Secondly, This precious faith doth complete the noblest instinct in man; I mean, that natural pulse which he hath after happiness. All men would be happy, but none ever hit upon it till faith came. The Pagans by natural light ⟨p. 4⟩have some knowledge of God, the supreme good, but the only access to him is by faith. The Philosophers, whose profession was the study of wisdom, and whose lamp of reason burned brighter then others, were no better then the blind Sodomites, unable to find the door of happiness.1 Hence, as St. Austin relates out of Varro, the Philosophers might be divided into two hundred eighty eight Sects about the chief good, which faith can indubitably immediately point at. Some Philosophers placed mans happiness in pleasures, which yet are but the sad transformations of men into brutes. Some in honours, which yet are but great servitudes, which made the Noble Charles the fifth weep over his Son, upon whose shoulders, at his retire out of the world, he left the burden of a Crown. Some in riches, which yet are but thorns choking that precious seed of the word, which would grow up (if embraced) into life eternal. Others, which were better marks-men, in moral virtues, yet even these (as a learned man observes) are but circa res humanas, their sphere is but humane converse; and they do not (as faith) elevate the soul into a conjunction with God, which is the only true happiness. When the Apostle in his Catalogue of graces (which minister an entrance into the everlasting kingdom) puts in temperance and patience, 2 Pet. 1.6. he speaks of them as Graces, not as mere moral virtues, but as Christianized by Faith, which in that place is set in the van. But waving the Pagan world, let us come to ⟨p. 5⟩the Christian. There the way of life is clearly manifested; yet none, void of faith, ever trod a right step in it, nay, nor spiritually discerned it, unto them that are without all things are in parables, Mark 4.11. to the unbeliever, though never so great a Scholar, Christ and grace and heaven are but as it were in parables. The Kohathites (whose name, as a learned man observes, is derived from stupidity) carried the holy things covered, and so do all the unregenerate Rabbis in the Church, till faith waken them out of the stupor of the fall:
Secondly, This precious faith doth compleat the noblest instinct in man; I mean, that natural pulse which he hath after happiness. All men would be happy, but none ever hit upon it till faith came. The Pagans by natural light ⟨p. 4⟩have some knowledge of God, the supream good, but the only access to him is by faith. The Philosophers, whose profession was the study of wisdom, and whose lamp of reason burned brighter then others, were no better then the blind Sodomites, unable to find the door of happiness.1 Hence, as St. Austin relates out of Varro, the Philosophers might be divided into two hundred eighty eight Sects about the chief good, which faith can indubitably immediately point at. Some Philosophers placed mans happiness in pleasures, which yet are but the sad transformations of men into bruits. Some in honours, which yet are but great servitudes, which made the Noble Charles the fift weep over his Son, upon whose shoulders, at his retire out of the world, he left the burden of a Crown. Some in riches, which yet are but thorns choaking that precious seed of the word, which would grow up (if embraced) into life eternal. Others, which were better marks-men, in moral virtues, yet even these (as a learned man observes) are but circa res humanas, their sphear is but humane converse; and they do not (as faith) elevate the soul into a conjunction with God, which is the only true happiness. When the Apostle in his Catalogue of graces (which minister an entrance into the everlasting kingdom) puts in temperance and patience, 2 Pet. 1.6. he speaks of them as Graces, not as meer moral virtues, but as Christianized by Faith, which in that place is set in the van. But waving the Pagan world, let us come to ⟨p. 5⟩the Christian. There the way of life is clearly manifested; yet none, void of faith, ever trod a right step in it, nay, nor spiritually discerned it, unto them that are without all things are in parables, Mark 4.11. to the unbeliever, though never so great a Scholar, Christ and grace and heaven are but as it were in parables. The Kohathites (whose name, as a learned man observes, is derived from stupidity) carried the holy things covered, and so do all the unregenerate Rabbies in the Church, till faith waken them out of the stupor of the fall:
- 1De civitat. Dei. l. 19. c. 1.
