it Chap. V. Of the proper Acts of God Creation and Preservation or Providence What is Creation That God created all things And how Of the Ministers of Gods Providence towards Inferiour Creatures the Angels of God Their nature and office towards man especially Chap. VI. Of the Works of God in this visible World Of the Six dayes work of God All things are good which were made by God Chap. VII Of the Creation of man in particular according to the Image of God Of the Constitution of him and of the Original of his Soul contrary to Philosophers and the Errors of Origen concerning it The Image wherein it consists principally Chap. VIII Of the Second General Act of God towards the Creature especially Man his Providence Aristotles Opinion and Epicurus his rejected What is Providence Three things propounded of Providence And first the Ground of it the knowledge of God How God knoweth all things future as present Of Necessity and Contingencies how they may consist with Gods Omniscience Chap. IX The method of enquiring into the Nature and Attributes of God Vorstius his grounds of distinguishing the Attributes of God from his Nature examined Of the Decrees of God depending on his Understanding and Will Of knowledge of Intelligence Vision and the supposed Middle knowledge The Impertinency of this middle knowledge invented in God How free Agents can be known by God in their uncertain choice Indifferent actions in respect of Man not so in respect of God All vision in God supposes certainty in the thing known Chap. X. Four Doubts cleared concerning the Knowledge and Decrees of God and free Agents and contingent Effects How man that infallibly acts is responsable for his Actions The frivolous Evasion of the said difficulties by them of Dort Chap. XI Of the Execution of Gods Providence in the Predestination and Reprobation of Man How the Decrees and Providence of God are distinguished The Reason and Method of Gods Decrees Righteousness is the effect and not cause of Predestination to Life Predestination diversly taken in Scripture as also Election and Vocation God predestinates no man simply to Death without consideration of Evil foregoing as Calvin and some others would have it Chap. XII Of Gods Providence in the Reprobation and Damnation of Man Preterition is without any cause personal but the corruption of the Mass of Humane Nature Damnation alwayes supposes sin Chap. XIII The occasion of treating of sin here What sin is What Evil Monstrousness in things natural and Evil in moral things illustrate each other Sin no positive or real thing God the direct cause of no evil St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans makes nothing for the contra-Remonstrants literally and primarily taken Chap. XIV Of Sin more particularly And first of the fall of Adam Of Original Sin wherein it consisteth and how it is traduced from Father to Children The Proofs of it The nature and evils of it And that it is cured in Baptism That Natural Concupiscence hath not the nature of Sin after Baptism Chap. XV. Of the Restitution of Man after sin The Means and Motives thereunto In what manner Christs Mediation was necessary to the reconciling of Man to God Socinus his Opinion of Christs mediation refuted That Christ truely and properly satisfied by his Death and Passion for us Chap. XVI Of the Nature and Person of the Mediatour between God and Man In the beginning was the Word proved to be spoken of Christ and that he had a being before he was incarnate The Union of two Natures in Christ explained Christ a Mediatour by his Person and by his Office and this by his Sacrificing himself The Scriptures proving this Chap. XVII How Christ was Mediatour according to both Natures Calvins Opinion and others stated Of the effect of Christs Mediation and the extent thereof Of the Designation and Application of Christs death Of the sufficiencie and efficacie of Christs death How Christs death becomes effectual to all The necessity of Gods Grace to incline the will of man to embrace Christ Of the efficacie as well as sufficiencie of Gods Grace on the Will of Man Several Gradations observed in the Grace of God Chap. XVIII Of the effect and benefit of Christs Mediation in suffering and rising again seen in the Resurrection of Man The necessity of believing a Resurrection The Reasons and Scriptural Testimonies proving a Resurrection Objections against the same answered Chap. XIX Of the most perfect effect of Christs Mediation in the salvation of man Several senses of Salvation noted That Salvation is immediately after death to them that truly dye in Christ And that there is no grounds in Antiquity or Scripture for that middle State called Purgatory The Proofs answered Of the Consequent of Roman Purgatory Indulgences The novelty groundlesness and gross abuse of them The Conclusion of the first part of this Introduction The Contents of the Second Part c. 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 Chap. II. Of the two parts of Divine worship Inward and Outward The Proof of Outward worship as due to God and that it is both due and acceptable to God Several Reasons proving bodily worship of God agreeable to him Wherein this bodily worship chiefly consists Certain Directions for bodily worship Exceptions against it answered Chap. III. Of the second thing considerable in Divine worship viz. The state wherein we serve God What is a state The formal cause of a state Divine Vowes What is a Vow The proper matter of Vows Evangelical Councils That it is lawful and useful to make Vows under the Gospel contrary to Peter Martyr The nature of Vowes explained Chap. IV. Of the matter of Vows in particular And first of the Virginal state that it is both possible and landable And that it is lawful to vow Celibacie or Widowhood No Presidents in the Old Testament favouring Virginity The Virgin Mary vowed not Virginity no Votary before the Annunciation 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 Conveniences and Inconveniences of wedded Life in Priests Chrysostom's Judgment of Marriage and Virginity recited Chap. VI. Of the third State of serving God a Life Monastical That it is not only lawful but may be profitable also The Exceptions of Mr. Perkins against it examined The abuses of Monastical Life touched That it is lawful to vow such a kind of Life duly regulated Chap. VII Of Religious worship the third thing considerable in it viz. The Exercise of it in the several kinds
of no personal concurrence to such deformity Yet not so neither but that it justly is denominated Sin from the very nature and effects of it For seeing whatever is in the Will must be good or evil and if the Will be found crooked perverse or averse to that it ought to incline to this is contrary to Gods institution and Law and whence ever this proceeds from an immediate act of our own or by traduction from others seeing it is found in the Will it must needs be contrary and consequently odious to God and in conclusion sinful Again as the fountain poisons and corrupts all streams flowing from thence so the Will being thus corrupt and naturally thus ill inclined all the other defects even in his body as well as soul contracted by this fall are as so many deformities in man which render him deservedly hated of God seeing such disparity and unlikeness to the worse to that which he first fram'd Thirdly Original sin in Man hath this more of disorder in it that it not only is a corruption of the will and thereby a deformity and vitiosity in the inferiour parts and faculties but it is of ill consequence For if this depravation went no farther than that evil born with us if it stand there and wrought no more evil the nature of it had been less sinful and more tolerable but being of an active nature and having taken up the chiefest room in the soul of Man it disposeth and impelleth to more mischief in actual transgressions As a Garrison held by a Rebel doth not only offend Sacred Majesty by standing out against him it self but when it finds it self strong enough and hath opportunity sallies out and makes invasion upon its proper Soveraign and offers actual and active violence against him So by this Original Evil first possessing the Soul doth Concupiscence stir and act by outward practises contrary to the Law and Will of God And therefore when St. Austin saith alledged by the corrupters of this Doctrine of Original Corruption They are born not properly but originally evil he no wayes contradicts his own Doctrine whereby he most of all farther explained and maintained this Original sin being the first that gave the name Original to that Pravity in man For true it is that that only is called properly Original Sin which Adam and Eve in person committed and were not subject to by nature as their Posterity are because it was the first in respect of mankind as well in order of time as nature and causality Again though this be traduced unto us his Off-spring and be the cause and fountain of all other sins actually committed afterward and for the same causes may rightly be called Original yet considering that this Evil thus vitiating our nature had no consent of our personal will we neither understood it nor any wayes affected it it cannot be so properly called sin as others which we act knowingly and willingly our selves For nothing is in strict way a sin which we do not consent unto in some manner either immediately or in its remoter causes And this doth yet farther appear because no man is bound to repent properly of Original sin Proper Repentance being an Act contrarying and reversing so far as in us lyes some evil by us done and not suffered involuntarily But Original sin is rather suffered than acted by the children of Adam Yet though in the severst sense we cannot be said to repent of Original sin we are bound to exercise some Act of Repentance for the same As grief and sorrow of mind and heart for the evil we lye under Confession and Recognition of our sad state before God Imploration of his mercie and favour to remove the same from us and restore us to our pristine innocencie and integrity For this those many places of Scripture describing this Evil do seem to require at our hand And no where doth the Scripture more fully declare this unto us than in the Fifth Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans which because Socinus and such as plough with