any worthy the Name of a Christian how weak soever but even of any that is worthy but of the Name of a man and not a And yet how are those Works in which these things are found applauded as the Works of a Prophet of the Lord by several men of great Note among you such as George Fox George Whitehead Francis Howgil and Josiah Coâ—le who adjoin their several Testimonials to them And wherfore do I lay these things before you but to give you occasion to reflect upon your selves and your way with a jealous eye and to convince you that ye know not of what Spirit ye are of but that while ye have thought ye have been walking in the Light ye have been walking in Darkness and that whilst ye have fancied your selves the most spiritual among Christians ye have discovered your selves to be but carnal If any man among you seemeth to be Religious and bridleth not his Tongue but deceiveth his own heart that man's Religion is vain Jam. 1. 26. If there be bitter Zeal glory not and lie not against the Truth for that wisdom is not from above as you are apt to boast it to be but from beneath and is Earthly Sensual and Devilish Jam. 3. 15. But it is not strange if men be left first or last to fall into unchristian practices who out of affectation of Novelty and Singularity in Doctrine and a desire to appear more sublime in their Notions than all that went before them have left the old beaten path of Christian Doctrine in which the several Generations of holy men have lived and walked from the Apostles time downwards For when men wax spiritually proud and wanton in rejecting the plain way and method which God hath chosen to bring men to saving Faith Repentance and a holy Life and to continue them in it and invent and chuse another in its stead and call it by the name of his and preach to and press it upon the people in his Name he takes no pleasure in their so doing nor doth he delight to vouchsafe his concurrent Grace and blessing therewith which he doth with his own way and method by which it becomes effectual to make men good and to keep them so And therefore as I said 't is no marvel if men by degrees lose in the goodness of their Frame and Temper which sometimes they had attained while they kept close to God's way and method in which he bestows it and degenerate into men of quite another Spirit and Temper when they forsake that and run into another of their own invention and choice The disobedient Jews who had declined from the better way of their Ancestors and grew into a worse spirit and temper they had a zeal of God still but not according to knowledge They did will and run for Justification and Life they followed after Righteousness and yet attained not to the Law of Righteousness and wherefore but because they sought it not by Faith which was the method of God's chusing but as it were by the works of the Law which was a method of their own chusing in opposition to God's Rom. 9. 31 32. § 2. And whether you are not guilty of rejecting God's way and method of converting men to and keeping them in the way of saving Faith Repentance and Evangelical Obedience and of inventing and chusing one of your own different from that comes now to to be considered I shall state your way in this by what you have published to the world in your own Books and for Brevity sake shall instance but in two Authors Ed. Burrough formerly and Mr. Pen of late who speak for you that which is otherwise well enough known to be your common Opinion In the Works of Ed. Burrough whom you are pleased to stile that true Prophet in the Title-Page which are published by you there are these Sayings In Page 252 thus His pure Spirit is put into the inward parts to be the Rule and Guide of Life in all things And again Only by the teaching of the Eternal Spirit is the Living God known in the Creature Again p. 408 It is promised saith he that the Spirit shall lead into all Truth and such do own the Scriptures but not as their Teacher for the Anointing dwells in them and they need no man to teach them but as that Anointing teacheth all things and they have no need of the Scripture to teach them for all the Children of God are taught of God and need not any other Teacher nor need not to say one to another Know the Lord. And yet all such do own the Scriptures to be the Testimony of that which they believe and have received And again in p. 834 The only perfect Rule of Conscience in the exercise to God is the Spirit of Christ and not any other thing And because something besides the Spirit of God exercises the Conscience therefore it is that here are so many Ways and Sects of Religion and kinds of Worship in Christendom and among Christians while the Spirit of Christ only is not the Rule of Judgment and exercise of Conscience to God and man Again pag. 861. The judgment in that matter Heresie must be just equal Holy and only by the Spirit of Christ which is infallible and gives infallibility of judgment and discerning into all Cases and Things Mr. Pen spends the Fourth Chapter of his late Book Entituled Reason against Railing to prove that the Light within and not the Scriptures is the Rule of Faith and Practice In p. 47. he saith We dare boldly affirm in the Name of the Lord that the great reason of our Belief concerning them the Scriptures is not any outward thing but that inward Testimony Record and heavenly Amen that we have frequently received from the Holy Light within us to the Truth and Faithfulness of those Sayings Again p. 48. Wherefore the Scriptures are so far from being the great Rule of Faith and Practice that the Light of Christ within us is both our Warrant and Rule for Faith in and Obedience to them Again p. 114. Let it be remembred saith he that Christ promised to send the Spirit of Truth to lead into all Truth as much as to say none are led into the Truth nor in the Truth but by the Holy Spirit of Truth or that their practice is a Lie or they are led into a Lie who are not led by the Spirit of Truth that alone leads into all the ways of Truth Where by Truth is not meant the meer Letter of the Scripture which notwithstanding is true but the living powerful Truth Christ the Way the Truth and the Life of which the Scripture is but a Record or Declaration And p. 115. Many may run into the practice of several outward things mentioned in the Scriptures to have been the practice of Saints in former Ages and yet not be led into the Truth for all that is but Will-Worship Imitation and Vnwarrantable Your
written in one of the Prophets I have written to them the great things of my Law and they have counted them as a strange thing Hos 8. 12. § 7. 5. The next Proposition is this That the Holy Scriptures extant in the Apostles days in conjunction with the Doctrine of the Christian Faith however made known by Writing or otherwise were then through that Grace of God which usually attends a due use of them able to make men wise to Salvation 2 Tim. 3. 15. And that from a Child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through Faith which is in Christ Jesus If by Scriptures here you will understand the Scriptures of the Old Testament only yet you may easily collect that if those Scriptures were in great part able to make men wise unto Salvation then when the Gospel was on foot then the Scriptures of the New Testament as containing the Christian Doctrine are able to do it much more and both in conjunction to be effectual to that end The Apostle acquainted the Christians then that the Mystery of the Gospel by the Scriptures of the Prophets is and that according to the Commandment of the everlasting God made known to all Nations for the obedience of Faith Rom. 16. 25 26. § 8. 6. The Holy Scriptures as the means which God works by are able not only to make men in a private capacity wise unto salvation but also to furnish men for the discharging of the publick Office of Teaching and Governing in the Church of God The Holy Scriptures given by inspiration of God are profitable for Doctrine Reproof Correction and Instruction in Righteousness so as to make the man of God to wit a publick Preacher perfect throughly furnished to all good works even to enable him to discharge his whole Duty towards the Souls of others 2 Tim. 3. 16. And St. Paul by his Writings instructed even Timothy himself how to behave himself in his Office and publick Capacity 1 Tim. 3. 14. These things write I unto thee that thou maist know how to behave thy self in the House of God which is the Church of the Living God And for the better discharge of his Ministerial Office directs and enjoins him to give attendance to Reading and to Meditation or Study 1 Tim. 4. 13 15. Which sure would have been needless if he had been sufficiently able to have done all by the immediate Illumination and operation of God's Spirit as you fancy your Teachers are able to do § 9. 7. The same promise is made to the reading of the Word written and to the keeping of it as is to the hearing and keeping of it Rev. 1. 3. Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this Prophesie and keep those things which are written therein § 10. 8. The Scripture is said to say this or that which yet God said himself or by his Servants Rom. 9. 17. The Scripture saith unto Pharaoh even for this same purpose have I raised thee up that I might shew my power in thee Rom. 10. 11. The Scripture saith Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed Gal. 3. 22. The Scripture hath concluded all under sin What saith the Scripture Cast out the Bondwoman and her Son Gal. 4. 30. Which yet was the Saying of God himself Gen. 16. Another Scripture saith They shall look on him whom they have pierced John 19. 17. No Prophesie of the Scriptures is of private Interpretation 2 Pet. 1. 20. So that according to this look what God saith in and by the Scriptures touching such things as concern us is in effect the same as if he had spoken them to us himself immediately If any man think himself to be a Prophet or Spiritual let him acknowledge that the things I write unto you are the Commandments of the Lord said St Paul 1 Cor. 14. 37. You are wont to insinuate indeed as if the Scriptures were not of that use to us now as they were to them to whom they were first written But however they might more concern them than us in some particular cases proper to them yet in things of common concern they are as much for our use as they were for theirs For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our Learning Rom. 15. 4. What God said to Joshua I will never leave thee nor forsake thee the Apostle would have all faithful Christians relie on as if it had been spoken to themselves Heb. 13. 5. That which was first spoken to the Jews Lev. 26. The Apostle applies to the Believing Gentiles as much as if it had been spoken to them only 2 Cor. 6. 16. For ye are the Temple of the Living God as God hath said I will dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they shall be my people § 11. 9. We that have the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles brought down to us in the Scriptures may according to Scripture-Dialect be said to have Christ and his Apostles as truly as it was said of the Jews in our Saviour's days on Earth that they had Moses and the Prophets for it was by having in the Scriptures what they said and did that were said to have them And by hearing and believing the Scriptures of the New Testament we may as well be said to hear and believe Christ and his Apostles as they to hear and believe Moses and the Prophets which yet they were said to do when they did believe their Writings Luke 16. 29. They have Moses and the Prophets let them hear them Ver. 31. If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded though one rose from the dead John 5. 46 47. Had ye believed Moses ye would have believed me for he wrote of me But if ye believe not his Writings how should ye believe my Words Christ promised his Apostles upon his giving them Commission to teach all Nations that he would be with them to the end of the world and he is so in one sense when he accompanies their Ministration by their Doctrine and Writings with the presence of his Grace and power in their continuation to the end of the world And as it is said of Moses Acts 15. 21. That he had those in every City that preached him being read in the Synagogues every Sabbath day inasmuch as his Books of the Law were read so for the same or like reason it may be as truly said that Christ hath those that preach him now when the Books of the New Testament written by inspiration of his Spirit are read among us and opened unto us every Lord's Day You may then safely conclude that those that have the Doctrine of Christ in his Gospel among them have Christ among them and all that receive and hold fast that do receive and hold fast him So saith St. John in his second Epist v. 9. He that abideth in the Doctrine of Christ he
