Christ which hath so that use converted the Ceremony of the Cross in Baptism it is no Christian mans part to despise especially seeing that by this mean where Nature doth earnestly import aid Religion yieldeth her that ready assistance then which there can be no help more forcible serving onely to relieve memory and to bring to our cogitation that which should most make ashamed of sin The minde while we are in this present life whether it contemplate meditate deliberate or howsoever exercise it self worketh nothing without continual recourse unto imagination the onely Store-house of wit and peculiar Chair of memory On this Anvile it ceaseth not day and night to strike by means whereof as the Pulse declareth how the heart doth work so the very thoughts and cogitations of mans minde be they good or bad do no where sooner bewray themselves then through the crevesses of that Wall wherewith Nature hath compasied the Cells and Closets of Fancy In the Forehead nothing more plain to be seen then the fear of contumely and disgrace For which cause the Scripture as with great probability it may be thought describeth them marked of God in the Forehead whom his mercy hath undertaken to keep from final confusion and shame Not that God doth set any corporal mark on his chosen but to note that he giveth his Elect security of preservation from reproach the fear whereof doth use shew it self in that part Shall I say that the Sign of the Cross as we use it is in some sort a mean to work our preservation from reproach Surely the minde which as yet hath not hardned it self in sin is seldom provoked thereunto in any gross and grievous manner but Natures secret suggestion objected against it ignominy as a bar Which conceit being entred into that Palace of Mans fancy the Gates whereof have imprinted in them that holy Sign which bringeth fortwith to minde whatsoever Christ hath wrought and we vowed against sin it cometh hereby to pass that Christian men never want a most effectual though a silent Teacher to avoid whatsoever may deservedly procure shame So that in things which we should be ashamed of we are by the Cross admonished faithfully of our duty at the very moment when admonition doth most need Other things there are which deserve honor and yet do purchase many times our disgrace in this present World as of old the very truth of Religion it self till God by his own out-stretched arm made the glory thereof to shine over all the Earth Whereupon St. Cyprian exhorting to Maâ—tyrdom in times of Heathenish persecution and cruelty thought it not vain to alledge unto them with other Arguments the very Ceremony of that Cross whereof we speak Never let that hand offer Sacrifice to Idols which hath already received the Body of our Saviour Christ and shall hereafter the Crown of his Glory Arm your Foreheads unto all boldness â— that the Sign of God may be kept safe Again when it pleased God that the fury of their enemies being bridled the Church had some little rest and quietness if so small a liberty but onely to breathe between troubles may be termed quietness and rest to such as fell not away from Christ through former persecutions he giveth due and deserved praise in the self-same manner You that were ready to endure imprisonment and were resolute to suffer death you that have couragiously withstood the World ye have made your selves both a glorious spectacle for God to behold and a worthy example for the rest of your Brethren to follow Those mouths which had sanctified themselves with food coming down from Heaven leashed after Christ own Body and Blood to taste the poysoned and contagious scraps of Idols those Foreheads which the Sign of God had purified kept themselves to be crowned by him the touch of the Garlands of Satan they abhorred Thus was the memory of that Sign which they had in Baptism a kinde of bar or prevention to keep them even from apostasie whereunto the frailty of flesh and blood over-much fearing to endure shame might peradventure the more easily otherwise have drawn them We have not now through the gracious goodness of Almighty God those extream conflicts which our Fathers had with blasphemous contumelies every where offered to the Name of Christ by such as professed themselves Infidels and Unbelievers Howbeit unless we be strangers to the age wherein we live or else in some partial respect dissemblers of that we hourly both hear and see there is not the simplest of us but knoweth with what disdain and scorn Christ is dishonored far and wide Is there any burden in the World more heavy to bear then contempt Is there any contempt that grieveth as theirs doth whose quality no way making them less worthy then others are of reputation onely the service which they do to Christ in the daily exercise of Religion treadeth them down Doth any contumely which we sustain for Religion sake pierce so deeply as that which would seem of meer Conscience religiously spightful When they that honor God are despised when the chiefest service of Honor that man can do unto him is the cause why they are despised when they which pretend to honor him and that with greatest sincerity do with more then Heathenish petulancy trample under foot almost whatsoever either we or the whole Church of God by the space of so many ages have been accustomed unto for the comlier and better exercise of our Religion according to the soundest Rules that Wisdom directed by the Word of God and by long experience confirmed hath been able with common advice with much deliberation and exceeding great diligence to comprehend when no man fighting under Christs Banner can be always exempted from seeing or sustaining those indignities the sting whereof not to feel or feeling not to be moved thereat is a thing impossible to flesh and blood If this be any object for Patience to work on the strictest bond that thereunto tieth us is our vowed obedience to Christ the solemnest vow that we ever made to obey Christ and to suffer willingly all reproaches for his sake was made in Baptism And amongst other memorials to keep us mindful of that vow we cannot think that the Sign which our new Baptized Fore-heads cïd there receive is either unfit or unforcible the reasons hitherto alledged being weighed with indifferent ballance It is not you will say the Cross in our Fore-heads but in our Hearts the Faith of Christ that ameth us with Patience Constancy and Courage Which as we grant to be most true so neither dare we despise no not the meanest helps that serve though it be but in the very lowest degree of furtherance towards the highest services that God doth require at our hands And if any man deny that such Ceremonies are available at the least as memorials of duty or do think that himself hath no need to be so put in
his absence should bereave them of and secondly of the sundry evils which themselves should be subject unto being once bereaved of so gracious a Master and Patron The one consideration over-whelmed their Souls with heaviness the other with fear Their Lord and Saviour whose words had cast down their hearts raiseth them presently again with chosen sentences of sweet encouragement My dear it is for your own sakes I leave the World I know the affections of your hearts are tender but if your love were directed with that advised and staid judgment which should be in you my speech of leaving the World and going unto my Father would not a little augment your joy Desolate and comfortless I will not leave you in Spirit I am with you to the Worlds end whether I be present or absent nothing shall ever take you out of these hands my going is to take possession of that in your names which is not only for me but also for you prepared where I am you shall be In the mean while my peace I give not as the World giveth give I unto you Let not your hearts be troubled nor fear The former part of which Sentence having otherwhere already been spoken of this unacceptable occasion to open the latter part thereof here I did not look for But so God disposeth the wayes of men Him I heartily beseech that the thing which he hath thus ordered by his Providence may through his gracious goodnesse turn unto your comfort Our Nature for coveteth preservation from things hurtful Hurtful things being present do breed heaviness being future do cause fear Our Saviour to abate the one speaketh thus unto his Disciples Let not your Hearts be troubled and to moderate the other addeth Fear not Grief and heaviness in the presence of sensible Evils cannot but trouble the mindes of men It may therefore seem that Christ required a thing impossible Be not troubled Why how could they choose But we must note this being natural and therefore simply not reproveable is in us good or bad according to the causes for which we are grieved or the measure of our grief It is not my meaning to speak so largely of this affection as to go over all particulars whereby men do one way or other offend in it but to teach it so farr onely as it may cause the very Apostles equals to swerve Our grief and heaviness therefore is reproveable sometime in respect of the cause from whence sometime in regard of the measure whereunto it groweth When Christ the life of the World was led unto cruel death there followed a number of People and Women which Women bewayled much his heavy case It was a natural compassion which caused them where they saw undeserved miseries there to pour forth unrestrained tears Nor was this reproved But in such readiness to lament where they less needed their blindness in not discerning that for which they ought much rather to have mourned this our Saviour a little toucheth putting them in minde that the tears which were wasted for him might better have been spent upon themselves Daughters of Ierusalem weep not for me weep for your selves and for your children It is not as the Stoicks have imagined a thing unseemly for a Wise man to be touched with grief of minde but to be sorrowful when we least should and where we should lament there to laugh this argueth our small wisdom Again when the Prophet David confesseth thus of himself I grieved to see the great prosperity of godless men how they flourish and go untoucht Psal. 73. Himself hereby openeth both our common and his peculiar imperfection whom this cause should not have made so pensive To grieve at this is to grieve where we should not because this grief doth rise from Errour We erre when we grieve at wicked mens impunity and prosperity because their Estate being rightly discerned they neither prosper nor go unpunished It may seem a Paradox it is truth That no wicked man's estate is prosperous fortunate or happy For what though they bless themselves and think their happinesse great Have not frantick Persons many times a great opinion of their own wisdome It may be that such as they think themselves others also do account them But what others Surely such as themselves are Truth and Reason discerneth farâ— otherwise of them Unto whom the Jews wish all prosperity unto them the phrase of their speech is to wish Peace Seeing then the name of Peace containeth in it all parts of true happiness when the Prophet saith plainly That the Wicked have no peace how can we think them to have any part of other than vainly imagined Felicity What wise man did ever account Fools happy If Wicked men were wise they would cease to be wicked Their Iniquity therefore proving their Folly how can we stand in doubt of their misery They abound in those things which all men desire A poor happinesse to have good things in possession A man to whom God hath given Riches and Treasures and Honour so that he wanteth nothing for his Soul of all that it desireth but yet God giveth him not the power to eat thereof such a felicity Solomon esteemeth but as a vanity a thing of nothing If such things adde nothing to mens happiness where they are not used surely Wicked men that use them ill the more they have the more wretched Of their Prosperity therefore we see what we are to think Touching their Impunity the same is likewise but supposed They are oftner plagued than we are aware of The pangs they feel are not always written in their forehead Though Wickedness be Sugar in their mouths and Wantonness as Oyl to make them look with chearful Countenance nevertheless if their Hearts were disclosed perhaps their glittering state would not greatly be envied The voyces that have broken out from some of them O that God had given me a heart sensless like the flints in the rocks of stone which as it can taste no pleasure so it feeleth no wo these and the like speeches are surely tokens of the curse which Zophar in the Book of Iob poureth upon the head of the impious man He shall suck the gall of Asps and the Viper's tongue shall slay him If this seem light because it is secret shall we think they go unpunished because no apparent Plague is presently seen upon them The Judgments of God do not always follow crimes as Thunder doth Lightning but sometimes the space of many Ages coming between When the Sun hath shined fair the space of six dayes upon their Tabernacle we know not what Clouds the seventh may bring And when their punishment doth come let them make their account in the greatness of their sufferings to pay the interest of that respite which hath been given them Or if they chance to escape clearly in this World which they seldome do in the Day when the Heavens shall shrivel as a scrowl and the Mountains
housholds joyned themselves in civil Societies together Kings were the first kinde of Governors amongst them Which is also as it seemeth the reason why the name of Father continued still in them who of Fathers were made Rulers as also the ancient custom of Governors to do as Melchisedec and being Kings to exercise the Office of Priests which Fathers did at the first grew perhaps by the same occasion Howbeit not this the onely kinde of Regiment that hath been received in the World The inconveniences of one kinde have caused sundry other to be devised So that in a word all Publick Regiment of what kinde soever seemeth evidently to have risen from deliberate Advice Consultation and Composition between Men judging it convenient and behoveful there being no impossibility in Nature considered by it self but that men might have lived without any Publick Regiment Howbeit the corruption of our nature being presupposed we may not deny but that the Law of Nature doth now require of necessity some kinde of Regiment so that to bring things unto the first course they were in and utterly to take away all kinde of Publick Government in the World were apparently to overturn the whole World The case of Mans nature standing therefore as it doth some kinde of Regiment the Law of Nature doth require yet the kindes thereof being many Nature tieth not to any one but leaveth the choice as a thing arbitrary At the first when some certain kinde of Regiment was once approved it may be that nothing was then further thought upon for the manner of governing but all permitted unto their Wisdom and Discretion which were to rule till by experience they found this for all parts very inconvenient so as the thing which they had devised for a remedy did indeed but increase the sore which it should have cured They saw that to live by one Mans will became the cause of all Mens misery This constrained them to come unto Laws wherein all men might see their duties beforehand and know the penalties of transgressing them If things be simply good or evil and withal universally so acknowledged there needs no new Law to be made for such things The first kinde therefore of things appointed by Laws Humane containeth whatsoever being in it self naturally good or evil is notwithstanding more secret then that it can be discerned by every mans present conceit without some deeper discourse and judgment In which discourse because there is difficulty and possibility many ways to err unless such things were set down by Laws many would be ignorant of their duties which now are not and many that know what they should do would nevertheless dissemble it and to excuse themselves pretend ignorance and simplicity which now they cannot And because the greatest part of Men are such as prefer their own private good before all things even that good which is Sensual before whatsoever is most Divine And for that the labor of doing good together with the pleasure arising from the contrary doth make men for the most part slower to the one and proner to the other then that duty prescribed then by Law can prevail sufficiently with them Therefore unto Laws that Men do make for the benefit of Men it hath seemed always needful to add Rewards which may more allure unto good then any hardness deterreth from it and Punishments which may more deter from evil then any sweetness thereto allureth Wherein as the generality is Natural Vertue rewardable and Vice punishable So the particular determination of the Reward or Punishment belongeth unto them by whom Laws are made Theft is naturally punishable but the kinde of punishment is Positive and such lawful as Men shall think with discretion convenient by Law to appoint In Laws that which is Natural bindeth universally that which is Positive not so To let go those kinde of Positive Laws which Men impose upon themselves as by vow unto God contract with Men or such like somewhat it will make unto our purpose a little more fully to consider what things are incident unto the making of the Positive Laws for the Government of them that live united in Publick Society Laws do not onely teach what is good but they enjoyn it they have in them a certain constraining force and to constrain Men unto any thing inconvenient doth seem unreasonable Most requisite therefore it is that to devise Laws which all Men shall be forced to obey none but Wisemen be admitted Laws are Matters of Principal Consequence Men of common Capacity and but ordinary Judgment are not able for how should they to discern what things are fittest for each kinde and state of Regiment We cannot be ignorant how much our obedience unto Laws dependeth upon this point Let a man though never so justly oppose himself unto them that are disordered in their ways and what one among them commonly doth not stomach at such Contradiction storm at Reproof and hate such as would Reform them Notwithstanding even they which brook it worst that Men should tell them of their duties when they are told the same by a Law think very well and reasonably of it For why They presume that the Law doth speak with all indifferency that the Law hath no side respect to their persons that the Law is as it were an Oracle proceeding from Wisdom and Understanding Howbeit Laws do not take their constraining force from the quality of such as devise them but from that power which doth give them the strength of Laws That which we spake before concerning the Power of Government must here be applied unto the power of making Laws whereby to govern which power God hath over all and by the Natural Law whereunto he hath made all subject the lawful power of making Laws to command whole Politick Societies of Men belongeth so properly unto the same entire Societies that for any Prince or Potentate of what kinde soever upon Earth to exercise the same of himself and not either by express Commission immediately and personally received from God or else by Authority derived at the first from their consent upon whose persons they impose Laws it is no better then meer tyranny Laws they are not therefore which Publick Approbation hath not made so But Approbation not onely they give who personally declare their assent by voice sign or act but also when others do it in their names by right originally at the least derived from them As in Parliaments Councils and the like Assemblies although we be not personally our selves present notwithstanding our Assent is by reason of other Agents there in our behalf And what we do by others no reason but that it should stand as our Deed no less effectually to binde us then if our selves had done it in person In many things Assent is given they that give it not imagining they do so because the manner of their assenting is not apparent As for example when an absolute Monarch commandeth his
of words as Alchymy doth or would the substance of Mettals maketh of any thing what it listeth and bringeth in the end all Truth to nothing Or howsoever such voluntary exercise of wit might be born with otherwise yet in places which usually serve as this doth concerning Regeneration by Water and the Holy Ghost to be alledged for Grounds and Principles less is permitted To hide the general consent of Antiquity agreeing in the literal interpretation they cunningly affirm That certain have taken those words as meant of Material Water when they know that of all the Ancients there is no one to be named that ever did otherwise either expound or alledge the place then as implying External Baptism Shall that which hath always received this and no other construction be now disguised with a toy of Novelty Must we needs at the onely shew of a critical conceit without any more deliberation utterly condemn them of Error which will not admit that Fire in the words Iohn is quenched with the Name of the Holy Ghost or with the name of the Spirit Water dried up in the words of Christ When the Letter of the Law hath two things plainly and expresly specified Water and the Spirit Water as a duty required on our parts the Spirit as a Gift which God bestoweth There is danger in presuming so to interpret it at if the clause which concerneth our selves were more then needeth We may by such rate Expositions attain perhaps in the end to be thought witty but with ill advice Finally if at the time when that Baptism which was meant by Iohn came to be really and truly performed by Christ himself we finde the Apostles that had been as we are before Baptized new Baptized with the Holy Ghost and in this their latter Baptism as well a visible descent of Fire as a secret miraculous infusion of the Spirit if on us he accomplish likewise the Heavenly work of our New birth not with the Spirit alone but with Water thereunto adjoyned sith the faithfullest Expounders of his words are his own Deeds let that which his hand hath manifestly wrought declare what his speech did doubtfully utter 60. To this they add That as we err by following a wrong construction of the place before alledged so our second over-sight is that we thereupon infer a necessity over-rigorous and extream The true necessity of Baptism a sew Propositions considered will soon decide All things which either are known Causes or set Means whereby any great Good is usually procured or Men delivered from grievous evil the same we must needs confess necessary And if Regeneration were not in this very sense a thing necessary to eternal life would Christ himself have taught Nicodemus that to see the Kingdom of God is impossible saving onely for those Men which are born from above His words following in the next Sentence are a proof sufficient that to our Regeneration his Spirit is no less necessary then Regeneration it self necessary unto Life Thirdly Unless as the Spirit is a necessary inward cause so Water were a necessary outward mean to our Regeneration what construction should we give unto those words wherein we are said to be new born and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even of Water Why are we taught that with Water God doth purifie and cleanse his Church Wherefore do the Apostles of Christ term Baptism a Bath of Regeneration What purpose had they in giving men advice to receive outward Baptism and in perswading them it did avail to remission of sins If outward Baptism were a cause in it self possessed of that power either Natural or Supernatural without the present operation whereof no such effect could possibly grow it must then follow That seeing effects do never prevent the necessary causes out of which they spring no man could ever receive Grace before Baptism Which being apparently both known and also confest to be otherwise in many particulars although in the rest we make not Baptism a cause of Grace yet the Grace which is given them with their Baptism doth so far forth depend on the very outward Sacrament that God will have it embraced not onely as a sign or token what we receive but also as an Instrument or Mean whereby we receive Grace because Baptism is a Sacrament which God hath instituted in his Church to the end that they which receive the same might thereby be incorporated into Christ and so through his most precious Merit obtain as well that saving Grace of Imputation which taketh away all former guiltiness as also that infused Divine Vertue of the Holy Ghost which giveth to the Powers of the Soul their first disposition towards future newness of life There are that elevate too much the ordinary and immediate means of life relying wholly upon the bare conceit of that Eternal Election which notwithstanding includeth a subordination of means without which we are not actually brought to enjoy what God secretly did intend and therefore to build upon Gods Election if we keep not our selves to the ways which he hath appointed for men to walk in is but a self-deceiving vanity When the Apostle saw men called to the participation of Jesus Christ after the Gospel of God embraced and the Sacrament of Life received he feareth not then to put them in the number of Elect Saints he then accounteth them delivered from death and clean purged from all sin Till then notwithstanding their preordination unto life which none could know of saving God what were they in the Apostles own account but Children of Wrath as well as others plain Aliens altogether without hope strangers utterly without God in this present World So that by Sacraments and other sensible tokens of Grace we may boldy gather that he whose Mercy vouchsafeth now to bestow the means hath also long sithence intended us that whereunto they lead But let us never think i◠safe to presume of our own last end by bare conjectural Collections of his first intent and purpose the means failing that should come between Predestination bringeth not to life without the Grace of External Vocation wherein our Baptism is implied For as we are not Naturally men without birth so neither are we Christian men in the eye of the Church of God but by New birth nor according to the manifest ordinary course of Divine Dispensation new born but by that Baptism which both declareth and maketh us Christians In which respect we justly hold it to be the Door of our Actual Entrance into Gods House the first apparent beginning of Life a Seal perhaps to the Grace of Election before received but to our Sanctification here a step that hath not any before it There were of the old Valentinian Hereticks some which had Knowledge in such admiration that to it they ascribed all and so despised the Sacraments of Christ pretending That as Ignorance had
Life in his Body and Blood by means of this Sacrament Wherefore should the World continue still distracted and rent with so manifold Contentions when there remaineth now no Controversie saving onely about the subject where Christ is Yea even in this point no side denieth but that the Soul of Man is the receptacle of Christs presence Whereby the question is yet driven to a narrower issue nor doth any thing rest doubtful but this Whether when the Sacrament is administred Christ be whole within Man onely or else his Body and Blood be also externally seated in the very Consecrated Elements themselves Which opinion they that defend are driven either to Consubstantiate and Incorporate Christ with Elements Sacramental or to Transubstantiate and change their substance into his and so the one to hold him really but invisibly moulded up with substance of those Elements the other to hide him under the onely visible shew of Bread and Wine the substance whereof as they imagine is abolished and his succeeded in the same room All things considered and compared with that success which Truth hath hitherto had by so bitter Conflicts with Errors in this point Shall I wish that men would more give themselves to meditate with silence what we have by the Sacrament and less to dispute of the manner how If any man suppose that this were too great stupidity and dulness let us see whether the Apostles of our Lord themselves have not done the like It appeareth by many examples that they of their own disposition were very scrupulous and inquisitive yea in other cases of less importance and less difficulty always apt to move questions How cometh it to pass that so few words of so high a Mystery being uttered they receive with gladness the gift of Christ and make no shew of doubt or scruple The reason hereof is not dark to them which have any thing at all observed how the powers of the minde are wont to stir when that which we infinitely long for presenteth it self above and besides expectation Curious and intricate speculations do hinder they abate they quench such inflamed motions of delight and joy as Divine Graces use to raise when extraordinarily they are present The minde therefore feeling present joy is always marvellous unwilling to admit any other cogitation and in that case casteth off those disputes whereunto the intellectual part at other times easily draweth A manifest effect whereof may be noted if we compare with our Lords Disciples in the Twentieth of Iohn the people that are said in the Sixth of Iohn to have gone after him to Capernaum These leaving him on the one side the Sea of Tiberias and finding him again as soon as themselves by ship were arrived on the contrary side whither they knew that by ship he came not and by Land the journey was longer then according to the time he could have to travel as they wondered so they asked also Rabbi when camest thou hither The Disciples when Christ appeared to them in far more strange and miraculous manner moved no question but rejoyced greatly in that they saw For why The one sort beheld onely that in Christ which they knew was more then natural but yet their affection was not rapt therewith through any great extraordinary gladness the other when they looked on Christ were not ignorant that they saw the Well-spring of their own Everlasting felicity the one because they enjoyed not disputed the other disputed not because they enjoyed If then the presence of Christ with them did so much move Judge what their thoughts and affections were at the time of this new presentation of Christ not before their Eyes but within their Souls They had learned before That his Flesh and Blood are the true cause of Eternal Life that this they are not by the bate force of their own substance but through the dignity and worth of His Person which offered them up by way of Sacrifice for the Life of the whole World and doth make them still effectual thereunto Finally that to us they are Life in particular by being particularly received Thus much they knew although as yet they understood not perfectly to what effect or issue the same would come till at the length being assembled for no other cause which they could imagine but to have eaten the Passover onely that Moses appointed when they saw their Lord and Master with hands and eyes lifted up to Heaven first bless and consecrate for the endless good of all Generations till the Worlds end the chosen Elements of Bread and Wine which Elements made for ever the Instruments of Life by vertue of his Divine Benediction they being the first that were commanded to receive from him the first which were warranted by his promise that not onely unto them at the present time but to whomsoever they and their Successors after them did duly administer the same those Mysteries should serve as Conducts of Life and Conveyances of his Body and Blood unto them Was it possible they should hear that voice Take eat This is my Body Drink ye all of this This is my Blood Possible that doing what was required and believing what was promised the same should have present effect in them and not fill them with a kinde of fearful admiration at the Heaven which they saw in themselves They had at that time a Sea of Comfort and Joy to wade in and we by that which they did are taught that this Heavenly Food is given for the satisfying of our empty Souls and not for the exercising of our curious and subtile wits If we doubt what those admirable words may import let him be our Teacher for the meaning of Christ to whom Christ was himself a School-master let our Lords Apostle be his Interpreter content we our selves with his Explication My Body The Communion of my Body My Blood The Communion of my Blood Is there any thing more expedite clear and easie then that as Christ is termed our Life because through him we obtain life so the parts of this Sacrament are his Body and Blood for that they are so to us who receiving them receive that by them which they are termed The Bread and Cup are his Body and Blood because they are causes instrumental upon the receit whereof the Participation of his Body and Blood ensueth For that which produceth any certain effect is not vainly nor improperly said to be that very effect whereunto it tendeth Every cause is in the effect which groweth from it Our Souls and Bodies quickned to Eternal Life are effects the cause whereof is the Person of Christ His Body and Blood are the true Well-spring out of which this Life floweth So that his Body and Blood are in that very subject whereunto they minister life Not onely by effect or operation even as the influence of the Heavens is in Plants Beasts Men and in every thing which they quicken but also by a far more Divine and
believe he had many Tryals of his Courage and Patience but his Motto was Vincit qui Patitur And he made it good Many of his many Tryals were occasioned by the then powerful Earl of Leicester who did still but secretly raise and cherish a Faction of Non-conformists to oppose him especially one Thomas Cartwright a Man of noted Learning sometime Contemporary with the Bishop in Cambridge and of the same Colledge of which the Bishop had been Master In which place there began some Emulations the particulars I forbear and at last open and high oppositions betwixt them and in which you may believe Mr. Cartwright was most faulty if his Expulsion out of the University can incline you to it And in this discontent after the Earls death which was One thousand five hundred eighty and eight Mr. Cartwright appeared a cheif Cherisher of a Party that were for the Geneva Church-Government and to effect it he ran himself into many dangers both of Liberty and Life appearing at last to justifie himself and his Party in many Remonstrances which he caused to be Printed and to which the Bishop made a first Answer and Cartwright Replied upon him and then the Bishop having rejoyned to his Reply Mr. Cartwright either was or was perswaded to be satisfied for he wrote no more but left the Reader to be judge which had maintained their Cause with most Charity and Reason After some silence Mr. Cartwright received from the Bishop many Personal Favors and retired himself to a more Private Living which was at Warwick where he was made Master of an Hospital and lived quietly and grew rich and where the Bishop gave him a Licence to Preach upon promise not to meddle with Controversies but incline his hearers to Piety and Moderation And this promise he kept during his life which ended One thousand six hundred and two the Bishop surviving him but one year each ending his days in perfect charity with the other And now after this long digression made for the information of my Reader concerning what follows I bring him back to venerable Mr. Hooker where we left him in the Temple and where we shall finde him as deeply engaged in a Controversie with Walter Travers a Friend and Favorite of Mr. Cartwrights as the Bishop had ever been with Mr. Cartwright himself and of which I shall proceed to give this following account And first this That though the Pens of Mr. Cartwright and the Bishop were now at rest yet there was sprung up a new Generation of restless Men that by Company and Clamors became possest of a Faith which they ought to have kept to themselves but could not Men that were become positive in asserting That a Papist cannot be saved Insomuch that about this time at the Execution of the Queen of Scots the Bishop that Preached Her Funeral Sermon which was Dr. Howland then Bishop of Peterborough was reviled for not being positive for Her Damnation And beside this boldness of their becoming Gods so far as to set limits to his Mercies there was not onely Martin Mar-Prelate but other venemous Books daily Printed and dispersed Books that were so absurd and scurrilous that the Graver Divines disdained them an Answer And yet these were grown into high esteem with the common people till Tom Nash appeared against them all who was a man of a sharp wit and the master of a scoffing Satyrical merry Pen which he imployed to discover the absurdities of those blinde malicious sensless Pamphlets and Sermons as sensless as they Nash his Answers being like his Books which bore these Titles An Almond for Parroâ— A Fig for my God-son Come crack me this Nut and the like So that his merry Wit made such a discovery of their absurdities as which is strange he put a greater stop to these malicious Pamphlets then a much wiser-man had been able And now the Reader is to take notice That at the Death of Father Alay who was Master of the Temple this Walter Travers was Lecturer there for the Evening Sermons which he Preached with great approbation especially of the younger Gentlemen of that Society and for the most part approved by Mr. Hooker himself in the midst of their oppositions For he continued Lecturer a part of his time Mr. Travers being indeed a Man of competent Learning of a winning Behavior and of a blameless Life But he had taken Orders by the Presbytery in Antwerp and if in any thing he was transported it was in an extream desire to set up that Government in this Nation For the promoting of which he had a correspondence with Theodore Beza at Geneva and others in Scotland and was one of the cheifest assistants to Mr. Cartwright in that design Mr. Travers had also a particular hope to set up this Government in the Temple and to that end used his endeavors to be Master of it and his being disappointed by Mr. Hookers admittance proved some occasion of opposition betwixt them in their Sermons Many of which were concerning the Doctrine Discipline and Ceremonies of this Church insomuch that as St. Paul withstood St. Peter to his face so did they For as one hath pleasantly exprest it The Forenoon Sermon spake Canterbury and the Afternoons Geneva In these Sermons there was little of Bitterness but each party brought all the Reasons he was able to prove his Adversaries Opinion erroneous And thus it continued a long time till the oppositions became so high and the consequences so dangerous especially in that place That the prudent Archbishop put a stop to Mr. Travers his Preaching by a positive Prohibition against which Mr. Travers appealed and petitioned Her Majesty and Her Privy Council to have it recalled where he met with many assisting powerful Friends but they were not able to prevail with or against the Archbishop whom the Queen had intrusted with all Church Power and he had received so fair a Testimony of Mr. Hookers Principles and of his Learning and Moderation that he withstood all Sollicitations But the denying this Petition of Mr. Travers was unpleasant to divers of his party and the reasonableness of it became at last to be so magnified by them and many others as never to be answered So that intending the Bishops and Mr. Hookers disgrace they procured it to be privately Printed and scattered abroad and then Mr. Hooker was forced to appear as publickly and Print an Answer to it which he did and dedicated it to the Archbishop and it proved so full an Answer to have in it so much of clear Reason and writ with so much Meekness and Majesty of style that the Bishop began to wonder at the Man to rejoyce that he had appeared in his Cause and disdained not earnestly to beg his Friendship even a familiar Friendship with a Man of so much quiet Learnning and Humility To enumerate the many particular Points in which Mr. Hooker and Mr. Travers dissented all or most of which I have seen written
much as the Hem of Christs Garment If they do wherefore should I doubt but that Vertue may proceed from Christ to save them No I will not be afraid to say to such a one You erre in your opinion but be of good comfort you have to do with a Merciful God who will make the best of that little which you hold well and not with a captions Sophister who gathereth the worst out of every thing in which you are mistaken But it will be said The admittance of Merit in any degree overthroweth the Foundation excladeth from the hope of Mercy from all possibility of Salvation And now Mr. Hookers own words follow What though they hold the truth sincerely in all other parts of Christian Faith Although they have in some measure all the Vertues and Graces of the Spirit Although they have all other Tokens of Gods Children in them Although they be far from having any proud opinion that they shall be saved by the worthiness of their Deeds Although the onely thing that troubleth and molesteth them be a little too much dejection somewhat too great a fire arising from an erronious conceit That God will require a worthiness in them which they are grieved to finde wanting in themselves Although they be not obstinate in this Opinion Although they be willing and would be glad to forsake it if any one Reason were brought sufficient to disprove it Although the onely cause why they do not forsake it ere they die be their ignorance of that means by which it might be disproved Although the cause why the ignorance in this point is not removed be the want of knowledge in such as should be able and are not to remove it Let me die says Mr. Hooker if it be ever proved That simply an Error doth exclude a Pope or Cardinal in such a case utterly from hope of life Surely I must confess That if it be an Error to think that God may be merciful to save men even when they err my greatest comfort is my error Were it not for the love I bear to this Error I would never wish to speak or to live I was willing to take notice of these two points as supposing them to be very material and that as they are thus contracted they may prove useful to my Reader as also for that the Answers be Arguments of Mr. Hookers great and clear Reason and equal Charity Other Exceptions were also made against him as That he prayed before and not after his Sermons that in his Prayers be named Bishops that be kneeled both when he prayed and he when he received the Sacrament and says Mr. Hooker in his Defence other Exceptions so like these as but to name I should have thought a greater fault then to commit them And 't is not unworthy the noting that in the menage of so great a Controversie a sharper reproof then this and one like it did never fall from the happy Pen of this humble Man That like it was upon a like occasion of Exceptious to which his Answer was Your next Argument consists of Railing and of Reasons to your Railing I say nothing to your Reasons I say what follows And I am glad of this fair occasion to testifie the Dove-like temper of this meek this matchless Man and doubtless it Almighty God had blest the Dissenters from the Ceremonies and Discipline of this Church with a like measure of Wisdom and Humility instead of their pertinacious Zeal then Obedience and Truth had kissed each other then Peace and Piety had flourished in our Nation and this Church and State had been blest like Ierusalem that is at unity with it self but that can never be expected till God shall bless the common people with a belief That Schism is a sin and that there may be offences taken which are not given and that Laws are not made for private men to dispute but to obey And this also maybe worthy of noting That these Exceptions of Mr. Travers against Mr. Hooker were the cause of his transcribing several of his Sermons which we now see Printed with his Books of his Answer to Mr. Travers his Supplication and of his most learned and useful Discourse of Iustification of Faith and Works and by their Transcription they fell into the hands of others that have preserved them from being lost as too many of his other matchless Writings have been and from these I have gathered many observations in this Discourse of his Life After the publication of his Answer to the Petition of Mr. Travers Mr. Hooker grew daily into greater repute with the most Learned and Wise of the Nation but it had a contrary effect in very many of the Temple that were zealous for Mr. Travers and for his Church Discipline insomuch that though Mr. Travers left the place yet the Seeds of Discontent could not be rooted out of that Society by the great Reason and as great Meekness of this humble Man For though the Cheif Benchers gave him much Reverence and Incouragement yet he there met with many neglects and oppositions-by-those of Mr. Travers judgment insomuch that it turned to his extream grief And that he might unbeguile and win them he designed to write a deliberate sober Treatise of the Churches power to make Cannons for the use of Ceremonies and by Law to impose an obedience to them as upon Her Children and this he proposed to do in Eight Books of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity intending therein to shew such Arguments as should force an assent from all Men if Reason delivered in sweet Language and void of any provocation were able to do it And that he might prevent all prejudice he wrote before it a large Preface or Epistle to the Dissenting Brethren wherein there were such Bowels of Love and such a Commixture of that Love with Reason as was never exceeded but in Holy Writ and particularly by that of St. Paul to his dear Brother and Fellow-Laborer Philemon Then which none ever was more like this Epistle of Mr. Hookers So that his dear Friend and Companion in his Studies Doctor Spencer might after his Death justly say What admirable height of Learning and depth of Iudgment dwelt in the lowly minde of this truly humble Man great in all wise mens eyes except his own With what gravity and majesty of Speech his Tongue and Pen uttered Heavenly Mysteries whose eyes in the Humility of his Heart were always cast down to the ground How all things that proceeded from him were breathed as from the Spirit of Love as if he like the Bird of the Holy Ghost the Dove had wanted Gall Let those that knew him not in his Person judge by these living Images of his Soul his Writings The Foundation of these Books was laid in the Temple but he found it no fit place to finish what he had there designed and therefore solicited the Archbishop for a remove to whom he spake to this purpose My Lord