his Heifer and are tickled with his pretty phansies in eluding the Apostles meaning and the constant interpretation of the most Ancient and Modern Expositours we shall more particularly consider It is undeniable that St. Paul Rom. 5. amplifying the grace of God and benefits unto mankind even the Gentiles by Christ Jesus doth there make a comparision from the Twelfth verse to the end of the Chapter of the first and second Adam and of the Evil we sustained by the first Man Adam and the benefits we receive by the second Man Christ To this he supposes the ground of his Comparison which is this that By one v. 12. man Sin entred into the world and death by Sin and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned This is made no more of than that Adam being the first Man in the world and sinning Sin must needs enter first into the world by him if he sinned first and that death followed upon that sin of Adam But if this be all how come the effects to exceed the cause and death to extend farther than sin For it is not only said that death entred into the world in seizing upon that single Malefactour Adam but So death passed upon all men for that all have sinned where two things are to be noted First the note of dependance and consequence So. For if St. Paul had meant that Adam by himself and only for himself introduced death wherefore serves the tearm So which is a certain indication of the manner how death came into the world upon all persons and as much as if it had been said Adam first sinning and bringing death into the world so it was that this death fell upon all men for that all have sinned Now it is certain that all that dye have not sinned personally and therefore Secondly the Note So must also ralate to the Cause of that death which was sin and is as much as Adam sinning his Posterity also sinned and became obnoxious to death For to say as some eminently learned and useful otherwise in their Doctrine of Repentance Death passed upon all i. e. say they Upon all the whole world who were drowned in the floud of Divine vengeance and who did sin after the similitude of Adam is as much as if another Scholiaâ—t like him had said That is upon all Senacheribs Armies before Jerusalem in the dayes of Hezekiah or Upon all the Romans in the battle of Canna with Hannibal For it is certain that all men dye and it is no less certain that all men without exception died not in the floud And therefore what is added upon these words In as much as all have sinned that by them is meant All have sinned upon their own account we have already shown that it is not absolutely true and therefore cannot be St. Pauls meaning For all that dye have not as did Adam or following Adams
understood as well of an evil habit and inveterate custome acquired of sinning which is wont to give Law to the Reason and Mind of Man as of Original sin we now speak of contra-distinct to it were it not that the stream of Ancient and Modern Interpreters hath given another sense not with modesty to be opposed Therefore yielding those many places to be meant of Concupiscence natural we are to distinguish answerable to what is abovesaid with the Bishop between Inhabiting Concupiscence and Actual Concupiscence And herein a little vary from him if he doth mean that those places are to be applyed to Concupiscence resident only and not actuated But of this latter he seems to speak and no doubt so is St. Paul to be understood and not of the other And without all doubt Concupiscence coming to act inwardly in the mind by coveting only inordinately or outwardly by executing the evil purposes of the mind are sin even in the most Regenerate And when this becomes a habit then it is called by St. Paul to the Romans The Old Man and the Body of Sin But when the Rom. 6 6. remains of that inhabiting Concupiscence which only can be properly called Original never come after the death and burial with Christ in baptism as the Apostle speaks often to recover new life and motions by Rom. 6. 3 4. Colos 2. 12. Gal. 3. 27. conceiving new warmth from outward temptations as in Infants dying before they come to be actual sinners and in those of riper years immediately after their baptism it cannot properly be said to be sin or to expose to damnation as all sin properly so called doth St. Austin quoted by that learned Bishop plainly affirmeth thus much saying Tale Aug. lib. 6. c. 5. In Julian tantum malum and such and-so great Evil as that Original only because it is in a man would oblige us to death and drag us to the last death but that its chain was broken in baptism All this we subscribe to and do profess that the hold Original sin had over us is loosed by Baptism Yet we profess with Thomas also quoted that when ever such Concupiscence comes into the Will be it of Regenerate or Unregenerate it puts on the nature of sin But we suppose the remains of that Original Evil to contain themselves where Baptism left them and not to proceed farther For this God certainly hates I mean progress of Concupiscence and as it is well argued God cannot hate any thing but sin But after Regeneration by Baptism or restauration to the vertue and power of Baptism and the benefit thereof by Repentance the Sin in kind as Lust Envie Murder Malice is odious unto God but as it relates to the Person once guilty of it it is no longer odious unto God why because it is covered it is pardoned it is not imputed it is as if it had not been For otherwise it could not be said Blessed is the man whose transgression Psal 32. 1 2. is forgiven whose sin is covered Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity and in whose spirit there is no guile But St. Paul to the Corinthians having recited those notorious sins unto which unmortified and unregenerate men were subject and guilty of adds And such were some 1 Cor. 6. 11. of you but ye are washed but ye are sactified but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of his Grace Meaning that upon their conversion unto Christ their washing in Baptism their having received the Holy Ghost they were acquitted from their former sins and judged innocent and pure before him And the Author to the Hebrews tells us Hebr. 9. 26. how Christ as an High Priest once in the end of the world hath appeared to put away sin by the Sacrifice of himself And to what end should any man multiply Texts to prove this to them who will affirm that all sin is damnable and grant that the Regenerate are not in a state of Damnation then surely they are not properly sinners or guilty I speak of the state of Remission and Absolution and as such as all Infants baptised are And the grown Christian because he may and is most prone to incur new sins after such absolution and purgation is not therefore to be said not to have been truly absolution and purgation is not therefore to be said not to have been truly freed from the guilt of sin passed before his baptism and thorow repentance For that this may happen experience and the testimony of St Peter witnesseth For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world 2. Pet. 2. 20. through the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ they are again entangled therein and overcome the latter end is worse with them than the beginning And what do they but in effect come off from their opinion of sinfulness in that Concupiscibleness rather than Concupiscence in the Regenerate who after all plainly grant that there is no guilt remaining in it of it self and thus answer the argument which proveth that it is no such sin as they hold because Original sin is the death of the soul and makes a man an enemy to God but Concupiscence in the Regenerate doth not this thus Original sin doth not cause spiritual death but only as it is linked with guilt but pardon being obtained in Baptism the guilt is taken away and makes not any man lyable to wrath but as he is found in the old Adam so soon as a man is of the number of the Regenerate he is found in the new Adam i. e. in Christ Now would it be known how any thing of the true nature of sin may be separated from guilt which is too hard for me to apprehend they being so intimately coupled together and convertible that as there cannot be conceived any guilt without sin so neither any sin without guilt And if they say the guilt is done away in Baptism or Repentance I will say the sin is done away too and maintain it If they had distinguished between the effects and fruits of Original sin and the sin it self the matter had been much plainer and easier and by their manner of proceeding in this Question it should seem they only drive at this For I grant what they allow that Baptism doth not free from all corruption of Original sin such as are blindness of the Mind and debility of the Will to embrace good entirely and infirmities of the body which by a Metonymie are called sin sometimes but the guilt it must necessarily or do nothing at all but what Calvine and Perkins and Cartwright and many dancing after their Pipe to the scandal of the Sacraments and the Reformation admit us into the outward communion of the Church and signifie the pardon of our sins from all eternity without including Baptism or Repentance which is made no more then a sign too I conclude this
