for this Application § VIII That this separation from their own particular Churches must necessarily infer a separation from the Catholick Church also The Objection proposed § IX Answ. If it were otherwise it would destroy all Discipline and therefore all the dividing parties who are for Discipline are obliged as well as we to answer this Objection and to be favourable to what we shall say in Answer to it § X XI A more particular Answer proving the thing principally designed 1. This pretence of Union with the Catholick Church can be no encouragement for any to neglect any means of continuing his Union with his own particular Church unless he may be assured that whilest he wants it he may notwithstanding continue united to the Catholick Church § XII 2. That Union with the Catholick Church of which we may be assured must be such as may appear to us by the use of those external ordinary means which God has appointed for mainteining that Union § XIII 3. In this way of judging he that would assure himself of his being united to the Catholick Church must do it by proving himself united to some particular visible Church by an external Communication in their Sacraments § XIV 4. The external Communion of another Church which while a separated Person does maintein he may have hopes of keeping still his Interest in the Unity of the Catholick Church must not be any other Communion within the Jurisdiction in which he lives and from which he is supposed to be separated This proved in regard of Usurping Members of the same Church § XV.XVI. and of unauthorized Members of other Churches within the same Jurisdiction § XVII XVIII 5. Such Separatists cannot maintein their title to Catholick Unity by being received into any other Churches though otherwise absolute and unaccountable to the Church from whence they are separated § XIX XX XXI This proved 1. The nature of the inconvenience incurred by deprivation of Communion in a particular Church is such as that it is impossible that the censure can be valid in that particular Church unless it be valid in others § XXII 2. Hence it follows that if such a Person be received to the Sacraments in another Church without as good an Authority for uniting him to the unity of the Catholick Church as that was by which he was deprived only on supposition of the continuance of his invisible unity with the Catholick Church notwithstanding his visible separation from a part of it such Sacraments must as to him be perfect Nullities § XXIII 3. No particular Church can by its Authority alone restore any to Catholick Unity who has been separated from it by another Church without the consent of the Church by which he was at first separated § XXIV 4. Hence it follows That all that can be done by other Churches receiving a Person separated from the Communion of his own Church can only be to judg of his case not so as to oblige the Church to which he belongs originally to stand to their judgment but only so far as concerns their own Jurisdiction § XXV XXVI XXVII 5. Whatever is necessary for the design of Gods establishment that he must by his design be obliged to ratifie whether he has expresly said he will do so or no. This applied § XXVIII The validity of the separation proved when it is the act of the Separatists themselves without any censures of Ecclesiastical Authority § XXIX XXX § I THE last thing which remains to be proved in my designed method is That the nature of this obligation to submit to unsinful conditions of their Episcopal Communion is such as will make them guilty of the sin of SCHISM who rather than they will submit to such conditions either separate themselves or suffer themselves to be excluded from Communion by their respective Diocesan Ordinaries And all that will be necessary to be said concerning this will be only to remember and apply what has been already proved throughout the body of the whole discourse It is therefore certain 1. That Schism as such is a dissolution of the Body and therefore Schism in the Ecclesiastical sence is a dissolution of the Church which is the Mystical Body of Christ a dividing of its Vnity wherein soever that may be conceived to consist If the Vnity of the Church consisted only in a Vnity of correspondence without any obligation to yield incumbent on one party rather than on any other then the crime of Schism would only be culpably chargeable on him who was chargeable with the breach that is who either began the separation on unsufficient reasons or who suffered himself to be excluded on terms of less importance to him than the correspondence So that in this way of tryal the whole Judgment concerning this matter depends upon the merit of the Cause Where there is no duty owing on either side there the whole reason of obligation to yield on one side must only be the reason of the thing its little momentousness in comparison with the momentousness of mainteining correspondence And as in this case the interest of the party is the only solid reason why he may be conceived to be obliged to yield so the most proper and competent Judg of this interest is supposed to be the party himself who is concerned in it As therefore the common interest of the several divided parties does in this way of judging no farther oblige any one to yield to the others terms than as it may appear that the common interest is more its own particular interest than the things to be yielded in regard of it so that even the acknowledgment that any thing is indeed for the common interest cannot oblige any to yield it barely as it is the common interest but as it is his own private interest and more so than the thing to be yielded for it so also in this Vnity of correspondence which is very well consistent with an equality between the several parties who are to maintein this correspondence every one is sui juris and therefore very justly to be determined by his own judgment concerning his own interest and cannot be obliged to renounce his own judgment in compliance with others concerning his own matters how much soever he may value their judgment otherwise above his own This therefore would be the only Notion of Schism if all the Members of the Church were equal or if all the difference between them were only such as would make a reverence due to some Persons for their eminent personal accomplishments so that still it fell short of a Subjection due to them in regard of any Office or Authority And I have accordingly observed that in this dispute concerning Schism Introd our Adversaries Notions are exactly fitted to this Hypothesis even of those of them who otherwise own a properly-coercive Authority of the Church over her particular Members § II BUT I confess this Notion of Schism is not sufficient
other it will not be difficult to determine which of the two must prove invalid The Church which endeavours to restore such a Person is supposed to be only equal with the Church which has rejected him and therefore can have no Authority to reverse her censures And therefore as God is not obliged to ratifie that act of hers in regard of her Authority so he is obliged to disanul it as he is the common Governour of all the Churches and as he is thereupon obliged to maintein Discipline and that correspondence between the Churches which is so necessary for the preservation of Discipline § XXV HENCE it follows 4. That all that can be done by other Churches receiving a Person separated from the Communion of his own Church can only be to judg of his case not so as to oblige the Church to which he belongs originally to stand to their judgment but only so far as concerns their own Jurisdiction They can judg whether they be in conscience or for the maintenance of their common correspondence obliged to ratifie their censures within their own respective Jurisdictions that is they can judg concerning the validity of the censures whether they be grounded on a cause properly belonging to the Authority by which they were censured and whether they have reason therefore to presume them valid before God that is indeed whether they do really cut him off from Catholick Vnity And in case they find the sentence pronounced against him in his own Church invalid in it self they may then receive him to their own Communion yet so as that they do not pretend any Authority to reverse the sentence pronounced against him in his own Church but only to declare the original invalidity and that only with relation to their own obligation to confirm it within their own Jurisdictions nor pretend to restore him to the Catholick Vnity which he had lost by the censures which had been passed upon him in his own Church but only receive him as an acknowledgment of his uninterrupted right to Catholick Communion and of their own obligation as parts of the Catholick Church to admit him to their own Communion This certainly they may do by their own Authority without any the least encroachment on the Authority which had originally passed the censure not as superior to that Authority but only as not subject to it § XXVI AND this seems actually to have been the case of the Western Church in the cause of Athanasius Whilest he was charged only with Canonical matters they were willing to hear what might be said against him and in the mean time to suspend him from their own Communion But when they found partly by the notorious conviction of the disingenuity of the accusations of this kind as in the charges of the suborned whore and the cutting off the hand of Arsenius and prophaning the sacred offices at Mareotis and partly by their delays and evasions of this kind of tryal that this was not the thing indeed insisted on how much soever it was pretended but that it was rather an artifice made use of for the subversion of the common faith professed by him they must then look on such censures as passed upon him rather for his Faith than for the Ecclesiastical crimes which were pretended Wherein if they judged right the censures must have been essentially invalid on two accounts both as to the cause for which they were inflicted and as to the Persons by whom As to the cause for which they were inflicted For they could not believe that God would deprive him of Catholick Vnity only for mainteining the Catholick Faith which was one of the principal foundations of that Vnity And as to the Persons by whom they were inflicted who being Hereticks were uncapable of being Bishops and consequently of any Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction besides that they were not obliged to maintein any correspondence with Hereticks and therefore could not be confined to Canons in dealing with them the Canons being only terms of correspondence Though in the case wherein our Adversaries are concerned there is much more reason for the confinement of this power of other Churches For the power is much more absolute which particular Churches may challenge over their particular Subjects than that which Provincial or National Synods can pretend to over particular Churches And therefore the obligation to confirm their censures must be proportionably greater on account of the common correspondence § XXVII NOW if this be so then it will plainly follow that the Governours of particular Churches do as often deprive of Catholick Vnity as they deprive any really of the Communion of their own Churches and that all that other Churches can do cannot really unite any to the Catholick Church who has been separated from any particular Church by a just Authority without the consent of that Authority by which he was separated and that if their receiving such a Person to their Communion do him any good it must be only in such cases wherein he was really never deprived of a right to Communion even with that Church whose actual Communion has been denied him The only thing remaining further for settling the Discipline of the Church on a solid foundation can only be to see in what cases the censures may be presumed valid and wherein it may therefore be known that the restitution is invalid and unsafe to be trusted and whether any relief may be expected thence by Persons in our Brethrens circumstances If either by any censure of their Superiors or by their own resistance and separation from them they be really separated from their own Churches to which they were originally related they must consequently be separated from the Vnity of the Catholick Church nor can they be restored to it but by being reunited to their own particular Churches and that by a reconciliation as visible as their separation And for clearing this that their separation must needs be a real separation even in the esteem of God himself I desire it may be considered § XXVIII 5. THAT whatever is necessary for the design of Gods establishment that he must by his design be obliged to ratifie whether he has expresly said he will do so or no. Nay indeed there can be no necessity that he should expresly warn them of it who are already sufficiently convinced that this is agreeable to his design For it is certain that God cannot design an end without the means nor be ignorant of what is requisite to his design as a means nor fail where the means belong to his part of the Covenant to see them performed as I have already shewn that it is his part to perform the benefits of the Sacraments None but he can immediately give the Spirit and apply the forgiveness of sins which are there promised But yet he is obliged to do so when the Persons Authorized by him do it in his name and with reference only to that end for which he has
the goodness of their Intention is for preventing the dangerous Events of their mistakes when they have found themselves transported or deluded into Events very distant from their Original designs But even the Enemies of Religion seem so far at least desirous of the Reconciliation of the Religious as they think nothing of Religion worth contending for with that eagerness and bitterness which they find so very prejudicial to their worldly Interests And considering that Providence has thus found out inducements to prevail with all Parties and all Interests to be thus Inclinable to receive if not Industrious to promote and offer terms of Reconciliation it will now less than ever become the Sons of Peace the Subjects of the Prince of Peace the Professors of the Gospel of Peace to be averse to it And as there are not many Truths whose momentousness might in any Case make amends for publick disturbances so it may be Questionable whether any may now when so many Parties and Conditions so many different and great Interests are concerned in the Consequences of it when even the Reputation of Religion it self and its most Fundamental Maxims are involved in the same success and it is thought no very good Argument for the Prudence of an Institution that its Votaries are conceived by it to be made implacable in their Contentions for many Propositions so impossible to be decided to the satisfaction of the different Parties whilst they expose their common Belief to the derision of common Adversaries and cause them to blaspheme that worthy Name by which they are called and weaken their own Credit for the things of principal Importance by their mutual Reflections and Animosities and extreamly-partial behaviour for Propositions of inferior moment and Credibility And as these very weighty Considerations of the present mischiefs of our Divisions must highly aggravate the Sinfulness and Disingenuity of such as cannot clear their Consciences from the guilt of having contributed to them so the great Benefit of avoiding them besides the many Positive advantages of Peace must now more than ever intitle the endeavours of Peace-makers to that peculiar Beatitude promised to them by our Saviour himself in his Sermon on the Mount Mat. v. 9 § II BUT however seasonable it be for this present Age yet it is not so absolutely necessary for my present design to enlarge on a Topick so acknowledged as this of the necessity of Catholick Peace is My desire only is to let my Dissenting Brethren know that as it is my hearty desire to make this the design of all my Studies and the employment of my Life and as I am not Conscious to my self herein of any partial favour but am induced to it by a hearty conviction of the value and necessity of the design it self that there is indeed no other end more Pious or more Generous or more effectually conducive to the Service of God or the good of Mankind so it shall be my particular endeavour to demean my self accordingly in the following Discourse as not to oppose so neither to abet any Party as a Party that is as subsisting by any peculiar Principles inconsistent with Catholick Peace And if I might prevail with my Adversaries to concur with me in the observation of the same Rule I am confident that as our Disputes will prove more Edifying to all truly Christian Spirits both for discovering the Truth and prevailing with our Readers to receive it in the love of it so our Errors if after all our diligence we shall prove mistaken must needs prove more Innocent and in regard of their good design incomparably more excusable than otherwise And I am the rather induced to believe that this is indeed the best way of managing these Disputes because it does not only best comply with and preserve that temper which would most of all accomplish an useful Controvertist and best fit him for publick Service but also because it will in regard of the Considerations now mentioned answer the most Prudent Advices for the manner of their management § III THIS way of managing Controversies will best comply with the Qualifications of an useful Controvertist And he must needs be a Person very little versed in our modern Controversies who has not observed the great influence of the humours of the Controvertists on the Event For when Men are Angry and Aery forward to give and to receive provocation how very easily do they digress to Personal Quarrels And such as they are perfectly useless to the Publick so they have a very ill influence on such as might otherwise prove useful For by that means they are blinded in the search of Truth and indisposed for following their own Convictions where they know it and inclined to engage the Publick in their private animosities It makes them favourable to such Principles not which are true but which are for their purpose It naturally loosens and and emasculates that closeness of Discourse which is absolutely necessary for our security where the Truth is obscure and the Error dangerous It takes them off from that awe of Conscience which would both quicken their Diligence and oblige them to Sincerity It naturally diverts them from sober reasonings to Popular flourishes and Rhetorical Arts of insinuation And the shame of owning their mistakes in matters wherein they had been extremely confident or of yielding to a despised yet upbraiding Adversary or of losing their Authority and Interest in a Party which had admired them when they cannot be Ingenuous at any lower rate than that of a publick Penance for their Extravagances does many times necessitate them to poor and palpable contrivances of Evasion And yet the concealment of their mistakes is not the only inconvenience to the Publick from the disingenuity of these Persons but many times they think themselves obliged to justifie their former vehemence by a continued eagerness and so to maintain their own reputation by ruining the Churches Peace To which might have been added that averseness to conviction to which such a way of dealing does naturally incline the Adversaries for whose conviction such Discourses are designed how little they can value their Authority when they find them so palpably swayed by other motives than the merit of the Cause and the real conviction of their Consciences with what regret they must be likely to bear with any Victory though even of Truth it self from such an Adversary who gives such indications of unkindness and hostility against their very Persons how very unwilling they must be to prove mistaken when they must expect to be upbraided with their mistakes how glad of any shifts that may silence either their Adversaries or their own Consciences And to Persons thus disposed it is hard to conceive a Cause so bad that cannot afford sufficient and plausible Palliations But on the contrary all the Qualifications requisite for fitting a Controvertist for publick use whether of Industry or Vnprejudicedness or Sincerity or of a fair and candid
