they might be sure to divide the Word aright and Glorious like the streams of Fire not only to represent the Majesty and Divinity of the Holy Ghost or to signifie the clearness and perspicuity of the Gospel but to enflame the zeal and warm the devotion of these Apostles Nay they were both Fiery and Cloven that their zeal might not be divorced from knowledge but one might administer to the other and both to him who influenced them with this Spirit This made them at once the admiration and envy of the World This made their Doctrine glorious and triumphant and confirmed it with Miracles beyond the force of malice and contradiction This caused the Church to spring from the Blood of Martyrs made it live in the midst of spight and flourish on the tops of Crosses and Gibbets to shine gloriously in the midst of flames and triumph over death it self though its members were killed all the day long This gave the Apostles the prevision of those things which in our Saviours life they were not able to bear at the same time giving them a prospect of their misery and their comforts too This brought to their remembrance what their Master had before taught them and inspired them to the instruction of others that they might build the Christian Church upon that Corner-Stone which though rejected of men was in it self elect and precious Thirdly The Holy Spirit came also upon the hearts of believers The Samaritans that believed received the Holy Ghost Acts 8.17 and whilst S. Peter was preaching occasion'd by the conversion of Cornelius the Holy Ghost fell on those that heard him Acts 10.44 And though as to those glorious effects of that power which at first was frequent in working Miracles and inspiring men to speak divers languages for the proof and early propagation of the Gospel it now withdraws its force and operation yet it still continues that necessary influence which impresses the minds of devout men and assists them in the performance of their duty and arms them with patience and resolution This Doctrine of the Spirits working upon the minds of men is too frequently contradicted even by such as seem to want the assistance of some strength superiour to their own whilst to avoid one Rock they run upon another To escape that Enthusiasm which has too much disturb'd the World and led men into darkness and error they reject the conduct of Gods Holy Spirit when he would lead them into the way of truth Men are so cautious lest they should infringe the uncontroulable liberty of their own wills that they intrench upon the Divine Providence and endeavour to bind their God in chains that he may sit fast in Heaven to very little purpose If there were no such thing as a Divine influence and benediction from above to what purpose would our prayers be Why should we petition for those things which we are assured we shall never receive Or how can any pray in faith for what they believe will never come We mock our Maker to his very face when we say Turn thou us O good Lord and so shall we be turned if God has no hand in the conversion of a sinner and it would be prophane and ridiculous to pray for the being or increase of grace if God did not influence our minds Nay he that rejects this principle boldly pleads the cause of Epicurus against Christ and the Philosophy of an Heathen countermands the Divinity of a Christian For how can God rule the world exercise his Empire over the Powers of the Earth how can he controll the purposes of men and rebuke their actions when they contradict the counsels of his Will and the designs of his Providence if he does not immediately influence their wills as well as propose objects to their senses I know we are too apt to disbelieve those things which we do not fully understand and to expunge that out of our Creed which is not plainly evident to our reason But can it appear to be just and equal to reject a Being because we understand not the manner of its existence Or to deny such effects as we see because we have not a view of the Cause which is invisible If so then farewel the sublimest Articles of the Christian Faith And not only so but the first Principle of all Religion the Being of a God which no mortal eye ever saw nor can a finite Being frame a compleat Idea of him Shall I deny the Creation of the World because I know not the manner of its Makers operation when he sent forth his Fiat Nor how so rare a Systeme of things could be produced out of nothing pre-existent Must I reject Spirits because I cannot see them or all the operations of immaterial Beings upon the corporeal substances of this World because motion amongst bodies is made by contact and I cannot apprehend how a Spirit can work upon a body when none but bodies can touch one another Who can tell how our souls work upon our bodies And yet none is so senceless as to deny it Nay who can describe the manner of our souls union to our bodies And yet no man will refuse to own the thing or will any one deny the parts of bodies to be united to each other because the term of their union was never yet so fully resolved as to baffle all objections to the contrary Why should we then doubt of the holy Spirits influencing the minds of men because the manner of operation is intricate and inexplicable When we find it by the independence of our thoughts and those good suggestions crowded into the midst of some evil contrivances where no other reason can be given of them but that they are injected from above that we may fully convince our selves by our own experience that God works by his Spirit and concurs with the motions of rational beings when they incline to comply with his operations The wind bloweth where it listeth sayes our Saviour and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth so is every one that is born of the Spirit John 3.8 We all believe that the wind blows when it becomes obvious to our senses And yet the causes of these different winds and the reason of this swift motion of the Air have puzled the wisest and most inquisitive Philosophers God is therefore said by the Prophet to bring the winds out of his treasures Jer. 51.16 And in the Book of Job we find that they break out of the chamber and secret places So we discern the fruits and effects of the Spirit though we cannot account for the manner of producing them And therefore 't is not unreasonable to believe the influence of Gods Spirit upon the minds of men For 1. 'T is possible 2. Necessary 3. From the Scripture infallibility certain First The operation of the Holy Ghost upon the souls of men is possible Our Saviour to rebuke the
unto the world their coherence with any thing already reveal'd their agreeableness to the nature of God or the welfare of men to persuade any reasonably to embrace them If it be pretended that the inspiration it self is a sufficient authority to him that delivers Principles to the world and reason enough for any to embrace them Yet however the inspiration must still be proved as it has alwayes been by Miracles And those not false but real Because otherwise every one that has confidence and wickedness enough to pretend to an impulse and Call from Heaven may impose what he pleases on the world and they must without examination believe it This indeed would be a ready way to render the reason of men useless and degrade them into the silly nature of a Beast that being bridled and sadled is turned which way soever the rider pleaseth Nay it would be an extraordinary and new method as miraculous nay more than the pretenders inspirations to make the parts of a contradiction both true if all those who presume that they are inspired are to be believed For nothing can be more apparent to us than that various Sects opposite to one another distant to a total separation pretend all to be thus inspired And if what upon this they presume to deliver is to be received by those to whom the message is directed And they pretend it is directed unto all How can we since their confidence is equal know which to adhere to since all come by the same authority And it is impossible to receive the opinions of all because they contradict one another 'T is true we find some men among us that have run through all the signs of the Zodiack and their want of constancy and resolution not being directed to the Pole has caused them to tremble and shake like a Needle through all the points of the Compass Yet this has been by degrees not at once but by succession But in the case we have now in hand many pretend to have things revealed that yet thwart and encounter one another and all at the same time To embrace at once these several propositions is plainly impossible and if we consider to make our choice we are either apparently obstinate and wilful when all come with the same authority or else we openly forsake the Argument of Inspiration and stand and examine these Doctrines by a rule and instead of believing every Spirit we try them But if men will notwithstanding these plain and palpable absurdities presume still to thrust such wild pretensions upon the world and the proof of their Doctrines shall be by confidence not argument I would willingly have them to consider as well as our selves what their pretended inspiration means and what that impulse usually effects upon their own minds that makes them so confident that they are inspired from above Can it be supposed or do they feel in themselves any thing more than their own melancholy or thoughts brooding to hatch an Opinion Do they find any more than their persuasions heightned and their assurance of what they were before willing to believe bold and strong and thus inflaming them with a zeal to maintain what inordinate thoughts have produc'd strong resolutions to propagate in the world If it be so as certainly it is every man who is thus raised will have the same authority with another and opposite opinions which is yet impossible must at once be embraced by men because the authority upon which their certainty is grounded is felt by all though understood by neither And to others there seems the same confidence and assurance in the teachers of these different Opinions Our own reason therefore without an inspiration will readily teach us that since the Holy Spirit of God to an inspiration from which all these several men pretend is but one and what it delivers alwayes consistent these men cannot be inspired But they take their dreams for a converse with Spirits their melancholy phancies for inspirations the diseases of their bodies for the accomplishments of their minds and their own thoughts to be Revelations And in short only think themselves awaked when they are indeed asleep Nay we may farther raise our distrust and boldness towards these men Because we know that confidence assurance and real belief of what has entred into the minds of men receive degrees of accession and strength as well by thought conversation and argument as by any impulse that can be imagined Nay many times subtility pride impudence and wilfulness will maintain a thing with as great eagerness and zeal as if men had been really inspired The Devil can do much to heighten mens persuasions and they may do much to heighten their own and arguments that men conjecture to arrive at a compleat demonstration of a point will make them as tenacious of an opinion especially where they may appear singular as any impulse or inspiration Now in the midst of such perplexing causes that are able to produce the same effect it will be difficult if not impossible for men that adhere not to a Rule of trial to come to a particular and exact determination and to satisfie either others or themselves to what cause they may attribute the effect If they pretend to be able to distinguish betwixt a good and a bad cause where the effect yet seems to be the same Or to know the cause by the different impressions variety of impulses make upon their Spirits by which an object is conveyed to their understandings and by a distinct method by which the images of things become figured in the brain This can be no conviction to others until it is explained Nor any to themselves unless they certainly know and understand it Which if they do they are as well able to express this as they are the proposition which as they pretend is revealed to them But I fear this attempt will be in vain Because I cannot find upon strict consideration and retirement but that the motions of the Spirits must be always alike and the same percussions upon and convulsions in the nerves to cause the soul to understand and believe whether it be truth or falshood that is represented if it be received under the notion of truth And if the object seems to be true it makes a like impression as if it were so Therefore it is impossible for the Enthusiast to distinguish an inspiration from God from a suggestion by the Devil if he forsakes thâ— Rule and the publick sentiments of good and evil Therefore we see how unreasonable it is either to be startled with the vain pretences of men or to give credit to every Spirit since upon such grounds the Devil may be entertained for an Angel of light and the discoveries we make may as well be by the flames of Hell as by beams darted from the Sun in the Firmament CHAP. III. NOw from the precedent Discourse upon the caution of the Apostle I inferr 1. The
renders our notions more clear and durable We use the means that are within our power and set our reason and faculties on work and then the Spirit by a secret operation enlarges our minds and blesses our endeavours Thus Paul must plant and Apollo water although it is God that gives the increase 1 Cor. 3.6 And thus the Lord opened the heart of Lydia to embrace the Gospel whilst she attended to it as it was spoken by S. Paul Acts 16.14 When the Apostles were yet diffident concerning the truth of our Saviours resurrection though they had the Books of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms by them in which these things were sufficiently predicted yet Christ himself opened their understandings before they could apprehend the meaning of those Scriptures Luke 24.45 As we may do all things through Christ strengthning us Phil. 4.13 So separated from him we can do nothing John 15.5 The Spirit of God has put much of our duty into our own power yet has still reserved something to himself that we may be kept humble depend upon him and beg his aid For the animal man that is not possessed with the Divine benediction and influence of the Spirit who admits not of propositions prov'd only by Miracles receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God because they appear foolishness unto him neither can he know them whilst he remains in that condition because they are spiritually discerned are proved by Miracles not Logick 1 Cor. 2.14 Hence is it that S. Jude describes sensual men to be such as have not the Spirit ver 19. of his Epistle Now upon the view of all this As we have no reason by our unbelief to deprive our selves of what is promised and to shut out those assistances from our souls which bless and facilitate our endeavours so we have no cause to say that our safety is beyond our power and that Heaven is too high for our reach since if we solemnly prepare our hearts and devoutly petition the assistances of the Spirit we may obtain it and God will not be wanting to us if we are not first wanting to our selves This is what S. Austin sayes Facienti quod in se est Deus non deneg at gratiam That God does not deny his grace to him who does what is in his power And that promise of our Saviour may relieve and encourage us That our heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him Luke 11.13 Let us act then with the dependence of creatures and yet not relinquish the reason of men Let us not think to be drawn into an understanding and belief of those truths contained in the Scripture by the strength of a Miracle and upon the wheels of an extraordinary Providence to be snatched out of the pit of ignorance by an irresistible force and informed by an Apostolical illumination But let us use those means that are now put into our own power for the full apprehension of all divine and necessary truth and walk according to what we have already attained the knowledge of that our obedience according to what we have received may attest the sincerity of our minds And then if any thing yet remains which is necessary farther for us to know God will use some method or other to inform us and by his Spirit dispose our understandings to receive it For God shall reveal even this unto us and we have S. Paul's word for it Phil. 3.15 16. And thus I have now at length considered this promise of leading men into truth both as it concerned the Apostles and as it also relates unto our selves I have shewed how it guided them and how it does still lead us into Truth There is now but one thing more that will want only a brief reflection before I arrive at some practical Inferences from the whole discourse and that is the latitude of this Promise in relation to its object which as it hath been already discoursed on with reference to the Apostles so must it be explained in relation to our selves For this universal all truth must not be understood in the utmost extent it is capable of no more than it was with reference to the Apostles but it must be limited in these following particulars First The Spirit guides us into all truth which may be necessary for the ordering our conversations in this World suitable to the Religion we are baptized into There are directions published in Sacred Writ for our Christian deportment in all our various states and conditions From whence S. Paul in the general exhorts that our conversation be as it becometh the Gospel of Christ Phil. 1.27 Which would be a strange and insufficient direction were there not in it a compleat rule for our lives The duties of a Christian are either concerning God others or our selves As to the first we are commanded to worship God in spirit and in truth The devotion we pay him must be suitable to his being and the general rules given in the Gospel John 4.24 And we must love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind Matth. 