In his state of innocencie and perfection or imperfection and blindness of mind God certainly knew that man was frail and apt to mistake when he delivered his Law How then is this an Apologie sufficient for him who gave such a Law as was disproportionable to his understanding at the time of giving it But then secondly considering that the understanding and the thing to be understood are Relatives and that it comes to the same end whether the Facultie be unapt to conceive or the Object unapt to be conceived such an excuse is to no purpose But yet withal wo must note that man is not to be excused from guilt in misunderstanding First be cause he willingly brought this defect upon himself by his Original â—â—lly and Falâ— of Secondly Because he through vile and vitious affections doth oftentimes contract a greater darkness and disorder than is natural to him even in this state of Original sin And God as all other Law-givers did not proportion the Law given according to the contingent dispositions of particular mens understanding but according to that common Scantling found generally in Man So that undoubtedly some men are the proper authors of their own ignorance in divine matters through their affected evil manners as the Scripture and the Fathers jointly shew A second General reason is from God 1. Calling man to the knowledge of himself and that by his word and never intending to alter the course of nature and general state of man in this life which was and is to be fallible Infallibilitie being the portion of the blessed in the life to come â—t were not impossible that God should either by so framing his word or so reframing man have secured him from erring about it but he hath not so done neither doth it appear how such Exemptions and priviledges could consist with his Providence more general For Secondly The Providence of God having determined to preserve humane and divine Societies as he had constituted this can hardly be understood to be more readily and safely effected than by mutual obligations and a necessity of mutual offices to be done one towards another And the first thing conducing hereunto is the Order of Governors and Governed of Masters and Scholars of such as teach and such as are taught in the Word But if every man were wise in the Laws of man had the power of the Sword justly given into his own hands or the power of the Word in his own breast then would there be no need at all of Rulers or teachers to teach or instruct or reprove and redress errours in manners because Every man is supposed to be an independent Prince and though he should offend against nature it self was not to be punished by one who had no autority over him Hence there fore it is that God most wisely hath suffered an inequalitie of Persons in all Ages all Faculties all Policies as well divine as humane that the more strickt the bond is the more intire the societie and unity might also be Thirdly As this discrimination secures the necessary relations between men within themselves so doth it the dependance between God and Man which must never be forgotten For as for the Father to deliver all the writings of his Estate to his son and to put him in present and full possession of all his wealth is the next way to tempt his son to forget and disrespect him and no more to acknowledg any duty to him in like manner were it so that God at once should have put man in ample and absolute knowledg of his holy writings and will without reserving to himself the farther manifestation of difficulter matters there would be no address to God no worship no seeking to him for satisfaction and information in the Care of his Soul One main end and office of prayer would be extinct So we read that God designing the Law to the Israelites provided aforehand That the ordinary Rulers should judg the people at all time but the hard causes they should bring to Moses and Moses himself cases too hard for him to God As in the Case of him that gathered sticks on the Sabbath day and of Zelophehads daughters Fourthly God suffers this to the end he might quicken and excite our Endeavours and industry in the search after his holy will so reveiled unto us For were it so that all things were presently and readily obvious unto us there would be wanting that excellent vertue of labour to which God hath ordained all men since the fall to perserve them from greater mischiefs incident to weak man And besides contempt and slighting are Besides those Texts of Scripture which by reason of wisdom and depth of sense and mystery laid up in them are not yet conceived there are in Scripture of things that are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seemingly confused 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 carrying semblance of Contrariety and Achronisms Metachronisms and the like which brings infinite obscurity to the text There are I say more of them in Scripture then in any writer that I know secular or divine Dr. Hales Serm. 1. p. 22. alwaies the consequent of what is plain and familiar to us And therefore that argument which some use to prove all things evident in Scripture and others contrariwise that all things are unquestionable in the Church so that according to the opinion of the one a man committing himself to the holy Scriptures and according to the other submitting himself to the Church in all things he may promise himself security rather than safety do make more against this It being more certainly the Will of God while we war in the Church militant we should never rest secure from due solicitudes and temptations but by often contentions with him to preserve our selves from falling from the true Faith or falling into a false Faith A third General reason of the obscurities in Scripture may be taken from the Scriptures themselves which not compared with the general ability of mans reason and understanding only but with other writings also are of difficult access and that will be thought no calumnie if it be considered First That the languages in which they were originally written are so far perished now adayes that they are familiar to no nation neither can the many Idioms and proprieties of the phrase be well understood by us Secondly The Histories thereof and the several customes rites Civil and Religious amongst the Heathens as well as Jews and Christians the habits gestures and acts very easily known and readily apprehended by such as lived in those dayes and places are now hardly to be understood Thirdly The difficulty of distinguishing between Canonical and Uncanonical Writings Fourthly The subtilty and artifices of Heretiques in their corrupting if not the Letter yet perverting the genuine sense Yea the very Orthodox Expositors are themselves so various and unconsenting in the true meaning that they much more distract and unsettle
necessary to Salvation are as clear as those under the Old But this is not so clear as Circumcision To which we answer That this is as true taking in the whole manifestation of Gods will For the clearness of the Sacraments enjoyned in the Old Testament do conduce to the clearness of them signified by them And there needs nothing more be said for the clearing of the necessity of these than to admit them to have succeeded those two in the Old Testament And we find not such necessity particularly imposed upon us of receiving the Eucharist as was upon the Israelites of receiving the Paschal Lamb but general necessity without determination of time or place the Gospel expresseth unto us upon the hope of salvation which is sufficient The vertue and Efficacie of this Sacrament above-touched proves this farther but it needs it self be proved according to those extravagant opinions brought by Modern Divines into the Church that it is only a seal of our Faith and eternal Favour of God in Predestinating us to Glory As if First all according to their judgements that were baptized were ordained to Glory and this were assured them by that Seal Or Secondly that God had Predestinated any to Life without the necessary means to it Or that remission of sins Actual and the expiation of Original were not necessary to the entring into Life or that God had so simply and absolutely ordained us to heaven that he had not ordained these two as Means to obtain Perkins on Gal. 2. v. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theod Haret Fabul 5. c. 2. this For what can be a more horrible prophanation of this Sacrament then to say with one upon the Galatians We are born Christians if our Parents believe and not made so in Baptism Which is contrary to the Doctrine of our Catechism and the whole stream of Primitive Doctors of the Church from whom we may Gather this threefold Effect of Baptism First it is not only a sign as the same Persons say of our Covenant but it is the Covenant it self made between God and Man For God indeed doth make a Promise but he maketh no Covenant otherwise than by Baptism God made a Promise to Abraham that his seed should be blessed before Circumcision but he made no Covenant with him but by Circumcision nor is any actually in the Covenant of Faith but by being baptized Doth not the Scripture expresly say that God gave Abraham the Covenant of Act. 7. 8. Circumcision Circumcision then was not only a Sign of that Covenant though that it were but an Essential part of it Circumcision therefore was a sign in a twofold sense First in respect of the Covenant under the Law as words whereof the Covenant consists are signs of the Will of the Covenanters to the ear and works outward are in like manner signs of the same to the Eye which sort of signs are not distinct from the thing it signifies For God Covenanted with Abraham that he should use those Ceremonies Now this outward visible Covenant was a sign of an inward and invisible relating to the righteousness of Faith as St. Paul saith of Abraham And he received the Sign of Circumcision a Seal of the Righteousness Rom 4. 11. of Faith So that is the Second way in which Circumcision may be said to be a sign viz. As the whole Sacramental Covenant of which it was a part signified the Covenant of Faith into which we are entred by Baptism as the Jews into the other by Circumcision A Second effect of Baptism is to wash away all sins as well Original as Actual of which that Prophesie of Zacharie is generally understood In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and Zechar. 13. 1. to the inhabitants of Jerusalem For sin and for uncleanness To which St. Paul agrees in his Epistle to the Ephesians speaking of the Church That Eph. 5. 26. he might sanctifie it and cleanse it by the washing of water by the word Where the Word sanctifieth the Water and the water sanctifieth the Person which it can no otherwise do then by washing off the sins of the Soul As St. Peter hath it Not the putting away of the filth of the flesh but the answer 1 Pet. 3. 21. of a good Conscience towards God That is at the time of baptism whereby the filth of the Spirit necessarily implied to make up the correspondence is put away And St. Paul telleth the Corinthians They were washed 1 Cor. 6. they were Sanctified viz. By Baptism But whether Original sin be so far extinguished in the baptized as no more remains should be found is much doubted to which we briefly and clearly answer from the distinction of Sins For sometimes the Cause of sin is termed sin Sometime the Effect of Sin is called Sin whereas Sin is properly the Evil Act it self or the omission of an act due from us Original Sin in us is not so properly called Sin as it was in Adam who actually sinned and that with a consent of his own will But it is rather the Effect of his Actual transgression which doth originally adhere to us and is called sin upon this threefold account First because it is the necessary effect or consequence of Adams Sin as we find Moses to speak in Deuteronomy And I took your sin the Calfe which ye made The Calfe was the fruit of their Sin and Deut. 9. 