a man never was inserted into that Stock is more properly called Atheism or Heathenism or Privative and then is called Apostasie which is a professed renunciation of the Faith once received Or this Division is Partial and so it takes the name of Heresie upon it Schism then must needs be an outward Separation from the Communion of the Church But when we say Schism is a Separation we do not mean so strictly as if it consisted in the Act of Separating so much as the State For we do not call any man a Schismatique who sometimes refuses to communicate with the Church in its outward worship though that done wilfully is a direct way to it as all frequented Actions do at length terminate in habits of the same Nature but it is rather a State of separation and of Dissolution of the continuitie of Church in a moral or divine sense not natural which we seek into at present This Separate State then being a Relation of Opposition as the other was of Conjunction the Term denominating and signallizing both is to be enquired unto And that is insinuated alreadie and must needs be the Church and that as that is united unto Christ or the true Church For there is no separation from that which really is not though it may seem to be It must therefore be a true Church from whence Schismatical separation is made So far do they confute and confound themselves who excuse their Schismaticalness from that which principally constitutes Schism and Schismaticks viz. an acknowledgement of that to be a true Church from which they divide themselves and separate Again We are to note that Separation is either of Persons and Churches in Co-ordination or subordination according to that excellent and ancient distinction of Optatus saying It is one thing for a Bishop to communicate Optatus Mileviâ—â—â— Cont. Parmen Lib. 3. Aldâ— with a Bishop and another for a Lay man or the Inferiour Clergy to communicate with the Bishop And this because what may perhaps justifie a Non-communion with Co-ordinate Persons or Churches which have no autority one over another wil not excuse Subordinate Persons or Churches owing obedience to their Superiours from Schism From whence it is manifest that though all Schism be a Separation yet all Separation is not a Schism And though there may be many and just causes for a Separation there can be no cause to justifie a Schism For Schism is in its nature A studious Separation or State Separate against Christian Charity upon no sufficient Cause or grounds It must be affected or Studious because if upon necessity or involuntary the Diâ—junction of Churches is rather a punishment than a sin and an Infelicity rather than Iniquity as in the dayes of Anastatius the Emperour as Evagrius relates it Who so violently persecuted the Catholick Church in behalfe of the Eutychian Evagrius Hist Eccl. L. C. 30. Heresie that it was crumbled as it were into several parcels And the Governours could not communicate one with another but the Eastern and Western and African Churches were broke asunder Which farther shews that all Criminal Separation which we make Synonimous with Schism must likewise be an Act proceeding from the persons to separated and not the Act of another For no man can make another a Schismatick any more than he can make him a Lyar or a drunkard without his consent For if the Governours of one Church expeâ— out of Communion another upon no just grounds the Church thus separated is not the Schismatick but the other as appears from the words of Firmilianus Bishop of Cappadocia in St Cyprian concerning Pope Stephen advising him he should noâ— be too busie or presumptious in separating others lest he thereby separated himself so that if the Schism had broke out upon no good grounds he who was the Architect of it Separated himself as all others do and it is impossible any man should make though he may declare another a Schismatique any more than he can make him erre without his consent or be uncharitable Yet do they err also that from hence conclude that the Formal reason of Schism consists in Separating a mans self for it is rather the material Cause than formal The formal Cause being as in all other things the very Constitution it self with unreasonableness and uncharitableness No man can make another involuntarily an Heretick And therefore no man can make another a Schismatick All the Guilt redounding to the Agent noâ— Patient in such cases So that it is scarce worth the Enquiring Who began the breach of unity as it outwardly appears but who is actually and Really First divided from Christs Church For they surely are the proper Schismaticks though the name may stick closer to others To understand this we may consider that there is a Vertual Schism and a Formal Schism A Vertual Schism I call real division from Christs Church though it comes not to an open opposition to it or Defiance of it so that where ever is any heresie or considerable Errour nourished or maintained in a Church there is to be found a Schismatick also in reality though not in formality the reason hereof is well expressed by and may best come from the hand of an Adversary to u thus judiciously enquiring It is demanded first saith he Whether Schismaticks be Hereticks Answer The Common opinion Azâ—rius Inst Moral Tom. 1. Lib. 3. C. 20. of the Interpreters of the Canon Law and of the Summists is that the Heretick differs from the Schismatick in that Every Heretick is a Schismatick but not on the contrary Which they prove because the term Shismatick signifies Division But every Heretick turns away separates divides himself from the Church This is very plain and reasonable and so is the consequence from hence That where the Body is so corrupt as to be really infected with notorious errors there it is really so far as it is erroneous separated from the true Church and where it is so far separated from the true Church so far it is Schismatical And when a Church is thus far really Schismatical little or no Scruple is to be made of an outward Separation neither can a guilt be affixed unto it And on the other side if no such real separation and antecedent Guilt can be found in a Church in vain do diverse betake themselves to that specious Shift and evasion that they were cast out and went not out willingly from a Church and that they are willing to return but are not suffered For undoubtedly the very supposition is insincere and faulty that they forsook not the Church before they were ejected And the expulsion followed separation and dissention from it and was not rather the Effect than Cause of them as are all excommunications rightly used For to those that pretend they were turned out do not the doors stand open to receive them and that with thanks if they please to re-enter and re-unite themselves What do they here
may reconcile many otherwise contrary opinions found amongst the Ancient Fathers sometimes ascribing much of the Ecclesiastical Power to Christian Emperours and sometimes calling the same in question The Church of England so far as she hath declared herself herein seemeth to take the mean way and follow herein the Prescriptions of the Old Testament and the Precedents of Christian Emperors found in the Antient Church under the Gospel and doth profess to be the due of our Kings as much as ever any Kings upon earth to sway in Ecclesiastical matters In execution of which power as there was alwayes approbation moderated according to the customes of the Church so was there always Opposition when the bounds were exceeded And undoubtedly true is That we are taught by our Church to acknowledge That whatever in Church Constitutions and Canons Church of England Can. 2. matters was the Right of Jewish Kings or Christian Emperours of Old is so now the Right of our Kings But some not content herewith have out of the Title of Head given at the first attempts of Reformation to our King and made by acts of State Hereditary to his successors drawn an argument to prove all that power which rested in the Church to be devolved on the Kings of this Nation But this hath ever been disowned and disclaimed in such a large sense by themselves as appears by Queen Elizabeths Injunctions and an Act of Parliament in confirmation whereof I shall here only recite the opinion or testimony of Bishop Jewel in his view of Pius Quintus his seditious Bull Bishop Jewel against the Bull of Pius 5th against her in these his own word Where is the called Supream Head Peruse the Acts of Parliament the Records the Rolls and the Writs of Chancery or Exchequer which pass in her Graces name Where is she ever called Supream Head of the Church No No brethren she refuseth it she would not have it nor be so called Why then doth Christs Vicar blaze and spread abroad so gross an untruth c. This was her Judgement and modesty then when there was greatest cause to apprehend some such thing and what she thought of it I never could learn was ever otherwise interpreted by her Successors For notwithstanding that according to the most ancient and undoubted Rights of this Emperial Crown our Kings are supream Governors of the Church as well as State yet never was it expounded of the Church as they were Ecclesiastical but as they were of Civil capacity For herein differeth the Right of Kings according to our Reformation from that of Roman Perswasion That Clergy men becoming Sons of the Church in more especial manner than they of the Laity are not thereby exempted from the Civil Power either in matter of propertie or Criminalness But the Roman Church so far exalted and extended their Ecclesiastical Power as to withdraw such Persons and their Cases civil from Civil cognizance and judgement and assume it to themselves And this the Pope claiming very injuriously as Head of the Church To root up this usurpation Henry the eight null'd that his pretence and took the title to himself intending nothing more then to vindicate his Prerogative in that particular For though it cannot be denied that many and great Priviledges to this effect have been of Old granted by Christian Emperours to eminent Bishops to judge of their own Sons as they were called within themselves yet did they never claim this as a Native Right of the Church or Christianity but as an act of Grace from the Civil Power And though the Church following therein the Councel of St. Paul to go to Law rather before 1 Cor. 6. 1. the Just than unjust and that Christians should rather determine Causes of differences amongst themselves by arbitration than scandalously apply themselves to the Judgement Seat of Heathen did ever endeavour to determine business within it self and yet more especially the Clergy Yet they never denied a Right in Civil Autority to call them in question upon misdemeanours or to decide their Cases of Civil nature And for the other of Divine nature or purely Ecclesiastical Princes never expected or desired to intermeddle therewith This the Roman Deputy of Achaia Gallio understood not to concern his Juridical power when Act. 18. he refused to be a Judge of such matters as were esteemed Religious though in that violence was offered to the body of St. Paul before his face he might and ought to have shewn his Autority But when the Soveraign Power became Christian it was not thought unlawful at all nor scandalous to address themselves to it for decision of Controversies And this is it which is intended to be demanded now by our Kings in their Supremacy in Cases Ecclesiastical and Civil and acknowledged by the Clergy of this Church to be his due without that servile way of seeking leave from the Bishop of Rome or any under him Onely where it may be showed that Peculiar Grants of Exemptions from the common course of Justice have been made by Princes to the Clergy of the Church may it not seem equal that they should enjoy the benefit of them as well as others in other Cases But nothing is more unreasonable or intollerable then the impudence of those spitefully and malitiously bent against the Religion professed in our Church who argue from the Kings Supremacy over the Church such an absolute dominion there as they will by no means acknowledge due to him in the State If by Acts of Parliament a thing be confirmed to the Commonwealth it is lookt on as inviolable by the King and unalterable without the like solemn Revocation as was the Constitution But by vertue of the Ancient Right of the Crown they would have it believed the King may at his pleasure alter such solemn Acts made in behalf of the Church Without the concurrence of the Three Estates nothing is lookt upon as a standing Law to the Civil State but by vertue of this Supremacy Ecclesiastical they would have it believed that without any more ado without consent or counsel of the Church he may make what alteration of Religion he pleases which was never heard or dreamt of Yea and whereas not only his Civil but Ecclesiastical Power always acknowledged the Bounds of common benefit and extended not to destruction they would have it thought that he may when he pleaseth by vertue of such Headship destroy the Body of the Church and Religion and leave none at all so far at least as the withdrawing of all secular aid and advantage do hasten its ruine But they will not be of this opinion any longer than they have brought about their mischievous purposes Surely St. Paul who had 1 Cor. 5. 12. nothing to do at all with State matters and could not touch one that was without the Church by Ecclesiastical censure was as much the Head of the Church as ever any Prince in Christendom doth expressly declare that whatsoever
is so defended as to call in question the truth of Christs divine nature and to commend and command the direct worship of those objects so mistaken then certainly it is Heresie and somewhat more And so their doctrine of Communicating in one Kind contrary to all the mention we have of celebrating the Eucharist in the Scriptures and those deserving the name of Fathers in the Church may rightly be termed Heretical when it shall be drawn into such a Proposition as this as of necessity it must viz. That it is of equal vertue and use to receive the Sacrament in one kind alone as both Kinds whereas only to deny the use of it is no more than an unjust and sacrilegious piece of Tyranny over the Laicks To these it were easie to add more of like natures as sufficient Grounds to leave such a Church as maintains them But for those who are not in Episcopal nor yet so much as Metropolitan subordination and subjection to that Church but only Patriarchal which obliges cheifly if not only to a recognition of a Remote Right of Order and Principle of unity when the Church is united in bringing them to Councels and keeping them to those Laws which are prescribed by General Consent of the Church and this not originally by first planting and forming a Christian Church in a Nation but restoring and augmenting it the case is yet more plain that it is free for such Churches to relinquish communion of any Church subject to less Errours than are properly called Heresies But for persons educated in a Church and thereby subject to it and owing Canonical obedience not only as they most weakly and wickedly imagine to the Rule of Faith therein asserted and maintained but to the Rule of Unity and Communion outward for such I say to divide from that Church which hath not by falling into notorious Heresies or Idolatrous practices first fallen from Christian Faith is to profess Schism For to alledg that they would incorporate with the Church if certain things which may possibly be parted with without destroying the Faith at least immediately were granted to them is to demand that their Superiors should bow to them rather than they to their Superiors and in effect to make the condition of their obedience and uniting with the Church to be this That first the Church should be of their Religion the difference between them consisting in things in their own nature mutable For though Faith consisteth in those things which are judged necessary in themselves to be received Yet Religion is made up as well of the manner of serving God as the material grounds of it And therefore it is according to the manner of their treaties of peace in other Cases to require the thing in debate to be granted them before they will bear of a commodation or reconciliation This senseless Charity is that of most Desperate Schismaticks Yet not absolutely to despair of reducing some few of them and much less of preventing the like ruine of souls in others we shall now conclude with a few words concerning the Second thing in the beginning of this Point viz. The guilt of Schism Supposing then what is above said that Schism is a Causeless Separation from the Church of Christ meaning by Causeless not want of all reasons or causes but Sufficient as are errours now mention'd in Faith we farther understand by Separation not that of the inward and hidden man but outward and Visible answerable to that we have called and acknowledged to be properly called a Church i. e. Visible For possible we grant it is what we do scarce believe to be actually true though we hear such things sometimes spoken that dissenters may have a tolerable good opinion of a Church as that it is a true Church in their private senses they may pretend some general kindness and Charity to the Members of it Nay they may hold it no grievous sin to communicate with it for some persons especially and yet for all this be rank Schismaticks For Schismatizing in its remoter Cause may spring from evil opinions and dispositions of the inward man but its formality is altogether in outward profession of averseness separation and opposition to a Church This is it which hath raised so much just clamour of the Ancient and even of those very modern Persons who stomach nothing more than to be reduced to their own general Rules and have worthily brandished their swords and pens to bring people to the unity of that Cause which never was the true Faith and to that Visible Company which never was a Church and yet cannot understand their own language nor receive their own reasons and arguments in Cases infinitely more capable of such vindications than the Party they created and asserted Herein surely they have exceeded all other Factions in immodesty and undauntedness that whereas those have been very scrupulous and sparing in delivering doctrines of coercion and constraint to unity and therefore may though with no reason with some little colour stand out against Unity and oppose all Coaction thereunto They of the Presbyterian Sect have preach'd spoken and written so much and expresly against Schism and the Liberty which tends necessarily to it that it is beyond not only reason but admiration they should neither be affected with what other men have said against them nor what they have unanswerably said against themselves but proceed no otherwise than brutishly to hold their Conclusion and stick to their invet eraâ—e errours as if they could find no Church to unite to or had no souls to save or did not even according to their own principles run the apparent hazard of loosing them by that sin which they confess is one of the Greatest Size viz unnecessary division And unnecessary division themselves call what is not for to avoid Idolatrous practises or Heretical errours and yet in their Apologies for themselves alledge none but frivolous instances tending as they judge to Superstition wherein they prove themselves much more superstitious by such religious opposition as they make against them and deeply concerning their best Consciences than they possibly can be who for order sake solemness of worship and conformity to the ancient Customs of Christs Church and to avoid offence unto other Churches sticking inseparably unto them retain rather than invent such adjuncts to Divine Religion It is hard to search out any new Topick from whence to draw out reasons against this hainous sin of Schismatizing wherein I am not prevented by them disputing upon the false suppositions that they at any time were a Church and if they had been that they who opposed them could be said to Divide Schismatically from them of whose communion they never were nor ever were obliged to be They are therefore with others to consider How solemn and severe a command of Christ they slight and contemn who divide from a Church without more weighty exceptions than hitherto have been offered by them or heard