22.37 As to the second we have this direction To do to others as we would have them do unto us Mat. 7.12 And to love our neighbours as our selves Matt. 22.39 And as to our selves we must walk honestly as in the day not in rioting and drunkenness not in chambering and wantonness not in strife and envying Rom. 13.13 Nay our whole duty is comprehended in one Text of S. Paul who tells us that the Gospel teaches us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in the world Tit. 2.12 Piously towards God Righteously towards our Neighbours and soberly in relation to our selves Nor have we only these general directions but those also that are so particular that we may hence take the measure of our duties and such prudent advice is given in all the conditions that may happen to us That we are neither left without proper counsel nor yet without comfort and relief Secondly The Holy Spirit of Truth guides us into all those Divine Truths which we ought to believe and of these he has given us so exact an account that no new Article is to be added to that Faith which has been already delivered to the Saints The Apostles Creed in which are contained all things necessary to compleat our belief is in every Article revealed in the Scripture And men that go too far beyond it are apt to be wise over much and to think and conclude beyond sobriety and therefore Thirdly The Spirit thus guides us into all truth that concerns our future happiness and salvation It has informed us that there is such a state by bringing life and immortality to light in the Gospel and it has laid out and smooth'd the way that leads to it It has given some description of the state it self as far as
phrensie And then their pretensions grow so big that they become proportionably tall too till they aspire to the storming the Walls of Heaven attempting to blow open the everlasting Gates that they may pry into those things which are lock'd up from the inquiries of men And thus being puff'd and swelled up it proves only to be Tympany and disease when we think we have true conceptions and when our own thoughts have raised our fancies we conclude that the Spirit overshadows us and our obscure opinions or strange propositions raised by the sudden transports of our minds are too often with confidence enough boldly averred to be the immediate dictates of the Holy Ghost Want of true and ingenuous education and thereby the more exact assistances of reason causes many of those who would be accounted more spiritual than other men to think themselves inspired from above when an unusual fear a sudden joy or a powerful disease has brought Convulsions into their Nerves and seised their reason and judgement with a Palsie so that all their notions are jog'd into a confusion and their faculties can neither embrace or pursue their proper objects But by what means soever the thoughts or expectations of such men are lifted to an height waiting for an impulse sighing and groaning for an unusual influence Vain are those hopes where there is no promise and uncertain that rule of determination of things which appears to be fallible and deceitful And yet thus are all the expectations of those who think the Spirit guides them into truth by other means than what I have already shewed you or to any rules and measures of religious actions than what are plainly laid down in the Word of God or thence drawn by a fair and truly Logical deduction If you should be at the trouble to examine a little all the pretended impulses of men their great variety will evince their folly and their opposition to each other their deceit and falshood Is there any Sect pretending to Enthusiasm that does not peremptorily and with the greatest confidence assert the Spirits internal seal to their principles although just opposite to each other and all perhaps contrary to the Scripture This is the great fountain which yet divides into so many streams whose waters all have different tastes according to the chanels in which they run and the variety of soil through which they pass This is made the cause of separation which in it self is still but one This makes men divide from one another and all from that Church to which they should belong proving each others Doctrines erroneous and all still by the same Spirit As if the God of order delighted in division and different Religions like variety of creatures proclaimed Gods Wisdom and his Power When he has now enjoyn'd one faith to the whole World and sent his Son to set up his Banner for all Nations to flock to it Divers Languages indeed were once a character of inspiration from the Holy Ghost but different Creeds were never yet the fruits of him that is but one That truth which the Spirit guides men into can be no other than the plain uniform rules of the Gospel and whoever pretends to any inspiration to deliver a Doctrine different from this blasphemes the Holy Ghost and makes God a lyar whilst he pretends his inward seal publickly to attest an open falshood But if there were such a thing as the Spirits impulse in these ages of Christianity we should have some certain characters by which we might know it as the Prophets and Apostles must be suppos'd to have had and if we make it an argument to convince others we must work Miracles to attest its original The latter none of the Enthusiasts pretend to Or when ever their madness has attempted this testimony no sooner do they dubb themselves by the names of Prophets but they are discovered to be plain Cheats If they pretend a way to evidence to themselves that they are inspired with a divine breath to give them a warrant for doctrine or action not consonant to the Writings of the Apostles it does not only render the Scriptures insufficient but makes God to contradict himself and wounds that Eternal Truth of the Deity into which we ultimately resolve our belief But let us come to the examination of the impulse it self and we shall perceive in the midst of what uncertainties such men must be miserably toss'd who suppose what they deem such to be sufficient warrant for what they then think on and propose to themselves What strange and impious actions have been the consequences of such supposals I need not now relate because they have made such noise and ruines among our selves that they are still fresh among us But to proceed with this supposed impulse or impression upon mens minds by which deserting the Scriptures some Enthusiastical men will take the measures of their doctrines or actions I know not what they mean by it unless it be the heightning our perswasion making our belief of a thing bold and strong and our resolutions to act and maintain it fix'd and zealous And if this be what they make a rule or a character of the Spirits guidance since we find but little difference when we view this supposed operation in persons of various nay opposite principles we must either conclude what all deliver under this pretence to be true or else it is not safe to conduct any The former is too wild a position for any that pretend to sobriety to espouse and therefore the latter must be true Besides every mans reason may sufficiently inform him that our perswasions and determinations of things become as well setled and fix'd and have their various elevations or depressions as well by the strength or weakness of arguments duly weighed and attended to as by any impulse which can be imagined How then shall we be able to know what our reason dictates and what we are confirmed in by strength of argument from what the Holy Spirit now seals by an impulse or impression upon our minds How shall we distinguish betwixt a strong fancy a setled opinion and this pretended inspired Doctrine Nay how can we difference without recurring to the eternal Laws of good and evil which will render this new impulse useless the impressions of the Spirit from a secret temptation and a subtile suggestion from him who is our greatest adversary If we dare adventure to be so Critical as to pretend to new discoveries and such a rare ability to distinguish betwixt the motions which these several impulses make Since there can be but one sort of action in the spirits of a man if the perception be not above reason miraculous the same convulsions and percussions on the Nerves to cause the soul to understand and believe whether it be a truth or falshood that is represented a truth from God or a diabolical delusion How can the rarest and most artificial Enthusiast distinguish betwixt
value of things before we receive them that counterfeit coin may not claim the same priviledge with what is instamp'd with Caesar's Image nor an enterance opened for the Pope of Rome riding in a Kirk born on the backs of those that know not what they carry that they may bring Popery in triumph to us like the Grecians lodged in the belly of that Wooden and insensible Horse that entred Troy and sacked the City and so gain'd that by an easie strategem which ten years siege could not effect For these and such like reasons if men will now hearken to any I have chosen this Subject to Discourse on that if possible we may separate the chaff from the wheat distinguish betwixt the Doctrines of Apostles and those of Devils and mark out the Spirit of Antichrist that it may be known from that of our Saviour that names may no longer confound things nor Satan be received by any of us though he transforms himself into an Angel of light lest we mistake that for Samuel in his Mantle which only the Witch of Endor raises And therefore let us not believe every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they are of God because many false Prophets are gone into the world And from these words I shall raise my Discourse In this Epistle S. John endeavours to confirm Christians in the profession and practice of the Christian Religion notwithstanding all Objections to the contrary and therfore gives them sufficient caution to beware 1. Of such Heresies as destroy the foundation such as interfer'd with the great Doctrines and Authority of the Messiah such as under some great pretences of purity and preciseness might introduce Factions and Schisms and dissolve that strict love and union which ought to be among the Professors of the Gospel These things some were prone unto in the first and early times of Christianity As soon as the Church had put forth leaves the Caterpillars were ready to devour them 2. Because the Church of Christ was planted in the midst of Jewish Superstition and Heathen Idolatry and a Sect was now sprung up in the world that under the names of Christians had provided Principles which in times of danger might equally suit with both or either and so could shelter themselves from one storm and raise another if the wind blew from either quarter The Apostle therefore bids men to beware of Idolatry this being a plain renunciation of their Religion as Heresie would both maim and wound it Little children sayes he keep your selves from Idols and what he closes his Epistle with is what we all close our prayers with And that we may be also delivered from the insinuations or Society of both these sorts let all the people say Amen From the consideration of this design of our Apostle we may plainly see how suitable this whole Epistle is to the present humours and distractions among us and how soon were the advice imbraced it would cure us of those languishing distempers under which we seem to faint and die The extremities of disease vex and torture us and no sooner have we got off a cold fit which makes us almost shake and shiver into ashes but the hot one comes on which fires and almost is ready to consume us Nay a strange mixture of both encounter us rather than we shall recover and live and those things which the vigour and strength of our constitution is able to baffle whilst separate and apart being conjoined create a new disease which troubles the Physician and puts him to the utmost of his skill though I hope it will never be able to baffle him or leave us to be a prey to vermine or the great disease and pest of men Let us follow the rules of this Apostle that what ever injuries our bodies may suffer which in too many are Martyrs already by the great fears and uncertainties of their minds our souls may be safe and secure and kept unblameable to the coming of the Lord Jesus Let us be united in our common profession not staggered with the high pretences of others nor let us yet relax our diligence from the discourses of any that will at all adventures be secure among our selves But whatever notions of infallibility on the one hand or present and particular inspiration on the other shall be presented to us to debauch us from our Principles Let us well examine before we believe receive nothing that may contradict natural Religion or what is superadded in the word of God that publick and plainly declared revelation to which there need no additions to make the man of God wise unto salvation But let us follow the Apostles advice and try the Spirits whether they are of God because many false Prophets are gone out into the world By the word Spirit here is plainly meant any one that under a pretence of Inspiration or assistance from the Spirit publishes any new Doctrine to the world in the age of the Gospel and so includes both Papists and Enthusiasts The one tying the Spirit to the Chair of the Pope the other to their own Dreams and Phancies And this interpretation as it is generally assented to is plain and open to every man that will either consider the scope of the Epistle or the reason of this advice of the Apostle why we should not believe every Spirit because many false Prophets are come forth into the world and therefore we are to examine the Doctrines which any pretender to the Spirit teaches lest we are led by the authority of any into snares that may captivate and destroy our souls Now although this caution of Saint John primarily relates to the Gnostick defection yet it is a direction to all Ages and may guard us from all the pretensions of men that under a specious authority from the Spirit of truth vent false Doctrines to the World in any period of the Christian Religion Because both the Duty and the Argument to inforce it will be of a perpetual concernment as long as false Prophets come forth into the world Yet because the Gnosticks are most immediately reflected on as being the Antichrist so early appearing in the Christian world to defeat this Religion under a denomination from it boasting some extraordinary knowledge when they were men both ignorant and vile we must enquire into the particular reason why the Apostle in this place cautions men to beware of these whose faults were so scandalous that they seem manifest to all The reason of this next to that which is more general the proneness of men to any error that may gratifie themselves and become either their security or pleasure is the same why the sin against the Holy Ghost shall neither be forgiven in this world nor in the world to come because the Gnosticks plainly destroyed the Gospel although by a different Argument from the former The former against whom that severe though deserved Sentence was pronounced invalidated all our Saviours Miracles which proved