were his Guides till being occasioned to leave France he sell at the length upon Geneva Which City the Bishop and Clergy thereof had a little before as some affirm forsaken being of likelihood frighted with the peoples sudden attempt for abolishment of Popish Religion the event of which enterprize they thought it not safe for themselves to wait for in that place At the coming of Calvin thither the form of their Civil Regiment was popular as it continueth at this day Neither King nor Duke nor Nobleman of any authority or power over them but Officers chosen by the people out of themselves to order all things with publick consent For Spiritual Government they had no Laws at all agreed upon but did what the Pastors of their Souls by perswasion could win them unto Calvin being admitted one of their Preachers and a Divinity-Reader amongst them considered how dangerous it was that the whole estate of that Church should hang still on so slender a thred as the liking of an ignorant multitude is if it have power to change whatsoever it self listeth Wherefore taking unto him two of the other Ministers for more countenance of the action albeit the rest were all against it they moved and in the end perswaded with much ado the people to binde themselves by solemn Oath first Never to admit the Papecy amongst them again and secondly To live in obedience unto such Orders concerning the Exercise of their Religion and the Form of their Ecclesiastical Government as those their true and faithful Ministers of Gods Word had agreeably to Scripture set down for that end and purpose When these things began to be put in ure the people also what causes moving them thereunto themselves best know began to repent them of that they had done and irefully to champ upon the Bit they had taken into their Mouths the rather for that they grew by means of this Innovation into dislike with some Churches near about them the benefit of whose good friendship their State could not well lack It was the manner of those times whether through mens desire to enjoy alone the glory of their own enterprises or else because the quickness of their occasions required present dispatch so it was that every particular Church did that within it self which some few of their own thought good by whom the rest were all directed Such number of Churches then being though free within themselves yet small common Conference before-hand might have eased them of much after trouble But a great inconvenience it bred That every later endeavored to be certain degrees more removed from Conformity with the Church of Rome then the rest before had been whereupon grew marvellous great dissimilitudes and by reason thereof jealousies heart-burnings jars and discords amongst them Which notwithstanding might have easily been prevented if the Orders which each Church did think fit and convenient for it self had not so peremptorily been established under that high commanding Form which rendred them unto the people as things everlastingly required by the Law of the Lord of Lords against whose Statutes there is no exception to be taken For by this mean it came to pass that one Church could not but accuse and condemn another of disobedience to the Will of Christ in those things where manifest difference was between them whereas the self-same Orders allowed but yet established in more wary and suspence manner as bring to stand in force till God should give the opportunity of some General Conference what might be best for every of them afterwards to do This I say had both prevented all occasion of just dislike which others might take and reserved a greater liberty unto the Authors themselves of entring into farther Consultation afterwards Which though never so necessary they could not easily now admit without some fear of derogation from their credit And therefore that which once they had done they became for ever after resolute to maintain Calvin therefore and the other two his Associates stifly refusing to administer the Holy Communion to such as would not quietly without contradiction and murmur submit themselves unto the Orders which their Solemn Oath had bound them to obey were in that quarrel banished the Town A few years after such was the levity of that people the places of one or two of their Ministers being faln void they were not before so willing to be rid of their Learned Pastor as now importunate to obtain him again from them who had given him entertainment and which were loth to part with him had not unresistable earnestness been used One of the Town-Ministers that saw in what manner the people were bent for the Revocation of Calvin gave him notice of their affection in this sort The Senate of Two hundred being assembled they all crave Calvin The next day a General Convocation they cry in like sort again all We will have Calvin that good and Learned Man Christs Minister This saith he when I understood I could not chuse but praise God nor was I able to judge otherwise then that this was the Lords doing and that it was marvellous in our eyes and that the Stone which the Builders refused was now made the Head of the Corner The other two whom they had thrown out together with Calvin they were content should enjoy their exile Many causes might lead them to be more desirous of him First It is yielding unto them in one thing might happily put them in hope that time would breed the like easiness of condescending further unto them For in his absence be had perswaded them with whom he was able to prevail that albeit himself did better like of Common Bread to be used in the Eucharist yet the other they rather should accept then cause any trouble in the Church about it Again they saw that the name of Calvin waxed every day greater abroad and that together with his fame their infamy was spred who had so rashly and childishly ejected him Besides it was not unlikely but that his credit in the World might many ways stand the poor Town in great stead As the truth is their Ministers Foreign estimation hitherto hath been the best stake in their Hedge But whatsoever secret respects were likely to move them for contenting of their mindes Calvin returned as it had been another Tully to his old Home He ripely considered how gross a thing it were for men of his quality wise and grave men to live with such a multitude and to be Tenants at will under them as their Ministers both himself and others had been For the remedy of which inconvenience he gave them plainly to understand That if he did become their Teacher again they must be content to admit a compleat Form of Discipline which both they and also their Pastors should now be solemnly sworn to observe for ever after Of which Discipline the Main and Principal parts were these A standing Ecclesiastical Court to be established Perpetual
Iudges in that Court to be their Ministers others of the people annually chosen twice so many in number as they to be Iudges together with them in the same Court These two sorts to have the care of all Mens manners power of determining of all kinde of Ecclesiastical Causes and authority to Convent to Controll to Punish as far as with Excommunication whom soever they should think worthy none either small or great excepted This device I see not how the wisest at that time living could have bettered if we duly consider what the present State of Geneva did then require For their Bishop and his Clergy being as it is said departed from them by Moon-light or howsoever being departed to chuse in his room any other Bishop had been a thing altogether impossible And for their Ministers to seek that themselves alone might have coercive power over the whole Church would perhaps have been hardly construed at that time But when so frank an offer was made that for every one Minister there should be two of the people to sit and give voice in the Ecclesiastical Consistory what inconvenience could they easily finde which themselves might not be able always to remedy Howbeit as ever more the simpler sort are even when they see no apparent cause jealous notwithstanding over the secret intents and purposes of wiser men this Proposition of his did somewhat trouble them Of the Ministers themselves which had staid behinde in the City when Calvin was gone some upon knowledge of the peoples earnest intent to recal him to his place again had beforehand written their Letters of Submission and assured him of their alleâ—giance for ever after if it should like him to hearken unto that Publick Suit But yet misdoubting what might happen if this Discipline did go forward they objected against it the example of other Reformed Churches living quietly and orderly without it Some of the chiefest place and countenance amongst the Laity professed with greater stomach their judgments that such a Discipline was little better then Popish Tyranny disguised and tendered unto them under a new Form This sort it may be had some fear that the filling up of the Seats in the Consistory with so great a member of Laymen was but to please the mindes of the people to the end they might think their own sway somewhat but when things came to tryal of practice their Pastors learning would be at all times of force to over-perswade simple men who knowing the time of their own Presidentship to be but short would always stand in fear of their Ministers perpetual authority And among the Ministers themselves one being so far in estimation above the rest the voices of the rest were likely to be given for the most part respectively with a kinde of secret dependency and aw So that in shew a marvellous indifferently composed Senate Ecclesiastical was to govern but in effect one onely man should as the Spirit and Soul of the residue do all in all But what did these vain surmises boot Brought they were now to so strait an issue that of two things they must chuse one Namely Whether they would to their endless disgrace with ridiculous lightness dismiss him whose restitution they had in so impotent manner desired or else condescend unto that demand wherein he was resolute either to have it or to leave them They thought it better to be somewhat hardly yoked at home then for ever abroad discredited Wherefore in the end those Orders were on all sides assented unto with no less alacrity of minde then Cities unable to hold out longer are wont to shew when they take conditions such as liketh him to offer them which hath them in the narrow streights of advantage Not many years were over passed before these twice-sworn men adventured to give their last and hottest assault to the Fortress of the same Discipline childishly granting by common consent of their whole Senate and that under their Town-Seal a Relaxation to one Bertelier whom the Eldership had Excommunicated Further also decreeing with strange absurdity that to the same Senate it should belong to give final judgment in Matter of Excommunication and to absolve whom it pleased them clean contrary to their own former Deeds and Oaths The report of which Decree being fortwith brought unto Calvin Before saith he this Decree take place either my Blood or Banishment shall sign it Again two days before the Communion should be celebrated this speech was publickly to like effect Kill me if ever this hand do teach forth the things that are holy to them whom the Church hath judged despisers Whereupon for fear of tumult the forenamed Bertelier was by his friends advised for that time not to use the liberty granted him by the Senate nor to present himself in the Church till they saw somewhat further what would ensue After the Communion quietly ministred and some likelihood of peaceable ending of these troubles without any more aâ—â— that very day in the afternoon besides all mens expectation concluding his ordinary Sermon he telleth them That because he neither had learned nor taught to strive with such as are in Authority therefore saith he the case so standing as now it doth let me use these words of the Apostle unto you I commend you unto God and the Word of his Grace and so bad them heartily Adieu It sometimes cometh to pass that the readiest way which a wise man hath to conquer is to flie This voluntary and unexpected mention of sudden departure caused presently the Senate for according to their wonted manner they still continued onely constant in unconstancy to gather themselves together and for a time to suspend their own Decree leaving things to proceed as before till they had heard the judgment of Four Helvetian Cities concerning the matter which was in strife This to have done at the first before they gave assent unto any order had shewed some wit and discretion in them but now to do it was as much as to say in effect That they would play their parts on a stage Calvin therefore dispatcheth with all expedition his Letters unto some Principal Pastor in every of those Cities craving earnestly at their hands to respect this Cause as a thing whereupon the whole State of Religion and Piety in that Church did so much depend That God and all good men were now inevitably certain to be trampled under foot unless those Four Cities by their good means might be brought to give sentence with the Ministers of Geneva when the Cause should be brought before them yea so to give it that two things it might effectually contain The one an Absolute Approbation of the Discipline of Geneva as consonant unto the Word of God without any cautions qualifications ifs or ands the other an earnest Admonition not to innovate or charge the same His vehement request herein as touching both points was satisfied For albeit the said Helvetian Churches did never as yet
higher Callings are ripped up with marvellous exceeding severity and sharpness of Reproof which being oftentimes dont begetteth a great good opinion of Integrity zeal and Holiness to such constant reprovers of sin as by likelihood would never be so much offended at that which is evil unless themselves were singularly good The next thing hereunto is to impute all Faults and Corruptions wherewith the World aboundeth unto the kinde of Ecclesiastical Government established Wherein as before by reproving Faults they purchased unto themselves with the multitude a name to be vertuous so by finding out this kinde of Cause they obtain to be judged wise above others whereas in truth unto the Form even of Iewish Government which the Lord himself they all confess did establish with like shew of Reason they might impute those Faults which the Prophets condemn in the Governors of that Commonwealth as to the English kinde of Regiment Ecclesiastical whereof also God himself though in another sort is Author the stains and blemishes found in our State which springing from the Root of Humane Frailty and Corruption not onely are but have been always more or less yea and for any thing we know to the contrary will be till the Worlds end complained of what Form of Government soever take place Having gotten thus much sway in the hearts of men a third step is to propose their own Form of Church Government as the onely soveraign remedy of all Evils and to adorn it with all the glorious Titles that may be And the Nature as of men that have sick bodies so likewise of the people in the crazedness of their Mindes possest with dislike and discontentment at things present is to imagine that any thing the vertue whereof they hear commended would help them but that most which they least have tryed The fourth degree of Inducements is by fashioning the very notions and conceits of mens mindes in such sort that when they read the Scripture they may think that every thing soundeth towards the advancement of that Discipline and to the utter disgrace of the contrary Pythagoras by bringing up his Schollars in speculative knowledge of numbers made their conceipts therein so strong that when they came to the contemplation of things natural they imagined that in every particular thing they even beheld as it were with their eyes how the Elements of Number gave Essence and Being to the Works of Nature A thing in reason impossible which notwithstanding through their misfashioned preconceit appeared unto them no less certain then if Nature had written it in the very Foreheads of all the Creatures of God When they of the Family of Love have it once in their heads that Christ doth not signifie any one Person but a Quality whereof many are partakers that to be raised is nothing else but to be regenerated or endued with the said quality and that when Separation of them which have if from them which have it not is here made this is judgment How plainly do they imagine that the Scripture every where speaketh in the favor of that Sect And assuredly the very cause which maketh the simple and ignorant to think they even see how the Word of God runneth currantly on your side is That their mindes are forestalled and their conceits perverted beforehand by being taught that an Elder doth signifie a Lay-man admitted onely to the Office of Rule or Government in the Church a Doctor one which may onely Teach and neither Preach nor Administer the Sacraments a Deacon one which hath charge of the Alms-box and of nothing else That the Scepter the Rod the Throne and Kingdom of Christ art a Form of Regiment onely by Pastors Elders Doctors and Deacons that by Mystical Resemblance Mount Sion and Jerusalem are the Churches which admit Samaria and Babylon the Churches which oppugne the said Form of Regiment And in like sort they are taught to apply all things spoken of repairing the Walls and decayed parts of the City and Temple of God by Esdras Nehemias and the rest As if purposely the Holy Ghost had therein meant to fore-signifie what the Authors of Admonitions to the Parliament of Supplications to the Council of Petitions to Her Majesty and of such other-like Writs should either do or suffer in behalf of this their Cause From hence they proceed to an higher point which is the perswading of men credulous and over-capable of such pleasing Errors That it is the special illumination of the Holy Ghost whereby they discern those things in the Word which others reading yet discern them not Dearly Beloved saith St. John Give not credit unto every spirit There are but two ways whereby the Spirit leadeth men into all Truth the one extraordinary the other common the one belonging but unto some few the other extending it self unto all that are of God the one that which we call by a special divine excellency Revelation the other Reason If the Spirit by such Revelation have discovered unto them the secrets of that Discipline out of Scripture they must profess themselves to be all even Men Women and Children Prophets Or if Reason be the hand which the Spirit hath led them by for as much as Perswasions grounded upon Reason are either weaker or stronger according to the force of those Reasons whereupon the same are grounded they must every of them from the greatest to the least be able for every several Article to shew some special Reason as strong as their Perswasion therein is earnest Otherwise how can it be but that some other sinews there are from which that everplus of strength in Perswasion doth arise Most sure it is That when Mens Affections do frame their Opinions they are in defence of Error more earnest a great deal then for the most part sound Believers in the maintenance of Truth apprehended according to the nature of that evidence which Scripture yieldeth Which being in some things plain as in the Principles of Christian Doctrine in some things as in these Matters of Discipline more dark and doubtful frameth correspondently that inward assent which Gods most gracious Spirit worketh by it as by his Effectual Instrument It is not therefore the servent earnestness of their perswasion but the soundness of those Reasons whereupon the same is built which must declare their Opinions in these things to have been wrought by the Holy Ghost and not by the Fraud of that evil spirit which is even in his illusions strong After that the fancy of the common sort hath once thorowly apprehended the Spirit to be Author of their Perswasions concerning Discipline then is instilled into their hearts that the same Spirit leading men into this opinion doth thereby seal them to be Gods Children and that as the state of the times now standeth the most special taken to know them that are Gods own from others is an earnest affection that way This hath bred high terms of Separation between such and the rest of the
and the coherance it hath with those things either on which it dependeth or which depend on it 8. The case so standing therefore my Brethren as it doth the wisdom of Governors ye must not blame in that they further also forecasting the manifold strange and dangerous innovations which are more then likely to follow if your Discipline should take place have for that cause thought it hitherto a part of their duty to withstand your endeavors that way The rather for that they have seen already some small beginnings of the fruits thereof in them who concurring with you in judgment about the necessity of that Discipline have adventured without more ado to separate themselves from the rest of the Church and to put your speculations in execution These mens hastiness the warier sort of you doth not commend ye wish they had held themselves longer in and not so dangerously flown abroad before the feathers of the Cause had been grown their Error with merciful terms ye reprove naming them in great commiseration of minds your poor Brethren They on the contrary side more bitterly accuse you as their false Brethren and against you they plead saying From your Brests it is that we have sucked those things which when ye delivered unto us ye termed that heavenly sincere and wholesom Milk of Gods Word howsoever ye now abhor as poyson that which the vertue thereof hath wrought and brought forth in us Ye sometime our Companions Guides and Familiars with whom we have had most sweet Consultations are now become our professed Adversaries because we think the Statute-Congregation in England to be no true Christian Churches because we have severed our selves from them and because without their leave or licence that are in Civil Authority we have secretly framed our own Churches according to the Platform of the Word of God For of that point between you and us there is no Controversie Also what would ye have us to do At such time as ye were content to accept us in the number of your own your Teaching we heard weread your Writings And though we would yet able we are not to forget with what zeal ye have ever profest That in the English Congregations for so many of them as be ordered according unto their own Laws the very Publick Service of God is fraught as touching Matter with heaps of intolerable Pollutions and as concerning Form borrowed from the Shop of Antichrist hateful both ways in the eyes of the most Holy the kinde of their Government by Bishops and Archbishops Antichristian that Discipline which Christ hath essentially tied that is to say so united unto his Church that we cannot account it really to be his Church which hath not in it the same Discipline that very Discipline no less there despised then in the highest Throne of Antichrist All such parts of the Word of God as do any way concern that Discipline no less unsoundly taught and interpreted by all authorized English Pastors then by Antichrists Factors themselves At Baptism Crossing at the Supper of the Lord. Kneeling at both a number of other the most notorious Badges of Antichristian Recognisance usual Being moved with these and the like your effectual discourses whereunto we gave most attentive ear till they entred even into our souls and were as fire within our bosoms We thought we might hereof be bold to conclude That sith no such Antichristian Synagogue may be accounted a true Church of Christ ye by accusing all Congregations ordered according to the Laws of England as Antichristian did mean to condemn those Congregations as not being any of them worthy the name of a true Christian Church Ye tell us now it is not your meaning But what meant your often threatnings of them who professing themselves the inhabitants of Mount Sion were too loth to depart wholly as they should out of Babylon Whereat our hearts being fearfully troubled we durst not we durst not continue longer so near her confines lest her plagues might suddenly overtake us before we did cease to be partakers with her sins for so we could not chuse but acknowledge with grief that we were when they doing evil we by our presence in their Assemblies seemed to like thereof or at leastwise not so earnestly to dislike as became men heartily zealous of Gods glory For adventuring to erect the Discipline of Christ without the leave of the Christian Magistrate haply ye may condemn us as fools in that we hazard thereby our estates and persons further then you which are that way more wise think necessary But of any offence or sin therein committed against God with what conscience can you accuse us when your own positions are That the things we observe should every of them be dearer unto us then ten thousand lives that they are the peremptory Commandments of God that no mortal man can dispense with them and that the Magistrate grievously sinneth in not constraining thereunto Will ye blame any man for doing that of his own accord which all men should be compelled to do that are not willing of themselves When God commandeth shall we answer that we will obey if so be Cesar will grant us leave Is Discipline an Ecclesiastical Matter or a Civil If an Ecclesiastical is must of necessity belong to the duty of the Minister and the Minister ye say holdeth all his Authority of doing whatsoever belongeth unto the Spiritual Charge of the House of God even immediately from God himself without dependency upon any Magistrate Whereupon it followeth as we suppose that the hearts of the people being willing to be under the Scepter of Christ the Minister of God into whose hands the Lord himself hath put that Scepter is without all excuse if thereby he guide them not Nor do we finde that hitherto greatly ye have disliked those Churches abroad where the people with direction of their godly Ministers have even against the will of the Magistrate brought in either the Doctrine or Discipline of Iesus Christ For which cause we must now think the very same thing of you which our Saviour did sometime utter concerning false-hearted Scribes and Pharisees They say and do not Thus the foolish Barrowist deriveth his Schism by way of Conclusion as to him it seemeth directly and plainly out of your principles Him therefore we leave to be satisfied by you from whom he hath sprung And if such by your own acknowledgment be persons dangerous although as yet the alterations which they have made are of small and tender growth the changes likely to ensue throughout all States and Vocations within this Land in case your desire should take place must be thought upon First Concerning the Supream Power of the Highest they are no small Prerogatives which now thereunto belonging the Form of your Discipline will constrain it to resign as in the last Book of this Treatise we have shewed at large Again it may justly be feared whether our English
Nobility when the Matter came in tryal would contentedly suffer themselves to be always at the Call and to stand to the sentence of a number of mean persons assisted with the presence of their poor Teacher a man as sometimes it hapneth though better able to speak yet little or no whit apter to judge then the rest From whom be their dealings never so absurd unless it be by way of Complaint to a Synod no Appeal may be made unto any one of higher Power is as much as the Order of your Discipline admitteth no standing in Equality of Courts no Spiritual Iudge to have any ordinary Superior on Earth but as many Supremacies as there are Parishes and several Congregations Neither is it altogether without cause that so many do fear the overthrow of all Learning as a threatned sequel of this your Intended Discipline For if the Worlds Preservation depend upon the multitude of the wise and of that sort the number hereafter be not likely to wax over-great when that therewith the son of Syrach professeth himself at the heart grived men of understanding are already so little set by How should their mindes whom the love of so precious a Iewel filleth with secret jealousie even in regard of the lest things which may any way hinder the flourishing estate thereof chuse but misdoubt lest this Discipline which always you match with Divine Doctrine as her natural and true Sister be found unto all kindes of knowledge a Step-mother seeing that the greatest worldly hopes which are proposed unto the chiefest kinde of Learning ye seek utterly to extirpate as Weeds and have grounded your Platform on such Propositions as do after a sort undermine those most renowned Habitations where through the goodness of Almighty God all commendable Arts and Sciences are with exceeding great industry hitherto and so may they for ever continue studied proceeded in and profest To charge you as purposely bent to the overthrow of that wherein so many of you have attained no small perfection were injurious Onely therefore I wish that your selves did well consider how opposite certain of your Positions are unto the state of Collegiate Societies whereon the two Universities consist Those Degrees which their Statutes binde them to take are by your Laws taken away your selves who have sought them ye so excuse as that ye would have men to think ye judge them not allowable but tolerable onely and to be borne with for some help which ye finde in them unto the furtherance of your purposes till the corrupt estate of the Church may be better reformed Your Laws forbidding Ecclesiastical Persons utterly the exercise of Civil Power must needs deprive the Heads and Masters in the same Colledges of all such Authority as now they exercise either at home by punishing the faults of those who not as children to their Parents by the Law of Nature but altogether by Civil Authority are subject unto them or abroad by keeping Courts amongst their Tenants Your Laws making permanent inequality amongst Ministers a thing repugnant to the Word of God enforce those Colledges the Seniors whereof are all or any part of them Ministers under the Government of a Master in the same Vocation to chuse as oft as they meet together a new President For if so ye judge it necessary to do in Synods for the avoiding of permanent inequality amongst Ministers the same cause must needs even in these Collegiate Assemblies enforce the like Except peradventure ye mean to avoid all such absurdities by dissolving those Corporations and by bringing the Universities unto the Form of the School of Geneva Which thing men the rather are inclined to look for in as much as the Ministery wherein to their Founders with singular Providence have by the same Statutes appointed them necessarily to enter at a certain time your Laws binde them much more necessarily to forbear till some Parish abroad call for them Your opinion concerning the Law Civil is That the knowledge thereof might be spared as a thing which this Land doth not need Professors in that kinde being few ye are the bolder to spurn at them and not to dissemble your mindes as concerning their removal In whose Studies although my self have not much been conversant nevertheless exceeding great cause I see there is to wish that thereunto more encouragement were given as well for the singular Treasures of Wisdom therein contained as also for the great use we have thereof both in Decision of certain kindes of causes arising daily within our selves and especially for Commerce with Nations abroad whereunto that knowledge is most requisite The Reasons wherewith ye would perswade that Scripture is the onely rule to frame all our actions by are in every respect as effectual for proof that the same it the onely Law whereby to determine all our Civil Controversies And then what doth let but that as those men may have their desire who frankly broach it already That the Work of Reformation will never be perfect till the Law of Iesus Christ be received alone so Pleaders and Counsellors may bring their Books of the Common Law and bestow them as the Students of curious and needless Arts did theirs in the Apostles time I leave them to scan how for thosewords of yours may reach wherein ye declare That where as now many houses lie waste through inordinate Suits of Law This one thing will shew the excellency of Discipline for the Wealth of the Realm and quiet of Subjects That the Church is to censure such a Party who is apparently troublesome and contentious and without REASONABLE CAUSE upon a meer Will and Stomach doth vex and molest his Brother and trouble the Country For mine own part I do not see but that it might very well agree with your Principles if your Discipline were fully planted even to send out your Writs of Surcease unto all Courts of England besides for the most things handled in them A great deal further I might proceed and descend lower but for as much as against all these and the like difficulties your answer is That we ought to search what things are consonant to Gods Will not which be most for our own ease and therefore that your Discipline being for such is your Error the absolute Commandment of Almighty God it must be received although the World by receiving it should be clean turned upside down Herein lieth the greatest danger of all For whereas the name of Divine Authority is used to countenance these things which are not the Commandments of God but your own Erroneous Collections on him ye must father whatsoever ye shall afterwards be led either to do in withstanding the Adversaries of your Cause or to think in maintenance of your doings And what this may be God doth know In such kindes of Error the Minde once imagining it self to seek the execution of Gods Will laboreth forthwith to remove both things and persons which any way
which God is giveth Perfection to that he doth Those Natural Necessary and Internal Operations of God the Generation of the Son the Proceeding of the Spirit are without the compass of my present intent which is to touch onely such Operations as have their Beginning and Being by a voluntary purpose wherewith God hath eternally decreed when and how they should be which Eternal Decree is that we term an Eternal Law Dangerous it were for the feeble Brain of Man to wade far into the doings of the most High whom although to know be Life and Joy to make mention of his Name yet our soundest knowledge is to know that we know him not as indeed he is neither can know him and our safest eloquence concerning him is our silence when we confess without confession that his glory is inexplicable his greatness above our capacity and reach He is above and we upon Earth therefore it behoveth our words to be wary and few Our God is One or rather very Oneness and meer Unity having nothing but it Self in it Self and not consisting as all things do besides God of many things In which Essential Unity of God a Trinity Personal nevertheless subsisteth after a manner far exceeding the possibility of mans conceit The works which outwardly are of God they are in such sort of him being One that each Person hath in them somewhat peculiar and proper For being Three and they all subsisting in the Essence of one Deity from the Father by the Son through the Spirit all things are That which the Son doth hear of the Father and which the Spirit doth receive of the Father and the Son the same we have at the hands of the Spirit as being the last and therefore the nearest unto us in order although in power the same with one Second and the First The wise and learned among the very Heathens themselves have all acknowledged some first cause whereupon originally the Being of all things dependeth Neither have they otherwise spoken of that Cause then as an Agent which knowing what and why it worketh observeth in working a most exact Order or Law Thus much is signified by that which Homer mentioneth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus much acknowledged by Mercurius Trismegistus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus much confest by Anaxagoras and Plato terming the Maker of the World an Intellectual Worker Finally the Stoiks although imagining the first cause of all things to be Fire held nevertheless that the same Fire having Art did O 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They all confess therefore in the working of that first cause that Counsel is used Reason followed a Way observed that is to say Constant Order and Law is kept whereof it self must needs be Author unto it self Otherwise it should have some worthier and higher to direct it and so could not it self be the first being the first it can have no other then it self to be the Author of that Law which it willingly worketh by God therefore is a Law both to himself and to all other things besides To himself he is a Law in all those things whereof our Saviour speaks saying My Father worketh as yet so I. God worketh nothing without cause All those things which are done by him have some end for which they are done and the end for which they are done is a Reason of his Will to do them His Will had not inclined to create Woman but that he saw it could not be well if she were not created Non est bonum It is not good man should be alone therefore let us make an helper for him That and nothing else is done by God which to leave undone were not so good If therefore it be demanded why God having power and ability infinite the effects notwithstanding of that power are all so limited as we see they are The reason hereof is the End which he hath proposed and the Law whereby his Wisdom hath stinted the effects of his power in such sort that it doth not work infinitely but correspondently unto that end for which it worketh even all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in most decent and comely sort all things in measure number and weight The General End of Gods External Working is the exercise of his most glorious and most abundant vertue Which abundance doth shew it self in variety and for that cause this variety is oftentimes in Scripture exprest by the name of riches The Lord hath made all things for his own sake Not that any thing is made to be beneficial unto him but all things for him to shew beneficence and grace in them The particular drift of every Act proceeding externally from God we are not able to discern and therefore cannot always give the proper and certain reason of his Works Howbeit undoubtedly a proper and certain Reason there is of every Finite Work of God in as much as there is a Law imposed upon it which if there were not it should be Infinite even as the Worker himself is They err therefore who think that of the Will of God to do this or that there is no Reason besides his Will Many times no Reason known to us but that there is no reason thereof I judge it most unreasonable to imagine in as much as he worketh all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not onely according to his own Will but the counsel of his own Will And whatsoever is done with counsel or wise resolution hath of necessity some reason why it should be done albeit that reason be to us in some things so secret that it forceth the wit of man to stand as the Blessed Apostle himself doth amazed thereat O the depth of the riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God How unsearchable are his Iudgments c. That Law Eternal which God himself hath made to himself and thereby worketh all things whereof he is the Cause and Author that Law in the admirable frame whereof shineth with most perfect Beauey the Countenance of that Wisdom which hath testified concerning her self The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way even before his works of old I was set up That Law which hath been the Pattern to make and is the Card to guide the World by that Law which hath been of God and with God everlastingly that Law the Author and Observer whereof is one onely God to be blessed for ever how should either Men or Angels be able perfectly to behold The Book of this Law we are neither able nor worthy to open and look into That little thereof which we darkly apprehend we admire the rest with religious ignorance we humbly and meekly adore Seeing therefore that according to this Law he worketh Of whom through whom and for whom are all things although there seem unto us confusion and disorder in the affairs of this present world◠Tamen quoniam bonus mundum rector temperat recte fieri
the help of Revelation Supernatural and Divine Finally In such sort they are investigable that the knowledge of them is general the World hath always been acquainted with them according to that which one in Sophocles observeth concerning a Branch of this Law It is no childe of two days or yesterdays birth but hath been no man knoweth how long sithence It is not agreed upon by one or two or few but by all which we may not so understand as if every particular Man in the whole World did know and confess whatsoever the Law of Reason doth contain But this Law is such that being proposed no man can reject it as unreasonable and unjust Again there is nothing in it but any man having natural perfection of wit and ripeness of judgment may by labor and travel finde out And to conclude principles the general thereof are such as it is not easie to finde men ignorant of them Law Rational therefore which men commonly use to call the Law of Nature meaning thereby the Law which Humane Nature knoweth it self in Reason universally bound unto which also for that cause may be termed most fitly the Law of Reason this Law I say comprehendeth all those things which Men by the Light of their Natural Understanding evidently know or at leastwise may know to be beseeming or unbeseeming vertuous or vicious good or evil for them to do Now although it be true which some have said that whatsoever is done amiss the Law of Nature and Reason thereby is transgrest because even those offences which are by their special qualities breaches of Supernatural Laws do also for that they are generally evil violate in general that principle of Reason which willeth universally to flie from evil yet do we not therefore so far extend the Law of Reason as to contain in it all manner of Laws whereunto reasonable Creatures are bound but as hath been shewed we restrain it to those onely duties which all men by force of Natural Wit either do or might understand to be such duties as concern all men Certain half-waking men there are as St. Augustine noteth who neither altogether asleep in fâ—lly nor yet throughly awake in the light of true understanding have thought that there is not at all any thing just and righteous in it self but look wherewith Nations are inured the same they take to be right and just Whereupon their Conclusion is That seeing each sort of people hath a different kinde of right from other and that which is right of it's own nature must be every where one and the same therefore in it self there is nothing right These good folks saith he that I may not trouble their wits with the rehearsal of too many things have not looked so far into the World as to perceive that Do as thou wouldst be done unto is a sentence which all Nations under Heaven are agreed upon Refer this sentence to the love of God and it extinguisheth all heinous crimes Refer it to the love of thy Neighbor and all grievous wrongs it banisheth out of the World Wherefore as touching the Law of Reason this was it seemeth St. Augustines judgment namely that there are in it some things which stand as principles universally agreed upon and that out of those Principles which are in themselves evident the greatest Moral duties we ow towards God or Man may without any great difficulty be concluded If then it be here demanded by what means it should come to pass the greatest part of the Law Moral being so easie for all men to know that so many thousands of men notwithstanding have been ignorant even of principal Moral Duties not imagining the breach of them to be sin I deny not but leud and wicked custom beginning perhaps at the first amongst few afterwards spreading into greater multitudes and so continuing from time to time may be of force even in plain things to smother the light of Natural understanding because men will not bend their wits to examine whether things wherewith they have been accustomed be good or evil For examples sake that grosser kinde of Heathenish Idolatry whereby they worshipped the very works of their own hands was an absurdity to Reason so palpable that the Prophet David comparing Idols and Idolaters together maketh almost no odds between them but the one in a manner as much without wit and sense as the other They that make them are like unto them and so are all that trust in them That wherein an Idolater doth seem so absurd and foolish is by the Wiseman thus exprest He is not ashamed to speakunto that which hath no life He calleth on him that is weak for health He prayeth for life unto him which in dead of him which hath no experience he requireth help For his journey he sueth to him which is not able to go For gain and work and success in his affairs he seeketh furtherance of him that hath no manner of power The cause of which sensless stupidity is afterwards imputed to custom When a Father mourned grievously for his son that was taken away suddenly he made an image for him that was once dead whom now he worshipped as a god ordaining to his servants Ceremonies and Sacrifices Thus by process of time this wicked custom prevailed and was kept as a Law the Authority of Rulers the Ambition of Craftsmen and such like means thrusting forward the ignorant and encreasing their superstition Unto this which the Wiseman hath spoken somewhat besides may be added For whatsoever we have hitherto taught or shall hereafter concerning the force of Mans natural understanding this we always desire withal to be understood that there is no kinde of faculty or power in Man or any other Creature which can rightly perform the Functions allotted to it without perpetual aid and concurrence of that Supream Cause of all things The benefit whereof as oft as we cause God in his justice to withdraw there can no other thing follow then that which the Apostle noteth even men endued with the Light of Reason to walk notwithstanding in the vanity of their minde having their cogitations darkned and being strangers from the Life of God through the ignorance which is in them because of the hardness of their hearts And this cause is mentioned by the Prophet Isaiah speaking of the ignorance of Idolaters who see not how the manifest Law of Reason condemneth their gross iniquity and sui They have not in them saith he so much wit as to think Shall I bow to the stock of a tree All knowledge and understanding is taken from them for God hath shut their eyes that they cannot see That which we say in this case of Idolatry serveth for all other things wherein the like kinde of general blindness hath prevailed against the manifest Laws of Reason Within the compass of which Laws we do not onely comprehend whatsoever may be easily known to belong to the
amongst Men are never framed as they should be unless presuming the Will of Man to be inwardly obstinate rebellious and averse from all obedience unto the Sacred Laws of his Nature In a word unless presuming Man to be in regard of his depraved minde little better then a wilde beast they do accordingly provide notwithstanding so to frame his outward actions that they be no hindrance unto the common good for which Societies are instituted unless they do this they are not perfect It resteth therefore that we consider how Nature findeth out such Laws of Government as serve to direct even Nature depraved to a right end All men desire to lead in this world an happy life The life is led most happily wherein all Vertue is exercised without impediment or let The Apostle in exhorting men to contentment although they have in this world no more then very bare Food and Rayment giveth us thereby to understand that those are even the lowest of things necessary that if we should be stripped of all those things without which we might possibly be yet these must be left that destitution in these is such an impediment as till it be removed suffereth not the minde of Man to admit any other care For this cause first God assigned Adam maintenance of Life and then appointed him a Law to observe For this cause after Men began to grow to a number the first thing we read they gave themselves unto was the Tilling of the Earth and the Feeding of Cattle Having by this mean whereon to live the principal actions of their life afterward are noted by the Exercise of their Religion True it is that the Kingdom of God must be the first thing in our purposes and desires But in as much as a righteous life presupposeth life in as much as to live vertuously it is impossible except we live Therefore the first impediment which naturally we endeavor to remove is penury and want of things without which we cannot live Unto life many implements are necessary mo if we seek as all men naturally do such a life as hath in it joy comfort delight and pleasure To this end we see how quickly sundry Arts Mechanical were found out in the very prime of the World As things of greatest necessity are always first provided for so things of greatest dignity are most accounted of by all such as judge rightly Although therefore Riches be a thing which every Man wisheth yet no Man of judgment can esteem it better to be Rich then Wise Vertuous and Religious If we be both or either of these it is not because we are so born For into the World we come as empty of the one as of the other as naked in Minde as we are in Body Both which necessities of Man had at the first no other helps and supplies then onely domestical such as that which the Prophet implieth saying Can a Mother forget her childe Such as that which the Apostle mentioneth saying He that careth not for his own is worse then an Infidel Such as that concerning Abraham Abraham will command his sons and his houshold after him that they keep the way of the Lord. But neither that which we learn of our selves nor that which others teach us can prevail where wickedness and malice have taken deep root If therefore when there was but as yet one onely family in the World no means of instruction Humane or Divine could prevent effusion of blood How could it be chosen but that when Families were multiplied and encreased upon Earth after Separation each providing for it self Envy Strife Contention and Violence must grow amongst them For hath not Nature furnished Man with Wit and Valor and as it were with Armor which may be used as well unto extream evil as good Yea were they not used by the rest of the World unto evil Unto the contrary onely by Seth Enoch and those few the rest in that Line We all make complaint of the iniquity of our times not unjustly for the days are evil But compare them with those times wherein there were no civil Societies with those times therein there was as yet no manner of Publick Regiment established with those times wherein there were not above eight righteous persons living upon the face of the Earth And we have surely good cause to think that God hath blessed us exceedingly and hath made us behold most happy days To take away all such mutual grievances injuries and wrongs there was no way but onely by growing unto Composition and Agreement amongst themselves by ordaining some kinde of Government publick and by yielding themselves subject thereunto that unto whom they granted authority to rule and govern by them the peace tranquillity and happy estate of the rest might be procured Men always knew that when Force and Injury was offered they might be Defenders of themselves they knew that howsoever men may seek their own commodity yet if this were done with injury unto others it was not to be suffered but by all men and by all good means to be withstood Finally they knew that no man might in Reason take upon him to determine his own right and according to his own determination proceed in maintenance thereof in as much as every man is towards himself and them whom he greatly affecteth partial And therefore that strifes and troubles would be endless except they gave their common consent all to be ordered by some whom they should agree upon Without which consent there were no reason that one Man should take upon him to be Lord or Judge over another because although there be according to the opinion of some very great and judicious Men a kinde of Natural Right in the Noble Wise and Vertuous to govern them which are of servile disposition nevertheless for manifestation of this their right and mens more peaceable contentment on both sides the assent of them whom are to be governed seemeth necessary To Fathers within their Private Families Nature hath given a supream power for which cause we see throughout the World even from the first Foundation thereof all men have ever been taken as Lords and Lawful Kings in their own houses Howbeit over a whole grand multitude having no such dependency upon any one and consisting of so many Families as every Politick Society in the World doth impossible it is that any should have compleat lawful power but by consent of men or immediate appointment of God because not having the Natural Superiority of Fathers their power must needs be either usurped and then unlawful or if lawful then either granted or consented unto by them over whom they exercise the same or else given extraordinarily from God unto whom all the World is subject It is no improbable opinion therefore which the Arch-Philosopher was of That as the chiefest person in every houshold was always as it were a King so when numbers of
