A Christian Directory, Part 3: Christian Ecclesiastics

7. Therefore also all sober christians must take heed of rash believing every prophet or pretended spirit, lest they be led away from the sacred rule, and before they are aware, be lost in vain expectations and conceits.

Quest. CLXI. Is not a third rule of the Holy Ghost, or perfecter kingdom of love, to be expected, as different from the reign of the Creator and Redeemer?

Answ. 1. The works ad extra and the reign of the Father, Word, and Spirit are undivided. But yet some things are more eminently attributed to one person in the Trinity, and some to another.431

2. By the law and covenant of innocency, the Creator eminently ruled omnipotently. And the Son ruled eminently sapientially, initially under the covenant of promise or grace from Adam till his incarnation and the descent of the Holy Ghost, and more fully and perfectly afterward by the Holy Ghost. And the Holy Ghost ever since doth rule in the saints as the Paraclete, Advocate, or Agent of Christ, and Christ by him, eminently by holy love; which is yet but initially: but the same Holy Ghost by perfect love shall perfectly rule in glory for ever; even as the Spirit of the Father and the Son. We have already the initial kingdom of love by the Spirit, and shall have the perfect kingdom in heaven; and besides the initial and the perfect there is no other. Nor is the perfect kingdom to be expected before the day of judgment, or our removal unto heaven; for our kingdom is not of this world. And they that sell all and follow Christ, do make the exchange for a reward in heaven; and they that suffer persecution for his sake, must rejoice because their reward in heaven is great: and they that relieve a prophet or righteous man for the sake of Christ, and that lose any thing for him, shall have indeed a hundredfold (in value) in this life, but in the world to come eternal life. We shall be taken up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord: and those are the words with which we must comfort one another, and not Jewishly with the hopes of an earthly kingdom. And yet "we look for a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness, according to his promise." But who shall be the inhabitants, and how that heaven and earth shall differ, and what we shall then have to do with earth, whether to be overseers of that righteous earth (and so to judge or rule the world) as the angels are now over us in this world, are things which yet I understand not.432

Quest. CLXII. May we not look for miracles hereafter?

Answ. 1. The answer to quest. clx. may serve to this. 1. God may work miracles if he please, and hath not told us that he never will.433

2. But he hath not promised us that he will, and therefore we cannot believe such a promise, nor expect them as a certain thing. Nor may any pray for the gift of miracles.

3. But if there be any probability of them, it will be to those that are converting infidel nations, when they may be partly of such use as they were at first.

4. Yet it is certain, that God still sometimes worketh miracles; but arbitrarily and rarely, which may not put any individual person in expectation of them.

Object. Is not the promise the same to us as to the apostles and primitive christians, if we could but believe as they did?

Answ. 1. The promise to be believed goeth before the faith that believeth it, and not that faith before the promise.

2. The promise of the Holy Ghost was for perpetuity, to sanctify all believers: but the promise of that special gift of miracles, was for a time, because it was for a special use; that is, to be a standing seal to the truth of the gospel, which all after-ages may be convinced of in point of fact, and so may still have the use and benefit of.434 And Providence (ceasing miracles) thus expoundeth the promise. And if miracles must be common to all persons and ages, they would be as no miracles. And we have seen those that most confidently believed they should work them, all fail.

But I have written so largely of this point in a set disputation in my Treatise called "The Unreasonableness of Infidelity," fully proving those first miracles satisfactory and obligatory to all following ages, that I must thither now refer the reader.

Quest. CLXIII. Is the Scripture to be tried by the Spirit, or the Spirit by the Scripture, and which of them is to be preferred?

Answ. I put the question thus confusedly, for the sake of those that use to do so, to show them how to get out of their own confusion. You must distinguish, 1. Between the Spirit in itself considered, and the Scripture in itself. 2. Between the several operations of the Spirit. 3. Between the several persons that have the Spirit. And so you must conclude,

1. That the Spirit in itself is infinitely more excellent than the Scripture. For the Spirit is God, and the Scripture is but the work of God.

2. The operation of the Spirit in the apostles was more excellent than the operation of the same Spirit now in us; as producing more excellent effects, and more infallible.