it self or at least a sufficient Justification of it from its other illegalities and invalidities So that they are thus conceived to enjoy all the means ordinary as well as extraordinary to enjoy the conveniences as well as the necessaries the comfort as well as the hopes of Salvation as freely out of the Church's Communion as in it and suppose all these as efficacious to them whilest they act according to their probable consciences though they should prove erroneous as if they were never so certain And upon these supposals to what prejudice can they conceive themselves obnoxious by their separations § XXXV IS it therefore so prejudicial to the Communion from which they withdraw But as for any duty owing to them which they might rob them of by this withdrawing of their own Persons from them they acknowledg none And this being supposed no Charity obliges them to beware of prejudicing others by promoting their own conveniences when one of them is unavoidable and for any further prosecutions of those whom they have thus deserted they are very separable from the cause of separation in general § XXXVI AND as there can upon these terms appear no great reason to oblige an ignorant Laick to any great caution in enquiring or resolving on the right Communion from any considerable inconvenience that might attend the consequence of his being mistaken and indeed the whole obligation to diligence in enquiring after the truth of any Propositions is only rationally derivable from their influence upon our practice so though the crime had been more piacular yet upon these Principles there is so little evidence in proving any particular Person 's guilt as that upon that very account there can appear no great obligation to cautiousness For supposing that the violation of the Church's Communion had been indeed in a high degree uncharitable and supposing that uncharitableness in as high a degree criminal Yet how can it appear that any ignorant Laick is guilty of that uncharitableness in his separation § XXXVII FOR 1. He may be conscious to himself of hearty wishes of their conversion from whom he separates and of all welfare when they are converted Nay indeed it is hard to suppose otherwise For this is a charity which all Communions how Schismatical soever have for those from whom they are divided to wish them of their own party and wish them well when they are so and it is the interest of their Faction how little regard soever they had to God or the welfare of their Brethren as Christians And this is indeed the utmost Charity which most of them conceive to be actually due to those who are not in external Communion with themselves And as every ignorant Laick may be conscious to himself of this charitable affection if it deserve so good a name how Schismatical soever he may be really so it will not be easie on their Principles for such a Person to know when his act of separation is uncharitable at least not without resolving all again into disputable Propositions § XXXVIII FOR 2. His being the first Author of his own departure is so far from being an Argument as that it is not by their Doctrine so much as a pregnant presumption that it is on his part uncharitable and therefore Schismatical no not though he go so far as not only to refuse active obedience to his ordinary Superiors but also to resist them and either to set up or abet other Communions in opposition to them For it is not the actual separation but the cause of it that will make it uncharitable and Schismatical and that may on our Brethrens Principles be as easily supposed to have been given by his Superiors as by himself though he have been the first actual divider For I have elsewhere shewn that our Brethren consider Superiors here as plainly acting on equal terms in these matters with their Subjects And upon these terms there cannot so much as a presumption lye on their side that his separation may therefore be presumed likely to be uncharitable on his side because himself was the first Author of it § XXXIX FOR 1. Upon their Principles he will have reason to believe his Superiors as fallible as himself considering that even in matters of disputable evidence and depending on some things not so obnoxious to his cognizance they yet encourage such an ignorant Laick to dissent from them on his own Judgment § XL AND 2. They do not only encourage him to believe otherwise than they which might indeed be more tolerable and rational if he did not so only in such cases wherein he had a full prospect of what learned men could inform him but also to differ in his practice too even where his compliance in practice need not signifie any Hypocritical dissimulation of his Judgment that is not only to forbear the practice of what he should judg to be unlawful which is no more than honest dealing but also to forbear the practice of what he judges unfit and oppressive in compliance to the will of his otherwise lawful Superiors Whereas such compliance as this is very lawful to pleasure another in that which he otherwise himself believes imprudent and is daily practised by themselves without any fear of Hypocrisie in their Oeconomical or Political relations and indeed every where where they acknowledg such a right of Government as may be worthy of that name For this is the plain meaning of our distinction between obligation in Practice and in Judgment and even in this sence they oppose it Besides their refusing even passive obedience to the Church even in this case does plainly signifie how little they ascribe to Ecclesiastical Authority § XLI AND 3. Where-ever any compliance is necessary for accommodating these differences they do as much require it from the Church as themselves and do as confidently charge her with Schism as long as she does not yield her impositions to them as we charge them with it for not complying with those impositions And upon these terms what presumption can be for Authority if Authority be as much obliged to yield as her Subjects and if Persons be in no greater probability of avoiding this uncharitableness by yielding than by opposing it So that the ultimate recourse here must be had to the merit of the cause and of how little horror that can be to such a Person I have already shewn Thus insufficient our Adversaries Notions are for explaining any thing in the guilt of SCHISM that might prove terrible to popular capacities § XLII BUT upon our Principles such a Notion of SCHISM is given as the most incultivated Laick may understand to be extremely mischievous by the same rules of prudence whereby he manages his worldly affairs Not to mention the dreadful punishments it deserves from Gods hand and the great obligation incumbent on him from his own attributes and the reasons of his Government to inflict those so deserved severities on Persons truly criminal not
security as they are for their temporal And would it not become their Charity and their concernment for the publick peace to satisfie us that our fears are groundless and that we may joyn with them on easier terms to which themselves may be more willing to condescend These are so useful and excellent designs as that no good Spirit could think his pains and diligence ill bestowed in knowing and examining what we have to say upon this Subject how weak or fallacious soever it might prove upon examination § XVII IF after all I cannot avoid the popular odium of those who are otherwise minded I confess I am likely to be the less solicitous on my own account by how much I am the less conscious of having deserved it I know our Saviour himself had the like return of his well-meant endeavours I know it has always been the fate of Peace-makers and faithful Monitors And I hope I shall always be heartily willing to suffer more than this is like to signifie to me in so good a cause The best is I cannot foresee any occasion of such a tryal from truly pious and ingenuous Persons who will understand before they censure and who will reflect on the considerations now mentioned For others I cannot think them so competent Judges nor do I see any reason to reverence their censures § XVIII THERE is also one thing more of which I am to warn the Reader That is that the following discourse was first designed as a defence of a Sermon preached on this Subject before the Lord Mayor Mr. John Sharp on Rom. xiv 19 But having made some entrance on it I did not think it so convenient to be confined to anothers method in delivering my own sentiments nor to concern any particular Author in the Controversie but rather to undertake the whole Subject in a method most natural to my own conceptions of it And the rather so because most of the Answerers Objections would have no place on my way of stating the Controversie and I could not think it worth the while to spend time on such things as were grounded on misunderstandings I speak not this with the least design of disparaging the performance of the Adversary for the misunderstandings are no other than such as are common to him with the generality of the dissenting parties Otherwise his management is more accurate for the destructive part which is the Talent of those Persons than usual and with better temper to his Adversary However these considerations being approved by several of my worthy Friends to whom I communicated them and among others by the Author of that excellent Sermon I easily obteined his leave to proceed in my own way Yet I thought it convenient withal to give this warning of it that the Answerer whoever he be may know that his Objections have been allowed for in my Hypothesis though they be not expresly mentioned and that he may not look on the silence of his Adversary as an Argument of any neglect of him § XIX IF any shall think of a Reply I shall humbly desire That he would keep to the cause avoiding all personal reflections as far as the cause will permit Requests to him who shall think of a Reply That he will not take any advantage against the propriety of particular expressions in which it is as usual for Adversaries to be mistaken in misunderstanding the expressions as for the Author who has used them That he would rather judg concerning my particular expressions by the exigency of my Cause and Principles which will be the surest way not only to assure himself of my meaning but to make his Arguments against such expressions conclusive against my cause it self That he would be pleased to remember how easie it is to object against any thing Arguments more plausibl◠than those are on which the vulgar believe the truth it self and therefore that he would object nothing but what a serious impartial enquirer after the truth would think fit to be urged as an Objection nothing but what he thinks true nothing but he thinks he has reason to think so nothing but what he is willing to stand by the consequences of if it should be retorted against him no inconvenience of the thing which he opposes but such as may be greater than the conveniences of it no reasons but such as may have greater evidence of their truth than those have which are produced for the thing which he opposes that he would oblige the world with another Scheme of Principles suited to his own cause which may not only solve the Phaenomena accounted for by ours but may also not be liable to those Objections which he conceives uncapable of a solution by our Hypothesis rather than only content himself with the Person of an Objector and that all may be managed with those commendable presumptions which all disinterested Persons do commend for the securest guides where the reasonings are less evident a hearty love of truth of peace and of Government and such a love of these as may be prudent as may secure the practicableness of what they pretend to love without which it is in vain to love or to pretend to love them § XX IF these things be punctually observed on both sides there will be many advantages to the common cause which methinks may prevail with any who wishes well to it not to be difficult in suffering himself to be persuaded to observe them We shall avoid many things which the Reader who is only concerned for the cause and for his own conscience will certainly think impertinent We shall on both sides be better qualified for finding the truth and leave the way more open for mutual ingenuity We shall neither prejudice our Readers nor our selves to judg otherwise than the merit of the cause and our own convictions of it shall oblige us We shall intermingle nothing unbecoming the seriousness wherewith matters of this nature ought to be handled We shall thus be surest to improve the common stock of knowledg with which the world has been hitherto acquainted in this matter I have endeavoured what I was able to observe these things my self in the following Discourse and shall be willing to be corrected if I have failed in any of them The things themselves are so intrinsecally reasonable as that I cannot doubt but they who are reasonable will readily accept of these conditions and will withal be so grateful to the unengaged Reader as that even he who were less solicitous for truth should yet think himself concerned even to rival me in the glory of observing them Not to mention that it is indeed more glorious to be overcome by truth than to obtein the cause we contend for The general Proposition to be proved in this Work THAT all are obliged to submit to all unsinful conditions of the Episcopal Communion where they live if imposed by the Ecclesiastical Governours thereof and that the nature of
