mine eyes some small and scarce discernable Grain or Seed whereof Nature maketh a promise that a Tree shall come and when afterwards of that Tree any skilful Artificer undertaketh to frame some exquisite and curious work I look for the event I move no question about performance either of the one or of the other Shall I simply credit Nature in things natural Shall I in things artificial relie my self on Art never offering to make doubt And in that which is above both Art and Nature refuse to believe the Author of both except he acquaint me with his ways and lay the secret of his skill before me Where God himself doth speak those things which either for height and sublimity of Matter or else for secresie of Performance we are not able to reach unto as we may be ignorant without danger so it can be no disgrace to confess we are ignorant Such as love Piety will as much as in them lieth know all things that God commandeth but especially the duties of Service which they ow to God As for his dark and hidden works they prefer as becometh them in such cases simplicity of Faith before that Knowledge which curiously sisting what it should adore and disputing too boldly of that which the wit of man cannot search chilleth for the most part all warmth of zeal and bringeth soundness of belief many times into great hazard Let it therefore be sufficient for me presenting my self at the Lords Table to know what there I receive from him without searching or enquiring of the manner how Christ performeth his promise Let Disputes and Questions Enemies to Piety abatements of true Devotion and hitherto in this cause but over-patiently heard let them take their rest Let curious and sharp-witted Men beat their Heads about what Questions themselves will the very Letter of the Word of Christ giveth plain security that these Mysteries do as Nails fasten us to his very Cross that by them we draw out as touching Efficacy Force and Vertue even the Blood of his goared side In the Wounds of our Redeemer we there dip our Tongues we are died red both within and without our hunger is satisfied and our thirst for ever quenched they are things wonderful which he feeleth great which he seeth and unheard of which he uttereth whose Soul it possest of this Paschal Lamb and made joyful in the strength of this new Wine This Bread hath in it more then the substance which our eyes behold this Cup hallowed with solemn Benediction availeth to the endless life and welfare both of Soul and Body in that it serveth as well for a Medicine to heal our infirmities and purge our sins as for a Sacrifice of Thanksgiving With touching it sanctifieth it enlightneth with belief it truly conformeth us unto the image of Iesus Christ. What these Elements are in themselves it skilleth not it is enough that to me which take them they are the Body and Blood of Christ his Promise in witness hereof sufficeth his Word he knoweth which way to accomplish why should any cogitation possess the minde of a Faithful Communicant but this O my God thou art true O my Soul thou art happy Thus therefore we see that howsoever Mens opinions do otherwise vary nevertheless touching Baptism and the Supper of the Lord we may with consent of the whole Christian World conclude they are necessary the one to initiate or begin the other to consummate or make perfect our life in Christ. 68. In Administring the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ the supposed faults of the Church of England are not greatly material and therefore it shall suffice to touch them in few words The first is That we do not use in a generality once for all to say to Communicants Take eat and drink but unto every particular person Eat thou drink thou which is according to the Popish manner and not the Form that our Saviour did use Our second oversight is by Gesture For in Kneeling there hath been Superstition Sitting agreeth better to the action of a Supper and our Saviour using that which was most fit did himself not kneel A third accusation is for not examining all Communicants whose knowledge in the Mystery of the Gospel should that way be made manifest a thing every where they say used in the Apostles times because all things necessary were used and this in their opinion is necessary yea it is commanded in as much as the Levites are commanded to prepare the people for the Passover and Examination is a part of their Preparation our Lords Supper in place of the Passover The fourth thing misliked is That against the Apostles prohibitionâ— to have any familiarity at all with notorious Offenders Papists being not of the Church are admitted to our very Communion before they have by their Religious and Gospel-like behavior purged themselves of that suspition of Popery which their former life hath caused They are Dogs Swine unclean Beasts Foreigners and Strangers from the Church of God and therefore ought not to be admitted though they offer themselves We are fiftly condemned in as much as when there have been store of people to hear Sermons and Service in the Church we suffer the Communion to be ministred to a few It is not enough that our Book of Common Prayer hath godly Exhortations to move all thereunto which are present For it should not suffer a few to Communicate it should by Ecclesiastical Discipline and Civil punishment provide that such as would withdraw themselves might be brought to Communicate according both to the Law of God and the ancient Church Canons In the sixth and last place cometh the enormity of imparting this Sacrament privately unto the sick Thus far accused we answer briefly to the first That seeing God by Sacraments doth apply in particular unto every mans person the Grace which himself hath provided for the benefit of all mankinde there is no cause why Administring the Sacraments we should forbear to express that in our forms of Speech which he by his Word and Gospel teacheth all to believe In the one Sacrament I Baptize thee displeaseth them not If â—at thou in the other offend them their fancies are no rules for Churches to follow Whether Christ at his last Supper did speak generally once to all or to every one in particular is a thing uncertain His words are recorded in that Form which serveth best for the setting down with Historical brevity what was spoken they are no manifest proof that he spake but once unto all which did then Communicate muchless that we in speaking unto every Communicant severally do amiss although it were clear that we herein do otherwise then Christ did Our imitation of him consisteth not in tying scrupulously our selves unto his syllables but rather in speaking by the Heavenly Direction of that inspired Divine Wisdom which teacheth divers ways to one end and doth therein controul their boldness
observe that Discipline nevertheless the Senate of Geneva having required their judgment concerning these three Questions First After what manner by Gods Commandment according to the Scripture and unspotted Religion Excommunication is to be exercised Secondly Whether it may not be exercised some other way then by the Consistory Thirdly What the use of their Churches was to do in this case Answer was returned from the said Churches That they had heard already of those Consistorial Laws and did acknowledge them to be godly Ordinances drawing towards the prescript of the Word of God for which cause that they did not think it good for the Church of Geneva by innovation to change the same but rather to keep them as they were Which answer although not answering unto the former demands but respecting what Mr. Calvin had judged requisite for them to answer was notwithstanding accepted without any further Reply in as much as they plainly saw that when stomach doth strive with wit the match is not equal and so the heat of their former contentions began to slake The present inhabitants of Geneva I hope will not take it in evil part that the faultiness of their people heretofore is by us so far forth laid open as their own Learned Guides and Pastors have thought necessary to discover it unto the World For out of their Books and Writings it is that I have collected this whole Narration to the end it might thereby appear in what sort amongst them that Discipline was planted for which so much contention is raised amongst our selves The Reasons which moved Calvin herein to be so earnest was as Beza himself testifieth For that he saw how needful these Bridles were to be put in the Jaws of that City That which by Wisdom he saw to be requisite for that people was by as great wisdom compassed But wise men are men and the truth is truth That which Calvin did for establishment of his Discipline seemeth more commendable then that which he taught for the countenancing of it established Nature worketh in us all a love to our own Counsels The contradiction of others is a fan to inflame that love Our love set on fire to maintain that which once we have done sharpneth the wit to dispute to argue and by all means to reason for it Wherfore a marvel it were if a man of so great capacity having such incitements to make him desirous of all kinde of furtherances unto his cause could espie in the whole Scripture of God nothing which might breed at the least a probable opinion of likelihood that Divine Authority it self was the same way somewhat inclinable And all which the wit even of Calvin was able from thence to draw by sifting the very utmost sentence and syllable is no more then that certain speeches there are which to him did seem to intimate that all Christian Churches ought to have their Elderships endued with power of Excommunication and that a part of those Elderships every where should be chosen out from amongst the Laity after that Form which himself had framed Geneva unto But what Argument are ye able to shew whereby it was ever proved by Calvin that any one sentence of Scripture doth necessarily inforce these things or the rest wherein your opinion concurreth with his against the Orders of your own Church We should be injurious unto Vertue it self if we did derogate from them whom their industry hath made great Two things of principal moment there are which have deservedly procured him honor throughout the World The one his exceeding pains in composing the Institution of Christian Religion the other his no less industrious travels for Exposition of holy Scripture according unto the same Institutions In which two things whosoever they were that after him bestowed their labor he gained the advantage of prejudice against them if they gainsaid and of glory above them if they consented His Writings published after the question about that Discipline was once begun omit not any the least occasion of extolling the use and singular necessity thereof Of what account the Master of Sentences was in the Church of Rome the same and more amongst the Preachers of Reformed Churches Calvin had purchased So that the perfectest Divines were judged they which were skilfullest in Calvins Writings His Books almost the very Canon to judge both Doctrine and Discipline by French Churches both under others abroad and at home in their own Countrey all cast according unto that mold which Calvin had made The Church of Scotland in erecting the Fabrick of their Reformation took the self-same pattern till at lenght the Discipline which was at the first so weak that without the staff of their approbation who were not subject unto it themselves it had not brought others under subjection began now to challenge Universal Obedience and to enter into open conflict with those very Churches which in desperate extremity had been relievers of it To one of those Churches which lived in most peaceable sort and abounded as well with men for their learning in other Professions singular as also with Divines whose equals were not elswhere to be found a Church ordered by Gualters Discipline and not by that which Geneva adoreth Unto this Church of Heidelburgh there cometh one who craving leave to dispute publickly defendeth with open disdain of their Government that to a Minister with his Eldership power is given by the Law of God to Excommunicate whomsoever yea even Kings and Princes themselves Here were the seeds sown of that controversie which sprang up between Beza and Erastus about the Matter of Excommunication Whether there ought to be in all Churches an Eldership having power to Excommunicate and a part of that Eldership to be of necessity certain chosen out from amongst the Laity for that purpose In which Disputation they have as to me it seemeth divided very equally the Truth between them Beza most truly maintaining the necessity of Excommunication Erastus as truly the non-necessity of Lay-Elders to be Ministers thereof Amongst our selves there was in King Edwards days some question moved by reason of a few mens scrupulosity touching certain things And beyond Seas of them which fled in the days of Queen Mary some contenting themselves abroad with the use of their own Service Book at home authorized before their departure out of the Realm others liking better the Common Prayer Book of the Church of Geneva translated Those smaller Contentions before begun were by this me an somewhat increased Under the happy Reign of Her Majesty which now is the greatest matter a while contended for was the wearing of the Cap and Surpless till there came Admonitions directed unto the High Court of Parliament by men who concealing their names thought it glory enough to discover their mindes and affections which now were universally bent even against all the Orders and Laws wherein this Church is found uncomformable to the Platform of Geneva Concerning the Defender of
at all times edefie and instruct the attentive hearer Or is our Faith in the Blessed Trinity a matter needless to be so oftentimes mentioned and opened in the principal part of that duty which we ow to God our Publick Prayer Hath the Church of Christ from the first beginning by a secret Universal Instinct of Gods good Spirit always tied it self to end neither Sermon nor almost any speech of moment which hath concerned Matters of God without some special words of honor and glory to that Trinity which we all adore and is the like conclusion of Psalms become now at length an eye-sore or a galling to their ears that hear it Those flames of Arianism they say are quenched which were the cause why the Church devised in such sort to confess and praise the glorious Deity of the Son of God Seeing therefore the sore is whole why retain we as yet the Plaâ—ster When the cause why any thing was ordained doth once cease the thing it self should cease with it that the Church being eased of unprofitable labors needful offices may the better be attended For the doing of things unnecessary is many times the cause why the most necessary are not done But in this case so to reason will not serve their turns For first the ground whereupon they build is not certainly their own but with special limitations Few things are so restrained to any one end or purpose that the same being extinct they should forthwith utterly become frustrate Wisdom may have framed one and the same thing to serve commodiously for divers ends and of those ends any one be sufficient cause for continuance though the rest have ceased even as the Tongue which Nature hath given us for an Instrument of speech is not idle in dumb persons because it also serveth for taste Again if time have worn out or any other mean altogether taken away what was first intended uses not thought upon before may afterwards spring up and be reasonable causes of retaining that which other considerations did formerly procure to be instituted And it cometh sometime to pass that a thing unnecessary in it self as touching the whole direct purpose whereto it was meant or can be applied doth notwithstanding appear convenient to be still held even without use lest by reason of that coherence which it hath with somewhat most necessary the removal of the one should indamage the other And therefore men which have clean lost the possibility of sight keep still their eyes nevertheless in the place where Nature set them As for these two Branches whereof our Question groweth Arianism was indeed some occasion of the one but a cause of neither much less the onely intire cause of both For albeit conflict with Arians brought forth the occasion of writing that Creed which long after was made a part of the Church Liturgy as Hymns and Sentences of Glory were a part thereof before yet cause sufficient there is why both should remain in use the one as a most Divine Explication of the chiefest Articles of our Christian Belief the other as an Heavenly acclamation of joyful applause to his praises in whom we believe neither the one nor the other unworthy to he heard souncing as they are in the Church of Christ whether Arianism live or die Against which poyson likewise if we think that the Church at this day needeth not those ancient preservatives which ages before us were so glad to use we deceive our selves greatly The Weeds of Heresie being grown unto such ripeness as that was do even in the very cutting down scatter oftentimes those seeds which for a while lie unseen and buried in the Earth but afterward freshly spring up again no less pernicious them at the first Which thing they very well know and I doubt not will easily confess who live to their great both toil and grief where the blasphemies of Arians Samosatenians Tritheits Eutychians and Maccdonians are renewed by them who to hatch their Heresie have chosen those