and faith in the act is a fruit of it Gods order is clearly set down in Acts 26.18 He first opens mens eyes and turnes them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God and if they be yet unholy I know not what holiness is that they may receive remission of sins there 's their Justification and inheritance among the sanctified that which before was called opening their eyes and turning them is here called Sanctifying by faith that is in me the words by Faith is related to the Receiving of Remission of Sins and the Inheritance but not to the word Sanctified so also 2 Thes. 2.13 God hath before chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the spirit unto obedience obeying the Gospel is faith and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ there 's Justification so that you see to make faith precede sanctification and to bring in the habits of all other graces and for Justification to go between faith and them is quite against the Scripture order Indeed if Grevinchovius say true that there 's no Habits infused and the spirit work only as the Arminians affirm by an internal and external Swasion and no real physical alteration or infusing of new powers and habits then all this must be otherwise ordered In ascribing this Regeneration to the Spirit I do not intend to exclude the word yet I cannot allow it to be properly the Instrumental cause as the common opinion is Were it an instrument the Energy or Influx of the principal efficient must be first received into it and by it conveyed to the soul but that is an impossibility in Nature The voyce of the Preacher or Letters of the Book are not subjects capable of receiving Spiritual Life to convey to us the like also may be said of Sacraments None of the conditions of an Instrumental efficient cause are found in them The Principal and Instrumental produce one and the same effect But the word works not in the same way of causality with the Spirit yet doth it not follow that it is therefore useless or doth nothing to the work for both kindes of causality are necessary The Spirit works as the principal and onely efficient and hath no intervening instrument that can reach the soul but doth all his work immediately seeing it self alone can touch its object and so work by proper efficiency But the Word and Sacraments work morally onely by propounding the object in its qualifications as a man draws a Horse by shewing him his Provender And though there be some difficulty in resolving whether the propounding the object to the understanding by instruction and to the will and affections by perswasion do work under the efficient or under the final cause yet according to the common Judgment we here take the last for granted The Word then doth sanctifie by exciting of former principles to action which is a preparation to the receiving of the principle of Life and also by present exciting of the newly infused gracious principle and so producing our Actual converting and believing But how it can otherways concur to the infusing of that principle I yet understand not Indeed if no such principle be infused then the Word doth all and the Spirit onely enable the speaker or if any more its hard to discover what it is For whether there be any internal swasion of the Spirit immediately distinct from the external swasion of the Word and also from the Spirits efficacious changing Physical operation is a very great question and worth the considering But I have run on too far in this already This Spiritual Regeneration then is the first and great qualification of these People of God which though Habits are more for their Acts then themselves and are onely perceived in their Acts yet by its causes and effects we should chiefly enquire after To be the people of God without Regeneration is as impossible as to be the natural children of men without Generation seeing we are born Gods enemies we must be new-born his sons or else remain enemies still O that the unregenerate world did know or believe this In whose ears the new birth sounds as a Paradox and the great change which God works upon the soul is a strange thing Who because they never felt any such supernatural work upon themselves do therefore believe that there is no such thing but that it is the conceit and fantasie of idle brains Who make the terms of Regeneration Sanctification Holiness and Conversion a matter of common reproach and scorn though they are the words of the Spirit of God himself and Christ hath spoke it with his own mouth That except a man be born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God Alas how preposterous and vain is it to perswade these poor people to change some actions while their hearts are unchanged and to amend their ways while their natures are the same The greatest Reformation of Life that can be attained to without this new Life wrought in the Soul may procure their further Delusion but never their Salvation That general conceit that they were regenerated in their Baptism is it which furthers the deceit of many When there is an utter impossibility that Baptism should either principally or instrumentally work any Grace on the Soul of an Infant without a miracle for if it do it is either by a Physical and proper efficiency or else morally Not Physically which is more perhaps then the Papists say Because then first the water must be capable of receiving the Grace secondly And of approaching the soul in the application and conveyance both which are impossibilities in Nature Nor can it work morally where there is not the use of Reason to understand and consider of its signification The common shift is apparently vain to say That it works neither Physically nor Morally but Hyperphysically for though it may proceed from a supernatural cause and the work be such as nature cannot produce yet the kinde of operation is still either by a proper and real efficiency which is the meaning of the phrase of Physical operation or else improper and moral So that their Hyperphysical working is no third member nor overthrows that long received distinction if it were yet is not the water the capable instrument of this Hyperphysical operation God is a free agent and by meer concomitancy may make Baptism the season of Regenerating whom he please but that he never intended that Regeneration should be the end of Baptism I think may be easily proved and those two empty Treatises of Baptismal Regeneration as easily answered For men of age the matter
is out of question seeing Faith and Repentance is every where required of them to make them capable of Baptism and to make it the end of the Ordinance to effect that in Infants which is a prerequisite condition in all others is somewhat a strange fiction and hath nothing that I know considerable to underprop it Yet will it not follow that because Baptism cannot be an instrument of Regenerating Infants that therefore they have no right to it no more then because Circumcision could not confer with Grace therefore they should omit it They are as capable of the ends of Baptism as they were then of the ends of Circumcision Christ himself was not capable of all the ends of Baptism and yet being capable of some for those was he baptized So may Infants be as capable of some though not of all This Regeneration I call Through to distinguish it from those sleight tinctures and superficial changes which other men may partake of and yet Imperfect to distinguish our present from our future condition in Glory and that the Christian may know that it is sincerity not perfection which he must enquire after in his soul. SECT III. THus far the Soul is passive Let us next see by what acts this new Life doth discover it self and this Divine Spark doth break forth and how the soul touched with this Loadstone of the Spirit doth presently move toward God The first work I call Conviction which indeed comprehends several Acts. 1. Knowledg 2. Assent It comprehends the knowledg of what the Scripture speaks against sin and sinners and that this Scripture which so speaks is the Word of God himself Whosoever knows not both these is not yet thus convinced though it is a very great Question Whether this last be an act of Knowledg or of Faith I think of both It comprehends a sincere Assent to the verity of this Scripture as also some knowledg of our selves and our own guilt and an acknowledgment of the verity of those Consequences which from the premises of sin in us and threats in Scripture do conclude us miserable It hath been a great Question and disputed in whole Volumns which Grace is the first in the Soul where Faith and Repentance are usually the onely competitors I have shewed you before that in regard of the principle the power or habit whichsoever it be that is infused they are all at once being indeed all one and onely called several Graces from the diversity of their subject as residing in the several faculties of the soul the life and rectitude of which several faculties and affections are in the same sense several Graces as the Germane French British Seas are several Seas And for the Acts it is most apparent that neither Repentance nor Faith in the ordinary strict sense is first but Knowledg There is no act of the Rational Soul about any object preceding Knowledg Their evasion is too gross who tell us That Knowledg is no Grace or but a common act When a dead Soul is by the Spirit enlivened its first act is to know and why should it not exert a sincere act of Knowing as well as Believing and the sincerity of Knowledg be requisite as well as of Faith especially when Faith in the Gospel-sense is sometime taken largely containing many acts whereof Knowledg is one in which large sense indeed Faith is the first Grace This Conviction implyeth also the subduing and silencing in some measure of all their carnal Reasonings which were wont to prevail against the Truth and a discovery of the fallacies of all their former Argumentations 2. As there must be Conviction so also Sensibility God works on the Heart as well as the Head both were corrupted and out of order The principle of new Life doth quicken both All true Spiritual Knowledg doth pass into Affections That Religion which is meerly traditional doth indeed swim loose in the Brain and the Devotion which is kindled but by Men and Means is hot in the mouth and cold in the stomack The Work that had no higher rise then Education Example Custom Reading or Hearing doth never kindly pass down to the Affections The Understanding which did receive but meer notions cannot deliver them to the Affections as Realities The bare help of Doctrine upon an unrenewed Soul produceth in the Understanding but a superficial apprehension and half Assent and therefore can produce in the Heart but small sensibility As Hypocrites may know many things yea as many as the best Christian but nothing with the clear apprehensions of an experienced man so may they with as many things be slightly affected but they give deep rooting to none To read and hear of the worth of Meat and Drink may raise some esteem of them but not such as the hungry and thirsty feel for by feeling they know the worth thereof To view in the Map of the Gospel the precious things of Christ and his Kingdom may slightly affect But to thirst for and drink of the living waters and to travel to live in to be heir of that Kingdom must needs work another kinde of Sensibility It is Christs own differencing Mark and I had rather have one from him then from any that the good ground gives the good Seed deep rooting but some others entertain it but into the surface of the soyl and cannot afford it depth of Earth The great things of Sin of Grace and Christ and Eternity which are of weight one would think to move a Rock yet shake not the heart of the carnal Professor nor pierce his soul unto the quick Though he should have them all ready in his Brain and be a constant Preacher of them to others yet do they little affect himself When he is pressing them upon the hearts of others most earnestly and crying out on the senslesness of his dull hearers you would little think how insensible is his own soul and the great difference between his tongue and his heart His study and invention procureth him zealous and moving expressions but they cannot procure him answerable affections It is true some soft and passionate Natures may have tears at command when one that is truly gracious hath none yet is this Christian with dry eyes more solidly apprehensive and deeply affected then the other is in the midst of his tears and the weeping Hypocrite will be drawn to his sin again with a trifle which the groaning Christian would not be hired to commit with Crowns and Kingdoms The things that the Soul is thus convinced and sensible of are especially these in the Description mentioned 1. The evil of sin The sinner is made to know and feel that the sin which was his delight his sport the support of his credit and estate is indeed a more loathsom thing then Toads or Serpents and a greater evil then Plague or Famine or any other calamity It being a breach of the righteous
disproportionable to the justice of the Law but Christs doth extend to every title If he intercede there is no denial such is the dignity of his person and the value of his merits that the Father granteth all he desireth He tells us himself that the Father heareth him always His sufferings being a perfect satisfaction to the Law and all power in Heaven and Earth being given to him he is now able to supply every of our wants and to save to the uttermost all that come to him Quest. How can I know his death is sufficient for me if not for all And how is it sufficient for all if not suffered for all Answ. Because I will not interrupt my present discourse with controversie I will say something to this Question by it self in another Tract if God enable me 3. The Soul is also here convinced of the perfect excellency of Jesus Christ both as he is considered in himself and as considered in relation to us both as he is the onely way to the Father and as he is the end being one with the Father Before he knew Christs excellency as a blinde man knows the light of the Sun but now as one that beholdeth its glory And thus doth the Spirit convince the Soul SECT IIII. 3. AFter this sensible conviction the Will discovereth also its change and that in regard of all the four forementioned objects 1. The sin which the understanding pronounceth evil the will doth accordingly turn from with abhorrency Not that the sensitive appetite is changed or any way made to abhor its object but when it would prevail against the conclusions of Reason and carry us to sin against God when Scripture should be the rule and Reason the Master and Sense the Servant This disorder and evil the will abhorreth 2. The misery also which sin hath procured as he discerneth so he bewaileth It is impossible that the soul now living should look either on its trespass against God or yet on its own self-procured calamity without some compunction and contrition He that truly discerneth that he hath killed Christ and killed himself will surely in some measure be pricked to the heart If he cannot weep he can heartily groan and his heart feels what his understanding sees 3. The Creature he now renounceth as vain and turneth it out of his heart with disdain Not that he undervalueth it or disclaimeth its use but his idolatrous abuse and its unjust usurpation There is a twofold sin One against God himself as well as his Laws when he is cast out of the heart and something else doth take his place This is it that I intend in this place The other is when a man doth take the Lord for his God but yet swerveth in some things from his commands of this before It is a vain distinction that some make That the soul must be turned first from sin secondly from the Creature to God For the sin that is thus set up against God is the choice of something below in his stead and no Creature in it self is evil but the abuse of it is the sin Therefore to turn from the Creature is onely to turn from that sinful abuse Yet hath the Creature here a twofold consideration First As it is vain and insufficient to perform what the Idolater expecteth and so I handle it here Secondly As it is the object of such sinful abuse and the occasion of sin and so it falls under the former branch of our turning from sin and in this sense their division may be granted but this is onely a various respect for indeed it is still onely our sinful abuse of the Creature in our vain admirations undue estimations too strong affections and false expectations which we turn from There is a twofold Error very common in the descriptions of the work of Conversion The one of those who onely mention the sinners turning from sin to God without mentioning any receiving of Christ by Faith The other of those who on the contrary onely mention a sinners believing and then think they have said all Nay they blame them as Legalists who make any thing but the bare believing of the love of God in Christ to us to be part of this work and would perswade poor souls to question all their former comforts and conclude the work to have been onely legal and unsound because they have made their changes of heart and turning from sin and Creatures part of it and have taken up part of their comfort from the reviewing of these as evidences of a right work Indeed should they take up here without Christ or take such change in stead of Christ in whole or in part the reprehension were just and the danger great But can Christ be the way where the Creature is the end Is he not onely the way to the Father And must not a right end be intended before right means Can we seek to Christ for to reconcile us to God while in our hearts we prefer the Creature before him Or doth God dispossess the Creature and sincerely turn the heart therefrom when he will not bring the soul to Christ Is it a work that is ever wrought in an unrenewed soul You will say That without Faith it is impossible to please God True but what Faith doth the Apostle there speak of He that cometh to God must believe that God is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him The belief of the Godhead must needs precede the belief of the Mediatorship and the taking of the Lord for our God must in order precede the taking of Christ for our Saviour though our peace with God do follow this Therefore Paul when he was to deal with the Athenian Idolaters teacheth them the knowledg of the Godhead first and the Mediator afterwards But you will say May not an unregenerate man believe that there is a God True and so may he also believe there is a Christ But he can no more cordially accept of the Lord for his God then he can accept of Christ for his Saviour In the soul of every unregenerate man the Creature possesseth both places and is both God and Christ. Can Christ be believed in where our own Righteousness or any other thing is trusted as our Saviour Or doth God ever throughly discover sin and misery and clearly take the heart from all Creatures and Self-righteousness and yet leave the soul unrenewed The truth is where the work is sincere there it is intire and all these parts are truly wrought And as turning from the Creature to God and not by Christ is no true turning so believing in Christ while the Creature hath our hearts is no true believing And therefore in the work of Self-examination whoever would finde in himself a through-sincere work must finde an entire work even the one of these as well as the other In the