the Publick is indeed a more rational Argument to prove them false than such Probability as falls short of it is to prove them true § VII FOR considering God only as a Good and Prudent Governour and who withal cannot be forgetful of doing what he knows to be most Prudent as Humane Governours may it is not Credible that he should not give that Evidence of Conviction for every particular Duty which is suitable to the moment of the thing required in it that as he is by his Government obliged to value Duties differently according to their different influence on the Publick so he might accordingly secure their performance that those which are more necessary for the Publick may be principally secured which he cannot be conceived to have done if he have not proportioned their Evidence to their momentousness And therefore where a Duty doth interfere with the publick Interest though we may have some probability for it yet if the Probability be not so great as upon the account now mentioned may be expected for an Action of such consequence whatever we may think of it in regard of its Probabilities yet this will be a much more certain Argument to us that God never intended in such Circumstances to oblige us to it But to omit any further reasonings this Presumption is in it self so very Equal as that I think all Parties will acknowledg it to be so where they are unconcerned that is indeed where they are Equal Judges And as I think all Protestants will believe that that degree of Probable Appearance which might have excused an Erroneous Conscience in Practices of inferior concernment could not yet be admitted as a sufficient Apology for Ravilliac and the Powder-Traitors for their attempts against the Lives of their Princes and the welfare of their Countries so the Romanists themselves will pass the same Censure on those Laws and Severities against themselves which they call Persecution that these are less easily excusable in us than our Heresie because they are more mischievous And certainly the disturbance of the Churches Peace not only by forbearing Communion which would expire with the Persons Life but also by erecting opposite Communions which is the means to perpetuate the disturbance to all succeeding Generations would in the Judgment of every Peaceable that is indeed every truly Christian Spirit be reputed a mischief so great as that the moment of very few Propositions would be able either to excuse or make amends for it Which is sufficient to shew that it is as Safe as Wise as Pious as Politick to be favourable to the Churches Peace in judging concerning the merit of particular Controversies § VIII IN pursuance therefore of this Discourse it would concern every Conscientious Person in our Adversaries Case dissenting from the Church wherein he was Born and Baptized to Enquire Impartially 1. Whether the thing maintained by him be True or False And if upon the most accurate and Sincere Enquiry he still think it True then 2. With what degree of Evidence it appears so to him whether Certainly or only Probably and with what degree either of Certainty or Probability For it is certain that variety herein will vary the Case of the Lawfulness of the complyance of such a Person for it may be much more Lawful to suppress his sentiments in Probabilities than Certainties and in less than greater Probabilities If he conceive it Certain then 3. Whether it be also Necessary and with what degree of Necessity Whether it be only Necessary for himself who is already convinced of it or it be Necessary for others that they be convinced also For it can only be in this latter kind that any can pretend to any Obligation to divulge their Sentiments If it be conceived also necessary for others then 4. Whether it be necessary to be taught them by a Person in his Condition For it is certain that according to the difference of Mens Conditions their Obligations are also very different and some Mens Conditions may free them from those Obligations to which others may remain obnoxious If even this be so that he be the Person obliged to Teach and Propagate his different Sentiments yet 5. Whether the mischiefs naturally consequent to such an attempt be not greater than those which are likely to follow from his omission and therefore sufficient to excuse it For it is in Conscience as well as Prudence Lawful to permit a lesser Evil for avoiding a greater though it be never Lawful to incur the guilt of a Sin for avoiding any and the Obligation incumbent on us for instructing others is to be deduced from their Interest in the Truth wherein they are to be instructed and therefore where this Interest proves inconsistent with a greater there it can be no Sin but only a lesser Evil to omit it If these mischiefs should not be conceived sufficient to disoblige him then 6. Whether he be obliged any farther than only to propose it and so to leave it to the Judgment and Approbation of his Superiors I do not mean in order to the determination of his own Internal Assent but as competent Judges of what is fit to be externally transacted for the Proselyting of others Or whether he be also obliged to resist their determination when different from his own If he conceive himself obliged to resist them then 7. How far he is so obliged Whether only so far as to suffer himself rather to be cast out of Communion than to comply Or whether he may also be Active in withdrawing his own Communion even before he is Judicially Excommunicated Or whether being Excommunicated for such a Cause he be not so much as Obliged to give Passive Obedience to such Censures of his Lawful Ordinary Superiors but may also be Active not only in encouraging and favouring but also in erecting an opposite Society seeing that if he himself should prove the Person mistaken as he has no reason to think himself more Infallible than his Superiors this is a way to perpetuate the Quarrel and that in such a Case very Injuriously Especially 8. If he be a Person to whom the power of Governing and maintaining Ecclesiastical Societies either by an administration of the Sacraments in his own Person or by providing for an Ordinary Succession in Ordaining others has never been in an ordinary way communicated which is generally the Case of our Seperating Brethren Whether this supposed Justice of his Cause can excuse or warrant such an arrogating of a Power never received Or whether he can expect that God will countenance him in such his Usurpations § IX IF all these Enquiries were made with that accurateness and exactness with which they ought and would be examined by every truly Pious and Peaceable Person though Men whilst they are Men might still be supposed likely to dissent in matters truly Disputable and of inferior concernment yet I believe the Cases would be found very rare wherein themselves would Judg it safe
they have given them so pregnant and undeniable a Precedent of opposition to their own Superiors § XXI BUT admit that some things were indeed so Evident as that no Industrious and Ingenuous Persons could differ concerning them yet it would further have concerned our Brethren to have Enquired 2. Whether the matters wherein they differ from their Ecclesiastical Superiors be generally capable of such a degree of Evidence For if they be only capable of Probable Evidence it cannot be Presumed that the Generality of those whose Vnanimity must on these Principles be necessary for the preservation of Ecclesiastical Peace can be induced to an Unanimity by the intrinsick Merit of the Cause And generally matters of Practice such as are the Subjects of our dividing Disputes are not capable of stronger Arguments than Probabilities especially such of them as are Prudentially fitted to present Circumstances Either therefore they must acknowledg themselves obliged to yield to the Judgment of their Superiors which may especially prove oftener reasonable in such Cases where many times the Extrinsick Probability deduced from such Authority may be greater than that which is Intrinsick from the Merit of the Cause Or they must as indeed they seem inclinable to do deny the use of Authority generally in such Prudential Interpositions If the former that though it be indeed an excellent Expedient for Peace yet I doubt they will never be able to explain how it is reconcilable with their own Practices If the latter they must deny all Authority in those Cases wherein Authority is principally needful For indeed this is the principal use of a Succession of Authorized Persons not only to make application of the perpetual standing Laws of a Society to particular Cases though even that must require a decision of many doubtful Cases undecided by the Laws themselves and many times capable of as little Evidence as those we are discoursing of and yet in such our Brethren cannot themselves deny the necessity of a standing Authority which yet is not Intelligible at least not Practicable without a reciprocal Duty of Submission in their Subjects but also to provide for those varying Cases which because they are themselves so obnoxious to change in variety of Circumstances are not therefore so fitted for the determination of Laws perpetually obligatory For though the Circumstances themselves be of their own nature indifferent yet their determination is many times absolutely necessary for rendring those general Laws Practicable so that in such Cases they are not properly so indifferent as our Adversaries conceive them And yet if they were prescribed by general immutable Laws they must have been prescribed in such Cases wherein they had not been either expedient or good which I believe our dissenting Brethren themselves will Judg unreasonable And if when they are good or evil there be no power to make provision concerning them methinks all wise men should look on it as a considerable defect in the Polity of that Society which is concerned for them But if any Provision be it must either be by a particular conviction of every particular Person for it is the Vnanimity of their Observation that makes them edifying and useful and that cannot be expected in matters of so obscure Evidence and so variable a nature or by the determination of Superiors which is the thing they are so desirous to avoid § XXII ACCORDING to the Topicks insisted on by our dissenting Brethren against these Impositions I cannot conceive any Evidence so great as that if themselves would be pleased candidly and calmly to reflect on it they could think it sufficient to perswade all Inquisitive unconcerned Governours infallibly to their Opinion As for clear Scripture against them it is not as much as pretended All that is pretended to prove their contrariety to it is its Silence concerning them But how far from Infallibly-convincing Evidence are those Arguments which they produce to prove this Silence to be a sign of Disapprobation That the Scriptures are perfect none will deny them nor that they adaequately contain all those things for which they were designed by the Holy Ghost as an adaequate Rule But what those things were for which the Holy Ghost designed the Holy Scripture as an adaequate Rule seeing they depend on his unsearchable Counsels and his Arbitrary pleasure we have no reason to be very confident of till we be assured by very particular and very express Revelation And here where the true stress of the Controversie lies where is that Evidence which may be presumed sufficient to prevail with all Candid Industrious Persons to make them Infallibly of one mind if any Probabilities may be allowed so inevident in themselves as even such after all their Industry and Candor may be presumed still likely to differ concerning them How do they prove that the Holy Ghost ever intended it as an adaequate Rule of Discipline I do not only mean so as to prejudg against all Provisional Constitutions of Ordinary Governours fitted to the Circumstances of future Ages but even so as that any Platform of Government even of that Age was designed to be explained to us much less recommended or imposed as an unalterable unimprovable Precedent to all succeeding Generations None of the Sacred Writers ever tell us that this was so much as designed by them nor can it be necessarily concluded from the design of any particular Book in it Nay rather by all the ways by which we can judg of such a thing we have reason to presume that even those parts of Discipline which are occasionally alluded to were never designed for the Information of Posterity For no more is mentioned concerning them than what fell in very appositely with their other designs and even those that are mentioned are not explained but presumed as Notorious to those to whom their Writings were addressed as other Antiquities and Customes peculiar to that Age in which Posterity was never likely to be further concerned And where is then this Evidence which may be presumed by our dissenting Brethren themselves Infallibly convictive of all Candid and Industrious Persons § XXIII BUT that which would have been more likely to have discovered to them the Fundamental mistakes of this kind of Discourse is to consider 3. In what Cases there is indeed any need of this particular Conviction Indeed where the mistake might involve them in a Sin that might be imputed as such to their particular Persons I confess they could not be too wary in Enquiring after particular Conviction But where the matter is of it self naturally Indifferent where it is only the Vnanimity of its observance that makes it good and useful and it is plain that this Unanimity is best procured by standing to the Arbitrement of Governours such Submission must even in the Judgment of every private Person be esteemed the most Prudent Expedient for securing a good Practice which is as much as a Private Person is concerned for And indeed this preserving Order and
particular examination of its Grounds it may appear to be well grounded But if the Declaration be conceived to be Authentical as it is performed by such Persons the meaning of that must be that it must be generally presumed valid so that the cases may be but rare wherein the Person obnoxious to it may presume his own cause so good as to venture to stand out in opposition to it And to that purpose it will be requisite that the Sentences be presumed valid before God even in cases wherein Governours may themselves be mistaken in the Causes of their Infliction as I see no reason why they may not where the mistake is at the uttermost no more than an Imprudence not a Sin either to Governours or Governed for in such a case though the Omission it self be not Sinful as considered Precisâ—ly yet it may as Obstinacy against lawful Governours and Disobedience and violation of Peace which will oblige us to condescend in Instances howere Imprudent if not Sinful may make it so or that the Instances wherein they may prove Invalid before God be either so rare or so difficult to be known more securely by a Mans private Judgment than by the publick as that it can very rarely be Judged Safe or Prudent for a Man to rely on his own private Judgment concerning them in opposition to the Publick § XLVI ESPECIALLY considering 3. that this Church Government is by all acknowledged Fallible in matters of that nature for which we are concerned in our present Controversy The very Romanists themselves confess their Ordinary Ecclesiastical Governors at least Fallible in matters of Fact and in Rules of Prudence and our dissenting Brethren themselves do not charge our Impositions with Heresy or Immorality But if the Censures of a Fallible Church cannot be presumed valid in any Instances wherein we cannot be assured that she is not actually mistaken and the nature of the thing is such as does not afford certain Arguments on either side but generally contrary probabilities on both such a Government must generally prove Vseless and Vnpracticable and therefore unlikely to have been settled by God § XLVII AND then 4. the very design of the Constitution of this Body Politick being Spiritual the Rewards and Punishments must be so too And therefore that Subjects may be encouraged to Obedience and discouraged from Disobedience it will be requisite that they may as confidently presume that they shall receive such Spiritual Advantages by virtue of their admission into such a Society to which no private Dispositions whatsoever could so assuredly intitle them I do not say if they had proved negligent in their Addresses to be admitted into it but also if they had not submitted to all Impositions not Sinful in Order to their reception into it and have as Just and Probable Reasons for fearing Spiritual Inconveniences by their exclusion from it as Secular Subjects are assured of Secular Advantages or Disadvantages by their admission to or exclusion from Secular Societies § XLVIII AND 5. it is very agreeable to the same design that where exclusion does not as it did in the Apostles time expose the Person to external visible Corporal Inflictions as now generally it does not there it be at least understood to deprive the Person excluded of all the Priviledges he enjoyed by virtue of his being a Member of such a Society and so to expose him to those mischieves whatever they be that are necessarily consequent to such a deprivation § XLIX AND 6. it is also very consequent to the same purpose that the Priviledges of such a Society be understood to be all the Advantages designed by God in its Erection And therefore whatever good was designed to Mankind in the Gospel there is no reason to believe that he designed it for any particulars any farther than as they should approve themselves willing to submit to such Terms as he was pleased to prescribe them and it is not Credible that if he were pleased to erect a Body Politick he should be thought at the same time to allow such encouragements out of it and independent on it as that it should be left to the Liberty of particular Subjects either to enter themselves into it or not to enter themselves or to submit to its constitutions or to refuse submission § L AND 7. that these hopes and fears may prove in an external way Coercive it is very convenient that their application to particular Persons be transacted with particular external Solemnities For it is by this means that particular Persons may be justly terrified with the loss of the Spiritual Advantages when they are excluded from the external Solemnities of Application without which they are not Ordinarily to be expected And this is all which can be done by Governours to exclude particular Subjects from such Solemnities which can be of no efficacy for terrifying Conscientious Persons if the Advantages to be gained by them may also be easily expected without them And as all this is very naturally consequent to a design of Erecting the Church into a Body Politick and does effectually promote that design by letting Subjects understand their obligation to submit to all Impositions not Sinful under pain of losing all the Ordinary means of intitling themselves to the Priviledges of the Gospel so certainly it must give Men the most satisfactory account that God has actually intended such a design to let them understand that this is the very Method observed by God in the actual Constitution of the Church under the Gospel And indeed whoever denies any of them will make Government so unpracticable as that it would be improbable to have been designed by God § LI But for proving all this I cannot think it reasonable to confine my Discourse to express Scriptures both because as I have already observed we do not find the Scripture to enlarge professedly on Instances of this nature but rather Occasionally to intimate them as coincident with its principal design as presuming them already sufficiently Notorious from the Practices of the Church to the capacities of the meanest Idiotes then living And because it is not usual for the Scriptures even where they do indeed allude to notorious Practices to insist Critically on their true design and usefullness which were then also so very notorious from the manner of their Practice as that the weaker fort of Christians for whose use the Scripture was principally accommodated could not be presumed Ignorant of them as they were then concerned to know them And because it is not the Letter but the Sense of the Scripture for which I am at present principally concerned and it is in Prudence the most advisable means to expound the Sense of all Laws especially concerning Power by the actually avowed Practices of the Courts of their respective Jurisdictions And because the Practices of the Churches in those Primitive Ages especially those concerning the power of the several Orders of Governours undoubtedly established by the
