pieces and slackens the band of the Christian faith which faith is That Christ consisting of two natures in one person suffered for the salvation of man So then not onely to take from Jesus one of his natures God or man but to adde to him another person this addition is a Diminution a dissolution an annihilation of Jesus So also to adde to the Gospel to adde to the Scriptures to adde to the articles of faith this addition is a Diminution a Dissolution an Annihilation of those Scriptures that Gospel that faith and the Author and finisher thereof Iesus grew in stature says the Gospel But he grew not to his lifes end we know to how many feet he grew So the Scriptures grew to the number of the books grew But they grow not to the worlds end we know to how many bookes they grew The body of man and the vessels thereof have a certain and a limited capacity what nourishment they can receive and digest and so a certaine measure and stature to extend to The soul and soul of the soul Faith and her faculties hath a certain capacity too and certain proportions of spirituall nourishments exhibited to it in certaine vessels certaine measures so many these Bookes of Scriptures And therefore as Christ saies Which of you can adde one Cubit to your stature how plentifully and how delicately soever you feed how discreetly and how providently soever you exercise you cannot doe that so may he say to them who pretend the greatest power in the Church Which of you can adde another booke to the Scriptures A Codicill to either of my Testaments The curse in the Revelation fals as heavy upon them that adde to the booke of God as upon them that take from it Nay it is easie to observe that in all those places of Scripture which forbid the taking away or the adding to the Book of God still the commandment that they shall not and still the malediction if they do is first placed upon the adding and after upon the taking away So it is in that former place Plagues upon him that takes away but first Plagues upon him that addes so in Deut. you shall not diminish but first you shall not adde So again in that Book whatsoever I command you observe to do it Thou shalt not diminish from it but first Thou shalt not adde to it And when the same commandment seems to be given in the Proverbs there is nothing at all said of taking away but onely of adding as though the danger to Gods Church consisted especially in that Every word of God is pure saith Solomon there Adde thou not unto his word lest thou be reproved and found a lyer For though heretofore some Heretiques have offered at that way to clip Gods coin in taking away some book of Scripture yet for many blessed Ages the Church hath enjoyed her peace in that point None of the Books are denied by any church there is no substraction offered But for addition of Apocryphal Books to Canonicall the Church of God is still in her Militant state and cannot triumph and though she have victory in all the Reasons the cannot have peace You see Christs way to them that came to heare him Audiistis and Audiistis This and that you have heard others say Egâ— autem dico your Rule is what I say for Christ spoke Scripture Christ was Scripture As we say of great and universall Scholars that they are viventes Bibliothecae living walking speaking Libraries so Christ was lâ—quens Scriptura living speaking Scripture Our Sermons are Text and Discourse Christ Sermons were all Text Christ was the Word not onely the Essentiall Word which was alwayes with God but the very written word too Christ was the Scripture and therefore when he refers them to himselfe he refers them to the Scriptures for though here he seem onely to call upon them to hearken to that which he spoke yet it is in a word of a deeper impression for it is Videte See what you hear Before you preach any thing for my word see it see it written see it in the body of the Scriptures Here then lies the double obligation upon the Apostles The salvation of the whole world lies upon your preaching of that of All That of onely That which you hear from me now And therefore take heed what you hear And farther we carry not your consideration upon this first acceptation of the words as they are spoken personally to the Apostles but passe to the second as by reflexion they are spoken to us the Ministers of the Gospel In this consideration we take in also our Adversaries for we all pretend to be successors of the Apostles though not we as they in the Apostolicall yet they as well as we in the Evangelicall and Ministeriall function for as that which Christ said to Saint Peter he said in him to all the Apostles Vpon this Rock will I build my Church so in this which he saith to all the Apostles he saith to all us also Take heed what you heare Be this then the issue between them of the Roman distemper and us whether they or we do best perform this commandment Take heed what you heare conceal nothing of that which you have heard obtrude nothing but that which you have heard Whether they or we do best apply our practise to this rule Preach all the Truth preach nothing but the Truth be this lis contestata the issue joyned between us and it will require no long pleading for