would be lifted up above ten cubits from the earth, and his garments changed into a golden colour, till he had done? (Eun. in Jambl. p. 572.) Even while he raileth at the Alexandrian monks, "Ut homines quidem specie, sed vitam turpem porcorum more exigentes," &c. (p. 598,) contrary to the evidence of abundant history, he beareth witness against a vicious life. And if holiness, and mortification, or temperance, be so laudable, even in the judgment of the most bitter heathens, why should it be thought intolerable strictness, as it is more clearly and sweetly proposed in the christian verity? And if he say of Jamblichus, "Ob justitiæ cultum, facilem ad deorum aures accessum habuit:" we may boldly say, that the righteous God loveth righteousness, and that the prayers of the upright are his delight; and that their sufferings shall not always be forgotten, nor their faithful labours prove in vain. CHAP. XII. The reasonable Conditions required of them, who will overcome the Difficulties of Believing, and will not undo themselves by wilful Infidelity. I HAVE answered the objections against Christianity, but have not removed the chief impediments; for recipitur ad modum recipientis; the grand impediments are within, even the incapacity, or indisposition, or frowardness of the persons that should believe. It is not every head and heart that is fit for heavenly truth and work. I will next, therefore, tell you, what conditions reason itself will require of them that would not be deceived; that so you may not lay that blame on Christ, if you be infidels, which belongeth only to yourselves. Cond. 1. Come not, in your studies of these sacred mysteries, with an enmity against the doctrine which you must study; or at least suspend your enmity, so far as is necessary, to an impartial search and examination.f For ill-will cannot easily believe well. Malice and partiality will blind the strongest wits, and hide the force of the plainest evidence. Cond. 2. Drown not the truth in a vicious, fleshly heart and life; and forfeit not the light of supernatural revelation, by wilful sinning against natural light, and debauching your consciences, by abusing the knowledge which already you have. Non meretur audire veritatem, qui fraudulenter interrogat.-Ambros. Sensuality, and wilful debauchery, is the common temptation to infidelity when men have once so heinously abused God, as that they must needs believe, that if there be a God, he must be a terror to them; and if there be a judgment, and a life of retribution, it is likely to go ill with them; a little thing will persuade such men, that there is no God, nor life to come, indeed. When they once hope it is so, and take it for their interest, and a desirable thing, they will casily believe that it is so indeed. And God is just, and beginneth the executions of his justice in this world: and the forsaking of a soul that hateth the light, and wilfully resisteth and abuseth knowledge, is one of his most dreadful judgments. That man who will be a drunkard, a glutton, a whoremonger, a proud, ambitious worldling, in despite of the common light of nature, can hardly expect that God should give him the light of grace. Despiting truth, and enslaving reason, and turning a man into a beast, is not the way to heavenly illumination.g Cond. 3. Be not ignorant of the common, natural truths, (which are recited in the first part of this book); for supernatural revelation presupposeth natural; and grace, which maketh us saints, supposeth that reason hath constituted us men; and all true knowledge is methodically attained. It is a great wrong to the christian cause, that too many preachers of it have missed the true method, and still begun at supernatural revelations, and built even natural certainties thereupon; and have either not known, or concealed much of the fore-written natural verities. And it is an exceedingly great cause of the multiplying of infidels, that most men are dull or idle drones, and unacquainted with the common, natural truths, which must give light to Christianity, and prepare men to receive it. And they think to know what is in heaven, before they will learn what they are themselves, and what it is to be a man. Cond. 4. Get a true anatomy, analysis, or description of Christianity in your minds; for if you know not the true nature of it first, you will be lamentably disadvantaged in inquiring into the truth of it. For Christianity, well understood in the quiddity, will illustrate the mind with such a winning beauty, as will make us meet its evidence half-way, and will do much to convince us by its proper light. Read the beginning of Theophil, Antioch: Ad Autolyc.' showing that wickedness causeth further atheism, and that it blindeth sinners that they cannot know God. Cond. 5. When you have got the true method of the Christian doctrine, or analysis of faith, begin at the essentials, or primitive truths, and proceed in order, according to the dependences of truths; and do not begin at the latter end, nor study the conclusion before the premises. Cond. 6. Yet look on the whole scheme or frame of causes and evidences, and take them entirely and conjunct; and not as peevish, factious men, who, in spleenish zeal against another sect, reject and vilify the evidence which they plead. This is the devil's gain, by the raising of sects and contentions in the church: he will engage a papist, for the mere interest of his sect, to speak lightly of the Scripture and the Spirit ; and many protestants, in mere opposition to the papists, to slight tradition, and the testimony of the church, denying it its proper authority and use. As if in the setting of a watch or clock, one would be for one wheel, and another for another, and each in peevishness cast away that which another would make use of, when it will never go true without them all. Faction and contentions are deadly enemies of truth. Cond. 7. Mark well the suitableness of the remedy to the disease; that is, of Christianity to the depraved state of man : and mark well the lamentable effects of that universal