present design to shew how little ground of comfort we can have from such an expectation on these Terms § XIV NOR did any necessary reason oblige his natural Goodness to pardon these Offences of his Creatures at least no such reason as is discoverable by us from these Relations of his being our good Creator and Governour This appears clearly from the Revelations of the Gospel by which we know that we were upon account of our Offences perfectly liable to the actual inflictions of his Justice If we had not been so what need had there been of the Satisfaction and sufferings of Christ for attoning the Divine Justice for our Sins Antecedently to our admission into the Evangelical Covenant And if we were it must necessarily follow that he was not obliged by his Providential Goodness to pardon us For the Divine Attributes must not be conceived as inconsistent with each other and they must needs be so if God may there Justly punish where he is by his natural Providential Goodness obliged to forgive For in this Case the very Right of his Justice must be overpowered by his Goodness And it is further considerable in this Case that his Justice does as well concern him as a Governour as his Goodness whence it will also further follow that if the Justice of his Government will permit him actually to punish then the Goodness of his Government cannot oblige him actually to forgive For no actual Practice of God can possibly oppose any Obligation of his Nature Nay further yet it is to be remembred that the Obligation of his Justice it self is indeed no other but a higher Obligation of his Goodness For it must not be conceived that the essentially-Good nature of God can be obliged to inflict any evil whatsoever as an evil But that he is obliged to punish the offences of particular Persons when either a greater good is promoted by the punishment than could be by the Impunity as none can doubt but that the good of the Publick is greater than that of a particular Person and more concerning God as he is a Governour or even when the mischief likely to befal even the particular Person himself if permitted to go on without Punishment is indeed greater than that of the Punishment it self which may also be applied to our present Case not that any evil can be greater to the Individual than Damnation but that real Damnation which may be avoided by the fear of it in this Life is indeed incomparably a greater mischief than the fear it self this is indeed only a higher Obligation of his Goodness and therefore uncapable of being taken of by such an Obligation of the same Attribute as is certainly inferior § XV NOR if he would be actually pleased to pardon his Creature is he yet obliged further to give it his further assistances for future Obedience For besides that this is a favour Additional to the former and of which the Creature cannot even by the Law of Gods Goodness it self be supposed capable till it be fitted for it by the former I mean of that Goodness which obliges him to act not Fondly but Justly and Rationally and in compliance with his other Attributes and therefore cannot be due where the former is not as none can think him to have any Title to higher who has none to lower degrees of favour I say besides this there can be nothing said for disobliging God in point of his Goodness from preventing those Sins which were Antecedent to our admission to his favour at first but will proceed with as much force here and no Objections can be urged for impeaching Gods Goodness for not giving his restraining and assisting Graces for prevention of future misdemeanors but will as well reflect on it for not giving the same Grace at first for hindring those Offences which at first made us need his pardoning favour So that the same Reasons which prove the former Favour undue must also prove these Objections false and unconcluding So that there will be no need for us at present to be-solicitous for their particular Solution Besides that this Presumption lies against them that this is a Case wherein Reason is so far from concluding necessarily on either hand and wherein it is so little able to inform us of those Secrets of Government which if we understood we may conceive very likely exceedingly to alter the merit of the Cause and therefore actual Revelation concerning it must needs be a surer way of arguing and in Prudence much fitter to be trusted for regulating our Practice than any of those general Conjectures which our Reason is able to propose concerning it § XVI NOR yet further though he should be pleased to grant the Assistances of his Grace for the better security of our future Obedience does his Goodness oblige him to reward his Creature having once offended and much less to accept of an imperfect instead of a perfect Obedience in Order to a reward It does not oblige him to reward his Creature having once offended Indeed Reason of State may sometimes oblige such Princes whose wellfare depends upon the State to connive at Rebellions where the Persons engaged in them are numerous But where Princes themselves are less dependent and can Right themselves notwithstanding any whatsoever opposition of their Subjects it may indeed become their Clemency but they cannot be obliged to reward them even upon their return to their Duty and their better observance of it after they have once been pardoned Especially where Justice and the Publick Interest require a publick satisfaction for fear of the ill consequence of an Example of Impunity as our dissenting Brethren themselves confess the Satisfaction of Christ to have been necessary in our present Case If it be requisite for the Good of Mankind that Divine Justice should be satisfied before the Creature could be pardoned no Providential Goodness could oblige God to give his own Son to suffer for that purpose much less to give him for Mankind and not for the fallen Angels least of all to purchase rewards for Us whilst we were in a Condition of Hostility and to reward those Services which as they come from us are weak and imperfect and full of impure adherences and as they come from him are no other than his own Gifts § XVII BUT if his native Goodness should even thus far prevail with him as to pass by these disadvantages on our part and to pay this debt of a Reward not to our performances but to his own â—ative Generosity yet the highest Rewards which concern him as a Creator and Governour of the World are only Natural And the concession of these as they were abundantly sufficient to prevail with the Creature in a way of rational inducement to comply with the designs of his Providence so they were enough to intitle him a good Creator and a bountiful Governour But it could have been nothing more derogatory to his Providential bounty to have
Society can never be mainteined without a coercive power over such vested in its Governours nor without a power of deciding of such Laws Authentically in order to Practice For this power of Authentical Exposition is as necessary for preserving the Society in a Succession as the Legislative power it self was for its first establishment and therefore perfectly necessary for those Governours which are to keep up the Succession Especially considering that as I said no Authentick Interpretations are now to be expected from God himself And therefore it is as unreasonable to appeal from the Governours of the Church to the Scriptures in things concerning their Government as matters of Practice certainly must if any and to expect that either the Government or the Society could be preserved if such an Appeal were admitted as to expect that our Secular peace and Vnity could be preserved if we were allowed to appeal to the Letter of the Law against all the power of Magistrates either for their Execution or Interpretation § VII AND 4. That as it is thus inconsistent with Government or the Safety of any Society to admit of an Appeal from all its Magistracy to its Laws so it is also to admit the like Appeals from all the Visible Present Governours to one that is Invisible and from whom no present decision is to be expected For this is plainly to hinder all exercise of church-Church-Authority in this Life and consequently to frustrate its whole design seeing it is here only that it can be seasonable For if the Appeal be good the exercise of Government ought to be suspended till the Cause be decided by the Power to which the Appeal is made which if it cannot be expected in this Life will consequently hinder in this Life all exercise of Government by the Persons invested with it and so leave such a Society destitute of the means necessary for its own preservation in such Cases that is indeed in all which the frowardness and mistakes of the Appellants as well as the Justice of their Cause might make such Whence it plainly follows that the supreme Visible Governours of the Church must be absolute and unappealable even in regard of Appeals to be made to God himself Nor would our dissenting Brethren think this expression arrogant if they would be pleased to consider it in a parallel Case wherein themselves as many of them at least as are sensible of the moment of the things discoursed of and no others are competent Judges of them will I believe think it Just and Reasonable that is in Secular Government For will any of them think it fit that such Appeals should be admitted I do not say in the State but even in their own Families Could they ever expect to maintein their Authority or the Peace even of these little Societies upon these Terms if their Authority must be controlled and its execution suspended as often as their too partially-concerned Subjects should make such Appeals nay where themselves the Governours could not satisfy as much as their own Consciences as to the matter wherein the Appeal were made as our Church professes her self unable to satisfy hers in the matter of our Brethrens Appeal At least can any fallible Authority subject to humane mistakes and Prejudices of the Persons vested with it ever reach the end for which it is originally designed the decision of Controversies among their Subjects on these Terms § VIII AND yet the very same reasons which they urge for such an Appeal in Ecclesiasticals will proceed as strongly in Seculars For are the Governours of the Church tyrannical I believe themselves will not deny but that many of the Seculars are so too Are they fallible Certainly the Secular Governours must be much more so whose Errors are of less importance and consequently less obliging Providence to prevent them and who cannot pretend to such assistances of the Spirit as are given to the Ecclesiasticals at their Ordination for preventing mistakes and extravagances Are they subordinate to God and Jesus Christ And are not the Secular Governours so too Have we the Scriptures given us a Rule for us to discover their failings and as a Law by which themselves must be judged at least by their Supreme Master And cannot the same Scriptures besides the Laws of Nature and Nations and the Fundamental Constitutions of their respective Societies and the Rules of Prudence serve us for the same purpose to discover the lapses of Secular Princes And are not they as obnoxious to Gods Tribunal as the Ecclesiasticks for the violation of these Laws at the day of Judgment § IX WILL they therefore say that their nearer relation to God does make them more severely accountable to him I confess it does so But must it therefore withal make them more accountable to their own Subjects Must they therefore be more subject to curbs and interruptions in the present exercise of their Government I am sure this is contrary to the course of proceedings in humane affairs We do not find there that Appeals are more easily admitted but more difficultly by how much nearer the Persons from whom the Appeal is made are related to the Supreme Prince Nor are the miscarriages of that Government which is limitted or curbed either thought so aggreable or accountable as of that which has been absolute and arbitrary And I am sure this is contrary to the sense of all those wise and Politick Nations who have therefore either united their Sacred power with that of the Secular in one Person though their Offices and Exercises were clearly distinct or used ceremonies of Consecration in their admission to the Secular power or reputed them as mixt Persons and given them the stile of Sacrosancti not only to secure their Persons from violence but to conciliate a greater veneration for their Majesty not to add any restrictions to their Authority as to Men but rather to possess them with a greater reverence of their Prudence when by this Means they should see them intitled to such Extraordinary Divine assistances and a more profound submission to their Authority when resistance to them should look so like fighting against God himself and the very honour which God was pleased to confer on them in admitting them to so near a relation to himself might justly aw Men into an opinion that God would not admit of any resistance in any Case of Appeal it self but that where Active Obedience could not be paid them yet Passive should and that even Appeals themselves would not be admitted no not even in the Court of Conscience but in matters of great importance and very evident by the same proportion of Government as we see in all other Cases that Appeals are much more difficult by how much the Judicatory from whence the Appeal is made approaches nearer to the Supreme of all And if the Secular Prince have been always thought a gainer by this accession either of the like Power or the like Ceremonies of
this and it is plain that the efficacy of any Arguments is to be accounted for from the prevailing inclination of him who is to be perswaded by them § VI BUT besides in our present Case it is very considerable that the want of all Means necessary for an Escape is by all Prudent Persons counted a sufficient Argument to prove the imminent danger of the Person wanting them so that this alone is sufficient to have all the influence of a Positive Argument on a Person who is concerned For in several Cases the effect does follow as certainly and inevitably from the want of the interposition of a Cause that may hinder the present natural Course of things as if it were proved immediately from the influence of the Causes themselves in which Case the present Causes not hindred do certainly determine the effect and all the use of the Negative proof is only to shew that they shall not actually be hindred It is thought a certain Argument that a Man falling down â— precipice shall assuredly come to the bottome if we be assured that nothing else shall interpose to hinder him or if we be assured also that even those Causes which we can apprehend as only capable of interposing shall not actually interpose Even in this Case we think our Selves Morally Certain of the Event § VII NOW this is the Case exactly here Our Brethren themselves acknowledg a sufficient Cause not only for falling short of the rewards of the Gospel but also for incurring the Punishment of it if unrelieved by the favours of it that is Original Sin And therefore they above all others are very Pathetical in aggravating the inevitableness of Mans lâ—ss without Christ. Thus far therefore it is as certain with them that all must actually perish for whose rescue God does not especially interpose for Christs sake as it is certain that a stone must fall downwards if it be not hindred and supported by the interposition of some other Cause And seeing also that there is not any other Interposition to be expected in this Case even by our Brethrens own Principles but that of the mercy of God through Christ that which will take away all hopes of this Interposition must in all reason and Prudence make us proportionably fearful of the Event that is must at least perfectly ruin all hopes of escaping and consequently all comfort and satisfaction in our present condition If therefore it may appear that there are no Arguments to put us in hopes that God will interpose there can upon these Principles be no hope nor comfort at all at least not sufficient for our dissenting Brethrens purpose to make it safe for any wise man to acquiesce in this condition when he may change it by unsinful condescensions For indeed for that I have proved it requisite that this continuance out of the Churches Communion had been righter and safer than having it on these Terms and therefore that the Probabilities making for it had been more and more pregnant than those which made against it § VIII 2. THEREFORE no Arguments can comfort but such as may Externally appear and so be capable of being judged of by the Persons concerned This is so plain of it self and so coincident with what I have already discoursed as that it cannot need many words to clear it further