and from sin to holiness, P And this fully assureth them, that Christ, who hath actually saved them, is their Saviour, and that he who maketh good all his undertaking, is no deceiver, and that God would not sanctify his people in the world by a blasphemy, a deceit and lie, and that Christ who hath performed his promise in this, which is his earnest, will perform the rest. And withal the very love to God, and holiness, and heaven, which is thus made their new nature by the Spirit of Christ, will hold fast in the hour of temptation, when reasoning otherwise is too weak. O what a blessed advantage have the sanctified against all temptations to unbelief? And how lamentably are ungodly sensualists disadvantaged, who have deprived themselves of this inherent testimony? If two men were born blind, and one of them had been cured, and had been shown the candlelight and twilight, how easy is it for him to believe his physician, if he promise also to show him the sun; in comparison of what it is to the other who never saw the light?

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CHAP. VIII.

other subservient and collateral Arguments for the Christian Verity.

HAVING largely opened the great evidence of the christian verity, viz. the Spirit in its four ways of testifying antecedently, inherently, concomitantly, and subsequently; I shall more briefly recite some other subservient arguments, which I find most satisfactory to my own understanding.

Sect. 1. I. The natural evidence of the truth of the Scripture, about the creation of the world, doth make it the more credible to me in all things else.

For that is a thing which none but God himself could reveal to us. For the Scripture telleth what was done, before there was any man in being. And that this world is not eternal, nor of any longer continuance, is exceedingly probable, by the state of all things in it. 1. Arts and sciences are far from that maturity, which a longer continuance, or an eternity would have produced. Guns and printing are but lately found out the body of man is not yet well anatomized; Asellius's milky veins, and Pecquet's receptacle of the chyle, and Bartholine's P O magna vis veritatis! quæ contra hominum ingenia, calliditatem, solertiam, contraque fictas omnium insidias facilè se per se ipsam defendat !—Cic. pro Cæli.

glandules, and the vasa lymphatica, are of late discovery: Galilæus's glasses, and his four Medicæan planets, and the lunary mutations of Venus, and the strange either opacous parts and shape of Saturn, or the proximity of two other stars which misshape it to our sight, the shadowy parts of the moon, &c. with the innumerable stars in the via lactea, &c., were all unknown to former ages. Gilbert's magnetical discoveries, (I speak not of those questionable inferences which Campanella and others contradict,) the nature of many minerals and plants, the chief operations and effects of chemistry, abundance of secrets for the cure of many diseases, even the most excellent medicaments, are all of very late invention. Almost all arts and sciences are increasing towards perfection. Ocular demonstrations by the telescope, and sensible experiments, are daily multiplied: yea, the world itself is not all discovered to any one part; but a great part of it was but lately made known even to the Europeans, whose knowledge is greatest, by Columbus, and Americus Vesputianus ; and it is not long since it was first measured by a circumnavigation. If the world had been eternal, or of much longer duration than the Scripture speaketh, it is not credible that multiplied experiences, would not have brought it above that infancy of knowledge in which it so long continued.

Object. Cursed wars by fire and depopulation, consume all antiquities, and put the world still to begin anew.

Answ. It doth indeed do much this way; but it is not so much that war could do: for when it is in one country, others are free, and some would fly, or lie hid, or survive, who would preserve arts and sciences, and be teachers of the rest. Who can think now that any wars are likely to make America, or Galilæus's stars, unknown again, or any of the fore-named inventions to be lost?

2. Moreover, it is strange, if the world were eternal, or much older than Scripture speaketh, that no part of the world should show any older monument of antiquity; no engraven stones or plates; no mausoleums, pyramids, or pillars; no books; no chronological tables; no histories, or genealogies, or other memorials and records. I know to this, also, cursed wars may contribute much; but not so much, as to leave nothing to inquisitive successors.

Sect. 2. II. It greatly confirmeth my belief of the holy Scriptures, to find by certain experience, the original and universal pravity of man's nature, how great it is, and wherein it doth

consist; exactly agreeing with this sacred word; when no others have made such a full discovery of it.

This I have opened, and proved before; and he is a stranger to the world and to himself that seeth it not: were it not lest I weary the reader with length, how fully and plainly could I manifest it.

Sect. 3. III. The certain observation of the universal, spiritual war, which hath been carried on according to the first Gospel, between the woman's and the serpent's seed, doth much confirm me of the truth of the Scriptures.

Such a contrariety there is, even between Cain and Abel, children of the same father; such an implacable enmity, throughout all the world, in almost all wicked men against godliness itself, and those that sincerely love and follow it; such a hatred in those that are orthodoxly bred, against the true power, use, and practice, of the religion which they themselves profess; such a resolute resistance of all that is seriously good and holy, and tendeth but to the saving of the resisters; that it is but a public, visible acting of all those things which the Scripture speaketh of; and a fulfilling them in all ages and places in the sight of all the world. Of which, having treated largely in my treatise against infidelity of the sin against the Holy Ghost, I refer you thither.

Sect. 4. IV. It much confirmeth me to find that there is no other religion professed in the world, that an impartial, rational man can rest in.