Whereas now which soever be received there is no Law of Reason transgrest because there is probable reason why either of them may be expedient and for either of them more then probable reason there is not to be found Laws whether mixtly or meerly Humane are made by Politick Societies some onely as those Societies are civilly united some as they are spiritually joyned and make such a Body as we call the Church Of Laws Humane in this latter kinde we are to speak in the Third Book following Let it therefore suffice thus far to have touched the force wherewith Almighty God hath graciously endued our Nature and thereby enabled the same to findeâ—out both those Laws which all Men generally are for ever bound to observe and also such as are most fit for their behoof who lead their lives in any ordered State of Government Now besides that Law which simply concerneth men as Men and that which belongeth unto them as they are Men linked with others in some Form of Politick Society there is a third kinde of Law which toucheth all such several Bodies Politick so far forth as one of them hath Publick Commerce with another And this third is The Law of Nations Between Men and Beasts there is no possibility or Sociable Communion because the Welspring of that Communion is a Natural delight which Man hath to transfuse from himself into others and to receive from others into himself especially those things wherein the excellency of this kinde doth most consist The chiefest Instrument of Humane Communion therefore is Speech because thereby we impart mutually one to another the Conceits of our Reasonable Understanding And for that cause seeing Beasts are not hereof capable for as much as with them we can use no such Conference they being in degree although above other Creatures on Earth to whom Nature hath denied sense yet lower then to be sociable Companions of Man to whom Nature hath given Reason It is of Adam said that amongst the Beasts he sound not for himself any meet companion Civil Society doth more content the Nature of Man then any private kinde of solitary living because in Society this good of Mutual Participation is so much larger then otherwise Herewith notwithstanding we are not satisfied but we covet if it might be to have a kinde of Society and Fellowship even with all mankinde Which thing Socrates intending to signifie professed himself a Citizen not of this or that Commonwealth but of the World And an effect of that very natural desire in us a manifest token that we wish after a sort an Universal Fellowship with all Men appeareth by the wonderful delight men have some to visit foreign Countreys some to discover Nations not heard of in former Ages we all to know the Affairs and Dealings of other People yea to be in League of Amity with them And this not onely for Trafficks sake or to the end that when many are confederated each may make other the more strong but for such cause also as moved the Queen of Sheba to visit Solomon and in a word because Nature doth presume that how many Men there are in the World so many Gods as it were there are or at leastwise such they should be towards Men. Touching Laws which are to serve Men in this behalf even as those Laws of Reason which Man retaining his original Integrity had been sufficient to direct each particular person in all his Affairs and Duties are not sufficient but require the access of other Laws now that Man and his Off-spring are grown thus corrupt and sinful Again as those Laws of Polity and Regiment which would have served Men living in Publick Society together with that harmless disposition which then they should have had are not able now to serve when Mens iniquity is so hardly restrained within any tolerable bounds In like manner the National Laws of Natural Commerce between Societies of that former and better quality might have been other then now when Nations are so prone to offer violence injury and wrong Hereupon hath grown in every of these three kindes that distinction between Primary and Secondary Laws the one grounded upon sincere the other built upon depraved Nature Primary Laws of Nations are such as concern Embassage such as belong to the courteous entertainment of Foreigners and Strangers such as serve for Commodious Traffick and the like Secondary Laws in the same kinde are such as this present unquiet World is most familiarly acquainted with I mean Laws of Arms which yet are much better known then kept But what matter the Law of Nations doth contain I omit to search The strength and vertue of that Law is such that no particular Nation can lawfully prejudice the same by any their several Laws and Ordinances more then a Man by his private resolutions the Law of the whole Commonwealth or State wherein he liveth For as Civil Law being the Act of a whole Body Politick doth therefore over-rule each several part of the same Body so there is no reason that any one Commonwealth of it self should to the prejudice of another anaihilate that whereupon the whole World hath agreed For which cause the Lacedemonians forbidding all access of strangers into their coasts are in that respect both by Josephus and Theodores deservedly blamed as being enemies to that Hospitality which for common Humanities sake all the Nations on Earth should embrace Now as there is great cause of Communion and consequently of Laws for the maintenance of Communion amongst Nations So amongst Nations Christian the like in regard even of Christianity hath been always judged needful And in this kinde of correspondence amongst Nations the force of General Councils doth stand For as one and the same Law Divine whereof in the next place we are to speak is unto all Christian Churches a rule for the chiefest things by means whereof they all in that respect make one Church as having all but One Lord one Faith and one Baptism So the urgent necessity of Mutual Communion for Preservation of our Unity in these things as also for Order in some other things convenient to be every where uniformly kept maketh it requisite that the Church of God here on Earth have her Laws of Spiritual Commerce between Christian Nations Laws by vertue whereof all Churches may enjoy freely the use of those Reverend Religious and Sacred Consultations which are termed Councils General A thing whereof Gods own Blessed Spirit was the Author a thing practised by the holy Apostles themselves a thing always afterwards kept and observed throughout the World a thing never otherwise then most highly esteemed of till Pride Ambition and Tyranny began by factious and vile Endeavors to abuse that Divine Invention unto the furtherance of wicked purposes But as the just Authority of Civil Courts and Parliaments is not therefore to be abolished because sometimes there is cunning used to frame them according
many deep and profound points of Doctrine as being the main original ground whereupon the Precepts of duty depend many Prophecies the clear performance whereof might confirm the World in belief of things unseen many Histories to serve as Looking-glasses to behold the Mercy the Truth the Righteousness of God towards all that faithfully serve obey and honor him yea many intire Meditations of Piety to be as Patterns and Precedents in cases of like Nature many things needful for Explication many for Application unto particular occasions such as the Providence of God from time to time hath taken to have the several Books of his holy Ordinance written Be it then that together with the principal necessary Laws of God there are sundry other things written whereof we might haply be ignorant and yet be saved What shall we hereupon think them needless shall we esteem them as riotous Branches wherewith we sometimes behold most pleasant Vines overgrown Surely no more then we judge our hands or our eyes superfluous or what part soever which if our Bodies did want we might notwithstanding any such defect retain still the compleat Being of Men. As therefore a compleat Man is neither destitute of any part necessary and hath some parts whereof though the want could not deprive him of his essence yet to have them standeth him in singular stead in respect of the special uses for which they serve In like sort all those writings which contain in them the Law of God all those venerable Books of Scripture all those Sacred Tomes and Volumes of holy Writ they are with such absolute perfection framed that in them there neither wanteth any thing the lack whereof might deprive us of life nor any thing in such wise aboundeth that as being superfluous unfruitful and altogether needless we should think it no loss or danger at all if we did want it 14. Although the Scripture of God therefore be stored with infinite variety of matter in all kindes although it abound with all sorts of Laws yet the principal intent of Scripture is to deliver the Laws of Duties Supernatural Oftentimes it hath been in very solemn manner disputed whether all things necessary unto salvation be necessarily set down in the holy Scriptures If we define that necessary unto salvation whereby the way to salvation is in any sort made more plain apparent and easie to be known then is there no part of true Philosophy no Art of account no kinde of Science rightly so called but the Scripture must contain it If onely those things be necessary as surely none else are without the knowledge and practise whereof it is not the will and pleasure of God to make any ordinary grant of salvation it may be notwithstanding and oftentimes hath been demanded how the Books of holy Scripture contain in them all necessary things when of things necessary the very chief is to know what Books we are bound to esteem holy which point is confest impossible for the Scripture it self to teach Whereunto we may answer with truth that there is not in the World any Art or Science which proposing unto it self an end as every one doth some end or other hath been therefore thought defective if it have not delivered simply whatsoever is needful to the same end but all kindes of knowledge have their certain bounds and limits each of them presupposeth many necessary things learned in other Sciences and known beforehand He that should take upon him to teach men how to be eloquent in pleading causes must needs deliver unto them whatsoever Precepts are requisite unto that end otherwise he doth not the thing which he taketh upon him Seeing then no man can plead eloquently unless he be able first to speak it followeth that ability of speech is in this case a thing most necessary Notwithstanding every man would think it ridiculous that he which undertaketh by writing to instruct an Orator should therefore deliver all the Precepts of Grammar because his Profession is to deliver Precepts necessary unto eloquent speech yet so that they which are to receive them be taught beforehand so much of that which is thereunto necessary as comprehendeth the skill of speaking In like sort albeit Scripture do profess to contain in it all things which are necessary unto salvation yet the meaning cannot be simply of all things which are necessary but all things that are necessary in some certain kinde or form as all things that are necessary and either could not at all or could not easily be known by the light of Natural discourse all things which are necessary to be known that we may be saved but known with presupposal of knowledge concerning certain Principles whereof it receiveth us already perswaded and then instructeth us in all the residue that are necessary In the number of these Principles one is the Sacred Authority of Scripture Being therefore perswaded by other means that these Scriptures are the Oracles of God themselves do then teach us the rest and lay before us all the duties which God requireth at our hands as necessary unto salvation Further there hath been some doubt likewise whether containing in Scripture do import express setting down in plain terms or else comprehending in such sort that by reason we may from thence conclude all things which are necessary Against the former of these two constructions instance hath sundry ways been given For our belief in the Trinity the Co-eternity of the Son of God with his Father the proceeding of the Spirit from the Father and the Son the duty of Baptizing Infants These with such other principal points the necessity whereof is by none denied are notwithstanding in Scripture no where to be found by express literal mention onely deduced they are out of Scripture by collection This kinde of comprehension in Scripture being therefore received still there is no doubt how far we are to proceed by collection before the full and compleat measure of things necessary be made up For let us not think that as long as the World doth endure the wit of man shall be able to sound the bottom of that which may be concluded out of the Scripture especially if things contained by collection do so far extend as to draw in whatsoever may be at any time out of Scripture but probably and conjecturally surmized But let necessary collection be made requisite and we may boldly deny that of all those things which at this day are with so great necessity urged upon this Church under the name of Reformed Church Discipline there is any one which their Books hitherto have made manifest to be contained in the Scripture Let them if they can alledge but one properly belonging to their cause and not common to them and us and shew the deduction thereof out of Scripture to be necessary It hath been already shewed how all things necessary unto salvation in such sort as before we have maintained must needs be possible for
hast made me wiser then mine enemies Again I have had more understanding then all my Teachers because thy Testimonies are my Meditations What pains would not they have bestowed in the study of these Books who travelled Sea and Land to gain the treasure of some few days talk with men whose wisdom the World did make any reckoning of That little which some of the Heathens did chance to hear concerning such matter as the Sacred Scripture plentifully containeth they did in wonderful sort affect their speeches as oft as they make mention thereof are strange and such as themselves could not utter as they did other things But still acknowledged that their wits which did every where else conquer hardness were with profoundness here over-matched Wherefore seeing that God hath endued us with Sense to the end that we might perceive such things as this present life doth need and with reason left that which Sense cannot reach unto being both now and also in regard of a future estate hereafter necessary to be known should lie obscure Finally with the Heavenly support of Prophetical Revelation which doth open those hidden Mysteries that Reason could never have been able to finde out or to have known the necessity of them unto our everlasting good Use we the precious gifts of God unto his glory and honor that gave them seeking by all means to know what the Will of our God is what righteous before him in his sight what holy perfect and good that we may truly and faithfully do it 16. Thus far therefore we have endeavored in part to open of what nature and force Laws are according unto their several kindes The Law which God with himself hath eternally set down to follow in his own works The Law which he hath made for his Creatures to keep The Law of natural and necessary Agents The Law which Angels in Heaven obey The Law whereunto by the Light of Reason Men finde themselves bound in that they are Men The Law which they make by composition for Multitudes and Politick Societies of Men to be guided by The Law which belongeth unto each Nation The Law that concerneth the Fellowship of all And lastly The Law which God himself hath supernaturally revealed It might peradventure have been more popular and more plausible to vulgar ears if this first discourse had been spent in extolling the force of Laws in shewing the great necessity of them when they are good and in aggravating their offence by whom Publick Laws are injuriously traduced But for as much as with such kinde of matter the Passions of Men are rather stirred one way or other then their knowledge any way set forward unto the tryal of that whereof there is doubt made I have therefore turned aside from that beaten path and chosen though a less easie yet a more profitable way in regard of the end we propose Lest therefore any man should marvel whereunto all these things tendâ— the drift and purpose of all is this even to shew in what manner as every good and perfect gift so this very gift of good and perfect Laws is derived from the Father of Lights to teach men a reason why just and reasonable Laws are of so great force of so great use in the World and to inform their mâ—ndes with some method of reducing the Laws whereof there is present controversie unto their first original causes that so it may be in every particular Ordinance thereby the better discerned whether the same be reasonable just and righteous or no. Is there any thing which can either be thorowly understood or soundly judged of till the very first causes and principles from which originally it springeth be made manifest If all parts of knowledge have been thought by wise men to be then most orderly delivered and proceeded in when they are drawn to their first original seeing that our whole question concerneth the quality of Ecclesiastical Laws let it not seem a labor superfluous that in the entrance thereunto all these several kindes of Laws have been considered in as much as they all concur as principles they all have their forcible operations therein although not all in like aprent and manifest manner By means whereof it cometh to pass that the force which they have is not observed of many Easier a great deal it is for Men by Law to be taught what they ought to do then instructed how to judge as they should do of Law the one being a thing which belongeth generally unto all the other such as none but the wiser and more judicious sort can perform Yea the wisest are always touching this point the readiest to acknowledge that soundly to judge of a Law is the weightiest thing which any man can take upon him But if we will give judgment of the Laws under which we live first let that Law Eternal be always before our eyes as being of principal force and moment to breed in religious mindes a dutiful estimation of all Laws the use and benefit whereof we see because there can be no doubt but that Laws apparently good are as it were things copied out of the very Tables of that High Everlasting Law even as the Book of that Law hath said concerning it self By me Kings reign and by me Princes decree Iustice. Not as if Men did behold that Book and accordingly frame their Laws but because it worketh in them because it discovereth and as it were readeth it self to the World by them when the Laws which they make are righteous Furthermore although we perceive not the goodness of Laws made nevertheless sith things in themselves may have that which we peradventure discern not Should not this breed a fear into our hearts how we speak or judge in the worse part concerning that the unadvised disgrace whereof may be no mean dishonor to him towards whom we profess all submission and aw Surely there must be very manifest iniquity in Laws against which we shall be able to justifie our contumelious Invectives The chiefest root whereof when we use them without cause is ignorance how Laws inferior are derived from that supream or highest Law The first that receive impression from thence are Natural agents The Law of whose operations might be haply thought less pertinent when the question is about Laws for Humane actions but that in those very actions which most spiritually and supernaturally concern men the Rules and Axioms of Natural operations have their force What can be more immediate to our Salvation then our perswasion concerning the Law of Christ towards his Church What greater assurance of love towards his Church then the knowledge of that Mystical Union whereby the Church is become as near unto Christ as any one part of his flesh is unto other That the Church being in such sort his he must needs protect it what proof more strong then if a manifest Law so require which Law it is not possible for
otherwise they seem when by heat of contention they are divided into many slips and of every Branch an heap is made Surely as now we have drawn them together choosing out those things which are requisite to be severally all discust and omitting such mean Specialities as are likely without any great labour to fall afterwards of themselves I know no cause why either the number or the length of these Controversies should diminish our hope of seeing them end with concond and love on all sides which of his infinite love and goodness the Father of all peace and unity grant Unto which Scope that our endeavour may the more directly tend it seemeth fittest that first those things be examined which are as seeds from whence the rest that ensue have grown And of such the most general is that wherewith we are here to make our entrance A Question not moved I think any where in other Churches and therefore in ours the more likely to be soon I trust determined the rather for that it hath grown from no other root then only a desire to enlarge the necessary use of the Word of God which desire hath begotten an Error inlarging it further then as we are perswaded soundness of truth will bear For whereas God hath left sundry kindes of Laws unto men and by all those Laws the actions of men are in some sort directed They hold that one only Law the Scripture must be the Rule to direct in all things even so far as to the taking up of a Rush or Straw About which point there should not need any question to grow and that which is grown might presently end if they did yield but to these two restraints The first is Not to extend the actions whereof they speak so low as that Instance doth import of taking up a Straw but rather keep themselves at the least within the compass of Moral Actions Actions which have in them Vice of Vertue The second Not to exact at our hands for every action the knowledge of some place of Scripture out of which we stand bound to deduce it as by divers Testimonies they seek to enforce but rather as the truth is so to acknowledge that it sufficeth if such actions be framed according to the Law of Reason the general Axiomes Rules and Principles of which Law being so frequent in Holy Scripture there is no let but in that regard even out of Scripture such duties may be deduced by some kind of Consequence as by long circuit of Deduction it may be that even all Truth out of any Truth may be concluded howbeit no man bound in such sort to deduce all his actions out of Scripture as if either the place be to him unknown whereon they may be concluded or the reference unto that place not presently considered of the action shall in that respect be condemned as unlawful In this we dissent and this we are presently to examine 1. In all parts of knowledge rightly so termed things most general are most strong Thus it must be inasmuch as the certainty of our perswasion touching particulars dependeth altogether upon the credit of those Generalities out of which they grow Albeit therefore every cause admit not such Infallible Evidence of proof as leaveth no possibility of doubt or scruple behinde it yet they who claim the general assent of the whole world unto that which they teach and do not fear to give very hard and heavy sentence upon as many as refuse to embrace the same must have special regard that their first Foundations and Grounds be more then slender probabilities This whole Question which hath been moved about the kinde of Church Regiment we could not but for our own resolution sake endeavour to unrip and sist following therein as near as we might the conduct or that judicial Method which serveth best for invention of Truth By means whereof having found this the Head Theorem of all their Discourses who plead for the change of Ecclesiastical Government in England namely That the Scripture of God is in such sort the rule of humane actions that simply whatsoever we do and are not by it directed thereunto the same is sin we hold it necessary that the proofs hereof be weighed Be they of weight sufficient or otherwise it is not ours to judge and determine onely what difficulties there are which as yet with-hold our assent till we be further and better satisfied I hope no indifferent amongst them will scorn or refuse to hear First therefore whereas they alledge That Wisdom doth teach men every good way and have thereupon inferred that no way is good in any kinde of action unless Wisdom do by Scripture lead unto it See they not plainly how they restrain the manifold ways which Wisdom hath to teach men by unto one onely way of teaching which is by Scripture The bounds of Wisdom are large and within them much is contained Wisdom was Adams Instructor in Paradise Wisdom endued the Fathers who lived before the Law with the knowledge of holy things by the wisdom of the Law of God David attained to excel others in understanding and Solomon likewise to excel David by the self-same wisedome of God teaching him many things besides the Law The ways of well-doing are in number even as many as are the kindes of voluntary actions so that whatsoever we do in this World and may do it ill we shew our selves therein by well-doing to be wise Now if wisdom did teach men by Scripture not only all the ways that are right and good in some certain kinde according to that of S. Paul concerning the use of Scripture but did simply without any manner of exception restraint or distinction teach every way of doing well There is no Art but Scripture should teach it because every Art doth teach the way how to do something or other well To teach men therefore Wisdom professeth and to teach them every good way but not every good way by one way of teaching Whatsoever either men on Earth or the Angels of Heaven do know it is as a drop of that unemptiable Fountain of Wisdom which Wisdom hath diversly imparted her treasures unto the World As her ways are of sundry kinds so her manner of teaching is not meerly one and the same Some things she openeth by the Sacred Books of Scripture some things by the glorious works of Nature with some things she inspireth them from above by spiritual influence in some things she leadeth and traineth them onely by worldly experience and practice We may not so in any one special kinde admire her that we disgrace her in any other but let all her ways be according unto their place and degree adored 2. That all things be done to the glory of God the blessed Apostle it is true exhorteth The glory of God is the admirable excellency of that Vertue Divine which being made manifest causeth Men and Angels to extol his
us unto this be themselves so perswaded indeed Men do sometimes bewray that by deeds which to confess they are hardly drawn Mark then if this be not general with all men for the most part When the judgements of learned men are alledged against them what do they but either elevate their credit or oppose unto them the judgements of others as learned Which thing doth argue that all men acknowledge in them some force and weight for which they are loth the cause they maintain should be so much weakned as their Testimony is available Again what reason is there why alledging Testimonies as Proofs men give them some title of credit honour and estimation whom they alledge unless beforehand it be sufficiently known who they are what reason hereof but onely a common engrafted perswasion that in some men there may be found such qualities as are able to countervail those exceptions which might be taken against them and that such mens authority is not lightly to be shaken off Shall I add further that the force of Arguments drawn from the Authority of Scripture it self as Scriptures commonly are alledged shall being sifted be â—ound to depend upon the strength of this so much despised and debased authority of man Surely it doth and that oftner then we are aware of For although Scripture be of God and therefore the proof which is taken from thence must needs be of all other most invincible yet this strength at hath not unless it avouch the self-same thing for which it is brought If there be either undeniable apparence that so it doth or reason such as cannot deceive then Scripture-proof no doubt in strength and value exceedeth all But for the most part even such as are readiest to cite for one thing Five hundred sentences of holy Scripture what warrant have they that any one of them doth mean the thing for which it is alledged Is not their surest ground most commonly either some probable conjecture of their own or the judgment of others taking those Scriptures as they do Which notwithstanding to mean otherwise then they take them it is not still altogether impossible So that now and then they ground themselves on Humane authority even when they most pretend Divine Thus it fareth even clean throughout the whole controversie about that Discipline which is so earnestly urged and labored for Scriptures are plentifully alledged to prove that the whole Christian World for ever ought to embrace it Hereupon men term it The Discipline of God Howbeit examine sist and resolve their alledged proofs till you come to the very root from whence they spring the heart wherein their strength lieth and it shall clearly appear unto any man of judgment that the most which can be inferred upon such plenty of Divine Testimonies is onely this That some things which they maintain as far as some men can probably conjecture do seem to have been out of Scripture not absurdly gathered Is this a warrant sufficient for any mans conscience to build such proceedings upon as have been and are put in ure for the establishment of that cause But to conclude I would gladly understand how it cometh to pass that they which so peremptorily do maintain that Humane Authority is nothing worth are in the cause which they favor so careful to have the common sort of men perswaded that the wisest the godliest and the best learned in all Christendom are that way given seeing they judge this to make nothing in the World for them Again how cometh it to pass they cannot abide that Authority should be alledged on the other side if there be no force at all in Authorities on one side or other Wherefore labor they to strip their Adversaries of such furniture as doth not help Why take they such needless pains to furnish also their own cause with the like If it be void and to no purpose that the names of men are so frequent in their Books what did move them to bring them in or doth to suffer them there remaining Ignorant I am not how this is salved They do it but after the truth made manifest first by Reason or by Scripture They do it not but to controul the enemies of truth who bear themselves bold upon Humane Authority making not for them but against them rather Which answers are nothing For in what place or upon what consideration soever it be they do it were it in their own opinion of no force being done they would undoubtedly refrain to do it 8. But to the end it may more plainly appear what we are to judge of their sentences and of the cause it self wherein they are alledged first it may not well be denied that all actions of men endued with the use of reason are generally either good or evil For although it be granted that no action is properly termed good or evil unless it be voluntarily yet this can be no let to our former Assertion That all actions of men endued with the use of reason are generally either good or evil because even those things are done voluntarily by us which other Creatures do naturally in as much as we might stay our doing of them if we would Beasts naturally do take their food and rest when it offereth it self unto them If men did so too and could not do otherwise of themselves there were no place for any such reproof as that of our Saviour Christ unto his Disciples Could ye not watch with me one hour That which is voluntarily performed in things tending to the end if it be well done must needs be done with deliberate consideration of some reasonable cause wherefore we rather should do it then not Whereupon it seemeth that in such actions onely those are said to be good or evil which are capable of deliberation So that many things being hourly done by men wherein they need nor use with themselves any manner of consultation at all it may perhaps hereby seem that well or ill doing belongeth onely to our weightier affairs and to those deeds which are of so great importance that they require advice But thus to determine were perillous and peradventure unâ—ound also I do rather incline to think that seeing all the unforced actions of men are voluntary and all voluntary actions tending to the end have choice and all choice presupposeth the knowledge of some cause wherefore we make it where the reasonable cause of such actions so readily offereth it self that it needeth not be sought for in those things though we do not deliberate yet they are of their nature apt to be deliberated on in regard of the will which may encline either way and would not any one way bend it self if there were not some apparent motive to lead it Deliberation actual we use when there is doubt what we should encline our wills unto Where no doubt is deliberation is not excluded as unpertinent unto the thing but as needless in regard of the
way to keep his People from infection oâ— Idolaty and Superstition by severing them from Idolaters in outward Ceremonies and therefore hath forbidden them to do things which are in themselves very lawful to be done And â—urther where as the Lord was careful to sever them by Ceremonies from other Nations yet was he not so careful to sever them from any as from the Egyptians amongst whom they lived and from those Nations which were next Neighbours to them because from them was the greatest fear of infection So that following the course which the wisdom of God doth teach it were more safe for us to conform our indifferent Ceremonies to the Turks which are far off then to the Papists which are so near Touching the example of the eldest Churches of God in one Councel it was decreed that Christians should not deck their houses with Bay-leaves and green boughs because the Pagans did use so to do and that they should not rest from their labours those days that the Pagans did that they should not keep the first day of every month as they did Another Council decreed that Christians should not celebrate Feasts on the Birth-dayes of the Martyrs because it was the manner of the Heathen O saith Tertullian better is the Religion of the Heathen for they use no solemnity of the Christians neither the Lords day neither the Pentecost and if they knew them they would have nothing to do with them for they would be afraid lest they should seem Christians but we are not afraid to be called Heathens The same Tertullian would not have Christians to sit after they had payed because the Idolaters did so Whereby it appeareth that both of Particular men and of Counsels in making or abolishing of Ceremonies heed had been taken that the Christians should not be like the Idolaters no not in those things which of themselves are most indifferent to be used or not used The same conformity is not lesse opposite unto reason first inasmuch as contraries must be cured by their contraries and therefore Popery being Antichristianity is not healed but by establishment of Orders thereunto opposite The way to bring a drunken man to sobriety it to carry him as far from excess of drink as may be To rectifie a crooked stick we bend it on the contrary side as far as it was at the first on that side from whence we draw it and so it cometh in the end to a middle between both which is perfect straightness Utter inconformity therefore with the Church of Rome in these things is the best and surest Policy which the Church can use While we use their Ceremonies they take occasion to blaspheme saying that our Religion cannot stand by it self unless it lean upon the staff of their Ceremonies They hereby conceive great hope of having the rest of their Popery in the end which hope causeth them to be more frozen in their wickedness Neither is it without cause that they have this hope considering that which M. Bucer noteth upon the eighteenth of S. Matthew that where these things have been left Popery hath returned but on the other part in places which have been cleansed of these things it hath not yet been seen that it hath had any entrance None make such clamours for these Ceremonies as the Papists and those whom they suborn a manifest token how much they triumph and joy in these things They breed grief of minde in a number that are godly minded and have Antichristianity in such detestation that their minds are Martyred with the very sight of them in the Church Such godly Brethren we ought not thus to grieve with unprofitable Ceremonies yea Ceremonies wherein there is not only no profit but also danger of great hurt that may grow to the Church by infection which Popish Ceremonies are means to breed This in effect is the sum and substance of that which they bring by way of opposition against those Orders which we have common with the Church of Rome these are the reasons wherewith they would prove our Ceremonies in that respect worthy of blame 4. Before we answer unto these things we are to cut off that whereunto they from whom these Objections proceed do oftentimes fly for defence and succour when the force and strength of their Argument is elided For the Ceremonies in use amongst us being in no other respect retained saving onely for that to retain them is to our seeming good and profitable yea so profitable and so good that if we had either simply taken them clean away or else removed them so as to place in their stead others we had done worse the plain and direct way against us herein had been onely to prove that all such Ceremonies as they require to be abolished are retained by us to the hurt of the Church or with lesse benefit then the abolishment of them would bring But forasmuch as they saw how hardly they should be able to perform this they took a more compendious way traducing the Ceremonies of our Church under the name of being Popish The cause why this way seemed better unto them was for that the name of Popery is more odious then very Paganism amongst divers of the more simple sort so whatsoever they hear named Popish they presently conceive deep hatred against it imagining there can be nothing contained in that name but needs it must be exceeding detestable The ears of the People they have therefore filled with strong clamours The Church of England is fraught with Popish Ceremonies they that favour the cause of Reformation maintain nothing but the sincerity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ All such as withstand them fight for the Laws of his sworn enemy uphold the filthy reliques of Antichrist and are defenders of that which is Popish These are the notes wherewith are drawn from the hearts of the multitude so many sighs with these tunes their minds are exasperated against the lawful Guides and Governours of their souls these are the voices that fill them with general discontentment as though the bosom of that famous Church wherein they live were more noysom then any dungeon But when the Authors of so scandalous incantations are examined and called to account how can they justifie such their dealings when they are urged directly to answer whether it be lawful for us to use any such Ceremonies as the Church of Rome useth although the same be not commanded in the Word of God being driven to see that the use of some such Ceremonies must of necessity be granted lawful they go about to make us believe that they are just of the same Opinion and that they only think such Ceremonies are not to be used when they are unprofitable or when as good or better may be established Which Answer is both idle in regard of us and also repugnant to themselves It is in regard of us very vain to make this answer because they
the forbidding of the latter had no other reason then dissimilitude with that people they which of their own heads alledge this for reason can shew I think some reason more then we are able to find why the former was not also forbidden Might there not be some other mystery in this Prohibition then they think of Yes some other mystery there was in it by all likely-hood For what reason is there which should but induce and therefore much less inforce us to think that care of dissimilitude between the People of God and the Heathen Nations about them was any more the cause of forbidding them to put on Garments of sundry stuff then of charging theâ— withal not to sow their Fields with Meslin or that this was any more the cause of forbidding them to eat Swines-flesh than of charging them withal not to eat the flesh of Eagles Hawks and the like wherefore although the Church of Rome were to us as to Israel the Egyptians and Canaanites were of old yet doth it not follow that the wisdom of God without respect doth teach us to erect between us and them a partition wall of difference in such things indifferent as have been hitherto disputed of 7. Neither is the example of the eldest Churches a whit more available to this purpose Notwithstanding some fault undoubtedly there is in the very resemblance of Idolaters Were it not some kind of blemish to be like unto Infidels and Heathens it would not so usually be objected men would not think it any advantage in the causes of Religion to be able therewith justly to charge their Adversaries as they do Wherefore to the end that it may a little more plainly appear what force this hath and how far the same extendeth we are to note how all men are naturally desirous that they may seem neither to judge nor to do amiss because every Error and Offence is a stain to the beauty of Nature for which cause it blusheth thereat but glorieth in the contrary from whence it riseth that they which disgrace or depress the credit of others do it either in both or in one of these To have been in either directed by a weak and unperfect rule argueth imbecillity and imperfection Men being either led by reason or by imitation of other mens examples if their Persons be odious whose example we chuse to follow as namely if we frame our opinions to that which condemned Hereticks think or direct our Actions according to that which is practised and done by them it lyes as an heavy prejudice against us unless somewhat mightier then their bare example did move us to think or do the same things with them Christian men therefore having besides the common light of all men so great help of heavenly direction from above together with the Lamps of so bright examples at the Church of God doth yield it cannot but worthily seem reproachful for us to leave both the one and the other to become Disciples unto the most hateful sort that live to do as they do only because we see their example before us and have delight to follow it Thus we may therefore safely conclude that it is not evil simply to concur with the Heathens either in opinion or in action and that conformity with them is only then a disgrace when either we follow them in that they think and do amiss or follow them generally in that they do without other reason than only the liking we have to the pattern of their example which liking doth intimate a more universal approbation of them than is allowable Faustus the Manichee therefore objecting against the Jews that they forsook the Idols of the Gentiles but their Temples and Oblations and Altars and Priest hoods and all kind of Ministry of holy things they exercised even as the Gentiles did yea more superstituosly a great deal against the Catholick Christians likewise that between them and the Heathens there was in many things little difference From them saith Faustus ye have learned to hold that one only God is the Author of all their Sacrifices you have turned in Feasts of charity their Idols into Martyrs whom ye honour with the like Religious offices unto theirs The Ghosts of the dead ye appease with Wine and Delicates the Festival days of the Nations ye celebrate together with them and of their kind of life ye have utterly changed nothing S. Augustines defence in behalf of both is that touching the matters of Action Jews and Catholick Christians were free from the Gentiles faultiness even in those things which were objected as tokens of their agreement with the Gentiles and concerning their consent in opinion they did not hold the same with the Gentiles because Gentiles had so taught but because Heaven and Earth had so witnessed the same to be truth that neither the one sort could erre in being fully perswaded thereof nor the other but erre in case they should not consent with them In things of their own nature indifferent if either Councils or particular men have at any time with sound judgement misliked conformity between the Church of God and Infidels the cause thereof hath been somewhat else then onely affectation of dissimilitude They saw it necessary so to do in respect of some special accident which the Church being not alway subject unto hath not still cause to do the like For example in the dangerous days of tryal wherein there was no way for the truth of Jesus Christ to triumph over Infidelity but through the constancy of his Saints whom yet a natural desire to save themselves from the flame might peradventure cause to joyn with Pagans in external Customs too far using the same as a cloak to conceal themselves in and a mist to darken the eyes of Insidels withal for remedy hereof those Laws it might be were provided which forbad that Christians should deck their houses with Boughs as the Pagans did use to do or rest those Festival days whereon the Pagans rested or celebrate such Feasts as were though not Heathenish yet such that the simpler sort of Heathens might be beguiled in so thinking them As for Tertullians judgment concerning the Rites and Orders of the Church no man having judgment can be ignorant how just exceptions may be taken against it His opinion touching the Catholick Church was as un-indifferent as touching our Church the opinion of them that favour this pretended Reformation is He judged all them who did not Montanize to be but carnally minded he judged them still over-abjectly to fawn upon the Heathens and to curry favour with Inâ—idels Which as the Catholick Church did well provide that they might not do indeed so Tertullian over-often through discontentment carpeth injuriously at them as though they did it even when they were free from such meaning But if it were so that either the judgment of those Councils before alledged or of Tertullian himself against the Christians are
