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:*1':JMI'
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THE
PRACTICAL WORKS
OF THE
REV. RICHARD BAXTER.
y
THE
PRACTICAL WORKS
OF
THE REV. RICHARD BAXTER:
WITH
A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR,
AND
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF HIS WRITINGS,
BY THE
REV. WILLIAM ORME,
AlJTHOn OF " THE LIFE OF JOHN OWEN, D.D. ;" "bIBLIOTHECA BICLICA," ETC.
VOL. XX.
IN TWENTY-THREE VOLUMES.
LONDON:
JAMES DUNCAN, 37, PATERNOSTER ROW.
MDCCCXXX.
.^'^
LONDON:
PniNTED BY MILLS, JOWETT, AXD MILLS,
BOLT-COURT, FLEET-SXnEET.
THE
PRACTICAL WORKS
OF THE
REV. RICHARD BAXTER.
VOLUME XX.
CONTAINING
THE UNREASONABLENESS OF INFIDELITY; THE REASONS OF
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.
VOL, XX.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY MILLS, JOWETT, AND MILLS,
BOLT-COURT, FLEET'STRHET.
CONTENTS
OF
THE TWENTIETH VOLUME.
THE
UNREASONABLENESS OF INFIDELITY
MANIFESTED IN FOUR DISCOURSES.
PAGE
TiiE Epistle Dedicatory,.,, iv
Advertisement Explicatory viii
The Preface , xix
THE FIRST PART.
TFIE SPIRIT'S WITNESS TO THE TRUTH OF CHRIS-
TIANITY.
What St. Paul nieaneth by the works of the law 1
What by the Spirit 5
How the Spirit is said to be given after faith 6
The Testimony of the Spirit, then, a sufficient proof of the
truth of the Gospel 9
The commonness of the miraculous works of the Spirit .... 9
Their sufficiency to prove the Gospel true 11
The certainty of the tradition of the Scriptures to us 15
The reason of the need of miracles, then 20
But not to continue 21
Usel. An information of the certain truth of the christian
religion, to convince the doubtful 22
The truth of seeming contradictory Scriptures, and of
the most seeming improbable passages, and of the
most terrible passages . . 27
Everlasting punishment of the wicked proved 29
Use this, 1. In all temptations to infidelity 38
2. In dulness and declining 42
3. In sadness ,t ^^
a2
W CONTENTS.
PAGE
Use 2. The main argument ever used to prove the truth of
the christian religion ^ ^^
3. What the testimony of the Spirit is, and who have it . 49
4. What it is to believe in the Holy Ghost, and to be
baptised in his name 50
5. What is the sin against the Holy Ghost , . 55
The Second Doctrine, That is the true doctrine and religion,
by which the Spirit is given : cautions for the right
understanding of this 57
The reason 61
Quest. Must we try the doctrine by the Spirit, or the Spirit
by the doctrine ibid.
Use 1 . The argument used against infidelity 65
2. What clear light seekers contradict, that say we have
lost the Scriptures and church 68
3. There is but one true church and religion 71
4. To convince the revolters of these times 75
5. To those that have not the Spirit 77
A Corollary, Demonstrating the life to come, and future hap-
piness or misery 78
A Determination of this question, Whether the miraculous
works of Christ and his disciples do oblige those to be-
lieve who never saw them : —
The order of inquiry into the christian faith 86
By what signs the christian religion hath been delivered
down to us 87
The certain tradition of these to us 89
The difference between popish and necessary tradition .... 92
That the apostles delivered these to the first churches .... 93
How miracles oblige us , 94
The sufficiency of that testimony 95
Ten arguments to prove the affirmative of the question. ... 97
Sixteen objections of the apostates answered 117
Of the miracles mentioned by Augustin and other ancient
doctors 121
Our certainty infallible, and, in a sort, physical, maintained
against Peter Hurtado de Mendoza 1 24
CONTENTS.
THE SECOND PART.
CHRIST'S WITNESS WITHIN US, THE BELIEVER'S SPE-
CIAL ADVANTAGE AGAINST TEMPTATIONS TO
INFIDELITY.
PAGE
Sect. 1. The text, 1 John v. 10 explained 131
2. What the witness in ourselves is 134
3. The reasons why all true believers shall have the wit-
ness in themselves 137
4. Use 1. The advantage of believers against tempta-
tions to infidelity 1 39
How great a mercy this is, Sect. 5, 6, 7, &c 141
Object, T find not this witness in me answered 146
So many pretend to the Spirit that I can believe none
of them 149
But how shall I know which of them hath the Spirit,
when so many pretend to it? 151
Quest. But how shall I know whether I have it ? 153
How a Christian should make use of the witness of the Spirit
within him, for the resisting of temptations to unbelief 155
Object. All this is but your own prejudice, which a Turk may
boast of in his own religion 165
It is not the truth of the Gospel, but your belief of it
that makes all these impressions on you 1 67
What need you a testimony within, if you can see
such evidence in the word without 168
Doth not that want evidence, which a reasonable man
cannot believe ? 170
You prove the Scripture true, because you believe it ;
whereas you should believe it because it is true . . 171
But what is your private spirit to convince another
man? 172
Quest. What need we make use of Scripture, or ministers, if
we have the witness in ourselves ? ibid.
Is not he most likely to be in the right, in particular
controversies, that hath most of the Spirit? ..,.,, 178
What an advantage it is in cases of particular temptations and
controversies to have the Spirit , 180
Sect. 23. Twenty considerations, evincing the necessity of
common knowledge, called human learning, not-
withstanding the witness and helps of the Spirit . 183
vi CONTENTS.
PAGE
Sect. 24. All sins, but especially those that most quench the
Spirit, have a natural tendency to infidelity ; and
wounding the conscience by sensuality, is a com-
mon way to it 198
25. Ungodly men are incompetent judges of the matters
of the christian faith 201
26. The way to firm belief is to taste and try, that we
may have christian experience 202
THE THIRD PART.
THE UNPARDONABLE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY
GHOST.
Sect. 1 . Satan's course in tempting men to infidelity 205
The reasons of this discourse 209
Sect. 2. The text opened 211
Your children, who 213
Matt. xii. 30 reconciled with Luke ix. 49, 50 216
The Father's judgment of the sin against the Holy
Ghost 217
The papists' and prolestants' judgment of it 220
Whether this sin be absolutely unpardonable, the judg-
ment of the ancients, and later writers 223
Why it is unpardonable 225
3. The author's judgment, 1. On the negative, what is not
the sin against the Holy Ghost, in twenty-four pro-
positions 226
And what it is, in twenty propositions 235
Whether a malicious opposing the internal illumin-
ation of the Spirit be this sin 243
Of the sense of Heb. vi. 4 — 6, and whether all total
apostasy be this sin 246
The sum of all 251
4. Doct. How the enmity of Christ, his doctrine and
works against Satan's kingdom, prove that it was
not by Satan's power, but by God's, that Christ and
his disciples did their works 253
The enm.ity on Satan's part proved, from his nature,
interest, designs, and actions 254
Proved from Satan's transacticjns with witches, by
many histories of them 255
5. Proved by possessions and other violence on the body 271
CONTENTS. vii
PAGli
Sect. 6. By apparitions and voices 272
7. By Ills endeavours to bring the world to idolatry, with
the success 273
8. By his endeavours to raise heresies, and the means. . 277
Heretics and schismatics, what, and of l:ow many
sorts 278
The history of the Simonians, Nicolaitans, gnostics,
and other heretics, before popery 279
The introduction and use of popery 288
Tlie introduction and success of Mahometanism .... 290
The raising of errors and heresies since the Reform-
ation : of the anabaptists and enthusiasts, Para-
celsus, Weigelius, Behmen, Racket, &c 293
Of the late miscarriages in England, by the prelates
and their adversaries, and the rise of our wars and
sects. Satan's enmity to Reformation 295
Ranters and Quakers 298
9. Satan's enmity against Christ, proved by open perse-
cutions, by Jews, gentiles, heretics, papists 301
10. By the inbred hatred in the hearts of all the servants
of Satan through the world, to the kingdom and
true subjects of Christ 311
1 1. By his contrary precepts and persuasions 316
12. Proofs of Christ's enmity to Satan, from his nature,
interest, design, and works ^ 319
Of the enmity 32 1
Two armies formed under two generals 323
Christ conquereth for us when we suffer 328
14. Christ's personal conflicts and conquests; with thirty
particular discoveries of the enmity 329
Uses and consectaries, 1 . Of the certain truth of the
Gospel 361
2. The matter of fact was so undeniable that the most
malicious enemies of Christ did confess his miracles 365
3. The sin against the Holy Ghost so unreasonable
and impious, that it is no wonder if it be unpardon-
able 370
Other uses for practice, with directions to conquer
Satan 375
An answer to Mr. Lyford's exceptions, proving that
the blaspheming pharisees did not believe 380
viii CONTENTS.
THE FOURTH PART.
THE ARROGANCY OF REASON AGAINST DIVINE
REVELATION, REPRESSED.
PAGE
The text opened. Regeneration comprehendeth remission of
past sins 397
Doct. Of men's proneness to question God's word when they
understand it not 401
The nature and working of this arrogancy of reason 403
The causes of this arrogancy and questioning of God's word . . 411
Use. The frowardness of man's corrupt heart in the matters of
salvation 419
Reasons to deter men from this arrogancy 422
Object. Should we believe without reason 429
Should we believe contradictions? 430
An answer to twelve of the common cavils of infidels against
the Scripture. 432
THE
REASONS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.
THE FIRST PART.
OF NATURAL RELIGION OR GODLINESS.
Chap. I. Of the nearest truths, and, 1. Of human nature, or
the knowledge of ourselves; where note that the
question about the soul's immaterial substance is
referred to the Appendix, or Conclusion 457
II. Of man, as related to the things below him , , . . 460
III. Of men as mutually related to each other 461
IV. Of man, and other things, as produced by the
first cause , » , 465
V. What this cause is in itself; that it is God 472
VI. Of God, as related to his creatures, especially,
to man; and, 1. As his Owner 489
VII. Of man's relation to God, his Owner 493
VIII. 2. Of God's relation to man as his Ruler, where
it is proved that God ruleth man morally by laws
and judgment ....,,,,... 495
THE
UNREASONABLENESS
OF
INFIDELITY,
MANIFESTED IN
FOUR DISCOURSES.
I. Tlie Spirit's extrinsic witness to the Truth of Christianity, on Gal. iii. 1 — 3.
With a determination of this question, Whether the miraculous works of
Christ and his disciples do oblige those to believe who never saw
them ? Aff.
JI. The Spirit's internal witness to the Truth of Christianity, on 1 John v. 10.
HI. For prevention of the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost. A
demonstration, that the Spirit and Works of Christ were the finger of God :
or, the holy war between Christ and Satan, on Matt. xii. 22 — 33.
A Postscript against Mr. Lyford's Exceptions.
IV. The arrogancy of reason against Divine Revelations repressed: or, proucl
ignorance the cause of infidelity, and of men's quarrelling with the word
of God, on John iii. 9.
VOL. XX. B
TO THE
RIGHT HON. THE LORD BROGHTL,
Lurd Prtsidetit of the Council of State for the Government
of Scotland.
My Lord,
When you wore pleased to tell me your thoughts of the accept-
ableness of the attempt in the second part of my book called
*The Saint's Rest,' and of how great use it would be to have that
work yet more fully done ; 1 told you, I had some popular
sermons more by me on that subject, which, though they look
not like such a full performance^ might yet, as a supplement to
the aforesaid discourse, afford some help to the settling of
tempted souls in the faith. Upon some unexpected occasions
which fell out when 1 was with you, with which your Lordship
was well acquainted, I put the first of these papers then into the
press, which moved so slowly, that it hath not reached the last
till now. Such as they are, 1 here present them to you, with
the thankful acknowledgment of those great undeserved respects
and favours which I then received from vou. And as I first
present them to your hand, so do I wish the first and fullest
effects of them uj)on your heart : for though I doubt not but
you are established in the foundation of the faith, and resolved
in these great matters long ago, and therefore are none of those
for whom I principally publiivh this book ; yet may the strongest
believer on earth receive an increase of their faith, even in the
principles and essentials of the clu'istian verity. Oh ! what
raised, vigorous, and constant affections should we have to God
and the life to come; and what resolute and invincible indus-
try for the attainment of them, with a contempt of all these
terrestrial toys, if we were not so defective either in a sound
belief, or a serious consideration of these transcendant, incom-
parable, but invisible things I We should then apply ourselves
to the living God, and study his pleasure, and wholly fit ourselves
thereto, and hang upon him with greater obseivancy and expect-
ation, than any sensual, amI)itious parasites do study to humour
the priiu-es of the earth, or conform themselves to their uncer-
E 2
IV THR FTMSTLE DKDH ATORV.
tain minds. The life of the highest unsanctified monarch would
then appear to us as children's games, or dreams ; and as a
sordid, base, unprofitable drudgery, in comparison of the life of
the poorest saint ; who is daily taken up with attendance upon
God, and is, by faith, a courtier and family servant of the infinite
Sovereign of heaven and earth ; whose heart is employed in
loving him, his tongue in praising him, and his life in serving
him ; while he remaineth on earth hath his conversation in
heaven ; and walketh and converseth with God in the spirit,
while he walketh and converseth with men in the flesh ', having
surer interest in the love of God than the highest favourites in
their prince's love ; that hath access to him on every just occa-
sion 3 and hath his ear in every just request; that liveth here
upon his grace, and groundedly expecteth to be shortly in his
glory ; where they that followed Christ in the regeneration,
denied themselves, forsook all for him, and suffered with him,
shall reign with him, and behold the glory that is given him ;
and they that lived here in contemned obscurity, whose happi-
ness was not known to the unbelieving world, shall then shine as
the stars, and be as the angels of God. O were this blessedness
but well believed and considered, how could it be so neglected ;
so coldly desired, mentioned, and sought after, as commonly it
is 5 and so many thousands lose it, by such sottish laziness, and
ungrateful contempt ? Certainly no cold or dull affections, no
half or halting resolutions, no mean, reserved, slight endeavours,
beseem that man that calls himself a Christian : for to be a
Christian is to be soundly persuaded of all the fore-mentioned
felicity of the church and the necessary means by which it must
be obtained, through the purchase of our Redeemer. And it is
no middle things (nothing but highest affections, resolutions, and
attempts, with invincible patience, and unwearied diligence) that
beseem that man who professeth to seek so high a blessedness
as to live eternally with angels in the glorious presence of God.
Either it is true that there is such a state to be obtained by
believers, or it is not true. If it be true, and truly believed,
away, then, with all the pleasures of sin ! away with the flatter-
ing glory of the world ! away with these deceitful nominal
riches 1 Let these be their portion who believe no better ; we
must use inferior things, indeed, for God, if he put them in our
keeping : but we have higher matters to mind, and to enjoy.
No matter how dear it cost us, nor what we suffer, nor how
much we cross this murmuring flesh j we are sure we shall be no
THE EPISTLE DEDIfATORY. V
losers, nor repent the bargain when we come to li_eaven. What
palpable self-contradiction is it, for a man to live a carnal or
careless life, or to be but coldly, superficially, and reservedly
religious, who professeth to believe the resurrection of the
body, the life everlasting, with the rest of the articles of the
christian faith ! But if they take these things for fables, why
do they not speak out, and say so, but dissemblingly seem to be
Christians, when they are none ? As for such, I shall speak to
them in that which followeth, and through the whole book.
My Lord, I had not poured out all these words to you, but
on supposition that your name will entice hither the eyes of
some that need them more than you. And yet I will not so
injuriously flatter you as to say 1 imagine you need them not
at all. It is impossible that an imperfect soul in flesh, in the
midst of the honours and employments of the world, should
have no need to be remembered of the things invisible, or to be
quickened in the prosecution of that which he doth remember.
Wise men have been overreached by the subtle tempter,
to fall in love with vanity and vexation : the sensual object doth
powerfully, though unreasonably, beguile, because of the natural
eagerness of the flesh ; which is so greedy of the bait that it
will scarce forbear, even when we see the hook. He that
standeth over the graves of his ancestors, and looketh upon his
father's skull, and asketh, ' Where is now their worldly honours,
and what good have their pleasures and prosperity done them ?'
is yet prone to embrace the same deceits, and neglect the
certain, durable felicity. It is hard so long to restrain the
senses, while faith and reason have leave to speak. Those that
were no bal)es have lost their eyes in the dust of riches, and the
smoke of honours. A strong head may turn round on the pin-
nacle of a steeple. I had rather stand on the ground, and look
up at them with pity and admiration, than stand with them and
look down with fear : it hath made some men wheel sick but
to gaze upon their vain glory. You know, I doubt nor, better
than I, that these mountain tops are tempestuous habitations,
where men are still in the storms of envy and jealousies ; where
it is hard pleasing men ; and where there are the greatest hin-
derances to the pleasing of God ; and where few find that
pleasure which they expected to themselves. Like the philo-
sopher's storm at sea, Ubi ventus neque manere sinit, nee navl-
fjcire. A tottering state, and (juiekly -overturned. We need
not go to such as Belisarius for our proof; the end of all the
VI THK EPISTLK DEDICATORY.
living proveth it. If" envy and ingratitude let them alone, death
will not. The most shining glory will be quickly burnt to a
snuffj though no churlish blast should sooner extinguish it. It
hath cost many a man full dear to mount into the saddle, that
hath quicklv been unhorsed ; but he that rideth longest must
come down at last. When they have cast away their salvation
to attain their wills, some of them have proved like Servilius's
consules diales ; or like Vatinius, on whom Cicero broke the
jest, that ejus anno magnum ostentumfvit, quod eo consule nee
bruma, nee ver, nee astas, nee autwmms fvisset : if not like
Bishop Fisher, whose head was cut off when the cardinal's hat
should have been set on. Kings and parliaments, honour and
nobility, are things, we see, that cannot perpetuate themselves.
Not that all dignities are therefore to be refused ; but less de-
sired, mere feared, and more cautelously used. That they may
be received as Emilius did his consulship, Qid neyavit se illis
habere gratiam ; non enim ob id turn designatum imperatorem^
quod ipse desiderat imperiuni, sed quod ipsi hnperatorem. ' Not
because they want honour and rule, but because the people
want good rulers.' And thev must be held as Seneca did his
friends, who could say. Mild amicorum defunctoriim cogitatio,
dulcis ac blanda est ; habui enim illos fanquam amissurus, amisi
tanquam habeam. Self must be denied, and flesh must be re-
sisted, yea, subdued and mortified, by all that will be saved.
But to do this in the fulness of wealth, or height of honour,
where self-denial will be so dear, and where the flesh hath so
much to hold or lose, and therefore hath so nuich to plead, this
is the great difficulty which maketh the salvation of such so
rare. It is a hard, but most necessary lesson for great men, to
live to God, and not to themselves ; to devote themselves wholly
to the service of Christ, and to make it their daily study and
business to do good, and to make themselves friends of the
mammon of imrighteousness. Those few that learn this holy
wisdom, are doubly obliged to the love of God, and should be
doubly thankful. Animosius enim a mereatore quam a vectore
solvitur votum, &c. Sen. But because this grace is so exceeding-
rare, and the highest mountains are usually most unfruitful, and it
is so hard to get that way to heaven, we have little reason to be in
love with our temptations, nor to be too keenly set on that which
so much endangereth our everlasting welfare, and which hurteth
most where it is most beloved. Jf we lose it for the advantage of
our souls, let it go 3 we hnve the consent of reason that opiauda
JHE EPISTLE DEDICATORY. Vll
estjactura, quos lucro majore compensatur. If any step before us,
we have small cause to envy them ; nunquam erit feUx^ quern
torquehit felidor . — Hen. The fulfilling of aspiring desires, would
be but the cutting off the ambitious man's delight : for there
is more pleasure in the expectation of such things than in the
possession ; it being the nature of terrestrials to promise more
than they can perform, and to seem better at a distance than
when you draw too near. In the hope and prosecution of them
there is delight, such as accompanieth delusions and golden
dreams; but when a man hath all he would have, his stomach
is overset, and the ))leasure is gone ; which made the moralist
thus comfort men of the lower rank : Aye pothis yratiaspro /tis
qme accepisti; reliqua eapecta, et nonduin plenum te esse
ycuide. Inter volvptates est si/peresse qvod speres. What
pleasure is then in the sure grounded hopes of the saints ! But
I must stop.
My Lord, as I was unwilling to direct to you a mere com-
plimentary empty epistle, so am I encouraged to use this freedom
with you, because I am very confident you can discern a faithful
monitor, both from an accuser on the one side, and from a
flatterer on the other. That the God of peace may establish
you, sanctify von throughout, and keep you blameless and un-
defiled, is the hearty prayer of.
Your much obliged servant,
in the faith of Christ,
RICHARD BAXTER.
Kidilennin'^ter, Au'^uit 20, 16o."i.
AN
ADVERTISEMENT EXPLICATORY.
Especially about the necessity of God's execution of his threaten-
ings, or of Chris fs satisfaction : to prevent misunderstanding.
Lest any understand what I liave said a few pages hence, as
if I wholly denied common innate principles, observe, that it
is only actual connate knowledge that I deny, and in respect to
which I say that the soul is rasa tabula ; but I confess a natural
passive power for the knowing of them, and a greater disposition,
or aptitude in the intellect to understand them, than conclusions
drawn from them ; and so that an infant also may have a sanc-
tified intellect, by such aptitude and disposition. But I think
not that ever these would be acted, in an ordinary natural way,
without the help of some sense.
Also, that I may not be misunderstood in that great contro-
verted point, about the necessity of the execution of vindictive
justice in man's suffering, or Christ's satisfaction, I shall briefly
declare my thoughts about it, in these few propositions.
Prop. I. It is not a mere necessitas consequentia, ox \og\cs\
necessity of the verity of an enunciation that we inquire after ;
for it is on all hands confessed, that Christ's death was thus ne-
cessarv. 1 . Necessitate immutabilitatiSf ex suppositione decreti
divini. 2. Necessitate infallibilitatis, ex suppositione prasci-
entidn divince. .3. Necessitate hifaUibiUtatis et veracitatis
divincB, ex suppositione pnedictionis. Because God decreed it,
foreknew it, and foretold it.
2. We do not mean a simple necessity in existing, as God is
ens necessarium. For all creatures are confessed to be con-
tingent beings.
3. Nor yet do we mean an hypothetical necessity, existentia
qua res quundo est, necessario est. For this is but logical, and
is undoubted among us.
4. No man among us doth affirm that God doth necessarily
punish sinners by such a natural necessity as inanimates, or
brutes, act by, that do it quantum in se, &c. Ut ignis urit.
ADVKKTISEMENT. 1<
5. Nor yet do any affirm that it is by enforcement necessary
to God ; either violentice, for that is only in natural agents ; or
coactio?iis, which is on free agents, for none can force God
against his will.
6. Whereas some talk de necessitate detei^mlnationis among
men, as when the will is determined by God, and the practical
intellect, (habits and objects concurring,) and thereupon raise
disputes, whether answerably in God, his eternal wisdom and
communicative nature may not be said to determine his will, to
create the world in time, and do whatever is done, and so whe-
ther there were not necessitas determinatioms ? And also, whe-
ther there were not necessitas ad finem\ that is, whether it were
not best that God's glory should be attained, and thus attained,
and no other way would have been so well, and whether all this
be declared by the event? I suppose these be arrogant, pre-
sumptuous disputes, which I dare not offer to determine. Only
I say, that I suppose, as to man, they lay a false ground; see-
ing the intellect doth not properly determine the will, but only
necessarily concur as a propounder of the object, (which is but
a moral cause of the determination,) that so the will may deter-
mine itself. And of God's own determination of our wills, yea,
in gracious acts, a reverend divine, in a late writing, (Mr.
Capel, Part 4 of Tempt, p. 2>'^^ saith, " We do not determine
God's will, nor doth God immediately determine our wills, but
by infusing a life and soul, as it were, of grace. By an habit
of grace, deserved for us by Christ, God makes our wills deter-
mine themselves to follow him ; and this the Scripture calls, not
a forcing, but a drawing of us, not as we draw a man to the
gibbet, but as we draw a man to a wedding who hath the wed-
ding garment, or as we draw a sheep after us with a bush of
ivy, as we draw children after us with nuts and apples, by way
of persuasion, indeed, which is so forcible, that Scripture calls
it a kind of constraining."
7. But let us suppose, for I shall not contradict it, that the
common determination is right, that God created the world, not
necessarily, but freely ; not only as freedom is opposite to co-
action, and to any extrinsic, imposed necessity, which are
unquestionable, but also to an intrinsical necessity, so that his
wisdom, and communicative nature, or glory, did not necessi-
tate the creation of the world, but that he so willed to create
it, that consuhrat'is conmlerandiSy he might have nilled it, and
in this sen^e did freely create it. I say on this common ground
X ADA'ERTl SEMEN T.
supposed we shall proceed, though I fear such high inquiries
myself.
8. God having freely created the world, and made man as
he is, a reasonable creature, it followed, by a necessary result-
ancy from the nature of man, and compared with God, that
man was God's subject, and to be ruled by him, and God was
his sovereign Ruler. This necessity is the same as there is of
every relation, a pofiHione subject}, fuiulantenti, termini. It is
a contradiction for a rational creature to be made by God with
a capacity of, and inclination to, an immortal felicity in the
fruition of God ; and yet that this creature should not be God's
own, and his subject, and God be to him, by right of that crea-
tion, both Proprietary and sovereign Rector.
9. When God is once become the Rector of mankind, it is
necessary that he actually rule him (supposing that he continue
his being, nature, and bO that relation). To be a ruler, is to be
one to whom it belongeth to rule actuallv. It is necessary,
therefore, from God's natural perfection, that he do the work
of that relation which he hath himself assumed, and thereby
undertaken to do; both justice and veracity, wisdom and good-
ness, require it. If God should sav, ' I will be man's ruler,' but
will not rule him, it would imply some contradiction or unfaith-
fulness. And therefore to do so would be the same as to say so.
10. If God must necessarily rule, he must necessarily give
laws, and execute them ; for legislation and execution, whereto
judgment is usually necessary, are the parts of government : at
least let us first conclude the necessity of legislation ; for it is a
contradiction to rule the rational creature without a law.
1 I. As we know no necessity of creation, so know we no ne-
cessity of God's making positive laws; but that God did it so
freely that he might have done otherwise, or not done it, while
man was in innocency ; though some think that even then, su-
pernatural revelation and positive precepts were of necessity ad
fhiem.
12. The whole law of nature, which was such to innocent
man, did necessarily result from the nature of man, as related to
God and his fellow-subjects, and as placed in the midst of such
a world of objects ; and so is legible in rerum natura. It is a
contradiction for man to be man, so related to God and the
creatures, and not to be obliged to esteem and love God above
all, and to obey all his commands, to love one another, and
other duties of the law of nature.
ADVERTISEMENT. XI
13. There are some duties that are founded in the relation of
our very rational nature to the holy, perfect nature of God, as
to esteem him and believe him to be most powerful, wise, good,
&c. ; to reverence, love, and obey him, &c. ; and some duties
that are founded ifi the relation of our natures one to another,
and some from the inseparable, innocent principle of self-love.
All these have their necessary original with our natures, by re-
sultancy therefrom; and God cannot (that is, he will not, because
he is perfect) dispense with them : nor yet reverse them but by
destroying our natures, which stand so related, and are the foun-
dation thereof. But yet those are not absolutely necessary for the
future; because it is not absolutely necessary that God should
continue those natures in being. He may annihilate them, sup-
posing that he had not declared that he will not, and then these
natural duties cease upon the cessation of the subject ; but while
man is man, it is coutradictorv and impossible that such natural
good should not be good, and such natural evil as is contrary to
it be evil.
14. There are some duties of the law of nature founded in
natural, but mutable, accidents, relations, moods. These are
indispensable duties, while these relations or other accidents re-
main, which are the foundation of them ; but God can destroy
the obligations, by changing and destroying those relations and
accidents : so he did warrant the Israelites to take the Egyptians'
goods, by changing the proprietarv; and so he can dissolve most
of the obligations of the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth com-
mandments, as to this and that particular person, by a change
of the person or thing, but not dispense with it rebus sic stan-
tibus.
15. By what hath been said, the great question may be de-
termined, whether any thing be eternally good or evil ; or any
thing indispensal)ly good or evil ; or whether God wills things
because they are good, and nills them because they are evil, or
ihey are good and evil because (lod willeth and nilleth them ?
for it being from the relation of the human nature to the Crea-
tor and fellow-creatures, that natural duty doth result, it is im-
possible that it should quoad existentiam be a duty before the
creation. All duty is some one's duty ; but when there was no
subject it could be no one's duty: therefore no duty; hut quoad
essentiam in esse cognito, we may say, that this or that was good
or evil from eternity; which is no more but this, that if there
had been such creatures in being, from eternitv, this or that
xil ADVERTISEMENT.
would have been their duty, and so that it was a true proposi-
tion from eternity, (liad propositions been then framed,) that such
duty woukl be due from such creatures. But, in time, the bare
creation of man in such a world doth constitute these principal,
natural duties, without any further constituting will of God ; and
duties they will be, while man is man ; so that God could not
continue man in his nature and place in the world, and yet cause
these duties to cease : it being a contradiction. And so as to
all the approbatory, exhortatory, remunerative will of God, it
may truly be said that he wills these natural duties because they
are good, and not that they are good because he wills them.
As, also, that there is no further free act of his will necessary to
make them good, or duty, besides this making man and the na-
ture of creatures ; but as to God's creating will, which laid the
foundation of this duty, it may truly be said, that all such duties
are duties because he willeth them ; for he might have chosen
to have made man, or have made him not man, but somewhat
else. On the contrary, we may see how to judge of evil, and
how to understand those passages of the ancients, that God
nilleth evil because it is evil. As Athenagoras de Resmrecl,
Mort. For what God willeth not, he therefore wiileth not,
either because it is unjust or because it is unmeet.
16. Duty being once constituted, the dueness of punishment
to the sinner resulteth from the sin and law, and the nature and
relation of God and man, by unavoidable necessity. It cannot
be ne per dk'inam ]Jote7itiam, that there should be a sin which
makes not punishment naturally due to the sinner ; or a sin
which deserveth not punishment. Every law doth oblige aut
ad obedientiam, aut ad pmiam ; and this is so essential to a
law, that if duty only were expressed without any penalty, yet,
by the law of nature, penalty would be due to the offender. The
common light of nature manifested in correcting children and
servants, and punishing subjects, and in all government through
the world, doth put this out of doubt, besides the law of God.
17. It is not, therefore, to the breach of natural precepts only,
but to the breach of positive precepts also, that punishment is
naturally due. For though God do freely make positive laws,
yet punishment necessarily is due to the breach of them : no-
thing in morality is more clear to the light of nature, than that
all sin against God deserveth some punishment.
18. Law doth not, as such, or by its essential act, preceptive
or comminatory, determine that the duty shall eventually be
ADVFRTISF.MENT. XIU
performed, or the punishment on the disobedient eventually
executed. Nor doth it so oblige the law- giver to punish as that
he may in no case dispense with it ; but obligeth the offender to
suffer, if he executeth it, by constituting the dueness of the pe-
nalty.
19. Yet two ways do such laws speak de eventu^ as well as
de debito pceruB. First in that they are given as norma Judiciif
as well as qfficn : this is one of the known ends and uses of the
law. So that when God made his first laws for mankind, in the
promulgation of them he did as much as say to the world of
mankind, 'According to these laws shalt thou live; and according
to these laws will 1 judge you :' which comprehendeth in it two
assertions de eventu. 1. That God will so ordinarily execute
his own laws, that the people to whom they are given have great
cause to expect it. 2. That he will not at all miss of the ends
of them in respect of such execution ; and therefore, though he
have not parted with his supra legal power ; yet will he never re-
lax his laws, but upon valuable considerations in political res-
pects ; that is, on such terms as the ends of those laws (or of
the legislator in making them) may be as well, or better, at-
tained, as by the proper execution of them. So that some pre-
diction de eventu is implied in the very nature and end of the
law, in that it was made to be norma judicii. Secondly, and to
the law of grace there is also affixed a peremptory commination,
which doth not only constitute, as all laws, the debitum panm^
but also doth predict the certain execution, and foretel that there
shall never be any remedy ; and so the legislature is, in point of
veracity, as it were, obliged to execute ; that is, he hath revealed
that he will so do.
20. As Qod, having thus necessarily made the law of nature,
on supposition of nature itself, doth, by that law, also necessarily
determine of the dueness of punishment to every sinner, and that
this shall be the course of judgment, so this justice will give to
all their due, and will make a difference by rewards and punish-
ments between them that differ as righteous and unrighteous ;
and his wisdom cannot suffer the frustration of his legislation,
or the missing of the ends of government, nor those great evils
that would follow the non-execution of justice according to its
evident natural tendency.
21. If God, having necessarily given man a law agreeable to
his nature, should permit him, without punishment, to violate
that law, it would naturally produce, or necessarily tend tOj
XIV ADVEUTJSEMENT.
these sad effects. 1 . It would be an apparent occasion to draw
men to further sin, when they see tliat the law is not executed.
2. It would draw men to contemn the law as a mere shadow,
and a thing not to be feared or regarded. 3. It would draw
them to accuse the law-giver of levity, mutability, or over-
sight and imprudence, in making his laws, or insufficiency to
attain his ends. 4. It would draw men to think that God in
his law did dissemble, and, in some sort, lie ; for the purpose of
the threatening is to awe sinners, by telling them what they
must expect if they transgress, and how they shall be judged ;
therefore, if ordinarily there should no such evil befal them,
they are put into false expectations, and scared with a shadow
of deceiving words. And so it would be a great breach on
God's part in the frame of morality or policy, and plain impru-
dence, if not injustice in government, to cause such inconve-
niences, and lay such impediments in the subjects' way, to turn
them from obedience, and cross his own ends and the nature
of government.
22. Legislation, judgment, and execution, are proper parts
of government. He, therefore, that must necessarily govern,
must necessarily make laws, and cause thein to be executed.
23. It is commonly through their own imperfection that law-
givers are fain to dispense with their own laws, or may fitly do
it ; but God hath no imperfections.
24. If some cases may fall out (as in case of small or secret
sin, &:c.) that God might dispense with his laws without any of
the fore-mentioned inconveniencies, yet ordinarily he cannot do
it without changing the course of nature first. Nor in case of
the first great breach of his laws : so that we need not (to our
purpose) dispute whether God can pardon no sin without satis-
faction ; but whether he could in wisdom and justice pardon
Adam's sin, or the ordinary course of sin in the world, without
satisfaction.
2.5. It was not only the positive law, but also the law of nature,
which Adam did transgress by inconsiderateness, unbelief, ad-
hering to the creature, and apostasy from God : and so do all
the simiers in the world. \or is it possible to sin against a
particular, positive law, but we shall also sin against a natural
law, particular, or general, or both.
2G. From all this it seems clear to me, that after man's sin,
there was a necessity of his punishment, or of satisfaction instead
of it. And this necessity is a moral neces:5ity ml fiaem reyimi-
ADVKIITISKMENT. XV
nis : resulting from. 1. The nature of man, as the subject go-
verned. 2. The etids of government, viz., God's glory, and
man's obedience, and the common good. 3. The nature of the
law, which is the instrument of government, making punish-
ment due to sinners, and being the rule of judgment. 4. From
the nature of sin. And, 5. From the nature of that rectorship,
or governing office or work, which (lod assumed. And, 6. From
the most wise, holy, just nature of God, thus governing. So
that it is not from any of these alone, l)ut from them all con-
junctly, as related among themselves : and the necessity ap-
peareth in the contradictions which would follow on the contrary
doctrine. For if sin, and such sin, shall go unpunished, and
such laws be unexecuted, without a valuable consideration or
satisfaction, then God, as Rector, must miss the great ends of
government itself, (which enter its very definition,) and that
through his own defect; and so shall be an imprudent, or
unjust, or impotent governor.
27. The reason why Christ's satisfaction is a valuable consi-
deration for the relaxing of the threatening, as to the sinner
himself, is, because that it is at least as excellent a means for
the attainment of the said ends of government as the punish-
ment of the sinner would have been ; seeing in this there is as
full a demonstration of governing justice, wisdom, and power,
and of God's holy, sin-hating nature, and as full a vindication
of the law from contempt, and as full a warning to sinners that
they presume not, as if themselves had suffered ; and that
because Christ did not satisfy for their final impenitency, infide-
lity, or rebellion, or final, reigning, unmortified sin, and so took
them not from under government, nor made them lawless fi)r
the futiu-e. by his satisfaction or merits. And moreover, here
is a further demonstration of wisdom and inconceivable mercy,
and a preservation of sinners from perishing, to the everlasting
praise of God, their Redeemer.
28. This necessity of punishment was not absolute before the
creation, but only hy])othetical de fvtwo, on supposition of
creation: for God might have chosen (for aught we know, with-
out any ill conse(|uents) to have made no such creatures as men
or angels ; and if there had been no such world, there would
have been no need of ])U!iishment : or, he could have pre-
vented it, by such confirming grace as should have prevented
the sin.
29. I)\it thi'5 is not like their opinion thai make no nece'^sity
XVI ADVF.RTISF.MF.NT.
hereof, but only on supposition of God's decree that Christ
should satisfy. For if we overlook his decree, yet supposing
but these two things: I. The creation of man, and such a
man. 2. And his wilful sinning, there is then a necessity ex parte
reif by unavoidable resultancy from the aforesaid particulars, as
related together. Any man may see, that if God should have
made mankind perfect, and given him a perfect law, and have
told him, that if he broke it, he should not be punished, that
this would have been such imprudence and injustice, as
the holy, wise, and righteous God, as Rector of mankind, to such
determined ends, could not be guilty of; and God need not rule
us by delusory, vain fears.
30. It is said by some very learned and reverend men, that
God freely made the world, though he necessarily made it good;
he freely made positive laws, though he necessarily made them
wiselv and just; he freely annexeth threatenings to his laws,
though necessarily they are just threatenings; he freely sentenceth
or judgeth, though he necessarily judge justly ; he freely ex-
ecuteth his sentence by punishing, though he necessarily punish
justly. And the reasons given, are, 1. Because God executeth
his sentence as Dominvs. 2. Because his threatenings bind
him not to punish, but man to suffer.
To all this I answer briefly and distinctly : 1 . The great dis-
pute wherein the nature of liberty lieth, we here pretermit,
supposing that they who thus oppose it to necessity do not mean
any of that liberty which J)r. Twiss, Herebord, and others, have
maintained to be consistent with necessity; that is, with such a
necessitv as we have now in hand. 2. I contradict not the two
first assertions, that God freely made the world, and positive
laws. 3. I find not the contrary-minded affirmmg that he freely
made natural laws. 4. 1 deny all the following assertions, viz. :
that he doth freely, 1. Annex penalties to positives; 2. Or to
natural precepts; 3. Or that he freely judgeth ; 4. Or freely
executeth, unless in the sense as freedom is consistent with the
foresaid necessity. 5. When it is here confessed that God doth
necessarily make his laws, penalties, sentence, and execution
just, either the meaning is, that however he do them it is
therefore just because he doth them, or else that he necessarily
doth that which is ex natnra rei, first considerable, as good and
just before he doth it. If the first be the sense, then here is no
necessity of God's (U)iiig one thing rather than another ; as that
he should ratlier make u law to punish the disobedientj than the
ADVERTISEMENT. XVll
obedient ; or that he should damn the wicked rather than the
just ; but it is only necessitas respectus et denominationis ; a
necessity that whatever law he make, were it to punish men for
well-doing, should have the respect and denomination of a
righteous law, because he makes it. But this is false. Not as
some say, because right and wrong, good and bad, in this sense,
are eternal ; but because God first makes the differing natures
of good and bad, right and wrong, in the nature of things in
creation and disposition, before he makes any further particular
laws : much more before execution.
2. But if the latter be the assertor's sense, that God necessa-
rily doth that which is first considerable as good and just, ex
natura rei, then I grant it, and from that concession shall prove
what is denied; for what is it that is meant by justness in
threatening, judging, and punishing ? If it be only that he go
not above men's desert, and lay not too much on them, this is
but a negation of injustice; it is not justum, but 7ion injustum;
but if they mean any thing positive, 1. Then will it essentially
contain the punishment itself; 2. And by what reason they will
prove that God must threaten, judge, and punish justly, by the
same will I prove that he must threaten, judge, and punish.
Particularly, the most wise and righteous Governor of the
world must needs make wise and righteous laws, and pass a
wise and righteous sentence, and wisely and justly execute it.
Thus must we conclude de modo; but de reipsa the conclusion
is as necessary as de modo. God is, upon creation, by necessary
resultancy, the only Sovereign Ruler of the world : or if they
have a mind to make this a free act of his own after creation^
let them take their own way. He that is the Governor of the
world, must needs govern it; he that governeth man, must needs
give him laws : for that is the most essential act of government,
taking laws in the full sense, as signifying any sign of the rec:-
tor's will, making due or right to or from the subject. He that
makes laws for government must needs oblige the subject to
obedience, or to punishment in case of disobedience ; for these
are in the general natu;e of a law ; or, if the last be denied, he
that obligeth to duty must needs make punishment to be due to
the disobedient : nay, by a natural resultancy it is so due. He
hath put out the eye of the natural light, so far, that demeth
that sin deserveth punishment ea: natura rel, if no law l)ut that
of nature did threaten it. He that will restrain man from sin,
and so govern etTectually according to the nature of man, must
V'OL. XX. C
XVlll ADVERTISKMENT.
restrain him by fears, which is his natural passion to such ends;
and that by the apprehension of" danger, and that by the threaten-
ing of danger. He that must govern by threatening laws, must
judge and sentence by those laws ; for judgment is a part of
government, and the law is norma judicii ; so that to have go-
vernors and laws, and yet for judgment to be unnecessary to
mortal man, is a contradiction. He that must judge according
to his laws, must execute his judgment, except upon a valuable
consideration the ends of government mav be obtained bv relax-
ing them. If it be said that God could have attained those
ends without punishment or satisfaction, I answer: Not without
miracles, or destruction, or alteration of the very frame of nature
itself, which was not to be expected, for it would have been a
contradiction.
As to the two reasons of their opinion, I answer : To the first,
God, who is Rector, is also Dominus Absolutus ; but he execu-
teth no sentence as Dominus, but as Rector ; for it belongeth
not to him in that relation, punishment being a part of govern-
ing justice; and God's relations contradict not each other in
their works.
To the second I answer : Though God's threatenings, as such,
or directly, bind him not to punish us, yet, 1. His assumed re-
lation of Rectorship, 2. And his making that law to be norma
judicii, do declare that to be his proper work to execute them ;
and that he is, as it were, obliged, in point of wisdom and go-
verning justice, to do it, except as afore excepted.
Thus I have, in more words than 1 hoped to have despatched
it when I began, explained my meaning in several passages, and
given in my thoughts, somewhat rudely, on that great contro-
versy, which I did, 1. Because of the great weight of it, espe-
cially to the present business of confirming our Christianity ; 2.
Because, having there spoken somewhat sharply, and less expli-
citly on this point, I was afraid lest by one I should oft'end those
whom I intended not in that speech, and by the other become
more liahle to misunderstanding.
August 20th, 1655.
THE PREFACE.
I CANNOT but expect that so slender a discourse, on so weighty
a subject, should seem to some judicious men unnecessary ; and
that I owe them satisfaction concerning the reasons of this at-
tempt. I confess I have many a time privately wished, and
sometimes publicly expressed my desires, that some of the ablest
teachers in the church would purposely undertake this weighty
task of drawing out the chiefest arguments, for the defence of
the christian cause and truth of Scripture, which lie scattered
so wide in the writings of the ancients, and might afford much
light to shame the cause of unbelievers, 1 know Marsilius
Ficinus, Lodovicus Vives, the Lord du Plessis, especially Grotius,
and others have done much already this way; but yet, 1 think, a
fuller improvement may be made of their arguments, at least to
the advantasre of those that we have now to do with. The ac-
count that I can give of the publication of this discourse is only
this. 1 find myself most effectually excited to action, cateris
paribus, by the nearest objects ; but especially when they are
the greatest as well as the nearest. It hath long grieved me to
see how the stream of errors, that beareth down this present age,
doth plainly lead to thegiilph of infidelity. While I only heard
and read of infidels in the remote parts of the world, I was either
of their judgment that thought it best not once to name, much
less confute, so vile a sin, or at least 1 was not awakened to the
sight, because the enemy was no nearer ; but when I perceived
such a formidable approach, I thought it time to look about us.
It is many years since I observed the tendency of the prevailing-
giddiness, unriiliness, and levity of these times. When, through
the great ignorance, looseness, or ungodly violence of too many
ecclesiastics, the officers of Christ among us had once lost their
authority, and were grown into contempt, the people grew sus-
picious of almost all that they had taught them, and the proud,
self-conceited, wanton professors did see no further need of
guides, but contemned all that was truly government, and re-
joiced in it as a part of their christian libertv that they were from
c2
XX PREFACE.
under the yoke of Christ. They either chose to themselves a
heap of teachers, or thought themselves sufficient to be their own
guides, yea, and the teachers of others ; they take themselves
no longer for children, and, therefore, will go to school no
more ; they vvill be disciples of Christ, if either the name will
serve or he will come down from heaven and teach them imme-
diately himself; but if he must teach them by these his ministers
or ushers, he may go look him new disciples for them. Here-
upon this pride and passion leads them to open schism ; and
they gather into separated societies where they may freely vent
themselves with little contradiction, and where the spirit of
light and unity doth seldom trouble them in their self-pleasing
way. They now scorn that M'hich once they called ' The Church.*
It is none of the smallest points of their zeal, nor the least piece
of their pretended service to God, to make his messengers and
some of his ordinances odious unto others, and to deride them
in their conference, preaching, and prayers ; they now rejoice
that they have got out of the supposed darkness of this or that
error, which they suppose all the priests, as they call them scorn-
fully by an honourable name, to be involved in. The devil and
seducers having got them at this advantage, they are presently
told that it is yet many more things that the priests have de-
ceived them in, as well as these ; and so they fall upon one or-
dinance of God after another, till they have made them think
hardly of them all. The first of them that must be here op-
posed is infant baptism, that their posterity may be kept more
disengaged from Christ, and so great a part of his church may
be unchurched, and the breach may begin where the closure and
engagement did begin; but especially that the seducer may the
better succeed, by beginning at a point which may hold so inuch
disputation, and whose evidence the more dull, unexercised wits
cannot easily discern, because the Scripture hath not spoken of
it so expressly as they expect, or would prescribe. Here, also,
they grow to many singularities in the Lord's supper, and other
ordinances : singing of God's praises in David's psalms they fall
to deride ; first, as it is done in mixed assemblies, and, next, as
by any at all. Praying in families they account unnecessary,
for, as in infant baptism, the proof, though plain enough to the
humble and wise, yet is not palpable enough for them ; cate-
chizing thev deride as superstitious forms; and teaching children
is to make them hypocrites, because they cannot yet understand.
Here their foolish reason controlleth tlie confessed prece))ts of
PREFACE. XXI
the word. (Deut vl. and xi., Eph. vi. 4.) In doctrlnals they
presently fall into a subdivision : the one-half of them are pela-
gian anabaptists, the other are antinomian anabaptists ; but
these foxes that are thus sent out to fire the harvest, are so tailed
together for and by their joint opposition to the truth and the
university of the church, and by their consent to an universal
liberty or toleration, that their manifest differences disjoin not
their posteriors, nor hinder them much from setting all their
faces against the church of Christ. The pelagian party pro-
ceedeth next to be Socinians ; and they find by the light of their
benighted reason, that it was the deceit of the anti-christian
priests that persuaded men that Christ or the Holy Ghost is God ;
and that they may escape anti-christianity, they will deny Christ's
Godhead, and his satisfaction for sin ; and when they have come
so near the borders of infidelity as to make Christ and the Spirit
to be but creatures, a little thing leads them the other step,
even to take him with the Mahometans to be but a prophet ;
and lastly, with the Jews and infidels, to blaspheme him as a
deceiver. The other stream or subdivision that went the anti-
nomian way, do often turn libertines in opinion and conversation,
and thence turn familists, seekers, and, lately, ranters or quakers.
And here some of them, to save their reputation, do play with
the name of Christ and Scripture, and the life to come ; but
when they dare speak out you may know their minds, that they
take the Scripture to be fabulous delusions, and Christ to be an
impostor, and the resurrection of the dead to be an idle dream.
But where they dare not speak out, for fear of making themselves
odious and marring all their work, their course is sometime to
keep their opinions to themselves ; so that you may live many
years with them and never shall know what religion they are of.
This is the course especially of the more subtle and politic part
of them ; and I wonder not at it, for there is nothing in their
opinions that should induce them to be very zealous in promoting
them. But those of them that are of hotter or less reserved
minds do use to vent themselves more freely ; and that is com-
monly against all our ministry, churches, and ordinances; against
supernatural grace, and all truths of supernatural revelation, that
they can contradict without too great suspicions, especially
against the immortality of the soul, though that be a truth, that
nature may reveal. Also, they will be much quarrelling with the
Scripture, and labouring to prove it guilty of self-contradictions
and untruths; and vilifying it as a dead letter. By. this, those
XXn VRKKACK.
tliat hear tlieni not j)laitilv revile Christ, may smell them out ;
and thus the divided and suhdivided streams do all fall together
into the gulph of infidelity, and there they are one in the depth
of sin and misery that would not be one with the church of
Christ, in faith, sanctity, and everlasting felicity ; though, I con-
fess, some few I have known that have come to infidelity by a
shorter way.
Having the unhappy opportunity, many years ago, of dis-
coursing with some of these, and perceiving them to increase^
I preached the sermons on Gal. iii., which are here first printed.
Long after this, having again and again too frequent occasion
to confer with some of them, the nearness and hideousness of
this deplorable evil did very much force my thoughts that way,
especially when I found that I fell into whole companies of
them, besetting me at once, and with great scorn and cunning
subtlety endeavoured to bring my special friends to a contempt
of the Scripture and the life to come ; and also when I consi-
dered how many of them were once my intimate friends, whom
I cannot yet choose but love with compassion, when I remem-
ber our former converse and familiarity : and some of them
were ancient professors, who have done and suffered much in a
better cause ; and whose uprightness we were all as confident of
as most men's living on earth. All this did make the case more
grievous to me ; yet I m.ust needs say that the most that I have
known to fall thus far were such as were formerly so proud, or
sensual, or giddy professors, that they seemed then but to stay
for a shaking temptation to lay them in the dirt; and those of
better qualifications, of whose sincerity we were so confident,
were very few. It yet troubled me more that those of them,
whose welfare I most heartily desired, would never be drawn to
open their minds to me, so that I was out of all capacity of
doing them anv good, though sometime to others they would
speak more freelv. And when I have stirred sometime further
abroad, 1 have perceived that some persons of considerable qua-
lity and learning, having much conversed with men of that way,
and read such books as ' Hobbs' Leviathan,' have been sadly
infected with this mortal pestilence: and the horrid language
that some of them utter cannot but grieve any one that heareth
of it, who hath the least sense of God's honour, or the worth of
souls. Sometimes they make a jest at Christ ; sometimes at
Scripture ; sometimes at the soul of man ; sometimes at spirits;
challenging the devil to come and appear to them, and professing
PREFACE. XXm
how far they would travel to see him, as not believing that in-
deed he is ; sometimes scorning at the talk of hell, and pre-
suming to seduce poor, carnal people that are too ready to believe
such things, telling them that it were injustice in God to punish
a short sin with an everlasting punishment ; and that God is
good, and therefore there cannot be any devils or hell, because
evil caimot come from good : sometimes they say that it is not
they, but sin that dwelleth in them ; and therefore sin shall be
damned and not they : and most of them give up themselves to
sensuality, which is no wonder ; for he that thinks there is no
greater happiness hereafter to be expected, is like enough to
take his fill of sensual pleasure while he mav have it; and, as I
have said once before, he that thinks he shall die like a dog, is
like enough to live like a dog.
Being awakened by these sad experiences and considerations
to a deeper compassion of these miserable men, but especially to
a deeper sense of the danger of weak unsettled professors, whom
they labour to seduce, another providence also instigating
thereto, I put those sermons on Gal. iii. to the press ; and remem-
bering that the end of a larger discourse on 1 John v. 10 — 12,
was somewhat to the same purpose, I added it thereto; and
next added the two following discourses, which were not preach-
ed, as supposing them conducible to the same end : and though
I am truly sensible that it is so hastv, superficial, and imperfect a
work, as is very disagreeable to the greatness of the matter;
yet, 1. Because of the aforesaid irritations; 2. And because
that in so sad a combustion, every one should cast in the water
that he hath next at hand to quench the flames ; 3. And be-
cause I saw many others so backward to it, not only with-
drawing their help, but some of them opposing all such endea-
vours ; 4. And because I had begun on the same subject before,
in the second part of the ' Saint's Rest,' and intend this but for
a supplement to that, I thought it therefore my duty to do this
little, rather than nothing.
Having given this account of my endeavours, I shall add a
few words to the persons, for whose sake 1 publish this discourse :
and that is principally to the raw, unsettled Christians that are
tempted by Satan or his instruments to infidelity; and also, to
those apostates that are not unrecoverable, and have not sinned
unto death, for of the other I have no hope. To these, my
request is, that they would impartially read and consider what I
have here said, and that in the reading they would so far abate
XXIV PREFACE.
their confidence of their opposite conceits, and so far suspect
their own understandings, that the truth may not come to them
upon too much disadvantage, nor find the door to be shut
against it by pride and prejudice, but at least may have equal
dealing at their hands. When men, that have no great reason
to be self-confident, by any excellency of learning and height
of understanding more than others, will still suspect the mat-
ter, rather than their own capacity, whenever they find not that
clearness or convincing evidence which they expect, what
likelihood is there that these men should receive information ?
Alas ! it is but few of the multitudes of Christians that have a
clear knowledge of the true grounds of the christian belief. And
then, when they hear the contradiction of seducers and are put
to give a reason of their hopes, they are presently at a loss ; and
when they find themselves nonplussed, they have not the reason
or humility to lay the blame on themselves, where it is due, and
to lament their own negligence and unprofitableness, that by so
much means have attained to no better understanding; but
they presently suspect the truth of God, as if it were not pos-
sible that there should be light and they not see it; or as if there
could be no answer given to the cavils of the adversary, because
they themselves are unable to answer them ; and as if others
could not untie the difficulties, or reconcile the seeming contra-
dictions of the word, because they cannot do It. And when
once these men are possessed with a suspicion of the Scriptures,
almost every leaf will seem to them to afford some matter to
increase their suspicions, and every difficulty will seem an un-
truth ; and a thousand passages will be such difficulties to
them, which are plain to men who are exercised in the word.
What student Is there in law, or physic, or any science, that is
not stalled with multitudes of difficulties at the beginning, which
seem to him, in that his Ignorance, to be his author's self-contra-
diction, when competent study doth show him that it was his own
mistake. There is more necessary in the hearer to the receiving of
truth, than in the speaker to the delivering of it : as Phocion salth,
H AiKaia ireiOu} s t^s t« \eyovl6s e'r* Swdfj-fus, fiaWotf rj rrjirS aKsovl^ SiadfiTeus.
'.Just persuasion proceedeth not so much from the power of the
speaker, as from the disposition of the hearer.' (Epistle 198,
p. 29.5.) Many old professors among us, are so much wanting
in all that knowledge of the Scripture language and phrase and
Jewish customs, and many other things that are necessary to
the full understanding of Scripture, that It cannot be expected
PREFACE. XXV
that they should so far be acquainted with the the meaning of
every passage as to be able to confute the cavils of the adver-
saries. Yea, teachers themselves are imperfect herein, and
that after all their care and study. What a weakness is it, then,
for men that are utterly ignorant of the sacred languages and
most other pre-requisite helps, to think themselves capable of a
full understanding of every difficulty in the word of God, merely
because they have been long professors, and have often heard and
read it.
But perhaps they will object : ' If we are so unable to under-
stand them, why then do you propound your reasons to us to be
understood ?' I answer : 'We must distinguish between the un-
derstanding of the plain, fundamental truths, and the under-
standing of all the difficulties ; and between a natural and
moral disability to understand ; and between the nearest power
and a remote. And so, 1. Those may be able to understand
the substance of Chistianity and the reasons for its verity, that
be not yet able to understand every difficult passage in the word,
nor to reconcile all the pretended contradictions. 2. If you can-
not understand this substance and truth of christian religion, it
is not through a mere physical but a moral disability, which
much consisteth in the viciousness of your will. . If you have
proud, self-conceited, malicious, passionate, impatient hearts
that will not set the understanding a-work in a diligent, im-
partial consideration of the truth ; what wonder, if you do not
know it. 3. You are in a remote capacity to come to the
knowledge of all those difficulties that now so puzzle you,
though you are not in the nearest capacity. As a scholar that
is but reading English is capable of understanding Greek and
Hebrew, when he hath used sufficient means and waited therein
a sufficient time, but he is not capable of understanding them
at present ; so you are capable of fuller satisfaction in Scripture
difficulties, if you would have waited onGod in the state of willing,
humble, and diligent learners, and stayed the time. But if you
will needs be persuaded that you are capable of understanding
all the first day, while your understandings are unfurnished with
those preparatory truths, that must necessarily dispose you to the
reception of the rest, what wonder if you perish in your pride
and folly ! How should you come to the top of the stairs or
ladder but by the lower steps.
Object. Sure, vou distrust your reasons, which makes you
discourage us from trying them and judging of thcni.
XXVI PRKFACK.
Answ. 1. Not at all : I only distrust the present capacity of
your raw, unfurnished, or unsanctified understanding. Receive
my reasons as they are, and I doubt not of their success. 2. Nor
do I at all discourage y"u from the exactest trial, only I would
have you try according to your own capacity. Let the tho-
roughly learned, well-studied, sanctified man both thoroughly
try and freely judge ; but surely the ignorant should try as
men that know their ignorance ; and the unlearned and unstu-
died should search as learners. There is a great deal of differ-
ence between searching as a learner, and disputing as a caviller,
or boldly determining as a competent judge.
Object. We were your disciples long enough, and yet are
unable to see any sound reason for your belief.
Answ. It is not being at school, but diligent learning that
bringeth knowledge. If you have been never so long professors
and hearers, and were negligent and unprofitable, doth it follow
that all is false that vou have not learned, or do not understand ?
To the shame of your own faces may you speak itj if you have
been so long professors, and never learned the true grounds and
reasons of your profession, nor so much of the truth of christian
religion, as might have kept you from apostasy. You will one
day find that this was along of yourselves.
Object. Do not you almost all confess yourselves that there is
no proof or sound reason can be given for the christian religion
and the truth of Scriptures ? The papists say (as Knot against
Chillingworth) that it cannot be proved, unless it be first grant-
ed, that there is an infallible living judge, whose infallibility may
be proved before and without Scripture. The protestants prove
that there is no such judge, and they say, that popery tendeth
to infidelity; nay, do not your own divines expressly say, that it is
not to be proved that Scripture is God's word, but to be believed ;
and that it is Socinianism, or smells of it, to go about by reason to
prove it ; that it is principlaia indemuiistrabile, PariTeus in Rom,
Proleg. c. 2. p. 27.; and that it is preposterous and impious to ask,
whence know vou Scripture to be God's word ; and a question
not to be heard but exploded. Have you not been publicly
told yourself, that it is the primo creditum, to be believed, and not
to be known ; and that it is a princij^le not to be proved by any
dispute, nor to be questioned, and that there is no disputing
witli him that denieth it. So that you confess yourselves unable
to dispute with us or to prove it.
Answ. Though I am sorry that any have been occasions of liar-
PREFAf'li. XXVlt
deningyou by affording you the matter of this objection, yet see-
ing you have got it by the end, as I have oft heard to my grief
from some of your most learned friends, I shall show you the vanity
of it : 1 . The weaknesses of men are not the weakness of our re-
ligion, nor any proof of it. What if we be imperfect in the know-
ledge of our own religion, yet may we infallibly know that it is
true indeed. No men in the world are generally so ignorant and
imperfect in their own profession of any science or art, as divines
(yea, the best divines) are in theirs. And what of that ? Is
divinity, therefore, the less certain or excellent? No; the
very reason is because there is no science so sublime, mysterious,
and transcendent as this is ; and, therefore, the science is the
most excellent, and the professors and teachers of it are most
highly honored by that excellency of the doctrine, though they
be so defective in it. He that studieth things visible before his
eyes, may see and therefore know, and yet in these things we
are everywhere at a loss ; but who can expect that he that
studies the nature and acts of the infinite God, and the incom-
prehensible, invisible things of the life to come, should be perfect
in his knowledge of them. An imperfect knowledge of these
highest things is more excellent than the fullest knowledge of
things below : no wonder, therefore, if divines be weak and
oft mistaken ; and yet this is no disparagement to the truth.
2. It is not all our divines, nor most, nor I hope many, neither,
that say as you here object. Why, therefore, should all (vea, and
the christian cause) be quarrelled with for the mistakes of
some few ?
3. And it is well known that it is in their disputations against
some adversary that they are angry with, that most of these few
do turn that way ; and it is too common to run into an extreme
in the heat of contention. Are any of the ancients of that
mind, who write so voluminously for the christian cause, as
many of them have done ? Read ' Austin de Civitate Dei '
'Eusebius's Praeparatio,' and ' Demonstratio Evangelica,^ yea,
almost any one of the fathers, and then judge. Thev that had
to do with heathens, were not tempted to this opinion, as they
are that have to do with papists and Socinians. And read
almost any common-place book, or body of divinity written by
the reformed divines, and see whether they do not largelv prove
by sound reasons, the Scripture is the word of God ? Even
Paraeus himself, whom you object (in 'Ursine's Catechism' p. (J,)
hath thirteen arguments to prove the truth of our religion,
XXVlll PREFACE.
before he comes to the witness of the Holy Ghost, as the 14th.
Polanus is large and excellent in it, and few pass it by. Yea,
our very catechisms contain it, as Mr. Ball's, that hath done it
very well. So that you may see it is but very few, and those
for the most part perverted in the heat of contentious studies,
that think there is no sound reason to be given for the christian
religion, or the truth of Scripture, or that we ought not to
prove it, or that it is an indemonstrable principle, or that the
divinity of it is the pr'imo creditum.
4. And as for those that say, ' it is not to be questioned but
believed', and do dissuade men from having disputes against it,
or hearkening to temptations to doubting, I think they speak well,
if you will understand them well. For 1. Thou must observe
whom they speak this to : not to heathens that never had the
light made known to them ; but to Christians that have
already believed. 2. And you must observe what it is that they
say ; not that Scripture is unreasonable, or that we cannot give
sound reasons to a heathen to prove our religion, and the
Scripture to be divine, nor that we ought not so to do, for their
conversion ; nor yet that young Christians should not be taught
such arguments for the strengthening of their faith, and defend-
ing it against such as you : or that they should not study them to
that end ; but that they should not question, that is, with
doubt, or suspicion of the truth, which they have believed,
whether it be truth, or not. For when God hath given sufficient
evidence of his truth, we may study for a clearer sight of that
evidence as learners, but we ought not to doubt of the evidence,
or to study as neutral or jealous unbelievers ; but to abhor
every temptation that would draw us to unbelief. We must not
be like Balaam, that when God had told him his mind, would
take no answer, but go on the same errand to him, after he had
sufficient reason to be resolved. And I think it had been better
with you, if you had met such temptations yourselves with
abhorrence ; and if you must try them further, if you had done
it as learners, by your teachers' help, and not have thought your
unfurnished understandings to have been competent judges in
such a case without the assistance which God had provided
for you.
5. Moreover, the learned, judicious divines that speak of our
disability to prove to another that the Scripture is the word of
God, do use to give you these two expository restrictions, which
also are to be taken or implied by many that express them not:
PREFACE. XXIX
1 . They speak not of a defect in our evidence or in the sound-
ness of our reasons given, as if we could not give you such
reasons as you are bound to be convinced by, but they speak of
the defect of your reason for the reception of our reasons ; and
say, that through your darkness and pravity^ no reason, how
sound soever, will satisfy you without supernatural grace. 2. They
deny not that you may come to a common belief by the persua-
sion of these reasons and the common help of the Spirit ; but
only that you can have the special saving faith of the saints,
without the Spirit's special grace. An historical belief, which is
true in its kind, they confess you may come to by rational
persuasions, without special grace : but not that deep and firm
belief, which shall carry over the will effectually to God in
Christ, and captivate the whole man into the obedience of his
will.
6. And as for the papists, as it is their interest and pre-en-
gagement and contentious study, that causeth this and other
their errors ; so in this they are not of one mind among them-
selves, and therefore, their error is no disparagement to the
cause of Christ.
7. No more is the error of these on the other side, who,
through darkness, passion, or inconsiderateness, are carried to
takethe part of infidels against Christianity ; so far as to say, that
we have no reason for our religion, or that it is not to be proved
by any dispute, or that it is to be believed and not to be known
or proved that Scripture is God's word, or that our religion is
true. I say of them in this, as of you : we may have proof
and full proof, though neither they nor you can see it. None
of them all is able to confute the proofs that are brought by
Austin, Eusebius, or the rest of the fathers for the christian
faith ; nor to answer the apologies of Justin Martyr, Athenag-
oras, Clemens Alexandrinus, Tcrtullian, Origen, Lactantius,
Arnobius, Minutius Foelix, Athanasius, Cyril Alexand., with
many more on this subject. None of these quarrelsome men
can confute the arguments that our ordinary common-place
books and bodies of divinity, or catechisms written by reformed
divines, do bring to prove the Scripture to be the word of God.
Nor the treatises of Ficinus, Lod. Vives, Mornay, Grotius, Jack-
son, &c. that are written to that end. If either you or any
peevish, factious men that will so far befriend you, will undertake
such a task, I doubt not but they shall find enough to vindicate
the christian cause and doctrine, and to manifest their error»
XXX PREFACE.
For my own part, I am willing to give to contenders the last
words in the most evident points, which are not of necessity to
salvation. J have seen so nuich the fVuit of disputations, and
what an intolerable provocation it is to some men to be contra-
dicted, and how strongly it tcmpteth them to passion, untruth,
and palpable injustice, and the disadvantage of the clearest
reasons, when prejudice is to encounter them, that I shall be as
little in contradiction of such impatient souls as 1 can ; and if
they will maintain that homo is not aninial rationale, if they
enforce it not against spirituals, I shall give them the day.
But yet while God gives me life, and abilitv, and opportunity, 1
undertake to make good against them or you, that there is
sound proof to be given of the two principles of our faith, viz. :
that God is true, and that Scripture is his word ; and that these
are first, in true order of nature, to be known, before they are to
be believed^'^e d'wina, though a human faith is usually prepara-
tory, and that we are not unfurnished of solid arguments to
deal with a heathen or infidel, or to establish a tempted Christian
in the faith ; and that he that will tell an infidel, or tempted
Christian, or a papist, or any adversary of our churches, that we
have no sound reason to be Christians rather than infidels, and
that we have no solid proof that Scripture is God's word, shall
deal liker a b^rayer than a preacher of the word of the Gospel,
and is imfit to preach to the unbelieving world. And if any of
you that are infidels are encouraged by their conceits, I tell
you, we shall easily manifest the vanity of such conceits, whether
they are from you or them.
Object. But it is not only these few, but the most of you are
disagreed among yourselves, on what grounds or reasons you
take the Scriptures to be the word of God. Though most of you
say, in general, that you have sufficient reasons for it ; yet, when
you come to manifest them, how many minds are you of? That
which to one seems an irrefragable reason, another doth con-
temn ; so that all of them are slighted by one party or other.
The papists' reason is from the authority of their infallible
church. The protestants, some of them say that Scripture is as
the sun that is seen by its own light ; and so our belief of it is
resolved into itself. Others fetch their reasons from the at-
testation of miracles ; others resolve all into the private testi-
iiionv or revelation of the Spirit. You know more than one
have told you lately that we cannot believe this by a divine
faith, but by the testimony of God : nor must we fetch this tes-
PREFACE. XXXI
timony out of the Scriptures ; for tins were to believe the Scrip-
tures before we believe them : therefore the ground is the wit-
ness of Cod to our spirits. The witness of God to their spirits,
they say, is the first ground on which their faith is built, and this
is by a secret causing us to believe, and so some truth is believed
without reason.
Answ.^l. I have before given you my answer, as to the pa-
pists, and those few of our own that run into such extremes.
All arguments be not weak, which some men dare deny. Is not
the highway right except every man hit it? A drunken man
may go beside it, and a wise man that is not used to it may
miss it, or by credulity may be turned by others out of his way ;
and yet the way may be right and plain too for all that. Will
you think nothing certain in philosophy, because philosophers
are of so many minds ; or will you renounce all physicians be-
cause they ordinarily disagree ; or, as one saith, if a Londoner
have a journey into the country, which his life lieth on, will he
not go his journey because the clocks disagree ; or will he not
set on till all the clocks in London strike at once, or will never
give any credit to a clock till then ?
2. Our divines disagree not so much as you pretend. Their
ordinary judgment is this, which we shall easily make good
against your opposition, that Scripture hath not sensible evi-
dence, or the things believed are not evident; but yet there is
sufficient evidence of the verity of them, in that it is evidently
proveable, that God is the Author of that word, and that God
cannot lie : that our evidence objective of the divinity of Scrip-
tures is partly the internal light of their own perfections,
partly in providential attestations, especially miracles, and partly
in the effects : that the Holy Ghost, by special inspiration,
was the Author of these Scriptures, and by extraordinary en-
dowments was the Author of those miracles which were wrought
for its confirmation, and is also the Author of the faith of the
believer, and having wrought that faith and the rest of God's
image, the cff"ect is a further argument to confirm the faith that
was wrought before : but yet they say not that the Holy Ghost
doth cause men to believe without any evidence ; which were to
see without light, or to know or believe that which is no object
of assent. There is evidence of truth in Scripture, and there
are sound reasons for the christian faith, before the Holy Ghost
persuades men to believe them. The Holy Ghost is not sent to
cure the Scripture of obscurity or any defect, but to cure men's
XXXll PREFACE.
eyes of blindness that cannot see that which is visible to seeing
men. The Spirit is not given to make our religion reasonable,
but to make sinners reasonable, in habit and act, for the be-
lieving it. The Spirit, therefore, is not first any objective cause
of our belief, unless you speak of the Spirit in the apostles or
others, and not in men's selves, but it is the efficient cause ; nor
doth he cause us to believe by enthusiasm, or without reason,
but he works on man as man, and causeth him to believe no-
thing but what is credible ; and his causing us to believe is by
showing us the credibility of the thing, or the evidence of the
truth to be believed, and elevating the soul to the belief thereof.
And for those that contradict this, it may suffice me now to
tell you that their singular opinion is no disparagement to the
Scripture, or the christian cause. If they will either make the
Spirit to cause an act without its object, that is, faith without
apparent reasonable credibility in the thing believed, or if they
will make the first work of faith to be enthusiastical, and intro-
duce a constancy of new revelations ; if they will assign such a
work to the Holy Ghost of their own heads, beyond the work
which Scripture assigneth, which was so to inspire the penmen
of Scripture, that it may be a sufficient revelation, and then to
illuminate men's understandings by a cure of their depravity,
that so they may believe, and effectually to excite the heart
thereto, if they will accuse the Scripture of being an insufficient
revelation, or if they will accuse the christian verity of unrea-
sonableness, or being a doctrine that hath no proof j if they will
profess that we have no rational means to confute or convince
an infidel, nor to confirm a tempted professor of Christianity;
if they will tell all infidels that we can give them no such sound
reasons for our faith, as should bind them to believe, by making
it their duty, and condemn them if they believe not ; but will
justify all such infidels from being guilty on that accv^unt; if
they will say that natural verities are not presupposed to those
of supernatural revelations, and may not afford some proof of
our principles of faith ; if they will unavoidably cast themselves
into the circle which the papists, falsely, charge upon protest-
ants in general, but is the case but of these few, to wit, to prove
by the Spirit that Scripture is God's word, and to prove by
Scripture that this is God's Spirit, circularly ; or if they will
teach men to be enthusiasts, and to plead new revelations and
witnesses of the Spirit, of which they can give no proof that
they are of God ; if they will tell n^en of a Spirit, which is not
PREFACE. XXXlll
to be tried by the word whether it be of God or not, seeing its
testimony must be believed before we believe the word ; if they
will contradict themselves, and make two first credibles, that is,
Scripture to be God's word, and that it is God's Spirit that wit-
nessethit; if they will deny that honour to the Scripture to be
'propter se credibile, and yet give the same honour to the testi-
mony which they say they have from the Spirit ; if they will
cross the experience of all those Christians that know of no in-
spiration or testimony of the Spirit which caused them to see a
truth without any persuading objective evidence, but caused
them to believe, because they believe ; seeing no more reason, at
the same time, why they should believe, than why they should
not believe ; finally, if indeed they see no reason why they are
or should be Christians themselves, nor can give to him that ask-
eth them a reason of their hope; I say, if all this be so with
them, it is not so with me ; it is not so with other reformed
divines ; it was not so with the ancient fathers of the church that
confuted the infidels ; nor was it so with the apostles who made
full proof of their doctrine to the world, and set to that seal
that is not yet void or taken away. You may see these men suf-
ficiently confuted by our divines, especially by Rob. Baronius
cow^ra Turnebull, and Thes. Salmuriens. de S. Script, et Testim.
Spir. For their quarrels with us, we leave them till we shall
meet them in the presence of that God whose light will effect-
ually dispel all our darkness and reconcile our differences, and
mollify our angry, self-conceited minds, and where it shall be
known which of us was in the wrong.
But as to all the friends of infidelity, as we have showed you
already such reasons of our belief as will convince you, or con-
demn you, so are we ready yet to produce more. We undertake
not to cure your prejudice, or blindness, or sensual opposition to
the word of God, or proud arrogancy that causeth you to cen-
sure the word which you should learn, and therefore we under-
take not to cause you to believe. And for those of you that have
done despite to the Spirit of grace, we have little hope that ever
you should be true believers ; but yet we undertake to produce
such reasons for our religion as should wholly prevail with a rea-
sonable man ; and I dare say there are such, even in this imper-
fect discourse, which here I offer you ; but much more by the
more judicious, and upon more deliberation, may be said.
Object. You niiigiiify your own reasons, but you know otiier
men of your own religion do vilify them, and maintain them to
VOL. XX, D
XXxiv PREFACE.
be insufficient. You know who saith of you and your reasons,
' Tliere are some who lav much, if not too much, upon univer-
sal tradition;' a thing hardly known, for certain, by any, but
almost impossible to be known to the many : and yet you expect
that we should be moved by that which we cannot know.
Answ. 1 magnify the word of God, and its certainty, and the
soundness of those reasons which God affordeth us to prove that
certainty, but not my own reasonings in the managing of them.
That writer doth not there expressly invalidate any argument
that I use. He saith, ' Perhaps I give too much to that tradi-
tion ;' but tells not you or me wherein. I have told you how
much I give to it, as plainly as I can speak, in the preface be-
fore the three last editions of the second part of the ' Saint's
Rest.' We use not the word ' universal,' for that which hath
the consent of all men in the world, no more than I mean all
the world by the universal church. But that which is opposed
to the private tradition of the Romanists, and hath a certain
moral universality, and is built, as to the certainty, upon com-
mon, rational, and natural grounds, and not on the Romish pre-
tended authority, or infallibility. If none can know a history or
tradition of this nature, then can no Englishman know whether
the laws of this land, which he saw not made, l)e indeed such
laws, or mere forgeries : and so his estate and life must depend
upon tliat which, for ought he knoweth, hath nothing to do with
him. In vain, then, do we cite our disputations with the papists,
the writings of Austin, Aquinas, Bellarinine, or the Council of
Trent, Constance, Basil, &:c. For how know we that any of
these be their writings, or that ever there were such a thing as
the Council of Trent, or ever such men as Austin, Aquinas, or
Bellarmine, in the world. If the papists quarrel with Luther,
Melancthon, and the Augustin Confession, we will not tell them
it is uncertain whether ever there were such a man as Luther or
Melancthon, or such a thing as that confession. No ; we are
certain, I say certain, of these things. Unlearned men may,
ordinarily, be certain of them. We have yet fuller and clearer
tradition to ascertain us that this Scripture was delivered down
from the apostles, as I have showed elsewhere.
I would n(jt be he that should so much wrong the christian
cause, and strengthen the l.ands of infidels, as to deny or ques-
tion the certainty of this infallible tradition, by which the
Scripture hath been brought down to our hands, for more than
I will now speak of. When I have heaid somebody tell me bet-
PREFACE. XXXV
ter than I have yet been told, how we shall know which books
of Scripture are canonical without this tradition, I should the
less set by it. Have we a certainty of the canonical books, or
have we none ? If we have none, then who can say of one par-
ticular book, 'This is God's word, or this is true ?' And if we
know not any one book to be canonical, then it is almost all one
to us, as if we knew not that there is any canonical at all. Nor
can we comfort ourselves, or confute an adversary effectually
from the Scripture. If we do know certainly some books to be
canonical, it is either by the certainty of tradition, joined with
the characters of excellency in that book, or by those characters
alone, or some other way. If, by the bare inspection of the
books, and the witness of the Spirit, tlien 1 will appeal to all
that have the Spirit, whether they could have known by the
Spirit, without such tradition, that the prophecy of Jonas,
Nahum, Haggai, &c., were any more canonical than Baruch ?
or Eccle:?iastes than the wisdom of Solomon ? We are certain
enough which is Homer's Iliad, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Virgil's
yEneid, Seneca's Epistles, Cicero's and Demosthenes' Orations,
to this day ; much more Cleonard's, Cambden's, or Lilly's
Grammar, which our schools preserve. And v/hy may we nut
be as certain of those sacred writings, of which the church hath
been always so careful, and had preachers to publish them, and
weekly assemblies to hear tliem, through the christian world ?
If we may be sure that we have Mahomet's Alcoran by tradition,
why may we not be sure by it that we have true writings of the
apostles, and the Gospel of Christ ? But I have said enough of
these matters in the following discourse.
I shall only conclude with these two requests to two sorts of
people, to whom I now speak.
I. To those that are but haunted with temptations to infidel-
ity, but not yet quite overcome. In the name of God, make
not light of such hideous injections : meet them not but with
dread and detestation : wrong not the grace of God and all the
discoveries that he hath made to you of his truth, so much
as to entertain Satan into a free dispute against it, upon e([ual
terms ; and be sure that you be not arrogantly confident of the
competency of your understandings to deal with those difficulties
which are the ground of the temptations ; but make out for
help to some able, experienced divine. You may perceive by the
ujalice against God, by the importunity and tendency of the
temptation, that it is certainly of the devil, and to be regarded
D 2
XXXVl PREFACE.
accordingly. Your studying to increase your apprehensions of
the evidence of christian truth, and to be stablished in the faith,
and able to defend it, is not your sin ; but all the suspicions
and doubts of the truth of Scripture, whicli in those studies you
are guilty of, are your sin. To be tempted is common to the
good and bad ; to be imperfect in believing was the case of the
disciples, who said, ' Lord, increase our faith ;' but to be over-
come by the tempter, would be your everlasting undoing. Play
not, then, with such motions and cogitations, as may be your
utter ruin, but you are sure beforehand, can never, but by the
conquest over them, do you any good. If you suffer the devil
to be still stirring in your fantasies, and raising doubts of the
truth of your end, what a lamentable clog will it be to you in
your way. What a cooler in all duties, and a destroyer of your
comforts in life and at death.
2. And for those that are already apostatized from the faith,
though I have but little hope to be heard, I shall earnestly crave
thus much at their hands, which'they themselves may perceive to be
but a reasonable request: that they will be at so much pains, before
^they adventure any further, as to open their minds to some able
minister, and to hear but what can be said against them ; and
that without prejudice, passion, or scorn, with meekness and
willingness to know the truth. Though 1 abhor your sin, yet
the Lord knoweth that it is unfeigned love and compassion to
your souls that causeth me to make this motion to you. Your
condition is no grief to you, because you believe not your ap-
proaching misery. The beast that knoweth not the butcher's
mind, is as careless within an hour of his death, as if no harm at
all were near him. But would you have a man that knows your
danger and the terrors of the Lord to have no more pity on you
than vou have of yourselves. The Lord knows, I have oft, with
a sad lamenting heart, looked on and thought of some in this
condition, who have formerly been my familiar friends, and
gone with us in company to the house of God, and seemed
to be of us ; though since they are gone from us ; to think
what everlasting calamity is near them, Avhile they least fear
it, or are most confident in their unbelief. Alas ! it is no
deliverance from danger to imagine that there is no danger.
Your unbelief shall not frustrate the threatenings of God, but
bring them on you. God's word will prove true, whether you
believe it or not. It is merely your own ignorance and present
incapacity of understanding the Scripture, that makes you first
PREFACE. XXXVll
suspect them as improbable, and afterwards reject them as false,
and afterwards fall to scorn them as ridiculous. How certainly do
I know, that God will shortly show you your mistakes, and make
you know that the crookedness was in your conceptions, but his
word was straight : that you should rather have suspected your
shallow wits, than his sacred word ; and that it was your own
imaginations that were false and ridiculous, but the word was true.
When God hath set open to you the plain meaning of that word,
which you censured by misunderstanding it, you will be asham-
ed of that folly, which now you take to be your wisdom. At
present 1 shall but propound these questions to your serious
consideration :
1. Was it not by a way of sin that you came to your unbe-
lief; and is that like to be true and right which men are led to
by their wickedness ? I have known few come to your case
but by one of these two ways : either by wounding their con-
sciences by some secret wickedness, so that they could not quiet
them but by believing that there is no punishment ; or else by
proud self-conceitedness and separation.
2. May you not perceive that it is the devil that hath ticed
you into this snare, by the cause that it befriendeth, and the
tendency of it to the strengthening of his kingdom and increase
of wickedness, by the manner of the temptation, and the direct
opposition to God and all goodness ?
3. Do you not sin against the light of nature when you con-
tradict the common principles of mankind ? Almost all the
heathens and infidels on earth do believe that there is a life to
come, where it shall go ill with the wicked and well with the
righteous; even the savage Indians, that have had no notice of
supernatural revelations, do commonly believe this ; and whence
should the world, that never heard of the Gospel, have the
knowledge of this, but from nature itself ? In denying, there-
fore, the life to come, and the different estates therein, you go
against the light of nature and common principles of the world.
4. But if you believe an everlasting state of happiness or
misery, must there not be some way to that happiness ? And
what religion in the world doth show you that way with any
probability, but the christian religion ? We are sine that there
is a true religion : tuul we are sure that heathenism, Judaism,
and Mahometanism, are false or insufficient religions, and tlieie-
fore it must be the christian religion,
0. Is it likely that God should make so intelligent a creature,
XXXVlll PllKFAC.K.
that is capable of doing him perpetual honour, for the mere mo-
mentary business of this life ; or, rather, to join him to those
spiritual natures that shall attend him to everlasting ?
6. Doth not God actually govern the world by the hopes and
the fears of another life ? This is past ([uestion, by the world's
common experience : lower things have a lower place; but it
is the hope of happiness, or fear of misery everlastingly, that is
the principal instrument of the government of mankind.
Without this, all would soon come to ruin and confusion.
Name one commonwealth on earth, that hath been governed
and kept up without this ; and certainly God needs not a lie
to rule men by : he can rule his creature without false promises
or threatenings, without the means of false hopes or fears : of
which more anon. And why should he give him a nature
unsatisfied with things below, and looking after everlasting
things, and fearing everlasting misery, if there were no such
things ? The brutes have no such thoughts of a world to come,
nor trouble themselves with hopes or fears about it, nor are
governed by such means. And why ? but because they were
never intended for such an end. Certainly that creature must
be ordinated to an everlasting end, who is ruled by his Creator
in the hopes and fears of an everlasting end.
7. Is it not certain that God is the Governor of the world ?
Had there been no creator, there had been no creature. For
earth and stones, or beasts or men, are not things likely to make
themselves ; nor can that which is nothing make itself to be
something : for by what power should nothing cause any thing ?
And if God made the world, he must needs, as having the only
right and sufficiency, be the chief Ruler of the world ; and if he
must be their Ruler, he must actually rule ; and if he must rule,
he must rule with justice, and justice makes an equal difference
between the obedient and disobedient (v/hich we see in this life,
is far from being accomplished) : when even death itself is
suffered by the obedient, because they will not disobey. And
whether justice do not tell us, that there must be an everlasting
happiness or misery, to them whose natures are formed to an
expectation of it, by the Creator himself, and whose lives
are managed by such expectations, 1 leave to consideration.
S. Are they not apparently the worst men on earth, and the
likest unto brutes, that are nearest to your mind ? And are not
Christians, for all their faults, the wisest and the best men on
earth ? There is very little of the world that believe not in
PREFACE. XXXIX
Christ, but what is notoriously vicious, if not barbarous. And
it there be any part of America, that ackiiowledgeth not the
hfe to come, it is those that are man-eating cannibals, or so
savage as that they seem almost to have unmanned themselves.
9. Doth not your own conscience sometime stir and gripe
you, and teil you that yet there is somewhat within you that
beareth witness to your capacity of an everlasting state ?
10. Lastly, should not the least probability of a matter of
such moment as everlasting joy or misery is, persuade a man of
reason to let go all the pleasures of sin, rather than lose but
such a possibility of everlasting happiness, or venture on such a
probability of everlasting misery ? Are you sure that there is no
such thing ? Are you sure that you shall die as a beast ? I do
not think you dare say so. What then will become of you, if your
conjectures prove false ? as most certainlv they will. ^Vhat if
there be a heaven to lose, and a hell to suffer ; and you will
not believe it till you feel it : where are you then r You might
have been sure that you could lose but little, if vou had followed
Christ, but a little sensual, transitory pleasure, which no man
ever repented of losing, when he was dead. But you are not
sure but you may lose everlasting felicity, and suffer everlasting
misery, by your rejecting Christ : which of these two then is
the wiser bargain, or better beseems a reasonable man ?
To conclude, if you have not yet * blasphemed the Holy Ghost,
or so far forsaken God as to be quite forsaken of him, nor trod-
den under foot the blood of the covenant as an unholy thing, so
far as that Ciirist will leave you to yourselves, 1 may -hope to
prevail with you to set seriously to the work, and make a more
diligent and inipartial in(iuiry into the grounds of the christian
faith; and, among other means, that you will read, consideratelv,
this book with that whereof it is a supplement, viz., the second
part of the ' Saint's Rest,' and ' Grotius, of the TriUh of the
Christian Religion,' now translated into English ; and if any
thing in the reading seem uusatisfaciorv, that you will debate the
case with some that are j\idifious, and do not conclude incon-
siderately and peremptorilv against that w!;ich vou never tho-
roughly understood ; as, also, that you will beg, bv earnest
* yVsto t!:e nature of the sin iiJuiiist the Jinlv (JliO.-t, hesi'ip-; the consent of
the Aitheis, ill tlie main exfifessed in the thini part; see mi 10i.i:jtle dt" Pliocion,
fully to tiie same sense aiid pii!])ose. Inter. P.j.ifit. ejn.s., p. UiT, 16?). Kpis-t. \'-27 .
Ami against Jnliiui's and otJK r a; estates' aeeusations of Chi isl's law s ; see an
excellent distouiae, ib. p. i75. Epist. 187. Xeiro<^ipai 'Ao-7r«6apia).
Xl PREFACE.
prayer, the assistance of God, to acquaint you with the truth,
for I suppose you yet to beheve that there is a God. If you are
given up to so much contempt of God and your own souls, that
you will not be at thus much labour for your information, or
while you read you will strive against the light, and rather proudly
disdain than faithfully consider, and humbly learn the things
which you understand not } I have discharged my conscience j
take that you get by it.
A lamenter of the apostasies, non-proficiency, and conten-
tiousness of these times,
RICHARD BAXTER.
August 14, 1655.
THE
THE SPIRIT'S WITNESS TO THE TRUTH
OF
CHRISTIANITY.
Gal. iii. 1, 2.
" Oh, foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye
should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath
been evidently set forth, crucified among you .?"
" This only would I learn of you. Received ye the Spirit by
the worhs of the law, or by the hearing of faith ?"
Nothing is more necessary to the understanding of the
apostle's meaning, than first to know the question that he
disputes of; and to that end we must know whom he disputes
against, which was those or such hke false teachers which are
spoken of in the fifteenth of the Acts, as many passages in
this epistle would easily manifest, if we thought it needed proof.
The doctrine which they taught, was, that it was needful to be
circumcised, and to keep the law of Moses, and that to salva-
tion. That they taught not only circumcision, but the whole
law, is evident, verse 5. That they made it necessary to salva-
tion, is plain, verse 1 ; yet these men did not deny Christ, nor
teach men to do so directly. The converted Jews were so great
honourers of their law, as knowing it was of divine ordination,
and their fathers had been so severely chastised for the breach
of it, and so many prophets had been sent to confirm it, that
thev thought that doctrine could not be true which taught them
to reject tiie law, or maintained the abrogation of it : on the
other side, they were so convinced by the miracles of Chrir,t and
his apostles, that tlie testimony of Christ was true, and that he
came from God, that they could not disbelieve him, nor reject
his doctrine. It must be confessed that their trial was great
in this strait, seeing all loyal subjects of God should not rashlv
believe an abrogatioii of his law. In this great )ierplexity, not
finding cut the right way, they resolve to join both together j
THE spirit's witness TO
the law they thought they must keep, for they were sure God
had ordained and commanded it : Christians they must needs
be, for they could not resist the light of the doctrine and glo-
rious miracles that were wrought ; therefore, they would keep
the law, and yet continue Christians. Their great mistake was
in not understanding the nature, and meaning, and use of the
law. They thought, that as it commanded them such a task
of duty, so the doing of that duty must needs be pleasing to
God ; and consequently that man must needs be held most
righteous that most exactly kept that law ; for God could not
choose but love and justify them that kept his own law. Where,
note, that it was not, 1 . Out of self admiration principally, or
a conceit of any excellency of works as works, that was the
root of their error, but it was an admiration and b.onouring of
the law of God, thinking that it were a derogation from its
perfection, to say either that it was useless as to justify men,
or that it was not a way, yea, a perfect way to life and happi-
ness : 2. You must note carefully, that it is not the law as
delivered to Adam, which the apostle or these Galatians here
spake of, which supposed the subject to be perfectly innocent,
and, therefore, that it was not perfect obedience without any
sin that these Jews did look to be justified by, for they could not
be so blind as to think they had no sin, for then they would
never have offered sacrifice for expiation of it, nor have confessed
sin, nor prayed for pardon, which it is certain the Jews did use
to do, but they thought, that though they were sinners, yet by
the obeying this law of Moses God's wrath would be appeased :
that is, partly by their sacrifices, which they thought did ex-
piate sin of themselves, as being a sufficient means, through the
virtue of God's ordination and mercy for that end, and partly
by returning to obedience again : so that they took not this to
be a law of perfect works made to perfect man, as the only con-
dition of his salvation, as Adam's law v.as, l)ut a law of perfect
obedience for the future, vet not as the only condition of life,
but prescribing a course, in the use whereof God would paidou
their sins, if they obeyed sincerely ; or, as Paul Burgens. on
Jam. saith of his countrvmen. the Piiarisees, that their opinion
was, that he was righteous, whose obedience wiis more than his
disobedience, and the contrarv unrighteous. The root of their
error, therefore, was, that they looked only at the task of duty
prescribed by the law, as if it meant that the bare doing of it
should justify them, and procure pardon, especially their sacri-
THK TRUTH OF CHKISTIANITY. 3
fices and other ceremonies ; and did not look at the promise,
which was a thing distinct from the law ; nor yet at the meaning
of these sacrifices and ceremonies, which secretly directed them
to look for pardon and justification by Christ : they took up
with the letter and immediate sense of the law, and did not
understand the end of it : they knew not that Christ was the
end of the law to every one that believed. The justification
that they looked for, did not consist in perfect obedience, as
Adam's did, and should have done, (those mistake that think
so,) but partly in their obedience to Moses's law, and partly in
God's merciful pardoning them for and upon the mere use of
sacrifices, and the like ceremonies. They did not look to be
justified or saved without mercy and pardon, but to have mercy
and pardon by their task of legal duties, as such, and as the only
and sufficient means : so that their error lay in the excluding
the use of Christ and faith. They saw not that these sacrifices
were but types of Christ, and had all their virtue from the sa-
crifice of Christ, which was then undertaken, and in moral being,
though not in natural being, or performed : not that these
Jews that were before Christ should not use sacrifices and cere-
monies ; nor yet that they should not expect ever the more
acceptance from God upon the use of them, for certainly God
appointeth no duty or means in vain. But, 1. They should
have understood, that Christ's sacrifice was the thing typified ;
2. And that from hence they were to expect the pardon of all
their sins, as the meritorious cause ; and from these sacrifices
and ceremonies, but only as the most inferior, remote conditions
on their part, i. e. as the matter of the law, wherein they were
required to be sincerely obedient ; 3. And that faith in Christ,
1. As promised; 2. As typified in these ceremonies, was the
principal condition on their part required for obtaining pardon
and justification by Christ to come ; and therefore they should
have believed the more easily in Christ when he was come, in
that they might see their law in him fulfilled ; and they should
have understood that it was but a temporary law, and was to
cease when the Messiah was come. It scarce needed any abro-
gation, because there was a clear cessation when the end was
accomplished, and the term expired, of which tlie Messiah did
give them full assurance. Much less should thev have been so
tenacious of it, when the apostles had so fully cleared to them
the cessation.
1 have thought it necessary to open this the more carefully to
you, because it is most necessary to the understanding of Paul's
4 THE SPIRIT S WITNESS TO
epistles, and especially about the doctrine of justification, to know
well what he means by the law, for else yo\i cannot know what
he means by works ; and certainly you will find that he means
most commonly the law of Moses, and not the law as given to
Adam, prescribing perfect obedience to a perfect creature, as the
only condition of life, and knowing no pardon ; and that he speaks
not of any such justification as excludeth pardon, but contrary.
It is a wonderful hard, yet very necessary question, what form
this law of Moses had, and to what use it was, and how different
from that of nature, and that of Christ and pure grace. Camero
hath taken most pains in it ; but I will not now say any more
of that than I have done.
So then the question here debated was : Whether the keeping
of Moses's law were necessary to justification and salvation, and
therefore to be joined with Christianity.
Against this, Paul had before disputed by several arguments ;
and here, in the beginning of this chapter, having a sensible
argument to urge upon them, which none that had the free use
of reason could resist, he ushers it in with a sharp and confident
exprobration, calling them foolish or mad ; and asking them,
who had bewitched them. Sec. As if he had said, 'When men are
blind and err against their own sense and experience, it is a
mark they are mad and bewitched by some power of an evil
spirit : but so it is with you,' &c.
Thereupon, in the words of my text he challengeth them to
answer but this one argument: That doctrine and way is the
right doctrine and way of salvation, by which ye received the
Spirit ; for the Spirit is an unquestionable seal of the doctrine.
But it was not by the works of the law that ye received the
Spirit, but by the hearing of faith. Therefore, &c.
The words contain, 1. Paul's confidence in this particular
argument, having the nature of a challenge to them, to answer
it if they can : this one thing would I learn of you, &c.
2. The argument itself propouiided interrogatively and dilem-
matically, as Christ did by the Jews about John the Baptist, that
so while they were studying an answer they miglit perceive their
error; as if he .'hould have said, either you received the Spirit
])y the works of the law, or by f;iith ; not by the law, therefore
by faith.
Here are several terms to 1)e o])ene(i : 1. \\'hat is meant by
the works of the law? 2. What by the hearing of faith ? 3. By
the Spirit ? Of which briefly in oidcr.
1. I have said as mucli alreadv to the former as I shall now
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 5
say 5 that is to say, that it is the works of Moses's law. But if
any shall ask, 1. Was it the ceremonial, or the moral ? I an-
swer, both. All the law of Moses, but more principally the
ceremonial.
Q. But faith of Christ is part of the moral law, therefore it
cannot be of that.
A. The moral law, commanding the duty of the law of
nature, is but part of a law, commonly called the matter, by
divines, and not the whole law ; and it is, 1 . Part of the matter
of the law given to Adam ; 2. Part of the matter of the law of
Moses ', 3. Part of the matter of Christ's new law. Now Paul
speaks of it here not as the law of Christ, nor directly as the law
made to Adam, but as the law given by Moses ; and so even
the moral law perhaps may fitly enough be said to be abrogated
or ceased, though the same moral law, as part of Christ's law,
still be in force, and I think as part of the first law of nature.
Quest. Doth not Paul argue against justification by the works
of the law of nature, as well as of Moses ? Answ. Not directly,
but by consequence he concludeth against it : I mean, his argu-
ment will hold « fortiori against justification by the law to
Adam ; for if that law cannot justify, which was given to sin-
ners, as sinners, and hath in it a way prescribed for pardon,
much less will that now justify, which was given to man as in-
nocent and perfect, and knows no pardon of sin.
2. By the hearing of faith is meant the hearing and so re-
ceiving of the doctrine of faith, or doctrine of Christ; not that
hearing is here put for preaching, as Erasmus thought, which
Beza well confuteth; but hearing implieth believing or obeying
the doctrine heard ; for all that hear, or to whom the word is
preached, believe not, and so have not the Holy CJhost, but those
that so hear as to believe and obey ; and therefore Grotius
gathers hence, tliat the Holy Ghost is not given but to minds
vet purified, which is his frequent observation, which yet needs
much explication and caution, and might more clearly in the
right sense be gathered from other texts.
3. But the great question here is, what is meant by ' Holy
Ghost ?' Calvin modestly leaves it undetermined : Paraeus thinks
it is rather meant of the Spirit of sanctification than the gifts of
miracles : Deodate and many others, conclude truly, it is not to
be wholly restrained to eitlicr ; nor either wholly excluded. I
think it is meant of that eminent measure of the Spirit, proper
to Gospel times which Christ gave his disciples j but especially
G THE SPIRITS V.-ITNESS TO
for working of miracles, and speaking with tongues, which was
proper to that age for the confirmation of his doctrine.
It is a great difficulty, 1 confess, to understand wliat is meant
by the Holy Ghost in many texts of Scripture, which promise it
to believers, or which mention the giving it after believing ;
because faith itself is certainly a gift of the Holy Ghost. For
the resolving this briefly, understand, that operations on the
soul are ascribed sometimes to the Father, sometimes to the Son,
according to the several seasons of working and states of men
when it is given, and covenants under which it is given. It was
the Spirit of God as Creator, or of the Father according to
Scripture-speech, wliich Adam had in innocency : but it is not
called the Spirit of Christ the Redeemer. After the fall and
promise Christ was made Head of all, upon his undertaking, and
so did send forth his Spirit ; but according to the infancy of the
Church, and the obscure way of then revealing the Gospel, it
was in so low a degree, that it is not so frequently nor plainly
called the Spirit of Christ. As the grace of Christ, and the
glory of heaven are revealed very darkly there ; so is the Spirit's
working, which leads thereto. Yet was there then so much of
the Redeemer's Spirit, that is, of recovering grace given, as
might and did suffice to save men ; but there was a greater
fulness of the Spirit promised in the time of the Gospel, and
given when Christ was ascended to glory. This is called the
Spirit sent by Christ from the Father ; or by the Father at the
intercession of Christ, and the Spirit of the Son. So that as
now the Son doth more visibly receive his power, and more
clearly manifest his office and commission, and show men their
duty ; so he now more openly owneth all the works of grace,
tending to the recovery of simiers. And so he giveth such a
further and a fuller measure of the Spirit, for sanctification and
for gifts, and for the service of the church, that is by an excel-
lency called the Spirit of Christ : so that though there were a
Spirit before, yet this fuller measure is properly called the Spirit
of Christ : because it is that measure which is given by Christ
come in the flesh, and was not given before under the law. So
that here is the first reason why it is called the Spirit of Christ,
as it is meant of the Spirit of sanctification. And it seemeth
that faith goes beTore this gift of the Spirit : that is, by the
help of the word preached, and God's ordinary means, men may
be brought to believe by that degree of the Spirit that before
was given to the church.
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. /
And therefore it is called the drawing of the Father, " No man
can come to me, except the Father draw him;" (John vi. 44 ;) but
when they do beheve, the fuller measure is given them. Or else,
as Mr. Hooker saith, ' We must distinguish between the Spirit's
entrance into the soul ; and its stablishment or abode tliere.
The giving of faith,' saith he, ' is but the Spirit's making its way
into the heart (as some birds make their way into a hard tree,
where they will make tiieir nest, and breed their young) ; but
when faith is given or wrought there, then the Holy Ghost may
be said to be and dwell within us.' Or else, as Rivet against
Grotius saith, 'we must distinguish the habit and act'. The act
of faith, he thinketh, is the first thing that the Spirit worketh :
itself being instead of a habit, and when it hath brought the
soul to believe actually, afterwards come in these habits of
grace, which are called the Holy Ghost given ; or as the sun at
its rising sending forth its beams before it. This is the ordinary
doctrine, which, I confess, I have been more against formerly
than now I am.
2. Besides this sanctifying Spirit of Christ, proper to Gospel
times, there is also a miraculous pouring out of the Spirit,
proper to the first age of the church, enabling men to work
miracles, and speak with tongues. This was given purposely to
confirm Christ's testimony to the world, and therefore was to
endure but till a sufficient seal were put to his testimony or
doctrine. The Holy Ghost usually, in the New Testament,
is meant of both these jointly, and so I understand it here.
And as it would be an unfit question to ask, wliether by the
Holy Ghost were meant the gifts of healing or tongues, or of
other miracles, as if it must needs be meant of only one : so it
is unfit to ask, whether it be meant of sanctification or miracles ?
Yet as the same Spirit which wrought in the several members,
wrought sanctification in none but the elect, who should be
saved, but wrought the gift of miracles in multitudes that had
no saving grace, and therefore this w^as the more connnon ; so
therefore I doubt not but the gift of miracles is more principally
intended in these words, than that of sanctification.
My- reasons are, 1. He that will carefully observe the lan-
guage of the Holy Ghost, shall find, tliat this word, ' Spirit,' or
' Holy Ghost,' is most usually, in the New Testament, taken for
the extraordinary gifts of that age.
2. The apostle appeals to the witness of the Spirit here, as
that which most undeniably did prove the truth of Christ's
S THE spirit's witness TO
doctrine : now, though sanctification may do much here, yet so
much might be said from heathens' virtues ; and especially of
the sanctification of some before Christ, among the Jews, that
this was not so likely to have made that great conviction of the
world.
3. The apostle appeals to this, as an open known testimony
which might be seen of all. But the work of the Spirit of
sanctification alone is so secret in the heart, and wrought by
such degrees, that it is not so open a testimony.
4. The apostle appealeth to it as a public thing, which the
whole church might be convinced by : but so they could not so
easily be by sanctification, as by miracles, for every man had
not sanctification ; and those that had it not, could not see it
as certain in others 5 nor see the glory of it. Biit for miracles,
as most had the gift, so those that had not, might see it openly
in those that had.
5. The text itself, in the 5th verse, expressly saith, it is the
gift of miracles : " He therefore that ministereth to you the
Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doth he it by the works
of the law, or by the hearing of faith ?" Where Grotius noteth;
that the old manuscript which he had out of the King of
England's library, (being brought by Cyril of Constantinople
out of Egypt,) hath the same words as be in this second verse*
" Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law," &c. So that,
what can be more express.
6. But my greatest argument is from many other Scriptures,
that run all in the same sense, which I shall have more oppor-
tunity anon to mention.
Parseus's arguments for the contrary, are these ; 1. Miraculous
gifts were not given to all, but few. A. 1. To far more than
the gift of sanctification it is likely. 2. The rest might see
them, though they could not work them, and that was testimony
sufficient.
2. He saith they happened to some that followed not Christ,
"We saw one casting out devils, and we forbade him, be-
cause he followed not with us." (Mark ix. 39.) Therefore
those gifts must not be the proper effect of the Gospel. A. A
very bad argument. 1. The text saith, it was in the name of
Christ that they cast out devils, and therefore it was the effect
of Christ's name. 2. Multitudes believed in Christ that did
not follow him with the twelve apostle^. 3. It is evident that
none had that gift then but from Christy and he gave it none
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 9
but for confirmation of the Gospel. 4. It would confirm his
testimony the more, if his name in the very mouth of an unbe-
liever would work such miracles.
Argument 3. He argueth, because elsewhere the apostle
draweth them to the spirit of promise, by which they are
sealed, asEph. i. 13, 2; Cor. i. 22. Ansvv. Neither do these
texts exclude, but principally include the gift of miracles. The
Spirit of promise was that promised Spirit, and not only that
Spirit which assureth men of their part in the promise, as many
do amiss expound it.
His fourth argument is, because in the fifth verse following he
mentioneth miracles, therefore not in this second. Answ. The
clean contrary seemeth to me hence to be proved ; because the
apostle plainly speaks of the same thing in the fifth verse, and
second, and not of divers things.
Now to the point.
Doct. The Spirit of Christ, especially for working mira-
cles, was given in those times so commonly, evidently, and con-
vincingly to the churches of believers, that the apostle durst
appeal to that one testimony alone for the confirmation of the
christian doctrine ; and that with such confidence, as concluding
them bewitched into madness, that would not be convinced by it.
For explication, we must do these things in their order.
1. I shall prove to you that this Spirit was given commonly;
2. Convincingly, or miraculously ; 3. Evidently, or undeniably ;
4. That the apostle appealeth to it, as is said. 2. The reason
why Christ would thus send the Spirit. 3. The use of all.
1. The commonness of this gift is proved both by the promise
and the history of the performance. (Mark xvi. 17.) "These
signs shall follow them that believe ; in my name shall they cast
out devils, they shall speak with new tongues, they shall take up
serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not liurt
them ; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."
(Matt. X. I.) He gave this power first to his disciples, and
(Luke X. 1, 17, 19,) he gave the same power to the seventy
disciples 3 and in Acts ii. 1, 2, &c., you may see the promise
fulfilled, not in some, but all that were present, one hundred
and twenty, at least.
John the Baptist could prophesy of this as the great mark of
Christ's baptism. " He shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost
and fire." (Matt. iii. 11.) And (Acts iv. 31, 33) " When they
had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled
VOJ.. XX. E
10 THE sFiurr's witness to
together, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, aud with
great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the
Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all."
The generality of Samaria, who are said all to believe, re-
ceived the Holy Ghost by the apostles' praying, and laying on
of hands ; (Acts viii. 17;) insomuch that Simon would have
bought that gift of them with money, to be able to give the
Holy Ghost. (Acts x. 44.) When Peter preached to the con-
gregation which Cornelius had gathered together, the Holy
Ghost fell on all them that heard him; so that the believing Jews
were astonished when they heard the gentiles speak with tongues,
and magnify God. (Verse 46.) So the disciples were filled
with joy, and with the Holy Ghost. (Acts xi. 15 ; Actsxiii. 52.)
Paul laid his hands on the twelve men there, and they all re-
ceived the Holy Ghost, and all spake with tongues, and
prophesied. (Acts xix. G.) Paul, writing to the Corinthians,
saith, " That by one Spirit we are all baptised into one body,
whether Jews or gentiles, bond or free, and have been all made
to drink into one Spirit;" and what Spirit that was, the following
verses show, where he saith, " The manifestation of the Spirit
is given to every man to profit withal ; to one is given, by the
Spirit, the word of wisdom; to another, the word of knowledge
by the same Spirit ; to another, the working of miracles ; to
another, prophesy ; to another, discerning of spirits ; to another,
divers tongues ; to another, tlie interpretation of tongues ; but
all these worketh that one and same Spirit, dividing to each man
severally as he will." (Cor. xii. 12, 13.) So that in one kind or
other, and most extraordinarily, all Christians then had the
Spirit. (1 Cor. xiv.) The gift of tongues was so common in
that church, and consequentlv likely in all, for that was none of
the best, that Paul is fain to restrain their too much exercise of
tl.em, and to desire them to study, and be zealous rather for the
gift of prophesying, and, if they did speak with tongues, pray that
they might interpret, and show the end of tongues. (Verse 22.)
They are for a sign to unbelievers, and not for believers. And
(verse 2G) he chideth them thus, " How is it then, brethren, that
when you come together every one of you hath a psalm, hath a
doctrine, hatli a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation ?
Let all things be done to edification. If any man speak in an
unknown tongue, let it be bv two or three at the most, and that
by course, and let one interpret ; but if there be no interpreter,
let him keep silence in the church, and let him speak to himself,
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITV. 11
and to God. Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the
other judge; for you may ail prophesy one by one, that all may
learn." (Jam. v. 14, 15.) He directeth them that are in sick-
ness to seek to the elders, to heal them by prayer and anointing
in the name of the Lord. And Christ saith, "That many shall
say to him in that day, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy
name, and in thy name cast out devils, and done manv wonder-
ful works ?" (Matt. vii. 22 ;) who yet were workers of iniquity,
and shall be rejected for ever. I will add no more proof of the
commonness.
2. That those gifts of the Spirit were so miraculous as to be
sufficient for convincing those that were not bewitched into mad-
ness by the devil, may appear, both from the commonness al-
ready mentioned, and the greatness of them being so far above
nature. 1 . For not one, nor two, but so many thousands of
people, in so many several churches, to speak tongues that they
never heard, to prophesy, to heal the sick ; some of them to give
men up to Satan, to be destroyed by him by a word, and some
of them to make the lame to go with a word speaking, and
some of them to raise the dead ; so that even the clothes that
went from Paul's body, healed the sick. When they were in
prison an earthquake comes and causes the doors to fly open for
Paul and Silas, and the tremljling jailor comes in, and lets them
out ; and the angel takes off Peter's bolts, and opens the doors,
and frustrates the meeting of the rulers that would have judged
him. Beside all those wrought by Christ himself, in raising the
dead, giving sight to them born blind, &c., the works are so
many and so great through the whole story of the Gospel, that
I think it vain to cite particular texts to men that read the Scrip-
ture. Now if any man shall question whether this might not
be done without divine testimony to the doctrine which it ac-
companieth ; that is, in plain English, if any man be tempted
to the incurable sin against the Holy Ghost, to think that all
this is done by the devil, and not by God, I would have him
consider these things :
1. There is a God.
2. This God is the Ruler of the world.
3. He is good, merciful, and just.
4. His will revealed is a law to the creature.
As man is not made to be lawless or ungoverned, so God is
his chief Governor, and without that knowledge of his will, we
cannot obey him, nor can we know his will without revelation.
K 2
12 THE spirit's witness to
5. No man that is well in his wits can expect that God
should speak to us immediately, and that no other Revelation
is to be trusted. Alas ! man cannot endure his voice, nor see
him and live.
G. If, therefore, any shall prove to us that they come from
God, and are his messengers to reveal his M'ill, we must believe
them according to the proof that they bring.
7. If any shall seal the doctrine that he bringeth in the name of
God, with the testimony of such numerous, evident, undeniable
miracles, it is the highest proof of the truth of his doctrine
that flesh and blood can expect. And if God do not give us
sufficient help to discover a falsehood in this testimony,
we must take it for his voice and truth. For if God shall let
men or devils use the highest mark of a divine testmony to
confirm a lie, while they pretend it to be divine, and do not con-
trol this, he leaveth men utterly remediless. For we cannot go
up into heaven to see what hand these things are wrought by.
We are certain they cannot be done without divine permission
and commission. And we are sure that God is the true, just, mer-
ciful Governor of the world ', and as sure that it belongeth to a
rector to promulgate, as well as enact his own laws : and that
they cannot oblige us till promulgated, i.e. sufficiently revealed.
And if he shall suffer any to say, ' God sent me to you on this
message,' and to back this affirmation with such a stream of
miracles, through a whole age, by many thousand hands, and
shall not any ways contradict them, nor give us any sufficient
help to discover the delusion, then it must needs be taken for
God's own act, seeing by office he is our Rector; or else, that
God hath given up the world to the disposal and government of
the devil. Now, let any man of right reason judge whether it
be possible that the just and merciful God, being naturally our
Governor, as we are his creatures, should give permission or
commission to the devil to deceive the world in his name, by
changing and working against the very course of nature, and
by means that no man can possibly try, and so leave his creature
remedilessly to be misled and perish. And whether this
be not plainly to say, God is not just, nor merciful, or
is not the Governor of the world ; and whether that be not
to deny that there is a God; for if he be not just, and
good, and Governor, he is not God. So that he that denieth
Christianity, and Scripture verity, must deny the Godhead, if he
know the arguments for it.
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 13
Now, for the discovery of a deceit in such a case as the tes-
timony of miracles, I know but two ways by which man can
discover the deceit, if there be any. 1. By some truth of God,
which is revealed to us by a more certain means than those
miracles are which this new revelation doth contradict ; 2. Or
by some greater works by which God shall presently contradict
the testimony of those wonders or miracles, as Moses did by the
Egyptians. Now, we have neither of these contradictions from
God, against the doctrine of Christ or his apostles. So far are
they from contradicting former, or certainly revealed truths,
that they consent with truth before revealed ; and Christ, as the
Light of the world, hath given us the kernel and clear explica-
tion of all. And so far was God from sending any to work
greater miracles for the contradicting of Christ, that the poorest
of his followers, for many a year after, did do wonders without
any such contradiction. No enemy of the church did ever
pretend to any such testimony against him. I would fain know,
in one word, whether God can reveal his -will to us or not ? If
not, then he cannot be our Rector. If he can, then by what more
evident and convincing way, supposing we cannot see himself?
3. The nexc thing we are to prove, is, that those gifts and
works of the Holy Ghost were evident and undeniable. And
here are two questions in this one; 1. Whether they were
evident and undeniable to the first witnesses ; 2. Whether they
are so to us. That is, whether the history of them be certain :
and for the first, it is left beyond all doubt. For, 1. The works
were numerous, done both by Christ himself and his apostles :
and the wonderful gifts of the Spirit were common in every
church, and in one kind or other on the generality of Christians,
as I have before proved ; 2. They were continued for many
years together, even from Christ till the end of the apostles'
time, and not all ended of long time after. For Irenaeus saith
the dead were raised, and lived again among them, in his days.
And Tertullian (and after him Cyprian) made pul^lic challenges
to the pagans and persecuting rulers, to bring their possessed
with devils into the christian assemblies, and if they did not
cast them out, and make them confess themselves to be devils,
and Christ to be the Son of God, then they were content to
suffer. 3. They were done in various places at great distance ;
at Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, Rome, Galatia, and
through a great part of the world. 4. They were done before
multitudes of people, and that ordinarily ; not in a corner, but
14 THE spirit'?* VViTNKSS TO
in the face of the whole world. 5. And that in the presence
if not upon the persons, of the enemies themselves. All this
appeareth in the whole story of the Gospel.
More than once did Christ feed many thousands with a few
loaves, hv miracles : oft did he heal and cast out devils in the
presence of the multitude; so that the Pharisees took their
advantage by it, because he would heal on the Sabbath day.
They examined the blind, the lame, and others, whom he healed,
and had their own confession of the cure. He turned water into
wine, publicly at a marriage feast. He would not raise Lazarus
till he was ready to stink, that the glory of God might be ma-
nifest in his resurrection ; his disciples were the constant
witnesses of other miracles, and might most easily discern
whether he were a deceiver or not ; and would they follow one
through such difficulties and misery, and to death itself, in hope
of a resurrection to glory, by him whom thev knew to be a
deceiver ? At his death, the earth did quake, the temple rent,
the land was shut up in darkness for three hours together,
without any eclipse. Were there not witnesses enough, then, of
this ? His resurrection the soldiers could partly witness by the
terror, and the disciples by their frequent sight of him. And
Thomas must be convinced himself by putting his finger into
his side, till he was forced to cry out, " My Lord and my God !"
who (but even now) said, " Except I see and feel, 1 will not
believe." Yea, above five Imndred brethren saw him at once. But
yet there is more than all this; the Holy Ghost fell sopubliclyon
the disciples, that the Jews and men of all countries that were
then in Jerusalem, came flocking together, to hear them speak
every one in his own tongue, which they had never learned, nor
understood before. Gifts of healing and castiisg out devils were
common among the disciples in all churches long after this.
Christ chose especially these two, both to signify his healing,
recovering work and office, and his love to man's welfare, and
his enmity to Satan, and that he came to destroy his work and
kingdom, and save men from him. It continued long after this
the ordinary practice of the disciples to speak in strange lan-
guages in the open assembly ; so that unbelievers that came in
among them, were ordinary witnesses of it ; so that all the
world that lived near them might see the Spirit of Jesus in his
church, not to speak of all the other miracles which the apostles
did. This Spirit, residing in men's souls, appearing visible in
the actions, audible in the prophecies, languages, and other
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 15
gifts of the disciples, prevailing against the devil, and healing
the diseased, and thus openly manifesting itself in all parts of
the world, and before all the people where Christianity was en-
tertained, is such a witness to Christ, and his testimony and
doctrine, and to those writings which the chief actors of those
miracles published, that he that denieth it, renounceth sense
and reason, and openly fighteth against the God of heaven. If
here were not witness enough, then we were incapable of a suf-
ficient testimony. And yet I shall say more to this anon, from
the sanctifying work of the same Spirit.
2. All that remains for the further clearing of this, is to
inquire whether there be also a certainty of the history which
delivereth the report of those things down to us. I have for-
merly proved to you herein, 1 . That the authors of those histo-
ries or reports deceived not the world, but published only
undoubted truths ; 2. And that we have most certainly received
their writings, or records, without any considerable corruption or
alteration. I will now suppose you remember what I have said
of both these already, and will only add these few words more.
1. 1 have told you already that the law of nature effectually
teacheth all men, 1. To love themselves, and their own lives and
liberty; 2. And to love truth, and hate known falsehood,
where they have not some carnal advantage to make it seem
lovely, that it is not possible that so many thousands of men
could be found that would, to their o\v\\ utter undoing in the
world, take on them to work so many miracles, and see them
wrought, and would follow a profession in mere delusion of
others, or as willingly deluded themselves. That which now I
will say, is only these two things :
1. The history of these things was not only delivered by these
writings, which we call the Scriptures, but so generally received
both before they were written and since, by the very evidence of
the actions themselves, that churches of Christ were gathered
and planted thereby, through a great part of the world ; so that
the conversion of so many countries by the very present power
of the Holy Chost appearing in them, and among them, which,
undoubtedly, had an evidence and glory as great as the work
which was wrought thereby, were a living public history of the
glorious works of the Spirit which did convince them. The
world, which was brought to believe by these miracles of the
Holy Ghost, was the legible history of the truth of those mi-
racles.
16 THE spirit's witness TO
2. But the main thing that 1 would have you note, is that
which my text affordeth, that those things were generally pub-
lished, both byword and writing, through all countries, and espe-
cially in that same country where they were chiefly done ; and
that in the very same age, and among the same people, that are
mentioned as witnesses of these things. This is a proof beyond
all exception : it was not like a story raised in the next age,
when all the witnesses were dead. Now, I desire every tempted
or doubting soul seriously to think of this one plain truth. When
all the writers, and many preachers of the gospel, shall publish
up and down Judea, that Christ at such a time and in such
a place fed so many thousand miraculously, turned water into
wine, healed such multitudes, raised the dead, could not any
man have discerned the falsehood of this, if it had been false ?
Nay, when they mention the pharisees' own examination and
conviction of the matter of fact, would not these enemies of the
Gospel have easily confuted them ? Nay, what need the phari-
sees, then, and the Jews, to this day, father all these works on the
devil, if they were not really done ? For men to wiite and tell
the world, that on such a day, at such an hour, there was an
earthquake, and a general darkness, and the temple rent, if this
were no such matter, would it not make them the shame and
scorn of the world for liars ?
Could not all the country tell whether it were true or not ?
Would not this have made those that followed them all forsake
them, and proclaim their shame ? If thousands of men should
seek credit to their testimony by telling us in England that there
were earthquakes and general darkness at such an hour, would
thev get any followers by this report, if it were false ? Paul saith,
that of the five hundred brethren that saw Christ at once after
his resurrection, the greater part were alive at the time when he
wrote it. If this were false, how easily were it disproved, when
it is written and published that men of all nations about did
hear the disciples speaking in their own tongues the wonderful
works of God at.Ierusaleni, when the Holy Ghost fell upon them:
if this had been false, would it not have made all men forsake
such notorious liars, and those that before did believe them to
turn off? or, at least, would not the enemy have refuted the
report ? But, to come nearer the scope of my text, when it
shall be written and published that the Holy Ghost was so com-
mon in every church, and on all Christians everywhere, that all
had either gifts of healing, or tongues, or miracles, or pro-
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 17
phesying, or interpretation of tongues, or the like ; if this were
false,
1. Every unbeliever that was near them could know it to be
false; and then, 1. Some would have confuted it. 2. None
would have believed it, and been converted by it.
2. Every Christian would have known this to be a false
report, for men to write and publish that they had those gifts,
which they knew they had not ; and do those works which they
do not, it would certainly have made all Christians deride and
forsake them, and some of them publish the deceit. But yet
to come closer to my text : when the apostle shall reprove the
church, as Paul did the Corinthians, for too much using and
affecting the gift of tongues, and endeavour to restrain them in
it, and bid them use it but by two or three, and not so much
neither without an interpreter, if there had been no such gift as
this of tongues among them, (or the rest which he mentioneth
of healing and miracles,) would not these Corinthians have
derided Paul ? Would they not have been unchristianed and
unchurched by such reproofs as these ? But yet, to come nearest
of all, when false teachers come among them, and persuade
them of the necessity of obeying the law of Moses in conjunc-
tion with Christ ; and some bring the person of the apostle
Paul into disgrace with them for opposing this : when the apostle
shall make this open challenge to them to answer this argument,
*Did you receive the spirit, and do you work miracles by the
works of the law, or by faith in Christ ?' When he shall appeal
to the miracles which he wrought among them, to prove the
truth of his apostleship, " Verily the marks of an apostle were
wrought among you in all patience, in signs and wonders, and
mighty deeds." (2 Cor. xii. 12.) When he shall threaten to
deliver offenders to Satan, and make them supplicants to be
spared. (1 Cor. v., and 2 Cor. ii.) Nay, when he shall appeal to
the Spirit in themselves, received by his ministry, and tell them,
" He that hath not the spirit of Christ is none of his ; and
Christ dwelleth in them, unless they are reprobates." And if
he do dwell in them, and they have the Holy Ghost, it was by
his ministry and the faith of Christ. (2 Cor. xiii. 5,) Is it
possible that any man of reason should be deceived by them
that spoke such things, if they were not true ?
When men's minds are exasperated against us, thevwill be glad
of any matter against us : so were many of the Corinthians and
Galatians against Paul ; they were become his enemies for telling
18 TMK SI'lim's WIINESS -lO
them the truth, in oj)positioii U) tlio Jewish (.'hristian;?. Now
was this a likely way for him to vindicate himself or the christian
doctrine, to make solemn appeals to themselves, even the whole
churches, whether the Holy Ghost which they generally had,
and the miracles which were commonly done among them, were
not hy the doctrine and faith of Christ ? ^'et so he doth in
my text ; 1. To call them angrily, hewitched fools and madmen,
for going against the same doctrine, hv which themselves had
received the Spirit, and hy which miracles were still done among
them : would they not all have hated the very name of Chris-
tianitv, if this had iseen false ? ! j)rav do hut put the like case
to ourselves, if we were in a case of douht hetween several
teachers, and one of them should write thus to puhlic churches,
even the churches of England, Scotland, Holland, Germany; 'I
appeal to yourselves, whether you did not hv that doctrine
which I delivered to you, receive the Holv Ghost, by which
vou all received either gifts of tongues, healing, prophesying, or
the like, bv which miracles are still wrought among you ? I
challenge you to answer this argument; if you were not be-
witched fools and madmen, you would never oftcr to turn from
that doctrine by which yourselves do these things, to that bv
which you never received the Spirit.' If all this were false,
would not all these churches forsake that teacher, and renoimce
the doctrine which depended upon so notorious an untruth ?
And could not every enemy, yea, every silly person, know
whether this were true or no ? \A'ould they not all say, ' Why,
what doth the man mean to talk of common miracles, and that
done among us, and by ourselves, and of the Spirit in us, when
we know we have no such thing?' And yet Paul's epistles to
the Corinthians and Galatians run in this strain : I think God
suffered those false teachers to oppose the truth the rather that
we might see afterward how it was defended. I conclude,
therefore, that if ever any history in the world had certain
evidence of the truth of the fact in it, and that there was no
deceit, or overreaching of t!ie ignoiant by shows, then cer-
tainly this histor\' of the (tospcl hath much more; for greater
is scarce ))ossible.
2. And that we have the records or transcripts of those his-
tories or writings, without any considerable corruption, is a truth
that any learned man may be as easily satisfied in, without any
special illumination of the Spirit ; a truth that hath fuller
evidence than for any otiiej- l)ook in the world can be pro-
THK TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. l9
duced. For, I. The copies were numerous which were dis-
persed.
2. And that in many languages.
3. And that in places at tlie remotest distance.
4 And all Christians in all those places held their religion
npon this revelation.
5. And every heretic, and men of all opinions, alleged the
same Scriptures.
6. No one church could corrupt it in any material part, but
all the Christians in the world would have discovered it, and
cried him down.
7. It was the constant business of ministers, whereof then
every church had many, ordinarily to preach this same doctrine
and Scripture. They had no greater work to mind, nor any
other, but publicly and privately to acquaint people with this
doctrine, and keep them in obedience to it : and if no lawyer
or person can corrupt our Magna Charta but all the land
would know it, and be on the head of him ; how much
less could any corrupt one charter by which all the men in
England should hold all their estates, and have every man a copy,
or most men, and have in every town an officer on purpose to
teach people tlie meaning of it. No one schoolmaster in Eng-
land can corrupt Lilly's Grammar, because it is in every
school, and is the work of every schoolmaster to teach it, and
they would all presently discern it.
S. We have yet copies of the Scripture extant of very great
antiquity. There is, or lately was, one in England, sent to the
king from Cyril, Patriarch of Constantinople ; a very fair copy
brought out of Egypt, which was wrote about two hundred and
twenty years after the apostles' time.
9. All the writings of the fathers, in every age since, are full
of citations of Scripture passages, and all according to our present
Scripture in the substance. Clemens Romanus, that lived with
Paul, and Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus, and Tertullian, and
Origen, Cyprian, and all the rest downward, quote abundance of
sayings out of those same Scriptures : and all thecopies dispersed
abroad agree in all substantials.
10. And consider also that all the churches had the same
truths doctrinal and historical among them in those times, by
unwritten tradition also, as is said before ; for they were preached
before they were written. So that it may far more reasonably
be questioned, whether those acts of parliament, or our present
20 THE spirit's witness to
Magna Charta be not counterfeit, or Lilly's or Cambden's
Grammar, whicb yet no man of any brains can suspect, than
whether these Scriptures which we receive and use, were the
true writings of those holy apostles. The hand of universal
tradition hath delivered them to us with more certainty than if
we had received them from the hands of any apostle ourselves.
For our sense may sooner deceive us than the universal sense of
the first age, and the universal sense and credit of all succeeding
ages.
11. Lastly. None of the enemies of Christianity, that in all
ages have wrought against this, do deny these writings to be
those which the apostles wrote and delivered ; as may be seen
in those of Celsus, Porphyry, Julian, yet extant in the fathers.
Else Julian need not rail against Paul and John as he doth, for
affirming Christ to be God, and other such things, if he durst
have denied those to be their writings, as in Cyril, Alexandria,
Nazianzen, and others that write in confutation of Julian, you
may see. Blessed be that holy providence of the Governor of
the world, that hath so spread, promulgated, and maintained
his law to this day, that no writings in the world of any
antiquity have near the like certainty.
Reasons.
1 . But why is it that Christ would thus convincingly send
abroad such abundance of the Spirit in those days ? Answer,
1 . He had the old law of Moses to repeal ', and that was well
known to the Jews to be God's own law. And therefore if he
had not brought that seal of God to his commission, and such
as men might well know to be his seal, no wonder if every true
subject of God had disobeyed him. Men must not believe
God's law ceased or abrogated without good proof.
2. Christ had a new law to promulgate, even the law of
faith and Gospel ordinances, and he must both manifest his
authority before they could be received and submitted to, and
also give his Spirit to enable men to keep them : for as he
required new duties of fallen, disabled man, so he must give a
strength proportionable.
3. Yea, then himself was to be entertained as the Redeemer
of the world ; wliich was a new work and office, and man's
salvation was to lie \ipon the receiving of him : and this they
neither could do, nor ought, without sufficient evidence or proof,
that he was the Redeemer indeed. And therefore he saith, ' If I
had not done the v.orks ^vhich no ni;ui else could do, you had
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 21
not had sin'. If any prophet came as from God with any new
revelation, he was to prove himself to be a prophet ; much more
when Christ shall affirm himself to be the Son of God, the
Redeemer of the world.
2. Quest. But why did not Christ continue this communication
of the Holy Ghost to his churches still, seeing our unbelief is
strong, and we have still need of such help as well as they ?
Answ. 1. We have the full use and benefit of the Holy Ghost
which was given then , that seal that was then set to the christian
doctrine and Scriptures stands there still. When Christ hath
fully proved to the world the truth of his mediatorship, office,
and doctrine, must he still continue the same actions ? Is it
not enough that he sealed it up once, but must he set a new
seal for every man that requireth it in every age ? Then mira-
cles would be no miracles. Must your landlord seal your lease
anew, every time you will causelessly question his former seal ?
Then, if Christ had done miracles among a thousand, every
man that was not present, should come and say, ' Do the like
before me also, or I will not believe.' Will you put God to this,
that either he must work constant miracles in every age, and
before every man, or else he must not be believed ? What, if
all Christ's works had been done at London, and we had not
seen them here in the country, or, what, if all this town had
seen them except one man ; should no man believe them but he
that did see them ? Should no man l)elieve that there hath
been any wars and fighting in England, but those that saw the
battles ? or, what, if these things had been done in our fore-
fathers' days, should not we have believed them except they had
been done in ours ? We have as full testimony of Christ's and
his apostles' true works, as we can have of any of these.
2. Also I answer, Christ doth still continue his Spirit to his
churches, and every true member thereof, but not to the same
use ; and therefore not to enable them to the same work as then.
" Tongues are not for them that believe, but for them that
believe not," saith Paul ; (1 Cor. xiv. 22 ;) that is to show them
the power of Christ, and so convince them. But now the Scrip-
ture is sealed by these, there is not the same use or need of
them. But because there is still need of the subduing of cor-
ruptions, and sanctifying our natures, and enabling us to keep
the law of Christ, and conformingus to his holy image; there-
fore, the Spirit of sonship or sanctification is still con-
tinued. And let me tell you, even this Spirit hath enough in it
22 THE spirit's witness to
to convince both the world and tlie saints, of the truth of the
doctrine and Scripture of Christ. For the godly themselves, I
have told you already, that this Spirit of Christ is a witness
within them, and how it witnesseth. And for the world, had
they but eyes to see the excellency of holiness, they might see
that the righteous is more excellent than his neighbour, and
that it is certainly an excellent, true, and perfect law and doc-
trine, which doth produce so excellent an effect. But the
wickedness of men's hearts hindereth them from discerning the
validity of the testimony ; because they cannot see the excel-
lency of grace, which is so contrary to their lusts and carnal
pleasures. The things of the Spirit are spirituallv discerned ;
but they have their senses free, and, therefore, can better see
the glory of the miracidous works of the Holy Ghost : and,
therefore, those are fitter to convince them. But for true Chris-
tians themselves, they have that within them both objectively
and efficiently, those glorious experiments and potent workings,
which will not suffer them to change their religion.
The uses that we shall make of this doctrine now, are these,
all for information of your understandings.
1. Of what certain truth the christian religion and Scrip-
ture is.
2. What is the greatest argument to prove the truth of these.
3. What the testimony of the Spirit is, and who have it.
4. What it is to believe in the Holy Ghost, and to be baptized
in the name of the Holy Ghost.
5. W^hat it is to sin against the Holy Ghost.
Use 1. The challenge and appeal that Paul here makes to
the Galatians, I dare make to all the world : and undertake to
])rove that man bewitched into a madness, that will not be con-
vinced by this only argument.
W^hence came the Holy Ghost, which the Lord Jesus did
send down upon his church, which sat on the disciples in the
likeness of fiery cloven tongues, that filled all the churches in
all parts of the world at once, how distant soever, with
the miraculous gifts of strange languages, prophesying, inter-
pretation, healing, casting out devils, or the like. That
fell on men ordinarily, and in such numbers as soon as ever the
apostles laid their hands on them after thev were baptised !
That putteth such a new nature into the soul of every saint, and
writeth the law of Jesus in his very heart; and raiseth him
with strong and constant hopes of such a future resurrection
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITV. 23
and glory, that he will go through all difficulties and suflferiugs to
attain it ; that overcomes all fleshly lusts, and keepeth under
such inclinations as all the rest of the world are mastered hy ;
that makes such low and silly creatures to live in the sweet,
delightful forethoughts and contemplation of the life to come ;
and causes men so earnestly, frecjuently, seriously, reverently,
and delightfully to converse with the holy, invisible God ! I
say, whence is this spirit, but from the holy and almighty God ?
If you doubt whether such a spirit were poiued out so abundantly
and miraculously, I have proved it already. Paul appeals to the
very men that saw and enjoyed it, and they durst not, they could
not, deny it. The enemy, the very pharisees, could not deny it.
If you would open your eyes, you might yet see very much of it
in the holiness of the saints. But prejudice and hatred to holi-
ness blind you. Can any but the living God, who first
breatheth into man the breath of life, breathe forth such a Spirit
of miracles and holiness into the world, and make men new
creatures, by causing them to be born of the Spirit ? Can any
but God so raise the dead, and command over all the powers on
earth, and cast out Satan by a spirit of miracles, in instruments
of greatest natural weakness, till he hath made the Roman
empire, and the rest of the kingdoms of the world, to acknow-
ledge Christ their Lord ? Doth it belong to any but God to
rule the world, and send forth a new spirit and power upon
men's souls ? These works have such certain evidence of reality,
that the Jews confess them, and the Turks acknowledge them,
and upbraid the Jews for not believing God by his prophet Jesus.
And Mahomet threatens judgments against the Jews for it in
his Alcoran ; saying, "That Christ was the word and power of
God sent to convince the world bv miracles ;" so thev have as
full an evidence of a divine power in them. Almightiness,
and goodness, and wisdom, in infiniteness, do make up the
nature of the eternal God. And all these do evidently appear
in this sending of the Holv Ghost.
1. It is a work beyond a mere created power, as all the effects
of it show,
2. If any Jew should think that a devil might do such works
of omnipotency without God, yet at least let him be convinced
by the work of sanctification, which demonstrates God's perfect
goodness, as the other doth his greatness. Dare they think that
the devil is become a spirit of holiness, or loveth holiness ?
Will he sanctifv men's natures, and make them heavenly, and
24 THE spirit's witness to
destroy their sin, and keep them in a course of obedience unto
God ? Why, then, doth he so contradict this doctrine and these
holy ways, and so jjotently hinder our endeavours in every
congregation and soul ? Why is it that he arnieth all the un-
godly rout of the world against those holy doctrines and ways ?
That man is certainly bewitched by the devil into madness, that
can indeed believe that the devil is the sanctifier of men's souls,
and the author of a doctrine to destroy men's sins, and bring
them into such exact obedience unto God.
3. If all this will not serve, let the wisdom of God be ob-
served both in the stream of the doctrine and in the effect of
the Holy Ghost in illuminating the church ; so that you may
look over all the rest of the world at this day, and easily see that
they are all but barbarians, even in human common knowledge,
in comparison of the Christians, especially in the things of God,
they are utterly blind.
Indeed, Christ did at Rome and Athens cause a star of human
learning to arise, but it was only for a time 3 and at that season
a little before his own coming in the flesh, of purpose to direct men
to the Sun of Righteousness, and to be an usher to prepare the
way for the Gospel j and when the Gospel was come, he hath
now delivered \ip even all the learning in the world that is
worth the speaking of, unto his church, and continued even
these common gifts of the Spirit therein.
4. If all these convince not, let me add this one thing more.
This good, almighty, holy God is the Governor of the world : if
he made it, he surely ruleth it : if he be not Sovereign he is not
God ; and, being God and Governor, he must needs be a faithful
and merciful Governor, as I said in the beginning : and can he
then stand by and suflfer, and give commission to the devil to
publish such a holy doctrine, and send forth such a spirit of mi-
racles and of holiness, and that over all the church, and into the
hearts of all the most honest people in the world in all ages follow-
ing ; and all this to deceive the world, and to confirm a false-
hood, and God never contradict him, nor give men any means
to discover the delusion ? Shall he suffer the deceit to come
from heaven, or another world, and shall there not a remedy
come from heaven ? Shall he lend the devil his omnipotency,
and holiness, and wisdom, to deceive his own creatures, when
himself hath undertaken to be their Governor? Shall he suffer
miracles to be wrought to delude, and himself work none to rec-
tify us? Hath he taken on him the office of making and pro-
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 25
mulgating his own law, for the governing of his people, that
would fain know his will and do it ; and, then, shall he suffer
the devil to publish laws in his name, manifesting his very nature,
and requiring obedience to him, and seal these with such a
spirit, as is afore-mentioned j and all this to mislead us, while
God stands by and never once controls him, but leaves us reme-
diless ? Is this the part of the Governor of the world ? Is this
like the way of a merciful, holy, wise, almighty God ? Lay all
this together, and lay it well to heart, and I dare say again that
that man is bewitched into madness by the devil, that dare be-
lieve that God hath given up his holiness, wisdom, almightiness,
and government of the world to the devil. And by all this you may
see how vile a thing the sin against the Holy Ghost is ; and why
so heavy a doom is passed on them that are guilty of it j of
which more anon. Shall God suffer such a creature on his earth,
endued with reason, that shall imagine such things as these
against him ? Why it is, in effect, to say the devil is God ; and
can the heart of man entertain a more horrid blasphemy ? And
may not he justly be their God, and they given up to his dis-
posal ? For what is it to be God, but to be infinitely wise, pow-
erful, and good, and to be the faithful, sovereign Ru!er of all
things ? And when men shall dare to think that God hath given
up the rule of the world to the devil, and enabled him to send
forth a spirit of power, wisdom, and holiness, to seal a holy doc-
trine, and all to delude men, and this without any control:
surely, these men are no less guilty than I here charge them. Is
not God righteous, that must judge the world ? Whither shall
a poor soul go for justice, if God have no more ? whither shall
he go for mercy, if the God of iieaven have no more mercy ?
or who shall be able to defend us, if God be not able to rescue
his own prerogative from the hands of Satan ? Let me repeat
the question that I put before ; do you think that the God of
heaven is able to reveal his laws to the world, and give them a
sufficient testimony of their verity, and set to any seal whereby
he may be kno\vn to be their author ? if not, how will he
govern the world ? Can he rule without making known his will,
or promulgating his enacted law ? And can he make known his
will without any certain, satisfying revelation, that it is he that
speaks? And if you think God can reveal his mind, will you
hut tell me how you would have him do it ? How should he do
it more fully and convincingly ? What seal would you have
him use \vhere]>y he may be better known, than this of the
VOL, XX. F
'26 THE SFIHl'l's WITNESS TO
Spirit of power ami holiness? He that wouki have God .speak
face to face to such worms as we, kiiovveth not what lie saith.
Wouldest thou be consumed and burnt up as the stubble ? Canst
thou endure the sight or voice of God ? Dost thnu know him
if thou see him, or hear him, or woulilst not thou say still,
' How know I hut it was an e,vil spirit, and not God ? ' Knowest
thou not that God i? invisible, and mortal eyes cannot see him ?
It is past my reach to know what more satisfying- evidence and
seal thou canst desire from God than he hath given : and if thou
wouldst have none, thou canst not be governed.
If any say. I would have God reveal all by the light of nature,
a,s he hath done the law of nature.
Answ. Such men know not what they sav : thev know not
what the law and light of nature is. Reason, or the understand-
ing, is but the mere visive faculty, as it were : it is but a seeing
power, and doth not actually see any thing, till it be revealed
from without. The understanding is a bare sheet of paper, and
knows nothing but what maketh its way into it by the sense,
and what it thence gathers. I\Ian hath no actual knowledge
by mere nature ; never infant ordinarily iiad any. And if it
were possible for the reasonable soul to reuiain in a body, where
all the five senses are dead (as hearing and seeing is in some)
the soul would know nothing ; our understandings, therefore, or
reason, are not the law of nature, nor the light of nature, except
improperly ; when they have received the species, and there is
a transcript of the law of nature, written on them, then they
may be so called, in the same sense as sanctification may be
called the law of grace,>.because Christ writeth his law there in
our hearts. But truly and properly the law of nature is natura
reruniy the common nature of all God's visible workmanship,
both ourselves, and all the rest of the creatures within ( ur
knowledge. These are God's book, or law, because they reveal
so much of God to us, as from whence we may gather much of
his will by his nature, and so know much of our own duty.
Now let me ask any admirer of reason or nature in the world :
Do you think that this great, dark book of nature doth speak
God's will so fully and plainly to our purblind souls, as the
clear, express revelations of the word and Spirit do, who also
enlighteneth the eye to discern it ? Are not the few great wits
of the world puxzledin tiiebook of nature, especially those that
had no further light? and wliat, then, shall all the ignorant world
do bv it ? IS it not a verv little of God that the wisest could
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTI ANITV. 27
find out this way, when the siiliej^t woman can know far more
by the supernatural revelation ? Nav, had you rather have the
mere dark premises to gather conclusions from, than to have
God from heaven deliver you the conclusion to your hand ?
Are not God's arguments and collections more certain than
those of your weak understanding ? Nay, and for the evidence,
do you think that natural works are more convincing than
supernatural ? Can you see more of God in the ordinary course
of nature, than by miracles that cross nature, or work above
it ? Why then do you desire miracles ; and say, ' Except we see
signs and wonders we will not believe ?' Lord, how perverse is
blind man grown by his strangeness to God ! The ordinary
works of God almost none regard, because they are ordinary.
But they say, if God would work miracles, they would believe :
if he that made the sun move, would make it stand still ; if he
that made the sea flow would make it dry land ; if he would
raise the dead, and show himself evidently above nature : and
when God hath done so, then they are ready to sav, ' For ought
I know, it may be the work of the devil ; 1 would have him
reveal things to my reason by the wav of law or nature.'
Well, if you will not know his law, you shall know his sentence.
What I have said concerning the truth of the christian religion,
and Scripture in general, will hold clearly to each })articular
part.
1. If Scripture be so certainly true, then those passages in it
that seem to men contradictory, nmst needs be true ; for thev
do but seem so, and are not so indeed. Ignorance makes men
think all dark and self-contradicting which they read. It
would make one pity some wretched souls, to hear how con-
fidently they ^vill charge some texts with contradictions, through
their mere ignorance of the plain sense, which when knowing
men have manifested to them, they are ashamed of their rash-
ness. It is ordinary, in all studies, for men to quarrel with that
which they understand not, and say, as Nicodemus, ' How can
these things be ?' Which yet, when they have well studied the
matter, they discern to be easy, familiar, and well reconcileablej
as in resolving a riddle, or finding out some new invention. If
you set a man to it without help, he studieth and vexeth him-
self, and at last giveth it up as impossible; but when vou have
showed him the mystery of it, he marvelleth at himself presently
that he could not see it easily. And yet, when men are possessed
wirh presumption, and void of a due reverence and fear of God,
F 2
28 THE spirit's witness to -
thougii they neither understand these difficulties in the languages
and phrase, which is necessary for the clearing of seeming con-
tradictions; and though they understand not the customs of
the country, nor the situation of places where Scripture facts
were done, with many the like things necessary to the clear
discerning of the truth ; yet they are ready presently to fly in
the face of God, and to charge the Scripture with contradiction:
as if God understood not himself, because they understand him
not : as if the Holy Ghost were as much in the dark as they
are. Alas ! that silly man should be no more conscious of his
own weakness of understanding, and no more apprehensive of
the dreadful Majesty of God, and the unsearchableness of his
ways, and how little it is to be expected that his mysteries
should be so easily discerned by the world ! That men that
know, or may know, the great diseases of their own eyes, should
yet rather quarrel with the sun, when any thing seems dark
or doubtful to them ! If we were reading but some indentures,
or other instrument, which we knew were drawn by an able
lawyer ; if we met with some passages that seemed difficult or
contradictory ; we should presently question our own under-
standing, because we have not so much skill in law matters as to
be able to pass a censure on it, rather than we would believe
it to be a contradiction indeed : or, at least, we should think
the transcriber had slipped : yet is there no seeming contradiction
in Scripture, but these unbelievers may see a fair reconciliation
and solution, if they will be at the labour to read expositors.