Churches as fittest Nests where Athanasius Creed is not heard by them I say renewed who following the course of extream Reformation were wont in the pride of their own proceedings to glory that whereas Luther did but blow away the Roof and Zwinglius batter but the Walls of Popish Superstition the last and hardest work of all remained which was to raze up the very ground and foundation of Popery that doctrine concerning the Deity of Christ which Satanasius for so it pleased those impious forsaken Miscreants to speak hath in this memorable Creed explained So manifestly true is that which one of the Ancients hath concerning Arianism Mortuis authoribus hujus veneni scelerata tamen eorum doctrina non moritur The Authors of this venom being dead and gone their wicked doctrine notwithstanding continueth 43. Amongst the heaps of these Excesses and Superfluities there is espied the want of a principal part of duty There are no thanksgivings for the benefits for which there are Petitions in our Book of Prayer This they have thought a point material to be objected Neither may we take it in evil part to be admonished what special duties of thankfulness we ow to that merciful God for whose unspeakable Graces the onely requital which we are able to make is a true hearty and sincere acknowledgement how precious we esteem such benefits received and how infinite in goodness the Author from whom they come But that to every Petition we make for things needful there should be some answerable sentence of thanks provided particularly to follow such requests obtained either it is not a matter so requisite as they pretend or if it be wherefore have they not then in such order framed their own Book of Common Prayer Why hath our Lord and Saviour taught us a form of Prayer containing so many Petitions of those things which we want and not delivered in like sort as many several forms of Thanksgiving to serve when any thing we pray for is granted What answer soever they can reasonably make unto these demands the same shall discover unto them how causeless a censure it is that there are not in our Book Thanksgivings for all the benefits forwhiâ—â— there are Petitions For concerning the Blessings of God whether they tend unto this life or the life to come there is great cause why we should delight more if giving thanks then in making requests for them in as much as the one hath penâ—â—veness and fear the other always joy annexed the one belongeth unto them that seek the other unto them that have found happiness they that pray do but yet sow they that give thanks declare they have reaped Howbeit because there are so many Graces whereof we stand in continual need Graces for which we may not cease daily and hourly to sue Graces which are in bestowing always but never come to be sully had in this present life and therefore when all things here have an end
endless thanks must have their beginning in a state which bringeth the full and final satisfaction of all such perpetual desires Again because our common necessities and the lack which we all have as well of ghostly as of earthly favors is in each kinde so easily known but the gifts of God according to those degrees and times which he in his secrets wisdom seeth meet are so diversly bestowed that it seldom appeareth what all receive what all stand in need of it seldom lieth hid we are not to marvel though the Church do oftner concur in suits then in thanks unto God for particular benefits Nevertheless lest God should be any way unglorified the greatest part of our daily Service they know consisteth according to the â— Blessed Apostles own precise rule in much variety of Psalms and Hymns for no other purpose but onely that out of so plentiful a treasure there might be for every mans heart no chuse out his own Sacrifice and to offer unto God by particular secret instinct what fitteth best the often occasions which any several either Party or Congregation may seem to have They that would clean take from us therefore the daily use of the very best means we have to magnifie and praise the Name of Almighty God for his rich Blessings they that complain of out reading and singing so many Psalms for so good an end they I say that finde fault with our store should of all men be least willing to reprove our scarcity of Thanksgivings But because peradventure they see it is not either generally fit or possible that Churches should frame Thanksgivings answerable to each Petition they shorten somewhat the reins of their censure there are no forms of Thanksgiving they say for release of those common calamities from which we have Petitions to be delivered There are Prayers set forth to be said in the common calamities and Universal scourges of the Realm as Plague Famine c. And indeed so it ought to be by the Word of God But as such Prayers are needful whereby we beg release from our Distresses so there ought to be as necessary Prayers of Thanksgiving when we have received those things at the Lords hand which we asked in our Prayers As oft therefore as any Publick or Universal scourge is removed as oft as we are delivered from those either imminent or present Calamities against the storm and tempest whereof we all instantly craved favor from above let it be a Question what we should render unto God for his Blessings universally sensibly and extraordinarily bestowed A Prayer of three or four lines inserted into some part of our Church Liturgy No we are not perswaded that when God doth in trouble injoyn us the duty of Invocation and promise us the benefit of Deliverance and profess That the thing he expecteth after at our hands is to glorifie him as our mighty and onely Saviour the Church can discharge in manner convenient a work of so great importance by fore-ordaining some short Collect wherein briefly to mention thanks Our custom therefore whensoever so great occasions are incident is by Publick Authority to appoint throughout all Churches set and solemn Forms as well of Supplication as of Thanksgiving the preparations and intended Complements whereof may stir up the mindes of men in much more effectual sort then if onely there should be added to the Book of Prayer that which they require But we err in thinking that they require any such matter For albeit their words to our understanding be very plain that in our Book there are Prayers set forth to be said when common calamities are felt as Plague Famine and such like Again that indeed so it ought to be by the Word of God That likewise there ought to be as necessary Prayers of Thanksgiving when we have received those things Finally that the want of such Forms of Thanksgiving for the release from those common calamities from which we have Petitions to be delivered is the default of the Book of Common Prayer Yet all this they mean but only by way of supposition if express Prayers against so many Earthly miseries were convenient that then indeed as many express and particular Thanksgivings should be likewise necessary Seeing therefore we know that they hold the one superfluous they would not have it so understood as though their mindes were that any such addition to the Book is needful whatsoever they say for Arguments sake concerning this pretented defect The truth is they wave in and out no way sufficiently grounded no way resolved what to think speak or write more then onely that because they have taken it upon them they must no remedy now be opposite 44. The last supposed fault concerneth some few things the very matter whereof is thought to be much amiss In a Song of Praise to our Lord Jesus Christ we have these words When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death thoâ— didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all Believers Which maketh some shew of giving countenance to their Error who think that the faithful which departed this life before the coming of Christ were never till then made partakers of joy but remained all in that place which they term the Lake of the Fathers In our Liturgy request is made that we may be preserved from sudden death This seemeth frivolous because the godly should always be prepared to die Request is made that God would give those things which we for our unworthiness dare not ask This they say carrieth with it the note of Popish servile fear and savoreth not of that confidence and reverent familiarity that the children of God have through Christ with their Heavenly Father Request is made that we may evermore be defended from all adversity For this there is no promise in Scripture and therefore it is no Prayer of Faith or of the which we can assure our selves that we shall obtain it Finally Request is made That God would have mercy upon all men This is impossible because some are the Vessels of Wrath to whom God will never extend his Mercy 45. As Christ hath purchased that Heavenly Kingdom the last perfection whereof is Glory in the life to come Grace in this life a preparation thereunto so the same he hath opened to the World in such sort that whereas none can possibly without him attain salvation by him all that believe are saved Now whatsoever he did or suffered the end thereof was to open the doors of the Kingdom of Heaven which our iniquities had shut up But because by ascending after that the sharpness of death was overcome he took the very local possession of glory and that to the use of all that are his even as himself before had witnessed I go to prepare a place for you And again Whom thou hast given me O Father I will that where I am they be also with me that my glory which thou hast given me they may
that men ought to Fast more often then Marry the best Feast-maker is with them the perfectest Saint they are assuredly meer Spirit and therefore these our corporal devotions please them not Thus the one for Montanus and his Superstition The other in a clean contrary tune against the Religion of the Church These Set-fasts away with them for they are Iewish and bring men under the yoke of servitude If I will fast let me chuse my time that Christian Liberty be not abridged Hereupon their glory was to fast especially upon the Sunday because the order of the Church was on that day not to Fast. On Church Fasting days and especially the Week before Easter when with us saith Epiphanius Custom admitteth nothing but lying down upon the Earth abstinence from fleshly delights and pleasures sorrowfulness dry and unsavory Diet Prayer Watching Fasting all the Medicines which holy Affections can minister they are up be times to take in of the strongest for the belly and when their veins are well swoln they make themselves mirth with laughter at this our service wherein we are perswaded we please God By this of Epiphanius it doth appear not onely what Fastings the Church of Christ in those times used but also what other parts of Discipline were together therewith in force according to the ancient use and custom of bringing all men at certain times to a due consideration and an open Humiliation of themselves Two kindes there were of Publick Penitency the one belonging to notorious offenders whose open wickedness had been scandalous the other appertaining to the whole Church and unto every several person whom the same containeth It will be answered That touching this latter kinde it may be exercised well enough by men in private No doubt but Penitency is as Prayer a thing acceptable unto God be it in publick or in secret Howbeit as in the one if men were wholly left to their own voluntary Meditations in their Closets and not drawn by Laws and Orders unto the open Assemblies of the Church that there they may joyn with others in Prayer it may be soon conjectured what Christian devotion that way would come unto in a short time Even so in the other We are by sufficient experience taught how little it booreth to tell men of washing away their sins with tears of Repentance and so to leave them altogether unto themselves O Lord what heaps of grievous transgressions have we committed the best the perfectest the most righteous amongst us all and yet clean pass them over unsorrowed foâ— and unrepented of onely because the Church hath forgotten utterly how to bestow her wonted times of Discipline wherein the publick example of all was unto every particular person a most effectual mean to put them often in minde and even in a manner to draw them to that which now we all quite and clean forget as if Penitency were no part of a Christian mans duty Again besides our private offences which ought not thus loosly to be overslipt suppose we the Body and Corporation of the Church so just that at no time it needeth to shew it self openly cast down in regard of those Faults and Transgressions which though they do not properly belong unto any one had notwithstanding a special Sacrifice appointed for them in the Law of Moses and being common to the whole Society which containeth all must needs so far concern every man in particular as at some time in solemn manner to require acknowledgment with more then daily and ordinary testifications of grief There could not hereunto a fitter preamble be devised then that memorable Commination set down in the Book of Common Prayer if our practice in the rest were suitable The Head already so well drawn doth but wish a proportionable Body And by the Preface to that very part of the English Liturgy it may appear how at the first setting down thereof no less was intended For so we are to interpret the meaning of those words wherein restitution of the Primitive Church Discipline is greatly wished for touching the manner of publick penance in time of Lent Wherewith some being not much acquainted but having framed in their mindes the conceit of a new Discipline far unlike to that of old they make themselves believe it is undoubtedly this their Discipline which at the first was so much desired They have long pretended that the whole Scripture is plain for them If now the Communion Book make for them too I well think the one doth as much as the other it may be hoped that being found such a well-willer unto their cause they will more favor it then they have done Having therefore hitherto spoken both of Festival days and so much of solemn Fasts as may reasonably serve to shew the ground thereof in the Law of Nature the practice partly appointed and partly allowed of God in the Jewish Church the like continued in the Church of Christ together with the sinister oppositions either of Hereticks erroneously abusing the same or of others thereat quarrelling without cause we will onely collect the chiefest points as well of resemblance as of difference between them and so end First In this they agree that because Nature is the general Root of both therefore both have been always common to the Church with Infidels and Heathen men Secondly They also herein accord that as oft as joy is the cause of the one and grief the Well-spring of the other they are incompatible A third degree of affinity between them is That neither being acceptable to God of it self but both tokens of that which is acceptable their approbation with him must necessarily depend on that which they ought to import and signifie So that if herein the minde dispose no it self aright whether we rest or fast we offend A fourth thing common unto them is that the greatest part of the World hath always grosly and palpably offended in both Infidels because they did all in relation to false gods godless sensual and careless mindes for that there is in them no constant true and sincere affection towards those things which are pretended by such exercise yea certain flattering over-sights there are wherewith sundry and they not of the worst sort may be easily in these cases led awry even through abundance of love and liking to that which must be imbraced by all means but with caution in as much as the very admiration of Saints Whether we celebrate their glory or follow them in humility whether we laugh or weep mourn or rejoyce with them is as in all things the affection of Love apt to deceive and doth therefore need the more to be directed by a watchful guide seeing there is manifestly both ways even in them whom we honor that which we are to observe and shun The best have not still been sufficiently mindful that Gods very Angels in Heaven are but Angels and that bodily exercise considered in it self is no
