perfidious as cruel and contentious insomuch as among the Turkish Mahometans and the Indian Banians the wickedness of Christians is the grand cause that they abhor Christianity and it keepeth out your Religion from most Nations of the earth so that it is a proverb among them when any is suspected of treachery What do you think I am a Christian And Acosta witnesseth the like of the West-Indies Answ 1. Every man knoweth that the vulgar rabble who indeed are of no Religion will seem to be of the Religion which is most for their worldly advantage or else which their Ancestors and Custom have delivered to them And who can expect that such should live as Christians who are no Christians You may as well blame men because Images do not labour and are not learned wise and virtuous We never took all for Christians indeed who for carnal interest or custom or tradition take up the bare name and desire to be called Christians rebels may affect the name of loyal subjects and thieves and robbers the name of true and honest men Shall loyalty truth and honesty therefore be judged of by such as them Nothing can be more unrighteous than to judge of Christianity by those hypocrites whom Christ hath told us shall be condemned to the sorest punishment and whom he hateth above all sorts of sinners What if Julian Celsus Porphyry or any of these objectors should call themselves Christians and live in drunkenness cruelty perjury or deceit is it any reason that Christ should be reproached for their crimes Christianity is not a dead opinion or name but an active heavenly principle renewing and governing heart and life I have before shewed what Christianity is 2. In the Dominions of the Turks and other Infidel Princes the Christians by oppression are kept without the means of knowledge and so their ignorance hath caused them to degenerate for the greater part into a sensual sottish sort of people unlike to Christians And in the Dominions of the Moscovite tyranny hath set up a jealousie of the Gospel and suppressed Preaching for fear lest Preachers should injure the Emperour And in the West the usurpation and tyranny of the Papacy hath lock'd up the Scriptures from that people in an unknown tongue that they know no more what Christ saith than the Priest thinks meet to tell them lest they should be loosened from their dependance on the Roman Oracle And thus Ignorance with the most destroyeth Christianity and leaveth men but the shadow image and name For belief is an intellectual act and a sort of knowing and no man can believe really he knoweth not what If any Disciples in the School of Christ have met with such Teachers as think it their vertue and proficiency to be ignorant call not such Christians as know not what Christianity is and judge not of Christ's doctrine by them that never read or heard it or are not able to give you any good account of it But blessed be the Lord there are many thousand better Christians Object XIII But it is not the ignorant rabble only but many of your most zealous Professors of Christianity who have been as false as proud and turbulent and seditious as any others Answ 1. That the true genuine Christian is not so you may see past doubt by the doctrine and life of Christ and his Apostles And that there are thousands and millions of humble holy faithful Christians in the world is a truth which nothing but ignorance or malice can deny 2. Hypocrites are no true Christians what zeal soever they pretend There is a zeal for self and interest which is oft masked with the name of zeal for Christ It is not the seeming but the real Christian which we have to justifie 3. It is commonly a few young unexperienc'd novices which are tempted into disorders But Christ will bring them to repentance for all before he will forgive and save them Look into the Scripture and see whether it do not disown and contradict every fault both great and small which ever you knew any Christian commit If it do as visibly it doth why must Christ be blamed for our faults when he is condemning them and reproving us and curing us of them Object XIV The greater part of the world is against Christianity Heathens and Infidels are the far greater part of the earth and the greatest Princes and learnedst Philosophers have been and are on the other side Answ 1. The greater number of the world are not Kings nor Philosophers nor wise nor good men and yet that is no disparagement to Kings or learned or good men 2. The most of the world do not know what Christianity is nor ever heard the reasons of it and therefore no wonder if they are not Christians And if the most of the world be ignorant and carnal and such as have subjected their reason to their lusts no wonder if they are not wise 3. There is no where in the world so much learning as among the Christians experience puts that past dispute with those that have any true knowledge of the world Mahomitanism cannot endure the light of learning and therefore doth suppress or sleight it The old Greeks and Romans had much learning which did but prepare for the reception of Christianity at whose service it hath continued ever since But barbarous ignorance hath over spread almost all the rest of the world even the learning of the Chinenses and the Pythagoreans of the East is but childishness and dotage in comparison of the learning of the present Christians Object XV. For all that you say when we hear subtil arguings against Christianity it staggereth us and we are not able to confute them Answ That is indeed the common case of tempted men their own weakness and ignorance is their enemies strength But your ignorance should be lamented and not the Christian cause accused it is a dishonour to your selves but it is none to Christ Do your duty and you may be more capable of discerning the evidence of truth Object XVI But the sufferings which attend Christianity are so great that we cannot bear them in most places it is persecuted by Princes and Magistrates and it restraineth us from our pleasures and putteth us upon an ungrateful troublesome life and we are not souls that have no bodies and therefore cannot sleight these things Answ But you have souls that were made to rule your bodies and are more worthy and durable than they and were your souls such as reason telleth you they should be no life on earth would be so delectable to you as that which you account so troublesome And if you will chuse things perishing for your portion be content with the momentary pleasures of a dream you must patiently undergo the fruits of such a foolish choice And if eternal glory will not compensate what ever you can lose by the wrath of man or by the crossing of your fleshly minds you
him who will live such a Holy Life 114 CHAP. XIV That there is a Life of Retribution after this proved 119 CHAP. XV. Of the Intrinsecal Evils of SIN and of the PERPETVAL PVNISHMENT due to the Sinner by the undoubted Law of Nature 156 CHAP. XVI Of the present sinfull and miserable state of the World 176 CHAP. XVII What Naturall Light declareth of the Mercy of God to Sinners and of the Hopes and Means of Mans Recovery 182 PART II. Of CHRISTIANITY and Supernatural Revelation CHAP. I. OF the need of a clearer Light or fuller Revelation of the Will of God than all that hath been opened before p. 191 CHAP. II. Of the several RELIGIONS which are in the World 198 CHAP. III. Of the CHRISTIAN RELIGION and 1. What it is 204 CHAP. IV. Of the Nature and PROPERTIES of the Christian Religion 229 CHAP. V. Of the CONGRVITIES in the Christian Religion which make it the more easily credible and are great Preparatives to Faith 241 CHAP. VI. Of the WITNESS of JESVS CHRIST or the great demonstrative Evidence of his Verity and Authority viz. The SPIRIT In 4. parts 1. Antecedently by PROPHECY 2. Constitutively and Inherently the Image of God on his Person Life and Doctrine 3. Concomitantly by the Miraculous Power and Works of Christ and his Disciples 4. Subsequently in the actual Salvation of men by Renovation Opened Notes added 258 CHAP. VII Of the subservient Proofs and Means by which the forementioned Evidences are brought to our certain knowledge 302 How we know the antecedent Prophetical Testimony and the Constitutive Inherent Evidence How we know the Concomitant Testimony of Miracles 1. By Humane Testimony 2. By Evidence of Natural Certainty 3. By Divine attestation in the Testifyers Miracles The Proofs of that Divine attestation with the Witnesses 1. In the holy Constitution of their Souls and Doctrine 2. In their Miracles and Gifts 3. In the success of their Doctrine to mens sanctification How the Churches testimony of the Disciples Miracles and Doctrine is proved 1. By most credible Humane Testimony 2. By such as hath Natural Evidence of Certainty 3. By some further Divine attestation The way or Means of the Churches attestation and Tradition The Scriptures proved the same which the Apostles delivered and the Churches received How we may know the 4th part of the Spirits Testimony viz. The Successes of Christian Doctrine to mens sanctification What Sanctification is and the acts or parts of it Consectaries from p. 302. to 350 CHAP. VIII Of some other subservient and Collateral Arguments for the Christian Verity 350 CHAP. IX Yet Faith hath many Difficulties to overcome What they are and what their Causes 365 CHAP. X. The Intrinsecal Difficulties in the Christian Faith resolved or 24 Objections against Christianity answered 371 to 424 CHAP. XI The Extrinsecal Difficulties or 16 more Objections resolved 424 CHAP. XII The reasonable Conditions required of them who will overcome the Difficulties of Believing and will not undoe themselves by wilfull Infidelity 444 The summ of all in an Addresse to God 453 457 CHAP. XIII Consectaries I. What Party of Christians should we joyn with or be of seeing they are divided into so many Sects 464 CHAP. XIV II. Of the true Interest of Christ and his Church and the Souls of Men of the means to promote it and its Enemies and Impediments in the World Which being only named in brief Propositions should be the more heedfully perused by those that dare pretend the Interest of Religion and the Church for the proudest or the most dividing practices and those which most directly hinder the successefull preaching of the Gospel the pure Worshipping of God and the saving of Mens Souls 466. The Conclusion or an Appendix defending the Souls Immortality against the Somatists or Epicureans and other Pseudo-philosophers OBJECTION I. MAtter and Motion only may do all that which you ascribe to Souls p. 495 OBJECT II. By Sense Imagination Cogitation Reason you cannot prove the Soul to be incorporeal and immortal because the Bruits partake of all these 523 OBJECT III. Humane Souls are but Forms and Forms are but the qualities or modes of Substances and therefore perish when seperated from Bodies 535 OBJECT IV. The Soul is material and consequently mortal because it dependeth upon matter in its Operations and therefore in its Essence 539 OBJECT V. No immaterial Substance moveth that which is material as a principle of its Operations but the Soul so moveth the Body Ergo 540 OBJECT VI. The Soul in our sleep acteth irrationally according to the fortuitous motion of the spirits Ergo 543 OBJECT VII Reason is no proof of the Souls Immateriality because Sense which the Bruits have is the more perfect apprehension 543 OBJECT VIII Sensation and Intellection are both but Reception The Passivity therefore of the Soul doth shew its Materiality 544 OBJECT IX There is nothing in the Intellect which was not first in the Sense c. Ergo the Soul that can reach but things corporeal is such it self 547 OBJECT X. That which things Corporeal work on is Corporeal but c. 551 OBJECT XI That is not incorporeal which knoweth not it self to be so nor hath any notion but Negative and Metaphorical of Incorporeal Beings 551 OBJECT XII The Soul is generated Ergo corruptible 555 OBJECT XIII Omne quod oritur interit That which is not eternal as to past duration is not eternal as to future duration But c. 567 OBJECT XIV You have none but Moral Arguments for the Souls Immortality 568 OBJECT XV. You seem to confess that it is not the endless duration of the Soul but only a future state of Retribution which you can prove from Nature alone 568 OBJECT XVI Both Soul and Body are like a Candle in fluxu continuo Ergo being not long the same are uncapable of a Life of Retribution 569 OBJECT XVII The Soul returneth to the Anima Mundi or Element of Souls and so loseth its Individuation and is uncapable of Retribution 571 OBJECT XVIII The Fictions of the Platonists about their several Vehicles and such like do make their Doctrine the more to be suspected 574 OBJECT XIX The Souls actings will not be such as they are now by Corporeal Spirits and Idea's Ergo it will be uncapable of Retribution 578 OBJECT XX. The belief of the Souls Immortality doth fill men with fears and draw them to superstition and trouble the Peace of Kingdoms c. 579 In Objection about the Worlds Eternity What Christianity saith about it 582 The Testimony of Socrates and Zenocrates of the Souls Immortality 589 â—icero's Doctrine and his redargution of the Somatists at large 590 The Stoicks neerness to the Doctrine of Christianity with their particular Moral Tenets and their Praises by the Learned and Pious Mr. T. Gataker 595 The Stoicks Platonists and other Philosophers opinion of the sufficiency of Virtue to be Mans Felicity against the Epicurean Doctrine of Pleasure Vindicated It importeth a
self-sufficient and be the highest excellency it must have an infiniteness and need no help from any other But my Soul is conscious of imperfection in knowledge its ignorance is its burden and dishonour it knoweth not so much as is here asserted of it self it knoweth no such perfections or operations it knoweth little comparatively of the Universe or of any particular thing in it If it were an eternal uncaused independent Being it need not all the helps of evidence and argument in this dispute Moreover it is conscious of imperfection in Goodness and defilement of Evil it is defective in governing this flesh which could never be able to make me a sinner or culpable if it were animated with an uncaused independent being Moreover I am conscious of impotency in every thing that I go about a thousand difficulties pose and stall me a thousand things I would do and cannot and as many I would have and cannot whereas an uncaused independent mind should necessarily have an uncaused independent power and wisdom and goodness and so should at least partake of infiniteness in all And if my Soul did thus fabricate my Body then what needed it pre-existent Matter to make it of And why did it not make it sooner seeing it hath such an inclination to it Can an independent Mind be ignorant what it was and what it did it self from all eternity before it entred into this flesh And why doth it not amend the infirmities of this Body or why did it not make it self a Body more excellent more comely more sound more clean and more durable Could it choose no better can it not heal and perfect this can it not prevent the dissolution of it Seeing I find it so much in love with it and so unwilling to be separated from it if it were an independent mind and caused it at the first it would not be unwillingly taken from it and leave it to rottenness and dust And if my Soul did thus independently make my Body did all other Souls do so by their Bodies or not If they did not then they had a superiour Cause if they did then it seems that every Worm and Fly and Toad hath a Soul that is an eternal uncaused independent being But why then have they no knowledge no reason no speech why did they not choose a more honourable dwelling why do they all stoop to the service of man if they are equally excellent And then it would follow that there are as many eternal independent beings as there are Souls or living Wights in all the world And so instead of one true perfect God there would be innumerable demi-gods which all had the perfection of independencies and none of them had a perfection of being and sufficiency which would put us upon the further enquiries whether they do all their business independently or by a general council and consent and how they all do to agree and not fall into perpetual wars how the soul of an ideot or a wicked man or of a Toad or Serpent came to be so self-denying as to be contented with that part when the Soul of Aristotle and Seneca and Paul were so much better provided for And if all this were so who made the things inanimate that have no souls of their own to make them For my part I made them not And my Soul is conscious that it is a dependent being that cannot illuminate it self nor know what it would know nor be what it would be nor do what it would do nor can support its body or it self an hour It looketh dependently to something higher for help and protection and supply and mercy and is past all doubt that it is no God If it be said that all Souls are but one even parts of the universal Soul of the World and that individuation is by Matter only and that so though my Soul be not the whole first cause and being it is a part of it I answer 1. I note by the way that this hypothesis acknowledgeth that which I am searching after viz. that there is a God and it asserteth higher things of man than I am proving viz. That he hath not only an immortal Soul but a Soul that is part of God himself 2. And according to this the Soul of every Heliogabalus Sardanapalus Ideot or Toad should be part of God 3. And then all souls should be alike if all be God the Soul of a murderer and of him that is murdered of a Nero and a Saint yea of Caesar and of his Dog And how then cometh there so much enmity between them and so great disparity why is one wise and another foolish or bruitish and one the Ruler of the other The Soul of a Bird or Horse seemeth to be lodged in as good a kind of matter as Mans or at least the Soul of a Nero in as good a matter as the Soul of Paul or at least the Soul of one that turneth to villany from virtue hath the same matter which it had before And certainly it is not matter that principally individuateth but forms Nor is the difference between good men and bad and between Men and Serpents or Beasts so much in Matter as in the Soul Moreover Nature teacheth all men to seek felicity and fear infelicity and calamity which they need not do nor could not do if they were all parts of God God cannot be miserable but Man can as to his Soul as well as his Body and the misery of his Body is little to that of the Soul even in this life God cannot be evil but the Soul may be vitiated and evil as experience teacheth God may not be punished or afflicted but a wicked man may be punished and afflicted even in his mind or Soul and a Magistrate will not think when he hangeth a thief that he either punished bare flesh or that he punished God Moreover God can wrong no man but one man may wrong another God need not fear doing any thing amiss but the Soul of man must fear it No part of God can be so unhappy as to choose to be a Toad or a wicked or miserable man God hath no Body but so have these Souls else when men eat a plant or bird or any flesh they eat part of the Body of God Moreover I find that it is Bodies only that are Quantitative or Extensive and so divisible into parts many parts of one Body may be animated by one Soul but not by many parts of that one Soul except the Soul be material it self But why may some object may I not hold that all the Orbs being one world or one Body of one informing Soul which is God and so that really those which you call individuals are but parts of this one animated world Answ This is confuted by what is said Whether the world be animated by one universal Soul we are not now enquiring But that God is not this informing Soul is
God in great and solemn Assemblies Many Hearts are like many pieces of Wood or Coals which flame up greatly when set together which none of them alone would do And it is a fuller signification of Honour to God when his Creatures do purposely assemble for his solemn and most reverent Praise and Worship And therefore Nature shewing us the reasons of it doth make it to be our duty § 14. Nature telleth us that it is evil to cherish false opinions of God or to propagate such to others to slander or blaspheme him to forget him despise him or neglect him to contemn his Judgements or abuse his Mercies to resist his instructions precepts or sanctifying motions And that we should alwayes live as in his sight and to bend all our powers entirely to please him and to think and speak no otherwise of him nor otherwise behave our selves before him than as beseemeth us to the infinite most blessed and holy God § 15. Nature telleth us that in Controversies between Man and Man it is a rational means for ending strife to appeal to God the Judge of all by solemn Oaths where proof is wanting And that it is a hainous crime to do this falsly making him the Patron of a lie or to use his name rashly unreverently prophanely or in vain All this being both against the Nature of God and of our speech and of humane society is past all doubt unnatural evil § 16. Nature telleth us that God should be worshipped heartily sincerely spiritually and also decently and reverently both with soul and body as being the Lord of both § 17. It telleth us also that he must not be worshipped with sin or cruelty or by toyish childish ludicrous manner of Worship which signifie a minde that is not serious or which tend to breed a low esteem of him or which are any way contrary to his Nature or his will § 18. Nature telleth us that such as are endued with an eminent degree of holy wisdom should be Teachers of others for obedience to God and their salvation As the Soul is more worth than the Body and its welfare more regardable so charity to the Soul is as Natural a duty as to the body which cannot better be exercised than in communicating holy wisdom and instructing men in the matters of highest everlasting consequence § 19. Yea Nature teacheth that so great a work should not be done slightly and occasionally only as on the by but that it should be a work of stated office which tried men should be regularly called to for the more sure and universal edification of Mankind Nature telleth us that the greatest works of greatest consequence should be done with the greatest skill and care and that it is likest to be so done when it is made a set Office intrusted in the hands of tried men for it is not many that have such extraordinary endowments and if unfit persons manage so great a work they will marr it and miss the end and that which a man taketh for his Office he is liker to take care of than that which he thinks belongeth no more to him than others and how necessary Order is in all matters of weight the experience of all Governments Societies and Persons may soon convince us § 20. Nature telleth us also that it is the duty of such Teachers to be very diligent serious and plain and of Learners to be thankful willing studious respectful and rationally-obedient as remembring the great importance of the work For in vain is the labour of the Teachers if the Learners will not do their part the Receiver hath the chief benefit and therefore the greatest part of the duty which must do most to the success § 21. Nature telleth men that they should not live loosely and ungoverned but in the order of governed Societies for the better attainment of the ends of their Creation as is proved before § 22. Nature telleth us that Governours should be the most wise and pious and just and merciful and diligent and exemplary laying out themselves for the publick good and the pleasing of the universal Sovereign § 23. It teacheth us also that Subjects must be faithful to their Governours and must honour and obey them in subordination to God § 24. Nature telleth us that it is the Parents duty with special love and diligence to educate their children in the knowledge fear and obedience of God providing for their bodies but preferring their souls § 25. And that children must love honour and obey their Parents willingly and thankfully receiving their instructions and commands § 26. Nature also telleth us that thus the Relations of Husband and Wife should be sanctified to the highest ends of life and also the Relation of Master and Servant and that our callings and labours in the world should be managed in pure obedience to God and to our ultimate end § 27. Nature teacheth all men to love one another as servants of the same God and members of the same universal Kingdom and creatures of the same specifick nature There is somewhat amiable in every man for there is something of God in every man and therefore something that it is our duty to love And that according to the excellency of man's nature which sheweth more of God than other inferiour creatures do and also according to their additional virtues Loveliness commandeth love and love maketh lovely This with all the rest afore-mentioned are so plain that to prove them is but to be tedious § 28. Nature telleth us that we should deal justly with all giving to every one his due and doing to them as we would be done by § 29. Particularly it telleth us that we must do nothing injuriously against the life or health or liberty of our neighbour but do our best for their preservation and comfort § 30. Man being so noble a creature and his education so necessary to his welfare and promiscuous unregulated generation tending so manifestly to confusion ill education divisions and corruption of mankind and unbridled exercise of lust tending to the abasement of reason and corruption of body and mind Nature telleth us that carnal copulation should be very strictly regulated and kept within the bounds of lawful marriage and that the contract of marriage must be faithfully kept and no one defile his neighbours bed nor wrong another's chastity or their own in thought word or deed This proposition though Boars understand it not is proved in the annexed reasons Nothing would tend more to houshold divisions and ill education and the utter degenerating and undoing of mankind than ungoverned copulation No one would know his own children if lust were not bounded by strict and certain Laws and then none would love them nor provide for them nor would they have any certain ingenuous education Women would become most contemptible and miserable as soon as beauty faded and lust was satisfied and
if God brought them forth for his own Perfection it would follow that he was before imperfect and consequently not God and that his Perfections are mutable and perishing Therefore at least some other cause of these must be found out And as for the similitudes in the objection I answer 1. That the fructifying of a Tree is an act of Generation and the ends of it are partly the use for food to superiour sensitive Creatures especially man and partly the propagation of its species because it is mortall Fructification is indeed its perfection but that is because it is not made for it self but for another Sic vos non vobis may be written upon all But God is neither mortall needing a propagation of the species nor is he subservient to any other and finally for its use And as for the Soul it made not the matter of its own body but found it made though in the formation of it it might be so efficient as domicilium sibi fabricare But God made all matter of nothing and gave the World whatsoever it is or hath And therefore was Perfect himself before For an imperfect being could never have been the cause of such a frame Therefore he needed no domicilium for himself nor as an imperfect Part a form to concurr to the constitution of a whole But he is the efficient dirigent and final cause of the World and all things but not the constituent or essential for then the Creature and Creator were all one and God debased and the Creature deified But he is to them a supra-essential cause even more than a form and soul while he is a total efficient of all 3. If all that is in the Objection had been proved it would not at all shake the main design of my present discourse which is to prove that God is our Grand Benefactor and Chief Good and that he is mans ultimate end For if the World were his Body and he both its Efficient and its Soul he would be the cause of all its Good and the Cause would be more excellent than the Effect And if our Souls that never made the matter of our Bodies are yet the noblest part of us and far more excellent than the Body much more would God that made or caused all the Matter and Order in the World be more excellent than that World which he effected And as the Soul is not for the Body as its ultimate end though it be the Life of the Body and its great Benefactor but the Body is finally more for the Soul though the Soul need not the Body so much as the Body needeth the Soul and as the Horse is finally for the Rider and not the Rider for the Horse though the Horse needeth his Master more than the Master doth the Horse for the Horses life is preserved by the Master when the Master is but accommodated in his Journey by his Horse Even so though the World need God and he needeth not the World and God giveth being and life to the World which can give nothing at all to him yet the World is finally for God and not God for the World The noblest and first Being is still the End And the generated part of the World which is not formally eternal but doth oriri interire is it that our dispute doth most concern which the Objection doth no whit invalidate § 5. The same Will of God which was the free efficient is the End of all his Works ad extra Gods Essence hath no Efficient or final Cause but is the efficient and final cause of all things else They proceeded from his Power his Wisdom and his good-will and they bear the Image of his Power Wisdom and Good-will and he loveth his own Image in them and loveth them as they bear his Image and loveth his Image for Himself So that the act of his Love to Himself is necessary though voluntary and so is the act of his Love to his Image and to all the Goodness of the Creature while it is such But he freely and not necessarily made and continueth the Creature in his Image and needeth not the Glass or Image being self-sufficient so that his Creature is the mediate Object his Image on the Creature is the ultimate created Object his own perfections to which that Image relateth is the objectum simpliciter ultimatum his complacency or love is the Actus ultimus and that very act is the object of his precedent act of Creation or volition of the Creatures But all this is spoken according to the narrow imperfect capacity of man who conceiveth of God as having a prius posterius in his acts which is but respectively and denominatively from the order of the objects In short Gods free-will is the Beginning of his works ad extra and the complacency of that will in his works as Good in relation to his own perfections is the END And therefore he is said to Rest when he saw that all his works were Good § 6. Whatsoever is the fullest expression and Glorifying demonstration of God in the Creature must needs be the chief created excellency Because he loveth Himself first and the Creature for Himself And seeing the Creature hath all from him which is good and amiable in it it must needs follow that those parts are most amiable and best which have most of the impression of the Creators excellencies on them Not that he hath greater Perfections to imprint on one Creature than another but the impression of those Perfections is much greater on one than on another § 7. The Happier therefore God will make any Creature the more will be communicate to it of the Image and demonstration of his own goodness and so will both love it the more for his own Image and cause it to love him the more which is the chief part of his Image § 8. The Goodness of God is conceived of by our narrow mindes in three notions as it were in three degrees of altitude The Highest is The infinite perfections of his Essence as such The second is The infinite perfection of his Will as such which is called His Holiness and the Fountain of Morality The third is that one part of his Wills perfection which is his Benignity to his Creatures which we call his Goodness in a lower notion as relative to our selves because he is inclined by it to Do us good This is his Goodness in condescention § 9. Though all this is but one in God yet because our mindes are fain to receive it as in several parts or notions we may therefore not only distinguish them but compare them as the Objects of our Love § 10. Man usually beginneth at the lowest and loveth God first for his Benignity and Love to us before he riseth to the higher acts And this is not an irregular motion of a lapsed Soul in its return to God so be it we make haste in our
and various instances these exceptions do but confirm the general truth that such there are I have said so much of them in two other Writings that I shall now say no more but this That those Judges ordinarily condemn them to die who themselves have been most incredulous of such things that so great numbers were condemned in Suffolk Norfolk and Essex about twenty years ago that left the business past all doubt to the Judges Auditors and Reverend Ministers yet living who were purposely sent with them for the fuller inquisition That the testimonies are so numerous and beyond exception recorded in the many Volumes written on this subject by the Malleus Maleficorum Bodin Remigius and other Judges who condemned them that I owe no man any further proof than to desire him to read the foresaid Writings wherein he shall find Men and Women Gentlemen Scholars Doctors of Divinity of several qualities and tempers all confessedly guilty and put to death for this odious sin And he shall find what compacts they made with the Devil promising him their Souls or their service and renouncing their Covenant with God All which doth more than intimate that men have Souls to save or lose and that there is an Enemy of Souls who is most sollicitous to destroy them or else to what end would all this be When people are in wrath and malice desirous of revenge or in great discontents or too eagerly desirous after overhasty knowledge in any needless speculation the Devil hath the advantage to appear to them and offer them his help and draw them into some contract with him implicit at least if not explicit I have my self been too incredulous of these things till cogent evidence constrained my belief Though it belong not to us to give account why Satan doth it or why upon no more or why God permitteth it yet that so it is in point of fact it cannot be rationally denyed And therefore we have so much sensible evidence that there is a happiness and misery after this life which the Devil believeth though Atheists do not 2. And though some are as incredulous of Apparitions yet evidence hath confuted all incredulity I could make mention of many but for the notoriety I will name but two which it is easie to be satisfied about The one is the Apparition in the shape of Collonel Bowen in Glamorganshire to his Wife and Family speaking walking before them laying hold on them hurting them in time of Prayer the man himself then living from his Wife in Ireland being one that from Sect to Sect had proceeded to Infidelity if not to Atheism and upon the hearing of it came over but durst not goe to the place The thing I have by me described largely and attested by learned godly Ministers that were at the place and is famous past contradiction 2. But to name no more he that will read a small Book called The Devil of Mascon written by Mr. Perreand and published by Dr. Peter Moulin will see an instance past all question The Devil did there for many months together at certain hours of the day hold discourse with the inhabitants and publikely disputed with a Papist that challenged him and when he had done turn'd him and cast him down so violently that he went home distracted He would sing and jest and talk familiarly with them as they do with one another He would answer them questions about things done at a distance and would carry things up and down before them and yet never seen in any shape All this was done in the house of the said Mr. Perreand a Reverend faithfull Minister of the Protestant Church in the hearing of persons of both Professions Papists and Protestants that ordinarily came in for above three months at Mascon a City of France And at last upon earnest Prayer it ceased Mr. Perreands piety and honesty was well known and attested to me by the Right Honourable the Earl of Orrery now Lord President of Munster in Ireland and attested to the World by his most learned worthy honourable Brother Mr. Robert Boyl in an Epistle before the Book neither of them persons apt to be over-credulous of such unusual things yet both fully satisfied of the truth of this story by Mr. Perreands own Narratives with whom they were very familiar See the other Testimonies cited in my Saints Rest Part 2. Q. But how doth this signifie that there is any future state for man Answ 1. Commonly these Apparitions do expresly referr to some sin or duty which are regardable in order to a further Life Sometimes they come to terrifie Murderers or other great Offenders and sometimes the Devil hath killed men outright which yet were no more painfull than another death if it fetcht not their souls into a greater misery sometimes they are used to tempt people to sin to witchcraft to revenge to idolatry and superstition to which use they are common among many of the Indians And all this intimateth some further hurt which sin doth men after this present life which they take not here for their pain but their pleasure 2. Many of these Apparitions say that they are the souls of such and such persons that have lived here If it be so then the question is granted And whether it be so I suppose is to us uncertain For why a condemned Soul may not appear as well as Satan notwithstanding that both of them are in that state of misery which is called Hell I yet could never hear any sure proof But because this is uncertain 3. At least it sheweth us that these evil Spirits are neer us and able to molest us and therefore are ordinarily restrained and that their natures are not as to any elevation so distant from ours but that a converse there may be and therefore that it is very probable that when the souls of the Wicked are separated from their bodies they shall be such as they or have more converse with them and that the good Spirits shall be the companions of the souls of men that here were not far unlike themselves When we perceive that we live among such invisible Spirits it is the easier to believe that we shall live with such of them hereafter as we are most like 3. I may adde to these the instance of satanical Possessions For though many diseases may have of themselves very terrible and strange effects yet that the Devil I mean some evil Spirit doth operate in many is past all contradiction some will speak Languages which they never learnt some will tell things done far off some will have force and actions which are beyond their proper natural ability Most great Physicians how incredulous soever have been forced to confess these things and abundance of them have written particular instances And the manner of their transportations their horrid blasphemies against God with other carriages do commonly intimate a life to come and a desire that Satan hath to
which he is Mans End and Happiness As if all the Goodness and Love of God were not enough to counterpoise the base and bruitish pleasures of sin and to drive the rational Soul to God It was his Efficient Goodness which I spake of before 26. And thus it declareth that we are so farr void of Love to God For Love is desirous to please 27. It is a setting up the sordid Creature for our End as if it were more attractive and amiable than God and fitter to content and delight the Soul 28. It is a contempt of all that glorious Happiness of the Life to come which God hath warranted the righteous to expect As if it were not all so good as the defiling transitory pleasures of sin and would not recompence us for all that we can do or suffer for God 29. It is the silencing and laying by our Reason by inconsiderateness or the perverting and abusing of it by Error in the greatest matters for which it was given us and so it is a voluntary drunkenness or madness in the things of God and our felicity 30. It is a setting up our senses and appetite above our Reason and making our selves in use as Beasts by setting up the lower beastial faculties to rule 31. It is the deformity monstrosity disorder sickness and abuse of a Noble Creature whom God made in our measure like himself and so a contemptuous defacing of his Image 32. It is a robbing God of that Glory of his Holiness which should shine forth in our hearts and lives and of that complacency which he would take in our Love Obedience Perfection and Felicity 33. It is the perverting and Moral destruction not only of our own faculties which were made for God but of all the World which is within our reach Turning all that against God and our happiness which was given us for them Yea it is worse than casting them all away while we use them contrary to their natures against their Owner and their end 34. It is thus a preach in the Moral order and harmony of the world and as much as in us lyeth the destroying of the world As the dislocation or rejection of some parts of a Clock or Watch is a disordering of the whole and as a wound to the hand or foot is a wrong to the body And it is a wound to every Society where it is committed and an injury to every individual who is tempted or afflicted by it 35. It is a contradicting of our own professions confessions understandings and promises to God 36. It is a preferring of an inch of hasty time before the durable life to come and things that we know are of short continuance before those of which we can see no end 37. It is the preferring of a corruptible flesh and its pleasure before the Soul which is more noble and durable 38. It is an unmercifulness and inhumane cruelty to our selves not only defiling soul and body but casting them on the displeasure and punishing-justice of their great and terrible Creator 39. It is the gratifying of the malicious Tempter the enemy of God and of our souls the doing his will and receiving his image instead of God's 40. And all this is done voluntarily without constraint by a rational free-agent in the open light and for a thing of nought Besides what Christians only can discern all this the light of Nature doth reveal to be in the malignity of sin § 8. Sin being certainly no better a thing than is here described it is most certain that it deserveth punishment § 9. And reason telleth us that God being the Governour of the world and perfect Government being his perfect work and glory in that relation it is not meet that in such a Divine and perfect Government so odious an evil be put up and such contempt of God and all that is good be past by without such execution of his Laws as is sufficient to demonstrate the justice of the Governour and to vindicate his Laws and authority from contempt nor that it be pardoned on any terms but such as shall sufficiently attain the ends of perfect Government The ends of Punishment are 1. to do Justice and fulfil the Law and truth of the Law-giver 2. To vindicate the honour of the Governour from contempt and treason 3. To prevent further evil from the same offendor 4. To be a terrour to others and to prevent the hurt that impunity would encourage them to 5. And if it be but meerly castigatory it may be for the good of the sinner himself but in purely vindictive punishment it is the Governour and Society that are the end 1. It is true that as the immediate sense of the Precept e.g. Thou shalt do no murder is not de eventu it shall not come to pass but de debito Thy duty is to forbear it So also the immediate sense of the Penal part is not de eventu e. g I thou murder thou shalt be put to death but de debito death shall be thy due thou shalt be Reus mortis So that if it do non evenire it is not presently a falshood But it s as true that when the Sovereign makes a Law he thereby declareth that this Law is a Rule of Righteousness that it is Norma officii judicii that the Subject must do according to it and expect to be done by according to it that it is the Instrument of Government Therefore these two things are declared by it 1. That ordinarily Judgment and execution shall pass according to it 2. That it shall never be extraordinarily dispensed with by Sovereignty but upon terms which as well declare the Justice of the Governour and discourage offendors from contempt and are as fit to preserve the common good and the honour of the Sovereign So that thus far a Law doth assert also the event which I put to prevent objections and to shew that truth and justice require the ordinary execution of just and necessary Laws 2. And should they be ordinarily dispensed with it would intimate that the Ruler did he knew not what in making them that he repented of them a unjust or over-saw himself in them or fore-saw not inconveniences or was not able to see them executed it would also make him seem a deceiver that affrighted Subjects with that which he never intended to do which Omnipotency Omniscience and perfect Goodness cannot do what ever impotent ignorant bad men may do 3. And the offendor must be disabled when penitency sheweth not the change of his heart that he do so no more and therefore death is ordinarily inflicted 4. And especially offences must be prevented and the honour of the Sovereign and safety of the people be preserved If Laws be not executed they and the Law-giver will be despised others will be let loose and invited to do evil and no man's right will have any security by the Law Therefore it
world they are that sort of men that are likest unto Beasts except some few at Siam China the Indian Bannians the Japonians the Ethnick Persians and a few more The greatest deformity of Nature is among them the least of sound knowledge true policy civility and piety is among them Abominable wickedness doth no where so much abound So that if the doctrin and judgment of these may be judged of by the effect it is most insufficient to heal the diseased world and reduce man to holiness sobriety and honesty § 6. I find that these few among the Heathens who attain to more knowledge in the things which concern man's duty and happiness than the rest do commonly destroy all again by the mixture of some dotâ—ges and impious conceits The Literali in China exel in many things but besides abundance of ignorance in Philosophy they destroy all by denying the immortality of the Soul and affirming rewards and punishments to be only in this life or but a little longer At least none but the Souls of the good say some of them survive and though they confess One God they give him no solemn worship Their Sect called Sciequia or Sciacca is very clear for the Vnity of the Godhead the joys of Heaven and the torments of Hall with some umbrage of the Trinity c. But they blot all with the Pythagorean fopperies affirming these Souls which were in joy or misery after a certain space to be sent again into Bodies and so to continue through frequent changes to eternity to say nothing of the wickedness of their lives Their third Sect called Lauru is not worth the naming as being composed of fopperies and sorceries and impostures All the Japonian Sects also make the world to be eternal and Souls to be perpetuated through infinite transmigrations The Siamenses who seem the best of all and nearest to Christians have many fopperies and worship the Devil for fear as they do God for love The Indian Bramenes or Bannians also have the Pythagorean errors and place their piety in redeeming Bruits because they have Souls which sometimes were humane The Persians dispersed in India who confess God and Heaven and Hell yet think that these are but of a thousand years duration And it is above a thousand years since they believed that the world should continue but a thousand years and then Souls be released from Hell and a new world made § 7. Their great darkness and uncertainties appear by the innumerable sects and differences which are among them which are incomparably more numerous than all that are found in all parties in the world besides I need not tell you of the 288 Sects or Opinions de summo bono which Varro said was in his days The difference which you may find in Laertius Hesechius and others between the Cynicks Peripateticks Academicks Stoicks Scepticks Epicureans c. with all their sub-divisions are enow In Japan the twelve Sects have their subdivisions In China the three general Sects have so many subdivisions that Varenius saith of them Singuli fontes Iabentibus paulatim seculis à fraudum magistris in tot maeandros derivati sunt ut sub triplici nomine trecentae mihi sectae inter se discrepantes numerari posse videantur sed hae quotidianis incrementis augentur in pejus ruunt Petrus Texeica saith of the Indians In Regno Gazeratensivarii sunt ritus sectae incolarum quod mirum vix familiam invenias in qua omnes congruant alii comedunt carnem alii nequaquam alii comedunt quidem sed non mactant animalia alii nonnulla tantum animalia comedunt alii tantum pisces alii tantum lac herbas c. Johan a Twist saith of the Indian Bramenes Numerantur sectae praecipui nominis octoginta tres sed praeter has minus illustrium magna est multitudo ita ut singulae familiae peculiarem fere foveant religionem It were endless to speak of all the Sects in Africa and America to say nothing of the beastly part of them in Brasil the Cape of good hope that is Soldania and the Islands of Cannibals who know no God nor Government nor Civility some of them They are not only of as many minds as countries but of a multitude of sects in one and the same country § 8. I find not my self called or enabled to judge all these people as to their final state but only to say that if any of them have a holy heart and life in the true love of God they shall be saved but without this no form of Religion will save any man be it never so right § 9. But I find it to be my duty to love them for all the good which is in them and all that is true and good in their Religion I will embrace and because it is so defective to look further and try what I can learn from others There is so much lovely in a Cato Cicero Seneca Antonine Epictetus Plutarch c. in the Religions of Siam in the dispersed Persian Ethnicks in India in the Bramans or Bannians of India in the Bonzii of Japan and divers others in China and else-where that it obligeth us not only to love them benevolently but with much complacence And as I will learn from Nature it self what I can so also from these Students of Nature I will take up nothing meerly on their trust nor reject any doctrin meerly because it is theirs but all that is true and good in their Religions as far as I can discern it shall be part of mine and because I find them so dark and bad I will betake me for further information to those that trust to supernatural Revelation which are the Jews Mahumetans and the Christians of which I shall next consider a-part § 10. II. As to the Religion of the Jews I need not say much of it by it self the Positive part of their doctrine being confessed by the Christians and Mahumetans to be of Divine Revelation and the negative part their denying of Christ is to be tryed in the tryall of Christianity The Reasons which are brought for the Christian Religion if sound will prove the Old Testament which the Jews believe it being part of the Christians Sacred Book And the same reasons will confute the Jews rejection of Jesus Christ I take that therefore to be the fittest place to treat of this subject when I come to the proofs of the Christian Faith I oppose not what they have from God I must prove that to be of God which they deny § 11. III. In the Religion of the Mahumetans I finde much good viz. A Confession of one only God and most of the Natural parts of Religion a vehement opposition to all Idolatry A testimony to the Veracity of Moses and of Christ that Christ is the Word of God and a great Prophet and the Writings of the Apostles true All this therefore where Christianity is approved
to be their Captain who led them into Canaan and miraculously conquered all the inhabitants and setled Israel in possession of the Land There they long remained under the government of a Chieftain called a Judge successively chosen by God himself Till at last they mutinied against that form of Government and desired a King like other Nations Whereupon God gave them a bad King in displeasure but next him he chose David a King of great and exemplary holiness in whom God delighted and made his Kingdom hereditary To David he gave a Son of extraordinary wisdom who by God's appointment built the famous Temple at Jerusalem yet did this Solomon by the temptation of his Wives to gratifie them set up Idolatry also in the land which so provoked God that he resolved to rend ten Tribes of the twelve out of his sons hand which accordingly was done and they revolted and chose a King of their own and only the Tribes of Juda and Benjamin adhered to the posterity of Solomon The wise Sentences of Solomon and the Psalms of David are here inserted in the Bible The Reigns of the Kings of Juda and Israel are afterwards described the wickedness and idolatry of most of their successive Kings and people till God being so much provoked by them gave them up into Captivity Here is also inserted many Books of the Prophesies of those Prophets which God sent from time to time to call them from their sins and warn them of his fore-told judgments And lastly here is contained some of the History of their state in Captivity and the return of the Jews by the favour of Cyrus where in a tributary state they remain'd in expectation of the promised Messiah or Christ Thus far is the History of the Old Testament The Jews being too sensible of their Captivities and Tributes and too desirous of Temporal Greatness and Dominion expected that the Messiah should restore their Kingdom to its ancient splendour and should subdue the Gentile Nations to them And to this sense they expounded all those passages in their Prophets which were spoken and meant of the spiritual Kingdom of Christ as the Saviour of Souls which prejudiced them against the Messiah when he came so that though they looked and longed for his coming yet when he came they knew him not to be the Christ but hated him and persecuted him as the Prophets had fore-told The fulness of time being come in which God would send the Promised Redeemer the Eternal Wisdom and Word of God the Second in the Trinity assumed a Humane Soul and Body and was conceived in the womb of a Virgin by the holy Spirit of God without man's concurrence His Birth was celebrated by Prophesies and Apparitions and applause of Angels and other Wonders A Star appearing over the place led some Astronomers out of the East to worship him in the Cradle Which Herod the King being informed of and that they called him the King of the Jews he caused all the Infants in that country to be killed that he might not scape But by the warning of an Angel Jesus was carried into Egypt where he remained till the death of Herod At twelve years old he disputed with the Doctors in the Temple In this time rose a Prophet called John who told them that the Kingdom of the Messiah was at hand and called the people to Repentance that they might be prepared for him and baptized all that professed Repentance into the present expectation of the Saviour About the thirtieth year of his age Jesus resolved to enter upon the solemn performance of his undertaken work And first He went to John to be baptized by him the Captains being to wear the same Colours with the Souldiers When John had baptized him he declared him to be the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world and when he was baptized and prayed the Heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily shape like a Dove upon him and a voice came from Heaven which said Thou art my beloved Son in thee I am well pleased The first thing that Jesus did after his Baptism was when he had fasted forty days and nights to expose himself to the utmost of Satan's temptations who thereupon did divers ways assault him But Jesus perfectly overcame the Tempter who had overcome the first Man Adam Thenceforth he preached the glad tidings of Salvation and called men to repentance and choosing Twelve to be more constantly with him than the rest and to be witnesses of his works and doctrin he revealed the mysteries of the Kingdom of God He went up and down with them teaching the people and working miracles to confirm his doctrin He told them that he was sent from God to reveal his will to lost mankind for their recovery and to bring them to a fuller knowledge of the unseen world and the way thereto and to be a Mediator and Reconciler between God and Man and to lay down his life as a Sacrifice for sin and that he would rise again from the dead the third day and in the mean time to fulfill all righteousness and give man an example of a perfect life Which accordingly he did He never sinned in thought word or deed He chose a poor inferiour condition of life to teach men by his example to contemn the wealth and honours of this world in comparison of the favour of God and the hopes of immortality He suffered patiently all indignities from men He went up and down as the living Image of Divine Power Wisdom and Goodness doing Miracles to manifest his Power and opening the doctrin of God to manifest his Wisdom and healing mens bodies and seeking the salvation of their souls to manifest his Goodness and his Love Without any means by his bare command he immediately cured Fevers Palsies and all diseases cast out Devils and raised the dead to life again and so open uncontroled and numerous were his Miracles as that all men might see that the Omnipotent God did thereby bear witness to his Word Yet did not the greatest part of the Jews believe in him for all these Miracles because he came not in worldly pomp to restore their Kingdom and subdue the world but they blasphemed his very Miracles and said He did them by the power of the Devil And fearing lest his fame should bring envy and danger upon them from the Romans who ruled over them they were his most malicious persecutors themselves The doctrin which he preached was not the unnecessary curiosities of Philosophy nor the subservient Arts and Sciences which natural light revealeth and which natural men can sufficiently teach But it was to teach men to know God and to know themselves their sin and danger and how to be reconciled to God and pardoned and sanctified and saved How to live in holiness to God and in love and righteousness to men and in special amity and unity
our confessions as well without it and when the tongue is made the natural instrument to express the mind and there are variety of other signs it is incredible that all the world should ever even so early hit upon this one strange way of expression without some special revelation or command of God 2. And it cannot be said with any credibility that God made any other revelation of his will to the world for Sacrificing beside what is made in Nature and in holy Scripture for who ever dreamt of such a thing or hath delivered us any such revelation and told us when and to whom and how it was made 3. And it is not credible that it was taken up erroneously by all the world as their vices or superstitions are for though it is past question that error hath caused the abuse of it through the world yet for the thing it self there is no probability of such an original For what can we imagin should induce men to it and make all Nations how various soever their Idols are to agree in this way of worshipping and propitiating them There is nothing of sensuality in it that by gratifying a lust of the flesh might have such an universal effect And it must be some universal Light or some universal Lust or Interest that must cause such an universal concord Nay on the contrary you shall find that Tradition and the custom of their Fore-fathers is the common argument pleaded for sacrificing through all the world even in the Ancients Historical reports of it 4. Therefore it remaineth very probable at least that they received it indeed by tradition from their fore-fathers and that could be from none originally but the universal progenitor of mankind who was capable of conveying it to all his posterity for no History mentioneth any later original nor could any later than Adam or Noah have made it so universal And no man can imagine why God should institute it if it were not to intimate the translating of our punishment into our Redeemer and to point us to the great Sacrifice which is truly propitiatory and is the great demonstration of his Justice who in Mercy doth forgive § 7. II. The second Witness of the Spirit which is inherent and constitutive to the Gospel of Christ is that image of God the unimitable character of Divinity which by the holy Spirit is put into the doctrin of Christ as the very life or soul of it together with the same on the pattern of his own life 1. On Christ himself the unimitable Image of God in his Perfection is a testimony of his veracity which I ascribe to the holy Spirit as the ultimate Operator in the Trinity even that holy Spirit by which he was conceived and which fell upon him at his Baptism and which Matth. 12. his enemies did blaspheme Many men have so lived that no notable sin of commission hath been found or observed in them by the world at a distance But the most vertuous except Christ was never without discernable infirmities and sins of omission No man ever convicted him of any sin either in word or deed His obedience to the Law of God was every way perfect He was the most excellent Representative of the Divine Perfections The Omnipotency of God appeared in his Miracles The Wisdom of God in his holy Doctrin and the Love of God in his matchless expressions of Love and in all the Holiness of his life He was so far from pride worldliness sensuality malice impatiency or any sin that the world had never such a pattern of self-denial humility contempt of all the wealth and honours of the world charity meekness patience c. as in him He obeyed his Father to the death He healed mens bodies and shewed his pity to their souls and opened the way of life even to his enemies He instructed the ignorant and preached repentance to the impenitent and suffered patiently the unthankful requitals of them that rendred him evil for good He endured patiently to be reviled scorned buffeted spit upon crowned with thorns nailed to a cross and put to death and this upon the false accusation and imputation of being an evil doer In a word He was perfect and sinless and manifested first all that obedience and holiness in his life which he put into his Laws and prescribed unto others And such Perfection is inseparable from Veracity Obj. How know we what faults he might have which come not to our knowledge Answ 1. You may see by his enemies accusations partly what he was free from when you see all that malice could invent to charge him with 2. If the Narrative of his Life in the Gospel have that evident proof which I shall anon produce there can remain no doubt of the perfect holiness and innocency of Christ in his Person and his Life Object We find him accused of many crimes as of being a gluttonous person and a Wine-bibber of blasphemy and impiety and treason Answ The very accusations are such as shew their falshood and his innocency He is called a gluttonous person and a Wine-bibber because he did eat and drink as other men in temperance and sobriety and did not tie himself to a wilderness life of austerity in total abstinence from common meats and wine as John Baptist did and as they thought he that professed extraordinary sanctity should have done They accused him of eating with publicans and sinners because he went to them as a Physician to heal their souls and lived a sociable charitable life and did not observe the Laws of proud Pharisaical separation They accused him of blasphemy and treason for saying the truth that he was the Son of God and the King of Israel And of impiety for talking of pulling down the Temple when he did but prophesie of his own death and resurrection And this was all that malice had to say Object He carried himself contemptuously to Magistrates He called Herod the King That Fox The Scribes and Pharisees he railed at and called them hypocrites painted sepulchres a generation of vipers c. When he was called to answer whether they should pay tribute to Cesar he doth but put off the resolution by ambiguity instead of an open exhorting them to obedience and saith Give to Caesar the things that are Caesars And when he was called to for tribute for him he payeth it but as a way to avoid offence having pleaded first his own immunity Answ 1. His speeches of Herod and the Scribes and Pharisees are not revilings but a free and just reprehension of their sin which being done by God's commission and in his Name and for his cause is no more to be called reviling than an arrest of a Felon or Traitor in the Kings name or an accusation put in against him for his crimes should be so called God will not forbear damning impenitent rebels though they call it cruelty nor will he forbear the reprehension and shaming of their
no way incredible that God should value man according to his natural worth and usefulness as an intellectual agent capable of Knowing and Loving and Praising him and Enjoying him His creating us such and his abundant mercies to us do abundantly prove the truth of this Nor is it incredible that he should be willing that his depraved creature should be restored to the use and ends of its nature nor is it incredible that God should choose the best and fittest means to effect all this Nothing more credible than all this 4. And it is not incredible at all that the Incarnation of the Eternal Word should be the fittest means for this reparation If we consider 1. What question we should have made of the word of an Angel or any meer creature that should have said he came from God to teach us seeing we could not be so certain that he was infallible and indefectible 2. And how short a creature would have fallen in the Priestly part of Mediation 3. And how insufficient he would have been for the Kingly Dignity and universal Government and Protection of the Church and Judgement of the world 4. And withall that God Himself being the Glorifier of Himself and the Donor of all felicity to us it is very congruous that he should most eminently Himself perform the most eminent of these works of mercy 5. And it much assisteth my belief of the Incarnation to consider that certainly the work that was to be done for man's recovery was the winning of his heart to the Love of God from himself and other creatures and there was no way imaginable so fit to inflame us with love to God as for him most wonderfully to manifest his love to us which is more done in the work of man's Redemption than any other way imaginable so that being the most suitable means to restore us to the love of God it is fittest to be the way of our recovery and so the more credible 6. And it much suppresseth temptation to unbelief in me to consider that the three grand works in which God's Essentialities declare themselves must needs be all such as beseemeth God that is most wonderful transcending man's comprehension And as his Omnipotency shewed it self with Wisdom and Love in the great work of Creation so was it meet that his Wisdom should shew it self most wonderfully in the great work of Redemption in order to the as wonderful declaration of his Love and Goodness in the great work of our Salvation our Regeneration and Glorification And therefore if this were not a wonderful work it were not fit to be parallel with the Creation in demonstrating God's Perfections to our minds Object III. But how incredible is it that humane nature should in a glorified Christ be set above the Angelical nature Answ There is no arguing in the dark from things unknown against what is fully brought to light What God hath done for man the Scripture hath revealed and also that Christ himself is far above the Angels But what Christ hath done for Angels or for any other world of creatures God thought not meet to make us acquainted with There have been Christians who have thought by plausible reasonings from many Texts of Scripture that Christ hath three Natures the Divine and a Super-angelical and a Humane and that the Eternal Word did first unite it self to the Super-angelical nature and in that created the world and in that appeared to Abraham and the other Fathers and then assumed the Humane nature last of all for Redemption And thus they would reconcile the Arrians and the Orthodox But the most Christians hold only two Natures in Christ but then they say that he that hath promised that we shall be equal with the Angels doth know that the nature of Man's Soul and of Angels differ so little that in advancing one he doth as it were advance both and certainly maketh no disorder in nature by exalting the inferiour in sensu composito above the Superiour and more excellent Let us not then deceive our selves by arguing from things unknown Object IV. There are things so incredible in the Scripture-Miracles that it is hard to believe them to be true Answ 1. No doubt but Miracles must be Wonders they were not else so sufficient to be a divine attestation if they were not things exceeding our power and reach But why should they be thought incredible Is it because they transcend the Power of God or his Wisdom or his Goodness Or because they are harder to him than the things which our eyes are daily witnesses of Is not the motion of the Sun and Orbs and especially of the Primum Mobile which the Peripateticks teach yea or that of the Earth and Globes which others teach as great a work as any miracle mentioned in the holy Scriptures Shall any man that ever considered the number magnitude glory and motions of the Fixed Stars object any difficulty to God Is it not as easie to raise one man from the dead as to give life to all the living 2. And are not Miracles according to our own necessities and desires Do not men call for signs and wonders and say If I saw one rise from the dead or saw a Miracle I would believe Or at least I cannot believe that Christ is the Son of God unless he work Miracles And shall that be a hinderance to your belief which is your last remedy against unbelief Will you not believe without miracles and yet will you not believe them because they are Miracles This is but meer perversness as much as to say we will neither believe with Miracles nor without 3. Impartially consider of the proof I have before given you of the certain truth of the matter of Fact that such miracles were really done and then you may see not only that they are to be believed but the doctrine to be the rather believed for their sakes Obj. V. It is hard to believe the Immortality of the Soul and the Life to come when we consider how much the soul dependeth in its operations on the body and how it seemeth but gradually to exceed the bruits Especially to believe the Eternity of it or its joyes when omne quod oritur interit And if Eternity à parte ante be proper to God why not Eternity à parte post Answ 1. The Immortality of the Soul and consequently its perpetual duration and a life of Retribution after this did not seem things incredible to most of the Heathens and Infidels in the World And I have proved it before by evidence of Nature to common Reason So that to make that incredible in Christianity which Philosophers and almost all the World hold and which hath cogent natural evidence is to put out the eye of Reason as well as of Faith 2. And that it hath much use of or dependance on the body in its present operations is no proof at all that when it is out of the body