purpose or to their advantage to say for instance sake as the more sober especially when they would gain upon the good opinion of men That Images may be worshipped relatively and as instruments to devotion and helps but when there are found and generally known to be such doctrines as teach a veneration of Images for their own sakes and directly and that with the same sort of worship that the things they represent are capable of though perhaps they upon a pinch can insert a distinction which neither can be understood nor profit such a doctrine as this known to be delivered by the Principal Doctors of their Churches and maintain'd not being condemned by that Church however not generally embraced may subject a Church to a censure of Heresie and Idolatry of both and so in other things whereof tolerable senses are given in the Church of Rome or else they could not be said so much as to be a Church at all but intolerable and Heretical are also uncondemned and so are no true Church and so may be separated from without Schism but not without peril of damnation united to And do not our brethren for such they were before they professed Schism and I hope may be after they have renounced it see now plainly enough the vaniâ—y and spitefulness of their Evasion Are not the Cases infinitely different and that in their own eyes Hear they what Perkins saith to our and their purpose So long as a Church Perkins on Gal. C. 5. V. 20. or people do not Separate from Christ we may not separate from them 2 Pro. 24. 21. Fear the King and meddle not with them that vary i. e make alterations against the Laws of God and the King Indeed Subjects may signifie what is good for the State and what is amiss but to make any alteration in the State either Civil or Ecclesiastical belongs to the Supream Magistrate And â—n another place the same Author hath these words Great therefore is the rashness Id. Galat 1. V. 2. and want of moderation in many that have been of us that condemn our Church for no Church without sufficient conviction going before If they say we have been admonished by books published I say again these be grosser faults in some of those books than any of the faults that they reprove in the Church of England and therefore the books are not â—it to convince especially a Church Thus we see how the cases in the matter difier And no less may we see the difference in the manner For 't is apparent that Schismaticks against the Church of England never had any Legal autority to warrant their vile and Scandalous practices but were forced to give names to things uncapable of them to excuse themselves or else by an unnatural course to entitle the People to a Power Supream who have none at all but what is given them from another fountain neither did the people concurr with such misdemeaners as was pretended they did But thirdly another difference is to be noted from the Rights of a Patriarchal Power over a Provincial Church not properly of its Diocess and that of a Metropolitan with his Suffragans over the members of the Church which they altogether make For according to the constitutions of the Church though a Patriarchs Power was Intensively equal to Episcopal over his proper and immediate Diocess and Extensively much greater than the Metropolitans or Bishops in relation to other Diocesses yet was it never so Intensive i. e. so particular and great in those Bishops Diocesses over which he had only an Order of Unity rather than Intrinsick power to dispose matters therein though in process of time this also was invaded much by him and might be recovered to the proper Bishop by the Laws of the Church But the Bishops of this Church had the sole and immediate disposing of the affairs of it and nothing could be concluded without obligation of obedience out of Conscience without their Concurrence as desparately as Schismaticks then did and still do rage at this truth But then as Hinderson saith with others They would never reform themselves It is very likely so meaning as they would have them but that not to the better Rule of the Ancient Churches and the Scriptures is more than they knew or would acknowledg when they saw because still they would have done otherwise and invented a new Rule of their own But seeing the grounds and Cause of separation are they upon which the Guilt of Schism is avoided or contracted according to the nature of them and obscure and difficult and tedious is the method leading to the tryal of the sufficiency of them to justifie a Separation therefore it were well contrived if as in the search of a true Church they may being very long and uncertain and grievous to most proceeding upon the points of Faith and Parts of worship themselves certain infaâ—lible obvious and plain Characters could be produced to convince the Schism and distinguish it from simple and innocent Separation A Fair attempt to which hath been made by Austin who dispuâ—ing against the Donatists denies that any man can separate from the Universal Church innocently So that although it should be doubtful as most things are managed by Learned Partisans whether considering the grounds of Separation in themselves the Separation be Schismatical or lawful and laudable yet by such an outward Characteristick it might be competently discerned And so farmust I needs comply with that Judicious and Holy Father and such as urge this out of him against us as to yield it a most probable outward Note of Schism for any man or number of men not a Church but in Fieri as they speak only and in breeding to divide from the Universal Church not only as comprehending all Ages but of any one Age the weight and evidence of which Concession will appear from the esteem of the Church Catholick and the wrath and extent of Christs promises to preserve it in All truth For this is certain That Christ directed his promises and restrained them to no one time or Age. And it is not probable there should be such an Intercession or intermission of Faith or Christianity that the universal Church should mortally err in any one thing necessary to salvation nay though we take it not in such a large sense as sometimes it is wont to be used for all individual persons in it as well as Churches of which the whole is constituted And therefore to desert the communion of all Churches not of persons for this is scarce to be supposed to happen at any time doth argue shrewdly That the separation hath much of Schism in it without examination of particular grounds which are pretended sufficient For it will be said That it ought not to be supposed that Christ should deliver over his whole Church to such heretical errours which only can exempt a Separation from Schism From such notorious suspicions as these we
and examine themselves whether that be the only cause The first of these is Custom which hath made the Laws and Canons more favourable And what is this custom A direct violation of the Laws of the Church and Orders and Precepts of it and then a bold reply to an objecter of this to them It is not kept i. e. They do not keep themselves to such prescriptions therefore they ought not and therefore it is as well as it is For custom what is it they mean by it If a Custom of an hundred years hath confirmed a Law a Custom of one year when it lets in the said Graces of Idleness ease and profit shall prescribe and prevail against it If infinite persons backed by Laws have done or not done such things and one or two indulgers to themselves have transgressed on the contrary these are the Presidents we choose for us these we alledg for our defense This is that we call a Custom and soon by the flattery and temptation of the foresaid vertues will the infection spread and the party become so numerous strong and bold as to condemn those who make doubt of being Customed by them and to deride them as Hyperbolical Conformists to the Canons and Laws of the Church So that without some stop and fence against this encroaching and daring mischief all things will be sum'd up briefly into these two things First that there be a Custom to make Laws and Rules for the modelling of the Church and regulating the worship of God therein And another far greater and more prevalent custome that none of them should be kept which agrees not with the conscience of the Sectary and the convenience of the Church Party themselves as well Rulers as obeyers Another Grand Salvo against observation of any Ecclesiastical Canons to our temporal prejudice is taken from Dispensations obtained to the contrary And then conscience may be as secure as might the Disciples when Christ going towards his Passion said to them Sleep on now and Mat. 26. 45 take your rest and upon the same reasons too Behold the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of Sinners Much here might be said concerning the nature reasons end and effect of Dispensations but this place cannot contain it Only thus much of the nature and use of Dispensations That it being not possible for the wit of Man to invent a Law which will not sometimes bring mischief and inconvenience contrary to the Definitur Dispensatio quod sit juris communis relaxatio cum causae cognitioone in co qui potestatem habet Dispensandi Barb. de offic Pat. Epist Al. 33. num 3. Part. 2. Institutor of it it is necessary there should be a Power of judging wherein it is inconsistent with the true ends and intention of the Law and Author of it and therefore Dispensation saith Barbosa is defined to be a Relaxation of the Law with the knowledg of the Reason or Cause in him that hath power to dispense From whence it follows that unless the cause be so just and reasonable that it is probable that the author of the Law or Canon himself never intended they should bind in such cases both the Dispenser and Dispensed incurr the guilt of the violation of that law so dispensed with which causes are so rare That perhaps in the very judgment of them that find the benefit of them it were much better that particular inconveniences should befall some men then such a door be opened as is commonly to the ambition Covetousness and Laziness of men to baffle the rule it self and make it ridiculous And therefore Ib. num 7. Est quid Odiosum Sine causâ— est Dissipatio in the Church of Rome it self where Dispensations abound most of all and most notorious yet the Canonists cannot chuse but call them Odious and a Dissipation when just cause is wanting And where Personal advantage sometimes to the Dispenser or his Retinue and most commonly to the Dispensed is the chief or only Ground of Dispensations they can never be good unless this benefit relates chiefly to nature as bodily health and not Fortune For t is so grand and general a mistake of the effect of them that it is to be feared it is affected in many to think that Dispensations ought to be ordained to relieve from the penalties and not the guilt of the Law For that is truly and alone an effectual dispensation which exempts us from the obligation to perform it and not that which only excuses from the Punishments we should otherwise incur And doth declare and satisfie a man that in not observing the Letter of the Law he doth not go contrary to the intention of it which in such cases would not that it should be rigorously observed Now if a man be soundly satisfied in his conscience first that the Law it self would if it could speak acknowledg the reason to be good of not keeping to the letter of it then a dispensation would stand him in good stead in securing him from the penalties belonging to the same But if men look no farther than that which is least considerable in Dispensations and meerly accidental viz. the saving themselves harmless under the breach of it they are notoriously deceived in the vertue of them For no dispensation can avail any man which doth not make the thing just and reasonable to be done or not done I shall give but one instance of this error and the Evil of procuring dispensations whereas they should rather be injoyned than sought for out of private ends out of Nicholas de Clemangis But perhaps saith he some will say that it is dispensed Nicholaus de Clemangis de Studio Theolog aped Pacherium To. 7. Sed forte dicent secum c. with them by the Bishop his Superior that he should reside with his Sheep Why didst thou seek for that dispensation will the Judg say Why with importunity didst thou extort that liberty of not doing that which thou knowest thou wert bound to do Wherefore didst thou retain the name of that Office if thou wouldest not officiate To this end wert thou made a Rector that thou mightest govern therefore a Shepheard that thou mightest feed Were your Studies such that my Sheep must perish for which I shed my bloud Why wouldest thou asume the place of a fit Pastor and not discharge the work Another would have fed my flock preserv'd it attended it lead it and been resident with it and have gained to me out of it Doest thou think thou wert made a Shepheard for this that thou mightest neglect my flock and leave it in the wilderness and wander about through Towns Citys and High-wayes with the wanton and idle while the wolves scatter my flock c. This and much more that zealous Person who now would be accounted discontented and envious and troublesome But here I end this only with this reasonable request that men pretending to true Religion and
Christians to such sort of Meats as are now allowed For it was rather her act of Grace and Lenity to remit the one half of that ancient Severity commonly submitted unto in the earlier days of Christian Religion And who but ignorant and ill natur'd and nurtur'd children could turn her Lenity into Tyranny and make her curtesie a matter of calumny Nay which hath more disingenuity and absurdity while they fret and complain grievously that the Yoke as it is lyes too heavy upon them and presses them too hard to invert their spite and malice against it by arguing from the lightness and contemptibleness of such Fastings as consists only in abstinence from flesh saying It is no Fast which abstains not absolutely from all Meat This were indeed somewhat to the purpose if so be that the Church did at the same time command any man to eat fish or so much as hearbs or bread when she forbids flesh to be eaten Or that they who were able and did wholly abstain from Meats at such seasons did not more fulfill the intention of the Church then they who took the liberty left them of eating in some manner What temper and spirit do these men discover to themselves to be of who are alwayes in readiness to charge their Superiours either with folly or tyranny or impiety upon the same occasion and never been able to prove any one them Scotus and Biel Scotus lib. 4. Distinct 8. Biel Lect. 8. in Canon Missae after him distinguish of a Fast of Nature which is a total abstinence from all eating and drinking and of a Fast of the Church when a man eats but once a day and that according to the precept and mind of the Church Now if the Church hath invented a favourable distinction and sense to gratifie murmurers at the rigour of her Laws do they not requite her ingenuously who turn that also to her reproach Nay if another distinction be found which makes a Fast a Toto a Tanto and a Tali from the Whole from the Quantity and from the Quality of the Meats eaten hereby willing to condescend and bring down her Rules so low that all men may have somewhat to exercise themselves in according to their ability in the graces of Abstinence and Obedience who but such whose Religion impels them to be the worse for good usage and resolve to hear of nothing but their own inventions would clamour against their Governours for such moderation But when they are disappointed in their arguments and expectations to reduce all men and things to their own model their last Effort is to humble this kind of Fasting into a civil Constitution only and for a civil End according as an Act of Parliament misconstrued as hath more plainly and fully been declared by others hath misled them conceiving that the Fastings of our Church tend only to the encrease of Navigation or are intended for the good of beasts not of men But what hinders that the Church may have one end in her decrees and the Common-wealth another and that which the Church designed for the exercise of Christian vertues may be embraced by Secular Politicians to promote Secular benefits to the Publick Nothing is so manifest to him that knows any thing in Church History as that such a reason was never dreamt of by the Propounders of such Fastings in our Church nor in any part of the Christian world before that Act. And if the words of that Act were intended for an ease to the tender Consciences as those of dissenters are mis-called and to draw them by little and little upon consideration of Civil ends which they less hated than the Ecclesiastical to some good order and submission this is not to be drawn to a perpetual Rule nor made the only universal end of such a Constitution For the Church still keeps to the most ancient and general sense received amongst Christians A third Precept of the Church is The Observation of the Ecclesiastical Canon 6. Preface of Ceremonies c. Customs and Ceremonies of the Church and that without frowardness and contradiction as appears from her Canons and the Preface before the Common-Prayer Of which obligation that which we have before spoken of the Power of the Church and even now of Fasting may here be applyed and suffice A fourth Precept is Constantly to repair to the Publick Service of the Preface to the Book of Common-Prayer Church for Mattens and Evening Song with other holy Offices at times appointed unless there be a just and unfeigned cause to the contrary And this we have before also treated of extending it to the worship of God in his House especially when there is an assembly of Christian people together to that purpose though there be no Sermon and also to the humbling a mans self and putting up his private Devotions there alone when occasion and opportunity shall be offered so to do according to the most ancient and godly custom of good Christians ever since there were Temples built for Gods Service For the disuse of which excellent acts not the least reason hath been or can be alledged by those that would be thought to be the only Rule of Reformation which we have not sufficiently refuted before Lastly To receive the blessed Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ Second Exhortation to be read before the Communion with frequent Devotion but at least Thrice a year whereof Easter is to be one And in order hereunto as occasion shall be to open our souls by due Confession and disburden and quiet our troubled Consciences by some learned and discreet Minister of God from whom Ghostly counsel and comfort may be received with the benefit of Absolution Of the use of which we have also before spoken where we shewed that such Confession was not of such absolute Divine Right either of Precept or Means that Salvation could not be otherwise obtain'd but as an Ecclesiastical Expedient very effectual as well for the bringing Impenitent sinners to repentance as for the due restoring of them that are Penitent to a comfortable assurance of Gods favour towards them and direction and encouragement in holy living which the foul abuses in those Churches where it is excessively magnified should by no means abolish For besides them above noted doubtless it is no mean abuse to make that which undoubtedly should be an act of Judgment in Gods Minister discerning between the hopeful state of some and desperate of others and accordingly suspending or applying the Free Grace of the Gospel and the Power left by Christ to his Church an act of custom formality and course or perhaps common civility which kind of rashness and profuseness the ancient Churches were altogether ignorant of When grievous offenders against God and the Church had fallen justly under the censures of the Church it was permitted to absolve them at the point of death so far as concerned their restitution to the Communion of
virulent tongues cannot forget their wonted strains of dishonesty and extream spite and railings witness one for all the foresaid Ludovicus Molinaeus who as civilly and reverently as he carries himself towards Mr. Baxter for none of his vertues we may be sure as exorbitantly in the old Puritans language and on their Grounds flies in the face of the Greatest and Best of the Rulers of the Church and State too who have at any time resolutely opposed the designs and Schismatical devices of such unchristian Reformers as himself only I must confess he is favourable to his late Sacred Majesty whose invincible Piety and unparallel'd innocency of Life and Ignominious yet Glorious Death hath not only struck Sectaries dumb who once opened so loudly and perniciously against him but extorted cold commendations from them not much unlike that approbation given by that Parricide Antonius the Emperor who when he understood how the people of Rome magnified and even deâ—fied his virtuous Brother Geta whom he had wickedly murdered said Sit Divus modò non sit vivus i e. Let him be Divine so he be not living But whom doth he or his Fellows occasion serving spare Hath he not raked the stinking Canal of all â—ld lyes and feigned rumors invented to imbroyl the Church in Schism and Kingdome in Sedition and Bloud and indeavoured to put new life into them and Authentize them to other Countries as well as ours It was soberly and seasonably said by that excellent Arch-bishop Speech Delivered in the Star Chamber p. 2. whom he would traduce in basest manner were not his merits above the Calumnies of such wretched Fellows in his Speech in the Star-chamber at the Charge of Prin Burton and Bastwick viz. There were times when Persecutions were great in the Church even to exceed Barbarity it self Did any Martyr or Confessor in those times Libel their Governors Surely no not one of them to my best remembrance yet these complain of Persecution without all shew of cause and in the mean time libel and rail without all measure so little a kin are they to those who suffer for Christ or the least part of Christian Religion This witness is most true of these Cretians And it is my great glory not only to be named among such eminent persons as lately but at present are living in our Church whom this Molinaeus traduceth And why so because of my rude usage of Mr. Daillee whom I spit on if any will believe him Lud. Molin Antidure Epist p. 54. rather then dispute against That I spare not the memory of Diodate That I am no fairer to Mr. Bochartus And why doth be forget my railing too against his Brethren the Puritans This he might better say But neither he nor any man else can say that I imitate Puritans in railing against my Betters or Governors that 's their peculiar and inseparable virtue and hath been from the first founding of the Discipline by Penrie Whittingham Goodman and Cartwright with others to the confounding of the Church so far as lay in their power I ever was not only an approver but an admirer of the personal Gifts of Calvin and Beza of Monsieur Daillee and Monsieur Bochart c. but I owe them no more respect in the cause of Religion than they do me or any man else of our Church but I profess I owe more Reverence to the least of the Bishops and Fathers of the Church whom Puritans have so basely treated then to the greatest of them and so do Sectaries too as ill as they are galled to hear of it But what do I speak so irreverently after all against Mr. Daillee Not a word hath this Zelote found in my whole Book against him nor in that Action against our Schismaticks whom I confess to have severely treated in that I give them their own some mens dealings being so foul as theirs have been that the very bare recitation of them is lookt on as railing though never so faithfully done If any of them or their friends can tell me wherein I have done them wrong in misreporting their Facts I do here assure them I will make them all the satisfaction I am able in retracting and acknowledging my Error and that as publickly as I have injured them with the next opportunity Cyprian Optatus Hierom Austin Nazianzen and Chrysostom as holy and sober persons as they were in their Generations made no great scruple to paint Schismaticks out in their Colors with language which cuts where it goes and I am sure these upon no better grounds than they have or can possibly offer of departing from and dividing our Church are no better Nay in this hath the Puritan Sectary transcended all Hereticks and Schismaticks that ever went before them For though divers Factions were raised and fomented to a great height in the Church of God of old and Altar was erected against Altar and Chair against Chair i. e. Worship against Worship and Governor against Governor of the Church yet do we find none through all the Histories of the Church that ever became so presumptuous and desperate as to endeavour the total subversion of the Government of the Church in it self and to set up another in the room of it quite of another nature which we read not that Aerius himself ever attempted though he preacht up the equality of Bishops and Presbyters And so far am I from such a spirit of meekness I confess that I shall never smooth them or their cause over so civilly as to imply the contrary until they bethink themselves without their customary frauds and dissimulations of their duties and return to the Peace and Unitie of the Church which I shall not cease to pray for But one of the most material things charged on me is That I liked Dailee's Book the worse because it pleased the Puritans so much which says my Accuser is to be of the spirit of Maldonate the Jesuite But he is mistaken For Maldonate indeed rejected a sense of Scripture which otherwise he approved because it was Calvins If I disliked Dailees opinions only because they were Dailees or our Puritans he had been somewhat near the matter but no such thing hath fallen from me I disliked indeed his Book because it so far pleased the Puritans that they were thereby notably confirmed in their obstinate Opinions against the Authority of the Ancient and our Present Church Here were evil effects also to be disliked Next let us bear how I abuse Diodate of Geneva in that I rehearse this saying of him against King Charles the first viz. That Christ in the Gospel commands us to forgive our enemies but not our friends This he calls Crassum mendacium A gross lye in me whereas the lye if there be any must necessarily be in himself or his brother Puritan Cook the Sollicitor against King Charles the first at his Sentence in that monstrous Court. For I no where say of my self that Diodate said those words