22. ad Eust. Martyres tibi quaerantur in cubiculo tuo Nunquam causa decrit procedendi â—emper quando â—ecesse est progressura sis a Socrat. lib. 6. cap â— Sâ—â—om lib. â— cap. 8. Thess. lib. 15. liâ— 30. â—â—b 3. cap. 10 Novel 68. 5â— b Basil. Epist. 63. Wheph lib. 1â— cap 3. Codem in Theodis Sidon lib. 7. Epist. â— Concii tom 2. pag. 513. Concil rom 5. Anno 1536. Of Athanasius Creâ—â— and Gloria Paâ—ri a Irâ—n lib. 1. cap. 3 b Pertuâ— de Praeâ—â— Advers Haeres Advers Prax. c The like may be said of the Gloria Patri and the Athanasius Creed It was first brought into the Church to the end that men thereby should make an open Profession in the Church of the Divinity of the son of God against the deâ—â—stible opinion of Arius and his Disciples wherewith at that time marvelously swarmed almost the whole Christendom Now that it hath pleased the Lord to quench that fire there in no such enâ—e way these things should be used in the Church at the least why that Gloria Patri should be so often repeated T. C. lib. 1. p. 137. 2 Mac. 6. 24. Major Centenario Sulpit. Sever. hist. l. â— â— a Ex parte nostra leguntur homines ad lescentes pardon docti pardon cautiâ—â— Arâ—anis autem missi â—nes callidi ingenio valentes vetes ano perfidia imbuti qui apud Regem facile superiorese â—â—nirunt Sulpit. lib. 1. b Est temque conscriâ—â—â— ab improbit sidem tradie verbis fallentibus involutam quae Catholicano disciplinam persidia latente Inqueretur Ibid. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Naziaâ— de Atha That Creed which in the Book of Common Prayer followeth immediately after the reading of the Gospel Hilar. Arela Epist. id Aâ—g 1 Cor. 15. 40. Exod. 33. 1â— Heb. 1. 3. Matth. 18. 13. Josh 7. 13. Psal. 2â— 23. Basil. Ep. â—8 Fabad lib. contâ— Arian Theod. lib. 1. cap. 21. Sozom lib. 4. cap. 19. 1 Cor. 8. 6. 1 Cor. 12. 3. 4. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 contra Ar. Our want oâ— particular thank giving â—â— such Prayers are needful whereby we beg release from o distresses so there ought to be as necessary Prayers of Thanksgiving when we have received those things at the Lords hand which we asked T. C. lib 1. pag. 13â— I do not simply require a solemn and express Thanksgiving for such benefits but onely upon a supposition which is that is it be expediâ—nt that there should be experts Prayers against so many of their earthly miseries that then alâ—o it is meet that upon the deliverance there should be an express Thanksgiving T. C. lib. 3. pag. 209. * The default of the Book for that there are no Forms of Thanksgiving for the release from those common calamities from which we have Petitions to be delivered T. C. lib. 3. p. 2â—3 â— phâ—â—â— p Câ—â—la 16. T. C. lib. 1. pag. 138. In some things the Matter of our Prayer as they affirm Unsound When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven unto all Believers John 14.2 17.24 Ierem contra Helvid August Haer. â—4 sqv super Gen. 29. Th. p. 3. â— 52. Leo. Reâ— 1. de Ascens Touching Prayer for deliverance from sudden death Job 34. 20. Heb. 11. 21. Deut. 33 Josh. 24. 1 King 2. Cypr. de Mortal Prayer that those things which we for our unworthiness dare not ask God for the worthiness of his Son would vouchsafe to grant This request carâ—ieth with it still the note of the Popish servile fear and â—avoreth not of that confidence and reverent familiarity that the Children of God have through Christ with their Heavenly Father T. C. lib. 1. pag. 136. * Psal. 39. 5. M 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philo. de Sacrif Abel Cain Job 29 8. Amongst the parts of hom 8. Aristotle reckoneth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rhet. lib. 1. cap. â— * Job 32. 6. The Publican did indeed not lift up his eyes So that if by his example we should say we dare ask nothing we ought also to ask nothing otherwise instead of reaching true humility we open a School to hypocrisie which the Lord detesteth T. C. lib. 3. p. 203. * Rom. §. 2. â— 15. Heb. â—0 19. Prayer to be evermore delivered from all adversity For as much as there is no promise in the Scripture that we should be free from all adversity and that evermore it seemeth that this Prayer might have been better conceived being no Prayer of Faith or of the which we can assure our selves that we shall obtain it T. C. lib. 1. p. 135. Oratio quae non sit per Christum non solum non potest delere peccatum sed etiam ipsa fit peâ—catum Aug. Eâ—ar 1. in Psal. 108. Numb 1â— 3â— 1 Sam. 8. 9. Job 1. 12. 2 â— Luk. 8. 52. 2 Cor. 1â— 5 8 9. Aug. Ep. 12 1. Ad Proâ—am vid. aen Psal. 2. â— John 17. 1 2. Matth. 26 39. Mark 14. 30. Luke 22. 42. Neither did our Saviour Christ pray without promise for as other the Children of God in whâ—se condition he had humbled himself have so had be a promise of deliverance in far as the glory of God that acomplishment of his vocation would suffâ—r T. C. lib. 3. pag 2â—0 a Deut. 30. 4. b Deut. 7. 15. c Psal. 1.4 d Psal. 32 11 17. e T. C. lib. 3. pag 201. f We ought not to desire to be free from all adversity if it be his will considering that he hath already declared his Will therein T. C. lib. 3. pag. 201. T. C. lib. 3 p. 201. John 18. 4. Psal. 40. 1. Joh. 12. 21. a Matth 27.46 Non potuit divinitas humanitatem secundum aliquid deseruisse secundum ali quid non deseruisse Subtraxit prefectionem sed non separa it unionem Sceâ—go daâ—diquit ut non adjuvaret sed non direliqunt ut â—eredeter Sic â—â—gu humanitas à d visitate in passione derelicta est Quam tamen â—â—ngtem quia non pro sua iniquitare sed pro nostra redemptione sustinuit quare sae derelicta requirit non quasi adversus Deum de â—oena murmuraâ—e sed nobis innocentiam suam in â—una demensirâ—ra Hug. de Sacra lib. 2. put 1. cap. 10. Deus meus unquis dereliquisti me Vox est nec ignorantiae nec diffidentia nec querelâ— sed admirationis â—anrum quae aliis investigandae causae ardorem diligentiam actuaâ— b Job 23 â— Isa. 53 1â— Job 10. 15. Luke 22. 14. 2 Cor. 13 7. We may not pray in this life to be free from all sin because we must always prays Forgive in our sins T. C. lib. 3. pag. 2â—0 Psal. 119. 71. 2 Tim. 3. 12. To pray against persecution is contrary to that word which saith That every one which will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution T. C. lib. 3.
him in Latin which Doctor Stapleton did to the end of the first Book at the conclusion of which the Pope spake to this purpose There is no Learning that this man hath not searcht into nothing too hard for his understanding This man indeed deserves the name of an Author his Books will get Reverence by Age for there is in them such seeds of Eternity that if the rest be like this they shall last till the last Fire shall consume all Learning Not was this high the only testimony and commendations given to his Books for at the first coming of King Iames into this Kingdom he inquired of the Archbishop Whiâ—gift for his friend Mr. Hooker that writ the Books of Church Polity to which the answer was that he dyed a year before Queen Elizabeth who received the sad news of his Death with very much Sorrow to which the King replyed and I receive it with no less that I shall want the desired happiness of seeing and discoursing with that Man from whose Books I have received such satisfaction Indeed my Lord I have received more satisfaction in reading a Leaf or Paragraph in Mr. Hooker thought it were but about the fashion of Churches or Church Musick or the like but especially of the Sacraments then I have had in the reading particular large Treatises written but of one of those subjects by others though very Learned Men and I observe there is in Mr. Hooker no affected Language but a grave comprehensive cleer manifestation of Reason and that back't with the Authority of the Scripture the Fathers and Schoolmen and with all Law both Sacred and Civil And though many others write well yet in the next Age they will be forgotten but doubtless there is in every page of Mr. Hookers Book the Picture of a Divine Soul such Pictures of Truth and Reason and drawn in so sacred colours that they shall never fade but give an immortal memory to the Author And it is so truly true that the King thought what he spake that as the most Learned of the Nation have and still do mention Mr. Hooker with Reverence so he also did never mention him but with the Epithite of Learned or Iudicious or Reverend or Venerable Mr. Hooker Nor did his Son our late King Charles the first ever mention him but with the same Reverence enjoyning his Son our now gracious King to be studious in M. Hookers Books And our learned Antiquary Mr. Cambden mentioning the Death the Modesty and other Vertues of Mr. Hooker and magnifying his Books wisht that for the honour of this and benefit of other Nations they were turn'd into the Universal Language Which work though undertaken by many yet they have been weary and forsaken it but the Reader may now expect it having been long since begun and lately finisht by the happy pen of Doctor Earl now Lord Bishop of Salisbury of whom I may justly say and let it not offend him because it is such a truth as ought not to be conceal'd from Posterity or those that now live and yet know him not that since Mr. Hooker died none have liv'd whom God hath blest with more innocent Wisdom more sanctified Learning or a more pious peaceable primitive Temper so that this excellent person seems to be only like himself and our venerable Richard Hooker and only fit to make the learned of all Nations happy in knowing what hath been too long confin'd to the language of our little Island There might be many more and just occasions taken to speak of his Books which none ever did or can commend too much but I decline them and hasten to an account of his Christian behaviour and Death at Borne in which place he continued his customary rules of Mortification and Self-Denyal was much in Fasting frequent in Meditation and Prayers injoying those blessed Returns which only Men of strict lives feel and know and of which Men of loose and Godless lives cannot be made sensible for spiritual things are spiritually discerned At his entrance into this place his Friendship was much sought for by Doctor Hadrian Saravia then one of the Prebends of Canterbury a German by birth and sometimes a Pastor both in Flanders and Holland where he had studied and well considered the controverted points concerning Episcopacy and Sacriledge and in England had a just occasion to declare his Judgement concerning both unto his Brethren Ministers of the Low Countryes which was excepted against by Theodor Beza and others against whose exceptions he rejoyned and thereby became the happy Author of many Learned Tracts writ in Latin especially of three one of the Degrees of Ministers and of the Bishops Superiority above the Presbytery a second against Sacriledge and a third of Christian obedience to Princes the last being occasioned by Gretzerus the Jesuit And it is observable that when in a time of Church tumults Beza gave his reasons to the Chancellor of Scotland for the abrogation of Episcopacy in that Nation partly by Letters and more fully in a Treatise of a three-fold Episcopacy which he calls Divine Humane and Satanical this Doctor Saravia had by the help of Bishop Whitgift made such an early discovery of their intentions that he had almost as soon answered that Treatise as it became publique and therein discovered how Beza's opinion did contradict that of Calvins and his adherents leaving them to interfere with themselves in point of Episcopacy but of these Tracts it will not concern me to say more than that they were most of them dedicated to his and the Church of Englands watchful Patron Iohn Whitgift the Archbishop and printed about the year in which Mr. Hooker also appeared first to the world in the Publication of his four Books of Ecclesiastical Polity This friendship being sought for by this Learned Doctor you may believe was not denied by Mr. Hooker who was by fortune so like him as to be engaged against Mr. Travers Mr. Cartwright and others of their Judgment in a controversie too like Doctor Saravia's So that in this year of 1595. and in this place of Borne these two excellent persons began a Holy Friendship increasing dayly to so high and mutual affections that their two wills seemed to be but one and the same and designs both for the glory of God and peace of the Church still assisting and improving each others vertues and the desired comforts of a peaceable Piety which I have willingly mentioned because it gives a foundation to some things that follow This Parsonage of Borne is from Canterbury three miles and near to the common Road that leads from that City to Dover in which Parsonage Mr. Hooker had not been twelve moneths but his Books and the Innocency and Sanctity of his Life became so remarkable that many turn'd out of the road and others Scholars especially went purposely to see the Man whose Life and Learning were so much admired and alas as our Saviour said of St. Iohn Baptist
in this case ye are all bound for the time to suspend and in otherwise doing ye offend against God by troubling his Church without any just or necessary cause Be it that there are some reasons inducing you to think hardly of our Laws Are those reasons demonstrative are they necessary or but meer probabilities onely An Argument necessary and demonstrative is such as being proposed unto any man and understood she minde cannot chase but invardly assent Any one such reason dischargeth I grant the Gonscience and setteth it at full liberty For the publick approbation given by the Body of this whole Church unto those things which are established doth make it but probable that they are good And therefore unto a necessary proofe that they are not good it must give place But if the skilfullest amongst you can shew that all the Books ye have hitherto written be able to afford any one argument of this nature let the instance be given As for probabilities What thing was there ever set down so agreeable with sound reason but some probable shew against it might be made It is meet that when publickly things are received and have taken place General Obedience thereunto should cease to be exacted in case this or that private person led with some probable conceit should make open Protostation Peter or John disallow them and pronounce them naught In which case your answer will be That concerning the Laws of our Church they are not onely condemned in the opinion of a private man but of thousands year and even of those amongst which divers are in publick charge and authority At though when publick consent of the whole hath established any thing every mans judgment being thereunto compared were not private howsoever his calling be to some kinde of publick charge So that of Peace and Quietness there is not any way possible unless the probable voice of every intire Society or Body Politick over-rule all private of like nature in the same Body Which thing effectually proveth That God being Author of Peace and not of Confusion in the Church must needs be Author of those mens peaceable resolutions who concerning these things have determined with themselves to think and do as the Church they are of decreeth till they see necessary cause enforcing them to the contrary 7. Nor is mine own intent any other in these several Books of discourse then to make it appear unto you that for the Ecclesiastical Laws of this Land we are led by great reason to observe them and ye by no necessity bound to impugne them It is no part of my secret meaning to draw you hereby into hatred or to set upon the face of this cause any fairer gloss then the naked truth doth afford but my whole endeavor is to resolve the Conscience and to shew as near as I can what in this Controversie the Heart is to think if it will follow the light of sound and sincere judgment without either cloud of prejudice or mist of passionate affection Wherefore seeing that Laws and Ordinances in particular whether such as we observe or such as your selves would have established when the minde doth sift and examine them it must needs have often recourse to a number of doubts and questions about the nature kindes and qualities of Laws in general whereof unless it be throughly informed there will appear no certainty to stay our perswasion upon I have for that cause set down in the first place an Introduction on both sides needful to be considered declaring therein what Law is how different kindes of Laws there are and what force they are of according unto each kinde This done because ye suppose the Laws for which ye strive are found in Scripture but those not against which we strive And upon this surmise are drawn to hold it as the very main Pillar of your whole cause That Scripture ought to be the onely rule of all our actions and consequently that the Church Orders which we observe being not commanded in Scripture are offensive and displeasant unto God I have spent the second Book in sifting of this point which standeth with you for the first and chiefest principle whereon ye build Whereunto the next in degree is That as God will have always a Church upon Earth while the World doth continue and that Church stand in need of Government of which Government it behoveth himself to be both the Author and Teacher So it cannot stand with duty That man should ever presume in any wise to change and alter the same and therefore That in Scripture there must of necessity be found some particular Form of Ecclesiastical Polity the Laws whereof admit not any kinde of alteration The first three Books being thus ended the fourth proceedeth from the general Grounds and Foundations of your cause unto your general Accusations against us as having in the orders of our Church for so you pretend Corrupted the right Form of Church Polity with manifold Popish Rites and Ceremonies which certain Reformed Churches have banished from amongst them and have thereby given us such example as you think we ought to follow This your Assertion hath herein drawn us to make search whether these be just Exceptions against the Customs of our Church when ye plead that they are the same which the Church of Rome hath or that they are not the same which some other Reformed Churches have devised Of those four Books which remain and are bestowed about the Specialties of that Cause which little in Controversie the first examineth the causes by you alledged wherefore the publick duties of Christian Religion as our Prayers our Sacraments and the rest should not be ordered in such sort as with us they are nor that power whereby the persons of men are consecrated unto the Ministry be disposed of in such manner as the Laws of this Church do allow The second and third are concerning the power of Iurisdiction the one Whether Laymen such as your Governing Elders are ought in all Congregations for ever to be invested with that power The other Whether Bishops may have that power over other Pastors and therewithal that honor which with us they have And because besides the Power of Order which all consecrated persons have and the Power of Iurisdiction which neither they all nor they onely have There is a third power a Power of Ecclesiastical Dominion communicable as we think unto persons not Ecclesiastical and most fit to be restrained unto the Prince our Soveraign Commander over the whole Body Politick The eighth Book we have allotted unto this Question and have sifted therein your Objections against those preeminences Royal which thereunto appertain Thus have I laid before you the Brief of these my Travels and presented under your view the Limbs of that Cause litigious between us the whole intire Body whereof being thus compact it shall be no troublesome thing for any man to finde each particular Controversies resting place