it can no otherwise act or operate Not to meddle with the controversie whether it take with it hence the material sensitive Soul as a body afterward to act by or whether it fabricate to it self an aethereal body or remain without any body of it self It is certain that it was not the Body that was the Principle of Intellection and Volition here but it was the Soul which did all in the body but according to the mode of its present coexistence seeing then that it was the Soul that did it here why may it not also do it hereafter If the Candle shine in the Lanthorn It can shine out of it though with some difference He is scarce rational that doubteth whether there be such things as incorporeal invisible intelligences minds or spirits And if they can act without bodies why may not our minds Though the Egge would die if the shell were broken or the Hen did not sit upon it it doth not follow that therefore the Chicken cannot live without a shell or sitting on Though the Embrio and Infant must have a continuity with the mother and be nourished by her nourishment it doth not follow that therefore it must be so with him when he is born and grown up to ripeness of age And when there is full proof that Souls have a future life to live it is a folly to doubt of it meerly because we cannot conceive of the manner of their acting without a body For he that is not desirous to be deceived must reduce things uncertain and dark to those that are clear and certain and not contrarily All good arguing is à notioribus and not à minùs notis The neerer any Being is in excellency unto God the more there is in it which is hard to be comprehended Spirits and Minds are excellent Beings and therefore very imperfectly known even by themselves while they are in the Lanthorn the Shell the Womb of flesh The Eye is not made to see its own sight though it may see in a Glass the Organ of its sight And as sight seeth not sight nor hearing heareth not hearing nor taste tasteth not tasting c. the act being not its own object But yet by seeing other things I am most certain that I see and by hearing tasting smelling c. I am certain that I hear taste and smell so is not the Intellect here fitted intuitively to understand its own act of understanding but by understanding other objects it understandeth that it doth understand Though I confess some learned men in this think otherwise viz. that the Intellect intuitively knoweth it self If a man have a Watch which is kept in order to tell him the hour of the day though he know not the reason of the frame the parts and motions nor how to take it into pieces and set it again together yet it serveth his turn to the use he bought it for And a Ship may carry him who is unacquainted with the workmanship that 's in it And so if a mans Soul know how to love and please its Maker and know it self morally it attaineth its end though it know not it self physically so far as to be able to anatomize its faculties and acts Argue not therefore from obscurities against the Light And that man doth not differ from a bruit only in degree but specifically he that is indeed a man doth know Considering what operations the minde of man hath above Bruits not only in all the most abstruse and wonderful Arts and Sciences Astronomy Geometry Musick Physick Navigation Legislation Logick Rhetorick c. but also his knowledge of a Creator a love and fear of him an obedience to him and a care for an Everlasting Life Whether Bruits have Analogical Ratiocination or not it is certain that these things are far above them 2. If by the Eternity of our felicity were meant only an Aevum of very long duration it would be so strong a motive to Godliness and Christianity as with any rational man as to weigh down all the counter-pleasures of this world 3. But as long as there is no want of Power in God to perpetuate our blessedness nor any proof that it is disagreeable to his Wisdom or his Will why should that seem incredible to us which is sealed and attested so fully by supernatural revelation as I have proved If once the revelation be proved to be Divine there is nothing in this which reason will not believe 4. And all they that confess the immortality and perpetuity of the soul must confess the perpetuity of its pleasure or pain 5. And why should it be hard for the Peripatetick to believe the perpetuity of the soul who will needs believe the eternity of the world it self both as à parte ante and à parte post Surely it should seem no difficulty to any of that opinion Object VI. Who can believe that God will torment his creatures in the flames of hell for ever Is this agreeable to infinite Goodness Answ 1. I have fully answered this already chap. 15. part 1. and therefore I must intreat the Objector to peruse his Answer there Only I shall now say that it is not incredible that God is the Governour of the world nor that he hath given man a Law nor that his Law hath penalties to the disobedient nor that he is just and will judge the world according to that Law and make good his threatnings nor is it incredible that those who chose sin when they were fore-told of the punishment and refused Godliness when they were fore-told of the blessed reward and fruits and this with obstinacy to the last should have no better than they chose It is not incredible that unholy enemies of God and Holiness should not live hereafter in the blessed sight and love and holy delightful fruition of God no more than that a Swine is not made a King nor that an immortal Soul who is excluded immortal happiness by his wilful refusal should know his folly and know what he hath lost by it nor that such knowledge should be his continual torment nor is it incredible that God will not continue to him the pleasures of whoredom and gluttony and drunkenness and sports and worldly wealth or tyrannical domination to quiet him in his loss of heaven nor that he will deprive him of the temporal mercies which now content him or may afford him any delight hereafter nor is it incredible if his body rise again that it shall be partaker with his soul nor that God who might deprive him of his being if he had been innocent may make him worse or bring him into a condition to which he would prefer annihilation when he is an obstinate impenitent sinner It is not incredible that a good King or Judge may hang a Felon or Traitor for a crime against man and humane society Nor is it any goodness in them to be unjust or to cherish murderers by impunity none of
of all this Bible uno intuitu in a perfect scheme as it is truly intended by the Spirit of God if you saw all begin the Divine Unity and branch out it self into the Trinity and thence into the Trinity of Relations and Correlations and thence into the multiplied branches of Mercy and Precepts and all these accepted and improved in Duty and Gratitude by man and returned up in Love to the blessed Trinity and Unity again and all this in perfect order proportion and harmony you would see the most admirable perfect method that ever was set before you in the world The resemblance of it is in the circular motion of the humours and spirits in mans body which are delivered on from vessel to vessel and perfected in all their motions I know there are many systems and schemes attempted which shew not this but that is because the wisdom of this method is so exceeding great that it is yet but imperfectly understood for my own part I may say as those that have made some progress in Anatomy beyond their Ancestors that they have no thought that they have yet discovered all but rejoyce in what they have discovered which shewed them the hopes and possibility of more So I am far from a perfect comprehension of this wonderful method of Divinity but I have seen that which truly assureth me that it excelleth all the art of Philosophers and Orators and that it is really a most beautiful frame and harmonious consort and that more is within my prospect than I am yet come to 4. Moreover it is Christ who gave all men all the gifts they have to Logicians Orators Astronomers Grammarians Physicians and Musicians c. what ever gifts are suited to mens just ends and callings he bestoweth on them and to his Apostles he gave those gifts which were most suitable to their work I do not undervalue the gifts of Nature or Art in any I make it not with Aristotle an argument for the contempt of Musick Jovem neque canere neque cytharam pulsare but I may say that as God hath greater excellencies in himself so hath he greater gifts to give and such gifts as were fittest for the confirmation of the truth of the Gospel and first planting of the Churches he gave to the Apostles and such as were fit for the edifying of the Church he giveth to his Ministers ever since And such as were fit for the improvement of Nature in lower things he gave the Philosophers and Artists of the world Object XVII The Scripture hath many contradictions in it in points of History Chronology and other things Therefore it is not the word of God Answ Nothing but ignorance maketh men think so understand once the true meaning and allow for the errors of Printers Transcribers and Translators and there will no such thing be found Young Students in all Sciences think their books are full of contradictions which they can easily reconcile when they come to understand them Books that have been so oft translated into so many Languages and the Originals and Translations so oft transcribed may easily fall into some disagreement between the Original and Translations and the various Copies may have divers inconsiderable verbal differences But all the world must needs confess that in all these Books there is no contradiction in any point of Doctrine much less in such as our salvation resteth on There are two opinions among Christians about the Books of the holy Scripture the one is That the Scriptures are so entirely and perfectly the product of the Spirit 's Inspiration that there is no word in them which is not infallibly true The other is That the Spirit was promised and given to the Apostles to enable them to preach to the world the true Doctrine of the Gospel and to teach men to observe what ever Christ commanded and truly to deliver the History of his Life and Sufferings and Resurrection which they have done accordingly But not to make them perfect and indefectible in every word which they should speak or write no not about Sacred things but only in that which they delivered to the Church as necessary to salvation and as the Rule of Faith and Life but every Chronological and Historical narrative is not the Rule of Faith or Life I think that the first opinion is right and that no one errour or contradiction in any matter can be proved in the Scriptures yet all are agreed in this that it is so of Divine Inspiration as yet in the manner and method and style to partake of the various abilities of the Writers and consequently of their humane imperfections And that it is a meer mistake which Infidels deceive themselves by to think that the Writings cannot be of Divine Inspiration unless the Book in order and style and all other excellencies be as perfect as God himself could make it Though we should grant that it is less Logical than Aristotle and less Oratorical and Grammatical and exact in words than Demosthenes or Cicero it would be no disparagement to the certain truth of all that is in it It doth not follow that David must be the ablest man for strength nor that he must use the weapons which in themselves are most excellent if he be called of God to overcome Goliah but rather that it may be known that he is called of God he shall do it with less excellence of strength and weapons than other men and so there may be some real weakness not culpable in the Writings of the several Prophets and Apostles in point of style and method which shall shew the more that they are sent of God to do great things by little humane excellency of speech and yet that humane excellency be never the more to be disliked no more than a sword because David used but a sling and stone If Amos have one degree of parts and Jeremiah another and Isaiah another c. God doth not equal them all by Inspiration but only cause every man to speak his saving truth in their own language and dialect and style As the body of Adam was made of the common earth though God breathed into him a rational soul and so is the body of every Saint even such as may partake of the infirmities of parents so Scripture hath its style and language and methods so from God as we have our bodies even so that there may be in them the effects of humane imperfection and it is not so extraordinarily of God as the truth of the Doctrine is All is so from God as to be suitable to its proper ends but the body of Scripture is not so extraordinarily from him as the soul of it is as if it were the most excellent and exact in every kind of ornament and perfection The Truth and Goodness is the soul of the Scripture together with the power manifested in it and in these it doth indeed excel So that variety of gifts in the Prophets and
me who I know canst neither be deceived or by any falshood or seduction deceive On thee therefore O my dear Redeemer do I cast and trust this sinful soul with Thee and with thy holy Spirit I renew my Covenant I know no other I have no other I can have no other Saviour but thy self To thee I deliver up this soul which thou hast redeemed not to be advanced to the wealth and honours and pleasures of this world but to be delivered from them and to be healed of sin and brought to God and to be saved from this present evil world which is the portion of the ungodly and unbelievers to be washed in thy Bloud and illuminated quickned and confirmed by thy SPIRIT and conducted in the ways of holiness and love and at last to be presented justified and spotless to the Father of spirits and possessed of the glory which thou hast promised O thou that hast prepared so dear a medicine for the clensing of polluted guilty souls leave not this unworthy soul in its guilt or in its pollution O thou that knowest the Father and his Will and art nearest to him and most beloved of him cause me in my degree to know the Father acquaint me with so much of his will as concerneth my duty or my just encouragement leave not my soul to groap in darkness seeing thou art the Sun and Lord of Light O heal my estranged thoughts of God! is he my light and life and all my hope and must I dwell with him for ever and yet shall I know him no better than thus shall I learn no more that have such a Teacher and shall I get no nearer him while I have a Saviour and a Head so near O give my faith a clearer prospect into that better world and let me not be so much unacquainted with the place in which I must abide for ever And as thou hast prepared a Heaven for holy souls prepare this too-unprepared soul for Heaven which hath not long to stay on earth And when at death I resign it into thy hands receive it as thine own and finish the work which thou hast begun in placing it among the blessed Spirits who are filled with the sight and love of God I trust thee living let me trust thee dying and never be ashamed of my trust And unto Thee the Eternal Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son the Communicative LOVE who condescendest to make Perfect the Elect of God do I deliver up this dark imperfect soul to be further renewed confirmed and perfected according to the holy Covenant Refuse not to bless it with thine indwelling and operations quicken it with thy life irradiate it by thy light sanctifie it by thy love actuate it purely powerfully and constantly by thy holy motions And though the way of this thy sacred influx be beyond the reach of humane apprehension yet let me know the reality and saving power of it by the happy effects Thou art more to fouls than souls to bodies than light to eyes O leave not my soul as a carrion destitute of thy life nor its eyes as useless destitute of thy light nor leave it as a senseless block without thy motion The remembrance of what I was without thee doth make me fear lest thou shouldest with-hold thy grace Alass I feel I daily feel that I am dead to all good and all that 's good is dead to me if thou be not the life of all Teachings and reproofs mercies and corrections yea the Gospel it self and all the liveliest Books and Sermons are dead to me because I am dead to them yea God is as no God to me and Heaven as no Heaven and Christ as no Christ and the clearest evidences of Scripture verity are as no proofs at all if thou represent them not with light and power to my soul Even as all the glory of the world is as nothing to me without the light by which it 's seen O thou that hast begun and given me those heavenly intimations and desires which flesh and bloud could never give me suffer not my folly to quench these sparks nor this bruitish flesh to prevail against thee nor the powers of hell to stifle and kill such a heavenly seed O pardon that folly and wilfulness which hath too often too obdurately and too unthankfully striven against thy grace and depart not from an unkind and sinful soul I remember with grief and shame how I wilfully bore down thy motions punish it not with desertion and give me not over to my self Art thou not in Covenant with me as my Sanctifier and Confirmer and Comforter I never undertook to do these things for my self but I consent that thou shouldest work them on me As thou art the Agent and Advocate of Jesus my Lord O plead his cause effectually in my soul against the suggestions of Satan and my unbelief and finish his healing saving work and let not the flesh or world prevail Be in me the resident witness of my Lord the Author of my Prayers the Spirit of Adoption the Seal of God and the earnest of mine inheritance Let not my nights be so long and my days so short nor sin eclipse those beams which have often illuminated my soul Without thee Books are senseless scrawls studies are dreams learning is a glow-worm and wit is but wantonness impertinency and folly Transcribe those sacred precepts on my heart which by thy dictates and inspirations are recorded in thy holy word I refuse not thy help for tears and groans but O shed abroad that love upon my heart which may keep it in a continual life of love And teach me the work which I must do in Heaven refresh my soul with the delights of holiness and the joys which arise from the believing hopes of the everlasting Joys Exercise my heart and tongue in the holy praises of my Lord. Strengthen me in sufferings and conquer the terrors of death and hell Make me the more heavenly by how much the faster I am hastening to heaven and let my last thoughts words and works on earth be likest to those which shall be my first in the state of glorious immortality where the Kingdom is delivered up to the Father and GOD will for ever be All and In all of whom and through whom and to whom are all things To whom be glory for ever Amen CHAP. XIII Consectaries 1. What Party of Christians should we joyn with or be of seeing they are divided into so many Sects I Shall briefly dispatch the Answer of this Question in these following Propositions § 1. GODLYNESS and CHRISTIANITY is our only Religion and if any party have any other we must renounce it § 2. The Church of Christ being his Body is but One and hath many Parts but should have no Parties but Vnity and Concord without Division § 3. Therefore no Christian must be of a Party or Sect as such that is as
of the World and the pleasures of the flesh for the Love of God and the Hopes of Glory And he that doth thus much shall undoubtedly be saved But to think that you must ask your hearts such a question as whether you can be content to be damned for Christ is but to abuse God and your selves Indeed both Reason and Religion command us to esteem God infinitely above our selves and the Churches welfare above our own because that which is best must be best esteemed and loved But yet though we must ever acknowledge this inequality Yet that we must never disjoyn them nor set them in a positive opposition or competition nor really do any thing which tendeth to our damnation upon any pretense of the Churches good is past all question He that hath made the love of our selves and felicity inseparable from man hath made us no duty inconsistent with this inclination that is with our humanity it self For God hath conjoyned these necessary ends and we must not separate them § 3. The Interest of the Church is but the Interest of the Souls that constitute the Church and to preferre it above our own is but to preferre many above one § 4. He that doth most for the publick good and the Souls of many doth thereby most effectually promote his own consolation and salvation § 5. The Interest of God is the Vltimate End of Religion Church and particular Souls § 6. Gods Interest is not any addition to his Perfection or Blessedness but the pleasing of his Will in the Glory of his Power Wisdom and Goodness shining forth in Jesus Christ and in his Church § 7. Therefore to promote Gods Interest is by promoting the Churches Interest § 8. The Interest of the Church consisteth I. Intensivè in its HOLYNESS II. Conjunctivè harmonicè in its Unity Concord and Order III. Extensivè in its increase and the multiplication of Believers § 9. I. The HOLYNESS of the Church consisteth 1. In its Resignation and submission to God its Owner 2. In its subjection and obedience to God its Ruler 3. In its Gratitude and Love to God its Benefactor and Ultimate End § 10. These acts consist 1. In a right estimation and Belief of the minde 2. In a right Volition Choice and Resolution of the Will 3. In the right ordering of the Life § 11. The Means of the Churches HOLYNESS are these 1. Holy Doctrine Because as all Holiness entereth by the understanding so Truth is the instrumental cause of all § 12. 2. The holy serious reverent skilfull and diligent preaching of this doctrine by due explication proof and application suitably to the various auditors § 13. 3. The holy lives and private converse of the Pastors of the Church § 14. 4. Holy Discipline faithfully administred encouraging all that are godly and comforting the penitent and humbling the proud and disgracing open sin and casting out the proved impenitent gross sinners that they infect not the rest embolden not the wicked and dishonour not the Church in the eyes of the unbelievers § 15. 5. The election and ordination of able and holy Pastors fit for this work § 16. 6. The conjunct endeavours of the wisest and most experienced members of the flock not usurping any Ecclesiastical office but by their wisdom and authority and example in their private capacities seconding the labours of the Pastors and not leaving all to be done by them alone § 17. 7. Especially the holy instructing and governing of families by catechizing inferiours and exhorting them to the due care of their souls and helping them to understand and remember the publick teaching of the Pastors and praying and praising God with them and reading the Scripture and holy books especially on the Lord's day and labouring to reform their lives § 18. 8. The blameless lives and holy conference converse and example of the members of the Church among themselves Holiness begetteth holiness and encreaseth it as fire kindleth fire § 19. 9. The unity concord and love of Christians to one another § 20. 10. And lastly holy Princes and Magistrates to encourage piety and to protect the Church and to be a terrour to evil doers These are the means of holiness § 21. The contraries of all these may easily be discerned to be the destroyers of holiness and pernicious to the Church 1. Vnholy doctrine 2. Ignorant unskilful negligent cold or envious preaching 3. The unholy lives of them that preach it 4. Discipline neglected or perverted to the encouraging of the ungodly and afflicting of the most holy and upright of the flocks 5. The election or ordination of insufficient negligent or ungodly Pastors 6. The negligence of the wisest of the flock or the restraint of them by the spirit of jealousie and envy from doing their private parts in assistance of the Pastors 7. The neglect of holy instructing and governing of families and the lewd example of the governours of them 8. The scandalous or barren lives of Christians 9. The divisions and discord of Christians among themselves 10. And bad Magistrates who give an ill example or afflict the godly or encourage vice or at least suppress it not § 22. To these may be added 1. The degenerating of Religious strictness from what God requireth into another thing by humane corruptions gradually introduced as is seen among too many Friars as well as in the Pharisees of old 2. A degenerating of holy Institutions of Christ into another thing by the like gradual corruptions as is seen in the Roman Sacrifice of the Mass 3. The degenerating of Church-Offices by the like corruptions as is seen in the Papacy and its manifold supporters 4. The diversion of the Pastors of the Church to secular employments 5. The diminishing the number of the Pastors of the Church as proportioned to the number of souls as if one school-master alone should have ten thousand scholars or ten thousand souldiers but one or two officers 6. The pretending of the soul and power of Religion to destroy the body or external part or making use of the body or external part to destroy the soul and power and setting things in opposition which are conjunct 7. The preferring either the imposition or opposition of things indifferent before things necessary 8. An apish imitation of Christ by Satan and his instruments by counterfeiting inspirations revelations visions prophesies miracles apparitions sanctity zeal and new institutions in the Church 9. An over-doing or being righteous over much by doing more than God would have us over-doing being one of the devils ways of undoing When Satan pretendeth to be a Saint he will be stricter than Christ as the Pharisees were in their company Sabbath-rest and ceremonies and he will be zealous with a fiery consuming zeal 10. Accidentally prosperity it self consumeth piety in the Church if it occasion the perdition of the world the Church is not out of danger of it § 23. II. The
the bruits have sense imagination thought and reason by matter and motion only without immortal or incorporeal substances therefore by sense imagination thoughts or reason you cannot prove that man hath more III. Forms are but Accidents that is Qualities or the mode of matter and not Substances different from matter therefore it is so with humane souls IV. The soul dependeth upon matter in its operations and acteth according to it and not without it therefore it is material and consequently mortal V. No immaterial substance moveth that which is material or is the principle of its operations but the soul moveth the body as the principle of its operations ergo VI. If in our dreams the thoughts do operate only according to the accidental irregular motion of the spirits and sometime be so unactive that we do not so much as dream then the soul is nothing but the said active spirits or some material corruptible thing but c. ergo VII Sense is a more perfect apprehension than Reason therefore Bruits which have sense have as noble and perfect a kind of soul as man or at least reason is no proof of the immateriality of souls VIII Sensation and Intellection are both but Reception and and the soul is but a patient in them Ergo it is not a self-moving and so not an incorporeal substance IX Nothing is in the understanding but what is first in the sense Ergo the understanding can reach no further than to sensible things Ergo it is it self of no higher a kind X. Corporeal objects move the soul Ergo it is corporeal For things material cannot work upon that which is immaterial XI If the soul were incorporeal it would know it self to be so but it is not only ignorant of that but hath no true notion but meerly negative of immaterial beings XI That which is generated is corruptible but the soul is generated as is proved by Senertus and many others XIII Quicquid oritur interit that which is not eternal as to the past duration is not eternal as to the future duration but all Christians maintain that the soul is either created or generated and not of eternal duration as to what is past and all the Philosophers or most who took it to be eternal as to future duration went on that ground that it was so antecedently XIV You give us none but moral arguments for the soul's immortality XV. Nay you confess that the soul 's eternal duration cannot by you be proved by any natural evidence though you think you so prove a life of Retribution XVI The soul and body are like a candle where oyl and week and fire which are all are in flexu continuo and as there is not the same individual flame this hour as was the last so neither have we the same individual souls Ergo they are uncapable of a life of Retribution hereafter XVII If the soul be a durable substance as we must confess no substance is annihilated it is most likely to come from the anima mundi or some universal soul of that orb or system of which it is a part and so to return to it again as the beams to the Sun and so to cease its individuation and consequently to be uncapable of a life of Retribution XVIII The Platonists who hold the souls immortality and some Platonick Divines too have so many fopperies about its vehicles regions and transmutations as maketh their principal doctrine the less credible XIX If the soul should continue its individuation yet its actings will be nothing like what they are in the body nor can they exercise a memory of what they did in the body as having not the material spirits and nerves by which memory is exercised and therefore they can have no proper retribution especially punishment for any thing here done XX. The belief of the immortality of the soul doth fill men with fears and take up their lives in superstitious cares for a life to come which might be spent in quietness and in publick works and it fills the world with all those religious sects and controversies which have so long destroyed Charity and Peace These are the Objections which I have here to answer OBJECTION I. MAtter and Motion without any more may do all that which you ascribe to souls Answ When nothing seemeth to us more false and absurd than the matter of your objection you cannot expect that your naked assertion should satisfie us without proof and a satisfactory proof must reach to all the noblest instances and must have better evidence than the bold and confident affirmations of men who expect that their conceptions should be taken for the flower of reason whilst they are pleading against the reasoning nature it self And to what Authors will they send us for the proof of this assertion Is it to Mr. Hobs We have perused him and weigh'd his reasons and find them such as reflect no dishonour on the understandings of those who judge them to be void of probability as well as cogent evidence But after so smart a castigation as he hath received from the learned D◠Ward now Bishop of Exeter and from that clear-headed Primate of Ireland Dr. Bramhal I hope it will not be expected that I trouble my self or my Reader with him here Is it to Gassendus He writeth for the immaterial created humane soul himself And Charity obligeth me not to charge him with prevarication whatsoever to Cartesius or any where else he writeth which seemeth injurious to this Doctrine And if Sorberius number it with his honours in vita Gassendi that Mr. Hobs could not sufficiently admire his works Qui Heroem nostrum nunquam majorem apparere pronunciabat quam in retundendis larvis tenues in auras tam facilè diffugientibus gladio imperviis nec ictum clava excipientibus ita enim sentiebat vir emunctae naris de Meditationibus Cartesii de illa Gassendi disquisitione c. It was because he weighed not honour in an English ballance nor judged not of an English-man by an English judgment nor himself well perceived what was indeed honourable or dishonourable in his friend If you send us to Epicurus and Lucretius they are so overwhelmed with the number of adversaries that have fallen upon them that it is a dishonour to give them another blow Besides all the crowd of Peripateticks Platonists and Stoicks even the moderate latitudinarian Cicero hath spit so oft in the face of Epicurus that when Gassendus hath laboured hard in wiping it he thought meet to let this spot alone But because it is onely this sort of men that are the adversaries with whom we do contend I will this once be so troublesome to the Reader as to give him first some general countercharges and reasons against the authority of these men and next some particular reasons against the objected sufficiency of Matter and Motion to do the offices which we ascribe to souls And 1. When I find
Light be not still the same till all the passive matter be consumed is more than you know So also if you argue from the Vegetative life of a Tree Whether the same Principle of Vegetation enlarging it self continue not to the end to individuate the Tree though all the passive Elements Earth Water and Air may be in fluxu and a transient state It is certain that some fixed Principle of Individuation there is from whence it must be denominated the same The water of the hasty River would not be called the same River if the Channel which it runs in were not the same Nor your Candle be called the same Candle if some of the first Wick or Oyl at least did not remain or the same fire continue it or the same Candlestick hold it And what is it in the Tree which is still the same or what in the Bird that flyeth about which is still the same when you have searched all you will finde nothing so likely as the vital Principle and yet that something there must be 2. But doth not the light of Nature and the concurrent sense and practice of all the World confute you and tell you that if you cannot understand what the Individuating Principle is yet that certainly some such there is and doth continue Why else will you love and provide for your own Children if they be not at all the same that you begat nor the same this year as you had the last Why will you be revenged on the Man that did beat you or hang the Thief that robbed you or do Justice on any Murderer or Male-factor seeing that it is not the same man that did the deed If he transpire as much as Sanctorius saith and his substance diminish as much in a day as Opicius saith certainly a few dayes leave him not the same as to those transitory parts Surely therefore there is something which is still the same Else you would deny the King his title and disoblige your selves from your subjection by saying that he is not at all the same man that you swore Allegiance to or that was born Heir of the Crown And you would by the same reason forfeit your own Inheritance Why should uncertain Philosophical whimsies befool men into those speculations which the light and practice of all the world doth condemn as madness But arguing ab ignotis will have no better success Of the individuation of Bodies in the Resurrection I spake before OBJECTION XVII IF the Soul be a substance we must confess it not annihilated But it is most like to proceed from some Element of Souls or Vniversal Soul either the Anima Mundi or rather the Anima Solis vel hujus systematis And so to be reduced to it again and lose its individuation and consequently to be uncapable of Retribution Answ 1. That the Soul which we speak of is a substance is past all controversie For though as I have shewed there is truely an order or temperament of the parts which he that listeth may call the form the life the soul or what he please yet no man denyeth but that there is also some one part which is more subtile pure active potent and regnant than the rest and this is it whatever it is which I call the Soul We are agreed of the Thing let them wrangle de nomine who have nothing else to doe 2. That this substance no substance else is not annihilated as I have said is past dispute 3. Therefore there is nothing indeed in all this business which is liable to Controversie but this point of Individuation which this Objection mentioneth and that of action and operation following And I must confess that this is the only particular in which hereabouts I have found the temptation to error to be much considerable They that see how all waters come from the Sea and how Earth Water Air and Fire have a potent inclination of union and when the parts are separated have a motus aggregativus may be tempted to think it a probable thing that all Souls come from and return unto a Universal Soul or Element of which they are but particles But concerning this I recommend to the sober Reader these following Considerations 1. There is in Nature more than a probability that the Vniverse hath no Vniversal Soul whatever particular Systems or Globes may have For we finde that Perfection lyeth so much in Vnity and as all things are from One so as they go out from One they go into Multiplicity that we have great cause to think that it is the Divine Prerogative to be Vnicus Vniversalis He is the Vnicus Vniversalis in Entity Life Intelligence c. As he hath made no one Monarch of all the Universe no nor of all the Earth nor no one Head of all the Church that is not God whatever the Roman Vice-god say nor hath given any one a sufficiency hereto whatever a self-Idolizer may imagine of himself so he hath not given away or communicated that Prerogative which seemeth proper to the Deity to be an Vniversal Minde and consequently an Vniversal Parent and King yea more to be Omnia in Vno Having no sort of proof that there is any such thing finding it so high and Divine a Prerogative we have little reason to believe that there is any such thing at all in being 2. If you mean therefore no more than an Vniversal Soul to a particular Systeme or Vortex in the World that Vniversal will be it self a particular Soul Individuated and distinct from other Individuals And indeed those very Elements that tempt you might do much to undeceive you There is of Fire a specifical Unity by which it differeth from other Elements but there is no universal aggregation of all the parts of Fire The Sun which seemeth most likely to contend for it will yet acknowledge individual Starrs and other parts of Fire which shew that it is not the whole The Water is not all in the Sea we know that there is much in the Clouds whatever there is elsewhere above the Clouds We have no great cause to think that this Earth is Terra Vniversalis I confess since I have looked upon the Moon through a Tube and since I have read what Galilaeus saith of it and of Venus and other Planets I finde little reason to think that other Globes are not some of them like our Earth And if you can believe an Individuation of Greater Souls why not of Lesser The same reasons that tempt you to think that the Individuation of our Souls will cease by returning into the Anima Systematis vel Solis may tempt you to think that the animae systematum may all cease their Individuation by returning into God and their existence too 3. If this were left as an unrevealed thing you might take some liberty for your Conjectures But when all the Twenty Arguments which I have given do prove a continued Individuation
and Retribution it is deceitful and absurd to come in with an unproved dream against it and to argue ab ignoto against so many cogent arguments 4. And we have proved supernatural revelation to second this which is evidence more than sufficient to bear down your unproved conjectures 5. If it had been doubtful whether the souls individuation cease and nothing of all the rest is doubtful yet this would not make so great a difference in the case as some imagine for it would confess the perpetuity of souls and it would not overthrow the proof of a Retribution if you consider these four things 1. That the parts are the same in union with the whole as when they are all separated Their nature is the same and as Epicurus and Democritus say of their atoms they are still distinguishable and are truly parts and may be intellectually separated the same individual water which you cast out of your bottle into the sea is somewhere in the sea still and though contiguous to other parts is discernable from them all by God The Haecceity as they say remaineth 2. That the love of individuation and the fear of the ceasing of our individuation is partly but put into the creature from God pro tempore for the preservation of individuals in this present life And partly it is inordinate and is in man the fruit of his fall which consisteth in turning to SELFISHNESS from GOD. And we know not how much of our recovery consisteth in the cure of this selfishness and how much of our perfection in the cessation of our individuate affections cares and labours Nature teacheth many men by Societies to unite as much as possible as the means of their common safety benefit and comfort and earth water air and all things would be aggregate Birds of a feather will flock together And love which is the uniting affection especially to a friend who is fit for union with us in other respects is the delight of life And if our souls were swallowed up of one common soul as water cast into the sea is still moist and cold and hath all its former properties so we should be still the same and no man can give a just reason why our sorrows or joys should be altered ever the more by this 3. And God can either keep the ungodly from this union for a punishment or let them unite with the infernal spirits which they have contracted a connaturality with or let them where ever they are retain the venom of their sin and misery 4. And he can make the Resurrection to be a return of all these souls from the Ocean of the universal nature into a more separated individuation again I only say that if it had been true that departing souls had fallen into a common element yet on all these reasons it would not have overthrown our arguments for a life of full retribution God that can say at any time This drop of water in the Ocean is the same that was once in such a bottle can say This particle of the universal soul was once in such a body and thither can again return it But the truth is no man can shew any proof of such a future aggregation And to conclude the Scripture here cleareth up all the matter to us and assureth us of a continued Individuation yet more than Nature doth though the natural evidences before produced are unanswerable And as for the similitude of Light returning to the Sun it is still an arguing à minus noto we know not well what it is we know not how it returneth and we know not how the particles are distinguishable there They that confess souls to be indivisible though the individuals are all numerically distinct must on the same ground think that two or many cannot by union be turned into one as they hold that one cannot be turned into two or into several parts of that one divided OBJECTION XVIII THe Platonists and some Platonick Divines have so many dreams and fopperies about the soul 's future state in aerial and aethereal vehicles and their durations as maketh that doctrine the more to be suspected Answ 1. Whether all souls hereafter be incorporate in some kind of bodies which they call vehicles is a point which is not without difficulty A sober Christian may possibly doubt whether there be any incorporeal simple essence in a separated existence besides God alone Those that doubt of it do it on these grounds 1. They think that absolute simplicity is a divine incommunicable perfection 2. They think that Christ is the noblest of all creatures and that seeing he shall be compound of a humane Soul and Body though glorified and spiritual to eternity therefore no Angel shall excell him in natural simplicity and perfection 3. Because it is said that we shall be equal with the Angels and yet we shall at the Resurrection be compounded of a soul and body 4. Because it is said that He made his Angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire 5. Because the ancient Fathers who first thought Angels to be subtil bodies were confuted by those as Mammertus forementioned who asserted them to be fiery bodies animated with incorporeal souls 6. Because they read of the Devils dwelling in the air as one cast down therefore they think that he hath an aery body instead of an ethereal or fiery 7. Because they see the Sun so glorious a creature in comparison of a body of flesh therefore they think that the symmetry and proportion among God's works requireth that bodies and forms or souls be suitable 8. Because they know not what else becometh of the sensitive soul of man when he dieth which they take to be but a subtil body and therefore think it goeth as a body or vehicle with the rational soul 9. Because they mistake that difficult Text 2 Cor. 5.1 2 8. think by the 7 and 8 verses that it speaketh of the instant after death and thinking by the first and second verses that as Beza and most think it speaketh of a celestial body as our cloathing and not of a meer state of glory to the soul I name their reasons that you may be charitable in your censures but the truth is they talk of unrevealed or uncertain things which do but trouble the heads of Christians to no purpose who may live better and speed better by following the naked precepts of Christianity and hoping for such a glory as Christ hath plainly described without prying into that which doth less concern them to be acquainted with 2. And Satan knoweth that over-doing is one way of undoing Thus men on all extremes do harden one another As in these times among us it is notorious that the men of one extreme in Church affairs do harden the other and the other harden them And as Fanaticism riseth from the disliking of sensuality and prophaneness incautelous and sensual and prophane men run into hell to avoid fanaticism
Drake We agree with you in Religion against the Portugals that we must not worship flocks and stones Fuller's Holy State in the Life of Sir Francis Drake out of a M.S. of one of his company What a scandal is such Worship against the Christian cause Act. 9.31 As for the grand controversie of per se aut per alium read Grotius de Imper. pag. 290 291. Nam illud quod quis per alium facit per se facere videtur ad eas duntaxat pertinet actiones quarum causa efficiens proxima à jure indefinita est Dr. Jer. Taylor of Repent â—ref I am sure we cannot give account of Souls of which we have no notice Leg. Athanas Patri Constantine de necessaria Episcop residentia Si vis Deorum speciem apprehendere proprietates Animae rationalis ultimae cogita oppositas in perfectione Diis attribue Jamblit de Myster per Ficiâ— * When Machumet had taken Constantinople and demanded of the Patriarch an account of the Christian saith Georg. Scholarius alias Gennadius then Patriarch wrote that brief summary which you may find in Mart. Crusius his Turco Graec. l. 2. Hist Eccles p. 10 c. which very well openeth the mystery of the Trinity and of Christianity with seven reasons of it Trâ— Platâ— and Aristotle were of one opinion abode the Soul Mirandula and Mars Ficinus upon Priscians â—heophrastus de Anima have largely laboured to evince Galen is known to speak many objections against Plato and the Soul's immortality but in other places he speaketh doubtfully And if really Neâ—esius had those words out of such a book of Galen as he citeth de Ani. c. 2. p. 481. he would then seem to have thought better of the Rational Soul Plotinus his last words were as Porphyry saith in his life I am now returning that which is Divine in us to that which is Divine in the Universe The Platonists opinion that the Soul is all the Man and that Animus cujusque is est quisque is incomparably more probable and of honester tendency than theirs that think the Body is all the Man Qui putant hominem esse ex Anima corporeque compositum consequenter utile à justo sejungunt Qui vero hominem esse animam conjungunt Proclus de Anim. doem per Ficin What then will they hold and do that think man is tantum corpus For as Proclus there saith and Cicero oft most Philosophers agree that vivere secundum suam naturam is man's great duty and felicity Therefore as men differ about man's Nature they will differ about his Duty and felicity They that think he is all Body will describe his work and his happiness accordingly a truth of sad and desperate consequence The truth is as Fire is per essentiam a moving enlightning heating substance so the soul is per essentiam a Life or Vital Principle and therefore as Porphyry argueth for the soul to die is for life it self to die or that which is per essentiam life to cease to be what it is Quibusdam qui ne ignem calere putant nisi cum manu contrectarint nihil credendum esse placet quod supra progredientem naturam videatur Multorum quoque studia tardantur quod id credere noluit quod minus sub â—orum cognitionem cadit quae errorum pravitas ex ingeniorum imbecilitate defluxit siquidem cum sensuum angustiae ex quibus hominem agnitio eruitur in externorum sensilium genere versentur satis notum esse debet his tanquam compedibus intelligentiae cursum retardari divinaque capessere nequire Paul Cartesâ—n 1 Sent. dis 9. p. 22. Read the Mystic Aegypt Chald. Philos to prove that souls are not corporeal and Nemesius and Mammertus If the soul be nothing but Matter and Motion then no man is the same this year as he was the last For Matter is in fluxu continuo as they object themselves anon We have not the same slesh and bloud to day which we lately had and the motion of this instant is not the same with the motion which succeedeth in the next So that no man's soul and consequently no man is long the same and so as I have said after Kings will lose their titles to their Crowns and all men to their lands as being not the same who were born heirs to them And there must be no rewards or punishments unless you will reward and punish one for another's faults And they need no more to fear the pain or death which will befall them than that which befall their neighbour because it is not the man that now is who must undergo it Nor should any man have a wife or child of his own one year together If they like not these consequents let them either prove that Identifying Matter and Motion are permanent or grant that some other permanent thing doth identifie the person See this as the argument of Ammonius and Numenias prest by Nemesius de Anim. c. 2. p. 477. Vid. Clean this argumenta pro animae corporeitate à Nemesio profligata ibid. p. 479 c. If the doctrine of Matter and Motion only were true there would never be any true miracles in the world but all things go on from motion to motion as the first touch did put them into a necessity whereas however the world hath been deluded by many fictions yet many certain miracles there have been Whether the removing of the mountain by saith mentioned by M. Paulus Venetus J. 1. cap. 18. be true or not and the non-dissolution of excommunicate bodies in Constantinople mentioned in Mart. Crusius his Hist Eccles Turco graec l. 2. with multitudes of the likes which most Historians have c. Yet certainly that there have been some such hath been fully proved unto many Those that fly to this ingenita dispositio vel pondus will in other words grant that Nature form or quality which they deny And those that grant nothing to move but former motion must needs make some degrees of motion daily to diminish in the World one thing or other still ceasing its motion and all motion within our knowledge having such constant impedition that before this time we may think all things would have stood still if their opinion were true If they say that the Sun or some superior Movers renew the motion of things inferior I grant it But that is because it hath a moving nature For if they say that the Sun it self hath not the least impedition to diminish the degrees of its motion they speak not only without any proof but contrary to our observation of all things known and to their own opinion who make the Air impeditive to other motions and the effluvia of other Globes to be impeditive to the Sun Sane ignis aër aqua terra suapte natura carent anima cuicunque horum adest anima hoc vita utitur peregrina Alia vero praeter haec nulla sunt corpora Plotin Ennead
as nutriment bloud and spirits to the Will before it is truly made our own It expecteth I say not greater courtship but more cordial friendship than a transient salute before it will unveil its glory and illustrate beautifie and bless the soul It is food and Physick it will nourish and heal but not by a bare look or hear-say nor by the reading of the prescript Could I procure the Reader to do his part I doubt not but this Treatise will suffice on its part to bring in that light which the Sagae the Lemures and Daemones of Atheism Infidelity and Ungodliness will not be able to endure But I am far from expecting universal success no not if I brought a Book from Heaven The far greatest part have unprepared minds and will not come up to the price of truth And nothing is more sure than that recipitur ad modum recipientis Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli These drones imagine that they are fit to judge of a Scripture-difficulty or of an argument concerning the mysteries of Religion before they know what it is to be a Man or understand the Alphabet of Nature even those points which supernatural Revelations presuppose such uncapableness in the Reader is as a great hinderance as the want of solid proof and evidence in the Writer Most men are drowned in filthy sensuality or worldly cares and their relish is vitiated by luscious vanities their reason is debased by subjection to the flesh and darkned and debilitated by long alienation from its proper work and yet they are so constituted of ignorance and pride that they can neither understand plain truth nor perceive that it is long of themselves that they understand it not And â—othfulness and sensuality have so far conquered humanity it self even the natural love of truth and of themselves that they will take up with what their play-fellows have taught them and venture their souls and their everlasting concernments â—nless they can secure them by an idle gamesome â—leshly life or grow wise by the short superficial studies of an alienated unwilling tired mind Unless the great things of God and Immortality will â—e savingly known by a few distracted thoughts of a discomposed mind or the rambling talk of their companions whose heads are as unfurnished and giddy as their own or by the cursory perusal of a few Books which cross not their carnal interest and humour in the midst of their more beloved employments and delights they will neither be solid Christians nor wise and honest men If God will be conversed with in the midst of their feasting cups and oaths in their pride and revelling and with their whores if he will be found of them that hate his holiness and all that love it and seriously obey him then God shall be their God and Christ shall be their Saviour and if this be the way they may become good Christians But if retired serious thoughts be necessary and an honest faithfulness to what they know they must be excused They that know that it is not an hours perusal of a book of Astronomy Geometry Musick Physick c. which will serve to make them skilful in these Arts do expect to attain far higher wisdom by inconsiderable industry and search and will not be wise unless they can be taught by vision in their dreams or in the crowd and noise of worldly business and of fleshly lusts I find that it is a difficult task which I have undertaken to be the instructer of such men if I be large and copious their laziness will not suffer them to read it if I be concise I cannot satisfie their expectations for they think nothing well proved if every objection be not answered which idle cavilling brains can bring Neither have they sufficient attentiveness for brevity nor will their ignorance allow them to understand it The contradicting vices of their minds do call for impossibilities for the cure Their Incapacity saith It must be a full explication or I cannot apprehend the sense or truth Their averseness and slothfulness saith It must be short or I shall be tired with it or cannot have while to read it I cannot answer both these expectations to the full but though the greatness of the matter have made the Book bigger than I intended the nauseating stomack of most Readers hath perswaded me to avoid unnecessary words and as big as the Book is I must tell the Reader that the style is so far from redundancies though some things be oft repeated that if he will not chew the particular words but swallow them whole and bestow his labour only on the Sentences I shall suppose that he hath not read the Book Ficinus very truly noteth that while children and youth are sufficiently conscious of their ignorance to keep in a learning course they may do well but when they first grow to a confidence of their own understandings and at ripeness of age imagine that their wits are ripe and think that their unfurnished minds because they have a natural quickness are competent judges of all that they read then they are most in danger of infidelity and of being undone for ever from 18 to 28 being the most perilous age But if God keep them as humble diligent learners till they have orderly gone through their course of studies and sanctifie their greener youthful knowledge they then grow up to be confirmed Christians Ficin de Verit. Rel. cap. 3. It is therefore the diligence and patience of the Reader which I still intreat and not his belief for I will beg nothing of his understanding but justice to the truth but supposing God's help do trust to the cogencie of evidence Yet I must tell you that I expect the Reader by the truths which he learneth should be able himself to answer an hundred trivial objections which are here passed by and that in particular textual difficulties he have recourse to Commentaries and Tractates on those subjects for this Book is long enough already He that will diligently consider the connection of the consequent Propositions to the Antecedent and will understand what he readeth as he goeth along will see that I give him sufficient proof of all which I desire him to assent to But I make no doubt but a hasty and half-witted Reader can find objections and words enough against the plainest truth here written and such as he thinks do need a particular answer When an understanding Reader would be offended with me if I should recite them I had more compassion on the sober Reader than for the humouring of every brainsick Sceptick to stand proving that two and two are four I write for such as are willing to be wise and happy and that at dearer rates than jesting For others I must leave them whether I will or no to be wise too late And for those capricious brains who deride our ordinary preaching as begging and supposing that which we do not prove
when they have here and in other such writings found our fundamentals proved let them hereafter excuse our superstructure and not think that every Sermon must be spent in proving our Christianity and Creed In the first part of this Book I give you no testimonies from the Christian writings or authorities because I suppose the Reader to be one that doth not believe them and my business is only to prove Natural Verities by their proper evidence But lest any should think that there is not so much legible in Nature because the wisest Heathens saw it not I have cited in the margin their attestations to most particulars to shew that indeed they did confess the same though less distinctly and clearly than they might have done as I have plainly proved But being many years separated from my Books I was forced to do this part less exactly than I would have done had I been near my own or any other Library Again I seriously profess that I am so confident of the just proofs and evidences of truth here given that I fear nothing as to frustrate the success but the Reader 's Incapacity through half-wittedness or wickedness or his Laziness in a cursory and negligent perusal of what is concisely but evidently proposed It 's true that Seneca saith Magna debet esse eloquentia quae in vitis placet I may adde Et Veritatis evidentia quae caecis malignis vel ignavis prodest And who feeleth not the truth of Hierom's words ad Paul Nunquam benefit quod fit praeoccupato animo Be true and faithful to your selves and to the Truth and you shall see its Glory and feel its Power and be directed by it to everlasting Blessedness This is his End who is Octob. 31. 1666. An earnest desirer of Mankind's Felicity RICHARD BAXTER TO THE HYPOCRITE READERS Who have the Name of Christians and the Hearts and Lives of andVnbelievers IT is the great Mercy of God to you that you were born of Christian Parents and in a Land where Christianity is the professed Religion and under Governours and Laws which countenance it But this which should have helped you to the intelligent and serious entertainment of Religion hath been abused by you to detain you from â—t You have contented your selves to have Religion in your Princes and your Parents Precepts in Libraries and Laws and to say over some of these by â—ote whilest you banished it from your Hearts and Lives if not also from your sober thoughts and understanding And having indeed no Religion of your own because the labour of understanding and obeying it seemed too dear a price to purchase it you â—ve thought it most serviceable to your quietness and your reputation to seem to be of the Religion of your Parents or your King be it what it will This is indeed the common course of the rude and irreligious Rabble in all Nations of the World O that I might be your effectual Monitor to awaken you to consider what you have been doing and yet if you are Men to suffer your Reason to look behinde you within you and before you and seriously think what it is to be in Heaven or Hell for ever and prudently to manage your own Concernments Can you think that that man hath any Religion who hath no God Or hath he indeed a God who preferreth his lust or wealth or honour or any thing in the World before him Or that is not devoted to his Obedience and his Love Is he a God that is not better than the Pleasures of the Flesh and World Or that is not greater than a mortal man or is not fully sufficient for you Did you know what you did when you owned your Baptismal Vow and Covenant which is when you usurp the name of Christians and joyn in visible communion in the Church Do you know what it is to believe that there is a God and a Life to come and to renounce the Flesh the World and the Devil and give up your selves to a Saviour and a Sanctifyer Or can you think while you are awake and sober that Perfidiousness will save you and be taken by God instead of Christianity will God accept you for a perjured Profession to be that and do that which never came into your hearts Is Hypocrisie a Virtue And will Lying bring a man to Heaven Christianity is such a Believing in Christ to bring us unto God and everlasting Glory as maketh the Love of God the very Nature of the Soul and thankefull obedience its Employment and a Heavenly Minde and Life to be its Constitution and its Trade and the Mercies of this Life to be but our Travelling-helps and Provisions for a better and the Interest of fleshly lust to be esteemed but as dross and dung Is this the Life which you live or which you hate I beseech you Sirs as you regard the reputation of your Reason tell us why you will professe a Religion which you abhorre or why will you abhorre a Religion which you professe why will you Glory in the part of a Parrot or an Ape to say over a few words or move your Bodies while you detest the humane part to know and love and live to God Do you live only to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgement of God who will render to every one according to his deeds Rom. 2.5 6. Do you professe your selves Christians only for self-condemnation to be Witnesses against your selves in Judgement that you wilfully lived unchristian lives What is there in the World that you are so averse to as to be seriously that which you professe your selves to be Who hate you more than those that are that in heart and life which you call your selves in customary words or that are serious in the Religion which you say your selves you hope to be saved by Read Matth. 23.29 30 31. why do you honour the dead Saints and abhorre the living and would make more Martyrs while you keep Festivals of Commemoration of those that others made Quae est illa Justitia sanctos colere sanctitatem contemnere Primus gradus Pietatis est Sanctitatem diligere Chrysost in Matth. 24. Christ hath not more bitter Enemies in the World than some of you who wear his Livery Turks and Heathens are more gentle to true Christians and have shed lesse of their blood than Hypocrite Christians have done The Zeal of the Pharisees consumed many whom the Clemency of the Romans would else have spared Be it known to all the Infidel World who detest Christianity because of your wickednesse that you are none of us Christ renounceth you Matth. 7.22 23. and we renounce you They may as well hate Philosophy because some vagrant Sots have called themselves Philosophers or have sailed with Aristotle or Plato in the same Ship They may as well hate Physick because many ignorant Women and Mountebanks have profess'd it They may as well reproach
is such a thing as Justice due from man to man for the preservation of these Rights and Order and it 's injustice to violate them This is confessed by all the World that look for Justice from others And if it be not maintained the world will be as in a continual Warre or Robbery But better grounds and proofs of it will be mentioned anon § 8. Therefore there is a difference between good and evil as respecting the benefit or hurt of others beside that which respecteth men as to themselves Those that think they are bound to avoid hurting no man but themselves or for themselves nor to do good to any but themselves or for themselves have so far obliterated the Laws of Humanity and so openly renounce the benefits of Society and bid defiance to Mankinde that I suppose them so few that I need not dispute against them Nor have I ever met with any defender of so inhumane a Cause whatever may be in their hearts and practice § 9. Nature teacheth Parents to educate their children in sobriety obedience justice and charity and to restrain their contraries Did Parents make no difference between their Childrens temperance and gluttony drunkenness and unchastity between their obedience and disobedience and contempt of their own authority between actions of Justice and Charity and actions of falshood robbery cruelty and inhumanity what a degenerate thing would Mankinde prove even Cannibals exercise some government over their Children § 10. The means which Nature teacheth all the World to suppress iniquity and promote well-doing is by Punishments and Benefits that it may turn to the hurt of the evil-doer himself and to the benefit of the Well-doer Thus Parents do by Children yea Men by Beasts on the account of Prudence though not of Justice Without Punishments and Rewards or Benefits Laws are ridiculous or deceits and Government is nothing § 11. For the just and effectual performance of this nature teacheth the World to set up Governments that by setled Laws and righteous Judgement it may be rightly done Though better principles should acquaint men with the nature and necessity of Government yet these are so obvious to all the world that for their own preservation together with some natural sense of justice the most barbarous Nations that are nearest unto bruits are for some Civil Government besides Oeconomical Government which none but mad-men ever question'd § 12. By this Government the Liberty Estates and Lives of offenders are destroyed for the ends of the Government viz. for Justice and the common good That this is so de facto is so undeniable that even those Heathens the supposed relicts of the Pythagoreans who will not kill a harmless beast will yet kill those men who deserve to die And if Government had not the power over the Liberties Estates and Lives of offenders it could not preserve the Liberties Estates and Lives of the innocent § 13. The combination of the Power Wisdom and Goodness of the Individuals and the Eminency of these in the Governours is the cause of the order strength and safety of these humane societies All the parts are in the combination to contribute to the good of the whole and that according to the nature of the parts it is not a heap of stones nor a forest of trees nor a heard of cattle which we are speaking of but an association of men which must be promoted and blessed by the worth and duty of the individuals and this consisteth in the perfections and right exercise of their Power Intellects and Wills But as the place of the Governour requireth more of the exercise of these than is requisite in any individual else so doth it therefore require that these be in him in greater eminency and excellency than in others viz. that in himself he excel in wisdom and goodness and by his interest in the people that he excel in power or strength Take away power and Societies are indefensible exposed to the will of enemies and unable to execute their Laws upon their own offenders and so to attain the ends of their association and government Take away wisdom and they are a rout of Ideots or mad-men and government can be none at all Take away goodness and they are as a company of Devils or confederacy of Robbers or pernicious enemies who can neither trust one another nor promote the common good but are fit to destroy and be destroyed § 14. By all this it is manifest that MAN is not only a living Wight having Power Intellect and Will and Dominion over inferiour things as their Owner Ruler and End but also is a sociable Wight or fitted for society where Government is exercised by Power Wisdom and Goodness which are his perfections I have looked thus long at the things that are seen as nearest me and most discernable before I proceed to the Cause which is unseen CHAP. IV. Of Man and other things as produced by their first Cause § 1. I Was not always what I am It is not yet sixty years since I was no man I had a late beginning and though I now enquire not of what duration my soul is my present composition is not from eternity the same I see of others that are born men who were lately none and so of all things that are here generated § 2. I did not make my self at least as an independent uncaused being I could not as I am make my self what I am for so my self as the cause should be before my self as the effect which is a contradiction unless the word self be used equivocally When I was not I acted not If it be said by any that the Soul did fabricate a Body to it self and so one part of me made the other I answer 1. My soul did not make the matter of that Body for if it did it made it of something or of nothing if of something either it made that something or not if not then it made not the first matter of the Body If it made it of nothing it must be Omnipotent but it is conscious of impotency 2. My soul did not make it self for then it must be before it self which is impossible And if I made neither form nor matter I did not make my self If it be said that my Soul is an eternal uncaused being and so did fabricate this Body as a dwelling for it self I answer 1. As to the supposed fabrication it is conscious it self of no such thing And if my Soul made my body either it was as a causa subministra vel instrumentalis by the direction and power of a superiour cause or else of and by it self as the prime cause If the first then it is a caused and dependent being it self and so leadeth us to a higher cause If the second be affirmed and so my Soul an eternal uncaused independent being then 1. That which is without beginning cause and dependency must needs be