For no Person can be comforted by the real goodness or safety of his condition unless he Judg it so and none can Judg whether it be so but by reasons appearing to himself § IX 3. THEREFORE Our partaking of the External Solemnities of the Covenant is at least the only Argument appearing to us whereby we can be assured of any Legal Title to the Benefits of it For as it has already appeared it is only by our interest in the Covenant that we can be assured of a Legal Title to the Promises on Gods part And a Covenant as Obligatory in a Legal way does necessarily imply such a Legal Notoreity as that both Parties may be mutually assured of the others Obligation For as in Covenants neither of the Parties singly would engage but on consideration of the Conditions to be performed by the other so it is not to be presumed in Equity that either of them would ingage without assurance of performance on the other Party or give any further Assurance of their own performance than they receive from the Party with whom they contract Now the reason why both Parties are willing to submit to Legal Obligations is only for this mutual Security of performance of what both Parties were Antecedently willing to contract for and the farther use of making this Contract Legal is that by some common means of Communication each of them may be as well secured of the performance of the Party with whom he deals as that Party is secured of his own performance And if a Contract were made more secure on the one side than on the other how Legal soever it might be in regard of Men who can only proceed on generally-fallible Presumptions yet it is not Equal nor consequently obligatory in the sense in which we now understand Legal Obligations when we speak of such as are betwixt God and Man because it is not agreeable with the presumable design of the Contracter which is all that any can in Equity be obliged to unless we make the Law a snare to oblige Men beyond their own intentions which is not agreeable to the nature of voluntary Contracts such as Covenants are understood to be § X AND by these same Principles it appears that God as Covenanting with us must give us the same Security of performance on his part as he receives from us of ours by virtue of the Legal Solemnities whereby the Covenant is managed And till he does so and that we have reason to be satisfied that he has done so the Covenant cannot be said to have been compleated because this is indeed the tacite Condition on which it was made and on which it was intended to be ratified and therefore till this be done it cannot be supposed to have received a final and compleat ratification on both sides nor consequently to be Obligatory Legally § XI AND as this Legal Notoreity of each others Obligation mutually is thus necessary to the Equity and Validity of the Obligation so indeed the Ordinary Solemnities of entring into these compacts are the only Instruments of this Legal Notoreity so that indeed that cannot be presumed to be Legally Notorious which is not transacted with these Solemnities and therefore not being Legally Notorious cannot on the Principles now mentioned infer a Legal Obligation Especially considering that God is pleased herein to condescend to deal with Men according to their own customes and capacities And therefore having erected a Visible Body Politick and placed Visible Vice-gerents to act in his name and appointed Visible Seals and withal having removed himself from our Ordinary access and consultation It is very reasonable
However at present this Observation may suffice to shew that even pursuant to these Philosophical Notions themselves and the influence they might have had on the minds of the Primitive Christians no Perfection can be pleaded such as may excuse from the use of the Sacraments § XV And further 6. It has also appeared that the great design of pleading this Spiritual way of worship of the supreme Being to the neglect of external Ritual-Observances was indeed to excuse themselves from paying him any external worship at all And indeed seems very rational on that Hypothesis which was then commonly received concerning the natural Philosophical reason of the worship of their ordinary Daemons Vid. Oracula aliaque Plutarchi Porphyrii Testimonia apud Euseb. L.5 Praep. Eu. c. 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17. For they conceived that the Daemons commonly worshipped were not purely Spiritual but at least cloathed with vehicles more or less gross according to the several degrees of their respective excellencies And hence they inferred that the Daemons themselves were sensibly delighted and nourished either with the Souls or nidor of the Sacrifices offered to them And that this was the true reason why the different Daemons were pleased with different sorts of Sacrifices and different sorts of Trees in their Groves and peculiar places and ceremonies of worship that their vehicles were of as great diversity of complexions as mens Bodies are and therefore inclined them to as great a diversity of desires because that the same thing which was grateful to the vehicle of one Daemon would either not affect the vehicle of another or would prove ungrateful to it And as they thought these vehicles to be material so they thought them subject to the same influences to which the matters were subject whereof they consisted And accordingly as all matter was supposed to be under the dominion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so they conceived these vehicles to be also and that they were by this means subject to the fatal influences of the Stars and even to the influences of Sublunary Bodies also as herbs and stones and the steams of Animals that were offered in Sacrifice to them This seems to have been the true Philosophical reason of all the Judicial Astrology and Magick which were then in so good esteem with the Persons I am speaking of § XVI Now on these Principles it is very true that no Bodily worship is suitable to the nature of the supreme Being that is there is no Bodily Being that is capable of affecting a Nature so perfectly abstract from matter as God's is with any sensible pleasure or advantage In this regard himself expressly disowns such a way of Worship and that even in such a time when he was otherwise pleased to accept of bloody Sacrifices Thinkest thou that I will eat Bulls flesh and drink the blood of Goats Psal. i. 13 And in that regard he immediately requires a more Spiritual kind of Worship For so it follows Offer unto God thanksgiving Ver. 14. and pay thy vows unto the most Highest But as this whole design of excusing themselves from the publick solemn Worship of the supreme Deity was a thing directly contrary to the fundamental Principles of the Christian Religion nay indeed it seems to be the principal design of this Religion to restore the publick solemn Worship of the chief God which had before been taken from him and given only to inferiour Daemons and this seems to have been the principal Dispute between the Christians and the Philosophers so our Adversaries will have reason when they reflect on the great unlawfulness of the design to distrust the Principles by which they defended it And therefore when they shall perceive that the tendency of this way of arguing from the Spiritual Nature of that Worship which must be suitable to the supreme Being to the neglect of the external Observances of his solemn Worship in publick Assemblies aims at the overthrow of the fundamental Principles of the whole Christian Religion and was designed so by them who first made use of it They cannot chuse but have a great unkindness for this way of arguing if they have any kindness for the Christian Religion which is so plainly undermined by it And that this account of their design and Principles is true I might refer to Porphyries account of Sacrifices De Abstinent ab esu Animal which he gives in the name of the Pythagoreans whose cause he principally undertakes to defend but which withall seems generally to have been received into the elective Philosophy which then prevailed § XVII But besides the reason of this Argument will by no means hold in those exteriors which are observed by the Christian Institution The Sacraments are not pretended to have any natural influence on God but only to be means of conveying his Graces to us And how can it be against the Nature or decorum of a Spirit in dealing with Beings which are not Spiritual to use means suitable to the capacities of those Beings with whom he deals If we conceive any commerce at all between Spiritual and Corporal Beings this is certainly the most likely way we can think of how such a commerce should be maintained Corporeal Beings are not able to converse by means wholly Spiritual and therefore it is absolutely necessary that if God would be pleased to have any dealings with them he should maintain them by Corporeal significations This moral use of the Sacraments as Solemnities of transacting the New Covenant does rather derogate from the Perfection of God not from that Perfection which a Corporeal Being is capable as it is Corporeal If further in the Symbols of the Heathen Mysteries there might have been fancied something that in its own Nature might influence the vehicle of the Soul and more easily dispose it for receiving Spiritual influences which dispositions such Souls as are already perfect might not be supposed to need if this is not the Case in our Christian Mysteries The Symbols here used are such as are familiar among us and therefore if they had any such natural virtue must exert it as well out of the Sacraments as in them So that all their influence must be wholly ascribed to the Divine appointment And why then should any Soul which is not so perfect but that it needs the Divine Assistance be yet thought so perfect as not to need those means which he has been pleased to appoint for the conveyance of those Assistances § XVIII And indeed I know not whether the Author to the Hebrews did not allude to some such fancy of some who mysticised Baptism possibly to the disparagement of the Literal Baptism For having exhorted those to whom he wrote to draw nigh to Christ with a true heart in full assurance of faith having their hearts sprinkled from an evil Conscience Heb. x. 22 as if he had been afraid that they should understand him of this Mystical Baptism
Cant. Abstinentiâ where he also charges some Barbarians as he calls them with taking a liberty of eating all sorts of meats on this pretence as he expresses it in the words himself had heard from them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherein he afterwards intimates that they defended themselves by pretending to g 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Liberty These are almost the words for certain the sence and Arguments used by the sacred h St. Matt. xv 18 Mark vii 18 20. Writers themselves in this very matter Which I the rather mark that it may appear with what Adversaries Porphyry had to do in that undertaking And if it were necessary to multiply testimonies to this purpose many more might have been produced from the Adversaries and Patrons of the Christians in that Age wherein Laertius wrote from St. Justin Martyr Tatianus Clemens Alexandrinus Theophilus Antiochenus and Celsus from all those who writing against the Heathens call them Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cels. apud Orig. L. i. p. 5. and who defend themselves by Patronizing the cause of the Barbarians and shewing that the Greeks themselves were beholden to the Barbarians for all useful kinds of knowledg What imaginable reason is there that they should so eagerly concern themselves in this cause if themselves had not been upbraided with this name § XXVIII AND indeed it seems to have been one of the first things that was resented by the learned Heathens to see their Greek Ancestors robbed of the glory of their Antiquity and their Inventions and to see the despised Barbarians adorned with their spoils This seems in earnest to have been one of the greatest provocations of Plutarch against Herodotus that Herodotus had been too ingenuous in his acknowledgments in this matter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And possibly that great Reader might have seen the Apologies of Quadratus and Aristides to the Emperor Adrian Euseb. Eccl. Hist. iv 3 who might very probably have insisted on this Argument which we find so very ordinary in the later Apologists not now to mention what he might have seen upon this Subject in Josephus against Appion and others of the Hellenistical Jews Nay the design of Laertius himself in his Preface seems to have been directly levelled against what the Christian Apologists had produced in this Argument There he endeavours though very weak 〈◊〉 to assert the Invention of Philosophy to the Greeks He endeavours to weaken the challenge made for Orpheus the Thracian on acaccount of the wickedness of his Fables concerning the gods which he could not think worthy the name of Philosophy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 2. En Pugionem verè plumbeum Casaub. in loc 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. Orat. adv Graec. Jos. cont Appion In Aristotele And he is an instance frequently given by the Apologists So he also magnifies the Antiquity and Philosophy of Musaeus and Linus which are two of those who are mentioned by Tatianus as Writers among the Greeks before Homer though it should seem that in Josephus's time Homer was thought the ancientest Which will the rather make it suspicious that this was a pretence invented in the time of Laertius against the later Apologists of the Christians only So that it cannot be thought strange that Laertius should call the Christians Barbarians against whom he was so eagerly concerned in this very dispute wherein the Christians opposed the Barbarians against them And though the Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do not prove him a Christian yet sure it must at least prove him conversant in Hellenistical Writers it is so peculiar an idiom of his style And his last words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seem to give a clear account why the Assemblies of the Primitive Christians were called Synaxes because their meeting together in those times is usually expressed to be for the breaking of this Bread It is certain that this was then the principal employment of those Assemblies And it is very observable that as it was the principal design of those sacred Assemblies to effect as well as signifie this Mystical Vnion between the Members of their Assemblies so this was the word by which the Greeks signified this Vnion That the Pythagoraeans used it concerning their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we are here assured by Laertius That the Jews also used it the same way seems plain from the name of Synagogue as their Assemblies are called by the Hellenists And for the Christians besides the name of Synaxes Christ himself expresses the Vnion he was to make by this very word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 St. John xi 52 § XXXIX BESIDES these there are also other instances by which it may appear how suitable a Symbol of Vnity Bread was reputed among the Ancients Particularly it is observable in the way of Marriage by Confarreation which is the more remarkable to our purpose because this Matrimonial Vnity is by the Apostle himself compared to the Vnity between Christ and his Church In Fragm Titulor ex ejus corpore Excerptor Now this Marriage by Confarreation is thus described by Vlpian Farre convenitur in manum certis verbis testibus decem praesentibus solenni sacrificio facto in quo panis farreu◠adhibetur I do not know whether the Bridal Cake may not have risen from this very ancient custom For that it was not observed among the Romans only we are assured from Curtius who makes Alexander the Great observe this custom in marrying Roxana and that patrio more bread being reputed among the Macedonians for the sanctissimum coeuntium pignus And as by Confarreation this Matrimonial Vnity was made L. iv so by Diffarreation it was dissolved So we are taught by Festus Diffarreatio genus erat Sacrificii quo inter virum mulierem fiebat dissolutio dicta diffarreatio quòd fieret farreo libo adhibito And though this way of Marriage by Confarreation was by degrees growing out of use in the time of Tiberius Tacit. L. iv yet it plainly appears to have been the most formal solemn way of Marriage and most creditable to them who had used it For only they were permitted to stand Candidates for the Office of the Flamen Dialis who were begotten of such Marriages By which it appears to have been a sacred as well as a civil Symbol of Vnity which made it more suitable to the design to which it was applied in the Christian Religion Nor was it only made use of for Marriages but also in Leagues among Enemies whom it was specially designed to reconcile and Vnite The mola salsa from whence the name of Immolation and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they were the most ancient kinds of Sacrifice so in Homer they are particularly used in Truces And as upon this account of uniting Enemies Bread is a very suitable Symbol for the design of the Eucharist so among all the Sacrifices made use of for this purpose Ex Theophrasto ut
