is to determine controversies of Faith And what obligation that determination produceth Traditions of the Apostles oblige the present Church as the reasons of them continue or not Instances in our Lords Passeover and Eucharist Penance under the Apostles and afterwards S. Pauls vail eaâ—ing blood and things offered to Idols The power of the Church in limiting these Traditions 178 CHAP. XXV The power of the Church in limiting even the Traditions of the Apostles Not every abuse of this power a sâ—fficient warrant for particular Churches to reforme themselves Heresie consists in denying something necessary to salvation to be believed Schism in departing from the unity of the Church whether upon that or any other cause Implicite Faith no virtue but the effect of it may be the work of Christian charity p. 163 CHAP. XXVI What is to add to Gods Law What to adde to the Apocalypse S. Pauls Anathema The Beraeans S. Johns Gospel sufficient to make one believe and the Scriptures the man of God perfect How the Law giveth light and Christians are taught by God How Idolatry is said not to be commanded by God 168 CHAP. XXVII Why it was death to transgress the determinations of the Jewes Consistory and what power this argueth in the Church A difference between the authority of the Apostles and that of the Church The being of the Church to the worlds end with power of the Keyes makes it not infallible Obedience to Superiours and the Pillar of truth inferre it not 175 CHAP. XXXI The Fathers acknowledge the sufficiencie 〈◊〉 â—â—â—â—rnesse of the Scriptures as the Traditions of the Church They are to be reconciled by limiting the termes which they use The limitations of those sayings which make all Christian truth to be contained in the Scriptures Of those which make the authority of the Church the ground of Faith 181 CHAP. XXXII Answer to an Objection that choice of Religion becomes difficult upon these terms This resolution is for the Interest of the Reformation Those that make the Church Infallible cannot those that make the Scriptures â—â—ear â—nd sufficient may own Tradition for evidence to determine the meaning of the Scriptures and controversies of Faith The Interest of the Church of England The pretense of Rushworthes Dialogues that we have no unquestionable Scripture and that tâ—e Tradition of the Church never changes 192 CHAP. XXXI That the Scriptures which wee have are unquestionable That mistakes in Copying are not considerable to the sense and effect of them The meaning of the Hebrew and Greek even of the Prophets determinable to the deciding of Controversies How Religion delivered by Tradition becomes subject to be corrupted 198 CHAP. XXXIV The dispute concerning the Canon of Scripture and the translations thereof in two Questions There can be no Tradition for those books that were written since Prophesie ceased Wherein the excellence of them above other books lies The chiâ—fe objections against them are questionâ—ble In those parcels of the New Testament that have been questioned the case is not the same The sense of the Church 207 CHAP. XXXIII Onely the Originall Copy can be Authentick But the truth thereof may as well be found in the translations of the Old Testament as in the Jewes Copies The Jewes have not falsified them of malice The points come neither from Moses nor Esdras but from the Talmud Iewes 218 CHAP. XXXIV Of the ancientest Translations of the Bible into Greek first With the Authors and authority of the same Then into the Chaldee Syriack and Latine Exceptions against the Greek and the Samaritane Pentateuch They are helps never thelesse to assure the true reading of the Scriptures though with other Copies whether Jewish or Christian Though the Vulgar Latine were better than the present Greek yet must both depend upon the Original Greek of the New Testament No danger to Christianity by the differences remaining in the Bible 224 The CONTENTS of the second Book CHAP. I. TWo parts of that which remains How the dispute concerning the Holy Trinity with Socinus belongs to the first The Question of justification by Faith alone The Opinion of Socinus concerning the whole Covenant of Grace The opinion of those who make justifying Faith the knowledge of a mans Predestination opposite to it in the other extream The difference between it and that of the Antinomians That there are mean Opinions p. 1 CHAP. II. Evidence what is the condition of the Covenant of Grace The contract of Baptism The promise of the Holy Ghost annexed to Christs not to Johns Baptism Those are made Christs Disciples as Christians that take up his Cross in Baptism The effects of Baptism according to the Apostles 5 CHAP. III. The exhortations of the Apostles that are drawn from the patterns of the Old Testament suppose the same How the Sacraments of the Old and New Testament are the same how not the same How the new Testament and the New Covenant are both one The free-will of man acteth the same part in dealing about the New-Covenant as about the Old The Gospel a Law 12 CHAP. IV. The consent of the whole Church evidenced by the custome of catechising By the opinion thereof concerning the salvation of those that delayed their Baptism By the rites and Ceremonies of Baptism Why no Penance for sins before but after Baptism The doctrine of the Church of England evident in this case 17 CHAP. V. The Preaching of our Lord and his Apostles evidenceth that some act of Mans free choice is the condition which it requireth The correspondence between the Old and New Testament inferreth the same So do the errors of Socinians and Antinomians concerning the necessity of Baptism Objections deferred 23 CHAP. VI. Justifying faith sometimes consists in believing the truth Sometimes in trust in God grounded upon the truth Sometimes in Christianity that is in imbracing and professing it And that in the Fathers as well as in the Scriptures Of the informed and formed Faith of the Schools 30 CHAP. VII The last signification of Faith is properly justifying Faith The first by a Metonymy of the cause The second of the effect Those that are not justified do truly believe The trust of a Christian presupposeth him to be justified All the promises of the Gospel become due at once by the Covenant of Grace That to believe that we are Elect or justified is not justifying faith 37 CHAP. VIII The objection from S. Paul We are not justifyed by the Law nor by Works but by Grace and by Faith Not meant of the Gospel and the works that suppose it The question that S. Paul speakes to is of the Law of Moses and the workes of it He sets those workes in the same rank with the works of the Gentiles by the light of nature The civil and outward works of the Law may be done by Gentiles How the Law is a Pedagogue to Christ 43 CHAP. IX Of the Faith and Justification of Abraham and the Patriarkes according to the Apostles
nothing but sufficient evidence that they came from God could have brought to passe Here if any man should say I know I have the Writings of Homer Aristotle or Tully by the Writings themselvs he might be convicted by tendering them to one that knowes nothing of Tully or Homer or Aristotle and asking him whether hee can say by those books whether they be Homers or Aristotles or Tullies Writings Bu◠he that first understands what account the world alwaies hath had their Writings in and studying them finds the marks in them may well say that hee knows the authors by their Writings So tender the Scripture in Ebrew or Greek to a savage of the West-Indies and ask him whether they be the Word of God or not who believes not in God as yet do you believe hee can tell you the truth But convict him of that which I have said how and by what means they came to our hands how they have been and are owned for Lawes to the hearts and lives of Gods people and hee will stand convict to God if hee believe not finding that written in the Books which the men own for the rule of their conversations So by the same means that all records of Learning are conveyed us are the Scriptures evidenced to be mater of historical faith But inasmuch as the mater of them had never been received but by the work of God in that regard they become mater of supernatural faith in regard of the reason moving in the nature of an object to believe as well as in regard of Gods grace moving in the nature of an effective cause I know there have been divers answers made to assoile this difficulty by those that dispute Controversies That the Scriptures authority is better known in order of nature the Churches in that order by which wee get our knowledg as Logicians and Philosophers use to distinguish between notius naturâ and notius nobis because our knowledg rises upon experience which wee have by sense of particulars and yet the general reason being once attained by that means is in some sense better known than that which depends upon it That the authority of the Scripture is the reason why wee believe but the authority of the Church a condition requisite to the same creating in the mindes of men that discreetly consider it a kinde of inferior Faith though infallible which disposes a man to accept the mater of that Faith which God onely revealeth though the reason why we believe is only the act of God revealing that which he obligeth us to believe But all this to no purpose so long as they suppose the foundation of the Church in the nature of a Corporation for the ground of admitting the mater of Faith not the credit of all believers agreeing in witnessing the motives of Faith I remember in my yonger time in Cambridge an observation out of Averrois the Saracene his Commentaries upon Aristotle which as I finde exactly true so may it be of good use That in Geometry and the Mathematicks the same thing is notius naturâ and nobis to wit the first principles and rudiments of those sciences which being evident as soon as understood produce in time those conclusions which no stranger to those studies can imagine how they should be discovered For being offered to the understanding that comprehendsthe meaning of them they require no experience of particulars with sense time brings forth to frame a general conceit of that in which all agree or to pronounce what holds in all particulars Because it is immediately evident that the same holds in all particulars as in one which a man has before his eyes The like is to be said of the processe in hand though the reason be farre otherwise Hee that considers may see that the motives of Faith assured to the common sense and reason of all men by the consent of believers are immediately the reason why wee believe the Scriptures in which they are recorded to be the Word of God without so much as supposing any such thing as a Church in the nature of a Corporation indowed with authority over those of whom it consists The consent of Christians as particular persons obliging common reason both to believe the Scriptures and whatever that belief inferres As this must be known before wee can believe the Scriptures so being known it must be if any be the onely reason why we believe either the Scriptures or that Christianity which they convey unto us And if it be the onely reason why wee believe then is it better known in order of reason as well as of sense to be true than the authority of the Church the knowledg whereof must resolve into the reason why wee are Christians And if this be true then is not the authority of the Church as a Corporation to be obliged by the act of some members so much as a condition requisite to induce any man to believe All men by having the onely true reason why all are to believe being subject to condemnation if they believe not But not if they believe not the Corporation of the Church unlesse it may appeare to be a part of that Faith which that onely reason moves us to believe Neither doth the credit which wee give to all Christians witnessing the motives of Faith to be true by submitting to Christianity in regard of them create in us any inferior Faith of the nature of humane because the witnesse of man convayes the motives thereof to our knowledg But serves us to the same use as mens eyes and other senses served them when they saw those things done which Moses and the Prophets which our Lord and his Apostles did to induce men to believe that they came from God For as true as it is that if God have provided such signs to attest his Commission then we are bound to believe So true is it that if all Christians agree that God did procure them to be done then did hee indeed procute them to be done that men might believe For so great a part of mankinde could not be out of their wits all at once Let not therefore those miracles which God hath provided to attest the Commissions of Moses and the Prophets of our Lord and his Apostles be counted common and probable motives to believe unlesse wee will confesse that wee have none but common and probable motives For what reason can wee have to believe that shall not depend upon their credit Unlesse it be the light of natural reason which may make that which they preach more evidently credible but never evidently true If these works were provided by God to oblige us to believe then is that Faith which they create truely divine and the work of God Though had all men been blinde they had not been seen and had all men been out of their wits wee might presume that they had agreed in an imposture And now it will be easie to answer the
words of S. Augustine contra Epistolam fundamenti cap. V. which alwaies have a place in this dispute though I can as yet admit S. Augustine no otherwise than as a particular Christian and his saying as a presumption that hee hath said no more than any Christian would have said in the common cause of all Christians against the Manichees Ego Evangelio non crederem saith hee nisi me Ecclesiae Catholicae moveret authoritas I would not believe or have believed the Gospel had not the authority of the Catholick Church moved mee For some men have imployed a great deal of learning to show that moveret stands for movisset as in many other places both of S. Augustine and of other Africane Writers And without doubt they have showed it past contradiction and I would make no doubt to show the like in S. Hierome Sidonius and other Writers of the decaying ages of the Latine tongue as well as in the Africane Writers if it were any thing to the purpose For is not the Question manifestly what it is that obligeth that man to believe who as yet believeth not Is it not the same reason that obliges him to become and to be a Christian Therefore whether moveret or movisset all is one The Question is whether the authority of the Church as a Corporation that is of those persons who are able to oblige the Church would have moved S. Austine to believe the Gospel because they held it to be true Or the credit of the Church as of so many men of common sense attesting the truth of those reasons which the Gospel tenders why wee ought to believe What is it then that obliged S. Austine to the Church The consent of people and nations that authority which miracles had begun which hope had nourished charity increased succession of time settled from S. Peter to the present the name and title of Catholick so visible that no Heretick durst show a man the way to his Church demanding the way to the Catholick So hee expresseth it cap. 111. And what is this in English but the conversion of the Gentiles foretold by the Prophets attested by God and visibly settled in the Unity of the Church Whereupon hee may boldly affirm as hee doth afterwards that if there were any word in the Gospel manifestly witnessing Manes to be the Apostle of Christ hee would not believe the Gospel any more For if the reason for which hee had once believed the Church that the Gospel is true because hee saw it verified in the being of the Church should be supposed false there could remain no reason to oblige us to take the Gospel for true All that remaines for the Church in the nature and quality of a Corporation by this account will be this That it is more discretion for him that is in doubt of the truth of Christianity to take the reason of it from the Church that is from those whom the Church trusteth to give it than from particular Christians who can by no means be presumed to understand it so well as they may do For otherwise supposing a particular Christian sets forth the same reasons which the Church does how can any man not be bound to follow him that is bound to follow the Church So that the reasons which both allege being contained in the Scriptures the Church is no more in comparison of the Scriptures than the Samaritane in comparison of our Lord himself when her fellow-citizens tell her John IV. 12. Wee believe no more for thy saying For wee our selves have heard and know that this is of a truth the Saviour of the World the Christ For the reasons for which our Lord himself tells us that wee are to believe are contained in the Scriptures But by the premises it will be most manifest that the same Circle in discourse is committed by them who resolve the reason why they believe into the dictate of the Spirit as into the decree of the Church For the question is not now of the effective cause whether or no in that nature a man is able to imbrace the true Faith without the assistance of Gods Spirit or not Which ought here to remain questionable because it is to be tried upon the grounds upon which here wee are seeking And therefore that Faith which is grounded upon revelation from God and competent evidence of the same is to be counted divine supernatural Faith without granting whatsoever wee may suppose any supernatural operation of Gods Spirit to work it in the nature of an effective cause which must remain questionable supposing the reason why wee believe the Scriptures But in the nature of an object presenting unto the understanding the reason why we are to believe it is manifest by the premises that no man can know that hee hath Gods Spirit that knoweth not the truth of the Scriptures If therefore hee allege that hee knowes the Scriptures to be true because Gods Spirit saith so to his Spirit hee allegeth for a reason that which hee could not know but supposing that for granted which hee pretendeth to prove To wit That the dictate of his own Spirit is from Gods Spirit Indeed when the motives of Faith proceed from Gods Spirit in Moses and the Prophets in our Lord and his Apostles witnessing by the works which they do their Commission as well as their message who can deny that this is the light of Gods Spirit Again when wee govern our doings by that which wee believe and not by that which wee see who will deny that this is the light of Faith and of Gods Spirit But both these considerations take place though wee suppose the mater of Faith to remain obscure in it self though to us evidently credible for the reasons God showes us to believe that hee saith it If any man seek in the mater of Faith any evidence to assure the conscience in the nature of an object or reason why wee are to believe that is not derived from the motives of Faith outwardly attesting Gods act of revealing it hee falls into the same inconvenience with those who believe their Christianity because the Church commends it and again the Church because Christianity commends it As for that monstrous imagination that the Scripture is not Law to oblige any man in justice to believe it before the Secular Powers give it force over their subjects Supposing for the present that which I said before that it is all one question whether Christianity or whether the Scriptures oblige us as Law or not Let mee demand whether our Lord Christ and his Apostles have showed us sufficient reasons to convince us that wee are bound to believe and become Christians If not why are wee Christians If so can wee be obliged and no Law to oblige us supposing for the present though not granting because it is not true that by refusing Christianity sufficiently proposed a man comes not under sin but onely comes not from under it but
of fact to be the same For the Unity of so great a Body will not allow that the terms should be strict or nice upon which the communion thereof standeth But obligeth all tâ—at love the general good of it to pass by even those imperfections in the Laws of it which are visible if not pernicious But where this Unity is once broken in pieces and destroyeâ— and palliating cures are out of date the offense which is taken at showing the true cure is imputable to them that cause the fraction not to him that would â—ee it restored For what disease was ever cured without offending the body that had it The cause of Episcopacy and of the Service is the cause of the whole Church and the maintenance thereof inferreth the maintenance of whatsoever is Catholick Owning therefore my obligation to the Whole Church notwithstanding my obligation to the Church of England I have prescribed the consent thereof for a boundary to all interpretation of Scripture all Reformation in the Church Referring my â—pinion â—n point of Fact what is Catholick to them who by their Title are bound to acknowledg that whatsoever is Catholick ought to take place While all English people by the Laws of the Church of England had suffiâ—iâ—nâ— and probable means of salvation ministred to them it had been a fault to acknowledg a fault which it was more mischief to mâ—nd than to bear with But when the Unity that is lost may as well be obtained by the primitive Truth and Order of the Catholick Church as by that which served the turn in the Church of England because it served to the salvation of more I should offend good Christians to think that they will stand offended at it In fine all variety of Religion in England seems to be comprised in three parties Papists Prelatical and Puritanes comprehending under that all parties into which the once common name stands divided All of them are originally as I conceive terms of disgrace which therefore I have not been delighted with using This last I have found some cause to frequent when I would signifie some thing common to all parties of it If with eagerness at any time the English Proverb says Loosers may have leave to speak I finde my self disobliged by the Papists in that desiring to serve God with all Christians they barr mee their CoÌ„munion by clogging it with conditions inconsistent with our common Christianity I finde my self disobliged by the Puritanes in that desiring to serve God with all Christians but acknowledging the Catholick Church I stand obliged by the Rule of it not to communicate with Hereticks or Schismaticks I complain for no Benefice or other advantage That desiring to communicate with all Christians I am confined for opportunity of serving God with his Church to the scartered remains of the Church of England is that for which I complain If owning this offense I suffer mine indignation at the pretense of Inâ—allibility or of Reformation to escape from mee I do not therefore intend to revenge my self by words of disgrace Let him that thinks so call mee Prelatical let him use mee with no more moderation than I use In the mean time I remain secured that the offense which my opinion may give is imputable in the sight of God to those that cause the division One offense I acknowledg and cannot help That I undertake a design of this consequence and am not able to go through with it as it deserves I should not have set Pen to paper till my materials had been prepared in writing that no term might have escaped mee unexamined Till the quotations of mine Authors had been all before mee so as to need no recourse to the Copies A labor which I have not been able every where to undergo In fine till I had cleared all pretense of obscurity or ambiguity in my language For the obscurity of my mater I am not sory for If writing in English because here the occasion commences the reasons by which I determine the sense of the Scriptures in the Original if the consequence oâ— it in some maters seem obscure I conceive it ought to teach the World that the people are made parties to those disputes whereof they are not able to be judges And I am willing to bear the blame of obscure if that lesson may be learned by the people The desire of easing my thoughts by giving them vent hath resolved mee to put them into the world â—ough-baked on purpose to provoke the judgments of all parties â—or the furnishing of a second Edition if God grant mee life with that which shall be missing in this I am therefore content to confine my self to the model of an abridgment and referr my self for the consent of the Church to those books which I am best satiâ—fied with in each point When that could not be done I have alleged authorities which I may call translatitias because I lay them down as I finde them alleged Not doubting that I justifie my opinion so farr as I desire to do here that there is no consent of the Church against it What the sense of the Church is positively and hath been into which I conceive that which here I say hath made mee a fair entrance I shall upon examination of particulars indeavor to give satisfaction in that which may be found missing here In the mean time it shall suffice to have advanced thus much towards the common interest of Christianity in the re-union of the Church But let no man therefore barre mee the lot of Reconcilers To be contradicted on all sides I profess no such thing It is enough for the greatest Powers in Christendom to undertake If it be an offense for a man of my years equally concerned with all Christians in our common Christianity to say his opinion upon what terms the parties ought to reconcile themselves it remains that offenses remain unreconcileable But contradiction from all parties I shall not be displeased with Hee that will tell mee alone in writing what hee findes fault with and why shall do a work of charity to mee alone Hee that will tell the world the same shall do mee the same charity that hee does the world in it Hee who can delight in that barbarous course which Controversies in Religion have been managed with among Christians by casting personal aspersions Let him rather do it than be silent provided the stuff hee brings be considerable to bear out such inhumanity among civil people But let him consider the dependences and concernments of the point hee speaks to let him not say for answer that these things are answered by our Divines It is easie to make â—bjections but not easie to clear difficulties And whether or no these difficulties were clear already I must referr it to the Reader to judge In the mean time though no arbitrator to chuse a middle opinion for partiâ—s to agree in I take upon mee the person of a Divâ—ne in
our sinnes imputable to Christ nor his sufferings to us formally and personally but as the meritorious causes which satisfaction answerâ—â—h The effect of it the Covenant of Grace as well as helpe to perform it The Fathers saved by the Faith of Christ to come The Gospel a new Law The prâ—perâ—y of satisfaction and punishment in Christs sufferings Of the sense of the Catholick Church 245 CHAP. XXX God might have reconciled man to himselfe without the coming of Christ The promise of â—â—â— Gâ—spel dâ—pend as well upon his active as passive obedience Christ need 〈…〉 pâ—iâ—â—s that we might not The opinion that maketh justiâ—â—â—g 〈…〉 â—rust in God not true Yet not prejudicial to the Faith The dâ—câ—â—â— of the Council of Trent and the doctrine of the Schoole how it is not preâ—udicial to the Faith As also that of Socinus 254 CHAP. XXXI The state of the question concerning the perseverance of those that are once justified Of three senses one true one inconsistent wiâ—h the faith the third neither true nor yet destructive to the Faith Evidence from â—â—â— writings of the Apostles From the Old Testament The grace of Proâ—heâ—â—e when it presupposeth sanctifying grace Answer to some texts and of S. Pauls mâ—aâ—â—ng in the VII of the Romans Of the Polygamy of the Fathers What assurance of Grace Christians may have The Tradition of the Church 266 CHAP. XXXII How the fulfilling of Gods Law is possible how impossible for a Christian Of the difference between mortall and veniall sinne What love of God and of our neighbour was necessary under the Old Testament Whether the Sermon in the Mount correct the false interpretation of the â—ewes or inhanse the obligatin of the Law Of the difference between matter of Precept and matter of Counsail and the Perfection of Christians 285 CHAP. XXXIII Whether any workes of Christians be satisfactory for sinne and meritorious of heaven or not The recovery of Gods grace for a Christian fallen from it a worke of labour and time The necessity and essicacy of Penance to that purpose according to the Scriptures and the practice of the Church Merit by virtue of Gods promise necessary The Catholick Church agrees in it the present Church of Rome allowes merit of justice 300 The CONTENTS of the third Book CHAP. I. THe Society of the Church founded upon the duty of communicating in the Offices of Gods service The Sacrament of the Eucharist among those Offices proper to Christianity What opinions concerning the presence of Christs body and Blood in the Eucharist are on foot page 1 CHAP. II. That the Natural substance of the Elements remaines in the Sacrament That the Body and Blood of Christ is neverthâ—lâ—sse present in the same when it is received noâ— by the receiving of it The eating of the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Câ—â—sâ— necessarily requireth the same This causes no contradâ—ction nor improperty â—â— the words of our Lord. 3 CHAP. III. That the presence of Christs body in the Eucharist depends not upon the living 〈◊〉 of him that receives but upon the true profession of Christianity in the 〈◊〉 thâ—â— câ—lâ—brates The Scâ—iâ—tureâ— that are alleged for the dependence of 〈◊〉 the communication of the properties They conclude not the sense of them b◠〈◊〉 â—â—ey are alleged How the Scripture confineth the flesh of Christ to the 〈◊〉 16 CHAP. IV. The opinion which maketh the Consecration to be done by rehearsing the operative words That our Lord consecrated by Thanksgiving The Form of it in all Lâ—â—urgies together with the consent of the Fathers Evidence that there is â—o Tradition of the Church for the abolishing of the Elements 23 CHAP. V. It cannot be proved by the Old Testament that the Eucharist is a Sacrifice How by the New Testament it may be so accounted Four reasons thereof depending upon the nature of Justifying Faith premised The consent of the Catholick Church The concurrence of the Church of England to the premises 38 CHAP. VI. The reason of the Order by which I proceed brings me to the Baptism of Infants in the next place The power of the Keyes seen in granting Baptism as well as in communicating the Eucharist Why Socinians make Baptism indifferent Why Antinomians make it a mistake to Baptize The grounds upon which I shake off both With answer to some objections 53 CHAP. VII The ground of Baptizing Infants Originall sinne though not instituted till Christ rose again No other cure for it Infants of Christians may be Disciplâ—â— are holy The effect of Circumcision under the Law inferreth the effect of Baptism under the Gospel 58 CHAP. VIII What is alledged to impeach Tradition for Baptizing Infants Proves not that any could be saved regularly who dyed unbaptized but that baptizing at years was a strong means to make good Christians Why the Church now Baptize What becomes of Infants dying unbaptized unanswerable What those Infants get who dye baptized â—5 CHAP. IX What controversie the Reformation hath with the Church of Rome about Penance Inward repentance that is sincere obtaineth pardon alone Remission of 〈◊〉 by the Gospel onely The condition of it by the Ministry of the Church What the power of binding and loosing contains more then Preaching or taking away offences Sinne may be pardoned without the use of it Wherein the necessity of using it lyeth 73 CHAP. X. The Sâ—cts of the Montanists Novatians Donatists and Meletians evidence the cure of sinne by Penance to be a Tradition of the Apostles So doâ—h the agreement of primitive practice with their writings Indulgence of regular Penance from the Apostles Confession of secret sinnes in the primitive Church That no sinne can be cured withoâ—â— the Keyes of the Church there is no Tradition from the Apostles The necessity of confessing secret sinnes whereupon it stands 86 CHAP. IX Penance is not required to redeem the debt of temporall punishment when the sinne is pardoned What assuraâ—ce of forgivenesse the law of auricular Confession as it is used in the Church of Rome procureth Of injoyning Penance after absolution performed Setting aside abuses the Law is agreeable to Gods Of the order taken by the Church of England 98 CHAP. XI The Unction of the sick pretendeth onely boaily health upon supposition of the cure of sinne by the Keyes of the Church Objections answered The Tradition of the Church evidenceth the same 106 CHAP. XII The ground of the Right of the Church in Matrimoniall causes Mariage of one with one iâ—solubly is a Law of Christianity The Law of Moses not injoyning it The Law of the Empire not aiming at the ground of it Evidence from the primitive practice of the Church 114 CHAP. XIV Scripture alledged to prove the bond of Mariage insoluble in case of adultery uneffectual S. Paul and our Lord speak both to one purpose according to S. Jerome and S. Austine The contrary opinion more reasonable and more general in the Church Why the Church may restrain the innocent party from marying again The
the Church to be the onely infallible Judge of all Controversies of Faith necessarily suppose that the Church is by Gods appointment that is Jure divino a Corporation Society or Body of men visible though not Civil because standing upon Gods will revealed in order to the happinesse of the world to come In which Society because in no Society all that are Interessed can act for themselvs it behooveth that there be a publick Authority vested in some persons or Bodies the Act whereof may oblige the whole And thus it may and must be understood that the Church is maintained to be Judge in Controversies of Faith by the definitive sentence of those that have authority to oblige the Body Whether Pope or Council wee dispute not here or what else may be imagined For that as all other Controversies in Religion is to be decided by the resolution of the point now in hand what is the means to determine by reason all such differences Which if it could not be decided without supposing whose authority is to tye the Church there could be no end of differences in the Church whatsoever there will be Here is then an opinion famous enough that the Church is indowed with a gift of Infallability by virtue whereof whatsoever sentence is passed by them that are authorized on behalf of the Church becomes matter of Faith and obliges all men to receive it by the same reason for which they receive the Christian Faith Now they who in opposition to this opinion do maintain the Scriptures to be the onely Judge in Controversies of Faith do involve in this opposition an equivocation manifest enough For it is manifest that their intent is to render a reason by this position why they submit not to that sentence which condemneth their positions in the name of the Church To wit because it is contrary to the Scriptures And further why they with-draw themselves from the communion of that Church which condemneth them and joyn in communion grounded upon the profession of the positions condemned maintaining themselves thereupon to be the true Church of God and those that condemne them the corrupt and counterfeit Whereby it appeareth that in effect they do maintain that there is no Judge provided by God to be visible in his Church with the gift of Infallible But that they are themselves and ought to be Judges to condemne all sentences given against the Scripture by any authority established in the Church By which means the Scripture becomes no more the Judge but the Rule or the Law by which men are to judge Whether they are to stand to such sentences as are given in the name of the Church or not Now if the Scripture be the Law or the Rule by which Controversies of Faith are to be judged there will be no pretense to exclude any means that may serve as evidence to clear the meaning of it And therefore there will be no cause why the Tradition of the Church should not be joyned with the Scripture in deciding Controversies of Faith Not disputing hitherto whether or no it contain any thing that the Scripture containeth not to clear and to determine the sense of the Scripture Whereas they that maintain the sentence of the present Church to be the reason of believing can no way resolve their belief into the Tradition of the Catholick Church Because that supposes only the act of our Lord and his Apostles delivering to the Church that which it holdeth Which who so supposeth can allege no other reason why hee believeth And therefore the sentence of the present Church cannot be the reason why any man should believe that which there was reason from the beginning to believe without it They who to exclude the Tradition of the Church state this position upon these terms That all things necessary to salvation are clearly contained in the Scriptures pretending to limit the generality of the question put it upon an issue not to be tryed till wee have resolved what means there is to determine the meaning of the Scripture For to be necessary to salvation is to be true and something more So that nothing can appear necessary to salvation till it can appear to be true Nor appear to be true untill it can be resolved what means there is to distinguish between true and false Besides how unlimited this limitation is may appear by this Because whatsoever is clear is said to be clear in relation to some sight And there is so much difference between the sight of several Christians that nothing can be said to be clear to all because it is clear to some And that which is not clear to all whose salvation is concerned in it what availes it those to whom it is not clear Now I suppose those that advance these termes will not grant that nothing is necessary to salvation that may be questioned by an argument out of the Scripture which all Christians cannot answer Knowing that such things as themselvs hold necessary to salvation may be assalted by such reasons out of the Scripture as they do not think all Christians fit to resolve Besides they do not pretend that all things necessary to salvation are clear in the Scripture of themselvs but by consequence of reason which may make them clear Now hee that would draw true consequences from the Scripture had need be well informed of the mater of that Scripture which hee drawes into consequence And to that information how can it appear that any thing is more necessary than the Tradition of the Church Therefore though I say not yet whether it be true or false that all things necessary to salvation are clearly contained in the Scriptures yet at the present I say that this is not the prime truth which must give a reason of all that followes upon it but demands a reason to be given for it by those principles upon which the resolution of all maters of Faith depends All this while wee agree upon the supposition that the Church is a Society of men subsisting by Gods revealed will distinct from all other Societies Because as I said those that have departed from the Church of Rome have hitherto pretended their own communion to be the true Church For if it be said that they do not or scarce ever did agree in communion one with another so that they can pretend to constitute all one Church That is not because they do not think that they ought all to constitute one Church but because they agree not upon the conditions Each part thinking that the other doth not believe as those whom they may communicate with ought to believe But this is now manifestly contradicted by two opinions among us though the one can be no â—ect the other as yet appears not to be one The first is that of them that think themselves above Ordinances the Communion of the Church onely obliging proficients and every perfect Christian being to himself a Church Of these
