short answer to a great question, and took it ill where he might be free of any that did expect it from him. Answer me in a word, is the command of an ignorant or a slothful person, or of a deceiver, when a word is not capable of the necessary answer. 16. There is no more desirable work in the world than the converting of idolaters and infidels to God, and to the christian faith; and it is a work which requireth the greatest judgment and zeal in them that must perform it. It is a doleful thought, that five parts of the world are still heathens and Mahometans, and that christian princes and preachers do no more to their recovery, but are taken up with sad contentions among themselves; and that the few that have attempted it have hitherto had so small success. The opening of the true method for such work is the highest part of my design, in which, though many others have excellently laboured, (especially Savonarola, Campanella, Ficinus, Vives, Micrælius, Duplessis, Grotius, and our Stillingfleet,) my zeal for the saving of men's souls hath provoked me to try whether I might add any thing to their more worthy labours, in point of method and perspicuity of proof. 17. Lastly, I have long ago written much on this subject, which is dispersed and buried in the midst of other subjects, except my book of the Unreasonableness of Infidelity;' and I thought it more edifying to set it in order together by itself. If these reasons justify not my undertaking, I have no better; the Lord have mercy on this dark, distracted, sensual world! Christians, watch, pray, love, live, hope, rejoice, and patiently suffer, according to this holy faith which you profess, and you shall be blessed in despite of earth and hell. Your brother in this life of faith, October 31, 1666. RICHARD BAXTER. Virtus fidei in periculis secura est; securitate periclitatur. CHRYSOST. IN MATT, XX, TO THE DOUBTING AND THE UNBELIEVING READERS. THE natural love to knowledge and to myself, which belong to me as I am a man, have commanded me to look beyond this life, and diligently to inquire, whether there be any certainty of a better; and which is the way to it, and to whom it doth of right belong; and what I have certainly discovered in this search, the love of mankind, and of truth, and of God, oblige me to communicate; but it was not a cursory glance at truth, nor a look towards it afar off, in my state of ignorance and diversion, which brought the satisfying light into my mind, nor can you reasonably expect it should do so by you. I saw that in one Savonarola, Campanella, Ficinus, Vives, Mornay, Grotius, Camaron, Micrelius, which I now see might satisfy all the world, if it were duly received: but it was not a bare reading of one or all of these and others, which was a due reception : I found, that truth must be so long retained, and faithfully elaborated, by a diligent and willing mind, till it be concocted into a clear, methodical understanding, and the scheme or analysis of it have left upon the soul its proper image, by an orderly and deep impression; yea, till the goodness of the matter become as nutriment, blood, and spirits to the will, before it is truly made our own: it expecteth, I say, not greater courtship, but more cordial friendship, than a transient salute, before it will unveil its glory, and illustrate, beautify, and bless the soul; it is food and physic; it will nourish and heal but not by a bare look or hearsay, nor by the reading of the prescript. Could I procure the reader to do his part, I doubt not but this treatise will suffice, on its part, to bring in that light, which the sage, the lemures, and dæmones of atheism, infidelity, and ungodliness, will not be able to endure. : But I am far from expecting universal success: no; not if I brought a book from heaven. The far greatest part have unprepared minds, and will not come up to the price of truth; and nothing is more sure than that recipitur ad modum recipi entis ; et pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli. These drones imagine that they are fit to judge of a Scripture difficulty, or of an argument concerning the mysteries of religion, before they know what it is to be a man, or understand the alphabet of nature, even those points which supernatural revelations presuppose such incapableness in the reader is as great a hinderance, as want of solid proof and evidence in the writer. Most men are drowned in filthy sensuality or worldly cares, and their relish is vitiated by luscious vanities; their reason is debased by subjection to the flesh, and darkened and debilitated by long alienation from its proper work; and yet they are so constituted of ignorance and pride, that they can neither understand plain truth, nor perceive that it is along of themselves that they understand it not; and slothfulness and sensuality have so far conquered humanity itself, even the natural love of truth and or themselves, that they will take up with what their playfellows have taught them, and venture their souls and their everlasting concernments, unless they can secure them by an idle, gamesome, fleshly life, or grow wise by the short, superficial studies of an alienated, unwilling, tired mind. Unless the great things of God and immortality will be savingly known by a few distracted thoughts of a discomposed mind, or the rambling talk of their companions, whose heads are as unfurnished and giddy as their own, or by the cursory perusal of a few books which cross not their carnal interest and humour in the midst of their more beloved employments and delights, they will neither be solid Christians nor wise and honest men. If God will be conversed with in the midst of their feasting, cups, and oaths ; in their pride and revelling, and with their whores; if he will be found of them that hate his holiness, and all that love it and seriously obey him, then God shall be