but I said that Cook reports them as heard from Diodates own mouth and I there give him the very Page where those words are to be found and this simple Quarreller and Vindicator of Puritans hath no other way to evade this then by a bold and sensless denial of the thing so apparent Now to that excellently learned person Bochartus what is it I say against him but that he would needs be medling where it concerns him not as the too common practise hath constantly been both of French and Dutch Divines What have they to do to interpose so often and uncharitably in behalf of Puritans as they have Is it not sufficient that they are not disquieted by us in their singularities and inconformities to the perpetual constitution and orders of Christs Universal Church but they must needs seek all occasions pragmatically to animate Sectaries to give them counsel and assistance to give them Communicatory Nisi me mea fallat opinio afhâ— mare auâ—â—â— quamum familtaris congress is gratiâ lâ—pâ—re vâ—nour à Duâ—â—llor antua illum à me superari crationis scriptae nitâ—re utilitate cun ejus scriptio â—â—ta prolixitate ariditate pariat fastidium taedium lectori hand dubium mea etiam ad aperturam libri detmebit cum amaena fincifera voluptate capietque desiderio alteriora legendi nullis offuciis Strephis paralogismis imprimis diverticulis cum à proposiio tum à 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cardine litis quaestioniquâ— quae inter Hiâ— raâ—chic â—â— Puritanos vertitur deterritus conâ—â—â—sâ—â— ad aljiciendas chartas ut in lectione vindiciarum Durellianarum Lud. Molin ante Durel Patroni p. 2. 3. Letters in the height of their Seditions and Schisms to write Apologies and Vindications for them as Bochartus hath In which besides this I think he was in an error to suppose that that great Truth he defends of Subjects not to take up Arms against their Soveraign can be made good from the Cabbalistical and Talmudical sayings of the Rabbies upon which that Thesis is chiefly built and may be as easily pull'd down by rejecting such Ornaments rather then Arguments of Speech And this is all he objects against me in that bold Work of his saving several reproachful tearms which I will not trouble any body with Only concerning the Canina facundia i. e. Dogged Eloquence he taxeth me with I may tell him I am not fit to be his or his Brethrens Scholar in such Speeches And yet as * Turpe est contra ardenter perversa assâ—rentes 〈◊〉 pra veritaâ—â— frgidi res inveno i. Rusâ—ic Diac. Advers Acephâ—l Rusticus Diaconus hath it against the Acephali or headless Schismaticks in his days It 's very absurd for us to be found more cool for the Truth when we write against such as vehemently assert the contrary And concerning the barbarousness and unevenness of my stile though I want not matter of defense from several heads I shall pass them over and also his most polite and elegant stile for which he praises himself so worthily and wisely and only refer the Reader to that one instance which he may find Page 2 and 3 of his Patronus against Monsieur Durell where this great and vain-glorious Latinst while he magnifies his singular Talent of Elegance in the Latin Tongue offends in his tedious and ill-joynted Period against the Rules of Rhetorick and in worse concordance against the common Rules of Grammar So unluckie is this man and that in more ways then I will object to him And now I must touch a farther occasion of my present undertaking and that was the many errors vented by dissenting persons in our Church with which our Adversaries commonly revil'd us as shall be seen by and by in the mean time least any should suppose I go out Perkinsius qui in Aâ—li◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—he legiae 〈◊〉 â—xiulâ—â— â—ujus 〈…〉 〈…〉 〈…〉 〈…〉 Vortius Biâ—lioth l. 2 c. 3. of the common road of forreign Reformers so much trod by many Dissenters amongst us because I was not well skill'd in Calvins Bezas and Ursins Works I must tell them they were the Authors first of all recommended unto me and read by me more then those of our own Church And because I knew well of what great account as well abroad as at home Mr. Perkins his works were I would be no stranger in them but finding in them a servile and credulous spirit so far addicted to such Modern Divines that scarce any thing so new harsh or inconsistent with the judgment of Antiquity fell from them but Perkins presently took it up for Scripture and Catholick Doctrine and transcribed the same into his Works I have here collected in brief what I observed as Heterodox in his Works apt to corrupt young and injudicious Readers But here I shall say nothing of his known monstrous sense of Gods Decrees and Predestination but what a Learned Person his great friend and defender hath said before me Bishop * Abbot in Thompson Diâ—â— c. 1. Perkinsius vir alt quin eruditur pius 〈…〉 quam ille centra 〈◊〉 câ—ntra veteris Ecclesiae fidâ—m cura lâ—psâ—â— Alani absoluâ—â— dâ—cretam 〈…〉 non levem erravit Perkins on Gal. 3. v. 12. Abbot Perkins saith he otherwise a very learned and godly man in describing Divine Predestination which contrary to our and the Ancient Church he hath determined to be decreed without the fall of Adam hath committed no small Error 1. The first I observe is his sense of Justification by Faith thus expressed The Gospel promiseth life to him that doth nothing in the cause of his Salvation but only believeth in Christ and promiseth Salvation to him that believeth yet not for his Faith nor for any Works but for the Merits of Christ The Law then requires doing unto Salvation and the Gospel believing and nothing else Both ends of this sentence are utterly false and scandalous to Christianity it self and most of all as he there explains Non apprehendi potest quod promittitur nisi custoditu a fucrit 〈◊〉 jubetur Leo M. Ser. 9. ad jejun 7. Mensis V. 18. himself thus Believing and doing are opposed in the Article of Justification in our good conversation they agree Faith goeth before and Doing follows but in the work of our Justification they are as fire and water To the same effect he speaketh afterward All which we have refuted shewing that in no place of Scripture are the works of Faith opposed to Faith in Christ in any consideration but only the works of the Law as opposite to or not done in Christ nor in Faith 2. Secondly he saith A third benefit to them that believe in Id. ib. cap. 3. p. 320. Christ is That they have liberty to live and serve God without fear of damnation or any other evil 3. Thirdly God never gave to any man power to effect a Chap. 3. 5. Miracle
Church hath not denyed that Liberty and where they have made no Vow to the contrary bereaving themselves of that Liberty 33. There is no Purgatory 'T is little less then Heretical to Artic. Chur Eng. 22. affirm there is in the Roman sense 34. There is no external Sacrifice Most true in a strict proper sense 35. Devils cannot be driven away by Holy Water and the Sign of the Cross By these alone we have few or none Instances in the Ancient Church that Devils were cast out of the Possessed But many we find and those most authentique and undeniable whereby it appears that the ancient Christians even to St. Chrysostoms dayes did exorcise or cast out Devils by Prayers and Humiliation with which were used the sign of the Cross but not so ancient was Holy Water to that purpose And though we look on this as the Gift of Miracles formerly more general and effectual then now-a-days it is any where honestly to be found yet neither do we deny such power absolutely nor hold such unnecessary Rites utterly unlawful to be used 36. It is unlawful and an horrible wickedness for a man to erect the Image of Christ in Christian Temples No such matter The wickedness consists in giving it the accustomed Worship in the Church of Rome And thus have I given certain Instances of the injurious dealings of both extreams against us as by themselves stated it being my design in the ensuing Treatise to state rather then largely dispute matters more equally and thereby to discover the frauds and falsities current against us I shall now requite their pains in collecting falsly and fraudulently the opinions of our Church by a sincere and faithful proposing of the Heretical and pestilent Dogmes of the Roman Church as I find them laid down and maintain'd by Bellarmine that so even common reason if not sense of indifferent Christians may judge which Church holds most contrary Doctrines to Gods and Mans Laws 1. The Books by us called Apocryphal and so proved by Bellarm. De Verho Dei l. 1. c. 7. the general Consent of the Church in all Ages are Canonical and properly Divine 2. It is neither convenient nor profitable that the Scriptures L. 2. c. 15. 16. or Prayers of the Church should be in the Vulgar Tongue 3. All things necessary to Faith and Holy Life are not contain'd L. 4. c. 3. in the Scriptures but Traditions also 4. Scriptures without Tradition are not simply necessary C. 4. nor sufficient 5. The Apostles applyed not their minds to write by God's C. 4. command but as they were constrained by a certain necessity 6. Scriptures are not Rules of Faith but as a certain C. 12. Monitorie to conserve and nourish the Doctrine received 7. Hereticks deny but Catholicks affirm Peter to be the De Rom. Pontif. l. 1. c. 2. Head of the Universal Church and made a Prince in Christs stead 8. When Christ said Simon son of John so the Vulgar L. 4. c. 1. Translation in Bellarmine corruptly for Jonas Feed my Sheep he spake only to Peter and gave him his Sheep to feed not exempting the Apostles 9. Whether the Pope may be an Heretick or not it is to be L. 4. c. 2. believed of the whole Church that he can no ways determine that which is Heretical 10. Neither the Pope nor the particular Roman Church C. 4. can erre in Faith 11. The Pope cannot only not erre in Faith but neither C. 5. in Precepts of Manners which are prescribed the whole Church and which are concerning things necessary to Salvation or things in themselves good or evil 12. The Pope alone hath his Jurisdiction immediately from C. 24. Christ but all other Bishops their ordinary Jurisdiction immediately from the Pope 13. The Pope hath Supream power indirectly in all Temporal L. 5. c. 1. 6. matters by reason of his Spiritual power This is the opinion of all Catholick Divines 14. The Pope as Pope may not ordinarily depose Temporal Ibid c. 6. Princes though there be just cause as he may Bishops yet he may change Kingdoms and take them away and give them to another as the highest Spiritual Prince if it be needful to the Salvation of Souls 15. As to Lawes the Pope as Pope cannot ordinarily make a Ibid. Civil Law or establish or make void Lawes of Princes because he is not the Political Prince of the Church yet he may do all these if any Civil Law be necessary to the Salvation of Souls and Kings will not make them and so if Laws be pernicious to Souls and Kings will not abolish them 16. Though the Pope translated the Empire and gave a De Translat Imp. l. 3 c 4. Right to choose a Prince yet he transferred not nor gave that power Supream and most ample which himself had of Christ over all the Church And therefore as when the Cause of the Church required he could translate the Empire from the Greeks to the Germans in like manner might he translate it from the Germans to another Nation upon the like reason c. 17. No obedience is due to a Prince from the Church Câ—â— Berâ—â—â— c. 31. Tom. 7. when he is excommunicated by publick Authority The Pope and his Predecessors never forbad Subjects to obey their Princes for being once deposed by them they were no longer lawful Princes This is it we teach 18. To call General Councils belongs properly to the Tom. 2. de Concil l. 1. c. 12. Pope yet so that the Emperor may do it with his consent 19. Particular Councils confirmed by the Pope cannot erre L. 2. c 5. in Faith and Manners 20. The Pope is simply and absolutely above the whole C. 17. Church and above a General Council so that he may not acknowledge any Judicature on earth above him 21. The Church is a Company of men professing the L. 3. c. 2. same Christian Faith joyned together in the Communion of the same Sacraments under the Government of lawful Pastors and especially One Vicar of Christ on earth the Bishop of Rome 22. Purgatory may be proved out of the Old and New De Purgaâ— 1. c. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. Testament 23. Purgatory is a Doctrine of Faith so that he who believeth Cap. 15. not Purgatory shall never come there but shall be tormented in Hell in everlasting burning 24. Invocation of Saints may be proved from Scripture De Sanct. Beaâ—â—â—d l. 1. c. 19. 25. It 's lawful to make the Image of God the Father in De Reliq c. 8. the form of an Old Man and of the Holy Spirit in the form of a Dove 26. The Images of Christ and of Saints are to be worshipped L. 2. c. 21. De Imag. not only by accident and improperly but also by themselves properly so that they may terminate Worship as considered in themselves and not only as they
private reason perswade him That he hath found out the truth and yet at the same time assure him That he is no less fallible than another man and therefore may possibly embrace and hug a false conception with as much fondness as a true and withal That private Judgements are not in themselves so safe as publique nor single as many What violence were this to his reason nay how much more rational than the first simple Act to comply with the Reason of others whom reason also requires to listen to and obey and Scripture much more From hence we may rightly conclude against both extremes in these days who yet agree in this very ill-grounded opinion That there must be an Infallible Director or Judge or we cannot submit to them in matters of Faith and our Salvation This is absolutely untrue both in humane and divine matters Who sees not indeed that it were to be wished for and above all things desired Who sees not the great inconvenience for want of such a standard of opinions as this But can we rationally conclude therefore that so it is Or hath God or ought he of his necessary goodness and wisdom as some have ventured to affirm to grant all things that are infallibly good for man Is it not sufficient that a fair though not infallible way is opened to attain the truth here and bliss hereafter but every one must find it Is it little or no absurditie That infinite never come to means of truth and so great that many who enjoy them do not receive the benefit by them Again Are good manners and virtues no less essential to Salvation than Faith and is there no infallible Judge of manners Is there no infallible Casuist And must there be of points of Faith How many have the infallible Rule of holy Life and yet mistake either in the sense or application of it so far as to perish in unknown Sins And yet none have to prevent that great and common evil call'd for an infallible Censour whose determinations might settle doubtful consciences in greatest safety and silence all apologies which are wont to be made for our sins and errors and so bring us nec essarily to truth or leave us under self and affected condemnation But The Ground of this mistake being farther searched into will be found very weak and fallacious An infallible Faith say they must have an infallible Judge And of these some assume thus There is no man infallible Therefore no man can be Judge of Faith Others assume thus But there is and must be an infallible Faith Therefore there must be an infallible Judge So that we see both would have infallible Judges but differ only in their choice of them For The former would have the Scriptures Judge and Rule which is very honest but very simple The later would have some external Judge which hath much more of reason in it And fails only in the choice of this Judge or in the description of him For There is nothing more unreasonable than to ordain that which is under debate to be Judge of it self besides the great absurdity of confounding the Rule or Law and the Interpreter and Judge And There is nothing more fallacious than to confound Causes and occasions together as the later opinion doth For If the Church or whatever Judge may be supposed were the true direct cause of our Faith then indeed it would necessarily follow That our Faith could no wayes be infallible unless the Judge were also infallible the effect not exceeding the cause nor the Conclusion the Premises or propositions from whence it was deduced But Because the Church is only on Occasion or a Cause without which we should neither believe the Scriptures in general to be the Word of God nor any sentence to be duly drawn from the same there is no necessity at all of such a consequence For The Infallibility now spoken of is either the thing believed which is the Word of God of which the Church I hope is no Cause or the Grace of Faith excited and exercised by us through the Spirit of Grace in us the mynistery of the Church serving thereunto acording to St. Paul saying We therefore as workers together with 2 Cor. 6. 1. him beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain For as in things natural He that applies Actives to Passives that is the Cause proper to the matter about which the Action is is not the proper or natural cause of the Effect but the occasion only yet is said vulgarly so to be as when a man applies fire to combustible matter he may though improperly be said to burn it when it is the fire and not he that burns it So the Church or Judge of Scriptures sense applying the same to a capable subject the effect is true and infallible Faith but it is not the effect of the Church or instrument or mean rather but of the Holy Spirit of Grace which taketh occasion from thence to produce Faith and that infallible For Were this Infallibility we now speak of the Churches then when ever the Church should so propound and urge points of Faith they must needs have an effect in the Soul For if they say The Church teaches in an humane way they say she teaches in a fallible way which overthrows all And from this is cleared that difficulty which opposeth a Judge of Scripture and Faith because none could be found infallible For not making the Judge the cause of Faith but occasion he may be necessarily required to Faith God who is the only principal cause with his holy word seldom or never concurring without those outward means And therefore though I readily enough grant That the Scriptures are so plainly written that a single simple person wanting greater helps to attain to the abstruser sence of them and using his honest and simple endeavour may easily find so much of the Rule of Faith and holy Life as to be saved by them yet I cannot say the same of any men who presuming on Gods power against his promise which includeth the use of outward meanes or mistaking his promise for absolute when it is conditional shall look no farther than their own wits shall lead them Now The outward meanes to which God hath annexed his promise of Grace may be these First That which we have here handled a general and sober submission to the Guides of our youth and our spiritual Fathers and Pastors in Christ which to forsake is the part of a wanton and fornicating Soul according to Solomon This common Reason and nature it self seem to require of all Prov. 2. 17. under Autority by the disposition of Almighty God That they in the first place hearken unto the voice and explication of the Church wherein they are educated until such time as a greater manifestation of truth shall withdraw them unwillingly from the same For so long as Senses are equally probable on both
them in equal veneration For most things there by him instanced in are apparently extrinsical to Faith Therefore the true meaning is That no good Son of the Catholick Church can or ought to refuse the customes or practices or forms of words concerning the doctrine of Christ because they are not so express'd or contain'd in Scripture as other matters are And if we mark we shall not find any one thing exacted of Christians in the purest and most flourishing state of the Church as points of Faith which only depended upon unwritten Tradition and were not thought to have the written word of God for their warrant and foundation And in this one thing were there no more doth the prerogative of the Scripture manifest it self sufficiently above Traditions distinct from it That whatever vertue or credit they have is first of all owing to the Scriptures For otherwise why should not the Traditions of the Jew or Mahometan be as credible to a Christian as they of the Church but that he suck'd in his principle with his Mothers milk That the written word of God hath given so fair testimonie of the Church and its traditions For the testimonie of the Church otherwise would certainly be no more to be valued than that of any other societie of like moral honestie So that the Scriptures must be the very First principle of all Christian belief But here steps in the old objection drawn from a most eminent Father of the Church which Extollers of tradition can as well forget their own names as leave out of their disputations on this subject though according to their Augustin custome they have a very bad memory to bear in mind what hath been sufficiently replied to it I should not saith that Father have believed the Scriptures but for the Church and yet we have said we should not have believed the Church but for the Scriptures How can these stand together Very well if we please to distinguish the several wayes of information for in the same there must be granted a repugnancie And the distinction is much the same with what we have before laid down viz. Of the Occasion and the direct Cause of Faith For though the Churches tradition be an Introduction to the belief of the Scriptures and such a necessary Cause without which no man ordinarily comes so much as to the knowledge of them yet it doth not at all follow that through the influence of that supposed Cause an effect of Faith is wrought in the Soul concerning them but from a superiour illumination and interiour power which has been generally Joh. 4. required to such praeternatural Acts. As the Woman of Samaria brought her fellow Citizens to Christ but was not the author of that faith which after they had in him as the true Messias or as the Horse I ride on carrying me from London to York is not the proper Cause that I see that City but mine own senses though I perhaps should never have seen it otherwise But another more Ancient and no less venerable Father of the Church is Irenaeus here brought in demanding What if nothing had been written must we not then have altogether depended on the Traditions To such as extend this quaerie too far I move the like question What if we had no Traditions at all must not then every man have shifted as well as he could and traded upon the finall stock of natural reason in him Or was it impossible that man should come to bliss without the superadded light outwardly exhibited That as the case stands man ordinarily cannot be saved without such received revelations as are dealt to us from the Church I believe But upon supposal that no such means were extant that there should be no other Ordinary way of Gods revealing himself to man in order to his salvation believe it who will for me I answer therefore directly No question but tradition would have sufficed if nothing had been committed to writing For either God would have remitted of that rigour as no man can doubt but he might have made the terms of the Covenant fewer and lighter with which we now stand obliged to him according to that most equal Law of the Gospel as well as Reason Unto whom much is given of him shall be much required and to Luk. 12. 48. Mat. 25. whom men have committed much of him they will ask the more Neither is it probable against the intent of Christs most excellent Parable in St. Mathew that of that Person or that People to whom he hath delivered but two or five Talents he should extort the Effect of ten Well therefore doth that Father argue against such as should dare to consine God only to Scripture and so superciliously or contemptuously look on the Traditions of their Christian Fathers as not worth the stooping to take up yea as necessarily warring against the Word written Whenas it is certain a thing is written because it is first declared and is the Word of him that speaketh no less before than after it is written and not so because it is written St. Paul therefore joyns them both together in his Epistle to the Thessalonians saying Therefore brethren stand stedfast and hold 2 Thes 2. 15. the Traditions which ye have been taught whether by word or our Epistle Here are plainly both written Traditions and unwritten and written Word of God and unwritten and they differ only in the several ways of promulgation and not in the Law of God And it is more then probable That those first principles of Christian Faith were not received of St. Paul in writing of which he speaks in his first Epistle to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 15. 1 2 3 4. concerning the Incarnation Passion and Resurrection of our Saviour nor delivered in writing at his first publication yet were no less the word of God then than afterward Yet as this sufficiently allayes the heat of hostility indiscreetly conceived against all Traditions even for the very names sake which is become odious to us so doth it not so much favour the contrary party as hath been phantasi'd For 't is observable That there is a very great difference between the Tradition now touched and that so commonly and passionately disputed of in the Church That was and may be called a Tradition as every thing expressed by Word or Writing whereby one man delivers his mind for so the English Phrase hath it not amiss to another transiently But the Tradition now under debate may be described A constant continuation of what is once delivered from Generation to Generation For No man can with any propriety of speech term what is not a year or two in standing Tradition Tradition is a long custom of believing The things which are so called in the Scriptures are not such and therefore can be no president for those of these dayes There being not the like reason that we should give the same respect or esteem so
