man surmise that the difference between them was only by distinction in the former kind of power and not in this latter of jurisdiction are not the words of the Law manifest which make Eleazer the Son of Aaron the Priest chief Captain of the Levites and overseer of them unto whom the charge of the Sanctuary was committed Again at the commandment of Aaron and his Sons are not the Gersonites themselves required to do all their service in the whole charge belonging unto the Gersonites being inferiour Priests as Aaron and his Sons were High Priests Did not Iehoshaphat appoint Amarias the Priest to be chief over them who were Judges for the cause of the Lord in Ierusalem Priests saith Josephus worship God continually and the eldest of the stock are governours over the rest He doth sacrifice unto God before others he hath care of the Laws judgeth controversies correcteth offenders and whosoever obeyeth him not is convict of impiety against God But unto this they answer That the reason thereof was because the High-Priest did prefigure Christ and represent to the people that chiefty of our Saviour which was to come so that Christ being now come there is no cause why such preheminence should be given unto any one Which fancy pleaseth so well the humour of all sorts of rebellions spirits that they all seek to shroud themselves under it Tell the Anabaptist which holdeth the use of the sword unlawful for a Christian man that God himself did allow his people to make wars they have their answer round and ready Those ancient Wars were figures of the spiritual Wars of Christ. Tell the Barrowist what sway David and others the Kings of Israel did bear in the ordering of spiritual affairs the same answer again serveth namely That David and the rest of the Kings of Israel prefigured Christ. Tell the Martinist of the High-Priests great authority and jurisdiction amongst the Jews what other thing doth serve this Turn but the self-same shift By the power of the High-Priest the universal supreme Authority of our Lord Iesus Christ was shadowed The thing is true that indeed High-Priests were figures of Christ yet this was in things belonging unto their power of Order they figured Christ by entring into the holy place by offering for the sins of all the people once a year and by other the like duties But that to govern and to maintain order amongst those that were subject to them is an office figurative and abrogated by Christs coming in the Ministry that their exercise of jurisdiction was figurative yea figurative in such sort that it had no other cause of being instituted but only to serve as a representation of somewhat to come and that herein the Church of Christ ought not to follow them this Article is such as must be confirmed if any way by miracle otherwise it will hardly enter into the heads of reasonable men why the High-Priest should more figure Christ in being a Judge then in being whatsoever he might be besides St. Cyprian deemed it no wresting of Scripture to challenge as much for Christian Bishops as was given to the High-Priest among the Jews and to urge the law of Moses as being most effectual to prove it St. Ierom likewise thought it an argument sufficient to ground the Authority of Bishops upon To the end saith he we may understand Apostolical traditions to have been taken from the Old Testament that which Aaron and his Sons and the Levites were in the Temple Bishops and Presbyters and Deacons in the Church may lawfully challenge to themselves In the Office of a Bishop Ignatius observeth these two functions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning the one such is the prehemince of a Bishop that he only hath the heavenly mysteries of God committed originally unto him so that otherwise than by his Ordination and by authority received from him others besides him are not licensed therein to deal as ordinary Ministers of Gods Church And touching the other part of their sacred Function wherein the power of their jurisdiction doth appear first how the Apostles themselves and secondly how Titus and Timothy had rule and jurisdiction over Presbyters no man is ignorant And had not Christian Bishops afterward the like power Ignatius Bishop of Antioch being ready by blessed martyrdom to end his life writeth unto his Presbyters the Pastors under him in this sort O◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 After the death of Fabian Bishop of Rome there growing some trouble about the receiving of such persons into the Church as had fallen away in persecution and did now repent their fall the Presbyters and Deacons of the same Church advertised St. Cyprian thereof signifying That they must of necessity defer to deal in that cause till God did send them a new Bishop which might moderate all things Much we read of extraodinary fasting usually in the Church And in this appeareth also somewhat concerning the chiefty of Bishops The custome is saith Tertullian that Bishops do appoint when the people shall all fast Yea it is not a matter left to our own free choice whether Bishops shall rule or no but the will of our Lord and Saviour is saith Cyprian that every act of the Church be governed by her Bishops An Argument it is of the Bishops high preheminence rule and government over all the rest of the Clergy even that the Sword of persecution did strike especially always at the Bishop as at the Head the rest by reason of their lower estate being more secure as the self-same Cyprian noteth the very manner of whose speech unto his own both Deacons and Presbyters who remained safe when himself then Bishop was driven into exile argueth likewise his eminent authority and rule over them By these letters saith he I both exhort and COMMAND that ye whose presence there is not envied at nor so much beset with dangers supply my room in doing those things which the exercise of Religion doth require Unto the same purpose serve most directly those comparisons than which nothing is more familiar in the books of the ancient Fathers who as oft as they speak of the several degrees in Gods Clergy if they chance to compare Presbyters with Levitical Priests of the Law the Bishop they compare unto Aaron the High Priest if they compare the one with the Apostles the other they compare although in a lower proportion sometime to Christ and sometime to God himself evermore shewing that they placed the Bishop in an eminent degree of ruling authority and power above other Presbyters Ignatius comparing Bishops with Deacons and with such Ministers of the word and Sacraments as were but Presbyters and had no Authority over Presbyters What is saith he the Bishop but one which hath all principality and power over all so far forth as man may have it being to his power a follower even of Gods own Christ Mr. Calvin himself
men as contrariwise the ground of all our happiness and the seed of whatsoever perfect vertue groweth from us is a right opinion touching things divine this kind of knowledge we may justly set down for the first and chiefest thing which God imparteth unto his People and our duty of receiving this at his merciful hands for the first of those religious Offices wherewith we publickly honour him on earth For the instruction therefore of all sorts of men to eternal life it is necessary that the sacred and saving truth of God be openly published unto them Which open publication of heavenly mysteries is by an excellency termed preaching For otherwise there is not any thing publickly notified but we may in that respect rightly and properly say it is preached So that when the School of God doth use it as a word of Art we are accordingly to understand it with restraint to such special matter as that School is accustomed to publish We find not in the World any People that have lived altogether without Religion And yet this duty of Religion which provideth that publickly all sorts of men may be instructed in the fear of God is to the Church of God and hath been always so peculiar that none of the Heathens how curious soever in searching out all kinds of outward Ceremonies like to ours could ever once so much as endeavour to resemble herein the Churches care for the endless good of her Children Ways of teaching there have been sundry always usual in Gods Church For the first introduction of youth to the knowledge of God the Jews even till this day have their Catechisms With Religion it fareth as with other Sciences the first delivery of the Elements thereof must for like consideration be framed according to the weak and slender capacity of young Beginners unto which manner of teaching Principles in Christianity the Apostle in the sixth to the Hebrews is himself understood to allude For this cause therefore as the Decalogue of Moses declareth summarily those things which we ought to do the Prayer of our Lord whatsoever we should request or desire so either by the Apostles or at the least-wise out of their Writings we have the substance of Christian Belief compendiously drawn into few and short Articles to the end that the weakness of no mans wit might either hinder altogether the knowledge or excuse the utter ignorance of needful things Such as were trained up in these Rudiments and were so made fit to be afterward by Baptism received into the Church the Fathers usually in their Writings do term Hearers as having no farther communion or fellowship with the Church than only this that they were admitted to hear the Principles of Christian Faith made plain unto them Catechizing may be in Schools it may be in private Families But when we make it a kind of Preaching we mean always the publick performance thereof in the open hearing of men because things are preached not in that they are taught but in that they are published 19. Moses and the Prophets Christ and his Apostles were in their times all Preachers of Gods Truth some by Word some by Writing some by both This they did partly as faithful Witnesses making meer relation what God himself had revealed unto them and partly as careful Expounders Teachers Perswaders thereof The Church in like case Preacheth still first publishing by way of Testimony or relation the truth which from them she hath received even in such sort as it was received written in the sacred volumes of Scripture Secondly by way of explication discovering the mysteries which lye hid therein The Church as a Witness preacheth his meer revealed Truth by reading publickly the Sacred Scripture So that a second kind of preaching is the reading of holy Writ For thus we may the boldlier speak being strengthened with the examples of so reverend a Prelate as saith that Moses from the time of antient Generations and Ages long since past had amongst the Cities of the very Gentiles them that preached him in that he was read every Sabbath day For so of necessity it must be meant in as much as we know that the Jews have alwayes had their weekly Readings of the Law of Moses but that they always had in like manner their weekly Sermons upon some part of the Law of Moses we no where find Howbeit still we must here remember that the Church by her publick reading of the Book of God preacheth only as a Witness Now the principal thing required in a Witness is Fidelity Wherefore as we cannot excuse that Church which either through corrupt translations of Scripture delivereth instead of divine Speeches any thing repugnant unto that which God speaketh or through falsified additions proposeth that to the people of God as Scripture which is in truth no Scripture So the blame which in both these respects hath been laid upon the Church of England is surely altogether without cause Touching Translations of Holy Scripture albeit we may not disallow of their painful travels herein who strictly have tyed themselves to the very Original letter yet the judgment of the Church as we see by the practise of all Nations Greeks Latines Persians Syrians AEthiopians Arabians hath been ever That the fittest for publick Audience are such as following a middle course between the rigor of literal Translators and the liberty of Paraphrasts do with greatest shortness and plainness deliver the meaning of the Holy Ghost Which being a labour of so great difficulty the exact performance thereof we may rather wish than look for So that except between the words of translation and the mind of Scripture it self there be Contradiction every little difference should not seem an intolerable blemish necessarily to be spunged out Whereas therefore the Prophet David in a certain Psalm doth say concerning Moses and Aaron that they were obedient to the word of God and in the self-same place â—or allowed Translation saith they were not obedient we are for this cause challenged as manifest Gain-sayers of Scripture even in that which we read for Scripture unto the people But for as much as words are resemblances of that which the mind of the Speaker conceiveth and Conceits are Images representing that which is spoken of it followeth that they who will judge of words should have recourse to the things themselves from whence they rise In setting down that Miracle at the sight whereof Peter fell down astonished before the feet of Jesus and cryed Depart Lord I am a Sinner the Evangelist St. Luke saith the store of the Fish which they took was such that the Net they took it in brake and the Ships which they loaded therewith sunk St. Iohn recording the like Miracle saith That albeit the Fishes in number were so many yet the Net with so great a weight was not broken Suppose they had written both of one Miracle Although there be in their
hands of our Lord Jesus Christ with all reverence not disdaining to be taught and admonished by them nor with-holding from them as much as the least part of their due and decent honour All which for any thing that hath been alleadged may stand very well without resignation of Supremacy of Power in making Laws even Laws concerning the most Spiritual Affairs of the Church which Laws being made amongst us are not by any of us so taken or interpreted as if they did receive their force from power which the Prince doth communicate unto the Parliament or unto any other Court under him but from Power which the whole Body of the Realm being naturally possest with hath by free and deliberate assent derived unto him that ruleth over them so farr forth as hath been declared so that our Laws made concerning Religion do take originally their essence from the power of the whole Realm and Church of England than which nothing can be more consonant unto the law of Nature and the will of our Lord Jesus Christ. To let these go and return to our own Men Ecclesiastical Governours they say may not meddle with making of Civil Laws and of Laws for the Common-wealth nor the Civil Magistrate high or low with making of Orders for the Church It seemeth unto me very strange that these men which are in no cause more vehement and fierce than where they plead that Ecclesiastical Persons may not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be Lords should hold that the power of making Ecclesiastical Laws which thing of all other is most proper unto Dominion belongeth to none but Ecclesiastical Persons onely Their oversight groweth herein for want of exact observation what it is to make a Law Tully speaking of the Law of Nature saith That thereof God himself was Inventor Disceptator Lator the Deviser the Discusser and Deliverer wherein he plainly alludeth unto the chiefest parts which then did appertain to his Publick action For when Laws were made the first thing was to have them devised thesecond to sift them with as much exactness of Judgement as any way might be used the next by solemn voyce of Soveraign Authority to pass them and give them the force of Laws It cannot in any reason seem otherwise than most fit that unto Ecclesiastical Persons the care of devising Ecclesiastical Laws be committed even as the care of Civil unto them which are in those Affairs most skilful This taketh not away from Ecclesiastical Persons all right of giving voyce with others when Civil Laws are proposed for Regiment of the Common-wealth whereof themselves though now the World would have them annihilated are notwithstanding as yet a part much less doth it cut off that part of the power of Princes whereby as they claim so we know no reasonable cause wherefore we may not grant them without offence to Almighty God so much Authority in making all manner of Laws within their own Dominions that neither Civil nor Ecclesiastical do pass without their Royal assent In devising and discussing of Laws Wisdom especially is required but that which establisheth them and maketh them is Power even Power of Dominion the Chiefty whereof amongst us resteth in the Person of the King Is there any Law of Christs which forbiddeth Kings and Rulers of the Earth to have such Soveraign and Supream Power in the making of Laws either Civil or Ecclesiastical If there be our controversie hathan end Christ in his Church hath not appointed any such Law concerning Temporal Power as God did of old unto the Common-wealth of Israel but leaving that to be at the World 's free choice his chiefest care is that the Spiritual Law of the Gospel might be published farr and wide They that received the Law of Christ were for a long time People scattered in sundry Kingdoms Christianity not exempting them from the Laws which they had been subject unto saving only in such cases as those Laws did injoyn that which the Religion of Christ did forbid Hereupon grew their manifold Persecutions throughout all places where they lived as oft as it thus came to pass there was no possibility that the Emperours and Kings under whom they lived should meddle any whit at all with making Laws for the Church From Christ therefore having received Power who doubteth but as they did so they might binde them to such Orders as seemed fittest for the maintenance of their Religion without the leave of high or low in the Common-wealth for as much as in Religion it was divided utterly from them and they from it But when the mightiest began to like of the Christian Faith by their means whole Free-States and Kingdoms became obedient unto Christ. Now the question is Whether Kings by embracing Christianity do thereby receive any such Law as taketh from them the weightiest part of that Soveraignty which they had even when they were Heathens Whether being Infidels they might do more in causes of Religion than now they can by the Laws of God being true Believers For whereas in Regal States the King or Supream Head of the Common-wealth had before Christianity a supream stroak in making of Laws for Religion he must by embracing Christian Religion utterly deprive himself thereof and in such causes become subject unto his Subjects having even within his own Dominions them whose commandment he must obey unlesse his Power be placed in the Head of some foreign Spiritual Potentate so that either a foreign or domestical Commander upon Earth he must admit more now than before he had and that in the chiefest things whereupon Common-wealths do stand But apparent it is unto all men which are not Strangers unto the Doctrine of Jesus Christ that no State of the World receiving Christianity is by any Law therein contained bound to resign the Power which they lawfully held before but over what Persons and in what causes soever the same hath been in force it may so remain and continue still That which as Kings they might do in matters of Religion and did in matter of false Religion being Idolatrous and Superstitious Kings the same they are now even in every respect fully authorized to do in all affairs pertinent to the state of true Christian Religion And concerning the Supream Power of making Laws for all Persons in all causes to be guided by it is not to be let passe that the head Enemies of this Headship are constrained to acknowledge the King endued even with this very Power so that he may and ought to exercise the same taking order for the Church and her affairs of what nature of kinde soever in case of necessity as when there is no lawful Ministry which they interpret then to be and this surely is a point very remarkable wheresoever the Ministry is wicked A wicked Ministry is no lawful Ministry and in such sort no lawful Ministry that what doth belong unto them as Ministers by right of their calling the same to be annihilated in
would prove at least tedious and therefore I shall impose upon my Reason no more then two which shall immediately follow and by which he may judge of the rest Mr. Travers excepted against Mr. Hooker for that in one of his Sermons be declared That the assurance of what we believe by the Word of God is not to us so certain as that which we perceive by Sense And Mr. Hooker confesseth he said so and endeavors to justifie it by the Reasons following First I taught That the things which God promises in his Word are surer to us then what we touch handle or see But are we so sure and certain of them If we be Why doth God so often prove his Promises to us as he doth by Arguments drawn from our sensible experience For we must be surer of the proof then of the things proved otherwise it is no proof For example How is it that many men looking on the Moon at the sametime every one knoweth it to be the Moon as certainly as the other doth But many believing one and the same Promise have not all one and the same fulness of Perswassion For how falleth it out that men being assured of any thing by Sense can be no surer of it then they are when at the strongest in Faith that liveth upon the Earth hath always need to labor strive and pray that his assurance concerning Heavenly and Spiritual things may grow increase and be augmented The Sermon that gave him the cause of this his Justification makes the case more plain by declaring That there is besides this certainly of Evidence a certainty of Adherence In which having most excellently demonstrated what the Certainty of Adherence is he makes this comfortable use of it Comfortable he says as to weak Believers who suppose themselves to be faithless not to believe when notwithstanding they have their Adherence the Holy Spirit hath his private operations and worketh secretly in them and effectually too though they want the inward Testimony of it Tell this to a Man that hath a minde too much dejected by a sad sense of his sin to one that by a too severe judging of himself concludes that he wants Faith because he wants the comfortable Assurance of it and his Answer will be Do not perswade me against my knowledge against what I finde and feel in my self I do not I know I do not believe Mr. Hookers own words follow Well then to favor such men a little in their weakness let that be granted which they do imagine be it that they adhere not to Gods promises but are faithless and without belief But are they not grieved for their unbelief They confess they are Do they not wish it might and also strive that it may be otherways We know they do Whence cometh this but from a secret love and liking that they have of those things believed For no man can love those things which in his own opinion are not And if they think those things to be which they shew they love when they desire to believe them then must it be that by desiring to believe they prove themselves true Believers For without Faith no man thinketh that things believed are Which Argument all the Subtilties of Infernal Powers will never be able to dissolve This is an Abridgment of part of the Reasons he gives for his Justification of this his opinion for which he was excepted against by Mr. Travers Mr. Hooker was also accused by Mr. Travers for that he in one of his Sermons had declared That he doubted not but that God was merciful to save many of our Forefathers living heretofore in Popish Superstition for as much as they sinned ignorantly And Mr. Hooker in his Answer professeth it to be his judgment and declares his Reasons for this charitable opinion to be as followeth But first he states the Question about Iustification and Works and how the Foundation of Faith is overthrown and then he proceeds to discover that way which Natural Men and some others have mistaken to be the way by which they hope to attain true and everlasting Happiness And having discovered the mistaken he proceeds to direct to that true way by which and no other Everlasting Life and Blessedness is attainable And these two ways he demonstrates thus they be his own words that follow That the way of Nature This the way of Grace the end of that way Salvation merited presupposing the Righteousness of Mens works Their Righteousness a natural ability to do them that ability the goodness of God which created them in such perfection But the end of this way Salvation bestowed upon men as a gift Presupposing not their Righteousness but the forgiveness of their Unrighteousness Iustification their Iustification not their natural ability to do good but their hearty sorrow for not doing and unfeigned belief in him for whose sake not doers are accepted which is their Vocation their Vocation the Election of God taking them out of the number of lost Children their Election a Mediator in whom to be elect This Mediation inexplicable Mercy this Mercy supposing their misery for whom be vouchsafed to die and make himself a Mediator And he also declareth There is no meritorious cause for our Iustification but Christ no effectual but his Mercy and says also We deny the Grace of our Lord Iesus Christ we abuse disannul and annihilate the benefit of his Passion if by a proud imagination we believe we can merit everlasting life or can be worthy of it This Belief he declareth is to destroy the very Essence of our Justification and he makes all opinions that border upon this to be very dangerous Tet nevertheless and for this he was accused considering how many vertuous and just Men how many Saints and Martyrs have had their dangerous opinions amongst which this was one That they hoped to make God some part of amends by voluntary punishments which they laid upon themselves Because by this or the like erroneous opinions which do by consequene overthrow the Merits of Christ shall Man be so bold as to write on their Graves Such men are damned there is for them no Salvation St. Austin says Errare possum Hareticus esse nolo And except we put a difference betwixt them that erre ignorantly and them that obstinately persist in it how is it possible that any Man should hope to be saved Give me a Pope or a Cardinal whom great afflictions have made to know himself whose heart God hath touched with true sorrow for all his sins and filled with a love of Christ and his Gospel whose Eyes are willingly open to see the Truth and his Mouth ready to renounce all Error this one opinion of Merit excepted which he thinketh God will require at his hands and because he wanteth trembleth and is discouraged and yet can say Lord cleanse me from all my secret sins Shall I think because of this or a like Error such men touch not so
higher Callings are ripped up with marvellous exceeding severity and sharpness of Reproof which being oftentimes dont begetteth a great good opinion of Integrity zeal and Holiness to such constant reprovers of sin as by likelihood would never be so much offended at that which is evil unless themselves were singularly good The next thing hereunto is to impute all Faults and Corruptions wherewith the World aboundeth unto the kinde of Ecclesiastical Government established Wherein as before by reproving Faults they purchased unto themselves with the multitude a name to be vertuous so by finding out this kinde of Cause they obtain to be judged wise above others whereas in truth unto the Form even of Iewish Government which the Lord himself they all confess did establish with like shew of Reason they might impute those Faults which the Prophets condemn in the Governors of that Commonwealth as to the English kinde of Regiment Ecclesiastical whereof also God himself though in another sort is Author the stains and blemishes found in our State which springing from the Root of Humane Frailty and Corruption not onely are but have been always more or less yea and for any thing we know to the contrary will be till the Worlds end complained of what Form of Government soever take place Having gotten thus much sway in the hearts of men a third step is to propose their own Form of Church Government as the onely soveraign remedy of all Evils and to adorn it with all the glorious Titles that may be And the Nature as of men that have sick bodies so likewise of the people in the crazedness of their Mindes possest with dislike and discontentment at things present is to imagine that any thing the vertue whereof they hear commended would help them but that most which they least have tryed The fourth degree of Inducements is by fashioning the very notions and conceits of mens mindes in such sort that when they read the Scripture they may think that every thing soundeth towards the advancement of that Discipline and to the utter disgrace of the contrary Pythagoras by bringing up his Schollars in speculative knowledge of numbers made their conceipts therein so strong that when they came to the contemplation of things natural they imagined that in every particular thing they even beheld as it were with their eyes how the Elements of Number gave Essence and Being to the Works of Nature A thing in reason impossible which notwithstanding through their misfashioned preconceit appeared unto them no less certain then if Nature had written it in the very Foreheads of all the Creatures of God When they of the Family of Love have it once in their heads that Christ doth not signifie any one Person but a Quality whereof many are partakers that to be raised is nothing else but to be regenerated or endued with the said quality and that when Separation of them which have if from them which have it not is here made this is judgment How plainly do they imagine that the Scripture every where speaketh in the favor of that Sect And assuredly the very cause which maketh the simple and ignorant to think they even see how the Word of God runneth currantly on your side is That their mindes are forestalled and their conceits perverted beforehand by being taught that an Elder doth signifie a Lay-man admitted onely to the Office of Rule or Government in the Church a Doctor one which may onely Teach and neither Preach nor Administer the Sacraments a Deacon one which hath charge of the Alms-box and of nothing else That the Scepter the Rod the Throne and Kingdom of Christ art a Form of Regiment onely by Pastors Elders Doctors and Deacons that by Mystical Resemblance Mount Sion and Jerusalem are the Churches which admit Samaria and Babylon the Churches which oppugne the said Form of Regiment And in like sort they are taught to apply all things spoken of repairing the Walls and decayed parts of the City and Temple of God by Esdras Nehemias and the rest As if purposely the Holy Ghost had therein meant to fore-signifie what the Authors of Admonitions to the Parliament of Supplications to the Council of Petitions to Her Majesty and of such other-like Writs should either do or suffer in behalf of this their Cause From hence they proceed to an higher point which is the perswading of men credulous and over-capable of such pleasing Errors That it is the special illumination of the Holy Ghost whereby they discern those things in the Word which others reading yet discern them not Dearly Beloved saith St. John Give not credit unto every spirit There are but two ways whereby the Spirit leadeth men into all Truth the one extraordinary the other common the one belonging but unto some few the other extending it self unto all that are of God the one that which we call by a special divine excellency Revelation the other Reason If the Spirit by such Revelation have discovered unto them the secrets of that Discipline out of Scripture they must profess themselves to be all even Men Women and Children Prophets Or if Reason be the hand which the Spirit hath led them by for as much as Perswasions grounded upon Reason are either weaker or stronger according to the force of those Reasons whereupon the same are grounded they must every of them from the greatest to the least be able for every several Article to shew some special Reason as strong as their Perswasion therein is earnest Otherwise how can it be but that some other sinews there are from which that everplus of strength in Perswasion doth arise Most sure it is That when Mens Affections do frame their Opinions they are in defence of Error more earnest a great deal then for the most part sound Believers in the maintenance of Truth apprehended according to the nature of that evidence which Scripture yieldeth Which being in some things plain as in the Principles of Christian Doctrine in some things as in these Matters of Discipline more dark and doubtful frameth correspondently that inward assent which Gods most gracious Spirit worketh by it as by his Effectual Instrument It is not therefore the servent earnestness of their perswasion but the soundness of those Reasons whereupon the same is built which must declare their Opinions in these things to have been wrought by the Holy Ghost and not by the Fraud of that evil spirit which is even in his illusions strong After that the fancy of the common sort hath once thorowly apprehended the Spirit to be Author of their Perswasions concerning Discipline then is instilled into their hearts that the same Spirit leading men into this opinion doth thereby seal them to be Gods Children and that as the state of the times now standeth the most special taken to know them that are Gods own from others is an earnest affection that way This hath bred high terms of Separation between such and the rest of the