their God, and Christ shall be their Saviour; and if this be the way, they may become good Christians; but if retired, serious thoughts be necessary, and an honest faithfulness to what they know, they must be excused. They that know that it is not an hour's perusal of a book of astronomy, geometry, music, physic, &c., which will serve to make them skilful in these arts, do expect to attain far higher wisdom by inconsiderable industry and search; and will not be wise, unless they can be taught by vision in their dreams, or in the crowd and noise of worldly business, and of fleshly lusts. I find that it is a difficult task which I have undertaken, to be the instructer of such men: if I be large and copious, their 450 TO THE DOUBTING AND UNBELIEVING READERS. laziness will not suffer them to read it: if I be concise, I cannot satisfy their expectations; for they think nothing well proved, if every objection be not answered, which idle, cavilling brains can bring neither have they sufficient attention for brevity, nor will their ignorance allow them to understand it: the contradictory vices of their minds do call for impossibilities for the cure their incapacity saith, It must be a full explication, or I cannot apprehend the sense or truth: their aversion and slothfulness say, it must be short, or I shall be tired with it, or cannot have time to read it. I cannot answer both these expectations to the full; but though the greatness of the matter have made the book bigger than I intended, the nauseating stomach of most readers hath persuaded me to avoid unnecessary words. And as large as the book is, I must tell the reader, that the style is so far from redundancies, though some things be often repeated, that if he will not chew the particular words, but swallow them whole, and bestow his labour only on the sentences, I shall suppose that he hath not read the book. Ficinus very truly noteth, that while children and youth are sufficiently conscious of their ignorance, to keep in a learning course, they may do well; but when they first grow to a confidence of their own understandings, and at ripeness of age imagine that their wits are ripe, and think that their unfurnished minds, because they have a natural quickness, are competent judges of all that they read; then they are most in danger of infidelity, and of being undone for ever; (from eighteen to twenty-eight being the most perilous age ;) but if God keep them as humble, diligent learners, till they have orderly gone through their course of studies, and sanctify their greener youthful knowledge; they then grow up to be confirmed Christians. (Ficin. De Verit. Rel.,' cap. iii.) It is, therefore, the diligence and patience of the reader which I still entreat, and not his belief: for I will beg nothing of his understanding but justice. to the truth; but supposing God's help, do trust to the cogency of evidence. Yet I must tell you, that I expect the reader, by the truths which he learneth, should be able himself to answer a hundred trivial objections, which are here passed by; and that, in particular textual difficulties, he have recourse to commentaries and tractates on those subjects; for this book is long enough already. He that will diligently consider the connexion of the consequent propositions to the antecedent, and will understand what he readeth as he goeth along, will see that I give him sufficient proof of all which I desire him to assent to; but I make no doubt but a hasty and half-witted reader can find objections and words enough against the plainest truth here written, and such as he thinks do need a particular answer, when an understanding reader would be offended with me if I should recite them. I had more compassion on the sober reader, than for the humouring of every brain-sick sceptic to stand proving that two and two are four. I write for such as are willing to be wise and happy, and that at dearer rates than jesting;. for others, I must leave them, whether I will or not, to be wise too late. And for those capricious brains who deride our ordinary preaching as begging, and supposing that which we do not prove, when they have here, and in other such writings, found our fundamentals proved, let them hereafter excuse our superstructure, and not think that every sermon must be spent in proving our Christianity and creed. In the first part of this book I give you no testimonies from the christian writings or authorities, because I suppose the reader to be one that doth not believe them, and my business is only to prove natural verities by their proper evidence; but lest any should think that there is not so much legible in nature, because the wisest heathens saw it not, I have cited in the margin their attestations to most particulars, to show that indeed they did confess the same, though less distinctly and clearly than they might have done, as I have plainly proved. But, being many years separated from my books, I was forced to do this part less exactly than I would have done had I been near my own or any other library. Again, I seriously profess, that I am so confident of the just proofs and evidences of truth here given, that I fear nothing as to frustrate the success, but the reader's incapacity, through half-wittedness or wickedness, or his laziness in a cursory and negligent perusal of what is concisely, but evidently, proposed. It is true that Seneca saith, Magna debet esse eloquentia, quæ invitis placet ;' I may add, Et veritatis evidentia quæ cæcis, malignis vel ignavis prodest; and who feeleth not the truth of Hierom's words, (ad Paul.,) Nunquam benè fit, quod fit præoccupato animo.' Be true and faithful to yourselves, and to the truth, and you shall see its glory, and feel its power, and be directed by it to everlasting blessedness. This is his end, who is An earnest desirer of mankind's felicity, October 31, 1666. |