Direct. V. Understand what sort and measure of belief it is that you owe to your teachers, that so your incredulity hinder not your faith in Christ, nor your over-much credulity betray you to heresy, nor make you the servants of men, contrary to Matt. xxiii. 8-10; Eph. iv. 13; 2 Cor. i. 24; Acts xx. 30. We see on one side how many poor souls are cheated into schism and dangerous errors, by forsaking their teachers and refusing their necessary help, and all upon this pretence, that they must not make men the lords of their faith, nor pin their faith on the minister's sleeve, nor take their religion upon trust. And on the other side we see among the papists, and in every sect, what lamentable work is made by an over-much credulity and implicit belief of ambitious, worldly, factious, proud, and erroneous guides. |The order and credit of ministerial teaching the doctrine of salvation.|That you may escape both these extremes, you must observe the truth of these conclusions following, which show you what it is that your teachers have to reveal unto you, and in what order, and how far the several particulars are, or are not to be taken upon their words.
And first, as a preparative, it is presupposed, (1.) That you find yourself ignorant, and one that needeth a teacher; for if you think you know all that you need to know already, you are like a full bottle that will hold no more. (2.) It is presupposed that you take the man that you learn of to be wiser than yourself, and fit to teach you; either because fame or other men's reports have told you so, (as the woman, John iv. drew the Samaritans to Christ,) or because his own profession of skill doth make you think so (as you will hearken to him that professeth to be able to teach you any art or science); or else because your present hearing his discourse doth convince you of his wisdom; by one of these means you are brought to think that he is one that you may learn of, and is fit for you to hear (so that here is no need that first you take him to be infallible, or that you know which is the true church, as the papists say). These are supposed.
To know yourself.
The doctrines which he is to teach you are these, and in this method to be taught. 1. He will teach you the natural knowledge of yourself; that being a man, you are a rational, free agent, made by another for his will and use, and by him to be ruled in order to your ultimate end, being wholly his, and at his disposal.
To know God and holiness.
2. He will next teach you that there is a God that made you, and what he is, and what relation he standeth in to you, and you to him, as your Creator, your Owner, your Ruler, and your Benefactor, and your End: and what duty you owe him in these relations, to submit to him, and resign yourselves to him as his own, to be obedient to all his laws, and to love him and delight in him; and this with all your heart, and soul, and might; even to serve him with all the powers of your soul and body, and with your estates and all his blessings.
To know the life to come.
3. He will next teach you that this God hath made your souls immortal, and that there is a life after this where everlasting happiness or misery will be your part, and where the great rewards and punishments are executed by the Judge of all the world as men have behaved themselves in this present life. That your end and happiness is not here, but in the life to come, and that this life is the way and time of preparation, in which everlasting happiness is won or lost.
Thus far he needeth no supernatural proof of what he saith; but can prove it all to you from the light of nature: and these things you are not primarily to receive of him as a testifier by mere believing him; but as a teacher, by learning of him the evidences by which you may by degrees come to know these things yourselves.
Yet it is supposed that all along you give him so much credit as the difference between his knowledge and yours doth require, so far as it appeareth to you; as you will hear a physician, a lawyer, a philosopher, or any man, with reverence, while he discourseth of the matters of his own profession; as confessing his judgment to be better than yours, and therefore more suspecting your own apprehensions than his. Not but that the truth may compel you to discern it, though you should come with no such reverence or respect to him; but then you cast yourself upon much disadvantage irrationally; and this human belief of him is but a medium to your learning, and so to the knowledge of the matter; so that you do not stop and rest in his authority or credibility, but only use it in order to your discovery of that evidence which you rest in, which as a teacher he acquaints you with.
These things being thus far revealed by natural light, are (usually) at first apprehended by natural reason, not so as presently to put or prove the soul in a state of saving grace; but so as to awaken it to make further inquiry; and so when the soul is come so far as to see the same truths by supernatural grace in the supernatural revelation of the holy Scriptures, then they become more effectual and saving, which before were known preparatorily; and so the same truths are then both the objects of knowledge and of faith.
To know that Christ, faith, repentance, and obedience, is the way to it.
4. Having acquainted you with man's ultimate end and happiness in the life to come, the next thing to be taught you by the ministers of Christ, is, that Christ as our Saviour, and faith, and repentance, and sincere obedience to be performed by us through his grace, is the way to heaven, or the means by which we must attain this end. Though the knowledge of the preacher's wisdom, piety, and credibility remove some impediments which would make the receiving of this the more difficult to you, yet you are not to take it barely on his word, as a point of human faith; but you are to call for his proof of it, that you may see better reasons than his affirmations for the entertainment of it.
To know that this is true because God hath revealed it; or it is his word.
5. The proof that he will give you is in these two propositions: 1. God's revelations are all true. 2. This is one of God's revelations: this is an argument, Whatsoever God saith is true: but this God saith, therefore this is true. The first proposition you are not to take upon the trust of his word, but to learn of him as a teacher to know it in its proper evidence; for it is the formal object of your faith: the veracity of God is first known to you, by the same evidence and means as you know that there is a God; and then it is by the force of this that you believe the particular truths which are the material object of faith. And the second proposition, that God hath revealed this, is orderly to be first proved, and so received upon its proper evidence; and not taken merely upon your teacher's word: yet if you do believe him by a human faith as a man that is likely to know what he saith, and this in order to a divine faith, it will not hinder, but help your divine faith and salvation; and is indeed no more than is your duty.
Here note, 1. That primarily these two great principles of faith, God is true, and this is God's revelation, are not themselves credenda, the material objects of divine faith, but of knowledge. 2. That yet the result of both is de fide, matter of faith. 3. And the same principles are secondarily de fide, as it is that there is a God. For though they are first to be known by natural evidence, yet when the Scripture is opened to us, we shall find them there revealed; and so the same thing may be the object both of knowledge and of faith. 4. And faith itself is a sort of knowledge; for though human faith have that uncertainty in its premises, (for the most part,) as forbiddeth us to say, (properly,) I know this to be true, because such a man said it; yet divine faith hath that certainty which may make it an excellent sort of knowledge; as I have proved copiously elsewhere.