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evidence is all in the revelation and the credit of the testifier, can be attained no other way but by believing. All things seem strange and difficult at first to those that have not learned them. If you understand all things already, what need you to learn any more? If you do not, then all that you understand will appear to you at first as darkness or contradiction. If, now, you will be so confident of your own understandings as to cast away all that you understand not already, because it seems contradictory or unlikely, how are you likely to know any more? If you will conclude that all is false which you understand not already, you are like to make but unprofitable scholars. Well, therefore, saith Solomon, "Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him." (Prov. xxvi. 12.) For certainly it is a double degree of folly for a man not only to be ignorant of the things of God, but also to be so ignorant of his own ignorance. And we must be more at pains to make such proud men know that they do not know, than to make the humble to know the truths themselves, which they perceive that they yet know not and therefore, Paul doth not only bid us, "Be not wise in your own conceits ;" (Rom. xii. 16;) but also intimates that ignorance is the cause of such conceits of wisdom, "For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits:" (Rom. xi. 25 :) as Solomon saith of the foolish sluggard, that "he is wiser in his own conceit than seven men who can render a reason." (Prov. xxvi. 26.)

10. Consider, whether in this case you join not impudence and inhuman ingratitude to your arrogancy, when Christ condescendeth to become your teacher, and you are loiterers and dullards, and will not learn, but have lost the most of your time in his school; is it not a great mercy now, that he will yet entertain you and instruct you, and doth not turn you out of his school? And will you, instead of being thankful for this mercy, fall a quarrelling with his truth, and take on you to be wiser than he, when you have so provoked him by your ignorance and unprofitableness? Will you fly in his face, with audacious, unbelieving questions, and say, "How can these things be?" as if it were he that knew not what he said, and not you that did not understand him?

11. Consider, how easily can God evince the verity of those passages which you so confidently reject, and open your eyes to see that as plain as the highway, which now seems to you so

contradictory or improbable; and then what will you have to say for your unbelief and arrogancy, but to confess your folly and sit down in shame? You know when any difficult case is propounded to you in any other matter, which you can see no probable way to resolve, yet when another hath resolved it to your hands in a few words, it is presently quite plain to you, and you wonder that could not see it before. You are as you one that wearieth himself with studying to unfold a riddle, and when he hath given it over as impossible, another openeth it to him in a word; or, as I have seen boys at play, with a pair of tarrying irons, when one hath spent many hours in trying to undo them, and casts them away as if it could not be done, another presently and easily opens them before his face; so when you have puzzled your brains in searching out the reasons of God's ways, and seeking to reconcile the seeming contradictions of his word, and say, "How can these things be?" In a moment can God show you how they can be, and make all plain to you, and make you even wonder that you saw it not sooner, and ashamed that you opened your mouth in unbelief. How plain is that to a man of knowledge, which to the ignorant seems impossible. If the certain event did not convince them, you should never persuade the ignorant vulgar, that learned men know so much of the motions of the planets, and can so long before tell the eclipse of sun or moon to a minute; but when they see it come to pass, they are convinced: thus can God convince thee of the verity of his word, either by a merciful illumination, or by a terrible execution; for there is not a soul in hell but doth believe the truth of the threatenings of God, and the devils themselves believe, that would draw thee to unbelief.

12. Lastly, take heed of the very beginnings of this sin, for it is the ordinary way to total apostasy: when men have once so far lost their humility and modesty, and forgot that they are men, or what a man is, as to make their shallow reason the censurer of God's word, because of certain seeming improbabilities; and when they will not rest satisfied in the bare word of God, that thus it is, but they must needs know why and how can it be; this opens the floodgate of temptations upon them, for the envious serpent will quickly show them more difficulties than their shallow brains can answer, and will cull out all those passages of Scripture, which are "hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable do wrest to their own de

struction." (2 Pet. iii. 18.) He will show them all the knots, but never show them how to untie them. Such arrogant questioners and censurers of God's word, do often run on to utter infidelity, while they are incompetent judges, and do not know it; what can be expected from them but a false judgment: for though the light shineth in darkness, yet the darkness comprehendeth it not; (John i. 9 ;) and therefore presumeth to condemn the light. O, therefore, let all young, raw students, and unsettled wits, take heed in the fear of God, that they exalt not themselves, and that they think not their weak understandings to be capable of comprehending the counsels of God, and passing a censure upon his word, upon the nature of the matter as appearing unto them. Nay, let the sharpest wits and greatest scholars stoop down before the wisdom of God, and behave themselves as humble learners, and enter as little children into his school and kingdom, and submissively put their mouths in the dust, and take heed of setting their wits against heaven, or challenging the infinite wisdom to a disputation. If they love themselves, let them take this advice, and remember that God delighteth to scatter the proud in the imagination of their own hearts, (Luke i. 51,) and to pull down aspiring sinners to the dust. As they that would set their power against God, would soon be convinced of their madness by their ruin; so they that will set their wisdom against him, are like to escape no better. "Let no man deceive himself: if any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may be wise: for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, he taketh the wise in their own craftiness and again, the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise that they are vain." (1 Cor. iii. 18-20.)

