dening you by affording you the matter of this objection, yet seeing you have got it by the end, as I have oft heard to my grief from some of your most learned friends, I shall show you the vanity of it: 1. The weaknesses of men are not the weakness of our religion, nor any proof of it. What if we be imperfect in the knowledge of our own religion, yet may we infallibly know that it is true indeed. No men in the world are generally so ignorant and imperfect in their own profession of any science or art, as divines (yea, the best divines) are in theirs. And what of that? Is divinity, therefore, the less certain or excellent? No; the very reason is because there is no science so sublime, mysterious, and transcendent as this is; and, therefore, the science is the most excellent, and the professors and teachers of it are most highly honored by that excellency of the doctrine, though they be so defective in it. He that studieth things visible before his eyes, may see and therefore know, and yet in these things we are everywhere at a loss; but who can expect that he that studies the nature and acts of the infinite God, and the incomprehensible, invisible things of the life to come, should be perfect in his knowledge of them. An imperfect knowledge of these highest things is more excellent than the fullest knowledge of things below no wonder, therefore, if divines be weak and oft mistaken; and yet this is no disparagement to the truth.

2. It is not all our divines, nor most, nor I hope many, neither, that say as you here object. Why, therefore, should all (yea, and the christian cause) be quarrelled with for the mistakes of some few?

3. And it is well known that it is in their disputations against some adversary that they are angry with, that most of these few do turn that way; and it is too common to run into an extreme in the heat of contention. Are any of the ancients of that mind, who write so voluminously for the christian cause, as many of them have done? Read 'Austin de Civitate Dei,' "Eusebius's Præparatio,' and 'Demonstratio Evangelica,' yea, almost any one of the fathers, and then judge. They that had to do with heathens, were not tempted to this opinion, as they are that have to do with papists and Socinians. And read almost any common-place book, or body of divinity written by the reformed divines, and see whether they do not largely prove, by sound reasons, the Scripture is the word of God? Even Paræus himself, whom you object (in 'Ursine's Catechism' p. 6,) hath thirteen arguments to prove the truth of our religion,

before he comes to the witness of the Holy Ghost, as the 14th. Polanus is large and excellent in it, and few pass it by. Yea, our very catechisms contain it, as Mr. Ball's, that hath done it very well. So that you may see it is but very few, and those for the most part perverted in the heat of contentious studies, that think there is no sound reason to be given for the christian religion, or the truth of Scripture, or that we ought not to prove it, or that it is an indemonstrable principle, or that the divinity of it is the primo creditum.

4. And as for those that say, it is not to be questioned but believed', and do dissuade men from having disputes against it, or hearkening to temptations to doubting, I think they speak well, if you will understand them well. For 1. Thou must observe whom they speak this to: not to heathens that never had the light made known to them; but to Christians that have already believed. 2. And you must observe what it is that they say; not that Scripture is unreasonable, or that we cannot give sound reasons to a heathen to prove our religion, and the Scripture to be divine, nor that we ought not so to do, for their conversion; nor yet that young Christians should not be taught such arguments for the strengthening of their faith, and defending it against such as you: or that they should not study them to that end; but that they should not question, that is, with doubt, or suspicion of the truth, which they have believed, whether it be truth, or not. For when God hath given sufficient evidence of his truth, we may study for a clearer sight of that evidence as learners, but we ought not to doubt of the evidence, or to study as neutral or jealous unbelievers; but to abhor every temptation that would draw us to unbelief. We must not be like Balaam, that when God had told him his mind, would take no answer, but go on the same errand to him, after he had sufficient reason to be resolved. And I think it had been better with you, if you had met such temptations yourselves with abhorrence; and if you must try them further, if you had done it as learners, by your teachers' help, and not have thought your unfurnished understandings to have been competent judges in such a case without the assistance which God had provided for you.

5. Moreover, the learned, judicious divines that speak of our disability to prove to another that the Scripture is the word of God, do use to give you these two expository restrictions, which also are to be taken or implied by many that express them not:

1. They speak not of a defect in our evidence or in the soundness of our reasons given, as if we could not give you such reasons as you are bound to be convinced by, but they speak of the defect of your reason for the reception of our reasons; and say, that through your-darkness and pravity, no reason, how sound soever, will satisfy you without supernatural grace. 2. They deny not that you may come to a common belief by the persuasion of these reasons and the common help of the Spirit; but only that you can have the special saving faith of the saints, without the Spirit's special grace. An historical belief, which is true in its kind, they confess you may come to by rational persuasions, without special grace: but not that deep and firm belief, which shall carry over the will effectually to God in Christ, and captivate the whole man into the obedience of his will.

6. And as for the papists, as it is their interest and pre-engagement and contentious study, that causeth this and other their errors; so in this they are not of one mind among themselves, and therefore, their error is no disparagement to the cause of Christ.