matter of evidence first our Saviour saith Man liveth by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God And this Christ saith from Moses also so that in the mouth of two unreproachable witnesses Moses and Christ the Law and the Gospel we have this established Mans life is the Word of God the Word is the Scripture And then our Saviour saith further The Holy Ghost shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance and here is the Latitude the Totality the Integrality of the meanes of salvation you shall have Scriptures delivered to you by them the Holy Ghost shall teach you all things and then you shall be remembred of all by the explication and application of those Scriptures at Church where lies the principall operation of the Holy Ghost Now is this done in the Roman Church Are the Scriptures delivered and explicated to them To much of the Scriptures as is read to them in their Lessons and Epistles and Gospels is not understood when it is read for it is in an unknown language so that that way the Holy Ghost teaches them nothing Neither are all the Scriptures distributed into these Lessons and Epistles and Gospels which are read so that if they did understand all they heard yet they did not heare all they were bound to understand And for remembring them by the way of preaching though it be true that the
and may make thee doubt whether thou have it or no every day that is as often as thou canst heare more and more witnesses of this light and bless that God who for thy sake would submit himselfe to these Testimonia ab homine these Testimonies from men and being all light himselfe and having so many other Testimonies would yet require the Testimony of Man of Iohn which is our other branch of this first part Christ who is still the light of our Text That light the essentiall light had testimony enough without Iohn First he bore witness of himselfe And though he say of himself If I beare witnesse of my self my witnesse is not true yet that he might say either out of a legall and proverbiall opinion of theirs that ordinarily they thought That a witness testifying for himself was not to be beleeved whatsoever he said Or as Man which they then took him to be he might speake it of himselfe out of his own opinion that in Iudicature it is a good rule that a man should not be beleeved in his own case But after this and after he had done enough to make them see that he was more then man by multiplying of miracles then he said though I beare witnesse of my selfe my witnesse is true So the onely infallibility and unreproachable evidence of our election is in the inward word of God when his Spirit beares witnesse with our Spirit that we are the Sonnes of God for if the Spirit the Spirit of truth say he is in us he is in us But yet the Spirit of God is content to submit himselfe to an ordinary triall to be tried by God and the Countrey he allowes us to doubt and to be afraid of our regeneration except we have the testimony of sanctification Christ bound them not to his own testimony till it had the seale of workes of miracles nor must we build upon any testimony in our selves till other men that see our life testifie for us to the world He had also the testimony of his Father the Father himselfe which hath sent me beareth witnesse of me But where should they see the Father or heare the Father speak That was all which Philip asked at his hands Lord show us the Father and it sufficeth us He had the testimony of an Angel who came to the shepheards so as no where in all the Scriptures there is such an Apparition expressed the Angel of the Lord came upon them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them but where might a man talke with this Angel and know more of him As Saint Augustine says of Moses Scripsit abiit he hath written a little of the Creation and he is gone Si hîc esset tenerem rogarem if Moses were here says he I would hold him fast till I had got him to give me an exposition of that which he writ For beloved we must have such witnesses as we may consult farther with I can see no more by an Angel then by lightning A star testified of him at his birth But what was that star was it any of those stars that remaine yet Gregory Nissen thinkes it was and that it onely then changed the naturall course and motion for that service But almost all the other Fathers thinke that it was a light but then created and that it had onely the forme of a star and no more and some few that it was the holy Ghost in that forme And if it were one of the fixed stars and remaine yet yet it is not now in that office it testifies nothing of Christ now The wise men of the East testified of him too But what were they or who or how many or from whence were they for all these circumstances have put Antiquity it selfe into more distractions and more earnest disputations then circumstances should doe Simeon testified of him who had a revelation from the holy Ghost that he should not see death till he had seen Christ. And so did the Prophetess Anna who served God with fasting and prayer day and night Omnis sexus aetas both sexes and all ages testified of him and he gives examples of all as it was easie for him to