Doctrinals as Justin Martyr Irenaeus Origen against Celsus Tertullians Apolog. c. As Also Philo Josephus Eusebius and others for History Me thinks it is preposterous to see men study so long the meaning of Gods Word before they know whether it be Gods Word or not As the Italians Melancthon mentioneth That would prove Christ was in the Bread before they believed well that he was in Heaven It is no questioning the Truth of Scripture to perswade men to the rightest course to be assured of its Truth I confess my self much offended at some mens doctrine who cry down Reason and Tradition here as if they were enemies to God and his Word and cry up nothing but Scripture and the Spirit Just like the Antinomians in the doctrine of Certainty of Salvation who cry up the Witness of the Spirit and cry down the trying by Signes and Evidences of Sanctification As if these were contrary which are co-ordinate If I had wanted either Reason Tradition or the help of the Spirit I should never have beleeved the Truth of the Scripture I confess for my part I cannot boast of any such Testimony or Light of the Spirit nor Reason neither which without Tradition would have made me beleeve that the Book of Canticles is Canonical and writ by Solomon and the Book of Wisdom Apocryphal and writ by Philo as some think or that Saint Pauls Epistle to the Loadiceans which is in the end of Bruno and others were not Canonical as well as Johns second and third Some men as soon as they hear talk of Reason and Tradition here they zealously cry out It is Socinianism and Popery Scripture is Gods written infallible Law Reason is the Eye by which I must read it The Spirit is the Physitian to cure the blindness of this Eye and in a common sense The very Life and Spirits The Church is the chief but not the onely House where these Records are kept Tradition hath chiefly three Offices It is to the unlearned where Scripture is The Proclaimer of it It is to the learned the Hand that delivereth it to them It is to some that never heard of Scripture a Herauld to proclaim the doctrine which it containeth And why must these needs be set together by the ears May they not yea must they not stand together and further each other The name of Antichrist Socinianism Arminianism for the things I renounce my self hath almost affrighted some men out of their Faith and others out of their Wits Is it any derogation from the Law to say A man must receive it from the hand that bringeth it and read it with his eyes c. A learned godly Divine is offended with Canterbury for these words Reason and ordinary Grace superadded by the help of Tradition do sufficiently enlighten the Soul to discern That Scriptures are the Oracles of God and he saith Here is the Socinians sound or right Reason before the Illumination of the Spirit and to please the Arminians ordinary or universal Grace comes in and the name of Tradition to please the Popish party And what all these are like to do without the special Grace of the Holy Spirit I leave it to any Protestant to judg But what will any Christian deny that there is such a thing as ordinary Grace or that Tradition is necessary to deliver us the Scriptures or hath every man special Grace who beleeveth Scripture to be Gods Word Is it not possible for an unregenerate man to beleeve that What kinde of Preaching would such a man use to Indians Turks or Infidels Are not men sanctified by the Word and must they be sanctified by a Word which they beleeve not that so they may beleeve it Indeed he that saith we may not onely know but know perfectly or know to Salvation without special Grace is mistaken But usually a common Grace and common Knowledg go before Special The same godly Divine against these words of Master Chillingworth The Scripture is not to be beleeved finally for it self but for the matter contained in it So that if men did beleeve the Doctrine contained in the Scripture it should no way hinder their Salvation not to know whether there were any Scripture or no saith I thought it had been necessary to have received those material Objects or Articles of our Faith upon the Authority of God speaking in the Scriptures I thought it had been Anabaptistical to have expected any Revelation but in the Word of God c. I should rather for my part think thus That the immediate Revelation of Scripture from God was not to me but to the first Witnesses and Penmen The way of Conveyance to us is another thing and is a Revelation too The best way is by Scripture which without Tradition no man would ever see or hear of Where this is not to be had there meer Tradition may save and is a Revelation sufficient to Salvation and not Anabaptistical Though Traditional unwritten doctrines to make up the defects of Scripture I abhor And I should ask the Dissenter first Whether men were not saved before Moses without Scripture And as Doctor Usher well observeth One reason why they might then be without it was the facility and certainty of Tradition For Methuselah lived many hundred yeers with Adam and Sem lived long with Methuselah and Isaac lived fiftie yeers with Sem So that three men saw all from the Beginning of the World till Isaacs fiftieth yeer Secondly And were not many saved by the Apostles doctrine many yeers before the New Testament was written And Jews before while the old was almost lost Thirdly What if some Ethiopians Armenians or Papists should by meer Tradition beleeve in Christ and who dare say That they may not should they not be saved He that saith No contradicteth Christ who saith That whosoever beleeveth in him shall not perish which way soover he came by it Will you hear Irenaeus in this who lived before Popery was born Lib. 3. cap. 4. Quid enim siquib de aliqua modica quaestione disceptatio esset Nonne oporteret in antiquissimas recurrere Ecclesias Mark he saith not Ad Romanam Ecclesiam vel ad unam principem in quibus Apostoli conversati sunt ab eis de praesenti quaestione sumere quod certum re liquidum est Quid autem si neque Apostoli quidem Scripturas reliquissent nobis nonne oportebat ordinem sequi Traditionis quam tradiderunt iis quibus committebant Ecclesias Cui Ordinationi assentiunt multae gentes barbarorum eorum qui in Christum credunt sine charactere vel atramento Scriptam habentes per spiritum in cordibus suis salutem veterem Traditionem diligenter custodientes c. Hanc fidem qui sine literis crediderunt quantum ad Sermonem nostrum barbari sunt quantum autem ad sententiam consuetudinem conversationem propter fidem perquam sapientissimi sunt placent Deo c. Sic per illam
us which is unâ—evealed in the Word and that to be doubtful which is darkly â—evealed Then the Contentions of the Church about the Mysteâ—ies of the Divine Decrees the nature of Internal Grace and way â—nd maner of the Spirits working c. will be more calmly managed Two things have set fire on the Church and been the plagues of it his thousand yeers and more First Englarging our Creed and making more Fundamentals â—hen God hath done Master Parker and Ludovicus Crocius have fully proved That the Creed for a long time contained no more â—hen Christs words in Matth. 28. do teach To beleeve in the Father Son and Holy Ghost and no more were they baptized â—nto Secondly Delivering our Creeds and Confessions in our own Humane phrase When men have learned more maners and humility then to acâ—use the Language of God as too general and obscure and have more dread of God and compassion on themselves then to make those Fundamentals which God never made so And when they reduce their Creed and Confessions first To their due extent or length secondly And to Scripture phrase and take this onely for a Touchstone of the Orthodox then and not tell then shall the Church have peace about Doctrinals If my judgment much fail not It seems to me no hainous Socinian motion which is so cryed out against of Chillingworths making viz. That every man subscribe to the whole Scripture as Gods Word with a promise to do his best for the right understanding of it No doubt many a Heretick would so subscribe and lurk under a false interpretation and so he may do also by their Humane Canons But I forget my self in thus digressing Reader As thou lovest thy Comforts thy Faith thy Hope thy Safety thine Innocency thy Soul thy Christ thine Everlasting Rest Love Read Study Stick close to Scriptures Farewel Jan. 18. 1649. THE SAINTS Everlasting REST. PART II. CHAP. I. SECT I. WE are next to proceed to the confirmation of this Truth which though it may seem needless in regard of its own clearness and certainty yet in regard of our distance and infidelity nothing more necessary But you will say To whom will this endeavour be usefull They who believe the Scriptures are convinced already and for those who believe it not how will you convince them Answ. But sad experience tels us that those thaâ— believe do believe but in part and therefore have need of further confirmation and doubtless God hath left us Arguments sufficient to convince unbelievers themselves or else how should we preach to Pagans Or what should we say to the greatest part of the world that acknowledg not the Scriptures Doubtless the Gospel should be preacht to them and though we have not the gift of miracles to convince them of the truth as the Apostles had yet we have arguments demonstrative and clear or else our preaching to them would be vain we having nothing left but bare affirmations Though I have all along confirmed sufficiently by testimony of Scripture what I have said yet I will here briefly add thus much more That the Scripture doth clearly assert this Truth in these six wayes 1. It affirms That this Rest is fore-ordained for the Saints and the Saints also fore-ordained to it Heb. 11.16 God is not ashamed to be called their God for he hath prepared for them a City 1 Cor. 2.9 Eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor heart conceived what God hath prepared for them that love him which I conceive must be meant of these preparations in heaven for those on earth are both seen and conceived or else how are they enjoyed Mat. 20.23 To sit on Christs right and left hand in his Kingdom shall be given to them for whom it is prepared And themselves are called Vessels of mercy before prepared unto glory Rom 9.23 And in Christ we have obtained the inheritance being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after to the counsel of his own will Ephes. 1.11 And whom he thus predestinateth them he glorifieth Rom. 8.30 For he hath from the beginning chosen them to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth 2 Thes. 2.13 And though the intentions of the vnwise and weak may be frustrated and without counsel purposes are disappointed Prov. 15.22 yet the thoughts of the Lord shall surely come to passe and as he hath purposed it shall stand The Counsel of the Lord standeth for ever and the thoughts of his heart to all generations Therefore blessed are they whose God is the Lord and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance Psal. 33.11 12. Who can bereave his people of that Rest which is designed them by Gods eternall purpose SECT II. SEcondly the Scripture tels us that this Rest is Purchased as well as Purposed for them or that they are redeemed to this Rest. In what sense this may be said to be purchased by Christ I have shewed before viz. Not as the immediate work of his sufferings which was the payment of our debt by satisfying the Law but as a more remote though most excellent fruit even the effect of that power which by his death he procured to himself He himself for the suffering of death was crowned with glory yet did he not properly die for himself nor was that the direct effect of his death Some of those Teachers who are gone forth of late do tell us as a piece of their new discoveries that Christ never purchased Life and Salvation for us but purchased us to Life and Salvation Not understanding that they affirm and deny the same thing in severall expressions What difference is there betwixt buying liberty to the prisoner and buying the prisoner to liberty betwixt buying life to a condemned malefactor and buying him to life Or betwixt purchasing Reconciliation to an enemy and purchasing an enemy to Reconciliation But in this last they have found a difference and tell us that God never was at enmity with man but man only at enmity with God and therefore need not be reconciled Directly contrary to Scripture which tels us that God hateth all the workers of iniquity and that he is their enemy And though there be no change in God nor any thing properly called Hatred yet it sufficeth that there is a change in the sinners relation and that there is something in God which cannot better be expressed or conceived then by these termes of enmity and hatred And the enmity of the Law against a sinner may well be called the enmity of God However this differenceth betwixt enmity in God and enmity in us but not betwixt the sense of the forementioned expressions So that whether you will call it purchasing life for us or purchasing us to life the sense is the same viz. By satisfying the Law and removing impediments to procure us Title to and Possession of this Life It is
give them such rejoycings in it and yet never bestow it on them It cannot be Nay doth he give them the earnest of the inheritance Eph. 1.14 And Seal them with the Holy Spirit of promise Eph. 1.13 And yet will he deny the full possession These absurdities may not be charged on an ordinary man much less on the Faithfull and Righteous God SECT VI. SIxthly And Lastly The Scripture mentioneth particularly and by name those who have entered into this Rest. As Henoch who was taken up to God So Abraham Lazarus the thief that was crucified with Christ c. And if there be a Rest for these sure there is a Rest for all believers CHAP. II. Motives to study and preach the Divine Authority of Scripture SECT I. THus much may suffice where the Scripture is believed to confirm the truth of the point in hand viz. The certain futurity of the Saints Rest. And for Pagans and Infidels who believe not Scripture it is besides the intention of this discourse to endeavor their conviction I am endeavouring the consolation and edification of Saints and not the information and conversion of Pagans Yet do I acknowledg the subject exceeding necessary even to the Saints themselves for Sathans assaults are oft made at the foundation and if he can perswade them to question the verity of Scripture they will soon cast away their hopes of Heaven But if I should here enter upon that task to prove Scripture to be the infallible word of God I should make too broad a digression and set upon a work as larg as the maine for whose sake I should undertake it Neither am I insensible of how great difficulty it would prove to manage it satisfactorily and how much more then my ability is thereto requisite Yet lest the tempted Christian should have no relief nor any Argument at hand against the temptation I shall adventure upon a confirming Argument or two but I shall premise first a word of entreaty to my brethren of the Ministery to preach this a little more to their people And that not any body but some of the choicest whom God hath especially furnished for such a task would be pleased in a full Treatise to undertake it To which end I give them some of the Reasons of my request entreating the Lord to enable and perswade some of them to the work 1. I desire them to consider whether any thing yet published be neer compleat or such as the weight of the subject requires Whether much more may not be said and is necessary to be said then is yet said by any that hath writ on this subject 2. Whether if Christians who have opportunity do their duty would it not be a singular part of their work to endeavour the conversion of Pagans and Infidels And as I said before without some Arguments to demonstrate to them the verity of Scripture how are we furnished for such a work Or what have we to say but naked affirmation Yea how can we maintain the credit of Christianity if we were put to dispute the case with an unbeliever 3. Whether the assertion of some of our Divines that a naturall man without the extraordinary Testimony of the Spirit cannot be perswaded of the verity of Scripture notwithstanding all Arguments that can be produced be not very derogatory to the Authority of Scripture and do not justifie the world in their unbeliefe for it is not their sin to deny assent to that which hath not sufficient evidence As if we confessed to them we have not Arguments to convince you but you must be convinced by the Spirit without Arguments as if the Spirit did not deal with us as rationall