the Synod of Antiochia mad when they writ the Leter which you may reade in Eusebius VII 30. in the name of the Churches represented by that Synod to the rest of the Churches in Christendome signifying the sentence of deposition pronounced against Samosatenus and requiring them to joyn with it If it be madnesse to think them so mad as to summon the rest of the Churches upon an obligation which they did not acknowledge what shall it be to think that this obligation was but imaginary or at least voluntarily contracted not inacted by the will of our Lord declared by his Apostles The Emperor Aurelian being appealed by the Council to cause Samosatenus to be put our of his Bishops house by force who maintained himself in it by force against the sentence of the Synod decreed that possession should be given to him whom the Christian Bishops of Italy and Rome should acknowledge for Bishop by writing to him under that title Certainly this Heathen Emperor in referring the execution of the Synods decree to the consent of those remarkable parts of the Church whereupon the consent of the rest might reasonably be presumed understood the constitution of the Church by his five senses better than those learned Christians of our time who argue seriously that this Paulus Samosatenus was not excommunicated by the Synod of Antiochia but by the Emperor Aurelian For this is the course by which all the acts of the whole Church ever came in force those parts of the Church which were not present at the doing of them concurring ex postfacto to inact them and the civil power to grant the execution of them by secular power Perhaps it will not be fit here to let passe that which Athanasius relates libro de sontentiâ Dionysii Alexandrini That this Dionysius writing against Sabellius gave occasion to the Bishops of Pentapolis who resorted to the Church of Alexandria as wee see by the VI Canon of Nicaea to suspect him of that which afterwards was the Heresie of Arius And that Dionysius of Rome being made acquainted by them with a mater of that consequence to the whole Church this Dionysius writ him an Apology on purpose to give satisfaction of his Faith wherein S. Athanasius hath great cause to triumph that the Heresie of Arius which arose afterwards is no lesse condemned than that of Sabellius presently on foot Grant wee that it was an office of Christian charity to tender this satisfaction where it was become so requisite The example of Samosatenus shows that their addresse tended to question if not to displace their Bishop by the authority of the rest of the Church ingaging the consent of his own had hee been discovered to harbor the contrary Heresie to that of Sabellius And indeed what was the rise of all those contentions about Arius that succeeded in the Church after the Council of Nicaea but this question whether Arius should be re-admitted one of the Presbyters of the Church at Alexandria or remaine excommunicate And those truly that do not believe there is any Church but a Congregation that assembles together for the service of God must needs think all Christendome stark mad for so many years together as they labored by so many Synods to attain an agreement through the Church in this and in the cause of Athanasius that depended upon it But those who believe the power of the Church to eschere to the State when it declares it selfe Christian must think the Emperors Constantius and Valens mad when they put themselves to that trouble and charâ—e of so many Synods to obtain that consent of the Church which in point of right their own power might have commanded without all that ado In the decrees of divers of those many Synods that were held about this businesse you shall finde that those Churches which the said decrees are sent to are charged not to write to the Bishops whom they depoâ—e That is to say Not to give them the stile of Bishops not to deal with them about any thing concerning the Church but to hold them as cut off from the Church Just as the Emperor Aurelian afore commanded possession to be delivered to him whom the Bishops of Italy and Rome should write to as Bishop This little circumstance expresses the means by which the communion of the Church was maintained To wit by continual intercourse of leters and messengers from Churches to Churches whereby the one understood the proceedings of the other and being satisfied of the reason of them gave force and execution to them within their own Bodies And this course being visibly derived from the practice of the Apostles sufficeth to evidence the Unity of the Church established by the exercise of that communication which maintained it When wee see the Apostles from the Churches upon which they were for the time resident dare Leters to other Churches signifying the Communion of those Churches one with another by the communion of all with the Apostles who taught and brought into force the termes and conditions upon which they were to communicate one with another have wee not the pattern of that intercourse and communion between several Churches by which common sense showeth all them that look into the records of the Church that the Unity and Communion of the whole was continued to after ages The words of Tertullian de praescript haeret cap. XX. must not be omitted here Itaque tot ac tantae Ecclesiae una est illa ab Apostolis prima ex qua omnes Sic omnes prima Apostolicae duâ— unà omnes probant veritatem Dum est illis communicatio pacis appellatio fraternitatis contesseratio hospitalitatis Quae jura non alia ratio regit quam ejusdem Sacramenti una traditio Therefore so many and so great Churches are all that one primitive Church from the Apostles out of which all come So all are the primitive and Apostolical while all agree in proving the truth While they have the communication of peace the title of brotherhood the common mark of hospitality Which rights nothing but the same tradition of the same mystery ruleth It is to be known that among the Greeks and Romans if a man had made acquaintance and friendship in a forrain City the fashion was to leave a mark for a pledge of it with one another which was called tessexa upon recognisance whereof hee that should come to the place where the other dwelt was not onely to be intertained by him whereupon these friends are called hospites signifying both hosts and guests but also assiisted in any businesse which hee might have in that place Such a kinde of right as this Tertullian saith there was between Christians and Christians between Churches and Churches Hee that produced the cognisance of the Church from whence hee came found not onely accesse to the communion of the Church to which hee came but assistance in his necessities and business in the name of a Christian
Christians had not sufficiently renounced Idolatry in receiving the faith or as if it were not free for them being Christians to Gods creatures which perhaps might have been sacrificed to Idols But because as I said afore the Jews had a custome not to eat any thing till they had inquired whether sacrificed to Idols or consecrated by offering the first fruits thereof which scrupulosity those who did not observe they counted not so much enemies to Idols as they ought to be which opinion of their fellow Christians was not so consistent with that opinion of Christianity which was requisite Not as if fornication were not sufficiently prohibited by Christianity but because simple fornication being accounted no sinne but meerly indifferent among the Gentiles all the professions and all the decrees that could be made were little enough to perswade the Jews that their fellow Christians of the Gentiles held it in the like detestation as themselves Now though we find that the Christians did sometimes and in most places forbear blood and things strangled and offered to Idols even where this reason ceased and that perhaps out of an opinion that the decree of the Apostles took hold of them in doing which they did but abridge themselves of the common freedom of Christians yet seeing the Apostles give no such sign of any intent of reviving that which was once a Law to all that came from Noe but forgotten and never published again it followeth that the Church is no more led by the reason of their decree then those Churches of Rome and Corinth were whom S. Paul licences to eat all meats in generall as the Romanes or things sacrificed to Idols expresly as the Corinthians excepting the case of scandall which our common Christianity excepteth setting aside the decree of Jerusalem which S. Paul alledgeth not and naming two cases wherein that scandall might fall out as excepting no other case But in all these instances and others that might be brought as it was visible to the Church whether the reasons for which such alterations were brought into the Church continued in force or not so was it both necessary and sufficient for them that might question whither they were tied to them or not to see the expresse act or the custome of the Church for their assurance For what other ground had they to assure their consciences even against the Scripture in all ages of the Church For if these reasons be not obvious if every one admit them not much lesse will every one find a resolution wherein all may agree and all scandall and dissention may be suppressed CHAP. XXV The power of the Church in limiting even the Traditions of the Apostles Not every abuse of this power a sufficient warrant for particular Churches to reforme themselves Heresie consists in denying something necessary to salvation to be believed Schism in departing from the unity of the Church whether upon that or any other cause Implicite Faith no virtue but the effect of it may be the work of Christian charity SUpposing now the Church a Society and the same from the first to the second coming from Christ by Gods appointment Let it be considered what is the difference between the state thereof under the Apostles and under Constantine or now under so many Soveraignties as have shared these parts of the Empire And let any understanding that can apprehend what Lawes or what Customes are requisite to the preservation of unity in the communion of the Church in the one and in the other estate I say let any such understanding pronounce whither the same Lawes can serve the Church as we see it now or as we read of it under Constantine and as it was under the Apostles He that sayes yea will make any man that understands say that he understands not what he speaks of he that sayes nay must yeeld that even the Lawes given the Church by the Apostles oblige not the Church so farre as they become useless to the purpose for which they are intended seeing it is manifest that all Laws of all Societies whatsoever so farre as they become unserviceable so far must needs cease to oblige And the Apostles though they might know by the spirit the state of the Church that should come after yet had they intended to give Laws to that State they had not given Laws to the State which was when they lived and gave Laws The authority therefore of the Apostles remaining unquestionable and the Ordinances also by them brought into the Church for the maintenance of Gods service according to Christianity the Church must needs have power not onely to limite and determine such things as were never limited nor determined by the Apostles but even those things also the determination whereof made by the Apostles by the change of time and the state of the Church therewith are become evidently uselesse and unserviceable to the intent for which it standeth And if it be true that I said afore that all power produceth an obligation of obeying it in some things I say not in all as afore even when it is abused in respect of God and of a good Conscienceâ— then is the act of the Church so farre a warrant to all those that shall follow it so farre even in things which a man not onely suspects but sees to be ill ordered by those that act in behalfe of it This is that which all the variety and multitude of Canons Rites and Ordinances which hath been introduced into the Church before there was cause of making any change without consent of the whole evidenceth being nothing else but new limitations of those Ordinances which the Apostles either supposed or introduced for the maintenance of Gods service determining the circumstances according to the which they were to be exercised For if there were alwayes cause since the beginning for particular Churches that is parts of the vvhole to make such changes vvithout consent of the whole as might justly cause a breach between that part and the whole then was there never any such thing as a Catholick Church which all Christians profess to believe And truly the Jews Law may be an argument as it is a patern of the same right which notwithstanding an express precept of neither adding to it nor taking from it unlesse we admit a power of determining circumstances not limited by the letter of it becomes unserviceable and not to be put in practice as may easily appear to any man that shall peruse the cases that are put upon supposition of those precepts which determine not the same Whereupon a power is provided by the same Law of inflicting capitall punishment upon any that not resting upon the determination established by those that have authority in behalfe of the whole shall tend to divide the Synagogue Iintend not hereby to say that the power of giving Law to the Church cannot be so well abused that it may at length inable or oblige parts of the Church
I. 1. Theodoret in Levit. Quaest IX Theophilus II. Paschali S. Jerome in Psal XCVIII Omne quod loquimur debemus affirmare ex Scripturis Sanctis Whatsoever wee say wee are to prove out of the Holy Scriptures To the same purpose in Mat. XXIII in Aggaei I. Origen in Mat. Tract XXIII That wee are to silence gain-sayers by the Scriptures as our Lord did the Sadduces Adoro Scripturae plenitudinem quae mihi factorem ostendit facta I adore the fulness of the Scripture which showes mee both the Maker and what hee made saith Tertulliane contra Hermog cap. XXII S. Austine de peccat meritis remiss II. 36. Credo etiam hinc divinorum eloquiorum claerissima autorit as esset si homo sine dispendio promissae salutis ignorare non posset I believe there would be found some clear authority of the Word of God for this the original of mans soul if a man could not be ignorant of it without losse of the salvation that is promised In fine seeing it is acknowledged that the Scripture is a Rule to our Faith on all hands the saying of S. Chrysostome in Phil. III. Hom. XII is not refusable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Rule is not capable of adding to or taking from it For so it looseth being a Rule For the same reason S. Basil in Esa II. and Ascet Reg. I. condemns all that is done without Scripture On the other side in the next place a greater thing cannot be said for the Church than that which Tertul. contra Marc. IV. 2. S. ser Ep. LXXXIX S. Aust cont Faust XXVIII 4. have said that S. Pauls authority depended upon the allowance of the Apostles at Jerusalem Tertul. Denique ut cum auâ—oâ—ibus contuâ—â—t convenit de regulâ Fidei dextras miscuere In a word as som as hee had conferred with men in authority and agreed about the Rule of Faith they shook hands S. Jer. Ostendens se non habuisse securitatem praedicandi Evangolii nisi Petri caeterorum Apostolorum qui cum eo erant fuisset sententia roboratum Showing that hee had not assurance to preach the Gospel had it not been confirmed by the sentence of Peter and the rest of the Apostles that were with him S. Austine That the Church would not have believed at all had not this been done Among the sentences of the Fathers which make S. Peter the rock on which the Church is built the words of S. Austine contra partem Donati are of most appearance Ipsa est Petra quam non vincunt superbae inferorum Portae This Church of Rome is the Rock which the proud gates of Hell overcome not S. Jerome is alleged hereupon consulting Damasus then Pope in maters of Faith as tied to stand to his sentence Epist LVII and Apolog. contra Rufinum Scito Romanam fidem Apostolicâ voce landatam istiusmodi praestigias non recipere Etiamsi Angelus aliter annunciet quà m semel praedicatum est Petri authoritate munitum non posse â—â—utari Know that the Faith of Rome commended by the voice of the Apostle is not liable to such tricks Though an Angel preach otherwise than once was preached that being fortified by the authority of S. Peter it cannot be changed The saying of S. Cyprian is notorious Non aliunde haereses orta sunt aut nata schismata nisi indè quòd Sacerdoti Dei non obtemperatur nec unus in Ecclesiâ ad tempus Saeerdos ad tempus Judex Christi vice cogitatur cui si secundum magisteria divina fraternit as obtemperaret universa nemo adversùm Sacerdotum Collegium quicqam moveret nemo discidio unit atis Christi Ecclesiam scinderet Heresies spring and Schisms arise from no cause but this That the Priest of God is not obeyed that men think not that there is one Priest in the Church one Judg in Christs stead for the time Whom if the whole Brother-hood did obey as God teacheth no man would move any thing against the College of Priests or tear the Church with a rent in the Vnity of it The authority which the Church giveth to the Scripture is again testified by S. Austine contra Epist fundamenti cap. V. Cui libro necesse est me credere si credo Evangelio Quum utramque Scripturam similiter mihi Catholica commendet authoritas Which book of the Acts I must needs believe if I believe the Gospel Catholick authority alike commending to mee both Scriptures To the same purpose contra Faustum XI 2. XIII 5. XXII 19. XVIII 7. XXVIII 2. XXXIII ult Therefore hee warns him that reads the Scriptures to preferr those books which all Churches receive before those which onely some And of them those which more and greater Churches receive before those which fewer and lesse So that if more receive some and greater others though the case hee thinks doth not fall out the authority of them must be the same And contra Cresconium II. 31. Neque enim sine causâ tam salubri vigilantiâ Canon Ecclesiasticum constitutus est ad quem certi Prophetarum Apostoloruus libri pertineant quos omnino judicare non audoamus For neither was the Rule of the Church settled with such wholesom vigilance without cause to which certain books of the Prophets and Apostles might belong which wee should dare on any terms to censure Where manifestly hee ascribeth the difference between Canonical Scripture and that which is not to an act of the Church settling the same Of the Power of the Church to decide Controversies of Faith all the Records of the Church if that will serve the turn do bear plentifull witnesse But the evidence for the gift of Infallibility from them seems to consist in this consequence That otherwise there would be no end of Controversies neither should God have provided sufficiently for his Church S. Austine contra Cresconium I. 33. Quisquis falli met uit huyus obscuritate quaestionis Ecclesiam de illâ consulat quam sine ullâ ambiguitate Scriptura sacra demonstrat Whosoever is afraid to be deceived by the darkness of this question concerning Rebaptizing let him consult the Church about it which the Holy Scripture demonstrateth without any ambiguity S. Bernard Epist CXC ad Innoc. II. Papam Opertet ad vestrum referri Apostolatum pericula quaeque scandala emergentia in regno Dei ac praesertim quae de fide contingunt Dignum namque arbitror ibi potissimum resarciri damna Fidei ubi non possit Fides sentire defectum All dangers and scandals that appear in the kingdome of God are to be referred to your Apostleship For I conceive it sitting that the decaies of the Faith should there especially be repaired where the Faith is not subject to fail As concerning the mater of Traditions wee are not to forget Irenaeus III. 2 3 4. where hee showes that the Gnosticks scorning both Scripture and Tradition as coming from those that knew not Gods minde
provided a visible Judg infallible in determining Controversies of Faith either because originally his goodnesse requires it or because wee cannot suppose that men can be obliged to imbrace the Gospel upon other terms It is sufficient that having given the Scriptures hee hath over and above provided the Communion of the Church to preserve the Rule of Faith and the Laws of the Church in the sensible knowledg and common practice of all Christians that the means of salvation might be sufficient and yet men remain subject to trial whether they would render them uneffectual or not to themselvs and the rest of mankinde I confess indeed it would be much for the ease of the parties and would shorten their work very much if it might be admitted for a presumption that all things necessary are clear in the Scriptures or that the Church is an infallible Judg in Controversies of Faith For then the superficial sound of the words of Scripture repeated by rote in the Pulpit or out of the Pulpit would serve to knock the greatest question on the head without any advise what difficulties remain behind undecided upon no lesse appearances in Scripture On the other side a decree of the Council of Trent would serve to put the Scripture to silence without any proffer to satisfie the conscience that is moved with the authority thereof equally obliging with our common Christianity with the sense of the Church on the same side to boot Thus much is visible that they whose businesse it is in England to reconcile souls to the Church of Rome finde their work ready done when they have gained this point and men all their lives afore grounded upon contrary reasons in the particulars which are the subject of the breach change their profession without any coutrary resolution in those particulars that is their former grounds remaining in force Surely nothing were more desirable than a ready and short way to the truth in things so concerning But to pretend it upon a ground which if any thing can be demonstrative in this kinde is demonstratively proved that it cannot be true To wit the authority of the Church decreeing without means to derive that which it decreeth from the motives that should evidence it to be revealed by God This I say to pretend is no better than an Imposture And if this be true I remain secure of that which every man will object against the resolution which I advance that whereas the meaning of the Scripture alone is a thing too difficult for the most part of men to compasse I require further that it be assured by the records of the Church which are endlesse and which no mans industry can attain to know So that the meer despair of finding resolution by the means propounded will justifie to God him that followes probabilities as being all one in that case whether there be no truth or whether it cannot appear to those whom it concerns This Objection I say I do not finde so heavy upon mee that I have any cause to mince but rather to aggravate the difficulty of it having showed that the means provided by God to make evidence of the Faith to the consciences of particular Chaistians is not any gift of infallibility vested in any person or persons on behalf of the whole Church but the Unity of the whole Church grounded upon the profession of the same Faith as the condition of it For in all reason what Unity bindes that Division destroyes And whatsoever Unity contributes to the assurance of a Christian that hee is in the way to salvation so long as hee continues in the Unity of the Church that the Division of the Church necessarily derogates from the same assurance in him that cannot continue in that Unity which is once dissolved and yet believing the Scriptures and our common Christianity to be infallibly true cannot believe the parties to be infallible as they are And what hath hee that desireth the Unity of the Church to do but to aggravate that difficulty of attaining salvation which the division thereof produceth I do therefore grant and challenge as for mine own Interest that it is very difficult for unlearned Christians to discern the truth in those Controversies about which a settled division is once formed as now in the Western Church At least upon so true and so clear grounds as may assure them that they make their choice upon no other interest than that of Gods truth But I do not therefore yield to that which this difficulty it seems hath wrung from Vincentius Lerinensis with whom agreeth the Opus imperfectum in Mat. as you have them quoted afore That there is no means but Scripture to convince inveterate Heresies The reason whereof the later of those authors renders Because those Heresies have their Churches their Pastors and the succession of them and their Communion as well as Catholick Christians For hee supposeth Pastors lawfully constituted to have fallen away to those Heresies And truly the case of this difficulty was put when the Arian Faction had possessed so great a part of the Church that S. Gregory Nazianzene in the place afore quoted acknowledges that the true Church could not be judged by numbers With whom S. Hilary libro de Synodis agreeth But if the same Nazianzene scorn them that value the Church by numbers Liberius in the place afore quoted out of Theodoret revies it upon him in saying that the cause of the Faith could not suffer though hee were alone For not onely the Scriptures continue alwaies the same but though the present Church fail it follows not that the Tradition of the Whole Church must fail with it So long as the original sense of the Whole Church may be evident by the agreement thereof with the Scripture wee may discern what is Catholick without the sentence of the present Church And that which is not so to be discerned for Catholick wee may presume that our salvation requires us not to believe it And therefore Vincentius and his fellow are so to be understood that it is difficult indeed to make evidence to private Christians of Tradition contrary to that which they see received by Heresies And therefore that for the convicting of them in the truth recourie is to be had to the Scriptures But Vincentius who as I showed you acknowledges evidence for Tradition from written records of the Church need not have said that there is no means to convince inveterate Heresies but the Scriptures Be this difficulty then the evidence how much it concerns the salvation of all Christians that the Unity of the Church be restored That the choice of private Christians in maters concerning their salvation be not put upon the sentencing of those disputes the reasons whereof they are not able to manage For being restored upon agreement in those things which it is sufficient for all Christians to believe it will neither be easie for private Christians to frame to themselves opinions
destructive to their particular salvation within that compasse neither will their fall be imputable to the Church but to themselves if they do But neither shall this difficulty be so great an inconvenience in our common Christianity nor so insuperable as it seems to those that are loth to be too much troubled about the world to come For I never found that God pretendeth to give or that it is reason hee should give those means for attaining that truth by which wee must be saved which it should not lye within the malice of man to render difficult for them to compasse whom they concern I finde it abundantly enough for his unspeakable goodness and exactly agreeable with those means whereby hee convicteth the world of the truth of Christianity that hee give those whom it concerns such means to discern the truth of things in debate as being duly applyed are of themselves sufficient to create a resolution as certain as the weight of the mater in debate shall require And such I maintain the Scripture to be containing the sense of it within those bounds which the Rule of Faith and the Lawes given the Church by our Lord and his Apostles do limit For what is more obvious than to discern what the whole Body of the Church hath agreed in what not what is manifestly consequent to the same what not what is agreeable to the ground and end of those Lawes which the Church first received from our Lord and his Apostles what not Let prejudice cast what mists of difficulties it can before the light which God hath given his Church to discover the truth hee that stands out of their way shall discern much more art used to obscure than to discern it Neither is there any reason why it is so hard to make it discernable to all that are concerned but the unreasonable prejudices either of the force of humane authority in mater of Faith and the extent of Tradition beyond the Rule of Faith or that the consent of the whole Church may as well come from Antichrist as from the Apostles If the records of the Church were handled without these prejudices lesse learning than this age shows in other maters might serve to evidence the consent of â— Church in more controversies than wee have to those that would be content to rest in the Scripture expounded according to the same But if the Church that is those that uave right in behalf of the Church being perswaded of a sacrilegious privilege of Infallibility shall take upon them to determine truths in debate to limit Lawes to the Church without respect to this Rule which if they respect they manifestly renounce the privilege of their Infallibility I mervail not that God suffers his people to be tried with such difficulties whose sins I doubt deserve this tryal But then I say further that it is not the providence of God that is the means which hee hath provided to resolve men in debates of Christianity but it is the malice of man that makes that means uneffectual which God hath made sufficient I must now answer an envious objection that this resolution is not according to the positions of those that professe the Reformation with us To which I will speak as freely as to the rest having profess'd my self utterly assoiled of all faction and respect of mens persons to way against the means of finding the truth and for that reason devested even the Fathers of the Church of all authority which their merits from Christianity have purchased to hear what their testimonies argue in point of Historical truth I say then first that may saying no way prejudices the intent and interest of the Reformation whatsoever insufficience it may charge the expressions of Reformers with I know the worst that can be alleged in this point is that Luther in appealing from the Pope and Council called by him to a Council that should judg meerly by the Scriptures first framed this Controversie between the Scriptures and the Church which since hath been alwaies in debate so that hee which will not be tried by the Scriptures alone plainly seems to quit the party and give up the game Who has this imagination though never to apparent let mee desire him to go a little higher to the first commencing of the plea about Indulgences For there can be nothing more manifest than this That when those that undertook that cause against Luther found that the present practice of the Church could not be derived from any thing recorded in the Scripture they were forced to betake themselves to the authority of the Church not that which consisteth in testifying the faith once delivered but in creating that which never was of force untill the exercice of it Here let all the world judg for I am confident the case is so plain that all the world may judg in it whether Luther had any Interest to demand that the Scripture alone should be heard in opposition to the Tradition received from the beginning by the Church tending as I have said to nothing but to limit the meaning of the Scripture Or that his Interest required him to protest that the truth for which hee stood was not to be liable to the Sentence of the present Church And therefore when afterwards hee appealed to a Council which should pronounce by the Scriptures alone if this tend to exclude those means which are subordinate to the attaining of the meaning of the Scriptures I do utterly deny that it can be understood so to be meant by any man that would not defeat his own enterprize And therefore that it must be understood to exclude onely the authority of the present Church so farre as it proceeds not upon supposition of those grounds whereupon the Church is to pronounce For what hinders the sentence of the Church to be infallible not of it self alone but as it proceeds upon those means which duely applied produce a sentence that is infallible And truly were not his plea so to be understood all his Followers Melancthan Chemnitius and others who have written Volumes to show how their profession agrees with that of the Catholick Church should have taken pains to commit a very great inconsequence For as I have argued that those who maintain the Infallibility of the present Church do contradict themselves whensoever they have recourse either to the Scripture or to any Records of the Church to evidence the sense of the Scripture in that which otherwise they professe the authority of the Church alone infallibly to determine So those that will have the Scripture alone to determine all Controversies of Faith and yet take the pains to bring evidence of the meaning thereof from that which hath been received in the Church may very well be said to take pains to contradict themselves Some of our Scottish Presbyterians have observed that the Church of England was reformed by those that had more esteem of Melancthon than of Calvin and