are intimated to us in these words of St. Paul which are vulgarly brought against us viz. Nevertheless the foundation of God 2 Tim. 2. 19. standeth sure having this seal The Lord knoweth who are his And let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity The first foundation of God is that which he hath layed in his assuring us that he will have a Church in despite of all Enemies and Persecuters which would destroy it The second is the seal to this Charter which relating to special persons is twofold The First That God knoweth who are his that is according to Scripture phrase owneth and asserteth the cause of those that are his and will never forsake them otherwise than he hath declared that is they not violating egregiously the Covenant on their parts The second is that which follows viz. Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity This is the seal set to the Covenant made by God which if not duly and proportionably to the favourableness of the Evangelical Covenant observed by man the seal of God avails but little to the benefit of a Christian A second conclusion may be That notwithstanding God hath no where enjoyned us under any forfeiture to obtain this assurance yet he requireth us to be alwayes so pressing and proficient in Faith and Holiness of Life that above his Capitulations or ordinary Promises made in his Word he may communicate his pleasure unto us and good-will concerning the particular salvation of us This hath been imparted unto divers and may again when it seems good to God But it is no Rule to us Thirdly A faithful Christian ought to endeavour the attaining to a strong and true degree of Hope by Gods grace and the working out of his Salvation with fear and trembling For St. John saith That a man may arrive to such a state of assurance as 't is called that considering and believing the undetermined mercy of God in the Gospel he may have confidence of Gods love towards him his own conscience not condemning him as St. John saith Beloved if our heart condemn us not then 1 John 3. 21. have we confidence towards God Lastly This sense serves much to the comfort and tranquility of the mind of scrupulous Christians more than the holding of a peremptory assurance of Salvation which they who require it cannot deny to be wanting to many faithful servants of God For when they consider that the want of this assurance is no indication or character of a Reprobate as some would make it and they must who bring it under precept and promise then are they heartened still to press towards holy and devout exercises believing that God not seeing nor judging as man judgeth nor as they of themselves but out of his incircumscribed mercie may accept them and have mercy on them And here properly doth that doctrine of Faith commended in the Articles of our Church as very comfortable take place viz. as that which when we have done all we must betake ourselves unto and which brings us neerest to God namely not that we believe we are justified for or because we believe we are freely but because Faith and trust in God as it is the first stone in our heavenly building so is it the crown and consummation of all when we disown and disavow all sufficiencie in ourselves or our most Christian Acts even Faith it self and trust in his mercy to be accepted under all our fears and reasonings to the contrary not manifestly violating the Covenant with God for which our own hearts and ordinary apprehensions may condemn us CHAP. XXII Of the Contrary to true Faith Apostasie Heresie and Atheism Their differences The Difficulty of judging aright of Heresie Two things constituting Heresie The Evil disposition of the mind and the falseness of the Matter How far and when Heresie destroyes Faith How far it destroyes the Nature of a Church THus having sufficiently treated of the most general and principal Effect of Faith before we leave this we are in reason to enquire into that which privatively relates to true Faith and that is Heresie What that is and wherein it consisteth For Heresie cannot properly be applyed to any but such who are of the Faith and in some degree belong to the Catholick Church wherein it is distinct from Atheism Apostasie and professed Infidelity For Infidelity though it carries with it in its name a sense which comprehends both Atheism and Apostasie yet use hath prevailed so far as to apply it only to such who do receive some Articles of the Christian Faith and them fundamental too though not as the Christians For Example Infidels may believe there is a God and that God but one and that there shall be a Resurrection of the Just and Unjust and Life everlasting either in misery or bliss yet being either wholly ignorant of or directly denying some fundamental Points of Faith as Christian they continue Infidels though not Atheists Neither can they be accounted Hereticks having never been of the Church nor initiated into or embraced the true Faith These are Negatively only related to the Church as Logicians say Dissimilary things relate one to another viz. A black thing to a white But Heresie is of a privative sense and an opposition to the true Catholick Faith with an Obligation not only taken from the matter of Faith it self to which all the world owe homage and obedience but from some extrinsecal formalities whereby some men more especially contract a relation to the Church of Christ And the first and most principal cause hereof is the solemn dedication which is made by ourselves or others we not oppugning it of us in the initiating Rite of Baptism wherein renunciation is openly made of all things persons and opinions contrary and inconsisting with that Doctrine we there submit unto and vow to observe This Dedication of us to Christ doth make and denominate us Christians and Catholicks according to the less ancient use of the word of which we shall hereafter speak Now according to the degree or manner of violating this most solemn and sacred Vow in Baptism are men said to be Apostates and Hereticks And an Apostates are Hereticks but not all Hereticks Apostates The principal difference consisteth in this 1. That the Apostate doth renounce even the first principles of Christian Faith as Christian And they are they which are expresly contained in the form of Baptism whereby he became a Christian 2. In a formal profession contrary to such Covenant made with God in Christ But Heresie doth not absolutely deny the Grounds of Christianity it self but whether by affected errour or invincible doth resolutely and firmly assert things contrary to true Doctrine But to give a precise definition of Heresie as St. Augustine of old so we find at this day very difficult and not to turn to the right hand or to the left not to make it too broad and wide
particular defects and exigencies each man is subject unto in a separate condition And this Society thus combining or concurring together is commonly called a Republick the word signifying The common good it being the design and end of all Republicks or Common-wealths for men first in order to seek the common interest and good of the whole Society and so through that to derive particular and private benefit to each member thereof and not as some blindly and brutishly addicted to their private personal profits to begin at home and not to secure the Publick stock These are no better than such Pilferers and Thieves who being in partnership with others pocket up in the first place all that they can lay hold on and contribute no more to the common stock than they are by force constrained unto Now this Society may be divided into three sorts Natural Civil Divine or Ecclesiastical Natural is that Order and Regiment constituted Ordâ— est parium disparium rerum sua cuique loco triâ—uens dispositio Aug. Civ Dei 19. 13. Bernardus Gerson entitiloquio Gubernare est movere aliquos indebitum finem sicut nanta gubernat navem emendo eam ad portum Thomas 22. Q. 102. 2. co by God in every mans soul which consisteth of the Superiority of the Rational faculties and the Subjection and Obedience of the Inferiour or Sensitive Affections For Order as several of the Ancient have described it is nothing else but The Disposition or placing of equal and inequal things into their proper places which Order is the foundation of Government And Government according to Thomas is the moving of men to their due end There being therefore a twofold end of man secular and spiritual Government likewise must be answerable And both agree in this viz. to be the Administration of the Weal Publick to ends agreeable unto them In which we are yet farther to consider these things 1. The Original of Government 2. The Form of Government 3. The Rule and Reasons of Government 4. The Obligation upon Men under Government And of these briefly as a necessary Introduction to the Doctrine of the Church And concerning the first the Cause and Fountain of all Government Some pretending to fetch the Fountain head of all humane Rule from its first rise have quite forgot what they went about and inverting the order of nature have begun at the end which is rather the effect then cause For now we do not enquire why or to what end it is but who made it and whose hand it was that framed this Tool to bring to pass such a work as humane safety and tranquility That this must be the same cause with that of man himself seems reasonable to me to conclude from the necessity of the same and the wisdom of Divine Providence which having given generally such instinct and common prudence unto Creatures to do nothing which shall serve for nothing nor to erect any thing but with competent provision to conserve and continue the same in that being so far as the Supream Wisdom shall not oppose the same How is it credible that God should make that Master-piece of his Man upon earth and not at the same time provide for that subsistance and continuance Sevorum bestiarum inquit Aristoteles Polit. 3. cap. 6 non est Civitas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which are necessary But it is plain that man though as brutish and a sensible creature he may wear out possibly an unhappy ignoble life yet without society and community and unity through the bands and ligaments of sound and reasonable Laws cannot subsist as civil or rational or as easily improvable to perfection of natural state upon earth but must necessarily degenerate into the rank of Brutes Therefore sure Divine Wisdome left him not destitute of such helps as were proper to this end but together with his very nature instills into him an inclination to Society and by his own Act and Ordinance whereby he ordained that man should propagate and multiply prescribed the best and only manner of civil Regiment investing some with a natural right of dominion over others As the man over the woman and the parents over the children from whence it is ready and easie to approach to a community and that with a subordination This is so plain that the perspicuity and simplicity doth rather then any thing else offend the unsatisfied acuteness of rarer wits and move them to pry farther to confound themselves others and the Order God hath set in the world beginning at the feet and ending in the head and putting counsel into the tail to teach the head how it should rule the body and empowring children to enact Laws for Parents how they ought to govern which they certainly do who affirm that the grosser body of the people did first of all agree upon Government and constitute their Ruler which dogmes have no fewer nor higher arguments to confute and oppress them than these First they are Ridiculous Secondly Sacrilegious and Impious Thirdly Impossible Fourthly Pestilential and Pernicious to all Government It is first ridiculous as that opinion which inverts all order and contrary to a much more sound and sober Rule in Politicks viz. That no man can create one greater than himself And if it be said that therefore no single one can confer greater power than he himself is possessed of on another but Many who are greater than one may I answer This is true where the supposition which is here false and taken for true is granted viz. That many men have in such cases as these any more power then one For I wholly deny that any are or altogether have any right whatsoever power they may usurp to create such Powers And it still remains absurd to suppose that any or all whose only place and capacity it is to serve should more then command For 't is a true saying It is more to make a King than to be a King For still I hold this which I have not found shaken by the many attempts of innovating Wits that there is a real Paternal Power in lawful Princes And though we should suppose that which was rarely if ever done that a man should adopt any man into the place of a Father as men usually did some as their sons yet can we not suppose that hereby any paternal Power is really conferred on such an one but only imaginary and impediments removed whereby Paternal power which hath an acknowledged common right to Rule take place over such a person as hath so submitted unto it So in like manner it cannot be denyed against innumerable instances to be given that the People in certain exigencies and faileurs have as it were adopted one man specially as their civil Parent whom we call commonly a King and hereupon absurdly and proudly conclude they have made a King but we know this to be nothing so For 't is not choice but Power that makes a King and
be in them before and which doth more than countervail such antecedent liberty of simply teaching as was then in some manner fixed Thirdly there was in such cases as this added a Power and Right of instituting others as occasion offered which is unknown to have been in them as Evangelists From it follows that of all the forementioned kinds of Government that of the Church approached neerest to that call'd Monarchical which was only absolute and universal in Christ the Soveraign Head thereof but Ministerially under him and over the Church under their circuit Politically as proper Heads and Rulers and whatever power after extraordinary Callings by Revelation from God ceased any one dispartake of in the Church was ctrtainly at first derived from such single Persons alone however to the solemnity of such ordination others of an inferiour Order concurred thereto And as the Government of the civil World was originally without exception so far as search can be made by the most curious Antiquaries Monarchical though it were not governed by one man alone but by Civil Supream Princes of several Dominions into which the earth was parcelled So though no one Father or Bishop ever presided over all the Christian world yet several single Persons in their respective Provinces governing the Church as Principal the Government of the Church may rightly be termed Monarchical in Particular but Aristocratical as to the whole For as the Apostles were all Monarchs compared with their Proselites Converts and Churches by them founded but were but Peers compared one with another So was it with the Bishops and Patriarchs of the Church succeeding them whereby the Prophesie of Christ in St. Matthew was verified spoken not so much as some mistake it of his Heavenly Kingdome but earthly his Church and its ensuing glory Verily I say unto you that ye which M … â—â— have followed me in the regeneration when the son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel That when the Church of Christ should flourish then there should be such as in lieu of the twelve Tribes of Israel should Rule as in Thrones the Church of God under the Gospel They who object against this the words of Christ in Saint Matthew Ye know that the Princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them and Mâ—tt 20 25. 26. they that are great exercise autority upon them But it shall not be so among you Do declare no less against Aristocratical then Monarchical Government yea all Government over the Church And their favourable gâ—osS in behalf of one will be as valid for that which they reject For as it was not at all the mind of Christ that there should be no Governours at all over his Church so doth it not at all appear that what was lawful for many to do was not lawful for one But here the old cheat again takes place to suppose that the Government of one is in it self tyrannical and of many free but neither Christ nor nature ever taught them how to prove this presumptuous imagination And to this may we add another such mistake from St. Peters words That men should not be Lords over Gods heritage And what then Must there be more 1 Pet. 5. 3. than one over a Church and not onely one May a company of Presbyters oblige Christians to do or believe such things and not Lord it but if by a principal Person bearing Rule this same thing be done then is the Precept violated Besides who sees not that hath not a mind to be blind That the Apostle speaks nothing at all in these words of the kind of Government but the exercise of it and abuse Surely if Episcopal Government could not choose but tyrannize and Presbyterial could do nothing but according to Scripture and equity this Objection were unanswerable otherwise not worth the mentioning much less answering as common as it is and as confidently urged And as to that Pretense intended to overthrow our prime ground of Christs institution taken from what was first actually found in the Church viz. That Imparity of Christs Ministers was not found in the Church till about an hundred and forty or fifty years after Christ when it is confessed by the Enemies of Ecclesiastical Hierarchies that it prevailed Let the Huggers of this Device First consider what a pitiful addition is made to their cause from hence seeing that it is undenyable there was a disparity all the Apostles dayes who in order excelled all Ecclesiastical Persons and that almost one hundred years were spent of the said tearm in their time So that about fifty or sixty years only this imaginary Government had its being and then was lost again for fourteen hundred and then was better lost then found and taken up again But a far worse inconvenience spoils this jest as being founded and raised only from conjecture and that conjecture upon the obscurity of those ages not so clearly known as afterwards CHAP. XXIX Of the necessity of holding visible Communion with Christs Church Knowledge of that visible Church necessary to that Communion Of the Notes to discern the true Church how far necessary Of the Nature or Condition of such Notes in General IT being so necessary as we have above shewed to be in communion with the visible Church of Christ and the Nature of things themselves being more intrinsick many times than to characterize sufficiently them to the Enquirer into them it hath been thought necessary to explain them farther by more apparent and observable notices given of them And in the Doctrine of the Church these seem to be of greatest consequence Visibility Universality or Catholickness Sanctity and Perpetuity Of all which we shall briefly speak in order yet first premising somewhat concerning Notes in General For seeing as we have said it is necessary to know the true Church from the false and the Natures of things are often-times so abstruse and hidden from us that we cannot discover them from their own Light therefore it hath been judged very reasonable to pitch upon certain outward Notes eading us unerringly to the knowledge of the thing it self And in truth I cannot wholly approve of that course chosen to certifie us and point out to us the-true Church taken from the very being of it such as are Faithful and sincere Doctrine taught therein Sacraments duly administred Worship purely performed and Discipline rightly constituted because these are rather of the very intrinsick nature and definition it self of the Church than notes and characters outward whereby the nature it self should be certainly known We all indeed without exception consent that that Church is the true Church which is thus qualified and affected believeth aright is governed aright administreth the Sacraments aright and worshippeth aright and in one word which followeth most exactly the Rules of Holy Scripture but in the Assumption and Application is all the doubt and infinite