7. No more is the error of these on the other side, who, through darkness, passion, or inconsiderateness, are carried to takethe part of infidels against Christianity; so far as to say, that we have no reason for our religion, or that it is not to be proved by any dispute, or that it is to be believed and not to be known or proved that Scripture is God's word, or that our religion is true. I say of them in this, as of you: we may have proof and full proof, though neither they nor you can see it. None of them all is able to confute the proofs that are brought by Austin, Eusebius, or the rest of the fathers for the christian faith; nor to answer the apologies of Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Clemens Alexandrinus, Tertullian, Origen, Lactantius, Arnobius, Minutius Foelix, Athanasius, Cyril Alexand., with many more on this subject. None of these quarrelsome men can confute the arguments that our ordinary common-place books and bodies of divinity, or catechisms written by reformed divines, do bring to prove the Scripture to be the word of God. Nor the treatises of Ficinus, Lod. Vives, Mornay, Grotius, Jackson, &c. that are written to that end. If either you or any peevish, factious men that will so far befriend you, will undertake such a task, I doubt not but they shall find enough to vindicate the christian cause and doctrine, and to manifest their error.

For my own part, I am willing to give to contenders the last words in the most evident points, which are not of necessity to salvation. I have seen so much the fruit of disputations, and what an intolerable provocation it is to some men to be contradicted, and how strongly it tempteth them to passion, untruth, and palpable injustice, and the disadvantage of the clearest reasons, when prejudice is to encounter them, that I shall be as little in contradiction of such impatient souls as I can; and if they will maintain that homo is not animal rationale, if they enforce it not against spirituals, I shall give them the day. But yet while God gives me life, and ability, and opportunity, I undertake to make good against them or you, that there is sound proof to be given of the two principles of our faith, viz. : that God is true, and that Scripture is his word; and that these are first, in true order of nature, to be known, before they are to be believed fide divina, though a human faith is usually preparatory, and that we are not unfurnished of solid arguments to deal with a heathen or infidel, or to establish a tempted Christian in the faith; and that he that will tell an infidel, or tempted Christian, or a papist, or any adversary of our churches, that we have no sound reason to be Christians rather than infidels, and that we have no solid proof that Scripture is God's word, shall deal liker a betrayer than a preacher of the word of the Gospel, and is unfit to preach to the unbelieving world. And if any of you that are infidels are encouraged by their conceits, I tell you, we shall easily manifest the vanity of such conceits, whether they are from you or them.

Object. But it is not only these few, but the most of you are disagreed among yourselves, on what grounds or reasons you take the Scriptures to be the word of God. Though most of you say, in general, that you have sufficient reasons for it; yet, when you come to manifest them, how many minds are you of? That which to one seems an irrefragable reason, another doth contemn; so that all of them are slighted by one party or other. The papists' reason is from the authority of their infallible. church. The protestants, some of them say that Scripture is as the sun that is seen by its own light; and so our belief of it is. resolved into itself. Others fetch their reasons from the attestation of miracles; others resolve all into the private testimony or revelation of the Spirit. You know more than one have told you lately that we cannot believe this by a divine faith, but by the testimony of God: nor must we fetch this tes

timony out of the Scriptures; for this were to believe the Scriptures before we believe them: therefore the ground is the witness of God to our spirits. The witness of God to their spirits, they say, is the first ground on which their faith is built, and this is by a secret causing us to believe, and so some truth is believed without reason.

Answ. I. I have before given you my answer, as to the papists, and those few of our own that run into such extremes. All arguments be not weak, which some men dare deny. Is not the highway right except every man hit it? A drunken man may go beside it, and a wise man that is not used to it may miss it, or by credulity may be turned by others out of his way; and yet the way may be right and plain too for all that. Will, you think nothing certain in philosophy, because philosophers are of so many minds; or will you renounce all physicians because they ordinarily disagree; or, as one saith, if a Londoner have a journey into the country, which his life lieth on, will he not go his journey because the clocks disagree; or will he not set on till all the clocks in London strike at once, or will never give any credit to a clock till then?

2. Our divines disagree not so much as you pretend. Their ordinary judgment is this, which we shall easily make good against your opposition, that Scripture hath not sensible evidence, or the things believed are not evident; but yet there is sufficient evidence of the verity of them, in that it is evidently proveable, that God is the Author of that word, and that God cannot lie that our evidence objective of the divinity of Scriptures is partly the internal light of their own perfections, partly in providential attestations, especially miracles, and partly in the effects: that the Holy Ghost, by special inspiration, was the Author of these Scriptures, and by extraordinary endowments was the Author of those miracles which were wrought for its confirmation, and is also the Author of the faith of the believer, and having wrought that faith and the rest of God's image, the effect is a further argument to confirm the faith that was wrought before: but yet they say not that the Holy Ghost doth cause men to believe without any evidence; which were to see without light, or to know or believe that which is no object of assent. There is evidence of truth in Scripture, and there are sound reasons for the christian faith, before the Holy Ghost persuades men to believe them. The Holy Ghost is not sent to cure the Scripture of obscurity or any defect, but to cure men's