3. Therefore the holy Scriptures which were the infallible dictates of the Spirit in the apostles, are more perfect than any of our apprehensions which come by the same Spirit (which we have not in so great a measure).435

4. Therefore we must not try the Scriptures by our most spiritual apprehensions, but our apprehensions by the Scriptures: that is, we must prefer the Spirit's inspiring the apostles to indite the Scriptures, before the Spirit's illuminating of us to understand them, or before any present inspirations, the former being the more perfect; because Christ gave the apostles the Spirit to deliver us infallibly his own commands, and to indite a rule for following ages; but he giveth us the Spirit but to understand and use that rule aright.436

5. This trying the Spirit by the Scriptures, is not a setting of the Scripture above the Spirit itself; but is only a trying the Spirit by the Spirit: that is, the Spirit's operations in ourselves and his revelations to any pretenders now, by the Spirit's operations in the apostles, and by their revelations recorded for our use. For they, and not we, are called foundations of the church.437

Quest. CLXIV. How is a pretended prophet, or revelation, to be tried?

Answ. 1. If it be contrary to the Scripture it is to be rejected as a deceit.438

2. If it be the same thing which is in the Scripture, we have it more certainly revealed already; therefore the revelation can be nothing but an assistance of the person's faith, or a call to obedience, or a reproof of some sin; which every man is to believe according as there is true evidence that indeed it is a divine revelation or vision; which if it be not, the same thing is still sure to us in the Scripture.

3. If it be something that is only besides the Scripture, (as about events and facts, or prophecies of what will befall particular places or persons,) we must first see whether the evidence of a divine revelation be clear in it or not; and that is known, 1. To the person himself, by the self-attesting and convincing power of a divine revelation, which no man knoweth but he that hath it (and we must be very cautelous lest we take false conceptions to be such). 2. But to himself and others it is known, (1.) At present by clear, uncontrolled miracles, which are God's attestation; which if men show, we are bound (in this case) to believe them. (2.) For the future, by the event, when things so plainly come to pass, as prove the prediction to be of God. He therefore that giveth you not by certain miracles uncontrolled, a just proof that he is sent of God, is to be heard with a suspended belief; you must stay till the event show whether he say true or not: and not act any thing in the mean time upon an unproved presumption either of the truth or falsehood of his words.439

4. If you are in doubt whether that which he speaketh be contrary to God's word or not, you must hear him with a proportionable suspicion, and give no credit to him till you have tried whether it be so or not.

5. It is a dangerous snare and sin to believe any one's prophecies or revelations merely because they are very holy persons, and do most confidently aver or swear it. For they may be deceived themselves. As also to take hysterical or melancholy delirations or conceptions for the revelations of the Spirit of God, and so to father falsehood upon God.

Quest. CLXV. May one be saved who believeth that the Scripture hath any mistake or error, and believeth it not all?

Answ. The chief part of the answer to this must be fetched from what is said before about fundamentals. 1. No man can be saved who believeth not that God is no liar, and that all his word is true; because indeed he believeth not that there is a God.440

2. No man can be saved who believeth not the points that are essential to true godliness; nor any man that heareth the word, who believeth not all essential to christianity, or the christian covenant and religion.

3. A man may be saved who believeth not some books of Scripture (as Jude, 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Revelation) to be canonical, or the word of God; so he heartily believe the rest, or the essentials.

4. He that thinketh that the prophets, sacred historians, evangelists, and apostles, were guided to an infallible delivery and recording of all the great, substantial, necessary points of the gospel, but not to an infallibility in every by-expression, phrase, citation, or circumstance, doth disadvantage his own faith as to all the rest; but yet may be saved, if he believe the substance with a sound and practical belief.441

Quest. CLXVI. Who be they that give too little to the Scripture, and who too much; and what is the danger of each extreme?