they are said to be born of the Immortal Seed of the Word 1 Pet. 1. 23. Because that is God's Instrument Of his own Will begat he us by the Word of Truth Jam. 1. 18. And the Gospel is the Ministration of the Spirit and the Sword of the Spirit as it is called because it is the great Instrument or Means by which the Spirit doth its Work upon men Indeed the Work of Grace in men is most properly attributed to God to Christ though other Causes concur to the producing of that Effect because he is the principal Cause of it and all other but subordinate and yet the Effect is sometimes attributed to subordinate and second Causes also though less properly Thus Christ the principal Cause of it is said to be The Light of the World the Light of men because he by his Gospel as the Author of it discovers and reveals to them a future everlasting Happiness attainable in another World and the way to it and yet the Gospel it self yea the Apostles and Pastors and Christian Professors are also said to be the Light of the world as subordinate Causes under Christ of the Illumination of men in the knowledge hereof Mat. 5. 14. 2 Cor. 4. 4. Phil. 2. 15 16. All which had you well considered you would never have opposed mens being enlightened and taught by Christ as ye do to their being taught by the Scriptures or by men and all because forsooth the Illumination of men is attributed to Christ This very thing here suggested to you would in great part reduce you and set you to rights if you could be but willing to receive and own that for truth which cannot without great absurdity and contradiction to the Scriptures be denied But for want of distinguishing between things and things which in some respect seem to be the same but in other respects greatly differ you run your selves into Error and great Absurdities I will upon this occasion instance in another thing not much unlike to that but now mentioned wherein you greatly mistake for want of distinguishing and that is touching the Presence of Christ in men For because the Scriptures speak of Christ's being in men and because Christ is God and God euery where present and so in all men from these thus jumbled together you infer that therefore Christ is in all men and that being so you farther infer that all men are taught by him himself immediately without external Teaching In doing of which you confound things together which are distinct to the darkning of them in your understandings and the misguiding you in Judgment You do not distinguish as you ought to do between the Essential Presence of Christ as God and his Virtual Presence as Mediator God-man For although Christ as God is present to every man in the exercise of common Providence in the world My Father worketh hitherto and I work saith he John 5. 17. yet in respect of his Virtual Presence as Mediator as when he rules and operates in mens hearts by his Authority and by the Evangelical Law in this sence which yet is doubtless the sence in which Christ is said in Scripture to be in men and to dwell in them I say in this sence he is not in all men For men are said to be without Christ until they are converted to Christianity Eph. 2. 12. And it is by Faith which only some and not all men have that Christ dwells in any mans heart Eph. 3. 17. It is by that Faith that his Authority in his Doctrine and Law is owned and where that 's sincerely owned there Christ is said to dwell Not that Christ as Mediator God-man dwells personally in men for in that sence and respect he dwells in Heaven and is at the right hand of the Majesty on high And therefore as Teacher of his Church he doth not teach men now immediately in person but by his Gospel which he sends to them by which he enlightens them in the way of Salvation Ye do therefore err not knowing or understanding the Scriptures while you attribute those effects to the Essential Presence and immediate operation of Christ in men which are wrought by him indeed but it is by the Instrumentality and Agency of second Causes the Gospel and the Ministration thereof by men I wish that by these Instances you could be made sensible of your great weakness in despising Distinctions as if they were but effects of Carnal Reason and Fleshly Wisdom for sith Words that are the same in sound are often used to signifie things of a different Nature and words different in sound to signifie things of the same Nature instances of which the Scripture abounds with they must of necessity be perpetually liable to Error and gross Mistakes that throw away distinctions as useless which is your own case in many other things besides these now instanced in Since then it was God's Method in the Apostles dayes to bring men to salvation by believing and obeying the Doctrine preached by them as I have shewed It is marvellous that any that pretend to know any thing in Christianity should deny this Doctrine to be the Rule of Faith and Christian Practice whenas that 's the very end and Reason of the promulgation of it to direct men what to believe and do that they might be saved and to excite them to believe and do accordingly When St. Paul saith Whereto we have attained let us walk by the same Rule doth he not by Rule mean the Apostles Doctrine whenas in the next words he proposeth himself that lived according to what he taught as an example for them to follow Phil. 3. 16 17. It was the great commendation of the primitive Christians that they continued stedfastly in the Apostles Doctrine Acts 2. 42. And St John said Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the Doctrine of Christ hath not God And to transgress sure is to swerve from the Rule 2 John 9. This Doctrine of Christ is called the Gospel of the Kingdom Mat. 4. 23. and 9. 35. and 24. 14. For it is that Rule by which Christ our King doth rule and govern his Subjects both in Heart and Life as the Laws of the Land are the Rule according to which Earthly Kings do govern theirs The Sum and Substance of the Doctrine which the Apostles preached one as well as another and in one place as well as another is called The Form of Sound Words 2 Tim. 1 13. The Principles of the Doctrine of Christ Heb. 6. And this Form of Doctrine was delivered to the Christians to rule and govern themselves by Rom. 6. 17. But now have obeyed from the heart that Form of Doctrine which was delivered to you And it was so much a Rule to them that they were commanded to mark and avoid such as caused Divisions and Offences contrary to the Doctrine which they had learned Rom. 16. 17. And forbid to receive into their Houses such as brought not this
hath both the Father and the Son And again 1 John 2. 24. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you ye also shall continue in the Son and in the Father § 12. 10. That in Christ Jesus neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor Uncircumcision but a new Creature is a most important Doctrine declared in writing by St. Paul Gal. 6. 15. And when he saith in the next Verse As many as walk according to this Rule peace be on them it is most evident he was not of your mind and way who hold that the Holy Scriptures or Doctrine contained in them which is the same are not a Rule of Christian Faith and Practice This written Doctrine of the Gospel we see is a Rule for Christians to walk by as the written Law and Testimony was to the Jews and as it was said of those that walked not according to that Word or Rule that it was because there was no Light in them Isa 8. 20. Even so and for the same reason it may now be said of you that if you walk not according to this Rule it is because in truth there is no Light in you how much soever you vainly boast of it and censure others for want of it that yet make it their daily care and endeavour to walk according to the Light and Guidance of that Rule that hath its seat in their Conscience And now Sirs by this time methinks you should not but perceive that I have given you proof in good measure heaped up shaken together pressed down and running over That Gods way and method of directing men what to believe and do as necessary to their Salvation and of perswading them to believe and do accordingly is and hath been by that teaching which comes from God into the Soul by outward means such as is his Word written or by mens teaching the same Doctrine which is contained in the Scriptures and if so then not by his immediate teaching and operation without such outward teaching which yet is that which you hold and teach in opposition to God's Method The Proof of this is so evident and convincing that if you will but give your minds and Consciences Liberty seriously to consider it I cannot imagine how you should possibly persist in your way without offering some violence to the reason of your Minds § 13. But since you have strengthened your selves in this your perswasion out of an Opinion you have that some Scriptures are on your side in it I shall yet add something farther to convince you of Error and Mistake therein You seem to ground your selves much upon John 1. 9. Where it is said of Christ This is the true Light which lightneth every man that cometh into the world That Christ doth one way or other lighten every man that comes into the world is a great truth here declared But that which you are wont to alledge it for and which you are to prove hence if you would have it do your business is That Christ lighteneth every man that comes into the world with the knowledge of what he ought to believe and do in order to his salvation without learning it from or by any Outward Means That no such thing as that Christ so lightens all men without Outward Teaching can be proved either from this or any other Scripture I shall easily shew you Christ doth enlighten all whom he doth enlighten in one or more of these three ways either 1. By Natural Light Or 2. By Supernatural Revelation Or 3. By outward Teaching by Speech or Writing or Example in conjunction with the inward assistance of his Spirit 1. Christ indeed as God Creator as he is described in the beginning of that Chapter doth enlighten every man that comes into the world with the faculty of Reason and Understanding by which he may know that there is a God and that he is to be worshipped and that he is placable and the difference between moral good and evil in many things But however this may possibly be a Light sufficient to direct the Heathen to as much as God expects from them if they live up to it to whom he affords no other Light yet this Natural Light is not sufficient to direct those that live under the Gospel to believe and do what they are bound to believe and do upon pain of Damnation They that live under the Gospel are bound to believe Jesus to be Christ the Son of God and Saviour of the world and that upon pain of damnation If ye believe not that I am he ye shall die in your sins said our Saviour to them to whom the Gospel came Jo. 8. 24. Every Spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God but is the Spirit of Antichrist 1 John 4. 3. He that believeth not the Son of God shall not see Life but the wrath of God abideth on him Joh. 3. 36. Now that no man can know Christ know him to be the Son of God and Saviour of the world by his Natural Light without Supernatural Revelation from God or Instruction from without derived from them that had such Revelation is most evident When Peter said to Christ Thou art Christ the Son of the Living God our Saviour told him Flesh and Bloud had not revealed that unto him but his Father Mat. 16. 16 17. And the Natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned that is they are knowable only by means that are purely spiritual and supernatural as the revelation of the Gospel at first was And it may well be that in this respect 't is said that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost 1 Cor. 12. 3. For no man could know that he was so but by that Revelation and discovery which the Holy Ghost several ways at the first made concerning him He shall glorifie me for he shall receive of mine and shall shew it unto you said Christ to his Apostles concerning the Holy Spirit John 16. 14. And Christ is said to be justified in or by the Spirit to be what he himself said he was and his Apostles witnessed him to be 1 Tim. 3. 16. All this shews that though Christ do enlighten all men with Natural Light yet this is not sufficient without somewhat else to enlighten all men particularly those that are under the Gospel with the knowledge of what is necessary for all such to know and believe in order to their Salvation For to whom much is given of him much shall be required Luke 12. 48. Then secondly Another way by which Christ enlightens men with the knowledge of himself and of what is necessary for mens Salvation is by immediate and supernatural Revelation and thus he enlightened the Apostles that they might be able infallibly to teach the way of Salvation by Christ through Faith in him and