hinder it from taking place and in such cases if any strange or new thing seem requisite to be done a strange and new opinion concerning the lawfulness thereof is withal received and broached under countenance of Divine Authority One example herein may serve for many to shew That false opinions touching the Will of God to have things done are wont to bring forth mighty and violent practices against the hinderances of them And those practices new opinions more pernicious then the first yea most extreamly sometimes opposite to that which the first did seem to intend Where the people took upon them the Reformation of the Church by casting out Popish Superstition they having received from their Pastors a General Instruction that whatsoever the Heavenly Father hath not planted must be rootod out proceeded in some foreign places so far that down went Oratories and the very Temples of God themselves For as they chanced to take the compass of their Commission stricter or larger so their dealings were accordingly more or less moderate Amongst others there sprang up presently one kinde of men with whose zeal and forwardness the rest being compared were thought to be marvellous cold and dull These grounding themselves on Rules more general that whatsoever the Law of Christ commandeth not thereof Antichrist is the Author and that whatsoever Antichrist or his adherents did in the World the true Professors of Christ are to undo found out many things more then others had done the Extirpation whereof was in their conceit as necessary as of any thing before removed Hereupon they secretly made their doleful complaints every where as they went that albeit the World did begin to profess some dislike of that which was evil in the Kingdom of Darkness yet Fruits worthy of a true-Repentance were not seen and that if men did repent as they ought they must endeavor to purge the truth of all manner evil to the end there might follow a new World afterward wherein righteousness onely should dwell Private Repentance they said â—â—st appear by every mans fashioning his own life contrary unto the custom and orders of this present World both in greater things and in less To this purpose they had always in their mouths those greater things Charity Faith the true fear of God the Cross the Mortification of the flesh All their Exhortations were to set light of the things in this World to account riches and honors vanity and in taken thereof not onely to seek neither but if men were possessors of both even to cast away the one and resign the other that all men might see their unfeigned conversion unto Christ. They were Sollicitors of Men to Fasts to often Meditations of Heavenly things and as it were Conferences in secret with God by Prayers not framed according to the frozen manner of the World but expressing such fervent desires as might even force God to heaâ—ken unto them Where they found men in Diet Attire Furniture of House or any other way observers of civility and decent order such they reproved as being carnally and earthly minded Every word otherwise then severely and sadly uttered seemed to pierce like a Sword theron them If any man were pleasant their manner was presently with sighs to repeat those words of our Saviour Christ Wo be to you which now laugh for ye shall lament So great was their delight to be always in trouble that such as did quietly lead their lives they judged of all other men to be in most dangerous case They so much affected to cross the ordinary custom in every thing that when other mens use was to put on better attire they would be sure to shew themselves openly abroad in worses The ordinary names of the days in the week they thought it a kinde of prophaneness to use and therefore accustomed themselves to make no other distinction then by Numbers The first second third day From this they proceeded unto Publick Reformation first Ecclesiastical and then Civil Touching the former they boldly avouched that themselves onely had the Truth which thing upon peril of their lives they would at all times defend and that since the Apostles lived the same was never before in all points sincerely taught Wherefore that things might again be brought to that ancient integrity which Iesus Christ by his Word requireth they began to controll the Ministers of the Gospel for attributing so much force and vertue unto the Scriptures of God read whereas the Truth was that when the Word is said to engender Faith in the Heart and to convert the Soul of Man or to work any such Spiritual Divine effect these speeches are not thereunto appliable as it is read or preached but as it is ingrafted in us by the power of the Holy Ghost opening the eyes of our understanding and so revealing the Mysteries of God according to that which Jeremy promised before should be saying I will put my Law in their inward parts and I will write it in their hearts The Book of God they notwithstanding for the most part so admired that other disputation against their opinions then onely by allegation of Scripture they would not hear besides it they thought no other Writings in the World should be studied in so much as one of their great Prophets exhorting them to cast away all respects unto Humane Writings so far to his motion they condescended that as many as had any Books save the Holy Bible in their custody they brought and set them publickly on fire When they and their Bibles were alone together what strange phantastical opinion soever at any time entred into their heads their use was to think the Spirit taught it them Their phrensies concerning our Saviours Incarnation the state of Souls departed and such like are things needless to be rehearsed And for as much as they were of the same Suit with those of whom the Apostle speaketh saying They are still learning but never attain to the knowledge of truth it was no marvel to see them every day broach some new thing not heard of before Which restless levity they did interpret to be their growing to Spiritual Perfection and a proceeding from Faith to Faith The differences amongst them grew by this mean in a manner infinite so that scarcely was there found any one of them the forge of whose Brain was not possest with some special mystery Whereupon although their mutual contentions were most fiercely prosecuted amongst themselves yet when they came to defend the cause common to them all against the Adversaries of their Faction they had ways to lick one another whole the sounder in his own perswasion excusing THE DEAR BRETHREN which were not so far enlightned and professing a charitable hope of the Mercy of God towards them notwithstanding their swerving from him in some things Their own Ministers they highly magnified as men whose vocation was from God The
men to know and that many things are in such sort necessary the knowledge whereof is by the light of Nature impossible to be attained Whereupon it followeth that either all flesh is excluded from possibility of salvation which to think were most barbarous or else that God hath by supernatural means revealed the way of life so far forth as doth suffice For this cause God hath so many times and ways spoken to the sons of men Neither hath he by speech onely but by writing also instructed and taught his Church The cause of writing hath been to the end that things by him revealed unto the World might have the longer continuance and the greater certainty of assurance by how much that which standeth on Record hath in both those respects preheminence above that which passeth from hand to hand and hath no Pens but the Tongues no Book but the ears of Men to record it The several Books of Scripture having had each some several occasion and particular purpose which caused them to be written the Contents thereof are according to the exigence of that special end whereunto they are intended Hereupon it groweth that every Book of holy Scripture doth take out of all kindes of truth Natural Historical Foreign Supernatural so much as the matter handled requireth Now for as much as there have been Reasons alledged sufficient to conclude that all things necessary unto salvation must be made known and that God himself hath therefore revealed his Will because otherwise men could not have known so much as is necessary his surceasing to speak to the World since the publishing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the delivery of the same in writing is unto us a manifest token that the way of salvation is now sufficiently opened and that we need no other means for our full instruction then God hath already furnished us withal The main drift of the whole New Testament is that which St. Iohn setteth down as the purpose of his own History These things are written that ye might believe that Iesus is Christ the Son of God and that in believing ye might have life through his Name The drift of the Old that which the Apostle mentioneth to Timothy The holy Scriptures are able to make thee wise unto salvation So that the general end both of Old and New is one the difference between them consisting in this That the Old did make wise by teaching salvation through Christ that should come the New by teaching that Christ the Saviour is come and that Jesus whom the Jews did crucifie and whom God did raise again from the dead is he When the Apostle therefore affirmeth unto Timothy that the Old was able to make him wise to salvation it was not his meaning that the Old alone can do this unto us which live sithence the publication of the New For he speaketh with presupposal of the Doctrine of Christ known also unto Timothy and therefore first it is said Continue thou in those things which thou hast learned and art perswaded knowing of whom thou hast been taught them Again those Scriptures he granteth were able to make him wise to salvation but he addeth through the Faith which is in Christ. Wherefore without the Doctrine of the New Testament teaching that Christ hath wrought the Redemption of the World which Redemption the Old did foreshew he should work it is not the former alone which can on our behalf perform so much as the Apostle doth avouch who presupposeth this when he magnifieth that so highly And as his words concerning the Books of ancient Scripture do not take place but with presupposal of the Gospel of Christ embraced so our own words also when we extol the compleat sufficiency of the whole intire Body of the Scripture must in like sort be understood with this caution That the benefit of Natures Light be not thought excluded as unnecessary because the necessity of a Diviner Light is magnified There is in Scripture therefore no defect but that any man what place or cailing soever he hold in the Church of God may have thereby the light of his Natural Understanding so perfected that the one being relieved by the other there can want no part of needful instruction unto any good work which God himself requireth be it Natural or Supernatural belonging simply unto men as men or unto men as they are united in whatsoever kinde of Society It sufficeth therefore that Nature and Scripture do serve in such full sort that they both joyntly and not severally either of thou be so compleat that unto Everlasting felicity we need not the knowlegde of any thing more then these two may easily furnish our mindes with on all sides And therefore they which adde Traditions as a part of Supernatural necessary Truth have not the Truth but are in Error For they onely plead that whatsoever God revealeth as necessary for all Christian men to do or believe the same we ought to embrace whether we have received it by writing or otherwise which no man denieth when that which they should confirm who claim so great reverence unto Traditions is that the same Traditions are necessarily to be acknowledged divine and holy For we do not reject them onely because they are not in the Scripture but because they are neither in Scripture nor can otherwise sufficiently by any Reason be proved to be a God That which is of God and may be evidently proved to be so we deny not but it hath in his kinde although unwritten yet the self same force and authority with the written Laws of God It is by ours acknowledged That the Apostles did in every Church institute and ordain some Rites and Customs serving for the seemliness of Church Regiment which Rites and Customs they have not committed unto writing Those Rites and Customs being known to be Apostolical and having the nature of things changeable were no less to be accounted of in the Church then other things of the like degree that is to say capable in like sort of alteration although set down in the Apostles writings For both being known to be Apostolical it is not the manner of delivering them unto the Church but the Author from whom they proceed which doth give them their force and credit 15. Laws being imposed either by each man upon himself or by a Publick Society upon the particulars thereof or by all the Nations of Men upon every several Society or by the Lord himself upon any or every of these There is not amongst these four kindes any one but containeth sundry both Natural and Positive Laws Impossible it is but that they should fall into a number of gross Errors who onely take such Laws for Positive as have been made or invented of men and holding this Position hold also that all Positive and none but Positive Laws are mutable Laws Natural do always binde Laws Positive not so but onely
that those very Laws which of their own nature are changeable be notwithstanding uncapable of change is he which gave them being of Authority so to do forbid absolutely to change them neither may they admit alteration against the Will of such a Law-maker Albeit therefore we do not finde any cause why of right there should be necessarily an Immutable Form set down in holy Scripture nevertheless if indeed there have been at any time a Church Polity so set down the change whereof the sacred Scripture doth forbid surely for Men to alter those Laws which God for perpetuity hath established were presumption most intolerable To prove therefore that the Will of Christ was to establish Laws so Permanent and Immutable that in any sort to alter them cannot but highly offend God Thus they reason First If Moses being but a servant in the House of God did therein establish Laws of Government for a perpetuity Laws which they that were of the Houshold might not alter Shall we admit into our thoughts that the Son of God hath in providing for this his Houshold declared himself less faithful then Moses Moses delivering unto the Jews such Laws as were durable if those be changeable which Christ hath delivered unto us we are not able to avoid it but that which to think were heinous impiety we of necessity must confess even the Son of God himself to have been less faithful then Moses Which Argument shall need no Touchstone to try it by but some other of the like making Moses erected in the Wilderness a Tabernacle which was moveable from place to place Solomon a sumptuous and stately Temple which was not moveable therefore Solomon was faithfuller then Moses which no man endued with reason will think And yet by this reason it doth plainly follow He that will see how faithful the one or other was must compare the things which they both did unto the charge which God gave each of them The Apostle in making comparison between our Saviour and Moses attributeth faithfulness unto both and maketh this difference between them Moses in but Christ over the House of God Moses in that House which was his by charge and commission though to govern it yet to govern it as a servant but Christ over this House as being his own intire possession Our Lord and Saviour doth make Protestation I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me Faithful therefore he was and concealed not any part of his Fathers will But did any part of that will require the Immutability of Laws concerning Church Polity They answer Yea for else God should less favor us then the Jews God would not have their Churches guided by any Laws but his own And seeing this did so continue even till Christ now to ease God of that care or rather to deprive the Church of his Patronage what reason have we Surely none to derogate any thing from the ancient love which God hath borne to his Church An Heathen Philosopher there is who considering how many things Beasts have which Men have not how naked in comparison of them how impotent and how much less able we are to shift for our selves a