21. not their sin it self So is that evil Effect the Sin Original because it is the evil consequence of it Secondly It is Sin because it doth partake of the nature of sin in one of the principal parts making up sin They are two The Obliquity of the Act or Deformity and disagreement to the accurate Law of God and the disobedience of the will and pravity thereof This latter original sin as it was actual in Adam had as well as the former but so is it not with us There can be no such disobedience in the Will where there is no Will. There is no will in Infants besides the remote faculty it self and therefore all sin yea all humane acts requiring consent of the Will original sin cannot be sin in this sense But taking sin for a dissonancy from 1 Joh. 3. 4. the Law and Rule as St. John doth and that conformity as is justly required by the Law certainly that Original depravation and corruption found generally in our natures at our first entrance into the World may truly be called sin because it makes us to differ so much from that God made us and intended us to be Thirdly Original sin hath this likewise denominating it sin that it is the cause of sin that original inclination to sin being that which moves us all unto the actual commission of sin which St. Paul surely aimeth at where he saith Now then it is no more I that do Rom. 7. 17. it but sin that dwelleth in
or equity of it or not saying Nay but O man What art thou that replyest against God Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it Why hast thou made me thus Hath not the Potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour No man that acknowledges and every Christian must acknowledge the like and greater power and prerogative in God over Man than the Potter hath of his clay can deny that God may order the work of his hands as he pleases neither can he deny but the drift of the Apostle in this comparison was to show the absolute power and dominion of God over all Creatures and therefore let them see how they aggravate matters of this nature and multiply fond ratiocinations which they cannot but know agree not with St. Pauls stating and decision of this Question I do freely grant the adverse Party that St. Paul doth not at all concern himself with that kind of Predestination Election or Vocation as very many confidently presume he doth in his Eighth and Ninth Chapters to the Romans I mean not particular or personal Prae-determination and the like the whole letter and the occasion of his discourse there being concerning the Election of the Gentile Church and the uncessant protection thereof against all threatnings and Oppositions and disputing the equity of Gods deserting the Jewish Church yet thus far his argument being general holds good in particular persons that if it be free to God without any just exceptions to choose and leave a Church or Nation at his pleasure and according to the counsel of his own will it is also reasonable and just for him to favour or show disfavour to any single person in like acts of his Providence without being called in question for what he doth or not doth CHAP. XIV Of Sin more particularly And first of the Fall of Adam Of Original sin wherein it consisteth and how it is traduced from Father to children The Proofs of it The Nature and Evils of it And that it is cured in baptism That Natural Concupiscence hath not the Nature of Sin after baptism BY what is said competent satisfaction may be had in that mystery of Gods Providence in the fall and sin of the first Man created as we have shewed in such perfection of natural Faculties and divine Grace the reason absolute and demonstrative whereof cannot be rendred by the witâ— of Man viz. Why God should make such a fine and exquisite piece and deliver it over presently to ruin and loss It may suffice that God was not the direct cause of such his Fall by impelling him though his Free-will embracing the Temptation he was privy to his errour As it was in that memorable case of the death of Benhadad King of Syria in the second of the Kings when Hazael was sent to enquire Whether he should recover 2 Kings 8. 10. of that Sickness The Prophet Elisha answered Go say unto him thou mayest certainly recover how be it the Lord hath shewed me that he shall surely dye And this was the true case of Adam whom God knew to have full power certainly to stand and yet he knew he would surely fall As therefore God in that case spake after the method and manner of mans apprehension so he here acted In that he first said the King might surely recover and this was according to the common order of natural Causes which then were upon him in his sickness which were such as were easily resisted and like to have no such effect But then God withal beholding that which was not seen of man perhaps not thought on by the Actour himself at that time he saw withal a necessary dependencie and connexion between another cause and that effect which followed and so declared surely the contrary to the other In like manner God beholding Adam in that integrity and vigour of gifts and Graces with which he had furnished him saw him in a certain condition to persevere in that state but seeing withal the future outward cause of Temptation he might well see the effect what it would be infallibly So that when we say a thing is contingent we cannot say so in respect of all causes but in respect of some special cause to which in our opinion and observation such an effect may seem properly to belong For it is a true Axiome amongst Logicians All causes accidental are reducible to proper and direct causes So that there was no necessity by Gods appointment of Adams Fall as he was framed of God but somewhat might occurr outwardly which by Gods permission might have as certain effect upon the will of Man though Free of it self and indifferent as had the wet cloath laid by Hazael 2 Kings 8. 15. upon the face of Benhadad this only excepted That what natures simple Act did in this the will of man combining freely against himself with those outward causes suffered in that The thing therefore principally to be here enquired after is rather about the Nature of this Sin in Adam and the Effects thereof And as to the former it is to be observed That what was in him an Actual sin became in us an Original and what was free to him to be subject to it or void of it becomes necessary to us and inevitable It might be called in some sense an Original sin in him as it was the first in nature and time he stood guilty of but not as if his Nature was from the beginning so corrupt as to dispose him unto it Again in him it was of it self purely sinful and a transgression of Gods Law upon which followed evil effects but in us it seems to partake originally of both sin and punishment but chiefly of this latter For though they speak truly in the larger sense who make three things proper and inseparable from Sin Guilt Stain and Punishment yet restraining our selves to the true Nation of it there are these two things only essential to it The matter it self which is the evil act committed against the Law of God or which commeth to the same omitted contrary to the same And the manner or formality of it which consisteth in the perversness and pravity of the will which is so essential to it that it both distinguishes the errours of rational men from them of beasts and mad-men and them of the same Man from one another so that what was done voluntarily and freely differs wholly from that done with incogitancie so not affected for then the will concurs with it and infects it and without any intention so to do as to point of moral Goodness or Evil. And according to the bent or averseness of the will to evil commonly are estimated the degrees of evil But though in Adam all these things concurred to the heightening of his Actual sin yet in those that inherit that evil from him the sin must needs be much less in Nature and lighter because
Apostle speaks of the state of Evil or Condemnation in the next of the state of Restitution and Justification For as all persons were included in the Condemnation of Adam so were all included in the Justification of Christ But as of all them only some many were through his disobedience made Sinners that is became such sinners as not to return to actual Righteousness and Salvation so by the obedience of Christ not all who were called and chosen came to Life and Holiness but many only were made Righteous actually and not all Or if we take the word Sin as he of whom we speak doth not so much for the real inward vitiousness of the soul but for any outward defect and which is yet more for the Punishment of Sin in which sense the Sacrifice for sin was called Sin in the Old Law and Christ in the New Testament is said to be made Sin for us that is a Sacrifice for Sin so that to be made sinners should import as much as to be made lyable to the punishment of sin the matter is the same But because this Authour not only inclines to the Opinion of Pelagius and of Socinus after him making the corruption of nature nothing and therefore exempting Infants from any such natural infection as we here suppose but uses the same evasion of Imitation of Adams sin and not propagation as the original of all Evil to us therefore let us hear what St. Austins argument was against that Opinion If saies he the Apostle spake Aug. Epist 87. of Sin by imitation and not propagation entring into the world he could not have said that by one Man Sin entred into the world but rather by the Devil for he sinned before man and as the Wiseman saith Through envie Wisd 2. 24. of the Devil came death into the world And Christ tells us how aptly the Devil may be said to propagate sin by imitation as well as Adam thus reprehending the Jews Ye are of your Father the Devil and the Lusts of John 8. 