Obedience to him For God saith one of them who commanded the Light to shine out of Darkness hath shined into our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ to give that is to give it forth to others 2 Cor. 4. 6. And again in 1 Cor. 2. 12 13. Now we have received not the Spirit of the World but the Spirit which is of God that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God Which things also we speak not with the words which mans wisdom teacheth but which the Holy Ghost teacheth And besides this of internal and immediate Revelation there is no way imaginable for men to come to the knowledge of Christ as Mediator but by external and mediate Revelation So that by the process of this Discourse you are brought to this either to say that all men to whom the Gospel comes are enlightned by Christ with the knowledge of his being the Son of God the Christ of God and Saviour of the world by immediate and supernatural Revelation as the Apostles were or else to grant that some men in the world are not enlightened by Christ without being â—aught by outward means to know what they are bound to believe upon pain of Damnation For I have shewed before that all men and women to whom the Gospel is preached are bound to believe Jesus to be the Christ the Son of God upon pain of Damnation and that there is but these two ways imaginable by which they can come to know it that they might believe it immediate and mediate Revelation or Instruction If being reduced to this straight you shall be so absurd as to chuse to say that all those under the sound and outward teaching of the Gospel that shall be damned for not believing on Christ as the Son of God and for not obeying him had that knowledge of him by immediate and supernatural Revelation as the Apostles had for the sinning against which they shall be damned as knowing their Masters Will and not doing it yet the Scriptures as well as all Experience will detect your Folly in so saying For I have proved in my Propositiions to which I refer you that God's way method of proceeding with men in justifying or condemning them will be according to their Obedience to or Disobedience against that Doctrine of the Gospel which they had heard preached by men to them Go preach the Gospel to every Creature said our Saviour He that believeth not shall be damned that believeth not that Gospel so preached and made known to them by preaching Mat. 16. 16. And the Apostle supposeth it impossible for the generality of men to believe that have not heard of Christ in the way of preaching the Gospel to them and concludes that those that do believe are brought to it by hearing it preached and that is not by way of immediate inward teaching of God's Spirit without the teaching by man Rom. 10. 14 15 16 17. How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard And how shall they hear without a Preacher saith St. Paul Yes might it have been said by immediate Revelation and inward teaching of God's Spirit or the Light within if that had been the common way of bringing men to believe the Gospel But you see Paul knew of no such way to propagate the Faith after it was once set on foot in an extraordinary way If he had he would not have put such Questions nor have made such a Conclusion as he doth in v. 17. So then Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God And do you know more and better than he did And for your selves it is not to be imagined that ever you could have known that ever there was such a one as Christ in the World any more than the poor Indians or Pagans that never heard of him had you not been beholding to the Scriptures or Oral Tradition for it as God's means for all your great talk of your Light within you If Christ Jesus then doth not savingly enlighten all those who yet are savingly illuminated neither by Natural Light nor by Supernatural Revelation in an immediate way then it follows that such are enlightened by Supernatural Revelation mediately or instrumentally by the Scriptures and Ministration of men unless there can be another way of saving Illumination assigned different from the three before mentioned which none pretend to do so far as I have heard These things are so plain and full of Evidence and so easie to be understood and in their Nature so apt to prevail with all such as do not deny but that the Scriptures are true that after you have considered them I cannot but think you will be convinced by them if there be that love to Truth in you which you pretend to that you have unawares all this while abused that first Chapter of John v. 9. and abused your selves and the world by a misrepresentation of it whereas Christ is the Light of the world divers ways and in several respects as by his Spirit by his Word and by his Works both Miraculous and Exemplary it cannot but be very great weakness or waywardness in you to limit his being so to one of these only § 14. Another Scripture which you alledge as favouring your foresaid Opinion is that Prophesie of Joel 2. 28 29. Cited by St. Peter in Acts 2. 17. Behold the days come saith the Lord that I will poure out my Spirit upon all Flesh and your Sons and your Daughters shall prophesie and your young men shall see Visions and your old men shall dream Dreams and on my Servants and on my Handmaids I will poure out of my Spirit in those days and they shall prophesie But that this Scripture also is impertinently alledged to prove that in the days of the Gospel every one is immediately directed and moved by the Spirit of God without outward teaching in what they are to believe and do will appear by two things The one from the Nature of the thing here predicted The other by the Application of this Prediction to the event 1. From the Nature of the Subject-Matter of this Prophesie It is not that the Spirit should be poured out upon all flesh so as to direct every one what to believe and do without outward teaching but to qualifie persons extraordinarily for outward teaching it is to enable them to prophesie for that is twice mentioned in the Prophesie fore-cited as the end for which the Spirit should be poured out upon all flesh And prophesying is for the instruction of others it is a means of conveying knowledge of the Divine Will from one man to another He that prophesieth edifieth the Church saith St. Paul 1 Cor. 14. 4. This of Prophets was a Second Order in the Evangelical Ministry God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets 1 Cor. 12. And although seeing Visions and
Loosness in the Profession of Christianity But if we consider upon what occasion these words are here brought in and compare them also with what we find in some other Scriptures it will be no hard matter to understand the Apostles scope in them He had observed to them in the 18. v. that even then there were many Antichrists And in ver 19. that they those many Antichrists went out from them And his scope in the rest of the Chap. is to fortify and antidote them against the poysonous pretensions of those Antichrists who as he describes them in ver 22 did deny that Jesus was the Christ That this was here his scope and design appears by ver 26. where he saith these things have I written unto you concerning those that seduce you Now the means he makes use of to preserve them under this danger and to establish them is by putting them in remembrance by what means they at the first came to be perswaded of the truth of that Doctrine by which they were taught that Jesus is the Christ and that was by pouring out the Holy-Ghost in visible effects upon the Apostles that taught it and upon those that believed it and consequently upon themselves by which the truth of it was abundantly confirmed to them as coming from God For that doubtless is meant by the anointing here spoken of Jesus Christ himself in respect of the Spirit of glory that appeared in him by his Doctrine and Miracles was said to be anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power Act 10. 38. As it was foretold by Isaiah the Prophet saying the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the Poor Isa 61. 1. Luke 4. 18. and so in like manner the pouring out of the Holy Ghost in miraculous gifts both upon the Apostles and believers for the confirmation of the Doctrine the one preached and the other believed is elsewhere called their being anointed by God as here also it is called the Unction of the holy one which is the same thing 2 Cor. 1. 21 22. Now he that establisheth us with you into Christ and hath anointed us is God who hath also sealed us and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts By this it appears that both Apostles and other believers were established into Christ by the anointing of God upon them which anointing was his pouring out of the holy Spirit Ye have an unction from the Holy one and ye know all things Not that by this Unction the common Christians were immediately inspired with the knowledge of all truths but that by it they were assured of the truth of all things which the Apostles had taught them and consequently must needs know thereby that Jesus was the Christ because that was one of the principal Doctrines which they taught and taught all they did teach in the name of him as such As they were induced at the first to believe the Doctrine to be from God because they perceived the anointing of God to be upon them that preached it so they were afterwards confirmed in the truth of it because upon their receiving of it they themselves also received of the same anointing It is not said that this anointing did teach them all things but that it did teach them of all things that is of or concerning the truth of all things to which it was a witness or evidence as I have shewed it was to the Apostles Doctrine from Heb. 2. 4. 5. Mar. 16. 20. and other places When then this Apostle says ye have an Unction from the holy one and ye know all things he did not intend thereby to tell them that all things they were to beleive and do were revealed to them by it but that the Doctrine by which they were taught all things necessary to their salvation was thereby attested to be from God appears evidently by that which he perswades them to by it in v. 24. and that was that the Doctrine which they had heard from the beginning might therefore be retained and held fast by them that had been so ratified and confirmed to them by the Unction they had from the Holy one Let that therefore abide in you which you have heard from the beginning if that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you ye also shall continue in the Son and in the Father Agreeable to what he says also in his second Epistle verse 9. He that abideth in the Doctrine of Christ he hath both the Father and the Son And therefore when he says again ye need not that any man teach you but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things and is truth and is no lie he doth not thereby mean that they needed no farther teaching by man for their establishment and building up in the Faith for if he had he had contradicted himself in what he was now doing in this Chap. and all along in this Epistle And therefore his meaning must be that they needed not from him or any other man any teaching that could or could reasonably pretend to give them greater assurance of any thing than that anointing gave them of Jesus his being the Christ and of the truth of that Doctrine which they had heard from the beginning for that anointing saith he is truth and is no lie but such as could not deceive them it being God's witness from Heaven And from thence concludes saying that as it hath taught you ye shall abide in him As if he should have said as this anointing did at the first prevail with you to receive Jesus as the true Messias so for the same cause I am confi-you will as you have the greatest reason still abide in him notwithstanding all pretences of Seducers to take you off This then being the scope and drift of the Apostle in this place to which the several expressions here used are accommodated and by which they are to be interpreted and understood how I pray you will you find your opinion here of the Spirits inward teaching of all things without any outward teaching You are wont to say that the Scriptures are not to be understood but by the same Spirit that gave them forth And the Spirit doubtless is not wanting to assist the sincere endeavours of men in searching after the sence of the Scriptures in order to practice But truly if we should judge of mens having the Spirit by their understanding the Scriptures I think there would be as little reason to think you have the Spirit as any sort of men that have read the Scriptures for doubtless there are scarce any sort of men if any at all that do more grosly misunderstand and misapply and so abuse the Scriptures than you do and that under the greatest confidence too of being guided in your sence and notions of them by the Spirit of God You take the sound of words in Scripture which as you fancy comport with