long time after we enter into this World repiningly concluded hereupon that Nature being a careful Mother for them is towards us a hard-hearted Step-dame No we may not measure the affection of our gracious God towards his by such differences For even herein shineth his Wisdom that though the ways of his Providence be many yet the end which he bringeth all at the length unto is one and the self-same But if such kinde of reasoning were good might we not even as directly conclude the very same concerning Laws of Secular Regiment Their own words are these In the ancient Church of the Iews God did command and Moses commit unto writing all things pertinent as well to the Civil as to the Ecclesiastical State God gave them Laws of Civil Regiment and would not permit their Commonweal to be governed by any other Laws then his own Doth God less regard our Temporal estate in this World or provide for it worse then theirs To us notwithstanding he hath not as to them delivered any particular Form of Temporal Regiment unless perhaps we think as some do that the grafting of the Gentiles and their incorporating into Israel doth import that we ought to be subject unto the Rites and Laws of their whole Polity We see then how weak such Disputes are and how smally they make to this purpose That Christ did not mean to set down particular Positive Laws for all things in such sort as Moses did the very different manner of delivering the Laws of Moses and the Laws of Christ doth plainly shew Moses had Commandment to gather the Ordinances of God together distinctly and orderly to set them down according unto their several kindes for each Publick Duty and Office the Laws that belong thereto as appeareth in the Books themselves written of purpose for that end Contrariwise the Laws of Christ we finde rather mentioned by occasion in the writings of the Apostles then any solemn thing directly written to comprehend them in legal sort Again the Positive Laws which Moses gave they were given for the greatest part with restraint to the Land of Iury Behold saith Moses I have taught you Ordinances and Laws as the Lord my God commanded me that ye should do so even within the Land whither ye go to possess it Which Laws and Ordinances Positive he plainly distinguished afterward from the Laws of the Two Tables which were Moral The Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire ye heard the voice of the words but saw no similitude onely a voice Then he declared unto you his Covenant which he commanded you to do the Ten Commandments and wrote them upon Two Tables of Stone And the Lord commanded me that same time that I should teach you Ordinances and Laws which ye should observe in the Land whither ye go to possess it The same difference is again set down in the next Chapter following For rehearsal being made of the Ten Commandments it followeth immediately These words the Lord spake unto all your multitude in the Mount out of the midst of the fire the cloud and the darkness with a great voice and added no more and wrote them upon two Tables of Stone and delivered them unto me But concerning other Laws the people give their consent to receive them at the hands of Moses Go thou nearer and hear all that the Lord our God saith and declare thou unto us all that the Lord our God saith unto thee and we will hear it and do it The peoples alacrity herein God highly commendeth with most effectual and hearty speech I have heard the voice of the words of this people they have spoken well O that there were such an heart in them to fear me and to keep all
cause her merciful disposition to take so much the more delight in saving others whom the like necessity should press What in this behalf hath been done towards Nations abroad the parts of Christendom most afflicted can best testifie That which especially concerneth our selves in the present matter we treat of is the state of Reformed Religion a thing at her coming to the Crown even raised as it were by miracle from the dead a thing which we so little hoped to see that even they which beheld it done searcely believed their own senses at the first beholding Yet being then brought to pass thus many years it hath continued standing by no other wordly mean but that one onely hand which erected it that hand which as no kinde of imminent danger could cause at the first to withhold it self so neither have the practises so many so bloody following since been ever able to make weary Nor can we say in this case so justly that Aaron and Hur the Ecclesiastical and Civil States have sustained the hand which did lift it self to Heaven for them as that Heaven it self hath by this hand sustained them no aid or help having thereunto been ministred for performance of the Work of Reformation other then such kinde of help or aid as the Angel in the Prophet Zechariah speaketh of saying Neither by an army nor strength but by my Spirit saith the Lord of Hosts Which Grace and Favor of Divine Assistance having not in one thing or two shewed it self nor for some few days or years appeared but in such sort so long continued our manifold sins and transgressions striving to the contrary What can we less thereupon conclude then that God would at leastwise by tract of time teach the World that the thing which he blesseth defendeth keepeth so strangely cannot chuse but be of him Wherefore if any refuse to believe us disputing for the Verity of Religion established let then believe God himself thus miraculously working for it and with life even for ever and ever unto that Glorious and Sacred Instrument whereby he worketh OF THE LAWS OF Ecclesiastical Polity BOOK V. Concerning their Fourth Assertion That touching several Publick Duties of Christian Religion there is amongst us much Superstition retained in them and concerning Persons which for performance of those Duties are endued with the Power of Ecclesiastical Order our Laws and Proceedings according thereunto are many ways herein also corrupted The Matter contained in this Fifth Book 1. TRue Religion is the Root of all true Vertues and the stay of all Well-ordered Commonwealths 2. The must extream opposite to true Religion is affected Atheism 3. Of Superstition and the Rest thereof either misguided zeal or Ignorant fear of Divine glory 4. Of the Redress of Superstition in Gods Church and concerning the Question of this Book 5. Four General Propositions demanding that which may reasonably be granted concerning Matters of outward Form in the Exercise of true Religion And fifthly Of a Rule and safe not reasonable in these Cases 6. The first Proposition touching Iudgment what things are convenient in the outward publick ordering of Church affairs 7. The second Proposition 8. The third Proposition 9. The fourth Proposition 10. The Rule of Mens private spirit not safe in these Cases to be followed 11. Plans for the Publick Service of God 12. The Solemnity of Erecting Churches condemned the Hallowing and Dedicating of them scanned by the Adversary 13. Of the names whereby we distinguish our Churches 14. Of the Fashion of our Churches 15. The Sumptuousness of Churches 16. What Holiness and Vertue we ascribe to the Church more than other places 17. Their pretence that would have Churches utterly vazed 18. Of Publick Teaching or Preaching and the first kinde thereof Catechizing 19. Of Preaching by reading publickly the Books of holy Scripture and concerning supposed Untruths in those Translations of Scripture which we allow to be read as also of the choice which we make in reading 20. Of Preaching by the Publick Reading of other prositable Instructions and concerning Books Apâ—cryphal 21. Of Preaching by Sermons and whether Sermons be the onely ordinary way of Teaching whereby man are brought to the saving knowledge of Gods Truth 22. What they attribute to Sermons onely and what we to Reading also 23. Of Prayer 24. Of Publick Prayer 25. Of the Form of Common Prayer 26. Of them which like not to have any Set Form of Common Prayer 27. Of them who allowing a Set Form of Prayer yet allow not ours 28. The Form of our Liturgy too near the Papists too far different from that of other Reformed Churches as they pretend 29. Attire belonging to the Service of God 30. Of gesture in Praying and of different places chosen to that purpose 31. Easiness of Praying after our Form 32. The length of our Service 33. Instead of such Prayers as the Primitive Churches have used and those that be Reformed now use we have they say divers short cuts or shreaddings rather Wishes them Prayers 34. Lessons intermingled with our Prayers 35. The number of our Prayers for Earthly things and our oft rehearsing of the Lords Prayer 36. The People saying after the Minister 37. Our manner of Reading the Psalms otherwise then the rest of the Scripture 38. Of Musick with Psalms 39. Of Singing or Saying Psalms and other parts of Common Prayer wherein the People and the Minister answer one another by course 40. Of Magnificat Benedictus and Nune Dimittis 41. Of the Litany 42. Of Athanasus Creed and Gloria Patri 43. Our want of particular Thanksgiving 44. In some things the Matter of our Prayer as they affirm is unsound 45. When thou hast overcome the sharpness of Death thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven unto all Believers 46. Touching Prayer for Deliverance from Sudden Death 47. Prayer for these things which we for our worthiness dare not ask God for the worthiness of his Sin would vouchsafe to grant 48. Prayer to be evermore delivered from all Adversity 49. Prayer that all Men may finde Mercy and if the will of God that all Men might be Saved 50. Of the Name the Author and the force of Sacraments which force consisteth in this That God hath ordained them as means to make us partakers of him in Christ and of life through Christ. 51. That God is in Christ by the Personal Incarnation of the Son who is very God 52. The Misinterpretations which Heresit hath made of the manner how God and Man are united in one Christ. 53. That by the union of the one with the other Nature in Christ there groweth neither gain nor loss of Essential Properties to either 54. What Christ hath obtained according to the Flesh by the union of his Flesh with Dâ—iey 55. Of the Personal presence of Christ every where and in what sense it may be granted he is every where present according to the Flesh. 56. The union or mutual Participation which is between Christ
for Secular as Sacred uses was commanded to make not to sanctifie but the Unction of the Tabernacle the Table the Laver the Altar of God with all the instruments appertaining thereunto this made them for ever holy unto him in whose service they were imployed But what of this Doth it hereupon follow that all things now in the Church from the greatest to the least are unholy which the Lord hath not himself precisely instituted for so those Rudiments they say do import Then is there nothing holy which the Church by her Authority hath appointed and consequently all positive Ordinances that ever were made by Ecclesiastical Power touching Spiritual affairs are prophane they are unholy I would not with them to undertake a Work so desperate as to prove that for the Peoples instruction no kinde of Reading is good but only that which the Jews devised under Antiochus although even that he also mistaken For according to Elius the Levite out of whom it doth seem borrowed the thing which Antiochus forbad was the Publick reading of the Law and not Sermons upon the Law Neither did the Jews read a Portion of the Prophets together with the Law to serve for an interpretation thereof because Sermons were not permitted them But instead of the Law which they might not read openly they read of the Prophets that which in likeness of matter came nearest to each Section of their Law Whereupon when afterwards the liberty of reading the Law was restored the self-same Custom as touching the Prophets did continue still If neither the Jews have used publickly to read their Paraphrasts nor the Primitive Church for a long time any other Writings than Scripture except the Cause of their not doing it were some Law of God or Reason forbidding them to do that which we do why should the latter Ages of the Church be deprived of the Liberty the former had Are we bound while the World standeth to put nothing in practice but onely that which was at the very first Concerning the Council of Laodicea is it forbiddeth the reading of those things which are not Canonical so it maketh some things not Canonical which are Their Judgment in this we may not and in that we need not follow We have by thus many years experience found that exceeding great good not incumbred with any notable inconvenience hath grown by the Custome which we now observe As for the harm whereof judicious men have complained in former times it came not of this that other things were read besides the Scripture but that so evil choyce was made With us there is never any time bestowed in Divine Service without the reading of a great part of the holy Scripture which we acount a thing most necessary We dare not admit any such Form of Liturgy as either appointeth no Scripture at all or very little to be read in the Church And therefore the thrusting of the Bible out of the House of God is rather there to be feared where men esteem it a matter so indifferent whether the same be by solemn appointment read publickly or not read the bare Text excepted which the Preacher haply chuseth out to expound But let us here consider what the Practise of our Fathers before us hath been and how far-forth the same may be followed We find that in ancient times there was publickly read first the Scripture as namely something out of the Books of the Prophets of God which were of old something out of the Apostles Writings and lastly out of the holy Evangelists some things which touched the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ himself The cause of their reading first the old Testament then the New and always somewhat out of both is most likely to have been that which Iustin Martyr and Saint August observe in comparing the two Testaments The Apostles saith the one hath taught us as themselves did learn first the Precepts of the Law and then the Gospels For what else is the Law but the Gospel foreshewed What other the Gospel than the Law fulfilled In like sort the other What the Old Testament hath the very same the New containeth but that which lyeth there at under a shadow in here brought forth into the open Sun Things there prefigured are here performed Again In the Old Testament there is a close comprehension of the New in the New an open discovery of the Old To be short the method of their Publick readings either purposely did tend or at the least-wise doth fitly serve That from smaller things the mindes of the Hearers may go forward to the Knowledge of greater and by degrees climbe up from the lowest to the highest things Now besides the Scripture the Books which they called Ecclesiastical were thought not unworthy sometime to be brought into publick audience and with that Name they intituled the Books which we term Apocryphal Under the self-same Name they also comprised certain no otherwise annexed unto the New than the former unto the Old Testament as a Book of Hermes Epistles of Clement and the like According therefore to the Phrase of Antiquity these we may term the New and the other the Old Ecclesiastical Books or Writings For we being directed by a Sentence I suppose of Saint Ierom who saith That All Writings not Canonical are Apocryphal use not now the Title Apocryphal as the rest of the Fathers ordinarily have done whose Custom is so to name for the most part only such as might not publickly be read or divulged Ruffinus therefore having rehearsed the self-same Books of Canonical Scripture which with us are held to be alone Canonical addeth immediately by way of caution We must know that other Books there are also which our Fore-fathers have used to name not Canonical but Ecclesiastical Books as the Book of Wisdom Ecclesiasticus Toby Judith the Macchabees in the Old Testament in the New the Book of Hermes and such others All which Books and Writings they willed to be read in Churches but not to be alleadged as if their authority did binde us to build upon them our Faith Other Writings they named Apocryphal which they would not have read in Churches These things delivered unto us from the Fathers we have in this place thought good to set down So far Ruffinus He which considereth notwithstanding what store of false and forged Writings dangerous unto Christian Belief and yet bearing glorious Inscriptions began soon upon the Apostles times to be admitted into the Church and to be honoured as if they had been indeed Apostolick shall easily perceive what cause the Provincial Synod of Laodicea might have as then to prevent especially the danger of Books made newly Ecclesiastical and for feat of the fraud of Hereticks to provide that such Publick readings might be altogether taken out of Canonical Scripture Which Ordinance respecting but that abuse which grew through the intermingling of