that they were inspired by Gods Spirit or that the authors thereof ever spoke by the same And with this resolution the testimonies of Ecclesiastical writers will agree well enough if wee consider that to prove them to have the testimony of the Church to be inspired by God it is not enough to allege either the word or the deed either of Writers or Councils alleging the authority of them or calling them Holy Divine or Canonical Scriptures Nothing but universal consent making good this testimony which the dissent of any part creates an exception against For if those to whom any thing is said to be delivered agree not in it how can it be said to be delivered to them who protest not to have received it Wherefore having settled this afore that no decree of the Church inforceth more than the reason of preserving unity in the Church can require wee must by consequence say that if the credit of divine inspiration be denied them by such authors as the Church approveth no decree of the Church can oblige to believe them for such though how farr it may oblige to use them I dispute not here It shall therefore serve my turn to name S. Jerome in this cause Not as if Athanasius in Synopsi Melito of Sardis in Eusebius S. Gregory Nazianzene abundance of others both of the most ancient Writers of the Church and of others more modern who justly preferr S. Jerome in this cause did not reject all those parts or most of them which the Church of England rejecteth But because were S. Jerome alive in it there could be no Tradition of the Church for that which S. Jerome not onely a member but so received a Doctor of the Church refuseth For it will not serve the turn to say that hee writ when the Church had decreed nothing in it who had hee lived after the Council of Trent would have writ otherwise The reasons of his opinion standing for which no Council could decree otherwise Hee would therefore have obeyed the Church in using those books which it should prescribe But his belief whether inspired by God or not hee would have built upon such grounds the truth whereof the very being of the Church presupposeth Nor will I stand to scan the sayings of Ecclesiastical Writers or the acts of Councils concerning the authority of all and every one of these books any further in this place There is extant of late a Scholastical History of the Canon of the Scripture in which this is exactly done And upon that I will discharge my self in this point referring my Reader for the consent of the Church unto it And what importeth it I beseech you that they are called Sacred or Canonical Scriptures As if all such writings were not holy which serve to settle the holy Faith of Christians And though it is now received that they are called Canonical because they contain the Rule of our Faith and maners and perhaps are so called in this notion by S. Augustine and other Fathers of the Church Yet if wee go to the most ancient use of this word Canon from which the attribute of Canonical Scripture descendeth it will easily appear that it signifieth no more than the list or Catalogue of Scriptures received by the Church For who should make or settle the list of Scriptures receivable but the Church that receiveth the same it being manifest that they who writ the particulars knew not what the whole should contain And truly as I said afore that the Church of Rome it self doth not by any act of the force of Law challenge that the decrees of the Church are infallible So is it to be acknowledged that in this point of all other it doth most really use in effect that power which formally and expresly it no where challengeth Proceeding to order those books to be received with the like affection of piety as those which are agreed to be inspired by God which it is evident by expresse testimonies of Church writers were not so received from the beginning by the Church So that they who made the decree renouncing all pretense of revelation to themselves in common or to every one in particular can give no account how they came to know that which they decree to be true So great inconveniences the not duely limiting the power of the Church contrives even them into that think themselves therefore free from mistake in managing of it not because they think they know what they do but because they think they cannot do amisse It remaineth therefore that standing to the proper sense of this decree importing that wee are to believe these books as inspired by God neither can they maintain nor wee receive it But if it shall be condescended to abate the proper and native meaning of it so as to signifie onely the same affection of piety moving to receive them not the same object obliging Christian piety to the esteem of them it will remain then determinable by that which shall be said to prove how these books may or ought to be recommended or injoyned by the Church or received of and from the Church CHAP. XXXIII Onely the Original Copy can be Authentick But the truth thereof may as well be found in the translations of the Old Testament as in the Jewes Copies The Jewes have not falsified them of malice The Points come neither from Moses nor Esdras but from the Talmud Jewes AS to the other point it is by consequence manifest that the Church hath nothing to do to injoyn any Copy of the Scripture to be received as authentick but that which it self originally received because it is what it is before the Church receive it Therefore seeing the Scripture of the Old Testament was penned first and delivered in the Ebrew Tongue for I need not here except that little part of Esdras and Daniel which is in the Chaldee the same reason holding in both that of the New in the Greek there is no question to be made but those are the authentick Copies Neither can the decree of the Council of Trent bear any dispute to them who have admitted the premises if it be taken to import that the Church thereby settleth the credit of Scripture inspired by God upon the Copy which it self advanceth taking the same away from the Copy which the author penned That credit depending meerly upon the commission of God and his Spirit upon the which the very being of the Church equally dependeth But it is manifest that it cannot be said that the said decree necessarily importeth so much because it is at this day free for every one to maintain that the Original Ebrew and Greek are the Authentick Copies the Vulgar Latine onely injoyned not to be refused in act of dispute or question which hindreth no recourse to the Originals for the determining of the meaning which it importeth Hee that will see this tried need go no further than a little book of Sorbonne Doctor called
infant should go out of the World unbaptized that is it which the great solicitude of Christians that no such thing should come to passe the provision that a Lay man might baptize in case of necessity which admitted not the solemnity of ministers of the Church the grief and astonishment which followed if at any time it came to passe will inable me not onely to affirm but to inferre both the reason of originall sinne which the baptisme of Infants cureth and the authority of the Apostles which it proclaimeth It may be sayd that Pelagius himself allowed and maintained the Baptisme of Infants to bring them to the kingdom of heaven not to everlasting life But this was but to make his own cause the more desperate For had any intimation of the Scripture any Tradition or custome of the Church justified any ground of difference between the kingdome of heaven and everlasting life he might have escaped by pleading it But being disowned in it he hath left a desperate plea for those that come after him to question the Baptisme of Infants and by consequence original sinne which if he so many hundred years agoe could have found ground for he need not have stood in the list of hereticks The visible ceremonies of Baptisme which are so resolutely pleaded by his adversaries for evidence of the same are effectual to the same purpose For if it was thought requisite on behalf of infants to renounce Satan and all his Pompe and angels and instruments of this world adhering to God Iâ— it were solemn by huffing and exorcizing to use the power which God hath given his Church over unclean Spirits for the chasing of them out of Infants that were baptized Certainly those that did it were so farre from thinking that man as he is born can be capable of that good Spirit which Baptisme promiseth that they thought him to be liable to the contrary To this argument I will adde the matter of that catechizing which the ancient Church prepared those for Baptism who pretended to it as I begun to shew you in the first book for it is in a great part repeated in divers of these ancient forms of celebrating the Eucharist which are yet extant under the names of the Liturgies of Apostles and Fathers which I have named in my book of the publick service of God The ancientest of them is that which is recorded in the Constitutions of the Apostles VIII 11. But you find also there VII 40. the order of Catechizing those that are to be baptized providing that they be instructed in the mercy of God that suffered not mankind being turned from him to perish but in all ages provided meanes to recall them from sinne and error to truth and righteousnesse by the Fathers first and by the Law and Prophets afterwards untill all this proving ineffectuall he spared not at length to send his Sonne And the same is the argument of that Thanksgiving which is premised to the consecration of the Eucharist in the place quoted as also in the same work afore II. 55. and in the Liturgies to which I referre you An evidence in my opinion very considerable to shew this point to belong to the substance of Christianity as the subject mater both of that instruction which is requisite to make a man a Christiane and of both Sacraments wherein the exercise thereof consisteth In the second place I alledge such an evidence for the grace of Christ as no point of Christianity can produce better from the practice of the Church For I alledge the prayers of the Church all over and from the beginning that they have alwaies contained three things The first is of thanksgivings for our Christianity that is for the coming of Christ the preaching of his Gospel and the effect thereof in converting us to be Christians The second of prayers that we may be able to persevere in that to which we are so converted and to perform what we undertake by professing our selves Christians notwithstanding the temptations of our ghostly enemies to depart from it The third and last in that these thanks and prayers are tendered to God in Christ for his sake signifying the acknowledgment of his grace in bringing us to be Christians and the expectation of those helps by which we must persevere from the consideration of his merits and suffering For as for Prayers and thanksgivings in generall it cannot be said that the offering of them can argue either the decay of our nature or the repairing of the same by Christ because those that acknowledge not Christ Jews and Mahumetans must and do use them if they pretend Religion and the service of God yea even Pagans according to their sense But to pray and give thanks to God to make men or because he hath made men Christians or for the helps of salvation which by being Christians that iâ— by Christ we attaine to as by him we attaine to be Christians must needs appear utterly groundlesse unlesse we suppose that there was no other way left for our salvation which cannot be understood by any meanes but by the fall of Adam and the consequences thereof to come to passe In the last place I alledge the decrees of the whole Church against Pelagius together with the consent of those parts of the Church which otherwise cannot be understood to be concluded by those decrees For it is manifest there was no decree of the whole Church against Pelagius as against Arius The Councils of Carthage and of Numidia that of Palestine and in aftertimes that of Orange being but particular Councils not containing the consent of the whole But this consideration in another regard turns to the advantage of the Churches cause For when those parts of the Church which are not obliged by the decrees do voluntarily and freely joyne in giving effect to them as it is manifest they did at that time by the concurrence of the Bishops of Constantinople and Alexandria and the great Council of Ephesus in Vossius Hist Pel. I. 38 39 47. and do since by owning the acts done against them there can be no pretense of faction to sway them to go along with those whom they are loth to offend but all must be imputed to the sense of that Christianity which hitherto they found themselves perswaded of and therefore agreed not to admit to their Communion those who acknowledged it not which is the effect of all such decrees of the Church In the mean time I forget not the records of the Church in writing that is the testimonies of those writers who going before Pelagius and giving testimonie against him cannot be thought to joyne in faction to oppresse any truth which he preached And upon this evidence I challenge both the belief of originall sinne to be necessary to the acknowledgement of the grace of Christ which Christianity professeth and also that the grace of Christ is that which inables us to begin continue and finish the good
children as a henne gathers her chickens under her wings and ye would not Behold your house is left unto you desolate And S. Steven Acts VII 51. Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in hearts and ears you do alwaies crosse the holy Ghost as did your Fathers And the Scribes and Pharisees in the Gospel made void the counsel and purpose of God towards them Luke VII 30. But above all you have the purpose of God manifested by the Gospel of sending our Lord Christ for the salvation of the World as John the Baptist sayes John I. 29. Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sinne of the World And our Lord to Nicodemus John III. 16 17. God so loved the world that he gave his onely begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him may not perish but have life everlasting For God senâ— not his Son into the World to condemn the World but that the world by him might be saved And S. Paul commandeth Timothy that prayers be made by the Church for all men even for the Powers of the World then their enemies as a thing pleasing to God Who saith he would have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth For there is one God and one Mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus who gave himself an expiation for all to be witnessed in his own time 1 Tim. II. 4 5 6. And if there be any other passages of the New Testament as others there are to witnesse that Christ is given by God for the reconciliation and salvation of all mankind One I will not omit because the mistake which is alledged to divert the sense of it is remarkable 2 Pet. III. 9. God slacketh not his promise as some men count slacknesse but is slow to wrath in our regard not willing that any should perish but all come to repentance Which they will have to signify that he would have none of us that is of the elect to perish because it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is patient towards us the elect They might have seen that this is not the meaning of the words by Luke XVIII 7. Shall not God avenge his elect that cry to him day and night though slow to wrath in regard of them I tell you he shall avenge them speedily 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though slow to take vengeance in regard of them upon their oppressors Is here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 slow to take vengeance upon our oppressors for us which he hath promised to take 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Syriack 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek of the New Testament signifying the delaying of vengeance due to them that oppresse Christians as you see by S. Luke the Apostle attributes to the desire of saving those whom he spares Nor will I stop here to shew you the insufficience of those expositions which in despite of the words are fastned upon these texts to avoid the difficulties which they create to prejudicate opinions For it is manifest that the consequence of them is no more but the very same that arises from any Scripture that testifies the meanes which God uses for the good of any man to become frustrate through his fault In consideration whereof that God shall call them to account at the last day who either being convict of the truth of his Gospel or having meanes offered to be informed of the same imbrace it not or having imbraced it notwithstanding persevere not in it by living as Christ requireth Or on the contraty that he shall reward them who imbrace it and persevere in it Which being so many that they are not to be avoided without setting a great part of the Scripture upon the rack I count it not worth the while to insist here that S. Pauls meaning is not that God would have some of all estates to be saved or that he would have many to be saved or those that are saved to be saved or upon any other of those lame expedients which have been applied to plaister the wound which these plain texts do make But I insist upon this that the meaning of them cannot be That God would have those onely to be saved that shall be saved Having such a swarm of Scriptures to evidence how many things there are which God would have done and are not done having all the importunities and complaints which God useth by his Prophets to assure us that he would have found that obedience at the handes of his ancient people which he found not all the preachâ—ng of his Gospel all the motives of believing all the exhortations to accept and perform the Covenant of Grace in the New Testament ready to witnesse what men are to give account for at the day of judgement All which must be satisfied before there can be cause to balk the plain meaning of S. Pauls words which cannot seem inconvenient in any other regard but because they make God to will that which comes to passe all the Scripture witnessing that all that shall be condemned shall be condemned for not doing that which God would have them do For wheresoever Gods justice punishes there is it of necessity that man had sufficient meanes to do otherwise Where it rewardes there was possibility of transgressing there was a capacity of indifference and a will actually undetermined to do or not to do this or that notwithstanding originall sinne But first to declare what I understand this antecedent will of God to be I must distinguish with some divines that God must not be said to will this because of that or for that but may be said to will that this be because of that or for that Deus non vult hoc propter hoc sed vult hoc esse propter hoc When I say because of that or for that I extend the observation to two kindes of causes To the finall cause for which a thing is said to be done and to the motive or impulsive cause because of which a thing is said to be done when we speak of the doings of understanding and free causes For these having something in consideration to move them to do what they do this motive which they consider holds on the side of the effective cause in as much as there had been no proceeding without the consideration of it Though it is also true that the motion which consideration produces being so called but out of that resemblance which it holdeth with the motions which naturall things are visibly transported with importeth no more then the appetite of some good thing the want whereof they apprehend which is nothing else but the effect of the finall cause So that the motive cause is no other then the finall cause in respect of that effect which it hath indeed moved the effective cause to produce So then when I say that God willeth not this for that or because of that I say that God can have no ends upon his creatures being
and ruled the whole Church and might as easily make his corruptions generall as Christ Christianity But if it were meerly their saying to make it a Tradition of the Apostles what shall we say of Pelagius For they must pardon me who think that the hatred of his Heresie brought the baptism of Infants into force More generall it might deservedly make it For by the condemning of his Heresie the danger of Infants going out of the world was conâ—eâ—â—ed But it was the Baptism of Infants being in force afore that made his opinion an Heresie as making the necessity of Baptism visible as supposed by all Christians and therefore the truth of Original sin Pelagius was not so very a fool as they imagine If all the knowledge that a man of his time could get by seeing all parts of the Church would have served for an exception to the authority of the baptism of Infants he might have wrangled with his adverse party about the exposition of those Scriptures which are alleadged in the point till this day and his opinion have found footing in the Church But because he could not sâ—op mens eyes so as not to see what they saw we may for wantonnesse betray the cause of God by letting the interpretation of the Scriptures loose to every mans fancy which God had appointed to be confined within the Tradition of his Apostles but they could not chuse but condemn that position which the visible practice of the Church proclaimed to be Heresie Thus farre then I proceed upon the Tradition of the Apostles to make the Baptism of Infants necessary in case of necessity that is of danger of death But I that condemn not the ancients for disputing that it ought not to be generall nor the Greek Church for reserving it till years of discretion supposing the means of it reasonably secured in that case am not like to attribute the necessity of baptizing all Infants which the present Laws of the Church do introduce to the tradition of the Apostles but to the original power of the Church founded upon the constitution thereof in determining the circumstances of those offices which being incumbent upon the Church are not determined by any law of either of his Apostles For though I take not upon me to say that there can no reason be given why this particular should not now be so determined as we see it is who do acknowledge great reasons to have been alleadged by the ancients to the contrary for their time yet I see so many ways for the misunderstanding and the neglect of Christianity to creep upon the Church that I cannot see sufficient reason why the Church should trust the conscience of particular Christians whom it concerned to see to the baptism of all Infants that might come into that case now that the world was come into the Church and that therefore the Church could not have the like presumption of the conscience of all that professed Christianity in the discharge of an office of that concernment to that which it might reasonably have while it was under persecution and men could not be thought to imbrace Christianity but for conscience sake And therefore as I do maintain it alwaies to have been within the lawfull power of the Church to make a generall Law as now it is so I must averre that there was just reason and ground for the exercise of that power in determining this point whither as in the East with some toleration of those whom they had confidence in for seeing to the baptizing of their Infants in danger of death or generally as in the West to see the occasion of mischiefe and scandall prevented by doing it presently after birth And therefore those that forsake the unity of the Church â—ather then be subject to a Law which it may lawfully make as I have showed if that which hath been resolved of the difference between Heresie and Schism be true cannot avoid being schismaticks As for the ground of that opinion which moves them to break up the seal of God marked upon those that are baptized unto the hope of salvation upon the obligation of Christianity by baptizing them anew to the hope of salvation without the obligation of Christianity whether they are to be counted Hereticks therefore or not let who will dispute This I may justly inferre they take as sure a course to murther the souls of those whom they baptize again as of those whom they let go out of the world unbaptized There remains two questions which seem to make this resolution hard to believe If there be no salvation without Baptism no not for the Infants of Christians it is demanded what becomes of their souls and whither they go I must needs allow that those ancient and later Divines alledged by Cassander and our Hooker after him had reason to entertain a charitable hope of the happinesse of those who being prevented by the inevitable casualties of mans life of attaining the Sacrament of Baptism are accompanied out of the world by the prayers of Christian Parents commending them to God with the same affections wherewith they alwaies vowed them to God by bringing them to Christianity so soon as they should become capable to be instructed in it But if I will stand to the bounds of Gods revealed will I must also say that this hope is presumed without book that is without any Law of God to warrant the effect of it For if God promise the Kingdom of heaven to Infants that depart after Baptism as the reasons premised and the practice of the Church make evidence nothing hindreth the mercy of God to extend to those that depart without it where nothing hindreth the power of his grace to regenerate without the Sacrament those whom he hath not expressed that he will not regenerate But this shall not proceed from any obligation of his Covenant of Grace nor tend to make good the evidence thereof which the practice of the Church createth And therefore shall make onely a presumption of what may be and not of what is I find that Arminius had further a doubtful conceit that all Infants departing without Baptism are to be saved by the virtue of Gods second Covenant and the death of Christ upon which it is grounded God having extended both as farre as sinne by the first Adam extendeth But the publication of the second Covenant and the intent of Christs death upon which it is grounded being conditional as hath been showed I suppose it is not enough to intitle Infants to the benefit thereof that they never did any thing to refuse it Otherwise what cause is there why all the Gentiles that go out of the world without hearing of Christianity should not be saved by virtue of it notwithstanding all that they sinne against the Law of nature Because the New Covenant is to take effect where it is not refuted and sinnes against the Law of nature cannot be constrained as a refusall of the
Epist IX ad Probum Statuimus fide Catholica suffragante illud esse conjugium quod primitus erat divina gratia fundatum Conventumque secundaemulieris priore superstite nec divortio ejectâ nullo pacto posse esse legitimum We decree the Catholick faith voting for it that to be mariage which first was founded upon Gods grace that was first made according to Christianity and that the wedding of a second wife leaving the first can by no means be lawful Which exception could possibly signifie nothing if in no case not of adultery a second could be maried while the first is alive And in the West Chromatius of Aquileia in Mat. V. as well as in the East Asterius Homil. an liceat dimittere uxorem the first damns him that shall mary again excepting adultery The second would have his hearers perswaded that nothing but death or adultery dissolves mariage But do I therefore say that the Church cannot forbid the innocent party to mary again or is bound by Gods law to allow it All Ecclesiastical Law being nothing but the restraining of that which Gods Law hath left indefinite And the inconveniences being both visible and horrible I conceive I am duly informed that George late Arch-bishop of Canterbury was satisfied in the proceeding of the High Commission Court to tie them that are divorced from marying again upon experience of adultery designed upon collusion to free the parties from wedlock having been formerly tender in imposing that charge The Greek Church may beter avoid such inconveniences not being tied to any Law of the Land but the tempering of the Canons remaining in the Governors of the Church But they that would not have the Lawes of the Church and the justice of the Land became Stales and pandars to such vilanies must either make adultery death and so take away the dispute or revive publick Penance and so take away the infamy of his bed and the taint of his issue that shall be reconciled to an Adulteresse or lastly bear with that inconvenience which the casualties of the world may oblige any man to which is to propose the chastity of single life in stead of the chastity of wedlock when the security of a mans conscience and the offence of the Church allows it not But though this in regard of the intricacies of the question and the inconveniences evident to practice may remain in the power of the Church yet can it never come within the power of the Church to determine that it is prejudiciall to the Christian faith to do so as by Gods Law And the Church that erres not in prohibiting mariage upon divorce for adultery will erre in determining for mater of faith that Gods law prohibites it so long as such reasons from the Scriptures are not silenced by any Tradition of the whole Church It is easie to see by S. Augustine de adulterini conjugiis II. 5-12 that publick Penance was the means to restore an adulteresse to the same reputation among Christians which an adulteresse that turned Christian must needs recover among Christians And that is the reason why the Canon of Arles orders that young Christians be advised not to mary again that their wives may be recovered of their adultery by Penance and so their mariage re-estated I see also that Justiniane Nov. CXVII hath taken order that women excessive in incontinence be delivered to the Bishop of the City to be put into a Monastery there to do Penance during life And supposing adultery to be death according to Moses Law the inconvenience ceaseth If the Civil Law inable not the Church to avoid the scandall of this collusion it is no marvail that the Church is constrained to impose upon the innocent more then Gods law requires to avoid that scandall which Gods law makes the greater inconvenience And thus having showed you that S. Austines interpretation of fornication is not true I have into the bargain showed you that it cannot serve to prove divorce upon other causes besides adultery and so the insolubility of mariage excepting our Saviours exception is as firmly proved as the consent of the Church can prove any thing in Christianity I know Origen argues that poysoning killing children robbing the house may be as destructive to the Society of Wedlock as Adultery And he thereupon seems to inferre that our Saviour excepts adultery onely for instance intending all causes equally destructive to wedlock as Grotius who follows his sense seems to limit it But Origens opinion will not interrupt the Tradition of the Church unlesse it could appear to have come into practice sometime in some part of the Church Neither would it serve his turn that would have those divorces which the secular Power allowes to extend to marying again For Origen never intended that his own opinion should bind but that it is in the power of the Church to void mariages upon other causes For he saith he knew some Governours of Churches suffer a woman to mary her former husband living Praeter Scripturam besides the Scripture And that as Moses permitted divorce to avoid a greater mischiefe But I may question whether they thought that against the Scripture which Origen thought to be against the Scripture And in the mean time as I do not see what breach his report can make upon the Tradition of the Church so it is plain the Power of the Church and not the secular did that which he reports And truly what the testimony of S. Austine extending that Adultery upon which our Saviour grants divorce to all mortall sinne but confining him that is so divorced not to mary another can avail him that would intitle the secular Power to create causes of divorce to the effect of marying again let all reason and conscience judge I shall conclude my argument Exceptio firmat regulam in non exceptis An exception settles the rule in all that is not excepted Either our Saviour intended that who had put away a Yoke-fellow for adultery should mary again or not If so he hath forbidden marying again upon other causes If not much more For though upon adultery he hath forbidden to mary again And thus is the Power of the Church in Matrimoniall causes founded upon the Law which our Lord Christ hath confined all Christians to of marying one to one and indissolubly whither without exception or excepting adultery For seeing that of necessity many questions must arise upon the execution of such a Law and that Civil Power may as well be enemy to Christianity as not and that as well professing to maintain it as professing to persecute it to say that God hath left the Consciences of Christians to be secured by the Civil Power submitting to what it determines is to say that under the Gospell God hath not made the observing of his lawes the condition of obtaining his promises This is that power which Tertulliane in several places expresly voucheth de Pudicitiâ cap. IV. Penes nos speaking
upon the erecting of Constantinople into the second Head of the Empire For within fifty years the Council of the East being held there makes it the second Church and head Church of Thrace Diocese which the Chalcedon Council extends to the Dioceses of Asia and Pontus exalting it so â—arre above Alexandria and Antiochia as might seem afarr of to call for a kind of subjection at their hands If this be rightfully done what shall hinder the whole Church to dispose of the superiority of Churches when the greatnesse of their Cities makes it appear that the dependence of the Churches of less Cities upon them is for the Unity of the whole in the exercise of true Christianity And what can be said why it should not be right for the East to advance Constantinople to the next to Rome the same reason being visible in it for which Rome had the first place from the beginning It is true whereas Rome was content to take no noâ—ice of the Canon of Constantinople the Legates of Pope Leo present at Chalcedon and inforced either to admit or disclaim it protested against iâ— But upon what ground can he who by being part of the Council concluâ—es himself by the vote of it refuse his concurrence to that which he alone likes not Or to what effect is that disowned which takes place without him who protests against it unless it be to set up a monument of half the Church disowning the infinite power of the Pope the other halfe not pleading it but onely Canonicall pre-eminences by the Council of Nicaea I suppose indeed the Pope had something else to fear For Illyricum being so much nearâ—r Constantinople then Rome there was always pretense of reason to subject it as Asia and Ponâ—us â—o Constantinople to the prejudice of those pre-eminences which Rome injoyed there Especially since Illyricum was surrendred by Valentinian III upon the mariage of his Sister to Theodosius the younger as that learned Gentleman John Marsham hath observed and thenceforth become part of the Eastern Empire For hereupon followed the Law omni Innovatione cessante still extant in the Code requiring the Bishops of Illyricum to give account to Constantinople of all maters that should pass Besides had the Empire continued in force in Italy why might not Constantinople in time have pretended to the first place Rome being no more the prime City and yet still of the Empire And therefore Pope Leo as wiâ—e for the privileges of his Church as stout for the Faith did his own business when hee pleaded the Canon of Nicaea and the second place for Alexandria And whatsoever contests passed afterwards between the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople the privileges of Rome in Illâ—ricum continued till the time that Gregory the Second with-drew his City from the obedience of the Empire pretending his Soveraign to be an Heretick for destroying of Images I said afore in the first Book that others relate this otherwise And Anasâ—aâ—iâ—s in the lives of Gregory II and III. owns no more but that they exâ—ommunicated the Emperors which notwithstanding occasioned the Italians to â—all from the Empire But hereupon the Empeâ—oâ— commands not onely Illyricum but Sicily and that part of Italy which conâ—â—nued subject to the Empire to resort to the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of Constantinople and as in case of such jealousie was necessarily to be obeyed Hereupon Pope Adrian in his Apology for Images to Charles the Great complains that they deprived the Church oâ— Rome of the Diocese together with the patriâ—ony which it held in it when they put down Images and had given no answer from that time And Nicolas I. Epist â— revives the claime Which with the rescripts of the Popes between concerning Illyricum as well as the rest of the West see also the life of Hadriane II in Anastasius and much more that might be added shows that this was the state of the Church till that time During the time that Rome on one side stood upon these terms which Constantinople on the other â—â—de was continually harassed by the Lombards who had no reason to confide in it we see because they were not long after destroyed by it there is no marvail if Milane head of the Lombards and Ravenna head of the Exarchate that is of the Dominion that was governed by the Emperors Lieutenant there resident did by the Secular Power of their Cities set up themselves to contest with the Pope about several privileges of their Churches For alass what can this signifie of competition for the Primacy with Rome if wee compare the respect of Milane or Ravenna with that which Rome hath â—ound among other Churches in the concernments of the whole Therefore I will mention here onely one action more carried through in so high a tune by Gâ—lasius and other active Popes that it is much insisted upon by those who would plead for the Popes infinite Power if they durst because they would not have it regular which is the same for what bounds can that Power have that acknowleges no Rule to limit it It is that troublesom business that â—ell out in Egypt about the Council of Chalcedon when John of Alexandria having fallen under the jealousie of the Emperor and Acacius of Constantinople goes to Rome with Leters from Antiochia to complain of the intruding of Petrus Mongus into his Sea Who being an enemy to the Council of Chalcedon but pretending fair to promote those means by which the Emperor Zeâ—o and Acacius pretended to re-unite Aegypt to the Church having never received that Council was thereupon received into communion by Acacius The Rule of the Church being undispensable whosoever communicated with Hereticks to stand for an Heretick to the Church whatsoever hee believe otherwise This cause having bred a world of trouble for many years the Popes never condescended to be re-united in Communion to the East till it was granted that all the Bishops of Constantinople since Acacius though they had professed the true Faith and some of them suffred for it should be condemned as Hereticks by raising names out of that list in which the godly Bishops were remembred at celebrating the Eucharist Though the reason why they had continued communion with Hereticks was onely for fear of making the breaches of the Church wider and more incurable Here it may seem to have been the Power of the Pope that brought even the second person of the Church to the justice of the Canon so much more evident by how much there was lesse reason to insist upon the rigor of the Canon in comparison to the end to which it was subordinate the unity of the whole Yet to him that reasons aright it will easily appear that it was no duty that either the Emperors or the Bishops of Constantinople owed the Popes that made them submit to the Canon but the obligation they had to the Unity of the Church for the maintenance whereof the Canon was provided And that Zeno taking the