44. your Father ye will do he was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him when he speaketh a lye he speaketh it of his own for he is a lyar and the Father of it And when St. Paul saith We were by nature the children of wrath as well Ephes 2. 3. Psalm 51. 5. as others And the Psalmist Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in Sin did my mother conceive me that these places must be accounted hyperbolical and not to have a proper sense is the special evasion of Modern Wits not comparable to Ancienter Judgments more simply understanding them I know a more colourable interpretation is made by others who interpret Conceiving in sin as relating to the Parents and not to the Children But this is less probable than the ordinary and obvious sense applying it to David For though it may be probable enough that Parents may offend in acts of Procreation and so the child may be said to be conceived by them in sin yet David being at the speaking of these words in deepest repentance for his own sins cannot be said to leave off that subject and to confess the sins of others and charge his parents with that which concerned him not Again when he says He was shapen in iniquity nothing could he say more intimately to signifie his proper state at the time of his first conception But the Scriptures do not only barely say we are originally thus infected and sinful but by the effects and certain other indications declare the same The first and chiefest of which may be Death and punishments sticking close to infants at their birth and even before they come into the world Now the Law of God being unalterable that punishment should follow and not go before sin it must be that somewhat of the nature of sin must prepare the way for such sufferings Secondly That all men come to years of discretion are effected with Actual sin few of the opposers of Original sin deny But according to Reason and Scripture both the fountain being so infected and corrupted whatever flows from it must of necessity partake of the same evil For Job 14. 4. Jam. 3 11 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Anâ—ae Gazaei Thâ—â—â—hrastus Biblioth P P. pag. 392. To. 8. Non eniâ— es ex â—â—lis qui modo nova quaedam gannire câ—perunt dicentes nullum reatum esse ex Adam tractum qui per baptisâ—um in infante sâ—lvatur Aug. Epist 28. Hieronymo Ad neminem ante bona mens â—enit quam mala Omnes prâ—â—ccupati sumus Sen. Ep. 50. Nemo difficulter ad naturam reducitur nisi qui ab â—a defecit ibid. who saith Job can bring a clean thing out of an unclean not one And St. James Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter Can a fig-tree my brethren bear olive-berries either a vine figs so can no fountain yield both salt water and fresh From whence it follows by way of just Analogy That the Fountain being corrupt there must be derived to the Rivolets the like unsoundness And thirdly we see this by experience that both bodily and mental infirmities and disorders are traduced from Father to Son in actual Evils as the Gout Stone and Leprosie are transinitted to posterity from the Father and Anger and other passions in like manner It may as well be said That the Son hath the Gout and halts by imitation and not by propagation as that such other affections which are common to Father and Son so proceed Fourthly The Argument which St. Augustine could never by the Pelagians be answered taken from Baptism For this they could not deny but the Church universally practised Paeda-baptism that is held an opinion manifested in practise that Children were capable of that Sacrament and received the benefit of it however some particular persons deferred the same and held it of use unto them for the entring into the Kingdom of Heaven Therefore surely there must be some impediment and that impediment could be nothing but what hath the nature of sin in it therefore they bring sin with them into the World Pelagius had a good mind indeed as Austin observed to have denyed the use of Baptism but as bold as he and his great second Julian of Capua was the general Judgment of the Church declared in the practise of it put a stop to his inclinations but Socinus bolder than any Heretick before him sticks at no such thing but flatly denyes the use of it to all but such as are converted newly to the Christian Faith as in the times of the Apostles This was freely and roundly invented and uttered and which suffices alone to convince us of the former errour denying Original Sin which was alwayes held a principal cause of Baptism Lastly Thus much may be observed by natural Reason to the confirmation of Original Sin
which Seneca noted but could give no reason of No man saith he is of a good mind before he is of a bad one we are all prevented And in the same place he saith No body is with difficulty reduced to Nature but he that hath made a defection from it Now supposing that God made all things perfect and instituted the nature of man more inclinable to acts agreeable to that perfection than to the contrary whence can it come that contrariwise Man naturally inclineth to that which is base and unworthy and is hardly taken off that corrupt way of acting contrary to reason and vertue and reduced to a perfection becoming his Institution and End but that the very principle of his nature is hurt and the root corrupt And because nothing can be Author of its own Principles by which it subsists no man can be said by his own act to have corrupted them Indeed we say a Man is of corrupt Principles when he hath contracted some evil habits disposing to wickedness but that is accessorie and not innate to him And if it be farther urged That no man can be guilty by anothers fault nor corrupted by anothers principle it is answered as before so long as it is only that others and not his own in some degree For as Thomas hath distinguished There is a Principle of Nature and a Principle of a Person and a Sin of Nature and a Sin of a Person Adam had not only principles whereby he himself subsisted but also was the principle of all his Successours So that Original sin was as well the sin of the one as the other So that from the depraved will of Adam as the first principle of all came the corruption of the Will of all Whereupon speaking strictly as we have said this Original sin is not properly sin in the Infant but a want of Original Justice seizing him and exposing him to destruction as Thomas and Catharinus also have taught which two are the effects of the sin of Adam upon himself and children but the very formal Reason of sin in his Posterity For where as some say It is natural Concupiscence moving to Evil and others That it is the absence of Divine Justice and Grace they differ rather in the niceties of speech than in the matter it self For to me it seems that the loss of Divine Perfection and Grace superadded to the nature of Man whereby he was abundantly able to secure himself and glorifie God in that state of happiness most neerly expresses the nature of it as in the sons of Adam For in Adam himself it was actual disobedience but Concupiscence inordinate doth rather express the consequence of it For upon that desolation in the soul of Man quickly arose a disorder of the inferiour Affections which by a general name is called Concupiscence or Lust by the Apostle in his Seventh Chapter to the Romans And Natural it is called because as out of the cursed ground sprang up briers thorns weeds and thistles where more useful fruit of the earth was intended so upon this curse of mans soul Evil motions arose to the hurrying him to Actual sin being themselves really sinful Again it is observable for the true resolution of the Question That there is commonly an ambiguity in this tearm Concupiscence it being sometimes taken for the act and exercise of that vitious principle in man fallen and sometimes for the Pravitie and degenerate temper of the soul making it prone to actual sins This latter is that which is properly called Original Sin though more properly Original unholiness or want of that instituted Integrity with which man was at first endowed and in it three things are to be considered First the privation of Supernatural Good Secondly Proneness to unnatural Evil against God Thirdly Odiousness and Culpableness before God who must needs be offended at the sight of so much deformity in his Creature contrary to his first Institution of it and Intention though this evil habitude should never break out into actual Rebellion against him by the exercise or putting it in execution by actual Concupiscence against the Law of God St. James seemeth Jam. 1. 14. to justifie this distinction where he saith Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lusts and enticed This gives us the original Lust or Concupiscence which inclines and moves to sin and to this is it to be imputed that a man so easily is withdrawn from truth and righteousness and noble acts becoming his high nature He goeth on Then when Lust hath conceived it bringeth forth Sin c. that is when the Radical Concupiscence or Concupiscibleness in man becomes impregnated and matured by outward opportunities and occasions of sinning it bringeth forth into outward act sin and the event and consequence of this sin is death So that the innate Lust lurking in the Soul and not actuated by outward occasions either inwardly to effect and desire or outwardly to act sin is not properly sin but metonymically only either as it is the effect of Adams sin or the cause of our sins but it is properly odious to God and exposing us to his heavy wrath so far at least as is seen in the deprivation of that be atitude to which man was at first designed And this exactly agrees with the nature of that sin For as that which was in Adam was actual disobedience in his Posterity is only want of that perfection which was due to their nature So Adam not only incurred the loss of that bliss he was capable of and in the ready way to enjoy but likewise the punishment of Sense answerable to his Sin of Commission and his Posterity was made subject to the punishment and loss of Gods favour and that bliss they were in Adam once ordained unto But when their Sins become Actual they are subject to punishment of Pain and torment for the same And by this the way is well prepared to make answer to that common doubt concerning the effect of Baptism and the state of the Regenerate in reference to Original sin and Concupiscence viz. whether Concupiscence remaining after Baptism in the Regenerate be sin or not Scriptures are alledged with great colour on both sides It is observed by Bishop Davenant that St. Paul calls Original Concupiscence sin in fourteen Davenant Deâ—â—rm â— several places in his sixth seventh and eighth Chapter to the Romans which if so Original sin it self must needs be oftner mentioned in Scripture than will be granted by many For mine own particular I see none of those places so exprest in the description of it that the law of Sin the Body Lex Peccati est violentiâ— consuctudinis qua trabit tenetur etiam invitus animus â—â— merito quo in cam volens illabitur Aug. in Confess Lib 3 c. 5. of Sin the Law of the Members the Lust of the Mind and Flesh and some other expressions to the same effect may not be