and for ought appears the Schismatical may be in greater unity within it self than the Catholick how can any man discern from unity which is the Catholick or true Church The Unity therefore which may any wise describe or distinguish the sounder part of Christs Church from the heretical must not be taken from that which it holdeth within it self but with some other which is acknowledged for Catholick wherein comes the use of Antiquity again because the Ancient Churches of Christ were saved by the same Faith and Worship that all succeeding Churches must be therefore if it may appear that a Church doth not agree in all necessary or considerable points of Faith Worship and Government with them of former ages supposed to be truly Catholick it self cannot be Catholick or a true Christian Church But they who look no higher than one Age or two and no farther then one place or two and finding convenient agreement amongst themselves do characterise themselves for Christs Church fall into the censure of St. Paul to the Corinthians who measuring themselves by themselves and comparing 2 Cor. 10. 12. themselves among themselves are not wise And in the Revelation of St. John we read of some Nations into whose heart God hath put to fulfill Revel 17. 7. his will and to agree and give their Kingdom unto the Beast until the word of God should be fulfilled I hope this unity of consent will not be taken for any argument of the faithfulness of their consent or Catholickness But more we shall have occasion to speak of Unity in the treating of Schism In the mean time I see no force at all in the places alleadged out of the Old Testament to prove so much as may be well allowed to the unity of the Church as where it is said My Beloved is but one and to the Cantic like purpose For such places taken in relation to Fact and not to Precept and counsel rather that Gods Church should be so and endeavour to keep the Spirit of Unity in the bond of peace as the Apostle speaks can Ephes 4. 3. be understood strictly only of that single Nation of the Jews which was alone chosen so peculiarly to himself Or of the future Coalition of Jew and Gentile into one Body as the same Apostle in the same Epistle speaketh of Christs Passion That he might reconcile both unto God in one Chap. 2. 16. Body by the Cross having slain the enmity thereby i. e. between Jew and Gentile These difficulties and uncertainties in this Note of Unity have constrained the Patrons of the Roman Cause to find out such an Unity which indeed is more apparent and certain to him that commits his Faith to be guided by some outward sign but so much repugnant to all ancient Churches so wholly strange to them and unheard of that it may seem to do them much more mischief than advantage as that which excludes all Antiquity from having any suffrage in this cause And this their Note is Unity Bellarm. de Notis Eccles lib. 4. cap. 10. init with the Bishop of Rome as boldly said and as weakly proved as their enemies could wish St. Hierom indeed saith to Damasus he is resolved to hold as He and that See believed in one particular of the Trinity and used not simply and abstractly consider'd this as a probable argument of Orthodoxness and preserving the peace of the Church but with the concurrence of other Circumstances rendring his Opinion probable But doth he or any ancient Author deserving with themselves the name of a Father teach as they would perswade indefinitely That to hold communion with the Bishop of Rome is to be assured you are of the true Catholick Church Christs Charter much stood upon to St. Peter and the Rhetorical flourishes many times of the Holy Fathers extolling St. Peter and his Successors but never categorically affirming or soberly determining so will not amount to this Hence they proceed to Universality too as a sign of the true Church and an help to Unity it self For it profitteth nothing that there be some one Church and that in one Age and Place which is at unity with it self if it be not universal Christs Church is said to be universal but so many senses are given of Universality it self that it is hard to apply it positively to any pretending to it For nothing so plain as that the Christian Faith doth not and never did possess all Nations nor all the persons of those Nations where it hath flourished No man therefore can know the true Church by that which is not true of it And therefore I make no doubt but the most anciently genuine and proper sense of that expression in the Apostles Creed where it is said I believe the Catholick Church Vide Augustinum Epistolâ— 50. aimed at no more than to cause us to believe that Christs Church was from that time forward no longer to be of one Nation or one Denomination as it was before Christs Incarnation but Catholick that is Universal and indifferently to extend to all People For at that time when the Creed was composed the secondary sense wherein Catholick and sound Believer signified the same thing was scarce at all heard of no not before the Councel of Nice under Constantine Afterwards it was applyed to particular Sees as well Alexandrian Antiochian and some others as Roman In Theodosius the second his dayes which above 400 years after Christ a Sozomenus Ecclesiast Hist lib. 7. cap. 4. Law was made that none should call themselves Catholicks but such as believed aright concerning the Holy Trinity the rest should be termed Hereticks Afterward notwithstanding every Sect and Heresie usurped that name as may appear from that very place corruptly cited out of Austin August Epist ad Epistolam Fundamenti by some to prove the true Church from the Title of Catholick it self For saith he however all Hereticks desire to be called Catholicks yet if any enquired for a Catholick Church they were directed to the Orthodox and not Heretical Churches But if we take the word Catholick in a more restrained sense not for that which is all over the world actually but so far as it doth extend passeth generally through all and that not Places but Ages too where shall we find a Catholick Church Christians never for fourteen or fifteen hundred yeers not conspiring into one belief no not in things held very important to Faith and I mean not only single persons but Societies of Christians Therefore neither from hence can we conclude directly of the true Church in opposition to Heretical And therefore the Patrons of this opinion of the Universality finding themselves harder pursued with difficulties than they can evade being taken in their own snares are forced according to their very vain custom to leave off the tryal of the truth from matter of Fact which is most plain and ready and proceed to say It ought so
autority he had it was for the edification and not destruction 2 Cor. 10. 8. of the Church The argument therefore taken from an Hereditary Right in the Crown of England of being Governour and Defendor of our Church to the apparent ruine and destruction of it we know very well from whence it proceedeth and whether it tendeth but where it will end as yet God only knows This we know that Papists are mad when that scoff and reproach which they have constantly put upon both King and Church from that Title upon due enquiry makes so little to their purpose And therefore they will fight with us with the name only CHAP. XXXII Of the Exercise of the Political power of the Church in Excommunication The grounds and Reasons of Excommunication More things than what is of Faith matter sufficient of Excommunication Two Objections answered Obedience due to Commands not concerning Faith immediately Lay-men though Princes cannot Excommunicate Mr. Selden refuted NAture in all Bodies that have Life casts out of it what ever corrupts afflicts or oppresseth the same and by Struglings and contentions endeavours to deliver it self from such noxious humors as would destroy it And this is the reason men take Vomits Purges and Sudorificks that the deadly humour being expelled the wholesome may prevail and the Whole be preserved There can then be nothing more reasonable or Christian than to put this in practice in Bodies Political or Ecclesiastical We see how Thieves Robbers Murderers and such like malefactors who are enemies to humane Society be denied and that justly the benefit of that Society against which they have so offended by confinement in Prison or deprivation of Life it self forfeited justly in seeking or acting the ruine of another And can any that grants the Communion of Christians to be a Body knit together by its several joints and nerves and consisting of several Members deny but the like Evil may befal in its kind to it what doth happen to others in another viz that some noxious humor of Heresie corrupting the Faith in which as the Scripture saith of the Blood is the life of a Christian and the Church it self may poison it And some violence of Schism may dissolve or dismember it And shall not it be allowed the like remedy or means of Cure which are held necessary in like cases No opinion how heretical or immoral so ever is more pernicious to Christian Society than that which absolutely denyes power to the Church to eject unsound and tainting members out of it and to provide for the security of the Body even by the abscission and destruction of any one Part infesting it For this opinion strikes not at one part of the Body but all neither at one point of Faith but all though not immediately and directly but indirectly and by consequence For as upon the fall of the House the persons within must needs be crusht to death so upon the dissolution of the outward Frame of the Church the Faith itself must of necessity in a short time perish and be reduced to nothing And therefore those men of reason as they would be accounted give us but little cause to think them better men than Christians who affirm rawly and loosely without qualification or due explication of their mind that no man is to be cast out of the Church but for something which is necessary to salvation or which Christ doth not require or forbid absolutely either denying or not considering a man can scarce tell which by their works hereby that Christ and St. Paul and our Creed it self require conservation of the unity of the Church both as a thing admirable in its self and necessary to the Faith it self For any man therefore to broach or publish such an opinion as this That every man may use what Ceremonies he pleases in the publick service of God or if he pleases he may use none and this That the Church hath no power to command or forbid any thing which is not expressed in the Scripture when as Rules general and several Examples in Scripture justify the contrary These I say being contrary not only to some one Church but all even those they would by no means have touched thereby do no less in their consequence mischief to the Church than the denial of the Mystery of the Trinity it self or of Christs incarnation however I grant they in their form are nothing so foul And therefore I presume to conclude them matter of Excommunication and so I judge St. Paul doth where he advises nay commands in the name of the Lord 2 Thes 3. 6. Jesus Christ the Thessalonians to withdraw themselves from every one that walketh disorderly and not after the tradition he received of us These traditions were as it is here implied concerning orders of the Church and manners of Worship which in all probability are most of them lost to us St. Paul therefore requiring that whoever did not walk according to those prescriptions delivered by him should be separated doth not warrant the like proceedings now For t is the very same thing whether the Church withdraws it self or whether it expells another When the Israelites warned by Moses departed from the tents of the wicked Corah Dathan Num. 16. 26 and Abiram who only walked disorderly not erroneously in the matter of worship that we read of and their complices and touched nothing of theirs they Anathematized them no less than if they had set them packing into remoter parts from the Congregation Nay if now-adayes as lately Sectaries should prevail so far as to possess themselves of all the Publick and Lawful places of Worship and eject the true Church they might stand no less legally and Really Excommunicate than if they were thrust formally from thence themselves For'tis not the place but the Cause and the Body from which they are cut that makes the Excommunication just and valid This we are confirmed in by the same Apostle afterward And if any man obey not our word by this Epistle note that man 2 Thes 3. 14. and have no company with him that he may be ashamed Now St. Paul in this Epistle had delivered many things not essential in themselves to salvation And where the company of Christians was not great and their society not formed and their outward power little or nothing as in the beginning of all Churches there it sufficed in liew of Formal excommunication to withdraw themselves from such troublers of the Church And this we read further of in St. Paul to the Romans saying Now I beseech Rom. 16. 17. you brethren mark them which cause Divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them St. Paul generally in his Epistles not only insists upon unity of Faith but unity of Charity and outward communion they therefore that were Authors of unnecessary divisions are they whom he would have noted and avoided which when it is done with Publick
consent and sentence is the same in effect with Excommunication and therefore breeders of separation and divisions are no less subject to excommunications than are Hereticks though they hold nothing directly contrary to the Faith But if men will say that What St. Paul did we may do and no more because he did no more this is invented only to destroy but will not hold strong enough because the examples of the Governours of the Church our Rules are not to be restrained to the very same Cases only but to them of like general nature St. Paul justifyes by his practice the excluding out of the communion of the Church such as bred causeless contentions and divisions and from hence the succeeding Governors are justified in doing the like For nothing can be said less to the question in hand than to recite many places out of St. Paul commanding to bear one anothers burdens and that we should not judge one another and that the strong should bear with the weak and such like For all these Texts speak either of Churches not Formed or constituted but rather breeding or of single persons amongst themselves coming to Christian Religion with the strong prepossessions of the Excellency of certain Rites before Religiously observed wherein all Reason Justice and Religion require that no man should impose his conceit upon another without autority But do we find in any place of the Holy Scriptures that St. Paul denied this Right of Judging censuring and commanding to the whole Church Nothing less yea nothing more than the contrary as may more fully appear when we are to speak of Rites and Ceremonies But it is commonly and as they think accutely said that they are the Authors of divisions and Schisms who will not do what they may to prevent them And therefore if Governours impose more then is necessary to salvation or Faith upon others they must answer for the divisions arising from this I may marvel who before late years I may say rather dayes ever understood the Scriptures in this manner but they will wonder perhaps again I should think they are no better interpreters and appliers of Scriptures than are to be found in times and societies of old Let that pass But so must not their mistake either of the power of the Church or the nature of Charity and common Justice The power of the Church being meerly ministerial and servile as to Christ and the Rule of all Christianity the Scripture but Magisterial in relation to inferiour members extendeth only to things of Christian Prudence and extrinsecal to Faith and the things uncommanded in Scripture properly For in other things it is determined without any power to vary from thence this done utterly destroyes all Right and Autority as to outward matters which they can never themselves approve of in the practise nor have done But this is not all for we say that those Governors are not the cause of Divisions and Schisms who do not suspend and withdraw all Injunctions extrinsecal to Faith or good life but they rather who do not receive and obey such as are not contrary to either This is the state of the controversie then between us supposing there is Order and Legitimate autority constituted amongst us whether this is more or so much bound for peace and unity sake to gratifie such as are in their rank subject in the Lord to them in all things possible according to the Scripture or these on the contrary are obliged to receive and observe all such decrees and constitutions which are indeed much accused and traduced but cannot be proved to be any wayes contrary to the word of God or any Analogy of Faith which is not devised by themselves And granting there were somewhat of Charity in reluxing of the rigour of Orders to be observed is there not much more of Charity to be expected from them in obeying How can they so vehemently urge that upon others which they are much more bound to keep and practise themselves but never reguard it Does not Charity much more bind them to obey their Superiours then their Superiours them Nay can they lay any claim to a thing upon the account of Charity who deny the same thing upon the account of Justice Justice and a debt of obedience flowing from subjection requires no less than Charity a compliance of the Wills of the Inferiour with that of the Superiour But only Charity can be pretended and that only pretended where there seems to be an indifference in the thing commanded For if they betake themselves to the inward temper and bent of particular consciences opposing or approving things they must needs come off Loosers by such trials For there will soon be found consciences on the contrary that will be as stiff and resolute for the defense as theirs are for the abrogations of such indifferent things No reason is possible to be given why one conscience may not think as well of them finding them not forbidden as another doth evil finding them not commanded For the too vulgar doctrine which teacheth That what is not commanded is forbidden in Scripture is as notorious a falsity as any thing can be pretended upon the Scripture But farther we absolutely declare against all such tryals of Publick Laws and Customes as Particular and especially private consciences as unjust and unreasonable and in trut intollerable in all Churches This is the Rule we maintain and hold to That nothing ought to be ordained or imposed which may justly offend the conscience and that is only evil If therefore the thing it self be acknowledged or may reasonably be proved to contain nothing sinfull which only may offend the conscience it is one of those evils which cannot be avoided and such of which Christ speaketh in the Gospel of St. Luk. 17. â—1 Luke It is impossible but that offences will come For either the dissenting or Assenting conscience must suffer and which should in such cases suffer who should determine but Autority Was ever that chosen for a Rule which is infinite in uncertainties So are mens consciences in particular But still they are Instant and say We grant such things may be left undone without prejudice to the Faith And to the same argument we return the same answer in effect as before viz And they grant they may be done without prejudice to the Faith But their Case is little less than ridiculous if it be truly considered what they lay down and what they crave at our hands For Peace sake say they we ought to yield what is not unlawful and all indifferent things As if they much more were not so bound to do But that we now add is That there being two Parties diversly constituted yet as 't is supposed differing only in things of a middle nature between Good and Evil. If the one Partie should come unto the other promising to have peace and be at unity with it on condition that it would yield all things that they