Here they drew in a Sea of Matter by amplifying all things unto their own Company which are any where spoken concerning Divine Favors and Benefits bestowed upon the Old Commonwealth of Israel concluding that as Israel was delivered out of Egypt so they spiritually out of the Egypt of this Worlds servile thraldom unto Sin and Superstition As Israel was to root out the Idolatrous Nations and to plant instead of them a people which feared God so the same Lords good will and pleasure was now that these new Israelites should under the conduct of other Joshua's Sampsons and Gideons perform a work no less miraculous in casting out violently the wicked from the Earth and establishing the Kingdom of Christ with perfect liberty And therefore as the cause why the Children of Israel took unto one Man many Wives might be lest the casualties of War should any way hinder the promise of God concerning their multitude from taking effect in them so it was not unlike that for the necessary propagation of Christs Kingdom under the Gospel the Lord was content to allow as much Now whatsoever they did in such sort collect out of Scripture when they came to justifie or perswade it unto others all was the Heavenly Fathers appointment his commandment his will and charge Which thing is the very point in regard whereof I have gathered his Declaration For my purpose herein is to shew that when the mindes of men are once erroneously perswaded that it is the Will of God to have those things done which they fancy then Opinions are as Thorns in their sides never suffering them to take rest till they have brought their speculations into practise The lets and impediments of which practice their restless desire and study to remove leadeth them every day forth by the hand into other more dangerous opinions sometimes quite and clean contrary to their first pretended meanings So as what will grow out of such Errors as go masked under the clâ—ak of Divine Authority impossible it is that ever the wit of man should imagine till time have brought forth the fruits of them For which cause it behoveth Wisdom to fear the sequels thereof even beyond all apparent cause of fear These men in whose mouths at the first sounded nothing but onely Mortification of the Flesh were come at the lenght to think they might lawfully have their six or seven Wives apiece They which at the first thought Iudgment and Iustice it self to be merciless cruelty accounted at the length their own hands sanctified with being imbrued in Christian blood They who at the first were wont to beat down all Dominion and to urge against poor Constables Kings of Nations had at the length both Consuls and Kings of their own erection amongst themselves Finally they which could not brook at the first that any man should seek no not by Law the recovery of Goods injuriously taken or withheld from him were grown at the last to think they could not offer unto God more acceptable Sacrifice then by turning their Adversaries clean out of house and home and by enriching themselves with all kinde of spoil and pillage Which thing being laid to their charge they had in a readiness their answer That now the time was come when according to our Saviours promise The meek ones must inherit the Earth and that their title hereunto was the same which the righteous Israelites had unto the goods of the wicked Egyptians Wherefore sith the World hath had in these men so fresh experience how dangerous such active Errors are it must not offend you though touching the sequel of your present misperswasions much more be doubted then your own intents and purposes do haply aim at And yet your words already are somewhat when ye affirm that your Pastors Doctors Elders and Deacons ought to be in this Church of England Whether Her Majesty and our State will or no When for the animating of your Confederates ye publish the Musters which ye have made of your own Bands and proclaim them to amount to I know not how many thousands when ye threaten that sith neither your Suits to the Parliament nor Supplications to our Convocation-House neither your Defences by Writing nor Challenges of Disputation in behalf of that Cause are able to prevail we must blame our selves if to bring in Discipline some such means hereafter be used as shall cause all our hearts to ake That things doubtful are to be construed in the better part is a Principle not safe to be followed in Matters concerning the Publick State of a Commonweal But howsoever these and the like Speeches be accounted as Arrows idlely shot at random without either eye had to any Mark or regard to their lighting place hath not your longing desire for the practice of your Discipline brought the Matter already unto this demurrer amongst you whether the people and their Godly Pastors that way affected ought not to make Separation from the rest and to begin the Exercise of Discipline without the License of Civil Powers which License they have sought for and are not heard Upon which question as ye have now divided your selves the warier sort of you taking the one part and the forwarder in zeal the other so in case these earnest Ones should prevail what other sequel can any wise man imagine but this that having first resolved that Attempts for Discipline without Superiors are lawful it will follow in the next place to be disputed What may be attempted against Superiors which will not have the Scepter of that Discipline to rule over them Yea even by you which have staid your selves from running head-long with the other sort somewhat notwithstanding there hath been done without the leave or liking of your lawful Superiors for the exercise of a part of your Discipline amongst the Clergy thereunto addicted And lest Examination of Principal Parties therein should bring those things to light which might hinder and let your proceedings behold for a Bar against that impediment one Opinion ye have newly added unto the rest even upon this occasion an Opinion to exempt you from taking Oaths which may turn to the molestation of your Brethren in that cause The next Neighbor Opinions whereunto when occasion requireth may follow for Dispensation with Oaths already taken if they afterwards be found to import a necessity of detecting ought which may bring such good men into trouble or damage whatsoever the cause be O merciful God what mans wit is there able to sound the depth of those dangerous and fearful evils whereinto our weak and impotent nature is inclineable to sink it self rather theâ— to shew an acknowledgment of Error in that which once we have unadvisedly taken upon us to defend against the stream as it were of a contrary publick resolution Wherefore if we any thing respect their Error who being perswaded even as ye are have gone further upon that perswasion then ye allow if we
which God is giveth Perfection to that he doth Those Natural Necessary and Internal Operations of God the Generation of the Son the Proceeding of the Spirit are without the compass of my present intent which is to touch onely such Operations as have their Beginning and Being by a voluntary purpose wherewith God hath eternally decreed when and how they should be which Eternal Decree is that we term an Eternal Law Dangerous it were for the feeble Brain of Man to wade far into the doings of the most High whom although to know be Life and Joy to make mention of his Name yet our soundest knowledge is to know that we know him not as indeed he is neither can know him and our safest eloquence concerning him is our silence when we confess without confession that his glory is inexplicable his greatness above our capacity and reach He is above and we upon Earth therefore it behoveth our words to be wary and few Our God is One or rather very Oneness and meer Unity having nothing but it Self in it Self and not consisting as all things do besides God of many things In which Essential Unity of God a Trinity Personal nevertheless subsisteth after a manner far exceeding the possibility of mans conceit The works which outwardly are of God they are in such sort of him being One that each Person hath in them somewhat peculiar and proper For being Three and they all subsisting in the Essence of one Deity from the Father by the Son through the Spirit all things are That which the Son doth hear of the Father and which the Spirit doth receive of the Father and the Son the same we have at the hands of the Spirit as being the last and therefore the nearest unto us in order although in power the same with one Second and the First The wise and learned among the very Heathens themselves have all acknowledged some first cause whereupon originally the Being of all things dependeth Neither have they otherwise spoken of that Cause then as an Agent which knowing what and why it worketh observeth in working a most exact Order or Law Thus much is signified by that which Homer mentioneth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus much acknowledged by Mercurius Trismegistus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus much confest by Anaxagoras and Plato terming the Maker of the World an Intellectual Worker Finally the Stoiks although imagining the first cause of all things to be Fire held nevertheless that the same Fire having Art did O 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They all confess therefore in the working of that first cause that Counsel is used Reason followed a Way observed that is to say Constant Order and Law is kept whereof it self must needs be Author unto it self Otherwise it should have some worthier and higher to direct it and so could not it self be the first being the first it can have no other then it self to be the Author of that Law which it willingly worketh by God therefore is a Law both to himself and to all other things besides To himself he is a Law in all those things whereof our Saviour speaks saying My Father worketh as yet so I. God worketh nothing without cause All those things which are done by him have some end for which they are done and the end for which they are done is a Reason of his Will to do them His Will had not inclined to create Woman but that he saw it could not be well if she were not created Non est bonum It is not good man should be alone therefore let us make an helper for him That and nothing else is done by God which to leave undone were not so good If therefore it be demanded why God having power and ability infinite the effects notwithstanding of that power are all so limited as we see they are The reason hereof is the End which he hath proposed and the Law whereby his Wisdom hath stinted the effects of his power in such sort that it doth not work infinitely but correspondently unto that end for which it worketh even all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in most decent and comely sort all things in measure number and weight The General End of Gods External Working is the exercise of his most glorious and most abundant vertue Which abundance doth shew it self in variety and for that cause this variety is oftentimes in Scripture exprest by the name of riches The Lord hath made all things for his own sake Not that any thing is made to be beneficial unto him but all things for him to shew beneficence and grace in them The particular drift of every Act proceeding externally from God we are not able to discern and therefore cannot always give the proper and certain reason of his Works Howbeit undoubtedly a proper and certain Reason there is of every Finite Work of God in as much as there is a Law imposed upon it which if there were not it should be Infinite even as the Worker himself is They err therefore who think that of the Will of God to do this or that there is no Reason besides his Will Many times no Reason known to us but that there is no reason thereof I judge it most unreasonable to imagine in as much as he worketh all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not onely according to his own Will but the counsel of his own Will And whatsoever is done with counsel or wise resolution hath of necessity some reason why it should be done albeit that reason be to us in some things so secret that it forceth the wit of man to stand as the Blessed Apostle himself doth amazed thereat O the depth of the riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God How unsearchable are his Iudgments c. That Law Eternal which God himself hath made to himself and thereby worketh all things whereof he is the Cause and Author that Law in the admirable frame whereof shineth with most perfect Beauey the Countenance of that Wisdom which hath testified concerning her self The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way even before his works of old I was set up That Law which hath been the Pattern to make and is the Card to guide the World by that Law which hath been of God and with God everlastingly that Law the Author and Observer whereof is one onely God to be blessed for ever how should either Men or Angels be able perfectly to behold The Book of this Law we are neither able nor worthy to open and look into That little thereof which we darkly apprehend we admire the rest with religious ignorance we humbly and meekly adore Seeing therefore that according to this Law he worketh Of whom through whom and for whom are all things although there seem unto us confusion and disorder in the affairs of this present world◠Tamen quoniam bonus mundum rector temperat recte fieri
amongst Men are never framed as they should be unless presuming the Will of Man to be inwardly obstinate rebellious and averse from all obedience unto the Sacred Laws of his Nature In a word unless presuming Man to be in regard of his depraved minde little better then a wilde beast they do accordingly provide notwithstanding so to frame his outward actions that they be no hindrance unto the common good for which Societies are instituted unless they do this they are not perfect It resteth therefore that we consider how Nature findeth out such Laws of Government as serve to direct even Nature depraved to a right end All men desire to lead in this world an happy life The life is led most happily wherein all Vertue is exercised without impediment or let The Apostle in exhorting men to contentment although they have in this world no more then very bare Food and Rayment giveth us thereby to understand that those are even the lowest of things necessary that if we should be stripped of all those things without which we might possibly be yet these must be left that destitution in these is such an impediment as till it be removed suffereth not the minde of Man to admit any other care For this cause first God assigned Adam maintenance of Life and then appointed him a Law to observe For this cause after Men began to grow to a number the first thing we read they gave themselves unto was the Tilling of the Earth and the Feeding of Cattle Having by this mean whereon to live the principal actions of their life afterward are noted by the Exercise of their Religion True it is that the Kingdom of God must be the first thing in our purposes and desires But in as much as a righteous life presupposeth life in as much as to live vertuously it is impossible except we live Therefore the first impediment which naturally we endeavor to remove is penury and want of things without which we cannot live Unto life many implements are necessary mo if we seek as all men naturally do such a life as hath in it joy comfort delight and pleasure To this end we see how quickly sundry Arts Mechanical were found out in the very prime of the World As things of greatest necessity are always first provided for so things of greatest dignity are most accounted of by all such as judge rightly Although therefore Riches be a thing which every Man wisheth yet no Man of judgment can esteem it better to be Rich then Wise Vertuous and Religious If we be both or either of these it is not because we are so born For into the World we come as empty of the one as of the other as naked in Minde as we are in Body Both which necessities of Man had at the first no other helps and supplies then onely domestical such as that which the Prophet implieth saying Can a Mother forget her childe Such as that which the Apostle mentioneth saying He that careth not for his own is worse then an Infidel Such as that concerning Abraham Abraham will command his sons and his houshold after him that they keep the way of the Lord. But neither that which we learn of our selves nor that which others teach us can prevail where wickedness and malice have taken deep root If therefore when there was but as yet one onely family in the World no means of instruction Humane or Divine could prevent effusion of blood How could it be chosen but that when Families were multiplied and encreased upon Earth after Separation each providing for it self Envy Strife Contention and Violence must grow amongst them For hath not Nature furnished Man with Wit and Valor and as it were with Armor which may be used as well unto extream evil as good Yea were they not used by the rest of the World unto evil Unto the contrary onely by Seth Enoch and those few the rest in that Line We all make complaint of the iniquity of our times not unjustly for the days are evil But compare them with those times wherein there were no civil Societies with those times therein there was as yet no manner of Publick Regiment established with those times wherein there were not above eight righteous persons living upon the face of the Earth And we have surely good cause to think that God hath blessed us exceedingly and hath made us behold most happy days To take away all such mutual grievances injuries and wrongs there was no way but onely by growing unto Composition and Agreement amongst themselves by ordaining some kinde of Government publick and by yielding themselves subject thereunto that unto whom they granted authority to rule and govern by them the peace tranquillity and happy estate of the rest might be procured Men always knew that when Force and Injury was offered they might be Defenders of themselves they knew that howsoever men may seek their own commodity yet if this were done with injury unto others it was not to be suffered but by all men and by all good means to be withstood Finally they knew that no man might in Reason take upon him to determine his own right and according to his own determination proceed in maintenance thereof in as much as every man is towards himself and them whom he greatly affecteth partial And therefore that strifes and troubles would be endless except they gave their common consent all to be ordered by some whom they should agree upon Without which consent there were no reason that one Man should take upon him to be Lord or Judge over another because although there be according to the opinion of some very great and judicious Men a kinde of Natural Right in the Noble Wise and Vertuous to govern them which are of servile disposition nevertheless for manifestation of this their right and mens more peaceable contentment on both sides the assent of them whom are to be governed seemeth necessary To Fathers within their Private Families Nature hath given a supream power for which cause we see throughout the World even from the first Foundation thereof all men have ever been taken as Lords and Lawful Kings in their own houses Howbeit over a whole grand multitude having no such dependency upon any one and consisting of so many Families as every Politick Society in the World doth impossible it is that any should have compleat lawful power but by consent of men or immediate appointment of God because not having the Natural Superiority of Fathers their power must needs be either usurped and then unlawful or if lawful then either granted or consented unto by them over whom they exercise the same or else given extraordinarily from God unto whom all the World is subject It is no improbable opinion therefore which the Arch-Philosopher was of That as the chiefest person in every houshold was always as it were a King so when numbers of
to the private intents of men over-potent in the Commonwealth So the grievous abuse which hath been of Councils should rather cause men to study how so gracious a thing may again be reduced to that first Perfection then in regard of stains and blemishes sithence growing be held for ever in extream disgrace To speak of this matter as the cause requireth would require very long discourse All I will presently say is this Whether it be for the finding out of any thing whereunto Divine Law bindeth us but yet in such sort that Men are not thereof on all sides resolved or for the setting down of some Uniform Judgment to stand touching such things as being neither way matters of necessity are notwithstanding offensive and scandalous when there is open opposition about them Be it for the ending of strifes touching matters of Christian belief wherein the one part may seem to have probable cause of dissenting from the other or be it concerning matters of Policy Order and Regiment in the Church I nothing doubt but that Christian men should much better frame themselves to those Heavenly Precepts which our Lord and Saviour with so great instancy gave as concerning Peace and Unity if we did all concur in desire to have the use of Ancient Councils again renewed rather then these proceedings continued which either make all Contentions endless or bring them to one onely Determination and that of all other the worst which is by Sword It followeth therefore that a new Foundation being laid we now adjoyn hereunto that which cometh in the next place to be spoken of namely wherefore God hath himself by Scripture made known such Laws as serve for direction of Men. 11. All things God onely accepted besides the Nature which they have in themselves receive externally some Perfection from other things as hath been shewed In so much as there is in the whole World no one thing great or small but either in respect of knowledge or of use it may unto our Perfection add somewhat And whatsoever such Perfection there is which our Nature may acquire the same we properly term our good our Soveraign Good or Blessedness that wherein the highest degree of all our Perfection consisteth that which being once attained unto there can rest nothing further to be desired and therefore with it our souls are fully content and satisfied in that they have they rejoyce and thirst for no more Wherefore of good things desired some are such that for themselves we cover them not but onely because they serve as Instruments unto that for which we are to seek Of this sort are Riches Another kinde there is which although we desire for it self as Health and Vertue and Knowledge nevertheless they are not the last mark whereat we aim but have their further end whereunto they are referred So as in them we are not satisfied as having attained the utmost we may but our desires do still proceed These things are linked and as it were chained one to another We labor to eat and we eat to live and we live to do good and the good which we do is as seed sown with reference unto a future Harvest But we must come at the length to some pause For if every thing were to be desired for some other without any stint there could be no certain end proposed unto our actions we should go on we know not whither yea whatsoever we do were in vain or rather nothing at all were possible to be done For as to take away the first efficient of our Being were to annihilate utterly our persons so we cannot remove the last final cause of our working but we shall cause whatsoever we work to cease Therefore something there must be desired for it self simply and for no other That is simply for it self desirable unto the nature whereof it is opposite and repugnant to be desired with relation unto any other The Ox and the Ass desire their food neither propose they unto themselves any end wherefore so that of them this is desired for it self But why By reason of their imperfection which cannot otherwise desire it whereas that which is desired simply for it self the excellency thereof is such as permitteth it not in any sort to be referred unto a further end Now that which Man doth desire with reference to a further end the same he desireth in such measure as is unto that end convenient but what he covereth as good in it self towards that his desire is ever infinite So that unless the last good of all which is desired altogether for it self be also infinite we do evil in making it our end even as they who placed their felicity in wealth or honor or pleasure or any thing here attained because in desiring any thing as our final perfection which is not so we do amiss Nothing may be infinitely desired but that good which indeed is infinite For the better the more desireable that therefore most desireable wherein there is infinity of goodness So that if any thing desireable may be infinite that must needs be the highest of all things that are desired No good is infinite but onely God therefore he is our felicity and bliss moreover desire tendeth unto union with that it desireth If then in him we be blessed it is by force of participation and conjunction with him Again it is not the possession of any good thing can make them happy which have it unless they enjoy the things wherewith they are possessed Then are we happy therefore when fully we enjoy God as an object wherein the Powers of our Souls are satisfied even with everlasting delight So that although we be men yet by being unto God united we live as it were the Life of God Happiness therefore is that estate whereby we attain so far as possibly may be attained the full possession of that which simply for it self is to be desired and containeth in it after an eminent sort the contentation of our desires the highest degree of all our Perfection Of such Perfection capable we are not in this life For while we are in the World we are subject unto sundry imperfections grief of body defects of minde yea the best things we do are painful and the exercise of them grievous being continued without intermission so as in those very actions whereby we are especial'y perfected in this life we are not able to persist forced we are with very weariness and that often to interrupt them Which rediousness cannot fall into those operations that are in the state of bliss when our union with God is compleat Compleat union with him must be according unto every power and faculty of our mindes apt to receive so glorious an object Capable we are of God both by Understanding and Will By Understanding as he is that Soveraign Truth which comprehends the Rich Treasures of all Wisdom By Will as he is that Sea of Goodness