but they were the intermediate effects of the stock of Grace treasured up in the Soul and exhorting and improving it self by the continual supplie of the Spirit of Christ according to the * Mat. 25. 16. doctrine of St. Paul to the Corinthians saying Insomuch that we desired Titus that as he had begun so he would also finish in you the same Grace also Therefore as ye abound in every thing in Faith in utterance in knowledge and v. 7. in all diligence and in your love to us see that ye abound in this Grace also Of this influence of Christs Spirit to the augmentation of Grace in the hearts of the true believers speaketh the same Apostle to the Colossians thus The Col. 2. 19. Head from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministred and knit together encreaseth with the encrease of God Sanctification then may be described The Grace of God infused into the Soul of a Sinner and purifying it by Faith as Justification is the reputation and acceptation of a person for Just by almighty God through the intuition of the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ And yet more distinctly to declare their mutual agreement and difference it will conduce much to the due understanding of them both First then Justification and Sanctification agree in their Subject The true believer the same person who is Sanctified being also Justified and he that is Justified being Sanctified also For so saith the prophet Nahum of him The Lord is slow to anger and great in power and will not at all acquit the wicked Nahum 1. 3. And when we find St. Paul affirming the contrary in appearance viz. that God justifieth the ungodly we are to understand him to speak not in Rom. 4. 5. Sensu composito in such manner that he is justified while he is so ungodly but in Sensu diviso a distinct sense and season as if it had been said Him that was once ungodly as he seems to interpret himself in his Epistle to the Corinthians where having spoken of the many abominations men were subject to he saith And such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are 1 Cor. 6. 11. Sanctified but ye are Justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God Secondly Justification and Sanctification agree in their foundation which is at least inchoate and initial holiness For though no mans inherent holiness arises so high as to denominate him truly Just or holy for its own sake yet both to Sanctification and Justification is necessarily required some preparatorie and imperfect holiness consisting principally in the Conversion of the mind to God from sin Thirdly both Sanctification and Justification are alike owing to Faith as their immediate Cause next under Gods Spirit as may be gathered from the prayer of Christ for his disciples Sanctifie them through thy truth thy word is Joh. 17 17. truth That is the doctrine of Faith received To which Faith the effect of Sanctification is ascribed by St. Peter in the Acts whereby the Act. 15. 9. hearts of the Gentile were purified or Sanctified Fourthly they are both equally imputed unto us through the Righteousness of Christ Therefore saith St. Paul to the Corinthians To them that are Sanctified in Christ Jesus And 1 Cor. 1. 2. Heb. 10. 29. to the Hebrews it is said We are Sanctified by the blood of the Covenant So that no less are we Sanctified then Justified by Christs death and merits and the imputation of them But on the other side they are distinct in some formalities such as these may be for First the immediate cause of our Sanctification is in holy Scripture imputed to the operation and influence of the Holy Spirit as our Justification is more properly attributed to Christ the mediator between God and man As appeareth from St. Pauls words to the Thessalonians But we are bound to give thanks alwayes for you brethren beloved of the Lord 2 Thes 2. 13. because God hath from the beginning chosen you to Salvation through Sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth And St. Peter Elect according 1 Pet. 1. 2. to the foreknowledge of God the Father and Sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience Thirdly Justification looketh backward being an absolution of the guilty from sins formerly committed and holding him Just but no man is justified actually from sins which hereafter he may fall into But Sanctification relates chiefly to the time future For not only is a sinner by the Spirit of Regeneration and Sanctification purged from the old Leaven of sin and malice but he becometh a New Lump and unleavened 1 Cor. 5. 7. Rom. 6. 13. and whereas he hath yielded his members as Instruments of unrighteousness unto sin he doth yield himself unto God as those that are alive from the dead And old things are done away in him and all things become new And whosoever is 1 Joh. 3. 9. thus born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God Fourthly to the Act of our Justification the will of man doth not necessarily concurr though it dissents not but is rather passive than Active but to our Sanctification is absolutely required the co-operation of the will and affections of man with the Grace of God in all those who have attained unto the use of reason For indeed by baptism Infants are so far Sanctified as to be freed from that hereditarie evil incident unto them which their will concurred not to but to actual Sanctification from those evils our wills did freely consent actual concurrence of our wills is necessary Fifthly Our Justification is entire and absolute at once no man being partly Justified and partly not Justified though he be partly Just and partly unjust or unholy But no man in this Life is so perfectly Sanctified as that there wants not somewhat to consummate the same because Justification being altogether the Act of God and not at all of Man God may and doth wholly and freely remit the guilt of sin to the penitent offendor But Man being also concerned in the Sanctification of himself his acts are imperfect and defective so that the effect it self partakes of the same and so Sanctification continues imperfect And it is not all at once but answerable to our natural man proceedeth by degrees Until we all come Eph 4. 13. in the unity of the Faith and of the knowledg of the son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the Stature of the fulness of Christ which fulness of stature is that we are to hope for and enjoy only in heaven Lastly to search no farther into this point before Justification there must of necessity goe some degree of Sanctification even in the opinion of such as contend most rigorously for freeness of Justification for to make Justification altogether
Justice But to arrive in this doubtful and perplexed way to the right end of this Dispute it will be necessarie to pass briefly through all the several Causes of our Justification and so much the rather because divers before have so done and failed in their Divinity because of a mistake in Logick in miscalling Causes And first we must know otherwise then some have taught That the Material Cause of our Justification is not the graces in us nor the pardon without us nor remission of sins nor obedience of Christ nor of our selves but the person justified is the subject of Justification For who with good sense can say Our sins are justified our good works are Justified Acts. 13. 3â— True it is St. Paul saith by him Christ all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be Justified by the Law of Moses Shewing hereby that we are Justified from our sins but not that our sins are Justified And so where St. James speaks so often of which hereafter that we are Justified by Works he intendeth not to say our Works are Justified For t is the person not the qualities of him that is Justified And if any speak otherwise they must be helpt out by recurring to Figurative not proper speaking In such cases as these if ever we would judge aright we must hold as precisely as can be to propriety of speech About the Final cause of our Justification I find nothing singular but in common with all the Acts of God towards man and all the Actions of Man towards God viz The glory of God Neither is there any difference of parties herein But concerning the Formal Cause of our Justification before God some discord is found yea concerning a Formal Cause in General what it is and wherein it consisteth which is very necessarie to be understood to attain to the true notion of being Formally Justified A Formal Cause then is that whereby a thing is what it is subsists in it self and is distinguished from other things being always essential and intrinsecal to the thing so by it constituted that it cannot be so much as conceived without it and cannot possibly but be with it This whether artificial or not I weigh not much but is a true description of that Cause For instance sake A man is a man properly by his soul and not by his body his soul being his Inward form and as it is impossible that he should be so without it so is it impossible but that he should be so with it whatever outward visible defects or imperfections may appear otherwise So in the present cause it must necessarily be that the Formal Cause of our Justification be intrinsecal to the Justified person and that not being that he should not be justified Contrary to what some have affirmed upon this occasion who from an instance of an Eclipse would show that the formal Cause is not alwayes intrinsecal to that which it formeth For say they as it should seem by the autority of Zabarel In an Eclipse of the Sun the Moon