alledge in there excuse and Defence They are readie to return but they cannot be admitted but upon unreasonable Terms and conditions How does this appear if it should be denied as without all peradventure it will Must not the Defendents be here forced to take their grounds of Apologie and Justification from the very things themselves under debate and put in their exceptions against the terms upon which they are to be receiv'd or condemn themselves Neither will it suffice to say We shall be hardly used or beaten if we return to such severe Masters and therefore we will keep out For they may deserve it and though nature teacheth a man as it did Hagar to flee from her Mistris Sarahs Tents for fear of blows yet God and Justice and Christian Charity advise us to return to our Duty It must then be necessarily alledged and made good That we deserve not to be so ill used or rather that it is ill usage which we fore-see shall befall us and that the case so standing it is not our duty to return and all this can no waies possible be made good but by examination of the matter it self And that which will Justifie us from not returning will also warrant our free Separation at first T is the cause then that makes the Separation Schism or not An Instance whereof we have in the famous Schism of the Donatists which almost all Christians now adays confess to have been notorious Schismaticks because they could not make good their Reasons which induced them for could they they had not been Schismaticks as a sober Author notes upon Optatus thus If those things were true which Albaspinus Observat In Optat pag. 3. the Donatists laid to Caecilianus and Mensurius and Caecilianus had polluted themselves with Idolatry The Donatists had offended nothing against the Discipline and Canons of the Church refusing to communicate with Caecilianus and his Companions That is they had not been Schismaticks if so be they could have made good their Principal Charges against the Church And this we may bring home to our selves as now we stand devided from other Churches and particularly that of Rome For if the Corruptions in doctrine and Practice be not sufficient to justifie our present posture of opposition if they had not before we left them departed from the true faith if they were not really and materially Schismatiques before we were divided from them then surely we were at our separation and so continue For to say We have a willing mind to unity we have Charity so great that we earnestly desire Reconciliation with them is to deceive the world and our selves and encourage and justify Schism in others who no doubt will all pretend to so much charity as to declare themselves willing to embrace unity upon their own terms But in such cases we cannot be said to go to them though in outward apparence we may seem so to do as they come to us The question therefore is to be put under the circumstances as now they are and as the Case is now with them And in that it ought and may be roundly and resolutely answer'd We neither can nor ought nor will re-unite and yet well enough free our selves from Schism upon the account of the Justness of the occasions and Causes there found and given us to divide from them Then ought it to be enquired for this they passionately call for what are those errors which that Church is subject to for which a Separation may be Legitimated and not participate of the nature of Schism It is commonly and with general consent averted and that even by leaving Schismaticks amongst us That Corruption in Act or manners is not sufficient to warrant a Separation from a Church subject to them and so infected no not perhaps though Idolatry it self should be too common amongst them in it when no necessity lies upon the particular Members to be obnoxious to the same the doctrine of Christ bearing up its head above it and obeyed truly by others But when Evil actions and notorious errours in Fact shall come to that height as to be reduced to doctrine and formed into an heretical or Idolatrous proposition as in time it must of necessity be it being natural as well to all Churches as persons to defend by argument what they choose to practise and be taught publickly then doth that Church become truly Heretical and Idolatrous and from that Church which hath so far departed from the Faith any Church or person may lawfully depart without Scruple of Schism though such separation be not absolutely necessarie because though the infection be common it is not necessarily so general that all should be obliged to espouse it and be corrupted by it but when to this degree of doctrine shall be added a third which is of Precept and such unsound and pernicious opinions shall be imposed on others and exacted of all there it is not only lawful but necessary to salvation to divide from such a pretended Church of Christ I mean a necessity of Precept though not of Means as if it were not possible that a man should be saved who liveth in an Heretical or Idolatrous Church though with those many circumstances of a general Right Intention humble walking with God and invincible ignorance of the more pure and Christian Faith and worship For there is undoubtedly a Mean between these two Necessity to Salvation and Necessity of Damnation Well might Athanasius say Whosoever will be saved it is necessary that he hold the Catholick Faith and add yet farther Which Faith except a man do keep whole and undefiled without doubt he shall perish everlastingly and so give us the particulars of that Faith so necessary For he means no more than that such Errors are in themselves damnable But heresies do not work after the manner of such natural Causes which have such effects infallibly but may be said notwithstanding naturally to tend to such events which yet may be prevented by various Allayes of Circumstances both inward and outward impeding such Effects The Consideration of which possibility of escaping the ordinary danger can no ways excuse a man or confirm him in such errours but the common and as you may say natural tendence of them to ruine and perdition strongly oblige him to relinquish that Church wherein it is only possible by vertue of some extraordinarie indulgence of God to come to salvation and whose errours are of themselves damnable So if the Question be put as generally it is Whether for example a man may not be saved in the Roman Church The answer is abundantly sufficient within Religion and Divinitie though perhaps not so formal in Logick That they certainly may be damn'd and that for holding the Faith and worship there commanded and received with full approbation And this is sufficient to call any sober Christian off from that communion though there may occur so many mitigating Circumstances as to a Person of
it implies as much as to say Give us but our demands and then we will be quiet by which Rule no man should defend his own right in lesser matters which to part with perhaps would not utterly undo him but he must be lookt on as accessary to and guilty of his own destruction if the Invader shall have power enough to bring it upon him because he will not peaceably satisfie his unjust desires A man may be and our Saviour in the Gospel saith expresly Luk. 16. 10. is unjust in the least as well as in much And so undoubtedly are they who having no Autority but what they frame to themselves shall by violence and aggressions attempt to extort the least thing belonging of right to another though haply better spar'd than kept For it is a Case of Justice rather than Christianity In justice and common equity the inferiour members of a Church and state owe obedience to their Superiours in all things not contrary to the Law of God the Church or the Nation but at most they can claim such things that are as they say indifferent to be granted them out of Courtesie or Charity only And whoever was so wilfully stupid as not to perceive that Injustice is much more a sin than Uncharitableness and so whatever mischief or guilt shall fall out in such contentions must necessarily light upon the heads of the unjust Aggressour and not indiscreet Resister were it indiscretion to withstand to deny such bold and insolent demanders or uncharitableness both which are denied in the present Case For there can be nothing more unjust on the one side and unwise on the other than so rudely and unrighteously to require of another all that may be granted or to grant all such things as are so demanded And if they urge still The peace of the Church to require such concessions I shall answer Let them first as all good Christians ought to do observe the Peace of Nature and the Peace of Nations which is not to offer violence nor to be unjust nor to go out of their Rank and Order but with good Autority and then take care for the Peace of the Church But what can be more absurd than that men should break the Peace of Nations and Nature it self yea the Law of God and Scriptures which require to obey all that are in autority over us as well Ecclesiastically as Civilly and then so much as to mention the Peace of the Church especially calling that only the Peace of the Church which puts them into quiet possession of their desires But to this we add that it is also very false which is here supposed to be true For there is nothing more manifest than that with diverse things of indifferent nature they mix many things of indispensable use to a Church and such is that so much reproached and derided Hierarchie which all the earth sees they have made it their business to Destroy utterly And when we plainly see as we do that those things in nature indifferent are demanded chiefly as an introduction to a farther abolition of things we hold necessary we hold them no longer indifferent nor can we in common prudence or Christianity part with them to such person any more than we can in a neighbourly manner lend away an Ax or Hammer when we are assured they will be made use of to break open our houses and spoil us though we know they may possibly be made use of to other purposes The Second Obstacle rather than Objection cast in our way is the parity of their Case with the Church of England with that of the Church of England with the Roman wherein whether they show more Spite or Policy may be a question Their Policy imitates them who finding the war to lie heavy upon them at their own doors contrive by all means possible to translate it into another Country as was particularly seen in Hindersons Letter to his late Sacred Majesty who finding the ability of his pen and weight of his discourses advised him rather to turn himself against the common enemy the Papist And thus these men would needs oblige us to make our quarrel good against the Romanists that they may be the les molested in the pursuance of their most Schismatical designs against the Church in which they were educated And this being discovered we might well excuse ourselves from such a task as they would set us But this we have before resolved in good part and had we not might and shall in a very few words dispatch as somewhat out of its proper place We grant then there is a Schism between us and the Romanists And we grant that there can be no cause to be Schismaticks though for a Separation there may and that they are truly Schismaticks who have ministred just Cause of Separation Some we know out of an ancient Father have urged against us That there can be no cause to divide the Church which is true in two senses only First when that Church is not before really divided from other Churches of unquestion'd integrity Realy I say by deserting some considerable point of Faith or introducing some unchristian manner of worship though not Openly and Formally as hath been said Again it is true only in such junctures as the Father spake those words in which was an apt and orthodox agreement within itself both in Faith and manners in such Cases there can be no cause to divide the Church as did the Novatians and Donatists But it was never his purpose to say that no case could happen in which it was not lawful for one Church to leave the Communion of another when it was so often done So still the point is wholly whether cause was given or not and not whether such outward and wilful Separation was made For undoubtedly however some would mince the matter Separate we did and that wilfully from the Church of Rome and chose rather than were forced to go out And upon those very grounds we still stand out and refuse to return The gross corruptions there maintained and not lurking and the fear of the loss of our souls in there continuing and much more thither returning What those are hath been even now touched and we here add that notwithstanding 't is confessed such senses are found of their doctrine and superstitious worship in some private authors amongst them which they offer at first to them they would seduce which may put persons into a possibility of their continuing without incurring damnation yet the Publick autority of that Church which I suppose they will call their Church having evermore of late years censur'd purged and expunged such more tollerable constructions and appeared for the most harsh and uncatholick there can be no great regard had to the fairer opinions Again it is not sufficient that a Church hath a true sense of Christian Faith if it alloweth and commendeth a false and a wicked sense 'T is little to the
may clear our selves thus First by putting a difference between the Church so united as is here supposed to rightly denominate it the Catholick or Universal Church and the Church disunited and divided long before any Reformation came to be so much as called for in these western Parts with attempts to put such desires into practice The division or Schism between the Western and Eastern Churches happened about the years 860 and 870 under Nicholas the first of Constantinople and Adrian the Second Bishop of Rome Where the guilt was is of another subject But the Schism rested not here but infested the Greek Church also subdividing the Armenian from the Constantinopolitan Now in such Case as this which is as much different from that of the Donatists who divided from all these entirely united together as may be who can conclude a Division from the Church so divided long before a Schism ipso facto because a Division was made from one Part of it calling itself indeed the Catholick Church Had therefore Reformers so divided from the Catholick Church united as did the Donatists it were more than probable that their division might from thence be known to be Schism without any more ado but it is certain it was quite otherwise And therefore some other Conviction must be expected besides that Characteristick And what must that be The Infallibility of any one Eminent Church which like a City on a Mountain a Beacon on a Hill a Pharus or Lighttower to such as are like to shipwrack their Faith may certainly direct them to a safe Station and Haven And all this to be the Church or See of Rome But alas though this were as desirable as admirable yet we have nothing to induce us to receive it for such but certain prudent inferences that such there is because such there ought to be for the ascertaining dubious minds in the truth and therefore so say they actually it is and lest humane reason should seem too malapert to teach what divine Autority ought to do therefore must the Scripture be canvas'd and brought against the best Presidents in Antiquity to the Contrary to Patronize such necessary Dogms The matter then returns to what we at first propounded viz. the Judging of Schism from the Causes and of the Causes from the Scriptures and the more Genuine and ancient Traditions of Christs Church before such Schism distracted the same These two things therefore we leave to be made Good by Romanists in which they are very defective First that there is any One Notorious infallible Judge actually constituted whereby we may certainly discern the Schismaticalness or Hereticalness of any one Church varying from the truth and this because It were to be wish'd a Judg were somewhere extant Secondly that what ever Security or Safety of Communion is to be found in the Visible Church properly and inseparably belongs to the Roman Church because some of the Ancients tell the time when it did not actually err But if our proofs be much more strong and apparent which declare that actually it doth err and wherein it doth err what an empty and bootless presumption must it needs be to invite to its communion upon her immunity from Erring or to condemn men of Schism for this only That they communicate not with it which is the bold method of Roman Champions THE Second BOOK OF THE FIRST PART CHAP. I. Of the Formal Object of Christian Faith Christ An Entrance to the treating of the Objects of Faith in Particular AND Thus far have we treated of Religion in General and specially of Christian Religion or Faith in its Rule the Scriptures Its Causes its Effects its Contraries its Subject the Church in its several Capacities Now we are briefly to treat of the Particular Object Christian Faith That as God is the true and proper Author of Christian Faith he is also the principal Object is most certain and apparent and is therefore by the Schools called the Formal Object that is either that which it immediately and most properly treats of or for whose sake other things spoken of besides God and Christ are there treated of For other Religions as well as Christian treat of God and the works of God but none treat of God or his works as consider'd in Christ his Son but the Christian For the two Greatest Acts which have any knowledge of of God being Creation and Redemption both these are described unto us in Holy Writ to be wrought by God through Christ Jesus as the Book of Proverbs and of Wisdom intimate to us when they shew how God in Wisdom made the Worlds Christ being the true Wisdom of the Father And more expresly in the entrance into the Gospel of St. John Joh. 1. 2 â— the Word of God being Christ is said to be in the beginning with God and All things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made And St. Paul to the Ephesians affirmeth All things to be created by God Eph. 3. 9. Col. 1. 15 16. by Jesus Christ And to the Colossians speaking of Christ the Image of the Invisible God addeth For by him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in the Earth Visible and Invisible c. This therefore discriminates the treating of things natural in Christian Theologie from all other Sciences and Theologies that all is spoken of in relation to Christ Jesus Therefore having in the beginning of this Tract spoken of God in General as supposed rather than to be proved in Divinity viz. of his absolute Being his Unity being but one His Infiniteness being all things in Perfection and Power we are here to resume that matter and continue it by a more particular enquiry into the Nature Attributes Acts and Works of God here supposing what before we have spoken of the First notion of Gods Being and those immediately joined with them His Unity and Infiniteness which Infiniteness necessarily inferreth all other Attributes proper to him as of Power Prefence in all places and all times and Omniscience and therefore here we shall speak only of the Nature or Being of God in the more peculiar sense to Christians that is being distinct in Persons as well as One in Nature CHAP. II. Of the special consideration of God as the object of Christian Faith in the Vnity of the Divine Nature and Trinity of Person FROM the Unity or singularity of Gods nature as to number doth flow an Unity and Simplicity of that one Individual Nature in it self For as the Nature of God cannot be found in several and separate Persons subsisting by themselves as may the nature of man so neither ought we to imagin that there is multiplicity of natures constituting the same God For as there are not many Gods differing Generically as there are Bodies Celestial and Podies Terrestial and again of Terrestial some Bodies Elemental and uncompounded naturally Other Mixt and compounded and such are Fish Foul
is exercised it may very properly and truly be said because of the good discerned and affected in the object But if it should be asked How the Will is moved and by vertue of what ability it so moves to that object there could be no greater incongruity than to affirm That the object was the cause of it For here the efficient cause is sought after As when a man goes to Church if doubt should be made why he goes to Church it were easily answered because he apprehends a spiritual good in that act this is the final cause but doth this give his leggs strength and his nerves and sinews power to walk Sure no man will say so This then is that we enquire concerning the wills inclination to and election of spiritual things not why or to what end for the end is the same to all mens wills but by what means it is fitted and enabled to move thitherward rather than the contrary ways The answer to this must if a man will speak appositely be taken from the efficient cause Now this sufficiencie or efficacie in the will is either natural and common to all which all modest Divines explode or adventitious and of free undeserved and undesired Grace and Gift of God Hence another ascent is made towards the Question of the manner of acceptation of grace and mercy objectively taken For as it is plain that God putteth a difference and not Man between the understanding of one man and another revealing that to one which he doth not to another And of those that know the truth putting a difference between the wills of men in that some that have known the saving truth have rejected it and others embraced it as is yet farther manifest from St. Paul to the Romans What Rom. 11. 7. then Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for but the Election hath obtained To some then who know the truth God gives Grace to some he doth not or scarce discernable A third step to this then must be about the degree and essicacie of this first Grace of God preventing and preparing the will to such noble ends which it could never of it self affect or desire And whether God doth give the like Grace at least in proportion to all he hath so far called illuminated and affected as to have spiritual principles of Life and Motion or not It were too curious to enquire here about the Arithmetical proportion or quantity because that all mens constitutions and dispositions are not alike and therefore like more even timber or plyant clay may be wrought into due form by less forcible means but Whether considering all disparities and disproportion in the matter the influence fashioning the same be of it self sufficient to any one called and outwardly elected to the truth Or whether there be any sufficient Grace which is not efficacious and consummative of the end which is the thing denyed by Jansenius against a stream of Adversaries But Thomas who next to Augustine ruled these Disputes most of all and that upon Austin's doctrine and grounds sayes no less and so do such as stick close to him notwithstanding the strong opposition made by a Modern Order who think to change the world and make it take all doctrines from them to the contempt of their Predecessors and the recalling the exil'd Tenets of Pelagians and such as serve though at a distance under him They profess against him and hold for him They deny his Conclusions but approve and justifie his Principles and Premisses from which they certainly follow Neither can they give St. Augustine a good word whom none openly before them ever presumed to confront in that manner Or if they do speak kindly of him yet they take their own course and speak their own upstart sense For do they not place God as an idle Spectatour yea a servile Attender of the wills self-determination first and then bring him in as Auxiliarie to its Actions This is rancide Divinity yea and Philosophy too Do they not fall directly into that Opinion of Origen confuted by Thomas against the Gentiles thus Certain men not understanding Thomas cent Gent. l. 3. c. 89. how God causeth the motion of the will in us without prejudice to the liberty of the will in us have endeavoured to expound these Autorities above-mentioned in his former Chapters amiss as to say God causeth in us To will and to do in that he giveth us power to will but not so as to cause us to do this or that as Origen expounds it in his Third Periarchon defending Free will against the foresaid Autorities And from hence the Opinion of some seemeth to have proceeded who said Providence was not concerned in those things which related to Free will that is Elections but external matters only who are confuted by that one place of Esay Thou Isaiah 26. 12. also hath wrought all our works in us Whether these words of the Prophet may not be eluded I will not dispute but they plainly declare that according to Thomas his mind All our inward motions as well as outward acts and effects are governed by God For the immediate concurse of God being generally granted by Philosophical Divines necessary to the Act of limited and necessary causes whose principle is more certain and operative then Free Agents are What honest or sober doubt can be made of the immediate hand of God in moving the will free and void of such natural Laws and Propentions as irrational Agents are compelled by There seems much less use of it here than there It may be they fear Gods hand should light so heavy upon the will of Man as to hurt the Freedome of it Which were to be feared indeed if God so concurred with Free Agents as with Natural and proportioned not his Influences agreeable to the subject but surely God worketh not so rudely Or if the Act of God being as natural to the Creature as its own yea unseparable from that of the Creature were not a Total cause together with the Creatures of such Elections But as Thomas saith It is apparent that not in the like 〈◊〉 l. 3. c. 70. manner an effect is ascribed to the Natural Cause and to the Divine Power as if it proceeded partly from God and partly from the Natural Agent but it is wholly from both in a diverse respect as the whole effect is attributed as well to the Principal Agent as the Instrument Thus he From whence we conclude the Grace of God is not given in a common manner or competently to leave the will still separately without particular excitations and prae-motions effectually and immutably as Thomas speaks inclining it to embrace Christ exhibited in the Means of Grace And that no man originally causes himself to differ from another in electing good But supposing the like proportion of Grace given to two persons equally otherwise qualified the reason why one refuses the Good and chooses the Evil is not