it absurd to commend their Writings as Reverend Holy and Sound wherein there are so many singular Perfections only for that the exquisite Wits of some few peradventure are able dispersedly here and there to finde now a word and then a sentence which may be more probably suspected than easily cleared of Error by as which have but conjectural knowledge of their meaning Against immodest Invectives therefore whereby they are charged as being fraught with outragious Lyes we doubt not but their more allowable censure will prevail who without so passionate terms of disgrace do note a difference great enough between Apocryphal and other Writings a difference such as Iosephus and Epiphanius observe the one declaring that amongst the Jews Books written after the days of Artaxerxe were not of equal credit with them which had gone before in as much as the Jews sithence that time had not the like exact succession of Prophets the other acknowledging that they are profitable although denying them to be Divine in such construction and sense as the Scripture it self is so termed With what intent they were first published those words of the Nephew of Jesus do plainly enough signifie After that my Grand-father Jesus had given himself to the reading of the Law and the Prophets and other Books of our Fathers and had gotten therein sufficient judgment he purposed also to write something pertaining to Learning and Wisdom to the intent that they which were desirous to learn and would give themselves to these things might profit much more in living according to the Law Their end in writing and ours in reading them is the same The Books of Iudith Toby Baruch Wisdome and Ecclesiasticus we read as serving most unto that end The rest we leave unto men in private Neither can it be reasonably thought because upon certain solemn occasions some Lessons are chosen out of those Books and of Scripture it self some Chapters not appointed to be read at all that we thereby do offer disgrace to the Word of God or lift up the Writings of men above it For in such choice we do not think but that Fitness of Speech may be more respected than Worthyness If in that which we use to read there happen by the way any Clause Sentence or Speech that soundeth towards Error should the mixture of a little dross constrain the Church to deprive herself of so much Gold rather than learn how by Art and Judgment to make separation of the one from the other To this effect very fitly from the counsel that St. Ierem giveth Lata of taking heed how she read the Apocrypha as also by the help of other learned men's Judgments delivered in like case we may take direction But surely the Arguments that should binde us not to read them or any part of them publickly at all must be stronger than as yet we have heard any 21. We marvel the less that our reading of Books not Canonical is so much impugned when so little is attributed unto the reading of Canonical Scripture it self that now it hath grown to be a question whether the Word of God be any ordinary mean to save the Souls of men in that it is either privately studied or publickly read and so made known or else only as the same is preached that is to say explained by a lively voyce and applyed to the People's use as the Speaker in his Wisdom thinketh meet For this alone is it which they use to call Preaching The publick reading of the Apocrypha they condemn altogether as a thing effectual unto Evil the bare reading in like sort of whatsoever yea even of Scriptures themselves they mislike as a thing uneffectual to do that good which we are perswaded may grow by it Our desire is in this present Controversie as in the rest not to be carried up and down with the waves of uncertain Arguments but rather positively to lead on the mindes of the simpler sort by plain and easie degrees till the very nature of the thing it self do make manifest what is Truth First therefore because whatsoever is spoken concerning the efficacy or necessity of God's Word the same they tye and restrain only unto Sermons howbeit not Sermons read neither for such they also abhor in the Church but Sermons without Book Sermons which spend their life in their birth and may have publick audience but once For this cause to avoid ambiguities wherewith they often intangle themselves not marking what doth agree to the Word of God in it self and what in regard of outward accidents which may befall it we are to know that the Word of God is his Heavenly Truth touching matters of eternal life revealed and uttered unto Men unto Prophets and Apostles by immediate Divine Inspiration from them to us by their Books and Writings We therefore have no Word of God but the Scripture Apostolick Sermons were unto such as heard them his Word even as properly as to us their Writings are Howbeit not so our own Sermons the exposition which our discourse of Wit doth gather and minister out of the Word of God For which cause in this present question we are when we name the Word of God always to mean the Scripture only The end of the Word of God is to save and therefore we term it the Word of Life The way for all men to be saved is by the knowledge of that Truth which the Word hath taught And sith Eternal life is a thing of it self communicable unto all it behooved that the Word of God the necessary mean thereunto be so likewise Wherefore the Word of Life hath been always a Treasure though precious yet easie as well to attain as to finde lest any man desirous of life should perish through the difficulty of the way To this and the Word of God no otherwise serveth than only in the nature of a Doctrinal Instrument It saveth because it maketh wise unto Salvation Wherefore the ignorant it saveth not they which live by the Word must know it And being it self the Instrument which God hath purposely framed thereby to work the knowledge of Salvation in the hearts of men what cause is there wherefore it should not of it self be acknowledged a most apt and a likely mean to leave an apprehension of things Divine in our understanding and in the minde an assent thereunto For touching the one sith God who knoweth and discloseth best the rich tresures of his own Wisdom hath by delivering his Word made choice of the Scriptures as the most effectual means whereby those treasures might be imparted unto the World it followeth That no man's understanding the Scripture must needs be even of it self intended as a full and perfect discovery sufficient to imprint in us the lively Character of all things necessarily required for the attainment of Eternal Life And concerning our assent to the Mysteries of Heavenly truth seeing that the Word of God for the Author's sake
Common Prayer the manifold confusions which they fall into where every man 's private Spirit and Gift as they term it is the only Bishop that ordaineth him to this Ministry the irksome deformities whereby through endless and senseless effusions of indigested Prayers they oftentimes disgrace in most unsufferable manner the worthiest part of Christian duty towards God who herein are subject to no certain Order but pray both what and how they list to him I say which weigheth duly all these things the reasons cannot be obscure why God doth in Publick Prayer so much respect the Solemnitie of Places where the Authority and calling of Persons by whom and the precise Appointment even with what Words or Sentences his Name should be called on amongst his People 26. No man hath hitherto been so impious as plainly and directly to condemn Prayer The best stratagem that Satan hath who knoweth his Kingdom to be no one way more shaken than by the Publick devout Prayers of God's Church is by traducing the form and manner of them to bring them into contempt and so to shake the force of all men's devotion towards them From this and from no other forge hath proceeded a strange conceit that to serve God with any set form of Common Prayer is superstitious As though God himself did not frame to his Priests the very speech wherewith they were charged to bless the People or as if our Lord even of purpose to prevent this fancy of extemporal and voluntary Prayers had not left us of his own framing one which might both remain as a part of the Church-Liturgy and serve as a Pattern whereby to frame all other Prayers with efficacy yet without superfluity of words If Prayers were no otherwise accepted of God then being conceived always new according to the exigence of present occasions if it be right to judge him by our own Bellies and to imagine that he doth loath to have the self-same supplications often iterated even as we do to be every day fed without alteration or change of diet if Prayers he Actions which ought to waste away themselves in the making if being made to remain that they may be resumed and used again as Prayers they be but instruments of Superstition surely we cannot excuse Moses who gave such occasion of scandal to the World by not being contented to praise the Name of Almighty God according to the usual naked simplicity of God's Spirit for that admirable victory given them against Pharaoh unless so dangerous a President were lest for the casting of Prayers into certain Poetical moulds and for the framing of Prayers which might be repeated often although they never had again the same occasions which brought them forth at the first For that very Hymne of Moses grew afterwards to be a part of the ordinary Jewish Liturgy not only that but sundry other sithence invented Their Books of common-Common-Prayer contained partly Hymns taken out of thē Holy Scripture partly Benedictions Thanksgivings Supplications penned by such as have been from time to time the Governours of that Synagogue These they sorted into their several times and places some to begin the service of God with and some to end some to go before and some to follow and some to be interlaced between the Divine Readings of the Law and Prophets Unto their custom of finishing the Passeover with certain Psalmes there is not any thing more probable then that the holy Evangelist doth evidently allude saying That after the Cup delivered by our Saviour unto his Apostles they sung and went forth to the Mount of Olives As the Jews had their Songs of Moses and David and the rest so the Church of Christ from the very beginning hath both used the same and besides them other also of like nature the Song of the Virgin Mary the Song of Zachary the Song of Simeon such Hymnes as the Apostle doth often speak of saying I will pray and sing with the Spirit Again in Psalms Hymnes and Songs making melody unto the Lord and that heartily Hymnes and Psalms are such kindes of Prayer as are not wont to be conceived upon a sudden but are framed by Meditation before hand or else by Prophetical illumination are inspired as at that time it appeareth they were when God by extraordinary gifts of the Spirit inabled men to all parts of service necessary for the edifying of his Church 27. Now albeit the Admonitioners did seem at the first to allow no Prescript form of Prayer at all but thought it the best that their Minister should always be left at liberty to pray as his own discretion did serve yet because this opinion upon better advice they afterwards retracted their Defender and his Associates have sithence proposed to the World a form such as themselves like and to shew their dislike of ours have taken against it those exceptions which whosoever doth measure by number must needs be greatly out of love with a thing that hath so many faults whosoever by weight cannot chuse but esteem very highly of that wherein the wit of so scrupulous Adversaries hath not hitherto observed any defect which themselves can seriously think to be of moment Gross Errours and manifest Impiety they grant we have taken away Yet many things in it they say are amiss many instances they give of things in our Common Prayer not agreeable as they pretend with the word of God It hath in their eye too great affinity with the form of the Church of Rome it differeth too much from that which Churches elsewhere reformed allow and observe our Attire disgraceth it it is not orderly read nor gestured as beseemeth it requireth nothing to be done which a Childe may not lawfully do it hath a number of short cutts or shreddings which may be better called Wishes than Prayers it intermingleth Prayings and Readings in such manner as if Supplicants should use in proposing their Sutes unto mortal Princes all the World would judge them madd it is too long and by that mean abridgeth Preaching it appointeth the People to say after the Minister it spendeth time in singing and in reading the Psalms by course from side to side it useth the Lord's Prayer too oft the Songs of Magnificat Benedictus and Nune Dimittis it might very well spare it hath the Letany the Creed of Athanasius and Gloria Patri which are superfluous it craveth Earthly things too much for deliverance from those Evils against which we pray it giveth no Thanks some things it asketh unseasonably when they need not to be prayed for as deliverance from Thunder and Tempest when no Danger is nigh some in too abject and diffident manner as that God would give us that which we for our unworthiness dare not ask some which ought not to be desired as the deliverance from sudden Death riddance from all Adversity and the extent of saving Mercy towards all men These and such like are the Imperfections
metriments and jests unanswered likewise wherewith they have pleasantly moved much laughter at our manner of serving God Such is their evil hap to play upon dull spirited men We are still perswaded that a bare denyal is answer sufficient to things which meer fancy objecteth and that the best Apology to words of scorn and petulancy is Isaac's Apology to his Brother Ismael the Apology which patience and silence maketh Our Answer therefore to their Reasons is no to their Scoffs nothing 31. When they object that our Book requireth nothing to be done which a Childe may not do as lawfully and as well as that man wherewith the Book conteneth it self Is it their meaning that the service of God ought to be a matter of great difficulty a Labour which requireth great learning and deep skill or elsē that the Book containing it should teach what men are fit to attend upon it and forbid either men unlearned or Children to be admitted thereunto In setting down the form of common-Common-Prayer there was no need that the Book should mention either the learning of a fit or the unfitness of an ignorant Minister more than that he which describeth the manner how to pitch a field should speak of moderation and sobriety in diet And concerning the duty it self although the hardness thereof be not such as needeth much Art yet surely they seem to be very farr carried besides themselves to whom the dignity of Publick Prayer doth not discover somewhat more fitness in men of gravity and ripe discretion than in children of ten years of age for the decent discharge and performance of that Office It cannot be that they who speak thus should thus judge At the board and in private it very well becommeth Children's innocency to pray and their Elders to say Amen Which being a part of their vertuous education serveth greatly both to nourish in them the fear of God and to put us in continual remembrance of that powerful grace which openeth the mouths of Infants to sound his praise But Publick Prayer the service of God in the solemn Assembly of Saints is a work though easie yet withal so weighty and of such respect that the great facility thereof is but a slender argument to prove it may be as well and as lawfully committed to Children as to men of years howsoever their ability of learning be but only to do that in decent order wherewith the Book contenteth it self The Book requireth but orderly reading As in truth what should any Prescript form of Prayer framed to the Minister's hand require but only so to be read as behoveth We know that there are in the world certain voluntary Over-seers of all Books whose censure in this respect would fall as sharp on us as it hath done on many others if delivering but a form of Prayer we should either express or include an thing more than doth properly concern Prayer The Ministers greatness or meanness of knowledge to do other things his aptness or insufficiency otherwise than by reading to instruct the flock standeth in this place as a Stranger with whom our form of Common-Prayer hath nothing to do Wherein their exception against easiness as if that did nourish Ignorance proceedeth altogether out of a needless jealousie I have often heard it inquired of by many how it might be brought to pass that the Church should every where have able Preachers to instruct the People what impediments there are to hinder it and which were the speediest way to remove them In which consultation the multitude of Parishes the paucity of Schools the manifold discouragements which are offered unto mens inclinations that way the penury of the Ecclesiastical estate the irrecoverable loss of so many Livings of principal value clean taken away from the Church long sithence by being appropriated the daily bruises that Spiritual promotions use to take by often falling the want of somewhat in certain Statutes which concern the state of the Church the too great facility of many Bishops the stony hardness of too many Patrons hearts not touched with any feeling in this case such things oftentimes are debated and much thought upon by them that enter into any discourse concerning any defect of knowledge in the Clergy But whosoever be found guilty the Communion Book hath surely deserved least to be called in question for this fault If all the Clergie were as learned as themselves are that most complain of ignorance in others yet our Book of Prayer might remain the same and remaining the same it is I see not how it can be a lett unto any man's skill in Preaching Which thing we acknowledge to be God's good gift howbeit no such necessarie element that every act of Religion should he thought imperfect and lame wherein there is not somewhat exacted that none can discharge but an able Preacher 32. Two faults there are which our Lord and Saviour himself especially reproved in Prayer the one when ostentation did cause it to be open the other when superstition made it long As therefore Prayers the one way are faulty not whensoever they be openly made but when Hypocrisie is the cause of open Praying so the length of Prayer is likewise a fault howbeit not simply but where errour and superstition causeth more than convenient repetition or continuation of speech to be used It is not as some do imagine saith Saint Augustine that long Praying is that fault of much speaking in Prayer which our Saviour did reprove for then would not he himself in Prayer have continued whole nights Use in Prayer no vain superfluity of words as the Heathens doe for they imagine that their much speaking will cause them to be heard whereas in truth the thing which God doth regard is how vertuous their mindes are and not how copious their tongues in Prayer how well they think and not how long they talk who come to present their Supplications before him Notwithstanding for as much as in Publick Prayer we are not only to consider what is needful in respect of God but there is also in men that which we must regard we somewhat the rather incline to length lest over-quick dispatch of a Duty so important should give the World occasion to deem that the thing it self is but little accounted of wherein but little time is bestowed Length thereof is a thing which the gravity and weight of such actions doth require Beside this benefit also it hath that they whom earnest letts and impediments do often hinder from being Partakers of the whole have yet through the length of Divine Service opportunity sleft them at the least for access unto some reasonable part thereof Again it should be considered how it doth come to pass that we are so long For if that very Service of God in the Jewish Synagogues which our Lord did approve and sanctifie with the presence of his own Person had so large portions of the Law and the Prophets together with
