Christ's certain and sudden appearance to judgment

4. A Fourth Character of Divinity in the Scriptures is the Purity and Holiness of them; the Scriptures, ⟨p. 182⟩are like Silver or Gold purified, and seven times tried in the Fire, wherein no dross doth remain. Psal. 12. 7. the Scriptures are pure and holy, from the beginning of them to the end: In no Histories shall we find such examples of holiness, as the Scriptures do record; in no Writings of moral Philosophers, shall we find such precepts of holiness, as in the Scriptures are enjoined: Indeed, the light of nature hath been improved by some Heathens so far, that they have given excellent rules for the restraining of vice, and obtaining of moral virtues, and the ordering their conversations in such a virtuous way, that those persons, who have observed these rules, have been illustrious in their generations, and have shined with some kind of brightness in the dark places where they have lived; but in no book that ever issued from the brain of man, shall we find such exact rules for holy living, as in the Book of the Scriptures; In this Book we find the moral Law summarily comprehended in the Ten Commandments, which was written by God himself on the Tables of Stone, when Moses was with him in the Mount; in which there are such holy precepts▪ as no Heathen author can show the like: the Heathens were blind, as to the duties of the first Table of the Law, which have a reference unto God, and in observance of which, mans holiness doth chiefly consist; in the second Table duties they had some understanding, yet they were much mistaken in some things, accounting some sins, as ambition, self-murder in some cases, and the like, to be virtues; and they had not so deep an insight into sin, they did not apprehend the inclination of the heart, and ⟨p. 183⟩the previous motions to the consent of the will to evil, (which the Scriptures do discover) to be sinful and offensive in the eyes of a pure and holy God.

4. A Fourth Character of Divinity in the Scriptures is the Purity and Holiness of them; the Scriptures, ⟨p. 182⟩are like Silver or Gold purified, and seven times tried in the Fire, wherein no dross doth remain.