That we may see both the wise contrivances of his love, and at how dear a rate he is content to save us; that our lives may be employed in beholding and admiring the glory of his love, in this incomprehensible representation. That we may love him, as men that are fetched up from the very gates of hell, and from under the sentence of condemnation, and made by grace the heirs of life.

Sect. 17. Especially to have a quickening Head, who will give the spirit of grace to all his members, to change their hearts, and kindle this holy love within them, is most congruous to accomplish man's recovery.

So dark are our minds, and so bad our hearts, so strong are our lusts, and so many our temptations, that bare teaching would not serve our turn, without a spirit of light, and life, and love, to open our eyes, and turn our hearts, and make all outward means effectual.

Sect. 18. The commission of the Gospel ministry to preach this Gospel of pardon and salvation, and to baptize consenters, and gather and guide the church of Christ, with fatherly love, is also very congruous to the state of the world, with whom they

have to do.

Sect. 19. It is congruous to the state of our trembling souls, that are conscious of their former guilt, and present unworthiness, that in all their prayers and worship of God, they should come to him in a name that is more worthy and acceptable than their own, and offer their services by a Hand or Intercessor so beloved of God.

Though an impious soul can never expect to be accepted with God, upon the merits of another, yet a penitent soul, who is conscious of former wickedness, and continued faults, may hope for that mercy by grace through a Redeemer, of which he could have less hopes without one.

Sect. 20. It is congruous to their state, who have Satan their accuser, that they have a Patron, a High-Priest and Justifier with God.

Not that God is in danger of being mistaken by false accusation, or to do us any injustice; but when our real guilt is before his face, and the malice of Satan will seek thereupon to procure our damnation, there must also be just reasons before him for our pardon; which it is the office of a Saviour to plead or to present, that is, to be God's instrument of our deliverance upon that account.

Sect. 21, It is exceedingly congruous to our condition of darkness and fear, to have a Head and Saviour in the possession of glory, to whom we may commend our departing souls at the time of death, and who will receive them to himself; that we may not tremble at the thoughts of death and of eternity.

For though the infinite goodness of God be our chief encou ragement, yet seeing he is holy and just, and we are sinners, we have need of a mediate encouragement, and of such condescending love as is come near unto us, and hath taken up our nature already into heaven. A Saviour that hath been on earth in flesh; that hath died, and risen, and revived, and is now in the possession of blessedness, is a great emboldener of our thoughts, when we look towards another world; which else we should think of with more doubting, fearful, and unwilling minds. To have a friend gone before us, who is so powerful, so good, and hath made us his interest; to think that he is Lord of the world that we are going to, and hath undertaken to receive us to himself when we go hence, is a great reviving to our amazed, fearful, departing souls, d

Sect. 22. And it is very congruous to the case of an afflicted, persecuted people, who are misrepresented and slandered in this world, and suffer for the hopes of a better life, to have a Saviour who is the Judge of all the world, to justify them publicly before all, and to cause their righteousness to shine as the light, and to turn all their sufferings into endless joys.

Sect. 23. And it seemeth exceedingly congruous to reason, seeing that the divine Essence is an inaccessible light, that we should for ever have a Mediator of fruition, as well as of acquisition, by whom the Deity may shine in communicated glory and love to us for evermore; and that God be for evermore eminently delighted and glorified in Him than in us, as he excelleth us in dignity and all perfections; even as in one sun, his power and glory are more demonstrated than in a world of

worms.

Whether all these things be true or not, I am further to inquire; but I find now that they are very congruous to our condition and to reason; and that if they be so, no man can deny but that there is wonderful wisdom and love to man in the design and execution, and that it is to man a very desirable

d Perturbatione temporum eos etiam qui vero judicio nullius criminis convinc queunt, maximis involvi criminibus, haud est veri dissimile.-Pachymer,

thing that it should be so: and therefore that we should be exceedingly willing to find any sound proof that it is so indeed, though not with a willingness which shall corrupt and pervert our judgments by self-flattery, but such as will only excite them to the wise and sober examination of the case.e

The evidences of the verity we shall next inquire after.

CHAP. IV.

Of the Witness of Jesus Christ on the demonstrative Evidence of his Verity and Authority.

THOUGH all that is said may be a reasonable preparative to faith, it is more cogent evidence which is necessary to convince us that Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the world. That a man appearing like one of us is the eternal Word of God incarnate, is a thing which no man is bound to believe, without very sound evidence to prove it. God hath made reason essential to our nature. It is not our weakness but our natural excellency, and his image on our nature. Therefore, he never called us to renounce it, and to lay it by; for we have no way to know principles but by an intellectual discerning them in their proper evidence; and no way to know conclusions but by a rational discerning their necessary connexion to those principles. If God would have us know without reason, he would not have made us reasonable creatures. Man hath no way of inental discern

Q. Si divinæ Scripturæ probationibus sufficiunt, quid necessaria est religioni fides? R. Fides nostra super ratione quidem est, non tamen temerariè etirrationabiliter assumitur. Ea enim quæ ratio edocet, fides intelligit; et ubi ratio defecerit, fides præcurrit. Non enim utcunque audita credimus, sed ea quæ ratio non improbat. Verum quod consequi ad plenum non potest, fideli prudentia confitemur.-Junilius African. de Part. Div. Leg. 1. 2. c. 30.