creatures and did perswade without Argument and not by it As if many wicked men did not believe the truth of Scripture Yet I confesse ther 's great difference betwixt naturall and Spirituall beliefe 4. Is not this the ground-work of the whole Fabrick of Christianity And the very foundation of our faith And therefore should it not be timely and soundly laid and frequently and clearly taught 5. Is not Faith a rational Act of a rational Creature And so the Understanding proceeds discursively in its production And is not that the strongest Faith which hath the strongest Reasons to prove the Testimony to be valid upon which it resteth and the clearest apprehension and use of those Reasons And the truest Faith which hath the truest Reasons truly apprehended and used And must not that on the contrary be a weak or false faith which receives the Verity and Validity of the Testimony from weak or false Grounds though the Testimony of it self be the truest in the world Our Divines use to say concerning love to Christ that it is not to be measured by the degree of Fervor so much as by the Grounds and Motives so that if a man should love Christ upon the same Reasons as a Turk loves Mahomet it were no true love if he love him upon false grounds it must needs be a false love and if upon common grounds it can be but a common love And is it not then as clear that to believe in Jesus Christ upon the grounds that a Turk believes in Mahomet or to believe Scripture upon the same reasons that the Turk believes the Alcoran is no true Faith Supposing that both have the like verity of their Reasons 6. Is the generality of Christians able to give any better then some such common reason to prove the verity of Scripture Nay are the more exercised Understanding sort of Christians able by sound Arguments to make it good if an Enemy or a Temptation put them to it Nay are the ordinary sort of Ministers in England able to do this Let them that have tried judg 7. Can the Superstructure be firm where the Foundation is Sandy And can our Affections and Actions be sound and strong when our belief of Scripture is unsound or infirm Sure this Faith will have influence into all For my own part I take it to be the greatest cause of coldness in Duty weakness in Graces boldness in Sinning and unwillingness to die c. that our Faith is either unsound or infirm in this point Few Christians among us for ought I finde have any better then the Popish implicit faith in this point nor any better Arguments then the Papists have to prove Scripture the Word of God They have received it by Tradition godly Ministers and Christians tell them so it is impious to doubt of it and therefore they believe it And this worm lying at the root causeth the languishing and decay of the whole yet is it usually undiscerned for the root lieth secret under ground But I am apt to judg that though the most complain of their uncertainty of salvation through want of assurance of their own Interest and of the weakness of the applying Act of Faith yet the greater cause of all
their sorrows and that which shakes the whole building is the weakness of their faith about the truth of Scripture though perhaps the other be more perceived and this taken notice of by few There may be great weakness and unsoundness of belief where yet no doubtings are perceived to stir Therefore though we could perswade people to believe never so confidently that Scripture is the very Word of God and yet teach them no more reason why they should believe this then any other book to be that Word as it will prove in them no right way of believing so is it in us no right way of teaching 8. There is many a one who feels his faith shake here who never discovers it To doubt of our Evidences is taken for no great disgrace and therefore men more freely profess such doubts nay and some perhaps who are not much troubled with them because they would be thought to be humble Christians But to question the truth of Scripture is a reproachful Blalphemy and therefore all that are guilty here speak not their doubts 9. Is not the greatest battery by all sort of enemies especially made against this Foundation The first place that the Papist assaults you in is here How know you the Scripture to be the Word of God The Seekers who are the Jesuits By blows though they yet know not their own father will accoast you with the like question How know you that your Scripture and your Ministery is of God The Familists and Libertines do spit their venom here And some Christians by experience are able to testifie that Satans temptations are most violent here Yea and our own carnal deluded Reason is aptest of all to stumble here They talk of a Toleration of all Religions and some desire that the Jews may have free commerce amongst us it will then be time for us I think to be well armed at this point Let the ordinary Professors of our Time who are of weak judgments and fiery spirits look to it how they will stand in such assaults least as now when they cannot answer a Separatist they yield to him and when they cannot answer an Antinomian they turn Antinomians so then when they can much less answer the subtil Arguments of a Jew against Christ and the Gospel they should as easily turn Jews and deny Christ and the verity of the Gospel The Libertines among us think it necessary that we should have such a Toleration to discover the unsound who hold their faith upon Tradition and Custome I am no more of their mindes in this then of his who would have a fair Virgin to lye with him and try his Chastity and make its victory more honorable But if we must needs have such a triall its time to look to the grounds of our belief that we may be ready to give a reason of our Hope 10. However though I were mistaken in all this yet certain I am that the strengthening of our faith in the verity of Scripture would be an exceeding help to the joy of the Saints and would advance their confident hopes of Rest. For my self if my faith in this point had no imperfection if I did as verily believe the Glory to come as I do believe that the Sun will rise again when it is set O how would it raise my desires and my joyes what haste should I make how serious should I be how should I trample on these earthly vanities and even forget the things below How restless should I be till I were assured of this Rest and then how restless till I did possess it How should I delight in the thought of death and my heart leap at the tidings of its approach How glad should I be of the bodies decaies to feel my prison moulder to dust Surely this would be the fruit of a perfect belief of the truth of the Promise of our eternal Rest. Which though it cannot be here expected yet should we use the most strengthening means and press on till we had attained SECT II. THus much I have purposely spoken as to stir up Christians to look to their faith so especialiy to provoke some choise servant of Christ among the multitudes of Books that are written to bestow their labors on this most needful Subject and all Ministers to preach it more frequently and clearly to their people Some think it is Faiths honor to be as credulous as may be and the weaker are the rational grounds the stronger is the faith and therefore we must believe and not dispute Indeed when it s once known to be a Divine Testimony then the most credulous soul is the best But when the doubt is whether it be the Testimony of God or no a man may easily be over-credulous Else why are we bid believe not every spirit but try them whether they be of God or not And how should the false Christs and false Prophets be known who would deceive were it possible the very Elect to be given up of God to believe a lye is one of the sorest of Gods Judgments Some think the onely way to deal with such temptations to Blasphemy is to cast them away and not to dispute them And I think the direction is very good so it be used with some distinction and caution The Rule holds good against reall Blasphemy known to be such but if the person know it not how shall he make use of this Rule against it Further it is supposed that he who knows it to be Blasphemy hath Arguments whereby to prove it such else how doth he know it Therefore here lyes the sin when a man is by sufficient evidence convinced or at least hath Evidence sufficient for conviction that it is a Divine Testimony and yet is still cherishing doubts or hearkning to temptations which may feed those doubts when a man like Balaam will take no answer But he who will therefore cast away all doubts before he hath Arguments sufficient against them or could ever prove the thing in Question he doth indeed cast aside the temptation but not overcome it and may expect it should shortly return again It is a methodicall cure which prevents a relapse Such a neglecter of temptations may be in the right and may as well be in the wrong but however it is not right to him because not rightly believed Faith alwayes implies a Testimony and the knowledg usually of the matter and Author of that Testimony Divine Faith hath ever a Divine Testimony and supposeth the knowledg of the matter when the Faith is particular but always of the Author of that Testimony An implicite Faith in God that is a believing that all is true which he testifieth though we see no reason for it from the evidence of the matter this is necessary to every true Believer But to believe implicitly that the Testimony is Divine or that Scripture is the Word of God this is not to believe God
but to resolve our faith into some humane Testimony even to lay our foundation upon the sand where all will fall at the next assault It s strange to consider how we all abhor that piece of Popery as most injurious to God of all the rest which resolves our faith into the Authority of the Church And yet that we do for the generality of professors content our selves with the same kinde of faith Onely with this difference The Papists believe Scripture to be the Word of God because their Church saith so and we because our Church or our Leaders say so Yea and many Mininisters never yet gave their people better grounds but tell them which is true that it is damnable to deny it but help them not to the necessary Antecedents of Faith If any think that these words tend to the shaking of mens faith I answer First Onely of that which will fall of it self Secondly And that it may in time be built again more strongly Thirdly Or at least that the sound may be surer setled It s to be understood that many a thousand do profess Christianity and zealously hate the enemies thereof upon the same grounds to the same ends and from the same inward corrupt principles as the Jews did hate and kill Christ It is the Religion of the Countrey where every man is reproached that believes otherwise they were born and brought up in this belief and it hath increased in them upon the like occasions Had they been born and bred in the Religion of Mahomet they would have beeen as zealous for him The difference betwixt him and a Mahometan is more that he lives where better Laws and Religion dwell then that he hath more knowledg or soundness of apprehension Yet would I not drive into causless doubtings the soul of any true Believer or make them believe their faith is unsound because it is not so strong as some others Therefore I add some may perhaps have ground for their beliefe though they are not able to expresse it by argumentation and may have Arguments in their hearts to perswade themselves though they have none in their mouths to perswade another yea and those Arguments in themselves may be solid and convincing Some may be strengthened by some one sound Argument and yet be ignorant of all the rest without overthrowing the truth of their Faith Some also may have weaker apprehensions of the Divine authority of Scripture then others and as weaker grounds for their Faith so a lesse degree of assent And yet that assent may be sincere and saving so it have these two qualifications First If the Arguments which we have for believing the Scripture be in themselves more sufficient to convince of its truth then any Arguments of the enemies of Scripture can be to perswade a man of the contrary And do accordingly discover to us a high degree at least of probability Secondly And if being thus far convinced it prevailes with us to chuse this as the onely way of life and to adventure our souls upon this way denying all other and adhering though to the losse of estate and life to the Truth of Christ thus weakly apprehended This I think God will accept as a true Beliefe But though such a faith may serve to salvation yet when the Christian should use it for his consolation he will finde it much faile him even as leggs or arms of the weak or lame which when a man should use them do faile him according to the degrees of their weakness or lameness so much doubting as there remaines of the Truth of the word or so much weakness as there is in our believing or so much darkness or uncertainty as there is in the evidence which perswades us to believe so much will be wanting to our Love Desires Labors Adventures and especially to our joyes Therefore I think it necessary to speak a little and but a little to fortifie the believer against temptations and to confirme his faith in the certain Truth of that Scripture which containes the promises of his Rest. CHAP. III. SECT I. ANd here it is necessary that we first distinguish betwixt 1. The subject matter of Scripture or the doctrine which it contains 2. And the words or writings containing or expressing this doctrine The one is as the blood the other as the veins in which it runs Secondly We must distinguish betwixt 1. the substantiall and fundamentall part of Scriptureâ— doctrine without which there is no salvation and 2. the circumstantiall and less necessary part as Genealogies Successions Chronology c. Thirdly Of the substantiall fundamentall part 1. Some may be known and proved even without Scripture as being written in nature it self 2. some can be known onely by the assent of Faith to Divine Revelation Fourthly Of this last sort 1. some things are above Reason as it is without Divine Revelation both in respect of their Probability existence and futurity 2. others may be known by meer Reason without Divine Testimony in regard of their Possibility and Probability but not in regard of their existence or futurity Fifthly Again matter of Doctrine must be distinguished from matter of fact Sixthly Matter of fact is either 1. such as God produceth in an ordinary way or 2. extrordinary and miraculous Seventhly History and Phophesie must be distinguished Eighthly We must distinguish also the books and writings themselves 1. between the maine scope and those parts which express the chief contents and 2. particular words and phrases not expressing any substantialls Ninthly Also it s one question 1. whether there be a certain number of books which are Canonicall or of Divine Authority and 2. another question what number there is of these and which particular books they are Tenthly The direct expresse sense must be distinguished from that which is only implyed or consequentiall Eleventhly We must distinguish Revelation unwriten from that which is writen Twelfthly and Lastly We must distinguish that Scripture which was spoke or written by God immediatly from that which was spoke or writ immediatly by man and but mediatly by God And of this last sort 1. Some of the instruments or penmen are known 2. Some not known Of those known 1. Some that spoke much in Scripture were bad men 3. others were godly And of these some were 1. More eminent and extraordinary as Prophets and Apostles 2. Others were persons more inferiour and ordinary Again as we must distinguish of Scripture and Divine Testimony so must we also distinguish the apprehension or Faith by which we do receive it 1. There is a Divine Faith when we take the Testimony to be Gods own and so believe the thing testified as upon Gods word Secondly There is a Human Faith when we believe it meerly upon the credit of man 2. Faith is either first implicit when we believe the thing is true though we understand not what it is or secondly explicit when we believe and understand
