Page:Faith's plea upon God's word.pdf/31

( 31 ) encouragement is here to go and pray and pleads ſaying, Lord, do as thou haſt ſaid.

O Sirs, ſearch the Scriptures, and ſtudy the word of God, conſult and conſider what he hath ſaid ; let there be no mouldy Bibles among you : let not the duſt of your Bibles witneſs againſt you, for eternal ſalvation depends upon your believing what he hath ſaid ; therefore ſtudy the faith of what he hath ſaid. The Spirit is promiſed, and the ſcriptures are written to work this faith : Chriſt is exalted, and the throne of grace is erected to give this faith, and this faith comes by hearing what he hath ſaid ; by hearing not what Plato hath ſaid or Seneca hath ſaid, what this or that man hath ſaid, but what God hath ſaid in his word, in this Bible, which is a book ſo prefaced, and ſo atteſted, as never any other book was the Old Teſtament is prefaced by all the miracles wrought by Moſes, the New Teſtament, by all the miracles wrought by Chriſt. And as Moſes miracles were wrought before the Old Teſtament was written, ſo Chriſt's miracles were wrought before the New Teſtament was written : never a book was ſo atteſted as this, even by a cloud of witneſſes, a cloud of miracles, a cloud of martyrs, who ſealed with their blood the truth contained in it. God, in the New Teſtament, exactly fulfils what he hath ſaid in the old ; yea, the preſent ſtate of all the world is a viſible performing of ſcripture prophecies. Are not the Jews at this day a ſcattered and deſpiſed people, as the ſcripture ſaid they ſhould be ? Hath not God done as he hath ſaid ? Is not antichriſt the long lived man of ſin, and the cruel man of blood, as the ſcripture told he ſhould be ? Thus it is done as he hath ſaid Are not the Pagan parts of the earth the dark places and habitations of cruelty, as the ſcripture ſays they ſhould be ? Thus it is as he hath ſaid. Do not the ſeven churches of Aſia ly deſolate,