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A54829
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A collection of sermons upon several occasions by Thomas Pierce ...
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Pierce, Thomas, 1622-1691.
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1671
(1671)
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Wing P2167; ESTC R33403
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232,532
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509
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in the next verse after my Text as if they meant nothing more than the opening of a way to rebel against him For besides that in the Canon of the Council at Trent a Divorce quoad Torum Torum ob multas Causas was decreed to be just in the Church of Rome although our Lord had twice confin'd it to the Sole Cause of Fornication Matth. 5. 32 19. 9. And besides that the word Totum was constantly reteined in four Editions particularly in That which had the Care and Command of Pope Paul the Fifth Let it be granted that the Council did mean no more than a meer Sequestration from Bed and Board to endure for a certain or uncertain time and not an absolute Dissolution of the Conjugal Knot yet in the Judgment of Chemnitius yea and of Maldonat Himself who was as learned a Iesuite as that Society ever had it would be opposite even so to the Law of Christ. For he who putteth away his Wife for any Cause whatsoever besides the Cause of Fornication commits Adultery saith the Iesuit even for this very reason because he makes Her commit it whom he unduly putteth away Nay Chemnitius saith farther That the Papal Separation from Bed and Board is many wayes a Dissolution of the Conjugal Tye. Nor does he content himself to say or affirm it only but by a Confluence of Scriptures does make it good That against the Command of our blessed Saviour in the verse but one before my Text That which God hath joyn'd together the men of Rome do put asunder By these and many more Corruptions in point of Practice and Doctrine too which were no more then Deviations from what had been from the Beginning and which the learnedest Sons of the Church of Rome have been forced to confess in their publick writings the awakened part of the Christian world were compell'd to look out for a Reformation That there was in the See of Rome the most abominable Practice to be imagin'd we have the liberal Confession of zealous Stapleton himself and of those that have publisht their Penitentials We have the published Complaints of Armachanus and Grostead and Nicolas de Clemangis Iohn of Hus and Ierome of Prague Chancellor Gerson and Erasmus and the Archbishop of Spalato Ludovicus Vives and Cassander who are known to have died in the same Communion did yet impartially complain of some Corruptions Vives of their Feasts at the Oratories of Martyrs as being too much of kin unto the Gentiles Parentalia which in the judgment of Tertullian made up a species of Idolatry And Caâ—ander confesses plainly that the Peoples Adoration paid to Images and Statues was equal to the worst of the ancient Heathen So the buying and selling of Papal Indulgences and Pardons 't is a little thing to say oâ— Preferments too was both confest and inveigh'd against by Popish Bishops in Thuanus Now if with all their Corruptions in point of Practice which alone cannot justifie a People's Separation from any Church though the Cathari and the Donatists were heretofore of that opinion we compare their Corruptions of Doctrine too and that in matter of Faith as hath been shew'd Corruptions intrenching on Fundamentals it will appear that That door which was open'd by Us in our first Reformers was not at all to introduce but to let out Schism For the schism must needs be Theirs who give the Cause of the Separation not Theirs who do but separate when Cause is given Else S. Paul had been to blame in that he said to his Corinthians Come ye out from among them and be ye separate 2 Cor. 6. 17. The actual Departure indeed was Ours but Theirs the causal as our immortal Arch-Bishop does fitly word it we left them indeed when they thrust us out as they cannot but go whom the Devil drives But in propriety of speech we left their Errors rather then Them Or if a Secession was made from Them 't was in the very same measure that They had made one from Christ. Whereas They by their Hostilities and their Excommunications departed properly from vs not from any Errors detected in us And the wo is to Them by whom the offence cometh Matth. 18. 7. not to Them to whom 't is given If when England was in a Flame by Fire sent out of Italy we did not abstein from the quenching of it until water might be drawn from the River Tiber it was because our own Ocean could not only do it sooner but better too That is to say without a Figure It did appear by the Concession of the most learned Popish VVriters that particular Nations had still a power to purge themselves from their corruptions as well in the Church as in the State without leave had from the See of Rome and that 't was commonly put in practice above a thousand years since It did appeare that the Kings of England at least as much as those of Sicily were ever held to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that by the Romanists themselves until by gaining from Henry the First the Investiture of Bishops from Henry the Second an Exemption of the Clergy from Secular Courts and from easie King Iohn an unworthy Submission to forreign Power the Popes became strong enough to call their strength the Law of Iustice. And yet their Incroachments were still oppos'd by the most pious and the most learned in every Age. Concerning which it were easie to give a satisfactory account if it were comely for a Sermon to exceed the limits of an hour In a word it did appear from the Code and Novels of Iustinian from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 set out by the Emperour Zeno from the practice of Charles the Great which may be judged by the Capitulars sent abroad in his Name from the designs and Indeavours of two late Emperors Ferdinand the First and Maximilian the Second from all the commended Kings of Iudah from the most pious Christian Emperours as far as from Constantine the Great and from many Kings of England in Popish times too that the work of Reformation belong'd especially to Them in their several Kingdoms And this is certain that neither Prescription on the Pope's side nor Discontinuance on the King 's could adde a Right unto the one or any way lessen it in the other For it implies a contradiction that what is wrong should grow right by being prosperous for a longer or shorter season Had the Pope been contented with his Primacy of Order and not ambitiously affected a Supremacy of Power and over all other Churches besides his own we never had cast off a Yoke which had never been put upon our Necks And so 't is plain that the Usurper did make the Schism If Sacrilege any where or Rebellion did help reform Superstition That was the Fault of the Reformers not at all of the Reformation nor of All Reformers neither For the most