in no such consideration to be understood as we have mentioned if it were so that men are condemned as well of the one as of the other only for using the Ceremonies of a Religion contrary unto their own and that this cause is such as ought to prevail no less with us than with them shall it not follow that seeing there is still between our Religion and Paganism the self-same contrariety therefore we are still no less rebukeable if we now deck our Houses with Boughs or send New-years gifts unto our Friends or seast on those days which the Gentiles then did or sit after Prayer as they were accustomed For so they infer upon the premises that as great difference as commodiously may be there should be in all outward Ceremonies between the People of God and them which are not his People Again they teach as hath been declared that there is not as great a difference as may be between them except the one do avoid whatsoever Rites and Ceremonies uncommanded of God the other doth embrace So that generally they teach that the very difference of Spiritual condition it self between the Servants of Christ and others requireth such difference in Ceremonies between them although the one be never so far disjoyned in time or place from the other But in case the People of God and Belial do chance to be Neighbours then as the danger of infection is greater so the same difference they say is thereby made more necessary In this respect as the Jews were severed from the Heathen so most especially from the Heathen nearest them And in the same respect we which ought to differ howsoever from the Church of Rome are now they say by reason of our nearness more bound to differ from them in Ceremonies then from Turks A strange kind of speech unto Christianeus and such as I hope they themselves do acknowledge unadvisedly uttered We are not so much to fear infection from Turks as from Papists What of that we must remember that by conforming rather our selves in that respect to Turks we should be spreaders of a worse infection into others then any we are likely to draw from Papists by our conformity with them in Ceremonies If they did â—ate as Turks do the Christian or as Canaanites did of old the Jewish Religion even in gross the circumstance of local nearness in them unto us might haply inforce in us a duty of greater separation from them then from those other mentioned But forasmuch as Papists are so much in Christ nearer unto us then Turks is there any reasonable man now you but will judge it meeter that our Ceremonies of Christian Religion should be Popish then Turkish or Heathenish Especially considering that we were not brought to dwell amongst them as Israel in Canaan having not been of them For even a very part of them we were And when God did by his good Spirit put it into our hearts first to reform our selves whence grew our separation and then by all good means to seek also their Reformation had we not onely cut off their corruptions but also estranged our selves from them in things indifferent who seeth not how greatly prejudicial this might have been to so good a cause and what occasion it had given them to think to their greater obduration in evil that through a froward or wanton desire of Innovation we did unconstrainedly those things for which conscience was pretended Howsoever the case doth stand as Iuda had been rather to choose conformity in things indifferent with Israel when they were neerest opposites then with the farthest removed Pagans So we in like cases much rather with Papists than with Turks I might add further for a more full and complete Answer so much concerning the large odds between the case of the eldest Churches inregard of those Heathens and ours in respect of the Church of Rome that very cavillation it self should be satisfied and have no shift to fly unto 8. But that no one thing may detain us over-long I return to their Reasons against our conformity with that Church That extreme dissimilitude which they urge upon us is now commended as our best and safest policy for establishment of sound Religion The ground of which politick Position is That Evils must be cured by their contraries and therefore the cure of the Church infected with the poyson of Antichristianity must be done by that which is thereunto as contrary as may be A medled estate of the Orders of the Gospel and the Ceremonies of Popery is not the best way to banish Popery We are contrariwise of opinion that he which will perfectly recover a sick and restore a diseased body unto health must not endeavour so much to bring it to a state of simple contrariety as of fit proportion in contâ—ariety unto those evils which are to be cured He that will take away extreme heat by setting the body in extremity of cold shall undoubtedly remove the disease but together with it the diseased too The first thing therefore in skilful cures is the knowledge of the part affected the next is of the evil which doth affect it the last is not onely of the kind but also of the measure of contrary things whereby to remove it They which measure Religion by dislike of the Church of Rome think every man so much the more sound by how much he can make the corruptions thereof to seem more large And therefore some there are namely the Arrians in reformed Churches of Poland which imagine the Canker to have eaten so far into the very Bones and Marrow of the Church of Rome as if it had not so much as a sound belief no not concerning God himself but that the very belief of the Trinity were a part of Antichristian corruption and that the wonderful providence of God did bring to pass that the Bishop of the See of Rome should be famous for his tripple Crown a sensible mark whereby the world might know him to be that Mystical Beast spoken of in the Revelation to be that great and notorious Antichrist in no one respect so much as in this that he maintaineth the Doctrine of the Trinity Wisdom therefore and skill is requisite to know what parts are sound in that Church and what corrupted Neither is it to all men apparent which complain of unsound parts with what kind of unsoundness every such part is possessed They can say that in Doctrine in Discipline in Prayers in Sacraments the Church of Rome hath as it hath indeed very foul and gross corruptions the nature whereof notwithstanding because they have not for the most part exact skill and knowledge to discern they think that amiss many times which is not and the salve of Reformation they mightily call for but where and what the sores are which need it as they wot full little so they think it not greatly material to search such mens contentment must be wrought by stratagem the
usual method of Art is not for them But with those that profess more than ordinary and common knowledge of good from evil with them that are able to put a difference between things naught and things indifferent in the Church of Rome we are yet at controversie about the manner of removing that which is naught whether it may not be perfectly helpt unless that also which is indifferent be cut off with it so far till no Rite or Ceremony remain which the Church of Rome hath being not found in the Word of God If we think this too extreme they reply that to draw men from great excess it not amiss though we use them unto somewhat less then is competent and that a crooked stick is not straightned unless it be bent as far on the clean contrary side that so it may settle it self at the length in a middle estate of evenness between both But how can these comparisons stand them in any stead When they urge us to extreme opposition against the Church of Rome do they mean we should be drawn unto it only for a time and afterwards return to a mediocrity Or was it the purpose of those Reformed Churches which utterly abolished all Popish Ceremonies to come in the end back again to the middle point of evenness and moderation Then have we conceived amiss of their meaning For we have always thought their Opinion to be that utter inconformity with the Church of Rome was not an extremity whereunto we should be drawn for a time but the very mediocrity it self wherein they meant we should ever continue Now by these comparisons it seemeth clean contrary that howsoever they have bent themselves at first to an extreme contrariety against the Romish Church yet therein they will continue no longer then onely till such time as some more moderate course for establishment of the Church may be concluded Yea albeit this were not at the first their intent yet surely now there is great cause to lead them unto it They have seen that experience of the former Policy which may cause the Authors of it to hang down their heads When Germany had stricken off that which appeared corrupt in the Doctrine of the Church of Rome but seemed nevertheless in Discipline still to retain therewith very great conformity France by that rule of policy which hath been before mentioned took away the Popish Orders which Germany did retain But process of time hath brought more light into the world whereby men perceiving that they of the Religion in France have also retained some Orders which were before in the Church of Rome and are not commanded in the Word of God there hath arisen a Sect in England which following still the very self-same Rule of policy seeketh to reform even the French Reformation and purge out from thence also dregs of Popery These have not taken as yet such root that they are able to establish any thing But if they had what would spring out of their stock and how far the unquiet wit of man might be carried with rules of such policy God doth know The trial which we have lived to see may somewhat teach us what posterity is to fear But our Lord of his infinite mercy avert whatsoever evil our swervings on the one hand or on the other may threaten unto the state of his Church 9. That the Church of Rome doth hereby take occasion to blaspheme and to say our Religion is not able to stand of it self unless it lean upon the staff of their Ceremonies is not a matter of so great moment that it did need to be objected or doth deserve to receive answer The name of blasphemy in this place is like the shoo of Hercules on a childs foot If the Church of Rome do use any such kind of silly exprobration it is no such ugly thing to the eat that we should think the honour and credit of our Religion to receive thereby any great wound They which hereof make so perillous a matter do seem to imagine that we have erected of late a frame of some new Religion the furniture whereof we should not have borrowed from our Enemies lest they relieving us might afterwards laugh and gibe at our poverty whereas in truth the Ceremonies which we have taken from such as were before us are not things that belong to this or that Sect but they are the ancient Rites and Customs of the Church of Christ whereof our selves being a part we have the self-same interest in them which our Fathers before us had from whom the same are descended unto us Again in case we had been so much beholden privately unto them doth the reputation of one Church stand by saying unto another I need thee not If some should be so vain and impotent as to mar a benefit with reproachful upbraiding where at the least they suppose themselves to have bestowed some good turn yet surely a wise bodies part it were not â—o put out his fire because his fond and foolish Neighbour from whom he borrowed peradventure wherewith to kindle it might haply cast him therewith in the teeth saying Were it not for me thou wouldest freez and not be able to heat thy self As for that other Argument derived from the secret affection of Papists with whom our conformity in certain Ceremonies is said to put them in great hope that their whole Religion in time will have re-entrance and therefore none are so clamorous amongst us for the observation of these Ceremonies as Papists and such as Papists suborn to speak for them whereby it clearly appeareth how much they rejoyce how much they triumph in these thiâ—… our answer hereunto is still the same that the benefit we have by such Ceremonâ—… over-weigheth even this also No man that is not exceeding partial can well dâ—… but that there is most just cause wherefore we should be offended greatly at the Church of Rome Notwithstanding at such times as we are to deliberate for our selves the freer our minds are from all cistempered affections the sounder and better is our judgement When we are in a fretting mood at the Church of Rome and with that angry disposition enter into any cogitation of the Orders and Rites of our Church taking particular survey of them we are sure to have always one eye fixed upon the countenance of our Enemies and according to the blithe or heavy aspect thereof our other eye sheweth some other suitable token either of dislike or approbation towards our own Orders For the rule of our Judgement in such case being only that of Homer This is the thing which our Enemies would have what they seem contented with even for that very cause we reject and there is nothing but it pleaseth as much the better if we espy that is galleth them Miserable were the state and condition of that Church the weighty affairs whereof should be ordered by those deliberations wherein such an humour as
meaneth Offence or scandal if I be not deceived saith he is when the example not of a good but of an evil thing doth set men forward to â—â—â— sin Good things can scandalize none save onely evil mindes Good things have no scandalizing Nature in them Yet that which is of it own nature either good or at least not evil may by some accident become scandalous at certain times and in certain places and to certain men the open use thereof nevertheless being otherwise without danger The very Nature of some Rites and Ceremonies therefore is scandalous as it was in a number of those which the Manichees did use and is in all such as the Law of God doth forbid Some are offensive onely through the Agreement of Men to use them unto evil and not else as the most of those things indifferent which the Heathens did to the service of their false gods which another in heart condemning their Idolatry could not do with them in shew and token of Approbation without being guilty of scandal given Ceremonies of this kinde are either devised at the first unto evil as the Eunomian Hereticks in dishonor of the Blessed Trinity brought in the laying on of Water but once to cross the custom of the Church which in Baptism did it thrice Or else having had a profitable use they are afterwards interpreted and wrested to the contrary as those Hereticks which held the Trinity to be three distinct not Persons but Natures abused the Ceremony of three times laying on Water in Baptism unto the strengthning of their Heresie The Element of Water is in Baptism necessary once to lay it on or twice is indifferent For which cause Gregory making mention thereof saith To dive an Insant either thrice or but once in Baptism can be no way a thing reproveable seeing that both in three times washing the Trinity of Persons and in one the Unity of the Godhead may be signified So that of these two Ceremonies neither being hurtful in it self both may serve unto good purpose yet one was devised and the other converted unto evil Now whereas in the Church of Rome certain Ceremonies are said to have been shamefully abused unto evil as the ceremony of Crossing at Baptism of Kneeling at the Eucharist of using Wafer-Cakes and such like the question is Whether for remedy of that evil wherein such Ceremonies have been scandalous and perhaps may be still unto some even amongst ourselves whom the presence and sight of them may confirm in that â—ormer error whereto they served in times past they are of necessity to be removed Are these or any other Ceremonies we have common with the Church of Rome scandalous and wicked in their very nature This no man objecteth Are any such as have been polluted from their very birth and instituted even at the first unto that thing which is evil That which hath been ordained impiously at the first may wear out that impiety in tract of time and then what doth let but that the use thereof may stand without offence The names of our Moneths and of our Days we are not ignorant from whence they came and with what dishonor unto God they are said to have been devised at the first What could be spoken against any thing more effectual to stir hatred then that which sometime the Antient Fathers in this case speak Yet those very names are at this day in use throughout Christendom without hurt or scandal to any Clear and manifest it is that things devised by Hereticks yea devised of a very heretical purpose even against Religion and at their first devising worthy to have been withstood may in time grow meet to be kept as that Custom the inventers whereof were the Eunomian Hereticks So that customs once established and confirmed by long use being presently without harm are not in regard of their corrupt original to be held scandalous But concerning those our Ceremonies which they reckon for most Popish they are not able to avouch that any of them was otherwise instituted then unto good yea so used at the first It followeth then that they all are such as having served to good purpose were afterwards converted unto the contrary And sith it is not so much as objected against us that we retain together with them the evil wherewith they have been infected in the Church of Rome I would demand Who they are whom we scandalize by using harmless things unto that good end for which they were first instituted Amongst our selves that agree in the approbation of this kinde of good use no man will say that one of us is offensive and scandalous unto another As for the favorers of the Church of Rome they know how far we herein differ and dissent from them which thing neither we conceal and they by their publick writings also profess daily how much it grieveth them So that of them there will not many rise up against us as witnesses unto the Inditement of Scandal whereby we might be condemned and cast as having strengthned them in that evil wherewith they pollute themselves in the use of the same Ceremonies And concerning such as withstand the Church of England herein and hate it because it doth not sufficiently seem to hate Rome they I hope are far enough from being by this mean drawn to any kinde of Popish Error The multitude therefore of them unto whom we are scandalous through the use of abused Ceremonies is not so apparent that it can justly be said in general of any one sort of men or other we cause them to offend If it be so that now or then some few are espied who having been accustomed heretofore to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of Rome are not so scoured of their former rust as to forsake their antient perswasion which they have had howsoever they frame themselves to outward obedience of Laws and Orders because such may misconster the meaning of our Ceremonies and so take them as though they were in every sort the same they have been Shall this be thought a reason sufficient whereon to conclude that some Law must necessarily be made to abolish all such Ceremonies They answer that there is no Law of God which doth binde us to retain them And St. Pauls rule is that in those things from which without hurt we may lawfully abstain we should frame the usage of our Liberty with regard to the weakness and imbecillity of our Brethren Wherefore unto them which stood upon their own defence saying All things are lawful unto me he replieth But all things are not expedient in regard of others All things are clean all Meats are lawful but evil unto that man that eateth offensively If for thy meats sake thy Brother be grieved thou walkest no longer according to Charity Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died Dissolve not for foods sake the work of God We that are strong must bear the imbecillity of
or Rites as publickly are established is when there ariseth from the due consideration of those Customs and Rites in themselves apparent reason although not alwayes to prove them better than any other that might possibly be devised for who did ever require this in man's Ordinances yet competent to shew their conveniency and fitness in regard of the use for which they should serve Now touching the nature of religious Services and the manner of their due performance thus much generally we know to be most clear that whereas the greatness and dignity of all manner of Actions is measured by the worthiness of the Subject from which they proceed and of the Object whereabout they are conversant we must of necessity in both respects acknowledge that this present World affordeth not any thing comparable unto the publick Duties of Religion For if the best things have the perfectest and best operations it will follow that seeing Man is the worthiest Creature upon earth and every Society of Men more worthy than any Man and of Societies that most excellent which we call the Church there can be in this World no work performed equal to the exercise of true Religion the proper operation of the Church of God Again forasmuch as Religion worketh upon him who in Majesty and Power is infinite as we ought we account not of it unless we esteem it even according to that very height of Excellency which our hearts conceive when Divine sublimity it self is rightly considered In the powers and faculties of our Souls God requireth the uttermost which our unfeigned affection towards him is able to yield So that if we affect him not farr above and before all things our Religion hath not that inward perfection which it should have neither do we indeed worship him as our God That which inwardly each man should be the Church outwardly ought to testifie And therefore the Duties of our Religion which are seen must be such as that affection which is unseen ought to be Signs must resemble the Things they signifie If Religion bear the greatest sway in our Hearts our outward religious Duties must shew it as farr as the Church hath outward Ability Duties of Religion performed by whole Societies of men ought to have in them according to our power a sensible Excellency correspondent to the Majesty of Him whom we worship Yea then are the publick Duties of Religion best ordered when the Militant Church doth resemble by sensible means as it may in such cases that hidden Dignity and Glory wherewith the Church Triumphant in Heaven is beautified Howbeit even as the very heat of the Sun it self which is the life of the whole World was to the people of God in the Desert a grievous annoyance for ease whereof his extraordinary Providence ordained a Cloudy Pillar to over-shadow them So things of general use and benefit for in this world What is so perfect that no Inconvenience doth ever follow itâ— may by some accident be incommodious to a few In which case for such private Evils remedies thereare of like condition though publick Ordinances wherein the Common good is respected be not stirred Let our first Demand be therefore That in the External Form of Religion such things as are apparently or can be sufficiently proved effectual and generally fit to setforward Godliness either as betokening the greatness of God or as beseeming the Dignity of Religion or as concurring with Celestial Impressions in the mindes of men may be reverently thought of some few rare casual and tollerable or otherwise curable Inconveniences notwithstanding 7. Neither may we in this Case lightly esteem what hath been allowed as fit in the judgment of Antiquity and by the long continued practise of the whole Church from which unnecessarily to swerve Experience never as yet hath found it safe For Wisdom's sake we reverence them no less that are young or not much less then if they were stricken in years And therefore of such it is rightly said That the ripeness of Understanding is gray Hair and their Vertues old Age. But because Wisdom and Youth are seldom joyned in one and the ordinary course of the World is more according to Iob's Observation who giveth men advice to seek Wisdom amongst the Antient and in the length of Dayes Understanding therefore if the Comparison do stand between Man and Man which shall hearken unto other sith the Aged for the most part are best experienced least subject to rash and unadvised Passions it hath been ever judged reasonable That their Sentence in matter of Counsel should be better trusted and more relyed upon than other mens The goodness of God having furnished men with two chief Instruments both necessary for this life Hands to execute and a Mind to devise great things the one is not profitable longer than the vigour of Youth doth strengthen it nor the other greatly till Age and Experience have brought it to Perfection In whom therefore Time hath not perfected Knowledge such must be contented to follow them in whom it hath For this Cause none is more attentively heard than they whose Speeches are as Davids were I have been Young and now am Old much I have seen and observed in the World Sharp and subtile discourses of Wit procure many times very great applause but being laid in the Ballance with that which the habit of sound Experience plainly delivereth they are over-weighed God may endue Men extraordinarily with Understanding as it pleaseth him But let no Man presuming thereupon neglect the Instructions or despite the Ordinances of his Elders sith he whose gift Wisdom is hath said Ask thy Father and he will shew thee thine Antients and they shall tell thee It is therefore the Voyce both of God and Nature not of Learning only that especially in matters of Action and Policy The sentences and judgements of Men experienced aged and wise yea though they speak without any proof or demonstration are no less to be hearkned unto than as being Demonstrations in themselves because such Mens long Observation is as an Eye wherewith they presently and plainly behold those Principles which sway over all Actions Whereby we are taught both the Cause wherefore Wise-mens Judgments should be credited and the Mean how to use their Judgments to the increase of our own Wisdom That which sheweth them to be Wise is the gathering of Principles out of their own particular Experiments And the framing of our particular Experiments according to the Rule of their Principles shall make us such as they are If therefore even at the first so great account should be made of Wise mens Counsels touching things that are Publickly done as time shall add thereunto continuance and approbation of succeeding Ages their Credit and Authority must needs be greater They which do nothing but that which men of Account did before them are although they do amiss yet the less faulty because they are not the Authors of
men as contrariwise the ground of all our happiness and the seed of whatsoever perfect vertue groweth from us is a right opinion touching things divine this kind of knowledge we may justly set down for the first and chiefest thing which God imparteth unto his People and our duty of receiving this at his merciful hands for the first of those religious Offices wherewith we publickly honour him on earth For the instruction therefore of all sorts of men to eternal life it is necessary that the sacred and saving truth of God be openly published unto them Which open publication of heavenly mysteries is by an excellency termed preaching For otherwise there is not any thing publickly notified but we may in that respect rightly and properly say it is preached So that when the School of God doth use it as a word of Art we are accordingly to understand it with restraint to such special matter as that School is accustomed to publish We find not in the World any People that have lived altogether without Religion And yet this duty of Religion which provideth that publickly all sorts of men may be instructed in the fear of God is to the Church of God and hath been always so peculiar that none of the Heathens how curious soever in searching out all kinds of outward Ceremonies like to ours could ever once so much as endeavour to resemble herein the Churches care for the endless good of her Children Ways of teaching there have been sundry always usual in Gods Church For the first introduction of youth to the knowledge of God the Jews even till this day have their Catechisms With Religion it fareth as with other Sciences the first delivery of the Elements thereof must for like consideration be framed according to the weak and slender capacity of young Beginners unto which manner of teaching Principles in Christianity the Apostle in the sixth to the Hebrews is himself understood to allude For this cause therefore as the Decalogue of Moses declareth summarily those things which we ought to do the Prayer of our Lord whatsoever we should request or desire so either by the Apostles or at the least-wise out of their Writings we have the substance of Christian Belief compendiously drawn into few and short Articles to the end that the weakness of no mans wit might either hinder altogether the knowledge or excuse the utter ignorance of needful things Such as were trained up in these Rudiments and were so made fit to be afterward by Baptism received into the Church the Fathers usually in their Writings do term Hearers as having no farther communion or fellowship with the Church than only this that they were admitted to hear the Principles of Christian Faith made plain unto them Catechizing may be in Schools it may be in private Families But when we make it a kind of Preaching we mean always the publick performance thereof in the open hearing of men because things are preached not in that they are taught but in that they are published 19. Moses and the Prophets Christ and his Apostles were in their times all Preachers of Gods Truth some by Word some by Writing some by both This they did partly as faithful Witnesses making meer relation what God himself had revealed unto them and partly as careful Expounders Teachers Perswaders thereof The Church in like case Preacheth still first publishing by way of Testimony or relation the truth which from them she hath received even in such sort as it was received written in the sacred volumes of Scripture Secondly by way of explication discovering the mysteries which lye hid therein The Church as a Witness preacheth his meer revealed Truth by reading publickly the Sacred Scripture So that a second kind of preaching is the reading of holy Writ For thus we may the boldlier speak being strengthened with the examples of so reverend a Prelate as saith that Moses from the time of antient Generations and Ages long since past had amongst the Cities of the very Gentiles them that preached him in that he was read every Sabbath day For so of necessity it must be meant in as much as we know that the Jews have alwayes had their weekly Readings of the Law of Moses but that they always had in like manner their weekly Sermons upon some part of the Law of Moses we no where find Howbeit still we must here remember that the Church by her publick reading of the Book of God preacheth only as a Witness Now the principal thing required in a Witness is Fidelity Wherefore as we cannot excuse that Church which either through corrupt translations of Scripture delivereth instead of divine Speeches any thing repugnant unto that which God speaketh or through falsified additions proposeth that to the people of God as Scripture which is in truth no Scripture So the blame which in both these respects hath been laid upon the Church of England is surely altogether without cause Touching Translations of Holy Scripture albeit we may not disallow of their painful travels herein who strictly have tyed themselves to the very Original letter yet the judgment of the Church as we see by the practise of all Nations Greeks Latines Persians Syrians AEthiopians Arabians hath been ever That the fittest for publick Audience are such as following a middle course between the rigor of literal Translators and the liberty of Paraphrasts do with greatest shortness and plainness deliver the meaning of the Holy Ghost Which being a labour of so great difficulty the exact performance thereof we may rather wish than look for So that except between the words of translation and the mind of Scripture it self there be Contradiction every little difference should not seem an intolerable blemish necessarily to be spunged out Whereas therefore the Prophet David in a certain Psalm doth say concerning Moses and Aaron that they were obedient to the word of God and in the self-same place â—or allowed Translation saith they were not obedient we are for this cause challenged as manifest Gain-sayers of Scripture even in that which we read for Scripture unto the people But for as much as words are resemblances of that which the mind of the Speaker conceiveth and Conceits are Images representing that which is spoken of it followeth that they who will judge of words should have recourse to the things themselves from whence they rise In setting down that Miracle at the sight whereof Peter fell down astonished before the feet of Jesus and cryed Depart Lord I am a Sinner the Evangelist St. Luke saith the store of the Fish which they took was such that the Net they took it in brake and the Ships which they loaded therewith sunk St. Iohn recording the like Miracle saith That albeit the Fishes in number were so many yet the Net with so great a weight was not broken Suppose they had written both of one Miracle Although there be in their
the Holy Ghost And the end of all Scripture is the same which Saint Iohn proposeth in the writing of that most Divine Gospel namely Faith and through Faith Salvation Yea all Scripture is to this effect in it self available as they which wrote it were perswaded unless we suppose that the Evangelists or others in speaking of their own intent to instruct and to save by writing had a secret Conceit which they never opened to any a Conceit that no man in the World should ever be that way the better for any Sentence by them written till such time as the same might chance to be preached upon or alledged at the least in a Sermon Otherwise if he which writeth doth that which is forceable in it self how should he which readeth be thought to do that which in it self is of no force to work Belief and to save Believers Now although we have very just cause to stand in some jealousie and fear lest by thus overvaluing their Sermons they make the price and estimation of Scripture otherwise notified to fall nevertheless so impatient they are that being but requested to let us know what causes they leave for mens incouragement to attend to the reading of the Scripture if Sermons only be the power of God to save every one which believeth that which we move for our better learning and instruction-sake turneth unto anger and choler in them they grow altogether out of quietness with it they answer fumingly that they are ashamed to defile their Pens with making answer to such idle questions yet in this their mood they cast forth somewhat wherewith under pain of greater displeasure we must rest contented They tell us the profit of Reading is singular in that it serveth for a Preparative unto Sermons it helpeth prettily towards the nourishment of Faith which Sermons have once ingendred it is some stay to his minde which readeth the Scripture when he findeth the same things there which are taught in Sermons and thereby perceiveth how God doth concurr in opinion with the Preacher besides it keepeth Sermons in memory and doth in that respect although not feed the Soul of man yet help the retentive force of that stomack of the minde which receiveth ghostly â—ood at the Preachers hands But the principal cause of writing the Gospel was that it might be preached upon or interpreted by publick Ministers apt and authorized thereunto Is it credible that a superstitious conceit for it is no better concerning Sermons should in such sort both darken their Eyes and yet sharpen their Wits withall that the only true and weightly cause why Scripture was written the cause which in Scripture is so often mentioned the cause which all men have ever till this present day acknowledged this they should clean exclude as being no cause at all and load us with so great store of strange concealed causes which did never see light till now In which number the rest must needs be of moment when the very chiefest cause of committing the Sacred Word of God unto Books is surmised to have been lest the Preacher should want a Text whereupon to scholie Men of Learning hold it for a slip in Judgement when offer is made to demonstrate that as proper to one thing which Reason findeth common unto moe Whereas therefore they take from all kindes of teachings that which they attribute to Sermons it had been their part to yield directly some strong reason why between Sermons alone and Faith there should be ordinarily that coherence which causes have with their usual effects why a Christian man's belief should so naturally grow from Sermons and not possibly from any other kinde of teaching In belief there being but these two operations Apprehension and Assent Do only Sermons cause Belief in that no other way is able to explain the mysteries of God that the minde may rightly apprehend or conceive them as behooveth We all know that many things are believed although they be intricate obscure and dark although they exceed the reach and capacity of our Wits yea although in this World they be no way possible to be understood Many things believed are likewise so plain that every Common Person may therein be unto himself a sufficient Expounder Finally to explain even those things which need and admit explication many other usual ways there are besides Sermons Therefore Sermons are not the only ordinary means whereby we first come to apprehend the Mysterys of God Is it in regard then of Sermons only that apprehending the Gospel of Christ we yield thereunto our unfeigned assent as to a thing infallibly true They which rightly consider after what sort the heart of man hereunto is framed must of necessity acknowledge that who so assenteth to the words of Eternal life doth it in regard of his Authority whose words they are This is in man's conversion unto God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first step whereat his race towards Heaven beginneth Unless therefore clean contrary to our own experience we shall think it a miracle if any man acknowledge the Divine authority of the Scripture till some Sermon have perswaded him thereunto and that otherwise neither conversation in the bosome of the Church nor religious Education nor the reading of Learned mens Books nor Information received by conference nor whatsoever pain and diligence in hearing studying meditating day and night on the Law is so far blest of God as to work this effect in any man how would they have us to grant that Faith doth not come but only by heating Sermons Fain they would have us to believe the Apostle Saint Paul himself to be Author of this their Paradox only because he hath said that it pleaseth God by the foolishness of Preaching to save them which believe and again How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard How shall they hear without a Preacher How shall men preach except they be sent To answer therefore both Allegations at once The very substance of what they contain is in few but this Life and Salvation God will have offered unto all his will is that Gentiles should be saved as well as Jews Salvation belongeth unto none but such as call upon the Name of our Lord Iesus Christ. Which Nations as yet unconverted neither do not possibly can do till they believe What they are to believe impossible it is they should know till they bear it Their Hearing requireth our Preaching unto them Tertullian to draw even Painyms themselves unto Christian Belief willeth the Books of the Old Testament to be searched which were at that time in Ptolemics Library And if men did not lift to travel so far though it were for their endless good he addeth that in Rome and other places the Jews had Synagogues whereunto every one which would might resort that this kinde of Liberty they purchased by payment
lost and that without all hope of recovery This is the true cause of odds between Sermons and other kindes of wholesome Instruction As for the difference which hath been hitherto so much defended on the contrary side making Sermons the only ordinary means unto Faith and eternal Life sith this hath neither evidence of Truth nor proof sufficient to give it warrant a cause of such quality may with fart better grace and conveniency aske that pardon which common humanity doth easily grant than claim in challenging manner that assent which is as unwilling when reason guideth it to be yielded where it is not as with-held where it is apparently due All which notwithstanding as we could greatly wish that the rigour of this their opinion were allayed and mittigated so because we hold it the part of religious ingenuity to honour vertue in whomsoever therefore it is our most hearty desire and shall be always our Prayer unto Almighty God that in the self-same fervent zeal wherewith they seem to effect the good of the Souls of men and to thirst after nothing more than that all men might by all means be directed in the way of life both they and we may constantly persist to the Worlds end For in this we are not their Adversaries though they in the other hitherto have been ours 23. Between the Throne of God in Heaven and his Church upon Earth here militant if it be so that Angels have their continual intercourse where should we finde the same more verified than in those two ghostly Exercises the one Doctrine the other Prayer For what is the Assembling of the Church to learn but the receiving of Angels descended from above What to pray but the sending of Angels upwards His Heavenly Inspirations and our holy Desires are as so many Angels of intercourse and commerce between God and us As Teaching bringeth us to know that God is our supream Truth so Prayer testifieth that we acknowledge him our soveraign Good Besides sith on God as the most High all inferiour Causes in the World are dependant and the higher any Cause is the more it coveteth to impart vertue unto things beneath it how should any kinde of service we do or can do finde greater acceptance than Prayer which sheweth our concurrence with him in desiring that wherewith his very Nature doth most delight Is not the name of Prayer usual to signifie even all the service that ever we do unto God And that for no other cause as I suppose but to shew that there is in Religion no acceptable Duty which devout Invocation of the name of God doth not either presuppose or inferr Prayers are those Calves of Mens lips those most gracious and sweet odours those rich Presents and Gifts which being carried up into Heaven do best restifie our dutiful affection and are for the purchasing of all favour at the hands of God the most undoubted means we can use On others what more easily and yet what more fruitfully bestowed than our Prayers If we give Counsel they are the simpler onely that need it if Almes the poorer only are relieved but by Prayer we do good to all And whereas every other Duty besides is but to shew it self as time and opportunity require for this all times are convenient when we are not able to do any other things for mens behoof when through maliciousness or unkindness they vouchsafe not to accept any other good at our hands Prayer is that which we always have in our power to bestow and they never in theirs to refuse Wherefore God fotbid saith Samuel speaking unto a most unthankful People a People weary of the benefit of his most vertuous Government over them God forbid that I should sin against the Lord and cease to pray for you It is the first thing wherewith a righteous life beginneth and the last wherewith it doth end The knowledge is small which we have on Earth concerning things that are done in Heaven Notwithstanding thus much we know even of Saints in Heaven that they pray And therefore Prayer being a work common to the Church as well Triumphant as Militant a work common unto Men with Angels what should we think but that so much of our Lives is celestial and divine as we spend in the exercise of Prayer For which cause we see that the most comfortable Visitations which God hath sent men from above have taken especially the times of Prayer as their most natural opportunities 24. This holy and religious duty of Service towards God concerneth us one way in that we are men and another way in that we are joined as parts to that visible Mystical Body which is his Church As men we are at our own choice both for time and place and form according to the exigence of our own occasions in private But the service which we do as Members of a Publick Body is publick and for that cause must needs be accompted by so much worthier than the other as a whole society of such condition exceedeth the worth of any one In which consideration unto Christian Assemblies there are most special Promises made St. Paul though likely to prevail with God as much as any one did notwithstanding think it much more both for God's glory and his own good if Prayers might be made and thanks yielded in his behalf by a number of men The Prince and People of Niniveh assembling themselves as a main Army of Supplicants it was not in the power of God to withstand them I speak no otherwise concerning the force of Publick Prayer in the Church of God than before me Tertullian hath done We come by Troops to the Place of Assembly that being banded as it were together we may be Sapplicants enough to besiege God with our Prayers These Forces are unto him acceptable When we publickly make our Prayers it cannot be but that we do it with much more comfort than in private for that the things we aske publickly are approved as needful and good in the Judgement of all we hear them sought for and desired with common consent Again thus much help and furtherance is more yielded in that if so be our zeal and devotion to God-ward be slack the alacrity and fervour of others serveth as a present spurt For even Prayer it self saith Saint Basil when it hath not the consort of many voyces to strengthen it is not it self Finally the good which we do by Publick Prayer is more than in private can be done for that besides the benefit which is here is no less procured to our selves the whole Church is much bettered by our good example and consequently whereas secret neglect of our duty in this kinde is but only our own hurt one man's contempt of the Common Prayer of the Church of God may be and oftentimes is most hurtful unto many In which considerations the Prophet David so often voweth
in the presence of great men as what doth most avail to our own edification in piety and godly zeal If they on the contrary side do think that the same rules of decency which serve for things done unto terrene Powers should universally decide what is fit in the service of God if it be their meaning to hold it for a Maxim That the Church must deliver her publick Supplications unto God in no other form of speech than such as were decent if suit should be made to the Great Turk or some other Monarch let them apply their own rule unto their own form of Common-Prayer Suppose that the people of a whole Town with some chosen man before them did continually twice or thrice in a week resort to their King and every time they come first acknowledge themselves guilty of Rebellions and Treasons then sing a Song and after that explain some Statute of the Land to the Standers by and therein spend at the least an hour this done turn themselves again to the King and for every sort of his Subjects crave somewhat of him at the length sing him another Song and so take their leave Might not the King well think that either they knew not what they would have or else that they were distracted in minde or some other such like cause of the disorder of their Supplication This form of suing unto Kings were absurd This form of Praying unto God they allow When God was served with legal Sacrifices such was the miserable and wretched disposition of some mens mindes that the best of every thing they had being culled out for themselves if there were in their flocks any poor starved or diseased thing not worth the keeping they thought it good enough for the Altar of God pretending as wise Hyprocrites do when they rob God to enrich themselves that the fatness of Calves doth benefit him nothing to us the best things are most profitable to him all as one if the minde of the Offerer be good which is the only thing he respecteth In reproof of which their devout fraud the Prophet Malachy alledgeth that gifts are offered unto God not as supplys of his want indeed but yet as testimonies of that affection wherewith we acknowledge and honour his greatness For which cause sith the greater they are whom we honour the more regard we have to the quality and choice of those Presents which we bring them for honor's sake it must needs follow that if we dare not disgrace our worldly Superiours with offering unto them such reffuse as we bring unto God himself we shew plainly that our acknowledgment of his Greatnesse is but feigned in heart we fear him not so much as we dread them If ye offer the blinde for Sacrifice is it not evil Offer it now unto thy Prince Will he be content or accept thy Person saith the Lord of Hosts Cursed be the Deceiver which hath in his Flock a Male and having made a Vow sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing For I am a great King saith the Lord of Hosts Should we hereupon frame a Rule that what form of speech or behaviour soever is fit for Suiters in a Prince's Court the same and no other beseemeth us in our Prayers to Almighty God 35. But in vain we labour to perswade them that any thing can take away the tediousness of Prayer except it be brought to the very same both measure and form which themselves assign Whatsoever therefore our Liturgy hath more than theirs under one devised pretence or other they cut it off We have of Prayers for Earthly things in their opinion too great a number so oft to rehearse the Lords Prayer in so small a time is as they think a loss of time the Peoples praying after the Minister they say both wasteth time and also maketh an unpleasant sound the Psalms they would not have to be made as they are a part of our Common-Prayer nor to be sung or said by turns nor such Musick to be used with them those Evangelical Hymns they allow not to stand in our Liturgy the Letany the Creed of Athanasius the Sentence of Glory wherewith we use to conclude Psalms these things they cancel as having been instituted in regard of occasions peculiar to the times of old and as being therefore now superfluous Touching Prayers for things earthly we ought not to think that the Church hath set down so many of them without cause They peradventure which finde this fault are of the same affection with Solomon so that if God should offer to grant the whatsoever they ask they would neither crave Riches not length of dayes not yet victory over their Enemies but only an understanding heart for which cause themselves having Eagles wings are offended to see others flye so near the ground But the tender kindness of the Church of God it very well beseemeth to help the weaker sort which are by so great oddes moe in number although some few of the perfecter and stronger may be therewith for a time displeased Ignorant we are not that of such as resorted to our Saviour Christ being present on Earth there came not any unto him with better success for the benefit of their Souls everlasting happiness than they whose bodily necessities gave them the first occasion to seek relief when they saw willingness and ability of doing every way good unto all The graces of the Spirit are much more precious than worldly benefits our ghostly evils of greater importance than any harm which the body feeleth Therefore our desires to heaven-ward should both in measure and number no less exceed than their glorious Object doth every way excel in value These things are true and plain in the eye of a perfect Judgement But yet it must be withal considered that the greatest part of the World are they which be farthest from perfection Such being better able by sense to discern the wants of this present life than by spiritual capacity to apprehend things above sense which tend to their happiness in the world to come are in that respect the more apt to apply their mindes even with hearty affection and zeal at the least unto those Branches of Publick prayer wherein their own particular is moved And by this mean there stealeth upon them a double benefit first because that good affection which things of smaller account have once set on work is by so much the more easily raised higher and secondly in that the very custom of seeking so particular aide and relief at the hands of God doth by a secret contradiction withdraw them from endeavouring to help themselves by those wicked shifts which they know can never have his allowance whose assistance their Prayer seeketh These multiplyed Petitions of worldly things in Prayer have therefore besides their direct use a Service whereby the Church under-hand through a kinde of heavenly fraud taketh therewith the Souls of men as with certain baits If