interposing is the formal Cause of the Darkness of the Earth and yet it is not intrinsecal to it but separate But the mistake is plain that the Moon being not the cause of the earth it self but of the darkness of the earth only it is not the Formal Cause of that and so may be extrinsecal to it and intrinsecal to the darkness as the formal cause but whether this be so or not we are here only to show that no cause formal can be external to the thing of which it is the form and by consequence that nothing without us can be the formal cause of our Justification or that whereby we are denominated Just before God So that neither Christ nor his merits do render us so Justified And therefore they who to magnifie the mistery of our Justification do object to themselves How a man can be Just by the justice of another and how righteous by another persons righteousness any more than a man can hear with another mans ears or see with another mans eyes do tie such a knot as they can by no means loose For in plain truth neither the one nor the other can formally be But they may say As it is Christs righteousness indeed and rests only in him so we cannot be said to be justified formally by it but as it is made ours especially by Faith and is applied unto us so we may be formally Justified by it To which I say that if that individual formal Righteousness which is in Christ were by any means so transferred formally unto us and infused into us that we should in like manner possess it as did Christ then indeed the argument would hold very good that by such application we were Justified formally by Christs righteousness but no such thing will be granted neither is any such thing needfull For though the Scripture saith directly that Christ is The Lord our Phil. 3. 9. righteousness and St. Paul desireth to be found in Christ not having his own righteousness which is of the Law but that which is through the Faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by Faith Yet we are not to understand hereby that the formal righteousness of Christ becomes our formal Righteousness but that he is by the Gospel he revealed unto us the teacher of Righteousness and that far different from that Righteousness of the Law which St. Paul calls his own as that which he brought with him to Christ and he is Justification is neither but a certain action in God applied unto us or a certain respect or relation whereby we ar acquit of our sins and accepted to life everlasting Perkins Gal 2. 16. Rom. 8. 30. the Prime Cause of our Righteousness sending his holy Spirit unto us and by his merits appeasing the wrath of God and satisfying his Justice for us all which is not the formal cause of our Righteousness or Justification For neither is that formal righteousness in us which is inherent Righteousness the formal Cause of our Justification But our Justification formal is an Act of God terminating in Man whereby he is absolved from all guilt reputed Just and accepted to Grace and favour with God When God hath actually passed this divine free and gracious sentence upon a sinner then and not before is he formally Justified This is the end and consummation of all differences between God and man and the initiating him into all saving Grace here and Glory hereafter as St. Paul writing to the Romans witnesseth in these words Whom he predestinated them he also called and whom he called them he also Justified and whom he justified them he also glorified CHAP. XIX Of the Efficient Cause of Justification IT remains therefore now that we proceed to the means causes and motives inducing God Almighty thus to Justifie Man a sinner whom he might rather condemn for his unrighteousness And these as
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
nay the Parties Jest with that Sacred Rite never so lightly if there be a performance of such things as are outwardly required to that solemnity it holds good to all intents and purposes even against the resolutions of the persons principally concerned therein Yet must we acknowledge a vast difference between those two most properly called Sacraments Baptism and the supper of the Lord. For undoubtedly where in either of these there is a repugnancy of the will to them their effect is nothing upon the person receiving them because this is the principal obstacle of all to the efficacy yet is the Sacrament never the less valid and truly performed as to the Nature of it And concerning the Efficacy of the Sacraments it is worth our enquiry especially for their sakes who ascribing very injudiciously and injuriously the Grace of Sanctification and Justification absolutely to a special Faith thought of but lately amongst Christians or to the unsearchable Decree of Almighty God to justifie and save such persons as are ordained to Life and Salvation affirm this Decree and good purpose of God to effect all things necessary to salvation and that the Sacraments are received only as so many pledges and seals of the good will of God in our Justification and Salvation long before concluded immutably towards us but are of no efficacy or vertue to bring them about This though Calvin Cartwright Perkins plainly and directly asserted by some eminent Reformers is no better than a pestilent Errour contrary to all Antiquity of Ecclesiastical and Scriptural Writers Of which latter it suffices to instance in those obvious places which directly inferra necessity of them and ascribe a vertue to them of effecting and not only signifying Grace or sealing it unto us For Matthew the 3. v. 11. St. John distinguishing his Baptism Mat. 3. 11. from the Baptism of Christ assureth that Christ should Baptize with the Holy Ghost and not only with Water Now if water alone signifies or seals for there is no such great difference between these as commonly is supposed and therefore the Baptism that Christ used having more in it than so it follows that it must be the efficacy and grace of the Holy Spirit And they who take notice of this argument to answer that the difference between Johns Baptism and that of Christ here prophesied of consists in this That Johns was an outward washing Christs an inward doth confirm what I said For surely this inward being invisible can be no outward sign or seal whose natures are to be visible and apparent And therefore it must be that Baptism of Grace wrought in the inward man And doth Christ when he saith Mark 16. 16. He that believeth and is Baptized Mark 16. 16. shall be saved doth he mean no more than It is a sign he shall be saved Or he hath his salvation which came onely by believing sealed unto him Or are they not rather equally conjoyned to the same effect Salvation So that no more can a man expect to be saved by believing without being Baptized than he can by being Baptized without believing And this is manifest from the Baptism of Infants which puts tham into a state of salvation even before actual faith in them Again Being born of Water and the Holy Ghost of which Christ John 3. 5. speaks in St. John meaning thereby Baptism must needs be more than certain indications and signs of life Christ sayes there expresly we are born by Water and not that we are known to be born by Water only And where as Calvin with diverse followers of the Reformation presume to interpret this Water as elswhere Fire of the Holy Ghost and not of the proper Element Water I make no scruple to accuse them of extreme insolence for so doing as well because they needlesly and more immodestly oppose the unanimous consent of the Ancient Interpreters expounding it of Water-Baptism than I do contradict them whom I alwayes set in a lower form to them as also because the thing it self declares the contrary sense to be more agreeable to the mind of the Holy Ghost For Water and the Holy Ghost are put here not exegetically as they speak but distinctly as two several things concurring to the same end For though John in St. Matthew addeth to the Holy Ghost Fire as Water is in S. John Acts 2. 3. seeing there is found a real and proper verification of this baptism of fire which was at the day of Pentecost when the Apostles and Disciples were visited with fiery Tongues from above there is no necessity of fleeing to a meer metaphor and if there be none here there is none in that place where water is joyned with the Holy Ghost And reading no where that even the Holy Ghost appeared in the likeness of water we are constrained to take this properly of external water Furthermore when an effect is ascribed to a thing why should we make doubt to ascribe an efficacie or agencie to that reputed Cause But to Baptism is ascribed remission of sins as Acts 2. 38. Repent ye saith St. Peter Acts 2. 3â— and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins c. And elsewhere in the Acts God commandeth St. Paul Arise Acts 22. 16. and be baptized and wash away thy sins Can any thing but a fond partiality to the new glosses of Modern Divines incline any man to think otherwise of Baptism here than of force to take away sins Here they demand with a Passion What Ex Opere Operato From the work of Baptism done I answer The work done of it self is not thus efficacious as is said but the Co-operation of the Holy Spirit which God hath set over that work and its influence effecteth thus much Lastly The Introducers and Defenders of this opinion of the ineffectualness of the Sacraments allowing an efficacie to excite and nourish Faith which with them does all things why should they be so nice and timorous in granting another effect of the same nature For to encrease and confirm Faith being a spiritual effect is as much in nature as washing away sins or communicating new Graces I see no difference worth the noting besides that from themselves and an illaudable pronity to vary from Tradition expounding holy Writ where wit and wantonness of Judgment can find the least footing to stand out against Antiquity But whereas some argue for the efficaciousness of Baptism and the other Sacraments out of Reason and some out of Reason argue against it it is hard to see how either side can attain their ends seeing whatever efficacy the Sacraments have they derive from the Institution of God which Institution can be no otherwise known to us then from his word and therefore as Divine reason proceeding upon Scripture grounds may inform us we may conclude and no otherwise Wherefore they argue very prophanely and according to Scripture grounds ridiculously