reason of the thing § IX This performed by two degrees 1. It is God alone that has the right of disposing the Spiritual benefits here conveyed § X XI XII The reason of the Adversaries mistakes § XIII 2. It is none but he that can give Possession of them § XIV 2. From the actual establishment of God No such Authority actually conferred upon the People § XV XVI XVI The weakness of the Argument from bare Primitive Precedent for proving a right conferred shewn from the many condescensions of those times and the Prudence of the Reasons that required them § XVIII XIX XX XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XXV The unreasonableness of this way of Arguing § XXVI There were then circumstances proper to that Age which required particular condescension § XXVII Though the Negative Argument be not good yet the Positive is that the actual claim of Governours then is a good presumption that they had a right to the Power so claimed by them § XXVIII Persons extraordinarily-gifted at length made subject to the ordinary Governours of the Church § XXIX XXX XXXI This derivation of Power rather from Governours than from the People agreeable to those Precedents whom the Primitive Christians were most likely to imitate § XXXII XXXIII XXXIV XXXV A way proposed for accommodating the several Interests concerned in Ordination according to the Practice of those times § XXXVI XXXVII The Apostles unlikely to confer this right of Government on the People if left by God to their own Liberty according to the Notions which then prevailed among the Christians § XXXVIII Remarks tending to the satisfaction of the Lovers of Truth and Peace 1. This way of arguing from the actual establishments of God as it is much more modest so it is also more secure for finding out the right of Government than any conjectures we can make from the reason of the thing § XXXIX XL. 2. Though the People had this inherent right of Government originally yet it cannot exclude a right of God who may when he pleases resume this right into his own hands § XLI 3. If the People ever had such a right originally yet all that has been done since for alienating that right which could be done § XLII § I 3. THEREFORE no other Ministers have this Authority of Administring the Sacraments but only they who receive their Orders in the Episcopal Communion This I shall endeavour to prove by these Degrees 1. That the Authority of Administring the Sacraments must be derived from God 2. That though it be derived from him yet it is not so derived without the mediation of those men to whom it was at first committed 3. That it cannot be so derived from those men to whom it was at first committed without a continued Succession of Persons orderly receiving Authority from those who had Authority to give it them from those first times of the Apostles to ours at present 4. That this Authority is to be expected no where now but in the Episcopal Communion § II 1. THE Authority of administring the Sacraments must be derived from God I do not only mean that it must be derived from God as all other things as well as Authorities are derived from him who is not only the Supreme Prince but the first Cause of all things Nor do I mean only that it must be from God the same way as all other even Secular Authority must be derived from him at least Providentially though the Power of Government were originally never so much at the disposal of the Persons to be governed For whatever the Creature has originally the disposal of it must be supposed at first derived from God But yet in a way of Providence God does also frequently dispose of Governments which had been otherwise in the Creatures liberty to dispose of as in those rights which are gotten by just Conquest and Prescription where the rights of Government are certainly disposed of by Providence without any possible pretence of consent in the Persons obliged to submit to it For the right of the Creature where-ever it has any is not to be understood so as to derogate from the right of God to dispose of them as he pleases whatever right they have as it must necessarily be derived from him if it be indeed any right at all so that derivation does not rob him of any of that which he had before It is to be understood not Privatively as they say but Accumulatively My meaning therefore is that this Power of administring the Sacraments must be so derived from God not as to exclude the mediation of such men who have received it in a Succession from him but so as to exclude all right originally derived from the Creature as far as the Creature is capable of such a right originally in contradistinction to God That is that no men have a right to Government in Ecclesiastical affairs but by a particular donation from God not by vertue of that general right which God has given every one by his general Providence to take care of himself and which therefore every individual Person may for himself and much more whole Multitudes may by common consent commit to others § III THE consequent whereof will be that all Ordinations and all Administrations of the Sacraments derived from any Multitudes or Persons on account of their general right of governing themselves without an express donation from God are not only irregular but invalid and such as can neither in Conscience oblige any Subjects to submit to them nor encourage any who are otherwise willing to submit to expect any benefit from them And my design in proving this Proposition is particularly to oppose not the Independents only but those others also who by the badness of their Cause have been forced upon their Principles and do assert a power in the mutinous Communalty to legitimate the Calling of those Pastors which they have been pleased to set up for themselves in opposition to their original Superiors on what account soever they assert it to them besides this of an express donation which I do not know that any yet have pretended to whether in regard of that intrinsick right every one is supposed to have for his own Government in Spirituals where he is not expresly imposed on by positive Provisions though withal he have not that intrinsick right either confirmed or enlarged by any such Provisions or in regard of their Election according to them who conceive the Elect only capable of constituting a Church and that according to the popular Notion of that word of Election § IV I AM sensible how needless my present undertaking is for proving the first Dividers of the several Parties to have been guilty of Schism For if any other form of Government be lawful in the Church besides Democracy that is indeed if it be in the Power of the Multitude to alienate their own Power by their own Act and if they cannot it is impossible
of the Bishops were so linked to him by the dependence he had brought them to as that they could not be trusted as equal Judges in matters concerning his Authority and yet the publick exigence of the Age forced them on those disputes they were then also interested to weaken their Authority when they found it so prejudicial to their great design This was plainly the case when the disputes came in between Popes and General Councils If those were to be tryed by Bishops the Popes must evidently have carried it Not only the dependence of those who were already made on him for their preferment but the multitudes more he might have made when he had seen it useful for his purpose of Titulars and Dependents as he did in Trent might have secured him of the major votes of the Bishops in any Council that would be swayed by the major votes This the Papalins very well understood in the Council of Basil when knowing how small a proportion the Bishops bore in that Council to the rest that were allowed their votes there Aen. Sylv. Comment de gest Conc. Bas. and how sure they were to be over-voted so long as those other votes were allowed they desired that the matters might be determined by the Bishops alone according to the Precedents of former Councils But this the Cardinal of Arles the great Patron of that Council would by no means endure and among other Arguments on which he insists in asserting the right of Presbyters to a vote in Councils this is the principal of the opinion of St. Hierome concerning the original equality of Bishops and Presbyters And considering how many innovations the Councils of those times and this among the rest were forced upon by the exigency of their affairs rather than by their Judgment such as the votes of the Vniversities and of the Deputies of the Nations of which I verily believe no antienter precedent can be given none can admire if in this they were also transported beyond what they would have done otherwise And he who considers the reasonings of the Council for the Superiority of Councils above the Pope as they are represented by Aeneas Sylvius who was among them and then a friend of them when he gave this account of them will find that they are the very same which have been since insisted on by all Republicans and Enemies of Monarchy in general by which it is easie to judg how far the men of that party many of whom were Subjects to Monarchs were transported with the heats of the disputes then managed I mention not the exigency of affairs which necessitated the Fathers of the Reformation to take refuge in this Opinion when they also found how the generality of the Bishops then in being were by their interest obliged to stand by the Roman Court in the Prerogatives then disputed as well as by the Oaths they had taken at their Consecration and consequently how impossible it was to expect an impartial decision of their Disputes from an Order so interessed and obliged whether in or out of Councils I have really much better thoughts of the integrity of these Persons than of the Ages now mentioned But even well meaning Persons are undiscernibly inclinable to favour Propositions which are inclinable to their Interests and to have as little kindness for such as are against their interests And how far favour may go for the deciding things which are of themselves any thing disputable to divert men from considering the uttermost that can be said for a contrary cause and to make little things seem great when they are produced for a favourable Opinion he must be a stranger to Humane Nature and Conversation who has not observed However their Authority cannot be considerable in this matter because no Ordinations depended on them § IV I DO not by this discourse in the least prejudg against the evidence producible by our Adversaries in this cause I do not therefore prejudg against the Truth of their cause because their interest obliged them to defend it I am sensible how very possible it is that truth may concur with interest All therefore that I infer from these cases is that there was in all these cases interest that might divert Persons who were not very wary as well as sincere from the quest of Truth But truly considering the light of those times by which alone they were enabled to judg without prejudice to the light of our own Age which our modern Adversaries have produced and considering the prejudices by which they were generally acted I confess I cannot see how to excuse the mainteiners of this Opinion in those times from insincerity For how was it possible for them who received Isidore Mercator's wares for genuine to doubt of the Primitive Superiority of Bishops over Presbyters when he must find all the particular subordinations of the Episcopal Hierarchy so minutely described in Epistles ascribed to Clement Cletus Linus c. And what one was there from Hincmar's time downwards to the times we speak of who ever questioned them Who could question it that believed the many Legends then extant concerning the Primitive times of Christianity And who was there then who could find in his heart to question them especially considering their incompetency to judg of the evidence produced by our modern Adversaries They knew nothing of most of those Testimonies amassed by Blondel Many of their names they had not heard of at least they had not seen their Works or if they had seen they could not understand them as many of them as were in Greek and were not then translated The Scriptures themselves as they had been quoted by St. Hierome for this purpose were the principal Arguments they were capable of knowing But it is withal notorious how much more was then ascribed to Commentators of note than any evidence of the Text it self for the sense of the Scripture § V AND therefore I am apt to think that St. Hierome's Authority in applying those Texts prevailed more with them than any Inferences they could have made from the Texts themselves For we otherwise see very many instances of this partiality not only of forced Literal senses but also of Mystical ones which passed unquestioned among them and were used upon all occasions as Arguments against Adversaries on the Authority of Commentators of far less note than he was of And the single Authority of St. Hierome against not only the concurrent Testimonies of his own Age and of Authorities then esteemed every way as considerable as his own but which past for a much more prevailing Argument in the Ages I am speaking of against the concurrent practice of the then Catholick Church could not in any probability be taken for so convincing an Argument in Conscience in times that were so manifestly swayed by Authorities I mention not the partialities that most probably got St. Hierome himself that Authority among them that the very favourable Epistle of his to
of a popular party § II THIS is not allowed in any Societies of the like nature Though the Aldermen of Corporations have a power together with the Mayors to dispose of the Offices belonging to their respective Corporations yet if the whole Table shall meet by themselves in separation from the Mayor and in opposition to him however they might over-vote him if he had been present and their assembly lawful yet what they should do in the Case we are now supposing would be a perfect Nullity and unobliging to the Corporation But if any single Alderman should separate from all his Brethren also and should of himself undertake to dispose of the things or Offices of the Corporation could any of our Brethren themselves approve them in it Could they think the Offices so disposed of by them validly disposed of Could they think the Corporation obliged to ratifie them And yet it is strange that they should not see how like this Case is to that of their own Predecessors The first Ministers they had ordeined in the separation were ordeined by such Presbyters as these and by such an act as this now mentioned And their whole Succession since that time has been mainteined generally on no better a Title This representation of their case may possibly affect some popular capacities better than the naked reasons But that the more judicious among them may see that my desire it to deal fairly and candidly with them and not to represent their cause more invidiously than it deserves or to take any advantage that may be taken from a false representation of it I shall endeavour to reduce the reason to a more close way of management under the following considerations which I shall intreat our Adversaries to consider impartially § III 1. THAT though a Presbyter when he is once made is a Presbyter in the Catholick Church yet the reason that makes him so is the correspondence of the whole Catholick Church with that particular one of which he was made a Member at his Ordination By his being a Presbyter in the Catholick Church when he is once made I do not mean that he may canonically exercise his Power in all particular Churches where he may have occasion to come without dependence on the respective Governours but that the exercise of his power in his own Church is to be ratified over the whole Catholick Church in general that they are to suppose the Sacraments administred by him to be validly administred and that therefore they are not to rebaptize Persons baptized by him when they come to live among them nor to refuse their Communion to such to whom he thinks fit to give it nor to receive to their Communion those who are excluded from his and that they are also so far to ratifie the Authority received in his own Church from those who had power to give it him as that if they think fit to permit him to exercise his power within their Jurisdiction they do it without pretending to give him a new Authority but only a new Licence and that where-ever he can exercise his Authority without Canonical injury as in Heathenish or Heretical Countries where no Canons do oblige ratifie all his acts of power the same way as if he had performed them within his own Canonical Jurisdiction This is more than is observed in civil Societies One Country is not bound to confirm the censures of another they are neither obliged to banish their exiles nor to receive their Countrimen to the same priviledges among themselves which they enjoyed in their own Country nor to receive their Magistrates to exercise power among themselves without a new Commission which may give them a new power which the Authority of their own Country was not able to give them § IV AND the reason why I level my discourse against the power that the Presbyters of our Adversaries may pretend to on account of their being Presbyters of the Catholick Church is because this is the only pretence that they can plausibly make for the validity of what they do Canonical Licence they cannot so much as pretend to for exercising their power within the Jurisdictions of others without their leave And it has already appeared that they can make out no Succession from the Apostles but what must originally have come from Episcopal Ordination That therefore they should expect that the exercise of a power received from the Bishops yet exercised within their Jurisdiction without the Licence of the Bishops nay contrary to their express prohibition should be counted valid how unlawful soever must be from the irrevocableness of the Authority at first received by them and the unconfinedness of the design of that power antecedently to those Canons by which it was afterwards made irregular in its practice Were it not for the nature of the unconfinedness of this power they could not pretend to any right to exercise it out of the Jurisdiction of him who gave it them nor even within that Jurisdiction without his leave And therefore if this will not do it they can have nothing that can defend their Vsurpations from being invalid as well as uncanonical § V AND that this correspondence of the Catholick Church with that particular one in which he was ordeined is the true reason why all other Churches are obliged to ratifie the acts of every particular Presbyter will appear if it be considered that by his Ordination in his own particular Church he can have no Jurisdiction given him over any other which is not under the Jurisdiction of that particular Church from which he has received his Orders And therefore the reason why they are obliged to confirm his censures cannot be any Authoritative deference they owe to him such as Subjects owe to even their fallible Superiors even in matters wherein they think them actually mistaken yet so to practise as if they thought them not mistaken but purely their own actual conviction concerning the reasonableness of the thing it self because they either know or presume it to be fit that his censure should be confirmed But this reason of the thing would not hold were it not that his Church and theirs are in those things the same and as they give the same advantages so they require the same qualifications which whoever is presumed to have in one cannot by them by whom he is presumed to have them be at the same time presumed to want them in the other In other Societies where the priviledges conferred are proper to the Society the qualifications are so too And therefore though one Society be really satisfied that a Subject has deserved well of another and that he has deservedly received his reward for his eminent deserts from that Authority which had power to give him it and therefore that he has a just title to a reward yet are they not obliged in any reason to give him the same honour in their own For the nature of these Societies are so little