by motion and inspiration from him So inseparable are the Word and Spirit in the conduct of Christians to happiness St. Paul exhorted the Ephesians to be filled with the Spirit in order to their speaking to themselves in Psalms and Hymnes and Spiritual Songs Eph. 5. 18 19. and the Colossians that they would let the word of Christ dwell in them richly in order to the same end Col. 3. 16. From both which passages compared it appears that the Word of Christ which is the Gospel and the Spirit do concur and co-operate in producing the same Spiritual effects in men Yea it seems they are so unanimous in their operation in reference hereto that when but one is named the other is to be understood or else that the variation of expression is but another word for the same thing These things being so plain throughout the current of the Scriptures your bold and confident assertion to the contrary discovers your very great unskilfulness in the nature of the Evangelical Dispensation and your utter insufficiency and unfitness to take upon you to teach others and that you need rather your selves to be taught the first principles of the Doctrine of Christ § 18. Heb. 8. 10 11. is another place which you would constrain to serve your turn and to make it evident that under the New Covenant God himself doth so inwardly teach men and write his Laws in their hearts that they need no outward teaching what to believe or do by any other means because it is there said I will put or give my Laws into their minds and write them in their hearts and they shall not teach every man his Neighbour and every man his Brother saying know the Lord for all shall know me from the least to the greatest But when you can but obtain of your selves seriously and impartially to consider for what end God hath set in his Church first Apostles and then Pastors and Teachers if not to teach men what to know believe and do that they may be saved I doubt not but you will then find it necessary to understand this place of Scripture so as that it may not run counter to and contradict the whole current of Scripture elsewhere as it will if your sence of it take place as I have already shewed at large And therefore seeing your sence of it cannot stand unless the general testimony of the Scriptures fall another sence of it must of necessity be accepted of These words then as noting the difference of the second Covenant from the first are a form of speech to set forth after a rhetorical way how plainly and easily to be understood the mind of God touching the Salvation of men shall be revealed and made known under the Gospel in comparison of what it was before Before and under the old Covenant it was but obscurely made known by dark Prophesies which are therefore said to be a light shining in a dark place 2. Pet. 1. 19. and under types and figures and literal representations so that the Children of Israel could not see to the end of those things which are now abolished they could rarely and not without much difficulty and uncertainty if at all understand the end or design of them or what was signified by them till the Gospel came and revealed them And therefore St. Paul saith before Faith came we were kept under the Law shut up unto the Faith which should afterwards be revealed Gal. 3. 23. So that by all the teaching they had though there were Precept upon Precept Precept upon Precept Line upon Line Line upon Line here a little and there a little as the Prophet speaks yet they had and could have but a dim and very imperfect sight and knowledge of what is now revealed in the Gospel And therefore it s said of the Prophets themselves who having their predictions by immediate revelation from God were like to know more in this kind than any other in those times yet it s said of them that when they Prophesied of the Grace that should come to them that are under the Gospel though they enquired diligently what as well as what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signifie when it testified before hand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow yet I say 't is said of them that not unto themselves but unto us they did Minister the things which are reported by them that have preached the Gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven 1. Pet. 1. 10 11 12. In this respect it was said though none of the Prophets were greater than John the Baptist yet the least in the Kingdom of God is greater than he This was their Case then But now by the Gospel the way of Salvation by Christ and the terms and conditions upon which it is promised are so nakedly plainly and clearly revealed and fitted to mens understandings and capacities that so much as is necessary to Salvation may very easily be understood by persons of very ordinary and common capacities and without much teaching as appears by those that were converted and baptized as the Jaylor and his Houshold and the three thousand in Acts 2. with little teaching Upon account of which clear revelation it s said we all with open face behold as in a Glass the Glory of the Lord the Glory of his Wisdome Goodness Grace and Mercy in the way of Salvation now exhibited in the Gospel 2. Cor. 3. 18. Upon account of this difference it is I conceive that St. John saith the darkness is past and the true Light now shineth 1 Joh. 2. 8. Besides the Laws and terms of the New Covenant are not only fitted to the understandings and capacities of all sorts of persons by the plainness of the Revelation of them but are such also in the very nature of them as that they commend themselves to every mans acceptation and choice and are every whit as worthy to be embraced by their wills as they are easie to be understood by the reason of their minds A great part of the Laws of the Old Covenant which were but figurative of the terms of the New had little or nothing in them to commend themselves to mens acceptation and choice so long as their Symbolical nature was not understood save what the authority of God in commanding them gave them Circumcision Sacrificing legal washings and Purifications and the like were in St. Pauls account but beggarly Elements when the command of God for the observation of them was taken off And not only so but they were a Yoke which as St. Peter said neither we nor our Fathers were able to bear a Yoke of Bondage as St. Paul calls them Whereas most of the Precepts of the Gospel the things commanded there are desirable in themselves if they had not been commanded by a promulgate Law To love and worship God to repent of that which hath been ill done to be sober chast
well as perswade them to do it as appears abundantly in your Books particularly in those of Edward Burroughs So that by this tergiversation and shuffling it plainly appears to intelligent men that the business at the bottom is not that you are against the needfulness of mans teaching notwithstanding all the teaching by the Light within but only against all other mens teaching but your own So that if you knew your own hearts in this business you would find that the meaning of your crying down all other Teachers is that yours alone might be exalted But if your Teachers or any among you do see and know the inconsistency of these your Pretences and Practices and yet use the Pretences for a blinde to hide the designe from the people it is then a perfect piece of There is another thing like unto this you say those that are taught of God need not that the Scripture should teach them and that all men are taught of God by his Light within them and yet it seems you think that men have need to be taught by your Books though they have no need to be taught by the Scriptures else why is the World troubled with so many of them The Pharisees made void the Commandments of God that they might establish their own Traditions and it looks but untowardly that while you represent the Holy Scripture as such a needless thing that you at the same time have sent out such a croud of your own Books as you have done And if you would have the people believe that they proceed from the same teaching of the Spirit as the Books of the Holy Scriptures do what shall the people then do when they find them to contradict one another as they may easily do if they will but do as the noble Bereans did who searched the Scriptures daily whether those things were so which were preached to them in the Name of the Lord. As in the present case before us the Scripture plainly teacheth one method of bringing men to Salvation and your books another Ed. Burrough in his book teacheth that that is not the body of Christ which was not with the Father before the World began p. 465. But the Scripture teacheth that in the fulness of time God sent forth hi Son made of a Woman Gal. 4. 4. Which of these two now must the people believe or which of these must be the rule to try the other by your Books or the Holy Scriptures I pray you speak out and tell the people plainly For if the Scriptures be true as you dare not deny but they are than your Books in such things as contradict them must be false and consequently not the Issue of the infallible Spirit as you would have the world believe they are But though we or an Angel from Heaven Preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have Preached unto you let him be accursed said St. Paul Gal. 1. 