before disproved In point of efficiency we grant that he is as the Soul of Souls effecting more than Souls do for their Bodies but not in point of Constitution He is much more than the Soul of the world but is not formally its Soul But 2. Those men that will think so must acknowledge that as they take the Horse and the Rider to be both parts of God and the Child and the Father and the Subject and the Prince and the Malefactor and the Judge and the flagitious wretch and the best of men so it is no other membership than what consisteth with the difference of moral good and evil of wise and foolish of Governours and Subjects of Rewards and Punishments of Happiness and Misery which are the things that I am seeking after But so few lay this claim to Deity that I need no further mind them § 3. My Parents were not the first cause of my being what I am As each Individual cannot be the first Cause of it self so neither can their Parents for they do not so much as know my frame and nature nor the order and temperature of my parts nor how or when they were set together nor their use or the reason of their location And certainly he that made me knew what he did and why he did it in each particular My Parents could not choose my sex nor shape nor strength nor qualifications § 4. The world which I see and live in did not make it self As Men and Beasts and Trees and Stones did not make themselves so neither did they joyn as concauses or assistants in the making of the whole nor did any one of them make the rest nor did any of the more simple substances called Elements make themselves neither the passive Elements or the active the Earth the Water the Air or the Fire For we know past doubt that nothing hath no power or action and before they were they were not and therefore could not make themselves Nor can they be the first cause of mixt bodies because there is that exceeding wisdom most apparent in the generation production nature and operations of these Bodies which these Elements have not § 5. The visible world is not an uncaused independent Being For all the generated parts we see do oriri interire they have a beginning progress decay and end And the inanimate parts having less of natural excellency than the living cannot infinitely exceed them in the excellency of Deity as uncaused and independent And we see that they are all dependent in their operations They shew in the order of their beings and action that incomprehensible wisdom which is not in themselves the Earth the Sea the Air and Winds are all ordered exactly by a Wisdom and a Will which they themselves are void of Besides they are many and various but their order and agreement sheweth that it is some One universal Wisdom and Will which ruleth them all and if they are dependent in operation they are certainly dependent in being And had they that excellency to be uncaused and independent they would have had therewith all other perfections which we see they want and they would not have been many but one in that perfection § 6. The first universal Matter is not an uncaused independent being If such there be its inactivity and passiveness sheweth it to want the excellency of independency and the ordination of it into its several beings and the disposals of it there is done by a principle of infinite power activity and wisdom on which having this dependence in its ordination and use it must be dependent also in its being § 7. If it were doubtful whether the world were eternal and whether it were the Body of God as the informing Soul yet it would be past doubt that it is not uncaused or independent but caused by God That the world is not eternal we want not natural evidence for saith Lullius then there would be two Eternals the Cause and its Effects and then all things would be caused by natural necessity and not by free will and consequently always alike and then there hath been Evil eternally and both the caused Good and the Evil would in all other aggravations be answerable to Eternity and the Evil would be as soon as great as durable as the good The same world which is finite in good and evil and other respects would be infinite in Eternity and the evil would have an infiniteness in point of Eternity and this necessitated by the eternity of the world And seeing no individuals are eternal the supposed eternity of the world must be but of some common matter or only intentional and not real The corporeal part having quantity is finite as to extension and therefore cannot be infinite in duration In Eternity then there is no time no prius posterius but in the world there is Much more is said by many but this is not my present task I shall say more of it afterward But if it were doubtful whether the world were not eternally the Body of God yet would it be undoubted still that he caused it And that there were the difference of a cause and an effect in order of nature though not in duration As if a Tree or a mans body were supposed eternal yet the root and spirits of the Tree and the principal parts and spirits in mans body would be the causal parts on which the rest depend § 8. It remaineth therefore most certain that something is a first Cause to all things else and that he is the Creator of all things For if the world be not uncaused and independent it hath a Cause and if it have a Cause it hath a Creator For when there was nothing but himself he must make all things of Himself or of Nothing not of Himself for He is not Material and they are not parts of God who is indivisible He that thinks otherwise should not kill a Flea or a Toad nor blame any man that beateth or robbeth or wrongeth him nor eat any creature because he doth kill and blame and eat a part of God who is unblameable and can injure none and is to be more reverenced § 9. If there were any doubt whether the Sun or Fire or passive matter had a first Cause there can be no doubt at all concerning MAN which is the thing which I am enquiring into at the present For every one seeth that Man hath his beginning and confesseth that it is but as yesterday since he was not and therefore hath a Cause which must be uncaused or have a Cause it self if the latter then that Cause again is uncaused or hath a Cause it self And so we must needs come at last to some uncaused cause § 10. If any second Cause had made Man or the World yet if it did it but as a caused Cause it self would lead us up to an uncaused Cause which is the first Cause of
To consider the innumerable number of the Orbs the multitude of the Fixed Stars which may be called so many Suns and to think of their distances magnitude powers orders influences communications effects c. and how many millions of these for ought we know there may be besides those which are within our sight even though helped by the most perfect Telescopes it striketh the Soul with unspeakable admiration at the Power that created and maintaineth all this When we think of the unconceivable rapid orderly perfect constant motions of all these Orbs or at least of the Planets and circumjacent bodies in every Vortex All these thoughts do make the Deity or first Being to be just to the mind as the Sun is to the eye the most Intelligible of Beings but so Incomprehensible that we cannot endure to gaze too much or near upon his glory § 27. Whether the whole world be animated or inanimate Whether the whole have one constitutive Soul or not Whether each Orb have its particular Soul or not are things unrevealed and beyond the Certain knowledge of the natural mind But it is certain that the first Being is not the proper constitutive Form or Soul of the world but yet that he is much more to it than such a Form or Soul even the total perfect first Cause of all that it is and hath and doth He is not the constitutive Form or Soul of the Universe as it seems Cicero with the Academicks and Stoicks thought because then the Creator and the Creature should be the same or else the Creature should be nothing but dead passive matter and then Man himself who knoweth that he hath a Soul would either be God which his experience and the conscience of his frailty forbiddeth him to imagin or else he should be a Creature more noble than the Universe of which he is so small a part which his reason forbiddeth him also to believe But yet that God is much more to the world than a constitutive Soul is undeniable because he is the creating Cause which is more than a constitutive Cause and his continued causation in its preservation is as a continued creation As in Man the Soul is a dependent cause which can give nothing to the Body but what it hath received nor act but as it is acted or impowered by the first efficient And therefore though we call not God the Soul of Man because we would not so dishonour him nor confound the Creator and the creature yet we all know that he is to us much more than the Soul of Souls for in him we live and move and have our being So also it is as to God's causation of the Being Motion and Order of all the world God is incomparably more to it than its Form as being the total first Cause of Form and Matter To be the Creator is more than to be the Soul § 28. The glory of all being action and order in the creatures is no less due to God when he worketh by means than when he worketh by none at all For when no Means is a Means nor hath being aptitude force or efficacy but from himself he onely communicateth praise to his creatures when he thus useth them but giveth not away the least degree of his own interest and honour for the creature is nothing hath nothing and can do nothing but by him It useth no strength or skill or bounty but what it first received from him therefore to use such means can be no dishonour to him unless it be a dishonour to be a communicative Good As it is no dishonour to a Watch-maker to make that Engine which sheweth his skill instead of performing all the motions without that little frame of means But yet no similitude will reach the case because all creatures themselves are but the continued productions of the Creator's will and the virtue which they put forth is nothing but what God putteth into them And he is as neer to the effect when he worketh by means as when without § 29. Those that call these three faculties or Principles in the Divine Essence by the name of three Hypostases or Persons do seem to me to speak less unaptly than the Schools who call Deum seipsum intelligentem the Father and Deum ut a se intellectum the Son and Deum a se amatum the Holy Ghost For that in God which is to be conceived of us by Analogy to our essential faculties is with less impropriety called an Hypostasis or Person than that which is to be conceived by us in Analogy to our actus secundi or receptions § 30. And those that say the first faculty Omnipotency as eminently appearing in the frame of Nature may therefore be said to be specially therein personated or denominated the Creating Person speak nothing which derogateth from the honour of the Deity § 31. Though we cannot trace the vestigia the adumbration or appearances of this Trinity in Vnity through the whole Body of Nature and Morality because of the great debility and narrowness of our Minds Yet is it so apparent on the first and most notable parts of both as may make it exceeding probable that it runneth in perfect method through them all if our understandings were but able to follow and comprehend that wonderfull method in the numerous minute and less discernable particulars I shall now give no other instance than in two of the most noble Creatures The Soul of Man which is made after Gods Image from whence we fetch our first knowledge of him hath in the unity of a living Spirit the three foresaid faculties of vital and executive Power Vnderstanding and Will which are neither three species nor three parts nor three accidents of the Soul But three faculties certainly so far distinct as that the Acts from whence they are denominated really differ and therefore the faculties differ at least in their Virtual Relation to those acts and so in a well-grounded denomination To understand is not to will for I understand that which I have no will to even against my will for the Intellect may be forced Therefore the same Soul hath in it the virtue or power both of understanding and willing and so of executing which are denominated from the different acts which they relate to There is some Reason in the powers virtues or faculties of the real difference in the acts So in the Sun and all the superior Luminaries there is in the unity of their Essence a Trinity of Faculties or Powers 1. Motiva 2 Illuminativa 3. Calefactiva causing motion light and heat The doctrine of Motion is much improved by our late Philosophers when the doctrine of Light and Heat are so also and vindicated from the rank of common accidents and qualities the nature of the Luminaries and of Fire will be also better cleared The Sun is not to these Powers or Acts either a Genus a Totum or a Subjectum
be made to be governed by Laws as was proved before then he is certainly governed accordingly or else his nature and reason were given him in vain which could not be by the most wise Creator Obj. God governeth the world as the Soul governeth the Body which is rationally ex parte animae but not by giving reason or laws to the Body but despotically by the natural power of the Will Answ The flesh is not capable of Laws as having no Reason and therefore no proper Laws can be given to it in it self by the Soul But the Soul is capable of Reason and made to be moved by proposed Reasons in a Law and not only by natural force as the flesh The Government must be agreeable to the capacity of the Subject Though the Rider rule the Horse by a bridle and spur and not by a Law it followeth not that the King must not rule the Rider so The Soul and Body constitute one Suppositum or Man and therefore the Body is governed by a Law because the Soul is so which despotically moveth it Laws are for distinct individuals and not for one part of an individual to give to another part Obj. If God be the constitutive Soul of the world then he need not give it Laws Answ Because it is most certain de facto that he doth give us Laws therefore it is certain that he is not the constitutive Soul of the world as is also further proved before though he be much more to it than a Soul § 14. XI If man act per media propter finem and loth discerned by reason then he must be ruled by a Law But the Antecedent is sure Ergo c. For the End is ever something apprehended sub ratione boni and the ultimate end sub ratione optimi possibilis and the Means are chosen and used sub ratione conducibilis as apt to attain the End This Means and End are not to be discerned onely by sense and imagination as in bruits every object is apprehended but by reason this Reason is defectible and liable to error and therefore the rational evidences must be proposed to it and that conveniently For he that knoweth not Reason why he should chuse refuse or act cannot do it Rationally And the Will being as apt to be seduced by the sense hath need of due motives to determine it Therefore there is need of the Regulation of a Law containing the direction of a superiour wisdom with authority and motives of consequential Good or Evil proposed by one that can accomplish it But the whole world doth so universally consent that there is a difference between Right and Wrong Duty and Crimes Good and Evil and so a necessity of some Government humane at least and that man is not like the beasts where strength is the only title and good and evil is but natural called jucundum utile with their contraries that I need not plead that part of the cause any further universal consent not only making it unnecessary but also being a valid argument against it as proving that it is against the common reason of Mankind and light of Nature § 15. XII If God be not the universal Governour of the world then error malice and tyranny and selfishness will make injustice finally prosperous and oppressed innocency remediless But that cannot be as shall hereafter be fullier made appear There must be some infallible Judge to pass the final sentence and hear all Causes as it were over again and some perfect righteous Judge to set straight all that mens unrighteousness made crooked or else unrighteousness will finally prevail And this must be God who being the fountain of all Government is also the end of all § 16. XIII If God be not the Supreme Vniversal Governour there can be no unity and harmony in the moral Order and Government of the World As all the Corporations in the Kingdom would be in continual discord with one another if they were not all united in one King so would all the Kingdoms of the World much worse than they are if they were not under the Government of one God § 17. XIV The last argument shall be à Jure aptitudine If Man be made a Creature to be morally Governed and the undoubted Right and Aptitude for supream Government be in God alone then God is actually the supream Governour of the the World But the antecedent is true therefore the consequent 1. That God only is Able is undenyable Men can govern but their particular Provinces or Empires and none of them is capable of Governing all the World for want of Omnipresence Omnipotency and Omniscience And therefore the Pope that claimeth the Government of all the World if all turn Christians doth thereby pretend to a kinde of Deity And if Angels were proved able to govern the Earth it can be but as Officers and not in absolute supremacy For who then shall be the Governour of them Their being is meerly derivative and dependent and therefore so must be their power God only is all sufficient omnipresent omnipotent omniscient and most good Sufficient to give perfect Laws to all to execute righteous Judgement upon all and to protect the World as his Dominion when Princes cannot protect one Kingdom nor themselves And Gods title and right is as undoubted as his Power For he is Absolute Owner of the World And who should claim Soveraignty over him or without him where he is sole Proprietor He hath undoubted right to rule his own Obj. Propriety among men is no title to Government Answ Absolute Propriety in a Governable creature is a plenary title But no man hath absolute Propriety in another Yet Parents and the Masters of Slaves who come neerest it have an answerable Power of Governing them But mans fullest Propriety is in Bruits and Inanimates which are not Creatures capable of Government § 18. The Relation then of Soveraign King or Rector in God to man is founded in the forenamed Relation of a Proprietor supposing the Aptitude of the Subject and the Owner Having proved that God is the Vniversal King I come to shew his title to his Kingdom â—itulus est fundamentum juris Soveraignty or summa potestas is Jus supremi Regiminis Where this Right is founded great ignorance hath made a great controversie the thing to men that are of competent understandings in such subjects being most easie and past controversie God having made man is immediately his Owner because his maker Having made him a Rational free Agent and so to be Governed he hath the Jus Regendi by Immediate Resultancy from his Absolute Propriety supposing the Nature of the Creature and the Perfection of the Creator alone which so qualifie one to be a Subject and the other to be the Governour that they are as it were the remoter fundamentum Relationis From the being of Man Hoc aliquid à Deo creatum resulteth the propriety of God
Gracious or Glorious which they possess is certainly Himself better than all the world for he cannot give more Goodness than he hath this is not to be denied by any man of reason therefore it is proved that God is perfectly Good Besides his Perfections must needs be proportionable we know that he is Eternal as is unquestionably demonstrated we see by the wonderful frame of Nature that he is Omnipotent and Omniscient and then it must needs be that his Goodness must be commensurate with the rest Therefore to come back again upon every consequent which you understand not and to deny a fundamental principle which hath been undeniably demonstrated this is but to resolve that you will not know By this course you may deny any demonstrated truth in Mathematicks when you meet with difficulties among the superstructed consequents Let us therefore methodically proceed We have proved that God is the cause of all the Goodness in the world in Heaven and Earth and therefore must needs be Best himself And it is certain that all the sins and calamities which you mention are in the world and that the creature hath all those imperfections therefore it is certain that these two Verities are consistent what ever difficulty appeareth to you in the reconciling them Thus far there is no matter of doubt And next we are therefore certain that the Measure of God's Goodness is not to be taken from the Creatures interest And yet we know that his Goodness inclineth him to communicate goodness and felicity to his creatures for all the Good in the world is from him It remaineth therefore that he is good necessarily and perfectly and that he doth all well whatsoever he doth and that there is in the Creature a higher Goodness than its own felicity even the Image of God's Power Wisdom and Goodness in which his Holiness and Justice have their place And that this Goodness of the Universe which consisteth in the Glorious appearances of God in it and the suitableness of all to his Will and Wisdom includeth all things except sin which are contained in your objection and that punishment of sinners though it be malum physicum to them is a moral good and glorifieth God's Justice and Holiness and even the permission of sin it self is good though the sin be bad And yet that God will also glorifie that part of his Goodness which consisteth in Benignity for he hath an amor beneficentiae of which the creature only is the object but of his amor complacentiae he himself is the chief object and the creature but the secondary so far as it participateth of Goodness And Complacency is the essential act of Love Think but what a wonderful Fabrick he hath made of all the Orbs composed into One World and can you possibly have narrow thoughts of his Goodness He hath placed more Physical Goodness in the nature of one silly Bird or Fly or Worm than humane wit is able to find out much more in Plants in Beasts in Men in Sea and Land in the Sun and fixed Stars and Planets Our understandings are not acquainted with the thousandth thousandth thousandth part of the Physical goodness which he hath put into his creatures there may be more of the wonderful skill and power and goodness of God laid out on one of those Stars that seems smallest to our sight than millions of humane intellects if united were able to comprehend And who knoweth the number any more than the magnitude and excellency of those Stars What man can once look up towards the Firmament in a Star light night or once read a Treatise of Astronomy and then compare it with his Geography and compare those far more excellent Orbs with this narrower and darker world we live in and not be wrapt up into the astonishing admiration of the Power Wisdom and Goodness of the Creator When the anatomizing of the body of one man or beast might wrap up any considerate man into Galen's admiration and praises of the Maker and how many myriades of such bodies hath God created and how much more excellent are the forms or souls than any of those bodies And how little know we how incomparably more excellent the nature of Angels may be than ours and what glorious Beings may inhabit the more glorious Orbs and yet can you think meanly of the Creator's Goodness O but you say that all these lower Creatures have still the forementioned sorrows and imperfections I answer you 1. They were not made Gods but Creatures and therefore were not to be perfect 2. It is the corrupt and blinded sensual mind which crieth out for want of sensible pleasure and can see no goodness in any thing but this but true reason telleth any man that hath it that our sensible pleasure is a thing too low to be the highest excellency of the creature and to be the ultimate end of God and that the glory of the whole world even the inanimate parts as well as the animate shewing the glory of the Infinite Creator is the excellency of the world What if the Sun and Stars and Earth and Sea the Fire and Air have no feeling have they therefore no goodness but what is a Means to the sensible delights of lower things Hath a Worm more goodness than the Sun if it have more feeling These are the madnesses of sensual men May not an excellent Limner Watch-maker or other Artificer make a Picture a Watch or Musical Instrument meerly for his own delight and may he not delight in the excellency of it though you imagine him to have no need of it or of the delight And what is the excellency of such a Picture but to be the full demonstration of the Author's skill in the most full representation of the thing resembled Will you say that he hath done no good because he made not his Picture sensible and made not its pleasure his ultimate end Those things which in particulars we call Bad are Good as they are parts of the Universal frame as many darknings and shadowings in a Picture may conduce to make it beautiful The eye is a more excellent part of the body than a finger or a tooth and yet it maketh to the perfection of the whole that there be fingers and teeth as well as eyes So it doth to the perfection of the world that there be Men and Beasts and Plants as well as Angels and poor men as well as rich and sick man as well as sound and pain as well as pleasure Our narrow sight that looketh but on a spot or parcel of God's work at once doth judge according to the particular interest of that parcel and so we would have no variety in the world but every thing of that species which we think best But God seeth all his works at once uno intuitu and therefore seeth what is best in reference to the glory of the Universe and seeth what variety is beautiful and
yet is as obligatory and as much if not more than a Law which maketh it more than the Duty of a Subject to answer love and goodness with gratitude and love so that if per impossibile you suppose that we had no other obligation to God but this of love and goodness or abstract this from the rest I question whether it be not most eminently morall and whether the performance of it do not morally fit us for the highest benefits and felicity and the violation of it merit not morally the rejections of our great Benefactor and the withdrawing of all his favours to our undoing But this Controversie my Cause is not much concerned in as I have said because the same God is our Soveraign also § 2. The duty which we specially owe to God in this highest Relation is LOVE which as such is above obedience as such The difference of Understandings and Wills requireth Government and obedience that the understanding and will of the superiour may be a Rule to the subjects But LOVE is a Concord of Wills and so farr as LOVE hath caused a concord there is no use for Government by Laws and Penalties And therefore the Law is not made for a Righteous man as such that is so far as Love hath united his Soul to Virtue and separated it from sin he need not to be constrained or restrained by any Penal Laws no more than men need a Law to command them to eat and drink and preserve their lives and forbear self-destruction But so far as any man is unrighteous or ungodly that is hath a will to sin or cross or averse to Goodness so far he needeth a penal Law which therefore all need while they remain imperfect Nature hath made Love and Goodness like the Iron and the Load-stone The Vnderstanding doth not so ponderously incline to Truth as the Will doth naturally to Good For this being the perfect act of the Soul the whole inclination of Nature goeth after it Therefore Love is the highest duty or noblest act of the Soul of Man the end and perfection of all the rest § 3. The essential act of this LOVE is COMPLACENCIE or the Pleasedness of the minde in a suitable Good But it hath divers effects concomitants and accidents from whence it borroweth divers Names § 4. The LOVE of Benevolence as it worketh towards the felicity of another is the Love of God to man who needeth him but not of Man to God who is above our benefits and needeth nothing § 5. Our LOVE to God respecteth him either 1. as our Efficient 2. Dirigent 3. or final Good which hath accordingly concomitant duties § 6. I. Our LOVE to God as our Chief good efficiently containeth in it 1. A willing Receiving Love 2. A Thankfull Love 3. A Returning devoted serving Love which among men amounts to retribution § 7. 1. An absolute dependent Beneficiary ought with full dependance on his Totall Benefactor to Receive all his Benefits with Love and willingness An undervaluing of Benefits and demurring or rejecting them is a great abuse and injury to a Benefactor Thus doth the ungodly World against all the Grace and greatest mercies of God They know not the worth of them and therefore despise them and will not be intreated to accept them but take them for intollerable injuries or troubles as a sick Stomack doth its Physick and Food because they are against their fleshly Appetites An open heart to receive Gods mercies with high esteem beseemeth such Beneficiaries as we § 8. 2. Thankfulness is that Operation of Love which the light of Nature hath convinced all the World to be a duty and scarce a man is to be found so bruitish as to deny it And our Love to God should be more thankfull than to all the World because our Receivings from Him are much greater than from all § 9. 3. Though we cannot requite God true gratitude will devote the whole man to his Service Will and Honour and bring back his Mercies to him for his use so far as we are able § 10. II. Our LOVE to our DIRIGENT Benefactor is 1. A fiducial Love 2. A love well-pleased in his conduct 3. A following Love Though it belongeth to God chiefly as our sapiential Governour to be the Dirigent Cause of our Lives Yet he doth it also as our Benefactor by a commixture of the effects of his Relations § 11. 1. So infinite and sure a Friend is absolutely to be Tristed with a General Confidence in the Goodness of his Nature and a particular Confidence in the Promises or significations of his good-will Infinite Good cannot be willing to deceive or disappoint us And if we absolutely Trust him it will abundantly conduce to our holiness and peace § 12. 2. We must also love his Conduct his Precepts and his holy Examples and the very way it self in which he leadeth us All that is from him is good and must be loved both for it self and for him that it cometh from and for that which it leadeth to All his Instructions helps reproofs and all his conducting Means should be amiable to us § 13. 3. Love must make us cheerfully follow him in all the wayes which by Precept or Example he is pleased to lead us And so to follow him as to love the tokens of his presence and footsteps of his will and all the signs of his approbation And with an Heroick fortitude of Love to rejoyce in sufferings and venture upon dangers and conquer difficulties for his sake § 14. III. Our LOVE to GOD as our final Good is 1. A Desiring LOVE 2. A seeking LOVE and 3. A full complacential delighting Love which is the perfection of us and all the rest And accidentally it is sometimes a Mourning Love § 15. 1. Man being but in Via under the efficiency and conduct of Love to final Love and Goodness hath his End to intend and his means to use and therefore Love must needs work by Desire § 16. So far as a man is short of the thing desired Love will have some sense of want and so far as we are crossed in our seekings and frustrate in any of our hopes it will be sorrowfull § 17. 2. Man being appointed to a course and life of Means to his last end must needs be employed in those Means for the Love of that End And so the main work of this life is that of a Desiring seeking Love § 18. 3. The complacential delighting LOVE hath three degrees The first in Belief and Hope The second in foretaste and The third in full enflamed exercise § 19. 1. The well-grounded Hope of the foreseen Vision and fruition of the Infinite Good which is our End must needs possess the considerate minde with a delight which is somewhat answerable to that Hope § 20. 2. When the Soul doth not only Hope for its future end but also at present close with God subratione finis in the exercise
of pure complacencial Love in Prayer Praise or Contemplation he hath some measure of fruition even in via and a sensible foretaste of his future perfection according to the degree of this his Love There is a delight that cometh into the minde by the meer foresight and hope of what we shall be and have and do hereafter And this cometh by the Means of Promise and Evidence And there is also a Delight which cometh in upon the present exercise of Love it self on God as present when the soul in the contemplation of his infinite Goodness is wrapt up in the pleasures of his Love And this is a degree of fruition of our end before the perfect fruition of it And therefore take notice that there are these two wayes of our comfort in this life 1. Exploratio juris the tryall of our title 2. Exercitium amoris the feasting of the Soul in the exercises of Love § 21. 3. The final perfect act of Love will not be in via but when we have fully reacht our end § 22. This final act is not well expressed by the common word fruition because it intimateth that we are the finis cui our selves and that our own enjoyment of God as our felicity is the finis ultimatè ultimus which is not true § 23. Yet is fruition one ingredient into our End because our final act of Love is for our selves though not principally § 24. All the difficulties de fine hominis are best resolved by understanding that it is finis amantis and what that is The Nature of Love is an inclination or desire of Vnion or Adhaesion And therefore it includeth the felicity of the Lover together with the attractive excellency of the Object and is both gratia amantis amati simul But when the Lover is infinitely above the Object the Lover is the chief end for his own complacency though the Object have the benefit And when the Object is infinitely better than the Lover the Object must be incomparably the chief end cujus gratia potissimum though the Lover withall intend his felicity in fruition § 25. But if any soul be so far above self-love as to be drawn up in the fervours of Holy love in the meer contemplation of the infinite Object not thinking of its own felicity herein its felicity will be never the less for not intending or remembring it § 26. Therefore the final act of Love hath no fitter name than Love it self or delightfull adhaesion to God the infinite Good with full complacency in him § 27. Though God must be loved as our Benefactor yet the perfect goodness of his Will and Nature as standing above all our Interest or Benefits must be the principal reason and Object of our Love That we must love God more for Himself than for our selves is thus proved 1. That which is most Amiable must be most Loved But God is most amiable and not we our selves Therefore he must be Loved above our selves and consequently not for our selves but our selves for him The minor is soon proved That which is most Good is most Amiable But God is most good Ergo. And Goodness is the proper object of Love 2. That which the Soul most Loveth it doth most devote it self to and adhere to and rest in But we must more devote our selves to God and adhere to him and rest in him than our selves Ergo we must Love him more 3. That which is an Absolute Good and is dependent on nothing must be absolutely loved for it self But such is God Ergo. And that which is only a derivative limited dependent Good and not made ultimately for it self is not to be loved ultimately for it self But such is man Ergo. 4. That which is the Fountain of all Goodness and Love must be the end of all But that is God and not Man Ergo. 5. To love God ultimately for our selves is to deifie our selves and take down God into the order of a Means that is of a Creature § 28. Having proved that God must be loved above our selves we need no other proof that not we but God must be our ultimate end § 29. Because we here see not God intuitively but in his Works we are bound with fervent desire to study and contemplate them and therein to feast our love in beholding and tasting of his Love and Goodness As a Man will look on the Picture the Letters the works of his absent Friend and retain the Image of him in his heart so God though not absent yet unseen expresseth himself to us in all his works that we may studiously there behold admire and love him § 30. Therefore Gods Works must be more valued and studied as they are the Glass representing the Image of his perfections and shewing us his chief essential amiableness than as they are beneficial and useful to us and so shew us only his benignity to us § 31. Yet must self-love and sense it self and the sensible sweetness and experience of Mercies be improved to our easier taste of God's essential Goodness and we must rise up from the lower to the higher object and this is our chief use of sensible benefits Doubtless as the Soul while it dwelleth with flesh doth receive its objects by the mediation of sense so God hath purposely put such variety of sensible delicacies into the creatures that by every sight and smell and hearing and touch and taste our souls might receive a report of the sweetness of God whose goodness all proceed from And therefore this is the life which we should labour in continually to see God's goodness in every lovely sight and to taste God's goodness in every pleasant taste and to smell it in every pleasant Odour and to hear it in every lovely word or sound that the motion may pass on clearly without stop from the senses to the mind and will and we may never be so blockish as to gaze on the glass and not see the Image in it or to gaze on the Image and never consider whose it is or to read the Book of the Creation and mark nothing but the words and letters and never mind the sense and meaning A Philosopher and yet an Atheist or ungodly is a monster one that most readeth the Book of Nature and least understandeth or feeleth the meaning of it § 32. Therefore God daily reneweth his mercies to us that the variety and freshness of them producing renewed delight may renew our lively feelings of his love and goodness and so may carry us on in love without cessations and declinings Our natures are so apt to lose the sense of a Good that is grown ordinary and common that God by our renewed necessities and the renewed supplies and variety of mercies doth cure this defect § 33. Those therefore that turn God's mercies to the gratifying of their sensitive appetites and lusts and forget him and offend him the more and love him
himself our Benefactor nor nevertheless near us What nearness to us they have we are much uncertain but that he himself is our total Benefactor and always with us as near to us as we are to our selves is past all question and proved before 2. There neither is nor can be any object so suitable for our LOVE as God he hath all Goodness in him and all in the creature is derived from him and dependeth on him and he hath given us all that ever we our selves received and must give us all that ever we shall receive hereafter He is all-sufficient for the supply of all our wants and granting all our just desires and making us perfect all that he doth for us he doth in Love as an intellectual free Agent and he is still present with us upholding us and giving us the very Love which he demandeth and he created us for Himself to be his Own and gave us these faculties to know and love him And can any then be a more suitable object of our love 3. Do you not find that your understandings have a suitableness or inclination to Truth and Knowledge and would you not know the best and greatest things and know the cause of all the wonderful effects which you see and what is this but to know God And do you not find that your Wills have a suitableness to good as such in the general and to your own felicity And do you not know that it should not be unnatural to any man to love the best which is best and especially which is best for him and to love him best who is his greatest Benefactor and most worthy of his love in all respects And can you doubt whether God be most worthy of your love All this is plain and sure And will mens averseness to the love of God then disprove it It is natural for man to desire knowledge as that which perfecteth his understanding and yet Boys are averse to learn their Books because they are slothful and are diverted by the love of play What if your servants be averse and slothful to your service doth it follow that it is not their duty or that you hired them not for it What if your wife and children be averse to love you is it therefore none of their duty so to do Rebels are averse to obey their Governours and yet it is their duty to obey them If your child or any one that is most beholden to you should be averse to love and gratitude to you as thousands are to their Parents and Benefactors will it follow that Nature obliged them not to it 4. What can you think is suitable to your love if God be not is it lust or play or meat and drink and ease A Swine hath a nature as suitable to these as you Is it only to deal ingenuously and honourably in providing for the flesh and maintaining the fuel of these sensualities by Buildings Trading Manufactures Ornaments and Arts All this is but to have a reason to serve your sense and so the swinish part still shall be the chief for that which is the chief and ruling object with you doth shew which is the chief and regnant faculty If sensual objects be the chief than Sense is the chief faculty with you And if you had the greatest wit in the world and used it only to serve your guts and throats and lusts in a more effectual and ingenious way than any other men could do this were but to be an ingenuous beast or to have an Intellect bound in service to your bellies And can you think that things so little satisfying and so quickly perishing are more suitable objects for your love than God 5. What say you to all them that are otherwise minded and that take the Love of God for their work and happiness They find a suitableness in God to their highest esteem and love and are they not as fit Judges for the affirmative as you for the negative Obj. They do but force themselves to some acts of fancy Answ You see that they are such acts as are the more serious and prevalent in their lives and can make them lay by other pleasures and spend their days in seeking God and lay down their lives in the exercise and hopes of Love And that it is you that follow fancy and they that follow solid reason is evident in the reason of your several ways That world which you set above God is at last called Vanity by all that try it Reason will not finally justifie your choice but I have here shewed you undeniable reason for their choice and love and therefore it is they that know what they do and obey the Law of Nature which you obliterate and contradict Obj. But we see the Creature but God we see not and we find it not natural to us to love that which we do not see Answ Is not Reason a nobler faculty than sight if it be why should it not more rule you and dispose of you Shall no Subjects honour and obey their King but those that see him You can love your mony and land and friends when they are out of sight Obj. But these are things visible in their nature Answ They are so much the more vile and less amiable Your own Souls are invisible will you not therefore love them You never saw the life or form of any Plant or living Wight you see the beauty of your Roses and many other flowers but you see not the life and form within which causeth all that beauty and variety which yet must be more excellent than the effect Can you doubt whether all things which appear here to your sight have an invisible Cause and Maker or can you think him less amiable because he is invisible that is more excellent 6. In a word it is most evident that all this averseness of mens hearts to the Love of God is their sin and pravity and the unsuitableness of their nature is because they are vitiated with sensuality and deceived by sensible things a disease to be cured and not defended Their sin will not prove the contrary no duty 7. And yet while we are in flesh though God be not visible to us his works are and it is in them the frame of the world that he hath revealed and exposed Himself to our love It is in this visible Glass that we must see his Image and in that Image must love him and if we will love any Goodness we must love his for all is his and as his should be loved by us CHAP. XIII Experiments of the difficulty of all this Duty and what it will cost a man that will live this holy life HItherto I have proved that there is a GOD of Infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness the Creator and consequently the Owner the Ruler and the Father or Chief Good of Man and that Man as his creature is absolutely his own and
them have their right and part And this is the common reward or benefit of obedience and fidelity Besides which some great exploits are usually rewarded with some special praemium In humane Kingdoms as such the End is no higher than the Beginning Temporal Governours give but temporal Rewards The felicities of the Kingdom which are the ends of Government as they are from Man are but temporal and our share in them is all our Reward from men But the original and end of the Kingdom of God are higher and of further prospect The benefits of fidelity are greater as shall be further proved But let it be noted that this Objection saith nothing against a life of Punishment Governours never leave their Precepts without this sanction And he that believeth future Punishment will easily believe a future Reward Let it also be noted that Paternal Government hath evermore Rewards in the strictest sense that is a special favour and kindness shewed to the Childe that is specially obedient and so the rest according to their measures But the Kingdom of God is A PATERNALL KINGDOM as is proved That God will make in his Retributions a just difference between the good and bad is proved from his Justice in Government If his Laws make no difference then men are left at liberty to keep or break them nor can it rationally be expected that they should be kept Nor could he be said so much as to love or approve or justifie the obedient more than the rebellious But so unholy a Nature and so indifferent between sin and duty and so unwise and unjust in governing is not to be called God Either he justly differenceth or he doth not Govern That God maketh not a sufficient differencing Retribution in this life is the complaint of some and the confession of almost all the World The bad are commonly the greatest and the Lords and Oppressors of the Just The Turks the Tartarians the Moscovites the Persians the Mogull and more such brutish Monarchs who use the people as the slaves of their pride and lust do take up the far greatest part of the Earth Few places are so good where Goodness exposeth not men to sufferings from the rabble of the vulgar if not from the Governours slanders and abuses are the common lot of those that will differ from the carnal wilde rebellious Rout. And poverty pain sickness and death do come alike to all The sensual that have wit enough so far to bridle their lusts as to preserve their health do usually live longer than more obedient men And they deny themselves none of those fleshly pleasures which the obedient do continually abstain from Obj. But do you not ordinarily say that Vice bringeth its punishment with it in its natural effects and Obedience its Reward Is not the life of a Glutton and Drunkard punished by poverty and shame and sickness And is not Godliness a pleasure in it self If it be our highest end and Happiness to love God and please him then sure the beginnings of it here must have more good than all the pleasures of sin and so God maketh a sufficient difference here Answ Some Vices that are sottishly managed do bring poverty shame and sickness but that may easily be avoided by a vicious wit Gluttony and drunkenness may fall short of sicknesses Fornication and adultery and incest may be managed with greater craft Pride and ambition may attain dominion and wealth Theft may be hid and cheating and fraud may make men rich and free them from the pinching wants and cares and the temptations to discontent and contention of the poor Malice may delight it self in secret revenges in poysonings murderings and such like without any worldly hurt to the transgressour A Tiberius a Nero a Caligula a Domitian a Commodus a Heliogabalus a Sardanapalus may be on the Throne when a Socrates a Seneca a Cicero a Cato a Demosthenes is put to death yea when a Paul or Peter an Ignatius a Cyprian are sacrificed to their bloody rage Yet it is true that all this while they want the dignity and comfort of the Just But while they value it not and feel not the want of it they take it not for a punishment but choose it as a felicity And as for the present Rewards of Virtue to speak impartially I verily think that if there were no life to come Virtue and Holiness were rationally more eligible But that is much because God is an End above our selves And for our own content in many Holiness would give the minde more pleasure than all fleshly pleasure and worldly greatness could counterpoise But with many others whose afflictions are very heavy and pains and poverty very great and who are grievously tormented by cruel persecutors and perhaps a Melancholy constitution may forbid them much delight it is hard to say that if they durst let loose themselves to all sin which maketh for their fleshly interest their Pleasure would not be much greater While the Soul is in flesh it unavoidably partaketh of the pain or pleasure of the flesh Therefore the torment of the Stone or Strangury or of a Rack or Strappado will reach the Soul And the operations of the Soul being in and by the body a tormented body will hinder those Contemplations which should feed our Joy and also hinder the Joy of those Contemplations Most Christians enjoy little comfort in Holiness through the very cares of this life and the weakness of Grace and power of Corruptions and doubts and fears which do attend them Much less would they have much comfort if they were here tormented and miserable in body and had no hope of another life In some sense we may say that Heaven is begun on Earth because Holiness is begun But the Heaven on Earth is the hope and reflection of the Heaven indeed and is soon gone if that be gone as the light here ceaseth when the Sun is set God seen and loved in a glass doth more differ as to us from God as seen and loved in the intuition of his Glory than the heart of man is now able to conceive The difference may be well called specifical as to our actions yea transcendently such Let any man in torment without any hope of Heaven be Judge And though Honesty without the Pleasure and Comforts of it be still better and more eligible yet while mans Reason and Virtue is so weak and his sense and appetite so strong and his body hath so much power upon his minde it is very few that the meer Love of Virtue would prevail with if that Virtue were never to come to a higher degree than this It is undoubtedly true that the Delights of Holiness are incomparably more desireable as we have them in this life than Kingdoms and all the pleasures of the flesh But that is principally because that this life is the passage to a better and hath relation to so glorious a reward The least fore-thought of
what he exerciseth by men though extraordinarily he sometime otherwise interpose And how easie and ordinary it is for subtil men to do much wickedness and never be discovered needs no proof The like we may say in some measure of those secret duties of heart and life which have neither reward nor notice in this life and if observed are usually turned into matter of reproach The Minor needeth no more proof when we have proved already that God is our Governour It is certain that the secret acts of heart and life are as much under his government as the open and therefore shall have equal retribution § 3. III. If there were no life of retribution after this the sins of the Great ones and Rulers of the world and all others that by strength could make their part good would be under no sufficient Justice But the sins even of the greatest and strongest are under sufficient justice Therefore there is a life of retribution after this The Major is clear by experience The sins of all the Sovereigns of the earth are rarely under sufficient justice in this life If there were no punishment hereafter what justice would be done upon a Tamerlane a Bajazet a Mahumed a Dionysius an Alexander a Caesar a Marius a Sylla a Sertorius and many hundred such for all the innocent bloud which they have shed for their pride and self-exalting What justice would be done on Kings and Emperours and States that have none above them for all their lusts and filthiness their intemperance and sensuality their oppression and cruelty I know that God doth sometimes punish them by Rebels or by other Princes or by sickness in this life but that is no ordinary course of justice and therefore not sufficient to its ends Ordinarily all things here come alike to all And what justice would be done upon any Rebels or Robbers that are but strong enough to bear it out Or upon any that raise unrighteous Wars and burn and murder and destroy Countries and Cities and are worse than plagues to all places where they come and worse than mad dogs and bears to others If they do but conquer instead of punishment for all this villany they go away here with wealth and glory The Minor is past question Therefore certainly there is another life where conquering rewarded prospering domineering sin shall have its proper punishment § 4. IV. If God rule not man by the hopes and fears of certain Good and Evil hereafter he ruleth him not according to his Nature But God doth rule man according to his Nature Ergo. The Minor needeth no proof The Major is proved by experience The nature of man is to be most moved with the hopes and fears of Good and Evil after death Otherwise death it self would comparatively seem nothing to us No other creature hath such hopes and fears If you ask how I can tell that I answer as I can tell that a Tree doth not hear and a Stone doth not feel or see because there is no appearance of such a sense whose nature is to make it self manifest by its evidences where it is Bruits shew a fear of death and love of life but of nothing further of which there is evidence enough to quiet a mind that seeketh after truth though not to silence a prating caviller This will be further improved under that which followeth § 5. V. If the world cannot be governed according to its nature and God's Laws without the hopes and fears of Good and Evil after death then the objects of such hopes and fears is certain truth But the Antecedent is true Therefore so is the Consequent That the nature of man requireth a Moral Government and not only a Physical motion is already proved Physical motion only determineth the agent to act and produceth the act it self quoad eventum Moral Government doth institute for the subject a debitum agendi habendi and judgeth him accordingly If there were no Government but Physical motion there were no debitum in the world neither officii praemii vel poenae vel jus possidendi vel injuria no right or wrong For Physical motion doth equally produce the act in perjury murder treason adultery as in good deeds and it never produceth an act which eventually never is Therefore there should be nothing a Duty but what cometh to pass if Physical motion were all the Government Government then there must be and what God requireth of all by nature I have shewed before Now that there is a moral impossibility of the performance of this in any sincerity so as to intimate any laudible Government of the world I shall further prove 1. If according to the present temper of man there be no motives which would ever prove sufficient to resist all the temptations of this life to keep us in true obedience and love to God unto the end without the hopes and fears of Good and Evil after death then cannot the world be governed according to God's Laws without such hopes and fears of futurity But the Antecedent is true Ergo so is the consequent If God had prescribed man a course of duty in his Laws as to obey and love him upon terms of fleshly suffering and had not given man such motives as might rationally prevail for the performance his Laws had been all in vain He that hath made Holiness our indispensible duty hath certainly left us motives and rational helps to perform it But so many and great are the temptations of this life and so strong is our sense and so great are the sufferings of the obedient that in this our imperfection we could never go through them without the motives which are fetch'd from another life 1. It would weaken the hands of the best as to their duty it would embolden them to sin it would give victory to all strong temptations Let every Reader but consult with his own soul and though it be granted that virtue should be chosen for its own sake how dear soever it may cost yet let him without lying say what he thinketh he should be and do in case of temptations if he knew that he had no life to live but this I am not sure but I will freely confess what I think most that now are honest would be and do First They would observe how little difference God maketh between the obedient and disobedient in his providence and how ordinarily his present judgements are not much to be feared And hence they would think that he maketh no great matter of it what they either are or do and so their very love of Virtue would be much debilitated Nay the sufferings of the virtuous would tempt them to think that it is no very desirable way and though still they would have something within them which would tell them that honesty and temperance and piety are good yet the natural love of themselves is so deeply planted in them and so
that the object of those hopes and fears are certain truths which are so necessary to the government of the world and this needeth no other proof but this If God can govern the world without a course of deceit and lying then the objects of these necessary hopes and fears are true But God can govern the world without a course of deceit and lying Ergo. The Major is evident because to govern by the hopes and fears of falshoods or things that are not when those hopes and fears are not only of God but made necessary to Government is to govern by deceit and lying or if it had not been by falshood uttered but falshood permitted the Minor is certain For if God cannot govern without such a course of deceit it is either for want of Power or of Wisdom or of Goodness that is Holiness and Benignity of Will But the Omnipotent wanteth not Power and the Omniscient wanteth not Wisdom to find out true and suitable means and he that is Optimus wanteth neither Holiness to love truth and hate falshood nor Benignity to love his Creature and therefore needeth no such means And he that believeth that God himself doth govern the world by a cheat even by the hopes and fears of fictions will sure think it best to imitate his God and to govern and trade and live accordingly This argument was à necessitate ad ordinem the next shall be only from God's actual government § 6. VI. If God do de facto govern the world by the hopes and fears of Good and Evil in another Life then the object of those hopes and fears is certain But God doth de facto so govern Ergo. The Major is proved as before for that which proved that God can govern without falshood proved also that he doth govern without it It belongeth only to the Impotent the Ignorant or the Bad to use such means Obj. May not a Parent or Physician honestly deceive a Child or Patient for his recovery to health why then may not God do so Answ 1. They do it through insufficiency to attain their end by a better means but the Omnipotent and Omniscient hath no such insufficiency 2. They may not lie or utter any untruth to do it though they may hide some truth by words which he is apt to mistake But if the world be governed by such hopes and fears of futurity it is hard to think whence they should fetch the object but from some divine revelation in nature 3. A whole course of Government of all the rational world by so sorry an instrument as deceit and falshood is more inconsistent with the nature and perfections of God than a particular act of deceit in a work of necessity and charity is with the nature of imperfect man The Minor is proved in the answer to the last objections and by the common experience of the world Obj. How little doth the hopes and fears of another world do with the most Do you not see that fleshly interest ruleth them and therefore they are what the Great ones would have them be who can help or hurt them Answ 1. I have proved how much worse it would be ◠that restraint which these hopes and fears make were taken off 2. That this restraint is general in all Nations almost of the earth though the prevalency of sin do much enfeeble it 3. That Rulers themselves are under some of these restraints in their Law-making and Judgement Though fleshly interest much prevail against it there are some remnants of secret hopes or fears in the consciences of sinners which keep up so much good as is yet left and keep men from those villanies in which they might hope to escape all sufferings from men § 7. VII If God himself kindle in the best of men desires to know him love him and enjoy him perfectly hereafter then such desires shall attain their end But God himself doth kindle such desires in the best of men Ergo And consequently there is such a Life to come Here 1. I must prove that the best men have such desires 2. That God kindleth them 3. That therefore he will satisfie them 1. And for the first the Consciences of all Good men are my witnesses whose desires to know God better to love him and please him more and to enjoy his Love is as the very pulse and breath of their souls For this they groan and pray and seek for this they labour wait and suffer If you could help them to more of the Knowledge and Love of God you would satisfie them more than to give them all the wealth and honours of the World Their Religious lives their labours prayers contemplations and sufferings prove all this and shew for what they long and live Obj. But this is caused by the power of a deluded fantasie which seeketh after that which is not to be had What if you fall in Love with the Sun Will it prove that you must be loved by it see it and enjoy it in the life to come Answ 1. To the similitude Either the Sun is a rational free Agent or not If it be it is either the chief Agent or a dependent Instrument If it were the first as it is not I should owe my self totally to it in the exercise of all the powers given me as is aforesaid And if it gave me such Desires I might suppose it was not in vain But if it give me nothing but as an Instrument or dependent Cause I owe it nothing but in subserviency to the first Cause But in such subserviency if God had commanded me to love and honour it as a Lover of Mankinde and a Rational Benefactor and had placed any of my duty or felicity in seeking perfection in that love and honour I should obey him and expect an answerable benefit But if it be no intelligent Agent or I cannot know that it is so then I can owe it no other respect but what is due to a natural Instrument of God 2. To the matter That these desires are not from a deluded fantasie but the work of God I prove 1. In that I have fully proved them already to be our Duty by the Law of Nature To love God with all the heart and might and consequently to desire to love him and please him and enjoy him in perfection that is in the utmost of our capacity is a proved duty 2. In that the Best men are the possessors of it And the more all other Virtues and Obedience do abound the more this aboundeth And the more any are vicious impious sensual worldly the less they have of these desires after God 3. They encrease in the use of holy means appointed by God and they decay by evil means All sin is against it and all obedience doth promote it 4. It is found most suitable to the tendency of our faculties as their only perfection The only true advancement of Reason