at all times edefie and instruct the attentive hearer Or is our Faith in the Blessed Trinity a matter needless to be so oftentimes mentioned and opened in the principal part of that duty which we ow to God our Publick Prayer Hath the Church of Christ from the first beginning by a secret Universal Instinct of Gods good Spirit always tied it self to end neither Sermon nor almost any speech of moment which hath concerned Matters of God without some special words of honor and glory to that Trinity which we all adore and is the like conclusion of Psalms become now at length an eye-sore or a galling to their ears that hear it Those flames of Arianism they say are quenched which were the cause why the Church devised in such sort to confess and praise the glorious Deity of the Son of God Seeing therefore the sore is whole why retain we as yet the Plaâ—ster When the cause why any thing was ordained doth once cease the thing it self should cease with it that the Church being eased of unprofitable labors needful offices may the better be attended For the doing of things unnecessary is many times the cause why the most necessary are not done But in this case so to reason will not serve their turns For first the ground whereupon they build is not certainly their own but with special limitations Few things are so restrained to any one end or purpose that the same being extinct they should forthwith utterly become frustrate Wisdom may have framed one and the same thing to serve commodiously for divers ends and of those ends any one be sufficient cause for continuance though the rest have ceased even as the Tongue which Nature hath given us for an Instrument of speech is not idle in dumb persons because it also serveth for taste Again if time have worn out or any other mean altogether taken away what was first intended uses not thought upon before may afterwards spring up and be reasonable causes of retaining that which other considerations did formerly procure to be instituted And it cometh sometime to pass that a thing unnecessary in it self as touching the whole direct purpose whereto it was meant or can be applied doth notwithstanding appear convenient to be still held even without use lest by reason of that coherence which it hath with somewhat most necessary the removal of the one should indamage the other And therefore men which have clean lost the possibility of sight keep still their eyes nevertheless in the place where Nature set them As for these two Branches whereof our Question groweth Arianism was indeed some occasion of the one but a cause of neither much less the onely intire cause of both For albeit conflict with Arians brought forth the occasion of writing that Creed which long after was made a part of the Church Liturgy as Hymns and Sentences of Glory were a part thereof before yet cause sufficient there is why both should remain in use the one as a most Divine Explication of the chiefest Articles of our Christian Belief the other as an Heavenly acclamation of joyful applause to his praises in whom we believe neither the one nor the other unworthy to he heard souncing as they are in the Church of Christ whether Arianism live or die Against which poyson likewise if we think that the Church at this day needeth not those ancient preservatives which ages before us were so glad to use we deceive our selves greatly The Weeds of Heresie being grown unto such ripeness as that was do even in the very cutting down scatter oftentimes those seeds which for a while lie unseen and buried in the Earth but afterward freshly spring up again no less pernicious them at the first Which thing they very well know and I doubt not will easily confess who live to their great both toil and grief where the blasphemies of Arians Samosatenians Tritheits Eutychians and Maccdonians are renewed by them who to hatch their Heresie have chosen those Churches as fittest Nests where Athanasius Creed is not heard by them I say renewed who following the course of extream Reformation were wont in the pride of their own proceedings to glory that whereas Luther did but blow away the Roof and Zwinglius batter but the Walls of Popish Superstition the last and hardest work of all remained which was to raze up the very ground and foundation of Popery that doctrine concerning the Deity of Christ which Satanasius for so it pleased those impious forsaken Miscreants to speak hath in this memorable Creed explained So manifestly true is that which one of the Ancients hath concerning Arianism Mortuis authoribus hujus veneni scelerata tamen eorum doctrina non moritur The Authors of this venom being dead and gone their wicked doctrine notwithstanding continueth 43. Amongst the heaps of these Excesses and Superfluities there is espied the want of a principal part of duty There are no thanksgivings for the benefits for which there are Petitions in our Book of Prayer This they have thought a point material to be objected Neither may we take it in evil part to be admonished what special duties of thankfulness we ow to that merciful God for whose unspeakable Graces the onely requital which we are able to make is a true hearty and sincere acknowledgement how precious we esteem such benefits received and how infinite in goodness the Author from whom they come But that to every Petition we make for things needful there should be some answerable sentence of thanks provided particularly to follow such requests obtained either it is not a matter so requisite as they pretend or if it be wherefore have they not then in such order framed their own Book of Common Prayer Why hath our Lord and Saviour taught us a form of Prayer containing so many Petitions of those things which we want and not delivered in like sort as many several forms of Thanksgiving to serve when any thing we pray for is granted What answer soever they can reasonably make unto these demands the same shall discover unto them how causeless a censure it is that there are not in our Book Thanksgivings for all the benefits forwhiâ—â— there are Petitions For concerning the Blessings of God whether they tend unto this life or the life to come there is great cause why we should delight more if giving thanks then in making requests for them in as much as the one hath penâ—â—veness and fear the other always joy annexed the one belongeth unto them that seek the other unto them that have found happiness they that pray do but yet sow they that give thanks declare they have reaped Howbeit because there are so many Graces whereof we stand in continual need Graces for which we may not cease daily and hourly to sue Graces which are in bestowing always but never come to be sully had in this present life and therefore when all things here have an end
of things absent neither for naked signs and testimonies assuring us of Grace received before but as they are indeed and in verity for means effectual whereby God when we take the Sacraments delivereth into our hands that Grace available unto Eternal Life which Grace the Sacraments represent or signifie There have grown in the Doctrine concerning Sacraments many difficulties for want of distinct Explication what kinde or degree of Grace doth belong unto each Sacrament For by this it hath come to pass that the true immediate cause why Baptism and why the Supper of our Lord is necessary few do rightly and distinctly consider It cannot be denied but sundry the same effects and benefits which grow unto men by the one Sacrament may rightly be attributed unto the other Yet then doth Baptism challenge to it self but the inchoation of those Graces the consummation whereof dependeth on Mysteries ensuing We receive Christ Jesus in Baptism once as the first beginner in the Eucharist often as being by continual degrees the finisher of our Life By Baptism therefore we receive Christ Jesus and from him that saving Grace which is proper unto Baptism By the other Sacrament we receive him also imparting therein himself and that Grace which the Eucharist properly bestoweth So that each Sacrament having both that which is general or common and that also which is peculiar unto it self we may hereby gather that the Participation of Christ which properly belongeth to any one Sacrament is not otherwise to be obtained but by the Sacrament whereunto it is proper 58. Now even as the Soul doth Organize the Body and give unto every Member thereof that substance quantity and shape which Nature seeth most expedient so the inward Grace of Sacraments may teach what serveth best for their outward form a thing in no part of Christian Religion much less here to be neglected Grace intended by Sacraments was a cause of the choice and is a reason of the fitness of the Elements themselves Furthermore seeing that the Grace which here we receive doth no way depend upon the Natural force of that which we presently behold it was of necessity That words of express Declaration taken from the very mouth of our Lord himself should be added unto visible Elements that the one might infallibly teach what the other do most assuredly bring to pass In writing and speaking of the Blessed Sacrament we use for the most part under the name of their Substance not onely to comprise that whereof they outwardly and sensibly consist but also the secret Grace which they signifie and exhibit This is the reason wherefore commonly in definitions whether they be framed larger to augâ—ment or stricter to abridge the number of Sacraments we finde Grace expresly mentioned as their â—â—â—â— Essential Form Elements as the matter whereunto that Form doth adjoyn it sâ—â— But if that be separated which is secret and that considered alone which is seen as of necessity it must in all those speeches that make distinction of Sacraments from Sacramental Grace the name of a Sacrament in such speeches can imply no more then what the outward substance thereof doth comprehend And to make compleat the outward substance of a Sacrament there is required an outward Form which Form Sacramental Elements receive from Sacramental words Hereupon it groweth that many times there are three things said to make up the Substance of a Sacrament namely the Grace which is thereby offered the Element which shadoweth or signifieth Grace and the Word which expresseth what is done by the Element So that whether we consider the outward by it self alone or both the outward and inward substance of any Sacraments there are in the one respect but two essential parts and in the other but three that concur to give Sacraments their full being Furthermore because definitions are to express but the most immediate and nearest parts of Nature whereas other principles farther off although not specified in defining are notwithstanding in Nature implied and presupposed we must note that in as much as Sacraments are actions religious and mystical which Nature they have not unless they proceed from a serious meaning and what every mans private minde is as we cannot know so neither are we bound to examine Therefore always in these cases the known intent of the Church generally doth suffice and where the contrary is not manifest we may presume that he which outwardly doth the work hath inwardly the purpose of the Church of God Concerning all other Orders Rites Prayers Lessons Sermons Actions and their Circumstances whatsoever they are to the outward Substance of Baptism but things accessory which the wisdom of the Church of Christ is to order according to the exigence of that which is principal Again Considering that such Ordinances have been made to adorn the Sacrament not the Sacrament to depend upon them seeing also that they are not of the Substance of Baptism and that Baptism is far more necessary then any such incident rite or solemnity ordained for the better Administration thereof if the case be such as permitteth not Baptism to have decent Complements of Baptism better it were to enjoy the Body without his Furniture then to wait for this till the opportunity of that for which we desire it be lost Which Premises standing it seemeth to have been no absurd Collection that in cases of necessity which will not suffer delay till Baptism be administred with usual solemnities to speak the least it may be tolerably given without them rather then any man without it should be suffered to depart this life 59. They which deny that any such case of necessity can fall in regard whereof the Church should tolerate Baptism without the decent Rites and Solemnities thereunto belonging pretend that such Tolerations have risen from a false interpretaon which certain men have made of the Scripture grounding a necessity of External Baptism upon the words of our Saviour Christ Unless a man be born again of Water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven For by Water and the Spirit we are in that place to understand as they imagine no more then if the Spirit alone had been mentioned and Water not spoken of Which they think is plain because elswhere it is not improbable that the Holy Ghost and Fire do but signifie the Holy Ghost in operation resembling Fire Whereupon they conclude That seeing Fire in one place may be therefore Water in another place is but a Metaphor Spirit the interpretation thereof and so the words do onely mean That unless a man be born again of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven I hold it for a most infallible rule in Expositions of Sacred Scripture that were a literal construction will stand the farthest from the Letter is commonly the worst There is nothing more dangerous then this licentious and deluding Art which changeth the meaning
of Hereticks which entred closely into such mens houses as favored their opinions whom under colour of performing with them such Religious Offices they drew from the soundness of true Religion Now that perverse Opinions through the Grace of Almighty God are extinct and gone the cause of former restraints being taken away we see no reason but that private Oratories may hence forward enjoy that liberty which to have granted them heretofore had not been safe In sum all these things alledged are nothing nor will it ever be proved while the World doth continue but that the practice of the Church in cases of extream necessity hath made for private Baptism always more then against it Yea Baptism by any man in the case of necessity was the voice of the whole World heretofore Neither is Tertullian Epiphanius Augustine or any other of the Ancient against it The boldness of such as pretending Teclaes example took openly upon them both Baptism and all other Publick Functions of Priesthood Tertullian severely controlleth saying To give Baptism is in truth the Bishops Right After him it belongeth unto Priests and Deacons but not to them without authority from him received For so the honor of the Church requireth which being kept preserveth peace Were it not in this respect the Laity might do the same all sorts might give even as all sorts receive But because Emulation is the Mother of Schisms Let it content thee which art of the order of Lay-men to do it in necessity when the state of time or place or person thereunto compelleth For then is their boldness priviledged that help when the circumstance of other mens dangers craveth it What he granteth generally to Lay-persons of the House of God the same we cannot suppose he denieth to any sort or sex contained under that name unless himself did restrain the limits of his own speech especially seeing that Tertullians rule of interpretation is elswhere Specialties are signified under that which is general because they are therein comprehended All which Tertullian doth deny is That Women may be called to bear or publickly take upon them to execute Offices of Ecclesiastical Order whereof none but men are capable As for Epiphanius he striketh on the very self-same Anvil with Tertullian And in necessity if St. Augustine alloweth as much unto Laymen as Tertullian doth his not mentioning of Women is but a slender proof that his meaning was to exclude Women Finally the Council of Carthage likewise although it make no express submission may be very well presumed willing to stoop as other Positive Ordinances do to the countermands of necessity Judge therefore what the Antients would have thought if in their days it had been heard which is published in ours that because The Substance of the Sacrament doth chiefly depend on the Institution of God which is the form and as it were the life of the Sacrament therefore first If the whole Institution be not kept it is no Sacrament and secondly If Baptism be private his Institution is broken in as much as according to the orders which he hath set for Baptism it should be done in the Congregation from whose Ordinance in this point we ought not to swerve although we know that infants should be assuredly damned without Baptism O Sir you that would spurn thus at such as in case of so dreadful extremity should lie prostrate before your feet you that would turn away your face from them at the hour of their most need you that would dam up your ears and harden your hearts as Iron against the unresistable cries of Supplicants calling upon you for mercy with terms of such invocation as that most dreadful perplexity might minister if God by miracle did open the mouths of Infants to express their supposed necessity should first imagine your self in their case and them in yours This done let their Supplications proceed out of your mouth and your answer out of theirs Would you then contentedly hear My Son the Rites and Solemnities of Baptism must be kept we may not do ill that good may come of it neither are Souls to be delivered from eternal death and condemnation by breaking Orders which Christ hath set Would you in their case your self be shaken off with these answers and not rather embrace inclosed with both your arms a sentence which now is no Gospel unto you I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice To acknowledge Christs Institution the ground of both Sacraments I suppose no Christian man will refuse For it giveth them their very Nature it appointeth the Matter whereof they consist the Form of their Administration it teacheth and it blesseth them with that Grace whereby to us they are both Pledges and Instruments of life Nevertheless seeing Christs Institution containeth besides that which maketh compleat the Essence or Nature other things that onely are parts as it were of the Furniture of Sacraments the difference between these two must unfold that which the general terms of indefinite speech would confound If the place appointed for Baptism be a part of Christ Institution it is but his Institution as Sacrifice Baptism his Institution as Mercy In this case He which requireth both Mercy and Sacrifice rejecteth his own Institution of Sacrifice where the Offering of Sacrifice would hinde Mercy from being shewed External Circumstances even in the holiest and highest actions are but the lesser things of the Law whereunto those actions themselves being compared are the greater and therefore as the greater are of such importance that they must be done so in that extremity before supposed if our account of the lesser which are not to be omitted should cause omission of that which is more to be accounted of were not this our strict obedience to Christs Institution touching Mint and Cummin a disobedience to his Institution concerning Love But sith no Institution of Christ hath so strictly tied Baptism to publick Assemblies as it hath done all men unto Baptism away with these merciless and bloody sentences let them never be found standing in the Books and Writings of a Christian man they favor not of Christ nor of his most gracious and meek Spirit but under colour of exact obedience they nourish cruelty and hardness of heart 62. To leave Private Baptism therefore and to come unto Baptism by Women which they say is no more a Sacrament then any other ordinary Washing or Bathing of a Mans Body The reason whereupon they ground their opinion herein is such as making Baptism by Women void because Women are no Ministers in the Chruch of God must needs generally annihilate the Baptism of all unto whom their conceit shall apply this exception Whether it be in regard of Sex of Quality of Insufficiency or whatsoever For if want of Calling do frustrate Baptism they that Baptize without Calling do nothing be they Women or Men. To make Women Teachers in the House of God were a gross absurdity
Exposition which are not inclinable to think that Moses was matched like Socrates nor that Circumcision could now in Eleazar be strange unto her having had Gersons her elder son before circumcised nor that any occasion of châ—ler could rise from a spectacle of such misery as doth naturally move Compassion and not Wrath nor that Zipporah was so impious as in the visible presence of Gods deserved Anger to storm at the Ordinance and Law of God not that the words of the History it self can inforce any such affection but do onely declare how after the act performed she touched the feet of Moses saying Sponsus tu mihi as sanguinum Thou art unto me an Husband of Blood which might be very well the one done and the other spoken even out of the slowing abundance of commiseration and love to signifie with hands laid under his feet That her tender affection towards him had caused her thus to forget Woman-hood to lay all Motherly affection aside and to redeem her Husband out of the hands of Death with effusion of Blood The sequel thereof take it which way you will is a plain Argument That God was satisfied with that she did as may appeal by his own Testimony declaring How there followed in the person of Moses present release of his grievous punishment upon her speedy discharge of that duty which by him neglected had offended God even as after execution of Justice by the hands of Phineas the Plague was immediately taken away which former impunity of sin had caused In which so manifest and plain cases not to make that a reason of the event which God himself hath set down as a reason were falsly to accuse whom he doth justifie and without any cause to traduce what we should allow yet seeing they which will have it a breach of the Law of God for her to circumcise in that necessity are not able to deny but Circumcision being in that very manner performed was to the innocent Childe which received it true Circumcision why should that defect whereby Circumcision was so little wealmed be to Baptism a deadly wound These Premises therefore remaining as hitherto they have been laid because the Commandment of our Saviour Christ which committeth joyntly to Publick Ministers both Doctrine and Baptism doth no more by linking them together import That the Nature of the Sacrament dependeth on the Ministers Authority and Power to Preach the Word then the force and vertue of the Word doth on Licence to give the Sacrament and considering that the Work of External Ministery in Baptism is onely a pre-eminence of honor which they that take to themselves and are not thereunto called as Aaron was do but themselves in their own persons by means of such usurpation Incur the just blame of disobedience to the Law of God father also in as much as it standeth with no reason That Errors grounded on a wrong interpretation of other Mens Deeds should make frustrate whatsoever is misconceived and that Baptism by Women should cease to be Baptism as oft as any Man will thereby gather That Children which die unbaptized are damned which opinion if the Act of Baptism administred in such manner did inforce it might be sufficient cause of disliking the same but none of defeating or making it altogether void Last of all whereas general and full consent of the godly-learned in all ages doth make for Validity of Baptism yea albeit administred in private and even by Women which kinde of Baptism in case of necessity divers Reformed Churches do both allow and defend some others which do not defend tolerate few in comparison and they without any just cause do utterly disannul and annihilate Surely howsoever through defect on either side the Sacrament may be without Fruit as well in some cases to him which receiveth as to him which giveth it yet no disability of either part can so far make it frustrate and without effect as to deprive it of the very Nature of true Baptism having all things else which the Ordinance of Christ requireth Whereupon we may consequently infer That the Administration of this Sacrament by private persons be it lawful or unlawful appeareth not as yet to be meerly void 63. All that are of the Race of Christ the Scripture nameth them Children of the Promise which God hath made The Promise of Eternal Life is the Seed of the Church of God And because there is no attainment of life but through the onely begotten Son of God nor by him otherwise then being such as the Creed Apostolick describeth it followeth That the Articles thereof are Principles necessary for all men to subscribe unto whom by Baptism the Church receiveth into Christs School All Points of Christian Doctrine are either demonstrable Conclusions or demonstrative Principles Conclusions having strong and invincible Proofs as well in the School of Jesus Christ as elswhere And Principles be Grounds which require no Proof in any kinde of Science because it sufficeth if either ther certainty be evident in it self or evident by the light of some higher knowledge and in it self such as no mans knowledge is ever able to overthrow Now the principles whereupon we do build our souls have their evidence where they had their original and as received from thence we adore them we hold them in reverend admiration we neither argue nor dispute about them we give unto them that assent which the Oracles of God require We are not therefore ashamed of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ because miscreants in scorn have upbraided us That the highest point of our Wisdom is Belief That which is true and neither can be disceined by Sense not concluded by meer Natural Principles must have Principles of revealed Truth whereupon to build it self and an habit of Faith in us wherewith Principles of that kinde are apprehended The Mysteries of our Religion are above the reach of our Understanding above discourse of Mans Reason above all that any Creature can comprehend Therefore the first thing required of him which standeth for admission into Christs Family is Belief Which Belief consisteth not so much in knowledge as in acknowledgment of all things that Heavenly Wisdom revealeth the Affection of Faith is above her reach her Love to God-ward above the comprehension which the hath of God And because onely for Believers all things may be done He which is Goodness it self loveth them above all Deserve we then the love of God because we believe in the Son of God What more opposite then Faith and Pride When God had created all things he looked upon them and loved them because they were all as himself had made them So the true Reason wherefore Christ doth love Believers is Because their belief is the gift of God a gift then which flesh and blood in this World cannot possibly receive a greater And as to love them of whom we receive good things is Duty because they
satisfie our desires in that which else we should want so to love them on whom we bestow is Nature because in them we behold the effects of our own vertue Seeing therefore no Religion enjoyeth Sacraments the signs of Gods love unless it have also that Faith whereupon the Sacraments are built could there be any thing more convenient then that our first admittance to the Actual Receit of his Grace in the Sacrament of Baptism should be consecrated with profession of Belief which is to the Kingdom of God as a Key the want whereof excludeth Infidels both from that and from all other saving Grace We finde by experience that although Faith be an Intellectual Habit of the Minde and have her Seat in the Understanding yet an evil Moral Disposition obstinately wedded to the love of darkness dampeth the very Light of Heavenly Illumination and permitteth not the Minde to see what doth shine before it Men are lovers of pleasure more then lovers of God Their assent to his saving Truth is many times with-held from it not that the Truth is too weak to perswade but because the stream of corrupt affection carrieth them a clean contrary way That the Minde therefore may abide in the Light of Faith there must abide in the Will as constant a resolution to have no fellowship at all with the vanities and works of darkness Two Covenants there are which Christian men saith Isidor do make in Baptism the one concerning relinquishment of Satan the other touching Obedience to the Faith of Christ. In like sort St. Ambrose He which is baptized forsaketh the Intellectual Pharaoh the Prince of this World saying Abrenuncio Thee O Satan and thy Angels thy works and thy mandates I forsake utterly Tertullian having speech of wicked spirits These saith he are the Angels which we in Baptism renounce The Declaration of Iustin the Martyr concerning Baptism sheweth how such as the Church in those days did baptize made profession of Christian Belief and undertook to live accordingly Neither do I think it a matter easie for any man to prove that ever Baptism did use to be administred without Interrogatories of these two kindes Whereunto St. Peter as it may be thought alluding hath said That the Baptism which saveth us is not as Legal Purifications were a cleansing of the flesh from outward impurity but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Interrogative tryal of a good conscience towards God 64. Now the fault which they finde with us concerning Interrogatories is our moving of these Questions unto Infants which cannot answer them and the answering of them by others as in their names The Anabaptist hath many pretences to scorn at the baptism of Children First Because the Scriptures he saith do no where give Commandment to Baptize Infants Secondly For that as there is no Commandment so neither any manifest example shewing it to have been done either by Christ or his Apostles Thirdly In as much as the Word Preached and the Sacraments must go together they which are not capable of the one are no fit receivers of the other Last of all sith the Order of Baptism continued from the first beginning hath in it those things which are unfit to be applied unto Sucking Children it followeth in their conceit That the Baptism of such is no Baptism but plain mockery They with whom we contend are no enemies to the Baptism of Infants it is not their desire that the Church should hazard so many Souls by letting them run on till they come to ripeness of understanding that so they may be converted and then baptized as Infidels heretofore have been they bear not towards God so unthankful mindes as not to acknowledge it even amongst the greatest of his endless mercies That by making us his own possession so soon many advantages which Satan otherwise might take are prevented and which should be esteemed a part of no small happiness the first thing whereof we have occasion to take notice is How much hath been done already to our great good though altogether without our knowledge The Baptism of Infants they esteem as an Ordinance which Christ hath instituted even in special love and favor to his own people They deny not the practice thereof accordingly to have been kept as derived from the hands and continued from the days of the Apostles themselves unto this present onely it pleaseth them not That to Infants there should be Interrogatories proposed in Baptism This they condemn as foolish toyish and profane mockery But are they able to shew that ever the Church of Christ had any Publick Form of Baptism without Interrogatories or that the Church did ever use at the Solemn Baptism of Infants to omit those Questions as needless in this case Ioniface a Bishop in St. Augustines time knowing That the Church did Universally use this Custom of Baptising Infants with Interrogatories was desirous to learn from St. Augustine the true cause and reason thereof If saith he I should see before thee a young infant and should ask of thee whether that Infant when he cometh unto riper age will be honest and just or no Thou wouldst answer I know that to tell in these things what shall come to pass is not in the power of Mortal Man If I should ask What good or evil such an infant thinketh Thine answer hereunto must needs be again with the like uncertainty If them neither canst promise for the time to come nor for the present pronounce any thing in this case How is it that when such are brought unto Baptism their Parents there undertake what the Childe shall afterwards do Yea they are not doubtful to say It doth that which is impossible to be done by Infants At the least there is no man precisely able to affirm it done Vonchsafe me hereunto some short answer such as not onely may press me with the bare authority of Custom but also instruct me in the cause thereof Touching which difficulty whether it may truly be said for Infants at the time of their Baptism That they do believe the effect of St. Angustines answer is Yea but with this distinction a present Actual habit of Faith there is not in them there is delivered unto them that Sacrament a part of the due celebration whereof consisting in answering to the Articles of Faith because the habit of Faith which afterwards doth come with years is but a farther building up of the same edifice the first foundation whereof was laid by the Sacrament of Baptism For that which there we professed without any understanding when we afterwards come to acknowledge do we any thing else but onely bring unto ripeness the very Seed that was sown before We are then Believers because then we begun to be that which process of time doth make perfect And till we come to Actual Belief the very Sacrament of Faith is a shield as strong as after this the Faith of the Sacrament against all
Idolatry all things which have been at any time worshipped are not necessarily to be taken out of the World nevertheless for remedy and prevention of so great offences Wisdom should judge it the safest course to remove altogether from the eyes of men that which may put them in minde of evil Some kindes of evil no doubt there are very quick in working on those affections that most easily take fire which evils should in that respect no oftner then need requireth be brought in presence of weak mindes But neither is the Cross any such evil nor yet the Brazen Serpent it self so strongly poysoned that our eyes ears and thoughts ought to shun them both for fear of some deadly harm to ensue the onely representation thereof by gesture shape sound or such like significant means And for mine own part I most assuredly perswade my self that had Ezechias till the days of whose most vertuous Reign they ceased not continually to burn Incense to the Brazen Serpent had he found the Serpent though sometime adored yet at that time recovered from the evil of so gross abuse and reduced to the same that was before in the time of David at which time they esteemed it onely as a Memorial Sign or Monument of Gods miraculous goodness towards them even as we in no other sort esteem the Ceremony of the Cross the due consideration of an use so harmless common to both might no less have wrought their equal preservation then different occasions have procured notwithstanding the ones extinguishment the others lawful continuance In all perswasions which ground themselves upon example we are not so much to respect what is done as the causes and secret inducements leading thereunto The question being therefore whether this Ceremony supposed to have been sometimes scandalous and offensive ought for that cause to be now removed there is no reason we should forthwith yield our selves to be carried away with example no not of them whose acts the highest judgment approveth for having reformed in that manner any publick evil But before we either attempt any thing or resolve the state and condition as well of our own affairs as theirs whose example presseth us is advisedly to be examined because some things are of their own nature scandalous and cannot chuse but breed offence as those Sinks of execrable filth which Iosias did overwhelm some things albeit not by Nature and of themselves are notwithstanding so generally turned to evil by reason of an evil corrupt habit grown and through long continuance incurably setled in the mindes of the greatest part that no redâ—ess can be well hoped for without removal of that wherein they have ruined themselves which plainly was the state of the Jewish people and the cause why Ezechias did with such sudden indignation destroy what he saw worshipped finally some things are as the Sign of the Cross though subject either almost or altogether to as great abuse yet curable with more facility and ease And to speak as the truth is our very nature doth hardly yield to destroy that which may be fruitfully kept and without any great difficulty clean scouted from the rust of evil which by some accident hath grown into it Wherefore to that which they build in this question upon the example of Ezechias let this suffice When Heathens despised Christian Religion because of the sufferings of Jesus Christ the Fathers to testifie how little such contumelies and contempts prevailed with them chose rather the Sign of the Cross then any other outward mark whereby the World might most easily discern always what they were On the contrary side now whereas they which do all profess the Christian Religion are divided amongst themselves and the fault of the one part is That the zeal to the sufferings of Christ they admire too much and over-superstitiously adore the Visible Sign of his Cross if you ask what w that mislike them should do we are here advised to cure one contrary by another Which Art or Method is not yet so current as they imagine For if as their practice for the most part sheweth it be their meaning that the scope and drift of Reformation when things are faulty should be to settle the Church in the contrary it standeth them upon to beware of this rule because seeing Vices have not onely Vertues but other Vices also in Nature opposite unto them it may be dangerous in these cases to seek but that which we finde contrary to present evils For in sores and sicknesses of the minde we are not simply to measure good by distance from evil because one Vice may in some respect be more opposite to another then either of them to that Vertue which holdeth the mean between them both Liberality and Covetousness the one a Vertue and the other a Vice are not so contrary as the Vices of Covetousness and Prodigality Religion and Superstition have more affiance though the one be Light and the other Darkness then Superstition and Prophaneness which both are vicious extremities By means whereof it cometh also to pass that the Mean which is Vertue seemeth in the eyes of each extream an extremity the liberal hearted man is by the opinion of the Prodigal miserable and by the judgment of the miserable lavish Impiety for the most part upbraideth Religion as Superstitious which Superstition often accuseth as impious both so conceiving thereof because it doth seem more to participate each extream then one extream doth another and is by consequent less contrary to either of them then they mutually between themselves Now if he that seeketh to reform Covetousness or Superstition should but labor to induce the contrary it were but to draw men out of Lime into Cole-dust So that their course which will remedy the Superstitious abuse of things profitable in the Church is not still to abolish utterly the use thereof because not using at all is most opposite to ill using but rather if it may be to bring them back to a right perfect and religious usage which albeit less contrary to the present sore is notwithstanding the better and by many degrees the sounder way of recovery And unto this effect that very Precedent it self which they propose may be best followed For as the Fathers when the Cross of Christ was in utter contempt did not superstitiously adore the same but rather declare that they so esteemed it as was meet In like manner where we finde the Cross to have that honor which is due to Christ is it not as lawful for us to retain it in that estimation which it ought to have and in that use which it had of old without offence as by taking it clean away so seem Followers of their example which cure wilfully by abscission that which they might both preserve and heal Touching therefore the Sign and Ceremony of the Cross we no way finde our selves bound to relinquish it neither because the first Inventors thereof were but mortal men nor
may be in things that rest and are never moved Besides we may also consider in Rest both that which is past and that which is present and that which is future yea farther even length and shortness in every of these although we never had conceit of Motion But to define without Motion how long or how short such Continuance is were impossible So that herein we must of necessity use the benefit of Years Days Hours Minutes which all grow from Celestial Motion Again for as much as that Motion is Circular whereby we make our Divisions of Time and the Compass of that Circuit such that the Heavens which are therein continually moved and keep in their Motions uniform Celerity must needs touch often the same points they cannot chuse but bring unto us by equal distances frequent returns of the same times Furthermore whereas Time is nothing but the meer quantity of that Continuance which all things have that are not as God is without beginning that which is proper unto all quantities agreeth also to this kinde so that Time doth but measure other things and neither worketh in them any real effect nor is it self ever capable of any And therefore when commonly we use to say That Time doth eat or fret out all things that Time is the wisest thing in the World because it bringeth forth all Knowledge and that nothing is more foolish then Time which never holdeth any thing long but whatsoever one day learneth the same another day forgetteth again that some men see prosperous and happy days and that some mens days are miserable In all these and the like speeches that which is uttered of the Time is not verified of Time it self but agreeth unto those things which are in Time and do by means of so near conjunction either lay their burden upon the back or set their Crown upon the Head of Time Yea the very opportunities which we ascribe to Time do in truth cleave to the things themselves wherewith Time is joyned As for Time it neither causeth things nor opportunities of things although it comprize and contain both All things whatsoever having their time the Works of God have always that time which is seasonablest and fittest for them His Works are some ordinary some more rare all worthy of observation but not all of like necessity to be often remembred they all have their times but they all do not adde the same estimation and glory to the times wherein they are For as God by being every where yet doth not give unto all places one and the same degree of holiness so neither one and the same dignity to all times by working in all For it all either places or times were in respect of God alike wherefore was it said unto Moses by particular designation That very place wherein thou standest is holy ground Why doth the Prophet David chuse out of all the days of the year but one whereof he speaketh by way of principal admiration This is the day the Lord hath made No doubt as Gods extraordinary presence hath hallowed and sanctified certain places so they are his extraordinary works that have truly and worthily advanced certain times for which cause they ought to be with all men that honor God more holy then other days The Wise man therefore compareth herein not unfitly the times of God with the persons of men If any should ask how it cometh to pass that one day doth excel another seeing the light of all the days in the year proceedeth from one Sun to this he answereth That the knowledge of the Lord hath parted them asunder he hath by them disposed the times and solemn Feasts some he hath chosen out and sanctified some he hath put among the days to number Even as Adam and all other men are of one substance all created of the Earth But the Lord hath divided them by great knowledge and made their ways divers some he hath blessed and exalted some he hath sanctified and appropriated unto himself some he hath cursed humbled and put them out of their dignity So that the cause being natural and necessary for which there should be a difference in days the solemn observation whereof declareth Religious thankfulness towards him whose works of principal reckoning we thereby admire and honor it cometh next to be considered what kindes of duties and services they are wherewith such times should be kept holy 70. The Sanctification of Days and Times is a token of that Thankfulness and a part of that publick honor which we ow to God for admirable benefits whereof it doth not suffice that we keep a secret Kalender taking thereby our private occasions as we lift our selves to think how much God hath done for all men but the days which are chosen out to serve as publick Memorials of such his Mercies ought to cloathed with those outward Robes of Holiness whereby their difference from other days may be made sensible But because Time in it self as hath been already proved can receive no alteration the hallowing of Festival days must consist in the shape or countenance which we put upon the affairs that are incident into those days This is the day which the Lord hath made saith the Prophet David Let us rejoyce and be glad in it So that generally Offices and Duties of Religious Joy are that wherein the hallowing of Festival times consisteth The most Natural Testimonies of our rejoycing in God are first his Praises set forth with cheerful alacrity of minde Secondly Our comfort and delight expressed by a charitable largeness of somewhat more then common bounty Thirdly Sequestration from ordinary labors the toyls and cares whereof are not meet to be companions of such gladness Festival solemnity therefore is nothing but the due mixture as it were of these three Elements Praise Bounty and Rest. Touching Praise for as much as the Jews who alone knew the way how to magnifie God aright did commonly as appeared by their wicked lives more of custom and for fashion sake execute the services of their Religion then with hearty and true devotion which God especially requireth he therefore protesteth against their Sabbaths and Solemn Days as being therewith much offended Plentiful and liberal expence is required in them that abound party as a sign of their own joy in the goodness of God towards them and partly as a mean whereby to refresh those poor and needy who being especially at these times made partakers of relaxation and joy with others do the more religiously bless God whose great Mercies were a cause thereof and the more contentedly endure the burthen of that hard estate wherein they continue Rest is the end of all Motion and the last perfection of all things that labor Labors in us are journeys and even in them which feel no weariness by any work yet they are but ways whereby to come unto that which bringeth not happiness till it do bring Rest.