will yet remain in our selves and our very travail becomes our punishment till at last we die and perish in a Wilderness which becomes the enterance to greater darkness Alas the Christian Religion though much debauched by the corrupt intermixtures and disgraced by the vicious lives of men is not now to be revealed to the world nor are its Records so hidden or lost that the Principles of it are no where to be found nor are men yet so blockish and unlearned that they cannot read so as to understand them If men were so blind those that are as blind might lead them into the ditch But the principles of Christianity besides what was revealed in the Old Testament are now above sixteen hundred years standing and have been handed down from age to age with their original records And therefore this Religion becomes matter of fact not invention And all the question must now be What was at first delivered The wise and grave reason of men must not controll the Wisdom of God nor make another thing of that which God sent his Son to declare to the World and has been conveyed to us with as great a certainty as any thing antecedent to the time we live in We are not now by discourse or inspiration to make to our selves another Gospel under the notion or pretence of the old This is not a thing subject to the Maxims of every squirting and half-witted Philosopher nor to be moulded according to the intrigues and designs of a subtle and projecting Statesman It is not to be spued out of the mouth of the Leviathan nor cunningly to be fleered out of the Works of Plato nor blended with any Doctrines of Epicurus that may prepare men for an indulgence to their vice or perswade them to disbelieve some of the greatest and most substantial points of Christianity Our Religion is now too old to be made new nor must we model that which has run through so many Ages by any tricks or devices of our own nor must it be servant to any mens ambition as if their secular interest or opinion were to be their guide or phancy putting on the name and garb of conscience were to be a Rule for such as call themselves Christians To the Law and to the Testimony sayes the Prophet if any speak not according to this rule it is because they have no light in them Isa 8.20 And we have a more sure word of Prophecy sayes S. Peter Epist 2. Chap 1. ver 19. whereunto you do well that ye take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place If we forsake therefore the tryal of the Doctrines and Pretences of men by the Scriptures which rightly understood are our only safe Rule we have no way to distinguish a bold pretender from him who is inspired from above If such persons were now to be expected after the Canon of Scripture the Rule for mens lives have been so long ago compleated For by inclining to believe any new revelation beyond the Scripture we suppose that an insufficient Rule the sufficiency of which true English Church Protestants have alwayes defended with success And if the revelation be contrary unto it it makes that Spirit that dictated the first a lyar if the latter be received and supposed true But grant what men of such an easie belief and such speedy resolutions that admit of as speedy changes would without any proof have yielded to them Yet I would fain know how men in their circumstances are able any way to satisfie themselves concerning the proposition which they pretend to be inspired in and thereby authorized to deliver unto others I am afraid confidence will be their only argument to recommend it to others and opinion interest and a strong presumption or what is worse Atheism and Knavery to themselves For 1. supposing the Spirit of God in its Dictates unto men alwayes uniform and consistent with it self how can there be different inspirations to prescribe various Rules opposite to each other at the same time for men to guide their belief and conversations The Apostle tells us that as there is but one God and one Lord with undoubted authority over the whole World so there is but one Spirit to influence the minds of men one Baptism that enters them into the Church of Christ and but one Faith to be embraced by them And therefore the Church is but one Body Eph. 4.4 5 6. How then can we reasonably admit the pretence of any mans inspiration that avers he speaks from the Dictates of the Spirit which is within him to publish any Rules of Religion different from what we have received before And if such a pretender means only his own Spirit the soul which acts within the body we can understand no more than his judgement and opinion Though phrases by such canting are rendered equivocal to startle the infirm but are foreign to our purpose when reflected on by considering men We well know that the design of Christianity was to unite the World under one profession and in religious affairs to subject it to the same rules of life How then can any with Religion or modesty pretend another inspiration for new directions when the former if they were ever true are sufficiently in the New Testament declared to be perpetual and obligatory till Christs coming to judgement when he shall pass sentence upon the whole World and deliver us into our everlasting states no less than his Mediatory Kingdom back unto the Father These are such inconsistent things that none but mad men can now expect any inspirations to deliver new Doctrines to the World 2. I would fain learn of any bold man that publishes under a pretence of inspiration new Doctrines different from the old how he knows himself to be inspired We find those that were formerly so besides some certain token to themselves which neither we nor our pretenders can now give a certain account of though we may some probable conjectures could work Miracles for the settlement of belief both in themselves and others But no such things appear now though lying wonders are published to the World carrying only the testimony of those that invent the story or others that are hired to sacrifice the truth to the confidence of an impostor and therefore one would think such things as these should at the utmost only deceive the simple whilst they that ensnare them having other designs beyond their reach vent what they do not believe themselves that they may accomplish their own carnal ends by the religious easiness and simplicity of others For upon the view of those various Sects visible either abroad or among our selves that any way pretend to be inspired to what they deliver to others we find them publishing by this authority doctrines to be believed and Rules of life quite different nay opposite to one another and pursue each other according to the advantages they receive with a greater eagerness and hotter
have been need of any standing Rule so the Apostle would not have commended these Jews for comparing the New Testament with the Old nor for searching the Scriptures to know whether the Apostles Doctrine was true since he came to preach by virtue of inspiration Fourthly 'T is our duty to try the Spirits that is to examine the Doctrines and Opinions of those who pretend to be guided and acted by the Spirit Because there are several advantages that accrew to men by a diligent examination of these things As 1. It is the only way to avoid the insinuations of those who under this pretence captivate and enslave the affections of many leading them into a false Religion and deceiving them of the priviledges and rewards of the Gospel And so their peace and happiness is dissolved here and they purchase eternal misery hereafter The taking away this liberty of enquiring from men is what supports the Church of Rome when having deprived men of their sight they lead them which way they please and spirit them into the chambers of death when they think they are going to the land of the living This is what causes many to believe the Priests gain to be their own godliness whilst ignorance begets a strange devotion and instead of being lead by the Spirit of God they are hurried away by that of delusion And then Egypt or a Wilderness will be as pleasant as the Land of Canaan and the Night become as glorious as the Day to such as have no eyes to see it The want of tryal and examination of these things makes the Sects among our selves to be catched and halter'd by the subtilty of others till they are betrayed into the hands of those who use them as Stalking horses to catch others till the Jesuits cast their Net over them and then the Romans come and take away our Kingdom To forbid this tryal and judgement of things is to render the faculties of a man useless to degrade him into the nature of a Beast and to bring a strange Metempsychosis amongst us by transplanting mens souls into other creatures whilst their bodies live and act in the world Or to make them in religious affairs which are the greatest concernments they have here to forsake the Law of God and the Testimony to seek unto them that have familiar Spirits Or unto the Wizzards that peep and mutter when a people should seek unto their God and not for the living to the dead Isa 8.19 2. By a serious tryal and examination of the Doctrines of men that pretend to inspiration we shall in all probability keep our faith sound and entire For there being among Christians but one true Faith as well as Baptism and one God the Father of our Lord Jesus Since there may be many Articles of Belief exhibited to men different from the true It must needs become the only means to keep our faith sound and blameless by examining things before we receive them and trying men that pretend to inspiration before we entertain their Doctrines in our minds or make them the objects of our belief A Ship that equally spreads her Sails to all the Storms and contrary Winds must not only lengthen her Voyage and be toss'd in the midst of the Waves and Tempest But frequently be in danger of a Wreck if it be not lost and overwhelmed There is no less hazard in the matters of our faith If we permit it without care to lay open to every wind of doctrine we may then not only be toss'd to and fro but at once make shipwrack of faith and a good conscience The Devil is both a Thief and a Murtherer so he was from the beginning and still walks about as a roaring Lyon seeking whom he may devour And how easie is it for him to enter the minds of men and to steal away their faith or hinder it from a vital influence upon their actions if the doors of their souls continually are open and are not at all lock'd or barr'd He may then come to us in his own shape without transforming himself into an Angel of light and both solicite and enslave our minds whilst we let him pass without examining And yet in Ports subject to invasion and Garrisons that may be capable of surprize we allow continual Watch and Ward and Orders to them are so strict in time of danger that none who is not publickly known to be a friend may enter without a strict examination lest he betray the place and let in the enemy No less advantage is it to the mind to preserve our faith spotless and unblemish'd to have a Sentinel alwayes at our Senses through which our souls make their sallies lest the adversary again enters with them and they are destroyed by the same way in which they hoped to preserve themselves We must guard our minds and have a watchman alwayes upon the Tower that our understandings themselves which govern both our choice and affections be not ensnared into false principles which will defile our actions and ruine our souls This is the way to keep our selves harmless and undefiled the sons of God in the midst of that crooked and perverse generation amongst whom we live and hereafter to shine like Stars in the midst of the Firmament for ever This is the design of Saint Paul's exhorting men to hold fast the form of sound words 2 Tim. 1.13 and of his thanking God that the Romans then though since they have departed from it obeyed from the heart the form of doctrine delivered to them Rom. 6.17 and of S. Jude's exhorting all Christians to contend earnestly for that faith which was once delivered unto the Saints in the third Verse of his Epistle For whatever any men boldly say we have as much reason to examine our belief as our actions and to take as great care of the principles as we do in the practice of our Religion For not only our reason concludes this because the understandings are the principal faculty of our souls But for that these direct our wills and influence all the actions of our lives And God will not accept of those who exchange their Creed for any publick faith that betrayes those Articles men should believe Safety or ruine depends upon it Because not only Baptism and the outward Ordinances of our Saviours institution are required to the ordinary salvation of men But he that believeth not shall be damned Mark 16.16 Hymeneus and Alexander not minding these things put away Faith and a good conscience and shipwrack'd their belief in the midst of error and for this they were delivered unto Sathan 1 Tim. 1. 19 20. If the Orthodoxy of mens judgments and opinions of things were not of great and eternal concernment in the times of the Gospel the old statutes might be still embraced or the Law of Nature remain the only direction unto men without any farther revelation But S. Peter tells us of errors that are damnable which entitle men
reason to the belief of the Gospel which was proved Divine by the testimony and revelation of the Spirit if sufficient means were not afforded them to know and distinguish Divine Revelation from imposture and pretences The things delivered were above the reach of humane reasonings and Philosophy then gave check to their belief and custom and education had impress'd them with different nay contrary notions of things It must be supposed therefore antecedently to their reception of the Gospel that as S. Paul was able to give them evidence that those Doctrines he delivered to them were revealed from Heaven so there were some Methods and Rules by which they might be able to know the revelation and not receive it upon his bare testimony Nay to what purpose would it be for S. John to direct men to try the Spirits if we had not sufficient means to know whether they were from God or no Fifthly This must be granted too that there are false Pretensions and Doctrines of men vented in the World under the notion of true And true and false under the same pretence of inspiration The Apostle tells us that many false Prophets are gone out into the world And our Saviour to prevent a rash belief and thereby an Apostasie from the Gospel or trusting in another Messiah acquaints the World that there would arise false Christs and false Prophets Mark 13.22 And therefore they should not believe and entertain them although according to their different principles and designs they should cry out Lo here is Christ or Lo there And S. Peter tells us that as there were false Prophets formerly amongst the people so there should be false Teachers among the Christians who should privily bring in damnable heresies denying the Lord that bought them and that many should follow their pernicious wayes 2 Pet. 2.1 2. Nay S. Paul tells us of those who in a voluntary humility and worshipping of Angels intruded into those things which they never saw being vainly puffed up in their fleshly minds who yet departed from the head Christ himself who is the head of the Church making the coming to God by the Mediatory application to an Angel a demonstration of their humility and so rejecting the intercession of our Saviour the only Mediator betwixt God and man Col. 2.18 But our own Age is so fruitful in examples of this kind that the possibility of mens false pretences to revelation and of their venting corrupt Doctrines to the World needs no other argument to prove it than our own experience Nor need we rake in the dust of false Prophets in past Ages when we have to our great grief and trouble living monuments on which these things are to be read and seen Yet Sixthly Notwithstanding all this we must maintain that there is such a thing as true inspiration This is plainly implied by S. John to whom I must adhere For it would be ill Logick to infer that because the Apostle adviseth us not to believe every Spirit therefore we should give credit unto none But rather that some are to be believed Especially when we take in his direction with it Try the Spirits whether they are of God This argues that some Doctrines came from Heaven and some men were inspired from above although many false Prophets were gone abroad into the world Should the contrary be held by any among us it would not only invalidate the Doctrine of Moses and the Prophets under the Old Testament But of Christ and his Apostles under the New it would conclude the intercourse betwixt God