A95413:132
The doubting conscience resolved. In answer to a (pretended) perplexing question, &c. Wherein is…
The doubting conscience resolved. In answer to a (pretended) perplexing question, &c. Wherein is evidently proved, that the holy Scriptures (not the pope) is the foundation whereupon the Church is built. Or, That a Christian may be infallibly certain of his faith and religion by holy Scriptures. By William Twice D.D. Prolocutor of the Assembly of Divines. Written at the desire of Samuel Hartlib, Esquire, for the satisfaction of his friends beyond the seas; and now divulged in print for more public edification.The doubting conscience resolved. In answer to a (pretended) perplexing question, &c. Wherein is evidently proved, that the holy Scriptures (not the pope) is the foundation whereupon the Church is built. Or, That a Christian may be infallibly certain of his faith and religion by holy Scriptures. By William Tvvisse D.D. Prolocutor of the Assembly of Divines. Written at the desire of Samuel Hartlib, Esquire, for the satisfaction of his friends beyond the seas; and now divulged in print for more publick edification.
London: printed for Thomas Matthews, 1652
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
If before the Law men had a light whereby they might find the truth more clearly than we, then the former times were times of greater light and grace than the later; but this is contrary both to the general judgment of the Christian world, and to universal experience. For as light naturally increaseth more and more until it ⟨p. 94⟩be perfect day, so it hath been with light spiritual; yet the Sun the fountain of light natural, hath sometimes gone backward ten degrees, not so the sun of righteousness; men have gone backward, I confess, in the course of their obedience, but God hath gone forward rather than backward in the course of administration of his grace. We do not say there was a mere blindness, or blindness at all in Gods children, (although in present discourse not of mans blindness, but of Gods progress in causing the irradiation of his light) but this we say, that the word of the Prophets was a most sure word, to which our fore-fathers did well to take heed, as to a light that shineth in a dark place; but now a long time day hath dawned, and the Gospel is the day-star that ariseth in our hearts, 2 Pet. 1.19. For that God who commanded the light to shine out of ⟨p. 95⟩darkness, is he which hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, 2 Cor. 4.6. And in these days of grace, we all behold as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord with open face, and are changed into the same Image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord, 2 Cor. 3.18.
If before the Law men had a light whereby they might finde the truth more clearly than we, then the former times were times of greater light and grace than the later; but this is contrary both to the generall judgment of the Christian world, and to universall experience. For as light naturally increaseth more and more untill it ⟨p. 94⟩be perfect day, so it hath been with light spirituall; yet the Sun the fountain of light naturall, hath sometimes gone backward ten degrees, not so the sun of rigteousness; men have gone backward, I confess, in the course of their obedience, but God hath gone forward rather than backward in the course of administration of his grace. We doe not say there was a meer blindness, or blindness at all in Gods children, (although in present discourse not of mans blindness, but of Gods progress in causing the irradiation of his light) but this we say, that the word of the Prophets was a most sure word, to which our fore-fathers did well to take heed, as to a light that shineth in a dark place; but now a long time day hath dawned, and the Gospell is the day-star that ariseth in our hearts,