2. if our religion and Scripture be so certainly true, then the
most improbable passages are true, as well as the rest: I mean
those which to the ignorant seem unlikely. The opening of
the sea to the Israelites ; the standing still of the sun for
Joshua; Jonah's living in the belly of a whale; the raising of
the dead, and the resurrection of Christ himself; the earthquake,
and darkness at Christ's death, 8cc. Here,. also, the wickedness
of man's nature appeareth. If God send a prophet, or his Son,
into the world to acquaint them with his will, they call for
signs and wonders, and except they see these they will not
believe : and they pretend, that if they could but see such miracles
wrought, thej would all believe : and when they are wrought,
some that see them believe them ; the rest will question the
power that doth them ; and the next age will make these very
miracles the occasion of their unbelief; and say, 'These are un-
likely things, I win never believe that such things were done :'
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIAMTY, 29
and yet these unbelieving wretches see as great works as any
of these every day before their eyes. Is not the so swift
moving of such a body as the sun as great a work as its
standing still ? Sure, motion requireth as mucli power as not
to move doth. Is not the course and tide of the sea, and its
limitation and restraint, as great a work as its standing still,
and being dried up for a passage to the Israelites ? But or-
dinary things men take no notice of; as if God did them not
at all, because he doth them every day : and so, if God do
daily miracles, they are slighted, and cease to be miracles ;
men say, ' Nature doth it :' as if nature were any thing but
God's creature, or the order he hath placed among his crea-
tures ; and if God do such wonders but seldom, men will not
believe them. The like may be said of seeming improbable
doctrines, as the resurrection, the last judgment, heaven, hell,
and whatever else in Scripture flesh and blood can hardly digest.
Scripture being proved true, all these must needs be true.
3. Also, if Scripture he certainly true, then the most terrible
passages in it are certainly true ; nothing is more hardly believed
by men than that which will be most tormenting to their minds,
when it is believed that none shall be saved but the regenerate
and holy ; and those that live not after the flesh, but the Spirit,
and love God in Christ above all the world, even their own lives ;
and that, besides these few, all the rest shall be tormented in
hell for ever. This is the doctrine that flesh and blood will
hardly down with. They say or think they will never believe
that God will be so unmerciful ; as if God must needs be less
merciful than man, because he is more just and holy, and will
not be so indulgent to their flesh and sin as they are themselves,
and would have him to be. And I have known even godly men,
through the remnant of their corruption and darkness in the
things of God, and the violence of temptation, much troubled
with their unbelief in this particular. But God cannot lie : the
Scripture being true, and the christian religion certainly true,
every part of it must needs be true. But because sensual nature
looks for sensible demonstration, or proof, let me ask the unbe-
lievers this one question : 'Do you believe that which you see and
feel, and all the world feels as well as you ?' You know that all
mankind liveth here a life of trouble and misery; we come into
the world in a very poor condition, and we ))ass througli it in
dailv labour and sorrow, and wo pass out of it through the dread-
ful pang*^ of tleath. What incessant labour have the most of
30 THK spiHii'»< a\iim;5.'^ to
them at |)l<)iigli mul cait, and thrashing, and other hard work,
in your several trades ; and when one day's work is over, you
must go to it again the next, and after all this, how much want
and mi'^erv, how many a hard meal, and pinching cold and
nakedness some of you undergo; how much care and grief
of mind to pay debts, to provide for children, yea, to provide
meat, and drink, and clothes, besides wrongs from men of high
degree and low, the rich oppressing you, and your own poor
neighbours often abusing you- Do you not see and feel how
sicknesses do torment us? When one pain is over, another is at
hand. Have you not seen some, under such terrible fits of the
gout, or stone, or other diseases, that they thought no torment
could be greater ; some with their legs rotting, and must be cut
off; some with loathsome cancers and leprosies on them many
years together ; some fastened to their beds five or six, yea,
twelve years together; some that have lost their eyesight, have
lost almost all the comfort of life ; some that never could see ;
some that never could hear or speak ? 1 have known some in
such pain that they have cried out they did not believe there
was greater in hell ; some are mad, and some idiots : are not all
these in a very miserable case ? Now, I would ask you further,
if God may, without any unmercifulness, do all this to men,
and that as a chastisement in the way to bring them to repen-
tance ; if he may, without unmercifulness, make a David cry
out in misery, and wash his couch with his tears ; and make a
Job to lie scraping his sores on a dunghill ; why should you
think he cannot, without unmercifulness, torment incurable sin-
ners in hell ? Further, I would ask you this question ; suppose
you had lived in Adam's paradise, or some condition of pleasure
and rest, where you never had tasted of sickness, or labour, or
want, or feared death, if God's word had there told you but that
man shall endure so much misery as 1 have here mentioned and
men dailv suft^"er, and should die at last for his sin ; would you
have said, ' 1 will never believe God would be so unmerciful ? '
You thatsav so now, would likely have said so then in this case ;
for feeling the pleasure yourselves, you would on the same
ground have said, ' God is unmerciful if he should make man so
miserable ; ' and yet you see and feel that God doth it, and we
know that he is not unmerciful.
Moreover, you see how he useth your poor beasts here ; how
they are made your servants, and you labour them from day to
day, till thev are readv to lie down under it : and vou beat them
THK IRUTH OF (HRl^TIAMTV. 31
at your pleasure, and at last you kill them. Xay, men will not
stick to kill the most beautiful birds, or other creatures, and
perhaps twenty lives must sometimes go, for to make one meal for
men at their feasts ; and yet consider, I. These creatures never
sinned, and so never deserved this, as wicked men deserve their
torments ; 2. Vet you accuse not God of unmercifulness for giving
them up to this misery ; 3. Nor do you accuse yourselves of
unmercifulness for using them thus ; 4. Much less will any man
be so mad as to say, sure this is not true, that the poor crea-
tures suffer so much, because Cod is more merciful.
Yet further, 1 would ask you^ do you not know that you and
all men must die? and would you not be contented to suffer a
terrible degree of misery everlastingly, rather than die ? What-
soever men may say, it is certain they would. Though not to live
to us is better than to live in hell, yet men would live in very
great misery, rather than not live at all, if they had their choice.
We see men that have lived, some in extreme poverty, some in
great pain, for manv years, that yet had rather continue in it
than die. If, then, it be so great a misery to be turned again
into nothing, that you would rather suffer everlasting pain in
some measure, methinks you may discern a probability that
God's word should be true, which threatens yet a greater pain :
for is it not likely that the judge will inflict more than the pri •
soner will choose or submit to ?
Once more let me ask you, did you never see a toad or snake;
and do you not know there are such creatures in the world ?
Would you not think it a very grievous misery to be turned into
a toad or serpent ? And would you not rather endure much mi-
sery, as a man, than be such a creature ? And were he not a
madman that would say, ' 1 will not believe that there is such a
creature as a toad, because God M'ould not be so unmerciful as
to make such?' VN'^hy now consider; if God did make such
creatures so far below you, when he might have made them
men, and vet these creatures never sinned against him, judge
yourselves, whether it be not very probable to reason, and very
just, that God should bring men that wilfully siti in the abusing
of his grace, into a far worse condition than a toad. If God
might justlv have made thee a toad, when he made thee a man,
and continued thee so for ever, and that without any sin of
thine, then how much more evident is the justness of his deal-
ings, in dooming those to everlasting torments that have obsti-
nately, throughout all their lives, refused his mercy. And yet
32 THE spi hit's witness to
even these toads and snakes are loth to die, and thereby show
that yet there is a greater evil which they are capable of, and
that without sin. Have you all these so sensible demonstrations,
yea, do you see the sinful world lie under war, and blood, and
famine, and pestilence, and yet will you not believe that God's
threats of everlasting torments are true ?
Yet once more let me ask you, did you never know a man in
desperation under intolerable pangs of conscience ? Alas ! it is
frequent ; jso that some of them have said, as Spira, that they
had the torments of hell already on them, and wished they were
in hell, that they might feel the worst, so that their lives are a
burden to them ; that though their friends watch them never so
carefully, they cannot keep them from making away themselves.
Is not here a plain foretaste of hell on earth ? When no pain
is upon the body, no losses nor crosses on them in the world,
and yet their minds lie under this torment.
Nay, is there not naturally in all men living, a fear of suffer-
ing in another world ? Even as there is naturally an apprehen-
sion of a God who is holy and just, so also a fear of the execution
of his judgments hereafter. And as atheists, when they have
done their worst, they cannot be perfect atheists, nor blot out
all apprehensions of a God from their minds ; so when they
have done their worst, they cannot perfectly get rid of those
natural fears of everlasting sufferings ; but even when they are
drowning them in the pleasures of sin, and stopping the mouth
of conscience with the noise of worldly delight and business,
and are drinking away, or playing away, or laughing away
their fears, yet still they stick in their very hearts, and are so
rooted that they can never pull them up, though they may
stifle them. And very few are given over to such desperate
unbelief, but many a griping fear doth stir within them, and
they dare not be much alone, nor dare seriously bethink them-
selves one hour, whether there be such things in the life to
come, or no. They dare scarce hear the minister preach of
them, lest, with Felix, they should tremble. They are ready
to say, what if these things should be so, what a case I am in
then ? And when these men have fallen among infidels, who have
furnished them with all their confident cavils, and most subtle
arguments against the truth, and make them believe that there
is neither heaven nor hell hereafter, and so make them more
atheistical than the mere sin of their nature alone could make
them ; vet still these fears do dwell in tlieir verv hearts, and
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 33
all the paganish arguments in the world, will not whoU)- root
them out. Especially, when they come to die, how few of
these is there but are far more afraid of misery in another world
than they are of death itself alone. And are not God's threats
of hell, then, to be believed ? Nay, yet let me propound one
question more to you : Is there nothing in it, that there is in
man's nature such a strange fear of devils, and spiritual enemies,
and misery? So that children that have no understanding
are afraid at the naming of them ; that we are afraid to go in
the dark, or into a church among the graves, in the night, upon
a conceit that an evil spirit may be there ; nay, the fear of
these things is far greater than the fear of death itself, and yet
not one man of a thousand ever saw the devil appear in any
shape, and, it may be, never spoken with any man that did ; and
yet he cannot overcome these fears. Yea, if you do but dream
in the night that you see the devil in any shape, or that he
followeth you, or layeth hands on you, it is a greater terror
than to dream that you are beset with thieves, or that you must
die. Nay, we have known dying men that have not seemed
afraid of death in any extremity, and yet they have thought,
shortly after, that they have seen the devil stand by them, and
then they have cried out in the greatest amazement and horror;
as being far more scared than they were by death itself. It
seemeth to me that this natural fear of devils comes from that
real captivity that men are in to the devil, from which the
saints themselves are not perfectly delivered till the last enemy
death he conquered ; though they are so far delivered that they
are not his captives, but only have yet some of the effects of
his tyranny. " For Christ hath destroyed, by death, him that
hath the power of death, that is, the devil, that he might deliver
them who through fear of death, all their lifetime, were subject
to bondage." (Heb. ii. 14, 15.) But this deliverance is not per^
feet in the time of this life. And, indeed, fear of spiritual
enemies, and of punishments in the world to come, so deeply
rooted in the soul of man, seemeth to me to be even nature's
acknowledgment of the truth and justice of everlasting punish-
ments.
Besides all this, yet it is evident that God is just, and the
Governor of the world, and therefore must be just in judgint^,
and executing his laws ; and it is as evident that in this life
there is not that difference made between the rigliteous and
the wicked which their different lives, and God's justice, do
34 THE slMRir'.s niTN'EsS TO
require. It happens to the righteous according to the 'vork
of the wicked, and to the wicked according to the work of
the righteous, (Eccles. viii. 14.) If there were no punishment
for the wicked, nor happiness to the godly, after this life, cer-
tainly either God were not the Governor of the world, or else
he governs it not in justice ; and he that dares imagine either
of these, must say next, that there is no God.
1 have said thus much more than the main argument in hand,
to prove the truth of the torments of hell, hecause sensual men
do look for arguments from sense : arguments which they may
see and feel, as well as understand ; and because fleshly men
think tliat God should not be so merciful, if he should so
torment them ; self-love makes men partial judges in their own
cause. There is not the worst murderer, or felon, but thinks
the judge unmerciful that sentenceth him to death. Yea, the
foolish child thinks his own father unmerciful, for whipping him :
silly sinful man is unfit to judge of the proceedings of their God.
Object. Jjut the wicked socinians, and some others, that argue
against the necessity of Christ's satisfaction, have taught these
men to object thus : that there is no necessity of suffering for
sin, and God will not torment his creature without necessity.
God can forgive it, say thev, in mercy, without any wrong to
his justice. For the end of punishment is but to deter men from
sin, and preserve obedience, and there will be no use for that in
the world to come : and therefore the i)unisliment shall not be
continued in, the world to come.
Ans. To all this I answer, 1 . There is a moral necessity of
suffering for sin; for God is necessarily the Governor of the
world, and necessarily just : and having made a law which is
in its ordination niade to be both the rule of men's actions, and
of God's judgment, (norma actiomim, moralium, and norma
judiciij according to the common nature of law, it is therefore
necessary, that God rule according to his law : not that he
hath given up his power to dispense with a law ; but by making
these laws for his instrument, in governing the world, whose
use is to be norma jvdicli, as well as 7'egula uctioniim, he hath
restrained his power as to the exercise, signifying that this shall
be the way of his governing and judging; and therefore he will
not dispense with them but upon a valuable consideration. 2.
And l)esides, there is vet a further moral necessity adfinein, that
he may attain the right ends of government, wliich by ordinary
moral means cannot otherwise be attained ; but the law and
THK JRl'IH Ot fHRlSTlAMTV. 35
lawgiver would be contemned, and men sin more presuinplnously,
when they were from under that restraint. 3. Where they say,
that these ends require not everlasting punishment, but only
punishment here.
I answer, There is no proper government but by law, the
engine and instrument of government. These laws must have
threats, and constitute the dueness of punishment, in case of
disobedience : it is necessary, then, that these laws must be made:
and man being a creature that must live for ever, either in joy
or misery, it is necessary that the pain threatened be such as
may have weight enough in suo genere, in a moral causality, to
restrain from sinning. Now, if God should inflict that punish-
ment only which he doth in this life ; then, 1. Man should not
have been governed as man, that is as a reasonable creature, by
hopes and fears of things to come, but as a beast : nor could
virtue or vice be differenced or manifested ; nor the excellency
of the one, or the vileness of the other, appear : for men should
live by sense, and not by faith. The thief and the true man will be
alike in practice, when the judge stands by, and they know they
shall presently be hanged if they steal ; so the murderer and
the lover of his brother, the adulterer and the chaste, will be
both alike free from the act of sin in the midst of a congrega-
tion. This is not properly obedience, or, at least, not obedience
fit for a reasonable creature (who is made to be ruled by reason,
and not by mere sense) to give to the high God. 2. liesides, it
would not be sufficient to restrain men from sin, if God should
only threaten temporal judgments, and not eternal. How
would all the world be cast into confusion by this, while every
murderer would venture to execute his malice, and every
drunkard and adulterer would follow their lusts, and every
voluptuous man would take his pleasure, if it were but to endure
a short pain at death, and then be happy or free from misery
for ever after. We see how thieves will venture a hanging, and
everv offender venture on the punishment of the law. And some
drunkards and adulterers have professed that they had rather
live but one vear in their pleasurg than live to be old without it.
So that reason may see, if God did not threaten an everlasting
punishment, it would not be rationally sufficient for the govern-
ment of the world ; except he should execute judgment
presently still as they sin, and make the present bitterness
greater than the sinful pleasure ; and so govern rational men,
like unreasonable brutes. 8o that it is apparent there is a moral
36 THE spirit's witness to
necessity that God do threaten hell fire. And then, T think, it
will easily appear that there is a necessity that he execute these
threats : for thougli the law, as a law, do not oblige God to
punish, but man to suffer, and do hut constitute the dueness of
the punishment, yet this law is also, as I said, norma judicii,
and so in the enacting this law, God doth, as it were, say,
according to this rule 1 will govern and judge the world. The
law saith, punishment shall be his due; justice saith, let men
have their due. Besides, if God had only constituted the
dueness of punishment, and not made known to men, that he
would eventually execute his threats accordingly, then the hope
of impunity would have encouraged men to sin. This is so
evident, that we see men will still venture on sin, after God
hath foretold them the very event ; and. say, they hope God
will be better than his word. What, then, would men have done
if God had not declared the event, but only the dueness of
punishment ? And, therefore, God hath been pleased, in the new
law, to add to the mere threat a peremptory decree, or a pre-
diction, assuring them that this threat shall be executed without
remedy, though in the first law he did not so ; and reason
showeth the moral necessity of so doing. So it is now plain, it
was necessary that God make such a law, that should threaten
everlasting punishment, and that by such a peremptory threaten-
ing, as should leave the sinner no hope of escape. And then
it is past doubt that it is as necessary that God execute all such
peremptory threatening, for God cannot lie. Though he may
alter the dueness constituted by his law, and so dispense with
the law, yet he cannot make falsehood become truth, and so
dispense with his prediction. Besides the great doubt, whether
stante rerum natura, he can dispense with the punishment of
all law. So that the punishments in the world to come were
a necessary means to govern aright this present world.
And, besides, let me tell these bold men, that as the devils are
made a warning to men that they sin not as they, lest they suf-
fer as they ; so little do we know whether God will have any
other world of creatures, to be continued after our great judg-
ment, who shall be kept in obedience by the consideration of
the punishment of these men that now de'^pise the mercy that
is offered them.
But they object that God could easily malce the creature so
perfect as to obey him without the threats of such punishment.
Answ. True ; l)ut it is ujjparent he hath not made him such,
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 37
and who dare say he hath done amiss ? May not horses, and
oxen and sheep, yea, toads and serpents, have more pretence to
expostulate that they were not made men, than we have that
God made us no better ? I will not meddle with the school-
men's dispute, who maintain that it is impossible for God to
make a creature impeccable, or indefectible. It seemeth that
the upshot of the quarrel is, that man is but man ; that he is
made a free agent ; and that God hath contrived to rule the
world sapientially by the two great engines of free-will and ex-
ternal objects. A will naturally inclined to good, and averse
from evil, self-good and self- evil, and good and evil, life and
death, set before him accordingly to determine him. So that the
adversary doth seem herein to confess that another kind of
world might be made by God, which could be governed well
without ])romises and threats, but not this world of man, in the
nature he is in. Even the most perfect measure of saving
grace that is in this life supposeth the necessity of promises
and threats, reward and punishment, for restraining from sin,
and provoking to duty ; and in the life to come, the present
fruition of so glorious an object will hold faster than any pro-
mise or threat now can do : so I think it is evident that ever-
lasting punishment to sinners is necessary. But if I could prove
none of this, yet that they shall certainly be inflicted, may cer-
tainly be concluded from the truth of Scripture. And for the
necessity of them, or the justness, we will let God alone to con-
vince the world, who will one day fully manifest both, and be
justified when quarrelling unbelievers shall be condemned.
But if men are resolved to perish, what remedy ? Yet, be-
sides all this, let me tell you that it is not only this fore-dis-
covered necessity for the avoiding following inconveniences, but
there is also another necessity of punishing sin. Not a neces-
sity physical, as if God punished sin as the fire burneth, without
reason ; nor a necessity of coaction, as if any compelled him ;
nor as if he would do otherwise, but could not choose : but it is
a necessity of natural perfection, because of God's justice : for
the very order and nature of things requireth that God should
join natural evil to moral evil, and not make the wicked happy,
nor the good unhappy, but the wicked miserable, and the good
happy, according to their nature : for his law, in this respect, was
groiuided upon the nature of things ; and therefore, as nature
reciuired that God should make punishment due by law, so the
same nature cf things requireth that it be inflicted by vindictive
38 THK spirit's witness to
justice; from which notliing hut sufficient satisfaction to that
justice can free tiieni, and God neitiier can nor will go contrary
to the nature of things, l^verv man will confess that if he had
made a law that it should go well with the wicked, or that men
should sin without punishment, it had heen an unjust law. And
is it not as evidently unjust to do so in execution ? But of this,
for full satisfaction, I pray read ' Amyraldus Thes. Salmurienses
de Necessitate Satisfactionis.'
4. Further, if Scripture he so certainly true, then all the
promises and merciful passages are as certainly true. The
careless world, that are not interested in them, do seem more
easily to believe this, than those gracious souls to whom they
do belong. But their faith is too easy to be sound ; and be-
friended too much by Satan to be from God. But of this
heretofore.
5. Let me now advise you further, seeing it is so fully proved
that our religion and Scripture are the certain truth, that you
would remember and make use of this doctrine at time of need ;
especially in these several cases following, wherein men have
more than ordinary need of it.
1. When you are tempted by the devil, or by heathens, to
unbelief and blasphemy, remember then, and make use of the
proofs you have heard. These sorts of men are most liable to
temptations, to unbelief, and flat heathenism, or Judaism. 1.
Young, weak Christians, and especially giddy professors, who
place most of their religion in opinions ; who fall in among
seducers, before they are grounded in the truth. 2. Fleshly,
sensual men, whose lusts and wicked desires are strong, and so
rage within them, that they cannot endure the strictness of the
christian religion. But while they do stay among professors,
they are as birds in a cage, still seeking to get out, glad to hear
of a more flesh-pleasing doctrine. 3. Especially if these men
have wounded their conscience, and been false to the religion
they did profess ; and secretly lived in the lusts of uncleanness
or drunkenness, or the like sensual course. 'I'hey are glad to
believe any doctrine that tells them of impunity in the life to
come, that thereby they may quiet their consciences : God
knows, a short and silly comfort. 4. "^Fhe proud and presump-
tuous professors, timt study not the word of God with fear and
reverence, and look into holy things with rashness and self-
confidence, not knowing the weakness of their own understand-
ing. In a word, all that receive not the love of the truth, that
THE TRUTH OF CHRJSTIANITY. l]9
they may be saved, whom therefore God giveth up to believe a
lie, that all may be damned that believed not the truth, but have
pleasure in imrighteousness. (2 Thess. ii. 11, 12.) Truth looks
to be entertained as truth, and to be preferred before all eamal
interest ; which if it be not, these souls are justly left in dark-
ness, by the departure of the Spirit of light and truth. 5. And
some true Christians are liable to temptations to this horrid
sin, especially when they are stronger, and so more able to bear
it; (for it is observed, that God in mercy seldom sufFereth
the weakest to be much exercised with such hideous tempta-
tions ;) especially those Christians that let loose their reason to
over-bold in([uiries, and expect too much that God should in
all things satisfy their reason. 6. Also, those Christians that
having, in their younger time, received the fundamental truths
only on trust, do come new to the trying of them, upon occa-
sion of any enemy questioning them, or of their own doubting
thoughts ; these at the first are usually put hard to it, till they
have time, and good helps, to try and to be well settled.
7. And most people that are in deep melancholy, and next
step to distraction, are presently assaulted with blasphemous
thoughts. I have wondered oftimes to observe what an evident
power God giveth Satan in this case. I have had multitudes
of people come to me for counsel in deep melancholv, some for
their bodies and some for their minds, and I scarce remember
two of them, but they were strongly tempted to deny Christ
and Scripture, and many to question whether there were a God.
Many that, being very godly, were well grounded before, and
many that, were worldlings, and never minded it much before :
yet now they are assaulted with these blasphemous temptations.
All these sorts, that are capable of receiving advice, I would
entreat to consider of the evidence given in, by which it is mani-
fest that our religion is most certain, and Scripture most true :
the devil himself believes and treuibles, who would persuade
you to unbelief. Methinks the very nature and manner of
urging the temptation, the importunity, and unseasonableness,
and other circumstances, may easily manifest to you that it is
the devil that puts it on. And if it be from him, you may
easily know it is truth and goodness which is so opposed by the
father of lies and wickedness. The Scripture doth evervwhere
speak evil of him, and therefore, no wonder if he be an enemy
to it. There are divers of my acquaintance now in England,
that formerly seemed to have some religion, who now are so
40 THE spirit's witness to
far turned from Christ, and have made shipwreck of faith, that
the)' deny the truth of Scripture, and believe nothing upon the
authority of its revelation ; and so do not believe in Christ as
incarnate and crucified for sin, and as the Redeemer of the
world by his blood. My heart is often moved with grief for
these men's case, to think of the certainty of their approaching
misery ; and the rather, when 1 have fears that some of them
are past recovery. " For if they sin wilfully," by renouncing
Christ through unbelief, " after the acknowledging of the
truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a fearful
looking for of judgment, and fire that shall devour the adver-
sary." "Oh, how sore will be their punishment, that tread
under feet the blood of the covenant, wherewith they were
sanctified, and do despite to the Spirit of grace 1" When it is
written : "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord : and
the Lord shall judge his people : it is a fearful thing to fall into the
hands of the living God." (Heb. x. 26, &c.) Yet, because I am in
hope that some of them have not heard yet of this argument
from the gift of the Holy Ghost, or not in its full force set
forth ; and, therefore, that they have not yet sinned against the
Holy Ghost j I will venture to add one word of request to them.
In the name of the Lord that made them, I entreat them, if
these lines come into their hands, that they bestow a few hours
in the sober, impartial consideration of that evidence which I
have here and formerly given to piove the certain truth of
Scripture, and our religion. That they would try them with
meekness and humility, as men that are not willing to be
deceived, and, in the mean time, stop their ears against the
impetuous clamours of their lusts, which they may know to be
against reason, as well as against Scripture : and if they can
yet pray, that they would beg of God to show them the truth; and
if they cannot at first discern a full evidence of certainty, that
they would a little suspect their own understanding, and read it
over again, and come and open their objections to those that
have studied these things more than themselves ; and if they
can discern but a probability of truth in the Scripture, yet to
consider whether it be not worse than stark madness to venture
on a probability of everlasting damnation, and to cast away a
probability of everlasting glory; and all this for a thing of nothing.
]f it were another more probable way of salvation, that stood in
competition with the way of Christianity, then the madness
were not so great ; but when it is only for a httle fleshly pleasure.
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 41
for a few days ; alas ! what a mad exchange or venture is this !
If you should lose these pleasures, your loss is not worth the
naming : when death comes, the pleasant life and the sorrowful
life are hoth alike. Nay, 1 believe, in my heart, that you that
sell heaven for pleasure, have not near so much as you might
have, in the way of Christ, in believing expectations of heaven :
and it is strange, if the very terrors of your conscience, do not
mar your mirth. Oh I then, when Christianity is revealed to
you, with such clear demonstration as may put a reasonable
man out of doubt ; what, do you mean to perish by wilful infi-
delity ? You may see, in what is said already, that God calls
you not to believe any thing, without reason to believe it, and full
discovery of the truth. God doth not bid you to renounce your
understanding. Christianity is not in shutting-your eyes, and
following any teachers blindfold; it is opening your eyes, and
using your understanding, and reasoning solidly and rightly,
that God calls you to, and that is all that is necessary to your
believing the truth. Therefore, renewing grace consisteth so
much in illumination and opening of men's eyes, and turning
them from darkness to light. There is no religion in the world
hath true reason for it, but the Christian religion, or those
parts of it which men of other religions do acknowledge : only
you must needs know, both that lust and fleshly interests and
inclinations will be strong hinderances to your believing of a
doctrine whi«h is so much against them ; and, also, the clear
apprehension of these things cannot be expected, either at your
first study, or upon any slight view. If a man should teach the
metaphysics or mathematics, yea, or any common doctrine or
trade, you never think to understand him, and discern the evi-
dence of truth in all his assertions at first. No ; nor till you
have long and seriously studied it, and used yourselves to it.
And shall these heavenly mysteries be so easily apprehended, or
be so obvious to your understanding, that you may discern them
at the first view ; especially, considering the native blindness of
the understanding in spiritual things ?
It may be you will saj^, this is not our first consideration of
these things ; \ve have been Christians many a year. Answ. But
were you not all the while Christians in name only ? Did you
not take up your religion merely upon trust ; and believe
Scripture to be the word of God merely upon tradition, and the
authority of your teachers ? If you went no further, I may say
you are yet new to study for the grounds of your religion, though
vol- XX. G
42 THE spirit's witness to
you professed it before. The objections of the devil and hea-
thenish seducers, which have drawn you from Christ and Scrip-
ture, have but discovered the sandiness of your former foundation,
and weakness of those grounds on which you had so carelessly
built your faith, but they have not discovered the weakness of
religion, and the christian doctrine itself, nor the weakness of
those reasons by which other men can maintain it, though you
could not, or cannot. And is it not a desperate betraying of
your souls, that you fly discourse with those that have studied
more than you, and will not open your doubts to those that have
better reasons than you have to resolve them ? Should not any
probability of eternal misery be avoided with greater diligence
than thus much ? You think, by opening your doubts, men will
account you blasphemers, and so you shall lose your credit, and
you are confident that you are in the right, and you know already
all that they can say, and therefore you will not open them to
any that are able to judge of them ; but you do not know what
can be said against them. Ministers do not use to deal with
such blasphemous errors ordinarily in public, nor is it wisdom
to do it; and therefore you hear not what they cau say. However,
it is worthy your trying to hear the utmost, before you venture
on eternal misery.
2. As you should thus meditate on the certain truth of
Scripture, when you are tempted to doubting, so also when your
hearts are dull, and need quickening and exciting to duty ; as
also when conscience groweth sleepy, and you dare, more easily
than formerly, venture on sin. As it is the belief of the truth of
Scripture and christian doctrine that is the first means of quick-
ening the dead soul, and purifying the defiled heart; of mortifi-
cation and vivification : so the same means that bred a spiritual
life must breed spiritual strength, and maintain that life. By
illumination God shows men the truth of his word, and the
goodness of the things offered and promised therein ; even the
desirableness of Christ, and the glory of his kingdom. By this
sight the heart is touched, the will inclined to God, and longing
desires after Christ provoked. Hereby love is kindled to Christ
and glory, and the heart taken off from all inferior vanity, so
that the apprehension of the truth and goodness of the christian
doctrine, and thut which it holdeth forth, is the very instrument
by which God doth his other works in the soul. Here other
graces enter; and here the conversion of a sinner doth begin.
This being so, it is evident that when any grace languisheth,
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTJANITY, 43
or any corruption reviveth or gets strength, you must observe
the same way in strengthening that grace, and destroying and
getting down that corruption. Do you feel your love to Christ
grow cold ? Go take a serious view of the truth of Scripture
in general, and of those Scriptures in particular, that express
his loveliness, and tell you what he hath done and suffered for
you. Then it will make the fire break forth, and you will say,
* Hath the Lord Jesus taken my soul from the very gates of hell,
and ransomed me when all the world could not have done it ?
and hath he chosen me to be one of his peculiar people, and
renewed my dead corrupted soul, and, with the stamp of his
image, marked me for his own ? Hath he pardoned, adopted
me, and promised and prepared for me everlasting glory ? And
shall I not love him ? or shall I love any thing else before him ?
God forbid.' If you feel the love of the godly, or any of your
brethren decay in you, go to Scripture, and consider the truth
of those passages where Christ hath made this the mark of all
his people; and saith, that he is a liar that professeth to love
God, whom he never saw, and loveth not his brother, whom he
seeth daily. (1 John iv. 20.) And where Christ hath given you
his own ensample, both in stooping to wash his disciples' feet,
and in laying down his life in love to us, and charged us even so
far to imitate him, as if need be to lay down our lives for our
brethren. And when you consider thoroughly that this is true, as
being the word of God, it will do much to the cure ', especially
if you believe also what God saith of your loveliness in his own
eyes, and how tender he is of them for all their infirmities, and
how you must be one body with them for ever in glory. If you
feel your hearts grow dull to duty, that you grow customary in
prayer, and hearing, and reproof, and meditation, do but take
a serious consideration of the truth of Scripture, and it will do
much to quicken you to think : is it not a certain truth of God,
that these are appointed means for bestowing grace ? Is it not
a real state of torments that I pray against; and a glory that
hath God's own word for the ascertaining it whicli I pray for ?
Oh, this will put life in prayer ! When you hear sermons, or
read Scripture, and mix them not with this faith, they do not
profit you. (Heb. iv. 2.) As much as you actually and firmly
believe the truth of Scripture, when it speaketh of spiritual
and eternal matters to you, so much and no more will it work
upon your hearts. And therefore what great need have all mi-
nisters to help their people to believe the word of God, seeing,
g2
44 THE spirit's witness to
according to this belief, all the after- work succeedeth ? O with
what reverence would men read every chapter, and with what
affectionate worlcings of soul would every sermon be heard, if
the truth of Scripture were firmly believed ! Could men believe
the reports of judgment, heaven, and hell, and make so light of
it as usually men do ? The same means, also, must quicken you
in meditation, to consider deeply of the truth of what you think
of. It is a dangerous case when Christians give way to a daily,
customary deadness in duty, and go on in it without trouble, or
any great resistance : it is the common way of backsliding, and
declining in grace 5 the common way by which men grow strange
to God. If thou have had never so sweet incomes this way, and
communion with God in these duties, yet if thou once grow heart-
less in them, and seek God as if thou didst not care for finding'
him, ho. will hide his face, and will not be found of such a care-
less soul. The lively reviews of the truth of Scripture is the way
to awaken thy heart again, and make thy addresses to God more
serious. Thiidi, oh ! how certainly shall the same wretch that
is now kneeling before God, and begging mercy in so dull a
manner, be shortly at the dreadful bar, (where there will be no
mercy to those that prevail not for mercy now,) and there be
sentenced to everlasting life or death. So when you are talking
to one another of the life to come, or the way to it, see that
you speak as men that believe the truth of Scripture, and then
■your words will be as the oracles of God, and all your speeches
be seasoned with salt. 2. The same means you must use, also,
when corruption gets strength, or you grow venturous on sin. Oh!
who durst let loose the reins to flesh-pleasing sensuality, that did
but bclievingly consider, " If ye live after the flesh ye shall die 1 "
(Rom. viii. 13 ;) and the fleshly mind is enmity to God ? Wlio
durst give way to the fire of lust and passion that did believingly
consider of the fire of hell ? Who durst give his heart to this
])resent world, and turn all his thoughts, and words, and care
about it, that did believingly consider of its vanity; or how
much better things he might have in God ; and that he that
loveth the world, the love of the Father is not in him ? (1 John
ii. 15.) And that to be a friend of the world is enmity to God.
(Jam. iv. 4.) Who durst neglect holiness that did believe he
should not see God without it? (Heb. xii. 14.) Who durst
harbour unholiness, pride, and malice in his heart, that did be-
lieve the image of the devil doth consist in them, and how sure
a destruction attcndeth them ? Durst careless sinners spend their
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 45
time in drunkenness, sporting, or the like vanity or wickedness,
if they believed how much greater work they have to do, and
what a reckoning they must make for all their time ? My ad-
vice, therefore is, to every Christian that would strengthen his
graces, get down corruption, or forbear sin, or practise duty, go
take a view of the truth of Scripture.
3. Another season when this lesson should be most made use
of, is when we need the reviving of our hope and comfort. A
man that is well awakened to apprehend what the heavenly
glory is, must needs be deeply afflicted upon every doubtful
thought of the truth of it. When affliction breaketh us, and
lieth heavy upon us day and night, how should a poor creature
bear it with any comfort, if he steadfastly believe not that relief
and blessed change he shall have hereafter ? When a man is
wearied with a vexatious, malicious world, and hath lived long
as Lot did in Sodom, (2 Pet. ii. S,) how would he be over-
whelmed with impatiency, if he did not think believingly of the
deliverance at hand ! M^hen a man liveth in continual poverty
or sickness, and hath scarce one day of ease to his flesh, were it
not for the belief of his approaching happiness, how could he
choose but wish he had never been born ? When we think of
lying in the grave in rottenness and dust, how could nature bear
it with any comfort, if our belief of God's word, which promiseth
a resurrection, be not steadfast and firm ? This is the sovereign
remedy against all disconsolation and maladies. Thou canst be
in no trouble which hath not a particular, sufficient medicine in
the word, if it be but applied by firm belief. There is enough
in the word of God to comfort the poor, the sick, the oppressed
and otherwise afflicted, that fear God; but if it be not believed,
how can it comfort ? There is enough to comfort the doubting
soul, tlie troubled conscience, the soul that longeth after God ;
but if it be not believed, what good can it do ? There is enough
in this Scripture to make every true Christian's life a continual
feast, and fill their heart with continual gladness, and make them
the merriest men in the world ; but then you must seriously and
frequently bethink you of the truth of it. Here is the armour
which will defend you against all assaults and terrors, and
quench all the fiery darts of the devil ; but then it must be put
on by faith. Christians do not walk uncomfortably for want of
sufficient ground of consolation, (I mean those Christians that
walk uprightly with God,) but for want of more faith to believe
it. The Scripture doth both ascertain to them their happiness
46 THE spirit's witness to
for the future, and reveal it to their jjresent knowledge ; but if
they think not on this believingly, no wonder if they live in sad-
ness for all this. If any man make you a deed of gift of all his
lands, if you believe it not to be current, you will be nothing
comforted by it. O how it w'ould raise these drooping spirits
that are so depressed by present afflictions and distresses, if they
did but once a-day look on the promise of everlasting glory, and
say, ' How infallible and certain a word is this ? ' and would
look to their approaching enjoyment of Christ, and say, ' I shall
shortly see the face of my dear Saviour, and then I shall be full ;
I shall want, and suffer, and complain no more.' Though now
we see him not, yet thus believingly we might rejoice with joy
unspeakable and full of glory. (1 Pet. i. 8.) Certainly, if there
were but one promise in God's book, it would make a Christian
live comfortably, if it were well believed : had we but that one
in John iii. 16, " God so loved the world that he," Sec, how
merrily might a true believer live ! If Satan should say, 'Thou
shalt be damned, thou shalt never see life ;' or if all the enemies
we have in the world endeavoured our destruction, we could tell
them all, ' God's word shall stand ; I have his promise that I
shall not perish, but have everlasting life.' If Christians that
live in never so great affliction, through sickness, poverty, op-
pression, or the like, did well believe that one promise, " All
things shall work together for good," (Rom. viii. 28,) how easily
might they bear their sufferings. For what man will be so much
grieved at that which he knoweth is for his good ; yea, and so
great a good as the working and exceeding, eternal weight of
glory ?
Second Use.
As you have seen in the First Use the certain truth of Scrip-
ture and the christian religion ; so then see, next, what is the
main argument by which the christian religion hath still been
proved, and must be proved to the world's end ; even the
Spirit of Jesus, working miracles and wonders in the first age
of Christianity, openly in all the world, and working faith, and
holiness, and consolation, in all saints, in all ages. 1 put both
together, for they are but several gifts of one and the same
Spirit, though eitb.er of them alone is sufficient to convince.
Christ was to convince men of things so unlikely to common
reason, and so far above nature, and also of so great concern-
ment and necessity, that he must needs bring most evident,
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 47
undeniable proof ; and so he did. They that would not be-
lieve all his own miracles, nor believe his resurrection, should
yet have a continuation of miracles to convince them ; when he
is out of sight in heaven, they shall see him disposing of the
world at his pleasure, and making the powers of earth and hell
stoop to the poorest of his disciples. He sendeth forth a
peculiar Spirit into his chosen, by which he will still live
within and among them. As the bodies of men do live, and
speak, and reason by the soul, so doth the church live and
move by the Spirit of Jesus. If one had power to send the
spirit of a man into the brute beasts in the whole country, and
should make them speak, and discourse reasonably to any that
come to them ; and all the country should see this done publicly
on thousands, for many years together, would you not believe
the testimony of him that did it, and say, he that hath power
to do this is certainly of God ? So doth the Lord Jesus
evince the verity of his testimony, by sending forth his divin ,
Spirit in men ; making them so publicly, in the face of congre-
gations, do miracles, speak with tongues, cast out devils, for
many years together ; and ever after to sanctify by it the souls
of his people, mortifying and mastering the strongest corrup-
tions, and raising them to those holy inclinations and affections,
which mere nature is utterly strange unto. Unbelievers might
have seen the former outward workings of the Spirit, and may
vet see the certain proof that they were wrought : and be-
lievers feel the inward for a witness in themselves, it much
hurteth believers to forget what they once were, which, com-
pared with what they are, will make the change more sensible
- and eminent ; because they feel not as great a change still
again and again, as they found at the ftrst, they forget the first,
and overlook much of that mercy and evidence. If the sun
did appear to the world yesterday, and to-day be under a cloud,
and yet from thence afford the world its light, and some heat,
is he not mad that will now question whether there be any sun
or not ? We will believe them that yesterday saw it, though
we had not ourselves seen it ; and we will confess that nothing
else but the sun could thus enlighten the world. May not the
glorious light of knov/ledge, the heat of holy affection, discover
the Lord Jesus, though we live not in that age when he did
shine visibly in daily, numerous miracles, having withal most
certain testimony of these miracles ? As reasonably may we
deny the sun, when we live in its light j or deny a man to be
48 THE spirit's witness to
leasonablej when we hear his discourse, as deny the testimony
of the Lord Jesus, when we see the effects of his almighty
Spirit. This Spirit he promised to send when he was ascended,
to supply his own room, and that as a greater advantage to
our faith and joy than his personal presence would have been.
(John, xvi. 7.) This Spirit he promised to send to convince the
world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Of sin, be-
cause they believed not in him : that is, when they see the
unquestionable evidence of his Spirit, they shall confess the
sinfulness of their unbelief, and say, " Verily, this was the Son
of God." Of righteousness, because he went to the Father, i. e.
they shall then be convinced that he was righteous, and so was
his testimonv, when they shall perceive that he remaineth not
dead, but is ascended, and liveth with the Father in power and
glory, all things being committed to his hands, when they see
both men and devils obey him. Of judgment, because the
prince of this world is judged, i. e. they shall then acknowledge
that he is made the only Lord, and all judgment is committed
to him, when they see him judging the devils themselves, and
casting them out, and silencing all their oracles through the
world, and destroying the kingdom of wickedness and darkness,
and in bringing in light, and holiness, and consolation. Indeed,
as God manifested himself the Creator by breathing into man the
breath of life, whereby he became a living soul ; so Christ hath
manifested himself the Redeemer, by breathing into man a
divine nature, even the life of grace, whereby they become
supernaturally living. And as it is madness for any man to
doubt of God's creation, who hath a living soul, and discerneth
't in others by the effects ; so is it madness for any man to
doubt of Christ's redemption and salvation, that hath his Spirit
dwelling in him, or discerneth it by its proper effects in others.
And verily, if the blind world could see the things of the Spirit,
they might discern the Spirit of Jesus in the holiness and
heavenliness of these very people, whom they now hate and
despise, as they can discern a reasonable soul in meii by their
discourse. For though true special grace could not be so cer-
tainly discerned from common grace, yet both common and
special, as they are diffused through the church, do show the
great power and virtue of Christ. 1 conclude, therefore, that
the Spirit of Jesus Christ is his great convincing witness to the
world.
THE TKUrH OF CHRISTIANITY. 49
Third Use.
The next information is this ; we see hence what is the testi-
mony of the Spirit, and who 'they be that have this testimony.
There is a twofold testimony of the Spirit, as to the thing
testified.
1. Its testimony of Christ and the christian religion.
2. Its testimony to the truth of our own graces, and of our
adoption. What the former is you may easily discern by what
is already spoken, that is both the work of miracles and sancti-
fication. As for the latter, the Spirit's workings are some
common, and some special ; the common, as miracles, tongues,
prophecies, &c., formerly, and many common gifts now, may
prove a man a common Christian. For Christ giveth to common,
sanctified Christians those gifts of his Spirit which he giveth
not to any of the heathen world. But yet these will not prove
him a true Christian in the favour of God. But that the special
gifts of sanctification will prove. It is not, therefore, at least
principally, any internal voice, or the Spirit, saying within a
a man, *Thou art the child of God,' which is the witness of the
Spirit 5 but as the Lord Jesus hath made a promise of giving his
Spirit to all that are his ; so when he perforraeth that promise
they may iiereby know that they are his. It is the having this
Spirit, and the working of this Spirit in us, that first witnesseth
to our souls the power, goodness, and truth of Christ, and next
witnesseth our own adoption, because he giveth it to none but
to sons. " For because we are sons, (so made upon our
believing), God sendeth forth the Spirit of his Son into our
hearts, crying Ab!>a Father." (John i. 11, 12.) When we find
the Spirit working child-like love, and child-like hope, and
child-like dependence upon God, and desires after him, and
recourse in prayer to him, we have then the certain witness of
our adoption. (Gal. iv. 6 ; Rom. viii. 15, 16.) For by this
work of the Spirit, causing us to cry Abba Father, and causing
us to speak to God from child-like affection, and so helping
our infirmities in our prayer, doth the Spirit witness with our
spirit that we are the childjen of God. (Rom. viii. 15, IH, 26.)
As many as are led by the Spirit of God may conclude they are
the sons of God ; (Rom. viii. 1 4 ;) that is, if they live not after
the flesh, but after the Spirit. (Verse 13.) It is the Spirit dwelling
in us, then, which is the testimony. (Verse 9.) And if any man
have not this Spirit of Christ he is none of his. (Verse 9.) It is
therefore objectively that this Spirit testifieth. It is the seal, and
50 THE spirit's witness to
pledge, and witness of our adojDtion ; as the having of a reasonable
soul, and the workings of it, witness our humanity. Those, there-
fore, that look after a witness otherwise efficient, that is, the Spirit
within, to tell them they are the children of God, may on both
sides delude and undo themselves. -They that have no grace,
may think they have, wliile their own deluded hearts persuade
them they are good Christians. How readily would most of our
worldlings think their presumption were the witness of the
Spirit ! And those that have true grace may think they have
none, because they discern not such a witness : whereas, if they
faithfully enquired after the indwelling and working of Christ's
Spirit in their souls, mortifying the flesh, and causing them to
live to Christ, according to his law, they would have the sure
witness, and that which they might sooner find. Yet I know,
that when even from hence they conclude their sonship, the
Spirit helpeth them in that conclusion. It is the Spirit itself, in
its powerful, victorious workings, that is the white stone, and
infallible seal of the love of God.
Fourth Use.
Next, we are hence informed what it is to believe In the
Holy Ghost, and what it is to be baptised into the Holy
Ghost. We find mention of the Spirit of God upon the
prophets and holy men in the Old Testament, before Christ's
coming in the flesh ; and the salvation of man then did lie in
their believing this Spirit's speaking in the prophets, and re-
vealing God's will to them. Those natural discoveries, which
are made by the mere book of the creatures, was not then suffi-
cient to instruct men in the truths and duties necessary to sal-
vation. God saw it meet, even from the creation of the world,
even to innocent Adam, to add some supernatural revelation :
and we find now, by full experience, the defectiveness of mere
natural discoveries, called the law or light of nature. Therefore
had God still some special messengers, whom he designed to
this work in former ages, that by them his Spirit might speak
to the world : and they that believed not, but resisted- these
prophets, were said to resist the Holy Ghost. (Acts vii. 51.) For
that I judge the true meaning of the text, not excluding other
resistance. Yet as Christ was not then so fully revealed, or so
fully described to those believers to whom he was then pro-
pounded ; so the Holy Ghost was not so explicitly propounded
to be believed in, nor the doctrine of the Trinity then so fully
opened. Yet then, as they were to believe in the Messiah, or
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 51
Saviour to come, so they were to believe that the Spirit of God in
the prophets, foreteUing his coining, was a true witness ; and
therefore their prophecy is called a sure word, whereto we do
well to look and trust, as to a light shining in a dark place.
(2 Pet. i. 19.) But now, since the coming of Christ in the
flesh, both the Son and the Holy Ghost are more fully revealed,
the Holy Ghost by himself, and the Son by the Holy Ghost, and
the Father by the Son and Holy Ghost, in a special manner.
And though the Spirit in the prophets were truly the Spirit of
Jesus foretelling his coming and salvation, yet the more eminent
measure and working of the Spirit, given since Christ's coming,
especially in the first ages of the church, for the confirmation of
Christianity is peculiarly called the Spirit of the Son. (Gal. iv.
6; Phil. i. 19.) Therefore, when we are said to believe in the
Holy Ghost, it is not only that there is a Holy Ghost, or to be-
lieve the doctrine of the Trinity; but it is to believe, first, that
Jesus Christ did send forth his Spirit into his prophets before his
coming, and more fully into believers since his coming, to be his
infallible witness to the world, to convince the unbelieving, and
confirm believers : and that this Spirit was poured out on the
church, especially on the apostles, causing them to prophesy,
and speak strange languages, and cast out devils, and heal dis-
eases ; and that the same Spirit is given to all true believers, in
all ages, to guide, and sanctify, and comfort them, working
their hearts to God by Christ, and sealing the love of God to
their soul, striving against and conquering the flesh. 2. And,
further, to believe that the witness of this Spirit is certain and
infallible, and that it is and must needs be the Holy Spirit of
God which doth such miracles as were then wrought, and attest-
eth and revealeth so holy a doctrine, and worketh in men's souls
so holy and blessed eftects ; and therefore that Jesus Christ is
the Son of God, who sealeth his doctrine by sending into be-
lievers this Spirit. When we read of the glorious workings of
the Holy Ghost of old, and see the holy workings of it still, to
believe that this is the Spirit of Christ, which he promised to
send for the confirming of his doctrine, and guiding his church,
and applying his merits and benefits : this is to believe in the
Holy Ghost, as to the assenting part. And then as to the con-
senting part, (for the will hath its part also in this work of be-
lieving in the Holy Ghost, as well as in believing in Christ,) it is
a hearty consent that this Spirit shall be our Confirmer, Guide,
Sanctifier, and Comforter in particular; with a sincere resolu-
52 THE si'irit's witness to
tion to yield to his revelations, to obey his guidance and mo-
tions, and give up ourselves to his sanctifying work : this is be-
lieving in the Holy Ghost.
And then by this you may easily see what it is to be baptised
into the name of the Holy Ghost ; for it is but the obsignation
of this our faith on our part, and receiving of Christ's obsigna-
tion of the promise of the Holy Ghost on his part. We do not
only, by baptism, profess to believe that there is a Holy Ghost,
but we profess to believe the truth of his witnessing to Christ
and his doctrine, and to trust our souls on his teaching and reve-
lation, and take him for our Guide and Sanctifier; and to believe
on him, as that Holy Spirit which Jesus Christ, in his bodily
absence, hath sent to supply his room, and to be, as it were, the
soul of his church, and actuate everv true believer. 1 know none
that more fully opens the sense of the Scripture and primitive
church, concerning believing in the Holy Ghost, than Tertullian,
de Prescript., where he citeth the creed, or foundation of religion,
which the church believed and professed in those times, and by
which the ortliodox were known from all heretics, Christum
misisse vicariam vim Spiritus sancti qui credentes agat', having
spoken of Christ's own working miracles before. Every word
of it deserveth consideration.
1. He speaks of the Holy Ghost as sent into the world, and
not only as proceeding from the Father and the Son before the
world was made.
2. He speaks of liim as sent by Christ, and so flowing from
liim, the Head, to his members, and testifying to him.
3. To show the manner of his indwelling and working, he
calls it vim Sjnrilus sancti, the power or active force of the
Holy Ghost, because, essentially, he is every where, but he is not
pleased every where to exercise or manifest his force; and he
chooseth this phrase rather than an habit or an act ; and I con-
ceive it more fit than either to signify that which we receive
from Christ, called by the name of the Holy Ghost ; for the
habit and act are but the effects of this force of the Holy Ghost.
By this force he moveth the soul to action so effectually that it
prodiiceth a hal)it; and he saith, not the substance, or person,
or essence of the Holy Ghost is sent or given, but the force or
energy.
4. He calls it incariam vim, to show that this Spirit is sent
from Christ, the Head, upon his personal departure from the eartli,
and ascending to heaven to supply the room of his bodily pre-
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 53
seiice, both in testification, and in sanctification, and consolation
of his people, as he told his disciples : " f tell you the trutli, it
is expedient for you that I go away ; for if I go not away, the
Comforter will not come to you; but if I depart 1 will send him
to you." (John xvi. 7-) It is not expedient for the body that
the head be contiguous to every member, but rather that it join
locally only to the highest part of the body, and send forth the
animal spirits into the whole body ; and the life and motion of
the feet and hands, that stand remotest from the head, is vet
an infallible mark, both that there is a head, and that it conveyeth
spirits to those members, and those members have a conjunction
and communion with the head : so is it most expedient that
Christ, our Head, should be bodily present in heaven, but send
his Spirit to his lowest and remotest members ; and he that
feeleth or seeth the certain effects of this Spirit, is mad if he
doubt of the life and efficacy of the Head; so that this Spirit
is instead of Christ's personal presence, even as the magistrate
is in the stead of the sovereign, through the body of the common-
wealth. Nor doth this intimate any personal inequality between
the Son and the Holy Ghost, but only a subserviency in operation.
5. The office that Tertullian and the primitive church here
giveth the Spirit, is ut credentcs ayat, to actuate believers, as
the soul actuates the body : not that man's soul is merely passive
herein, as the body is to the soul; for the soul is of a more ac-
tive nature, being itself a spirit ; but as to the spirituality, and
holy and heavenly manner of action, it comes from this Spirit.
It actuated the Jfirst church after Christ with a force extraordi-
nary, by miracles, prophecies, healing, languages, &e., and it
still actuateth the whole body of Christ, according to their ne-
cessity, for the perfecting of them in the application of Christ's
blood and merits.
6. It is especially the eminent degree of the Spirit which is
here meant, that is given to believers after their faith ; and
therefore he saith, qui credentes agat. Though, as I have said,
the Spirit of prophecy that foretold of Christ was Christ's Spirit
too, and so is the Spirit that bringeth men to Christ, by causing-
them to believe. Yet this is but the Spirit moving without, and
knocking at the door first, and making his way into the soul,
and then he dwelleth in the soul afterwards. Sure I am the
Scripture speaks of giving the Holy Ghost upon and after
believing frequently, and that must be some gift eminently, and
by an excellency called the Holy Ghost. Yet even that Spirit
54 THE spirit's witness to
which is given to believers, may be said to be given to unbe-
lievers also, though not in the sense as he is given to believers ;
yet in a lower sort he may be said to be given or propounded to
them, not only as it moveth at the hearts of unbelievers, (though
not effectual to sanctification,) but also as its workings in
believers, discovered in the fruits, are an objective means to con-
vince unbelievers. So saith Paul " If an unbeliever come
in, he will fall down and say, God is in you of a truth."
(1 Cor. xiv. 25.) And Christ himself promising the Spirit to his
disciples, saith, that the same Spirit shall reprove the world of
sin, of righceousness, and of judgment, (John xvi. 8,) but he is
sent to dwell in believers only, " 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, whom the world cannot receive,
because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him, but ye know
him, for hedwelleth with you, and shall be in vou." (John xiv. 16.)
Yet he addeth, " 1 will not leave you comfortless, I will come
unto you." To show them that when the Spirit hath done all
his work, Christ will return personally, and do the rest of his
work also, which shall be the bringing them yet a greater
comfort than that of the Spirit.
The first work was to be done by Christ on the cross in
satisfying, and by Christ on the earth in preaching and working
miracles, and giving an example of holiness to his followers.
There was so great comfort in this, that his disciples grieved to
think of leaving him. The second work is to be done in heaven
by Christ mediating, and on earth by the Spirit whom he will
send to his church. By this shall the benefits of his former
works, even of his death and satisfaction, be applied : and there-
fore this is yet a more comforting work to believers, because it
brings that mercy near us that before was far off, and that to
our hearts, and into our possession, in part, which before was in
the hands of Christ, and in a conditional promise : and there-
fore the Holv Ghost, that performeth this work, is called a
Comforter. The third and last work is by Christ returning to
his church again : when the Holy Ghost hath done his works on
our hearts, and perfected them, then will Christ sentence them
to life everlasting, and present them perfect and spotless to his
Father, and bid ihem enter into the joy of their Lord. This is
the most comfortable work of all which he here frequently also
promiseth. In the mean time the Holy Ghost is his substitute,
as it were. " These things have I spoken while I am present
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 55
with you ; but the Comforter, 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 to you.
" But when the Comforter comes, whom I will send to you from
the Father, the Spirit of truth, which proceedethfrom the Father,
he shall testify of me : and ve also shall bear witness, because
ye have been with me from the beginning." (John xv* 25, 26.)
So that the work of the Spirit is first to be Christ's witness ;
and then, secondly, to be his Agent hi the souls of believers ;
and therefore Christ is said to dwell in them by his Spirit ;
(Rom. viii. 11 ; 1 Cor. iii. 18.); and they are said to be the
temple of the Holy Ghost, which dwellelh in them. (1 Cor.
iii. 16. 17 ; 2 Tit. i. 14.) And he that hath not the Spirit
of Christ, is said to be none of his. (Rom. viii. 9.) So that
I conclude the Spirit, by extraordinary works formerly, and
by holy actuating the church to the end, is Christ's great witness
to the world : and thus we believe in the Holy Ghost, and thus
we are baptised into him : for, as to believe in Christ, and to be
baptised into him, respecteth him, not only as God, nor only as
God and Man, according to his nature, but also as Redeemer,
according to his office ; and that with a special applicatory
respect unto ourselves; so also the same may, and must be said of
our believingin the Holy Ghost, andbeingbaptised into his name.
So much for that use.
5. Hence we may perceive also what it is to sin against the
Holy Ghost ; I mean that sin which is especially so called, and
is the unpardonable sin. I dare not be too bold in such a
conti-overted point. But it seemeth to me to be the total
rejection of this great testimony of Jesus Christ given to the
world, when men see or hear this testimony fully, and are
convinced of the matter of fact, that such a Spirit the Lord
Jesus did send into his Church at first, working these miracles,
and prophecies, and tongues, which we read of, and see also the
effects of this Spirit in the holiness of Christ's doctrine, and his
people's lives, and yet will not believe that this Spirit is divine ;
but when they have no other shift or means, they blasphemously
say, it is the spirit of the devil, or by the power of the devil, that
these things were wrought. This is Athanasius's opinion, and
this seemeth punctually agreeable to that text of Scripture
where Christ mentioneth this sin. I shall sav the less of this
now, because I have before told you my judgment of it. Only
observe, that it is not temptations or motions to this sin that is
56 THE spirit's witness to
unpardonable ; nor every sinful attendance to such temptations,
or hearkening or inclining to them. But it is when the tempta-
tion so far takes, that the sin is prevalent against the contrary
witness and motions ; and when men do conclude fully and
resolvedly, that the Spirit of Christ is the spirit of the devil.
This sin is therefore unpardonable because incurable : for the
Spirit will not stay with such a soul, but leave them remediless ;
as Christ hath sent no greater remedy of unbelief, than the
witness of his Spirit. Therefore, they that totally reject this
have no rem.edy left for their cure : for the Spirit may follow
them, and solicit them, till such a total blasphemous rejection.
Even as when Christ himself is totally rejected by apostacy,
sinners are left hopeless because helpless, and helpless because
there remaineth no sacrifice for their sin, when the only Sacri-
fice which was once offered for them is rejected. (Heb. x. 16.)
Whether it be only this objective testimony of the Spirit, whose
refusal is the sin against the Holy Ghost, or whether also the
total rejecting of the effective testimony of the Spirit of Christ,
when its motions come to so high a degree, be the sin against
the Holy Ghost, 1 will not now determine : but the former
methinks is clear. Only one great doubt here lieth in the way.
Object. If that be so, then the conversion of the Jews may
seem hopeless or desperate, because to this day they confess the
miracles of Jesus Christ, and the other workings of his Spirit,
but maintain that he did these by the help of the devil.
Sol. To which I answer,
1. It is God's great mercy to his church which made Christ's
workings, nay, his apostles, so pubhclvandeminently miraculous,
that all these enemies of his truth do confess them, and main-
tain the infallible medium of the christian faith, while they
deny the conclusion ; which one would think should much
confirm all Christians in the faith.
2. I Answer, that as it is with the papists, so it is with the
Jews, they be not all of one mind : the leaders have grosser
principles than most of the common people do entertain.
3. And consider, may not that be one reason why the Jews
are yet uncalled ? Why all nations flock in to Christ wherever
the gospel yet came into the world, though God hath suffered
the sword of the Turk to deter many countries from Christianity
again, and only Jews continue uncured, except now and then
two or three that come in ; may not that sin against the Holy
Ghost cause the commonness of obstinate, incurable infidelity ?
It i> worth the ol'serviuG:.
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 57
4. May not God cause this generation of the Jews, whom he
means to convert, to be free from this sin, which else would
hinder their conversion, and vvliich hath hindered the conversion
of so many of their predecessors.
5. And the rather, because, indeed, w^e cannot say it is most of
the Jews that are now guilty of it; for though the generality con-
fess the miracles of Christ and his disciples, blessed be God fof
it, yet we read and hear but of few of them that lay this upon a
diabolical power, and so blaspheme the Holy Ghost : but most
of them have a foolish fable, that Christ had found out the right
pronunciation of the ineffable name, and by the power of that,
did all his miracles ; and they "think, if any other could find out
that name, he might do the like ; I mean, that nomen Tetra-
grammaton, which we call Jehovah : so that I see not any cause
that men have of discouragement, in any attempt for the con-
version of any Jew, as if they all or most did now lie under that
unpardonable sin, the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.
There is none, besides Jews, on earth, that I am more afraid
of, with respect to this sin, than some that lately were professors
of religion amongst us, and now are turned to deny Scripture
and Christianity, and make a derision of the word of God :
especially those of them that are convinced of the matter of
fact, and judge all to be done by the power of Satan : but I
hope there are but ie'W of those. The Lord teach every be-
liever to take heed of any thing that is like this sin, or that hath
any tendency to it; and to tremble at every temptation that way,
and speedily fly from it : for it is a fearful thing to fall into
the hands of the living God, who hath said, "Vengeance is mine,
and I will repay ;" for our God is a consuming fire : and doubt-
less, Christians and all others have need to be very careful what
entertainment they give also to the Spirit's motions within them;
lest by unkind neglects, and frequent repulses, they grieve and
expel him, that should convince and enlighten them, sanctify
and comfort them ; and then they will be left to be filthy still,
and comfortless for ever.
I might have added somewhat here more fully, to show you
^vhat it is to resist the Spirit, and what to quench and grieve
the Spirit, and what for the Spirit to depart from men : but
you may gather thus much from what hath been said.
Doctrine If.
Having done with the main doctrine, which I intended from
VOL. XX. H
58 THE spirit's witness to
this text, I shall add a few words of that which lieth next
before us.
That doctrine, religion, and way, in which the Spirit of Christ
is given, is the only true doctrine, religion, and way to salvation ;
and, therefore, every one that would certainly know the true
doctrine, religion, and way to salvation, should inquire by which
religion or way it is, that he or others have received the Spirit
of Christ.
Here I must first give you some explicatory cautions for the
right understanding of this part ; secondly, give you the reason
of it for confirmation ; thirdly, Jipply it.
1. He that is capable of making use of this rule, must be a
man that either hath the Spirit himself, or else seeth the clear
effects of it in others, or is convinced of the truth of Scripture
report of these effects. Those churches that the apostles
wrote to, had the Spirit themselves, some of them for miracles,
and some for sanctification ; and those that had it not for
miracles, could frequently see these miracles wrought by others
that had it. Those, therefore, now, that either have the Spirit
of sanctification or common illumination, or live among those
that have it, and are able to discern the Spirit by its effects,
are capable of making use of this rule of judging of doctrine
and religion by the Spirit : but those that neither have the
Spirit, nor live among those that have it ; or if they do, yet are
not able to discern it by its holy effects in men's speeches and
conversations, nor yet do believe Scripture reports of the former
workings of the Spirit. These can never come by the means
to know the true doctrine and religion : for being ignorant of
the means, they must be ignorant of the conclusion and end.
2. He that is capable of making right use of this rule, must
be sure that he take not that for the Spirit which is not ; and
so mistake a delusion, or melancholy fancy, and confident self-
conceitedness, or distempered passion, for the Spirit of God :
otherwise, a man will not only lose the use of this rule of
trying and knowing the true religion by the Spirit, but he will
be carried likely to a false, by this false means. Satan himself
is transformed into an angel of light to deceive ; and his
ministers transform themselves into ministers of light. (2 Cor.
xi. 14.) And therefore every spirit that bringeth light, or
seemeth to do so, is not this Spirit of God ; nor is every
minister that preacheth light a minister of this Spirit of Christ.
Those that inwardly are ravening wolves, yea, grievous wolves,
devouring the flock, shall yet come in sheep's clothing, with
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 59
seeming innocency and fair pretences. (Matt. vii. 15 ; Acts xx.
29.) And they that creep into houses, and lead captive silly
women laden with iniquity, ever learning, but never coming to
the knowledge of the truth, shall have a form of godliness.
(2 Tit. iii. 5, 6.) If one of Montanus's disciples, or one of our
ranters, should take their strange satanical delusions or possessions
for the Spirit of Christ as they do, no wonder if they be enemies
to the true religion : for that Spirit comes not by Christ's doc-
trine, nor leads to his way and end : and it is a duty of great
moment to try the spirits.
3. You must carefullv understand, that this rule is no further
to be extended to any doctrine, or trial of it, than it can well
be proved that this doctrine was the means of conveying the
Spirit : and, therefore, that it reacheth not to every circum-
stance or accident of that doctrine, and every manner of de-
livery, or every qualification of the instruments that deliver it.
We are certain that the first church received the Spirit by the
preaching of the faith in Christ, and not by the works of the
law; and therefore, we are certain the christian religion is the
true religion, and not the Jewish ceremonies j and conse-
quently, that every part of Christ's doctrine is true : for if
Christ be proved once true in his main testimony, that lie is
the Son of God and Saviour of the world, then is it impossible
but that all is true which is his doctrine. So clear is this,
that Mahomet himself, in his Alcoran, confesseth it, (for God
would have his truth have the confession of enemies also,) and
therefore he feigneth, that though Jesus taught nothing but
truth, yet his disciples depraved his doctrine. And how ? For-
sooth, by blotting out Mahomet's name, whom Christ promised
to send as the comforter. As if the former Christians had any
reason to blot out his name, or the latter in his own days could
have done it undiscerned, when no Bible then in the church
had his name in it. But to pass by these foolish adversaries j
J say, it is a good argument, the christian doctrine is true, be-
cause by it the Spirit was and is given.
But now you cannot argue for the goodness of the preacher,
or for such or such an accidental manner of preaching, or for
such a man's opinion in other smaller things, that these are
certainly of Christ, because you received the Spirit by that
man's doctrine, or such a manner of preaching. For example :
if Judas say, by his preaching men received the Spirit, there-
fore I am a true believer ; this is no good argument : or if
H 2
(JO THE spirit's witness TO
Peter should have argued, by my preaching men received the
Spirit : therefore my dissembling, or my denying Christ, was
good ; this is ill arguing. So, perhaps, men may receive the
Spirit from a minister's preaching that hath an ill method, or
an ill delivery or gesture 5 it will not follow that the Spirit is
a witness to these faults of his : nor may you thus argue, I
received the Spirit by such a method of preaching, therefore
that is the only method. For it was not the method, or de-
livery, or gesture of the man, but tiie christian doctrine by
which you received the Spirit : men of divers ways and
opinions about inferior things, may yet all preach the same
christian doctrine, by which the Spirit may be conveyed. A
pres])yterian, or independent, or episcopal man, as they are
iiov/ termed, may none of them argue thus : ' By my doctrine
men received the Spirit, therefore these opinions are true.'
No man ever received the Spirit by the preaching for episco-
pacy, or presbvtery, or independencv, as such, or in these parts
wherein they differ from others, and whence they have their
names : the like may be said of some other such controversies.
Yet this must be acknowledged, that if God do ordinarily bless
one way of preaching, or one sort of men to be his instruments
for conveying the Spirit more than all others, it is a very pro-
bable mark, that he favoureth that very way of preaching, and
sort of men. Plain preachers, and zealous, are often more blessed
to be instruments in this work, than cold or dull, or daubers,
or quaint-wordy preachers. Hence, we may well argue thus :
Most men receive the Spirit by plain, zealous preachers, and
few by dull or daubing ones, and therefore God approveth the
former more than the latter. Yet here you must take heed of
a mistake, by stretching this rule further than ever God intended
it, or the nature of it will bear. As if one should argue thus :
' Presbyterians succeeded more than episcopal or independent :
or independent succeeds more than presbyterian or episcopal :
therefore, God more approveth of them ;' it is not a certain
argument; for, perhaps, the reason of God's approbation may
be from something else, wherein they differ, that is of greater
moment than these parts. Perhaps, most of this or that opinion
may be more godly, zealous, conscionable preachers, and there-
fore may be more successful ; wn.ereas, if the other were such,
they might succeed too, for all their opinion. Yet this may be
granted, that if God ordinarily give up the men of one judg-
ment to wicked lives, and their doctrine doth more harm than
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 61
good ; or though tlieir lives be good, yet God useth not to
bless their doctrine to the saving of souls, and ordinarily useth
to bless the doctrine of others, and that both to the sanctifying
of themselves and their hearers ; this is a strong probable ar-
gument that God favoureth not that opinion which bringeth
forth no better fruits. You see, then, in what sense this Spirit
must be received.
Reason. That doctrine, religion, and way in which the
Spirit is given, must needs be the true doctrine, religion, and
way to salvation, because God will not bless any other with
such noble success. It is the end and use of God's own doc-
trine and way to convey the Spirit to his people ; and he that
hath appointed means of his own to that end, will not bless
others, l)ut his own thereto. It is the highest honour of his
own ordinances, which he will not give to any other : the
Spirit will not ride in any chariot, but what is of God's own
making ; the conveying of the Spirit is the chiefest seal that
any doctrine can have ; and, therefore, God will not set his
seal to any falsehood. So that I need no more proof of this.
Quest. But do not our divines ordinarily teach that we must
try the Spirit by the doctrine, and not the doctrine by the
Spirit.
Ansvv. This is a great question, and because it is much
tossed, and of great use for these times, I will speak to it the
more exactly, though briefly.
1. You must distinguish between the doctrine of Scripture,
and the doctrine delivered now by particular men.
2. You must distinguish between the Spirit that hath already
sealed the christian doctrine, and the particular spirits that now
men have, or pretend to have.
1 . The first doctrine delivered to the church and to Adam
by God himself, needed no other witness, he having the cer-
tainty of sense and knowledge that it was of God.
2. This doctrine he delivered down to his posterity, which
they received, till iMoses' time, by tradition, and needed no
new testimony for the sealing of it, but only a hand or mouth
still to report and deliver it.
3. When God added a new system of doctrhies by IMoses,
there was a necessity of some new means for to discover the
truth of it : and here the people had, first, for the moral law, its
clear agreement with the law of nature written in them. 2. For
the whole they had, partly the voice of God, and the sight of the
62 THE spirit's witness to
flaming mountain ; and partly many and frequent miracles upon
every rising of unbelief to convince them.
4. What was added afterwards by particular prophets in each
age, was not any doctrines or new parts of God's law, but pre-
dictions about matters of fact, or reproof, or counsel in particu-
lar cases : and here the witness was partly the holiness of the
men, and partly the fulfilling of their prophecies : and partly the
agreement of their counsels and reproofs to the general law.
5. But then for the doctrine of Christ and his apostles : though
he had many witnesses, yet his main witness was his own
miracles and his Spirit ; even that Spirit by which he, as it were,
animated the body of his church, and so Christ's doctrine was
proved by the Spirit. '
6. But now Christ by his Spirit hath sealed and well proved
his doctrine : that doctrine standeth as our rule hereafter, to
try both all doctrines and spirits by. For a doctrine sealed by
the Spirit of truth, must needs be truth, and, therefore, nothing
can be truth that disagreeth from it. And the rather must men
bring all hither for trial, because this doctrine is not only true, but
full and sufficient ; no more being to be added ; it being given to
make the man of God perfect and wise to salvation ; and is able
to build us up, and give us the inheritance : and Christ having
promised to be with them that preach this very doctrine, to the
end of the world ; and having purposely given to his church the
preachers of this doctrine for the edifying of the saints, and per-
fecting his body, till they all come to the stature of his fulness,
to a perfect man ; and he will sanctify and cleanse his church
by the washing of water by his word, that he may present it
spotless and without blame. And Paul chargeth him to keep
what he had delivered to him till the coming of Jesus Christ. All
this you know is Scripture, and, therefore, this word is not only
true, but a perfect rule, and consequently being thus sealed up
by the Spirit of miracles and sanctification already, it is now the
rule of doctrine and spirits.
Quest. But how was that Spirit known by which Christ first
proved his word ? Was there any way of knowing the Spirit to
be of God, but by the word ?
Answ. Thus : that Spirit which certainly comes from the
highest wisdom, power, goodness, faithfulness, and holiness, doth
certainly come from God. This reason can see as plain as the
eye can see the sun ; but such was and is the Spirit of Jesus, by
which he attested his doctrine : therefore,
THE TRUTH OF CHi» JSTIANITY. 63
1 . It came from the highest wisdom, as appeareth both in the
doctrine itself reveahng the hidden things of God, and the way
of salvation, and opening the secrets of men's hearts ; 2. And
by the effects, in that it illuminateth the simple, and maketh
Christians the wisest men in the world.
Object. They say so themselves, but how will that appear ?
Answ. I will not stand now on the answer of this, being on
the by : but this one thing I will say ; it appeareth in that all
men sooner or later are of cheir mind. The wiser any heathen
philosopher is, the nearer he is to the doctrine and way of
Christians : Plato, Plotinus, Seneca, Cicero, were the wisest,
and they were likest to Christians. 1. Most dying men say, as
they say in most things, though they were against them never so
much before ; they speak against sin, and commend a holy life,
and acknowledge their folly in judging otherwise. 3. Those
that are converted, and have had experience of both ways, are
the fittest judges.
2. The Spirit of Christ comes from the highest power ; for
none but the Almighty could do such things, and could animate
so many thousand mean people for many years after with the
same spirit, and by this means subdue the world far and near in
so short a time, to a doctrine so con^^rary to flesh and blood.
3. The Spirit of Jesus Christ came from the highest good-
ness ; for it discovereth the greatest perfection of the author,
and the greatest love to mankind, especially to the good, that is
possible to conceive of, both in the way to salvation by the re-
demption through Christ, and in the end, in the glory prepared
for believers.
4. The Spirit of Christ comes from the highest truth and
faithfulness : for, as the prophets foretold it, and Christ, before
he went from earth, promised it, so did he perform it ; and the
doctrine it sealeth is but the doctrine of the fulfilling of former
prophecies and doctrines, and exactly agreeth with all the former
word of God.
5. The Spirit of Christ came from the most perfect holiness,
as appeareth undeniably in the holy contents of it, and holy de-
sign which it prosecuteth. Scripture is most perfectly contrary
to all vice, without respect to any fleshly pleasure or interest;
and most perfectly contrary to all the laws of nature, and pre-
scribing the most holy, perfect means to everlasting blessed-
ness. So that thus the Spirit of Christ might easily be known,
by which he proved his doctrine. If, therefore, any Spirit
64 THE spirit's witness to
should now contiadict the same doctrine, it is impossihle that
the Spirit should be of God : for the same Spirit of truth will
not say and unsay, and be on both sides : that which contra-
dicteth the Spirit and doctrine of highest wisdom, power,
goodness, truth, and holiness, can never be the Spirit of God ;
and, indeed, there is not now any Spirit in the world that can
make the least probable pretences against the doctrine of the
Scripture. The Spirit of consolation and adoption is the same,
and so given ; and so is the Spirit of illumination the same, and
given only by the Scripture : and for any Spirit that shall con-
tradict Scripture, it can never be holy, nor true, nor faithful, as
contradicting truth : nor is there any that can pretend to om-
nipotency, for there is none that speaks against Scripture that
ever wrought one true miracle ; much less multitudes of un-
controlled miracles, such as cofirmed the Scripture : so that
you see how doctrines must be tried ; at first by the Spirit ;
and then both spirits, and their words by that doctrine.
Quest. But may we not then try men's doctrine now by the
Spirit ?
Yes ; both by the Spirit and Scripture together, but not
otherwise. If you see any doctrine by which God giveth the
Spirit of holiness, that is certainly a holy doctrine, and of God ;
but if you take not Scripture along, you may easily be mistaken
in this : only thus much I say, that yet to this day, if any man
be a heathen, or tempted to heathenism, or Judaism, and doubt
of the doctrine of Scripture and Christianity, this man may try
the Scripture by the Spirit still : that is, by the Spirit which
Christ gave in the first time, with the Spirit of illumination and
holiness, which he giveth to this day ; and by this Spirit he
may certainly know the Scripture to be the word of God : but
when a man, upon the testimony of this Spirit, acknowledgeth
the Scripture, he must try all particular motions, and personal^
real, or pretended revelations, by this Scripture; for he re-
ceiveth the Scripture as a rule, and therefore must use it as a
rule : and even Christ himself and his apostles, though they had
such variety of miracles to testify for them, yet still appealed to
the prophets that were before them ; acknowledging that it
would not be of God if it contradicted his prophets or former
word; and that was it that was the great occasio\i of the Jews'
unbelief; because Christ took down the law of ceremonies, they
thought he contradicted the word of God, not understanding
that these were as positives, and therefore alterable by God. So
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 65
types, and therefore to cease, when the thing typified was come.
Besides all this, there is great difference between the Spirit
witnessing to Scripture by way of inward persuasion tliat it is
true, and the witness of the Spirit's glorious and blessed effects,
wrought by that doctrine, and objectively witnessing. The
Scripture might be said to need this latter to make it a sufficient
revelation ; but it is we only that need the former to cure our
blindness.
Use. I.
Let all that are tempted to any doubting about the truth of
the christian religion and doctrine of Christ, consider well of
this argument : what religion is there in the world that hath pos-
sessed the professors of it with a new Spirit, and such a Spirit
besides the christian religion ? Only this religion hath been
sealed by such a Spirit as beareth the lively image of God ; a
Spirit of wisdom and omniscience, discovered by prophecies,
languages, &c. ; a Spirit of omnipotency, discovered by miracles ;
a Spirit of holiness, discovered in the holiness of the doctrine
and the holiness of the receivers ; a Spirit of goodness, disco-
vered in the excellency of all ; and that love and mercy that is
manifested to mankind. Mahomet disclaimeth all miracles, and
confesseth, in his Alcoran, that Jesus was the word of God,
and spake the truth, and condemneth the Jews most bitterly for
not believing in him. The Jews hold part of the truth, and they
had miracles for the establishment of their positive ceremonies ;
but they are blinded, that they cannot see either the tendency of
these ceremonies to Christ, the truth, or the miracles, by which
God did again seal to the taking of them down. Their prophe-
cies, which they maintain, are one part of Christ's testimony,
and those miracles, which themselves confess he did de facto,
are another part of it : so that they are but, as Austin speaks,
'The library keepers of the church.' The heathens that worship
multitudes of gods, even they know not what, have neither su-
pernatural revelation nor sound reasoning, but go contrary to
both. The deficiency of the mere light of nature needs no other
proof than the experience of all those parts and ages of the world,
that have had nothing but the light of nature, who have gene-
rally lived in gross ignorance and wickedness ; and withal, the
sad experience of our own weakness and pravity, and how little
we can reach with all helps and means ; much less by the mere
light of nature, besides that certainty we have of supernatural
66 THE spirit's witness to
revelation de facto. He that would be of no religion must needs
believe that there is no God ; for if there be a God, he must
needs be the Maker of the creature, and must needs be wor-
shipped by the creature, and obeyed as our Lord : and he that
is thoroughly an atheist is not thoroughly a man : and, therefore,
seeing there is no other religion that a man can, with any strong
show of reason entertain, and seeing he that will appear a rea-
sonable creature must be of some religion, it followeth, that to
renounce tbe christian religion is to renounce reason, and to
doubt of it is to be injurious to reason itself. This is the only
religion that doth convey the Spirit into those that do profess
it. I know there is a certain work that every religion hath upon
the minds of them that do believe it ; and, because every religion
hath somewhat that is good in it, as the acknowledgment of
a God, and that he is good, true, just, &;c. ; therefore, every
religion may do some good in the souls of men ; that is, the
common truths of God which men of these religions do hold,
though mixed with wicked and abominable opinions, may do
some good on the minds of men : but because they hold so small
a part of the truth, and because they mix that truth with so
much error, and detain it in unrighteousness, therefore the gene-
rality of them are given up to vile affections and wicked conver-
sations, and the best of them never manifested any spirit of true
sanctification or of miracles. Nay, besides that, the mixture of
contrary opinions destroyeth the force of that truth which they
acknowledge : it cannot have its natural effect upon their souls
for want of the concurrence of an internal efficient j for the
christian religion hath both these advantages, of all other reli-
gions. 1. Objective; 2. Effective.
1 . Tt propoundeth such truths of so high and glorious a nature,
and offereth benefits of so excellent, desirable, and attractive a
nature ; and, withal, contains so full and sufficient a number of
these truths and benefits, having the whole chain, and not as
Jews, heathens, or Mahometans, some few broken links only ;
that herein it hath the advantage for elevating the soul to God,
and purging it from sin, above all other religions : such as the'
seal is, such will be the impression. Objects make an impres-
sion on the understanding, as a seal in the wax. If, therefore,
each religion should make its impress on the soul according to
its own nature, you should see on all other religion a little of
God, and much of Satan ; a little light, and much darkness and
confusion \ but in the christian religion only, you should see the
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 67
very image of our Maker, his wisdom, truth, goodness, power,
and holiness. No wonder if a doctrine of heaven produce a
heavenly mind and life, and if a doctrine of love do make men
loving, and if a doctrine of mercy do make men merciful, and if
a doctrine of humility do make men humble, and a perfect doc-
trine do fill up all those sad wants and chasms that imperfect
ones leave in men's minds ; when the heathenish doctrines, on
the contrary, ])roduce little but pride, vain glory, covetousness,
voluptuousness, and makes them all slaves to the flesh. If ever
paganism were in splendour, it was among the learned Romans,
and that even then when Christianity came and shamed it;
and, as a glorious sun, dispelled its darkness : and vet what a
monstrous age of wickedness was that learned, civil age; and what
a horrid place of all villainy was that learned, civil place of Rome,
who called almost all other barbarians to them. What should
we talk of the worst of them, when even their great, learned men,
that condemned the vices of the world, and their excellent, virtu-
ous princes, whom they called gods when they were dead, for
their virtues; even these were sinks of sensuality ; as if they had
been made to pour in meat and drink, and take their fleshly
lusts, ^^'hen they have commended all their excellent virtues,
yet all is concluded with some confession of the whole gallons
of wine that they were wont to drink at once, or that they would
eat till they cast it up at table, or scarce any but had his whores
commonly ; that was one of Rome's venial sins ; then valiant
acts infighting for their country, or acts of justice to men, were
the substance of all the best part of their religion ; for all that
help they had from the church of God near them.
2. Besides this objective advantage, Christianity hath an ef-
fective advantage. Man's soid is so far depraved and enslaved
to sensuality, and mastered by inferior things, and its inclinations
corrupted and turned to them, that now a mere objective help is
not enough. The object is a suflicient seal, but the understand-
ing turns away from it, and will not receive it: it is not as wax,
but as water, or as iron ; either it will not receive, or will not
retain, the impression. The best principles of religion find men's
understandings and wills like a bottle already full of water, into
which you cannot pour any wine, because it is full ; besides all
the prejudice and other hinderances raised by the flesh. Now,
therefore, if there be not a Spirit within to take the seal in hand,
and make the impression deeply and effectually, all doctrine will
be for the most part lost. This, therefore, is the great advan-
08 TiiK spirit's witness to
tage of the christian religion, that besides what the doctrine
tendeth to of" itself there is the Spirit of God within that doth
second these doctrines, and take the received species of them,
and irnj)ress them on the soul, and doth this effectually and po-
tentlv, according to the mightv, irresistible j)o\ver of the agent.
I confess (and I would more would confess it considerately) that
its way of working is secret to us, as is the way of the Spirit's
forming us in the womb : some question; whether it be physical
or moral, this way or that way; I think it may be called both,
and many learned disputers do, in a blind zeal for the glory of
God's strength, deny him the glory of his admirable wisdom, as
if he governed not the rational creature, and healed and sancti-
fied the souls of heWevers, j^cr viam sapienlice, but only perviam
omnipoientice ; yea, as if his wisdom itself had not in it such an
omnipotency as God will have to be observed and glorified, but
the manner is past our clear and exact apprehension ; and he
that knows himself, and his distance from God and spiritual
things, will not wonder at that. But yet, though we know not how
^the Spirit worketh, yet through the great mercy of God, we feel
that it doth work, and what it doth work ; and hence we see
those holy affections in Christians, those holv breathings after
God, and that sense of the evil of sin, and that conscience of
duty, and those groans excited by the spirit of prayer, and those
mindings of the things of another world, and those joys and spi-
ritual comforts in life and death, and that ability to deny the
flesh its desires, and to overcome all temptations from things
below, and to suffer in hope of an unseen glory, and that hearty
love to one another, and that ability to forgive enemies, with
many the like excellencies, which are not in any other sort of men
in the world. I speak of those that have truly and thoroughly
received the impress and spirit of this religion, though even the
half Christians go bej'ond all other men by far ; for even they
are often cleansed from the pollutions of the world by the know-
ledge of the Lord and Saviour Christ. God v.ill not give forth
the Spirit with a false religion ; no, not to make forcible these
few truths of his own which the heathen, or Jewish, or Maho-
metan world doth detain in unrighteousness. So that you see
the truth of the christian religion by the Spirit of holiness; be-
sides that of miracles formerly.
Use II.
You see here, also, what clear, evident light it is that those
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. Q9
men among us ilo sin against, who say we have lost our Scrip-
tures, and our church, and our ministry in antichristiau
darkness, which hath choked the truth, and destroyed and
drowned the certainty of all ; and that, therefore, we nnist have
new jDrophets, or apostles, and a new spirit of miracles, for the
restoration of all. Do these men think that God must seal one
and the same Scripture and religion with miracles, as often as
they will be unbelieving ? Is it not enough that he sealed it
with the miracles of an age, before a thousand of witnesses in
open congregations, in many countries ; and that even those
that quarrelled with the apostles, were forced to confess it, as
being eye and ear-witnesses, being challenged to deny it if ihey
could ? INIoses once sealed his doctrine by miracles ; should
the Jews say, they would not believe it, except it were so sealed
over again, in every age ? Should not these wretches, that in
their ignorance cry for signs and wonders afresh, forgetting, or
undervaluing, the old, (like the Israelites in the wilderness.) do
better to blame tlieir own unbelieving hearts, than God's pro-
vidence ? and rather beg and wait for a spirit of faith, than
a spirit of miracles ? Blessed be the great Governor of the
world, and Lord of the church, that hath delivered us his Scrip-
tures, and the testimony of his first miracles, in so clear, so
certain, so infallible a way, as no book or matter of fact in the
world hath the like. For all that is said against Rome, true or
false, this is certainly true, that God hath kept them in the
acknowledgment of his Scripture, though tliey sinfully magnify
unwritten|traditions of doctrines ; yet they confess all the Scrip-
ture to be the word of God, and to be true, which we maintain,
and have carefully preserved it to this day. And what silly
souls are those to think, either that Rome could have corrupted
the Scripture considerably, if they had Jjeen willing, (there being
so many thousand copies among them, and some of more con-
science than such corrupters wooild be,) or that the church of
Rome was the only keeper of Scripture ? Do they not know
there are far more Christians in the world than all those of the
church of Rome are ? And that all they have kept the Scripture
among them as safely and certainly as we could desire, as to
all considerable things ? Have not all the Greek churches in
Muscovy, and through all the Turks' dominions in ^\sia and
Africa, the Scripture pure? And have not the Ethiopian
churclies, which are exceedingly large, all the same Scripture as
the church of Rome have, and we have ? Is there nnv book
70 THE spirit's witness TO
that ever the world saw, that had such means to preserve it
from alteration or corrujDtion ? When so great a part of the
world, and almost all the learned part of the world, have had it
among them, as that which they held their hope of salvation by,
and that which they take for their guide in worshipping God,
having all ministers, whose constant office hath been to read
it, and expound it in the open congregations ; and have, every
week, one day in seven set apart, wherein all the people should
come together to hear the Scripture lead and expounded to
them, as the law, by which they all must live, and by which God
will judge them at the last. Let men be men, and not renounce
their reason, nor turn stark mad, and let them tell us how it is
possible that such a book should be considerably depraved, and
the depravation take so generally through all the world, as that
all the books should be the very same to this day ? Except here
and there a letter or inconsiderable word that differs through
the fault of some transcribers : as our printers may now misprint
a word.
2. Besides, do not these men see God accompanying this
doctrine to this day, with the Spirit of sanctification and
consolation ? Certainly these men do but tempt God, and
delude themselves and others, by talking of the loss of Scrip-
tures, and church, and ministry, and manifest their own gross
ignorance and unbelief. Though, for my part, I confess that I
am strongly persuaded that some wicked, subtle Jesuits have
fomented this opinion among us : for they may well know, that
if they can once get the people to believe, that either there is
no church or ministry, or Scripture, or else it must be the
church of Rome, all reasonable men will easily believe rather
that the church and ministry of Rome is true, than that there is
none. For he that believeth not that there is a church, doth scarce
believe, 1 think, that there is a Christ, the Head of the church.
There are many such books lately gone forth, that confirm me in
this opinion ; such as ' William Parker's Answer to the Assem-
blies' Confession of Faith,' which maintains the main substance of
the doctrine of Rome ; only, instead of pleading the infallibility
of the church or pope, they plead the necessity of new prophets.
But it is easy, when that doctrine is once received, to show men
the vanity of their grounds, and bring them to receive the same
doctrines, upon other grounds : their prophets will be gazed
after but a few days. A little time ever discovereth the folly
of such pretenders 5 and then how easy is it for a papist to
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 71
challenge such to dispute about the grounds of their religion,
and to show them that their prophets are deceivers; and
therefore they must rather hearken to their church? In the
mean time, it is a sad providence to us, that so many should be
permitted to call other men, and their ways of worship, anti-
christian, and so long cry out of antichrist, till they are almost
papists already, and more likely than others to turn such, when
they are tempted.
Use III.
Hence, also, we may be informed that all these several parties
in the world, by what name or title soever distinguished, that
hold the substance of the christian religion, are not so many
diiferent religions, but are all but one true religion, and, con-
sequently, are all one church. But that there be no quarrel
about mere words, take notice that I use the word, 'religion'
not for every particular opinion or practice about the immediate
worship of God, but for the body or frame of such doctrines
and practices, called, commonly, our faith and profession : as
Christianity is called one religion, or the christian faith, and Ma-
hometanism another, and Judaism another. Otherwise, taking
the word ' religion '..for some particular parts of that frame, and
that not essential, but merely integral, so it may be said, that
there are as many religions among us, as there are particular
differences about the worship of God. Yea, if you extend it to
opinions or practices, which by the owners, are supposed and
called essentials or fundamentals ; and on a conceit of such
necessity, are added to the main frame or body, yet not de-
stroying or nulling that frame or body to which they are so
added : in this sense, also, I confess, there are many religions
in the christian world, and many churches. But [ shall now
choose to take the word religion and church in tlie primitive
sense, and so I say, that there is but one true religion and
church in the world, and that is, the christian religion and
church : from which I exclude all and only those sects, parties,
heretics, or infidels, that hold not the whole essence of this
religion and church : both those that deny the whole or any
one essential part, so denying it, as that they do not hold it.
Here observe these three parts of my assertion :
1. They are not many religions, but one.
2. Not many churches, but one.
3. And every one is of the true religion and true church,
and that is apparent from my text and experience set together 5
72 THE spirit's witness -TO
because among all these several parties there is that doctrine
and religion by which God doth convey the Spirit of sanctifica-
tion now, and which he did seal with the Spirit of miracles at
its first promulgation.
1. It is the fundamental and substantial parts, and not every
inferior opinion, that denominate a religion. There are not
so many religions in the world, as there are differences about
the expounding of this or that particular text of Scripture, or
as there are different opinions about inferior things ; those
among us, therefore, are silly people, that think we have as
many religions as we have different parties. The ignorant
people think that the episcopal party are of one religion, and
the presbyterian of another, and the independent and separatist
of another ; and they think, that when the ' Common Prayer '
was in use, there was one religion on foot, and now it is down,
there is another : as if the nature and denominating form of re-
ligion lie in every accident or circumstance : so the papists would
make the world believe, that we are of as many religions dif-
ferent among ourselves, as we have variety of opinions ; when yet
tliey maintain as great or greater differences among themselves,
without any conceit of variety of religions. Witness the many
and great differences, so long and hotly agitated, between the
Dominicans and Jesuits, about grace, free-will, predestination,
&ZC.; their quarrels about the virgin Mary's native innocency ;
the difference between the Spanish and the Italian parties in
the Council of Trent, about episcopacy. Yea, the great ir-
reconcilable difTerence that continues to this day among them,
about the very master-part of their new-devised creed, ' Where
is the seat of infallibility and supreme church power ?' one
party saith, it is in the pope alone ; another, as the French
clergy saith, it is in a general council ; and some say, it must
be in a concurrence of both : and it is very observable what a
case they have brought themselves into, and what a loss they
are at in matters of religion, and what uncertainty they would
bring all the christian world to, in religion, if they would but
follow them ; for thev receive the Scripture for the word of God,
upon the authority of the church, and the church must be the in-
fallible church ; and they are not yet agieed among themselves,
what or who that infallible church is. Plow well, then, do they
believe the Scripture and their religion : but this, on the by.
I'here are not, then, so many religions as there are different
o])inions; except these differences be in the fundamental parts.
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY, 73
2. Nor are there so many different churches, as tliere are
different opinions : Christ hath but one invisible church on
earth ; nor but one universal, visible church, containing all that
make profession of the true religion, or doctrine of Christ, in
the fundamentals ; to call any other a church is to contradict or
equivocate; Jews, Mahometans, pagans, are no church. Par-
ticular, visible churches, there are many, which are diversified
by the variety of their meetings : for so every assembly of men,
professing the true religion, is a true church ; and if lawfully
combined therein, they are a true political church ; but all
these are but parts of that one universal, visible church.
Indeed, we use to give several parts of this church also the
name of such and such a church, from some accidental respects :
as to call it a national church, because it hath the advantage
of a special association, by living in one country, under one
magistrate, or because they are actually associated : so we call
the church of England, Scotland, France, &c., as we call the
same sea, the English, or French, or German sea : so also, from
variety of opinions, we call one the church of the protestants, and
another of the anabaptists, another of the Arminians ; so the
Lutheran, Calvinistic churches : but these are all so diversified
merely from accidents or circumstances, and not as if there were
any essential difference between them : for then they could not be
so many churches ; for Christ hath but one church, divided into
so many congregations and associations, and diversified accord-
ing to their various degrees of knowledge and purity; read Mr.
Marshall's late sermon of *The Unity of the Church,' and Mr.
Samuel Hudson, of 'The Church Universal:' not that we dream
of any visible, supreme power over this one visible church.
The papists understand not well the nature of the church's
political constitution, or else they would never talk of that :
but yet a visible organical church it is, even one political
republic : but the sovereign power or head is none but Christ,
who is visible to the glorified part of his church in heaven, but
not seen of the imperfect part on earth : and particular churches
are not as so many commonwealths, but as so many corpora-
tions making up one commonwealth, and all under Christ, but
none under one another ; being all free, and having all their
own officers and privileges ; yet, all bound to maintain the
strictest, and most general, and extended association, that na-
ture and opportunity will permit, for the unity, strength, and
edification of the wliole. This is that one visible, yea, or^an-
VOL. XX. 1
71 THK spirit's witness TO
hed church of Christ : a true, political church, even as visible,
though not in that sense as the deluded papists do imagine :
but of this elsewhere.
3. And as all these are one church, and of one religion, so
they are all of the true religion : or else they could not be of
one, and any one of them be true. Some will think this too
charitable a conclusion ; that so many erroneous parties should
all be of one and of the true religion ; but it is as true and
necessary, as charitable. He that should deny it, should, as
much as in him lieth, rob God of the chiefest fruit of his crea-
tion, providence, and redemption ; and Christ Jesus of the
chiefest fruit of his blood, resurrection, and of all those miracles
which he hath wrought in the propagation of his Gospel ; and
the Holy Ghost of the fruit of his work of sanctification. It is
too bold an attempt for any earth-worm to venture on to give
Christ's spouse a bill of divorce. If the husband of the church do
it not, what are we that we should do it ? Christ hath paid so
dear, and done so much to redeem them, and sanctify to himself
a peculiar people, zealous of good works, that he will not take it
well of those that shall deny them to be his own. I know how
zealous ignorance hath proved in these last times, the devil's
master-piece for the disuniting of the church ; and those that
are once possessed with the spirit of delusion, have nothing more
common in their mouths, than that such a party are heretics,
and no church of Christ; and such a party are antichristian,
and no church of Christ ; and only they, or such as they, are
his church. I would they knew how little thanks Christ will
give them for this dealing. If they heard him speak his mind
to them, it would be this; ' You know not what spirit you are
of.' Zealous men do often run before their understandings, and
little know their own hearts. They think it is the Spirit of
God, and the love to his truth, that actuate them : but they
know not what spirit they are of ; nor how much passion,
raised by different judgments, and fed by the hot words of men
of their own party, is used to go coloured with the name of
holy zeal, and even deceiveth often the truest Christians : for
we are not better than .James and John. Christ hateth putting
away, and he loveth not that we should attempt the putting
away of his spouse. What God hath joined, let no man put
asunder; especially if the conjunction be so near as head and
body ; and the covenant so strong as the blood and Spirit of
Christ, and the bond of the everlasting covenant. Where
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 75
Christ writeth his name, and saith, 'They arc mine,' let men
take heed of hlotting it out, and saying, 'Tliey are the devil's.' I
know we may find faults enough in any church that I know on
earth, to give some poor colour to these attemjjts ; such a
church is erroneous, and such a one is superstitious, and such a
one is lukewarm ; I would they were all better : and so they
will be one day. But it ill becomes poor sinners to be more
quick-sighted in spying out the faults of Christ's churches, or
more severe in charging it on them than Christ is. It be-
longeth to him to do it, if it must be done 5 and let not us do
it before him ; it is Christ that justifieth, who shall condemn
them ? Every fault or error is not an unchurching fault. O
how the God of unity and peace abhorreth the zealous censures
and separation of these mistaken men. Christians should
imitate their Lord, and get that tender, gentle, lamb-like Spirit
that he useth to his poor people. He will , not break the
bruised reed j he carrieth the lambs in his arms, and gently
driveth those with young. God is love, and his people should
be loving. Were it but one particular sinner, we should sadly
think of those plain and terrible Avords of Christ, "Judge not,
that you be not judged ;" and who art thou that judgest
another man's servant ? To his own master he standeth or
falleth ; the points between us and them in difference are con-
trovertible, but these texts are as plain as tlie highway; God
will give us little thanks to say of one poor, weak Christian ,
' Thou art no Christian/ and to deal by our brethren as Job's
friends ; and to appropriate to ourselves alone the common
salvation, and say, ' Christ is mine, and not thine.' None shall
take his sheep whom the father hath given him out of his hands ;
and none should attempt it. But to judge whole churches,
and say, they are no churches, is a matter yet of far greater
moment ; to say she is an harlot that Christ calleth his spouse.
Use IV.
Oh, that the revolters of this age would but make use of this
rule of the apostle ! Here is such abusing of ministry and
doctrine, and church, and separating from us, as if we were the
most abominable people in the world. But shall I entreat those
that are the true servants of Christ, and know what it is to be
partakers of his Spirit, that they would ask themselves the
apostle's question, Received ye the Spirit by the doctrine
commonly preached in England, and by the ministers of
i2
76 THE spirit's witness TO
England, or not ? If you did, how can you deny them to be
the true church and ministers of Christ? If you did not receive
the Spirit by us, or by the doctrine which we preach, I dare
say you never received it. O, ungrateful children, that when
we have prayed and preached and spent ourselves for their souls,
and then think to have the comfort of them as our children
in Christ, and they should be our crown and joy ; then do
they turn against us, reproach us, and account us their enemies,
because we tell them the truth. Doubtless, there is a strong
engagement lieth on men to those that God makes the means
of their first conversion ; else Paul would not so glory in it, and
tell the Corinthians, that though they had never so many
instructers, yet he was their father. Must we travel in birth of
you till Christ be formed in you, and then do you not only as
brute beasts, that when they are grown up, forget their own
dams, but even revile us, and prove our greatest grief, and the
sharpest thorns we have in our side. I know the ministers of
Christ are faulty, and deserve all this as permitted by God : but
yet God will let these men know one day, that this is not equal
dealing from them. More particularly, you that are turned to
antinomianism, and think that our ministers preach not free
grace, no not the Gospel, but the law. Tell me, received you
that Spirit by that which you call the preaching of free grace ?
I know free grace must be preached, but I mean that which you
miscall so. Nay, let me not ask you for yourselves only, but
for others ; have you known any considerable number of men ;
nay, any one man that ever received the Spirit by that doctrine
which telleth them that Christ hath not only suffered and
fulfilled the law in their very persons, so that they are judged as
having done it in him; but also he hath repented for them,
believed for them, and also obeyed the Gospel for them ; that,
therefore, they are justified before they are born or before
they believe or repent : that, therefore, they are under no
law but that of man; not so much as under the law of
Christ, except only as the work of sanctification in them may
figuratively be culled a law : tliat, therefore, they need not
pray for pardon of sin ; nor be humbled for sin, as if it were not
pardoned till they repent of it, seeing all their sins^ be they
never so many and heinous, were pardoned at once before they
were conunitted ; and tliat faitli procureth only the sense of
pardon in our own consciences. Did you ever know this doctrine
convey the Spirit ? Nay, do not all that receive it, or most.
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 77
turn loose and licentious, and cast off duty more than before ?
I might say the like of some other sects among us that love not
to be named. Though I said before, that every particular opinion
is not to be tried by this rule, but the substance of religion ;
yet those assemblies that God so forsakes, as not to convey his
Spirit among them, have reason to suspect their way.
Use ike last.
If all this be so, then, alas, what a case are those poor souls
in among us that have none of the Spirit at all : yea, those that
make a mock of the Spirit ! Alas, that after so long preach-
ing of the Gospel, there should yet be so many such found
among us ! If you be asked how you received the Spirit, would
not some of you mock at it ; and others say plainly you know
not what it is to have the Spirit ? The Lord open your eyes to
see your misery, and let me tell you thus much of it at present,
though I resolve to be short.
1 . If any man of you have not the Spirit of Christ, that man
is none of his; (Rom., viii. 9;) and what a case are you then
in. If you be not Christ's, then Christ is not your's, and then
what will you do against the accusation of the law, and of
Satan, and of your own consciences ? What will you do against
the guilt of sin ? What will you look to for comfort at your
dying hour ? What will you set between God's anger and your
naked, guilty souls ? How will you stand before God in judg-
ment, or make answer to all that will be brought in against you?
Oh ! the thousand bills that will be there brought in ', the least
whereof may condemn you for ever. Then you will say, 'Oh ! if
I had but part in Christ, then I would answer all; but nothing else
will do it.' Is there any other name by which you can be saved?
2. Let me tell you, if you have not that Spirit you are stran-
gers to God. You cannot go to him sincerely, and call him
Father. You cannot pray; for this is the spirit of prayer ; no
wonder, then, if you be neglecters or despisers of prayer, and
disaffected to God.
3. If you have not God's Spirit, you are yet in your pollution ;
you are unclean ; for it is the Spirit that must sanctify you.
You know not what holiness is, though without it you shall not
see God. (Heb. xii. 14.) No wonder if you undervalue or deny
holiness.
4. You will not be able to resist temptation ; for it is the
Spirit that must strive against the fiesh, and conquer it. No
78 THK spirit's witness IO
wonder if you yield to every temptation, and live as Satan's
slaves,
5. You have no true consolation ; for the Spirit is the Com-
forter : nor ever will have any sound comfort without him. The
Lord teach you to beg for this Spirit, to seek and wait for it in
the use of God's means, till the Lord Jesus shall be pleased to
pour it upon you : for without the Spirit of Christ you are but
the slaves of the devil, and animated by him in every evil work.
And, as instead of a right guide and sanctifier you have a seducer
and corrupter of your hearts and ways, so at last, without sound
conversion, you will find that, instead of a comforter, you have
a cruel tormenter„
COROLL.
A Demonstration of the Life to come, and Tmmortality of
the Soul.
There is an absolute necessity of the apprehensions of re-
ward or punishment in the life to come : for it is impossible
that without it the world should be governed. No man's life, or
goods, or good name, would have any considerable security, if
no punishment or reward were expected but in this life ; it being
so easy a matter for a servant to rob his master secretly, or an en-
vious man to kill or poison another secretly, and so all the
world would be set on wickedness.
Now, 1 assume, if the apprehension of future rewards or
punishments be so necessary, then certainly it is a truth that
there are such future rewards and punishment. Else we should
imagine that God cannot govern the world without deceit or a
lie, as his engine; which, as it is highest blasphemy, so as
clearly against the light of nature, as the denial of the God-
head : for to be so impotent, and so evil, is to be ao God. Even
among the Romans, when nature was as much rectified and
elevated, as ever it was without the doctrine of faith and invi-
sible blessedness, yet not only every tyrant did destroy men at
pleasure, but the angry master must cast his servants into his
fish ponds, oi otherwise put them to death, whenever they dis-
pleased him, if it were but by the breaking of a glass : and the
servants, perhaps, as commonly poison, or secretly kill the mas-
ter; insomuch that, even in cruel Nero's days, Seneca saith.
THE TRUTH OF CHUISTFANITY. 7^
' Quisquam vitam mam contempsit, tucn dominum est. Recognosce
exemplum eorimi qui domesticis insidiis perierunt, aut aperta
vi, aid dolo ; et intelliyes non pauciores servorum ira cecidisse,
quam regum.' (Ad Lucil,, Epist. iv.) And yet, then there were
common apprehensions of a life to come, and a belief of differ-
ent estates there of the good and bad ; so that we cannot say
that the order which was maintained among them was without
the special help of this belief: and this being still acknowledged
in all, or almost all, the nations on earth to this day, is the
chief means of that little order and restraint of sin that is
found among even idolaters and pagans. This I am ready more
fully to vindicate.
DETERMINATION
OF
THIS QUESTION,
WHETHER THE MIRACULOUS WORKS OF CHRIST AND HIS DIS-
CIPLES DO OBLIGE THOSE TO BELIEVE, WHO NEVER SAW
THEM ?
** Blessed are they thatiiave not seen, and yet have believed." — John xx.2i).
TO THE READER.
Reader,
Having put the foregoing papers to the press, I thought it
not unmeet to adjoin these here following, as being on the same
subject, and to the same purpose. It was but the hasty deter-
mination of a question, in one of our usual monthly disputa-
tions, which are maintained by the ministers of this association,
for our mutual edification. It was a more private conference
with some miserable men, who maintained the negative, which
occasioned the choice of this question, as being the matter then
freshest in my mind, and heaviest upon my heart, because of
the misery of such apostates, and the danger that I perceived
some to be in, through their subtlety and industry. By expe-
rience of them, I am caused to expect, that the apostatised
should prove hardened ; and that many who profess themselves
their greatest adversaries, should still contribute to their harden-
ing, by refusing to defend their own religion, and backbiting and
reproaching those that do it. If the Lord will bless these weak
endeavours for the confirmation of thy faith, the repelling of
temptations, and the preventing of thy ruin by thy great sin of
unbelief, the quarrels of adversaries, and offended friends, will
be the easier borne, by
Thy well-wilier,
RICHARD BAXTER.
A DSiirERMiNATlON, &c.
QUESTION.
Whether the miraculous loorks of Christ and his disciples do
oblige those to believe, ivho never saw them?
The necessity is manifold and evident of discussing and right
determining this weighty question. I. For the soundness and
stabiHty of our own belief of the christian verity ; and conse-
quently for our salvation. 2. For the avoiding the great sin
against the Holy Ghost. 3. For the confutation of all infidels,
and in particular those apostates in England, who go under the
name of sceptics, or seekers. Sad experience acquainteth us,
that some such men there are, who being fallen from Christ-
ianity, and in their hearts disowning Christ and the Gospel,
and being loth openly to defy, deride, or blaspheme him, be-
cause it would mar their reputation with men, do, therefore,
first and openly deny only, that there is any present church, or
Gospel ministry : forsooth, all is lost in the antichristian fac-
tion. They know how easy it will be to prove that there is no
head, if they can once prove that there is no body ; and how
soon they might make Christ appear to the world more con-
temptible than Mahomet, if they could persuade men that he
had never any church, but only in one age of the world, and
that confined to so narrow a compass : for they say, he had no
church before his incarnation, because the mystery was hid till
then ; and he had none when miracles ceased, nor where they
were not ; because Christ said, " If I had not done the works
that no man else could do, ye had no sin : and these signs shall
follow them that believe : in my name they shall cast out
devils, they shall speak with new tongues," &c. (Mark xvi.)
Hereupon they maintain, that miracles being ceased, there are
now neither churches. Christians, ministers, or Scripture, known
to them : and that the world, for want of such miracles, is not
now bound to believe the Gospel ; that is, in plain terms, infi-
delity is no sin : faith in Christ is no duty : it is no fault to be
84 THE spirit's witness to
an infidel : no duty to be a Christian ; which must be grounded
on this, that either the Gospel is false, or we have no evidence
of its truth ; for if there be evidence of its truth, no doubt it is
our duty to believe it ; could they persuade men that Christ,
the Redeemer, who came to seek and to save that which was
lost, was so unhappy or unsuccessful in his undertaking, as that
his dear-bought church did die in the shell, or when it was
newly hatched, and was strangled in the very birth or infancy,
and that he had no body or kingdom but the beholders of those
miracles : no wonder if they next persuaded them that he was
a mere pretender and deceiver. Yet you would think by their
arguing, that they gave Christ freely this portion of honour to
have had a true church, and truly proved the verity of his
Gospel, so far as his miracles did extend ; but, indeed, they be-
lieve not this much ; as who can, that denieth the rest ; for if
you plead the argument of miracles with them, for the verity of
Christ's doctrine, they will tell you that antichrist and Satan
may do the like ; and, therefore, that this is no sufficient argu-
ment : and so, I fear, they blaspheme the Holy Ghost. Some
half disciples that follow them in the dark, . go not yet so far,
nor discern yet, the bottom of their designs. And I much fear,
lest the Jesuits have had a strong hand in this damnable seduc-
tion, thinking to convince the world that at last we must be
papists, or no Christians : of the Roman church, or of none.
2. To loosen men from their former grounds, church. Scripture,
ministry, that at least they may have free audience, and room
and advantage to put in for their interest. To fortify us in
our Christianity, against the vain cavils of pagans, Jews, and
these apostate infidels, is the scope of this dispute.
For explication of the terms, I shall say no more than is ne-
cessary.
1. By * miraculous works' we mean, principally, those works,
1. Which were so above and against the established course of
nature, that none but God himself could do them, being above
the power of angels or men. 2. Those which angels could do,
but not without the special help of God, or at least without his
special commission, but still above the course of nature; that is,
above the power of natural causes, working in the order that God
at first established them in, and, by his common providence,
doth sustain and actuate them. The most observable of these
was Christ's own resurrection, and conversing afterwards with
his disciples on earth ; and then all the miraculous actions of his
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 85
foregoing life : his ascending up into heaven before their eyes ;
his pouring out the Spirit on his disciples ; the miraculous works
of that Spirit : so frequent ; on and hy so many ; in so many ;
in so many places ; uncontrolled by any adverse power; of un-
questionable evidence, for verity and greatness ; and I yet see
not but that the work of sanctification is truly miraculous ; for
though it be by natural means, and take advantage of some
natural principles and inclinations in the soul, yet is the princi-
pal cause the Spirit of God, which worketh supernaturally, by
doing that by those natural means, and on those faculties, which
the means in an ordinary course of nature could not effect. So
that it is nevertheless miraculous, though it is by instruments,
or on a prepared subject : as an infant's arm cannot do that
with a sword, which Sampson or Achilles could have done ; so
a creature cannot do that by persuasion or other natural means,
as God doth in this work. So far as the instrument or means
doth work on natural men, that ordinary effect, which is but an-
swerable to its own strength and the disposition of the recipient,
so far the work is not miraculous ; but as it is elevated by an
almighty arm, to do greater things than by any other it can be
used to, or than the common course of natural providence doth
use it to, so far methinks it is truly miraculous. This is not only
agreeable to their doctrine, who take regeneration to be strictly
a new creation, and theirs who think that no angel is or can be
an efficient cause of it, and theirs who think that by a physical
specification it differs from the highest degree of common grace ;
but it is also agreealjle to them that suppose the title of creation
to be improper, and them that think an angel may be the instru-
ment of the Holy Ghost in eft'ecting it, and them that think that
saving-grace doth differ from common grace, but by a moral
specification, and a natural gradation and modality.
So that, in a word, it is the extraordinary gift of the Holy
Ghost, for supernatural works, that we must extend the word
' miracles' to : but those we deal with, will not take sanctification
to be such a confirming, miraculous work ; and, therefore, as to
them, we must restrain it to the rest.
2. By ' Christ's disciples,' we mean, both the apostles, and all
those believers besides thein, who had these miraculous gifts of
the Spirit.
3. By 'obliging' we mean, constituting it our duty, to believe :
that is, doing their part toward such an obligation.
4. By the words ' to believe,' we mean, to believe the Gospel.
86 THE Sl'IUI'l's WITNESS TO
,5. By ' those that never saw them,' we mean it of any though
in those first ages that never saw them : but specially those in
these latter days.
But because the point of obligation is it that needeth most
explication ; and I told you that miracles do their part towards it,
and so not the whole, it will be most necessary that I show you
what is their part ; and to that end, that I show you what part
it is that other causes and requisites have herein ; and to that
end also, that I show you in what order it is that we do in rea-
soning arise to the christian belief.
Understand, therefore, that the first question in order to be
propounded, is neither, which is the true church, nor, whether
the Scripture be the word of God. The doctrine is not for the
words and writing ; but the book, writing, and words;, is for the
doctrine ; and that for God's glory, and our happiness. It is
natural to man, or within the reach of nature itself, to know
that there is a God that made him, and ruleth him ; and to
whom he should chiefly live ; who is his principal efficient, and
should be his ultimate, intended end : if any deny this, they will
not, I hope, deny that it is natural to man to will happiness in
general to himself, that is, he loveth himself. Jn our natural
course of reasoning, therefore, we thus proceed.
1. We inquire, what course a man should take to please God
that made him, and to save his soul ? or, at least the latter, if
he be mindless of the former, fn answer to this, it is presently
told him by preachers, or the common doctrine of the country,
or some other means, that this must be only by Jesus Christ, and
in the christian religion ; and, therefore, he must become a
Christian, and live as such, if ever he would attain these ends.
2. The next inquiry, then, will be, who is this Christ ? And
what is this Christian religion, both for faith and life ? The
answer to this will be, by telling him what Christ is, and hath
done, and will do, and what he hath prescribed us to do : in a
word, by reciting the creed or christian doctrine in the essen-
tials, and the absolutely necessary parts of the christian practice.
3. The means of acquainting us with this much, that this is
de facto the present christian religion, is by tradition of some
sort, either bv preaching private instruction, showing us the Bible,
or other books th.it do contain the said doctrine.
4. The next inquiry will be, ' How it appears that this re-
ligion is of God, and so is true ?'
The answer will be, that Christ came down from heaven to
THfc; IRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 87
deliver and establish it, and confirm it by miracles, and sent his
apostles to preach it to the world, and gave them and multi-
tudes of others the Holy Ghost, by extraordinary, supernatural
works to confirm it ; and Ijeing thus sealed, to deliver it down
to the world, and to settle churches in which, and officers by
whom, it shall be successively explained, and propagated to the
end of the world ; and he continueth the sanctifying works of
that Spirit, as of standing necessity, and so writeth the same
doctrine or laws in the hearts of his true disciples.
5. In inquiring after the verity of all this, we arise by these
degrees from our present state, and the things which we see,
to the former, and things that we never saw. And first, we are
most likely to look upon the professors of that religion ; and
though we cannot see the sanctity of their hearts, nor clearly
the glory of their lives ; yet may it be discerned, that they are
indeed of another spirit, and of higher hopes, and nobler resolu-
tions, and contempt of things below, and in general of a more
innocent, honest, and sublime conversation, than the rest of the
world are. Many primitive. converts were first moved by this
observation. Yet this is not enough.
6. The next question, therefore, in our assent will be, whether
this religion were indeed delivered down from Christ and his
apostles to the first churches, and from them to us, by a succes-
sion of believers to this day ?
And first, we inquire, Was this religion delivered down from
the first churches till now ?
The answer to this, or the means by which we are resolved,
is, 1. Assertory; 2. By proof. The first being used by well
known teachers, who are discerned to be of honest lives, and
have no deceiving intent, and to be learned and skilful in their
ow;i profession, doth often serve with the ignorant vulgar to pro-
duce such an assent, as helpeth to a saving belief of the main
doctrine, and draws them to be sincerely of the christian re-
ligion. But as all should aspire after clear evidence, and see the
proof, so those that are able to judge of it, may soon discern a
sufficiency in it.
7. The proof, that this is the religion which was delivered
from the first churches, is in these particulars : 1 . In siyni.'t,
that is, in the continents and infallible signifiers of this religion.
2. In evidentia traditionis, in the evidence of a certain tradi-
tion of it, in and by these signs and continents. The mind of
one man is made known to another by signs, seeing we cannot
88 THE spirit's witness to
see the naked face of another's soul ; much less can we immedi-
ately see the essence and mind of God, and, therefore, must have
signs for the discerning of his will. These signs are: 1. The
very words of Christ, and his apostles in their writings, com-
monly called the canonical Scriptures ; which not only reveal
the essentials of our religion, but also the necessary accomplish-
ments and accidents.
2. The second thing that per modum signi containeth the
christian religion, is the forms, ordinances, and constant practices
of the church. I. By forms, I mean, 1. The form of words
called *The Creed,' containing the sum of the christian belief. 2
The form of words called *The Lord's Prayer,' containing the sum
of our necessary requests, and directory for prayer. 3. The form
of words called ' The Decalogue,' containing the sum of moral,
natural duty. These three forms have been constantly preserved
in the church, and contain the sum of the christian religion.
And the Scripture itself is a form of words, more copious, com-
prehensive, and fitted to particular uses and cases. Let them,
therefore, that are against all forms, see here, on the by, how
foolishly they would reject the christian religion ; and lose the
sword, by losing the scabbard ; the meat, by losing the dish ;
the soul, by destroying the body that it dwelleth and appear-
eth in.
3. The third thing that, by way of sign, doth evidently de-
clare the christian religion, is the established church ordinances,
and constant practice of them. Among these, I especially
enumerate, 1 . The catechising of those without, by which they
were taught the sum of religion : as also the preaching of the
Gospel for their conversion, where the same doctrine was deli-
vered to them, and which was the constant practice of Christ's
ministers. 2. The ordinance of baptism, for entrance into the
church, which summarily comprehended the main body of the
christian religion ; for there the person baptised, by himself if
at age, did confess his sin and misery, and profess repentance
and belief in God the Father that made him and all things; in
Jesus Christ that redeemed him, and died, rose again, and
ascended into heaven, and will judge the world, and reward his
people with everlasting life, and punish the rebellious with ever-
lasting punishment ; and in the Holy Ghost who was the Witness
of Christ, and the Sanctifier of his church. He professed also
his resolution for future obedience, and hereupon was baptised
into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost : so that
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITV. 89
baptism itself, with its profession, contained the very covenant
of grace on God's part and man's, as entered there and solemnly
confirmed or sealed, and so contained the sum of the christian
religion. 3. To this we must add the communion of the church,
in the participation of the Lord's Supper, which was another
seal for the confirmation of the same mutual covenant, and so
the sum of the same religion. 4. The like we may say of the
constant prayers of the church to God, in the name of Christ;
and the constant hymns and praises of God and the Redeemer,
for the grace of redemption and the hopes of glory, which show
what was the christian religion. 5. Add to these the constant
preaching and reading of the Gospel in the church, for the in-
struction and edification of the faithful, besides that to the un-
believing for their conversion : by which the substance of the
christian religion, for faith and practice, was frequently incul-
cated on all. 6. Add, also, hereunto, the church's constant
practice of discipline, first, in avoiding the scandalous, and re-
jecting the obstinate by suspension and excommunication :
secondly, the open confessions, and discoveries of repentance,
and requests for readmission, which were used by the rejected :
thirdly, the open absolution of them upon such manifestation of
repentance. All which show what the christian religion was as
to the purity of their practice. 7. To these may be added their
opposition to, and conflicts with, all the depravers of their doc-
trine or practices. And thus church ordinances and practices
were the continents and signs of the christian religion : and if
we can prove the continuation of these, we undeniably prove
the continuation of the religion.
2. The next part of this proof doth consist in the evidence
of tradition, that, de facto, all these things were so. Where,
first, observe that God hath, by abundance, provided for the
security of his people's belief. If we had not all these fore-
mentioned proofs, yet one of them might satisfy beyond all con-
tradiction.
As, first, if we could only prove the tradition of the canonical
Scriptures, from the apostles' days till ours, we should thereby
prove the tradition of the christian religion in them expressed,
viz., that this is the faith once delivered to the saints.
Secondly. If we could only prove the tradition and use of the
said church forms, the Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Decalogue,
though we had not seen the Scripture, or could not prove its
tradition, or incorruption, yet did we fully prove the tradition of
VOL. X.K. K
90 Till'. hPIRIl's VVnNKSS To
the christian religion. So that the heing of the christian reli-
gion is not shaken, if the Scripture were unknown, or if we
could not vindicate them, but only the well-being and accom-
plishment of our religion.
Thirdly, if the aforesaid ordinances alone were proved, it
would prove the succession of religion, which indeed doth so
much consist in their performance ; but through God's abundant
provision, we have nil tl.ese characters of our continued religion,
and the evidence of all and each part, as clear as that ever King-
James or King Henry did reign in England : so that it affordeth
us an infallible certainty. To run over the particulars briefly :
1 . We do show an unbeliever, before his eyes, the Scriptures
extant in the original languages, and several translations ; and
we prove, by most unquestionable records, that these are the same
that have been delivered down to us from the first churches.
For, first, we show them manuscripts, yet extant, of exceeding
antiquity : we have one in England that came from Alexandria,
above 1300 years old.
2. We show them very ancient translations.
3. We show them, openly, the unquestionable writings of all
divines, historians, lawyers, councils, &c.; assuring us that these
holy writings came down to us, as the apostles', from the first
churches; all pleading these Scriptures, appealing to them, and
filling their books with the express citations of their words.
4. We show them the arguings of exasperated heretics, who
all plead the same Scriptures, and acknowledge them even while
thev wrest and abuse them ; yea, very few of them did ever
attempt the depraving of them, and those few to their great
disgrace.
5. We show them the infallible records of several countries
and nations in the world, east and west, and south and north,
that this Scripture hath been among them and translated into
their languages, Ethiopic, Persian, Arabic, Syriac, Sclavonian,
&c. ; which old translations do still remain, and, in all things
of moment, agree.
6. We show them infallible records of multitudes of Christians,
that for the doctrine of this Scripture have sacrificed their lives.
7. We show them the laws of the Roman empire since Con-
stantine's days, confirming the Scripture and religion, and the
edicts of former emperors; some persecuting it, and some abating
those persecutions.
8. We sliow them the Jews now living, the great enemies of
THR TR[JTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 91
the christian name, who never deny but that this is the same
Scripture and rehgion that was, by the apostles, delivered down
to us.
9. We show them all the nations of Mahometans now living,
who, for the chief part, do confess the same.
10. We show them all the records of the former carriages of
the enemies of Christianity : 1. Both in the controversial writings
of our own with them, as Origen, Athanasius, Eusebius, Cyril,
Augustin, Sec, with all our apologies to the heathens, as Justin's,
Athenagoras', Lactantius', Clemens Alexandrinus', Arnobius',
&c. 2. And also the writings of the enemies themselves, so
many as are extant ; in all which it appears that they took it for
granted, and denied not, that this is the same Scripture and re-
ligion which was delivered to us from the beginning.
1 1. We show them the ministers of the Gospel now in being,
and prove, by all the unquestionable records of friends and foes,
that there hath been a succession of such ministers from the
apostles till now. Of the necessity of succession in a particular
church, I speak not, nor of the necessity of an uninterrupted
succession of a regular ordination by man to that office ; but
that a succession there hath been in the universal church, and
each particular where the Gospel hath continued, of men of this
office, whose employment was constantly to preach this Scrip-
ture, and build men up in this religion, and guide them in the
practice of it : all this is confessed by the persecutors that mur-
dered them, as well as by the whole history of the church, and
that part of the world.
12. We show them the present cliurches in being, I mean the
people that profess and practise this religion, and receive this
Scripture ; and we show them the unquestionable records of
the church and the enemies ; attesting, that such a people or
churches there have been since the apostles' days. What man
will make question of this ? And, if there have been Christians,
then there hath been the christian doctrine and religion : they
are the sutjjects of this religion. He that proves there have
been societies of Stoics, Piatonists, or Peripatetics, so long, doth
prove that their doctrine hath been so long. If there have
been christian churches so long, then there hath been the
christian religion so long.
13. We show them undoubted records of the constant, solemn
assemblies of Christians, to profess and practise this religion.
14. And also of the Lord's day appointed to be the solemn,
K 2
92 THE spirit's witness to
separated time, besides others, for such constant assemblies :
all which tend to the preservation and certain proof of the
continuation and tradition of that Scripture and religion. One
part of their work was to read the Scripture in their assemblies.
And as we thus prove the undoubted tradition of Scripture,
so do we, 2. Also, of all the fore- mentioned forms of religion.
Not only as these are delivered in and with the Scripture, but
compendiums delivered to the people by themselves ; so that in
the Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Commandments, with baptism,
&ic., was the substance of the christian religion so delivered, that
men were saved by it before the Scripture was seen, I mean the
New Testament, and thousands might, for ought we know, be
saved by it after, that knew not the Scripture ; yet, was not
the Scripture, therefore, unnecessary, or less excellent : for
thougli the sum of religion, enough to the being of Christianity,
and so much as may save, might by tradition be preserved from
age to age, in a form of words, yea, though there had been no
writing in the world.
Yet, first, writing the same thing is a surer and easier way,
and leaves it most undoubted to posterity, that there hath been
no change. 2. And it was not so easy, nor so probable a way,
without writing, to have preserved uncorrupted such copious
doctrines, histories, and larger instructions, as were necessary to
the well being of the church : and, therefore, God was pleased,
both for our more undoubted security, and for our fuller inform-
ation, to deliver it us down in writing, even in the very words,
as it was delivered to his churches, by the direction of the
Holy Ghost.
3. The same may be said concerning our certainty of the
third particular, viz., the tradition of church ordinances, which
contain the sum of the christian religion. All the aforesaid
fourteen arguments, besides many more that might be given, do
prove all three.
Object. Doth not this, with the papists, ascribe too much to
tradition? Answ. No: there are several sorts of tradition. 1. As
to the agent. 2. As to the manner of the action. 3. As to
the end, in all which, our tradition differs from theirs.
1. We allow the apostles' delivering of the word to the
churches by voice.
2. And by writing.
3. And the church's delivering that writing, and forms of
doctrine, and directories for practice, by word or writing to
their posterity.
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 93
And 4. Parents delivering all this (book writing and verbal
forms and custom of ordinances) to their children.
5. And all ministers delivering them by word, or writing, to
those whom they teach. '
6. And writers of all ages delivered the truth, historically,
or doctrinally.
7. The unanimous consent of other churches, manifested in
their immediate professions and practices.
8. The declaration of such consent by councils, on fit occa-
sions congregated.
9. The concessions of heretics.
10. The testimony of infidels. All these traditions we make
use of.
But the tradition of a visible head or vicar of the catholic
church ; or of an infallible person ; or of a particular church,
pretending to be the universal, this we do disclaim.
2. And as to the manner, we allow an apostolical authoritative
tradition by the apostles ; and a ministerial authoritative tra-
dition by every minister, and a tradition by testimony from all
the churches, and enemies also : but a tradition by way of
decision by one pretending now an authority of being judge to
all the world, when the other churches see not his grounds, this
we leave to the Romanists.
3. Also, a tradition for the conveying of Scripture from age
to age, and a tradition of the sum or compendium of Scripture
doctrine in a form by itself; this we allow. But a tradition of
necessary, unwritten verities to supply the supposed defects of
Scripture, and to add the doctrine that there is wanting, as if it
were but part of God's word, this we leave to the papists. Yet,
if we had assurance that any other doctrine were delivered down
from the apostles, which is not in Scripture, though it were but
by word of mouth, we would receive it as of God : but we know
of no such evidence of any such traditions, and therefore cannot
entertain them.
And thus I have resolved that question, whether this which
we now profess be the religion which was delivered by the first
churches, and so by the apostles ?
Sect. S. If any will suppose that the other part of the ques-
tion doth need a farther distinct resolution, viz., vvliether the
apostles delivered it to the first churches, as they did to us ?
1 answer, first. It is proved by most that hath been said ah-eadv.
Secondly, It was the apostles that turned them to Christianity j
9-i IHK SPirU'l's WITNESS lo
Mild that is, to this icHgioii which we inquire after. They hud
not been made churches or Christians by the apostles, if they
had not received the christian religion from them. Thirdly,
They prove it by the apostles' own writings to them. Fourthly,
All about them would have evinced them of forgery else, if
they had pretended to have their religion from the apostles,
when they had not. Fifthly, The apostles had no worldly glory
or dignity, which might incite so many thousands to forge their
names. Sixthly, It was impossible for so many persons of so
many distant nations through the earth, to agree in such an
action. Seventhly, The apostles themselves would have dis-
cerned and disclosed it in their own days. Eighthly, All the
enemies of the church, Jews, and heathens, and heretics,
confess, without the least doubt, that it was from the apostles
that the churches received the christian religion. Ninthly,
Had it been from any other, they would not have hid it, hut have
gloried in their leader, and he in his design. Tenthly, No other
came with that authority of miracles, which might compel belief,
so that to say, the first churches had not the christian religion
from the apostles, is to be blind against the fullest convincing
evidence.
Sect. 9. We have thus followed our religion up the stream,
till we have brought it unquestionably to the apostles themselves :
our next question, then, in order to be resolved, will be, how it
is proved that the apostles spoke truth, in their preachings and
waitings of the christian religion ? To which we answer, the
great argument (not excluding divers others) is, from the infal-
lible testimony of the Holy Ghost, by multitudes of apparent,
uncontrolled miracles, sealing to their doctrine, and illuminating
men, and writing this Gospel in their hearts.
And thus w-e are by degrees come up to the matter of our
question, of the obligation of miracles : concerning which I shall
first lay down these preparatory conclusions, and then affirm the
question, and prove the affirmative.
Propos. 1. Miracles do oblige bv wav of sign or seal, as
declaring God's interest in, and owning of the testimony to
which thev are annexed.
This is concerning the way of their obligation : they oblige
most directly to credit the testimony.
Propos. 2. The seal of miracles was not affixed to every
word that an apostle should speak, nor did it make them in all
things impeccable or infallible, But it is affixed to those ^vorks,
THE TKDTH oF ( HRISTIAMTY. 95
which they were coiumissioued to perform, and obligeth us to
beheve, that in doing the works, which, as apostles, they were
sent upon, they did not err : tliat is, in being witnesses of
Christ's oral doctrine, life, miracles, death, resurrection, and
ascension. And in delivering his doctrine to the world, teaching
them to observe all things whatsoever he commanded them.
Propos. 3. All that they did in preaching this doctrine, and
writing it to the churches, being the work on which they were
thus sent, it followeth that their miracles sealed all this ; and
so that every word of their writings of this subject are of certain
and sealed truth.
Propos. 4. Those that affirm that it was but the doctrine of
Christianity that was sealed by the Holy Ghost, and in which
they were infallible, but that their writings were in circumstan-
tials, and by passages, and method, and words, and other modal
respects, imperfect and fallible as other good men's, (in a less
degree,) though they heinously and dangerously err, yet do not
destroy, or hazard the christian religion by it. For if we could
not prove, that every historical, chronological, or personal
by-passage, or difficult lesser point there delivered, were sealed
by the Holy Ghost, yet if we can prove that the christian
religion contained in that writing was so sealed, it sufficeth to
confirm that religion, beyond doubt.
Propos. 5. The supernatural works of Christ, and the Holy
Ghost in his disciples, did indispensably oblige all that beheld
them, to believe that the testimony was divine, which they were
affixed to. This is the very root of all the controversy between
the Christian and the infidel ; and hither all is at last devolved.
If thev that saw these miracles were not bound to believe
the testimony which they sealed to be of God, then it must be
either because their senses were deceived, and they uncertain
whether they might credit their eyes and ears ; or else because
the testimony itself was invalid, and insufficient to compel
belief. There is no third reason imaginable. For if they were
certain that their sight and hearing deceived them not, but that
they did indeed see and hear what they supposed they did ; and
2. If the testimony of the Holy Giiost, which they saw and
heard, were unquestionably divine ; then there is no doubt but
the doctrine, or the testimony of the preachers was divine,
which was sealed with this testimony of the Holy Ghost.
1. And for the first, if any man say, that all their eyes and
ears were deceived, and that the thousand'? who supposed that
96 THE spirit's witness to
they spoke with tongues, or heard others do it, or saw the great
works that were done, were all mistaken ; they will sure take
their own senses to be fallible as well as other men's, and not
advance themselves in point of sensibility above the rest of
mankind. And if none else will doubt of the truth of Christi-
anity, but those that doubt of the certainty of sense, we may
well leave it at this issue, and give over arguing for it. And for
such men, I would have them honoured with no other disputa-
tion, than to be tied to the fool's post, and whipped till they are
sure that they feel the smart, and are able to conclude of the
certainty of sense.
2. And for the latter point, that the Holy Ghost, that is, a
Spirit of such wisdom, power, and holiness, as appeared in the
doctrine, miracles, and lives of the disciples, is indeed the Spirit
of God, and a sufficient seal to the christian faith, it is so clear
to the very light of common reason, and I have said so much for
it already, that I will say but thus much now.
The full resolved denial of this truth, is the sin against the
Holy Ghost : to say, that it was Satan that was the Spirit from
whom proceeded the wise doctrine, mighty works, and holy
hearts and lives of Christ's disciples, may well be the incurable,
unpardonable sin, supposing it be concluded with the whole
heart, when it is so horrid a blasphemy, as to make the devil
himself to be God, by ascribing God's attributes and prero-
gatives to him, and doth reject the last and most potent
evidence that can be expected for conviction. For if Satan can
be such a spirit of wisdom, power, and sanctity, and if he can
do such miracles without control from heaven, to persuade
poor mortals to an entertainment of error, and to delude the
world, who have no sufficient means to discover the delusion j
then it plainly follows, that the devil is the wise, powerful, and
Holy Spirit, and that he is the governor of the world ; that is,
that he is God, or that God hath so little mercy or justice as to
give up the world to the power of the devil to be remedilessly
deluded by him, so that they that fain would know the true way
of worshiping God, yet cannot know it. And that God hath
lent his seal to the devil to sign his delusions. And he that will
rather believe this than the christian faith, deserves remedilessly
to perish for his blasphemous, malicious infidelity.
Moreover, I demand of them that denv the sufficiency of this
evidence "of the Holy Ghost, what evidence tliey do desire, or
will take for sufficient to compel them to believe, Avhich is fit
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 97
for God to use with such creatures as we ? We are not capa-
ble of seeing God himself, or hearing him speak immediately
to us ; nor hath the voice or tongue of a man, though he can
create both. If one should rise from the dead, it would be far
more questionable and less convincing. Angels we know not,
the good from the bad, nor when they speak rightly j but so
much evidence as this can afford, was afforded : for the voice
from heaven was heard of Christ, " This is my beloved Son, in
whom 1 am well pleased, hear him." The angels were seen
with Christ in the mount, and sitting by his grave ; and divers
times they appeared to the apostles. I conclude, therefore, that
if the Holy Ghost so given were not a sufficient proof that the
testimony and doctrine of the apostles was of God, it is past mv
understanding to discover what evidence would be sufficient.
I do all this while suppose that the first churches did see and
hear these works of the Holy Ghost, because that is anon to be
proved ; and I now have showed that sense being certain, and
the works a certain seal of God, it must needs follow that all
they that did indeed see and hear them, were obliged to believe
beyond all doubt, that the doctrine which they did confirm was
owned by God, and so was of certain truth.
Having proved that miracles obliged them that saw them to
believe, I now come to affirm and prove the question.
Propos. 6. The Holy Spirit of Christ, appearing in his own
and his disciples' doctrine, works, and lives, doth indispensably
oblige, even those who never heard them preach, or saw those
works, to believe the certain truth of the christian faith, and,
consequently, of the Holy Scriptures.
This proposition supposeth that such a spirit of miracles
would oblige us to believe, if we ourselves did see them : for,
1. This is proved. 2. The infidel seekers whom we deal with,
pretend to confess it, at least, in their ordinary discourse; so
that the doubt is, whether our not seeing do hinder our
obligation ? I prove the proposition by these arguments fol-
lowing :
Argument I.
All they to whom the Gospel and the aforesaid miracles are re-
vealed in sufficient evidence of their certain truth, are
])ound, by the seal of those miracles, to believe the doc-
trine of the Gospel to be of God. But to us, and millions
more, that never saw them, the Gospel and the said mira-
98 THK spirit's witness to
cles are revealed in sufficient evidence of their certain truth.
Therefore, we are hound by the seal of those miracles,
though we never saw them, to believe the doctrine of the
Gospel to be of God.
Bv ' sufficient,' I mean, in its own place and kind sufficient ;'
but not absolutely and in all kinds : for evidence supposeth
many other things, especially in the receiver, to actual intellec-
tion or belief. A sound understanding in due reasoning, and
by the sup])osed helps which are common in the church, may
discern this evidence : therefore it is sufficient.
The major is pant doubt. The reason why they that saw
miracles were obliged by them to believe, is because they had
sufficient evidence of their certain truth that siich things were
done. But we that do not see them may have such evidence.
Therefore, they may oblige us as well as them : what can we ex-
pect more from God to oblige us, than a sufficient revelation of
that which carrieth the signification of his will ? All that needs
proof, therefore, is the minor ; whether have we such a certain
revelation, or may any that saw not have it ?
I prove, first, that there is a certainty of matters of fact,
without seeing them.
Secondly. That we have such of these in question.
1. For the first, universal consent doth save me the labour of
further proof. All men confess that there is certainty in some
reports and histories. Many a thousand in England that never
saw any fighting, are yet certain that we have had a war in
England ; and many that never saw him are certain that we had
a king, and that he was beheaded. We are certain there are
such countries as France, Spain, Italy, though we never saw
them. So that all men grant that some human testimony hath
such a certainty. And that we have, de facto, a certain revela-
tion that this Holy Ghost vvas poured out on the first churches,
and wrought miracles among them before their eyes, I prove
thus: If we have an infallible testimony of this, from those same
men who possessed this Holy Ghost and saw these miracles, then
we have a certain revelation of it. But that we have such an
infallible testimony I prove : and, first, I will sho\v you the tes-
timony itself; secondly, the infallibility of it.
The first christian churches, generally, have attested to us, de
facto, that such a S])irit was poured forth, and such miracles
wrought, by these five means, which, taken conjunctly, make up
the fullest testimony that we can reasonably desire.
THI4 TRUTH OF fHRISTIANITY. M9
First, By the preaching and doing of these miracles, they
were converted, and became Christians and churches : it was
the preaching of Christ's miracles, resurrection, and ascension,
and of the Holy Ghost to be given, and the sight of what was
done by the apostles in confirmation of it, that wrought the
change, and brought them in. This is still visible in the Gospel
which was preached. So that the very being of all those
churches, is their full attestation to the truth of the miracles,
and giving of the Holy Ghost. That which never was, at least
in their apprehensions, could not have produced such great al-
terations, and strange effects in the world. And to imagine
that all their senses did deceive them, is ourselves to become
mad, in feigning them to be so from whom we see the effects of
a sound mind. And that it was indeed miracles that did convert
them, appears, 1. In that it is recorded fully in the writings,
which themselves have delivered to us (of which more anon) ;
2. in that the doctrine delivered to them being supernatural,
above the reach of common reason, and contrary to the interest
of the flesh, was unlikely to have been entertained without such
means ; 3. And it is confessed by the enemies. So that I may
well take the conversion of the multitudes of unbelievers, and
the very being of the churches for one evidence that they saw
the gift of the Holy Ghost, and the miracles then wrought.
Secondly, The same hath the church attested by owning the
Holy Scriptures, and delivering them as the unquestionable
writings of the apostles. The substance of the Gospel is much of
the miracles and resurrection of Christ. The ' Acts of the
Apostles' containeth many of their miracles : both that and the
Epistles do testify that the gift of the Holy Ghost was then
common to the disciples ; and that whole households, and great
part of cities, (as Samaria, &c.,) received the Holy Ghost by the
laying on of the apostles' hands, (so that Simon would have
bought that power with money,) and that commonly in the
churches for many years after; by this Spirit they spake with
tongues, and prophesied, and healed the sick, &:c. i mention
not all this as now supposing these Scriptures to be divine, but
as proving them divine by the Holy Ghost, and using thf^m now
as the testimony of the first churches. For we had (as is proved)
all these Scriptures from them, commended to us as the writings
of the apostles, and words of truth : which testimony or ap-
probation they would never have given if they had known all
these reports to be false. So that the church's act of delivering
100 THE spirit's witness TO
US the Scripture as true, doth attest the truth of those matters
of fact, whereof themselves were the eye and ear-witnesses.
Thirdly, The same truth of these miracles was attested by
those first churches, by their great sufferings and confessions
before magistrates, and ordinary martyrdom, which they under-
went, because they would not deny the truth of these very things,
and because they proclaimed them.
Fourthly, The same truth of these miracles the first churches
have attested, by vocal and practical tradition. Neighbours did
assert it, and teach it their neighbours : parents delivered it to
their children. They made it the greatest act of charity to
convince a neighbour of it, that he might believe : and- the
greatest act of love and parental duty, to acquaint their children
with these things. As to this day, we do not only show the
bible to children and neighbours, but we distinctly acquaint them
with the main contents, and sum of the christian religion, and so
did the first churches : by which they attested that the things
were true.
Also, their constant practising the religion thus confirmed,
doth attest it both in the public ordinary worship of God, and
in their lives towards men.
