42 THE REASON OF FAITH. [BOOK VI., PART I.
Avisdom, and power, with honour, profit, interest, reputation, were all forced to give way to its power and efficacy.
[2.] The world was at that time in the highest enjoyment of peace, prosperity, and plenty, that ever it attained from the entrance of sin ; and it is known how from all these things is usually made provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof. Whatever the pride, ambition, covetousness, sensuality, of any persons could carry them forth to lust after, the world was full of satisfactions for; and most men lived, as in the eager pursuit of their lusts, so in a full supply of what they did require. In this condition the gospel is preached unto them, requiring at once, and that indispensably, a re- nunciation of all those worldly lusts which before had been the salt of their lives. If men designed any compliance with it or interest in it, their pride, ambition, luxury, covetousness, sensuality, malice, revenge, must all be mortified and rooted up. Had it only been a new doctrine and religion, declaring that knowledge and worship of God which they had never heard of before, they could not but be very wary in giving it entertainment ; but when withal it required, at the first instant, that for its sake they should "pull out their right eyes, and cut off their right hands," to part with all that was dear and useful unto them, and which had such a prevalent interest in their minds and affections as corrupt lusts are known to have, this could not but invincibly fortify them against its admittance. But yet this also was forced to give place, and all the fortifications of Satan therein were, by the power of the word, cast to the ground, as our apostle expresseth it, 2 Cor. x. 4, 5, where he gives an account of that warfare whereby the world was subdued to Christ by the gos- pel. Now, a man that hath a mind to make himself an instance of conceited folly and pride, may talk as though there was in all this no evidence of divine power giving testimony to the Scripture and the doctrine contained in it ; but the characters of it are so legible unto every modest and sedate prospect that they leave no room for doubt or hesitation. #
But the force of the whole argument is liable unto one exception of no small moment, which must, therefore, necessarily be taken notice of and removed: for whereas we plead the power, efficacy, and prevalency of the gospel in former days, as a demonstration of its divine original, it will be inquired " whence it is that it is not still accompanied with the same power, nor doth produce the same effects; for we see the profession of it is now confined to narrow limits in comparison of what it formerly extended itself unto, neither do Ave find that it gets ground anyAvhere in the world, but is rather more and more straitened every day. Wherefore, either the first prevalency that is asserted unto it, and argued as an evidence of
CHAP. III.] EXTERNAL ARGUMENTS FOR DIVINE REVELATION. 43
its divinity, did indeed proceed from some other accidental causes in an efficacious though unseen concurrence, and was not by an emanation of power from itself; or the gospel is not at present what it was formerly, seeing it hath not the same effect upon or power over the minds of men as that had of old. We may, therefore, suspend the pleading of this argument from what was done by the gospel formerly, lest it reflect disadvantage upon what we profess at present."
Ans. 1. Whatever different events may fall out in different sea- sons, yet the gospel is the same as ever it was from the beginning. There is not another book, containing another doctrine, crept into the world instead of that once delivered unto the saints; and whatever various apprehensions men may have, through their weakness or pre- judices, concerning the things taught therein, yet are they in them- selves absolutely the same that ever they were, and that without the loss or change of a material word or syllable in the manner of their delivery. This I have proved elsewhere, and it is a thing- capable of the most evident demonstration. Wherefore, whatever entertainment this gospel meets withal at present in the world, its former prevalency may be pleaded in justification of its divine original.
2. The cause of this event lieth principally in the sovereign will and pleasure of God; for although the Scripture be his word, and he hath testified it so to be by his power, put forth and exerted in dispensations of it unto men, yet is not that divine power included or shut up in the letter of it, so that it must have the same effect wherever it comes. We plead not that there is absolutely in itself, its doctrine, the preaching or preachers thereof, such a power, as it were naturally and physically, to produce the effects mentioned; but it is an instrument in the hand of God unto that work which is his own, and he puts forth his power in it and by it as it seems good unto him. And if he do at any time so put forth his divine power in the administration of it, or in the use of this instrument, as that the great worth and excellency of it shall manifest itself to be from him, he giveth a sufficient attestation of it. Wherefore, the times and seasons of the prevalency of the gospel in the world are in the hand and at the sovereign disposal of God ; and as he is not obliged (for " who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor?") to accompany it with the same power at all times and seasons, so the evidence of his own power going along with it at any time, whilst under an open claim of a divine original, is an uncontrollable approbation of it. Thus, at the first preaching of the word, to fulfil the promises made unto the fathers from the foundation of the world, to glorify his Son Jesus Christ, and the gospel itself which he had revealed, he put forth that effectual divine