Baxter - Houston-Packer Collection BT770 .B39 1670

The Life of Faith. talthood) which ever they did conceiveor fpeak, there wit, be no certainty of the Gofpel, nor of any Divine Revelation at all : Seeing all Poch certainty is rcfolved into Gods Veracity c that God cannot lye. And God fpeaketh not to us, by any but acreated voice : and if he can thus predetermine others to thofe words which arc a lye, rather than to the contra- ry which are true, there would be no certainty, but he may do fo by Prophets and Apofiles : and let them tell you what they will of the greater certainty ofInfpirations andMiracles, than of Predeterminations, it will be found upon tryal, that no man can prove, or make it fo much as probable, that any infpiration bath more ofa Divine Caufation, .than Poch a pre= moving predetermination as aforefaid doth amount to; much lets Co much more, as will prove that one is mote certain than the other. This DotSttinc therefore which undeniably (whatever may be wrangled) taketh down Chrilbanity, and all belief ofGod or man, is not tobe believed meerly upon filch a Philofophical conceit, that every Aaion is a Being, and therefore muff in all its circumffances be coifed by God. As if God were not able tomake a faculty, which can determine its own comparative aa to this rather than to that, by his fuftcntation, and univer- fal precaufation and concourfc, without the faid predeter- mining promotion : When as an Action as filch is but a modue entir; and the comparative excrcife ofit, on this rather than on that, is but a modus vel circumffantia modi. And they leave no work, for gracious determination, becaufe that natural de. termination doth all the fame thing (equally to duty and fin) without it. Dire& 15. Confider well bow much ali humane converte is maintained by the necepary belief of one another, and wilt the world would be without it ; and bow much you expect your felvee to be believed: And than thinkhow much more belief is due to God. Thoughfin bath made the world fo bad, that we may fay, that all men are lyars, that is, deceitful vanity, and little to be fruited ; yet the homily of thofe that are more vertuous, doth help fo far to keep up the honour of veracity, and the ihamcfulncfc oflying that throughout the world, a lye is in Y 2 difgracc,

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