for such their particular Invocations and Benedictions as no Man I suppose professing truth of Religion will easily think to have been without Fruit. No there is no cause we should doubt of the benefit but surely great cause to make complaint of the deep neglect of this Christian duty almost with all them to whom by tight of their place and calling the same belongeth Let them not take it in evil part the thing is true their small regard hereunto hath done harm in the Church of God That which Error rashly uttereth in disgrace of good things may peradventure be sponged out when the print of those evils which are grown through neglect will remain behinde Thus much therefore generally spoken may serve for answer unto their demands that require us to tell them Why there should be any such confirmation in the Church seeing we are not ignorant how earnestly they have protested against it and how directly although untruly for so they are content to acknowledge it hath by some of them been said To be first brought in by the seigned Decretal Epistles of the Popes or why it should not be utterly abolished seeing that no one title thereof can be once found in the whole Scripture except the Epistle to the Hebrews be Scripture And again seeing that how free soever it be now from abuse if we look back to the times past which wise men do always more respect then the present it hath been abused and is found at the length no such profitable Ceremony as the whole silly Church of Christ for the space of these Sixteen hundred years hath through want of experience imagined Last of all Seeing also besides the cruelty which is shewed towards poor Country people who are fain sometimes to let their Ploughs stand still and with increble wearisome toyl of their feeble bodies to wander over Mountains and through Woods it may be now and then little less then a whole half score of miles for a Bishops blessing which if it were needful might as well be done at home in their own Parishes rather then they is purchase it with so great loss and so intolerable pain There are they say in Confirmation besides this Three terrible points The first is Laying on of hands with pretence that the same is done to the example of the Apostles which is not onely as they suppose a manifest untruth for all the World doth know that the Apostles did never after Baptism lay hands on any and therefore Saint Luke which saith they did was much deceived But farther also we thereby teach men to think Imposition of Hands a Sacrament belike because it is a principle ingrafted by common Light of Nature in the Mindes of Men that all things done by Apostolick example must needs be Sacrament The second high point of danger is That by tying Confirmation to the Bishop alone there is great cause of suspition given to think that Baptism is not so precious a thing as Confirmation For will any man think that a Velvet Coat is of more price then a Linnen Coyf knowing the one to be an ordinary Garment the other an Ornament which onely Sergeants at Law do wear Finally To draw to an end of perils the last and the weightiest hazard is where the Book it self doth say That Children by Imposition of Hands and Prayer may receive strength against all temptation Which speech as a two-edged sword doth both ways dangerously wound partly because it ascribeth Grace to Imposition of Hands whereby we are able no more to assure our selves in the warrant of any promise from God that his Heavenly Grace shall be given then the Apostle was that himself should obtain Grace by the bowing of his knees to God and partly because by using the very word strength in this matter a word so apt to spred infection we maintain with Popish Evangelists an old forlorn distinction of the Holy Ghost bestowed upon Christs Apostles before his Ascension into Heaven and augmented upon them afterwards a distinction of Grace infused into Christian men by degrees planted in them at the first by Baptism after cherished watred and be it spoken without offence strengthned as by other vertuous Offices which Piety and true Religion teacheth even so by this very special Benediction whereof we speak the Rite or Ceremony of Confirmation 67. The Grace which we have by the holy Eucharist doth not begin but continue life No man therefore receiveth this Sacrament before Baptism because no dead thing is capable of nourishment That which groweth must of necessity first live If our Bodies did not daily waste Food to restore them were a thing superfluous And it may be that the Grace of Baptism would serve to Eternal Life were it not that the state of our Spiritual Being is daily so much hindered and impaired after Baptism In that life therefore where neither Body nor Soul can decay our Souls shall as little require this Sacrament as our Bodies corporal nourishment But as long as the days of our warfare last during the time that we are both subject to diminution and capable of augmentation in Grace the Words of our Lord and Saviour Christ will remain forceable Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood ye have no life in you Life being therefore proposed unto all men as their end they which by Baptism have laid the Foundation and attained the first beginning of a new life have here their nourishment and food prescribed for continuance of life in them Such as will live the Life of God must eat the Flesh and drink the Blood of the Son of Man because this is a part of that diet which if we want we cannot live Whereas therefore in our Infancy we are incorporated into Christ and by Baptism receive the Grace of his Spirit without any sense or feeling of the gift which God bestoweth in the Eucharist we so receive the gift of God that we know by Grace what the Grace is which God giveth us the degrees of our own Increase in holiness and vertue we see and can judge of them we understand that the strength of our life begun in Christ is Christ that his Flesh is Meat and his Blood drink not by surmised imagination but truly even so truly that through Faith we perceive in the Body and Blood sacramentally presented the very taste of Eternal Life the Grace of the Sacrament is here as the food which we eat and drink This was it that some did exceedingly fear lest Zwinglius and Occolampadius would bring to pass that men should account of this Sacrament but onely as of a shadow destitute empty and void of Christ. But seeing that by opening the several opinions which have been held they are grown for ought I can see on all sides at the length to a general agreement concerning that which alone is material namely The Real Participation of Christ and of
of Religion before admission of degrees to Learning or to any Ecclesiastical Living the custom of reading the same Articles and of approving them in publick Assemblies wheresoever men have Benefices with Cure of Souls the order of testifying under their hands allowance of the Book of common-Common-Prayer and the Book of ordaining Ministers finally the Discipline and moderate severity which is used either in other wise correcting or silencing them that trouble and disturb the Church with Doctrines which tend unto Innovation it being better that the Church should want altogether the benefit of such mens labours than endure the mischief of their inconformity to good Laws in which case if any repine at the course and proceedings of Justice they must learn to content themselves with the answer of M. Curius which had sometime occasion to cutt off one from the Body of the Common-wealth in whose behalf because it might have been pleaded that the party was a man serviceable he therefore began his judicial sentence with this preamble Non esse open Reip. to cive qui parers nescires The Common-wealth needeth men of quality yet never those men which have not learned how to obey But the wayes which the Church of England hath taken to provide that they who are Teachers of others may do it soundly that the Purity and Unity as well of antient Discipline as Doctrine may be upheld that avoiding singularities we may all glorifie God with one heart and one tongue they of all men do least approve that do most urge the Apostle's Rule and Canon For which cause they alledge it not so much to that purpose as to prove that unpreaching Ministers for so they term them can have no true nor lawful calling in the Church of God Sainst Augustine hath said of the will of man that simply to will proceedeth from Nature but our well-willing is from Grace We say as much of the Minister of God publickly to teach and instruct the Church is necessary in every Ecclesiastical Minister but ability to teach by Sermons is a Grace which God doth bestow on them whom he maketh sufficient for the commendable discharge of their duty That therefore wherein a Minister differeth from other Christian men is not as some have childishly imagined the sound-preaching of the Word of God but as they are lawfully and truly Governours to whom authority of Regiment is given in the Common-wealth according to the order which Polity hath set so Canonical Ordination in the Church of Christ is that which maketh a lawful Minister as touching the validity of any Act which appertaineth to that Vocation The cause why Saint Paul willed Timothy not to be over-hasty in ordaining Ministers was as we very well may conjecture because imposition of hands doth consecrate and make them Ministers whether they have gifts and qualities fit for the laudable discharge of their Duties or no. If want of Learning and skill to preach did frustrate their Vocation Ministers ordained before they be grown unto that maturity should receive new Ordination whensoever it chanceth that study and industry doth make them afterwards more able to perform the Office than which what conceit can be more absurd Was not Saint Augustine himself contented to admit an Assistant in his own Church a man of small Erudition considering that what he wanted in knowledge was supplyed by those vertues which made his life a better Orator than more Learning could make others whose conversation was less Holy Were the Priests fithence Moses all able and sufficient men learnedly to interpret the Law of God Or was it ever imagined that this defect should frustrate what they executed and deprive them of right unto any thing they claimed by vertue of their Priesthood Surely as in Magistrates the want of those Gifts which their Office neâ—deth is cause of just imputation of blame in them that wittingly chuse unsufficient and unfit men when they might do otherwise and yet therefore is not their choyce void nor every action of Magistracy frustrate in that respect So whether it were of necessity or even of very carelesnesse that men unable to Preach should be taken in Pastours rooms nevertheless it seemeth to be an errour in them which think that the lack of any such perfection defeateth utterly their Calling To wish that all men were so qualified as their Places and Dignities require to hate all sinister and corrupt dealings which hereunto are any lett to covet speedy redress of those things whatsoever whereby the Church sustaineth detriment these good and vertuous desires cannot offend any but ungodly mindes Notwithstanding some in the true vehemency and others under the fair pretence of these desires have adventured that which is strange that which is violent and unjust There are which in confidence of their general allegations concerning the knowledge the Residence and the single Livings of Ministers presume not onely to annihilate the solemn Ordinations of such as the Church must of force admit but also to urge a kinde of universal proscription against them to set down Articles to draw Commissions and almost to name themselves of the Quorum for inquiry into mens estates and dealings whom at their pleasure they would deprive and make obnoxious to what punishment themselves list and that not for any violation of Laws either Spiritual or Civil but because men have trusted the Laws too farr because they have held and enjoyed the liberty which Law granteth because they had not the wit to conceive as these men do that Laws were made to intrap the simple by permitting those things in shew and appearance which indeed should never take effect for as much as they were but granted with a secret condition to be put in practice If they should be profitable and agreeable with the Word of God which condition failing in all Ministers that cannot Preach in all that are absent from their Livings and in all that have divers Livings for so it must be presumed though never as yet proved therefore as men which have broken the Law of God and Nature they are depriveable at all hours Is this the Justice of that Discipline whereunto all Christian Churches must stoop and sabmit themselves Is this the equity wherewith they labour to reform the World I will no way diminish the force of those Arguments whereupon they ground But if it please them to behold the visage of these Collections in another Glass there are Civil as well as Ecclesiastical Unsufficiencies Non residences and Pluralitiesâ— yea the reasons which Light of Nature hath ministred against both are of such affinity that much less they cannot inforce in the one than in the other When they that bear great Offices be Persons of mean worth the contempt whereinto their authority groweth weakneth the sinews of the whole State Notwithstanding where many Governours are needful and they not many whom their quality cannot commend the penury of worthier must needs make the meaner