already how farre they containe an exception to this In the case of Timothy ordained to that work which Saint Paul by his Epistles instructeth him how to discharge what shall we conceive to be the effect of imposition of the hands of the Presbytery supposing him thereupon indowed with a grace of doing miracles or speaking strange languages but without any gift of saving grace to direct the use of the same to the salvation of his people What else but that which a sword is in a mad mans hand or knowledge eloquence or understanding in him that should set himself to raise himself a sect of followers into heresie or schisme Which should God allow Timothy upon Imposition of the hands of the Presbytery allowing it that Christian people might have confidence in so great a Pastor in whom they saw such manifestation of Gods Spirit might he not reasonably be said to allow him means to seduce Christian people I will not therefore contend but the Grace that was given Timothy by Prophesy signifieth some visible manifestation of Gods Spirit in him concerning whom there had Prophesies gone afore in the Church of how great eminence he should be in it But so as to suppose that saving grace wherein it manifested God to be in Timothy which saving grace though not wanting in him when he came to receive imposition of hands because he who receiveâ— it being no true Christan shall never receive that effect by it yet might by the effect thereof be extended applied or determined to the right use of whatsoever miraculous grace he might thereby receive in the service of Gods Church For to him that hath by nature or by Gods blessing upon his honest indeavours an ability to preach to dispute to resolve in Christianity and hath not by Gods saving grace the intent to use it well what doth such a gift bring but ability to do mischief Therefore the gift given Timothy by imposition of hands being that which was prayed for in behalf of him by those who laid hands on him is the grace to behave himself well in the function which thereby he receiveth Which being obtained by the prayers of the Church what reason leaveth it why the prayers of the Church should not still obtaine the like setting aside the difference between them that pray or him for whom they pray And certainly the effect of all prayers depends upon the same conditions be it never so much the ordinance of God which they desire him to blesse Here is then I meane in Ordination an ordinance of God solemnized with the visible câ—remony of imposition of hands signifying the overshadowing of Gods protection or of his Spirit which it pretendeth to procure upon the promise of Gods presence with his Church when it prays to him Which if it be therefore reckoned among the Sacraments of the Church as the property of the term will certainly bear it so can it be no disparagement to the Sacraments of Baptisme and the Eucharist as if it came in ranck with them For the grace which it procureth as it is limited to a particular effect of ministring to the Church the ordinances of God according to that trust which he reposeth in the office So is the grace which God appointeth to be convayed to his people by the ministry of every office no lesse to be obtained by that outward profession under which the order of the Church obliges them to minister the same whatsoever a mans inward intention that is not visible may be then if he really did intend to do his best for the service of God and the salvation of his people I speak now so farre as the order of the Church goes For otherwise it cannot be doubted that a mans personall abilities may give a great deal of life to the publick order of the Church and adde much in prosecution of the true intent and in order to the due effect of it All which the Grace to indeavour the faithfull discharge of each office and the blessing of God upon such indeavours which the blessing of the Church with imposition of hands prayes for containeth and effecteth But of all powers of the Church and the offices which they produce there is none that cometh so nigh the promises of the Gospel as that which consists in binding the sinnes of those that visibly transgresse their Christianity upon them and in loosing them upon visible Penance For this restoreth to a capacity for the gifts of the Holy Ghost forfeited by transgressing the Covenant of our Baptisme and by admitting to communion in the Eucharist immediately reneweth the same And truly the whole worke of it is nothing else but the satisfying of the Church that the man hath appeased the wrath and regained the favour of God that is satisfied God in the language of the ancient Church in consideration of the satisfaction of our Lord Christ accepting his Penance for satisfaction which of it selfe it is not And in regard of this great vertue and effect of penance I marvail not that in the reformation Melancthon is found to have reckoned it a third Sacrament after Baptisme the Eucharist For the name of Sacrament seemeth most duely to belong to the acts of those Offices which conduce most to the attaining or to the maintaining of the state of Gods Grace And truly it cannot be denyed that the solemnity of Penance in the ancient Church was such as might wel serve to signifie the recovering of that Grace the ground which Christians have for the helpe whereof it so effectually intimateth So though a mans own repentance in private hath the same promise of Grace yet the solemnity of Performing penance in the Church seemeth requisite to the nature and quality of the Sacrament in whatsoever sense it shall be attributed to it And this solemnity all reason will allow must needs have been of great effect to procure and settle in the penitent that disposition for pardon which it seemeth to professe This solemnity being so much abated in private penance that nothing of it remaines saving the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 notwithstanding so long as it remaines an office of the Church which limiteth the forme and the rules according to which it is done with due hope of effect there is no reason why the nature of a Sacrament should be therefore questionable When it is given out and simple Christians are so governed as if they were obliged to believe that attrintion is changed into contrition by vertue of the Keyes of the Church passing upon it that is that he who is not qualified for pardon when he confesses is by receiving the sentence of absolution qualified for pardon so that neither staine nor guilt of sin remaines but the debt of temporall punishment whereas the time of Canonical penance grounded a presumption that the change was wrought then may there seeme to be cause of questioning whether penance be a Sacrament that is an holy office of the Church in
God Grant that there may be question whether it be a just occasion or not certainly supposing it come to a custom in the church presently to do that which is alwaies due to be done you suppose the question determined This is that which I stand upon the matter being such as it is supposing the custom of the church to have determined it it shal be so far from an act of Idolatry that it shal be the duty of a good Christian Therefore not supposing the Church to have determined it though for some occasions whereof more are possible then it is possible for me to imagine it may become offensive and not presently due yet can it never become an act of Idolatry so long as Christianity is that which it is and he that does it professes himselfe a Christian Here then you see I am utterly disobliged to dispute whether or no in the ancient Church Christians were exhorted and incouraged to and really did worship our Lord Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist For having concluded my intent that it had not been Idolatry had it been done I might leave the consequence of it to debate But not to balk the freedom which hath caryed me to publish all this I doe believe that it was so practised and done in the ancient church which I maintaine from the beginning to have been the true church of Christ obliging all to conforme to it in all things within the power of it I know the consequence to be this that there is no just cause why it should not be don at present but that cause which justifies the reforming of some part of the Church without the whole Which if it were taken away that it might be done againe and ought not to be of it selfe alone any cause of distance For I doe acknowledge the testimonies that are produced out of S. Ambrose de Spiritu Sancto III. 12. S. Austine in Psalme XCVIII and Epist CXX cap. XXVII S. Chrysostome Homil. XXIIII in 1. ad Corinth Theodoret Dial. II. S. Gregory Nazianzen Orat. in S. Gorgoniam S. Jerom Epist ad Theophilum Epist Alexandriae Origen in diversa loca Evang. Hom. V. Where he teacheth to say at the receiving the sacrament Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roofe Which to say is to do that which I conclude Nor doe I need more to conclude it And what reason can I have not to conclude it Have I supposed the elements which are Gods creatures in which the Sacrament is celebrated to be abolished or any thing else concerning the flesh and bloud of Christ or the presence thereof in the Eucharist in giving a reason why the Church may doe it which the Church did not believe If I have I disclame it as soone as it may appeare to me for such Nay I doe expressely warne all opinions that they imagine not to themselves the Eucharist so meere and simple a signe of the thing fignified that the celebration thereof should not be a competent occasion for the executing of that worship which is alwaies due to our Lord Christ in carnate I confesse it is not necessarily the same thing to worship Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist as to worship the sacrament of the Eucharist Yet in that sense which reason of it selfe justifieth it is For the Sacrament of the Eucharist by reason of the nature thereof is neither the visible kind nor the invisible Grace of Christs body and blood but the union of both by virtue of the promise In regard whereof the one going along with the other whatsoever be the distance of their nature both concur to that which we call the Sacrament of the Eucharist by the worke of God to which he is morally ingaged by the promise which the institution thereof containeth If this be rightly understood to worship the Sacrament of the Eucharist is to worship Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist But I will not therefore warrant that they who maintain the worshipping of the Sacrament of the Eucharist doe not understand the visible kind or as themselves thinke the visible propertyes thereof by that name Which if they shall declare themselves to understand then is the question far otherwise and to be resolved upon the same termes as the question concerning the worshiping of images shall by and by be resolved That though the Sacrament of the Eucharist may be the occasion to determine the circumstance of the worshipping of Christ yet is it selfe no way capable of any worship that may be counted religious because religion injoyneth it Cardinall Bellarmine de Euch. IV. 29. would have it said that the signe is worshipped materially but the body and blood of Christ formally in the Eucharist Which are termes that signifie nothing For it is impossible to distinguish in God the thing that is worshiped from the reason for which it is worshipped so that the thing may be understood without understanding it to be the reason why it is worshipped Therefore the signe in the Eucharist seemes onely to determine why that worship which is alwaies every where due is here now ten dred Indeed when the Councile of Trent pronounceth him anathema that believes not the elements to be abolished and cease to be in it being consecrated I cannot deny that their obliging all to believe that which no man can have that cause to believe for which he belives the Christian faith hath beene a very valuable reason though not the onely reason to move the Church of England to supersede that ceremony hardly in the minds of Christians so bred to it to be parted from it contenting it selfe to injoine the receiving of it kneeling which he that refuseth to do seems not to acknowledge the being of a sacrament requiring the tender of the thing signified by it and with it And I conceive further that the carying of the Sacrament in procession and upon such occasions as signifies no order towards the receiving of it nor any such intent upon supposition whereof the Sacrament is a Sacrament hath added much waight to that reason For if the use of the sacrament were the reason to make the occasion fit the abuse thereof must needs render it unfit But for that which remaines whether those who thinke the body and blood of Christ present instead of the elements which are there no more be Idolators for worshipping the elements which remain present where they think they are not is a question no way to be resolved till it be granted that supposing them present it is no Idolatry For if the fals opinion of their absence make men idolaters then are they not idolaters which have it not Consider then that were the body and blood of Christ so present as to be in stead of the substance of bread and wine the consideration in which any Christian holding what the church of Rome teaches should worship it would be no other then that for which it should be worshipped by
whose dicision might secure the People of that good which the Law tendered if they should practice the Law of mariage according to their determinations But Christianity being tendered to all nations for their everlasting happiness one Society of the Church founded of all that should receive it of all nations and the limitations peculiar to Christianity occasioning many things to become questionable many times necessary to be determined for Christians the right of determining them can no more be thought an escheat to the civil power then the Church to the Common-wealth If then the Laws of all Christian Kingdoms and States have allowed the Lawes of the Church thus much force and interest in maters of marriage how much more soever they may have allowed then here is demanded It will be in vaine to argue from any Lawes of Christian States limiting the freedome of marriage or the exercise of Ecclesiasticall power in matrimoniall causes that they do not believe the Church to be by Gods Law a society the allowance whereof upon the premised considerations becomes requisite to the lawfull use of marriage among Christians For seeing both the Church and the State are subject to mistake the boundes of their concurrent interests in matrimoniall causes And therefore that there may be cause for the State by the force which it is indowed with to barre the abuse of Ecclesiasticall Power in the same or that the State may do it without cause It is ridiculous to inferre that they who limit the exercise of Ecclesiasticall Power doe not believe the Church or any lawfull Power of it in such causes independent upon their owne The same is to be said touching the Ordaining of Persons to exercise the Power and right of the Church and to minister the offices of Christianity to Christian People No man will refuse civile powers the right of maintainig the publick peace and their estates by making all such acts ineffectuall through the force which they possesse as may be done to the disturbance of it No man will refuse them as Christian the interest of protecting the Church against all such acts as may prove prejudiciall to the common faith or do riolate the common right of the Church according to which such Ordinations are to proceed But having proved that those Ordinations are made and to be made by virtue of that Power which the Apostles have left in the Church and which our Lord gave the Apostles As it hath been cleared what interest in this power their acts will allow to those severall qualities which they have setled in the Church So it remaines manifest that those who have the interest cannot otherwise be hindred by secular force in the exercise of it then by the violation of that Law of God whereby the society of the Church and those rights whereupon it is founded subsisteth Not as if I did imagine that this right hath been violated so often as Christian Princes or States have nominated persons to be ordained which they for the publick peace and good of the Church and to hinder disorderly proceeding in the Church have thought fit to name For we have eminent examples even in the happy times of the Church of Ordinations thus made to the incomparable benefit of the Church And why should not the reasons premised be thought sufficient to justify such proceedings But because it is alledged by some even that mean no harm to the Church that the right of all parties devolveth to the State by the profession of Christianity Which plea if it were good there would be no reason why the Church and all the right of it should not he thought to accrue to the State by declaring it self Christian Here I will remember one of the most eminent actions that ever was done in Europe against the right of the Church which is the Concordates between Francis I. King of France and Leo X. Pope The Pragmatick Sanction of Charles VII had maintained the right of the Church in that dominion against divers perogatives pretended by Popes but it maintained the Church also in the election of Prelates which that Prince had a desire to seize into his hands Hereupon an agreement passes the King to make good the prerogatives pretended by the Pope the Pope to accept and to maintaine the Nominations of Prelates which the King should make Which Concordates with what difficulty and after how many protestations and Remonstrances of the Clergy of the university of Paris and Soveraigne courts of the Kingdome they were accepted I leave to them that will take the paines to peruse the relation thereof historically deduced by Petrus Puteanus to judge Not forgetting what Thuanus one of the Principall ministers of that kingdome as prime President of the Parliament at Paris hath said to posterity in the first book of his Histories That so great a Prince after having dissolved the course of Ecclesiasticall Elections introduced into the Church by the Apostles never prospered in any of his greatest undertakings And if in the contention betweene the Emperors and the Popes about Investitures the case truly stated will evidence that the common right of the Church was trodden under foot as well as that of the Soveraigne I report my self to the conscience of any man that can judge whether it be reason to inferre that the proceeding of Christendome acknowledges no such thing as a Church rather then to conclude that the particulars whether well or ill done which is not my businesse here are to be tried by the reasons premised Now for the Power of Excommunication whereupon the force of all acts of the Church depends every man knowes that since Constantine received Christianity he and after him all Christian Princes and States do necessarily pretend the advancement of it by temporal penalties and priviledges of their indulgence Among which one is that punishment which in other States as well as in England a man incurres by being Excommunicate He that would challenge the power of doing this for the Church from the originall right of it must transgresse the principles premised whereby it may appeare that the Church is not able to do any thing of it selfe that requireth secular force or tendeth to alter any mans secular estate in the Common-wealth Neither is there any more evident character of that usurpation which the Popes in behalfe of the Church have been chargeable with then the inforcing of their acts with temporall penalties But all such attempts naturally resolve into the highest whereby some Popes have pretended that by the sentence of Excommunication subjects are absolved of the allegiance they owe their Princes and stand free and may stand obliged to take up armes against them as they shall disect Which is so farre from standing with any pretense of mine that I professe further to believe that no Soveraigne is liable to the utmost excommunication called the greater excommunication among Divines and Canonists though limited and defined by them upon sundry and
not that which is invisible by their authority in point of right For want of this authority whatsoever is done by virtue of that usurpation being voide before God I will not examine whether the forme wherein they execute the Offices of the Church which they thinke fit to exercise agree with the ground and intent of the Church or not Only I charge a peculiar nullity in their consecrating the Eucharist by neglecting the Prayer for making the elements the body and blood of Christ without which the Church never thought it could consecrate the Eucharist Whether having departed from the Church Presbyteries and Congregations scorne to learne any part of their duty from the Church least that might seeme to weaken the ground of their departure Or whether they intend that the elements remaine meere signes to strengthen mens faith that they are of the number of the elect which they are before they be consecrated as much as afterwards The want of Consecration rendering it no Sacrament that is ministred the ministring of it upon a ground destructive to Christianity renders it much more On the other side the succession of Pastors from the Apostles or those who received their authority from the Apostles is taken for a sufficient presumption on behalfe of the Church of Rome that it is Catholick But I have showed that the Tradition of Faith and the authority of the Scriptures which containe it is more ancient then the being of the Church and presupposed to the same as a condition upon which it standeth That the authority of the Apostles and the Powers left by them in and with the Church the one is originally the effective cause the other immediately the Law by which it subsisteth and in which the government thereof consisteth That the Church hath Power in Lawes of lesse consequence though given the Church by the Apostles though recorded by the Scriptures where that change which succeeds in the state of Christendome renders them uselesse to preserve the unity of the Church presupposing the Faith in order to the publick service of God But neither can the Church have power in the faith to add to take away to change any thing in that profession of Christianity wherein the salvation of all Christians consisteth and which the being of the Church presupposeth Nor in that act of the Apostles authority whereby the unity of the Church was founded and setled Nor in that service of God for which it was provided There is therefore something else requisite to evidence the Church of Rome to be the true Church exclusive to the Reformation then the visible succession of Pastors though that by the premises be one of the Laws that concurre to make every Church a Catholicke Church The Faith upon which the powers constituted by the Apostles in which the forme of government by which the service of God for which it subsisteth If these be not maintained according to the Scriptures interpreted by the originall and Catholicke Tradition of the Church it is in vaine to alledge the personall succession of Pastors though that be one ingredient in the government of it without which neither could the Faith be preserved nor the service of God maintained though with it they might possibly faile of being preserved and maintained for a mark of the true Church The Preaching of that Word and that Ministring of the Sacraments understanding by that particular all the offices of Gods publicke service in the Church which the Tradition of the Whole limiteth the Scriptures interpreted thereby to teach is the onely marke as afore to make the Church visible To come then to our case Is it therefore become warrantable to communicate with the Church of Rome because it is become unwarrantable to communicate with Presbyteries or Congregations This is indeed the rest of the difficulty which it is the whole businesse of this Book to resolve To which I must answer that absolutely the case is as it was though comparatively much otherwise For if the State of Religion be the same at Rome but in England farre worse then it was the condition upon which communion with the Church of Rome is obtained is never a whit more agreeable to Christianity then afore but it is become more pardonable for him that sees what he ought to avoide not to see what he ought to follow He that is admitted to communion with the Church of Rome by the Bull of profession of Faith inacted by Pius IV. Pope not by the Councile of Trent besides many particulars there added to the Creed which whether true or false according to the premises he sweares to as much as to his Creed at length professes to admit without doubting whatsoever else the sacred Canons and generall Councils especially the Synode of Trent hath delivered decreed and declared damning and rejecting as anathema whatsoever the Church damneth and rejecteth for heresie under anathema But whether the whole Church or the present Church the oath limiteth not Here is no formall and expresse profession that a man believes the present Church to be Infallible And therefore it was justly alledged in the first Booke that â—he Church hath never enjoyned the professing of it But here is a just ground for a reasonable Construction that it is hereby intended to be exacted because a man swears to admit the acts of Counciles as he does to admit his Creed and the holy Scriptures Nor can there be a more effectuall challenge of that priviledge then the use of it in the decree of the Councile that the Scriptures which we call Apocrypha be admitted with the like reverence as the unquestionable Canonicall Scriptures being all injoyned to be received as all of one rancke Which before the decree had never been injoyned to be received but with that difference which had alwaies been acknowledged in the Church For this act giving them the authority of prophetical Scripture inspired by God which they had not afore though it involve a nullity because that which was not inspired by God to him that writ it when he writ it can never have the authority of inspired by God because it can never become inspired by God Nor can become known that it was indeed inspired by God not having been so received from the begining without revelation anew to that purpose yet usurpeth Infallibility because it injoyneth that which no authority but that which immediate revelation createth can injoyne Further the decree of the Councile concerning justification involving a mistake in the terme and understanding by it the infusion of grace whereby the righteousnesse that dwelleth in a Christian is formally and properly that which settles him in the state of righteous before God not fundamentally and metonymically that which is required in him that is estated in the same by God in consideration of our Lord Christ Though I maintaine that this decree prejudiceth not the substance of Christianity Yet must it not be allowed to expresse the true reason by which it
is a thing necessary to the subsistence of all communities Nor is a private person chargeable with the faults of the Lawes under which he lives untill it appeare that by the meanes of those faults he must faile of the end for which the community subsisteth That is of salvation by communicating with the Church of Rome But to make a private Christian a party to the decrees and customes of the Church by swearing to admit and imbrace them all because he communicateth with it is to make him answerable for that which he doeth not He that would swear no more then he believes nor believe more then he can see cause to believe being a private Christian and uncapable to comprehend what Lawes and customes are fit for so great a Body as the Church must not swear to the Lawes of the Church as good or fit were there no charge against them because past his understanding but rest content by conforming to them to hold communion with the Church But in stead of mending the least of those horrible abuses which the complaints of all parts of Christendome evidence to be visible to exclude all that will not sweare to them is to bid them redeem the communion of the Church by transgressing that Christianity which it ought to presuppose Well may that power be called infinite that undertakes to do such things as this But how should the meanes of salvation be thought to consist in obeying it Here is then a peremptory barre to communion with the Church of Rome onely occasioned by the Reformation but fixed by the Church of Rome That order which severall parts of Christendome had provided for themselves under the title of Reformation might have been but provisionall till a better understanding between the parties might have produced a tollerable agreement in order whereunto a distance for a time had been the lesse mischievous had not this proceeding cut off all hope of peace but by conquest that is by yeilding all this And therefore this act being that which formed the Schisme the crime thereof is chiefly imputable to it As therefore I saide afore that the Sacrament of Baptisme though the necessary meanes of salvation becomes a necessary barre to salvation when it inacteth a profession of renouncing either any part of the Faith or the unity of the Church So here I say that the communion of the Eucharist obtained by making a profession which the common Christianity alloweth not a good Christian to make is no more the meanes of salvation to him who obtaineth it upon such termes how much soever a Christian may stand obliged to hold communion with the Church And this is the reason that makes the communion of the Church of Rome absolutely no more warrantable then afore now that it is become unwarrantable to communicate with Presbyteries and Congregations But comparatively an extremity in respect to the contrary extremity holds the place of a meanes Nor did I ever imagine that the humor of reforming the Church without ground or measure may not proceed to that extremity that it had been better to have left it unreformed then to have neglected those bounds which the pretense of Reformation requireth I say not that this is now come to passe comparisons being odious But this I say that he who goes to reforme the Church upon supposition that the Pope is Anti-Christ and the Papists therefore Idolaters is much to take heed that he miskenne not the ground for that measure by which he is to reforme And taking that for Reformation which is the furthest distant from the Church of Rome that is possible Imagine that the Pope may be Antichrist and the Papists Idolaters for that which the Catholick Faith and Church alloweth It is a marvaile to see how much the zeale to have the Pope Antichrist surpasses the evidence of the reasons which it is proved with For otherwise it would easily appeare that as an Antipope is nothing but a pretended Pope so Antichrist is nothing else but a pretended Messias He who pretends to be that which Christ is indeed and to give salvation to Gods people Our Lord foretells of false Christs and false Prophets Mat. XXIV 24. Marke XIII 22. and those are the Preachers of new Sects which pretended to be Christs and which pretended not to be Christs Simon Magus and Menander we know by Irenaeus and Epiphanius Dositheus by Origen upon Matthew pretended all of them to be the Messias to the Samaritanes who as Schismaticall Jewes expected the Messias as well as the Jewes Saturninus and Basilides were false prophets but not Antichrists because not pretending that themselves were the Messias but pretending some of those whereof they made that fullnesse of the Godhead which they preached to consist to be the Messias Among the Jewes all that ever took upon them to be the Messias besides our Lord Jesus are properly Antichrists Among whom Barcochab under Adriane was eminent But there is reason enough to reckon Manichaeus and Mahomet both of that ranck As undertaking to be that to their followers which the Jewes expected of the Messias to save them from their enemies and to give them the world to come For Manichaeus seems indeed to have given himself the Name of Menahem signifying in the Ebrew the same as Parucletus in Greeke because he pretended to be assumed by the holy Ghost as not he but Christians believe that the Word of God assumed the manhood of Christ But when he writ himself Apostle of Jesus Christ in the head of his Epistle called the foundation which S. Austine writes against it was not with an intent to acknowledge our Lord the true Christ whose coming he made imaginary and onely in appearance but to seduce Christians with a colourable pretense of the name of Christ and some ends of the Gospels as you heard Epiphanius say to take himself for that which Christ is indeed to Christians Saint Austine contra Epist Fund cap. VI. suspecteth that he intended to foist in himself to be worshipped in stead of Christ by those whom he seduced from Christ And shows you his reason for it there But whether worshipped or not for it cannot be said that Mahomet pretended to be worshipped for God by his followers though he could not be that which our Lord Christ is to Christians unlesse he were worshipped for God yet he might be that which the Messias was expected to be to the Jewes in saving them through this world unto the world to come Whether Christians are to expect a greater Antichrist then any of these towards the end of the world or not is a thing no way clear by the Scriptures And the authority of the Fathers is no evidence in a matter which evidently belongs not to the Rule of Faith It is not enough that Saint John saith Ye know that the Antichrist is coming 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 John II. 28. for how many thousand articles are there that signify no such eminence and