and men to be an impossible Chimera and turn all Divinity into a Fable And at once render our time mis-spent and lost whilst I am writing and others reading such Doctrines as these and all disputes concerning any positive and instituted Religion the foolish talkings and inventions of men that busie themselves to deceive others and give trouble to their own flesh When mans reason might supply all But such a phancy I suppose to be too wild and extravagant to be admitted in such an age of the world as this Especially among those who have frequented Christian Assemblies and have heard discourses proving the truth of the Old Testament or the New That have read the Jews Arguments for their Law or the Christian Fathers Apologizing for the Religion of the Gospel Nor indeed can any deny the truth of Gods conversing with men that reject not his Omnipotence or else doubt of the nature and capacity of their own souls To be sure they must deny the Scriptures to be the Word of God and affirm all his appearances to men to be a fable Since from them we are assured that all Scripture was given by inspiration from God 2 Tim. 3.16 And therefore to men that acknowledge this I must be supposed to direct this discourse as well as S. John does in the Text so frequently recited who supposes that there is a Divine inspiration before he advises men to separate the pretences of false Prophets from the Doctrines of those that are true 'T is in vain otherwise to perswade men to exercise their faculties assisted by Rules or to make any discrimination at all where there is no foundation for the conclusion of a difference Seventhly Therefore The trial of the Doctrines and Rules of men pretending inspiration having thus far been brought on towards a conclusion The determination of our assent and choice in matters of such huge and vast moment on which the welfare of our souls depends must be directed by what sufficiently without fallacy evidences those Doctrines which we receive from others or are led into the belief of from our own reasonings are certainly such as came from God and that we are not imposed upon by our own temperament or the subtilty of others The evidence therefore for a Divine revelation must be greater and stronger than any argument framed to the contrary Because in all the discoveries of truth my belief is to be determined according to evidence and the greatest probability guides the rational choice of men And all that act suitably to themselves embrace the proposition that comes nearest to truth and certainty But where two things seem equal in their proof a rational man only hesitates and doubts and gives up his assent to neither And therefore had the Magicians of Egypt equall'd the Miracles Moses wrought in the presence of Pharaoh as well as they did in turning rods into Serpents and Rivers into blood and causing Froggs to come up before him They need not at that time have acknowledg'd Moses's power disproportionable to their own nor distinguished their own Miracles from his by saying This is the finger of God And Pharaoh himself might have had an equal argument to detain the Israelites as they had for the command of God to depart out of the Land of Egypt But when the Miracles on their side far exceeded the Wonders on the other his own resolution became his Law and Pharaohs
end of the Mosaick Constitutions and such a compleat System of Divinity as is sufficient to make a man perfect throughly furnished to every good work and thereby to prepare him for that eternal inheritance that fadeth not away And thus I have now considered all the chief parts of what I design and with all faithfulness according to my knowledge discharg'd my self The discourse on such a point has been long but I hope it will not prove unuseful in such times as these in which truth is blended and beset with error Strange Doctrines have insinuated into the minds of men And we are now sailing betwixt Sylla and Charybdis and God knows which may swallow us When truth like pure and clean Wheat is put betwixt two Mill-stones that seem to joyn to grind it in pieces And Religion like our Saviour upon the Cross is almost crucified betwixt two Thieves But blessed be God his Providence is over all his works and through his help we hope for deliverance from all our troubles For vain is the help of man without him CHAP. X. HAving hitherto for the most part treated concerning False Spirits and argued against the pretences to inspiration among Papists and Fanaticks and given some directions by which we may be able to discern what inspiration is true and what false That it may not be objected against the body of this Discourse that I have left neither Soul nor Spirit to animate it but have hinted only some operation of the Divine Spirit and restrained that to the first Age of the Christian Religion as if it were not needful for future Generations to guide men into all truth I shall spend some Sheets to prove That as there were Promises that the Holy Spirit of God should conduct men after our Saviours Ascension so that these Promises were made good by the apparent Descent of the Holy Ghost And to shew in what manner the Sacred Spirit informed the Apostles and the first Publishers of the Christian Doctrines And how he still influences the minds of men in the understanding and receiving them The Wilderness of this World is very thick of Briars and Thorns that scratch and tear the Church of Christ in her passage through it And since the most who profess themselves to be Christians agree in the design and end of their journey Yet because we are apt to fall out by the way and differ about the determination of the paths that lead thither Hence is it that I have hitherto endeavoured to hinder men of good intentions and different judgements from entertaining a delusion by reason of any shortness in their sight that they may not be deceived by their own fancies or the suggestions of others and so miscarry in their greatest concernments and fall short of eternal happiness hereafter And lest we should complain as if we were in this errable state of life left without sufficient means to conduct us to the great end of all our Religion And in the glorifying of God to save our souls I shall now shew some things before hinted more plainly and openly That we are not left without sufficient conduct from the Holy and true Spirit of God But that he was in the World at the first delivery of the Doctrines and Rules of life expressed in the Writings of the New Testament and still continues to influence the minds and actions of men In order to the discharging this that I am now to engage in I shall first prove That the Holy Ghost did come according to the Predictions of the Prophets and the Promise of our Saviour For 1. He came upon our Saviour himself 2. He inspired and comforted his Apostles and the first Planters of the Christian Religion And 3. He still influences the hearts and minds of those that seek and do not resist him First That this Holy Spirit rested upon our Saviour accompanying him throughout the actions of his life none that pretends to the embracement of Christianity can possibly contradict For his Miracles attest this Divine residency and loudly proclaim it to Ages and Generations And if there had not been this irrefragable testimony yet that there was such a Divine impression upon his mind the purity of his Doctrine and the holiness of his life sufficiently attested and that the Divine Spirit inspired and did assist him As his Conception was by the power of the Holy Ghost so did it continually breath upon him through all the periods of his whole life It gave a visible attestation to his Person and Doctrine and witnessed his Commission to the World when at his Baptism it descended in the shape of a Dove and lighted upon him Matth. 3.16 And this was seconded by an audible voice loudly thundering from the very Skies This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased In his life he had the Spirit without measure John 3.34 He was not limited to the same proportions of power and assistance with S. John who preached the Doctrine of Repentance and by this prepared the way for the Messiah Nor with those Prophets of old who were inspired at sundry times and in diverse manners to whom divine and unaccountable impulses were neither constant in their method or continuance But the Holy Spirit accompanied our Saviour throughout the several stages of his life so that he could upon any emergent occasion make discovery of it to others and alwayes knew it to be resident in himself he carried it with him to his Cross and Death to support him in his misery and to cause him to triumph over his temptations and enemies It hovered as it were over his Grave guarding his body with a security beyond the Souldiers power and at last raised him with triumph from the dead Rom. 8.11 and thus baffled the arguments for infidelity Secondly This Spirit promised came also upon the Apostles of our Saviour In the second of the Acts at the beginning It descended with noise and a glorious splendor and came with such a train of solemnity and its appearance was so gay and pompous that it amused Nations and confounded the multitude It shook the great place of their assembly and sate gloriously in the shape of a Cloven Fiery Tongue upon the head of each Apostle giving them at once a character to distinguish them from others and ability to execute that Commission which our blessed Saviour had before given them They were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other Tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance Here was the Prophecy of Joel accomplished that God would pour out his Spirit upon all flesh when the Holy Ghost thus descended with power in the lap of a Cloud with a rushing wind to blow open the doors of mens hearts that the King of Glory might come in It came with Cloven Fiery Tongues to teach the Apostles to sound forth the Gospel to all the World with a becoming zeal and warm affection The Tongues were Cloven that
wonder of his Disciples at a Doctrine of his that seemed harsh and difficult tells them that with God all things are possible Matth. 19.26 The possibility therefore of a thing prepares us for the belief of any proposition when either certainty or greater probabilities do not plainly determine the contrary Now what does not imply a contradiction that it should be is possible to be But the Holy Spirits operation upon the minds of men does not imply any contradiction And therefore it must be at least a possible supposition that it may be so Nay further what has been is certainly possible to be But that there has been such influences upon the minds of men the sacred Inspirations of the Prophets and Apostles do abundantly evince And to assert the contrary must shake the very foundation of Religion and invalidate the whole Canon of Scripture And certainly if it admits no contradiction to affirm Spirits working upon Bodies it must be less to suppose one Spirit to operate upon another there being a nearer affinity betwixt their natures and a greater capacity to apprehend the notices they receive from one another For if the Soul of one man may apprehend what are the thoughts of another when they are expressed by the words of the tongue or some external signs and representations There is as great a probability that there may be more easie and quicker methods for one soul to converse with another were they freed from their bodies than by the mediation of external senses which may and often do convey false representations to the mind And therefore for the holy Spirit of God to influence the minds and affections of men is not only rendered possible But a very probable and easie supposition Though whilst we remain in these bodies 't is all one as to the being of the thing whether we conjecture for it can be no more the influence to be made immediately upon the soul or by percussions on or dispositions of the nerves and by determining the Spirits so as to make representations to the mind to cause in it desire or aversation and from hence just and proportionable actions suitable to the design of the holy Spirit But Secondly this influence and operation of the holy Spirit is not only possible but necessary too if we consider our own weakness and infirmity or the circumstances we are frequently surrounded with in this vale of tears and region of misery We have still a proneness and propensity to sin notwithstanding our being washed by an holy Baptism and dipt in the sacred Laver of regeneration And though grace were then conveyed to us and power to perform our part of the Covenant which at last gives us the possession of the promise Yet this cannot well be apprehended to be tied about us with such indissoluble bonds as not to forsake us upon the violation of our vow when by sinful courses we rescind Gods obligagation to us Or if there were no forfeiture to be made Yet we cannot apprehend this Grace and Spirit given us at the first to be so constantly and powerfully residing in us as never to need any new supplies or accessions of degrees Or to be like our souls alwaies tied continually to invigorate us without any new influences from above God governs the World by his Providence and supports this great systeme of Beings by the constant and continued influences of his Power impressing things by his Divine concurrence to accomplish the end and design of their beings to continue their stated motions and order and to repair their decayes by a new and uninterrupted succession Now it would not be more false and unsuitable to his nature to suppose him at first to have put things into their orderly motions and to impregnate nature with all the power at once that shall at any time be requisite for its support and conduct when things are subject to such various misadventures that it is impossible for any but himself to foresee Than it would be to suppose him to give a child in his sacred Baptism sufficient strength to influence his whole life and afterwards leave him to his conflicts and misfortunes without any new assistances from above This would still make the Great and infinite Being of the World instead of a wise and active God nothing but an idle and lazy Spectator We need not then pray for grace and continued accessions of strength and power But only use those words of David Cast us not away from thy presence and take not thy holy Spirit from us Psal 51.11 The Apostles and Primitive Disciples of our Saviour were sensible of new accessions or incomes from the Spirit as the difficulties increased which they encountered For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us sayes S. Paul so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ 2 Cor. 1.5 And when we shall consider that our assistances are necessary in proportion to our duties or our sufferings all men being not in the same circumstances but some have an easier passage to an eternal rest and a blessed eternity than others who are made a spectacle to the world who have greater difficulties to encounter a longer race to run upon the Earth and are surrounded with a larger number of duties and perplexities certainly God who is the God of all grace will reasonably give the influences of his Spirit suitable to the degrees of mens necessities and the employments or conflicts that his most wise Providence calls them unto As the Apostles were not sufficient of themselves to preach the Christian Doctrine to the World and to obviate those difficulties that attended the publication so neither can any of us in our ordinary course of affairs in the World being placed in the midst of snares and temptations keep consciences void of offence without the influences of Gods grace and the assistances of his Spirit S. Paul justifies himself to the Corinthians by giving them a prospect of his joy and innocence Our rejoycing is this sayes he the testimony of a good conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God we have had our conversation in the world and more abundantly to you wards 2 Cor. 1.12 And when in the third Chapter he re-assumes the argument lest they should think that all was effected by his own power he introduces also this acknowledgement Not that we are sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves but our sufficiency is of God ver the 5 th God is not an hard and austere Master to reap where he did not sow nor to gather where he did not scatter He expects an account of his own talents which every one does or may receive in proportion to his wants and necessities that he may grow up unto that measure of stature to which Christ has appointed him in the world And doubless we may obtain Divine helps If men have but that love to themselves as to pray with