debere dicimus Quod ad rituales ecclesiasticas attinet ordinis aedificationis Ecclesiarum in his semper habendâ— ratio est inutiles autem noxias nempe ineptas supersticiosas Patronis suis relinquamus Goulart Genevens Annot. in Epist. Cypr. 74. d T.C.l. â— pa 71. They should nor have been to hold as to have brought it into the holy Sacrament of Baptism and so â—ingle the Ceremonies and inventions of Menâ— with the Sacraments and institutions of God T.C. lib 1. pag. 170. The profitable signification of the Cross maketh the thing a great deal worse and bringeth In a new word â—neu the Church whereas there ought to â—e no Doctor liâ—ard in the Church but onely our Saviour Christ For al hough tâ— be the Word of God that we should â—â— be ashamed of the Cross of Christ yet is it not the Word of God that we should be kept in remembrance of that by â—â—â—n lines drawn across one over another in the Childes Forehead * Luk. 7. 44 a T. C. lib. â— pag. 170. It is known to all that have real the Ecclesiâ—ssical sieries That the Heathen did â—â—â—â—â— in Christians in â—â—â—â—s all in reproach Thuâ— the God which â—ry believed on was hanged upon a Cross. And they thought goâ—d to râ—th that they were not ashamed therefore of the Sun of God by the often using of the Sign of the Crist. Which carefulness and goul minde to keep amongst them an open Proseâ—â—â—n of Christ crucified althrough it be to be commended yet is not this means so And they might otherwise have kept it and with less danger then by this use of crossing And as it was brought in upon no good ground so the Lord left a mark of his curse of it and whereby It might be perceived to câ—mour of the Forat of Men Brain is that it began forthwith while it was yet in the Swalling Ciours to be superstiâ—iuosly abused The Christians had such a Superstition in it that they would do nothing without Crossing But if it were gramed that upon this consideration which I have before mentioned the ancient Christians did well yet it followeth not that we should to do For we live not amongst those Nation which do cast us in the â—â—th or reproach us with die Cross of Christ. Now that we live amongst Papist that do not concern the Cros of Christ but which esteem more of the Word in Cross thru of the tene â—as wâ—â—â— is his sufferings we ough now to do clean conâ—â—riwile to thrill christians and abolish aâ—l use of that Cross to For contrary theasâ—â— must have contrary remedie If therefore thâ—o'd t Christians to deliver the Cross of Christ sunt now 〈…〉 all senue the Cross the Christians now to take away the superstitions estimation of it ought to take away â—e use of it b Epheâ— 5. 12. Rom. 6. 21 c Sen. Epist. 1â— lib. 1. d Tâ—â—oin 〈…〉 e Frons honinies cristitiae Islortatis Clementia severitatis index est Plin. lib. 21. Ez. k9 4. Apoc. 7. 3. â— p 4. a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist Eth. 4 c.9 a Caro signatur uâ— c anima muniatur Tertul de Resur Car. Cypr. Epist 56. â—d Thimâ—â—â—â—â— Cypr. de Laps Erant enim supplices corona li. Tetilib de Coreâ—il In the service of â—loâ— the Donors of their Temples the Sacrifices the Alâ—â—â— the Priests and the Suppliants that wore present were Garlands a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist â— her I. 1 cap. 6. b Oziar Rex leprae varielate in fronte macularuâ— est co porie corporis norarus est nso Domino ubi sigâ—â—â—cur qui Dominâ— prometentur Cypr. de unit Eccles Cap. 16. c Ginlart Am not in Cypr. lib. ad Demerr cap. 19. Quamvis veteres Christiani externo signo cruds un sumi lil â—amen suit sinc superstitione c ductrias de Christi merito ab crâ—â—e qui postea lâ—â—â—epsie pios servant immunes d Idem An. not in Cypr. Epist. 57. 67. Dist. 6.3 cap. Quid. â—izon lib 17. cap. 15. The. pag. 3. q. 25. art 3. Resp. ad Tert. a Ioseph Antiq lib. 17. cap. 8. lib. 18. cap. 3. de Bell. lib. 2. cap. 8. b Their Eagles their Ensigns and the Images of their Princes they carried with them in all their Armies and had always a kinde of Chappel wherein they places and adored them is their gods â—â— l. 40. Heredian lib. 4. c Matth. 22.20 d 2 Chro. 4. 3. e Exod. â—2 â— f 2 Chro. 34 7. g Josh. 22. 10. 1 King 11. 1â— 2 King 13. 13. 2 King 18 3,6 12. 2. 2 King 23. 7. Of Confirmation after Baptism * Caro manus Impositione adumbeatur â—t anima Spiritu illumineâ—ur Tertul de Reser Caâ— Gen. 48. 14. 2 King 5. 11. Num. 27. 18. Matth. 9. 18. Mark 5. 23. 8. 12. Matth. 19.13 Mark 10. 14. Luk. 18. 15. Mark 16.17 Aâ—â— 1â— â— Act 8 17 18. 〈…〉 August de â— er â—K â—â— cap. 15. Tertul. de Baptis Cypr. Epist. 2. ad Donat. c. â— Euseb Emis Ser. de Vents Aug. de Trin. liâ— 15 cap. 26. lâ—â—â— 6. 3. Acts 8. 12 15. Ier. Advers â—ucif cap. 4. Cypr. Epist. 73. ad Iubajenum Heb. 6. 3. Psal. 31. 10 11 12. * T C. lib. 1. pag. 1â—1 Tell me why there should be any such Confirmation in the Church being brought in by the seigned Decretal Epistles of the Popes this is â—eâ—â—acted by the same T.C. lib. 3. pag. 232 That it is ancienter then the seigned Decretal Epistles I yield unto and no one tittle thereof being once found in the Scripture and seeing that it hath been so horribly abused and not necessary why ought it â—â—â— to be utterly abolished And thirdly this Confirmation hath many dangerous points in it The first step of Popery in this Confirmation is the Laying on of Hands upon the Head of the Childe whereby the opinion of it that it is a Sacrament is confirmed especially when as the Prayer doth say That it is done according to the example of the Apostles which is a manifest unwâ—tâ— and taken indeed from the Popish Confirmation The second is for that the Bishop as he is called must be the onely minister of it whereby the Popish opinion which esteemeth it above Baptism is confirmed For whilest Baptism may be ministred of the Minister and not Confirmation but onely of the Bishop there is great cause of suspition given to think that Baptism is not so precious a thing as Confirmation seeing this was one of the principal reasons whereby that wicked opinion was established in Popery I do not here speak of the inconvenience that men are constrained with charges to bring their children oftentimes half a score miles for that which if it were needful might be as well done at home in their own Parishes The third is for that the Book saith a cause of using Confirmation is Therby imposition of Hands and Prayer the Children may receive strength and
infirmities and live in love because as St. Iohn says He that lives in love lives in God for God is Love And to maintain this holy Fire of Love constantly burning on the Altar of a pure Heart his advice was to watch and pray and always keep themselves fit to receive the Communion and then to receive it often for it was both a confirming and a strengthning of their Graces This was his advice and at his entrance or departure out of any house he would usually speak to the whole Family and bless them by name insomuch that as he seem'd in his youth to be taught of God so he seem'd in this place to teach his Precepts as Enoch did by walking with him in all Holiness and Humility making each day a step towards a blessed Eternity And though in this weak and declining age of the World such examples are become barren and almost incredible yet let his memory be blest with this true Recordation because he that praises Richard Hooker praises God who hath given such gifts to men and let this humble and affectionate Relation of him become such a pattern as may invite Posterity to imitate his Vertues This was his constant behavior at Borne thus as Enoch so he walked with God thus did he tread in the footsteps of Primitive Piety and yet as that great example of meekness and purity even our Blessed Iesus was not free from false accusations no more was this Disciple of his This most humble most innocent holy Man his was a slander parallel to that of chaste Susannaes by the wicked Elders or that against St. Athanasius as it is Recorded in his life for that holy Man had Heretical enemies and which this age calls Trepanning The particulars need not a repetition and that it was false needs no other Testimony then the publick punishment of his accusers and their open confession of his innocency 'T was said that the accusation was contrived by a Dissenting Brother one that indur'd not Church Ceremonies hating him for his Books sake which he was not able to Answer and his name hath been told me But I have not so much confidence in the Relation as to make my Pen fix a scandal on him to Posterity I shall rather leave it doubtful till the great day of Revelation But this is certain that he lay under the great charge and the anxiety of this accusation and kept it secret to himself for many moneths And being a helpless man had lain longer under this heavy burthen but that the Protector of the innocent gave such an accidental occasion as forced him to make it known to his two dear Friends Edwin Sandys and George Cranmer who were so sensible of their Tutors sufferings that they gave themselves no rest till by their disquisitions and diligence they had found out the Fraud and brought him the welcome news that his accusers did confess they had wrong'd him and begg'd his pardon To which the good mans reply was to this purpose The Lord forgive them and The Lord bless you for this comfortable news Now I have a just occasion to say with Solomon Friends are born for the days of Adversity and such you have prov'd to me And to my God I say as did the Mother of St. John Baptist Thus hath the Lord dealt with me in the day wherein he looked upon me to take away my reproach among men And O my God neither my life nor my reputation are safe in mine own keeping but in thine who didst take care of me when I yet hanged upon my Mothers Brest Blessed are they that put their trust in thee O Lord for when false witnesses were risen up against me when shame was ready to cover my face when I was bowed down with an horrible dread and went mourning all the day long when my nights were restless and my sleeps broken with a fear worse then death when my Soul thirsted for a deliverance as the Hart panteth after the Rivers of Waters Then thou Lord didst bear my complaints pitty my condition and art new become my Deliverer and as long as I live I will hold up my hands in this manner and magnifie thy Mercies who didst not give me over as a prey to mine enemies O blessed are they that put their trust in thee and no prosperity shall make me forget those days of sorrow or to perform those vows that I have made to thee in the days of my fears and affliction for with such sacrifices thou O God art well pleased and I will pay them Thus did the joy and gratitude of this good Mans heart break forth and 't is observable that as the invitation to this slander was his meek behavior and Dove like simplicity for which he was remarkable so his Christian Charity ought to be imitated For though the Spirit of Revenge is so pleasing to mankinde that it is never conquered but by a Supernatural Grace being indeed so deeply rooted in Humane Nature that to prevent the excesses of it for men would not know Moderation Almighty God allows not any degree of it to any man but says Vengeance is mine And though this be said by God himself yet this revenge is so pleasing that man is hardly perswaded to submit the menage of it to the Time and Justice and Wisdom of his Creator but would hasten to be his own executioner of it And yet nevertheless if any man ever did wholly decline and leave this pleasing Passion to the time and measure of God alone it was this Richard Hooker of whom I write For when his slanderers were to suffer he labored to procure their Pardon and when that was denied him his Reply was That however he would fast and pray that God would give them Repentance and Patience to undergo their Punishment And his Prayers were so for returned into his own bosom that the first was granted if we may believe a Penitent Behavior and an open Confession And 't is observable that after this time he would often say to Dr. Saravia O with what quietness did I enjoy my Soul after I was free from the fears of my slander And how much more after a conflict and victory ever my desires of Revenge In the Year One thousand six hundred and of his Age Forty six he fell into a long and sharp sickness occasioned by a Cold taken in his Passage betwixt London and Gravesend from the malignity of which he was never recovered for till his death he was not free from thoughtful days and restless nights but a submission to his Will that makes the sick mans bed easie by giving rest to his Soul made his very languishment comfortable And yet all this time he was solicitous in his Study and said often to Dr. Saravia who saw him daily and was the cheifâ— comfort of his life That he did not beg a long life of God for any other reason but to live to finish his three remaining Books of POLITY and
then Lord let thy Servant depart in peace which was his usual expression And God heard his Prayers though he denied the Church the benefit of them as compleated by himself and 't is thought he hastned his own death by hastning to give life to his Books But this is certain that the nearer he was to his death the more he grew in Humility in holy Thoughts and Resolutions About a moneth before his death this good man that never knew or at least never consider'd the pleasures of the Palate became first to lose his Appetite then to have an aversness to all Food insomuch that he seem'd to live some intermitted weeks by the smell of meat onely and yet still studied and writ And now his Guardian Angel seem'd to foretel him that his years were past away as a shadow bidding him prepare to follow the Generation of his Fathers for the day of his dissolution drew near for which his vigorous Soul appear'd to thirst In this time of his sickness and not many days before his death his House was robb'd of which he having notice his Question was Are my Books and Written Papers safe And being answered That they were His Reply was Then it matters not for no other loss can trouble me About one day before his death Dr. Saravia who knew the very secrets of his Soul for they were supposed to be Confessors to each other came to him and after a Conference of the Benefit the Necessity and Safety of the Churches Absolution it was resolved the Doctor should give him both that and the Sacrament the day following To which end the Doctor came and after a short retirement and privacy they return'd to the company and then the Doctor gave him and some of those friends that were with him the Blessed Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Jesus Which being performed the Doctor thought he saw a reverend gaity and joy in his face but it lasted not long for his bodily infirmities did return suddenly and became more visible insomuch that the Doctor apprehended Death ready to seise him Yet after some amendment left him at night with a promise to return early the day following which he did and then found him better in appearance deep in contemplation and not inclinable to discourse which gave the Doctor occasion to require his present thoughts To which he replied That he was meditating the number and nature of Angels and their blessed Obedience and Order without which Peace could not be in Heaven and oh that it might be so on Earth After which words he said I have lived to see this World is made up of perturbations and I have been long preparing to leave it and gathering comfort for the dreadful hour of making my account with God which I now apprehend to be near And though I have by his Grace lov'd him in my youth and fear'd him in mine age and labor'd to have a Conscience void of offence to him and to all men yet if thou O Lord be extream to mark what I have done amiss who can abide it And therefore where I have failed Lord shew mercy to me for I plead not my Righteousness but the forgiveness of my unrighteousness for his Merits who died to purchase a pardon for penitent sinners And since I ow thee a death Lord let it not be terrible and then take thine own time I submit to it Let not mine O Lord but let thy Will be done With which expression he fell into a dangerous slumber dangerous as to his recovery yet recover he did but it was to speak onely these few words Good Doctor God hath heard my daily Petitions for I am at peace with all men and he is at peace with me and from which blessed assurance I feel that inward joy which this World can neither give nor take from me More he would have spoken but his spirits failed him and after a short conflict betwixt Nature and Death a quiet sigh put a period to his last breath and so he fell asleep And here I draw his Curtain till with the most glorious Company of the Patriarks and Apostles the most noble Army of Martyrs and Confessors this most Learned most Humble holy Man shall also awake to receive an Eternal Tranquillity and with it a greater degree of Glory then common Christians shall be made partakers of In the mean time Bless O Lord Lord bless his Brethren the Clergy of this Nation with ardent desires and effectual endeavors to attain if not to his great Learning yet to his remarkable meekness his godly simplicity and his Christian moderation For these are praise-worthy these bring peace at the last And let the Labors of his life his most excellent Writings be bless with what he designed when he undertook them Which was Glory to thee O God on high Peace in thy Church and good will to mankinde Amen Amen AN APPENDIX To the LIFE of Mr. Richard Hooker ANd now having by a long and Laborious search satisfied my self and I hope my Reader by imparting to him the true Relation of Mr. Hookers Life I am desirous also to acquaint him with some Observations that relate to it and which could not properly fall to be spoken till after his Death of which my Reader may expect a brief and true account in the following Appendix And first it is not to be doubted but that he died in the forty-seventh if not in the forty-sixth year of his Age which I mention because many have believed him to be more aged but I have so examined it as to be confident I mistake not and for the year of his death Mr. Cambden who in his Annals of Queen Elizabeth 1599. mentions him with a high commendation of his Life and Learning declares him to die in the year 1599. and yet in that Inscription of his Monument set up at the charge of Sir William Cooper in Borne Church where Mr. Hooker was buried his Death is said to be in Anno 1603. but doubtless both mistaken for I have it attested under the hand of William Somner the Archbishops Register for the Province of Canterbury that Richard Hookers Will bears date October the 26. in Anno 1600. and that it was prov'd the third of December following And this attested also that at his Death he left four Daughters Alice Cicily Iane and Margaret that he gave to each of them a hundred pound that he left Ione his Wife his sole Executrix and that by his Inventory his Estate a great part of it being in Books came to 1092l 91. 2d which was much more than he thought himself worth and which was not got by his Care much less by the good Huswifery of his Wife but saved by his trusty Servant Thomas Lane that was wiser than his Master in getting Money for him and more frugal than his Mistress in keeping it of which Will I shall say no more but that his dear Friend Thomas the Father of