depravation, that your experience may tell you how unquestionable it is. Cond. 8. Mark well how connaturally Christianity doth relish with holy souls, and how well it suiteth with honest principles and hearts; so that the better any man is, the better it pleaseth him. And how potently all debauchery, villany, and vice, befriendeth the cause of atheists and unbelievers. Cond. 9. Take a considerate, just survey of the common enmity against Christianity and holiness, in all the wicked of the world; and the notorious war which is everywhere managed between Christ and the devil, and their several followers; that you may know Christ partly by his enemies. Cond. 10. Impartially mark the effects of christian doctrine, wherever it is sincerely entertained, and see what religion maketh the best men; and judge not of serious Christians at a distance, by false reports of ignorance or malicious adversaries; and then you will see that Christ is actually the Saviour of souls. Cond. 11. Be not liars yourselves, lest it dispose you to think h Viva lectio est vita sanctorum.-Greg. Mor. 24. all others to be liars, and to judge of the words of others by your own. Cond. 12. Bethink you truly what persons you should be yourselves, and what lives you should live, if you did not believe the christian doctrine; or, if you did not believe it, mark what effect your unbelief hath on your lives. h For my own part, I am assured, if it were not for the christian doctrine, my heart and life would be much worse than it is, though I had read Epictetus, Arian, Plato, Plotinus, Jamblichus, Proclus, Seneca, Cicero, Plutarch, every word; and those few of my neighbourhood, who have fallen off to infidelity, have at once fallen to debauchery, and abuse of their nearest relations, and differed as much in their lives from what they were before in their profession of Christianity, though unsound, as a leprous body differeth from one in comeliness and health. Cond. 13. Be well acquainted, if possible, with church history, that you may understand by what tradition Christianity hath descended to us. For he that knoweth nothing but what he hath seen, or receiveth a Bible, or the Creed, without knowing any further whence and which way it cometh to us, is greatly disadvantaged as to the reception of the faith. Cond. 14. In all your reading of the holy Scriptures, allow still for your ignorance in the languages, proverbs, customs, and circumstances, which are needful to the understanding of particular texts; and when difficulties stop you, be sure that no such ignorance remain the cause. He that will but read Brugensis, Grotius, Hammond, and many others that open such phrases and circumstances, with topographers, and Bochartus, and such others as write of the 1 An vero nisi Deum genus humanum respicere, eique præesse putaremus, adeo puritati et innocentiæ studeremus? Nequaquam, sed quia persuasissimi sumus, Deo qui et nos et mundum hunc condidit, transactæ hic vitæ totius rationes nos reddituros, moderatum, benignum, et plerisque contemptum vivendi genus deligimus. Quippe nullum in hâc vitâ tantum malum, etiamsi capitis periculum agatur, supervenire nobis posse arbitramur, quod non omnino sit minimi, immo nihili faciendum præ illa quam à summo judice expectamus olim felicitate, &c.-Athenag. Apol. p. 58. iu B. P. Si enim solam hanc præsentem vitam nos victuros crederemus, suspicioni foret locus, nos carni et sanguini indulgentes, aut avaritia aut concupiscentia captos, peccare? Nos vero omnibus non modo factis sed cogitationibus et sermonibus nostris, tum noctu tum interdiu, Deum adesse scimus; eumque et totum esse lumen, et quæ in cordibus nostris latent videre, et hâc mortale vitâ defuuctos, et alteram hâc terrestri longe meliorem, nempe cœlestem, nos victuros.-Id ibid. animals, utensils, and other circumstances of those times, will see what gross errors the opening of some one word or phrase may deliver the reader from. Cond. 15. Understand what excellencies and perfections they be which the Spirit of God intended to adorn the holy Scriptures with, and also what sort of human imperfections are consistent with these, its proper perfections; that so false expectations may not tempt you into unbelief. It seduceth many to infidelity, to imagine, that if Scripture be the word of God, it must needs be most perfect in every accident and mode, which were never intended to be part of its perfection. Whereas, God did purposely make use of those men, and of that style and manner of expression, which was defective in some points of natural excellency, that so the supernatural excellency might be the more apparent. As Christ cured the blind with clay and spittle, and David slew Goliath with a sling. The excellency of the means must be estimated by its aptitude to its end. Cond. 16. If you see the evidence of the truth of Christianity in the whole, let that suffice you for the belief of the several parts, when you see not the true answer to particular exceptions. If you see it soundly proved that Christ is the Messenger of the Father, and that his word is true, and that the holy Scripture is his word, this is enough to quiet any sober mind, when it cannot confute every particular objection; or else no man should ever hold fast any thing in the world; if he must let all go after the fullest proof, upon every exception which he cannot answer. The inference is sure. If the whole be true, the parts are true. Cond. 17. Observe well the many effects of angels' ministration, and the evidences of a communion between us and the spirits of the unseen world; for this will much facilitate your belief. Cond. 18. Overlook not the plain evidences of the apparitions, witches, and wonderful events which fall out in the times. and places where you live, and what reflections they have upon the christian cause. Cond. 19. Observe well the notable answers of prayers, in matters internal and external, in others and in yourselves. Cond. 20. Be well studied at home, about the capacity, use, and tendency, of all your faculties; and you will find that your |