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Object. But would you not have men satisfied of the reasonableness of what they believe? Shall men believe that which is unreasonable? This were to make us mad, and not Christians.

Answ. You must believe nothing but what you have sufficient reason to believe: but then you must know what is sufficient reason for belief. Prove but the thing to be the testimony of God, and then you have sufficient reason to believe it, whatsoever it be. For faith proceeded by this augmentation, "Whatsoever God testifieth is true; but this God testifieth, therefore, it is true." You have as good reason to believe the major, as that there is a God: and he that acknowledgeth not a God, is unworthy to be a man. All that you have to look after, therefore, is to prove the minor, that this or that is the word

of God. And as concerning the Scripture, in general, it carrieth sufficient reason to warrant and oblige any man that readeth or heareth it, to believe it, in the forehead of it: it shineth by its own light, and it beareth the certain seal of heaven. So that we have good reason to believe the Scripture, or doctrine of Christ, to be the word of God: and then we have as good reason to believe it, and every part of it to be true. And then what ground is there for any further exceptions or objections? When you have seen the seal of God affixed, and perceived sufficient evidence of the verity of the whole, what room is left for cavils against any part of it?

Object. But it is certain that God never spoke contradictions. Therefore, if I find contradictions in the Scriptures, may I not rationally argue that they are not the word of God?

Answ. Yes, if you could certainly and infallibly prove your minor, that Scripture hath such contradictions. But that is not a thing that a sober man can be confident of proving. Because all things that men understand not, may seem to them to have contradictions. And you have far more reason to suspect your own shallow understanding, than the word. For those things, as I have showed, may be easily reconcilable by others that understand, which seem most irreconcilable to you. Are you sure there can be no way of reconciliation, but you must know it? It is easy, therefore, to see that your minor cannot possibly be proved.

Yea, it may be easily and certainly disproved, even by him that cannot reconcile those seeming contradictions. For God attesteth no contradictions; but God attesteth the Holy Scripture: therefore the Holy Scriptures have no contradictions.

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The major is most evident to the light of nature, and granted by yourself. The minor is proved at large, before and elsewhere. God's attestation is discernible to reason.

It is, therefore, a preposterous course to begin at the quality of the word, and to argue thence, that God revealed it not, when you should begin at the attestation or seal of God, and argue thence that he did reveal it; and, indeed, the very quality beareth or containeth his image and seal, for you are more capable of discerning the seal of God attesting it, in the Spirit of miracles, holiness, &c., then you are of discerning presently the sense of all those passages that seem contradictory to you. You may easily be ignorant of the true interpretation, for want of acquaintance with some one of those many things that are necessary thereto; but I can be certain, that God hath attested the Scripture to be his word.

And, indeed, common reason tells us that we must first have a general proof that Scripture is God's word, and argue thence, to the verity of the parts, and not begin with a particular proof of each part. It seems that you would argue thus: This and that text of Scripture are true, therefore they are God's word: but reason telleth you, you should argue thus: This is God's word, therefore it is true. If you set a boy at school to learn his grammar, will you allow him to be so foolish as to stay till he can reconcile every seeming contradiction in it, before he believe it to be a grammar, or submit to learn, and use its rules? or will you not expect that he first know it to be a grammar, and then make it his business to learn to understand it, and therein to learn to reconcile all seeming contradictions? And should he not in modesty and reason, think that his master can recon cile that which may seem irreconcilable to him, and such unlearned novices as he is?

For my part I am fully resolved, that if my reason could reach to none of the matters revealed in Scriptures, so as to see them in the evidence of the thing, yet if I once see the evidence of divine revelation, I may well be assured that it is wholly true, how far soever it may transcend my reason; for I have reason to believe all that God revealeth and asserteth; and I have reason to acknowledge the imbecility of my reason, and its incompetency to censure the wisdom of God.

And thus I abhor both the doctrine of them that say; 'We have no reason to be Christians, and that the truth of Scripture. is an indemonstrable principle that must be believed without reasons, and not proved by them;' and also the arrogant infidelity of them that will believe nothing to be a divine revelation, unless their reason can comprehend the thing itself, or, at least, if there be any thing in it that seems contradictory to their reason; and so will begin at the wrong end, and examine the particular matters, by the test of their blind reason, when they should first examine the attestations of the whole, where the evidences are more fitted for the reason, even of the younger Christians to discern.

I easily confess that no man should groundlessly believe any thing to be a divine testimony, or believe any man, that saith, "He speaks from God;' but when God hath given them sufficient reason to believe that the testimony and revelation is indeed from himself; if after that, men will still be doubting, because their reason is stalled about the manner, and the causes, and

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