acknowledge that as well for particular application to special occasions as also in other manifold respects infinite Treasures of Wisdom are over and besides abundantly to be found in the holy Scripture yea that scarcely there is any noble part of knowledge worthy the minde of man but from thence it may have some direction and light yea that although there be no necessity it should of purpose prescribe any one particular form of Church-Government yet touching the manner of governing in general the Precepts that Scripture setteth down are not few and the examples many which it proposeth for all Church-Governors even in particularities to follow yea that those things finally which are of principal weight in the very particular Form of Church-Polity although not that Form which they imagine but that which we against them uphold are in the self-same Scriptures contained If all this be willingly granted by us which are accused to pin the Word of God in so narrow room as that it should be able to direct us but in principal points of our Religion or as though the substance of Religion or some rude and unfashioned matter of building the Church were uttered in them and those things left out that should pertain to the form and fashion of it Let the cause of the Accused be referred to the Accusers own conscience and let that judge whether this accusation be deserved where it hath been laid 5. But so easie it is for every man living to err and so hard to wrest from any mans mouth the plain acknowledgment of Error that what hath been once inconsiderately defended the same is commonly persisted in as long as wit by whetting it self is able to finde out any shift be it never so sleight whereby to escape out of the hands of present contradiction So that it cometh herein to pass with men unadvisedly faln into Error as with them whose state hath no ground to uphold it but onely the help which by subtil conveyance they draw out of casual events arising from day to day till at length they be clean spent They which first gave out That nothing ought to be established in the Church which is not commanded by the Word of God thought this principle plainly warranted by the manifest words of the Law Ye shall put nothing unto the Word which I command you neither shall ye take ought therefrom that ye may keep the Commandments of the Lord your God which I command you Wherefore having an eye to a number of Rites and Orders in the Church of England as marrying with a Ring Crossing in the one Sacrament Kneeling at the other observing of Festival days more then onely that which is called the Lords day enjoyning Abstinence at certain times from some kindes of Meat Churching of Women after Childe-birth Degrees taken by Divines in Universities sundry Church Offices Dignities and Callings for which they found no Commandment in the holy Scripture they thought by the one onely stroke of that Axiom to have cut them off But that which they took for an Oracle being sifted was repeal'd True it is concerning the Word of God whether it be by misconstruction of the sense or by falsification of the words wittingly to endeavor that any thing may seem Divine which is not or any thing not seem which is were plainly to abuse and even to falsifie Divine Evidence which injury offered but unto men is most worthily counted heinous Which point I wish they did well observe with whom nothing is more familiar then to plead in these causes The Law of God the Word of the Lord Who notwithstanding when they come to alledge what Word and what Law they mean their common ordinary practice is to quote by-speeches in some Historical Narration or other and to urge them as if they were written in most exact form of Law What is to add to the Law of God if this be not When that which the Word of God doth but deliver Historically we construe without any warrant as if it were legally meant and so urge it further then we can prove that it was intended do we not add to the Laws of God and make them in number seem more then they are It standeth us upon to be careful in this case For the sentence of God is heavy against them that wittingly shall presume thus to use the Scripture 6. But let that which they do hereby intend be granted them let it once stand as consonant to Reason That because we are forbidden to add to the Law of God any thing or to take ought from it therefore we may not for matters of the Church make any Law more then is already set down in Scripture Who seeth not what sentence it shall enforce us to give against all Churches in the World in as much as there is not one but hath had many things established in it which though the Scripture did never command yet for us to condemn were rashness Let the Church of God even in the time of our Saviour Christ serve for example unto all the rest In their Domestical celebration of the Passover which Supper they divided as it were into two courses what Scripture did give commandment that between the first and the second he that was chief should put off the residue of his Garments and keeping on his Feast-robe onely wash the feet of them that were with him What Scripture did command them never to lift up their hands unwashe in Prayer unto God which custom Aristaus be the credit of the Author more or less sheweth wherefore they did so religiously observe What Scripture did command the Jews every Festival day to fast till the sixth hour The custom both mentioned by Iosephus in the History of his own life and by the words of Peter signified Tedious it were to rip up all such things as were in that Church established yea by Christ himself and by his Apostles observed though not commanded any where in Scripture 7. Well yet a gloss there is to colour that Paradox and notwithstanding all this still to make it appear in shew not to be altogether unreasonable And therefore till further reply come the cause is held by a feeble distinction that the Commandments of God being either general or special although there be no express word for every thing in specialty yet there are general Commandments for all things to the end that even such cases as are not in Scripture particularly mentioned might not be left to any to order at their pleasure onely with Caution That nothing be done against the Word of God and that for this cause the Apostle hath set down in Scripture four general Rules requiring such things alone to be received in the Church as do best and nearest agree with the same Rules that so all things in the Church may be appointed not onely not against but by and according to the Word of God The Rules are these Nothing scandalous
my Commandments always that it might go well with them and with their Children for ever Go say unto them Return you to your Tents But stand thou here with me and I will tell thee all the Commandments and the Ordinances and the Laws which thou shalt teach them that they may do them in the Land which I have given them to possess From this latter kinde the former are plainly distinguished in many things They were not both at one time delivered neither both after one sort nor to one end The former uttered by the voice of God himself in the hearing of Six hundred thousand men the former written with the Finger of God the former termed by the name of a Covenant the former given to be kept without either mention of time how long or of place where On the other side the latter given after and neither written by God himself nor given unto the whole multitude immediately from God but unto Moses and from him to them both by word and writing Finally The latter termed Ceremonies Judgments Ordinances but no where Covenants The observation of the latter restrained unto the Land where God would establish them to inhabite The Laws Positive are not framed without regard had to the place and persons for the which they are made If therefore Almighty God in framing their Laws had an eye unto the nature of that people and to the Countrey where they were to dwell if these peculiar and proper considerations were respected in the making of their Laws and must be also regarded in the Positive Laws of all other Nations besides then seeing that Nations are not all alike surely the giving of one kinde of Positive Laws unto one onely people without any liberty to alter them is but a slender proof that therefore one kinde should in like sort be given to serve everlastingly for all But that which most of all maketh for the clearing of this point is That the Jews who had Laws so particularly determining and so fully instructing them in all affairs what to do were notwithstanding continually inured with causes exorbitant and such as their Laws had not provided for And in this point much more is granted us then we ask namely that for one thing which we have left to the Order of the Church they had twenty which were undecided by the express Word of God and that as their Ceremonies and Sacraments were multiplied above ours even so grew the number of those cases which were not determined by any express word So that if we may devise one Law they by this reason might devise twenty and if their devising so many were not forbidden shall their example prove us forbidden to devise as much as one Law for the ordering of the Church We might not devise no not one if their example did prove that our Saviour hath utterly forbidden all alteration of his Laws in as much as there can be no Law devised but needs it must either take away from his or add thereunto more or less and so make some kinde of alteration But of this so large a grant we are content not to take advantage Men are oftentimes in a sudden passion more liberal then they would be if they had leisure to take advice And therefore so bountiful words of course and frank speeches we are contented to let pass without turning them to advantage with too much rigor It may be they had rather be listned unto when they commend the Kings of Israel which attempted nothing in the Government of the Church without the express Word of God and when they urge that God left nothing in his Word undescribed whether it concerned the Worship of God or outward Polity nothing unset down and therefore charged them strictly to keep themselves unto that without any alteration Howbeit seeing it cannot be denied but that many things there did belong unto the course of their Publick Affairs wherein they had no express word at all to shew precisely what they should do the difference between their condition and ours in these cases will bring some light unto the truth of this present Controversie Before the fact of the son of Shelomith there was no Law which did appoint any certain punishment for Blasphemers That wretched creature being therefore deprehended in that impiety was held in Ward till the minde of the Lord was known concerning his case The like practice is also mentioned upon occasion of a breach of the Sabbath day They finde a poor silly creature gathering sticks in the Wilderness they bring him unto Moses and Aaron and all the Congregation they lay him in hold because it was not declared what should be done with him till God had said unto Moses This man shall die the death The Law requireth to keep the Sabbath day but for the breach of the Sabbath what punishment should be inflicted it did not appoint Such occasions as these are rare And for such things as do fall scarce once in many ages of men it did suffice to take such order as was requisite when they fell But if the case were such as being not already determined by Law were notwithstanding likely oftentimes to come into question it gave occasion of adding Laws that were not before Thus it fell out in the case of those men polluted and of the daughters of Zelophehad whose causes Moses having brought before the Lord received Laws to serve for the like in time to come The Jews to this end had the Oracle of God they had the Prophets And by such means God himself instructed them from Heaven what to do in all things that did greatly concern their state and were not already set down in the Law Shall we then hereupon argue even against our own experience and knowledge Shall we seek to perswade men that of necessity it is with us as it was with them that because God is ours in all respects as much as theirs therefore either no such way of direction hath been at any time or if it hath been it doth still continue in the Church or if the same do not continue that yet it must be at the least supplied by some such mean as pleaseth us to account of equal force A more dutiful and religious way for us were to admire the Wisdom of God which shineth in the beautiful variety of all things But most in the manifold and yet harmonious dissimilitude of those ways whereby his Church upon Earth is guided from age to age throughout all Generations of Men. The Jews were necessarily to continue till the coming of Christ in the flesh and the gathering of Nations unto him So much the Promise made unto Abraham did import So much the Prophesie of Iacob at the hour of his death did foreshew Upon the safety therefore of their very outward state and condition for so long the after good of the whole World and the Salvation of all did depend Unto their so
the Church of Rome even at this very hour Is conformity with Rome in such things a blemish unto the Church of England and unto Churches abroad an ornament Let them if not for the reverence they owe unto this Church in the bowels whereof they have received I trust that precious and blessed vigor which shall quicken them â—â— eternal life yet at the least wise for the singular affection which they do bear towards others take heed how they strike lest they wound whom they would not For undoubtedly it cutteth deeper then they are aware of when they plead that even such Ceremonies of the Church of Rome as contain in them nothing which is not of it self agreeable to the Word of God ought nevertheless to be abolished and that neither the Word of God nor reason nor the examples of the eldest Churches do permit the Church of Rome to be therein followed Hereticks they are and they are our Neighbours By us and amongst us they lead their lives But what then therefore is no ceremony of theirs lawful for us to use We must yield and will that none are lawful if God himself be a Precedent against the use of any But how appeareth it that God is so Hereby they say it doth appear in that God severed his people from the Heathens but specially from the Egyptians and such Nations as were neerest Neighbours unto them by forbidding them to do those things which were in themselves very lawful to be done yea very profitable some and incommodious to be sorburn such things it pleased God to forbid them only because those Heathens did them with whom conformity in the same thing might have bred infection Thus in shaving cutting apparel-wearing yea in sundry kinds of meats also Swines-flesh Conies and such like they were forbidden to do so and so because the Gentiles did so And the end why God forbade them such things waâ— to sever them for fear of infection by a great and an high wall from other Nations as S. Paul teacheth The cause of more careful separation from the nearest Nations was the greatness of danger to be especially by them infected Now Papists are to us as those Nations were unto Israel Therefore if the wisdom of God be our Guide we cannot allow conformity with them no not in any such indifferent Ceremonies Our direct answer hereunto is that for any thing here alleadged we may still doubt whether the Lord in such indifferent Ceremonies as those whereof we dispute did frame his People of set purpose unto any utter dissimilitude either with Egyptians or with any other Nation else And if God did not forbid them all such indifferent Ceremonies then our conformity with the Church of Rome in some such is not hitherto as yet disproved although Papists were unto us as those Heathens were unto Israel After the doings of the Land of Egypt wherein you dwelt ye shall not do saith the Lord and after the manner of the land of Canaan whither I will bring you shall ye not do neither walk in their Ordinances Do after my judgements and keep my Ordinances to walk therein I am the Lord your God The Speech is indefinite ye shall not be like them It is not general ye shall not be like them in anything or like unto them in any thing indifferent or like unto them in any indifferent ceremony of theirs Seeing therefore it is not set down how far the bounds of his speech concerning dissimilitude should reach how can any man assure us that it extendeth farther than to those things only wherein the Nations there mentioned were Idolatrous or did against that which the Law of God commandeth Nay doth it not seem a thing very probable that God doth purposely add Do after my judgement as giving thereby to understand that his meaning in the former sentence was but to bar similitude in such things as were repugnant unto the Ordinances Laws and Statutes which he had given Egyptians and Canaanites are for example sake named unto them because the Customs of the one they had been and of the other they should be best acquainted with But that wherein they might not be like unto either of them was such peradventure as had been no whit less unlawfull although those Nations had never been So that there is no necessity to think that God for fear of infection by reason of nearness forbad them to be like unto the Canaanites or the Egyptians in those things which otherwise had been lawful enough For I would know what one thing was in those Nations and is here forbidden being indifferent in it self yet forbidden only because they used it In the Laws of Israel we find it written Ye shall not cut round the corners of your Heads neither shalt thou tear the tafis of thy Board These things were usual amongst those Nations and in themselves they are indifferent But are they indifferent being used as signs of immoderate and hopeless lamentation for the dead In this sense it is that the Law forbiddeth them For which cause the very next words following are Ye shall not cut your Flesh for the dead nor make any print of a mark upon you I am the Lord. The like in Leviticus where speech is of mourning for the dead They shall not make bald parts upon their Head nor shave off the locks of their Beard nor make any cutting in their Flesh. Again in Deut. Ye are the Children of the Lord your God ye shall not cut your selves nor make you Baldness between your eyes for the Dead What is this but in effect the same which the Apostle doth more plainly express saying Sorrow not as they do who have no hope The very light of Nature it self was able to see herein a fault that which those Nations did use having been also in use with others the ancient Roman laws do forbid That shaving therefore and cutting which the Law doth mention was not a matter in it self indifferent and forbidden only because it was in use amongst such Idolaters as were Neighbours to the people of God but to use it had a been crime though no other people or Nation under Heaven should have done it saving only themselves As for those Laws concerning attires There shall no garment of Linnen and VVollen come upon thee as also those touching food and diet wherein Swines-flesh together with sundry other meats are forbidden the use of these things had been indeed of it self harmless and indifferent so that hereby it doth appear how the Law of God forbad in some special consideration such things as were lawful enough in themselves But yet even here they likewise fail of that they intend For it doth not appear that the consideration in regard whereof the Law forbiddeth these things was because those Nations did use them Likely enough it is that the Canaanites used to feed as well on Sheep as on Swines-flesh and therefore if
this were predominant We have most heartily to thank God therefore that they amongst us to whom the first consultations of causes of this kind fell were men which aiming at another mark namely the glory of God and the good of this his Church took that which they judged thereunto necessary not rejecting any good or convenient thing only because the Church of Rome might perhaps like it If we have that which is meet and right although they be glad we are not to envy them this their solace we do not think it a duty of ours to be in every such thing their Tormentors And wherein it is said that Popery for want of this utter extirpation hath in some places takenroot and flourished again but hath not been able to re-establish it self in any place after provision made against it by utter evacuation of all Romish Ceremonies and therefore as long as we hold any thing like unto them we put them in some more hope than if all were taken away as we deny not but this may be true so being of two evils to choose the less we hold it better that the Friends and Favourers of the Church of Rome should be in some kind of hope to have a corrupt Religion restored then both we and they conceive just fear lest under colour of rooting out Popery the most effectual means to bear up the state of Religion be removed and so a way made either for Paganism or for extreme Barbarity to enter If desire of weakning the hope of others should turn us away from the course we have taken how much more the care of preventing our own fear with-hold us from that we are urged unto Especially seeing that our own fear we know but we are not so certain what hope the Rites and Orders of our Church have bred in the hearts of others Fort it is no sufficient Argument therefore to say that in maintaining and urging these Ceremonies none are so clamorous as Papists and they whom Papists suborn this speech being more hard to justifie than the former and so their proof more doubtfull then the thing it self which they prove He that were certain that this is true must have marked who they be that speak for Ceremonies he must have noted who amongst them doth speak oftenest or is most earnest he must have been both acquainted thorowly with the Religion of such and also privy to what conferences or compacts are passed in secret between them and others which kind of notice are not wont to be vulgar and common Yet they which alleadge this would have it taken as a thing that needeth no proof a thing which all men know and see And if so be it were granted them as true what gain they by it Sundry of them that be Popish are eager in maintenance of Ceremonies Is it so strange a matter to find a good thing furthered by ill men of a smister intent and purpose whose forwardness is not therefore a bridle to such as favour the same cause with a better and sincerer meaning They that seek as they say the removing of all Popish Orders out of the Church and reckon the state of Bishops in the number of those Orders do I doubt not presume that the cause which they prosecute is holy Notwithstanding it is their own ingenuous acknowledgement that even this very cause which they term so often by an excellency The Lords Cause is gratissima most acceptable unto some which hope for prey and spoyl by it and that our Age hath store of such and that such are the very Sectaries of Dionysius the famous Atheist Now if hereupon we should upbraid them with Irreligious as they do us with Superstitious favourers if we should follow them in their own kind of Pleading and say that the most clamorous for this pretended Reformation are either Atheists or else Proctors suborned by Atheists the Answer which herein they would make unto us let them apply unto themselves and there an end For they must not forbid us to presume our cause in defence of our Church-orders to be as good as theirs against them till the contrary be made manifest to the World 10. In the mean while sorry we are that any good and godly mind should be grieved with that which is done But to remedy their grief lyeth not so much in us as in themselves They do not wish to be made glad with the hurt of the Church and to remove all out of the Church whereat they shew themselves to be sorrowful would be as we are perswaded hurtful if not pernicious thereunto Till they be able to perswade the contrary they must and will I doubt not find out some other good mean to chear up themselves Amongst which means the example of Geneva may serve for one Have not they the old Popish custom of using God-fathers and God-mothers in Baptism the old Popish custom of administring the blessed Sacrament of the holy Eucharist with Wafer-cakes These things then the Godly there can digest Wherefore should not the Godly here learn to do the like both in them and in therest of the like nature Some further mean peradventure it might be to asswage their grief if so be they did consider the revenge they take on them which have been as they interpret it the workers of their continuance in so great grief so long For if the maintenance of Ceremonies be a corrosive to such as oppugn them undoubtedly to such as maintain them it can be no great pleasure when they behold how that which they reverence is oppugned And therefore they that judge themselves Martyrs when they are grieved should think withal what they are whom they grieve For we are still to put them in mind that the cause doth make no difference for that it must be presumed as good at the least on our part as on theirs till it be in the end decided who have stood for Truth and who for Error So that till then the most effectual medicine and withal the most sound to ease their grief must not be in our opinion the taking away of those things whereat they are grieved but the altering of that perswasion which they have concerning the same For this we therefore both pray and labour the more because we are also perswaded that it is but conceit in them to think that those Romish Ceremonies whereof we have hitherto spoken are like leprous Clothes infectious to the Church or like soft and gentle Poysons the venom whereof being insensibly penicious worketh death and yet is never felt working Thus they say but because they say it only and the World hath not as yet had so great experience of their Art in curing the Diseases of the Church that the bare authority of their word should perswade in a cause so weighty they may not think much if it be required at their hands to shew First by what means so deadly Infection can grow from
similitude between us and the Church of Rome in these things indifferent Secondly for that it were infinite if the Church should provide against every such Evil as may come to pass it is not sufficient that they shew possibilitie of dangerous Event unless there appear some likely-hood also of the same to follow in us except we prevent it Nor is this enough unless it be moreover made plain that there is no good and sufficient way of prevention but by evacuating clean and by emprying the Church of every such Rite and Ceremony as is presently called in question Till this be done their good affection towards the safety of the Church is acceptable but the way they prescribe us to preserve it by must rest in suspense And lest hereat they take occasion to turn upon us the speech of the Prophet Ieremy used against Babylon Rebold we have done our endeavour to cure the Discases of Babylon but she through her wilfulness doth rest uncured let them consider into what straits the Church might drive it self in being guided by this their counsel Their axiom is that the sound believing Church of Jesus Christ may not be like Heretical Churches in any of those indifferent things which men make choyce of and do not take by prescript appointment of the Word of God In the word of God the use of Bread is prescribed as a thing without which the Eucharist may not be celebrated but as for the kind of Bread it is not denyed to be a thing indifferent Being indifferent of it self we are by this axiom of theirs to avoid the use of unleavened Bread in their Sacrament because such bread the Church of Rome being Heretical useth But doth not the self-same axiom bar us even from leavened Bread also which the Church of the Grecians useth the opinions whereof are in a number of things the same for which we condemn the Church of Rome and in some things erroneous where the Church of Rome is acknowledged to be found as namely in the Article of the Holy Ghosts proceeding and lest here they should say that because the Greek Church is farther off and the Church of Rome nearer we are in that respect rather to use that which the Church of Rome useth not let them imagine a reformed Church in the City of Venice where a Greek Church and Popish both are And when both these are equally near let them consider what the third shall do Without leavened or unleavened Bread it can have no Sacrament the word of God doth tye it to neither and their axiom doth exclude it from both If this constrain them as it must to grant that their axiom is not to take any place save in those things only where the Church hath larger scope it resteth that they search out some stronger reason then they have as yet alledged otherwise they constrain not us to think that the Church is tyed unto any such rule axiom not then when she hath the widest field to walk in and the greate store of choyce 11. Against such Ceremonies generally as are the same in the Church of England and of Rome we see what hath been hitherto alledged Albeit therefore we do not find the one Churches having of such things to be sufficient cause why the other should not have them Nevertheless in case it may be proved that amongst the number of Rites and Orders common unto both there are Particulars the use whereof is utterly unlawful in regard of some special bad and noysom quality there is no doubt but we ought to relinquish such Rites and Orders what freedom soever we have to retain the other still As therefore we have heard their general exception against all those things which being not commanded in the Word of God were first received in the Church of Rome and from thence have been derived into ours so it followeth that now we proceed unto certain kinds of them as being excepted against not only for that they are in the Church of Rome but are besides either Iewish or abused unto Idolatry and so grown scandalous The Church of Rome they say being ashamed of the simplicity of the Gospel did almost out of all Religions take whatsoever had any fair and gorgeous shew borrowing in that respect from the Jews sundry of their abolished Ceremonies Thus by foolish and tidiculous imitation all their Massing furniture almost they took from the Law lest having an Altar and a Priest they should want Vestments for their Stage so that whatsoever we have in common with the Church of Rome if the same be of this kind we ought to remove it Constantine the Emperor speaking of the keeping of the Feast of Easter saith That it is an unworthy thing to have any thing common with that most spiteful company of the Iews And a little after he saith That it is most absurd and against reason that the Iews should vannâ— and glory that the Christians could not keep those things without their Doctrine And in another place it is said after this sort It is convenient so to order the matter that we have nothing common with that Nation This Councel of Laodicea which was afterward confirmed by the first General Councel decreed that the Christians should not take anleavened Briad of the Iews or communicate with their impiety For the easier manifestation of truth in this point two things there are which must be considered namely the causes wherefore the Church should decline from Iewish Ceremonies and how far it ought so to do One cause is that the Jews were the deadliest and spitefullest Enemies of Christianity that were in the world and in this respect their Orders so far forth to be shunned as we have already set down in handling the Matter of Heathenish Ceremonies For no enemies being so venemous against Christ as Jews they were of all other most odious and by that mean least to be used as â—it Church Patterns for Imitation Another cause is the Solemn Abrogation of the Jews Ordinances which Ordinances for us to resume were to chock our Lord himself which hath disannulled them But how far this second cause doth extend it is not on all sides fully agreed upon And touching those things whereunto it reacheth not although there be small cause wherefore the Church should frame it self to the Jews example in respect of their persons which are most hateful yet God himself having been the Author of their Laws herein they are notwithstanding the former consideration still worthy to be honored and to be followed above others as much as the state of things will bear Jewish Ordinances had some things Natural and of the perperuity of those things no man doubteth That which was Positive we likewise know to have been by the coming of Christ partly necessary not to be kept and partly indifferent to be kept or not Of the former kinde Circumcision and Sacrifice were For this point Stephen was accused and the Evidence which