8. I have been the longer upon the Point of your Enthusiasm by which you have set up a new method of your own in opposition to God's method of bringing men to the Christian belief and Life because I deem it a Mother and a Master-Error to many others which you hold And therefore have good hopes that if you could but be cured of this you would be in a hopeful way of being cured of the rest which depend on it with less difficulty Having therefore been so long upon this beyond what I first intended I shall draw towards a conclusion of this address to you not engageing in particular with the rest of your mistakes But before I make an end I would caution you touching two or three things which among others may probably have had a large share in introducing you into this strange mistake § 20. The one is an opinion or conceit that the Gospel is a more mysterious thing than indeed it is It is true there are things in the Gospel called a Mystery the Mysterie of God's will the Mystery of Christ the Mystery of Faith the Mystery of Godliness and to you saith Christ to the Disciples 't is given to know the Myeries of the Kingdom of God and the like Upon occasion of all which and the like expressions in Scripture Some people have fancied that there is something else necessary to make a man a true Christian indeed than what is obvious to vulgar apprehensions and easie to be understood as other matters are And therefore they have been wont to esteem a plain and familiar way of teaching the Doctrine of repentance and the necessity of obedience to the Law of God together with a belief that Christ dyed for our sins and rose again according to the Scriptures to be but a dry and legal way of Preaching And those that have vented high Speculations and almost or altogether unintelligible notions and new coined Phrases and expressions concerning the work of God in the Soul and of Union with Christ and Communion with God of living by faith and walking in the Spirit these they have accounted Evangelical Preachers and such preaching and discourses in conference to be truly Spiritual and those to be Spiritual Christians that are of this make And because this way obtained a great reputation among a great many of Christian Professors many persons have been tempted hereby to proceed so far from one thing to another in this way both allegorizing Scriptures of plain import and turning plain points of Doctrine and of great concern into Mystical speculations until they have made another thing of the plain Doctrine of the Gospel than Christ made it And this seems to be directly your Case who in this way are come at last to turn the plain and intelligible method of God's proceeding with men to bring them to the Christian belief and Life and so to salvation into Enthusiastical Fancies Airy Notions and speculations Such is your conceited Mistery of of the inward Flesh of Christ in contradistinction to the Flesh of the Veil as you phrase it as if Christ had two kinds of Flesh one hid under another by which you trouble yea utterly confound the true Notion of Christ's humane Nature and the great effects which the Scripture attributes to the Flesh or humane Nature of Christ those you attribute to a meer fiction which you call the inward Flesh a thing altogether forraign to the Scripture an error doubtless of a very high nature Such also is your spiritualizing Baptism and the Lords Supper to the exclusion of their literal use and to the disparagement of his wisdome and goodness that ordained them as well as to the contempt of his Authority which hath enjoined the use of them for the ends for which they were first instituted Such likewise is your invented Mistery of the Redemption of the Seed in men for the Scripture speaks of no such thing but of the Redemption of men themselves This mistake about the Mysteriousness of the Christian Religion hath
I fear had a bad influence upon and produced ill effects in some others as well as your selves who perhaps have not been yet carried so far out of the way by it as you have been Whereas those things that are absolutely necessary for men of all capacities to know believe and do in order to their Salvation are delivered in the Gospel with great plainness and easiness to be understood even of those of meanest capacities that have but a mind to understand them and will attend to them and consider them Who is so weak as not to understand it when it is declared to him that there was such a one as Jesus Christ and that he was declared to be one come from God and his Doctrine touching his being the Son of God and concerning all other things to be true by the wonderfulness of his Birth of a Virgin and the many and mighty miracles which he wrought and which were wrought by others in his Name and by his Resurrection from the dead Who is so weak as not to understand when it is declared to him upon good grounds that this Jesus was put to death not for his own but for our Sins and that he rose again from the dead the third day Who is so weak as not to understand when he hears it declared in the Gospel that forgiveness of Sins a glorious Resurrection and eternal Happiness in another World are promised to those that believe in him as such and that believe his Doctrine and sincerely obey it touching the necessity of Repentance consisting in amendment of Life proceeding from sorrow for Sin and in a sincere observing all his Precepts These are things that may be understood by every body that hears and considers them And yet these are the things revealed by the Gospel as necessary to be believed and done in order to salvation The reason why so many of those that hear the Gospel do not believe and obey it to the saving of their Souls is not because they cannot understand it but because they are not willing to obey it and so not willing to believe it or to consider it that they might believe it but chuse rather to please themselves in their evil ways for the present and so run the hazard for the future of the Gospels being true or not true or else flatter themselves with hopes that they do repent and obey the Gospel under vain and delusive notions of the nature of saving Repentance and Obedience And it is not congruous to the goodness of God's nature to think that when he hath been pleased out of his great compassion to lost men to make a New Covenant of Salvation upon terms suitable to that love and goodness of his to think I say that he should lay the stress of their Salvation upon terms not easie to be understood by all one as well as another that are concerned therein And therefore the greatest reason I conceive why some things in the Gospel are stiled a Mistery is because they were so till they were plainly revealed by Christ a great part of the things therein contained being such as no man by the highest improvement of reason could discover or apprehend till God in a supernatural way was pleased to reveal them Such was God's sending his Son to assume our Nature and to die for our Sins and the granting Remission of Sins and eternal Life for his sake to those that believe and obey the Gospel But when they are once revealed and by revelation made plain and easie to be understood by men of all capacities they are sure then no longer Mysteries to them unless they remain so through their own wilful neglect to understand them Agreeable to this is that of St. Paul Col. 1. 26. Speaking of the Gospel even saith he the Mystery which hath been hid from Ages and from Generations but now is made manifest to his Saints Eph. 1. 9. Having made known to us the Mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself So the calling of the Gentiles is called a Mystery not because it was hard to be understood when the thing was revealed by Christ's Commission to preach the Gospel to them and by preaching the Gospel had given them the Holy Spirit as he had to the believing Jews at the first but because this calling of them was little known or understood in the World till then God saith St. Paul by revelation made known to me the Mystery which in other ages was not made known unto the Sons of men as it is now revealed unto his Holy Apostles and Prophets by the Spirit that the Gentiles should be fellow-Heirs and of the same Body and partakers of his promise in Christ by the Gospel Eph. 3. 2 6. And so again Ver. 9. and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the Mystery which from the beginning of the World hath been hid in God So that as the Gospel is called a Mystery as containing things in it which had been altogether a Mystery till they were revealed so it is called a Revelation of the Mystery by reason of its discovering that which was a Secret before Rom. 16. 25 26. The preaching of Jesus Christ according to the Revelation of the Mystery which was kept secret since the world began but now is made manifest and by the Scriptures of the Prophets according to the commandment of the everlasting God made known to all Nations for the obedience of Faith In all this I do not deny but that there are in the Gospel things very Mysterious and hard to be conceived as touching the manner of their existence as the Union of Christs two Natures and the Doctrine of the Trinity of Persons and Unity of Essence and some other things But it is not hard to understand that those things really are when God hath revealed and declared that they are though it is very hard or rather beyond our apprehension to know how and after what manner they are and to know and believe more than he hath plainly revealed is not doubtless necessary to mens Salvation and therefore men should be cautious of laying too great a stress upon their different apprehensions about them If you shall say if Evangelical Truths be made so perceptible by the plainness and fulness of the Revelation of them how comes it to pass then that there is such difference in mens opinions and so many controversies about them as there is I answer if the differences and controversies be about those things that are necessary to Salvation I have told you the reason already it is because men will not be satisfied nor acquiesce in that plainness in which such things are delivered in the Scriptures but still fancy there is some farther Mystery in them than indeed there is And when men take that liberty and think they do excellent well in it then one fancies he sees this hidden Mystery couched under truths plainly
exprest and another that when both are wide of the mark And then men weary themselves in defending their notions on both sides and can never be reconciled until both lay down their bye-opinions and submit their judgments to the plainness and simplicity of the truth labouring to improve it to practice which is the true and proper use of it which will bring more solid satisfaction to the mind than all mens Airy notions how taking soever they may be with some But though the things necessary to salvation are in the Revelation of them accommodated to the capacities of the weak and simple whose Salvation is designed by them as well and as much as theirs of stronger and quicker apprehensions yet there are things under the New Testament that are hard to be uttered as the phrase is Heb. 5. 11. and therefore hard to be understood as the phrase is again 2. Pet. 3. 16. As there is milk for Babes who are unskilful in the Word of righteousness so there is meat for strong Men who by reason of use have their Senses exercised to discern both good and evil as 't is said Heb. 5. 13 14. And mens differences about these points proceed at the best from their different measures of Light and understanding and sometimes are persisted in from that which is worse So it was in the Apostles time between the believing Jews and the blieving Gentiles Rom. 14. Which by the way would not have been if all good Christians then had been guided by an infallible Light within as you suppose they are now If they had they would not have needed to have been taught and re-taught which are the first principles of the Oracles of God as some of them were Heb. 5. But when men which are but poor in knowledge and yet rich in confidence undertake to manage and master these more difficult points and passages of Scripture they too often wrest them to their own destruction as St. Peter speaks 2. Ep. 3. 16. And this they either do or are in great danger of doing when they fasten upon some wrong sence and notion of hard and difficult places of Scripture and then pervert plain and easie places by interpreting them to their wrong sence of those that are more obscure and difficult especially when their interpretations are not mere speculations but such as influence men in their practice as becoming a rule to them therein Whereas the more wise and judicious never interpret hard places in opposition to the common sence of those that are plain and easie but explain those that are hard and difficult by those that are plain The use I would advise you to make of all this is to review the grounds you have gone on and to cease from your new notions and speculations of your being taught only by the Light within which you have taken up from some expressions in Scripture misunderstood by you and wholly disagreeing to the Scope of the places where they are found and contrary to the general current of the Scriptures in their plain and obvious sence Seek not a Knot in a bulrush seek not for Mysteries there where the Lord hath declared his mind plainly and in no parable But form your notions of God's method of proceeding with men to bring them to Salvation according to the plain and express Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles in the Scriptures and receive from and regulate by that Doctrine all your apprehensions perswasions affections and operations of your Souls together with all your words and actions So did the good Christians of Old they obeyed from the heart that form of Doctrine which was delivered to them Rom. 6. 