Fifthly, It was most fully attested by the standing office and
constant work of the preachers of the Gospel. Two sorts of
preachers were then among them. Some that were to go abroad
and persuade Jews and heathens of the truth of this Gospel, and
make them disciples, and baptise them. Some that were re-
sident with particular churches already called, to teach them more
fully the doctrine, which these miracles did confirm, and to
guide them in the practice of it. It was the office and daily
business of these teachers, to acquaint them with that Gospel
which declareth these great works. They had special meetings
every Lord's day to that very end, even in remembrance of
Christ's resurrection (which very day, much more all the works
of the day, is a record of their believing it to be true). These
ministers were men known and approved of by the churches, so
that as the skill in physic, law, philosophy, &c., hath been de-
livered down by a succession of teachers of these sciences, one
teaching another, and fitting him to teach it to otiiers again, so
hath the sum of sacred history and doctrine been delivered. The
apostles, by their own consent, appointed over the churches in
their days teachers and overseers, whose office it should be to
teach these things.
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 101
I leave it, therefore, as utterly past doubt, by these five ways
of attestation, that we have the universal testimony of those
first churches, that the report of these miracles and gift of the
Holy Ghost, is a certain truth. And themselves being the pos-
sessors, agents, or eye-witnesses, could not be deceived, unless
they were all mad.
2. I am next to show^you the infallibility of their testimony,
that certainly they have not all conspired to deceive the world,
but did themselves believe what they did thus profess to believe :
it is commonly objected, that the acts of a free agent being
contingent, and all men being defectible and fallible, therefore
we can have no proper absolute certainty upon the testimony of
any men. But as man's freedom is servato or'dine finis, and as
nature doth infallibly incline him to his natural end, so a man
may pass an infallible judgment of man's acts, where the pre-
valent interest of nature and the end are certainly visible : and
that not only in cases past, but in prognostics of things to come.
And, therefore, (as is said,) I certainly know by human testi-
mony, that men were burned for supposed heresy in Queen
Mary's days, that King Edward before her, and Queen Elizabeth
after her, did befriend the reformed doctrine and worship. And
though I cannot say it of any one man, yet I am certain of a
whole city, country, or nation, that they will not all hang them-
selves, or famish themselves wilfully, unless they be intoxicated,
or bewitched, or all run mad.
And that the church's testimony in question is infallible, you
may see in these particulars following.
1. They were thousands of persons attested it, and not only
a few.
2. They were of several countries through the world, for the
apostles divided the world among them, for the propagation of
this Gospel.
3. They were people of several languages, dispositions, and
interests.
All this showeth, first, that so many persons and countries
could not possibly have a prevalent motive to carry them all
purposely to deceive the world wjth a volume of lies ; no more
than all the people of England can have a prevalent motive to
persuade them all, to pretend that we have had a war here, and tell
the world of our several fights, when there was no such matter.
Allow the remnants of common honesty and veracity to have
their reasonable force, and consider the strength of what is
102 THK spirit's witness to
pretended to bear it down in so many, and you will see that
there is no possibility of such a deceit.
Secondly ; and it showeth, that such men could not possibly
forge such a volume of miracles, if they would : for first, they
could not all come together, nor have any opportunity to agree
in the contrivance, being in several parts of the world ; nor
was it ever imagined by their fiercest or most foolish adversaries,
that they did such a thing : could all the poor, persecuted
Christians in Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Ephesus, Corinth,
Philippi, Rome, and the rest of the world, combine to delude
all their posterity and the rest of the world, by telling them
that such a history of miracles was true, when it was not ?
4. But, yet further, this will appear if we consider, how
many malicious Jews and heathens were among them, that
might have easily evinced such a deceit, and made them for it
the shame of the world : yea, when miracles were wrought before
these enemies, and the gift of tongues used in their hearing ; for
they were purposely for the convincing of unbelievers.
5. Yet do the enemies confess the fact, else what need the
pharisees have blasphemed the Holy Ghost ; and said, ' They
were done by the power of beelzebub :' yea, Julian, and the
worst enemies of the Christians, did confess them. The Turks,
to this day, do confess them : so doth Mahomet, <^heir prophet, in
his Alcoran : and so do the very Jews themselves, that now live.
6. Consider, also, that the apostles had many enemies in the
church, such as fell into heresy, and being convinced by miracles
of the truth of Christianity, and yet taking it for a heinous sin
to take down the law of Moses, they joined both together, and
so opposed the apostles ; and, therefore, would soon have dis-
covered so gross a delusion as this is supposed to be.
7. Yea, and the apostles appealed to miracles, and the gift of
the Spirit, as the proof of their apostleship against all these false
teachers.
S. Yea, when many of their followers were drawn away by
them, and began to think meanly of them in comparison of the
seducers, they appeal to these works for the satisfying of the
people, both of their office and doctrine ; insomuch as Paul, with
much sharpness, asks the Galatiuns who had bewitched them,
and calls them foolish, and challenges them to answer, 1. Whe-
ther themselves received this Spirit by the law or faith ; 2. And
whether they that yet work miracles among them did it by the
law or faith. (Gal. iii. 1 — 3.)
THE TRUTH Of ( HRISTl AN ITY. 103
9. Consider, also, whether such writings, preachings, and
provocations would not have caused the apostles to be derided
of all, and have turned back those that were inclined to Christi-
anity, if they had not been true. To persuade them first to
believe a volume of Christ's miracles, done in the open world,
and to believe his resurrection and ascension ; and to make the
giving of the Holv Ghost to be that seal, which should credit
this report with their hearers ; and to preach and write to them-
selves, that this Holy Ghost was commonly given by the laying
on of their hands, yea, given to these their hearers, yea, so com-
mon, that he that had not the Spirit of Christ was none of his ;
and to tell them of miracles still among them, and persuade
them to desire rather the more edifying gifts, wh^n they speak
to the church, than the gift of tongues, which was to convince
unbelievers, &:c. If all these things had been feigned, would
they not rather have tended to make all men condemn them,
who might so easily know it, and could not but know it, than to
stablish them in the faith, or turn the world ?
10. It is most certain that all the first churches, who have
delivered us the report of these gifts and miracles, did not intend
to delude us, because they lost their own worldly profits, plea-
sures, and honours by this profession, and lived a life of great
suffering to the flesh, and multitudes laid down their lives in the
cause ; and is it possible, I say possible, that many countries,
or so many thousand persons of so many parts of the world,
should combine to ruin themselves and cast themselves on una-
voidable calamity, contempt, and, many of them, death itself,
and all to deceive the world, in a matter by which themselves
can be no way advantaged ? I think I need to say no more to
prove this impossible. You see then that the first Christians
were Christians indeed, (for that is all I have to prove,) and did
believe what they pretended to believe, and were not all dis-
semblers nor cheaters of the world in the testimony which they
delivered them.
If any object that the certainty of some of the things before
mentioned dependeth so much on history and records of anti-
quity, which unlearned men are unacquainted with, and therefore
they cannot be obliged to believe, 1 answer, in these particulars :
1. The thing is nevertheless evident, because you know it not.
2. It concerneth all men to do what they can to attain that
ac(|uaintance with history and antiquity, by which they may be
enabled to see the truth in its fullest evidence.
104 THE sptrit's witness to
3. No man can know that the * Magna Charta,' the 'Petition
of Right,' or any statute of this land, are indeed genuine and
authentic as being the acts of such kings and parhaments, but
upon the credit of tradition. Shall the unlearned, therefore,
conclude that they are not bound by any such statute law, or
custom, or that the tenure of their liberties and lands, by such
a charter, is uncertain or bad ; because that no man can know
but by records of antiquity, whether these statutes and charters
be authentic or no? Doubtless, men that are not acquainted
with antiquity, have a sufficient means to know that these are not
forged statutes or charters ; for they have the concurrent testimo-
ny of all that are skilled in the laws, and have had better opportu-
nity to search records and understand antiquity, than they have
had; yea, and they may be certain that all these do not deceive
them, when they know that there can be no motive to draw them
to such a thing, but much against it, and if some were deceivers
others would discover it, with divers the like considerations. So
that the most unlearned man is so far bound to believe the sta-
tute against felony to be authentic, and in force, that he shall
justly be hanged if he break it; and it shall be no sufficient ex-
cuse for him to say, ' I could not tell without skill in antiquities,
whether this statute were counterfeit or not.'
4. The case is much alike here in the point in hand. When
all divines or other learned men, that are acquainted with history,
do unanimously affirm that these records are certain, and when
the way to the same knowledge is open to all that have time and
help to study it, we may, by a human faith, be here infallibly
certain, as an unlearned man may be that there is such a place
as Jerusalem or Rome ; or as a scholar that understands the
Latin or Greek, but not a word of Hebrew, may yet be certain,
by a concurrence of evidences, that there is such a thing as the
Hebrew tongue, and such books as Genesis, Exodus, &c., written
in it, and that the translators do not herein deceive him. And
this is one use of ministers in the church ; and the people may
and must believe their teachers with a human, yet certain faith,
that these records have been thus delivered to us down by tra-
dition, and other parts of historical verities before mentioned.
Argument II.
The contrary doctrine of the apostates is self contradicting and
absurd ; for, whereas, they pretend that they, and thcv
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 105
only, are bound to believe, that see the miracles ; by this
means, they leave God incapable of convincing the world
by miracles : for miracles would lose their convincing force,
and be as no miracles, if they were common to all, and in
all ages. For it is not so much the power that is manifest
in that work simply considered, that proves it any testi-
mony to the doctrine, or that would convince ; but it is
the extraordinary application of omnipotency that sealeth
the truth. It is a work of as great power to cause the sun
to move as to stand still, or the sea to keep its course as to
change it, or the living to continue in life, as for the dead
to rise, and to give eye- sight at birth or in the womb, and
to give it twenty years after : but it would not have con-
firmed Christ's doctrine so much, if Lazarus had not died, as
if he be raised again ; or that a man be born with eye-sight,
as that he be restored to it that was born blind ; and so of
the rest. Now, these men would have every man, in every
country and age in the world, to see miracles, or else not
to be bound to believe ; and I think, on the same ground,
they must see particular miracles, for the sealing of each
particular truth that they receive ; and, then, miracles
would be common, and so lose their force and be as none :
then, every infidel would say ; 'This is a common thing.*
If it were as common for the sun to stand still as to move,
or for the dead to be raised, as the sick to be healed, or a
child to be born ; do you think it would be a fit evidence
to convince these unbelievers of the christian truth.
Argument III.
That doctrine which would deprive all the world of the benefit
of God's miraculous works, except those that see them,
though others are capable of it, is a false doctrine j but
such is the doctrine which we here oppose : ergo.
That others are capable of such benefit, is proved before :
as also by the experience of all ages. May not this age re-
member God's works in reforming the churches ; in delivering
this nation from the Spanish invasion, in eighty-eight ; from
the powder-plot, &c., for the confirming of our faith and confi-
dence in God, and exciting our hearts to a thankfulness for his
mercy. May we not, yea, must we not be awed and warned by
VOL. XX, L
106 THE spirit's witness to
God's recorded former judgments; even those that were done
in the days of our forefathers, and in all generations that come
to our knowledge : but if we are not bound to believe them,
because we ourselves did not see them, then we cannot improve
them, or get the benefit : and if we are not bound to believe
our ancestors, and the histories or records of the church, or
those that are skilful therein, concerning works that are mi-
raculous, and therefore more observable, then we are not bound
believe to them, concerning other deliverances or judgments.
There is no way for us to be acquainted with such matters of
fact, but either by our own sight or by immediate revelation
from heaven, or by tradition and testimony of them that saw
them. He that expecteth either to live in the sight of miracles,
or under the immediate revelation from heaven of historical
things, is a very vain, unreasonable man. The testimony of
those that saw, must be the medium between their senses and
^ours, and must be to us instead of sight. I say, tradition
is to us instead of sight, and that is the proper use of it : and
he that would rob the world of the benefit of all God's works,
which they have not seen themselves, is no good friend to them,
nor a very wise man. Must none believe that the world was
drowned with water, but those that saw it ? Must none believe
that Christ was incarnate, but they that saw him ? If they
must, then they must on the same grounds believe his miracles,
though they did not see them : if not, they must not believe
that there was ever a king in England, or that there is any
such place as Rome or .Jerusalem, or any country but England
on earth, because they never saw them.
Argument IV.
That doctrine which would rob God of the honour of all his
most wondrous works, which we never saw, is a false and
wicked doctrine. But such is the doctrine which we here
oppose : therefore.
Should God have no glory for bringing Israel out of Egypt,
by any but that age that saw his wonders ? Why, then, doth
he call for it in all following ages ? These men think that the
Israelites of following ages were not bound to believe the very
preface to the Ten Commandments ; that God brought
them out of the land of Egypt, and the house of bondage.
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 107
Should this age give God no glory for any deliverance in for-
mer ages^ or any work of providence that was done since the
beginning of the world till now ? What a foolish and impious
conceit is this ; they may as well say, that he that liveth all
his days in this town, or is cloistered in a cell, should not be-
lieve that the world is any bigger than he sees, nor should give
God any glory for the rest of his workmanship. Human tes-
timony is the light by which we. must behold his former works
to his praise.
Argument V.
If we are not bound to believe God's wondrous works, which
we see not, then our ancestors, or teachers, are not bound
to tell them us. But the consequent is false. Therefore,
so is the antecedent.
Why should men be bound to tell us that which we are not
bound to believe upon their report ? God bindeth no man to
use any means in vain. But that we are bound to tell others
of God's wondrous works, is clear in nature, as well as Scrip-
ture.
1. What greater use have we our tongues and languages
for ?
2. Our allegiance to God requireth it.
3. Our love to men, to posterity, to the world, requires it.
4. Our love to truth will bind us to propagate it. I do not
think, for all their foolish cavilling, but that if one of these
apostate infidels should see the dead raised, or should have an
angel from heaven deliver them a book, and say, 'This is the
truth ;' they would think it their duty to tell it abroad, and
other men's duty to believe their report. Is it not our duty to
tell to posterity the deliverances which God had wrought for
us ? And for those that have seen any mercy or judgment in
peace or war, to tell those that saw it not ? But why should
they tell those that are not bound to believe them ?
Argument VI.
That doctrine which would put out the eyes of the world, and
bring them all to folly and barbarous ignorance, and would
destroy all teaching, and all human converse, societies,
l2
108 THE spi hit's Witness to
and government, is false and detestable : but such is the
doctrine wlilch we here oppose : therefore,
If we are not l)ound to believe men, when thev report the
most wondrous works of God, then we are not bound to believe
them in lesser things, which we first see not, or know not
ourselves. And if so, then the fore-mentioned consequents will
follow.
1. Take away from men the credit of history, and let them
know nothing but what hath been in their own days, and what
a mole do you leave man. But further take away from him the
credit of human testimony, and let him know nothing of any
other country, or of his own, but what he sees, and you so far
put out his eyes, that you leave him scarce a man, and may
next shut him up again in the womb.
2. How shall any man teach another any art, language, or
science, if the scholar ought not to believe his teacher ? If he
that would teach you Latin, Greek, or Hebrew, tell you the
power of each letter, and the signification of each word, and
you say, * J am not bound to believe you, because I know it not
to be true myself/ how then will he learn ? So in other cases.
And if there be no teaching or learning, what knowledge will
there be ? If children must practise this doctrine also, and not
learn any thing of their own fathers or mothers, because they
know it not first themselves, and therefore need not believe
them ; then we should have a world of infants, and they would
not be taught so much as to speak. But the best is, this idiot
doctrine is so unnatural, that it must be violated before it can
be practised : you must belie^'e others, before you can learn
that others are not to be believed : and, therefore, children are
not in much danger of it. He that tells me that I am not bound
to believe others, I hope will give me leave to suppose, then, that
T am not bound to believe him that tells me so : for by believ-
ing him I shall cross his doctrine : nor will he suppose that I
should credit him more than others, or than all the world.
3. There can be no societies kept up, without believing one-
another.
4. No, nor any human converse. If men should live every
one as purely independent from the rest of the world, no men
could enter into any contracts or covenants.
5. Nor could there be any government of any commonwealth.
The subject should not be bound to believe that he hath a king.
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 109
unless he sec him, nor that the laws are true and genuine,
and not forged; nor could men buy or sell, or have any secu-
rity of their properties for want of witnesses, nor be accused of
any crime, or wrong doing, because no witnesses should be to
be believed. If a man's estate and life shall be in the power
of two or three witnesses by the laws of God and nature, except
where there is just exceptions against them, and proof of the
contrarv to what they attest ; sure, this is on supposition of
some powerful inclination to verity in nature, and of so much
wiatural honesty and conscience in mankind, as that so great
concernments may be laid upon them. How much more then,
should so many thousand witnesses be believed in a case, for
God and our souls, where we know that they cannot possibly
deceive us ?
Argument VII.
That doctrine which would tie God to be at the beck of every
unreasonable infidel, to satisfy him by miracles, when he
hath afforded him ordinary, sufficient means, '_is a false and
ungodly doctrine. But such is the doctrine which we here
oppose : therefore,
That ordinary, human testimony is a sufficient means to
inform us of the certainty of former miracles, I have already
showed : and also that those miracles are sufficient attestations
on God's part of his owning the doctrine so attested. If, there-
fore, every infidel after all this say, I will not believe unless I
see, they deserve rather punishment than satisfaction. Then, if
God had showed a miracle to a thousand, yea, to all the city or
country, except one man, he must do all over again for the
convincing of that one man, because he will believe no man
else. This were to subvert the whole frame of providential
government, and to turn extraordinaries into ordinaries, and to
teach all men to live by sense. But thus God will not do to
satisfy every or any unbeliever.
Argument VIII.
If God do not use such common, repeated miracles to convince
the world with, of the verity of the christian religion,
then they are not necessary absolutely to that end, But
God doth not use such, &:c. Therefore,
110 THE spirit's witness TO
That miracles are now ceased, at least so as not to be com-
mon to every man, is beyond doubt. And that God withdravv-
eth not any means without which the world cannot rationally
be convinced, is as certain : they that affirm the contrary must
affirm that he now obligeth us not to believe, that is, that it is
no duty to be a Christian ; which I have disproved before ; and
use this argument against those seekers only, who yet pretend
not to renounce their Christianity.
Argument IX.
God doth still effectually convince millions of men of the cer-
tainty of the christian religion, and that without renewed
miracles. Therefore there is a sufficient way of such con-
viction without them.
Ab esse ad posse, ah actu secundo ad poientiam^ ah efficientia
ad sufficientiam, the argument is past doubt. If God ordinarily
do it, then it may be done, and then the way is sufficient, and
the other not of absolute necessity. If any infidel say that all
these that seem convinced of the truth of the Gospel are de-
luded, and take their own imaginations for certain apprehen-
sions, 1 answer, 1. They themselves know the contrary to their
own satisfaction.
2. Some of them are able to show sufficient reasons of their
faith and hope to others, and have often done it.
Argument X.
Lastly : I shall, for the sake of those that yet own Christianity,
produce some Scripture testimonies, from whence it shall
appear that it was not the intent of God to work miracles
before all that ought to believe, nor to continue them to all
following ages, but to send down a sufficient testimony that
formerly they were wrought, and thereby to oblige posterity
to believe : and also that we are obliged to believe the tes-
timony of our ancestors and teachers, as they are bound to
instruct us.
1. "That I might show these, my signs, before him, and that
thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and of thy son's son,
what things I have wrought in Egypt, and my signs which I have
done amongst them, that ye may know how that I am the
Lord." (Exod. x. 1, 2.) Here you have, 1. The convincing evi-
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY, 111
dence, God's miracles. 2. The person that saw them was Pha-
raoh. 3. Yet must the Israehtes declare them to posterity, and
therefore posterity must believe them. 4. And that to prove
to them that God is the Lord.
2. " Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your
fathers ? Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell
their children, and their children another generation. That
which the palmer-worm hath left, hath the locust eaten," &c.
(Joel i. 2 — 4.) You see here tradition must be instead of the
sight of the fact.
3. " And it shall come to pass when your children shall say
unto you. What mean you by this service ? That you shall say.
It is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, who passed over the
houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the
Egyptians, and delivered our houses." (Exod. xii. 14, 17, 26,
27, 42.) Here is tradition by ordinance and words, which pos-
terity must believe.
4. "For I spake not with your children, which have not
known, and which have not seen the chastisement of the Lord
your God, his greatness, his mighty hand, and his stretched-out
arm, and his miracles, and his acts, which he did in the midst of
Egypt, unto Pharaoh the King of Egypt, and unto all his land,
and what he did unto the army of Egypt," &c. " But your eyes
have seen all the great acts of the Lord, which he did. And
ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou
sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, when
thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write
them upon the door-posts of thy house, and upon thy gates, that
your days may be nndtiplied, and the days of your children."
(Deut. xi. 2—7, 19, 21.)
5. See, also, Deut. xxix. 22 — 27j &c.
6. " That this may be a sign among you, that when your
children ask their fathers in time to come, saying. What mean
you by these stones ? then ye shall answer them. That the
waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of
the Lord, when it passed over Jordan ; the waters of Jordan
were cut off; and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the
children of Israel for ever." (Josh. iv. 6, 7> 22 — 24.)
7. See, also. Josh. xxii. 24 — 32. '
8. " Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces, that
you may tell it to the generation following." (Psalm xlviii. 13.)
9. " Give ear, O my people, to my law; incline your ears to
112 THE spirit's witness to
the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable.
I will utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known,
and our fathers have told us ; we will not hide them from their
children, sliowing to the generation to come the praises of the
Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath
done ; for he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a
law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should
make them known to their children, that the generation to come
might know them, even the children which should be born ; who
should arise and declare them to their children, that they might
set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep
his commandments, and might not be as their fathers," &c.
(Psalm Ixxviii. 1 — 8.)
10. "This shall be written for the generation to come : and
the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord." (Psalm
cii. 18.)
11. "One generation shall praise thy works to another, and
shall declare thy mighty acts." (Psalm cxlv. 4. See ver. 5 — 7,
11,21.)
12. "The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham,"
8cc. " This is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto
all generations." (Exod. iii. 15.)
13. "Ye shall dwell in booths seven days," &c., "that your
generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell
in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt," &c.
(Levit. xxiii. 42, 43.)
14. Psalm Ixxxix. 1.
15. " And ye shall be witnesses to me both in Jerusalem
and all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of
the earth." (Acts i. 8.)
16. " This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we are all wit-
nesses ; " (Acts ii. 32 ;) "And killed the Prince of Life, whom
God hath raised from the dead, whereof we are witnesses."
(Acts iii. 14, 15.)
17. "The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew
and hanged upon a tree ; him hath God exalted with his right
hand, to be a Prince and a Saviour," &c. " And we are his
witnesses of these things, and so is also the Holy Ghost," &c.
(Acts V. 30—32.)
18. " The word which God sent unto the children of Israel,"
&c., " which was published throughout all Judea," &c. ; " how
God anointed Jesus of Naz;areth with the Holy Ghost and with
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. US
power, who went about doing good, and healing all that were
oppressed of the devil ; for God was with him : and we are
witnesses of all things which he did, both in the land of the Jews
and in Jerusalem, whom they slew and hanged on a tree ; him
God raised up the third day, and showed him openly, not to all
the people, but to witnesses chosen before of God, even to us
who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead :
and he commandeth us to preach unto the people, and to testify
that it is he which was ordained of God, to be the Judge of
quick and dead." (Acts x. 38 — 4 1 .)
19. "But God raised him from the dead, and he was seen
many days of them, which came up with him from Galilee to
Jerusalem, who are his witnesses unto the people. And we de-
clare unto you glad tidings," &c. (Acts xiii. 30, 31.)
20. See, also. Acts i. 22, and iv. 33, and xxii. 15, and xxvi.
16; 1 Pet. V. 1 ; Heb. ii. 3; Luke iv. 22; John i. 15, 32, 34,
and V. 33, and xii. 17, and ix. 35, and xv. 27 ; Acts xxiii. 1 1 ;
1 John i, 2, with divers others, which all show that it was the
office of the apostles, and the duty of all others that saw Christ's
miracles, to bear witness of them, and that others should re-
ceive that witness. And though God did enable those first wit-
nesses to seal also their witness with the gift of the Holy Ghost,
given by God at the laying on of their hands or at their preach-
ing, or by miracles, yet those that saw not those miracles were
bound to believe their witness ; and the Gospel was bv them
committed to others, that were by preaching, though mostly
without miracles, to convince the rest of the world, and propa-
gate it to posterity.
21. "And the things which thou iiast heard of me among
many witnesses, the same commit thou unto faithful men, who
shall be able to teach others also." (2 Tim. ii. 2.) This is
the way of propagating the Gospel. So, 1 Tim. vi. 20.
1 coriclude with that of Christ to Thomas : " Because thou
hast seen me thou hast believed : blessed are they that have
not seen, and yet have believed." (John xx. 29.) I might have
added even those texts that reciuire parents to bring up their
children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and to
teach them the doctrine of redemption and salvation : and he
that saith either that every parent can work miracles, or that
no child is to belie^'e his parents that cannot work them, is
unworthy to be the parent or instructer of children, much more
to be a teacher of men,
114 THE spirit's witness TO
We must next answer some of the apostates' objections.
Obj. 1. Imagination is strong, and the multitude easily de-
ceived, as we see by experience.
Answ. Yet sense is a certain judge, and it is not easy to
deceive the senses of so many thousands, through the space of
so many years together, so as to persuade both cities, congre-
gations, and countries, that they see and hear what they do not,
and to venture their credit, estates, lives, and everlasting hopes
upon it ; show us such an experiment.
Obj. 2. Men of other religions are as confident that they
received them from God, as the Christians, and yet are mis-
taken.
Answ. I know but of three religions in the world beside the
christian, that any considerable number do embrace.
1 . The greatest part of the world are idolaters, that worship
many feigned deities, and know not God. These are, for the
generality, brutishly ignorant and sottish, and pretend to no
more than custom and nature, for the reason of their religion ',
and are able to say nothing considerable for what they do, as
hey that converse with them in the Indies or other parts do
fully testify.
2. The Mahometans, whose leader pretended to be a pro-
phet, and hath made them some ridiculous laws against the law
of nature itself, confirmed by no miracles nor divine testimony^
but having got a rout of barbarians to follow him, he and his
successors did prosper in war, and so his party have advanced
his religion, merely by the sword ; he confessed that Christ was
the word of God, and a great prophet, and confessed his mira-
cles, and thundered out threatenings against the Jews for not
believing on him ; only he revileth his followers for making
him to be God ; as is to be seen in his Alcoran. So that this
is a confirmation of the christian faith.
3. The Jews, who had indeed the witness of God, concerning
the truth of their law : but do sin in not receiving the testi-
mony of his truth of the Gospel.
Obj. 3. But how many sects are there among Christians
themselves ? And every one is confident of the truth of his
religion, and say, ' They had it down from the apostles,' and
who knows which of them is in the right ? Or, how can we
believe any of them, when they are no better agreed among
themselves ?
Answ. Christians are all of one faith or religion, and ill
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 115
agreed in that one faith. They all believe the articles of the
Creed, commonly called the apostles ; and all take the Lord's
Prayer for a rule for their prayers, and the Ten Commandments,
as a sum of moral duty ; they all believe the same Gospel, and
confess the necessity of faith, repentance, and new obedience ;
they all hold the canonical Scriptures to be the word of God,
and of certain truth. Their differences are partly about some
corrupt additions, whereof the papists are especially guilty, and
partly about some expositions of more difficult j)assages. And
doth it follow, that there is no full certainty of the christian
religion and canonical Scripture, wherein they are all agreed,
because they are disagreed in some other things ? It was never
the mind of Christ to make all his disciples perfect on earth,
and, therefore, while they are imperfect learners, they must
needs differ. Rather, it is a sign that our religion and canon-
ical Scriptures are certain, when so many parties among their
hottest contentions are yet all agreed in them. I shall further
answer this under the next objection.
Obj. 4. But they agree not in their very translations of the
Scripture ; nay, their very copies in the original languages
agree not, so that they are not sure that they have a true,
uncorrupted Scripture. What certainty, then^ can there be of
their religion ?
Answ. 1. Right translating proceeds from the skill of the
translator ; if that be imperfect, what is that to our religion, or
Scripture ?
2. Translators differ not in matters of moment.
S. Take that for certain that they are agreed in.
4. The copies in the original do differ in so small, inconsider-
able passages, and so admirably accord, that it affordeth us a
full argument to evince them to be incorrupt in all things
wherein they do agree.
5. Though the apostles were directed by the Holy Ghost in
speaking and writing the doctrine of Christ, so that we know
they performed their part without errors, yet the delivering
down of this speech and writings to us is a human work, to be
performed by the assistance of ordinary providence : and,
therefore, we are not, with the seekers, to expect an infallibility
in such tradition to be confirmed by new miracles ; nor, with
the papists, to expect an infallibility in such testimony or tradi-
tion upon any extraordinary gift of infallibility conferred by the
Holy Ghost upon the pope, or any particular persons ; but an
116 THE spirit's witness TO
infallible certainty v.e have upon common rational grounds,
advantaged and strengthened much from the special piety,
honesty, and veracity of the christian church ; which certainty
of the incorruption of Scriptures and christian religion in all the
material points may yet consist with some literal or verbal
errors in the copies, and with some corruptions or doubtful
controversies, that may creep into the churches. For it is not
an apostolical work to deliver down to posterity the writings or
words which the apostles first wrote and spoke ; but it is a
human and christian work : and, therefore, though God pro-
mised to his apostks his Spirit to lead them into all truth, and
hath promised to be with ministers in preaching this Gospel to
the end of the world; yet hath he not promised us the same
exact infallibility or impeccability in preaching, as to every
circumstance, as they had at first in speaking or writing : nor
hath he promised so to guide every printer, or the hand of each
transcriber of the Scriptures, that none of them shall err. But
our religion or Scriptures is nevertheless certain in the doctrine,
for all this : for the doctrine depends not on these slips, or
questioned passages.
6. We have an infallible certainty of the printed statutes of
this land, that they are not forged : yet may tlie printers
commit some errors in the printing them. And will you
conclude, if you find a word misplaced, or false printed, that,
therefore, it is uncertain whether ever the parliament made such
a statute ? The lawyers, also, and the judges themselves, may
differ about the sense of some passages in those statutes, and
some may be of one mind, and some of another ;~ is the statute,
therefore, counterfeit, or is it not obligatory to the subject ?
Cambden's or Lily's Grammar may be misprinted, or the
writings of Cicero, Virgil, or Ovid, which were written before
the Gospel, and yet v/e are past all doubt that the writings are
not forged.
Obj. 5. But 1 am not bound to believe every man that tells
me he brings the Gospel : men may say that is the Gospel
which is not the Gospel.
Ansvv. Doth it follow, that because you are not bound to every
man, therefore you are bound to believe no man ? You must
believe no man that tells vou a lie, nor anv man that saith he
brings you the truth, and vet gives vou no evidence of what he
saith to be true. But must vou not therefore believe him that
tells you the truth, and proves it to be so ? Or, dare you say,
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 117
after impartial examination, that we give you no evidence of the
truth of the Gospel ? You must not beheve every man that saith
he hath a letter to you from such a friend, or a pardon of some
offence from the prince. But if you see it under his hand and
seal, which no man can counterfeit, must you not then believe
it ? You must not believe every man that saith sucli or such a
law was made by the parliament, which you must obey ; but if
all the heralds and messengers of the commonwealth do proclaim
it, and the commonwealth acknowledge it, and they produce
sufficient proof that the parliament did enact it, and tell you by
what records you may prove it yourselves, if you will be at the
pains, as they have been, and no man hath any thing of weight
to say against it, should you not believe such a report? You
are bound to believe every man that gives you evidence of the
truth of his report, or shows you sufficient reason why you should
believe him : but so do the preachers of the Gospel, ergOy Sec.
Obj. 6. Christ saith, " If I had not done the works that no
man else could do, ye had no sin ?"
Answ. But he doth not say, if you had not seen them, you
had no sin. The revelation of them by any sufficient means,
will leave an unbeliever without excuse.
Obj. 7. But why should we be obliged by miracles unseen, any
more than the Jews in Christ's time ?
Answ. Because we have sufficient proof of them, though not
the sight: and if the Jews had had such proof of them, it would
have obliged them, as to this day it doth.
Obj. 8. By that rule Christ need not to have done miracles in
any place but one, and then have sent word of it to the rest of
the world, and consequently all the miracles of his apostles
should be needless : but Christ did them not needlessly, er(/o,
they are needful to us.
Answ. If God so far condescended to our infirmity, as by mul-
titudes of miracles to make his seal so evident, that we may be
put out of doubt that none can counterfeit it, should his creature
be so ungratefully impudent as to require yet more, and tie him
to satisfy his unreasonable expectations. What, if six or eight
of the plagues of Egypt had been a sufficient means to have left
Pharaoh inexcusable^ if he would not believe, may not ten
plagues leave him yet more inexcusable ? And shall no man be
thought inexcusable that hath not as many ? This is to make
foolish sinners the rulers of the world, yea, of God himself, and
they must teach him what to do. Yea, ungrateful wretches are
118 THE spirit's witness TO
SO quarrelsome with his very mercies, that they will not be
pleased. If God work but few, the seal is supposed questionable
and obscure, because, perhaps, there might be some deceit in
them : if he work many to put it out of doubt, then either they
must be pronounced needless, or else every man must see the
like.
Obj. 9. But there are contradictions in the Scripture, and
great weaknesses in style and method ; how then can we believe
that they were sealed by God ?
Answ. 1. So ignorant men do think of other writings, or of
any science, when they do but half understand them. They
that understand them are able to see the falsehood of this ob-
jection. Were men but any whit humble, they would rather
suspect their understandings of mistakes, than the Scriptures of
contradiction. When one showeth these self-conceited infidels
the plain sense of the words, and how easily they are reconciled,
which they thought contradictory, they have then nothing to
say, but be ashamed of their rash and ignorant conclusions,
2. If we could not free the text from every charge that in
smaller things is laid upon it, and if we could not prove the
writers infallible, and free from all mistakes in their writings,
yet might we be sure that the doctrine of Scripture, in the main,
is God's word, and that the christian religion is of God.
Obj. I will not believe him in any thing, that speaks falsely in
one. Answ. An ignorant answer. If a man mistake in a
doubtful matter, will you not believe him in a matter that hath
evidence beyond doubt ? All historians are fallible, and liable to
error ; and if they describe to you such or such a fight, or the
acts of such a parliament, they may easily err in some smaller
circumstance, as the just number of the slain, the particular
terms of every act, &c. ; and yet the main part of their history
may be of infallible verity that such a fight there was, and who
conquered, and that such and such laws were enacted. We are
certain of many of the reports of heathen historians, who yet
may err in some things ; much more of the reports of godly,
conscionable men, when it is clear they could not be deceived,
or deceive. So that all the credit of the Gospel and christian
religion doth not lie on the perfect freedom of the Scriptures
from all error : but yet we doubt not to prove this their per-
fection against all the cavils o infidels, though we can prove
the truth of our religion without it.
The like may be said of the supposed weaknesses of Scripture,
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 119
in method and terms, which is but the censure of proud igno-
rance : it was not agreeable to the design of Scripture, or the
occasions of its writing, that it should be written in an exact,
logical method ; neither histories, laws, nor epistles, are used to
be so written, and such are the Scriptures : and it was necessary
that the language should be suited as to the matter, so to the
capacity of the generality of the readers. It is God's great
wisdom and mercy, that he will rather offend the proud, than
lose the weak.
Moreover, if we could only prove that the Holy Ghost was
given to the penmen of holy Scripture, as an infallible guide to
them in the matter, and not to enable them to any excellency
above others in the method and words, but therein to leave
them to their natural and acquired abilities ; this would be no
diminution of the credit of their testimony, or of the christian
faith. Indeed, as God's word is not given to men to repair
their understandings about mere natural common things, (unless,
on the by, it may do this in physics,) but in spirituals, so doth
it suppose both reason, and the necessity of common arts and
sciences, for the rectifying and helping of reason in naturals,
which Scripture and grace do then teach them to improve for
the highest and noblest ends.
Obj. 10. But there are in Scripture such improbable
things in the history of some miracles, and in the threatenings
of hell, &c., that we cannot believe that they came from God.
Answ. All things seem improbable, that are beyond the
understanding of the reader, and contrary to his former conceits.
Is there any thing that is too hard for God ; or any thing that
requireth a greater power than the making of the world ; the
motion of the sun, and the upholding of the frame of nature in
its vigour and course, &c. : if we knew the power that did it,
as well as we know the difficulty of the work to a human
power, we should not think it improbable to God.
And for the necessity of the punishing of impenitent sinners,
I have spoken of it sufficiently elsewhere.
Obj. 11. But you are not agreed which is the canonical
Scripture : the papists take in all the apocryphal books, which
you reject.
Answ. That is no diminution of the authority of those that
we are agreed on : and the whole christian religion is contained
in those. Nor do we differ about any book of the New
lestament.
120 THE spirit's witness to
01)j. 12. It was long ere the Scriptures were gathered Into
one book, and before some of the books of the New Testament
were received ; some of the primitive churches received
them not.
Answ. 1. It is not binding them in one book that adds to
their authority, nor binding them in many that diminisheth it ;
else the bookbinder might make or mar the Scripture at his
pleasure. 2. When the epistles were written to several
churches at a great distance, there must needs be some space
of time before the latter writings could be communicated to all
others, by those churches to whom they were written : and till
they were communicated with sufficient evidence for their recep-
tion, no wonder if they were doubted of. And that cautelous-
ness of the church doth the more confirm us of their care in the
rest. 3. It was but James, and 2 Peter, the two last epistles
of John, and the Revelations, that were doubted of, and some
light question of the epistle to the Hebrews. And the doctrine
of Christianity is so much contained in all the rest, that if they
be received, it cannot be doubted of. Believe those books that
all received ; for the objection reacheth not them.
Obj. Clemens' epistle to the Corinthians was a while read
in churches, as Eusebius saith.
Answ. 1. Not as canonical, but as some yet read the Apo-
crypha. 2. There is nothing in that epistle, but what is con-
sonant to the apostles' doctrine, and therefore confirming to the
christian faith.
Obj. 13. But it was many years after Christ's resurrection be-
fore the Scriptures of the New Testament were written. Where
then was your religion, and your bible ?
Answ. The living preachers that had seen Christ's miracles,
and wrought more to confirm the doctrine which he taught
them were instead of books ; and so were the daily miracles
that were wrought, and the laws that were written in the hearts
of the disciples : but when the apostles were to be taken from
earth, as they left a succession of Christians, of preachers, and
of church ordinances, which might by tradition preserve to
posterity the substance of the christian religion ; so did they leave
their doctrine more fully in writing, as a more certain and
perfect means to preserve, not only the substance, but the
whole ; which writings are bv infallible, human testimony or
tradition, brought safe to our hands, being free from all wilful or
material depravation : for which, to God be glory inhis churches.
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANMTY. 121
Obj. 14. There are as confident reports of miracles wrought
since, yea, and some of them for the confirming of error, as.
those of the Scriptures, which you so m.uch build upon ; and
yet you give not so much to these: for example, ^Augustine
De Civitate Dei,' lib. xxii. cap. 8, hath very many; whereof some
are said to be done before many witnesses ; some in the public
assemblies, and in his own presence. See also his ' Retract.'
lib. i. cap. 13; and 'Confess.' lib. 9. cap. 7; and ' De Unitate
Eccles.' cap. 10; and 'Serm.De Divers.' xxxix.: and 'Ambros.'
epist. Ixxxv. ; and 'Serni.' cxci.; ' Sidonium Apollinar.' lib. 7.
epist. i.; ' Gregor. Turonens.' lib. 1; ' Mirac' cap. 47, attest
the same miracle.
And that error was confirmed by it, it is clear, in that most of
them were done at the memories or shrines of Stephen, or some
other martyrs, and some of them upon prayers to the martyrs,
and, as Augustine thought, upon the procurement of those mar-
tyrs ; and some were done by the sign of the cross, as Innocen-
tia, an eminent woman in Carthage, is said to be cured sud-
denly of a cancer in her breast. Athanasius, and many others,
mention the ejection of devils by the sign of the cross.
Answ. 1 . There is so great a difference between these mira-
cles and those of the Gospel, for frequency, greatness, evidence,
and unquestionable certainty, and also between the certainty of
the attestation and tradition of the one and the other, that the
one is only probable, or morally certain, the other hath a cer-
tainty that may well be called physical, and is clearly infallible.
The curing of a disease, or the raising of a dead man, attested
by a few witnesses, or by a congregation, is not like an age of
miracles, whereof some were done before thousands, and by
which so many countries were convinced and made disciples.
2. Yet I further answer, that even these miracles are attested
by so many and honest witnesses, such as Austin, and many of
the fathers, that they are credible to reason ; and though they
have no such certainty as those mentioned in Scripture, yet are
they strongly probable, and morally certain. Both, therefore,
may well be believed, but with a different belief, according to
the different evidences.
3. And that these latter were not wrought in attestation of
any error, but of the truth of Cluistianity, is evident in the pro-
fessions of those that wrought them, and those that report
them. It was not to attest any undue worship of the martyrs or
the cross, but to attest the truth of that faith which the martyrs
vol.. XX. M
122 THK simrit's witness to
sealed with their blood, and to advance the honour of Christ,
whom the infidels derided, because he was crucified. So Augus-
tine, in the next (ninth) chapter saith, * Whereto do these mira-
cles attest, but to this faith, in which Christ is preached to have
risen from the dead in the flesh, and with the flesh to have
ascended into heaven; for the martyrs themselves were martyrs,
that is, witnesses of this belief, and giving testimony to this be-
lief, they endured the great hatred and cruelty of the world, and
overcame it, not by resisting, but by dying. For this faith did
they die, who could obtain these things of the Lord, for whose
name they were slain. For this faith, their wonderful patience
did precede, that so great power in these miracles might follow
after. For if the resurrection of the body to an everlasting
state, either went not before in Christ, or will not come as is
foretold by Christ, or as is foretold by the prophets by whom
Christ was foretold ; why, then, can the martyrs do such things,
who were slain for that faith, by which this resurrection is
preached ?' &c.
4. Consider that the case of the church, then, and their
manner of using the cross, and the memories or relics of the
martyrs, was much different from that of the papists now ; and
therefore the most religious, godly people did use them then
without scruple, though now such people refuse the popish use
of them : for then the church lived among persecuting heathens,
and their Christianity was a hazard to their lives, so that
1. There was a special necessity of some encouragements
from God answerable to their great trials, or else how should
men have endured them, and Christianity have been maintained
and increased as it was ? Flesh will be flesh, and life w^ill be
sweet, and death w-ill be to nature the most unwelcome and ab-
horred guest in the world ; and Cod works in a way agreeable
to man's nature, by outward means of encouragement, as well
as by inward corroboration. Therefore was lie pleased to en-
courage men to the flames, to the sword, to the jaws of wild
beasts, and all the torments of bloody tyrants, by doing mira-
cles, rather at the memories or graves of the martyrs than else-
where ; and hereby making their names honourable, and such a
death more evidentlv desirable.
2. There was then greater reason to expect miracles than
now; even for the convincing of the heathens, that they
might be drawn to believe : for though miracles ceased to be
ordinary or so freijuent after the apostles' times, yet did God
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 123
continue them, in some degree, for many lumdred years, that
by degrees they might help the extirpation of infidehty.
And it was a more reasonable and less culpable thing then,
for the Christians to use the sign of the cross, before heathens
that scorned a crucified Christ ; and to honour the martyrs,
and choose the place of their graves or memories for their
prayers, where thev found God to do such extraordinary things
for the encouragement to martyrdom, and attestation of his
truth, than it is now for us to do such things, where the case is
altered, and the reason ceased ; much less should we use them
with religious worship to the creature, as giving it that which
is proper to God.
5. If it were granted that the use of the cross, and the pray-
ing at the memories or graves of martyrs, was then an error,
yet is it clear that it was not them, but the christian faith, that
God attested by those miracles ; for so the reporters profess,
and so the Christians judged and did expect : and God may
well attest his own doctrine, even where there may be some
mistakes in men's seeking or expecting his attestation. He
would not neglect the owning of Christianity against the learned
and cruel heathens, because of some small circumstantial errors
in his servants.
6. And where it is said, " These miracles were done by pray-
ing to the martyrs •/' I answer, I. If that had been so, yet the case
is answered in what is said already : ' It was not such prayers
as the papists use to deceased saints and martyrs now, as sup-
posing them to know our particular wants, and to be able to
relieve us;' of which I desire you to peruse 'Bishop Usher's Answer
to the Jesuit's Challenge,' on this point of praying to the saints.
2. But, indeed, there is no such thing appears in the words of
the reporter. Indeed, there is twice mention made in Austin
there of praying ad martyres, but that I suppose to be no more
than apud murlyres^ id est, apud riittrtyrum memorias ; ad
being usually put for apud. It is true, also, that Augustine
mentioneth the martyris' inipetration of the things, or else their
actual instrumentality in effecting them; he knows not whether.
But, first. This is but his own iuterpietation of the matter.
Secondly, He speaks not of any particular prayers of the
martyrs for persons in such particular distresses, but of impe-
tration in general, whereby he may understand either, 1. That
their holy lives and martyrdom v.'cre so acceptable with God,
which the fathers commonly called meritorious, that he would
M 2
124 THE spirit's witness to
do such works for the manifestation of his acceptance, and
encouragement of others to the like : 2. Or, that their present
perfection in glorv makes tliem so pleasing to God, that he
will thus manifest it : 3. Or, that their general supplications
for their distressed hrethren on earth, are heard and do obtain
such particular deliverances 5 all which do imply no particular
knowledge of all our particular cases, nor yet any warrant that
we should pray to them.
Thirdly, But if it could be proved that the use of the cross,
and the praying to martyrs at their graves, in subordination to
Christ, were approved by miracles, we should ha\e more reason
to approve of such practices, than to question the miracles or
doctrine of the Scriptures.
Obj. 15. But when you have made the best of it you can,
you have but a moral certainty of the truth of the christian
religion, which dependeth upon the credit of the witnesses, and
therefore may deceive you, and strictly, is no certainty at all :
for man's actions are contingent, and his nature, as you confess,
exceedingly corrupt ; and, therefore, your human testimony of
these miracles may be false.
Answ. 1. Jf it were but a moral certainty, yet may it be so
great that he were mad that would not so far believe it, as to
venture all his hopes and happiness upon it. If, by the laws
of nations, men's estates and lives shall stand or fall, upon the
testimony of two ordinary witnesses, which afford scarcely a
moral certainty, how much more credible may a fuller testi-
mony be. If your own father, brethren, kindred, and honest
neighbours, should all say and swear, that they saw such or
such a thing with their eyes, or heard men speak such languages
with their ears ; would you not so far believe them, as to ven-
ture your life upon the truth of it ; especially, if they would all
die in the attesting of it ; and, yet, more especiallv, if you must
venture much more than your live;-, by refusing to believe it.
2. But I say, that in our case we have not only a moral cer-
tainty, but a natural ; or, that we may not quarrel about words,
call it what you please, but it is a certa.inty as infallible as that
of sense itself. This 1 have proved alreadv, and for further
clearing it I will consider tlie words of one that denieth it, and
that shall be Peter Hurtad de Mendoza, in his ' Physic. Disput.
8. de Anima,' sec. 3, sec. 23 — 25, p. 570: (I have elsewhere
examined the words of Eada and Rob. Baronius, denying faiih
to have evidence, in my 'Reply to Mr. Blake.') Hurtado asks
this question : "To what species we must reduce the evidence
THE TRUTH OP CHRrSTIANlTY. 125
of a testimony?" and he answers, "To a moral certainty;
because tliough we have a physical evidence of the testimony,
yet of the thing testified we have not simply evidence, but ob-
scurity. But if we did evidently know the testimony of God,
then we should evidently know the thing testified, because it is
gathered from two evident principles, viz.. That God cannot lie,
and that he revealed that thing."
To this, I reply, We have infallible evidence that these
miracles were done in confirmation of the christian faith ; and
consequently that it is revealed by God. For the further clear-
ing of which, let us follow this author yet further : he next asketh,
" What sort of evidence is that by which I believe that there is
such a place as Rome, upon the witness of so many men attest-
ing it ? " Answ. It is physical ; for it is impossible, even in a
physical sense, that so many men in so many ages should so lie,
so that f have no less evidence that there is a city called Rpme
than that all fire is heating.
Obj. Then human faith may have physical evidence ?
Answ. I deny the consequence, because that it is not an act of
faith, but of knowledge ; for it resteth not upon human testi-
mony, but on a physical repugnancy, by which I see that so
many men could not combine to lie ; but human faith resteth
on the testimony of one or more men, who could physically
combine to lie, and therefore it is obscure and uncertain. The
reason is at hand ; because that former assent ariseth from two
principles, which suffer not any dissent. The first is this : It
is impossible for so many men in so many ages to meet or com-
bine to lie. The second is. So many men in so many ages do
witness this. So far the author. But I infer that the same,
or as infallible, physical evidence' have we of the truth of the
miracles by which the Holy Ghost did witness to the christian
faith ; for first, it is naturally impossible that so many churches
in so many countries of the world, at such a distance, should
combine to lie, in telling the world that the Holy Ghost was
given, and tongues spoken, and miracles done among them for
so many years, if it had not been so. 2. Consider well, that
though man be a free agent, yet he hath a nature as well as a
free will ; and that voluntas ipsa est qucedam natura ; the un-
derstanding naturally inclines to truth ; the will hath naturally
good, as good, for its o'bject; and evil, as evil, it shunneth.
And though yet it be free, and its acts contingent as to the
means, because of its own, and the understandings' intermina-
tion, yet its freedom is servcdo ordlne Jiuis^ and his willing of
12() iHi': sTi kit's witness to
his own ft'licity ;v'-^ the end is witli a tVeedotii consistent with a
necessity, and is natural, th()n<;h not strictly per moduin nainrcc,
as hrutcs dosirc their ohjects. Man, as well as brutes, hath a
nature that cannot but love itself", and desire its own welfare,
and abhor death and niiserv, temporal and eternal ; and, there-
fore, though here and there a man, in some desperate passion,
ni;iy make away himself, vet we are physically certain that it
nuist be a thing which tliev do in(le(>d believe, that must per-
suade cities and countries of people in their wits, to cast their
estates and li\es into the hands of liloodv tyrants, and utterly
ruin their worldly hopes. It is, therefore, a very natural impossi-
bility that so many thousands, of so many parts of the world,
should entertain a doctrine, which pretendeth to be underpropped
by freciuent miracles, and these done in their sight, and by
or upon themselves, and which promiseth to give the Holy
Ghost to all that receive it, for the ett'ecting of some extraordi-
nary gifts, and to deliver this doctrine and the records of it to
the world as true, and to forsake all worldly hopes, and cast
themselves on ap|)arent misery in the world, and lay down their
lives in the attesting of these things, \vitli()UL any hopes of worldly
advantages by it, if they did not l)elieve or judge these things
true ; and they could not judge the objects of their osvn siglit
and hearing true, if they had not known them so to be ; and
especially, when they do all this in ho])e of a blessedness in the
life to come, where it is impossible that so many men of reason
should expect to be blessed for conspiring in a lie, but rather to
be everlastingly cursed and miserable, i)y the justice of that Ciod
from whom they expect their reward. 1 conclude, therefore,
that the case being resolved into man's natural i)rinciples and
inclinations so clearly as it is, there is a natural evidence of the
truth of these miracles. If it be a physical certainty that there
is a city of Rome, it is also a physical certainty that there were
such and such parliaments in iMigland, and that they enacted
such and such laws as now bear their names, and that there was
such a man as Cicero, A'irgil, Ovid, xAristotlc, who wrote uch
orations, poems, systems of sciences, .!^'c. ; and a much clearer,
{jhysical certainty have we (inconi])ar:d)ly clearer) that the
Holy Ghost was given, and such miracles wrout;,ht in attestation
of the truth of the christian doctrine.
liut Hurtado proceeds thus :
Obj. 2. "Then the testimony of the martyrs gives us a physical
evidence of the mysteries of faith ; because it is impossible that
so nianv martyrs should combine to lie."
THE TRUTH OK CHRtSTIAMTY. 12/
Answ. I deny the consequence; because they confess they know
not evidently the tilings which they affirm. So that though it
be evident that they all believed the mysteries for which they
died, yet are not tlie mysteries themselves evident ; because that
which I testify cannot be more evident to him that heareth, by
my testimony, than it is to me; but these mysteries were ob-
scure to the martyrs, therefore to us. But in the former case of
the question, where so many witnesses have evidence of the thing
attested, and their testimony is evidently true, there the thing
itself is evidently true to us.
To which I reply, that the latter is our very case, and his an-
swer is not to the case that we have in hand ; for the question
should not be only of the martyrs, but of all the churches of the
first age ; and it should not be directly of the mysteries of faith,
but of the miracles which they did or saw, which were matters
of frequent public fact. Therefore, 1 say, 1. The martyrs had
as full evidence, in the latter ages, that they received from their
teachers and ancestors the records of christian doctrine and
miracles both, as the witnesses which you mention have that they
saw Rome ; and, 2. The first churches had as good evidence
that the Holy Ghost was extraordinarily given, and miracles
wrought before their eyes, and strange languages spoken among
them and by themselves, which they were never taught by man,
as your witnesses are certain that they saw Rome. 3. And that
these miracles, being the effects of God's power, are his own seal,
which caimot be set to a lie, to lead the world into remediless
delusion, this is a most evident consequent from the great prin-
ciple, That there is a God; and that this God is merciful, just,
wise, faithful, and the Ruler of the world. So that upon this
philosopher's own grounds, it is clear that the first churches
having evidence of the miracles, had thence evidence of the cer-
tainty of the doctrine ; though the mysteries of that doctrine
were not evident in itself; nor did these churches ever doubt of
the truth of the miracles, much less profess that they had no
evidence of them, as he saith they did of the mysteries, butcon-
trarily, became churches by the cogency of that evidence.
In all this I have spoken nothing of those inherent evidences
of its verity, which the christian doctrine containeth in itself;
it being most evident that no good spirit would lie in the name
of God, nor deceive the world by false pretending his authority :
and that no evil spirit, either could do such miracles, without
that commission, which the faithful and gracious Ruler of the
128 THE spirit's witness, &c.
world would never grant; or would, if he could, by such extra-
ordinary means promote a doctrine that reproacheth and dis-
graceth him, and destroyeth his kingdom, and tendeth wholly
to bring man back to God, and restore man to the purity of his
holy image, and to a blessed communion with him that made
him.
Nor do I, in all this, make much mention of that evidence, a
jwsteriore, even the Holy Ghost within the believer himself, and
the blessed effects of this doctrine upon his soul ; though every
believer hath this witness in himself, whereby he is confirmed in
the faith; because this is an evidence which unbelievers have
not in themselves, nor can well discern in others; and we speak
of those that even an infidel may behold, as also because I have
spoken of this heretofore, on 1 John v. 10 — 12.
Obj. 16. But why have we not miracles still, as well as
they heretofore ?
Answ. Having said enough to this before, I will only add the
words of Austin, in answer of this question, wherewith he begins
the aforesaid cap. viii. lib. 22. de Civit. Dei. " I might say, that
before the world believed, miracles were necessary that he might
believe. He that yet asketh for miracles, or wonders, that he
may believe, is himself a wonder, who believeth not when the
world believeth. But they speak this, that it might be thought
that no such miracles were ever wrought. Whence, then, is
Christ, as taken up into heaven in the flesh, every where pro-
claimed with so great belief ? Whence is it that in so learned
times, which reject all impossibilities, the world did believe in-
credible things too miraculously, without any miracles ? Will
they say the things were credible, and therefore believed ? Why,
then, do they not themselves believe them ? Our answer, there-
fore, in short, is this, Either an incredible thing which was not
seen, was believed, because of other incredible things, which
were done and seen ; or else, certainly, a matter so credible
that it needeth no miracles to evince it, doth convince these
men of their great infidelity." So far Austin.
And Ambrose answereth the same question thus, in cap. xii.
p. ad Corinth : "At the first, miracles were necessary, that the
foundations of faith might be firmly laid : but now they are not
necessary, because the people draw each other to the faith, by
their simple preaching, and the sight of their good works."
See, also, how Chrysostome answers the same objection, in
Honal. xxxiii. in Mutt.
CHRIST'S WITNESS
WITHIN US,
THE
BELIEVER'S SPECIAL ADVANTAGE
AGAINST
TEMPTATIONS TO INFIDELITY.
" But wLen the Comforter (or Advocate) is come, whom I will send unto you
from the Father ; the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he
shall testify of me. And ye also shall bear witness, because ve have been with
me from the beginning."— John xv. 26, 27.
TO THE READER.
Reader,
While the foregoing sermons on GaU iii. 2. were in the
press, I thought it not unmeet to peruse this sermon and annex
it thereto, to make up the discourse more useful to true behevers.
I confess I did purposely handle this text more largely when I
preached on it, with the 1 1th and 12th verses, for the explica-
tion of another point ; and this was but slightly touched on the
by; yet because it is suitable to the rest, and seasonable for
weaklings in these shaking times, I have chosen to annex it, in
hope it may somewhat conduce to their establishment, whereto
I desire of God that He will use and bless it.
CFIRIST'S WITiNESS, &c.
1 JOHX V. 10.
" He that believeth on the Son of God, hath the ivitness in him-
self. He that believeth not God, hath made Jam a liar ;
because he believeth not the record that God gave of his
Son."
Sect. I.
The apostle havinc:, in the fourth and fifth verses, extolled
the grace of faith in Christ, from its successful victory over the
world ; doth proceed, in the following verses, to magnify it :
1. From the full and certain testimony, which doth animate
and support it. 2. From the nature of its ohject and office. The
first he doth in the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th verses; the latter
in the 1 1th, and 12th, and some following. In the 6th, 7th, and
Sth verses, the witnesses are enumerated : in the 9th verse, the
validity and unquestionable authority of the testimony is proved.
In the 10th verse is declared, I. The jnivilege of true be-
lievers, and the advantage which they have for further cer-
tainty : 2. Theheinotisness of the sin of infidelity.
Though it be the first part of the 10th verse which I am
now to handle, yet, because we cannot so well understand
what is meant by ' the witness ' here, unless we look back to
the precedent verses, let us briefly consider them.
In the 6th verse, the apostle, extolling the object of faith, the
Lord Jesus Christ, declareth with what convincing evidence he
showed himself unto the world : " He came by water and blood,
and it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is
truth." Whereupon he further enumerateth the glorious trinity
of witnesses in heaven, and the trinitv of witnesses on earth.
(Verse 7, 8.) The extraordinary diversity of reading in these
two verses, and the specious arguments brought for each of
them, I purposely overpass, as not concerning much my in-
tended business ; but what these witnesses are I shall briefly
inquire. 1. The Father, the Word, and the Spirit, are the
132 THE spirit's witness to
three in heaven, which bear witness : it is on earth that they
witness ; but it is in heaven that these witnesses are in glory.
1. The Father witnessed of the Son, as by describing him in
prophesies and promises, before his coming, so by many notable
attestations at his birth, and afterwards sending a choir of
angels to predicate and honour his nativity ; leading men to
him by an extraordinary star, and other like means ; and in an
eminent manner at his more solemn entering upon his office, at
his baptism, proclaiming him by a voice from heaven to be his
Beloved Son, in whom he was well pleased ; and to this testi-
mony the text may seem to have some special respect : as also,
he owned him by a voice from heaven, before his suffering.
(JoTin xii. 28.) And divers other ways."
2. The Lord Jesus himself, the Word of the Father, hath
fully attested his own office and doctrine, not by naked affir-
mations only (for if he so bore witness of himself, he tells us,
his witness were nothing.) But by proving his mission and
commission from the Father, by the prophets, by his doctrine,
and by the works which he did : which were such as perfectly
answered his commission, and such as ijo man else could do.
3. The Spirit bore witness to Christ and his truth, both in
the mouths of those prophets that foretold his coming, and by
a more full attestation, when he was come, when he was bap-
tised, it lighted on him in the form of a dove ; in himself and
his disciples, it gloriously appeared, as I have more largely ex-
pressed in the foregoing discourse.
But for the three witnesses on earth, though we are agreed
in the matter, yet expositors are not of one mind about the
sense of the words in this text ; what is meant by Spirit, water,
and blood. The first doubt is, what is meant by the Spirit ?
If it be the Holy Ghost, then is not this witness on earth, the
same with one of those in heaven ? To avoid this, some like
those copies that leave out the 7th verse ; some, as Piscator,
by the Holy Ghost here, understand the Gospel : some take it
only for the spirits which with the water and blood went
out of the side of Christ on the cross. I rather judge that in
the 7th verse, by the Spirit is meant the Holy Ghost considered,
not as he is in heaven in glory, but witnessing on earth : but in
the 8th verse is meant the same Holy Spirit, as he is and wit-
" Matt. xvii. 5 ; \xkv. 17, uiiil iii. Ifi ; John v. 32 ; viii. 18 ; v. 30 ; i. 1 ; iv.
26; V. 17, &c.; vi. 2!), &c. ; vii. 4G ; viii. 12, &c. ; x. 21, &c., and i. 3;'., 34 j
1 Jolm i, 1 j Acts ii. 3, i, 32, and Ix. 3 — G.
THE TRUTH OP CHRISTIANITY. 133
nesseth here on earth. For as. he appeared in the shape of a
dove on Christ, and of fiery tongues on his disciples, so is he
said to be, to dwell and work in the souls of believers.
The cleansings in the law were by water and blood : by
blood for expiation, and by water for actual abstersion.'' But
as Christ was to be the true efficient of what these were the
types, seeing the law itself could neither expiate nor cleanse a
defiled soul, so especially was the gift of the Spirit, a thing be-
yond the compass of the law, and the eminent privilege of
those Gospel times, and the special witness to the verity of his
word. It is not unlikely, that in the Gth verse the apostle had
respect to Christ's fulfilling the legal types, as Calvin, Piscator,
and others judge, and so here also : but how was it that he
fulfilled them ? I see no reason why we should restrain the
sense to any one act or passage of Christ's life, as many do,
but more comprehensively expound It thus. It was both expi-
ation of guilt, and abstersion of the filth of sin, that lost souls did
need for their recovery : it was both which the law prefigured
to be done by the Messias : it is both that he did ; and sent forth
his Spirit in a most eminent, triumphant manner to do the one,
and by wonders also to bear witness to his name in the world.'^
He was himself baptised, first with John's baptism of water,
and then by the Holy Ghost, descending on him as a dove, at
the chief entrance upon his work ; and lastly, by a baptism of
blood in the Exitus, toward the finishing of his preparations on
earth. He sweat water and blood in the garden in his agony.
He shed water and blood from his side upon the cross.*^ He
lived accordingly, a life, first of pure innocency, without sin ;
secondly, a life of suffering, even to the death of the cross, both
to expiate our sins, and to seal his testament, and to teach us
self-denial and patience, by his example ; thirdly, he walked in
the power of the Holy Ghost, doing wonders, and doing good,
and was quickened and raised by the Spirit from the dead.
And as these testimonies were left by him on certain record,
so did he accordingly transcribe it upon the souls of his dis-
ciples, and do these works also on them, and drew out his
image on their souls, and left his cures, and wondrous gifts
thus visible on earth, to be witnesses of him in the world.
•' John X. 2,-., 3f!, 38 ; v. .",2, ."G ; xiv. 2 ; xv. 24, 2(\ ; xvi. 13, and xiv. 2C,;
Acls xi. 22; 1 Cor. ii. 10, 11.
•^ John i.28; Eph, v. 27; Tit. iii.."); Htb. x. 22 ; Ezek. xxxvi. 2:);[sa. i.
IG; Jer. iv. 14.
*■ John xviii. 37; 1 Tim. vi. 13.
\o'i THE SIM hit's WITNlfSS TO
First, 'i'hc Spirit he poured out on his church, even to the
astonislunent of the world, and the conviction of unhelievers,
by the various and tnii^hty works whicii were done ; and he
gave it to be resident in true believers, as his house and
temple.''
Secondly, He cleanseth them bv his word and Spirit, from
their former uncleanness, even the filth of sin.
Thirdiv, He washeth them in his blood bv the application
of it, in its fruits, from the guilt of sin : he bringeth them to so
much self-drnial, as in preparation and resolution, to lav down
their lives, and shed their blood for him : and when he calleth
them to it, he wonderfully sustaineth them, so that his people
are living witnesses of iiis power and truth. The Spirit of
power on the first churches, and the Spirit of holiness on all, is
his infalHlile witness ; his sanctified ones, that are cleansed
from their former wickedness, are his witnesses ; his j)ardoned,
justified, adopted ones, are his witnesses. And as they are
thus objectively a tlircefold witness to him, so are tliev actually,
effectively, and expressly. Thev give him themselves, and
fullest testimony in a threefold baptism as it were. They are
!)aptised with water, and there openly own liim, and take him
for their Redeemer : thev are ofttimes baptised with blood in
actual martyrdom, and so own him to the death : and in tlie
sacrament of his supper they feed upon his blood, and renew
their resignation, and their testimony of bini. Thev are bap-
tised with the Holy Ghost, and then exalt him in the throne of
their souls, and his kingdom is set up within them.
And thus we see what are the three witnesses on earth, viz.
the Spirit, water, and blood.'
Sect. n.
Let us now see what is that, "^^'itness in ourselves," whicli the
text in hand mentioneth : 1 see no reason to restrain this
neither, to any one way of having the witness in ourselves, but
shall take it more comprehensively.
1. He that believeth bach a witness in himself, in that he
hath received God's testimony of his Son ; and so that whicli
was external, is admitted within, and that which \\'as an object
aptitudinal, oii'ered, propounded, and the reception of it com-
' Acts i. ."), 8, atui ii. 1.
' Iti tlie first age, ainl loiii;- aller, the fliiiitht's iispil to mix wine and water
ill tlif sacrauieiit : n'i ai>|-ears in ' Justin Martyr's A]ii>liin\ ,' ami iiiuny oiliers.
THE IRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 135
inanded, is now become an object actually believed and enter-
tained. And tbus all believers have the witness in themselves,
as the object is in the present act, and so in the recipient agent.
Obj. That is no more than to say ; 'He that believeth doth
believe.'
Answ. It is to declare what believing is ; it is the reception
of the divine testimony : and so upon our believing, that
which was before only without us, written in our books, or
spoken by men, is now within us, transcribed by the Spirit of
grace upon our hearts : but, yet, though this be part of the
sense, I take it not for the whole, therefore I add :
2. He that believeth, hath the witness in himself, in a
radicated habit of the aforesaid belief, supposing him to be
a sound believer ; for it is the Spirit of Christ that worketh
this faith ; that not only revealeth the object from without, but
useth it also on the soul, as a man doth a seal by impressing
it on the wax : and the same Spirit confirmeth and maintaineth
this habit, having made it his office to be the sanctifier of
believers, and the finisher of their faith : so that as he be-
lieveth, so he shall believe ; the Spirit of life, being the pre-
server and maintainer of his faith.
3. He hath, also, the witness in himself, more confirmedly,
in that the same Spirit is at hand to be the exciter of his faith ;
and not only to give him a habit, or power ; but, also, to cause
him to bring it forth into act, so that it is no small advantage
against teuipations to infidelity, which he that soundly believeth,
hath already in himself.
4. He that believeth, hath, by the same Holy Spirit, not only
his understanding thus cleared and persuaded, but, also, his
will effectually inclined to Christ, and to God the Father, by
him : and his heart affected so much with the goodness that is
in him, and the goodnes? that hath flowed from him ; in the
wonders of love, which he hath manifested to sinners ; and with
the goodness, which he is in hope of, when the promises are all
fulfilled ; that there is by these, as it were, a new nature within
him : he hath new thoughts, new designs, new desires, hopes,
love, delights; he is now driving a new trade in this world, for
another world, and set upon a work which before he was a
stranger to ; so that he is now become in Christ a new creature :
"Old things are passed away, and all things are become new."
(2 Cor. V. 17.) He that would now tempt bini to infidelitv,
and persuade him from Christ, must not only persuade him
against his radicated, maintained belief, hut also against his
136 THE spirit's witness to
love, his desire, his hope, his joys, against his very heart, and
new nature.
5. And it increaseth his advantage, that this love, desire,
hope, and whole new disposition, is radicated, maintained, and
excited l)y the same Holy Spirit, who dvvelleth in the soul, and
nianageth it for Christ, even as its helief itself is ; and the very
radication, maintaining, and exciting of true helief, is the radica-
tion, confirmation, and exciting of these, as the moving of the
first wheel is the moving of the rest.
6. But the most ohservahle part of the sense, is this : that all
these received impressions on the soul, are a standing testi-
mony in us, which we may have recourse to for the future, for
the repelling of temptations, and the confirmation of our faith.
They are a witness within us, as the objects or evidence, for our
future belief, and not only, as I said before, as the received ob-
ject of our present belief. Our present actual, and habitual faith,
and renovation of our souls, and the sacred inclinations and
actions therein contained, are a standing evidence within us ;
as the written word and the miracles of Christ are without us ;
from which we may soundly argue for the verity of Christianity,
and may look on them as an infallible testimony for Christ.
For none but the sacred Redeemer of the world, approved by
the Father, and working by his Spirit, could do such works, as
are done on the souls of all that are truly sanctified.
7. And I suppose it is not the least part of the apostles' mean-
ing, *'That he that believed then, had that extraordinary Spirit
of wonders, in one kind or other, which was purposely then given
to be a seal to the christian verity, and the great witness of
Christ;" (Mark xvi. 17;) for the promise was fulfilled then in
one sort or other, in one measure or other, to all believers ; at
least to all morally, that is, to the generalitv, or ordinarily.
I shall not add here, that immediate witness of the Spirit
within us, which some assert is only sufficient ; which is neither
an objective testifying from without, nor an objective testifying
by the aforesaid works of grace within; nor an effective testi-
mony, by producing our helief of the objective, all which
I have asserted ; but is moreover, first, either another in- .
objective testimony, as by an inward word or enunciation
of another to our mind ; secondly, or else an efficient testify-
ing, by causing us to believe without the objective evidence; or,
only upon this last supposed internal enunciation of his own :
for these enthusiasms or inspiratior.s, let them boast of them
that have them ; but let them not blame me, if I prove them
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 13/
not common, or necessary to all ; nay, if I prove that the former
without them, are a sufficient testimony within us, of the truth
of Christ's doctrine. Concerning this controversy, I refer the
learned reader to what is already fully written of it, by Rob.
Baronius in ^Apodix. Cont. Turnebull.' against Spalatensis, and
by Amyraldus in ' Thes. Salmuriens.' in the disputation of Scrip-
ture, and the Spirit's testimony. And, withal, I mention not
here the Spirit itself the efficient, as dwelling in us, distinct from
his works, because it is not the -rh fxaphpsv that is here said to
be in ourselves ; but the h ho^plvpio.-, not the testis, but the testi-
monium ; though the English word ' witness ' signify either ;
and though 1 know that other places of Scripture speak of the
Spirit himself within us.
You see then the chief difficulty in the text explained, What,
it is to have the testimony or record in ourselves.
Quest. But have all believers this testimony within them-
selves, or some only ?
Answ. All : but not all in one degree ; nor all in the same
sort, as some have had it. The spirit of sanctification is com-
mon to all true believers ; but so is not the spirit of miracles,
or extraordinary gifts, though this also was ordinary in the first
age of the christian church.
Quest. Is it only believers that have this witness in them-
selves ?
Answ. Not only true and sound believers, but also hypocrites,
unsound and half-believers had the spirit of miracles in the
first age, which was a testimony within them 5 but only true
and sound believers have the spirit of sanctification : and I think
it was only such sound believers that had * the promise ' of the
Spirit for extraordinary gifts and miracles ; and that all other
had it, above and beyond promise, as to any promise made to
themselves ; but yet as the fulfilling of a promise to the
church, and to some that might receive the benefit of them. But
it is of no great moment, especially to our present business,
which way this last is determined.
Sect, in.
The reasons why God will have "All true believers to have
the testimony of their christian religion in themselves," are
these, among others, so far, as we may presume to give a reason
of God's will, from the thing :
Reas. 1. It was God's will in revealing Christ to the world,
vol.. XX. N
138 THE spirit's witness to
that his revelation sliould be a means of the les^toration, and
perfect feliciiv of his chosen ones; which it could not be at a
diistunce, nor without bcinii^ cnteitained into the inwards of their
souls. For it was the soul that was wounded, and it is the soul
that must have the cure, to which end, the application of th.e
plaster is necessary. That light which shall illuminate a dark
understanding, must be received into that understanding itself.
That life which quickeueth, nuist be in the substance, which
is cpiickened bv it. If an external revelation or testimony of
Christ, had been a fit means of itself, to recover men's souls,
though they never received it, then might the Gospel save all
alike, even the haters and despisers of it, as well as its truest
friends ; which is an unreasonable conceit ; nay, what is it to
be healed and recovered from our blindness, by the Gospel, but
to be ourselves informed, convinced, and enlightened by it ?
and what is that, but to have received this testimony in
ourselves ? To be haj)py, is to be made perfect m ourselves,
and in that perfection to enjoy God, our end ; and our perfection
lieth in the image of God upon us, which partly consisteth in
knowledge; (Col.iii.lO); andina clear reception, and discerning
of his truth. It is not a light, or felicity, which is barely
reported to us, that solaceth and satisfieth the soul of man, but
a light and felicitv, which he partaketh of himself.
Reas. 2. It is the nature of God's real possessed gifts, to
manifest both themselves and their proper causes, to the soul
that possesseth them ; according to their degrees, and freedom
of operation. Though sometimes, through darkness, delusion,
and the stirrings of the contrary corruptions within us, we may
be brought to overlook them, and doubt of their truth. Light
hath a self-discovering property, to them that can see, and life
is a testimony of its own existence, to the person that hath it ;
and so are the particular actions of life : and as grace is the
testimony or discoverer of itself, so also of its cause. It beareth
God's name in the face or nature of it : it is his oun image,
and therefore may discover much of him to the soul that l)eareth
tliis image. The effects of the Spirit and doctrine of Christ, do
show what that Spirit and doctrine are. If it make men holy,
it is itself more holy.
Reas. ."J. It is the order of God's works, that every foregoing
part doth tend to tlie promoting of that which is to follow ; as
the revelation of Christ is the means of our believing, so our
believing is a means of our fuller sanctification, and so fur, of
THE TRUTH OF CHR[STIAMTY. 139
our receiving tlie Spirit: as in the first age it was a means of
their receiving the spirit of miracles and wonders : and that
spirit and holiness is again a means of our increased belief;
even hy testifying objectively to us the verity of the promise,
which we find thus fulfilled in ourselves; and therefore God
will have us to have the witness in ourselves.
Reas. 4. it is God's purpose, in possessing his people with
his Spirit, to make them the living monuments of his truth and
goodness, that they may bear upon them his image and super-
scription ; and as he is honoured by the truth and purity which
is found in his laws, so will he be by the like excellencies that
are found in his saints. They shall also be everlastingly em-
ployed in his praises, which must proceed from a heart that is
filled with the lively sense of his goodness, and from a clear
understanding of that for which they praise him, and therefore
they must have the witness in themselves.
Sect. IV.
Use. If all true believers, having the Spirit of Christ, have
the witness of the truth of the Gospel in themselves, we may hence
be informed, how great an advantage such true believers have,
above all other men in the world, for the resisting and over-
coming of temptations to infidelity, and for a clearer discerning,
and faster holding of the truth of the christian doctrine. Among
others, vou may observe the difference in these particulars
following. «
1. Unbelievers have a testimony indeed without them, but it
is but without them, and therefore not so near at hand for
their use ; 'but believers have it engraven on their very hearts,
and as near to them as the very motions and inclinations of
their own souls.
2. Unbelievers, therefore, have but an external light and
object, without an inward light, or eye to discern them : for this,
which is the witness within, is also the power of discerning the
testimony, which is without. But the sound believer hath this
visive power, and the light within to fit him to receive that
from without. Like will to like. You may easier draw water
to water, and by a place where water is before, than to or by
the drv ground. You may more easily kindle fire, where
fire is before, than where is none. The first degrees dispose to
the reception of more. There is something in the eye that hath
a nearer likeness and connaturality to the light without us, pro-
N 2
140 THE spirit's witness to
ceeding from the sun, than the hands or feet, or other parts
have, or else the eye would see no more than they. And there
is something in a holy, believing soul, which is thns kin to the
truth of the Gospel, which is without us, and therefore doth fit
the soul to entertain it.
3. The true believer, therefore, hath a double testimony ; one
without, and one within : but the unbeliever hath but the single
external testimony alone.
4. The witness within us, is more sensible and affecting. That
which lieth as near us as our own hearts, is liker to work more
effectually and deeply, than that which is at a greater distance.
5. The witness within us is still at hand, when the temptation
comes : such Christians do carry their armour about them. They
live still in arms. Whenever the tempter assaulteth them to
stagger at God's promises, through unbelief, they have arguments
in their own hearts to answer the temptation : so that they are
not likely to be found unprovided, as other men are. Men's
Bibles may be out of the way ; their teachers may be out of the
way; their memories may fail them, if they trusted only to
these. The reasons which one day a little moved them, may
be forgotten the next day ; or they may forget where the chief
strength of them lieth ; or they may receive them with greater
prejudice or disadvantage, as being staggered or perplexed
with what is said or suggested to the contrary. But the settled,
habituate testimony within us, is not so much liable to changes ;
though, I know, that through temptations and distempers of
soul, this also may sometime be much obscured. But yet it
hath a great advantage of the other.
6. The witness within us is a permanent witness. It will go
with us, which way soever we go ; it will accompany us through
all straits and difficulties to the end : but the external testimonv
may be taken from us. Men may take from us our Bibles, our
teachers, and our friends ; or they may imprison us, where we
cannot enjoy them : but they cannot take from us the Spirit of
Christ.
Consider, therefore, I beseech you, Christians, first, how great
a mercy it is, that you have received ', secondly, and how you
ought to improve this mercy ?
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITV. 141
Sect. V.
1. And first, it may easily appear to you to be a very great
mercy, if you do but consider these things following :
First, consider what it is that this testimony doth witness
within you. It is the doctrine of your redemption and
deliverance, by the Son of God, and of your future glorification
in the fulfilling of his promises. If the happy news of man's
recovery by a Mediator, should not have been true, then were
we all still in our sin, and our faith and hope were but vain and
delusory. " If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain,
and your faith is also vain ; yea, and we are found false
witnesses of God, because we have testified of God, that he
raised up Christ j whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead
rise not : for if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised ; and
if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain ; ye are yet in your
sins : then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ, are
perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of
all men most miserable : but now is Christ risen from the dead,
and become the first-fruits of them that slept." (1 Cor. xv.
14, 16, 17.) What hope or consolation have we, but what
depends upon the truth of the Gospel. If these glad tidings
should fail us, all fails us. What else doth give us assurance
of a future felicity ? And without that, how wretched and
despicable a creature is man ; and how low and base are all
the transactions and passages of his life, if they be not ennobled
by their respects unto that end ! Even the blindest infidel that
denieth the truth of the Gospel, methinks, should easily confess
the goodness of its promised happiness ; and therefore see
cause to wish that it were true, unless, as he hath brought
himself under its terrors.
You see, then, it is the best news that ever came to the ears of
man, that is attested to you by the witness within you : it is
that which may cause you to live in hope, and peace, and joy ;
and to die in hope, and peace, and joy, while you believingly
look to a blessed immortality, and upon your resurrection, as
secured in the resurrection of Christ, and his promise of yours.
Other men may confess that the truth of this is desirable ; but
vou have the truth of it witnessed in your own hearts : to carry
about with you such a witness, is to carry about tlie matter of
continual joy. The same Spirit which is your sanctifier is
your comforter, at least, by maintaining in you the grounds and
N'i VUE SI' I kit's wriNKSS TO
fit matter of toiisolation. How happy is such a soul that hath
not only the voice hehind him, saying, ' This is the way, walk
in it 5' but also the witness within him, that this voic6 is
divine, and telling him of the end, which by that way he may
attain. No wonder if the life of such a man be as a continual
feast, and if he have a peculiar joy, as he hath a peculiar testi-
mony, even such as the stranger meddleth not with.
Sect. VI.
Obj. But if all believers have such a consolatory witness
in themselves, first, why are so many of them still troubled with
doubtings, even about the truth of God's testimony ? Secondly,
Why are so many of them so dejected and disconsolate, and
live as pensive, and sad a life as others ?
Answ. 1. One reason is, because they do, by quenching and
grieving the Spirit, too commonly hinder the fulness of the work,
wherein this inward testimony doth consist ; and so the Gospel
is written on their hearts, in so small a character, that it is not
easy to read and understand it ; besides the many blots which
it receives by some provoking transgressions. They that cheer-
fully obey the Spirit in his teaching and guidance, and receive
the fuller character of the Gospel upon their hearts, and so are
more fullv conformed to their Head, " being transformed by the
renewing of their minds, that they may prove what is the good,
and acceptable, and perfect will of God." (Rom. xii. 2.) These
have a stronger and more confirmed belief, and usually the
sweet effects of that belief, in a greater measure than others do
obtain.
2. Yet, because this testimony, which all believers still have,
is but objective ; that is, such a work on their own souls, which
is a sufficient evidence of the truth of the Gospel ; it mav be
often overlooked, and the belief and comforts not obtained,
which yet, in its kind, it is sufficient to afford : for it is not in
every kind, but in its own kind, that the evidence is sufficient ;
and therefore doth suppose the concurrence of other necessaries.
There must be a studious observation of this record, and, to that
end, a keeping it from blots : and the same spirit, which dwelleth
in us for sanctification, must excite the soul to this observation and
improvement, and help us to read these evidences in ourselves :
so that in a neglected, distempered heart, when there is na-
turally still a remnant of sin, and confusion, and accidentally
more confusion ; and when men are so strange to themselves, as
THE IKUTH OF <JH RISTIAM TV. 143
most of US are, and so little addicted to self-converse, and so
little acijiiainted with it, and cast also so many impediments in
their own way, and draw a veil over their evidences. What
wonder if ,we do too defectively reap the fruit of them, and if
such have yet much staggerings at the promise of God, and
much disquietness and sadness in themselves ?
3. And for consolation, it is not the highest, nor the most ne-
cessary part of the Spirit's works ; and therefore he oft layeth
it hy, when so doing is necessary to the promoting of our sanc-
tification, and will oft trouble us, or suffer us to be troubled,
that he may heal us of tliat which is the cause of our trouble,
and would else trouble us for ever. Though it be his office to
be the Comforter, yet he doth not always comfort, because he
must, by sorrow, prepare for seasonable, well-grounded comfort.
You may have an expert phjsician with you, who may go on
successfully in the cure, and yet not always give you present
ease, but sometimes give you that which will irritate the disease,
and increase your pain. Though the kingdom of God doth partly
consist in joy in the Holy Ghost, yet as sorrow doth frequently
prepare the way, so is it by sorrows frequently clouded and in-
terrupted.
The witness within us, then, is a standing cause of consola-
tion ; but yet if through our folly we mar our own comforts,
and make not use of the matter of them within us, or occasion
the Spirit to leave us unto sadness, for the killing of some sin,
and the promoting of our holiness ; this is not a reason to
question the inward testimony, but to reprehend our own folly
and neglect.
Sect. VII.
2. It may further appear how great a mercy it is to have this
witness in ourselves, by the earnest desires of believers to have
more of it, when they have experience of the advantage of that
measure, which they have obtained. When a Christian, in
temptations, hath had recourse to the Gospel written in his
heart, and hath had some support and confirmation by that wit-
ness in himself, though the voice were very low, and the chaiac-
ters but obscure, oh, how glad would he be of a further degree
of that evidence ! Could he hear that voice speak hmder, and
see the evidence of that transcript more clearly, it would be
sweeter to him than to win the whole world. V\'hen the tempter
would hide Christ and his grace from our eyes, what a comfort is
144 THE spirit's witness to
it, not only to find him, but even to find him in ourselves : for
this telleth both together that there is a Christ, and that he is
ours.
Sect. VIII.
3. The greatness of the sin of unbelief, and the danger into
which it leads the sinner, or in which it leaves him, do tell us
what a mercy it is to have the witness in ourselves, for the saving
of us from that sin and danger. Alas ! what a case were thy
soul in, if infidelity should prevail ! There may be so great
a conflict in thy mind, through the imperfection of thy faith,
and the insinuations of the tempter, as to force thee to cry out
*Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.' But if unbelief get the
mastery, how miserable is thy case. Thou wilt then be left in
thy lost condition ! Thou wilt die in thy sin, and perish ever-
lastingly for want of healing, while the Physician did offer thee
his help, and was rejected : for how can it be expected that the
Physician should heal those that will not believe him, nor trust
themselves in his hands for a cure ? That Christ should save
those that take him for a deceiver, and do not believe that he is
able to save them, and therefore do not trust themselves on his
sufficiency for salvation. He that believeth not is condemned
already, and that in point of law, not only because he is in gene-
ral a sinner, but in special, because he hath not believed in the
name of the only-begotten Son of God. (John iii. IS — 20.)
*^He that believeth not shall not see life; but the wrath of God
abideth on him." (John iii. 36.) No wonder, then, if a tempta-
tion to infidelity be received by a gracious soul with trembling
and abhorrence, considering what would be the issue, if it did
succeed. How great a mercy, then, must it needs be, to have so
near and powerful a remedy against this desperate sin and dan-
ger, as is this witness that is continually resident in the saints.
Sect. IX.
4. As the sin of unbelief is great, and the punishment no less
than eternal danmation, so are the temptations to it many and
strong, and therefore the mercy is so much the greater to have
the witness in ourselves. What can a Christian look upon in
the world, which the malicious tempter will not make the matter
of his temptation. The spirituality, the strangeness and seeming
improbal)ility of the matter, the plainness of the style, the seem-
ing contradictions in the several parts, with many other the like,
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY, 145
doth he use as arguments to assault our beHef with ; and the
stronger are all these temptations against us: first, because they
find so much darkness in ourselves. Since we fell from God,
and holiness, and happiness, we have lost most of the knowledge
of that God, and holiness, and happiness, which we fell from.
They are enjoyed much by knowledge ; to lose them, therefore,
is to lose the knowledge of them. The devil hath, therefore, a
great advantage to deceive us, when he speaks to us about mat-
ters that we are naturally so unacquainted with ; yea, in losing
God we have lost ourselves, and therefore are very much strangers
to ourselves ; and so know not our own souls, and therefore are
the more easily drawn to doubt of tlieir immortality, and capacity
of higher, supernatural enjoyments. Secondly, yea, we have not
only a defect and darkness, but an opposition to the doctrine
of our supernatural felicity, restored by Christ, till grace do
overcome it. Being fallen from God to the creature, we adhere
to this creature as we should have done to God ; and because it
hath our hearts we are unwilling to look after a higher felicity,
and therefore unwilling to hear of it and believe it. We savour
not, naturally, the things of the Spirit, and therefore have no
mind to believe them to be true ; and how hard it is for some
men to believe that which they are loath should be true, expe-
rience may easily acquaint us. Men are fallen into a condition
so near that of brutes, that it is more easy to persuade them that
they shall die as the brutes, and are capable of no more felicity
when this life is ended, than the dog or the swine, whom they
lived like on earth. Having forfeited their hopes of eternal life,
and so come short of the glory of God, it is more easy to per-
suade, that there neither is, nor ever was any such glory, of
which they had any hopes or possibility. Thirdly, the stronger
also are these temptations to unbelief, because man is now so
mastered by his sense, and hath so much weakened his reason
by subjugating it to his flesh, that he is hardly drawn to look
higher than sense can reach. Because we see not God, or Christ,
or heaven, or hell, we are apt naturally to question whether they
have indeed any being, and to say as Thomas, "Except I may
see or feel, I will not believe;" yea, men are ready to doubt of
the very being of their souls, which is themselves, and which is
that which doubteth, because they cannot see the soul. Fourthly,
especially these temptations to infidelity are the stronger in that
man's soul in its corrupted state is disposed to l)e]ieve Satan,
and not to believe God 3 for as this was his first sin, so was the
N6 THE SPfRIT's VVlTNliSS TO
soul thereby hal)itiiatecl according to that act^ further than God
hath done any tiling to cure and remedy it. Though we must
needs know that God is more to be credited than the devil, in
general, vet when it comes to particulars he is so far above us,
and the breakings forth of his light and truth are so strange to
us, and also we are conscious that we are fallen under some
enmity to him, and therefore are the more apt to suspect what he
saith and doth ; and his ways are all so cross to our corrupt
conceits and interests, and the persuasions of Satan so suitable
to both, that it is no wonder if we are more readv to believe the
tempter than God. Fifthly, and vet stronger are these tempta-
tions to infidelity, because of the subtilty of the tempter, and the
many devices that he hath to overwit us, and his importunity
and violence in driving them on ; which if we should mention
particularly, would be the matter of a volume. And is it not a
great mercy for a soul that is thus assaulted, to have the witness
in himself; and so great a help against the power of these
temptations ?
Sect. X.
But, it is like, some will here say ; * I know it is a great mercy
to have such witness in ourselves, but I find not any such witness
in me : I inquire into my own soul, and I can perceive no such
matter : I hear talk of the Spirit dwelling in us, and that if any
man have not the Spirit of Christ, the same is none of his : but,
yet, I camiot find that Spirit in myself.'
Answ. As for those that have not this Spirit, no wonder if
they find it not : but, if, indeed, thou be one that hast it, I
would ask thee these iew questions, and desire thee to give a
deliberate answer, before thou concludest that thou hast not
the Spirit.
Quest. 1. Do you not, in your inquiry into your hearts,
expect to hear or feel some effective, persuading witness of the
Spirit, besides the holy changes of its sanctifying work upon
you ; yea, perhaps without any reference to that sanctifying
work at all. If you do, for ought I know, you look for that
which you have no reason to expect, much less, to depend upon
as the only witness. The Spirits holy changes upon your
heart, are a standing, objective testimony, which you ought to
improve to your own consolation ; and it is your exciter and
helper in that improvement : but, if you will expect a voice or
witness within you, to tell you the same things by immediate
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 147
revelation, and not to dediice them from that permanent testi-
mony, I shall not marvel if you miss of your expectations.
Quest. 2, Do you not mistake the matter of this inward
testimony, as if it were more to be sought in some other sort of
changes by the Spirit, than in that renovation of the soul,
and implantation of God's image. If you think that the
• witness of the Spirit lieth in higlier notions, or raptures, or
ecstasies of the mind, or in sudden inspirations, or extraordinary
gifts, which were common in the first age ; no wonder, then, if
you find not the witness : that witness you may find without
you, in the apostles and first churches, when it was purposely
given as a public seal to the public testimony, which they gave
of Christ ; but I cannot encourage you to expect that within
yourselves. As the doctrine of the apostles was to be delivered
down in writing, for the use of the church to the end of the
world, so was the seal of their extraordinary gifts to be
annexed, for the like public use of the church, to the confir-
mation of that doctrine : and, so, both their doctrine and their
gifts were not for themselves, or for that age alone, but for all
us that do succeed : but this being not the case of their succes-
sors, what wonder, if their successors have none of those gifts.
Quest. 3. Do you not ascribe all the workings of the Spirit
in you, to yourselves, and say ; ' This is but the work of mine
own reason, or conscience, or voluntary endeavours, and not of
the Spirit of God.' If you do thus, no wonder, if you have the
Spirit, and overlook it. 'If you will needs divide what God
hath joined together, and sav ; ' This is the work of reason,
conscience, or my own will, therefore not of the Spirit :' you
do but use the Spirit's witness against the honour of the Spirit,
and against yourselves. You should argue contrarily ; thus :
'My reason, conscience, or will, would never have moved thus,
or been thus disposed, if the Spirit of Cliri^t had not thus dis-
posed and moved them, and taken ofif' their contrary inclina-
tions ; therefore, even this inclination and operation of my own
reason, conscience, and will, is the true effect of the Spirit, and
the standing witness of Christ and his Gospel in my soulj' for
the Spirit worketh on us, and so by us. ^V^here is it that tlie
Spirit giveth light, but into our own understandings ; and, how
perceive we that light, but bv the rational apprehensions and
discourses of those understandings. Have we any other faculty
or means of perceiving them ? How doth the Spirit assure us
of any thing, but by giving in some evidence of it to our
148 THE spirit's witness to
understandings ; or causing us more clearly to discern that
evidence which we discerned not all, or but obscurely before.
It is, therefore, to and with our consciences, that the Spirit
doth witness, and not without them. The like, we may say,
of his work upon the will ; when he exciteth it, he ca\iseth it to
excite itself. All faculties would lie dead, or more disor-
derly, if the Spirit did not set them in joint, and guide them in
their work : their orderly right motions, therefore, being the
effects of the Spirit, are this testimony of the Spirit within us,
which we speak of.
Quest. 4. Do you not overvalue your natural corrupted fa-
culties, and think they may go further than indeed they can ?
Jf when the Spirit doth set your souls in frame, and elevate
them to God, and take off their earthly or sensual dispositions,
you will then persuade yourselves that nature doth all this of
itself, and that it is but the operations of unsanctified reason,
what wonder then, if you overlook the Spirit? This is one
danger of having too mean thoughts of our depravedness, and
too high thoughts of our natural abilities, lest it draw men to
rob the Spirit of his honour, and say, that corrupt nature hath
done those works which were done by the Holy Ghost. I will
not say, that they who ascribe the sanctifying works of the Spirit
to depraved nature, are guilty of that blasphemy, as they are
which ascribed his miraculous works to Beelzebub; but it looks
so much that way, that vve should the more carefully avoid it.
Let those take heed of this, that are ready to say, ' That no men
have the Spirit, and all that pretend to it, are deluded by the
strength of their own imaginations, and mere teaching, educa-
tion, and industry, may produce all those effects, which we
ascribe to the Holy Ghost.' I say, let these men take heed, lest
they run too near to the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost,
before they are aware.
Quest. 5. Do you not forget the state that once you were in,
and the great change which the Spirit did then make upon you,
and because you feel not such further alterations proportionable
to that first, vou conclude that you have not the Spirit at all ?
1 am sure this is a very common case : as the forgetting of the
miserable state we were in, in the late wars, doth make us under-
value our present peace, which then we would have accounted
an excellent mercy; so d(jt!i the forgettiug of our wicked dis-
posiiions, and conversations in our state of unregeneracv, make
us undervalue our present state of grace. We have lived since
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 149
that first change, without any more changes so great, and
notable as that was, and therefore we have forgotten what once
we were, and Hve as if God had never changed us as to the
comfortable apprehensions of the mercy. But cannot you re-
member, when it was much otherwise with you ; and that once
God made a great alteration on you ? And doth it not still
remain ? Remember how little savour you had once of the
things of the Spirit ; how little mind to Christ, or holiness ;
how wholly, you were given up to the pleasures of the flesh, or
the profits of the world, and what a mastery your lusts had over
you ? Was it not a work of power, and love, and wisdom, and
holiness, and therefore a work of the Spirit of Christ, by which
all this is altered in you, and you are not now the persons that
you were ? Who else could have so changed your minds and
ways ?
Quest. 6. Do you not look for a greater measure of this tes-
timony, and the comfortable effects of it, than you have reason
to expect on earth ? Or, at least, till you have done more in
attending the conduct of grace, and in resisting and conquering
the enemies of your peace ? And do you not thereupon conclude,
that you have not the Spirit, because you have not so great a
measure of the Spirit, as you expect ? There is a great dif-
ference between having not the Spirit, and not having so much
of the Spirit.
Quest. 7. If none of these be your case, then diligently
inquire whether you have not wronged and grieved the Spirit,
and by some stubborn untractableness, or wilful disobedience
and yielding to your lusts, occasioned the Spirit to leave you in
the dark, and so far to withdraw his operations and manifesta-
tions of himself, as to let you feel more of your lusts than of
his graces, and to doubt whether you have the Spirit within you
or not ?
These questions I would have those Christians considerately
to answer, that have the witness in themselves, but know not
that they have it.
Sect, XI.
Obj. But we see so many pretend to the Spirit that are
conceited of their own opinions and ways, and some of them on
that pretence, maintaining tlie vilest doctrines and practices,
and the more heretical or mad they are, the more strongly and
confidently do they pretend to have the Spiritj that we cannot
150 THE spirit's witness to
believe that any have it at all : for the one are as confident of
the Spirit, as the other.
Answ. 1. The conclusion of this objection is mijust and unrea-
sonable : unjust, for it condenineth one man for the fatilt and
folly of another, and takes one man to have an ill title because
another man's evidences are nought. If two men shall have a
cause before you as their judge, about a title to lands or goods,
and you find the plaintiff to be a deceiver, and his title bad, will
you say to the defendant, ' Thy title is bad too, because he was
as confident that his was good as thou art of thine ? ' And it
is unreasonable, too, not only to judge of one man's pretences
by another's, but to judge his pretences to be false who evidenceth
at least the probability of their truth, because another man's are
false, who manifesteth their falsehood. Suppose you discourse
with a wise man and a fool or madman ; and the one is as con-
fident that he is a wise man, as the other ; will you, therefore,
judge that neither of them are wise, when you hear the words of
wisdom from the on6 as you do the words of folly from the other ?
If you have two neighbours who would both be taken for honest
men; and one lives honestly, and the other dishonestly; will you
conclude, that neither of them are honest because both are not?
So is it here. Some men pretend to a spirit of holiness and hea-
venliness, and withal do live holy and heavenly lives; others boast
more confidently of the same spirit, while they hate the doctrines
and ways of holiness, and maintain the most impure opinions and
practices : will you judge, that either both these must have the
Spirit which they pretend to, or neither? One showeth you his
faith by his works, and the spirit within him by the fruits of the
Spirit, while the other shows you his delusion or dissimulation,
by the fruits of the flesh.
2. It is the ordinary way of the deceiving spirit, to do his
works by an apish imitation of the Spirit of Christ. His chief
means to resist Moses, and harden the Egyptians in their unbelief,
was by imitating him as far as he could in his wonders, that the
Egyptians might say, 'Our magicians can do this as well as you ; *
and so might think that the cause was equal, bv the effects, till
God showed that he ])ermitted them but for a fuller discovery of
bis power in vanquishing them. About the time that Christ came
in the flesh, the devil stirred up many false Christs, to seduce
the poor Jews, that while they said ' Lo here is Christ, and lo
there,' he might be the less regarded ; and by raising up many
to lay claim to the same dignity, Christ's own claim might be
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 151
the more questionable in the eves of the world. When the
apostles went out with a spirit of power and wonders, to con-
vince the world of the doctrine of Christ, the chief resistance
tliey had was by the imitating spirit, who would do wonders too.
Simon Magus was the head of the heretics, who would contend
ai^ainst the apostles by his wonders, till he was vanquished by
the Spirit of Christ : his successors, Menander, Ebion, Cerin-
thus, Valentinus, Basilides, Carpocrates, and Marcion, with their
sects, were animated by magical works. By the same way did
the pagan Apollonius resist the truth, more successfully than he
could do by his philosophical disputations : the same course
doth Satan take in our times. He raiseth up heretical, impious
men to boast of the Spirit, and cry up 'The Spirit,' 'The Spirit,*
that thereby he may disgrace the Spirit, and make men believe
that all pretences to the Spirit are as false as theirs : he stirs
up the quakers, ranters, and others that pretend to communion
with angels, appearing to them in visible shapes, that by seeming
to be acted by an extrinsic power, by their motions, frenzies,
ecstasies, and strange speeches, he may draw men to question
whether the Spirit of the apostles and Christians of old were not
. some such diabolical possession or deceit. This being the known
and ordinary artifice of the deceiver, to seek by an imitation of
the Spirit of Christ, to shake men's faith, and make them believe
that it is the same Spirit that causeth the one and the other:
we have little reason to be shaken by such palpable and old
deceits.
Sect. XII.
Quest. But when so many pretend to the Spirit, how shall we
know which of them it is that are deceived, and who hath the
Spirit indeed, and who not ?
Answ. I will first lay you down some negative rules, to show
you which is not the Spirit of Christ ; and then I shall direct
you to discern it in yourselves.
1. That spirit which opposeth God, or his nature and attri-
butes, is not the Spirit of Christ : for it is the office of Christ
to lead men to God, and for the honour of his Father did he
come into the world. Justin Martyr saith, in 'Dialog, cum
Tryphon,' " That he would not have believed Christ himself, if
he had spoken against the Father." 1 am sure we have reason
to believe that it is not Christ, nor his Spirit, that shall speak
against him. Whatever s])irit denieth the infiniteness, immor-
152 THE SPIRIT S WITNESS TO
tality, incomprehensibility, omnipotency, wisdom, or goodness
of God, his hoUness, faithfiihiess, truth, justice, or mercy, it is
certain that spirit is not of Christ. For Christ is one with the
Father as God, and the way to him as Mediator ; and therefore
cannot be the author of any blasphemy against him in his at-
tributes.
2. Whatever spirit contradicteth the evident light and law of
nature, is not the Spirit of Christ : for Christ came to repair
and perfect nature ; and all truth is God's truth ; and the
light and law of nature is his light and law.
3. Whatever spirit shall contradict the Holy Scriptures, is
certainly none of the Spirit of Christ : for Christ is the author
of Scripture, and confuted Satan himself by its authority ; and
Christ is not divided, nor against himself. The Spirit of God
is not against the word of God ; for God is not a contradicter
of himself, because he cannot lie. We may well, therefore,
try the spirits of our times, by the word which before our times
was sealed by the Spirit. All the spirits of this age that con-
tradict any doctrine delivered in the Scriptures, are certainly
spirits that contradict Christ's Spirit, and therefore are de-
ceivers, whatsoever they may pretend.
4. Every spirit that is against holiness and purity of life, is
a spirit of uncleanness, and not of Christ : for Christ's Spirit is
eminently a sanctifying Spirit, sent by him from the Father to
make us holy as he is holy.
5. Every spirit that is against order, and is a friend to con-
fusion, is against Christ, and is none of the Spirit of Christ.
For God is not the God of confusion, but of peace, and com-
mandeth that all things be done in order. (1 Cor. xiv. 33.)
And hath established an order among angels, men, brutes, and
inanimates, yea, some among the devils themselves. God hath
set in his church, some prophets, some apostles, some evange-
lists, some pastors and teachers, for the edifying of the body.
(Ephes. iv. 11, 12.) And he hath appointed rulers under him
in the commonwealth, and made it one of his Ten Command-
ments, that we shall honour our parents, and so our rulers ;
and made authority of parents a natural result. Those, there-
fore, that would level the powers in church or state, that God
hath set up, and- despise dominion and authority, which he
hath commanded us to obey, are certainly possessed with an
antichristian spirit, which is far unlike to the Spirit of Christ.
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANirY. 153
Sect. XIII.
Quest. But how then shall I know that I have the Spirit of
Christ ?
Answ. By the nature of its effects. 1. The Spirit of Christ
doth renew the soul to God's image. And one of God's attri-
butes is to be the living God. His being is the ground of the
rest. The Spirit of Christ is no fancy, dream, or delusion, nor
worketh an imaginary change on the soul, but a real change,
making the soul alive that was dead in sin, and becomes a
principle of life within us. To be really alive to God, and dead
to the world, is the certain effect of the Spirit of God. Would
you know whether a godly man be alive or dead ; observe him
in his desires and endeavours after God, and there you shall see
by his action, and earnestness, that he is alive. But if you
would try whether a carnal man be alive or dead, you must see
by his desires and endeavours for the flesh, that he is alive ; for
by any that he hath after God, you cannot see it.
2. As wisdom is one of the attributes of God, so is the Spirit
of Christ, a Spirit of wisdom. He teacheth men to know God
from the creature, heaven from earth, holiness from sin ; and
what to choose, and what to refuse. He acquainteth them with
duty and danger, and the reward that is before them : he
maketh them wise to do good, to discern the methods and wiles
of the devil, and escape them, and to manage their christian
conversation in the world. Even those that are simple in
worldly matters are thus far made wise by the Spirit of Christ ;
without great wisdom, there is no escaping the snares of the
deceiver, and getting safe to heaven. By this holy wisdom,
which is foolishness in the eyes of worldly men, you may
discern that you have the Spirit of Christ.
3. As God is holy, so is Christ's Spirit a Spirit of holiness,
and given us on purpose for the destroying of our sins, the resist-
ing and conquering the desires of the flesh, the healing of our
diseases, the implanting the graces of God in our souls, and
working our hearts and lives to an obedience to his will. If you
have this Spirit, it striveth against the fleshy (Gal. v. 17 ;) and
it inclineth your hearts to the things above, and is still mortify-
ing your lusts, and bringing you nearer God. It is the business
of this Spirit to bring back the creature to God, whom we did
forsake ; and, thciefore, it must give us more of the knowledge of
him, and love to him, and confidence in himj and make us morq
VOL. XX. O
lo4 THE spirit's WITNESS TO
zealously devoted to his will. The spirit, therefore, that is
impure, and encourageth men in sin, and cries up carnal liberty,
and draweth not the heart to God, but from him, is certainly
none of the Spirit of Christ. By this many carnal pretenders
of our times may be convicted.
4. As God is love, so is Christ's Spirit a Spirit of love, by
which we are taught to love God, and our brother, yea, and our
very enemy: and so to dwell in God, by dwelling in love, and
God also dwelleth in us. (1 John iv. 10 — 16.) "They tiiat learn
of Christ, are meek and lowly." (Matt. xi. 28, 29.) " They that
keep his commandments do love one another." (John xv. 17.)
" The wisdom from above, is first pure, then peaceable, gentle,
easy to be entreated, full of mercy, and good fruits." (Jam. iii.
17, 18.) "They are taught of God, by this Spirit within them, to
love one another." ( 1 Thess. iv. 9.) The most of the heretical
spirits of these times do hereby show that they are not of Christ ;
their very religion lieth in railing at ministers, and reproaching
those that are not of their way, and bearing down all that resist
their designs ; by how much injustice or unmercifulness, they do
not much regard. How full are all places of the effects of this
spirit ? Men's selfishness, and cruelty, and envious zeal, and
spleen against their brethren that are not of their minds, doth
tell us that too many among us do little know what spirit they
are of.
5. As God is almighty, so is Christ's Spirit a Spirit of power:
though it will not do all that it can, yet it will do that which
none else can do : though it do not here perfect us, nor subdue
our sins absolutely, yet doth it make us conquerors, and more.
(Rom. viii.37.) Itrooteth up the strongest and deep rooted lusts ;
it prevaileth against prejudice, custom, and nature ; it con-
quereth corrupted sensuality, and keepeth the ordered senses in
subjection ; it mastereth the nearest interest of tiie flesh, and
self ; and the highest interest of the greatest on earth, or of our
nearest carnal friends, that do oppose it ; it levelleth high
imaginations, and taketh down all within us, which exalteth
itself against God. (2 Cor. x. 4, 5.) If the Spirit in the word be
thus mighty and powerful in making the first change on a carnal
heart, how much more easily may we see that it must be so
with the Spirit in the soul, which it hath possessed. This Spirit
doth not only strive against sin, but concjuer it, nor suffer a
man to spend his days in fruitless resistances, but doth give sin
its death wound j so that in whomsoever this abideth, sin shall
THE TRUTri OF CHRISTIANITY. 155
not have dominion over him. (Rom.vi. 1 i.) You see, then, how
you may know that you have this Spirit.
Sect. XiV.
Jf all true believers have the witness in themselves, then it
follows, that when Satan would tempt them to infidelity, thev
should not only have recourse to their Bibles, but also to their
hearts. Here, therefore, I come to the second part of the
application before promised, to show you what use we should
make of this testimony, and how to improve it, for the confirm-
ation of our faith. O what an excellent help is here, that the
poorest Christian hath against such temptation, beyond all the
furniture of the most learned that want it ! This advantage
will furnish us both against temptations to infidelity in general,
and against temptations to any error that is plainly contrary to
the essentials of Christianity.
1. If the devil, or any seducer, would draw you to doubt,
whether there be indeed a Christ or not, and whether he
did rise again, and be now living, what an excellent advan-
tage is it against this temptation, when you can repair to your
own hearts, and there find a Christ within you, 1 mean, his
Spirit possessing you, and ruling you for him ; and his very
nature and image in you, and such workings of his upon you,
which none can imitate. O, saith the sanctified soul, have I
felt Christ relieving me in my lost condition, binding up my
broken heart, delivering me from my captivity, reconciling me
to God, and bringing me with boldness into his presence, whom
1 had offended, and saving me from God's wrath, and law, and
my own conscience ; and now, after all this, shall I doubt
whether there be a Christ, or whether he be alive ! Have I felt
him new creating me, and making all things new to me, so
strangely opening my darkened eyes, and bringing me from
darkness into his marvellous light, and from the power of Satan
to God ; binding the strong man, and casting him out, and
bringing down the strongest holds in my soul ; and yet shall 1
question, whether there be a Christ or not ? Hath he made
me love the things which 1 hated, and hate that which I loved ?
Hath he given me such a taste of the powers of the world to
come, and possessed me with the hopes of glory with himself,
and given me a treasure and portion in God, and set my heart
where my treasure is, and caused me in some measure to have
my conversation in heaven ; and yet shall 1 doubt again, whether
o 2
156 THE spirit's witness to
he be the Christ ? What an impudent spirit is it that would
tempt me against so much experience ? As Athanasius saith
to the heathens in his time, " If Christ be not ahve, how doth
he yet destroy your idols, and cast out devils, and convert, and
subdue the world to himself. Are these the works of a dead
man ?" Though you see him not, yet by these you may see
that he yet liveth ; so may the true Christian say. Is it the work
of a dead man to make me alive ? To bring such a clod so near
to heaven ? To set up a new kingdom, and laws within me ?
Sure, he that did all this in me, is alive. He that every day
helps me to pray, and hears my prayers, and plainly shows me in
the accomplishment that they are heard, he is not dead but
alive ; or else I should not have these benefits of his life. Because
he lives, therefore do I live also, and therefore am I in hope
of living with him for ever ; whereas, if he were dead, my hopes
would die, and justice would have caused me to die ere now. My
very life confirms me, that there is a Christ, to keep off the
penalty which justice would else inflict. It is because God is
merciful to me in his beloved, and pleased in him, in whom he
was well pleased ; and because in him his compassions fail not,
therefore it is that I am not consumed. Thus may a true
believer argue, from the testimony that is within him, against
this temptation.
If deceiving infidels get abroad among us, and seek to turn
men from the faith of Christ, they may prevail with those that
gave Christ no deeper room, than in their fantasy, and that
never did heartily close with him in love. If you out-reason
these men, yea, if you can turn the scale of fleshly interest to be
against the profession of Christ, they will be easily drawn to let
him go ; but for those that have the Spirit of Christ within
them, it is not so with them ? If they cannot answer the cavils
of an infidel, yet they can hold fast the ground of faith. Christ
hath deeper room and interest in them. He is held faster
by the heart than by the head alone. Love will hold Christ
when reason alone would let him go. If you will draw such a
soul as this to infidelity you must draw him out of the arms
and embracement of Christ. His ear is, as it were, nailed to his
door : because he loveth him, he will not leave him. If a sin-
ner will the hardlier leave his lusts, or worldly profits, because
he loveth them, blame not a Christian, if he be loth to leave
Christ, who hath so loved his soul, and whom his soul so loveth.
*^ Who shall separate him from the love af Christ ? Shall tribu-
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 157
lation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or
peril, or sword ? As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all
the day long, we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay,
in all these things we are more than conquerors, through him
that hath loved us ; for I am persuaded that neither death, nor
life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things pre-
sent, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other
creature, shall be alile to separate us from the love of God
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom. viii. 35 — 39.) See
here how fast that lively faith, which works by love, doth hold
the Lord Jesus Christ ! Though a superficial bare assent may
let him go. I know expositors agree not about the sense of the
words, ' the love of Christ.' Calvin, Beza, Martyr, Pareus, Par,
&c. do take it as spoken of Christ's love to us, and not of our
love to Christ. Piscator takes it for the sense or feeling of
Christ's love to us. Ambrose, Augustine, and others of the an-
cients, understand it, of our love to Christ. Our English an-
notations say it may be taken for either, but rather for ' our love
to Christ.' The Pelagian expositors are glad of the seeming ad-
vantage that ours, before-mentioned, do give them, in expound-
ing it of ' God's love to us,' and not ' of ours to him ;' and
thereupon infer that it is God's love in Christ, to those that love
him, that is here meant; (yer. 28 ',) as if he should say, ' What
can cause Christ to cease loving those that love him?' But
then say they, * Here is nothing to deny that we may be drawn
from loving Christ, and so from being the objects of his foremen-
tioned love ; and therefore they note that sin is not here enume-
rated among the rest of the causes. Erasmus and Deodate take
in both, supposing it to speak both of our love to Christ, and
Christ's love to us, which I conceive to be the soundest exposi-
tion; but, most nearly, i conceive it speaks of our love to
Christ, but ultimately, and principally of the love of God in
Christ to us : for, first, none could reasonably imagine that our
tribulation, distress, famine, nakedness, &c. should be so many
assaults on God to draw him from loving us, but rather assaults
on us to draw us from loving God ; nor can it be imaginable that
angels, principalities, powers, things present, or to come, should
be thought by any to have any considerable strength for the
overcoming or expunging of God's love to us, while we love
him ; and therefore it were no great glory for the apostle thus
triumphantly to say, lie was persuaded of that which no man
doubts of, that God cannot be overcome, or moved from his love.
158 I'lIK SPI hit's WITNKSS lO
by the extrinsic opposing powers of" the creatures. Secondly, it
is said that ' in all these things we are more than con([uerors.'
It is not said God is conqueror. It is we, therefore, that were
assaulted, and not Christ : it was we, therefore, that were drawn
by these enumerated trials, to have relinquished our love to
Christ, and not Christ that was tempted by them to relinquish
his love to us: and I am loth, with Piscator and some others, to
take it for the feeling of Christ's love to us, because, first, many
Christians are drawn from the feeling of his love. Secondly, and
then it would not be true of all Christians universally, but of
some eminent champions that are strong in the faith. And the
word ' separate' shows that it is spoken, both of us and Christ,
and that it is not so much of the sense of love, as of the love
itself. I take the apostle's meaning, therefore, to be, as if he
should say, ' What can unclasp those mutual embracements,
between Christ and his people ? Or what can separate us from
Christ, by withdrawing or destroying our love to him, and con-
sequently turning his love from us ? We have many assaults,
but all in vain.' And if our love to Christ be thus secured, then
is the saint's perseverance sure ; but if his love to those that love
him be firm, and not our love to him ; then if we cease loving
him, he would cease to love us, and be unreconciled to us, as
he was before our believing. It is the embracements of a mutual
love that is here meant, as I suppose. Christ hath hold of the
believer in the arms of his love ; and by an answerable love,
though infinitely weaker, the believer also hath hold on Christ.
Who now can separate them that are thus closed in these
embracements ? The first reason of the stability of the love of
the saints, doth lie in the stability of the love of Christ. We
love him, because he loved us first ; and he loveth us with a
further love of complacency, because we love him ; and we
persevere in loving him, because his love to us doth persevere.
It is not easy to draw a truly-loving believer from the arms of
his beloved. He remembereth that love of his first espousals,
how Christ took him up, and washed him from his blood, and
spake peace to his wounded self-condemning soul. He remem-
bereth the straits he brought him out of, and -the misery which
he rescued him from. O, what should I have done, thinks he,
if I had not had a Christ : what should I have done in my
fears and griefs : what should have I said to an accusing con-
science : how should I have escaped the jaws of the devourer :
how should I have lived one day in peace upon earth, when
THK TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 159
God had once made known to me my condition ! He reniem-
bereth also the frequent refreshings, which he hath had from
the Spirit and grace of Christ ; the assistances in duty, the
conquests which by him have been obtained against the enemy :
and all these reviews do renew his love ; and with such thoughts
and remembrances as these in his mind, and with such a sacred
fire of love in his heart, how excellently is he fortified against
temptations to unbelief ! This love is strong, and the waters
of manv temptations cannot quench it : if the tempter would
give him the substance of, worldly goods and riches, yea, all the
kingdoms of the world, and their glory, to draw the soul from
Christ, they would be despised. A bare belief is only in the
head, which is but the entrance into the inwards of the soul :
but when Christ hath our love, he is in the castle of the heart ;
and then the word hath rooting in us ; and therefore in time of
trial we shall stand. Love is accompanied with hope and
desire, so far as we want the thing we love ; and it is not easy
to take a man off from his strongest desires, and highest hopes.
Love is always accompanied with delight, so far as we enjoy the
thing we love, and know that we do enjoy it ; and a fruition in
taste and earnest we have of Christ in this life. And it is, then,
no wonder if the tempter have a hard task of it, to draw the
soul from him, whom he is delighted in. Worldly men will
not let go their vanities ; no, nor children their toys ; no, nor
foolish wretches their foulest sins ; because they do delight in
them. No wonder, then, if the sons of wisdom, the members of
Christ, and children of the kingdom, do hold fast their delights.
Did not faith work by this love, desire, delight, and hope,
it would be dead, being alone, as to this resisting of temptations.
These are the ways in which it putteth forth its strength.
These are the arms by which it holdeth fast the Lord. Every
grace is employed in its own place, for the entertainment of
Christ, and the retaining him with vs. They all sit together,
do compose that spiritual frame or furniture, which makes us
convenient habitations for the Spirit. He, therefore, that hath
this nature, these affections, and these experiences accompanying
his belief, may well make Paul's cliallenge, "What shall sepa-
rate us from the love of Christ ?" O, thou malicious devil, that
dost haunt me with thy darts ! O, you deluded heretics and
infidels, that fill my ears with your foolish sophisms, and trouble
me with your disputes against the Lord, my Redeemer ! Go
to them that know him only by the hearing (,f the ear, if you
160 THE spirit's witness to
mean to prevail : but I have known him by the sweet expe-
riences of my soul. Go to them that make a religion of their
opinions, and whose belief was never any deeper than their fan-
cies, and whose piety never reached any higher than to certain
abstinency and negatives, and to tasks of formal duty ; these
you may possibly draw a\vay from Christ, and make infidels of
them, that were never true believers. Go to them that never
knew what it was to love Christ, nor to desire after him, nor to
delight in his salvation, nor to hope for his promised blessed-
ness hereafter ; but have been only the shells or shadows of
believers, annumerating themselves with the strictest professors,
while they were strangers to their new natures, and inward
frame of mind. It is like you may prevail with these, by
subtle seducement, or allurements, or threats ; but do you think
to do so by me ? Why, what weapons, what arguments, do
you think to prevail by ? Shall tribulation be the means ?
why, I have that promise in the hand of my faith, and that
glory in the eye of my hope, that will bring me through tribu-
lation. Shall distress do it ? why, I will rather stick so
much the closer to him that will relieve me in distresses, and
bring me unto his rest. Will you affright me by persecution ?
I am assured that this is the nearest way to heaven, and I am
blessed of Christ, when persecuted for righteousness. Shall
nakedness be the weapon ? I had rather pass naked out of
this world to heaven, than be clothed in purple, and be stripped
of it at death, and cast into hell. Adam's innocent nakedness,
and Lazarus's rags, were better than that epicure's gay apparel.
(Luke 16.) Shall famine be the means ? Why, man liveth
not by bread only ; I had rather my body famished, than my
soul. I have meat to eat that ye know not of; even the bread
of life, which whoso eats shall live for ever. If I eat and drink
with you, I must hunger and thirst again ; but this living water
will spring up within me to everlasting life, and then I shall
thirst or hunger no more. Will you affright me from Christ,
by the sword of violence ? I know that the Lord, whom I be-
lieve in, and serve, is a])le to deliver me out of your hands ;
buc if he will not, be it known to you, I will not forsake him :
for your sword shall be but the key to open the prison doors,
and let out my soul, that hath long desired to be with Christ.
If you tell me of peril, I know no danger so great, as of losing
Christ and salvation, and bearing his wrath that can kill both
body and soul in hell. Do I not read in certain history of
THK TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 161
that noble army of martyrs that loved the Lord Jesus to the
death, and gloried in tribulation, and would not by the flames,
or jaws of lions, be separated from Christ ? Did not they pass
through that Red Sea, as on dry ground to the promised land.
Was not the Son of God in the flames with them, to strengthen
and support them ? Though they were killed all the day long,
and accounted as sheep to the slaughter, yet did they not forsake
the Captain of their Salvation ; who was made perfect by suffer-
ing, and gave them an example : nay, in all this they were
triumphing conquerors ; they triumphed in the flames, to the
confusion of Satan and all their enemies, as Christ triumphed on
the cross, destroying by death the prince of death. (Heb. ii.
14.) Through him that loved them to the death, they were
enabled to love him to the death. I am confident that all your
assaults will be vain, by which you would separate me from the
love of God, in Christ. If vou would do it bv the threats of
death, I will remember it will prove the passage to life, and that
Christ doth threaten everlasting death. If you would do it by
the baits of life, I will prefer the everlasting life before it. If
evil angels assault me, as thinking themselves too strong for me,
they will find that I am preserved by a stronger than they.
Were it possible for a good angel to dissuade me from my Lord,
and to preach to me another Gospel, as he would cease to be
good, so I would hold him accursed.
Principalities, aerial or terrestrial, cannot overtop the Divine
and Sovereign Lord of the redeemed. Powers, aerial or terrestrial,
will never overpower him. Present hopes, or fears, or enjoy-
ments, are transitory and contemptible. Future evils will soon
be past ; and all future things are as ineffectual as the present.
The height of honours would not entice; the depths of distresses
would not discourage. No power, from the highest to the lowest
of creatures ; no state, from the highest to the lowest of condi-
tions, shall separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus
my Lord; either from the love wherewith through Christ I love
him, or the love wherewith he loveth me through Christ.
Thus may the confirmed, experienced believer be confident,
that the bands and cords of love will never by fraud or force be
untwisted ; and that none shall take them out of the Father's
hands, who is greater than all ; and, therefore, none shall take
them out of the hands of Christ ; and that no persecution shall
cause that faith to wither, which in a good and honest heart
hath taken root.
162 . THE Sl'l hit's Wn'NKSS TO
And tliiis you see what an advantage it is against temptation
to infidelity, to have the impress of the Gospel of Christ on our
hearts, and the witness in ourselves.
Sect. XV.
2. So if the tempter should persuade such a man to doubt
whether the Gospel be true, or be God's word, this believer may
have recourse into his soul for a testimony of it; thence he can
tell the tempter, by experience, that he hath found the promises
of this Gospel made good to him. ' Christ hath there promised
to send his Spirit into the souls of his people, and so he hath
done by me ; he hath promised to give light to them that sit in
darkness, and to guide their feet into the ways of peace ; to
bind up the broken-hearted, and set at liberty the captives ; and
all this he hath fulfilled upon me : all that he hath spoken about
the power of his word and grace, and the nature of its effects,
I have found upon myself. The help which he promised in
temptations, the hearing of prayers, the relief in distress ; all
these 1 have found performed j and, therefore, 1 know that the
Gospel is true.'
3. If the tempter would persuade you that there was no need
of a Redeemer, the believer hath a testimony of the contrary
in himself. Experimentally he hath been convinced of the need
of a Redeemer, and so hath advantage against this temptation.
4. If the tempter would persuade you that Christ came but
to seek himself, and only to be believed on, and magnified in
the world, here also the true believer hath the witness in himself,
from whence he can conclude, and prove, that Christ came into
the world to save sinners, to be a physician to the sick, to seek
and to save that which was lost, and to pull down the kingdom
and powers of darkness : for of all these he hath experience in
himself, and from hence may sufficiently repel this temptation.
5. If any should question whether there be, indeed, such a
thing as a sanctifying Spirit of Christ sent forth into the souls
of believers, to recover them to God (as many carnal persons,
and deceivers of late, do,) the true believer may have recourse
to his own heart, and prove the thing by the testimony within
him. He can think of the sins that this Spirit hath mortified,
and of the heavenly image which it hath planted on his soul, and
the discoveries and changes which it hath made within him,
which flesh and blood could not have made, and thus can expe-
rimentally confute such deceivers.
THE TRUTH OK CHRISTIANITY. 163
Thus you may perceive, tliat it is the duty of the saints to
fetch arguments from within them, for the repelling of such
temptations, and the confutation of all suggestions to unbelief:
and here, if ever, to show ourselves instructed to the kingdom
of God, by fetching out of our treasure things new and old.
If the wiser heathens, yea, almost all the pagan world, could
gather that there was some life for us after this, from those
small sparks of virtue which they found in man's nature, how
much more easily and solidly may we conclude, both this and
much more, from the spiritual principles, inclinations, and
actions, which are wrought on the souls of the sanctified, by
the grace of Christ, and the power of the Gospel ? Doubtless,
there is something within a true Christian that takes part with
Christ against all contradictors, as there was something in the
new-created man, Adam, that would have taken part with God,
if any had denied the Godhead : yea, and as there is something
yet in the common sort of mankind, that would make them
rise up against him that should be a professed atheist. Do not
tempt God, upon confidence of this, by thrusting yourselves into
the mouth of temptation, or lending your ears to heretical de-
ceivers or infidels ; but if you are cast upon such temptations,
make use of this antidote, and observe whether there be not
somewhat within you, that contradicteth the seducer, and riseth
up against the blasphemies which are suggested ? If a child
should be persuaded to think ill of liis own father, whatever
arguments were brought to persuade him, the very natural love
of a child would contradict them, and much advantage him
against any slanderous reports that might be raised of him.
Another man that neither so well knoweth him, or loveth him,
would be far more easily drawn to believe them ; but there is some-
what within him that will not let a child believe them so easilv.
If a deceiver should say to him, ' This man is not thv father, and
hath nothing to do with thee; he meaneth but to undo thee,
and desireth not thy ^ood,' would not something within, even
natural love, and experience of his father's kindness, establish a
son from crediting such a deceiver ? Believers have an inward
roo^^d love to Christ. They love him above father, mother,
house, land, or their own lives. They have tasted also and tried
how good he is : and is it easy to break these bonds, and make
such an one believe that the Gospel is false, or that Christ is not
indeed the Messiah ? When Christ standeth without, and
knocks at the door of men's hearts, he then pleadeth but his
164 THE spirit's witness to
right for admittance, and though his arguments be very cogent
with evidence, and he fully proveth all that he saith, yet it is
less wonder that he is kept out by unbelief, because, though he
have the right, yet his enemy hath the possession. But in a
true believer, Christ hath possession, as well as right : and,
therefore, it will be harder for the enemy to dispossess him, by
drawing that soul again to infidelity. His Spirit keeps posses-
sion ; his graces all keep possession ; his precepts and promises
also without, do hold them to their allegiance. His threatenings
awe them, and are as a wall of fire before them, and they have
their eyes opened to see the angel with the sword. He telleth
them, that if any man drawback, his soul shall have no pleasure
in him. (Heb. x. 38.) That it is impossible for those who
were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift,
and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the
good word of God, and the powers of the world to come ; if
they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance, seeing
they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him
to an open shame. (Heb. vi. 4, 5, 6.) I see no necessity that
this must be understood of the unregenerate and unjustified ; yet
doth it not affirm, that eventually any sanctified, justified person
shall come into this sad condition, but it warneth them that
they do not, and telleth them the danger, that hereby it may be
prevented : for Christ causeth his people's perseverance, by
telling them of the possibility, facility, and danger, in itself, of
not persevering. So that all these advantages do fortify a true
believer against infidelity : but especially in that the precepts,
and promises, and threatenings of Christ's law, are all written
over again in his heart : these are they that hold fast. A
precept, and promise, and threatening in the Bible, may do
much ; but when a true Christian is tempted to unbelief, he can
say, ' There is a precept to the contrary written in my heart :
there is a threatening against infidelity written in my heart :
there is a promise to believers written in my heart. How then
can I do this great evil : and sin against the law that is within
me : and the Lord that doth possess me ?
You see, then, what hope the devil hath to speed by such
temptations, and wliere it is, that the upstart generation of
cunning infidels in this age, here in England, must seek their
prey, and find matter to make unhappy proselytes of; not
among the experienced, well-grounded, renewed, and truly
regenerate ones, that have a Christ in their hearts, as well us
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 165
his name in their books, but among those that are merely no-
minal, titular, traditional and superficial Christians : of such as
these is their apostatized party composed.
Obj. But some that have seemed as godly and experienced
Christians as the best, have of late fallen to deny Christ and
everlasting life.
Answ. 1. All seemers have not the witness in themselves,
nor the law of Christ put into their hearts.
2. I hope some of those that deny the fundamentals opiniat-
ively and speculatively, may hold them virtually and prac-
tically ; and that their infidelity is not yet rooted or habituated,
nor hath extirpated the better habits which were in them,
though it have so far prevailed with their fantasies, opinions,
and tongues.
3. If it were proved that some true believers do apostatize
unto perdition, yet would the doctrine which we are upon re-
main unshaken, that it is a great advantage against temptations
to unbelief, to have the witness in ourselves.
Sect. XVI.
Obj. May not a Turk or a pagan say the like, that there is
something within them that dissuadeth them from a change ;
and resisteth all motions that would draw them from their
religion ? That is, there is prejudice, through education, cus-
tom, company, and interests, and prepossession ; and there is
a kind of love to their own idols, and conceits hereupon. And
what is yours more than this ?
Answ. My answer consisteth of two parts, which I desire you
to observe together. 1. It is easy to possess men with preju-
dice, and with love, and friendship, to a false teacher, false
religion, or way, which hath nothing in nature against it, but
for it; but it is not easy to possess men with the like persua-
sions and affections to that which nature is not for but against.
If Mahomet will promise men dominion on earth, and sen-
sual felicity after that they are dead, and make a sensual life to
be the way to it, what wonder if nature be easily drawn to this
religion ? Here is much in carnal hearts to befriend it, but
little to gainsay it. But if Christ call men from all their pleas-
ing sins, and instead of satisfying their flesh do require them
to take it as their enemy, and to crucify it; and instead of
making them great in the world, do call them to leave all, and
deny themselvesj and take up their cross and follow him^ if
166 THE spirit's witness to
they will be his disciples ; and setteth men upon high and
spiritual employments, and all in hope of a reward, which is
unseen : here flesh and blood will resist ; carnal nature will
rise up against it ; this will not easily down, till more than
human strength effect it ; so that you may see the case is so
different between the christian religion and others, that it will
no way follow, that we may love Christ without a supernatural
work, because a man may love Mahomet without it.
2. And further note, that we do make a great difference
among Christians themselves, between those that believe and
love Christ merely uj>on such prejudice, custom, or interest;
and those that believe in him, and love him sincerely, and upon
right grounds. And we confess, that those of the former, being
but superficial and seeming Christians, may be drawn away to
infidelity : but what is that to their case, that have a true faith
and love ? There is a double difference between these and the
other : one in the object of their faith and love, and another in
the act. For, first, it is but the cheap and easy part of the christ-
ian religion, which those customary professors do indeed enter-
tain in love ; and so they love Christ but as the author of
these : and so they make another thing of christian religion in
their conceits, than indeed it is ; and it is not indeed that re-
ligion which they embrace or love, but the name of it, and
some parcels torn from the rest ; but it is not so with the sin-
cere : and then, secondly, it is but a superficial, dreaming, in-
effectual belief, that they receive the very history of the rest ;
and therefore not accepted by a sovereign love.
Such a faith and love as Mahometans have to Mahomet,
such many seeming Christians have to Christ ; and these are
not the confirmed ones, by the testimony in themselves. But
such a rooted faith and love, as is proper to the saints, in one
that so crosseth their carnal inclinations and interests, as is
aforesaid ; this cannot be found in any but in Christians. Men
of other religions have no such object for faith and love, and
no faith or love for such an object.
Consider, also, that so much of God as there is remaining,
even in those religions which otherwise are false ; so much, it
is, even by the professors of it, resisted and opposed, in the
points that are cross to carnal interests and inclinations : and,
therefore, we find that even among the heathens, as Seneca and
others tell us, an abstemious, temperate, contemplative man,
that would not do evil as freely as others, was the common
^ THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 167
scorn ; so that the very sparks of virtue that appeared among
them, had ill entertainment by the vicious vulgar ; though they
could, good cheap, afford them applauses when they were dead,
as the wicked among us still will do of the saints that lived
before them.
Sect. XVII.
Obj. But if the Gospel were false, yet, if you do but believe
it to be true, will it not make all those impressions on the mind,
which you so magnify. If one tell me of an everlasting joy or
torment, will it not make me deeply affected, and chiefly apply
myself to the minding thereof, if I do but believe it, whether it
be true or not : so that it is the weight of the matter, and your
belief of it, that causeth all these effects, and not the truth of it.
Answ. I confess, I have known some much staggered by this
objection, but I doubt not to show you the vanity of it ; as
followeth :
1. You suppose that which is not to be supposed, viz. 5 that
the doctrine is not true which we believe, or that it is not of
God, when you say, 'It would have such effects, though it were
not of God, if we did but believe it:' and that you ought not
in this disputation to suppose that is manifest, in that we first
prove it to be of God, by former arguments, before we plead
this argument, from the testimony within us.
We use not this our first reason of belief, but as a confirming
reason, procuring a stronger belief : for we do not first believe
Scripture to be of God, bacause it hath done such works on us ;
but we believe it by other cogent reasons, that so it may do
such works on us. It is a believed doctrine, that mortifieth
our lusts, and raiseth up our liearts to God.
Let us suppose such a disputation between the tempter and
Adam, in his innocency. The devil saith : ' This great world
which thou seest and art a member of was not made by God,
but by me.'
Adam saith : ' I know it was made by God ; for as none but
God can make such a frame, so I have seen God in it and by it,
and by this sight of him my soul hath been possessed with such
lively apprehensions of his infinite wisdom, and goodness, and
greatness, and hath received such admirable impressions here-
upon, that I am fully confirmed by these effects within me, that
it is the work of God.'
The tempter replieth j ' This is but the effect of thine own
168 - THE SPIRITS WITNESS TO
belief, for whether God made iter no, thou wilt thus admire God
for it, if thou do but believe that he made it.' Here the
tempter mliy not suppose that God made not the world ; though
Adam be but proving it, the contrary may be supposed, because
this argument from the impress and effects is but a confirming
argument, supposing it proved before by other arguments j
That none but God could make this world, and that God did
make it.
We can first show the image of the Creator on the world,
and thereby prove that it is his workmanship ; but, afterwards,
when Adam findeth the impress upon his heart, he is more con-
firmed in it, against all temptations.
So do we first prove, by the intrinsic nature of the word
itself, and by the extrinsic assistant testimony of miracles, and
wondrous works, that the Scripture is of God, and the doctrine
is his truth ; and then we are confirmed in it by the effects of
it upon our own souls. We first show the image of God, and
his Son Christ in the Gospel, and then we find the same image
imprinted by the Gospel upon our hearts. Suppose a prince
have a broad seal that no one can counterfeit, and which he
hath also extrinsically testified to be his own ; if I have a grant
of some lands, which I hold by writings under that seal, if any
affirm that the great seal itself is counterfeit, I will prove the
contrary : first, from the seal and extrinsic testimony; and, then,
from the impress of it, which I possess: and, if any say, ' if the
same seal were counterfeit, yet, it would make the same im-
press ;' I should answer, ' That I prove both from the quality
of the seal and impress, that it is not counterfeit.'
2. Note, therefore, that we argue not from the impress upon
the soul, as an impress, but as such an impress, from the quality
or nature of it ; and finding it to be the very image of God, we
are the more confirmed, that the seal that made it did bear
the same image, and was his.
Sect. XVIII.
Obj. What 4ieed you a testimony within you, if you can see
the same image of God in the word without you, and so believe
before : is not the same sufficient to confirm your belief which
did beget it ?
For answer to this objection, I add in the third place :
3. The image of God is more easily discerned in the effects or
THE TIUJTH OF CHRISTIAMITY,
169
impress upon our owa hearts, than in the word alone; especially
more easily in both than in that one. The one begetteth faith,
the other a stronger faith: I showed you the advantages before.
You more plainly discern the image in the wax than on the seal,
especially when the impress and effects are so near us, and con-
sist in the very apprehensions, and feelings, and workings of our
own souls, which will force us to an observation.
Besides, the effect is something more express and operative,
and in that respect more illustrious, than the word itself, which
is the cause. The fire in the flint is not so discernible as in the
flax; the seed of the living creature doth not contain the image
of it so actually, expressly, and discernibly, as the birth itself
doth. God's word is his seed, and the new creature is the effect;
not that there is any part of the new creature which is not ac-
tually and expressly required in the word ; but that it is to us
more discernible, as to the excellency and beauty in the creature,
than in the seed; in the effect, than in the course; in the obe-
dience, than in the precept ; only the present imperfection of the
effect, while the cause is perfect, doth make some difference on
the other side ; but yet in the nature of the thing, the effect is
to us more discernible : nay, the operative nature of the effect
is such, that it is ofttimes more discernible, even to a stander-
by ; which caused the apostle to require that wives should, there-
fore, walk uprightly with unbelieving husbands, that if any obey
not the word, they might without the word be won by the con-
versation of their wives.
Moreover, you suppose that which is not to be supposed in
this objection, viz., That we can believe, and so believe this
word to be of God, if it were not so indeed ; that is, if he do
not, l)y a special work of his grace, cause us to believe it ; for,
first. Where man was most guilty he is most depraved : as man
sinned bv turning from God, so is he become a stranger to God,
and blind in the things of God, and of his own recovery and
salvation ; and as his sin was especially in believing Satan, and
denying belief to God, so is he now viciously disposed to the
same. Secondly, And, moreover, the way of our recovery is
supernatural, and therefore must have a supernatural light within,
as well as without, to reveal it to such a low, depraved soul.
Thirdly, And, especiall)-, man's corrupted sense and will hath
got the mastery of his understanding and reason, so that he
cannot easily believe what he is exceedingly unwilling should be
true; but all unregenerate men are exceedingly unwilling that this
VOL. XX. P
170 THE spirit's witness TO
word should be true, both because it tells them of their sin and
misery, and future danger, and because it would take them off
from their carnal delights, and would call them to a life which
they are utterly undisposed to. By all which it is apparent, that
though you may believe the doctrine of Mahomet, or any com-
mon or carnal doctrine, without any grace of God, yet -so can
you not the doctrine of Christ, because it is of another nature-
Obj. What kind of doctrine is that, that a reasonable man
cannot believe ? It seems, then, it wanteth evidence of its
truth.
Answ. It wanteth not evidence suitable to its nature, and to
an enlightened understanding, or to sound reason ; but its evi-
dence is not of itself sufficient to the carnal mind : not because
it wanteth due evidence, but because reason is wanting to that
mind ; for reasonable, carnal men are not reasonable, as to the
exercise, in these spiritual things. Well doth the Scripture call
them blind, fools, and madmen, besides themselves, and unrea-
sonable men. How foolish was Aristotle himself, and all his
brethren, about matters of his own salvation, for all the strength
of his reason in natural things.
5. Lastly, You must difference between a common, superficial,
speculative belief and apprehension, and a deep, effectual faith ;
and then I add further, by way of answer to this objection, that
if you speak of a common, superficial belief, the objection itself
is false ; for if this were not God's word, and yet I did so super-
ficially believe it to be his word, that belief would not change
and renew my heart, nor do those great things wherein this
testimony within me doth consist. It must be a special, effectual
belief, produced by the help of a special grace added to the word,
which must do these works upon the souls of men. Such a be-
lief as mere tradition, education, custom, prejudice, or worldly
advantages, yea, or bare hearing and reading will produce, will
not do these works ; and if it were not the word of God, he
would never accompany it by that special power and work of his
Spirit.
Both these last parts of my answer are evident in the thing
itself, and in daily, undeniable experience.
First, It is apparent, that besides a bare belief, there is also
necessary, a sober, impartial consideration of the things believed,
before they can make such a change upon the heart and life ;
for else they will slide away, and be ineffectual. Now, in things
of this nature, it is not the mere external revelation, without
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 171
internal, accompanying grace, that will bring the mind to such
consideration.
Besides, while the heart of man is hardened, this consideration
will not take effect j but all men's hearts are so hardened till
grace soften them ; so tliat you do but set a seal to a stone or
wax, that is not softened, while you read the word to a carnal
heart, unless the Spirit set in with the reading. Also, men are
engaged to contrary courses, and that so strongly that none but
the spirit of grace can disengage them, and cause them to receive
the due impress of the word, which will turn them another way.
Secondly, Experience also may satisfy us in this point against
the objection ; for we see that many hundreds sit under the same
word, and some do believe effectually, and some do believe su-
perficially, and some believe not at all ; yea, and (lest you lay
the difference on any preparations in the nature, temper, or
education of the persons,) first, many that were of better natures,
more sober, considerate temper, and of an engaging education,
yet believe not, or not effectually; when others that wanted
such advantages do believe : secondly, and the same men that
hath heard the same word seven years, or twenty years together,
in vain, or persecuteth it as Paul did before his conversion, are
after all that changed by it on a sudden, and receive it, and pro-
mote it.
And, to conclude, we see also by common experience, that
thousands who do superficially believe the Scripture to be the
word of God, and to be true, do yet find none of this change
upon their hearts, nor that impress from the word, which may
be a witness in themselves ; so that it is not all that believe the
word to be true, but all that effectually believe it, that have
this effect. Such a belief as common means may produce, doth
it not ; but the special belief in the regenerate doth it.
Obj. You seem thus to prove the Scripture true, because you
believe it ; whereas you should believe it, because it is true :
for what is this witness in yourselves, but your own belief.
Answ. 1 first prove it true, or at least discern it to be true,
by other evidence, without me ; and then I believe it, because
I see that evidence that it is of God, and so is true; and having
so believed it, i find those excellent effects of that belief in mv
soul, which do more strongly persuade me, that it is the word
of God, than 1 was before persuaded, and do confirm me against
all temptations to ajDOstacy : so that my first belief, is not be-
cause I do believe ; nor mv second or following belief neither :
p 2
172 THE spirit's witness TO
but the first is, because 1 see by other evidence the truth of the
word ; and the second is, because b'y believing I have such
divine and excellent effects upon my soul.
Sect. XIX.
Quest. But will this argument be of any use to persuade or
convince another, or is it only for yourself ? We that see not
vi'hat is in your heart, cannot be convinced by mere latent rea-
sons. Show us such works, and we will believe you.
Answ. 1. The principal use of this internal testimony, we
acknowledge, is for the establishment of the believer himself ;
and therefore the principal success of this argument, is upon
liimself : and therefore we do not use it as our first or princi-
pal argument, for the convincing of others.
2. Yet there is so much in it, for the use of others, as should
move them to make trial of that doctrine and religion which
others profess to receive such effects from ; especially, consider-
ing, first, that they are sober and credible persons, and not light,
deluded, vain, fantastical people only, that so profess : and if
such testimonies shall be refused, and that of so many thousand
persons of all degrees, ages, and sexes, and that in all coun-
tries and times, and that in a matter of fact, or about the in-
ward experience of their own souls ; what testimony then
should be regarded ? And how would human converse be
maintained, and human affairs be transacted, if such testimonies
as these shall be judged invalid ? 2. Moreover, the external
effects in the lives of the saints are so great, and so discernible
bv those that do converse with them ; especiallv, whose near-
ness and familiarity doth give them the opportunity of a more
full discovery, that even the unbelievers may see that which
should convince them, that it is a true, divine, and excellent
doctrine, which hath such excellent effects in the lives of the
believers. And so great is this evidence, even to others, that
if they be not convinced by it, or at least drawn to try that
word and religion, which iiuth such effects, they are left inex-
cusable, and may justly be condemned, as sinning against
reason itself, and shutting their eyes against a visible evidence.
Thus far, therefore, the testimony in one, may be useful to
another.
Sect. XX.