what we believe Both these are again Divine or humane 3. It is one thing to believe as Probable another thing to believe it as certain 4. It s one thing to believe it to be true conditionally another to believe it absolutely 5. We must distinguish betwixt the bare assent of the understanding to the truth of an Axiome when it is only silenced by force of Argument which will be stronger or weaker as the Argument seemeth more or lesse demonstrative and secondly that deep apprehension and firme assent which proceedeth from a well stablished confirmed Faith backed by experience 6. It s one thing to assent to the truth of the Axiome another to taste and chuse the good contained in it which is the work of the Will SECT II. THe Use I shall make of these distinctions is to open the way to these following Positions which will resolve the great Questions on foot How far the belief of the Written Word is of necessity to salvation and Whether it be the foundation of our faith And whether this foundation have been always the same Pos. 1. The Object of belief Is the will of God revealed or a Divine Testimony where two things are absolutely necessary first The Matter secondly The Revelation 2. All this Revealed Will is necessary to the compleating of our faith and it is our duty to believe it But it s onely the substance and tenor of the Covenants and the things necessarily supposed to the knowing and keeping of the Covenant of Grace which are of absolute necessity to the beeing of Faith and to Salvation A man may be saved though he should not believe many things which yet he is bound by God to believe 3. Yet this must be onely through ignorance of the Divineness of the Testimony For a flat unbelief of the smallest truth when we know the Testimony to be of God will not stand with the beeing of true Faith nor with Salvation For Reason layes this ground That God can speak nothing but Truth and Faith proceeds upon that supposition 4. This Doctrine so absolutely necessary hath not been ever from the beginning the same but hath differed according to the different Covenants and Administrations That Doctrine which is now so necessary was not so before the Fall And that which is so necessary since the coming of Christ was not so before his coming Then they might be saved in believing in the Messiah to come of the seed of David but now it s of necessity to believe that this Jesus the Son of Mary is He and that we look not for another I prove it thus That which is not revealed can be no object for Faith much less so necessary But Christ was not Revealed before the Fall nor this Jesus Revealed to be He before his coming therefore these were not of necessity to be believed or as some Metaphorically speak they were then to fundamentall Doctrines Perhaps also some things will be found of absolute necessity to us which are not so to Indians and Turks 5. God hath made this substance of Scripture-Doctrine to be thus necessary primarily and for it self 6. That it be revealed is also of absolute necessity but secondarily and for the Doctrines sake as a means without which Believing is neither possible nor a duty And though where there is no Revelation Faith is not necessary as a duty yet it may be necessary I think as a means that is our natural misery may be such as can no other way be cured but this concerns not us that have heard of Christ 7. Nature Creatures and Providence are no sufficient Revelation of this tenor of the Covenants 8. It is necessary not onely that this Doctrine be Revealed but also that it be Revealed with Grounds or Arguments rationally sufficient to evince the verity of the Doctrine or the Divineness of the Testimony that from it we may conclude the former 9. The Revelation of Truth is to be considered in respect of the first immediate delivery from God or secondly in respect of the way of its coming down to us It is delivered by God immediatly either by writing as the two Tables or by informing Angels who may be his Messengers or by inspiring some choise particular men So that few in the world have received it from God at the first hand 10. The only ways of Revelation that for ought I know are now left are Scripture and Tradition For though God hath not tied himself from Revelations by the Spirit yet he hath ceased them and perfected his Scripture Revelations so that the Spirit onely Reveales what is Revealed already in the Word by illuminating us to understand it 11. The more immediate the Revelation caeteris paribus the more sure and the more succession of hands it passeth through the more uncertain especially in matter of Doctrine 12. When we receive from men by Tradition the Doctrine of God as in the Words of God there is less danger of corruption then when they deliver us that Doctrine in their own words because here taking liberty to vary the expressions it will represent the Truth more uncertainly and in more various shapes 13. Therefore hath God been pleased when he ceased immediate Revelation to leave his Will written in a form of words which should be his standing Law and a Rule to try all other mens expressions by 14. In all the forementioned respects therefore the written Word doth excell the unwritten Tradition of the same Doctrine 15. Yet unwritten Tradition or any sure way of Revealing this Doctrine may suffice to save him who thereby is brought to believe As if there be any among the Abaâ—sines of Ethiopia the Coplies in Egypt or elsewhere that have the substance of the Covenants delivered them by unwritten Tradition or by other Writings if hereby they come to believe they shall be saved For so the Promise of the Gospel runs giving salvation to all that believe by what means soever they were brought to it The like may be said of true Believers in those parts of the Church of Rome where the Scripture is wholly hid from the vulgar if there be any such parts 16. Yet where the written Word is wanting salvation must needs be more difficult and more rare and Faith more feeble and mens conversations worse ordered because they want that clearer Revelation that surer Rule of Faith and Life which might make the way of salvation more easie 17. When Tradition ariseth no higher or cometh originally but from this written Word and not from the verbal Testimonies of the Apostles before the Word was written there that Tradition is but the preaching of the Word and not a distinct way of Revealing 18. Such is most of the Tradition for ought I can learn that is now afoot in the world for matter of Doctrine but not for matter of fact 17. Therefore the Scriptures are not onely necessary to the well-beeing of the Church and to the
strength of Faith but ordinarily to the very beeing of Faith and Churches 20. Not that the present Possession of Scripture is of absolute necessity to the present beeing of a Church not that it is so absolute necessary to every mans salvation that he read or knew this Scripture himself But that it either be at present or have been formerly in the Church that some knowing it may teach it to others is of absolute necessity to most persons and Churches and necessary to the well-beeing of all 21. Though negative unbelief of the authority of Scripture may stand with salvation yet positive and universal I think cannot Or though Tradition may save where Scripture is not known yet he that reads or hears the Scripture and will not believe it to be the Testimony of God I think cannot be saved because this is now the clearest and surest Revelation And he that will not believe it will muchless believe a Revelation more uncertain and obscure 22. Though all Scripture be of Divine Authority yet he that believeth but some one Book which containeth the substance of the Doctrine of salvation may be saved much more they that have doubted but of some particular Books 23. They that take the Scripture to be but the Writings of godly honest men and so to be only a means of making known Christ having a gradual precedency to the Writings of other godly men and do believe in Christ upon those strong grounds which are drawn from his Doctrine Miracles c. rather then upon the Testimony of the Writing as being purely infallible and Divine may yet have a Divine and saving faith 24. Much more those that believe the whole Writing to be of Divine inspiration where it handleth the substance but doubt whether God infallibly guided them in every circumstance 25. And yet more those that believe that the Spirit did guide the Writers to Truth both in Substance and Circumstance but doubt whether he guided them in Orthography or whether their Pens were as perfectly guided as their minds 26. And yet more may those have saving Faith who onely doubt whether Providence infallibly guided any Transcribers or Printers as to retain any Copy that perfectly agreeth with the Autograph 27. Yet do all these in my judgment cast away a singular prop to their faith and lay it open to dangerous assaults and doubt of that which is a certain truth 28. As the Translations are no further Scripture then they agree with the Copies in the Original Tongues so neither are those Copies further then they agree with the Autographs or Original Copies or with some Copies perused and approved by the Apostles 29. Yet is there not the like necessity of having the Autographs to try the Transcripts by as there is of having the Original Transcripts to try the Translations by For there is an impossibility that any Translation should perfectly express the sense of the Original But there is a possibility probability and facility of true Transcribing and grounds to prove it true de facto as we shall touch anon 30. That part which was written by the Finger of God as also the substance of Doctrine through the whole Scriptures are so purely Divine that they have not in them any thing humane 31. The next to these are the words that were spoken by the mouth of Christ and then those that were spoken by Angels 32. The Circumstantials are many of them so Divine as yet they have in them something Humane as the bringing of Pauls Cloak and Parchments and as it seems his counsel about Marriage c. 33. Much more is there something Humane in the Method and Phrase which is not so immediatly Divine as the Doctrine 34. Yet is there nothing sinfully Humane and therefore nothing false in all 35. But an innocent imperfection there is in the Method and Phrase which if we deny we must renounce most of our Logick and Rhetorick 36. Yet was this imperfect way at that time all things considered the fittest way to divulge the Gospel That is the best Language which is best suited to the Hearers and not that which is best simply in it self and supposeth that understanding in the Hearers which they have not Therefore it was Wisdom and Mercy to fit the Scripture to the capacity of all Yet will it not therefore follow that all Preachers at all times should as much neglect Definition Distinction Syllogisme c. as Scripture doth 37. Some Doctrinal passages in Scripture are onely Historically related and therefore the relating them is no asserting them for truth and therefore those sentences may be false and yet not the Scripture false yea some falshoods are written by way of reproving them as Gehezies Lye Sauls Excuse c. 38. Every Doctrine that is thus related onely Historically is therefore of doubtful credit because it is not a Divine assertion except Christ himself were the Speaker and therefore it is to be tried by the rest of the Scripture 39. Where ordinary men were the Speakers the credit of such Doctrines is the more doubtful and yet much more when the Speakers were wicked of the former sort are the Speeches of Jobs friends and divers others of the later sort are the Speeches of the Pharisees c. and perhaps Gamaliels counsel Act. 5.34 40. Yet where God doth testifie his Inspiration or Approbation the Doctrine is of Divine Authority though the Speaker be wicked As in Balaams Prophesie 41. The like may be said of matter of Fact for it is not either necessary or lawful to speak such words or do such actions meerly because men in Scripture did so speak or do no not though they were the best Saints for their own speeches or actions are to be judged by the Law and therefore are no part of the Law themselves And as they are evil where they cross the Law as Josephs swearing the Ancients Polygamy c. so are they doubtful where their congruence with the Law is doubtful 42. But here is one most observable exception conducing much to resolve the great doubt whether Examples binde Where men are designed by God to such an Office and act by Commission and with a promise of Direction their Doctrines are of Divine Authority though we finde not where God did dictate and their Actions done by that Commission are currant and Exemplary so far as they are intended or performed for Example and so Example may be equivalent to a Law and the Argument a facto ad jus may hold So Moses being appointed to the forming of the old Church and Commonwealth of the Jews to the building of the Tabernacle c. his Precepts and Examples in these works though we could not finde his particular direction are to be taken as Divine So also the Apostles having Commission to Form and Order the Gospel Churches their Doctrine and Examples therein are by their general Commission warranted and their practice in stablishing the Lords Day in setling the
Officers and Orders of Churches are to us as Laws still binding with those limitations as Positives onely which give way to greater 43. The ground of this Position is because it is inconsistent with the Wisdom and Faithfulness of God to send men to a work and promise to be with them and yet to forsake them and suffer them to err in the building of that House which must indure till the end of the world 44. Yet if any of these Commissioners do err in their own particular conversations or in matters without the extent of their Commission this may consist with the faithfulness of God God hath not promised them infallibility and perfection the disgrace is their own but if they should miscarry in that wherein they are sent to be a rule to others the Church would then have an imperfect Rule and the dishonor would redound to God 45. Yet I finde not that ever God authorized any meere man to be a Lawgiver to the Church in Substantials but onely to deliver the Laws which he had given to Interpret them and to determine Circumstantials not by him determined 46. Where God owneth mens Doctrines and Examples by Miracles they are to be taken as infallibly Divine much more when Commission Promise and Miracles do concur which confirmeth the Apostles Examples for currant 47. So that if any of the â—ings or Prophets had given Laws and formed the Church as Moses they had not been binding because without the said Commission or if any other Minister of the Gospel shall by Word or Action arrogate an Apostolical priviledg 48. There is no verity about God or the chief happiness of man written in Nature but it is to be found written in Scriptures 49. So that the same thing may in these several respects be the object both of Knowledg and of Faith 50. The Scripture being so perfect a Transcript of the law of Nature or Reason is much more to be credited in its supernatural Revelations 51. The probability of most things and the possibility of all things contained in the Scriptures may well be discerned by Reason it self which makes their Existence or Futurity the more easie to be believed 52. Yet before this Existence or Futurity of any thing beyond the reach of Reason can be soundly believed the Testimony must be known to be truly Divine 53. Yet a belief of Scripture Doctrine as probable doth usually go before a belief of certainty and is a good preparative thereto 54. The direct express sense must be believed directly and absolutely as infallible and the consequences where they may be clearly and certainly raised but where there is danger of erring in raising consequences the assent can be but weak and conditional 55. A Consequence raised from Scripture being no part of the immediate sense cannot be called any part of Scripture 56. Where one of the premises is in Nature and the other onely in Scripture there the Conclusion is mixt partly known and partly believed That it is the Consequence of those premises is known but that it is a Truth is as I said apprehended by a mixt Act. Such is a Christians concluding himself to be justified and sanctified c. 57. Where through weakness we are unable to discern the Consequences there is enough in the express direct sense for salvation 58. Where the sense is not unstood there the belief can be but implicit 59. Where the sense is partly understood but with some doubting the Belief can be but conditionally explicit that is we believe it if it be the sense of the Word 60. Fundamentals must be believed Explicitly and Absolutely CHAP. IIII. The first Argument to prove Scripture to be the Word of God SECT IIII. HAving thus shewed you in what sense the Scriptures are the word of God and how far to be believed and what is the excellency necessity and authority of them I shall now adde three or four Arguments to help your Faith which I hope will not onely prove them to be Divine Testimony to the substance of Doctrine though that be a usefull work against our unbelief but also that they are the very written Laws of God and a perfect Rule of Faith and duty My Arguments shall be but few because I handle it but on the by and those such as I finde little of in others writings least I should wast time in doing what is done to my hands 1. Those writings and that Doctrine which were confirmed by many real Miracles must needs be of God and consequently of undoubted Truth But the books and Doctrine of Canonicall Scripture were so confirmed Therefore c. Against the major proposition nothing of any moment can be said For it s a Truth apparent enough to nature that none but God can work real Miracles or at least none but those whom he doth especially enable thereto And it is as manifest that the Righteous and Faithfull God will not give this power for a seal to any falshood or deceit The usuall Objections are these First Antichrist shall come with lying wonders Answ. They are no true Miracles As they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Thess. 2.9 lying in sealing to a lying doctrine so also in being but seeming and counterfeit Miracles The like may be said to those of Pharaohs Magicians and all other Sorcerers and Witches and those that may be wrought by Satan himself They may be wonders but not Miracles Object 2. God may enable false Prophets to work Miracles to try the world without any derogation to his Faithfulness Answ. No for Divine power being properly the attendant of Divine Revelation if it should be annexed to Diabolicall delusions it would be a sufficient excuse to the world for their believing those delusions And if Miracles should not be a sufficient seal to prove the Authority of the witness to be Divine then is there nothing in the world sufficient and so our Faith will be quite overthrown Object But however Miracles will no more prove Christ to be the Son of God then they will prove Moses Elias or Elisha to be the Son of God for they wrought Miracles as well as Christ. Answ. Miracles are Gods seal not to extoll the person that is instrumentall nor for his glory but to extoll God and for his own Glory God doth not entrust any creature with this seal so absolutely as that they may use it when and in what case they please If Moses or Elias had affirmed themselves to be the sons of God they could never have confirmed that affirmation with a Miracle for God would not have sealed to a lye Christs power of working Miracles did not immediatly prove him to be the Christ. But it immediately proved his Testimony to be Divine and that Testimony spoke his nature and office So that the power of Miracles in the Prophets and Apostles was not to aâ—â—est to their own greatness but to the truth of their Testimony conâ—â—rning Christ.