fervency and devotion for them For if ye being evil sayes our Saviour know how to give good gifts unto your children how much more shall your heavenly Father give the holy Spirit to them that ask him Luke 11.13 And since God is so bountiful to us let us not be wanting to our selves For when we shall with retirement consider how numerous and potent our sins are which must all in their habits be mortified and subdued how many turbulent or inticing temptations we have to oppose that are ready every day to conquer us and steal invisibly to our most secret entertainments how many passions we have to calm and moderate which upon every suitable and tempting occasion endeavour to make an insurrection against our reason How many personal and relative duties we are to perform in a wise and pious ordering our conversation how the suggestions of our own flesh the injections of Sathan and the malice and defilements of the world will endeavour to oppose and obstruct our progress When we consider the black passage of death and the grave and God knows what dismal encounters we may meet with in our way to them What fears will then suddenly arise to baffle our hopes and make our faith ready to expire And upon the whole when we reflect upon our weakness and miserable infirmity In a word When we consider how much work we have to do how little time to perform it and what great disproportion there is betwixt our duty and our power It will not only appear that it is high time to awake out of sleep to rise and be doing But to take the Armour of God for our defence and to pray to Heaven for the assistance of the Spirit Since this appears to be so necessary in relation to our weakness and our duty And certainly what is so necessary for our safe conduct to that Haven where we would be and which God designs for our eternal rest and shelter from all tempests and future storms There is no reason why we should distrust the Spirits influence and operation Nor to make our selves uncapable of the favour by testifying our unwillingness to receive it by perpetually opposing and disputing against it For Lastly this influence of the holy Spirit upon the minds of holy and good men is from the Scripture infallibly certain to those that at once both want and beg it and do prepare themselves for the reception of it Why otherwise should our Saviour give this assurance to his Disciples that God gives the holy Spirit to those that ask him Nay what becomes of those promises in the Scripture that engage Gods truth and faithfulness to assist good men in the discharge of their duty and to support them under all their misery and misfortune if we were altogether left to our selves to pursue the dictates of our own reason and to stand only upon our own leggs without any superiour help or influence The Apostle tells us that the Spirit does help our infirmities Rom. 8.26 But this would be false if we had either none that required his assistance Or that he would not condescend to supply our wants S. John makes this vinculum unionis this bond of union betwixt Christ and us the Spirit of God to be a character by which we may distinguish our selves Because he has given us of his Spirit 1 John 4.13 And S. Paul fully agrees with S. John For sayes he if any man has not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Rom. 8.9 I know with what great industry these and other Texts have been restrained to that Divine temper of mind by which we know and discern our condition This indeed being the gracious effect of the holy Spirits co-opperating with our endeavours is by no means to be separated in our judgment upon our selves And we have no other way to judge of the cause but by this Divine and glorious effect But yet where this is visible in an holy life and virtuous actions we have no reason to exclude the cause Especially when it is principally included in the expression For the Apostle supposes this Spirit that Christians have to be the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead Nay a branch also of that power which shall hereafter raise us too For it follows He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken our mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwells in us Because our Bodies are here the Temples of the Holy Ghost God will not suffer them to remain eternally in their ruiues But will hereafter re-edifie and raise them because they were once the habitation of his Spirit Hence are Believers said to be sealed with the holy Spirit of promise which is the earnest of their inheritance Ephes 1.13 And therefore they are advised in the same Epistle not to grieve this holy Spirit of God whereby they are sealed unto the day of their redemption Eph. 4.30 Now though we may be said to be sealed up for Heaven by a Divine temper of mind upon Earth that this prepares us for future glory and that if this disposition be not in us we are none of Christs Yet it would be as harsh a speech as can be admitted in any language to say that this holy temper of mind shall raise us up at the last day Since the wicked are then raised too Or to say that any man voluntarily grieves this Divine temper and disposition of mind when the man then grieves himself These expressions therefore must certainly intend more than this And they can scarcely admit of a fair interpretation without expounding them of the holy Spirit of God which now co-operating with our faculties produces in us divine tempers and dispositions and so prepares us for that inheritance which he shall raise us up from our graves to possess The Holy Ghost was first promised to the Apostles and Christian Disciples under the names and notion of a Comforter and the Spirit of truth and how could he be both or either if he did not influence their minds with joy and knowledge The Spirit it self sayes the Apostle bears witness with our Spirits that we are the children of God Rom. 8.16 It did not only testifie unto others by those Miracles that did confirm their Religion and consequently proved those that did sincerely embrace it to be born of God as well as their Religion But it evidenced these things also to their own consciences by a sacred benediction and a Divine and more immediate concurrence with them when they compared their lives with the Rules of their Religion And consequently proves to them that they were heirs of God and coheirs with Christ which is the argument the Apostle is there prosecuting to give them comfort in the midst of tribulation and to animate their courage and resolution against the sufferings of that present time The graces and virtues visible in a Christians life are said in Scripture to be the fruits of the Spirit
Gal. 5.22 Not only that they are the fruits of the Gospel which is sometimes phrased by the word Spirit in opposition to those legal observations which being carnal ordinances are called flesh But they are so the fruits of the Spirit that as he first dictated the Rule so does he also concurr to the actions If the Evil Spirit could carry Christ to be tempted in the Wilderness Shall we not think the good Spirit could relieve him too If the Prince of the power of the Air can be a Spirit working in the children of disobedience Ephes 2.2 Shall we conclude the Holy Ghost less active or powerful to work in those who resign their wills by the direction of his Laws to his most sacred and safe conduct The promise of life and eternal salvation is made to us upon this condition that through the Spirit we mortifie the deeds of the body Rom. 8.13 And though many things concur with the influences of the holy Spirit to effect so great and victorious triumphs Yet all causes act with a dependence upon this glorious power which works in us both to will and to do when we prepare our selves for its reception by endeavouring what in us layes to work out our salvation with fear and trembling Philip. 2.12 13. Preaching Prayers Meditation and hearing the word of God are ordinary means to convert a sinner from the error of his way And yet S. Paul though he sufficiently magnifies the Preachers Office sayes that we are only workers together with God 2 Cor. 6.1 And 't is well for us all when God assists and blesses our endeavours And God grant that those who attend such sacred institutions being swift to hear may never be so swift also as to depart without a blessing Having thus both asserted and explained the coming of the holy Spirit to influence men the certainty of its operation and the necessity of its influence which makes up this Chapter of my discourse I shall close it with a brief request to all who desire so to approve themselves to God here that they may not be rejected by him hereafter That they would use all possible diligence to obtain and keep the blessing and influence of this holy Spirit which gives them such great assistance in sanctifying their minds and ordering all the actions of their lives That they would well use the grace they have received that so they may be capable of more in the hour of trial and at the day of temptation That they would pray frequently for new supplies of aid and assistance And that they would never by a vicious and unholy life grieve the Spirit and cause it to desert them lest through too much confidence in themselves they at last prove both Cowards and Apostates CHAP. XI HAving in the former Chapter in some measure proved that the Holy Spirit of God descended according to the predictions of the Prophets and the promise of our Saviour I shall now enquire into his work and business in this world amongst men who were rational and intellectual Beings Who might as some men are apt to think have well enough propagated Christian Doctrine when they had heard it from our Saviours own mouth and had for some time daily conversation with him Without any other new assistance besides the miraculous gift of tongues And what employment the Spirit of God could possibly have among other men As they will not be Religious enough to know So truly they are yet very much to seek However I shall adventure without calling any men names to shew according to my steady and long continued though mean thoughts what the sacred Spirit of God has done and yet does to guide men into the wayes of truth In the promises where Christ who was truth it self engages for the Spirits corning into the World in a more plentiful manner than in foregoing periods He seems to be described as a person different from the Father and the Son And I shall instance in one eminent promise to this purpose John 16.13 Howbeit when he the Spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all truth Now that our great and most blessed Redeermer of men speaks of a person here And not of what is said to be an afflatus divinus only as some have interpreted this place to void the Doctrine of the most glorious Trinity Which is the great and I had almost said the distinguishing Article of the Christian Faith is plain from the terms of this Text Because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is prefix'd to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He the Spirit of truth And this latter part which is a Periphrasis does but acquaint us who the Person was Even the Holy Ghost the third Person in the most Glorious Trinity God blessed for evermore Now this profound mystery of the Trinity however inexplicable it may seem to be in all particulars to the understandings of men who are loth to think that any Beings are above their great capacities and reasonings Yet it has been alwayes believ'd by the Orthodox through all the Ages of the Christian Church And it is a point sufficient if there were no other to baffle the Heathen Objection against our Religion viz. That it cannot be Divine because there is no Mystery in it But I design not to treat in this discourse with any that own not Christ to be the Messiah The great King and Saviour of the World And therefore shall only acquaint the Reader That Jesus himself seems to take great care to insinuate and fix this fundamental point in the particular promises of the Holy Ghost Lest any persons mighty in reason and wonderful in argument should refuse to believe such a Mystery as this when apparently revealed because their own reason is not able to conclude the thing or their language cannot fully explain it In the fourteenth of Saint Johns Gospel the sixteenth Verse our blessed Saviour acquaints his Disciples for their comfort and encouragement with this great promise I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter that he may abide with you for ever Even the Spirit of truth Here is one praying another sending and a third given So is it also at the twenty sixth Verse of the same Chapter But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you Here is the Father sending in the Sons name or upon his account the Holy Ghost to teach the Apostles those things which our Saviour had more briefly hinted to them And such things also which the Apostles through prejudice could not then receive And to bring those parts of the Christian Doctrine to their remembrance which they through human frailty might forget That so they might be fitted to be the publishers and the sacred and infallible Pen-men of the most excellent Principles of the Christian Religion And that
converted to this Religion and accompanied Saint Paul received the notices of those early and first transactions of our Saviour and his Disciples and been guided by the Holy Spirit of God in recording the History and Doctrine of our Saviour and his Apostles But if we make the strictest enquiry into those twelve Apostles which our Saviour sent to preach his Doctrine abroad in the World we shall find them all by their Education either too much prejudiced or unprepared to invent or propagate such a Religion The greater part were a few rugged and inconsiderable Fishermen that knew only to catch Fish and mend their Nets when they were broken and either eat or sell their Fish when they had caught it And how unfit these were to preach rules of life to the world to make known Riddles and explain Mysteries To maintain their Faith against the learned disputes of Rabbies and Philosophers or to commit a System of Christian Doctrine to writing for future ages to live by and that it might become the rule for mens actions Let any reasonable men judge It must needs therefore be a greater argument of a larger inspiration that these men were so slenderly prepared by nature or Education And by how much the meaner these were by so much the more powerful were the operations of the Spirit to guide them into all truth But besides the consideration of this we have a more sure word of Prophecy to ascertain their inspiration from above Since all Scripture is given by inspiration of God 2 Tim. 3.16 And since no man can possibly know those Laws by which God will govern the World 'till he pleases himself to make them known It must needs be that he must impregnate the minds and inform the understandings of those whom he designs to be the Pen-men of his Laws And this he did as to Moses and the Prophets under the Old so to the Apostles in the New Testament by his Holy Spirit Therefore was he to teach them all things by informing their understandings John 14.26 And by guiding them into all truth John 16.13 Secondly The Holy Spirit of truth guided the Apostles and first publishers of his sacred Doctrines by quickning their memories That what their Master had before taught them the Disciples now might remember for the benefit of others The memories of men by reason of their own weakness and the multitude of objects which daily present themselves to the mind and that variety of converse and numerous disturbances they meet with in a World full of noise and humour are very apt to slip many things which they ought to register and when they are entered to lose the record Hence is that admonition of the Author to the Hebrews that we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard lest at any time we should let them slip Heb. 2.1 The Apostles therefore who were men of like passions with our selves had an extraordinary power assisting their memories That those things might again recur which they had heard from our Saviour at that time when by his-absence he was uncapable of repeating and orally to deliver that Doctrine which before they had the advantage of hearing The Spirit then by an immediate impression put their Spirits into such a motion and proposed such objects to their consideration and understanding and so ranged the particles of the brain that the same images presented themselves and they had the same Ideas and apprehensions which possess'd their minds when the trutns