their friends after their death supposing that by proxie a man might receive the benefit of Baptism And yet some of these denyed the Resurrection Now St. Paul argues thus If there be no Resurrection of the dead to what end do they baptize the living instead of the dead what can it avail them according to their own judgments and opinions And thus what becomes of Purgatory But lastly The words of Christ in St. Matthew and St. Luke agree Matth. 5. 25 26. Luke 1258. with c. Verily I say unto thee thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing are thought of no mean force to infer a Purgatory But alas such havock do men make who would so have it of the words such hooks and tenters do they apply to wring and draw them to their purpose so do they play fast and loose with Antiquity about them that a man had need be well setled in a perswasion of the thing it self before he can brook such a reason as this affords The plain and simple sense therefore shall suffice to ward off all force against it viz. That Christ meant no more than they who made not their peace and reconciliation with God before they go out of this world shall be cast into Hell from whence they shall never return until they have paid all the punishment they ow to God for their sins to a farthing that is absolutely satisfied which by a Periphrasis or in many words as much as to say in one Never Besides they that are such stout defenders of the Virgin Maries perpetual Virginity against the ill sense given by Helvidius and his followers of those words in St. Matthew Until she had brought forth her First-born know very well how to give another sense to Until then a certain inference of somewhat to ensue that Period so fix'd and that it implies not necessarily that ever such payment of the utmost Farthing shall be made but upon supposition that it be paid such event as is there mentioned should follow But Antiquity and that of both Eastern and Western Churches are is alledged in confirmation of the present Roman Purgatory To which we oppose this assertion That Purgatory as now defended was never heard of in the Latin Church for four hundred years together after Christ nor received into it with common approbation until six hundred years after Christ Austin began to doubt of it and is scarce constant to himself in it Gregory the Great set it up upon its leggs and advanced it far if so be that the Dialogues bearing his name were truly his as 't is most probable they are not or that they are corrupted For how could Gregory who flourished about the year of our Lord 590. and was succeeded by Boniface Greg. M. Dial. l. 3. c. 2. the third about the year 606. take notice of Justinian the elder as elder unless he had known Justinian the younger who was Emperour about the year 685. long after the true Gregory was dead But from about that time this erroneous opinion got footing and began to spread but was never thoroughly setled in the Church of Rome it self until the time of John the Seventeenth or as others compute it the Nineteenth about the year 1003 when he instituted the Feast of All-Souls in which men were enjoyned to pray for the deliverance of Souls out of Purgatory But the Council of Florence in the year 1439. put it out of all future dispute when it decreed it so to be But the Greeks who were there present refused that sense however they gave way to the Name Purgatory Neither do they admit it unto this day so vain and bold a task doth Bellarmine undertake with other Pontificians to bring and that of old the Greek Church to consent with the Latin herein upon whose attempts we find modern Assertours of the Roman Cause to call them to witness too and when diligent search proves prejudicial to them to bring Osiander a man of small judgment and no command of his passions in his free censures of Antiquity wherever his History leads him to observe any thing there which he likes not and many times understands not and Sir Edwin Sands a Gentleman of excellent abilities as an Historian but finding the word Purgatory among Grecian Authours of modern times concluded that it was the same with the Roman but was much mistaken For 't is well known some modern Greeks as Nilus Thessaloniensis have writ purposely against the Roman Purgatory And this will farther appear from the two general defects running through almost all the Arguments brought by Romanists to prove Purgatory from the ancient Fathers and Councils of both Churches which being noted may suffice for Answers to them in this point especially in this place For first they argue from the word Purgatory where-ever they find it in Greek and Latin Fathers But Purgatory fire with them was quite another thing from that now in credit amongst us Origen and he the first that we meet with invented a Purgative fire and divers Fathers catching at that discoursed dubiously upon that subject but with this Fivefold difference from Roman Flames First They exempted no man from this Purgation not Saints or Martyrs but supposed all should be purged before they entred entirely into Heaven the moderner Purgatory frees eminent Saints from that fiery tryal Secondly They held this purgation principally useful to the purification of the gross matter of the body to a finer substance before it could be meet to enter into heaven together with the soul but these make it to seize principally if not only on the soul separate from the body and to cleanse that Thirdly They never intended theirs to purge off the stain of sins or satisfie for what souls were behind in going out of this world but the Romanists affirm and defend it in this sense Fourthly They never maintained any immediate purgation or torments from the departure of the soul from the body but affirmed only a general and momentaneous transmutation by Fire at the Day of Judgment to be fitted the better for Heaven Fifthly They never imagined that the Prayers of Living did relieve the miseries of the afflicted in Purgatory as do these or that there was any such passing from that state to Heaven before the Day of Judgment And what need we travel on this subject when we have the testimony of chief men against them herein Roffensis Artic. 18. against Luther says directly Amongst the Ancient there is little or no mention made of Purgatory and that the Greek to this day hold it not The very same says Alphonsus de Castro contr Haeret. lib. 8. tit De Indulgentia But the second Argument of Romanists will clear this drawn out of many Fathers to prove they held Purgatory because they held Prayer for the dead of which Prayer none they suppose can be capable but such as are in this middle state between
Heaven and Hell But we deny not that the Ancients prayed for the Dead nor do we dissent much from them in that pious act our selves however there are quarrellers amongst us well known by their other affected and morose follies who oppose it because they have no express Scripture for it but we deny they ever prayed for the pardon of their sins or ease of torments so anciently but for an happy rest and restauration in a Resurrection So that we peremptorily deny and well may notwithstanding all proofs brought to the contrary that Prayer for the Dead necessarily infers Roman Purgatory And for the Consequence of this Opinion of Roman Purgatory Indulgences it is so rank a Corruption such a novel and impudent invention as the Church of Rome under that defection it now is never did so great a miracle as to get it any place in sober and knowing mens minds both thing it self and the abuse of it being such as alone may suffice to disgrace the Authours of it and make their pretenses to infallibility alwaies false very ridiculous We know indeed that scarce any thing was of ancienter use in the Church then some Indulgences but no more like these than Earth is like Purgatory Indulgences were made by such who were in autority in the Church towards Penitents who had their Penances allotted them for scandalous Crimes committed against the Faith and Church which Penances were often relaxed and mittigated by the favour and indulgences of the Fathers of the Church good cause appearing for to do so But that ever it was in the power of the Church to give ease to such as were punished in that other Life to come was never heard of for above a thousand years after Christ Alphonsus de Castro is worth the Alphonsus de Castro lib. 8. Adv. Haer. de Indulg reading upon this who is positive for Indulgences but going about to prove them prepares his Reader with a long Preface for such a short Discourse telling him that He ought not to expect for all points of Faith Antiquity or express Scripture For many things are known to the moderner which those ancient Writers were altogether ignorant of For seldome any mention is made in ancient Writers of the transubstantiation of the Bread into Christs Body of the Spirits proceeding from the Son much rarer of Purgatory almost none at all especially among Greek Writers for which reason Purgatory is not believed of the Greek to this day c. The ancient Church caused men to satisfie in this life and would leave nothing to be punished in the Life to come and therefore there is no mention of Indulgences Thus he But adds Amongst the Romans the use of them is said to be very ancient as may in some manner be collected from their stations And it is reported of Gregory the First of whom we even now spake that he granted some in his dayes It is said and reported by where and by whom he could not tell us But he tells us indeed how Innocent the Third that great Innovator and Corrupter of the Church constituted it in the Latherane Council and the Council of Constance after that much which was not before the Year 1200. Judge we from hence what great account is to be made of the many sayings of the Fathers pretended to approve this devise And judge we farther what great Reason or Scripture there is for the Popish faction to derogate so far as they do from the efficacy of Gods Holy Spirit of Grace in the repenting sinner though straitened of time in the exercise and demonstration of his true Conversion and from the fullness of Christs mediation and merits which are ordained for the remission of all sins upon true Repentance For the bloud of Christ cleanseth from all sin saith St. John and so say they understood as in this Life and the Life to come but St. John nor any other holy Writer of Scripture gives us the least intimation of any other season of pardon then that of this Life Therefore here to end this First Part with the end of Man in this world seeing Gods Promises are so liberally revealed unto penitent sinners in this Life without exceptions of matter time or place of venial or mortal sins Seeing Christs merits are absolutely sufficient to acquit the sinner and no limitation is to be found upon Faith and Repentance in Scripture Seeing lastly that Gods Spirit of Grace is of vertue sufficient to sanctifie to the washing away of all filthiness both of flesh and spirit and this life is only mentioned in Scripture for the exerting of this work and perfecting this cure of the soul Let us rather thankfully embrace so great salvation and work it out for St. Paul supposes we may with fear and trembling in this life that so as St. Peter hath 2 Pet. 1. 11. it An entrance may be ministred abundantly unto us into the everlasting Kingdem of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ The End of the First Part. THE Second Part OF THE INTRODUCTION To the Knowledge of the True Catholick Religion CHAP. I. Of the worship of God wherein the Second Part of Christian Religion consists Of the Necessity of worshipping God It is natural to worship God Socinus holding the contrary confuted Of the Name of Religion the Nature of religious worship wherein it consisteth REligion we have defined to be A due Recognition and Retribution made by the Creature to God the Fountain of all Being communicating himself freely to inferiour Beings And this description we have in substance given us by David in his last and most serious charge to Solomon his Son saying And thou Solomon my Son know thou the God of 1 Chron. 28. 9. thy Fathers and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind c. From whence we take the ground of our distinction of Religion into two Parts The true knowledge of God which is attained by the Doctrine of Faith revealed in Gods holy Word and the worship of him there in likewise contained Of the former having already spoken we now proceed more briefly to treat of the second The worship of God And that God is to be worshipped is such an inseparable notion from the acknowledgment of God as nothing can follow more necessarily then that doth from this And it were more reasonable though that be brutish for to deny God absolutely then to deny him worship and service And therefore Seneca saith well The first worshipping of God is to believe there is a God The next to yield to him his Majesty to yield him Sen. Epist 95. his Goodness to understand that he or they governs the world And afterward He sufficiently worships God who imitates him And Tully The Cicero de Natura Deor. lib. 2. worship of God ought to be most excellent and pure and holy and full of piety so that we may constantly worship him with a pure intire and uncorrupt mind and voice
entertain with assent and consent morose thoughts as they call lasting and delighting cogitations of sin he may not be said to break the form of his Vow though he in some measure violates the end of his Vow And as to sin which is contained in the Vow of Virginity mens hands and minds were tyed from that before they vowed as really though not so strongly as afterward The precise object therefore of such Vows is properly an unwedded life together with Chastity Which that it is not so unsuperable a difficulty as to exceed the ordinary power of man by the Grace of God enabling him appears from the ordinary course of life of the opposers of that state For do not they themselves pass through the difficult and fiery tryals of such temptations frequently in the prime of their dayes the strength of corrupt nature and weakness of reason faith and prudence to bridle irregular inclinations and yet would take it very ill men should condemn them for violaters of Gods Laws and impure offenders in that kind Can civil prudence or policie secure them in the most dangerous time of all till they are freed from that place which makes them uncapable of being married or they are put into a fair and hopeful condition to live handsomly in the world according to their judgment and design and may not the higher and nobler ends of Religion propounded to a mans self and studiously improved have the same effect and give them the same or greater safety Do they many of them live chastly for thirty years it may be more or less unmarried and yet would be loath to be censured for unchast persons and that upon the grounds of humane and carnal prudence and dare they to decree them to naughtiness out of necessity who shall choose that life perpetually out of the grounds of Religion This hangs very ill together They will say out of St. Paul It is better to marry than to burn Very good But when and how and on whom doth this Rule take place so soon as he begins to burn Or though he burns not till he be rich enough and is outwardly accommodated to his likeing Can a man preserve himself for the worlds sake when he may less expect the assistance of Gods Grace and can he not for Gods sake when he may more hope for it But Theodoret doth in great part relieve 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theod. Haeretic Fabularum l. 5. c. 26. both one and other where he interprets St. Paul not so rigorously that all infestation of lustful motions should oblige any person to marriage but only such an evil which should wholly master a man Yet is not any person from the remission of the severest Law of Chastity by the favour of God to indulge to himself a latitude in the custody he ought to have over his person for then it becomes not a venial or light Infirmity but a presumptuous breach of his Vow and Gods Law But yet there remains the old known exception against what issaid which not absolutely denying the possibility of such a life denys that any such state of life is to be chosen under the bonds of a Vow To which we may yield Vide eriam Chrysostom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To. 6. pag. 251. Bellarm. de Monachis l. 2. c. 22. thus much that at the first publishing of the Gospel and practise of single life such Vows of Virginity or chast Widowhood were in less use than afterward That there was not any such life in ordinary use nay so much as mentioned in the Church of the Jews we have heard Chrysostome positively oppose and thereby refel the bold argument of Bellarmine proving the Virgin Mary had made a vow of perpetual Virginity before the Salutation of the Angel towards her which as he and Baronius with many of the same mettal was the cause she wondered so at the manner of speech to her But there were other causes sufficient to cause wonder in the Blessed Virgin besides a Vow of Virginity though some Fathers prone to imagine the highest it may be of the Holy Virgin have in the height of their Rhetorick let fall somewhat to that purpose Yet it is manifest from the See Selden de Jure Gen ium apud Heâ—raeâ—â— lib. 5. cap. 3. Records of the Jewish Church there was nothing of that nature in use amongst them and if not It is not to be believed that the Virgin Mary took up such a strange and illaudable resolution as that was amongst them who esteemed want of off-spring no small disparagement to them I wonder here most at Perkins how his fervour and judgment should so far fail him herein as to give such an unnecessary advantage to his Enemies to affirm that Jeptha's daughter was the first that vowed Virginity When it is most certain that if that sense be granted that she was not sacrificed properly but only devoted to God this was no free act chosen by her self but a sad sentence of her Father condemning her to that unhappy state of life But that it is lawful not only to do this but also Vow the performance thereof needs no other arguments than may be easily drawn from the general grounds of the lawfulness and usefulness of Vows in the former Chapter And the constant practise of the most Saints of God in the Church of God whom upon such account as this for men to pelt with vain censures is the very next way to ruin their own esteem and reputation which they may aim to raise by such unfortunate attempts unless perhaps with such who can judge of nothing but from their mouths For what a man may do lawfully without a Vow he may do much more with a Vow but such things as these may be done without a Vow therefore also with one CHAP. V. Of the second state of special serving God the Clerical state or Ministerial Of the necessity and liberty of singleness of life in a Clergy-man The Opinion and custom of Antiquity concerning it That it is in the power of the Church at this day to restrain or permit the marriage of Priests The Conveniencies and Inconveniencies of wedded life in Priests Chrysostom's Judgment of Marriage and Virginity recited IN the next place we are to look into the state of serving God in Ecclesiastical Ministration and here first apply what is above spoken concerning Celebacie to the Clergy There are not wanting amongst the Romanists who annex Celebacie to a Clerical Life by a Divine Precept but with so little probability of truth and modesty of writing that the learnedest of their own Party are ashamed of them and confute them and so we leave them The most current opinion is That by perpetual Tradition and Precept of the Church marriage of the Clergy hath been restrained But this will by no means hold First against the very first institution of Ecclesiastical Persons by Christ himself who as it were to sanctifie marriage