Q. Unde probamus libros religionis nostræ divinâ esse inspiratione conscriptos ? R. Ex multis, quorum primum est ipsius Scripturæ veritas; deinde ordo rerum, consonantia præceptorum, modus locutionis sine ambitu, puritasque verborum. Additur conscribentium et prædicantium qualitas, quod divina homines, excelsa vates, infacundi subtilia, non nisi divino repleti Spiritu tradidissent. Tum prædicationis virtus, quam dum prædicaretur (licet à paucis despectis) obtinuit. Accedunt his rectificatio contrariorum, ut sybillarum vel philosophorum; expulsio adversariorum,utilitas consequentium, exitus eorum quæ per acceptationes, et figuras, et prædictiones, quæ prædicta sunt ad postremum; miracula jugiter facta, donec Scriptura psa suscipere- . tur à gentibus. De quâ hoc nunc ad proximum miraculum sufficit, quod ab omnibus suscepta cognoscitur.—Junilius African, de Part. Div. Leg. 1. 2. c. 29.

ing or knowledge, but by understanding things in their proper evidence. To know without this, were to know without knowledge. Faith is an act, or species, of knowledge: it is so far from being contrary to reason, that is but an act of cleared, elevated reason. It is not an act of immediate intuition of God or Jesus Christ himself, but a knowledge of the truth by the divine evidence of its certainty. They that wrangle against us for giving reason for our religion, seem to tell us that they have none for their own, or else reprehend us for being men. If they had to do with them who make God to be but the prime reason, would they say that faith is something above reason, and therefore something above God? I believe that our reason or intellection is far from being univocally the same thing with God's; but I believe that God is intellection, reason or wisdom eminenter, though not formaliter: and that though the name be first used to signify the lower derivative reason of man, yet we have no higher to express the wisdom of God by, or better notion to apprehend it by, than this which is its image. I conclude, therefore, that,

1

Sect. 1. The christian religion must be the most rational in the world, or that which hath the soundest reason for it, if it be the truest and the proof of it must be by producing the evidences of its truth.

Sect. 2. The evidence which faith requireth is properly called evidence of credibility.

Sect. 3. When we speak of human faith, as such, credibility is somewhat short of proper certainty; but when we speak of divine faith, or a belief of God, evidence of credibility is evidence of certainty.

Sect. 4. The great witness of Jesus Christ, or the demonstrative evidence of his verity and authority, was the Holy Spirit.

Sect. 5. The word or doctrine of Jesus Christ hath four several infallible testimonies of God's Spirit, which, though each of them alone is convincing, yet, altogether, make up this one great evidence, that is, 1. Antecedently; 2. Constitutively, or inherently; 3. Concomitantly; and, 4. Subsequently. Of which I shall speak in course.

Sect. 6. I. Antecedently, the spirit of prophecy was a witness to Jesus Christ,

Under which I comprehend the prediction also of types. He that was many hundred years before, yea, from age to age, fore

Heb. x. 15; 1 Pet. i. 10; 2 Pet. i. 19, 20,

told to come as the Messiah or Saviour, by divine prediction of promises, prophecies, and types, is certainly the true Messiah, our Saviour. But Jesus Christ was so foretold: ergo

1. For promises and prophecies, presently after the fall of Adam, God said, "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." (Gen. iii. 15.) As it is certain that it was Satan principally, and the serpent but instrumentally, that is spoken of as the deceiver of Eve; so it is as plain that it was Satan and his wicked followers principally, and the serpent and his seed only, as the instruments that are here meant in the condemnation : and that it is the seed of the woman, by an excellency so called, that is primarily here meant, and under him her natural seed, secondarily, is proved, not only by the Hebrew masculine gender, but by the fulfilling of this promise in the expository events, and in other promises to the like effect. The rest of the promises and prophecies to this purpose are so many, that to recite them all would swell the book too large; and therefore I must suppose that the reader, perusing the sacred Scripture itself, will acquaint himself with them there. Only a few I shall repeat.

"In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." (Gen. xxii. 18.)

"The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come." (Gen. xlix. 10.)

The whole of the second Psalm is a prophecy of the kingdom of Christ. "Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, &c. Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Sion. I will declare the decree; the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee: ask, of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Be wise, therefore, O ye kings! Be learned, ye judges of the earth! Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son lest he be angry, and ye perish," &c.

"For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption." (Psalm xvi. 10.)

"Dogs have compassed me; the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell Lege Disputationem Gregentii cum Herbano Judeo.