Quest. If the witness in ourselves be so full and convincing
as \ou sav, then, what need liave we any more to make use of
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 173
the Scriptures. Let the unconverted have recourse to Scripture,
who have not the Spirit, but for us that have it, why should we
leave a higher teacher to go to a lower. The like may be said
as to the ministry of men : 'When we have once the" Spirit,
and are taught of God, we need not learn of men any more :'
for the promise is, that we shall not teach one another ;
saying, " Know the Lord, for all shall know him from the least
to the greatest."
Answ. This reason is, most plainly, contrary to common
reason, experience, and Scripture itself. First, It is not only
one thing that man wanteth to enable him to understand the
matters of his salvation ; he wanteth first an outward word of
revelation. Secondly, He wanteth an outward teacher, to tell
him the meaning of the very terms themselves, which were
written in Hebrew and Greek, and to remove difficulties out of
his \vay. Thirdly, He wanteth inward light to cause him to
understand this word, when he is thus taught : accordingly
God supplieth this threefold want; the first, by giving him
the Scripture ; the second, by giving him the ministry, and
other occasional teachers ; the third, by giving him the illumina-
tion of the Spirit, to help him to see by the former means, and
to make the word and ministry to be effectual. I do not put the
Spirit last, as if he were the least and lowest help, but because
that in order of nature, the other two must go before, and the
Spirit comes and sets them home, and makes them successful.
He that knoweth not the office of the Spirit, nor to what use it is
that he is given of God, but looketh that he should do a work which
he is not sent to do, nay, which he abhorreth, that is, to teach
men without, if not against, the Scripture and the ministry ;
no wonder, if he meet with a spirit of delusion, while he thinks
he hath the Spirit of God. There is a twofold work of the
Spirit necessary, to reveal to us the truths of Christ : the first,
is the inspiration of prophets and apostles to reveal it to us
from without, by preaching or writing, and to seal it by mi-
racles. This witness of the Spirit was given when the Scripture
was written, and delivered to the church, and so is past alreadv,
but still in force for our use and to our confirmation ; the
second, is that illumination which must cause us to understand
the word and ministry; this is it that we are now speaking of,
and which is necessary in ourselves.
It is a mad thing for a man to say, ' I have eyes in my head
that are not blind, and therefore I have no need of the light
174 THE spirit's witness to
of the sun ;' or to say, ' 1 have eyes and sun, and therefore
have no need of the light in the air, which cometh from the
sun ;' or to say, ' I have all this Hght, and therefore 1 can
read by it without a book ;' or to say, ' I have both hght and
book, and therefore can read without a teacher :' for if a man
would read, or see any other the like object, he must have all
these, or more than one ; you must have eyes, and eyes that
have the power of seeing, and that not hindered by any inflam-
mation or other disease ; and you must have the light from the
smi or candle ; and you must have a book, and have it opened,
and have one to teach you so far as you have not learned.
God hath appointed you these three necessary means of your
illumination and direction ; the word, the ministry, and the
Spirit : " What God hath joined, let no man separate." If
you will foolishly go set one of these against another, or make
one to exclude the other, as being sufficient without it, when
God hath set them all together and made them all necessary,
assigning to each a several part in the work of your iilunjina-
tion, you will abuse God and yourselves, and go without the
light while you despise the necessary cause of it. You may as
well say, ' I have meat, and therefore need no teeth ;' or ' I
have meat and teeth, and therefore need no stomach ;' or, ' I
have all these, and therefore need no natural life and spirits
to digest my meat.' All these are several concauses to produce
that effect ; the office of the meat, the teeth, the stomach, the
natural heat and digestive power, is not all one, though all to
one end ; nor is any one of these sufficient to that end without
the rest, though each one may" be sufficient to its own use: so
the office of the Scripture is not the same with that of the
ministry or Spirit ; nor the office of the ministry the same with
that of the Spirit and the word ; nor the office of the Spirit the
same with that of the word or ministry ; though, yet, all have
the same end and full effect, that is, the illumination of the
sinner. Will you then say, that one is insufficient, unless it
be sufficient without the rest ? No ; the sufficiency of them
must be judged of in respect to their own several offices and
parts in the work. The word is sufficient to produce faith
and holiness, by the help of ministry, ordinarily, or some other
guide, and of the Spirit, as ever necessary. The Spirit is suffi-
cient to cause you to understand the word by the help of man's
ministry, though he can do it without, yet this is his under-
taken office, and he will not teach men to contemn his own
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 1/5
ordinances and means. Will you say, that no wheel in your
watch or clock is perfect, unless it will do the whole work
without the rest : or will you throw away all the wheels save
one, because that one is perfect, without fault, when they are
all appointed to work and move together, and none of them to
serve without the rest.
And, first, for Scripture ; it is the very book and matter
which the Spirit is sent to teach us to understand. What do
you expect the Spirit should teach you to understand but the
word. Would you have him bring you another Gospel, when
Paul would hold an angel from heaven accursed, if he should
do so. (Gal. i. 7 — 9-) Will you say, that a schoolmaster is
insufficient in his school, if he teach not his scholars without a
book : or, will you throw away your grammar or other books,
because you have a good schoolmaster, and say, books are for
hem that come not to school. When Christ told his mind to
his apostles, and bid them tell it to the world ; teaching them
to observe all things whatsoever he commanded them, he pro-
miseth to be with them to the end of the world; (Matt, xxviii,
20;) that is, to be with the teachers of that same doctrine,
which by these apostles was to be delivered, and not of a new
doctrine. Paul chargeth Timothy to keep these things to the
coming of Christ, (1 Tim. vi. 14.)
These are the truths which the first pastors communicated
to the next, and those were to communicate it, as to the people,
so to faithful m.en, that might preserve it as they had done,
(2 Tim. ii. 2.) This is the word that is able to make men wise
unto salvation; (2 Tim. iii. 14, 15;) and to give them an
inheritance among the sanctified. (Acts xx. 32.) By this
word, it is, that those must be washed, and cleansed, and sanc-
tified, whom Christ will present pure and spotless to his Father
at the last. (Eph. v. 26.) So that, to set the Spirit against
his own word, and to cast it off on pretence that you have that
Spirit, who is the author of it, and enjoyeth it, and is purposely
sent to teach it you, and lead you by it into truth, and sanctify
by that word of truth ; this is impudent, unreasonable abuse,
both of the Spirit and word, as, one day, deluded souls will find.
2. And for the ministry, if men were not stark blinded by
the father of delusions, they could never imagine that God hath
discharged them from submission, learning, or obedience to
their lawful guidance by the word, as long as they confess the
Scriptures to be true. Hath not God set in the body several
17t) THE spirit's witness TO
members, not having all the same office ? All is not an eye,
nor all a Imnd, nor is the body witiiout an eye or hand.
(1 Cor. xii. 14, 17, 19, 28.) The apostle commandeth Timothy
to commit the same things which he had learned, to faithful
men, who might be able to teach others also. (2 Tim. ii. 2.)
He directeth him how to choose, and ordain elders in every city,
and what men to choose and ordain. (1 Tim. iii. ; Tit. i. 5.)
He tells him that he that desireth the office of a bishop, desireth
a good work. (1 Tim. iii. 1.) Peter biddeth the elders, "Feed
the flock of God which is among you, (or as some read it, in
your charge, or under you,) taking the oversight thereof, not by
constraint, but willingly, not for tilthy lucre, but of a ready
mind," &c. (1 Pet. v. 2 — 4.) The command is most express to
all the churches of the Hebrews: " Obey them that have the rule
over you, and submit yourselves, for they watch for your souls as
they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and
not with grief, for that is unprofitable for you." (Heb. xiii. 17-)
And (verse 7 and 24) they are twice more called, "Them that
rule over them, and (as verse 7) that preach to them the word of
God." And the apostles ordained elders in every church.
(Acts xiv. 23.) These were commanded to teach in season, and
out of season ; (2 Tun. iv. 1, 2 ;) and therefore must be heard.
They must feed the flock over which the Holy Ghost doth make
them overseers. (Acts xx. 28.) Mark, the Holy Ghost doth make
men overseers and pastors of the churches, and yet these men
would cast off overseers, because they have the Holv Ghost.
Christ committeth to them as ambassadors, the preaching of the
word of reconciliation in his name; (2 Cor. v. 19 — 21 ;) and
as guides, the ruling of the Church of God. (1 Tim. iii. 4, 5 ;
Heb. xiii. 7, 17 ;) and calleth them wise stewards whom tlie
Lord makes rulers over his household, to give them their meat
in due season. (Luke xii. 42.) He saith, the eiders that rule M'eli,
are worthy of double honour, especially they that labour in the
word and doctrine. (1 Tim. v. 17.) He brandeth the disobedient
and untractable, with the name of unruly men, whom Christians
must avoid ; whether it be the aruKToi, that are as soldiers that
keep not rank and file, and will not know their colours ; or the
^vvjT6raKToi, that know not how to be obedient, or submit to
rule and government. The first sort, mentioned 1 Thess. v. 14,
the second sort. Tit. i. 10, 6, though we translate both ' unruly.'
And is it not for the use of believers that have the Spirit, that
these officers are set in the church, and is it not the church of
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 177
believers that is commanded to hear and obey them ? Nay,
hath not Christ set them in tlie church purposely for the
edifying of the body, and the perfecting of the saints, till we
all come to a perfect man, &:c. (Eph. iv. 11 — 14.) And
purposely to keep Christians, that they may not be as children
tossed up and down with every wind of doctrine according to
cunning sleights and subtilty of men, by which they lie in wait
to deceive ? Nay, doth not Christ himself rule and teach by
them as his officers ? and say, " He that despiseth you de-
spiseth me, and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent
me/' (John xiii. 20 ; Mark ix. 39 ; Luke ix. 48.) So that
it is most evident that it was never Christ's intent to take down
that ministry which by himself was set up, nor to make it need-
less, till men are perfected and have no more sin.
And as for that part of the objection from Jer. xxxi. 34,
it is plain that it was far from the mind of the Holy Ghost, to
make the ministry unnecessary to them that have the Spirit.
For as the Spirit was given by the ministry of the apostles, so
the same apostles were necessary for the building up of them
that had the Spirit, and therefore did use to visit and teach the
churches to that end, and set elders over them to be their con-
stant guides and teachers. The text, indeed, doth assure us,
that knowledge and the means of it shall much more abound
under the Gospel than before ; and that more persons shall
have knowledge, and greater knowledge, and that of the Spirit's
preaching. But the plain meaning of the words, " They shall
teach no more every man his neighbour and brother, saying.
Know the Lord, for they shall all know me," &c., seems to be
this, they shall not be ignorant of God, as heathens, nor as to
the elect, without the saving knowledge of him, as hypocrites,
and therefore shall not have need to be taught to know God,
as men that do not know him : it shall be no such rare thing to
know the Lord. But first, this denieth not, but that they may
have need to be taught to know more of God, though not simply
to know God. We need not teach men that which they know
of God already ; but we need to teach them so much as they do
not know. And Paul himself saith of himself and all men,
*'^That we know but in part here." (1 Cor. viii. 2, and xiii. 9.)
" And we must grow in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."
(2 Pet. iii. 18; Phil. iii. 12, 15.) We have need to be fed
Avith strong meat, after we have lived on milk, and to be taught
higher when we have learned the })rinciples. (Heb. v. 11, 12,
178 THE spirit's witness TO
and vi. 1 — 3.) It seems these objectors would not learn of
Paul himself, if he were alive, because he is a man. Secondly,
And is there not much necessary to be known, besides the simple
knowledge of God himself? We must know ourselves, and
know many truths, and duties, precepts, promises, and threats,
temptations, and dangers, rewards, &;c. So that thougli the
elect after conversion, have not need to be taught simply to
know God ; yet they have need to be taught a further measure
of the knowledge of God, and also to know his will and word.
As there Is no mention in Luke xv. of righteous persons that
need no repentance, that is, no such conversion or repentance as
the impenitent and unconverted need, which is a turning from a
state of reigning sin to God, though yet they need the repentance
of imperfect saints, and therefore must daily pray, " Forgive us
our trespasses;" and he that saith, " tie hath no sin, is a liar,
and dcceiveth himself, and the truth is not in him : for in many
things Ave offend all." (1 John i. 8; James iii. 2.) So is it
here; the illuminate do not need to be taught to know the
Lord, as the blind world that know him not. Such a phrase
also Christ useth to the woman of Samaria : " He that drinketh of
the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst." (John iv. 14.)
That is, shall never have that necessity of hew supply as before
he had : he shall not have the thirst of emptiness and former
need, but yet he shall have the thirst of loving desire, and need
of greater pleasure : so here.
Quest. Is it needful for that man to use extrinsic arguments to
prove the Scripture and christian religion to be of God himself,
and to resist temptations, who hath the witness within himself
to prove it by ?
Answ. God's evidences must not be separated, much less must
one be pleaded to the neglect of the rest. We find the apostles
oft pleading the first arguments of miracles, and the eye-
witnesses' credit, and the like, with the churches of believers :
as the work within us is not the first testimony, but a secondary
confirming testimony, so doth it not make the first unnecessary
or void. Our internal testimony hath relation to, and depen-
dance on the evidences that are in, and with the word itself
without us. Besides that, by the external we must convince
other men.
Sect. XXI.
Quest, ^^'^ill this testimony within us be as useful and ad-
vantageous to us, in particular points of controversy, as in the
THE TRUTH OF CHlllSTIANlTY. 179
main matter of Christianity itself? May we not think that he
that hath most of the Spirit, is likest to be in the right ?
Answ. You must difference between those particular points
that are essential to Christianity, or of necessity to salvation, and
those that are very useful, though not absolutely necessary, and
those that are niceties of smaller use ; also you must difference
between the spirit of holiness in general, and some special gift
of the Spirit in particular. And so I further answer :
1 . In points essential to Christianity, or of absolute necessity to
salvation, the witness within them will keep right the elect, who
are true believers, when more learned, subtle men maybe deceived.
2. In points of very great use to salvation, though not of
absolute necessity, such true believers have a great advantage
to hold right against all temptations, from this witness, or work
of grace within them. But yet as they may possibly fall into a
scandalous sin, and be recovered, so they may possibly for all
the witnesses within them, be led into some foul and dangerous
error, to the great wrong of the Gospel, the trouble of the church,
and the wounding of themselves. Yet cattei'is paribus, there
being equal helps, and other advantages, a godly man is more
likely here to be in the right, than an ungodly : but yet some-
times an ungodly man is more likely to be right here than he.
3. In the knowing of natural things, or the grammatical con-
struction of the Scripture, and so in opening many particular
texts, and in understanding and maintaining the truth in many
particular, lower controversies, though the spirit of holiness be
much advantage to men, yet the particular and more common
gifts of the Spirit, which ordinarily accompanieth natural wit
and diligent study, is a greater advantage ; and, therefore, it is
ordinary for the Spirit of interpretation to be given, where the
the Spirit of sanctification is denied ; and for God to give many
the saving knowledge of himself in Christ, to whom he gives
not the knowledge of many truths in nature or theology, nor
the knowledge of the meaning of much of the Scripture, as to
having those helps which are necessary thereto ; for in these
things, and in natural knowledge, God is pleased to work by
natural means, and by men's industrious studies.
4. He that hath both the Spirit of sanctification, and acquired
gifts of knowledge together, is the complete Christian, and likely
to know much more, than he that hath either of these alone.
Where nature, grace, industry, and outward helps all meet to-
gether, they make the most useful, accomplished men.
180 THE spirit's witness to
5. They that have the greatest measure of the Spirit, are
bound to use study aud human helps, in subordination to the
Spirit. ])iligence and common helps, with God's ordinary
blessing, may bring- them in a natural, acquired knowledge, and
grace will sanctify it, and cause them to use it aright for God.
Sect. XXII.
But because they are points of great use, I will review two of
these before-mentioned, and show vou, First, That it is a great
advantage against temptations, to those particular sins or errors
that are plainly against holiness, to have this witness of the
Spirit of holiness in ourselves ; Secondly, That it is a great ad-
vantage even to the holiest man, to the clear understanding and
opening of Scriptures, to have natural and acquired knowledge,
commonly called human learning, and to be a laborious, diligent
student.
1. And for the first, all the reasons before-mentioned do
prove it ; for if the Spirit do so much befriend Christianity in
the main, it must needs also befriend the several parts of it, and
apparent means and necessaries to its support.
First, If anv man should tempt a sanctified man to doubt
whether the Gospel written by Mark, or John, were the word of
God ; the same Spirit wliich attesteth to the christian doctrine
in general, would do much by its testimony to fortify him in this.
He would find something within him so suitable to those Scrip-
tures, as would hold him to them in an honour and admiration ;
and so of others.
Secondly, If a libertine should tempt him to think that sin is
no great evil, nor displeasing to God, and that it is only as men's
consciences make it, and judge of it : the Spirit of holiness
within him, would fortify the believer against this temptation.
Alas, he hath felt that sin is bitter ; and he hath that within
him, that will force him so to judge 1 It goes against his pre-
sent taste, as bitter things are to us ; and it will need to be a
very sul)tle argument, that should force the veriest fool, or
child, or any man of sound senses, to believe that gall or aloes
are sweet, when he hath tasted them. There is a Spirit in a
saint, that is an enemy to sin, and causeth a hatred of it,
wherever he comes ; and, therefore^ is a great help against all
such temptations.
Thirdly, If any man should tempt a true Christian to question
any of God's attributes, especially those manifested in his deal-
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 181
ings with men, as whether he he wise,' and knoweth all things ;
whether he he holv, just, and hateth sin ; or whether he be
good and merciful to those that fear him ? The witness within
him would help him very much to resist such temptations. All
these attributes of God are written out in the believer's heart,
and make up God's image there ; he hath tried that God is most
wise and good, and holy, and just, and great: if any should say,
that God is the cause of men's sin, he hath that within him that
will not suffer him to entertain that conceit; if any should tempt
him to carnal, corporeal conceits of God, he hath that within
him that will not suffer him to be of such a mind.
Fourthly, If any should teach him, that there is no heaven,
nor hell, but what is in men's own conceits ; he hath that within
him that will not suffer him to be of that opinion. The very life
of grace within him, doth carry up his heart to heaven, and it
is the end of his very religion and life ; and the fear of God
within him, doth cause him to fly from the jaws of hell, and he,
as it were, hears the Spirit say to him, as the angel to Lot, when
he carried him out of the danger of Sodom's flames : "Escape,
fly for thy life : look not behind thee :" the Spirit within him
causeth him to fear God, as one that can destroy both body and
soul in hell fire.
Fifthly, If any should tempt him to doubt, whether Christ
hath any congregate church on earth, as the seekers do ; he
hath in him the experience of comfortable communion in that
church ; and withal he hath that within him, which will not
suffer him to have such base, extenuating thoughts of Christ, as
if he were a titular king without a kingdom, or could not con-
vey to men the benefits which he hath purchased, or had failed
to fulfil his promises to his church, or to make good his ground,
and maintain his interest.
Sixthly, If they would tempt him to deny that Christ hath
any ministers in office, or to revile the godly ministers as anti-
christian, or to reproach them as no ministers of Christ, he hath
that experience of Christ speaking in them, and working by
them, and maintaining by them his truth, and order in his
churches ; which is a witness within him against such tempta-
tions.
Seventhly, If he be tempted to ways of separation and divi-
sion, to withdraw from the minister as unworthy to rule him, or
from the church as unworthy to communicate' with such as he,
and so to betake himself causelessly into separate societies; he
182 THE spirit's witness to
hath a witness within him of the sinfuhiess of such a course.
That one Spirit within him, hath possessed him with an inchua-
tion to unity, and such fears of divisions, and sense of their
mischiefs, as a man hath of the dividing or wounding Ids own
hody : it hath given him that sense of his own unworthiness,
tliat humihty, that charity to others, that he is far readier to say,
' 1 am not worthy to join with the church,' than 'The church is
not worthy to join with me.' He feels such an insufficiency,
and ignorance in himself, that he rather takes himself exceed-
ingly heholden to a niinister, that will teach him, than grudges
to be taught, or says, ' 1 will not be catechised, be ruled, by
such as you.' He so loves the church, order, discipline, ordi-
nances, and ministers of Christ, that he will not easily be drawn
from them.
Eighthly, If any should tempt him to withdraw from the com-
munion of the church in the Lord's Supper, the comfortable ex-
perience which he hath had there, in the strengthening his faith,
the quickening his graces, and killing his sins, would very much
strengthen him against such temptations.
Ninthly, If he should be tempted to forbear the hearing of
the word, or the singing of psalms to God's praise, or the
prayers of the church ; he hath that experience of the happy
effects of these on himself, and that in his own heart, which cor-
respondeth with these ordinances, that it will much corroborate
him against the reasonings of deceivers.
Tenthly, If he be tempted to cast off the instructing of his
family, or worshipping God in it, he hath within him a witness
that family worship is due to that God, who must govern and
provide for, and defend him and his family ; and his experience
of the fruits of it, will do much to confirm him against such
delusions.
Eleventhly, Against the main body of the Antinomian doc-
trine, which iieth open to a plain discovery, and tendeth to a
neglect, and remissness in our duty ; he hath that within him,
that by testifying against it, may give him great advantage to
escape. I will not stand to mention the particulars, having
done it elsewhere.
Twelfthly, In a word, if any temptation do assault him, to
any branch of atheism, infidelity, or ungodliness and libertinism,
taking him off from duty, or encouraging him to sin, the wit-
ness within him will speak against itj and is a singular ad-
vantage to him for his preservation.
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 183
Especially in such cases as these, is this inward estahlishment
more necessary :
1. When men are so furiously, or subtilely, or incessantly
assaulted by the tempter, that their reason seems to be non-
plussed, and they are at a loss.
2. When they fall among seducers, who by interest or seem-
ing piety, and sheep's-clothing, or by cunning reasonings, or
confident affirmations, or terrible threats, would bear them
down from truth and unity, and do even bring them to a stand.
3. When poor Christians are of so weak parts of reason, that
they are not able to dispute against deceivers, then their inward
experiences, and the Spirit, is evidently necessary.
4. When a man is in sickness, or near death, having his body
and senses weakened, and so is less fit to make use of his reason
in a disputing way, he may make singular use of the witness
within him against all temptations.
Sect. XXIII.
I come now to the second point to show you, that in points
that are more separ-able from saving grace, learning, wit, indus-
try, and outward helps, may be so great advantage, that an
ungodly man may excel in all these, and a godly man may be
very weak : an ungodly man may be ordinarily in the right, when
a godly man, without such helps, may be mistaken. And there-
fore it is a desperate, and destructive conceit in any man, to
think, that because he hath the Spirit, he is therefore more
able to expound Scripture, or teach it to the people, or under-
stand controversies, than learned men that have not the Spirit
of holiness ; or to think, that they should go to an ignorant,
godly man for resolution and teaching, rather than to a knowing
man that is not godly, as if the former were most likely to know such
truth. And upon this conceit, men cry down human learning,
and ministers for esteeming it, and cry up the Spirit, to a use
that God doth not intend it. I have no mind, the Lord knows,
to set up any thing of man against God, nor God's common
gifts above his special, nor to draw any soul into an undue
esteem of any thing that is in their guides, but only to show
them the naked truth. I would entreat, therefore, all poor
deluded souls, that are carried away with these forementioned
mistakes, to lay by their prejudice and passion awhile, and to
weigh impartially these following considerations.
1. Consider, God is the author of nature, as well as of grace j
184 THE spirit's witness to
and so of all truths about nature, as well as about grace. AH
light is from the Father of lights, and all truths from the God
of truth : it is therefore a wicked thing to call the knowledge
of God's creatures ' human learning,' in contempt, or as if it
were not of God ; only, indeed, it is a more common knowledge,
and therefore not proper to the church, and sanctified ones ;
but yet when sanctified, it is so proper to them.
2. Consider, as God is the author both of nature and grace,
so of nature before grace ; and so natural truths, or the know-
ledge of the nature of things, doth necessarily go before the
knowledge of our recovery by Jesus Christ. And therefore, as
both are contained in Scripture, so doth the word begin with
the discovery of nature, before it mention the revelation of
grace ; " In the beginning God created the heaven, and the
earth," &;c. ; is the beginning of the Bible, Our physics are
the first part of God's word, laid down in Genesis, before the
rest ; and the necessity of this is evident. If God and man
must enter a covenant, or if man must be under a law, having
rewards and penalties, and the creatures are the materials of
the duties and conditions : we must needs know first that God
is, and what God is, as far as necessary for sueh as we, and
what man is, and what the creature is that we must use, and
what the reward and punishment are. Morality is but the mo-
dality of natural being ; and the being should be considered
before the mode : so that this part of philosophy, which we
call our physics, is necessary and divine, delivered in God's
word, and first delivered ; yea, and it is oft repeated, as in Job,
the Psalms, &c. And it was, and should be a great part of
men's study to know God's works, and God in them : for, saith
the Spirit of God, " His works are great, sought out of all
them that have pleasure therein." (Psalm cxi. 2, 3.) O how
many high and excellent praises are given to God, by the saints
in Scripture, in the contemplation of his works.
3. Consider, that the very creatures themselves, even the
frame of heaven and earth, are a book written by the finger of
God, containing in legible characters his image, 1 mean the
discovery of his glorious power, and wisdom, and goodness.
He made man perfect, as a part of this perfect world, and set
him here to see, and love, and honour his Creator, as beholding
him in the face of this glorious creation. So that it was man's
duty to read this l)ook, and find, and honour, God in all. But
man stopped in the creature itself, and overlooked God, and so
THE TRUTH OF CHIIISTIANITY. 185
fell from God to the creature. Jesus Christ having undertaken
the restoring us unto God, doth not destroy, but restore this
creation : God is still our Maker ; we have still the book of the
creature before us, though blotted by the just punishment of
our sin. It is still our duty to study, see, and admire God in
this creation : though we have another work, even of redemp-
tion, to admire, and the Lord's day specially appointed for that,
yet doth not that destroy the former, but advance it. We are
brought back to the Creator by Christ the Redeemer, and bound
now to magnify him for the works of creation, as much as
before. It is a great sin of many, and most Christians, that
they forget this, or make so little conscience of it.
If you say, ' But what is all this to the matter of human
learning ?* I answer that in the next consideration.
4. Consider, that which you call human learning, is either
the knowledge of things or words. It is honourable, in that it
is knowledge ; for ignorance and darkness is the kingdom of
Satan. That learning, which consisteth in knowing things, is
first and principally about the nature of them, to know what
they are : and this, you see, we are directed to in the word
of God, and by the book of the creature, which showeth itself
to us. So that our physics, which is a great part of human
learning, is but the knowledge of God's admirable works ; and
hath any man the face to call himself God's creature, and yet
to reproach it as vain human learning, if any shall know the
glorious works of his Creator ? The like 1 may say about the
quantities and (|ualities of these works, and the uses of them
for man's good, which take up the rest of the sciences and arts,
which you call human learning, about things. And is this to
be blamed, which the very word and works of God commend ?
Why, man, darest thou say that God hath made any thing,
which it is a dishonour for us to study and know, except his
secrets, which we cannot know ?
Indeed, if any would pry into these secrets, or pretend to
know more of God's works than he doth or can know, or do de-
liver his ungrounded conceits as certainties, or do lav more
necessity or excellency in the knowledge of smaller things than
of great, or do take up in the creature, and study it but for itself,
and the mere delight or honour of knowing, and do not look
to God, and search after him in all his works, or if he do not
employ his learning and knowledge, when he hath it, to God's
service, but to sin, or to his own vain-glorious ends : in any of
\OL. XX. Q
186 THE spirit's witness to
these cases, I excuse no learned men ; but this is but the abuse
of learning. I confess it is too commonly so abused, and our
books have too much vanities and uncertainties ; but meat and
drink is as much abused as learning, and yet you despise it not
as needless. It is true, also, that many heathens excelled in this
learning, and that they abused it in these above-said ways : but
yet it was a divine light that manifested so much of truth, even
to these men ; and it was God's truth which they received by
the study of the creatures, though they detained it in unright-
eousness. Yea, so much excellency was in it, that the abuse of
it will leave them without excuse, though they never had the
Scriptures, nor heard of Christ. " For that which may be known
of God, is manifest in them, for God hath showed it unto them.
For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world,
are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made,
even his eternal power and Godhead ; so that they are without
excuse." (Rom. i. 19, 20.) And dare you vilify that learning
that so clearly giveth us the knowledge of the invisible things of
God ? You see, then, the study of God's works is a Christian's
duty.
And for the other part of learning, the knowledge of words,
our sin and natural infirmity have made it a matter of that ne-
cessity. We cannot converse together without understanding
one another's speeches.
This learning, which consisteth in the knowledge of words, is
either the knowledge of their signification, either primitive and
proper, or borrowed and improper ; to which uses are grammar
and rhetoric ; or else the knowledge of their disposition, and use
in reasoning, and directing, or expressing the mind, which logic
performeth. And is there any man so unreasonable as to think
either of these unnecessary ? Is it not needful to understand
the signification of Scripture words and phrases, before we can
understand the matter by those words ? And is it not needful
to discern when men do reason solidly, and when they jangle
and miss the matter, or cunningly deceive ? When men speak
sense, and when they speak nonsense ? What is a man without
words, sense, or reason, but a beast ? A grammarian is one that
knows the meaning of the words, and a logician, one that knows
how to use them reasonably. And would you be without either
of these ? If any abuse these to cavilling sophistry, that is no
more reason against the right use of them, than that men should
not use reason, because bad men do abuse it. Consider, there-
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 187
forej what leaniing, true learning, is, and then you will see that
there is small reason to contemn it. When men speak against
a thing before they know what it is, no wonder if they know not
what they say.
5. The angels, and the glorified spirits of the just, know more
of God's works, and all these words and matters in question,
than the greatest scholar on earth doth, and if you come to
heaven, you will know more yourselves, at least of that much
which will then be useful to be known. And will you despise
that knowledge, as human, which is angelical, and wherein the
most perfect do most excel ?
tJ. Can you understand any Scripture, without the help of
this learning, in yourselves, or others ? The Spirit delivered it
to the world in Greek and Hebrew, can you so understand it,
before it is translated ? If not, then the knowledge of those
tongues is necessary in the translators. And would you have us
so wholly take up all on trust from them, from age to age ever
after, as not to know whether they translate it true or false ;
or whether there be any such thing as they tell us ? If you
yourselves must take it upon trust, from those that do under-
stand it, when you do not, methinks you should so much the
more honour and reverence them, whom you are fain to be so
much beholden to, and whom you must trust in a matter of such
concernment to your salvation ; as, whether ever any of this was
in the text of the Hebrew and Greek, which you find in the
English ? Sure that which is so laudable to the translators, is
not to be contemned in your teachers.
What if the Rhemist papists tell you, that the Bible is falsely
translated, I pray you what answer will you give them, if none
of your teachers knew it to be otherwise, whose words you must
take as credible persons ? Send a Hebrew and Greek Bible
into Wales or Ireland, and when that converteth souls without
an interpreter, then I will begin to think learning less necessary :
yea, or when yourselves can so understand it. Beside?, if there
be not some knowledge of the situation of jjlaces, of the customs
and state of that country, of the proverbial speeches of those
times and places, with divers like things, it is not probable that
you should understand much of the Scriptures.
7. Consider well, to what use and end it is, that the Spirit of
holiness is sent, and then you will never think that this Spirit
will serve you without common learning. This sanctifying
Spirit is given to sanctify, that is, to give us the saving know-
q2
188 THE SPIIUr's WITNESS TO
ledge of God by the in;;erpreted or expounded word, and to draw
up our hearts from the creature to him, and to conform us to
our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom we have beheved : but it is not
the office of this spirit of holiness, as such, to teach men the
knowledge of all natural truths, or the signification of words
and phrases. Many thousands that have the Spirit cannot un-
derstand a Hebrew or Greek Bible, nor could they have told, by
this time, how the year, or the week, goes about, nor how many
years have been since Christ, nor what a year is, nor what day of
the week goes over their heads, if they had never had the help
of astronomers or learned men. The Spirit of holiness is given
to bring men safe to heaven, and so it will do ; but not to make
them understand every natural or theological truth.
8. Consider : your very learning to speak, or read, or write, is
as much human learning as the learning to know the nature of
creatures, and sense of strange languages : and if you renounce
these, which you neither have by nature or grace, what persons
would you be ? You may as well say, therefore, that the Spirit
will serve without learning to write, or read, or speak ; for the
difference of the cases is only in degree, and not in kind.
9. Consider well that there are several employments that
God hath for men in the world, and in the church; and, accord-
ingly, there are several gifts of the Spirit. For salvation, he
giveth the Spirit of saving grace, which shall teach men effec-
tually the need of Christ, the evil of sin, and the like, but not
every other truth. Those whom he will employ as interpreters of
Scripture, and teachers, and guides to others, he will furnish
with gifts that are necessary for such employments. And a man
may teach others, that may not be sanctified or saved himself;
and many are sanctified and saved that are unfit to teach others.
Are all prophets ? Are all apostles ? Are all teachers ? Is all
the body an eye, or hand ? God may give teachers a spirit of
teaching, and he gave Saul a spirit of government, and many
wicked men, in the first age, a spirit of teaching, interpreting
tongues, miracles ; and deny these to better men, because he
intendeth not them to the same use. Public gifts are for public
use.
10. Consider, you must di>itingulsh between extensive and in-
tensive knowledge; between knowing more and more truths;
and knowing the same truths better, and more effectually. The
Spirit of holiness is not given, to know more truths by, than an
unsanclified man can know, but to know the same better. You
THE TRHTH OF CHRfSTIANlTY. 189
cannot name any truth which a gracious man knoweth, but an
hypocrite may have a speculative knowledge of the same, and
say the same words concerning it, as he can say. But grace
makes a man know that heartily and affectingly, which another
knows but superficitiUy : but though the Spirit cause not the
sanctified to know any man more for number of truths than an
hypocrite may know; yet the commoner gifts of the Spirit, by
study and learning, cause many ungodly men to know many
truths, which thousands of the godly never knew : which truths,
in their place, are usual and excellent.
11. Consider that it is the work of the Spirit of holiness to
cause you savingly to know, at least, fundamentals, and the sub-
stance of christian religion ; but it belongs more to learning and
a commoner gift of the Spirit to enable men to defend these same
fundamentals in disputation against an adversary, and orderly,
methodically, and aptly to teach them to others, and rationally
to explain them.
12. It is the work of the Spirit of holiness to give men saving
grace in possession, but it more belongs to the common gifts of
wit and learning, to define or describe these same graces, or
movingly to talk of them. Many a man that never had faith or
love, can give you a true definition of faith and love ; and many
a man that hath them cannot tell you what they be. Thousands
believe savingly, that have not wit enough to tell you truly
what believing is ; and many thousands have the Spirit that
know not what the Spirit is. So that an unsanctified man may
more truly, and more exactly describe any grace, by the help of
learning, than you have it by the Spirit of holiness, though you
feel the powerful effects of it, which he never felt. I can give a
truer description of any county in England, and the distance of
one town from another by my maps, though I know not the
places, than most men that live in those counties that do, be-
cause they know but a smaller part of it; and yet they know
their own homes better, and their knowledge is more sensible
and experimental, and beneficial to them.
And, by the way, you may hence perceive that ministers or
others should be very cautious how they cast any from church or
communion, because they cannot tell them how they were con-
verted, or what failh, or love, or holiness is. Seeing the Spirit
gives these graces to many, to whom he gives not wit to define
them, nor words to tell you what they do know of them. Their
lives will tellyou better than their tongues,whether they be sincere.
190 THE spirit's witness to
Obj. But how can men have faith, or love, that know not
what it is ?
Answ. They feel how it works within them, but they cannot
describe it to themselves, or others. Are not divines themselves
disagreed about the definitions of faith, repentance, and almost
all graces ? May not millions of poor men have health of bodv,
that cannot tell you what health is ; and have the humours in
right temper that cannot tell you what those humours are ?
How little know we what our own natural, animal, or vital spirits
are ; how our food is concocted ; how sanguification, and carni-
fication are effected ; how little know we of the soul itself, by
which we know, and the life by which we live ? What wonder,
then, if a man have grace, that knows but little what grace is ?
as one saith, (Lod. Vives,) " God gave man a soul to use, rather
than to know." So I may say of grace, God gives men grace to
use, rather than to know, define, describe, or dispute about.
13. It is not tlie work of the Snirit, at least ordinarilv, to
teach men any particular truths, but what mere experience
teacheth, without the use of outward means, by the industry
and study of ourselves, or others, or both : but the Spirit work-
eth by these, and blesseth these to you. Every godly man hath
more love to truth in general, and is more disposed to the re-
ception of it, than others ; and by the consideration of the fun-
damentals, the Spirit hath given him the knowledge of them :
but as it was not without their own consideration, that the first
were known, so are they not actually acquainted with all truths,
that after they shall know. It is not the work of the Spirit, to
tell you the meaning of Scripture, and give you the knowledge
of divinity, without your own study and labour, but to bless
that study, and give you knowledge thereby. Did not Christ
open the eyes of the man born blind, as suddenly, as wonder-
fully, and by as little means, as vou can expect to be illumi-
nated by the Spirit ? And yet that man could not see any
distant object out of his reach, till he took the pains to travel
to it, or it was brought to him, for all his eyes were opened.
When he was newly healed, he could not have told what was
done in Samaria, nor seen what was in Jericho, nor what a
town Tyre or Sidon was, unless he would be at the pains to
travel thither. And if he would see Rome, he must be at so
much more pains, as the place was more distant. Would you
have been so silly as to say, ' This man can presently see Sa-
maria, Tyre, Rome, because Christ hath opened his eyes?' So
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 191
is it here. If Christ have anointed your eyes with the eye salve
of the Spirit, and removed the inward impediments of your
sight, yet it is not that you may presently know all truths,
which you never heard of, or read of, or studied to know. You
must study, and study again ; and the further off, and more
difficult the truths are, the more must you study, and then ex-
pect to know by the blessing of the Spirit : let experience
witness. Did you not hear all those truths which you know
from the mouth of some teacher, or other person, or else con-
sider and study of them yourselves, before you came to know
them by the Spirit ? Go not, then, out of God's way, if you
expect his blessing.
14. Doth not experience commonly tell you, that men know
Hiore that study and have learning, than those that do not ?
Are not the ministers and other learned men, and godly people,
that have studied the Scriptures long, the most knowing people
in England? Nothing but mad ignorance or impudence can deny
it. What man breathing knew as much the first hour he received
the Spirit, as he doth after many years' study and diligent labour?
15. To reject study on pretence of the sufficiency of the
Spirit, is to reject the Scripture itself : for as a man rejecteth
his land that refuseth to till it, or rejecteth his meat if he refuse
to eat it, though he praise it never so much ; so doth he reject
the Scripture that refuseth to study it, or to study that which
must first be known, or is necessary thereto. Meditation
digesteth the word, which else is cast up again.
Obj. We would have men study Scripture, but not human
writings.
Answ. You would have men study Scripture, but not learn
to understand the words of it, or the languages it was written
in ? What a contradiction is that. You would have men
study God's word, and not his works ? The book of super-
natural revelation, and not the book of nature ; as if both were
not God's, or both our duty ?
Obj. Let men study the works of God, and spare not, but
not books of human learning.
Answ. May we not take the help of those that have studied
the same works l)efore us ? Then, if every man must begin
all anew, and must make use of no other man's helps and ex-
periments, we shall know but little, and knowledge will make
but a pitiful progress. If we may take the help of men by
talking with them, why not by reading their writings ? How-
192 THE spirit's witness to
ever, it seems you will allow us tutors in human learning. Hath
not God made men to be helpful to one another, and comnui-
nicative of their knowledge? If these wise objectors knew not
of any place or country in the world, but what themselves have
seen, or of any actions in former ages, or later, but what they
were eve witnesses of, what moles would thev be ? You mav
next persuade us to creep into our mothers' wombs again, and
refuse human help to come forth. If you will read or talk with
travellers, to know what is in other parts of the world ; and
read history to know what is in other ages of the world : why
may not we read and hear philosophers, to know what they
have found out about the nature of the creatures ?
If you would never know any thing in physic by any books or
teachings of those before you, that have learned more than you,
but every man must begin all again himself, how many would such
physicians murder; and what sots would they be ! If you knew
no more in astronomy, about the motions of the sun, moon, &;c., "
the times and seasons, than you can find out yourselves by the
observation of the heavens, what wise astronomers would you be !
What forgetful men are our enemies to human learning, that
think the Spirit enough without it; that yet thev will every year
buy a new almanac ! Away with them hereafter, or else away
with your folly ; for, certainly, almanacs are certain parcels of
the most aspiring, human learning, such as they are.
16. Consider whether, under pretence of magnifying the Spirit,
you do not bewray most notorious pride in the magnifying of
yourselves, and the contempt of those whom you are bound to
learn of. Is it not palpable pride for you that never bestowed
the twentieth part of the study and pains, as the ministers of the
Gospel have done, to understand the Scripture, to be conceited
that you understand it as well as thev? Is it a knowledge that
comes irrationally into man, he knows not how, when he never
mindeth it ? Is not the Spirit and diligent study together, like
to do more for increase of knowledge than the Spirit will do
■without such studies ? WHiy should you, in proud censorious-
ness, think that godly teachers have not the Spirit as well as
you ? They value it as much; they prav as hard for the Spirit ;
they confess the need of it as much as you ; they have the same
God, the same Christ, and the same promise as you; they show
forth the fruits of it in holiness as much as you ; and vet proud
men dare lift up themselves in l)oasting of the Spirit, and des-
pising their godly, painful teachers, as being without the Spirit :
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 11)3
not only saying, as Korah and his conspirators, ' Ye take too
much upon you ; are not all the Lord's j)eople holy ?' but also
saying, ' It is only the people that are holy, and the priests are
unholy.' And when all is done they can give no other proof of
it, but either some common, human frailties, or the falls of some
few, or the wickedness of the ungodly ones whom their faithful
teachers are as willing to cast out as they, and whom they dis-
own as well as they do. You will confess that a man that hath
studied physic all his days, is likely to be a better physician
than you that never studied it ; and a man that hath studied
law, is likely to be a better lawyer ; and that he were a proud
man that would say, ' Though I never studied these things, yet
by the Spirit I know them as well as you.' And you would see
your pride as well in this case of theology, if you did but know
and consider that the Spirit worketh by means and man's in-
dustry ; and that the gift of interpretation, understanding lan-
guages, and the creatures, is not a gift of sanctitication, but
such as is common to unsanctified men, and especially to make
men useful to others, and publicly serviceable to the godly where
they live.
17. It is God's command that ministers should study to show
themselves workmen that need not be ashamed, and to divide
aright the word of truth. (1 Tim. iv. 15.) And give them-
selves wholly to these things. (2 Tim. ii. 15.) And all Chris-
tians that will have knowledge must " apply their heart, and
incline their ear to it ; they must cry after knowledge, and lift
up their voice for understanding : they must seek her as silver,
and search for her, as for hidden treasure ; and then, in this way.
they shall understand the fear of the Lord, and find the know-
ledge of God : for the Lord (thus) giveth wisdom, out of his
mouth Cometh knowledge and understanding." (Prov. ii. 2
. — 6.) It is the description of the godly blessed man, (Psalm
i,) that he doth meditate in God's law day and night ; and
therefore he doth not expect, that the Spirit should teach it to
him, or give him the fruits of it, while he is at no labour to
procure it, but forgetteth or neglecteth it : and for the study
of the holy languages, and God's works, I have proved it our
duty before. So that you may see, that they who pretend the
Spirit as sufficient without hard studies and learning, they con-
tradict the Scriptures which the Spirit did endite, and so make
the Spirit contrary to the Spirit, lint we will believe the Spirit
in the word, rather than that in them.
194 THE spirit's witness to
18. The Scriptures plainly tell us, that there are several
ages of men in Christ, some babes, some young men, and some
fathers; (I John ii. 12, 13 ; 1 Cor. iii. 1 ;) and that they
are to grow by degrees, according to their time and standing
in the church, from one age to another, and from lesser know-
ledge unto more. " For when for the time ye ought to be
teachers, ye have need that one teach you again, which be the
first principles of the oracles of God, and are become such as
liave need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that
useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness, for he is a
babe ; but strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age,
even those who by reason of use, have their senses exercised
to discern both good and evil." (Heb. v. 1'2 — 14.) Note
here, First, That there are some truths hard, and some easier ;
some called strong meat, and some called milk. Secondly,
That many may understand the easy principles, and feed on the
milk, who vet understand not the harder truths ; and vet both
these sorts have the same Spirit : and therefore all that have
the Spirit, understand not hard truths. Thirdly, Nay, these
babes that have the Spirit, are said to be dull of hearing, and
to have been long hearing from their teachers, and yet under-
stand not ; so hardly did they learn, though they had both
Spirit, word, and teachers. Fourthly, Note, that these young
Christians, though they had the Spirit, must still live under
men's teaching, for further knowledge. Fifthly, Specially note,
that it was expected that they should have grown in knowledge,
according to, first, their time, aiid standing in the church ;
secondly, and according to their use and exercise of their senses
to discern. So that for all men have the Spirit, yet God ex-
pecteth not that they should be strong men in knowledge the
first day ; nor understand hard truths, till they had time, teach-
ing, and exercise ; yea. and oft they come short after all this,
for want of their own use and exercise with diligence.
Hence it is, that when Paul giveth direction, what kind of
persons should be ordained bishops, he saith, " Not a novice,
(that is, a late convert, or young Christian) lest being lifted up
with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil." (1 Tim^
iii. 6.) It is here a matter well worthy your observation, 1.
That young converts are not expected to have that measure of
grace, as old, exercised Christians. 2. That young converts or
novices, are far more apt and more likely to fall into the condem-
nation of the devil, by being lifted up with pride, than old, ex-
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 195
perienced Cliristians are. These things are not spoken in vain
by the Spirit ; and these times have sadly manifested the truth
of them, among us. The Lord teach young Christians to lay
them seasonably to heart.
Nay, further, note this, if it were the work of the Spirit to
give so full a measure of knowledge at the first to every one
that hath it, as these think, then how could any of those Scrip-
ture passages be true, that tell us the saints do grow and in-
crease, and that it is the nature of grace so to do ; that at first
it is as a grain of mustard seed : and we are commanded "To
grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ." (2 Pet. iii. IS.) Doth not all this plainly show, that
grace is usually least at first, and must be still on the thriving
hand ; and so must our knowledge. How, then, can young,
inexperienced Christians think, that because they have the
Spirit, they must know as much as their teachers, who have
had longer time, and greater helps and studies.
19. Consider, also, that so great is the deceitfulness of the
heart of man, and so cunningly doth the devil transform him-
self into an angel of light, to deceive men, that it is the easiest
matter in the world for a man to be confident that he hath
the Spirit of God, when it is only his own proud imagination, or
a spirit of delusion. The midtitudes of heretics in the first
ages of the church, did seem to have much of an extraordinary
spirit, but it proved a wicked spirit, by their wicked doctrines
and lives, even from Simon Magus, their leader, to many ge-
nerations after him. Those men have not most of the Spirit
that boast most of it; nor are they ever the more likely to have it,
for quick concluding that other men are without it, whose hearts
they know not. It is the easiest matter in the world to boast
of the Spirit, and reproach another as carnal ; but it is those
that have the Spirit indeed, who have the fruits of the Spirit,
and those have the greatest measure of it, that abound most in
these ; they that have the most effectual apprehensions of the
greatness, and goodness, and wisdom of God ; of their own sin,
and the need of Chiist and grace ; of the truth and excellency
of the life to come, and the vanity of this life : they that are
most conformed to Christ in humility, meekness, and lowliness of
mind, esteeming others above themselves, and serving one
another in love ; that have most hatred to sin, and care to
subdue it, and victory over it, and can most deny the flesh its
unjust desires ; that are mean in their own eyes, and seem fitter
11)6 THE spirit's witness TO
to themselves to learn than to teaclij in honour preferring one
another; that are most sensible of the excellency of the unity
of the church, and Christ's order therein ; and therefore most
abhor division and unjust separations; and that most willingly
obey their overseers in the Lord, and submit to their just
guidance, and love one another ; that have the sweetest and
most serious use of God's ordinances, and the greatest delight
in God himself, and readiness to die ; these are they that have
most of the Spirit : but, alas ! most that now boast of it, to
the contempt of their guides, how far are they from this state \
What railing accusations do they fill their writings and speeches
with, most unlike to the language of the Spirit of Christ.
What impotent slaves are they to their passions ; and what
proud boasters, and what despisers of government, unruly and
disobedient.
20. Lastly, consider whether it be not a most vile abuse of
the Spirit of God, to make it a patron and shelter of idleness ;
besides the other fore-mentioned evils. God sets men to search
the Scriptures, to seek, and cry, and dig for knowledge ; to
inquire of teachers and one another ; to meditate and study
the Scripture day and night, that their profiting may be known
to all : and these wretched souls will not only disobey God, and
indulge their flesh by ease and idleness, thinking these labo-
rious studies too dear a price to pay for knowledge, or too hard
a means to use in subserviency to the Spirit ; but besides this
carnal contempt of the light, they will reproach those that are
more diligent and studious than themselves, and most impu-
dently lay their own fault on their teachers ; calling them, 'Lazy
drones and idle ;' because they spend their life and strength in
most laborious studies, and searching of the Scripture, and
because they do not leave this work to go to thresh or plough, as
if that were the harder and more needful work for them that
have set their hands to the plough of Christ : and, yet, which
is the very top of their wickedness, they dare father all this
upon the Spirit ; as if labour and study were needless, because
they have the Spirit. Is it not enough for you to despise God
and his word by your fleshly ease and idleness, refusing to study
and meditate on Scripture day and night, but you must also
blame them that are at more pains than yourselves ; yea,
impudently blame them for your fault of idleness ; yea, and
pretend the Spirit for all this wickedness. No wonder if God
be avenged on such dealings, by giving you up to a spirit, that
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 197
indeed doth befriend and own your own course. In the first
part, yow imitate the ungodly world, who will not only refuse
godliness themselves, as too grievous to their flesh, but also
reproach them that will not do so too ; and so you will not
only refuse the pains of studying the word and works of God,
but reproach those that refuse it not as you do ; but then you
doublv exceed other ungodly ones, for they are not so shame-
less as to charge the godly, just with their own crime of profane-
ness, much less to father their wickedness on God's ^Spirit.
I know you use to allege that of Christ to his disciples,
" Take no thought what to answer, for in that hour it shall be
given you." But consider, 1. This was part of the extraordi>
nary gift of the Spirit, proper to those times for the sealing up
of Scripture. Those apostles had the use of languages without
study; must not we, therefore, study for them ? who then should
have translated you the Bible ? 2. What, if God encourage us
yet, to take no thought what to answer a persecutor, or (as Dan.
iii.,) "not to be careful to answer them in that matter, as trusting
Christ with our cause and lives;" doth it follow, that, therefore,
we must take no thought what to preach or pray, or how to
understand the word aright ; when Scripture hath expressly
commanded the contrary : " Meditate upon these things; give
thyself wholly to them, (what time then shall we have to thresh ?)
that thy profiting may appear to all : take heed unto thyself,
and unto the doctrine, and continue therein ; for in doing this
(in this painful way of study, and not in idleness) thou shalt
both save thyself and them that hear thee." (1 Tim. iv. 15 ; 2
Tim. ii. 15; Josh. i. 8, Psalms i., ii., cxix. 97, 99; 148, and
cxliii. 5.)
I have said more than at first I intended on this point, be-
cause of our sad experience of the common abuse of such con-
ceits of the spirit, and because of tlie lamentable success which
the deceiving spirit now hath through this nation ; such as I
scarce ever heard, or read of in any credible history.
Yet again I will say, that there is no reason in all this, why
any should deny the Spirit in the saints, or think that all do
falsely pretend to it because some do, or that there is no such
thing because some falsely boast of it : the best things may be
abused, and the al)use of them is most dangerous, 'i'he Spirit
saveth some, but is falsely pretended to by others ; even as the
name of God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, is made by wicked
men the common cloak for their sins, and thev ])retend them-«
198 THE spirit's witness to
selves to be Christians and God's servants, as confidently as those
that are so. But it doth not thence follow, that God hath no
servants on earth, or that there are no true Christians. Wiiat,
if the devil, wiio is an enemy to God, will say he is God, and
engage witches and wicked men to worship him as God, (as in
the heathen idols he did,) will you, therefore, say that there is no
God, because of the devil's false pretences ? So what if the
same devil transform himself into a spirit of light and righteous-
ness, and so go forth, and be a lying spirit in the mouths of
deluded ones, and say that he is the Spirit of God, will you,
therefore, conclude that there is no Spirit of God ? Then you
let the devil have his will, if he can so far wrong the Spirit, and
blind you to your destruction.
Sect. XXIV.
I should add here yet one other use of the point in hand. If
the Spirit of holiness be such a witness to Christ, and such an
advantage to the soul, against all temptations to infidelity, then
you may see that all quenching and grieving the Spirit of grace,
hath a tendency to infidelity itself, and doth obscure Christ's
testimony that is within us, and so weaken our faith. And,
therefore, what wonder if loose and careless professors of Chris-
tianity do stagger at the truth of God's word, or be weak in the
belief of it? And what apparent need is there that all Chris-
tians should be very obedient to the Spirit, and take heed of
the frame of their hearts and lives, lest they roll themselves
into infidelity before they think of it, or know where they are.
By these several ways, doth wilful sinning, and neglect of our
hearts and lives, lead men towards infidelity itself.
1. By blotting out that evidence which was within them, of
the truth of Christ, and so leaving it so dark, that they can
hardly discern it. When they have weakened, and blurred their
own graces, and too much defaced the image of Christ within
them, then it is easier than before to bring them to doubt whether
the Gospel have such noble effects : whether grace be so real a
prevailing power : whetiier it be any more than the fruit of men's
education or industry, or some melancholy disposition, or acci-
dental and common alteration on the mind ? They can judge
of it sensibly no otherwise than as they find it themselves, and
weak grace is next to none. And thus they lose their precious
advantages, and lay open their souls to the vilest of temptations.
2. A careless life and wilful sinning do tend to infidelity,
THE TRUfH OF CHUISTIANIXy. 199
by weakening tlie faith itself by which they should believe. Not
only blotting Christ's evidence within them, but also blinding
their own eyes, and disabling themselves from that act by which
it must be discerned. For as all other graces, so faith itself
will decay, as the strength of sin increaseth. No wonder, then,
if such complain of blasphemous suggestions, and darkness of
evidence of the truth of the word, and that they are assaulted
with doubtings about it, when they have cast this dust into their
own eyes, or drawn this web over them. It must be a clear eye
that must discern supernatural mysteries, and the things of
another world. Had you obeyed Christ and his Spirit, in holy
diligence, and an even conversation, you might have had all
your graces thrive, and faith with the rest, and so have been
better able to believe ; and then that would have appeared an
evident truth to you, which now you look at with wavering
doubtfulness.
3. When men have taken to a course of wilful sinning, they
grieve and quench that Spirit which must help them in believing,
and therefore no wonder if they believe but weakly, without this
help. I do not here consider the Spirit objectively, as I did
before, in the fruits of it, but efficiently or actively, as that which
must breathe upon his own graces, and assist the soul in the very
exercise of them. How can you look when you have dealt
so unkindly with the Spirit, that it should keep back the
tempter, or clear your eyes and help your faith ? What wonder
if that faith be weak which is a fruit of the Spirit, when you
have so far provoked the Spirit himself to depart ? You make
but an ill combat- with the tempter, if you drive away this guide.
If you defile his house and temple, no wonder if he leave you
in the dark.
4. If you once take to a course of wilful sinning, you will
contract such a love to your sin, that it will breed an unwill-
ingness in you (so far as it prevails) to believe the word of God
to be true ; because you would not leave your sin, you will be
loth that word should prove true, that would separate you
from it. (John iii. 19.) When men's deeds are evil, no wonder
if they love darkness rather than light : and your wills do much
to master your understanding.
5. By wilful sinning you wound the conscience, and bring
yourselves again under the terrors of God, and darken the evi-
dences of your interest in his special love, and bring yourselves
into doubting of your own salvation. And all this hath a plain
200 THE svi hit's witness to
tendency to infidelity : for if once you find your condition so
sad, you will begin to wish that God's threatenings were not
true, that so they might not fall ujdou yourself. When you
once think, that if God's word be true, you are undone, it will
sorely tempt you to wish it were not true. And if you do but
once wish it false, the devil may the more easily tempt you to
l)elieve it is false : for he hath a great advantage when he hath
got so much room in a man's will. And a man will far more
easily believe what he would have to be true, than what he
would not: experience tells us this. It is a great power that
the will hath upon the understanding in judging and believing.
It will cause a man to study for reasons to delude himself, and
take a seeming reason for current, and gladly hearken to any
one that will seduce him, by speaking that which he would have
to be true. It will make him snatch at any show of an argu-
ment, and stop his ears against all that is said against it. It
will make him look on the clearest evidence for truth, with so
much prejudice and passion, that it will be unlikely to convince
him, till God shall set in for the penal manifestation of his
justice, or by a gracious conviction for his recovery.
Hence it is that we so ordinarily find, that a galled conscience
by wilful, heinous sin, is as great a leader of men to infidelity, as
the mere force of the most subtile, argumentative deceits. When
a man that seemed religious, and believed in a sort that Scrip-
ture was true, shall secretly or openly live in whoredom, drunken-
ness, deceit, and unjust gain, or any the like wasting, crying sin,
when conscience is still gnawing him, and frighting him with the
thoughts of judgment and everlasting five; so that the man must
needs believe one of the two, either that Scripture is false, or
that he is in danger of being undone for ever : no wonder if
he choose the former, and turn his ear to seekers and infidels, and
pick up some crumbs of comfort from their dung. Men are
naturally loth to judge hardly of themselves, or to believe that
which is against them, and concludeth them miserable. They
first consider what they would have to be true, before they con-
sider what is true indeed ; and by such foolish devices they keep
up a little quiet in their minds for a while, and keep off tlie
terrors of execution by persuading themselves that there will be
no assize. But, O how short, how sad a kind of ease is this 1
How much better were it, to open the windows of the soul, and
freely let in the light of Christ, and patiently consider of the
worst, while there is remedy, and believe the threatening, while
THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 201
the execution may be i)revented, than to find it all remedilessly
true, when it is too late. Ignorance or unbelief of certain danger
is a poor way of escape. If it were but a sudden death that
made an end of them it were some ease to die unexpectedly,
and not to know or believe till they feel the stroke ; for then the
foregoing- fears would be put by ; but this will be the increase
of a perpetual misery, when men shall have everlasting leisure to
review their folly, and to bethink themselves that they might
have escaped if they would have believed the danger in time,
and so have applied themselves for the prevention.
Sect. XXV.
Hence, also, you may further see how incompetent judges unu
godly men are of the truth of Scripture and christian religion,
and how little the contradiction of such opposers should be re-
garded. You see how incapable an unsanctified heart and a
wicked life do make them of a sound, effectual belief, till God
set in with his special grace ; and, therefore, if multitudes of
such, both Jews and heathens, believe not the Gospel, but op-
pose and persecute it, it is no wonder. If you say, ' This is to
disclaim all witnesses but those of your own mind ; why may
not other men see the truth of your Gospel, if it be true indeed ? '
I answer : it is not to disclaim men because they are not already
of our mind, but because, by a vicious heart and life, they made
it so easy for themselves to be deceived. If Christ's doctrines
were but as the common precepts of philosophy, which man's
nature and carnal interest did little contradict, then you might
indeed think that one man might as well believe it as another ;
but Christ comes with his doctrine as a physician, to heal and
save men's souls, and therefore finds them all that he comes to,
under those diseases which have a contrariety and loathing of his
medicines accompanying them. The temper of their corrupted
hearts is against his truths. It is no more wonder if such believe
not in Christ, than if a sick stomach abhor or cast up its physic.
If the philosophers themselves affirm, that young men of un-
tamed passions are unmeet auditors of moral philosophy, we may
well say that carnal men of earthly, blinded minds, and unmor-
tified lusts, are unmeet judges of christian verities 3 and such
were all that ever rejected or opposed Christianity. It is true
that those which were converted by it were ill judges of this
doctrine too, till God enlightened them ; but free-grace did, by
the word, cause them to believe the word, and so make them
VOL. XX. R
202 THE spirit's witness, &:c. -
more able to discern between truth and falsehood, in matters of
that nature, for the time to come.
Sect. XXVI.
Lastly, it is hence apparent also, that the way to have the
firmest belief of the christian faith, is to draw near and taste,
and try it, and lay bare the heart to receive the impression of
it, and then, by the sense of its admirable effects, we shall know
that which bare speculation could not discover. Though there
must be a belief on other grounds first, so much as to let in the
word into the soul, and to cause us to submit our hearts to its
operations, yet it is this experience that must strengthen it, and
confirm it. " If any man do the will of Christ, he shall know
that his doctrine is of God." (John vii. 17.) The melody
of music is better known by hearing it, than by reports of it ;
and the sweetness of meat is known better by tasting, than by
hearsay ; though upon report we may be drawn to taste and
try. So is there a spiritual sense in us of the effects of the
Gospel on our own hearts, which will cause men to love it, and
hold it fast against the cavils of deceivers, or the temptations
of the great deceiver.
So much of this witness within us, as far as concerneth our
present design, viz., the strengthening of believers against temp-
tations to infidelity.
And oh, that my dear Redeemer would pour out upon my
soul a fuller measure of his Spirit, to enlighten and enliven me,
and make me more conformable to his image and will, and to
keep continual possession within me for himself; that T might
always bear about me a living, effectual testimony of Christ in
my breast; and may have yet more of this advantage against
temptations, which I have here opened unto others : and
whatsoever I have spoken mistakingly of this Spirit, or defect-
ively ajid unworthily of its admirable, curious, and yet unsearch-
able works, the Lord of mercy forgive it, with the rest of my
transgressions, in the blood of his well-beloved !
FOR
PREVENTION
OF
THE UNPARDONABLE SIN AGAINST THE
HOLY GHOST:
A DEMONSTRATION THAT THE SPIRIT AND WORKS OF
CHRIST WERE THE FINGER OF GOD.
b2
THE
UNPARDONABLE SIN
AGAINST
THE HOLY GHOST.
MATTHEW xii. 22—33.
Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind and
dumb : and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb
both spake and saw. And all the people were amazed, andsaid^
Is this the Son of David ? But when the Pharisees heard it,
they said. This man casteth not out devils but by Beelzebub
the prince of the devils. And Jesus kneiv their thoughts, and
said unto them. Every kingdom divided against itself is brought
to desolation ; and every city or house divided against itself
shall not stand : and if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided
against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand ; and if I
by Beelzebub cast out devils, by ivhom do yovr children cast
them out ? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I
cast out devils by the Spi?'it of God, then tlie kingdom of God
is come unto you. Or else, how can one enter into a strong
man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the
strong man ; and then he will spoil his house ? He that is
not with me is against me, and tie that gathereth not with me
scattereth abroad. Wherefore I say unto you, all manner of
sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blas-
phemy of the Spirit shall not be forgiven unto men. And
whosoever speaketli a ivord against the Son of Man, it shall
be forgiven him : but whosoever speaketh against the Holy
Ghost, it shall not be forgiven Mm, neither in this world,
neithe)' in the world to come.
Because it hath pleabed God to make faith in his Son Jesus
Christ, the means of" obtaining pardon of all other foregoing
sins, it is the great design of the enemy of mankind to keep us
from this faith, or to destroy it in the bud : and because God
hath made the extrinsic witness of the Holy Ghost in his mighty
and wonderful works,|to be the chief objective means, or last
206
THE SIN AGAINST
argument by which unbelievers may be convinced of the truth
it is therefore the chief design of the devil to hide from men's
eyes the force of this argument. To which end I have long
observed that he proceedeth by these degrees. 1 . He labours,
if it may be to keep men ignorant of the very matter of fact,
that ever such works were done by Christ or his disciples. To
which purpose, if he can, he will keep from them the Gospel
itself. If not, he will cause them to overlook and not observe
these wonders which it doth contain. 2. If men must needs
know the Gospel, what it saith of the glorious works of Christ,
his next endeavour is to make them conceive that all the history
of these wonders is fabulous, and that never any such things
were done as is here reported. By this temptation he assaulteth
but few learned men who are well versed in antiquities, and
must know that, by abundant, unquestionable history, and the
very confessions of the enemies, the report of these works have
been brought down to our hands ; but rather he thus assaulteth
the ignorant and half-witted men, who have gathered up a little
of that knowledge which grew near to their own doors, but
scarce knew what hath been done in other parts of the world,
or what was done in any considerable time before them, espe-
cially if he can once get them to distrust their guides, and per-
suade them that nothing is to be taken upon trust from others,
in such matters as our salvation is so much concerned in ; and
so deprive them of the benefit of the knowledge of their teachers.
Two sorts, therefore, are in greatest danger of this temptation.
First, Those that are unreasonablv diffident of all men. Be-
cause some are liars, therefore they will believe none ; and be-
cause some histories are not to be credited, they will judge so of
all. Having not judgment to discern between the credible and
the incredible ; between that history which comes with evidence
of truth and that which doth not ; nor between that which we
have cause to suspect and that which we have not. Yet do they
hold their lands and lives by men's testimony. Two witnesses
may take away either ; which were an unjust constitution, were
there not some natural credibility in men, and some natural
friendship to truth as truth. If these men would believe no-
body, and nobody believe them, how would they live and con-
verse with mankind ? If one could thus persuade an obscure
countrvman that no man is to be credited, you might easily
persuade him that there is no such city as London, and no
prince, no council, &c., and that we never had a king in England.
THE HOLY GHOST. 207
There are some cases, wherein it is folly to believe men ; and some
wherein it is a kind of madness not to believe, where the circum-
stances are such as may plainly show us that there is no deceit.
2. Those also are liable to this dangerous temptation, who
have broken loose from under the guidance and reverence of their
teachers, and have got contemptuous or suspicious thoughts of
them ; by which they are rather induced to question a truths be-
cause thev report it, than to believe them, as learners must do
if they will profit. If the devil can once bring men into this
unruliness and disorder, by their pride, so that they can know no
more than their own reading or hearing with the ordinary help
of the Spirit will afford them, and so lose the treasures of further
knowledge, which is laid up for them in their guides, whose lips
should preserve knowledge, and at whose mouth they should in-
quire of the law; (Mai. ii. 6,7;) no wonder if such should
question whether this which they read in English be the same
Scriptures which were indited by the Spirit, and written at first
in Hebrew and Greek. Much less can we marvel, if they be
liable to sore temptations, when they read of Christ and his
apostles, and their mighty works, to doubt whether ever
there were such persons on earth, or whether they ever did
such works or not. And we see already, by most fearful ex-
perience, that those people who first cast off their guides, and
received evil thoughts of them as men not to be credited, are
many of them already turned infidels, and deny the Holy Scrip-
tures to be true. God knew when he set up the office of pas-
tors in his church, that common people would not all have
hearts or time to use so much means for the obtaining of the
full and settled knowledge of the matters of the christian faith,
and thereunto belonging, as is necessary for the encountering of
all sorts of temptations ; and therefore was it his will that some
should wholly give themselves to this work; (1 Tim. iv. 15;)
that they might be, by office, the helpers and strengtheners of
their brethren ; and as men repair to physicians for advice for
their bodies, and to lawyers for their estates, so they might do to
their overseers and teachers for their souls ; and from them re-
ceive help for the repelling of temptations, and for establishment
in the faith. If one can make a silly countryman believe that
lawyers are so false that none of them are to be credited, and
that he should believe no man in such matters, you may next
persuade him that all the laws of the land are counterfeit, and
never made by king or parliament, because he never saw the
208 THE SIN AGAINST
records or rolls, or had opportunity himself to use those means
that might fully satisfy him.
It pleased Christ at first to do his works in the presence of
some chosen witnesses, and before one nation or people, and to
show himself, after his resurrection, but to some ; and to send
them, as chosen witnesses to the rest of the world, and to re-
quire the people, in all nations where they came, to believe their
report. They could not at first hearing believe them as divine
messengers, coming from God with extraordinary authority ;
but thev must believe them as common men, about matters of
fact with a human faith ; who still professed that they were eye-
witnesses of Christ's resurrection, that they saw his works, and
heard his words ; and then they brought them up to a divine
faith, by a further divine evidence. That such things were
indeed done and said, they believed on the credit of the eye and
car-witnesses, having not opportunity of seeing and hearing
themselves. That it was God that did and said them, they
were convinced by the full evidence of divine wisdom, power,
and holiness, that was in the words and deeds, the Spirit effect-
ing that conviction : that the words of God were all true, they
believed by a divine faith, because they were of God that can-
not lie. So to this day God will have the first part to be
handed down from the first witnesses by others, especially suc-
ceeding officers appointed to that end. That the first witness
did indeed give in to their successors both their verbal testi-^
mony, and also the testimony which we now deliver in the
sacred writings, that these things were spoken and done, this
people must receive much upon the credit of others, especially
appointed by office to preserve and teach them. But that these
works and words were of God, the vSpirit must persuade l)y
showing them the divine evidence; and that they are true must
be believed because they are of God. So that if God be pleased,
from first to last, to make so much use of the witness of man,
for the begetting of faith, it is no wonder if the tempter have
much advantage to make those men infidels that despise their
guides. And will not receive the just and uu{[uestionable testi-
mony of men.
3. The next and last shift of the devil is this : if he cannot
keep men from believing that ever such works of Christ were
done, and so cause them to discredit the matters of fact, then
he will persuade them that God is not the author of them. For
if man once discern that they are the works of God, he will not
THE HOLY GHOST. 209
easily be persuaded that they are delusory or evil : as when
once thev discern that the word is of God, they may well be-
lieve that it must needs be true. For he that cannot believe
that God is true of his word, and good in his works, can hardly
believe that there is a God : which almost all the world do pro-
fess to believe.
That mere man is the author of such miracles is so utterly
improbable and impossible, that I cannot find that the devil
himself doth expect it should be credited, and therefore is not
very industrious to persuade men to believe it. But all his
drift is to draw men to believe that he himself is the author of
them. As I find it in Scripture, so do I by constant observation
of Satan's order and wiles in drawing men to infidelity, that this
which I have laid down is his usual method. If he cannot
keep men from knowing of Christ and his works, he would
keep them from believing the truth of the report. If he can-
not keep men from believing that such works Avere done, his
last refuge is to persuade them that it was by witchcraft or some
power of the devil, and not by God. And if you dispute with
an infidel, Jew, or pagan, in this order must you be put to deal
with them. You may rationally prove, from the most credible
history, that Christ lived on earth, and wrought miracles, and
died, and rose again, and appeared to more than five hundred
brethren at once, and in the sight of his disciples ascended into
heaven, and sent down the Spirit upon his disciples, causing
them commonly to speak strange language, and to cast out
devils, and work miracles for a long time, both far and near.
You may make them confess all this, or deny as crediijle records
as any are in the world : and so go against the most palpable
light. And therefore the Jews do ordinarily yet confess either
all or most, at least, except the resurrection of Christ.
But then, the last fort that you must drive them out of is this,
they tell you, 'The devil can do as much as all this; and he
may do it for his own ends ; though we ourselves can do no
such works : yet little do mortals know what invisible powers
there are, or what an evil spirit may do ; and therefore these
may be the works of the devil, as many the like are which are
done by conjurers and witches.'
I have thought meet, therefore, to speak somewhat on this
subject, and to add it to the foregoing discourse. Though I
easily foresee that it will be offensive to some, u-ho will say,
1. That M-e do but bring scruples and temptations to men's
mind, which else they might never think of.
210 THE SIN AGAINST
2. That Scripture is not to be proved, but to be believed.
But the reasons of my resolution and endeavours herein are
these :
1. Because, if the foundation be not well laid, the building
may be the easier shaken. Such Christians do soonest turn
infidels, that were Christians they knew not why, or not ou
sound grounds that will endure an assault.
2. Because the lively exercise and prosperity of all graces
doth much depend on the stability of our belief.
3. Because I find that there are abundance of young stu-
dents, and other Christians, assaulted with these temptations,
of which I have heard many complain that dare not make them
known to many.
4. Because I have felt the experience in myself of the mali-
cious suggestions of the tempter in these things.
5. Because I see such abundance of people that lately seemed
to believe the Scripture, and to live godly, to turn either pro-
fessed infidels, or secret deriders of Scripture, or sceptics that
know not whether it be true or false : who go under the names
of libertines, familists, seekers, Behmenists, quakers, ranters,
&c. And it were worth the labour if any of these might be
recovered. If not, I think it is high time for us to stop up the
breach, and if it may be, to prevent the apostasy of the rest,
that we may not all turn infidels, while we zealously begin in
contendings about inferior things.
6. Because I find, as is said, that this is the devil's last as-
sault ; and the last is usually the sorest : and the overcoming
of the last is the conquering of the enemy, and the winning of
the day.
7. Because I find that those that are assaulted with this
temptation are usually men that must see reason for what they
hold : and if we can evince this, (which is far from being diffi-
cult, in regard of evidence), that Christ's great works and his
disciples, were done by the Holy Ghost, and not by evil spirits,
then I think we show the credibility and certainty of the christ-
ian religion, and that it hath evidence, and is as demonstrable
as the nature of such a subject can bear.
8. And lastly, I do this because of the heinousness and
dangerousness of this sin of infidelity, especially as against the
Holy Ghost, it being thus the unpardonable sin, and the sin
that fasteneth all other upon the soul : all these reasons have
persuaded me to this work.
And for the two foregoing objections 3 the latter of them is
THE HOLY GHOST. 211
answered in my seventh reason, and is so unbeseeming the
mouth of a true Christian, that 1 will not say against it what it
deserves, because I know it will exas])erate many that do
befriend it ; and as to the former, I say :
1. Christ himself, here in the text, hath put this occasion
before me into people's minds, so that they cannot say, T raise
occasions of doubting ; they hear the Gospel read more com-
monly than they are like to read this discourse.
2. That faith stands but totteringly, that standeth only be-
cause men hear not what infidels say against it.
3. The common temptations of Satan, and vile reasonings of
the apostates of this age, do show that these scruples are not
unheard of; and that there is more need to mention them, that
we may destroy thetn, than to silence them, that we may keep
them from being known.
SecL II.
Having said thus much, by way of preface, of the reason of
my discourse, I come next to the opening of the text ; and
therein it is not so much mv intent to determine what the sin
against the Holy Ghost is, which divines commonly dispute
of, as to tell you how it may be proved that the works of Christ
and his di«ciples were not from Satan, but from the Holy Ghost,
or the power of God.
Yet, because I would go upon clear grounds, and make the
text as plain before us as I can, I shall say something of the
nature of this sin against the Holy Ghost, though I have oft
spoken of it already ; and I shall crave the patience of those
readers, who love not to be stopped in their way with men's
names and judgments, while I yet make some mention of them
for the sake of others, and I will do it somewhat briefly; and
because the weight of the point, and great difference of men's
judgments, will occasion me to mention the more of the ancients,
I will meddle with the fewer of our latter expositors.
Text. " Then was brought unto him one possessed with a
devil, blind and dumb ; and he healed him, insomuch that
the blind and dumb both spake and saw."
1. Many wonder that there were so many in those days
possessed with devils, seeing there are so few in these. Mr.
Mead thinks that mad men went then among the possessed.
Luther thought all mad men, or most, were possessed by the
devil. However these hold, as there are some such yet amongst
212 THE SIN AGAINST
US which we have known, so it is most certain, that what way •
soever that possession did appear, there were many such, not
only then, but of many ages after, and are at this day, where
the devil doth reign with the least contradiction. The true
reason of the change is, because Christ hath mastered him and
bound him up, and, in a sort, driven him out of his kingdom,
so that he cannot do as before he did : of which we shall
have occasion to speak more anon.
2. It was not deafness and dumbness that were the only
evidences that this person was possessed, but these were con-
comitant effects.
3. The cure was done so suddenly, and without means, that
caused that conviction which the next words import.
" And all the people were amazed, and said. Is this the Son
of David ?" (Ver. 23.) The evidence of God's power began
to convince the less prejudiced and less hardened, that Christ
was the Messiah.
" But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow (or
he) doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub, the prince of
the devils." (Ver. 24.)
1. The fact was so evident they could not deny it : this,
therefore, was the last refuge for their infidelity.
2. They supposed that by some contract with that ruling
devil, he had power to cast out those that were inferior. Not
only Calvin, Beza, Grotius, &:c., but many of the ancients con-
clude, that among the devils there is a certain order, and one
that is the chief, and in power above the rest. Not only those
texts prove this that call him " The prince of the world, the
prince of the powers of the air, &:c. ;" (Eph.ii. 2; John xii.
31, xiv. 30, and xvi. 11;) but many others. He is here and
elsewhere named Beelzebul or Beelzebub, that is, as is commonly
interpreted, the god of flies, so called, as some think, by the
Philistines, who supposed themselves freed by him from a plague
of flies ; or because of the flies that stuck on the blood of his
sacrifices, as Haymo, and others ; or in contempt by the Jews,
as some think. Most suppose it is the same that is called Baal
and Bel, and originally King Belus, as the said Haymo, (Hom.
on Luke xi.). But Dr. Lightfoot saith, (Harmon, of the N. T.^
sect. 35,) the word Beelzebul was taken up for the more detesta-
tion 'as importing the god of a dunghill ;' and the sacrificing to
idols they called dunging to an idol.
If there ]>e no sort of God's reasonable creatures without
THE HOLY GHOST. 213
order and government, no not the devils themselves, who have
their prince, (and for angels our writers manifest it from many
Scriptures,) what strange blindness is it in those men, that would
only have the church without any order or government, and in
this to be worse than the kingdom of Satan ! That would have
the people be both governed and governors by a major vote,
and so properly have no governors at all I When yet they are
convinced by experience, that no other political societies can
be so guided or preserved : armies and commonwealths must
have rulers : all societies, all reasonable creatures in earth,
or hell, or heaven, must have rulers : and must the church only
have none ? As some say, no teachers in office : as others,
those teachers have no power of government.
" And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, every
kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and
every city or house divided against itself shall not stand."
*' And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself,
how shall then his kingdom stand ?" (Ver. 25, 26.)
1. Here it is supposed that Satan hath a kingdom which he
is desirous to uphold, a house that he would fain keep, a work
which he would fain carry on : of which more anon.
2. Christ argueth from an acknowledged principle, that
dividing tends to destroying.
3. He supposeth Satan not to be ignorant of this principle,
nor so loose to his own principles and wicked interest, as to be
drawn against it to the destruction of his own kingdom ; would
we could say as much of many godly men, or seemingly godly,
as to Christ's kingdom and interest. All this is most unques-
tionably true : of which more anon.
4. Christ is said to know this in their hearts, though they
spoke it with their mouths ; because it was not to him that they
spoke it, but to the people who began to be convinced by the
greatness of the work.
5. It is not only this one conclusion, which he knew in their
hearts, or which he fits his answer to, that this particular work
was done by Beelzebub ; but also that he himself was a friend
of Satan's kingdom, and in a league with him, and did his
work, and deluded men by magical power. And, therefore,
Christ's following words, and these in this verse, do tend to clear
him both in this fact, and in the main.
"And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your chil-
dren cast them out? Therefore, theyshall be your judges. "(Ver. 27.)
214 THE SIN AGAINST
Here is the second argument of Christ to confute their
calumny. Most expositors do by " your children" understand, the
disciples of Ciuist, who were children of the Jews : or at least
some that followed not, who yet cast out devils in his name :
some both these together ; some unde rstand it of the Jewish
exorcists mentioned Acts xix. 13; or such as, being taught
from Solomon a form of words, did cast out devils in the name
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob : of which sort some think that
really they did so, by the power of God, as we may do now by
fasting and prayer sometimes. Others think, it is an argument
ad hominem only, because they seemed to do so, or boasted of
it. Cyril of Alexandr. 'De rect. Fide,' (p. mihi, 30/ ;) Hieron.
'Anct. Imperfecti operis.' Euthymius, Hilary, and other of the
ancients, take it to speak of Christ's disciples ; so doth Haymo;
(Hom. in Luke xi. ;) so doth Lyra ; but withal of those that
followed him not, and yet cast out devils, which I suppose is
most likely to be the sense ; so doth Erasmus, Beza, Musculus,
Piscator, and most others of our latter writers. Cajetan takes
it either of the Jewish exorcists, or those that followed not
Christ, yet did it in his name. Calvin and Grotius suppose it is
not meant of the disciples, but the exorcists. But 1 see no
validity in their reasons. The force of the argument of Christ
lieth here : q. d. ' You see many that were born and bred
among you, of your own neighbours and kindred, yea, some that
follow not me, by the use of my name do cast out devils : and
you cannot imagine that all these should be in such a league
with Beelzebub.' These, therefore, shall be your judges ; that
is, sufficient witnesses to condemn you in judgment, as now
their actions are the aggravation of your blasphemy.
" But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the king-
dom of God is come unto you." (Ver. 28.)
As if he should say, ' Jf all these your blasphemous shifts be
vain, and it be evidently God's power which I use in these works,
then you are brought to a stand, you have no more to say, but
must confess me to be the INIessiah, and you may clearly see that
the Messiah is come ; for if a divine testimony, apparently such,
will not convince you, what will ? ' Note, that Christ's medium
is not, if I cast out devils ; but if I do it, and that by the finger
of God ; that he did it, they saw ; that he did it by the finger
of God, he proved before, and further proves after ; that his
doing it by the finger of God doth infallibly confirm his doctrine,
and so prove him to be the Messiah he now concludes : and it
THE HOLY GHOST. 215
is like he hath respect to tlieir own just expectations, concerning
the power of the Messiah when he cometh, as if he should say,
* You know the Messiah and the kingdom of God shall come in
power ; and so you now see it in my conquering of Satan, and
casting him out of his possession -, ' and this he prosecutes in the
next verse :
'' Or else how can one enter into a strong man's house, and
spoil his goods, except he first hind the strong man, and then
he will spoil his house ? " (Ver. 29.)
Christ's first argument fully proved that what he did was against
Satan's v/ill, because it wa* against his interest ; and therefore
it was not done by his power, and consequently Christ was not
his confederate, but his enemy. Here he goeth further, and
proveth himself the Messiah, and to work by a power superior^
to Beelzebubj (as well as against him,) because he bindeth him,
and casts him out; so that here is a double consequence to be
inferred : First, he that doth these things is against Satan ; and,
secondly, he that can do such things is above Satan, or the
power by which he doth it is above him, and therefore divine.
" He that is not with me is against me ; and he that gathereth
not with me, scattereth abroad." (Ver. 30.)
There are divers thoughts among expositors about the sense
of these words, though it be of no great moment to the main
business which of them holds. Some think Christ here begins
to turn his speech to the pharisees, to convince them of their
sin, and so tells them that if they do not vindicate him from
such reproaches they are his enemies ; some think that he re-
specteth both his own vindication and their danger, by such
dealing, as if he should say, ' So far am I from being a con-
federate of Beelzebub, that I am the Captain of the field against
him, and you shall find that, except you will join with me in
fighting against him, you shall be taken as mine enemies your-
selves.' To this purpose is Erasmus' paraphrase. Some sup-
pose that Christ would only prove here, that he himself is not
for Satan, but against him, because he is not a furtherer, but a
hinderer of his work and interest ; others suppose that hence
he would only infer, that Satan is not for Christ, biit against
him (and therefore doth not lend him his power) because that
their designs are contrary ; but I conceive that these two last
together make up the true sense, Christ arguing (as Grotius
notes) a minore, but concluding thence a mutual enmity between
Satan and him : as if he should say, ' Your own proverb saith,
216 ' THE SIN AGAINST
he that is not with me is against me ; and if neutrality shall be
taken for enmity in such cases of war, how much more evident
is the enmity "between me and Satan where there is such a con-
flict, and when I conquer him and cast him out ? ' The Jews
had another proverb among them seeming contrary to this,
which Christ elsewhere doth accommodate to his present occa-
sion, " He that is not against us, is with us." Both ordinary
among soldiers in the wars : when they have no need of men's
help, or might rather expect their hinderances and resistance,
they will say, ' If they be not against us, they are for us ;' that
is, it will tend to the promoting of pur business, and we must
look for no better from such kind of men. But when it is sub-
jects and obliged persons that they speak of, or when their help
is necessary and expected, then they say, ' If they be not for us,
they are against us :' we may justly take and use all neuters as
enemies. So I conceive when Christ maketh use of these two
proverbs, in the one he doth, in the words ' for me,' speak of
men's true aflfection and friendship ; in the other text he doth,
in the words ' for us,' speak only of the event and tendency of
these men's actions to the furthering of his cause. When Christ
would prove that he is not a confederate of Satan, he doth it
by the former proverb, "He that is not for me is against me ;"
but I am so far from being for Satan, that I destroy his king-
dom. When the disciples saw one casting out devils in Christ's
name, and forbade him because he followed not with them,
Jesus said, " Forbid him not ; for he that is not against us, is
for us ;" (Luke ix. 49, 50 ;) that is, it somewhat tendeth to the
furthering of our work. It is against Satan, and in such as pro-
fess not subjection to me it is somewhat if they do not resist
and hinder the passage of the Gospel, much more if they bring
any honour to my name. So we may say still, ' If you would know
whether Christ will take you for his friend, and number you with
the saved, then know that if you are not for him you are against
him, and if j'ou gather not with him you scatter abroad.' But if
you would only know how far he will tolerate you in his vine-
yard, the visible church, and how far your profession may be
eventually for him and his cause, then remember that ' He that
is not against liim is for him;' if he make but a common or
hypocritical profession of his name.
" Wherefore I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy
shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Holy
Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men : and whosoever speaketh
THE HOLY GHOST. 21?
a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him ; but
whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be for-
given him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come."
(Ver. 31,32.)
This is the text of greatest difficulty, which hath occasioned
that great diversity of expositions which we have to inquire
after :
1. What the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is that is
here mentioned ?
2. What the speaking against the Son of man is ?
3. What is meant by that affirmation, that all sins and blas-
phemies shall be forgiven ?
4. What is meant by the negative exception, that the blas-
phemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven in this life, or that
life to come ?
5. The reasons of this negative exception ?
1. The first of these is it that there is the greatest difference
about. Some few think that Christ dotli not speak to the pha-
risees as if he judged them then guilty of that sin, when he
spake to them, but as forewarning them lest they should be
guilty of it. But most judge the contrary : and it seems that
Christ speaks these words as showing the pharisees the greatness
of their sin and misery. I find not that the most ancient of the
christian writers did much inquire into the nature of this sin,
as far as their writings left us do discover. Cyprian mentions
it among other great sins, which should hinder them from too
easy receiving of the lapsed into the church. (Epist. 10. ad
Quirim. 3.) Cyril. Hierosol. in treating of the Holy Ghost, men-
tioneth it as a reason why he should be cautelous in his words, as
if he were afraid lest he should be guilty of it I)y some unmeet
expref,sion of the Spirit. Epiphanius. (Hseres. 34. vel 54. contr.
Theodotianos) makes it to be the vilifying of the Holy Ghost, or
denying his Godhead. Hilarius Pictaviens. (in Matt. Com. 12.)
makes it to be the denying of Gcd in Christ. But Can. 5. a
little more fully, he saith, that " Peccatam in Spiritum est Deo
virtutis potestatem negare^ et Christo subsfantiam adimere
aternitatis.'" This may well be noted as apart of this sin, when
unbelief hath no other refuge but the flat denial of God's power,
or attributing the evident effects of it to another ; it is this sin,
or near it ; as anon we shall see. It mav be, those ancients laid
the stress of the argument in the text on this, who use from
this text to prove that Christ did his miracles, vi aut virlute
divina, "by the power of God," (as they expound the words,) as
VOL. XX. s
218 THE SIN AGAINST
Tertul. ^ Cont. Marcion.' (Lib. 4.) Euseb. 'Praepavat. Evangel.
7.,' Greg. Nyssen. Novatian. 'De Tiinit.' And those that hence
prove the Godhead of the Holy Ghost, as Damascen. 'De ortho-
dox. Fide de Sp. Sanct.' (c. 10.) 'Greg. Nazianz.' (Orat. 24) ;
and many more. Hierome seems to take this sin to be the blas-
phemous denial of the Godhead of the Holy Ghost too ; for he
expostulateth against readmitting such from this text, though
in other places he seems to be more accurate.
Austin hath many expositions of this text, and descriptions of
this sin in several places, which hath occasioned the schoolmen,
and other papists, to make six sorts of the sin against the Holy
Ghost, as taking them from him. But he doth most solemnly,
and as of set purpose, set himself to open it, (Tom. 10. Paris.)
*De Verbis Dom.' c. 1 1, where he noteth that Christ speaketh not
of every word or blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, but of one
certain sort of sin or blasphemy against him ; for he saith, the
Gentiles, Jews, and heretics, do ordinarily blaspheme the Holy
Ghost, who are yet afterward converted and forgiven : as when
it is said that God tempteth no man, it is not meant absolutely
of every kind of temptation, but of a certain kind only; there
being tentatio adducens peccatum, a temptation to draw to sin,
which God never useth ; and tentatio pi'obans fidem, a tempta-
tion for trial of faith, which God useth. He rejecteth also their
exposition that make it to be any heinous sin after baptism ; and,
in conclusion, he determineth that it is the sin of final impe-
nitency, and the final refusing that remission^ vvhich by the
Spirit is given in the church ; not as the papists expound him,
as if he meant that all that refuse penance, (especially as a sa-
crament,) or priestly absolution, or indulgence, did sin against
the Holy Ghost ; but he means, all those infidels that will not,
by baptism in faith and repentance, come into the church, where
remission of sin is. And therefore, in conclusion, he giveth you
his sense of both together, thus : ' Ilia est blasphemia cordis
impcenitentis, qua resistitur 7'emissiom peccatorum qua fit in
ecclesia per Spirituni Sanctum.' 'It is the blasphemy of an impe-
nitent heart, by which it resisteth remission of sin, which is
given in the church by the Holy Ghost;' that is, finally resisteth
it, as before. So that a finally, impenitent unbeliever, doth, in
Austin's judgment, sin against the Holy Ghost. And I think
there is much of the truth in this, so you take it not as meant of
all such persevering infidels, which seems not to be in Austin's
mind ; but of those only that are such upon a resistance of a
certain evidence of the Spirit.
THE HOLY GHOST. 219
Ambrose seemeth to come nearer the matter, though briefly,
and to take this sin to be the sacrilegious blasphemy of infidels,
by which they take and affirm the very gracious and powerful
works of Christ to be the works of the devil, thereby likening
Christ to Satan. For hesaith, (To. 4. de Poenit. c. 4,) that this
is expressed of them who said Christ cast out devils by Beelze-
bub, " Quod Satame harediias in Us esset qui SatancB compara-
rent salvatorem omnium, et in regno diaboli constituerent gratiam
C/tristi :" that is, 'They are the inheritance of the devil, who
compare the Saviour of all to the devil, and did place Christ's
grace in the devil's kingdom.' And more fully (De Spirit. Sanct.
lib. I.e. 3.) Si c/uis corporis specie deceptus humam remissius
aliquid sentit de Christi came, quam dignum est, hahet culpam ;
non est tamen exclusus a venia, quam fide possit adsciscere; si quis
vera Spiritus Sancti digmtate7n, majestatem et potestatem abnegat
sempiternam, et putat non in Spiritu Dei ejici dcemonia, sed in
Beelzebub, non potest ibi exoratio esse veniiB, nbi sacrilegii ple-
nitudo est : that is, ' If any one, being deceived by the shape of his
human body, shall have lower thoughts of the flesh of Christ
than is meet, he is culpable ; yet is he not excluded from pardon,
which by faith he may attain. But if any one deny the eternal
dignity, majesty, and power of the Holy Ghost, and thinketh
that devils were not cast out by the Spirit of God, but by Beel-
zebub, there can be no obtaining of pardon, where there is the
fulness of sacrilege.'
Chrysostom's exposition is much to the same purpose, that
this sin against the Holy Ghost is the blaspheming of that
divine power of the Spirit, which is apparent in miracles as
distinct from the contempt of Christ, as appearing in his hu-
manity.
Athanasius (if his) hath a discourse purposely of this sin, to
show that it is the contempt and blasphemy against the divine
power, in these miracles plainly discovered, and the refusing of
Christ notwithstanding such a testimony.
To the same purpose doth Isidor. Pelusiota expound it ; that
those sin against the Holy Ghost, that, seeing Christ's miracles,
vet will not believe.
It is to small purpose to mention the mistakes of Origen and
Theognostus herein, as Athanasius ubi sup. reporteth them : oi
the mistake of the Novatians, as others report of them, that
thought tiie denying of Christ, yea, every gross sin after bap-
tism, was this sin against the Holy Ghost.
s 2
220
THE SIN AGAINST
Hesychius, in Leviticus, takes it to be final unrefoiniedness
and desperation.
Basil. (Magn. in Ethic, def. 35,) takes him to be guilty of this
sin, who, seeing the fruits of the Spirit every way correspondent
to piety, ascribeth them not to the Spirit, but to a contrary
power. And (Reg. 273) he stretcheth it too hard in the appli-
cation, saying, that is the sin against the Holy Ghost, when
men ascribe the fruits of the Holy Spirit to the enemy : as
most do who call the godliness of true Christians by the name
of vain glory ; and their zeal by the name of anger, and the
like (if this be Basil, and not Eustathius Sebastienus.) 1 will
trouble you with no more of the ancients as to this point ; only
add, that I now see in them that the right exposition of this
place was not so unknown then as I sometime thought, for all
that difference among them, which Dan. Heinsius, Pelargus,
Maldonate, and so many more do wonder at.
Our later expositors are somewhat more unanimous ; but
whether so near to the truth as most of the ancients, or many
at least, we shall further inquire.
The papists do ordinarily reckon up out of Austin six several
sorts of sin against the Holy Ghost: Lyra (in Matt, xii.) comes
up to our ordinary exposition of the protestant divines, that it
is a sinning maliciously against the known truth : and thinks
that the pharisees knew Jesus to be the Christ, and would
prove it from that : " This is the heir, come let us kill him."
(Luke xix.)
Cajetan (in Matt, xii.) takes it to be the denial of the sancti-
fying Spirit, and the ascribing Christ's powerful works to the
devil.
Maldonate (in Matt, xii.) having showed the mistakes of Phi-
lastrius, that makes every heresy to be this sin ; and of Beda,
that makes it to be the denial of remission by the Holy Ghost
in the ordinances of Christ, in the church baptism, and the
Lord's Supper, and many other mistakes herein, doth come near
the matter himself; concluding that from the nature of this
sin in the pharisees, here mentioned, the descrij)tion of the sin
against the Holy Ghost must be gathered : and saith it is the
ascribing of the manifest works of the Spirit to the devil. And
he saith, that Pacianus, Anastasius, (Q. (JS,) Hieroine, Ambrose,
Basil, speak to the same purpose as he about the nature of the
sin, though they all agree not about the point of irremissibiiity.
Our own writers commonly agree that it is a set, malicious
THE HOLY GHOST. 221
opposiiig the known truth : yet some put more as necessary.
Most of them make it to be,
1. Against the Holy Ghost enHghtening them, and working
on them, and moving them within, and not only or chiefly
against the objective testimony of the Holy Ghost in his works
without.
2. And to be ever against knowledge.
3. And of set malice.
4. Many join opposition as necessary to make it up too.
5. And some say, ' It is only the sin of those that are or
have been of the church.' We shall consider of the truth of
these anon.
Beza, (on I John v. 4, 6,) saith, ^It is an universal apostasy
from God, whereby the known Majesty of God is of set malice
opposed.'
Bucer, (in Marlorat.m he.,) saith, 'That they whose conscience
is convinced that it is the word of God which they oppose, and
yet cease not to oppose it, do sin against the Holy Ghost, be-
cause they sin against his illumination.'
Musculus {in loc.) thinks it is baptised, illuminated persons,
who knowingly, maliciously, and against conscience, do resist
the truth. And he thinks that the pharisees did it against
conscience.
Calvin, {in loc.) thinks so too : and saith, ^ Such do sin against
the Spirit dwelling in them ; turning the work of God mani-
fested to them by the Spirit to his dishonour, maliciously fol-
lowing Satan their captain.'
Piscator {in he.) saith, ' It is he that denieth the truth mani-
fested to him by the Holy Ghost, and hateth and persecuteth it.'
Pelargus thus describeth it, {in he.,) ^ It is a voluntary and
malicious renouncing the truth of the Gospel evidently known,
joined with a tyrannical, sophistical, or hypocritical opposition,
or with an Epicurean contempt of God, with an incurable con-
tumely of the heavenly truth, and an incurable desperation.*
Deodate {in he.) expoundeth it of him who hath been driven
by the extreme wickedness and impiety of his heart to utter
words of blasphemy and outrage against God and his truth, of
which he hath had the seal of persuasion and knowledge in his
heart by God's Spirit : which is tlie chief sin of the devil and
the damned, and the very height of the wicked's malice.
Stella (on Ijuke xi.) doth join with them in supposing that the
pharisees did not indeed think that Christ's works were done
222 THE SIN AGAINST
by Beelzebub ', but only would have persuaded others so against
their own knowledge.
Cartwright, Harm, {in loc.) saith, "That sin is not found among
papists, Jews, or Turks, but such only as profess the Gospel,
or at least are approvers of the Gospel and word of God."
Better saith Pareus {in loc.) : "It is their sin, who being convinced
of Christ's doctrine and divine works, do yet ascribe them to
the devil." U you would see their judgments yet more fully,
almost every common-place book will show it you.
The Lutheran divines do go somewhat further, and make the
sin against the Holy Ghost to be not only such a wilful resisting
of known truth, but also an excusing of the Spirit of grace out
of our hearts, and so they think the truly sanctified may fall into
it. Yea, they are conceited that by this way they have the
advantage which we have not, for reconciling this text, Matt,
xii., with Heb. vi. and x., this saying that all sin except that
against the Holy Ghost shall be forgiven, and that in Heb.
making apostasy incurable : whereby they, but ungroundedly, I
think, do conceive that we who deny the apostasy of any saints,
must deny also the existence of the sin against the Holy Ghost,
which is taken by many to be the same. Whereas, they
make them both possible ; and, indeed, there are some who
hold the falling away of some saints, who think they may be
again restored ; and some who think they nmst and will be
restored ; and some who hold, indeed, that some of them may
totally fall from grace, but that such can never be restored, they
being the very persons meant in Heb. vi,, and their sin, though
not only theirs, being that against the Holy Ghost. I only name
these as mistaken expositions of this text.
Illyricus makes this sin to be a persevering opposing of
known truth, and persevering impenitency, whereto he also
addeth, sinning against conscience, which he saith, driveth out
the Spirit and depriveth a man of his adoption. Twenty more
of the Lutherans might be mentioned, that go that way, but it
would be but a trouble to the reader, and therefore I pass that by.
Before I tell you what I take to be the sin against the Holy
Ghost, I shall but briefly consider of the rest of the propounded
questions, and tell you somewhat of others' sense of them, and
then resolve of them altogether : for I take it in so weighty a
point, to be too bold and unmeet when I purposely explain
such a text, to tell you my own thoughts only, without pre-
mising the judgment of others.
THE HOLY GHOST. 223
The second question is : What is it to blaspheme, or speak
against the Son of Man ? It is agreed by the most, that the
sense of these words is this : He that shall speak contemptu-
ously or reproachfully of Christ as a mere man, supposing him
to be no more ; and 2. That is so persuaded only because of
his visible humanity and the common frailties which he is
pleased to submit to, or from something which might easily, to
a rash judgment, have an appearence of the sinful infirmity also
of man^ as his eating and drinking with publicans and sinners,
&c. ; this man shall have pardon.
3. The third question is : What is meant by the affirmation,
"That all such sin shall be forgiven ?" And it is commonly
agreed on, that it is not the meaning of it, that all such indi-
vidual sins shall be actually forgiven to all men ; but as some
say, 'They are more easily and ordinarily forgiven:' as others
say, ' They are forgiven to the penitent, and only they :' which
dependeth on the next.
Quest. 4. What is meant by this negative ; * That the blas-
phemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven in this life or in
that to come.'
Answ. It is the difficulty of this, that hath made the first
question so difficult ; what this sin is. Two opinions are very
ordinary here : some think that the meaning is, ' They shall be
more hardly and more rarely forgiven that blaspheme the Holy
Ghost, but that it was never the mind of Christ to conclude in
proper sense that it should never be forgiven.' Of this opinion
was Chrysost., in loc, who saith, that ^ This sin is pardonable
and pardoned to many, but that it is less pardonable and venial
than other sins, because it is against a fuller discovery of the
truth ; Christ they knew not while he appeared to them as a
man, but the Spirit they might see in his works.'
Theophilact followeth him in this exposition, saying, that
* He that seeth Christ among publicans and sinners, and so blas-
phemeth him, though he repent not, yet shall not be called to
account, that is, shall not be condemned, so be it, he have a
general repentance of sin ; but he that saith Christ's miracles
are done by Beelzebub, shall not be forgiven unless he repent,
that is, particularly, of this sin.'
Ambrose makes Simon Magus in a sort guilty of this blas-
phemy, and yet to have hope of pardon by Peter given him.
Augustin makes all the blasphemy pardonable, which others
take this sin to consist of, and saith, that ' Gentiles, Jews, and
224 THE SIN AGAINST
heretics do blaspheme the Holy Ghost, and'yet have remission ;'
but he certainly concludeth final impenitence, which he took
this sin to consist in, to be unpardonable.
The papists commonly say that, of divers sorts of the sin
against the Holy Ghost, only final impenitency is absolutely un-
pardonable ; but all the rest are more hardly forgiven than other
sins. So the Rhemists, against whom Dr. Fulk contendeth that
this sin is never forgiven. Lyra saith it is not easily pardoned.
Erasmus speaketh yet more doubtfully, that he shall scarce
have pardon.
Maldonate will be stricter than Chrysostom, and therefore
blameth him for expounding it of a more difficult obtaining of
pardon; and doth himself expound it of an impossibility of
pardon, as considering simply the nature of the sin which hath
no excuse ; but not impossible to God, who can pardon that
which is inexcusable, as it is impossible for a rich man to enter
into heaven, as to any human power, but possible with God.
Thus he falls in with Chrysostom while he seemeth to dissent.
So Cajetan expoundeth, ' It shall not be forgiven,' that is,
not pardoned regularly. There is no rule to assure it; but yet
saith he, ' God is above all rules.'
The Lutheran divines also, do many of them, go that way of
making this sin remissible.
Wigandus and Mat. Index in Syntagm. Doct .Christian, (part ii.
page 712, and 716,) make it to be unpardonable while he re-
niaineth in it ; but labour to prove that we must not wholly de-
spair of such as commit this sin, but that some of them may be
recovered. But C. Pelargus doth contend for the absolute un-
pardonableness of it, against Bellarmine, Barradius, Salmeron,
with their associates, in Matt. xii.
Grotius pleadeth for Chrysostom's sense, and those that go
that way, and from " Heaven and earth shall pass away," Sec,
(Matt. V.,) which is, " It is easier for heaven and earth to pass
away than my word," &c. (Luke xvi. 17.) He gathereth that
the former member doth not affirm, but make the latter more
difficult ; and so he thinks there is here such a Hebraism ; and
the sense he giveth thus, ' Any crime that can be can be com-
mitted, even calumnies, which are among the greatest crimes,
shall more easilv be forgiven than that calumnv which is com-
mitted against the Holy Ghost.' Like that, 1 Sam. ii. 25. "If
one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him ; but if
a man sin against the Lord, ^vho shall plead for him ?"
THE HOLY GHOST. 225
But the reformed divines do commonly expound it of abso-
lute unpardonableness, and judge all the former expositions of
those ancientSj and papists, and Lutherans, to be forced and un-
sound.
Some question there is also about the distinction of forgiving
in this life, or the life to come ; whence the papists would
vainly gather their purgatory; but the reformed divines, and
the ancients commonly, do expound it one of these ways :
either as if he should say, ' He shall be punished both in this
life and that to come;' or, 'he shall neither have the temporal nor
eternal punishment remitted ;' or, ' he shall neither be forgiven
and absolved by the church here, nor by Christ hereafter:' or
simply, ' he shall never be forgiven :' or, ' he shall neither have
that Gospel pardon, which all true believers have in this life, nor
that sentential absolution which they shall have in judgment.'
(See Dr. John Reignolds, of this cle lib. Apocr.) 'What
Christ speaketh about the unpardonableness of blasphemy
against the Holy Ghost, is in direct facing of their tenet,
which held that blasphemy was atoned for by death, th-ough
by nothing else;' saith Dr. Lightfoot, 'Harmon, of N. T.,'
(sect. XXXV. page 30,) for which he citeth the words of the
Talmud.
The fifth question is : What are the reasons why this sin is
more unpardonable than others ?
Some say, because it is against God himself directly, and not
only against Christ as man. Others, because it is that high degree
of malicious wickedness, which is in the devils themselves, and
therefore not fit for God to forgive : because, saith Ambrose, it
makes the Saviour of all to be like Beelzebub, and placeth
God's grace in the devil's kingdom. Many say, because others'
sins deserve some excuse, that is, may admit excuse ; but this
hath no excuse. So divers of the ancients, as Theodoret, (in
Heb. X.,) of the sinning wilfully there mentioned, which is taken
to be the same. 'That which is not wilfully done,' saith he, ' de-
serveth some pardon,' that is, is capable of it. So that it seems
they mean there is nothing in this sin which may move to mercy,
or to abate the punishment, as matter of excuse. So, also, Mal-
donate, and many of his way. Our divines ordinarily say, ' be-
cause it excludeth repentance;' 'not,' saith INIusculus, 'because it
is against conscience ; but because it is not repented of.' 'And
that is,' say they, ' because through God's just judgment they are
given unto blindness and to a reprobate sense, and forsaken
226 THE SIN AGAINST
Utterly by the Holy Ghost, whom they have maliciously simied
against.'
Some very few run into that mistake, as to fly rather to God's
eternal decree of not giving them repentance, than to the nature of
the sin that makes them incapable of it; but this puttcth no dif-
ference betAveen them and the rest of the non-elect. That which
sticks with these is, that they are loth to yield that Christ died for
those that sin against the Holy Ghost, or for any but the elect ;
and, therefore, they are loth to confess that he procured for them
and bestowed on them the illumination or other gifts of the Holy
Ghost, which they reject, as if they were given to them as mer-
cies and means tending to recovery, and therefore they would
not yield that for rejecting such means and mercies they are
unpardonable.
Erasmus giveth in his thoughts thus, of the reason of the un-
pardonableness of this sin : " He that sinneth of frailty and is fit
for pardon, shall have it ; but he that blasphemeth the Holy
Ghost, whose manifest power he seeth in his works, shall scarce
have pardon here or hereafter." (See Amyraldus, his way of open-
ing this ' De CEconomia trium personarum,' p. 45, et sequentib.)
This variety of expositions is no disparagement to the words
of Christ, but showeth, as Austin saith, and out of him ' Camera-
nus in Conciliat. hvjus loc.,^ that such depths are left for our
exercise and humiliation.
Sect. III.
Having told you the judgment of learned expositors about this
text, and the nature of this sin against the Holy Ghost, I shall
next presume to tell you which I take to be the true sense of the
words, and what this sin is, and how far unpardonable, and why,
seeing among such variety of expositions we cannot receive all ;
and I shall lay down my thoughts in several propositions : First,
for the negative, which is not this sin, and then as to the affirma-
tive, what it is.
1. Every gross sin after baptism, or after solemn repentance
and confession of the baptised, is not the sin against the Holy
Ghost. This we assert against the Novatians (if they be not
wronged) it is proved, in that many such have been known to
repent and be recovered : as, also, because there is no description
of this sin in the Scripture agreeth to it.
2. Every sin, yea, gross sin, which is committed against know-
ledge and conscience, is not the sin against the Holy Ghost ;
THE HOLY GHOST. 227
else all men that commit gross sin, who are men of any know-
ledge or conscience, should be guilty of it, or most men at least ;
and none should be more guilty than those true believers that fall
into any gross sin, as David did ; for, doubtless, their knowledge
of it is greatest, and their conscience most likely to rise up against it.
3. Every sin, though gross, which is committed upon deliber-
ation and consideration of God's prohibition and displeasure of
Christ's death, of the evil of the sin, the ill effects, and the like
moving reasons against it, is not the sin against the Holy Ghost,
which is here spoken of. Though these be heinous aggravations
of any sin, (and it is a very sad case that any that fear God should
in such manner offend,) and will likely raise doubts of their sin-
ceritv in their hearts, and well may do in any that should fre-
quentle do this ; yet here is no evidence to prove it to be the
unpardonable sin.
4. It is not every sin against the Holy Ghost, no, nor every
blasphemy against him, that is this unpardonable blasphemy
here mentioned j for then, every one that ignorantly blasphemed
him, should be unpardonable ; and, then, few Jews, or Turks,
or infidels, that have lived within the sound of the Gospel,
should be curable, and so pardonable.
5. It is not all opposing or persecuting the known truth,
which is the sin against the Holy Ghost ; it may be a particular
truth and not the main christian faith, that is so opposed ; or it
may be done in a spleen against the person that holdeth it, rather
than against the truth itself; or it may be done by fear of men,
to escape some outward danger or suffering : as some in Queen
Mary's days were noted to burn others against their con-
sciences, lest they should be suspected of heresy themselves ;
and one is said to sit with others in judgment against one of
them contrary to his conscience, who afterwards suffered him-
self: or else it may be from an imperfect light, not thoroughly
convincing him of the truth, but leaving him in some doubts
that he holdeth that truth, who yet by temptation may persecute
it, as making against some lust or carnal interest of his own :
and if it will not prove murder or adultery to be the sin against
the Holy Ghost, because they are done deliberately and against
conscience, as David's were, I see not then, how it should prove
persecution to be that sin on that account that it is against
conscience ; although perhaps it may prove the person graceless.
6. It is not all malice against God, or hatred of him, that is
this blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, for there are haters of
228 THE SIN AGAINST
God of a lower rank mentioned in the second commandment
and other places of Scripture ; yea, every man, at least, that is
unregenerate, hath some of this sin. Our natural apostasy lieth
in a fulling from God to our carnal selves and the creature ;
and consequently in an enmity to him, as one that would cross
us in our way, and take us off our desired pleasures, and punish
us for our sin ; though we do not say, that every man is a
hater of God, who hath any the least hatred to him in his heart,
because we must denominate men from the affection that is
predominant ; otherwise all the godly might be called haters of
God, seeing no doubt, so far as they are imperfect, their love to
him is imperfect, and they have some measure of displacency
against his Spirit and ways, and so himself for them.
7. The sin against the Holy Ghost doth not consist in the
hatred of God or his truth as good ; for that is not possible, at
least to man while he is in the flesh.
8. All persecuting the known truth out of malice, seemeth
not to me to be the sin against the Holy Ghost, which is here
mentioned ; for if there may be a malice against truth in men
unregenerate, yea, all of them, though not blasphemers of the
Spirit ; and if they may persecute the known truth as is before
showed, then this inward malice will, or at least may, have a
hand in that persecution. The rage of all wicked men's lusts
doth boil against whatsoever doth oppose them, and if God
do not restrain such rage, and keep the apprehension of the
danger of resisting upon their hearts, no wonder if ungodly men
do in their passion even persecute the truth in malice, because
it crosseth them in the way of their sin.
9. The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is not only the sin
of professed Christians, or only of those that approve of Christi-
anitv ; nor is always against the knowledge and judgment of
the sinner: and therefore they err that say, that Jews, Turks,
and papists, are not liable to this sin ; and for aught I see, so do
they that would find out such a sin as they describe in this text.
They cannot prove that the pharisees here spoken of did believe
Christ to be the Son of God, or the Messiah, or that indeed
his miracles were done by the Holy Ghost, and not by Beel-
zebub. For 1. The Scripture saith, even of the rulers, that
through ignorance they crucified Christ, and had they known
him, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. 2. -It
is most improbable that they who so longed for the Messiah
should crucifv him v,hen they knew him, and yet deny him.
THh HOLY GHOST. 229
3. They continued to expect the Messiah while they crucified
him and after, and so do their posterity from them to this day.
4. They delivered down this blasphemy to their posterity, as
the reason of tlieir not believing in Christ, because tliey sup-
posed that his miracles were done by magic and by Beelzebub.
5. If the contrary doctrine were true, the pharisees were
Christians in mind by belief, and only hypocritically denied
their own belief; and then they denied him only with their
tongue, and not with the judgment : so Peter denied him too, and
cursed and swore that he knew not the man. Jf they say that
thev rested not in him, nor accepted him with the will, but
hated him, while they believed in him by bare assent, I answer :
1. Will not an assent have some power on the will, according
to the nature and measure of it. If the understanding deter-
mine not the will, it surely doth much towards a determination,
so that a common assent is like to produce a common consent,
as a special assent doth a special consent. 2. I dare not say
that the pharisees that blasphemed the Holy Ghost were so
far Christians as to assent to the truth, till I see some Scripture
or reason to prove it. jMany texts say the contrary, that they
believed it not.
Nay, it is a very hard question to me whether it be not only
infidels that sin thus against the Holy Ghost. And, as to this
sin, which is described here in this text, it seems to me that it
doth belong only to infidels, the pharisees being such, and the
sin reprehended in them being an aggravated infidelity, breaking-
out in blasphemy of the tongue, and wholly supported by a blas-
phemy of the mind. I doubt much whether any man that be-
lieves that Christ is the Redeemer, can be guilty of this sin, as
in this text described. Oidy all the doubt is whether the text,
Heb. vi. 10, do not describe a sin against the Holy Ghost, which
Christians may commit, which falls under the genus here men-
tioned, though not the same in specie with the pharisees ; or,
whether that sin mentioned in Hebrews be the sin which is here
called unpardonable.
And, 1. If Ludov. de Dieu's Exposition hold good, it is out
of doubt that the text, Hel). vi., hath another sense. He thinks
that it is not the commonly illuminate, but the truly godly be-
lievers that are there spoken of; and that it is so far from the
intent of the Holy Ghost to tell us that such do so fall away, as
that it is his scope to tell us the contrary ; q. d. if such should
thus sin, it were impossible to renew them by repentance.
230 THE SIN AGAINST
l^hereforc it is impossible they should thus sin; and the sense
of the Syriac interpreter, he saith, is, ' Nonpossunt itemm2)ec-
care,ut dermo renoventur ad resipiscentiam, et denuo crucifigant^
&c. ' It is impossible they should again sin to be renewed again
to repentance, and crucify again to themselves the Son of God :'
and the Arabic, ' Non possunt, &c. id revcrtantur in peccatum
quo renoventur ad resipiscentiam,^ &c. ' It cannot be that they
should return to sin to be renewed to repentance.' Or, if the
exposition of some of the ancients be right, that it speaketh
only of the not renewing of baptism, it would be little to this
business. Or else, of not readmitting them by penance, or any
other means, into the church, or into a participation of their
prayers. For myself, 1 conceive that the arguments to prove
that it is not true believers that are here meant, are not cogent.
If the apostle have respect to visible church members' privi-
leges and benefits ; of such it is but as they signify the true
membership with the privileges of such. Yet I see not, if it be
concluded that they are true Christians that are here mentioned,
that it will follow that such do eventually thus ai)ostatise : for, if
we do not receive L. de Dieu's Exposition as seeming strained,
yet a threatening supposeth not that the subject will offend and
be punished, but is a means purposely appointed to keep him
from so offending. The legislator that saith no traitor shall
escape death, doth not thereby tell us that there will be traitors,
but tells us what shall befall them if there shall be such, and tells
it us to that end, that, if it nniy be, there might be none, but
the threatening might deter them from the crime. 1 think it is
God's purpose to keep all his truly sanctified ones from apos-
tasy. 1 am sure it is his purpose to keep his elect. But, withal,
I believe that he hath decreed that the end shall be accom-
plished by the means ; and that is, that men shall be kept from
apostasy by a holy fear of apostatising, excited by the S])irit
and threatenings of Christ, supposing also the co-operation of
other graces. But whether this text of Heb. vi. speak of the
same sin as Matt. xii. ; I will delay the more full inquiry till I
come to the description of this sin.
10. It is not every one that denieth Christ's miracles or the
apostles', that is guilty of the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.
For if for want of sufficient information, or of true faith, he
believe not that ever such works were wrought, this is not an
ascribing them to the devil, nor a denying that the Holy Ghost
onlv can do such works. INlanv that have believed none of t!ie
THE HOLY GHOST. 231
Scripture to be true, or that ever Christ and his apostles did
indeed perform the works that are there mentioned, have yet
afterward believed upon better information, and the illumination
of the Spirit of grace.
11. It is not every word of blasphemy to the same import-
ance as the pharisees here mentioned, that is this unpardonable
sin against the Holy Ghost. For this sin lieth not in the bare
words as separated from the thoughts of the heart. If a man in
a frenzy, or in a melancholy, violent temptation, or in a fear to
save his life, as Peter sinned, or on the like occasion, should
speak those same words as the pharisees did, that Christ did cast
out devils by Beelzebub, this were not the unpardonable sin,
if he think not so as he speaks, nor obstinately stand in it. It
is common with most melancholy people that are near to
distraction, or very deeply melancholy, to be violently haunted
by the tempter to utter some blasphemous words against God ;
so that they are grievously perplexed, and are scarce able to
forbear ', and if they yield to the temptation, they think it is the
unpardonable blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. But the
chief seat of that sin is in the heart : it doth not consist in bare
words : unless the rest of the description be found in it, the
words prove it not.
12. It is not every doubt or shaking of our faith in this point,
that is the unpardonable blaspheming of the Holy Ghost ; much
less is it the temptation itself that will prove it. Even a godly
man may be tempted to sin against the Holy Ghost : yea, and
may too much give ear to the tempter, so that it may bring him
to suspicions of Christ's works, or cause him to question in some
doubtfulness, whether they were indeed by the power of God
or not. But then he is not overcome by these temptations.
Though they draw him to some sin, yet not to this unpardon-
able sin : though they cause his faith to shake, yet not to fail :
though he begin to doubt, yet he recovereth, and turneth not
an infidel. So that he comes not to conclude these works were
done by Beelzebub, and so to blaspheme.
13. It is not the blaspheming of particular, more obscure,
private, doubtful works of the Spirit, that is the unpardonable
sin. We are commanded not to believe every spirit, but to try
the spirits whether they be of God or not. If it fall out that
in this trial of the spirit, of a private man, or a party, we should
mistake now, and think it is an evil spirit, when it is the
Spirit of God, this is not the sin in question. If a man see you
232 THE SIN AGAINST
full of the jov of the Holy Ghost, andrashly say and think it is
a diabolical delusion, or if he hear some true doctrine from you,
and, mistaking in that point himself, shall rashly say, that it is
the devil that teacheth it you. This is not the unpardonable
sin against the Holy Ghost. For this may stand with true faith
in Christ, because it is not a blasjiheming of tliat work of the
Spirit, which is the great and necessary seal of the Gospel, but
of a more private work ; and, therefore, even the godly, in a
mistake and in a rash zeal, may be guilty of it. If a papist
shall say, that it is the devil and not the Holy Ghost that leads
the Protestants 3 or the Lutherans shall say so by the Calvinists,
or the anabaptists by the defenders of infant baptism, this is not
the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost here in question, though
another sort of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost it is. Here
are divers in this age that pretend to extraordinary revelations,
or workings and teachings of the Spirit ; and some to commu-
nion visibly with angels ; if we go to try these spirits, whether
they be of God or not, and find that the spirit of the ranteis is
a spirit of wickedness 3 the spirit of the libertines and antino-
mians, of licentiousness 5 the spirit of the Behmenists and
quakers leadeth to popery, and to railing and contempt of the
ministry, and seeing that their doctrines are contrary to the
AVOi-d of God, we conclude that it is an evil spirit that moves,
that shakes, that transporteth these men. If now there should
be some one true prophet among them, or one that indeed
is acted by the Spirit of God in the main, and should really have
visible converse with angels, which we will believe when it is
proved, and yet mix with it some of the errors of the rest, and
be taken for one of them, if we should mistakingly tell this man
that it is an evil spirit that acteth him, or that he converseth
with, this is not the unpardonable sin here mentioned, for the rea-
son before expressed. The like we may say in many the like cases.
14. If a man should be falsely informed by those he liveth with,
that Christ and his disciples were all wicked livers, and should
not hear what can be said for his better information, and thus,
hearing the miracles of the Gospel with such prejudice, should
believe and say, that they were all done by magic or evil spirits,
which is like to be the case now of many of the Jews, though
this be near to the unpardonable blasphemy, yet I think it is not
it, while men hear not the tiue case, but are merely perverted by
other men's lies, though they may hear the truth about the mat-
ter of fact, which they blaspheme.
THE HOLY GHOST. 233
15. The blasphemy against the Spirit, described in this text,
is not the mere resisting, opposing, quencliing, or hating the
internal efficiency of the Spirit in the sinner himself, as many
take it to be, who make it to be a sin against internal illumina-
tion only : but it is a sin against the external, evidencing, testify-
ing works of the Spirit; and for aught I know, it may be com-
mitted as well by those that never had any internal illumination
at all, any more than heathens and common, unbelieving Jews
have, as by those that were illuminated. I find not any extra-
ordinary illumination that these pharisees had; but contrarily
that they had eyes and saw not, and hearts and understood not,
and were blinded by Satan : it was an external work of the
Spirit, which they blasphemed, and not an inward illumination
of their own minds.
16. All final infidelity or impenitence, I think, is not this
blaspheming of the Holy Ghost. Thousands may die impeni-
tently, and in negative unbelief, that never heard of Christ. Many
may die in positive infidelity, that have heard of Christ's doc-
trine, but not of his Spirit and miracles, or not in any manner
fit to convince. Many may have a vulgar, superficial belief of all
these, and yet die impenitently as to their other sins. 7'hough
these shall certainly perish ; yet, I think, it is not as blas-
phemers of the Spirit.
^17. It is not all desperation that is the sin against the Holy
Ghost. Indeed, as desperation falls in with infidelity, or is
grounded on it, as when men despair that ever the promises of
God should prove true and be performed, so desperation may be
this unpardonable sin, if it be joined with this blaspheming of
the works of Christ, as infidelity itself may be; but otherwise
when a man believes that the Gospel is true, but despaireth that
ever he himself shall be saved by it, I take not this to be the
sin against the Holy Ghost, though it be one of those thaS
Austin once supposed it.
IS. Presumption is not the sin aganist the Holy Ghost j
though it be another that Austin once conceited to be it, if the
papists mistake him not. I mean by presumption, either a false
persuasion that we are the sons of God, when we are not, or
else, a boldness in sin upon an ungrounded conceit of God's
mercy ; which are the things that we commonly call by that
name. For, alas ! the most of mankind, before conversion, are
captivated by that sin, and tlie relics remain after.
19. It is not all envy at the grace or gifts of our brother that
VOL. XX, T
234 - THE SIN AGAINST
is this unpardonable sin, though that be another that the school-
men fetch from Austin : no, nor doth it directly or properly lie
in such an envy at all : that sin is great, but not the sin in
question.
20. It is not all epicurean contempt of the christian religion,
as Melancthon thought, as Pelargus allegeth him, that is this
sin against the Holy Ghost. Epicurus was never guilty of this
sin himself; and those, who, from an epicurean spirit of sensu-
ality, do contemn the christian religion, may yet not do it in a
blaspheming of the works of the Spirit ; but, perhaps, never
heard or considered of those works ; and, therefore, many such,
for aught we know, may be recovered.
21. It is not all falling away from grace received that is this
unpardonable sin ; the godly may fall in part from true grace.
Others may fall quite away from some common gifts of mercy,
and yet neither sin this unpardonable sin here in the text; though
apostasy may in another respect prove unpardonable, as final
impenitence doth.
22. I think that the sin against the Holy Ghost consisteth
not in the total excussion of special, sanctifying grace once re-
ceived : because I think that those that have received this are
preserved by Christ from such a total excussion or apostasy.
Otherwise, if I did believe that there ever were such a total
apostasy, I should think it were either of the same nature wi^h
this before us, or at least very near it, and of the like conse-
quence.
23. No soul is guilty of this unpardonable sin, who believeth
that Christ is the Son of God, and the Redeemer of the world,
and would fain have part in the merits and mercy of his Re-
deemer. The sin against the Holy Ghost casteth out this. It
is the sin of infidels ; or, at least, of men who would have none
of Christ if they might : those, therefore, that would have Christ,
and yet fear they have committed this sin, they know not what
it is, nor what they are afraid of.
24. It is a sign that a man hath not committed the sin against
the Holy Ghost, when he is troubled with fears lest he have
committed it, and complaineth of his danger and sad condition.
For it is the nature of that sin to harden a man in confidence
against Christ, and make him think he ought to be an infidel ;
and, therefore, will rather despise Christ, than be grieved lest he
have lost him, or shall be deprived of his benefits. These fears,
lest you have sinned against the Holy Ghost, do show that you
THE HOLY GHOST. 235
would not so sin : and if you would not, you have not ; they
show that you would not lose your part in Christ, nor be de-
prived of the fruits of his death and merits : and that shows that
you yet believe in the death and merits of Christ, and do not
blaspheme him as a confederate of Beelzebub, as the pharisees
here did. So that of all people, poor, troubled, complaining
Christians have least cause to fear that they have sinned against
the Holy Ghost. It is those that never fear it, that are most like
to be guilty of it : for it maketh men secure.
So much for the negative : to tell you what is not the sin
against the Holy Ghost, before I come to tell you what it is,
which I have not done in way of contention or contradiction of
others, but only for the better discovery of the sin, and to prevent
the causeless fears or desperation of any, who, by imagining that
they are guilty of it when they are not, may be drawn to cast
away their hopes, and give up all as lost.
For the affirmative what this sin is, I think it best to proceed
towards the discovery of it by certain preparatory conclusions,
ascending to it by just degrees : because that truths are con-
catenated, and one tendeth to introduce another into our under-
standings.
1 . The Lord Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God, that taketh
away the sins of the world ; who, coming on that business to
^ke away sin, by the sacrifice of himself hath made a sufficient
satisfaction for the sins of all men, and prescribed a way by
which he will have the benefits actually conferred.
2. The sufficiency of this satisfaction is to be measured,
judged of, and denominated, in relation to the ends for which it
is said to be sufficient; and those ends are freely determined of
by the Father and the Redeemer, whose death, therefore, is
sufficient, not to all things, but to what he willed it, or to those
ends to Vvhich he did intend it.
3. The death of Christ was never intended to be a sufficient
satisfaction for all sin absolutelj^, howsoever aggravated. It was
no satisfaction for some, and therefore no sufficient satisfaction.
It pleased him to except some aggravated sins from all pardon,
in his Gospel, and consequently in his dying, and in his intentions
about the ends and effects of his death. Not, as some conceit,
merely because they were the sins of such persons, viz., the non-
elect, whom, say they, he died not for ; for indeed he hath given
to those men a conditional pardon of other sins, but not of
these; but it hath pleased him to except the very sin itself con-
t2
236 THK SIN AGAINST
sifleied in its own aggravated nature, from all pardon, without
laying the reason only on the subject in whom it is found.
4. There must be somewhat, therefore, in the nature of that
excepted sin, that must make it unfit for God to pardon it ; or
else it would be pardoned as well as others. And that must be
either the greatness of it, or some special contradiction or incon-
sistency that it hath with the frame of God's design in the
pardoning and recovering of sinners. The former it is not
likely to be, at least, simply and proximately ; for the greatest
sinners have mercy offered them, and may have it on God's
terms : so that if the greatness of their sin lie not in a contra-
diction of God's terms of pardoning, they cannot hinder them
from pardon. So that if you ask, why cannot such sins be
pardoned, the proper answer is, because Christ hath procured
and granted out in the Gospel no pardon of them. But if you
further ask, why hath he not granted a pardon of them in the
Gospel, the answer is, because they were unfit for pardon, as
having a special contradiction to the causes of a pardon, and to
that design which the free will of God hath laid : and so it is
indeed the greatness, but not simply, but respectively, as being
thus aggravated by an opposition to this pardoning grace; that
is, the reason (as far as we may give one from the nature of the
thing) why the excepted sins are unpardonable, and Christ hath
made no satisfaction for them. ^
5. The sin against the Holy Ghost, therefore, must lie in
some such contradiction to the pardoning terms or way of God,
rather than in the absolute greatness of the sin.
(j. The tenour of Christ's promise, or covenant, by which he
pardoneth sin, is, that whosoever believeth and repenteth, shall
have all his sins pardoned. And this is in force to persons of
every age, and at every season in this life. So that, by the
tenour of this grant or covenant, final unbelief and impenitence
are excepted from pardon directly, and nothing else: but con-
sequentially, whatsoever is inseparably concomitant with them,
or is inconsistent with faith and repentance in this life. That
which is made the condition of pardon, is so far as a condition
most plainly thereby excepted from pardon itself; that is, the
non-performance of that condition is so excepted : else a man
might have the benefit without condition, and then it were no
condition, seeing it suspcndeth not the benefit.
7. The sin against the Holy Ghost, therefore, must needs be
some aggravated sort of infidelity or impenitence, or some in-
THE HOLY GHOST. 237
separable concomitant of them. But a mere concomitant it is
not, seeing it containeth in itself, as this text declareth, a reason
of its own nipardonableness. It seemeth, therefore, that it is
a sort of infidelity or impenitence itself. Yet that all infidelity,
nor all final infidelity or impenitence is not this sin, is probably
showed before.
8. There is somewhat, therefore, to be found in the nature or
present aggravations of infidelity and impenitence, that may
conclude them unpardonable, besides the mere duration or final
perseverance of them : and that is it that is found in the sin
against the Holy Ghost, and which constituteth that unpardon-
able sin : so that all final infidelity or impenitence is not the
sin against the Holy Ghost; but the sin against the Holy
Ghost, now in question, is always infidelity and impenitence,
and always proveth final ; but it is this specific sin before it
be final : it is not the sin against the Holy Ghost because it is
final, (that is, persevering to the end,) but it proves final because
it is the sin against the Holy Ghost.
Obj. But how can that stand with Christ's words, who saith
that all sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven, except the blas-
pheming of the Spirit ; then either final infidelity and impeni-
tence are the blaspheming of the Spirit, or else they must be
forgiven j and so infidels and impenitent persons will be saved ?
Ansvv. I know this objection hath seemed so difficult, that it
^"liath turned many out of that which I take to be the right wa}' ;
but J think that this is the just solution. When Christ saith that
all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven to men, he
speaks of the sin as it is in its own nature at present, without
respect to the duration of that sin. As it is not every individual
sin that he meaneth, so is it not sin as thus circumstantiated or
modified ; but sin specifically considered as it now is. There is
no manner of sin, no sort of sin, but is pardoned to some men
or other, except this sin against the Holy Ghost ; but this is
never pardoned to any. Though final infidelity and impenitence
be never pardoned, yet the same sins are pardoned when they
prove not final ; and this is all that the text means, I think ;
but now the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost hath that in its
present nature, from whence it may be concluded unpardonable,
and from whence it will necessarily prove durable to the end.
As for all other sorts of infidelity they may be cured, and some-
times are, and therefore prove not final, but are forgiven 3 but
this ever proves final, and therefore is never forgiven.
238 THE SIN AGAINST
9. It is the will of Christ to save his people from their sins
themselves, as well as from the punishment of them ; and to
pardon no sin but what is mortified so far that it S^ve not do-
minion over us. He will carry on the work of salvation entirely ;
both sanctification and justification, or pardon together. What-
soever sin, therefore, is incurable, the same is unpardonable.
10. Though the Spirit of Christ maybe called a supernatural,
that is, uncreated cause, a cause not working in a necessary,
established, natural course, but freely ; and though the graces
of the Spirit may be called supernatural, in th.at they grow not
naturally in us, nor are procured by any mere natural causes or
works of ours ; yet doth it please God to work on man as man,
as an intellectual, rational, free agent, and so to^'ork bv means
and ways agreeable to our natures, though supernaturally enforced
and elevated, and more successful : whence is the common say-
ing, that infused habits are wrought in us according to the
manner of acquired habits.
11 . As Christ hath granted the pardon of all other sins to them
that will believe and repent, so hath he granted the pardon of
former unbelief and impenitence to all that will believe and re-
pent hereafter ; as hath been, on the by, expressed before.
12. He that will not believe in Christ by the mere obscurer
predictions of the prophets, might yet believe by the plainer
preachings of John the Baptist, who pointed out Christ, and
said, " This is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the
world ;" and he that will not believe by the testimony of John,
might yet believe by the observation of the doctrine and holy
life of Christ himself; and might know that never man spake
like him, and that those were not the words of an impostor, nor
of a common man. And he that would not believe by the works
of Christ, or by any thing which they could observe in his person,
might yet believe by the observation of his mighty works, which
he did by the power and Spirit of God, and especially when that
Spirit was^given so fully and so commonly, and poured out upon
his disciples in so many countries, so that thousands of them did
speak strange languages, heal diseases, cast out devils, prophesy
or work miracles in one sort or other; and what I speak of sight,
I say also of just report. He that will not believe upon just
information of Christ's mere words, might yet believe upon in-
formation of his mighty works, and of his communicating such a
Spirit to his church to do the like.
13. He that will not believe upon the report of the glorious
THE HOLY GHOST. 239
works of Christ and his servants, because he is not persuaded
that ever such things were done, but thinks it is misrejDorted by
partial men ; though his own wicked increduHty be the cause,
yet may he afterwards, by further evidence, be convinced that
such holy, wise, and mighty works were indeed done, and so may
come to believe.
14. He that is fully convinced either by sight or the testimony
of others, or any other way, (if any other may be expected,) that
such holy and mighty works were done by Christ and his dis-
ciples, as the Scripture mentioneth, bearing on them such evi-
dences of a divine power, or the finger of God, and yet will not
believe that Christ is the Messiah, or Redeemer of the world,
hath no other ordinary or extraordinary, external, objective
means to convince him, which have in them a greater evidence,
or may be expected to do that which the former cannot do. If
such a man, therefore, be converted, it must be either by the same
means which he rejecteth as insufficient, or by a weaker means,
or by none at all. To be converted by none, is not God's way
of working with the rational creature; to be converted by smaller,
when greater are enjoyed, and both smaller and greater despised,
is as little his way as to do it by none. He that having opened
the eyes of the blind, causeth him to see by the means of extrin-
sic light, doth thereby cause him to see more by a greater pro-
portioned light than by a less; and never causeth him to see the
light of a candle, who can see no light in the sun when it shineth
in his face. It must, therefore, be by the same objective means
which he despiseth, or not at all, that he must be converted and
brought over to believe.
15. He that is so convinced, as is aforesaid, of Christ's works,
and seeth this seal of his Spirit's operations annexed to his holy
doctrine, and yet doth not believe that Christ is the Messiah or
Redeemer, that his testimony is true, and the testimony of his
apostles true which is thus confirmed, it must be either because
he believeth not yet that those works are of God in a special
manner, or else because he believeth that God is not true of his
word, or in his works, nor to be trusted, but is a deceiver of man-
kind. If he believe this latter, then there is no higher testimony
left for his conviction ; he that will not believe God when he
knows it is he, doth not indeed believe him to be God, that is,
to be the most perfectly good and true. Nor can we reasonably
expect that he should believe any other, seeing there is no truth
or faithfulness in the creature but what is derived from the true
240 THE SIN AGAINST
and faithful God ; or if he wouhl beUeve a creature, when he
takes his Maker to be a liar, this belief could not conduce to his
conversion.
On the other side, if he will not yet believe that those works
are of God, and the signs of his approbation, he must think that
eitlier they are of men only, or by devils ; for good angels do
what they do in obedience to God. The former he cannot be-
lieve without madness, because the weakness of man himself is
so well known, that all men know that of themselves no man is
able to raise the dead, to pour out such a spirit, and to do such
other works as were done ; nor did the Jews themselves, or any
enemies of Christ on earth, that ever I read of, who were con-
vinced that the works themselves were done, ever imagine or
object such a thing, that such things were done by human power:
if they had so believed, they had deified the creature against all
experience.
It must, therefore, be Satan, or his power, that these works
must be ultimately ascribed to, by those that considerately
deny them to be of God. But to whomsoever they ascribe
them, they leave themselves incurable, unless that means con-
vert them whieli they do now reject. For there is no means
left within the reach of the wit of man, by which God should
evidence to men his owning of a doctrine or testimony of man,
in a way agreeable to our nature, and the frame of God's works,
which should be more clear and convincing than this which we
have in hand. It is not fit for God to turn his creation upside
down, nor subvert the frame and course of nature, to convince
unbelievers. He is not a body, and therefore cannot be seen
himself by mortal eyes ; nor is he a voice, and therefore must be
heard by a created voice. Angels are spirits, and not bodies, and
therefore if they shall appear to us, it must be in an assumed,
borrowed shape. And if they did, we should not easily know
whether they were good or bad spirits, and whether they were
sent of God, or not : but should be left much more in doubt
than these works do leave us. Yet so far as apparitions of
angels have been useful to his people, God hath made use of
them for the confirmation of liis truth, both in the New Testa-
ment and the Old. He, therefore, that will not be convinced
that such a Spirit is of God, and such works of God, as the
doctrine of Christ and his apostles were sealed with, doth leave
himself incapable of conviction, there being no greater evidence
of God's attestation to be expected on earth ; and though men
THE HOLY GHOST. 241
may imagine that a messenger from the dead might be more
convincing, indeed it is far less, and of more doubtful credit ;
and if men beheve not, or will not be persuaded by a word so
confirmed by the Spirit from heaven in such works, " Neither
will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead." (Luke
xvi.) Or if we could imagine a possibility of more convincing,
effectual evidence, yet we cannot tie God to our fancy, nor
expect that he should use all means to satisfy us, that we can
imagine might tend to our conviction. We must know what is
fit for creatures to expect, in a rational and settled way of govern-
ment, and not what is possible to be done : and God is fittest to
judge what ways of revelation are convenient for him to use,
and mankind to receive.
It is madness to expect that God should make the sun to
stand still in the firmament, to convince every unbeliever ; or
that he should take us up to heaven, or let us have a sight of
hell, to convince us. He that will choose his own evidence and
sign before he will be convinced, would make himself the ruler
of the world, and doth not submit to the rule of his Maker.
What evidence can be mentioned de facto of a divine attesta-
tion, that ever God gave to mankind in any case, that is higher,
clearer, and more convincing than those works by which he
hath sealed to the Scriptures, and especially by the Spirit of
Christ in himself and his disciples ?
16. That he who doth make this the refuge of his unbelief,
to impute the works of Christ and his disciples to Beelzebub,
doth thereby make the devil to be as God, and God to be as
the devil, and so, besides the casting away of the highest and
utmost evidence of conviction, doth most intolerably blaspheme
the Spirit of God ; this I shall have occasion more fully to
manifest in the body of this ensuing discourse.
17. As it is manifested that he who rejecteth this evidence
of the Spirit must be convinced by the very same which he
rejecteth, or never be convinced ; so it is further manifest that
he who hath been convinced tiiat these works were done, and
y.et upon deliberation doth resolvedly reject them as no testi-
mony of God, cannot be convinced afterwards by the same tes-
timony, without some greater illumination and operation of the
Holy Ghost upon his mind, than he had at the first considera-
tion. For he can expect no greater, but the same external,
objective cause of his conviction : which, being but the same,
will do but the same work. Only it is true that God could, if
he pleased, and it were fit, send such an inward light into his
242 THE SIN AGAINST
soul, that should convince him of what he saw not before, even
in and by the same external evidence. But without this special
illumination of the Holy Ghost, it cannot be done.
18. It seems to me from this and other texts, that he who
goes so far as is before mentioned against the Holy Ghost, viz.,
as after conviction of the truth of Christ's and his disciples'
works, to deny them to be of God, and father them on the
devil, and so to call God's Spirit, Beelzebub, and on this ground
to be an infidel and impenitent, hath done such despite to the
Spirit, and so heinously abused God by this blasphemy and
rejecting of his grace, that he will utterly forsake that man,
and judgeth it unfit to call him home to repentance, and taketh
him for an incapable object of his mercy, and therefore will
certainly give him up to a perseverance in his infidelity and
impenitence to the end, and will never pardon him in this life,
nor absolve him at judgment, but condemn him to everlasting,
remediless misery : and that this is God's decree, and these
limits he hath set to the exercise of his pardoning mercy in
Christ.
And thus, by these steps, we are come up to the nature of
the blasphemv against the Holy Ghost, and the unpardonable-
ness of it, and the reasons of that unpardonableness. In a
word, it seems that the sin, as laid down to us in this text, is
this :
When a man is convinced that Christ and his apostles, or
other disciples, did perform those many and mighty works
which are mentioned of them in the Gospel, as working of
miracles, speaking with strange languages, living in holiness,
especially of Christ's own resurrection from the dead, or many
of the chief of these ; and yet shall be so far from taking these
for a divine attestation, and believing in Christ as the Messiah,
and receiving his holy doctrine confirmed thereby, that they
shall in their hearts determine and be resolved that it was by
the power of the devil that these works were done, and so
make this the ground or refuge of their obstinate unbelief; in
so doing, they commit the unpardonable sin of blasphemy
against the Holy Ghost, whether they utter the blasphemy with
their lips or not.
J 9. Whether the bare rejecting of these acknowledged works,
if the rejecter should not father them on Satan, be this unpar-
donable sin, if hereby a man take refuge for his unbelief, I shall
not now determine. Only say, 1 . That tliis which I have de-
scribed is clearly it : and 1 will stop my determinations in
THE HOLY GHOST. 243
what is clear. 2. That, as I have showed, it is scarce reason-
ably conceivable that these works, when once acknowledged,
can be ascribed to any other but Satan, if they be disbelieved,
or how a man can reject this testimony by any other than this
blasphemous way. 3. But if another way may be imaginable,
I will not secure that person from the guilt of this unpardonable
sin, though I will not charge him with it, but shall leave that
as J find it*
20. Another hard question lieth before us; whether it be only
the blaspheming of this objective testimony of the Spirit that
is the unpardonable sin, or whether also there be not a certain
kind or degree of the inward illumination, and working of the
Spirit, and that for repentance and sanctification, as well as to
belief; which whosoever rejecteth, or at least in such or such a
manner rejecteth, doth commit this unpardonable sin ? I did
before conclude, that it is not only against this inward illumin-
ation : now let us see whether it be at all specifically consist-
ing herein.
I know that it is commonly thought that a malicious rejecting
this internal light is the unpardonable sin. I purpose in so
great a matter to deal cautelously. It is no small error to tell
men that that is an unpardonable sin which is not, or that that
is a pardonable sin which is unpardonable. I have, I think,
plainly discovered from the text one description of the unpar-
donable sin : if any will bring more, it must be well proved
from Scripture. Yet this I may say,
1. The inward work of the Spirit is either of common gifts,
as learning, and the like, by succeeding our industry ; or it is in
extraordinary gifts, which yet are not certainly saving, as mira-
cles, tongues, prophecies. Sic, such as the sealing Spirit gave
for the confirmation of christian religion at the first ; or thirdly,
it is in the special saving graces of Christ. The first of these
concerneth not our present business. For the other two the
Spirit is first considerable as effecting them ; and then the effect
itself is considerable as it should be reviewed by us, and be the
objective cause of some further effect. Now when our question
is, whether rejecting the Spirit within ourselves may be the
unpardonable sin? 1 answer distinctly: 1. If the Spirit be
considered as the efficient cause of miraculous gifts, it effects
them irresistibly, where such gifts were given, and the resisting
of that work is not this sin.