end It behoveth that the place where God shall be served by the whole Church be a publick place for the avoiding of Privy Conventicles which covered with pretence of Religion may serve unto dangerous practises Yea though such Assemblies be had indeed for Religions sake hurtful nevertheless they may easily prove as well in regard of their fitness to serve the turn of Hereticks and such as privily will soonest adventure to instill their poyson into mens minds as also for the occasion which thereby is given to malicious persons both of suspecting and of traducing with more colourable shew those Actions which in themselves being holy should be so ordered that no man might probably otherwise think of them Which considerations have by so much the greater waight for that of these inconveniences the Church heretofore had so plain experience when Christian men were driven to use Secret Meetings because the liberty of Publick places was not granted them There are which hold that the presence of a Christian multitude and the Duties of Religion performed amongst them do make the place of their Assembly publick even as the presence of the King and his Retinue maketh any mans House a Court But this I take to be an errour in as much as the only thing which maketh any Place publick is the publick assignment thereof unto such Duties As for the Multitude there assembled or the Duties which they perform it doth not appear how either should be of force to insuse any such Prerogative Not doth the solemn Dedication of Churches serve only to make them publick but farther also to surrender up that right which otherwise their Founders might have in them and to make God himself their Owner For which cause at the Erection and Consecration as well of the Tabernacle as of the Temple it pleased the Almighty to give a manifest sign that he took possession of both Finally it not fiâ—th in solemn manner the Holy and Religious use whereunto it is intended such Houses shall be put These things the wisdom of Solomon did not account superfluous He knew how easily that which was meant should be holy and sacred might be drawn from the use whereunto it was first provided he knew how bold men are to take even from God himself how hardly that House would be kept from impious profanation he knew and right wisely therefore endeavoured by such Solemnities to leave in the minds of men that impression which might somewhat restrain their boldness and nourish a reverend affection towards the House of God For which cause when the first House was destroyed and a new in the stead thereof erected by the Children of Israel after their return from captivity they kept the dedication even of this House also with joy The Argument which our Saviour useth against Prophaners of the Temple he taketh from the use whereunto it was with Solemnity consecrated And as the Prophet Ieremy forbiddeth the carrying of Burdens on the Sabbath because that was a Sanctified day So because the Temple was a Place sanctified our Lord would not suffer no not the carriage of a Vessel through the Temple These two Commandements therefore are in the Law conjoyned Ye shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my Santuary Out of those the Apostles words Have ye not Houses to eat and drink in albeit Temples such as now were not then erected for that exercise of Christian Religion it hath been nevertheless not absurdly conceived that he teacheth what difference should be made between House and House that what is fit for the Dwelling Place of God and what for Mans Habitation be shewethâ— requireth that Christian men at their Own home take Common food and in the House of the Lord none but that food which is heavenly he instructeth them that as in the one place they use to refresh their Bodies so they may in the other learn to seek the nourishment of their Souls and as there they sustain Temporal life so here they would learn to make provision for Eternal Christ could not suffer that the Temple should serve for a place of Mart not the Apostle of Christ that the Church should be made an Inne When therefore we sanctifie or hallow Churches that which we do as ooly to testifie that we make them Places of publick resort that we invest God himself with them that we sever them from Common uses In which action other Solemnities than such as are decent and fit for that purpose we approve none Indeed we condemn not all as unmeet the like whereunto have either been devised or used haply amongst Idolaters For why should conformity with them in matter of Opinion be lawful when they think that which is true if in action when they do that which is meet it be uot lawful to be like unto them Are we to forsake any true Opinion because Idolaters have maintained it or to shun any requisite action only because we have in the practise thereof been prevented by Idolaters It is no impossible thing but that sometimes they may judge as tightly what is decent about such external affairs of God as in greater things what is true Not therefore whatsoever Idolaters have either thought or done but let whatsoever they have either thought or done idolatrously be so far forth abhorred For of that which is good even in evil things God is Author 13. Touching the names of Angels and Saints whereby the most of our Churches are called as the custome of so naming them is very antient so neither was the cause thereof at the first nor is the use and continuance with us at this present hurtful That Churches were consecrated unto none but the Lord only the very General name it self doth sufficiently shew is as much as by plain Grammatical construction Church doth signifie no other thing than the Lords House And because the multitude as of Persons so of things particular causeth variety of Proper names to be devised for Distinction sake Founders of Churches did herein that which best liked their own conceit at the present time yet each intending that as oft as those Buildings came to be mentioned the name should put men in mind of some memorable thing or person Thus therefore it cometh to pass that all Churches have had their names some as memorials of peace some of wisdom some in memory of the Trinity it self some of Christ under sundry Titles of the blessed Virgin not a few many of one Apostle Saint or Martyr many of all In which respect their commendable purpose being not of every one understood they have been in latter ages construed as though they had superstitiously meant either that those places which where denominated of Angels and Saints should serve for the worship of so glorious Creatures or else those glorified Creatures for defence protection and patronage of such places A thing which the Antients do utterly disclaim To them saith
Words a manifest shew of jar yet none if we look upon the difference of matter with regard whereunto they might both have spoken even of one Miracle the very same which they spake of divers the one intending thereby to signifie that the greatness of the burden exceeded the natural ability of the instruments which they had to bear it the other that the weakness thereof was supported by a supernatural and miraculous addition of strength The Nets as touching themselves brake but through the power oâ— God they held Are not the words of the Prophet Micheas touching Bethleem Thou Bethleem the least and doth not the very Evangelist translate these words Thou Bethleem not the least the one regarding the quantity of the Place the other the dignity Micheas attributeth unto it smallness in respect of circuit Matthew greatness in regard of honor and estimation by being the native soyle of our Lord and Saviour Christ. Sith therefore Speeches which gain-say one another must of necessity be applyed both unto one and the self-same Subject sith they must also the one affirm the other deny the self-same thing what necessity of contradiction can there be between the Letter of the Prophet David and our authorised Translation thereof if he understanding Moses and Aaron do say They were not disobedient we applying our speech to Pharaoh and the AEgyptians do say of them They were not obedient Or which the matter it self will easily enough likewise suffer if the AEgyptians being meant by both it be said that they in regard of their offer to let go the People when they saw the fearful darkness disobeyed not the Word of the Lord and yet that they did not obey his Word in as much as the Sheep and Cattel at the self-same time they with-held Of both Translations the better I willingly acknowledge that which cometh nearer to the very letter of the Original verity yet so that the other may likewise safely enough be read without any perâ—l at all of gain-saying as much as the least jot or syllable of God's most sacred and precious Truth Which Truth as in this we do not violate so neither is the same gain-sayed or crost no not in those very Preambles placed before certain readings wherein the steps of the Latin Service-Book have been somewhat too nearly followed As when we say Christ spake to his Disciples That which the Gospel declareth he spake unto the Pharises For doth the Gospel affirm he spake to the Pharisees only doth it mean that they and besides them no man else was at that time spoken unto by our Saviour Christ If not then is there in this diversity no contrariety I suppose it somewhat probable that St. Iohn and St. Matthew which have recorded those Sermons heard them and being Hearers did think themselves as wel respected as the Pharisees in that which their Lord and Master taught concerning the Pastoral care he had over his own Flock and his offer of Grace made to the whole World which things are the matter whereof he treateth in those Sermons Wherefore as yet there is nothing found wherein we read for the Word of God that which may be condemned as repugnant unto his Word Furthermore somewhat they are displeased in that we follow not the method of Reading which in their judgement is most commendable the method used in some foreign Churches where Scriptures are read before the time of Divine Service and without either choyce or stint appointed by any determinate Order Nevertheless till such time as they shall vouchsafe us some just and sufficient reason to the contrary we must by their patience if not allowance retain the antient received Custom which we now observe For with us the reading of the Scripture in the Church is a part of our Church-Liturgy a special Portion of the Service which we do to God and not an exercise to spend the time when one doth wait for anothers coming till the assembly of them which shall afterwards worship him be compleâ— Wherefore as the form of our Publick Service is not voluntary so neither are the parts thereof left uncertain but they are all set down in such order and with such choyce as hath in the wisdom of the Church seemed best to concur as well with the special occasions as with the general purpose which we have to glorifie God 20. Other Publick readings there are of Books and Writings not Canonical whereby the Church doth also preach or openly make known the Doctrine of vertuous conversation whereupon besides those things in regard whereof we are thought to read the Scriptures of God amiss it is thought amiss that we read in our Churches any thing at all besides the Scriptures To exclude the reading of any such profitable instruction as the Church hath devised for the better understanding of Scripture or for the easier trayning up of the People in holiness and righteousness of life they plead that God in the Law would have nothing brought into the Temple neither Besomes nor Flesh-hooks nor Trumpets but those only which were sanctified that for the expounding of darker places we ought to follow the Jews Polity who under Antiochus where they had not the commodity of Sermons appointed always at their Meetings somewhat out of the Prophets to be read together with the Law and so by the one made the other plainer to be understood That before and after our Saviours comming they neither read Onkelos nor Ionathan's Paraphrase though having both but contented themselves with the reading only of Scriptures that if in the Primitive Church there had been any thing read besides the Monuments of the Prophets and Apostles Iustin Martyr and Origen who mention these would have spoken of the other likewise that the most antient and best Councels forbid any thing to be read in Churches saving Canonical Scripture onely that when other things were afterwards permitted fault was found with it it succeeded but ill the Bible it self was thereby in time quite and clean thrust out Which Arguments if they be only brought in token of the Authors good-will and meaning towards the cause which they would set forward must accordingly be accepted of by them who already are perswaded the same way But if their drift and purpose be to perswade others it would be demanded by what Rule the legal hallowing of Besomes and Flesh-hooks must needs exclude all other readings in the Church save Scripture Things sanctified were thereby in such sort appropriated unto God as that they might never afterwards again be made common For which cause the Lord to sign and mark them as his own appointed oyle of holy oyntment the like whereunto it was not lawful to make for ordinary and daily uses Thus the anoynting of Aaron and his Sons tyed them to the Office of the Priest-hood for ever the anoynting not of those Silver Trumpets which Moses as well
that which ordereth his Work is Wisdom and that which perfecteth his Work is Power All things which God in their times and seasons hath brought forth were eternally and before all times in God as a work unbegun is in the Artificer which afterward bringeth it unto effect Therefore whatsoever we do behold now in this present World it was inwrapped within the Bowels of Divine Mercy written in the Book of Eternal Wisdom and held in the hands of Omnipotent Power the first Foundations of the World being as yet unlaid So that all things which God hath made are in that respect the Off-spring of God they are in him as effects in their highest cause he likewise actually is in them the assistance and influence of his Deity is their life Let hereunto saving efficacy be added and it bringeth forth a special Off-spring amongst men containing them to whom God hath himself given the gracious and amiable name of Sons We are by Nature the Sons of Adam When God created Adam he created us and as many as are descended from Adam have in themselves the Root out of which they spring The Sons of God we neither are all nor any one of us otherwise then onely by grace and favor The Sons of God have Gods own Natural Son as a second Adam from Heaven whose Race and Progeny they are by Spiritual and Heavenly Birth God therefore loving eternally his Son he must needs eternally in him have loved and preferred before all others them which are spiritually sithence descended and sprung out of him These were in God as in their Saviour and not as in their Creator onely It was the purpose of his saving Goodness his saving Wisdom and his saving Power which inclined it self towards them They which thus were in God eternally by their intended admission to life have by vocation or adoption God actually now in them as the Artificer is in the Work which his hand doth presently frame Life as all other gifts and benefits groweth originally from the Father and cometh not to us but by the Son nor by the Son to any of us in particular but through the Spirit For this cause the Apostle wisheth to the Church of Corinth The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Ghost Which three St. Peter comprehendeth in one The participation of Divine Nature We are therefore in God through Christ eternally according to that intent and purpose whereby we are chosen to be made his in this present World before the World it self was made We are in God through the knowledge which is had of us and the love which is born towards us from everlasting But in God we actually are no longer then onely from the time of our actual Adoption into the Body of his true Church into the Fellowship of his Children For his Church he knoweth and loveth so that they which are in the Church are thereby known to be in him Our being in Christ by Eternal fore-knowledge saveth us not without our Actual and Real Adoption into the Fellowship of his Saints in this present World For in him we actually are by our actual incorporation into that Society which hath him for their Head and doth make together with him one Body he and they in that respect having one name for which cause by vertue of this Mystical Conjunction we are of him and in him even as though our very flesh and bones should be made continuate with his We are in Christ because he knoweth and loveth us even as parts of himself No man actually is in him but they in whom he actually is For he which hath not the Son of God hath not Life I am the Vine and ye are the Branches He which abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much Fruit but the Branch severed from the Vine withereth We are therefore adopted Sons of God to Eternal Life by Participation of the onely begotten Son of God whose Life is the Well-spring and cause of ours It is too cold an interpretation whereby some men expound our Being in Christ to import nothing else but onely That the self-same Nature which maketh us to be Men is in him and maketh him Man as we are For what man in the World is there which hath not so far forth communion with Jesus Christ It is not this that can sustain the weight of such sentences as speak of the Mystery of our Coherence with Jesus Christ. The Church is in Christ as Eve was in Adam Yea by Grace we are every of us in Christ and in his Church and in his Church as by Nature we were in those our first Parents God made Eve of the Rib of Adam And his Church he frameth out of the very Flesh the very wounded and bleeding side of the Son of Man His Body crucified and his Blood shed for the Life of the World are the true Elements of that Heavenly Being which maketh us such as himself is of whom we come For which cause the words of Adam may be fitly the words of Christ concerning his Church Flesh of my Flesh and Bone of my Bones a true Nature extract out of my own Body So that in him even according to his Manhood we according to our Heavenly Being are as Branches in that Root out of which they grow To all things he is Life and to men Light as the Son of God to the Church both Life and Light Eternal by being made the Son of Man for us and by being in us a Saviour whether we respect him as God or as Man Adam is in us as an original cause of our Nature and of that corruption of Nature which causeth death Christ as the cause original of Restauration to Life The person of Adam is not in us but his nature and the corruption of his nature derived into all men by Propagation Christ having Adams nature as we have but incorrupt deriveth not nature but incorruption and that immediately from his own Person into all that belong unto him As therefore we are really partakers of the body of Sin and Death received from Adam so except we be truly partakers of Christ and as really possessed of his Spirit all we speak of Eternal Life is but a dream That which quickneth us is the Spirit of the Second Adam and his Flesh that wherewith he quickneth That which in him made our Nature uncorrupt was the Union of his Deity with our Nature And in that respect the sentence of Death and Condemnation which onely taketh hold upon sinful flesh could no way possibly extend unto him This caused his voluntary death for others to prevail with God and to have the force of an Expiatory Sacrifice The Blood of Christ as the Apostle witnesseth doth therefore take away sin because through the Eternal Spirit he offered himself unto God without spot That
of things absent neither for naked signs and testimonies assuring us of Grace received before but as they are indeed and in verity for means effectual whereby God when we take the Sacraments delivereth into our hands that Grace available unto Eternal Life which Grace the Sacraments represent or signifie There have grown in the Doctrine concerning Sacraments many difficulties for want of distinct Explication what kinde or degree of Grace doth belong unto each Sacrament For by this it hath come to pass that the true immediate cause why Baptism and why the Supper of our Lord is necessary few do rightly and distinctly consider It cannot be denied but sundry the same effects and benefits which grow unto men by the one Sacrament may rightly be attributed unto the other Yet then doth Baptism challenge to it self but the inchoation of those Graces the consummation whereof dependeth on Mysteries ensuing We receive Christ Jesus in Baptism once as the first beginner in the Eucharist often as being by continual degrees the finisher of our Life By Baptism therefore we receive Christ Jesus and from him that saving Grace which is proper unto Baptism By the other Sacrament we receive him also imparting therein himself and that Grace which the Eucharist properly bestoweth So that each Sacrament having both that which is general or common and that also which is peculiar unto it self we may hereby gather that the Participation of Christ which properly belongeth to any one Sacrament is not otherwise to be obtained but by the Sacrament whereunto it is proper 58. Now even as the Soul doth Organize the Body and give unto every Member thereof that substance quantity and shape which Nature seeth most expedient so the inward Grace of Sacraments may teach what serveth best for their outward form a thing in no part of Christian Religion much less here to be neglected Grace intended by Sacraments was a cause of the choice and is a reason of the fitness of the Elements themselves Furthermore seeing that the Grace which here we receive doth no way depend upon the Natural force of that which we presently behold it was of necessity That words of express Declaration taken from the very mouth of our Lord himself should be added unto visible Elements that the one might infallibly teach what the other do most assuredly bring to pass In writing and speaking of the Blessed Sacrament we use for the most part under the name of their Substance not onely to comprise that whereof they outwardly and sensibly consist but also the secret Grace which they signifie and exhibit This is the reason wherefore commonly in definitions whether they be framed larger to augâ—ment or stricter to abridge the number of Sacraments we finde Grace expresly mentioned as their â—â—â—â— Essential Form Elements as the matter whereunto that Form doth adjoyn it sâ—â— But if that be separated which is secret and that considered alone which is seen as of necessity it must in all those speeches that make distinction of Sacraments from Sacramental Grace the name of a Sacrament in such speeches can imply no more then what the outward substance thereof doth comprehend And to make compleat the outward substance of a Sacrament there is required an outward Form which Form Sacramental Elements receive from Sacramental words Hereupon it groweth that many times there are three things said to make up the Substance of a Sacrament namely the Grace which is thereby offered the Element which shadoweth or signifieth Grace and the Word which expresseth what is done by the Element So that whether we consider the outward by it self alone or both the outward and inward substance of any Sacraments there are in the one respect but two essential parts and in the other but three that concur to give Sacraments their full being Furthermore because definitions are to express but the most immediate and nearest parts of Nature whereas other principles farther off although not specified in defining are notwithstanding in Nature implied and presupposed we must note that in as much as Sacraments are actions religious and mystical which Nature they have not unless they proceed from a serious meaning and what every mans private minde is as we cannot know so neither are we bound to examine Therefore always in these cases the known intent of the Church generally doth suffice and where the contrary is not manifest we may presume that he which outwardly doth the work hath inwardly the purpose of the Church of God Concerning all other Orders Rites Prayers Lessons Sermons Actions and their Circumstances whatsoever they are to the outward Substance of Baptism but things accessory which the wisdom of the Church of Christ is to order according to the exigence of that which is principal Again Considering that such Ordinances have been made to adorn the Sacrament not the Sacrament to depend upon them seeing also that they are not of the Substance of Baptism and that Baptism is far more necessary then any such incident rite or solemnity ordained for the better Administration thereof if the case be such as permitteth not Baptism to have decent Complements of Baptism better it were to enjoy the Body without his Furniture then to wait for this till the opportunity of that for which we desire it be lost Which Premises standing it seemeth to have been no absurd Collection that in cases of necessity which will not suffer delay till Baptism be administred with usual solemnities to speak the least it may be tolerably given without them rather then any man without it should be suffered to depart this life 59. They which deny that any such case of necessity can fall in regard whereof the Church should tolerate Baptism without the decent Rites and Solemnities thereunto belonging pretend that such Tolerations have risen from a false interpretaon which certain men have made of the Scripture grounding a necessity of External Baptism upon the words of our Saviour Christ Unless a man be born again of Water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven For by Water and the Spirit we are in that place to understand as they imagine no more then if the Spirit alone had been mentioned and Water not spoken of Which they think is plain because elswhere it is not improbable that the Holy Ghost and Fire do but signifie the Holy Ghost in operation resembling Fire Whereupon they conclude That seeing Fire in one place may be therefore Water in another place is but a Metaphor Spirit the interpretation thereof and so the words do onely mean That unless a man be born again of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven I hold it for a most infallible rule in Expositions of Sacred Scripture that were a literal construction will stand the farthest from the Letter is commonly the worst There is nothing more dangerous then this licentious and deluding Art which changeth the meaning
Life in his Body and Blood by means of this Sacrament Wherefore should the World continue still distracted and rent with so manifold Contentions when there remaineth now no Controversie saving onely about the subject where Christ is Yea even in this point no side denieth but that the Soul of Man is the receptacle of Christs presence Whereby the question is yet driven to a narrower issue nor doth any thing rest doubtful but this Whether when the Sacrament is administred Christ be whole within Man onely or else his Body and Blood be also externally seated in the very Consecrated Elements themselves Which opinion they that defend are driven either to Consubstantiate and Incorporate Christ with Elements Sacramental or to Transubstantiate and change their substance into his and so the one to hold him really but invisibly moulded up with substance of those Elements the other to hide him under the onely visible shew of Bread and Wine the substance whereof as they imagine is abolished and his succeeded in the same room All things considered and compared with that success which Truth hath hitherto had by so bitter Conflicts with Errors in this point Shall I wish that men would more give themselves to meditate with silence what we have by the Sacrament and less to dispute of the manner how If any man suppose that this were too great stupidity and dulness let us see whether the Apostles of our Lord themselves have not done the like It appeareth by many examples that they of their own disposition were very scrupulous and inquisitive yea in other cases of less importance and less difficulty always apt to move questions How cometh it to pass that so few words of so high a Mystery being uttered they receive with gladness the gift of Christ and make no shew of doubt or scruple The reason hereof is not dark to them which have any thing at all observed how the powers of the minde are wont to stir when that which we infinitely long for presenteth it self above and besides expectation Curious and intricate speculations do hinder they abate they quench such inflamed motions of delight and joy as Divine Graces use to raise when extraordinarily they are present The minde therefore feeling present joy is always marvellous unwilling to admit any other cogitation and in that case casteth off those disputes whereunto the intellectual part at other times easily draweth A manifest effect whereof may be noted if we compare with our Lords Disciples in the Twentieth of Iohn the people that are said in the Sixth of Iohn to have gone after him to Capernaum These leaving him on the one side the Sea of Tiberias and finding him again as soon as themselves by ship were arrived on the contrary side whither they knew that by ship he came not and by Land the journey was longer then according to the time he could have to travel as they wondered so they asked also Rabbi when camest thou hither The Disciples when Christ appeared to them in far more strange and miraculous manner moved no question but rejoyced greatly in that they saw For why The one sort beheld onely that in Christ which they knew was more then natural but yet their affection was not rapt therewith through any great extraordinary gladness the other when they looked on Christ were not ignorant that they saw the Well-spring of their own Everlasting felicity the one because they enjoyed not disputed the other disputed not because they enjoyed If then the presence of Christ with them did so much move Judge what their thoughts and affections were at the time of this new presentation of Christ not before their Eyes but within their Souls They had learned before That his Flesh and Blood are the true cause of Eternal Life that this they are not by the bate force of their own substance but through the dignity and worth of His Person which offered them up by way of Sacrifice for the Life of the whole World and doth make them still effectual thereunto Finally that to us they are Life in particular by being particularly received Thus much they knew although as yet they understood not perfectly to what effect or issue the same would come till at the length being assembled for no other cause which they could imagine but to have eaten the Passover onely that Moses appointed when they saw their Lord and Master with hands and eyes lifted up to Heaven first bless and consecrate for the endless good of all Generations till the Worlds end the chosen Elements of Bread and Wine which Elements made for ever the Instruments of Life by vertue of his Divine Benediction they being the first that were commanded to receive from him the first which were warranted by his promise that not onely unto them at the present time but to whomsoever they and their Successors after them did duly administer the same those Mysteries should serve as Conducts of Life and Conveyances of his Body and Blood unto them Was it possible they should hear that voice Take eat This is my Body Drink ye all of this This is my Blood Possible that doing what was required and believing what was promised the same should have present effect in them and not fill them with a kinde of fearful admiration at the Heaven which they saw in themselves They had at that time a Sea of Comfort and Joy to wade in and we by that which they did are taught that this Heavenly Food is given for the satisfying of our empty Souls and not for the exercising of our curious and subtile wits If we doubt what those admirable words may import let him be our Teacher for the meaning of Christ to whom Christ was himself a School-master let our Lords Apostle be his Interpreter content we our selves with his Explication My Body The Communion of my Body My Blood The Communion of my Blood Is there any thing more expedite clear and easie then that as Christ is termed our Life because through him we obtain life so the parts of this Sacrament are his Body and Blood for that they are so to us who receiving them receive that by them which they are termed The Bread and Cup are his Body and Blood because they are causes instrumental upon the receit whereof the Participation of his Body and Blood ensueth For that which produceth any certain effect is not vainly nor improperly said to be that very effect whereunto it tendeth Every cause is in the effect which groweth from it Our Souls and Bodies quickned to Eternal Life are effects the cause whereof is the Person of Christ His Body and Blood are the true Well-spring out of which this Life floweth So that his Body and Blood are in that very subject whereunto they minister life Not onely by effect or operation even as the influence of the Heavens is in Plants Beasts Men and in every thing which they quicken but also by a far more Divine and