who create the parties by heading the division have to look about them least they become guilty of the greatest part of soules which in reason must needs perish by the extremities in which it consisteth And the representing of the grounds thereof unto the parties though it may seem an office unnecessary for a private Christian to undertake yet seemeth to me so free from all imputation of offense in discharging of our common Christianity and the obligation of it that I am no lesse willing to undergoe any offense which it may bring upon me then I am to want the advantages which allowing the present Reformation might give me In the mean time I remaine obliged not to repent me of the resolution of my nonage to remaine in the communion of the Church of England There I find an authority visibly derived from the act of the Apostles by meanes of their successors Nor ought it to be of force to question the validity thereof that the Church of Rome and the communion thereof acknowledgeth not the Ordinations and other Acts which are done by virtue of it as done without the consent of the whole Church which it is true did visibly concurre to the authorizing of all acts done by the Clergy as constituted by virtue of those Lawes which all did acknowledge and under the profession of executing the offices of their severall orders according to the same For the issue of that dispute will be triable by the cause of limiting the exercise of them to those termes which the Reformation thereof containeth which if they prove such as the common Christianity expressed in the Scriptures expounded by the original practice of the whole Church renders necessary to be maintained notwithstanding the rest of the Church agree not in them the blame of separation that hath insued thereupon will not be chargeable upon them that retire themselves to them for the salvation of Christian soules but on them who refuse all reasonable compliance in concurring to that which may seem any way tollerable But towards that triall that which hath been said must suffice The substance of that Christianity which all must be saved by when all disputes and decrees and contradictions are at an end is more properly maintained in that simplicity which all that are concerned are capable of by the terms of that Baptisme which it ministreth requiring the profession of them from all that are confirmed at years of discretion then all the disputes on both sides then all decrees on the one side all confessions of faith on the other side have been able to deliver it And I conceive I have some ground to say so great a word having been able by limiting the term of justifying faith in the writings of the Apostles according to the same to resolve upon what termes both sides are to agree if they will not set up the rest of their division upon something which the truth of Christianity justifieth not on either side For by admitting Christianity that is the sincere profession thereof to be the Faith which onely justifyeth in the writings of the Apostles whatsoever is in difference as concerning the Covenant of Grace is resolved without prejudicing either the necessity of Grace to the undertaking the performing the accepting of it for the reward or the necessity of good works in consideration for the same The substance of Chrianity about which there is any difference being thus secured there remaines no question concerning Baptisme and the Eucharist to the effect for which they are instituted being ministred upon this ground and the profession of it with the form which the Catholick Church requireth to the consecration of the Eucharist Nor doth the Church of England either make Sacraments of the rest of the seven or abolish the Offices because the Church of Rome makes them Sacraments Nor wanteth it an order for the daily morning and evening service of God for the celebration of Festivalls and times of Fasting for the observation of ceremonies fit to create that devotion and reverence which they signify to vulgar understandings in the service of God But praying to Saints and worshipping of Images or of the Eucharist Prayers for the delivery of the dead out of Purgatory the Communion in one kind Masses without Communions being additions to or detractions from that simplicity of Gods service which the originall order of the Church delivereth visible to common reason comparing the present order of the Church of Rome with the Scriptures and primitive records of the Church there is no cause to think that the Catholick Church is disowned by laying them aside It is true it was an extraordinary act of Secular Power in Church maters to inforce the change without any consent from the greater part of the Church But if the matter of the change be the restoring of Lawes which our common Christianity as well as the Primitive orders of the Church of both which Christian Powers are borne Protectors make requisite the secular power acteth within the sphere of it and the division is not imputable to them that make the change but to them that refuse their concurrence to it Well had it been had that most pious and necessary desire thereof to restore publick Penance been seconded by the zeal and compliance of all estates and not stifled by the tares of Puritanisme growing up with the Reformation of it For as there can be no just pretense of Reformation when the effect of it is not the frequentation of Gods publick service in that forme which it restoreth but the suppressing of it in that form which it rejecteth So the communion of the Eucharist being the chiefe office in which it consisteth the abolishing of private Masses is an unsusticient pretense for Reformation where that provision for the frequenting of the communion is not made which the restoring of the order in force before private Masses came in requireth Nor can any meane be imagined to maintaine continuall communion with that purity of conscience which the holinesse of Christianity requireth but the restoring of Penance In fine if any thing may have been defective or amisse in that order which the Church of England establisheth it is but justice to compare it in grosse with both extreames which it avoideth and considering that it is not in any private man to make the body of the Church such as thâ—y could wish to serve God with to rest content in that he is not obliged to become a party to those things which he approves not conforming himself to the order in force in hope of that grace which communion with the Church in the offices of Gods service promiseth For consider againe what meanes of salvation all Christians have by communion with the Church of Rome All are bound to be at Masse on every Festivall day but to say onely so many Paters and so many Aves as belong to the hour Not to assist with their devotions that which they understand not much lesse
AN EPILOGUE TO THE TRAGEDY OF THE Church of England BEING A Necessary Consideration and brief Resolution of the chief Controversies in Religion that divide the Western Church Occasioned by the present Calamity of the CHURCH of ENGLAND In three BOOKS viz. Of I. The Principles of Christian Truth II. The Covenant of Grace III. The Lawes of the Church By HERBERT THORNDIKE LONDON Printed by J. M. and T. R. for J. Martin J. Allestry and T. Dicas and are to be sold at the sign of the BELL in St PAUL's Church-yard M.DC.LIX A PREFACE To all Christian Readers IT cannot seem strange that a man in my case removed by the force of the Warr from the Service of the Church should dedicate his time to the consideration of those Controversies which cause division in the Church For what could I do more to the satisfaction of mine own judgment than to seek a solution what truth it is the oversight whereof hath divided the Church and therefore the sight whereof ought to unite it But that I should publish the result of my thoughts to the world this even to them that cannot but allow my conversing with those thoughts may seem to fall under the Historians censure Sâ—ipsum fatiganâ—o nihil aliud quâm odium quaerere extremae esse dementiae That to take pains to get nothing but displeasure is the extremity of madness Socrates if wee believe his Apology in Plato could never rest for his Genius alwayes putting him upon disputes tending to convict men that they knew not what they thought they knew The displeasure which this got him hee makes the true cause of his death The opinion which I publish being indeed the fruit of more time and leisure of less ingagement to the world than others are under will seem a charge upon those who ingage otherwise And when besides so much interest of this world depends upon the divisions of the Church what am I to expect but Great is Diana of the Ephesians My Apology is this The title of Reformation which the late Warr pretended mentioned onely Episcopacy and the Service The effect of it was a new Confession of Faith a new Catechism a new Directory all new With chapter and verse indeed quoted in the margine but as well over against their own new inventions as over against the Old Faith of the Church This burthen was as easily kicked off by the Congregations as layed on by the Presbyteries As carrying indeed no conviction with it but the Sword and what penalties the Sword should inforce it with Which failing what is come in stead of it to warrant the salvation of Christians but that the Bible is preached which what Heresie disowneth and by them whom the Tryers count godly men Make they what they can of it I from my non age had embraced the Church of England and attained the Order of Priesthood in it upon supposition that it was a true Church and salvation to be had in it and by it Owning nevertheless as the Church of England did own the Church of Rome for a Church in which salvation though more difficult yet might be had and obtained That there is no such thing as a Church by Gods Law in the nature of a Body which this state of Religion requireth is opposite to an Article of my Creed who alwayes thought my self a member of such a Body by being of the Church of England The issue of that which I have published concerning that title of Reformation which the Warr pretended was this That they are Schismaticks that concurr to the breaking or destroying of the Church of England for those causes And the objection there necessarily starting Why the Church of England no Schismaticks in Reforming without the Church of Rome My answer was that the cause of Reforming must justifie the change which it maketh without consent of the Whole Church For the pretense of Infallibility in the Church on the one side the pretense of the Word and Sacraments for marks of the Church on the other side I hold equally frivolous As equally declaring a resolution never to be tried by reason in that which wee alwayes dispute For what dispute remains iâ— the Decrees of the Council of Trent be Infallible If that form of Doctrine and ministring the Sacraments which the Reformation may pretend be marks to distinguish a Church from no Church If they were where there is no such form there are no such marks And therefore no such thing as a Church Nor is it so easie to destroy these doubts in mens judgments as the Laws by which the Church of England stood And if the salvation of a Christian consist in professing the common Christianity as I show you at large shall not the salvation of a Divine consist in professing what he hath attained to believe when hee thinks the exigent of the time renders it necessary to the salvation of Gods people How shall hee otherwise be ministerial to the work of Gods Grace in strengthening them that stand in comforting and helping the weak in raising them that are fallen in resolving the doubtfull without searching the bottom of the cause Nay how shall hee make reparation for the offenses hee may have given by not knowing that which now hee thinks hee knows The causes of division have a certain dependence upon common principles a certain correspondence one with another which when it cannot be declared the satisfaction which a man intends is quite defeated when it is declared that dissatisfaction which the consideration of particulars of less waight causeth must needs cease Whether it were the distrust of my own ability or the love of other imployment or whatsoever it were that diverted mee from considering the consequence of those principles which I alwayes had till I might come to that resolution which now I declare Neither was I satisfied till I had it nor having it till I had declared it And if I be like a man with an arrow in his thigh or like a woman ready to bring forth that is as Ecclesiasticus saith like a fool that cannot hold what is in his heart I am in this I hope no fool of Solomons but with S. Paul a fool for Christs sake Now the mischiefs which division in the Church createth being invaluable all the benefit that I can perceive it yield is this that the offenses which it causeth seem to drown and swallow up as it were that offense which declaring the truth in another time would produce For Unity in the Church is of so great advantage to the service of God and that Christianity from whence it proceedeth that it ought to overshadow and cover very great imperfections in the Laws of the Church All Laws being subject to the like Especially seeing I maintain that the Church by divine institution is in point of right one visible Body consisting in the communion of all Christians in the offices of Gods service and ought by humane administration in point
The nature and intent of it renders it subordinate to the Clergy How farre the single life of the Clergy hath been a Law to the Church Inexecution of the Canons for it Nullity of the proceedings of the Church of Rome in it The interest of the People in the acts â—f the Church And in the use of the Scriptures 368 CHAP. XXXII How great the Power of the Church and the offect of it is The right of judging the causes of Christians ceaseth when it is protected by the State An Objection If Ecclesiastical Power were from God Secular Power could not limit the use of it Ground for the Interest of the State in Church matters The inconsequence of the argument The concurrence of both Interests to the Law of the Church The Inâ—erest of the state in the indowment of the Church Concurrence of both in matrimonial causes and Ordinations Temporall penalties upon Excommunication from the State No Soveraigne subject to the greater Excommunication but to the lesse The Rights of the Jewes State and of Christian Powers in Religion partly the same partly not The infinite Power of the Pope not founded upon Episcopacy but upon acts of the Secular Powers of Christendom 381 OF THE PRINCIPLES OF Christian Truth The First BOOK CHAP. I. All agree that Reason is to decide controversies of Faith The objection that Faith is taught by Gods Spirit answered What Reason decideth questions of Faith The resolution of Faith ends not in the light of Reason but in that which Reason evidenceth to come from Gods messengers THe first thing that we are to question in the beginning is Whether there be any means to resolve by the use of reason those controverâ—â—es which cause division in the Church Which is all one as if we undertook to enquire whether there be any such skill or knowledg as that for which men call themselvs Divines For if there be it must be the same in England as at Rome And if it have no principles as no principles it can have unlesse it can be resolved what those principles are then is it a bare name signifying nothing But if there be certain principles which all parties are obliged to admit that discourse which admits no other will certainly produce that resolution in which all shall be obliged to agree And truely this hope there is left that all parties do necessarily suppose that there is means to resolve by reason all differences of Faith Inasmuch as all undertake to perswade all by reason to be of the judgment of each one and would be thought to have reason on their side when so they do and that reason is not done them when they are not believed There are indeed many passages of Scripture which say that Faith is only taught by the Spirit of God Mat. XVI 17. Blessed art thou Peter son of Ionas for flesh and blood revealed not this to thee but my Father which is in the heavens II. 25. I thank thee O Father Lord of heaven and earth that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes 1 Cor. I. 26 27 28. For Brethren you see your calling that not many wise according to the flesh not many mighty not many noble But the foolish things of the world hath God chosen to shame the wise The weak things of the world hath God chosen to shame the strong The ignoble and despicable things of the world hath God chosen and the things that are not to confound the things that are John VI. 45. It is written in the Prophets And they shall be all taught of God Heb. VIII 10. Jer. XXXI 33. This is the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel in those dayes saith the Lord I will put my Laws in their mindes and write them in their hearts These and the like Scriptures then asâ—ribing the reason why wee believe to the work of Gods Spirit seem to leave no room for any other reason why wee should believe But this difficulty is easie for him to resolve that diâ—â—inguishes between the reason that moveth in the nature of an object and that motion which the active cause produceth For the motion of an object supposes that consideration which discovers the reason why wee are to believe But the motion of the Holy Ghost in the nature of an active cause proceeds without any notice that wee take of it According to the saying of our Lord to Nicodemus John 111. 8. The winde bloweth where it listeth and a man hears the noise of it but cannot tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth So is every one that is born of the spirit For wee must know that there may be sufficient reason to evict the truth of Christianity and yet prove ineffectual to induce the most part either inwardly to believe or outwardly to professe it The reason consists in two things For neither is the mater of Faith evident to the light of reason which wee bring into the world with us And the Crosse of Christ which this profession drawes after it necessarily calls in question that estate which every man is setled upon in the world So that no marvel if the reasons of believing fail of that effect which for their part they are sufficient to produce Interest diverting the consideration or intercepting the consequence of such troublesom truth and the motives that inforce it The same is the reason why the Christian world is now to barren of the fruits of Christianity For the profession of it which is all the Laws of the world can injoyn is the common privilege by which men hold their estates Which it is no marvel those men should make use of that have neither resolved to imbrace Christ with his Crosse nor considered the reason they have to do it who if they should stick to that which they professe and when the protection of the Law failes or act according to it when it would be disadvantage to them in the world so to do should do a thing inconsequent to their own principles which carried them no further than that profession which the Law whereby they hold their estates protecteth The true reason of all Apostasy in all trials As for the truth of Christianity Can they that believe a God above refuse to believe his messengers because that which they report stands not in the light of any reason to evidence it Mater of Faith is evidently credible but cannot be evidently true Christianity supposes sufficient reason to believe but not standing upon evidence in the thing but upon credit of report the temptation of the Crosse may easily defeat the effect of it if the Grace of Christ and the operation of the Holy Ghost interpose not Upon this account the knowledg of Gods truth revealed by Christ may be the work of his Grace according to the Scriptures for that so it is I am not obliged neither have I any reason here to suppose being to come in
question hereafter for the Principles which here wee seek to decide but supposing sufficient reason propounded to make it evidently credible And hee that alleges Gods Spirit for what hee cannot show sufficient reason to believe otherwise may thank himself if hee perish by believing that which hee cannot oblige another man to believe Here wee must make a difference between those men whom God imployes to deal with other men in his name and those which come to God by their means For of the first it is enough to demand how it appears that they come from God To demand by what means hee makes his will known to them supposing they come from him is more than needs at least in this place For if it be granted mee that the Apostles and Prophets were the messengers of God suppose I cannot tell how Prophesies are made evident to the souls of them to whom the Spirit of God reveals them No body will question Whether or no hee ought to believe these whom hee acknowledges Gods messengers And therefore it will be no prejudice to my purpose to set aside all curious dispute how and by what means God reveales his messages to those whom by such revelations hee makes Prophets But those that derive their knowledg from the report of such as are believed to come from God must as well give account how they know that which they believe to come from such report as why such report is to be believed For if wee believe that God furnished those whom hee imployed with sufficient means to make it appear that they came on his message wee can dispute no further why their report is to be believed If wee believe it not there will be no cause why those who pretend themselves to be Gods messengers should not be neglected as fools or rejected as impostors Nay there will be no cause why wee should be Christians upon the report of those that show us not sufficient reason to receive them for Gods messengers But this being admitted and believed unlesse evidence can be made what was delivered by them that came on Gods message it is in vain to impose any thing on the Faith of them that are ready to receive whatsoever comes upon that score The resolution then of all controversies in Religion which the Church is divided about consists in making evidence what hath been delivered by them whom all Christians believe that God sent to man on his message And therefore there will remain no great difficulty about the force and use of reason in matters of Faith if wee consider that it is one thing to resolve them by such principles as the light of reason evidenceth another to do it by the use of reason evidencing what Gods messengers have delivered to us For all dispute in point of Faith tends only to evidence what wee have received from the authors of our Faith Till that evidence come doubt remaineth when it is come it vanisheth Without the use of reason this evidence is not made though not by that which the light of nature discovereth yet by those helps which reason imployeth to make it appear what wee have received from those from whom wee received our Christianity Which without those helps did not appear But if competition fall out between that which is thus evidenced to come from God on the one side and on the other side the light of reason seeming evidently to contradict the truth of it First wee are certain that this competition or contradiction is only in appearance because both reason and revelation is from God who cannot oblige us to make contradictory resolutions Then there is no help without the use of reason to unmask this appearance I will not here go about to controule that which may be alleged on either side in any particular point by any general prejudice chusing rather to referre the debate to that particular question in which cause of competition may appear then to presume upon any thing which the truth of Christianity the only supposition which hitherto I premise appeareth not so contain Only this I will prescribe It is not the exception of a Christian to say That which the light of reason evidenceth not to be possible is not true though commended to us by the same reasons which move us to be Christians For the nature of God the counsails of God the works of God being such things as mans understanding hath no skill of till it be enlightened by God from above That sense of Gods oracles which the motives of Faith do inforce is no lesse undisputable then it is undisputable whether that which God saith be true or not who inacts his revelations by those motives CHAP. II. The question between the Scripture and the Church which of them is Judge in matters of Faith Whether opinion the Tradition of the Church stands better with Those that hold the Scripture to be clear in all things necessary to salvation have no reason to exclude the Tradition of the Church What opinions they are that deny the Church to be a Society or Corporation by Gods Law THe cure of all diseases comes from the sound ingredients of nature when they get the upper hand and restore nature by expelling that which was against it Neither can the divisions and distempers of the Church be cured but by the common truth which the parties acknowledg when the right understanding of it clears the mistakes which mans weaknesse tainteth it with There is a sufficient stock of sound Principles left all the parties which I mean when all of them acknowledg the Scriptures that is so much of them as all agree to contain the word of God But supposing the truth of them to come from God First it remaines in difference how the meaning of them may be determined when doubt is made of it And then because nothing but the true meaning of the Scripture can be counted Scripture if there be a way to determine that Whether any thing over and above it is to be received for the word of God with it Concerning which point it is well enough known what opinions there are on foot When Luther first disputed against the Indulgences of Leo X Pope those that appeared in defense of them the Master of the Popes Palace and Eckius finding themselves scanted of mater to allege out of the Scriptures betook themselvs to the common place of the Church and the Power of it the force whereof stood upon this consequence That whatsoever the Church shall decree is to be received for unquestionable Afterwards certain Articles extracted out of Luthers Writings being condemned by a Bull of the Pope Luther interposes his appeal to a Council that should decree according to the Scripture alone This is the rise of the great Controversie still on foot between the Church and the Scripture between Scripture and the Tradition of the Church of what force each of them is in deciding controversies of Faith They that hold
disputed by degrees that they are not true There would be nothing in my way to hinder the resolution of a positive Rule to distinguish between true and false in all things concerning the Christian Faith Notwithstanding because by that which already wee have said and that which appears to all men in the Scriptures there is sufficient means to conclude so much as I have proposed and that the proof of it will be an advantage to that which shall follow I shall undertake it supposing no more than I have said I do remember the Argument made against Tradition by Marinaro the Carmelite at the Council of Trent Which as it was thought so considerable there that order was taken that hee should appeare no more in the Council so seemed to mee when I reade it not easie to answer Now upon further consideration I make it my ground to prove the conclusion which I have advanced Hee argued That it was not possible to give a reason why God should provide that some of those truths which are necessary to salvation should be recorded in Scripture others equally obliging not For if you interpose the terme clearly and argue That there is no reason why God should deliver some things clearly by writing others not the argument will be the same To mee it seems manifest that hee who once holds that all things necessary to the salvation of all are clearly contained in the Scriptures adding onely clearly to his terms to all understandings ties himself by giving the reason why they ought to be clear because necessary to maintain that all truths are delivered by Scripture in the same degree of clearnesse to all understandings as they are in degree of necessity to the salvation of all souls For that every cause every reason should inferre the consequence produce the effect answerable in degree to that degree which the reason or cause is supposed to hold is a thing that all reason inforces every understanding justifies But that all things are not clear by the Scriptures in the same degree as they are necessary to salvation is clear to all in point of fâ—ct Inasmuch as there are infinite truths which Christians diffâ—r not about in the Scriptures because they think not their salvation concerned in the mater of them those which are thought to concern it remaining in dispute because not so clear Neither is it for a Christian to prescribe a reason why it ought to be otherwise because that were to prescribe unto Almighty God a rule not depending upon his will declared otherwise This is the issue upon which I demonstrate my intent Neither Gods act in general of declâ—ring his will in writing not his particular acts of declaring his will in such several maters as the several writings of the Prophets and Apostles which make the Body of the Scriptures contain do any way import the declaring of an intent in God thereby to manifest all things necessary to the salvation of all clearly to all understandings therefore that any thing is necessary to salvation is no presumption that it is clearly declared in Scripture to all understandings Inasmuch as it is manifest that no man can give Law to God what hee ought to declare but all men may presume that and that onely to be declared which by dealing with mâ—n under such or such a profession hee hath of his free goodnesse tied himself to declare For it being in the free choice of God whether to declare any will concerning mans salvation or none and that choice being made it remaining yet in his choice whether hee would declare his will by writing or not as it was in his power for so many years before Moses to save men without Scripture it cannot be said that either before declaring an intent to save men hee was bound to declare all that was necessary unto it by writing or by declaring it And this I hold enough to demonstrate to all understandings that the declaring of an intent to deliver us by writing things concerning our salvation imports not in God an intent to declare thereby all things necessary to the salvation of all clearly to all understandings Which will yet be cleâ—rer by proving the other part of my proposition that by the intent of writing the several Books whereof the Scripture consists clearly declared God hath not clearly declared the intent so often said The proof of this by the particulars I hold the sufficientest satisfaction that can be tendred here where the pretense is to proceed onely upon that which all Christians receive The particulars consist in the writings of the Prophets the sayings and doings of our Lord recorded in the four Gospels and the writings of the Apostles For the Gospels pretending to contain the doings and sayings of our Lord but to be written by his disciples It followes by the nature of the busâ—nesse that they must contain some thing as from the person of the Writer and of his sense over and above what they pretend to record Which properly will belong to the writings of the Apostles though contained in the Gospels And thus farre to avoid cavil I have thought fit here to distinguish Now that all mater of salvation is not clearly contained in the writings of the Prophets that is in the Old Testament written by Moses and his Scholars the Prophets I prescribe upon that which all Christians suppose as the ground upon which Christianity is justified against Judaisme That the Old Testament delivereth but the figure and shadow of the New For unlesse a man will have the figure and shadow to be all one with the body and substance hee must confesse that the substance of Christianity which is shadowed in the Old Testament is not clearly declared by the same unless he will have to be shadowed and unshadowed that is clear to be all one Let mee demand if Christianity be clearly declared by the Law to be that profession which God would have all to be saved by that should be saved from the time of prescribing it what need the miracles of our Lord and his Apostles what need the Resurrection and so his Sufferings as to the account of evidencing the truth of his Doctrine For the Law being once received upon necessary reasons it is impossible to say why any new reasons should be requiâ—ite to inforce the truth or the obligation of the Gospel if it were clearly declared by it Again it is manifest that our Lord being risen again and giving the Holy Ghost unto his Disciples by breathing on them John XX. 22. gave them also a spiritual grace of understanding the Scriptures as you finde Luke XXIV 32 45. Where first the Disciples that went to Emmaus confesse with admiration Did not our hearts burn within us when hee talked with us on the way and opened us the Scriptures declaring unto them how hee was foretold in the Old Testament as you have it afore Then having perswaded them all that it was even hee
should follow that under the Gospel there should be no such Power in the Church For had it been never so clear never â—o much granted that such a Power was in force under the Law yet could it not be derived upon the Church mediately or immediately from some act of our Lord Christ founding his Church it would not have served the turne The Law of Moses continuing Scripture to the worlds end but Law to none but to those whom it was given to oblige That is the people that subsisted by receiving it and that for that time when it was intended to be in force But if it may appear that the Church is made one Society and Communion by the act of them that founded it and that such it cannot be without a Profession limiting or uniting the right of that Communion to him that makes it nor stand such without power of denying the same to him that visibly makes that Profession and visibly failes of it Whether any such thing were in force under the Law or not under the Gospel it shall not therefore fail to be in force True it is that this cannot be true unlesse a competent reason may be made to appear of something answerable to it under the Law in the same proportion as the correspondence between the Law and the Gospel between the Synagogue and the Church holds But such a one will not be wanting in this case They that argue from the excluding of Adam out of Paradise to the putting of sinners out of the Church if they argue no more than a figure discernâ—ble by the truth when competent evidence of that truth is made conclude not amisse For though this be before the Law yet not before the purpose of God in figuring Chriâ—â—ianity was set on foot And that Paradise as it is a figure of heaven and the joyes thereof so likewise is a figure of the Church upon earth is necessarily conâ—equent to the reason upon which the mystical sense of the Old Testament is grounded So likewise under the Law the shutting of Lepers out of the camp of Israel answerable in the Jewes Law to the City of Jerusalem and supposing the truth of the Gosâ—el a figure of the visible Church neither signified any cause nor produced any effect but of a legal incapacity of conversing with Gods people But supposing a spiritual people of God intitled by their profession to remission of sins and life everlasting a visible failleure of this profession is the cause which producing inviâ—ble separation from God is competent to produce a visible separation from the Church which is visibly that people The penalty allotted to the neglect of circumcision is The childe to be cut off from his people Which penalty beginning there is afterward much frequented by the Law in many cases the penalty whereof is to be cut off from Gods people Signifying as hee hath learnedly showed and saved mee the pains of doing it again that such a forfeiture should make him that incurred it lyable to be suddenly out off by Gods hand from the land of his people And because it was an evident inconvenience that a civil Law should leaye such faults to Gods punishment who never tied himself to execute the punishment though hee made the transgressor lyable to it therefore the Antiens of Gods people according to Gods Law have allotted to such faults the punishment of scourging as next in degree to capital for grievous But there are several other crimes mentioned in the Law which who incurres is by the same Law cut off from Gods people by being put to death I demand now what correspondence can be more exact supposing the Law that tenders the happinesse of this life in the Land of Promise to them that undertake and observe it to be the fore-runner of the New Covenant that tenders remission of sins and life everlasting upon the same terms than is seen betwixt the invisible and visible forfeiture of the privileges of Gods people in the Land of Promise and the invisible and visible forfeiture of the Communion of Gods people as the sin is notorious or not Nor will it serve his turn to scorn S. Cyprian urging as you may see by my book of the Right of the Church that Origen and S. Austin do pag. 27. that Excommunication in the Church is the same as putting to death under the Law As proving that by a meer allusion which if it have not other grounds is not like to be received For S. Paul saith well that the Scriptures are able to make a man wise unto salvation through Faith in Christ Jesus 2 Tim. III. 15. speaking of the Scriptures of the Old Testament Because without faith in Christ upon the motives which his coming hath brought forth to the world they are not able to do it but supposing those motives received do inable a Christian to give a reason of that different dispensation whereby it pleased God to govern things under the Law and so not onely to attain salvation but with wisedom to direct others in it and take away stumbling blocks oâ—t of their way to it And in this case should a man go about to perswade Christians to admit such a Power over them by no other argument than this well might the motion be scorned by them to whom it were tendred But there being no pretense in this allegation but of rendring a reason for a Power of the Church from that of the Synagogue and the Fathers so well stated in the difference between the Law and the Gospel as not easily chargeable of the indiscretion to use ridiculous arguments it is to be maintained that they have given such a reason from the Old Testament as is to be required by such as would be wise to salvation by it Indeed I could not but observe in the late History of Henry the Eight p. 157. where the Writer imagines what reasons Cardinal Woolsey gave the Pope for his consent to the dissolving of some little Monasteries for the erection of his Colleges at Oxford and Ipswich that hee alleges among others That the Clergy should rather fly to Tropes and Allegories if not to Cabbala it self than permit that all the parts of Religious worship though so obvious as to fall easily within common understandings should be without their explication The intent whereof may justly seem to charge the Clergy to have advanced the mystical sense of the Scripture as a means to make the Religion they maintaine more considerable for the difficulty of it But I would there were not too much cause to suspect from other writings of the same Author a compliance with Porphyry Celsus Julian and other enemies of Christianity that have not spared to charge our Lord Christ and his Apostles with abuse and imposture in alleging the Scriptures of the Old Testament impertinently to their purpose though here hee charge onely the Clergy for that wherein they follow his and their steps To mee I confesse