belong to him as a Presbyter though he were not also a President of the Presbytery and therefore cannot take it for a Prerogative of his Office as President That it is therefore from some such a Presbytery as this that they must derive the validity of their Orders appears from the Principles already premised that no other Presbyteries can make out their Succession from the Apostles that particular Members of even these Presbyteries cannot do it alone in a separation from them that Multitudes of such particular Persons though meeting together cannot make up such a Church among them as were requisite to attest the Orders of Persons ordeined to the rest of the Catholick Church who maintein correspondence with them § XIII CONSIDERING therefore these Episcopal Presbyteries only as Presbyters and the Bishop himself as acting herein by no higher a power than that of an ordinary Presbyter yet even so no Orders can be valid but those which were conferred by the prevailing vote of even such a Presbytery at least those are invalid which are given by the votes of a smaller over voted part of them Even by the Principles of Aristocratical Government though it were doubtful whether the greater part might dispose a right common to them all without the consent of every particular yet it hardly can be doubtful whether a smaller part can dispose of such a common right though over-voted by a greater number of suffrages than their own Though it may be thought reasonable that some reserved cases of that nature wherein the whole Society were deeply concernâ—d should not pass without the unanimous suffrages of every individual Member yet as there is no Justice antecedently to compacts that any individuals should dispose of the rights of others though less considerable than themselves till by the general acts and compacts of all whereby Polyarchical Societies are most naturally settled such general rules are agreed on by which some particular Members may for peaces sake be allowed to dispose of the common rights of their Fellow-members without their express consent in the particular but by vertue of their general consent once given to such general rules so neither is there any reason in prudence that where unanimous consent cannot be had and it is therefore necessary that one part yield to the other the greater should be swayed by the smaller part The fundamental rule of all this publick justice is that where there is a necessity of a choice the publick be preferred before private interests that therefore it is very just to bear with injuries to private Persons when they cannot be avoided without injuries to the publick Which will in generosity oblige a smaller part to yield to a greater but can on no terms oblige the greater to yield to the smaller because indeed the interest of the greater part is more the publick interest than that of the smaller § XIV BESIDES the reason of all compacts of this kind of referring their differences to a publick decision is the presumed equality of the decision above what would be among the interessed Persons themselves and the power to execute what is resolved on beyond the resistance of those against whom the cause is decided And therefore if we should again suppose men free as they were before these compacts I am speaking of we have reason to presume that they would settle this power of deciding their differences in such hands where there might be presumed less danger of corruption and where there were the greatest power to execute their own decrees And both these reasons give the preference to these major votes above the smaller part It is to be presumed that it is not so easie to corrupt a greater as it is to corrupt a smaller part And when it is necessary that the decree be executed the power of the greater is greater than that of the smaller part where the particular Subjects of power are supposed equal as they are in our present case And though it be very possible in after cases that it may so fall out that the greatest right may sometimes belong to that side where there is the smallest power yet we have reason to believe that the only reason why it comes to be so is the unexpectedness of revolutions to which humane affairs are obnoxious which could not be so much as probably foreseen when the rules of such Societies were first agreed on Otherwise it is reasonable to presume that at the first constitution of those rules they would chuse the greatest power and interest for the fittest seat of Authority because they would by that be best secured of the execution of the Sentences given by them And therefore where we may presume the greater power lay at the passing of those compacts and where they who made those compacts had reason to see the greatest power would always be there we have also reason to presume that they would intend to place the greatest Authority § XV AND this is a reason which might in all probability induce them to resolve that the major vote should prevail through all succeeding generations because the major vote in the case I am speaking of must inseparably carry with it the greatest power And this is a reason that alike concerns all by whom the Government were at first settled whether it were by compacts of the Parties themselves who were to be governed or whether the Government were placed over them by a power who had a Jurisdiction over them antecedently to their own consent There is the same reason why such a power should decree that the smaller number of suffrages in opposition to a greater number should be null in Societies to be established by him as that the Parties themselves should at first agree that it should be so The reasons now mentioned proceed alike in both cases Which I therefore observe that our Adversaries may perceive that as to the case of which I am now speaking it will come to the same event whether the power of the Presbyteries do come from the consent of the particular Presbyters or whether it proceed immediately from the Divine institution Still it is to be presumed that things are to be decided by the vote of the greater part where nothing is otherwise expresly determined because this way of determination is so certainly for the publick interest for which we have as much reason to presume that God would be solicitous as that the Presbyters themselves would be so § XVI BY this it appears even from the Principles of Aristocratical Government how invalid as well as how irregular it must be for a smaller over-voted number of the Presbyters to undertake to dispose of the common rights of the whole Presbyteries whether as acting by themselves or as acting in Presbyteries made up of multitudes of such Presbyters as had been severally over-voted in the Presbyteries to which each of them did at first belong Now that the power given in the Ordination of a Presbyter
for my purpose For my design is not to implead our Adversaries on the merit of the cause of their separation from us but to shew their obligation to yield on their part how confident soever they may be that they have the truth on their side and that their Superiors are mistaken For this purpose therefore it is necessary that the Vnity of the Church be supposed such as may be culpably broken by them who hold the right side of the Controversie if the truth it self be not of that moment as to justifie a separation and if it be not the denial of any the least truth that is required as a condition of peace but only a condescension in practice And if it appear that the Vnity of particular Churches for which alone I am immediately concerned in this whole Discourse is that of Bodies Politick that the things required from our Brethren in order to a solid peace are required by their Superiors that they are justly and properly their Subjects and owe to these Superiors a duty not of reverence only but also of Subjection that therefore the obligation of yielding is incumbent on them and that in all things short of sin that for mainteining this Vnity of Bodies Politick it is absolutely necessary that Subjects be obedient actively in all things lawful and passively even in things unlawful and that this passive obedience obliges Subjects to abstein from either erecting or abetting any opposite Societies I say if these things appear it will then follow that our Adversaries in mainteining opposite Assemblies to their lawful Ecclesiastical Governours on what pretence soever of mal-administration of the Government short of Heresie which can alone make Governours uncapable of the right of Government must become guilty of a culpable breach of the Churches Vnity which is that which is properly meant by the true Notion of Schism Now all these things prove true on the management of our present Hypothesis § III 1. THAT the Persons requiring these things at their hands are properly their Governours and consequently that the Society for whose Vnity they are concerned is properly a Body Politick will both of them follow from each other and will appear from the same proofs 1. Therefore they who have the power of rewards and punishments have the power of Government And especially if their power be not only a power of actual possession but also of right then they must also be acknowledged to have the right of Government which will oblige Subjects to submission even where they cannot be compelled to it on the same Principles of Conscience by which they are obliged without Humane compulsion to pay every one that which is rightfully their due For it is by these rewards and punishments that Government is administred that Subjects are induced or compelled to their duty and as it is impossible for Government to be administred without them so it is also as impossible to suppose that he who has the power of rewards and punishments can be restrained from the power of governing them whom they can punish and reward If these things be only actually in their power they can actually necessitate them to Subjection But if they also possess them rightfully that must oblige them to a Subjection even in conscience § IV 2. THEREFORE they who alone have the power of the benefits of any Society must also be supposed to have the power of its rewards and punishments For indeed all rewards are only a conferring of those benefits and all punishments are only deprivations of them Thus it is in civil things because the power of the Sword extends to all worldly enjoyments therefore he who has this has it in his power to confer these enjoyments or to deprive of them at his pleasure From whence it is that his Subjects find themselves obliged to pay their duty to him on account of their own interest as they value these fruitions of worldly good things or their deprivations And therefore if it be in the power of any Order of men to dispose of those benefits which are to be expected from Christian Societies as Societies to admit or exclude whom they please from them this must for the same reason put it as much in their power to oblige all to a compliance with them who value the priviledges of this Society as the power of the Sword enables them who have it to oblige all to a submission to them who value the priviledges of their secular Societies This will as properly put it in their power to reward or punish the obedience or disobedience of their Ecclesiastical Subjects as the power of the Sword does put it in the power of secular Governours to reward or punish the dutiful or undutiful behaviour of them who are their Subjects in temporals especially considering § V 3. THAT the benefits here spoken of are the benefits of the Christian Society as a Society Whoever has it in his power to gratifie another in any thing he stands in need of has it consequently in his power to oblige him who needs it to comply with him on any condition less afflictive than the loss of it to him who stands in need of it And by how much the thing is more valuable and more necessary by so much stricter will his obligation be to compliance But yet this will not give the Person in whose power the gratification is a proper Authority and Jurisdiction over him whom he has power to gratifie unless the gratification be of that kind that it is necessary to him as a Member of the Society and therefore which may be necessary for all other Members as well as himself Whoever has it thus in his power to oblige any Member as a Member must have a universal power over all the Members which he who has must by a necessary consequence have a power of obliging the whole Society And certainly this power of obliging the whole Society will amount to that which we call properly Authority if any thing deserve that name Especially § VI 4. IF the benefits in the power of such Persons be necessary to the Members on account of Conscience and if withal they think themselves obliged to believe in Conscience that they are not to expect these gratifications from any other If the benefits necessary to all Members of the Society be necessary on account of Conscience then all Members must think themselves obliged in Conscience to comply in order to the obteining them And if withal they think themselves obliged in Conscience to believe the appropriation of this power to them they must needs believe that they receive it from God who as he has alone the power of ratifying all these exercises of this power so he has consequently a power to invest whom he pleases with this power And as this power does necessarily infer a power of Government so it must necessarily be supposed that God foresaw that it would do so and therefore that he did