that no temporal punishment or reward can be too great for some crimes and for some atchievments Read but the Statute-books and this will be soon found And that the offences which are against the Infinite Majesty deserve incomparably sorer punishments than any against men as such is past all question As also that love and fidelity and duty to God is incomparably more laudable § 16. XVI If there were no life of retribution after this it would follow that man is more to be feared and obeyed than God and so hath the far greater and higher hand in the Moral Government of the world But the consequent is absurd and blasphemous Ergo so is the Antecedent The argument is clear and past all contradiction The reason of the Major or consequence is Because though God can destroy any wicked man at his pleasure yet all the world's experience sheweth us that ordinarily in this life he doth no such things If a strange judgment overtake some wicked man it is an unusual thing and next to a miracle And usually all things come alike to all the good and the bad die of the same disease the deceitful and the wicked prosper in the world as much as others if either suffer more usually it is the best Videtis quam prospera navigatio à Diis datur sacrilegis saith Dionysius Thunder-bolts strike so few that it is scarce rational much to fear them If one fall under some extraordinary judgement many hundred scape But on the other side Kings and States do ordinarily do execution on those that displease them and break their Laws The case of a Daniel is so rare that it would be no rule to direct a rational course by If the King should forbid me praying as he did Daniel or command me to worship his Image as he did the other three witnesses reason and self-preservation would require me to obey him for its ten to one but he would execute his wrath on me and its an hundred to one God would not deliver me here God suffered thirty or forty thousand to be murdered at once by the French Massacre under Charls 9. He suffered two hundred thousand to be murdered by the Irish Papists He suffered many to be burned in Queen Mary's days He suffered yet greater Havock to be made of the poor Waldenses and Alligenses He suffered most cruel inhumane torments and death upon thousands of innocent persons to change the new-planted Religion in Japan He therefore that careth for his life and peace will think it far safer to venture on the present executions of God than of his King or Enemy or any one that is strong enough to ruine him If I lived under the Turkish Empire and were commanded to deny Christ and to renounce my Baptism and to subscribe that my Baptismal Vow doth not oblige me or any way to lie or be perjur'd or sin against God self-preservation would bid me Venture on the sin for it is an hundred to one but God will spare thee and it is an hundred to one but that the Prince will punish and destroy thee if thou obey him not How few that knew there were no life to come would not rather venture to please a Tyrant or a Robber than God and more fear to displease them and would not by perjury or any commanded villany save himself from their fury and cruelty and would not study more to flatter and humour them than to obey their God And so Man should have the chief government of the world while Man's rewards and punishments were so much more notable than God's Man would be feared and obeyed before God that is Man would be taken for our God These things are clear undeniable truths If there were no life to come self-love and reason would make man more obedient to Man than God and so make Gods of flesh and bloud But whether this be the tendency of the Government of God let Reason judge § 17. XVII A very probable argument may be fetched from the number and quality of intellectual spirits He that looketh to the vast and numerous and glorious Orbs which are above him and thinks of the glorious receptacles of a more glorious sort of creatures and then considereth that we are intellectual agents made to love and honour God as well as they and considers further both the Benignity of God and the communion which those other Orbs have with us will think it probable that we are in progress towards perfection and that we that are so like them may be capable of their happiness § 18. XVIII If in this life God have little of the praise and glory of his works from those whom he created for it but contrarily be much dishonoured by them then there is another life in which he will be more honoured by them But the antecedent is true Ergo so is the consequent What a glorious fabrick hath God set man to contemplate and how little of it is here known so that Philosophy is found to be but a searching and wrangling about things which no man reacheth and yet an inquisitive desire we have And therefore sure there is a state in which these works of God shall be better known of us and God shall have the honour of them more than now His Laws also prescribe us excellent duties and his Servants are very excellent persons according to his own description But our infirmities our errors or divisions our miscarriages and scandals do so dishonour him and his ways that the glory of them is much obscured and blasphemers reproach him to his face and Godliness which the Law of Nature teacheth is derided as a foolish thing and as the meer effect of superstitious fear Now though all this doth no hurt to God yet he is capable of wrong who is uncapable of hurt And it is not to be believed that he will finally put up all this at his creatures hands and never vindicate his honour not never more shew the glory of his Grace his Image his Justice and Judgments than he now doth § 19. XIX The constant testimony of conscience in all men that have not mastered Reason by Sensuality and the common consent of all that are worthy to be called Men in all Ages and Countries upon earth doth shew that the life to come is a truth which is naturally revealed and most sure § 20. XX. The enemy of Souls doth against his will give man a four-fold reason to judge that there is a life of Reward and Punishment hereafter viz. 1. By Compacts with Witches 2. By Apparitions 3. By Satanical Possessions 4. By all kind of subtil importunate temptations which evidence themselves 1. Though some are very incredulous about Witches yet to a full enquiry the evidence is past question that multitudes of such there be Though many are wronged and some may be thought so foolish or melancholy as not to know what they say against themselves yet against such numerous
dishonour God and destroy the souls of men as well as their bodies 4. And lastly the Temptations and suggestions of Satan yea and oft his external contrived snares are such as frequently give men a palpable discovery of his agency that there is indeed some evil Spirit that doth all this to the hurt of Souls Were there no such Tempter it were scarce credible that such horrid inhumane Villanies should ever be perpetrated by a rational Nature as Histories credibly report and as in this Age our eyes have seen That men should ever even against their own apparent interest be carryed on obstinately to the last in a wilfull course of such sins as seem to have little or nothing to invite men to them but a delight in doing hurt and mischief in the World Whence is it that some men feel such violent importunate suggestions to evil in their mindes that they have no rest from them but which way soever they goe they are haunted with them till they have committed it and then haunted as much to hang themselves in desperation Whence is it that all opportunities are so strangely fitted to a sinners turn to accommodate him in his desires and designs And that such wonderfull successive trains of impediments are set in the way of almost any man that intendeth any great good work in the World I have among men of my own acquaintance observed such admirable frustrations of many designed excellent works by such strange unexpected means and such variety of them and so powerfully carryed on as hath of it self convinced me that there is a most vehement invisible malice permitted by God to resist Mankinde and to militate against all Good in the World Let a man have any evil design and he may carry it on usually with less resistance Let him have any work of greatest Natural importance which tendeth to no great benefit to Mankinde and he may go on with it without any extraordinary impedition But let him have any great design for Common good in things that tend to destroying sin to heal divisions to revive Charity to increase Virtue to save mens Souls yea or to the publick common felicity and his impediments shall be so multifarious so far fetcht so subtile incessant and in despight of all his care and resolution usually so successfull that he shall seem to himself to be like a man that is held fast hand and foot while he seeth no one touch him or that seeth an hundred blocks brought and cast before him in his way while he seeth no one do it Yea and usually the greatest attempts to do good shall turn to the clean contrary even to destroy the good which was intended and drive it much further off How many Countreys Cities Churches Families who have set themselves upon some great Reformation have at first seen no difficulties almost in their way And when they have attempted it they have been like a man that is wrestling with a Spirit Though he see not what it is that holdeth him when he hath long swear and chafed and tired himself he is fain to give over yea leave behind him some odious scandal or terrible example to frighten all others from ever medling with the like again I have known that done which men call a Miracle a sudden deliverance in an hour from the most strange and terrible Disease while by Fasting and Prayer men were present begging the deliverance And presently the Devil hath drawn the persons in such a scandalous sin that God had none of the honour of the deliverance nor could any for shame make mention of it but it turned to the greater dishonour of piety and prayer though the wonder was past doubt I have known men wonderfully enlightened and delivered from courses of Error and Schisme and being men of extraordinary worth and parts have been very like to have proved the recovery of abundance more And they have been so unresistibly carryed into some particular Errors on the contrary extream that all the hopes of their doing good hath turned to the hardening of others in their Schism while they saw those Errors and judg'd accordingly of all the reasons of their change But especially to hinder the successes of godly Magistrates and Ministers in their reformings and their Writings for the winning of Souls it were endless to shew the strange unexpected difficulties which occurre and lamentably frustrate the most laudable attempts Nay I have known divers men that have had resolute designs but to build an Alms-house or a School-house or to settle some publick charitable work that when all things seemed ready and no difficulty appeared have been hindered in despight of the best of their endeavours all their dayes or many years Yea men that purposed but to put it in their Wills to do some considerable work of Charity have been so delayed hindered and disappointed that they were never able to effect their ends By all which it is very perceivable to an observing minde that there is a working invisible Enemy still seeking to destroy all Godliness and to hinder Mens salvation Perhaps you will say that if this be so you make the Devil to be stronger than God and to be the Governour of the World or to be more in hatred to goodness than God is in love with it I answer No but it appeareth that his Enmity to it is implacable and that he militateth against God and mans felicity and that sin hath so far brought this lower World under Gods displeasure that he hath in a great measure forsaken it and left it to the will of Satan Yet hath he his holy seed and Kingdom here and the purposes of his Grace shall never be frustrated nor the Gates of Hell prevail against his Church And if he may forsake Hell totally as to his felicitating presence he may also penally forsake Earth as to the greater number whilest for ought we know he may have thousands of Orbs of better Inhabitants which have not so forfeited his love nor are not so forsaken by him I have been the larger in proving a Life to come of Retribution to the good and bad because all Religion doth depend upon it and I have my self been more assaulted with Temptations to doubt of this than of Christianity it self though this have more of Natural Evidence And I have set down nothing that I am able rationally to confute my self though every Truth is liable to some snarling exceptions of half-witted and contentious men No man that confesseth a Life to come can question the necessity of a Holy Life But I have thought meet first to prove that a Holy Life is our unquestionable duty as the prius cognitum and thence to prove the certainty of the future state For indeed though God hath not hid from us the matter of our Reward and Punishment Hopes and Fears yet hath he made our Duty plainer in the main and proposed it first to our knowledge and
leave him under the deserved privation of well-being depriving him of all other Mercies This is undeniable that it is in God's choice whether he will take away his Being it self or only all the Mercies which are necessary to his well-being for he that had nothing before but by free gift may be deprived of any thing which was none of his own if he forfeit it by abuse Nay we live upon such a continued emanation from God as the beams from the Sun that it is but God's stopping of his streams of bounty and we perish without any other taking away of mercies from us § 17. Nature teacheth men to choose a great deal of tollerable pain and misery rather than not be at all even so much as will not utterly weigh down the love of life and of vital operations I say not as some that the greatest torment or misery is more eligible or less odious than annihilation But it is certain that a great deal is We see abundance how ever the Roman and Greek Philosophers scorned it as baseness who are blind or lame or in grievous pains of the Gout and Stone and many that are in miserable poverty begging their bread or toiling from morning to night like horses and yet seldom taste a pleasant bit but joyn distracting cares with labours and yet they are all unwilling to die Custom hath made their misery tollerable and they had rather continue so for ever than be annihilated If then God may annihilate even the innocent supposing he had not promised the contrary then may he lay all that pain and care and labour on them which they would themselves prefer before annihilation For it s no wrong to one that hath his reason and liberty to give him his own choice § 18. It is just with God to lay more misery on a sinner than on one that never deserved ill and to lay more on him for his sin than he would choose himself before annihilation Whether God may without injustice inflict more misery on the innocent than he would himself prefer before annihilation some make a question and deny it For my part I see no great difficulty in the question But it is nothing to that which I am proving it is not God's usage of the innocent but of the guilty which we are speaking of and that he may make them more miserable who deserve it than his bounty made them before any guilt or than a just man would choose to be rather than be annihilated I see no reason at all to doubt Penalty is involuntary and no man ever said that it was unjust to lay more upon a malefactor than he himself was willing of and would choose before a condition which without his fault he might have been put into So then we have already proved 1. That God may punish a man everlastingly 2. And with a greater penalty than annihilation § 19. God may leave a sinner his being and in particular deprive him of his favour and all the joys and blessedness which he refused by his sinning § 20. And he may justly withal deny him those corporal mercies meat drink honour pleasure health ease c. which he over-valued and abused and preferred before God and greater blessings All this I think no man doth deny that acknowledgeth a God § 21. He that is continued in his natural being and is deprived of God's favour and of his future happiness for ever and understandeth what it is that he hath lost and is also deprived of all those natural benefits which he desired must needs be under continual pain of sense as well as of loss for all this want must needs be felt § 22. He that in all this misery of loss and sense doth remember how it was that he came to it and how base a thing he preferred before his God and his felicity and for how vile a price he sold his hopes of the life to come and how odiously he abused God by sin as it is before described cannot choose but have a continual torment of conscience and heart-gnawing repentance in himself § 23. He that is under utter despair of ever coming out of this condition will thereby have his torment yet more encreased All these are natural undeniable consequents § 24. A Body united to so miserable a self-tormenting forsaken Soul cannot have any peace and quietness seeing it is the Soul by which the body liveth and hath its chiefest peace or pains § 25. Thus sin doth both as a Natural and as a Moral Meritorious cause bring on dissatisfaction grief vexation desertion by God and privation of felicity and peace § 26. For as long as a sinner is impenitent and unsanctified that is loveth not God as God nor is recovered from his carnal mind and sin it is both morally and naturally impossible that he should be blessed or enjoy God For as it is only God that efficiently can make happy because nothing worketh but by him and so sin meritoriously undoeth the sinner by making him unfit for favour and making him an object of displicence and justice so it is only God that finally can make happy all things being but Means to him and unfit of themselves to give Rest to the inquisitive seeking mind And God is enjoyed only by Love and the sense of His Love and Goodness therefore the soul that loveth not God and is not suited to the delightful fruition of him can no more enjoy him than a blind man can enjoy the light or an ox can feast with a man § 27. He that is under this punishment and despair will be yet further removed from the love of God and so from all capacity of happiness for he cannot love a God who he knoweth will for ever by penal justice make him miserable He that would not love a God who aboundeth in mercy to him in the day of mercy will never love him when he seeth that he is his enemy and hath shut him for ever out of Mercy and out of Hope § 28. God is not bound to sanctifie the mind and will of such a self-destroying sinner who hath turned away himself from God and Happiness And without a renewed Mind it is morally and unnaturally impossible that he should be happy He that would not use the Mercy that would have saved him in the day of mercy cannot require another life of mercy and trial when this is lost and cast away nor can require the further helps of grace § 29. If sin as sin have all the malignity and demerit before proved much more the aggravated sins of many and most of all a life of wickedness which is spent in enmity against God and Godliness and in a course of sensuality and rebellion with the obstinate impenitent rejecting of all the counsel calls and mercies which would reclaim the sinner and this to the last breath It hath before been manifested that all wilful sin hath this malignity in
Sin is their sickness and corrupteth their appetites and though it have its proper pleasure it depriveth them of the pleasures and benefits of health § 16. These vices also so deprave sometimes making every wicked man to be principally for HIMSELF and for his LVSTS that they are commonly distracted with envy malice contention persecutions the fruits of Pride and Covetousness and sensuality and these diseases are still troubling them till they work their ruine where they do prevail § 17. The same vices set Kingdoms and other Common-wealths together in bloody Warrs and cause men to study to destroy one another and glory in the success and fill the World with rapine and violence by Sea and Land and make it seem as necessary to their own preservation to kill one another as their enemies as to kill Toads and Serpents Wolves and Tygers and much more and with much more care and cost and industry is it done § 18. If any wise and charitable persons would heal these vices and reconcile these contentions and perswade persons and Nations to a holy sober peaceable course they are commonly hated and persecuted they seldom succeed nor can their counsel be heard through the multitude and fury of the vicious whose folly and violence beareth down all § 19. And God himself doth give the sinfull World a taste of his displeasure by painfull sicknesses consuming Plagues Famines Poverty and many the like Calamities which fall upon mankinde § 20. But his sorest Judgements are the forsaking of Mens souls and leaving them in all this folly and disorder this sin and misery to destroy themselves The principal Mercies and Punishments of this Life are found on the Souls of men themselves The greatest present Reward of Obedience is when God doth more illuminate the mind and send in more of his celestial beams and shed abroad his Love upon the heart and fill it with the Love of Goodness and delight it in himself and confirm the will against temptations And the greatest punishment is when God in displeasure for mens disobedience doth withdraw this grace and leave men to themselves that they that love not his grace should be without it and follow their foolish self-destroying lusts § 21. God cannot pardon an uncapable subject nor any but on terms consistent with the honour of his Justice Laws and Government Nor is there any that can deliver a sinner from his punishment upon any other terms whatsoever § 22. The conclusion is that the sin and misery of Mankinde in Generall is great and lamentable and their recovery a work of exceeding difficulty Obj. All this sheweth that mans Nature was not made for a Holy life nor for a World to come Else their aversness to it would not be so great and common Answ This is fully answered before It is proved that Nature and Reason do fully bear witness against his wickedness and declare his obligations to a better life and his capacity of higher things and that all this is his rebellion against Nature and Reason And it no more proveth your Conclusion than your Children or Servants aversness to obedience peace and labour proveth that these are not their duty or Subjects rebellion proveth that they are not obliged to be loyal Obj. But it is incredible that God should thus far forsake his own Creation Answ 1. There is no disputing against the light of the Sun and the experience of all the World It is a thing visible and undenyable that this case they are de facto in and therefore that thus farr they are forsaken It is no Wisdom to say that is not which all the World seeth to be so because we think it unmeet that it should be so 2. Is it incredible that God doth further than this forsake the wicked in the World of punishment If he may further forsake Hell he may thus far forsake Earth upon their great provocations We have no certainty of it but it is not at all unlikely that the innumerable fixed Starrs and Planets are inhabited Orbs who have dwellers answerable to their nature and preeminence And if God do totally forsake Hell as to his Mercy and next to Hell do much forsake a sinfull Earth that is likest and neerest unto Hell and do glorifie his more abundant Mercy upon the more holy and happy inhabitants of all or almost all the other Orbs what matter of discontent should this be to us 3. But God hath not left even this dark and wicked Earth it self without all remedy as shall be further shewed Read Cicero's third Book de Nat. Deor. and you will see in Cotta's speech that the notoriously depraved Reason of man and the prevalency and prosperity of wickedness was the great argument of the Atheists against God and Providence which they thought unanswerable because they looked no further than this life and did not foresee the time of full universal Justice And whereas Cotta saith that if there be a God he should have made most men good and prevented all the evil in the World and not only punish men when it is done I shall answer that among the objections in the Second Tome and I before shewed how little reason men have to expect that God should make every man as good as he could make him or make man indefectible or to argue from mans sin against Gods goodness The free Creator Lord and Benefactor may vary his creatures and benefits as he seeth meet and may be proved good though he make not man Angelical and though he permit his sin and punish him for sinning CHAP. XVII What Natural Light declareth of the Mercy of God to Sinners and of the Means and Hopes of Mans Recovery § 1. NOtwithstanding all this forementioned sin and guilt and misery of man and Justice of God Experience assureth all the Earth that Great Mercy is still continued to them and that they have to do with a Most Merciful God Mens Lives are continued even while they sin Patience endureth them Time is vouchsafed them Food and rayment and Friends and Habitations and health and ease and liberty is given them The Sun sendeth them its moving influence its Light and Heat The Earth supporteth them and affordeth them fruit and maintenance and pleasure The Clouds yield them rain the Air breath and the Sea it self is not unkind and incommodious to them Beasts Birds and Fishes and all inferiour Creatures serve them And yet much more mercy they receive from God § 2. It is therefore manifest that God dealeth not with the sinfull World according to the utmost rigor of Justice nor punisheth them as much as they deserve For all these Mercies they have forfeited and deserved to be deprived of them Obj. But it is no mercy which hardeneth them in sin and endeth in misery It is rather a punishment as to give cold water to a man in a Feaver Answ 1. If it hardened them of
its own nature and not meerly by their abuse and if it ended in misery by the designment of the Giver and the tendency of the gift then were it as you say no mercy but a Plague But it is Mercy which in its nature and by the Donors will hath a fitness and tendency to mens recovery and to prevent their misery and they are commanded and intreated accordingly to use it and are warned of the danger of abuse Obj. But God knoweth when he giveth it them that they will so abuse it Answ Gods fore-knowledge or Omniscience is his perfection and will you argue from thence against his Mercy His foreknowledge of mens sin and misery causeth them not What if he foreknew them not Were it any praise to him to be ignorant And yet the Mercy would be but the same If you will not be reconciled to Gods wayes till he cease to be Omniscient or till he prevent all the sin and misery which he foreknoweth you will perish in your enmity and he will easily justifie his mercy against such accusations Obj. But God could give men so much more grace as to prevent mens sin and misery if he would Answ True he is not unable And so he could make every clod a tree and every tree a beast and every beast a man and every man an Angel as I said before but must he therefore do it Here note that it is one thing to say of any Punishment This is so deserved that God may inflict it if he please without Injustice yea and thereby demonstrate his Justice and another thing to say This is so due that God must or will inflict it if he will be just unless a compensation be made to Justice It is of the first sort that I am now speaking For God may have variety of times and measures and kinds of Punishments which he may use at his own choice and yet not leave the sin unpunished finally But whether he properly dispense with any Law which is determinate as to the penalty I am not now to speak it being not pertinent to this place and subject § 3. Therefore God doth in some sort and measure pardon sin to the generality of mankinde while he remitteth some measure of the deserved punishment To remit or forgive the Punishment is so far to forgive the sin for forgiveness as to execution is but non punire proceeding from commiseration or mercy And it is certain by all the Mercy bestowed on them that God remitteth something of the punishment which in Law and Justice he might inflict Though this be not a total pardon it is not therefore none at all § 4. The Goodness of Gods Nature with this universal Experience of the World possesseth all mens minds with this apprehension of God that he is gracious mercifull long-suffering and ready to forgive a capable subject upon terms consistent with his truth and honour and the common good It s true that self-love and self-flattery doth cause men to think of the Mercy of God as indulgent to their lusts and suitable to their fleshly desires and therefore their conceits are none of the measure of his mercy But yet it may be perceived that this foresaid conception of God as Mercifull and ready to forgive a capable subject is warranted by the soberest Reason and is not bred by sin and error For the wise and better and less sinfull any is the more he is inclined to such thoughts of God as of a part of his Perfection § 5. This apprehension is increased in Mankinde by Gods obliging us to forgive one another For though it doth not follow that God must forgive all that which he bindeth us to forgive for the Reasons before expressed Yet we must believe that the Laws of God proceed from that Wisdom and Goodness which is his Perfection and that they bear the Image of them and that the obeying of them tendeth to form us more to his Image our selves and to make us Holy as he is Holy And therefore that this Command of God to Man to be mercifull and forgive doth intimate to us that mercy and forgiveness are agreeable and pleasing unto God § 6. God cannot cast away from his Love and from Felicity any soul which truly loveth Him above all and which so repenteth of his sin as to turn to God in Holiness of Heart and Life Here seemeth to arise before us a considerable difficulty That God can finde in his heart to damn one that truly loveth him and is sanctified is incredible Because 1. then Gods own Image should be in Hell and a Saint be damned 2. Because then the Creature should be readyer to love God than God to love him 3. Then a Soul in Hell should have holy desires Prayers Praises and other acts of Love 4. And a Soul capable of the glorifying mercy of God should miss of it This therefore is not to be believed For God cannot but take complacency in them that love him and bear his Image And those will be happy that God taketh complacency in And yet on the other side Do not the sins of them that love God deserve death and misery according to his Law And might he not inflict that on men which they deserve Doth not Justice require punishment on them that yet sin not away the Love of God nor a state of Holiness To this some answer that all those that consist with Love and Holiness are Venial sins which deserve only temporal chastisement and not perpetual misery I rather answer 1. That all sin considered in it self abstracted from the Cause which counterballanceth it and procureth pardoning mercy doth deserve perpetual misery and therefore so do the sins of the Best in themselves considered But that Grace which causeth their Sanctification and their Love to God doth conjunctly cause the pardon of their sins so that God will not deal with such as in rigour they deserve 2. And if the sin of any that Love God should provoke him to cast them into Hell it followeth not that one that loveth God in sensu composito should be damned For God hath an Order in his Punishments And first he would withdraw his Grace from such a one and leave him to himself and then he will no longer Love God and so it is not a Lover of God that would be damned § 7. The sinfull World is not so farr forsaken of God as to be shut up under desperation and utter impossibility of recovery and salvation For if that were so they were not in Via or under an obligation to use any means or accept of any mercy in order to their recovery nor could they rationally do it or be perswaded to it There is no means to be used where there is no end to be attained and no hope of success § 8. The light of Nature and the foresaid dealings of God with men continuing them under his Government in
in its proper evidence is very hard to them that have no more than the light of nature Obj. But what difficulty is there in these few precepts that all men may not easily learn them Thou shalt love God above all and repent of sin and set thy heart upon the Life to come and love thy neighbour as thy self c. Answ There is no difficulty in learning these words But 1. There is great difficulty in learning to understand the sense and certain truth of that which is contained in them To know what God is so far as is necessary to our obedience and love and to know what it is in him which is so amiable and to know that there is a Life to come and what it is and to know what is God's will and so what is duty and what is the sin which we must repent of these are more difficult Generals are soon named but it is a particular understanding which is necessary to practice 2. And it is hard to see that certainty and attractive Goodness in these things as may draw the mind to the practical embracements of them from the love of other things An obscure doubtful wavering apprehension is not strong enough to change the heart and life § 4. These difficulties in the meer natural way of Revelation will fill the learned world with controversies and those controversies will breed and feed contentions and eat out the heart of practical godliness and make all Religion seem an uncertain or unnecessary thing This is undoubtedly proved 1. In the reason of the thing 2. And in all the worlds experience so numerous were the controversies among Philosophers so various their Sects so common their contentions that the world despised them and all Religion for their sakes and look'd on most of them but as Mountebanks that set up for gain or to get Disciples or to shew their wit Practical piety died in their hands Obj. This is a consequent not to be avoided because no way hath so resolved difficulties as to put an end to controversies and sects Answ Certainly clearness is more desirable than obscurity and concord and unity than division Therefore it concerneth us to enquire how this mischief may be amended which is it that I am now about § 5. These difficulties also make it so long a work to learn God's will by the light of Nature only that the time of their youth and oft of their lives is slipt away before men can come to know why they lived It is true that it is their own fault that causeth all these inconveniencies but it s as true that their disease doth need a cure for which it concerneth them to seek out The life of man is held upon a constant uncertainty and no man is sure to live another year and therefore we have need of precepts so plain as may be easily and quickly learnt that we may be always ready if death shall call us to an account I confess that what I have transcribed from nature is very plain there to one that already understandeth it but whether the diseased blindness of the world do not need yet something plainer let experience determine § 6. That which would be sufficient for a sound understanding and will is not sufficient to a darkned diseased mind and heart such as experience telleth us is found throughout the world To true reason which is at liberty and not enthralled by sensuality and error the light of nature might have a sufficiency to lead men up to the love of God and a life of holiness But experience telleth us that the reason of the world is darkned and captivated by sensuality and that few men can well use their own faculties And such eyes need spectacles such criples need crutches yea such diseases call for a Physician Prove once that the world is not diseased and then we will confess that their natural food may serve the turn without any other diet or Physick § 7. When I have by natural Reason silenced all my doubts about the Life to come I yet find in my self an uncouth unsatisfactory kind of apprehension of my future state till I look to supernatural evidence which I perceive is from a double cause 1. Because a Soul in flesh would fain have such apprehension as participateth of sense 2. And we are so conscious of our ignorance that we are apt still to suspect our own understandings even when we have nothing to say against the conclusion What I have said in the first part of this Book doth so fully satisfie my Reason as that I have nothing to say against it which I cannot easily discern to be unsound and yet for all that when I think of another world by the help of this natural light alone I am rather amazed than satisfi'd and am ready to think All this seemeth true and I have nothing of weight to say against it but alas how poor and uncertain a thing is man's understanding how many are deceived in things that seem as undeniable to them How know I what one particular may be unseen by me which would change my judgment and better inform me in all the rest If I could but see the world which I believe or at least but speak with one who had been there or gave me sensible evidence of his veracity it would much confirm me Sense hath got so much mastery in the Soul that we have much ado to take any apprehension for sure and satisfactory which hath not some great correspondency with sense This is not well But it is a disease which sheweth the need of a Physician and of some other satisfying light § 8. While we are thus scopt in our way by tediousness difficulty and a subjective uncertainty about the end and duty of man the flesh is still active and sin encreaseth and gets advantage and present things are still in their deceiving power and so the Soul groweth worse and worse § 9. The Soul being thus vitiated and perverted by sin is so partial slothful negligent unwilling superficial deceitful and â—usâ—dâ—n in its studies that if the evidences of life everlasting besâ— and clear and satisfying to others it will over-look them or not perceive their certainty § 10. Though it be most evident by common experience that the nature of man is lamentably depraved and that sin doth over-spread the world yet how it entred and when or which of our progenitors was the first transgressor and cause no natural light doth fully or satisfactorily acquaint me § 11. And though Nature tell me that God cannot damn or hate a Soul that truly loveth him and is sanctified yet doth it not shew me a means that is likely considerably to prevail to sanctifie Souls and turn them from the love of present transitory things to the love of God and Life eternal Though there be in nature the discovery of sufficient Reasons and Motives to do it where Reason is not
in captivity yet how unlikely they are to prevail with others both Reason and Experience fully testifie § 12. And whereas God's special mercy and grace is necessary to so great a change and cure and this grace is forfeited by sin and every sin deserveth more punishment and this sin and punishment must be so far forgiven before God can give us that grace which we have forfeited Nature doth not satisfactorily teach me how God is so far reconciled to Man nor how the forgiveness of sin may be by us so far procured § 13. And where as I see at once in the world both the aâ—oâ—ing of sin which deserveth damnation and the abounding of mercy to these that are under such deserts I am not satisfi'd by the halt of Nature how God is so far reconciled and the ends of Government and Justice attained as to deal with the world so contrary to its deserts § 14. And while I am in this doubt of God's reconciliation I am ready still to fear list present forbearance and mercy â—rt aâ—iâ—val and will end at last in greater misery However I find it hard if not impossible to come to any certainty of 〈◊〉 pardon and salvation § 15. And while I am thus uncertain of pardon and the love of God it must needs make it an insuperable difficulty to me to love God above my self and all things for to love a God that I think will damn me or most probably may do it for ought I know is a thing that man can hardly do § 16. And therefore I cannot see how the guilty world can be sanctifi'd nor brought to forsake the sin and vanities which they love as long as God whom they must turn to by love doth seem so unlovely to them § 17. And every temptation from present pleasure commodity or honour will be like to prevail while the love of God and the happiness to come are so dark and doubtful to guilty misgiving ignorant Souls § 18. Nor can I see by Nature how a sinner can live comfortably in the world for want of clearer assurance of his future happiness For if he do but say as poor Seneca Cicero and others such Its most like that there is another life for us but we are not sure it will both abate their comfort in the fore-thoughts of it and tempt them to venture upon present pleasure for fear of losing all And if they were never so confident of the life to come and had no assurance of their own part in it as not knowing whether their sins be pardoned still their comfort in it would be small And the world can give them no more than is proportionable to so small and momentany a thing § 19. Nor do I see in Nature any full and suitable support against the pain and fears of sufferings and death while men doubt of that which should support them § 20. I must therefore conclude that the Light and Law of Nature which was suitable to uncorrupted reason and will and to an undepraved mind is too insufficient to the corrupted vitiated guilty world and that there is a necessity of some recovering medicinal Revelation Which forced the very Heathens to fly to Oracles Idols Sacrifices and Religious Propitiations of the gods there being scarce any Nation which had not some such thing though they used them not only uneffectually but to the increase of their sin and strengthning their presumption as too many poor ignorant Christians now do their Masses and other such formalities and superstitions But as Arnobius saith adv Gentes l. 7. Crescit enim multitudo peccantium cum redimendi peccati spes datur facile itur ad culpas ubi est venalis ignoscentium gratia He that hopeth to purchase forgiveness with mony or sacrifices or ways of cost will strive rather to be rich than to be innocent CHAP. II. Of the several Religions which are in the world HAving finished my enquiries into the state and book of Nature I found it my duty to enquire what other men thought in the world and what were the reasons of their several beliefs that if they knew more than I had discovered by what means soever I might become partaker of it § 1. And first I find that all the world except those called Heathens are conscious of the necessity of supernatural Revelation yea the Heathens themselves have some common apprehension of it § 2. Four sorts of Religions I find only considerable upon earth The meer Naturalists called commonly Heathens and Idolaters The Jews The Mahometans and the Christians The Heathens by their Oracles Augures and Aruspices confess the necessity of some supernatural light and the very Religion of all the rest consisteth in it I. § 3. As for the Heathens I find this much good among them That some of them have had a very great care of their Souls and many have used exceeding industry in seeking after knowledge especially in the mysteries of the works of God and some of them have bent their minds higher to know God and the invisible worlds That they commonly thought that there is a Life of Retribution after death and among the wisest of them the summe of that is to be found though confusedly which I have laid down in the first Part of this Book Especially in Seneca Cicero Plutarch Plato Plotinus Jamblicus Proclus Porphyry Julian the Apostate Antoninus Epectetus Arrian c. And for their Learning and Wisdom and Moral Virtues the Christian Bishops carried themselves respectfully to many of them as Basil to Libanius c. And in their days many of their Philosophers were honoured by the Christian Emperours or at least by the inferiour Magistrates and Christian people who judged that so great worth deserved honour and that the confession of so much Truth deserved answerable love especially Aedesius Julianus Cappadox Proaeresius Maximus Libanius Acacius Chrysanthus c. And the Christians ever since have made great use of their Writings in their Schools especially of Aristotle's and Plato's with their followers § 4. And I find that the Idolatry of the wisest of them was not so foolish as that of the Vulgar but they thought that the Vniverse was one animated world and that the Vniversal Soul was the only Absolute Sovereign God whom they described much like as Christians do and that the Sun and Stars and Earth and each particular Orb was an individual Animal part of the Vniversal world and besides the Vniversal had each one a subordinate particular Soul which they worshipped as a subordinate particular Deity as some Christians do the Angels And their Images they set up for such representations by which they thought these gods delighted to be remembred and instrumentally to exercise their virtues for the help of earthly mortals § 5. I find that except these Philosophers and very few more the generality of the Heathens were and are foolish Idolaters and ignorant sensual brutish men At this day through the
must be embraced And there is no doubt but God hath made use of Mahumet as a great Scourge to the Idolaters of the World as well as to the Christians who had abused their sacred priviledges and blessings Whereever his Religion doth prevail he casteth down Images and filleth mens mindes with a hatred of Idols and all conceit of multitude of Gods and bringeth men to worship one God alone and doth that by the sword in this which the preaching of the Gospel had not done in many obstinate Nations of Idolaters § 12. But withall I finde a Man exalted as the chief of Prophets without any such proof as a wise man should be moved with and an Alcoran written by him below the rates of common Reason being a Rhapsody of Nonsence and Confesion and many false and impious doctrines introduced and a tyrannical Empire and Religion twisted and both erected propagated and maintained by irrational tyrannical means As which discharge my reason from the entertainment of this Religion 1. That Mahomet was so great or any Prophet is neither confirmed by any true credible Miracle nor by any eminency of Wisdom or Holiness in which he excelled other men nor any thing else which Reason can judge to be a Divine attestation The contrary is sufficiently apparent in the irrationality of his Alcoran There is no true Learning nor excellency in it but such as might be expected among men of the more incult wits and barbarous education There is nothing delivered methodically or rationally with any evidence of solid understanding There is nothing but the most nauseous repetition an hundred times over of many simple incoherent speeches in the dialect of a drunken man sometimes against Idolaters and sometimes against Christians for calling Christ God which all set together seem not to contain in the whole Alcoran so much solid usefull sense and reason as one leaf of some of those Philosophers whom he opposeth however his time had delivered him from their Idolatry and caused him more to approach the Christian Faith 2. And who can think it any probable sign that he is the Prophet of truth whose Kingdom is of this World erected by the Sword who barbarously suppresseth all rational enquiry into his doctrine and all disputes against it all true Learning and rational helps to advance and improve the Intellect of man and who teacheth men to fight and kill for their Religion Certainly the Kingdom of darkness is not the Kingdom of God but of the Devil And the friend of Ignorance is no Friend to Truth to God nor to mankinde And it is a sign of a bad Cause that it cannot endure the light If it be of God why dare they not soberly prove it to us and hear what we have to object against it that Truth by the search may have the Victory If Beasts had a Religion it would be such as this 3. Moreover they have doctrines of Polygamy and of a sensual kinde of Heaven and of murdering men to increase their Kingdoms and many the like which being contrary to the light of Nature and unto certain common Truths do prove that the Prophet and his doctrine are not of God 4. And his full attestation to Moses and Christ as the true Prophets of God doth prove himself a false Prophet who so much contradicteth them and rageth against Christians as a blood-thirsty Enemy when he hath given so full a testimony to Christ The particulars of which I shall shew anon CHAP. III. Of the CHRISTIAN RELIGION and First What it is § 1. IV. THE last sort of Religion to be enquired into is CHRISTIANITY in which by the Providence of God I was educated and at first received it by a humane Faith upon the word and reverence of my Parents and Teachers being unable in my Childhood rationally to try its grounds and evidences I shall declare to the Reader just in what Order I have received the Christian Religion that the Inquisition being the more clear and particular the satisfaction may be the greater And it being primarily for my own use that I draw up these Papers I finde it convenient to remember what is past and to insert the transcript of my own experiences that I may fully try whether I have gone rationally and faithfully to work or not I confess that I took my Religion at first upon my Parents word And who could expect that in my Childhood I should be able to prove its grounds But whether God owned that method of Reception by any of his inward light and operations and whether the efficacy of the smallest beams be any proof of the truth of the Christian Faith I leave to the Reader and shall my self only declare the naked history in truth § 2. In this Religion received defectively both as to Matter and Grounds I found a Power even in my Childhood to awe my Soul and check my sin and folly and make me carefull of my salvation and to make me love and honour true wisdom and holiness of life § 3. But when I grew up to fuller use of Reason and more distinctly understood what I had generally and darkly received the power of it did more surprize my minde and bring me to deeper consideration of spiritual and everlasting things It humbled me in the sense of my sin and its deserts and made me think more sensibly of a Saviour It resolved me for more exact Obedience to God and increased my love to God and increased my love to persons and things sermons writings prayers conference which relished of plain resolved Godliness § 4. In all this time I never doubted of the Truth of this Religion partly retaining my first humane Belief and partly awed and convinced by the intrinsick evidence of its proper subject end and manner and being taken up about the humbling and reforming study of my self § 5. At last having for many years laboured to compose my mind and life to the Principles of this Religion I grew up to see more difficulties in it than I saw before And partly by temptations and partly by an inquisitive mind which was wounded with uncertainties and could not contemptuosly or carelesly cast off the doubts which I was not able to resolve I resumed afresh the whole inquiry and resolved to make as faithfull a search into the nature and grounds of this Religion as if I had never been baptized into it The first thing I studyed was the Matter of Christianity What it is and the next was the evidence and certainty of it of which I shall speak distinctly § 6. The Christian Religion is to be considered 1. In its self as delivered by God 2. In its Reception and Practice by men professing it In its self it is Perfect but not so easily discernable by a stranger In the Practisers it is imperfect here in this life but more discernable by men that cannot so quickly understand the Principles and more forcibly constraineth
among themselves who are his disciples How to mortifie sin and to contemn the wealth and honours of the world and to deny the flesh its hurtful desires and lusts and how to suffer any thing that we shall be called to for obedience to God and the hopes of Heaven To tell us what shall be after death how all men shall be judged and what shall become both of soul and body to everlasting But his great work was by the great demonstrations of the Goodness and Love of God to lost mankind in their free pardon and offered salvation to win up mens hearts to the love of God and to raise their hopes and desires up to that blessed life where they shall see his glory and love him and be beloved by him for ever At last when he had finished the work of his ministration in the flesh he told his Disciples of his approaching Suffering and Resurrection and instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Bloud in Bread and Wine which he commandeth them to use for the renewing of their covenant with him and remembrance of him and for the maintaining and signifying their communion with him and with each other After this his time being come the Jews apprehended him and though upon a word of his mouth to shew his power they fell all to the ground yet did they rise again and lay hands on him and brought him before Pilate the Roman Governour and vehemently urged him to crucifie him contrary to his own mind and conscience They accused him of blasphemy for saying he was the Son of God and of impiety for saying Destroy this Temple and in three days I will re-build it he meant his Body and of treason against Caesar for calling himself a King though he told them that his Kingdom was not worldly but spiritual Hereupon they condemned him and clothed him in purple like a King in scorn and set a Crown of thorns on his head and put a Reed for a Scepter into his hand and led him about to be a derision They cover'd his eyes and smote him and buffeted him and bid him tell who strake him At last they nailed him upon a Cross and put him to open shame and death betwixt two Malefactors of whom one of them reviled him and the other believed on him they gave him gall and vinegar to drink The Souldiers pierced his side with a Spear when he was dead All his Disciples forsook him and fled Peter having before denied thrice that ever he knew him when he was in danger When he was dead the earth trembled the rocks and the vail of the Temple rent and darkness was upon the earth though their was no natural Eclipse which made the Captain of the Souldiers say Verily this was the Son of God When he was taken down from the Cross and laid in a stone-Sepulchre they set a guard of Souldiers to watch the grave having a stone upon it which they sealed because he had fore-told them that he would rise again On the morning of the third day being the first day of the week an Angel terrified the Souldiers and rolled away the stone and sate upon it and when his Disciples came they found that Jesus was not there And the Angel told them that he was risen and would appear to them Accordingly he oft appeared to them sometimes as they walked by the way and once as they were fishing but usually when they were assembled together Thomas who was one of them being absent at his first appearance to the rest told them he would not believe it unless he saw the print of the nails and might put his finger into his wounded side The next first day of the week when they were assembled Jesus appeared to them the doors being shut and called Thomas and bad him put his fingers into his side and view the prints of the nails in his hands and feet and not be faithless but believing After this he oft appeared to them and once to above five hundred brethren at once He earnestly prest Peter to shew the love that he bare to himself by the feeding of his flock He instructed his Apostles in the matters of their employment He gave them Commission to go into all the world and preach the Gospel and gave them the tenour of the New Covenant of Grace and made them the Rulers of his Church requiring them by Baptism solemnly to enter all into his Covenant who consent to the terms of it and to assure them of pardon by his Blood and of salvation if they persevere He required them to teach his Disciples to observe all things which he had commanded them and promised them that he would be with them by his Spirit and grace and powerful defence to the end of the world And when he had been seen of them forty days speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God being assembled with them he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem but wait till the holy Spirit came down upon them which he had promised them But they being tainted with some of the worldly expectations of the Jews and thinking that he who could rise from the dead would sure now make himself and his followers glorious in the world began to ask him whether he would at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel But he answered them It is not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father hath put in his own power But ye shall receive power after that the holy Ghost is come upon you and ye shall be witnesses to me both at Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth And when he had said this while they beheld he was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up two men stood by them in white apparel and said Why gaze ye up into Heaven This same Jesus which is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into Heaven Upon this they returned to Jerusalem and continued together till ten days after as they were all together both the Apostles and all the rest of the Disciples suddenly there came a sound from Heaven as of a rushing mighty wind and the likeness of fiery cloven tongues sate on them all and they were filled with the holy Ghost and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them utterance By this they were enabled both to preach to people of several languages and to work other miracles to confirm their doctrine so that from this time forward the holy Spirit which Christ sent down upon Believers was his great Witness and Agent in the world and procured the belief and entertainment of the Gospel wheresoever it came For by this extraordinary reception of the Spirit the Apostles themselves were much fullier instructed in the doctrine of salvation than
we do nothing against our Neighbours Life or Bodily welfare but carefully preserve it as our own 7. That no man defile his Neighbours wife nor commit Fornication but preserve our own and others Chastity in thought word and deed 8. That we wrong not another in his Estate by stealing fraud or any other means but preserve our Neighbours Estate as our own 9. That we pervert not Justice by false witness or otherwise nor wrong our neighbour in his Name by slanders backbiting or reproach That we lie not but speak the truth in love and preserve our neighbours right and honour as our own 10. That we be not selfish setting up our selves and our own against our Neighbour and his good desiring to draw from him unto our selves But that we love our Neighbour as our selves desiring his welfare as our own doing to others as regularly we would have them do to us forbearing and forgiving one another loving even our enemies and doing good to all according to our power both for their Bodies and their Souls This is the Substance of the CHRISTIAN RELIGION § 15. II. The summ or Abstract of the Christian Religion is contained in three short Forms The first called The Creed containing the matter of the Christian Belief The second called The Lords Prayer containing the matter of Christian Desires and hope The third called The Law or Decalogue containing the summ of Morall Duties which are as followeth The BELIEF 1. I believe in God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth 2. And in Iesus Christ his only Son our Lord who was conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified dead and buried descended to Hell the third day he rose again from the dead he ascended into Heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty from thence he shall come again to judge the quick and the dead 3. I believe in the Holy Ghost the Holy Catholick Church the Communion of Saints the Forgiveness of sins the Resurrection of the body and the Life Everlasting The LORDS PRAYER Our FATHER which art in Heaven hallowed be thy Name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil For thine is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever Amen The Ten COMMANDEMENTS God spake all these words saying I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the Land of Egypt out of the house of bondage 1. Thou shalt have no other Gods before me 2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven Image or any likeness of any thing in Heaven above or that is in the Earth beneath or that is in the water under the Earth Thou shalt not vow down thy self to them nor serve them For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God visiting the iniquities of the Fathers upon the Children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my Commandements 3. Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain 4. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy six dayes shalt thou labour and do all thy work but the Seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God in it thou shalt not do any work thou nor thy Son nor thy Daughter thy Man-servant nor thy Maid-servant nor thy Cattel nor the Stranger that is within thy gates For in six dayes the Lord made Heaven and Earth the Sea and all that in them is and rested the Seventh day wherefore the Lord blessed the Seventh day and hallowed it 5. Honour thy Father and thy Mother that thy dayes may be long upon the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee 6. Thou shalt not kill 7. Thou shalt not commit Adultery 8. Thou shalt not Steal 9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy Neighbour 10. Thou shalt not covet thy Neighbours House thou shalt not covet thy Neighbours Wife nor his Man-servant nor his Maid-servant nor his Oxe nor his Ass nor any thing that is thy Neighbours § 16. The ten Commandements are summed up by Christ into these two Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and might and Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self § 17. These Commandements being first delivered to the Jews are continued by Christ as the summ of the Law of Nature only instead of Deliverance of the Jews from Egypt he hath made our Redemption from sin and Satan which was thereby typified to be the fundamental motive And he hath removed the memorial of the Creation-Rest from the seventh day-Sabbath to be kept on the Lords day which is the first with the Commemoration of his Resurrection and our Redemption in the solemn Worship of his holy Assemblies § 18. III. The briefest Summary of the Christian Religion containing the Essentials only is in the Sacramental Covenant of Grace Wherein the Penitent Believer renouncing the Flesh the World and the Devil doth solemnly give up himself to God the Father Son and Holy Spirit as his only God his Father his Saviour and his Sanctifier engaging himself hereby to a Holy life of Resignation Obedience and Love and receiving the pardon of all his sins and title to the further helps of grace to the favour of God and everlasting life This Covenant is first entered by the Sacrament of Baptisme and after renewed in our communion with the Church in the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ So that the Christian Religion is but Faith in God our Creator Redeemer and Sanctifyer producing the hope of Life Everlasting and possessing us with the love of God and Man And all this expressed in the genuine fruits of Patience Obedience and Praise to God and works of Charity and Justice unto Man § 19. That all this Religion might be the better understood received and practised by us the Word of God came down into Flesh and gave us a perfect Example of it in his most perfect Life in perfect holiness and innocency conquering all temptations contemning the honours riches and pleasures of the World in perfect patience and meekness and condescension and in the perfect Love of God and Man When perfect Doctrine is seconded by Perfect Exemplariness of Life there can be no greater Light set before us to lead us out of our state of darkness into the everlasting Light And had it not been a pattern of holy Power Wisdom and Goodness of Self-denyall Obedience and Love of Patience and of Truth and Prudence and of contempt of all inferiour things even of Life it self for the Love of God and for Life eternal it
would not have been a full exemplification of his Doctrine nor a perfect Revelation of it to the World Example bringeth Doctrine neer our Senses and thereby maketh it more clear and powerfull § 20. It is the undertaken Office of Jesus Christ to send the Holy Spirit into Believers mindes and to write out the substance of this Law upon their hearts and give them such holy and heavenly inclinations that it may become as it were a Natural Law unto them and they obey it with love facility and delight though not in perfection till they arrive at the state of Perfection So much to shew WHAT the Christian Religion is CHAP. IV. Of the Nature and Properties of the Christian Religion HAving understood the matter and words of the Christian Religion before I proceeded any further I thought it meet to pass a judgment upon the nature temperament constitution and properties of it And therein I found that which must needs be a great preparative to belief § 1. And first I found that it is a most holy and spiritual Religion resolved into the most excellent Principles and Ends glorifying God and humbling man and teaching us the most divine and heavenly life in the love and patient service of our Creator 1. It is most Holy for it calleth us up entirely unto God and consisteth in our absolute dedication and devotedness to him 2. It is most Spiritual leading us from things carnal and terrene and being principally about the government of the Soul and placing all our felicity in things spiritual and not in fleshly pleasures with the Epicureans and Mahometans It teacheth us to worship God in a spiritual manner and not either irrationally toyishly or irreverently And it directeth our lives to a daily converse with God in holiness 3. The Principles of it are the three Essentialities of God in Unity viz. the Infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness and the three grand Relations of God to Man as founded in his three most famous works viz as our Creator our Redeemer and our Regenerater or Sanctifier and the three great Relations arising from Creation and also from Redemption viz. as he is our Owner our Ruler and our Benefactor or chiefest Good and End 4. The Ends of the Christian Religion I find are proximately the saving of man from Satan and the Justice of God the sanctifying them to God and purifying them from sin the pardon of their sins and the everlasting happiness of their Souls in the pleasing and fruition of God for ever In a word it is but the redeeming us from our carnal self the world and the devil to the love and service of our Creator 5. Nothing can be spoken more honourably of God in all his perfections in the language of poor mortals than what the Christian Religion speaketh of him 6. And no Religion so much humbleth man by opening the malignity both of his original and actual sin and declaring the displeasure of God against it 7. It teacheth us who once lived as without God in the world to live wholly unto God and to make nothing of all the world in comparison of him 8. And it teacheth us to live upon the hopes of heaven and fetch our motives and our comforts from it § 2. I find that the Christian Religion is the most pure and clean and utterly opposite to all that is evil There is no vertue which it commendeth not nor duty which it commandeth not nor vice which it condemneth not nor sin which it forbiddeth not The chief thing in it which occasioneth the rebellion and displeasure of the world against it is the purity and goodness of it which is contrary to their sensual nature and as Physick to their licentious lives would it indulge their vices and give them leave to sin they could endure it § 3. Particularly it most vehemently condemneth the grand vices of Pride Worldliness and Sensuality and all their polluting and pernicious fruits 1. No Religion doth so much to teach men Humility and make Pride appear an odious thing It openeth the malignity of it as it lifteth up the mind against God or Man it condemneth it as Satans image it giveth us a multitude of humbling precepts and motives and secondeth them all with the strangest example of condescension and lowliness in Christ that was ever presented to the view of man Whereas I find even in the famousest of the Roman Heathens that a great deal of pride was taken for a virtue and men were instructed and exhorted to be proud under pretence of maintaining and vindicating their honour and true Humility was taken for disgraceful baseness and men were driven from it by the scorn not only of the vulgar but of Philosophers themselves 2. And there is no Religion that is fitted so much to the destruction of Worldliness or of the love of Riches as Christianity is for it teacheth men most effectually the vanity of the world it appointeth them a holy life so hateful to worldly men as will occasion them to feel the vexation of the world it openeth to them the hopes of a life so much better as may teach them to take all the wealth and glory of this world for a shadow a feather or a dream It condemneth worldly love as the sin inconsistent with the love of God and the certain mark of a drossy unsanctified miserable soul It setteth before us such an example of Christ as must needs shame worldliness with all true believers 3. And for Sensuality it openeth the shame of its beastiality and maketh the carnal mind and life to be enmity to God and the contrary to that spiritual mind and life which is the property of all that shall be saved It strictly and vehemently condemneth all gluttony and excess of drink all ryotting and time-wasting needless sports all fornication and ribald talk and wanton carriage words or thoughts Whereas I find among Heathens and Mahometans that inordinate sensuality was much indulged excess of eating and drinking was made a matter of no great blame time-wasting Plays were as little accused as if men had no greater matter to do in the world than to pass away time in some sensual or fantastical delight either by fornication or many wives at once their lust was gratified and so their minds were debased polluted and called down and made unfit for spiritual contemplation and a holy life From whence no doubt it came to pass that they were so dark about things spiritual and divine and so overspread with errors about many plain and necessary things § 4. There is no Religion which so notably detecteth and disgraceth the sin of SELFISHNESS nor so effectually teacheth SELF-DENIAL as the Christian Religion doth It maketh man understand the nature of his corrupt depraved state that it is a falling from GOD to SELF and that his recovery lieth in returning from SELF to GOD. It sheweth him how selfishness is the principle of divisions enmity
