the alarm from them to do liis utmost to impede their accompHshment, seeing his whole kingdom lay at stake, so as either he must hinder them, or they woidd ruin it; and that, notwithstanding all this, together with his restless endeavour against them, they should he all so fairly delivered in their full time ; yea, many of them hy the midwifery of those very persons that would, if possible, have destroyed them in the womb, as we see, Acts iv. 27 : here breaks out the wisdom and power of God, with such a strong beam of light and evidence, that none of the Scriptures' enemies can wishfully look against it.
CHAPTER VI.
THE DIVINE EXTRACTION OF THE SCRIPTURE EVIDENT IN ITS DOCTRINAL PART.
Thirdly, The doctrinal part of the Scriptures, by which in this place I mean only those grounds and principles of faith that are laid down in the Scriptures, must be believed and embraced of all that desire eternal life. 'I'here is a Divine glory which is to be seen on the very face of them, being so sublime, that no creature can be the inventor of them. To instance a few. First, God himself, who is the prime object of our faith. Who but God could tell us who he is, and what his nature is? That there is a God, is a notion that natural reason hath found the way to search out ; yea, his Godhead and ])ower are a lesson taught in the school of nature, and to be read in the book of the creatures ; but how long men, who have no higher teaching, are learning the true knowledge of God, and how little progress they make therein, we see in the poor heathen, among whom the wisest philosophers have been such dunces, groping about this one principle, one age after another, and yet not able to find the door ; as the apostle tells us, when he saith, that 'the world by wisdom knew not God,' 1 Cor. i. 21. But as for the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead, this is such a height as the heart of man never could take aim at, so much as to dream or start a thought of it : so that if God had not revealed it, the world, of necessity, must have for ever continued in the ignorance thereof. And the same must be said of all gospel truth.s,- — Jesus Christ, God-man, justification by faith in his blood, and the whole method of grace and salvation through him ; they are all such notions as never came into the heart of the wisest sophists in the world to conceive of; and, therefore, it is no wonder that a little child, luuler the preaching of the gospel, believes these mysteries which Plato and Aristotle were ignorant of, because they are not attained by our parts and industry, but communicated by Divine and supernatural revelation : yea, now they are revealed, how does our reason gaze at them, as notions that are foreign, and mere strangers to its own natural conceptions, yea, too big to be grasped and comprehended with its short span ; which makes it so ready, where grace is not master to keep it in subjection, to object against the possibility of their being- true, because itself cannot measure them : as if the owl shoidd say the sun had no light, because her weak eyes cannot bear to look on it. These are trutlis U> be believed, upon the credit of him that relates them, and not to be entertained or rejected as they correspond to, or differ from the mould of our reason. He that will handle these with his reason, and not his faith, is likely to be served as the smith that takes up his hot iron with his hand, and not with his tongs, — what can he expect but to burn his fingers ?
CHAPTER VII.
THE DIVINITY OF THE SCRIPTURE PROVED FROM ITS PRECEPTIVE PART.
The fourth part in our division of the Scripture, is the preceptive, or that which contains commands and precepts. And this will be found to carry the superscription of its Divinity on its forehead, with as legible and fair characters as any of the former.
Section I. — The vast extent of Scripture commands, which is such as never any human laws, of the greatest monarch, could pretend unto. Where is the prince, among the sons of men, that ever went about to give laws to all man- kind, and did not rather, in his royal edicts and laws, respect that particular people, and those nations, whose It ■ fell within the circle of his empire? Of
568 AND THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT.