Baxter - Houston-Packer Collection BT770 .B39 1670

136 The Life of Faith. CHAP. VIII. The rift of the Direllioni forffreagtbening our Faith. IShall be more brief in the reti ofthe Diredio'ns, for the increafe ofFaith : and they arc theft. Direct. 2. Compare the Cbrfian Religion with all other in the world : And Teeing it is certain that fome way or other God bath revealed, toguide man in his' duty, unto his end, and it is no other; you willfee that it muff needs be this. r. The way of the Heatheni(h Idolaters cannot be it : The principles and the efells of their Religion, may cafly fatisfie you of this. The only true God would not command Ido- latry, nor befriend fuch ignorance, errour and wickednefs as doth conf}itute their Religion, and are produced by it, as its genuine fruits. 2. Theway ofJudaifm cannot be it : For it doth but lead us up toChriftianity, and bear witnefs to Chrifi, and of it felt, is evidently infufficient; its multitude of ceremonies being but the pie` ures and alphabet of that truthwhich Jefus Chrift hath brought to light, and whichbath evidence, which to us is more convincing, than that cf the Jewifh Law, 3. The Mahometane delulion is fo grofs, that it fcemeth vain to fay any more againft it, than it faith it fell; unlefs it be to thofe who arc bred up in fuch darknefs, as to hear of nothing elfe, and never to fee the Sun which fhincth on the Chriftian world; and withall arc under the terrour of the (word , which is the ftrongeft reafon of that barbarous Self. 4. And to think that the Atbeifine of Infidels is the way, {who hold only the five Articles of the Vnity of God, the duty of obedience, the immortality of the foul, the life of retri- bution, and the nervefifty of Repentauce) is but to go againft the light. For r. It is a denyal of that abundant evidence ofthe truth ofthe Chriftian Faith, which cannot by any found rca- fon beconfuted. 2. It is evidently too narrow for mans tie- edifies, and lcaveth our mifery without a fufficient remedy. 3. Its inclufions and exclufions are contradiâory : It afferteth the

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