were properly theirs and are not by us expedient to be continued According to the Rule of which general directions taken from the Law of God no less in the one then the other the practice of the Church commended unto us in holy Scripture doth not onely make for the justification of black and dismal days as one of the Fathers termeth them but plainly offereth it self to be followed by such Ordinances if occasion require as that which Mordecai did sometimes devise Esther what lay in her power help forward and the rest of the Jews establish for perpetuity namely That the Fourteenth and fifteenth days of the Moneth Adar should be every year kept throughout all Generations as days of Feasting and Joy wherein they would rest from bodily labor and what by gifts of Charity bestowed upon the poor what by other liberal signs of Amity and Love all restifie their thankful mindes towards God which almost beyond possibility had delivered them all when they all were as men dead But this Decree they say was Divine not Ecclesiastical as may appear in that there is another Decree in another Book of Scripture which Decree is plain noâ— to have proceeded from the Churches Authority but from the mouth of the Prophet onely and as a poor simple man sometime was fully perswaded That it Pontius Pilate had not been a Saint the Apostles would never have suffered his name to stand in the Creed so these men have a strong opinion that because the Book of Esther is Canonical the Decree of Esther cannot be possibly Ecclesiastical If it were they ask how the Jews could binde themselves always to keep it seeing Ecclesiastical Laws are mutable As though the purposes of men might never intend constancy in that the nature whereof is subject to alteration Doth the Scripture it self make mention of any Divine Commandment Is the Scripture witness of more then onely that Mordecai was the Author of this Custom that by Letters written to his brethren the Jews throughout all Provinces under Darius the King of Persia he gave them charge to celebrate yearly those two days for perpetual remembrance of Gods miraculous deliverance and mercy that the Jews hereupon undertook to do it and made it with general consent an order for perpetnity that Esther secondly by her Letters confirmed the same which Mordecai had before decreed and that finally the Ordinance was written to remain for ever upon Record Did not the Jews in Provinces abroad observe at the first the Fourteenth day the Jews in Susis the Fifteenth Were they not all reduced to an uniform order by means of those two Decrees and so every where three days kept the first with fasting in memory of danger the rest in token of deliverance as festival and joyful days Was not the first of these three afterwards the day of sorrow and heaviness abrogated when the same Church saw it meet that a better day a day in memory of like deliverance out of the bloody hancs of Nicanor should succeed in the room thereof But for as much as there is no end of answering fruitless oppositions let it suffice men of sober mindes to know that the Law both of God and Nature alloweth generally days of rest and festival solemnity to be observed by way of thankful and joyful remembrance if such miraculous favors be shewed towards mankinde as require the same that such Graces God hath bestowed upon his Church as well in latter as in former times that in some particulars when they have faln out himself hath demanded his own honor and in the rest hath lest it to the Wisdom of the Church directed by those precedents and enlightned by other means always to judge when the like is requisite About questions therefore concerning Days and Times our manner is not to stand at bay with the Church of God demanding Wherefore the memory of Paul should be rather kept then the memory of Daniel We are content to imagine it may be perhaps true that the least in the Kingdom of Christ is greater then the greatest of all the Prophets of God that have gone before We never yet saw cause to despair but that the simplest of the people might be taught the right construction of as great Mysteries as the Name of a Saints day doth comprehend although the times of the year go on in their wonted course We had rather glorifie and bless God for the Fruit we daily behold reaped by such Ordinances as his gracious Spirit maketh the ripe Wisdom of this National Church to bring forth then vainly boast of our own peculiar and private inventions as if the skill of profitable Regiment had left her publick habitation to dwell in retired manner with some few men of one Livery We make not our childish appeals sometimes from our own to Forein Churches sometime from both unto Churches ancienter then both are in effect always from all others to our own selves but as becometh them that follow with all humility the ways of Peace we honor reverence and obey in the very next degree unto God the voice of the Church of God wherein we live They whose wits are too glorious to fall to so low an ebb they which have risen and swoln so high that the Walls of ordinary Rivers are unable to keep them in they whose wanton contentions in the cause whereof we have spoken do make all where they go a Sea even they at their highest float are constrained both to see and grant that what their fancy will not yield to like their judgment cannot with reason condemn Such is evermore the final victory of all Truth that they which have not the hearts to love her acknowledge that to hate her they have no cause Touching those Festival days therefore which we now observe their number being no way felt discommodious to the Commonwealth and their grounds such as hitherto hath been shewed what remaineth but to keep them throughout all generations holy severed by manifest notes of difference from other times adorned with that which most may betoken true vertuous and celestial joy To which intent because surcease from labor is necessary yet not so necessary no not on the Sabbath or Seventh day it self but that rarer occasions in mens particular affairs subject to manifest detriment unless they be presently followed may with very good conscience draw them sometimes aside from the ordinary rule considering the favorable dispensation which our Lord and Saviour groundeth on this Axiom Man was not made for the Sabbath but the Sabbath ordained for Man so far forth as concerneth Ceremonies annexed to the principal Sanctification thereof howsoever the rigor of the Law of Moses may be thought to import the contrary if we regard with what severity the violation of Sabbaths hath been sometime punished a thing perhaps the more requisite at that instant both because the Jews by reason of their long abode in
seeketh rather proportion then absolute perfection of goodness So that Woman being created for mans sake to be his Helper in regard of the end before mentioned namely the having and bringing up of Children whereunto it was not possible they could concur unless there were subalternation between them which subalternation is naturally grounded upon inequality because things equall in every respect are never willingly directed one by another Woman therefore was even in her first estate framed by Nature not only after in time but inferiour in excellency also unto Man howbeit in so due and sweet proportion as being presented before our eyes might be sooner perceived then defined And even herein doth lie the Reason why that kind of love which is the perfectest ground of Wedlock is seldome able to yield any reason of it self Now that which is born of Man must be nourished with far more travel as being of greater price in Nature and of slower pace to perfection then the Off-spring of any other Creature besides Man and Woman being therefore to joyn themselves for such a purpose they were of necessity to be linked with some straight and insoluble knot The bond of Wedlock hath been always more or less esteemed of as a thing Religious and Sacred The Title which the very Heathens themselves do thereunto oftentimes give is Holy Those Rites and Orders which were instituted in the Solemnization of Marriage the Hebrews term by the Name of Conjugal Sanctification Amongst our selves because sundry things appertaining unto the Publick Order of Matrimony are called in Question by such as know not from whence those Customs did first grow to shew briefly some true and sufficient Reason of them shall not be superfluous although we do not hereby intend to yield so far unto Enemies of all Church-Orders saving their own as though every thing were unlawful the true Cause and Reason whereof at the first might hardly perhaps be now rendred Wherefore to begin with the times wherein the liberty of Marriage is restrained There is saith Solomon a time for all things a time to laugh and a time to mourn That duties belonging unto Marriage and Offices appertaining to Pennance are things unsuitable and unfit to be matched together the Prophets and Apostles themselves do witness Upon which ground as we might right well think it marvellous absurd to see in a Church a Wedding on the day of a publick Fast so likewise in the self-same consideration our Predecessors thought it not amiss to take away the common liberty of Marriages during the time which was appointed for preparation unto and for exercise of General Humiliation by Fasting and praying weeping for sins As for the delivering up of the woman either by her Father or by some other we must note that in ancient times all women which had not Husbands nor Fathers to govern them had their Tutors without whose Authority there was no act which they did warrantable And for this cause they were in Marriage delivered unto their Husbands by others Which custome retained hath still this use that it putteth Women in mind of a duty whereunto the very imbecillity of their nature and Sex doth bind them namely to be always directed guided and ordered by others although our Positive Laws do not tie them now as Pupils The custome of laying down Money seemeth to have been derived from the Saxons whose manner was to buy their Wives But seeing there is not any great cause wherefore the memory of that custome should remain it skilleth not much although we suffer it to lie dead even as we see it in a manner already worn out The Ring hath been always used as an especial pledge of Faith and Fidelity Nothing more fit to serve as a token of our purposed endless continuance in that which we never ought to revoke This is the cause wherefore the Heathens themselves did in such cases use the Ring whereunto Tertullian alluding saith That in ancient times No Woman was permitted to wear gold saving only upon one finger which her Husband had fastened unto himself with that Ring which was usually given for assurance of future Marriage The cause why the Christians use it as some of the Fathers think is either to testifie mutual love or rather to serve for a pledge of conjunction in heart and mind agreed upon between them But what right and custome is there so harmless wherein the wit of man bending it self to derision may not easily find out somewhat to scorn and jest at He that should have beheld the Jews when they stood with a four-cornered Garment spread over the heads of Espoused Couples while their Espousals were in making He that should have beheld their praying over a Cup and their delivering the same at the Marriage-feast with set Forms of Benediction as the Order amongst them was might being lewdly affected take thereat as just occasion of scornful cavil as at the use of the Ring in Wedlock amongst Christians But of all things the most hardly taken is the uttering of these words With my body I thee worship In which words when once they are understood there will appear as little cause as in the rest for any wise man to be offended First therefore inasmuch as unlawful copulation doth pollute and dishonour both parties this Protestation that we do worship and honour another with our bodies may import a denial of all such Lets and Impediments to our knowledge as might cause any stain blemish or disgrace that way which kind of construction being probable would easily approve that speech to a peaceable and quiet mind Secondly in that the Apostle doth so expresly affirm that parties unmarried have not any longer entire power over themselves but each hath interest in others person it cannot be thought an absurd construction to say that worshipping with the body is the imparting of that interest in the body unto another which none before had save only our selves But if this were the natural meaning the words should perhaps be as requisite to be used on the one side as on the other and therefore a third sense there is which I rather rely upon Apparent it is that the ancient difference between a lawful Wife and a Concubine was only in the different purpose of man betaking himself to the one or the other If his purpose were only fellowship there grew to the Woman by this means no worship at all but the contrary In professing that his intent was to add by his person honour and worship unto hers he took her plainly and cleerly to Wife This is it which the Civil Law doth mean when it maketh a Wife to differ from a Concubine in dignity a Wife to be taken where Conjugal honour and affection do go before The worship that grew unto her being taken with declaration of this intent was that her children became by this mean legitimate and free her self was
condition as long as they stedfastly were observed to honour God and their success being faln from him are remonstrances more than sufficient how all our welfare even on earth dependeth wholly upon our Religion Heathens were ignorant of true Religion Yet such as that little was which they knew it much impaired or bettered alwaies their worldy affairs as their love and zeal towards it did wain or grow Of the Jews did not even their most malicious and mortal Adversaries all acknowledge that to strive against them it was in vain as long as their amity with God continued that nothing could weaken them but Apostasie In the whole course of their own proceedings did they ever finde it otherwise but that during their faith and fidelity towards God every man of them was in war as a thousand strong and as much as a grand Senate for counsel in peaceable deliberations contrariwise that if they swarved as they often did their wonted courage and magnanimity forsook them utterly their Soldiers and military men trembled at the sight of the naked sword when they entered into mutual conference and sate in counsel for their own good that which Children might have seen their gravest Senators could not discern their Prophets saw darkness instead of Visions the wise and prudent were as men bewitcht even that which they knew being such as might stand them in stead they had not the grace to utter or if any thing were well proposed it took no place it entered not into the minds of the rest to approve and follow it but as men confounded with strange and unusual amaâ—â—ments of spirit they attempted tumultuously they saw not what and by the issues of all attempts they found no certain conclusion but this God and Heaven are strong against as in all we do The cause whereof was secret fear which took heart and courage from them and the cause of their fear an inward guiltiness that they all had offered God such apparent wrongs as were not pardonable But it may be the case is now altogether changed and that in Christian Religion there is not the like force towards Temporal felicity Search the ancient Records of time look what hath happened by the space of these sixteen hundred years see if all things to this effect be not Inculent and clear yea all things so manifest that for evidence and proof herein we need not by uncertain dark conjectures surmise any to have been plagued of God for contempt or blest in the course of faithful obedience towards true Religion more than onely them whom we finde in that respect on the one side guilty by their own confessions and happy on the other side by all mens acknowledgement who beholding that prosperous estate of such as are good and vertuous impute boldly the same to God's most especial favour but cannot in like manner pronounce that whom he afflicteth above others with them he hath cause to be more offended For Vertue is always plain to be seen rareness causeth it to be observed and goodness to be honoured with admiration As for iniquity and sin it lyeth many times hid and because we be all offenders it becometh us not to incline towards hard and severe sentences touching others unless their notorious wickedness did sensibly before proclaim that which afterwards came to pass Wherefore the sum of every Christian man's duty is to labour by all means towards that which other men seeing in us may justifie and what we our selves must accuse if we fall into it that by all means we can to avoid considering especially that as hitherto upon the Church there never yet fell tempestuous storm the vapours whereof were not first noted to rise from coldness in affection and from backwardness is duties of service towards God so if that which the tears of antiquity have untered concerning this point should be here set down it were assuredly enough to soften and to mollifie an Heart of steel On the contrary part although we confesse with Saint Augustine most willingly that the chiefest happiness for which we have some Christian Kings in so great admiration above the rest is not because of their long Reign their calm and quiet departure out of this present life the settled establishment of their own flesh and blood succeeding them in Royalty and Power the glorious overthrow of foreign enemies or the wise prevention of inward danger and so secret attempts at home all which solaces and comforts of this our unquiet life it pleaseth God oftentimes to bestow on them which have no society or part in the joys of Heaven giving thereby to understand that these in comparison are toys and trifles farr under the value and price of that which is to be looked for at his hands but in truth the reason wherefore we most extol their felicity is if so be they have virtuously reigned if honour have not filled their hearts with pride if the exercise of their power have been service and attendance upon the Majestie of the Most High if they have feared him as their own inferiours and subjects have feared them if they have loved neither pomp nor pleasure more than Heaven if revenge have slowly proceeded from then and mercy willingly offered it self if so they have tempered rigour with lenity that neither extream severitie might utterly cutt them off in whom there was manifest hope of amendment nor yet the easinesse of pardoning offences imbolden offenders if knowing that whatsoever they do their potency may bear it out they have been so much the more carefull are to do any thing but that which is commendable in the best rather than usual with greatest Personages if the true knowledge of themselves have humbled them in God's sight no lesse than God in the eyes of men hath raised them up I say albeit we reckon such to be the happiest of them that are mightiest in the World and albeit those things alone are happiness nevertheless considering what force there is even in outward blessings to comfort the mindes of the best disposed and to give them the greater joy when Religion and Peace Heavenly and Earthly happiness are wreathed in one Crown as to the worthiest of Christian Princes it hath by the providence of the Almighty hitherto befallen let it not seem unto any man a needlesse and superfluous waste of labour that there hath been thus much spoken to declare how in them especially it hath been so observed and withal universally noted even from the highest to the very meanest how this peculiar benefit this singular grace and preheminence Religion hath that either it guardeth as an heavenly shield from all calamities or else conducteth us safe through them and permitteth them not to be miseâ—… it either giveth honours promotions and wealth or else more benefit by wanting them than if we had them at will it either filleth our Houses with plenty of all good things or maketh a Sallad of green herbs more sweet than all the
why in all the projects of their Discipline it being manifest that their drift is to wrest the Key of Spiritual Authority out of the hands of former Governours and equally to possess therewith the Pastors of all several Congregations the people first for surer accomplishment and then for better defence thereof are pretended necessary Actors in those things whereunto their ability for the most part is as slender as their title and challenge unjust Notwithstanding whether they saw it necessary for them to perswade the people without whose help they could do nothing or else which I rather think the affection which they bear towards this new Form of Government made them to imagin it Gods own Ordinance Their Doctrine is that by the Law of God there must be for ever in all Congregations certain Lay-Elders Ministers of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in as much as our Lord and Saviour by Testament for so they presume hath left all Ministers or Pastors in the Church Executors equally to the whole power of Spiritual Jurisdiction and with them hath joyned the people as Colleagues By maintenance of which Assertion there is unto that part apparently gained a twofold advantage both because the people in this respect are much more easily drawn to favour it as a matter of their own interest and for that if they chance to be crossed by such as oppose against them the colour of Divine Authority assumed for the Grace and Countenance of that Power in the vulgar sort furnisheth their Leaders with great abundance of matter behoveful of their encouragement to proceed alwaies with hope of fortunate success in the end considering their cause to be as David's was a just defence of power given them from above and consequently their Adversaries quarrel the same with Saul's by whom the Ordinance of God was withstood Now on the contrary side if this their surmise prove false if such as in Justification whereof no evidence sufficient either hath been or can be alledged as I hope it shall clearly appear after due examination and trial let them then consider whether those words of Corah Dathan and Abiram against Moses and against Aaron It is too much that ye take upon you seeing all the Congregation is holy be not the very true Abstract and abridgment of all their published Admonitions Demonstrations Supplications and Treatises whatsoever whereby they have laboured to void the rooms of their Spiritual Superiours before Authorized and to advance the new fancied Scepter of Lay Presbyterial Power The Nature of Spiritual Iurisdiction BUt before there can be any setled Determination whether Truth do rest on their part or on ours touching Lay-Elders we are to prepare the way thereunto by explication of some things requisite and very needful to be considered as first how besides that Spiritual Power which is of Order and was instituted for performance of those duties whereof there hath been Speech already had there is in the Church no less necessary a second kind which we call the Power of Jurisdiction When the Apostle doth speak of ruling the Church of God and of receiving accusations his words have evident reference to the Power of Jurisdiction Our Saviours words to the Power of Order when he giveth his Disciples charge saying Preach Baptize Do this in Remembrance of me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epist ad Smyrn A Bishop saith Ignatius doth bear the Image of God and of Christ of God in ruling of Christ in administring holy things By this therefore we see a manifest difference acknowledged between the Power of Ecclesiastical Order and the power of Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical The Spiritual Power of the Church being such as neither can be challenged by right of Nature nor could by humane Authority be instituted because the forces and effects thereof are Supernatural and Divine we are to make no doubt or question but that from him which is the Head it hath descended unto us that are the Body now invested therewith He gave it for the benefit and good of Souls as a mean to keep them in the path which leadeth unto endless felicity a bridle to hold them within their due and convenient bounds and if they do go astray a forcible help to reclaim them Now although there be no kind of Spiritual Power for which our Lord Iesus Christ did not give both commission to exercise and direction how to use the same although his Laws in that behalf recorded by the holy Evangelists be the only ground and foundation whereupon the practice of the Church must sustain it self yet as all multitudes once grown to the form of Societies are even thereby naturally warranted to enforce upon their own subjects particularly those things which publick wisdom shall judge expedient for the common good so it were absurd to imagine the Church it self the most glorious amongst them abridged of this liberty or to think that no Law Constitution or Canon can be further made either for Limitation or Amplification in the practice of our Saviours Ordinances whatsoever occasion be offered through variety of times and things during the state of this inconstant world which bringeth forth daily such new evills as must of necessity by new remedies be redrest did both of old enforce our venerable Predecessor and will alwaies constrain others sometime to make sometime to abrogate sometime to augment and again to abridge sometime in sum often to vary alter and change Customs incident unto the manner of exercising that Power which doth it self continue alwaies one and the same I therefore conclude that Spiritual Authority is a Power which Christ hath given to be used over them which are subject unto it for the eternal good of their Souls according to his own most Sacred Laws and the wholsome positive Constitutions of his Church In Doctrine referred unto Action and Practice as this is which concerns Spiritual Jurisdiction the first sound and perfect understanding is the knowledge of the End because thereby both Use doth frame and Contemplation judge all things Of Penitency the chiefest End propounded by Spiritual Iurisdiction Two kinds of Penitency the one a Private Duty toward God the other a Duty of external Discipline Of the vertue of Repentance from which the former Duty proceedeth and of Contrition the first part of that Duty SEeing that the chiefest cause of Spiritual Jurisdiction is to provide for the health and safety of Mens Souls by bringing them to see and Repent their grievous offences committed against God as also to reform all injuries offered with the breach of Christian Love and Charity toward their brethren in matters of Ecclesiastical Cognizance the use of this Power shall by so much the plainlier appear if first the nature of Repentance it self be known We are by Repentance to appease whom we offend by Sin For which cause whereas all Sin deprives us of the favour of Almighty God our way of Reconciliation with him is the inward secret Repentance of the heart which inward
Correct his Family The Souls of Men are Gods Treasure committed to the Trust and Fidelity of such as must render a strict account for the very least which is under their Custody God hath not invested them with Power to make a Revenue thereof but to use it for the good of them whom Jesus Christ hath most dearly bought And because their Office therein consisteth of sundry functions some belonging to Doctrine some to Discipline all contained in the Name of the Keys they have for matters of Discipline as well Litigious as Criminal their Courts and Consistories erected by the heavenly Authority of his most Sacred Voice who hath said Dic Ecclesia Tell the Church against rebellious and conâ—umacious Persons which refuse to obey their Sentence armed they are with Power to eject such out of the Church to deprive them of the Honours Rights and Priviledges of Christian Men to make them as Heathens and Publicans with whom society was hateful Furthermore lest their Acts should be slenderly accounted of or had in contempt whether they admit to the Fellowship of Saints or seclude from it whether they bind Offenders or set them again at liberty whether they remit or retain Sins whatsoever is done by way of orderly and lawfull proceeding the Lord himself hath promised to ratifie This is that grand Original Warrant by force whereof the Guides and Prelates in Gods Church first his Apostles and afterwards others following them successively did both use and uphold that Discipline the end whereof is to heal Mens Consciences to cure their Sins to reclaim Offenders from iniquity and to make them by Repentance just Neither hath it of Ancient time for any other respect been accustomed to bind by Ecclesiastical Censures to retain so bound till tokens of manifest Repentance appeared and upon apparent Repentance to Release saving only because this was received as a most expedient method for the cure of sin The course of Discipline in former Ages reformed open Transgressors by putting them into Offices of open Penitence especially Confession whereby they declared their own crimes in the hearing of the whole Church and were not from the time of their first Convention capable of the holy Mysteries of Christ till they had solemnly discharged this duty Offenders in secret knowing themselves altogether as unworthy to be admitted to the Lords Table as the other which were with-held being also perswaded that if the Church did direct them in the Offices of their Penitency and assist them with publique Prayer they should more easily obtain that they sought than by trusting wholly to their own endeavours finally having no impediment to stay them from it but bashfulness which countervailed not the former inducements and besides was greatly cased by the good construction which the charity of those times gave to such actions wherein Mens piety and voluntary care to be reconciled to God did purchase them much more love than their faults the testimonies of common frailty were able to procure disgrace they made it not nice to use some one of the Ministers of God by whom the rest might take notice of their faults prescribe them convenient remedies and in the end after publick Confession all joyn in Prayer unto God for them The first beginner of this Custom had the more followers by means of that special favour which alwaies was with good consideration shewed towards voluntary Penitents above the rest But as Professors of Christian belief grew more in number so they waxed worse when Kings and Princes had submitted their Dominions unto the Scepter of Jesus Christ by means whereof Persecution ceasing the Church immediately became subject to those evills which peace and security bringeth forth there was not now that love which before kept all things in tune but every where Schisms Discords Dissentions amongst Men. Conventicles of Hereticks bent more vehemently against the sounder and better sort than very Infidels and Heathens themselves faults not corrected in Charity but noted with delight and kept for malice to use when the deadliest opportunities should be offered Whereupon forasmuch as publick Confessions became dangerous and prejudicial to the safety of well-minded Men and in divers respects advantagious to the Enemies of Gods Church it seemed first unto some and afterwards generally requisite that voluntary Penitents should surcease from open Confession Instead whereof when once private and secret Confession had taken place with the Latins It continued as a profitable Ordinance till the Lateran Council had Decreed that all Men once in a year at the least should confess themselves to the Priest So that being a thing thus made both general and also necessary the next degree of estimation whereunto it grew was to be honoured and and lifted up to the Nature of a Sacramentâ— that as Christ did institute Baptism to give life and the Eucharist to nourish life so Penitence might be thought a Sacrament ordained to recover life and Confession a part of the Sacrament They define therefore their private Penetency to be a Sacrament of remitting sins after Baptism The vertue of Repentance a detestation of wickedness with ful purpose to amend the same and with hope to obtain pardon at Gods hands Wheresoever the Prophets cry Repent and in the Gospel Saint Peter maketh the same Exhortation to the Jews as yet unbaptized they would have the vertue of Repentance only to be understood The Sacrament where he adviseth Simon Magus to repent because the Sin of Simon Magus was after Baptism Now although they have onely external Repentance for a Sacrament internal for a Vertue yet make they Sacramental Repentance nevertheless to be composed of three parts Contrition Confession and Satisfaction which is absurd because Contrition being an inward thing belongeth to the Vertue and not to the Sacrament of Repentance which must consist of external parts if the nature thereof be external Besides which is more absurd they leave out Absolution whereas some of their School Divines handling Penance in the nature of a Sacrament and being not able to espie the least resemblance of a Sacrament save only in Absolution for a Sacrament by their doctrine must both signifie and also confer or bestow some special Divine Grace resolved themselves that the duties of the Penitent could be but meer preparations to the Sacrament and that the Sacrament it self was wholly in Absolution And albeit Thomas with his Followers have thought it safer to maintain as well the services of the Penitent as the words of the Minister necessary unto the essence of their Sacrament the services of the Penitent as a cause material the words of Absolution as a formal for that by them all things else are perfected to the taking away of Sin which opinion now reigneth in all their Schools since the time that the Councel of Trent gave it solemn approbation seeing they all make Absolution if not the whole essence yet the very form whereunto they ascribe chiefly the whole force
they have two shifts At first that in many Penitents there is but Attrition of heart which Attrition they define to be Grief proceeding from Fear without Love and to these they say Absolution doth give that Contrition whereby men are really purged from Sinne. Secondly that even where Contrition or Inward Repentance doth cleanse without Absolution the reason why it commeth so to passe is Because such Contrites intend and desire Absolution though they have it not Which two things granted The one that Absolution given maketh them contrite that are not the other even in them which are contrite the cause why God remitteth Sinne is the purpose or desire they have to receive Absolution we are not to stand against a sequel so clear and manifest as this that alwayes remission of Sinne proceedeth from Absolution either had or desired But should a reasonable man give credit to their bare Conceit and because their Positions have driven them to imagine Absolving of unsufficiently-disposed Penitents to be a real creating of further vertue in them must all other men think it due Let them cancel hence forward and blot out of all their Books those old Cautions touching Necessity of Wisdome lest Priests should inconsiderately absolve any man in whom there were not apparent tokens of true Repentance which to do was in Saint Cyprians Judgement Pestilent Deceit and Flattery not only not available but hurtful to them that had transgrest a frivolous frustrate and false peace such as caused the unrighteous to trust to a lye and destroyed them unto whom it promised safety What needeth Observation whether Penitents have Worthiness and bring Contrition if the words of Absolution do infuse Contrition Have they born us all this while in hand that Contrition is a part of the matter of their Sacrament a Condition or Preparation of the Minde towards Grace to be received by Absolution in the form of their Sacrament And must we now believe That the Form doth give the Matter That Absolution bestoweth Contrition and that the words do make presently of Saul David of Iudas Peter For what was the Penitency of Saul and Iudas but plain Attrition horrour of Sinne through fear of punishment without any long sense or taste of God's Mercy Their other Fiction imputing remission of Sinne to desire of Absolution from the Priest even in them which are truly contrite is an evasion somewhat more witty but no whit more possible for them to prove Belief of the World and Judgement to come Faith in the Promises and Sufferings of Christ for Mankinde Fear of his Majestie Love of his Mercy Grief for Sin Hope for Pardon Suit for Grace These we know to be the Elements of true Contrition suppose that besides all this God did also command that every Penitent should seek his Absolution at the Priests hands where so many Causes are concurring unto one effect have they any reason to impute the whole effect unto one any reason in the choyse of that one to pass by Faith Fear Love Humility Hope Prayer whatsoever else and to enthronize above them all A desire of Absolution from the Priest as if in the whole work of Man's Repentance God did regard and accept nothing but for and in consideration of this Why do the Tridentine Council impute it to Charity That Contrites are reconciled in Gods sight before they receive the Sacrament of Penance if desired Absolution be the true Cause But let this passe how it will seeing the Question is not What vertue God may accept in penitent Sinners but what Grace Absolution actually given doth really bestow upon them If it were as they would have it That God regarding the Humiliation of a Contrite Spirit because there is joyned therewith a lowly desire of the Sacrament of Priestly Absolution pardoneth immediately and forgiveth all Offences Doth this any thing help to prove that Absolution received afterward from the Priest can more than declare him already pardoned which did desire it To desire Absolution presupposing it commanded is Obedience and Obedience in that Case is a Branch of the vertue of Repentance which Vertue being thereby made effectual to the taking away of Sinnes without the Sacrament of Repentance Is it not an Argument that the Sacrament of Absolution hath here no efficacy but the virtue of Contrition worketh all For how should any Effect ensue from Causes which actually are not The Sacrament must be applyed wheresoever any Grace doth proceed from it So that where it is but desired only whatsoever may follow upon Gods acceptation of this desire the Sacrament afterwards received can be no cause thereof Therefore the further we wade the better we see it still appears That the Priest doth never in Absolution no not so much as by way of Service and Ministry really either forgive them take away the uncleanness or remove the punishment of Sinne but if the Party penitent come contrite he hath by their own grant Absolution before Absolution if not contrite although the Priest should seem a thousand times to Absolve him all were in vain For which cause the Antients and better sort of their School Divines Abulensis Alexander Hales and Bonaventurt ascribe the real abolition of Sinne and eternal punishment to the mere pardon of Almighty God without dependency upon the Priests Absolution as a cause to effect the same His Absolution hath in their Doctrine certain other effects specified but this denyed Wherefore having hitherto spoken of the vertue of Repentance required of the Discipline of Repentance which Christ did establish and of the Sacrament of Repentance invented sithence against the pretended force of Humane Absolution in Sacramental Penitency Let it suffice thus far to have shewed how God alone doth truly give the vertue of Repentance alone procure and private Ministerial Absolution but declare remission of Sinnes Now the last and sometimes hardest to be satisfied by Repentance are our Mindes and our Mindes we have then satisfied when the Conscience is of guilty become clear For as long as we are in our selves privy to our own most hainous Crimes but without sense of God's Mercy and Grace towards us unlesse the Heart be either brutish for want of Knowledge or altogether hardned by wilful Atheisme the remorse of Sinne is in it as the deadly sting of a Serpent Which point since very Infidels and Heathens have observed in the nature of Sinne for the disease they felt though they knew no remedy to help it we are not rashly to despise those Sentences which are the testimonies of their experience touching this point They knew that the eye of a Man 's own Conscience is more to be feared by evil doers than the presence of a thousand Witnesses in as much as the mouths of other Accusers are many wayes stopt the ears of the accused not alwayes subject to glowing with contumely and exprobation whereas a guilty Minde being forced to be still both a Martyr and a
the light of a true and sound understanding which sheweth what honor is fit for Prelats and what attendancy convenient to be a part of their honor Touching Priviledges granted for Honor's-sake partly in general unto the Clergy and partly unto Prelates the Chiefest Persons Ecclesiastical in particular of such quality and number they are that to make but rehearsal of them we scarce think it safe left the very entrails of some of our godly Brethren as they term themselves should thereat haply burst in sunder XXI And yet of all these things rehearsed it may be there never would have grown any question had Bishops been honored only thus farr forth But the honoring of the Clergy with wealth this is in the eyes of them which pretend to seek nothing but mere Reformation of Abuses a sin that can never be remitted How soon O how soon might the Church be perfect even without any spot or wrinckle if Publick Authority would at the length say Amen unto the holy and devout requests of those godly Brethren who as yet with out-stretched necks groan in the pangs of their zeal to see the Houses of Bishops risted and their so long desired Livings gloriously divided amongst the Righteous But there is an impediment a lett which somewhat hindreth those good mens Prayers from taking effect They in whose hands the Soveraignty of Power and Dominion over the Church doth rest are perswaded there is a God for undoubtedly either the name of Godhead is but a feigned thing or if in Heaven there be a God the Saerilegious intention of Church-Robbers which lurketh under this plausible name of Reformation is in his sight a thousand times more hateful than the plain professed malice of those very Miscreants who threw their Vomit in the open face of our blessed Saviour They are not words of perswasion by which true men can hold their own when they are over-beset with Thieves And therefore to speak in this Cause at all were but labor lost saving only in respect of them who being as yet un-joyned unto this Conspiracy may be haply somewhat stayed when they shall know betimes what it is to see Thieves and to run on with them as the Prophet in the Psalm speaketh When thou sawest a Thief then thou consentedst with him and hast been Partaker with Adulterers For the better information therefore of men which carry true honest and indifferent mindes these things we will endeavour to make most clearly manifest First That in Goods and Livings of the Church none hath propriety but God himself Secondly That the honor which the Clergy therein hath is to be as it were God's Receivers the honor of Prelates to be his chief and principal Receivers Thirdly That from him they have right not only to receive but also to use such Goods the lower sort in smaller and the higher in larger measure Fourthly That in case they be thought yea or found to abuse the same yet may not such honor be therefore lawfully taken from them and be given away unto Persons of other Calling XXII Possessions Lands and Livings Spiritual the wealth of the Clergy the Goods of the Church are in such sort the Lords own that man can challenge no propriety in them His they are and not ours all things are his in that from him they have their being My Corn and my Wine and mine Oyl saith the Lord. All things his in that he hath absolute power to dispose of them at his pleasure Mine saith he are the Sheep and Oxen of a thousand hills All things his in that when we have them we may say with Iob God hath given and when we are deprived of them The Lord whose they are hath likewise taken them away again But these sacred Possessions are his by another tenure His because those men who first received them from him have unto him returned them again by way of Religious gift or Oblation And in this respect it is that the Lord doth term those Houses wherein such Gifts and Oblations were laid His Treasuries The ground whereupon men have resigned their own interest in things Temporal and given over the same unto God is that Precept which Solomon borroweth from the Law of Nature Honor the Lord out of thy Substance and of the chiefest of all thy Revenue so shall thy Barns be filled with Plenty and with new Wine the fat of thy Press shall overflow For although it be by one most fitly spoken against those superstitious Persons who only are scrupulous in external Rites Wilt thou win the favour of God He vertuous They best worship him that are his Followers It is not the bowing of your Knees but of your Hearts it is not the number of your Oblations but the integrity of your Lives not your Incense but your Obedience which God is delighted to be honored by Nevertheless we must beware lest simply understanding this which comparatively is meant that is to say whereas the meaning is that God doth chiefly respect the inward disposition of the Heart we must take heed we do not hereupon so worship him in Spirit that outwardly we take all Worship Reverence and Honor from him Our God will be glorified both of us himself and for us by others To others because our Hearts are known and yet our example is required for their good therefore it is not sufficient to carry Religion in our Hearts as Fire is carried in Flint-stones but we are outwardly visibly apparently to serve and honor the living God yea to employ that way as not only for our Souls but our Bodies so not only our Bodies but our Goods yea the choice the flower the chiefest of all thy Revenue saith Solomon If thou hast any thing in all thy Possessions of more value and price than other to what use shouldest thou convert it rather than to this Samuel was dear unto Hannah his Mother The Childe that Hannah did so much esteem she could not but greatly wish to advance and her Religious conceit was that the honoring of God with it was the advancing of it unto honor The chiefest of the Off-spring of men are the Males which be first-born and for this cause in the antient World they all were by right of their birth Priests of the Most High By these and the like Precedents it plainly enough appeareth that in what Heart soever doth dwell unseigned Religion in the same there resteth also a willingness to bestow upon God that soonest which is most dear Amongst us the Law is that sith Gold is the chiefest of Mettals if it be any where found in the bowels of the Earth it belongeth in right of honor as all men know to the King Whence hath this Custom grown but onely from a natural perswasion whereby men judge it decent for the highest Persons alwayes to be honored with the choisest things If ye offer unto God the blinde saith the Prophet Malachi it is not