the Excommunications of Jewes and of Christians For the first without question were curses of the second it is at least questionable whether it stand with Christianity to take them for curses or not I do believe that which is said in the first book de Synedriis pag. 209. that the Jewes did not so cut a man off by Excommunication as to cast him quite out of their Body But so as to deprive him of free conversation with his native people To wit according to the terms limited there afore the lesse that no man should come within his four cubits The greater that hee should dwell in a cotage alone and have bread and water brought him and see no man otherwise Neither do I finde any third kinde by the Jewes Constitutions which others would have But it were a wrong to common sense to extend this to Apostares Justin Martyr Dial. cum Tryphone and after him Epiphanius haer XXX and Jerome in Esa tells us that the Jewes shortly after our Saviors time sent an Order through all Synagogues over the world to curse the Christians thrice a day at publick Prayers in their Synagogues And at that time practised all means possible to stirr up the Empire to persecute them to the death Neither was it strange they should proceed so farr against those whom they took for Apostates because the punishments which their own body could inflict would not serve their turn But this is evidently another thing than that which the great Excommunication by their Rules importeth In the mean time here you have cursing to the purpose in this utmost exigent But so that ordinary Excommunication amongst them imported a proportionable measure of the same That the Apostles should intend to curse nothing can seem so pregnant as the words of S. Peter to Simon Magus Acts VIII 20. Thy money perish with thee But hee that in the next words advises with so much charity Repent thee of this thy wickednesse and pray to God if perhaps this designe of thy heart may be forgiven thee I suppose was farr enough from wishing that hee might perish whom hee seeks to reclaim Neither is there any reason why hee should wish his money to perish which the first sound of his words beareth And therefore it will be requisite to take it for an expression signifying that hee held and would have the Church hold him as certainly in the way and state of perdition as the money that hee loved was perishable Much more when S. Paul wisheth himself anathema or him that should preach a new Gospel or loved not the Lord Jesus it is not his intent to pray for the evil which anathema signifies upon them but to induce the Church to take them for such men as the Church believes to be liable to the utmost of Gods curses As for the businesse between S. Paul and the Corinthians thereare in it so evident marks of Penance injoyned by that Church upon the Apostles Order as no wit no learning can serve to deface S. Paul advises them to restore the Offender in these terms 2 Cor. II. 5. â— 11. If any body hath grieved mee hee hath not grieved mee but in part that I may not charge you all Sufficient for such a one is this censure inflicted by many So that yee are rather to gratifie and comfort him least such a one should be swallowed up with too much sorrow Wherefore I pray you settle love towards him For I writ also for this end to know the trial of you whether you be obedient in all things But if you grant any thing I also grant it For if I have granted any thing for your sake in respect of Christ I have granted it that Satan get nothing by us For wee are not ignorant of his devices What is the censure inflicted by many but the Penance which the Church upon S. Pauls order having injoyned now desires the Apostle to rest content with which hereby hee accords What is it that hee granteth because they grant it but in respect of Christ willing them also to gratifie and comfort him whom they had censured But upon undergoing this censure the re-admitting of him to the Communion of the Church Since Luther first disputed against Indulgences this Text hath been in every mans mouth Was there ever any reason to deny that there is in the Church a Power of abating Penance once injoyned upon trial of him that undergoes it Or that the example of S. Paul in this place is good evidence for it Had there been any controversie about it if the Church of Rome had demanded no more under this title Though to speak my own minde perhaps men mistake this Indulgence because they take not S. Pauls proceeding to be so rigid as the strictnesse of discipline under the Apostles requires They take it commonly as I said that S. Paul hereby releases him of the Penance that had been injoyned whereas it may be hee onely admits him to Penance at their request and so to the Prayers of the Church Being formerly so excluded from the Church as not to be assured of his reconcilement with God by the warrant of the Church though not excluded from the hope of it by the mercy of God Tertullian indeed hath an opinion that it is not the same man whom the Apostle commanded them to deliver to Satan afore 1 Cor. V. 5. Because as I said afore according to the strictnesse of the Montaniâ—â—s hee will not believe that the Apostle would admit such a sinner upon any Penance But this opinion is excluded by the expresse words of the Scripture For I writ also for this cause to know the trial of you which show that this is the case which hee writ of in his former Epistle It remains therefore that upon S. Pauls first Epistle hee was delivered to Satan but upon their submission and request that hee would be content with the censure which they propose hee admits him to the comfort of their Prayers According to this supposition the Indulgence which S. Paul admits is not the releasing of Penance injoyned as afterwards it signified in the Church but the injoyning of Penance inferring a grant of the Prayers of the Church towards the means of reconcilement But whatsoever become of this Indulgence presupposeth the censure which it mitigateth and therefore the Communion of the Church either abated or quite taken from him whom it restoreth to it And what is the mater that S. Paul grants that which hee grants for their sakes but in respect to Christ that Satan saith hee whose devices wee are acquainted with get nothing by us Two reasons are rendred for this The one in respect of the party excluded not to drive him to despair of salvation by Christianity and consequently to Apostasy or what else that despair might produce The other which I remember S. Austine in some place advances as the reason whereupon the Church in after ages was driven to abate of that
manifest to those that dedicate themselves to the examining of the Word according to the rate of that leisure and forwardnesse which they bestow upon their exercise in it Athanasius Disp. cum Ario in Conc. Nic. if it be his speaking of the Godhead of the Holy Ghost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Holy Scriptures clearly declare all things And not onely that which was in debate S. Chrysostome in Lazarum Hom. III. incourages to reade the Scripture because it is not obscure the Gentiles that sought vain-glory by writing books affecting obscurity as the way to be admired but the Holy Ghost seeking the good of all contrariwise In â—oan Hom. II. hee compares S. Johns doctrine to the Sun as shining to all not onely men of understanding but women and youths In Mat. Hom. I. to the same purpose Epiphanius Haer. LXXVI 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For all is clear in Gods Scriptures to those that will come to the Word of God with godly reason and turn not themselvs down the precipices of death through lust wrought in them by the devil To the same purpose Haer. LXIX Gregory Nyssene in Psalm Inscriptiones I. commendeth the Psalms for rendring deep mysteries easie and pleasant to men and women young and old Cyril in Julianum VII answering his scorn of the Scriptures for their vulgar language saith it was so provided that they might not exceed any mans capacity Fulgentius according to S. Austine Sermde Confessoribus Ita suae moderationis tenet temperiem ut nec ovibus desint pabula nec pastoribus alimenta The Scripture holds this moderation in the temper of it that neither the sheep wants food nor the shepherd nourishment in it S. Chrysostome observes that when S. Paul sayes 2 Cor. III. 14. Their senses are blinded in reading the Scriptures Hee makes the cause to be in the Jewes blindenesse when they understand not in the Scriptures Again Origen in Mat. Tract XXV in Rom. III. S. Basil Moral definitione XXV S. Chrysostome in Psal XCV S. Cyril Catech. IV. Rufinus in Symb. agree in affirming that whatsoever is taught in Christianity is to be proved by the Scriptures S. Jerome in Mic. I. Ecclesia Christi quae habitat bene in toto orbe Ecclesias possidens spiritus unitate conjuncta est habet urbes Legis Prophetarum Evangelii Apostolorum non est egressa de finibus suis id est de Scripturis sanctis The Church of Christ being well seated and having Churches all over the world it hath the Cities of the Law the Prophets the Gospel and the Apostles goes not out of her bounds which are the Holy Scriptures Optatus V. putting the case of the Church with the Donatists to be the case of children about their Fathers inheritance sends them to his Will as the Judge of their pretenses And so S. Austine also in Psalmum XXI The Constitutions of the Apostles II. 19. Leo Epist XXIII S. Cypr. Epist LXVIII and many more agree that the People are to answer for themselves if they follow bad Pastors S. Austine adversus Maxim III. 14. Neque ego Nicenum nec tu debes Ariminense tanquam praejudicaturus proferre Concilium Scripturarum authoritatibus non quorumcunque propriis sed utriusque communibus testibus res cum re causa cum causâ ratio cum ratione decertet Neither am I to produce the Council of Nicaea nor you that of Ariminum for a prejudice With authorities of the Scriptures as witnesses common to both not proper to either let mater contend with mater reason with reason cause with cause De Vtilitate credendi VI. hee saith the Scripture of the Old Testament ità esse modificatam ut nemo inde haurire non possit quod sibi satis est si modò ad hauriendum devotè ac piè ut vera religio poscit accedat Is so tempered that any man may draw out of it that which is enough for him if hee come devoutly and piously as true religion requires to draw Vincentius Commonit I. confesseth that inveterate Herâ—â—es and Opus imperfectum in Mat. Hom. XLIX that the corruptions of Antichrist are not to be convinced but by Scripture The same Vincentius Commonit I. and Sulpitius Severus Hist II. acknowledg the Arians to have over-spread the greatest part of the Church Theâ—efore Nazianzene Orat. advers Arianos scorns them that measure the Church by number And Liberius in Theodoret Eccles Hist II. 16. answers Constantius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The cause of the Faith hath never a whit the worse because I am alone But truly I know nothing in all antiquity more peremptory against the Infallibility of the Church than that of Vineentius denying that the Rule of Faith can ever increase or Councils do any more in it than determine that expresly and distinctly which was simply held from the beginning Commonit I. And S. Austine de Vnitate Ecclesiae cap. XVI challenges the Donatists to demonstrate their Church out of the Scriptures S. Ambrose de Incarnatione cap. V. S. Hilary de Trinitate VI. Victor in Marcum cap. III. agree that the Faith is the foundation of the Church by virtue whereof the gates of Hell prevail not against it Therefore S. Austine de Bapt. contra Donat. II. 3. acknowledges that not onely particular Councils are corrected by General but that of General Councils the later may and do correct them that went afore Again Irenaeus III. 1. affirms that the Apostles writ what they preached by the will of God for the foundation and pilar of our Faith Tertulliane de Prâ—script cap. VIII Cùm credimus nihil ultrà desideramus credere Hoc enim prius credimus non esse quod ultra credere debeamus When wee believe wee desire to believe nothing else For first wee believe that there is nothing further which wee ought to believe So cap. XIV XXIX contra Hermog cap. XXII Scriptum esse doceat Hermogenis Officina that the world was made of mater preexiâ—ent Si non est scriptum timeat vae illud adjicientibus aut detrahentibus definitum Let the shop of Hermogenes show it written If it be not written let it fear the wo decreed for them that adde or take away Apollinaris in Eusebius Eccl. Hist V. 10. is afraid to write least hee should seem to write or injoyn more than the Gospel to which nothing is to be added or taken from it S. Basil de Fide sayes it is plain apostasie to bring in any thing that is not written And in Asceticis Reg. LXXX proves it because faith is by Gods Word and that which is not of faith is sin So likewise S. Ambrose de Paradiso cap. XII alleging Apoc. XXII 19. S. Austine de Bono Viduitatis I. Sancta Scriptura doctrinae nostrae Regulam figit The Holy Scripture prescribes a Rule to our doctrine To the same purpose de peccatorum remiss II. 36. S. Cyril de Trinitate personâ Christi whose words Damascene uses de Orthod Fide
that hee hath any end but himself nor that hee doth any thing to any other end than to exercise and declare his own perfections If hee do sundry things which of their nature have necessarily such an end as they attain not it is to be said that Gods end never fails in so much as by failing of the end to which they were made they become the subject of some other part of that providence wherein his perfections are exercised and declared Seeing then that all Controversies concerning the Faith have visibly their original from some passages of Scripture which being presupposed true before the foundation of the Church ought to be acknowledged but cannot be constituted by it And seeing that no man that out of the conscience of a Christian hath imbraced all that is written can deny that which hee may have cause to believe to be the sense of the least part of the Scripture without ground to take away that belief It remains that the way to abate Controversies is to rest content with the means that God hath left us to determine the sense of the Scripture not undertaking to tye men further to it than the applying of those means will inferre And truly to imagine that the authority of the Church or the dictate of Gods Spirit should satisfie doubts of that nature without showing the means by which other records of learning are understood and so resolving those doubts which the Scriptures necessarily raise in all them that believe them to be true and the word of God is more than huge cart-loads of Commentaries upon the Scriptures have have been able to do Which being written upon supposition of certain determinations pretended by the Church or certain positions which tending to reform abuses in the Church were taken for testified by Gods Spirit have produced no effect but an utter despair of coming to resolution or at least acknowledgment of resolution in the sense of the Scriptures Whereas let men capable of understanding and managing the means heretofore mentioned think themselves free as indeed they ought to be of all prejudices which the partialities on foot in the Church may have prepossessed them with and come to determine the meaning thereof by the means so prescribed and within those bounds which the consent of the Church acknowledges They shall no sooner discern how the primitive Christianity which we have from the Apostles becomes propagated to us but they shall no less clearly discern the same in their writings And if God have so great a blessing for Christendom as the grace to look upon what hath been written with this freedom there hath been so much of the meaning of the Scripture already discovered by those that have laid aside such prejudices and so much of it is in the way to be discovered every day if the means be pursued as is well to be hoped will and may make partizans think upon the reason they have to maintain partialities in the Church If God have not this blessing in store for Christendom it remains that without or against all satisfaction of conscience concerning the truth of contrary pretenses men give themselves up to follow and professe that which the protection of secular Power shall show them means to live and thrive by In which condition whether there be more of Atheism or of Christianity I leave to him who alone sees all mens hearts to judge CHAP. XXXIV The Dispute concerning the Canon of Scripture and the translations thereof in two Questions There can be no Tradition for those books that were written since Prophesie ceased Wherein the excellence of them above other books lies The chief objections against them are questionable In those parcels of the New Testament that have been questioned the case is not the same The sense of the Church HAving thus resolved the main point in doubt it cannot be denied notwithstanding that there are some parts or appertenances of the Question that remain as yet undecided For as long as it is onely said that the Scripture interpreted by the consent of the Church is a sufficient mean to determine any thing controverted in mater of Christian truth there is nothing said till it appear what these Scriptures are and in what records they are contained And truly it is plain that there remains a controversie concerning the credit of some part of those writings which have been indifferently copied and printed for the Old Testament commonly marked in our English Bibles by the title of Apocrypha And no lesse concerning the credit of the Copies wherein they are recorded For though it is certain and evident that the Old Testament hath been derived from the Ebrew the New from the Greek in which at first they were delivered to the Church Yet seeing it appeareth not of it self impossible such changes may have succeeded in the Copies that the Copies which the Jews now use of the Old Testament are further from that which was first delivered than the Vulgar Latine as also the Copies of the Greek Testament now extant It is a very plain case that this doubt remaining it is not yet resolved what are the principles what the means to determine the truth in maters questionable concerning Christianity I must further distinguish two questions that may be made in both these points before I go further For it is evidently one thing to demand whether those writings which I said remain questionable are to be counted part of the Old Testament or not Another whether they are to be read by Christians either for particular information or for publick edification at the assemblies of the Church And likewise as concerning the other point it is one thing to demand what Copy is to be held for authentick another thing to dispute how every Copy is to be used and frequented in the Church To wit whether translations in mother languages are to be had and into what credit they are to be received For it is manifest that the one sense of both questions demands what the body of the Church either may do or ought to do in proposing or prohibiting the said writings or Copies to be used by the members thereof for their edification in Christian piety But the other what credit they have in themselves upon such grounds as are in nature and reason more ancient than the authority of the Church and which the being and constitution thereof presupposeth And as manifest as it is that these are two questions so manifest must it needs remain that the one of them to wit that which concerns the authority of the Church and the effect of it does not belong to this place nor come to be decided but upon supposition of all the means God hath given his Church to be resolved of any truth that becomes questionable As for the other part of both questions though it hath been and may be among them that will not understand the difference between principles and conclusions because it is for
primo calore Fidei Catholicae In the first zeal of the Catholike faith That is of his professing it being reconciled to the Church for these things are properly attributed to the profession of Christianity But to barely believing that it is true afarre off and at a great distance Cornelius in his letter to Fabius Bishop of Antiochia concerning Novatianus in Eusebius Eccles Hist VI. 43. Thus describeth Celerinus having been persecuted for the Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A man who having most stontly through the mercy of God passed through all tortures and confirmed the weaknesse of his flesh by the strength of his faith which strength is not in the mind that judgeth Christianity to be true but by the resolution of the will to stick to it Clemens Alexandrinus Strom. II. alledges Plato that in civil commotions the greatest virtue a man can meet with is Faith To wit in him whom a man trusts though the greatest happinesse be Peace which makes it needlesse Inferring thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whereby it appears that the greatest of wishes is to have peace the greatest of virtues faith Which he would not have alleged for the commendation of the Christian Faith had he not understood it to consist in that trust which a man sincerely engageth as well as in that credit which a man giveth Whereby we may understand why in another place he will have the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the faithfall for Christians to hold the same reason with that of Theognis when he commends a faithfull friend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That he is worth gold and silver in a civil dissension Because he places the faith of a Christian in the obligation of Christianity which he undertakes when he expresseth that the honour which it imports lies in the performing of it As Lydia when she intreateth S. Paul in these terms Acts XVI 15. If ye judge me faithful to the Lord come into my house and abide there presseth him if he think her a true Christian as she had professed her self That is faithfull to God and his Church which she must be oblieged to upon the trust that she had taken upon her in becoming a Christian Therefore disputing not long afore against Basilides and Valeutinus the Hereticks who made mens faith to depend necessarily upon the frame of their natures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Therefore is faith no longer the achievement of choice if it be the advantage of nature nor shall he that believes not be justly recompensed being blamelesse he that believeth being no cause Nor shall the property or otherwise of faith or unbeliefe be subject to praise or dispraise And by and by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But where becomes the repentance of unbelievers through which comes remission of sins So that neither shall Baptisme be any more reasonable nor the blessed seal the gift of the holy Ghost by Baptisme nor the Son nor the Father from whom it is expected Onely the distribution of natures according to them will be found utterly without God not having for the foundation of salvation voluntary Faith So the voluntary engagement which Baptisme expresly inacteth is that Faith whereby a Christian claimes the promises of the Gospel I know the words of S. Augustine may here be objected Enchirid. Cap. XXXI De hac enim fide loquimur quam adhibemus cum aliquid credimus non quam damus cum aliquid pollicemur Nam ipsa dicitur fides Sed aliter dicitur non mihi habuit fidem Aliter non mihi servavit fidem Nam illud est non credit quod dixi Hoc non fecit quod dixit For saith he we speake here of the credit which we give when we believe something not of that which we engage when we professe something For that also is called Faith But a man meants one way when he sayes he did not give me Faith Another way when he sayes he kept not faith with me For that is he believed not that which I said This he did not what he said As if the consideration of trust to be kept or not to be kept were utterly impertinent to the nature of justifying faith For why were those that were not yet baptized never called Fideles or Believers in the primitive Church though they professed never so much to believe the Christian faith but onely Catechumeni Hearers or Scholars or at the most Competentes or Pretenders when they put themselves forth actually to demand their Baptisme Why but to signifie that the Church had not yet conceived confidence of their Christianity because they had not yet engaged themselves in the profession of it Which having solemnized by Baptisme they were thenceforth called Faithfull the Name signifying as well trusty as Believers having proceeded so farre as to engage themselves to live as Christians because they believed believed Christianity to come from God as it pretendeth There would be no end if I should go about to produce the Fathers for this name of Christians one place or two shall serve for example Tertullian De Exhort castitatis Cap. IV. Spiritum quidem Dei etiam fideles habent sed non omnes fideles Apostoli Ergo qui se fidelem dixerat adjicit postea Spiritum Dei se habere quod nemo dubitares etiam de fideli And truly even Christians have the Spirit of God yet are not all Christians Apostles Therefore S. Paul having called himselfe faithful or a Christian he adds afterwards that he hath the Spirit of God which no man would question in a Christian Whereupon in his Book De Jejuniis Cap. XI you find an Antithesis or opposition between Spiritualis and Fidilis or a meere Christian and one that had extraordinary indowments of Gods Spirit As on the other side de praescript Cap. XII Quis Catechumenus quis Fidelis incertum est Speaking of the hereticks among them It is uncertain who is a Professor who a Scholar And truly he who considers all virtue to consist in the affection of the will not in the perfection of the understanding Considering withall that faith is according to Clemens Alexandrinus where afore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a voluntary assent of the soul Or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a voluntary presumption and assent unto piety Shall find great reason to consider what affection of the will it is wherein he places the virtue of faith in a good Christian Especially experience on the one side shewing that hereticks schismaticks and badde Christians who cannot be thought to be endowed with that faith which recommends good ones do really and truly believe all that truth which their Sect or their lust is consistent with And reason on the other side shewing how the believing of it becomes reconcileable with the interest of their sect or of their lust I suppose here that the reason which makes the motives of saith though sufficient to become defeisible is the Crosse of Christ attending the profession of Christianity in
them in the world to come that should heartily and faithfully serve him in this Which adding to it the profession of the Name and warrant of Christ as the Author of that contract whereby we undertake so to do is Christianity I have yet said nothing of the passage of S. James II. 14 where he disputes expresly that faith alone justifieth not but Faith with works for it seemes to make a generall argument by it self though in truth the reason which he brings that Abraham was justified by works necessarily depends upon the true reason why S. Paul saith That Abraham was justified by faith Which reason they that will not admit deserve to crucifie themselves everlastingly to find how he can be truly said to be justified by workes that is justified by faith alone without works afore were it not pitty that the Scriptures should be set on the rack to make them confesse a meaning which the words in no language by any custome of humane speech will bear For if the Faith of him that hath no good works will not save him not justifie him as the Apostle expresly affirmeth can the workes that are said to do this be said to do it Metonymicalâ—y because they are signes or effects of Faith which doeth it when it is said that faith without them doth it not And though by the way of Metonymy the property or effect of the cause may be attributed to the effect of that cause Yet when that property or effect is denied the cause and attributed to the effect will any language indure that it should be thought properly to belong to the cause which is denied it and attributed to the effect only by Metonymy that is in behalf of the cause that is denied it Is there any need to come into these straits when by saying that a man is justified by faith alone according to S. Paul meaning by undertaking Christianity a man will be obliged to say that he is justified by works also according to S. James to wit by performing that which he undertaketh unlesse you will have him justified by undertaking that which he performes not For when it is said that a man is justified by undertaking Christianity it is supposed that he undertakes it sincerely and heartily Which sincerity containing a resolution of all righteousnesse for the future justly qualifies him for those promises which overtake him in sinne so that for the present he can have nothing to justifie him but the righteousnesse of this faith alone which the Gospel tells us that God accepteth But for the time to come just ground is there to distinguish a second justification which proceeds upon the same consideration but supposes the condition undertaken to be performed from that first which though done by faith alone inferreth the necessity of making good what is undertaken that it may be available Is not this that the Apostle saith James 11. 15 16 17. If a brother or sister be naked or want daily food and one of you say to him Go in peace be warmed and fed and yet give them not things fit for his body what is he the better So also faith if it have not workes is of it self dead Where lies this comparison but in this that he who professeth Christianity but doth not according to it is like him that professeth love to his brother but relieves not his necessities And so when it followes But a man may say thou hast faith and I have workes shew me thy workes by thy faith and I will shew thee my faith by my workes For he that liveth like a Christian it is plaine he sheweth his Faith by his workes which is evidence that he professeth Christianity sincerely but he that onely professeth is yet to make evidence by his workes that his profession is sincere As for the example of Abraham the Apostles words are these Abraham our Father was he not justified by works when he offered Isaac upon the altar Thou seest that faith wrought with his workes and by works was his saith perfited And the Scripture which saith Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousnesse was fulfilled and he was called the sonne of God What is this but that which we read 1 Mac. 11. 52. Was not Abraham found faithfull in triall and it was counted to him for righteousnesse For it was counted to him for righteousnesse that not being weak in saith he considered not his own body already mortified as being a hundred years old nor the mortification of Sarahs wombe nor doubted through want of belief in Gods promise but was strengthened in faith giving glory to God and being satisfied that he is able to do what he hath promised As S. Paul saith Rom. IV. 19 20 21. And therefore much more must it needs be counted to him for righteousnesse that by faith he offered Isaac when he was tempted and that he who had received the promises offered his onely begotten sonne of whom it had been said In Isaac shall posterity be counted to thee Reckoning that God was able to raise him from the dead Whence also he received him in a parable As the Apostle saith Heb. XI 17 18 19. For here as I shewed afore it is the act of faith and not the object of it that is imputed to righteousnesse And in that obedience whereby this temptation was overcome though there was a good work yet there was an act of that faith And therefore the Apostle deservedly addeth that his faith wrought with his workes But the faith that moved him to travail after Gods promise was perfected by this work wherein that faith moved him to tender God obedience And therefore the Scripture was fulfilled which saith Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousnesse Because that which Moses had said that God counted Abraham righteous for his faith was made good and proved not to have been said without cause but that he was righteous indeed as righteous he must be whom God so accounts that obeyed God in such a triall as this So that which S. James addeth of Rahab Likewise Rahab also the harlot was she not justified by works receiving the messengers and sending them out another way How shall it agree with that of the other Apostle Heb. XI 31. Through faith Rahab the harlot perished not with the unbelievers receiving the spies in peace But by virtue of the same reason that having conceived assurance of the promises of God to his people that she might have her share in them she resolved to become one of them upon such terms as the case required wherein certainly the preservation of their spies was required So if by Faith then by Workes if by Workes then by Faith I must not leave this point till I have produced another sort of Scriptures in which the promises of the Gospel are made to depend upon workes which Christianity requireth AS namely when forgivenesse of sinners is promised upon condition that we
Christ not the Son of God who made the world they could not rightly say that they held God the Father So that his argument being proper against them demonstrates who they are And this is the reason of that which went afore And ye have an unction from the holy one and know all things I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth but because ye know it and that no ly is of the truth And of that which immediately followes Let that therefore which ye have learned from the beginning remaine in you If that remaine in you which ye have heard from the beginning ye also shall remaine in the Sonne and in the Father For because they knew what Faith they had imbraced when they became Christians no man need tell them that they who would not have our Lord Jesus to be the Christ were liars and the holy Ghost which good Christians receive upon the hearty profession of Christianity he justly presumes will maintaine them in it This for the text of Saint Jude But I say further that the Name of the true God the great God the onely God which all of them attribute to God is attributed to him in equivalent terms not onely in those texts of the Old Testament when the proper name of God is given to the Angels that spake in the person of God which I spoke of afore But also in those where the name attributes an action of the onely true great God are given to the Messias which we agree is our Lord Jesus And therefore that there can be no cause to bring in unusual figures of speech to expound these texts for fear they should say that which is so many times said in the Scriptures S. Paul Rom. XIV 10 11. We shall all stand before the judgement seate of Christ saith he For it is written As I live saith the Lord unto me shall every knee â—ow and every tongue give praise to God Which any man may see is said of God by his Prophet Isa XLV 23. And therefore I marvaile it should seem strange that the same person should be called the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ Titus II. 20. when the appearance there mentioned is not the appearance of the Father but of Christ who shall appear judge at the last day though he have from the Father the glory wherein he shall appear Againe when he saith 1 Cor. II. 8. Had they known they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory It is manifest that he ascribes unto Christ the title of the onely true and great God in Psal XXIV 7 8 9 10. So the Apostle Heb. I. 10. affirming that to be said of Christ which we read Psal CII 25 26 27. Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the work of thine hands They shall perish but thou shalt indure They all shall wax old as doth a garment And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up and they shall be changed but thou art the same and thy years shall never fail For whereas they grant that the end is of Christ where he speakes of ending the world at his coming to judgement But not the beginning where he speaks of making the world because there he is called by the proper name of God I call all the world to witnesse what there is in the words to argue that he speakes not still of the same person of whom he began to speak What will they not do to rack the Scriptures and force them to say what they never meant that are not ashamed to advance pretenses in which there is so little appearance rather then confesse what all the Church of Christ maintaineth So when the Prophet sayes Mal. III. 3. Behold I send my messenger and he shall sweepe the way before thee and suddenly shall the Lord whom ye seek come to his Temple It is so manifest that he ascribes the title of the onely true God to the Messias that Grotius who is so much carried away with the Socinians exposition of divers texts in this point could not forbear to say that the hypostaticall union is signified by this And therefore it is manifest what Lordship we are to understand where Zachary saith to the Baptist his Sonne Thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his wayes Luke I. 46. So when the Prophet David saith of the Messias Psal CX 1. The Lord said to my Lord sit thou on my right hand untill I make thine enemies thy footstool And the Apostle inferreth upon it Heb. I. 13. To which of the Angels said he ever Sit thou at my right hand untill I make thine enemies thy footstoole He remitts us for his meaning to that which he had premised there of Christ Heb. I. 3. that having merited by himself the cleansing of our sinnes he sate down on the Throne of Majesty in the highest heavens And againe Heb. VIII 1. We have such an high Priest as is set down on the right hand of the Throne of Majesty in the heavens For the Majesty of God being presented in the Scripture by that which is most glorious upon earth of a King upon his Throne as king of heaven and earth whose commands all the Angels stand about the Throne ready to execute To seat our Lord Christ upon the same Throne is to commit the highest degree of treason against the Majesty of God by challenging for him the honour due to God alone if he be not the same God on whose behalfe those words challenge it Ask any Jew that hath learned God from the Old Testament what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Thron of Glory is or rather what he is that sits on it and see if he do not refuse our Lord Christ that priviledge because he must allow him to be the onely true God if he do not But why should I be troubled to fit him with the title of the onely true God wo expressely challenges to be esteemed aequall to God John V. 21 22 23. For as the Father raiseth and quickneth the dead so also doth the Sonne quicken whom he please For neither doth the Father judge any man but hath given all judgement to the Sonne that all may honour the Sonne as they honour the Father He that honoureth not the Sonne honoureth not the Father that sent him Which is as much as if he had said he that honoureth not the Sonne as he honoureth the Father having said afore That all may honour the Sonne as they honour the Father As for that answer of his John X. 32-36 The Jewes answered him saying For a good work we stone thee not but for blasphemy and because thou being man makest thy self God Jesus answered them Is it not written in your Law I have said ye are Gods If he called them Gods to whom the Word of God came and the Scripture cannot be voided Tell you him whom the Father hath sanctified and
