justification, and glory: 11. And between the manner of his procuring our first faith, and the procuring our following sanctification: 12. And he that knoweth how easy it is with God to attain what he willeth, without destroying the liberty of our wills: (as a miller can make the stream of water turn his mill and grind his corn, without altering any thing in the inclination of the water :) 13. And, withal, how incomprehensible the nature and manner of God's operation is to man; and how transcendently it is above all physical agency by corporeal contact or motion. I say, he that understandeth and can apply these distinctions, can reconcile the decrees and concourse of God with his go vernment and man's free-will, as far as is necessary to the quieting of our understandings.

Object. XXIV. But the christian faith doth seem to be but human, and not divine, in that it is to be resolved into the credit of men even of those men who tell us that they saw Christ's miracles, and saw him risen and ascend; and of those who saw the miracles of the apostles; and of those who tell us, that the first churches witness that they saw such things. The certainty cannot exceed the weakest of the premises; and this is the argument: The doctrine which was attested by miracles is of God; but the christian doctrine was attested by miracles; proved; the spectators averred it to others, who have transmitted the testimony down to us. So that you are no surer of the doctrine than of the miracles, and no surer of the miracles than of the human testimony which hath delivered it to you.

Answ. If you will be at the labour to read over what I have written before, you shall find a threefold testimony to Christ, besides this of miracles; and you shall find the apostles' testimony of Christ's miracles and resurrection, attested by more than a human testimony; and you shall find the miracles of the apostles also to have a fuller attestation: even, 1. Besides the most credible and human testimony; 2. A natural impossibility of deceit and falsehood; 3. And a further attestation of God, supernaturally and you shall find that the Gospel hath its certain evidence in the sanctifying effect, by the co-operation of the holy Spirit of Christ unto this day. Peruse it impartially, and you will find all this in what is said.

:

What, would men rather desire to attest the veracity of a messenger from heaven, than miracles; evident, uncontrolled, multiplied miracles! And must this messenger live in every age, and go into every land, to do these miracles in the presence

of every living soul! If not, how would those that live in another land or age be brought to the knowledge of them, but by the testimony of those that saw them; and how would you have such testimonies better confirmed, than by multiplied miracles, delivered in a way which cannot possibly deceive; and fully and perpetually attested by the spirit of effectual sanctification on believers? It is an unreasonable arrogancy to tell our Maker that we will not believe any miracles which he doth, by whomsoever, or howsoever witnessed, unless we see them ourselves with our own eyes; and so they be made as common as the shining of the sun and then we should contemn them as of no validity.

So much shall here suffice against the objections from the intrinsical difficulties in the christian faith. Many more are answered in my "Treatise against Infidelity,' published heretofore.

CHAP. XI.

The Objections from Things extrinsical, resolved.

OBJECT, I. All men are liars, and history may convey down abundance of untruths; who liveth with his eyes open among men, that may not perceive how partially men write; and how falsely through partiality; and with what brazen-faced impudence the most palpable falsehoods, in public matters of fact, are most confidently averred? and that in the land, the city, the age, the year of the transaction. Who, then, can lay his salvation upon the truth of the history of acts and miracles done one thousand six hundred years ago?

Answ. The father of lies, no doubt, can divulge them as well by pen or press, as by the tongue and it is not an unnecessary caution to readers, and hearers too, to take heed what they believe; especially, I. When one sect or party speaks against another; 2. Or when carnal interest requireth men to say what they do; 3. Or when falling out provoketh them to asperse any others; 4. Or when the stream of the popular vogue, or countenance of men in power, hath a finger in it; 5. Or when it is as probably contradicted by as credible men; 6. Or when the higher powers deter all from contradicting it, and dissenters have not liberty of speech.

But none of these, nor any such, are in our present case:

there are liars in the world; but shall none, therefore, be believed? There is history which is false; but is none, therefore, true? Is there not a certainty in that history which tells us of the Norman conquest of this land; and of the series of kings which have been since them; and of the statutes which they and their parliaments have made: yea, of a battle, and other transactions, before the incarnation of Jesus Christ? Doth the falsehood of historians make it uncertain whether ever there was a pope at Rome, or a king in France, or an inquisition in Spain, &c.

But I have proved that it is more than the bare credit of any tradition or historians in the world, which assure us of the truth, both of fact and doctrine, in the christian faith.

Object. II. Are not the legends written with as great confidence as the Scriptures; and greater multitudes of miracles there mentioned and believed by the subjects of the pope? and yet they are denied and derided by the protestants!

Answ. Credible history reporteth many miracles done in the first ages of the christian church, and some since, in several ages and places; and the truth of these was the cloak for the legend's multiplied falsities, which were not written by men that wrought miracles themselves to attest them, or that proved the verity of their writings as the apostles did; or were they ever generally received by the christian churches, but were written awhile ago, by a few ignorant, superstitious friars, in an age of darkness, and in the manner, exposing the stories to laughter and contempt, and are lamented by many of the most learned papists themselves, and not believed by the multitude of the people. And shall no chronicles, no records, no certain history be believed, as long as there are any foolish, superstitious liars left upon the earth? Then, liars will effectually serve the devil indeed, if they can procure men to believe neither human testimony nor divine.