given them that Authority If therefore Government be a thing designed by God and the ratification of this separation by God be necessary for the end of this Government I do not know what can be required further to prove that God is obliged to ratifie it The former has already been proved and the later will appear by easie inferences from it especially considering the peculiar circumstances of our Adversaries case The practicableness of any Government will require 1. A power of determining indifferent circumstances and 2. A power of obliging Subjects to stand to the judgment of Governours concerning the expediency of such determinations at least to acquiesce and submit in practice though they may otherwise think them mistaken in their judgments and 3. A power of obliging Subjects to a passive obedience even in things unlawful so long as the title to this Government is lawful And this passive obedience implies that they must not assume a power which is not committed to them in any case at all no extremity whatsoever can warrant that that for the same reason they do not abet others who are guilty of it that because the independency of Societies cannot possibly be understood within a Jurisdiction already rightfully possessed without either assuming or abetting such an Vsurpation besides the resistance that must thereby be made against the lawful Authority of the Jurisdiction therefore no opposite Societies be erected or abetted within settled Jurisdictions These are things so necessary to Government in general as that the Authority exercised in these cases must be valid if there be any Authority at all acknowledged that may properly deserve that name And therefore in these cases there can be no necessity to descend to the merit of the cause Whatever the cause be so long as it is reducible to any of these Heads the presumption lyes clear in favour of the Governours § XXIX BY this it will appear that our Brethrens separation for any of these causes is altogether unjustifiable on their part whence it will follow that if they be separated by their Superiors for any cause of this kind they are separated as well for a just cause as by a just Authority so that nothing can be wanting for making their separation valid before God And though their separation be intirely their own act without any express censures of their Superiors yet it will as effectually cut them off from the Vnity of that Church from which they separate as if they were deprived by Authority For the great design of God in joyning the Grace of the Sacraments with the external participation of the Elements being by this contrivance of things to oblige them to adhere to their Superiors without whose consent they cannot enjoy the Sacraments the reason of the thing will require that they lose those Graces as well by their own separation of themselves from their Superiors as by being separated by them The Vnity of the Church is alike prejudiced both ways and if withal we consider this right of Governours as designed by God for a preservative of Vnity nay indeed as the very bond of Vnity of a Body Politick it will then appear that a separation from visible Governours must be a direct violation of this Vnity and the rather so because it is impossible that it should not be injurious to the rights of Governours which God himself has designed for the preservation of Vnity Nay it plainly overthrows their coercive power over Malefactors by which they are enabled to preserve this Vnity For if all they can do for this purpose be only to cut them off from their Communion and they may elude this by cutting themselves off first this is an art that may be made use of by any who are objects of their Discipline and must therefore render their whole power ineffectual As therefore this visible separation does evidently cut them off from any legal notorious pretence to Vnity so by its opposing the design and means appointed by God for the preservation of Vnity it must also cut off such Separatists from all hopes of relief in point of equity For all that can be said to justifie mens claim to the equity of Gods promises when they evidently fail of performing the ordinary conditions of those promises can only be their compliance with Gods design in making those promises which could not in their circumstances be complied with by the use of the ordinary means But this cannot be pleaded in our Adversaries behalf And therefore such a separation as this must really cut off the Members so separated from Catholick Vnity and consequently the reconciliation made without the consent of the Church which had been particularly injured by the separation must be invalid and cannot expect the Divine ratification § XXX AT least upon this account the Church which would venture to reconcile them would have reason to believe that they were really disunited from the Catholick Church antecedently to her own reconciliation Whence it will follow that she cannot truly declare them united And therefore unless her act of reconciliation can reunite them whom she finds disunited it can signifie nothing for the comfort of the Persons reconciled by her But besides the reasons now-mentioned there are others sufficient to convince such a reconciliation not only of irregularity but of invalidity also both in regard of the reconciliation it self and in regard of the correspondence she is obliged to maintein In regard of the reconciliation it self because indeed it nulls it self For if she have no power to cut off she can have none to reunite them who are cut off by others And upon the same reasons by which she deprives other Churches of having a power to cut off that Member which she is pleased to receive to her Communion and to own as still united notwithstanding what has been done for cutting him off from the Vnity of his own Church she must also deny that power in her self to separate any of her own Members from her own Vnity For if on the terms now-mentioned as necessary for the preservation of Government in general his own Church has not a power to deprive him of her own Vnity she can have it in no case at all nor can any other Church have it because it is the same power that is supposed common to all particular Churches This will at least shew that they who admit of any such power of Churches to punish the misdemeanours of particular Subjects with an effectual deprivation of her own Communion cannot in reason look upon the reception as valid at least so far as it is only declarative And that it cannot be valid by way of Authority to restore to Catholick Vnity those who had been validly separated from it will appear from the other consideration of the correspondence they are obliged to maintein with all other Churches For it having appeared that by the Divine contrivance of things every particular Church is obliged to ratifie the
Covenant to condemn whom the Church condemns though the Person so condemned cannot plead any Legal Interest in the Divine Covenant for his Salvation So that by these Principles God is under no Legal Obligation to punish him Yet his loss of a Legal Title to the promises may be indeed a great discomfort to him in this Life Which as I have already shewn to be sufficient for mainteining the Government of the Church which is only a Government for this Life so it may justly be inflicted even on particular innocent Persons for so great an advantage of the Society by the same Principles of Justice by which all great Societies are governed who never think it unequal to suffer some few innocents in rarer cases to suffer some inconveniences for the benefit of the whole And it makes amends to them for all that even by our Principles God is still at liberty to be as bountiful as he pleases to them in the other Life He may there give them those Blessings to which they had indeed no Legal Title much more of which they could not in this Life assure themselves by any Legal Claim in case they really had a Legal Title However this may suffice to shew how this contrivance of things will secure the Church as great a â—oercive power over her own Subjects as she can be supposed capable of even in times of the severest persecutions Which will by the Principles now laid down shew how very likely it is that this is the true Notion of Ecclesiastical Vnity and therefore withal how very probable it is that in violating this Vnity they must prove guilty of that which will properly deserve the name of SCHISM § XXXII I NOW proceed 2. To shew how that by the same Principles the best account may be given of the real danger and mischievousness of the sin of SCHISM The ordinary ways of stating it have either extremely obscured the thing or the danger of it To resolve the blame of a Separation as our Brethren do into the merit of the particular things for which the Separation is made and to make no further mischief in abetting the wrong side of the controversie or advantage in following the right than that of believing a false or disbelieving a true Proposition which yet is disputed among good wise men whether it be true or false must leave the generality of illiterate Persons in an indifferency with what Communion they joyn which is in truth the case we generally find them in or involve them in inextricable perplexities in chusing the right one For how can they think purely intellectual mistakes very piacular in the eyes of God especially where they are so very reconcilable with a good meaning and an innocent practice Or if they were so in questions of a clear resolution and to learned and judicious Persons who might be supposed to have such abilities and opportunities for resolving them as that they could hardly be mistaken in them without being extremely wanting to themselves yet how can they think it credible that God should be so extremely severe to exact a belief of the true side in matters so extremely disputable to exact it even from unskilful Laicks and that even where their guides whom they must needs trust who find themselves so unqualified to guide themselves in such disputes are themselves so extremely divided Where opinions are so very different and contradictory the most illiterate Person that is who has but common sence must needs think some of them mistaken And can he at the same time find in his heart to believe that God will treat himself with any severity for not discovering those truths concerning which he finds Persons incomparably more qualified than himself to be mistaken This I am verily persuaded not only to be suitable to the condition of the generality of this sort of Persons but also to be their actual discourse whenever they allow themselves the liberty of any serious thoughts concerning this matter it is so very agreeable to their practice We see them go indifferently to Churches or Conventicles according as they are affected to the Ministers not on any constant Principles concerning the Communions § XXXIII I KNOW they do endeavour to charge heavier accusations on the practice of SCHISM than barely the wrong belief or disbelief of a disputable proposition But when they come to be examined closely either they will prove so small or be again resolved into such nice and intricate disputes in order to the charging any with their actual guilt as that no particular consciences can be moved with any great horror of them either to believe them criminal in any high degree or that themselves in any particular case are guilty of them They pretend that charity requires forbearance and a keeping in mutual Communion as far as is possible and therefore that SCHISM is a violation of this grace which is indeed the sum of practical Christianity But when again both these particulars are examined by their Principles no Person need to be very apprehensive of this danger For what great crime can it be to separate from the Communion of men for the cause of God What great horror can they have at it supposing they should prove mistaken in the event Nay is not their Charity to God pretended as the reason why they conceive themselves obliged to separate from their Brethren This is a thing they have not yet endeavoured to explain by any Principles how their love to God to use the Apostles expression obliges them to love their Brethren also and to communicate with them whose Communion is with the Father and the Son Nay according to them it is very hard to reconcile their love to God with their love to Ecclesiastical Communion Even a probable persuasion of their consciences is according to their Principles sufficient to excuse their separations And besides that this does again resolve the debate into disputable Prepositions it must needs be an extremely barren cause indeed that can be destitute of so much as probable Arguments for its support § XXXIV BUT wherein can this great uncharitableness consist Not in any great mischief done to themselves by their separation They do not much value the loss of the Sacramental Elements though they should be forced to lose them The same reasons which made them believe that their separation from men was for Gods sake will also incline them to believe that if they had a greater opinion of the advantage of the Sacraments than it appears they have yet the spiritual advantages of the Sacraments should be supplied by him for whose cause they had made the separation and in that case the want of the external Elements could be no great loss indeed Nor are they by their Principles obliged even in that case to lose the Elements themselves For they can easily joyn in a Confederacy among themselves and when they have done so this very necessity is either thought a sufficient Call
his Omniscience is certainly obliged in many Cases which our weaker and more Prejudiced Faculties may not Judg so dangerous the comfort must needs be very small that can be gathered from these general Presumptions Nor is it in the least disagreeable with the design of God as a Governour that even they who in the event shall have the benefit of his Indulgence should at present want the comfort of it Not only to oblige them to greater cautiousness in approving their own Sincerity by all Lawful endeavours to recover Communion but also to discourage all others who might otherwise venture on their Case though they would not manage it with like Sincerity For by rewarding them in the other World God sufficiently corresponds with his natural Goodness and yet by making their condition uncomfortable in this World he does no more than what becomes him as a Governour to deter others from imitating them without the like necessity Seeing nothing but a like necessity can make it any way Prudent to venture on a State in it self so extremely dangerous and uncomfortable § XI BUT besides this extreme difficulty in making application to particular Cases even in those very Instances wherein God may be supposed Obliged by his natural Goodness to do something for them without which particular application it is impossible that particular Persons should enjoy any solid comfort I consider further that the particulars now mentioned for which we are at present concerned are such as purely depend on his Arbitrary pleasure and to which he is not obliged by that Beneficence which is natural to him as he is the Creator and Governour of the World And when this is proved it will then appear how little ground there can be for any to be confident of any comfort in this condition so as to venture on it on any avoidable that is on any unsinful conditions For how can any one assure himself of Gods actual will in things depending on his Arbitrary disposal without particular express Revelation And I have already given warning that that is not to be expected in this Case of Extraordinary Means of which I am now discoursing And yet this will appear true in all the Particulars now mentioned For neither is he obliged by this Natural Beneficence to do any good to his Creature as Offending but only as Obedient Nor does any necessary reason oblige his natural Goodness to pardon that offence of which his Creature must be supposed Guilty Antecedently to his Indulgence Nor if he would pardon the offence does his natural Goodness oblige him to give his further assistances for future Obedience Nor if he would do this is he obliged to reward his Creature having once offended and much less to accept of an imperfect instead of a perfect Obedience in order to a reward Nor if he would be further pleased to admit us to a capacity of a reward is he obliged by this natural Goodness to reward our best performances with a Supernatural and Eternal reward § XII He is not Obliged by this natural Goodness to do any good to his Creature as Offending but only as Obedient For as a good Governor of the World he is only so far Obliged to do good to his Creatures as may make them voluntarily subservient to the end of his Government Now to this purpose the most rational way and it is by the reasonableness of the thing that this sort of Obligation is to be measured is only to do good to those that are Obedient For if they who are disobedient do yet partake of the Divine Goodness as well as the Obedient it will thence appear that Obedience is not made the only Means of obteining the influences of that Goodness and therefore that such Goodness cannot be a rational inducement to secure actual Obedience if it may be hoped for without it I desire it may be remembred that I am not now speaking of the Divine Goodness as inducing but as Obliging God that is only of that precise degree of Goodness which is necessary to be exerted by him if he would approve himself a gracious God and a good Governour And so the Argument will proceed with greater cogency For if notwithstanding our Sins God be Obliged by his natural Goodness still to do us good and especially if he be obliged to shew his Goodness to us in the instances now mentioned to forgive us our Sins and to receive us to Favour and Rewards c. So that he cannot approve himself a good God and a gracious Governour without it and it is impossible that he should not act according to the Obligation of that natural Goodness as impossible as it is for him to cease to be a good God and a gracious Governour than it will be plain that our Sins can prove no hindrances to his Goodness to us Which if they do not what rational Obligation can carnal Persons have to leave them when notwithstanding their committing them they can lose nothing by them § XIII POSSIBLY it may be Objected that God may be as much obliged by rational inducements as others are by Positive Commands and it may be conceived to be as difficult for him not to do what he knows to be fit and rational or to do what he knows to be otherwise as to omit what he knows necessary to be done or to do what he knows necessary to be omitted inasmuch as he may be conceived obliged not only by the necessity of the thing but by that also of acting rationally But besides that this Objection does as much overthrow the Divine Liberty in other things as in the distribution of his Goodness and therefore must in other regards be acknowledged solvible by our Adversaries themselves as well is in this I am not at present particularly concerned to undertake it For my present design it is abundantly sufficient that by the same reason whereby we Judg any thing else free to God and it must be a great violence to our own Faculties and a contradiction to the Current of the Scripture totally to deny the Divine Liberty we have also reason to believe that he freely distributes the good things for which we are at present concerned For supposing there were nothing really free as to God himself the reason then why we should conceive any thing as free to him would be only this that we should conceive those things as free to him for which we knew no necessarily obliging reason and we must necessarily be ignorant of such a reason in such things which exceeded our natural capacities And therefore considering that Antecedently to Positive Revelation the only reason which we can conceive as obligatory to God to do any good to his Creature is his Relation of a Creator or Governour to it whatsoever is not obligatory to him on these accounts must in this way of proceeding be conceived as free to him At least our Ignorance of any obligatory Cause is perfectly sufficient for my