to doe all the evill that it does and that without this determination no evill can be done with it no evill can but be done For alas the covering will be too shortâ—â— to say that God produceth onely the positive action of sinne the malice incident to it consisting in the meere want of conformity to the rule which it ought to follow proceeding from the imperfection of the creature For the difference between the action of sinne and the sinne which it acteth consisteth meerely in the conceit of mans understanding not apprehending at once all the particulars wherein the action consisteth No action possibly being so badde that in some generall considerations common to those which are good it may not be counted good But those generall considerations expresse not the particular act which is supposed to be sinne So soone as the nature thereof is sufficiently expressed so soone it will appeare to be essentially sinne Therefore if God determine the creature to the act or sinne he determines it to sinne And though upon these termes there can neither be sinne nor vertue good nor evill Law nor Gospel providence nor judgment to come yet upon these termes the actions of the creature will be imputable to God alone though not as good or badde or as the actions of God yet as the actions of him that is supposed to be God in wordes but denied to be God in effect As for that which was said as if otherwise the efficacy of Gods praedestination and that grace which by it he appointeth for those that shall be saved could not subsist or as if otherwise God could not be maintained to be the first cause I will say no more now then what I said of the ground for Gods foreknowledge of future contingences That when I come to say how God determines future contingences I will doe the best I can to render such a reason as may maintaine him to be the first cause and so to foresee all future contingences by the same meanes by which he determines that they shall come to passe without giving just ground to inferre that there is neither contingence in the effect nor freedome in the cause no providence no judgment no Christianity appointed by God But if I faile of giving such a reason I disclaime it here before I give it and will rather allege that I have none to give and yet beleeve both Gods effectuall providence and the freedome and contingence of mens actions then beleive the determination of mans will by the immediate operation of Gods providence to be the sourse of freedome and contingence which I have shewed leaves no roome for contingence or providence And now I may freely grant that Jansenius hath avoided the charge of telling what it is that comes between the last instance of deliberation and the first of resolution by the immediate act of God to inable a man to do that which he that is able to deliberate and act both is not able to bring to passe Which is the same Chimaera with the imagination of infallibility in every sentence of the present Church when it comes to pronounce though the premises upon which it proceedeth do not appear even to them that pronounce infallible Nor will I envy him the advantage that he may make of the distinction between the sense of that which is said to be necessary including this praedetermination and not necessary setting it aside For having shewed that it is to no effect but to destroy contingence that is Christianity and to multiply contradiction to that common sense which all own I may well bid much good do it But I am not therefore bound to believe that it will serve his turn proceeding upon the account of indifference in the creature and the necessary effect of a secondary cause who standeth upon that necessity of Grace which Originall sinne introduceth For how shall he say that setting aside Gods praedetermination the Will may have Grace sufficient to do the work of Grace including the same it cannot but do it who makes the will utterly unable to do it till it be determined to do it And therefore takes away all difference between effectuall and sufficient Grace all intent of Christs dying for them that shall not be saved Indeed if he extend his opinion to the reconciling of mans free will with Gods Providence in matters not concerning the work of saving Grace he may make use of praedetermination in giving account how sinne is foreknown and the rest which hitherto he resolveth not But grounding himself upon the exigence of Originall sinne it were not wisdome for him to scandalize his own opinion by making sinne as necessary by Gods act as he makes the work of Grace There is extant a briefe resolution of the whole question by that learned Gentleman Thomas White where he concludeth Paragr X. That God determineth every man so to determine himself in whatsoever he does by the love of good infused and the causes which his Providence useth to represent it desirable that he cannot do otherwise How he would answer concerning evil is not so plain by his words He sayes indeed it is not the same thing to determine and cause to determine as for the Ammonites and David to kill Vrias But if the murther be duly imputed to David for procuring meanes towards it that might have failed would he have God procure meanes that cannot fail It cannot be allowed but thus that though of themselves they might fail yet supposing the foreknowledge of God that imployeth them that is supposing them to take effect which supposition all the experience in the world concludeth cannot be cleared till the effect follow they cannot fail And the nature of freedome the ground of the account to come consisteth in this that determining a man to act he might not have acted till the act was done For certainly it were a contradiction to say that which determines the will to act speaking not of the thing without but of the consideration thereof in the minde may not be extant when a man determines himself in virtue of it Nay were this consideration whereby God determineth indefeasible of its own nature for as imployed by Gods Providence that is supposing the effect to follow it is it were that very predetermination which I have infringed by the premised discourse coming from God in order of reason first and in the very next instant producing that choice wherein the determination of the will formally consisteth I will therefore conclude that wheresoever through the whole Bible God calls any man or his ancient people or by the Gospell all people to yeild him that inward obedience and worship in spirit and truth which Christianity requireth all this proceeding supposing the corruption of mans nature by the fall of Adam there he will take account of his disbursements by that which the creature shall have done not finally determined to do it by any thing preceding the choice Putting you
this then that which the supposition of free will necessarily requires Certainly Aristotles resolution that they are sure in the alternative but that neither part of it can be certaine That is to say that Peter being tempted shall either deny his master or not but that being contingent it can neither be certaine that he shall nor that he shall not is utterly inconsistent with that particular providence of God over all things which Châ—â—stianty supposeth renders that great mastâ—r as a man too cunning not to see â—he conâ—equence of his own position very sususpicious in a point so neerely concerning the belief of Gods providence Now future contingencies in the notion of contingencies that are not yet come to passe being in themselves nothing that is to say being onely understood to be posible cannot reduce themselves to the nature and state or future contingencies in the notion of contingencies that shall come to passe such as we believe all contingencies that have or shall come to passe to the worlds end were to God from everlasting It is therefore a meere contradiction to imagin that contingencies either by the possibilty of their nature or by the capacity of the cause that is of it selfe utterly undetermined to do rather then not to do to do this rather then that can be an object capable of being known by that knowledg upon which they may be said to be certaine future as things that shal be not as things that may be not as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to distinguish with Aristotle There are indeed those who undertake that when it is said Peter shall deny his Lord Peter shall not deny his Lord the one of which sayings must needs come to passe seeing this necessity must needs be in the object before it be in the saying because the saying is true or fals by reason that the matter of it is so or otherwise before therefore that part which appeares true in time was true from everlasting But that they suppose cannot be by virtue of any or all causes least the effects should no more be contingencies Therefore by virtue of the things themselves because of a contradiction the one part must needs be true the other false And this being of future contingencies they imagin it is which the knowledg of God attaining is therefore called sight because it reacheth that which is in being and therefore present to it But this imagination is a meere contradiction to common reason which is able to tell any man that possibilities differ onely in this from nothing that there are such things as can bring them to passe And therefore have no being at all but in the ability of their causes Whereas suppose them in being before their causes bring them to passe what remaines for their causes to doe which would have nothing to doe if that which they bring to passe were in being before they bring it so to passe And what contingency could then remaine seeing whatsoever is must needs be while it is For this position prevents any supposition that may be made concerning the being of that which is said to be before you can suppose or understand it to be And where is the difference between the being of God and that of future contingencies both being of themselves Surely supposing the necessity of this their being because God could not see them otherwise they would be not only objects denominating that knowledge of God to be sight which reacheth the present being of them but causes on which the sight of God must depend as our sight depends on the object that causeth it The future being therefore of contingencies necessarily supposeth the determination of their causes The contingence of them that thâ—s determination is from their causes themselves freely determining themselves The certainty of them from the infinite reach of Gods understanding comprehending the resolution of the Creature by the present inclination thereof meeting the considerations which it is presented with Wherefore as it is impossible that the will should act unlesse the understanding go before and the resolution of the will to do or not to do this or that necessarily depends upon some act of the understanding shewing by sufficient reason an end sufficient to move the wil to proceed and resolve So doth not the will effectually proceed untill the understanding shews that reason which effectually moves it to proceed Now these reasons proceeding from those appearances which the objects that every man meets with cause in his mind either at the present or by comparing that which outwardly appears at the present with that which is laid up in the storehouse of the mind And God having provided what objects every man in every moment shall meet with to resolve him what to do in every case that may come in debate It cannot be imagined that he provideth this and knoweth not by the means which he proviâ—eth what will be the issue supposing that he knoweth it not by his own resolution to determine a man by his own immediate act to do whatsoever he does And indeed God comprehending what considerations a man every moment is moved with and what be his own inclinations that is moved with the same it cannot seem strange that by this means seeing it appears impossible that by any other means he should comprehend what will so come to pass though knowing that he that acteth had or might have had sufficient reasons to have done otherwise Wherefore if any man ask me whether God know what will come to pass if any case should be put which he knoweth shall never be put which is now called in the Schools Gods middle knowledge because it hath on the one side that knowledge whereby he comprehendeth the natures of all things and the possibilities of all events on the other side the view which he hath from everlasting of all things that have been are or shall be for that tract of time which they endure because I seem to say that this is it which directs Gods providence in resolving what course to hold by which resolution it appears to him what shall come to pass I shall not answer nevertheless without distinguishing That God comprehends not the issues of those future possibilities which men can imagine to themselves and yet comprehends the issues of these future possibilities whereof we suppose him to determine all the circumstances For let a man infinitely endeavour to limit by his understanding all that he can consider in the case of any man left to his freedome he shall never be able to express that consideration which shall be effectuall certainly to determine him that is presented with it Because it is manifest that infinite considerations more may present themselves to move him to do nothing or otherwise But when the word of God speaks of these means which being provided by God determine effectually the resolution of him that is moved by them to wit by
infinite care which it would require as men are with a little part of it But if all the sight which God hath of the creature proceed from the knowledg of himselfe whereby seeing what he may make he resolves what he will make Though I say the fight of his creature at present depends upon the decree of producing it in his owne time yet seeing I make thâ—s decree to depend onely upon the infinite wisdome and goodnesse of God which moves him to chuse what he thought best to do I make him to depend upon himselfe alone not upon his creature In like maner though I make the decree of Gods providence to proceed upon consideration of the free inclination of his creature moved by the consideration of such objects as he sees are presented to it and his foresight of future contingencies proceeding from the freâ—will thereof to stand upon the said decrees Yet since I derive the freewill of the creature from the knowledg and will of God and the state of it from the course of providence which his own knowledge directs I cannot be thought to disparage God with the imperfections of his creatures I do indeed understand that simple Christians take it with a graine of jealousy upon a mans Christianity when a man of understanding shews them the order of secondary causes in effecting the works of Gods providence as if therefore he did not believe that all comes from God because he will not have him at every turne to transgresse the ordinary course of those causes which his providence hath once set on worke because they understand it not Buâ— though the most understanding know very little of it yet thus much they know that it is more for the honour of God that it should be thought that God from the beginning hath elected a certaine order agreeable to his own infinite wisdome justice goodnesse so verainty but yet of his owne free choice by which all things come to passe his creaturs serving the turn of his purpose Then that he should at all turnes by moving his creatures to that which they are not inclined to by their first naâ—ure but by his present will immediately attaine his designes For that he should transgresse his own order for the introducing of those effectâ— which are above nature the whole book of God requires us to beleive And if the glory of God consists in causing naturall things working their owne inclinations to serve to do what he designeth much more it is for his glory that maintaining mâ—n in the excercise of his freedome he makes him never the lesse whether by good or by bad inclinations an instrument to bring to passe those events which he in his wisdome determinâ—th In the second place it may be objected I hat supposing all that can be supposed in the nature of future contingencies they must appeare possible on both sides they may appeare infinitely more and more probable on the one side but so long as they appeare not certain they cannot be the object of certaine knowledg as Gods is And certaine they cannot appeâ—re so long as we suppose them to remaine contingencies To which I answer acknowleâ—ging that I who draw my knowledge from that which I see cannot by limitâ—ng the probabilities of future contingencies attâ—ine to more then probabilâ—ty But that it would be against all the reason in the world thereby to take mâ—asure what God can attaine to comprehending not onely the inclinaâ—ions of his creatures and the considerations which they meet with but also that they shal meet with no other but what he comprehendeth And to uâ—dâ—rtake that he by what he sees cannot discern that to bâ— certain which I by thaâ— which I see câ—nnot discerne to be more then probable I know it may be saiâ— on the other side that it is onely the weakenesse of our understanding that hâ—nders us to discerne the consistence of our freedome with the immediate determâ—nation thereof by the act of God to that which it chuseth And it is usually argued that the work of saving grace and the difference which it maketh between those thâ—t are â—aved and those that are not would not remaine such a mystery as the differences on foot about it in the Christian world demonstrate if the reason of it be resolved into the congruity of that motion which suffiâ—ient reason â—enders to a reasonable creature To which I answer in the fiâ—st placâ— That if it were not a secret according to that opinion which I advance this objection wherein all the difficulty is couched would not lie against it And that supposing all the diffiultie thereof voided it would remaine no lessâ— a secret why God should move some providing that congruity others waâ—ving â—t then wâ—y he should by his own immediate act determinate som to be Christians whâ—lst â—t remains posible that those who are not so determined should bâ— the like To the other I say That it is one thiâ—ge not to know noâ— to be able â—o demonstrate how God can have certaine knowledge of things that whâ—â—st they are knowne remain contingencies Another thing to know that by â—he knowledg whâ—ch he hath they remaine noâ— contingencies Christianity supposing them to remaine contingencies For it is no shame for a Christian or for a Divine to professe ignorance when the quâ—stion is how it may bâ— eviâ—ent that matters of faith are true As in the mater of the H. Trinity I have saâ—d Buâ— that in a mater so subject to common understanding as thâ— determination of the wil by its own choice reason and experience justifying thâ—t whâ—ch faith maketh the ground of Christianity because I cannot answâ—r an objection I shall make the whole tenor of the Bible the tender of Christianity the whole treaty of God with man concerning his happinesse delusory and abusive as conditioniâ—g for that which no man can stirre head or foot toward till being determined he cannot doe otherwise I should denie that which appeâ—ares because I câ—n not evidence that which appeares not seems to me very unreasonable Especially having so many intimations in the Scripture to signifie that God hath in consideration the circumstance of each mans case for the ground of hâ—s foresight in each mans proceedings For let Gods foreknowledg never so much râ—quire that the truth of those things which he foreseeâ—h be determined and certaine it will be no abatement to this cerainety that I believe it is not grounded upon his immediate determing of mans will to doe it but upon his determining of the meanes in consideration whereof he seeth that man will certainely proceed to determine his owne choice Lastly it will be said that by this meanes all things shall come to passe necessartâ—y being determined by God to come to passe For unlesse we suppose that the purpose of God câ—n be defeated that which he purposeth to bring to passe must necâ—ssaâ—ily come to passe I answer that I have distinguished beween that sense in which
suspended and interrupted as in him that cannot have confidence in God as reconciled to God in regard of these sinnes the seed of it notwithstanding remaining by virtue of that act of Faith whereby being reconciled as these are that are for ever reconciled to him he remains certaine of helpes of grace that shall be effectuall to work in him true repentance and of reconcilement upon supposition of it Whereupon it must be said the contrary that those whom God receiveth into grace without any purpose of granting them the grace of perseverance cannot be said to be justified without some terme of abatement signifying the justification granted them to be as to the sense of the Church or to an opinion unduely conceived by themselves but not as to God So that their faith also must be understood to be a confidence unduely grounded the failing whereof is not the disanulling of that which once was good but the discovering of that which once seemed good and was not This opinion so limited as I have said I should not think destructive to Christianity for the reason delivered afore concerning that opinion of justiing faith upon which it followes But as I then concluded that though not destructive to the Faith yet that opinion from whence it followeth is not true according to the true sense of the Scriptures wherein the skill of a Divine consisteth So must I here conclude that this opinion of perseverance which proceedeth upon that supposition of justifying faith which though not destructive to the Faith yet is not true is also not true though not destructive to the Faith The other which proceeds upon that supposition of justifying faith and predestination which is destructive to the faith remaining both untrue and destructive to the faith I grant that though the gift of the holy Ghost which is as I have said the habituall assistance of it being granted in consideration of a mans undertaking Christianity becomes void upon not performing that which a man undertakes yet God of his free goodnesse not as obliged by any promise of the Gospel may continue the assistance thereof but upon the same terms as he first grants the help of it to bring men out of the state of sinne into the state of grace I grant that the resolution of believing the faith of Christ and of living according to the same in the profession of Christianity having been once made upon reasons convincing a man that he is bound so to do cannot be changed at his pleasure in an instant though it fall out that he be overtaken with some sinne that laies wast the conscience But the promises of the Gospel being made in consideration of undertaking the profession of Christianity and therefore incompetible to those that live not according to it I say that they all become void to him that falls into such a sinne For the Covenant of Grace passing upon supposition of originall concupiscence remaining in the regenerate and insnaring them all with the occasions of sinne It cannot be imagined that all sinne makes it void But on the other side some sinnes being of so grosse a nature that a man cannot be surprized by them but that the being so conquered must imply a resolution to preferre this world before the world to come must needs forfeit those promises which depend upon the Covenant of Grace a rebellion against which they containe and declare So that unlesse the free grace of God by the operation of his Spirit bring a man back to repentance the whole resolution of being a Christian shall in time be blotted out though the profession because it imports the benefit of this world in Christian states remain counterfeit This is then the reason of my resolution necessarily following upon the premises that the sincere profession of Christianity is the condition of the Covenant of Grace seeing it is not imaginable that any man should hold any priviledge at Gods hands by professing that which he performeth not The profession as it serveth to aggravate the sinne which it committed under it as done in despite of all the grace of God and the conviction which it tendereth to reduce us to Christianity and the profession made in submission to the same condemning a man by his own sentence So containing the condition upon which all the promises become due upon the violation whereof on the contrary they must of necessity become void And this is the reason that leaves no place for any composition of this difference by saying that a man remains absolutely justified when the particular sinne which is not yet repented of is not pardoned For seeing the wages of it is death so farre as the Covenant of Grace dispenses not and seeing the Covenant of Grace cannot protect him that transgresseth the termes of it of necessity he falls into the same estate which he was under setting the Covenant of Grace aside as if to him our Lord Christ had neither been borne nor crucified nor risen againe Those that suffer the truth of this condition to be obscured by defective interpretations of that faith which alone justifieth and the scripturs concerning the same it is no mervaile if they can imagine a reconciliation betweene the state of sinne and the state of grace in the same man at the same time which makes the positive will of God declared by the Gospell to dispense with the necessary and naturall hate he beares to all sinners for their sinne But when it is once discoverd that by the termes of the Gospell God who declares himselfe ready to be reconciled to all sinners is declared unreconcileable to any so long as he continueth in sinne then must it necessarily appeare that the positive will of God declared by the Gospell concurring with the naturall detestation of sinne which is essentiall to the purity of his nature whosoever is under the guilt of sinne remains liable to his wrath And proceeding upon this ground as I doe I shall not thinke my selfe obliged to take notice of those thinges which have lately beene disputed in great volumes upon this point to and againe For presuming that the parties have not the ground upon which I proceed in debate As of necessity he who seemes to come short of proving his intent without it may with it be able to make the conviction effectuall which he tenders So he that seemes to have made the worse cause seeme the better without considering it must provide new evidence to make the condition of the Covenant of Grace seeme otherwise then I have showed it to be before he can thinke to have done his worke Notwithstanding because there are many texts of Scripture which evidently fortify the summe of Christianity setled upon the termes of the Covenant of Grace by demonstrating the failleure of the promise upon failleure of the condition to which the Gospell makes it due I take it to be part of my businesse to point at the cheife of them without being much troubled to
with virgines and once maried people And shall thy sacrifice freely ascend And among other affections of a good minde wilt thou desire chastity for thee and thy wife I dispute not here how lawfull it is to pray for the dead which Tertullian touches again de Monogamiâ X. de Animâ LVIII This Tertullian supposes that if a Christian have two wives hee must offer that the Eucharist may be celebrated and that at the celebrating of it the Priest may pray for those whom hee mentions as the occasion of celebrating it The birth-dayes of Martyrs that is the Anniversaries of their sufferings was another occasion of celebrating the Eucharist as in Tertullian so in S. Cyprian Epist XXXIV Sacrificium pro eis semper ut meminiâ—â—is offerimus quoties Martyrum passiones dies annuâ commemoratione celebâ—an us Wee alwaies offer sacrifice for them as you remember when wee celebrate the yearly commemoration of the Martyrs suffering dayes Therefore where the â—ame S. Cyprian forbids offering the names of those that had fallen away in persecution and offering for them Epist IX XI hee forbids the receiving of their offerings and by consequence praying for them at the Eucharist Epiphanius Haer. XXX speaking of the Patriarch of the Jewes baptized in private 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The said Patriarâ—â—â—aâ—inâ—â—â— his hand a very considerable summ of gold streâ—ched out his hand and gave it to â—â—e Bishop saying Offer for mee S. Cyril of Jerusalem Catech. Mystag V. Eâ—roe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Then that spiritual sacrifice that unbloudy service being done consecrâ—tâ—â— over that propitiatory sacrifice wee beseech God for the common peace of the Churches for the State of the world for the Kings their armies and allies for the sick c. adding that praying for the departed wee offer to God Christ cruciâ—â—ed â—or our sins to render him propitious to them and to us Of which effect in due place the intent hereby appears For here as hee calls it a Sacrifice upon the Consecration so hee plainly sets down wherein the propitiation which it effecteth consists according to the Catholick Church For to say truth to the purpose in hand I can produce nothing like that which I have said already in my Book of the Service of God at the Assemblies of the Church to which I remit you for the rest pag. 370-382 that in all the Liturgies there is a place where mention is to be made of all States of the Church for whom the Oblations out of which the Eucharist is consecrated are offered And likewise a place where the Eucharist being consecrated prayer is made in behalf of all States in the Church that is to say the Sacrifice of Christ his Crosse there present is offered up to move God to grant them all that is desired by the regular and continual prayers of the Church And among them there is a special place for those that offer at present If any man be moved to imagine that any part hereof is prejudicial to that Reformation which the Church of England professeth for I professe from the beginning not to be sâ—rupulous of offending those that offend it I remit him to that learned Appendix of Dr Field to his third book of the Church the purpose whereof in answer to the question where the Reformed Church was before Luther is to show that in this point as in others there handled the sense of the whole Church of Christ even to the time of Luther and to the Council of Trent was no other than that which the Church of England embraceth and cherisheth Thereby to show that the Reformation thereof never pretended to found a new Church but to preserve that which was by taking away those corruptions which time and the enemies of Christianity had sown in the Lawes and customs of it Which hee doth so evidently perform in this point that I must needs challenge any man that hath a minde to blast any thing here said with the staâ—e calumny of Popery to consider first Whether hee can prove those things which the Authors past exception there quoted declare to be the sense of the Catholick Church at that time to contain any thing prejudicial to the Gospel of Christ and that purity thereof which the Reformation pretendeth And because I know hee cannot do it I rest secure of all blasphemies or slanders that can be forged upon this occasion Openly professing that those who will not acknowledg that condition of the Gospel and the promises thereof which I have demonstrated to be essential to Christianity it is for their interest to defame the sense of the Catholick Church with the slanderous aspersions of Popery that so they might seduce miserable creatures to believe that there is a faith which inâ—itles them to the promises of the Gospel not supposing them converted to the Christianity which it rendereth For seeing that propitiation which the Sacrifice of the Eucharist pretendeth is grounded upon this condition of the Covenant of Grace as I have showed it is no mervail if they who pretend to reconcile the promises of the Gospel to the lusts of the flesh by which this world is injoyed indeavor to slander the purity of Christianity with those aspersions which they have seduced wretched people to count odious In fine it is not that consideration of a Sacrifice in the Sacrament of the Eucharist which the sense and practice of the Catholick Church inforceth but the violent interpretations of it which are made on both sides to both extremities that can give the leass pretense for division in the Church For while on the one side the sacrificing of Christ a new is so construed as if to doubt of the virtue of it in behalf of all that assist in it whether they communicate in it or not whether their devotions concurr to it or not were to doubt of the virtue of Christs Crosse it is no mervail if this create so great offense that the receiving of the Eucharist nay the assisting of it with the devotions of Christian people comes to be a mater of indifference On the other side while the renewing of the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Crosse by that representation thereof which the Eucharist tendreth for the redressing of the Covenant of Grace between God and those which receive is construed as prejudicial to that one Sacrifice whereby our Lord for ever hath perfected those whom hee sanctifieth no mervail if the very celebrating of it come to be a mater of indifference the effect whereof by believing that a man is predestinate or justified is had before and without it The mater of the Sacrifice then being so great a subject for the diviâ—ion upon so litle cause it is time for good Christians to awake and look about them and see that the lesse cause there is the greater good will the parties have to continue at distance In the mean time it is the common interest of Christianity even the means of their salvation by the