a Presbyter or of a Deacon without the Bishop of that City whereunto the Chorepiscopus and his Territory also is subject The same Synod appointeth likewise that those Chorepiscopi shall be made by none but the Bishop of that City under which they are Much might hereunto be added if it were further needful to prove that the local compass of a Bishop's authority and power was never so straightly lifted as some men would have the World to imagine But to go forward degrees of these are and have been of old even amongst Bishops also themselves One sort of Bishops being Superiours unto Presbyters only another sort having preheminence also above Bishops It cometh here to be considered in what respect inequality of Bishops was thought at the first a thing expedient for the Church and what odds there hath been between them by how much the power of one hath been larger higher and greater then of another Touching the causes for which it hath been esteâ—med meet that Bishops themselves should not every way be Equals they are the same for which the wisdom both of God and Man hath evermore approved it as most requisite that where many Governours must of necessity concurr for the ordering of the same affairs of what nature soever they be one should have some kinde of sway or stroke more than all the residue For where number is there must be order or else of force there will be confusion Let there be divers Agents of whom each hath his private inducements with resolute puâ—pose to follow them as each may have unless in this case some had preheminence above the rest a Chance it were if ever any thing should be either began proceeded in or brought unto any Conclusion by them Deliberations and Counsels would seldom go forward their Meetings would alwayes be in danger to break up with jarrs and contradictions In an Army a number of Captains all of equal power without some higher to over-sway them what good would they do In all Nations where a number are to draw any one way there must be some one principal Mover Let the practise of our very Adversaries themselves herein be considereâ— Are the Presbyters able to determine of Church-affairs unless their Pastors do strike the chiefest stroke and have power above the rest Can their Pastoral Synod do any thing unless they have some President amongst them In Synods they are forced to give one Pastor preheminence and superiority above the rest But they answer That he who being a Pastor according to the Order of their Discipline is for the time some little deal mightier than his Brethren doth not continue so longer than only during the Synod Which Answer serveth not to help them out of the bryars for by their practise they confirm our Principle touching the necessity of one man's preheminence wheresoever a concurrency of many is required unto any one solemn action this Nature teacheth and this they cannot chuse but acknowledge As for the change of his Person to whom they give this preheminence if they think it expedient to make for every Synod a new Superiour there is no Law of God which bindeth them so to do neither any that telleth them that they might suffer one and the same man being made President even to continue so during life and to leave his preheminence unto his Successours after him as by the antient Order of the Church Archbishops Presidents amongst Bishops have used to do The ground therefore of their preheminence above Bishops is the necessity of often concurrency of many Bishops about the Publick affairs of the Church as consecrations of Bishops consultations of remedy of general disorders audience judicial when the actions of any Bishop should be called in question or Appeals are made from his Sentence by such as think themselves wronged These and the like affairs usually requiring that many Bishops should orderly assemble begin and conclude somewhat it hath seemed in the eyes of Reverend Antiquity a thing most requisite that the Church should not only have Bishops but even amongst Bishops some to be in Authority chiefest Unto which purpose the very state of the whole World immediately before Christianity took place doth seem by the special providence of God to have been prepared For we must know that the Countrys where the Gospel was first planted were for the most part subject to the Roman Empire The Romans use was commonly when by warr they had subdued Foreign Nations to make them Provinces that is to place over them Roman Governors such as might order them according to the Laws and Customs of Rome And to the end that all things might be the more easily and orderly done a whole Country being divided into sundry parts there was in each part some one City whereinto they about did resort for Justice Every such part was termed a Diocess Howbeit the name Diocess is sometime so generally taken that it containeth not only mo such parts of a Province but even moe Provinces also than one as the Diocess of Asia contained eight the Diocess of Africa seven Touching Diocesses according unto a stricter sense whereby they are taken for a part of a Province the words of Livy do plainly shew what Orders the Romans did observe in them For at what time they had brought the Macedonians into subjection the Roman Governor by order from the Senat of Rome gave charge that Macedonia should be divided into four Regions or Diocesses Capita Regionum ubi concilia fierent primae Sedis Amphipolim secundae Thessalonicen tertiae Pellam quartae Pelagoniam fecit Eo Concilia sua cujusque Regionis indici pecuniam conferri ibi Magistratus creari jussit This being before the dayes of the Emperors by their appointment Thessalonica was afterwards the chiefest and in it the highest Governor of Macedonia had his Seat Whereupon the other three Dioceses were in that respect inferiour unto it as Daughters unto a Mother City for not unto every Town of Justice was that Title given but was peculiar unto those Cities wherein principal Courts were kept Thus in Macedonia the Mother City was Thessalonica In Asia Ephesus in Africa Carthage For so Iustinian in his time made it The Governors Officers and Inhabitants of those Mother-Cities were termed for difference-sake Metropolites that is to say Mother-city-men than which nothing could possibly have been devised more fit to suit with the nature of that form of Spiritual Regiment under which afterwards the Church should live Wherefore if the Prophet saw cause to acknowledge unto the Lord that the light of his gracious providence did shine no where more apparently to the eye than in preparing the Land of Canaan to be a Receptacle for that Church which was of old Thou hast brought a Vine out of Egypt thou hast cast out the Heathen and planted it thou madest room for it and when it had taken root it filled the Land How much more ought we to
most willingly thereunto even of reverence to the Most High with the Flower of whose sanctified Inheritance as it were with a kinde of Divine presence unless their Chiefest Civil Assemblies were so farr forth beautified as might be without any notable impediment unto their Heavenly Fâ—nctions they could not satisfie themselves as having showed towards God an Affection most duâ—iful Thus first in defect of other Civil Magistrates Secondly for the ease and quietness of Scholastical Societies Thirdly by way of Political necessity Fourthly in regard of quality care and extraordinancy Fifthly For countenance into the Ministry And lastly even of Devotion and Reverence towards God himself there may be admitted at leastwise in some Particulars well and lawfully enough a conjunction of Civil and Ecclesiastical Power except there be some such Law or Reason to the contrary as may prove it to be a thing simply in it self naught Against it many things are objected as first That the matters which are noted in the holy Scripture to have belonged unto the ordinary Office of any Minister of God's holy Word and Sacraments are these which follow with such like and no other namely The watch of the Sanctuary the business of God the Ministry of the Word and Sacraments Oversight of the House of God Watching over his Flock Prophesie Prayer Dispensations of the Mysteries of God Charge and care of mens Souls If a man would shew what the Offices and Duties of a Chirurgion or Physician are I suppose it were not his part so much as to mention any thing belonging to the one or the other in case either should be also a Souldier or a Merchant or an House-keeper or a Magistrate Because the Functions of these are different from those of the former albeit one and the same man may happily be both The Case is like when the Scripture teacheth what Duties are required in an Ecclesiastical Minister in describing of whose Office to touch any other thing than such as properly and directly toucheth his Office that way were impertinent Yea But in the Old Testament the two Powers Civil and Ecclesiastical were distinguished not onely in Nature but also in Person the one committed unto Moses and the Magistrates joyned with him the other to Aaron and his Sons Jehosophat in his Reformation doth not onely distinguish Causes Ecclesiastical from Civil and erecteth divers Courts for them but appointeth also divers Iudges With the Jews these two Powers were not so distinguished but that sometimes they might and did concâ—â— in one and the same Person Was not Ely both Priest and Judge After their return from captivity Esâ—â—as a Priest and the same their Chief Governour even in Civil Affairs also These men which urge the necessity of making always a Personal distinction of these two Powers as if by Iehosaphat's example the same Person ought not to deal in both Causes yet are not scrupulous to make men of Civil Place and Calling Presbyters and Ministers of Spiritual Jurisdiction in their own Spiritual Consistories If it be against the Jewish Precedents for us to give Civil Power unto such as have Ecclesiastical is it not as much against the same for them to give Ecclesiastical Power unto such as have Civil They will answer perhaps That their Position is onely against conjunction of Ecclesiastical Power of Order and the Power of Civil Jurisdiction in one Person But this Answer will not stand with their Proofs which make no less against the Power of Civil and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in one Person for of these two Powers Iehosaphat's example is Besides the contrary example of Heli and of Ezra by us alledged do plainly shew that amongst the Jewes even the power of Order Ecclesiastical and Civil Jurisdiction were sometimes lawfully united in one and the same Person Pressed further we are with our Lord and Saviour's example who denyeth his Kingdom to be of this Wold and therefore as not standing with his Calling refused to be made a King to give sentence in a criminal Cause of Adultery and in a Civil of dividing an Inheritance The Jews imagining that their Messiah should be a Potent Monarch upon Earth no marvail though when they did otherwise wonder at Christ's greatness they sought forthwith to have him invested with that kinde of Dignity to the end he might presently begin to reign Others of the Jewes which likewise had the same imagination of the Messiah and did somehat incline to think that peradventure this might be He thought good to try whether he would take upon him that which he might do being a King such as they supposed their true Messiah should be But Christ refused to be a King over them because it was no part of the Office of their Messiah as they did falsely conceive and to intermeddle in those Acts of Civil Judgement be refused also because he had no such Jurisdiction in that Common-wealth being in regard of his Civil Person a man of mean and low Calling As for repugnancy between Ecclesiastical and Civil Power or any inconvenience that these two Powers should be united it doth not appear that this was the cause of his resistance either to reign or else to judge What say we then to the blessed Apostles who teach That Souldiers intangle not themselves with the businesses of this life but leave them to the end they may please him who hath chosen them to serve and that so the good Souldiers of Christ â—ught to do The Apostles which taught this did never take upon them any Place or Office of Civil Power No they gave over the Ecclesiastical care of the Poor that they might wholly attend upon the Word and Prayer St. Paul indeed doth exhort Timothy after this manner Suffer thou evil as a noble Souldier of Iesus Christ No man warring is entangled with the affairs of Life because he must serve such as have pressed him unto Warfare The sense and meaning whereof is plain that Souldiers may not be nice and tender that they must be able to endure hardnesse that no man betaking himself unto Wars continueth entangled with such kinde of Businesses as tend only unto the ease and quiet felicity of this Life but if the service of him who hath taken them under his Banner require the hazard yea the losse of their Lives to please himâ— they must be content and willing with any difficulty any peril be it never so much against the natural desire which they have to live in safety And at this point the Clergy of God must always stand thus it behoveth them to be affected as oft as their Lord and Captain leadeth them into the field whatsoever conflicts perils or evils they are to endure Which duty being not such but that therewith the Civil Dignities which Ecclesiastical Persons amongst us do enjoy may enough stand the Exhortation of Paul to Timothy is but a slender Allegation against them As well might we gather out of this place that Men having Children or Wives
are not fit to be Ministers which also hath been collected and that by sundry of the Antient and that it is requisite the Clergy be utterly forbidden Marriage For as the burthen of Civil Regiment doth make them who bear it the less able to attend their Ecclesiastical Charge even so Saint Paul doth say that the Married are careful for the World the unmarried freer to give themselves wholly to the service of God Howbeit both experience hath found it safer that the Clergy should bear the cares of honest Marriage than be subject to the inconveniencies which single life imposed upon them would draw after it And as many as are of sound judgement know it to be farr better for this present age that the detriment be born which haply may grow through the lessening of some few mens Spiritual labours than that the Clergy and Common-wealth should lack the benefit which both the one and the other may reap through their dealing in Civil Affairs In which consideration that men consecrated unto the Spiritual service of God be licensed so farr forth to meddle with the Secular affairs of the World as doth seem for some special good cause requisite and may be without any grievous prejudice unto the Church surely there is not in the Apostles words being rightly understood any lett That no Apostle did ever bear Office may it not be a wonder considering the great devotion of the age wherein they lived and the zeal of Herod of Nero the great Commander of the known World and of other Kings of the Earth at that time to advance by all means Christian Religion Their deriving unto others that smaller charge of distributing of the Goods which were laid at their feet and of making provision for the poor which charge being in part Civil themselves had before as I suppose lawfully undertaken and their following of that which was weightier may serve as a marvellous good example for the dividing of one man's Office into divers slips and the subordinating of Inferiours to discharge some part of the same when by reason of multitude increasing that labour waxeth great and troublesome which before was easie and light but very small force it hath to inferr a perpetual divorce between Ecclesiastical and Civil power in the same Persons The most that can be said in this Case is That sundry eminent Canons bearing the name of Apostolical and divers Conncils likewise there are which have forbidden the Clergy to bear any Secular Office and have enjoyned them to attend altogether upon Reading Preaching and Prayer Whereupon the most of the antient Fathers have shewed great dislikes that these two Powers should be united in one Person For a full and final Answer whereunto I would first demand Whether commension and separation of these two Powers be a matter of mere positive Law or else a thing simply with or against the Law immutable of God and Nature That which is simply against this latter Law can at no time be allowable in any Person more than Adultery Blasphemy Sacriledge and the like But conjunction of Power Ecclesiastical and Civil what Law is there which hath not at some time or other allowed as a thing convenient and meet In the Law of God we have examples sundry whereby it doth most manifestly appear how of him the same hath oftentime been approved No Kingdom or Nation in the World but hath been thereunto accustomed without inconvenience and hurt In the prime of the World Kings and Civil Rulers were Priests for the most part all The Romans note it as a thing beneficial in their own Common-wealth and even to them apparently forcible for the strengthening of the Jewes Regiment under Moses and Samuel I deny not but sometime there may be and hath been perhaps just cause to ordain otherwise Wherefore we are not to urge those things which heretofore have been either ordered or done as thereby to prejudice those Orders which upon contrary occasion and the exigence of the present time by like authority have been established For what is there which doth let but that from contrary occasions contrary Laws may grow and each he reasoned and disputed for by such as are subiect thereunto during the time they are in force and yet neither so opposite to other but that both may laudably continue as long as the ages which keep them do see no necessary cause which may draw them unto alteration Wherefore in these things Canons Constitutions and Laws which have been at one time meet do not prove that the Church should alwayes be bound to follow them Ecclesiastical Persons were by antient Order forbidden to be Executors of any man's Testament or to undertake the Wardship of Children Bishops by the Imperial Law are forbidden to bequeath by Testament or otherwise to alienate any thing grown unto them after they were made Bishops Is there no remedy but that these or the like Orders must therefore every where still be observed The reason is not always evident why former Orders have been repealed and other established in their room Herein therefore we must remember the axiom used in the Civil Laws That the Prince is alwayes presumed to do that with reason which is not against reason being done although no reason of his deed be exprest Which being in every respect as true of the Church and her Divine Authority in making Laws it should be some bridle unto those malepert and proud spirits whose wits not conceiving the reason of Laws that are established they adore their own private fancy as the supreme Law of all and accordingly take upon them to judge that whereby they should be judged But why labour we thus in vain For even to change that which now is and to establish instead thereof that which themselves would acknowledge the very self-same which hath been to what purpose were it fith they protest That they utterly condemn as well that which hath been as that which is as well the antient as the present Superiority Authority and Power of Ecclesiastical Persons XVI Now where they lastly alledge That the Law of our Lord Iesus Christ and the judgement of the best in all ages condemn all ruling Superiority of Ministers over Ministers they are in this as in the rest more bold to affirm than able to prove the things which they bring for support of their weak and feeble Cause The bearing of Dominion or the exercising of Authority they say is this wherein the Civil Magistrate is severed from the Ecclesiastical officer according to the words of our Lord and Saviour Kings of Nations bear rule over them but it shall not be so with you Therefore bearing of Dominion doth not agree to one Minister over another This place hath been and still is although most falsely yet with farr greater shew and likelyhood of truth brought forth by the Anabaptists to prove that the Church of Christ ought to have no Civil Magistrates but be ordered
which that surcease were likely to draw after it Let the Lord Maior of London or any other unto whose Office Honor belongeth be deprived but of that Title which in itself is a matter of nothing and suppose we that it would be a small maim unto the credit force and countenance of his Office It hath not without the singular wisdom of God been provided that the ordinary outward tokens of Honor should for the most part be in themselves things of mean account for to the end they might easily follow as faithful testimonies of that beneficial vertue whereunto they are due it behoved them to be of such nature that to himself no man might over-eagerly challenge them without blushing not any man where they are due withhold them but with manifest appearance of too great malice or pride Now forasmuch as according to the Antient Orders and Customs of this Land as of the Kingdom of Israel and of all Christian Kingdoms through the World the next in degree of Honor unto the Chief Soveraign are the Chief Prelates of God's Church what the reason hereof may be it resteth next to be enquired XVIII Other reason there is not any wherefore such Honor hath been judged due saving only that publick good which the Prelates of God's Clergy are Authors of For I would know which of these things it is whereof we make any question either that the favour of God is the chiefest Pillar to bear up Kingdoms and States or that true Religion publickly exercised is the principal mean to retain the favour of God or that the Prelates of the Church are they without whom the exercise of true Religion cannot well and long continue If these three be grented then cannot the publick benefit of Prelacy be dissembled And of the first or second of these I look not for any profest denyal The World at this will blush not to grant at the leastwise in word as much as Heathens themselves have of old with most earnest asseveration acknowledged concerning the force of Divine Grace in upholding Kingdoms Again though his mercy doth so farr strive with mens ingratitude that all kinde of Publick iniquities deserving his indignation their safety is through his gracious Providence many times neverthelesse continued to the end that amendment might if it were possible avert their Envy so that as well Common-weals as particular Persons both may and do endure much longer when they are careful as they should be to use the most effectual means of procuring His favour on whom their continuance principally dependeth Yet this point no man will stand to argue no man will openly arm himself to enter into set Disputation against the Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian for making unto their Laws concerning Religion this Preface Decere arbitramur nostrum Imperium subditos nostros de Religione commonefacere Ita enim plenicrem adquiri Dei ac Salvatoris nostri Iesu Christi benignitatem possibile esse existimamus si quando nos pro viribus ipsi placere studuerimus nostros subditos ad eam rem instituerimus Or against the Emperor Iustinian for that he also maketh the like Profession Per sanctissimas Ecclessias nostrum Imperium sustineri communes res elementissimi Dei gratia muniri credimus And in another place Certissimè credemus quia Sacerdotum puritas deâ—â—â—â— ad Dominum Deum Salvatorem nostrum Iesuis Christum fervor ab ipsis missa perpetua preces maltum favorem nostra Reipublica incrementum praebent Wherefore onely the last point is that which men will boldly require us to prove for no man feareth now to make it a question Whether the Prelacy of the Church be any thing available or no to effect the good and long continuance of true Religion Amongst the principal Blessings wherewith God enriched Israel the Prophet in the Psalm acknowledgeth especially this for one Thou didst lead thy People like Sheep by the hands of Moses and Aaron That which Sheep are if Pastors be wanting the same are the people of God if so be they want Governors And that which the principal Civil Governors are in comparison of Regents under them the same are the Prelates of the Church being compared with the rest of God's Clergy Wherefore inasmuch as amongst the Jews the benefit of Civil Government grew principally from Moses he being their Principal Civil Governor even so the benefit of Spiritual Regiment grew from Aaron principally he being in the other kinde of their principal Rector although even herein subject to the Soveraign Dominion of Moses For which cause these two alone are named as the Heads and Well-springs of all As for the good which others did in service either of the Common-wealth or of the Sanctuary the chiefest glory thereof did belong to the chiefest Governors of the one sort and of the other whose vigilant care and oversight kept them in their cue Order Bishops are now is High-Priests were then inregard of power over other Priests and in respect of subjection unto High-Priests What Priests were then the same now Presbyters are by way of their place under Bishops The ones Authority therefore being so profitable how should the others be thought unnecessary Is there any man professing Christian Religion which holdeth it not as a Maxim That the Church of Jesus Christ did reap a singular benefit by Apostolical Regiment not only for other respects but even in regard of that Prelacy whereby they had and exercised Power of Jurisdiction over lower Guides of the Church Preciates are herein the Apostles Successors as hath been proved Thus we see that Prelacy must needs be acknowledged exceedingly beneficial in the Church and yet for more perspicuities sake it shall not be pains superstuously taken if the manner how be also declared at large For this one thing not understood by the vulgar sort causeth all contempt to be offered unto higher Powers not only Ecclesiastical but Civil whom when proud men have disgraced and are therefore reproved by such as carry some dutiful affection of minde the usual Apologies which they make for themselves are these What more vertue in these Great ones than in others we see no such eminent good which they do above other mon. We grant indeed that the good which Higher Governors do is not so immediate and near unto every of us as many times the meane labours of others under them and this doth make it to be less esteemed But we must note that it is in this Case as in a Ship he that fitteth at the Stern is quiet he moveth not he seemeth in a manner to do little or Nothing in comparison of them that sweat about other toil yet that which he doth is in value and force more than all the labours of the residue laid together The influence of the Heavens above worketh infinitely more to our good and yet appeareth not half so sensible as the force doth of
we that no publick detriment would follow upon the want of honorable Personages Ecclesiastical to be used in those Cases It will be haply said That the highest might learn to stoop and not to disdain the advice of some circumspect wise and vertuâ—us Minister of God albeit the Ministery were nor by such degrees distinguished What Princes in that case might or should do it is not material Such difference being presupposed therefore as we have proved already to have been the Ordinance of God there is no judicious man will ever make any question or doubt but that fit and direct it is for the highest and chiefest Order in God's Clergy to be imployed before others about so near and necessary Offices as the sacred estate of the greatest on earth doth require For this cause Ioshua had Eliazer David Abiathar Constantine Hosius Bishop of Corâ—nba other Emperors and Kings their Prelates by whom in private for with Princes this is the most effectual way of doing good to be adminished counselled comforted and if need were reproved Whensoever Sovereign Rulers are willing to admit these so necessary private conferences for their Spiritual and ghostly good inasmuch as they do for the time while they take advice grant a kinde of Superiority unto them of whom they receive it albeit haply they can be contented even so farr to bend to the gravest and chiefest Persons in the Order of God's Clergy yet this of the very best being rarely and hardly obtained now that there are whos 's greater and higher Callings do somewhat more proportion them unto that ample conceit and spirit wherewith the minde of so powerable Persons we possessed what should we look for in case God himself not authorizing any by miraculous means as of old he did his Prophets the equal meaness of all did leave in respect of Calling no more place of decency for one then for another to be admitted Let unexperienced wits imagin what pleaseth them in having to deal with so great Personages these Personal differences are so necessary that there must be regard had of them 4. Kingdoms being principally next unto God's Almightiness and the Soveraignty of the highest under God upheld by wisdom and by valour as by the chiefest human means to cause continuance in safety with honor for the labors of them who attend the service of God we reckon as means Divine to procure our protection from Heavens from hence it riseth that men excelling in either of these or descending from such as for excellency either way have been enobled or possesing howsoever the rooms of such as should be in Politick wisdom or in Martial prowess eminent are had in singular recommendation Notwithstanding because they are by the state of Nobility great but not thereby made inclinable to good things such they oftentimes prove even under the best Princes as under David certain of the Jewish Nobility were In Polity and Council the World had not Achitophels equal nor Hell his equal in deadly malice Ioab the General of the Host of Israel valiant industrious fortunate in Warr but withal head-strong cruel treacherous void of Piety towards God in a word so conditioned that easie it is not to define whether it were for David harder to miss the benefit of his War-like hability or to bear the enormity of his other Crimes As well for the cherishing of those vertues therefore wherein if Nobility do chance to flourish they are both an ornament and a stay to the Common-wealth wherein they live as also for the bridling of those disorders which if they loosly run into they are by reason of their greatness dangerous what help could thereever have been invented more Divine than the sorting of the Clergy into such Degrees that the chiefest of the Prelacy being matched in a kinde of equal yoke as it were with the higher the next with the lower degree of Nobility the reverend Authority of the one might be to the other as a courteous bridle a mean to keep them lovingly in aw that are exorbitant and to correct such excesses in them as whereunto their Courage State and Dignity maketh them over-prone O that there were for encouragement of Prelates herein that lactimation of all Christian Kings and Princes towards them which sometime a famous King of this Land either had or pretended to have for the countenancing of a principal Prelate under him in the actions of Spiritual Authority Let my Lord Archbishop know saith he that if a Bishop or Earl or any other great Person yea if my own chosen Son shall presume to withstand or to hinder his will and disposition whereby he may be with-held from performing the work of the Embass age committed unto him such a one shall finde that of his contempt I will shew my self no less a Persecutor and Revenger than if Treason were committed against mine own very Crown and Dignity Sith therefore by the Fathers and first Founders of this Common-weal it hath upon great experience and fore-cast been judged most for the good of all sorts that as the whole Body Politick wherein we live should be for strengths sake a three-fold Cable consisting of the King as a Supreme Head over all of Peers and Nobles under him and of the People under them so likewise that in this conjunction of States the second wreath of that Cable should for important respects consist as well of Lords Spiritual as Temporal Nobility and Prelacy being by this mean twined together how can it possibly be avoided but that the tearing away of the one must needs exceedingly weaken the other and by consequent impair greatly the good of all 5. The force of which detriment there is no doubt but that the common sort of men would feel to their helpless wo how goodly a thing soever they now surmise it to be that themselves and their godly Teachers did all alone without controulment of their Prelate For if the manifold jeopardies whereto a people destitute of Pastors is subject be unavoidable without Government and if the benefit of Government whether it be Ecclesiastical or Civil do grow principally from them who are principal therein as hath been proved out of the Prophet who albeit the people of Israel had sundry inferior Governors ascribeth not unto them the publick benefit of Government but maketh mention of Moses and Aaron only the Chief Prince and Chief Prelate because they were the well-spring of all the good which others under then did may we not boldly conclude that to take from the people their Prelate is to leave them in effect without Guides at leastwise without those Guides which are the strongest hands that God doth direct them by Then didst lead thy People like Sheep saith the Prophet by the hands of Moses and Aaron If now there arise any matter of Grievances between the Pastor and the People that are under him they have their Ordinary a Judge indifferent to determine their Causes and to end their strife