Object. III. Many friars and fanatics, quakers, and other enthusiasts, have, by the power of conceit, been transported into such strains of speech, as in the apostles were accounted fruits of the Spirit; yea, to a pretence of prophecy and miracles: and how know we that it was not so with the apostles?

Answ. I. It is the devil's way of opposing Christ, to do it by apish imitation: so would the Egyptian magicians have discredited the miracles of Moses: and Christianity consisteth not of any words which another may not speak, or any actions of

devotion, or gesture, or formality, which no man else can do. There are no words which seem to signify a rapture, (which are not miraculous,) but they may be counterfeited; but, yet, as a statuary or painter may be known from a creator, and a statue from a man, so may the devil's imitations and fictions, from the evidences of Christianity which he would imitate. Look through the four parts of the testimony of the Spirit, and you may see this to be so : 1. What antecedent prophecies have foretold us these men's actions? 2. What frame of holy doctrine do they deliver, bearing the image of God, besides so much of Christ's own doctrine as they acknowledge? 3. And what miracles are, with any probability, pretended to be done by any of them, unless you mean any preacher of Christianity in confirmation of that common, christian faith. There are no quakers, or other fanatics, among us, that I can hear of, who pretend to miracles. In their first arising, two or three of them were raised to a confidence that they had the apostolical gift of the Spirit, and could speak with unlearned languages, and heal the sick, and raise the dead, but they failed in the performance, and made themselves the common scorn, by the vanity of their attempts. Not one of them, that ever spake a word of any language but what he had learned; not one that cured any disease by miracle. One of them, at Worcester, half famished, and then, as is most probable, drowned himself; and a woman, that was their leader, undertook to raise him from the dead but she spake to him as the priests of Baal spoke to their god, that could not hear; and made but matter of laughter and pity to those that heard of it. There hath not been in England, in our days, that ever I could hear of, either by Jesuit, friar, quaker, or other fanatic, so much as a handsome cheat, resembling a miracle, which the people might not easily see to be a transparent foolery. But many wonders I have known done at the earnest prayers of humble Christians. So that he who shall compare the friars and fanatics with the apostles and other disciples of Christ, whose miracles were such as before described, will see that the devil's apish design, though it may cheat forsaken souls into infidelity, is such as may confirm the faith of sober men. 4. And what spirit of sanctification doth accompany any of their peculiar doctrines? If any

How like are the stories of Eunapius, of Jamblichus, Ædesius, Sosipatra the wife of Eustathius, and others' raptures, prophecies, visions, miracles, to those of the Roman legends, and the quakers.

of them do any good in the world, it is only by the doctrine of Christ; but, for their own doctrines, what do they but cheat men, and draw the simple into sin? A friar, by his own doctrine, may draw men to some foppery, or ridiculous ceremony, or subjection to that clergy, whose holy diligence consisteth in striving who shall be greatest; and lord it over the inheritance of Christ, and rule them by constraint, and not willingly. A quaker, by his own doctrine, may teach men to cast away their bands, and cuffs, and points, and hat-bands, and to say, 'thou,' instead of 'you,' and to put off their hats to no men, and to be the public and private revilers of the most holy and most able preachers of the Gospel, and the best of the people, and, with truculent countenances, to rail at God's servants, in a horrid abuse of Scripture terms. If this image and work of the devil were indeed the image and work of God, it were some testimony of the verity of their doctrine: and yet, even these sects do but, like a flash of lightning, appear for a moment, and are suddenly extinct, and some other sect or fraternity succeedeth them. The quakers already recant most of those rigidities, on which, at first, they laid out their chief zeal. If a flash of such lightning, or a squib, or glow-worm, be argument sufficient to prove that there is no other sun, then friars and fanatics, as often as they are mad, may warrant you to believe that all men are so too, even Christ and his apostles.

Object. IV. But the power of cheaters, and credulity of the vulgar, is almost incredible. The great number of papists who believe their holy cheats; and the great number of Mahometans, who believe in a most sottish, ignorant deceiver, do tell us what a folly it is to believe for company.

Answ. This is sufficiently answered already. No doubt but cheaters may do much with the ignorant and credulous multitude; but doth it follow, thence, that there is nothing certain in the world? None of these were ever so successful in deceiving, as to make men of sound understanding and senses believe that they saw the lame, and blind, and deaf, and sick, and lunatic healed, and the dead raised, and that they themselves performed the like; and that they saw and were instructed by one risen from the dead, when there was no such thing; or that abundance of men did speak in many unlearned tongues, and heal the lame, and blind, and sick, and raise the dead; and this for many years together, in many countries, before many congregations; and that they procured the same spirit to