of it for to add or diminish the least title that they thought it deserved eternall damnation And I refer it to any man of reason whether so many thousands of men through the world could possibly venture upon eternal torment as well as upon temporal death and all this to deceive others by depraving the Laws which they look to be judged by or the History of those Miracles which were the grounds of their Faith Is not the contrary somewhat more then probable 15. Furthermore The Histories of the Enemies do frequently mention that these Scriptures have been still maintained to the flames Though they revile the Christians yet they report this their attestation which proves the constant succession thereof and the faithful delivery of Christianity and its Records to us It would be but labour in vain to heap up here the several reports of Pagan Historians of the numbers of Christians their obstinacy in their Religion their Calamities and Torments 16. These Records and their Attestations are yet visible over the world and that in such a form as cannot possibly be counterfeit Is it not enough to put me out of doubt whether Homer ever wrote his Iliads or Demosthenes his Orations or Virgil and Oviâ— their several Works or Aristotle his Volums of so many the Sciences when I see and read these Books yet extant and when I finde them such that I think can hardly now be counterfeited no nor imitated but if they could who would have been at that excessive pains as to have spent his life in compiling such Books that he might deceive the world and make men believe they were the Works of Aristotle Ovid c. would not any man rather have taken the honor to himself so here the case is alike Yea these Scriptures though they have less of Arts and Sciences yet are incomparably more difficult to have been counterfeited then the other I mean before the first Copies were drawn I would here stand to shew the utter impossibility of any mans forging these VVritings but that I intend to make up in a peculiar Argument 17. VVhether any Enemy hath with weight of Argument confuted the Christian Cause VVhether when they have undertaken it it hath not been onely an arguing the improbability or assigning the Miracles to other causes or an opposing the Doctrine delivered by the Christians rather then these miraculous actions in question I leave those to judg who have read their VVritings Yea whether their common Arguments have not been Fire and Sword 18. It is an easie matter yet to prove that the enemies of Scripture have been incompetent VVitnesses First Being men that were not present or had not the opportunity to be so well acquainted with the Actions of Christ of the Prophets and Apostles as themselves and others that do attest them Secondly Being men of apparent malice and possessed with much prejudice against the persons and things which they oppose This I might easily and fully prove if I could stand upon it Thirdly They had all worldly advantages attending their Cause which they were all to lose with life it self if they had appeared for Christ. Fourthly They were generally men of no great Conscience nor Moral Honesty and most of them of most sensual and vitious conversation This appears by their own Writings both Doctrinal and Historical What sensual Interpretations of the Law did the very strict Sect of the Pharisees make What fleshly Laws have the followers of Mahomet VVhat Vices did the Laws of the Heathens tolerate Yea what foul errors are in the Ethicks of their most rigid Moralists And you may be sure that their lives were far worse then their Laws And indeed their own Histories do acknowledg as much To save me the labor of mentioning them Read Dr. Hackwels Apology on that Subject Sure such men are incompetent Witnesses in any cause between man and man and would so be judged at any impartial Judicature And indeed how is it possible that they should be much better when they have no Laws that teach them either what true Happiness is or what is the way and means to attain it Fifthly Besides all this their Testimony was onely of the Negative and that in such cases as it could not be valid 19. Consider also that all the Adversaries of these Miracles and Relations could not with all their Arguments or violence hinder thousands from believing them in the very time and Countrey where they were done but that they who did behold them did generally assent at least to the matter of Fact So that we may say with Austin Either they were Miracles or not If they were why do you not believe If they were not behold the greatest Miracle of all that so many thousands even of the beholders should be so blinde as to believe things that never were especially in those very times when it was the easiest matter in the world to have disproved such falshoods If there should go a Report now of a man at London That should raise the Dead cure the Blinde the Deaf the Sick the Possessed feed thousands with five Loaves c. And that a multitude of his Followers should do the like and that a great many times over and over and that in the several parts of the Land in the presence of Crouds and thousands of people I pray you judg whether it were not the easiest matter in the world to disprove this if it were false And whether if were possible that whole Countries and Cities should believe it Nay whether the easiness and certainty of disproving it would not bring them all into extreamest contempt Two things will be here objected First That then the Adversaries not believing will be as strong against it as the Disciples believing is for it Answer Read what is said before of the Adversaries incompetency and it may satisfie to this Secondly And consider also that the generality of the Adversaries did believe the matter of Fact which is all that we are now enquiring after The recitall here of those multitudes of Testimonies that might be produced from Antiquity is a work that my streight time doth prohibit but is done by others far more able Onely that well known passage in Josephus I will here set down In the time of Tiberias there was one Jesus a wife man at least if he was to be called a man who was a worker of great Miracles and a teacher of such who love the truth and had many as well Jews as Gentiles who clave unto him This was Christ. And when Pilate upon his being accused by the chief men of our Nation had sentenced him to be crucified yet did not they who had first loved him forsake him For he appeared to them the third day alive again according to what the Prophets Divinely inspired had foretold concerning him as they had done an innumerable number of very strange things besides And even to this day both the name and sort of persons
called Christians so named from him do remain Thus far Josephus a Jew by Nation and Religion who wrote this about eighty six years after Christ and fourteen years before the death of St. John Himself being born about five or six years after Christ. 20. Consider also how that every Age hath afforded multitudes of VVitnesses who before were most bitter and violent enemies And divers of these men of note for Learning and place in the world How mad was Saul against the Truth Surely it could be no favour to the Cause nor over-much credulity that caused such men to witness to the death the truth of that for which they had persecuted others to the death but a little before Nor could childish Fables or common flying Tales have so mightily wrought with men of Learning and Understanding For some such were Christians in all Ages 21. Nay observe but the Confessions of these Adversaries when they came to believe How generally and ingenuously they acknowledg their former ignorance and prejudice to have been the cause of their unbelief 22. Consider also how unable all the enemies of the Gospel have been to abolish these sacred Records They could burn the Witnesses by thousands but yet they could never either hinder their succession or extinguish these Testimonies 23. Nay the most eminent Adversaries have had the most eminent ruine As Antiochus Herod Julian with multitudes more This stone having faln upon them hath ground them to powder 24 It were not difficult here to collect from unquestioned Authors a constant succession of VVonders at least to have in several Ages accompanied the Attestation of this Truth and notable judgments that have befaln the persecutors of it And though the Papists by their Fictions and Fabulous Legends have done more wrong to the Christian Cause then ever they are able to repair yet unquestionable History doth afford us very many Examples And even many of those actions which they have deformed with their fabulous additions might yet for the substance have much truth And God might even in times of Popery work some of these wonders though not to confirm their Religion as it was Popish yet to confirm it as the Christian Religion for as he had then his Church and then his Scripture so had he then his special Providences to confirm his Church in their belief and to silence the several enemies of the Faith And therefore I advise those who in their inconsiderate zeal are apt to reject all these Histories of Providences meerly because they were written by Papists or because some Witnesses to the Truth were a little leavened with some Popish errors that they would first view them and consider of their probability of Truth or Falshood that so they may pick out the Truth and not reject all together in the lump least otherwise in their zeal against Popery they should injure Christianity And now I leave any man to judg whether we have not had an infallible way of receiving these Records from the first VVitnesses Not that every of the particulars before mentioned are necessary to the proving or certain receiving the Authentick Records without depravation for you may perceive that almost any two or three of them might suffice and that divers of them are from abundance for fuller confirmation SECT IV. ANd thus I have done with this first Argument drawn from the Miracles which prove the Doctrine and VVritings to be of God But I must satisfie the Scruples of some before I proceed First Some will question whether this be not 1. To resolve our faith into the Testimony of man 2. And so to make it a Humane faith And so 3. To jump in this with the Papists who believe the Scripture for the Authority of the Church and to argue Circularly in this as they To this I Answer First I make in this Argument the last Resolution of my faith into the Miracles wrought to confirm the Doctrine If you ask why I believe the Doctrine to be of God I Answer because it was confirmed by many undeniable Miracles If you ask why I believe those Miracles to be from God I Answer because no created power can work a Miracle So that the Testimony of man is not the Reason of my believing but onely the means by which this matter of Fact is brought down to my Knowledg Again Our Faith cannot be said to be Resolved into that which we give in Answer to your last Interrogation except your Question be onely still of the proper grounds of Faith But if you change your Question from what is the Ground of my Faith to what is the means of conveying down the History to me Then my faith is not Resolved into this means Yet this means or some other equivalent I acknowledg so necessary that without it I had never been like to have believed 2. This shews you also that I argue not in the Popish Circle nor take my faith on their common Grounds For First When you ask them How know you the Testimony of the Church to be Infallible They prove it again by Scripture and ther 's their Circle But as I trust not on the Authority of the Romish Church onely as they do no nor properly to the Authority of any Church no nor onely to the Testimony of the Church but also to the Testimony of the enemies themselves So do I prove the validity of the Testimony I bring from Nature and well known Principles in Reason and not from Scripture it self as you may see before 3. There is a Humane Testimony which is also divine and so an Humane Faith which is also divine Few of Gods extraordinary Revelations have been immediate The best Schoolmen think none of all but either by Angels or by Jesus himself who was man as well as God You will acknowledg if God reveal it to an Angel and the Angel to Moses and Moses to Israel this is a divine Revelation to Israel For that is called a divine Revelation which we are certain that God doth any way Reveal Now I would fain know why that which God doth naturally and certainly Reveal to all men may not as properly be called a Divine Revelation as that which he Reveales by the Spirit to a few Is not this Truth from God That the Senses apprehension of their Object rightly stated s certain as well as this Jesus Christ was born of a Virgin c. Though a Saint or Angel be a fitter Messenger to Reveal the things of the Spirit yet any man may be a Messenger to reveal the things of the flesh An ungodly man if he have better Eyes and Ears may be a better Messenger or Witness of that matter of Fact which he seeth and heareth then a godlier man that is blinde or deaf especially in cases wherein that ungodly man hath no provocation to speak falsly and most of all if his Testimony be against himself I take that Revelation whereby I know
this is a lower excellency then Scripture was intended to And thus I have done with this weighty Subject That the Scripture which contains the Promises of our Rest is the certain infallible VVord of God The reason why I have thus digressed and said so much of it is because I was very apprehensive of the great necessity of it and the common neglect of being grounded in it and withall that this is the very heart of my whole Discourse and that if this be doubted of all the rest that I have said will be in vain If men doubt of the Truth they will not regard the goodness And the reason why I have said no more but passed over the most common Arguments is because they are handled in many books already which I advise Christians to be better versed in To the meer English Reader I commend especially these Sir Phil. Mornay Lord du Plessis his Verity of Christian Religion Parsons Book of Resolution Corrected by Bunny the Second Part. Dr. Jackson on the Creed and come forth since I begun this Mr. White of Dorchester Directions for Reading Scripture Mr. John Goodwins Divine Authority of Scripture asserted though some of his Positions I judg unsound yet the Work for the main is commendable Also Read a Book Called A Treatise of Divinity first Part. Written by our honest and faithful Countryman Colonel Edward Leigh a now Member of the House of Commons Also Vrsins Catachism on this Question and Balls Catachism with the Exposition which to those that cannot read larger Treatises is very usefull For the Question How it may be known which books be Canonical I here meddle not with it I think Humane Testimony with the forementioned qualifications must do most in determining that As I begun so I conclude this with an earnest request to Ministers that they would Preach and People that they would study this subject more throughly that their Faith and Obedience may live and flourish while they can prove the Scripture to be the Word of God which contains the Promise of their Everlasting Rest. CHAP. VIII Rest for none but the people of God proved SECT I. IT may here be expected that as I have proved That this Rest remaineth for the people of God so I should now prove that it remaineth onely for them and that the rest of the world shall have no part in it But the Scripture is so full and plain in this that I suppose it needless to those who believe Scripture Christ hath resolved that those who make light of him and the offers of his Grace shall never taste of his Supper And that without holiness none shall see God And that except a man be regenerate and born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God That he that believes not shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him That no unclean person nor covetous nor railer nor drunkard c. shall enter into the Kingdom of Christ and of God Ephes. 5.4 5. That the wicked shall be turned into hell and all they that forget God That all they shall be damned that obey not the Truth but have pleasure in unrighteousness 2 Thes. 2.12 That Christ will come in flaming fire to take vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power And Christ himself hath opened the very maner of their process in judgment and the sentence of their condemnation to eternal fire prepared for the devil and his Angels Matth. 25. So that here is no Rest for any but the people of God except you will call the intollerable everlasting flames of Hell a Rest. And it were easie to manifest this also by Reason For first Gods Justice requires an inequality of mens state hereafter as there was of their lives here And secondly They that walk not in the way of Rest and use not the means are never like to obtain the End They would not follow Christ in the Regeneration nor accept of Rest upon his conditions they thought him to be too hard a Master and his way too narrow and his Laws too strict They chose the pleasures of sin for a season rather then to suffer affliction with the people of God They would not suffer with Christ that so they might raign with him What they made choise of that they did injoy They had their good things in this life and what they did refuse it is but reason they should want How oft would Christ have gathered them to him and they would not And he useth to make men willing before he save them and not to save them against their wils Therefore will the mouths of the wicked be stopped for ever and all the world shall acknowledg the Justice of God Had the ungodly but returned before their life was expired and been heartily willing to accept of Christ for their Saviour and their King and to be saved by him in his way and upon his most reasonable tearms they might have been saved Object But may not God be better then his Word and save those that he doth not promise to save Answ. But not false of his word in saving those whom he hath said he will not save Mens souls are in a doleful case when they have no hope of Happiness except the Word of God prove false To venture a mans eternal salvation upon Hope that God will be better then his word that is in plain English that the God of Truth will prove a lyer is somewhat beyond stark madness which hath no name bad enough to express it Yet I do believe that the description of Gods people in England and in America must not be the same because as Gods Revelations are not the same so neither is the actual Faith which is required in both the same and as the Written and Positive Laws in the Church were never given them so obedience to those meer Positives is not required of them Whether then the threats against unbelievers be meant of Unbelief privative and positive only and not negative such as is all non-believing that which was never revealed Or whether their believing that God is and that he is a Rewarder of them that seek him will serve the turn there Or whether God hath no people there I acknowledg again is yet past my understanding CHAP. IX Whether the Souls departed enjoy this Rest SECT I. I Have but one thing more to clear before I come to the Use of this doctrine And that is Whether this Rest remain till the resurrection before we shall enjoy it Or whether we shall have any possession of it before The Socinians and many others of late among us think that the soul separated from the body is either nothing or at least not capable of happiness or misery Truly if it