doe Now after all these testimonies from himselfe from the Father from the Angel from the star from the wise men from Simeon from Anna from all what needed the testimony of Iohn All those witnesses had been thirty years before Iohn was cited for a witnesse to come from the wildernesse and preach And in thirty years by reason of his obscure and retired life in his father Iosephs house all those personall testimonies of Christ might be forgotten and for the most part those witnesses onely testified that he was borne that he was come into the world but for all their testimony he might have been gone out of the world long Before this he might have perished in the generall flood in that flood of innocent blood in which Herod drowned all the young children of that Countrey When therefore Christ came forth to preach when he came to call Apostles when he came to settle a Church to establish meanes for our ordinary salvation by which he is the light of our text the Essentiall light shining out in his Church by the supernaturall light of faith and grace then he admitted then he required Testimonium ab homine testimony from man And so for our conformity to him in using and applying those meanes which convay this light to us in the Church we must doe so too we must have the seale of faith and of the Spirit but this must be in the testimony of men still there must be that done by us which must make men testifie for us Every Christian is a state a common-wealth to himselfe and in him the Scripture is his law and the conscience is his Iudge And though the Scripture be inspired from God and the conscience be illumined and rectified by the holy Ghost immediately yet both the Scriptures and the Conscience admit humane arguments First the Scriptures doe in all these three respects first that there are certaine Scriptures that are the revealed will of God Secondly that these books which we call Canonicall are those Scriptures And lastly that this and this is the true sense and meaning of such and such a place of Scripture First that there is a manifestation of the will of God in certain Scriptures if we who have not power to infuse Faith into men for that is the work of the Holy Ghost onely but must deal upon the reason of men and satisfie that if we might not proceed per testimonia ab homine by humane Arguments and argue and infer thus That if God will save man for worshipping him and damne him for not worshipping him so as he will be worshipped certainly God hath revealed to man how he will be worshipped and
that in some visible in some permanent manner in writing and that that writing is Scripture if we had not these testimonies these necessary consequences derived even from the naturall reason of man to convince men how should we convince them since our way is not to create Faith but to satisfie reason And therefore let us rest in this testimony of men that all Christian men nay Iewes and Turkes too have ever beleeved that there are certain Scriptures which are the revealed will of God and that God hath manifested to us in those Scriptures all that he requires at our hands for Faith or Manners Now which are those Scriptures As for the whole body intirely together so for the particular limbs and members of this body the severall books of the Bible we must accept testimonium ab homine humane Arguments and the testimony of men At first the Jewes were the Depositaries of Gods Oracles and therefore the first Christians were to aske the Jewes which books were those Scriptures Since the Church of God is the Master of those Rolls no doubt but the Church hath Testimonium à Deo The Spirit of God to direct her in declaring what Books make up the Scripture but yet even the Church which is to deal upon men proceedeth also per testimonium ab homine by humane Arguments such as may work upon the reason of man in declaring the Scriptures of God For the New Testament there is no question made of any Book but in Conventicles of Anabaptists and for the Old it is testimony enough that we receive all that the Jews received This is but the testimony of man but such as prevails upon every man It is somewhat boldly said not to permit to our selves any severer or more bitter animadversion upon him by a great man in the Romam Church that perchance the book of Enoch which S. Iude cites in his Epistle was not an Apocryphal book but Canonicall Scripture in the time of the Iews As though the holy Ghost were a time-server and would sometimes issue some things for present satisfaction which he would not avow nor stand to after as though the holy Ghost had but a Lease for certain years a determinable estate in the Scriptures which might expire and he be put from his evidence that that book might become none of his which was his before We therefore in receiving these books for Canonicall which we do and in post-posing the Apochryphall into an inferior place have testimonium ab homine testimony from the People of God who were and are the most competent and unreproachable witnesses herein and we have Testimonium ab inimico testimony from our adversary himself Perniciosius est Ecclesiae librum recipere pro sacro qui non est quà m sacrum rejicere It is