up a Pillar shall be the House of God and of all that thou shall give me will I give the Tenth unto thee May a Christian man desire as great things as Iacob did at the hands of God may he desire them in as earliest manner may he promise as great thankfulness in acknowledging the goodness of God may he vow any certain kinde of publick acknowledgment before hand or though he vow it not perform it after in such sort that men may see he is perswaded how the Lord hath been his God Are these particular kindes of testifying thankfulness to God the erecting of Oratories the dedicating of Lands and Goods to maintain them forbidden any where Let any mortal man living shew but one reason wherefore in this point to follow Iacob's example should not be a thing both acceptable unto God and in the eyes of the World for ever most highly commendable Concerning Goods of this nature Goods whereof when we speak we term them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Goods that are consecrated unto God and as Tertullian speaketh Deposit a pietatis things which Piety and Devotion hath laid up as it were in the bosom of God Touching such Goods the Law Civil following mere light of Nature defineth them to be no mans because no mortal man or community of men hath right of propriety in them XXIII Persons Ecclesiastical are God's Stewards not onely for that he hath set them over his Family as the Ministers of ghostly food but even for this very cause also that they are to receive and dispose his Temporal Revenues the gifts and oblations which men bring him Of the Jews it is plain that their Tyths they offered unto the Lord and those offerings the Lord bestowed upon the Levites When the Levites gave the Tenth of their Tythes this their Gift the Law doth term the Lord's Heave-offering and appoint that the High-Priest should receive the same Of spoils taken in War that part which they were accustomed to separate unto God they brought it before the Priest of the Lord by whom it was laid up in the Tabernacle of the Congregation for a memorial of their thankfulness towards God and his goodness towards them in fighting for them against their enemies As therefore the Apostle magnifieth the honor of Melchisedec in that he being an High-Priest did receive at the hands of Abraham the Tyths which Abraham did honor God with so it argueth in the Apostles themselves great honor that at their feet the price of those Possessions was laid which men thought good to bestow on Christ. St. Paul commending the Churches which were in Macedonia for their exceeding liberality this way saith of them That he himself would bear record they had declared their forward mindes according to their power yea beyond their power and had so much exceeded his expectation of them that they seemed as it were even to give away themselves first to the Lord saith the Apostle and then by the will of God unto us To him as the owner of such gifts to us as his appointed receivers and dispensers The gift of the Church of Antioch bestowed unto the use of distressed Brethren which were in Iudea Paul and Baruabar did deliver unto the Presbyters of Ierusalem and the head of those Presbyters was Iames he therefore the Chiefest disposer thereof Amongst those Canons which are entituled Apostolical one is this We appoint that the Bishop have care of these things which belong to the Church the meaning is of Church-Goods as the Reason following sheweth For if the precious Souls of men must be committed unto him of trust much more it beloveth the charge of money to be given him that by his Authority the Presbyters and Deacons may administer all things to them that stand in need So that he which hath done them the honor to be as it were his Treasurers hath left them also authority and power to use these his Treasures both otherwise and for the maintenance even of their own Estate the lower sort of the Clergy according unto a meaner the higher after a larger proportion The use of Spiritual goods and possessions hath been a matte◠much disputed of grievous complaints there are usually made against the evil and unlawful usage of them but with no certain determination hitherto on what things and Persons with what proportion and measure they being bestowed do retain their lawful use Some men condemn it as idle superfluous and altogether vain that any part of the Treasure of God should be spent upon costly Ornaments appertaining unto his Service who being best worshipped when he is served in Spirit and truth hath not for want of pomp and magnificence rejected at any time those who with faithful hearts have adored him Whereupon the Hereticks termed Henriciani and Petrobusiani threw down Temples and Houses of Prayer erected with marvellous great charge as being in that respect not fit for Christ by us to be honored in We deny not but that they who sometime wandred as Pilgrims on earth and had no Temples but made Caves and Dens to pray in did God such honor as was most acceptable in his sight God did not reject them for their poverty and nakedness sake Their Sacraments were not abhorred for want of Vessels of Gold Howbeit let them who thus delight to plead answer me When Moses first and afterwards David exhorted the people of Israel unto matter of charge about the service of God suppose we it had been allowable in them to have thus pleaded Our Fathers in Egypt served God devoutly God war with them in all their afflictions he heard their Prayers pitied their Case and delivered them from the tyranny of their oppressors what House Tabernacle or Temple had they Such Argumentations are childish and fond God doth not refuse to be honored at all where there lacketh wealth but where abundance and store is he there requireth the Flower thereof being bestowed on him to be employed even unto the Ornament of his Service In Egypt the state of his People was servitude and therefore his Service was accordingly In the Defart they had no sooner ought of their own but a Tabernacle is required and in the Land of Canaan a Temple In the eyes of David it seemed a thing not fit a thing not decent that himself should be more richly seated than God But concerning the use of Ecclesiastical Goods bestowed this way there is not so much contention amongst us as what measure of allowance is fit for Ecclesiastical Persons to be maintained with A better rule in this case to judge things by we cannot possibly have than the◠Wisdom of God himself by considering what he thought meet for each degree of the Clergy to enjoy in time of the Law what for Levites what for Priests and what for High-Priests somewhat we shall be the more able to discern rightly what may be fit convenient and right for
the Christian Clergy likewise Priests for their maintenance had those first-fruits of Cattel Coin Wine Oyl and other Commodities of the Earth which the Jews were accustomed yearly to present God with They had the price which was appointed for men to pay in lieu of the first-born of their Children and the price of the first born also amongst Cattel which were unclean They had the vowed Gifts of the People or the prices if they were redeemable by the Donors after vow as some things were They had the free and un-vowed Oblations of men They had the remainder of things sacrificed With Tythes the Levites were maintained and with the tythe of their Tythes the High-Priest In a word if the quality of that which God did assign to his Clergy be considered and their manner of receiving it without labour expence or charge it will appear that the Tribe of Levi being but the twelfth part of Israel had in effect as good as four twelfth parts of all such Goods as the holy Land did yield So that their Worldly Estate was four times as good as any other Tribes in Israel besides But the High-Priest's condition how ample to whom belonged the Tenth of all the Tythe of this Land especially the Law provicing also that as the people did bring the best of all things unto the Priests and Levites so the Levite should deliver the choice and flower of all their Commodities to the High-Priest and so his Tenth-part by that mean be made the very best part amongst ten by which proportion if the Levites were ordinarily in all not above thirty thousand men whereas when David numbred them he found almost thirty eight thousand above the age of thirty years the High-Priest after this very reckoning had as much as three or four thousand others of the Clergy to live upon Over and besides all this lest the Priests of Egypt holding Lands should seem in that respect better provided for than the Priests of the true God it pleased him further to appoint unto them forty and eight whole Cities with Territories of Land adjoyning to hold as their own free Inheritance for ever For to the end they might have all kinde of encouragement not onely to do what they ought but to take pleasure in that they did albeit they were expresly forbidden to have any part of the Land of Canaan laid out whole to themselves by themselves in such sort as the rest of the Tribes had forasmuch as the will of God was rather that they should throughout all Tribes be dispersed for the easier access of the People unto knowledge Yet were they not barred altogether to hold Land nor yet otherwise the worse provided for in respect of that former restraint for God by way of special preheminence undertook to feed them at his own Table and out of his own proper Treasury to maintain them that want and penury they might never feel except God himself did first receive injury A thing most worthy our consideration is the wisdom of God herein for the Common sort being prone unto envy and murmur little considereth of what necessity use and importance the sacred duties of the Clergy are and for that Cause hardly yieldeth them any such honor without repining and grudging thereat they cannot brook it that when they have laboured and come to reap there should so great a portion go out of the fruit of their Labours and he yielded up unto such as sweat nor for it But when the Lord doth challenge this as his own due and require it to be done by way of homage unto him whose mere liberality and goodness had raised them from a poor and servile estate to place them where they had all those ample and rich possessions they must be worse than Brute beasts if they would storm at any thing which He did receive at their hands And for him to bestow his own on his own Servants which liberty is not denied unto the meanest of men what man liveth that can think it other than most reasonable Wherefore no cause there was why that which the Clergy had should in any man's eye seem too much unless God himself were thought to be of an over-having disposition This is the mark whereat all those speeches drive Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his Brethren the Lord is his inheritance again To the Tribe of Levi he gave no inheritance the Sacrifices of the Lord God of Israel an inheritance of Levi again The tyths of the which they shall offer as an offering unto the Lord I have given the Levites for an inheritance and again All the heave-offerings of the holy things which the children of Israel shall offer unto the Lord I have given thee and thy sons and thy daughters with thee to be a duty for ever it is a perpetual Covenant of salt before the Lord. Now that if such provision be possible to be made the Christian Clergy ought not herein to be inferior unto the Jewish What sounder proof than the Apostles own kinde of Argument Do ye not know that they which minister about the holy things eat of the things of the Temple and they which partake of the Altar are partakers with the Altar So even So hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel Upon which words I thus conclude that if the People of God do abound and abounding can so farr forth finde in their hearts to shew themselves towards Christ their Saviour thankful as to honor him with their riches which no Law of God or Nature forbiddeth no less than the antient Jewish people did honor God the plain Ordinance of Christ appointeth as large and as ample proportion out of his own treasure unto them that serve him in the Gospel as ever the Priests of the Law did enjoy What further proof can we desire It is the blessed Apostles testimony That even so the Lord hath ordained Yea I know not whether it be sound to interpret the Apostle otherwise than that whereas he judgeth the Presbyters which rule well in the Church of Christ to be worthy of double honor he means double unto that which the Priests of the Law received For if that Ministry which was of the Letter were so glorious how shall not the Ministry of the Spirit be more glorious If the Teachers of the Law of Moses which God delivered written with Letters in Tables of Stone were thought worthy of so great honor how shall not the Teachers of the Gospel of Christ be in his sight most worthy the Holy Ghost being sent from Heaven to ingrave the Gospel on their Hearts who first taught it and whose Successors they that teach it at this day are So that according to the Ordinance of God himself their Estate for worldly maintenance ought to be no worse than is granted unto other sorts of men each according to
very words are That where such power is sealed into a family or kindred the Stock it self is thereby chosen but not the twig that springeth of it The next of the Stock unto him that raigneth are not through nearness of blood made Kings but rather set forth to stand for the Kingdom where Regal Dominion is hereditary it is notwithstanding if we look to the persons which have it altogether elective To this purpose are selected heaps of Scriptures concerning the Solemn Coronation or Inauguration of Saul of David of Solomon and others by the Nobles Ancients and people of the Common-weal of Israel as if these solemnities were a kind of deed whereby the right of Dominion is given Which strange untrue and unnatural conceits set abroad by seeds-men of Rebellion onely to animate unquiet spirits and to feed them with possibility of aspiring to Thrones if they can win the hearts of the people what hereditary title soever any other before them may have I say unjust and insolent positions I would not mention were it not thereby to make the countenance of truth more orient for unless we will openly proclaim defiance unto all law equity and reason we must there is no remedy acknowledge that in kingdoms hereditary birth giveth right unto Soveraign Dominion and the death of the predecessor putteth the successor by blood in seisin Those publick solemnities before specified do but serve for an open testification of the Inheritors right or belong unto the form of inducting him into possession of that thing he hath right unto therefore in case it doth happen that without right of blood a man in such wise be possessed all these new elections and investings are utterly void they make him no indefeasable estate the inheritor by blood may disposses him as an usurper The case thus standing albeit we judge it a thing most true that Kings even inheritors do hold their right in the Power of Dominion with dependency upon the whole Body politick over which they have Rule as Kings yet so it may not be understood as if such dependency did grow for that every supream Governor doth personally take from thence his power by way of gift bestowed of their own free accord upon him at the time of his entrance into the said place of his soveraign Government But the cause of dependency is that first Original conveyance when power was derived from the whole into One to pass from him unto them whom out of him nature by lawful births should produce and no natural or legal inability make uncapable Neither cab any man with reason think but that the first institution of Kings a sufficient consideration wherefore their power should always depend on that from which it did always flow by Original influence of power from the body into the King is the cause of Kings dependency in Power upon the body By dependency we mean subordination and subjection A manifest token of which dependency may be this as there is no more certain Argument that Lands are held under any as Lords then if we see that such lands is defect of heirs fall unto them by escheat In like manner it doth follow rightly that seeing Dominion when there is none to inherit it returneth unto the body therefore they which before were inheritors thereof did hold it with dependency upon the body so that by comparing the body with the head as touching power it seemeth always to reside in both fundamentally and radicially in the one in the other derivatively in the one the Habit in the other the Act of Power May a body politick then at all times withdraw in whole or in part the influence of Dominion which passeth from it if inconveniencies do grow thereby It must be presumed that supream Governors will not in such case oppose themselves and be stiff in detaining that the use whereof is with publick detriment but surely without their consent I see not how the body by any just means should be able to help it self saving when Dominion doth escheat such things therefore must be thought upon before hand that Power may be limited ere it be granted which is the next thing we are to consider In what Measure IN power of Dominion all Kings have not an equal latitude Kings by conquest make their own Charter so that how large their power either Civil or Spiritual is we cannot with any certainty define further then onely to set them in the line of the Law of God and Nature for bounds Kings by Gods own special appointment have also that largeness of power which he doth assign or permit with approbation touching Kings which were first instituted by agreement and composition made with them over whom they raign how far their power may extend the Articles of Compact between them is to shew not only the Articles of Compact at the first beginning which for the most part are either clean worm out of knowledg or else known to very few but whatsoever hath been after in free and voluhtary manner condiscended unto whether by express consent whereof positive laws are witnesses or else by silent allowance famously notified through custome reaching beyond the memory of man By which means of after Agreement it cometh many times to pass in Kingdoms that they whose ancient predecessors were by violence and force made subject do by little and little grow into that sweet form of Kingly Government which Philosophers define Regency willingly sustained and indued with Chiefly of power in the greatest things Many of the ancients in their writings do speak of Kings with such high and ample terms as if universality of Power even in regard of things and not of persons did appertain to the very being of a King The reason is because their speech concerning Kings they frame according to the state of those Monarchs to whom unlimited authority was given which some not observing imagine that all Kings even in that they are Kings ought to have whatsoever power they judge any Soveraign Ruler lawfully to have enjoyed But the most judicious Philosopher whose eye scarce any things did escape which was to be found in the bosome of nature he considering how far the power of one Soveraign Ruleâ— may be different from another Regal Authority noteth in Spartan Kings That of all others they were most tied to Law and so the most restrained power A King which hath not supream power in the greatest things is rather intituled a King then invested with reall Soveraignty We cannot properly term him a King of whom it may not be said at the least wise as touching certain the chiefest affairs of the State 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his right in them is to have rule not subject to any other predominancy I am not of opinion that simply in Kings the most but the best limited power is best both for them and the people the most limited is that which may deal in fewest things the â—eâ—t that which
any longer under him but he together with them under God receiving the joyes of everlasting triumph that so God may be in all all misery in all the Wicked through his Justice in all the Righteous through his love all felicity and blisse In the mean while he reigneth over the World as King and doth those things wherein none is Superiour unto him whether we respect the works of his Providence and Kingdom or of his Regiment over the Church The cause of Errour in this point doth seem to have been a misconceit that Christ as Mediatour being inferiour to his Father doth as Mediatour all Works of Regiment over the Church when in truth Regiment doth belong to his Kingly Office Mediatourship to his Priestly For as the High-Priest both offered Sacrifices for expiation of the Peoples sins and entred into the holy Place there to make intercession for them So Christ having finished upon the Cross that part of his Priestly Office which wrought the propitiation for our Sinnes did afterwards enter into very Heaven and doth there as Mediatour of the New Testament appear in the sight of God for us A like sleight of Judgement it is when they hold that Civil Authority is from God but not immediately through Christ nor with any subordination to God nor doth any thing from God but by the hands of our Lord Jesus Christ. They deny it not to be said of Christ in the Old Testament By me Princes rule and the Nobles and all the Iudges of the Earth In the New as much is taught That Christ is the Prince of the Kings of the Earth Wherefore to the end it may more plainly appear how all Authority of Man is derived from God through Christ and must by Christian men be acknowledged to be no otherwise held then of and under him we are to note that because whatsoever hath necessary being the Son of God doth cause it to be and those things without which the World cannot well continue have necessary being in the World a thing of so great use as Government cannot choose but be originally from Him Touching that Authority which Civil Magistrates have in Ecclesiastical Affairs it being from God by Christ as all other good things are cannot chuse but be held as a thing received at his hands and because such power is of necessity for the ordering of Religion wherein the essence and very being of the Church consisteth can no otherwise slow from him than according to that special care which he hath to govern and guide his own People it followeth that the said Authority is of and under him after a more special manner in that he is Head of the Church and not in respect of his general Regency over the World All things saith the Apostle speaking unto the Church are yours and ye are Christs and Christ is God's Kings are Christ's as Saints because they are of the Church if not collectively yet divisively understood It is over each particular Person within that Church where they are Kings Surely Authority reacheth both unto all mens persons and to all kindes of causes also It is not denyed but that they may have and lawfully exercise it such Authority it is for which and for no other in the World we term them Heads such Authority they have under Christ because he in all things is Lord overall and even of Christ it is that they have received such Authority in as much as of him all lawful Powers are therefore the Civil Magistrate is in regard of this Power an under and subordinate Head of Christ's People It is but idle where they speak That although for several Companies of Men there may be several Heads or Governours differing in the measure of their Authority from the Chiefest who is Head over all yet it cannot be in the Church for that the reason why Head-Magistrates appoint others for such several places it Because they cannot be present every where to perform the Office of an Head But Christ is never from his Body nor from any Part of it and therefore needeth not to substitute any which may be Heads some over one Church and some over another Indeed the consideration of Man's imbecillity which maketh many Heads necessary where the burthen is too great for one moved Iethro to be a Perswader of Moses that a number of Heads of Rulers might be instituted for discharge of that duty by parts which in whole he saw was troublesome Now although there be not in Christ any such defect or weakness yet other causes there be divers more than we are able to search into wherefore it might seem unto him expedient to divide his Kingdom into many Provinces and place many Heads over it that the Power which each of them hath in particular with restraint might illustrate the greatness of his unlimited Authority Besides howsoever Christ be Spiritually alwayes united unto every part of his Body which is the Church Nevertheless we do all know and they themselves who alledge this will I doubt not confess also that from every Church here visible Christ touching visible and corporal presence is removed as farr as Heaven from the Earth is distant Visible Government is a thing necessary for the Church and it doth not appear how the exercise of visible Government over such Multitudes every where dispersed throughout the World should consist without sundry visible Governours whose Power being the greatest in that kinde so farr as it reacheth they are in consideration thereof termed so farr Heads Wherefore notwithstanding the perpetual conjunction by vertue whereof our Saviour alwayes remaineth spiritually united unto the parts of his Mystical Body Heads indeed with Supream Power extending to a certain compasse are for the exercise of a visible Regiment not unnecessary Some other reasons there are belonging unto this branch which seem to have been objected rather for the exercise of mens wits in dissolving Sophismes than that the Authors of them could think in likelyhood thereby to strengthen their cause For example If the Magistrate be Head of the Church within his own Dominion then is he none of the Church For all that are of the Church make the Body of Christ and every one of the Church fulfilleth the place of one member of the Body By making the Magistrate therefore Head we do exclude him from being a Member subject to the Head and so leave him no place in the Church By which reason the name of a Body Politick is supposed to be alwayes taken of the inferiour sort alone excluding the Principal Guides and Governors contrary to all Mens customes of speech The Errour ariseth by misconceiving of some Scripture-sentences where Christ as the Head and the Church as the Body are compared or opposed the one to the other And because in such comparisons ooppositions the Body is taken for those only parts which are subject unto the Head they imagine that who so is the Head of any