2. If we speak of this gift of miracles as an effect of the
244 THE SIN AGAINST
Spirit; so according to Christ's usual way of conveyance, I
think it was in none but beUevers, at least by that called an
historical faith ; and therefore it could not be that sin which is
an aggravated infidelity. Yet in sensu diviso I believe that the
same man that is now such a believer, having the Spirit of
miracles, may fall away to infidelity, and lose that Spirit ; and
that he may so lose it, as to sin against the Holy Ghost : not
by resisting that Spirit as efficient, but by rejecting the testi-
mony of its works objectively considered : so that if one that
had found such gifts in himself should conclude that those
gifts were from Satan, and so turn infidel and blasphemer, thus
he may as well sni against the Holy Ghost which was within
him, as without him.
3. As for the gift of sanctifying grace, which is it that con-
cerneth us in these days. 1. I suppose that when the Spirit
hath effected it in us, it is not lost ; yet in specie it may be
said, ' That for such a man that hath had such grace to lose it
and ascribe it all to Satan, and so blaspheme the Spirit that
gave it,' this would be the unpardonable sin j because, though
the grace of sanctification in others may not be such a full,
convincing evidence, because we cannot see their hearts, yet
the grace in ourselves doth so expressly bear the image of God,
that it may be a full, convincing testimony of the truth of
Christ ; and so the blaspheming of it, objectively considered
in our reviews, may be this sin. But as long as such a thing
doth ever exist, we need not say so much of this, only we may
say ; ' That though it never be, yet if it should be,' it would be
the sin against the Holy Ghost : 1 say not that all aj)ostasy
would be so, but this so aggravated. And perhaps we may ex-
pound some texts as forbidding or threatening such a sin,
though it never shall be. But if they should be in the right that
affirm against us a total apostasy of the truly sanctified as in
being, then this would deserve a fuller consideration than now
1 conceive it doth. 2. And if you consider the Spirit of sanc-
tification, not objectively but efficiently, then either in the
effecting of grace, or before such effecting. In the effecting, it
cannot be so resisted ; for if it do effect it, the person is a
believer and sanctified ; if before, then either before a true,
consequent sanctification, and that is not the unpardonable sin
which hath sanctification and pardon following it ; or it is said
to be before it only, as being in duty as to us, and by appoint-
ment from God in order to it ; and here sticks the doubt.
THE HOLY GHOST. 245
whether the Spirit drawing us towards Christ or sanctificatioii
may be so far resisted, as that the sin shall be unpardonable ?
If so, then it is either specified such from the degree or kind of
work that is resisted, or from the manner of resistance. If it
be from the degree or kind of grace or work resisted, then did
not some sanctified ones once resist that same degree or sort of
grace, before a greater or more effectual work did come and
cause them to believe? If you say, no; then you must say that
the same grace in kind and degree doth cause one man to
believe which resisteth not, and another it doth not cause to
believe who resisteth, and so no grace is necessary to overcome
that resistance and make a difference ; and then it is man's
will that must make God's grace effectual, and God did not
give any more to him that believeth, than to him that believeth
not. And whose doctrine this is, and how commonly and justly
rejected, is known. But if you say that it is from the manner of
resistance that this sin is specified, that manner must be showed.
Is it the hatred of the truth, or maliciousness of our resistance ?
I have showed, that according to the degree of sin that is in us,
there is a malice against the truth in all ; not as truth, for so it
is in none on earth, but as it is contrary to our carnal inclina-
tions and interest. It must, therefore, be some certain degree
or kind of malice, if it lie in that ; but that I have not seen
opened yet. Yet, 1. I will not say that certainly no resistance
of the Spirit of grace in its efficacy is this sin : though 1 am not
yet convinced of it, I dare not, in so weighty a cause, to i)e so
confident and bold as to warrant any from that danger. 2. I
am not of the mind of that learned doctor of ours, who thinks
that the Spirit is never resisted in its efficiency, but only by dis-
obedience in its precepts : I confess his arguments are pretty
catches to show wit, and nonplus some disputers, but, methinks,
they are not cogent. 3. And I add, ' That though this resisting
the highest degree of common, gracious operations of the Spirit
be not (as I rather think it is not) the sin here in question, yet
such a malicious, obstinate resistance there may be, as may leave
a man in a case next to this, or so far forsaken that he is never
likely to escape ; that though his sins be pardonable, yet it may
be a hundred to one that they will never be pardoned, as a most
dangerous disease may be called curable where not one of a
hundred is ever cured of it ; so dangerous may it prove to go so
far in striving against the Spirit of grace : many a thousand that
did not commit the unpardonable sin, as I suppose, are yet for
246 THE SIN AGAINST
their rejecting of grace, and obstinacy therein, forsaken by the
Spirit, and given up to blindness and to a reprobate sense, and
strong delusions, so that they never repent nor are recovered to
salvation.' If any think I conclude not peremptorily enough in
these weighty and difiicult points, I desire that the said weight
and difficulty may excuse my cautelousness : so much of the
description of this sin.
Obj. But that text, Heb. vi. 4 — 6, seemeth not to agree
to your description of this sin ; for you make it to be the sin of
infidels : there it is made the sin of such as were illuminated,
and had been made partakers of the Holy Ghost. You make it
to be a blasphemous rejecting of the objective testimony of the
Spirit : there it seems to be an excusing of the internal gifts
of the Spirit received.
Answ. 1. I have already showed that it is not very clear that
it is the same sin that this text speaks of, at least as existing;
but, perhaps, either a threatening of the godly to deter them
from that sin, or a description of another sin. 2. But I confess
I rather incline to think it the same sin, and therefore let that
be now supposed : and, 1. I say that, m seiisu composito, I said
the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit vvas the sin of infidels ; but
not in sensu diviso always. They are infidels when they commit
it; but before, some are, and some are not. This sin (Heb. vi.)
is total apostasy, and surely that is an apostasy to infidelity; and
therefore such total apostates are all infidels. 2. Jt seems to
me that this sin (Heb. vi.) is the rejecting of the objective tes-
timony of the spirit of miracles or extraordinary gifts, by
which the truth in those times was confirmed. For, l.They
themselves are said to have tasted of the heavenly gift, and the
powers of the world to come, and were made partakers of the
Holy Ghost : and it will be granted that this was not the spirit
of true sanctification, if the thing were ever existent ; therefore
it is most likely to be the spirit of extraordinary gifts, com-
monly called the Holy Ghost in those times, which those had
that shall cry one day in vain, " Lord, have we not done many
wonderful works, and cast out devils in thy name ?" (Matt, vii.)
And if they had themselves this spirit of wonders, and yet fell
away to total infidelity, it seems they did reject even the objec-
tive testimony of that spirit as insufiicient. 2. They could not,
in those days, but be convinced of the matter of fact, that such
works were done, when, in all churches, many of them were so
common. 3. May UQt the crime that is charged on them inti-
THE HOLY GHOST. 247
mate this, that they crucify the Son of God afresh, and put him
to open shame ? That is, as some learned expositors think,
they judged him such a one as the Jews did that crucified him,
and, to his open dishonour, accused him of that same crime,
and so justified their putting him to death : that is, they judged
him an impostor: and so to judge of Christ, notwithstanding
the testimony of those miracles which they had been convinced
of, is the sin which we have been describing. 4. They could
not be believers without believing Christ's resurrection, at least,
which is one great miracle; therefore they must needs reject
the testimony of that.
If you say that these are not said to ascribe these works to
Satan, I answer, it seems implied in that, as is showed before,
there is scarce another way to total infidelity imaginable with
them that are convinced of the works as to matter of fact : but
whether the rejecting of that testimony, without ascribing it to
Satan, may be that sin or not, I before left undetermined.
Obj. All total apostasy is here made the incurable sin; but
all total apostasy is not the sin which you have described.
Answ. 1. It is unproved that it is all total apostasy that is
mentioned in Heb. vi.; it being expressed only of them that had
been partakers of the Holy Ghost, that is, most likely for the
operation of wonders, which all that profess Christianity do not
partake of. It is said also that they crucify Christ afresh, which
it is doubtful whether, in that sense, all total apostates do.
2. Or if it should extend to all total apostates of those times
and places, who must needs know that such mighty works were
done, and such a Spirit given, yet it followeth not that it must
needs extend to all total apostates in after ages through the
world ; of whom many became professed Christians by educa-
tion, example of others, for reputation, or they knew not why,
having no consideration of these great works, nor any know-
ledge in themselves or others of such a Spirit. If these shall
afterwards totally withdraw their profession, on a false conceit
that such a Spirit was never given to attest the christian verity,
it is doubtful whether this be the incurable apostasy which this
text describeth, which supposeth that the persons themselves
had the Holy Ghost and its illumination, and lived among his
mighty works.
3. If a man have been, indeed, a believer historically, he
must needs believe that miracle of Christ's resurrection, which is
essential to the christian faith ; and if he withdraw not that be-
248 THE SIN AGAINST
lief of the matter of fact, and yet believe not Christ to be the
Messiah or Mediator, it is hard to conceive on what other
grounds he can do it tlian as against the Holy Ghost.
4. However, because this text is very dreadful, I will not un-
dertake to prove any total a))ostate free from this sin, but leave
it to a better expositor, having found out that which is undoubt-
edly this sin ; and the case of such apostates must needs be
very dreadful, if it be not this sin that they are guilty of, having
fled so far from grace as they have done, so that it is unlikely
that ever they should be restored : especially if God had ever
permitted true believers to apostatize totally, there being but
one regeneration, but one baptism to signify and seal it, I should
think there is but one resurrection from spiritual death, and
that it were most likely that their sin were this incurable sin,
from which they could not be renewed to repentance. And as I
have said, 1 see not but the text may speak of such, as sup-
posing the sin to be possible in itself, and such as we are in
danger of, and should fall into, if grace by warnings and threat-
enings did not prevent it: though yet it be not future as to the
event, because by these means it will be prevented.
Obj. But why should not a total apostasy in the will, affec-
tions, and practice, be the unpardonable sin, though it be not
total as to the understanding in point of belief? Is it not an
aggravation of sin that it be against knowledge ? and is it not
most like to the sin of the devils, who believe, and yet are total
apostates from God ?
Answ. 1. If such a sin as a total apostasy of the will, with-
out that of the understanding, may be found in man, I will not
excuse it from this charge, though I will not affirm that it is the
blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, but will leave it to further
inquiry.
2. It is not, I think, the absolute greatness of the sin, that
we must here look at, but the inconsistency with the remedy.
3. I do not yet conceive how in this life the will can totally
apostatize without the understanding : the case is much diiferent
between men on earth and the devils or damned. They may
have their belief and knowledge, with a total apostasy in morals,
and a full hatred of God and the Redeemer, because that abso-
lute desperation duth accompany that belief, so that they look
upon God as their irreconcilable enemy. But men on earth
are in another case. To believe in Christ the Saviour here, is
to believe in one that would be their Saviour, and offereth salva-
THE HOLY GHOST. 249
tion to them, and hath not given them any cause to despair:
And if you say, that by a causeless or mere penal despair they
may be brought to it here, I must needs say, that I never knew,
nor heard, nor read of any such, tliat by total desperation were
brought to a total apostasy of heart, and absolute hatred of
God, or the Redeemer. But other apostates we know too many.
If any think that these answers that I have given do not free
this text, Heb. vi., from a seeming contradiction to Matt, xii.,
unless we take all total apostasy to be the sin against the Holy
Ghost, and so give it another description than I have done,
I leave them to consider whether that saying, "All manner of
sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven," may not be meant as
Grotius expounds it, not as affirming them remissible but easier
to be remitted, or nearer to it : as Luke expresseth that by,
" It is easier for heaven and earth," &c., which Matthew expressed
by, " Heaven and earth shall pass," &;c. I mention not this as
my own opinion, nor yet as taking the exposition of the following-
clause in his way, to be so probable as this ; viz. that, unpar-
donableness is but hardly pardoned : but it is this clause alone
that I speak of.
And though, in the point of irremissibleness, I have told you
my own thoughts already, as being loth to strain such express
words as those that say, " This sin shall not be forgiven ;" yet, if
any should bring such reasons as should force me from that
exposition, that which seems next to it in probability is this
following : That it is Christ's purpose here to signify the reason
why infidelity is the unpardonable sin. As if he should say,
" If I had not done the works which no man else could do, and
manifested fully the attestation of God by these miracles and
works of the Holy Ghost, then you might have been saved by
your former belief in the Messiah, without believing determin-
ately that 1 am he : but now if you believe not that I am he
when I have showed you the attestation of God, you shall die in
your sins, unpardoned.
And thus it should make only final unbelief against the Spirit's
testimony to be unpardonable, and, therefore, unpardonable
because the testimony is so full. This exposition supposeth
that if Christ had not sealed his doctrine with such a Spirit and
such works, then men might have been saved on those terms on
which salvation was before attainable, that is, among the Jews,
by believing in the Messiah to come, indeterminately.
Near unto this also is the following exposition, which taketh
VOL. XX. U
250 THE SIN AGAINST
the word " forgiven" in the text, for the conditional grant of
forgiveness as it is given out by God in Christ ; as a grant of
pardon under the Sovereign's hand is commonly called a pardon,
though but conditional, especially when the condition is but
acceptance, as in our case ; which usually runs in the terms of
an absolute grant. As if Christ should have said, "If you sin
against the Creator's moral law, you shall have a pardon in my
blood, on condition you will believe. If you will not believe
upon the sight of my person, and hearing of my doctrine only,
1 will vouchsafe you the remedy of my miracles, and those
works of the Spirit which are the very finger of God discovered
to you. But if you will not by this remedy be brought to believe,
you shall never have a pardon upon another condition, nor ever
have a higher objective remedy to cure your infidelity, that so
you may have pardon thereof.
Yet this exposition supposeth that there may be an after
success of the same remedy, though no grant of another j and
so a pardon thereupon be received.
Some go further, and expound it thus 5 as if all blasphemy
against Christ's manhood, and all rejecting of him, if he had
done those extraordinary works, should be pardoned without a
particular repentance, by the general repentance for sins of
ignorance. But this rejecting and blasphemy of the testimony
of the Spirit shall not be pardoned without a particular repent-
ance : and consequently a man might live and die in the former,
and yet be saved, but not in the latter. If this extend only to
the Jews that had not the discovery of Christ's works before,
and that had a general belief in the Messiah, then it is near to
the former exposition. But if it extend to the gentiles that
have no faith in the Messiah at all, and suppose them to have
actually a repentance on which they are forgiven without faith
in Christ, yea, forgiven their rejecting of Christ, in case they
hear only of his person, sufferings, and doctrine, without his
miracles, then it goeth much further than the first exposition.
Note, that in all these expositions it is agreed, that though
this blaspheming of the Holy Ghost be not a sin against
knowledge and belief, (as others think,) that is, a sin of the will
and tongue against the judgment, as at present convinced, yet
is it ever a sin against the highest means of knowledge and
belief. It is not believing when they have the fullest evidence
to force belief, though it be not a blaspheming of what they do
indeed believe.
THE HOLY GHOST.
251
To gather the sum of all into a few words, for the sake of
weak memories. This much is out of doubt with me, that this
siti lieth ill the rejecting of the objective testimony of the Spirit
extraordinarily then attesting Christ's doctrine, as being the
highest and last objective remedy of unbelief. The three
persons in the blessed Trinity have each one their stiveral ways
of recovering man, and for the remission of his sin, and there
are several ways of sinning against each of them, as men sin
against their dispensations. When we had sinned against the
Creator and his perfect law, he gave us his Son to be our Re-
deemer. There was his proper work for our pardon, together
with the acceptance of the price of redemption, and the giving
us into the hands of his Son, as his redeemed ones. The Son
made satisfaction to justice, and sent forth to the world a con-
ditional pardon under his hand and seal, with his word and Spirit,
to persuade them to accept it. This is his work for our pardon,
antecedent to our believing. The Spirit enditeth and sealeth
this written, delivered pardon, by mighty works, and importu-
neth the hearts of sinners to accept it. If it be accepted.
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost do actually pardon us. If it be
not accepted merely as sent by the word of the Son, we sin
against the Son by unbelief. If it be not accepted or believed,
as sealed and urged by the Spirit, (yea, or if sealed extrinsically
only,) then it is the sin against the Spirit, supposing that seal be
discerned and considered of, and yet resolvedly rejected. So
that here are three, the last remedying means rejected at once.
When man was fallen, the Father provideth a sacrifice for his
sin, and but one sacrifice : the Son tendereth to us a remedying
covenant, and but one such covenant. The Spirit of Christ,
especially in his extraordinary works, is the convincing, attesting
seal, to draw men to believe, and there is but one such Spirit
and seal. He that sinned against the law of works, hath all
these remedies in their several orders. But if you refuse this
one sacrifice, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin. If you
refuse this one remedying covenant, there is no other covenant
after it to be expected : and if you refuse this sealing and sanc-
tifying Spirit, which would draw you into the covenant, there
is no other spirit or seal to be expected. Thus much is out of
doubt : and, therefore, he that finally continueth to refuse this
sacrifice, covenant, and seal of the Spirit, shall perish for ever.
But then, whether the text further mean that he that doth
once, or at any time, refuse this Spirit, shall be certainly given
u2
252 THE SIN AGAINST
over to final infidelity or iinpenitency, and whether the same
means which was once refused, may not afterwards, by a greater
internal help and light, become effectual, this I will not peremp-
torily determine, but only tell you my present opinion ; that
because the text doth speak so expressly, it is safest to interpret
it so ; that whosoever doth blaspheme the Spirit, as is before
described, shall be forsaken, and left to final infidelity and im-
penitency, and so never have the pardon of his sin.
And whether there be any certain degree of the inward mov-
ing or illumination of the Spirit, which when it is obstinately
resisted, or rejected, doth leave the sinner certainly remediless, I
leave to the inquiry of them that know more.
Quest. But it is strange that, in a case of so great moment,
God would leave things so dark and doubtful to us.
Answ. So much as was most necessary for our knowledge is
most clear. For the rest it sufficeth to know that such a thing
is a sin, and of heinous aggravation, and bringeth the sinner into
exceeding danger ; and seems rather an act of God's great wis-
dom to leave those men in some doubt, whether their sin be
curable or no, who would venture to go to the utmost line, and
to approach so near to the uncurable sin. It tendeth to the pre-
vention of that sin in others, to let men know the doubtfulness
of recovery : and yet it may tend to the recovery of those that
are in it, to leave it but doubtful, that they may not be shut up
under diabolical despair : especially while the main promise is
cleared and secured to us. That whosoever believeth and re-
penteth shall have pardon. So that it is now the duty of all
men to believe and repent, rather than to stand inquiring
whether they have committed the unpardonable sin ; and by so
doing they may be assured that they have not committed it.
For he that can repent and believe, did certainly never commit
that sin. This, therefore, is the surest and speediest way to
quiet them that are afraid that they have committed that sin.
So much for the opening of the text.
Sect. IV.
Having, in the explication of the text, endeavoured to make
known to you, what the sin against the Holy Ghost is, I come
next to the maiji thing intended, which is to endeavour the pre-
vention of this sin ; and that in the handling of this following
doctrine, which is offered to us in Christ's reply to the Pharisees.
(Verse 25, 26, 28—30.)
THE HOLY GHOST. 253
Doct. The enmity of Christ, his doctrine and works, against
Satan and his kingdom, his opposition to him, and conquests
over him, are a certain evidence that it was not hy his power,
but by the power of God, that Christ did perform his wonderful
works : and his apostles in hke manner performed theirs.
The doctrine hath two parts, which we must distinctly handle.
1. That there is such enmity between Christ and Satan; such
a combat of Christ against Satan, and such a conquest of him.
2. That by these it is certainly proved, that Christ was none
of Satan's confederates, nor did work by his help or power.
The former must be done by comparing the disposition,
interest, and works of Christ and Satan together, that so we may
fully behold the contrariety ; where we first show you what is the
disposition, interest, and work of Satan, and then show you how
Christ doth contradict and conquer him, and show his enmity to
him in all.
Let us, therefore, distinctly consider, 1. Of the nature. 2.
The interest. 3. The designs. 4. And the actions and en-
deavours of Satan ; and of the nature, interest, design, and
actions of Jesus Christ ; and you will see the same contrariety
between them, as is betwixt darkness and light, death and life,
evil and good.
That there are such unhappy spirits as we call devils, or evil
angels, I will not be beholden to the infidel to acknowledge; and
to evince it to that sort of them that we are now to dispute
against, is needless : for if they were not convinced of it, they
would not ascribe the works of Christ to such spirits. And for
the sadducees that believe not that there are good or bad angels,
they shut their eyes against the light of the sun, and deny the
undoubted discoveries of sense itself.
For, 1. We see that this earth on which we live is but a very
small part of God's creation, and as a spot to the rest of his
visible works ; we see that there are sun and moon, and other
planets, and a vast space above us, and about us. We see, also,
that even this lower and baser world doth so abound with living
creatures, that almost no place is destitute of a plenty of in-
habitants. The earth is inhabited by man with all sorts of beasts ;
vea, the worms and moles do live within it. The water is re-
plenished with fishes ; the air with birds and flies. And if the
baser world be so replenished with i)ihabitants, is it likely that
the more high and noble parts of the creation are wholly empty
and uninhabited ? or, if the earth have creatures so rational as
254 THE SIN AGAINST
man, is it likely that the more noble parts are furnished with
such as are destitute of reason only ? or, is it not to reason itself
most strongly probable, that the more comprehensive and noble
parts of the creation, which are above us, are furnished with more
noble and rational inhabitants ?
2. And that some of these are evil, by their own fall and
faults is further evident, as shall be declared anon. And because
the proof of the being of devils will be despatched in our proof
of their nature and works, to make short of it, we will refer it
thither, and so next proceed to that.
1. The nature of these angels or evil spirits is considerable,
either in regard to their substance, and physical powers, and en-
dowments ; and so they still remain excellent creatures ; which
is the honour of their Maker, but small comfort to themselves ;
or else it is considerable in regard of their moral qualities ; and
so they are most vile, and wicked, and totally depraved, and
turned from God. The consequent whereof is their penal
misery proportioned to their sin.
Their evil, corrupted natures are the fountains of their interests,
designs, and actions; and, therefore, they all follow this vitiated
nature ; v/hich the abuse of their own free-will, by sinning and
rebelling against God, was the first cause of.
This wicked nature disposeth them, 1. To dishonour God,
because they hate him, as being totally apostatized from him,
and punished by him, and know him to be unreconcilable to
them, as they are to him.
2. Their nature inclineth them to seek their own honour, and
to draw that which is due to God unto themselves.
3. They are natural haters of virtue and holiness.
4. They are natural haters of the good angels, who are con-
trary to them, and stand fast in the perfect obedience of God,
and do resist and overcome these evil spirits.
5. They hate all mankind, and wish their ruin; but especi-
ally the saints, with their deepest hatred.
6. They love that which is evil, and are wholly inclined to it.
II. From these six parts of their wicked inclinations, we may
know wherein their wicked interest doth consist : and then we
may know who is for them, and who is against them.
1 , The chief part of their interest is placed by them in the
injury of God ; though they cannot hurt him, they will wrong
him, and so come as near it as they can. The kingdom of
Satan is chiefly in hindering the kingdom of God.
THE HOLY GHOST. 255
2. Their interest lieth in being believed and worshipped
themselves instead of God.
3. And in the suppression of true piety and righteousness, and
banishing it out of the world.
4. And in the dishonour of the good angels, and prevalency
against them, if they could.
5. In the ruin and destruction of mankind, and the dis-
turbance and vexation of the saints that are against them.
6. And in the abounding and predominancy of all kind of sin,
and the defiling and corrupting the works of God. Herein lieth
Satan's interest, agreeable to his nature.
III. By this it is easy to know his designs, and what is the
work that he would carry on in the world ; for it is but this
promoting of his interest according to his depraved nature.
For these it is that he is so vigilant and diligent ; for these ends
he walketh night and day, and employeth all his endeavours to
accomplish them.
But I suppose by this time I hear the sadducee calling for my
proof of these things, and asking, ' How shall we know that the
devils have such inclinations, interests, and designs ? ' To which
I answer, that we that believe God's supernatural revelations in
his word, do know it thereby j but for those that do not, they
may know it by the evil actions of these spirits, which are so
agreeable to these natures, interests, and designs.
IV. We shall next, therefore, speak of these actions of Satan,
by which all the former are fully manifest. Three or four of
these discoveries I have spoken of already in my second part of
the ' Saint's Rest,' but yet shall add a few words more con-
cerning them on this occasion.
1. By his transactions with witches, it is fully manifested that
the devil is such a one as the Scripture doth describe him to be,
and hath such designs and endeavours as we have now mentioned.
As for those men that will not believe that there is such a
thing, but suppose all the talk about witches to be delusory, and
that they are but fantasms that delude the persons themselves,
or forced confessions by which they delude others, if they be not
so proud as to scorn to hear reason, nor so lazy as to refuse the
easy means of better information, nor so mad as to be incapable
of understanding the plainest, satisfactory evidence, I would tell
them how they may be cured of their error. First, Let them
read well, with sobriety and impartiality, but these few small
books following: Nicolas Remigius * Daemonolatreia;' Joh.
256 THE SIN AGAINST
Bodiiius De ^ Magorum Daemonomania ;' Jac. Sprangerus, an
inquisitor of Collen, with his colleague, his 'Malleus Malifico-
luni ;' Paulus Grellandus, a lawyer that judged them in Italy;
Danceus, ' Dialog. De Sortiariis;' Ulricas Molitor, his 'Disputa-
tion to the Emperor Sigismond, ahout Witches ;' Joachimus
Camaracensis 'De NaturaDaemoniorum;' Turquemeda Hispanus
Hortus; Pet. Mamoreus 'De Sortilegis j' Henr. Coloniensis 'De
Lamiis.'
Secondly, let them take a journey into Essex and Suffolk,
and inquire of the cause why such multitudes of them were lately
put to death ; or let them confer with the justices of assize, or
peruse the records, and see what was proved against them, and
then I doubt not but there may be much done to their convic-
tion ; and if neither serve turn, let them fall out with some
witch, and try whether they have power to do them hurt, so it
may be done without discovery and danger.
The writers before-mentioned are themselves competent wit-
nesses, having been divers of them questors, or judges, that have
themselves heard all the examinations and evidence, and the rest
men that had sufficient opjjortunity to be informed of them.
Sprangerus and Grillandus wrote the histories of such as they
condemned, when they had put multitudes of them to death ; so
did Remigius, adding to those that himself had examined the
histories of others, as they are upon record in the rolls of those
courts or judicatories that did condemn them. In the like way
had Bodin his information, partly from their own mouths and
the witnesses, and partly from the court-rolls and the judges ;
and the writers are for learning, sobriety, judgment, impartiality,
and known credibility and fidelity, beyond exception. If men
of such place and reputation in their countries had wrote so
many falsehoods about matters of public fact, done before the
country at assizes, or in open courts, and had falsely alleged so
many public records, it would easily, speedily, and certainly have
disgraced them ; and they tell you the year, the month, and oft
the day, the place, the persons' names, and tell you where you
may yet find the records.
Remigius tells us of eight or nine hundred that were put to
death for witchcraft in that small compass, in Lorraine ; besides
about eight hundred more that escaped. A notable witch in
France, called Cenomanus Triscalanus, when he was condemned,
promised to discover others if he might be pardoned ; and, upon
king's pardon, was brought into public assemblies and conven-
THE HOLY GHOST, 257
tions, where he knew the faces of those whom he had seen at
their hellish sabbatisms, and, upon the sight of them, told the
inquisitors how they should find them marked : which they
found accordingly. But he accused so many rich and poor, that
favour and tenderness of the number and quality caused the
persecution to surcease. This man confessed before the king
(Carol. IX.) and a great company of his nobles, the very same
things as the rest of them commonly did confess, about their
assemblies, and the manner of their solemnities : Bodin and
Remigius mention this. And the same Bodin tells us of thirty
of them at once, falling out among themselves, and enviously
accusing one another, and all confessing the thing to the death,
and reporting the same manner of their common assemblies as
the rest do : this was apud Cenomannus, in France, but newly
then done. The manner of their assemblies we shall speak of
anon. Of the many Valerian witches also that made the same
confession of the manner of their contracts and assemblies,
Danaeus and Bodin give us the history ; in Savoy the place is.
If now the incredulous will say, that all these people were
falsely accused and unjustly burned, besides the sufficient
witnesses, and the competency of the judges, their own confes-
sion may confute that objection. Jf it be said that they were
forced to it, the contrary is certain of multitudes tbat confessed
at the first accusation : yea, many of them refused to petition
for their lives, but begged that they might presently die, profess-
ing that they were so cruelly used by the devil for not fulfilling
his desires, or for having thoughts of repentance, that they had
rather die than live such a life, which they could no longer
endure : many of them also have been seen in their assemblies,
and taken in the fact. Many of them have, by anointing them,
taken their husbands and children along with them, who have
accused them on sight, and they have confessed all. Yea, some
have been seen at their meetings in the daytime, though that is
not common, and in the midst of their feast, who at the naming
of God or Jesus Christ have all vanished, and left their plate
behind them, which hath been brought to the magistrate, and
the owners known by it, and been burned upon confession of
the fact. And lest you say, that it is only silly, miserable people
that are a-weary of their own lives that make such confessions,
there have been many noble women, and counts, and barons, put
to death in France, that have confessed all themselves, as Bodin
and Remigius will tell you, with their names, the time, place,
and confessions. Yea, doctors of divinity of tlie popish
258 THE SIN AGAINST
profession, that have been executed upon confession, and unde-
niable proofs. If you say, that all these were but phantasms and
delusions, 1 answer :
1 . If that were so, yet must it be a diabolical power that must do
so much to delude men's phantasies ; and an evil spirit it must
needs be, that would by such delusion abuse them unto evil.
2. But could a delusion carry people so many days' journey
from home, where others have been seen and found them ;
even those that did but anoint themselves with their ointments ?
Could a delusion bring them into the sight of others ? Could
it enable them to do so much mischief in killing men, cattle
and trees, corn and fruits, which they have commonly con-
fessed, and hath been proved by the effects ?
We had here at Worcester, the last assize save two or three,
a witch condemned, among other things, for bewitching a gar-
dener's child in Evesham, a girl, who voided flint stones and
pebbles for many months, (by the uterine or urinary passage,)
which were showed in the open court, of the bigness of a man's
thumb some of them, of which the reverend pastor of that place,
Mr. Hopkins, can give any man that doubteth satisfaction, and
that sufficient search and observation was used to remove all
suspicion of deceit. A hundred the like examples might be
produced to satisfy any reasonable man that these things are
not all phantasms.
Some of them have been seen in a storm falling down in the
tops of trees, as birds do after their flight, some on the tops of
houses : many have confessed that they raised storms, and
were carried in clouds many and many times, and describe the
manner how it was done. Many of their husbands have ac-
cused them, that often missed them out of bed in the night :
some of them have beaten them, till they forced them to con-
fess all; and the menbeing possessed with a desire to see whether
it were true or not, and how the business was carried, have
pardoned their wives on condition they would sliow them their
meetings ; who being anointed with their ointment, have been
presently carried thither, where they have found so great a
number met together, as caused them to admire, and having
accused their wives and those they have known, the thing was
by them confessed, and they were put to death.
It is true that sometimes their minds are carried or em-
ployed without their bodies ; a certain proof, saith Bodin, that
the separated soul can nevertheless live, and move, and know,
though without the body, and so is immortal.
THE HOLY GHOST.
At Bourdeaux, 1571, one of the witches confessing that she
was wont to be at the meetings, and what they did there, (just
as the rest commonly did,) the master of requests. Monsieur
Delot, was desirous to see the truth of her confession by some
experiment : she told them that she could do nothing while she
was a prisoner : whereupon they let her out, and before them
she anointed her naked body with a certain fat, which she had
with her, and presently fell down as dead, and without any
feeling at all : after five hours, coming to herself and rising up,
she told them many things which were newly done about the
country, which they found to be true by present inquiry, (lio-
din, p. 177.)
In the year 1549, apudNanctas, seven men undertook, before
many j)eople, to tell them, within such an hour, what was done
in ten miles' compass : they presently fell down as dead, and so
lay for three hours' space : and then rising up, told them what
was done through the whole town, and a greater distance :
whereupon they were accused of conjuration, or witchcraft, and
put to death. (Idem, p. 178.)
So Turretanus, the judge that condemned her, reported of one
that lay as dead before the fire, and her master beat and burnt
her, and perceiving her utterly senseless left her as dead ; but
in the morning she awaked, and complained of her sores ; and
being accused before the judge, confessed she was at an assem-
bly, and confessed many evil deeds that she had done, and was
burnt.
But yet it is more ordinary to have the body itself carried to
their meetings, than to have these extasies, as many hundred
proofs have manifested. And Sprangerus and his colleagues
write that they understood by the confession of many that they
had condemned, that they could sometime go abroad only in
spirit, and sometime in the body, as they desired themselves.
But it would be unseasonable and unsavoury to some readers,
in a treatise of this nature, to be too particular, or too large,
though for my part I conceive these kind of sensible demon-
strations to be the most likely means to convince them that
believe not the word of God, and a means not to be overslipped,
or made so small use of as ordinarily we do.
And for those that yet will not believe that these things are
true, I think they have far more to say for their incredulity, if their
own eyes only had seen them ; and yet it is likely they would
have believed their eyes. One of the best arguments to know
when sense is not deceived, is when the object appeareth to all
260 THE SIN AGAINST
men, or most men of sound senses, the same as to some, but if it
be but one or two that see it, the deception is much more possible
or probable: if all men's senses are deceived, then are we incapa-
ble of any certain knowledge or perception ; and still I say, a rod
or cudgel is the best argument to confute that error, that such
may be beaten till they are sure they feel. If the testimonies of
judges, justices, lawyers, and juries, that have examined and
heard the witnesses, and are themselves as tender of wrongfully
putting people to death as these infidels are ; if the confessions
of so many hundred witches at the halter or fire be not suf-
ficient; if the records of so many judicatures be not sufficient ;
if men of so greai piety, honesty, judgment, and impartiality,
may not be credited in a case which bringeth no gain to them-
selves ; if the testimonies of so many several nations as France,
Lorraine, Germany, Italy, tliat all have so abounded with witches,
and put to death so many, be not sufficient ; if the experience
of all countries in the world, and all ages, who have found that
same sort of wretched persons, be not sufficient; and, lastly, if
the fresh experience of so many scores in a narrow compass at
once imprisoned and put to death in our country, attested by
so many thousand competent witnesses, and the frequent ex-
periences of the judges in their circuits, be none of them suf-
ficient to convinc(! these infidels, I shall leave it either to God's
grace or the devil's torments, ere long, to convince them.
Having spoken thus much of the certainty of the thing that
there is such a transaction of the devil with witches, and con-
sequently that there is a devil, and multitudes of them, I shall
next inquire how his inclinations, interests, and designs are
manifested in tliis way.
1. And first, It is plain that he is a hater of God, and an
enemy to his honour ; whereto 1 will add, as the main point,
that I am now to prove, that he is also a hater of the Lord
Jesus, and an enemy to his name. Nothing more manifest than
these are. For it is his constant custom, or most ordinary, to
initiate all his professed disciples, I mean witches, by their
renouncing God and their baptism, and religion, and the Lord
Jesus. This is the first thing that they must do, when they will
be witches indeed. And so many hundred have testified, by their
own confessions, the truth of this point, even when they have
been at the bar, or stake, and all agree so generally in it, that
there is not the least room left for rational doubting.
Doctor Guilhelm. Edelinus, of the Sorbonne, in Paris, was
condemned for witchcraft, 1453, (Johan. Charterius hath M'rote
THE HOLY GHOST. 2G I
the history,) on Dec. 24. He confessed that he was oft carried
by night into tlie meetings of the witches, and there renounced
God, and adored the devil in the shape of a he- goat.
In the year 1571, a blind man, condemned for witchcraft at
Paris, revealed many others ; one of them was a lawyer, who
confessed, that by an obligation, which he made with the devil,
he renounced God; and wrote this obligation with his own
blood. This Bodin, Remigius, Sprangerus, and Grillaiidus tell
you is the common confession of nudtitudes, whom they ex-
amined and condemned, and others of their knowledge, and
the records of the judicatures ordinarily testify it ; and this in
several countries, Lorraine, France, Germany, and Italy, they
all ordinarily confess the same thmg.
In the year 1524, in the castle of Saint Paul, in the duchy of
Spoletain, Paulus Grillandus having three in examination, the
first confessed that, fifteen years before, she was brought by an
old witch into the assembly of the witches, where the devil was
among them, at whose persuasion she renounced God, and the
christian faith and religion, binding herself by an oath to be
faithful, and to obey the devil's commands, putting her hand to
a book, which had a writing in it to that end ; promising also
to be present at the nightly solemnities and feast-days, when
she was commanded, and to bring with her as many as she
could ; and that after that she had killed manv men.
Apud Cenomannus, saith Bodin, lately very many were burnt
that confessed all these things, that they went to these meet-
ings, and thus behaved themselves on their sabbaths, as they
call them : at least, saith he, thirty witches in their falling-out,
moved with envy, accused one another ; whose confessions did
all with one consent testify their being carried to the meeting,
their adoration to the devil, their dancings, and their abjuration
of religion.
The history of all the Valerian witches in Savoy, in the year
1574, is written by Danaeus and Bodin, and their confession was
the very same, that they were carried to the meetings, and there
abjured God, adored the devil, with much more, of which we
shall speak anon. I will forbear giving more examples of this,
it being so common.
And a second argument also there is, that the devil is both
an enemy to God and the Lord Jesus Christ, and also is afraid
of his very name ; in that it is the constant confession, both
of the witches themselves, and of those that have been enticed
by them to their meetings, that if they use but the name of
262 THE SIN AGAINST
God, or Jesus Christ, the whole company immediately vanish,
and if they use the name of God in the midway as they are
carried thither, they are presently let fall ; and therefore those
that entice them to their meetings do still charge them not to
mention the name of God, or Jesus Christ, unless it be in dis-
dain or reproach. There are many histories of this in the
writers before named, which would seem very strange and
scarcely credible, had we not so sufficient a testimony of the
persons' own confessions.
Saith Bodin, there was newly a witch condemned at Lochia,
in France, on this occasion ; her husband oft missing her out of
bed, and finding her excuses false, suspected her of adultery, and
threatened to kill her, unless she would tell him whither she
went. The woman being afraid of her life confessed all, and
told him if he would, he should see himself whither she went :
and so giving him an ointment, and pronouncing certain
words, they were both carried to the sands at Bordeaux, many
days' journey off : the man seeing himself in the midst of a great
company of men and women, and devils in an ugly shape,
though it was human, cried out, ' My God ! where are we ?' And
immediately the whole company vanished. The man finding
himself naked, in the morning got some help of a countryman
that he met, and when he got home went straight to the justice,
and accused his wife, who presently confessed all the matter.
At Lyons, a great woman who was an adulteress, and had
that night lain with her adulterer, anointed herself in the night
by a candle, and vanished ; which the man seeing, did so too,
and was carried after her, and found himself presently in an
assembly of witches in Lorraine : and being afraid, and praying
to God, they all, vanished. The man finding himself naked and
alone, as soon as he got home, accused the woman, who was
burnt, having confessed the whole matter.
The like Bodin writes of a nobleman at Melodunum, who
was enticed to see one of their meetings for the strangeness.
The like story had doctor Grillandus, that near Rome, in the
year 1526, a countryman espying his wife anoint herself, and
then vanish, did so cudgel her at her return, that he made her
confess where she had been, and promised the next time to
show him all : who, after the anointing, was carried with her :
but though she charged him not to name God unless in mock-
age or blasphemy, yet before the end of the feast, he disobeyed
that direction, and all vanished : the man found himself naked
and alone, and when it was day, he was informed that he was
THE HOLY GHOST. 263
in the county of Beneventa, and being fain to beg clothes and
to beg his bread, in eight days space he got home, a hundred
miles, and accused his wife, and she accused others, who were
all burnt.
The same author testifieth, that in the year 1535, in the
Duchy of Spoletain, a girl thirteen years of age, was enticed by
an old witch into an assembly of them : who in a wonder cried
out, ' Blessed God, what is all this ?' and they all vanished : and
the witch was burnt upon her discovery of it to the people that
found her the next morning.
I have mentioned these stories, to show how the devil hates
and fears the name of God. In Remigius you may see later
examples of the like concerning the name of Jesus Christ, at
which the company have all vanished : sometimes calmly,
oft-times with a violent whirlwind, or tempest. But 1 will
forbear the reciting the particulars, because you may there
see them.
2. The same transactions of Satan with witches doth cer-
tainly prove the second branch of his inclination, interest, and
design to advance himself, and to be adored. All the fore-
mentioned writers and many others do bring us sufficient tes-
timony of many hundreds of these unhappy wretches, confessing
that, at their first engagement, they promise to worship and
obey the devil : and that he hath his constant assemblies where
they all meet, that are thus devoted to him : that they are carried
thither through the air, some by one means, and some by
another, but all by his power. These meetings they celebrate
most commonly in the night, on a certain night in the week,
where sometimes many hundreds (where these wretches abound)
do meet at once. There usually they meet with as many
devils as there are witches : but one is as the chief and great
master of the assembly. He appeareth to them most commonly
in one of these two shapes : either like a big, ill-favoured black-
man, or like a he-goat. The first thing that the assembly
must do, is to adore their great master, and the ceremony com-
monly is by kissing his posteriors when he is in the shape of a
goat 5 then they must all dance round, back to back ; next that,
the devils and their servile drudges must couple as fornicators
used to do : and after that they have a loathsome feast, ever
without salt ; and so they must give an account what mischief
they have done since the last meeting, and then receive more
powders and ointments to do more, and then they are carried
home again : this is the ordinary work and manner of their as-
264 THE SIN AGAINST
semblies: besides which they must do him a more frequent
homage in their houses. These things be not private dreams,
or uncertain stories of two or three men in a corner, but the
common confession of many hundreds, if not thousands of them
in judgment and at the stake, tlirough France, Lorraine, Savoy,
Germany, and Italy, delivered to us in writing by the judges
themselves, impartial, honest, and very learned men. So that
it is apparent by all this, that the devil's design is to rob God
of his honour, and to be adored himself. Were it not for
troubling the reader, I would recite many particular histories
out of the foresaid authors to confirm it : but we have too much
proof of it nearer home. As Christ must have his days of holy
assemblies, so will the devil have his nights ^i wicked assem-
blies ; as God must be adored, so will Satan be; as God will
there teach his people by the ministry of his officers and church
guides, so will Satan oft make speeches to them to persuade
them to do evil, as they also commonly confess : as Christ will
have us meet to be exercised in holiness, and learn to live
holily, and mortify fleshly lusts : so the devil will have meetings
for a strange, hellish filthiness and copulation ; as Christ hath
his holv sacramental feasts, in the communion of the saints, so
hath the devil his abominable feasts for his impious confederates.
As Christ will be worshipped also in our families in private, so
would Satan ; as Christ would have us be much in prayer to
God, so the devil would have them much in seeking somewhat
of him : inasmuch that he tormenteth and giveth them no rest,
if they be not asking somewhat of him, of what nature we shall
see next. Yea, some of them at their first entrance, saith Bodin,
think not' enough to renounce God and the faith of Christ,
unless also they be baptized to the devil, and take to them a
new name. And many of them have his marks upon their flesh,
as hath been proved past doubt.
3. For brevity's sake, I will speak to the other parts of Satan's
interest and designs together ; and by these same dealings of his
with witches, it is most certain that he is, 1 . An enemy to all
virtue and religion ; and, 2. An enemy to mankind, and one
that seeketh and delighteth in their destruction ; and, 3. A
lover and jn-omoter of all wickedness, as I have told you it is
common with them in their assemblies, and also at other times,
to exercise unclean copulation with their disciples, someway the
devil findeth to find exercise for their filthy lusts. I have been
credibly informed of the like in England, by godly, judicious
men, counsellors, justices, and others, that they have heard
THE HOLY GHOST. 265
witches confess such copulation with the devil; and the name
of God, as I have told you, he will not endure unless it be in
mockery or blasphemy : not that he is so afraid of bare names,
or crosses, or 'relics, or consecrated creatures, or words, as
the papists imagine, for certain history assures us that he easily
ventureth on all these.
Bodin giveth us divers confessions of witches at judgment or
death, that they held their meetings ofttimes at a notable cross
which stood at the meeting of several high-ways, accounted by
the papists a terror to the devil.
Remigius telleth us of an abbess, named Magdal. Crucia,
1545, who perceiving herself, after long reputation for a holy
woman, suspected for witchcraft, to prevent further danger, fled
to the pope and accused herself as a penitent, before any other
did accuse her ; and she confessed that, since twelve years of age,
the devil had used to lie with her for thirtv years, and that when
she was at mass he hath oft carried the host to her hand from
the altar, the people seeing it go through the air to her, but
seeing none bear it; by which means she got the reputation of
a saint. It was Pope Paul the Third that pardoned her. " This
story," saith Bodin, (p. 206,) " was made known through the
whole christian world ;" where he tells of divers nuns of the
same sort. »
He telleth us, also, of divers that have confessed, * That when
the devil hath given them power to do any cure, they had di-
rection to pretend that the image of such a saint must do it,
and so to send people to that image, and there to pray to it, and
present some certain things before it, and walk thrice about the
chapel or temple, and so come home, and the cure was done.*
The reason that the witches gave of this was, ' That by it they
might exercise thfeir witchcraft without discovery or suspicion ;'
but it is like the devil had further ends to draw people to such
idolatrv.at least it is clear that he doth not hate nor fear such idols.
Many authors, besides Bodin and Remigius, give us the relation
of all the nuns in a nunnery in Germany, at Kentrope, at once
possessed with devils, or mad, and seemed so to others ; and
one witch in the house confessed the fact, that she had bewitched
them.
And for the delight that the devil hath in men's destruction,
it is apparent by these tliree discoveries here :
1. In that it is the ruin of these poor creatures' souls that
he seeks ; and when he hath brought them once to the stake,
VOI-. XX. X
266 THE SIN AGAINST
he hath his desire of them in this Hfe ; and if they do but offer to
forsake him, or begin to repent, he beats them, and vexeth them,
and giveth them no rest till they have cast away those thoughts.
And yet it is very observable u'hat wages the devil giveth his
servants for their work, and what it is they sell their salvation
for : he doth but delude them, and not keep promise with them
about the earthly pleasures that they expect of him. Scarce
any of them grow rich or great in the world by his service ;
though he feed them, he doth not refresh or satisfy them ;
though he carry them, yet most of them say it exceedingly
wearieth them. All the pleasure that he seems to offer them
proves but grief; and if they complain, he beateth and abuseth
them ; so that their life is a very misery to the flesh, as their
death, without true repentance, is the beginning of everlasting
misery.
2. His malice also is further evident, in that he engageth
all these his drudges, to draw as many with them to their
assemblies, and into his service as they can ; even as Christ
would have us draw as many as we can to his worship,
and to obedience for their own salvation ; insomuch that it is
noted that the children of witches are so ordinarily of the same
profession, thet they are more to be suspected than any other
sort. Saith Bodin, (p. 154,) ' I may not conceal this, that one
witch is oft enough to make five hundred more ; for there is
not so ready a way again for those that are addicted to the
devil to get his favour and to keep peace with him, as to
draw many to his subjection ; so that ordinarily the wife draws
the husband, and the mother the daughter ; and whole families
sometimes do thus persist for divers ages, as hath been proved
by infinite judgments ;' that is, trials upon testimony and con-
fession ; so far he : and both he and many more give us abun-
dance of examples.
3. Moreover, the employment which the devil sets them
about doth show, beyond all doubt, that he delighteth in mis-
chief, and is an enemy to mankind. It is a desire of revenge
for some supposed wrong, that is oft the first occasion of his
appearing to them. In their meetings and at other times he
gives many of them a powder, which some of them say is the
ashes of some child that they have murdered and burnt, and
that they must cast in the way where those are to go whom
they would hurt. To some he giveth other means, and to some
a power to do it by words. There is few of them, if any, but
THE HOLY GHOST. 267
are employed to do mischief, either in tormenting men and
children, or killing them, or killing cattle, or corn, or fruits, or
trees, or sinking ships at sea, or destroying men's houses or
labours, or one such thing or other; this ours in England have
at large confessed ; thousands in the countries before named,
beyond sea, have confessed this at their death.
' A French baron, Baziorum Baro, that was put to death
for witchcraft, did not only confess that he had killed eight
children, and was purposed to have killed the ninth, and to
have sacrificed him to the devil, even his own child, that he
might gratify Satan ; but also confessed that he did in his own
closet, upon his knees, pray to the devil, who appeared to him
in the likeness of a man, and did sacrifice to him ; for the devil
promised him admirable matters, and to make him a great
man 5 but when that he saw that he was a prisoner, and under
such suffering, he confessed all, and was put to death : and it is
yet undetermined what shall be done with his estates.' Saith
Bodln (p. ISO).
Multitudes of them have confessed that thev have killed those
that have offended them, and killed cattle, corn, &c. ; yea, many
of them have eaten the flesh of those they have killed, and to that
end, some transformed themselves into the likeness of wolves,
that they might do it the more easily and securely.
'In the year 1573, the parliament of Dolens did, on the 18th
day of January, pass sentence of death on Giles Garner, of
Lyons, which sentence was printed and published at Orleans,
Paris, and Seines. He was convicted on these articles : That
on Michael's day he had, in a place there named, taken a girl
of about ten or twelve years of age, and killed her ; with hands
like the feet of a Avolf ; and had devoured the flesh off her arms
and thighs, and brought some of it to his wife : also, that a
month after, in the same shape, he took another girl, and had
killed her that he might devour her, as he himself did confess,
if three men had not hindered him : also, that fifteen days after,
in a place named, he had killed a boy ten years old, and had
eaten the flesh off his arms, thighs, and belly : and, lastly, that
he killed another boy, at a village named, and that in the shape
of a man, and not a wolf, v/ith a purpose to have eaten him, if
he had not been hindered, as he himself of his own accord,
without any forcing, did confess ; for which cause, he was con-
demned to be burnt alive.' Saith Bodin (p. 185).
The like story is annexed, of one Michael Verdun, and Peter
X 2
268 THE SIN AGAINST
Biirgot, condemned by Jo. Roinus, 1521, at Vesontio, in
December : mentioned by Wierus, also.
And, whatever the reason be, it is observed that tliev are most
cruel to children, and the devil doth pot them on more ordi-
narily to kill them than any others ; insomuch, that there have
been confessions from themselves of many hundred children that
they have killed. And herein the devil also is contrary to
Christ, who is tender of such little ones, took them up in his
arms and blessed them, and said, " Of such is the kingdom of
God," being oifended with his disciples, that kept them from
him.
And that this work of destroying and mischief is the very
service that Satan employeth them in, is manifest in that he
gives them no rest, unless they be doing hurt, and is still urging
them to it; and taketh an account of them, bow they perform
it. INIany of those lately put to death in Suffolk, (whereof one
was an old reading parson,) confessed this, that their imps would
give them no rest unless they were doing some hurt ; when they
have seen a ship at sea, thev have urged them to send them to
sink it, which was presently done.
At Poictiers, in the year 1564, three men and one woman
were burned, (being condemned by Salvertus, the president,) who
were convicted of the death of abundance of men and cattle,
by means of a certain powder which the devil gave them, and
they put under the doors or thresholds. These confessed that
they were wont to meet in a very great company, at a certain
cross, in a crossway, where the devil gave them their powder,
to kill man or beast ; and in the end of the meeting, would
thunder out these words, with a terrible voice, ' Avenge your-
selves, or you shall die.'
Some of them confessed, that at their meetings, every one
must give an account how they used their powder, or what hurt
they have done since the last meeting : where one tells of such
a man or child killed, another of such a beast, another of such
fruits; and those that give account of no hurt done, are beaten,
some upon the soles of the feet, some elsewhere, and the rest
laugh at them.
Some of them confess that if they do not the hurt that they
are set on, they mu>,t redeem their peace with doing it on some
others, and ofttimes on their own. Insomuch, that many have
confessed they have killed their own children, because they
could have no rest else, when they had once refused to do it to
THE HOLY GHOST. 269
Others. Yea, ofttimes thev have a desire to hint some that the
devil hath no power over, and though they use all their witch-
crafts, they cannot hurt them, because God preserveth them :
yet then will Satan vex them, if they hurt not another in their
steads. Insomuch that many of them in prison do beg that
they may die, because they live such a miserable life, being
beaten and tormented by Satan for not ])leasing him, when yet
he keeps not promise with them ; nor, saith Bodin, is it found
in all the trials and judgments that ever one of them was one
penny the richer for them : and Remigius .«aith, of all that he
condenmed, or heard of, though many seemed to receive money
from him, there was but one that could say, that it proved and
continued money indeed.
Saith Bodin, (p. 150,) ' I know a man (who shall be nameless,
because he is vet living) that ac([uainted me, that he was very
much vexed with a spirit that followed him, and beat him, and
pulled him, and kept him waking, and would not give over
though he entreated him, but still called on him, ' Command
me somewliat to do.' And in hope to have been cased, he had
taken a journey to Paris. When 1 perceived that he durst not
open all to me, I asked him what profit he had got by the service
of that master ? He answered that he was put in hopes to get
riches and honours, and to know secret things ; but the spirit
had still deceived him, and told him three lies for one truth ; and
that he was never the richer for him of a farthing, nor did he
ol)tain the things which he desired, and for which he sought to
him ; and where, as he hoped to have attained many hidden
sciences, about the spirits, of planets, and the virtues of stones,
and the like, he had learned nothing of him at all, but he was
still calling on him to be avenged on his enemies, to cheat and
deceive, and to do mischief. I told him, it was not hard to be
freed from such a master, if, whenever he came, he would call
on God for help, and with a pure mind and sincere heart would
addict himself to the service of God. From that time I never
saw the man, and whether he repented or no, I know not. He
called the spirit his little master.' %o far Bodin.
1 will stop the recital of more such examples, lest I seem
tedious to the reader. By thus nmch it is most clear and past
doubt, that the devil's transactions with the witches doth cer-
tify us that he is an enemy to God, to goodness, to all mankind,
and a lying, unclean, and wicked spirit, seeking to be adored^
and delighting in all mischief and wickefl works.
270 THE SIN AGAINST
If yet any seem to doubt of these matters, as if they were
but fantasms and dehjsions, I shall only add one testimony and
one history more that such may be understood, if they will not
understand. The testimony is Augustin's, in the fifteenth
book, ' De Civitate Dei,' who saith, that the devil's copulation
with such persons is so frecjuent, and so fully attested by so niany
that had experience of it, and that have heard it from their
mouths, that it seems mere impudence to deny it.
The history that 1 shall mention is one of Guilielmus Linenrsis,
a doctor of divinity, of the popish profession, who was put to
death for witchcraft, ami confessed tliat he had made a cove-
nant with the devii, which was found written in his pocket. He
renounced all religion, and oft adored the devil, sometimes being
like a man, sometimes like a goat: and the service he was
bound to do for the devil was, to preach against jjutting witches
to dealh, and to persuade as many as he could that they were
but silly, deluded, melancholy people, and not witches indeed,
and that their confessions were not sufficient to put them to
death ; whereupon his preaching so far succeeded as to take off
the people and incpiisitors, and to slack the persecution of them,
by which means the witches were abundantly nndtiplied in those
parts. He penitently confessed this, and was condemned, De-
cember 12, 1453. Pet. Mamorius ' Lib. de Lamiis' hath written
the history. And Cardinal Benno, Platina, and others of their
own writers, do testify that there were many of the popes that
dealt with the devil by covenants or witchcraft, for worldy
greatness or carnal delights, and were rewarded by him in the
end as they deserved.
If any reader should be so weak as to be offended, because I
insert so much of these matters in a theological discourse of
so high a nature, I desire them to consider,
1. That it is matter suitable to the subject that I am treating of.
2. It is that way of demonstration which is become necessary
to that sort of infidels, that I have now to deal with, who will
not believe the testimony of the Scriptures.
.'). It is such a sensible discovery as the best have use for, to
the resisting of some temptations, and may afford them no
small advantage for the confirmation of their faith, of which
see Zanchy, in his chapter of the ' Uses of the Doctrine de
malis Angelis.'
4. An.d it is a providence of God that such things are
permitted ; and such a j)rovidence as we ought not to wink at.
THE HOLY GHOST. 271
or neglect, but must be accountable what good use we make
of it.
5. I doubt the not considering such matters as these doth
make most of us too insensible and regardless of the full nature
of our spiritual and corporal dangers, and makes us the more
dull and formal in that necessary daily prayer, 'Deliver us from
the evil one ;' and consequently the more liable to his malice
and power ; and that it makes us the more unthankful for what
Christ hath done for our deliverance from the thraldom and
slavery of Satan; and for God's daily restraining him, and
saving us from his rage. I think, as the Israelites' deliverance
out of Egypt from Pharaoh's bondage, which was the type of
this deliverance of ours, was so great a mercy that it is prefixed
before the Ten Commandments, that they might know that God
ruled and commanded them therein as a redeemed people j and
it was the name by which God would be known ; he that deli-
vered them out of Egyptian bondage, and they were still to
remember it ; so our deliverance from the slavery of the devil,
which he would exercise over both our souls and bodies, is that
great mercy which is procured to us by the Redeemer, which,
as it is remembered in our baptism, when we renounce the
devil, so it is to be daily remembered and valued, and thankfully
enjoyed by us.
So much for the first way of Satan's discovery of his in-
clinations, designs, and interest, viz., his transactions with
witches.
Sect. V.
The second sort of his actions is by apparent, extraordinary
violence exercised on men's bodies, whether by possessions,
obsessions, or other violence, by which he tormenteth and
abuseth them, and manifesteth himself a hater of mankind,
and one that deiighteth in doing hurt. Such things we have
seen with our eyes ; such things all ages and countries have
testified ; such things the most learned and rational physicians
profess they have seen, who are as apt as others to ascribe
extraordinary things to natural causes. I have already in the
' Saint's Rest,' (part II. c. vii, sec. 3,) cited many. Bodin saith,
(p. 147,) that * There was then living, when he wrote, a woman,
called Domina Rossa, (he names the place in France,) who,
from the eighth year of her age, was thus abused by the
devil. She would be suddenly bound to a tree, or to a bed's
2/2 THE SIN AGAINST
foot, or to a manger in a stable, or one hand bound to the
other with a cord, a twig, or hemp, or the hair of a horse-
tail, and that so speedily, that no one could discern the doing
of it.' Doctor Picardus, and other divines, saw her, when she
was brought to Paris, in the year 1552, and spent all their
skill in vain for her deliverv. Hollerius, the physician, at
first laughed at them, and said she was melancholy, but after-
wards, when in a great company of people he saw with his
own eyes, the girl standing between two or three women,
and, crying out, had her hands so suddenly bound together,
that they could not untie the bond, but were fain to cut it, he
confessed it was an evil spirit.
Augustin 'De Civitate Oei,' (lib. xxii. cap. 8,) and in divers
other places, doth confidently affirm that he hath seen divers
possessed or tormented by Satan, and how cured ; so do many
others, if not most of the fathers, Greek and Latin, give us
full testimonies of the like, though the papists, the vile abusers
of history, have done their best to overwhelm and bury the
credit of all, in their heaps of lies, and not content with Meta-
])hrastes, and their lying legends, their Staphilus, Cochlaeus,
ilolserus, Lindanus, Thyr^eus, and others, have vented their
foolish, malicious fictions of Luther, Zuinglius, Carolostadius,
Bucer, Calvin, and who not that was contrary to them.
Sect. VL
The third way by which Satan's designs are manifested to be
mischievous is, hy the vexation of men by apparitions, noises,
voices, and other such means, hy which he hath suddenly
afifrighted some to death, some out of their Avits, some into
grievous diseases, and some he long continueth thus to vex ;
and many he hath affrighted to the use of unlawful means for
their deliverance. Of all these sorts, or most, I could mention
examples not far from this place, were it fit or necessary. And
I know divers persons of good repute for judgment, and godli-
ness, and fidelity, yet living, some in places of honour in the
commonwealth, and some of reverend esteem and credit, that
will give full testimony to the truth of these apparitions. And
we have known houses so haunted and disquieted by them, that
the inhabitants have been either driven out, or much troubled
bv them. The whole countries also have flocked to some places
to hear them, where there were at set times constantly, either
whistlings that would answer them in tunes, or voices that would
THE HOLY GHOST. 273
speak to them. And we have sufficient proof of such as would
familiarly talk, discourse, and dispute with them.
The poor Indians are so familiar with them, that hy appa-
ritions and the power of witches to do some cures, they are
enticed to the worshipping of devils. So that our English
preachers at New England do find it a hard matter to convert
these deluded wretches from this evil ; and to bring them to
forsake their witches, which they call Powwaws : for then, say
they, who shall help us when we are sick ; and whither shall
we go for healing ? For though the devil delights to torment men's
very bodies, and commonly such servants of his are even in
outward respects the most miserable people on earth ; yet some
kind of cures he will do on their flesh, which yet doth usually
relieve them but for a while, that thereby he mav draw them to
worship him, and seek to him, and depend upon him, to the
ruin of their souls.
Partly to this, and partly to the foregoing section, belongs
the misery of those called Vcntrilo(iui, that have a devil speaking
within them ; for, doubtless, such there have been. Lodovic.
Calius Rhodiginus in his 'Lect. Antiq.' (lib. 8, cap. 10.) hath this
passage.
'Lest any should take this as a fabulous matter to be laughed
at, I do hereby testify, that at this very time, even when I am
publishing these things, there is in my country a woman of low
quality, named Jacoba, out of whose belly 1 myself have heard
the voice of an unclean spirit, small indeed, but articulate, and
wholly intelligible ; and innumerable people more have heard it
as well as I, not only of Rhodigium, but almost out of all Italy.
For the minds of great men being greedy to know things to
come, they oft sent for her, and stripping her of all her clothes,
lest there should be any deceit, did see and hear her. The
devil's name was Cincinnatulus. To this name, when he was
called, he would readily answer. If he were asked any question
about things past or present, though they were the most hidden
secrets, he would oft give wonderful answers : but if he were
asked about things to come, he would always lie ; and some-
times discover his ignorance, by using a grumbling, unintelligible
voice.' So far Caelius Rhodiginus.
But havhig spoken enough of this in the fore- mentioned
writing already, 1 shall forbear the adding here of any more.
Sect. VII.
The fourth way by which Satan hath discovered his cnmitvto
274 THE SIN AGAINST
God and men's souls, and his desire to be adored, is, his uni-
versal endeavours, and too great success, to bring all the world
to the sin of idolatry ; a sin that one would think reason itself
should have so disgraced and banished, that it should have found
entertainment with none but very sots, that had not the use of
their reason. Yet, how hath it prevailed in all ages, in all
countries on earth, and among all ranks and sorts of men, and
doth so in the far greatest part of the world to this day ; how
commonly did they adore the creatures ; how many gods did
they worship, and how base ; what flocking was there to their
oracles for advice ; how confident were they, not only that those
images did represent their gods, but that they came down into
them, and dwelled in them, as our souls do in our bodies 3 what
beast, or bird, or plant almost, that was not a God to one nation
or other ? And though 1 will not enter on the dispute, whether
all their oracles were the mere delusions of men, or whether they
were the real abuses of the devil himself 3 yet, as it is scarcely
likely that so many ages and nations, and men of all sorts,
philosophers and princes and all, should be so generally per-
suaded that such a thing there was if there had been no such
thing, but without something real to uphold it, the reputation of
oracles would have been destroyed in a much shorter time ; so
if it were indeed nothing but a fantasm or delusion, it was cer-
tainly such a delusion as must needs have the devil's help to
manage it and drive it on. It was devils that all these nations
did adore and sacrifice to ; and, by the work, we may see who
was the master and contriver of it. He that seeth the great
Turk obeyed through all his empire by so many nations, may
well conclude that there is some power of his own employed for
the procuring of this obedience, and keeping all these nations in
subjection to him ; and he that seeth so much of the world ad-
dicted to idolatry and worshipping of devils, may well know that
there is some contrivance of the devil's that hath a hand in it,
and that it is himself that procureth his own worship. From
the time of Adam to this day, the far greatest part of the world
have been enslaved to him. What were all the world but idola-
ters, except Israel, and a few proselytes, from Abraham, or Jacob,
from whom they were so named, till Christ ; and how hardly
were the Israelites themselves kept from this sin ? Though they
were plagued for it both grievously and frequently, though they
oft saw God witnessing against it by miracles, yet were they
returning to it again and again j so that the prophets, one after
THE HOLY GHOST. 275
another, were sent to reclaim them, and yet they relapsed, till,
dfter many breakings, at last it broke them off, and broke them
all to pieces, and there was no remedy. The learned Athenians
were drowned in idolatry ; the wise and valiant Romans were
befooled and enslaved by it ; and after all the light of the Gos-
pel, at this day, near two third parts of the world are thought
to be idolaters (not reckoning the Mahometans among them,
but only such as are properly heathens or pagans). He that
cannot see the inclination, interest, and design of the devil in
all these effects of it, and in this planting, building, and main-
taining of his own kingdom, is certainly very blind.
They that would know what nations, and how much of the
world are yet heathenish idolaters, may, to spare the reading of
manv, see it in short in Brierwood's 'Inquiries,' (cap. xii. p. 8(d,
&c.,) and in Alstedius's ' Encyclopaedia,' (lib. xviii.,) 'Geograph.'
(part 111. cap. xii.)
Nay, among some of the wilder Indians, and other Americans,
it is confidently affirmed by many navigators, that the devil
useth to appear to them in visible shapes, and so to be worship-
ed by them commonly, as here he is by witches. And the
Jesuits, and others, that have dwelt among them, have given us
the more full and particular assurance of it. To omit what is
said of the Brazilians, and many of the most barbarous sort, I
shall only add somewhat of the Japonians, a people more in-
genious. In the Jesuits' ' Epistles from the Indies,' collected and
published by Pet. Maffaeus, (lib. i.,) Caspar Vilela writes to this
purpose. ' Sometimes the witches, by the devil's help, do work
some cures : one was missing many days, and by their help he
suddenly appeared again. Another being dead, and carried to
burial, when the bier was opened, there was no corpse to be
found. Bv these and the like arts doth the devil deceive the
miserable Japonians ; who, to the rest of their wickedness,
which is great, do add this cruelty, that they murder their own
infant children. They are forbidden to think of the end of
their lives, lest by the fears of death they should be deterred
from their wickedness : and therefore they wish a sudden death,
and think him blessed that so dieth. And some of them do
worship the devil, and most familiarly converse with him, whom
they call Jamabuxas : these, to get a reputation of holiness, do
grievouslv punish themselves ; they stand, they watch, and use
very little meat for two or three months, till the devil tell them
he is satisfied 3 and taking some of their mad companions with
276 THE SIN AGAINST
them, they get into a ship which they purposely sink, and so
drown themselves. Besides, the devil is very busy to have the
common people worship liim in the shape of brute beasts.
And as thev are worshippmg oxen he possesseth one of the
men : and when they ask him his name, he tells them that he
is the king of oxen. When they desire him to depart, he tells
them he will not go out of the man, unless they will build him
a temple. If they promise it, he departeth ; if they perform
not their promise, he returneth again, and tortureth the poor,
oppressed man with divers torments, till they build him a tem-
ple, in which they worship the images of divers sorts of wild
beasts, as deities : and some of them make it death for any one
to kill an ox. Sometimes, also, with his enchantments he makes
the hunters sick if they kill a wild beast ; and, therefore, for
fear, they humbly worship such beasts as the devil. All which
he doth to this end, that mortals forsaking the true worship of
God, might change the glory of the incorruptible God into the
likeness of corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed beasts,
and serpents. The superstition of the Japonians is manifold.
Some of them worship I know not what dead man, called
Amida, others one whom they call Xaca. Lastly, the sun and
m«on also arc worshipped by them as gods, and so is the devil
himself, to whom they build a temple : and in his temple they
paint him much more ugly and deformed than we do. They
have divers convents also of both sexes, distinguished by the
white, red, or black colours of their garments, being of most
filthy life and manners.' So far Vilela.
The like you may find in the Epistle of Ludovicus Froius, (lib.
iv. pp. 191, 192,) who added, ' That there is a devout sect of
them that make their dwellings in the tops of the highest hills,
and will pass over any rivers by the mere help of the devil :
who, that he may ensnare the wretches more effectually in error,
doth command them to go up to the top of a certain very high
mountain, M'here they must wait for his coming till the ap-
pointed time. And then, about noon or evening, the devil
oftereth himself to them, whom they worship under the name
of Amida, and he passcth through the midst of their assembly :
after they have once thus seen him, their superstition is so
deeply fixed in the very breasts and marrow of them, that it
can never after by any reasons be plucked out.' So far Lud.
Froius, where he addeth much more of the devil's appearing to
them, and their worshippiui; him, whicli J omit.
THK HOl.Y GHOST. 277
See much more of them, and their wickedness in Maffieus
* Histor. Indie' (lih. xii. p. 565 — 567). It were easy to give you
like reports of manv more of those unhappy nations, hut for
tediousness. (See, to tlie same purpose, ' Olaus Magnus de gen-
tibus Septentrionahbus.')
Yea, the Si use themselves, that so much excel the rest, are
yet idolaters, and worshippers of devils.
Pet. MaflFaeus ' Histor. Indie' (lib.vi. pp. 271, 272) saith thus of
them : ' Many of them adore dumb images and informed stones;
for such are commonly the gods of the gentiles. Moreover,
some make gods of the inventors of any arts, or of others that
publicly or privately deserved well of them, and some of their
parents, or dear friends, and to them do they erect statues and
build temples, and make vows, and oiler incense ; and not only
to the dead, but which is more detestable, to them while they
are alive ; others do, with all devotion, worship the sun, and
moon, and stars, and specially heaven itself, whence all good
comes on the earth. Some also worship infernal monsters,
girded about with snakes, and vomiting out hre, as we |ncture
devils in Europe, and that not so much to obtain anv good from
them, as to escape hurt by them : because, meeting ofttimes
with such sights, they are the more afraid of them.' So far
Maffaeus, with more to the like purpose. And about the Bra-
zilian witches (lib. xv. pp. 686, 6S7).
Sect, VIII.
- The fifth way by which Satan discovereth his malicious incli-
nations and designs, and especially his enmity to the Gos])el of
Christ, and the salvation of the world, is by his incessant en-
deavours to raise heresies, and the power by which heanimateth
and maintaineth them. As when Moses first set upon his office
to deliver the Israelites out of Egypt, Satan had his magicians
to imitate and resist him : so when Christ first sendeth forth
liis disciples to seek and save that which was lost, Satan sendeth
forth his ministers, partly by imitation, partly by opposition, and
partly by divisions to hinder, and, if it might have been, to mar
the work. The strange spirit that animated these men, the
magical arts that they used, the vain fancies and abominable doc-
trines which they owned, the wicked lives they led, the unhappy
ends they came to, and the palpable interpositions of the devil
for their seducement and confirmation, plainly showed from what
fountain they sprung, and by what father they were begotten.
278 THE SIN AGAINST
Because it is so common a thing for angry and factious men
to call one another heretics, I will here tell you what kind of
men I mean, before I proceed further.
By a heretic, I mean one that, pretending to the name of a
Christian, doth yet cut off himself from the catholic church by
some error, subverting the essentials or fundamentals of the
christian faith, and usually by actual separation from true
Christians.
Where you may see that there are three sorts of heretics :
The first are those that hold such errors as directly subvert the
foundation, or so far subvert it that he cannot possibly hold the
foundation itself while he holdeth that error, and yet doth not
actually separate from the society and external communion of
the church. This man is a heretic in heart and tongue, and
such a one as cannot be saved ; but yet not a heretic of the
highest strain, nor of the most common sort.
The second sort are those that, holding such damning doc-
trines, do withdraw also from the external communion of the
catholic church, or true, orthodox Christians, and do set up
separated churches of their own, pretending usually to more
soundness in doctrine or worship than the true assemblies have
among them. These are the common heretics of all ages of
the church, who are composed of two parts, damning doctrine
and schism, or separation from the catholic church ; the first as
the soul, the second as the body. By the first, they separate
from the church as invisible ; by the second, from the church as
visible : or, to speak more properly, by the first they separate
from the true, internal, spiritual communion of the church ; by
the second, they separate from the external communion of it.
The third sort of heretics are those that separate only from
the external communion of the catholic church ; of which there
are also three distinct sorts.
1. Those that separate only corporally upon some perverse
conceit, that they should be defiled if they join in any of their
assemblies, or the like reason, or on some error about commu-
nion not fundamental thereto : 1 will not determine whether the
name heretics or schismatics is more proper for them.
2. Those that corporally separate upon the denial of the
fundamentals of external communion, though they deny not the
fundamentals of internal communion, or of faith ; for such a
distinction of fundamentals must be observed, as those that
deny the office of the ministry, or a church-government, or any
THE HOLY GHOST. 279
essential part of that government, and upon that account separate
from all the catholic communion : some call these heretics, and
some schismatics : while we understand the matter, there need
not be so much strife about the name. I incline to think that
some of this sort may be saved, though salvation among them be
rare and difficult.
The third sort is those that, besides the corporal separation,
and the denying of fundamentals of communion (external), do
also hold some dangerous error in other doctrines, which, though
it subvert not the foundation or christian faith, doth yet sorely
wound it : the salvation of these, also, I suppose possible, though
difficult, if they so continue.
Though some call this latter sort all schismatics, yet, strictly,
I suppose a mere schismatic is one that doth divide particular
churches, yet holding communion with the universal church, and
that both internal and external ; for he may close with some
particular churches, though he divide others. And these are of
three sorts :
1. Those that separate from a true, particular church, without
just cause, either through disobedience or the like sinful ground.
2. Tliose that separate not from the church, but yet stir up
divisions and make parties in it.
3. Those that hold the principles of such schismatical courses
in their minds, though they yet practise them not : these are but
mentally schismatical, and not fully schismatics.
Having showed you whom I mean, I proceed to show how the
devil hath showed his designs, and his opposition to Christ, by
raising and encouraging such in all ages of the church.
The first heretics that we read of were the false apostles
that troubled the church so about the Jewish law, teaching that
a man could not be saved unless he were circumcised, and kept
it; against whom the Synod (Acts xv.) was congregate, and
against whom Paul oft contended, as the Epistle to the Galatians
and Romans especially manifest. These so far prevailed as to
draw the Galatians, as it were, to hearken to a new Gospel ; to
disobey the truth, so that Paul was afraid he had bestowed on
them labour in vain ; yea, they that would before have plucked
out their eyes for him, did now take him for their enemy, be-
cause he told them the truth.
Next rose up Simon Magus, a Samaritan, who, by his strange
magical works, was admired by the people, and called the great
power of God, to whom they all gave heed at Samaria, from
280 THE SIN AGAINST
the least to the greatest, l)ecause of a long time lie had be-
witched them by his sorceries, giving out that he was some
great man : but seeing a higher power manifest itself in the
miracles of the disciples, and in the giving of the Holy Ghost,
he was convinced into a belief that Jesus Christ was the Son of
God, and baptised into his name ; yet never closing with him in
sincerity, as his Saviour, he continued his former nature and
designs, desiring to promote his own greatness, and not Christ's
interest and honour (as all his servants did) by his new profes-
sion : and, therefore, would have bought of the apostles, with
money, the power of giving the Holy Ghost, that he might have
this added to the rest of his wonders to make great his name,
and to bring him yet into higher admiration of the people.
Whereupon he incurred that heavy censure of Peter, (Acts viii.
2G,) wliich though, upon a seeming penitence, which he was af-
frighted into, was so far mitigated, as that a possibility of pardon
was opened to him, yet was he forsaken bv that Spirit and grace
which he so abused, and given up to himself, and so became a
leader of a deluded society, and an opposer of the apostles.
To Rome he would go on Satan's work, as they did on Christ's :
and there, by his witchcraft, he got into so much admiration in
the days of Claudius, that he was taken, for a god, and had a
statue set up to him with this inscription : ' To Simon, the
holy god ;' or as others, ' To Simon, the magician, a god.*
(See Justin Martyr's ' Apolog. 2 ' of this.) In his contending with
the two apostles, Peter and Paul, for the glory of his magical
works, he would needs fly in the sight of the people, and at the
prayers of the two apostles, tumbled down, and either presently
or shortly after ended his wretched life. This is attested by
not one or two, but most of the writers of the first ages, that
meddle with matters of church history. (See Epiphanius of it,
' Lib.Hseres.21.' Cyril. Hierosol. ^ Catech.es. 6.') ' When he pro-
fessed (saith he) that he would go up to heaven, and was carried
in the air in the devil's chariot, the servants of God, on bended
knees, in concord, manifested that which Christ had said, ' If
two of you, consenting, shall ask any thing, it shall be done.'
Sending up against the magician the dart of concord by
prayers, they cast him down to the earth."
So Arnobius, Advcrs. Gentes, (lib. 2,) saith; 'The Romans
saw the race or course of Simon IMagus, and his fiery chariots
blown away by the mouth of Peter, and vanishing away when
Christ was named. I say, they saw him, that trusting to false
THE HOLY GHOST. 281
gods, and being betrayed by them when themselves were afraid,
was precipitated by his own weight, and lay with his legs broke,
and being carried to Brunda, being weary with torments and
shame, he again cast himself from the top of a high place.'
So Philostrius, (lib. iii.,) 'De Hseres. and Theodoret,' (lib. i.,) 'De
Hoeret. Fabul. Sulpit. Sever. Histor.,' (lib. ii.) besides others.
How abominable the heresy of this magician was, may ap-
pear by all the history of the church.
Irenaius (lib. i. cap. 20.,) saith ; " That being by many
glorified as a god, he taught them that it was he who appeared
among the Jews as the Son, and descended in Samaria as the
Father, and came into other nations as the Holy Ghost ; and
that he is in the highest power, even the Father, who is over
all, and doth endure men to call him by several names. He led
about a concubine, one Selene, or Helena, a Tyrian, whom he
called the first conception of his mind, the mother of all things,
by whom, at first, he mentally conceived angels and archangels,
by whom, he said, this world was madej also, that his Enoea
being here detained, was the Helena that occasioned the war of
Troy, and the blinding of Stesichorus, and passing from body
to body, at last was cast into a brothel-house, and this was the
lost sheep which he came purposely from heaven to seek and
deliver from bonds, and to give salvation to men by the know-
ledge of him; for seeing angels did not well govern the world,
because every one sought to be the chief, he came to mend
things, and descended transformed, and assimulated to powers,
and angels, that he might to men appear as a man, being,
indeed, no man, and so was thought to have suffered in Judaea,
when, indeed, he did not suffer. The prophets, he said, were
inspired by those angels that made the world, therefore those
that trusted in him and his Selene need not regard them any
more, and being now freemen may do what they list, for men
are saved according to his grace, and not according to righteous
works ; for works are not naturally but by accident righteous,
as the angels appointed that had made the world, bringing men
into bondage by such kind of precepts ; therefore he promised
that the world should be loosed, and these that be his set free
from the rule of them that made the world. Their mystical
priests, therefore, do live in lust, and use witchcraft as they are
able, and use exorcisms and enchantments, &:c. :' thus Irenteus.
Of which Epiphanius speaks more largely, reporting yet more
of their filthy mysteries, and how he taught them that the Hesh
VOL. XX. V
282 THE SIN AGAINST
perished and rose not again, the soul only surviving, and that
the Gnostics had their original from him.
By all this it appeareth that this witch was the devil's agent,
and that he had his help and doctrine both from him, and that
he was sent to disgrace and oppose Christ and his doctrine,
making the world believe, that it was he that in Jerusalem did
seem to suffer under the name of Jesus, but indeed suffered
not : and the world of wickedness that this wretch intro-
duced by these sottish doctrines, backed with his witchcrafts,
and the great success he had, and the trouble he put the church
to, do show who was the master of the design.
' Next to Simon succeeded Menander,' saith Irenaeus, (lib.
i. c. 24,) ' a Samaritan, who also attained to the height of witch-
craft. He taught them that the first power was unknown to
all, but that it was he that was sent from the invisible to be the
saviour of mankind, and that the world was made by angels,
whom he also, as Simon said, were sent forth by Ennoia ; and
that there is given by her to those that are taught of her such
magical knowledge, that they may overcome the angels that
made the world ; and that his disciples do, by his baptism,
receive resurrection and die no more, but persevere without
growing old or dying ;' thus Irenseus : to which Epiphanius
addeth, ' That he was Simon's disciple, and in most matters
retained the doctrine of his master, but boasted that he was
greater than his master was ;' but, saith Epiphanius, ' As those
Egyptian asps, that, being put together in a vessel,, the strongest
eats up all the rest, and at last eats off his own hinder parts ; so
have these heresies been destroyed and rooted out.'
Next to Menander arose Saturninus, (or as Epiphanius, Satur-
iiilus,) an Antiochian, who retained much of the former doctrine,
adding ' That they were seven angels that made the world, and
man after their image, and that the Jews' god M'as one of the
seven, whom Christ came to destroy, because he would not be
ordered, but would be over the rest ; and that Christ did but
seem to be born, to walk, to eat, to die, but did not so indeed :
and that good and bad angels making the world, they made one
good man and another bad ; and the bad striving against the
good, Christ came to help the good : that the spark of life that
at first was put into man, returning to its own kind is safe
in all : but the rest, which is man indeed, and was of the angels,
perisheth. Marriage and generation (he said) is of Satan ; many
of his followers eat not of living creatures, and, by abstinence.
THE HOLY GHOST. 283
deceive many. The prophecies (he said) were some from the
angels that made the world, and some from Satan.' Thus Ire-
nseus : and Epiphanius saith the same.
To Saturninus was joined Basilides, who would seem to ad-
vance these devilish heresies to a more rational sublimity, as
they that list may read in Irenaeus, Epiphanius, Tertullian, Euse-
bius, and others. He added, also, that Christ did not suffer on
the cross, but took on him the form of Simon, and stood by and
laughed at them, and turned Simon of Cyrene into his shape,
and so it was he that was crucified : and that he that will be
saved must not believe in him that was crucified, but in Jesus
that came in the shape of a man, and was thought to have been
crucified. They make all actions indifferent, and the use of all
lust. They make three hundred and sixty-five heavens and
principal angels, as there be days in the year. Those that know
their mysteries, know all men, but are known of none : but all
must not yet be revealed.
Their foundations they lay in feigned notions about invisible
things, as Jacob Behmen of late did his. They say there was one
unbegotten principle, who only is the parent of all things. Of
him was begotten the mind, that is, Christ ; of the mind was
begotten the word ; from the word came prudence ; from that
virtue and wisdom ; from both these principalities, powers,
and angels. These made the first heaven, and begot more
angels : those made the second heaven and begot more, and
so on.
To these succeeded Carpocrates, and the Nicolaitans, whose
inhuman filthiness was such, and their devilish conceits so many
and vile, that I will forbear to mention them. Only this, they
made themselves like Christ, and some of them to be equal to
him, and some the same with him, that good and evil differed
not in deed, but in men's opinion. They worshipped images ;
they lived in such horrid ways of lust and filthiness as is not to
be named. Epiphanius himself unhappily fell in among them,
and knew their ways from their own mouths and actions, but
Ivippily escaped when they would have drawn him to their lusts.
They have multitudes of amazing words and notions, like our
Behmcnists, that would bring a man into a suspicion of witch-
craft to read them. They used witchcrafts, and several sorts of
enchantments, and kept devils in familiarity with them, that,
l)y their means, they might increase their knowledge and
power.
Y 2
284 THE SIN AGAINST
To these succeeded the Cerinthians, the Cerdonites, the
Ebionites, the Valeiitinians, the Maicionites, who, as they had
all the general name of Gnostics, from their own proud pre-
tences of the knowledge of such mysteries as the catholic
church was ignorant of, so were they called by the names of
their several succeeding leaders, because every one added or
altered somewhat from the doctrine of the former, yet holding
the same in the main : and the Valentinians were more noto-
riously than the rest known by the name of Gnostics, and the
Nicolaitans and Carpocratians also assumed it before them.
That all these heresies were certainly of the devil, appears
thus :
1. By the devilish doctrine which they preached.
2. By the most unclean, abominable lives which they lived,
and ceremonies which they used.
3. In that they all were the offspring of Simon Magus, a
witch : for, as Irenseus shows, (lib. i. cap. 30,) they were all his
disciples, and continued the substance of his doctrines, with
some additions, though many of them would not own his
name.
4. Jn that they used enchantments themselves, yea, and had
familiarity with devils.
5. And Christ still prevailed against them, and broke them in
pieces : though the devil was still repairing his house as fast as
Christ broke it down, and raising a new sect-master to make up
the breach when an old one was rooted out.
And besides the main difference (which lay in the purity of
doctrine and life) wherein the church of Christ did differ from
these heretics ; that was another, that the church was still one,
and known by the simple name of Christians and Catholics ;
but the heretics were many, and every age had a sect partly
new, and of a new name, and sometimes many in an age.
The plain design of the devil in all this was to uphold his
own honour and kingdom, and to dishonour God and ruin souls,
and to make the christian faith seem questionable to the world,
by the multitude of sects that still pretended to the Christian
name ; and to make Christ's doctrine and followers seem abo-
minable, while some that were called Christians were truly
abominable.
I will give it you in the words of Epiphanius, who follows
Irenaeus in this a])plication, as lie doth in much of the history.
When he mentioned their familiarity with devils to further
THE HOLY GHOST. 285
their aspiring to higher things, he adds, ' Which sort of men
Satan seems to have fitted and sent for a reproach and stum-
bling block to the church of God ; as having put on themselves
the name of Christians, that for their sakes the nations being
offended, should abhor the profit of the church of God ; and
should refuse the truth declared to them, because of their
savage wickedness, and incredible vileness ; that I say, their
frequent villanies being taken notice of, they might persuade
themselves that those also are such that are of the holy church
of God : and so may turn away their ears, as I said, from the
true doctrine of God ; or at least beholding the dishonesty of
a few, might cast the same reproaches upon all. And in-
deed, this is the cause that most of the gentiles, wherever they
apprehend any of that sort, will have no society with us, either
as to giving, or receiving, or counsel, or hearing the word of
God, and will not so much as lend us their ears, so much are
they driven off and deterred by the wicked crimes of these men.'
So far Epiphanius of the use of these sects, which the devil
maketh.
I have heard some of their successors, that are among us now,
say, that these men were wronged by Epiphanius and others,
both as to their doctrine and life : but it is not one or two, but
all the church histories of those times, and discourses that occa-
sionally mention them, that say the same things ; so that if men
be not impudently and wilfully incredulous, the truth of the
history in the main is unquestionaljle. Nay, I have mentioned
but a small part of the abominations of these sects ; and if they
will but read Epiphanius himself, they will see much more :
and he himself doth it with an apology, professing that he was
loth to have done it, lest the very naming of such abominations
should do hurt : and professing that much is so vile, that he
will not name it. And the more competent witness is he, in
that he fell in among them, and was either one of them no-
tionally, or very near it. And before and after him, the church
writers generally confirm his testimony. Clemens Alexandrinus
deals largely with them : indeed, for the Nicolaitans, Clem.
Alexand. ' Stromal.' (lib. iii.) and ^ Eusebius Histor.' (lib. iii. c.
23) and 'Theodoret' (lib. iii.) do say, that they falsely pre-
tended the name of Nicolas to their heresy, as Ignatius ' Ad
Trallianos ' seems also to intimate. Yet Irenaeus, Tertullian, and
Epiphanius, and Hierome, thought that he himself was their
leader. However, we know what they were, and that even
286 THE SIN AGAINST
Rev. ii. 6, they are called by the name of Nicolaitans. And
let our heretics, that would befriend them, note that God saith
there, " He hateth them :" and it is well known that the
Simonians, Menandriaus, Carpocratians, Basilideans, Valenti-
ninans, and the rest of the Gnostics, were, in the main, of the
same litter and feather as the Nicolaitans, whom God said he
hateth. And indeed, if they would take the testimony of Scrip-
ture against them, they might find more texts that condemn
them than this. For they were most of them before the death
of all the apostles ; and it is evident that John calls them anti-
christs in his epistle, as being the men that denied Christ to
have come, and suffered in the flesh, but said he did it in an
apparition, or mere show, as such witches as their leaders
perhaps might do.
It may be, some will be ready to blame me for so much as
mentioning these old heresies, and taking up their names
among us, lest it do hurt ; but as the subject in hand doth lead
iTie to it, so doth the sad judgment of God that hath lately be-
fallen us. It is in vain now to keep men from these heresies by
concealing them, for a great part of them are visible among us ;
they have infected men that seemed to have had some fear of
God 5 I shall say more of these anon : in the mean time, note,
that there is a great and notorious resemblance of the heresies
of these times unto those. I know some will say, * That if the
Gnostics were so filthy, then those among us are not like them,
for they seem strict, and self-denying, and mortified :' but note,
that though all held the main points of their erroneous belief
alike, yet they did differ somewhat in the point of lust and
fleshly living among themselves; for, as Irenaeus shows, (lib. i,
c. 30,) Saturninus and Marcion were called continent, and so
was their sect, for they forbade marriage, or persuaded men to
abstain from it, ' thereby,' saith Irenseus, ' frustrating the ancient
work of God, and obliquely accusing him that made man male and
female for generation ; and those that forbade the eating of
flesh, were ungrateful to him that made all for their use.' Just
so are there two sects among us lately sprung up, the one began
in uncleanness and blasphemy, and all abominable riotousness,
vmder the name of ranters ; the other pretend to the extreme
mortification of the Eremites, or rather of those last mentioned,
and are called Behmenists and quakers, and yet in the main
principles of their faith, wherein they disagree from the true
church, they are among themselves agreed ; as also, for the
THE HOLY GHOST. 287
most part of them, in their practice of reproaching all ministers
and godly people that are not of their way.
1 must confess it is my opinion that we have been much to
blame in not making known to common Christians somewhat
more of the nature of the heresies of the first ages, and the
effects of them, by which they might have been better fortified
against them ; for now, for want of such information, the poor
wretches take old, rotten, damned heresies, for new light from
the Spirit of Christ, and many are ready, upon that very notion
and account, to run after them to their own perdition, little
knowing or thinking that ever these heresies were in the world
before, and how they were used by Christ and his church.
Had they but known when and how their highly honoured
fancies did first arise, and what they brought forth, and how
they sped, and what men they were that handed them down
from Simon Magus till the time of their burial, the devil could
not so easily have dug them up again, and have got religious
men to make a feast of them. My brethren, therefore, that may
blame me now for mentioning them, must accept of this excuse
of my doings, instead of a conformity to their minds, till my
own be altered.
By the way, it is to be noted, that the success that the devil
had by those old heresies, by which he attended the springing
church, and the Gospel of Christ, besides the hinderance of
men's conversion in particular, was this : he occasioned the
crimes of these heretics to be charged on all Christians, (as out
of Epiphanius, I said before) ; so that the common reports among
the heathen, that the Christians did eat their own children,
and that they put out the lights at their meetings, and were
unclean together, were raised from the wickedness of these
Simonians and Gnostics ; and withal, by this means, the per-
secution of the Christians was much increased and renewed,
though yet the heretics themselves were not persecuted, as
Justin Martyr affirms, (Apolog. 2,) and Origen., (lib. vi. cont.
Celsum,) which might come from hence.
1. Because the heretics taking all outward actions to be
indifferent, and good and evil to consist but in opinion, as some
of their spawn among us also do, did judge it lawful to sacrifice
to idols, or do any such thing that the magistrate bid them do,
(which is Hobbs's religion,) rather than to suffer persecution;
whereby they escaped, when the Christians, that were more
tender-conscienced, and knew of a higher Lord and Master in
heaven, durst not do so.
288 THE SIN AGAINST
2. And withal it is plain, that the devil was the grand agent,
both in the heresy and the persecution, and, therefore, would
not persecute his own, having no mind to destroy his own
kingdom.
I might, but for tediousness, run down this sad history of the
devil's sowing the tares of heresy from age to age till this very
day, wherein, it will appear, that he is a devoted enemy to
Christ and his church ; but I will overpass most of them, which
you find in Epiphanius, Austin, Philastrius, or Theodoret, at
pleasure, and only note next, his attempts to bring in Mahouiet-
anism and popery.
For the latter, he was as vigilant to corrupt the church itself,
as to draw heresies out of it ; to which end, he made special
use of the pride, and pomp, and secular honours, and greatness
of the bishops ; so that, by degrees, he brought into most
churches on earth too much error in some matters of doctrine,
too much formality and superstition instead of true rational
devotion in the worship of God, and too much tyranny and
usurpation of authority over their brethren, instead of the true
discipline and goverinnent of Christ. Mow much the church
of Rome miscarried in all these, especially in this last, above
all the churches on earth, is also too evident to those that are
not imwilling to see.
And it is to be noted, that the more that, or any church
was corrupted, the less careful was the devil to raise heresies out
of it, or separations from it, because he had rather, if it might
be, hereticate the whole ; and while he had so great hopes and
likelihood of poisoning their daily food and habitations at
home, he was the less careful to draw them into dangers abroad ;
nor would he disturb them much with the clamours of heretics,
while themselves did grow apace so like to them. This is the
reason why the chmch of Rome hath had fewer separating
heresies, since it began to be corrupted, schismatical, and tyran-
nical, than it had when it was more pure, and than the catholic
church had in the first and purer times.
And, doubtless, this design of the devil, to corrupt the church
of Rome, and cause them to claim an universal episcopacy and
headship over the whole catholic church, and to make that the
centre of the church's union, is so evidently like himself, and
suited to his ends, and so contrary to Christ, that he may easily
be known to be his, (that is, Christ's) adversary. Whether the
pope be the antichrist or not, I am sure the devil shows him-
THE HOLY GHOST. 289
self an antichrist in his exaltation and usurpation. The mil-
lions of souls that have been drowned in superstition, and led
blindfold in commended ignorance, do show who hath been the
pilot in that sea. The blood that hath been shed in Germany,
France, Spain, Italy, England, and other nations, by fire and
sword, for the suppression of a reformation, and extinguishing
of the light, do show, that he, who was a murderer from the
beginning, hath led on the inquisitors and blood-suckers to the
work. The wilful opposing of evident truths, the obstinate
refusal of all healing means, the carnal maintaining of their
own interest, and rejecting all counsels of the prudent and
moderate, doth show who it is that befriendeth their usurpa-
tion : so doth the ground which they have laid for perpetual
dissentions, by the horrible schism, which they have caused
and continue, making the catholic church a new thing, even
the same with the Roman, and proudly calling the whole christ-
ian world to own their bishop as their head and governor, and
declaring all that refuse it to be out of the catholic church, and
resolving upon an everlasting separation from all that cannot
so far stoop to them, and so unchurching all the churches of
Christ in the world, except their own, and these that make
themselves their subjects, and by proclaiming themselves infal-
lible, putting us out of all hopes of a cure of the least of their
abuses, injuries, or errors, till the sword cure it, or God open
their eyes. All this shows that the devil hath been playing as
great a game at Rome (by these pretended St. Peters) of late, as
he did by Simon Magus in the beginning : besides all the cor-
ruptions in doctrine and worship, which they have introduced,
teaching men to pray to and for the dead, to adore the bread
and worship it with divine worship, to worship images, to pray
to God in a tongue which they understand not, when they
might as easily use that which they do understand, maiming
the Lord's supper, with too many the like ; professing that
they can live perfectly, without sin, yea, and meritoriously, and
supererogate besides, and lay up a treasury of merits to re-
deem souls from purgatory : these, and abundance more, show
that the prince of darkness hath had too great a hand in ruling
their conclave and counsels, and an evil angel hath kept the
kevs too long of the castle of St. Angelo, or else there had not
been such key keepers imposed upon their church.
If yet any question whether the devil hath had a hand in
introducing their tyranny and errors, and in laying the founda-
tion of their schism and corruptionsj let him but peruse the
290 THE SIN AGAINST
histories of one six or seven hundred years before Luther's time,
and see how their popes entered, how they reigned, and how
they ended. Let but their own writers, Platina, Ciaconius,
Stella, and many more, be heard, who will tell you how some of
them bought the popedom of the devil, how divers were con-
jurers, and multitudes horrible adulterers, or murderers. The
mere English reader may, in short, take up with what Ur.
Prideaux will inform him, from the year six hundred and six till
one thousand six hundred and twenty three, and after ; that is,
from the beginning of Boniface the Third, till near the end of
Urban the Eighth.
Thus hath the prince of darkness, Beelzebub, showed us his
designs, and led on the armies that have marched against
Christ, improving his craft and power, and deluding poor souls
to be his unhappy instruments to blow out the glorious light of
the Gospel, and hinder its efficacy, and disturb and tear in pieces
the church, hold those in thraldom that Christ will rescue out
of his hands.
And it is not altogether to be passed over, for the further
discovery where the kingdom of Satan most consisteth, that the
devil had formerly, in the times of popery, incomparably more
power among men to appear to them, and haunt their houses
and vex them, than now he hath. It is certainly known, that
till the reformation, the haunting of houses and apparitions
were much more common than now. And, at this day, it is
much commoner among the papists than the protestants ; I
have spoken with old people, very credible for true godliness and
honesty, that have professed when they were young, they have
lived in such houses with papists, where they were vexed with
them frequently day and night. I know, when we ask the
papists the reason of tins, they say 'It is because Satan will not
trouble his own.' But, by that rule, all the Indians and barbarous
heathens should not be his own, whom he commonly so troubleth.
He will exercise his tyranny, and domineer as far as God
restraineth him not : and we see he is more restrained with us
than with them. Though I know, that as here he hath too many
wicked men which are his servants, so he may and doth some-
time exercise the like tyranny ; but it is not so common as it is
with them. The like I may say of witches, which with them
have been more numerous, saving that of late so great a number
were found in two or three counties here.
The next work of Satan against the church, that we shall
mention, is his setting up Mahomet, whose Alcoran was vented
THE HOLY GHOST, 291
about the time that Pope Boniface the Third obtained of Phocas
his universal supremacy, above six hundred years after Christ.
It is a doubt among divines, whether the Mahometans should be
reckoned infidels or heretics. For they confess, even Mahomet
in his Alcoran, that Jesus Christ was a great prophet, tiiat he
was the mind of God, the wisdom of God, the word of God, and
the Messiah which was foretold in the law, and by the prophets;
that he was born of the Virgin Marv, conceived without any
earthly father, by divine inspiration ; that he was righteous ;
that he gave sight to the blind, healed the lame and sick, and
raised the dead to life again ; that he was taken up into heaven,
and shall come again. Thus much of his Gospel God hath forced
these multitudes of his enemies to attest.
But then they take up some of the old heresies, and say,
that Christ was not crucified, but his image, or one like him, the
Jews being deceived. They say, he shall come again on earth,
at the end of the world, to confirm the law of Mahomet ; the
first propiigators of the christian faith, they say, were good and
holy men ; but they would sottishly persuade men, that our
books and religion are since corrupted, and that Mahomet's
name is wiped out, of whom great matters were there spoken.
Whether we name them heretics or infidels, the matter is not
great ; but we know that they deny Christ's Godhead, as the
Socinians do, being taught it by Sergius, the Arian monk, who
was Mahomet's schoolmaster, and the maker of their religion.
And though they thus far own Christ absolutely considered, yet,
compared with Mahomet, they neglect him ; and under pretence
of the fore mentioned defection they hate the churches of Christ
on earth, and are persecutors and professed enemies to the
christian name.
So that a double hand of Satan is apparent in their profes-
sion ; first, in the framing and founding of it ; and secondiv, in
carrying it on. As he did by the rest of the heretics, so he hath
done by them ; while they retain and acknowledge some truths,
as the unity of the Godhead, &c., they are made instruments of
destroying the rest, and of ruining the professors of the true re-
ligion. 1 know Satan could not have procured them their great
successes and victories, if God had not permitted or had a hand
in it ; but our sins had made us ripe for such a judgment. Vic-
tories and worldly powers have been the planters and propaga-
tors of their faith.
That it is of Satan, and one of his master-pieces in the great
war that he hath with Christ, is manifest :
292 THE SIN AGAINST
1. By the ancient heresies that bred it, and that it con-
taineth.
2. By the dotages and self-contradiction of their Alcoran.
3. By the wickedness of it; encouraging them still to blood,
allowing them four wives and as many concubines as they please,
and promising them a sensual felicity hereafter ; and contra-
dicting the word of God in particulars, when they acknowledge
the truth of it in general.
4. By the suitableness of it to carnal minds, and the ready
reception that it findeth with such ; so that the vilest barbarians
are quickly made Mahometans ; and there is a greater part of
the world this day that are Mahometans, than Christians, merely
by the force of the sword, and the sensuality of their religion.
5. And they will not suffer it to be disputed, nor reasoned of,
but absolutely believe without asking for any evidence of its
truth.
6. And the management and issue clearly shows it is but the
devil's second army (next to the Pagans), by which he seeks to
hold his possession, and to hinder Christ's kingdom, and perse-
cute his subjects. For, by force they have already banished the
most of the christian religion from a great part of the world,
where once it was glorious ; and the rest they are still infesting;
and those under their power they keep in much thraldom, and
suffering, and disgrace. So that it is most clear, that the setting
up of Mahometanism was one of the most successful oppositions
that ever the devil made against Christ and the Christian cause;
having thereby rooted or kept out Christianity from so great a
part of the earth by such silly, palpable dotages.
After Mahometanism, let us consider how he hath yet pro-
ceeded to defile, or destroy if it might have been, the remaining
church of Christ, by renewing heresies to this day.
When Satan perceived that he could no longer keep up the
tyranny and errors of popery undisturbed, but that Christ would
send out such a light as should disgrace and dispel his darkness,
he reneweth his old attempts again, and setteth upon Christ in
his own kingdom, and falls upon the reformation in its own
quarters. And as he set out Simon Magus, at first, to follow
Simon Peter, and Paul, at the heels, and disturb them in their
work, and disgrace Christianity, partly by diversity, and partly
by the evil doctrines and lives of such as pretend to be Christ-
ians ; so did he send out the like sect-masters after Christ's re-
formers, to stand up against them by the same artifices, and to
disturb the labourers, and disgrace the reformation, by the di-
THE HOLY GHOST. 293
versity and evil doctrines and practices of those who pretended
to be reformers with them.
Two trained bands doth Satan here send out to encounter
the church and truth of Christ. The first are a mixed company
that all go under the name of anabaptists ; the other are en-
thusiasts, that go under divers names, but agree in their main
design, of whom I shall speak anon.
It was the subtlety of Satan to begin with the point of infant
baptism, both because it was not all so expressly mentioned in
Scripture, as some greater matters are, and, therefore, would hold
more controversy and talk, and he might more easily bring them
to a confidence in their mistakes, or at least a suspicion of our
doctrine ; and also because if he could so far loose them from
Christ as to make them repent of their former dedication to him,
and disclaim it, he might think to have the more power over
them himself. However it were, experience certainly informetii
us that this egg did multiply to such a generation of vipers, as
threatened to eat out the bowels of the reformed churches. They
made the reformation odious to many. They began in a seem-
ing simplicity and harmlessness, asif wehadnot reformed enough,
but they must carry on the work where we left it, and cast out
children from the church, as we cast out separation and errors ;
but when the spirit within them had once vent and field-room
for agitation, it soon discovered itself to be of the great deceiver.
In Germany, Thomas Muntzer preached the people into a rebel-
lion, and got a numerous army of the seduced ones into the
field, and while he promised them victory, they were routed and
hewed in pieces, and himself put to a terrible death. In the
city of Munster, they made head against the bishop, who was
their prince ; and expelled him and the magistrates, and put
some to death, and made John of Leyden their king, who, after
a little barbarous cruelty and domineering for a few weeks, was
put to death with many of his new subjects, at the taking of the
city. Yet some of them lived, and broke out into various sects :
David George headed one party of them, and taught them that
he was the Holy Ghost ; and as the Father's doctrine saved them
till Christ, and the Son's Gospel till now, so the doctrine of this
David, who was the Holy Ghost, was as much higher than the
doctrine of the Son, as the Son's was higher than the Father's.
Thus did he take hands with the second sect, the enthusiasts,
and join two into one.
The second sect had manv heads, in some things differing one
294 THE SIN AGAINST
from another. Some followed Schvvenkfeldius, and some lurked
and made no great noise with their opinions, as being not able
to make any great party. Of these, the chief leader was Para-
celsus, a drunken conjurer, who had converse with devils, as
Simon Magus, the first master of the heretics, had ; by which
it is not hard to know whence he had his nevi^ doctrines. This
is not only testified by Erasmus, in his disputation against him,
but by George Wetter, a godly, learned man, that was Paracelsus'
companion for two years together, who told him what wages
Satan would pay his servants, and asked him why he would
follow that course, and he answered him that he would shortly
repent, and forsake them. Joannes Oporinus, also, Theodore,
Zuingerus, Bullinger, Conrad, Gesnerus, and others, do witness
that he used magic, and devils, and would be so frequently
drunk that men could scarcely tell when to speak with him. Opo-
rinus had been his amanuensis and companion, and saith, he
saw neither learning nor godliness in him, but skill in medi-
cines : and that he would sit up till midnight, and then leap
down on his bed with his sword by his side, and rising up,
would so lay about him on the walls and floor with his naked
sword, that Oporinus was oft afraid he would have cut off his head.
This Oporinus was the learned, famous printer of Basil. Yet
this Paracelsus was the great corrupter of divinity, the father of
many new conceits contradictory to Scripture : upon his founda-
tion his successors built, as Menander did on Simon Magus,
and Saturninus, and Basilides, and others, on his. John Arndt
magnifieth him ; Weigelius calls him exceedingly illuminated,
and his theology he calls the pure and incorrupt Scripture of
the prophets and apostles : this Weigelius was the chief of his
followers and successors. Then steps in John Arndt, Julius
Sperber, Jesaias Stiefel, and Ezekiel Meth, Paul Felgenhaver,
and Jacob Behmen, whose books, much taken out of Paracelsus,
and furthered by Kempis, Taulerus, and others, are now trans-
lated into English by some admirers of him, possessed by the
same conceits. The cloudy nonsense, or wilful obscurity, draws
them into admiration of them first, and they think there is sure
some admirable mysteries in those enigmatical expressions, and
so they are tired on to so long an expense of time in the search,
till they are habituated to his arrogancy and folly. What his
doctrines are, what new prophecies he produceth, and disco-
veries of things before and about the creation, angels, the soul,
heaven and hell, &c., which the Scripture revealeth not, is too
THE HOLY GHOST. 295
commonly known in his books, which yet are pretty well locked
up, and made more harmless by such ridiculous and yet hideous
bombardical words, as Basilides, Valentinus, and the first he-
retics used. And indeed, never had the world a generation so
like them in doctrinals as some of these late enthusiasts. Weig-
elius' books have a gnostic title ; they all pretend to a higher
knowledge of mysteries about angels, spirits, and spiritual states,
and God himself, than the church knoweth ; and yet they give
us neither reasons with Aristotle, nor miracles with Christ and
his apostles, to cause us to believe any of their new revelations :'
as if we must take them on their bare (scarce intelligible) words.
They that would see more of these German prophets, and how
Behmen had his doctrine from the books of Paracelsus ; let them
read Beckman's ' Exercitations,' (p. 346, 347,) and so forward.
From Germany let us pass a little into England, and see how
the same devil in enmity to Christ hath here sent out his false
prophets to hinder the reformers, and to have destroyed, if it
might be, the work of reformation.
Just such another sect as some of the old gnostics did arise
under the name of the family of love, who made one Henry
Nichols the leader of their party. They turned almost all the
supernatural revelation in Scripture to an allegory, and so denied
even Christ's incarnation, death, and resurrection, and ascen-
sion in sense, while they seemed to believe the words that did
express it. They very much gloried in the light and spirit within
them, and called the written word but the letter, and so would
have brought down God's law as a dead letter, and have set up
their own conceits, passionate fancies, and dreams, as the Spirit.
Abundance of horrible doctrines they added, like those of the
old Gnostics, their predecessors. You may see some of them in
Mr. Bailye's 'Dissuasive,' and Mr. Rutherford 'Against Fami-
lists,' &c. To these were annexed, in Germany, the Libertines,
who denied the immortality of the soirl, and made good and
evil to lie but in opinion, and many more like them of old (of
which see Calvin, against them, and in his ' Psychopanichia'). In
England they were called Antinomians, and some of them were
much worse in doctrine and life than others. These two sects
did here usually mix. The common road of this heretical devil
being ordinarily by separation to anabaptistrj', from anabap-
tistry to antinomianism or Pelagianism, for there the way parted,
and from antinomianism to libertinism, and so to familism, and
so to hell without repentance.
296 THE SIN AGAINST
Of this tribe was Hacket, Co})pinger, and Arthington, who
lived a while as wrapped up in the Spirit, and in antinoniian fan-
cies, and a great number of their party called Grundletonians,
from a village in Yorkshire, where they lived or met. I had an
old, godly friend that lived near them, and went once among
them, and they breathed on him as to give him the Holy Ghost;
and his family, for three days after, perceived him as a man of
another spirit, as half in an ecstacy, and after that he came to
himself, and came near to them no more : but the hanging of
Hacket, who died blaspheming, which story is so commonly
known that I need not mention it, did much mar their matters;
and Arthington's recantation, in a book called his ' Seduction,'
did stay many : for he and Coppinger were the two witnesses
that were to proclaim up and down London that Hacket was the
Christ that was come to judge them.
Whilst these heretics assaulted the reformation and the
Gospel on one hand, the devil v»as as busy to stir up the church
governors themselves to the disrelish of godliness, to supersti-
tion, and tyranny, on the other hand, who, upon the difference
about ceremonies and subscription first, and afterwards upon the
introduction of more of their forms of worship without law,
did suspend, silence, expel, imprison, many learned, godly,
sober ministers, that were most diligent in pulling down the
kingdom of Satan, and did him the greatest hurt, by rescuing
the ungodly out of his hand ; besides a multitude of godly peo-
ple that were troubled, banished, and driven to seek remote
habitations, even as far as America. Upon which Satan got a
further double and great advantage, besides the grievous breach
and ruins that he made in the church. The first was, that he
made practical godliness become odious and a scorn among the
people, and the godly to ])e reproached as puritans, and men
that were needlessly precise. The second was, that he kindled,
on this occasion, a deeper discontent, in the minds of some of
the persecuted, against their persecuting governors than was
meet, and set them in too keen an opposition against them. By
which means the devil prepared us to those factions and ani-
mosities which presently broke out into an unhappy war : in
which war, as in all wars, the reins being more loose, and sol-
diers having both provocations to stir up their pride, passion,
and dissent from their enemies to the height, and also opportu-
nity to vent their opinions, and to propagate them with less con-
tradiction, because they were removed further from the inspec-
THE HOLY GHOST. 297
tion of able ministers, and were put into a proud, domineering,
and licentious capacity : it came to pass that a few separatists
and anabaptists, that were at first in the city and army, did
grow in two or three years' time to a multitude, and by the
policies of Satan and his instruments, did propagate and spread
their conceits through the countries, and cast both church and
state, and the minds of men into such distempers that they
had fuller opportunity to fish when the waters were thus trou-
bled; and the papists secretly fomenting the whole work, and all
Satan's heretical agents combining upon their common interest,
and upon the libertine account of toleration for them all ; at
last, by many flagitious and abominable practices, they got so
far into the saddle, and to that height and number, and to those
advantages for the propagation of their way, which our eyes
have seen, and the faithful have lamented, so that now they
are upon the Munster principles, many of them seeking after
reign and dominion, and think the time is come, or near, when
the rebaptised saints must judge the world, and the kingdom
must be theirs, and they must rule and break the nations, at
least, for a thousand years.
A man would scarcely have believed that saw the first spring of
separation and anabaptistry among us, that it would have
produced those fearful effects, which we have since beheld.
The devil knew better what was contained virtually in that seed,
and what an inundation might follow the first breaches of our
schisms, than we did : or else he would not have so far out-gone
us in diligence ; somewhat more we should have done to resist
him, and less to assist him, than we did. He hath now got such
an army of heretics to spit their venom daily in the face of
Christ, that we may hear easily, by their voices, whether Satan
be for Christ or against him. From separation and anababtistry
and antinomianism, they have proceeded to ^such madness and
abominable conceits, and to so great variety of them, as I scarcely
read of in any time of the church, except in the days of the
Simonians, Nicolaitans, and the rest of the gnosticks in and near
the days of the apostles, and in the time of David George and
some others, in the reformation.
And here I may well note the seasons that this destroyer
takes, for the sending forth his lying spirits, and spreading his
heresies: it is when and where Christ is doing his greatest
works. The apostles and their next successors, that had the
most glorious work to do, had also the sharpest assault and
VOL. XX. z
298 THE SIN AGAINST
greatest opposition from these heretics. The work of reforma-
tion in the days of our fore- fathers had the next part of Satan's
malicious opposition. How loth was he that such works as
these should have gone on ! In England, he saw of late how
earnestly men were set upon a full reformation ; w^hat resolution
there was in rulers, and what desires in many of the people, to
have seen a plenty of faithful teachers, and discipline faithfully
exercised, and God purely and seriously worshipped ; so that
that great work was never half so likely to have been accom-
plished, if the enemy had not subtlely interposed, and corrupted
the heads and hearts of so many, and made them the destroyers
that but a little before were forward to build. We could not
foresee, in the height of our successful beginnings, that which
Paul could then see in theirs. (Acts xx. 29, 30.) What
grievous wolves should enter, not sparing the flock, and that of
our own selves should men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw
away disciples after them. But, alas ! while we slept, that
envious enemy hath sowed these tares 3 so that I think we may
almost compare with the first heretics for vileness and variety.
Some we have that turn Socinians, denying Christ's Godhead
and satisfaction, and the Godhead of the Holy Ghost ; some
turn libertines, and some familists ; some seekers, and that of
divers strains. Some down-right infidels, under that and other
titles ; even deriding the holy Scriptures, and Christ himself,
as far as they dare speak out for fear of blemishing their repu-
tations. No heaven or hell do they believe but what is now
within them, nor any higher felicity than to be epicures, nor any
life after this which they shall live. And herein are far worse
than almost all the pagans on the earth, yea, than the savage
Americans, who commonly believe a life of happiness or misery
hereafter. May you not see in these men how Satan befriendeth
Christ ? Nay, that the devil drives them on is yet more
apparent, in that these very men, that believe no life to come,
are yet as diligent and busy to make others of their mind, and
increase their party, as if they had the greatest motives to impel
them. Whereas, rationally, he that thinks man so contemptible
a creature as to die like a dog, hath no reason miich to regard
whether men entertain his opinion or no ; though he that
believeth an eveilasting joy or torment may see reason enough
to move him to such endeavours, that men may escape the
misery, and be happy.
Besides these, we have had, and yet have, a horrible, hateful
THE HOLY GHOST. 299
sect of men called ranters, who make it their very religion to
swear out the most full-mouthed oaths by multitudes, and openly
blaspheme the God of heaven, and so meet, and dance, and roar
together ; and commit whoredoms and filthiness without shame,
owning it, and glorying in it, when they have been punished or
examined : so that they seem to match the Simonians and
Nicolaitans. They fall into trances, and there lie with their
bodies swelled, and strangely acted, and then fall into their
raptures and blasphemings. When the law began to restrain
these for their wicked practices, the same deceiving spirit raiseth
up another sect in their stead, called quakers,'who hold many
of their doctrines, and take their course in other respects ; only,
instead of ranting, open wickedness, they pretend to as great
mortification of the flesh as the ancient Eremites, and more.
They fall into trances, swell, quake, and tremble, and yell, and
roar, and after the fit is over, fall a threatening judgments,
sometimes against common sins : but the very life and venom
of all their speeches and endeavours is against the ministry, to
make them odious in the eyes of the people. As I have seen
the letters of the ranters so full of the most hideous blasphemies
against God, as I- thought had never come from any but the
damned, so have I had letters from these quakers myself, so full
of railing and reviling, from end to end, as I never saw before
from the pen of man, either mad or sober, nor ever heard from
the mouth of any. Of these two last sorts, divers have run
ul)out naked, and some said they were Christ. One ran naked
into Whitehall chapel in the time of worship : one eat his own
dung, in imitation of Jeremy. To know more of them, see the
relation of Richard Gilpin's case. Some of them pretend yet
to greater sobriety, and make no great noise in the world ; and
those are but few, and men of commendable parts, who are deeply
possessed with the fancies of Jacob Behmen, the German Para-
celsian prophet, and the Rosicrucians, and set themselves mainly
to a mortification of bodily desires and delights, and advancing
the intellective part above the sensitive, (which is well,) but the
doctrine of Christ crucified and justification by him is little
minded by them. They do, as the quakers, maintain the popish
doctrine of perfection, that they can live without sin, or that
some of them can. They aspire after a visible communion with
angels, and many of them pretend to have attained it, and fre '
quently to see them. The rest have that immediate intuition
of verities by the spirit within them, or by revelation, that it is
Z 2
300 THE SIN AGAINST
above mere rational apprehension, and therefore they will not
dispute, nor be moved by any arguments or Scriptures that you
bring, affirming that ratiocination cannot prevail against their
intuition. The sum of their doctrines is, that we must be perfect,
and for subjecting the flesh to the intellect, we must live in con-
templation, lay by all offices in the commonwealth, and own no
fleshly relations, as they call them, not the relation of brother
or sister, not the relation of a magistrate, or of a master, not
the relation of a father or mother, son or daughter, nor love
any because of such a relation, but only as justice binds us to
requital for what they have done for us. That none should own
the relation of husband or wife, nor love each other as so re-
lated. That we should endeavour to be perfect, and therefore
to forbear all carnal acts of generation, as being of sin and of
the devil, and therefore husband and wife should part asunder,
or abstain. That all things should be common, and none
should own propriety, with abundance more, which are founded
on certain vain, unproved fancies of Behmen, that God at first
created man a spiritual body, in one sex only, and that contain-
ing both sexes virtually, having an angelical power of spiritual
generation, and that this gross corporeity, and diversity of sex,
marriage, and generation, are all the fruits of sin and Satan,
with abundance more such audacious vanities, not worth the
reciting.
The truth is, there is a strange combination of the endea-
vours of the papists and the devil in most of these late heresies.
The matter and manner, the strange imposture, and transporta-
tions and motions, and wicked, abominable lives of some of
them, and railing of others, do show that he is the father of it :
so do the intolerable doctrines which they bring, and the oppo-
sition that all make to Christ, or the christian faith and
communion.
And that the popish priests or Jesuits are the leading, busy
actors of the whole game, we easily discern, both in that they
are frequently discovered in it, and in that the whole frame of
the design hath a popish aspect, and the face of their doctrines
shows that they came from Rome. Their main business is to
bring down the credit of the Scriptures and ministry, and if
that were done, the papists would think they had the day.
They also directly lead to their monastical and eremetical so-
litude, and making that rigour to the body, and denying
marriage, propiiety, and worldly employments, to be for their
THE HOLY GHOST. 301
righteousness, which they trust in, and in this they must be
perfect. But, doubtless, the issue of this (as the powder plot,
and all other wicked attempts have done) will cast such a shame
on the face of Rome, that it will prove no small wound to their
cause, and, 1 hope, much cross their own expectations. I confess
it doth very much to turn my heart from them further than else
it would be.
1. To see that their cause is such, and their doctrine such as
needeth and owneth such abominable ways to maintain it ; and
that their most zealous, learned men are such as dare own and
practise such wicked courses. Doth Christ's kingdom need such
hellish plots and attempts for the sustaining of it ? If the
Roman kingdom were Christ's, it would not stand on such cursed
props, nor would they go to hell for armour to defend it. It
appears, that they will rather introduce all the heresies, blas-
phemies, and infidelity itself, by their secret seductions, than
they will neglect to promote their own interests and designs.
2. And it confirms me much against them to see that the
devil and the pope are both of a mind, and that Satan doth so
notoriously join with them in the design, and show so much of
his power and malice in the prosecution of it.
I have been somewhat long upon this work of the great enemy,
to show how he brings up his band of heretics against Christ.
I shall be more brief in the rest ; though they are such as might
hold us long, if we stood upon the application of them to the
matter in hand, as the usefulness doth deserve; for they all put
it out of doubt, that Satan is the leading enemy of Christ.
Sect. IX.
The sixth way by which the devil hath showed his enmity to
Christ, is by open persecution of his subjects, and violence
against his Gospel and kingdom ; in which, though he could go
no further than God in wisdom saw good to permit him, yet so
far hath he gone, as that the effects of his hellish rage are the
subject of many voluminous histories, which being common in
men's hands, I shall say but little of it.
As Satan was a murderer from the beginning, (John viii. 24,)
maliciously supplanting our new-created progenitors, and draw-
ing them under the guilt of threatened death, so when the
eternal Word did interpose for their redemption, and opened
again to man a door of life, the malice of the enemy is so far
from being abated, that it is more enraged and engaged against
302 THE SIN AGAINST
US than before. He had before a malicious hatred to man, but
now he hateth him as recovered yet more, and hath a special
enmity to the promised seed, both Christ and all his members.
And so speedily and openly doth this appear, that he arms one
of Adam's sons against the other upon this account. The first
man that was born into the world is so far overcome by this
envious spirit, as to murder his brother, because his own works
were evil, and his brother's good. (1 John iii. 12.) And thus
did he still rage against the promised seed, as in Egypt by
Pharaoh and his witches or magicians, from whom Moses bore
the reproach of Christ, that is, which the serpent principally in-
tended against Christ, and which was cast upon him for the cause
of Christ. (Heb. xi. 26.) So also from generation to generation.
But the seed incarnate, and seed now come on earth among
men, did yet draw out more of the rage of the enemy than the
seed as merely promised did. How quickly is Herod enraged
by the tempter to seek his life, while he is yet in infancy, even
to the murdering of multitudes of infants for his sake ! How
cruelly doth that devil that provoked Herod to keep his bro-
ther's wife, provoke him also to imprison and behead the fore-
runner of Christ, John the Baptist ! When it pleased the Lord
Jesus to submit himself to an extraordinary combat with the
tempter, (Matt, iv.,) how maliciously did he seek to draw him to
sin, even that sin which is most abominable, the worshipping
of himself instead of God. Of purposie did Christ submit to
this conflict ; because as happiness was lost by the first Adam,
through the victory of the tempter, so must it be recovered by
the second Adam, through his victory over the tempter. He
that did conquer must thus be conquered, that sinners might
be rescued from the captivity in which he held them. First,
Christ must overcome by obedience, tried to the utmost by
temptation, and then he must also overcome by suffering. By
overcoming temptation he must overcome Satan as tempter,
who had got the rule of the will of man ; and by death he must
overcome him as the prince of death, that had got the power of
eKecuting God's sentence. (Heb. ii. 14.)
The continual rage of Satan's instruments against Christ
while he was on earth, did further testify his hatred of Christ.
Though they confessed the glory of his works, and the excel-
lency of his words, and though none of them could convince
him of sin, yet they hated him. The reason he tells them,
*^ Because they were of their father the devil, who was a mur-
THE HOLY GHOST. 303
derer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth." (John
viii. 44.) It is evident that it was an extraordinary enmity of
Satan that possessed the Jews with this rage against Christ,
through God's permission, and wise and gracious ordering for
the redemption of the world : for the Jews were at that time in
an expectation of the Messiah, and ready to run after any other
that called himself the Messiah. Those that came in their own
name, without any testimony of mission from God, they would
receive : but Christ that came, in his Father's name, with his
testimony of prophecies, miracles, and the rest, him they re-
ceived not. When false Christs came presently after him, ac-
cording as he had foretold, they run out after them, one after
another, even to rebellion against the Romans, and the desola-
tion of their nation.
• All Christ's sufferings, as they were the effects of man's sin,
and God's hatred of sin, and his governing justice, considering
Christ as made sin for us ; so were they the effects of the malice
and rage of the devil, who now was at the sword's point with
him, and at the closing stroke, and was doing the worst he
could against him. This was the time that the serpent must
eminently bruise his heel. Christ himself tells the Jews that so
it was when they came to take him, that this was their day and
the power of darkness. (Luke xxii. 53.) That is, in which the
prince and power of darkness must so far prevail as to cause his
shameful death, or else he could not be a sacrifice for sin, nor
conquer and triumph by a resurrection, and lead captivity cap-
tive, and give the gifts of the Spirit to men upon his ascension.
And therefore he would not call for that help from heaven, nor
those legions of angels which were at his will, because this was
the time of the power of darkness : but when his hour was not
yet come, nor this murdering piece of the enemy ready to be dis-
charged, then, though he were daily teaching among them in the
temple, and stirring up their rage, yet laid they not hands on
him. Two hours of the power of darkness did Christ espe-
cially meet with ; the aforesaid hour of temptation in the wil-
derness, where the tempter must be let loose in an extraordi-
nary kind ; and this hour of his suffering. It was Satan that
here buffetted Christ by the hands of wicked men ; that spit
upon him by their mouths, that crowned him with thorns ; that
crucified and pierced him, and put him to death, and would
have kept him there if all the power of hell could have done it.
When Christ had overcome and was ascended into glory, the
304 THE SIN AGAINST
enemy draws his sword against his servants, and provokes the
deluded Jews to persecute them, and the high priests and phari-
sees to stir up the people, and also the Roman power against
them. How furiously are the apostles threatened and scourged,
even when they confirmed the doctrine of Christ by miracles !
(Acts iii.) How cruelly ife Stephen stoned to death ! How
quickly is James killed, and Peter imprisoned to the like intent !
Paul haleth men and women to prison, to compel them to blas-
pheme ; and when he could persecute them no longer, he is per-
secuted himself, imprisoned, scourged, tossed up and down, hav-
ing many conspiracies against his life 3 everywhere are the
Christians spoken against and persecuted, cast out of syna-
gogues, called before kings, hated of all wicked men, having all
manner of evil sayings and doings against them, for the sake of
Christ, as he had foretold them it should be. So cruelly wefe
the apostles themselves used, that it is supposed, that of the
twelve, with Paul adjoined, there were none but John that
escaped their murderous hands, the rest being all offered in
martyrdom for Christ ; and to John himself they did their worst,
and banished him when they could not kill him. Their succes-
sors also succeeded them in their sufferings. The common lot
of Christians was reproach, imprisonment, and cruel death ; so
that the Holy Ghost doth warn them all to expect it, telling
them that through many tribulations they must enter into the
kingdom of heaven, and that all that will live godly in Christ
Jesus must suffer persecution, and not think the fiery trial
strange. Few of the pastors of the church did then escape
martyrdom. So that of thirty Roman bishops successively very
few escaped this death. The like was the lot of other pastors,
at Jerusalem, Alexandria, Carthage, and the rest of the world
where Christianity was set up.
That this was the doing of the malicious serpent, appeareth
evidently :
1. In that the worst of men were their greatest persecutors :
Nero led the way, and was most cruel ; Domitian, and most of
the rest, were of his strain ; the best emperors and people had
the least hand in it, for the most part.
2. In that it was for the maintaining of idolatry that this
cruelty was exercised, together with the suppression of the
christian faith.
3. The savage and hellish cruelty that they exercised doth
manifest it. It were endless to mention the multitudes that
THE HOLY GHOST. 305
were torn in pieces by wild beasts, hanged, burned, crucified,
torn with pincers, thrust in with stakes from the fundament
through the mouth, whipped to death, cast down from the rocks,
beheaded, thrust by hundreds into places where they were burnt
together, drowned, hung up by the heels, roasted on spits and
gridirons, pressed to death, pricked with nails and reeds to
death, hanged by one hand, or by the middle till they died,
men and women hanged naked by one foot till they died, put by
multitudes into the fish-ponds and waters to be frozen to death,
their skins flayed off alive, stoned to death, beaten with
clubs, and many the like torments. The English reader
that would see it in a narrower room, may read Mr. Samuel
Clark's * Martyrology.' Could any thing but hellish, unmerci-
ful malice kindle and foment such flames as these ? Nay, they
hewed their own soldiers to death by multitudes, that were
Christians, and spared not men of any degree.
4. It is yet more apparent that it was the devil that thus
raged, because they were his agents that were the great inciters
of the emperors hereunto, as well as his interest that was the
ground of the quarrel. For not only Apollonius Tyanaeus, that
famous sorcerer, but all the rest of the magicians or witches
were the great upholders of idolatry, and opposers of the Christ-
ians, and causers of their sufferings. And doubtless it was not
God that set the conjurers on work, but their own master, by
God's permission.
5. IVIoreover, this persecution doth more fully discover the
enmity that Satan hath against Christ, in that it was the Christ-
ians that were culled out to this cruel usage, when others were
honoured, or let alone. Indeed, the Jews were hardly used, but
not in that manner as the Christians, for their religion, but the
ground and manner was far different.
1. One main reason" was, because they so oft rebelled against
the Romans, which the Christians did not.
2. And God hath subjected them to misery for their infidelity.
3. And yet a great cause was, because they held so much of
God's truth as the doctrine of the Old Testament, and did oppose
the pagan's multiplicity of gods, and their idolatry : for which
the devil doth owe them also a grudge.
But for all that taught or did any thing against Christ and
his ways, or maintained any vanity of wickedness, they were not
troubled. The philosophers might be of as many sects as they
pleased, and oppose one another as bitterly, and vet never be
306 THE SIN AGAINST
haled to torments, unless any, with Socrates, would presume to
speak against idolatry, the worship of devils ; and then he also
might feel it. Every country might have gods of their own, and
as great variety as they would, and never be put to death or
troubled for it. Only the Christians are the men, through all
the world, that must be hated and persecuted. Nay, it is very
observable that though the heretics, that went under the name
of Christians, were the occasion of their reproaches, yet did they
suffer them in their filthiness, and fall upon the orthodox
Christians. Justin Martyr, in his ' Second Apology,' tells them
that "Whatever these heretics be, it is most certain that they are
not persecuted, nor put to death for their opinions." Origin,
* Against Celsus,' (lib. vi,) showing that the Simonians were then
quite worn out, for all they accounted idolatry indifferent, and
so avoided persecution, saith further, ^' Immo nee uUa persecutio
contra Simonianos unquam exerta est ; sciebat enim maliis
damon doctrine Jesu insidiator, nihil periculi mis rebus immi-
nere a Simonis discipiiUs :" that is, 'Yea, there was never any
prosecution raised against the Simonians; for the evil spirit
that plotted against Christ's doctrine did know that there was
no danger from Simon's disciples likely to befall his cause or
affairs.' If an army invade a country, Which are half English
and half Spaniards, and shall cull out the English and put them
to the sword, and let the Spaniards alone, may not any man know
that the general and commanders of the army are friends to the
Spaniards, or special enemies to the English ? So, when all
idolaters, heretics, and impious persons are befriended, and only
Christians and professors of truth destroyed, may you not see
that it is their grand enemy, and a friend to idolatry and heresy
that is the author of it ?
6. Moreover, it is evidently from Satan, in that it is so pro-
pagated in the hearts and cruel actions of persecutors from age
to age. It is not only one age, nor one emperor that hath taken
this course ; but as at first, ten successively, with some breath-
ing calms under the most sober rulers, of the heathen emperors ;
so afterwards when the heretics themselves got in power, they
were as bloody and cruel as the pagans. A^lso, it was not in one
coiuitry, or under one prince's laws alone, but evervwhere they
found the same hellish malice and its effects. And it was the
magicians that instigated them in other countries too, above any
other men. It was they that set Sapores, king of Persia, on
his cruel persecution ; and so in other places.
THE HOLY GHOST. 307
How cruelly did the Arian emperors, Constantius and Valens,
use the Christians ! Fourscore ministers, that came to Valens to
complain of the Christians' sufferings, were burned together in
a ship.
The Vandal Arians, under Gensericus, and many of his barba-
rous successors, are yet more cruel, and put the true Christians,
especially the ministers, to as exquisite torment as the pagans
had done before them. Some were sawed asunder, some were
made the food of swine, some anointed with honey and hung up
for wasps to eat, some dragged by the heels, naked, through
thorns and briars and stony ways, with many the like torments.
And what the Christians have suffered from the Turks, and
other Mahometans, through all their dominions, I think I need
not recite.
And as you have heard what Satan hath done by infidels and
heretics, which withdraw from the church j so, thirdly, if he can
but get any that call themselves Christians, and hold the funda-
mental truths, to be false to their own profession, and to engage
themselves in any worldly, ambitious designs, or to entertain
any corruptions in doctrine, worship, or government, how ordi-
narily doth he make use of these for the violent opposition and
persecution of the truth and servants of Christ ? Whoever be
the instrument, he careth not, so it be Christ and his kingdom
that is opposed ; yea, he had rather do it by them that pretend
to be his servants than by any others, for then, 1. He can make
their very misguided zeal an instrument of his cruelty ; 2. And
he can make the world believe that all these being Christians,
their religion is uncertain, and their natures as cruel as any others,
when they so contend and persecute each other; 3. And it
gratifieth his malice more to turn the name and profession of
Christianity against Christ, and to fight against him under his
own colours, than to do it by open adversaries : 4. besides that,
such venom and corruption in the bowels of the church hath a
greater tendency to its ruin than the withdrawing of any parts
from it can have.
And, indeed, it is but false friends and real enemies, such as
seem Christians, but are not so indeed, nor were ever truly joined
unto Christ, whom Satan employeth in these works of cruelty
(excepting what lesser injuries may be done in a passion, as
Asa did).
When Satan had by degrees seduced the church of Rome to
so many innovations and errors, and had got such interest among
308 THE SIN AGAINST
them, and engaged them in such an ambitious, tyrannical enter-
prise as to domineer over all the christian world, both princes,
pastors, and people, and to corrupt the doctrine and worship of
Christ, upon this account he maketh them his instruments for as
cruel and bloody persecutions of Christ's churches, and as mali-
cious endeavours to hinder the light of the Gospel, as ever were
performed by infidels, Mahometans, or the filthiest heretics that
ever I read of. I shall give but a touch on this, because it is so
largely recorded in Fox's 'Acts and Monuments,' and Mr. Clark's
' Martyrology,' besides many others, which, for all their rage
against them, shall stand as records of their hellish cruelty, to
all generations.
Their murders upon so many thousands of the Albigenses and
Waldenses, godly people of France, both there and in other coun-
tries whither they fled, is beyond most of the heathen's persecu-
tions. Of many hundred thousand persons that were judged to
be of the Waldenses' faith, against the pope's usurpation and
corruptions, they so slaughtered, and scattered them and con-
sumed them, that few of their societies were there left visible.
Their own bishops complained that they could not provide lime
and stone to build prisons for them, nor defray the charge of
their food ; the world was even amazed at the cruelties which
they exercised. Thousands of men, women, and infants, they
burned together in caves, forced them headlong from the rocks,
burned them at stakes, and many ways butchered them, and at
last assaulted them bv armies, and forced them to defend them-
selves against this papal cruelty. They raised armies against
them out of many nations, as against infidels, to merit paradise
by their murders; and continued these wars for very many years;
burning their towns, and driving the women, with their children,
into the snowy mountains and caves to perish, or inhumanly
butchering them.
To recite the cruel slaughters that they made also in Bohe-
mia, would be too long. The horrible murders that since then
they have made in France, breaking faith with them, and killing
them in the churches, when they were met to worship God ;
were it but that one massacre at Paris, and other cities and
countries thereupon, it were enough to show that it was the
hellish enemy of Christ and his Gospel, that led them on; and
to tell all generations to come what principles hell and Rome
are acted by, and how insatiable their thirst is for the blood of
upright, righteous men ! It is generally suj)posed that they
THE HOLY GHOST. 309
murdered, at that time, ten thousand persons in Paris, and thirty
thousand within a few weeks in that and other places : and
that even then when they pretended peace, and seemed to live in
quietness, suddenly rising in one night to this hloody execution.
Through the great mercy of God, we in England have tasted
but little of their fury in comparison of their sufferings. Yet
what days we had in part of Henry the Fifth's reign, and Henry
the Eighth, and especially in Queen Mary's, and how many
were stifled in prisons, and burnt at stakes, up and down the
land, in four or five years' space, Mr. Fox in his ' Acts and Monu-
ments ' hath acquainted you, and it is too near us to be quite
unknown or forgotten.
The Spanish invasion, in 1588, was but a threatening.
The gunpowder-plot, by which they would have blown up
the heads of the nation, lords, bishops, and commons, at once,
in preparation to the rest of the tragedy 3 this was but a Romish
squib to make sport with. Such murders as were committed
on Henry the Third, and Henry the Fourth, kings of France,
are but a popish salutation. A breakfast they gave us in Ire-
land of the cruel bloodshed of so many thousand, in a few days,
as hath brought by the ensuing revenging war such a dinner to
the actors as such inhuman wretches might well expect.
It were endless to mention the blood that these leeches have
sucked, by the devil's appointment, in the Netherlands, Germany,
Italy, Spain, and other countries. Were there no more to
discover the hellish and Romish fury, but the Spanish inquisi-
tion only, it might for ever shame and confound the agents and
their principles : it were too long to relate all their subtle, de-
ceitful examinations, tedious imprisonments in a dark, narrow,
nasty hole, separate one from another, where it is worse than
death for any to give them the least relief, or let them speak to
one another, or hear from one another ; and this, perhaps, for
two or three years, if they die not the while : and then they are
tormented with the most cruel tortures that they can devise :
their bodies stripped stark naked, in a remote dark cellar, the
inquisitors sitting on seats, appointed for the purpose, to direct
the tormentors, and intermix their examinations and reproaches;
their hands are first tied behind them, and cords tied thereto,
and weights at their feet, and so they are drawn up by a pulley
to the top of a gibbet, and let down again, and at last strap-
padoed ; when they are drawn to the height with greater
weiglits at their feet, they are suddenly let fall almost to the
310 THE SIN AGAINST
ground, where the cord stops them, and puts all their limbs out
of joint : besides which they anoint some of their feet with oil,
and set them to a fire to scorch, and then lay them on their
backs in a narrow trough, where a keen cross bar under their
backs, doth hinder them from coming to the bottom, and there,
covering their faces with a fine cloth, they open their mouths
and pour water from on high till they drive the cloth into their
throats, and then pluck it out again. Their thighs and legs
they bind with small cords, and strain them till they sink into
the flesh. And in all this, they will not permit the modest
virgin, or gravest matron or lady, to have the least rag to hide
her nakedness.
And all this is to force them to recant and confess others,
even all that they have but talked with about matters of religion,
that so they may have more of the same employment. And
when all is done, they array them in a coat all over painted
with devils and fire, and lead them forth before the people on a
scaffold, with their tongues tied with their devices, and so to a
fire, where they are burnt to death.
These are the generation that crept into our armies and cities,
and country in England, and provoke the deluded people to call
for liberty of conscience, that the papists may have liberty here,
who deal thus mercifully with others, where they have full
power.
By this time, I hope, it is no hard matter to discern what a
friend Satan is to Christ and his kingdom, who will not by his
good will let one godly Christian escape his rage, but pursues
them in all ages, in all countries, with all sorts of torments and
cruelties, by all sorts of enemies ; and will not suffer so much
as any propagation to be made of the Gospel, any discovery of
saving truth, or opposition to darkness and wickedness, but he
presently raiseth a war against it, and sendeth forth his blood-
hounds to fall upon the instruments, and all that do befriend
them,
Obj. Other men suffer in the world at the hands of others as
well as at Christians.
Answ. 1 have said already that Satan is an enemy to all
mankind ; but as his malice is most against Christ and his
kingdom j so by what hath been said it may appear, that he
doth not so openly rage against any others. Though yet, while
he seems to favour and befriend them, and use them as his
servants, he doth indeed exercise more cruelty on them than he
THE HOLY GHOST. 311
doth on the faithful in their sharpest torments that he inflicteth
on their bodies.
And, indeed, he is but preparing them for the everlasting
torments, by making them here his slaughter-men, and drench-
ing their souls in the guilt of blood ; which also in this life
doth sometimes overtake them, as was before noted of the Irish ;
who having murdered many hundred thousands of their peace-
able neighbours, in a manner exceeding all former persecutions, I
think, that ever were read of by pagans, Turks, or former papists,
for hellish cruelty, were at last, by the revenging sword of war, by
plague and famine, the most of them swept off from the face of
the earth. Concerning which, and the Spanish Inquisition
especially, and other things here recited, I again wish you to
peruse Mr. Clarke's ' Martyrology,' which I think a very useful
book, for common people who have not learning, time, or means,
to read over those many large volumes in several languages
which are there contracted ; it being very necessary that they
should be acquainted with the combat that hath been maintained
between light and darkness, the war that Satan hath managed
against Christ, from the beginning to this day ; and who have
been Satan's instruments, and what their exploits. And I
believe that those who are tempted to popery, will find in such
history a competent preservative.
Sect. X.
If all this afford not sufficient evidence, let this also be added,
to clear the rest, that there is in the very hearts pr natures of
the servants of the devil, of what place, degree, or nation soever,
throughout the world, an inbred hatred and enmity to the
kingdom and true subjects of Jesus Christ.
This is apparent in the whole course of their lives, whereby
it is manifest that it is not only the effects of misinformation
and prejudice received from others, or of bare education, or
difference of opinions, or the like, but the effect of those dif-
ferent masters whom they serve, and captains whom they fight
under, and spirits which do actuate them, and principles and
doctrines by which they are acted.
By these tvvo ways is this enmity fully manifested.
1. By the hatred which they have to Christ's ways and
servants.
2. By their resistance and reluctancy against his persuasions,
and the difficulty of drawing men over to his ways.
312 THE SIN AGAINST
1. For the first, it is evident that it is not only the heathens,
heretics, or papists, but every wicked man and servant of the
devil that hath an enmity in his heart to Christ and his ways.
Though they are born with us in the same country, of the same
ancestors ; though they profess to believe the same articles of
faith, and be of the same religion, yea, though they will cry
out against former persecutors, and honour the memory of the
martyrs that have suffered for Christ, and keep holy days for
them, vet have they a general hatred to the ways and servants
of Christ themselves. Nor can any infidel say, that this is a
quarrel among Christians themselves, and therefore no proof of
Satan's enmity to Christ. For, 1. All know that multitudes
will be of that religion which the prince is of, and take that side
that saves themselves, and tendeth most to their worldly ad -
vantage, 2. And Christ taketh none for his servants indeed
but those that are heartily so, and soundly believe his Gospel,
and hope for salvation, and love him as their Redeemer, and
God by him, and so live according to his laws. These, and
these only, are Christians indeed. Those that are of Hobbs's
religion, to be Christians, because the prince commandeth them
so to be, as if Christ had no power to command them himself,
nor the Father had laid any such command on men, and those
that are seeming Christians they know not why, upon mere
custom, and because it is in credit, professing to believe what
they believe not indeed, and calling that God's word which they
are resolved not to obey, Christ will not own those for his people.
Whatever their title be, or whatever religion they thus custo-
marily profess, it is certain that they are the servants of the
devil, who obey him, whose hearts are devoted, and lives em-
ployed to his service. The name of Christ may be easily en-
tertained for worldly advantages, but the christian doctrine,
nature, and conversation, all these men do unanimously abhor ;
only while the common grace of Christ is preparing them,
they may lie under convictions, and have some good wishes and
purposes for him, and by the restraint of that common grace,
they may be hindered from open rage and persecution, and so
they may by the prosperity of the godly : but when they are
loose, they show what they are.
For all this we need not go to history for our proof : we have
had experience of it all our lives to this day : even here among
us, where religion and piety is in as much credit, and hath as
much countenance, as most ever it had in the world, yet there
THE HOLY GHOST, 313
is not a man that is discerned to fear God, and live after the
laws of Christ, but he is the scorn and by-word of the ungodly
about him : so that in the best times, in one degree or other,
the apostle's words are verified, that all that M'ill live godly in
Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. (2 Tim. iii. 12.) Mark
that; he doth not say, ' All that will say they are Christians;*
but, * All that will live godly in Christ Jesus.' For these have
the true christian nature, and obey him whom they do profess.