a more pernicious danger to the Church to admit a book for Canonicall which is not so then to reject one that is so And therefore ne turberis novitie saith another great Author of theirs Let no young student in Divinity be troubled si alicubi repererit libros istos supputari inter Canonicos if he finde at any time any of these books reckned amongst the Canonical nam ad Hiero. limam verba Doctorum Concilio rum reducenda for saith he Hieroms file must passe over the Doctors and over the Councels too and they must be understood and interpreted according to S. Hier. now this is but testimonium ab homine S. Hier. testimony that prevailed upon Cajetan and it was but testimonium ab homine the testimony of the Iews that prevailed upon S. Hierom himself It is so for the whole body The bible it is so for all the limbs of this body every particular book of the Bible and it is so for the soul of this body the true sense of every place of very book thereof for for that the sense of the place we must have testimonium ab homine the testimony that is the interpretation of other men Thou must not rest upon thy self nor upon any private man Iohn was a witnesse that had witnesses the Prophets had prophesied of Iohn Baptist. The men from whom we are to receive testimony of the sense of the Scriptures must be men that have witnesses that is a visible and outward calling in the Church of God That no sense be ever admitted that derogateth from God that makes him a false or an impotent or a cruell God That every contradiction and departing from the Analogy of Faith doth derogate from God and divers such grounds and such inferences as every man confesses and acknowledges to be naturally and necessarily consequent these are Testimonia ab homine Testimonies that passe like currant money from man to man obvious to every man suspicious to none Thus it is in the generall but then when it is deduced to a more particular triall what is the sense of such or such a place when Christ saith Scrutamini Scripturas search the Scriptures non mittit ad simplicem lectionem sed ad scrutationem exquisitam It is not a bare reading but a diligent searching that is enjoyned us Now they that will search must have a warrant to search they upon whom thou must rely for the sense of the Scriptures must be sent of God by his Church Thou art robbed of all devested of all if the Scriptures be taken from thee Thou hast no where to search blesse God therefore that hath kept thee in possession of that sacred Treasure the Scriptures and then if any part of that treasure ly out of thy reach or ly in the dark so as that thou understandest not the place search that is apply thy self to them that have warrant to search and thou shalt lack no light necessary for thee Either thou shalt understand that place or the not understanding of it shall not be imputed to thee nor thy salvation hindred by that Ignorance It is but to a woman that Saint Hierome saith Ama Scripturas amabit te Sapientia Love the Scriptures and Wisdome will love thee The weaknesse of her Sex must not avert her from reading the Scriptures It is instruction for a Childe and for a Girle that the same Father giveth Septem annorum discat memoriter Psalterium As soone as she is seaven yeares old let her learn all the Psalmes without book the tendernesse of her age must not avert her from the Scriptures It is to the whole Congregation consisting of all sorts and sexes that Saint Chrysostome saith Hortor hortari non desinam I alwayes doe and alwayes will exhort you ut cum domi fueritis assiduae lectioni Scripturarum vacetis that at home in your owne houses you accustome your selves to a dayly reading of the Scriptures And after to such men as found or forced excuses for reading them he saith with compassion and indignation too O homo non est tuum Scripturas evolvere
quia innumeris curis distraheris Busie man belongeth it not to thee to study the Scriptures because thou art oppressed with worldly businesse Imòmagis tuum est saith he therefore thou hadst the more need to study the Scriptures Illi non tam egent c. They that are not disquieted nor disordered in their passions with the cares of this world doe not so much need that supply from the Scriptures as you that are doe It is an Authour that lived in the obedience of the Romane Church that saith the Councell of Nice did decree That every man should have the Bible in his house But another Authour in that Church saith now Consilium Chrysostomi Ecclesiae nunc non arridet The Church doth not now like Chrysostomes counsell for this generall reading of the Scriptures Quia etsi ille locutus ad plebem plebs tunc non erat haeretica Though Saint Chrysostome spoke that to the people the people in his time were not an Hereticall people And are the people in the Roman Church now an Hereticall people If not why may not they pursue Saint Chrystomes counsel and reade the Scriptures Because they are dark It is true in some places they are dark purposely left so by the Holy Ghost ne semel lectas fastidiremus lest we should think we had done when we had read them once so saith S. Gregory too In plain places fami occurrit he presents meat for every stomach In hard and