est it a ejâ—â— patrimonium jugiter servetur illasâ—â— As for the case of publique burthens let any politirian living make it appear that by confiscation of Bishops livings and their utter dissolution at once the Common-wealth shall ever have half that relief and ease which it receiveth by their continuance as now they are and it shall give us some cause to think that albeit we sew they are implously and irreligiously minded yet we mayâ— esteem them at least to be tolerable Common-wealths-men But the case is too clear and manifest the World doth but too plainly see it that no one Order of subjects whatsoever within this Land doth bear the seventh part of that proportion which the Clergy beareth in the burthens of the Commonwealth No revenue of the Crownlike unto it either for certainty or for greatness Let the good which this way hath grown to the Common-wealth by the dissolution of religious houses teach men what ease unto publique burthens there is like to grow by the overthrow of the Clergy My meaning is not hereby to make the state of Bishopricks and of those dissolved Companies alike the one no less unlawful to be removed then the other For those religious persons were men which followed only a special kind of Contemplative life in the Commonwealth they were properly no portion of Gods Clergy only such amongst them excepted as were also Priests their goods that excepted which they unjustly held through the Popes usurped power of appropriating Ecclesiastical livings unto them may in part seem to be of the nature of Civil possessions held by other kinds of Corporations such as the City of London hath divers Wherefore as their institution was human and their end for the most part superstitious they had not therein meerly that holy and divine interest which belongeth unto Bishops who being imployed by Christ in the principal service of his Church are receivers and disposers of his patrimony as hath been showed which whosoever shall with-hold or with-draw at any time from them he undoubtedly robbeth God himself If they abuse the goods of the Church unto pomp and vanity such faults we do not excuse in them Only we wish it to be considered whether such faults be verily in them or else but objected against them by such as gape after spoil and therefore are no competent judges what is moderate and what excessive in them whom under this pretence they would spoil But the accusation may be just In plenty and fulness it may be we are of God more forgetful then were requisite Notwithstanding men should remember how not to the Clergy alone it was said by Moses in Deuteronomy Necum manducaveris biberis domos optimas adisicaveris If the remedy prescribed for this disease be good let it unpartially be applied Interest Reip utre suâ QUIS QUE bene utatur Let all states be put to their moderate pensions let their livings and lands be taken away from them whosoever they be in whom such ample possessions are found to have been matters of grievous abuse Were this just â— would Noble Families think this reasonable The Title which Bishops have to their livings is as good as the title of any sort of men unto whatsoever we accompt to be most justly held by them yea in this one thing the claim of â— B. hath preheminence above all secular Titles of right in that Gods own interest in the tenure whereby they hold even as also it was to the Priests of the Law an assurance of their spiritual goods and possessions whereupon though they many times abused greatly the goods of the Church yet was not Gods patrimony therefore taken away from them and made saleable unto other Tribes To rob God to ransack the Church to overthrow the whole Order of Christian Bishops and to turn them out of Land and Living out of House and Home what man of common honesty can think it for any manner of abuse to be a remedy lawful or just We must confess that God is righteous in taking away that which men abuse But doth that excuse the violence of Thieves and Robbers Complain we will not with S. Ierom that the hands of men are so straightly tyed and their liberal minds so much bridled and held back from doing good by augmentation of the Church-Patrimony For we confess that herein mediocrity may be and hath been sometime exceeded There did want heretofore Moses to temper mens liberality to say unto them who enriched the Church Sufficit Stay your hands lest favour of zeal do cause you to empty your selves too far It may be the largeness of mens hearts being then more moderate had been after more dureable and one state by too much over-growing the rest had not given occasion unto the rest to undermine it That evil is now sufficiently cured the Church treasury if then it were over-ful hath since been reasonable well emptyed That which Moses spake unto givers we must now inculcate unto takers away from the Church Let there be some stay some stint in spoiling If Grape-gatherers came unto them saith the Prophet would they not leave some remnant behind But it hath fared with the wealth of the Church as with a Tower which being built at the first with the highest overthroweth if self after by its own greatness neither doth the ruine thereof cease with the only fall of that which hath exceeded mediocrity but one part beareth down another till the whole be laid prostrate For although the state Ecclesiastical both others and even Bishops themselves be now fallen to so low an ebb as all the World at this day doth see yet because there remaineth still somewhat which unsatiable minds can thirst for therefore we seem not to have been hitherto sufficiently wronged Touching that which hath been taken from the Church in Appropriations known to amount to the value of one hundred twenty six thousand pounds yearly we rest contentedly and quietly without it till it shall please God to touch the hearts of men of their own voluntary accord to restore it to Him again judging thereof no otherwise then some others did of those goods which were by Sylla taken away from the Citizens of Rome that albeit they were in truth malè capta unconscionably taken away from the right owners at the first nevertheless seeing that such as were after possessed of them held them not without some title which Law did after a sort make good repetitio corum proculdubio labefaltabat compositam civitatem what hath been taken away as dedicated unto uses superstitious and consequently not given unto God or at the least-wise not so rightly given we repine not thereat That which hath gone by means secret and indirect through corrupt compositions or compacts we cannot help What the hardness of mens hearts doth make them loath to have exacted though being due by Law eventhereof the want we do also bear Out of that which after all these
very words are That where such power is sealed into a family or kindred the Stock it self is thereby chosen but not the twig that springeth of it The next of the Stock unto him that raigneth are not through nearness of blood made Kings but rather set forth to stand for the Kingdom where Regal Dominion is hereditary it is notwithstanding if we look to the persons which have it altogether elective To this purpose are selected heaps of Scriptures concerning the Solemn Coronation or Inauguration of Saul of David of Solomon and others by the Nobles Ancients and people of the Common-weal of Israel as if these solemnities were a kind of deed whereby the right of Dominion is given Which strange untrue and unnatural conceits set abroad by seeds-men of Rebellion onely to animate unquiet spirits and to feed them with possibility of aspiring to Thrones if they can win the hearts of the people what hereditary title soever any other before them may have I say unjust and insolent positions I would not mention were it not thereby to make the countenance of truth more orient for unless we will openly proclaim defiance unto all law equity and reason we must there is no remedy acknowledge that in kingdoms hereditary birth giveth right unto Soveraign Dominion and the death of the predecessor putteth the successor by blood in seisin Those publick solemnities before specified do but serve for an open testification of the Inheritors right or belong unto the form of inducting him into possession of that thing he hath right unto therefore in case it doth happen that without right of blood a man in such wise be possessed all these new elections and investings are utterly void they make him no indefeasable estate the inheritor by blood may disposses him as an usurper The case thus standing albeit we judge it a thing most true that Kings even inheritors do hold their right in the Power of Dominion with dependency upon the whole Body politick over which they have Rule as Kings yet so it may not be understood as if such dependency did grow for that every supream Governor doth personally take from thence his power by way of gift bestowed of their own free accord upon him at the time of his entrance into the said place of his soveraign Government But the cause of dependency is that first Original conveyance when power was derived from the whole into One to pass from him unto them whom out of him nature by lawful births should produce and no natural or legal inability make uncapable Neither cab any man with reason think but that the first institution of Kings a sufficient consideration wherefore their power should always depend on that from which it did always flow by Original influence of power from the body into the King is the cause of Kings dependency in Power upon the body By dependency we mean subordination and subjection A manifest token of which dependency may be this as there is no more certain Argument that Lands are held under any as Lords then if we see that such lands is defect of heirs fall unto them by escheat In like manner it doth follow rightly that seeing Dominion when there is none to inherit it returneth unto the body therefore they which before were inheritors thereof did hold it with dependency upon the body so that by comparing the body with the head as touching power it seemeth always to reside in both fundamentally and radicially in the one in the other derivatively in the one the Habit in the other the Act of Power May a body politick then at all times withdraw in whole or in part the influence of Dominion which passeth from it if inconveniencies do grow thereby It must be presumed that supream Governors will not in such case oppose themselves and be stiff in detaining that the use whereof is with publick detriment but surely without their consent I see not how the body by any just means should be able to help it self saving when Dominion doth escheat such things therefore must be thought upon before hand that Power may be limited ere it be granted which is the next thing we are to consider In what Measure IN power of Dominion all Kings have not an equal latitude Kings by conquest make their own Charter so that how large their power either Civil or Spiritual is we cannot with any certainty define further then onely to set them in the line of the Law of God and Nature for bounds Kings by Gods own special appointment have also that largeness of power which he doth assign or permit with approbation touching Kings which were first instituted by agreement and composition made with them over whom they raign how far their power may extend the Articles of Compact between them is to shew not only the Articles of Compact at the first beginning which for the most part are either clean worm out of knowledg or else known to very few but whatsoever hath been after in free and voluhtary manner condiscended unto whether by express consent whereof positive laws are witnesses or else by silent allowance famously notified through custome reaching beyond the memory of man By which means of after Agreement it cometh many times to pass in Kingdoms that they whose ancient predecessors were by violence and force made subject do by little and little grow into that sweet form of Kingly Government which Philosophers define Regency willingly sustained and indued with Chiefly of power in the greatest things Many of the ancients in their writings do speak of Kings with such high and ample terms as if universality of Power even in regard of things and not of persons did appertain to the very being of a King The reason is because their speech concerning Kings they frame according to the state of those Monarchs to whom unlimited authority was given which some not observing imagine that all Kings even in that they are Kings ought to have whatsoever power they judge any Soveraign Ruler lawfully to have enjoyed But the most judicious Philosopher whose eye scarce any things did escape which was to be found in the bosome of nature he considering how far the power of one Soveraign Ruleâ— may be different from another Regal Authority noteth in Spartan Kings That of all others they were most tied to Law and so the most restrained power A King which hath not supream power in the greatest things is rather intituled a King then invested with reall Soveraignty We cannot properly term him a King of whom it may not be said at the least wise as touching certain the chiefest affairs of the State 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his right in them is to have rule not subject to any other predominancy I am not of opinion that simply in Kings the most but the best limited power is best both for them and the people the most limited is that which may deal in fewest things the â—eâ—t that which
Persons and Causes of the Church But I see that hitherto they which condemn utterly the name so applyed do it because they mislike that such Power should be given to Civil Governours The great exception that Sir Thomas Moor took against that Title who suffered death for denyal of it was for that it maketh a Lay a Secular Person the head of the State Spiritual or Ecclesiastical as though God himself did not name Said the Head of all the Tribes of Israel and consequently of that Tribe also among the rest whereunto the State Spiritual or Ecclesiastical belonged when the Authors of the Centuries reprove it in Kings and Civil Governours the reason is I st is non competit iste Primatus such kinde of Power is too high for them they fit it not In excuse of Mr. Calvin by whom this Realm is condemned of Blasphemy for intituâ—ing H. 8. Supream Head of this Church under Christ a charitable conjecture is made that he spake by misinformation howbeit as he professeth utter dislike of that name so whether the name be used or no the very Power it self which we give unto Civil Magistrates he much complaineth of and protesteth That their Power over all things was it which had ever wounded him deeply That un-advised Persons had made them too Spiritual that throughout Germany this fault did reign that in these very parts where Calvin himself was it prevailed more than was to be wished that Rulers by imagining themselves so Spiritual have taken away Ecclesiastical Government that they think they cannot reign unless they abolish all the Authority of the Cuurch and be themselves the chief Iudges as well in Doctrine as in the whole Spiritual Regency So that in truth the Question is Whether the Magistrate by being Head in such sense as we term him do use or exercise any part of that Authority not which belongeth unto Christ but which other men ought to have These things being first considered thus it will be easier to judge concerning our own estate whether by force of Ecclesiastical Government Kings have any other kinde of Prerogative that they may lawfully hold and enjoy It is as some do imagine too much that Kings of England should be termed Heads in relation of the Church That which we do understand by Headship is their only Supreme Power in Ecclesiastical Affairs and Causes That which lawful Princes are what should make it unlawful for men in Spiritual Stiles or Titles to signifie If the having of Supream Power be allowed why is the expressing thereof by the Title of Head condemned They seem in words at leastwise some of them now at the length to acknowledge that Kings may have Dominion or Supream Government even over all both Persons and Causes We in terming our Princes Heads of the Church do but testifie that we acknowledge them such Governours Again to this it will peradventure be replyed That howsoever we interpret our selves it is not fit for a mortal man and therefore not fit for a Civil Magistrate to be intituled the Head of the Church which was given to our Saviour Christ to lift him above all Powers Rules Dominions Titles in Heaven or in Earth Where if this Title belong also to Civil Magistrates then it is manifest that there is a Power in Earth whereunto our Saviour Christ is not in this point superiour Again if the Civil Magistrate may have this Title he may be termed also the first-begotten of all Creatures The first begotten of all the Dead yea the Redeemer of his People For these are alike given him as Dignities whereby he is lifted up above all Creatures Besides this the whole Argument of the Apostle in both places doth lead to show that this Title Head of the Church cannot be said of any Creature And further the very domonstrative Articles amongst the Hebrews especially whom St. Paul doth follow serveth to tye that which is verified of one unto himself alone so that when the Apostle doth say that Christ it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Head it is as if he should say Christ and none other is the Head of the Church Thus have we against the entituling of the Highest Magistrate head with relation unto the Church four several Arguments gathered by strong surmise out of words marvellous unlikely to have been written to any such purpose as that whereunto they are now used and urged To the Ephesians the Apostle writeth That Christ God had set on his right hand in the Heavenly places above all Regency and Authority and Power and Dominion and whatsoever name is named not in this World only but in that which shall be also and hath under his feet set all things and hath given him head above all things unto the Church which is his Body even the fulness of him which accomplisheth all in all To the Colossians in like manner That he is the head of the body of the Church who is a first born Regency out of the dead to the end he might be made amongst them all such an one as both the Chiefty He meaneth amongst all them whom he mentioned before saying By him all things that are were made the things in the Heavens and the things in the Earth the things that are visible and the things that are invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Regencies c. Unto the fore-alledged Arguments therefore we answer First that it is not simply the title of Head in such sort understood as the Apostle himself meant it so that the same being imparted in another sense unto others doth not any wayes make those others his Equals in as much as diversity of things is usually to be understood even when of words there is no diversity and it is onely the adding of one and the same thing unto divers Persons which doth argue equality in them If I term Christ and Cesar Lords yet this is no equalizing Cesar with Christ because it is not thereby intended To term the Emperor Lord saith Tertullian I for my part will not refuse so that I be not required to call him Lord in the same sense that God is so termed Neither doth it follow which is objected in the second place that if the Civil Magistrate may be intituled a Head he may as well be termed the first begotten of all Creatures the first begotten of the Dead and the Redeemer of his People For albeit the former dignity doth lift him up to less than these yet these terms are not applyable and apt to signifie any other inferior dignity as the former term of Head was The Argument of matter which the Apostle followeth hath small evidence or proof that his meaning was to appropriate unto Christ that the aforesaid title otherwise than only in such sense as doth make it being so understood too high to be given to any Creature As for the force of the Article where our Lord and Saviour is called the Head it serveth
Dominion over the whole Church of Christ militant doth and that by divine right appertain to the Pope of Rome They did prove it lawful to grant unto others besides Christ the power of Headship in a different kinde from his but they should have proved it lawful to challenge as they did to the Bishop of Rome a Power universal in that different kinde Their fault was therefore in exacting wrongfully so great Power as they challenged in that kinde and not in making two kindes of Power unless some reasons can be shewed for which this distinction of Power should be thought erroneous and false A little they stirr although in vain to prove that we cannot with truth make such distinction of Power whereof the one kinde should agree unto Christ onely and the other be further communicated Thus therefore they argue If there be no Head but Christ in respect of Spiritual Government there is no Head but be in respect of the Word Sacraments and Discipline administred by those whom he hath appointed for as much also as it is his Spiritual Government Their meaning is that whereas we make two kindes of Power of which two the one being Spiritual is proper unto Christ the other men are capable of because it is visible and external We do amiss altogether in distinguishing they think forasmuch as the visible and external power of Regiment over the Church is onely in relation unto the Word Sacraments and Discipline administred by such as Christ hath appointed thereunto and the exercise of this Power is also his Spiritual Government Therefore we do but vainly imagin a visible and external Power in the Church differing from his Spiritual Power Such Disputes as this do somewhat resemble the practising of Well-willers upon their Friends in the pangs of Death whose maner is even their to put smoak in their Nostrils and so to fetch them again alhough they know it a matter impossible to keep them living The kinde of affecton which the Favourers of this laboring cause bear towards it will not suffer them to se it dye although by what means they should make it live they do not see but thy may see that these wrestlings will not help Can they be ignorant how little it boteth to overcast so clear a light with some mist of ambiguity in the name of Spiritual Râ—iment To make things therefore so plain that henceforward a Childes capacity ma serve rightly to conceive our meaning we make the Spiritual Regiment of Christ to â—e generally that whereby his Church is ruled and governed in things Spiritual Of this general we make two distinct kindes the one invisible exercised by Christ himself in his own Person the other outwardly administred by them whom Christ doth allow to be Rulers and Guiders of his Church Touching the former of these two kindes we teach that Christ in regard thereof is particularly termed the Head of the Church of God neither can any other Creature in that sense and meaning be termed Head besides him because it importeth the conduct and government of our Souls by the hand of that blessed Spirit wherewith we are sealed and marked as being peculiarly his Him onely therefore do we acknowledge to be the Lord which dwelleth liveth and reigneth in our hearts him only to be that Head which giveth salvation and life unto his Body him onely to be that Fountain from whence the influence of heavenly Graces distilleth and is derived into all parts whether the Word or the Sacraments or Discipline or whatsoever be the means whereby it floweth As for the Power of administring these things in the Church of Christ which Power we call the Power of Order it is indeed both Spiritual and His Spiritual because such properly concerns as the Spirit His because by him it was instituted Howbeit neither Spiritual as that which is inwardly and invisibly exercised nor His as that which he himself in Person doth exercise Again that power of Dominion which is indeed the point of this Controversie and doth also belong to the second kinde of Spiritual Government namely unto that Regiment which is external and visible this likewise being Spiritual in regard of the manner about which it dealeth and being his in as much as he approveth whatsoever is done by it must notwithstanding be distinguished also from that Power whereby he himself in Person administreth the former kinde of his own Spiritual Regiment because he himself in Person doth not administer this we do not therefore vainly imagine but truly and rightly discern a Power external and visible in the Church exercised by men and severed in nature from that Spiritual Power of Christ's own Regiment which Power is termed Spiritual because it worketh secretly inwardly and invisibly His because none doth nor can it personally exercise either besides or together with him seeing that him onely we may name our Head in regard of His and yet in regard of that other Power from this term others also besides him Heads without any contradiction at all which thing may very well serve for answer unto that also which they further alledge against the aforesaid distinction namely That even the outward Societies and Assemblies of the Church where one or two are gathered together in his Name either for hearing of the Word or for Prayer or any other Church-exercise our Saviour Christ being in the midst of them as Mediatour must be their Head and if he be not there idle but doing the Office of a Head fully it followeth that even in the outward Societies and Meetings of the Church no more man can be called the Head of it seeing that our Saviour Christ doing the whole Office of the Head himself alone leaveth nothing to men by doing whereof they may obtain that Title Which Objection I take as being made for nothing but onely to maintain Argument for they are not so farr gone as to argue this in sooth and right good earnest God standeth saith the Psalmist in the midst of gods if God be there present he must undoubtedly be present as God if he be not there idle but doing the Office of a God fully it followeth that God himself alone doing the whole Office of a God leaveth nothing in such Assemblies to any other by doing whereof they may obtain so high a Name The Psalmist therefore hath spoken amiss and doth ill to call Judges Gods Not so for as God hath his Office differing from theirs and doth fully discharge it even in the midst of them so they are not hereby excluded from all kinde of Duty for which that Name should be given into them also but in that Duty for which it was given them they are encouraged Religiously and carefully to order themselves after the self-same manner Our Lord and Saviour being in the midst of his Church as Head is our comfort without the abridgement of any one duty for performance whereof others are termed Headsm another kinde than he is
respect of their bad qualities their wickedness in it self a deprivation of right to deal in the affairs of the Church and a warrant for others to deal in them which are held to be of a clean other Society the Members whereof have been before so peremptorily for ever excluded from power of dealing for ever with affairs of the Church They which once have learned throughly this Lesson will quickly be capable perhaps of another equivalent unto it For the wickedness of the Ministery transfers their right unto the King In case the King be as wicked as they to whom then shall the right descend There is no remedy all must come by devolution at length even as the Family of Brown will have it unto the godly among the people for confusion unto the wise and the great by the poor and the simple Some Kniper doling with his retinue must take this work of the Lord in hand and the making of Church-Laws and Orders must prove to be their right in the end If not for love of the truth yet for shame of grosse absurdities let these contentions and stifling fancies be abandoned The cause which moved them for a time to hold a wicked Ministery no lawful Ministry and in this defect of a lawful Ministery authorized Kings to make Laws and Orders for the Affairs of the Church till it were well established is surely this First They see that whereas the continual dealing of the Kings of Israel in the Affairs of the Church doth make now very strong against them the burthen whereof they shall in time well enough shake off if it may be obtained that it is indeed lawful for Kings to follow these holy examples howbeit no longer than during the case of necessity while the wickednesse and in respect thereof the unlawfulness of the Ministery doth continue Secondly They perceive right well that unlesse they should yield Authority unto Kings in case of such supposed necessity the Discipline they urge were clean excluded as long as the Clergy of England doth thereunto remain opposite To open therefore a door for her entrance there is no remedy but the Tenet must be this That now when the Ministery of England is universally wicked and in that respect hath lost all Authority and is become no lawful Ministery no such Ministery as hath the right which otherwise should belong unto them if they were vertuous and godly as their Adversaries are in this necessity the King may do somewhat for the Church that which we do imply in the name of Headship he may both have and exercise till they be entered which will disburthen and ease him of it till they come the King is licensed to hold that Power which we call Headship But what afterwards In a Church ordered that which the Supream Magistrate hath to do is to see that the Laws of God touching his Worship and touching all matters and orders of the Church be executed and duly observed to see that every Ecclesiastical Person do that Office whereunto he is appointed to punish those that fail in their Office In a word that which Allain himself acknowledgeth unto the Earthly power which God hath given him it doth belong to defend the Laws of the Church to cause them to be executed and to punish Rebels and Transgressors of the same on all sides therfore it is confest that to the King belongeth power of maintaining the Laws made for Church-Regiment and of causing them to be observed but Principality of Power in making them which is the thing we attribute unto Kings this both the one sort and the other do withstand Touching the Kings supereminent authority in commanding and in judging of Causes Ecclesiastical First to explain therein our meaning It hath been taken as if we did hold that Kings may prescribe what themselves think good to be done in the service of God how the Word shall be taught how the Sacraments administred that Kings may personally sit in the Consistory where the Bishops do hearing and determining what Causes soever do appertain unto the Church That Kings and Queens in their own proper Persons are by Judicial Sentence to decide the Questions which do rise about matters of Faith and Christian Religion That Kings may excommunicate Finally That Kings may do whatsoever is incident unto the Office and Duty of an Ecclesiastical Judge Which opinion because we account as absurd as they who have fathered the same upon us we do them to wit that this is our meaning and no otherwise There is not within this Realm an Ecclesiastical Officer that may by the Authority of his own place command universally throughout the Kings Dominions but they of this People whom one may command are to anothers commandement unsubject Only the Kings Royal Power is of so large compass that no man commanded by him according to the order of Law can plead himself to be without the bounds and limits of that Authority Isay according to order of Law because that with us the highest have thereunto so tyed themselves that otherwise than so they take not upon them to command any And that Kings should be in such sort Supream Commanders over all men we hold it requisite as well for the ordering of Spiritual as Civil Affairs in as much as without universal Authority in this kinde they should not be able when need is to do as vertuous Kings have done Josiah parposing to renew the House of the Lord assembled the Priests and Levites and when they were together gave them their charge saying Go out unto the Cities of Judah and gather of Israel money to repair the House of the Lord from year to year and haste the things But the Levites hastned not Therefore the King commanded Jehoida the Chief-priest and said unto him Why hast thou not required of the Levites to bring in out of Judah and Jerusalem the Tax of Moses the Servant of the Lord and of the Congregation of Israel for the Tabernacle of the Testimony For wicked Athalia and her Children brake up the House of the Lord God and all the things that were dedicated for the House of the Lord did they bestow upon Balaam Therefore the King commanded and they made a Chest and set it at the Gate of the House of the Lord without and they made a Proclamation through Judah and Jerusalem to bring unto the Lord the Tax of Moses the Servant of the Lord laid upon Israel in the Wilderness Could either he have done this or after him Ezekias the like concerning the celebration of the Passeover but that all sorts of men in all things did owe unto these their Soveraign Rulers the same obedience which sometimes Iosuah had them by vow and promise bound unto Whosoever shall rebel against thy Commandments and will not obey thy words in all thou commandest him let him be put to death only be strong and of a good courage Furthermore Judgement Ecclesiastical we say is
consequently to the Ministry of the Church and if it be by Gods Ordinance appertaining unto them how can it be translated from them to the Civil Magistrate Which Argument briefly drawn into form lyeth thus That which belongeth unto God may not be translated unto any other but whom he hath appointed to have it in his behalf But principality of Judgement in Church-matters appertaineth unto God which hath appointed the High-Priest and consequently the Ministry of the Church alone to have it in his behalf Ergo it may not from them be translated to the Civil Magistrate The first of which Propositions we grant as also in the second that branch which ascribeth unto God Principality in Church-matters But that either he did appoint none but onely the High-Priest to exercise the said Principality for him or that the Ministry of the Church may in reason from thence be concluded to have alone the same Principality by his appointment these two Points we deny utterly For concerning the High-Priest there is first no such Ordinance of God to be found Every High-Priest saith the Apostle is taken from amongst men and is ordained for men in things pertaining to God Whereupon it may well be gathered that the Priest was indeed Ordained of God to have Power in things appertaining unto God For the Apostle doth there mention the Power of offering Gifts and Sacrifices for Sin which kinde of Power was not onely given of God unto Priests but restrained unto Priests onely The power of Jurisdiction and ruling Authority this also God gave them but not them alone For it is held as all men know that others of the Laity were herein joyned by the Law with them But concerning Principality in Church-affairs for of this our Question is and of no other the Priest neither had it alone nor at all but in Spiritual or Church-affairs as hath been already shewed it was the Royal Prerogative of Kings only Again though it were so that God had appointed the High-Priest to have the said Principality of Government in those maters yet how can they who alledge this enforce thereby that consequently the Ministry of the Church and no other ought to have the same when they are so farr off from allowing so much to the Ministry of the Gospel as the Priest-hood of the Law had by God's appointment That we but collecting thereout a difference in Authority and Jurisdiction amongst the Clergy to be for the Polity of the Church not inconvenient they forthwith think to close up our mouths by answering That the Iewish High-Priest had authority above the rest onely in that they prefigured the Soveraignty of Iesus Christ As for the Ministers of the Gospel it is altogether unlawful to give them as much as the least Title any syllable whereof may sound to Principality And of the Regency which may be granted they hold others even of the Laity no less capable than the Pastors themselves How shall these things cleave together The truth is that they have some reason to think it not at all of the fittest for Kings to sit as ordinary Judges in matters of Faith and Religion An ordinary Judge must be of the quality which in a Supream Judge is not necessary Because the Person of the one is charged with that which the other Authority dischargeth without imploying personally himself therein It is an Errour to think that the King's Authority can have no force nor power in the doing of that which himself may not personally do For first impossible it is that at one and the same time the King in Person should order so many and so different affairs as by his own power every where present are wont to be ordered both in peace and warr at home and abroad Again the King in regard of his nonage or minority may be unable to perform that thing wherein years of discretion are requisite for personal action and yet his authority even then be of force For which cause we say that the King's authority dyeth not but is and worketh always alike Sundry considerations there may be effectual to with-hold the King's Person from being a doer of that which notwithstanding his Power must give force unto even in Civil affairs where nothing doth more either concern the duty or better beseem the Majesty of Kings than personally to administer Justice to their People as most famous Princes have done yet if it be in case of Felony of Treason the Learned in the Laws of this Realm do affirm that well may the King commit his Authority to another to judge between him and the Offender but the King being himself there a Party he cannot personally sit to give Judgement As therefore the Person of the King may for just considerations even where the cause is Civil be notwithstanding withdrawn from occupying the Seat of Judgment and others under his Authority be fit he unfit himself to judge so the considerations for which it were haply no convenient for Kings to sit and give Sentence in Spiritual Courts where Causes Ecclesiastical are usually debated can be no barr to that force and efficacy which their Soveraign Power hath over those very Consistories and for which we hold without any exception that all Courts are the Kings All men are not for all things sufficient and therefore Publick affairs being divided such Persons must be authorized Judges in each kinde as Common reason may presume to be most fit Which cannot of Kings and Princes ordinarily be presumed in Causes merely Ecclesiastical so that even Common sense doth rather adjudge this burthen unto other men We see it hereby a thing necessary to put a difference as well between that Ordinary Jurisdiction which belongeth unto the Clergy alone and that Commissionary wherein others are for just considerations appointed to joyn with them as also between both these Jurisdictions And a third whereby the King hath transcendent Authority and that in all Causes over both Why this may not lawfully be granted unto him there is no reason A time there was when Kings were not capable of any such Power as namely when they professed themselves open Enemies unto Christ and Christianity A time there followed when they being capable took sometimes more sometimes less to themselves as seemed best in their own eyes because no certainty touching their right was as yet determined The Bishops who alone were before accustomed to have the ordering of such Affairs saw very just cause of grief when the highest favouring Heresie withstood by the strength of Soveraign Authority Religious proceedings Whereupon they oftentimes against this unresistable power pleaded the use and custom which had been to the contrary namely that the affairs of the Church should be dealt in by the Clergy and by no other unto which purpose the sentences that then were uttered in defence of unabolished Orders and Laws against such as did of their own heads contrary thereunto are now altogether impertinently brought in opposition against