Where is there a city, or village, or family, where the servants
of Satan and Christ live together, but Christ's servants are
hated ? Yea, no relations or interests will reconcile them. If
the children obey Christ, they are opposed by their own parents :
husband and wife are at enmity on this account; masters hate
their servants for serving that Christ whom they themselves do
call their Lord. Though they never hurt them or do them any
wrong, yet wicked neighbours do hate the godly. Yea, though
they live in greater love, and patience, and meekness, and in-
nocency, than any others, and though they are faithful to them,
and do them all the good they can, yet are they hated by them.
And that this is the devil's quarrel, is yet more evident in
that the worst of men that have most of the diabolical nature,
and live after the will of the devil, are the greatest enemies to
all true Christians. If there be any nation so unhappy as to have
a sensual, wicked prince, he is presently a persecutor of all that
live godly : if he have Nero's wicked heart, he will likely have
Nero's bloody hands. What covetous extortioner or oppressor,
what whoremonger, drunkard, swearer, blasphemer, curser,
railer, do you know almost, that is not a bitter enemy to godli-
ness, and to the people that most diligently obey and worship
Christ.
And it is not only their persons, but it is their doctrine and
practices which they hate ; that tenderness of conscience, and
carefulness to please God, and avoid all known sin ; that
diligence in holy worship, reading Scriptures, praising God,
praying to him, &;c., which Christ commandeth : these are the
things which their natures do abhor.
As the papists in Ireland, some of them stamped the English
Bible under feet, and cursing it, said ; ' This is it that hath
bred all the quarrels;' so even among those that profess the
same faith with us at home, it is the Gospel, and the worship
of God, and obedience to Christ, that is the occasion of all the
quarrel. When the wars had let them loose in England, mul-
VOL. XX. A A
314 THE SIN AGAINST
*itudes found this to their sorrow ; when, if a man had but
prayed or sung a psalm in his family, he was ready to be
dragged out of his house as a roundhead and traitor. This is
a known truth up and down England in garrisons and villages.
And before that, when the vulgar spirit of malignity was but a
little let loose, (by the bishops' persecutions of godly men,) upon
occasion of the book of dancing and sports on the Lord's day,
and of bowing to altars, and such like ; it did so commonly
rage, that it was, all over the land, a matter of common scorn
and reproach for a man to pray in his family, or read God's
Word, or sing a psalm; nay, if he would not come out and
dance as they did, or look on as one of them, or would not go
with them to the alehouse, or would not swear in his common
talk, he was the common by-word, as a precisian or puritan.
So that if we had no other proof of Satan's hostility to Christ,
this one would put the question out of doubt : when, through
the whole christian world, the servants of Satan are haters of
Christ's servants, how near to them soever they be, and are
manifesting their malice on all occasions as far as they dare ;
when kingdoms, cities, towns, families, are all daily embroiled
in this dissension, and the witnesses of this war between Satan
and Christ, I know not how we should any longer doubt which
side it is that Satan is on. If, after all this malice and bloodshed,
men will yet think that he is on Christ's side, let them taste of
his fury that believe it not when they see it.
2. Moreover, the enmity is apparent in the hearts of all
Satan's servants unto Christ, by the resistance that they make
before they will be recovered, and by their obstinacy against all
means that should persuade them to turn to Christ. Though
you show them the clearest reasons, and silence all their
objections, and convince them that it is their own good and
happiness that Christ would draw them to, yet will it not bring
them over to his way. Though they profess to believe him to
be the Son of God, and their Redeemer, and his Gospel to be
true, and make it their religion to be his servants by profession,
yet will they not be so indeed. How many sermons are lost
upon them ? How many plain instructions, exhortations, and
earnest persuasions lost ? How much patience, mercy, and
other means in vain as to their recovery ? What other religion
in the world are men so backward to, till Christ overpower them,
and change their hearts ? What faithful minister hath not had
experience of this ? What godly Christian hath not proved it ?
THE HOLY GHOST. < 315
Certainly there is a hellish power in men's souls that bolts the
door to keep out Christ, and strives to keep his old possession.
O the niuhitude of subtle and fierce temptations, by which the
great adversary keeps up his kingdom ! And what a stir there
is before a soul is recovered from his power. Truly all faithful
ministers of the Gospel, who are Christ's ensigns, and are
employed under him for the carrying on of his war, have so
great experience of a satanical opposition to their message and
ia])ours and to Christ himself, that I should think they need no
other evidence of the enmity, for the repelling of any tempta-
tion to the contrary. O the painful life that faithful pastors
are put to by the mere opposition of the serpent to their labours !
What work doth he make them ! What work of theirs doth he
mar ! What studies and earnest endeavours doth he frustrate ;
and cause them oft to lie down in sorrow and say, " Who hath
believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord
revealed ?" How oft doth he send them home with tears, for
the ignorance, and sensuality, and obstinacy of their people ;
and make those our enemies for telling them saving truth, who
are obliged by so many bonds to entertain it ! Yea, how many
ancient, laborious ministers do see so little fruit of their labours,
that even in old age and at death, they are almost ready to cry
out, in the grief of their hearts, ' We have laboured in vain, and
spent our strength for naught !' Never can we speak to a poor
sinner for his conversion, but Satan within him speaks and
pleads against us, and ordinarily shuts his ears, and hardens his
heart against all that we can say. Never do we stand up in
public to speak to people for their conversion in the name of
the Lord, but Satan stands up against us, and contradicteth us.
When we think we have such clear demonstrations that no man can
gainsay them, they are not convinced. When we speak as plain as
we are able, they understand us not, but we are to them as barba-
rians. When we beseech tiiem in the name of Christ, they yield
not. When we tell them, it is the adversary that dissuadeth them,
and make it appear that it is for their ruin, and that it is filth
and dung that they sell Christ and the hopes of salvation for :
yet doth it not prevail to take them off from the ways that
apparently lead to their destruction, nor to cause tiiem to enter-
tain the counsel of Ciirist. Many a time have I been so confi-
dent of the clearness of the cause, that 1 should have made no
question of prevailing, at least so far as to bring men to consi-
deration, and to the use of means for their further information,
A A 2
316 THE SIN AGAINST
if it had not been the power of Satan that did withstand us.
Such an evident folly and unreasonableness is there in the ways
of Satan and bin, that one wouUl think less ado might serve to
persuade men of reason from them unto Christ. It were strange
if ministers that live in this warfare, and spend their time and
strength in it, and suffer so many knocks and hard usages from
the enemy, should not be convinced, and thoroughly convinced,
that such a war there is, and that Satan is the resolved enemy
of Christ.
Sect, XI.
Yet further, the devil's enmity against Christ is apparent in
his contrary precepts and persuasions. The ways that he would
draw men to are as contrary to Christ's ways as darkness is to
light, and death to life. Hence is the conflict that preachers
have with him in their ministry, and all men in their hearts and
lives, that will escape him. What truth of Christ, especially
that is practical, doth not Satan malign, and stir up men to
contradict ? What one holy duty doth Christ command, which
Satan doth not incessantly oppose, and seek to draw us from ?
If you ask, ' How is this manifest that Satan useth such en-
deavours ?' I answer, ' By the sense and constant observation of
his temptations with their effects.' Consider these temptations,
both as exercised on the wicked or on the godly, and the truth
of the point will easily hence appear.
What a multitude of subtle devices hath he to hinder the
conversion of a sinner to Christ; what prejudice and false con-
ceits doth he possess him with. How many several ways doth
he take, sometimes by enticements, and the pleasing baits of
worldly glory, and the delights of the flesh ; sometimes by ter-
rors, by threatenings, persecution, or adversity. When he is
foiled at one weapon, he presently betakes himself to another ;
when he is beaten out of one hold, he hath another to retire to.
How many sorts of baits hath he to cover his hook ! Temp-
tations of all sorts, fitted to men's age, their callings, their
relations, their former actions, their bodily temperature and
constitution, and the times they live in, and the persons they
converse with. What have we to do with which he maketh not
a snare ; what mercy do we receive, what creature do we use,
which he maketh not a temptation to us ; what man that was
ever recovered from his power may not look back and remember
the wiles and devices by which he was before detained, and the
THE HOLY GHOST. 317
devil's industry to have kept him from Christ, and hy what means
he hindered his conversion so long ! Certainly, every soul that
is recovered to Christ by the Gospel is fetched out of the very
paws and mouth of the lion, and snatched as a brand out of the
fire, and fetched as it were from the very suburbs of hell. The
resistance is such, by such shifts and solicitations, that it fully
discovereth the devil to be the author.
And as for the godly that are recovered, because they are yet
in the way, and not at the end, in the field, and not with the
crown on their heads, it is God's will that the enemy shall have
leave to assault them while they are here ; and in such a manner
he doth it that they can discern that it is of him. They cannot
set upon a work that is pleasing to Christ, but the tempter re-
sisteth them. When do they ever study, or preach, or exhort,
but he resisteth them ; when do they set upon the reformation
of any faults in themselves, in their families, in the neighbour-
hood, or in the church, but Satan resisteth them ! Christians,
you have a singular advantage above all men to discern the
malice of Satan against Christ, and so to be confirmed in the
truth of your belief, and to repel all blasphemous temptations to
the contrary. How can you ever doubt whether Satan be against
Christ, who live in the combat, and have fought under Cluist
against him so long, and felt so many of his sharp assaults, and
received so many wounds and foils by him, as you have done ?
Have recourse to your own experience, for it must needs be a
great advantage ; and, especially, note how the enmity is dis-
closed in these particulars following :
1. Do you not observe that the bent of Satan's temptation is
against God and the Lord Jesus Christ ? How doth he per-
suade men to false, unworthy thoughts of God ; to think of him
either as unholy, to encourage them to sin, or, as cruel and
unmerciful, to take off their love from him and drive them to
despair ; yea, where he hath opportunity, he persuadeth them
that there is no God. When men fall into melancholy, which
it seems doth give some advantage to his temptations, whether
he were before godly or ungodly, knowing or ignorant, it is ten
to one but he is violently tempted either to believe thai" there is
no God, no Christ, no Scripture true, nor the soul immortal, or
else to speak out some blasphemous words of God, Multitudes
of persons have I spoken with in this case that have been so ter-
ribly assaulted with these temptations day and night, that they
could not rest. Though some of them scarce ever thought be-
318 THE SIN AGAINST
fore of such matters, nor ever heard them from any other, and
others of them never doubted of them ; yet now, which way
ever they go, and whatever they do, such thoughts come into
their minds. Many have I known live in continual fear lest
they should blaspheme God, and could hardly keep in the words,
and wherever they were, they were still haunted with such soli-
citations to blasphemy ; they could not hear or pray, but they
were urged to blaspheme ; and some of them have been over-
come, and have let out blasphemous words, and then the tempter
hath persuaded them that their sin was unpardonable : such a
miserable life have many under his continual, malicious buffetings.
And though there be something in the melancholy disease that
may cause troubles and perplexities of mind ; yet why it should
still work thus against God, and Christ, and Scripture, and that
in almost all persons, and so violently, I cannot imagine, if the
hellish enemy did not take advantage hereof for these temptations.
2. Do vou not find that the bent of all temptations is against
the truth and ways of Christ, and those holy works that he
calls vou to ? What are they but to draw you from holiness
to unholiness, from obedience to disobedience, from heavenli-
iiess to earthliness, from temperance to sensuality, and, in a
word, from every virtue unto every vice, or at least to those
where he hath most hopes to prevail ? Do you not feel some-
times, if not very often, when you should be earnest with God
in secret prayer, an unreasonable withdrawing and disturbance
within you ? It is a duty that costs you nothing, and sub-
jecteth you to no losses or hazards in the world ; and yet when
you would draw so near to God, do you not find that you are
drawn back ; and though you have leisure and liberty, yet the
tempter will draw you to be unwilling, and all the while you
are at it, is either taking down your aifections, carrying off
your thoughts, casting in distempers, or urging you to be short,
make haste, and give over before you have well begun ; so that
you may easily feel that there is a devil that is against your
communion with God, and envieth him his worship, and would
have you rise and go away without the blessing ? The like you
may find in your meditations, if you do but set yourselves pur-
posely and seriously to meditate of Christ or the life to come,
or any necessary subject, how doth the tempter clog you, or
take you off, or keep down your affections, so that you can
hardly make any thing of your meditations. If you endeavour
by gracious conference or counsel to win others, or to edify
THE HOLY GHOST. 319
each other ; how many diversions and hinderances shall you
meet with ! Whereas, in vain talk, in folly and sin, you may
go on without such resistance. What sin is there that you may
not even feel Satan pleading for, and promoting or commending
to your hearts ! How often is he kindling the fire of lust, and
blowing at the coal of pride and ambition, and enticing you to
an esteem of the things of the world, or to venture upon some
forbidden pleasures, and to account them far greater pleasures
than they are ! Truly, I feel that enmity to Christ, hi^ truth,
and ways, in the daily solicitations or temptations of the devil,
either hindering good, or drawing to evil, that methinks should
do much to convince a very infidel, if he did feel the like- that
certainly the doctrine of Christ is true, and his ways are good,
or else the serpent would not oppose them. I find he is
fighting against Christ and his Spirit in me, day and night.
M^hence can all that unreasonable dissuasion and withdrawing
from Christ and duty else proceed ? I know the heart is bad,
and may bring forth such fruits without much tillage ; but as
the heart would not have been so evil, but for the evil one that
deceived us. : so as bad as it is, I can find that there is an insti-
gator of it unto further evil than else it would of itself commit,
and that when it is let alone, it is not so prone to evil, nor so
backward to good, as it is under such temptations. He that
hath such a fight within him, and lives himself in the continual
trouble and duty of a soldier, and is fain still to stand on his
watch and guard, or else be overthrown, and feel the wounds,
hath less reason than any man else in the world to doubt
whether Satan be an enemy to Christ, or whether it be not a
good cause that hath so bad an enemy.
Thus 1 have manifested on Satan's part, that he is at utmost
enmity with Christ, and therefore could not be the causer of
his miracles, nor lend him his power for the building of his
church ; and so that the sin against the Holy Ghost, which the
pharisees were guilty of, was a most unreasonable sin, and a
rejecting of their Physician against so full a testimony of God,
that it was a righteous thing that they should die in their sins.
Sect. XII.
I shall next proceed to show you, on Christ's part, that he is
as great an enemy to Satan, as Satan is to him ; and by his
nature, interest, design, and works, to make it plain that he was
>
320 THE SIN AGAINST
SO far from being beholden to hinn for his help, that it is Christ
alone that must utterly confound him.
And 1. For the nature of Christ, it is manifest to us by his
doctrine and his works, that it was most holy ; seeing so holy
a doctrine and life could not else have proceeded from it. He
challenged his adversaries to convince him of sin, (John viii. 46,)
but never man could do it. It was his good deeds that were
charged upon him as his crimes, as that he healed on the Sab-
bath day, that he was among sinners as a physician among the
sick, that he called himself the Son of God, &:c.
That he was merciful, and a lover of mankind, was as evident
as light is in the sun : as we shall touch anon when we come
to his works. This was a nature perfectly contrary to the
nature of devils, who are unclean, impure spirits, and haters of
God and man. Satan was a devouring roaring lion j Christ
was the Lamb of God. Satan rageth against those that hurt
him not ; Christ prayeth for his enemies : Satan would set all
the world upon blood and revenge ; Christ bids them forgive
and love their enemies, and learn of him to be meek and lowly,
and commandeth Peter to put up his sword.
2. And for his interest, it is perfectly contrary to that of
Satan. If God be dishonoured, and man destroyed, and him-
self honoured, the devil hath what he would have. If God be
honoured, and man saved, and Satan shamed and confounded,
Christ hath what he would have. Satan's kingdom consisteth
in sinfulness and contentions, divisions and revenge, and in the
ruin, and misery, and calamities of mankind : Christ's kingdom
consisteth in righteousness towards God and man, in peace with
God and among ourselves, and in joy in the Holy Ghost. (Rom.
xiv. 17; Jam. iii. 16, 17.)
3. So also was the design of Christ most perfectly contrary
to the design of Satan. The design of Satan was to rob God
of his due obedience and honour, and man of his grace and
salvation, and to be man's idol himself : the design of Christ is
to glorify his Father, (John xvii. 4, and xiii. 31, 32,) to bring
man to his true obedience, (Acts xxvi. 18,) to restore him to
the grace of God, and recover him to salvation, and to root out
all idolatry, and especially the worship of devils from the world.
I do but name these briefly, because it is his works wherein ail
these are manifested, and in the mention of those works we
shall have occasion to review them.
THE HOLY GHOST. 321
Sect, XIII.
When God had created man, it was his pleasure that he
should perform to him a tried obedience, and that he should
have life and death propounded to his choice, and his happiness
or misery should be in the hands of his own will, and that the
tempter should have leave to assault him with his temptations,
seeing God had given him so many helps against them, as in
reason should have sufficed to hold him to God, against the per-
suasions of the strongest temptations; and seeing that obedience
is little worth, which will be cast off as soon as men are tempted
to disobey. Upon this permission the tempter makes his onset,
and quickly deceiveth man, and wins the day. By this conquest
he got a double power over man, the Lord in judgment leaving
him to be delusively ruled and ruined by him, whom he had
chosen before his Maker to believe and obey. First, he had got
an interest in his mind and will, and so could rule him by his
temptations. Secondly, he was made God's executioner, and so
had a power to punish him. But mercy provided a remedy, and
the Son of God interposed, and undertook the rescue of the sin-
ner, and the preservation of the world, and the recovery of God's
honour in the reparation of the injury, and to assume the nature
of man to these ends ; that so he might conquer Satan in the
nature that was conquered, and might offer himself a sacrifice
for the demonstration of justice in the same nature. The first de-
claration of this undertaking was unto the serpent himself,
(Gen. iii. 15,) but doubtless in the ears of man to his comfort.
Where note the first breaking out of the enmity. Satan had
played the enemy to man, and deserved to be taken by him as
his enemy. The promise to man is part of the condemnation of
the serpent. That is man's recovery and life, which is his
misery and destruction. " I will put enmity between thee and
the woman, and between thy seed and her seed ; it shall bruise
thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." By the serpent is
meant both the instrumental serpent, whom the devil used (as
no doubt Eve knew ; it being not agreeable to the nature of
spirits to be of themselves visible, but to borrow corporal instru-
ments and visors when they will sensibly converse with man,)
and also here is meant the devil himself, the tempting serpent.
V»y the enmity is meant a very natural antipathy or hatred of
one another; which shall be born and bred in man and corporal
serpents, and continue in Satan 3 and is not only caused by
322 THE SIN AGAINST
extrinsical means, informations, or accidents ; and which no
rhetoric can extirpate, any more than nature can be extirpated
by arguments. This enmity is on man's part, 1. In the woman
herself; and 2. In her seed. A threefold seed she was to have,
and, in their measure, it was to be in them all.
1. In her natural seed as such, there was a natural enmity put
from that day, to the diabolical nature ; as there was unto the
terrene, serpentine nature. So that as a man abhorreth all the kind
of serpents, and either flieth from them, or seeketh to kill them,
so doth he now naturally abhor the devil, and would fly from
him or hurt him if he could.
That this enmity is put into our whole nature, appears, 1. Jn
that we all find it there. Good and bad abhor the devil. Even
they that serve him, yet abhor him.
2. In that we find it true of the instrumental, terrene serpent,
that our whole natures have an enmity to their whole nature.
3. In that it is expressly spoken of the seed of the woman
without exception.
4. In that it is first spoken of the woman herself in order be-
fore any of her seed : whence we may conclude : 1. That if it
were by that sentence put into her, then must it be in us. 2.
And if first in her, then by her conveyed to us as her seed.
Yet is this no enmity to the wicked works that Satan tempteth
to : for we are naturally his captives as to them ; and this is by
a voluntary captivity; but it is to the person and nature of the
devil himself, whom man now fears and abhors as his enemy and
tormentor. And, therefore, it is said, that we are all our life-
time subject to bondage, through the fears of that death where-
of Satan is the prince. (Heb. ii. 14.)
From hence it may appear, both that this enmity to the dia-
bolical nature was not in man before the fall, and that sinful
man hath some advantage hereby for the resisting of tempta-
tions, and the entertainment of those means that tend to his
escape.
The second seed of the woman is the supernatural seed, Jesus
Christ ; indeed the seed of the woman, though not of the man :
in him there is an enmity answerable to his nature and office j a
perfect enmity to the satanical nature, as sinful and murderous,
and cruel to man ; and an enmity of office and design.
The third seed is the church regenerate, who have, as men, a
participation of the first enmity ; and as regenerate and united
to Christ, a participation in their degree of the latter enmity,
THE HOLY GHOST. 323
even such as was in Christ himself, which is against the evil
works of Satan, as well as against himself and his penal execu-
tions and torments, which all men hate.
The perfect enmity, then, is in the perfect seed, who, as he
conveyeth to us his holy nature, doth proportionably convey to
us an enmity to Satan and his works : and as he actually em-
ployeth us as soldiers in his army to fight against Satan, so do
we participate of the enmity of his design and office ; but at
such a distance as is the private soldier from the general ;
saving that his ministers and other subordinate officers partake
yet somewhat more of this enmity as to office and employment,
for they are standard-bearers and leaders under Christ the gene-
ral in this warfare, and so are doubly engaged against Satan.
And as the regenerate participate of both sorts of enmity, so
the unregenerate partake both of the enmity against Satan, and
the enmity against Christ : for as they are naturally the seed of
the woman, they have an enmity against the diabolical nature
or kind, and against them as executioners of wrath upon men ;
and as they are wicked, so they partake of the diabolical dispo-
sition, and so are at enmity to the holy disposition of Christ and
his sanctified ones : so that Christ must war against them when
he warreth for them ; against their resistance when for their de-
liverance, for they are voluntary captives, and will join with the
enemy, and fight against him that pursueth for their recovery,
before they will be brought back. Yet this they do not as for
Satan, for they are personally at enmity with him, and so far as
they can but see him in a temptation, they are the more forti-
fied against it; but it is as for themselves, even their carnal
selves, to whom they are fallen, and addicted upon their fall
from God : for the deceiver still blindeth them, and makes them
believe that his ways are for their good.
Thus you see two armies formed presently upon man's fall.
The devil is general of one, even Beelzebub, who is called the
prince of the devils. His angels, or companions in sin, are the
first and chief part of his army, who walk to and fro, compass-
ing the earth, (Job i. 7j 22,) lying in wait to deceive and de-
vour: for as they were multitudes of evil spirits that fell with
the chief of them, so they are all of his disposition and king-
dom, and manage the same design against man ; and wicked
men are the other part of his army. This army is employed to
hold what Satan had got, and to hinder the rescue and redemp-
tion of his captives, and to fight against Christ that hath under-
324 THE SIN AGAINST
taken the work, and against all those especially that are in any
special way by Christ employed for the recovery of souls ; and,
consequently, to make man twofold more miserable by rejecting
of the remedy.
The other army is commanded by the blessed Son of God, who
is therefore called the Captain of our salvation ; for the design
of it is to fight with Satan, and rescue and bring back his cap-
tives unto God, and so to save them from the wrath to come.
The soldiers of this army are both the good angels and the
regenerate part of men. Whether the angels were ministering
spirits to Adam in innocency, is more than I find made known
in Scripture, and therefore think it unsafe and imprudent to con-
clude, either that they were or they were not. But it is certain that
they were afterwards ; and if they were so before, yet it is certain
that it is a new office and task that they have now undertaken;
even to help towards the rescue and recovering of the captives.
If thev do not now begin to be angels or messengers from God to
man, or ministers for man's good, yet they now begin to be em-
ployed in this way of service, under Christ, for their restoration.
They have all listed themselves now under the Lord Jesus Christ,
and are contented to be employed by him for the saving of sin-
ners. The Son must sit on God's right hand till he make his
enemies his footstool ; and the angels are all his ministering
spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of sal-
vation. (Heb. i. 13, 14.) Nor do they disdain to stoop to this
service of Christ for lost man. For, though they are excellent
spirits, yet are they his servants " by whom God made the
worlds, and whom he hath appointed heir of all things, who,
being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his
person, and upholding all things by the word of his power ;
when he had, by himself, purged our sins, he sat down on the
right hand of the Majesty on high : being made so much better
than the angels, as he hath, by inheritance, obtained a more ex-
cellent name than they." (Heb. i. 2 — 4.)
Thus find we these angels executing their office : sometimes
ministering to Christ himself in the flesh ; (Matt. iv. 1 1 ;) some-
times searching into the mystery of redemption. (1 Pet. i. 12.)
More than twelve legions of them were ready to have rescued
him from the hands of the Jews if he would have desired it.
(Matt. xxvi. 53.) They subserved in the delivery of the law to
Moses; (Gal. iii. If); Acts vii. 53 ;) they attended Christ into
the world, revealing him to the shepherds, and unanimously
THE HOLY GHOST. 325
praising God at his birth. (Luke ii. 9 — 14.) So far were they
from disdaining their incarnate Lord, or his service for lost sin-
ners, that tlie heavenly army, or host, do praise God for it, saying,
" Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace ; good will
towards men ;" and when in this warfare one captivated sinner
is recovered, there is joy in heaven among these angels. (Luke
XV. 7, 10.) They are present with us in our assemblies, which
are the well-ordered troops and companies of this army ; and
their presence we must regard. (1 Cor. xi. 10.) lliey are wit-
nesses of our good or ill behaviour ; (Eccl. v, 6 ; 1 Tim. v. 21 ;)
and, therefore, to be reverenced as the chief of our fellow-soldiers
or servants, but not worshipped. (Col. ii. IS.) " See thou do
it not, for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren, the
prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book;
worship God." (Rev. xxii. 8, 9.)
You see, then, that the angels are a chief part of the army of
Christ, and serve under him for the saving of sinners from the
devil ; and, therefore, you find them contending with the devil,
though with the meekness of the lamb, saying, " The Lord re-
buke thee." (Jude 9.) They convey the departing souls of the
righteous unto Christ; (Luke xvi. 22;) they encamp round
about them that fear the Lord, and deliver them, (Psalm xxxiv.
7,) even as they carried Lot from the flames of Sodom, and could
do nothing till he were come forth. (Gen. xix. 15, 10, &c.)
And no wonder that they stoop to the help of man ; for it is to
the angelical similitude or dignity that Christ doth advance us,
and join us to them, by making us like them or equal to them.
(Luke XX. 36.) We are now their particular charge, (Matt,
xviii. 10,) that we may be hereafter their companions. (Acts xii.
15.) They help to the increase, preservation, and defence of the
church. (Acts viii. 26 ; x. 7, 22; xi. 13, and xii. 1 1 ; Dan. iii. 28,
and vi. 22 ; Isa. Ixiii. 9.) When the whole army are drawn forth
in their glory they are a principal part : you may take a view of
all in Heb. xii. 22. : " We are come to Mount Sion, unto the
city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innu-
merable company of angels ; to the general assembly and church
of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God the
Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to
Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of
sprinkling," &c. And in the head of this army will Christ appear
at the end of the world, when he hath won the field and comes
in triumph to confound his conquered enemies, and to be glorified
326 THE SIN AGAINST
in his redeemed, delivered saints, that they who have now
passed through this warfare " in patient, enduring trihuLitions
and persecution, may, in that righteous judgment of God, he
counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which they suffered ;
it being the righteous thing which God will then do to recom-
pense tribulation to them that trouble us, and to us that are
troubled rest with the saints, when the Lord Jesus shall be re-
vealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking
vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the
Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ ; who shall be punished with
everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from
the glory of his power, when he shall come to be glorified in his
saints, and to be admired in all them that believe in that day."
(2 Thess. i. 5—10.)
And as the angels are one part of his army, so are the saints
another, who must fight for themselves under Christ's conduct,
of whom we shall have occasion to say more anon.
Thus you see the Redeemer's army moulded, and of what
members it is composed. We should next observe their progress
and exploits ; but lest you mistake in the matter of their success,
by mistaking the design and nature of the fight and conquest,
mark well these things following, by the way, before we go
further.
1. That it pleased God in his sentence of sinful man, to lay
on him unavoidably certain temporal calamities, and to enable
the serpent to bruise his heel. So that we must eat our bread
in the sweat of our brows, and the earth must be cursed for
our sakes, and we must return to dust from whence we came,
as to our flesh.
2. And, therefore, it is none of the Redeemer's undertaking
to prevent these sufferings and death.
3. But his work is to save us from our sins, (Matt. i. 21,) and
from the wrath to come, (1 Thess. i. 10,) and to reconcile us to
God, (I Cor. v. 19, 20,) and justify, sanctify, and glorify us.
(Rom. viii. 30; 1 Cor. vi. 11.) And to sanctify our present
sufferings to these ends, (Rom. xxviii. IS,) and to moderate
their sufferings in order thereunto. (Heb. xii.)
4. And the way of our conquest is not always nor principally
in a visible prosperity and worldly greatness and dominion : but
ordinarily by patience and contentedness in our suflferings : it
being grace and the prosperity of the soul that we fight for, it
must be done by that way that hath the true and certain ten-
THE HOLY GHOST. 327
dency to these ends, and not by carnal pleasure and prosperity
which are ordinarily our greatest adversaries. In patience we
must possess our souls, if we would secure them against the
storms of Satan. (Luke xxi. 19.) It was this way that Christ
himself did conquer, who is the author and finisher of our faith,
who, for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,
despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the
throne of God. And we must consider him that endured such
contradiction of sinners against himself, lest we be wearied and
faint in our minds. (Heb. xii. 2, 3.) We must follow him
bearing our cross if we will conquer : for we have need of
patience, besides doing God's will in actual obedience, that we
may inherit the promised crown. (Heb. x. 36.) It is not by
conquering kingdoms, and becoming masters of other men's
possessions, but by taking joyfully the spoiling of our own goods,
knowing in ourselves that we have in heaven a better and an
enduring substance, (Heb. x. 34,) when for his name' sake we
are killed all the day long, and counted as sheep to the slaughter,
when we suffer tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, naked-
ness, sword ; in all these things we are conquerors and supex-
conquerors, through the Captain of our salvation that hath led
us this way. (Rom. viii. 35, 36.) For as this our Captain
was himself made perfect by suffering, (not in his nature and
holiness, for that was before perfect, but in his military work,
and actual obedience, and righteousness therein consisting, and
his aptitude to be the leader and deliverer of others,) and this
for the bringing of many sons to glory, (Heb. ii. 10,) so will he
have us follow him in the way that he hath trod, and through
many tribulations to enter into his kingdom ; and to suffer with
him, that we may reign with him, (Rom. viii. 17,) and in this
way he will not be ashamed to call us his fellow-sl)ldier3 or
brethren. (Heb. ii. 11 — 13.) Thus must we in ourselves
be made partakers of the sufferings of Christ, that when his
glory shall be revealed, we also may be glad (as triumphing
victors) with exceeding joy. And if thus we are reproached
for Christ, we are happy ; for the Spirit of God and of glorv
resteth on us. (1 Pet. iv. 14 — 16.) Blessed, therefore, is he
that thus endureth temptation : for when he is tried he shall
receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them
that love him. (James i. 12.) Here is the patience, and faith,
and victory of the saints.
I know the carnal heart will be ready to say, ' If this be your
328 ' THE SIN AGAINST
victory, I desire none of it ; any one may so conquer, as to be
trodden down and ruined.' Whereto, I answer, the power and
victory of Christ is still manifest, in these particulars following.
1. In that it is not in the power of the tempter to conquer
the graces of the saints, nor to separate them from the love of
God in Christ, (Rom. viii. 38, 39,) which he had rather do if
he could, than to trample upon their bodies, or keep them in
poverty or trouble for a time. He can be content to let you
have dignities and honours, so he could but rob you of the
dignity of saints, and cast out the image of God again from
your souls. He can let you enjoy the pleasures of sin for a
season, that thereby he might deprive you of the celestial plea-
sures. He will let young men rejoice, and their hearts cheer
tbem in the days of their youth, and walk in the ways of their
own heart, and the light of their eyes, if they will but forget
that for all these things they must come to judgment. (Eccl. xi.
9.) He judgeth not himself, as he persuadeth blind infidels to
judge, that it is better to win the world than to save our souls ;
he would let you have the kingdoms and glory of the world, if
it were in his power, so you would but give him the worship
due to God. (Matt. iv. 9.) Our victory, therefore, lieth in
maintaining our innocency, and not obeying his wicked seduce-
ments, and this may be as well and better done in adversity
than in prosperity : adversity, therefore, is no sign that Satan
is the conqueror.
2. Moreover, the business of Satan i^ to keep men from
God ; if Christ, therefore, do bring men nearer to God by ad-
versity, he conquereth the tempter that would keep them from
him : but it is clear by experience, that the souls of the faithful
are kept closer to God in suffering times, than in prosperity ;
they are then more sensible of the vanity and emptiness of all
worldly things, and weaned from them, and do fly to God with
more earnest desires, and more sensible of the folly of sinning
than at other times : and, sure, the soul is most victorious
against Satan, that is nearest God, and hath most of his love,
whatever befall the body in the mean time.
3. If an increase of all graces appear on the soul in time of
affliction, then is it not very hard, to an opened eye, to see
Christ's victory in the afflictions of his people ; for that which
makes a man better, is the best condition, in the judgment of
Seneca himself, and of reason : but grace useth to increase in
^affliction, therefore we may well account it our victory.
THE HOLY GHOST. 329
4. If God be most honoured by his people in adversity, when
they suffer for his cause, then we may well see, that, even in our
sufferings, Christ may be conquering, for it is God's dishonour
that the tempter doth endeavour ; but, it is certain, that God is
usually more honoured at such times, when his graces are
exercised in the eye of the world, and when his servants confess
him in the midst of persecution. How hath Christ been more
honoured on earth than by the martyrdom of his followers,
and their confessing him in the midst of the most cruel tor-
ments ?
5. If Satan be most confounded, dishonoured, and dis-
appointed in the sufferings of the faithful, then may they well
be said to conquer in their sufferings ; but it is certain, by all
experience, that Satan hath been never so confounded, shamed,
and disappointed, as when his cruelty and wickedness is most
manifestly discovered, and his way thereby the more abhorred,
and yet the righteous the more confirmed. The histories of
heathenish and popish persecution, that are upon record for the
view of posterity, will give a greater wound to the cause of
Satan in their hands, than ever it had been like to have re-
ceived by our prosperity. How many thousands among our-
selves have been confirmed in a hatred of popery, by the
French massacre, the Spanish Inquisition, the cruelty in Queen
Mary's days, the Gunpowder Plot, the Irish butcheries, &:c., that
have known little of the arguments that are used by either side
in disputation.
6. If Christ's kingdom thrive by his people's sufferings, he
may well be said to conquer by them. But that his kingdom
hath thriven by our sufferings always in puritv, frequently in
numbers of his true disciples, the experience of all suffering-
ages can bear witness.
You see now that there are two armies in the field of this
world, one under Christ, and the other under Satan, and what
are their several interests and designs, and what it is to con-
quer, and by what means Christ and his soldiers overcome, and
how you may judge rightly of the issue of the fight, who hath
the better, and who the worse.
Sect. XIV.
We sliall next a little consider of the historv of Christ's eon-
f^icts vi'ith Satan, and the success, and show you l)v how many
ways he hath fully discovered to us, that he k the chief enemy
VOL. XX. L B
330 THE SIN AGAINST
of hell. And I will, for brevity, overpass all the history of the
Old Testament, and begin at the New.
1. Before he came in the flesh, the angels are sent from
heaven to acquaint men that he came on this very business,
and to this end, to conquer Satan, and rescue his captives, and
save his people. (Matt. i. 21.) "Thou shalt call his name
Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins." (Luke i,
30—35 ; Luke i. 68—80.)
2. Before he was born himself, John the Baptist is sent into
the world as his forerunner ; and before Christ doth solemnly
set upon his great work, John must be sent to prepare his way.
He is sent to bid Satan defiance, and to proclaim and begin the
hotter part of the war, being " filled with the Holy Ghost even
from the womb, to turn many of the Children of Israel unto
God : to go before Christ in the spirit and power of Elias ; to
turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobe-
dient to the wisdom of the just ; to make ready a people pre-
pared for the Lord:" (Luke i. 15 — 17:) to give knowledge
of salvation to his people for the remission of their sins, through
the tender mercy of God, to give light to them that sit in
darkness and the shadow of death. (Luke i. 77, 78.) For it
was his office to be the voice crying in the wilderness, saying,
" Prepare ye the way of the Lord :" and to bid them " Repent,
for the kingdom of God is at hand," and to tell them of the
promised salvation which was raised up, " That we might be
saved from our enemies, and from the hands of all that hate us ;
that we being delivered from the hands of our enemies, might
serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him,
all the days of our life." (Luke i. 70 — 7G-) This man hath
the honour to initiate Christ into the solemn entrance upon his
military work by his baptism, which had the same general
nature with our baptism, but not the same in special. It
was not to convey to him the remission of sin, as it is to us,
for he had none ; nor was it to engage him to himself, as we
are engaged to him : but it was to engage him solemnly in the
same military work against sin and Satan ; as the general may
glory in wearing the same colours which he gives his soldiers,
to signify that they are of a party, and go all on one and the
same design ; only one as general, and the rest as common
soldiers. Though we be not to do the same works against Satan
in all things as Christ, yet are we to fight against him in our
ranks and places, as Christ did in his. He is entered as general
and king by his baptism, and we as soldiers and subjects, by ours.
THE HOLY GHOST. SSI
At this his baptismal engagement, and takhig the field, John
gives him his testimony, " Behold the Lamb of God that taketh
away the sins of the world." And the Father giveth him his
testimony by a voice from heaven : " This is my beloved Sou
in whom I am well pleased." (Matt. iii. 17; Luke iii. 22.)
And the Holy Ghost beareth witness in descending on him in
the form of a dove/ (Luke iii. 22.) Thus you see Christ take
the field in his own personal engagement.
3. Being thus engaged himself, he is immediately set upon
personally by the tempter, being led into the wilderness by the
Spirit, and purposely submitting himself hereunto. The reason
of this conflict I told you before. As the first Adam being as-
saulted quickly after his entrance into paradise, and institution
of the sacramental trees was overcome by the tempter, so must
the second Adam overcome the tempter, and that in a like con-
flict hand to hand, presently after his baptism. Satan must
lose his prisoners in the way he got them, and Christ must do
what Adam could not. The victory must be got by the public
person in our nature before it be got by each man indivi-
dually in his own person ; for so was it lost. Here was the first
great overthrow of the adversary. Here was the serpent's head
broken as he is the tempter, as on the cross it was afterwards
broken, as he is the tormentor, as is said before. And as Adam
lost the day before he had any offspring, so Christ wins it in his
own person, before he doth solemnly begin to preach the Gos-
pel, or calleth any of his disciples, as far as I can find in the text.
That this was a solemn combat, and a considerable part of
Christ's work, appears by the solemn preparation and manage-
ment : for though Christ's fasting forty days in the wilderness
was a preparation to all his after-performance, as well as this
one, yet more immediately for this as a special part of it.
It was not merely a fantasm, as some have imagined, that
Christ was thus assaulted and used; and yet it seems to be in
the spirit, though real, as Paul was taken up into the heavens ;
how far in the body, or out of the body, I think we cannot judge.
Nor should it be matter of offence to any, that Satan should
have so much power of Christ as to carry him, as is there ex-
pressed, seeing it was but in order to the temptation, and by
Christ's own submission and consent, and did but prepare for
the greater conquest ; and the enemy departed as overcome, at
his command. This was the issue of this leading conflict, be-
tween the two generals hand to hand.
BB 2
332 THE SIN AGAINST
4. When Christ had thus conquered Satan himself, he pre-
sently invited men to take his colours, and goeth about preach-
ing the Gospel liimself, saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the
kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe the Gospel."
(Mark i. 14, 15.) His first call is to sinners to relinquish the de-
ceiver, and come out of their captivity : for what is repenting,
but forsaking sin and Satan, and returning unto God ? Luke tells
us his text that he preached on once at Nazareth, which shows
us his design : " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he
hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor : he hath
sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to
the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at
liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of
the Lord." (Luke iv. 16, 18.) This is his next assault of Satan,
by his own personal preaching.
5. The next thing he doth is to choose his twelve apostles,
and constitute them commanders of his army under him ; with
whom, also, he joineih seventy disciples ; and to these he gives
commission to make an onset upon Satan, and exercise the
power of his word and Spirit. These go forth and cast out
devils, and work wonders, and come home as young soldiers
encouraged by this first success, and triumphing that the devils
were subject to them.
6. The whole course of Christ's life was perfectly contrary
to the will of Satan, and perfectly conformed to his Father's
Avill. A life of perfect innocency is a life of victory over the
tempter. He never yielded to his wicked desires, so much as in
one sinful thought, or word, or deed, being holy, harmless,
undefiled, separate from sinners, like unto us in our troubles,
but not in our sins. (Heb. iv. 15.) By all this, also, he set us a
pattern that we should imitate him as near as we could, and
resist and conquer as he had done. If a life of perfect, un-
blameabJe innocency, and perfectly devoted to God, be tiot a
full proof that Christ was an enemy to Satan, then light is not
contrary to darkness.
7. The whole work of his life towards others was contrary to
Satan, and was nothing else but a destroying of his kingdom.
We read not of any thing else that he did on earth.
L Whereas, Satan is an enemy to the honour of God, what
did Christ else but seek his Father's glory, and do his will, in
the saving of men ? He rectifieth our misapprehensions of his
nature : he tells us of his spirituality, his greatness, his good-
THE HOLY GHOST. 333
iiess, his holiness, his righteousness, (Jolui iv. 6; xvii. 1 1, 25, 26 ;
Luke xi. 2; Matt. v. 45, 48,) and giveth him the glory of his
attributes and works. He giveth men the most perfect instruc-
tions for God's worship, and taketh them off all self-invented
and false ways. (Matt. v. and vi. throughout 3 and Matt. xv.
S, 4, 8, 9.) ^
2. Whereas, it is the devil's work to draw men to sin, and
keep them from God ; it was Christ's work to go up and down
to preach the doctrine of life, and to tell them the necessity of
repentance, and offer them grace if they would accept it, and
return. So that he accounted it his meat and drink to seek the
salvation of a poor Samaritan woman, (John iv. 32,) and therein
to do his Father's will. He was so often with sinners as a physi-
cian for their cure, that the pharisees reproached him for being
their companion, because he disliked their proud separation, and
practised, on the contrary, the course of compassion for their
recovery and restoration.
3. It is the devil's work to do all the hurt that he may, even
to men's bodies as well as souls ; it was Christ's work to do
good, and only good. Of all his miracles that he wrought,
there was never any wrought in malice and revenge. He used
not the divine power to blind, or lame, or kill, any men : no, not
his worst enemies when he could easily do it, and justly might
have done it ; but he goeth up and down doing good, (Acts x.
38,) giving" sight to the blind, limbs to the lame, health to the
sick, and life to the dead. He feeds the hungry, and hath com-
passion on them that are ready to faint. What is the whole
history of his life, but a catalogue of good works ? When men
reject his Gospel, he will not take them at the worst, but rebukes
his disciples that would have called for fire from heaven, and
tells them, " They knew not what spirit they were of; that is,
in this desire : they considered not how unlike it was to his
Spirit, or his design and business in the world, who came not to
destroy men's lives, but to save them." (Luke ix. 55, 56.)
8. Christ's enmity to Satan appeareth in this, that he openly
professeth to take him for his chief foe, and sendeth him a
defiance, and telleth him, that he will maintain his kingdom in
despite of all his policy and power. Mark well that speech to
Peter : (Matt. xvi. 18 :) "I say unto thee, that thou art Peter,
and upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of
hell shall not prevail against it." Whether it be Peter's con-
fession, or Peter him^^elf that is here called the rock, is no great
;;334 THE SIN AGAINST
matter, as to the popish interest. For the same promise that is
here made to Peter upon this personal occasion, is elsewhere
made to the rest of the apostles. The Church is built on the
foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself
being the head corner-stone ; (Eph. ii. 20 ;) so that it is more
than Peter that is the foundation, that is, the principal living
witnesses of Christ's life, death, and resurrection, and the prin-
cipal instruments of the propagation of his kingdom.
The church of Christ seemed not so great, nor did any thing
visible to the world then promise so great an increase of it, as
might give occasion of such a prediction : but here you may
see closely laid together these observable things :
1. That it was Christ's purpose and design to gather him a
church.
2. That the apostles, who at that time did not so much as
tmderstand the doctrine of Christ's death, resurrection, or
ascension, which afterwards became fundamental articles of
faith, must yet be the instrumental foundation of the church,
and these weak men must become the invincible rock.
3. That it was the gates, that is, the powers of hell that
Would be the oppugners of this church, and Christ expecteth
their most malicious and furious assault.
4. That yet these hellish powers should not prevail j but
though they should assault and storm this church and rock, yet
should they not take it, or overcome.
5. That he lets them know this before hand by way of defiance.
6. And that even when he knew that he must shortly be put
to death, having first suffered many things of the priests and
elders of the Jews, as in the next following words he tells his
disciples : where Peter, this rock, is yet so far from being fitted
for so great matters as Christ speaks of, that he takes him aside
and rebukes him, and saith, " Be it far from thee ; {q. d.j) God
forbid that this should befall thee j favour thyself."
7. By all which it is evident that Christ foreknew the things
to come, and how his church should be gathered, prospered,
and preserved against all the malicious rage of hell.
9. Christ's enmity to Satan is also evident in the enmity that
he manifested to all that tended to the interest of Satan, and
furthering of his kingdom : what did ever offend him, but that
which pleased the devil ? What did he condemn but that which
the devil desired and promoted ? Nay, when any advice was
given him that tended to the furtherance of the kingdom of
THE HOJ.V GHOST. 3^5
darkness, though it were for his own bodily ease or safety, yet
did he abhor it. Take that notable example, (Matt. xvi. 22,)
when Peter had made a faithful confession of Christ, and
received that great commendation and promise from Christ
thereupon : " Tliou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my
church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it :"
yet, presently, when Christ begins to tell them of his sufferings
at Jerusalem, Peter, in a carnal, misguided love, takes Christ and
rebuketh him, and saith, " Far be it from thee. Lord, this shall
not be unto thee ; (q. d.;) God forbid that any such evil should
befall thee ; favour thyself ; do not wilfully cast away thyself."
One would think that Christ should have taken Peter's loving
advice in good part, it being but to persuade him to save his
own life. But Christ knew that if he should not conquer Satan
on the cross, the world must perish ; and there was no recover-
ing us out of our misery, and therefore that this counsel of
Peter did tend to the greatest advantage of the devil's kingdom,
that could be imagined. The thanks, therefore, that he gives
him is but this j he looks angrily about him, and saith, " Get
thee behind me Satan : thou art an offence unto me ; for thou
savourest not the things that be of God, but the things of man."
Here is a strange change of speech to that man, that he had but
a little before so commended and honoured : he was the rock
even now, and now he is Satan. It was some foul change in
Peter ; some great evil that could procure this. Where do you
read Christ ever speaking with so great severity, except once or
twice to the obstinate pharisees that blasphemed the Holy Ghost?
When his disciples were rejected, and would have had fire from
heaven to revenge the quarrel, he doth but rebuke them. When
he was on the cross in his sufferings, he prayeth his Father to
forgive the murderers : so far was he from this severity merely
for himself, especially when it was but for his bodily interest.
But here, when the advice seemeth for him, how severe is he
with Peter ! He gives him the devil's name, Satan, because he
did the devil's work, and pleaded his cause, as if he had been
an adversary to man's redemption. The indignation was on
this account, that Peter befriended the enemy's design, and so
proved a Satan, and a tempter unto Christ ; and therefore he
tells him that he was an offence to him, as savouring more of
the things of man than of God : and bids him get behind him,
or get out of his sight 5 a word, v/hich one would think enough to
have broken the heart of Peter j the very same word which he
336 THE SIN AGAINST
useth to the devil, when his temptation came to be intolerably
impudent and blasphemous, " Get thee behind me, Satan."
(Luke iv. IS.) How clear a demonstration is here of the irre-
concilable enmity of Christ to the devil and his interest,
before he showed it in the conquering of his own immediate
temptations ! And here he showeth it by repelling a temptation
from one of his own apostles, whom Satan had prevailed with
to be his instrument.
10. But the great, the full, the admirable discovery of the
enmity of Christ to the kingdom of Satan, was this : that he
thought not his whole humiliation from first to last too much,
for the overthrowing of it, nor too dear a price for the redemp-
tion of his captives.
He condescended first in his incarnation, to assume our na-
ture, the most astonishing condescension that ever the world
knew ; that he, " Who being in the form of God, thought it
not robbery to be equal with God ; and did make himself of no
reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was
made in the likeness of men ; and being found in fashion as a
man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross." (Phil. ii. 5 — 9.)
All his life was a wonderful condescension ; to walk among
men in human nature, and converse with sinners, and be de-
spised, reproached, and abused, by his own creatures, and to
submit to human frailties, except sin, even as great princes,
when they will command their armies, will sometimes submit to
the hard condition and oflices of soldiers ; so did Christ in his
military state.
Yea, all his bloody sweats, and scorns of sinners, his crown
of thorns, his cross, his death, his grave, do all testify the
enmity he bore to the kingdom of the devil, that would endure
mid stoop to all this to expugn it, and to undermine him.
He openly proclaims his end in all this: "That he might
destroy, through death, him that had the power of death, that
is, the devil ; and deliver them, who, through fear of death,
were all their life time subject to bondage." (Heb. ii. 14.) He
tells the world what enemy he was opposing on the cross, and
that his work was but to redeem us from that enemy ; (Eph. i.
7, and ii. 14 — 17;) that we might have redemption through
his blood, even the remission of sins, and breaking down the
])artition wall, and abolishing in his flesh the enmity, to make
in himself of twain one new man, so making peace ; and that
THE HOLY GHOST. 337
he might reconcile both unto God, in one body by the cross,
having slain the enmity thereby ; " For it pleased the Father
that in him should all fulness dwell ; and having made peace
through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things to
himself: who, blotting out the hand writing of ordinances that
was against us, which was contrary to us, took it out of the
way, nailing it to his cross ; and having spoiled principalities
and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over
them in it." (Col. i. 14, 20, 21, and ii. 14, 15.) They were
foolish men that crucified Christ, but he overlooks them, and
takes notice of the enemy that he came thither to contest with,
and makes his cross a means of victory, and place of triumph,
even over those powers that fain would have overcome him.
And as Christ hath done thus much against Satan on the
cross, so we shall next see what he hath done against him
since, in his doctrine, and by it on the hearts of men, and openly
in the world, and first in his word.
11. It is one of Christ's principal works by his doctrine, to
make the devil more odious to the sons of men, and to bring
them into a fuller knowledge of his mischievous disposition and
designs, that so they may avoid him, and more valiantly resist
him ; to which end, he first gives them to know his nature by
liis names, and calleth him by all those names that may make
him hateful to man, or awaken them to the war which he calls
them into against him ; and certainly, this is so contrary to
Satan's interest, that none but the foes of reason can imagine
that Satan was the author of it, or did lend Christ his power to
attest it by miracles.
By all these names of disgrace do we find the devil named in
the Gospel.
1. He is called, frequently, Satan, an adversary; to let us
know that it is he against whom we are listed under Christ.
(Matt. iv. 10 ; 1 Pet. v. 8.)
2. He is called ix¥''h the enemy. (Matt. xiii. 28, 39.) The
name bv which we denote those whom we oppose, and that
liate us.
3. He is oft called Aid§o\(^, because he is a calumniator, or
false accuser ; and he who, by accusing us, would have God to
condemn us.
4. He is called " Tiomphs, the evil one, or the wicked one,
(Matt. xiii. 19,) which is the most hateful title in the world, as
signifying him to be both the first in evil for time, and the deep-
338 THE SIN AGAINST
est in evil for degree ; as being the very worst of all creatures,
and also the father or cause of evil to others by his temptations,
5. He is called <i nupd^uv the tempter; (Matt. iv. 3;) to ac-
quaint who it is that would drive us from God and happiness,
and how he would do it.
' 6 He and his companions are called UveSfxala aKdeapra, unclean
Spirits oft ; as being of a filthy disposition, and the cause of
men's uncleanliness, and contrary to the holy, sanctifying Spirit
of Christ, whose office is to purify our hearts and cleanse us from
our sins.
7. He is called the strong man armed, keeping his house and
goods in peace, till Christ come and bind him and cast him out.
(Matt. xii. 29.)
8. He is called the serpent, and the old serpent; (Rev. xii. 9,
14;) both to let us know his subtlety and his enmity, and venom-
ous, hurting power, and to remember us of the mischief he did
us by his first deceiving us.
9. He is called the dragon, the great red dragon ; yea, all
these four names, or five, are given him together ; (Rev. xii. 9 ;)
the great dragon, that old serpent, called the devil and Satan,
which deceiveth the whole world.
10. He is called "A roaring lion, seeking whom he may de-
vour." (1 Pet. V. 8.) Yea, all these three titles are given him
together: the devil, our adversary, and as a roaring lion, &:c.
11. He is called a murderer from the beginning; (John viii.
44 ;) to tell us what he hath done to us, what he is doing and
would do, and what he would have men do to themselves and
to others, both soul and body.
12. They are called the angels that kept not their first estate ;
(Jude 6 ;) to let us know their apostasy.
13. He is called Belial ; (2 Cor. vi. 15 ;) as being the head of
all those rebels and outlaws that have cast off the yoke of sub-
jection unto God.
14. Of the name Beelzebub we have spoken before.
15. He is called "The prince of this world ;" (John xii. 21 ;)
as being the leader of worldly men who rebel against God.
16. He is called the god of this world, because these worldly
rebels make him their god, and he would be honoured and
obeyed as God. (2 Cor. iv. 5.)
17. He is called "The prince of the powers of the air;" (Eph.
ii. 2 ;) to show that he hath a kingdom or army of evil spirits,
against whom Christ and his army must wage war.
THE HOLY GHOST. 339
18. He is called "The ruler of the world/' (Eph. vl. 12,)
because rebels are ruled by him against God.
19. He is called "The father of murderous, wicked men;'*
(John viii. 44 ;) to show that all wickedness had its rise from him.
20. He is called, Rev. ix. 11, by three names: The Angel of
the bottomless pit, as being destined there to be miserable, and
to be the companion of those whom he can draw thither with
him ; also Abaddon, which signifieth a destruction and mischief,
as being the very plague and ruin of mankind, a name perfectly
contrary to the name of Jesus Christ, the anointed Saviour, who
is anointed to the office of saving men from this destruction j
also, he is there called Apollyon, the destroyer to the same pur-
pose, as delighting in our destruction, and making it his very
business. Many other names are given the devil in the New
Testament, and in the Old, which 1 will not stand to recite j
by all which Christ endeavoureth to make Satan odious, and men
jealous of him, and watchful against him, and fully manifesteth
his enmity to him.
12. The Lord Jesus doth not only by names, but by asser-
tions, lay upon Satan the odium and blame of all the evil that
hath been done in the world, as the original of it : and heaps
Upon him so much disgrace by the opening of his vileness, as
never was done by any other : never was Satan so stigmatized,
and reproached, and laid naked as in the Gospel ; so that among
all Christians the name of the devil is the most odious, accursed
name that is imaginable, and intimateth a perfect irreconcila-
ble enmity to them, and in them to him : when among the
pagans it was a name of less dishonour, and they made less
difference between good spirits and evil, and called both demons
by the same name ; and manifested no such enmity to them,
though some God had planted in nature, ever since the fall.
The first sin that ever was in the world, Christ chargeth
upon Satan as the deceiver. He publisheth his own sin, " As
not abiding in the truth, and falling from his first estate ;"
(John viii. 44. ; Jude 6 ;) and saith, " That there is no truth
in him." (John viii. 44.) He telleth us that it was he that
deceived Eve ; (2 Cor. xi. 3 ;) and that he is a murderer from
the beginning. All the resistance that his Gospel hath in the
world, and all the sins that yet are committed, he proclaimcth
Satan to be the cause of, by his temptations. He chargeth
him with sowing tares of heresy and profaneness in his field ;
(Matt, xiii, 39 j) and as doing this as his enemy. He tells us
340 THE SIN AGAINST
that it is the devil that taketh away the seed that was sown,
that men receive not the word of life. (Luke viii. 12.) He
calleth wicked men the children of the devil. (John viii. 44 ;
1 John iii. 10.) He tells us that all that commit sin are of
tlie devil, so far as they are sinners ; and if sin prevail, Satan
prevails ; and tells how the two families may he known asunder.
(1 John iii. 8 — 10.) In this the children of God are manifest,
and the children of the devil : whosoever doth not righteousness
is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. He is
said to sin from the beginning, and to be that wicked one, and
Cain who killed his brother, to be of that wicked one. (1 John
iii. 8, 12.) When Paul, a leader in Christ's army, doth charge
one of Satan's champions, Elimas the witch, (Acts xiii. 10,) he
doth it so as to charge his general through him : ' O full of all
subtlety and mischief; thou child of the devil, thou enemy of
all righteousness ; wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways
of the Lord !' When Judas was disposed to betray him, Christ
telleth us the reason, the devil put it into his heart, and entered
into him. (John xiii. 2, 27.) And before saith of him, (John
vi. 70,) that he was a devil, as being on his side, and to do his
work. Do but mark the Scripture expressions, and you will
see through all a constant war carried on between Christ and
Satan ; and a hostility in all Christ's words and actions to
Satan and his kingdom. It was Satan that filled the heart of
Ananias to lie to the Holy Ghost. (Acts v. 3.) The man of
sin, and son of perdition, is the servant of Satan, and his coming
is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and
lying wonders, and with all deceiveableness of unrighteousness
in them that perish. (2 Thess. ii. 8 — 10.) This is one of
Satan's chief commanders, and therefore an antichrist. All
those fugitives that forsake their colours, and turn from Christ,
do turn aside after Satan. (I Tim. v. 15.) When Christ
cashiereth anv, and turneth them out of his church, and.de-
livereth them to destruction, he is said to deliver them to
Satan. (1 Cor. v. 5 ; 1 Tim. i. 20.) When Paul was hindered
from coming to the Thessalonians, once and again he saith it
was Satan that hindered him. (1 Thess. ii. 18.) And when the
churches of Smyrna were to be persecuted, it is said that the
devil shall cast some of them into prison. (Rev. ii. 10.) The
congregations and company of heretics and ungodly men, who
are the church's enemies, he calleth the 'Synagogues of Satan.'
(Rev. ii. 9, and iii. 9.) For th.ey are those societies by whon"
THE HOLY GHOST. 341
Satan's work is done, and those assemblies in which he is served
publicly, as by the witches in their assemblies he is more se-
cretly.
Yea, when rulers of nations are drawn into sin and misery, it
is by the malice of this common enemy. It was he that " stood
up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel."
(1 Chron. xxi. 1.) It was he that "was a lying spirit in the
mouth of Ahab's prophets." (1 Kings xxii. 22.) And when
judgment is to be executed, especially on the people of God, it
is he that is commonly permitted to be the executioner, for God
will employ his creatures according to their own natures and
offices ; when he will burn, it shall be usually with fire ; when
he will drown, it shall be with water; and so, when he M'ill
destroy, he will send a destroying angel, v/hose nature doth more
incline him to destroy ; when the Israelites murmur, he sendeth
evil angels among them, and they are destroyed of the destroyer.
(I Cor. X. 10: Psalm Ixxviii. 49.) These are the dogs that
God sendeth to drive home his sheep.
The idols also of the heathen, and idolaters, are called devils,
and being God's greatest enemies, and to which he beareth the
greatest hatred. (Lev. xvii. 1 ; Deut. xxJtii. 17-) "They sacri-
fice to devils, and not to God, to new gods, newly come up,
whom their fathers feared not." (Chron. xi. 15.) When Jero-
boam had made him priests of the meanest of the people for
his calves, and had expelled the priests of the Lord, it is said
that he " made him priests for the high places, and for the
devils, and for the calves that he made :" and " they are said to
sacrifice their sons and daughters to devils." (Psalm cvi. 33.)
These things are spoken to the reproach of devils, by the Spirit
of Christ in his prophets before his coming, conformable to
which are his own and his apostles' si)eeches since.
By all this, Christ's enmity to Satan is most evident, he
having done and said so much to his disgrace, and making his
name odious to all his disciples^ that thereby he may fortify
them against his temptations, and encourage them to the war
to which he calleth them.
13. Moreover, to testify this enmity yet further, Christ listeth
all his servants in their baptism, of purpose to fight under him
' against Satan and his kingdom : so that it is essential to a dis-
ciple of Christ to be a soldier against the devil. How full an
evidence is this to shame all blasphemous suggestions, as if
Christ were on Satan's side, and borrowed his power 1 No won-
342 THE SIN AGAINST
der if the devil would have men to renounce their baptism ; for
it is the very entrance into an engagement to fight under Christ
against him to the death. This the church hath used generally
to express in baptism; and therein to require that the baptised
do renounce the devil with the world and the flesh, his instru-
ments and agents : so that so many baptisings as there are in
the world, so many solemn engagements are there to oppose the
devil, and so many abrenunciations of him.
14. And the laws that Christ Jesus giveth his people do yet
more fully discover this enmity, and put all perfectly out of
doubt. For, 1. He commandeth them in general to resist the
devil, and do all that they can against him ; (James iv. 7; ) not
to give place to the devil, (Eph. ii. 27,) but to stand against his
wiles : (Eph. vi. 11:) and he pronounceth such open hostility, that
if his followers will not abstain from all wilful correspondence
with Satan, they shall be no servants of his. He will have them
defy him, and hate all his ways, and not to have familiarity with
any of his open, known servants. They must cast such out from
among them, and not so much as eat with them, nor receive
them into their houses, or bid them God speed, lest by so doing
they be partakers of their evil deeds. They must rebuke a bro-
ther if he do that which is pleasing to Satan, and withdraw
from him, if he do not hear and amend, that he may be to us as
a heathen, or a publican : (1 Cor. v. 10, 11,7; 2 John x. 1 1 ; 2
Thess. iii. 6, 14 ; Matt, xviii. 15 — 17 and he is to be delivered
to Satan, in some cases, as is aforesaid : and, lest any should
think they may play on both sides, Christ assureth them of the
contrary, that they cannot serve him, unless they will set them-
selves against the devil and his works ; for there is no possibility
of reconciliation or communion. " The things which the gen-
tiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God ; and I
would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. Ye can-
not drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils : ye cannot
be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils. Do
we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he ?"
(I Cor. X. 20 — 22.) And we must not join in marriage with the
known servants of the devil, because of this enmity and neces-
sary distance. " Be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers :
for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness;
and what communion hath light with darkness ; and what con-
cord hath Christ with Belial ? or what part hath he that be-
lieveth with an infidel ; and what agreement hath the temple of
THE HOLY GHOST. 343
God with Idols ? for ye are the temple of the living God ; as
God hath said, I will dwell In them, and walk In them, and I
will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore,
come out from among them, and be ye separate, salth the Lord,
and touch not the unclean thing ; and I will receive you, and
will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters,
salth the Lord Almighty." (2 Cor, vl. 14, &e.)
This Is the discipline of Christ's army, and this is one of hi
laws of war, that no man shall have familiarity or converse with
the enemy, upon pain of his displeasure.
More particularly : the laws of Christ are most expressly
contrary to the will and Interest of the devil. It would be too
long a task particularly to survey them, though it is our best and
most cogent evidence of the point In hand. The devil's work
is to rob God of his glory, and of the hearts and service of the
sons of men ; Christ's laws do enjoin us to love God with all
our heart, and soul, and might. It Is the devil's employment to
go up and down, and compass the earth to draw men from
honouring God, and even to draw them to curse him to
his face. (Job I. 6 — 9, and II. 2^-6.) The Lord Jesus
condemneth all blasphemers and desplsers of God, and com-
mandeth us the greatest reverence to his majesty. He will neither
permit us to take his name in vain, or swear rashly by It; nor
yet to swear by any creature, that we give not away his glory
to another. He will not have us worship so much as an angel,
much less the souls of men, and much less stocks, and stones,
and images ; or sun, or moon, or stars, and, least of all, the
devils 'j whereas, it Is Satan's design to draw the world to worship
the creature instead of the Creator, and change the truth of
God Into a lie, and the glory of the Incorruptible God into an
Image made like corruptible man, and birds, and beasts, and
creeping things. (Rom. I. 23,25.) Satan would draw men to
routs, and riots, and profane assemblies, and keep them from
the assemblies where God Is truly worshipped. Christ hath
appointed the first day of every week to this end, that In the
solemn assemblies we might learn our duty, and send up our
requests to heaven, and give God the homage of praise which we
owe him (in our measure). Satan Is an enemy to all good
order and government, and human society. Christ commandeth
us order, and obedience, and telleth us that God is not a God
of confusion. Satan is the prince of malice, hatred, contention,
and divisions. Christ Is the prince of peace, and love, and
344 THE SIN AGAINST
unity, and concord, and strictly chargeth his soldiers to main-
tain these among themselves, and to avoid all mutinies and
schisms ; and tells them that this is the second commandment
like to the first, that we love our neighbour as ourselves, and
that this is his new commandment, that we love one another,
and that in so doing we shall be known to all men to be his
disciples, and shall please him, and be like to God, who is
love. Yea, he commandeth us to love our enemies, bless them
that curse us, and pray for them that hurt and persecute us, if
ever we will be the children of our heavenly Father, and so his
true disciples. How perfectly contrary is all this to Satan, his
disposition, and will, and way, who delighteth in blood, desola-
tion, and misery, and is always putting his servants to seek
revenge, and kindling thoughts of malice, censoriousness, and
bitterness in their breasts ?
The devil tempteth men to do hurt to one another, and to
murder : Christ condemneth those that shall but be rashly
angry with their brother, or call him fool, or use any such rail-
ing and reproachful words. Satan is a spirit of nncleanness, and
a tempter to uncleanness and filthy lusts : Christ condemneth
as much as an unruly eye, even looking on a woman to lust
after her. Satan is a robber, and a tempter of others to stealing
and robbery : Christ condemneth the coveting of that which is
another's, and the very desiring to be rich. (1 Tim. vi. 9 ; Prov.
xxiii. 4, and xxviii. 20, 22.) In a word, there is nothing in all
the world more perfectly contrary to the will of Satan than is
the law of Christ ; whatever his wicked nature doth desire, or
commend, or endeavour after, it is here discommended and
strictly forbidden.
Yea, further note, the exceeding enmity appeareth in the
exceeding strictness of these laws of Christ ; he will not allow
us so much as to speak one word that is pleading to the devil,
nor to think one evil thought. Though he will pardon our
infirmities, of his grace, yet will he not allow the least ; yea,
he makes us know, that without the sacrifice of his blood, the
least could not be pardoned.
See here, by the way, a most full testimony for Christ out of
the mouths of his very enemies. Do they not reproach his
laws for being so jirecise and strict, and taking them so much
off from their sinful pleasures. Here, tlien, is a witness that
Christ is no friend to sin, or the spirit of ini(|uity tl\at tempteth
men to sin. Of ihoic that I have known turn iufidelsj some of
THE HOLY GHOST. 345
them have done it on this account, because while they professed
themselves the servants of Christ, they were so restrained and
hamjDered by his strict and rigid laws, that it was a weariness to
them, not having renewed, suitable dispositions, and they could
endure it no longer, but as soon as the vain reasonings of some
apostates against Christ had let loose their infidelity, and
opened them a gap, they quickly ran out. Would you have
Christ show yet more enmity to Satan and his kingdom, in
his laws ? surely, those that already so much grudge at the
strictness of them would not.
15. If all this be not enough, let the sanction of these laws be
called in for a witness, whether Christ be at sufficient enmity
with the devil. 1 have already told you of the penalty of
church censures, and delivering up to Satan : besides which he
himself will chastise his children when they offend, and make
them smart if they will be meddling with sin. He commandeth
parents, masters, rulers, and all in authority, to correct evil
doers, and if they will not repent and reform, he will judge
them to everlasting misery; and by his laws hath made hell to
be their portion ; so that they who will serve the devil here,
shall be sent as cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the
devil and his angels, and live with him that ruled them.
Would you yet wish a higher discovery of Christ's enmity with
the devil?
More particularly he condemneth, especially, all idolatry, and
worshipping of devils, and approveth of God's law, that saith ;
" Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live ;" and yet could the
blasphemous pharisees take him to be one himsejf. Is it like
a friend of Satan's kingdom, to put to death all his confederates
here, and to denounce everlasting torments against them here-
after.
16. If this yet suffice not, consider Christ's threatenings
against the devils themselves : as he proclaimeth their present
misery, as you have heard, so doth he threaten their future
misery. He maketh us know that they are apostate angels
accursed from God, and that they have " left their first habita-
tions, and are reserved in everlasting chains under darkness
unto the judgment of the great day." (Jude 6.) He telleth us
God spared not the angels when they had sinned, but cast
them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness
to be reserved unto judgment. (2 Pet. ii, 4.) Yea, he lets the
devils know, to their terror, that though they now tempt, and
VOL, XX. C C
346 THE SIN AGAINST
vex, and grieve, the saints, who are Christ's followers, yet shall
these saints judge them. (1 Cor. vi. 3.) Yea, "The God of
peace shall bruise Satan under our very feet." (Rom. xvi. 20.)
As he promised, so will he perform it ; that, though the serpent
bruise our heel, yet shall our heel bruise the serpent's head.
How can the devil, who is the prince of the sons of pride,
endure to be thus reproached, and vilified, and threatened, and
triumphed over, if he knew how to help it. Surely, he that doth
threaten everlastingly to torment him, is none of his friends or
confederates.
17. The very business of Christ, by his Spirit, word, ministry,
mercies, and judgments, is to overthrow Satan's kingdom, and
bring men out of his service and captivity. What is Christ's
work that he is still driving on in the world ? Is it not the
converting and confirming of souls ; and what is that but to
deliver them from the devil, and bring them home again to God.
What else doth he require renovation forj why else doth he
send his Spirit to renew us ? This is the work that he sendeth
all his messengers on, to beseech men to be reconciled to God,
and forsake the devil that drew them to forsake him. Every
soul that Christ converteth is translated from the kingdom, and
delivered from the power of darkness, and brought into the king-
dom of the Lord Jesus. (Col. i. 13.) And to this end he telleth
his ministers that he sendeth them " to open their eyes, and to
turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan
unto God, that they may receive remission of sins, and an in-
heritance among them that are sanctified by faith in Christ;"
(Acts xxvi. IS ;) "That we may save ourselves, and them that
hear us." (1 Tim. iv. 16.) " In meekness instructing those that
oppose themselves, if God, peradventure, will give them repent-
ance to the acknowledging of the truth, and that they may
recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are
taken captive by him at his will." (2 Tim. ii. 25, 26.) Men
that are not wilfully blind may see here what relation Christ
standeth in to Satan, even as the general of the field, command-
ing all that army that is against him, and seeking the rescue of
his captives from his hands.
18. Consider, further, what a notable combat there is between
Christ and Satan for the rescue of everv sinner that is recovered.
It is not done easily, nor by an arm of flesh. Satan is the
strong man armed ; the heart of every unconverted sinner is his
garrison 3 his armour, and ordnance, and fortifications, are
THE HOLY GHOST. 347
temptations, deceit, prejudice, passion, sensual rage, and carnal
interests, and worldly allurements : by these he keepetii his
garrison in peace, till Christ come and hesiege him ; and then
what a storm is made ; what trouble and fear is the soul brought
into ! Christ planteth against it the ordnance of his word, he
dischargeth the terrible threatenings of his wrath, and tells the
sinner he must change his master or burn in hell ; there is no
remedy; it must be one of these two. He fitteth his ministers,
who are to make this battery, with a holy skill for his work,
and giveth them his Spirit, which is, as the gun-powder in our
battering-pieces, the chief cause of all the execution j so that,
as they fight against principalities and powers, and spiritual
wickednesses in high places, (Eph. vi. 12,) so are they furnished
with spiritual ordnance for that end. I speak not my own
thoughts, but the word of Christ : *' Though we walk in the
flesh, yet do we not war after the flesh ; for the weapons of our
warfare are not carnal, but mighty, through God, to the pulling
down of strong holds, casting down imaginations, and every high
thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and
bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ ;
and having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience." (2 Cor.
X. 'S — 6.) You see here the battery raised, and the ordnance
mounted and doing execution. Converted souls have felt all this.
Upon this battery the jailor came trembling in to Paul and Silas,
(Actsxvi.,) begging for quarter, and asking what he should do to be
saved. Upon this battery three thousand yielded at once, (Acts
ii.,) and being shot to the heart, with a healing bullet, they also
cry for quarter, and offer to yield themselves to mercy, crying
out to Peter and the rest of the apostles, " Men and brethren,
what shall we do ? " One of these did light on Saul, a persecutor,
by the high-way, and struck him down, and made him also yield
to mercy, and cry, " Lord, what wouldest thou have me to do ? "
(Acts ix.) Many a thousand did the apostles, by these engines,
bring to submission in the narrow compass of Judea, in a very
short space. When men stand out long, Christ sendeth to them
some ministers to parley with them and offer them mercy, that
they may know it is not an enemy to them but to Satan, that
doth make the assault, and to acquaint them his intentions are
all for their good ; and usually it is one that hath found the like
mercy himself, and endured such a battery as they now do en-
dure, that " knowing the terrors, and the goodness, and mercy
of the Lord, he may persuade men." (2 Cor. v. II.) And if
c c 2
348 THE SIN AGAINST
Christ resolve to win that soul, he will not withdraw the siege
till he have hattered to the ground their former prejudice, and
levelled their high imaginations, and taken down their impenitent
obstinacy, and dismounted all their carnal reasonings, and brought
the thoughts into a captivity to Clirist, and bound the strong
enemy, and cast him out ; but usually the conflict is sharp first,
or long, or both. Many strivings and troubles doth the soul first
endure, Christ haling it one way, and the devil another way, so
that the man is almost torn to pieces. Sometimes he would
repent and return, and then he is off again ; the enemy will not
so let him go, but pleasures, profits, and carnal company are all
brought out to bring him back ; then he would sit down and be
quiet in his sins, but Christ will not let him alone, but battereth
his heart again, till at last he forceth him to yield, and by the
power of love, assisted with holy fear, constraineth him to judge,
that if Christ died for all, then were all dead, and that he died
for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto them-
selves, but unto him that died for them and rose again." (2 Cor.
V. 14, 15.)
I do most seriously profess, that if I had but this one argu-
ment to prove the enmity of the Lord Jesus against the devil
and his kingdom, even the experience of the great conflicts in
the work of a true conversion, I should think it enough to con-
fute all the cavils of infidels, and all the blasphemers in the
world. Can a soul, that hath felt how Christ assaulted Satan
and expelled him, by what means he did it, and what it cost,
be ever persuaded more to question his holy, sin-hating nature
and design ?
19. Yet further, to manifest this enmity to the utmost, the
Lord Jesus doth possess all his sanctified true disciples with such
a spirit of enmity to Satan and his ways, and so contrary to
him, as they never had before, and as none else but they in the
world do possess : he giveth them a Spirit which maketh them
new creatures, and turneth their very hearts from the works of
darkness, and maketh them hate the tempter and his tempta-
tions : a Spirit which washeth, sanctifieth, and purifieth them,
and maketh them ashamed of that which was their glorying.
(Rom. vi. 21 ; 1 Cor. vi. 11.) A S})irit which warreth in them
against Satan and the flesh, and is contrary to it. (Gal. v. 17 ;
Ezek. xi. 1.9, and xxxvi. 26.) They that walk in this Spirit do
not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. (Gal. v. 16.) By this Spirit,
he that rose from the dead doth (luieken thein that were dead
THE HOLY GHOST. 349
in trespasses and sins, and walked therein in time past, ac-
cording to tiie course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in
the children of disobedience ; among whom they also had
their conversation in the time past, fulfilling the desires
of the flesh, and of the mind, and were by nature the chil-
dren of wrath, even as others. (Eph. ii. 1 — 3.) Where this
Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom from Satan's bonds.
(2 Cor. iii. 17.) This Spirit makes men like to God, and
therefore must needs make them unlike the devil : for it makes
us holy as he is holy, and perfect in some sort, as our heavenly
father is perfect. (Matt. v. 48.) And he that is joined to the
Lord is one Spirit. (I Cor. vi. li, 17.) It is a Spirit of
holiness and life, (Rom. i. 4, and viii. 2, 10,) given us on
purpose for the mortifying of the flesh, (Rom. viii. 13,) and
to make us fervent in serving the Lord; (Rom. xii. 11 ;) and
if any man have not this Spirit, he is indeed none of Christ's.
(Rom. viii. 9;) nor will he own any worker of iniquity. \^Matt.
vii. 23.) For by one Spirit we are all baptised into his one
body, and are all made to drink into one Spirit. (1 Cor. xii.
13.) This Spirit doth the second Adam, who for us was made
a quickening Spirit, (1 Cor. xv. 44,) bestow upon all his mem-
bers, to cast out all the interest of Satan, and make them a
habitation of God. (Eph. ii. 22.) How strong soever the
prince of darkness is. and how weak soever we are in our-
selves, yet he of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is
named doth grant us, according to the riches of his glory, to
be strengthened with might by this his Spirit in the inner man,
that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith, where Satan
dwelt before by infidelity, and we may be rooted and grounded
in love. (Eph. iii. 15 — 17.) The evil spirit that is in men
lusteth after envy. (Jam. iv. 5.) But this Spirit doth cause
us to abound in love, and by it we are taught of God to love
one another. Of all other, this is one of the fullest evidences
of the holiness of Christ, that he hath possessed his people
with such a spirit of holiness ; and the fullest evidence of his
hostility with the devil, when he possesseth his people with a
new nature, in some sort divine, so exceedingly contrary to the
satanical nature : so that it sets their hearts against him and
his ways, and awakeneth them to a vigilancy against his deceits,
and maketh all their new desires and endeavours to be nothing
but an opposition to him and his kingdom. If you know not
350 THE SIN AGAINST
whether Christ were a friend to Satan, or befriended by him, open
your eyes, dehided infidels, and see what is the business that he
hath set his disciples on, and what is the drift of the lives of
his truest followers through the world. What do they but hate
the devil and his ways, pray against him, speak against him,
withdraw his followers, disgrace his service, pull dovi'n his king-
dom with all their diligence ? I challenge the vilest infidel on
earth to show me that society of men, that are so unlike the
devil, and so averse to him and his service as the true servants of
Christ are : again, I challenge them to show me such a society.
20. And as the saints' contrariety to Satan, so the constant
conflicts which, bv the workings of the Holv Ghost, thev feel
against him in themselves, is a full evidence of Christ's enmity
to him. What true believer doth not perceive a continual war
between Christ and Satan in his own soul ? Christ is working
his heart to God, and Satan is drawing him downwards to the
creature : Christ is lifting him heavenward, and Satan clogs
him, and draws him to the earth : Christ would possess him
with right thoughts of God, and his ways, and the life to come ;
and Satan would blind him, and possess him with delusions and
false conceits. Christ would bring us to a contempt of this
world in comparison of a better : Satan would be still setting
us upon ambitious, covetous, rising designs, and have us lay up
our treasure on earth. Christ is still working us to meekness,
humility, and self-denial : Satan is fermenting our hearts with
pride, self-esteem, and self seeking. Christ is still working us
to unity, love, and peace, to forgive wrongs, and calm and mo-
derate all our passions, and to love our enemies, and study to do
all the good that we can : Satan is still sowing the seeds of
division, and hatred, and contention, and revenge ; breaking in
pieces churches, commonwealths, families, and relations, raising
tumultuous passions in men's minds, and drawing them from all
good, and provoking them to all evil. And though he cannot
have his will where Christ hath cast him out, yet doth he by his
suggestions let them know what his will is, if he might have it.~
Yea, in the very point in hand, about our believing in Christ,
we find a war in us between the persuasions of Christ's Spirit
and of Sn.tan. So industrious is the enemy to draw us to in-
fidelity, that if the Spirit of Christ did not resist him, and carry
on his work, there would not be a believer in the world. And
truly I cannot believe tliat the devil would so incessantly tempt
us to disbelieve the Scriptures, if they were according to his
THE HOLY GHOST. 351
mind ; or to depart from Christ by unbelief, if Christ had
been his confederate.
I must profess that this hath been a mighty support to me in
temptations of this nature, and hath showed me manifestly the
falsehood of the deceiver, and the truth of Christianity : the
more the tempter hath importuned me to doubt, the more sen-
sible I have been of this war in my own soul. I daily, also, on
other occasions, do find such a conflict between Christ's Spirit
and Satan, that my life is a warfare : and the church may well
be called militant, while it abides in this condition. I know all
these wars in my soul do certainly prove that there are some con-
trary, invisible powers that raise them, and therefore that there is
a spirit of light and of darkness, and a spirit of good and of evil,
which are in wars one against another. I find by many pas-
sages in the manner of the conflict, that it is not merely from
myself, but hath a higher cause. I know also thus much more,
that there is no strife, but there is something that is striven
for; hence, I am confirmed that the promises of Christ are true,
and that there is an everlasting glory and misery. Else, why
should Satan keep such a stir to deprive me of the one, and
bring me into the other ; and why would Christ do so much to
save me, if there were no salvation. There is some prize that
the enemy expecteth if he could conquer, and that can be
nothing but my everlasting undoing. There is also some prize
that Christ so contendeth for, and that is certainly my ever-
lasting felicity. So that the very experience of this war in my
own soul dotii much conduce to the confirming me in the faith.
21. Consider further, that all the wits of men and angels
could never have laid such a design for the vanquishing of Satan,
as Christ hath revealed in the Gospel, and came down on earth
to execute. That so powerful a commander should be made
general of the church, that Satan can have no hopes to win the
field : that mercy should be so wonderfully magnified in our
redemption, and God therein represented amiable to man, when
Satan had drawn us, even in our innocency, to look on God as
one that envied us our knowledge and delight : and thus the
heart is drawn up in love to God by the constraining power of
his wonderful love. That justice should be so eminently de-
monstrated, and the lawgiver vindicated, and the breach that
was made in the frame of government and morality repaired,
and God manifested so holy, and such a hater of sin, and yet
the sinner saved from destruction. That so free a pardon should
352 THE SIN AGAINST
be tendered to the world, and salvation offered on such gracious
terms, without the least derogation from God's law, or the least
impediment to holiness and good works, yea, to the greatest
promoting and advantage of it that could be imagined : and
that free grace should be so far from indulging and strengthen-
ing sin, that it is its greatest enemy, and giveth it the most
mortal wound; all this was beyond the wit of any creature to
have designed. That when man had come short of the glory
of God by his fall, tHe Son of God should become the Captain
of our salvation, and lead us up to that, or a greater glorv. That
by a death which he deserved not he should destrov the death
that we deserved. That we should be reconciled to God by his
death, and saved by his life. That he should become a sacrifice
for sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the
righteousness of God in him. That the human nature that
Avas so debased and depressed by the malicious temptations of
apostate angels, should, by the occasion of that debasement,
receive such advancement, and be set above the angelical nature,
in. the government of the world, and should judge those eyil
spirits that did seduce us. That under this head the eternal
God should gather him a selected corporation for his praises,
and for this wonderful mercy of redemption should have the
thanks of his glorified saints for ever. These, with many other
mysterious and wonderful passages of this design, do show the
greatest enmity to the kingdom of the devil that can be con-
ceived of, and would convince poor infidels if they did but well
discern the perfect, well-jointed frame of the whole design.
22. Consider yet further; what admirable helps hath Christ
vouchsafed us in his word for the vanquishing of Satan, bv the
repelling of his temptations. What is a great part of this
Gospel, but a directory to his church for the management of
this war, and how we may so demean ourselves as to conquer ?
1. He doth unmask the deceiver, and telleth us, both generally
and particularly, of his stratagems, depths, methods, wiles, and
snares. (Rev. ii. 24 ; 1 Cor. vii. 5, 6 ; 2 Cor. ii. 1 1.) Never were
his destroying projects so disclosed : so that now we mav escape
unless we will either wilfully wink, or put our foot into the snare
when we see it, or swallow the bait when we knovv' of the hook.
2. He hath opened unto us the ends of the tempter, and the
danger of yielding, and told us of the everlasting misery that he
would lead us into.
S. He calleth on us frequently to take heed, to watch, and
THE HOLY GHOST. 353
stand on our defence, and to beware of carelessness and sleeping
in this danger.
4. When we fall asleep, he giveth us the loudest alarun>s and
warning-pieces to awake us, enough, one would think, to rouse
up the most careless soul alive !
5. He telleth us of the devil's malice and design, that he is
our adversary, and walketh about like a roaring lion, night and
day, seeking whom he may devour. (1 Pet. v. 8.)
6. He furnisheth us with all the christian armour for defence
and offence.
7. He teacheth us how to put it on and use it. Let us tran-
scribe one direction. " Be strong in the Lord, and in the power
of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be
able to stand against the wiles of the devil : for we wrestle not
against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers,
against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual
wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole
armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day,
and having done all to stand. Stand, therefore, having your
loins girt about with truth, and having on the breast-plate of
righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the
Gospel of peace ; above all taking the shield of faith, wherewith
ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one ;
and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit,
which is the word of God ; praying always with all prayer and
supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all per-
severance and supplication for all Saints." (Eph. vi. 10 — 20.)
8. Also he doth animate and encourage us to be valiant and
stand to it, and not to turn our backs or yield. Not to give
place to the devil, (Eph. iv. 24,) nor forsake our ground. He
telleth us into how many shapes he will turn himself to deceive :
sometimes into a serpent, and sometimes a roaring lion, and some-
times into an angel of light, pretending to bring us a greater
light than Christ hath given us, as he would give xVdam a greater
knowledge and wisdom, and as the first heretics were made
believe by him, they knew more than the apostolical churches,
and therefore were called gnostics. His ministers also do
transform themselves into the ministers of righteousness, and
M'ill pretend to preach righteousness, and justification, more
exactly than Christ's ministers do. (2 Cor. xi. 14 — 16.) But
into how many shapes soever he shall turn himself, Christ telleth
us, if we do but resist the devil, h.e will fly. (Jam. iv. 7-)
354 THE SIN AGAINST
9. Yea, he is pleased himself to lead us on, and to bid us
follow him and trust him, and hath given us an example for us
to imitate.
10. Yea, and he giveth us a promise, not only of his assis-
tance, but of a certain victory, assuring us, that " Greater is he
than is in us, than he that is in the world ;" ( 1 John iv. 4 ;) and that
the God of peace will bruise Satan under our feet ; and bids us
be of good cheer, for he hath overcome for us, and will over-
come in us, and in the greatest trials we shall be over-con-
(juerors through him, (Rom. viii. 37,) and that none shall pluck
us out of his hands, (John x. 28, 29) nor the gates of hell be
able to prevail against his church.
23. If all this be not yet enough, consider the work, the
havoc, the destruction, that Christ hath already made against
Satan in his kingdom, and the niccess that the aforesaid means
have had. When he was on earth himself, though he did many
great works, yet still he omitted not the casting out of devils :
and the same power he gave to believers, when he was ascended ;
(Mark xvi. 17, IS) he commanded them forth, and they could
not resist the power of his word ; he forced them to confess
his superiority and prevailing power ; he made them acknow-
ledge that he did torment them l)efore the time of his full
and final conquest, by casting them out of their possessions,
and overcoming their cruel, malicious endeavours ; (Matt. ix.
32, 33; xii. 22, &c.; xv. 22, &c. ; xvii. 17—19, &c. ; Mark
v. 15-— 18; Luke iv, 33, 34, &c. ; iv. 42, &c. ; xi. 14, &;c.;)
and he healed all that were possessed with devils ; (Acts x. 38;)
and the principal enemies that his apostles set against, were
conjurers, that worked by the help of the devil, as you may find
by the foil they gave to Simon Magus, the leader of them, and to
Elimas, the sorcerer, whom Paul blinded ; (Acts xiii. 9 — 12 ;)
and they forced out the devil from a damsel that had the spirit
of divination, and got her masters much gain by soothsaying,
when they were confessed by him to be the servants of the
living God; (Acts xvi, 16 — IS;) when the Jewish exorcists
thought to do the like by the bare name of Jesus and Paul, the
devil prevailed over them, and caused them to fly naked and
wounded. (Acts xix. 13 — 16.) So many books of magic and
conjuration, or their black art, did the Gospel cause tliem at
once to bring forth and burn at Ephesus, that the price of them
came to fifty thousand pieces (or siiekels) of silver : (Acts xix.
IS, 19 :) a mighty blow to the devil's kingdom. ^
THE HOLY GHOST. 355
Yea, it is certain, from current history and church records,
that the gift of casting out devils, and making them confess
themselves mastered by Christ, did remain in the church for a
long time after the apostles, even for three or four hundred
years at least, though not in that glory and frequency as with
them. I have formerly showed out of Cvpiian, TertuUian, &c.,
how the Christians did provoke their judges to try them upon
this account, and offered themselves to suffer, if they did not
make the devils in the possessed confess themselves to be devils,
and show themselves afraid of Christ. Yea, the writers of the
first ages frequently mention it as a thing that the pagans
themselves knew, as you may briefly see (besides divers others)
in those testimonies which Grotius hath gathered on this point,
in his ^Annotations on Mark,' (xvi. 17,) out of Justin Martyr's
' Colloq. cum Tryph.;' Ireneeus, Origen, TertuUian, Minutius
Foelix, and Lactantius. 8ce also what I cited before, in the
disputation out of Augnstin, ' De Civitat. Dei.' No where
could Satan keep his possession, where the power of Christ did
assault him.
2. And as Satan was thus cast out of men's bodies, so were
all his oracles overthrown ; and they that had before deluded
the world, did suddenly cease when Christianity did approacli ;
Porphyrins complains of this against the Christians, as being
the cause of the silence of their idol gods ; thus also did Christ
vanquish Satan, and remove him from his throne.
3. Also Christ did overthrow the worshipping of devils, and
root out that idolatry that carried away the world. Before the
light of the Gospel did break forth, what abominable idolatry was
exercised through the earth, even in the most learned and civil
nations, at Athens and at Rome ; but the Gospel brought them
all to shame, and expelled this darkness, and wherever it
comes, idolatry flieth away, according to the measure of its
success.
4. When Satan raised up his witches and enchanters to up-
hold his kingdom, and bring idolatry again into credit, as Apol-
lonius and the rest, the Gospel prevailed against all their power
and devilish devices.
5. When Satan raised up the most learned philosophers to re-
sist the Gospel, yet did it prevail against all the power of their
carnal wit. And doubtless it was the purposed designment of
God that the Gospel should be sent forth in such a place and
age, where were the most learned enemies that were in all the
356 THE SFN AGAINST
world, that so all their learning might be non-plussed, and the
Gospel of Christ might triumph over it. When were there so
many learned men in the world, as about the time of Christ, and
his apostles, and the following time when the Gospel was con-
flicting with the opposition of their sciences ? If ever reason or
learning could have disgraced Christ and his truth, it would
have been then. But Christ used other kind of weapons than
theirs. They pleaded with words, and he with mighty works :
they used sophisms ; and he sinned into men's souls with an in-
superable light. Their weapons were weak and carnal ; but his
were strong and spiritual ; their wisdom to him was foolish-
ness, and his seeming foolishness proved wiser than they ; and
by weak and simple means and instruments did he overcome and
confound their might and strength.
6. Yea, when the Jews themselves did plead abused Scripture
against them, yet were they confounded, and their resistance of
the Gospel hath brought on them such a curse as hath made
them the astonishment of the world. Even the same that Christ
foretold should befall them 5 and the same that they wished on
themselves, (not knowing what they said,) " His blood be upon
us and upon our children.^'
7. And when Satan raised an army of heretics, Simonians,
Nicolaitans, gnostics, and the rest, though they came instructed
with witchcraft, and wicked arts, yet Christ confounded them,
and a little time did break each sect in pieces ; and when new
sects succeeded them, the like did befall them ; so that those
that were the great scourge and vexation of one age, as the
libertines, ranters, quakers, the offspring of separation and ana-
baptistry, are now with us, were scarce known to the next, but
by their names and by report. The church of Ephesus had
Nicolaitans among them; but they hated their doctrine as Christ
himself hated it. (Rev. ii. 6.) The church of Smyrna had blas-
phemers among them, that said they were Jews, but were not,
but were the synagogue of Satan ; but they prevailed not. (Rev.
ii. J), 10.) The church of Pergamos dwelt even where Satan's
seat was, and had them that held the doctrine of Balaam, teach-
ing men to cat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornica-
tion ; they had also them that held the doctrine of the Nicolai-
tans, which Christ hated ; and yet they held fast Christ's name,
and denied not his faith, even in those days wherein his faithful
martyr Antipas was slain among them, where Satan dwelt.
(Rev. ii. 12 — 15.) The churches of Tliyatira had among them
THS HOLY GHOST. 357
the woman Jezebel, who called herself a projahetess, and did
teach and seduce the professors of Christianity to commit forni-
cation, and eat things offered to idols ; and though the church
were guilty of tolerating this, yet Christ did confound these
heretics, and cast the woman Jezebel into a bed, and them that
committed adultery with her, into great tribulation, and killed
her children with death, that all the churches might know that
it is Christ that searcheth the reins and hearts, and will give to
every one according to their works ; and those that had not
known this doctrine, and these depths of Satan, he cautioneth
and directeth that they may persevere and overcome. (Rev. ii.
20 — 25.) The church of Sardis had some among them that de-
filed their garments, but the faithful kept clean. The churches
of Philadelphia were troubled with some of the synagogue of
Satan, whicii said that they were Jews, and were not, but did
lie ; yet did they keep the word of Christ's patience, and Christ
did keep them from the hour of temptation. (Rev. iii. 9 — 11.)
Thus you see how common it was with the churches to be pes-
tered with heretics ; and vet the light of the Gospel, and Christ's
discipline, did quickly scatter them and confound them, as they
sprung up.
S. And when Satan made his hottest onset by his band of
persecutors, even in the midst of persecution did the church
increase her strength and glory ; and the martyr's blood was
the church's seed, as Tertullian speaks. No fire was hot
enough to consume the Gospel ; no rage was strong enough to
bear down Christ ; no sword was sharp enough to pierce his
truth ; but he goes on and prevails, and overcomes the very
persecutors. And here let all be laid together, and let it be
well noted what a victory Christ obtained of Satan, when he
conquered the Roman empire in special : when Satan had afoot
all these bands at once, and all of them his strongest and best
armed soldiers, viz. the Jews, with their misinterpreted law ;
the idolaters, with their oracles and popular rage for the defence
of their ancient worship ; the conjurers and sorcerers with their
devilish conjurations; the heretics witb their witchcrafts and
juggling delusions ; the great learned philosophers of all sects,
with orators, jjoets, and the rest of their learned men ; their
raging, unmerciful persecuters, and the great and potent em-
perors, that had mastered and then ruled so much of the world,
(the Roman empire being then in the height of its glorv,) vet
all these could not subdue the Gospel, nor hinder the persecuted
358 THE SIN AGAfNST
Christians from such success j as that sorcery, conjuration,
oracles, idolatry, heresy, persecution, all is overthrown ; and the
Roman emperor lavs down his crown at the feet of Christ, and
subjecteth all his glory to his will.
But yet a greater victory than all this was the overcoming
of men's corruptions, and conquering their fleshly lusts, and
purifying so many milHons of polluted souls, and setting up
Christ's government, where Satan had long ruled. And so this
kingdom of Christ within us is his most excellent kingdom
upon earth. And thus you see Christ's enmity to Satan by the
utter destruction and ruin that he hath made in his kingdom.
24. Yet further consider what an army Christ hath vet afoot
against Satan to this day, and how they are emploved ; and by
that time all this is laid together, we may well say that those
blasphemers are bewitched into madness, that can yet imagine
that Satan did lend Christ his help, or is a friend unto his
cause, or Christ to his.
In the present army that Christ hath afoot, let us but consider
these three things, or parts. His officers, his common soldiers,
and his warlike instruments, arms, and ordnances.
1. For his officers, the very business that he calls them to,
is to spend and be spent for the saving of souls and destroying
of Satan's work. What are they to study all the week, but
how to resist the deceiver, and save men from his snares ?
What are they to preach in public of, but to cry down the
powers and works of darkness, and turn men from the power
of Satan unto God, and to proclaim all those to be rebels that
follow the deceiver ? What else must they watch over their
people for in private, but to res.cue them from his deceits ?
To this end must we reprove and instruct them with all
patience, meekness, and long suffering. (2 Tim. ii. 25.) AVhat
is it that they must pray for else on their people's behalf? Yea,
and they must first see to the saving of themselves, and look to
themselves as well as their doctrine, (1 Tim. iv. 16,) and must
be sure to be found well-grounded in the faith ; and such as are
delivered from Satan themselves, and no other should be chosen
to this work. Nor should they be novices, or young converts,
that have not had sufficient standing and experience ; lest
themselves, being pufred up with pride, should fall into the con-
demnation of the devil. (I Tim. iii. 6.) So that look how
many true ministers of Christ are upon the earth, so many
leading enemies of Satan there are, proclaiming Christ's enmity
THE HOLY GHOST. 359
to him, setting him daily at defiance, beating him out of his
possessions, and recovering to God the souls that he capti-
vated.
2. Consider also Christ's common soldiers, and their employ-
ment. What is the life of a Christian, but a militating against
Satan ? What else doth Christ call him to ? And what else
is he as a Christian employed in ? So that look how many
true Christians are on the face of the earth, so many professed,
avowed enemies of the devil there are. that live upon the spoils
of his kingdom, and lay out themselves to procure its over-
throw.
3. Consider also the armour and ordnance of the saints.
All God's graces, I have before showed you, are against Satan ;
and so are all the ordinances of Christ. In baptism, I have
already showed, we are listed against him and renounce him :
preaching, I have showed, is the battering of his garrisons :
The Lord's Supper is a renewing of that first covenant, wherein
we were engaged against him, and a remembering us of our
duty and engagement. Prayer is directed purposely to the ruin
of his cause. Reproofs and admonition are the reclaiming of
his deceived ones. Discipline is for a just separation of Christ
and Satan, the precious and the vile, and the shaming of all
that is like him, and the weeding of his tares from the church
of Christ.
You see, then, how the devil is assaulted and daily baited by
the christian army through the world. So many true Christians
as there are, so many daily or frequent prayers are put up against
the interest of the devil ; and so many there are that bend them-
selves to disgrace him, and destroy his works.
Hence it is that the very name of Satan is so odious, especially
among them. How many volumes are written by them against
him and his designs ; and how disgracefully do they speak of
him in them all ! The very libraries of the christian world are
such a wound to Satan, and such mortal darts in his sides, tliat
he would have, by any cost, prevented or consumed them if he
could. There it stands on record, what he is, and what he hath
done, and how he hath been used in former ages, e. i/. saith
Augustin, 'Cone, ad Catechum. Contr. Judseos;' Pag. et
Arrian., (torn. vi. p. 23.) "What is the devil ? He is an angel,
by pride separated from God, who stood not in the truth ; the
author of lies; deceived by himself, and desiring to deceive
others. This Satan is become the adversary of mankind, the
360 THE SIN AGAINST
inventor of death, tlie institutor of pride, the root of malice or
evil, the head of wickedness, the prince of all vices, and the
persuader of filthy thoughts.' Thus is the devil assaulted daily,
and by all this army is Christ opposing him, and therefore,
doubtless, is his greatest enemy.
25. Consider, also, how Satan reigneth where Christ hath not
pursued him with his Gospel, as among the poor Indians, where
he appears among them and is worshipped by them, and where
Christ hath withdrawn his Gospel. If men knew and considered
the difference between those places and these we live in, they
would surely see that Christ is Satan's enemy.
26. Consider, also, how little is done against Satan by any
other besides Christ. How did he prevail before Christ's op-
posing him ; and who is there on earth that hath done so much
against him as Christ hath done; and how would he have reigned
if Christ had let liim alone ? All the learning and civility of the
Greeks and Romans did rather confirm than extirpate their
idolatry and worshipping devils ; and, indeed, all the light that
doth oppose him among any other sects are but some sparks
that Christ hath lent them, and some small reflections of the
Gospel on them.
27. Note, also, that constant experience telleth us that all sin
and wickedness doth befriend infidelity : this is a known truth.
The more any man woundeth or debaucheth his conscience by
living in wilful sin, or selleth himself for carnal pleasure, to work
wickedness, the more he is disposed to infidelity, and the easier
is he drawn from Christ ; and the worst men are his enemies,
and the best his truest servants, through the world ; which shows
the enmity between him and iniquity.
2S. Besides, Christ promiseth the crown to those only that
fight manfully against Satan, and overcome. (Read Rev. ii. and
iii., which shows his resolved enmity.)
29. Moreover, the very nature of the happiness that he pro-
miseth, is to be perfectly rescued from Satan and his sinful
works, and to be as unlike him as is possible for us to be, and
to be separated as far from him as heaven is from hell : this,
also, further declares the enmitv.
30. Lastly, If vet after ail tliis any will be hardened in this
vile infidelity, they shall find at last, when he comes to judgment,
whether Christ were a friend to Satan or not; when they them-
selves shall be condemned to those torments whicli were at first
prepared for the devil and his angels. I run over these passages
THE HOLY GHOST. 361
SO briefly because I have stood so long upon this point, and the
evidence is so clear that it seems needless to say more.
Some think that Michael, the archangel, was Christ ; but it
is most likely that he is a prince among the holy angels, and so
a leader of the army of Christ : certain it is that he is a chief
agent in this warfare ; and as he strove with the devil about the
body of Moses, (whether Moses's dead body, or Moses in the
basket when he was exposed to the waters, I determine not,) so
we find some description of this war in Rev. xii. 7, &c. : "And
there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against
the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed
not, neither was their place found any more in heaven ; and the
great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil and
Satan, which deceiveth the whole world. He was cast out into
the earth, and his angels were cast out with him ; and I heard a
loud voice saying, in heaven, Now is come salvation and strength,
and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ ; for
the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them
before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the
blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they
loved not their lives unto the death j therefore rejoice, ye heavens,
and ye that dwell in them : wo to the inhabitants of the earth,
and of the sea, for the devil is come down unto you, having great
wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. And
when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he perse-
cuted the woman which brought forth the man-child j and the
dragon was wrath with the woman, and went to make war with
the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God,
and have the testimony of Jesus Christ." Whatever be the
particular drift of these words in general, I am sure they discover
his enmity, conflict, and success.
And thus you have seen (I doubt not to call it) a full demon-
stration, " That for this very purpose the Son of God was mani-
fested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." (I John
iii. 8.) And that he is already fallen before the Gospel, Spirit,
ministry, and other servants of Christ, as lightning from heaven.
(Luke X. 18.)
So much of Christ's holy war.
The Uses, or Consectaries,
The premises thus demonstrated do afford us further light for
our information in these three following points or consectaries ;
VOL. XX. D D
362 THE SIN AGAINST
1. From what is said, it is manifest even to reason that Christ
is indeed the Messiah and Son of God, and Saviour of the world,
and his Gospel true, and the christian religion is of evident
certainty.
For if Christ's mighty works were not wrought by Beelzebub,
as the blasphemers of the Holy Ghost did imagine, then it is
most certain that they were of God : for that they were truly
done, I have showed before in the first discourse ; and none can
make doubt of it that is not a stranger to the records of the
world, and especially of the church ; or that knows with what
clear, unquestionable evidence these matters of fact have been
brought down to our hands. And, as Augustin saith that the
world should be converted by miracles, when there were, indeed,
no miracles, would be itself the greatest miracle : and then, that
no human power could raise Christ from the dead, or do the
works that he and his disciples after him performed in several
countries and nations of the world, is so far past question, that I
never met with man yet that doubted of it. It remaineth, there-
fore, that it must be either by the power of God or of Satan,
that these works were done. Of this the pharisees themselves
were easily convinced, and therefore had no other refuge for
their unbelief, but only to blaspheme the Holy Ghost, and say
that it was by Beelzebub that all these things were done : and,
indeed, there is nothing else that is left them to pretend : and
how vain and absurd this blasphemy is, I dare say, is demon-
strated in what is already said; so that it remains that the Gospel
is certainly of God, and these glorious works of Christ are of God,
there being no other power to which they can be ascribed. Nay,
here being, moreover, the fullest, positive evidences that it is the
very work of the Almighty God, that Christ hath set a foot, and
is still carrying on. If proof may be called proof, this is proved.
Quest. But are not the miracles themselves a sufficient argu-
ment to prove themselves to be of God, without fetching all this
proof from the scope and use of them ?
Answ. They are themselves sufficient. 1. For all the devils
in hell are not able to do that which Christ and his apostles did,
if they were willing. 2. And if they had a natural power, yet
want they a moral power or license from God : for it is as cer-
tain as that God is the just and faithful Governor of the world,
that he would never give devils leave to delude them by such mi-
racles, without controling them, and giving us sufficient light to
discover the deceit. All this is fully proved before.
THE HOLY GHOST. 363
But yet, though miracles are sufficient of themselves, God
hath abundantly provided for our satisfaction ; and lest any
should say that evil spirits are so far from our knowledge that,
for ought we know, they may do as great matters as all these :
or, at least, may blind the eyes of the beholders, to make them
think that they are done indeed; as when witches seem to be
turned into wolves and cats, to the eyes of others, and their
own : and how far Satan can cheat poor mortals we cannot tell.
I say, lest any should think they have this excuse for their infi-
delity, the Lord hath given them, as full evidence, that Satan is
no friend to these works of Christ, as that the light of the sun
proceedeth not from the abyss, or seat of darkness. Blessed be
the Lord of truth and light, that hath set such an unquestion-
able seal to his Gospel, and given such an advantage to the
faith of his people, atld called us to believe nothing but what he
hath evidenced to us to be true, by giving us so full an evidence
that it is his revelation : that we may more comfortably do or
suffer for our religion, and forsake all the world for the glory
that is promised us, when we are so sure that it is God himself
that hath promised it. Had God but left us in the dark in this
point, what a loss should we have been at in every duty and
temptation ? How could we have resisted the lusts of the flesh,
and the allurements of this world, if we had not had good assu-
rance that there are better things hereafter this way to be at-
tained ? How could we have laid out ourselves heartily in God's
service, or endured the scorns of the licentious world ; or have
differed from them in our course, and have forborne to run with
them into riotous excess ? Who will run cheerfully that doubted
whether there be any prize ; or sow in tears that knows not
that he shall reap in joy ? But, now, how cheerfully may we
run ; how light may we make of all our sufferings ! With what
alacrity and delight may we go through all duties, when we know
who it is that hath promised, and on whose word we trust our
souls ! Now, what an argument is here ready to shame and repel
all temptation, to make us contemn this empty world, and deny
our flesh and carnal self, and patiently run the race that is be-
fore us, and, in a word, to be Christians indeed, and to live ac-
cording to the rates of our profession or belief ! Oh ! what a
blessed help is here to get up the heart in each day to God, and
to facilitate our meditations on heavenly things. Alas ! all the
striving in the world would never have stirred our hearts to hea-
ven, if we had not seen a glory to entice them, Love is not
RD 2
364 THE SIN AGAINST
driven but drawn ; and nothing would have drawn them l)ut that
which is true as well as good ; and no truth is fit to take with
man but that which hath evidence ; nor any beyond the measure
of its evidence. I know the schoolmen, and some of our own most
reverend divines do say that the christian religion is evidenter
C7'edibile, sed noti evidenter vermn. But, indeed, nothing is cre-
dible but what is true, nor evidently credible but what is evi-
dently true. But, then, this I confess is true, and so their words
may be admitted that it is evidently credible, because it is evi-
dently a divine testimony, and I desire no more evidence of
truth ; but it is not evidenter verum in se, but only in the credit
of the testifier : but though there be not evidentia rei, it is as
good if there be evidence that it is God who doth attest it : so
that evidence of verity there must be ; for, as Mr. Richard
Hooker saith of them that would not have Scripture proved to
be God's word, but believed only, * How bold and confident
soever we may be in words, when it comes to the trial, such as
the evidence is which the truth hath, such is the assent j nor can
it be stronger, if grounded as it should be.'
If we live faithfully, if we suffer cheerfully, if we die com-
fortably, and lay down our bodies in the dust in hope, we may
thank God that hath given us such evidence of his truth, such
helj)s to discern them, and his Spirit to fit us for the receiving
and improving of them.
And therefore what a great wrong is it to the souls of
believers, both that teachers do no more to the well-laying of
this foundation, and that themselves do no more study and
consider of these evidences ! Certainly, whatever may be
tlie most confident belief, that is like to be the most constant
which is settled by sound evidence. And, for want of this it is, that
seekers, and quakers, and apostates, do now of late prevail, to
overthrow the faith of some, because that when they hear the
objections which they never heard before, they are unable to
answer ; and the faith which was built on borrowed grounds,
doth fall at the first assault ; and they think they have found
the falsehood of their former religion, when they have discovered
only the falsehood or infirmity of their former belief.
And if men should resolvedly resist seducers, yet Satan him-
self will be ready to assault them: and if they never be tempted
to doubt of the truth, yet can they never so well improve
that faith, to holiness and consolation, which hath not evidence
in our minds that it is certainly God himself whom we do believe.
THE HOLY GHOST. 365
The fullest evidence discerned doth certainly beget the
strongest faith, and the strongest faith will produce the greatest
holiness and consolation : so that you may perceive how much
doth lie on this.
And, doubtless, evidence itself is none to us, if it be not dis-
cerned. And the frequent and serious consideration of it doth
help to make the deepest impression ; and, therefore, those that
never hear or read these evidences, do want very much that
advantage that God hath provided for their faith ; and those
that daily consider them in their strength, will find their faith
exceedingly increased, and so all graces increased there withal.
Yet I know that it is the common method of the devil to set
in most cunningly and violently with his temptations;, when a
Christian doth first set himself to look for evidence of the truth
of his religion, and bring it under consideration; and, therefore,
many imagine that all such seeking for proof is but the way to
loosen men's belief, and overthrow them ; but they should rather
direct such novices in the faith, which way they should go about
this work most safely, using the best evidence, and taking along
with them the help of judicious teachers, and waiting for the
reception of certainty by degrees, seeing it is not possible by
ordinary means that all the evidence should be received in the
beginning, and at once ; I say such directions for the right
managing of this work may be very necessary to them; but wholly
to take them off and persuade them to take up all their faith on
trust, and make up that in blind confidence, which they have not
in true evidence, this will prove no wise or friendly advice at last.
The second consectary is this : from hence it appeareth that
the matter of fact was then so evident, that the most malicious
enemies of Christ did acknowledge that such mighty works were
done by him : this was, then, past all doubt among the worst and
most cruel of his persecutors : only all the question was, by what
power he did them ? For this was the only refuge that they
had left them for their unbelief, that it was by sorcery, and by
the power of Beelzebub that these works were done.
What I say of Christ's own works, is true also of the disci-
ples' works after his ascension. Say these pharisees : " What
shall we do to these men ? for that indeed a notable miracle
hath been done by them, is manifest to all them that dwell in
Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it ; but that it spread no
further among the people, let us straightly threaten them that they
speak henceforth to no man in this name," (Act? iv. 16, 17.)
.366 THE SIN AGAINST
We see, then, that they were past all doubt that these niiracles,
were done, though they blasphemed the Spirit by which they
were done.
So when the Holy Ghost did fall upon the church, "They
heard them speak with other languages as the Spirit gave them
utterance; and when it was noised abroad, the multitude of devout
Jews came together, that were come out of all nations to Jeru-
salem, and they were confounded to hear them speak in all their
own languages, and they were all amazed, and marvelled, saying
one to another. Behold, are not all these that speak Galileans ?
and how hear we every man in our own tongue wherein we were
born, Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the inhabitants
of Mesopotamia, and Judea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus and
Asia, in Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of
Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews, and proselytes,
we do hear them speak in our own tongues the wonderful works
of God. And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying,
what meaneth this ? Others mocking said, these men are full
of new wine." (Acts ii. 2 — 5, 12, 13.)
You see there is no question here, whether the thing was
done ; but only what was the cause of it. Whether it was
God's Spirit by which they spake these languages ? or whether
all the Church were drunk, and drunkenness could cause such
a thing ? And, indeed, there could be no doubt of the fact,
when not only the multitude in so populous a city were witnesses
of it, but also when they might have gone to the christian
assemblies, and heard the like again for their conviction in all
countries and nations round about where the Gospel was spread,
and this for twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty, if not a hundred
years together. So that there was no room left for doubting
about the matter of fact^ whether such things were done indeed
or not.
And to this day we find that the Jews, by tradition from their
imbelieving ancestors, do tread the same steps, confessing
Christ's works, but accusing him either of sorcery, or of I know
not what acquaintance with the ineffable name, by the virtue
whereof they say he did them. And so we find in their own
writings yet, that when the Christians dispute with them, they
will not begin with Christ's works or doctrine, but will only
begin with the description of the Messiah, and then they argue
thus : ' If the description of the true Messiah belong not to Jesus
Christ, then, whatever were his works or doctrine, he cannot be
THE HOLY GHOST. 36/
the Messiah : but that description belongs not to him.' The
major they would prove from their carnal, false description of
the Messiah, who must be the temporal deliverer of their nation
from captivity, which Christ hath not done. All this you may
see in their own writings j as in their history wrote by Salomo,
filius Virgae, translated by Georg. Gentius, you may find where,
in the disputations before the pope and the King of Arragon
which they boast of, they conclude, that ' If we will show them
a man of the tribe of Juda, that shall gather together all the
dispersed Jews, and bring them from captivity into their own
land, and build the temple and re-edify Jerusalem, and set up
the worship of God again according to the law of Moses, in as
great glory as ever it was, and make the nations of the world to
reverence the Jews, and bring in their riches and glory to them,
this man they will take for the Messiah ; but no other will they
believe to be him, whatever works he do.' So that these carnal
people, looking so much at their carnal deliverance and glory,
do expect just such a Messiah as Mahomet is to the Turks ; and
while they feel not their spiritual necessity and misery, they
despise the remedy, and are prejudiced by this false description
of the Messiah against all arguments that can be used with them ;
and yet justly are deprived of the carnal things, which they do
expect.
Quest. But if they were so fully convinced of Christ's mi-
racles, and the disciples' after him for so many years, it is a
wonder how their hearts can be so blinded and hardened as to
continue in unbelief.
Answ. It is God's righteous judgment to permit it, but the
causes of it were divers.
1. This which I have last mentioned was the chief; the
gaping after a carnal deliverer.
2. The fore-mentioned blasphemous conceit of Christ working
by the devil's power was another cause.
3. The reverence which they had to Moses' law, and their
misunderstanding it, was one of the greatest causes of all : for
they knew it was the law of God, and they concluded that no
spirit could be of God that spake against his law, nor any work
of God that was done against it ; and therefore they concluded
that the Spirit of Christ was an evil spirit, and his works of
Beelzebub, for they had been warned by Moses to credit no
worker of wonders that would draw them away from God. But
all this was because these wretches did not understand that
368 THE SIN AGAINST
Moses' law was but for a time to be their schoolmaster unto
Christ, or to teach them Christ, and endure till he came, and
that all the types did cease when the substance should appear.
And this ignorance is it that misleads them and undoes them.
4. And yet, doubtless, as there were many thousands of them
converted in the apostles' days, so among many of them, both
great and small, there was secretly a forced belief in Christ,
which fear of persecution, and other carnal respects, did cover.
For the confirmation of this, I will give you but the brief sum
of a story which a learned, godly father doth relate, and that is
Epiphanius, * In Heeres. 30. Ebion.' Going about to prove that
the Jews had secretly among them the Gospel of Matthew, John,
and the Acts, in the Hebrew tongue, he falls into the relation of
the conversion of one that acquainted him with it; and that
was one Joseph, a Jew, living in the days of Constantine the
Great, and advanced to honour by him, who, receiving commis-
sion to build churches to Christ at Tyberias, Capernaum, and
other places in his own country, he there fixed his abode, and
having very sumptuous buildings at Scythopolis, he there en-
tertained Eusebius Vercellensis, whom the Arian emperor,
Constantius, banished ; and Epiphanius going thither to visit
Eusebius, professeth most solemnly that he had all this whole
relation from Joseph's own mouth, being then about seventy
years of age. To wit, that this Joseph lived with the patriarch
of the Jews, called EUel : this patriarch being ready to die, sendeth
Joseph to the Bishop of Tyberias to desire him to come to him,
under pretence of being his jjhysician. The patriarch beseecheth
the bishop to baptise him ; whereupon the servants are com-
manded to make ready some water, as if it had been for some
medicinal use, and then they were all commanded to withdraw.
.Joseph looks through some crevice in the door, and sceth the
bishop baptise the patriarch, and the patriarch giving him a sum
of gold, desiring him to offer it to God for him (as the manner
then was when any thing was dedicated to some pious use, they
offered it to God). Three days after, the patriarch dying, be-
queathed the tuition of his son, not vet of age, to Joseph and
another honest man. These things stuck in Joseph's mind, and
made him desirous to know more of the christian religion. And
there being a certain secret place of supposed treasure, which
Joseph had now the keys of, he opens it and findeth no money,
but the Gospel of John and the Acts of the Apostles translated
iiitoHebreWj and with them Matthew's 'Genealogy.' Thereading
THE HOLY GHOST. 369
of these increased his perplexities, but yet did not persuade
him to be baptised. After this, the patriarch's son (he supposed
his name was Judas) fell into the company of some lewd young
men that enticed him to wicked courses, as to fornication and
filthy lusts, and to certain tricks of sorcery or magic, by which
he might obtain his lust with those he desired. Joseph and his
other guardian chide him, and follow him, and dissuade him from
his course, but could not prevail, and divulge it tliey durst not.
Upon a time he went to the baths, near Gadara, which were
then famous for curing many diseases, and there being a fair hard
by, the people came flocking thither. It fell out that in the bath
was a woman of extraordinary beauty, at whose sight Judas was
pierced with lustful desires ; of which, while he gave some
signs, the woman, being a Christian, fortified herself with the
name of Christ, and afterwards, when he solicited her, she re-
proached his messengers, and despised his offered gifts. The
young man, being sad at his disappointment, his companions
draw him in the evening to certain sepulchres which were in
caves hewed in the rocks, and there they fall to their witchcraft,
and with spells, and charms, and impious devices, they think to
conjure the woman to yield herself presently to his lust. It
pleased God to make this known to Joseph's companion, the
other guardian of the young man ; and he told Joseph, and
sadly lamenting the case of the young man, they secretly went
after them, and after sunset, in the twilight, they came to the
sepulchre door, and there looked in and saw them at their charms
among the dead bodies ; and when they had done, they se-
cretly withdrew. When the young men were gone, they went
into the sepulchre, and found their mixtures of blood and dust,
and instruments of witchcraft, and understanding all the matter,
they waited to see the issue : but charms could not prevail
against a Christian ; whereupon, Joseph saw yet more of the
power of Christianity, but yet he was not converted to Christ.
Next to this, he saw, as it were, Christ in a vision, saying to him,
* I am Jesus, whom thy ancestors crucified, believe in me :' but
this moved him not. Then he fell into a sore and desperate
disease, and Christ appearing to him again, tells him that he
shall be recovered if he will believe, which he promised to do,
and recovered ; but continuing obstinate, he fell sick again,
and that so desperately, that they had no hope of his life. The
Jews coming about him to perform those ceremonies, and give
that advice which they use to do to dying men, one of tiie chief
370 THE SIN AGAINST
of them, an ancient man, skilful in their law, came to him, and
whispered these words in his ear, ' Believe that Jesus, who was
crucified under Pontius Pilate, being the Son of God, and af-
terwards born of Mary, is the Christ of God, and was raised from
the dead, and shall come again to judge the dead and the
living.' And thus Joseph came to know that among their last
m3'steries, the Jews secretly persuaded dying men to believe.
This Epiphanius again most solemnly protesteth that Joseph
told him in order as is related, with his own mouth : as also that
he hath heard the like from another Jew. And that, as he tra-
velled from Jericho, through the deserts of Bethel and Ephraim,
this Jew joined himself with him, and Epiphanius fell into
discourse about Christ's coming: the Jew did not contradict
him in any thing, which made Epiphanius wonder, and ask
him the reason ; the Jew answered, that when he was once like
to die, the Jews whispered these words in his ear, ' Jesus Christus
crucifixus Deifilius de tejudicabit' ' Jesus Christ crucified, the
Son of God, shall be thy Judge.'
Thus much of this history I have recited out of Epiphanius, to
show what conviction was then among many of the Jews them-
selves; which things this holy man so often and earnestly protest-
eth he heard with his own ears. As for the rest of the story of
Joseph, I shall not stay to recite it all, because I am at the thing
which I did intend already ; only, in a word, after this, Christ
appeared to him again in a vision, and gave him power to do a
miracle for his conviction ; but yet he delayed his return, till at
last, being advanced by the young patriarch, Judas, to great
dignity, he exercised so much severity over the wicked priests,
and rulers of synagogues, that they conspired against him, and
pry into his ways, and one day rush into his house and find him
reading the Gospels, and, snatching the book out of his hand,
they draw him to the synagogue and scourge him, till the bishop
of the city came and delivered him. After this, meeting him on
the way, they cast him into the river Cyndus, and thought they
had drowned him ; but being delivered, he then delayed no
longer, but professed himself a Christian, and was baptised, and
so went to Constantine the emperor, and told him all that had
befallen him, who made him a count, and gave him power to
build churches among the Jews, which was all that he desired.
So much to prove that the fact of Christ's miracles was un-
questionable with the Jews.
3, The premises, thus cleared, do further inform lis, what an
THE HOLY GHOST, 371
unreasonable, and abominably impious a sin this blasphemy
against the Holy Ghost is, and therefore no wonder if it have no
forgiveness.
Unreasonable I may well call it, for it is against the clearest
evidence that can be desired. What, is there but one to be found
in heaven or earth that could enter the lists with Satan, and
overcome him, and rescue his captives out of his hands, and
must that one be accused of being Satan's confederate ! Is
there but one that had power and will to destroy the devil's
kingdom ; and shall he be accused of building it up ! Must he
condescend so low by his incarnation, to the wonder of men and
angels, and stoop yet lower by a life of suflfering, and yet lower
in his agony, on his cross, and in his grave, and all to undermine
the kingdom of darkness -, and, after all this, shall he be supposed
to build what he so destroyeth ! Shall he lay out all his time and
pains against Satan, and cast him down wherever he comes, and
dispossess him of the bodies and souls which he possessed, and
make the world to wonder at the batteries which he makes, and
at his great execution upon the interest of hell, and yet shall he
be accounted a friend to it ! Shall he be at so great cost in this
holy war, and not think his blood and life too dear, and expose
himself and all his army to so great hazards, abuses, and indig-
nities, so that thousands must lay down their lives in the flames
and suffer the most cruel torments from tyrants and the raging
multitude, and all to pull down idolatry and wickedness, and to
set up the interest of God on the earth, and yet shall Christ be
accounted a friend of the devil's ! Shall he lay such a design to
subdue Satan, and save mankind, as all the world could not have
laid ; shall he establish such a frame of laws, so perfectly con-
trary to the will and interest of the devil, and seal them with the
mighty power of God, in doing such works as no man else could
do, and yet shall these very works be said to be done by Beelze-
bub 1 O fearful, wilful blindness, and unreasonable wickedness,
of such obstinate unbelievers !
Shall Christ send forth such an army of apostles, martyrs,
and holy believers, to go up and down the world, making it
their work to assault the kingdom of darkness wherever they
shall come, charging them not to spare, for cost or pains, or
their own lives, so that this work may be accomplished, and
promising them the reward of glory if they fight manfully and
overcome, and threatening everlasting misery if they do not 3
and yet must he be called Satan's friend ! Shall he give his dis-
3/2 THE SIN AGAINST
ciples, for a hundred years, the power of working miracles in his
name, and by these to cast out idolatry and impiety ; shall he
list all that will come unto him, by baptism, expressly to fight
against the devil ; shall he actually expel him from so great
a part of the world, silence his oracles, shame his worshippers
and confederates, and cast down his laws and government in
n^en's souls, and thus turn the world upside down, battering
down Satan's garrisons and strong holds, and binding him, dis-
arming him, and casting him out ; and after all this shall be
said to do these things by Satan's help ! Shall he set up a
whole frame of worship, ordinances in direct opposition to him,
and animate his disciples with a holy spirit, quite contrary to
Satan, and keep them continually employed against him, pub-
licly or privately, making it the whole work of their lives, and
continually maintaining by his Spirit the conflict against Satan
in their souls, giving them daily victory over him, and bringing
them more and more out of his power, and yet shall he be said
to be on the devil's side ! In a word, shall he go before them
himself as their general, and lead them, and conquer for them,
in them, and by them ; even conquer and rout the whole army
of Satan, Jews, idolaters, heretics, conjurors, cunning sophisters,
and philosophers, mighty monarchs, bloody persecutors, raging
multitudes, and, above all, their own hearts' lusts, and all the
allurements of the world, temptation of the devil, and interest
of the flesh, and thus bruise Satan under their feet, and cause
him to fall as lightning from heaven, and bind the dragon that
he cannot deceive, or devour as he did ; and yet, after all this,
shall there be found a heart in the l)reast of any creature of
God, yea, of a redeemed one, that sliall entertain such cursed
thoughts as these, that Christ doth all this by the power of the
devil 1 Judge, all men, by the unreasonableness of this iniquity,
whether it be not just with God to leave such a soul as hopeless
and remediless. And vvhether it be not such a wilful, malicious
resisting of clear light, and rejecting of the remedy which was
provided and offered, that it is very meet the sin should be
unpardonable.
2. And consider further, whether the impiety be not yet
greater by far than the iniquity or unreasonableness of it. In-
deed, it is the very height of ungodliness ; and, as it seems to
me, in some respects, far worse than the very denying that there
is any God. For, to give you the sum of it in a word, what is
it less, if with reverence of God's name and majesty we may
THE HOLY GHOST. " 373
speak it, than to make God to be Satan, and the devil to be
God ? For,
1. When God hath showed himself to them in his power by
miracles, in his wisdom by his Gospel truths, in his holiness by
his sanctifying Spirit, and m his wonderful mercy in the whole
design ; yea, when his image is more clearly written and en-
graven upon this work of redemption in the whole frame of it,
from first to last, than it is on any visible part of his works ;
yet do these wretches say, that it is the devil, and not God that
hath done all this.
2. Hereby, also, they make the wise Almighty, and Holy
God, to be one that either hath not the government of the
world, or else doth govern it by delusions, and give up his
people that would most willingly know the truth, to be deceived
by the evil spirits, causing them to work miracles for our se-
duction, and giving us no remedy, but leaving us unavoidably
to be led into a life of error and of misery, drawing us into a
course of continual labours and suffering to no purpose, but
merely to our vexation, sin, and ruin ; and all this by a lie con-
firmed by such miracles, that we have no way possible to dis-
cover the deceit. This is the very image that they draw of the
great and gracious God, and these are the things which these
infidels must affirm of him. And whether this be not plainly
to make him to be Satan ; the most Good to be the most evil
one, and an enemy to truth and goodness, and to mankind, let
but right reason itself be judge.
And, then, on the other side, do but consider whether there
they do not make a god of the devil ; for they give him that
all-mightiness as to raise the dead, and work the rest of the
miracles that were wrought. They ascribe to him that wisdom
as to lay the great design of the Gospel, and to be the author of
that word of perfect wisdom ; so that, whereas it is the here-
tical, contentious, envious wisdom, which, being from beneath,
is earthly, sensual, and devilish ; (James iii. 15 — 17;) which
bringeth envy and strife, and therewith confusion and every
evil work : they make the wisdom from above, which hath pre-
scribed us the rules of purity, peace, gentleness, tractableness,
and mercy, and good works, to be from the devil. They make
him also to be most good and amiable, as being the cause of all
those good laws, promises, and good works that Christ hath
done, and of all those holy performances before mentioned, by
which he hath so battered the kingdo.n of sin, and cast down
374 THE SIN AGAINST
the great abominations of the world, and brought in light and
holiness into men's souls, making on them those holy changes,
and possessing them with that renewing, sanctifying Spirit. If
all this be the work of Satan, is not Satan most holy and good,
and so most amiable, and to be beloved by mankind ?
Moreover, they make him to be most righteous, as being the
author and confirmer of those righteous laws and ways. They
make him to be the supreme governor of the world, that can do
all this, and carry it on so without controul. They make him to
be most merciful, and a lover of mankind, that will do such
things as these for their good : and they make him to be the chief
enemy to his own kingdom of sin and darkness, in doing more
than all the world besides to batter it down.
Judge, now, whether these blasphemers do any less than make
a god of the devil, and put God in his stead ; and then judge
whether the heart of man can devise a viler sin, and whether it
be not worse than atheism itself, which saith that there is nt>
God ; for such a god as Satan is, is worse than none.
And as this is the heinousness of this unpardonable sin, so
consider, further, here, whether every infidel must not run, if
he know not what he doth and whither he goeth, upon the like
horrid conclusions : for if most certain history itself may drive
them to acknowledge the matter of fact, concerning the works
of Christ and his apostles, and thousands more of his disciples ;
and so to confess that these works must needs be either of God
or of the devil. There is, then, no way left, but either to be
believers, if they say they were of God, or to blaspheme the
Holy Ghost, if they say they were of the devil : and what a sin
that is, I hope, by what is said, you may see, if you are not wil-
lingly blind.
And, now, I further leave it to consideration whether Mr.
Richard Hooker said not truly that " It is not a thing impos-
sible, nor greatly hard, even by such kind of proofs, so to mani-
fest and clear that point of the truth of Scripture, that no man
living shall be able to deny it, without denying some apparent
principle, such as all men acknowledge to be true. And these
things we believe, knowing bv reason that Scripture is the word
of God."
Indeed, the absurdity that infidelity would lead to Is no less than
he denying that there is a God, who is most wise, most good,
most great, or, Opthrms Maximus^ as nature hath always well
called him : and that is, to deny the most certain, intelligible
THE HOLY GHOST. 375
verity among the whole world of certainties and intelligibles :
for though these things that are nearest sense are first known
in order and time, according to the course of our natural recep-
tion : yet nothing in the world is so illustriously and eminently
intelligible and certain as that there is a God : so that if this
principle were denied, I doubt not upon that ground to deny and
destroy all the rest, and to prove that no man knoweth any
thing; and not only that sense is fallible, but that there is no
such thing as a man in the world, nor any other being, truth, or
good, if there be not a first being, truth and good. So much for
the informing consectaries.
The subject directeth me to add somewhat yet more practical,
by way of further application of the point ; but because it is
information that was the main thing which I intended in this
discourse, I will say but very little, and briefly of the other.
And, 1. If this be the state of the war between Christ and
Satan, you see what a help poor, captivated sinners have for their
recovery, if they will but take it, and make use of it in time.
Christ Jesus leadeth an army for your relief ; he layeth siege to
your souls by his word and judgment. O yield, and forsake your
former master, before you receive the wages that is your due ;
yea, make it your daily cries to God, that he would save you
from temptation, and deliver you from the evil one, and that his
kingdom may come, and his will be done within you, as Christ
hath taught you daily to pray. If a poor bird be in the talons
of a kite, her cries will make you know her case ; but sinners
that are in the jaws of Satan, do not lift up their cries for help.
O cry, and cry aloud, while help is near ; you are yet but as the
lamb thai is caught by the wolf, but not killed : if you stay till
your impenitent souls be torn from those bodies, there is then
no relief to be had : but vou are undone for ever.
2. Hence, you may see, from the state of this war and Satan's
enmitVj how exceedingly the godly are beholden to Christ for
their recovery ; yea, and how much the ungodly themselves are
beholden to him for the offers of help, and for so much restrain-
ing of the malicious foe. It is a miserable case that witches are
in, that have the devil so often appearing to them in ugly shapes,
and carrying them about, and abusing their bodies ; but if the
promised seed had not bruised the serpent's head, we should all
have been in a far worse case : then devils would have been
our daily companions, and have used soul and body far worse,
making us their slaves and drudges, and tormenting us for our
376 THE SIN AGAINST
labour. It is a sad case to see how he useth some melancholy
and mad people, how he hainiteth some persons or houses with
apparitions; but much more sad to see how he captivateth men's
understandings with errors, and their hearts with impenitence
and contempt' of the grace of God. How great is that mercy
that hath rescued you from such a tyrant ; or, at least, waiteth
to be gracious, if you do not obstinately reject his grace !
3. Hence, also, we may see what encouragement every true
Christian hath to go on with confidence in the holy war. Fear
not the devil, any further than to prevent his deceiving you.
You serve under a general whom Satan feareth. Though he
would make all others unbelievers, that he might torment them,
yet he himself believeth and trembleth. (Jam. ii. 19.) The
name of the Lord Jesus is dreadful to the devils : you march
under his banner, that hath already conquered, and that is cer-
tainly both able and willing to overcome. O, what should we
silly mortals do, if we had not such a Captain of our salvation !
But now, while we look with one eye of faith upon the life
and death of the Lord Jesus behind us, and with the other
upon the Lord Jesus in glory above us, and upon the same Christ
that is coming to raise and judge the world before us, we may
well cry out, with the apostle, "If God be for us, who can be
against us? " (Rom. viii. 31.) For he that now sounds the
trumpet of war will then sound the trumpet of victory, " and
the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed :
so when this corruptible hath put on incorruption, and this
mortal hath put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass
the saying that is written, ' Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is thy sting ! O grave, where is thy victory !
The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law;
but thanks be to God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.' There-
fore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always
abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as you know
that your labour is not in vain in the Lord." (1 Cor. xv. 52 — 58.)
4. Lastly, seeing this is the state of Christ's church, to live
in a continual war with Satan, and to serve against him under
Christ, let all Christians then remember their condition, and
their baptismal vow and covenant with Christ, and stand to their
colours, and live as in a continual fight'; and do not either basely
yield, or lazily sit down, or foolishly imagine the field Is won,
and the fight is done, as long as you are in the body. Hov,' far
soever you have gone, and !iow much soever you have done or
THE HOLY GHOST. 377
suffered, as you love Christ and your souls, think not that all is
done, and there remaineth no more work or danger.
1. There is yet a tempting, malicious devil alive, who would
have you, that he may sift you as wheat. (Luke xxii. 31.)
2. There is yet a remnant of his seed within you, even sin,
which will betray you to him, if you be not wary.
3. You have more of your race to run, more time to spend;
and many tliat begun in the Spirit, do end in the flesh.
4. There are yet many and great duties in this time to be done.
5. There are yet many snares of temptation before you, and
you may meet with such as you have not met with.
6. The last assaults and trials are usually the greatest.
7. Your resisting graces are weak and imperfect in degree.
8. You have no assurance or command of the time and mea-
sure of the Spirit's assistance.
9. God will have all obedience tried and honoured by opposi-
tion : that which costs nothing is nothing worth ; and all his fol-
lowers must pass under the cross, yea, take it up, and follow their
General ; and through the fiery trial, escape the fiery torment.
10. Perseverance, only, must put on the crown. Though
perseverance itself be purposed to the elect, yet is the possession
of the crown suspended on it as the condition. To him that
overcometh, and only to him will Christ give to eat of the hidden
manna, the tree of life in the midst of paradise, and to dwell in
God's temple, and never to go forth. Be valiant and vigilant,
therefore, that you may be victorious.
And because your safety and everlasting welfare lie upon it,
I will here briefly name you a few directions, which are necessary
to be followed, if you would escape the devil's rage ; and with
them I shall conclude this discourse.
Direct. 1. Keep up hard tlioughts of Satan, that so vour
hearts may be kept against him as your enemy ; and as hard
thoughts of sin, which is the means of your destruction. The
affections and actions do much follow our thoughts and ap-
prehensions.
Direct. 2. Beware of the wounds of wilful sin 3 it is a fear «
fill advantage that he gets by every such.
Direct. 3. Be acquainted with all the christian armour, and
the use of it ; and put it on, and go not one day, nor on any one
business unarmed ; especially with the sword of the Spirit, which
is the word of God. Read Eph. vi. Laljour for a good under-
standing of the wordj and to that cud study it day and night,
VOL. XX. E E
378 THE SIN AGAINST
Direct. 4. Do not continue children in knowledge and
grace ; for children are easily deceived, tossed up and down, and
carried to and fro with every wind of doctrine, according to the
cunning craftiness of Satan and his instruments, who lie in wait
to deceive. (Eph. iv. 14.) Grow according to the time and
means which yon do enjoy. (Heb. v. 11 — 14.)
Direct. 5. Keep in rank and file, and not only under Christ,
your General, but under those particular officers that he hath
placed over you, except you can groundedly say, that they are
turned traitors, and fight for the enemy. You must know your
own particular company, and colours, and commanders ; that
is, your particular church and church-guides, as well as the
general. Stragglers are easily snatched up and destroyed ; the
ruin of many thousands in most ages of the church, and in
particular in these times, hath come from hence, that they have
proudly contemned their teachers and overseers in the Lord,
and thinking themselves as sufficient to guide themselves, and
taking a straggling singularity and separation for a way of piety,
have departed from their colours, and been deceived by the de-
ceiver, and destroyed by the destroyer.
Direct. 6. Entertain no familiarity with Satan's familiars.
When you must be among them, let it be as an enemy to their
sin and their master : and let them be sure to know it, if you
have opportunity. But use none of them as your familiars, lest
they bring you before you are aware to have to be your familiar,
who is theirs. One witch useth to entice many into the confe-
deracy ; and so doth one sinner entice many into the snare.
Direct. 7- Keep out of Satan's way ; avoid occasions and
opportunities of sinning ; lest the devil catch you, as he did the
woman that one of the fathers mentions, at a stage play, and
said, he found her upon his own ground. If you will be thrusting
into ale-houses, or needless recreations and pleasures of the
flesh, or among enticing baits of lust, or into ways of worldly
gain or honours, take that you get by it, if you are surprised by
Satan when you least fear it.
Direct. 8. Be sure to learn well the two great lessons of
humility and self-denial. The proud are the common prey of
the devil. Of them he may make heretics, infidels, or almost
what he will j tor the Spirit of Christ forsaketh them. And
self-seeking is his greatest engine for our ruin j of which self-
denial doth disarm him, and enervates all his temptations.
Direct. 9. Keep near to God in Christ j the nearer God, the
THE H6LV GHOST. 379
safer from the devil. His name is a terror to Satan, and a
strong tower to the righteous, to which if they do but fly, they
are safe. Be much with him, therefore, in all his holy ordi-
nances : especially in secret prayer and contemplation.
Direct. 10. Be sure to offend as well as defend. It is not
safe to stand still to be shot at. Do as much work for Christ,
and as much hurt to Satan's interest, as possibly you can. Be
still studying the ruin of his kingdom, as he is studying the ruin
of your souls. Be as diligent to do good in your places to all
about you, and to destroy the works of the deceiver, as he is
diligent to do harm, and destroy the works of Christ. Hold on
thus doing, and be faithful to the death, and you shall receive
the crown of life, (Rev. ii. 10,) and the lion of the tribe of
Judah, shall save you from the devouring lion of hell.
E E 2
380
A
POSTCRIPT
TO THE
DISCOURSE OF THE BLASPHEMING OF THE HOLY
GHOST.
Since this was printed, I met with a book of a reverend
divine's, (now with God,) Mr. William Lyford, wherein, among
others, that are more deeply charged, I am confuted as one
guilty of errors, or heresy, or I know not what. (Chap. v. sec.
3, p. 144, &;c.) My error lieth in a wrong description of the
sin against the Holy Ghost, and thus he begins the charge :
"A learned man, correcting the common opinion of divines
touching this point, doth think that this is it, which is called
the sin against the Holy Ghost : when men will not be con-
vinced by miracles that Jesus is the Christ."
Reply 1. He is a man that pretendeth not to much learning,
but is unfeignedly willing to know the truth, and to bring this
controversy to the test of God's word j but little did he think
that his opinion in this was of that moment to be enumer-
ated with the intolerable errors against the Deity, or divine
worship of the Holy Ghost, or the rest in the black bill.
2. It is only the common opinion of our modern, reformed
divines that I there contradict ; but whether the ancient doc-
tors were more for their exposition or for mine, I leave them
to judge, that have considered what I have said before, as also,
whether the said doctors be not taken into the black bill as well
as I ; yet will I not say, that I had rather err with them, than
be orthodox with our moderns ; but I will see better reason for
it than this author allegeth, before I will condemn them, or
depart from their opinion.
3. The description is too short, as the next page in my
book will show : to the not believing, he should have added
blaspheming, by ascribing the works of Christ to Beelzebub,
and he had taken in all my sense.
But three things he opposeth against my definition.
A POSTSCRIPT, 381
1. That miracles are not a sole, sufficient conviction to beget
faith ; the proper end of miracles was to bring the mind to a
marking of the doctrine, &c.
Reply 1. Little do I know to what purpose is this observation,
or how it is any opposition of my doctrine, unless he meant to
argue thus : If miracles be not a sole, sufficient conviction to
beget faith, then the blasphemous rejecting them is not the
sin against the Holy Ghost; but the former is true, there-
fore : Answ. I deny the consequence, and never look to see it
proved.
2. I distinguish of sufficiency. It is alone sufficient to its
own use or office, but not sufficient to the whole work of con-
version or producing faith. Miracles presuppose the doctrine
of the Gospel, and are tbe seal of tbat doctrine, proving it to
be of God. Who ever said the seal was sufficient without the
instrument sealed ? The question was, when the Gospel was
preached, whether it were true or false. The infidels said it
was false ; Christ proves it true by his miracles, for these were
God's attestation of it. Now, to this use, these miracles are
sufficient, objectively, in tbeir own kind; but this excludeth
not the need of the Spirit's internal efficiency on the soul, much
less the need of the Gospel, the truth of which it serveth to
confirm.
And, as for the testimony of the prophets, on which, he
saith after, " Their belief was to be grounded, and not on mir-
acles alone." I reply, 1. Either miracles alone, or the believed
testimony of the prophets alone, are a sufficient proof of those
doctrines of Christ, to which they do attest ; but both together
is more than one ; and the sense of the prophets was not so
easily manifested to unbelievers, to be so undoubtedly full for
Christ, as that we could imagine it to be equal to miracles for
their conviction. We hear how men differ still about the sense
of as plain Scriptures, who seem yet very godly on both sides ;
and we see how little the Jews to this day are convinced from
the prophets ; and we find expressly, in Scripture, that miracles
were the ordinary, convincing means, which I have proved in
the preface to the second part of the ' Book of Rest.'
2. The testimony of the prophets was of no validity to any
that believed not the prophets, and that was almost all the
world except the Jews : for the apostle to have proved the
Gospel to be true by the prophets, to the gentile world, had
been but to prove-pne unknown thing by another.
382 A POSTSCRIPT.
3. And how would you have proved that those prophets
spoke true to the nations that would have called for proof ?
It was by miracles that Moses and many of the prophets did prove
their doctrine, and by these you must prove them to the world,
before they would receive their witness to the Gospel. And is
it not as clear, or much clearer, means of conviction, to appeal
directly to the more numerous miracles that were near at hand,
than to those so far off, whose truth the world would be more
ready to question ?
1 must freely confess, for my part, it is the evidence of truth in
the Gospel that ov/neth the Old Testament, which is my best ob-
jective help to believe that Testament.