dark places fastidia detergit he sharpens the appetite Margarita est undique perforari potest the Scripture is a Pearl and might be bored through every where Not every where by thy self there may be many places which thou of thy self canst not understand not every where by any other man no not by them who have warrant to search Commission from God by their calling to interpret the Scriptures not every where by the whole Church God hath reserved the understanding of some places of Scripture till the time come for the fulfilling of those Prophecies as many places of the Old Testament were not understood till Christ came in whom they were fulfilled If therefore thou wilt needs know whether when Saint Paul took his information of the behaviour of the Corinthians from those of Chloe whether this Chloe were a woman or a place the Fathers cannot satisfie thee the latter Writers cannot satisfie thee there is not Testimonium ab homine no such humane Arguments as can determine thee or give thee an Acquittance the greatest pillars whom God hath raised in his Church cannot give a satisfaction to thy curiosity But if the Doctrine of the place will satisfie thee which Doctrine is that S. Paul did not give credit to light rumors against the Corinthians nor to clandestine whisperers but tells them who accused them and yet as well as he loved them he did not stop his eares against competent witnesses for he tells them they stood accused and by whom then thou maist bore this pearle thorough and make it fit for thy use and wearing in knowing so much of Saint Pauls purpose therein as concerns thy edification though thou never know whether Chloe were a Woman or a Place Tantum veritati obstrepit adulter sensus quam corruptor stylus a false interpretation may doe thee as much harme as a false translation a false Commentary as a false copy And therefore forbearing to make any interpretation at all upon dark places of Scripture especially those whose understanding depends upon the future fulfilling of prophecies in places that are clear evident thou maist be thine own interpreter In places that are more obscure goe to those men whom God hath set over thee and either they shall give thee that sense of the place which shall satisfie thee by having the sense thereof or that must satisfie you that there is enough for your salvation though that remaine uninterpreted And let this Testimonium ab homine this testimony of man establish thee for the Scripture that there is a Scripture a certaine book that is the word and the revealed will of God That these books which we receive for Canonicall make up that book And then that this and this is the true sense of every place which the holy Ghost hath opened to the present understanding of his Church We said before that a Christian being a Common-wealth to himselfe the Scripture was his law and for that law that Scripture he was to have Testimonium ab homine the testimony of man And then his Conscience is his Iudge and for that he is to have the same testimony too Thou must not rest upon the testimony and suggestions of thine owne conscience Nec illud de trivio paratum habere thou must not rest in that vulgar saying sufficit mihi c. As long as mine owne Conscience stands right I care not what all the world say Thou must care what the world says and study to have the approbation and testimony of good men Every man is enough defamed in the generall depravation of our whole natureÌ„ Adam hath cast an infamy upon us all And when a man is defamed it is not enough that he purge himselfe by oath but he must have compurgators too other men must sweare that they beleeve he sweares a truth Thine owne conscience is not enough but thou must â—atisfie the world and have Testimonium ab homine good men must thinke thee good A conscience that admits no search from others is cauterizata burnt with a hot Iron not cured but seared not at peace but stupefied And when in the verse immediately before our text it is said That Iohn came to beare witnesse of that light it is added that through him that is through that man through Iohn not through it through that light that through him all men beleeve For though it be efficiently the operation of the light it selfe that is Christ himselfe that all men beleeve yet the holy Ghost directs us to that that is nearest us to this testimony of man that instrumentally ministerially works this beliefe in men If then for thy faith thou must have testimonium ab homine the testimony of men and maist not beleeve as no man but thy selfe beleeves much more for thy manners and conversation Thinke it not enough to satisfie thy self but satisfie good men nay weake men nay malicious men till it come so far as that for the desire of satisfying man thou leave God unsatisfied endeavour to satisfie all God must waigh down all thy selfe and others but as long as thy selfe onely art in one balance and other men in the other let this preponderate let the opinion of other men waigh downe thine owne opinion of thy selfe 'T is true but many men flatter themselves too far with this truth that it is a sin to do any thing in Conscientiâ dubiâ when a man doubts whether he may doe it or no and in