to stir against the Lord. O how the reviews of this vvill feed the flames of Hell With vvhat rage vvill these damned wretches curse themselves and say Was damâ—nation vvorth all my cost and pains vvas it not enough that I perished through my negligence and that I sit still vvhile Satan played his game but I must seek so diligently for my own perdiâ—tion Might I not have been damned on free-cost but I must purchase it so dearly I thought I could have been saved without so much ado and could I not have been destroyed without so much ado How wel is all my care and pains and violence now requited Must I work out so laboriously my own damnation vvhen God commanded me to vvork out my Salvation O if I had done as much for Heaven as I did for Hell I had surely had it I cried out of the tedious vvay of Godliness and of the painful course of Duty and Self-denial and yet I could be at a great deal more pains for Satan and for death If I had loved Christ as strongly as I did my pleasures and profits and honors and thought on him as often and sought him as painfully O how happy had I now been But justly do I suffer the flames of Hell who would rather rather buy them so dear then have Heaven on free cost when it was purchased to my hands Thus I have shewed you some of those thoughts which will aggravate the misery of these wretches for ever O that God would perswade thee who readest these words to take up these thoughts now seasonably and soberly for the preventing of that unconceivable calamity that so thou mayest not be forced in despite of thee to take them up in Hell as thy own Tormentor It may be some of these hardened wretches will jest at all this and say How know you what thoughts the damned in Hell will have Ans. First VVhy read but the 16 of Luke and you shall there finde some of their thoughts mentioned Secondly I know their understandings will not be taken from them nor their conscience nor Passions As the Joyes of Heaven are chiefly enjoyed by the Rationall soul in its Rationall actings so also must the pains of Hell be suffered As they will be men still so will they act as men Thirdly Beside Scripture hath plainly foretold us as much that their own thoughts shall accuse them Rom. 2.15 and their hearts condemn them And we see it begun in despairing persons here CHAP. III. They shall lose all things that are comfortable as well as Heaven SECT I. HAving shewed you those considerations which will then aggravate their misery I am next to shew you their Additonall losses which will aggravate it For as Godliness hath the promise both of this life and that which is to come and as God hath said that if we first seek his Kingdom and Righteousness all things else shall be added to us so also are the ungodly threated with the loss both of spiritual and of corporal blessings and because they sought not first Christs Kingdom and righteousness therefore shall they lose both it and that which they did seek and there shall be taken from them even that little which they have If they could but have kept their present enjoyments they would not much have cared for the loss of Heaven let them take it that have more minde of it But catching at the shadow and loosing the substance they now finde that they have lost both and that when they rejected Christ they rejected all things If they had lost and forsaken all for Christ they would have found all again in him for he would have been all in all to them But now they have forsaken Christ for other things they shall lose Christ and that also for which they did forsake him But I will particularly open to you some of their other losses SECT II. FIrst They shall lose their present presumptuous conceit and belief of their Interest in God and of his favour towards them and of their part in the merits and sufferings of Christ. This false Belief doth now support their spirits and defend them from the terrors that else would seiz upon them and fortifie them against the fears of the wrath to come Even as true Faith doth afford the soul a true and grounded support and consolation and enableth us to look to Eternity with undaunted courage So also a false ungrounded Faith doth afford a false ungrounded comfort and abates the trouble of the considerations of Judgment and damnation But alas this is but a palliat salve a deceitful comfort what will ease their trouble when this is gone VVhen they can Believe no longer they will be quieted in minde no longer and rejoyce no longer If a man be neer to the greatest mischief and yet strongly conceit that he is in safety his conceit may make him as cheerfull as if all were well indeed till his misery comes and then both his conceit and comforts vanish An ungrounded perswasion of happiness is a poor cure for reall misery VVhen the mischief comes it will cure the mis-belief but that belief can neither prevent nor cure the mischief If there were no more to make a man happy but to believe that he is so or shall be so happiness would be far commonner then now it is like to be It is a wonder that any man who is not a stranger both to Gospel and Reason should be of the Antinomian faith in this who tell us that faith is but the believing that God loveth us and that our sins are already pardoned through Christ that this is the cheif thing that Ministers should preach that our Ministers preach not Christ because they preach not this that every man ought thus to believe but no man to question his Faith whether he believe truly or not c. But if all men must believe that their sins are pardoned then most of the world must believe a lye And if no man ought to question the truth of his faith then most men shall rest deluded with an ungrounded belief The Scripture commandeth us first to believe for remission of sins before we believe that our sins are remitted If we believe in Christ that is accept him cordially for our Saviour and our King then we shall receive the pardon of sins The truth is we have more ado to Preach down this Antinomian faith then they have to Preach it up and to Preach our people from such a believing then they have to preach them to it I see no need to perswade people so to believe the generality are strong and confident in such a belief already Take a congregation of 5000. persons and how few among them all will you finde that do not believe that their sins are pardoned and that God loves them Especially of the vilest sinners who have least cause to believe it Indeed as it is all the work of those men to perswade
enough before they have it in Gods ordinary way of conveyance God worketh upon Men as Men as Reasonable Creatures The Joy of the Promises and the Joy of the Holy Ghost are one Joy And those Seducers who in their Ignorance mis-guide poor Souls in this point do exceedingly wrong them while they perswade them so to expect their comforts from the Spirit as not to be any authors of them themselves nor to raise up their own hearts by Argumentative means telling them that such Comforts are but hammered by themselves and not the genuine Comforts of the Spirit How contrary is this to the doctrine of Christ SECT XIV 5. ANother Cause of the trouble of their Souls is Their expecting a greater measure of Assurance then God doth usually bestow upon his people Most think as long as they have any doubting they have no Assurance They consider not that there are many degrees of Infallible Certainty below a perfect or an undoubting Certainty They must know that while they are here they shall Know but in part They shall be imperfect in their Knowledg of Scripture which is their Rule in Trying and imperfect in the Knowledg of their own obscure deceitful hearts Some strangeness to God and themselves there will still remain Some darkness will over-spread the face of their Souls Some Unbelief will be making head against their Faith And some of their grievings of the Spirit will be Grieving themselves and making a breach in their Peace and Joy Yet as long as their Faith is prevailing and their Assurance doth tread down and subdue their Doubtings though not quite expel them they may walk in Comfort and maintain their Peace But as long as they are resolved to lie down in sorrow till their Assurance be perfect their days on Earth must then be days of sorrow SECT XV. 6. AGain many a Soul lies long in trouble by taking up their Comforts in the beginning upon unsound or uncertain grounds This may be the case of a gracious Soul who hath better grounds and doth not see them And then when they grow to more ripeness of Understanding and come to find out the insufficiency of their former grounds of Comfort they cast away their Comfort wholy when they should only cast away their rotten props of it and search for better to support it with As if their Comfort and their Safety were both of a nature and both built on the same Foundation they conclude against their Safety because they have discovered the mistake of their former Comforts And there are many much applauded Books and Teachers of late who further the delusion of poor Souls in this point and make them believe that because their former Comforts were too Legal and their perswasions of their good estate were ill grounded therefore themselves were under the Covenant of Works only and their spiritual condition as unsound as their Comforts These men observe not That while they deny us the use of Marks to know our own state yet they make use of them themselves to know the states of others Yea and of false and insufficient Marks too For to argue from the Motive of our perswasion of a good estate to the goodness or badness of that estate is no sound arguing It followeth not that a man is unregenerate because he judged himself regenerate upon wrong grounds For perhaps he might have better grounds and not know it or else not know which were good and which bad Safety and Comfort stand not always on the same bottom Bad grounds do prove the Assurance bad which was built upon them but not always the Estate bad These Teachers do but toss poor Souls up and down as the waves of the Sea making them believe that their Estate is altered as oft as their conceits of it alter Alas few Christians do come to know either what are solid grounds of Comfort or whether they have any such grounds themselves in the infancy of Christianity But as an Infant hath life before he knoweth it and as he hath misapprehensions of himself and most other things for certain years together and yet it will not follow that therefore he hath no life or reason So is it in the case in hand Yet this should perswade both Ministers and Believers themselves to lay right grounds for their Comfort in the beginning as far as may be For else usually when they find the flaw in their Comforts and Assurance they will judg it to be a flaw in their Safety and Real Estates Just as I observe most persons do who turn to Errors or Heresies They took up the Truth in the beginning upon either false or doubtful grounds and then when their grounds are overthrown or shaken they think the doctrine is also overthrown and so they let go both together as if None had solid Arguments because They had not or none could manage them better then They. Even so when they perceive that their Arguments for their good estate were unsound they think that their Estate must needs be as unsound SECT XVI 7. MOreover many a Soul lyeth long under doubting Through the great Imperfection of their very Reason and exceeding weakness of their natural parts Grace doth usually rather turn our parts to their most necessary use and imploy our faculties on better Objects then add to the degree of their natural strength Many honest hearts have such weak heads that they know not how to perform the work of Self-Tryal They are not able rationally to argue the Case They will acknowledg the Premises and yet deny the apparent Conclusion Or if they be brought to acknowledg the Conclusion yet they do but fluctuate and stagger in their concession and hold it so weakly that every assault may take it from them If God do not some other way supply to these men the defect of their Reason I see not how they should have clear and setled Peace SECT XVII 8. ANother great and too common Cause of Doubting and Discomfort is The secret maintaining of some known sin When a man liveth in some unwarrantantable practise and God hath oft touched him for it and Conscience is galled and yet he continueth it It is no wonder if this person want both Assurance and Comfort One would think that a Soul that lieth under the fears of Wrath and is so tender as to tremble and complain should be as tender of sinning and scarcely adventure upon the appearance of evil And yet sad experience telleth us that it is frequently otherwise I have known too many such that would complain and yet sin and accuse themselves and yet sin still yea and despair and yet proceed in sinning and all Arguments and means could not keep them from the wilful committing of that sin again and again which yet they did think themselves would prove their destruction Yea some will be carryed away with those sins which seem most contrary to their dejected temper I have known them that
people may discern that you are in good sadness and mean as you speak and that you are not stageplayers but preachers of the doctrine of Salvation Remember what Cicero saith that if the matter be never so combustible yet if you put not fire to it it will not burn And what Erasmus saith that a hot Iron will pierce when a cold one will not And if the wise men of the world account you mad say as Paul If we are besides our selves it is to God And remember that Christ was so busie in doing good that his friends themselves begun to lay hands on him thinking he had been besides himself Mark 3. SECT VII 2. THe second and chief word of advice that I would give you is this Do not think that all your work is in your studies and in the Pulpit I confesse that is great but alas it is but a small part of your task You are Shepheards and must know every sheep and what is their disease and mark their strayings and help to cure them and fetch them home If the paucity of Ministers in great congregations which is the great unobserved mischief in England that cryes for reformation did not make it a thing impossible in many places I should charge the Ministers of England with most notorious unfaithfulness for neglecting so much the rest of their work which calleth for their diligence as much as publike Preaching O learn of Paul Act. 20.19 20 31. to preach publikly and from house to house night and day with tears Let there not be a soul in your charge that shall not be particulary instructed and watched over Go from house to house daily and enquire how they grow in knowledg and holiness and on what grounds they build their hopes of salvation and whether they walk uprightly and perform the duties of their severall relations and use the means to increase their abilities See whether they daily worship God in their families and set them in a way and teach them how to do it Confer with them about the doctrines and practice of Religion and how they receive and profit by publike teaching and answer all their carnal objections keep in familiarily with them that you may maintain your interest in them and improve all your interest for God See that no seducers do creep in among them or if they do be diligent to countermine them and preserve your people from infection of Heresies or Schismes or if they be infected be diligent to procure their recovery Not with passion and lordliness but with patience and condescension As Musculus did by the Anabaptists visiting them in Prison where the Magistrate had cast them and there instructing and relieving them and though they reviled him when he came and called him a false prophet and Antichristian seducer that thirsted for their blood yet he would not so leave them till at last by his meekness and love he had overcome them and recovered many to the truth and to unity with the Church Have a watchful eye upon each particular sheep in your flock Do not do as the lazy separatists that gather a few of the best together and take then only for their charge leaving the rest to sink or swim and giving them over to the Divel and their lusts and except it be by a Sermon in the Pulpit scarce ever endeavoring their salvation nor once looking what becomes of them O let it not be so with you If any be weak in the faith receive him but not to doubtful disputations If any be too careless of their duties and too little savor the things of the Spirit let them be pittied and not neglected If any walk scandalously and disorderly deal with them for their recovery with all diligence and patience and set before them the hainousness and danger of their sin If they prove obstinate after all then avoid them and cast them off But do not so cruelly as to unchurch them by hundreds by thousands and separate from them as so many Pagans and that before any such means hath been used for their recovery If they are ignorant it may be your fault as much as theirs and however they are fitter to be instructed then rejected except they absolutely refuse to be taught Christ will give you no thanks for keeping or putting out such from his School that are unlearned when their desire or will is to be taught I confesse it is easier to shut out the ignorant then to bestow our pains night and day in teaching them but wo to such slothful unfaithful servants Who then is a faithful and a wise servant whom his Lord hath made Ruler over his houshold to give them their meat in due season according to every ones age and capacity Blessed is that servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall finde so doing O be not asleep while the woolfe is waking Let your eye be quick in observing the dangers and strayings of your people If jealousies heart burnings or contentions arise among them quench them before they break out into raging unresistible flames As soon as you discern any turn worldly or proud or factious or self-conceited or disobedient or cold and slothful in his duty delay not but presently make out for his recovery Remember how many are loosers in the loss of a soul. SECT VIII DO not dawb or deal sleightly with any some will not tell their people plainly of their sins because they are great men and some because they are godly as if none but the poor and the wicked should be plainly dealt with Do not you so but reprove them sharply though differently and with wisdom that they may be sound in the Faith When the Palsgrave chose Pitiscus for his Houshold Chaplain he charged him that without fear he should discharge his duty and freely admonish him of his faults as the Scriptures do require Such incouragement from great ones would embolden Ministers and free themselves from the unhappiness of sinning unreproved If Gentlemen would give no more thanks to Doegs and Accusers of the Ministers then Wigandus his Prince did to that flattering Lawyer who accused him for speaking to Princes too plainly they would learn quickly to be silent when they had been forced as Hamans themselves to clothe Mordecai and set him in honor However God doth sufficiently encourage us to deal plainly He hath bid us speak and fear not He promised to stand by us and he will be our security He may suffer us to be Anathema secundum dici as Bueholtzer said but not secundum esse He will keep us as he did Husse's heart from the power of the fire though they did beat it when they found it among the ashes they may burn our bones as Bucers and Phagius his or they may raise lyes of us when we are dead as of Luther Calvin and Oecolampadius but the soul feeleth not this that is rejoycing with his Lord In the mean time