Moreover, I would fain know whether that illumination of the
Holy Ghost, which you say men do maliciously oppose, who sin
against the Holy Ghost was a sufficient means of thorough con-
viction and belief, or not. If not ; then doth not your reason
confound your own definition, as much, at least, as mine ? If it
were, then it seems some unbelievers, or unregenerate men, have
sufficient grace to conversion, which is not effectual : which doc-
trine, I conjecture, will not well relish with your orthodox friends.
The second assault is thus, against these words of mine :
" When men will not be convinced by miracles."
Mr. L. Will not ? It is not in our choice whether we will be
convinced or not, &;c. Many are convinced against their wills :
others are not convinced, though they desire it : the- heretic
useth means to prove his way to be truth ; he would persuade
himself that he is in the right, but cannot ; and, therefore, the
apostle saith he is self-condemned, because he holds on his way
against the convictions of his own conscience. It is not in my
choice whether I will understand or remember. These are not
commanded faculties.
Reply. All men confess that the will hath not that plenary,
despotical command of the understanding, memory, or passions,
as it hath of the hand, foot, or tongue. But, I. If these are not
commanded faculties, then the whole school of all sects that I
am acquainted with, have erred. And in philosophy, and so
high a point about man's soul, it becomes not so young a
scholar as I am, to follow the singular opinion of J\]r. L. before
all the world. What is the offence against my doctrine, but that
it seemed singular ? And must I side with one man against all the
world, to cure my singularity, in siding with the ancient doctors
against many moderns ?
A POSTSCRIl'T. 383
2. If the understanding be not a commanded faculty, then its
acts are not imperate acts : but its acts are imperate acts ;
therefore, for the minor, I have the consent of the world.
3. If the understanding be not a commanded faculty, then are
not any of its acts payticijjative , free 5 but the acts of the intellect
are participative liberi ; therefore,
The consequent of the major is certain : for the intellect is
not free of itself, but is necessitated by the object, and wrought
on per modum natune, further than as it is commanded by the
will.
The minor is proved by common consent, and the very name
of liberum arbitrium, which taketh in the acts of the intellect,
as is commonly maintained by divines. It is proved also by the
argument following.
4. If the understanding be not a commanded faculty, and its
acts free, participative, then it is not capable of moral virtue Of
vice, of duty or sin ; but it is capable of duty and sin, of moral
virtue and vice, participative, as it is free, therefore
The consequence of the major is apparent, in that voluntari-
ness is absolutely necessary to actual sin ; it is no further sin
than a man is some way voluntary ; that is, either willing of the
thing itself or its cause j or not willing the contrary, or the means
of prevention or cure. Nature hath taught all the world to ex-
cuse him that is wholly unwilling, and so could not help it.
But the minor is certainly true. He that will undertake to
prove that all the errors of the intellect are no sins, will justify
those that Christ will condemn. Ignorance, error, unbelief,
undervaluing God and spiritual things, are very great sins, and not
to be justified. Specially, it is an unfit task to be undertaken by
those that write of the intolerableness and damnableness of error
and heresy, and in such a book as this is. If, indeed, the under-,
standing be no commanded faculty, nor any man able to be wil-
fully an unbeliever, it being not in their choice, then let no more
write or speak against errors and the toleration of them ; nor
provoke the magistrate to meddle with men that cannot help it^
how great soever their error may be.
5. If the intellect be not a commanded faculty, and, by par-
ticipation, free, then no wicked man can by the most devilish,
vicious habits of his will, make his understanding worse than it
is. But the consequent is proved false by Scripture and con-
stant experience : therefore, &c.
6. If the intellect be not a commanded faculty &\\(\ participa-
384 A POSTSCRIPT. I
i'wty free ; then God Is the chief cause of all its sinful error ; but
the consequent is false and abominable ; therefore, so is the
antecedent.
The consequence is evident, because either God or man must
be the chief cause of our errors : not man, if he have no com-
mand of his intellect, for he is forced to it, and cannot avoid it.
If God make it the nature of the intellect to be moved ad modum
naturae^ and to be void of liberty ; and wholly from under the
command of the will, and if the same God shall set before us
those objects that thus necessitate the intellect, it is past all doubt
that he is the principal and necessitating cause of all its errors ;
which is a doctrine unfit for a Christian to maintain.
7- If it be no whit in the choice of our wills, whether we will
be convinced, and so become believers, then no preachers should
offer it to men's choice, nor persuade them to a right choice,
nor use means with their wills. But the consequent is most un-
christian J therefore, so is the antecedent.
8. If it be not in a man's choice whether a man will be con-
vinced and believe, then no man needs God's grace to cause him
herein to make a right choice ; but the consequent is false j
therefore, so is the antecedent.
9. If it be not in man's choice to be convinced and believe,
then no man is to be blamed by God or man, much less con-
demned or punished, for not making a right choice herein; but
the consequent is false, therefore, so is the antecedent.
10. But because this learned man did make so strange of it,
that I should say, ' Men will not be convinced by miracles,' let
us see whether the scripture use not this strange language as I
do. And first, it is strange how he could overlook what he
cited himself, from John iii. 1 9, 20 : " This is the condemnation,
that light is come into the world ; and men loved darkness rather
than light, because their deeds were evil." Darkness was in
the understanding, and not a false pretence of darkness on the
tongue. And this darkness is damnable because men love it better
than the light ; and love is in the will ; and so is the hatred
mentioned in the next verse.
"Men perish because they received not the love of the truth
that they might be saved ; and for this cause God shall send
them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that all
they might be damned that believed not the truth, but had
pleasure in unrighteousness." (2 Thess. ii. 10 — 12.) And he
that ^' will come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that
A POSTSCRIPT. 385
know not God," (I Thess. i. 8,) doth find their wills guilty of
their understandings', ignorance. And why else is faith called
" an obeying of the Gospel, (1 Thess. i. 8,) and "obedience
to the faith," (Rom. i. 5,) when obedience is certainly a volun-
tary thing? I think " coming to Christ" is believing ; and he
saith, "Ye will not come to me that ye may have life." (John
V. 40.) It is the willingly ignorant that Peter condemneth.
(2 Pet. iii. 5.) Christ saith to the unbelieving Jews, " How oft
would I have gathered you, and ye would not !" And Job saith,
"Yet would I not believe that he had hearkened to my voice."
(Job ix. 16.) And sure there are still such men in the world as
say, " Depart from us ; we would not the knowledge of thy
ways." The guests that were invited to believe in Christ,
(Matt. xxii. 3,) made excuses, and would not come. They that
" did not like to retain God in their knowledge, did God give
over to a reprobate mind." (Rom. i. 28.) What should I stand
to cite multitudes of the like texts for ?
11. If the very passions may do much towards the deter-
mining of the understanding, much more may the will do ; but
the passions may do much towards it ; therefore. The minor is
known by too common experience, that impedit ira animum ;
peril omne judicium cum res transit in affectum. .
12. The will may command the thoughts; therefore it can
command the understanding. It can command it to think or
not think ; to think of this and not of that ; and by turning
away the thoughts it can hinder knowledge or belief.
To conclude, I appeal to the experience of all the world,
whether the understanding be not much biassed and commanded
to believe, or not believe, according to the inclination of the
will. That which a man would have true, he can easily believe,
and that which he would not have true he will very hardly be
brought to believe, unless the timorous passion cause credulity;
in which case we say, facile credimus et quod volumus, et quod
nan volumus.
Yet one argument more, which I forgot. If the understand-
ing be not a commanded faculty, then was God the chief cause
of Adam's first sin, and so of all the sin and misery in the
world ; but the consequent is intolerable, tl^erefore so is the an-
tecedent.
The reason of the conse([uence is evident; for if God made
the intellect such as must irresistibly be determined by objects,
{^nd caused those objects to be presented to it that must so de-
386 A POSTSCRIPT.
termine it, and made a law to condemn that determination as
sinful •, then it is apparent that God did irresistibly necessitate
all the sin, and so the penal misery following.
But you say many are convinced against their wills.
Reply 1. Your friend, Mr. Pemble, that thought that truth
and goodness were all one, would not have yielded that. 2«
They are willing of truth as truth, though they are more unwil-
ling of it as hurtful to them. .3. What of that ? If some be
convinced against their wills, doth it follow that all are so ; or
they in all things ; or that the will hath no command of the un-
derstanding, because it hath not an absolute despotical com-
mand ?
But you add, others are not convinced though they desire it :
and you instance in heretics that are said to be self-condemned.
Reply 1 . It follows not that because some light of evidence is
so clear to nature, that the will cannot cause the understanding
to reject it, that therefore it is so with all light ; or with this in
question ; and that the will cannot cause the understanding to
be unbelieving.
2. You should instance in cases where there \s plena voluntas
or else a resistible evidence. Austin puts the case oft, whether
faith be in the power of the will, and answers affirmatively ;
not because any man's will, without true grace, will believe ; but
because he that believeth is willing to believe ; and he that is
truly willing to believe, doth believe.
3. I do not believe your exposition of the self-condemnation
of heretics. I remember a heretic once strongly pleaded that
exposition, to prove himself no heretic, and that erroneous per-
sons should be tolerated. There are three senses that the text
will far better bear, either of them, than yours. First, they are
self- condemned meritoriously, deserving their own condemna-
tion. 2. They are self-condemned by the testimony of their
own evil ways, which may be brought in against them to their
condemnation. 3. And they are self-condemned effectually in
that they separate themselves from the communion of the
catholic church, before any sentence of the church hath con-
demned them by excommunication.
But that your strange opinion is not true, is evident thus.
If that be true that all heretics do sin therein against their own
knowledge, and so know themselves to maintain errors, then all
heresy lieth only in the tongue, and in hypocritical dissimula-
tion, and then all heretics are orthodox, and sound in the faith,
A POSTSCRIPT. 387
as to the understanding, and only take on them to err when
they do not : but the consequent is certainly false ; therefore
so is the antecedent.
O what a difference is there between God's language and
yours. The Scripture saith that they are given up to believe a
lie. (2 Thess. ii. 11.) You say, it is but a desire and pretence
to believe a lie, but they cannot believe it. The Scripture
saith, that they err, deceive, and are deceived, their understand-
ings are darkened, blinded, Sec. Your doctrine makes them
not to err, nor be blinded, or deceived, but only to desire it,
and pretend it, making themselves worse than they are. For
so far as a man erreth, he knoweth not that he erreth. Christ
saith of unbelievers that indeed they " Believe not." (Matt. xxi.
25 ; John v. 38, 47 ; vi. 36, 64 ; viii. 24, 25 ; x. 26 ; xvi. 9 j
2 Cor. iv. 4 ; John x. 25. But you make it as if they did be-
lieve, and would not confess it.
Yet further, I pray you see whether you accuse not the Lord
Jesus for using the same phrase which you accuse me for, that
*'Men will not be convinced, or believe." (Luke xx.67.) "The
elders, priests, and scribes, led him to their councils, and said,
art thou the Christ ? tell us : and he said unto them, if I tell
you, you will not believe : except ye see signs and wonders ye
will not believe." (John iv. 48.) You see, Christ saith, " They
will not believe," as well as L
And you see here that he determineth the main cause against
you about the sin against the Holy Ghost, while he tells you
that the nharisees believed not ; and therefore did not oppose
the known or believed truth. Of which more anon.
Mr. L. Thirdly, I demand : are miracles a convincing way
of revealing Jesus Christ ? Were the Jews that saw them,
really convinced, or not ? If not, then they do not sin against
the Holy Ghost, which are not convinced by them. For, as
himself saith, no man was bound to believe that which was
never convincingly revealed ; if they be a convincing means,
and if those Jews which saw Christ's miracles were really con-
vinced, and yet opposed Christ's kingdom, then human nature
is capable of sinning against the Holy Ghost in that way that
our divines have defined the sin ; that is maliciouslv, after the
knowledge of the truth. And so did those Jews sin by the
testimony of that very text which Mr. B. allegeth for his
opinion. (John xv. 24.) They hated Christ after they had
seen and known him. It is not an act incompatible with the
588 A POSTSCRIPT.
rational soul, as he supposeth, to iiate God and Christ, whom
we have seen and known.
Reply 1- The words ''convincing way," is ambiguons. Either
it meaneth ^' an objective sufficiency to convince, in siio (/cnei'e,"
and so they are a convincing means. Or it meaneth " an ob-
jective sufficiency in regard of the whole sort of objects." Or
*' an universal sufficiency i?i omni caiisarum genere.'* Or " an
actual convincing." The three last 1 deny, as 1 affirm the first,
2. But you seem to mean it of actual conviction, or else you
would never make your second question of equal importance,
viz. " Whether the Jews were really convinced ?" To which
I say, " Those that blasphemed the Holy Ghost, were not then
convinced."
3. I was not so far beside myself, as to intend by that saying
which you recite, that " No man was bound to believe that
which he was not actually convinced of," but " that which had
not objective evidence in suo yenere^ sufficient to convince j"
else I should have said, " That no man is bound to believe but
he that doth believe ; which, methinks, should seem no sweet
morsel to any ordinary understanding."
4. They are a convincing means, and yet the Jews were not
then really convinced by them, nor some of them ever.
.'). You do not fairly change or obscure tlie case in contro-
versy : whether ever any of those Jews had believed before,
and after fell from it, I never determined, but the thing
that I affirmed is, that at that time when they sinned against
the Holy Ghost, thev believed not the doctrine of Christ to be
true, and so did not persecute the then known truth. Now
VGU talk of "hating Christ whom they had known, and after
they had known him ;" but the question is whether they knew
him.
G. Nor is it all knowledge that is in question ; but whether
they then knew him to be the Son of God, and the Messiah,
and his doctrine to be true.
7. Christ doth not say, as you feign him to say, (John xv.
2-i,) that they had known him ; he only saith, " they had seen ;"
that is, his great works and person, and hated him and his
Father : when he expressly said, (ver. 22,) that they will per-
secute his disciples, " Because they knew not him that sent
nn.
8. It was such ill, unfriendly dealing as, by a strange unhap-
piiiess, 1 meet with from other learned, pious divines, that this
A POSTSCRIPT. 3S9
reverend man should here publish to the world, among his list
of errors and heresies, that " IsujDpose it an act incompatible with
the rational soul, to hate God and Christ, whom we have seen and
known :" a mere forgery ; never such a passage that I know
of, did fall from my pen or or tongue. This strange yet com-
mon untruth and injustice makes me resolve yet less to give
credit to all that good and sober men shall say of the party
that their zeal is kindled against, in the heat of their oblivious
disputations. The words that I wrote were these : " That
which some divines judge to be the sin against the Holy'Ghost,
(an opposing the known truth only out of malice against it,)
it is a question, whether human nature be capable of; and
whether all human opposition to truth be not through ignor-
ance, or prevalence of the sensual lusts ; and so all malice
against truth, is against it only as conceived to be falsehood, or
else, as it appeareth an enemy to our sensual desires. — So that
I think none can be guilty of malice against truth as truth."
And is this the same that I am feigned to suppose ? I do
affirm not only that it is possible to hate that Christ and God,
whom a man hath formerly known, but also, whom at present
he doth, in a common sort, know to be the only God and
Christ ; yea, and that all wicked men and infidels do so ; which
is clean contrary to that which I am feigned to hold : but I say,
that this hatred is not of truth as truth, or of good as good ;
and this I should have thought I need not, against excellent
reformed divines to have been put to prove.
As for Mr. Lyford's confirmation of his opinion from Heb.
vi. and x., vaJeat quantum valere potest ; I shall leave the
reader to judge of it as he seeth cause, for I see nothing that I
should stand to reply to, or that can prejudice the cause that I
maintain; only let the reader, 1. Observe what I have before
said on the same texts. 2. And observe that Mr. L. still puts
the case of " malicious persecuting the truth which was once
known," or else confoundeth it with the other, when the thing
denied it ; that " all that sin against the Holy Ghost, do mali-
ciously persecute the truth, which they then know or believe,
when they persecute or hate it, or that any do hate the truth as
truth."
If I had said, as Mr. L. doth, that these apostates had
" tasted the heavenly gift of justification," how many tongues
and pens would have let fly at me ; as experience in a belter
cause hath told me.
390 A POSTSCRIPT.
The last section against me is in confutation of these words
of mine : " I think none can be guilty of malice against truth
as truth j and to he at enmity with truth because it is an enemy
to our sensual desires, is a sin that every man in the world is in
some measure guilty of, therefore not the true definition of the
sin against the Holy Ghost."
Mr. L. " He that doth evil hateth the light, neither cometh
to the light, lest his deeds should be rej3roved/' (John iii. 20.)
" Some of the Jews both saw and hated both Christ and his
Father," (John xv. 24.) "Cain hated his brother, because his
own works were evil, and his brother's righteous." Now to
hate the light because of its intrinsical properties, namely, to
discover and reprove men's evil deeds ; to malice the truth
because it is an enemy to my lie ; to hate my brother because
his works be righteous, and my own evil ; what is this short of
opposing the truth because it is truth ?"
Reply 1. You speak full enough against your own cause. He
that hateth the light eo nomine, as it reproveth his evil deeds,
hates it not as light ; for to reprove his evil deeds is an effect of
it, and not convertible with light. Besides, the very meta-
phorical term of light signifieth not truth as truth, but truth as
discovering, and so as effecting. What doth this text say, but
the very same which I affirmed, that there is a hatred of truth,
as it is an enemy to our carnal or sensual desires ? The same
man may love the truth as truth, yea, and as it discovereth his
brother's faults, or any thing that he would know.
2. Did ever good expositor, on John iii. 20, think, that all
that hated the light lest his deeds should be reproved, did sin the
unpardonable sin ?
3. Of John XV. 2A, I have spoken already. Of Cain's hating
his brother, I say, that he hated him because his works were
righteous, crossing and reproving his own evil works. But that
righteousness was not hated sub ratione formali aut boni ant
veri, not as good, or as truth, but as apprehended evil. Veritas
qui Veritas, or bommi, qua bonuni cannot here be hated by
man.
4. Whatever man hateth is hated by him sub ratione mali;
this is certain, from the definition of hatred. But the 7'atio
foi'malis boni, or ve7i, is not the ratio formalis mali ; therefore
whatever man hateth, it is not hated by him sub ratione boiii
aut veri.
Yea, verum and ens are so proper objects of the understanding,
A POSTSCRIPT. 391
and bonum of the will, that in quantum apparent, they are
embraced by human nature as such. And whenever truth or
good is hated, it is only as apprehended either not true, and not
good, but evil in itself, or as evil to the person, by depriving him
of some dearer appearing good. These things I thought had
been unquestionable, and yet I was so modest as but to say, " I
thought thus :" I may next be enrolled among the heretics, by
some zealous orthodox man, for saying that I think a man is a
reasonable creature, and I think on the like grounds.
Mr. L. " But if you spitefully oppose truth, and cast reproaches
upon it, only because it appears an enemy to your sensual lusts,
especially if it be after illumination, and tasting and professing
the good word of God ; this is no excuse, but rather a manifes-
tation of this great sin ; because such a person doth tread Jesus
Christ and his covenant of grace under foot ; he treads him
under all these base lusts which he prefers before him. And
thus to oppose truth, by Mr. B. — 's leave, I think very few men
in the world are guilty of.^'
Reply. If by truth here you mean only that Jesus is the
Christ, or the truth of christian religion, or its essentials, the
reproaching of this, by apostates, I have spoken of more at large
before in this discourse, to which I shall refer the reader. But
that is not the case in hand.
2. I have proved, and shall further prove, that the blasphemy
against the Holy Ghost is not„only the sin of such as have
believed, or professed belief ; no, nor the sin of any that believe
while they do believe, and so not of a believer in sensu composito ;
for it is an aggravated species of unbelief. Though yet it is
sometimes the sin of those that were once some kind of believers.
3. But if you speak of all truth in general, I still say, that it
is a common case, maliciously to oppose the truth, because it is
against men's lusts. For 1. All men's nature hath in it a hatred
of God, and his holy truth and way. 2. That which men hate,
they maliciously hate in this case. 3. And they that so hate it
may oppose it, and actually resist the Holy Ghost in the
ministry, and at their hearts. 4. The godly are cured of this
but in part. 5. These sad days of faction do commonly pro-
claim it of abundance of professors, who so reproach that truth
which is against the interest of their party.
4. Yea, if you mean it of the power of godliness, or practical
truth, or yet of Christianity itself, if you will prove that all who
maliciously oppose the latter before profession of Christianity,
392 A POSTSCRIPT.
or all who maliciously oppose the former after profession of
Christianity or baptism, are guilty of the blasphemy against the
Holy Ghost, I will cjuickly prove to you that these are commoner
sins than you talk of: and indeed such as the converted did
themselves commit, at least many of them, before conversion :
and therefore it cannot be the unpardonable sin. Were it
believed to be so, it might turn thousands among us into despair.
I shall conclude all with some fuller discovery from Scripture
that the pharisees were not then mental believers, no, nor ever
before ; nor convinced that Christ was the true Messiah, nor
believed that his works were the attestation of God ; but took
him for an impostor, and his works to be done by the power of
Beelzebub.
1. Christ saith, they believed not John himself. (Matt. xxi.
32 ; Luke xx. 5 ; John x. 24 — 26.) " How long dost thou make
us to doubt? if thou be the Christ tell us plainly. Jesus
answered them, I told you, and ye believed not. The works
that I do in my father's name, they bear witness of me ; but ye
believe not, because ye are not of my sheep." (Ver. 33, 37, 38 ;
John xii. 36—40.) " While ye have light, believe in the light."
But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet
they believed not on him ; that the saying of Esaias the prophet
might be fulfilled : "Lord, who hath believed our report ?" There-
fore they could not believe, because Esaias saith again, " He hath
blinded their eyes, and hardened their hearts, that they should
not see with their eyes, and understand with their heart," &c.
(Acts xvii. 5.) "The Jews which believed not, moved with
envy," &c. (Acts xix. 9.) " But when divers were hardened,
and believed not, but spake evil of that way before the multitude,"
&c. (Actsxxviii. 24, 26 ; Rom. x. 2, 3.) "I bear them record
that they have a zeal of God : but not according to knowledge ;
for they being ignorant of God's righteousness," &:c. (John v.
8§ 44I-47,) " For whom he hath sent, him ye believe not :
How can ye believe which receive honour one of another ?"
(John vi. 36.) " Ye also have seen me, and believe not." (Ver.
64 ; John viii. 24, 45, 46.) " Ye shall die in your sins : for if
ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. Because
i tell you the truth, ye believe me not. If I say the truth, why do
ye not believe ?" In the very text, (Matt. xii. 25,) Christ is said
to know their thoughts ; by which it seems that they thought
as they spake. And what need he else bestow so many argu-
ments'to confute them, when he might have told them plainly,
A POSTSCRIPT. 393
that they were convinced already and dissembled their belief j
but we never find any such word from him.
(Acts iii. 1 7.) " And now brethren I wot that through igno-
rance ye did it, as did also your rulers." (xA.cts xiii. 27.) " For
they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they
knew him not, nor yet the voice of the prophets that are read
every Sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning
him." (1 Cor. ii. 8.) "For had they known it they would
not have crucified the Lord of glory." (John i. 10, 11.) "The
world knew him not : he came to his own, and his own received
him not." (1 John iii. 1.)
I shall add no more but this : he that after all these passages
of Scripture observed, and the whole story (Matt. xii.). consi-
dered, shall yet believe that these pharisees were believers in
heart even when they blasphemed the Holy Ghost, and so that
this sin is always committed against present knowledge of the
truth of that which is reproached : yea, or that these pharisees
did ever believe before, and were now turned apostates, and so
that this blasphemy is the sin of apostates only ; I would advise
that man, that he would not also believe that the understanding
is not a commanded faculty. And were I worthy to advise my
reverend brethren of the ministry, as I would not have them
befriend the smallest error, so I would not have them too rash in
defaming the truth and their brethren, in a groundless confi-
dence on their own understandings : nor to call others fools or
erroneous, till they are sure that they are wiser and more judi-
cious themselves ; and to give the world a better proof of their
illumination, before they draw up too large catalogues of errors,
and proclaim their fitness to be censurers of the world. At least,
that they would not begin too young thus of their own com-
manding intellects : I confess I can far more patiently hear a
confident, though mistaken, confutation of others from a man of
sixty or seventy years of age, than from one of thirty. I am in
the fortieth year of my age myself; and yet, though 1 adventure
to condemn a palpable error, or to defend a truth when others
assault it, I think myself twenty years too young, at least, to lay
about me with that confidence against the heterodox, in con-
trovertible points, as I hear many do. Jf some young, raw
preachers did but know how loathsome it is to judicious men
to hear them talk against things that they understand not, they
would better employ their zeal and confidence. Though I must
also confess, that it is a very sad thing, that with ancient, reve-
VOL XX, F F
394 A POSTSCRIPT.
rend, and sober divines, such reasonings as these that I have now
encountered should seem sufficient to ground such censures,
and to kindle in others an operative, contentious zeal. It is
light and humility that must reconcile and pacify us : which are
so rare, so hardly got, and so imperfect in the best, that we
must look towards a wiser and better world for our so-much-
desired unity and peace.
June 5, 1G55.
TUB
ARROGANCY OF REASON
AGAINST
DIVINE REVELATIONS,
REPRESSED;
OH,
PROUD IGNORANCE THE CAUSE OF INFIDELITY,
AND OF
MEN'S QUARRELLING WITH THE WORD OF GOD.
F F 2
397
THE
ARROGANCY OF REASON, &e.
John lii. 9.
Nicodemus answered, and said unto him; How can these
things be ?
In the beginning of this chapter you have a lecture read by
the great teacher of the church, to a scholar that was newly
entering into his school. He is yet but a catechumenus in pre-
paration to be a Christian, rather than one indeed ; having good
tliouglits of Christ, but not believing in him as the Messiah, nor
engaged by baptism to be one of his discij)les : and accordingly
doth Chi 1st suit his doctrine to his condition, and teach him
first the great ))iinciple of Christianity. What success it had
first, we find in the text, but not what was the issue at last;
though by other texts we may probably conjecture.
First, The scliohir is, by name, Nicodemus ; by sect, a pha-
risee ; by place, a ruler of the Jews, or one of their great council.
For the frame of his mind, the degree of his preparatory know-
ledge or belief, you may discern it ; 1. By the season of his
coming : 2. Bv the motive that prevailed with him to come :
and, 3. By the confession that he makes of his belief. From
all which you may see. First, That he believed that there was a
God, and that it belonged to God to teach mankind ; and that
it was his way to teach by men ; and that it was man's duty to
seek after God's teaching from his messengers, and come to them
and request it; and that whoever could give sufficient evidence
of his mission from God, should be heard by men ; and that
Jesus Christ did truly and undoubtedly work miracles ; and
that such miracles as Christ wrought were an undoubted proof
that God was with lum. All these things, it is apparent, he did
believe, by these words : (Ver. 2 :) " Rabbi, we know that
thou art a teacher come from God ; for no man can do these
miracles that thou dost, except God be with him."
398 THE ARROGANCY OF REASON
Secondly, From hence also you see, that it was the evidence
of Christ's miracles that had thus far convinced him, and drove
him to Christ, as a teacher come from God, and consequently
one that was to be credited : but that he was the Messiah, here
is yet no confession.
Thirdly, And as his belief was but preparatory, so this change
upon his heart doth appear to be no better, for he hath not yet
learned the lesson of self-denial, and preferring the known truth'
and duty (of seeking after the mind of God from his messen-
gers) before the credit of the world, or his life ; and therefore
he comes to Jesus but by night, as being afraid to own him in
the face of his enemies.
Yet doth not Christ cast this cowardice in his teeth to his
discouragement, but fitteth his medicine to the strength of the
patient, as well as to the disease : for there was more malice
and raging zeal against the truth, among the Jews, than among
the gentiles ; and so more dangers and sufferings, which a novice
might not be so fit to encounter with. And, therefore, Paul,
when he went up to Jerusalem, did preach the Gospel privately
to them of worldly reputation, which, among the gentiles and
inferior Jews, he preacheth publicly, lest, through the preva-
lency of men's pride or cowardice, his physic should not do its
work, but he should run or labour in vain. (Gal. ii. 2.)
The first and great thing that Christ presently falls upon, is
to let this man know, that this much will not serve his turn, (to
confess the miracles, and so the divine mission of Christ,) but
that he must also tr\ily believe the office that he is sent upon,
even to be the Messiah, the Mediator, and the Redeemer of
the v.'orld, and must openly be engaged to him as such a one by
baptism, and so own him and confess him before the world,
and receive his renewing Spirit, for the illumination of his un-
derstanding, the purifying and quickening of his heart, and the
reforming and after-guidance of his life.
This work Christ calleth by the name of the new birth, or
regeneration, and tells Nicodemus, " That except he be born
again of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the
kingdom of God." Not that there is the same necessity of the
washing 1)y water, and the purifying by the Spirit. For by
" water" is principally meant that covenant which baptism did
sign ; even the confession of Christ, and dedication to him in
the relation of redeemed ones, children, disciples, and subjects,
on our part, and his re- engagement and relation to us j yet
AGAINST DIVINITY, REPRESSED. 399
"water" itself is the thing nearly signified in the word, and the
use of it is of divine appointment, and not to he neglected where
it may be used ; but the necessity to salvation is placed in the
relation, or thing signified. As it is common to say to a soldier
of the enemy's, ' If thou wilt change thy general, and take the
prince's colours, and fight for him, thou mayest have a pardon
for thv rebellion.' Where takina; colours is a duty; but the
necessity is placed in the change of his relation and practice,
for if there were no colours at hand to give him, yet if he be listed
as a soldier (or if not listed, yet, if by open profession and action
joined to them) it will be accepted; or else, as Grotius ex-
poundeth it, '^ By water and the spirit is meant, a washing,
cleansing spirit;" of which see him in loc.
This change that is here called the "new birth," is not the nevj
creation of a substance, or destruction of our former substance
or faculties : for we have still the same natural powers of un-
derstanding and willing ; but it is the change of the disposition,
hal)its, and acts of those faculties : and, with submission to the
contrary-minded, ] conceive thatitisnot only our real, qualitative
change that is here called the "new birth ;" but that the word is
more comprehensive, as 1 before expressed, including our new
relation to God in Christ, as sons and disciples to Christ, and
servants, subjects, or soldiers under him : with a removal from
our former relations which we were in by corruption, and are
inconsistent with these. So that it comprehendeth both our
new relations to God, to the Redeemer, and to his church ;
where we have a new father, husband, lord, and fellow-servants :
new brochers, and sisters, and inheritance, though yet we re-
nounce not our natural brethren, parents, and inheritance, as
the popish, monastical votaries conceive, any further than as
they are contrary to the interest of Christ.
The reasons that persuade me to take regeneration in this
extent, are,
First, Because it is the entrance into our whole new state
that is here so called, without any limiting expression.
Secondly, Because we are said to be born of water as well as
the Spirit : and certainly baptism doth as nearly and truly sig-
nify our justification, and relative change, and new covenant
engagements, and adoption, and church membership, as it doth
our qualitative renovation. Nor do I see how any fair exposi-
tion can be given of that saying, " Except a man be born of
water," which shall not include the change of our relation, as
400 THU ARROGANCY OF REASON
well as of our dispositions. And the like I may say of other
texts, which mention regeneration, which I will not now so far
digress as to recite.
Having seen what Christ teacheth Nicodemus first, let us
next see the success of his doctrine. Nicodemus fastening too
much upon the metaphorical term of " being born again," and
withal not understanding the meaning of it, nor the scope of
Christ, he presently expresseth his ignorance and unbelief by
this question, " How can a man be born when he is old ? Can
he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born ?"
Hereupon Christ returning an explicatory answer, telling him
not only the nature of the new birth, but also the mysterious-
ness of its causes in the effecting it, and showing a plain reason
from natural agents, why the mysteriousness of this should not
make it seem incredible ; yet doth Nicodemus return a second
answer like the first, " How can these things be ? " Which words
do impart not an absolute unbelief of the truth of whatChrist had
said, but a great ignorance of his meaning, and a not-discerning
of that evidence fully which should have caused full belief 3 but
a strong apprehension of the improbability of the thing affirmed,
and thereupon a great doubting of the truth of the affirmation.
And note here the aggravations of Nicodemus's fault :
First, They were the words of one that he himself confessed
to be a teacher come from God, and that sealed his doctrine by
such miracles as none could do, except God were with hhn ; and
doth God send any messenger with a lie, or any teacher that
knoweth not what he teacheth; or will he seal untruths, or sense-
less absurdities, with such unquestionable miracles ? Surely, a
man that was once convinced that God sent the messenger, and
sealed the message, should be confident that the matter of it is
divine, and should never once suspect it of untruth.
Secondly, Though Christ did, with frequent asseverations,
aver the truth of his doctrine, yet did Nicodemus stagger through
unbelief.
Thirdly, It was the very catechism and rudiments of piety,
and Christianity, which were so strange to him.
Fourthly, The term, by Avhich Christ cxpresseth spiritual
things, he understandeth all in a carnal sense ; yea, and after
that Christ had told him plainly what birth he means, not carnal,
producing a fleshly creature, but of water and the Spirit, produ-
cing a spiritual creature, yet doth not Nicodenuis understand
liim for all this ?
AGAINST DIVINITY, REPRESSED. 401
Fifthly, Yet was this man a ruler of the Jews, even one of the
great Sanhedrim, and one reputed skilful in the law ; one that
professed himself a guide of the blind, a light of them which
are in darkness, an instructer of the foolish, a teacher of babes,
which had the form of knowledge, and of the truth in the law ;
one of those that boasted of God, and of the law. (Rom. ii.
17 — 20.) Yet he that should teach others had not learned
these rudiments himself.
Sixthly, And when Christ used a familiar instance, to show
him that things are not therefore incredible, because invisible,
or because invisible, or because we know not the nature, cause,
and end of them. We may know that it is, when we cannot
know what it is, or whence, or why it is, or whither it tends, as
in the blowing of the wind, is evident ; yet doth not Nicodemus
cease his doubting on this account, but asketh " How can these
things be?" The spirituality and mysteriousness of the thing
made it seem improbable to his uninformed intellect ; and the
seeming improbability made him doubt of the verity. Because
it was past his apj)rehcnsion to conceive how it should be, there-
fore he doubted whether it were true or not. He had not so
much rational consciousness of his own ignorance, or so much
confidence in a teacher sent from God, and sealing his doctrine
by miracles, as to acquiesce as a learner in his teacher's credit,
concerning the verity of the thing, while he was seeking to get
a clearer discovery of its nature, rise, and ends.
So that here were all these sins together manifested in this
answer, great ignorance, even in a ruler ; unbelief, doubting of
the conclusion, when he had acknowledged the premises ;
an unteachableness, in part, when he professed himself to
come to learn ; an arrogant conceit of the caj)aciousness of his
understanding, as if Christ's words, or the plain truth, should
be sooner sus])ected, than his shallow capacity.
From this picture we may well conclude what is the ordinary
shape of man's corrupted disposition, and we may all know our-
selves by knowing Nicodemus ', and from hence I may raise this
observation of us all :
J3oct. The corrupt nature of man is more prone to question
the truth of God's word, than to see and confess their own
ignorance and incapacity ; and ready to doubt whether the
things that Christ revealeth are true, when they themselves do
not know the nature, cause, and reason of them.
They will make every thing which they understand not to seem
402 'IHK ARROGAXCY OF REASON
improbable, and all such improbabilities will make it seem in-
credible, and the incredibility of a part makes the whole seem
incredible ; and thus men will be infidels, or feed their infidelity
by every thing that themselves are ignorant of ; and make it
the chief reason why they will not believe or learn, because they
do not already know and fully understand the things to be
learned and believed : and so God must be accused in every
thing that moles and worms are ignorant of.
When the Jews acknowledged the prophets to be of God, and
sometimes would profess to receive and obey any message that
God should send by them, yet when they heard what it was in
particular, which he sent, then, if it did not suit with their in-
terest and carnal reason, they would not believe it, or obey it,
but rather persecute the messenger, and think, that surely such
a message could never come from God ; so that they must like
the ])ariicular matter before they would believe that it was of
God : and so God's word shall not be God's word, unless it
please the blind and carnal reason of man.
So you may find they used the prophet Jeremiah ; (Jer. xlii.;)
they entreat the prophet to go for them to God, by prayer, and
for advice, and bind themselves with seeming resolution to
obey ; saying, " The Lord be a true and faithful witness be-
tween us, if we do not even according to all things, for the
which the Lord thy God shall send thee to us ; whether it be
good, or whether it be evil, we will obey the voice of the Lord
our God, to whom we send thee, that it may be well with us
when we obey," &:c. One would have thought that these men
would have believed, and obeyed any thing that God should
send to them, after such a vow as this ; and yet, when they
heard that the message was contrary to their own minds and
opinions, (c. xliii. 1, 2,) it is said, that "all the proud men"
gave this answer ; " Thou speakest falsely, the Lord our God
hath not sent thee to say this."
A full instance you have of the like corrupt disposition in
John vi. When Christ doth but tell them that he is the bread
that came down from heaven, the Jews murmur; (ver. 41 ;) but
when he insisted on it, that " He was the living bread, and
that he would give his flesh for the life of the world, and that
he that eateth him should live for ever," these spiritual
things they did not understand, but understood him carnally,
and thereupon reject the truth, because they understood it not;
so that (vcr. 52) they fall a striving among themselves against
AGAINST DIVJNITY, REPRESSED. 403
Christ's words ; saying, " How can this man give us his flesh
to eat?" Even Hke Nicodemus, " How can these things be?"
They will not believe it is true, or that it can be, till they know,
themselves, " How it can be :" and when Christ yet pressed
home the mystery further, even some of his own " disciples,
.when they heard this, said. This a hard saying, who can hear it ?"
(Ver. 60.) And though Christ proceeded lo open the mystery to
them, and spake that more jilainly which he had spoken alle-
gorically ; yet it is said, (ver. 6ij,) that " from that time many
of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him ;"
insomuch, that he asked the twelve, whether they would go
also, intimating the greatness of the number of revolters upon
this slight occasion ; forsooth, because he spake that which they
understood not, and would have taught them, what they had
not humility and patience enough to learn ; and because they
did not reach it at the first hearing, therefore they thought it
improbable and incredible. Many more such instances we
might give you from Scripture, but, alas ! it is a tiuth that needs
no further proof; there are as many living witnesses of it as
there are men on earth ; the unregenerate being conquered by
this corruption, and the regenerate weakened and hindered
much by the remnants of it.
For the further improvement of this observation, I shall, first,
open further the nature and workings of this corruption ; se-
condly, and then show the reasons of it; and, lastly, make
some application of all.
1. Sometimes the weak intellect of man is stalled at the quid-
dity or nacure of things ; and then, being arrogant as well as
ignorant, it will not believe that there is such a thing, because
he cannot reach to know what it is.
On this account, some question, whether man have an immor-
tal soul, because they cannot reach to know, as they expect,
what that soul is : and some will not believe there is such a
thing as the Spirit of God dwelling in his people, because they
know not what that Spirit is : and some think that there is
no such thing as inherent, sanctifying grace, or the image of
God renewed upon the souls of the regenerate ; but that all
talk of these spiritual, supernatural changes are mere fancies and
conceits ; and all because they know not what this sanctity and
gracious inclination is. They think there is no such thing as com-
uumion with God, because they know not what it is ; nor any such
thing as a spirit of prayer, because Lhey know not what it is.
404 THE ARROGANC'Y OF REASON
And, indeed, if this were a wise and right reasoning, then
there should be nothing in being, but what we know the formal
nature of, which is as gross a conceit as most in the world.
What if you know not what an angel or spirit is, doth it follow
that there is none ? What if you know not what is beyond the
visible creatures out of sight, doth it follow that there is nothing
beyond our sight ? By this rule you may say that there is no
God; nay, all the world must needs say so, if this were right
reasoning, for no man hath a true formal knowledge of God's
essence, and therefore must say there is no God, because they
know not what God is ; nay, it is a great question whether such
men must not deny the being of almost all God's creation ; for
it is but little that we know of the forms of things, in compari-
son of what we are ignorant of. You know not what the fire
is, nor what the light is, nor what the air and wind is ; for all
the great pretences of the world. Men are ignorant of the
formal nature of these : and will you therefore say that there is
no such thing as fire, or light, or air, or wind ? You know not
the formal nature of the sun or moon : is there, therefore, no
sun or moon ? Alas I there is not a pile of grass, nor the
smallest creeping thing, that you thoroughly know, and yet you
know that such things there are. A beast knows not what a
man is, and yet he apprehendeth that there is such a creature :
and no man thoroughly knoweth what he is himself, and yet he
knoweth that he is.
And, for the soul itself, it is a most easy and obvious truth,
that we have such a soul ; but it is not so easy to give a defini-
tion of it. As the way to know that you have eyes in your
head, and eye- sight, is not by seing those eyes or eye-sight, but
by seeing other things by them : for the eye was not made to
see itself, nor do we see the sight of the eye ; but by that eye
and sight we see other things, and thereby know that we have
eyes and sight : for he that hath not eyes and eye-sight, can
see nothing at all ; so the intellective soul was not made di-
rectly to understand itself, and its own intellection, but to un-
derstand other things, and thereby to know that we have an in-
tellectual soul : for he that understandeth, doth understand
something, and thereby he understandeth. that he doth under-
stand, and so, that he hath an intellectual faculty : for he that
hath not an intellectual soul can understand nothing at all ; yet
I will not presume to determine the controversy, whether the
intellect do know its own and the will's elicit acts, by direct
AGAINST DIVIiMTY, REPRESSED. 405
intuition of the act itself. It is as unreasonable a thing, then,
to tloubt whether we have such intellectual souls, because they
know not themselves directly or fully, as long as they know
other things, as it is to doubt whether we have eyes, because
they see not themselves, as long as they see external objects.
2. Moreover, this corruption doth often discover itself, in that
men will not believe the trutli of the thing revealed, l)ecause
they cannot reach to understand the causes of it ; so many will
question God's decrees of predestination and preterition, be-
cause they cannot reach the cause. And many will deny the
very work of creation, because they cannot know the way of
creation. They will question whether they have immortal souls,
because they cannot tell how they are caused;- whether by semi-
nal traduction and propagation, or by immediate creation ? They
will deny the work of God's differencing effectual grace, because
they know not how it is given out, or wrought in the soul.
And as well might they deny that they have flesh or bones,
till they better know how they were caused in the womb; and
they may as well deny that they have anv blood in their bodies,
any nutrition or augmentation, till they better know the mystery
of sanguification and other nutritive works ; and as well may
they say that the sun doth not shine, or warm us, till they know
how it is that these are caused by the sun. They know not
how the plants are animated and specified, nor how they suck
their nutriment from the earth, and yet they know that such
things are. They know not how the silly snail doth form her
shell, or nature for her; or how the feathers of the peacock
are so beautified ; and the several sorts of birds, beasts, plants,
fruits, are so diversified and adorned : and yet they know that
such things are: or, as Christ telleth Nicodemus here, "The
wind blovveth where it listeth, and you hear the sound thereof,
but know not whence it cometh," &c. And do we, therefore,
say that there is no wind, because we know not whence it cometh,
or what is the inferior cause of it ? Will you say that the sea
doth not ebb and flow, or there are no earthquakes, thunder,
and lightning, because men do so little know the causes of
them. Felix qui potidt, &c. It is not every man's lot to reach
such causes ; nor any man's on earth to knew the causes of all
things which he knovveth to be, nor fully the causes of any one.
3. Moreover, this folly of man's heart doth discover itself
thus : in that men will not believe tlie truths revealed by God,
because they cannot see God's ends and reasons, and tlic use of
406 THE ARROGANCY OF REASON
the things. Many an evident truth is rejected by tlie proud wit
of foohsli man, because God hath not told them why he hath so
determined and ordered the business; or, if he have tokl it, yet
thev understand it not. So many infidels and Socinians do
deny Christ's satisfaction as a ransom and sacrifice for sin, be-
cause they cannot see any reason for it, or necessity of it. They
cannot see, but God may pardon sin without satisfaction : and
then, what need of all this ado, or what likelihood, that God
would lay so much on his Son, or make so great a business of
this work for our good, and his glory, if all was needless ?
and thus many deny the universal extent of his satisfaction, as
being for all mankind, because they are not able to see the
reason and use of it. They thrust in their dead quorsum as a
sufficient answer to the most express words of God, and ask
what good will it do men to be ransomed, and not saved. They
fear not to say that this is a thing unbeseeming God, and such
a weakness as men would not be guilty of: so that if we can
prove that such a thing there is, they will not fear to charge it
on God as his unreasonable weakness. The like we might show
in many other points.
And must God unlock to us the reasons, ends, and uses of his
truths and works before we will believe that such things are ?
We will allow parents to conceal the reasons and ends of many
precepts from their children, and a prince to conceal the reasons
of many laws, and to keep to himself the arcana imperii, the
mysteries of state ; and must God open all before he can be
believed ? Is not the wisdom and the will of God the most
satisfying reason in the world ? Must you have proper reasons
and intentions in God ; or will you have a cause of the first
cause, or an end of the ultimate end of all ? Alas ! how little
do the wisest men know of the use and ends of many a creature,
over their heads, and under their feet, which their eyes behold ;
yea, how little know they of the use and ends of many a part of
their own bodies ! And yet they know that such things there are.
What abundance of ' whys' hath an arrogant infidel upon the
reading of Scripture, from the beginning of Genesis to the end
of the Revelation, which must all be satisfied before he will be-
lieve. Of all which God will one day satisfy them ; but not in
the manner as thev would have prescribed him.
4. Another expression of this arrogant ignorance is, when
men will not believe the several truths of God, because they are
not able to reconcile them, and place each one in its own order,
AGAINST DIVINITY, REPRESSED. 407
and see the method and body of truth in its true locations and
proportion ; nav, perhaps they will believe none, because they
cannot discern the harmony.
What abundance of seeming contradictions in Scripture do
rise up in the eyes of an ignorant infidel ; as strange apparitions
do to a distracted man ; or as many colours before the inflamed
or distempered eye. These self-conceited, ignorant souls do
imagine all to be impossible which exceedeth their knowledge ;
and because they cannot see the sweet consent of Scripture, and
how those places do suit and fortify each other, which to them
seem to contradict each other, therefore they think no one else
can see it ; no, not God himself. They are like an ignorant
fellow in a watchmaker's shop, that thinks nobody can set all
the loose pieces together, and make a watch of them, because
he cannot : when he hath tried many ways, and cannot hit it,
he casts all by, and concludeth that it is impossible.
And upon this account many cast away particular truths,
though they will not cast away all. Some cannot reconcile the
efficiency of the Spirit with that of the word, in the conversion
and confirmation of sinners ; and therefore some exclude one,
and some the other, or own but the empty names 5 some cannot
reconcile the law and the Gospel : and too great a part of the
teachers in the christian world have been so troubled to reconcile
God's grace with man's free-will, that, of old, many did too
much exclude grace ; and, of late, too many exclude the natural
liberty of the will, upon a supposition of the inconsistency; only
the names of both were still owned.
Many cannot reconcile the sufficiency of Christ's satisfaction
with the necessity of man's endeavours, and inherent righteous-
ness ; and therefore one must be straitened or denied. Many
cannot reconcile common love and grace with that which is
special and proper to the elect ; and therefore some deny one,
and some another. The like might be said of many other cases,
wherein the arrogancy of man's wit hath cast out God's truth :
if both parts are never so express, yet they are upon this unbe-
lieving, questioning strain, ' How can these things be ? How
can these agree together ; how can both be true ? ' when yet it
is evident, that God hath owned both.
It is certain, that the truths of God's word are one perfect,
well-jointed body, and the perfect symmetry or proportion is
much of its beauty. It is certain, that method is an excellent
help in knowing divine things; and that no man can know God's
40S THE AUllOGANCY OF REASON
truths perfectly, till he see them all as ia one scheme or body,
with one view, as it were, and so sees the location of each truth,
and the respect that it hath to all the rest ; not only to see that
there is no contradiction, but how every truth doth fortify the
rest. All this, therefore, is exceedingly desirable, but it is not
every man's lot to attain it, nor any man's in this world perfectly,
or near to a perfection. It is true, that the sight of all God's
frame of the creation, uno intuihi, in all its parts, with all their
respects to each other, would acquaint us with abundance more
of the glory of it than, by looking on the members piecemeal,
we can attain ; but who can see them thus, but God ? at least,
what mortal eye can do it? And we shall never, in this life,
attain to see the full body of divine, revealed truths, in that
method and due proportion, as is necessary to the knowledge of
its full beauty, it is a most perfectly melodious instrument;
but every man cannot set it in tune, so as to perceive the de-
lectable harmony.
What, then, because we cannot know all, shall we know no-
thing, or deny all ? Because we camiot see the whole frame of
the world, in its junctures and proportion, shall we say that
there is no world, or that the parts are not rightly situated, or
feign one to be inconsistent with the rest ? We must rather
receive, first, that Vvhich is most clear, and labour by degrees to
see through the obscurities that beset the rest; and if we first
find, from God, that both are truths, let us receive them, and
learn how to reconcile them after as we can ; and if we caimot
reach it, it is arrogancy, therefore, to think that it is not to be
done, and to be so highly conceited of our own understandings.
5. Another way by which this arrogant infidelity worketh, is
this : when men will not believe any revealed truth of God,
unless they can see a possibility of accomplishing the matter
by natural means ; and, therefore, whenever in reading the
Scripture, they come to a work that passeth the power of the
creature, the Nicodemites stagger at it through unbelief, and
say, "How can these things be?" and the fixed infidels, with
Julian, deride it. When they read the Scripture miracles, they
cannot believe them, because they are miracles. ' Is this a likely
matter,' say they, 'that such and such things should be ?' And,
why is it unlikely ? Because it i^ too hard for God ? What !
doth his creature know his infinite power ? And can you set
him his bounds, and say; 'Y\\\.\& far God can go and no further !
Thus much God can do and no more ! Is it ever the more dif-
AGAfNST DIVINITY, REPRESSED. 409
ficult to God because it is impossible to sucb as we ? Will
you say, that a horse cannot cany you on his back because a fly
cannot ? Creatures may be compared to creatures, but between
the Creator and the creature, there is no comparison. Have
you read how God posed Job in point of power and knowledge.
(Job xxxviii. 39 — 41.) But who is he that hath posed God?
What is that work that should be difficult to him, that by his
word or will, did make all the worlds ? Are they greater works
than those which he hath certainly done, that you speak of so
incredulously ? If you had never seen the sun, or moon, or
stars, or earth, or sea, and had merely found it written, that
God made such a world, it is likely you would as doubtingly have
said, "How can these things be?" If you had no more seen
the light or sun, than you have seen the angels, or souls of
men, it is likely you would have as little believed that there is
such a thing as light or a sun, as you now do that there are
angels and immortal souls : but I hope you are satisfied with
the things you see ; and may not they shame your incredulity
of the things you do not see : you see there is a sun, and moon,
and firmament, and earth ; you know these had either a maker
and cause, or else were eternal, and as an eternal cause to them-
selves. If they were eternal, or made themselves, then they
are the first being and cause, and so are gods. And is it not
more reasonable to believe one God than so many ? and to
believe that God is a perfect, incomprehensible, superintellectual
Being, than to believe, that the senseless earth is a god ? Is it
not more reasonable to conclude, that this one perfect, eternal
God, made all things, than that every stone did make itself;
or that the sun, or moon, or any creature, made itself? If you
believe, that all things are the works of God, then you see that
with your eyes that may shame your foolish, dark incredulity. Do
you see a greater work, and think it unlikely that the same power
should do a less ? Do you see so much of the world that was
made by a word, and do you ask, " How can these things be ?"
when you read of any miracle or unusual work. If it were
yourself, or such as you, that had been the doer of such works,
you might well say, " How can these things be ? " But God is
not as man in his works or word.
6. Yea, many times when men do but hear, read, or think of
some objection against the truth of God's revelations, which
they cannot tell how to answer themselves, they presently begin
to stagger at the whole truth, and question it on every sucli slight
VOL. XX, G G
410 THE ARROGANCY OF REASON
occasion. If any new difficulty arise in their way, they are in
the case of Nicodemus ; saying, "How can these things be?"
Though thev have heard never so many arguments to confirm
them, and have been long receiving them, and seen an evidence
of truth in them^ yet every new cavil or hard objection doth
seem to enervate all this evidence.
If men were as foolish and incredulous in the matters of the
■\\^rld, their folly would easily appear to all men. When a man
hath studied physic seven years, or twenty years, he shall meet
with many new difficulties and doubtful cases, and many old
difficulties will never be overcome ; and yet he will not, there-
fore, throw away all, and forsake his study or profession. Will
a student in law give over all his study, upon every occurring
difficulty or seeming contradiction in the laws ? If any students
in the universities should follow this example, and doubt of all
that they have learn.ed upon every objection which they are
imable to answer, they would be but ill proficients : or if every ap-
prentice that is learning his trade, will forsake it every time that
he is stalled and at a loss, he would be a long time before he set up
shop ; on this course, all men should lose all their time, lives, and
labour, by doing all in vain, and undoing again, by going forward
and backward, and so know nothing, nor resolve of any thing.
It is most certain that all men are very imperfect in knowledge,
and especially in the highest mysteries ; and there is none so
high as those in theology about God, and man's soul, and our
redemption, and our everlasting state ; and, doubtless, where
men are so defective in knowledge, there must still be diffi-
culties in their way, and many knots which they cannot untie.
Can you expect, till you are perfect in knowledge, to see the
whole frame of truth so clearly as to be able to answer every
objection that is made against it ? Why do you not lay together
the evidences on both sides, and consider which of the two is
the clearer case ? What if you cannot answer all that is brought
by the devil and cavillers against the truth, can you answer all
that Christ and his servants say for it ? I dare say you cannot,
unless you take every impertinent vanity or falsehood for an
answer. God needs not you to be the defenders of his truth.
He is able to vindicate it himself against all the enemies in the
world : otherwise, if he had called you chiefly to this work, he
would have furnished you for it ; but he first calleth you to be
scholars to learn that truth, that he may help you over all diffi-
culties in his time and way.
AGAINST DIVINITY, REPRESSED. 411
We are next to show the causes of this iinhajjpy distemper;
why it is, or whence it comes to pass, that men are so prone to
doubt of God's truth, upon every difficulty or mystery that is in
their way, and to question all when tiiev are stalled in any
thing ; and to deny the very things that are certain, when they
are puzzled, and at a loss, but about the manner, cause, reason,
or ends of them : and among others, the causes of this great
sin are these following :
1. ]Man is naturally desirous of knowledge, and to see things
in their own evidence ; and, therefore, he is often an unmannerly,
impatient suitor, to be presently admitted into the presence of
the chamber of truth, and to see her naked without delay.
Nature will hardly be satisfied with believing, which is a re-
ceiving of truth upon trust from another ; no ; though he give
us the most convincing arguments of his veracity : no; though
it be God himself: nothing will statisfy nature but seeing.
If the wisest man in the world tell them, that they see it, or
know it; if the workers of miracles, Christ and his apostles,
tell them, that they see it ; if God himself tells them that he
sees it ; yet all this doth not satisfy them, unless they may see
it themselves. They think this is but to be kept at a distance
without door, and what may be within they cannot tell : every
man hath an understanding of his own, and therefore would
have a sight of the evidence himself, and so have a nearer
knowledge of the thing, and not only a knowledge of the truth
of the thing by the testimony of another, how infallible soever;
and therefore we are all prone, when difficulties seem great, to
say, with Thomas, "Except I see, I will not believe :" (John
XX. 25 :) but, " blessed are they that have not seen, and yet
have believed." (Ver. 29.) How far this desire of knowledge is
in nature as from God, and how far it is in nature as corrupted,
I will not stand to debate ; but, that it is in us, we feel, and this
is a preparative reason of our doubting and dissatisfaction, if
not a proper cause.
2. This nature of man is yet so much more desirous to know,
that though it do see things in th.eir own proper evidence, vet
is it not satisfied, unless it also see the whole, and compre-
hend all things, with all their reasons, causes, and modes. Man
a(Tcctcth a certain infiniteness in kiunvledge ; he would know
all that is to be known, and so would be as God in knowing: and
if he be ignorant of anv part, he remaineth unsatisfied, and so
is ready to quarrel with all ; and like froward children that
G G 2
412 'JHE AlinOGANCY OF REASON
throw away tlicir meat or clothes, or what else they have
hecause tliey cannot have what more they would have. Every
little child will be asking you, not only, ' W^liat is this ?' or,
'What is that ?' but also, ' Why is this so or so ?' and, ' To what
use is it?' And so do men in the matters of God, and if you
satisfy them not in all, they will scarcely be satisfied in any thing.
3. Besides this, there is indeed a great dependence of one
truth upon another j and they are (in morality) as a well framed
building, or as a clock, or watch, or the like engine, where no
one part can be missing without great wrong to the whole. Now,
when these men cannot see all, they do indeed want those helps
that are necessary to the perfect seeing of any part; and then
they have not the skill of making use of an imperfect knowledge,
but are ready to take it for none, till they conceit it full and
perfect; and thus are still detained in unbelief, and quarrelling
with that which they did, or might know, because of that which
they did not, or could not know.
4. Moreover, it is most certain that when God calls us at first
to the knowledge of his truth, he findeth us in darkness; and
though he bring us thence into a marvellous light, (Acts xxvi^
IS ; 1 Pet. ii. 9,) yet he doth this by degrees, and not into the
fullest liglit or measure of knowledge at the first ; so that we are
at the beginning but babes in knowledge. It cannot be ex-
pected, that a man that was born blind, with an indisposition
of understanding to spiritual things, and that hath lived in
blindness long, should presently know all things as soon as he
is converted. They do not so come to knowledge in earthly
things, which they are more disposed to know, and which are
Bearer to them, much less in heavenly things. The dispositive
blindness of the best convert, is cured but in part, much less his
actual blindness. For (as I have said before) if a man have
his eyes never so perfectly opened, who before was blind, yet
he will not see any more than is near him, within sight : if he
will see other countries, places, or persons, he must be at the
pains and j)atience of travelling to them. And so in this case,
when God hath opened the eyes of the blind, they must yet
expect to know, but by degrees. O what abundance of things
are young convejts ignorant of, that are fit to be known ! They
are but entered into Christ's school to learn, and can they think
to know all the first day or year ? But, alas ! many that are
nominally entered, bring not with them the true disposition of
disciples, and therefore quarrel with their master and his teach-
AGAINST DlVIMTy, REPRESSED. 413
ing, instead of diligent seeking after knowledge. Men have not
the patience to stay at school, and wait on Christ's teaching
till they have got so much knowledge as might dispel their
douhts. They must be taught all at once, though they are
incapable of it, and must know all presently, or in a little time
and with Httle pains ; or else they will not believe that Christ
can teach them. And so they run away from him, hke foolish,
impatient scholars, because he did not bring tliem to more
knowledge, and will not stay the time that their own ignorance
doth naturally require for so great a work.
5. And there is also much diligence necessary, as well as time
and patience, before men can come to so much understanding in
the heavenly mysteries, as to be able to resolve the difficulties
that occur. If you stay never so long in Christ's school, and
yet be truants and loiterers, and will not take pains, no wonder
if you remain ignorant. And vet these men will exjject that
they should know all things, and be satisfied in the answer of
every objection, or else they will suspect the truth of Christ.
W'ill sitting still in Christ's school, help vou to learning ? Do
you look that he should teach you, when you will not take pains
to learn what he tcacheth ? You know in law, in phvsic, in the
knowledge of any of the sciences or languages, no man can
come to understand them, much less to defend them against all
opposers, and to resolve all objections, witliout so long diligence
and pains- taking in his studies as the greatness of the work
requires : and shall every young, lazy student in theology, or
every dull, unlearned professor, think to see through all Scripture
difficulties so easily, or else will he suspect the truth which he
sliould learn ? It may be you have been professors of Christia-
nity long, but have you studied the Scriptures day and night,
and consulted with men of judgment in such things, and
diligently read the v/ritings that should unfold them to you, and
held on in this way till you come to a rijjeness of understanding
and ability to defend the truth against gainsayers ? If not, what
wonder if every difficulty do puzzle you, after all your unpro-
fitable duties and profession.
6. Moreover, there is a great deal of other knowledge neces-
sary to the thorough knowing of the sense of Scriptures.
Though the unlearned may know so much as is of absolute
necessity to salvation, (and will save, if it be heartily believed
and improved,) yet there is much learning necessary to the fuller
understanding of them, and to the resolving of all doubts and
414 THE ARROGANCY OF REASON
difficulties that may occur : and tiiis is not because Christ hath
delighted to sjieak obscurely, but because our distance and im-
perfection, and the nature of the thing, doth make such learning
to be necessary. For if Christ speak in the Syriac tongue, and
if the Scriptures be written in Hebrew and Greek, (which were
then fittest to divulge it,) how can it be expected that English-
men, Frenchmen, Germans, or any that understand not those
languages, should understand them so fully as those that do ?
For no bare translation, though never so exact, can give us the
full sense of the original words. Besides this, all countries have
their peculiar, proverbial speeches, which are familiar with them,
but would seem nonsense, or of a contrary sense to others, that
\vere unacquainted with them : and Scripture must and doth
contain such proverbs as were usual with those to Avhom it was
written, or the matter spoken. They had also many peculiar
customs of their countries, which are supposed in tScriptures,
which if we understand not, the plain text will seem dark to us.
The like we may say of matters of geography, about the situa-
tion of places ; and of chronology, for the due computation of
times ; and of other history, to know the state of church and
commonwealth, and many other parts of learning which the very
nature of the matter proclaimeth to be necessary for the re-
solving of Scripture difficulties. Now, when unlearned men, or
\oung, raw scholars, that want all or most of these necessaries,
will yet expect that they must understand all, and see through
all difficulties, and be able to answer every cavil, what wonder
if they be frequently stalled, and tempted to unbelief, and say,
" How can these things be ?"
If you say that then it seems none but learned men must be
able to resolve these doubts, and defend the Scriptures against
opposers ; and we must take all upon their words.
1 answer, you must explicitly know all that is of flat necessity
to salvation, and learn as much of the rest as you can : but if
it be undenia])le, that you do not know more, that is enough for
the resolving of the aforesaid doubts ; why should you be
offended that we tell you so ? Either you do indeed see through
all difficulties, or you do not : if you do, then you are esta-
blished ; you are none of those that I speak of ; you will not
suspect the truth, nor say, " How can these things be ?" but
you are able to confute all that would seduce you. But if you
do not see through these difficulties, should you not humbly
confess it, and not quarrel with those that tell you so ? And
AGAINST DIVINITY, REPRESSED. 415
for taking it on others' words, you must in reason do it, if you
have no other way ; and if you have reason to think that they
know that which you do not know : hut if you think that the
most learned men do know no more than yourselves, and are as
unahle to resolve these doubts as you are, you go against the
full light of the whole world's experience. Let their writings
bear witness, wherein they do indeed resolve them ; and do you
call them to a trial, and see whether they are able or not : and
let any that understandeth the matter, and is competent, be the
judge.
7. Yea, some men are so far from having all the fore-men-
tioned qualifications for knowledge, that they have not a natural
strength of understanding, or capacity to conceive of difficult
things ; and yet they will expect that all should be made plain
to them, who cannot understand a plain case in law, physic, or
any other profession that they are not versed in, no, nor any
great difficulties in the things that they are more conversant
with.
8. Besides this, it is most certain, that when the best men
have done all that they can, they will here know but in part.
Perfection of knowledge is reserved for the time of our perfect
blessedness j and he that knows but in part, is not like to se
through every difficulty : and this imperfection, joined .with the
corruptions which we shall anon mention, doth cause these
suspicions of the truth that should be entertained.
9. There are some truths also which are not well understood
without experience ; and it is only sanctification that giveth
that experience : and, therefore, the unsanctified take them
but for fancies, and suspect the truth of that word which doth
assert them.
10. But one of the greatest causes of this sin, is the pride of
men's hearts, which makes them forget their great ignorance,
shallowness, and incapacity. Men have such arrogant under-
standings, that be they ever so empty, they think themselves
immediately capable of receiving any truth that shall be delivered
to them. And if they understand not what they read or hear,
they never suspect their own wit, but the writer or speaker ;
because they are at age, and are now past childhood, they think
they need no more to make them capable. Little know they
the nature of that knowledge which they want ; and how it
must be attained : they know not that there is a certain higher
order among truths ; and that one presupposeth another j and
416 THE ARROGANCY OF REASON
all the lower are pre-reqviisite to the higher: they know not how
many hundreds of the lower preparatory truths must be known
before some of the higher can be well understood. They would
go to the top of the stairs, without going up the lower steps.
It would make a sober man wonder to see the impudent pride
and arrogancy of some ignorant men, that when they have
need to sit many a year at the feel of some teacher, and Immbly
learn that which they know not, they will as confidently pass a
present censure on the things that they understand not, as if
they were as thoroughly acquainted with them as the best: and
if they see not the evidence of a truth, they will as confidently
and scornfully call it an error, as if they were indeed most capa-
ble of judging of it; when men of true understanding do see
that truth as clear as the light.
If they hear a confident seducer, that hath a glossing tongue,
and plausible cavils against a truth, these arrogant wits will pre-
sently conclude, that he is in the right, and cannot be answered;
as if nobody can do it because they cannot ; when, alas ! men
of understanding may presently discern gross ignorance and
absurdity, in that which shallow brains are so confident of. We
can scarcely meet with the man so grossly ignorant, but he is
confident of his own understanding, and wise in his own conceit.
So that when we may expect that they should say, ' What
ignorant, foolish wretches are we, that cannot understand the
word of God !' they are ready to accuse and suspect the
word, and say, " How can these things be ?"
11. And this arrogancy is much increased by the very nature
of ignorance, which is, to be even ignorant of itself. He that
never saw the light knows not what light is, nor what darkness
is as differing from light. A dead man knows not what death
is : a brute knows not what brutishness is, because he knows
not what reason is.
There is a good measure of knowledge necessary to make
some men to know their ignorance. What can show a man his
error, but the contrary truth ? This is it, therefore, that hinders
men's conviction, and makes them confident in their most false
conceits ; seeing they want both that light and that humility
which should take down their confidence. We have as much
ado to make some men know that they do not know, as to
make them know that which they know not, when once they
will believe that they do not know it : especially, if men have
but any plausible, natural wit, or a little taste of learning, or a
AGAINST DIVINITY, REPRESSED. 417
little illumination in some greater matters, which in gross igno-
rance they did not understand ; they presently think that all
things should be now plain to them. It is the ruin, or dangerous
perverting, at least, of many young zealous professors, that for-
merly lived in great ignorance and ungodliness ; that when
God hath showed them their error, and brought them to see the
excellency of a holy life ; the new light seems so glorious to
them that they think they know all things, and need but little
more : and now they are illuminated by the Spirit of God, they
think that they should understand all truths at the first hearing,
and see through all difficulties at the first consideration; little
knowing how much lamentable ignorance doth yet remain in
them ; and how much more glorious a light is yet before them ;
and how little they know yet, in comparison of that which they
do not know. So that it is the nature of the ignorant, espe-
cially half-witted men, that have some little knowledge which
may puff them up, to think they have that which indeed they
have not ; and so to have this arrogancy of understanding, and
speak against the darkness of truth, when they should lament
the darkness of their own understandings ; and to think the
candle is put out, or the sun is darkened, because this web is
grown over their eyes.
12. Moreover, infidelity is a natural, deep-rooted, obstinate
sin 5 and, therefore, no wonder if it be hardly overcome, and
will be striving in us to the last. The first sin of man, in be-
lieving the serpent before God, hath left a vicious habit in our
nature. Man is now so estranged from God, that he is the less
acquainted with his voice, and the more distrustful of him. We
are so much in the dark, that we are the more diffident. When
a man knows not where he is, or who is near him, he is still
fearful ; when he knows not what ground he stands on, whether
firm, or quick-sands, he is naturally apt to distrust it: an
unknown God will not be well believed. Were it easy to cure
infidelitv, all other sins would be of much more easy cure. He
is a conqueror indeed, that thoroughly conquers his unbelief : but
the most are captivated by it to their perdition.
1-3. And it somewhat addeth to this disease, that man is con-
scious of deceitfulness in himself, and from thence is apt to sus-
pect all others. Because he finds himself both fallible and
fallacious, he is ready to think that God himself is so too : for
corrupt man is prone to question whether there be any higher
virtue than he hath experience of in himself.
14. Also, it is a great occasion of this sin of infidelity and
418 THE ARROGANfY OF REASON
arrogancy, and questioning all that men do not understand, that
they know not'thetrue nature of the christian state and life, and
build not in the order that Christ hath prescribed them. Christ's
method is this : that they should first understand and believe
those essentials of Christianity, without which there is no salva-
tion, and then engage themselves to learn of him as his disciples j
and so to set themselves to school to him, and live under his
teaching, that they may know, by degrees, the rest of his will :
and his teaching is jointly by his word, ministers, and Spirit.
Men must first lay the foundation in an explicit faith, and hold
to those fundamentals as of infallible certainty, and not expect
to know the rest in a moment, nor without much diligence and
patience, but wait on Christ in the condition of disciples, to
learn all the rest. All this is expressed in Christ's commission
to his apostles, (Matt, xxviii. 19 — 21,) where he first bids them
disciple the nations ; which contains the convincing them, at
age, of the fundamentals, and procuring their consent ; and then
to baptise them, that they may be 'solemnly engaged ; and then
teach them to observe all things whatsoever he commandeth
them ; and this must be the work of all their lives.
Now, here are two gross errors, contrary to this established
order of Christ, which professors do often run into, to their own
perdition. The one is, when they do not first lay the funda-
mentals as certainties, but hold them loosely, and are ready, on
all occasion, to reduce them to doubtful and uncertain points ;
or to question them, though their evidence be never so full, be-
cause of some defect of evidence in other points.
A most foolish and perverse course, which will hinder any man
that useth it, from the true understanding of any science in the
world ; for in all sciences there are some undoubted principles,
which must be first laid, and it must not be expected that all
points else should be of equal necessity or evidence as they :
but if we should meet with never so much doubtfulness in any
of the superstructure, yet these principles must still be held
ast ; for he that will be still plucking up his foundation, upon
every error in the building, is never like to perfect his work.
The second common error is, that as professors do not'lay
the foundation as certain, so they do not unfeignedly set them-
selves in the true posture of disciples or scholars, to learn the
rest, but think themselves past scholars when they have gone
to school, and engaged themselves to Christ, their teacher.
This is the undoing of the greatest part of the visible church.
If they come to the congregation, it is not as scholars to
AGAINST DIVINITY, REPRESSED 419
school, but as judges to pass sentence of the doctrine of their
teachers, before they understand it; and if they read the Scrip-
ture, it is in the same sort. When they are at a loss, tliro\igh
any occurrent difficulty, they do not go to their teachers, as
huuible scholars, to learn the true sense of the word and the
solution of tlieir doubts, but they go as confident censurers, and
as boys tliat will go to school to dispute with their masters, and
not to learn ; and, therefore, no wonder if they turn self-con-
ceited heretics or infidels ; for Cliriht hath resolved that the
most learned and worldly-wise, if they will come to school to
him as his disciples, must come as little cliildreu, conscious of
their ignorance, and iiumble enough to suljmit to his instructions,
and not proudly conceited that they are wise enough already;
and they must wait upon his teaching, year after year, and not
thiidi that they are capable of a present understanding of each
revealed truth.
15. Lastly, besides all the former causes of this sin, some men
are judicially deserted, and left to the power of tiieir arrogancy
and infidelity. \Mien God hath showed men the light of funda-
mental verities, and, instead of hearty entertaining and obeying
them, they will imprison them in unrighteousness, and receive
not the truth in the love of it, that they may be saved, God often
gives them over to believe a lie, and to reject that truth which
would have saved them, if they had received it.
I have noted many professors that have lived in pride, flesh-
pleasing, or secret filthiness, or unrighteousness, or worldliness,
and would not see, nor forsake, their sin, but hold on in their
professions and their lusts together, that these are most com-
monly given over to gross heresies or infidelity; for when they
are once captivated to their flcsldy lust and interest, and yet
read and know the damnableness of such a state, they have no
way left to quiet their conscience but either to believe that
Scripture is false (and then they need not fear its threatenings)
or else to leave their sins with confession and contrition, which
their carnal hearts and interest will not permit.
Use. From what hath been said already in the opening of this
point, we may see what a corrupt and froward heart is in man,
as to the matters of God and his own salvation ; three notable
corruptions are together comprehended in the distemper, which
we have here described and expressed in the common, incredu-
lous questioning, " How can these things be ? "
First, you may hear in this question, the voice of ignorance :
420 THE ARROGANCY OF REASON
men have lost the true knowledge of God, and of his works,
especially in spirituals. "The natural man discerneth them not,
for they are spiritually discerned." (1 Cor. ii. 14.) We are as
blind men groping in the dark, at a loss upon every difficulty
that occurs ; evidence of truth is no evidence to us, because our
understandings are unprepared to receive it, and be shut against
it. When we should love the truth, we cannot find it ; when
we should glorify the God of truth, we know him not, but in our
hearts say as- Pilate, " Wiiat is trutli ? " and as Pharoah, " Who
is the Lord ? " We are grown strangers to the way tliat we
should go home in ; and strangers to the voice that should tell
us the way, and to the hand that should guide us in it ; and
strangers to the everlasting home that we should go to; so that
instead of a cheerful following of our guide, we are crying out
at every turn, " How can these things be ?"
2. And here is comprehended, and manifested also, the per-
verseness of man's understanding, that will needs begin at the
wrong end of his book, and will read backwards ; and when he
should be first inquiring, ' Whether these things be so, or not ? '
he will needs be first resolved, ' How they can be so.' And
he will not believe that they can be so, till he knows how they
can be so ; whereas common reason would teach us, in other
things, to know first v/hether it be so or not, before we come to
the ' How can it be so ? ' we may easily be certain of the
being of a thousand things, when we cannot be certain how
they be.
3. And, lastly, here is manifested, also, the irreverent arro-
gancy of man, that will presume to call his Maker to account,
and to know of him the reasons of his works, and how thev can
be, before he will believe them ; and so he will needs question
the very power of God ; for to say, ' How can it be ? ' is as
much as to say, ' How can God do it ? ' as if we were fit judges
of his ways, and able to comprehend his infinite power, and the
several paths of his unsearchable counsels. " He is great in
counsel, and mighty in work." (Jer. xxxii. 19.) " He made the
heaven and the earth by his great power, and nothing is too hard
for him." (Ver. 17.) The prophet Isaiah's answer should
suffice to all such incredulous questions: "This cometh from
the Lord of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in
working.'' (Isai. xxviii. 29.)
Hence also we see what unteachable scholars Christ hath in
his school, and, consequently, how patient and gracious a mas-
AGAINST DIVINITY, REPRESSED. 421
ter he is. When we should be submissively inquiring, we are
incredulously disputing; and we will needs be wiser than our
master, and question whether he teach us right or wrong. It
is a wonder of mercy, that he should pardon so great dulncss
and unprofitableness in us j and shall we after this be so insen-
sible of that sin of ours, and of that grace of his, as to fall a
questioning of him, and his truth, and lay the blame on him
from ourselves ?
Object. But we must not believe all things ; and, therefore,
we must inquire, and try the spirits, whether they be of God, or
not, even the Spirit of Christ himself.
Answ. The Spirit of Christ fears not a just trial : had not
Christ brought sufficient evidence of his truth, he would not have
condemned the unbelieving world for not receiving it. J have
showed already how fully he hath sealed his testament, and with
what attestations he hath delivered his doctrine to the world.
But why do you not acquiesce in these confirmed verities? When
once Christ hath given sufficient proof of his doctrine, must it be
questioned again, because it is wonderAil ; and because that
the manner of it is beyond your reach ? Inciuire, first, whether
it be a revelation from God, or not : and if it had no divine at-
testation, or evidence that it is of God, then you might reject it
without sin or danger, when you find it to contain things so far
beyond your reach ; but when God hath put his seal upon it,
and proved it to be his own ; if after this you will be question-
iiig it, because of the seeming contradictions or improbabilities,
you do but question the wisdom and power of the Lord ; as if
he had no more wisdom than you can reach and fathom ; yea,
than you can censure and reprove ; or, as if he could do no more
tlian you can see the way and reason of, and are fit to take an
account of.
I do, therefore, exhort all that fear the great name of God,
and love their own souls, that they take special heed against this
dangerous sin ; think not the proved, sealed word of God is ever
the more to be suspected, because that the matters in it do seem
strange, and unlikely to their reason. And think not that you
should comprehend the mysterious counsels and ways of God.
Let your understandings meditate on Scripture difficulties, that
you may learn to resolve them ; but suffer not the apprehension
of those difficulties to make you once question the truth of God ;
but abhor such a thought as soon as it ariseth, and cast it with
detestation out of your hearts.
422 THE ARROGANCY OF REASON
To persuade you the more effectually, I beseech you do but
weigh impartially, besides what is said before, these following
considerations :
1. Consider who tliat God is wliose ways tliou dost so pre-
sumptuously pass thy censure of, and whose word thou callest to
the bar of thy judgment ! Is infinite wisdom fit to be examined
by thee ? or the works of infinite power to be tried by thee ? If
there were nothing wonderful in his word or works, they would not
be like the majesty of God ; nor the Saviour of the world, whose
^'name is Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God." (Isaiah ix.6.)
God's name must be written upon his word and works, and all
must bear some part of his image ; and, therefore, hath some-
thing in them incomprehensible. Shall the infinite God have
no word or work, but what may be comprehended by such as we?
I seriously profess, that it often amazeth me, to think that we
should know so much of God, his will, and ways, as we do, when
I consider the infinite distance between him and us, I must ad-
mire that we are made so much ac(iuaintcd with his mind, and
that he hath told us so much of his mysteries as he hath done,
and must say, " What is man that thou art mindful of him, and
the son of man, that thou so visitcst and regardest him ?" (Psalm
viii. 4 ; Job vii. I/.) When I consider how little a poor worm,
or bird, or beast, knows of me that am made of the same flesh
with him ; and how much man knows of the mind of God, who
is infinitely distant from him, it makes me admire the Provi-
dence that hath so ordered it. If a beast could so far consider,
and discourse, would it not be a folly in him to call my writings,
words, and ways, to the bar, and to suspect those as false that
are beyond his reach, and to say, " How can these things be ?"
Why, alas ! they are ten thousand thousand times nearer to us,
than we are unto God. O then let us thankfully open his books,
and look upon his words and works, and bless him that hath
condescended so far to man, and lifted u)) man so near to him-
self in knowledge, in comparison of other infeiior creatures ; and
make much of that measure of knowledge which we have : but
do not think to measure the creation of God, nor to comprehend
his secrets; much less himself. Methinks the reading of those
four chapters in Job, before cited, containing God's expostula-
tion with him, might do much to humble an arrogant wit, and to
make it submit to infinite wisdom. Alas ! the very angels cannot
comprehend God; and whether any creature can immediately see
his essence, we cannot now affirm ; admirations do better beseem
AGAINST DIVINITY, REPRESSED. 423
the highest of his creatures than bold expostulations. The
flaming mount might not be touched. You cannot endure to
gaze upon the sun, which is God's creature ; should you ap-
proach too near it, you would be consumed by its heat. And
dare you be so bold with the highest Majesty ? It were not
greater folly to imagine that you can span the earth in your
hand, or, that you can reach the smi with your finger, than to
imagine that you are meet to expostulate with God, and that all
must be unreasonable in his word or works where your wit is
not able to discern the reason. Surely, " his thoughts are not
as our thoughts, nor his ways as our ways: but as far as the hea-
ven is above the earth, so far are his thoughts and ways above
ours." (Isai. Iv. 7—9.)
And as you cannot comprehend the thoughts and ways of
God, so you are surely unfit to contradict them. The child will
submit to the wisdom of his father, and the scholar of his
master, and will believe them when they cannot reach the reason
of their sayings : they will not set their wits against them,
though they be reasonable creatures, as well as they. It was
the humble expression of men of old, when they would contemn
themselves, in comparison of their superiors, to call themselves
a dead dog, or a flea. (1 Sam. xxiv. 14, and xxvi. 20.) David
himself doth so to Saul. What may we then call ourselves, in
comparison with the Lord, but even nothing, and less than
nothing, and lighter than vanity ? and should nothing contend
with immensity and eternity ? Should a flea dispute with a
learned man, and say, " How can these things be ?" How much
less should we so dispute with God.
If a man do but look up to the height of the visible heaven,
or look down into some exceeding depth, it will make him be
ready to tremble. With what dread and submissive reverence,
then, should our minds look to the height and depth of the
counsels of the Lord. Dare not, therefore, any more to quarrel
with his wisdom, but say, as Job, when God had nonplussed
him, " I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no
thought can be withholden from thee, who is he that hideth
counsel without knowledge. Therefore have I uttered that I
understood not; things too wonderful for me, v/hich I know
not." (Job xHi. 3.)
2. Consider, also, what we are ourselves, as well as what that
God is with whom we do expostulate. The Lord knows we are
silly creatures for such an undertaking. Can such breathing
424 THE ARROGANCY OF REASON
lumps of earth, such walking dust, such bags of filth, be fit to
enter a dispute with God ? And though they are noble souls
that are thus meanly housed, yet never endowed or fitted for
such a task. A spoon or shell may as well contain the whole
ocean, as our narrow understandings comprehend the counsels
of God. Are our understandings infinite, that we should
think to comprehend the reasons of the words and ways
of the Lord, any further than he hath condescended to
reveal them ? Our eyes may as well expect an unlimited
vision, and think to see beyond the sun, as our under-
standings expect such a boundless intellection. It is a wonder
that so much knowledge as we have should be found in a soul
that is housed in clay ; and shall we presume that we have so
much more than we have ? Jt was the sinful arrogancy of our
first parents to desire to be as God is in knowledge : and shall
we go so far beyond them in our arrogancy, as to presume that
we are actually such indeed ?
And it is observable what contradictions there be among sinful
principles, and how proud infidelity doth condenm itself. These
unbelievers have such low thoughts of man's soul, that they
think it doth but gradually differ in its rational power from the
soul of a brute, and therefore think it cannot be immortal : and
yet the very same men that think not the soul so noble as to be
immortal, do think it so capable of disputing with God, and
comprehending the reasons of his truths and ways, that they are
ready to deny the most confirmed truth, if they do not reach the
manner, and ends, and reasons of it, and God shall not be be-
lieved, unless their reasons be satisfied in all these, and unless
they are able to take so full a view of the whole body of truth,
as to answer all gainsayers, and reconcile all seeming contradic-
tions, they will not take God's word to be his word ; yea, with
the wretched atheist, God shall not be God, because he cannot
comprehend him : he shall not be infinite, in immensity and
eternity, because that he cannot comprehend this immensity and
eternity. And so with the infidel, Christ shall be no Christ,
and the Trinity no Trinity, because his shallow brain cannot com -
prehend the mysteries of the incarnation, the hypostatical union,
and the Trinity. So that the same man will have his soul to be
but as the soul of a dog for kind, and yet will have it more
comprehensive than the very angels in heaven, and think it so
competent a judge of God's counsels, that he will presume to
condemn them, if he see not the reasons of them.
AGAINST DIVINITY, REPRESSED. 425
3. Consider, doth not certain experience tell you that you are
utterly unable fully to understand the nature and reasons of
those works of God, that are daily visible before your eyes ? I
will not say, only of the greater and more distant, but even of
the least, or of any one of them. I am confident that there is
not the least fly, or worm, or pile of grass, (much more the
sun and other planets,) but that which we know of them, is
much less than that which no man knows. And should such
poor understandings, then, be so arrogant as to think to fathoni
the counsels of God, and reject his plain, revealed truths, because
they see not how such things can be ?
4. Consider, what a stream of experience do you sin against in
this arrogancy. Doth not every study that you fall upon, and
every day's business that you are engaged in, most plainly dis-
cover the weakness of your understandings ? Why else do you
learn no faster, and know no more ? Why are you not yet
absolute masters in all sciences and arts ? Yea, why are you so
defective in all ? And yet will you presume to dispute with God,
and reject his truths as unreasonable, after all this experience
of your own infirmity, and of your unfitness for works that are
so much lower ?
5. Consider, whether by this sinful arrogancy you do not
equal your understandings with God's ? For if you must be
able to see the reason of all his truths and ways, and will control
them because you see not the reason of them, doth not this
imply that you suppose yourself to equal him in understanding ?
And what greater madness can you be guilty of, than such a
conceit ? So, also, when you quarrel with the word as if it con-
tained things that "are unrighteous, and strengthen your unbelief
by such conceits, what do you but say that you are more
righteous than God ? O, think not that the foolishness of man
is wiser than God, or that our darkness is comparable to his
incomprehensible light, or our unrighteousness to his perfect
justice, or that we are fit judges of these his perfections. Hear
that voice that Eliphaz heard from the Spirit that passed before
him in the visions of the night : " Shall mortal man be more
just than God ? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker ?
Behold, he put no trust in his servants, and his angels he charged
with folly : how much less on them that dwell in houses of clay,
whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the
moth : they are destroyed from morning to evening : they perish
for ever without any regarding it : doth not their excellency
VOL. XX. an
42G THE ARROGANCV OF REASON
which is in them go away ? they die, even without wisdom."
(Job iv. 13—21.)
6. Consider, further, that it is the very nature of faith to be-
lieve the thing revealed or testified, upon the mere credit of the
testifier or revealer. If, therefore, you will have no such im-
plicit belief in God, you will have no faith at all. To see a
thing in its own evidence is not to believe. The formal object
of faith is the veracity of God. Reason assures us, first, that
God cannot lie, and next it discerneth by evidence that this is
God's word, or a divine revelation ; and then we may well build
upon this foundation, that each particular of this revelation is
true. So that it is no true belief, if the credit of the testifier be
not the reason of your assent; if, therefore, you must see
the reason of God's revealed truths, and the very manner
and end of all his works, before you will believe, this is as much
as openly to proclaim that you will be no believers at all. You
will assent to the words of the falsest liar, as long as you see
the evidence of truth in the things themselves which they re-
port. And will you give no more credit to God than to such a
one ? Will you believe God no further than you see a cogent
evidence in the thing asserted, which shows that he cannot de-
ceive you therein if he would ? Why, thus far you will believe
the worst of men ; for, indeed, this is no believing at all. If you
do not first believe that God cannot lie, and so that all that he
saith is true, you have no belief in him at all.
7. If you are Christians, you are Christ's disciples, and there-
fore must wait on him in the humblest posture of learners : and
he that will no whit credit his teacher, is not like to learn. If
you will not believe him, but assent only to that which is evident
of itself without his word, then how are you his scholars ?
8. Will you allow your own children or scholars to do so by
you ? If they should dispute with you instead of believing you,
and so should reject all that you tell them is false, that is be-
yond their capacity as to the reasons and manner ; you would
not think that they did their duty. When a schoolmaster is
teaching his scholars their lesson, shall they, instead of learning,
dispute it with their master, and in every difficulty, or seeming
contradiction, unbelievingly say, "How can these things be?"
Be not guilty of that towards God which you would not have a
child to be guilty of to a man.
9. Consider, also, if this course be taken whether ever you be
like to come to knowledge : for the knowledge of things, whose
AGAINST DIVlNTTYj RF.PRESSKD, 427
evidence is all in the revelation and tlie credit of the testifier,
can be attained no other way but by believing. All things seem
strange and difficult at first to those that have not learned them.
If you understand all things already, what need you to learn any
more ? If you do not, then all that you understand will appear
to you at first as darkness or contradiction. If, now, you will be
so confident of your own understandings as to cast away all
that you understand not already, because it seems contradictory
or unlikely, how are you likely to know any more ? If you will
conclude that all is false which you understand not already, you
are like to make but unprofitable scholars. Well, therefore,
saith Solomon, " Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit ?
There is more hope of a fool than of him." (Prov. xxvi. 12.)
For certainly it is a double degree of folly for a man not only to
be ignorant of the things of God, but also to be so ignorant of his
own ignorance. And we must be more at pains to make such
proud men know that they do not know, than to make the humble
to know the truths themselves, which they perceive that they yet
know not : and therefore, Paul doth not only bid us, " Be not
wise in your own conceits;" (Rom. xii. 16;) but also intimates
that ignorance is the cause of such conceits of wisdom, " For I
would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery,
lest ye should be wise in your own conceits :" (Rom. xi. 25 :)
as Solomon saith of the foolish sluggard, that " he is wiser in
his own conceit than seven men who can render a reason."
(Prov. xxvi. 26.)
10. Consider, whether in this case you join not impudence
and inhuman ingratitude to your arrogancy, when Christ con-
descendeth to become your teacher, and you are loiterers and
dullards, and will not learn, but have lost the most of your time
in his school ; is it not a great mercy now, that he will yet
entertain you and instruct you, and doth not turn you out of
his school ? And will you, instead of being thankful for this
mercy, fall a quarrelling with his truth, and take on you to
be wiser than he, when you have so provoked him by your
ignorance and unprofitableness ? Will you fly in his face,
with audacious, unbelieving questions-, and say, "How can
these things be ?" as if it were he that knew not what he
said, and not you that did not understand him ?
11. Consider, how easily can God evince the verity of those
passages which you so confidently reject, and open your eyes to
see that as plain as the highway, which now seems to you so
H H 2
428 THE ARROGANCV OF REASON
contradictory or improljable ; and then what will you have to
say for your unbelief and arrogancy, but to confess your
folly and sit down in shame ? You know when any difficult
case is propounded to you in any other matter, which you can
see no probable way to resolve, yet when another hath resolved
it to your hands in a few words, it is presently quite plain to you,
and you wonder that you could not see it before. You are as
one that wearieth himself with studying to unfold a riddle, and
when he hath given it over as impossible, another openeth it to
liim in a word ; or, as I have seen boys at play, with a pair of
tarrying irons, when one hath spent many hours in trying to
undo them, and casts them away as if it could not be done,
another presently and easily opens them before his face ; so
when you have puzzled your brains in searching out the reasons
of God's ways, and seeking to reconcile the seeming contradic-
tions of his word, and say, " How can these things be ?" In a
moment can God show you how they can be, and make all
plain to you, and make you even wonder that you saw it not
sooner, and ashamed that you opened your mouth in unbelief.
How plain is that to a man of knowledge, which to the ignorant
seems impossible. If the certain event did not convince them,
you should never persuade the ignorant vulgar, that learned
men know so much of the motions of the planets, and can
so long before tell the eclipse of sun or moon to a minute ;
but when they see it come to pass, they are convinced : thus
can God convince thee of the verity of his word, either by a
merciful illumination, or by a terrible execution ; for there is
not a soul in hell but doth believe the truth of the threatenings
of God, and the devils themselves believe, that would draw thee
to unbelief.
12. Lastly, take heed of the very beginnings of this sin, for it
is the ordinary way to total apostasy : when men have once so far
lost their humility and modesty, and forgot that they are men,
or what a man is, as to make their shallow reason the censurer
of God's word, because of certain seeming improbabilities ; and
when they will not rest satisfied in the bare word of God, that
thus it is, but they must needs know why and how can it be ;
this opens the floodgate of temptations upon them, for the
envious serpent will quickly show them more difficulties than
their shallow brains can ansv/er, and will cull out all those
passages of ScrijJture, which are " hard to be understood,
which the unlearned and unstable do wrest to their own de-
AGAINST DIVINITY, REPRESSED. 429
struction." (2 Pet. iii. 18.) He will show them all the knots, but
never show them how to untie them. Such arrogant questioners
and censurers of God's word, do often run on to utter infidehty,
while they are incompetent judges, and do not know it ; what
can be expected from them but a false judgment : for though
the light shineth in darkness, yet the darkness comprehendeth it
not; (John i. 9 ;) and therefore presumeth to condemn the light.
O, therefore, let all young, raw students, and unsettled wits,
take heed in the fear of God, that they exalt not themselves,
and that they think not their weak understandings to be capa-
ble of comprehending the counsels of God, and passing a censure
upon his word, upon the nature of the matter as appearing unto
them. Nay, let the sharpest wits and greatest scholars stoop
down before the wisdom of God, and behave themselves as
humble learners, and enter as little children into his school and
kingdom, and submissively put their mouths in the dust, and
take heed of setting their wits against heaven, or challenging
the infinite wisdom to a disputation. If they love themselves,
let them take this advice, and remember that God delighteth to
scatter the proud in the imagination of their own hearts, (Luke
i. 51,) and to pull down aspiring sinners to the dust. As they
that would set their power against God, would soon be con-
vinced of their madness by their ruin ; so they that will set their
wisdom against him, are like to escape no better. " Let no man
deceive himself : if any man among you seemeth to be wise in
this world, let him become a fool that he may be wise : for the
wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written,
he taketh the Avise in their own craftiness : and again, the Lord
knoweth the thoughts of the wise that they are vain." (1 Cor.
iii. 18-20.)
Object. But would you not have men satisfied of the reason-
ableness of what thev believe ? Shall men believe that which is
unreasonable ? This were to make us mad, and not Christians.
Answ. You must believe nothing but what you have sufficient
reason to believe : but then you must know what is sufficient
reason for belief. Prove but the thing to be the testimony of
God, and then you have sufficient reason to believe it, what-
soever it be. For faith proceeded by this augmentation, "What-
soever God testifieth is true ; but this God testifieth, therefore,
it is true." You have as good reason to believe the major,
as that there is a God : and he that acknowledgeth not a God,
is unworthy to be a man. All that you have to look after,
therefore, is to prove the minor, th^t this or that is the woj-d
430 THE ARTIOGANCY OF REASON
of God. And as concerning the Sciiptuie, in general, it carrietli
sufficient reason to warrant and oblige any man that readetli
or heareth it, to believe it, in the forehead of it : it shineth
by its own light, and it beareth the certain seal of heaven.
So that we have good reason to believe the Scripture, or doc-
trine of Christ, to be the word of God : and then we have
as good reason to believe it, and every part of it to be true.
And then what ground is there for any further exceptions or
objections ? When you have seen the seal of God affixed, and
perceived sufficient evidence of the verity of the whole, what
room is left for cavils against any part of it ?
Object. But it is certain that God never spoke contradictions.
Therefore, if I find contradictions in the Scriptures, may I not
rationally argue that they are not the word of God ?
Answ. Yes, if you could certainly and infallibly prove your
minor, that Scripture hath such contradictions. But that is not
a thing that a sober man can be confident of proving. Because
all things that men understand not, may seem to them to have
contradictions. And you have far more reason to suspect your
own shallow understanding, than the word. For those things, as
I have showed, may be easily reconcilable by others that under-
stand, which seem most irreconcilable to you. Are you sure
there can be no way of reconciliation, but you must know it ? It
is easy, therefore, to see that your minor cannot possibly be proved.
Yea, it may be easily and certainly disproved, even by him
that cannot reconcile those seeming contradictions. For God
attesteth no contradictions ; but God attesteth the Holy Scrip-
ture : therefore the Holy Scriptures have no contradictions.
The major is most evident to the light of nature, and granted
by yourself. The minor is proved at large, before and elsewhere.
God's attestation is discernible to reason.
It is, therefore, a preposterous course to begin at the quality
of the word, and to argue thence, that God revealed it not,
when you should begin at the attestation or seal of God, and
argue thence that he did reveal it; and, indeed, the very quality
beareth or containeth his image and seal, for you are more
capable of discerning the seal of God attesting it, in the Spirit'
of miracles, holiness, &:c., then you are of discerning presently
the sense of all those passages that seem contradictory to you.
You may easily be ignorant of the true interpretation, for want
of acquaintance with some one of those many things that are
necessary thereto ; but 1 can be certain, that God hath attested
the Scripture to be his word.
AGAINST DIVINITY, REPRESSED. 431
Andj indeed, common reason tells us that we must first have
a general proof that Scripture is God's word, and argue thence,
to the verity of the parts, and not begin with a particular proof
of each part. It seems that you would argue thus : This and that
text of Scripture are true, therefore they are God's word : but
reason telleth you, you should argue thus : This is God's word,
therefore it is true. If you set a boy at school to learn his
grammar, will you allow him to be so foolish as to stay till he
can reconcile every seeming contradiction in it, before he be-
lieve it to be a grammar, or submit to learn, and use its rules ?
or will you not expect that he first know it to be a grammar, and
then make it his business to learn to understand it, and therein
to learn to reconcile all seeming contradictions ? And should
he not in modesty and reason, think that his master can recon-
cile that which may seem irreconcilable to him, and such
unlearned novices as he is ?
For my part I am fully resolved, that if my reason could
reach to none of the matters revealed in Scriptures, so as to
see them in the evidence of the thing, yet if I once see the
evidence of divine revelation, I may well be assured that it is
wholly true, how far soever it may transcend my reason ', for I
have reason to believe all that God revealeth and asserteth ;
and I have reason to acknowledge the imbecility of my reason,
and its incompetency to censure the wisdom of God.
And thus I abhor both the doctrine of them that say ; ' V\^e
have no reason to be Christians, and that the truth of Scripture
is an indemonstrable principle that must be believed without rea-
sons, and not proved by them ;' and also the arrogant infidelity
of them that will believe nothing to be a divine revelation,
unless their reason can comprehend the thing itself, or, at least,
if there be any thing in it that seems contradictory to their
reason ; and so will begin at the wrong end, and examine the
particular matters, by the test of their blind reason, when they
should first examine the attestations of the whole, where the
evidences are more fitted for the reason, even of the younger
Christians to discern.
I easily confess that no man should groundlessly believe any
thing to be a divine testimony, or believe any man, tiiat saith,
* He speaks from God ;' but when God hath given them suf-
ficient reason to believe that the testimony and revelation is indeed
from himself; if after that, men will still be doubting, because
their reason is stalled about the manner, and the causes, and
432 THE ARROGANCY OF REASON
ends, and will believe no more than is within the reach of their
reason in these rcsj3ects ; nor confess that it is God's word, unless
they can vindicate it from all objections, and know, why and
how it is, as well as, that it is j this is a mere unreasonable
belief. It is ordinary with princes and other lawgivers, in
wisdom, to conceal the reason of their laws : shall subjects,
therefore, presume to censure them as defective in wisdom or
justice, because that they know not the reason of them ? I say
again, if there were nothing in Scripture, but what the reason
of man could comprehend, it were not so like to be the product
of the infinite wisdom of God. Let reason, therefore, stoop to
the wisdom of our Maker ; and when he hath let us know that
it is he that speaketh, let us humbly learn, and not proudly
expostulate with him about the rest.
Though I shall not undertake to set upon the resolution of
all the questions of incredulous men, which they commonly raise
against the word of God, (for that would take up many large
volumes of itself,) yet as I have dissuaded them from this arro-
gancy of wit, so I shall make trial of a few of their most common
and greatest objections, to show them that their infidelity is
capable of a confutation, as well as of a dehortation.
Obj. 1. You tell us out of Scripture, that there are devils,
most wicked, malicious spirits, addicted to do evil :. who made
these devils, or how came they to be so bad ? Certainly, God
is good, and therefore made nothing but what was good ; and
every thing must have a first cause. If they made themselves
evil, then they were the first cause of their own evil ; and then
you deify the will of the devil, in making it to be absolutely a
first cause. If you say, as some, 'That sin is but a privation,
and therefore hath no efficient cause, but a deficient,' then either
that deficiency must be first from God (and then he should be
the first cause of all sin) or from the will of the devil ; and then
either he was before bound non-deficei'e, or not : if not, it was
no sin ; if he were, then, first, he could jmmo deficere, though
God did all that belonged to him to prevent it. Secondly, and
he could have stood without any more help than he had when
he fell, and so quoad deter imnat'ionem. proprm voluntatis, should
have been the first determining cause of his own perseverance,
or non-deficiency; for if he could not stand, it was no sin to
fall, lieing before innocent : moreover, their sin was not a mere
privation, but materially an act (whether I'eJle or nolle) and
ibrmallv a relation of diyconformity to the law.
AGAINST DIVINITY, REPRESSED. 433
Answ. 1. The devil himself was the first cause of his own
pravity : God made him not evil, but he made himself so. God
gave him free-will to be a self-determining principle ; by this he
was enabled to stand or fall, and left in the hands of his own
counsel. By a sinful act he averted himself from the chief
good, and became disposed to a further aversion, which might
quickly habituate him to all evil ; nor is it any deifying of the
creature's will, to say it is such a self-determining principle, and
so far a first cause, while it had the power of self-determination
from God, and so absolutely is no first cause. It was the ex-
cellency of the creature, as being to be governed, to have free-
will, or a self-determining power to good or evil. Though it be
a higher perfection to be determined or determinable only to
good, which in jicttrid may be enjoyed, yet in via, for one under
government in the use of means in order to the end, it is most
suitable to their condition to have a libertv of self-determination:
and therefore this was part of the beauty of the frame of nature,
and therefore not derogatory from the workman. As God in-
tended, sapientially, or per potentiam sapientia, to govern the
rational creature by laws and objects, so did he sapientially
frame him in a capacity for such a sapiential government ; and
that was by giving him a free, that is, a self-determining will.
Indeed, the angelical nature, and soul of man, is so exquisite,
and subtile, and sublime a thing, that no man can exactly per-
ceive and comprehend the manner of its self-determination ; but
the thing itself is not to be doubted of, though the manner of it
be yet past our reach. We may certainly conclude, therefore,
that God made angels and men good ; but some of those angels
and men, by their inducement, made themselves evil : for God
made them free agents to determine themselves to good or evil ;
and the ignorance of the nature of free-will, doth cause such in-
fidels to rise up against God with their impious quarrels.
2. And see whether these blind wretches do not wilfully put
out their own eyes, and reason against most certain sense and
experience ; for I would ask any of tliem, Whether there be, in-
deed, any sin or bad men in the world, or not ? If they say
no, then I would wish them not to blame any man as an evil
doer, that shall rob them, or slander them, or beat them. The
most likely cure for tliis error, is to beat them black and blue till
they believe that he that doeth it, doeth ill ; -and why should not
any man do it daily, ii there be no ill in it ? Is not he mad with
infidelity, that thinks there is no bad man in all the world, when
434 THE ARROGAN( Y OF REASON
there arc so many, and so desperately wicked, and when he is so
bad himself; or is he fit to be tolerated in any society, that
thinks there is no evil ? Surely, he will think that he may do any
thing, and not do evil. But if he confess that any man is evil,
or doeth evil, let him ask himself who made him evil ? Did God,
that is good, or did he himself? And if he can find out how
man came to be evil, he may find a satisfactory answer to his
question, how angels came to be evil ? But what if we could
not tell how this evil did first come, shall we therefore say
that there is no such thing ? Shall we deny that which we see,
and hear, and feel, because we know not how or whence it
came ? What folly is this ? Then let every murderer, thief,
or other offender, at the assizes, come off with this argument, and
say that he hath done no evil ; for all things are of God, and
God doeth no evil. As mad as this reasoning is, yet I have known
them that have openly professed that they longed to see the
devil, and would ride a hundred miles to see him, in mere
confidence, that there is no devil, and that upon such vain ima-
ginations as these.
Object. 2. The Scripture saith, that God made all things of
nothing ; when of nothing, nothing can be made. How can
these things be ?
Answ. Cannot God do it, unless such worms can tell how he
should do it ? Doth the infant know how he is formed in the
womb ? But why should it seem improbable that the first infinite
being should create a finite being ? He that gave all creatures
their forms, can as well cause the first matter. What, if it were
granted, that earth, or water, or air, were from eternity ? Is it not
as hard to make the sun and heavens of one of these, as to make
one of these of nothing ?
But, methinks, these infidels should consider, that either God
made all things of nothing, or else that something of which
he made them must be eternal, and without any cause. If so,
then it is God ; and if God, then either the one true God himself,
or some other god. If God himself, then all creatures should
be his substance, and so be God ; and so they would make every
stone to be God. If any other god, then they will incur the
same inconveniences ; besides, the feigning of many gods,
because they will not confess the omnipotency of one. Is it
not more reasonable to believe, that God made a stone, or
earth of nothing, than to believe that it made itself? But thus
will mortals ensnare and bewilder themselves, while they will
AGAINST DIVINITY, REPRESSED. 435
go about to comprehend and (luestion omnipotencyj and ask
their Maker, how he can so make tliem.
Object. 3. Moses saith, that God made the light, and day, and
darkness, and night, before the sun. When the light is the effect,
and the sun the cause ; and the darkness is but a privation of
the light of the sun. How then can these things be ?
Answ. 1. Whatsoever God can produce mediately by the sun,
or other instruments, that he can produce as easily, immediately
himself without an instrument. Is it not as easy for him to
cause light without a sun, as to make the sun itself, with its
light ?
2. Are not philosophers yet unresolved, whether light be not
a substance ? and then why might it not be first created alone ?
3. However, it might be the effect of the element of fire^
disposed of by God for differencing day and night, without a
sun, till the sun was made. And is it not agreeable to the rest
of his works, that he should first make the elements, and gene-
ral matter, before he form particular creatures thereof ? As he
made the water, before he confined it in its banks, and made it
a sea, so might he make the light or fire, before he contracted
so much of it into a sun ; and if he can distinguish day and night
by the sun afterwards, he might as easily do it by the element of
fire, or light, before. You may see a pretence of further satisfac-
tion to reason in this point, in Thomas White's Appendix,
* Theol. ad Institut. Peripat.,' (cap. iii. iv.,) which I intend not to
recite.
Object. 4. Moses saith, (Gen. i. 16,) " That God made two
great lights, the sun and moon ;" whereas, it is certain that many
other planets are greater than the moon, therefore he speaketh
ignorantly.
Answ. But though they are greater than the moon, they are
not greater lights to the earth than the moon, which is the
thing that Moses affirmeth.
Object. 5. Moses makes the Garden of Eden to have a river
arising in it, which divideth itself into four parts, but there is
no such place now known in the world, where four such rivers
as he describeth are so near.
Answ. Moses saith not that this river had its rise in Eden,
much less in the garden ; nor that the four divisions or branches
of it were in the garden, but in Eden. It was not all Eden that
was this garden, nor the garden called Eden : but Eden was
the name of the country (at that time when Moses wrote)
436 THE ARROGANCY OF REASON
'n which the garden was. And this land of Eden was in
Telassar, tliat is, in the upper part of Chaldea, where Bahylon
is situate ; and there the river Euphrates divideth itself into
those four streams which Moses here describeth, which river
goeth tlirough and out of Eden, though the spring or head be
elsewhere : the four particular branches you may see described
by Junius on the text at large ; and the most probable conjec-
ture of the situation of the garden is, that it was in or very
near the place where Babylon now stands, and from whence
came the Jews' suffering, as well as our first sin.
Object. 6. Is it a likely thing that a serpent should speak to
Eve ? or the subtilty of the serpent be a reason of the tempta-
tion ? or that Eve, who was then perfect, should not know that
serpents cannot speak of themselves ; and if she knew that it
was the devil that spake by the serpent, it would have affrighted
and astonished her, rather than have been such a temptation to
her?
Answ. 1. Though Eve was perfect as to her natural powers
and capacity, yet not as to her actual knowledge. She that was
newly then created, might be ignorant of the serpent's nature.
2. But suppose that she knew that it was the devil that spake
by the serpent, (which seems to me most likely,) yet doth it not
follow that she should then dread or abhor him, for how know
you that Eve was acquainted with the diabolical prayity or
malice ? How know you when the angels fell to be devils ?
whether long before, or whether they were but newly fallen?
(as Zanchy conceiveth by their unbelief). But most certain it
is, that they were then no such hateful or dreadful creatures in
the apprehension of man, as now they are : for it was upon man's
fall, that God put that enmity between them and us, from which
our hatred and dread of them doth proceed. When the devil
had showed his malice to us so far, then did God put that fixed
enmity in our natures, which we all since perceive. This was
not in Eve, and therefore it is no wonder if she had no more
dread of this evil spirit than we have of one another, especially
when it is most likely that she well knew that there were good
angels, but knew not of their fall, and of their malice unto
herself, and for the subtilty of the instrumental serpent, it was
the more likely to be the instrument of the subtle deceiver : and it
is most likely that God would not suffer Satan to use any other
instrument, that so the quality of the instrument might be fitter
to excite a due cautelousness in the woman, Satan himself being
AGAINST DIVINITV, KEFRESSED. 437
a spirit, is invisible to us, and therefore, when he will appear,
it must be in some l)orrowed shape, and he usually fitteth that
shape to the ends of his apparition. If it be to terrify, it is
commonly in a dreadful shape, and for the most part, God will
not suffer him to appear in any other, that man may the better
know that it is the enemy that he hath to deal with. And so
before our fall, when he would deceive, he speaketh by a subtle
creature, and is permitted to do it by no other, that man might
have the more reason to suspect that he came in way of deceit.
We are incompetent judges of the full of these things, unless
we better knew the acquaintance that man then had with the
angelical nature, and what familiarity was between them, or
what alteration is since made in the nature of the instrumental
serpent by the curse. Why, then, should we unbelievingly ask,
how these things can be which God revealeth, when we may
easily know that we are such incompetent judges ?
Many more of these objections might be mentioned, and easily
confuted, that are raised by infidels about the creation and fall ;
but because Junius hath confuted twenty-two of them already,
after his ' Prelections on Gen.' (iii. p. 99,) against an antinomian
that then urged them from Simplicius, the heathen philosopher,
I shall refer them thither that need it, for satisfaction.
Object. 7. How could Cain fly into the land of Nod, or build
a city, (Gen. iv. 16, 17?) when there was no more men on
earth ?
Answ. 1. At least, it is called the land of Nod, not because
it was so called in Cain's time, but in the time when Moses
wrote. 2. It is supposed to be between the hundredth and two
hundredth year of his age, that Cain built this city, and by
some, the three or four hundredth, for it is not said that he did
it presently after his curse, though these things are laid close
together in the concise narration. And why might not Cain's
posterity be easily multiplied, in all that time to such a number
as might build and replenish a city, yea, many cities.
Object. 8. Is it a likely thing that the Red Sea should be
divided for the Israelites to pass through ? or that the sun
should stand still in Joshua's time, and not all the creation be
overturned by it ? or that Jonas should live without air in the
belly of a whale ; or not be digested in his belly as other food
is ? How can these things be ?
Answ. And what must God do none but likely things ? Is
it not as erisy with him to do ail this, as for you to move a
43S THE ARROGANCY OF REASON
finger, and much more ? Is it not as easy to make the water
stand still as move ; or to gather it on heaps in the sea, as to
gather it into the sea from the rest of the earth, and to keep its
course in ebbing and flowing ? And is it not as easy to cause
the sun to stand still as to move ? And so to move as it is
supposed to do ? If the sun had used to stand still, would you
not have taken it for as incredible a matter that it should move ?
And have said as unbelievingly, " How can this be ?" And for
the disordering of nature, it was sun, and moon, with all the
moveable frame that stood still together, and not the sun alone :
and so made no such alteration as is imagined, it must have
done.
And for Jonas, that God that made him and all the world, and
sustaineth it by his power, could easily do this. Perhaps these
infidels will next say, that an infant camiot live in the mother's
womb, for want of air or breath.
2. Are they not as great works which we every day see, in
the being and course of sun, moon, and other creatures, as any
of these ?
3. Is it likely that Moses- would have written of such a thing
as the standing and opening of the Red Sea, and the Israelites
passing through it, to those same Israelites, and that he would so
often have used that as an argument to move them to obedience,
and deliver them his law to be kept upon such an obligation or
motive, if no such thing at all had been done ? Would so many
thousand people have believed such a man that told them they
were led through the Red Sea as on dry land ? And would they
have followed him forty years through a wilderness, and so zea-
lously have maintained his law, which was backed with such
motives, if they had all known these things to be false ? Or was
it possible they should be false, and they not know them ?
But I will stand no more in confuting these cavils against
the Old Testament, but speak to two, or three, which they bring
against the Gospel of Christ.
Object. 9. Is it a likely thing that a virgin should conceive
and have a child ? How can this be ?
Answ. Is it not as easy for God to cause conception by the
Holy Ghost immediately, as mediately by man ? Doth God en-
able a creature to do that which he cannot do himself, without
that creature ? What madness were it to dream that this
exceeds the power of God ?
Object. 10, is it a likely thing that God should become a
AGAINST DIVINITY, REPRESSED. 439
man, or that God and man should be one person, which is more
condescension than for a prince to become a fly, to save flies
from being killed ?
Answ. It is one thing to ask whether this be possible, and
another, whether it were done. It is, indeed, the greatest
wonder of all the works of God ; but there is no contradiction
in it to prove it impossible. The Godhead was no whit really
abased or changed by this union, but, at the utmost, relatively
and reputatively only. God did not become man, by ceasing to
be God, or commixing the human nature with the divine ; but
only assumed a human nature to the divine. It is not, there-
fore, as if a prince should become an inferior creature, but only
as if he should assume such a creature into so near a relation to
him.
2. And that God hath indeed done this, his evident testi-
monies have proved to the world ; is it likely or possible that
one should assert such a thing, and seal it in the face of the
world, with miracles, and rise himself from the dead, and send
forth a spirit of miracles and of holiness on his church, to con-
firm his affirmation, if all this were not true which he affirmeth ?
3. Is this the thanks that God shall have for his wonderful
condescension, that though he prove it to be true yet we will
not believe the mercy that he shows us, unless it seem likely to
us in the way of its accomplishment ?
Object. 11. Is it not a contradiction to say, that there are
three persons, and but one God ?
Answ. No ; because to be a person or substance in the God-
head, and to be a God is not all one. It is no contradiction
that the vegetative, sensitive, and rational in man should be
three, and distinct one from another, and yet not be three souls,
but one. And that power, understanding, and will, should be
three, and distinct ; and yet not three souls, but one ; and that
power, light, and heat, should be distinct in the sun ; and yet
not be three suns but one. Why, then, should the divine Trinity
of subsistences seem a contradiction.
Object. 12. There are many contradictions in the Scripture :
and, therefore, it is incredible. For example, "Before the cock
crow twice." (Mark xiv. 30.) Matthew and Luke say, " Before
the cock crow." And many the like.
Answ. 1. It is mere ignorance of the sense of Scripture,
that causeth this conceit of contradiction. Expositors them-
selves are imperfect in the understanding of them ; yet if you
440 THE ARROGANCY OF REASON, &C.
will well read them, you will see how easily and clearly they
reconcile many things that seem irreconcilable to the ignorant.
Read among others, Scharpius's 'Symphonia,' to that end.
2. As to the text instanced, the second cock's crowing was
then specially and eminently called " the cock's crowing ;" and,
therefore, Matthew and Luke do name no more but " the crow-
ing of the cock," meaning that second cock, which was specially
so called; (of which see Grotius on the text;) whereas, Mark
doth more precisely express the same in fuller words : what a
vain mind is it that will pick quarrels with such expressions !
I give but a brief touch of these few common exceptions, leav-
ing them to seek the resolution of such doubts, from commen-
tators that have performed it, or from their judicious teachers
who are at hand, and ready to doubt it.
The Lord acquaint imbelieving sinners with the greatness of
their ignorance, and the shallowness of their capacities, that
they may know how unfit they are to expostulate with their
Maker, and what need they have to wait upon him as humble
learners ! For the meek he will teach his way ; (Psalm xxv. 9;)
and unto babes doth he reveal the mysteries of his will. For
though the Lord be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly ;
but the proud he knoweth afar off. (Psalm cxxxvili. 6.) And
the mysteries of the Gospel, which now seem incredible, he will
one day open to the comfort of his saints, and the confusion of
unbelievers ; even at the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,
which in his times he shall show, who is the blessed and only
potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords ; who only
hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can ap-
proach unto, whom no man hath seen or can see ; to whom be
honour and power everlasting. Amen.
THE
REASONS
•OF THE
CHRISTIAN RELIGION^
THE FIRST PART
OF
GODLINESS
Proving hy natural evidence the being of God, the necessity of
holiness, and a future life of retribution ; the sinfulness of
the world ; the desert of hell; and what hope of recovery
mercies intimate.
THE SECOND PART
OP
CHRISTIANITY;
Proving hy evidence, supernatural and natural, the certain truth
of the christian belief, and answering the objections of unhe-
lievers.
VOL. XX. I I
TO THE
CHRISTIAN READER.
Because there are some who, judging of others by themselves,
will say, 'What need this lal)our among Christians, to prove a
God, a life to come, and the truth of the Gospel ? or, at least,
what need is there of it, after so much already written?' I
take myself obliged to give you an account of this attempt;
for my own reason is much against overdoing, and wasting our
little time in things superfluous, which is but enough for neces-
sary things ^ but it hath recorded this among the indubitata ;
boni raro nimis ; optimi nunquam ; ind'ifferentis scepissim^ ;
mall seiuper.
The true reasons of this work are no fewer than these follow-
ing, 1. Quod cogitamus, loquimur : that which is most and
deepest in my thoughts, is aptest to break forth to others.
Man is a communicative creature. Though it be to my shame,
I must confess, that as necessity, through perplexed thoughts,
hath made this subject much of my meditations, it is the
subject which I have found most necessary and most useful to
myself; and I have reason enough to think that many others
may be as weak as I, and I would fain have those partake of my
satisfaction who have partaken of my difficulties.
2. I perceive, that because it is taken for a shame to doubt
of our Christianity, and the life to come, this hindereth many
from uttering their doubts, who never get them well resolved, but
remain half infidels within, whilst the ensigns of Christ are
hung without, and need much help, though they are ashamed
to tell their needs ; and prudent charity will relieve those who
are ashamed to beg.
3. As the true knowledge of God is the beginning and main-
tainer of all holiness and honesty of heart and life ; so latent
atheism and infidelity, in the minds of hypocrites in the church,
is the root of their profaneness, dishonesty, and wickedness.
Did they seriously believe as Christians, they would not live as
the enemies of Christianity. I take it, therefore, to be the
surest and most expeditious cure of the securitv, presumption,
1 i2
444 TO THE CHRISTIAN READER.
pride, perfidiousness, sensuality, and wickedness of these hypo-
crites, to convince them tliat there is a God, and a Ufe to come,
and that the Gospel is true.
4. And this profaneness and sensuality tendeth to greater in-
fidelity. They that will not live as they profess to believe, may
most easily be drawn to believe and profess as they are willing
to live : and therefore this prognostic commandeth me to en-
deavour to prevent men's open profession of infidelity, lest the
present torrent of ungodliness, selfishness, malice, uncharitable-
ness, perjury, treachery, faction, whoredom, and other sensuali-
ties, should fall into this gulf, or one that is not much unlike it.
5. The best complain of the imperfection of their faith : and
too many good Christians, especially if melancholy surprise
them, are haunted with such temptations to atheism, blas-
phemy, and unbelief, as make their lives a burden to them :
and one that hath heard so many of their complaints as I have
done, is excusable for desiring to relieve them. It hath many
a time been matter of wonder to me to observe that there is
scarce one deep, melancholy person among ten, religious or not
religious before, but is followed with violent suggestions to
doubt of the Godhead, and of the truth of the Gospel, or to
utter some word of blasphemy against God : and he that must
pray, ' Lord increase my faith, and help my unbelief,' must
use other means as well as pray.
6. The imperfection of our faith, even about the Gospel and
the life to come, is the secret root of all our faults, of the weak-
ness of every other grace, of our yielding to temptations, and of
the carelessness, badness, and barrenness of our lives. 8o tran-
scendent are the concernments of the life to come, that a cer-
tain, clear, and firm belief of them would even deride tempta-
tions, and bear down all the trifles of this world, by what names
or titles soever dignified, as things not worthy of a look or
thought. What manner of person will that man be, in all holy
conversation and godliness, who, believing that all these things
must be dissolved, doth look for the coming of Christ, and for
trie blessed consequents. (2 Pet. iii. 1 1^ 12, 14 ; 2 Thess. i. 10.)
O what a life would that man live ! \^^lat prayers, what
praises, what holy discourse would employ his tongue ! With
what abhorrence would he reject the baits of sin, who did but
see, but once see, those unseen and future things, which every
Christian professeth to believe ! How contemptii)ly would he
think and speak, both of the pleasures and the sufferings of this
TO THE CHRISTIAN READER. 445
dreaming life, in comparison of the everlasting things ! What
serious desires, and labours, and joys, and patience, would such
a sight procure? How much more holy and heavenly would it
make even those that, by the purblind world, are thought to ex-
ceed herein already ? And if we took our belief to be as cer-
tain as our sight, believing would do greater matters than it
doth. I oft think what one told me that an infidel answered
him, when he asked him how he could quiet his conscience in
such a desperate state : saith he, ' I rather wonder how you can
quiet your conscience in such a common, careless course of life,
believing as you do. If I believed such things as you do, I
should think no care, and diligence, and holiness could be
enouffh.
7. The soul in flesh is so much desirous of a sensitive way of
apprehension : and sensible things being still before us, do so
increase this malady, and divert the mind from spiritual things,
that we have all great need of the clearest evidence, and the
most suitable, and frequent, and taking explication of them
that can possibly be given us ; not only to make us believe
things unseen, but to make us serious, and practical, and affec-
tionate about the things which, in a sort, we do believe; to keep
drowsv hearts awake.
8. The way of taking religion upon trust, without rising up
to make it our own, hath filled the church so full of hypocrites,
who have no better than a human faith, that thereby the com-
plexion of it is much changed from its primitive beauty ; and
thousands do perish by self-deceit : and though some of
their gifts be serviceable to the Gospel, others of them do more
effectually serve the devil, against the cause and servants of
Christ, than they could have done if they were professed in*
fidels.
9. It makes me blush, and stirs ray indignation, to read and
hear abundance of hot and vehement disputes, and tedious or
critical discourses, about many small, less needful things, by
those men that never studied the foundation, nor can with
sense and reason defend their Christianity against an infidel.
Such preposterous methods are perverse and nauseous.
10. I am much afraid lest many of those ignorant, zealous
Christians, who now turn to that sectary whom they cannot
answer, would turn to the infidels at last, when they find them-
selves unable to confute them, through their own insufficiency
and ungroundedness in the truth.
4H) .To THE CHIIISTIAN READhR.
1 1. But if they do not apostatise, what a shame will it be to
tlie cluirch of God, to have our religion thus betrayed by such as
are not able to defend it ? And how many others may it tempt
to infidelity, to hear an ignorant Christian baffled ?
1 2. J am too sure that too many teachers that should be cham-
pions for the truth are lamentably unfinnished for such a con-
flict, by neglecting the study of the foundation, and bestowing
all their thoughts on the superstructure.
13. I know that it is God's method to cause the growth of
faith at the root, in proportion to its growth in tallness and
in fruit. It is his merciful providence to keep th.ose, whose faith
hath weaker roots, from the strong temptations which others
undergo. As the plant that is little doth bear but little of the
stroke of the winds, which else would quickly overturn it : but
the root growing downwards as the top groweth upwards, the
radication and the assaults are still pro])ortioned : so faith must
grow equally in its roots and branches while we live. Had I
felt as strong assaults against my faith while I was young, as I
have done since, I am not sure it would have escaned an over-
throw.
14. I have, in the anatomising of the controversies which
most hazard the church of Christ, found so much latent atheism
and infidelity, that I think, among many that do not observe it,
the true root of all the difference is, whether there be a God,
and a life to come, and whether the Scriptures be true ? And
I think that a sound agreement in these would do more to the
ending of such controversies, and to the healing of our wounds,
than any disputing of the controverted points.
15. We have had hot and scandalous disputes among Christ-
ians, de resoluticne fidei, each party invalidating the other's
foundations, as if it had been our work to persuade the infidel
world that they are in the righ.t ; and I thought it the only way
to end that controversy, to open all the causes of our faith. The
Roman party may here perceive our grounds, and better know
into Avhat we resolve our faith, than if we named only one sort
of cause, and said, ' i resolve it into this;' as if all the frame
had but one wheel. Faith hath variety of causes and objects,
into which, respectively, it may be said to be resolved (by those
that will not use an insignificant word, to make people believe
there is a difference when there is none, and to keep men from
understanding the matter itself.) Augustin saith of his friend
Nebudius, (Ep. xxiii, ' Bouif.,') That he exceedingly hated a
TO THE CHRISTIAN READER. 447
short answer to a great question, and took it ill where he might
be free of any that did expect it from him. Answer me in a
word, is the command of an ignorant or a slothful person, or
of a deceiver, when a word is not capable of the necessary
answer.
16. There is no more desirable work in the world than the
converting of idolaters and infidels to God, and to the christian
faith ; and it is a work which requireth the greatest judgment
and zeal in them that must perform it. It is a doleful thought,
that five parts of the world are still heathens and Mahometans,
and that christian princes and preachers dq no more to their
recovery, but are taken up with sad contentions among them-
selves; and that the few that have attempted it have hitherto had
so small success. The opening of the true method for such a
work is the highest part of my design, in which, though many
others have excellently laboured, (especially Savonarola, Campa-
nella, Ficinus, Vives, Micraelius, Duplessis, Grotius, and our
Stillingfleet,) my zeal for the saving of men's souls hath provoked
me to try whether I might add any thing to their more worthy
labours, in point of method and perspicuity of proof.
17. Lastly, 1 have long ago written much on this subject,
which is dispersed and buried in the midst of other subjects,
except my book of the 'Unreasonableness of Infidelity;' and I
thought it more edifying to set it in order together by itself. If
these reasons justify not my undertaking, 1 have no better; the
Lord have mercy on this dark, distracted, sensual world ! Christ-
ians, watch, pray, love, live, hope, rejoice, and patiently suffer,
according to this holy faith which you profess, and you shall be
blessed in despite of earth and hell.
Your brother in this life of faith,
RICHARD BAXTER.
October 31, 1C66.
Virtus fidei in 2wricidis secura est ; seciiritate pericjitaiiir,
Chrysost. in Matt, xx.
TO THE
DOUBTING AND THE UNBELIEVING
READERS.
The natural love to knowledge and to myself, which belong
to me as I am a man, have commanded me to look beyond this
life, and diligently to inquire, whether tliere be any certainty of
a better; and which is the way to it, and to whom it doth of
right belong ; and what I have certainly discovered in this
search, the love of mankind, and of truth, and of God, oblige
me to communicate ; but it was not a cursory glance at truth,
nor a look towards it afar off, in my state of ignorance and
diversion, which brought the satisfying light into my mind, nor
can you reasonably expect it should do so by you. I saw that
in one Savonarola, Campanclla, Ficinus, Vives, Mornay, Grotius,
Camaron, INIicrelius, which I now see might satisfy all the
world, if it were duly received : but it was not a bare reading
of one or all of these and others, which was a due reception :
I found, that truth must be so long retained, and faithfully
elaborated, by a diligent and willing mind, till it be concocted
into a clear, methodical understanding, and the scheme or
analysis of it have left upon the soul its proper image, by an
orderly and deep impression ; yea, till the goodness of the
matter become as nutriment, blood, and spirits to the will,
before it is truly made our own : it expecteth, I say, not
greater courtship, but more cordial friendshij), than a transient
salute, before it will unveil its glory, and illustrate, beautify,
and bless the soul ; it is food and physic ', it will nourish and
heal : but not by a bare look or hearsay, nor by the reading
of the prescript. Could I procure the reader to do his part, I
doubt not but this treatise will suffice, on its part, to bring in
that light, which the saff^e, the lemur es, and clmnones of
atheism, infidelity, and ungodliness, will not be able to endure.
But I am far from expecting universal success : no ; not if
I brought a book from heaven. The far greatest part have un-
prepared minds, and will not come up to the price of truth ;
and nothing is more sure than that recijntur ad modum recipi-
TO THE DOUBTING AND UNBELIEVING READERS. 449
cntis ; etpro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli. These drones
imagine that they are fit to judge of a Scripture difficulty, or of
an argument concerning the mysteries of religion, before they
know what it is to be a man, or understand the alphabet of
nature, even those points which supernatural revelations pre-
suppose : such incapableness in the reader is as great a hinder-
ance, as want oT solid/proof and evidence in the writer. Most
men are drowned in filthy sensuality or worldly cares, and their
relish is vitiated by luscious vanities ; their reason is debased by
subjection to the flesli, and darkened and debilitated by long
alienat,ion from its proper work ; and yet they are so consti-
tuted of ignorance and pride, that they can neither understand
plain truth, nor perceive that it is along of themselves that they
understand it not ; and slothfulness and sensuality have so far
conquered humanity itself, even the natural love of truth and or
themselves, that they will take up with what their playfellows
have taught them, and venture their souls and their everlasting
concernments, unless they can secure them by an idle, game-
some, fleshly life, or grow wise by the short, superficial studies
of an alienated, unwilling, tired mind. Unless the great things
of God and immortality will be savingly known by a few dis-
tracted thoughts of a discomposed mind, or the rambling talk
of their companions, whose heads are as unfurnished and giddy
as their own, or by the cursory perusal of a few books which
cross not their carnal interest and humour in the midst of their
more beloved employments and delights, they will neither be
solid Christians nor wise and honest men. If God will be con-
versed with in the midst of their feasting, cups, and oaths ;
in their pride and revelling, and with their whores ; if he will
be found of them that hate his holiness, and all that love it and
seriously obey him, then God shall be their God, and Christ
shall be their Saviour ; and if this be the way, they may become
good Christians ; but if retired, serious thoughts be necessary,
.und an honest faithfulness to what they know, they must be
excused. They that know that it is not an hour's perusal of a
book of astronomy, geometry, music, physic, &c,, which will
serve to make them skilful in these arts, do expect to attain far
higher wisdom by inconsiderable industry and search ; and will
not be wise, unless they can be taught by vision in their
dreams, or in the crowd and noise of worldly business, and of
fleshly lusts.
I find that it is a difiicult task which 1 have undertaken, to be
the instructer of such men : if I be large and copious, their
450 TO THE DOUBTING AND UNBELIEVING READERS.
laziness will not suffer them to read it : if I be concise, I cannot
satisfy their expectations ; for they think nothing well proved,
if every objection be not answered, which idle, cavilling brains
can bring : neither have they sufficient attention for brevity,
nor will their ignorance allow them to understand it : the con-
tradictory vices of their minds do call for impossibilities for the
cure: their incapacity saith, It must be a full explication, or
I cannot apprehend the sense or truth : their aversion and
slothfulness say, it must be short, or I vA\a\\ be tired with it, or
cannot have time to read it. I caimot answer both these ex-
pectations to the full ; but though the greatness of the matter
have made the book bigger than I intended, the nauseating
stomach of most readers hath persuaded me to avoid unneces-
sary words. And as large as the book is, I must tell the reader,
that the style is so far from redundancies, though somethings be
often repeated, that if he will not chew the particular words, but
swallow them whole, and bestow his labour only on the sen-
tences, I shall suppose that he hath not read the book.
Ficinus very truly noteth, that while children and youth are
sufficiently conscious of their ignorance, to keep in a learning
course, they may do well ; but when they first grow to a confi-
dence of their own understandings, and at ripeness of age
imagine that their wits are ripe, and think that their unfur-
nished minds, because they have a natural quickness, are com-
petent judges of all that they read ; then they are most in
danger of infidelity, and of being undone for ever ; (from eighteen
to twenty-eight being the most perilous age ;) but if God keep
them as humble, diligent learners, till they have orderly gone
through their course of studies, and sanctify their greener youth-
ful knowledge ; they then grow up to be confirmed Christians.
(Ficin. ' De Verit. Rel.,' cap. iii.) It is, therefore, the diligence
and patience of the reader which I still entreat, and not his
belief: for I will beg nothing of his understanding but justice
to the truth j but supposing God's help, do trust to the cogency
of evidence.
Yet I must tell you, that I expect the reader, by the truths
which he learneth, should be able himself to answer a hundred
trivial objections, which are here passed by; and that, in parti-
cular textual difficulties, he have recourse to commentaries and
tractates on those subjects; for this book is long enough already.
He that will diligently consider the connexion of the consequent
propositions to the antecedent, and will understand what he
readeth as he goeth along, will see that I give him sufficient
TO THE DOUBTING AND UNBELIEVING READEllS. 451
proof of all which I desire him to assent to ; but I make no
doubt but a hasty and half-witted reader can find objections and
words enough against the plainest truth here written, and such
as he thinks do need a particular answer, when an understanding
reader would be offended with me if I should recite them. I
had more compassion on the sober reader, than for the humour-
ing of every brain-sick sceptic to stand proving that two and two
are four. 1 write for such as are willing to be wise and happy,
and that at dearer rates than jesting ; for others, I must leave
them, whether I will or not, to be wise too late.
And for those capricious brains who deride our ordinary
preaching as begging, and supposing that which we do not prove,
when they have here, and in other such writings, found our
fundamentals proved, let them hereafter excuse our superstruc-
ture, and not think that every sermon must be spent in proving
our Christianity and creed.
In the first part of this book I give you no testimonies from
the christian writings or authorities, because 1 suppose the reader
to be one that doth not believe them, and my business is only to
prove natural verities by their proper evidence ; but lest any
should think that there is not so much legible in nature, because
the wisest heathens saw it not, I have cited in the margin their
attestations to most particulars, to show that indeed they did
confess the same, though less distinctly and clearly than they
might have done, as I have plainly proved. But, being many
years separated from my books, I was forced to do this part less
exactly than I would have done had I been near my own or
any other library. Again, I seriously profess, that I am so con-
fident of the just proofs and evidences of truth here given, that
I fear nothing as to frustrate the success, but the reader's in-
capacity, through half-wittedness or wickedness, or his laziness
in a cursory and negligent perusal of what is concisely, but evi-
dently, proposed. It is true that Seneca saith, ' Magna debet
esse eloqueniia, qucB invitis jjJacei ;' I may add, Et veritatis
evidentia quce cacis, malignis vel ignavis prodest ; and who
feeleth not the truth of Hierom's words, {ad Paul.,) ' Nunquam
benefit, quod fit p7'(jCOCCiqmto anhno.' Be true and faithful to
yourselves, and to the truth, and you shall see its glory, and feel
its power, and be directed by it to everlasting blessedness. This
is his end, who is
An earnest desirer of mankind's felicity,
RICHARD BAXTER.
October 31, 1666.
TO THE
HYPOCRITE READERS,
-WHO HAVE THE NAME OF CHRISTIANS, AND THE HEARTS
AND LIVES OF ATHEISTS AND UNBELIEVERS.
It is the great mercy of God to you that you were born of
christian parentS;, aiid in a land where Christianity is the pro-
fessed rehgion, and under governors and laws which counte-
nance it: but this, which should have helped you to the intelli-
gent and serious entertainment of religion, hath been abused
by you to detain you from it. You have contented yourselves
to have religion in your princes' and your parents' precepts in
libraries and laws, and to say over some of these by rote, whilst
you banished it from your hearts and lives, if not also from
your sober thoughts and understandings and having indeed
no religion of your own, because the labour of understanding
and obeying it seemed too dear a price to purchase it, you have
thought it most serviceable to your quietness and your reputation,
to seem to be of the religion of your parents or your'king, be
it what it will. This is, indeed, the common course of the rude
and irreligious rabble, in all nations of the world. O that I
might be your effectual monitor, to awaken you to consider what
you have been doing; and yet, if you are men, to suffer your rea-
son to look behind you, within you, and before you, and seriously
think what it is to be in heaven or hell for ever, and prudently
to manage your own concernments ! Can you think that that
man hath any religion, who hath no God ? Or hath he, indeed,
a God, who preferreth his lust, or wealth, or honour, or any
thing in the world before him, or that is not devoted to his obe-
dience and his love ? Is he a God that is not better than the
pleasures of the flesh and world ? Or that is not greater than
a mortal man ; or is not sufficient for you ? Did you know
wiiat you did when you owned your baptismal vow and cove-
nant, which is, when you usurp the name of Christians, and join
in visible communion in the church ? Do you know what it is
to believe that there is a God, and a life to come, and to renounce
the flesh, the world, and the devil, and give up yourselves to a
TO THE HYPOCRITE READERS. 453
Saviour and a Sanctifier ; or can you think, wliile you are
awake and sober, that perfidiousness will save you, and be taken
by God instead of Christianity ? Will God accept you for a
perjured profession, to be tliat and do that which never came
into your hearts ? Is hypocrisy a virtue, and will lying bring a
man to heaven ? Christianity is such a believing in Christ, to
bring us unto God and everlasting glory, as maketh the love of
God the very nature of the soul, and thankful obedience its
employment ; and a heavenly mind and life to be its constitu-
tion and its trade, and the mercies of this life to be but our tra-
velling helps and provisions for a better, and the interest of
fleshly lust to be esteemed but as dross and dung. Is this the
life which you live, or which you hate ? 1 beseech you, sirs, as
you regard the reputation of your reason, tell us why you will
profess a religion which you abhor : or, why will you abhor a reli-
gion which you profess ? Why will you glory in the part of a parrot,
or an ape, to say over a few vvords, or move your bodies, while you
detest the human part, to know, and love, and live to God ?
Do you live only to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath,
and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will
render to every one according to his deeds ? (Rom. ii. 5, 6,)
Do you profess yourselves Christians only for self-condemnation j
to be witnesses against yourselves in judgment, that you wil-
fully lived unchristian lives ? What is there in the world that
you are so averse to, as to be seriously that which you profess
yourselves to be ? Who hate you more than those that are,
in heart and life, which you call yourselves in customary words ;
or that are serious in the religion which you say yourselves you
hope to be saved by ? Read Matt, xxiii. 29 — 31. Why do you
honour the dead saints, and abhor the living; and would make
more martyrs, while you keep festivals of commemoration of those
that others made ? " Qiice est ilia justicia sancios colerc\ et
sanctitatem contemner e ? Primus (jradus inetat'xs est sanctitatem
diligere." Chrysost. ' In Matt, xxiv.' Christ hath not more bitter
enemies in the world than some of you who wear his livery.
Turks and heathens are more gentle to true Christians, and
have shed less of their blood than hypocrite Christians have
done. The zeal of the pharisees consumed many, whom the
clemency of the Romans would else have spared. Be it
known to all the infidel world, who detest Christianity be-
cause of your wickedness, that you are none of us. Christ re-
nouncetii you, (Matt. vii. 22, 23,) and we renounce you. They
454 TO THE HYJ'OCRITE READERS.
may as well hate philosophy, because some vagrant sots have
called themselves philosophers, or have sailed with Aristotle or
Plato in the same ship. They may as well hate physic, because
many ignorant women and mouiHebanks have professed it.
They may as well reproach us for loyalty to our king, because
there are secret traitors that call themselves his subjects. What
are you to Christians, that we should be reproached for your vil-
lanies ? O, you Turks and heathens, rather reproach us because
there are wicked persons of yourselves ; for you are not so cruel
enemies to Christians, as many of these hyj^ocries are. " Nullus
enim Christianus mains est, nisi hancprofessionamsimulaverity
(Athenagor. ' Leg. Pro Christ.' p. 3.) " Nemo illic, in Carcera,
ChristianKS, nisi 2jla7ie tantum Christianus : aut si aliud, jam
nonChristianiis." (TertuU.' Apol.'c.xliii.) " Seddicet aliquis etiam
de nostris excedere quosdam a reyuld discij)Unce. Desunt turn
Christiani haheri apudnos ;" (Id. ib. c. xlvi. ' Leg. Twiss. Vind.
Grat.' 1. iii. c. 8. sect. 6. p. 75 :) and my ' Fifth Dispensation
of Sacraments." If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, the
^ame is none of his. (Rom. viii. 9 ; Luke xiv. 26, 33.) They
are spies in his army : they are Absoloms, Hams, and Judases
in his family. Try them by the character that Christ hath
given of his true disciples ; and if they be such, then tell us of
their lives, and spare not. They are not of us, while they
are among us. (1 John ii. 19.) They are more of your party than
of ours, if the mind, heart, and life, be more of the man than
the tongue and knee. What, if a Celsus, or Porphyry, or Epi-
curus, had called himself a Christian, must Christ be answer-
able for him ? Is it not enough that they abuse him by their
hypocrisy, and living contrary to his laws, but he must be ac-
cused for their crimes which he so strictly forbiddeth, and for
which he will cast them into hell for ever ? Would you have
him do more than this is to disclaim them ? Were they, indeed,
christian princes, barons, priests, and people, of whom Abbas
Urspergensis speaketh, (' Chron.' p. 32,) " Ut omnis homo Jam
sit perjwus et pr(Edictis facinorihus implicatus ; ut vix ewcusar
jjossit, quin sit hi his ; s'lcut populus, sic et sacerdos." Et (p. 32 1 ,)
" Principes terrarum et baroness arte diabolicd edocti, nee ciira-
bant jur anient a infringer e^ necfidem violare, et jus omne con-
fundere ?" Were they christian knights that Erasmus speaketh
of? (' CoUoqui.' p. 415:) " iVi sis bonus aleator, chartarius,
scortatur imp/robus, potator strenus,profusor audaw, decoctor et
conjlator ceris alieni, deinde scabie ornatus GalHca, vix quisquani
TO THE HYPOCRITE READERS. 455.
te credet eqiiitem'' It was Cotta's proof that there are atlieis.ts,
in Cicer. (' De Natur. Deor.' li. 1.) What shall we say of the
sacrilegious, perjured, and ungodly ? If Carbo, &c., had thought
that tliere are gods, he had not been so perjured and ungodly.
What more necessary to ungodly men, whatever they call them-
selves, than to convince them that there is a God, and a life to
come ? Christ will not care for their image of religion, or de-
ceitful promises and professions. All wise men are of Solon's
mind : ^^Frohitatemjurejurando certiorem habe." (Laert. ' I n Sol .')
Believe it, hypocrites, your fornications, gluttony, drunken-
ness, idleness, covetousness, selfishness, or pride, will find no
cloak in the day of judgment from the christian name : you
might better cheap have been sensual and wicked at a further
distance than in the family or church of God. " Nihil prodest
(Esthnari, quod non sis: et duplicis peccati 7'eus es , non habere
quod credetis, et quod non hahueris simidare." (Hieron. * Ep. ad
fil. Maur.') Or suppose your lives are more civilly and smoothly
carnal ? To do no harm, is too little to prove you Christians,
much more to do evil with some bounds. " Nullum est aliud
latronum beneficium^ nisi ut comniemorare possint, iis se vitam
dedisse quibusnon ademerint." (Cicer.'Phil.ii.') "Non estbonitas
pessimis esse meliorem." (Senec.) My reasonable demand is, that
you will be what you call yourselves, or call yourselves as you
are. I am not inviting you to a new religion, or to a sect,
but to be really and seriously what you are nominally, and what
you have vowed and professed to be : jest not with God, and
heaven, and hell. You may mock yourselves, but God will not
be mocked. At last turn back, and study what that religion is
which you profess : review your baptismal covenant, and be true
to that, and I have done ; and cast out of your way the common
block of hating those whom you should imitate. " Ita compara-
tum est, ut virtutem non suspiciamus, neq; ejus imitandce studio
corripimm\ nisi eum in quo ea conspicitu?', summo honor e et
amore prosequamur y (Plutar. ' In Cat. Utic.') It was one of the
Roman laws of the twelve tables, " Impius ne audeto placare
donis iram deorum." Repent and pray, was Peter's counsel to
one of your predecessors. (Acts viii. 22.) Judas hath a kiss for
Christ; but it is hearty love, and a sober, righteous, godly life
which must be your evidence. I have faithfully warned you ;
the Lord have mercy on you, and convert you !
R.B.
October 31, 1666.
456 TO THE HYPOCRITE READERS.
" Ctijus mires clausoi veritati sunt, id ah amico verum audire
nequeat, hvjus sains desperanda est." (Cic. ' Rhet. i.')
" He that tuineth away his ear from hearing the law, even
his prayer shall be abomination." (Prov. xxviii. 9.)
" Antisthenes civitates tunc i7iterire aiebat, cum bonos discer-
nere nequeunt (i malis." (Laert. ' In Antisth.')
*' He that committeth sin is of the devil, for the devil sin-
neth from the beginning : for this purpose the Son of God was
manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil."
(1 John ii. 8.)
OF NATURAL RELIGION,
OR
GODLINESS.