said to be writ by Zoroastres any Relique of Carved worke from inâ—pir'd Bezalâ—el or any remnant of Embroidery from the Theopneust Aâ—oliab would at least for the honor of being reckon'd to be the first be also reckon'd to be the best of any Antiquarie's Keimelia And as it is in the Things of Art so is it also in those of Nature How do the Gentlemen of Venice delight themselves in their Antiquity and yet they travel for their Original no farther back then the siege of Troy Whereas the Arcadians derive their Pedigree even from Iupiter and Calisto and will needs have their Nation exceed the Moon in Seniority Nay though Aegypt in the Judgment of Diodorus the Siâ—eleote hath better pretensions than any other yet the Barbarians as well as Greeks have still affected a Primogeniture Nay so far has this Ambition transported soâ—e that they will needs have been begun from before the Protoplast as it were itching to be as old as the Iulian period 764 years before the beginning of the World Thus Antiquity hath been courted in Art and Nature If in the third place we come to Politie we shall find Customs gaining Reverence from the sole merit of their Duration And as a Custom by meer Continuance does wear it self into a Law so the more aged a Law is grown the lesse 't is liable to a Repeal by how much the more it is stricken in years by so much the less it is decrepit And that for this reason because the longer it endures the more it inclines to its perfection that is to say its immortality Last of all for Religion the Case is clear out of Tertullian Id verius quod prius id prius quod ab initio That Religion was the truest which was the first and that the first which was from the beginning And as He against Marcion so Iustin Martyr against the Grecians did prove the Divinity of the Pentateuch from the Antiquity of its writer The Iewes enjoy'd the first Lawgiver by the Confession of the Gentiles Moses preached the God of Abraham whilst Thales Milesius was yet unborn Nor was it a thing to be imagin'd that God should suffer the Devil to have a Chappâ—l in the world before himself had any Church And thence Vincentius Lirinensis to prove the Truth of any Doctrine or the Legality of a Practice does argue the Case from a Threefold Topick The Universality the Consent and the Antiquity of a Tradiâ—ion Which Rule if we apply unto the scope of this Text as it stands in relation unto the Context we shall have more to say for it than for most Constitutions divine or human For That of Marriage is almost as old as Nature There was no sooner one man but God divided him into two And then no sooner were there two but he united them into one This is That sacred Institution which was made with Mankind in a state of Innocence the very Ground and Foundation of all both sacred and civil Government It was by sending back the Pharisees to the most venerable Antiquiâ—y that our Lord here asserted the Law of wedlock against the old Custom of their Divorce Whilst they had made themselves drunk with their muddy streams He directed them to the Fountain to drink themselves into sobriety They insisted altogether on the Mosaical Dispensation But He endeavour'd to reform them by the most Primitive Institution They alledged a Custom but He a Law They a Permission and that from Moses But He a Precept and that from God They did reckon from afarr off But not as He from the Beginning In that one Question of the Pharisees Why did Moses command us to give her a writing of Divorce and to put her away they put a Fallacy upon Christ call'd Plurium Interrogationum For Moses onely Permitted them to put her away but Commanded them if they did to give her a writing of Divorce And accordingly their Fallacy is detected by Christ in his Answer to them Moses did not command but meerly suffer'd you in your Custom of making unjustifiable Divorcements 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he permitted that is to say he did not punish it not allowing it as good but winking at it as the lesser of two great evils He suffer'd it to be safe in foro Soli could not secure you from the Guilt for which ye must answer in foro Poli And why did he suffer what he could not Approve Not for the softnesse of your heads which made you ignorant of your Duties but for the hardnesse of your hearts which made you resolute not to do them ye were so barbarous and brutish upon every slight Cause or Occasion rather that if ye might not put her away ye would use her worse Ye would many times beat and sometimes murder sometimes bury her alive by bringing another into her â—ed So that the Liberty of Divorce however a poyson in it self was through the hardness of your hearts permitted to you for an Antidote But from the beginning it was not so And ye must put a wide difference betwixt an Indulgence of Man and a Law of God To state the controversie aright ye must compare the first Precept with your customary Practice not reckoning as far as from Moses onely but as far as from Adam too ye must not onely look forwards from the year of the Creation 2400. but also backwards from thence unto the year of the Creation The way to understand the Husband's Duty towards the Wife and so to Reform as not to Innovate is to consider the words of God when he made the Wife out of the Husband For He that made them at the beginning made them Male and Female and said For this cause shall a man leave Father and Mother and shall cleave unto his Wife and they twain shall be one Flesh. What therefore God hath joyn'd together let not man put asunder The Antecedent command was from God the Father the command in the sequel from God the Son And though the Practice of the Iewes had been contrariant to them both by a Prescription almost as old as two thousand years yet as old as it was 't was but an overgrown Innovation For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the beginning it was not so Thus our Saviour being sent to Reform the Iewes made known the Rule of his Reformation And the Lesson which it affords us is in my poor judgment of great Importance For when the Doctrine or Discipline of our Church establisht here in England shall be attempted by the Corruptions of Modern Pharisees who shall assert against Us as these here did against our Saviour either their forreign Superstitions to say no worse or their domestick Profanations to say no more we cannot better deal with Them than as our Saviour here dealt with the ancient Pharisees that is we cannot better put them to shame and silence than by demonstrating the Novelty and base