agreeableness to his opinions ways or interest self-love self-conceit self-esteem self-will and self-seeking is the soul and business of the world And therefore no wonder that it is a divided and contentious world when it hath as many ends as men and every man is for himself and draweth his own way No wonder that there is such variety of apprehensions that no two men are in all things of a mind and that the world is like a company of drunken men together by the ears or of blind men fighting with they know not whom and for they know not what And that ignorant sects and contentious wranglers and furious fighters are the bulkie parts of it And that striving who shall Rule or be Greatest or have his will is the worlds employment It is a dreaming and distracted world that spend their days and cares for nothing and are as serious in following a feather and in the pursuit of that which they confess is vanity and dying in their hands as if indeed they knew it to be true felicity they are like children busie in hunting butterflies or like boys at foot-ball as eager in the pursuit and in over-turning one another as if it were for their lives or for some great desirable prize or liker to a heap of Ants that gad about as busily and make as much ado for sticks and dust as if they were about some magnificent work Thus doth the vain deceived world lay out their thoughts and time upon impertinencies and talk and walk like so many Noctambulo's in their sleep they study and care and weep and laugh and labour and fight as men in a dream and will hardly be perswaded but it is reality which they pursue till death come and awake them Like a Stage-play or a Poppet-play where all things seem to be what they are not and all parties seem to do what they do not and then depart and are all disroab'd and unmask'd such is the life of the most of this world who spend their days in a serious jeasting and in a busie doing nothing It is a malignant world that hath an inbred radicated enmity to all that virtue and goodness which they want they are so captivated to their fleshly pleasures and worldly interests that the first sight approach or motion of reason holiness mortification and self-denial is met by them with heart-rising indignation and opposition in which their fury beareth down all argument and neither giveth them leave considerately to use their own reason or hearken to anothers there are few that are truly wise and good and heavenly that escape their hatred and beastly rage And when Countries have thought to remedy this plague by changing their forms of Government experience hath told them that the vice and root of their calamity lieth in the blindness and wickedness of corrupted nature which no form of Government will cure and that the Doves that are governed by Hawkes and Kites must be their prey whether it be one or many that hath the Sovereignty Yea it is an unthankful world that in the exercise of this malignant cruelty will begin with those that deserve best at their hands He that would instruct them and stop them in their sin and save their souls doth ordinarily make himself a prey and they are not content to take away their lives but they will among their credulous rabble take away the reputation of their honesty and no wisdom or learning was ever so great no innocency so unspotted no honesty justice or charity so untainted no holiness so venerable that could ever priviledge the owners from their rage or make the possessors to escape their malice Even Jesus Christ that never committed sin and that came into the world with the most matchless love and to do them the greatest good was yet prosecuted furiously to a shameful death and not only so but in his humiliation his judgement was taken away and he was condemned as an evil doer who was the greatest enemy to sin that ever was born into the World He was accused of Blasphemy for calling himself the Son of God of Impiety for talking of destroying the Temple and of Treason for saying he was a King And his Apostles that went about the World to save mens Souls and proclaim to them the joyfull tydings of salvation had little better entertainment wherever they came bonds and afflictions did abide them And if they had not been taught to rejoyce in tribulations they could have expected little joy on earth And it was not only Christians that were thus used but honesty in the Heathens was usually met with opposition and reproach as Seneca himself doth oft complain Yea how few have there been that have been famous for any excellency of wit or learning or any addition to the Worlds understanding but their reward hath been reproach imprisonment or death Did Socrates die in his bed Or was he not murdered by the rage of wicked Hypocrites Plato durst not speak his minde for fear of his Masters reward Aristippus left Athens ne bis peccarent in Philosophiam not only Solon but most benefactors to any Common-wealth have suffered for their beneficence Demosthenes Cato Cicero Seneca could none of them save their lives from fury by their great learning or honesty Yea among nominal Christians he that told them of an Antipodes was excommunicated by the Papal Authority for an Heretick And a Savonarola Arnoldus de Villa Nova Paulus Scaliger c. could not be wiser than their Neighbours but to their cost No nor Arias Montanus himself Campanella was fain in prison to compile his New Philosophy and with the pleasure of his inventions to bear the torments which were their sowre sauce Even Galilaeus that discovered so many new Orbs and taught this World the way of clearer acquaintance with its neighbours could not escape the Reverend Justice of the Papalists but must lie in a Prison as if O sapientia had been written on his doors as the old Woman cryed out to Thales when he fell into a ditch while he was by his instrument taking the height of a Starr And Sir Walter Rawleigh could not save his head by his Learned History of the World but must be one part of its History himself nor yet by his great observation how Antipater is taken for a bloody Tyrant for killing Demosthenes and how Arts and Learning have power to disgrace any man that doth evil to the famous Masters of them Peter Ramus that had done so much in Phylosophy for the Learned World was requited by a butcherly barbarous murder being one of the 30000 or 40000 that were so used in the French Massacre And many a holy person perished in the 200000 murdered by the Irish It were endless to instance the ungratefull cruelties of the World and what entertainment it hath given to wise and godly men even those whom it superstitiously adoreth when it hath murdered them And in all
And seeing a guilty condemned sinner can hardly love that God who in justice will damn and punish him nothing can be more congruous and effectual to man's recovery to God than that God should be represented to him as most amiable that is as one that is so willing to pardon and save him as to do it by the most astonishing expressions of love in such an Agent and Pledge and Glass of Love as Jesus Christ The whole design of Christ's Incarnation Life Death Resurrection Ascension and Intercession is but to be the most wonderful and glorious declaration of the goodness and love of God to sinners that as the great frame of the Universe demonstrateth his power so should the Redeemer be the demonstration of his love That we may see both the wise contrivances of his love and at how dear a rate he is content to save us that our lives may be employed in beholding and admiring the glory of his love in this incomprehensible representation That we may love him as men that are fetch'd up from the very gates of hell and from under the sentence of condemnation and made by grace the heirs of life § 17. Especially to have a quickning Head who will give the Spirit of grace to all his members to change their hearts and kindle this holy love within them is most congruous to accomplish mans recovery So dark are our minds and so bad our hearts so strong are our lusts and so many our temptations that bare teaching would not serve our turn without a Spirit of light and life and love to open our eyes and turn our hearts and make all outward means effectual § 18. The Commission of the Gospel-Ministry to preach this Gospel of pardon and salvation and to baptize Consenters and gather and guide the Church of Christ with Fatherly love is also very congruous to the state of the world with whom they have to do § 19. It is congruous to the state of our trembling Souls that are conscious of their former guilt and present unworthiness that in all their prayers and worship of God they should come to him in a Name that is more worthy and acceptable than their own and offer their services by a Hand or Intercessor so beloved of God Though an impious soul can never expect to be accepted with God upon the merits of another yet a penitent soul who is conscious of former wickedness and continued faults may hope for that mercy by grace through a Redeemer of which he could have less hopes without one § 20. It is congruous to their state who have Satan their accuser that they have a Patron a High priest and Justifier with God Not that God is in danger of being mistaken by false accusation or to do us any injustice but when our real guilt is before his face and the malice of Satan will seek thereupon to procure our damnation there must also be just reasons before him for our pardon which it is the office of a Saviour to plead or to present that is to be God's Instrument of our deliverance upon that account § 21. It is exceeding congruous to our condition of darkness and fear to have a Head and Saviour in the possession of Glory to whom we may commend our departing souls at the time of death and who will receive them to himself that we may not tremble at the thoughts of death and of eternity For though the infinite goodness of God be our chief encouragement yet seeing he is holy and just and we are sinners we have need of a mediate encouragement and of such condescending love as is come near unto us and hath taken up our nature already into heaven A Saviour that hath been on earth in flesh that hath died and rose and revived and is now in the possession of Blessedness is a great emboldner of our thoughts when we look towards another world which else we should think of with more doubting fearful and unwilling minds To have a friend gone before us who is so Powerful so Good and hath made us his Interest to think that he is Lord of the world that we are going to and hath undertaken to receive us to himself when we go hence is a great reviving to our amazed fearful departing souls § 22. And it is very congruous to the case of an afflicted persecuted people who are misrepresented and slandered in this world and suffer for the hopes of a better life to have a Saviour who is the judge of all the world to justifie them publickly before all and to cause their righteousness to shine as the light and to turn all their sufferings into endless joys § 23. And it seemeth exceeding congruous to reason seeing that the Divine Essence is an inaccessible Light that we should for ever have a Mediator of Fruition as well as of Acquisition by whom the Deity may shine in communicated Glory and Love to us for evermore and that God be for evermore eminently delighted and glorified in Him than in us as he excelleth us in dignity and all perfections even as in One Sun his Power and Glory is more demonstrated than in a world of Worms Whether all these things be true or not I am further to enquire but I find now that they are very congruous to our condition and to Reason and that if they be so no man can deny but that there is wonderful Wisdom and Love to man in the design and execution and that it is to man a very desirable thing that it should be so And therefore that we should be exceeding willing to find any sound proof that it is so indeed though not with a willingness which shall corrupt and pervert our judgments by self-flattery but such as will only excite them to the wise and sober examination of the case The EVIDENCES of the VERITY we shall next enquire after CHAP. VI. Of the WITNESS of JESVS CHRIST or the demonstrative Evidence of his Verity and Authority THough all that is said may be a reasonable preparative to faith it is more cogent evidence which is necessary to convince us that Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the world That a man appearing like one of us is the Eternal Word of God incarnate is a thing which no man is bound to believe without very sound evidence to prove it God hath made Reason essential to our Nature it is not our weakness but our natural excellency and his Image on our nature Therefore he never called us to renounce it and to lay it by for we have no way to know Principles but by an Intellectual discerning them in their proper Evidence and no way to know conclusions by but by a rational discerning their necessary connexion to those principles If God would have us know without reason he would not have made us reasonable creatures man hath no way of mental discerning or knowledge but by understanding things in their proper evidence to
disconsolate Disciples who had but lately sinfully forsaken him He giveth them no upbraiding words but meltingly saith to her Go to my brethren and say unto them I ascend unto my Father and your Father to my God and your God He after this familiarly converseth with them and instructeth them in the things concerning the Kingdom of God He maketh an Vniversal Pardon or Act of Oblivion in a Covenant of Grace for all the world that will not reject it and appointeth Messengers to preach it unto all and what ever pains or suffering it cost them to go through all with patience and alacrity and to stick at nothing for the saving of mens souls He gave the holy Spirit miraculously to them to enable them to carry on this work and to leave upon record to the world the infallible narrative of his Life and Doctrine His Gospel is filled up with matter of consolation with the promises of mercy pardon and salvation the description of the priviledges of holy Souls justification adoption peace and joy and finally He governeth and defendeth his Church and pleadeth our cause and secureth our interest in Heaven according to the promises of this his word Thus is the Gospel the very Image of the Wisdom and Goodness of God And such a Doctrin from such a Person must needs be Divine 2. And the Method and Style of it is most excellent because most suitable to its holy ends not with the excellency of frothy wit which is but to express a wanton fancy and please the ears of aery persons who play with words when they should close with wisdom and heavenly light such excellency of speech must receive its estimate by its use and end But as the end is most Divine so the light that shineth in the Gospel is Heavenly and Divine the Method of the Books themselves is various according to the time and occasions of their writing the objections against them are to be answered by themselves anon But the Method of the whole Doctrin of Christianity set together is the most admirable and perfect in the world beginning with God in Unity of Essence proceeding to his Trinity of Essential Active Principles and of Persons and so to his Trinity of Works Creation Redemption and Regeneration and of Relations of God and Man accordingly and to the second Trinity of Relations as he is our Owner Ruler and Chief Good And hence it brancheth it self into a multitude of benefits flowing from all these Relations of God to Man and a multitude of answerable duties flowing from our Correlations to God and all in perfect method twisted and inoculated into each other making a kind of cirulation between Mercies and Duties as in mans body there is of the arterial and venal bloud and spirits till in the issue as all Mercy came from God and Duty subordinately from man so Mercy and Duty do terminate in the Everlasting Pleasure of God ultimately and man subordinately in that mutual love which is here begun and there is perfected This method you may somewhat perceive in the description of the Christian Religion before laid down 3. And the style also is suited to the end and matter not to the pleasing of curious ears but to the declaring of heavenly mysteries not to the conceits of Logicians who have put their understandings into the fetters of their own ill-devised notions and expect that all men that will be accounted wise should use the same notions which they have thus devised and about which they are utterly disagreed among themselves But in a Language suitable both to the subject and to the world of persons to whom this word is sent who are commonly ignorant and unlearned and dull That being the best Physick which is most suitable to the Patients temper and disease And though the particular Writers of the Sacred Scriptures have their several Styles yet is there in them all in common a Style which is spiritual powerfull and divine which beareth its testimony proportionably of that Spirit which is the common Author in them all But of this more among the Difficulties and Objections anon But for the discerning of all this Image of God in the Doctrine of Jesus Christ Reason will allow me to expect these necessary qualifications in him that must discern it 1. That before he come to supernatural Revelations he be not unacquainted with those natural Revelations which are antecedent and should be foreknown as I have in this book explained them with their evidence For there is no coming to the highest step of the Ladder without beginning at the lowest Men ignorant of things knowable by Natural Reason are unprepared for higher things 2. It is reasonably expected that he be one that is not treacherous and false to those Natural Truths which he hath received For how can he be expected to be impartial and faithfull in seeking after more Truth who is unfaithfull to that which he is convinced of or that he should receive that Truth which he doth not yet know who is false to that which he already knoweth Or that he should discern the evidence of extraordinary Revelation who opposeth with enmity the ordinary light or Law of Nature Or that God should vouchsafe his further light and conduct to that Man who willfully sinneth against him in despight of all his former teachings 3. It is requisite that he be one that is not a stranger to himself but acquainted with the case of his heart and life and know his sins and his corrupt inclinations and that guilt and disorder and misery in which his need of mercy doth consist For he is no fit Judge of the Prescripts of his Physician who knoweth not his own disease and temperature But of this more anon § 8. III. The third way of the Spirits witness to Jesus Christ is Concomitantly by the miraculous gifts and works of Himself and his Disciples which are a cogent Evidence of Gods attestation to the truth of his Doctrine § 9. By the Miracles of Christ I mean 1. His miraculous actions upon others 2. His miracles in his Death and Resurrection 3. His predictions The appearance of the Angel to Zachary and his dumbness his Prophesie and Elizabeth's with the Angels appearance to Mary the Angels appearance and Evangelizing to the Shepherds the Prophesie of Simeon and of Anna the Star and the testimony of the wise Men of the East the testimony of John Baptist that Christ should baptize with the Holy Ghost and with Fire and that he was the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World These and more such I pass by as presupposed At twelve years of age he disputed with the Doctors in the Temple to their admiration At his Baptism the Holy Ghost came down upon him in the likeness of a Dove and a voice from Heaven said Thou art my beloved Son in Thee I am well-pleased When he was baptized he fasted forty dayes and nights and
in a light and speaking to him from Heaven and is sent to preach the Gospel which he doth with zeal and power and patient labours to the death Act. 9. Ananias is commanded by God to instruct him and baptize him after his first call Act. 9 Peter at Lydda cureth Aeneas by a word who had kept his bed eight years of a Palsie Act. 8. At Joppa he raiseth Tabitha from the dead Act. 9. Cornelius by an Angel is directed to send for Peter to preach the Gospel to him The Holy Ghost fell on all that heard his words Act. 10. Agabus prophesied of the Dearth Act. 11. Peter imprisoned by Herod is delivered by an Angel who opened the doors and loosed his bonds and brought him out Act. 12. Herod is eaten to death with worms Act. 12. At Paphos Elymas the Sorcerer is strucken blinde by Pauls word for resisting the Gospel and Sergius the Roman Deputy is thereby made a Believer Act. 13. At Lystra Paul by a word cureth a Creeple that was so born insomuch as the People would have done sacrifice to him and Barnaâ—as as to Mercury and Jupiter Act. 14. Paul casteth out a divining Devil Act. 16. And being imprisoned and scourged with Silas and their feet in the Stocks at midnight as they sang Praises to God an Earthquake shook the foundations of the Prison the doors were all opened and all their bonds loosed and the Jailor converted Act. 16. The Holy Ghost came upon twelve Disciples upon the imposition of Paul's hands Act. 19. And God wrought so many miracles by his hands at Ephesus that from his body were brought to the sick handkerchiefs and aprons and the diseases departed from them Act. 19. At Troas he raised Eutychus to life Act. 20. His sufferings at Jerusalem are foretold by Agabus Act. 21. At Melita the people took him for a God because the Viper hurt him not that fastened on his hand And there he cured the Father of Publius the chief man of the Island of a Flux and Feaver by Prayer and Imposition of hands In a word in all places where the Apostles came these miracles were wrought and in all the Churches the gifts of the Holy Ghost were usual either of Prophesie or of healing or of speaking strange languages or interpreting them some had one and some another and some had most or all And by such miracles were the Christian Churches planted And all this power Christ had foretold them of at his departure from them Mark 16.17 These signs shall follow them that believe in my Name shall they cast out Devils they shall speak with new tongues they shall take up Serpents and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them they shall lay their hands on the sick and they shall recover Yea in his Life-time on Earth he sent forth his Apostles and seventy Disciples with the same power which they exercised openly Luk. 9.1 c. 10.16 17. Thus was the Gospel confirmed by multitudes of open miracles And Christs own Resurrection and Ascension was the greatest of all And here it must be noted that these Miracles were 1. Not one or two but multitudes 2. Not obscure and doubtfull but evident and unquestionable 3. Not controlled or checked by any greater contrary Miracles as the wonders of the Egyptian Sorcerers were by Moses but altogether uncontrolled 4. Not in one place only but in all Countreys where they came 5. Not by one or two persons only but by very many who were scattered up and down in the World And that miracles and such miracles as these are a certain proof of the truth of Christ and Christianity is most evident in that they are the attestation of God himself 1. It is undenyable that they are the effects of Gods own Power If any question whether God do them immediately or whether an Angel or Spirit may not do them that makes no difference in the case considerable for all creatures are absolutely dependant upon God and can use no power but what he giveth them and continueth in them and exerciseth by them the power of the creatures is all of it the power of God without him they are nothing and can do nothing and God is as near to the effect himself when he useth an instrument as when he useth none So that undoubtedly it is God's work 2. And God having no voice but created revealeth his mind to man by his operations and as he cannot lie so his infinite wisdom and goodness will not give up the world to such unavoidable deceit as such a multitude of miracles would lead them into if they were used to attest a lie If I cannot know him to be sent of God who raiseth the dead and sheweth me such a Seal of Omnipotency to his Commission I have no possibility of knowing who speaketh from God at all nor of escaping deceit in the greatest matters of which God by his Omnipotent Arm would be the cause But none of this can stand with the Nature and righteous Government of God This therefore is an infallible proof of the Veracity of Christ and his Apostles and the truth of the History of these Miracles shall be further opened anon § 10. IV. The fourth part of the Spirit 's Testimony to Christ is subsequent in the work of Regeneration or Sanctification in which he effectually illuminateth the mind and reneweth the soul and life to a true resignation obedience and love of God and to a heavenly mind and conversation and so proveth Christ to be really and effectively the SAVIOVR This evidence is commonly much over-look'd and made little account of by the ungodly who have no such Renovation on themselves because though it may be discerned in others by the fruits yet they that have it not in themselves are much hindred from discerning it partly because it is at a distance from them and because it is in it self seated in the heart where it is neither felt nor seen by others but in the effects And partly because the effects are imperfect and clouded with a mixture of remaining faults but especially because that ungodly men have a secret enmity to holy things and thence to holy persons and therefore are falsely prejudic'd against them which is encreased by cross interests and courses in their converse But yet indeed the Spirit of Regeneration is a plenary evidence of the truth of Christ and Christianity To manifest which I shall 1. consider What it is and doth 2. How and by what means 3. On whom 4. Against what opposition 5. That it is Christ indeed that doth it I. The change which is made by the Spirit of Christ doth consist in these particulars following 1. It taketh down pride and maketh men humble and low in their own eyes to which end it acquainteth them with their sin and their desert and misery 2. It teacheth men self-denial and causeth them to resign themselves to God and use
themselves as being wholly his own 3. It absolutely subjecteth the Soul to God and sitteth up his Authority as absolute over our thoughts and words and all our actions And maketh the Christians life a course of careful obedience to his Laws so far as they understand them 4. It taketh up a Christians mind with the thankful sense of his Redemption so that the pardon of his sins and his deliverance from hell and his hopes of everlasting glory do form his soul to a holy gratitude and make the expressions of it to be his work 5. It giveth man a sense of the love of God as his gracious Redeemer and so of the goodness and mercifulness of his Nature It causeth them to think of God as their greatest Benefactor and as one that loveth them and as LOVE it self and so it reconcileth their estranged alienated minds to him and maketh the love of God to be the very constitution and life of the Soul 6. It causeth men to believe that there is an everlasting Glory to be enjoyed by holy Souls where we shall see the glory of God and be filled with his love and exercised in perfect love and praise and be with Christ his Angels and Saints for evermore It causeth them to take this felicity for their portion and to set their hearts upon it and to make it the chief care and business of all their lives to seek it 1. It causeth them to live in the joyful hopes and foresight of this blessedness and to do all that they do as means thereunto and thus it sweetneth all their lives and maketh Religion their chief delight 8. It accordingly employeth their thoughts and tongues so that the praises of God and the mention of their everlasting blessedness and of the way thereto is their most delightful conference as it beseemeth travellers to the City of God and so their political converse is in heaven 9. And thus it abateth the fears of death as being but their passage to everlasting life And those that are confirmed Christians indeed do joyfully entertain it and long to see their glorified Lord and the blessed Majesty of their great Creator 10. It causeth men to love all sanctified persons with a special love of complacency and all mankind with a love of benevolence even to love our neighbours as our selves and to abhor that selfishness which would engage us against our neighbours good 11. It causeth men to love their enemies and to forgive and forbear and to avoid all unjust and unmerciful revenge It maketh men meek long-suffering and patient though not impassionate insensible or void of that anger which is the necessary opposer of sin and folly 12. It employeth men in doing all the good they can it maketh them long for the holiness and happiness of one another's souls and desirous to do good to those that are in need according to our power 13. This true Regeneration by the Spirit of Christ doth make those Superiours that hath it even Princes Magistrates Parents and Masters to Rule those under them in holiness love and justice with self-denial seeking more the pleasing of God and the happiness of their Subjects for soul and body than any carnal selfish interest of their own and therefore it must needs be the blessing of that happy Kingdom Society or Family which hath such a holy Governour O that they were not so few 14. It maketh subjects and children and servants submissive and conscionable in all the duties of their Relations and to honour their Superiours as the Officers of God and to obey them in all just subordination to him 15. It causeth men to love Justice and to do as they would be done by and to desire the welfare of the souls bodies estates and honour of their neighbours as their own 16. It causeth men to subdue their adpetites and lusts and fleshly desires and to set up the government of God and sanctified Reason over them and to take their flesh for that greatest enemy in our corrupted state which we must chiefly watch against and master as being a Rebel against God and Reason It alloweth a man so much sensitive pleasure as God forbiddeth not and as tendeth to the holiness of the soul and furthereth us in God's service and all the rest it rebuketh and resisteth 17. It causeth men to estimate all the wealth and honour and dignities of the world as they have respect to God and a better world and as they either help or hinder us in the pleasing of God and seeking immortality and as they are against God and our spiritual work and happiness it causeth us to account them but as meer vanity loss and dung 18. It keepeth men in a life of watchfulness against all those temptations which would draw them from this holy course and in a continual warfare against Satan and his Kingdom under conduct of Jesus Christ 19. It causeth men to prepare for sufferings in this world and to look for no great matters here to expect persecutions crosses losses wants defamations injuries and painful sicknesses and death and to spend their time in preparing all that furniture of mind which is necessary to their support and comfort in such a day of trial that they may be patient and joyful in tribulation and bodily distress as having a comfortable relation to God and Heaven which will incomparably weigh down all 20. It causeth men to acknowledge that all this grace and mercy is from the love of God alone and to depend on him for it by faith in Christ and to devote and refer all to himself again and make it our ultimate end to please him and thus to subserve him as the first Efficient the chief Dirigent and the ultimate final Cause of all of whom and through whom and to whom are all things to whom be Glory for ever Amen This is the true description of that Regenerate Sanctified state which the Spirit of Christ doth work on all whom he will save and that are Christians indeed and not in Name only And certainly this is the Image of God's Holiness and the just constitution and use of a reasonable Soul And therefore he that bringeth men to this is a Real Saviour of whom more anon II. And it is very considerable by what means and in what manner all this is done It is done by the preaching of the Gospel of Christ and that in plainness and simplicity The curiosity of artificial oratory doth usually but hinder the success as painting doth the light of windows It was a few plain men that came with spiritual power and not with the entising words of humane wisdom or curiosities of vain Philosophy who did more in this work than any of their successors have done since As in Naturals every thing is apt to communicate its own nature and not anothers heat causeth heat and cold causeth cold so wit by communication causeth wit and common learning causeth common
and blessedness of the Life to come that they say nothing of it that is ever likely to make any considerable number set their hearts on Heaven and to live a heavenly Life 9. They were so unacquainted with the nature and will of God that they taught and used such a manner of Worship as tended rather to delude and corrupt men than to sanctifie them 10. They medled so little with the inward sins and duties of the heart especially about the holy Love of God and their goodness was so much in outward acts and in meer respect to men that they were not like to sanctifie the Soul or make the Man good that his actions might be good but only to polish men for Civil Societies with the addition of a little Varnish of Superstition and Hypocrisie 11. Their very style is either suitable to dead speculation as a Lecture of Metaphysicks or sleight and dull and unlike to be effectual to convert and sanctifie mens Souls 12. Almost all is done in such a disputing sophistical way and clogg'd with so many obscurities uncertainties and self-contradictions and mixt in heaps of Physical and Logical Subtilties that they were unfit for the common peoples benefit and could tend but to the benefit of a few 13. Experience taught and still teacheth the World that Holy Souls and Lives that were sincerely set upon God and Heaven were strangers amongst the Disciples of the Philosophers and other Heathens Or if it be thought that there were some such among them certainly they were very few in comparison of true Christians and those few very dark and diseased and defective with us a Childe at ten years old will know more of God and shew more true piety than did any of their Philosophers with us poor women and labouring persons do live in that holiness and heavenliness of minde and conversation which the wisest of the Philosophers never did attain I spake of this before but here also thought meet to shew you the difference between the effect of Christs doctrine and the Philosophers 2. And that all this is justly to be imputed to Christ himself I shall now prove 1. He gave them a perfect pattern for his holy obedient heavenly Life in his own person and his conversation here on Earth 2. His Doctrine and Law requireth all this holiness which I described to you You finde the Prescript in his Word of which the holy Souls and Lives of men are but a transcript 3. All his Institutions and Ordinances are but means and helps to this 4. He hath made it the condition of mans Salvation to be thus holy in sincerity and to desire and seek after perfection in it He taketh no other for true Christians indeed nor will save any other at the last 5. All his comforting Promises of mercy and defence are made only to such 6. He hath made it the Office of his Ministers through the World to perswade and draw men to this Holiness And if you hear the Sermons and read the Books which any faithfull Minister of Christ doth preach or write you will soon see that this is the business of them all And you may soon perceive that these Ministers have another kinde of preaching and writing than the Philosophers had more clear more congruous more spiritual more powerfull and likely to win men to Holiness and Heavenliness When our Divines and their Philosophers are compared as to their promoting of true Holiness verily the latter seem to be but as Glow-worms and the former to be the Candles for the Family of God And yet I truly value the wisdom and virtue which I finde in a Plato a Seneca a Cicero an Antonine or any of them If you say our advantage is because coming after all we have the helps of all even of those Philosophers I answer mark in our Books and Sermons whether it be any thing but Christianity which we preach It is from Christ and Scripture that we fetch our Doctrine and not from the Philosophers we use their helps in Logick Physicks c. But that 's nothing to our Doctrine He that taught me to speak English did not teach me the Doctrine which I preach in English And he that teacheth me to use the Instruments of Logick doth not teach me the doctrine about which I use them And why did not those Philosophers by all their art attain to that skill in this Sacred work as the Ministers of Christ do when they had as much or more of the Arts than we I read indeed of many good Orations then used even in those of the Emperour Julian there is much good and in Antonine Arrian Epictetus Plutarch more And I read of much taking-Oratory of the Bonzii in Japan c. But compared to the endeavours of Christian Divines they are poor pedantick barren things and little sparks and the success of them is but answerable 7. Christ did before hand promise to send his Spirit into mens Souls to do all this work upon all his Chosen And as he promised just so he doth 8. And we finde by experience that it is the preaching of Christs doctrine by which the work is done It is by the reading of the sacred Scripture or hearing the Doctrine of it opened and applyed to us that Souls are thus changed as is before described And if it be by the medicines which he sendeth us himself by the hands of his own Servants that we are healed we need not doubt whether it be he that healed us His Doctrine doth it as the instrumental Cause for we finde it adapted thereunto and we finde nothing done upon us but by that Doctrine nor any remaining effect but what is the impression of it But his Spirit inwardly reneweth us as the Principal cause and worketh with and by the Word For we finde that the Word doth not work upon all nor upon all alike that are alike prepared But we easily perceive a voluntary distinguishing choice in the operation And we finde a power more than can be in the words alone in the effect upon our selves The heart is like the Wax and the Word like the Seal and the Spirit like the hand that strongly applyeth it We feel upon our hearts that though nothing is done without the Seal yet a greater force doth make the impression than the weight of the Seal alone could cause By this time it is evident that this work of Sanctification is the attestation of God by which he publickly owneth the Gospel and declareth to the World that Christ is the Saviour and his Word is true For 1. It is certain that this work of Renovation is the work of God For 1. It is his Image on the Soul It is the life of the Soul as flowing from his Holy Life wherein are contained the Trinity of Perfections It is the Power of the Soul by which it can overcome the Flesh the World and the Devil which without it none is able to do It is the
Wisdom of the Soul produced by his Light and Wisdom by which we know the difference between Good and Evil and our Reason is restored to its dominion over fleshly sense It is the Goodness of the Soul by which it is made suitable to the Eternal Good and fit to know him love him praise him serve him and enjoy him And therefore nothing lower than his Goodness can be its principal Cause 2. It subserveth the Interest of God in the World And recovereth the apostate Soul to himself It disposeth it to honour him love him and obey him It delivereth up the whole man to him as his own It casteth down all that rebelleth against him It casteth out all which was preferred before him It rejecteth all which standeth up against him and would seduce and tempt us from him And therefore it is certainly his work 3. Whose else should it be Would Satan or any evil cause produce so excellent an effect would the worst of beings do the best of works It is the best that is done in this lower world Would any enemy of God so much honour him and promote his interest and restore him his own would any enemy of mankind thus advance us and bring us up to a life of the highest honour and delights that we are capable of on earth and give us the hopes of life eternal And if any good Angel or other Cause should do it all reason will confess that they do it but as the Messengers or Instruments of God and as second causes and not as the first Cause for otherwise we should make them gods For my own part my Soul perceiveth that it is God himself that hath imprinted this his Image on me and hath hereby as it were written upon me his Name and Mark even HOLINESS TO THE LORD and I bear about me continually a Witness of Himself his Son and holy Spirit a Witness within me which is the Seal of God and the pledge of his love and the earnest of my heavenly inheritance And if our Sanctification be thus of GOD it is certainly his attestation to the truth of Christ and to his Gospel for 1. No man that knoweth the perfections of God will ever believe that he would bless a deceiver and a lie to be the means of the most holy and excellent work that ever was done in the world If Christ were a Deceiver his crime would be so execrable as would engage the Justice of God against him as he is the righteous Governour of the world And therefore he would not so highly honour him to be his chiefest instrument for the worlds Renovation He is not impotent to need such instruments he is not ignorant that he should so mistake in the choice of instruments he is not bad that he should love and use such Instruments and comply with their deceits These things are all so clear and sure that I cannot doubt of them 2. No man that knoweth the mercifulness of God and the Justice of his Government can believe that he would give up Mankind so remedilesly to seduction yea and be the principal causer of it himself For if besides Prophecie and a holy Doctrine and a multitude of famous Miracles a Deceiver might also be the great Renewer and Sanctifier of the world to bring man back to the obedience of God and to repair his Image on Mankind what possibility were there of our discovery of that deceit Or rather should we not say he were a blessed Deceiver that had deceived us from our sin and misery and brought back our straying souls to God 3. Nay when Christ fore-told men that he would send his Spirit to do all this work and would renew men for eternal life and thus be with us to the end of the world and when I see all this done I must needs believe that he that can send down a Sanctifying Spirit a Spirit of Life a Spirit of Power Light and Love to make his Doctrine in the mouths of his Ministers effectual to mens Regeneration and Sanctification is no less himself than God or certainly no less than his certain Administrator 4. What need I more to prove the Cause than the adequate effect When I find that Christ doth actually save me shall I question whether he be my Saviour When I find that he saveth thousands about me and offereth the same to others shall I doubt whether he be the Saviour of the world Sure he that healeth us all and that so wonderfully and so cheaply may well be called our Physician If he had promised only to save us I might have doubted whether he would perform it and consequently whether he be indeed the Saviour But when he performeth it on my self and performeth it on thousands round about me to doubt yet whether he be the Saviour when he actually saveth us is to be ignorant in despite of Reason and Experience I conclude therefore that the Spirit of Sanctification is the infallible Witness of the Verity of the Gospel and the Veracity of Jesus Christ 5. And I entreat all that read this further to observe the great use and advantage of this testimony above others in that it is continued from Generation to Generation and not as the gift and testimony of Miracles which continued plentifully but one Age and with diminution somewhat after this is Christ's witness to the end of the world in every Country and to every Soul yea and continually dwelling in them For if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Rom. 8.9 He that is not able to examine the History which reporteth the Miracles to him may be able to find upon his Soul the Image of God imprinted by the Gospel and to know that the Gospel hath that Image in it self which it imprinteth upon others and that it cometh from God which leadeth men so directly unto God and that it is certainly his own means which he blesseth to so great and excellent ends 6. Note also that part of the work of the Spirit of God in succeeding the Doctrine of Jesus Christ doth consist in the effectual production of Faith it self for though the work be wrought by the Reasons of the Gospel and the Evidences of Truth yet is it also wrought by the Spirit of God concurring with that evidence and as the internal Efficient exciting the sluggish faculties to do their office and illustrating the understanding and fitting the will to entertain the truth for the difficulties are so great and the temptations to unbelief so subtil and violent and our own indisposedness through corruption the greatest impediment of all that the bare Word alone would not produce a belief of that lively vigorous nature as is necessary to its noble effects and ends without the internal co-operation of the Spirit So that Christ doth not only teach us the Christian Faith and Religion but doth give it us and work it in us by his Spirit And he that can do
by Miracles and therefore certain by a certainty of Divine belief § 21. I. They that observe in the Writings of the said Disciples the footsteps of eminent piety sincerity simplicity self-denyal contempt of the World expectation of a better World a desire to please and glorifie God though by their own reproach and sufferings mortification love to souls forgiving enemies condemning lyars with high spirituality and heavenly-mindedness c. Must needs confess them to be most eminently credible by a humane Faith They being also acquainted with the thing reported § 22. II. 1. That the Apostles were not themselves deceived I have proved before 2. That the Report was theirs the Churches that saw and heard them knew by sense And how we know it I am to shew anon 3. That they took their own salvation to lie upon the belief of the Gospel which they preached is very evident both in the whole drift and manner of their Writings and in their labours sufferings and death And that they took a Lie to be a damning sin He that doth but impartially read the Writings of the Apostles and Evangelists will easily believe that they believed what they preach'd themselves and lookt for salvation by Jesus Christ Much more if he further consider of their forsaking all and labouring and dying in and for these expectations And Nature taught them as well as Christ to know that a Lie was a damning sin They teach us themselves that Lyars are without as Dogs and not admitted into the Kingdom of God And that God needeth not our Lie to his Glory nor must we do evil that good may come by it Therefore they could never think that it would help them to Heaven to spend their labours and lay down their lives in promoting a known lie to deceive the World § 22. 4. That they expected temporal ruine by their Religion without any worldly satisfaction is manifest both in Christs prediction telling them that it would be so and in the tenour of his Covenant calling them to forsake life and all if they will be his Disciples and in the history of their own lives and labours in which they met with no other usage than was thus foretold them Many of them had not much wealth to lose but every man naturally loveth his ease and peace and life And some of them though not many had Worldly riches as Zacheus Joseph of Arimathea c. and commonly they had possessions which they sold and laid down the price at the Apostles feet And the Apostles had ways of comfortable living in the world instead of all this they underwent reproach imprisonments scourgings and death Commodity or preferment they could not expect by it Object But to men that had been but low in the world the very applause of the people would seem a sufficient satisfaction for their sufferings To be Teachers and have many followers is a thing that some people would venture liberty and life for Answ Lay all these following things together and you may be certain that this was not the case 1. Even women and many that were not teachers were of the same belief 2. The Teachers did all of them set up their Lord and not themselves but deâ—ased and denied themselves for his honour and service 3. Their way of teaching was in travel and labour where they must deny all fleshly ease and pleasure and so must have nothing but bare applause if that had been it which they sought after 4. They suffered so much reproach and shame from the unbelievers who were the rich and ruling party as would have much over-ballanced their applause among believers They were persecuted imprisoned scourged scorned and made as the off-scouring of the world 5. They were so many that no single person was like to be carried so far with that ambition when his honour was held in equality with so many 6. One of the great vices which they preach'd and wrote against was pride and self-seeking and over-valuing men and following sect-masters and crying up Paul Apollo or Cephas c. And those that thus sought to set up themselves and draw away Disciples after them were the men whom they especially condemned 7. If they had done as this objection supposeth they must have all the way gone on against their certain knowledge and conscience in teaching lies in matter of fact And though some men would go far in seeking followers and applause when they believe the doctrine which they preach themselves yet hardly in preaching that which they know to be false the stirrings of conscience would torment some of them among so many and at last break out into open confession and detection of the fraud 8. And if they had gone thus violently against their consciences they must needs know that it was their Souls as well as their lives and liberties which they forfeited 9. And the piety and humility of their writings sheweth that applause was not their end and prize if they had sought this they would have fitted their endeavours to it whereas it is the sanctifying and saving of souls through faith in Jesus Christ which they bent their labours towards 10. So many men could never have agreed among themselves in such a scatter'd case to carry on the juggle and deceit without detection Now tell us if you can where ever so many persons in the world so notably humble pious and self-denying did preach against pride man-pleasing and lying as damnable sins and debase themselves and suffer so much reproach and persecution and go through such labour and travel and lay down their lives and confessedly hazard their souls for ever and all this to get followers that should believe in another man by perswading men that he wrought miracles and rose from the dead when they knew themselves that all were lies which they thus laboriously divulged If you give an instance in the Disciples of Mahomet the case was nothing so no such miracles attested no such witnesses to proclaim it no such consequents of such a testimony none of all this was so but only a Deceiver maketh a few barbarous people believe that he had Revelations and was a Prophet and being a Souldier and prospering in War he setteth up and keepeth up a Kingdom by the Sword his Preachers being such as being thus deluded did themselves believe the things which they spake and found it the way to worldly greatness § 24. 5. That the witnesses of Christ were men of honesty and conscience is before proved 6. That it was not possible for so many persons to conspire so successfully to deceive the world is manifest from 1. their persons 2. their calling 3. their doctrine 4. and their manner of ministration and labours 1. For their Persons they were 1. Many 2. Not men of such worldly craft and subtilty as to be apt for such designs 3 Of variety of tempers and interests men and women 2. For their Callings the Apostles knew the
he is not a deceiver and so may be perswaded to trust and try him himself § 101. The way to know that others are thus regenerated is 1. By believing them Fide humana 2. By discerning it in the effects And though it be too frequent to have presumptuous self-conceited persons to affirm that the Spirit of Christ hath renewed them when it is no such matter yet all humane testimony of matters so neer men even within them is not therefore incredible but wise men will discern a credible person from an incredible In the forementioned instance many may tell you that they are cured by the Physician when it is not so but will you therefore believe no one that telleth you that he is cured Many may boast of that learning which they have not and tell you that they have knowledge in Mathematicks or in several Arts But is no man therefore to be believed that saith the same But yet I perswade no man here to take up with the bare belief of another mans word where he seeth not enough in the effects to second it and to perswade a reasonable man that it is true But as he that heareth a man that was sick profess that he is cured may well believe him if he see him eat and drink and sleep and labour and laugh as the healthfull use to doe so he that heareth a sober man profess with humble thanks to God that he hath changed and renewed him by his Spirit may well believe him if he see him live like a renewed man § 102. Though you cannot be infallibly certain of the sincerity of any one individual person but your self because we know not the heart yet may you be certain that all do not dissemble Because there is a natural impossibility that interests and motives and sufficient causes should concurre to lead them to it As before I said we are not certain of any individual woman that she doth not dissemble Love to her Husband and Children but we may be certain that all the women in the World do not from many natural proofs which might be given § 103. All these effects of Renovation may be discerned in others 1. You may discern that they are much grieved for their former sins 2. That they are weary of the remnant of their corruption or infirmity 3. That they long and labour to be delivered and to have their cure perfected and live in the diligent use of means to that end 4. That they live in no sin but smaller humane frailties 5. That all the riches in the world would not hire them deliberately and wilfully to sin but they will rather choose to suffer what man can lay upon them 6. That they are vile in their own eyes because of their remaining imperfections 7. That they do no wrong or injustice to any or if they do wrong any they are ready to confess it and make them satisfaction 8. That they love all good men with a love of complacency and all bad men with a love of benevolence yea even their enemies and instead of revenge are ready to forgive and to do what good they can for them and all men And that they hate bad men in opposition to complacency but as they hate themselves for their sins 9. That they love all doctrines persons and practices which are holy temperate just and charitable 10. That their passions at least are so far governed that they do not carry them to swear curse or rail or slander or fight or to do evil 11. That their tongues are used to speak with reverence of holy and righteous things and not to filthy ribbald railing lying or other wicked speech 12. That they suffer not their lusts to carry them to fornication nor their appetites to drunkenness or notable excess 13. That nothing below God himself is the principle object of their devotion but to know him to love him to serve and please him and to delight in these is the greatest care and desire and endeavour of their souls 14. That their chiefest hopes are of heaven and everlasting happiness with God in the perfection of this sight and love 15. That the ruling motives are fetch'd from God and the life to come which most command their choice their comforts and their lives 16. That in comparison of this all worldly riches honours and dignities are sordid contemptible things in their esteem 17. That for the hope of this they are much supported with patience under all sufferings in the way 18. That they value and use the things of this world in their callings and labours in subserviency to God and Heaven as a means to its proper end 19. That they vse their relations in the same subserviency ruling chiefly for God if they be superiours and obeying chiefly for God if they be inferiours and that with fidelity submission and patience so far as they can know his will 20. That their care and daily business in the world is by diligent redeeming precious time in getting and doing what good they can to make ready for death and judgment to secure their everlasting happiness and to please their God § 104. All this may be discerned in others with so great probability of their sincerity that no charitable reason shall have cause to question it And I repeat my testimony that here is not a word which I have not faithfully copied out of my own heart and experience and that I have been acquainted with multitudes who I verily believe were much better than my self and had a greater measure of all this grace § 105. If any shall say that men superstitiously appoint themselves unnecessary tasks and forbid themselves many lawful things and then call this by the name of Holiness I answer That many indeed do so but it is no such that I am speaking of Let reason judge whether in this or any of the fore-going descriptions of Holiness there be any such thing at all contained § 106. He that will be able to discern this Spirit of God in others must necessarily observe these reasonable conditions 1. Choose not those that are notoriously No-christians to judge of Christianity by a drunkard fornicator voluptuous carnal worldly proud or selfish person calling himself a Christian is certainly but an hypocrite And shall Christianity be judged of by a lying hypocrite 2. As you must choose such to try by as are truly serious in their Religion so you must be intimate and familiar with them and not strangers that see them as afar off for they make no vain ostentation of their piety And how can they discern the divine motions of their souls that only see them in common conversation 3. You must not judge of them by the revilings of ignorant ungodly men 4. Nor by the reproach of selfish men that are moved only by some interest of their own 5. Nor by the words of faction Civil or Religious which judgeth of all men according to the
A Sellius his milkie Veines and Pecquets Receptacle of the Chyle and Bartholines Glandules and the Vasa Lymphatica are of late discovery Galilaeus his Glasses and his four Medicaean Planets and the Lunary mutations of Venus and the strange either opacous parts and shape of Saturn or the proximity of two other Stars which mishape it to our sight the shadowy parts of the Moon c. with the innumerable Stars in the Via Lactea c. were all unknown to former ages Gilberts magnetical discoveries I speak not of those questionable Inferences which Campanella and others contradict the nature of many Minerals and Plants the chief operations and effects of Chymistry abundance of secrets for the cure of many diseases even the most excellent medicaments are all of very late invention Almost all Arts and Sciences are encreasing neerer towards Perfection Ocular demonstrations by the Telescope and sensible experiments are daily multiplyed Yea the World it self is not all discovered to any one part but a great part of it was but lately made known even to the Europeans whose knowledge is greatest by Columbus and Americus Vesputianus and it is not long since it was first measured by a Circumnavigation If the World had been eternall or of much longer duration than the Scripture speaketh it is not credible that multiplyed experiences would not have brought it above that Infancy of knowledge in which it so long continued Obj. Cursed Warrs by Fire and Depopulation consume all Antiquities and put the World still to begin anew Answ It doth indeed do much this way but it is not so much that Warre could do For when it is in one Countrey others are free and some would fly or lie hid or survive who would preserve Arts and Sciences and be teachers of the rest Who can think now that any Wars are like to make America or Galilaeus's Stars unknown again or any of the forenamed Inventions to be lost 2. Moreover it is strange if the World were eternall or much elder than Scripture speaketh that no part of the World should shew us any elder Monument of Antiquity no engraven Stones or Plates no Mausolus Pyramids or Pillars no Books no Chronological Tables no Histories or Genealogies or other Memorials and Records I know to this also cursed Warrs may contribute much But not so much as to leave nothing to inquisitive Successors § 2. II. It greatly confirmeth my belief of the Holy Scriptures to finde by certain experience the Original and Vniversal pravity of mans nature how great it is and wherein it doth consist exactly agreeing with this Sacred Word when no others have made such a full discovery of it This I have opened and proved before and he is a stranger to the World and to himself that seeth it not Were it not lest I weary the Reader with length how fully and plainly could I manifest it § 3. III. The certain observation of the universal Spiritual Warre which hath been carryed on according to the first Gospel between the Woman's and the Serpent's seed doth much confirm me of the truth of the Scriptures Such a contrariety there is even between Cain and Abel Children of the same Father such an implacable enmity throughout all the World in almost all wicked men against Godliness it self and those that sincerely love and follow it such a hatred in those that are Orthodoxly bred against the true power use and practice of the Religion which they themselves profess such a resolute resistance of all that is seriously good and holy and tendeth but to the saving of the resisters that it is but a publick visible acting of all those things which the Scripture speaketh of and a fulfilling them in all ages and places in the sight of all the World Of which having treated largely in my Treatise against Infidelity of the sin against the Holy Ghost I referre you thither § 4. IV. It much confirmeth me to finde that there is no other Religion professed in the World that an impartial rational man can rest in That man is made for another life the light of Nature proveth to all men And some way or other there must be opened to us to attain it Mahometanisme I think not worthy a confutation Judaisme must be much beholden to Christianity for its proofs and is but the introduction to it inclusively considered The Heathens or meer Naturalists are so blinde so idolatrous so divided into innumerable sects so lost and bewildred in uncertainties and shew us so little holy fruit of their Theology that I can incline to no more than to take those natural Verities which they confess and which they cast among the rubbish of their fopperies and wickedness and to wipe them clean and take them for some part of my Religion Christianity or nothing is the way § 5. V. It much confirmeth me to observe that commonly the most true and serious Christians are the holyest and most honest righteous men and that the worse men are the greater enemies they are to true Christianity And then to think how incredible it is that God should lead all the worst men into the truth and leave the best and godlyest in an error In small matters or common secular things this were no wonder But in the matter of Believing worshipping and pleasing God and saving of Souls it is not credible As for the belief of a Life to come no men are so far from it as the vilest Whoremongers Drunkards perjured persons Murderers Oppressors Tyrants Thieves Rebels or if any other name can denote the worst of men And none so much believe a Life to come as the most godly honest-hearted persons And can a man that knoweth that there is a God believe that he will leave all good men in so great an error and rightly inform and guide all these Beasts or living walking images of the Devil The same in a great measure is true of the friends and enemies of Christianity § 6. VI. It hath been a great convincing argument with me against both Atheisme and Infidelity to observe the marvelous Providences of God for divers of his servants and the strange answer of Prayers which I my self and ordinarily other Christians have had I have been and am as backward to ungrounded credulity about wonders as most men that will not strive against knowledge But I have been oft convinced by great experience and testimonies which I believed equally with my eye-sight of such actions of God as I think would have convinced most that should know as much of them as I did But few of them are fit to mention For some of them so much concern my self that strangers may be tempted to think that they savour of self-esteem and some of them the factions and parties in these times will by their interest be engaged to distaste And some of them have been done on persons whose after scandalous Crimes have made me think it unfit to mention them lest I should seem
luculentissima Josephi edita paulo post annum à Christi abitu 40. Cum quibus consentiunt ea quae apud Thalmudicos de iisdem temporibus leguntur Neronis saevitiam in Christianos Tacitus memoriae prodidit Exstabant olim libri tum privatorum ut Phlegontis tum acta publica ad quae Christiani provocabant quilus constabat de eo sidere quod post Christum natum apparuit de terrae motu solis deliquio contra naturam plenissimo lunae orbe circa tempus quo Christus crucis supplicio affectus est Celsus and Julian do not deny the miracles of Christ Mahomet himself confesseth Christ to be a true Prophet and the Word of God and condemneth the Jews for rejecting him he confesseth his miraculous Nativity and mighty works and that he was sent from heaven to preach the Gospel He bringeth in God as saying We have delivered our declarations to Jesus the Son of Mary and strengthned him by the holy Ghost And We have delivered him the Gospel in which is direction and light c. And he teacheth his followers this Creed Say We believe in God and that which was delivered to Moses and Jesus and which was delivered to the Prophets from their Lord we distinguish not between any of them and we deliver up our selves to his faith And if Christ be to be believed as Mahomet saith then Christianity is the true Religion for as for his and his followers reports that the Scriptures are changed and that we have put out Christ's prediction that Mahomet must be sent c. they are fables not only unproved but before here proved utterly impossible Read Eusebius Eccles Hist l. 8 c. 17 18. l. 9. c. 10. of God's strange judgments on Maximinus the Emperour whose bowels being tormented and his lower parts ulcerated with innumerable worms and so great a stink as kill'd some of his Physicians which forced him to confess that what had befallen him was deservedly for his madness against Christ for he had forbidden the Christians their assemblies and persecuted them wherefore he commanded that they should cease persecuting the Christians and that by a Law and Imperial Edict their Assemblies should be again restored He confessed his sins and begg'd the Christians Prayers and professed that if he were recovered he would worship the God of the Christians whom by experience he had found to be the true God See Bishop Fotherby Atheomast l. 1. c. 3. p. 140 141. comparing his case with Antiochus his Paulus Orosius histor li. 6. fine telleth us of a Fountain of Oyl which flowed a whole day in Augustus Reign and how Augustus refused to be called Dominus and how he shut up Janus Temple because of the Universal Peace and that eo tempore id est eo anno quo fortissimam verissimamque pacem ordinatione Dei Caesar composuit natus est Christus cujus adventum pax ista famulata est in cujus ortu audientibus hominibus exultantes Angeli cecinerunt Gloria in excelsis Deo in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis See also what after others he saith of Tyberius motioning to the Senate that Christ might be accounted a God and Sejanus resisting it li 7. Auct Bib. Pat. To. 1. p. 209. where he saith also that aliquanti Graecorum libri attested the darkness at Christs death And li. 7. p. 216. he sheweth that as after the ten Plagues of Egypt the Israelites were delivered and the Egyptians destroyed so was it in the Roman Empire with the Christians and Pagans after the particular revenges of the ten Persecutions But because he is a Christian Historian I cite no more from him CHAP. IX Yet Faith hath many Difficulties to overcome What they are and what their Causes THere are two sorts of persons who may possibly peruse these things and are of tempers so contrary that what helpeth one may hurt the other The first are those who see so many objections and difficulties that they are turned from the due apprehension of the Evidences of Christianity and can think of nothing but stumbling-blocks to their Faith To tell these men of more difficulties may adde to their discouragement and do them hurt And yet I am not of their minde that think they should be therefore silenced For that may tempt them to imagine them unanswerable if they come into their mindes The better way for these men is to desire them better to study the Evidence of truth And there are other men who must be thought on who seeing no difficulties in the work of Faith do continue unfortified against them and keep up a Belief by meer extrinsick helps and advantages which will fall as soon as the storms assault it And because no doubt is well overcome that is not known and Nil tam certum quà m quod ex dubio certum est I will venture to open the Difficulties of Believing § 1. That Believing in Christ is a work of Difficulty is proved both by the paucity of sound Believers and the imperfection of Faith in the sincere and the great and wonderfull means which must be used to bring men to believe Superficial Believers are a small part of the whole World and sound Believers are a small part of professed Christians And these sound Believers have many a temptation and some of them many a troublesom doubt and all of them a Faith which is too farr from perfection And yet all the Miracles Evidences Arguments and Operations aforesaid must be used to bring them even to this § 2. The Difficulties are I. Some of them in the things to be believed II. Some of them in extrinsecal impediments III. And some of them in the minde of Man who must believe § 3. I. 1. The mysteriousness of the doctrine of the blessed Trinity hath alwayes been a difficulty to Faith and occasioned many to avoid Christianity especially the Mahometanes and many Hereticks to take up Devices of their own to shift it off § 4. 2. The Incarnation of the second Person the Eternal Word and the personal union of the Divine Nature with the Humane is so strange a condescension of God to man as maketh this the greatest of difficulties and the greatest stumbling-block to Infidels and Hereticks § 5. 3. The Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ and the advancement of mans nature in him above the Angelical nature and glory is a difficulty § 6. 4. To believe all the history of the Miracles of Christ the Prophets and Apostles is difficult because of the strangeness of the things § 7. 5. It is not without difficulty firmly to believe the Immortality of Souls and the endlesness of the felicity of the life to come § 8. 6. And it hath proved hard to many to believe the endless miseries of damned souls in Hell § 9. 7. And it is as hard to believe the paucity of the blessed and that the damned are the farr greater number § 10. 8.