dear and precious to me than that I may always remain in your Honours favour which hath oftentimes be an helpful and comfortable unto me in my Ministry aud to all such as reaped any fruit of my simple and faithful labour In which dutiful regard I humbly beseech you Honours to vouchsafe to do me this grace to conceive nothing of me otherwise than according to the duty wherein I ought to live by any information against me before your Honours have heard my answer and been throughly informed of the matter Which although it be a thing that your wisdoms not in favour but in justice yeld to all men yet the state of the the calling into the Ministery whereunto it hath pleased God of his goodness to call me though unworthiest of all is so subject to mis-information as except we may finde this favour with your Honours we cannot look for any other but that our unindifferent parties may easily procure us to be hardly esteemed of and that we shall be made like the poor Fisher-boats in the Sea which every swelling wave and billow raketh and runneth over Wherein my Estate is yet harder than any others of my Rank and Calling who are indeed to fight against Flesh and Blood in what part soever of the Lords Host and Field they shall stand mashalled to serve yet many of them deal with it naked and unfurnished of Weapons But my service was in a place where I was to encounter with it well appointed and armed with skill and with authority whereof as I have always thus deserved and therefore have been careful by all good means to entertain still your Honours favourable respect of me so have I special cause at this present wherein mis-information to the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury and other of the High Commission hath been able so farr to prevail against me that by their Letter they have inhibited me to preach or execute any Act of Ministry in the Temple or elsewhere having never once called me before them to understand by mine answer the truth of such things as had been informed against me We have a story in our Books wherein the Pharisees proceeding against our Saviour Christ without having heard him is reproved by an honourable Counsellour as the Evangelist doth term him saying Doth our Law judge a man before it hear him and know what he hath done Which I do not mention to the end that by an indirect and covert speech I might so compare those who have without ever hearing me pronounced a heavy sentence against me for notwithstanding such proceedings I purpose by Gods grace to carry my self towards them in all seeming duty agreeable to their places much less do I presume to liken my Cause to our Saviour Christ's who hold it my chiefest honour and happiness to serve him though it be but among the hindes and hired Servants that serve him in the basest corners of his House But my purpose in mentioning it is to shew by the judgement of a Prince and great man in Israel that such proceeding standeth not with the Lavv of God and in a Princely Pattern to shew it to be a noble part of an honourable Counsellour not to allow of indirect dealings but to allow and affect such a course in Justice as is agreeable to the Lavv of God We have also a plain rule in the Word of God not to proceed any otherwise against any Elder of the Church much less against one that laboureth in the Word and in teaching Which rule is delivered with this most earnest charge and obtestation I beseech and charge thee in the sight of God and the Lord Iesus Christ and the Elect Angels that thou keep those rules without preferring one before another doing nothing of partiality or including to either part which Apostolical and most earnest charge I referr to your Honours wisdom how it hath been regarded in so heavy a Judgement against me without ever hearing my Cause and whetheâ— as having God before their eyes and the Lord Jesus by whom all former Judgements shall be tried again and as in the presence of the Elect Angels Witnesses and Observers of the Regiment of the Church they have proceeded thus to such a sentence They alledge indeed two reasons in their Letters whereupon they restrain my Ministry which if they were as strong against me as they are supposed yet I referr to your Honours wisdoms whether the quality of such an Offence as they charge me with which is in effect but an indiscretion deserve so grievous a punishment both to the Church and me in taking away my Ministery and that poor little commodity which it yieldeth for the necessary maintenance of my life if so unequal a ballancing of faults and punishments should have place in the Common-wealth surely we should shortly have no Actions upon the Case nor of Trespass but all should be Pleas of the Crown nor any man amerced or fined but for every light offence put to his ransom I have credibly heard that some of the Ministery have been committed for grievous transgressions of the Laws of God and men being of no ability to do other service in the Church than to read yet hath it been thought charitable and standing with Christian moderation and temperancy not to deprive such of Ministry and Beneficency but to inflict some more tolerable punishment Which I write not because such as I think were to be favoured but to shew how unlike their dealing is with me being through the goodness of God not to be touched with any such blame and one who according to the measure of the gift of God have laboured now some years painfully in regard of the weak estate of my Body in preaching the Gospel and as I hope not altogether unprofitably in respect of the Church But I beseech your Honors to give me leave briefly to declare the particular reasons of their Letter and what Answer I have to make unto it The first is That as they say I am not lawfully called to the Function of the Ministry nor allowed to preach according to the Laws of the Church of England For Answer to this I had need to divide the Points and first to make answer to the former wherein leaving to shew what by the Holy Scriptures is required in a lawful Calling and that all this is to be found in mine that I be not too long for your weighty affairs I rest I thus answer My calling to the Ministry was such as in the calling of any thereunto is appointed to be used by the Orders agreed upon in the National Synods of the Low-Countreys for the direction and guidance of their Churches which Orders are the same with those whereby the French and Scotish Churches are governed whereof I have shewed such sufficient testimonial to my Lord the Archbishop of Canterbury as is requisite in such a Matter whereby it must needs fall out if any man be lawfully called to the Ministry in
labouring and suing for Places and Charges in the Church is not lawful Further whereas at the suit of the Church some of your Honours entertained the Cause and brought it to a near issue that there seemed nothing to remain but the commendation of my Lord the Archbishop of Canterbury when as he could not be satisfied but by my subscribing to his late Articles and that my Answer agreeing to subscribe according to any Law and to the Statute provided in that Case but praying to be respited for subscribing to any other which I could not in Conscience do either for the Temple which otherwise he said he would not commend me to nor for any other Place in the Church did so little please my Lord Archbishop as he resolved that otherwise I should not be commended to it I had utterly here no cause of offence against Mr. Hooker whom I did in no sort esteem to have prevented or undermined me but that God disposed of me as it pleased him by such means and occasions as I have declared Moreover as I have taken no cause of offence at Mr. Hooker for being preferred so there were many Witnesses that I was glad that the place was given him hoping to live in all godly peace and comfort with him both for acquaintance and good-will which hath been between us and for some kinde of affinity in the marriage of his nearest kindred and mine Since his comming I have so carefully endeavoured to entertain all good correspondence and agreement with him as I think he himself will bear me witness of many earnest Disputations and Conferences with him about the matter the rather because that contrary to my expectation he inclined from the beginning but smally thereunto but joyned rather with such as had always opposed themselves to any good order in this Charge and made themselves to be brought indisposed to his present state and proceedings For both knowing that God's Commandement charged me with such Duty and discerning how much on peace might further the good service of God and his Church and the mutual comfort of us both I had resolved constantly to seek for Peace and though it should flye from me as I saw it did by means of some who little desired to see the good of our Church yet according to the rule of God's Word to follow after it Which being so as hereof I take God to witnesse who searcheth the heart and reins and who by his Son will judge the World both quick and dead I hope no charitable Judgement can suppose me to have stood evil-affected towards him for his Place or desirous to fall into any Controversie with him Which my resolution I pursued that whereas I discovered sundry unsound matters in his Doctrine as many of his Sermons tasted of some sour leaven or other yet thus I carried my self towards him Matters of smaller weight and so covertly discovered that no great offence to the Church was to be feared in them I wholly passed by as one that discerned nothing of them or had been unfurnished of replies for others of great moment and so openly delivered as there was just cause of fear left the Truth and Church of God should be prejudiced and perilled by it and such as the Conscience of my Duty and Calling would not suffer me altogether to pass over this was my course to deliver when I should have just cause by my Text the truth of such Doctrine as he lead otherwise taught in general speeches without touch of his Person in any sort and further at convenient opportunity to conferr with him in such points According to which determination whereas he had taught certain things concerning Predestination otherwise than the Word of God doth as it is understood by all Churches professing the Gospel and not unlike that wherewith Coranus sometimes troubled his Church I both delivered the truth of such points in a general Doctrine without any touch of him in particular and conferred with him also privately upon such Articles In which Conference I remember when I urged the consent of all Churches and good Writers against him that I knew and desired if it were otherwise What Authors he had seen of such Doctrine He answered me That his best Author was his own Reason which I wished him to take heed of as a matter standing with Christian modesty and wisdom in a Doctrine not received by the Church not to trust to his own Judgment so farr as to publish it before he had conferred with others of his Profession labouring by daily Prayer and Study to know the will of God as he did to see how they understood such Doctrine Notwithstanding he with wavering replyed That he would some other time deal more largely in the matter I wished him and prayed him not so to do for the peace of the Church which by such means might be hazarded seeing he could not but think that men who make any Couscience of their Ministerie will judge it a necessarie dutie in them to teach the truth and to convince the contrarie Another time upon like occasion of this Doctrine of his That the assurance of that we believe by the Word is not so certain as of that we perceive by sense I both taught the Doctrine otherwise namely the assurance of Faith to be greater which assured both of things above and contrarie to all sense and human understanding and dealt with him also privately upon that point According to which course of late when as he had taught That the Church of Rome is a true Church of Christ and a sanctified Church by profession of that Truth which God both revealed unto us by his Son though not a part and perfect Church and further That be doubted not but that thousands of the Fathers which lived and dyed in the Superstitions of that Church were saved because of their ignorance which excuseth them mis-alledging to that end a Text of Scripture to prove it The matter being ofset purpose openly and at large handled by him and of that moment that might prejudice the Faith of Christ encourage the ill-affected to continue still in their damnable ways and others weak in Faith to suffer themselves easily to be seduced to the destruction of their Souls I thought it my most bounden duty of God and to his Church whilst I might have opportunitie to speak with him to teach the Truth in a general speech in such points of Doctrine At which time I taught That such as dye or have died at any time in the Church of Rome holding in their ignorance that Faith which is taught in it and namely Iustification in part by Works could not be said by the Scriptures to be saved In which matter foreseeing that if I waded not warily in it I should be in danger to be reported as hath fallen out since notwithstanding to condemn all the Fathers I said directly and plainly to all mens understanding That it was not indeed to be
notwithstanding I knew well what speech it deserved and what some zealous earnest man of the spirit of Iohn and Iames â—irnamed Boanerges Sons of Thunder would have said in such a case yet I chose rather to content my self in exhorting him to revisit his Doctrine as Nathan the Prophet did the device which without consulting with God he had of himself given to David concerning the building of the Temple and with Peter the Apostle to endure to be withstood in such a Case not unlike unto this This is effect was that which passed between us concerning this matter and the invectives I made against him wherewith I am charged Which rehearsal I hope may clear me with all that shall indifferently consider it of the blames laid upon me for want of Duty to Mr. Hooker in not conferring with him whereof I have spoken sufficiently already and to the High-Commission in not revealing the matter to them which yet now I am further to answer My Answer is That I protest no contempt not wilful neglect of any lawful Authority stayed me from complaining unto them but these Reasons following First I was in some hope that Mr. Hooker notwithstanding he had been ovencarried with a shew of Charity to prejudice the Truth yet when it should be sufficiently proved would have acknowledged it or at the lest induced with Peace that it might be offered without either offence to him or to such as would receive it either of which would have taken away any cause of just Complaint When neither of these fell out according to my expectation and desire but that he replied to the Truth and objected against it I thought he might have some doubts and scruples in himself which yet if they were cleared he would either embrace sound Doctrine or at lest suffer it to have its course Which hope of him I nourished so long as the matter was not bitterly and immodestly handled between us Another Reason was the Cause it self which according to the Parable of the Tares which are said to be sown among the Wheat sprung up first in his Grass Therefore as the Servants in that Place are not said to have come to complain to the lord till the Tares came to shew their fruits in their kinde so I thinking it yet but a time of discovering of it what it was desired not their fickle to cutt it down For further answer It is to be considered that the conscience of my Duty to God and to his Church did binde me at the first to deliver sound Doctrine in such Points as had been otherwise uttered in the Place where I had now some years taught the Truth Otherwise the rebuke of the Prophet had fallen upon me for not going up to the breach and standing in it and the peril for answering the blood of the City in whose Watch-Tower I sate if it had been surprized by my default Moreover my publick Protestation in being unwilling that if any were not yet satisfied some other more convenient way might be taken for it And lastly that I had resolved which I uttered before to some dealing with me about the matter to have protested the next Sabbath day that I would no more answer in that Place any Objections to the Doctrine taught by any means but some other way satisfie such as should require it These I trust may make it appear that I failed not in Duty to Authoritie notwithstanding I did not complain nor give over so soon dealing in the Case If I did how is he clear which can alledge none of all these for himself who leaving the expounding of the Scriptures and his ordinarie Calling voluntarily discoursed upon School-Points and Questions neither of edification nor of Truth who after all this as promising to himself and to untruth a Victory by my silence added yet in the next Sabbath day to the maintenance of his former Opinions these which follow That no additament taketh away the Foundation except it be a Privative of which sort neither the Works added to Christ by the Church of Rome nor Circumcision by the Galatians were as one denieth him not to be a man that saith he is a Righteous man but he that saith he is a dead man Whereby it might seem that a man might without hurt adde Works to Christ and pray also that God and Saint Peter would save them That the Galatians Case is harder than the Case of the Church of Rome because the Galatians joyned Circumcision with Christ which God had forbidden and abolished but that which the Church of Rome joyned with Christ were good Works which God hath commanded Wherein he committed a double fault one in expounding all the questions of the Galatians and consequently of the Romans and other Epistles of Circumcision onely and the Ceremonies of the Law as they doe who answer for the Church of Rome in their Writings contrary to the clear meaning of the Apostle as may appear by many strong and sufficient reasons The other in that he said the addition of the Church of Rome was of Works commanded of God Whereas the least part of the Works whereby they looked to merit was of such works and most were works of Supererogation and works which God never commanded but was highly displeased with as of Masses Pilgrimages Pardons pains of Purgatory and such like That no one sequel urged by the Apostle against the Galatians for joyning Circumcision with Christ but might be us well enforced against the Lutherans that is that for their ubiquity it may be as well said to them If ye hold the Body of Christ to be in all places you are fallen from grace you are under the curse of the Law saying Cursed be he that fulfilleth not all things written in this Book with such like He added yet further That to a Bishop of the Church of Rome to a Cardinal yea to the Pope himself acknowledging Christ to be the Saviour of the World denying other errours and being discomforted for want of Works whereby he might be justified he would not doubt but use this speech Thou holdest the foundation of Christian Faith though it be but by a slender thred thou holdest Christ though but by the hem of his Garment why shouldst thou not hope that vertue may pass from Christ to save thee That which thou holdest of Iustification by thy Works overthroweth indeed by consequent the foundation of Christian Faith but be of good chear thou hast not to do with a captionus Sophister but with a merciful God who will justifie thee for that thou holdest and not take the advantage of doubtful construction to condemn thee And if this said he be an Errour I hold it willingly for it is the greatest comfort I have in this World without which I would not wish either to speak or to live Thus farr beng not to be answered in it any more he was bold to proceed the absurdity of which Speech I need not
and quite forgetting of strife together with the Causes that have either bred it or brought it up that things of small moment never disjoyn them whom one God one Lord one Faith one Spirit one Baptism bands of so great force have linked that a respectively eye towards things wherewith we should not be disquieted make us not as through infirmity the very Patriarchs themselves sometimes were full gorged unable to speak peaceably to their own Brother Finally that no strife may ever be heard of again but this Who shall hate strife most who shall pursue peace and unity with swiftest paces To The Christian Reader WHereas many desirous of resolution in some Points handled in this learned Discourse were earnest to have it Copied out to case so many labours it hath been thought most worthy and very necessary to be printed that not onely they might be satisfied but the whole Church also hereby edified The rather because it will free the Author from the suspition of some Errors which he hath been thought to have favoured Who might well have answered with Cremutius in Tacitus Verba mea arguuntur adeò factorum innocens sum Certainly the event of that time wherein he lived shewed that to be true which the same Author spake of a worse Cui deerat inimicus per amicos oppressus and that there is not minus periculum ex magna fama quà m ex mala But he hath so quit himself that all may see how as it was said of Agricola Simul suis virtutibus simul vitiis aliorum in ipsam gloriam praeceps agebatur Touching whom I will say no more but that which my Author said of the same man Integritatem c. in tanto viro referre injuria virtutum fuerit But as of all other his Writings so of this I will adde that which Velleius spake in commendation of Piso Nemo fuit qui megis quae agenda erant curaret sine ulla ostentatione agendi So not doubting good Christian Reader of thy assent herein but wishing thy favourable acceptance of this Work which will be an inducement to set forth others of his Learned labours I take my leave from Corpus Christi Colledge in Oxford the sixth of July 1612. Thine in Christ Jesus HENRY IACKSON A LEARNED DISCOURSE OF Justification Works and how the Foundation of FAITH is overthrown HABAK. 1. 4. The wicked doth compass about the righteous therefore perverse Iudgement doth proceed FOR the better manifestation of the Prophets meaning in this place we are first to consider the wicked of whom he saith that They compass about the righteous Secondly the righteous that are compassed about by them and Thirdly That which is inferred Therefore perverse judgement proceedeth Touching the first There are two kinds of wicked men of whom in the fist of the former to the Corinthians the blessed Apostle speaketh thus Do ye not judge them that are within But God judgeth them that art without There are wicked therefore whom the Church may judge and there are wicked whom God onely judgeth wicked within and wicked without the walls of the Church If within the Church particular persons be apparently such as cannot otherwise be reformed the rule of the Apostolical judgment is this Separate them from among you if whole Assemblies this Separate your selves from among them For what society hath light with darkness But the wicked whom the Prophet meaneth were Babylonians and therefore without For which cause we heard at large heretofore in what sort he urgeth God to judge them 2. Now concerning the righteous their neither it nor ever was any meer natural man absolutely righteous in himself that is to say void of all unrighteousness of all sin We dare not except no not the blessed Virgin her self of whom although we say with St. Augustine for the honour sake which we owe to our Lord and Saviour Christ we are not willing in this cause to move any question of his Mother yet for asmuch as the Schools of Rome have made it a question we may answer with Eusebius Emissenus who speaketh of her and to her in this effect Thou didst by special Prerogative nine months together entertain within the Closet of the Flesh the hope of all the ends of the Earth the honour of the World the common joy of Men. He from whom all things had their beginning had his beginning from thee of the Body he took the blood which was to be shed for the life of the World of thee he took that which even for thee be payed A peccati enim veteris nexu per se non est immunis ipsa genitrix Redemptoris The Mother of the Redeemer himself is not otherwise loosed from the bond of antient sinne than by redemption if Christ have paid a ransom for all even for her it followeth that all without exception were Captives If one have died for all then all were dead in sinne all sinful therefore none absolutely righteous in themselves but we are absolutely righteous in Christ. The World then must shew a righteous man otherwise not able to shew a man that is perfectly righteous Christ is made to us Wisdome Iustice Sanctification and Redemption Wisdom because he hath revealed his Fathers will Iustice because he hath offered up himself a Sacrifice for sin Sanctification because he hath given us his Spirit Redemption because he hath appointed a day to vindicate his Children out of the bonds of Corruption into liberty which is glorious How Christ is made Wisdom and how Redemption it may be declared when occasion serveth But how Christ is made the Righteousness of men we are now to declare 3. There is a glorifying Righteousness of men in the World to come as there is a justifying and sanctifying Righteousness here The Righteousness wherewith we shall be clothed in the World to come is both perfect and inherent That whereby here we are justified is perfect but not inherent That whereby we are sanctified is inherent but not perfect This openeth a way to the understanding of that grand question which hangeth yet in controversie between us and the Church of Rome about the matter of justifying Righteousness 4. First although they imagine that the Mother of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ were for his honour and by his special protection preserved clean from all sinne yet touching the rest they teach as we doe That Infants that never did actually offend have their Natures defiled destitute of Justice averted from God That in making man righteous none do efficiently work with God but God They teach as we do that unto Justice no man ever attained but by the Merits of Jesus Christ. They teach as we do That although Christ as God be the efficient as Man the meritorious cause of our Justice yet in us also there is some thing required God is the cause of our natural life in him we live but he quickneth not
men And fearing left that such questions as these if voluntarily they should be too farr waded in might seem worthy of that rebuke which our Saviour thought needfull in a case not unlike What is this unto thee When I was forced much beside my expectation to render a reason of my speech I could not but yield at the Call of others and proceed so farr as Duty bound me for the fuller satisfying of mindes Wherein I have walked as with Reverence so with Fear with Reverence inregard of our Fathers which lived in former times not without Fear considering them that are alive 38. I am not ignorant how ready men are to feed and sooth up themselves in evil Shall I will the man say that loveth the present World more than he loveth Christ shall I incurr the high displeasure of the mightiest upon Earth Shall I hazard my Goods endanger my Estate put my self into jeopardy rather than to yield to that which so many of my Fathers imbraced and yet found favour in the sight of God Curse ye Meroz saith the Lord curse bar Inhabitants because they helped not the Lord they helped him not against the Mighty If I should not onely not help the Lord against the Mighty but help to strengthen them that are mighty against the Lord worthily might I fall under the burthen of that Curse worthy I were to bear to bear my own Judgement But if the Doctrine which I reach be a flower gathered in the Garden of the Lord a part of the saying Truth of the Gospel from whence notwithstanding poysonous Creatures do suck-venom I can but wish it were otherwise and content my self with the lord that hath befallen me the rather because it hath not befallen me alone Saint Paul taught a Truth and a comfortable truth when he taught that the greater our misery is in respect of our Iniquities the readier is the mercy of God for our release If we seek unto him the more we have sinned the more praise and glory and honour unto him that pardoneth our sinne But mark what sewd Collections were made hereupon by some Why then am I condemned for a Sinner And the Apostle as we are blamed and as some affirm that we say Why doe we not evil that good may come of it he was accused to teach that which ill-disposed People did gather by his teaching though it were clean not onely besides but against his meaning The Apostle addeth Their Condemnation which thus doe is just I am not hasty to apply Sentences of Condemnation I wish from mine Heart their Conversion whosoever are thus perversly affected For I must needs say Their Case is fearful their Estate dangerous which harden themselves presuming on the mercy of God towards others It is true that God is merciful but let us beware of presumptuous sinnes God delivered Ionah from the bottome of the Sea will you therefore cast your selves head-long from the tops of Rocks and say in your Hearts God shall deliver us He pitieth the Blinde that would gladly see but will he pity him that may see and hardeneth himself in blindenesse No Christ hath spoken too much unto you to claim the priviledge of your Fathers 39. As for us that have handled this Cause concerning the condition of our Fathers whether it be this thing or any other which we bring unto you the Counsel is good which the Wise man giveth Stand thou fast in thy sure understanding in the way and knowledge of the Lord and have but one manner of word and follow the Word of peace and righteousnesse As a loose tooth is a grief to him that eateth so doth a wavering and unstable word in speech that tendeth to instruction offend Shall a wise man speak words of the winde saith Eliphaz leight unconstant unstable words Surely the wisest may speak words of the winde such is the untoward Constitution of our nature that we doe neither so perfectly understand the way and knowledge of the Lord nor so stedfastly imbrace it when it is understood nor so graciously utter it when it is imbraced not so peaceably maintain it when it is uttered but that the best of us are over-taken sometime through blindenesse sometime through hastinesse sometime through impatience sometimes through other passions us the minde whereunto God doth know we are too subject We must therefore be contented both to pardon others and to crave that others may pardon us for such things Let no man that speaketh as a man think himself while he liveth alwayes freed from scapes and over-sights in his speech The things themselves which I have spoken unto you are sound howsoever they have seemed otherwise unto some at whose hands I have in that respect received Injury I willingly forget it although indeed considering the benefit which I have reaped by this necessary speech of Truth I rather incline to that of the Apostle They have not injured me at all I have cause to wish them as many Blessings in the Kingdom of Heaven as they have forced me to utter words and syllables in this Cause wherein I could not be more sparing of speech than I have been It becommeth no man saith Saint Ierom to be patient in the crime of Heresie Patient as I take it we should be alwayes though the crime of Heresie were intended but silent in a thing of so great Consequence I could not beloved I durst not be especially the love which I bear to the truth of Christ Jesus being hereby somewhat called in question Whereof I beseech them in the meeknesse of Christ that have been the first original cause to consider that a Watch-man may cry an Enemy when indeed a Friend commeth In which Cause as I deem such a Watch-man more worthy to be loved for his Care than mis-liked for his Errour So I have judged it my own part in this as much as in me lyeth to take away all suspition of any unfriendly intent or meaning against the Truth from which God doth know my heart is free 40. Now to you Beloved which have heard these things I will use no other words of admonition than those that are offered me by St. Iames My Brethren have not the Faith of our glorious Lord Iesus in respect of Persons Ye are not now to learn that as of it self it is not hurtful so neither should it be to any scandalous and offensive in doubtful cases to hear the different judgments of men Be it that Cephas hath hath one interpretation and Apollos hath another that Paul is of this minde and Barnabas of that if this offend you the fault is yours Carry peaceable mindes and you may have comfort by this variety Now the God of Peace give you peaceable mindes and turn it to your everlasting comfort A LEARNED SERMON OF THE NATURE OF PRIDE HABAK. 2. 4. His mind swelleth and is not right in him But the Iust by his Faith shall live THE nature of Man being much more delighted to