CHAP. I.
Of the nearest Truths, viz., of Human Nature,
Resolving on a faithful search into the nature and certainty
of religion, as being the business which my own and all men's
happiness is most concerned in, being conscious of my weakness,
and knowing that truths have their certain order, in which they
give much light to one another, I found it meet to begin at the
most evident, from whence I ascended in the order following.'*
Sect. 1. I am past a.l doubt that I have sense, cogitation,
understanding, and will, with executive operation.''
» Non tarn authoritatis in disputando, quam rationis momenta quaerenda
sunt. Cicer. de Nat. Dear. I, p. 6.
Animo ipso animus videtur,,et nimirum, banc habet vim prsceptum Apol-
linis, quo monet ut se quisque noscat : non enim credo id praecipit at membra
nostra, aut staturam figurcimve noscamus : neque nos corpora sumus : neque
ego tibi dicens boc corpori tuo dico. Cum igitur nosce te, dicit, boc dicit,
nosce animum tuum. Nam corpus quidem quasi vas est, aut aliquod animi
receptaculum : ab animo tuo quicquid agitur id agitur k te. Hunc igitur
nosce nisi divinum esset, non esset boc a^rioris cujusdam animi praeceptum,
sic ut tributum Deo sit, boc est, seipsum posse cognoscere, sed sit qualis sit
animus, ipse animus nesciat, die quaeso, ne esse quidem se sciet ? Cicero
Tuscul. (Quest. I. \,pp. {mild) 22fi, 227.
Patet aeternum id esse quod seipsum movet ; et quis est qui banc naturam
animis tributamneget. Inanimum est enim omnequod pulsuagitaturexterno.
Sentit igitur animus se moveri : quod cum sentit, illud una sentit, se vi su&,
non aliena moveri ; nee accidere posse ut ipse unquam a se deseratur aeterni^
tas. Id, ibid.
^ Obj, Age ostende mibi Deum tuum.
Resp. Age ostende mibi bominem tuum : fac te bominem esse cognoscam,
et quis mens sit Deus demonstrate non morabor. — Theophil, Aiitioch. ad Au'
tolycum, lib. \,inilio.
Cum despicere coeperimus et sentire, quid simus, et quid ab animantibus
caeteris differamus, tum ea insequi ineipiemus, ad quae nati sumus.— Gcer. 5,
de Fin.
Qui seipsum cognoverit cognoscet in se omnia : Deum, ad cujus imaginem
factus est: mundum, cujus siniulachruui gerit. Creaturas onmes cum qui-
bus symbolum babet. — Paulus Dem. de Scala Thess. p. 722.
VOL. XX. K K
458 THE REASONS OF
Though I could not exactly define what these are, yet I am
satisfied that I have them : and I discern that a simple term
doth better express one of these to me, than a definition doth ;
because they are known so immediately, in and of themselves,
partly by internal sensation, and partly by intuition. And words
are but to make known my mind about them to another, and
another's to me ; but the things themselves are otherwise to be
known. What it is to see, to hear, to smell, to taste, I know
better by seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, than by any defini-
tions of them ; and the bare denomination, when I understand
the term, is my best expression. And if I could not answer a
sceptic, who denied the certainty of my judgment by sensation
and reflexive intuition, yet nature would not suffer me to doubt :
or if any such should really make me doubt whether I may not
possibly live in a continual delusory dream, and all my senses
and understanding be deceived, yet would it satisfy me in the
main, that 1 must judge by such powers as I have, andean do no
better, and therefore should be no further solicitous. If any
would persuade me that I feel not when I am sick or wounded,
or see not when I see, or taste not when or what I taste, yet
must I be persuaded, that fallible or infallible, this sense must be
used, and serve for the ends to which it is given to me ; and
thiit I have no better faculties to use.
Sect. 2. By my actions I know that I am ; and that I am a
sentient, intelligent, thinking, willing, and operative being ; or
a wight that hath these powers. *=
Forab operari ad posse et esse, the consequence is undoubted.
Nothing is no agent ; and none doth that which he cannot do.
Sect. 3. This mind, or aforesaid power, is found in, or con*
junct with, an organised body.
He that doubteth not of his sense and intellection, need not
doubt of his body, which is the object of both.
Sect. 4. This body is a quantitative or extensive, nutrite,
changeable, corruptible matter.
Of which my senses and experience will not suffer me to doubt.
Sect. 5. This mind is fitted to the use of knowing, and is
desirous of it, delighted in it, and the more itknoweth, the mor6
it is able and disposed to know.'^
<• Ut Deum iioris, et si ignores et locum et faciem ; sic animum tibi tnum
iiotiim esse oportet, etiam si ig;nores et locum et formam. — Cicer. 1, Tuscul.
*' Non ii suiiuis quibus nihil venim esse videatur, scd ii qui (minibus veris
falsa qufcdam adjuucta esse dicainus tauta simllitudiue, ut, &c. — Cicer. de
Nat, JDcor. \,p.7.
THE CHRISTIAN RlELlGION. - 459
All this our actions and experience testify. Knowing is to
the mind, as seeing is to the eye. One act of knowledge
promoteth and facilitateth another.
Sect. 6. Being and verity are its direct objects.
As light and colours are tlie objects of our sight. To these
it hath power and inclination.
Sect. 7. When I know the effects, I have an inclination to
know the cause ; not only the lower, but the very first.^
Though it be possible that some sensual, sluggish person, may
be so taken up with present earthly things, as to drown these
desires, and scarce to think of any first cause, or take any plea-
sure in the exercise of his higher faculties ; yet as I feel it other-
wise in myself, so I find it otherwise in multitudes of others, and
in all that have free minds, and in the worst at certain times ;
so that I perceive it is natural to man, to desire to know even
the first cause, and highest excellency.
Sect. 8. Yet do I find that my mind is not satisfied in know-
ing, nor is entity and verity the ultimate object which my miiid
looketh after, but goodness.^'
Entity and verity may be unwelcome, loathed things, if against
my good. The thief could wish, that neither law, nor judge,
nor gallows had a being, and that his sentence were not true.
Knowledge is but a mediate motion of the soul, directive to the
following volitions and prosecution.?
Sect. 9. I find I have a will, inclined to apprehend good ;
that is, both to that which hath a simple excellency in itself,
and M'hich maketh for the happiness of the wortd, or for my own.''
This maketh itself as well known to me, as my natural appe-
tite. For my apprehensions do but subserve it, and my life is
moved or ruled by it.
Sect. 10. It is also averse to apprehended evil as such, as
contrary to the aforesaid good.
Though real evil may possibly be chosen, wlien it is a seeming
good, and also that which appeareth proximately evil, for a
higher good to which it seemeth a means, yet ultimately and
for itself, no rational will desireth or chooseth evil,
* Leg^e Pisoiiis dicta de inente et corpjre. — Cit-er. r/e Fmib. I. 5, p. IP!).
*Otniies ad id quod bonum videtur, omues suas actLonea referunt. — Arisiot.
de RepiM. \,c. 1.
p 111 homiiie optimum qnidem ratio, haec antecedit animalia.Deos sequitur.—
Sfn. ep. 77.
•> Malitia pra?miis exercetur; uhi ea dempjcris, nemo omnium gratuity
nialus est.— <5'((/;/*/.
k"k 2
460 THE REASONS OF
Sect. 1 1 . While sensitive pleasure is apprehended as good by
the senses, reason may discern a further good, which may cross
at least tlie present sense.
To take bitter physic, to corrode or cut off ulcerated parts,
to use hard diet and exercise, &c., may be ungrateful in them-
selves to sense j and yet commended by reason, and commanded
by the will ; I yet forbear all higher instances.
Sect. 12. My sense and bodily faculties are naturally to be
subjected to the guidance of my reason and the command of my
will, as the superior faculties.'
For one is common to brutes, and the other proper to rational
creatures j and rational agents are more excellent than brutes 3
and the most excellent should rule. Reason can see further than
sense j and the wisest is most fit to govern. They that deny
this, should claim no government or power over their beasts,
their dogs, or sheep. If reason ruled not sensuality, most per-
sons would presently destroy their lives 5 even as swine would
kill themselves with eating j if the reason of man did not restrain
them.
Sect. 13. The sum is, that man is a living wight, having an
active and executive power, with an understanding to guide it,
and a will to command itj and that there is a certain difference
between truth and falsehood, natural good, and evil."^
All this is quite beyond dispute.
CHAP. II.
Of Man, as related to the things heloio him.
Sect. 1 . There are other things, called inanimates and brutes,
in being, besides man.^
My understanding, by the help of all my senses, telleth me
that there are beasts and birds, trees and herbs, and that I live
among a multitude of beings inferior to man. Though I may
be ignorant of their principles, and many things in their natures,
' Animi imperio, corporis servitio magis utiniur: alterum nobis cum. Diis,
alterum cum belluis commune est. — Salust. Cat.
Est homini cum Deo rationis societas. — Cic. 1, de Leg.
•' Deus animal unum spectabile hominem, in quo omnia animalia contine-
rentur effecit.— Gc. de Unlvers.
' Aliorum causa omnia generata sunt, ut effruges atque fructus quos terra
gignit auimantium causfi ; auimantes autem hominum ; ut equum vehendi
causa, &c. Ipse autem homo ortus est ad muudum contem])landum, &c. —
Cic. 2, de Nat, Deor.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 461
yet can I no more doubt of their being than of my own, nor
of the inferiority of their natures, when I see their inferior
operations.
Sect. 2. Man hath a certain sub-propriety in them for his use.'"
Tiiey that deny this, will not say their lands, their fruits, their
money, their goods and cattle are their own ; nor question any
one for stealing them, or depriving them of their propriety; nor
may they possess and use them as their own.
Sect. 3. Man hath the right of governing the brutes, so far
as they are capable of government.
Which is not by proper, moral government, by laws and judg-
ment; but such an image of it as is suitable to their several
kinds. This is in order to their own preservation, but especially
for our use and ends : he that denieth this, must not rule his
dog, his horse, or ox, or sheep, but leave them every one to
themselves.
Sect. 4. Man is also, subordinately, their benefactor, and
their end ; and they are more for him than for themselves.
He is their end as he is better than they, and hath the afore-
said propriety in them ; the cause will further appear anon.
The beauty and sweetness of my flowers are more for me than
for themselves, and I do more enjoy them. My trees, and herbs,
and fruits, and metals ; my horse and ox that labour for me, and
all the creatures on whom I feed, I find are for my use ; even
their life and labour. Mankind accuseth not himself as wrong-
ing them, when for his own advantage he maketh use of both ;
and his care is necessary to their preservation : planting, dress-
ing, watering, feeding, defending, providing for them ; without
which the most useful would perish.
Sect. 5. The sum is, that man is the owner, the governor, and
the end and benefactor of the inferior beings ; and so is lord
among them in the world.
CHAP. III.
Of Men as mutually related to each oilier.
Sect. 1. I see that there are more men besides upon earth."
Sect. 2. The natural dignity of men, and their likeness to
•n Bestiis homines uti ad utilitateni suam possint sine injuria.
n Nullum est unum uni tam simile, tarn par, quam omncs inter nnsipsos
sumuS. Qnod si depravatio consuetudinuni, si o))inionum varietas, non im!ie-
cilitatem animoruni torqueret, et flecteret, (luocuuque coepisset, sui nemo ipse
tani similis esset, qnam omnes essent omnium. — Cic. \, de Leg.
462 THE REASONS OF
each other, maketh them all confess that it is their duty to love
one another.
He tliat denieth this, will not expect to be loved himself by
others, nor will he pretend to any virtue, nor to merit the
benefit of human converse.
Sect. 3. Individual persons are commonly conscious of self-
insufficiency, and of their need of others, and inclined to a
sociable life.
If birds and beasts will go together, in flights and herds, with
those of their own kind, no wonder if man also have a natural
inclination to society, besides the knowledge of the necessity
and benefits of it.
Sect. 4. Each individual, in these societies, must contribute
his endeavours to the common good."
For this is the end of the association : he that will be for
none but himself, cannot justly expect that any should be for
him ; and he that would have all the society be helpful to him,
must to his power be helpful to all.
Sect. 5. The distinction of persons, and their interests and
actions, foundeth a distinction of propriety and rights. i*
For natural individuation maketh it necessary that every
man have his own food, and his own clothing, at least for the
time ; and, therefore, it is usually needful to the good of the
whole and the parts, that each one have also their provisional
proprieties ; and the difference of men in wit and folly, industry
and sloth, virtue and vice, good or ill deserts, will also cause a
difference of propriety and rights, though these may be in part
subjected to the common good.
Sect. 6. Parents, also, may upon the merits of children, if not
arbitrarily, make an inequality in propriety, and so may other
donors and benefactors.
As all children need not the same proportion, so all deserve
not the same, and those parents that have great estates, may
leave more to their own children than to others; so that many
ways, both propriety and disproportion may certainly come to
pass, and be allowed in the world.
Sect. 7. Therefore, there is such a thing as justice due from
° Homines homiuum caus^ sunt generati, lit ipsi inter se, alii aliis prodesse
possint. — Cic. 1, Offic.
p Sic nos nati videmur, ut inter omnes esset societas qutedam.— Oc. de
yjmicil, ,
Homo naturaliter est animal politicum et civile.— ^m^ 1, Polit.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 463
man to inaii, for the preservation of these rights and order^ and
it is injustice to violate them.i
This is confessed by all the world, that look for justice from
others ', and if it be not maintained, the world will be as in a
continual war or robbery, but better grounds and proofs of it
will be mentioned anon.
Sect. 8, Therefore, there is a difference between good and
evil, as respecting the benefit or hurt of others, besides that
which respecteth men as to themselves.
Those that think they are bound to avoid hurting no man
but themselves, or for themselves, nor to do good to any but
themselves, or for themselves, have so far obliterated the laws
of humanity, and so openly renounce the benefit of society, and
bid defiance to mankind, that I suppose them so few, that 1
need not dispute against them ; nor have I ever met with any
defender of so inhuman a cause, whatever may be in their
hearts and practice.
Sect. 9. Nature teacheth parents to educate their children in
sobriety, obedience, justice, and charity, and to restrain their
contraries.
Did parents make no difference between their children's
temperance and gluttony, drunkenness and unchastity ; between
their obedience and disobedience, and contempt of their own
authority; between actions of justice and charity, and actions
of falsehood, robbery, cruelty, and inhumanity, what a de-
generate thing would mankind prove : even cannibals exercise
some government over their children.
Sect. 10. The means which nature teacheth all the world to
suppress iniquity, and promote well doing, is by punishments
and benefits, that it may turn to the hurt of the evil doer
himself, and to the benefit of the well doer.
Thus parents do, by children, yea, men by beasts, on account
of prudence, though not of justice. Without punishments and
rewards or benefits, laws are ridiculous or deceits, and govern-
ment is nothing.
Sect. 11. For the just and effectual performance of this,
nature teacheth the world to set up governments, that by
1 1nter iios natuia ad civilem coivimunitatem conjuncti et coiisociati sumiis.
Ouod 111 ita se baberet, nee justitiaj uUns tsset iiec bonitati locus ; et ((uoniodu
hominum inter boniines juris esse vincula pntant, sic homini nibil juris esse
cum bestiis ; Chrysippus ait ctstera nata esse hominum causa et Deorum ;
eos autem societatis sua;, 6ic. — Cato in Ciccr, de F'mib. I. 3, p. 140.
464
THE REASONS OF
settled laws and righteous judgment it might be lightly
done/
Though better principles should acquaint men with the na-
ture and necessity of government, yet these are so obvious to all
the world, that for their own preservation, together with some
natural sense of justice, the most barbarous nations, that are
nearest unto brutes, are for some civil government, besides
economical government, which none but madmen ever ques-
tioned.
Sect. 1 2. By this government, the liberty, estates, and lives
of offenders are destroyed, for the ends of the government, viz.,
for justice and the common good.
That this is so, de facto, is so undeniable, that even those
heathens, the supposed relics of the Pythagoreans, who will not
kill a harmless beast, will yet kill those men who deserve to
die ; and if government had not the power over the liberties,
estates, and lives of offenders, it could not preserve the liberties,
estates, and lives of the innocent.
Sect. 13. The combination of the power, wisdom, and good-
ness of the individuals, and the eminency of these in the gover-
nors, is the cause of the order, strength, and safety of these
human societies.^
All the parts are in the combination to contribute to the good
of the whole, and that according to the nature of the parts.
It is not a heap of stones, nor a forest of trees, nor a herd of
cattle, which we are speaking of, but an association of men,
which must be promoted and blessed by the worth and duty of
the individual ; and this consisteth in the perfections and right
exercise of their power, intellects and wills. But as the place of
the governor requireth more of the exercise of these than is
requisite in any individual else, so doth it therefore require,
that these be in him in greater eminency and excellency than
in others, viz., that in himself, he excel in wisdom and good-
ness, and by his interest in the people, that he excel in power
or strength. Take away power, and societies are indefensible,
exposed to the will of enemies, and unable to execute their laws
' Salus civitatis in legibus est.— Arlsl. 1, Rlitt. c, 4.
Quoiiiani ea iiatura esset bominis, ut ei cum genere humano quasi civile
jus intercederet qui id conservaret, eum justum, qui migraretiiijustum fore. —
Chrysip. in Cato. in Cicer. vli stipra.
' Est unum jus quo ileviucta est hominum societas, et quoil lex constituit
una : Quae lex leita ratio est imperandi atque prohibendi. — Cicer. de Leg, 1,
/>. 225.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 465
upon their own offenders, and so to attain the ends of their
association and government ; take away wisdom, and they are
a rout of idiots or madmen, and government can he none at
all : take away goodness, and they are as a company of devils,
or as a confederacy of rohhers or pernicious enemies, who can
neither trust one another, nor promote the common good, hut
are fit to destroy and be destroyed.
Sect. 14. By all this, it is manifest, that man is not only a
living wight, having power, intellect, and will, and dominion
over inferior things, as their owner, ruler, and end ; but also is
a sociable wight, or fitted for society where government is
exercised by power, wisdom, and goodness, which are his per-
fections.*
I have looked thus long at the things that are seen, as nearest
me, and most discernible, before I proceed to the cause, which
is unseen.
CHAP. IV.
Of Man, and other things^ as produced h\j their first cause.
Sect. 1. I was not always what I am."
It is not yet sixty years since I was no man ; I had a late
beginning, and though I now inquire not of what duration my
jjoul is, my present composition is not from eternity : the same I
see of others, that are born men, who were lately none, and so
of all things that are here generated.
Sect. 2. I did not make myself, at least, as an independent,
uncaused being.^
* Si veritatem de anima cognoverimus, valde ma°jnum nobis erit introduc-
torium ad omnem veritatem, et ad omnes partes pliilosopliiae insignes dat oc-
casiones. — Themist. sup. 1, de ^nim.
" Read Galen's * Admirations of the Creator,* 1. de usu part, prsecipue. 1. 3,
cap. 10.
^ Animorumnullo in terris origo est. Nil enim est in animis nostris mistum,
etconcretum, aiit quod ex terra natuni, humidum, igneuni, &c. His euim
naturis nihil inest quod vim memoriae, mentis, cogitationis habeat, &c. Nee
invenietur unquam unde ad hominem venire possint, nisi a Deo. — Cicero.
Quis est tarn vecors, qui cum suspexerit in ccelum, Deos esse non sentlat; et
ea quae tantA. mente fiunt, ut vix. quisquam arte ulla, ordinem rerum, atque
vicissitudinem persequi possit, casu fieri putet. — Cicer. de Resp. Anisp.
Placet Stoicis corruptibilem esse mundum, quippe genitum corum ratione
qucE per sensus iutelliguntur. Cujus et partes sunt corruptibiles et totum,
partes autem mundi corruptibiles sunt, in se inviccm mutantur. Est igitur
corruptibilismundus. Ac quicquid mutari in deterius potest, corruptibiie est.
Mundus autem huic mutationi et corruption! obnoxius est. — Laerl. in Zenone.
466 THE REASONS OF
1 could not, as I am, make myself what 1 am, tor so myself
as the cause, should be before myself, as the effect, which is a
contradiction, unless the word " self" be used equivocally : when
I was not, I acted not. If it be said by any, that the soul did
fabricate a body to itself, and so one part of me made the other,
I answer, 1. My soul did not make the matter of that body;
for if it did, it made it of something or of nothing : if of some-
thing, it either made that something or not ; if not, then it
made not the first matter of the body : if it made it of nothing,
it must be omnipotent, but it is conscious of impotency,
2. My soul did not make itself, for then, it must be before
itself, which is impossible ; and if I made neither form nor
matter, I did not make myself. If it be said, that my soul is
an eternal, uncaused being, and so did fabricate this body as a
dwelling for itself, I answer, 1. As to the supposed fabrication,
it is conscious itself of no such thing, and if my soul made my
body, either it was as a causa subministra vel instrument alls, by
the direction and power of a supreme cause, or else of and by
itself, as the prime cause : if the first, then, it is a caused and
dependent being itself, and so leadeth us to a higher cause : if
the second be affirmed, and so my soul an eternal, uncaused,
independent being, then, 1, That which is without beginning,
cause, and dependency, must needs be self-sufficient, and be the
highest excellency ; it must have an infiniteness, and need no help
from any other ; but my soul is conscious of imperfection in
knowledge, its ignorance is its burden and dishonour, it knoweth
not so much as is here asserted of itself, it knoweth no such
perfections or operations, it knoweth little comparatively of the
universe or of any particular thing in it. If it were an eternal,
uncaused, independent being, it need not all the helps of evi-
dence and argument in this dispute ; moreover, it is conscious
of imperfection in goodness and defilement of evil ; it is defec-
tive in governing this flesh, which could never be able to make
me a sinner, or culpable, if it were animated by an uncaused,
independent being ; moreover, I am conscious of impotency in
every thing that 1 go about ; a thousand difficulties pose and
stall me ; a thousand things I would do, and cannot, and as
many I would have, and cannot ; whereas, an uncaused, inde-
pendent mind, should necessarily have an uncaused, independ-
ent power, and wisdom, and goodness, and so should at least
partake of infiniteness in all.
And if my soul did thus fabricate my body, then vvliat need
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 467
it pre-existeut matter to make it of ? And why did it not make
it sooner, seeing it hatli such an incUnation to it ? Can an in-
dependent mind be ignorant what it was, and what it did itself
from all eternity, before it entered into this flesh ? And why
doth it not amend the infirmities of this body ; or why did it
not make itself a body more excellent, more comely, more
sound, more clean, and more durable ? Could it choose no
better ? Can it not heal and perfect this ? Can it not prevent
the dissolution of it ? Seeing I find it so much in love with it,
and so unwilling to be separated from it, if it were an inde-
pendent mind, and caused it at the first, it would not be un-
willingly taken from it, and leave it to rottenness and dust. ^
And if my soul did thus independently make my body, did
all other souls do so by their bodies, or not ? If they did not,
then they had a superior cause 3 if they did, then it seems that
every worm and fly and toad hath a soul, that is, an eternal,
uncaused, independent being. But why then have they no
knowledge, no reason, no speech ? Why did they not choose
a more honourable dwelling ? Why do they all stoop to the
service of man, if they are equally excellent. And then it
would follow that there are as many eternal independent beings
as there are souls, or living wights, in all the world. And so
instead of one true, perfect God, there would be innumerable
demi-gods, which all had the perfection of independencies, and
none of them had a perfection of being and sufliciency, which
would put us upon the further inquiries, whether they do all
their business independently, or by a general council and con-
sent, and how they all do to agree, and not fall into perpetual
ware J how the soul of an idiot, or a wicked man, or of a toad
or serpent, came to be so self-denying as to be contented with
that part, when the soul of Aristotle, and Seneca, and Paul
were so much better provided for.
And if all this were so, who made the things inanimate, that
have no souls of their own to make them ? For my part I
made them not. And my soul is conscious that it is a depend-
ent being, that cannot illuminate itself, nor know what it
would know, nor be what it would be, nor do what it would do,
nor can support its body or itself an hour. It looketh depend-
y Mundum autem fieri (dicunt Stoici) cum ex igne substantia per aerein
versa in humorem fuerit; deiiide crassior ipsius pars eflfectafuerit terra : porro
subtilior in aiirem cesserit eademque magis ac magis extenuata in ignem
evaserit. — Luert.in Zenone,
468 THE REASONS OF
ently to something higher for help, and protection, and supply,
and mercv ; and it is past all doubt that it is on God.
If it be said, that all souls are but one, even parts of the
universal soul of the world, and that individuation is by matter
only, and that so though my soul be not the whole first cause
and being, it is a part of it ; I answer, 1. I note by the way,
that this hypothesis acknowledgeth that which I am searching
after, viz., that there is a God : and it asserteth higher things
of man than I am proving, viz., that he hath not only an
immortal soul, but a soul that is part of God himself : 2. And
according to this, the soul of every Heliogabalus, Sardanapalus,
idiot, or toad, should be part of God : 3. And then all souls
should be alike, if all be God ; the soul of a murderer, and of
him that is murdered; of a Nero and a saint; yea, of Caesar and
of his dog. And how then cometh there so much enmity
between them, and so great disparity ? Why is one wise, and
another foolish or brutish, and one the ruler of the other ? The
soul of a bird or horse seemeth to be lodged in as good a kind
of matter as man's ; or, at least, the soul of a Nero in as good
a matter as the soul of Paul ; or, at least, the soul of one that
turneth from villany to virtue hath, the same matter which it
had before. And certainly it is not matter that principally
individuateth, but forms. Nor is the difference between good
men and bad, and between men, and serpents or beasts, so
much in matter as in the soul. ^
Moreover, nature teacheth all men to seek felicity, and fear
infelicity and calamity ; which they need not do, nor could
not do, if they were all parts of God. God cannot be miserable,
but man can, as to his soul as well as his body ; and the misery
of the body is little to that of the soul, even in this life. God
cannot be evil, but the soul may be vitiated and evil, as experi-
ence teacheth. God may not be punished or afflicted, but a
wicked man may be punished and afflicted even in his mind or
soul ; and a magistrate will not think, when he hangeth a thief,
that he either punisheth bare flesh, or that he punisheth God.
Moreover, God can wrong no man, but one man may wrong
^ Chrysippus et Possidoiiius aimit Munduni rcgl et adiniiiistrari secundum
mentem ct providentiam, n.eate per omnes illius ])artes pertingente ; sicut et
in nostra aniina contingit, sed per has niagis, per illas minus. — Laert. in 7,en.
Anaxagoras docuit mentem, confusis primo rebus arcessisse, omtiiaque
compegisse simul et ordinasse. — Laert.in Anax. ex Timone.
Ovid's ' Description of the Creation of the Worhl,' is almost as if he had
taken it out of Moses, — McUan. 1. I.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 469
another; God need not fear doing any thing amiss, but the soul
of man must fear it. No part of God can be so unhappy as to
choose to be a toad, or a wicked or miserable man. God hath
no body, but so have these souls ; else when men eat a plant,
or bird, or any flesh, they eat part of the body of God.
Moreover, I find, that it is bodies only that are quantitative or
extensive, and so divisible into parts. Many parts of one body
may be animated by one soul, but not by many parts of that one
soul, except the soul be material itself.
But why (may some object) may I not hold, that all the orbs
being one world, are one body of one informing soul, which is
God ; and so that really those which you call individuals, are
but parts of this one animated world ? Answ. This is confuted
by what is said : Whether the world be animated by one uni-
versal soul,^ we are not now inquiring ; but that God is not this
informing soul, is before disproved. In point of efficiency, we
grant that he is as the soul of souls, eifecting more than souls
do for their bodies, but not in point of constitution. He is much
more than the soul of the world, but is not formally its soul ;
but, 2. Those men that will think so, must acknowledge, that
as they take the horse and the rider to be both parts of God, and
the child and the father, and the subject and the prince, and the
malefactor and the judge, and the flagitious wretch, and the best
of men, so it is no other membership than what consisteth with
the difference of moral good and evil, of wise and foolish, of
governors and subjects, of rewards and punishments, of happiness
and misery, which are the things that I am seeking after. But
so few lay this claim to Deity, that I need no farther mind them.
Sect. 3. My parents were not the first cause of my being v;hat
I am.
As each individual cannot be the first cause of itself, so nei-
ther can their parents ; for they do not so much as know my
frame and nature, nor the order and temperature of my parts,
nor how or when they were set together, nor their use, or the
reason of their location ; and certainly he that made me, knew
what he did, and why he did it in each particular. My parents
* The Pythag'oreans and Plato. So Balbus in Cicer. de Nat. Deor. 1. 2, and
many more. But Cicero in other places speaketh of God, not as the soul of
the world formally and constitutively, but only efficiently, calling him, " The
Parent of the Universe," " The Maker of all things," &c. So that it seems
that he took not Go^, pro form & mundi, but as we do, for more than the soul
of it, even the first efficient. And, 'Lib. de Univers.,' he supposeth the
Eternal God to have created that God who is the soul of the world.
470 tHE REASONS OF
could not choose my sex, nor shape, nor strength, nor qualifi-
cations.
Sect. 4. The world which I see and live in did not make itself.
As men, and beasts, and trees, and stones did not make them-
selves, so neither did they join as concauses or assistants in the
making of the whole, nor did any one of them make the rest;
nor did any of the more simple substances, called elements,
make themselves, neither the passive elements or the active, the
earth, the water, the air, or the fire ; for we know, past doubt^
that nothing hath no power or action, and before they Svere,
they were not, and, therefore, could not make themselves ; '' nor
can they be the first cause of mixed bodies, because there is that
exceeding wisdom most apparent in the generation, production,
nature, and operations of these bodies, which these elements
have not.
Sect. 5. The visible world is not an uncaused, independent being.
For all the generated parts we see, do oriri et inierir'e ; they
have a beginning, progress, decay, and end. And the inani^
"mate parts having less of natural excellency than the living,
cannot infinitely exceed them in the excellency of Deity, as
uncaused and independent ; and we see that they are all de-
pendent in their operations. They shovv, in the order of their
beings and action, that incomprehensible wisdom which is not
in themselves ; the earth, the sea, the air and winds, are all
ordered exactly by a wisdom and a will which they themselves
are void of: besides, they are many and various, but their order
and agreement showeth that it is some one universal wisdom
and will which ruleth them all ; and if they are dependent in
operation, they are certainly dependent in being ; and had they
that excellency to be uncaused and independent, they would have
had therewith all other perfections, which we see they want ;
and they would not have been many, but one in that perfection.
Sect. 6. The first universal matter is not an uncaused, inde-
pendent being.
If such there be, its inactivity and passiveness showeth it to
want the excellency of independency ; and the ordination of it
into several beings, and the disposals of it there, is done by a
principle of infinite power, activity, and wii^dom : on which
having this dependence in its ordination and use, it must be
dependent also in its being.
'' God never wrought niii'acles to convince Atheism, because his ordinary
works convince W.—Lord Bacon, Essay xvi , p, 87.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 471
Sect. 7. If it were doubtful whether the world were eternal,
and whether it were the body of God as the informing soul, yet
it would be past doubt that it is not uncaused, or independent,
but caused by God.*^
That the word is not eternal, we want not natural evidence ;
" For," saith Lullius,** "then there would be two eternals, the cause
and its effects, and then all things would be caused by natural
necessity, and not by free will, and consequently always alike;
and then there hath been evil eternally, and both the caused
good and the evil would in all other aggravations be answerable
to eternity, and the evil would be as soon, as great, as durable
as the good. The same world which is finite in good and evil,
and other respects, would be infinite in eternity, and the evil
would have an infiniteness in point of eternity, and this neces-
sitated, by the eternity of the world ; and seeing no individuals
are eternal, the supposed eternity of the world must be but of
some common matter, or only intentional, and not real. The
corporeal part having quantity, is infinite as to extension, and
therefore cannot be infinite in duration. In eternity, then, there
is no time, no j'jrM/s et posterius', but in the world there is.
Much more is said by many, but this is not my present task; I
shall say more of it afterward.
But if it were doubtful whether the world were not eternally
the body of God, yet would it be undoubted still that he caused
it. And that there were the difference of a cause and an effect,
in order of nature, though not in duration. As if a tree or a
man's body were supposed eternal, yet the root and spirits of
the tree, and the principal parts and spirits in man's body^
would be the causal parts on which the rest depend.
Sect. 8. It remaineth, therefore, most certain that something
is a first cause to all things else, and that he is the Creator of all
things.
For if the world be not uncaused and independent, it hath a
cause ; and if it have a cause, it hath a Creator : for when there
was nothing but himself, he must make all things of himself, or
of nothing : not of himself, for he is not material, and tiiey
are not parts of God (who is indivisible.) He that thinks
otherwise, should not kill a flea or a toad, nor blame any man
•= The Platonist's simile is, as the substance and shadow may be at one time,
though one be the cause of the other ; so here.
"^ Vide Raymond. Lullium Arte magna de tabul. cap. 2 — 5. ad fin. 23. And
Alex. Gill, on the creed, p)). 88, «9, &c., and p. 96, &c. Leg-eetiam disputatio-
neni Zachariffi Scholast. Episc. Mitilcn. cum Ammonio contra mundi ffiternita-
tem, ia Bib. Pa. Grtecolat. torn. 1. p. 3?'0, &c,
472 THE REASONS OF
that beateth, or robbeth, or wrongethhim, nor eat any creature ;
because he doth kill, and blame, and eat a part of God, who is
unblameable, and can injure none, and is to be more reverenced.
Sect. 9. If there were any doubt whether the sun, or fire, or
passive matter had a first cause, there can be no doubt at all
concerning man, which is the thing which I am inquiring into
at the present.^
For every one seeth that man hath his beginning, and con-
fesseth that it is but as yesterday since he was not ; and therefore
hath a cause which must be uncaused, or have a cause itself: if tlie
latter, then that cause is again uncaused, or hath a cause itself.
And so we must needs come at last to some uncaused cause.
Sect. 10. If any second cause had made man or the world, yet
if it did it but as a caused cause, itself would lead us up to an
uncaused cause, which is the first cause of all, which we are
seeking after.^
For what any cause doth by a power received from a higher
cause, and consequently ordered by it, that is done principally
by that first or highest cause. And if God had made the world
by an angel or intelligence, it would have been nevertheless his
creature, nor any thing the less to his honour, than if he had
made it by himself alone.
Sect. 11. The sum of all is, that there is certainly a first,
uncaused, independent cause of men, and all things else beside
thai cause.
CHAP. V.
What this Cause is in itself. That it is God.
Sect. 1. The first cause is known to us imperfectly, and by
the effects.^
Man is so conscious of his ignorance herein, and of the per-
plexities and diversities of opinions which follow thereupon, and
of the necessity of beginning downward at the effect, and rising
upward in his inquiry, that I need not prove this proposition to
any man.
Sect. 2. Though God, or the first cause, is to be searched
'J
e
Quid enini potest esse tarn apertum, tarn pie perspicuum, cum ccelutn
suspexiinus, coelestiaque conteniplati sumus, quam esse aliquod nuiuen, prae-
stantissima; mentis, quo Ijjec re^antur. — Cicer. I. 2. de Nat. Deor.
. f Esse igiturDeos perspicuum est : ut id qui neget, vix eum sanffi mentis ex-
istimem. — Ciccr. de Nat. Deor. 2.
s Agnoscimus Deum ex operibus ejus. — Cic. 1. l^usc.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 473
after in all his works, yet chiefly in the chief of them within
cm- reach ; which is man himself. '^
If any shall say, that the sun and other creatures are more
excellent than man, and therefore God, or the first cause, is to
be searched after rather in them, and his attributes denominated
from them : I answer, there is no doubt but, secundum quid, the
sun is a nobler creature than man ; but what it is, sitnpliciter,
we cannot tell, unless we knew it better. The highest excellen-
cies known to man in the sun, are the j)ot€7itia motiva, illumina-
tiva et calefactiva ; inotion, light, and heat, with their effects,
do tell us what we know of it. That which we are conscious of
in man is, 2)osse, scire, velle, power, intellection, and will, with
their perfections ; which are an higher excellency than miotion,
light, and heat. *
Sect. 3. He that giveth being to all else that is, must needs
be the first being formally or eminently himself.
Entity must needs be, in the noblest sense or sort, in the prhiium
ens, the original of being, rather than in any derived being what-
soever : for it cannot give better than it hath. So that ens, or
I am, is his first name.
Sect. 4. He that hath made substances more noble than
accidents, is himself a substance, either formally or eminently ;
and a living substance, yea, life itself.
Once for all; by eminently, I mean somewhat more excellent,
or transcendent, which yet man hath no better name for, or
fitter notion of; God is thus a substance, life transcendently, if
not formallv.
Sect. 5. He that hath made intelligences, or spirits, or minds,
more noble and excellent than bodies, is himself a mind, intelli-
gence or spirit, either formally, or transcendently and eminently,
'' Comnioda quibus utimur, lucem qua fruimur, Spiiitum quern ducimus, k
Deo nobis dari et impertiri videmus. — Cic.pro Rose.
' Jovem domiiiatorem rerum et omnia nutu regentem, et praesentem et pras-
potentem, qui dubitat, baud sane intelligo cur iion idem, sol sit, an nullus sit
dubilare possit. — Cicer. de Nat. Deor. 1. 2. p. (mihi) 48.
Tria sunt iuvisibilia Dei : h. e. potentia, sapieiitia, benignitaS ; a quibus
omnia procedunt, in quibus omnia subsistunt, per quae omnia reguntur ;
Paler est potentia, Filius sapientia, Spiritussanctusbeuignitas : potentia creat,
sapientia gubernat, benignitas conservat (et perficit). Potentia pei benig-
nitatem sapienter creat : sapientia per ])otentiam benigne gubernat ; benigni-
tas per sapientiam potenter conservat; sicut imago in speculo cernitur,
sic in natura animae, &c. Huic similittidini Dei approximat homo : Cui po-
tentia Dei dat bonum posse ; sapientia tribuit scire, benignitas praestat velle :
baec triplex, aninia; rationalis vis est ; scil. posse, scire, velle : quae su])ra dictis
tribus fidei, spei, et cbaritati cooperantur, &c,—-Potlio Prumensis de statu
JJonius Dei, lib. I, in Biblioth, Pat, v. 9.
VOL. XX. L L
474 THE REASONS OF
We find that corporeal, gross, and dense beings are dullest and
most passive, and have least of excellency. The body of itself,
in comparison of the mind, is a dull and dirty clod. Though we
have no adequate conception of a spirit, we know net only, ne-
gatively, that it containeth a freedom from the baseness and
inconveniences of corporeity, but also we know by its essential
acts, that, positively, it is a pure, active life, intelligence, and will,
and, therefore, a more excellent sort of being than things merely
corporeal, which have no such action. So that we have found, as
to his being, that the first cause is ens, substantia, vita, spiritus.
Sect. 6. There must needs be in the first cause an esse,2}0sse,
and 02ierari.
If there were no operation, there were no causation ; if there
were no power, there could be no operation ; and if there were
no being, there could be no power. Not that these are things
so various as to make a composition in the first cause ; but they
are transcendently in it without division and imperfection, by a
formal or virtual distinction.
Sect. 7. Seeing the noblest creatures known to us are minds
that have a posse, scire, velle, active, executive power, with an
understanding to guide it, and a will to command it ; God hath
either formally, or eminently and transcendently, such a power,
intellect, and will, which is his essence.
For nothing is more certain than that no cause can give more
than it had to give : if the first cause had not power, under-
standing, and will, either formally or eminently in a higher and
nobler kind, he could not have endowed all mankind with what
he had not.
1. That the first cause is most powerful, is evident by his
works : he that gave man his measure of power, and much
more to many other creatures, hath himself much more than
any of them : he that made this marvellous frame of all the
orbs, and causeth and continueth their being, and their constant,
rapid motion, is incomprehensibly potent. Whatsoever power
there is in all the creatures visible and invisible set together,
there must be more, or as much in their first cause alone,
because nothing can give more power than it hath.
2. His works also prove that the first cause is an under-
standing ; for the admirable composure, order, nature, motion,
variety, and usefulness, of all his creatures, do declare it. He
that hath given understanding to man, hath formally or emi-
nently more himself than all men, or all his creatures have. If
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 475
intellection were not an excellency above mere natural or
brutish motion, man were not better than the inanimates or
brutes ; but if it be, the giver of it cannot want it. Not that
his intellection is univocally the same thing with ours, but it is
something incomparably more noble, which expresseth itself in
human intellection as its image, and is seen by us in this glass,
and can be expressed by us no better than by this name.
3. As it is a nobler nature which acteth by volition, or free-
will, than that which hath no will at all, and so no voluntary
choice and complacency ; so the first cause which hath given
this noble faculty to man, hath certainly himself, though not a
will univocally the same with ours, yet a will of a transcendent
excellency, which expresseth itself in ours as its image, and
must be something better and greater, but cannot be lower or
less. And though such indetermination as proceedeth from
imperfection, and consequently such liberty, belongeth not to the
first cause, which hath no defects, yet all that liberty which
belongeth to perfection must undoubtedly belong to him. He
that did what we see, hath done it willingly and freely.
Sect. 8. Whatever the first cause is, it must needs be in
absolute perfection.'^
It must needs have in it more than the whole world besides,
because it giveth all that to the whole creation which it hath
received, and is. An imperfect cause could never have made
such a world as we behold, and partly know ; and were the
first cause imperfect, there would be no perfection in being.
Sect. 9. The perfection of the first cause in being requireth
that it be eternal, without beginning or end of duration.
Nothing in the world can be more evident to reason, than
that something must be eternal, without beginning ; nothing
being more evident, than that nothing hath no power, no action,
no effect, and so can make nothing. And, therefore, if ever
there had been a time when nothing was, nothing could ever
have been : imagine that there were nothing now, and it is
certain there never would be any thing.
^ Deo niliil prffistaiitius, ab eo igitur necesse est niundum regi. NuUi igitur
est natuiiE obtdiens aut s'.ibjectus Deus : oinneiu igitur regit ipse naturam.
Eteiiim si concedimus intelligeutes esse Deos, concedimus etiam providentes,
et reruin quidem maximarum. — Ckcr. de Ahit. Deoi:
Dicitis nihil esse quod Deus eflicere non possii, et quidem sine ullo labore :
vit enim honiinum membra sine ulla contentione, niente ipsa ut moveaiitur,
sic numine Deorum omnia fingi, moveri mutarique posse. Neque id dicitis
superstitiose atque aniliter, sed physicA.constantIque ratione : inquit Cotta de
Stoicis IP (jicer. de Nat, Deor, 3. p. 110.
L l2
476 THE REASONS OF
Object. Something may o?'iri de novo without any cause, as
well as God be eternally without any cause.
Answ. It is impossible : for he that is eternally hath all
perfection eternally in himself, and needeth no cause, being still
in being, and being the cause of causes. But nothing' hath no
perfection or being, and therefore needeth an omnipotent
cause to give it a being.
Object. If the world may be created of nothing materially, it
may be what it is without any thing efficiently.
Answ. Impossible : pre-existent matter is not necessary to
the first created matter; for matter may be caused of nothing
by an omnipotent efficient, as well as the wonderful frame of
all things be made out of matter : but, without an efficient, no
being can arise de novo.
So that it is most evident, seeing any thing now is, there
hath been something eternally ; and if something, it must
needs be the first cause, which is chief in excellency, and first
in order of production, and therefore of existence.
Sect. 10. The first cause must needs be independent in
being, perfections, and operations ; and so be absolutely self-
sufficient. '
For it were not the first, if there were any before it ; and
being caused by nothing else, it was eternally sufficient in and
for itself: otherwise, that which it were beholden to would
have the place of a cause to it. And if it caused not all, or
needed the help of any other, it is not absolutely the first cause
to all others, nor perfect in itself. That which could be eter-
nally without a cause, and itself cause all things, is self-
sufficient and independent.
Sect. 11. The first cause must needs be free from all imper-
fection of corporeity (or materiality), composition, passibility,
corruptibility, mutability, and mortality, and all other imper-
fections of dependent beings. "'
There is such a thing as a TiNing principle, and a pure, spi-
ritual nature, in the created world ; and the maker of it must
be life and spirit in a higher, purer sense than it, and therefore
must be free from all its imperfections; and having no cause,
' Deus est mens, soliita libera et se£,regata ah oniiii coiicretione mortali,
omnia seiitiens,niovens, &c. — CiccrA. Titsciil.
in Velleius (in Cicer. de Nat. Deor. 1.) recitetli the oiiinions of many of the
philosophers, of God (ji. 10). Sed Deo (si Densest) longuin nihil oniriino est,
cm punctiun terra est, et sub nutu omnia constituta. — Arnoh. I. 7. p. (]?,.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 477
hath no defect ; and having no beginning, can have no end :
all this reason doth certainly apprehend.
Sect. 12. This perfect first cause must be immense or infinite
in being.
Not by corporeal extension ; as if God, as a body, were in a
place, and, being more extensive than all place, were called
immense ; but in the perfect essence of an eternal life, and
spirit, and mind, he is every where without locality, and all
things live, and move, and be in him. The thought of space
is but a metaphorical help to our conception of his immensity.
Sect. IS. Therefore he must needs be omnipresent."
Not by extension quantitative, but, in a sort, transcendent
and more excellent, according to the transcendent way of his
existence : for if we must have conceived of him as no better
than a body, and of magnitude as an excellency, we might well
have concluded that he hath made nothing greater than himself;
nemo dat quod non liabet ; and therefore he must be more ex-
tensive than all the world, and consequently absent from no
part of it. Much more when his being, which surpasseth
corporeity^ directeth us to acknowledge a more noble kind of
omnipresence than extensive.
Sect. 14. Therefore is he incomprehensible as to human
understanding, or any other created intellect.
Of our own incomprehension, experience sufficiently con-
vinceth us here, and reason evinceth the same of all created
intellects ; for the less cannot comprehend the greater, and
between finite and infinite there is no proportion. We know
nothing purely intelligible so easily and certainly, as that God is;
but there is nothing that we are so far from comprehending ; as we
see nothing more easily and certainly than the sun, which yet
we see not with a comprehensive, but a partial and defective
sight.
Sect. 15. This infinite being can be but one.°
" Plato in lib. leg. Quid sit omnino Deus, inquiri oportere non censet. —
Cicer. 1. de Nat. Deor.
" The wiser sort of the heathens believed one only parent of the universe,
hut durst not speak out what they knew of his unity or perfections. Cicero
saith, Ilium quasi parentem hujus uuiversitatis invenire difficile; et cum in-
veneris, indicarc in vulgus, nefas.— Z>(? Univcrsit. p. 2. And the same he
saith,— /./i. 2. de Not. Dcor.
Stoici dicunt unum 13eani esse: ipsumque et mentem, et fatum, et Jovcm
dicunt • principio ilium cum esset apud se, substantiam omnem per aerem in
aquam convertissc. Et quomadmoduni in fcetu semen continetur, ita et banc
serendi rationem in humore talem residisse, materia ad operandum aptissimfe
478 THE REASONS OF
For if til ere were many, they could not be infinite, and so
indeed there would be none, nor would there be any one first
cause of all things ; for if one caused one part of the world, and
another, another part, no one were the first cause of all ; and if
they joined in causing all together, they would all conjunctly
make but one first cause, and each one several be but part of
the cause. If there be no one that is sufficient to make and
govern all the world, there is no perfect being, and no God ;
but the effect showeth the sufficiency and the unity of the world,
the orbs being one frame, the unity of the first cause. Perfec-
tion cnnsisteth more in the unity of one all-sufficient Being,
than in a voluntary concurrence of many beings. The most
learned heathens, who thought there were many to be named
gods, did mean but insul>ordinate, particular gods, that were
luider the one universal God, whom the stoics and academics
took to be the universal soul, and the subordinate gods, the
souls of the particular orbs and planets.
Sect. 16. The power of this God must needs be omnipotency.
He that hath given so great power to the creatures, as is
exercised by them, especially the sun and fixed stars in their
several vortices or orbs, and he that could make such a world of
nothing, and uphold the being, and maintain the order and cause,
and continue tlie rapid motions of all the vortices or orbs,
which are to us innumerable, and each of incomprehensible
excellency and magnitude, is certainly to be accounted no less
than omnipotent : by his omnipotency, I mean, that by which
in itself considered, in primo instanti, he can do all things pos-
sible ; that is, which belong not to im potency, but to power,
and by which, in secvndo instanti, he can do all things which
his infinite wisdom judgeth congruous and meet to be done;
and, in iertio instanti, can do all that he will do, and are pleas-
ing to him.
Sect. 17. The understanding of the first cause must needs be
omniscient and infinite wisdom.
1. He that hath given so much wisdom to such a worm as
man, must have more than all the men in the world. What-
ever knowledge is in the whole creation, being given by him,
parata, ex qua csetera post haec gignerentur. Turn genuisse primum elementa
cjuatuor, igiiem, aquam, aerem, terrain. Videntur autem illis duo esse rerum
omnia priucipia, faciens videl. et patieiis : quod patitur sine qualitate esse
substantiara materiam : quod autem facial Verbum Deum esse quod in Ipsa
sit. Hunc enin quippe sempiternum per ipsum orancm singula creare. — Laert.
in Zenone, pp. (mihi) 359, 3()0.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 479
doth prove that, formally, or eminently, he hath more. Were it
all contracted into one intelligence, it must be less than his
that caused it. He hath not given more wisdom than he had
to give, nor so much as he had, or is, himself. For if he should
make any thing equal to himself, there would be two infinities,
and there would be a perfect, self-sufficient being, which yet had
lately no sufficiency or being, and there would be a being inde-
pendent in facto esse, which was dependent in fieri : which are
contradictions.
2. The effects in the admirable frame, and nature, and motions
of the creation, declare that the Creator is infinitely wise. The
smallest insect is so curiously made, and so admirably fitted and
instructed to its proper ends and uses. The smallest plants, in
wonderful variety of shapes and colours, and smells, and quali-
ties, uses and operations, and beautiful flowers, so marvellously
constituted and animated, by an unseen form, and propagated by
unsearchable seminal virtues. The smallest birds, and beasts,
and creeping things so adorned in their kinds, and so admirably
furnished for their proper ends, especially the propagation of
their species, in love, and sagacity, and diligence to their
young, by instinct equalling, in those particulars, the reasona-
ble creature. The admirable composure of all the parts of the
body of man, and of the vilest beast and vermin ; the quality
and operation of all the organs, humours, and spirits. The ope-
rations of the mind of man, and the constitution of societies,
and overruhng all the matters of the world, with innumerable
instances in the creature, do all concur to proclaim that man as
mad as madness can ])ossibly make him, in that particular, who
thinketh that any lower cause than incomprehensible wisdom,
did principally produce all this ; and that by any brutish or na-
tural motion, or confluence of atoms, or any other matter, it
could be thus ordered, continued, and maintained, without the
infinite wisdom and power of a first cause, superior to mere na-
tural matter and motion. What, then, should we say, if we had
a sight into the interior of all the earth, of the nature and
cause of minerals, and of the forms of all things : if we saw
the reason of the motions of the seas, and all other appearances
of natures which are now beyond our reach : yea, if we had a
sight of all the orbs, both fixed stars and planets, and of their
matter, and form, and order, and relation to each other, and
their communications with, and influences on each other, and the
cause of all their wondrous motions : if we saw, not only the
480
THE REASONS OF
nature of the elements, especially the active element, fire ; but
also the constitution, magnitude, and use of all those thousand
suns, and lesser worlds which constitute the universal world ; and,
if they be inhabited, if we knew the inhabitants of each : did we
know all the intelligences, blessed angels, and holy spirits,
which possess the nobler parts of nature ; and the unhappy, de-
generate spirits thai have departed from light and joy into dark-
ness and horror, by departing from God ? Yea, if Ave could see
all these, comprehensively, at one view, what thoughts should we
have of the wisdom of the Creator, and what should we think
of the atheist that denies it ! We should think Bedlam too
honourable a place for that man that could believe, or durst sav,
that any accidental motion of subtle matter, or fortuitous con-
course of atoms, or any thing below a wisdom and power, infi-
nitely transcending all that with man is called by that name, was
the first cause, and is the chief continuer of such an incompre-
hensible frame.P
Sect. 18. The first cause must needs be infinitely good.i
By goodness, I mean all essential excellency, which is known
to us by its fruits and appearances in the creature ; which, as it
hath a goodness, natural and moral, so is it the index of that
transcendent goodness which is the first cause of both. This
goodness is incomparably beyond that which consisteth in an
usefulness to the creature's good, or goodness of benignity as
relative to man ; and it is known better by the mere name, as
expressing that which nature hath an intrinsic sense and notion
of, than by definitions, as sensible qualities, light, colour, sound,
odour, sweet, bitter, Sec, are known by the name best, which
lead to the sensitive memory, which informeth the intellect what
they are ; as the mention of things sensible entereth the defini-
tion of sense, and the mention of sense doth enter the definition
of things sensible, and yet the object is in order of nature before
the act ', and as truth must enter the definition of intellection,
P Nee enim ignorare potest Deus qua mente quisque sit. — Cicer. <Je Div.
At ip^noratio rerum alieiia est naturae Deorunn et sustinendi muneris prop-
ter imbecillitatem difficultas, niiuime cadit in majestatem Deorum : ex quo
efficitur id quod volumus, Ueorum providentia mundum administrari. —
Cicer. ih.
1 yuod si inest in hcminum genere mens, fides, virtus, concordia, unde lisc
in terras nisi k superis diiTluere putuenuit? Cunique sit in nobis consilium,
ratio, prudentia, necesse est Deos liaec ipsa liabere majora : nee habere solum,
sed etiam liis uti in optimis et nYA\'im'i% yehus.— Cicero de Natitr. Deorum.
Lib. 2. p. 76.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 481
and intellection the definition of truth, and yet truth is in order
before intellectioUj and contemporary with the intellect, so is it
between goodness and the will. But, if we speak of uncreated
good, and of a created will, then good is infinitely antecedent
to that will ; but the will which is created hath a nature suited
to it, and so the notion of excellency and goodness is naturally
in our estimative faculty, and the relish of it, or complacency in
it, is naturally in the will, so far as it is not corrupted and de-
praved : as if I knew a man that had the wisdom and virtue of
an angel, my estimation calleth him excellent and good, and my
will doth complacently cleave to him, though 1 should never
look to be the lietter for him myself; or if I only heard of him,
and never saw him, or were personally beholden to him.
That God is thus infinitely excellent and good, the goodness
of his creatures proveth ; for all the goodness that is in men and
angels, earth and heaven, proceedeth from him. If there be any
natural goodness in the whole creation, there must be more in
the Creator j if there be any moral goodness in men and angels,
tiiere must be more in eminency in him : for he can make
thing better than himself, nor give to creatures what he hath
not.""
Sect. 19. The goodness of the first being consisteth in this
infinite perfection or excellency, containing his happiness, his
holiness, and his love or benignity.^
Sect. 20. The happiness of the first being consisteth, 1. In
his being himself ; 2. In his knowing himself ; 3. In his loving
and enjoying himself.
The most perfect being must needs be the most happy, and
that in being what he is; his own perfection being his happiness :
and as knowledge in the creature is both his perfection and de-
light, so tlie transcendent omniscience of the Creator must needs
be both part of his perfection, as distinguished by our narrow
minds, and such felicity as may be called eminently his delight,
>• Deus est summum bonum, supra omnem substantiam, omnemque natu-
rani ; quod cuncta expetuiit, cum ipse sit plense perfectiouis, nullius societa-
tis indigus. — Plato m Tim.
Amor divinus fuit causa factionis numdi, etoriginis omnium rerum.— /</. ib.
Bonus quidem Deus, et quidem Deus causa bouorum : malorum autem
omnium uon causa. — Idem, tie Leg:
s Deus si vim spectes, valentissimus, si decorem furmosissimus, si vitam
immortalis, denique si virtutem prsestantissimus est. — Jristot. ile Mun. c. 6.
Deus est actus illis porro actus qui per se est, et optimus et aeternus. Atque
Deum animal esse et aeternum et prffistantissimum dicimus. Vita igitur et
aevum continuum et perpetuum Deo suppetit : est enim hoc Deus— ^r«<o^
Metaphys.
4S2 THE REASONS OF
though what God's delight is we know not formally : and as love
or complacency is the perfective operation of the will, and so of
the human nature in man, and is his highest, final, and enjoying
act, of which ail goodness is the object; so there must be some-
thing in the perfection of the first cause, though not formally the
same with love in man, yet eminently so called, as known to
us by no other name: and this complacency must needs be prin-
cipally in himself, because l>e himself is the infinite and only
primitive good ; and as there was primitively no good but him-
self to love, so now there is no good but derived from him, and
dependent on him : and as his creature (of which anon) is
obliged to love him most, so he must needs be most amiable to
himself. Self-love and self-esteem, in the creature, may be in-
ordinate, and therefore called pride ; but it is impossible that
infinite goodness itself can be over-valued or over-loved by him-
self, or by any creature.
Sect. 21. The holiness of the first being consisteth, 1. In his
separation from all creatures, by that transcendency which
maketh him their end ; 2. In the special perfection of his will,
which willeth and hath complacency in that alone, ad extra,
which is agreeable to his perfect nature and infinite wisdom 5
3. And so being the fountain and rule of moral goodness to the
rational creature.
The holiness of man consisteth, 1. In his separation from com-
mon uses unto God ; 2. In the rectitude of his will, as habitually
thus inclined and bent to moral good, and hating evil ; 3.
Whereby it is conformable to the governing will of God : and
hence we may learn what holiness is in God, though not formally
the same with that in man.
Sect. 22. The benignity and love of the first being is his es-
sence or nature, as inclined to complacency in all created good ;
and to benevolence or doing good to creatures, freely and agree-
ably to his infinite wisdom.
The love of complacency to all created good is necessary in
God, supposing the continued existence of that created good,
which is the object ; but it is not necessary that such created
good do continually exist. The love of benevolence is also
natural to God in this sense, that it is his natural perfection, as
respecting the creature, to be used agreeably to his perfect wis-
dom ; but the exercise of it is not necessary, because the being
or felicity of the creature is not necessary, but it is acted freely,
according as the infinite wisdom seeth it is fit, as to those ends
to which all creatures are but the means.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 483
Sect. 23. The first being must needs be the only ultimate end
to himself, so far as he may be said to intend an end.*
God doth not intendere finem in defectiveness and imperfec-
tion, as the creature doth ; he wanteth nothing, nor is he in via
as to his felicity ; but, eminently, he may be said to intend an
end, as he maketh one thing a means to produce or attain ano-
ther, and doth nothing disorderly, nor in vain, but ordereth all
things in infinite wisdom. He is not wanting, but enjoying his
end at all times, even in the midst of his use of means. To his
essential goodness and blessedness there is no means ; nothing
is capable of the honour of contributing to it ; but his will is the
beginning of all derived beings, and his will is the ultimate end
of all. He is pleased to make and order all by his power and
wisdom, and he is pleased in all things as so made and ordered.
The complacency of his will, then, is the ultimate end of all his
works, as the glory of his own power, wisdom, and goodness
shineth in them ; and though complacency, or pleasure, or
will, be not formally the same in God as in us, yet something
eminently there is in him, which, under this notion, we must
conceive of, and express.
Sect. 24. The posse ^ scire, velle, the operative power, under-
standing, and will of God, according to their perfection, called
his omnipotency, omnisciency, and goodness, by which he is
maximus, sapientissimus, optimus, is a wonderful, yet an in-
telligible and certain trinity in unity, viz. : in the unity of essence
there is this trinity of principles or faculties, as they may be
called from the manner of imperfect man, but deserve a higher
name in God.
Sect. 25. The essence of God is not the genus, and these three
the species ; nor is it the totum, and these three the parts ; nor
is it a substance, of which these three are accidents : but they are
like the essential faculties in man, which are one with the soul
* Creatasautem potentias, creatrix utique potentia jure superemhiet eo ipso
vel maxime (juo creavit. Nam et animatii aiiinia. prHestantiorera ssepe et ex-
perimuret dicimus. — Ctaudian. Mammert. de Anima Statu. 1. 1. cap. 15.
When 1 consider, that taking any one sound, if you join thereto another a
third above it, and then place another a third above that also ; these three,
thus conjoined and sounding together, do constitute one entire harmony, whicli
governs and compriseth all tlie sounds which, by art or imagination, can at
once be joined together in musical concordance : tl)is 1 cannot but think a
significant emblem of that supreme and incomprehensible Three in One,
governing, comprising, and disposing the whole macliine of the world, with all
its included parts in a perfect harmony. — ChristojjJi, Simpson's 'Division
Violist,' p. 17.
484 THE REASONS OF
in essence, but are not one and the same faculties, but truly
distinct, whether it be really, formally, or relatively and denomi-
nativeiy only. God's power on omnipotency is not formally
the same (qicoad conceptum objectivum) with his understanding
and wisdom, nor this the same with his will and goodness ; they
are as three essential principles, and yet but one essence, and so
one God : nor is it ])art of God that is omnipotent, and part
that is omniscient, and part that is good ; or quce potest intelligit
et vult ; but the whole Godhead is omnipotent, the whole om-
niscient, and the whole is good, or power, wisdom, and goodness
itself; yet each of these notions, by itself alone, is not a total
or full expression of the whole perfection of the Deity.
Therefore, we must neither confound the essential principles
in God, nor divide the essence. The omnipotency is as one
faculty, the understanding another, and the will another; but
the Godhead and essence of them all is one, the glory equal, the
majesty co-eternal : such as the power is, such is the understand-
ing, and such is the will. The power uncreated, the under-
standing uncreated, and the will uncreated ; the power incom-
prehensible, the understanding incomprehensible, and the will
incomprehensible; the power eternal, the understanding eternal,
and the will eternal : and yet there are not three eternal Gods
or essences, but one eternal ; nor three incomprehensibles, nor
three uncreated, but one. The power is God, the understanding
is God, and the will is God ; and yet there are not three Gods,
but one God : so then there is one power, not three powers ;
one understanding, not three understandings; one will, not
three wills. And in this Trinity none is in duration before or
after other, none is greater or less than other ; but the whole
three principles be co-eternal together, and co-equal : so that
in all things, as aforesaid, this Unity in Trinity, and Trinity in
Unity, is to be acknowledged as undeniable in the light of na-
ture, and to be adored and worshipped by all."
And because of the unity of the essence, these three may be
predicated into the concrete of each other, but not in the abstract,
because of their formal diversity ; and so it may be said, that
'^ Tlie reason why the heathens made gods of several virtues, was, because
those virtues were niust eminent in God, and by adoring them, men would
learn to love and imitate them. Bene mens, pietas, virtus, fides consecratur
manu: quarum omnium Roma; dedicata publice templa sunt, ut ilia qui
habeant (habent autem omnes boni) Deos ipsos in animis suis coUocatos pa-
tent.— Oecr. de Leii\2, p. 210.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 485
the power is an uiulerstanding or wise power, and the under-
standing is an omnipotent understanding, and the will a most
wise and omnipotent will, and the power a good and willing
power ; but not that the power is the understanding, and the
understanding the will, or the will is the power or understanding.
So as to their order, the power, as in itself considered as an
active, vital power, is first in our conception, and doth, as it
were, act by the understanding, and the understanding by the
will, and in execution so go forth with the will, that the effect
is inimediatelv to be ascribed to it.
Sect. 26. Though all the divine faculties and principles are
adumbrate (or made manifest) in the creation or frame of the
world, yet the omnipotency is therein to us most eminently
apparent.
It is infinite wisdom and infinite goodness which shine to
us in this wonderful frame, but we first, and with greatest
admiration, take notice of the omnipotency ; to consider the
innumerable number of the orbs, the multitude of the fixed
stars, (which may be called so many suns,) and to think of their
distances, magnitude, powers, orders, influences, communica-
tions, effects, &c. ; and how many millions of these, for aught
we know, there may be besides those which are within our
sight, even though helped by the most perfect telesco))es : it
striketh the soul with unspeakable admiration at the power that
created and maintaineth all this, when we think of the incon-
ceivable, rapid, orderly, perfect, constant motions of all these
orbs, or at least of the planets and circumjacent bodies in every
vortex. All these thoughts do make the Deity, or first being,
to be just to the mind as the sun is to the eye, the most intelli-
gible of beings, but so incomprehensible that we cannot endure
to gaze too much or near upon his glory.
Sect. 27. Whether the whole world be animated or inani-
mate ; whether the whole have one constitutive soul or not ;
whether each orb have its particular soul or not, are things
imrevealed, and beyond the certain knowledge of the natural
mind : but it is certain that the first being is not the ])roper, con-
stitutive form or soul of the world, but yet that he is much
more to it than such a form or soul, even the total, perfect,
first cause of all that it is, and hath, and doth.
He is not the constitutive form or soul of the universe, as it
seems Cicero, with the academics and stoics, thought, because
then the creator and the creature should be the same, or else
486 THE REASONS OF
the creature should be nothing but dead, passive matter, and
then man himself, who knoweth that he hath a soul, would
either be God, which his experience and the consciousness of
his frailty forbid him to imagine, or else he should be a crea-
ture more noble than the universe, of which he is so small
a part, which his reason also forbiddeth him to believe.
But yet, that God is much more to the world than a consti-
tutive soul, is undeniable, because he is the creating cause,
which is more than a constitutive cause f and his continued
causation in its preservation, is as a continued creation ; as in
man the soul is a dependent cause, which can give nothing to
the body but what it hath received, nor act but as it is acted or
empowered by the first efficient ; and, therefore, though we call
not God the soul of man, because we would not so dishonour
him, nor confound the Creator and the creature, yet we all know
that he is to us much more than the soul of souls, for " in him
we live and move, and have our being;" so also it is as to God's
causation of the being, motion, and order of all the world ;
God is incomparably more to it than its form, as being the total,
first cause of form and matter. To be the Creator is more than
to be the soul.
Sect. 28. The glory of all being, action, and order in the
creatures, is no less due to God when he worketh by means,
than when he worketh by none at all.y
For when no means is a means, nor hath being, aptitude,
force, or efficacy, but from himself, he only communicateth
praise to his creatures when he thus useth them, but giveth not
away the least degree of his own interest and honour ; for the
creature is nothing, hath nothing, and can do notliing, but by
him ; it useth no strength, or skill, or bounty, but what it first
receiveth from him ; therefore, to use such means, can be no
dishonour to him, unless it be a dishonour to be a communica-
tive good. As it is no dishonour to a watchmaker to make
that engine which showeth his skill, instead of performing all
the motions without that little frame of means ; but yet no
similitude will reach the case, because all creatures themselves
are but the continued productions of the Creator's will, and the
virtue which they put forth is nothing but what God putteth
" Fas autem nee est, nee unqiiam fuit, cjuicquam nisi pulcherrimuni facere
eum qui esset optimus.— C/Ver. de Univer. p. 2fi9.
r See ' Tiieophil. Antiocli. ad AutoL' 1. 1. p. in B. p. 128. Showing that by
God's voice speaking to Adam, is meant his Son.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 487
into them ; and he is as near to the effect when he worketh by
means, as when without.
Sect. 29. Those that call these three faculties or principles
in the divine essence, by the name of tln-ee hypostases, or per-
sons, do seem to me to speak less unaptly than the schools who
call " Deum seipsum intelligent em," the Father ; and " Deum
ut a se intellectum," the Son ; and " Deum a se amatum," the
Holy Ghost. For that in God, which is to be conceived of us
by analogy to our essential faculties, is with less impropriety
called an hypostasis or person, than that which is to be con-
ceived by us in analogy to our actum secundi, or receptions.^
Sect. 30. And those that say the first faculty, omnipotency,
as eminently appearing in the frame of nature, may therefore be
said to be especially therein personated, or denominated, the
creating power, speak nothing which derogateth from the honour
of the Deity.
Sect. 31. Though we cannot trace the vestigia, the adumbra-
tion, or appearances, of this Trinity in Unity, through the whole
body of nature and morality, because of the great debility and
narrowness of our minds ; yet it is so apparent, on the first and
most notable parts of both, as may make it exceedingly probable
that it runneth in perfect method through them all ; if our un-
derstandings were but able to follow and comprehend that won-
derful method in the numerous, minute, and less discernible par-
ticulars.'*
I shall now give no other instance than in two of the most
noble creatures. The soul of man, which is made after God's
image, from whence we fetch our first knowledge of him, hath
in the unity of a living spirit, the three aforesaid faculties of
vital and executive power, understanding, and will, which are
neither three species, nor three parts, nor three accidents of the
soul ; but three faculties certainly so far distinct, as that the acts
from which they are denominated really differ, and therefore the
faculties differ at least in their virtual relation to those acts, and
^ Sic Plato, Cum de Deo loqui esset animatus, dicere quid sis, non est ausus :
hoc solum de Deo sciens, quod sciriqualis sit, ah homine non possit ; solem
vero ei simillimum de visibilibus solum reperit et per ejus similitudiiiem viam
sermoiii suo attollendo se ad compreheiisihilia patefecit. Nam Deus qui
prima causa est, unus omnium princeps et ori^u est. Hie superabundanti
foecunditate majestatis de se mentem creavit. Hsec mens que vSs vocatur,
qua patrem inspicit, plenam similitudiuem servat authoris. — Alacroh.
* Nulla gens est tarn immansuetaneciue tam fcrrea, qua? non etiamsi ignoret
qualem Deum habere deceat, tamen habendum sciat, — Cicero 1. de Leg,
488 THE REASONS OF
SO in a well-grounded denomination. To understand is not to
will ; for I understand that which I have no will to, even against
my will, for the intellect maybe forced. Therefore, the same
soul hath in it the virtue or power, both of understanding and
willing, and so of executing, which are denominated from the
different acts which they relate to. There is some reason in the
powers, virtues, and faculties of the real difference in the acts.^
So in the sun, and all the superior luminaries, there is, in the
unity of their essence, a trinity of faculties or powers: 1. Mo-
tiva, 2. Illuminativa, 3. Calefactiva ; causing motion, light, and
heat. The doctrine of motion is much improved by our late
philosophers. ^Vhen the doctrine of light and heat are so also,
and vindicated from the rank of common accidents and quali-
ties, the nature of the luminaries and of fire will be also better
cleared. The sun is not to these powers or acts either a yenus,
a totwn, or a subjectiim. It is not one part of the sun that
moveth, and another which illuminateth, and another which
heateth : but the whole sun, if it be wholly fire, or ethereal mat-
ter, doth move, the whole illuminateth, and the whole doth heat;
and motion, light, and heat, are not qualities inherent in it ; but
motion, illumination, and calefaction, are acts flowing immedi-
ately from its essence, as containing the faculties or powers of
such acts.*^
He that could write a perfect method of physics and morality,
would show us trinity in unity through all its parts, from first to
last. But as the veins, arteries, and nerves, the vessels of the
natural, vital, and animal humours and spirits are easily discerni-
ble in their trunks and greater branches, but not so when they
are minute and multiplied into thousands, so it is in this method.*^
•> Omnibus innatum et quasi insculptuni est, esse Deos. — Id. de Nat.' Dear.
Nulla gens tam fera cujus menteni non imbuerit Deorum opinio. — Idem 1.
Tusc.
« Dicunt Stoici Deum esse animal immortalc, rationale, perfectum et bea-
tum , k male omui remotissimum, providcntia sua niundum et qua? sunt in
mundo administrans omnia: noti taineii inesse ilH huuianae formce liiieameiita :
cff'terlim esse opificem immensi hujus operiSjSicut et patrem omnium. — Laert.
in Zenone, p. (mihi) 36!.
I had rather believe all the fables in the Leg-end, Talmud, Alcoran, than
that this universal frame is without a mind. — Lord ferulam, Essay xvi.
'' Multi de Diis prava sentiunt : id enim vitioso more effici solet : omnes
tamen esse vim et naturam diviiiam arbitrantur. Nee verb id collocutio bomi-
numaut consensus efficit; non institutis opinio est confirmata ; non legibus :
omni autem in re cousensio omnium gentium lex naturae putanda est. — Cicer.
Tusculan. Qu. 1. I. p. 220.
Cesarius, and some other of the ancients, make the image of God on man
to 1)6 his natural perfections, and his similitude to be his moral perfections.
THE CHRISTIAN REr.lGION. 489
But I must desire the reader to observe, that though here I ex-
plain this trinity of active principles in the divine essence, which
is so evident to natural reason itself as to be past all contro-
versy; yet whether, indeed, the trinity of hypostases or persons,
which is part of the christian faith, be not somewhat distinct
from this, is a question which here I am not to meddle with till
I come to the second part of the treatise : nor is it my purpose
to deny it, but only to prepare for the better understanding of
it. Of which more shall there afterwards be said.
Sect. 32. And thus, all creatures, and especially ourselves, de-
clare that there is a first Being and Cause of them all, who is a
substance, life, and spirit, or mind, an active power, understand-
ing, a will, perfect, eternal, independent, and self-sufficient ; not
compounded, not passible, not mutable, corruptible, or mortal ;
immense, omnipresent, incomprehensible, only one, omnipotent,
omniscient, and most perfect, most happy in being himself, in
knowing himself, and enjoying himself; most holy, transcend-
ing all the creatures, of a perfect will, the fountain of all moral
good, love or benign ; having a trinity of essential, transcendent
principles, in unity of essence, which have made their adum-
bration or appearance on the world : whereof, though he he not
the constitutive form or soul, he is to it much more, the first
efficient, dirigent, and ultimate final cause of all, that is, there
is a God.
CHAP. VI.
Of God as related to his Creatures, especially to Man, and as
Ids Owner.
Passing by all that is doubtful and controverted among men
truly rational, and taking before me only that which is certain,
undeniable, and clear, and wherein my own soul is past all
doubt, I shall proceed in the same method secundum ordinen\
coyrwscendi, non essendi. The word * God ' doth not only signify-
all that I have been proving, viz., the perfect nature of the first
cause, but also of his relations to us his creatures : and there-
fore, till I have opened and proved those relations, I have done
but part of my work to prove that there is a God.^
e Read the proofs of the Deity, and of Providence, at large, in Cicer. de Nat^
Deor., lib. 3., hy Balbus,
VOL. XX. M H
490 THE REASONS OF
Sect. 1. God having produced man, and all the world, by his
power, understanding, and will, is by immediate resultancy re-
lated to him as his Creator.
Though he made his body of pre-existent matter, yet was
that matter made of nothing; and therefore God is properly
man's Creator, and not his fabricator only : and a creature is a
relation, which inferreth the correlate ; a creator, as a son
doth a father. This, therefore, is God's first grand relation
unto man, which hath no cause to produce it but his actual
creation, which is \i% fundamentum.
Sect. 2. This grand prime relation inferreth a trinity of grand
relations, viz., That God is our Owner, our Ruler, and our
Benefactor, of which we are now to speak in order.
That these three are justly distinguished from each other, is
past doubt to all that understand what is meant by the terms.
An owner, as such, is not a ruler or benefactor ; a ruler, as such,
is not an owner or a benefactor ; a benefactor, as such, is neither
an owner, nor a ruler. And the enumeration is sufficient : all
human affairs, or actions of converse and society, belong to man
in one of these three relations, or such as are subordinate to
them, and mere dependents on them, or compounded of them.
They are, in some respects, the genera, and in some, as it were,
the elements of all other relations : and from the manner of
men, they are applied to God, with as much propriety of speech
as any terms that man can use concerning him. And he that
could draw a true scheme or method of the body of morality,
(or theology, for all is one with me,) would reduce all the
dealings of God with man, which are subsequent to the funda-
mental act of creation, to these three relations ; and accordingly
distinguish of them all; yet in the mixed acts, (as most are such,)
distinguishing only of the compounding elements (I mean, the
interest of these three relations, as making up the several acts).
Sect. 3. A full owner or proprietor is called dominus in the
strictest sense, and is one that hath a. jus possidendi, disponendi,
et utendi ; a right of having or possessing, disposing and using,
without any copartner, or superior proprietor, to restrain him.
The meaning is better known by the bare terms of denomi-
nation, through common use, than by definition. We know
what it meaneth when a man saith of any thing, ' It is my
own.' There are defective half-proprieties, of co-partners, and
subordinate proprietors, which belong not to our present case.
The word dominus et dominium, is sometimes taken laxly, as
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, 491
comprehending both propriety and rule; and sometimes impro-
perly, for government or command itself: but among lawyers
it is most commonly taken properly and strictly for an owner, as
such : but lest any be contentious about the use of the word, I
here put instead of it the word owner and proprietor, as being
freer from ambiguity.
Sect. 4. God is, jure creationis et conservationis, the most
absolute owner or proprietor of man and the whole creation.'^^
It is not possible that there should be a more full and certain
title to propriety than creation and total conservation is. He
that giveth the world all its being, and that of nothing, and
continueth that being, and was beholden to no pre-existent
matter, nor to any co-ordinate concause, nor dependent on any
superior cause in his causation, but is himself the first, inde-
pendent, efficient, total cause of being and well-being, and all
the means thereto, must needs be the absolute owner of all,
without the least limitation or exception.
It is not the super-em.inency of God's nature, excelling all
created beings, that is the foundation of this his propriety in
the creature : for excellency is no title to propriety. And
yet he that is uniciis in capacitate jjossidendi, that is, so
transcendently excellent as to have no copartner in a claim,
might by occupation be sole proprietor, in that kind of pro-
priety secundum quid, which man is capable of ; because there
is no other whom he can be said to wrong. But God hath a
more plenary title by creation to absolute propriety.
Sect. 5. Therefore it belongeth to God to be the absolute
disposer of all things : to do with them what he please ; and
to use them to the pleasure of his will.
Every one may do with his own what he list, except the
propriety be but limited, and dependent on another, or but
secundum quid. Who should interpose, and any way hinder
God from the free disposal of his own ? not any copartner, for
there is none; nor the creature itself, because it is absolutely
his.
Sect. 6. Therefore, also, in hoc instanti, antecedently to any
further relation or covenant, it is not possible for God to do
wrong to his creature, however he shall use it : because it is
^ Those writers who confound propriety and government under the word
* dominion,' and tlicn bestow long and sliarj) disputes on the question, What is
the fundamentum of God's dominion, do but deUide the ignorant? and exercise
the patience or contempt of the intelligent.
M M 2
492 THE REASONS OF
absolutely his own, and he oweth it nothing : and where there
is no debitum, there is no jus, and can be no injuria.
It is to be remembered that I speak not here of God, as now
related to the rational creature as a rector and a benefactor,
and as having declared his own will in his laws or promises to
the contrary ; but I speak of God only in the relation of a
proprietor, simply in itself considered, and so of his absolute
right, and not his ordinate will, as it is commonly called. No
man need to fear lest God should deal unequally with himself,
or contrary to that which true reason calleth justice. For God
having made him rector of the world, hath, as it were, obliged
himself, that is, declared his will, to deal equally with all men,
and judge them according to their works : and so hath created
a debitum et jus to man, which inferreth a certain justice on
God's part. But, considering him only in this first relation,
merely ut dominus absolutus, or proprietor, it is not possible
for any thing that he can do to be an injury : and mere corporal
pain (including no contradiction or error, as consciences' accu-
sation of the innocent doth) could be no wrong : there being less
appearance of reason to call it wrong, than for my burning my
wood, or plucking a rose, to be a wrong : for it is not the pain
of one that can make it an injury any more than the destruction
of the other : where there is no jus, there can be no injuria ;
and where there is no debitum, there is no jus. IVly rose hath
possession of its life, but no right to it : therefore, it is no wrong
to destroy it. And yet in this, and in the killing of birds, and
beasts, and fishes, and labouring my horse and ox in continual
weariness and pain, my borrowed half-propriety secundum quid,
excuseth me from doing them any wrong : which God's absolute
propriety will do much more unquestionably by him.
Sect. 7' Though all God's three essential principles or
faculties, power, wisdom, and goodness, appear in each of his
three grand relations, owner, ruler, and benefactor, yet each
one of these hath most eminently some one of God's essential
principles or faculties appearing in it; viz., his power most
appeareth in his propriety, his wisdom in his rule, and his
goodness or love in his benefits given us.
o ...
Tiierefore, propriety resulteth immediately from creation, as
producing the ceature as a creature ; but so doth not govern-
ment, as we shall see anon. And as omnipotency is the most
eminent attribute in the creation, so is it in that absolute
propriety of the Creator, acquired by it.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 493
CHAP. VIT.
1. Of Man's Relation to God, his Owner.
Sect. 1. God being our undoubted, absolute Owner, it foUow-
eth, undeniably, that we are his own.
The relations e are mutual, and the thing needeth no proof.
Sect. 2. Therefore, man being an intelligent creature, that
can know this his relation to his Maker, is bound by nature to
consent to it, and absolutely resign himself to the will, disposal,
and use of his Creator. *»
For there is nothing more reasonable, than that every one
should have his own : and the understanding of man should
conceive of things as they are, and the will of man should con-
sent to his Maker's interest and right, or else it were most
crooked, irregular, and unjust. Therefore, it must needs be the
duty of every reasonable creature to bethink him, that God is
his absolute Owner, and thereupon to make a deliberate, resolved
resignation of himself to God, without any exceptions or re-
serves.
Sect. 3. Therefore, man should labour to know wherein he
may be most useful to his Maker's interest, (which is his plea-
sure in our perfection,) and therein he should willingly and joy-
fully layout himself. '
For it is undeniable that God should be served with his own,
and that entirely, without dividing : for we are not in part, but
wholly his.
Sect, 4. Therefore, no man can have any propriety in himself,
but what is derived from his absolute Lord, and standeth in full
subordination to his propriety.
For there can be but one full and absolute proprietor. I can
have no other propriety in myself, but by derivation and trust
from my Creator.
Sect. 5. Therefore, also, no creature can have any propriety in
K Prima pietatis magistra nalura est. — Cic,
■' Onuiis est Deorum vita beata, hominuin autem quatenus in ea lucet quod-
dam ejus actioiiis cxemj)lar. — Aristot. Eth. 10. c. 8.
' Agri ne cousecreutur Platoni asseiitior : qui his fere verbis utitur : terra
igitur, ut focus doinicilium sacrum omuium Deoruui est : quocircauequis ite-
rum idem cousecrato. Aurum autem et argentum iu urhibus et privatim el
iu ianis, iuvidiosa res est. — Ciccr. de Leg-. 1, 2. p. '245.
494 THE REASONS OF
another creature, but only derivatively subordinate, ei aecim'
dum quid.
No parent hath any propriety in his children, nor the most
absolute and potent prince in his people, but as God's stewards
under him ; no, not in themselves, and therefore not in others.
And a steward hath no propriety in his master's goods, but de-
rivative, dependent, subordinate and improper, and only the
usum fructuum, and such possession as is necessary thereto, and
such an imperfect propriety as will justify that possession.
Sect. 6. And as I am not my own, so nothing is properly my
own which I possess, but all that I have is God's as well as I.
For no man can have more title to any thing else than to him-
self. He that is not owner of himself, is owner of nothing.
And we have not any thing, nor can have, which is not as much
from God as we, and therefore is not as much his.
Sect. 7. Therefore, no man should repine at God's disposal of
him, but all men should acquiesce in the disposing will of
God.
For it is unreasonable and unjust to murmur at God, for
doing as he list with his own, and using any thing to his ends.
Sect. 8. And, therefore, all men should avoid all selfish affec-
tions, and partiality, and be more affected with God's interest
than their own.
For we are not so much our own as his, and our interest is
not so considerable in comparison of his.
Sect. 9. Therefore, no man should do any thing for selfish
ends, which is injurious to the will and interest of God, our ab-
solute Owner.
Sect. 10. And, therefore, no man should dispose of his estate,
or any thing he hath, in any way, but for the interest of his ab-
solute Lord.
Sect. 1 1. And, therefore, all men should make it the very care
and laboiu- of their lives to serve the will and interest of this
their absolute Owner.
Sect. 12. And, therefore, no man should prefer the will or in-
terest of the greatest mortal man, or the dearest friend, before
the will and interest of God.
Sect. 13. Nor should the public interest of states or king-
doms be pleaded .-^gainst his will and interest.
But yet we must take heed how we oppose or neglect this last,
especially, because the M'ill of God doth take most pleasure in the
public or common benefit of his creatures ', and therefore these
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 495
two are very seldom separated ; nor ever at all as to their real
good, though as to carnal, lower good, it may so fall out.
All these are so plain, that to stand to prove or illustrate
them, were but to be unnecessarily and unprofitably tedious.
Sect. 14. It being a God of infinite wisdom and goodness,
as well as power, who is our Owner, his title to us is a great con-
solation to the upright.
For as he hath taught men (and brutes too) to love their
own, it intimateth that he will not despise his own : and there-
fore his interest in us is our comfort.
Sect. 15. No man is capable of giving anything properly to
God, but only by obediential reddition of his own : no, nor to
man, but as God's steward, and according to our propriety, se-
cundum quid, in respect to other claimers.
CHAP. VIII.
2. Of God's Relation to Man, as his Governor,
Sect. 1. God having made man a rational free-agent, and
sociable, among sensible objects, and out of sight of his invisi-
ble Creator, and so infirm and defectible, it followeth, necessarily,
that he is a creature which must be governed by moral means,
and not only moved by natural necessitation, as inanimates and
brutes. ^
The thing that I am first to prove is, that man's Creator hath
made him such a creature, whose nature requireth a govern-
ment, that he hath a necessity of government, and an aptitude
to it.
' By government, I mean, the exercise of the moral means of
laws, and execution by a nder, for the right ordering of the sub-
ject's actions, to the good of the society, and the honour of the
governor,
^ Stoici dicunt mundum regi et administrari secundum mentem et provi-
dentiam. — Laert. in Zenone.
Note, that all Cicero's unanswerable reasons for the law of nature (lib. de
Leg.) prove, that God governeth us by laws : for the law of nature is-God's
law, who is the Maker of nature.
Omnium quae in hominum doctorum disputatione versantur, nihil est pro-
fecto praestabilius, qu^m plane intelligi nos ad justitiam esse natos ; neque
opinione sed naturft, constitutuni esse jus. Id jam patebit, si hominum inter
ipsossocietatera conjunctionemque prospexeris, &c. — Cicer.de Leg-, 1. p. 221,
496 THE REASONS OF
I distinguish laws from all mere, natural motions and necessi-
tation ; for though, analogically, the shepherd is said to rule
his sheep, and the rider his horse, yea, and the pilot his ship,
and the ploughman his plough, and the archer his arrow, yet
this is but equivocally called government, and is not that which
we here mean, which is the proposal of duty, seconded with re-
wards or punishment for the neglects, by those in authority, for
the right governing of those that are committed to their care and
trust : so that it Is not all moral means neither which is called
government, for the instruction or persuasion of an equal is not
such. Laws, and judgment, and execution, are the constitutive
parts of government ; hut by laws I mean the whole kind, and
not only written laws, nor those oidy which are made by sove-
reign rulers of commonwealths, which, by excellency, are called
laws, but I mean the signification of the will of a governor,
making the subject's duty, and determining of rewards to the
obedient, and punishments to the disobedient ; or, an au-
thoritative constitution, de debito officii, prcemii pcence, for the
ends of government : so that as parents, and tutors, and masters,
do truly govern, as well as kings, so they have truly laws, though
not in such eminency as the laws of republics. The will of a
parent, a tutor, or master, manifested concerning duty, is truly
a law to a child, a scholar, or a servant. If any dislike the use
of the word, ' law,' in so large a sense, it sufficeth now for me
to tell them in what sense I use it, and so it will serve to the
understanding of my mind : I take it for such an instrument of
government. The parts of it are: 1. The constituting of the
debitum officii, or what shall be due from the subject; 2. The
debitum pramii vel pcenos^ or what shall be due to the subject,
which is in order to the promoting of obedience ; though as to
the performances, obedience may be in order to the reward.
Now, that man is a creature made to be governed by such a
proper, moral government, I prove.
1. The several parts of government are necessary, therefore
government is necessary : from all the parts of government to
the whole is an unquestionable consequence. It is necessary
that man have duty prescribed and imposed, else man shall have
nothing which he ought to do. Take away duty, and we are
good for nothing, nor have any employment fit for reason ; and
take away all reward and punishment, and you take away duty
in effect : experience teacheth us that it will not be done, for a
rational agent will have ends and motives for what he doth.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 497
2. From the imbecility of our younger state, so weak is our
infant understanding, and so strong our sensitive inclination,
that if parents should leave all their children ungoverned, abused
reason would make man worse than beasts.
3. From the common infirmity and badness of all the world ;
the wise are so few, and the ignorant so many, that if all the
ignorant were left ungoverned to do what they list, they would
be like an army of blind men in a fight, or like a world of men
bewildered in the dark. What a confused, loathsome spectacle
would the world be ! And the rather, because men are bad, as
well as foolish. Would all the sensual, vicious persons in the
world be ordered like men, without any government, by such as
are wiser than themselves ?
4. From the power of sensitive objects, the baits of sense are
so numerous, so near, and so powerful, that they would bear
down reason in the most, without the help of laws : nay, laws
themselves, even of God and man, do so little with the most, as
tell us what they would be without them.
5. The variety of men's minds, and interests, and disposi-
tions, is such, as that the world ungoverned would be utterly in
confusion : as many minds and ways as men. No two men are
in all things of the same apprehensions.
6. From the nature of man's powers ; he is a noble creature,
and therefore hath answerable ends to be attained, and there-
fore must have the conduct of answerable means. He is a
rational free- agent, and therefore must have his end and means
proposed to his reason, and is not to be moved by sense alone ;
his chief end, as well as his chief governor, being out of his
sight.
7. The experience of all mankind constraineth them to con-
sent to this : that man is a creature made for government.
Therefore, even among cannibals, parents govern their children,
and husbands govern their wives ; and in all the rational world
there are rulers and subjects, masters and servants, tutors and
scholars, which are all governors or governed. Few men are to
be found alive on earth, who would have all men, or any men,
save themselves, ungoverned ; otherwise, men would be worse to
men, I say not than serpents, and toads, and tigers, are to one
another, but than any of them are to men. Every man that
hath strength and opjjortunity would make a prey of the life or
welfare of his brother. Men's own necessity forceth them
everywhere to set up governments, that they may not live as in
^98 THE REASONS OF
a continual war, in danger and fear of one another; nay, a war
that is managed by armies is also ordered by government, be-
cause many must agree for mutual defence ; but else every man
would be against another, and they would be as so many fight-
ing cocks or dogs, every one would fight or flee for himself; for
fighting or fleeing, injuring and being injured, would be all their
lives.'
He that denieth man to be a creature made for government,
and, consequently, denieth God's government of the world, by
moral, proper government, doth own all these absurdities, which
elsewhere I have heretofore enumerated.
1 . He denieth that there is a God : for to be God, includeth
to be governor of the rational world.
2. He denieth that man oweth any duty to God or man : for
where there is no government, there is no proper duty.
3. He denieth the justice of God : for justice is the attribute
of a governor ; that is, distributive justice, which we speak of;
for commutative justice God cannot exercise towards man,
because of our great inferiority to him.
4. He denieth all the laws of nature : for where there is no
government there are no laws.
5. He denieth the virtue of obedience, and all other virtues
concatenated with it : for where there is no government there
is no obedience. ™
6. He denieth that there is any such thing as sin, or any
fault against God or man : for where there is no government,
' Si leges abrogantur et cuivis licentia faciendi quicquid voluerit data sit,
non solum respub. pessum ibit, sed nee quicquam intererit inter nostram et
ferarum vitam. — Demost. Or. 2. co7it, Aristog.
Bonis legibus, honestorum studiorum semulatione pia, temperans, justa, et
re bellied prastans civitas reddilur. — Dion. Halle. 1. 4.
Modestiam quandam cognitio rerum coelestium affert iis, qui videant quanta
sit etiam apud Deos nioderatio, quantus ordo ; et magnitudinem animi, Deo-
runi opera et facta cernentilius. Justitiam etiam, cum cognitum habeas, quid
sit summi rectoris et Domini numen, quod consilium, quse voluntas; cujus
ad naturam apta ratio vera ilia et summa lex a philosophis dicitur. — Cice%\ de
Finib. 1. 4. p. 15(J.
■" Fundamentum libertatis, fons aequitatis, mens et animus et consilium,
sententia civitatis posita in legibus. — Cic.
Atqui si natura confirmatum jus non erit, virtutes omnes toUantur : ubi
enim liberalitas ? Ubi patria; caritas ? Ubi pietas ? Ubi aut bene raerendi
de altero, aut referend-n gratiie voluntas, poterit existere ? Nam base nascun-
tur ex eo quod naturA. propensi sumus addiligendos homines, quod fundamen-
tum juris est. Neque solum in homines obsequia, sed etiam in Deos cere-
monias religionesque toUuntur, quas non metu, sed ea conjunctioue, quae est
homini cum Deo, conservandas puto.— Cic. dc Leg, 1. p, 225,
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, 499
there is no transgression. Both the vicious habits and the acts
will have no more crime than the poison of a toad.
7. And then no man should forbear any act as sinful or
criminal.
8. Nor should any persons reprove sin in others, nor exhort
them from it.
9. Nor should any one confess any sin, or repent of it,
because it is not.
10. Nor should any man ask forgiveness of any crime of God
or man.
11. Nor should any man thank God for the pardon of his
sin.
12. It will follow that there is no moral difference between
men or actions, as good and bad, but all are alike, whatever
they be or do.
13. He denieth all God's judgments, and all his rewards and
punishments j for these are all of them acts of government.
14. It will follow, that every man should do what he list.
15. And that all parents may forbear the government of their
children, and all masters of their servants, and governors of
their families.
16. It treasonably subverteth all kingdoms and common-
wealths, and denieth that there should be any kings or subjects.
17. It denieth all human justice, because it denieth human
government.
18. It maketh man a beast, who is incapable of moral
government.
19. It maketh him far worse than a beast, as corruptio optimi
est pessima : for a beast hath an analogical, improper govern-
ment by man, but man must have such as moveth him rationally,
according to his nature, or he must have none at all : and it
would banish all order, duty, and virtue, out of the world, and
make earth somewhat worse than hell, which is not wholly
destitute of government.
20. But the best of it is, while it nullifieth right and wrong,
it inferreth, that whosoever shall beat or hang the owners of
this doctrine, do them no wrong, nor offend any laws of God or
man : for if there be no government, there is no transgression ;
and if they are brutes, they may be used as brutes, who are
incapable of titles, rights, inheritances, or of any plea as against
an injury.
Sect. 2. Man being made a creature to be governed, it thence
500 THE REASONS OF
foUovveth, that his Creator must needs be his sovereign governor,
as being only fit, and having, in his propriety, the only right. "
1. A governor he must have ; for there is no government, nor
governed, without a governor.
2. If there be ever so many inferior governors, there must
be some supreme ; or else each one would be absolutely supreme,
and none inferior. But I will first prove that God is man's
Sovereign, and then show the foundation of his right, and of this
relation.
The only objection made against it consisteth of these two
parts. 1 . That God moveth man effectually, per moclum natureSy
as an engineer ; and that this is more excellent than moral
government. 2. And that moral government, being a less
effectual way, is committed to angels and to men ; viz., kings,
and states, and magistrates, who are sufficient to perform it. °
This objection confesseth the government of one man over
others, but denieth the government of God over man ; and,
instead of it, substituteth his mere physical motion, or natural
government, such as a pilot useth to his ship. I shall, therefore,
against it prove, that not only man, but God, doth exercise this
proper moral government, by laws, and executions, and not a
physical motion only.
Sect. 3. I. God hath de facto made laws for mankind : there-
fore, he is their governor by laws.
The consequence is undeniable : the antecedent I further
prove.
Sect. 4. He that doth, by authoritative constitution of duty,
oblige man to obedience, doth make laws for him, and govern
him by laws : but God doth, by authoritative constitution of duty,
oblige man to obedience : therefore, he maketh laws for him,
and ruleth him thereby, p
" Mundus numine regitur,estque quasi communis urbs et civitas liominum.
Cicero 2 de Finib.
o Nee solum jus ^ natura dijudicatur, sed omniuo omnia lionesta et turpia :
nam et communis intelligentia nobis notas res efficit ; easque in aiiimis nostris
inchoavit, ut honesta in virtute ponantur, in vitiis turpia. Haec autem in
opinione cxistimare, non in natura ponere, dementis est. Nam et nee arboris,
nee equi virtus, quae diciturin quo abuliraur nouiine, in opinione sita est sed
in natura. — Cicer. de Leg-. 1. p. 225.
p Rerum natura nial6 administrari non vult: et multorum dominatus et
principatusnon est utills : unus ergo sit pr'mceps.—Aristot. lib. \ 11. Metaph,
c. 10,
yuod in navi gubernator, quod in curru ag^itator, (luod in choro prsecentor,
quod denique lex in civitate, et dux in exercitu, lioc Dens est in mundu. —
Aristot. de Mund. c. t'i.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. • SOI
The major is not to be denied ; for it only asserteth the name
from the definition. The authoritative appointment of the
debitum officii, obHging to obedience, is the definition of legis-
lation, as to its first and principal act ; which the appointment
of the debitum prcemii vel j^oena foUoweth. And I think that the
interest of mankind will not suffer him to be so erroneous as to
deny the minor : I think few will believe that there is no such
thing as a law of nature made by the God of nature ; or that
there is no such thing as duty incumbent on man from God \
and so no such thing as an accusing or excusing conscience.
Few persons will believe that it is no duty of parents to nourish
their children, or no crime to murder them ; or that it is no
duty for children to be thankful to their parents, and to love
them; or no sin to hate, or scorn, or kill them. Few kings will
believe, that it is no duty towards God, for their subjects to
obey them, and no crime to rebel or murder them ; and that
conscience hath nothing to say against him for such things, that
can but scape the judgment and revenge of man : and few
subjects will believe, that it is no crime for a prince to oppress
them, in their liberties, estates, and lives : and iew neighbours
will think that he is innocent before God, who beateth them, or
setteth fire to their houses, or murdereth their children or other
relations. If man be under no duty to God, and if nothing that
he can do is a sin against God, what a thing will man be, and
what a hell will earth be ! Deny the law of nature, and you
turn men loose to every villany : and engage the world to
destroy itself, and set all as on fire about their ears.
For if God only move us physically, there is neither virtue
nor vice, good nor evil, in a moral sense : but what God moveth
a man to, that will he do, and what he doth not move him to, he
will not do : and so there being only motion and no motion,
action and no action, there will be no duty and no obligation,
and so no moral good or evil.
Sect. 5. II. If God should rule us only by physical motion,
and not by laws, he should not rule man as man, according to
his nature. But God doth rule man according to his nature,
therefore not only by physical motion. i
Otherwise man should not differ from inanimates and brutes.
A stone is to be moved physically, and a brute by the necessi-
tating objects of sense; but man hath reason, which they have
■J Est enim virtus perfecta ratio, quo'l certe in naturaest. — Cicer. de Leg. 1 .
p. 226.
502 THE REASONS OF
liot, and he is a free-agent. And, therefore, though God con-
cur to his physical motion as such, yet he must move him as
rational by such objects, and such proposals, and arguments,
and means, as are suited to reason. By presenting things ab-
sent to his understanding, to prevail against the sense of things
present, and by teaching him to prefer greater things before
less, and by showing him the commodity and discommodity,
which should move him : God would not have made him
rational, if he would not have governed him accordingly.
Sect. 6. III. If the way of physical motion alone is not so
excellent and suitable as the way of moral government by laws
also, then God doth not only move man physically, and leave it
to magistrates to rule as morally. But the antecedent is truej
therefore, so is the consequent.
God doth not omit the more excellent, and choose a lower
way of government, and leave the more excellent way to man.
And that the minor is true appeareth thus : the way which is
most suitable to the object or sul)ject of government is the
most excellent way^ but such is the moral way by laws ; the
other, beasts are as capable subjects of as men, and trees as
either. Wisdom and justice are eminently glorified in the
moral way ; and omnipotency itself also appeareth in God's
making of so noble a creature, as is governable by reason with-
out force.
Sect. 7. IV. If God were not the sovereign Ruler of the
world, there could be no government of men's hearts. But
there is a government of hearts ; therefore God is the Ruler of
the world.
Man knoweth not the hearts of those whom he governeth ;
and therefore he can take no cognizance of heart-sins or duties,
unless as they appear in words or deeds ; and therefore he
maketh no law for the government of hearts. But the heart is
the man, and a bad heart is the fountain of bad words or acts,
and is itself polluted before it endeavoureth the injury of others.
He that thinks all indifferent that is within him, is himself so
bad, that it is the less wonder if, being so indifferent, yea, so
vitiated within, he thinks nothing evil which he hath a mind to
do. He that thinketh that the heart is as good and innocent,
which hateth his Gnd, his king, his friend, his parents, as that
which loveth them, and that it is no duty to have any good
thought or affection, l^ut only for the outward action's sake ;
nor any sin to be malicious, covetous, proud, deceitful, lustful.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 503
impious, and unjust, in his cogitations, contrivances, and
desires ; unless as they appear in the acts, doth show that lie
hath himself a heart which is too suitable to such a doctrine.
But Nature hath taught all the world to judge of men by their
hearts, as far as they can know them, and not to take the will,
which is the first seat of moral good or evil, to be capable of
neither good nor evil. Therefore, seeing hearts must be under
government, it must not be man, but the heart-searching God,
that must be their Governor.
Sect. S. V. If God were not the Governor of the world, all
earthly sovereigns would be themselves ungoverned. But they
are not ungoverned ; therefore God is their Governor, and so
the Governor of the world.''
The kings and states that have sovereign power through all
the world are under no human government at all, though some
of them are limited by contracts with their people. But none
have so much need to have the benefit of heart government;
none have so strong temptations as they, and no men's actions
are of so great importance to the welfare or misery of the world.
If the monarchs of the earth do take themselves to be left free
by God to do what they list, what work will be made among
the people ! If they think it no duty to be just, or merciful, or
chaste, or temperate, what wonder if they be unjust, and cruel,
and filthy, and luxurious, and use the people for their own ends
and lusts, and esteem them as men do their dogs or horses, that
are to be used for their own pleasure or commodity. What is
the present calamity of the world, but that the heathen and
infidel rulers of the world are so ignorant and sensual, and have
cast oflf the fear of God, and the sense of his government in a
great degree ; when yet most of them have some conviction that
there is a God, who ruleth all, and to whom they must be ac-
countable. What, then, would they be, if they once beheved
that they are under no government of God at all? If they
should oppress their subjects, and murder the innocent, it would
be no fault : for where there is no government and law, there is
no transgression. No one forbiddeth it to them, and none
commandeth them the contrary, if God do not; for the people
are not the rulers of their rulers, nor give them laws : and
neighbouring princes and states are but neighbours ; therefore, if
they should sacrifice peace and honesty, liberties, lives, and
' What Cicero (de Leg. 3) saith, "That he must first learn to obey, who
will learu to govern," is true in respect of obedience to God.
504 THE REASONS OF
kingdoms to their lusts, no man could say, * They do amiss, to
violate any sort of law.' ^
Object. But the fear of rebellions, and the people's vindicating
their liberties, would restrain them.
Ansvv. Only so far as they feel themselves unable to do hurt,
as a man is restrained from killing adders lest they sting him j
and the advantage of their place doth usually empower them to
make desolations, if they have a mind to it : and great minds
will not easily bear a popular restraint. And, indeed, the honester
and better any people are, the more indisposed are they to
rebel ; and therefore tyrants may, with smallest danger and fear,
destroy them.
Object. But their own interest lieth in the people's welfare;
and therefore there is no danger of such miseries.
Answ. Did Nero think so, that wished Rome had but one
neck ; that set the city on fire, that he might sing over it
Homer's poem of the flames of Troy ? That rijiped up his own
mother, that he might see the place where he once lay ? Did
Caligula think so ? Did Commodus, Caracalla, Heliogabalus
think so ? Did the Spaniards think so by the Indians, who are
said by their own writers to have murdered in fortv-two years'
space,no less than fifty millions wf them ? DidkingPhilipthinkso,
who put his own son and heir to death by the inquisition ? Besides
so many thousands more in Spain, and the Low Countries,
by that and other ways ? How full of such bloody instances is
the world ! if it were a tyrant's interest that kept him under
some moderation to the people of his own dominions, it might
yet possibly leave him a bloody destroyer of other nations in
his conquests. The world hath not wanted men that think the
lives of many thousands a little sacrifice to a proud design, or
furious passion ; and are no more troubled at it, than a Pytha-
gorean would be to kill a bird. It hath had such as Sylla,
Messala, Catiline, and the conquerors of Jerusalem, who, as
Josephus saith, crucified so many thousands, till, they wanted
crosses for men, and place for crosses, besides great numbers
famished.
Object. But if chief governors be under no law, they are
under covenants, by which they are obliged.
' Quae lex est recta ratio imperandi atque proUiljendi : quam qui ignorat, is
est iujustus, sive est ilia scripta uspiam, sive iiusplam. Quod si justitia est
ohtemperatio scriptis legibus, iiistitutisque populorum, etsi, ut iidem dicunt,
utilitate omnia metiemla sunt, neo;li<!;et leges, easqueperruinpct, si poteritj is
qui sibi earn rem fructuosam putabit lore. — Cicero dc Leg. 1. p. 225,
THE CHRISTFAN RELIGION. 505
Ansvv. What shall make their covenants obligatory to their
consciences, if they be mider no government of God ? The
reason why men's covenants bind them is, because they are
under the government of God, who requireth all men to keep
their covenants, and condemneth covenant-breakers ; but if
God had never commanded covenant keeping, or forbidden cove-
nant breaking, they could never be matter of duty or sin ; so
that this doctrine, that God hath made no laws for man, and is
not his Governor, doth leave all sovereigns from under the least
conscientious restraint from any acts of cruelty or injustice,
and tendeth to deliver up the world to be a sacrifice to their
lusts, when it is the government of the universal sovereign that
is their restraint.
Sect. 9. VI. If God have not the sovereignty over all the
world, then no man on earth can have any governing power ;
but princes and rulers have a governing power, therefore the
sovereignty is in God.
The reason of the major is, because kings can have no power but
what they receive from some or other; there is no effect without a
cause. And if they receive it, it k either from God or man as the
original. Not from man, for the people themselves have no go-
verning power to use or give, as to the government of common-
wealths : for their personal power over themselves is of another spe-
cies, and Cometh short of this in many respects (as elsewhere I have
proved) 5 and if it were otherwise, yet they have nothing them-
selves but derivatively from God, as is proved before; and, there-
fore, they themselves must have their power from him, from
whom they are and have all that they possess : but God cannot
give that which he hath not himself, either formally or eminently:
therefore, he hath governing power, formally or eminently, or
else no prince, or man, or angel can have any, any more than
they can have being or reason without him. And though his
power be transcendent, his exercise of it must be according to
the capacity of the subject, and, therefore, morally, by laws
and executions. So that as all things else in the creature are
derived, so is power. And as in beings, aut Deus ant nihil, is an
undeniable truth, so as to governing power, or sovereignty,
either it is primitively, supremely, and transcendently in God, or
there is none in any prince or parents : for if they have it not
from him, they can have none at all.*'
' There is scarcely any thing that the world needeth so much as good gover-
nors, or that is a greater blessing to them : which Diogenes intimated when
VOL, XX. N N
506 THE REASONS OF
Object. Governing by laws is caused by human impotency,
because man is not everywhere present, nor of power to effect
himself, in and by others, all the things which he commandeth :
but were man omnipresent and omnipotent, as God is, he would
make all men do well, and not command them to do it: therefore,
it is so in the government of God."
Answ. It is granted that man is impotent, and God omnipo-
tent and omnipresent, and, therefore, that God could indeed do
as is here intimated, even make all men do well, and not com-
mand it J but, 1. It is apparent, that, de facto ^ he doth not so.
2. And his wisdom, being more eminently to be manifested in
the work of government than his omnipotency, doth show us,
partly, why he doth not'so, even because the sapiential way is
more suitable to his ends and to the subject. Creation did
most eminently glorify or manifest omnipotency ; government
doth most eminently glorify God's omniscience or wisdom, as
our perfection or glorification will most eminently manifest and
glorify his love and goodness : each attribute shineth most
eminently in its proper work, and man's conceits must not
confound this perfect order.^
Yet, let it here be noted, that all this while I meddle not
with the controversy of the liberty of man's will, and so whether
God's sapiential government by laws do operate also by neces-
sitatiou and physical causation, as the natural motions of the
orbs, or the artificial motions of an engine. I only argue, that
whether God thus operate by his government by secret necessi-
he was to be sold, and bid the crier cry, " Who will buy him a master ?" And
when they asked him what he could do, he said, " He could tell how to com-
mand or govern men." — Laert. in Diog,
Dicebatque cum intueretur in vita gubernatores, medicos, et philosophos,
animalium omnium sapientissimum, hominem esse : cum autem inspiceret
somniorum interpretes, conjectores, vates, vel qui gloriae aut divitiis addicti
essent, tunc demum nihil se stultius existimare homiue. — Id. Ibid.
" Cicero (de leg. 1.) proveth, that right is founded in the law of nature, more
than in man's laws; "Because, else," saith he, " men may make evil good,
and good evil; and make adultery, perjury, &c., just, by making a law for
them. A cursed consequence, which the atheist cannot deny upon his prin-
ciples. '
■^ Quod si populorum jussis, si principum decretis, si sententiis judicum
jura constituerentur, jus esset latrocinari, jus adulterare, jus testamenta falsa
supponere, fi ha;c suffragiis, aut scitis multitudinis probarentur. Quje si tanta
potentia stultorum sententiis atque jussis, ut eorum suffragiis rerum natura
vertatur,curnou saudunt, utquae mala perniciosaque sunt habeantur pro bonis
et salutaribus. Aut cur cum jus ex injuria facere lex possit, bonum eadem
facere non potest ex. malo. Atqui nos legem bonam k malA nulla alia nisi
nalurali norma dividere possumus.— C'tcer. de Leg. 1. p. 225.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 507
tat'ion or not, yet it is most certain that he governeth morally,
and useth the means of doctrine, laws, and judgments : which
might consist with physical, necessitating efficacy in all that do
obey indeed, if God's wisdom and man's freedom of will did
infer nothing to the contrary. But, if it had been granted, that
all God's government is by physical efficacy, it would stand
good, nevertheless, that laws and judgment are part of the means
which he maketh so effectual : but yet I shall go further in
the next argument.
Sect. 10. VII. Experience satisfieth all the rational world,
that there is, de facto, a course of duty appointed by God for
men, which they do not eventually fulfil. Therefore, there is
not only a moral government, which is effectual, but also, which
is separated from necessitating efficacy.
They that deny this, and plead for physical government only,
must affirm, that nothing is any man's duty but what he actu-
ally performeth, and that nothing is any man's sin which he
doeth, or omitteth to do ; that is, that there is no sin or moral
evil in the world j for all that God physically effecteth is good;
and they suppose him to have no law which connnandeth any
thing but what he physically effecteth, and he will not phy-
sically effect that which he forbiddeth. And if there be no such
thing as moral evil or sin in the world, then no man should fear
any, or avoid any. Let but a man leave any thing undone, if it be
nourishing his children, defending his king, loving God or man,
and he may thence conclude that it never was his duty ; let
him but do any thing that he hath a mind to, if it be killing father
or mother, or his prince, or friend, and he may be sure that it
is no sin because he hath done it, for if God forbid it not, it is
no sin ; nay, he may make it an effect of God's government :
but this consequence is so false and horrid, that no nation on
earth receiveth it, and cannibals themselves abhor it, who eat
not their friends, but strangers and enemies.
Sect. 11. VIII. If God be not the Governor of the world by
laws, then no man need to fear or avoid any thing forbidden by
the laws of man, who can either keep it secret by wit, or keep
himself from human revenge by power. But the consequent is
false, therefore so is the antecedent .^
The reason of the consequence is evident, because where no
y Stoici dicunt, sinceros esse sapientes, observareque et cavere solicit^, ne
quid de se melius qukm sit comniendare putemur, fuco seu arte aliqua mala
occultante, et bona quae insuiit apparere facieate, ac circumcidere vocis omnem
fictionem. — Lnert, in Zenone,
N N 2
508" THE REASONS OF
human revengs is to be feared, there no punishment at all is
to be feared, if God be no Governor of the world ; but those
that can hide iheir actions by craft, or make them good by
power, need not fear any human revenge ; therefore, they need
fear none at all upon the atheist's grounds. And if that be so,
1. How easy is it for cunning malice to burn a town,^ to kill a
king, to poison wife or children, and to defraud a neighbour,
and never be discovered. If this be so, then thieves, adulterers,
traitors, when they are detected, have failed only in point of
wit, that they concealed it not, and not in point of honesty and
duty. 2. And then any rebel that can get enough to follow him,
hath as good a cause as the king that he rebelleth against; and
if he conquer, he need not accuse himself of doing any wrong :
and then there will be nothing for conscience to blame any man
for, or for one man to accuse another of, but witlessness or
impotency. And then the thief must suffer only for want of
strength or cunning, and not because he did any wrong.
Sect. 12. IX. If there be no government by God, there can
be no true propriety but strength, and he that is strongest hath
a right to all that he can lay hold on. But the consequent is
false, therefore so is the antecedent.''
The consequence is undeniable : for if there be no divine
government, there is no law but human, and no man can have
any right, besides strength, to make laws for any other whom-
soever. For if God have no government and law, he constituteth
no debitum veljus, no dueness or right. And man can have no
right to govern others, if he have no governor to give any. If
God do give right to govern, he thereby maketh obedience to
that Governor a duty; and he that constituteth or instituteth
right and duty, governeth. And if God give men no right to go-
vern, they can have none. And then if strength be all their
title, any man that can get as much strength doth get as good
a title, and may seize upon the lives, the lands, and estates of
prince or people, and give laws to the weaker, as others before
'• As London now is.
»Tutum aliqua res in mala conscieiitia prjEstat, nulla securum. Putat
enim etiamsi non deprehenditur posse se deprehendi : et inter somnos move-
tur, et quoties alicujus scelus loquitur, de suo cogitat. — Sen. Ep. 10().
Prima et maxima peccantium poena est peccasse : haec et secundaj poenae
premunt et sequuutur, timere semper et exjjavescere et securitati diffidere. —
Id. Kp. 47.
Mihi laudabilioravidentur omnia, quas sine venditatione et sine populo teste
fiunt. Nullum theatrum virtuti conscieniiii majus est. — Cicer, in Jvscul, 2.
p. 2G8.
THE CHISTIAN RELIGION. 509
gave laws to him. And so there will be utter contempt and
misery be let in upon the world. As in the poet's descrip-
tion of the degenerate age, Vivitur ex rapto, non hospes ah
hospite ^w/m5, ^vc., reason would have nothing to say against
strength : the great dog would have the best title to the bone.
Melior mild dexter a lingua est.
Dummodo pugjnando superum, tu vince loquendo.— Ovid. Met.
The honest, poor, and peaceable, would have such a peace
with thieves and strong ones,
Cum pecore infirmo quae solet esse lupis. — Ovid.
Sect. 13. If God govern not the world, then mere communi-
ties are incapable of right or wrong, and no man is bound in
duty to spare his brother's life or state. But the consequent is
false, therefore so is the antecedent.^
By a community, I mean a company of men, that have set up
no government among them : if God be not their governor,
such have none at all, and so are under no moral obligation ;
for covenants themselves cannot bind, if there be no superior
obligation, requiring man to stand to his covenants.
Object. Then God's covenants to man do not bind him.
Answ. Not at all, by proper obligation; as if it w'ere his duty
to keep them, and his sin to break them ; for God is not
capable of duty or sin. But yet, improperly, they may be called
obligations, because they are the demonstrations of his will,
which the perfection of his nature will not let him violate. It
would be an imperfection, if God should break promise, though
not a sin or crime ; and therefore it is impossible for God to lie.
Object. But suppose we say, that man is under no other obli-
gations than a beast ; and that among men there is no proper
right or wrong, duty or fault ; yet men, by confederacies, with-
out any other government, would settle rules for the safety
'' Paret aequum legibus acceptum ferre debetis. — Demosth.
Animal hoc providum, sagas, multiplex, acutum, memor, plenum rationis
et consilii quern vocamus horainem, prajclara ([uadani conditione generatum
esse a supremo Deo : solum est enim ex tot animantium geueribus et naturis
particeps rationis et cogitatlonis, cum caetera sint omnia expertia. Quid est
autem non dicaiu in honiine, sed in omui coelo, atque terra ratione divinius,
qu£e cum adolevit atque perfecta est, nomiiiatur rite sapientia. Est igitur
quoniam nihil est ratione melius, eaque et in homine et in Ueo, prima homiui
cum Deo rationis societas. Inter quos autem raiio, inter eosdem recta ratio
est communis: quae cum sit lex, lege quoqiie consociati homines cum Diis
putandi sumus ; quibus autem haec sunt inter eos communia et civitatis ejus-
dem habendi sunt unde universus hie mundus una civitas communis Deurum
atque hominum eiiistimaada. — CicdeLe^. 1. p. 219.
510
THE REASONS OF
of cohabitation and converse ; and, for love of themselves, would
forbear wronging others. And this is all the law of nature that
man hath above brutes.
Ansvv. Those confederacies would no further oblige them,
than their interest required them to observe them. Still, by this
rule a man is left free to kill wife and children, if he be weary
of them ; which no neighbour, being wronged by none, will
seem obliged to revenge : still, he that is the stronger is left to
do his worst, without fault, to seize upon other men's estates,
and to depose kings and destroy them; and all the world would
be in a state of war : or, if self-interest keep some quiet for a
time, it would be but till they had strength and opportunity to
do otherwise. He is not fit for human society, who would tell
all about him, ' I think myself free to defraud and murder any
of you, as soon as my own safety and interest will allow me.'
And no man, that thus taketh a man for a beast, can expect any
better usage than a beast himself, any further than self-love
shall restrain others from abusing him ; nor can he plead any
better title to his estate, nor exemption from the violence of
the stronger. And it will also follow, that honesty is nothing
but self- preserving policy ; and that blasphemy and impiety
against God need not be feared or avoided ; nor any thing as a
fault, but only as a folly, exposing the person himself to danger.
Incest, perjury, lying, might be imprudencies, but not any crimes.
Object. If you supposed them in God, they would be but im-
perfections, and not crimes; and why should you judge otherwise
of them in man.
Answ. Because the absolute perfection of his nature is instead
of a law to God, who hath no superior. But man hath a supe-
rior, and hath an imperfect nature, which is, therefore, to be re-
gulated by the wisdom and will of that perfect superior.
And, moreover, if man have reason and wisdom above a beast,
which make him capable of knowing right and wrong, and of
being moved by the things that are evident to reason, though
not to sense ; and if he be made to be governed by laws, as
was proved before, then he is certainly governed accordinglv ; or
else his nature and reason were given him in vain, which could
not be by the m.ost wise Creator.
Object. God governeth the world as the soul governeth the
body which is, rationally, ex parte anhncB ; but not by giving
reason or laws to the body ; but, despotically, by the natural
power of the will.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 511
Answ. The flesh is not capable of laws, as having no reason ;
and therefore no proper laws can be given to it in itself by the
soul : but the soul is capable of reason, and made to be moved
by proposed reasons in a law, and not only by natural force as
the flesh. The government must be agreeable to the capacity
of the subject. Though the rider rule the horse by a bridle and
spur, and not by a law, it followeth not that the king must not
rule the rider so. The soul and body constitute one svjjpositum,
or man; and therefore the body is governed by a law, because
the soul is so, which despotically moveth it. Laws are for dis-
tinct individuals, and not for one part of an individual to give
to another part.
Object. If God be the constitutive soul of the world, then he
need not give it laws.
Answ. Because it is most certain, de facto, that he doth give
us laws, therefore it is certain that he is not the constitutive soul
of the world, as is also further proved before, though he be
much more to it than a soul.
Sect. 14. XI. U ma.\\ a.ct, per media propter fi7iem, Q.\\(\. hoih.
discerned by reason, then he must be ruled by a law. But the
antecedent is sure : Ergo^ &c.
For the end is ever something apprehended sub ratione boni
(and the ultimate end, sub ratione optimi jjossibilis) : and the
means are chosen and used, sub ratione conducibilis, as apt to
attain the end. This means and end are not to be discerned
only by sense and imagination, as in brutes every object is ap-
prehended but by reason ; this reason is defectible and liable to
error, and therefore the rational evidences must be proposed to
it, and that conveniently ; for he that knoweth not reason why he
should choose, refuse, or act, cannot do it rationally : and the
will being as apt to be seduced by the sense, hath need of due
motives to determine it.
Therefore there is need of the regulation of a law, contain-
ing the direction of a superior wisdom, with authority and mo-
tives of consequential good or evil, proposed by one that can
accomplish it.'^
But the whole world doth so universally consent that there is
a difference between right and wrong, duty and crimes, good
and evil, and so a necessity of some government, human at
"^ Non potest consistere respublica, ubi uon est honos virtuti, nee poena sce-
lerosis. — JDemosth.
512 THE REASONS OF
least, and that man is not like the beastSj where strength is the
only title, and good and evil is but natural, caWed jucundum et
utile, with their contraries, that I need not plead that part of
the cause any further ; universal consent not only making it un-
necessary, but also being a valid argument against it, as proving
that it is against the common reason of mankind and light of
nature.
Sect. 15. XII. If God be not the universal Governor of the
world, then error, malice and tyranny, and selfishness, will make
injustice finally prosperous, and oppressed innocency remediless.
But that cannot be, as shall hereafter be more fully made appear.
There must be some infallible judge to pass the final sentence,
and hear all causes, as it were, over again ; and some perfect,
righteous judge to set straight all that men's unrighteousness
made crooked, or else unrighteousness will finally prevail : and
this must be God, who, being the fountain of all government, is
also the end of all.
Sect. 16. XIII. If God be not the supreme, universal Gover-
nor, there can be no unity and harmony in the moral order and
government of the world.
As all the corporations in the kingdom would be in continual
discord with one another, if they were not all united in one
king ; so would all the kingdoms of the world, much worse than
they are, if they were not under the government of one God.
Sect. 17. XIV. The last argument shall be a Jure et apti-
tiidine. If a man be made a creature to be morally governed,
and the undoubted right and aptitude for supreme government
be in God alone, then God is actually the supreme Governor of
the world : but the antecedent is true, therefore the consequent.
1. That God only is able, is undeniable: men can govern
but their particular provinces or empires ; and none of them is
capable of governing all the world, for want of omnipresence,
omnipotency, and omniscience : and, therefore, the pope that
claimeth the government of all the world, if all turn Christians,
doth, thereby, pretend to a kind of deity. And if angels were
proved able to govern the earth, it can be but as officers, and
not in absolute supremacy : for who then shall be the governor
of them : their being is merely derivative and dependent ; and
therefore so must be their power. God only is all-sufficient,
omnipresent,omnipotent,omniscient,and most excellent : sufficient
to give perfect laws to all 3 to execute righteous judgment upon
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 513
all ; and to protect the world as his dominion : when princes
cannot protect one kingdom, nor themselves. '^
And God's title and right is as undoubted as his power : for
he is absolute owner of the world. And who should claim sove-
reignty over him, or without him, where he is sole proprietor.
He hath undoubted right to rule his own.
Object. Propriety among men is no title to government.
Answ. Absolute propriety in a governable creature is a
plenary title. But no man hath absolute propriety in another.
Yet parents, and the masters of slaves, who come nearest it,
have an answerable power of governing them. But man's
fullest propriety is in brutes and hianimates, which are not
creatures capable of government.
Sect. IS. The relation, then, of sovereign King or Rector in
God to man, is founded in the fore-named relation of a Proprie-
tor J supposing the aptitude of the subject and the owner.
Having proved that God is the universal King, I come to show
his title to his kingdom. Titidus est fundament um juris.
Sovereignity, or sunima jmtestas, is jus supremi reyiminis.
Where this right is founded, great ignorance hath made a great
controversy, the thing, to men that are of competent understand-
ings in such subjects, being most easy and past controversy. God
having made man, is immediately his Owner, because his Maker.
Having made him a rational free-agent, and so to be governed,
he hath \\\c,jus regendi by immediate resultancy from his abso-
lute propriety ; supposing the nature of the creature, and the
perfection of the Creator alone, which so qualify one to be a
subject, and the other to be the governor, that they areas it were
the more remote/undamentum relationis. From the being of man,
hoc aliquid a Deo creatum, resulteth the propriety of God : from
the specific nature of man, as a rational, free, sociable
creature, he is by immediate resultancy (jubernandus ; and
being such, his Creator, remotely, for his infinite perfections and
sole aptitude, and, proximately, because he is man's absolute
Owner, is by resultancy his rightful Governor : and that he
neglecteth not this his right, but actually governeth him,
appeareth in the very making man such, and continuing him
such as is made to be governed ; as also in his actual laws and
d Atticus (in Cicer. de leg'. 1. p. 213,) saitli, that he cannot but believe that
jus est ortum ex natura, because of these principles. 1. (^uasi munerihus
Deorum nos esse instructos et ornatos. 2. Onam esse honiinuin inter ipsos
Vivendi parem conimuneniquerationem. 3. Omues inter se natural! qnadain
indulgentia et benevolentift, turn etiam societate juris contineri.
514
THE REASONS OF
judgments. This is the true and plain resolution of the question
of the title of God to his kingdom, or fundamentum of the
relation of universal King. "^
Sect. 19. Human government is an ordinance of God, and
human governors are his officers, as he is supreme : and he hath
not left it free to the world, whether they will live in governed
societies, or not.
That human government is appointed by God, appeareth
thus: 1, In that the light of nature teacheth it to all the
world : 2. In that God hath put into man's nature a necessity
of it, and therefore signified his will concerning it. It is
needful to the very lives of men, and to their highest perfections,
order, and attainments. If parents did not govern children,
and teachers their scholars, and masters their servants, and
princes their subjects, the world would be as a wilderness of
wild beasts, and men would not live like men, according to
their natural capacities : I deny not, but some one, or few, by
necessity, or some extraordinary circumstances, may be exempted
from this obligation, by being incapable of the benefit ; being
cast into a wilderness, or such like place, wher? the benefit of
government is not to be had ; but that is nothing to the more
common case of mankind. As marriage is indifferent to those
individuals that need not the benefit of it ; but it is not lawful
for the world of mankind to forbear procreation, to the extinc-
tion of itself.
Sect. 20. Therefore, as all rulers receive their power from
him, and hold it in dependence on him ; so must they finally
use it for him, even for his will and interest, which they must
principally intend.
He that is the original of power must needs be the end.
He that giveth it to man, doth give it for the accomplishment
of his own will. It is held in pure subordination to him, and
so it must be used, or it is abused.
Sect. 21. Therefore, no man can have any power against
God, or his laws or interest : for he giveth not power against
himself.
That is, he giveth no man right, authority, or commission, to
displease him, by the breaking of his laws ; for that is a con-
^ See this more fully proved in my ' Political Aphorisms,' (p. 52,) &c.
Videtis ma^istratus hanc esse vim, ut prsesit, praescribatque recta et utilia,
et conjuiicta cum legibus : ut enim magistratibus leges, ita populo praesunt
magistratus : vereque dici potest, magistratum esse legem loquentem, legem
autem mutum magistratum. — Cicer, de Leg. 3. init.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 515
tradiction, or chargeth his laws with contradiction. Yet must
not any subjects make this a pretence to deny any just obedience
to their rulers, or to rebel against tiiem, on supposition that
their government is against God. For as private men are not
made public judges of the interest of God, but only private dis-
cerners, in order to their own obedience to him ; so may that
government be for God, in the main, which is against him iu
some few particulars.
Sect. 22. The highest duty of man is to Him who is the
Highest, and the greatest crime is that which is committed
against the greatest authority.
This is, sua luce, so evident, that it needs no proof; formally,
the chief obedience is due to the chief governor : (to a king
rather than to a justice of peace or constable :) and, conse-
quently, the greatest sin is against him. If God be above man,
so is duty to God, and sin against God, the greatest in both
kinds.
Sect. 23. Therefore, there are good and evil which respect
God, and are called holiness and sin, which are incomparably
greater than good and evil, so called from respect to any
creatures, whether individuals or societies. ^
Therefore, they that know no good, but that which is so called
from its respect to man's commodity or benefit, nor any evil but
that which is so called from its respect to the hurt of creatures,
do not know God, nor his relation to his works ; but make
gods of themselves, and accordingly judge of good and evil.
Sect. 24. The consciences of men do secretly accuse them,
or excuse them, according to this sort of good or evil.
When men have wrangled against religion ever so long,
there are very few so blind and bad, in whom God hath not a
resident witness, called conscience, which secretlv telleth a man
that he doeth well or ill, as he keepeth or breaketh the law of
nature ; and that with respect to the sovereign Lawgiver, and
f Read what is after cited out of Zeno. Laert. (in Zen.) saith that the Stoics
say, Virtutes sibi invicem esse connexas,ut qui unam habuerit, onines habeat :
esse enini illarum communes speculationes, Sec. Qui enim probus est, ea des-
picere et agere quae siiit agenda; quae vero facienda sint, ea et eligenda esse,
et sustinenda, et distribuenda, et perseveranter tenenda : seciuiuitur autem
prudentiam consiliorum maturitas et intelligentia ; temperantiam vero ordinis
dexteritas et ornatus ; justitiam autem fequitas et gratitudo : fortitudinem-
que constantia, atque valentia. Placet autem eis, nullum inter virtutem et
ritium esse medium. Quemadmodum enim lignum aut distortum aut rectum
oporlere esse aiuut, ita justum vel injustum At virtutem Chrysippus qui-
dem amitti posse, Clcanthes verb nou posse ait.
516 THE REASONS OP
not only to the good or hurt of man. As conscience doth not
accuse a man for being poor or sick, or wronged by another,
(though about these we may have also an inward trouble,) so it
doth not justify him for his prosperity in the world, though it
may be laid asleep and quieted by such means. But it is for
moral good or evil that conscience doth accuse or justify : if I
make myself poor wilfully, my conscience will trouble me for
the wilful fault, and breed in me repentance and remorse; and
so it will if I hurt or impoverish my neighbour : but if I hurt
myself or neighbour unavoidably, without any fault of mine, I
am sorry for it, but my conscience will not accuse me or con-
demn me for it.
Sect. 25. This power of conscience causeth all the world
to praise or dispraise men, according to this moral good or evil.s
Mark but the infidels themselves, or any whom vice hath
turned into monsters, and they will commend men upon the
account of that inward sincerity and honesty, which God only
can make laws for : and dispraise men for the contrary. If you
say, that they do this only because such virtues make men fit
for human converse, and profitable, or not hurtful to one
another; I answer, we are not inquiring of the final cause, but
the formal : though they praise sincere and honest men, and
those that are loving, compassionate, and kind, and dispraise dis-
semblers, malicious, and men of hurtful dispositions, yet you
may observe that they speak not of these only as useful or
hurtful qualities, but as moral good or evil ; as things that men
ought or ought not to do ; which they are bound to do or not
do by some obligation : and what obligation can make it any
man's duty, if there be no law of God in nature for it, when it
is out of the reach of the laws of men. Mark heathens, and
infidels, and atheists, in their talk, and you shall hear them
praise or dispraise men for some things which intimate a divine
obligation ; which showeth that the conscience of the world
beareth witness to the supreme, universal government of God.
No man who believeth that there is a God, can believe that
the actions of his rational creatures have no relation to him, or
that the good or evil of them, which is the result of their relation
to God, can be of less or lower consideration than their relation
to themselves, or one another; therefore, if it be laudable to
s Quae autem natio iioii comitatem, non beuigiiitatem, non gratum animuin,
etbeneficii memorem diligit ? Qua*, superbos, {)ua; maleficos, quae crudeles,
quae ingratos non aspernatur, non edit ? — Cicer. de leg.l. p. 222.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 517
perform duty to kings, and parents, and neighbours, conscience
will tell the world that it is incomparably more necessary to
perform our duty to God ; and it cannot be that the world
should stand related to God as their Creator, Proprietor, Go-
vernor, and End, and yet owe him no duty.
Sect. 26. God's government (as man's) consisteth of three
parts ; legislation, judgment, and execution.'^
Without laws, the subject can neither know his duty nor his
rewards and pimishments; without judgment, laws will be in-
effectual ; and without execution, judgment is a deceitful,
ludicrous thing.
Sect. 27. By a law, I mean, an authoritative institution,
what shall be due from and to the subject for the ends of go-
yernment; or, a sign of the ruler's will, instituting what
shall be due to and from the subject for the ends of government.'
The fuller reasons of this definition of a law I have given in
another writing. Signum is the genus of it j the will of a ruler
being no otherwise to be known to subjects, but by signs : the
relation of ruler, and subjects, is presupposed. It is, there-
fore, only an authoritative sign, or the sign of a ruler's will,
because a ruler only hath the power of government: 1 say of his
will, as that which is the nearest, perfect efficient, or imperant
faculty, including the understanding's conduct. J call it an
institution, or instituting sign, to signify its efficiency de debito,
and to distinguish it from the judicial, decisive determination
of the ruler. It is only to subjects that this signification is
made, he being not a ruler to any others. The product of the
institution, ox statutum, is only debitum, which is the immediate,
full effect of laws. Hhxs debitum is twofold: 1. Officii, what
shall be due from the subject, or what shall be the subject's
'' Legibus et earum observantiA exornantur omnia. — Dtnmisth.
Nihil oninino iieque pulchrum neque decorum reperiri potest ; quod non
cum lege aliqua communicet. — Id. Orat. 1. cout. Jrist.
' Lex nihil aliud est, qnam recta et ^i iiumine Deorura ratio, imperans
hoiiesta, prohibeusque coritraria. — Cicero, Fk'd. 1.
Vitiorum emeiidatricem legem esse oportet,comniendatricemque virtutem :
ab ea eiiim viveiuli doctrina ducitur. — Cicero 1. de leg.
Ad salutem civiuiii, civitalumque incolumitatcm, vitamque hominum et
quietam, et beatam, coridita; sunt leges. — Cicero 1. de le%.
A majoribus nostris nulla alia de causa leges sunt i[iveiitae, nisiut suos cives
incolumes couservareut. — Cicero in P'atin,.
Nil est tarn aptuiu ad jus couditionemque uaturce sine quo nee domus ulla,
nee civitas, nee gens, nee hominum luiiversum genus, stare, necrerum natura
omuis, nee ipse mundus potest. Nam et hie Deo paret, et huic obediuut
maria terrseque et honiiuum vita jussis suprema; legis obtemperat. — Cicer, de
leg; 3. pp. 2.03, 254.
518 THE REASONS OF
duty. 2. What shall be due to him, 1. If he keep the law,
wiiich is the clebitum prcemii ; 2. If he break it, which is the
debitum pwnce. I say to the ends of government, for it is a
relation which must have the end in the definition ; and seeing
I only define a law in genere, I mention but the ends of govern-
ment in genere, for several governments have several ends.
The government of single persons only, as of a scholar, a son,
a servant, by a tutor, parent, master, intendeth, proximately, but
the good of the individual subject: the mandates of such rulers
have the true nature of a law, though it be of the lower sort, as
is the government ; and custom hath appropriated the word
law to a nobler species only. The government of societies is
, always immediately for the order of the society, but not always
for their good, much less chiefly : the government of a society
of slaves (as the Spaniards over the Peruvians and Mexicans, in
digging their mines) is for the order of those slaves, but for the
benefit of the lords. The government of some armies is for the
order of the armies, but for the good of those they fight for :
the government of a true commonwealth is for the bonum publi-
cum, the common good, which includeth the happiness of the
rulers with the subjects. The universal government of the world
is, proximately, for the order of the world and for its good ; but,
ultimately and principally, for the fulfilling and pleasing the will
of God in the said order and good, and in the glory or opera-
tions of his own power, wisdom, and goodness therein, as shall
be further proved afterwards.
Sect. 28. Any signification of the will of God, that man shall
be benefited on condition of his obedience, is the praemiant part
of his law; and any signification of his will, that man shall be
punished if he sin, or that punishment shall be his due, is the
penal part of his law.
If it only foretold, that, in a way of physical efficiency, obedi-
ence will produce good, and disobedience hurt to himself, this
were not properly prsemiant, or penal ; but when the good is
promised upon the condition of obedience, and the hurt threaten-
ed upon condition of sin, as means to move a rational, free agent
to obey, this is truly a pra?miant and penal act of law : and this
is fulfilled also in a physical way of production ; the Lawgiver
being also the Creator and Disposer of all the world, doth wisely
order it, that moral good shall be attended with physical good,
and moral evil with physical evil, first or last.
Sect. 29. The immensity (or omnipresence), the omnipotency,
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 519
omniscience, and infinite goodness, of God, with his total causa-
tion in the support of all his creatures, do most undoubtedly
prove his particular providence, in observing and regarding all
the actions of his subjects in the world, and so declare his
actual government.'^
It is the gross ignorance of the divine perfections, which ever
made any one question the particular providence of God as
extending to the smallest things and actions: 1. It is proved
by his immensity (conceived of as without corporeal extension
of parts^ as before said). He that made and upholdeth all the
world, did never make that which is greater than himself, and
excludeth his presence. Though being a Spirit, he hath not
corporeal quantity ; yet, analogically, and in a way of eminency
and transcendency, we must say that he is greater and immense :
and it is his perfection which denieth extension and dimensions ;
and, therefore, in a nobler kind, he is everywhere present. And
if he be here as certainly as I am, and in a more excellent
manner, he cannot but observe all things and actions which are
here.
2. He is omnipotent and all-sufficient, and therefore as able
to observe and govern every smallest thing and action, as if
he had but that one to look after in the world. And 1 think, if
God had but one man at all to mind and govern in all the world,
the adversary himself, that now denieth his particular provi-
dence, would confess that God doth observe and regard that one
individual. It is men's atheistical or blasphemous diminutive
thoughts of God, who conceive of him as finite, though they call
him infinite, which is the cause of all such kind of errors.
3. His omniscience infallibly proveth also his particular ob-
servance of all things and actions in the world ; for his know-
ledge, being his natural perfection, is necessary ; he cannot be
ignorant of any thing that is. If I had but one thing just before
my eyes to see, in the open light, I must needs see it, if it have
the necessaries of a visible object, unless I wink. If the sun's
illumination were an act of vision, (as it is likely it is nothing more
ignoble,) how easily would it at once discern all that is upon
one half of the earth at once 1 All things are naked and open
before the eye of the omniscient Being ; he cannot but behold
or know them, and therefore observe them and regard them.
4. His creation, causation, and manutenency, also prove that
he both knoweth and regardeth all things : for can he be either
'' Of this read Cicer. 2. lib. de nat. Deor.'
520 THE REASONS OF
ignorant, forgetful, or mindless, of that which he made, and still
dotli so conserve, as to continue a kind of creation of it? His
omnipotent will, which gave it a being, doth still continue it;
should he withdraw his active sustentation, it would turn all, not
only to confusion, but to nothing. And doth he not know and
regard what is continually as in his hand, or by continual volition
produced or maintained by him ? He is the universal cause of
all the agency and motion in the world ; in him we live, move,
and be : and can he be ignorant or regardless of what he doeth ?
Why will he make, maintain, and move that which he doth not
regard ?
5. His relation of Owner proveth his regard; all things are
his own.
G. And his relation of a Governor proveth his regard, and
his actual government of man and all his actions : for he taketh
not on him a vain relation ; and he that maketh laws for every
person and action, doth regard and govern every person and
action. But so doth God. Ergo.
Sect. 30. Those who think God doth nothing to all the rest
of the world, but by those noblest creatures which are next him,
and that he hath committed the government of all the rest of the
world to the intelligences of the first order, cannot, without
blindness and contradiction deny, that he is still himself no less
the actual Mover and Governor of all, than if he used no officer
or instrument at all.
For, 1. God ceased not himself to be omnipresent, omni-
scient, omnipotent, or most benign, when he gave that supposed
power to those instruments. 2. He made them, and ordered
them, under him, through plenitude of goodness, delighting to
communicate power and dignity, as well as being to his creatures,
and not through impotency or insufficiency to supply any defect
in his own government, and to help him : he useth them to
honour them, and not to dishonour himself. He gave away
from himself no degree of perfection, nor deprived himself of
the smallest part of honour which he communicateth to them ;
but honoureth himself in the appearance of his perfections by
the said communications. As God can do that by himself
without the creature which he causeth the creature to do, (as to
move, illuminate, and heat the lower parts without the sun as
well as with it, or any thing which importeth not impotency or
contradiction,) for he ceaseth not to be omnipotent ; so that
which he doth by any creature, is as truly and fully done by
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 521
himself, as if there were no created instrument or cause in it.
For that creature which is nothing of itself, and hath not any
being but in full dependence on its Maker, can have no action
of itself but in full dependence upon him ; whatever it doeth, it
doth by him : though, as to the specifying comparison, why
this rather than that, God hath given men a power with liberty,
yet the action, as an action, being from the power which was
totallv from him, is so itself. There can be no less of God's
agency in any action, because he doeth it by a creature, than if
he did it without : though there be more of the creature's, there
is no less of his. His communication of power is not by dis-
cerption, or division, and diminution of his own. He that
knoweth what a Creator and total first cause is, needs no other
proof of this. Men, indeed, communicate power to their officers,
through their own insufficiency, to be their helpers, and supply
the want of their presence or action ; but so doth not God.
Therefore, if angels or intelligences govern and move all inferior
things, they are all governed and moved no less certainly, prox-
imately, honourably by God himself, than if he had never used
such a subordinate agent; and that immediatione essenti(B et
virtutis ; immediately, though not so immediately as to use no
honorary second cause.
Sect. 3 1 . Justice is an attribute of God as Governor, by which
he maketh equal laws, and giveth all their due according to
them ; (or judgeth them righteously according to his laws j) for
the ends of government.'
As justice is conceived of in God according to the image in
man, which we call the virtue or habit of justice, so it is his
eternal nature, being nothing else but the perfection of his in-
finite wisdom, and his will or goodness, as respecting a kingdom
of subjects as possible and future. For he may so be called
just, that hath no kingdom, because he hath that virtue which
would do justice, if he had a kingdom : but as justice is taken
either for the exercise of righteous government, or for the
honourable relation and title of one that doth so exercise it;
that is, of an actually just governor, so, formally and demonstra-
' Dii, qui quos velint, possint laedere, uec aquodam laedi vicissim, non no-
cent nisi improbis. — Plut, in Lacon.
Hanc video sapientissimorum fuisse sententiam, Legem neque hominumin-
geniis excogitatam, neque scitum aliquod esse populorum, sed aeternum quid-
dam quod universum mundum regeret iraperandi prohibendique sapientiA. Ita
principem legem illara et ultimam nientem esse dicebant omnia ratione aut
cogentis aut vetantis Dei. — Cicero de Leg. 2. p. 234.
VOL XX. O O
522 THE REASONS OF, &C.
tively, it is an attribute of God, which is not eternal, but subse-
quent to his relation of a King or Governor. He that is not a
governor, is not a just governor. A negatione est secundi ad-
jecti ad negationem est tertii valet argumentum.
The law is norma officii et judicii. He that maketh a law,
thereby telleth his subjects that, according to this they must
live, and according to this they must be judged. Indeed, the
immediate sense of the words of a law, as such, is not to be
taken de eventu, but de debito. He that saith ' Thou shalt not
murder,' saith not, ' Eventually it shall not come to pass that
thou shalt not murder,' but * It shall be thy duty not to do it.'
And he that saith, ' If thou murder thou shalt be put to death,'
doth primarily, in the sense of the words themselves, mean no
more but ' death shall be thy due.' But in that he declareth
that he will justly govern according to this law, therefore he
meaneth, secondarily and consequently, that ordinarily he will
give to all their due. In what cases the letter and nearest sense
of a law may be dispensed with, or the lawgiver reserveth a liberty
of dispens^ation to himself, belongeth not to this place to be
disputed.
END OF TWENTIETH VOLUME.
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