Answ. I. It is not easy to enumerate all the errors on either extreme; but only to give some instances of each. 1. They give too little to the Scripture who deny it to be indited by inspiration of the infallible Spirit of God, and to be wholly true. 2. And they that detract from some parts or books of it while they believe the rest. 3. And they that think it is not given as a law of God, and as a rule of faith and life. 4. And they that think it is not a universal law and rule for all the world, but for some parts only (supposing the predication of it). 5. And they that think it an imperfect law and rule, which must be made up with the supplement of traditions or revelations. 6. And they that think it was adapted only to the time it was written in, and not to ours, as not foreseeing what would be. 7. And they that think it is culpably defective in method. 8. And they that think it culpably defective in phrase, aptness, or elegancy of style. 9. And they that think that it containeth not all that was necessary or fit for universal determination, of that kind of things which it doth at all universally determine of; as e. g. that it made two sacraments, but not all of that kind that are fit to be made, but hath left men to invent and make more of the same nature and use. 10. And those that think that it is fitted only to the learned, or only to the unlearned, only to princes, or only to subjects, &c. 11. And those that think that it is but for a time, and then by alteration to be perfected, as Moses's law was. 12. And those that think that the pope, princes, or prelates, or any men, may change or alter it.442

II. Those give too much (in bulk, but too little in virtue) to the Scripture, 1. Who would set them up instead of the whole law and light of nature, as excluding this as useless where the Scripture is.

2. And they that feign it to be instead of all grammars, logic, philosophy, and all other arts and sciences, and to be a perfect, particular rule for every ruler, lawyer, physician, mariner, architect, husbandman, and tradesman, to do his work by.

3. And they that feign it to be fully sufficient to all men to prove its own authority and truth, without the subsidiary use of that church history and tradition which telleth us the supposed matters of fact, and must help us to know what books are canonical and what not; and without historical evidence, that these are the true books which the prophets and apostles wrote, and the miracles and providences which have attested them.443

4. And those that think that it is sufficient for its own promulgation, or the people's instruction, without the ministry of man to preserve, deliver, translate, expound, and preach it to the people.

5. And those that think it sufficient to sanctify men, without the concourse of the Spirit's illumination, vivification, and inward operation to that end.444

6. And they that say that no man can be saved by the knowledge, belief, love, and practice of all the substantial parts of christianity brought to him by tradition, parents, or preachers, who tell him nothing of the Scriptures, but deliver him the doctrines as attested by miracles and the Spirit without any notice of the book.445

7. And those that say that Scripture alone must be made use of as to all the history of Scripture times, and that it is unlawful to make use of any other historians (as Josephus and such others).

8. And they that say, no other books of divinity but Scripture are useful, yea or lawful to be read of christians, or at least in the church.

9. And they that say that the Scriptures are so divine, not only in matter, but in method and style, as that there is nothing of human (inculpable) imperfection or weakness in them.

10. And those that say that the logical method, and the phrase, is as perfect as God was able to make them.

11. And they that say that all passages in Scripture, historically related, are moral truths; and so make the devil's words to Eve, of Job, to Christ, &c. to be all true.

12. And they that say that all passages in the Scripture were equally obligatory to all other places and ages, as to those that first received them, (as the kiss of peace, the veils of women, washing feet, anointing the sick, deaconnesses, &c.)

13. And they that make Scripture so perfect a rule to our belief, that nothing is to be taken for certain, that cometh to us any other way (as natural knowledge, or historical).

14. And those that think men may not translate the Scripture, turn the Psalms into metre, tune them, divide the Scripture into chapters and verses, &c. as being derogatory alterations of the perfect word.

15. And those that think it so perfect a particular rule of all the circumstances, modes, adjuncts, and external expressions of and in God's worship, as that no such may be invented or added by man, that is not there prescribed; as time, place, vesture, gesture, utensils, methods, words, and many other things mentioned before.446

16. And those that Jewishly feign a multitude of unproved mysteries to lie in the letters, order, numbers, and proper names in Scripture (though I deny not that there is much mystery which we little observe).

17. They that say that the Scripture is all so plain, that there are no obscure or difficult passages in them, which men are in danger of wresting to their own destruction.

18. And they that say that all in the Scripture is so necessary to salvation, (even the darkest prophecies,) that they cannot be saved that understand them not all; or at least endeavour not studiously and particularly to understand them.447

19. And they that say that every book and text must of necessity to salvation be believed to be canonical and true.

20. And those that say that God hath so preserved the Scripture, as that there are no various readings and doubtful texts thereupon,448 and that no written or printed copies have been corrupted (when Dr. Heylin tells us, that the king's printer printed the seventh commandment, Thou shalt commit adultery). All these err in over-doing.