Apostle speaks not as Baronius would have it washed from sins with holy water but pure that is holy free from the pollution of sin as the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth signifie You may also see here refused those calumnies of the Papists that we abandon all religious Rites and godly duties as also the confirmation of our Doctrine touching certainty of Faith and so of Salvation which is so strongly denied by some of that Faction that they have told the world S. Paul himself was uncertain of his own salvation What then shall we say but pronounce a wo to the most strict observers of St. Francis rules and his Canonical Discipline though they make him even equal with Christ and the most meritorious Monk that ever was registred in their Kalender of Saints But we for our comfort are otherwise taught out of the holy Scripture and therefore exhorted to build our selves in our most holy Faith that so when our earthly house of this Tabernacle shall be destroyed we may have a Building given of God a house not made with hands but eternal in the Heavens This is that which is most piously and feelingly taught in these few leaves so that you shall read nothing here but what I perswade my self you have long practiâ—ed in the constant course of your life It remaineth only that you accept of these Labours tendred to you by him who wisheth you the long joys of this world and the eternal of that which is to come Oxon. from Corp. Christi Colledge this 13. of Ianuary 1613. TWO SERMONS Upon Part of Saint Judes Epistle The First Sermon Epist. JUDE Verse 17 18 19 20 21. But ye beloved remember the words which were spoken before of the Apostles of our Lord Iesus Christ How that they told you that there should be Mockers in the last time which should walk after their own ungodly lusts These are makers of Sects fleshly having not the Spirit But ye beloved edifie your selves in your most holy Faith praying in the Holy Ghost And keep your selves in the love of God looking for the mercy of our Lord Iesus Christ unto eternal life THE occasions whereupon together with the end wherefore this Epistle was written is opened in the front and entry of the same There were then as there are now many evil and wickedly disposed Persons not of the Mystical Body yet within the visible bounds of the Church men which were of old ordained to condemnation ungodly men which turned the grace of our God into wantonness and denyed the Lord Jesus For this cause the Spirit of the Lord is in the hand of Iude the Servant of Iesus and Brother of Iames to exhort them that are called and sanctified of God the Father that they would earnestly contend to maintain the Faith which was once delivered unto the Saints Which Faith because we cannot maintain except we know perfectly first against whom secondly in what sort it must be maintained therefore in the former three verses of that parcel of Scripture which I have read the Enemies of the Crosse of Christ are plainly described and in the latter two they that love the Lord Jesus have a sweet Lesson given them how to strengthen and stablish themselves in the Faith Let us first therefore examine the description of these Reprobates concerning Faith and afterwards come to the words of the Exhortation wherein Christians are taught how to rest their hearts on God's eternal and everlasting Truth The description of these godless Persons is two-fold general and special The general doth point them out and shew what manner of men they should be The Particular pointeth at them and saith plainly These are they In the general description we have to consider of these things First when they were described They were told of before Secondly the men by whom they were described They were spoken of by the Apostles of our Lord Iesus Christ. Thirdly the days when they should be manifest unto the World they told you They should be in the last time Fourthly their disposition and whole demeanour Mockers and Walkers after their own ungodly lusts 2. In the third to the Philippians the Apostle describeth certain They are men saith he of whom I have told you often and now with tears I tell you of them their God is their belly their glory and rejoycing is in their own shame they minde earthly things These were Enemies of the Crosse of Christ Enemies whom he saw and his eyes gusht out with tears to behold them But we are taught in this place how the Apostles spake also of Enemies whom as yet they had not seen described a family of men as yet unheard of a generation reserved for the end of the World and for the last time they had not only declared what they heard and saw in the days wherein they lived but they have prophesied also of men in time to come And you do well said St. Peter in that ye take heed to the words of Prophesie so that ye first know this that no Prophesie in the Scripture cometh of any man 's own resolution No Prophesie in Scripture cometh of any man 's own resolution For all Prophesie which is in Scripture came by the secret inspiration of God But there are Prophesies which are no Scripture yea there are Prophesies against the Scripture My Brethren beware of such Prophesies and take heed you heed them not Remember the things that were spoken of before but spoken of before by the Apostles of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Take heed to Prophesies but to Prophesies which are in Scripture for both the manner and matter of those Prophesies do shew plainly that they are of God 3. Touching the manner how men by the spirit of Prophesie in holy Scripture have spoken and written of things to come we must understand that as the knowledge of that they spake so likewise the utterance of that they knew came not by these usual and ordinary means whereby we are brought to understand the mysteries of our Salvation and are wont to instruct others in the same For whatsoever we know we have it by the hands and Ministry of men which lead us along like Children from a letter to a syllable from a syllable to a word from a word to a line from a line a to a sentence from a sentence to a side and so turn over But God himself was their Instructor he himself taught them partly by Dreams and Visions in the Night partly by Revelations in the Day taking them aside from amongst their Brethren and talking with them as a man would talk with his Neighbour in the way This they became acquainted even with the secret and hidden Counsels of God they saw things which themselves were not able to utter they behold that whereat men and Angels are astonished They understood in the beginning what should come to passe in the last dayes 4. God
the perfection of any thing whereby he might speak all things that are to be spoken to it neither yet be free from error in those things which he speaketh or giveth out And therefore this argument neither affirmatively nor negatively compelleth the hearer but only induceth him to some liking or disliking of that for which it is brought and is rather for an Orator to perswade the simpler sort then for a Disputer to enforce him that is learned 1 Cor. 1 â—1 Ioh â— 34 Deut. 19.15 Matth. 18. 16. T. C. la. p. 10. Although this kinde of Argument of Authority of men is good neither in humane nâ—r divine sciences yet it hath some small force in humane sciences for if such as naturally and in that he is a man he may come to some ripeness of judgement in those sâ—â—ences which in divine maturi hath no force at all as of him which naturally and as he is a man can no more judge of them then a blinde man of colours yea so far is it from drawing crolit If it be barely spoken wâ—thout Reason and testimony of Scripture that it eaâ—rieth also a suâ—pition of untruth whatsoever proceedeth from him which the Apostle did well note when to signifie a thing corruptly spoken and against the truth he saith that it is spoken according to man Rom. 3. He saith not as a wicked and flying man but simply as a man And although this corruption be reformed in many yet for so mâ—ch as in whom the knowledge of the truth is most advanced there remaineth both ignorance and disordered affâ—ctions whereof either of them turneth him from speaking of the truth no mans authority with the Church especially and those that are called and perswaded of the Authority of the Word of God can bring any assurance unto the Conscience T. C. l. 2 p. 21. Of divers sentences of the Fathers themselves whereby some have likened them to brute Beasts without Reason which suffer themselves to be led by the judgement and authority of others some have preferred the judgement of one simple rude man alledging reason unto companies of learned men I will conteâ— my self at this time with two or three Sentences Irâ—neuo saith whatsoever is to be shewed in the Scripture cannot be shewed but out of the â—cripture themselves l. 3 cap. 12 Ierome saith No man â—s he never so holy or eloquent hath any authority after the Apostles in Psal. 86. Augustinâ— saith That he will believe none how godly and learned soever he be unless he confirm his sentence by the Scriptures or by some reason nor contrary to them Ep. 18. And in another place Hear this The Lord saith hear not this Donâ—ius saith â—â—gatus saith Vincentius saith Hilarius saith Ambrose saith Augustine saith but hearken unto thâ— the Lord saith Ep 8. And again having to do with an Arrian he affirmeth that neither he ought to bring forth the Council of Niâ—e nor the other the Council of Arimiâ—e thereby to bring prejudice each to other neither outhâ— the Arrian to be holden by the authority of the one nor himself by the authority of the other but by the Scriptures which are witnesses proper â—â— neither but common to both matter with matter cause with cause reason with reason ought to be debated Cont. Max. Atrian p. 14. cap. And in another â—â—ce against Petil. the Donarist he saith Let not these words he heard between us I say You say let us hear this Thus â—aith the Lord. And by and by speaking of the Scriptures he saith There let us seek the Church there let us try the cause De unit Eccles. cap. 3. Hereby it is manifest that the argument of the authority of man affirmatively in nothing worth Matth. 17.10 T. C. lib. 2. 2â— It at any time it hapned unto Augustine as it did against the Donatists and others to alledge the authority of the ancient Fathers which had been heiuâ—e him yet this was not done before he had laid a sure foundation of his cause in the Scriptures and that also being provoked by the adversaries of the truth who hare themselves high of some Council or of some man of name that had â—avorcil that part A Declaration what the truth is in this matter Matth. 86. 40. Ephis 5. 29. Matth 5. 46. 1 â—ian 5. 8. Matth. 1â— 42. Acts 4. 31. 1 Thes. 2. 7 9. T. C. lib. p. 6. Where this Doctrine is accused of bringing men to despair it hath wrong For when doubting is the way to despair against which this Doctrine offereth the remedy it must needâ— be that it bringeth comfort and joy to the conscience of man Luke 7. â— What the Church is and in what respect Laws of Pulky are thereunto necessarily required John 10. 22. and 1.47 and 21. 15. 1 Tim. 1 5. a Ephes. 2. 16. That he might r. o n cise both unto God in one body Ephes. 3. 16. That the Genries should be in their â—â— also and of the â—â—â—â—bâ—dâ— â—ile T. p. 3. 7. art 3 1 Cor. 12. 13. Ephes. 4. 5. Acts. 2.36 John 13 13. Col. 3. 21. and 2. 1. b 1 Cer. 1. 23. Vide Tanilum lib. An sal 15. Not qussitissturis â—â—â—it assâ—â—iâ— quos per flagiria invites vulgus Christianes appellabat Auâ—ior nominis ejus Christus qui Tiberio 〈…〉 pâ—â—â—â—â—â—rem Pâ—ntion Pilatum 〈…〉 â—rat Repressâ—g in pâ—esers exitiabilu superstitio râ—â—sâ—â—â— erumpehat â—â—â— and per Iudsam originem ejus mali jed per urhem â—â—iâ—m quo cuâ—cta undique atrocia aus pâ—denda â—â—â—â—â—â— â—â—l broâ—â—â—â—â— John 15. 21. â—â—d 86. 2. 4. Apec 2. 13. Tâ—cul de Virgin Veland Iter. Advers Haâ—es lib. â— 1. cap. 2. c. Acts 8. 38. 22. 16. 2. 41. Matth. 13.47 13. 24. Exod. 23. â—â— 106.19 20. 2 Kings 18 4. Jere 11.14 2 Kings 23. 17. lâ—i 17. 3. 1. 4. 60. 15. Jere. 13. 11. 1 Kings 13. 8. Jere. 13. 11. 1 Kings 19. 18. â—â—â—uâ—a In Concil Car. Matth 7. 24. 16. 18. â—â— 19. Sâ—â—â—â—â—ium in â—â—â—â— Con. il Matth. 12. 30. In Conâ—iâ—◠〈…〉 Vide Hâ—â—â—â— Dial. Atâ—â—â— Lucifâ—â—â—a 2 Chre. 13. Hos. 14. 15 17. Josh. 14. 15. Rom. 11.28 Calvin Epish 1. Epist. 283. Epist. 285. Tertul. Exhort ad Caslie Ubi tres Ecclesia est licet laici Acts. 2. 47. Whether it be necessary that some particular Form of Church-Polity be set down in Scripture sith the things that belong particularly unto any such Form are not of necessary to Salvation Tertul. de hibitu mul. AErouli sine necesse est quae Del non lunt Rom. 2. 15. Lact. lib. 6. c. 8. Ille legis hujus inventor disceptater lator Cic. 3. de Repub * Two things misliked the one that we distinguish matters of Discipline or Church Government from matters of Faith and necessary unto Salvation The other that we are injurious to the Scripture of God in abridging the large and rich Continks thereof Their words are these You which
is his will that if there shall be a Church within his Dominions he will maiâ— and deform the same M. M. pag 1â— He that was as faithful as Moses left as clear instruction set the Government of the Church But Christ was as faithful as Moses Eâ—gâ— Demensir of Discip. cap. 1. b John 17. Either God hath left a Prescript Form of Government now or else he is less careful under the New Testament then under the Old Demonst. of Dist. cap. 1. c Ecclesiast Dist. lib. 1. Rom. 11. 17. Ephes. 2. 12 1â— Deut. 4. 5. Vers. 12 13 14. Deut. 5. 22. Vers. 27. Vers. 28 29 30 31. * T. C. lib. 1. p. 35. Whereas you say That they the Jews had nothing but was determined by the Law and we have many things undetermined and left to the Order of the Church I will offer for one that you shall bring that we have lest â—o the Order of the Church to shew you they that had twenty which were undecided of by the express Word of God T. C. In the Table to his Second Book T. C. lib. 1. p. 446. If he will needs separate the Worship of God from the External Polity yet as the Lord set forth the one so he left nothing undescribed in the other Levit. 24 31. Numb 15. 3â— Numb 9. Numb 27. Gen. 18. 18. Gen. 48. 16. T. C. lib. 2. p. 440. 1 Tim 6. 14. Job 18. 37. Job 21. 1â— Acts 22. 18. 2 Tim 4. 1. 1 Tim. 5. 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 4. 24. 2 Tim. 4. 7. T. C. lib 3. p. 241. My Reasons do never conclude the unlawfulness of these Ceremonies of Burial but the inconvenience and inexpedience of them And in the Table Of the inconvenience nor of the unlawfulness of Popish Apparel and Ceremonies in Burial T. C. lib. 1. pag. 32. Upon the indefinite speaking of Mr. Calvin saying Ceremonies and External Disciple without adding all or some you go about subtilly to make men believe That Mr. Calvin had placed the whâ—le External Discipline in the Power and Arbitrement of the Church For it all External Discipline were Arbitrary and in the choice of the Church Excommunication also Which is a part of it might be cast away which I think you will not say And in the very next words before Where you will give to understand that Ceremonies and External Discipline are not prescribed particularly by the Word of God and therefore lest to the Order of the Church You must understand that all External Discipline is not lest to the Orders of the Church being particularly prescribed in the Scriptures no more then all Ceremonies are less to the Order of the Church as the Sacraments of Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. T. C. lib. 3. p. 171. T C. lib. 1. p. 27. We deny not but certain things are lest to the Order of the Church because they are of the Nature of those which are varied by times places persons and other circumstances and so could not at once be set â—â—wn and established forever â—saâ— â—â— 14. Col. 2. â—2 August Epist. â—â— Iosh. 12. Jude 11. 4â— Jâ—â—â—â— 3â— Ioh. 12. 4â— * Nisi Reip. suae statu in omnem constitu 〈…〉 Magistratus ordinarie singulorum mâ—nera potesâ—â—tem que de cripse â—it quae judi cioâ—um ferâ—q ratio habendaâ— quomodo civium finiendae â—ieris â—â—a solum minus Ecclesiae Christianae provi lit quam Moses olim Judaicae sed quà m à Lycurgo Solone Numa Civitatiâ— suis prospectum siâ— â—ib de Ecclesiast Discip. The Defence of godly Ministers against Dr. Bridges 133. Luk. 6. 39. Matth. 4. 14. Rom. 11. 13. Now great use Ceremonies have in the Church Matth. 23. 23. The Doctrine and Discipline of the Church as the weighiust things ought especially to be looked unto but the Ceremonies also as Mint and Cummin ought not to be neglected T.C. l p. 1â—1 Gen. 24. 2. Ruth 4. 7. Exod. 21. 6. a Dionys. p. 121. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 b Liv. lib. â— Maru ad digitor usque involutaÌ„ rem divinam facere significantes fidem inâ—andam sedemque ejâ—s etiam indexivis sucratam esse c Eccles. disc fol. 51. Fol. 32. The first thing they blame in the kinde of our Ceremonies is that we have not in them ancient Apostolical simplicity but a greater pomp and stateliness Lib. Eccles. disc T. C. l. 3. p. 181. Tâ—m 7. de hapt â—atra Donatist lib. â— aâ— 23. T. C. l. 1. p. 31. If this judgement of S. Augustine be a good judgement â—â— found than there he some things commanded of God which are not in the scripture and therfore there is no sufficient Doctrine contained in Scripture whereby we may be saved For all the Commandements of God and of the Apostles are needful for our salvation Vide Ep â—â—a 〈…〉 7. 2. 2 Chron. 2. 5. Our Orders and Ceremonies blamed in that so many of them are the same whiâ—h the Church of Rome useth Eccles. Discipl sol 12. T. C. lib. 1. p. 131. T. C. l. 1. p. 20. C.l.1 p 25. T. C. lib. 1 p. 13â— T. C. l. 1. p. 30. T. C. l. 1. p 131. T. C. l. 1 p. 132. Tom. 2. Graca â—3 Con. Africa cap. 27. Lib. de Idolat He seemeth to mean the feast of Easter day celebrated in the memory of our Saviours resurrection and for that cause earned the Lords day Lib. de Anima a T. C. l. 3 p. 178. b T. C. l. 3. p. 179. T. C. l. 3. p. 180. That whereas they who blame us in this behalf when reason evicteth that all such Ceremonies are not to be abolished make answer that when they condemn Popish Ceremonies their meaning is of Ceremonies unprofitable or Ceremonies instead whereof as good or better may be devised they cannot hereby get out of the bryars but contradict and gainsay themselves in asmuch as their usual manner is to prove that Ceremonies uncommanded in the Church of God and yet used in the Church of Rome are for this very cause unprofitable to us and not so good as others in their place would be T. C. l. 3. p. 171. What an open untruth is it that this is one of our principles not to be lawful to use the same Ceremonies which the Papists did when as I have both before declared the contrary and even here have expresly added that they are not to be used when as good or better may be established Eccles. discip sol 100. T. C. l. 3. p. 176. As for your often repeating that the Ceremonies in question are godly comely and decent It is your old wont of demanding the thing in question and an undoubted Argument of your extream poverty T. C. l. 3. p. 176. T. C. l. 3. p. 177. And that this complaint of ours is just in that we are thus constrained to be like unto the Papists in any their Ceremonies and that this cause only ought to move them to whom that belongeh to do
therein we ought to have followed The Matter contained in this Fourth Book 1. HOw great use Ceremonies have in the Church 2. The First thing they blame in the kinde of our Ceremonies is that we have not in them ancient Apostolical simplicity but a greater pomp and stateliness 3. The second that so many of them are the same which the Church of Rome useth and the Reasons which they bring to prove them for that cause blame-worthy 4. How when they go about to expound what Popish Ceremonies they mean they contradict their own Argument against Popish Ceremonies 5. An Answer to the Argument whereby they would prove that sith we allow the customs of our Fathers to be followed we therefore may not allow such customs as the Church of Rome hath because we cannot account of them which are in that Church as of our Fathers 6. To their Allegation that the course of Gods own wisdom doth make against our conformity with the Church of Rome in such things 7. To the example of the eldest Church which they bring for the same purpose 8. That it is not our best Politie as they pretend it is for establishment of sound Religion to hâ—ve in these things no agreement with the Church of Rome being unsound 9. That neither the Papists upbraiding us as furnished out of their store nor any hope which in that respect they are said to conceive doth make any more against our Ceremonies then the former Allegations have done 10. The grief which they say godly Brethren conceive at such Ceremonies as we have câ—â—â—men with the Church of Rome 11. The third thing for which they reprove a great part of our Ceremonies is for that as we have them from the Church of Rome so that Church had them from the Jews 12. The fourth for that sundry of them have been they say abused unto Iâ—â—aery and arâ— by that mean become scandalous 13. The fifth for that we retain them still notwithstanding the example of certain Churches reformed before us which have cast them out 14. A Declaration of the proceedings of the Church of England â—or the establisement of things as they are SUch was the ancient simplicity and softness of spirit which sometimes prevailed in the World that they whose words were even as Oracles amongst men seemed evermore loth to give sentence against any thing publiquely received in the Church of God except it were wonderful apparently evil for that they did not so much encline to that seventy which delighteth to reprove the least things in seeth amiss as to that Charity which is unwilling to behold any thing that duty bindeth it to reprove The state of this present Age wherein Zeal hath drowned Charity and Skill Meekness will not now suffer any man to marvel whatsoever he shall hear reproved by whomsoever Those Rites and Ceremonies of the Church therefore which are the self-same now that they were when Holy and Vertuous men maintained them against profane and deriding Adversaries her own children have at this day in deâ—ision Whether justly or no it shall then appear when all things are heard which they have to alledge against the outward received Orders of this Church Which inasmuch as themselves do compare unto Mint and Cummin granting them to be no part of those things which in the matter of Polity are weightier we hope that for small things their strife will neither be earnest noâ— long The fifting of that which is objected against the Orders of the Church in particular doth not belong unto this place Here we are to discuss onely those general exceptions which have been taken at any time against them First therefore to the end that their nature and use whereunto they serve may plainly appear and so afterwards their quality the better be discerned we are to note that in every grand or main publique duty which God requireth at the hands of his Church there is besides that matter and form wherein the essence thereof consisteth a certain outward fashion whereby the same is in decent sort administred The substance of all religious actions is delivered from God himself in few words For example sake in the Sacraments Unto the Element let the Word be added and they both do make a Sacrament saith S. Augustine Baptism is given by the Element of Water and that prescript form of words which the Church of Christ doth use the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ is administred in the Elements of Bread and Wine if those mystical words be added thereunto But the due and decent form of administring those holy Sacraments doth require a great deal more The end which is aimed at in setting down the outward form of all religious actions is the edification of the Church Now men are edified when either their understanding is taught somewhat whereof in such actions it behoveth all men to consider or when their hearts are moved with any affection suitable thereunto when their mindes are in any sort stirred up unto that reverence devotion attention and due regard which in those cases seemeth requisite Because therefore unto this purpose not onely speech but sundry sensible means besides have always been thought necessary and especially those means which being object to the eye the liveliest and the most apprehensive sense of all other have in that respect seemed the sittest to make a deep and strong impression from hence have risen not only a number of Prayers Readings Questionings Exhortings but even of visible signs also which being used in perfomance of holy actions are undoubtedly most effectual to open such matter as men when they know and remember carefully must needs be a great deal the better informed to what effect such duties serve We must not think but that there is some ground of Reason even in Nature whereby it cometh to pass that no Nation under Heaven either doth or ever did suffer publike actions which are of weight whether they be Civil and Temporal or else Spiritual and Sacred to pass without some visible solemnity The very strangeness whereof and difference from that which is common doth cause Popular eyes to observe and to mark the same Words both because they are common and do not so strongly move the phansie of man are for the most part but slightly heard and therefore with singular wisdom it hath been provided that the deeds of men which are made in the presence of Witnesses should pass not only with words but also with certain sensible actions the memory whereof is far more easie and durable then the memory of speech can be The things which so long experience of all Ages hath confirmed and made profitable let not us presume to condemn as follies and toys because we sometimes know not the cause and reason of them A wit disposed to scorn whatsoever it doth not conceive might ask wherefore Abraham should say to his servant Put thy hand under my thigh and swear was it not sufficient
for his servant to shew the Religion of an Oath by naming the Lord God of Heaven and Earth unless that strange Ceremony were added In Contracts Bargains and Conveyances a mans word is a token sufficient to express his will Yet this was the ancient manner in Israel concerning redeeming and exchanging to establish all things A man did pluck off his shoe and gave it to his neighbour and this was a sure witness in Israel Amongst the Romans in their making of a Bondman free was it not wondred wherefore so great a do should be made The Master to present his Slave in some Court to take him by the hand and not only to say in the hearing of the publike Magistrate I will that this man become free but after these solemn words uttered to strike him on the cheek to turn him round the hair of his head to be shaved off the Magistrate to touch him thrice with a rod in the end a cap and a white garment to be given him To what purpose all this circumstance Among the Hebrews how strange and in outward appearance almost against reason that he which was minded to make himself a perpetual servant should not only testifie so much in the presence of the Judge but for a visible token thereof have also his ear bored thorow with an awl It were an infinite labour to prosecute these things so far as they might be exemplified both in Civil and Religious actions For in both they have their necessary use and force These sensible things which Religion hath allowed are resemblances framed according to things spiritually understood whereunto they serve as a hand to lead and a way to direct And whereas it may peradventure be objected that to add to Religious duties such Rites and Ceremonies as are significant is to institute new Sacraments sure I am they will not say that Numa Pompilius did ordain a Sacrament a significant Ceremony he did ordain in commanding the Priests to execute the work of their Divine Service with their hands as far as to the fingers covered thereby signifying that fidelity must be defended and that mens right hands are the sacred seat thereof Again we are also to put them in minde that themselves do not hold all significant Ceremonies for Sacraments inasmuch as Imposition of hands they deny to be a Sacrament and yet they give thereunto a forcible signification For concerning it their words are these The party ordained by this ceremony was put in minde of his separation to the work of the Lord that remembring himself to be taken as it were with the hand of God from amongst others this might teach him not to account himself now his own nor to do what himself listeth but to consider that God hath set him about a work which if he will discharge and accomplish he may at the hands of God assure himself of reward and if otherwise of revenge Touching significant Ceremonies some of them are Sacraments some as Sacaments onely Sacraments are those which are signs and tokens of some general promised grace which always really descendeth from God unto the soul that duly receiveth them Other significant tokens are only as Sacraments yet no Sacraments Which is not our distinction but theirs For concerning the Apostles Imposition of hands these are their own words Magnum signum hoc quasi Sacramentum usurparunt They used this sign or as it were Sacrament Concerning Rites and Ceremonies there may be fault either in the kinde or in the number and multitude of them The First thing blamed about the kinde of ours is That in many things we have departed from the ancient simplicity of Christ and his Apostles we have imbraced more outward stateliness we have those Orders in the exercise of Religion which they who best pleased God and served him most devoutly never had For it is out of doubt that the first state of things was best that in the prime of Christian Religion faith was foundest the Scriptures of God were then best understood by all men all parts of godliness did then most abound and therefore it must needs follow that Customs Laws and Ordinances devised since are not so good for the Church of Christ but the best way is to cut off later inventions and to reduce things unto the ancient state wherein at the first they were Which Rule or Canon we hold to be either uncertain or at least wise unsufficient if not both For in case it be certain hard it cannot be for them to shew us where we shall find it so exactly set down that we may say without all controversie These were the Orders of the Apostles times these wholly and onely neither fewer nor more then these True it is that many things of this nature be alluded unto yea many things declared and many things necessariy collected out of the Apostles writings But is it necessary that all the Orders of the Church which were then in use should be contained in their Books Surely no. For if the tenor of their Writings be well observed it shall unto any man easily appear that no more of them are there touched then were needfull to be spoken of sometimes by one occasion and sometimes by another Will they allow then of any other Records besides Well assured I am they are far enough from acknowledging that the Church ought to keep any thing as Apostolical which is not found in the Apostles Writings in what other Records soever it be found And therefore whereas St. Augustine affirmeth that those things which the whole Church of Christ doth hold may well be thought to be Apostolical although they be not found written this his judgement they utterly condemn I will not here stand in defence of S. Augustines opinion which is that such things are indeed Apostolical but yet with this exception unless the Decree of some General Councel have haply caused them to be received for of Positive Laws and Orders received throughout the whole Christian world S. Augustine could imagine no other Fountain save these two But to let pass S. Augustine they who condemn him herein must needs confess it a very uncertain thing what the Orders of the Church were in the Apostles times seeing the Scriptures doe not mention them all and other Records thereof besides they utterly reject So that in tying the Church to the Orders of the Apostles times they tye it to a marvellous uncertain rule unless they require the observation of no Orders but only those which are known to be Apostolical by the Apostles own Writings But then is not this their rule of such sufficiency that we should use it as a touchstone to try the Orders of the Church by for ever Our end ought always to be the same our ways and means thereunto not so The glory of God and the good of the Church was the thing which the Apostles aimed at and therefore ought to be the mark