were first delivered to them Or if I may be any way extravagant in endeavouring to describe the manner of framing this miraculous effect Yet sure I am that some way or other this was done or the promise of the Holy Ghost was not fully accomplished For sayes the Text the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you John 14.26 Thirdly This Holy Spirit of Truth inclined the wills of the Apostles and first Planters of Christianity to publish those things which were impress'd upon their understandings and their memories now perfectly retained and to commit these truths to Writing that future Ages might be able to read what they could neither see nor hear To exhibit no more than what they had received for the Divine Rule and to live also suitable to their Doctrine to avoid the suspicion of Cheat and Imposture Now though this influence might seem to be unnecessary to such as had imbibed the Christian Doctrine with their understandings because their wills might seem immediately to follow what their understandings dictated to be true and the reasonableness and admirable excellency of this Doctrine might be motive enough to perswade as well to its practice as belief Yet we find by a woful experience that the wills of men do not alwayes follow the dictates of their understandings But that we violate Laws which yet we are convinced to be true and good If it were not so few men would embrace vice and offer injury to the Precepts of Christianity which all men of reason and discretion must needs acknowledge to be excellent in themselves and infallibly sealed and authorized by God who has by a miraculous hand attested them to the World It was necessary therefore that the Apostles and first Publishers of the Gospel should be made willing as well as able to accomplish all those things which might tend to the propagation and assurance of the Gospel And we cannot conjecture that so sudden an alteration could be made as we find in the Apostles who by their Trade and Education were rough and stubborn this being generally observed of Mariners so as to be brought to acknowledge such gentle precepts so opposite to their customs and inclination without a superiour influence mollifying their tempers and the powerful operation and perswasions of God to make them willing in the day of his power When Paul therefore was converted by a Miracle and brought to the acknowledgement of that Jesus whom he had persecuted that glorious light which shined upon his understanding rectified also the perverseness of his will and inclined that to follow his Conviction so that he became not disobedient to the Heavenly Vision but shewed both to the Jews and Gentiles that they should repent and turn to God and do works meet for repentance Acts 26.19 20. Fourthly The Holy Ghost led the Apostles into all truths of the Gospel by working Miracles to confirm their Doctrine These are the great Seal of Heaven that sufficiently authorize whatever they are brought to give testimony unto For these being either visible effects beyond the power of natural Causes or some strange and extraordinary alterations of nature by laying a restraint upon its usual operations Or causing it to take a different course by a strange composition of second Causes or a powerful concurrence of some Agent not included in the immediate Cause They
is hanged by the neck against a Pillar after whips and scourges had made a Prologue to the Tragedy One is flead alive another thrust through with a Spear and a third dragg'd about the craggy part of a street till his flesh was torn off and horrid pains compell'd him to expire It would be endless to account for the dismal tortures which the Apostles and Primitive Disciples endured their whole age being full of clouds and storms And the release from one torment was but the entrance upon another They daily went in danger of their lives which were indeed but continued deaths and repeated tragedies Now what a wonderful confirmation must this add to their own faith as well as seal its truth to posterity that they should have such multiplied tortures as anxious and cruel as the malice of enraged Adversaries could invent and execute and yet would not accept deliverance if they must purchase it with the denial of their Faith They must needs be animated to the belief of those truths in the profession of which they were so encouraged by a Divine power and the comforts of the Holy Ghost that they suffered torments beyond their own strength to endure Nor did the rage and persecution of their Adversaries overcome them Especially when we shall consider too that they could smile in the midst of flames and look upon their own blood with joy When they could account Martyrdom a Crown and such deaths as were most painful and cruel they could travel through as the nearest passage to their eternal reward Which whilst they viewed in a steady and well fixed contemplation they were able to conclude their afflictions to be light and to endure but for a moment And that the future reward overballanced them both in weight and duration They could glory in what the justice and custome of the world accounted shame and rejoice that they were deemed worthy to suffer for it Acts 5.41 They were alwayes dying and yet lived were able to account tortures chastisements and could still rejoyce in the midst of sorrows 2 Cor. 6. They could approve themselves the Ministers of God in patience in afflictions in necessities in distresses in stripes in imprisonments and that black Catalogue which S. Paul has recorded to posterity It must certainly convince both themselves and others that the hand of God did yet support them and that the Doctrine was true which they delivered for which they were miraculously prepared and now strengthened in their sufferings for it by the comforts and assistance of the Holy Ghost They knew themselves to be a company of rude and illiterate men or at least some of them were not polished either by art or Education for converse with the learned Rabbies amongst the Jews or the subtil Philosophers amongst the Gentiles and yet they baffled and could silence both had not their force reached farther than their argument And therefore sayes S. Paul where is the wise where is the Scribe where is the disputer of this world Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world 1 Cor. 1.20 S. Stephen who was but a Deacon to the Apostles was yet so full of faith and so endowed with the power of the Holy Ghost that he did not only amaze the people with the greatness of his Miracles but when many disputants were rang'd against him he did not only smartly encounter but overcame them too For they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spake Acts 6.10 They were fain to leave their reasoning and consult their subtilty and had no way to stop his mouth but by a shower of stones that took away his breath What could such men as these have done when they were brought before the Council of the Jews or Tribunals of the Romans Where all the subtle quirks of Law and all the inventions that malice could contrive should be used to entangle their innocence by craft had not the Holy Ghost assisted them in making their defence loosened their tongues and informed their understandings This was what was promised them before and now as certainly and fully accomplished For when our Saviour sent forth his twelve Apostles and told them how they should acouter themselves what were the contents of their Commission and how they should demean themselves He acquaints them also what dangers they were likely to encounter with They were sent forth as Sheep in the midst of Wolves Every one would endeavour to devour them And therefore they should be scourged in the Synagogues and be brought before Kings and Governours upon their Masters account But sayes he When they shall deliver you up let it not trouble you that ye are not well skill'd in the Law where subtilty may cause a Criminal to escape when ignorance may draw the innocent into punishment For it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak For it is not ye that speak but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you Matth. 10.19 Now men that had such extraordinary confirmations of their Apostleship and found these assistances from the Holy Ghost must needs be fully convinced of those things that were imprinted on their understandings and would attest their Divine authority unto others to whom they were obliged to declare and publish them when they themselves were so fully persuaded as not only to suffer all the inconveniencies of this life that could be brought upon them by the subtilty of the Politicians of the World but all the tortures and cruel deaths which malice was able to inflict And thus did the Holy Spirit of truth guide the Apostles into all truth But yet notwithstanding all this It must be considered that though the Apostles and primitive Disciples of our Saviour had thus the conduct of the holy Spirit Yet it was never intended to guide them into all truths of all kinds For this were to extend a promise beyond what was ever designed by the Holy Ghost Truth is a word of a large interpretation it runs through all Arts and Sciences and is as comprehensive as all the objects and understandings of men For whereever there is a conformity betwixt the object and a rightly prepared intellect there is truth Nay there is too often truth in that which we do not understand The Spirit therefore did not design in his sacred and infallible conduct to extend the capacities of the sacred Apostles to an infinite comprehension so as to cause them to know omne scibile every thing that is capable to be known For that were not only to make a new creation but to put them beyond the capacity of Creatures Nay though he is Omnipotent to go beyond his own power in making Beings as infinite as Himself Nor did the Spirit in the guidance of the Apostles into all truth intend their information in the truths of all the Arts and Sciences extant in the World He did not design to instruct them in the art of Syllogism Nor
that they should read natural Philosophy to the World He did not intend to teach them to call the Stars by their names or that they should by virtue of his instruction know their several motions distances or altitudes He did not intend Aphorisms in Physick Or to give to them Geometrical proportions Nor to breed them curious and expert Artificers though some of these have made themselves Apostles Nor to teach them the numbers of Arithmetick Or the Astrological signatures of things or times and seasons For these were not for them to know because the Father had put them into his own power Acts 1.7 And therefore as they were never so proud and bold so neither were they so unlucky as the Pope who must needs condemn a point in Geography and the tenet of Antipodes for a destroying Heresie So little did he know the universal Empire he pretended to that he did not understand the extent of it nor the Figure or Bounds or Inhabitants of that Earth over which he yet pretended an Authority The Holy Ghost therefore guided the Apostles into those truths only in Divinity which included the full Doctrine of the Gospel which our Saviour delivered that they might be able to preach them to the present age and commit them to writing for the use of all succeeding Generations The Spirit was not given to them to make them great Historians or Philosophers but Christians and to capacitate them to be the planters and founders of Churches not the posts and standards of dispute Or to be the leaders of Sects and Factions in Philosophy They were to erect a Pillar of truth setled upon a firm foundation Christ himself supporting the Building and this neither for Pasquins or Poetry but for a Rule and directory of standing Religion and Devotion CHAP. XII THE souls of men whilst hous'd in these bodies of clay are darkned and obscured notwithstanding all the windows of sense to let in the light of external objects to an intercourse with the mind For supposing our senses could alwayes make true and exact representations to our souls which yet we know are often deceived yet these could only convey such things as are the proper objects of the souls of men Those of an higher and more exalted nature that are not capable of an image must needs escape the perception of our outward senses and if reason it self when most disentangled from those fetters which our senses too often impose should endeavour to make propositions and inferences about the essences of those things whose spiritual natures evade our sense our notions could not be adequate to the things themselves nor could we fully comprehend what is infinite nor have a positive Idea of spiritual Beings though reason might conclude their existence Hence is it that all our definitions and descriptions of these are therefore imperfect because negative and though we may conclude what they are not we never could by humane power yet resolve compleatly what they are which makes Divine Revelation necessary and that we should have faith beyond our reason though we never believe without reason to assure us of the authority we confide in This being therefore our state and condition in this World we must as well praise Gods Goodness as admire his Power for sending us that Spirit of Truth which guides us into all truth that is necessary to conduct us to eternal happiness Now this Promise I told you I would consider two wayes 1. As it related to the Apostles and first Disciples of our Lord and Saviour 2. As it concerns the whole Church of Christ that is or shall be militant on the earth The first of these is already dispatched And therefore I now proceed to the second To view the Promise of the Spirits guidance as it concerns the Church throughout the several Ages and Periods of the Christian World I have already proved the divine influence on the minds of men though its immediate operation is too difficult to be explained as to the manner of its energy and work and that we have no reason to disbelieve the thing for that we know not the manner of its operation What therefore is now to be discoursed supposing the truth of its influence in general and that extraordinary assistance he gave unto the Apostles is How the Holy Spirit of God possesses the minds of those with truth who make themselves by holy dispositions and a due exercise of their rational faculties capable to receive it and what truths those are that the Spirit of God guides men into As to the first supposing that which has been already proved That the Apostles were inspired from above to receive a full revelation of those truths by opening their understandings and quickning their memories that concern the salvation of mankind and that they committed them to writing faithfully recording them for the use of posterity and that these are to be standing rules for all ages and generations to come I cannot find any other method the Spirit has used or does continue to guide the ages succeeding the Apostles into all truth but what is contained in these three particulars 1. By those Scriptures which he inspired the Apostles to publish and deliver 2. By inclining the hearts of some men to continue that Ministry which must endure to the end of the world And 3. By confirming those truths contained in the Scriptures unto the minds of men by co-operating with the external ministration by an internal work upon the understanding will and affections of those who are inclinable in the day of his power First then The Spirit of truth guides us into all truth by those Scriptures Christ and his Apostles delivered to be the standing rules for posterity These are those lively Characters in which we may read the Nature of God and the directions of our lives These are such an infallible rule of truth that they certainly guide those into it who soberly and conscientiously apprehend and follow them They convey peace of conscience here which is a thing valuable above Crowns and Kingdoms and hereafter give us such possessions as infinitely transcend the power of our thoughts and exceed all humane expectations These Holy Scriptures contain such a compleat body of Doctrine that they need not any additions to be made to them Let their own sense be but sufficiently explained and if they are permitted to speak their own mind they will neither want Apocrypha nor Traditions nor any new Revelation neither to render them a compleat System of Divinity Mens own Doctrines and not Christs want Traditions to confirm them and 't is the pride and covetousness of a Sect of men that would make all Christians groan with their burden and void Gods Word with their own pretensions however they are varnished with the plausible Epithets of ancient and Apostolical that make such additions to the Scriptures But the Holy Scriptures which were at first given by inspiration of God are able of themselves