I come to conclude against the Anabaptists Our Lord saith to Nicodeâ—â—us Joh. III. 3. Verily verily I say unto thee unlesse a man be born again hee cannot seâ— the Kingdom of God And what this new birth is he setteth forth in answering that impertinent question which Nicodemus not understanding him makes how a man should come out of his Mothers belly the second time Verily verily I say unto thee unlesse a man be born of water and of the spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit Here I will grant the Anabaptists that the Sacrament of Baptism is not instituted by these words but by the act of our Lord after his Resurrection when he gives his Apostles their Commission Go make Disciples all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you Mar. XXVIII 18. But for reasons which perhaps they will not thank me for though they be not able to refute As yet when this discourse was held it was not declared to all that took our Lord for a Prophet that he was the Sonne of God Nicodemus himselfe that comes to him as a Prophet saying Master we know thou art a Prophet come from God For no man could do the works that thou dost unlesse God were with him If he go away instructed that the same which obliges him to take our Lord Christ for a Prophet concludes him to be the Christ the Son of God he is beholden to the freedom of our Lord in declaring to him the pretense of his coming by this discourse But for the purpose of sending the Holy Ghost it cannot be imagined that it was declared from the beginning of our Lords preaching who reveals not the intent of his death to his Apostles till he grew towards the time of it The priviledge of sending the Holy Ghost being part of that state to which he was to be exalted rising from death How then can it be imagined that our Lord should from the beginning of his preaching appoint all to be baptized in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost which is the Sacrament of Baptism that makes us Christians Certainly it is not the same thing for John to baptize in the name of him that should come as for the Apostles in the Name of Father Son and Holy Ghost Unlesse we think that all the people of God who expected a Messias expected him to be the Son of God which Christians worship our Lord Christ for and they crucified him for pretending to be There is therefore no cause why we should offer that violence to the Scripture Acts XXX 4. 5. John indeed baptized the baptism of repentance saying to the people that they were to believe in him that came after him that is in Christ Jesus And hearing this they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus which I showed you is offered by those that would have it to signifie That those who were baptized by Iohn Baptist were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus For other answers that are devised to avoid to clear a Scripture I count them not worth the refuting so evidenâ—ly they force the express sense of the words And among them none more unreasonable thâ—n that which saith that these men were not indeed baptized with the baptism of Iohn though they thought they were And that S. Paul when he sayes John indeed baptized with water saying to the people that they should believe in him that was to come even in Christ Iesus argues and perswades them that they were not indeed baptized with the Baptism of Iohn though they thought they were For of all things in the world could men be deceived to think that they professed that which the Baptism of Iohn must oblige them to professe and did not Nor can it be said with any appearance of truth that Iohn baptizing unto repentance those whom he sends for the means of salvation for the future to him that was to come did baptize in the Name of the Lord Jesus in as much as it is necessary to be said that the Apostles when they baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Acts II. 38. VIII 16. X. 48. did sufficiently intimate the name of the Father whose Son they preached our Lord to be and also of the Holy Ghost whom our Lord had promised to those that are baptized as Irenaeus so long since hath exquisitely cleared the difficulty how they observed their Commission of baptizing in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Baptizing as S. Luke reports in the Name of the Lord Jesus But of Iohn the Baptist it is said Ioh. I. 29-34 That the morrow after he baptized our Lord he declared him to be the man that was to come after him in whose name he had baptized that he knew him not but came to declare him and that by the coming down of the Dove upon him it was revealed to him that he should know our Lord to be the man that came to Baptize with the Holy Ghost Whereby it appeareth that he cannot be thought to have baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus as that importeth as much as baptizing in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost For though it is evident that Iohn knew our Lord when he came to be baptized that he knew him to be in the world from the time that he began to preach and that he should baptize with the Holy Ghost Yet not knowing the man from the time that he began to baptize how could he baptize in his name and as the Son of God that was to give the Holy Ghost before our Lord himselfe had preached and declared upon what terms it was to come I suppose it is easie enough to distinguish between baptizing in the name of Christ and baptizing with an intent of sending them whom he baptized to Christ to be baptized with the Holy Ghost Neither is this to say that Iohns Baptism availed not to remission of sinnes for the time that it was on foot by Gods appointment when as we acknowledge that dispensation of Grace which was intimated and conveyed by the Law to have been the means to bring some to the righteousnesse of faith How much more the twilight of the Gospel under John the Baptist But that before the Covenant of Grace was published by the preaching of our Lord and inacted on Gods part by his death upon the Crosse or rather by raising him from death it was not time to determine that act by which God intended that profession which he requires for the condition of it should be solemnized and celebrated Therefore there came water and blood out of our Lords side upon the Cross to intimate the ground upon which this Sacrament should be in force for the future And if this be the condition
secure them that put away their wives under the law in point of conscience to God And it is certain if that be true which I have setled in the second Book concerning the inward and outward the civill and spirituall obedience of God under Moses law and the difference between them that it could not alwaies do it For could he that knâ—w he put away his wife for â—ust or for wrath or for advantage think that he loved his wife whom all men know they are to love above others being bound to love all Israelites as himselfe But on the contrary he that had lighted upon a wife of crooked conditions and having done his reasonable indeavour to reclaim her had found her incorrigible how should he think he did her wrong using the power that Gods law had given him so moderately in putting her away Had God given them a Law which could in no case be used without sinne For had the nakednesse which the law allowed for a just cause of divorce signified nothing else but that which our Lord by his Gospel allows what question remains whither the conscience be secured by it or not But among Christians covenanting with God upon express promises of the world to come under a 〈◊〉 and more excellent rule of obedience with promise of helps proportionable to go through with it it is marvail if an obligation be acknowledged of bearing with patience the maners of the wife vvhich a man himselfe chuses never giving over the hope of reducing her to reason until she falsifie the trust of wedlock That when the mater is come to that point it should no more be mater of precept but mater of counsail to indure such a wife when the infamy of a mans bed my be saved and hope of reclaiming her may remain So that the question whether the meaning of Moses his words be the meaning of Christs is the same in this particular of mariage vvhich the Christians have generally with the Jews whether our Lord Jesus persiting the Lavv by bringing in the Gospell be the Christ or not The resolution whereof as it necessarily infers the difference between them which I have setled in the second Book so that difference vvill as necessarily inferre this provision of our Lord to be severall from that of Moses Out of Origen in Mat. VII a pleasant conceit is alleged Forsitan audax aliquis Judaicus vir adversus doctrine Salvatoris nostri dicet quoniam Jesus dicens Qui cunque dimi serit uxorem suam exceptâ causâ fornicationis facit â—â—â— machari permiâ—it uxo em dimittere quem ad modum Moyses quâ—m retulit propter duritiem cordiâ— Judâ—orum hoc prâ—cepisse Et hanc ipsam inquiet esse causam fornicationis per quam juste uxâ—r à viro dimittitur secundum quam Moyses praecepit dimitterâ— uxorem si inventa fuerit res turpis in â—â Perhaps some bold Jewish fellow may say crossing our Saviours Doctrine that even Jesus saying Whosoever shall send away his wife but for fornication makes her comâ—â—it adultery hath given leave to put a wife away even as Moses who he relareth did command this for the Jews hard-heartednesse And will say that this is the very same cause of fornication for which a wife is justly put away by a Husband according to which Moses also commands to put away a wife if a foul thirg be found in her Whence it is argued that there were then that expounded our Lords words to the same intent vvith Moses That there were Origen sayes not that there might be I grant But they must be Jews and adversaries to our Saviours Doctrine that should do it For he that should say so must blame our Saviour for pretending to contradict Moses vvhich Origen supposeth no Jevv could deny saying indeed the same thing Othervvise he must contradict the Synagogue for allowing divorce where Moses allowed it not if the soul thing which Moses allows divorce for be onely that fornication for which our Lord allows it Then he that would make use of Origen to prove that the terms of our Lord and of Moses may signifie the same thing must first answer the Argument wherewith he convinces him that thus should blaspheme our Lord. Adultery saith he is no cause of divorce but of death by Moses law therefore that dishonest thing for which the Law allows divorce is not adultery In fine he that examines all that is said or can be said of the diverse significations of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Scriptures will find but two the one proper in the case of man and wife the other by translation to the alliance between God and his people perpetually compared to a mariage all over the Scripture That this signification cannot take place here this may serve to evidence That the cause upon which our Lord allovvs divorce must be something betvveen the Wife and the Husband as it vvas in the Lavv For vvould it not be impertinent to punish transgression of Gods Covenant vvith dissolution of vvedlock The proper signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indeed is larger in the Scriptures then according to the Atrick Greek to signifie all uncleannesse at the mater requires For vvhen S. Paul sayes 1 Cor. V. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a man to have his Fathers wife would not have been 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in ordinary Greek But it is no marvail if the Jews that spoke Greek call all that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which their usuall language called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Syriack 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in our Lords words is exactly expounded by Hesychius and the Etymologick turning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Who being Christians do usually expound that proâ—erty of the Greek which is usuall among Christians out of the Bible And this is demonstrated to be the signification here meant because it is not possible to show that ever there was any opinion rule or practice received in the Church that it is lawfull to divorce but in case of Adultery I do truly conceive that there was anciently a difference of opinion and practice in the Church whither it be lawfull to mary again upon putting away a wife for adultery or whether the bond of mariage remain undissoluble when the parties are separated from bed and bord for adultery But this difference argues consent in the rest that is that excepting the case of Adultery there is no divorce to be among Christians Neither do I now speak of the base times of the Eastern Empire of which I will give you such an account as I find most reasonable when I come to the difficulty that is proposed I say it may appear that the Church originally granted no divorce but for adultery whether the innocent party or whether both were allowed to mary again living the other or not It is acknowledged by our Author that Tertullian cont Marc. IV. 34. de Pudicitiâ— cap.
vulgarly understood and that for the communion as well as for the sacrifice it must further be provided that this Communion be complete in both kinds in which the Sacrament is celebrated not barring the people of the Cup as it is the custome in the Church of Rome to do And truly there is not so much marvell at any thing in difference as there is why it hath been thought fit to make this the cause of so great a breach For the precept running in those terms which take hold of them who are obliged by it that is of the whole Church consisting of Clergy and people both alike because I have showed that do this in remembrance of me concerns the whole Church by the prayers whereof it is consecrated How will it be possible to make any humane understanding capable to comprehend that when our Lord saith take eat drinke do this the people shall stand charged onely with part of it Indeed had there been any limitation of the Law-givers intent expressed either by way of precept as this lies or by the practice of the Church originally under the Apostles and generally throughout Christendom there might have been pretense for dispute And it must not be denied that there have been those that have attempted to show that the Apostles so used it even in the Scriptures But by such means as if they meant not indeed to prove it for a truth but to show how willingly they would gratifie those who would be glad to see it proved whether true or false And do therefore sort to no other effect then to make it appear that their desire to prove it out of the Scripture was farr greater then the Scripture gave them cause to cherish For were breaking of bread put a thousand times in the Scripture for celebrating the Eucharist as sometimes it is put Act. II. 42. 45. XX. 7. at least for those Suppers at which the Eucharist was celebrated what would this avail unlesse we could be perswaded that as oft as breaking of bread is put for eating there we are to understand that there was no drink Or unlesse we could understand by one and the same term of breaking bread that all Priests had drink as well as bread but the Lay people none Therefore whatsoever advantage it may be in regard it is certain that the greatest part of the world will never be wise to make a noise with any plea though never so unprobable rather then be thought to have nothing to say men of judgement and conscience must needs take it for a confession that there is no ground for it in the Scriptures to see things alleged so farr from all appearance of truth As for the practice of the Catholick Church I may very well remit all that desire to inform and not to scandalize themselves to those things which Cassander hath which much learning collected as sufficient to make it appear if any thing that men are unwilling to see can be made to appear that as to this day there is no such custom in the Eastern Church so in the Western Church it is not many ages since it can be called a custom And that by so visible degrees introduced as may be an undeniable instance to make evidence that corruption may creep into the Laws and customs of the Church though by those degrees which are not alwayes visible Indeed it is alleged that there are some natures found in the world that can by no means indure the taste of wine which therefore some men call abstemious without casting it back again â—nd induring as great pangs as men are seen to indure that are forced or couâ—ened to eat things which they hate So that to force such natures to receive the Sacrament in both kinds were to destroy the reverence due to it both in them who receive it and in them that shall see it used with no more reverence It is alleged again That Christianity goes further than wine That is That some Christian Nations dwell in Countries so untemperately cold that wine will not keep in their Countries but changes as soon as it comes Now as no reason appeareth why the Sacrament should not be celebrated for the use of those people who cannot receive it in both kinds Neither can any reason appear why other people receiving it in one kinde should not receive the same benefit by it which they do Last of all it is alleged that in the primitive Church it was many times received by the people in one kinde upon several occasions For in regard that Christians could not alwayes be prâ—sent at the celebrating therâ—oâ— when there was not such means as have since been provided especially those who were maried to unbelievers it was a custom to send them the Communion who were known to joyn with the devotion of the Church though hindred to joyn therewith in bodily presence as wee learn by Justiâ—e Martyrs second Apology And because in the quality of wine a litle quantity is not to be preserved as preserve it they did besides other reasons to take it Fasting therefore it was sent onely in the other kinde as wee finde by Tertullian writing to his wife Again if a man that was under Penance fell in danger of departing this life before hee was reconciled to the Church by receiving the Communion again which by this one instance wee may see how much the primitive Christians abominated to do As the Law of the Church was that they should not be refused the Communion in that case So the custom was for the same reason to send it them onely in one kinde as appeareth by an eminent example related from Dionysius of Alexandria by Eusebius Hist Eccles VI. 44. But these instances if they be looked into will appear to be of the same consequence as if it should be alleged to a Jew that if two Jews should turn back to back and go one of them East the other West till they came to meet again howsoever this may be possible to be done seeing when they meet again if the one count Saturday the other must needs count Sunday as appears evidently by the reason of the Sphere and the dayly motion of the Sun round the earth therefore they cannot both keep the Sabbath upon the day which the Law appoints therefore it is in the power of the Synagogue to appoint that no Sabbath be kept Or because during the forty years travail of the Israelites through the Wilderness to the Land of Promise their children were not circumcised by reason that they knew not when they should be summoned to remove by the moving of the cloud that was over the Tabernacle which they were alwayes to be ready to do Therefore it was in the power of the Synagogue to dispense with the circumcision of male children under the Law of Moses Positive precepts they are all that of circumcision and that of the Sabbath as well as this of the Eucharist Neither can it
answer to the Jesuites Challenge Pag. 308-326 that the spoiling of Hell is attributed by the Fathers to the rising of our Lord Christ from the grave whereby the law of death was voided Which if it be true what Tradition can there remaine in the Church that our Lord Christs soule should harrow hell and ransacke it of the soules of the Fathers there detained or in the Verge of it Saint Basil de Sp. S. cap. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How then do we go down to Hell aright Imitating the buriall of Christ by Baptisme For the bodies of these who are Baptized are as it were buried in the water Saint Chrysostome in 1 ad Cor. Hom XL. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For to be baptized and first to sink then come up againe is an Embleme of going down into Hell and coming up againe And truly if the force of Christs death in voiding the dominion of death stood by the merit of his sufferings Then was the descent of his flesh into the grave of force to that effect without any descent further of his soul into the lower parts thereof And if the death of Christ and his continuing in death for the time that God had appointed was declared by God to be accepted by him to that effect then was his rising from death his triumph over hell and death whereby the title of his rising againe being declared it must needs appear that neither death nor hell nor the devil hath any more interest in Christians Nor is it so strange that the descent of Christ into hell should be mentioned by the Apostles Creed after his buriall if it signify not the descent of his soul as it would be that it should be left out of other Creeds if it did signify that it is necessary to the salvation of all so to believe For neither is it expressed in the Creed of Nicaea or Constantinople nor was it found in that which the Church of Rome or that which the Churches of the East used saith Ruffinus upon the Creed who notwithstanding expoundeth it because the Church of Aquileia which he belonged to used it Which had the signification of it been a distinct truth necessary to the salvation of all to be believed the Churches could by no meanes have connived at one another in not delivering it And truly seeing the dominion of death intimating the second death to which those who belong not to the New Testament are accursed is signified in the Old Testament by going under the earth The signification of going down into Hell in the Creed can by no meanes be thought superfluous though our Lord neither went thither to rescue the Fathers soules nor to triumph over the Powers of darknesse For as thereby the common curse from whence we are redeemed so is also the reason and meanes of our deliverance from it intimated And seeing there is appearance from that which hath been said that the divell himself did not understand the secret of Gods intent to dissolve his interest in mankind by the death of Christ untill it appeared by what right our Lord resumed his body which he had Laid downe this being declared in the other world by his rising again and in signe thereof the soules of the saints that slept rising againe with him and resuming their bodies there is no reason why the mention of his resurrection following immediately upon the descent into Hell in the Creed should not sufficiently expresse that triumph which this declaration importeth Which triumph being effected by the Godhead though in his flesh it will be no marvaile to meet with some sayings of the Fathers that ascribe it to his Godhead Now the common doctrine of the Schoole maketh it no matter of Faith to believe the descent of Christs soule into that Hell where the damned were but onely to the Verge of it where the souls of the Fathers were It is enough with them that the effect of this Power reached to the place of the damned Cardinall Bellarmine when he published his controversies held it probable that the soul of Christ descended to the place of the damned But upon better consideration in the review of them thinks that the other opinion of Thomas and the rest of the Schoole is to be followed And yet it is not possible to distinguish between this Verge and the lowest hell by any Tradition of the Church Nay Durandus goes so farre out of their rode as to maintaine that the soul of Christ went not to hell that is to Lymbus but onely by the effect of it in making the soules of the Fathers happy Which is in my opinion declaring to them the reason of their happinesse And the opinion of Suarez the Jesuite is remarkable That taking an Article of Faith for a truth necessary for the salvation of all Christians to be known the descent of Christ into hell is no Article of Faith For that is not very necessary for single Christians to know And for that cause perhaps it is not in the Nicene Creed which whoso believeth believes enough to save him And that perhaps for this cause some Fathers expounding the Creed to the People make no mention of it In III. Disput XLIII Sect. II. and IV. I may adde for the advantage of my opinion That if it be not necessary for single Christians to believe much lesse is it necessary for the Church as a body to believe it For those things which the Church believeth as a body it imposeth to be believed upon them who are of the body But it cannot be reasonable for the Church as a body to impose upon the members thereof the beliefe of that which it is not necessary to their salvation as single Christians to believe And therefore allowing the conscientiousnesse of S. Augustine who having presumed that he who believes not the descent is no Christiane doubts not that by the descent as many were delivered as Gods secter justice thought fit Epist XCIX And of Saint Jerome in Eph. II. allowing some work of God to be managed by it which we understand no more then what good our Lords death did the good Angels I allow also the reservedness of those of the Confession of Auspurg or of Suisse who acknowledging the literall sense of this Article find not themselves bound to maintaine for what reason it was I am not offended with those in the Church of England that assigne the triumph of our Lord for the reason of it But believing with Saint Gregory Nyssene in Pascha Resurrect Christi Epist ad Eustath that our Lord by the descent of his body into the grave abolished him that had the power of death by his soul made way for the thiefe into Paradise where it self was count this enough for the salvation of all Christians to be believed And therefore that the Church cannot impose upon them as the necessary meanes of their salvation to believe any more I do not intend to say much more
him who believes it not so present as in my opinion the ancient Church did believe Both must worship the body and blood of Christ because incarnate and therefore as the body and blood of Christ is inseparable from the consideration of his God-head which every Christian intends to worship And how can then a mans mistake in thinking the elements to be away which indeed are there make him guilty of honouring those creaturs as God which we know if he thought that they were there he must needs take for creatures and therefore could not honour for God I doe believe it hath been said by great Doctors of the Church of Rome that they must needs think themselves flat Idolaters if they could think that the elements are not abolished That showes what confidence they would have the world apprehend that they hold their opinion with But not that the consequence is true unlesse that which I have said be reprovable For what reason can be given why that bodily gesture which professedly signifieth the honour of God tendred to Christ spiritually present in the Eucharist should be Idolatry because the bread and wine are believed to remaine there Which according to their opinion supposing them to be abolished their accidents onely remaining is no idolatry but the worship of our Lord Christ for God In the next place as concerning prayer to Saints I must suppose that the termes of prayer invocation calling upon and whatsoever else we can use are or may be in despite of our hearts equivocal that is we may be constrained unlesse we use that diligence which common discretion counts superfluous to use the same words in signifyng requests made to God and to man Which are not equivocall according to that equivocation which comes by meere chance but by that for which there is a reasonable ground in that eminence which out conceptions and therefore our words which signifie them expresse unto us For all the apprehensions that we have of God all things intelligible coming from things sensiâ—le we can have no proper conceite of Gods excellence and the eminence thereof above his creatures which necessarily appeares to us under attributes common to his creatures removing that imperfection which in them they are joyned with This is the reason why all signes of honour in word or deed may be equivocall when they need not be counted so being joyned with signes either of other words or deeds which may serve to determine the capacity of them Adoration worship respect reverence or howsoever you translate the Latine cultus are of this kind as I said afore Ingressus scenam populum saltator adorat coming upon the stage to dance he adores or worships the people or as an othersaies jactat basia he throwes them kisses He does reverence to the spectators by kissing his hand and saluting them with it So prayer invocation calling upon God is not so proper to God but that whether you will or not every petition to a Prince or a Court of justice is necessarily a prayer and he that makes it invocates or calls upon that Prince or that Court for favour or for justice Now the militant Church necessarily hath communion with the triumphant believing that all those who are departed in Gods Grace are at rest and secure of being parted from him for the future though those who have neglected the content of this world the most for his service and are in the best of those mansions which are provided for them till the day of judgement whom here we call properly Saints injoy the neerest accesse to his presence To dispute whether we are bonnd to honour them or not were to dispute whether we are to be Christians and to believe this or not Whether this honour be Religious or civill nothing but equivocation of words makes disputable and the cause of that equivocation the want of words vulgar use not having provided words properly to signifie conceptions which came not from common sence If we call it Religion it is manifest that all religion is that reverence which the conscience of our obligation to God rendreth If civil the inconvenience is more grosse though lesse dangerous For how can we owe civill respect where there is no relation of members of the same city or Common wealth Plainely their excellence and the relation we have to them being intelligible onely by Christianity must borrowe a name from that which vulgar language attributes to God or to men our superiours I need say nothing in particular of Angels whom if we believe to be Gods ministers imployed instructing his children upon earth we must needs own their honour though the intercourse between us be invisible It were easy to pick up sayings of the Fathers by which religious honour is proper to Christ and others in which that honour that reverence which religion injoines is tendred Saints and Angels And all to be imputed to nothing but want of proper termes for that honour which religion injoyneth in respect of God and that relation which God hath setled betweene the Church militant and triumphant being reasonably called Religious provided that the distance be not confounded between the religious honour of God and that honour of the creature which the religious honour of God injoines being neither civill nor humane but such as a creature is capable of for religions sake and that relation which it setleth I must come to particulars that I may be understood He that could wish that the memories of the Martyrs and other Saints who lived so as to assure the Church they would have beene Martyrs had they been called to it had not beene honoured as it is plaine they were honured by Christians must find in his heart by consequence to wish that Christianity had not prevailed For this honour depending on nothing but the assurance of their happinesse in them that remained alive was that which moved unbelievers to bethinke themselves of the reason they had to be Christians What were then those honours Reverence in preserving the remaines of their bodies and burying them celebrating the remembrance of their agonies every yeare assembling themselves at their monuments making the daies of their death Festivals the places of their buriall Churches building and consecrating Churches to the service of God in remembrance of them I will adde further for the custome seemeth to come from undefiled Christianity burying the remains of their bodies under the stones upon which the Eucharist was celebrated What was there in all this but Christianity That the circumstances of Gods service which no law of God had limited the time the place the occasion of assembling for the service of God alwaies acceptable to God should be determined by such glorious accidents for Christianity as the departure of those who had thus concluded their race What can be so properly counted the raigne of the Saints and Martyrs with Christ which S. Iohn foretelleth Apoc. XX. as this honour when it came to
for poor soules that they receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist They who depart from the Church that they may minister the Sacraments on such grounds and to such effects as the Church allowes not incurre the nullities and sacriledges which departing from the Church inferreth But if beside the Faith of the Church the authority of the Church be supposed to the effect of the Sacraments how shall the Sacraments be Sacraments though ministred upon profession of the true Faith where no authority of the Church can be pretended for the ministring of them Or where it can onely be pretended but is indeed usurped and void Posterity will never forget that there are in a Land inhabited by Christians called England Country Parishes in which the Sacraments have not been ministred for so many years as the order of the Church of England hath been superseded by the late warre If the Word and Sacraments be the marks of the Church what pretense for a Church where there is indeed a pretense of the Word though no presumption that it is Gods but of Sacraments not so much as a pretense What hath the rest of England deserved of the Congregations or of the Presbyteries that they should be left destitute of the meanes of salvation because they cannot see reason to be of Congregations or Presbyteries Lay men preach and Lay men go to Church to hear them preach because they cannot preach themselves at home to their families The horror of profaning the Sacraments of the Church by Sacriledge is yet alive to make them tremble still at usurping to celebrate the Sacrament of the Eucharist But will those Lay men that preach answer for the Lay mens soules to whom they preach that they have sufficient means of salvation by hearing them preach being of no Church that might answer that it is Gods Word which they preach ministring no Sacraments for a mark of the Church Is it possible a Christian should hold himself able to preach who holds not himself able to baptize Or is it the appetite of devouring consecrated goods that insnares men to preach who when it comes to baptizing had rather let innocent soules perish then own the authority of the Church which inables every Christian to baptize in case of necessity because they know they usurp the office of preaching without authority from the Church It is I that have said that a Lay man may be authorized to preach by the Church And I believe still I said true in it But shall I therefore answer for him that preacheth without authority from the Church Should he preach by authority from the Church there were presumption for his hearers that it is the Word of God which the Church authorizeth When he preacheth without authority from the Church shall he not answer for the soules whom he warrants salvation by his preaching without Church or Word or Sacraments But these are not the Godly Those that know themselves such are thereby authorized to retire themselves into Congregations that they may injoy the purity of the Ordinances It is then mens Godlinesse that inables them to forsake the Church and betake themselves into Congregations And indeed I know an Oxford Doctor who to prove himselfe no Schismaticke for it hath alledged that he can be no Schismatick because he knowes himself to be Godly and to have Gods Spirit I deny not that he hath alledged other reasons why he is no Schismaticke the ground whereof I considered afore But what Quaker could not have alledged the Spirit of God as well as he And did not he who pretends himself Christ alledge reasons for it as well as pretend the Spirit A nice mistake it is to imagine that a Christian is to accept the Scriptures for the Word of God because the Spirit of God assures him that so they are For of a truth untill the Spirit of God move him to be a Christian he accepteth them not for such When it doth he is moved so to accept them by the Spirit of God as by the effective cause But for reasons which though contained in the Scriptures yet were they not visibly true before a man can accept the Scriptures for the Word of God he could never so accept them by Gods Spirit Unlesse we can imagine the virtue of Gods Spirit not to depend upon the preaching of his Gospel which I suppose onely Enthusiasts do imagine Nor doth the Spirit of God distinguish to any Christian the Apochrypha from Canonicall Scripture but by such meanes as may make the difference visible No more doth it assure him that he is a good Christian but upon the knowledge of such resolutions and actions wherein Christianity consisteth If it be requisite to make a man no Schismatick that it be not his own fault that he is not of the Catholicke Church If he perswade himselfe upon unsufficient reasons that there is no such thing by Gods Law as the visible body of a Catholick Church Just it is with God to leave such a one to thinke it Gods Spirit that assures him a godly man being a Schismatick It is not therefore supposition of invisible godlinesse that can priviledge men to withdraw themselves from the Church into Congregations supposing such a thing as a Catholicke Church The purity being invisible but the barre to it separation from Gods Church visible the Ordinances for which they separate will remaine their own Ordinances not Gods The Presbyterians sometimes pleade their Ordination in the Church of England for the authority by which they ordaine others against the Church of England to doe that which they received authority from the Church of England to doe provided that according to the order of it A thing so ridiculously senselesse that common reason refuseth it Can any State any society doe an act bâ— virtue whereof there shall be right and authority to destroy it Can the Ordination of the Church of England proceeding upon supposition of a solemne promise before God and his Church to execute the ministery a man receiveth according to the Order of it inable him to doe that which he was never ordained to doe Shall he by failing of his promise by the act of that power which supposed his promise receive authority to destroy it Then let a man obtaine the kingdome of heaven by transgressing that Christianity by the undertaking whereof he obtained right to it They are therefore meere Congregations voluntarily constituted by the will of those all whose acts even in the sphere of their ministery once received are become voide by theire failing of that promise in consideration whereof they were promoted to it Voide I say not of the crime of Sacrilege towards God which the usurpation of Core constituteth but of the effect of Grace towardes his people For the like voluntary combining of them into Presbyteries and Synodes createth but the same equivocation of wordes when they are called Churches to signify that which is visible by their usurpation in point of fact