apprehend or is apprehended by another § 47. 12. Most men think it the wisest way because it is the easiest to be at a venture of the Religion of the King and the Countrey where they live and to do as the most about them do which is seldom best § 48. 13. Men are grown strangers to themselves and know not what man is nor what is a reasonable Soul but have so abused their higher faculties that they are grown ignorant of their dignity and use and know not that in themselves which should help their Faith § 49. 14. Men are grown so bad and false and prone to lying themselves that it maketh them the more incredulous of God and man as judging of others by themselves § 50. 15. The cares of the Body and World do so take up the mindes of men that they cannot afford the matters of God and their salvation such retired serious thoughts as they do necessarily require § 51. 16. Too few have the happiness of judicious Guides who rightly discern the Methods and Evidences of the Gospel and tempt not men to unbelief by their mistaken grounds and unsound reasonings These are the Impediments and difficulties of Faith in the Persons themselves who should believe CHAP. X. The Intrinsecal Difficulties in the Christian Faith resolved Object I. THe Doctrine of the Trinity is not intelligible or credible Answ 1. Nothing at all in God can be comprehended or fully known by any creatures God were not God that is Perfect and Infinite if he were comprehensible by such Worms as we Nothing is so certainly known as God and yet nothing so imperfectly 2. The doctrine of the Trinity in Unity is so intelligible and credible and is so admirably apparent in its products in the methods of Nature and Morality that to a wise Observer it maketh Christianity much the more credible because it openeth more fully these excellent mysteries and methods It is intelligible and certain that MAN is made in the Image of God And that the noblest Creatures bear most of the impress of their Makers excellency And that the invisible Deity is here to be known by us as in the Glass of his visible works Of which the Rational or Intellectual Nature is the highest with which we are acquainted And it is most certain that in the Unity of mans Minde or Soul there is a Trinity of Essentialities or Primalities as Campanella calleth them that is such faculties as are so little distinct from the Essence of the Soul as such that Philosophers are not yet agreed whether they shall say it is realiter formaliter relativè vel denominatione extrinseca To pass by the three faculties of Vegetation sensation and intellection In the Soul as Intellectual there are the Essential faculties of Power executive or communicative ad extra Intellect and Will Posse Scire Velle And accordingly in morality or virtue there is in one New-creature or holy Nature wisdom goodness and ability or fortitude and promptitude to act according to them And in our Relation to things below us in the unity of our Dominion or superiority there is a Trinity of Relations viz. we are their Owners their Rulers according to their capacity and their End and Benefactors so that in the Unity of Gods Image upon man there is this natural moral and dominative Image and in the Natural the Trinity of Essential faculties and in the Moral the Trinity of holy Virtues and in the Dominative a Trinity of superiour Relations And though the further we go from the root the more darkness and dissimilitude appeareth to us yet it is strange to see even in the Body what Analogies there are to the Faculties of the Soul In the superior middle and inferior Regions And in them the natural vital and animal parts with the three sorts of Humours three sorts of Concoctions and three sorts of Spirits answerable thereto and admirably united with much more which a just Scheme would open to you And therefore seeing God is known to us by this his Image and in this Glass though we must not think that any thing in God is formally the same as it is in Man yet certainly we must judge that all this is eminently in God and that we have no fitter notions and names concerning his incomprehensible Perfections than what are borrowed from the Minde of man Therefore it is thus undenyable that GOD is in the Unity of his Eternal Infinite Essence a Trinity of Essentialities or Active Principles viz. POWER INTELLECT and WILL And in their HOLY Perfections they are Omnipotency Omniscience or Wisdom and Goodness And in his Relative Supremacy is contained this Trinity of Relations He is our OWNER our RECTOR and our CHIEF GOOD that is Our Benefactor and our end And as in Mans Soul the Posse Scire Velle are not three parts of the Soul it being the whole Soul quae potest quae intelligit quae vult and yet these three are not formaliter or how you will otherwise call the distinction the same Even so in GOD it is not one Part of God that hath POWER and another that hath UNDERSTANDING and another that hath WILL but the whole Deity is POWER the whole is UNDERSTANDING and the whole is WILL The whole is Omnipotency the whole is Wisdom and the whole is Goodness the Fountain of that which in man is called Holiness or Moral Goodness And yet formally to understand is not to will and to will is not to be able to execute If you say what is all this to the Trinity of Hypostases or persons I answer Either the three Subsistences in the Trinity are the same with the Potentia Intellectus and Voluntas in the Divine Essence or not If they are the same there is nothing at all intelligible incredible or uncertain in it For natural Reason knoweth that there is all these eminently in God And whoever will think that any humane language can speak of him must confess that his Omnipotence Wisdom and Goodness his Power Intellect and Will must be thus to mans apprehension distinguished Otherwise we must say nothing at all of God or say that his power is his willing and his willing is his knowing and that he willeth all the sin which he knoweth and all that he can do which language will at best signifie nothing to any man And it is to be noted that our Saviour in his Eternal subsistence is called in Scripture The WISDOM of God or his internal Word and in his Operations in the Creation he is called The Word of God as operative or efficient and in his Incarnation he is called The Son of God Though these terms be not alwayes and only thus used yet usually they are The Words of an ancient godly Writer before cited are considerable Potho Prumensis de statu domus Dei lib. 1. p. 567. in Biblioth Patr. T. 9. Tria sunt invisibilia Dei h. e. Potentia Sapientia
and to dwell within us The Scripture often calleth Christ the Wisdom of God and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is both the Ratio Oratio the Internal and Expressed or Incarnate Word And he that understandeth that by the holy Ghost which is said in Scripture to be given to believers is meant the habitual or prevalent LOVE to GOD will better understand how the holy Ghost is said to be given to them that already have so much of it as to cause them to believe Abundance of Hereticks have troubled the Church with their self-devised opinions about the Trinity and the Person and Natures of Christ and I am loth to say how much many of the Orthodox have troubled it also with their self-conceited misguided uncharitable zeal against those whom they judged Hereticks The present divisions between the Roman Church the Greeks the Armenians Syrians Copties and Ethiopians is too sad a proof of this and the long contention between the Greeks and Latins about the terms Hypostasis and Persona 5. And I would advise the Reader to be none of those that shall charge with Heresie all those School-men and late Divines both Papists and Protestants who say that the Three Persons are Deus seipsum intelligens Deus à seipso intellectus Deus à seipso amatus though I am not one that say as they nor yet those holy men whom I have here cited Potho Prumensis Edmundus Archiepisc Cantuariensis Parisiensis and many others who expresly say that Potentia Sapientia Amor are the Father Son and holy Ghost 6. But for my own part as I unfeignedly account the doctrine of the Trinity the very summ and kernel of the Christian Religion as exprest in our Baptism and Athanasius his Creed the best explication of it that ever I read so I think it very unmeet in these tremendous mysteries to go further than we have God's own light to guide us And it is none of my purpose at all to joyn with either of the two fore-mentioned parties nor to assert that the mysterie of the blessed Trinity of Hypostases or Persons is no other than this uncontroverted Trinity of Essential Principles All that I endeavour is but as aforesaid to shew that this Doctrine is neither contradictory incredible nor unlikely by shewing the vestigia or Image of it and that which is as liable to exception and yet of unquestionable truth And if the three Hypostases be not the same with the Trinity of Principles aforesaid yet no man can give a sufficient reason why Three in One should not be truly credible and probable in the one instance when common natural reason is fully satisfied of it in the other He must better understand the difference between a Person and such an Essential Principle in Divinis than any mortal man doth who will undertake to prove from the Title of a Person that one is incredible or unlikely when the other is so clear and sure or rather he understandeth it not at all that so imagineth For my part I again from my heart profess that the Image or Vestigia of Trinity in Unity through the most notable parts of Nature and Morality do increase my estimation of the Christian Religion because of the admirable congruity and harmony Object II. But who is able to believe the Incarnation and Hypostatical Vnion If you should read that a Kings Son in compassion to poor flies or fleas or lice had himself become a flie or flea or louse had it been in his power to save their lives would you have thought it credible And yet the condescension had been nothing to this as being but of a creature to a creature Answ This is indeed the greatest difficulty of faith but if you do not mistake the matter you will find it also the greatest excellency of faith 1. Therefore you must take heed of making it difficult by your own errour think not that the Godhead was turned into man as you talk of a man becoming a flie nor yet that there was the least real change upon the Deity by this incarnation nor the least real abasement dishonour loss injury or suffering to it thereby For all these are not to be called difficulties but impossibilities and blasphemies There is no abatement of any of the Divine Perfections by it nor no confinement of the Essence but as the soul of man doth animate the body so the Eternal Word doth as it were animate the whole humane Nature of Christ As Athanasius saith As the reasonable soul and humane flesh do make one man so God and Man are one Christ and that without any coarctation limitation or restriction of the Deity 2. And this should be no strange Doctrine nor incredible to most of the Philosophers of the world who have one part of them taught that God is the Soul of the world and that the whole Universe is thus animated by him and another part that he is the Soul of Souls or Intelligences animating them as they do bodies That therefore which they affirm of all cannot by them be thought incredible of one And it is little less if any thing at all which the Peripateticks themselves have taught of the assistant Forms Intelligences which move the Orbs and of the Agent Intellect in man and some of them of the universal soul in all men And what all their vulgar people have thought of the Deifying of Heroes and other men it is needless to recite Julian himself believed the like of Aesculapius None of these Philosophers then have any reason to stumble at this which is but agreeable to their own opinions And indeed the opinion that God is the Soul of souls or of the Intellectual world hath that in it which may be a strong temptation to the wisest to imagine it Though indeed he is no constitutive form of any of those creatures but to be their Creator and total efficient is much more What Union it is which we call Hypostatical we do not fully understand our selves but we are sure that it is such as no more abaseth the Deity than its concourse with the Sun in its efficiencies Object But what kin are these assertions of Philosophers to yours of the Incarnation of the Eternal Word and Wisdom of God Answ What was it but an Incarnation of a Deity which they affirmed of Aesculapius and such others And they that thought God to be the Soul of the world thought that the world was as much animated with the Deity as we affirm the humane Nature of Christ to have been yea for ought I see whilst they thought that this soul was parcelled out to every individual and that Matter only did pro tempore individuate they made every man to be God incarnate And can they believe that it is so with every man and yet think it incredible in Christianity that our humane Nature is personally united to the Divine I think in this they contradict themselves 3. And it is
these Who can say that God is unable to raise the dead who seeth so much greater things performed by him in the daily motion of the Sun or Earth and in the support and course of the whole frame of Nature He that can every Spring give a kinde of Resurrection to Plants and Flowers and Fruits of the Earth can easily raise our bodies from the dust And no man can prove that the Wisdom of God or yet his Will are against our Resurrection but that both are for it may be proved by his Promises Shall that which is beyond the power of Man be therefore objected as a difficulty to God 2. Yea it is congruous to the Wisdom and Governing Justice of God that the same Body which was partaker with the Soul in sin and duty should be partaker with it in suffering or felicity 3. The Lord Jesus Christ did purposely die and rise again in his humane body to put the Resurrection out of doubt by undenyable ocular demonstration and by the certainty of belief 4. There is some Natural Reason for the Resurrection in the Souls inclination to its Body As it is unwilling to lay it down it will be willing to reassume it when God shall say The time is come As we may conclude at night when they are going to bed that the people of City and Countrey will rise the next morning and put on their Cloaths and not go naked about the streets because there is in them a Natural inclination to rising and to cloaths and a natural aversness to lie still or to go uncloathed so may we conclude from the souls natural inclination to its body that it will reassume it as soon as God consenteth 5. And all our Objections which reason from supposed contradictions vanish because none of us all have so much skill in Physicks as to know what it is which individuateth this Numerical Body and so what it is which is to be restored But we all confess that it is not the present mass of flesh and humours which being in a continual flux is not the same this year which it was the last and may vanish long before we die Obj. X. If Christ be indeed the Saviour of the World why came he not into the World till it was 4000 years old And why was he before revealed to so few and to them so darkly Did God care for none on earth but a few Jews or did he not care for the Worlds recovery till the later age when it drew towards its end Answ It is hard for the Governour of the World by ordinary means to satisfie all self-conceited persons of the wisdom and equity of his dealings But 1. it belongeth not to us but to our free Benefactor to determine of the measure and season of his benefits May he not do with his own as he list And shall we deny or question a proved truth because the reason of the circumstances is unrevealed to us If our Physician come to cure us of a mortal disease would we reject him because he came not sooner and because he cured not all others that were sick as well as us 2. The Eternal Wisdom and Word of God the second Person in the Trinity was the Saviour of the World before he was incarnate He did not only by his Vndertaking make his future performances valid as to the merit and satisfaction necessary to our deliverance but he instructed Mankinde in order to their recovery and Ruled them upon terms of grace and so did the work of a Redeemer or Mediator even as Prophet Priest and King before his Incarnation He enacted the Covenant of Grace that whoever repenteth and believeth shall be saved and so gave men a conditional pardon of their sins 3. And though Repentance and the Love of God was necessary to all that would be saved even as a constitutive cause of their salvation yet that Faith in the Mediator which is but the means to the Love of God and to sanctification was not alwayes nor in all places in the same particular Articles necessary as it is now where the Gospel is preached Before Christs coming a more general belief might serve the turn for mens salvation without believing that This Jesus is the Christ that he was conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified dead and buryed and descended to Hades and rose again the third day and ascended into Heaven c. And as more is necessary to be believed since Christs incarnation and resurrection than before so more was before necessary to the Jewes who had the Oracles of God and had more revealed to them than to other Nations who had less revealed And now more is necessary where the Gospel cometh than where it doth not 4. So that the Gentiles had a Saviour before Christs Incarnation and not only the Jewes They were reprieved from Legal Justice and not dealt with by God upon the proper terms of the Covenant of Works or meer Nature They had all of them much of that mercy which they had forfeited which came to them by the Grace of the Redeemer They had time and helps to turn to God and a course of means appointed them to use in order to their recovery and salvation According to the use of which they shall be judged They were not with the Devils left remediless and shut out of all hope under final desperation No one ever perished in any Age or Nation of the World who by believing in a mercifull pardoning holy God was recovered to love God above all And if they did not this they were all without a just excuse 5. The course of Grace as that of Nature doth wisely proceed from low degrees to higher and bringeth not things to perfection at the first The Sun was not made the first day of the Creation nor was Man made till all things were prepared for him The Churches Infancy was to go before its Maturity We have some light of the Sun before it rise much more before it come to the height As Christ now teacheth his Church more plainly when he is himself gone into Glory even by his Pastors whom he fitteth for that work and by his Spirit so did he though more obscurely yet sufficiently teach it before he came in the flesh by Prophets and Priests His work of Salvation consisteth in bringing men to live in Love and Obedience And his way of Teaching them his saving doctrine is by his Ministers without and by his Spirit within And thus he did before his coming in flesh and thus he doth since we that are born since his coming see not his Person any more than they who were born before But we have his Word Ministers and Spirit and so had they His reconciling sacrifice was effectual morally in esse cognito volito before the performance of it And the means of reconciling our mindes to God
vain a bubble the honour of man and the glory of this world is will not be offended at the King of Saints because his Kingdom is not of this World And he that knoweth any thing of the difference between God and the Creature Heaven and Earth will not despise the Eternal Jehovah because he weareth not a silken Coat and dwelleth not in the guilded Palaces of a Prince If Earthly Glory had been the highest it had been the glory of Christ And if he had come to make us happy by the rich mans way Luk. 16. To be cloathed in Purple and Silk and faring sumptuously every day then would he have led us this way by his example But when it is the work of a Saviour to save us from the flesh and from this present evil World the Means must be suited to the end Obj. XII But it is a very hard thing to believe that person to be God Incarnate and the Saviour of the World who suffered on a Cross as a Blasphemer and a Traytor that usurped the Title of a King Answ The Cross of Christ hath ever been the stumbling-block of the proud and worldly sort of men But it is the confidence and consolation of true Believers For 1. It was not for his own sins but for ours that he suffered Even so was it prophesied of him Isa 53.4 Surely he hath born our griefs and carryed our sorrows yet did we esteem him stricken of God and afflicted But he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed All we like Sheep have gone astray we have every one turned to his own way and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all And it is impudent ingratitude to make those his sufferings the occasion of our unbelief which we were the causes of our selves and to be ashamed of that Cross which we laid upon him by our sins It is not worth the labour to answer the slanders of his accusers about his usurpation of a Kingdom when they believed it not themselves He was above a worldly Kingdom And it could be no blasphemy for him to say that he was the Son of God when he had so fully proved it by his works 2. His suffering as a reputed Malefactor on a Cross was a principal part of the merit of his Patience For many a man can bear the corporal pain who cannot so far deny his honour as to bear the imputation of a Crime For the innocent Son of God that was never convict of sin to suffer under the name of a Blasphemer and a Traytor was greater condescention than to have suffered under the name of an innocent person 3. And in all this it was needfull that the Saviour of Mankinde should not only be a Sacrifice and Ransom for our sinfull Souls but also should heal us of the over-love of Life and Honour by his Example Had not his self-denyal and patience extended to the loss of all things in this World both life it self and the reputation of his righteousness it had not been a perfect example of self-denyal and patience unto us And then it had been unmeet for so great a work as the cure of our Pride and love of Life Had Christ come to deliver the Jews from Captivity or to make his Followers great on Earth as Mahomet did he would have suited the Means to such an End But when he came to save men from pride and self-love and the esteem of this World and to bring them to Patience and full obedience to the will of God and to place all their happiness in another life true Reason telleth us that there was no example so fit for this end as Patient submission to the greatest sufferings The Cross of Christ then shall be our glory and not our stumbling-block or shame Let the Children of the Devil boast that they are able to do hurt and to trample upon others The Disciples of Christ will rather boast that they can patiently endure to be abused as knowing that their Pride and Love of the World is the enemy which they are most concern'd in conquering Obj. XIII It was but a few mean unlearned persons who believed in him at the first And it is not past a sixth part of the World that yet believeth in him And of these few do it judiciously and from their hearts but because their Kings or Parents or Countrey are of that Religion Answ 1. As to the Number I have answered it before It is no great number comparatively that are Kings or Lords or Learned men and truly judicious and wise will you therefore set light by any of these Things excellent are seldom common The Earth hath more Stones than Gold or Pearls All those believed in Christ who heard his word and saw his works and had wise considerate honest hearts to receive the sufficient evidence of truth The greater part are every where ignorant rash injudicious dishonest and carryed away with prejudice fancy custom error and carnal interest If all men have means in its own kind sufficient to bring them to believe to understand so much as God immediately requireth of them it is their fault who after this are ignorant and unbelieving and if it prove their misery let them thank themselves But yet Christ will not leave the success of his undertaking so far to the will of man as to be uncertain of his expected fruits He hath his chosen ones throughout the World and will bring them effectually to Faith and Holiness to Grace and Glory though all the Powers of Hell do rage against it In them is his delight and them he will conform to his Fathers will and restore them to his Image and fit them to love and serve him here and enjoy him for ever And though they are not the greater number they shall be the everlasting demonstration of his Wisdom Love and Holiness And when you see all the worlds of more blessed Inhabitants you will see that the Damned were the smaller number and the Blessed in all probability many millions to one If the Devil have the greater number in this World God will have the greater number in the rest 2. It was the wise design of Jesus Christ that few in comparison should be converted by his personal converse or teaching and thousands might be suddenly converted upon his Ascension and the coming down of the Holy Ghost Both because his Resurrection and Ascension were part of the Articles to be believed and were the chiefest of all his Miracles which did convert men And therefore he would Rise from the dead before the multitude should be called And because the Spirit as it was his extraordinary Witness and Advocate on Earth was to be given by him after he ascended into glory And he would have the World see that the Conversion of men to Faith and Sanctity was not the
advantage of honour to his mercy and in the fullest demonstration of that love and goodness which may win our love And where will you find this done but in Jesus Christ alone 2. You must distinguish between Anger and Justice when God is said to be angry it meaneth no more but that he is displeased with sin and sinners and executeth his governing-justice on them 3. You must distinguish between sufferings in themselves considered and as in their signification and effects God loved not any mans pain and suffering and death as in it self considered and as evil to us no not of a sacrificed beast but he loveth the demonstration of his truth and justice and holiness and the vindication of his Laws from the contempt of sinners and the other good ends attained by this means and so as a means adapted to such ends he loveth the punishment of sin Object XV. It is a suspicious sign that he seeketh but to set up his name and get disciples that he maketh it so necessary to salvation to believe in him and not only to repent and turn to God Answ He maketh not believing in him necessary sub ratione finis as our holiness and love to God is but only sub ratione medii as a means to make us holy and work us up to the love of God He proclaimeth himself to be the Way the Truth and the Life by whom it is that we must come to the Father and that he will save to the uttermost all that come to God by him Heb. 7.25 Joh. 14.6 So that he commandeth Faith but as the bellows of Love to kindle in us the heavenly flames And I pray you how should he do this otherwise Can we learn of him if we take him for a deceiver Will we follow his example if we believe him not to be our pattern Will we obey him if we believe not that he is our Lord Will we be comforted by his gracious promises and covenant and come to God with ever the more boldness and hope of mercy if we believe not in his Sacrifice and Merits Shall we be comforted at death in hope that he will justifie us and receive our souls if we believe not that he liveth and will judge the world and is the Lord of life and glory Will you learn of Plato or Aristotle if you believe not that they are fit to be your Teachers Or will you take Physick of any Physician whom you trust not but take him for a deceiver Or will you go in the Vessel with a Pilot or serve in the Army under a Captain whom you cannot trust To believe in Christ which is made so necessary to our justification and salvation is not a dead opinion nor the joyning with a party that cryeth up his name But it is to become Christians indeed that is to take him unfeignedly for our Saviour and give up our selves to him by resolved consent or covenant to be saved by him from sin and punishment and reconciled to God and brought to perfect holiness and glory This is true justifying and saving faith And it is our own necessities that have made this faith so necessary as a means to our own salvation And shall we make it necessary for our selves and then quarrel with him for making it necessary in his Covenant Object XVI If Christ were the Son of God and his Apostles inspired by the holy Ghost and the Scriptures were God's Word they would excel all other men and writings in all true rational worth and excellency whereas Aristotle excelleth them in Logick and Philosophy and Cicero and Demosthenes in Oratory and Seneca in ingenious expressions of morality c. Answ You may as well argue that Aristotle was no wiser than a Minstrel because he could not fiddle so well nor than a Painter because he could not limn so well or than a harlot because he could not dress himself so neatly Means are to be estimated according to their fitness for their ends Christ himself excelled all mankind in all true perfections and yet it became him not to exercise all mens arts to shew that he excelleth them He came not into the world to teach men Architecture Navigation Medicine Astronomy Grammar Musick Logick Rhetorick c. and therefore shewed not his skill in these The world had sufficient helps and means for these in Nature It was to save men from sin and hell and bring them to pardon holiness and heaven that Christ was incarnate and that the Apostles were inspired and the Scriptures written and to be fitted to these ends is the excellency to be expected in them and in this they excell all persons and writings in the world As God doth not syllogize or know by our imperfect way of ratiocination but yet knoweth all things better than syllogizers do so Christ hath a more high and excellent kind of Logick and Oratory and a more apt and spiritual and powerful style than Aristotle Demosthenes Cicero or Seneca He shewed not that skill in methodical healing which Hippocrates and Galen shewed But he shewed more and better skill when he could heal with a word and raise the dead and had the power of life and death so did he bring more convincing evidence than Aristotle and perswaded more powerfully than Demosthenes or Cicero And though this kind of formal learning was below him and below the inspired messengers of his Gospel yet his inferiour servants an Aquinas a Scotus an Ockam a Scaliger a Ramus a Gassendus do match or excel the old Philosophers and abundance of Christians equalize or excel a Demosthenes or Cicero in the truest Oratory 2. His mercy had a general design for the salvation of all sorts and ranks of men and therefore was not to confine it self to a few trifling pedantick Logicians and Orators or those that had learned to speak in their new-made words and phrases but he must speak in the common Dialect of all those whom he would instruct and save As the Statutes of the land or the Books of Physick which are most excellent are written in a style which is fitted to the subject matter and to the Readers and not in Syllogisms or terms of Logick so was it more necessary that it should be with the doctrine of salvation The poor and unlearned were the greatest number of those that were to be converted and saved by the Gospel and still to use the holy Scriptures 3. There is greater exactness of true Logical method in some parts of the Scripture as e. g. in the Covenant of Faith the Lord's Prayer and the Decalogue than any is to be found in Aristotle or Cicero though men that understand them not do not observe it The particular Books of Scripture were written at several times and on several occasions and not as one methodical system though the Spirit that indited it hath made it indeed a methodical system agreeably to its design but if you saw the doctrines
Apostles may cause variety of style and other accidental excellencies in the parts of the holy Scriptures and yet all these parts be animated with one soul of Power Truth and Goodness But those men who think that these humane imperfections of the Writers do extend further and may appear in some by-passages of Chronologies or History which are no proper part of the Rule of Faith and Life do not hereby destroy the Christian cause For God might enable his Apostles to an infallible recording and preaching of the Gospel even all things necessary to salvation though he had not made them infallible in every by-passage and circumstance no more than they were indefectible in life As for them that say I can believe no man in any thing who is mistaken in one thing at least as infallible they speak against common sense and reason for a man may be infallibly acquainted with some things who is not so in all An Historian may infallibly acquaint me that there was a Fight at Lepanto at Edge-hill at York at Naseby or an Insurrection and Massacre in Ireland and Paris c. who cannot tell me all the circumstances of it or he may infallibly tell men of the late Fire which consumed London though he cannot tell just whose houses were burnt and may mistake about the Causers of it and the circumstances A Lawyer may infallibly tell you whether your cause be good or bad in the main who yet may misreport some circumstances in the opening of it A Physician in his Historical observations may partly erre as an Historian in some circumstances yet be infallible as a Physician in some plain cases which belong directly to his Art I do not believe that any man can prove the least error in the holy Scripture in any point according to its true intent and meaning but if he could the Gospel as a Rule of Faith and Life in things necessary to salvation might be nevertheless proved infallible by all the evidence before given Object XVIII The Physicks in Gen 1. are contrary to all true Philosophy and suited to the vulgars erroneous conceits Answ No such matter there is sounder doctrine of Physicks in Gen. 1. than any Philosopher hath who contradicteth it And as long as they are altogether by the ears among themselves and so little agreed in most of their Philosophy but leave it to this day either to the Scepticks to deride as utterly uncertain or to any Novelist to form anew into what principles and hypothesis he please the judgment of Philosophers is of no great value to prejudice any against the Scriptures The sum of Gen. 1. is but this That God having first made the Intellectual Superiour part of the world and the matter of the Elementary world in an unformed Mass or Chaos did the first day distinguish or form the active Element of Fire and caused it to give Light The second day he separated the attenuated or rarifi'd part of the passive Element which we call the Air expanding it from the earth upwards to separate the clouds from the lower waters and to be the medium of Light And whether in different degrees of purity it fill not all the space between all the Globes both fixed and planetary is a question which we may more probably affirm than deny unless there be any waters also upwards by condensation which we cannot disprove The third day he separated the rest of the passive Element Earth and Sea into their proper place and bounds and also made individual Plants in their specifick forms and virtue of generation or multiplication of individuals The fourth day he made the Sun Moon and Stars either then forming them or then making them Luminaries to the earth and appointing them their relative office but hath not told us of their other uses which are nothing to us The fifth day he made inferiour Sensitives Fishes and Birds the inhabitants of Water and Air with the power of generation or multiplication of individuals The sixth day he made first the terrestrial Animals and then Man with the power also of generation or multiplication And the seventh day having taken complacency in all the works of this glorious perfected frame of Nature he appointed to be observ'd by mankind as a day of rest from worldly labours for the worshipping of Him their Omnipotent Creator in commemoration of this work This is the sum and sense of the Physicks of Gen. 1. And here is no errour in all this what ever prejudice Philosophers may imagine Object XIX It is a suspicious sign that Believing is commanded us instead of knowing and that we must take all upon trust without any proof Answ This is a meer slander Know as much as you are able to know Christ came not to hinder but to help your knowledge Faith is but a mode or act of knowing How will you know matters of History which are past and matters of the unseen world but by believing If you could have an Angel come from heaven to tell you what is there would you quarrel because you are put upon believing him if you can know it without believing and testimony do God biddeth you believe nothing but what he giveth you sufficient reason to believe Evidence of credibility in Divine faith is evidence of certainty Believers in Scripture usually say We know that thou art the Christ c. You are not forbidden but encouraged to try the spirits and not to believe every spirit nor pretended prophet Let this Treatise testifie whether you have not Reason and evidence for Belief it is Mahomet's doctrine and not Christ's which forbiddeth examination Object XX. It imposeth upon us an incredible thing when it perswadeth us that our undoing and calamity and death are the way to our felicity and our gain and that sufferings work together for our good At least these are hard terms which we cannot undergoe nor think it wisdom to lose a certainty for uncertain hopes Answ Suppose but the truth of the Gospel proved yea or but the Immortality and Retribution for Souls hereafter which the light of Nature proveth and then we may well say that this Objection savoureth more of the Beast than of the Man A Heathen can answer it though not so well as a Christian Seneca and Plutarch Antonine and Epictetus have done it in part And what a dotage is it to call things present Certainties when they are certainly ready to pass away and you are uncertain to possess them another hour who can be ignorant what haste Time maketh and how like the Life of man is to a dream What sweetness is now left of all the pleasant cups and morsels and all the merry hours you have had and all the proud or lustfull fancies which have tickled your deluded fleshly mindes Are they not more terrible than comfortable to your most retired sober thoughts and what an inconsiderable moment is it till it will be so with all the rest
are taught to believe that sense is not deceived about the Accidents which they call the Species but about the Substance only when most of the simple people by the species do understand the Bread and Wine it self which they think is to the invisible body of Christ like as our bodies or the body of a Plant is to the soul So that although this instance be one of the greatest in the world of infatuation by humane authority and words it is nothing against the Christian verity Object V. You are not yet agreed among your selves what Christianity is as to the matter of Rule the Papists say it is all the Decrees de fide at least in all General Councils together with the Scriptures Canonical and Apocriphal The Protestants take up with the Canonical Scriptures alone and have not near so much in their Faith or Religion as the Papists have Answ What it is to be a Christian all the world may easily perceive in that solemn Sacrament Covenant or Vow in which they are solemnly entred into the Church and profession of Christianity and made Christians And the antient Creed doth tell the world what hath always been the faith which was professed And those sacred Scriptures which the Churches did receive doth tell the world what they took for the entire comprehension of their Religion But if any Sects have been since tempted to any additions enlargements or corruptions it s nothing to the disparagement of Christ who never promised that no man should ever abuse his Word and that he would keep all the world from adding or corrupting it Receive but so much as the doctrine of Christ which hath certain proof that it was indeed his delivered by himself or his inspired Apostles and we desire no more Object VI. But you are not agreed of the reasons and resolution of your faith one resolveth it into the authority of the Church and others into a private spirit and each one seemeth sufficiently to prove the groundlesness of the others faith Answ Dark minded men do suffer themselves to be fooled with a noise of words not-understood Do you know what is meant by the resolution and grounds of faith Faith is the believing of a conclusion which hath two premises to infer and prove it and there must be more argumentation for the proof of such premises and faith in its several respects and dependances may be said to be resolved into more things than one even into every one of these This general and ambiguous word Resolution is used oft'ner to puzzle than resolve And the grounds and reasons of faith are more than one and what they are I have fully opened to you in this Treatise A great many of dreaming wranglers contend about the Logical names of the Objectum quod quo ad quod the objectum formale materiale per se per accidens primarium secundarium ratio formalis quae qua sub qua objectum univocationis communitatis perfectionis originis virtutis adaequationis c. the motiva fidei resolutio and many such words which are not wholly useless but are commonly used but to make a noise to carry men from the sense and to make men believe that the controversie is de re which is meerly de nomine Every true Christian hath some solid reason for his faith but every one is not learned and accurate enough to see the true order of its causes and evidences and to analize it throughly as he ought And you will take it for no disproof of Euclid or Aristotle that all that read them do not sufficiently understand all their Demonstrations but disagree in many things among themselves Object VII You make it a ridiculous Idolatry to worship the Sun and Jupiter and Venus and other Planets and Stars which in all probability are animate and have souls as much nobler than ours as their bodies are for it 's like God's works are done in proportion and harmony and so they seem to be to us as subordinate Deities And yet at the same time you will worship your Virgin Mary and the very image of Christ yea the Image of the Cross which he was hang'd on and the salita capita and rotten bones of your Martyrs to the dishonour of Princes who put them to death as malefactors Is not the Sun more worthy of honour than these Answ 1. We ever granted to an Eunapius Julian Porphyry or Celsus that the Sun and all the Stars and Planets are to be honoured according to their proper excellency and use that is to be esteemed as the most glorious of all the visible works of God which shew to us his Omnipotency Wisdom and Goodness and are used as his instruments to convey to us his chief corporal mercies and on whom under God our bodies are dependant being incomparably less excellent than theirs But whether they are animated or no is to us utterly uncertain and if we were sure they were yet we are sure that they are the products of the Will of the Eternal Being And he that made both them and us is the Governour of them and us and therefore as long as he hath no way taught us to call them Gods nor to pray to them nor offer them any sacrifice as being uncertain whether they understand what we do or say nor hath any way revealed that this is his will nay and hath expresly forbidden us to do so Reason forbiddeth us to do any more than honourably to esteem and praise them as they are and use them to the ends which our Creator hath appointed 2. And for the Martyrs and the Virgin Mary we do no otherwise by them we honour them by estimation love and praise agreeable to all the worth which God hath bestowed on them and the holiness of humane souls which is his image is more intelligible to us and so more distinctly amiable than the form of the Sun and Planets is But we pray not to them because we know not whether they hear us or know when we are sincere or hypocritical nor have we any such precepts from our common Lord. It is but some ignorant mistaken Christians who pray to the dead or give more than due veneration to their memories And it is Christ and not every ignorant Christian or mistaken Sect that I am justifying against the cavils of unbelief Object VIII You make the holiness of Christian doctrine a great part of the evidence of your faith and yet Papists and Protestants maintain each others doctrine to be wicked and such especially against Kings and Government as Seneca or Cicero or Plutarch would have abhorred The Protestants tell the Papists of the General Council at the Lateran sub Innoc. 3. where Can. 3. it is made a very part of their Religion That temporal Lords who exterminate not Hereticks may be admonished and excommunicated and their Dominions given by the Pope to others and subjects disobliged from their allegiance
you before the judgment-seats Christianity teacheth us to lament the sin of Tyranny the grand crime which keepeth out the Gospel from the Nations of Infidels and Pagans through the earth and eclipseth its glory in the Popish Principalities It teacheth us to resist tyrannical Usurpers in the defence of our true and lawful Kings But if it teach men patiently to suffer rather than rebelliously resist that is not from baseness but true nobleness of spirit exceeding both the Greek and Roman genius in that it proceedeth from a contempt of those inferiour trifles which they rebell for and from that satisfaction in the hopes of endless glory which maketh it easie to them to bear the loss of liberty life or any thing on earth and from obedience to their highest Lord. But in a lawful way they can defend their Countries and liberties as gallantly as ever Heathens did Object IX If your Religion had reason for it what need it be kept up by cruelty and bloud how many thousands and hundred thousands hath sword and fire and inquisition devoured as for the supporting of Religion and when they are thus compelled how know you who believeth Christianity indeed Answ This is none of the way or work of Christianity but of that sect which is raised by worldly interest and design and must accordingly be kept up In Christ's own family two of his Disciples would have called for fire from heaven to consume those that rejected him but he rebuked them and told them that they knew not what manner of spirit they were of and that he came not to destroy mens lives but to save them Will you now lay the blame of that consuming zeal on Christ which he so rebuketh The same two men would have been preferred before the rest to sit at his right hand and his left hand in his Kingdom and his Disciples strove who should be the greatest Did Christ countenance this or did he not sharply reprehend them and tell them that they must not have titles and domination as secular Princes have but be as little children in humility and their greatness must consist in being greatliest serviceable even in being servants to all If men after this will take no warning but fight and kill and burn and torment men in carnal zeal and pride and tyranny shall this be imputed to Christ who in his doctrine and life hath form'd such a testimony against this crime as never was done by any else in the world and as is become an offence to unbelievers Object X. We see not that the Leaders in the Christian Religion do really themselves believe it Pope Leo the tenth called it Fabula de Christo What do men make of it but a Trade to live by a means to get Abbies and Bishopricks and Benefices and to live at ease and fleshly pleasure and what do Secular Rulers make of it but a means to keep their subjects in awe Answ He that knoweth no other Christians in the world but such as these knoweth none at all and is unfit to judge of those whom he knoweth not True Christians are men that place all their happiness and hopes in the life to come and use this life in order to the next and contemn all the wealth and glory of the world in comparison of the love of God and their salvation True Pastors and Bishops of the Church do thirst after the conversion and happiness of sinners and spend their lives in diligent labours to these ends not thinking it too much to stoop to the poorest for their good nor regarding worldly wealth and glory in comparison of the winning of one soul nor counting their lives dear if they may but finish their course and ministery with joy Luk. 15. Act. 20. Heb. 13.7.17 c. They are hypocrites and not true Christians whom the objection doth describe by what names or titles soever they be dignified and are more disowned by Christ than by any other in the world Object XI Christians are divided into so many sects among themselves and every one condemning others that we have reason to suspect them all for how know we which of them to believe or follow Answ 1. Christianity is but One and easily known and all Christians do indeed hold this as certain by common agreement and consent they differ not at all about that which I am pleading for there may be a difference whether the Pope of Rome or the Patriarch of Constantinople be the greater or whether one Bishop must rule over all and such like matters of carnal quarrel but there is no difference whether Christ be the Saviour of the world or whether all his doctrine be infallibly true and the more they quarrel about their personal interests and by-opinions the most valid is their testimony in the things wherein they all agree it is not those things which they differ about that I am now pleading for or perswading any to embrace but those wherein they all consent 2. But if they agree not in all the Integrals of their Religion it is no wonder nor inferreth any more than that they are not all perfect in the knowledge of such high and mysterious things and when no man understandeth all that is in Aristotle nor no two interpreters of him agree in every exposition no nor any two men in all the world agree in every opinion who hold any thing of their own what wonder if Christians differ in many points of difficulty 3. But their differences are nothing in comparison of the Heathen Philosophers who were of so many minds and ways that there was scarce any coherence among them nor many things which they could ever agree in 4. The very differences of abundance of honest Christians is occasioned by their earnest desire to please God and do nothing but what is just and right and their high esteem of piety and honesty while the imperfection of their judgments keepeth them from knowing in all things what it is which indeed is that good and righteous way which they should take If children do differ and fall out if it be but in striving who shall do best and please their father it is the more excusable enemies do not so ideots fall not out in School-disputes or Philosophical controversies swine will not fall out for gold or jewels if they be cast before them in the streets but it 's like that men may 5. But the great sidings and factions kept up in the world and the cruelties exercised thereupon are from worldly hypocrites who under the mask of Christianity are playing their own game And why must Christ be answerable for those whom he most abhorreth and will most terribly condemn Object XII You boast of the holiness of Christians and we see not but they are worse than Heathens and Mahometans they are more drunken and greater deceivers in their dealings as lustful and unclean as covetous and carnal as proud and ambitious as tyrannical and
may let it go and boast of your better choice as you find cause How much did the light of nature teach the Stoicks the Cynicks and many other Sects which differeth not much in austerity from Christ's precepts of mortification and self-denial Socrates could say Opes ac nobilitates non solum nihil in se habere honestatis verum omne malum ex eis aboriri Laert. l. 2. in Socr. p. 99. Dicebat unicum esse bonum scientiam malumque unicum inscitiam Id. ib. Et referenti quod illum Athenienses mori dâ—crevissent natura illos inquit Ib. Et multa prius de immortalitate animorum ac praeclara disserens cicutam bibit p. 105. Magna animi sublimitate carpentes se objurgantes contemnebat p. 96. When he was publickly derided Omnia ferebat aequo animo And when one kickt him and the people marvelled at his patience he said What if an Ass had kickt me should I have sued him at Law p. 93. When he saw in Fairs and Shops what abundance of things are set to sale he rejoycingly said Quam multis ipse non egeo cum libere quo vellet abire carcere liceret noluit plorantes severe increpavit pulcherrimosque sermones illos vinctus prosecutus est If so many Philosophers thought it a shameful note of cowardise for a man to live and not to kill himself when he was falling into shame or misery much greater reason hath a true believer to be willing to die in a lawful way for the sake of Christ and the hope of glory and to be less fearful of death than a Brutus a Cato a Seneca or a Socrates though not to inflict it on themselves Soundly believe the promises of Christ and then you will never much stick at suffering To lose a feather and win a Crown is a bargain that very few would grudge at And profanely with Esau to sell the birth-right for a morsel to part with heaven for the paltry pleasures of flesh and fancy were below the reason of a man if sin had not unmann'd him Matth. 16.25 26. Whosoever will save his life shall lose it and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul Virulent Eunapius giveth us the witness of natural reason for a holy mortified life whilst he maketh it the glory of the Philosophers whom he celebrateth Of Antoninus the son of Aedesius he saith Totum se dedidit atque applicuit Diis loci gentilibus sacris mysticis arcanis citoque in Deorum immortalium contubernium receptus est neglectâ prorsus corporis curâ ejusque voluptatibus remisso nuntio sapientiae studio profano vulgo incognitum amplexus Cuncti mortales hujusce viri temperantiam constantiam inflecti nesciam mentem demirati suere Eunap in Aedes What a Saint doth he make Jamblichus to be of whom it was feigned that in his Prayers he would be lifted up above ten cubits from the earth and his garments changed into a golden colour till he had done Eun. in Jambl. p. 572. Even while he raileth at the Alexandrian Monks ut homines quidem specie sed vitam turpem porcorum more exigentes c. p. 598. contrary to the evidence of abundant History he beareth witness against a vitious life And if holiness and mortification or temperance be so laudable even in the judgment of the bitterest Heathens why should it be thought intollerable strictness as it is more clearly and sweetly proposed in the Christian verity And if he say of Jamblicus Ob justitiae cultum facilem ad deorum aures accessum habuit we may boldly say that the righteous God loveth righteousness and that the prayers of the upright are his delight and that their sufferings shall not always be forgotten nor their faithful labours prove in vain CHAP. XII The reasonable Conditions required of them who will overcome the difficulties of Believing and will not undo themselves by wilful Infidelity I Have answered the objections against Christianity but have not removed the chiefest impediments for recipitur ad modum recipientis the grand impediments are within even the incapacity or indisposition or frowardness of the persons that should believe It is not every head and heart that is fit for heavenly truth and work I will next therefore tell you what conditions Reason it self will require of them that would not be deceived that so you may not lay that blame on Christ if you be infidels which belongeth only to your selves Cond 1. Come not in your studies of these sacred Mysteries with an enmity against the doctrine which you must study or at least suspend your enmity so far as is necessary to an impartial search and examination For ill will cannot easily believe well Malice and partiality will blind the strongest wits and hide the force of the plainest evidence Con. 2. Drown not the love of truth in a vitious fleshly heart and life and forfeit not the light of supernatural revelation by wilful sinning against natural light and debauching your consciences by abusing the knowledge which already you have Sensuality and wilful debauchery is the common temptation to Infidelity when men have once so heinously abused God as that they must needs believe that if there be a God he must be a terrour to them and if there be a judgment and a life of retribution it is like to go ill with them a little thing will perswade such men that there is no God nor life to come indeed When they once hope it is so and take it for their interest and a desirable thing they will easily believe that it is so indeed And God is just and beginneth the executions of his justice in this world and the forsaking of a soul that hateth the light and wilfully resisteth and abuseth knowledge is one of his most dreadful judgments That man who will be a drunkard a glutton a whore-monger a proud ambitious worldling in despight of the common light of nature can hardly expect that God should give him the light of grace Despighting truth and enslaving reason and turning a man into a beast is not the way to heavenly illumination Cond 3. Be not ignorant of the common natural Truths which are recited in the first part of this book for supernatural revelation presupposeth natural and grace which maketh us Saints supposeth that reason hath constituted us men and all true Knowledge is methodically attained It is a great wrong to the Christian cause that too many preachers of it have missed the true method and still begun at supernatural revelations and built even natural certainties thereupon and have either not known or concealed much of the fore-written natural verities And it is an exceeding great cause of the multiplying of Infidels that most men are dull or idle drones and unacquainted with the common natural truths which
another life and is made only to be happy in that knowledge love and fruition of God which the Gospel most effectually leads you to Cond 21. Mark well the prophesies of Christ himself both of the destruction of Jerusalem and the successes of his Apostles in the world c. and mark how exactly they are all fulfilled Cond 22. Let no pretence of humility tempt you to debase humane nature below its proper excellency lest thence you be tempted to think it uncapable of the everlasting sight and fruition of God The devils way of destroying is oftentimes by over-doing The proud devil will help you to be very humble and help you to deny the excellency of reason and natural free-will and all supernatural inclinations when he can make use of it to perswade you that man is but a subtil sort of bruit and hath a soul but gradually different from sensitives and so is not made for another life Cond 23. Yet come to Christ as humble learners and not as arrogant self-conceited censurers and think not that you are capable of understanding every thing as soon as you hear it Cond 24. Judge not of the main cause of Christianity or of particular texts or points by sudden hasty thoughts and glances as if it were a business to be cursorily done but allow it your most deliberate sober studies your most diligent labour and such time and patience as reason may tell you are necessary to a learner in so great a cause Cond 25. Call not so great a matter to the trial in a case of melancholy and natural incapacity but stay till you are fitter to perform the search It is one of the common cheats of Satan to perswade poor weak and melancholy persons that have but half the use of their understandings to go then to try the Christian Religion when they can scarce cast up an intricate account nor are fit to judge of any great and difficult thing And then he hath an advantage to confound them and fill them with blasphemous and unbelieving thoughts and if not to shake their habitual faith yet greatly to perplex them and disturb their peace The soundest wit and most composed is fittest for so great a task Cond 26. When upon sober trial you have discerned the evidences of the Christian verity record what you have found true and judge not the next time against those evidences till you have equal opportunity for a full consideration of them In this case the Tempter much abuseth many injudicious souls when by good advice and soberest meditation they have seen the evidence of truth in satisfying clearness he will after surprise them when their minds are darker or their thoughts more scattered or the former evidence is out of mind and push them on suddenly then to judge of the matters of immortality and of the Christian cause that what he cannot get by truth of argument he may get by the incapacity of the disputant As if a man that once saw a mountain some miles distant from him in a clear day should be tempted to believe that he was deceived because he seeth it not in a misty day or when he is in a valley or within the house Or as if a man that in many days hard study hath cast up an intricate large account and set it right under his hand should be called suddenly to give up the same account anew without looking on that which he before cast up when as if his first account be lost he must have equal time and helps and fitness before he can set it as right again Take it not therefore as any disparagement to the Christian truth if you cannot on a sudden give your selves so satisfactory an account of it as formerly in more clearness and by greater studies you have done Cond 27. Gratifie not Satan so much as to question well resolved points as oft as he will move you to it Though you must prove all things till as learning you come to understand them in their proper evidence time and order yet you must record and hold fast that which you have proved and not suffer the devil to put you to the answer of one and the same question over and over as often as he please this is to give him our time and to admit him to debate his cause with us by temptation as frequently as he will which you would not allow to a ruffian to the debauching of your wife or servants and you provoke God to give you up to errour when no resolution will serve your turn After just resolution the tempter is to be rejected and not disputed with as a troublesome fellow that would interrupt us in our work Cond 28. Where you find your own understandings insufficient have recourse for help to some truly wise judicious Divine Not to every weak Christian nor unskilful Minister who is not well grounded in his own Religion but to those that have throughly studied it themselves you may meet with many difficulties in Theology and in the Text which you think can never be well solved which are nothing to them that understand the thing No Novice in the study of Logick Astronomy Geometry or any Art or Science will think that every difficulty that he meeteth with doth prove that his Author was deceived unless he be able to resolve it of himself but he will ask his Tutor or some one versed in those matters to resolve it and then he will see that his ignorance was the cause of all his doubts Cond 29. Labour faithfully to receive all holy truths with a practical intent and to work them on your hearts according to their nature weight and use For the doctrine of Christianity is scientia affectiva practica a doctrine for Head Heart and Life And if that which is made for the Heart be not admitted to the Heart and rooted there it is half rejected while it seemeth received and is not in its proper place and soil If you are yet in doubt of any of the supernatural Verities admit those truths to your hearts which you are convinced of else you are false to them and to your selves and forfeit all further helps of grace Object This is but a trick of deceit to engage the affections when you want arguments to convince the judgment Perit omne judicium cum res transit in affectum Answ When the affection is inordinate and over-runs the judgment this saying hath some truth but it is most false as of ordinate affections which follow sound judgment For by suscitation of the faculties such affections greatly help the judgment and judgment is but the eye of the soul to guide the man and it is but the passage to the will where humane acts are more compleat If your wife be taught that conjugal love is due to her husband and your child that filial love and reverence is due to his father such affections will not blind their judgments but contrarily they do