That man is made for another life, the light of nature proveth to all men; and some way or other there must be opened to us to attain it. Mahometanism I think not worthy a confutation: Judaism must be much beholden to Christianity for its proofs, and is but the introduction to it, inclusively considered. The heathens, or mere naturalists, are so blind, so idolatrous, so divided into innumerable sects, so lost and bewildered in uncertainties, and show us so little holy fruit of their theology, that I can incline to no more than to take those natural verities which they confess, and which they cast among the rubbish of their fopperies and wickedness, and to wipe them clean, and take them for some part of my religion. Christianity, or nothing, is the way. Sect. 5. V. It much confirmeth me to observe, that commonly

Even between the carnal, hypocritical, nominal Christian and the true Christian; as Gal. iv. 29. "As then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now."

the most true and serious Christians are the holiest and most honest, righteous men; and that the worse men are, the greater enemies they are to true Christianity: and then to think how incredible it is that God should lead all the worst men into the truth, and leave the best and most godly in an error.

In small matters, or common secular things, this were no wonder: but in the matter of believing, worshipping, and pleasing God, and saving of souls, it is not credible. As for the belief of a life to come, no men are so far from it as the vilest whoremongers, drunkards, perjured persons, murderers, oppressors, tyrants, thieves, rebels, or if any other name can denote the worst of men and none so much believe a life to come, as the most godly, honest-hearted persons. And can a man that knoweth that there is a God, believe that he will leave all good men in so great an error, and rightly inform and guide all these beasts, or living, walking images of the devil. The same, in a great measure, is true of the friends and enemies of Christianity.

Sect. 6. VI. It hath been a great, convincing argument with me, against both atheism and infidelity, to observe the marvellous providences of God, for divers of his servants, and the strange answer of prayers which I myself, and ordinarily other Christians, have had.

I have been, and am, as backward to ungrounded credulity about wonders as most men, that will not strive against knowledge; but I have been often convinced by great experience, and testimonies which I believed equally with my eye-sight, of such actions of God, as I think would have convinced most, that should know as much of them as I did. But few of them are fit to mention; for some of them so much concern myself, that strangers may be tempted to think that they savour of selfesteem ; and some of them, the factions and parties in these times, will by their interest be engaged to distaste: and some of them have been done on persons, whose after, scandalous crimes have made me think it unfit to mention them, lest I should seem to put honour on a scandalous sinner, or seem to dishonour God's works by mentioning such an object of them; and I have much observed, that whatever wonder I ever knew done, in answer to prayer, or attestation of any good, the devil hath, with marvellous subtlety, endeavoured, by some error or scandal of men, to turn it all against Christ, and to his own advantage. But yet God declareth the truth of his promises, by the deliverances of his servants, and the granting of prayers, which are put

up to him in the name of Christ. I will not dispute whether these actions shall be called miracles, or not it is enough for my purpose, if they be but attesting providences. All church history telleth us of many such heretofore: how great things have been done, and deliverances wrought upon Christians' earnest prayer to God. The success of the thundering legion in the army of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, in Germany, is commonly mentioned: you may see it in the 'Apolog.' of Justin Martyr and Tertullian: see more in Pamelius's 'Notes on Tertull.' (n.64.) Cyprian saith to Demetrius, (p.328,) of the Christians' casting-out of devils, "O si audire velles et videre, quando a nobis adjurantur et torquentur spiritualibus flagris, et verborum tormentis de obsessis corporibus ejiciuntur, quando ejulantes et gementes voce humanâ, et potestate divinâ flagella et verbera sentientes, venturum judicium confitentur. Veni et cognosce vera esse quæ dicimus: etquia sic Deos colere te dicis, vel ipsis quos colis, crede: aut si volueris et tibi credere, de te ipso loquetur, audiente te, qui nunc tuum pectus obsedit. Videbis nos rogari ab eis quos tu rogas, tamen ab eis quostu adoras; videbis sub manu nostrâ stare vinctos, et tremere captivos, quos tu suspicis et veneraris ut Dominos: certe vel sic confundi in istis erroribus tuis poteris, cum conspexeris et audieris Deos tuos, quid sint, interrogatione nostrâ statim prodere," &c.

But it were too tedious to recite all that antiquity telleth us of this kind: later times have their testimonies also: Baynam could tell the papists, that burned him, in the midst of his flames," Lo, ye papists, here is a miracle; I feel no more pain in this fire than in a bed of down; it is as sweet to me as a bed of roses." Bishop Farrar could say, when he went to the fire, “If I stir in the fire believe not my doctrine;" and accordingly remained unmoved: many more you may see in martyrologies and church-history. It was the merciful providence of God to Mrs. Honywood," who, in her passionate self-accusations, when the minister was persuading her of the pardon of her sin, threw the glass which was in her hand up to the wall, saying, "She was as certainly an hypocrite, as that glass would break ;' and it fell to the ground, and remained unbroken, They were convincing providences which God exercised on the leading women of the familistical sect which troubled New England: when one of them, Mrs. Dyer, brought forth a monster that had the parts of man, beast, birds, and fishes; and the other, their prophetess, Mrs. Hutchinson, brought forth about thirty

See her story in Fuller's Worthies of England.'