were afterwards published and imposed upon the Churches of the Gentiles abroad as Laws the Records thereof remaining still the Book of God for a testimony that the power of making Ecclesiastical Laws belongeth to the Successors of the Apostles the Bishops and Prelates of the Church of God To this we answer That the Councel of Ierusalem is no Argument for the power of the Clergy to make Laws For first there hath not been sithence any Councel of like authority to that in Ierusalem Secondly The cause why that was of such authority came by a special accident Thirdly The reason why other Councels being not like unto that in nature the Clergy in them should have no power to make Laws by themselves alone is in truth so forcible that except some Commandment of God to the contrary can be shewed it ought notwithstanding the foresaid example to prevail The Decrees of the Councel of Ierusalem were not as the Canons of other Ecclesiastical Assemblies Human but very Divine Ordinances for which cause the Churches were farr and wide commanded every where to see them kept no otherwise than if Christ himself had personally on Earth been the Author of them The cause why that Council was of so great Authority and credit above all others which have been sithence is expressed in those words of principal observation Unto the Holy Ghost and to us it hath seemed good which form of speech though other Councels have likewise used yet neither could they themselves mean nor may we so understand them as if both were in equal sort assisted with the power of the Holy Ghost but the latter had the favour of that general assistance and presence which Christ doth promise unto all his according to the quality of their several Estates and Callings the former the grace of special miraculous rare and extraordinary illumination in relation whereunto the Apostle comparing the Old Testament and the New together termeth the one a Testament of the Letter for that God delivered it written in stone the other a Testament of the Spirit because God imprinted it in the hearts and declared it by the tongues of his chosen Apostles through the power of the Holy Ghost feigning both their conceits and speeches in most Divine and incomprehensible manner Wherefore in as much as the Council of Ierusalem did chance to consist of men so enlightened it had authority greater than were meet for any other Council besides to challenge wherein such kinde of Persons are as now the state of the Church doth stand Kings being not then that which now they are and the Clergy not now that which then they were Till it be proved that some special Law of Christ hath for ever annexed unto the Clergy alone the power to make Ecclesiastical laws we are to hold it a thing most consonant with equity and reason that no Ecclesiastical laws be made in a Christian Common-wealth without consent as well of the Laity as of the Clergy but least of all without consent of the highest Power For of this thing no man doubteth namely that in all Societies Companies and Corporations what severally each shall be bound unto it must be with all their assents ratified Against all equity it were that a man should suffer detriment at the hands of men for not observing that which he never did either by himself or by others mediately or immediately agree unto Much more than a King should constrain all others no the strict observation of any such Human Ordinance as passeth without his own approbation In this Case therefore especially that vulgar Axiom is of force Quod omnes tangit ab omnibus tractari approbari debet Whereupon Pope Nicolas although otherwise not admitting Lay-persons no not Emperors themselves to be present as Synods doth notwithstanding seem to allow of their presence when matters of Faith are determined whereunto all men must stand bound Ubinam legistis Imperatores Antecessores vestros Synodalibus Conventibus interfuisse nisi forsitan in quibus de Fide tractatum est quae non solum ad Clericos verum etiam ad Laicos omnes pertinet Christianos A Law be it Civil or Ecclesiastical is a Publick Obligation wherein seeing that the whole standeth charged no reason it should pass without his privity and will whom principally the whole doth depend upon Sicut Laici jurisdictionem Clericorum perturbare ita Clerici jurisdictionem Laicorum non debent minuere saith Innocentius Extra de judic novit As the Laity should not hinder the Clergy's jurisdiction so neither is it reason that the Laity's right should be abridged by the Clergy saith Pope Innocent But were it so that the Clergy alone might give Laws unto all the rest forasmuch as every Estate doth desire to inlarge the bounds of their own Liberties is it not easie to see how injurious this might prove to men of other conditions Peace and Justice are maintained by preserving unto every Order their Rights and by keeping all Estates as it were in an even ballance which thing is no way better done than if the King their common Parent whose care is presumed to extend most indifferently over all do bear the chiefest sway in the making Laws which All must be ordered by Wherefore of them which in this point attribute most to the Clergy I would demand What evidence there is whereby it may clearly be shewed that in antient Kingdoms Christian any Canon devised by the Clergy alone in their Synods whether Provincial National or General hath by mere force of their Agreement taken place as a Law making all men constrainable to be obedient thereunto without any other approbation from the King before or afterwards required in that behalf But what speak we of antient Kingdoms when at this day even the Papacy it self the very Tridentine Council hath not every where as yet obtained to have in all points the strength of Ecclesiastical Laws did not Philip King of Spain publishing that Council in the Low Countries adde thereunto an express clause of special provision that the same should in no wise prejudice hurt or diminish any kinde of Priviledge which the King or his Vassals a fore-time had enjoyed touching either possessory Judgements of Ecclesiastical Livings or concerning nominations thereunto or belonging to whatsoever right they had else in such Affairs If therefore the Kings exception taken against some part of the Canons contained in that Council were a sufficient barr to make them of none effect within his Territories it followeth that the like exception against any other part had been also of like efficacy and so consequently that no part therof had obtained the strength of a Law if he which excepted against a part had so done against the whole as what reason was there but that the same Authority which limited might quite and clean have refused that Council who so alloweth the said Act of the Catholick Kings for good and
towards the Gospel of Christ whose eyes are opened to see the Truth and his mouth to renounce all Heresie and Errour any wise opposite thereunto This one opinion of Merits excepted he thinketh God will require at his hands and because he wanteth therefore trembleth and is discouraged it may be I am forgetful and unskilful not furnished with things new and old as a wise and learned Scribe should be nor able to alledge that whereunto if it were alledged he doth hear a minde most williing to yield and so to be recalled as well from this as from other Errours And shall I think because of this onely Errour that such a man toucheth not so much as the hem of Christ's garment If he do Wherefore should not I have hope that vertue may proceed from Christ to save him Because his Errour doth by consequent overthrow his Faith shall I therefore cast him off as one that hath utterly cast off Christ one that holdeth not so much as by a slender thred No I will not be afraid to say unto a Pope or Cardinal in this plight Be of good comfort we have to do with a merciful God ready to make the best of a little which we hold well and not with a captious Sophister which gathereth the worst out of every thing wherein we erre Is there any Reason that I should be suspected or you offended for this speech Is it a dangerous thing to imagine that such men may finde mercy The hour may come when we shall think it a blessed thing to hear that if our sinnes were the sinnes of the Pope and Cardinals the bowels of the mercy of God are larger I do propose unto you a Pope with the neck of an Emperour under his feet a Cardinal riding his horse to the bridle in the blood of Saints but a Pope or a Cardinal sorrowful penitent dis-robed stript not onely of usurpec ' power but also delivered and recalled from Error and Antichrist converted and lying prostrate at the foot of Christ and shall I think that Christ shall spurn at him and shall I cross and gain-say the merciful promises of God generally made unto penitent sinners by opposing the name of a Pope or Cardinal What difference is there in the world between a Pope and a Cardinal and Iohn a Stile in this Case If we think it impossible for them if they be once come within that rank to be afterwards touched with any such remorse let that he granted The Apostle saith If I or an Angel from heaven preach unto c. Let it be as likely that S. Paul or an Angel from Heaven should preach Heresie as that a Pope or Cardinal should be brought so farr forth to acknowledge the truth yet if a Pope or Cardinal should what finde we in their Persons why they might not be saved It is not the Persons you will say but the Errour wherein I suppose them to dye which excludeth them from the hope of mercy the opinion of merits doth take away all possibility of Salvation from them What if they hold it onely as an Errour Although they hold the truth truly and sincerely in all other parts of Christian Faith Although they have in some measure all the Vertues and Graces of the Spirit all other tokens of God's Elect Children in them Although they be farr from having any proud presumptuous opinion that they shall be saved by the worthiness of their deeds Although the onely thing which troubleth and molested them be but a little too much dejection somewhat too great a fear rising from an erroneous conceit that God would require a worthinesse in them which they are grieved to finde wanting in themselves Although they be not obstinate in this perswasion Although they be willing and would be glad to forsake it if any one reason were brought sufficient to dispove it Although the onely lett why they doe not forsake it ere they dye be the ignorance of the means by which it might be disproved Although the cause why the ignorance in this point is not removed be the want of knowledge in such us should be able and are not to remove it Let me dye if ever it be proved that simply an Errour doth exclude a Pope or a Cardinal in such a case utterly from hope of life Surely I must confesse unto you if it be an Errour that God may be merciful to save men even when they erre my greatest Comfort is my Errour were it not for the love I bear unto this Errour I would never wish to speak nor to live 36. Wherefore to resume that mother-Sentence whereof I little thought that so much trouble would have grown I doubt not but that God was merciful to save thousands of our Fathers living in Papish Superstitions inasmuch as they sinned ignorantly Alas what bloody matter is there contained in this Sentence that it should be an occasion of so many hard Censures Did I say that thousands of our Fathers might be saved I have shewed which way it cannot be denied Did I say I doubt not but they were saved I see no impiety in this Perswasion though I had no reason for it Did I say Their ignorance did make me hope they did finde mercy and so were saved What hindreth Salvation but Sinne Sinnes are not equal and Ignorance though it doth not make Sinne to be no Sinne yet seeing it did make their sinne the less why should it not make our hope concerning their life the greater We pity the most and doubt not but God hath most compassion over them that sinne for want of understanding As much is confessed by sundry others almost in the self-same words which I have used It is but onely my evil hap that the same Sentences which savour Verity in other mens books should seem to bolster Heresie when they are once by me recited If I be deceived in this point not they but the blessed Apostle hath deceived me What I said of others the same he said of himself I obtained mercy for I did it ignorantly Construe his words and you cannot misconstrue mine I spake no otherwise I meant no otherwise than he did 37. Thus have I brought the question concerning our Fathers at length unto an end Of whose estate upon so fit an occasion as was offered me handling the weighty causes of separation between the Church of Rome and us and the weak motives which are commonly brought to retain men in that Society amongst which motives the examples of our Fathers deceased is one although I saw it convenient to utter the Sentence which I did to the end that all men might thereby understand how untruly we are said to condemn as many as have been before us otherwise perswaded than we our selves are yet more than that one Sentence I did not think it expedient to utter judging it a great deal meeter for us to have regard to our own estate than to sift over-curiously what is become of other
disobedience of Children stubbornness of Servants untractableness in them who although they otherwise may rule yet should in consideration of the imparity of their sex be also subject whatsoever by strife amongst men combined in the fellowship of greater Societies by tyranny of Potentates ambition of Nobles rebellion of Subjects in Civil States by Heresies Schisms Divisions in the Church naming Pride we name the Mother which brought them forth and the onely Nurse that feedeth them Give me the hearts of all men humbled and what is there that can overthrow or disturb the peace of the World Wherein many things are the cause of much evil but Pride of all To declaim of the swarms of Evils issuing out of Pride is an easie labour I rather wish that I could exactly prescribe and perswade effectually the remedies whereby a sore so grievous might be cured and the means how the pride of swelling mindes might be taken down Whereunto so much we have already gained that the evidence of the Cause which breedeth it pointeth directly unto the likeliest and fittest helps to take it away Diseases that come of fulness emptiness must remove Pride is not cured but by abating the Errour which causeth the Minde to swell Then seeing that they swell by mis-conceit of their own excellency for this cause all which tend to the beating down of their Pride whether it be advertisement from men or from God himself chastisement it then maketh them cease to be proud when in causeth them to see their errour in over-seeing the thing they were proud of At this mark Iob in his Apology unto his eloquent Friends aimeth For perceiving how much they delighted to hear themselves talk as if they had given their poor afflicted familiar a schooling of marvellous deep and rare instruction as if they had taught him more than all the World besides could acquaint him with his Answer was to this effect Ye swell as though ye had conceived some great matter but as for that which ye are delivered of who knoweth it not Is any man ignorant of these things At the same mark the blessed Apostle driveth Ye abound in all things ye are rich ye raign and would to Christ we did raign with you But boast not For what have ye or are ye of your selves To this mark all those humble Confessions are referred which have been always frequent in the mouths of Saints truly wading in the tryal of themselves as that of the Prophet's We are nothing but soreness and festered corruption our very light is darkness and our righteousness is self unrighteousness That of GREGORY Let no man ever put confidence in his own deserts Sordet in conspectu Iudicis quod fulget in conspectu operantis In the sight of the dreadful Judge it is noysom which in the doer's judgment maketh a beautiful shew That of ANSELM I adore thee I bless thee Lord God of Heaven and Redeemer of the World with all the power ability and strength of my heart and soul for thy goodness so unmeasurably extended not in regard of my merits whereunto onely torments were due but of thy mere unprocured benignity If these Fathers should be raised again from the dust and have the Books laid open before them wherein such Sentences are found as this Works no other than the value desert price and worth of the joyes of the kingdom of Heaven Heaven in relation to our works as the very stipend which the hired Labourer covenanteth to have of him whose work he doth as a thing equally and justly answering unto the time and waight of his travels rather than to a voluntary or bountiful gift If I say those reverend fore-rehearsed Fathers whose Books are so full of Sentences witnessing their Christian humility should be raised from the dead and behold with their eyes such things written would they not plainly pronounce of the Authors of such Writs that they were fuller of Lucifer than of Christ that they were proud-hearted men and carried more swelling mindes than sincerely and feelingly known Christianity can tolerate But as unruly Children with whom wholsom admonition prevaileth little are notwithstanding brought to fear that everafter which they have once well smarted for so the Mind which falleth not with Instruction yet under the rod of Divine chastisement ceaseth to swell If therefore the Prophet David instructed by good experience have acknowledged Lord I was even at the point of clean forgetting my self and so straying from my right minde but thy Rod hath been my Reformer it hath been good for me even as much as my Soul is worth that I have been with sorrow troubled If the blessed Apostle did need the corrosive of sharp and bitter strokes left his Heart should swell with too great abundance of heavenly Revelations surely upon us whatsoever God in this World doth or shall inflict it cannot seem more than our Pride doth exact not only by way of revenge but of remedy So hard it is to cure a sore of such quality as Pride is in as much as that which rooteth out other Vices causeth this and which is even above all conceit if we were clean from all spot and blemish both of other faults of Pride the fall of Angels doth make it almost a question whether we might not need a Preservative still left we should haply wax proud that we are not proud What is Vertue but a medicine and Vice but a Wound Yet we have so often deeply wounded our selves with Medicine that God hath been fain to make wounds medicinable to cure by Vice where Vertue hath strucken to suffer the just man to fall that being raised he may be taught what Power it was which upheld him standing I am not afraid to affirm it boldly with St. Augustin That men puffed up through a proud opinion of their own sanctity and holiness receive a benefit at the hands of God and are assisted with his Grace when with his Grace they are not assisted but permitted and that grievously to transgress whereby as they were in over-great liking of themselves supplanted so the dislike of that which did supplant them may establish them afterwards the surer Ask the very Soul of Peter and it shall undoubtedly make you it self this Answer My eager Protestations made in the glory of my ghostly strength I am ashamed ofâ— but those Crystal tears wherewith my sin and weakness was bewailed have procured my endless joy my Strength hath been my Ruine and my Fall my Stay A REMEDY AGAINST Sorrow and Fear DELIVERED IN A FUNERAL SERMON JOHN 14. 27. Let not your Hearts be troubled nor Fear THE Holy Apostles having gathered themselves together by the special appointment of Christ and being in expectation to receive from him such Instructions as they had been accustomed with were told that which they least looked for namely That the time of his departure out of the World was now come Whereupon they fell into consideration first of the manifold benefits which
move as frighted men out of their places what Cave shall receive them What Mountain or Rock shall they get by intreaty to fall upon them What covert to hide them from that wrath which they shall neither be able to abide or avoid No man's misery therefore being greater than theirs whose impiety is most fortunate much more cause there is for them to bewail their own infelicity than for others to be troubled with their prosperous and happy estate as if the hand of the Almighty did not or would not touch them For these causes and the like unto these therefore Be not troubled Now though the cause of our heaviness be just yet may not our affections herein be yielded unto with too much indulgency and favour The grief of Compassion whereby we are touched with the feeling of other mens woes is of all other least dangerous Yet this is a leâ—â— unto sundry duties by this we are apt to spare sometimes where we ought to strike The grief which our own sufferings do bring what temptations have not risen from it What great advantage Satan hath taken even by the godly grief of hearty contrition for sins committed against God the near approaching of so many afflicted Souls whom the conscience of sinne hath brought unto the very brink of extreme despair doth but too abundantly shew These things wheresoever they fall cannot but trouble and molest the minde Whether we be therefore moved vainly with that which seemeth hurtful and is not or have just cause of grief being pressed indeed with those things which are grievous our Saviour's Lesson is touching the one Be not troubled not over-troubled for the other For though to have no â—eeling of that which meerly concerneth us were stupidity nevertheless seeing that as the Authour of our Salvation was himself Consecrated by affliction so the way which we are to follow him by is not strewed with rushes but set with thorns be it never so hard to learn we must learn to suffer with patience even that which seemeth almost impossible to be suffered that in the hour when God shall call us unto our trial and turn this honey of peace and pleasure wherewith we swell into that gall and bitterness which Flesh doth shrink to taste of nothing may cause us in the troubles of our Souls to storm and grudge and repine at God but every Heart be enabled with divinely-inspired courage to inculcate unto it self Be not troubled and in those last and greatest Conflicts to remember that nothing may be so sharp and bitter to be suffered but that still we our selves may give our selves this encouragement Even learn also patience O my Soul Naming Patience I name that vertue which onely hath power to stay our Souls from being over-excessively troubled A vertue wherein if ever any surely that Soul had good experience which extremity of pains having chased out of the Tabernacle of this Flesh Angels I nothing doubt have carried into the bosom of her Father Abraham The death of the Saints of God is precious in his sight And shall it seem unto us superfluous at such times as these are to hear in what manner they have ended their lives The Lord himself hath not disdained so exactly to register in the Book of Life after what sort his Servants have closed up their dayes on Earth that he descendeth even to their very meanest actions what meat they have longed for in their Sicknesse what they have spoken unto their Children Kinsfolks and Friends where they have willed their dead Carkasses to be laid how they have framed their Wills and Testaments yea the very turning of their Faces to this side or that the setting of their Eyes the degrees whereby their natural Heat hath departed from them their Cryes their Groans their Pantings Breathings and Last-gaspings he hath most solemnly commended unto the memory of all Generations The care of the living both to live and dye well must needs be somewhat encreased when they know that their departure shall not be foulded up in silence but the ears of many be made acquainted with it Again when they hear how mercifully God hath dealt with others in the hour of their last need besides the praise which they give to God and the joy which they have or should have by reason of their Fellowship and Communion of Saints is not their hope also much confirmed against the day of their own dissolution Finally the sound of these things doth not so passe the ears of them that are most loose and dissolute of life but it causeth them sometime or other to wish in their hearts Oh that we might dye the death of the Righteous and that our end might be like his Howbeit because to spend herein many words would be to strike even as many wounds into their mindes whom I rather wish to comfort Therefore concerning this vertuous Gentlewoman onely this little I speak and that of knowledge She lived a Dove and dyed a Lambe And if amongst so many Vertues hearty Devotion towards God towards Poverty tender Compassion Motherly Affection toward Servants towards Friends even serviceable kindness milde behaviour and harmless meaning towards all if where so many Vertues were eminent any be worthy of special mention I wish her dearest Friends of that sex to be her nearest Followers in two things Silence saving only where duty did exact speech and Patience even then when extremity of pains did enforce grief Blessed are they that dye in the Lord. And concerning the dead which are blessed let not the hearts of any living be over-charged with grief over-troubled Touching the latter affection of Fear which respecteth evil to come as the other which we have spoken of doth present evils first in the nature thereof it is plain that we are not of every future evil afraid Perceive we not how they whose tendernesse shrinketh at the least rase of a Needle 's Point do kisse the Sword that peirceth their Souls quite thorow If every Evil did cause Fear Sinne because it is Sinne would be feared whereas properly Sinne is not feared as Sinne but onely as having some kinde of harm annexed To teach men to avoid sinne it had been sufficient for the Apostle to say Flye it But to make them afraid of committing sinne because the naming of Sin sufficed not therefore he addeth further That it is as a Serpent which stingeth the Soul Again be it that some nocive or hurtful thing be towards us must fear of necessity follow hereupon Not except that hurtful thing doe threaten us either with destruction or vexation and that such as we have neither a conceit of ability to resist nor of utter impossibility to avoid That which we know our selves able to withstand we fear not and that which we know are unable to deferr or diminish or any way avoid we cease to fear we give our selves over to bear and sustain it The evil therefore which is feared must be in our perswasion
debere dicimus Quod ad rituales ecclesiasticas attinet ordinis aedificationis Ecclesiarum in his semper habendâ— ratio est inutiles autem noxias nempe ineptas supersticiosas Patronis suis relinquamus Goulart Genevens Annot. in Epist. Cypr. 74. d T.C.l. â— pa 71. They should nor have been to hold as to have brought it into the holy Sacrament of Baptism and so â—ingle the Ceremonies and inventions of Menâ— with the Sacraments and institutions of God T.C. lib 1. pag. 170. The profitable signification of the Cross maketh the thing a great deal worse and bringeth In a new word â—neu the Church whereas there ought to â—e no Doctor liâ—ard in the Church but onely our Saviour Christ For al hough tâ— be the Word of God that we should â—â— be ashamed of the Cross of Christ yet is it not the Word of God that we should be kept in remembrance of that by â—â—â—n lines drawn across one over another in the Childes Forehead * Luk. 7. 44 a T. C. lib. â— pag. 170. It is known to all that have real the Ecclesiâ—ssical sieries That the Heathen did â—â—â—â—â— in Christians in â—â—â—â—s all in reproach Thuâ— the God which â—ry believed on was hanged upon a Cross. And they thought goâ—d to râ—th that they were not ashamed therefore of the Sun of God by the often using of the Sign of the Crist. Which carefulness and goul minde to keep amongst them an open Proseâ—â—â—n of Christ crucified althrough it be to be commended yet is not this means so And they might otherwise have kept it and with less danger then by this use of crossing And as it was brought in upon no good ground so the Lord left a mark of his curse of it and whereby It might be perceived to câ—mour of the Forat of Men Brain is that it began forthwith while it was yet in the Swalling Ciours to be superstiâ—iuosly abused The Christians had such a Superstition in it that they would do nothing without Crossing But if it were gramed that upon this consideration which I have before mentioned the ancient Christians did well yet it followeth not that we should to do For we live not amongst those Nation which do cast us in the â—â—th or reproach us with die Cross of Christ. Now that we live amongst Papist that do not concern the Cros of Christ but which esteem more of the Word in Cross thru of the tene â—as wâ—â—â— is his sufferings we ough now to do clean conâ—â—riwile to thrill christians and abolish aâ—l use of that Cross to For contrary theasâ—â— must have contrary remedie If therefore thâ—o'd t Christians to deliver the Cross of Christ sunt now 〈…〉 all senue the Cross the Christians now to take away the superstitions estimation of it ought to take away â—e use of it b Epheâ— 5. 12. Rom. 6. 21 c Sen. Epist. 1â— lib. 1. d Tâ—â—oin 〈…〉 e Frons honinies cristitiae Islortatis Clementia severitatis index est Plin. lib. 21. Ez. k9 4. Apoc. 7. 3. â— p 4. a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist Eth. 4 c.9 a Caro signatur uâ— c anima muniatur Tertul de Resur Car. Cypr. Epist 56. â—d Thimâ—â—â—â—â— Cypr. de Laps Erant enim supplices corona li. Tetilib de Coreâ—il In the service of â—loâ— the Donors of their Temples the Sacrifices the Alâ—â—â— the Priests and the Suppliants that wore present were Garlands a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist â— her I. 1 cap. 6. b Oziar Rex leprae varielate in fronte macularuâ— est co porie corporis norarus est nso Domino ubi sigâ—â—â—cur qui Dominâ— prometentur Cypr. de unit Eccles Cap. 16. c Ginlart Am not in Cypr. lib. ad Demerr cap. 19. Quamvis veteres Christiani externo signo cruds un sumi lil â—amen suit sinc superstitione c ductrias de Christi merito ab crâ—â—e qui postea lâ—â—â—epsie pios servant immunes d Idem An. not in Cypr. Epist. 57. 67. Dist. 6.3 cap. Quid. â—izon lib 17. cap. 15. The. pag. 3. q. 25. art 3. Resp. ad Tert. a Ioseph Antiq lib. 17. cap. 8. lib. 18. cap. 3. de Bell. lib. 2. cap. 8. b Their Eagles their Ensigns and the Images of their Princes they carried with them in all their Armies and had always a kinde of Chappel wherein they places and adored them is their gods â—â— l. 40. Heredian lib. 4. c Matth. 22.20 d 2 Chro. 4. 3. e Exod. â—2 â— f 2 Chro. 34 7. g Josh. 22. 10. 1 King 11. 1â— 2 King 13. 13. 2 King 18 3,6 12. 2. 2 King 23. 7. Of Confirmation after Baptism * Caro manus Impositione adumbeatur â—t anima Spiritu illumineâ—ur Tertul de Reser Caâ— Gen. 48. 14. 2 King 5. 11. Num. 27. 18. Matth. 9. 18. Mark 5. 23. 8. 12. Matth. 19.13 Mark 10. 14. Luk. 18. 15. Mark 16.17 Aâ—â— 1â— â— Act 8 17 18. 〈…〉 August de â— er â—K â—â— cap. 15. Tertul. de Baptis Cypr. Epist. 2. ad Donat. c. â— Euseb Emis Ser. de Vents Aug. de Trin. liâ— 15 cap. 26. lâ—â—â— 6. 3. Acts 8. 12 15. Ier. Advers â—ucif cap. 4. Cypr. Epist. 73. ad Iubajenum Heb. 6. 3. Psal. 31. 10 11 12. * T C. lib. 1. pag. 1â—1 Tell me why there should be any such Confirmation in the Church being brought in by the seigned Decretal Epistles of the Popes this is â—eâ—â—acted by the same T.C. lib. 3. pag. 232 That it is ancienter then the seigned Decretal Epistles I yield unto and no one tittle thereof being once found in the Scripture and seeing that it hath been so horribly abused and not necessary why ought it â—â—â— to be utterly abolished And thirdly this Confirmation hath many dangerous points in it The first step of Popery in this Confirmation is the Laying on of Hands upon the Head of the Childe whereby the opinion of it that it is a Sacrament is confirmed especially when as the Prayer doth say That it is done according to the example of the Apostles which is a manifest unwâ—tâ— and taken indeed from the Popish Confirmation The second is for that the Bishop as he is called must be the onely minister of it whereby the Popish opinion which esteemeth it above Baptism is confirmed For whilest Baptism may be ministred of the Minister and not Confirmation but onely of the Bishop there is great cause of suspition given to think that Baptism is not so precious a thing as Confirmation seeing this was one of the principal reasons whereby that wicked opinion was established in Popery I do not here speak of the inconvenience that men are constrained with charges to bring their children oftentimes half a score miles for that which if it were needful might be as well done at home in their own Parishes The third is for that the Book saith a cause of using Confirmation is Therby imposition of Hands and Prayer the Children may receive strength and
is his will that if there shall be a Church within his Dominions he will maiâ— and deform the same M. M. pag 1â— He that was as faithful as Moses left as clear instruction set the Government of the Church But Christ was as faithful as Moses Eâ—gâ— Demensir of Discip. cap. 1. b John 17. Either God hath left a Prescript Form of Government now or else he is less careful under the New Testament then under the Old Demonst. of Dist. cap. 1. c Ecclesiast Dist. lib. 1. Rom. 11. 17. Ephes. 2. 12 1â— Deut. 4. 5. Vers. 12 13 14. Deut. 5. 22. Vers. 27. Vers. 28 29 30 31. * T. C. lib. 1. p. 35. Whereas you say That they the Jews had nothing but was determined by the Law and we have many things undetermined and left to the Order of the Church I will offer for one that you shall bring that we have lest â—o the Order of the Church to shew you they that had twenty which were undecided of by the express Word of God T. C. In the Table to his Second Book T. C. lib. 1. p. 446. If he will needs separate the Worship of God from the External Polity yet as the Lord set forth the one so he left nothing undescribed in the other Levit. 24 31. Numb 15. 3â— Numb 9. Numb 27. Gen. 18. 18. Gen. 48. 16. T. C. lib. 2. p. 440. 1 Tim 6. 14. Job 18. 37. Job 21. 1â— Acts 22. 18. 2 Tim 4. 1. 1 Tim. 5. 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 4. 24. 2 Tim. 4. 7. T. C. lib 3. p. 241. My Reasons do never conclude the unlawfulness of these Ceremonies of Burial but the inconvenience and inexpedience of them And in the Table Of the inconvenience nor of the unlawfulness of Popish Apparel and Ceremonies in Burial T. C. lib. 1. pag. 32. Upon the indefinite speaking of Mr. Calvin saying Ceremonies and External Disciple without adding all or some you go about subtilly to make men believe That Mr. Calvin had placed the whâ—le External Discipline in the Power and Arbitrement of the Church For it all External Discipline were Arbitrary and in the choice of the Church Excommunication also Which is a part of it might be cast away which I think you will not say And in the very next words before Where you will give to understand that Ceremonies and External Discipline are not prescribed particularly by the Word of God and therefore lest to the Order of the Church You must understand that all External Discipline is not lest to the Orders of the Church being particularly prescribed in the Scriptures no more then all Ceremonies are less to the Order of the Church as the Sacraments of Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. T. C. lib. 3. p. 171. T C. lib. 1. p. 27. We deny not but certain things are lest to the Order of the Church because they are of the Nature of those which are varied by times places persons and other circumstances and so could not at once be set â—â—wn and established forever â—saâ— â—â— 14. Col. 2. â—2 August Epist. â—â— Iosh. 12. Jude 11. 4â— Jâ—â—â—â— 3â— Ioh. 12. 4â— * Nisi Reip. suae statu in omnem constitu 〈…〉 Magistratus ordinarie singulorum mâ—nera potesâ—â—tem que de cripse â—it quae judi cioâ—um ferâ—q ratio habendaâ— quomodo civium finiendae â—ieris â—â—a solum minus Ecclesiae Christianae provi lit quam Moses olim Judaicae sed quà m à Lycurgo Solone Numa Civitatiâ— suis prospectum siâ— â—ib de Ecclesiast Discip. The Defence of godly Ministers against Dr. Bridges 133. Luk. 6. 39. Matth. 4. 14. Rom. 11. 13. Now great use Ceremonies have in the Church Matth. 23. 23. The Doctrine and Discipline of the Church as the weighiust things ought especially to be looked unto but the Ceremonies also as Mint and Cummin ought not to be neglected T.C. l p. 1â—1 Gen. 24. 2. Ruth 4. 7. Exod. 21. 6. a Dionys. p. 121. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 b Liv. lib. â— Maru ad digitor usque involutaÌ„ rem divinam facere significantes fidem inâ—andam sedemque ejâ—s etiam indexivis sucratam esse c Eccles. disc fol. 51. Fol. 32. The first thing they blame in the kinde of our Ceremonies is that we have not in them ancient Apostolical simplicity but a greater pomp and stateliness Lib. Eccles. disc T. C. l. 3. p. 181. Tâ—m 7. de hapt â—atra Donatist lib. â— aâ— 23. T. C. l. 1. p. 31. If this judgement of S. Augustine be a good judgement â—â— found than there he some things commanded of God which are not in the scripture and therfore there is no sufficient Doctrine contained in Scripture whereby we may be saved For all the Commandements of God and of the Apostles are needful for our salvation Vide Ep â—â—a 〈…〉 7. 2. 2 Chron. 2. 5. Our Orders and Ceremonies blamed in that so many of them are the same whiâ—h the Church of Rome useth Eccles. Discipl sol 12. T. C. lib. 1. p. 131. T. C. l. 1. p. 20. C.l.1 p 25. T. C. lib. 1 p. 13â— T. C. l. 1. p. 30. T. C. l. 1. p 131. T. C. l. 1 p. 132. Tom. 2. Graca â—3 Con. Africa cap. 27. Lib. de Idolat He seemeth to mean the feast of Easter day celebrated in the memory of our Saviours resurrection and for that cause earned the Lords day Lib. de Anima a T. C. l. 3 p. 178. b T. C. l. 3. p. 179. T. C. l. 3. p. 180. That whereas they who blame us in this behalf when reason evicteth that all such Ceremonies are not to be abolished make answer that when they condemn Popish Ceremonies their meaning is of Ceremonies unprofitable or Ceremonies instead whereof as good or better may be devised they cannot hereby get out of the bryars but contradict and gainsay themselves in asmuch as their usual manner is to prove that Ceremonies uncommanded in the Church of God and yet used in the Church of Rome are for this very cause unprofitable to us and not so good as others in their place would be T. C. l. 3. p. 171. What an open untruth is it that this is one of our principles not to be lawful to use the same Ceremonies which the Papists did when as I have both before declared the contrary and even here have expresly added that they are not to be used when as good or better may be established Eccles. discip sol 100. T. C. l. 3. p. 176. As for your often repeating that the Ceremonies in question are godly comely and decent It is your old wont of demanding the thing in question and an undoubted Argument of your extream poverty T. C. l. 3. p. 176. T. C. l. 3. p. 177. And that this complaint of ours is just in that we are thus constrained to be like unto the Papists in any their Ceremonies and that this cause only ought to move them to whom that belongeh to do
their away forasmuch as they are their Ceremonies the â—eal â—â—r may further see in the Bishop of Salisbury who brings divers proâ—is thereof That our allowing â—he customs of our fathers to be followed is no proof that we may not allow some customs which the Church of Rome hath alth â—iâ—h we do not account of them as of our fathers That the â—â—uâ—e which the wisdom of God doth â—â—ach maketh not against our â—â—â—u â—ity with the Church of Rome in such things T. C. l. â— p. 25. 131. Levit. 19. 27. and 19. 19. Deut 22 â—â— and 14. 7. Levit. 11. Ephes. 2. 14. Levit. 1â— 3. Levit. 15. 17 Levit. 21. 3. Deut. 14. 1. 1 Thes. 4. 13. Levit. 19. 19. Deut. 2. 11. Deut. 14. 7. Levit. 11. Levit. 19. 19. Deut. 14. Levit. 11. Ephes. 2. 14. That the example of the eldest Churches is not herein against us T. C. l. 1. p. 132. The Councels although they did not observe themselves always in making of Decrees this Rule yeâ— have kept this consideration continually in taking of their Laws that they would have the Christians differ from others in their Ceremonies Tom. â— â—sal Faust. Manich. lib. 30. cap. 4. T. C. l. 1. p. 132 Also it was decreed in another Council that they should not deck their houses with Bay leaves and green Houghs because the Pagangs did use so and that they should not rest their labour those days that the Pagans did that they should not keep the first day of every month as they did T. C. l. 3 p. 132 Tertul. saith O saith he better is the Religion of the Heathen for they use no solemnity of the Christians neither the Lords day neither c. but are not afraid to called Hea. T. C. l. 1. p. 133. But having she wed this in general to be the God first and of his People afterwards to pue as much difference as can be commodiously between the People of God and others which are not I shall not c. That â—â— is not ouâ—â—est policy for the establishment of found Religion to have in these things no agreement with the Church of Rome being unfound T. C. l. 1 p. 13. Comment reason also doth â—each that contraries are cured by their contraries Now Christianity and Antichristianity the Gospel and Popery be contraries and therefore Antichristianity must be cured not by it self but by that which is as much as may be contrary unto it T. C. l. 1. p. 132. If a man would bring a drunken man to sobriety the best and necceest way is to carry him as far from his excess in drink as may be and if a man could not keep a mean it were better to fault in prescribing thing leâ—e then he should drink then to fault in giving him more then he ought As we see to bring a stick which is crooked to be straightâ— we do not onely bow it so far until it come to be straight but we bend it so far until we make it to be so crooked on the other side as it was before of the first side to this end that â—â— the last it may bend straight and as it were in the mid-way beâ— with hoth the crooks That we are not to abolâ—sh our Ceremonies either because Papists upbraid us as having taken from them or for that they are said hereby to conceive I know not what great hopes T. C. l. 3. p. 1â—8 By using of these Ceremonies the Papists take occasion to blaspheme saying that one Religion cannot stand by it self unless it lean upon the staff of their Ceremonies Tâ—â—â— 3. p. 179. To prove the Papists triumph and joy in these things I alledged further that there are none which make such clamours for these Ceremonies as the Papists and those which they suborn 〈…〉 T.C. 1.3 p. 179. Thus they conceiving hope of having the rest of their Popery in the end it causeth them to be more frozen in their wickedness c. For not the cause but the occasion also ought to be taken away c. Although let the Reader judge whether they have cause given to hope that the tale of Popery yet remaining they shall the easilier hale in the whole body after considering also that Master Bucer noteth that where these things which have been lest there Popery hath returned but on the other partâ— in places which have been cleansed of these â—lregâ— it hath not been seen that it hath has any entrance Eccl. â— dis â— 54. The â—rief which they say godly Brethren conceive in regard of such Ceremonies as we have common with the Church of Rome T.C. â— 1. p. 180. There be numbers which have Antichristianity in such deâ—â—station that they cannot without grief of mind behold them And afterward such godly Brethren are not easily to be grieved which they seem to be when they are thou Marryred in their minds for Ceremonies which to speak the best of them are unprofitable T. C l. 3. p. 171. Although the corruptions in them strike no straight to the heart yet or gentle Poysons they consume by little and little Their exception against such Ceremonies a we have received from the Church of Rome that Church having taken them from the Jews solâ—8 â—8 and T C l. 3 p. 181. Many of these Popish Ceremonies fault by reason of the pomp in them where they should be agreeable to the simplicity of the Gospel of Christ crucified T.C.l. 1. p. 132. â—â—seb 1. 3. â— 17. Saeâ—â—â— â— 3 â—â— 1 Câ—â—â—il â—nd 〈…〉 Acts 6. 13 14. Viâ—le Nicepâ— lib. p. cap. 25. Sulpie Sâ—ver p. 149. in Eliâ— â—lanâ— Acts 15. Acts 21.25 Acts. 21. 20. Acts. 19. 20. Acts 16.4 Rom. 14. 10. Lib. qui Seder Olam inscribitur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 6 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 7 Heb. 13. 4. 1 Cor. 5. 11. Gal. 5. 19. Levâ—e 18. 1 Cor. 5.1 Leo in Jejun mens sept Ser. 9. Tertul. de prascript advers haeret T.C. lib. 3. p. 171. What an abusing also is it to affirm the mangling of the Gospels and Epistles to have been brought into the Church by godly and learned Men T. C. lib. 1. p. 216. Seeing that the office and function of Priests was after our Saviour Christs Ascension naught and ungodly the name whereby they were called which did exercise that ungodly function cannot be otherwise taken then in the evil part Concil Laod. Can. 37 3â— T. C. lib. 1. p. 131. T. C. lib. 3. p. 176. â— Concil Constantinop 6. cap. 11. Cypr. ad Pompei lib. cont Epist. Stephani * Sur. Eccle. first hist. lib 5. cap. 21. Flerique in Asia minore antiquiâ—us 14 die mensis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ratione dict Sahbati habitâ— hoc festum observaruar Quod dum facitbeur cum aluÌ„s qui aliam rationem in codem festo agendo