not sincerely receive these precepts if they let them not into the heart and answer them not with these affections And here is the great difference between the faith of an honest sanctified Plowman and of a carnal unsanctified Lord or Doctor the one openeth his heart to the doctrine which he receiveth and faithfully admitteth it to its proper work and so embraceth it practically and in love and therefore holdeth it fast as a radicated experienced truth when he cannot answer all cavils that are brought against it The other superficially receiveth it into the brain by meer speculation and treacherously shuts up his heart against it and never gave it real rooting and therefore in the time of trial loseth that unsound superficial belief which he hath God blesseth his word to the heart that honestly and practically receiveth it rather than to him that imprisoneth it in unrighteousness Cond 30. Lastly if yet any doubts remain bethink you which is the surest side which you may follow with least danger and where you are certain to undergo the smallest lâ—ss It is pity that any should hesitate in a matter of such evidence and weight and should think with any doubtfulness of Christianity as an uncertain thing But yet true Believers may have cause to say Lord help our unbelief and encrease our faith And all doubting will not prove the unsoundness of belief The true mark to know when Faith is true and saving notwithstanding all such doubtings is the measure of its prevalency with our hearts and lives That belief in Christ and the life to come is true and saving notwithstanding all doubtings which habitually possesseth us with the love of God above all and resolveth the will to prefer the pleasing of him and the hopes of heaven before all the treasures and pleasures of this world and causeth us in our endeavours to live accordingly And that faith is unsound which will not do this how well soever it may be defended by dispute Therefore at least for the resolving of your wills for choice and practice if you must doubt yet consider which is the safest side If Christ be the Saviour of the world he will bring Believers to Grace and Glory and you are sure there is nothing but transitory trifles which you can possibly lose by such a choice For certainly his precepts are holy and safe and no man can imagine rationally that they can endanger the soul But if you reject him by infidelity you are lost for ever for there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin but a fearful looking for of judgment and fire which shall devour his adversaries for ever There is no other Saviour for him who finally refuseth the only Saviour And if you doubted whether faith might not prove an error you could never see any cause to fear that it should prove a hinderance to your salvation for salvation it self is an unknown thing to most that do not believe in Christ and no man can well think that a man who is led by an age of such miracles so credibly reported to us to believe in one that leadeth up souls to the love of God and a holy and heavenly mind and life can ever perish for being so led to such a guide and then led by him in so good a way and to so good an end AND thus Reader I have faithfully told thee what reasonings my own soul hath had about its way to everlasting life and what enquiries it hath made into the truth of the Christian faith I have gone to my own Heart for those reasons which have satisfied my self and not to my Books from which I have been many years separated for such as satisfie other men and not my self I have told thee what I believe and why Yet other mens reasonings perhaps may give more light to others though these are they that have prevailed most with me Therefore I desire the Reader that would have more said to peruse especially these excellent Books Camero's Praelectiones de Verâ—o Dei with the Theses Salmurienses and Sedanenses on that subject Grotius de Veritate Religionis Christianae Marsilius Ficinus de Relig. Christ cum notis Lud. Crocii Lodovicus Vives de Verit. Fid. Christ Phil. Morney du Plessis de Verit. Fid. Christ John Goodwin of the Authority of the Scriptures Campanella's Savonarola's Triumphus Crucis both excellent Books excepting the errors of their times Raymundus de Sabundis his Theologia Naturalis Micrelli Ethnophronius an excellent Book Raymundus Lullius Articul Fid. Alexander Gill out of him on the Creed Mr. Stillingfleet's Origines Sacrae a late and very worthy labour Dr. Jackson on the Creed Mr. Vincent Hatecliffe's Aut Deus aut Nihil for the first part of Religion passing by Lessius Parsons and abundance more and Common Place-books which many of them treat very well on this subject And of the Ancients Augustine de Civitate Dei Eusebii Preparatio Demonstratio Evangelica are the fullest and almost all of them have somewhat to this use as Justin M. Athenagoras Tatianus Tertullian Clemens Alexand. Origen against Celsus c. Cyprian Lactantius Athanasius Basile Gr. Nazianzene Nyssen c. For my own part I humbly thank the Heavenly Majesty for the advantages which my education gave me for the timely reception of the Christian faith But temptations and difficulties have so often called me to clear my grounds and try the evidences of that Religion which I had first received upon the commendation of my Parents that I have long thought no Subject more worthy of my most serious faithful search and have wondred at the great number of Christians who could spend their lives in studying the superstructures and wrangling about many small uncertainties to the great disturbance of the Church's peace and found no more need to be confirmed in the faith In this enquiry I have most clearly to my full satisfaction discerned all those natural evidences for GODLINESS or HOLINESS which I have laid down in the first part of this Book And I have discerned the congruous superstruction and connection of the CHRISTIAN Religion thereunto I have found by unquestionable experience the sinful and depraved state of man and I have discerned the admirable suitableness of the remedy to the malady I have also discerned the attestation of God in the grand evidence the HOLY SPIRIT the ADVOCATE or Agent of Jesus Christ viz. 1. The antecedent evidence in the Spirit of Prophecie leading unto Christ 2. The inherent constituent evidence of the Gospel and of Christ the Image of God in the Power Wisdom and Goodness both of Christ and of his doctrine 3. The concomitant evidence of Miracles in the Life Resurrection and Prophecies of Christ and in the abundant Miracles of the Apostles and other his Disciples through the world 4. The subsequent evidence in the successes of the Gospel to the true sanctification of millions of souls by the powerful efficacy of Divine co-operation I have spent most
far and followed them too long O that it had been less though I must thankfully acknowledge that Mercy did early shew me their deceit and turn my enquiring thoughts to thee to thee I resign my self for I am thine own to thee I subject all the powers of my soul and body for thou art my Rightful Sovereign Governour from thee I thankfully accept of all the benefits and comforts of my life in thee I expect my true felicity and content to know thee and love thee and delight in thee must be my blessedness or I must have none The little tastes of this sweetness which my thirsty soul hath had do tell me that there is no other real joy I feel that thou hast made my mind to know thee and I feel thou hast made my heart to love thee my tongue to praise thee and all that I am and have to serve thee And even in the panting languishing desires and motions of my soul I find that thou and only thou art its resting place and though Love do now but search and pray and cry and weep and is reaching upward but cannot reach the glorious light the blessed knowledge the perfect love for which it longeth yet by its eye its aim its motions its moans its groans I know its meaning where it would be and I know its end My displaced soul will never be well till it come near to thee till it know thee better till it love thee more It loves it self and justifyeth that self love when it can love thee it loaths it self and is weary of it self as a lifeless burden when it feels no pantings after thee Wert thou to be found in the most solitary desart it would seek thee or in the uttermost parts of the earth it would make after thee thy presence makes a croud a Church thy converse maketh a closet or solitary wood or field to be kin to the Angelical Chore. The creature were dead if thou wert not its life and ugly if thou wert not its beauty and insignificant if thou wert not its sense The soul is deformed which is without thine Image and lifeless which liveth not in love to thee if love be not its pulse and prayer and praise its constant breath the Mind is unlearned which readeth not thy Name on all the world and seeth not HOLINESS TO THE LORD engraven upon the face of every creature He doteth that doubteth of thy Being or Perfections and he dreameth who doth not live to thee O let me have no other portion no reason no love no life but what is devoted to thee employed on thee and for thee here and shall be perfected in thee the only perfect final object for evermore Upon the holy Altar erected by thy Son and by his hands and his Mediation I humbly devote and offer thee THIS HEART O that I could say with greater feeling This flaming loving longing Heart But the sacred fire which must kindle on my sacrifice must come from thee it will not else ascend unto thee let it consume this dross so the nobler part may know its home All that I can say to commend it to thine acceptance is that I hope it 's wash'd in precious bloud and that there is something in it that is thine own it still looketh towards thee and groaneth to thee and followeth after thee and will be content with gold and mirth and honour and such inferiour fooleries no more it lieth at thy doors and will be entertain'd or perish Though alass it loves thee not as it would I boldly say it longs to love thee it loves to love thee it seeks it craves no greater blessedness than perfect endless mutual love it is vowed to thee even to thee alone and will never take up with shadows more but is resolved to lie down in sorrow and despair if thou wilt not be its REST and JOY It hateth it self for loving thee no more accounting no want deformity shame or pain so great and grievous a calamity For thee the Glorious Blessed GOD it is that I come to Jesus Christ If he did not reconcile my guilty soul to thee and did not teach it the heavenly art and work of Love by the sweet communications of thy love he could be no Saviour for me Thou art my only ultimate end it is only a guide and way to thee that my anxious soul hath so much studied and none can teach me rightly to know thee and to love thee and to live to thee but thy self it must be a Teacher sent from thee that must conduct me to thee I have long looked round about me in the world to see if there were a more lucid Region from whence thy will and glory might be better seen than that in which my lot is fallen But no Traveller that I can speak with no Book which I have turn'd over no Creature which I can see doth tell me more than Jesus Christ I can find no way so suitable to my soul no medicine so fitted to my misery no bellows so fit to kindle love as faith in Christ the Glass and Messenger of thy love I see no doctrine so divine and heavenly as bearing the image and superscription of God nor any so fully confirmed and delivered by the attestation of thy own Omnipotency nor any which so purely pleads thy cause and calls the soul from self and vanity and condemns its sin and purifieth it and leadeth it directly unto thee and though my former ignorance disabled me to look back to the Ages past and to see the methods of thy providence and when I look into thy Word disabled me from seeing the beauteous methods of thy Truth thou hast given me a glimpse of clearer light which hath discovered the reasons and methods of grace which I then discerned not and in the midst of my most hideous temptations and perplexed thoughts thou kepst alive the root of faith and kepst alive the love to thee and unto Holiness which it had kindled Thou hast mercifully given me the witness in my self not an unreasonable perswasion in my mind but that renewed nature those holy and heavenly desires and delights which sure can come from none but thee And O how much more have I perceived in many of thy servants than in my self thou hast cast my lot among the souls whom Christ hath healed I have daily conversed with those whom he hath raised from the dead I have seen the power of thy Gospel upon sinners All the love that ever I perceived kindled towards thee and all the true obedience that ever I saw performed to thee hath been effected by the word of Jesus Christ how oft hath his Spirit helped me to pray and how often hast thou heard those prayers what pledges hast thou given to my staggering faith in the words which prayer hath procured both for my self and many others And if Confidence in Christ be yet deceit must I not say that thou hast deceived
dividing it self from the rest causing schisme or contention in the Body or making a rent unnecessarily in any particular Church which is a part § 4. But when Parties and Sects do trouble the Church we must still hold to our meer Christianity and desire to be called by no other name than Christians with the Epithets of sincerity And if men will put the name of a Party or Sect upon us for holding to Christianity only against all corrupting Sects we must hold on our way and bear their obloquy § 5. What CHRISTIANITY is may be known 1. Most summarily in the Baptismal Covenant in which we are by solemnization made Christians in which renouncing the Flesh the World and the Devil we give up our selves devotedly to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as our Creator Redeemer and Sanctifyer 2. By the ancient summary Rules of Faith Hope and Charity the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Decalogue 3. Integrally in the sacred Scriptures which are the Records of the Doctrine of Christ and the Holy Spirit § 6. But there are many circumstances of Religious Worship which Scripture doth not particularly determine of but only give general Rules for the determination of them as what Chapter shall be read what Text preached on what Translation used what Meeter or Tune of Psalms what time what place what Seat or Pulpit or Cup or other Vtensils what Vesture gesture c. whether we shall use Notes for memory in preaching what method we shall preach in whether we shall pray in the same words often or in various with a book or without with many other In all which the People must have an obediential respect to the conduct of the lawfull Pastors of the Churches § 7. Differing opinions or practices about things indifferent no nor about the meer integrals of Religion which are not Essentials do not make men of different Religions or Churches universally considered § 8. Nothing will warrant us to separate from a Church as no Church but the want of something Essential to a Church § 9. The Essential or Constitutive parts of the Church Catholick or Vniversal are Christ the Head and all Christians as the Members § 10. All sincere and sanctified Christians are the members of the Church mystical invisible or regenerate And all Professors of sincere Christianity that is all Baptized persons not apostatised nor excommunicate are the members of the Church visible which is integrated of the particular Churches § 11. It is essential to particular political Churches that they be constituted of true Bishops or Pastors and of flocks of baptised or professed Christians Vnited in these Relations for holy communion in the worshipping of God and the promoting of the salvation of the several members § 12. It is essential to a true Bishop or Pastor of the Church to be in Office that is in Authority and Obligation appointed by Christ in subordination to him in the three parts of his Offices Prophetical Priestly and Kingly That is to teach the people to stand between them and God in Worship and to guide or or govern them by the Paternal exercise of the Keyes of his Church § 13. He that doth not nullifie or unchurch a Church may lawfully remove from one Church to another and make choice of the best and purest or that which is most suited to his own Edification if he be a Free-man § 14. But in case of such choice or personal removal the Interest of the whole Church or of Religion in common must be first taken into consideration by him that would rightly judge of the lawfulness of the fact § 15. If a Church which in all other respects is purest and best will impose any sin upon all that will have local communion with it though we must not separate from that Church as no Church yet must we not commit that sin but patiently suffer them to exclude us from their communion § 16. True Heresie that is an Error contradictory to an essential Article of the Christian Faith if it be seriously and really held so that the contrary truth is not held seriously and really doth nullifie the Christianity of him that holdeth it and the Church-state of that Congregation which so professeth it But so doth not that fundamental Error which is held but in words through ignorance thinking it may consist with the contrary truth while that truth is not denyed but held majore fide so that we have reason to believe that if they did discern the contradiction they would rather forsake the error than the truth But of this more elsewhere CHAP. XIV Consectary II. Of the true Interest of Christ and his Church and the Souls of Men Of the means to promote it and its Enemies and Impediments in the World SO great and common is the Enmity against Christianity in the World yea against the life and reality of it in all the Hypocrites of the Visible Church that the guilty will not bear the detection of their guilt And therefore the Reader must excuse me for passing over the one half of that which should be said upon this subject because they that need it cannot suffer it § 1. Every true Christian preferreth the Interest of Christ and of Religion before all worldly Interest of his own or any others For he that setteth himself or any thing above his God hath indeed no God For if he be not Maximus Sapientissimus Optimus Greatest Wisest and Best he is not God And if he be not really taken as such he is not taken for their God And he that hath no God hath no Religion And he that hath no Religion is no Christian And if he call himself a Christian he is an Hypocrite § 2. Though we must preferre the Interest of Christ and the Church above the Interest of our Souls yet must we never set them in competition or opposition but in a due conjunction though not in an equality I adde this to warn men of some common dangerous errors in this point some think that if they do but feel themselves more moved with another Ministers preaching or more edified with another way of Discipline they may presently withdraw themselves to that Minister or Discipline without regard to the Unity and good of the Church where they are or whatever publick evil follow it Whereas he that seemeth to deny even to his Soul some present edification for the publick good shall finde that even this will turn to his greater edification And some on the contrary extream have got a conceit that till they can finde that they can be content to be damned for Christ if God would so have it they are not sincere Which is a case that no Christian should put to his own heart being such as God never put to any man All the tryall that God putteth us to is but whether we can deny this transitory life and the vanities
to the cause in all the entities and motions in the world is undeniable Whatsoever any Being hath and hath not originally from it self or independently in it self it must needs have from another and that other cannot act beyond its power nor give that which it hath not either formally or eminently Therefore he that findeth in the world about him so much entity and motion so much Intellection Volition and Operation and so much Wisdom Goodness and Power must needs know that all these have some cause which formally or eminently or in a way of transcendency hath more it self than it giveth to others I measured my endeavours about this subject according as the occasions of my own soul had led me among all the temptations which have at any time assaulted me I have found those so contemptible and inconsiderable as to their strength which would have made me doubt of the being of a God that I am apt to think that it is so with others And therefore in the review of this discourse I find no reason to stand to answer any mans objections against the Being or essential Attributes or Properties of God And for the second point that we all owe to this God our absolute Resignation Obedience and Love and so that Holiness is naturally our duty it doth so naturally result from the Nature of God and Man compared that I can scarce think of any thing worthy of a confutation which can be said against it but that which denieth the Nature of God or Man and therefore is either confuted under the first head or is to be confuted under the third As for the fourth particular contained in the second Tome the truth of the Gospel I find not any reason to defend it more particularly nor to answer any more objections than I have done for in proving the truth I have proved all the contradictory assertions to be false and I have answered already the greatest objections and after this to answer every ignorant exception of unsatisfied persons against the several passages of the Scripture would be tedious and not necessary to the end of my design And indeed I perceive not that any considerable number are troubled with doubtings of the truth of the Christian faith in a prevalent degree who are well convinced of those antecedent verities of the Deity and of the natural obligation and necessity of Holiness and of the Immortality of the soul or of a future life of reward and punishment and that live in any reasonable conformity to these natural principles which they profess For when natural evidence hath sufficiently convinced a man that he is obliged to be holy in absolute obedience and love to his Creator through the hopes and fears of another life he is very much prepared to close with the design and doctrine of the Gospel which is so far from contradicting this that it doth but confirm it and shew us the way by which it may most certainly be brought to pass And therefore my observation and experiences constrain me to think that there is no point which I have insisted on which so much calleth for my vindication as the third about the Life to come I know there is a sort of over-wise and over-doing Divines who will tell their followers in private where there is none to contradict them that the method of this Treatise is perverse as appealing too much to natural light and over-valuing humane reason and that I should have done no more but shortly tell men that All that which God speaketh in his word is true and that propria luce it is evident that the Scripture is the Word of God and that to all God's Elect he will give his Spirit to cause them to discern it and that this much alone had been better than all these disputes and reasons but these over-wise men who need themselves no reason for their Religion and judge accordingly of others and think that those men who rest not in the authority of Jesus Christ should rest in theirs are many of them so well acquainted with me as not to expect that I should trouble them in their way or reason against them who speak against reason even in the greatest matters which our reason is given us for As much as I am addicted to scribling I can quietly dismiss this sort of men and love their zeal without the labour of opening their ignorance My task therefore in this conclusion shall be only to defend the doctrine delivered in this fore-going Treatise of the Life to come or the Soul's Immortality against some who call themselves Philosophers For of men so called it is but a small part who at all gainsay this weighty truth The followers of Plato the Divine Philosopher with the Pythagoreans the Stoicks the Cynicks and divers other Sects are so much for it that indeed the most of them go too far and make the soul to be eternal both à parte arte and à parte post and Cicero doth conclude from its self-moving power that it is certainly eternal and divine Insomuch that not only Arnobius but many other ancient Christians write so much against Plato for holding the soul to be naturally immortal and assert themselves that it is of a middle nature between that which is naturally immortal and that which is meerly mortal that he that doth not well understand them may be scandalized at their expressions and think that he readeth the Philosopher defending the souls immortality and the Christian opposing it And though Aristotle's opinion be questioned by many yet Cicero who lived in time and places wherein he had better advantage than we to know his meaning doth frequently affirm that he was in the main of Plato's mind and that the Academicks Peripateticks and Stoicks differed more in words than sense chiding the Stoicks for their schism or separation in setting up a School or Sect as new which had almost nothing new but words Not only Fernelius de abditis rerum causis but many others have vindicated Aristotle however his obscurity hath given men occasion to keep up that controversie And if the book de Mundo be undoubtedly his I see no reason to make any more question of his meaning much less if that book be his which is entitled Mystica Aegypt Chald. Philos which Aben Ama Arabs translated out of Greek into Arabick which Franc. Roseus brought from Damascus and Moses Rovas Medicus Haebr translated into Italian and Pet. Nicol. Castelinus into Latine and Patricius thinketh Aristotle took from Plato's mouth It is only then the Epicureans and some novel Somatists that I have now to answer who think they have much to say against the separated subsistence and immortality of mans soul which I may reduce to these objections following I. Matter and Motion without any more may do all that which you ascribe to incorporeal substances or souls therefore you assert them without ground II. To confirm this
and motion give us an account of light and heat that I find no need nor willingness to be at the labour of confuting them Call but for their proofs and you have confuted them all at once And if no better a solution be given us of the nature of Light and Heat what shall we expect from them about Intellection and Volition do atoms understand or will or doth motion understand or will If not as sure they do not as such then tell us how that which hath no participation of understanding or will should constitute an agent that doth understand and will Set to this work as Philosophers and make it intelligible to us if you are in good earnest 7. But to proceed a little further with you I take it for granted that you confess that an intellectual incorporeal being there is while you confess a God and that this sort of being is more excellent than that which is corporeal sensible and gross I would next ask you Do you take it for possible or impossible that God should make any secondary Beings which are incorporeal and intellectual also If you say It is impossible give us your proof If possible I next ask you whether it be not most probable also You acknowledge what a spot or punctum in the world this earthly Globe is you see here that man whose flesh must rot and turn to dust hath the power of Intellection and Volition you look up to the more vast and glorious Regions and Globes and I am confident you think not that only this spot of earth is inhabited And surely you think that the glory of the inhabitants is like to be answerable to the glory of their habitations You make your Atoms to be invisible and so you do the Air and Winds when yet our earth and dirt is visible Therefore you take not crassitude nor visibility or sensibility to have the preeminence in excellency Judge then your selves whether it be not likely that God hath innumerable more noble and excellent creatures than we silly men are And will you reduce all their unknown perfections or their known intelligence to matter and motion only Moreover when you observe the wonderful variety of things in which God is pleased to take his delight what ground have we to imagine that he hath no greater variety of substances but corporeal only nor no other way of causation but by motion when no man can deny but he could otherwise cause the variety which we see and fix in the creatures ab origine their differing natures properties and vertues what reason then have you to say that he did not do so And can you believe that the goodness of that God who hath made this wonderful frame which we see would not appear in making some creatures liker and nearer to himself than matter and motion is But to talk no more of probabilities to you we have certain proof that man is an intellectual free agent whose soul you can never prove to be corporeal and whose power of intellection and volition is distinct from corporal motion And we have proof that there are superior Intelligences more noble than we by the operations which they have exercised upon things below And what should move you who seem not to be overmuch Divine and who seem to observe the order and harmony of the creatures to imagine that God doth himself alone without any instrument or second cause move all the corporeal matter of the world If you are serious in believing that God himself doth move and govern all why do you question whether he make use of any nobler natures next him to move things corporeal And why do you against your own inclinations make every action to be done by God alone I doubt not but he doth all but you see that he chooseth to communicate honour and agency to his creatures He useth the Sun to move things on earth Therefore if you believe that corporeal beings stand at so infinite a distance from his perfections you may easily judge that he hath some more noble and that the noblest are the most potent and active and rule the more ignoble as you see the nobler bodies as the Sun to have power upon the more ignoble Therefore to violate the harmony of God's works and to deny all the steps of the ladder save the lowest is but an unhappy solving of Phaenomena Nay mark what you grant us you confess God to have Power Wisdom and Will and that he is incorporeal and moveth all and you confess that man hath in his kind Power Vnderstanding and Will and is there any thing below that 's liker God If not do you not allow us to take these faculties for incorporeal and that those are so that are higher than we 8. And you seem to us by your Philosophy to write of Nature as the Atheist writeth of God instead of explaining it you deny it What is Nature but the principium motus quietis c. And you deny all such principia and substitute only former motion so that you leave no other nature but what a stone receiveth from the hand that casteth it or the childrens tops from the scourge which driveth them or rather every turn is a nature to the next turn and so the nature of things is mostly out of themselves in the extrinsick mover And so you level all things in the world you deny all specifick forms or natural faculties and virtues The Sun and a clod have no natural difference but only magnitude and figure and motion as if so noble a creature had no differencing peculiar nature of its own nor any natural power or principle of its own motion and so it moved but as a stone is moved Yea you make all motion to be violent and deny all proper natural motion at all for that which hath no active principle of motion in its nature hath no proper natural motion as distinct from violent Hereby also you deny all vital powers you make a living creature and a dead to differ but in the manner of motion which whether you can at all explain we know not why may not the arrow which I shoot or the watch which I wind up be said to live as well as you It hath matter and motion and some inanimates the Air and Fire perhaps have as subtil matter and as speedy motion as is in you Why doth not the wind make the air alive and the bellows the fire In a word you deny all Intelligences all Souls all Lives all Natures all active Qualities and Forms all Powers Faculties Inclinations Habits and Dispositions that are any principles of motion and so all the natural excellency and difference of any creature above the rest A short way of solving the Phaenomena Lastly with Nature you deny the being of Morality For if there be no difference of Beings but in quantity figure motion and site and all motion is Locomotion which moveth by natural
necessitating force than a man moveth as a stone because it is irresistibly moved and hath no power to forbear any act which it performeth or to do it otherwise than it doth For if there be no power habits or dispositions antecedent to motion but motion it self is all then there is one and the same account to be given of all actions good and bad I did it because I was irresistibly moved to it and could no more do otherwise than my pen can choose to write There is then no virtue or vice no place for Laws and moral Government further than they may be tacklings in the engine which necessitateth whatsoever is done amiss is as much imputable to God the first mover as that which is done-well If you shoot an arrow which killeth your friend the arrow could not hinder it if you make or set your watch amiss though one motion causeth another yet the errour of all is resolved into the defect of the first cause They that killed Henry the 3. and Henry the 4. Kings of France may say that as the knife could not resist the motion of their hand so neither could they the motion of the superiour cause that moved them and so on to the first No Traitors or Rebels can resist the power which acteth them therein any more than the dust can resist the wind which stirreth it up And so you see what cometh of all the Government of God and Man and of all Laws and Judgments Justice and Injustice Right and Wrong And how little cause you have to be angry with the Thief that robbeth you or the man that cudgelleth you any more than with the staff But of this I refer you to the foresaid writing of Bishop Bromhal against Mr. Hobs allowing you to make the most you can of his Reply We are certain by the operations of things that there is a difference in their natural powers and virtues and not only in their quantity figure and motion God hath not made only homogeneal undifferenced matter there are plainly now exceeding diversities of natural excellencies virtues and qualities in the things we see And he that will say that by motion only God made this difference at first doth but presumptuously speak without book without all proof to make it credible and taketh on him to know that which he knoweth that he knoweth not Is not the virtue and goodness of things as laudable as their quantity and motion Why then should we imagine so vast a disproportion in the image of God upon his works as to acknowledge the magnitude and motion incomprehensible and to think that in virtue and goodness of nature they are all alike and none is more noble or more like himself than a clod of earth We see that the natures of all things are suited to their several uses Operari sequitur esse Things act as they are There is somewhat in the nature of a bird or beast or plant which is their fitness to their various motions If only motion made that fire to day which yesterday was but a stone why doth not the strongest wind so much as warm us or why doth it so much cool us Why doth not the snow make us as warm as a fleece of wool the wool doth move no more than the snow and the matter of it appeareth to be no more subtil Indeed man can give to none of his works a nature a life or virtue for the operation which he desireth He can but alter the magnitude and figure and motion of things and compound and mix them and conjoyn them and these Epicureans seem to judge of the works of God by mans But he who is Being Life and Intelligence doth accordingly animate his noble Engines and give them natures and vertues for their operations and not only make use of matter and weight where he findeth it as our Mechanicks themselves can do Debasing all the noblest of Gods works is unbeseeming a true Philosopher who should search out the virtues and goodness as well as the greatness of them But I have been longer in answering this first Objection than I can afford to be about the rest unless I would make a Book of this which I call but the Conclusion I will adde but this one thing more That in case it were granted the Epicureans that the soul is material it will be no disproving of its immortality nor invalidate any of my former arguments for a life of retribution after this To which purpose consider these things 1. That where matter is simple and not compounded it hath no tendency to corruption Object Matter is divisible and therefore corruptible how simple soever Answ It is such as may be divided if God please and so the soul is such as God can destroy But we see that all parts of matter have a wonderful tendency to unity and have a tendency to a motus aggregativus if you separate them Earth inclineth to earth and water to water and air to air and fire to fire 2. All Philosophers agree to what I say who hold that matter is eternal either à parte ante or à parte post For if matter be eternal the soul's materiality may consist with its eternity 3. Yea all without exception do agree that there is no annihilation of matter when there is a dissolution Therefore if the soul be a simple uncompounded being though material it will remain the same This therefore is to be set down as granted us by all the Infidels and Atheists in the world that man's soul what ever it is is not annihilated when he dieth if it be any kind of substance material or immaterial And they that call his temperament his soul do all acknowledge that there is in the composition some one predominant principle more active or noble than the rest and of the duration of this it is that we enquire which no man doth deny though some deny it to be immaterial But this will be further opened under the rest of the Objections The reasons of my many words in answering this Objection I give you in the words of a late learned Conciliator Philosophiae Platonicae explicationi diutius immorati sumus quod res maximas cognitione dignissimas complectatur Habet i◠quoque prae coeteris quod ad aeternas primitivas rationes mentem erigat eamque à fluxis perituris rebus advocatam ad eas quae sola intelligentia percipiuntur convertat Qua quidem in re infinitum prope momentum est Nam obruimur turbâ Philosophorum qui nimis fidunt sensibus nihil praeter corpora intelligi posse contendunt Atque ut mihi videtur nulla perniciosior pestis in vitam humanam potest invadere nihil quod magis religioni adversetur Joh. Bapt. du Hamel in Conscens veteris novae Philos Praefat. OBJECTION II. BY Sense Imagination Cogitation Reason you cannot prove the Soul to be incorporeal because the Bruits partake of
therefore if Rarity be only by the multitude and greatness of interspersed Vacuities and the rarity and subtilty of matter be but the scantness or smallness of its quantity in that space then it would be but next kin to annihilation and the rarest and most subtile matter would be coeteris paribus the basest as being next to nothing For instance Sir Kenelme Digby telleth Gassendus from two accurate Computers that Gold in the same space is seven thousand six hundred times heavier than Air so that Air is in the same space seven thousand six hundred times neerer to nothing than Gold is and the whole Air betwixt us and the Heavens hath interspaces that are vacuous to the same proportion of 7600 to one And then we may well say that datur inane Nay quaere whether it be more proper to say that all between us and Heaven is a Vacuum or not when it is to be denominated from the space which so far exceedeth all the rest as 7600 to one And then if the aether be something more subtile it must be still more neer to nothing and consequently be most vile But I am satisfied that dung is not so much more excellent than Light as it is more gross And that these terrestrial bodies are not the most noble nor have most of Entity or Substance because they are more gross Therefore though Gassendus put off Sir K. Digby by saying only that the said disproportion is no inconvenience I see not how these inconveniences will be answered I am satisfied that nothing is not so good as Entity and yet that the most subtile and invisible substances are the life of the World and of greatest excellency and force But what will hence follow about penetrability I know not But I know that it 's little about these things which men understand of what they say The fiery nature seemeth as Patricius saith to be some middle thing between corporal and incorporeal And I much doubt whether Materia be a summum genus and whether the lowest degree of things incorporeal and the highest degree of things corporeal suppose fire or that which is the matter of the Sun do differ so much more than Graduals as that mortals can say that one of them is penetrable and indivisible and the other not There have been some Philosophers that have thought that sensibility was as fit an attribute to characterize Matter or Bodies by as any other But then they meant not by sensible that which Man can perceive by sense But that which is a fit object for senses of the same kinde as mans supposing them elevated to the greatest perfection that they are capable of in their kinde And so aire and atomes being of the same kinde as other matter may be visible to a sight of the same kinde as ours if it received but the addition of enow degrees And for ought I know this is as wise Philosophy as that which is more common I am sure it is more intelligible And for Divisibility they have Demonstrations on both sides that a Punctum is divisible and that it is not One thinketh that if three be set together it 's possible at least for God to divide just in the midst Another with Gassendus thinketh that it 's unlike to be true that every part should be as much or more than the whole and a point as much as all the Universe And that if a point may be divided into infinite parts it is infinite in magnitude and therefore bigger than the World And is it any marvell if Indivisibility then be an unfit property to know a Spirit by when they are not agreed about it as to Bodies Certain it is that there is a true Individuation of Souls and so a numeral division of them That which is your Soul is not your Neighbours And it is certain that created Spirits are not infinite as to extent And what Division God can make upon them is more than I can tell Scotus thinketh that the subject of Physicks is not Corpus naturale but substantia naturalis and so that Angels are moved motu physico Scaliger Schibler c. say that Angels have extension and figure that is extension entitativè distinct from extension quantitativè vid. Scalig. Exercit. 359. § 4. The termini essendi saith Schibler being no other than are signified per inceptionem seu dependentiam ab alio desitionem and that no Creature is immense but hath finitas adessendi according to which it is determinate to a certain space He saith that Angels are finite 1. Essentia 2. Numero 3. Potestate 4. Quantitate h. e. non esse immensos And that they are in spatio intelligibili He saith also Exerc. 307. Vnum primum est alia dependent igitur Ergo sua natura omnia praeter unum sunt corruptibilia Tametsi sunt Entia absoluta à subjecto termino non sunt absoluta à Causa Damascene saith de Orthod fid l. 2. That God only is a Spirit by nature but other things may be Spirits by indulgence and grace The doctrine of Psellus is too gross and largely delivered by himself Eugubinus Niphus and Vorstius were of the same minde that Angels were Corporeal Augustine himself saith that Anima respectu incorporei Dei corporea est de Spir. anim c. 8. Caesarius in Dialog 1. p. 573. B.P. saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And he applyeth to them the Apostles words There are Bodies celestial and bodies terrestrial Arnobius is a little too gross herein and almost all the Ancients especially the Greeks that speak of that subject take Angels for more subtile purer Bodies I know not what Athenagoras meaneth to call the Devil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Materiae ejusque formarum Princeps alii ex iliis qui circa primum mundi fundamentum erant peccarunt c. pag. 71. And hence he and others talk of their falling in love with Virgins c. And when Faustus Rhegiensis wrote a Book to prove that Angels and Souls were but a purer subtile sort of bodies or matter Claudianus Mammertus largely and learnedly confuteth him who pretended that all the Ancients were on his side Yet doth the same Mammertus think that though Angels quoad sormam be incorporeal they had Bodies also which were Fire or of the nature of the Starrs Which Caesarius also seemeth to mean when he saith that Not only that which is here with us below is Fire but also those higher Powers seem to be Fire and kin to that which is with us as our Souls are kin to Angels Dialog 1. Q. 58 59. pag. 584. And Qu. 60. he saith That the Shepherds when they will boil flesh in the Fields where they have no Fire do use to fill a glass Vessel with water and hold it directly opposite to the Sun and then touch dryed dung with it and it will kindle Fire And having thus proved the Sun to be Fire he saith Dial. 2. Qu.
pervadere perficere regere He thinketh that this is but that subtil matter which others call fire but others think upon the reasons before given that it is a superiour nature and that the spirits or fiery nature is but its nearest instrument Because no subtilty will make atoms sensible or appetitive which in their proper nature have no such thing But what ever becomes of the controversie whether the animal principle in bruits be material or immaterial it is granted us and is certain that in all mixed beings there is a difference of the constitutive parts as the fiery nature such as the Sun is of is active in comparison of the other three Elements which to it are passive so the vital principle in bruits is active powerful and regent as to the rest of the compounding parts And it 's certain that the name of a form is by contenders taken sometime for that regent active principle or substance be it what it will and sometime for the temperament resulting from all the parts In Engines where there is no principle or part which is notably predominant the name of the form is given to the ordered conjunction of all the parts So in a Watch the spring though the beginning of motion is not so fitly called the form of the watch as the order of the whole frame But in living things there is more room for a competition between the regent part and the temperament which of them should be called the form Now it is undeniable with all men that both in men and bruits that regent principle is a substance and that the contemperation or order of the parts is but their mode and maketh no other kind of being than Ordo Civitatis vel Reipublicae is which ceaseth upon the dissolution And the form of simple beings corporeal or incorporeal elements or spirits is neither another substance distinct from the Physical and Metaphysical matter nor yet an accident or mode but that peculiar nature consisting in certain powers or virtues by which as essential to it that being is specifically differenced from others which some call an essential quality and some a substantial quality and some a substantial form because it is the perfection and essential nature of the substance in specie and not another substance besides it Thus Burgersdicius however in his Physicks he saith as others in his Metaphysicks l. 1. c. 25. § 6 7 9. saith that Forma substantialis est quae materiam complet eamque informat atque it a constituit substantiam corpoream Forma accidentalis est additamentum completae substantiae inhaerens cum illa constituens Ens concretum atque unum per accidens And he addeth that Forma substantialis non per se est substantia substantia enim per se sul sistit c. Quid ergo erit substantialis forma Nihil aliud quam substantialis modus Quia formis debetur quod res corporales tales res sint iis etiam ex parte debetur quod sint Quia esse non potest concipi absque tali aut tali esse tale esse est ipsius esse complementum And yet the same man saith i. id l. 2. c. 17. § 13. p. 304. Resp Animas vegetativas sensitivas unitas quidem esse corpori ex elementis confecto sed mediante spiritu vituli animali Ideoque facultates earum animarum non esse temperationes primarum qualitatum sed ipsam substantiam animarum quatenus spiritium ope elementari corpori aliigantur If then you take the word form for the order of the parts I say that man's soul is not his form in that sense nor is his form a substance but if the regent predominant active vital intelligent principle be called the form so the form is a substance and the soul is that form Here we must not confound formam corporis formam animae formam hominis 1. The form of Adam's body before it had received a soul was but the contemperation or order of all the parts by which it was apt to receive a soul and to be actuated by it as corpus physicum organicum 2. The form of the soul it self e.g. in its separated state is that vis naturalis inteligendi volendi exequendi by which it is essentially differenced from all other kinds of being commonly comprehended under the name of reason alone 3. The forma hominis taken for the state of the parts contemperate and ordered is that said state or order and not the soul But taken for the vital intelligent regent part or principle it is the soul it self So that the soul is not the forma corporis nor the forma hominis in the one sense but it is the forma hominis in the other and it s own differencing nature is its own form The liâ—e ambiguity there is in the word Quality used in the objection As I was never satisfied with the order or number of Aristotle's ten predicaments so especially I never understood him in the predicament of Quality it self As it is a very hard thing to know what those are that are by him and commonly called Qualities so I think that name too general and defective to signifie the nature of them aright And I supposed ever that his forma figura differ much more from the other species of Quality than most of the predicaments do from one another of which see Bergersdicius Metaph. l. 2. cap. ult Gassendus in Logic. Judicious Mr. Pemble de origine formarum pleadeth hard that principia constitutiva are materia vel subjectum accidentia principium transmutationis is contrariarum qualitatum pugna that forma exceptâ humanâ non est substantia nec materialis nec immaterialis sed accidens vel accidentium mixtura dictum temperamentum quod accidentia per se immediate agunt non in virtute formae substantialis That is Quod qualitates immediate haerent in materia à Qualitatibus immediate profluunt operationes operandi vires Quod Qualitates omnes primae which he maketh five lux calor frigus humiditas siccitas aliquae secundae tenuitas erassities gravitas levitas fluor consistentia creationis die primo existiterunt Quod Qualitates omnes activae generant sibi simile ita sui diffusivae similium generativae sunt ut necessario materiam sibi proportionatam efficiunt Quod animae vegetativae in plantis sensitivae in brutis sunt tantum temperamenta nobiliora qualitatum actuosiorum in materia subtili pura spirituosiore Telesius maketh the same principles materia calor frigus as to the chief but he maketh calor frigus to be substances vel formae substantiales non tantum accidentia So that they that agree that it is Qualities that are the active forms are never the more agreed what they are nor what the word Qualities doth signifie And what if by the word Quality Pemble do mean the very
same thing as many others do that call them forms when they speak of vegetatives And what if by substances Telesius mean the same that Pemble doth by accidents Is not the world then troubled with ambiguitie of words He that will consider them well may suspect that they mean as I conjecture An active power or principle being the chief cause of operations alterations and discrimination is the thing that they all mean by all these names And the followers of Democritus especially Gassendus and Cartesius do not improbably argue that it is some substantial being which maketh that change or effect upon our senses which as there received is a quality So that unless Mr. Pemble can better tell us what lux calor are than by calling them Qualities he hath given the understanding no satisfaction at all Much less when he nakedly asserteth without any proof that sensation doth not superare naturam primarum qualitatum that are none of them sensible themselves And when he hath no other answer to this argument but that non minus miranda sunt in inanimatis which he giveth not one instance or word to prove When Aristotle c. Scaliger Sennertus and abundance more have said much to the contrary I conclude that for all that is here said and whether you call them our forms or not as you may or may not in several senses humane souls are those parts of man which are simple pure invisible active powerful substances and therefore being not annihilated must needs subsist in their separated state OBJECTION IV. THe Soul is material and consequently mortal because it dependeth upon matter in its operations and consequently in its essence Answ 1. I have proved already that if you did prove the soul material you had not thereby at all proved it mortal unless you mean only that it hath a posse mori vel annihilari which may be said of every creature for simple matter which hath no repugnant parts or principles hath not only a posse nen mori but an aptitude in its nature ad non moriendum Remember your friends that make the world or matter at least to be eternal They thought not that materiality was a proof of either annihilation or corruption Object If it be material it must be compounded of matter and form and therefore is corruptible Answ True if that matter and form were two several substances and were one repugnant to the other The soul and body are different substances but the metaphysical matter and form of the soul being but the genus differentia are not two substances much less repugnant and therefore have never the more a tendency to corruption 2. The soul useth matter and dependeth no otherwise on it than its instrument It doth not follow that a man is a horse because he dependeth on his horse in the manner of his riding and his pace nor that I am inanimate because in writing I depend on my pen which is inanimate If you put spirits of wine into water or whey as its vehicle to temper it for a medicine it doth not follow that the spirits are meer water because they operate not without the water but conjunct and as tempered by it If the fire in your Lamp do not shine or burn without the oil but in manner and duration dependeth on it it doth not follow that fire is annihilated when the candle is out or that it was but oil before no nor that it ceaseth to be fire afterwards as Gassendus must needs confess who holdeth that the Elements are not turned into one another § 1. l. 3. c. 2. Fire ceaseth not to be fire when it goeth out of our observation The noblest natures use and rule the inferiour God himself moveth and useth things material and yet is not therefore material himself Yea if motus be in patiente recipitur ad modum recipientis you may conjecture how far God's own operations upon the creatures may be called dependent as to the effect as being ad captum modum creaturae And the Sun doth move and quicken all passive matter here below ad modum recipientis with great variety through the variety of the matter and yet it followeth not that the Sun is it self such passive matter 3. The soul hath operations which are not upon matter at all though matter may possibly be an antecedent occasion or prerequisite Such is the apprehension of its own intellection and volitions and all that it thence gathereth of God and other intellectual natures and operations of which I must say more anon OBJECTION V. NO immaterial substance moveth that which is material as a principle of its operations but the soul moveth the body as the principle of its operations Ergo. Answ 1. I have already said that if you proved the soul material it would not prove it mortal 2. As the body hath various operations so it is moved by various principles or powers As to locomotion and perhaps vegetation the materia subtilii or finest atoms as you will call it or the fiery matter in the spirits as I would call it is an active being which hath a natural power to move it self and the rest But whether that motion do suffice to sensation is undecided But certainly there is another inward principle of motion which guideth much of the locomotive and over-ruleth some of the natural motion by a peculiar action of its own which is called Intellection and Volition as I have proved before When I go to the Church when I write or talk the spirits are the nearest sufficient principle of the motion as motion but as it is done in this manner to this end at this time with these reasons it is from the intellectual principle 3 And thus I deny the major Proposition And I prove the contrary 1. God is the first principle of all motion in the world and the first cause of material motion and yet is not material 2. What the lower and baser nature can do that the higher and nobler hath power to do suppositis supponendis therefore if a body can move a body a soul can do it much more But saith Gassendus Causis secundis primum agendi principium est Atomorum varia mobilitas ingenita non incorporea aliqua substantia Answ Angels are causae secundae souls are causae secundae animated bodies of men are causae secundae prove it now of any of these in your exclusion if you can But he saith Capere non licet quomodo si incorporeum sit ita applicari corpori valeat ut illi impulsum imprimat quando noque ipsum contingere carens ipsa tactu seu mole quae tangat non potest Physicae actiones corporeae cum sint nisi à principio physico corporeoque elici non possiut Quod anima autem humana incorporea cum sit in ipsum tamen corpus suum agat motumque ipsi imprimat dicimus animam humanam qua est
intellectus seu mens atque adeo incorporea non elicere actiones nisi intellectuales seu mentales incorporeas Et quum est sentiens vegetans praeditaque vi corporum motrice atque adeo corporea est elicere actiones corporeas c. And of Angels and Devils he saith That it is known by faith only that they are incorporeal and perhaps God gave them extraordinary bodies when he would have them move or act on bodies To this I answer 1. Who gave those atoms their ingenite mobility and how You say that captum omnem fugit ut quippiam aliud moveat si in seipso immotum maneat If so then it seemeth that either God was moved when he moved atoms or that he never moved them How then came they to be moved first But you confess that God put into them their mobility You say De Deo alia ratio est quoniam infinitae virtutis cum sit vâ—ique praesens non ullo sâ—i motu sed nutu solo agere movere quidlibet potest If you think not as you speak it is unworthy of a Philosopher if you do then it is strange that you should overthrow your own reasoning and excuse it no better than thus If the reason why incorporeal spirits cannot move bodies be that which you alledge because only a body can be applied to a body to make impression on it then God can less move a body than man's soul can because his purest essence is more distant from corporeal grossness than our souls are At least the reason would be the same And to say that God is every where and of infinite vertues maketh him nevertheless a Spirit and created spirits if that be enough may have power or vertue enough for such an effect Doubtless if God move bodies the spirituality of an agent hindereth not the motion 2. But why should it captum omnem superare that a nobler and more potent nature can do that which a more ignoble can do Because I cannot know how a spirit by contact can apply it self to matter shall I dream that therefore it is uncapable of moving bodies Clean contrary I see that matter of it self is an unactive thing and were it not that the noble active element of fire which as a lower soul to the passive matter and a thing almost middle between a spirit and a body did move things here below I could discern no motion in the world but that which spirits cause except only that of the parts to the whole the aggregative motion which tendeth to rest The difference of understandings is very strange it is much easier to me to apprehend that almost all motion should come from the purest powerful active vital natures than that they should be all unable to stir a straw or move the air or any body OBJECTION VI. THe soul is in our sleep either unactive as when we do not so much as dream or acteth irregularly and irrationally according to the fortuitous motion of the spirits Ergo it is no incorporeal immortal substance Answ 1. I suppose the soul is never totally unactive I never awaked since I had the use of memory but I found my self coming out of a dream And I suppose they that think they dream not think so because they forget their dreams 2. Many a time my reason hath acted for a time as regularly and much more forcibly than it doth when I am awake which sheweth what it can do though it be not ordinary 3. This reason is no better than that before answered where I told you that it argueth not that I am a horse or no wiser than my horse because I ride but according to his pace when he halteth or is tired Nor doth it prove that when I alight I cannot go on foot He is hard of understanding that believeth that all the glorious parts of the world above us have no nobler intellectual natures than man Suppose there be Angels and suppose one of them should be united to a body as our souls are we cannot imagine but that he would actuate it and operate in it according to its nature as I write amiss when my pen is bad The same I say of persons Lethargick Apoplectick Delirant c. OBJECTION VII REason is no proof of the soul's immateriality because sense is a clearer and more excellent way of apprehension than Reason is and the bruits have sense Answ 1. I have said enough to the case of Bruits before 2. The soul understandeth bodily things by the inlet of the bodily senses Things incorporeal as I shall shew more anon it otherwise understandeth When it understandeth by the help of sense it is not the sense that understandeth any thing If Bruits themselves had not an Imagination which is an Image of Reason their sense would be of little use to them We see when by business or other thoughts the minde is diverted and alienated how little sense it self doth for us when we can hear as if we never heard and see and not observe what we see yet it 's true that the more sense helpeth us in the apprehending of things sensible which are then objects the better and surely râ—w perceive them by the understanding As the second and third Concoction will not be well made if there be a failing in the first so the second and third perception â—n the Phantasie and Intellect will be ill made if the first deceive or fail them But this proveth not either that the first Concoction or Perception is more noble than the third or that Sensitives without Reason have any true understanding at all or that Sense Phantasie and Reason are not better than Sense alone But these things need not much disputing If Sense be nobler than Reason let the Horse ride the man and let the Woman give her milk to her Cow and let Bruits labour men and feed upon them and let Beasts be your Tutors and Kings and Judges commit to them the noblest works and give them the preeminence if you think they have the noblest faculties OBJECTION VIII SEnsation and Intellection are both but Reception The passiveness therefore of the Soul doth shew its materiality Answ A short answer may satisfie to this Objection 1. All created Powers are partly passive how active soever they be For being in esse operari dependant on and subordinate to the first Cause they must needs receive his influence as well as exercise their own powers As the second wheel in the Clock must receive the moving force of the first before it can move the third 2. It is an enormous error about the operations of the Soul to think that Intellection yea or Sensation either is meer Reception and that the sensitive and intellective power are but Passive The active Soul of Man yea of Bruits receiveth not its object as the mark or butt receiveth the arrow that is shot at it It receiveth it by a similitude of
Intellection because intelligo me intelligere and so that intellectio non est tantum actus intellectus sed etiam est in intellectu and that the Intellect doth understand its own act intuitivè as some speak or by reflexion as others though doubtless the first perception that I understand is not by reflexion but by that same act of understanding something else as sight doth not reflect upon it self to get a perception that I see I will enter no controversie about any of these notions of the manner of our understanding our own act of Intellection which doth not concern the present business But it is most certain that Actus intelligendi nunquam fuit in sensu when the object of Intellection did pass through the sense the Act of Intellection did not nor the intellection or perception of that Act of Intellection did not Nor the Intellection of the common nature of an Intelligence which from hence I gather nor the Intellection of particular Intelligences as Angels nor my Intellection of any mans Intellect or intellectual act whose nature I gather from mine own Nor the conception I have of a Deity as the most perfect intellect nor the perception which I have of my own Volition of my own felicity or of the means thereto as such nor of the pleasing of God nor of another mans good Nor my perception of the nature of the will hence gathered nor my conception of the Volitive power in other persons nor my conceptions of the Volitions of God of Angels c. nor my conception of Intellectual or moral habits nor of the Wills natural inclinations None of all these were ever in the Sense nor passed through the Sense some of them which Gassendus de Ideis overlooketh are without any Idea at all properly so called as the first perception of the act of my own understanding and will by understanding and willing other things as we perceive that we see non videndo Ipsum visum sed alia videndo And that Idea which we have of all the rest is fetcht from this perception of our own acts and not from any thing which ever was in the sense The Soul by knowing it self doth gather the knowledge of all higher intellectual beings which is its most considerable worthy knowledge I hope I have given you instances enow and plain enough and you see now what truth there is of nihil est intellectu quod non fuit prius in sensu D' Orbellis distinguisheth Knowledge largely taken into sensitivè intellectivè and both of them into Abstractivè Intuitivè Knowledge Intuitive is of an Object as it self present when a thing in its present existence is the moving object of knowledge Knowledge Abstractive is when the species of the thing doth move us to know the thing it self and that whether the thing it self be present or absent and have existence or not The example of Intuitive sensitive knowledge or perception which he giveth is the Eye seeing Colours The instance of Abstractive sensitive knowledge is as the Phantasie imagineth colours The instance of Intuitive Intellective Knowledge is the Saints seeing the glory of God in Heaven and he might have instanced in many other things The instance of Abstractive Intellective Knowledge is the understandings Knowledge of the Quiddity of Colours by means of the species To which may be added that Abstractive Knowledge is either per speciem propriam or per speciem alienam In this life the Soul knoweth its own acts either Intuitively or by an act if possible yet neerer to its essential power that hath no usual distinguishing name It knoweth its own powers inclinations and habits neither by a knowledge in proper and strict sense intuitive or abstractive For it is not by a proper species but it is its natural innate power of discerning this Principle that quicquid agit potest agere quod agit by arguing ab actu ad potentiam naturam But in the large sense as Cartesius useth the word this may be called an Idea The minde knoweth God and Angels and other mens Souls in this large sense also by an Idea but not per speciem propriam sed alienam that is not by a species of God and Angels but by an Idea borrowed from our own Intellections and Volitions But this is not an Idea that ever passed through the senses and Gassendus might have thought on it whether it be not an Idea in the Intellect if not without the phantasie at least over and above the Idea in the Imagination when he denieth that there is any such Intellective Idea's 2. But what if there had been nothing in the intellect but what passed through the sense it would no more thence follow that the intellect is no more noble spiritual or immortal than the sense than it will follow that the King is no better than his Porter because none cometh to him till he let them in or that the animal spirits are no more noble than the teeth or than the natural heat or the third concoction is no more excellent than the first because nothing cometh to the third concoction but what was masticated swallowed and passed the first and second concoction Of which before 3. And even by the help of things sensible Epicurus can reach the knowledge of insensible atoms and Cartesius of his subtil matter and globuli coelestes why then by things sensible may we not reach the knowledge of spiritual substances and powers Yet after all this I am much of their mind who think that it is not actual knowledge that is born with us nor is there any true Idea or picture of any thing innate in our understandings and I think that if per possibile vel impossibile you suppose a man born without any one sense that he would have had no actual knowledge at all though that is uncertain Because as if I had not seen any thing objective I should not have perceived that I could see so if I had never known any other object I could not have known what it is to know and other objects have no way that I know of to the intellect but through the sense Though what the active spirits would have done upon the phantasie I cannot possibly understand But all this only concludeth that the senses reception is the way to the intellection of things sensible and that it was a necessary occasion sine qua non to the perception of our own intellectual act because thus necessary to the act it self But not that any Idea of our own Intellection or any of all the things fore-instanced was received through the senses OBJECTION X. THat which things corporeal work upon is corporeal for it cannot be conceived how bodies own work upon that which hath no body But things corporeal work upon the soul Ergo it is it self corporeal Answ 1. I largely before shewed that our uncertainty of the just consistence of Metaphysical matter or incorporeal substance