17. They purifyed their souls in obeying that Truth through the Spirit 1. Pet. 1. 22. Yea the Apostles themselves were first taught by Christ's preaching unto them what to think and believe concerning Christ John 17. 8. I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me and they have received them and have known surely that I came out from thee and they have believed that thou didst send me And just as the Apostles preached so the Christians believed they made their Doctrine the Adequate Rule of their notions of things the Rule of their Faith the Rule of their Life So we Preach and so ye believed saith St. Paul 1. Cor. 15. 11. And those great plain known and commonly received Truths necessary to Salvation called the common Faith Tit. 1. 4. the Faith once delivered to the Saints Jude 3. these I say were the Rule and Standard by which they were to try the Doctrine of such as only pretended to Inspirations from the Spirit Beloloved believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they be of God because many false Prophets are gone out into the World 1. Joh. 4. 1. And then St. John in ver 2 3. commends to them one known fundamental Doctrine pertinent to his Case then in hand by which they might know the Teachers he cautioned them against were not inspired by God nor authorized by him Hereby know ye the Spirit of God every Spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the Flesh is of God And every Spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the Flesh is not of God And again verse 6. We are of God he that knoweth God heareth us adhered to and governed themselves by the Apostles Doctrine he that is not of God heareth not us hereby know we the Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Error And truly if you will not make the plain and express Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles in the Scriptures touching Faith and a good Life your Rule by which to try and to judge of the Truth and erroneousness of your conceptions perswasions motions and inclinations under the notion of the Light within and of all your words and actions consequent thereupon you are and will be in great danger to be like the wandring Stars and the clouds carried with a Tempest of which St Peter and Jude speak unfixed and unstable in your judgment Faith and Ways For it is certain and evident whatever you pretend to the contrary that the Light within you is not in your own account always a certain constant and infallible Rule to you for if it were you would not act so contrary to your selves as you have done under pretence of being taught of God and guided by the Light within One while crying up your former practice of shaking as the effect of God's work in and upon you and another while confessing it to be a delusion as Samuel Fisher one of note with you did to me saying it was so judged One while crying down all Ecclesistical forms of Government as tyrannical another while erecting one among your selves pretending to as much Infallibility in your Body representative in managing it as the Papists do in reference to the Pope One while owning the witnessing of a person to be from God and another while
and Philadelphia were much favoured and highly commended and applauded by Christ when the rest of the Churches in Asia were rebuked and yet whâ—â— he would make his mind known to them and the rest of the seven Churches he doth not do it immediately by himself but first acquaints an Angel with it and by that Angel makes it known to John and by John to the Churches and yet not by him in person neither but by his writings Rev. 1. Christ could have taught Paul himself when he appeared to him as well as to have sent him to Ananias to be told what he should do He could have told Cornelius by himself or by the Angel that he sent to him those words by which he and his house should be saved as well as to direct him to Peter to learn them of him God could have revealed the same things to the World by immediate inspiration of his Spirit which he made known to it by Prophets by Christ himself by Apostles Evangelists Pastors and Teachers but he chose rather at sundry times and in divers manners to speak unto the Fathers by the Prophets and at last by his own Son which he sent into the World in our nature to teach the way of Salvation And when he left the World again and ascended up on high he gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the Body of Christ These things are so plain that it is a matter of great astonishment that ever Christians that have read these things and that have not a design to undermine the Gospel and to Paganize the World again as I hope you have not should be ever tempted to think much more that ever you should be brought to believe it your selves and teach it others That the Light within without being taught by man or by the Scripture is the Rule of Faith and Practice But doubtless the inward Pride the over-valuing of your selves which I have been admonishing you of hath had a great hand in bringing you to it And if ever you be recovered from this snare of the Devil it must be by being brought to a sight and sence of your own injudiciousness and ignorance and altogether groundless confidence And if you were but well awakened out of that Spirit of Slumber into which your intoxication hath cast you and out of that pleasant Dream in it which hath so tickled your fancy you would be ashamed and confounded before God and Men that ever you should be so strangely deluded and prevailed upon as you have been to trouble the World with your whimsies and fancies and thereby to bring a scandal upon the Christian Religion and make sport for them that have no mind seriously to consider the things of the Gospel and to encourage Romish Agents in their design against the Reformation Be perswaded then by the Reason of the matter it self to become modest and humble and sober-minded and be not only content to receive your teaching from God by the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures as all good Christians do and ever since the Primitive times have done but count it also as a high favour from him that he hath given us the Scriptures and sent the Gospel among us when so great a part of the World are at this day without it Remember how the Psalmist when he was therein assisted by the Spirit of God was affected with a less favour than that which you make little of when he said he sheweth his Word unto Jacob his Statutes and his Judgments unto Israel he hath not dealt so with any Nation and as for his judgments they have not known them Praise ye the Lord Psalm 147. 19 20. And if it be so great a favour to us that have the Scriptures above what is vouchsafed to the Infidel and Pagan World which have them not then you cannot but be guilty of high ingratitude to God whilest you give the Precedency to that Light within which you say every man coming into the World hath and so the Pagans themselves and speak of the Scriptures as if they were but a Declaration of that which was in you and which you knew without them and which you might have known if you had never heard of them By all which you teach them that have so little Wit or Grace as to believe you to have a low esteem of the Scriptures and to think that men may as well be saved without them as with them And how then can you possibly free your selves from that horrid guilt which God charged upon the Jews of old saying I have written to him Ephraim the great things of my Law and they were esteemed as a strange thing Hos 8. 12. You have no doubt thought your selves more sublime and spiritual than others upon account of your new Notions and new affected Modes and Phrases And not only so but there is great reason to think that an affectation of being esteemed so did insensibly lead you or at least the Leaders among you from one novel conceit to another until you have exceeded all bounds of Sobriety of mind and become perfectly Drunk though not with Wine as the Prophet speaks Whereas alas the Spirituality of Christians doth not lye in high-flown Notions and Speculations nor in uncouth Phrases and expressions different from what are common among Men but in the inward frame and temper of their Spirits and conversations when these are conformable to the Doctrine of the Gospel which is of and from the Holy Spirit and thereby become partakers of the spiritual and Divine nature or likeness to Christ Jesus in purity in lowliness huroility and meekness and in love to God and Charity to Men in patience and gentleness in contempt of the World in contentation and self-resignation to God in Zeal to honour God and to do all the good we can in the World Upon account of which Spiritual qualifications Christians are said to be one Spirit with Christ and by this Spirit and temper when given us we know that we dwell in him and he in us and if any Man have not the Spirit of Christ in some measure he is none of his Such as in whom are found the fruits of the Spirit they are the spiritual Christians such as is Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith Meekness Temperance as they are enumerated by St. Paul in Gal. 5. 22 23. And as these do more or less abound in Christians in the degree and measure of them so they are more or less Spiritual And who-ever they be that do estimate themselves to be Spiritual Christians upon account of any sublime Notions or Speculations or affected Phrases or by their being for or against any form way or party or which is more by their being in the constant use and exercise of God's own Ordinances farther than they are bettered in the frame
have already seen their error and are come off from you and to others that shall follow them therein § 23. I know 't is a very hard thing for such to get quite rid of all their confused and Enthusiastical Thoughts Notions and Phrases but that some reliques of their old Disease will still hang on them and cleave to them and so encumber them that they can very hardly come quickly to any clear and distinct apprehensions of Evangelical Verities To such I would give this short advice that laying aside all thoughts and conceits of high attainments in the things of God they would repent and do their first works and begin as it were again at the first Principles of the Doctrine of Christ and so lay their Foundation a new in the beginning work of Christians Also that they would frame their Notions and apprehensions of things absolutely necessary to Salvation according to that plainness in which they are expressed in Scripture not affecting nor entertaining Mystical Notions of them More particularly that they would furnish their minds with right apprehensions of the person of Christ as Son of God and Son of the Virgin Mary and of the Nature of his Mediatory Office That as Priest he offered himself in Sacrifice to expiate Sin by his Death and in vertue thereof makes continual Intercession for us That as Prophet he revealed and declared the New Covenant of Salvation That as King he hath given Laws to the World and that he doth Rule and Govern his Church through his Spirit by those Laws and that at last he will try and judg all men by them that have lived under them and that he will reward all with eternal happiness or endless torments according as they have been obedient or disobedient to them That they be careful also that their Notions of the New Covenant be according to the plain Doctrine of the Gospel in the Scriptures Particularly That it consists of two parts of Promises and of conditions of those Promises Also that the Promises of it are made upon account and for the sake of Christ his undertaking as Mediator That the great and special Promises of it are pardon of sin or justification the assistance of God's Spirit in our endeavouring to perform the condition and eternal Life That the condition on which these Promises are made are Faith in Christ Repentance sincere Obedience and the craving of the assistance of God's Spirit in the use of appointed means and our endeavours to perform the condition That they be careful also to