troubled the Church perverted the Gospel of Christ Gal. 1.7 But this is no argument against the sufficiency or plainness of the Scripture in things necessary to our eternal salvation For they are usually more obscure Texts that are to exercise the more Learned and Critical part of men upon which Heresies are founded And this too frequently is occasioned by men that wrack and torture their understanstandings to conceive such things as are not here perfectly to be known Or if they are to be fathomed by other men yet are above the reach of those who thus ignorantly and erroneously apprehend them Thus S. Peter speaking of S. Paul's Epistles sayes that in them there are some things hard to be understood which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest as they do also the other Scriptures unto their own destruction 2 Pet. 3.16 But another sort there are too that have too much subtilty to be accounted ignorant Who are some of he perverse disputers of the world that first suit their Tenets to their interest and then violently press the Scriptures to prove what they were never intended for We should never else have heard This is my Body brought to prove that absurd Doctrine of Transubstantiation Nor Feed my Sheep to prove the Popes Supremacy Nor He will guide you into all truth to prove his Infallibility Nor He shall be saved yet so as by fire to prove a Purgatory When all these Texts are capable of fairer and more plain interpretations to another and more coherent sense But that the ambition of some men would entitle themselves to the government of the rest And then frame others belief to render them tame for such a tyranny and to be subject to whatsoever they will impose when all this while they suit the Articles of the Churches Faith to the encrease of their own Wealth the better to support their Pride and Usurpation Nay on the other side we have those amongst our selves who call the Pope names and yet embrace his Doctrine And tie that infallibility which they rob the Roman Chair of to their own single and Enthusiastick determinations Who by misunderstanding some Texts of Scripture direct themselves by a private impulse and then muster these to defend it But the Flower is not the less fragrant for that the Spider thence will suck for poison Nor does the Scripture cease to be a safe and sufficient Rule to those who soberly apprehend and follow it Notwithstanding some may wrest and misapply it Nor does the Spirit at any time contradict it self He having therefore inspired some men to commit a Rule to writing for future Generations to read and understand and put forth a Law that is sufficiently plain and perspicuous And men having reason and understanding enough assisted by the Spirits ordinary directions to guide themselves by the measures of this Rule and Law into all truth He expects now that they should order themselves as they do by all human Laws That is to believe upon the Authority of the Imposer and live proportionably to so great a favour and labour to understand what he has put into their power to know Remembering that of wise Agur Add thou not unto Gods words lest he reprove thee and thou be found a liar Prov. 30.6 The authority God has given to the Governors of his Church empowers them to command or alter circumstantials that all things may be done decently and in order In these we are to obey them that have the rule over us and to submit our selves Heb. 13.17 But no men are authorized to usurp the Throne of God himself To create new Articles of Faith Or impose other primary rules of duty than what they find written in the Scriptures They are only to confirm and explain them For as we must not think of men so neither of Doctrines above what is written Our language and design must be the same with S. Paul To deliver that which we also received 1 Cor. 15.3 So may we be workers together with God And when the world in the wisdom of God that is by the works of God which demonstrate his wisdom knows not God it may please him by the foolishness of preaching i. e. what some men account folly to save them that believe 1 Cor. 1.21 And this leads me to the next particular in which the Holy Spirit of God guides us that are remote from the Apostles Age into all truth which they delivered By inclining the minds of some men to continue that Ministry that must have its succession unto the end of the World And this is the second way of the Spirits conduct That in all Religious Constitutions which have been in the World there has been a separate and appointed Ministry is more notorious than to spend words in the proof of it 'T is too deeply planted in the minds of men and it bears an equal date with the Law of Nature fix'd in us Without this publick Worship cannot have its constant and orderly Being And had not this been established with the constitution of Christianity it would not only have been in a worse condition than any Religion which has possessed the world But than any Trade or Occupation among us to the obtainment of which men must be learners before they become able Workmen Or are permitted to exercise their particular Callings amongst any well ordered and embodied Society The separation therefore of some men from the generality of Christians was first made by our Saviour himself When he called the Apostles and sent forth the seventy Disciples to preach the Gospel unto human creatures And when the time of his departure from the world was come When he was to be received into his Fathers Kingdom in such a triumph as became a Conquerour and one to whom all power was given He delivers his full Commission to his Apostles substituting them in his own stead to rule his Church and to ordain their Successors That like the Tribe of Levi they might be legitimate and by a continued and distinguishable descent they might be perpetuated to the end of the World As my Father sent me sayes Christ so send I you John 20.21 Or as S. Matthew describes it All power is given to me both in Heaven and in Earth Go ye therefore and teach all Nations Baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you And lo I am with you alway to wit in the exercise of this power by your selves and Successors to the end of the world Matth. 28.18 19 20. These are some of those gifts our Saviour gave unto men when he ascended upon high Ephes 4.8 For he gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers For the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ This is to endure 'till we all come into the
it was fit for us to know or our frail capacities can receive so that we may accommodate the words of the Psalmist to the Holy Spirit Thou shalt guide us with thy counsel and afterwards receive us to glory Psal 73.24 These are the truths the Holy Ghost still guides us into as far as our frailty is able to comport with his methods and influence He does not now come amongst men to cause them to speak divers Languages or to work Miracles amongst those who have the Records of the Gospel Nor yet to reveal such secrets as the Father has put in his own power and properly belong to God alone He does not help us to search into the Closets and Decrees of Heaven no more than he discovers the Councels of Princes nor does he elevate mens understandings to distract themselves with things that are above them But having given the Law of Life he guides our feet into the way of peace CHAP. XIII HAving thus far accomplished my design in confuting mens false pretensions to inspiration from the Holy Spirit of God upon due examination of others writings and mine own thoughts raised for ought I know to the contrary either by my converses with or observations from other men for I dare not call any thing mine own so as to be any first inventor Having no Common-Place-Book to direct me Or else from some Superiour benediction upon human endeavours which I have attempted in some part to prove and vindicate And to shew in this all that I believe or can at this time explain in any measure unto others That there may be some farther use made of this writing I shall conclude all with a few brief Observations and Inferences from the whole or some parts of this Discourse And First Every man ought to judge for himself in matters or Religion that are proposed to his belief or practice as far as he has abilities and capacity to understand Because S. John exhorts all men to try the Spirits whether they are of God And this will neither seem to be absurd or impossible when we shall consider that we are men endued with rational faculties that we have the use of the Holy Scriptures in which all things are plain that are universally necessary to the Salvation of mankind That we have Guides appointed to help us in the interpretation of what is difficult and the Holy Spirit promised to assist us in all Which God gives to every one who in earnest prayer devoutly asks it And which is present with him in all emergences 'till by a vicious life he strangely grieves him and by an obstinate continuance in the habits of sin he provokes it totally to withdraw from him Were there an human Throne of infallibility erected to which all others might appeal and rest satisfied with the determinations of him that possesses it There would be no occasion of an Apostles direction to try the Spirits But since we are exhorted to prove all things that we may hold fast that which is good And the Scriptures direct us to no such human infallibility but assure us that what is not of faith is sin As it produces the greatest satisfaction to every man to settle his own notions in Religion So it is his duty to examine the Doctrines and Opinions of men propounded to his belief or which are designed to guide his practice before he believes and entertains them Making Gods Word his rule in all things that are plain and evident And taking the assistance of those Guides and Teachers which God has appointed and set over him in those points that are more difficult and obscure And this if done with that humility devout prayer for Gods assistance and true industry which becomes a man in so great a concernment as that of Religion will either find out all truth Or if he remain in any error it will be such as God will never condemn him for Since the most gracious God will never expect from mankind that their apprehension of things should exceed the cacapacity of their reception and what the means of his appointment cannot help them to Nor that either their belief or actions should ever exceed the power of their Beings And those that so studiously and industriously endeavour to give a check to mens reasoning and examination about the Doctrines they propound render their opinions things to be very much suspected And will give us to understand that their deeds are evil when they hate the light And as for that peace among Christians that the pretended infallibility in the Church of Rome or any where else boasts an establishment and continuance of Whilst Protestants are crumbled into Sects and Divisions We may easily reply that they have their Controversies as well as we and parties among them that oppose each other with an equal heat and eagerness in dispute with other mortals and are distinguished by their several denominations Even as the Jesuits difference themselves from all being such sworn Vassals to the Court of Rome that they endeavour to support it to the ruine of the Church Let the Romanists and others therefore first pull the Mote out of their own eyes and then they may the better see to pull the Beam out of anothers But why may not such peace and order as are convenient and perhaps as much as can ever be obtained be preserved among men professing Christianity by the publick Authority checking the disorderly actions of men without imposing setters on their belief Which it is altogether impossible to compel or punish either if men were so wise as to keep it to themselves and not trouble others by discourse I doubt not but it may be done as well as Authority keeps men in a tolerable order in relation to the management of secular affairs though he that administers it is not infallible Nor do all that are Subjects still concur in Opinion with him Preserve therefore your judgement of discretion and use it too that you may not be led like blind men when you have eyes to see and helps to assist them when they wax dimm And then having setled your selves in the true Religion Secondly Let me exhort you to stand fast in it Not to be like waves of the Sea rolling to and fro with every tempest and carried about with every wind of doctrine Not to be pleased with every new appearance in the world because variety in other things different from Religion is so grateful to the generality of men For in such things they may have their choice and not be limited by a superiour power But our option in relation to Principles of Religion must be directed by a superiour rule and guide And having once found out this we must not vary upon new pretensions from what this prescribes to us Lest having left those paths that should direct us we wander about we know not whither Sathan gets great advantages upon unsteady minds And 't is easie to make a new impression
therefore it must remain doubtful to those that will not believe the Gospel is it not more reasonable to receive this Revelation so well attested and to renounce others that are not so than to leave things of such an infinite concernment at so miserable an hazard Nay since there can be no other than probable proofs of future things when Arguments are taken from their own nature without the admission of Divine Revelation Is there not greater reason even when two things seem uncertain to adhere to that which is more probable And to that which gives us some hopes rather than to that which affords us none at all In this there can be no danger to believe there is a future state there may be great in the denial of it If it be not true it makes us yet live with more comfort and die with less trouble and reluctancy But perhaps all may now be willing to believe the Scriptures to be true Yet such Faith alone will not gain the prize though we finish our course in fighting for it Therefore let mens belief of a future immortality and a joyful state evidence it self in endeavours to obtain it For that faith is only fancy that thinks to be crowned without obedience And to believe the History of the Resurrection of our Saviour and not raise our selves to newness of life will leave us still dead in our sins Credere se in Christum quomodo dicit sayes S. Cyprian de unitate Ecclesiae qui non facit quod Christus facere praecepit How can he be said to believe in Christ who does not do what he commands him And a little before in the same Tract Immortalitate potiri quomodo possumus nisi ea quibus mors expugnatur vincitur Christi mandata servemus How can we enjoy eternal life unless we keep those Commands of Christ by which death is assaulted and overcome S. John tells us He that doth righteousness is righteous And though men pretend other signs which are as easily confuted as they are made Yet If thou wilt enter into life keep the Commandments sayes our Saviour Matth. 