fiery nature of the semen of the Sun and of the calor naturalis telluris are generally the same and by their agreeableness do meet in co-operation for generation 8. Herein all three as conjunct are the cause of Life as Life the Sun the seed and the calor telluris communicating conjunctly what in their natures they all contain that is an active nature having a power by motion light and heat to cause vegetation and its conjunct effects But the calor motus solis and the calor telluris are but universal causes of life as life but the virtus seminalis is both a cause of life in genere and a specifying cause of this or that sort of Plants in specie the reason why e. g. an Oak an Elm a Rose-tree and every plant is what it is in specie being to be fetch'd from the seed alone and the Creator's will 9. Though the seed be the chief or only specifying cause why this is Adeantum and that Betonica and that Calendula c. yet the Sun and Earth the universal causes do contribute much more to the life as life than the seed it self 10. This fiery or solar active nature is so pure and above the full knowledge of mortals that we have no certainty at all whether in all this generative influx it communicate to vegetatives from it self a pre-existent matter and so draw it back to it self again by circulation or whether it do only by the substantial contact of its active streams cherish and actuate and perfect the substance which it findeth in semine materiâ passivâ or whether per influxum virtutis it operate only by that which is commonly called Quality without any communication or contact of substance 11. In all this operation of the Solar or fiery nature in generation it is quid medium between the passive matter and the animal nature and is plainly an image of the animal nature and its operations so like it that it hath tempted many to ascribe all animal operations only to the Solar or fiery nature and hath caused wise men to doubt whether this nature be to be numbred with things corporeal or incorporeal and to place it between both as participating in several respects of both 12. If the sensitive nature be really above or specifically different from the fiery we may in what is said conjecture much at the order of the generation of things sensitive viz. by a three-fold cause co-operating one specifying and two universal and cherishing The specifying is the virtus seminalis maris foeminae conjunct and of neither alone the same God which bless'd the single seed of a plant with the gift of multiplication bless'd only the conjunct seeds of male and female animals with that gift The superiour universal cause is either some anima universalis ejusdem naturae or God immediately By an Anima universalis I mean not an anima totius mundi but of that superiour vortex or part which this earth belongs to Either this is the Sun or some invisible soul If it be the Sun it is not by its simple fiery nature before mentioned because sensation seemeth to be somewhat totâ specie different from motion light and heat and then it must prove that the Sun is compound and hath a superiour form and nature which either formaliter or eminenter is sensitive and that by this it is that it animateth inferiour sensitives But of this we mortals have no certainty It seemeth very improbable that a worm or flie should have a nature superiour to any that the Sun hath but probabilities are not certainties there are things highest and things lowest in their several kinds But remember that if it should be the Sun it is by that nature superiour to fire by which it doth it The maternal universal Cause of the sensitive life is the Mother Whether the spirits of a sensitive Creature have more in them than the spirits of a Plant and do more by nutrition than cause Vegetation whether they nourish sensitive Life as such is doubtfull But if they do so they be but an universal and not a specifying Cause that is the Cause of Life as Life but not of the vita bovis equi canis felis aquilae qua talis And therefore if the late-discovered trick of passing all the blood of one animal into another be prosecuted to the utmost tryal possibly it may do much to the advantage of Life and Sense as such but never to the alteration of the species to turn a Dog into a Swine or any other sort of Animal 13. Whether the sensitive nature be most refined-corporeal or totally incorporeal is past the reach of man to be assured of 14. The foresaid difficulty is greater here than in the Vegetative Generation viz. Whether in the multiplication of sensitive souls there be an addition of substance communicated from the Universal Causes or a greater quantity or degree of matter physical or metaphysical propagated and produced into existence by generation than there was before It seemeth hard to say that a pair of Animals in Noahs Ark had as much matter or substance in their souls as the millions since proceeding from them But whether such souls have quantitive degrees or by what terms of gradation the souls of millions are distinct from one besides the number or whether God in the blessing of multiplication hath enabled them to increase the quantity of matter which shall serve for so many more forms are things which we cannot fully understand 15. In the like manner we may rise up and conceive of the Generation of Mankind We are sure that he hath an intelligent nature much nobler than the sensitive And we know that homo generat hominem And we know that in his Generation there is an Vniversal Cause and a specifying Cause for though there be but one species of men yet there are more of Intelligences and that one may have an Vniversal Cause producing that and other effects and an Univocal special Cause We know that because he is Generated the specifying Cause is the fecundity or propagating power of the Parent generating a separable seed which seed in conjunction as aforesaid suppositis supponendis is semen hominis and is man seminally and virtually but not actually that is Hath both Passive and Active Power and virtue by reception of the influx of the universal Cause to become a man The universal inferior or feminine Cause is the Mothers Body and Soul or the whole Mother in whom the Infant is generated and cherished I call it Vniversal For it is only the semen that specifieth And therefore by a false or bruitish semen a woman may produce a Monster The Vniversal Paternal Cause is certainly GOD ut prima and it is probable also ut sola For he made Mans Soul at first by that immediate communication which is called Breathing it into him And the Intellectual nature though specified into Angels and Men is the
neerest to GOD that we have any knowledge of And therefore Reason will not teach us to look to any intermediate universal or superiour Cause because there is no created superiour Nature to the Intellectual And it 's absurd to goe to the Inferior to be the Cause of the superior If any will needs think that under God there is some Vniversal Intellect not of the whole Universe for that 's plainly improbable but of our Systeme or Vortex they must take it to be some Angelical Intelligence as Aristotle or the Sun No man can prove either of these to have any such office And for the Sun it is certain that it is not possible unless it self be an Intelligence And though to humane Reason it seem very likely that so glorious a corporeal Nature as the Sun should not be destitute of as noble a form as a lump of Clay a humane body doth possess that so there may be a proportion in Gods works between the nobility of matter and form yet all this to man is utterly uncertain nor doth any man know whether the Luminaries are animated with either sentient or intelligent Souls or not He that most confidently asserteth either and scorneth the Contradicter doth but tell you that he is ignorant of his ignorance But if it should prove true as many of the Fathers thought and Mammertus ubi supra asserteth that Angels have fiery Bodies which they animate and so that the Sun is animated with an Intelligence it would not follow that as fiery or as sensitive but only as intellective it were a subordinate universal Cause of compleat humane Generations and that Sol Homo generant hominem save only quoad Corpus which is but secundum quid But that God is the Vniversal Cause is unquestionable whether there be any subordinate or not 16. And here it is no wonder if the doubts arise which were in the cases of the forementioned Generations Whether God as the universal cause produce new-metaphysical matter for new forms Whether millions of Souls since generated have not more such metaphysical matter than the soul of Adam and Eve alone How Souls may be said to have more or less such matter or substance Whether he educe all Souls è virtute foecunditate primarum by giving them a power without any division or diminution of themselves to bring forth others by multiplication and so cause his Creature to participate of his own foecundity or power of causing Entities c. But such difficulties as these which arise not from uncertainties in Theology but are the meer consequents of the imperfection of humane Intellects and the remoteness depth and unrevealedness of these mysterious works of God should turn no man from the holding of other plain revealed truths As that man generateth man that God is the chief specifying Cause by his first making of man and giving him the power and blessing of propagation which he still maintaineth and with which he doth concurre That Man is the second specifying Cause in the exercise of that power of Generation which God gave him That God is the chief universal Cause and to the production of an Intellectual nature as such doth unspeakably more than man That the mother as cherishing the semen utriusque Parentis is the maternal universal Cause c. We know not fully how it is that one Light causeth a thousand without division or diminution of it self and what it is that is caused de novo It is easie to say that it is but the motion of one part of the atomes or materia subtilis moving another which was all pre-existent But few men that can see through a smoke or dust of atomes will believe that the Sun and other fiery bodies which shew themselves so wonderfully to us by Motion Light and Heat have no peculiar Nature Power or Virtues to cause all this but meer magnitude and figure And that those Corpuscles which have so many hundred degrees of magnitude and figures should not fall into as many hundred such Bodies as we call Elements rather than into two or four Suppose which we may ad verum exquirendum that there were no more Fire in the Universe than one Candle It having the same nature as now it hath that Candle would turn Cities and all combustible matter into Fire But of the Generation of man quoad animam I referre the Reader to Sennertus his Hypomnemata to omit all others And now I would know what there is in Generation that should be against the Immortality of the Soul will you say it is because the Soul hath a Beginning I have answered before that so have all Creatures Is it because it proveth the Soul material 1. If it did I have shewed that you your selves hold a perpetuity of matter 2. But it doth not so If you say that Incorporeal Spirits generate not I answer That is but a naked unproved assertion If you say that Angels do not I answer that 1. that is not because they are unable or unapt if God thought it fittest for them nor 2. can any man prove de facto whether they do or not Christ saith They marry not but he saith not whether they at all propagate their species or not I know the negative is taken for certain and I say not that it is not true but that it is not certain not at all known and therefore an unfit supposition to argue from against the Immortality of the Soul And I must confess that for my part as I have oft read Formae se multiplicant and that the Fire can more multiply or encrease it self than Earth and as I know that the more noble any Nature is the more like it is to God and therefore more potent more active more fecund and productive so I should farr rather think that the Angelical Nature can propagate it self than the Humane if God had not told me the later and said nothing pro or contra of the former And therefore make no doubt but if it do not which no man knoweth it is not because things material are more able but for other reasons unknown to us Whether because God will have this lower World to be the Nidus vel Matrix Coelorum and the Seminary of Heaven and all multiplication to be here or what it is we know not But if it be on the other side concluded that the whole substance of a Soul doth proceed directly and immediately from God it doth make no great alteration in this case or any of the coincident cases about humane propagation if you consider 1. That it is impossible that there should be any substance which is not totally from God either immediately or mediately And that what is said to be mediately from Him hath in it as much of his Causation as if there were no medium For God is not a partial Cause but a total in suo genere and he is as neer to the effect as if there were no
second Cause 2. That the Somatists themselves say that in the Generation of Plants and Animals which they suppose to be totally Corporeal there is not the least degree of substance produced de novo and therefore there is none but what was totally of God and the Parents do but cause instrumentally the uniting of matter prae-existent Therefore if in the Generating of Man the Parents do but instrumentally cause the uniting of substance which is totally from God though not prae-existent it little differenceth the Case as to the consequents 3. Especially considering that what God doth he doth by an establisht Law of Nature As in his making of the World he made the Sun a Causa Vniversalis constantly to send forth the emanation of Light Heat and moving force upon passive matter and thereby to produce effects diversifyed by the preparations and reception of that matter as to soften Wax to harden Clay to make a Dunghill stink and a Rose smell sweet to produce a poysonous and a wholsom Plant a Nightingale and a Toad c. and this without any dishonour to the Sun So if God the Father of Spirits the Central efficient of Souls have made it the original Law of Nature that he will accordingly afford his communicative Influx and that in Humane Generations such and such Preparations of matter shall be as Receptive of his emanations for such and such Forms or spiritual substances and that he will be herein but an Vniversal Cause of Souls as Souls and not of Souls as clean or unclean and that this shall depend upon the preparation of the Recipient whether it be the Body or a sensitive foregoing Principle still keeping at his pleasure as a Voluntary Agent the suspension or dispose of the effect this would make no great alteration neither as to the point of original sin nor any other weighty consequent OBJECTION XIII OMne quod oritur interit That which is not eternal as to past duration is not eternal as to future duration But the Soul is not eternal as to past duration Ergo. Answ I confess this argument will prove that the Soul is not mortal ex necessitate suae naturae without dependance on a Voluntary preserver And therefore Cicero after most other Philosophers who useth the Major for a contrary Conclusion mistook in this that he thought the Soul was as natural an Emanation from God as the beams or light is from the Sun and therefore that it was naturally eternall both à parte ante à parte post which made Arnobius and other Ancients argue as much against the Platonists Immortality of the Soul as against the Epicureans Mortality so that as I said before one would think that they were heretical in this point that doth not make them well But it is only this natural Eternity which they confute And when the Philosophers say that Omne quod oritur interit they can mean or at least prove no more but this that it is not Everlasting ex necessitate naturae But yet 1. It may be in its nature fitted to be perpetual 2. And by the will of the Creator made perpetual Every Creature did oriri de novo and yet every one doth not interire OBJECTION XIV AMong all your Arguments for the Souls Immortality there are none but Morall ones Answ Morality is grown so contemptible a thing with some debauched persons that a very argument is invalidated by them or contemned if they can but call it Moral But what is Morality but the modality of Naturals And the same argument may be Natural and Moral Indeed we call that a Causa Moralis oft-times which doth not necessitate the effect And yet sometimes even moral Causes do infalibly and certainly produce the effect But causation and argumentation are different things and so is an effect and a Logical consequence Will you call the consequents of Gods own Wisdom Justice Veracity Goodness c. uncertain as coming from a Morali Cause The Soul is an Intellectual free agent and adapted to Moral operations And this is its excellency and perfection and no disparagement to it at all And if you will better read them over you will finde that my Arguments are both Physical and Moral For I argue from the Acts or operations of the Soul to its Powers and Nature And from its Acts and Nature to its ends with many such like which are as truly Physical media as if I argued from the nature of Fire and Earth that one if not hindered will ascend and the other descend And other men have given you other Arguments in their Physicks and Metaphysicks OBJECTION XV. YOu seem to confess that you cannot prove the endless duration of the Soul by any Argument from Nature alone But only that it shall live another Life which you call a Life of Retribution Answ I told you that a great probability of it I thus prove God hath made the Soul of a Nature not corruptible but apt to perpetual duration Ergo he thereby declareth his will that he intendeth it for perpetual duration because he maketh nothing in vain either for substance or quality It may be some other will think that this argument will inferre not only a probability but a certainty And if you go back to your objection of Materiality I now only adde that Aristotle and his followers who think that the Heavens are corporeal yet think that they are a quinta essentia and simple and incorruptible and therefore that they shall certainly be everlasting And he taketh the the souls of Bruits to be analogous to the matter of the Starrs and so to be of that everlasting quintessence And can you in reason say less of Rational Souls 2. It is sufficient that I prove by natural evidence a Life of Retribution after this which shall fully make the miserable ungodly ones repent tormentingly of their sin and fill the righteous with such Joyes as shall fully recompense all their labour and suffering in a holy life And that I moreover prove that duration of this life and all the rest by supernatural evidence OBJECTION XVI BOth Soul and Body are like a Candle in fluxu continuo and we have not the same substance this Week or Year as we had the last there being a continual consumption or transition and accretion Ergo being not the same we are uncapable of a Life of future Retribution Will you reward and punish the man that is or the man that was Answ It is a foolish thing to carry great and certain Truths into the dark and to argue against them à minus notis from meer uncertainties As to your simile I confess that the Oyl of your Candle is still wasting so is the wick but not that new is added to make it another thing unless it be a Lamp I confess that the lucid fume which we call the flame is still passing away But whether the fiery Principle in its essence not visible but only in its
to a soul when it is separated from the corporeal spirits Or if the soul out of the body were as liable as it is by diseases of the body while it is in it to the loss of memory yet all those arguments which prove the Life of Retribution hereafter do fully prove that God will provide it a way of exercise and prevent all those hinderances of memory which may make his Judgment and Retribution void Again therefore I say To argue ab ignotis against clear evidence in matters that our own everlasting joy or sorrow is concerned in so deeply is a folly that no tongue can express with its due aggravations OBJECTION XX. THe belief of the immortality of souls doth fill men with fears and draw them to superstition and trouble the peace of Kingdoms by unavoidable sects in the prosecution of those things which are of such transcendent weight when otherwise men might live in quietness to themselves and others and in promoting of the publick good Answ This is the maddest objection of all the rest but in our days there are men found that are no wiser than to make it I have answered it fully in divers popular Treatises as that called A Saint or a Bruit c. 1. The greatest and best things are liable to the worst abuses Thus you may argue against Reason that it doth but fill mens brains with knavish craft and enable them to do mischief and to trouble the world and to live themselves in cares and fears c. Upon many such reasons Cotta in Cic. de Nat. Deor. doth chide God for making man a rational creature and saith he had been happier without it And were it not for this wit and reason we should have none of these evils which you have here now mentioned Why then is not reason as well as Religion on that account to be rejected On the same reason Philosophy and Learning may be accused as it is with the Turks and Moscovites What abundance of sects and voluminous contentions and tired consuming studies have they caused witness all the volumes of Philosophers and School-men On the same account you may cry down Kings and Civil Government and Riches and all that is valued in the world for what wars and bloudshed hath there been in the world for Crowns and Kingdoms what hatred and contention for honour and wealth If you could make all men swine they would not stir for gold or pearls or if they were dogs they would not fight for Kingdoms and if they be blind and impious worldlings they will not be zealous about Religion unless to dis-spirit it and to reduce it to the service of their fleshly interest which is the hypocrites zeal No man will contend for that which he valueth not But 2. Consider that though dogs will not fight for Crowns they will fight for bones and some times need men of reason to stave them off And though swine fight not for gold they will fight for draff and burst their bellies if they be not governed And though unbelievers and Atheists trouble not the world to promote Religion they set Families Towns and Countries and Kingdoms together by the ears for their worldly pelf and fleshly interest Enquire whether the wars of the world be not most for carnal interest even where Religion hath been pretended and hearken in Westminster-hall and at the Assizes whether most of the contendings there are such as are caused by Religion or by the love of the world and of the flesh And where Religion seemeth to be a part of the cause it is the Atheists and ungodly that are commonly the chief contenders who think it not enough to hope for no life to come themselves but they cannot endure other men that do it because they seem wiser and better and happier than they and by their holiness gall their consciences and condemn them 3. The extremity of this objections impudency appeareth in this above all that it is most notorious that there is no effectual cure for all the villanies of the world but true Religion and shall the cure be made the cause of that disease 1. Read and judge in Nature and Scripture whether the whole matter of Religion be not perfectly contrary to the vices of the world Will it trouble Kingdoms or disquiet souls to love God above all and to honour and obey him and be thankful for his mercies and to trust his promises and to rejoice in hope of endless glory and to love our neighbours as our selves and to do no injustice or wrong to any to forbear wrath and malice lust adultery theft and lying and all the rest expressed in this treatise 2. Is it not for want of Religion that all the vices and contentions of the world are Would not men be better subjects and better servants and better neighbours if they had more Religion Would not they lie and deceive and steal and wrong others less Do you think he that believeth a life to come or he that believeth it not is liker to cut your purse or rob you by the high way or bear false witness against you or be perjured or take that which is not his own or any such unrighteous thing Is he liker to live as a good subject or servant who looketh for a reward in heaven for it or he that looketh to die as a beast doth Is he liker to do well and avoid evil who is moved by the effectual hopes and fears of another life or he that hath no such hopes and fears but thinketh that if he can escape the Gallows there is no further danger Had you rather your servant that is trusted with your estate did believe that there is a life to come or that there is none Nay why doth not your objection militate as strongly against the thief's believing that there will be an Assize For if the belief of an Assize did not trouble him he might quietly take that which he hath a mind to and do what he list but this fills his heart with fears and troubles 3. Compare those parts of the world Brasil and Soldania c. which believe not a life to come if any such there be with those that do and see which belief hath the better effects 4. What is there of any effectual power to restrain that man from any villany which he hath power to carry out or policy to cover who doth not believe a life to come 5. And if you believe it not what will you do with Reason or any of your faculties or your time How will you live in the world to any better purpose than if you had slept out all your life What talk you of the publick good when the denying of our final true felicity denyeth all that is truely Good both publick and private But so sottish and malignant an objection deserveth pity more than confutation Whatever Religious persons did ever offend these men with any reall Crimes I can assure
tam eleganter explicabunt sed ne hoc quidem ipsum quà m subtiliter conclusum sit intelligent Sentit animus se moveri quod cum sentit illud una sentit se vi sua non aliena moveri nec accidere posse ut ipse unquam à se deseratur Ex quo efficitur aeternitas I have been tedious and will therefore only adde his application Pag. 233 234. Tota Philosophorum vita commentatio mortis Nam quid aliud agimus cum à voluptate id est à corpore cum à re familiari quae est ministra famula corporis cum à Repub. Cum à negotio omni sevocamus animum Quid inquam tum agimus nisi animum ad seipsum aduocamus secum esse cogimus maximèque à corpore abducimus secernere autem à corpore animum nec quidquam aliud est quà m emori discere Quare hoc commentemur mihi crede disjungamusque nos à corporibus id est consuescamus mori Hoc dum erimus in terris erit illi coelesti vitae simile Et cum illuc ex his vinculis emissi feremur minus tardabitur cursus animorum Quo cum venerimus tum denique vivemus Nam haec quidem vita mors est quam lamentari possem si liberet And how the Somatists were then esteemed he addeth Catervae veniunt contradicentium non solum Epicureorum quos equidem non despicio sed nescio quomodo doctissimus quisque contemnit And among Christians they will never recover their reputation I know that some doubting Christians are ready to say as Cicero's Auditor who saith that he had often read Plato sed nescio quomodo dum lego assentior cum posui librum mecum ipse de Immortalitate Animorum caepi cogitare assensio omnis illa elabitur But this is because the truth is not sufficiently concocted nor the conjoyned Frame of Evidences entirely and deeply printed on the minde and so diversions alienate the minde from the just apprehension of some of those Evidences which it had formerly had a glimpse of and leave it open to the contrary suggestions He that is surprised when his Prospective Glass or Telescope is not with him will not see those things which by their help he saw before And the remembrance of former convictions in the generall will hardly satisfie a man against his present different apprehension though he be conscious that he had then more help than now I have found my self a far clearer apprehension of the certainty of the Life to come and of the truth of the Gospel when I have come newly from the serious view of the entire frame of convincing Evidences than I can have at other times when many particulars are out of the way or much worn off my apprehensions These passages I have cited out of Heathens to convince or confound those that under the Gospel with their hearts tongues or lives deny those truths which the light of Nature hath so far made clear Remembring both those Symbols of Pythagoras De rebus divinis aâ—sque lumine ne loquaris de Disâ—rebusque divinis nihil tam minabile dicitur quod non debeas credere and his Verse translated by Ficinus Corpore deposito cum liber ad aethera perges Evades hominem factus deus aetheris almi Alcinous reciting Plato's reasons for the Immortality of the Soul cap. 25. mentioneth seven reasons 1. Anima cuicunque adest Vitam affert â—tpote illi naturaliter insitam Quod vero vitam praestat mortem minime suscipit Ergo immortale existit 2. Anima cum per corporis sensus ad illa quae sensibilia sunt descendit angitur turbatur nec similis esse potest illius cujus praesentia turbatur 3. Anima ipsa natura corpori dominatur Quod autem natura sua regit imperat divinitati cognatum Ergo anima Deo proxima immortalis est c. And because it may be objected that by the first reason the Souls of Bruits would be immortall he answereth that but so doubtfully and darkly as is not worth the reciting But though Alcinous incline to the negative of the Immortality of the Animae brutorum Porphyrius is peremptory for the affirmative upon the supposition of their rationality The Stoick Philosophers bear also as full a testimony against the Athiest and the denyers of humanity as the rest For though Cicero thank them for nothing and rebuke them for denying the Souls eternity and giving us but Vsuram ut cornicibus a longer and not an everlasting life yet some of them seem to be of another minde and the rest rather think that the Souls of men will participate in the Worlds periodical revolutions than be at all annihilated or deprived of felicity The paucity of their writings which have come down to us and the malice of the Epicureans with whom they were at the greatest odds did make them represented as if they had held more unreasonable opinions and been more sowre and inhumane than indeed they were And some who of late times condemn them for that in which they agree with the doctrine of Christ do seem to mean Christianity while they exclaim against the severities of Stoicisme and mean the Church while they name but the Porch Certainly if Cicero himself who is offended with their schisme do represent their opinions aright and if we may judge of the rest by his speeches of Cato and by the writings of Seneca Epictetus and Antonine and if Barlaam hath truely collected their Ethicks there were no men that spake and lived so like Christians who were strangers to Christ He that would see the difference between them and the Epicureans let him but read the Praeloquium before his Antoninus of Mr. Gataker that man of admirable Learning Humility and Piety not to be named without love and honour nor in this Age without tears Of Antoninus himself he saith Certè quaecunque Dominus ipse Christus in concionilus collationibusque suis Historiae Evangelicae insertis de mali cogitatione etiam abstinenda de affectibus vitiosis supprimendis de sermone otioso non insuper habendo de animo cum primis excolendo ad imaginem divinam effingendo de beneficentia simplicissime exhibenda de injuriis aequanimiter ferendis de admonitione increpatione cum moderatione cautioneque accurata exercendiâ— de relus quibi slibet adeoque vita ipsa uli res ratioque poscit nihili habendis de aliis denique plerisque pietatis charitatis aequitatis humanitatis officiis quam exquitissime obeundis exequendisque praecepta dedit apud nostrum hunc eadem perinde acsi illa lectitasset ipse in dissertationum commentationumque harum congerie inspersa passim nec sine vehementia et vivacitate insigni quae in praecordia ipsa penitus penetret Lector quivis sedulus advertet ingenuus agnoscet The sum of their doctrine different from the Epicureans he thus reciteth and by citations
thing to us unknown Unicuique dedit vitium natura creato Propert. Sed quia caecus inest vitiis amor oâ—ne futurum Despicitur suadent brevem praesentia fructum Et ruit in vetitâ—m damni secura libico Claud. 2. Eur. Egregium sanctumque virum si cerno bâ—membri Hoc monstrum puero vel miranti sub aratro Piscibus inventis foetae comparo mulae Juven Sat. 13. He that will peruse that notable description of the state of mortals and of souls in flesh which Arnobius hath adv Gentes lib. 2. p. 18 19. Annot. Bib. Pat. too long to be transcribed shall see the vanity and shame of this corrupted world expressed to the life Nostri tantum qui Christiani vocamur nulla vobis cura est finitis enim nos qui nihil mali patramus immo omnium piissimè justissimeque cum erga Deum tum imperium vestrum nos gerimus exagitari rapi fugari nomen duntaxat nostrum plerisque impugnantibus Athenagor Apolog p. 1. O ingratum impium seculum O in privatam perniciem incredibili pectoris obstinatione pronum sâ—aliquis aâ— vos medicus ex summotis venisset incognitis regionibus medicamen pollicens certatim blanditiis c. Quaenam est haec foritas quae libido tam caâ—nifex inexpiabile bellum indicere nihil de te merito Dilacerare si detur velle eum per viscera qui non modo nullum intulerit malum nulli sed benignus hostibus c. Arnob. l. 1. in fine Prosperum ac faelix scelus virtus vocatur Quis nomen unquam sceleris errori dedit saepe error ingens sceleris obtinuit locum Sen. Herc. fur Anaxarchum Democritium à Cyprio tyranno excarnificatum accepimus Zenonem Eleatem in tormentis necatum Quid dicam de Socrate cujus morti illachrymari soleo Platonem logens Many more such instances hath Cotta in Cicero de Nat. Deor. l. 3. p. 107 108. Primusque de vitae ratione disseruit Socrates primusque Philosophorum damnatus moritur Laert. in Socrat pag. 92. Campanella telleth us himself of his 30 years cruel persecution and torments in the Inquisition * Hist part 1. l. 4. c. 3. sect 6. Judices non tam quid commiserit reus aliquis nostrum â—inquirunt quà m ipsi nomini tanquam certo sceleri illudunt Athenagoâ— ubâ— supr Vitia de mercede sollicitant Avaritia pecuniam promittit Luxuria multas ac varias voluptates Ambitio purpuram plausum ex hoc potentiam quicquid potentia ponit Senec. Ep. 59. In vitia alter alterum trudimus Quomodo ad salutem revocari potest quem populus impellit nullus retrahit Senec Ep. 29. When just Aristides was made Treasurer at Athens though he most uprightly discharged his Office â—hemistocles accused him and got him condemned as for Bribery But by the favour of some of the greatest he was delivered and restored to his Office for another year The next year he did by connivence gratifie all the Pillagers of the Common-wealth that would grow rich by the common loss And at the years end they offered him the Office again with great honour But he refused it and said that their honour was a greater disgrace than their condemnation For when he did well they condemned him and when he gave way to the unjust they honoured him Plutar. When he was to be condemned by the popular Vote one came to him in the croud that could not write and not knowing who he was desired him to write his name to Aristides condemnation for he was resolved to give his voice against him because he was called A Righteous Man Aristides did as he desired and wrote his name without discovering himself to him Saith Cicero laughing at Epicurus Ego summum dolorem summum dico etiamsi decem atomis est major alius non continuo dico esse brevem multosque possem bonos viros nominare qui complures annos doloribus podagrae cruciâ—ntur maximis Tuscul l. 2. p. 263. If any say that still Perfect Obedience is possible I will not litigare de nomine but say as Cicero Ut nihil interest utrum nemo valeat an nemo possit valere sic non intelligo quid intersit utrum nemo sit sapiens an nemo esse possit Cic. de Nat. Deor. l. 3. pag. 138. mihi so I say of keeping the Law perfectly Almost all the Heathens in the World who worshipped one God as Chief had their Demi-gods as their particular Protectors and favourers or Mediators as intimating that Man is conscious of the need of some Mediator of access to the supreme Deity The most learned men of Greece and Rome that saw by Reason the Immortality of the Soul the life to come and the Perfections of God were yet so distrustfull of their own Reasons that they spake of the Life to come with great pauses of doubtfulness or darkness And were many of them glad to run to Oracles and Augures and Aruspices to try if they could get any additionall light by superficial Revelation How glad then would they have been of a certain Teacher sent from Heaven Falsum est pejores nâ—orimur quam nascimur nostrum istud non naturae vitium est Quid enim turpius quam in ipso limine securitatis esse solicitum Senec. Saepe Jovem vidi cum jam sua mittere vellet Fulmina thure â—dato sustinuisse manum At si negligitur magnis injuria poenis Solvitur Ovid. 5. Fast Dei injuriae Deo curae Tacit. Annal. l. 1. Virtutum omnium excellentissima justitia Ammian Marcel l. 20. * Religiosi sunt cui facienda vâ—tanda discernunt Macâ—ob Saturn l. 3. Non votis neque supplicamentis mulicbribus auxilia Deorum parantur sed vigilando agendo bene consulendo prospere cedunt omnia ubi socordiae te atque ignaviae tradideris nequicquam Deos implores irati enim insensique sunt Salust in Catâ—lin Mysterii opus finem sacrificari scâ—licet sanctificari fideleâ— ipse est solus qui peragit De his autem preces sunt orationes supplicationes sacerdotis Illa enim sunt Domini haec veâ—o seâ—vi servator donat sacerdos pâ—oiis quae data sunt â—ratias agit Nicol Cabas il Liturg. Expos c. 49. advers Eos qui dicunt sanctorum in sacro mysterio memoriam esse sacerdotis pro eis ad Deum supplicationem Perturbatione temporum eos etiam qui vero judicio nullius criminis convinci queunt maximis involvi criminibus haud est veri dissimile Pachymer l. 1. Q. Si divinae Scriptura probationibus sufficiunt quid necessaria est Religioni fides R. Fides nostra super ratione quidem est non tamen temerarie irrationabiliter assumitur Ea enim quae ratio edocet fides intelligit ubi ratio defecerit fides praecurrit Non enim utcunque audita credimus sed ea quae ratio non improbat Verum quod consequi ad
solo sciente detecti This was the conceit of Arnob. adv Gent. l. 2. p. 14. * We say not that corporeal fire doth touch the soul Sed memoâ—atae apud inferos poenae suppliciorum generibus multiformes Ecquis erit tam brutus rerum consequentias nesciens qui animis incorruptibilibus credat aut tenebras tartareas posse aliquid nocere aut igneos fluvios aut â—aenosis gurgitibus paludes aut rotarum volubilium circumactus Quod enim eontiguum non est à legibus dissolutionis amotum est licet omnibus ambiatur flammis illibatum necesse est permaneat Arnob. advers Gent. l. 2. p. 17. Auct Bibl. Pat. To. 1. And seeing most of the Heathens believe the Immortality of souls and the Justice of God it is meet that they believe a punishment for the bad as they do a reward for the good As Arnobius saith lib. 2. advers Gent. Cum igitur haec ita sunt quaenam injustitia tanta est ut fatui vobis credulitate in ista videamur Cum vos similia credere in eadem videamus expectatione versari Si irrisione existimamur digni quod spem nobis hujusmodi pollicemur vos eadem expectat irrisio qui spem vobis immortalitatis adsciscitis Si tenetis aliquam sequiminique ratione nobis portione ex ista rationem concedite Si nobis haec gaudia Plato promisisset Consentaneum fuerat ejus suscipere nos cultus à quo tantum doni expectaremus muneris Nunc cum eam Christus non tantum promiserit verum etiam virtutibus tantis manifestaverit posse compleri quid alienum facimus aut stultitiae crimen quibus rationibus sustinemus si ejus nomini Majestatique substernimur à quo speramus utrumque mortem cruciabilem fugere vitam aeternitate donari page 17. Aâ—ct Bib. Pat. To. 1. Of the probability of the habitation of the Planets see Gassendus and his reasons that the inhabitants are not men of our species but that the inhabitants are diversified as the habitations are and other things in the universe Though Cicero frequently derideth the superstitious fear of Hell yet he meaneth not of all future punishment of the wicked but of the Poets fables of Styt Cerberus Tantalus and Sysiphus kind of penalties and of Minos and Rhadamanthuâ— the infernal Judges Sed Gegenetis Christus humani inquitis câ—nservator advenit cur non omnes aequali munifiâ—entia liberat Resp Aequaliter liberat qui aequaâ—iâ—et omnes vocat Haud ab indâ—lgentia principali quemquam repellit aut respuit qui sublimibus infimis servis c. uniformiter potestatem venâ—endi ad se facit Patet omnibus fons vitae neque ab jure potandi quisquam prohibetur Si tibi fastidium tantum est ut oblati respuas beneficium muneris quinimo si tantum sapientia praevales ut ea quae offeruntur à Christo ludum ineptias nomines quid invitans peccat cujus solum sunt hae partes ut sub tui juris arbitrio fructum suae benignitatis exponat An orandus es ut beneficium salutis à Deo digneris accipere tibi aspernanti fugientique longissime infundenda est in gremium divinae benevolentiae gratia Vis sumere quod offertur in tuos usus convertere consulueris tu tibi Aspernaris contemnis despicis te muneris commoditate privaveris Nulli Deus infert necessitatem Object Nolo inquis voluntatem non babeo Resp Quid ergo criminaris Deum tanquam tibi desit Opem desideras tibi ferre cujus dona munera non tantum asperneris fugias verum in alia verbà cognomines jocularibus facetiis prosequaris Arnob. adv Gent. l. 2. Eunomiani minas futuri supplicii gehennae non ad veritatem sed ad metum prolatas aiebant Hermenopul de Sectis Sect. 13. See more of this before Part 1 Ch. 15. The Reader man pardon this speaking of the same thing twice both because the Objection requireth the repetition and because I think it needfull to most Readers to procure their observation Aut ideo gregem pusillum appellat quia totum hominum genus ne dum soli sancti cum immensa illa Angelorum multitudine collatum perexiguus grex est Est enim illorum multitudo incredibilis hominum nume um infinitis pene partibus excedenâ— Titus â—ostrens in Luc. cap. 12. We deny not but that there are different degrees of punishment according to the difference of mens sins Etsi mortalibus in decies millenos annos haec extemis sensibus exposita vita producatur nunquam tamen opinor tantae Angelorum Daemonum multitudini hamanarum animamarum numerus par erit Aeneas Gazaeus de Animâ Theophrastus p. 399. †Cum non esses re formavit ex humida miniâ—a substantia ex minutissima guttula quae nec ipsi aliquando erat Thioph Antioch ad Antolych l. 1. One that had never heard nor thought of the way of generation would think it as unlikely a thing that an Acoâ—n should bring forth an Oak or such a thing as sperma humanum the Body of a man as you do that the body rise again And the Platonists think that all Souls presently upon their departure hence do fabricate to themselves either acreal or ethereal bodies And why should you think them so alienated from the bodies which they lived in as only to be uncapable of those If we knew what the hoc idem of the Body is we might have more particular explicit satisfaction In the mean time we must implicitly trust in God Leg. Finem Disput Zachariae Scholast Mitylen Lege etiam Athenagoram de Resurrectione Read Garbut of the Resurrection Read Aen. Gazaeus his Theophrastus where is a handsome discourse of the Resurrection If Philosophy be medicinal to the foolish world why were Thales Pythagoras Socrates Plato Aristotle and Zeno born no sooner but the world suffered to lie so long in ignorance Answer this your selves and you are answered Arnobius answereth this Objection partly by alledging mans ignorance of what God did to former ages and partly by asserting Gods mercy to them adv Gentes li. 2. Obj. Quid visum est ut ante horas pauculas sospitator Christus coeli ex arcibus mitteretur Resp Quae causa est quod serius hyems aestas autumnus fiant Non minus inficias nescire nos nec promptum est cuâ—quam Dei mentem videre aut quibus modis ordinaverit res suas homo animal coecum ipsum se nesciens ullis potest rationibus consequi Nec continuo sequitur ut infecta fiant quae facta sunt amittat res fidem quae potestatibus est monstratum Id. ib. Nam quod nobis objectare consuestis novellam esse Religionem nostram ante dies propemodum paucos natam neque vos potuisse antiquam patriam linquere c. ratione istud intenditur nulla
praesentia dedit corpori ultimum ex se movendi vestigium sic ipsa propter corporeum contâ—bernium conditionis notam subtit mobilis abunde Proclus de Anim. Daemon See in Aristcas Histor de 70. p. 879. the Kings Quest 19. about Dreams with the Answer how far Dreams are in our power Read Priscians Theophrast de Anim with Ficinus Notes which sheweth how farr the Sense is Active Sensus Principium mediaque finem sentiendae rei individuae comprehendit Actio est judiciumque perfectum in praesenti momento simul totus existit etsi non absque passione aliqua instrumenti sensus efficitur non tamen est haec passio sensus Quo fit ut patiamur vigilantes dormlentes nec tamen persentiamus Theophrast de Anim. ut supr Lege Mars Ficinum de Volupt c. 1. 2. 3 c. Platonis dogma defendentem scil Voluptatem esse Actum vel Motum Priscian in Theophrast de Anim. c. 13. saith Anima quidem cum sit forma vivens sensualis agit circa illa quae sibi offeruntur Vitaliter atque sensualiter quia est in corpore usque ad certum spatium operatur †See Alcinous de doctr Plat. cap. 18. to the same purpose Vid. Paul Cartesium in Sent. 1. Dis 1. p. 7. Dis 2. p. 8. That spiritual things are better known than corporeal and of the knowledge of God Porphyr de occas inq Anima est Essentia inextensa immaterialis immortalis in vita habente à seipsa vivere atque esse simpliciter possidente * The Platonists method of progression is thus summed up in Plotinus Ennead 4. l. 3. p. 384. and out of him by Ficinus Sicut aëris summum primum omnium ignitur ab infimo ignis sic coelum summum corpus primo animatur ab anima quae est ultimum Divinorum Ipsum Bonum est quasi Centrum Mens lumen inde emicans permanens Anima Lumen de Lumine se movenâ— Corpus per se opacum illuminatur ab anima sed Animae in coelo securae illuminant sub coelo non sine curâ Est utique aliquid velut centrum Penes hoc autem circulus ab ipso micans Praeter haec alius circulus Lumen de lumine ultra haec insuper non amalius Luminis circulus sed jam Luminis indigus alieni propriae lucis inopia Inqu Plot. ibid. Nemesius de Anima which goeth under the name of Greg. Nyssen while he endeavoureth to prove the pre-existence of Souls doth thus peremptorily conclude Si animae ex ortu fiunt mutuo ratione providentiae fiunt caducae sunt ut caetera quae ex propagatione generis oriuntur si sunt ex nihilo Creatio haec est neque verum est cessavit Deus ab omnibus operibus suis Non ergo nunc animae fiunt But there is no appearance of a just proof in any thing that he saith against either of the Opinions which he opposeth Would you see Physical Arguments for the Souls Incorporeity and Immortality Among a multitude that have done it I desire you to read Plotinus En. 4. l. 7. of the Immort of the Soul whose arguments I pretermit because I would not be tedious in transcribing that which is already so well written abateing their peculiar Conceits Vid. Savonarol l. 1. c. ult †The summ of their Reasons who thinke that Bodies at the Resurrection are Identified only by the Souls identity you may see in Thom. Whites Theolog. Institut To. 2. li. 3. Lect. 4. p. 239.340 Read Plotinus in Ennead 4. pag. 374â— Ed. Basil de individuatione Animarum As also the following pages provinâ— that our Souls are no parts of the Animâ— Mundi Et sect 8â— pag. 377. Quomodâ— animae differant quomodo sint immortales in formâ— propria restantes Read the Note in the Margin of the last Leaf Plotinus his Ennâ— 4. de Anima has great deal of doe in it much wiser wholesome than the Epicurus and the tomists See Plotin Ennead 4. l. 3. p 185. shewing that in separated souls Reason is so powerful that it ex tempore conceiveth all things propounded by the Intellect and that souls in Heaven converse without voice but daemons and souls that are in the air converse by voice Vid. Porphyr de occasion de Passionibus Animae corp Plotin ubi supr p. 391. sect 26. sheweth that Memory is more pertinent to the soul than the body and oft without the body Et sect 29 c. Et c. 31 32. the difference between the sensitive and rational memory Et l. 2 he sheweth that the soul in heaven forgetteth these trifles not through ignorance but contempt Sic ille Strato Deum opere magno liberat me timore Quis enim potest cum existimet à Deo se curari non dies noctes divinum numen hoâ—rere siquid adversi acciderit quod cui non accidit extimescere ne id jure evenerit Cic. Acad. quast l. 4. p. 44. 〈…〉 Vid. Paul Cartes in a sent d. 1. p. 30 31. Some think because they read much in Plato of the making of the World that his opinion was not for its eternity but I doubt they are quite mistaken Alcinous in li. de doct Plat. saith too truely Cum vero mundum Plato genitum inquit haudquaquam sic eum sensisse credendum est ut aliquod olim tempâ—s ante mundum praecesserit Verum quia semper in generatione perdurat indicatque substantiae suae causam praestantiorem Animam praeterea mundi quae semper extitit haud officit Deus sed ornat eâque ratione eam facere nonnunquam asseritur quod excitat eam ad seipsum ejus mentem velut ex profundo quodam somno convertit c. Lumine naturae non constat quod Angeli facti sint in tempore non fuerint ab aeterno Nam imprimis per lumen naturae cognoscimus exemplo Solis luminis effectum posse coaevum esse suae causae unde nulla repugnantia est ex parte Dei vel ex parte Creaturae ut haec sit Deo coaeva Schibler Met. de Angel See also Durandus Ariminensis Aquinas Pererius Suarez c. Read in Bib. Pat. the dispute of Zachary Mitilene with Ammonius and a Physician about the Worlds Eternity How neerly the Manichees opinion agreed with the Platonists see in Nemesius de Anim. pag. 487 488 c. Nor do I here press you with the authority of a Hermes Zoroaster or Orpheus as knowing how little proof is given us that the writings were theirs which are fathered on them and giving some credit to Porphyry himself who in the life of Plotinus telleth us that there were then Ex antiqua Philosophia egressi haeretici Adelphii Acylinique sectatores qui Alexandri Lybici Philocomi Demostrati Lydi plurimos libros circumferebant revelationes quasdam Zoroastris Zostriani Nichotei Allogenis Mesi aliorumque ejusmodi palam ostendentes deceperunt multos ipsi decepti jam fuerant Ego vero Porphyrius argumentationibus multis ostendi librum Zoroastri ab illis inscriptum adulterinum novumque esse ab eis confictum qui struebant haeresin ut institutiones suae esse Zoroastris voteris crederentur And hereupon Plotinus wrote his Book against the Gnosticks ☞ Whether God or our selves Virtue or Pleasure be chiefly to be loved ☞ Even in Friendship with Men it is commonly said that we must have more respect to our friend than to our selves And therefore Cicero pleadeth that Epicurus's opinion is inconsistent with true Friendship However that stand I am sure in our Love to God we must love him more for himself than for our own ends and benefit Therefore it is that I distinguished Love before from Obedience as such as being somewhat more excellent and the final grace And Proclus de Anim. Daemone discerned this distinction when he saith Belli finis est justitia pacis autem aliud quiddam excellentius bonum Amicitia scil atque unio Finis enim universae virtutis est ut tradunt Pythagorici Aristotelesque confirmat â—t omnibus jam factis amicis justitia non ulterius egeamus quando viz. sublatum fuerit Mâ—um Non-meum And if this be true of the Love of man Much more of the Love of God Which they also may do well to consider of who most fear the cessation of that Individuation of souls which consisteth in the distance that now we are at For though doubtless there will continue an Individuation yet Union is so much of the felicity perfection and delight of souls union I say with God as we are capable and with one another that we should rather be afraid lest we shall not be near enough than lest too much â—earness should confound us
And that so great a change and so holy a life is necessary to salvation hath proved a difficulty to some § 11. 9. The doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body is one of the greatest difficulties of all § 12. 10. So is Christ's coming into the World so late and the revealing of his Gospel to so few by Prophecy before and by Preaching since § 13. 11. So also was the appearing Meanness of the Person of Christ and of his Parentage place and condition in the World together with the manner of his birth § 14 12. The manner of his sufferings and death upon a Cross as a Malefactor under the charge of Blasphemy Impiety and Treason hath still been a stumbling-block both to Jews and Gentiles § 15. 13. So hath the fewness and meanness of his followers and the number and worldly preeminence and prosperity of unbelievers and enemies of Christ § 16. 14. The want of excellency of speech and art in the holy Scriptures that they equall not other Writings in Logical method and exactness and in Oratorical elegancies is a great offence to unbelievers § 17. 15. As also that the Physicks of Scripture so much differeth from Philosophers § 18. 16. As also the seeming Contradictions of the Scripture do much offend them § 19. 17. And it offendeth them that Faith in Christ himself is made a thing of such excellency and necessity to salvation § 20. 18. And it is hard to believe that present adversity and undoing in the World is for our benefit and everlasting good § 21. 19. And it offendeth many that the doctrine of Christ doth seem not suited to Kingdoms and Civil Government but only for a few private persons § 22. 20. Lastly the Prophesies which seem not intelligible or not fulfilled prove matter of difficulty and offence There are intrinsecal difficulties of Faith § 23. II. The outward adventitious impediments to the Belief of the Christian Faith are such as these 1. Because many Christians especially the Papists have corrupted the doctrine of Faith and propose gross falshoods contrary to common sense and reason as necessary points of Christian Faith as in the point of Transubstantiation § 24. 2. They have given the World either false or insufficient reasons and motives for the belief of the Christian Verity which being discerned confirmeth them in Infidelity § 25. 3. They have corrupted Gods Worship and have turned it from rational and spiritual into a multitude of irrational ceremonious fopperies fitted to move contempt and laughter in unbelievers § 26. 4. They have corrupted the doctrine of Morality and thereby hidden much of the holyness and purity of the Christian Religion § 27. 5. They have corrupted Church-history obtruding or divulging a multitude of ridiculous falshoods in their Legends and Books of Miracles contrived purposely by Satan to tempt men to disbelieve the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles § 28. 6. They make Christianity odious by upholding their own Sect and power by fire and blood and inhumane Cruelties § 29. 7. They openly manifest that ambition and worldly dignities and prosperity in the Clergy is their very Religion and withall pretend that their party or Sect is all the Church § 30. 8. And the great disagreement among Christians is a stumbling-block to unbelievers while the Greeks and Romans strive who shall be the greatest and both they and many others Sects are condemning unchurching and reproaching one another § 31. 9. The undisciplined Churches and wicked lives of the greatest part of professed Christians especially in the Greek and Latine Churches is a great confirmation of Infidels in their unbelief § 32. 10. And it tempteth many to Apostasie to observe the scandalous errors and miscarriages of many who seemed more godly than the rest § 33. 11. It is an impediment to Christianity that the richest and greatest the learned and the far greatest number in the World have been still against it § 34. 12. The custom of the Countrey and Tradition of their Fathers and the reasonings and cavils of men that have both ability and opportunity and advantage doth bear down the truth in the Countreys while Infidels prevail § 35. 13. The Tyranny of cruel persecuting Princes in the Mahometane and Heathen parts of the World is the grand Impediment to the progress of Christianity by keeping away the means of knowledge And of this the Roman party of Christians hath given them an incouraging example dealing more cruelly with their fellow-Christians than the Turks and some Heathen Princes do So that Tyranny is the great sin which keepeth out the Gospel from most parts of the Earth § 36. III But no Impediments of Faith are so great as those within us As 1. the natural strangeness of all corrupted mindes to God and their blindeness in all spiritual things § 37. 2. Most persons in the World have weak injudicious unfurnished heads wanting the common natural preparatives to Faith not able to see the force of a reason in things beyond the reach of sense § 38. 3. The carnal minde is enmity against the Holiness of Christianity and therefore will still oppose the receiving of its principles § 39. 4. By the advantages of Nature Education Custom and Company men are early possest with prejudices and false conceits against a life of Faith and Holiness which keep out reforming truths § 40. 5. It is very natural to incorporated Souls to desire a sensible way of satisfaction and to take up with things present and seen and to be little affected with things unseen and above our senses § 41. 6 Our strangeness to the Language Idiomes Proverbial speeches then used doth disadvantage us as to the understanding of the Scriptures § 42. 7. So doth our strangeness to the Places and Customs of the Countrey and many other matters of fact § 43. 8. Our distance from those Ages doth make it necessary that matters of fact be received by humane report and Historical Evidence And too few are well acquainted with such History § 44. 9. Most men do forfeit the helps of Grace by wilfull sinning and make Atheism and Infidelity seem to be desireable to their carnal Interest and so are willing to be deceived and forsaking God they are forsaken of him flying from the Light and overcoming Truth and debauching Conscience and disabling Reason for their sensual delights § 45. 10. Those men that have most need of means and help are so averse and lazy that they will not be at the pains and patience to read and conferre and consider and pray and use the means which is needfull to their information but settle their judgement by slight and slothfull thoughts § 46. 11. Yet are the same men proud and self-conceited and unacquainted with the weakness of their own understandings and pass a quick and confident judgement on things which they never understood It being natural to men to judge according to what they do actually apprehend and not according to what they should
of my life in converse with such truly sanctified persons and in preaching this Gospel through the great mercy of God with such success upon no small numbers so that I am certain by full experience of the reality of that holy change which cannot be done but with the co-operation of God I have seen that this change is another matter than fancy opinion or factious conjunction with a Sect Even the setting up God in the soul as God as our Owner Ruler and Chief Good and the devoting of the soul to him in Resignation Obedience and thankful Love the seeking of an everlasting felicity in his glorious sight and love in heaven the contempt of this world as it pleaseth the flesh and the holy use of it as the way to our felicity and pleasing God the subduing and denying all carnal desires which would rebel against God and reason and restoring Reason to the government of the lower faculties the denying of that inordinate selfishness which setteth up our interest against our neighbours and the respecting and loving our neighbours as our selves and doing to others as we would be done by and doing good to all men as far as we have power the holy governing of our inferiours and obeying our superiours in order to these ends living soberly righteously and godly in this world and in the patient bearing of all afflictions and diligent serving God in our several places to redeem our time and prepare for death and wait with longing for the everlasting glory the hope of which is caused in us by faith in Christ our Ransome Reconciler Example Teacher Governour and Judge This is the true nature of the Religion expressed in the Gospel and impressed on the souls of sanctified men By this effect I know that Christ is the Saviour of the world and no deceiver as I know a man to be a true Physician and no deceiver when I see him ordinarily and throughly perform the cures which he undertaketh He saveth us actually from the power of our sins and bringeth up our hearts to God and therefore we may boldly say He is our Saviour This witness through his mercy I have in my self and is alway with me and in those whom I converse with round about me I have also upon just enquiry found that the witnesses of Christ's Resurrection and Miracles have delivered us their testimony with a three-fold evidence 1. The evidence of just credibility to a humane belief 2. The evidence of natural certainty in the natural impossibilities of deceit 3. The evidence of supernatural divine attestation in 1. The Image of God on their hearts and doctrine 2. Their miracles and 3. Their sanctifying success And I have found that the witnesses of the Miracles of the Apostles themselves have also given us the same three degrees of proof of the Verity of their testimony though Miracles continue not now as then And I have look'd round about me in the world as diligently and impartially as I could to see whether Christ and the way which he hath prescribed us have any competitor which may make it difficult to resolve which to prefer and follow And as I have found that none but GOD alone hath absolute Dominion and Sovereignty over us and is our chief Benefactor nor fit to be our felicity and ultimate end so I have found that there is no one so fit to be taken for our Mediator and the Way to God as Jesus Christ none else that hath a natural aptitude none else among men that is perfect without sin that hath conquered Satan the world and death that is a Messenger from Heaven so infallible and sure whose Doctrine and Life is suited to our case none else that is become a Sacrifice for our sins and hath risen from the dead and ascended into Glory and doth govern and preserve us and will judge the world and hath power to give the holy Ghost both for Gifts and Graces nor that actually giveth it to the sanctifying of all his sincere followers none else that hath such a Church and Kingdom contemning the world and contemned by the world and so truly fitted to the pleasing of God and the future fruition of him in Glory I see that Judaism is but the porch of Christianity and if Christ had not confirmed the verity of the Old Testament to me I should have found the difficulty of believing it much greater And as for Mahometanism besides the common truths which it retaineth of the Unity of the Godhead the Verity of Christ and the Life to come c. there is nothing else which at all inviteth my understanding And as for Heathenism the case that it hath brought the miserable world into is much to be pitied and deplored Much precious truth is revealed to us by Nature but experience telleth us of the need of more and Christianity hath all which Nature teacheth with a great deal more So that Christianity hath no considerable competitor And as for worldly wealth and honour superiority and command of others the favour applause and praise of great ones or of the multitude voluptuousness and fleshly delights c. ease long life or any accommodations of the flesh yea learning it self as it is but the pleasing of the fancy in the knowledge of unnecessary things all these I have perused and found them to be deceit and trouble a glimpse of heaven a taste of the love of God in Christ yea a fervent desire after God yea a penitent tear is better than them all and yieldeth a delight which leaveth a better taste behind it and which my Reason more approveth in the review and the vanity of all inferiour pleasures appeareth to me in the common effects they distract and corrupt the minds of those that have the greatest measure of them and make them the calamity of their times the furious afflicters of the upright and the pity of all sober standers-by who see them turn the world into a Bedlam and how all their honour wealth and sport will leave them at a dying hour and with what dejected minds unwelcome death will be entertain'd by them and with what sad reviews they will look back upon all their lives and in what sordid dust and darkness they must leave the rotting flesh when their souls are gone to receive their doom before the Judge of all the world All these are things which were past all doubt with me since I had any solid use of reason and things which are still before my eyes Wherefore my God I look to Thee I come to Thee to Thee alone No man no worldly creature Made me none of them did Redeem me none of them did Renew my soul none of them will justifie me at thy Bar nor forgive my sin nor save me from thy penal Justice none of them will be a full or a perpetual felicity or portion for my soul I am not a stranger to their promises and performances I have trusted them too