form right Notions of the nature of the condition on our part on which the Promises of the New-Covenant are made As that no Faith short of such a belief in Christ and of his Doctrine as worketh unfeigned Repentance and sincere Obedience is justifying and saving That no Repentance short of a desire resolution and endeavour to forsake all known sin is saving Repentance That no Obedience short of a desire resolution and a continued endeavour to observe all the Laws of Christ without baulking any one of them when known to be such is sincere That no Faith no Repentance no Obedience short of these as thus described is a fulfilling of the condition of the Promises of Salvation in the Covenant of Grace As these great things of the Gospel are in Scripture expressed in great plainness so great care must be had to keep close to and to hold fast the form of sound words according to which they are so declared not affecting any Notion Phrase or Expression which makes them more hard to be understood by common capacities than they are by the very Letter of the Scriptures but when other expressions are used than what are in the Letter of the Text as its necessary there should sometimes especially in explaining metaphors and Idioms of Speech proper to the times and places in which the Scriptures were written they should be such and so used as may give a clearer insight into the Nature of the things themselves than without them can well be had carefully avoiding to take words properly which are spoken metaphorically or to be led by the meer sound of words but to take the measure of the sence of them by the scope and design of the Author since words of the same sound are not always of the same signification § 24. And now after I have laid things before you which are very apt in their own Nature to rectifie you in one of your grand and fundamental mistakes especially if invincible prejudice hinder not I should be very sorry to think or suspect that what is done herein should turn to no better account than to be a witness against you in that great day in which every mans work will be tryed of what sort it is And therefore to prevent that I cannot for your sakes and for the longing I have after your salvation but earnestly perswade you to give things purposely prepared to serve you a due consideration in your minds and not to pass over such things slightly as wherein your eternal Estate is much concern'd Remember that Heresie is one of those works of the Flesh which shut Men out of the Kingdom of God Gal. 5. 20 21. And considering the Nature and bad influence of several of your opinions and with what pertinaciousness you persist in them it s greatly feared not to say confidently believed by such as are jealous over you with a Godly jealousie that many of you at least lye under no less guilt than that of grand Heresie And do you not then owe all seriousness of consideration to what is offered to rescue you from so great a danger Doubtless you do Let not then the height of your confidence to the contrary deceive you For it is not the greatness of your confidence that will in the least alter the nature of things or make them bend to your humour You are not the first that have been as confident as confidence it self could make them that they had fast hold of Truth when all the while it hath been but a lye they have had in their right hand But the more confident you are in your way you are like to be so much the more surprized with amazement when in another World you shall find yourselves to have been mistaken in that of which you are now so strongly confident in this if you should be so unhappy as to carry such mistaken confidence with you thither without a pardon Which that you may not is I assure you all the hurt that is designed you in this Address And therefore let me tell you again that it will be your wisdom much rather to bestow your thoughts and pains in labouring to find out whether you be not indeed under a delusion than in darkning of words without knowledge in labouring to obscure to your selves and others the evidence of Truth offered which clearly tends to your conviction FAREWEL THE END POSTSCRIPT THere being some vacant Leaves
and because I have not so plainly represented the nature of Faith which is the condition of the New Covenant as I have the other parts of it in my advice touching a right Notion of the Nature of the Mediatory Office and of the Covenant of Grace I shall for these and other Reasons add a short hint of the help which the Scripture doth offer us herein When St. John saith Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God 1 John 5. 1. and again Who is he that overcometh the World but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God v. 5. We must needs take this for a description of saving Faith because those that are born of God and overcome the World are the Children and so the Heirs of God To the same purpose are those words John 2. 31. These are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that believing ye might have life through his Name And to this description of Faith agrees the several confessions of Faith we read of Thus Peters confession runs Thou art the Christ the Son of the Living God Mat. 16. 16. And again John 6. 69. We believe and are sure that thou art that Christ the Son of the Living God Thus runs Martha's John 11. 27. I believe that thou art Christ the Son of God which should come into the World And thus runs the Ennuchs also Act. 8. 37. I believe that Christ is the Son of God But in as much as we are assured by the same authority of Scripture that those that repent not shall perish Luke 13. 3. and that those that obey not the Gospel shall be punished with everlasting destruction 2 Thes 1. 7 8. and that except a Man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God John 3. 3. nor without holiness see God Heb. 12. 14. it follows of necessity that the Faith afore described is such a belief that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God as doth effectually draw Men to believe his Doctrine and to obey his Laws in doing of which they become New Creatures and overcome the World For he that believes Christ to be the Son of God and considers what he believes must needs believe all his sayings and the whole of his Doctrine to be true for it is impossible for God to lie And he that believes his Doctrine to be true and considers what he believes must needs be under the influence of the most powerful Motives imaginable to repent of a bad and to lead a good Life because Christ hath expresly declared from God that the one shall be punished with everlasting Destruction and the other rewarded with Life Eternal So that Faith works that change in Men by which they become New Creatures are born of God and sanctified by way of Motive as it doth evidence to the Soul and bind upon the Mind the things not seen as those wherein a Man is infinitely more concerned than in any than in all the things which are seen and therefore must needs be governed in the course of his Life by them and not by the other but in subordination unto them For Faith as it is a powerful Motive is an Operative Principle of a good and Holy Life And upon this accoont all the brave and Heroick Acts of those Worthies mentioned in Heb. 11. are said to be done by their Faith as that was to them the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen and as such an active Principle of those effects And thus the Life which St. Paul lived in the Flesh he lived through the Faith of the Son of God as every good Christian doth as being thereby perswaded thereto Gal. 2. 20. And because Faith is thus Motive-wise such an Operative Principle of a good and Holy Life therefore it is that Men of such a Life are usually described by it in the New Testament and are stiled Believers And when good Men are otherwise described by their fear of God and Love to him as many times they are especially in the Old Testament it is because Fear and Love are also powerful Principles of Action that Govern Men in their way A true Believer then according to the New Testament Dialect is neither more nor less than a Disciple of Christ or a faithful follower of him one that frames his Belief and Life according to his Doctrine and Example And the Faith of every such one is such in its Operation and Effects as doth constitute and denominate him a good Man By all this it may easily be disâ—rned that when Men are said to be justified or to be saved by Faith it is not to be understood of the meer Act of believing abstracted from its effects and alone but as it is an Active and Operative Principle changing the Heart and reforming the Life And accordingly Justification and Salvation are in Scripture attributed to the Effects of Faith as well as to the Act of believing Jam. 2. And when ever they are attributed to believing indifinitely it is not without reference to the effects proper to it when it is of the right kind Now as Faith is described in the Scriptures forecited by its Object and by its acting upon its Object by assent so it is in other Scriptures described by its effects which are produced by its actings upon its Object And so a Believer is described by his coming to Christ John 6. 35. He that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that Believet on me shall never Thirst saith Christ For mens coming to Christ to learn of him what he hath done and will do for their Souls and what they themselves are to do that they may be saved is the effect of their believing him to be the Son of God and sent of God to bring Salvation unto Men and to declare how and upon what Terms it is to be had And so when Believers are described by their receiving of Christ as John 1. 12. As many as received him to them he gave power to become the Sons of God even to them that believe on his Name they are then described by the effect of their Faith also For when they receive him for what indeed he is Priest Prophet and King it is because they believe that evidence by which he appears to be so Furthermore when Believers are described by their Trusting in Christ or Relying on him as in Ephes 1. 12 Who first trusted in Christ Their Faith is described by its effect For men will not venture their Souls in trusting in Christ and relying on him for the expiation of their Sins by his Blood for direction what to do that they may be saved and for Pardon and eternal Life upon the condition upon which those Benefits are promised untill they first believe him to be the Messiah the Son of God and Saviour of the World upon some evidence they have that he is so But although the Holy Penmen of the Scriptures did not in every description of saving Faith attend unto the Rules of Art by taking in all the essential parts but described it sometimes by its assenting Act and Object and sometimes by its Fruits and Effects as occasions did occur Yet we for our parts shall be best able to make a right Judgment of the true Nature of Saving Faith by that which results out of the several descriptions of it in Scripture when compared together And by comparing those several descriptions together we may also perceive that when Faith as saving is described by its Effects yet then the assenting Act of Faith upon its Object is still implyed supposed and ought to be understood though it be not there exprest and so are the effects too when but only the Act and Object are mentioned By all which we may learn that those are none of the best definitions of saving Faith which Men make when they define it by the Act and Object alone or by any of the Effects alone THE END ADVERTISEMENT THere is lately published a Book called A Perswasive to Peace and Unity among Christians notwithstanding their different apprehensions in lesser things To be sold by B. Aylmer at the three Pigeons in Cornhil
