Grace unto them, do apply themselves to false Teachers, where the Remedy proves worse than the Disease; because instead of knowing God, or the Things relating to their Salvation aright, they drink in wrong Opinions of him; from which it is harder to be disintangled, than while the Soul remains a Blank, or Tabula rasa. For they that conceit themselves Wise, are worse to deal with than they that are sensible of their Ignorance. Nor hath it been less the Device of the Devil, the great Enemy of Mankind, to persuade Men into wrong Notions of God, than to keep them altogether from acknowledging him; the latter taking with few, because odious; but the other having been the constant Ruin of the World: For there hath scarce been a Nation found, but hath had some Notions or other of Religion; so that not from their denying any Deity, but from their Mistakes and Misapprehensions of it, hath proceeded all the Idolatry and Superstition of the World; yea, hence even Atheism itself hath proceeded: For these many and various Opinions of God and Religion, being so much mixed with the Guessings and uncertain Judgments of Men, have begotten in many the Opinion, That there is no God at all. This, and much more that might be said, may shew how dangerous it is to miss in this first Step: All that come not in by the right Door, are accounted as Thieves and Robbers.
[28] John 7. 48, 49.
Epictetus.Again, How needful and desirable that Knowledge is, which brings Life Eternal, Epictetus sheweth, saying excellently well, Cap. 38. [Greek: isthi hoti to Kyriôtaton: ισθι ὁτι το Κυριωτατον], &c. Know that the main Foundation of Piety is this, To have [Greek: orthas hypolêpseis: ορθας ὑποληψεις], right Opinions and Apprehensions of God.
This therefore I judged necessary, as a first Principle, in the first Place, to affirm; and I suppose will not need much farther Explanation or Defence, as being generally acknowledged by all (and in these Things that are without Controversy I love to be brief) as that which will easily commend itself to every Man’s Reason and Conscience; and therefore I shall proceed to the next Proposition; which, though it be nothing less certain, yet by the Malice of Satan, and Ignorance of many, comes far more under Debate.
PROPOSITION II.
Of Immediate Revelation.
[29]Seeing no Man knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son revealeth him; and seeing the Revelation of the Son is in and by the Spirit; therefore the Testimony of the Spirit is that alone by which the true Knowledge of God hath been, is, and can be only revealed: Who as, by the Moving of his own Spirit, he disposed the Chaos of this World into that wonderful Order in which it was in the Beginning, and created Man a Living Soul, to Rule and Govern it; so by the Revelation of the same Spirit he hath manifested himself all along unto the Sons of Men, both Patriarchs, Prophets and Apostles: Which Revelations of God by the Spirit, whether by outward Voices and Appearances, Dreams, or inward objective Manifestations in the Heart, were of old the formal Object of their Faith, and remain yet so to be; since the Object of the Saints’ Faith is the same in all Ages, tho’ held forth under divers Administrations. Moreover, these Divine Inward Revelations, which we make absolutely necessary for the building up of true Faith, neither do, nor can ever, contradict the outward Testimony of the Scriptures, or right and sound Reason; yet from hence it will not follow, that these Divine Revelations are to be subjected to the Test, either of the outward Testimony of the Scriptures, or of the Natural Reason of Man, as to a more noble or certain Rule and Touchstone; for this Divine Revelation, and Inward Illumination, is that which is evident and clear of itself; forcing, by its own Evidence and Clearness, the well-disposed Understanding to assent, irresistibly moving the same thereunto, even as the common Principles of natural Truths do move and incline the Mind to a natural Assent: As, That the Whole is greater than its Part; That two Contradictories can neither be both true, nor both false.
[29] Mat. 11. 27.
§. I.
Revelation by Apostate Christians rejected.It is very probable, that many carnal and natural Christians will oppose this Proposition; who, being wholly unacquainted with the Movings and Actings of God’s Spirit upon their Hearts, judge the same nothing necessary; and some are apt to flout at it as ridiculous: Yea, to that Height are the Generality of Christians apostatized and degenerated, that though there be not any Thing more plainly Asserted, more seriously Recommended, or more certainly Attested to, in all the Writings of the holy Scriptures; yet nothing is less minded, and more rejected, by all Sorts of Christians, than Immediate and Divine Revelation; insomuch, that once to lay Claim to it, is Matter of Reproach. Whereas of old, none were ever judged Christians, but such as had the Spirit of Christ, Rom. viii. 9. But now many do boldly call themselves Christians, who make no Difficulty of confessing they are without it, and laugh at such as say they have it. Of old they were accounted the Sons of God, who were led by the Spirit of God, ibid. verse 14. But now many aver themselves Sons of God, who know nothing of this Leader; and he that affirms himself so led, is, by the pretended Orthodox of this Age, presently proclaimed an Heretick. The Reason hereof is very manifest, viz. Because many in these Days, under the Name of Christians, do experimentally find, that they are not actuated, nor led, by God’s Spirit; yea, many great Doctors, Divines, Teachers and Bishops of Christianity, (commonly so called) have wholly shut their Ears from hearing, and their Eyes from seeing, this Inward Guide, and so are become Strangers unto it; whence they are, by their own Experience, brought to this Strait, either to confess that they are as yet ignorant of God, and have only the Shadow of Knowledge, and not the true Knowledge of him, or that this Knowledge is acquired without Immediate Revelation.
Knowledge Spiritual and Literal distinguished.For the better understanding then of this Proposition, we do distinguish betwixt the certain Knowledge of God, and the uncertain; betwixt the spiritual Knowledge, and the literal; the saving Heart-Knowledge, and soaring, airy Head-Knowledge. The last, we confess, may be divers Ways obtained; but the first, by no other Way than the inward immediate Manifestation and Revelation of God’s Spirit, shining in and upon the Heart, inlightning and opening the Understanding.
§. II.
Having then proposed to myself, in these Propositions, to affirm those Things which relate to the true and effectual Knowledge, which brings Life Eternal with it; therefore I have truly affirmed, that this Knowledge is no otherways attained, and that none have any true Ground to believe they have attained it, who have it not by this Revelation of God’s Spirit.
The Certainty of which Truth is such, that it hath been acknowledged by some of the most refined and famous of all Sorts of Professors of Christianity in all Ages; who being truly upright-hearted, and earnest Seekers of the Lord, (however stated under the Disadvantages and epidemical Errors of their several Sects or Ages) the true Seed in them hath been answered by God’s Love, who hath had Regard to the Good, and hath had of his Elect Ones among all, who finding a Distaste and Disgust in all other outward Means, even in the very Principles and Precepts more particularly relative to their own Forms and Societies, have at last concluded, with One Voice, That there was no true Knowledge of God, but that which is revealed inwardly by his own Spirit. Whereof take these following Testimonies of the Ancients.
Aug.1. [30]“It is the Inward Master (saith Augustine) that Teacheth,