tell me what difference between this fools expressions and thy affections I doubt not but thou hast more wit then to speak thy minde just in his language but man remember thou hast to do with the searcher of hearts It may be thou holdst on in thy course of duty and prayest as oft as thou didst before it may be thou keepest in with good Ministers and with godly men and seemest as forward in Religion as ever But what is all this to the purpose Mock not thy soul man for God will not so be mocked What good may yet remain in thee I know not but sure I am thy course is dangerous and if thou follow it on will end in dolor Methinks I see thee befooling thy self and tearing thy hair and gnashing thy teeth when thou hearest thy case laid open by God Thou fool this night shall they require thy soul from thee and then whose are all these things Certainly so much as thou delightest and restest on Earth so much is abated of thy delights in God Thine earthly minde may consist with thy profession and common duties but it cannot consist with this Heavenly duty I need not tell thee all this if thou wouldst deal impartially and not be a traitor to thy own soul thou knowest thy self how seldom and cold how cursory and strange thy thoughts have been of the joyes hereafter ever since thou didst trade so eagerly for the world Methinks I even perceive thy conscience stir now and tell thee plainly that this is thy case hear it man O hear it now least thou hear it in another maner when thou wouldest be full loth O the cursed madness of many that seem to be religious who thrust themselves into multitude of employments and think they can never have business enough till they are loaded with labors and clogged with cares That their souls are as unfit to converse with God as a man to walk with a mountain on his back and till he hath even transformed his soul almost into the nature of his drossie carkass and made it as unapt to soare aloft as his body is to leap above the Sun And when all is done and they have lost that Heaven they might have had upon Earth they rake up a few rotten arguments to prove it lawful and then they think that they have salved all though these sots would not do so for their bodies nor forbear their eating or drinking or sleeping or sporting though they could prove it lawful so to do though indeed they cannot prove it lawful neither They miss not the pleasures of this Heavenly Life if they can but quiet their Consciences while they fasten upon lower and baser pleasures For thee O Christian who hast tasted of these pleasures I advise thee as thou valuest their enjoyment as ever thou wouldst taste of them any more take heed of this gulf of An earthly minde For if once thou come to this that thou wilt be rich thou fallest into temptation and a snare and into divers foolish and hurtful lusts it is Saint Pauls own words 1 Tim 6.9 Set not thy minde as Saul on the Asses when the Kingdom of Glory is before thee Keep these things as thy upper Garments still loose about thee that thou maist lay them by when ever there is cause But let God and Glory be next thy heart yea as the very blood and spirits by which thou livest Still remember that of the Spirit The friendship of the World is enmity with God Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the World is the enemy of God Jam. 4.4 And 1 John 2.15 Love not the world nor the things in the world If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him This is plain dealing and happy he that faithfully receives it SECT III. 3. A Third hinderance which I must advise thee to beware is The company of ungodly and sensual men Not that I would disswade thee from necessary converse or from doing them any office of Love especially not from endeavouring the good of their souls as long as thou hast any opportunity or hope Nor would I have thee conclude them to be Dogs and Swine that so thou maist evade the duty of Reproof Nor yet to judg them such at all as long as there is any hope of better or before thou art certain they are such indeed much less can I approve of the practice of those who because the most of the world are naught do therefore conclude men Dogs or Swine before ever they faithfully and lovingly did admonish them yea or perhaps before they have known them or spoke with them and hereupon they will not communicate with them in the Lords Supper but separate from them into distinct Congregations I perswade thee to no such ungodly separation As I never found one word in Scripture where either Christ or his Apostles denied admittance to any man that desired to be a Member of the Church though but onely prosessing to Repent and Believe so neither did I ever there finde that any but convicted Hereticks or scandalous ones and that for the most part after due admonition were to be avoided or debarred our fellowship And whereas it is urged That they are to prove their interest to the priviledges which they lay claim to and not we to disprove it I Answer if that were granted yet their meer professing to Repent and Believe in Christ is a sufficient evidence of their interest to Church member-ship and admittance thereto by Baptism supposing them not admitted before and their being Baptized persons or members of the universal visible Church into which it is that they are Baptized is sufficient evidence of their interest to the Supper till they do by Heresie or Scandal blot that Evidence which Evidence if they do produce yea though they are yet weak in the Faith of Christ who is he that dare refuse to receive them And this after much doubting dispute and study of the Scriptures I speak as confidently as almost any truth of equal moment So plain is the Scripture in this point to a man that brings his Understanding to the model of Scripture and doth not bring a model in his brain and reduce all he reades to that model The door of the visible Church is incomparably wider then the door of heaven and Christ is so tender so bountiful and forward to convey his grace and the Gospel so free an offer and invitation to all that surely Christ will keep no man off if they will come quite over in spirit to Christ they shall be welcome If they will come but onely to a visible Profession he will not deny them admittance there because they intend to go no further but will let them come as neer as they will and that they come no further shall be their own fault and so it is not his readiness to admit such nor the openness of the door of his visible Church
or the frequency of the understandings apprehensions this Truth doth make a deeper impression so is longer retained which impâ—â—ssion and retention we call memory And as truth is thus variously presented to the understanding and received by it so also is the goodness of the object variously represented to the will which doth accordingly put forth its various acts When it appeareth only as good in it self and not good for us or suitable it is not the object of the will at all but only this Enuntiation It is good is passed upon it by the Judgment and withal it raiseth an admiration at its excellency If it appeare evil to us then we Nill it But if it appear both good in it self and to us or suitable then it provoketh the affection of Love If the good thus loved do appear as absent from us then it exciteth the passion of Desire If the good so Loved and Desired do appear possible and feasible in the attaining then it exciteth the passion of Hope which is a compound of Desire and Expectation when we look upon it as requiring our endeavor to attain it and as it is to be had in a prescribed way then it provokes the passion of courage or boldness and concludes in resolution Lastly if this good be apprehended as present then it provoketh to delight or Joy If the thing it self be present the Joy is greatest If but the Idea of it either through the remainder or memory of the good that is past or through the fore-apprehension of that which we expect yet even this also exciteth our Joy And this Joy is the perfection of all the rest SECT II. SO that by this time I suppose you see both what are the objects that must move our affections and what powers of the soul apprehend these objects you see also I doubt not what affections you must excite and in what order it is to be done Yet for your better assistance I will more fully direct you in the several particulars 1. Then you must by cogitation go to the memory which is the Magazine or Treasury of the understanding thence you must take forth those heavenly doctrines which you intend to make the subject of your Meditation for the present purpose you may look over any promise of eternal life in the Gospel any description of the glory of the Saints or the very Articles of the Resurrection of the body and the Life everlasting some one sentence concerning those Eternal Joyes may afford you matter for many yeers Meditation yet it will be a point of our wisdom here to have always a stock of matter in our memory that so when we should use it we may bring forth out of our treasury things new and old For a good man hath a good Treasury in his heart from whence he bringeth forth good things Luke 6.45 and out of this abundance of his heart he should speak to himself as well as to others Yea if we took things in order and observed some Method in respect of the matter and did Meditate first on one Truth concerning Eternity and then another it would not be amiss And if any should be barren of Matter through weakness of memory they may have notes or books of this subject for their furtherance SECT III. 2. WHen you have fetcht from your memory the matter of your Meditation your next work is to present it to your Judgment open there the case as fully as thou canst set forth the several ornaments of the Crown the several dignities belonging to the Kingdom as they are partly laid open in the beginning of this Book Let judgment deliberately view them over and take as exact a survey as it can Then put the question and require a determination Is there happiness in all this or not Is not here enough to make me blessed Can he want any thing who fully possesseth God Is there any thing higher for a creature to attain Thus urge thy judgment to pass an upright sentence and compel it to subscribe to the perfection of thy Celestial happiness and to leave this sentence as under its hand upon Record If thy senses should here begin to mutter and to put in a word for fleshly pleasure or profits let judgment hear what each can say weigh the Arguments of the world and flesh in one end and the Arguments for the preheminence of Glory in the other end and judg impartially which should be preferred Try whether there be any comparison to be made which is more excellent which more manly which is more satisfactory and which more pure which freeth most from misery and advanceth us highest and which dost thou think is of longer continuance Thus let deliberate judgment decide it and let not Flesh carry it by noise and by violence And when the sentence is passed and recorded in thy heart it will be ready at hand to be produced upon any occasion and to silence the flesh in its next attempt and to disgrace the world in its next competition Thus exercise thy Judgment in the contemplation of thy Rest thus Magnifie and Advance the Lord in thy heart till a holy admiration hath possessed thy Soul SECT IV. 3. BUt the great work which you may either promise or subjoyn to this as you please is To exercise thy belief of the truth of thy Rest And that both in respect of the truth of the Promise and also the truth of thy own Interest and Title As unbelief doth cause the languishing of all our Graces so Faith would do much to revive and actuate them if it were but revived and actuated it self Especially our belief of the verity of the Scripture I conceive as needful to be exercised and confirmed as almost any point of Faith But of this I have spoken in the Second Part of this Book whither I refer thee for some confirming Arguments Though few complain of their not believing Scripture yet I conceive it to be the commonest part of unbelief and the very root of bitterness which spoileth our Graces Perhaps thou hast not a positive belief of the contrary nor dost not flatly think that Scripture is not the Word of God that were to be a down-right Infidel indeed And yet thou maist have but little belief that Scripture is Gods Word and that both in regard of the habit and the act It s one thing not to beleeve Scripture to be true and another thing positively to beleeve it to be false Faith may be idle and suspend its exercise toward the Truth though it do not yet act against the Truth It may stand still when it goes not out of the way it may be asleep and do you little service though it do not directly fight against you Besides a great deal of unbelief may consist with a small degree of Faith If we did soundly beleeve That there is such a Glory that within a few days our eyes shall behold it O what passions would it
raise within us Were we throughly perswaded That every Word in the Scripture concerning the unconceivable joyes of the Kingdom and the unexpressible Blessedness of the life to come were the very Word of the Living God and should certainly be performed to the smallest tittle O what astonishing apprehensions of that life would it breed what amazing horror would seize upon our hearts when we found our selves strangers to the conditions of that life and utterly ignorant of our portion therein what love what longings would it raise within us O how it would actuate every affection how it would transport us with joy upon the least assurance of our title If I were as verily perswaded that I shall shortly see those great things of Eternity promised in the Word as I am that this is a chair that I sit in or that this is paper that I write on would it not put another Spirit within me would it not make me forget and despise the world and even forget to sleep or to eat And say as Christ I have meat to eat that ye know not of O Sirs you little know what a through belief would work Not that every one hath such affections who hath a true Faith But thus would the acting and improvement of our Faith advance us Therefore let this be a chief part of thy business in Meditation Produce the strong Arguments for the Truth of Scripture plead them against thy unbelieving nature answer and silence all the cavils of infidelity Read over the Promises study all confirming Providences call forth thine own recorded experiences Remember the Scriptures already fulfilled both to the Church and Saints in former ages and eminently to both in this present age and those that have been fulfilled particularly to thee Get ready the clearest and most convincing Arguments and keep them by thee and frequently thus use them Think it not enough that thou wast once convinced though thou hast now forgot the Arguments that did it no nor that thou hast the Arguments still in thy Book or in thy Brain This is not the acting of thy Faith but present them to thy understanding in thy frequent meditations and urge them home till they force belief Actual convincing when it is clear and frequent will work those deep impressions on the heart which an old neglected forgotten conviction will not O if you would not think it enough that you have Faith in the habit and that you did once beleeve but would be daily setting this first wheel a going Surely all the inferior wheels of the Affections would more easily move Never expect to have Love and Joy move when the foregoing Grace of Faith stands still And as you should thus act your assent to the Promise so also your Acceptation your Adherence your Affiance and your Assurance These are the four steps of Application of the Promise to our selves I have said somewhat among the Helps to move you to get Assurance But that which I here aim at is That you would daily exercise it Set before your Faith the Freeness and the Universality of the Promise Consider of Gods offer and urging it upon all and that he hath excepted from the conditional Covenant no man in the world nor will exclude any from Heaven who will accept of his offer Study also the gracious disposition of Christ and his readiness to entertain and welcome all that will come Study all the Evidences of his love which appeared in his sufferings in his preaching the Gospel in his condescention to sinners in his easie conditions in his exceeding patience and in his urgent invitations Do not all these discover his readiness to save did he ever yet manifest himself unwilling remember also his faithfulness to perform his engagements Study also the Evidences of his Love in thy self look over the works of his Grace in thy soul If thou do not finde the degree which thou desirest yet deny not that degree which thou findest look after the sincerity more then the quantity Remember what discoveries of thy state thou hast made formerly in the work of self-examination how oft God hath convinced thee of the sincerity of thy heart Remember all the sonner testimonies of the Spirit and all the sweet feelings of the favor of God and all the prayers that he hath heard and granted and all the rare preservations and deliverances and all the progress of his Spirit in his workings on thy soul and the disposals of providence conducing to thy good The vouchsafing of means the directing thee to them the directing of Ministers to meet with thy state the restraint of those sins that thy nature was most prone to And though one of these considered alone may be no sure evidence of his special love which I expect thou shouldst try by more infallible signes yet lay them altogether and then think with thy self Whether all these do not testifie the good will of the Lord concerning thy salvation and may not well be pleaded against thine unbelief And whether thou maist not conclude with Sampsons Mother when her husband thought they should surely die If the Lord were pleased to kill us he would not have received an offering at our hands neither would he have shewed us all these things nor would as at this time have told us such things as these Judg. 13.22 23. SECT V. â— WHen thy Meditation hath thus proceeded about the truth of thy Happiness the next part of the work is to meditate of its Goodness That when the Judgment hath determined and Faith hath apprehended it may then past on to raise the Affections 1. The first Affection to be acted is Love the object of it as I have told you is Goodness Here then here Christian is the Soul reviving part of thy work Go to thy Memory thy Judgment and thy Faith and from them produce the excellencies of thy Rest take out a copy of the Record of the Spirit in Scripture and another of the sentence registred in thy Spirit whereby the â—â—anscendent glory of the Saints is declared Present these to thy affection of Love open to it the Cabinet that contains the Pearl shew it the Promise and that which it assureth Thou needest not look on Heaven through a multiplying Glass open but one Casement that Love may look in Give it but a glimpse of the back parts of God and thou wilt finde thy self presently in another world Do but speak out and Love can hear do but reveal these things and Love can see It s the bruitish love of the world that is blinde Divine love is exceeding quick sighted Let thy Faith as it were take thy heart by the hand and shew it the sumptuous buildings of thy Eternal Habitation and the Glorious Ornaments of thy Fathers house shew it those Mansions which Christ is preparing and display before it the Honors of the Kingdom Let Faith lead thy heart into the presence of God and draw as neer as possibly thou
