A27038:180
A sermon of judgement preached at Pauls before the Honourable Lord Major and aldermen…A sermon of iudgement preached at Pauls before the Honourable Lord Maior and aldermen…
A sermon of judgement preached at Pauls before the Honourable Lord Major and aldermen of the city of London, Dec. 17, 1654 and now enlarged / Rich. Baxter.A sermon of iudgement preached at Pauls before the Honourable Lord Maior and aldermen of the city of London, Dec. 17, 1654 and now enlarged / Rich. Baxter.
London: printed by R.W. for Nevil Simmons, 1655
Title page typeset from the transcription.
A SERMON Of Judgement, Preached at Pauls before the Honourable Lord… › Part 9
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The fourteenth Excuse. There were so many seeming Contradictions in the Scripture, and so many strange improbable things, that I could not believe it.
Answ. The contradictions were in your fancy, that did not understand the word which you read. Must the raw unexperienced Learner despise his book or Teacher, as oft as in his ignorance he thinks he meets with contradictions? Did you think God was no wiser then you, and understood not himself, because you understood him not? Nor could ⟨p. 125⟩reconcile his own words, because you could not reconcile them? You would needs be a Judge of the Law, instead of obeying it, and speak evil of it, rather then do it, Jam. 4.11.
2. And those things which you called improbable in the word, were the wonders of God, of purpose to confirm it. If it had not been confirmed by wonders, you would have thought it unproved: and yet now it is so confirmed, you will not believe the Doctrine, because the witness seems incredible. And that is, because they are matters above the power of man: As if they were therefore above the power of God! You shall at last have your eyes so far opened, as to see those seeming contradictions reconciled, and the certainty of those things which you accounted Improbable: that you may be forced to confess the ⟨p. 126⟩folly of your Arrogancy and Unbelief: and then God will Judge you in Righteousness, who presumed unrighteously to judge him and his word.