III. The dangers of the former detracting from the Scripture are these: 1. It injureth the Spirit who is the author of the Scriptures. 2. It striketh at the foundation of our faith, by weakening the records which are left us to believe; and imboldeneth men to sin, by diminishing the authority of God's law; and weakeneth our hopes, by weakening the promises. 3. It shaketh the universal government of Christ, by shaking the authority or perfection of the laws by which he governeth. 4. It maketh way for human usurpations, and traditions, as supplements to the holy Scriptures; and leaveth men to contrive to amend God's word and worship, and make co-ordinate laws and doctrines of their own. 5. It hindereth the conviction and conversion of sinners, and hardeneth them in unbelief, by questioning or weakening the means that should convince and turn them. 6. It is a tempting men to the cursed adding to God's word.

IV. The dangers of over-doing here are these: 1. It leadeth to downright infidelity; for when men find that the Scripture is imperfect or wanting in that which they fancy to be part of its perfection, and to be really insufficient, e. g. to teach men physics, logic, medicine, languages, &c. they will he apt to say, It is not of God, because it hath not that which it pretends to have. 2. God is made the author of defects and imperfections. 3. The Scripture is exposed to the scorn and confutation of infidels. 4. Papists are assisted in proving its imperfection. But I must stop, having spoke to this point before in quest. 35, and partly quest. 30, 31, 33, more at large.

Quest. CLXVII. How far do good men now preach and pray by the Spirit?

Answ. 1. Not by such inspiration of new matter from God as the prophets and apostles had which indited the Scriptures.

2. Not so as to exclude the exercise of reason, memory, or diligence: which must be as much and more than about any common things.

3. Not so as to exclude the use and need of Scripture, ministry, sermons, books, conference, examples, use, or other means and helps.

But, 1. The Spirit indited that doctrine and Scripture which is our rule for prayer and for preaching.

2. The Spirit's miracles and works in and by the apostles seal that doctrine to us, and confirm our faith in it.449

3. The Spirit in our faithful pastors and teachers teacheth us by them to pray and preach.450

4. The Spirit by illumination, quickening, and sanctification, giveth us an habitual acquaintance with our sins, our wants, with the word of precept and promise, with God, with Christ, with grace, with heaven. And it giveth us a habit of holy love to God, and goodness and thankfulness for mercy and faith in Christ, and the life to come, and desires of perfection, and hatred of sin; and he that hath all these, hath a constant habit of prayer in him; for prayer is nothing but the expression with the tongue of these graces in the heart; so that the Spirit of sanctification is thereby a Spirit of adoption and of supplication. And he that hath freedom of utterance can speak that which God's Spirit hath put into his very heart, and made him esteem his greatest and nearest concernment, and the most necessary and excellent thing in all the world. This is the Spirit's principal help.451

5. The same Spirit doth incline our hearts to the diligent use of all those means, by which his abilities may be increased; as to read, and hear, and confer, and to use ourselves to prayer, and to meditation, self-examination, &c.

6. The same Spirit helpeth us in the use of all these means, to profit by them, and to make them all effectual on our hearts.

7. The same Spirit concurreth with means, habits, reason, and our own endeavours, to help us in the very act of praying and preaching. 1. By illuminating our minds to know what to desire and say. 2. By actuating our wills to love, and holy desire, and other affections. 3. By quickening and exciting us to a liveliness and fervency in all. And so bringing our former habits into acts, the grace of prayer is the heart and soul of gifts; and thus the Spirit teacheth us to pray.452

Yea, the same Spirit thus by common helps assisteth even bad men in praying and preaching, giving them common habits and acts that are short of special saving grace. Whereas men left to themselves without God's Spirit, have none of all these forementioned helps. And so the Spirit is said to intercede for us by exciting our unexpressible groans; and to help our infirmities when we know not what to ask as we ought.453

Quest. CLXVIII. Are not our own reasons, studies, memory, strivings, books, forms, methods, and ministry, needless, yea, a hurtful quenching or preventing of the Spirit, and setting up our own, instead of the Spirit's operation?