and temperate to do to others as we would be done to our selves in point of equity fidelity and charity to be humble and meek patient and contented and the like are things that tend to the peace and satisfaction of the minde to the health of the body and long life to a mans Credit Reputation and thriving in the World and to the good of humane Society Besides their certain relation to a future happy State And there is no man that acts according to the best reason of his minde but would chuse these things though you should suppose him under no express command to do it and though there were no Heaven promised or Hell threatened But when you consider the great reward in another World that is promised to a faithful observance of the Laws of Christ and to a belief in him and the dreadful threatnings against such as despise and neglect them it makes them yet far more desirable and eligible because as it is natural for every man to desire the happiness and perfection of his own being so it is agreeable to the highest reason in man to chuse the means that tend thereto and such is our obedience to the Gospel And these rewards which are such mighty motives to obedience are far more clearly revealed and brought into open Light by the Gospel than they were before which makes the Gospel far more effectual to perswade to Holy Living than the Law could be The Law made nothing perfect but the bringing in of a better hope did by which we draw nigh unto God Heb. 7. 19. These two things forementioned then the easiness of understanding God's way and method of Salvation from the plainness and fulness of the revelation of it under the New Covenant by which it is fitted to every capacity and the â—nnate goodness of the Laws thereof in conjunction with the promise of eternal Life made to the observance of them by which they are also compleatly fitted to attract and draw mens wills to accept embrace and chuse them these I say are the things I conceive foretold in that Prophesie Jer. 31. here cited in Heb. 8. under those expressions of God's putting giving or conveying his Laws into the mind and writing them in the heart so that they shall not teach every man his Neighbour and every man his Brother c. And when it is so said it is not then said that they shall not be taught neither by Apostles Evangelists Pastors or Teachers but they shall not teach every man his Neighbour and every man his Brother And though the Phrase here used seem absolute in sound yet it may well be understood in a Comparative sence as other expessions in Scripture of like nature sometimes must be As when its said labour not for the meat that perisheth but for that meat which endureth to everlasting Life Joh. 6. 26. The meaning here of labour not is labour not so much And so again I desired Mercy and not Sacrifice Hos 6. 6. the meaning is I desired Mercy more than Sacrifice or Sacrifice not so much as Mercy So again Eph. 6. 12. we wrestle not with flesh and blood that is not only or not so much but against Principalities c. And so here when it is said they shall not â—â—each every man his Neighbour c. The meaning may be that they shall not so much need to do it under the second Covenant as under the first But indeed the words and phrase here used seem to be a strain of elegance oft used in Scriptures when to set forth the greatness or great abundance and plenty of things expressions are used improperly and hyperbolically in reference thereto and so are not to be understood properly but figuratively As when it is said in reference to the same thing under the Gospel with that I have been now speaking of That the Earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the Sea Isa 11. 9. I suppose you will not understand this in such a strict sence as if it foretold in Gospel-times that there should be no more knowledge of God wanting on the Earth than there is bare ground in the Sea or that David would have the World believe that he did weep a River yea Rivers full of Tears when he said mine eyes run down with Rivers of Tears because men keep not thy Laws Psalm 119. or that St. John did think in a strict sence that the world could not contain the books if all the signs which Jesus did should be written Joh. 20. And if not why should you so much as once imagine that these words of the Prophet should foretel that under the New Covenant there should be no need of teaching by mans Ministry when the whole current of the Scriptures of the New Testament both in precept and example shew the contrary The words of the Prophet here are only a prediction of the rich and plentiful means of Knowledge and Grace that was to be vouchsafed under the New Covenant more than under the Old § 19. One would think you have an aking Tooth against outward teaching when you build such Castles in the Air as ye do rather than none to batter it down But how comes it to pass that you use it so much your selves if there be no more need of it than you pretend I know that which you alledge to excuse your selves in this seeming contradiction is this or to this effect You say though men need not be taught by men what it is which they ought to know believe and do the light within teaching them this and being a Rule to them in these things yet in as much as men may and do rebel against this light its necessary to call upon and perswade them to obey it But in this Plea you suppose for truth that which is a manifest gross and most dangerous and pernicious error which is this That it is not as well necessary to teach men by the Scriptures and by the Ministry of men to know believe what is necessary to their salvation as it is to perswade them to do what is necessary thereto For contrary hereunto I have already proved that for men that live under the Gospel its necessary to their Salvation that they know and believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and Saviour of the World and that remission of sin is promised in his name to such as repent I have proved likewise that these things cannot be known but either by immediate revelation from God or by instruction from them that have had such Revelation or by them whose knowledge thereof hath been derived down successively by outward teaching from the first preachers of such Doctrine To which I will now add as followes In the Apostles days the Converts that were then made such were brought to the knowledge and belief of those great Articles of the Christian Faith fundamentally necessary to Salvation by hearing the
Word taught and the Scriptures opened This appears all along the Acts of the Apostles In Chap. 2. when Peter had said ver 36. Let all the House of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye crucified both Lord and Christ and had further said unto them ver 38. Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins then it s said ver 41. then they that gladly received his Word were baptized And Chap. 8. 12. But when they believed Philip Preaching the things concerning the Kingdom of God and the Name of Jesus Christ they were baptized And Chap. 11 13 14. Send men to Joppa and call for Simon whose sirname is Peter who shall tell thee words whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved Again Chap. 16. 31 3â— 34. They said believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house And they spake unto him the Word of the Lord and to all that were in his house and he rejoyced believing in God with all his House And Chap. 17. 2 3 4. And Paul as his manner was went in unto them and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures opening and alledging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen from the dead and that this Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ And some of them believed ver 11 12. They received the Word with all readiness of mind and searched the Scriptures daily whether those things were so therefore many believed Again Chap. 18. 8. And many of the Corinthians hearing believed and were baptized ver 28. and he mightily convinced the Jews and that publickly shewing by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ And Chap. 26. 17 18. To whom now I send thee to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light Also Chap. 28. 23 24. To whom he expounded and testified the Kingdom of God perswading them concerning Jesus both out of the Law of Moses and out of the Prophets from morning till evening and some believed the things which were spoken By all these instances you see or may see in what way and by what means God brought men to know Christ and to believe in him in the Apostles days under the highest Dispensation of Gospel-light as ever shined upon the World The Apostles Commission was to go and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever he had commanded them Mat. 28. They in pursuance of this first taught the People to know and believe that Jesus was the Christ and that remission of sins was granted in his Name to such as believed repented and were baptized and then they afterwards instructed them in the particular duties of Holy living Nothing can be plainer than that this was the way and method which God pitcht upon and used in the Apostles days to bring men to the knowledge and belief of what was necessary to their Salvation And how you will satisfie the World or your selves either that God a few years ago not heard of till then hath altered his method and that now he reveals these things to men without any such teaching by the Scriptures and Ministry of men as in those times he constantly used to do I know not nor as I believe you neither But I pray you give an honest account to such as are unsatisfied for what reason it is that you are so zealous against teaching by men when you have but such thin pretences to support your selves in so doing Suppose your error were the truth and that God did by a light created in every man sufficiently teach them what they ought to believe and do pray you what hurt would accrue to men by having the same things imparted to them by men from without which they know and believe already by a light within When St. Peter had occasion to write to those that were already enlightened within though not in your pretended way he said unto them I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things though ye know them and be established in the present truth 2 Pet. 1 12. And St. John in his 1. Epist 2. 21. I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth but because you know it and that no lie is of the truth And do not you your selves grant that the Light within you witnesseth to that which is in the Scriptures and that the Scriptures are as a Coppie of it Why then are you so angry with them that teach the people from the Scriptures those truths which you say the light within you witnesseth to I would ye did not give too much occasion hereby to suspect your integrity when you make such sad out-cryes against the publick Ministry one as well as another without distinction as you are wont to do when-as you cannot but know if you know at all what they preach that they teach the same Doctrine in the main to the people which the Apostles taught and which is declared in the Scriptures and so the same which you say the Light within you witnesseth to And also that they teach the Peopel that it is not the hearing of this Doctrine preached to them no nor yet the knowledge of it neither will avail them to their Salvation without receiving it into their hearts or without such a belief of it as issues it self in a frame of Spirit and tenour of Life and conversation as is suitable to it And if you know not this and yet speak evil of them for their preaching as surmising worse you then make your selves of the number of those ill men which Peter and Jude describe who spake evil of the things they know not 2. Pet. 2. 12. Jude 10. Besides you apparently discover a very ill mind while you seek to make them odious to the people by that which doth not at all make them so save only in the opinion of those whose minds are corrupted with prejudice against all teachers of Holy things as such or with Covetousness or Interest of a party and that is their taking mony of the people wherewith to support themselves and Families in serving them in the dear concernments of their souls And therefore you stile them hirelings such as preach for hire and make a trade of it and so make merchandize of mens souls Not considering that in doing thus you reproach the wisdome of our Lord who hath ordained that those that preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel 1. Cor. 9. 14. and hath said in reference hereto that the Labourer is worthy of his hire Luke 10. 7. and that such as labour in the Word and Doctrine are worthy of double honour 1. Tim. 5. 17. that those that are taught in the Word should communicate to him that teacheth in all good things Gal. 6. 6. And St. Paul