Casuistical morning-exercises the fourth volume /

1. The Assent of Divine Faith whereby a sinner is converted and brought nigh to God, is only built upon the Authority of God the Revealer; considering his infallible Veracity, that he is a God of truth and cannot deceive or be deceived; having dominion over his Creatures, who are therefore to submit to his Word, penned upon his command, by those who were divinely inspired¹⁸, as they vouched and proved themselves to be, and we have no solid reason to except against their Proof. Tho' the Prophets and Penmen of Scripture were not always accompanied with miracles, when they delivered their Messages from God: yet they required an attendance and obedience under an eternal penalty to be inflicted upon those who did disobey the voice and Message of God, which if they to whom it came did not receive with a Divine Faith, they did in Gods account refuse to obey. There is no suspending our Assent, when God expressly declares his Will, by himself or his Messengers coming in his Name, as in the last days he did by his Son¹⁹, who spake with Authority and not as the Scribes²⁰. There was a Divinity discerned in it by the hearers, and so there was in some proportion, in the Prophets of the Lord, somewhat Divine, which might be discerned by those unto whom it came; (as by Paul distinctly ‖) else it had been hard for God to have charged their eternal and temporal welfare or ruin,⁶ upon their discerning or not discerning a right▪ betwixt his Word in the mouth of his own Prophets, and that Word which pretended only so to be in the mouths of the false Prophets. We have a notable instance hereof, in opposition to those who pretended to Prophecy in the Name of the Lord, to gain credit to their lies.²¹ The Prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; ⟨p. 218⟩and he that hath my Word let him speak it faithfully: what is the Chaff to the Wheat, saith the Lord? Is not my Word like fire, saith the Lord? And like an hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?