we shall be raised from many yeers rottenness and dust and that dust exalted to a Sun-like glory and that glory perpetuated to all eternity VVhat sayest thou Christian Is not this the greatest of miracles or wonders Surely if we observe but common providences the Motions of the Sun the Tides of the Sea the standing of the Earth the warming it the watering it with Rain as a Garden the keeping in order a wicked confused world with multitudes the like they are all very admirable But then to think of the Sion of God of the Vision of the Divine Majesty of the comely Order of the Heavenly Host what an admirable sight must that needs be O what rare and mighty works have we seen in Britain in four or five yeers what changes what subduing of enemies what clear discoveries of an Almighty Arm what magnifying of weakness what casting down of strength what wonders wrought by most improbable means what bringing to Hell and bringing back what turning of tears and fears into safety and joy such hearing of earnest prayers as if God could have denyed us nothing that we asked All these were wonderful heart-raising works But O what are these to our full deliverance to our final conquest to our eternal triumph and to that great day of great things SECT IX 7. COmpare also the Mercies which thou shalt have above with those particular Providences which thou hast enjoyed thy self and those observable Mercies which thou hast recorded through thy life If thou be a Christian indeed I know thou hast if not in thy Book yet certainly in thy Heart a great many precious favors upon record The very remembrance and rehearsal of them is sweet How much more sweet was the actual enjoyment But all these are nothing to the Mercies which are above Look over the excellent Mercies of thy Youth and Education the mercies of thy riper yeers or age the mercies of thy prosperity and of thy adversity the mercies of thy several places and relations are they not excellent and innumerable Canst not thou think on the several places thou hast lived in and remember that they have each had their several mercies the mercies of such a place and such a place and all of them very rich and engaging Mercies O how sweet was it to thee when God resolved thy last doubts when he overcame and silenced thy fears and unbelief when he prevented the inconveniences of thy life which thy own counsel would have cast thee into when he eased thy pains when he healed thy sickness and raised thee up as from the very grave and death when thou prayedst and wepst as Hezekiah and saidst My days are cut off I shall go to the gates of the grave I am deprived of the residue of my yeers I said I shall not see the Lord even the Lord in the Land of the Living I shall behold man no more with the Inhabitants of the World Mine age is departed and removed from me as a Shepherds Tent I have cut off like a Weaver my life he will cut me off with pining sickness from day to day wilt thou make an end of me c. Yet did he in love to thy soul deliver it from the pit of corruption and cast thy sins behinde his back and set thee among the living to praise him as thou dost this day That the fathers to the children might make known his Truth The Lord was ready to save thee that thou mightest sing the songs of praise to him in his house all the days of thy life Isai. 38.10 to the 20. I say were not all these most precious mercies Alas these are but small things for thee in the eyes of God he intendeth thee far greater things then these even such as these are scarce a taste of It was a choice mercy that God hath so notably answered thy prayers and that thou hast been so oft and so evidently a prevailer with him But O think then Are all these so sweet and precious that my life would have been a perpetual misery without them Hath his providence lifted me so high on Earth and his merciful kindness made me great How sweet then will the Glory of his presence be And how high will his eternal love exalt me And how great shall I be made in Communion with his greatness If my pilgrimage and warfare have such mercies what shall I finde in my home and in my Triumph If God will communicate so much to me while I remain a sinner what will he bestow when I am a perfect Saint If I have had so much in this strange Country at such a distance from him what shall I have in Heaven in his immediate presence where I shall ever stand about his Throne SECT X. 8. COmpare the comforts which thou shalt have above with those which thou hast here received in the Ordinances Hath not the written Word been to thee as an open fountain flowing with comforts day and night when thou hast been in trouble there thou hast met with refreshing when thy faith hath staggered it hath there been confirmed what suitable Scriptures hath the Spirit set before thee VVhat seasonable promises have come into thy minde so that thou maist say with David If thy Word had not been my delight I had perished in my trouble Think then If the VVord be so full of consolations what overflowing springs shall we finde in God if his letters are so comfortable what are the words that flow from his blessed lips and the beams that stream from his Glorious Face If Luther would not take all the world for one leaf of the Bible what would he take for the Joyes which it revealeth If the promise be so sweet what is the performance If the Testament of our Lord and our charter for the Kingdom be so comfortable what will be our possession of the Kingdom it self Think further what delights have I found also in this Word preached when I have sit under a heavenly heart-searching Teacher how hath my heart been warmed within me how hath he melted me and turned my bowels me thinks I have felt my self almost in Heaven me thinks I could have been content to have sate and heard from morning to night I could even have lived and dyed there How oft have I gone to the congregation troubled in spirit and returned home with quietness and delight How oft have I gone doubting concluding damnation against my own soul and God hath sent me home with my doubts resolved and satisfied me and perswaded me of his love in Christ How oft have I gone with darkness and doubtings in my Judgment and God hath opened to me such pretious truths and opened also my understanding to see them that his light hath been exceeding comfortable to my soul what Cordials have I met with in my saddest afflictions what preparatives to fortifie me for the next encounter Well then if Moses face do shine so gloriously what Glory
may please God in some respect secundum quid as Ahabs Humiliation A flat necessity both of coming to God as the End or our chief Good and to Christ as the way to the Father * Viz. As it is put for all obedience to the Commands proper to the Gospel Which part of this turning goes first The terminus a quo considerable before the terminus ad quâ—m in order of nature Object Answ. § 5. As the Will turns from evil so at the same time to God and the Mediator 1 To the Godhead in order of Nature 2 To the Mediator as the way which is by Faith John 14.6 Acts 20.21 5.31 11.18 26.20 What justifying Faith is It s proper Act is the Acceptation of Christ offered * So Doctor Prestons judgment is and Master Woollis against the Lord Brook p. 94. It is an Accepting of Christ offered rather then the belief of a Proposition affirmed So that excellent Philosopher and Divine Love to Christ whether it be not Essential to justifying Faith See more of this in the Positions of Justification Love to Christ must be the strongest Love Luke 14.26 Doctor Sibbs Souls Conflict Justifying Faith is the Accepting Christ both for Saviour and Lord. So that our Subjection to Christ as our Lord is part of that Faith which justifieth How this differs from the abhorred doctrine of the Socinians you may see in the Aphorisms of Justification What Christ doth for us upon our Acceptance Covenanting with Christ is an essential part of our actual Conversion and of our Christianity Next Christ delivereth himself to the sinner and he delivereth himself up to Christ. Lastly The believer persevereth in this Covenant and all the forementioned grounds of it to the death Heb. 10.29 Matth. 24.13 Revel 2.26 27. 3.11 12. John 15.4 5 6. 8.31 15.9 Col. â— 23 Rom. 11.22 § 6. The Application of this Description by way of Examination Whether thy Infant Baptism will serve or no I am sure thy Infant Covenant will not now serve thy turne But thou must Actually enter Covenant in thy own person John 15.4 5 6. Matth 24.13 Heb. 10.38 39. * I speak not this to the dark and clouded Christian who cannot discern â—hat which is indeed within him Deut. 32.29 § 7. Why called People of God 1 By Election 2 Special Redemption 3 Likeness to him 1 Pet. 1.16 4 Mutual Love 5 Mutual Covenanting 6 Neer Relations 7 Future Cohabitation ☜ §. 1. Confirmation from other Scriptures The Truth confirmed from other Scriptures 1 Affirming the Saints to have been predestinate to this glory Isa. 14.24 2 That it is procured for them by the blood of Christ. Paul Hobson * I confesse the later is the more proper expression and oftner used in the Scriptures Exod. 23.22 Psal. 11.5 Psal. 5.5 Isa. 63.10 Lam. 2.5 Paul Hobson Iâ—a 53.11 § 3. 3 It is promised to them § 4. 4 The means and motions towards it do prove that there is such an end * Mr. Burroughs thinks this is meant of the violence of persecution but Lukes phrase coâ—â—uteth that § 5. 5 So do the beginnings fâ—â—â—tasts earnests and seals 2 Cor. 1.22 5.5 §. 6. 6 Some have entered it already § 1. ☜ a I mean not an absolute necessity as if what is said were not convincing b I believe Mr. Eliot in New England will have more comfort in his work for those Indians then we in England in our controversies and contentions about inferiour things c By Testimony I mean not the cure of the understandings disability for that 's necessary either by common grace to work a common Faith or by speciall grace for speciall Faith Doct. Presion on Attributes pag. 57. d I mean it is now to us the onely ordinary sufficient means of revealing Christ. Religio 〈◊〉 Chiâ—â—â—â— pâ—r Apostâ—los tradiâ—a Scripta est super scripta Prophetarum Apostolorum fundata Dr. Sutlive Contra Bellarm. de Monach pag. 11. See Dr Jackson of Saving Faith Sect. 2. cap. 2. pag. 143. c. See this more fully in Dr. Preston on the Attributes pag. 61 62 63 64. Yet we acknowledg it belongs to the Church first To be a Witness and Keeper of the Scriptures secondly To judg and discern betwixt Scriptures which are true and genuine and which are false and supposititious or Apocryphal thirdly To divulge and preach the Scriptures fourthly To expound and interpret them Dr. Whitaker De Sacra scriptura Q. 3. contr 1. cap. 2. pag. 203 204. * I would fain know of any Papist why their Church believes the Scripture to be the Word of God If the Laiety must believe it upon the authority of the Church and this Church be the Pope and his Clergy then it followeth that the Pope and Clergy believe it on their Authority As Paraeus in Thâ—mat Seculari xv Et quia Papa solus vel cum praelatis est Ecclesia ideo Papa praelati Scripturis credunt propler seipsos lâ—icos voluit crâ—dere Scripturis propter Papam praelatos a Sicut in Poloniá ubi non solum preces recitant â—ala criminosa contra Christianos corum magistratus continentes sedetiam aâ—dacter sâ—â—e on â—â— christianorum metu imprimunt quaecunque volunt ut testatur Buxtorsius Synagogae Judaicae c. 5 p 170. 1 Pet. 3.15 b As Graserus when he saw his legs begin to swell with a Dropsie said Euge Deo sit laus gloria quod jam mea instet liberatio horula gratissima Melch. Adam in vita Graseri § 2. Impias argumentationes si ratio refutare non possit fides irridere debet quae ratiocinationes evertit in captivitatem redigit omnem intellectum in Christi obsequium August * Though 〈◊〉 extend 〈…〉 far as 〈…〉 a Sequor te non quâ— duâ—is sed quo trahis inquit Scaliger ad Câ—rdanum in Exercit * He that doubts of this let him see Dr. Jackson of Saving Faith pag. 146.147 And Mr Pinkes Sermons of the Sincerity of Love to Christ * Articulus 6. fidei Judaicae sic se habet Credo perfectâ fide quod omne quodcunque prophetae docuerunt locuti fuerunt veritas sincera sit Oâ—tvus autem sic Credo perfecta fide quod lex tota perinde ut ea bodierno tempore in manibus nostris est it a per Deum ipsummet Mosi tradita sit vid. Buxtorf Synagogae Judaicae cap. 1. pag. 4.5 § 1. § 2. The word Foundation being a Metaphor is to be banished dispute till first explained a Ad benè esse fidei perfectionem b Necessitate praecepti * Primario propter se Secundario propter aliud A facto ad jus ad licitum vel debitum non valet Argum. As Peter Gal. 2.11 12.13 § 1. 2 Tim. 3.16 * Donum Miraculorum linguarum dandarum fuisse extraordinarium et a solis Apostolis peculiari privelegio dato a Christo
not of the world and therefore the world hates them who have forsaken all for Christ and having taken up the Cross do follow him with patient waiting till they inherit the promised Glory SECT V. 4. I Add That this Happiness consists in obtaining the End where I mean the ultimate and principal end not any end secundum quid so called subordinate or less principal Not the end of conclusion in regard of time for so every man hath his end But the end of Intention which sets the Soul a work and is its prime motive in all its actions That the chief Happiness is in the enjoyment of this End I shall fully shew through the whole Discourse and therefore here omit SECT VI. BUt it is a great doubt with many whether the obtainment of this glory may be our end nay concluded that its mercenary yea that to make Salvation the end of Duty is to be a Legalist and act under a Covenant of Works whose Tenor is Do this and Live And many that think it may be our end yet think it may not be our ultimate end for that should be onely the glory of God I shall answer these particularly and briefly SECT VII 1. IT 's properly called mercenary when we expect it as wages for work done and so we may not make it our end Otherwise it is only such a mercenariness as Christ commandeth For consider what this end is It 's the fruition of God in Christ and if seeking Christ be mercenary I desire to be so mercenary 2. It 's not a note of a Legalist neither It hath been the ground of a multitude of Late mistakes in Divinity to think that Do this and Live is onely the language of the Covenant of Works It 's true in some sence it is but in other not The Law of Works onely saith Do this that is perfectly fulfil the whole Law and Live that is for so doing But the Law of Grace saith Do this and Live too that is Beleeve in Christ seek him obey him sincerely as thy Lord and King forsake all suffer all things and overcome and by so doing or in so doing as the Conditions which the Gospel propounds for Salvation you shall live If you set up the abrogated duties of the Law again you are a Legalist if you set up the duties of the Gospel in Christs stead in whole or in part you err still Christ hath his place and work Duty hath its place and work too Set it but in its own place and expect from it but it s own part and you go right Yea more how unsavory soever the phrase may seem you may so far as this comes to trust to your Duty and Works that is for your own part and many miscarry in expecting no more from them as to pray and to expect nothing the more that is from Christ in a way of Duty For if duty have no share why may we not trust Christ as well in a way of disobedience as duty In a word you must both use and trust duty in Subordination to Christ but neither use them nor trust them in Co-ordination with him So that this derogates nothing from Christ for he hath done and will do all his work perfectly and enableth his people to Theirs Yet he is not properly said to do it himself he beleeves not repents not c. but worketh these in them that is enableth and exciteth them to do it SECT VIII IF I should quote all the Scriptures that plainly prove this I should transcribe a great part of the Bible I will bring none out of the Old Testament for I know not whether their Authority will here be acknowledged But I desire the contrary minded whose consciences are tender of abusing Scripture and wresting it from the plain sence to study what tolerable interpretation can be given of these following places which will not prove that Life and Salvation may be yea must be the end of Duty Joh 5.39 40. Ye will not come to me that ye might have life Mat. 11.12 The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force Mat. 7.13 Luk. 13.24 Strive to enter in at the strait gate Phil. 2.12 Work out your salvation with fear and trembling Rom. 2.7 10. To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality eternal life Glory honor and peace to every man that worketh good c. 1 Cor. 9.24 So run that you may obtain 2 Tim. 2.5 A man is not crowned except he strive lawfully 2 Tim. 2.12 If we suffer with him we shall reign with him 1 Tim. 6.12 Fight the good fight of faith lay hold on eternal life 1 Tim. 6.18 19. That they do good works laying up a good foundation against the time to come that they may lay hold on eternal life Phil. 3.14 If by any means I might attain to the Resurrection of the Dead I press toward the mark for the price of the high calling c. Rev. 22.14 Blessed are they that do his commandments that they may have right to the tree of life and enter in by the gates into the City Mat. 25. Come ye blessed of my Father inherit c. for I was hungry and ye c. Mat. 9. Blessed are the pure in heart c. they that hunger and thirst c. Be glad and rejoyce for great is your reward in Heaven Luk. 11.28 Blessed are they that hear the Word of God and keep it Yea the escaping of Hell is a right end of Duty to a Beleever Hebr. 4.1 Let us fear least a promise being left us of entering into his Rest any of you should seem to come short of it Luk. 12.5 Fear him that is able to destroy both soul and body in hell yea whatsoever others say I say unto you Fear him 1 Cor. 9.27 I keep under my body and bring it in subjection lest when I have preached to others I my self should be a cast-away Multitudes of Scriptures and Scripture Arguments might be brought but these may suffice to any that beleeve Scripture SECT IX 3. FOr those that think this Rest may be our end but not our ultimate end that must be Gods glory onely let them consider What God hath joyned man must not separate The glorifying himself and the saving his people as I judg are not two Decrees with God but one Decree to glorifie his mercy in their salvation So I think they should be with us one Intention We should aim at the glory of God not alone considered without our salvation but in our salvation Therefore I know no warrant for putting such a Question to our selves as some do Whether we could be content to be damned so God were glorified Sure I am Christ himself is offered to faith in terms for the most part respecting the welfare of the sinner more then his own abstracted glory he would be