Answ. 1. Yes; if we do it in a conceit of the sufficiency of ourselves,454 our reason, memory, studies, books, forms, &c. without the Spirit; or if we ascribe any thing to any of these which is proper to Christ or to his Spirit. For such proud, self-sufficient despisers of the Spirit, cannot reasonably expect his help. I doubt among men counted learned and rational there are too many such,455 that know not man's insufficiency or corruption, nor the necessity and use of that Holy Ghost into whose name they were baptized, and in whom they take on them to believe. But think that all that pretend to the Spirit are but fanatics and enthusiasts, and self-conceited people; when yet the Spirit himself saith, Rom. viii. 9, "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, the same is none of his." And Gal. iv. 6, "Because we are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, whereby we cry, Abba, Father."

2. But if we give to reason, memory, study, books, methods, forms, &c. but their proper place in subordination to Christ and to his Spirit, they are so far from being quenchers of the Spirit, that they are necessary in their places, and such means as we must use, if ever we will expect the Spirit's help. For the Spirit is not given to a brute to make him a man, or rational; nor to a proud despiser, or idle neglecter of God's appointed means, to be instead of means; nor to be a patron to the vice of pride or idleness, which he cometh chiefly to destroy; but to bless men in their laborious use of the means which God appointed him: read but Prov. i. 20, &c. ii. iii. v. vi. viii., and you will see that knowledge must be laboured for, and instruction heard; and he that will lie idle till the Spirit move him, and will not stir up himself to seek God, or strive to enter in at the strait gate, nor give all diligence to make his calling and election sure,456 may find that the Spirit of sloth hath destroyed him, when he thought the Spirit of Christ had been saving him. He that hath but two articles in his creed, must make this the second: "For he that cometh to God must believe that God is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him," Heb. xi. 6.

Quest. CLXIX. How doth the Holy Ghost set bishops over the churches?

Answ. 1. By making the office itself, so far as the apostles had any hand in it, Christ himself having made their office.457

2. The Holy Ghost in the electors and ordainers directeth them to discern the fitness of the persons elected and ordained, and so to call such as God approveth of, and calleth by the Holy Ghost in them. Which was done, 1. By the extraordinary gift of discerning in the apostles. 2. By the ordinary help of God's Spirit in the wise and faithful electors and ordainers ever since.458

3. The Holy Ghost doth qualify them for the work, by due life, light, and love, knowledge, willingness, and active ability, and so both inclining them to it, and marking out the persons by his gifts, whom he would have elected and ordained to it: which was done, 1. At first by extraordinary gifts. 2. And ever since by ordinary. (1.) Special and saving in some. (2.) Common, and only fitted to the church's instruction, in others. So that whoever is not competently qualified, is not called by the Holy Ghost: when Christ ascended, he gave "gifts to men, some apostles, prophets, and evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the edifying of his body," &c. Eph. iv. 7-10.459

Quest. CLXX. Are temples, fonts, utensils, church lands, much more the ministers, holy? And what reverence is due to them as holy?

Answ. The question is either de nomine, whether it be fit to call them holy; or de re, whether they have that which is called holiness.

I. The word holy signifieth in God, essential, transcendent perfection; and so it cometh not into our question. In creatures it signifieth, 1. A divine nature in the rational creature, (angels and men,) by which it is made like God, and disposed to him and his service, by knowledge, love, and holy vivacity; which is commonly called real saving holiness as distinct from mere relative. 2. It is taken for the relation of any thing to God as his own peculiar appropriated to him: so infinite is the distance between God and us, that whatever is his in a special sense, or separated to his use, is called holy; and that is, 1. Persons. 2. Things. 1. Persons are either, (1.) In general devoted to his love and service. (2.) Or specially devoted to him in some special office; which is, (1.) Ecclesiastical. (2.) Economical. (3.) Political. Those devoted to this general service are, (1.) Either heartily and sincerely so devoted, (who are ever sanctified in the first real sense also). (2.) Or only by word or outward profession. 2. Things devoted to God are, 1. Some by his own immediate choice, designation, and command. 2. Or by general directions to man to do it. And these are, 1. Some things more nearly. 2. Some things more remotely separated to him. None of these must be confounded; and so we must conclude,