till some extraordinary Pastours as they call'd themselves made the alteration much for the worse God knows and would have no man enter the proper place of worship unless it were to hear the Word that is their word This custome God be thanked was never quite laid down in our English Church and I trust in God never will but gain strength countenance and encouragement knowing that the Mother Churches or Cathedrals being Precedents to all inferiour Churches pertaining to them do by their example of daily prayers and a free access at all convenient times of the day granted for men to pray to God their private particular prayers not only approve but commend to and invite her daughter Churches to the like most godly practise All Eastern as well as Western Churches out of the Precincts of the Reformation herein very unhappy set us the like example And all Churches at first by great prudence and piety of the founders and promoters were there placed where they might be most convenient for the Parish to resort to at all times and also to the best advantage of Roads that so travellers passing by might have an opportunity to enter them and do the devotions to God But now a thing to be lamented such a godly custom would be censur'd for superstition as the Devil and the Enemies of God never want words to traduce where they want reason to disprove what is good and commendable And being born to an errour have a certain horrour of leaving it though no reason can possibly be picked up to retain it Besides Popish and Superstitious what have any man I would fain hear to say against private prayers in Churches And those tearms are now so bald and generally so boldly and ignorantly applyed that they prove nothing more many times than the profaneness of the user and have done the Church of Rome more credit and service in that many excellent things have been made proper and singular to that Church which in truth are not then all the franck language and most averse practises of such men have done them discredit or hurt But it were very strange if they could here find nothing in Scripture to colour their cause or credit this ungodly opinion Christ saith say they or at least may Thou when thou prayest enter into thy closet and when thou hast Matth. 6. 6. shut thy door pray to thy father which is in secret and thy father which is in secret shall reward thee openly But do they who turn these words thus to their purpose really think that Christ hereby advised men to pray rather at home than in the publick When I can believe it I will shew the contrary and before For Christ spake not against the publickness but the hypocrisie of this prayer It is not probable indeed that a man should be so hypocritical in private as he may in publick And therefore to obviate that mortal evil to all divine prayer our Saviour both confutes and redresses it shewing it is far better for such and more acceptable to God to be take themselves to their closets where no Man but God and their own Consciences can see them than with such vain ostentation to beg applause of men And if all the world were such Hypocrites as Christ reproved it were better no man should ever come to Church at any time But there is the contrary vice to be shun'd and that is Profaneness For that is no less scandalous yea much more and must be so accounted But they who out of undue reasons refuse the publick place of Gods worship are to be noted as Prophane It is most certain that they who keep to St. Pauls precept in his Epistle to Timothy That men pray every where lifting up holy hands c. cannot pray 1 Tim. 2. 8. Ephes 6. always in one place especially if we add that other precept of St. Paul Pray always for no man can be always in that most common place of prayer And therefore it may be inferred from hence that it is lawful and acceptable to God to pray privately but not that prayer in publick is not to be preferred before private For would it not as well hold against prayer in families which is not in the closet And if to every house there were a place dedicated specially to Gods worship as there is in every parish I should hold that prayers generally in the family and particularly of persons singly were more laudably performed in that publick place than in a private chamber But it is further to be noted That when St. Paul saith we should pray every where he never intended to equalize all places in fitness to Gods service he intended not to take off distinction of Christian places to that end but Judaical as the Temple of the Jews which diverse green Christians supposed was to be the special if not only place assigned of God for his worship St. Paul informs them better assures them that they should pray every where as well as at Jerusalem meaning nothing less then that where there were Christian Temples to which they might resort they should not need go to them but may keep at home as well being God is every where and they must pray every where but that a place of worship solemniz'd by Christians was altogether as proper as that Temple of the Jews Isidore saith indeed Prayer is most opportunely made in private places and is more pleasing to God viz. so qualified as before A sincere prayer at home is better many degrees than an hypocritical one in publick And the Gloss upon St. Pauls words â—â—ith In every place that is where ever you are and not only in the Church And the like it saith upon Christs words in St. John to the woman of Samaria That neither John 4. 21. on that mount nor yet at Jerusalem men should worship God But who sees not that it is to be understood signally and not so superstitiously as that a Temple might not be as pleasing to God in any other place as at Jerusalem or Mount Gerizzim And I know he addeth as divers other Fathers the Temple of the heart which is worthily said to encourage such persons to inward and chamber-devotion whose leisure or labours will not suffer them to repair to Church not to erect an alter in heart house equal to that in the Church And for my part I see no reason to except unclean places from Gods worship as some Casuists do when a more comely and convenient cannot be had For there is no place unclean in such Cases But we are now enquiring about the right a place hath to our Services other things being equal As if a man hath as good an heart as simple intention as pure charity as laudable matter petition'd for whether the place of Gods worship be not it he ought to offer his Sacrifice in rather than any other And whether publick is not required rather than private And here
And that Oraculum by notice whereof the Bishop of Rome with the Senate of Cardinals granted to the Sclavonian Nation that they should use the tongue of their Country in sacred actions seemeth to pertain to all Nations named Christians Omnis spiritus laudet Dominum omnis lingua confiteatur ei Let every spirit praise the Lord and every tongue confess to him And Thomas Cajetane a man doubtless most learned and acute wrote in a certain place It were better for the edification of the Church publick prayers to be said in the vulgar tongue in the Church which the people may hear than in the Latin tongue And when he was for this reproved by some he answered He built upon the foundation of the Apostles in his fourteenth Chapter of his first Epistle to the Corinthians c. Thus far and much more followeth out of that grave man to this purpose So that in one of those things which convince the Church of Rome of Innovation and obstinacie in novelties as nothing need more be said against it to that end nothing being said more for it in the upshot of all Disputes but that for some time it hath been in use there and the Trentine Convention hath Azorus Institut Mor. l. 8. c. 26. Salmer in 1 Cor. 16. Disp 30. made all sure according to their manner by decreeing it inconvenient that Divine Offices should commonly be in the vulgar tongue as Azorius writeth and as Salmeron It anathematizes such as will not be content with the three tongues in which the super scription was written upon the Cross of Christ Which is a fansie without any firmness at all it being certain no such thing was intended thereby and evident that the Hebrew tongue was scarce ever used in Christian services though the Syriack hath been And it is not agreed whether of the two was the Language but this we rest not on nor can the Romanists But when they have turned every stone to little purpose they come to that which will never fail them in this or any other point the determination of their Church and practise of the same which upon no accounts must be violated for that were to loose or hazard all as Azorius in the place fore-cited doth with little modesty and less advantage to his cause profess and answering this question Whether the vulgar tongue might not be indulged to Hereticks petitioning for it and for the peace of the Church saith I answer Councils and Fathers and the Church were never wont to yield to such like Hereticks demands But this he proves in matters quite of a different nature as if when the Fathers would hear of no accommodation with Arius Eutycheus Nestorius holding notorious heresies against Christ even when they would have introduced some verbal agreement they could be precedents to oppose that wherein if it were false can consist no heresie but is true and most generally was practised by all the Fathers and Churches at first and so continued for eight hundred years And therefore he speaks more to this purpose in these words following If it should be granted to Lutherans and Calvinists that they should celebrate Divine Service in their vulgar tongue they would afterward give out that they had got their wills yea that the Church had changed her opinion and left off her ancient custom as contrary to Scripture and so charge the Church with erring and would exult with incredible joy and gladness over it c. This is in truth the very same reason which our grave Puritans render why they conform not to the Church in her Service whenas they confess they have nothing of sin to object against the thing it self viz. They should be judged of mutability and levity should thereby weaken their Ministry in the esteem of their people which in all probability they borrowed from their Father Calvin one of whose reasons against the moderation Calvin Epist of Melancthon was that if they should make any correction in that Reformation which was so hastily hudled up they should weaken their Ministry The reasonableness of which I leave to others to judge of But rejecting the common reasons all of which we are not here to examine of Papists we shall freely oblige them to give better grounds of the Liturgies in unknown tongues than may be ordinarily found amongst them though no sufficient can be given And one is the great veneration had to the traditions of the Ancients in worshipping God not that anciently any instance can be given that may be a precedent to the corruptions of these times but that having with sober grave and holy advice framed a Liturgy in any one tongue they were very scrupulous how they made any alteration therein though of words only and therefore that which is vulgarly spoken altering daily and that which was written remaining altogether unchanged in words tract of time bred a diversity between the one and the other But this we demand of our Adversaries what one president for many hundred years together they can produce where at the first institution of publick Service it was so contriv'd that nothing of the vulgar language should be taken into it There is a vast difference between a passive and an active and purposed inconvenience The ancient predecessours of the Roman Church never intended that their Latin Service should be hid or unknown from the common people which many generations after followed yet so it must needs fall out in time But they who at this day plant Churches in both Indies and obtrude their Latine tongue upon the people there and who deny liberty to other Provincial Churches in Europe and elsewhere to celebrate in their known Language do purpose mischief unto such Christians and become Schismatical in not only not redressing themselves according to the Rule of their fore-fathers whom they should much more imitate in ordering their service so that the Common Christian might understand the same as primitively and for a long time they did than in sticking so severely to the bare Letters and Syllables they used not making conscience of far more scandalous practices in altering the service it self in matter by absurd additions and detractions but with denunciation of Excommunication against such Churches as shall presume to redress that evil of ignorance and render Christians intelligent of what they do But I have been of opinion that the vulgar have been no small cause of this great superstition and inconvenience to themselves In that in process of time their devotion slacking in timely repairing to the Church and in due demeanor in the Church neglecting to concur with the Minister of God and to reciprocate with him and almost deserting the Service by coldness sloth and indevotion the Priest was constrained perhaps with a Deacon or Clerk only to perform the service alone And truly let such people look to their modern teachers who have instilled such ungracious opinions into them as to take them off
not Composito viz. before some one place be determined and dedicated especially to his worship and not after or from the contempt of Gods house or from dislike of the Publique worship or from admiration of our own Gifts and a delight to show them or lastly a design to breed a faction in private against the publique profession I know likewise and grant that several just Impediments there are to the publique service and in such Cases most necessary it is that Gods service should be performed within doors But it is not necessary that this should be performed as the affected manner is in a service quite distinct from the publique yea often quite contrary What men speak in prayer and spiritual devotion between God and their own souls privately they are the only proper judges of and Christian not Liberty only but piety requires they should so be But surely when Men speak before others as well as God and there is nothing so much as the Place which diversifies the worship in a Family from that in the Church that of the Church is most proper And not to say any thing of the Laity no Priest or Minister of our Church ought upon common occasions to officiate in Prayers in Private Families any otherwise than he is bound to do in Publique especially if they to whom he officiates and himself have not performed their duties in that manner before in Publique which when they have then only is the proper place for another free-will offering unprescribed I shall not here insist on the obligation all Priests have to recite their Office as I could but only give this general reason That every Priest is ordained of God by man as a constant intercessour between God and Man in behalf of the People and especially them of whom he hath a Pastoral charge and not only the nature of his Office but condition of his Benefice requires that this he doth constantly or daily twice the old rule being very reasonable viz. Beneficium requirit officium the temporal benefits received by the Clergy require spiritual office The first is daily and so should the second also be And this is no such innovation as the contrary that the Priest should have nothing to do but when he preaches or that he should pray and offer to God as liketh best every single Christian which is impossible and ridiculous and an intolerable presumption in any man to prescribe to their Minister how he should minister to them when he is lawfully prescribed his duty before and if he were not he ought to prescribe to others not of the same order with himself and not take Laws from them which is the corruptest and modernest of all Innovations But the Recitation of the Office by the Priest is a constitution of above a thousand years standing according Barthol Gavantus in Rubricam Brev. Tom. 2. Sect. 2. c. 5. Tit. 1. Compilatio Chronolog ad An. 490. to the account of them who set it Jowest Sigebert in his Chronicle affirmeth it began in the year 540 as Gavantus out of him But I find another Chronologer to place it in the year 490 saying Anastasius the fifty second Pope ordained that no Clergyman should omit his Divine Office the office of the Mass or Eucharist only excepted And therefore with excellent wisdom and advice it is in these words prescribed by the Church before the Liturgy All Priests and Deacons are to say daily the Morning and Evening Prayer either privately or openly not being let by sickness or some other urgent cause And surely as there is an Obligation upon Priests to use these prayers there must be implied an obligation in all the true sons of the Church to be present at them and to joyn with the Priest Which because it cannot be expected that all men well inclin'd should be always in a capacity to do the Priest doubtless may comply with the exigencies of others so it be not to the pre judice of the Publique And now considering also the many extraordinary days of Festivals and ordinary days of Fasting wherein especial obligation lies upon all Good Christians so far as they can without justifiable impediment to appear in the house of God and worship him not omitting their personal and private devotions at home and comparing the same with the practice of Puritans who are so strangely deluded with the great vertue of a Sermon and extemporary prayers at home that it goes quite against the hair if not conscience of them to visit Gods house upon the account of prayers and adoration only let it be fairly judged whether they have such cause to insult over our Religion and not be ashamed of their gross defects and dissonancy from all that ever professed Christianity before their days Will their bold pretences to Giftedness think they in their rare way of worship cover these foul blemishes from God when they do not from men But this upon the occasion of the contrary abuse of times in order to Religion wherein the Româ—n Church hath exceeded and departed from the practice of the Ancient Church which indeed had some other solemn times of worship before the fourth Century besides Sundays and Easter day but very Erasinus in Matth. 11. v. 30. Id. in Romanos cap. 14. 5. few Truly and learnedly saith Erasmus upon Matthew The Age of Hieromne knew very few Feasts except the Lords day And in another place he writes thus With the Jews some days were prophane and some days holy but with the Christians every day is equally this he speaks according to the sense of Origen not excepting the Lords day holy Not that Festivals are not to be observed which the holy Fathers instituted afterward to the more commodious assembling of Christian People and to the worship of God but that they were very few to wit The Lords day Easter and Pentecost and some such like reckoned up by Hieromne But I know not whether it be expedient to add Feast upon Feast especially since we see the manners of Christians to come to that pass that so much reason as there was of old to institute them for pieties sake so great seems there to be to antiquitate them Thus he And this hath been the opinion of the Church of England and the course taken in the Reforming the abuse in the number of them And a second abuse hath been pared off by us seen in the end of them which is rather to the honour of Saints than of God or Christ among Papists I know at the long run as we may so speak they ascribe in their doctrine all to God but not half of them have this sense and little or nothing many times comes from them but what is directed to the Saint they then worship Bishop Whitgift doth distinguish ours from theirs many ways This one shall suffice at present out of him Neither Whit gifts Answer to the admonition pag. 175. are they Holy days called by the name
ventantia ad hoec decem redigant Capitalium peccatorum species quae septem numerantur in aliquod horum referum sed sedulâ diligentiâ magis quam serid Erasm Cateches 6. in Decal Thom 22. qu. 148. 2. ad 1. Contrivers of them may as well as many other things be refused at pleasure as an humane Invention For mine own particular I think Erasmus has spoken judiciously and truly in the Case Here I see some labouring hard to reduce all Precepts whether commanding or forbidding to these Ten and to refer the seven deadly sins to some of these but with diligence more sedulous than serious And no other instance needs be given of an incapacity in the Decalogue of Regular reduction of this nature than what Thomas has given us whose Logical head was able to do as much in this kind as any mans Framing an Objection to himself that Gluttony was no mortal sin because it was not contrary to any of the Ten Commandments answers thus Gluttony is a mortal sin in as much as it averts us from the Ultimate end and according to this by a Certain Reduction by which every thing may be reduced to every thing is opposed to the Command of Sanctifying the Sabbath in which is required our rest in the Ultimate End If this be fair and allowable what needed we any more Commandments than that of keeping holy the Sabbath day For surely all sin as well as Gluttony turns us away from our Last End which is God and our resting in him and therefore by this reason all sin should be Sabbath-breaking St. James James 2. 10. indeed saith Whosoever shall keep the whole Law and yet offend in one point he is guilty of all that is a breaker of all But he very well explains himself immediately after that he meant not so much in respect of the matter of the Law that a man could not sin against it in one case but he must sin against it in another but in respect of the Manner For saith he He that said unto thee do not commit adultery said also do not kill c. implying thus much that the same evil mind that disposes a man to disobey God in one point of the Law will incline him to the like in others and the Cords of Fear and Love of God being broken to offend God in one sin leave him at liberty to offend him in any other whatever Not that a man doth directly or actually commit sin against the whole Law As in the case of Moral Vertues according to Philosophers all are so connected and dependent upon one another in Prudence that whoever wants that lies open to all vices But our enquiry is concerning the connexion of vertues and vices in the matter of them whether the offender in one sin is guilty of all whether the Drunkard be a Thief or the Sabbath-breaker an Adulterer For according to the large extent of Rules commonly given either of these may be made good and without such a latitude drunkenness will hardly find a proper place in any of the Ten Commandments unless we say as some more wittily than solidly Drunkenness slaggers through all the Commands And in the like sense What sin doth not And therefore Thom. ibid. Thomas is constrained to acknowledge that Not all Mortal sins are directly contrary to the Precepts of the Decalogue but those only which contain injustice because the Precepts of the Decalogue in especial manner pertain to Justice and the parts thereof That so many Ancient as well as Modern Doctors of Christs Church have endeavoured to bring all Sins and Graces and Duties to the Ten Commandments I take to proceed from this three-fold cause First in Imitation of the Jews who agreed with Christians in the Use of the Decalogue Novatianus Epistâ—de Judaicis apud Tertul cap. 3. Deniqu dâ—eem sermones â—lh in tabulis nibil novum dacent c. Grot. in Decalogum as being no more than a restoring the decayed Law of Nature in man and reprinting it in his mind as well hath Novatianus observed thus Lastly those ten sayings in Tables teach no new thing but what was blurred they admonish that Justice contained in them as fire buried might as it were by the breath of the Law be re-enkindled And Philo testifieth of the Jews not only of his Times but ancienter that they were wont to reduce All the Precepts of Moses his Law to these Ten not that they did believe that they were all contained in them as Grotius hath observed but that those things we have here belong to such general heads of Actions unto which for memory sake others may be reduced in like manner as Philosophers are wont to Sixt. Sen. Bib. l. 4. reduce all things to Aristotles Ten Categories or Predicaments though by the way it is observed by Sixtus Senensis out of ancient Authors that Aristotle was not the true Author of the Ten Predicaments but rather Architas Tarentinus And this Christians did more accurately as being better endowed with the Holy Spirit and obliged to higher vertues A second reason might be for that the Decalogue as we have already said though it be not such an exquisite and ample Rule as to contain all things without great straining and force yet it being the most significant is any where extant in Scripture Christians chose that for their Compendium to which other duties might relate And this Thirdly because of the expediency of advancing some one Form of Words to be a Rule of Practise as were the Creed and Lords Prayer instituted as Forms of Faith and all Prayers and that chiefly for help to the Memory of men in their compleat duty towards God and Man The first that I have observed who brought this way of Reduction of all things to the Commandments was St. Hieromne who hath delivered such General Rules for this purpose as have been much improved and multiplied by many Catechises and Commentators upon them To which I shall refer the Reader at present passing or rather posting from the Use in General to the Particular Use of it in the Third thing viz. The Explication CHAP. XX. Of the Ten Commandments in Particular and their several sense and importance IN all Laws three things are to be considered saith a late excellent Die â—mâ—bi Hâ—los-phasier Oretzere si non tres Leâ—uâ— partes dâ—â—mmâ—â— Philosophis Platone Possidonio Cicerone alits consittuantur nempe Preoemium Lex ipsa Epilogus sive sanctio Goldastus Replicat ad Gretz c. 11. person in the Civil Law The Preface the Law it self and the Epilogue or Conclusion to it or Sanction And these are all found in the Decalogue And where some have no special Preface there the General Prologue is to be current and applyed unto them And so where other particular precepts want the enforcement of them in the conclusion they may well borrow it from some other as for Example I am the Lord thy God set