19.17 And S. Cyprian will vouch the application if I suppose this to be the condition to obtain it For though the Christian Law be a Law of liberty yet it is a Law still that commands us to act like Religious men and not think to be drawn to Heaven upon the wheels of an extraordinary Providence and craned up to Paradise by an irresistable Power We ascend to Heaven by gradual advancements of virtue and devotion nor can we think that all mankind are perpetually to be saved like the Thief upon a Cross We must not think to mount above the Clouds through the vapours of repeated Debaucheries to rend the Skies and make Heaven open by louder Oaths and thundering Execrations Or to jump out of Dalilah's lap into Abraham's bosome No surely they that have done good shall go into life everlasting But they that have done evil into everlasting punishment Thirdly We learn from this discourse to praise God for giving us the Gospel and to admire and extol the Holy Ghost himself who in such an eminent manner assisted the Apostles to commit so excellent a systeme of religion to writing that we of the latter ages of the World may read what we could not hear And by the ordinary conduct of the Spirit of truth be guided to the knowledge of those things which they were extraordinarily inspired to deliver Not to commemorate so great a favour must be the highest ingratitude imaginable Let us be as thankful then as we are knowing and as we increase daily in the one let the other run parallel in the enlargement God is pleased to own himself glorified by our praises This we do when we praise him with our tongues But then does it become most glorious when it is followed with an holy and Religious life The former may proceed from hypocrisie But attended with the latter it makes the whole Trinity to rejoyce and secures to our selves those Graces we already have and engages God to give us more as our future conditions shall want supplies To him that hath shall be given saies our Saviour Nay this in an especial manner rejoyces the holy Spirit of God whose proper work it is to sanctifie And a vicious life is said to grieve him And how acceptable a Sacrifice the whole is appears in what he sayes by the Psalmist Psal 50.23 Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me And to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God Praises and thanksgivings are the natural results of a sense of mercies and favours impress'd upon the minds of men And we conclude those to be unworthy of a benefit that will not acknowledge the goodness of their Benefactors And the proportions of thanks must take their measures from the benefits received How much therefore the sending the Holy Ghost to inspire the Apostles and by them to convey light unto the World to conduct mankind to glory and immortality exceeds all the temporal favours we do enjoy By so much the more must our hearts be lifted up and our lives express our gratitude to him that sent him and to him who by his merit and intercession procured him Fourthly Did the Spirit of truth guide the Apostles into all truth necessary to the Salvation of men And does he still influence our minds and promote our endeavours in making enquiry after the things that conduce to our peace Then let us pray frequently to Almighty God for this influence and benediction of the Spirit Prayer was that which prevail'd with God to send him in so eminent a manner and for such glorious designs into the World and prayer will still continue him here I will pray the Father says Christ and he shall give you another Comforter that he may abide with you for ever even the Spirit of truth Joh. 14.16 Prayer has not only an influence upon our selves as it fixes our minds and makes our holy resolutions steady but mightily prevails with God himself who will crown what he has commanded with success In this therefore lies our greatest strength in the performance of which duty soberly and with a suitable devotion and intention of mind we may be said to wrestle with God Nay it conveys to us those assistances of the Spirit that are useful to us for the sanctifying our natures and carrying us through the hazards and various circumstances of our lives For if ye being evil sayes our Saviour know how to give good gifts unto your children how much more shall your heavenly Father give the holy Spirit to them that ask him Luke 11.13 Let us not then be wanting to our selves in this duty of Prayer since so great an advantage attends its devout and hearty performance and to publick Prayer whereby God is most glorified the pains are only presence and devotion Fifthly If God sent his Spirit upon the Apostles to
actions where there is no difference at all For as it matters not whether the object proposed to the Wills embracement be either real or apparent good the same passion is used in the reception so in respect of the understanding also If the object seems to be true it makes the same impression with truth it self If we pretend a difference in the Images represented in the brain which the soul contemplating does according to their beauty or deformity own or reject the objects represented by them since we find still that an error presented under the notion of truth as long as we receive it is as pleasant to us as truth it self there can be no such Idea's supposed of such different aspects that in them we can read good and evil without some more superiour direction For if there were it would be impossible for a man to be deceived that gave himself time to contemplate these Images But if we shall as we must indeed prove the truth of the Spirits impulse from the agreement of the thing it impells us to with the truths revealed in Gods Word then the impulse it self is but a weak direction that must have another more convincing to determine it Nay not the surest confirmation of things that admits a proof beyond it self whilst the Scripture becomes its Judge either to condemn or acquit it If this were not so why should our Saviour give the World such admonitions and caution men against false Christs and false Prophets that should arise and deceive many Matth. 24. but that he foresaw the false pretensions that would be made to inspiration S. John need not otherwise have cautioned us not to believe every Spirit nor exhorted us to try the Spirits whether they are of God but that he knew that many false Prophets were gone out into the world But Lastly Let us consider too that God does not use to make bare his arm and put his power to an immediate work when the thing may be accomplish'd as well by other means which he has appointed to that very end For though this might demonstrate his Power yet it lessens his Wisdom to exert more strength and use more applications to produce an effect which fewer might as well accomplish Nay it would subvert that scheme of causes which his contrivance has already ordered It would both render Gods rules and mans endeavours after the knowledge of the truth useless and ridiculous At least those Scriptures which are already revealed would not be able to make the man of God perfect which is not only contrary to the Apostles affirmation 2 Tim. 3.17 But S. Paul's argument must be inverted and he might justly he ashamed of the Gospel of Christ because it would not be the power of God unto salvation whereas he plainly and confidently affirms it to be so Rom. 1.16 Why should any therefore now the Rule is given vainly expect revelations and impulses and extend their belief to a bold presumption deluding themselves with vain hopes since these now are neither promised nor in that manner Enthusiasts wait for them ever intended Let us rest satisfied therefore with those truths already received since no more Divine Rules of life can rationally be expected till the Day of Doom And with Gods benediction and the ordinary concurrences of his holy Spirit upon the Gospel let us frame our lives according to its Precepts and Commands that walking according to these Rules we may at last receive the end of our faith the salvation of our souls These the Holy Ghost has sealed to us not only by inspiring the Sacred Pen-men to an exact delivery but he has confirm'd them also by such Miracles as at once exceed the powers of the creation and surmount the objections of men and Devils Upon this we build a rational belief though some mysteries in our Religion exceed our full and perfect comprehension Other pretensions however back'd with great names being confidently averr'd with boldness and zeal are no other than wild notions and exorbitant fancies Things that if Satan who pants and breathes for our eternal ruine can once perswade us to an embracement of he then presents a deformed Monster for the most beautiful Truth He has then cast a veil upon our minds and leads us blindfold into what errors he pleases He spreads his Nets and entanglements for us and certain he is to catch and ensnare us For who cannot lead the blind into a ditch or bring him upon a Precipice when he thinks himself safe and secure How easie is it for the fallen Spirit that envies men the very hopes of bliss since he himself is in eternal despair to dart into persons who forsake the written Word to attend new impulses and revelations those poisoned arrows that shall drink up their spirits and perswade such to embrace any thing who have no better rule than their own perswasions Listen not then to the fond fancies of any bold and passionate men who making use of their hot constitutions convert their own natural rashness into a seeming zeal pouring forth thick words and thin sense whilst they impudently pretend the Spirits impulse for all their rude and unreasonable notions and give the stamp of Canon to their Doctrines Nor must we yet on the other hand so far make our reason Judge as to destroy our faith but taking the Gospel for our sufficient rule let us use our faculties to explain and apprehend it But by no means let us curtail or extend it beyond what was the design of the imposer 'T is a strange Age in which we live when Religion is almost lost by making too strict an enquiry after it and too much curiosity in our speculations has rendered us almost regardless of our practice We discourse the gravest and most serious points of our holy faith with so much levity and disrespect the indecency of the places in which we hold such Conferences adding to our vanity that we first make our Religion common and then slight it as mean and inconsiderable But whatever the Sons of Darkness do let us who are of the Day be sober and with due reverence and a godly fear receive those impressions of the Spirit which he has made in Sacred Writ so shall we avoid the blasphemies of those who so confidently assert Diabolical suggestions and the black fancies which are the fruits of a corrupted constitution for Divine inspirations For no zeal or mode of delivery can possibly perswade any rational man that duly exercises his own faculties that profound nonsense or unaccountable propositions are deep Divinity Nor that men whose natures are envious and Diabolical can possibly receive instructions from God to promote division raise disturbances or to continue any which have already had their auspicious beginnings and as I hope their full progress among us For that wisdom which is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle and easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without wrangling and
eyes stood out with fatness and they had more than heart could wish Psal 73. And Solomon observes that as to the changes of prosperity and adversity all things come alike to all there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not As is the good so is the sinner and he that sweareth as he that feareth an oath Eccles 9.2 This indeed may prove that there shall be a future account But neither can the goodness or wickness of a party be evidenced by such external characters much less the truth or falshood of opinions confirmed from the smiles or frowns of Providence But I need not at present argue this point farther since those that when prosperous invented it as a rule to walk by and as an argument to confirm their party and a bait to draw Proselytes and Abettors to them are now confuted by their shameful overthrow And it would sink them more should it be used with any severe enlargement since their honour layes in the dust and I hope it will never rise again I shall leave this therefore as a term of Religion and a fallible rule only taken up to serve a turn and proceed to those methods and ways by which we may discern true Doctrines from false inspirations CHAP. IX ANd First As to the Trial of the Doctrines and Opinions of those that vent them with great confidence and zeal as if they were divinely inspired we must consider that those to whom these Doctrines are propounded are reasonable creatures And this will be yielded without any reasoning about it unless we have a mind to degrade our selves as well in speculation as many do in practice to the beasts that perish nay any objection formally framed against this supposal would prove what the Objector endeavours to deny that men had discursive faculties and his own confutation would be included in his Objection whilst that would prove him able to syllogize and reason Secondly Men being rational and intelligent beings it follows that they are able to discern the truth or falsehood of propositions sufficiently propounded to their consideration in terms that exceed not the expressions of the sense of one man to another and in matters that are not elevated above humane capacities our discourses otherwise to one another would be no more than the chirping of Birds the speech of Parrots or the jabbering of Monkeys to each other and would be nothing more than an uncertain distinct sound without any signification Thirdly We must consider too that it is not suitable to the Nature of God to impose upon the faculties of men so as to delude and cheat them with any equivocal and false propositions especially when he designs them as a Rule to men to guide them in their concerns and actions in this World or in the way to their everlasting peace Because the notion men have of him the truth of which he has evidenced to the World renders him a Being of all possible perfection otherwise we should suppose God to be liable to the common frailties and infirmities of men Now if he be supreamly perfect he must according to our own reason and those faculties that are implanted in us be one of infinite Truth and Goodness If he be the first he will not deliver propositions unto men that are plainly or more obscurely false And if he be a good Being he will not give Rules that may deceive us if we use those faculties he has bestowed on us to find out their meaning and intention The contrary to this would cheat the World and then he would make creatures or at least seem to do it that he might with great circumstance and solemnity subtilly lead them into eternal ruine Which to suppose is as great blasphemy against the Divine Nature as can be invented by the worst of creatures that have made themselves malicious And as foul an infamy as can be cast upon Gods being by the worst of men since he desires not the death of sinners themselves but rather that they should return from their wickedness and live This is confirmed by those threats he denounces against them to frighten them from eternal ruine by all those promises he has annex'd to repentance by all his exhortations to them to amend their lives by all the instruments and helps to Religion which he has graciously afforded them by all that sorrow and trouble he expresses whilst men remain in that state of sin which entitles them to eternal misery And by sending his only Son into the World to offer himself a Sacrifice for them that Divine Wrath and Justice being appeased they might be capable according to the Rules and Directions he proposed and the Aids and Assistances he has given them to recover themselves out of those snares in which they were entangled and to guide themselves into the way of peace Fourthly From hence it follows that there are sufficient Means and Wayes afforded us by which we may as reasonable creatures judge of true directions and false so that we may not spend our time in uncertainties in matters of such vast and infinite concernment Gods promise of Heaven and eternal bliss would be to as totally insignificant if it were made either upon such conditions as we knew not or had not sufficient abilities with his influence to perform them And to what purpose would it be to tell the World that in keeping Gods Commandments there is great reward if we knew not what the Commandments were We could not make sense of that Thanksgiving of our Saviour Matth. 11.25 I thank thee O Father Lord of heaven and earth because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent the Rabbies amongst the Jews and the Philosophers among the Gentiles and hast revealed them unto babes to persons of a more inferiour rank and capacity if those whom he here calls Babes had not means to know the certainty of the Revelation and to arrive at compleat and distinct notions of the things that were revealed And in vain would it have been for S. Paul to have spoken the hidden things of God in a mysterie the Doctrine of Christs coming into the World hid under Jewish Types and Shadows and obscurely treated of by the Prophets in comparison to the Light which then appeared or to have treated of such Doctrines of the Gospel which discovered things which neither eye had seen nor ear heard nor did they ever enter into the heart of man when God revealed them by his Spirit 1 Cor. 2. and not by any Logical demonstration which blinded the Governours amongst the Jews and confounded the Philosophers among the Greeks who according to their accustomed way of proof expected another method of probation than the demonstration of the Spirit and of power It had been notwithstanding an impossible attempt for the Apostle to have endeavoured to reduce any of these or other men that knew themselves to be endued with