confession to the Priest or Minister Some indeed very ignorant and no less superstitious persons are offended at the word Auricular from the common use of it amongst them whose Doctrine and Practice have corrupted it But the ancient use thereof was quite otherwise than now adayes it is as it is thus expressed by Bishop Jewel It is learnedly noted by Bishop Rhenanus the Sinner when he began to mislike Jewell Defence p. 156. himself and to be penitent for his wicked life for that he had offended God and his Church came first unto the Bishop and Priest as unto the mouths of the Church and opened unto him the whole burden of his heart Afterward he was by them brought into the Congregation and there made the same confession openly before his brethren and farther was appointed to make satisfaction by open Penance which being duly and humbly done he was restored again openly unto the Church by laying on of the hands of Priests and Elders Perkins on the Galatians speaketh thus This must farther admonish Perkins on Gal. 5. 19 20. us never to hide or excuse our sins but freely to confess them before God and before men also when need requires Whether we confess them or not they are manifest and the ingenuous confession of them is the way to cover them Psal 32. 1 4. Luther in his Colloquies delivers his opinion of Confession in these words â—â—ther Coll. Com. p. 257. English The chiefest Cause why we hold the Confession is this that the Catechism may be rehearsed and heard particularly to the end they may learn and understand the same However I for my part will never advise Confession to be intermitted for it is not a man that absolveth me from my sins but God himself And see pag. 258. How sins are to be confessed Another of our Church speaketh thus No kind of Confession either publick Archbishop 〈◊〉 Ansâ—â—â— to the 〈◊〉 p. â—â— or private is disallowed by us that is any ways requisite for the due execution of that ancient power of the Keys which Christ bestowed on his Church the thing that we reject is that new Pick-lock of Sacramental Confession obtruded upon mens consciences as a matter necessary to salvation by the Canons of the late Council of Trent Sess 14. c. 6. The Canon here intended I suppose is the Fifth of the Fourth Session under Julius the Third Mr. Perkins again in another place saith In troubles of conscience it is Cases of Conscience lib. 1. cap. 1. meet and convenient that there should be always used private Consession For James saith ch 5. v. 16. Confess yoou faults one to another and pray one for another c. For in all reason the Physician must first know the Disease before he can apply the remedy and the grief of the heart will not be discerned unless it be manifested by the confession of the Party diseased In private Consessions these Caveats must be observed First It must not be urged as a thing absolutely necessary without which there can be no satisfaction Again It is not fit that Confession should be of all sins but only of the Scruple it self Here Perkins's assertion is meerly of his own pleasure and against his own rule which requireth that the Spiritual as well as Corporal Physician should understand all Diseases and are not all sins diseases and of all diseases that the greatest which we are not sensible of 3. Though yet it is specially to be made to the Prophets Ministers of the Gospel Lastly He must be a person of fidelity able to keep secret things that are revealed Many more suffrages for the usefulness of Confession might be alledged of men of unquestioned authority in such cases as this but now I shall come briefly to declare what is to be received and what rejected in this Confession 1. In speaking of the Original or Institution 2. The Necessity 3. The Tradition concerning it 4. The due Practise of it And the Church of Rome however the Council of Trent hath determined it of Divine institution to whose servile Canons we ascribe not so much as to the less servile judgment of some of the Learned Doctors of that Church being divided in its opinion concerning the institution of it the ancienter of them generally denying any such Divine Precept and they who come after the Council being obliged to hold up its Credit affirming we may without great danger or difficulty affirm that Christ hath not in particular and precisely required any such Sacramental Confession but by general Rules of Piety and Prudence inferring so much as a Council and holy direction to assure our Salvation which possibly may be obtained without and more possibly be lost for want of it For the Priest under the Gospel being the same to the uncleanness of the Soul as was the Levitical Priest to the uncleanness and leprosie of the Body it agreeth exactly with the Analogy between the Old and New Testament that the like power be allowed to him in his Sphere as was to the other in his and the like real though not formal and express command Yea I could shew were it a place Scholastically to handle this matter here how according to the opinion of the Learned ancient Jews the people under the Law did practise this Confession and that upon opinion of a Precept in their Law But I do not rest upon any other than what the Gospel affords either in Letter or Inclusively under those duties which it prescribes a Christian Yet what Solomon hath in the Proverbs I take not to be so much Legal as Evangelical He that covereth his sins shall not prosper Prov. 28. 13. but who so confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy And that of Job cleering himself from the concealing of his sins as a great crime commends the revealing them as a necessary act If I covered my transgression Job 31. 33. as Adam by hiding mine iniquity in my bosom seem to be counsel in common with the Gospeâ— as having nothing ceremonial in them And though that of Leviticus was truly Legal as concerning outward absolutions and Levit cap. 13. 14. pollutions yet I see not how they who allow any weight in the Type to infer the thing signified under the Gospel can deny the like obligation in spiritual matters upon us as was on the Jews in respect of matters carnal By that Law the polluted and diseased person was to appear before the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys in c. 1. ad Rom v. 26. Levit. 5. v. 6. Prâ—eâ—t he was to be examined by him judged and sentenced for clean or unclean whole or unsound Sin is certainly the Leprosie of the soul and 't is because men are led more by Sense than Faith or by a monstrous Faith rather than truly Evangelical which dispatches compendiously more than safely all duties of Religion in a word or single act that they apprehend not the like
punishment and chastisement upon the breach of it And this is a satisfaction of the Law too but not so perfect a◠the former as being intended no otherwise than to secure the better the satisfying of it in the Observation according to the first sense Neither doth this though fully suffered make any man just or innocent but acquits him from farther punishment The former is wont to be called Active Obedience The latter Passive but very improperly For there is no Obedience truly so called but what is Active For all Obedience is an act of the Will but passiveness is no act at all 'T is true a free and willing submission to the punishment inflicted by the Law hath somewhat of action in is and so of obedience but the suffering it self hath nothing of obedience but is the effect of disobedience And therefore much more reasonable is the distinction of satisfaction active whereby we act according to the revealed will of the Legislator and Passive whereby we sustain the penalty threatned against the disobedient And thus we in some sense satisfie the Law when we have undergone all that was imposed upon us by it This first part and most agreeable to the will of God Christ and no man else absolutely fulfilled that we any where read of Every Article and every Particle of the Law of God was fulfilled by him And this was yet no more than he ought to do as man Now what supererogation can be what redundancie to us is hard to be understood though confidently and zealously affirmed by many This we can understand this the Scriptures certifie us that Christ being not obnoxious to the Law and knowing no sin was made sin for us that we might be made 2 Cor. 5. 21. the righteousness of God in him And from hence are derived all our comforts and other benefits by Christ For whereas they say that Christs passive Obedience as they call it did set us free from punishment but not purchase life and glory to us there seems to be a mis-apprehension of Luke 10. 28. the condition of glory and immortality promised by God Do this saith Christ and ye shall live i. e. keep the Commandements Again in the Book of the Psalms and St. Peter God saith The face of the Lord is against them Psalm 34. 16. 1 Pet. 3. 12. that do evil to root out the remembrance of them from the earth And I know no middle state in the Scripture between life and death or glory and misery For God hath promised everlasting happiness not to them that by their Good works purchase or earn it but to those who live according to his Law and stand innocent before him from the violation both of affirmative and negative precepts therein contained He that hath all these things remitted to him is before God as if he had done all the duties of them exactly He that is made partaker of Christs passive satisfaction doth thus stand acquitted and by consequence hath a title and claim by vertue of the same to everlasting bliss without the consideration of this active satisfaction or obedience Now to entertain such an Opinion of a mans private and personal satisfaction for his sins as thereby to be able to claim any either forgiveness of sins passed or happiness to come were to make the Cross of Christ of none effect Yet because the Grace of God is not so free that we should need do nothing more to be made partakers of the fruits of it than passively to receive it but Christian Religian and Faith whereby we are justified and saved is an active principle in us leading to all Good works Therefore it is required that we should do somewhat to put our selvs into a capacity of the benefits of Christs Passion and Merits whereby we are freely justified and saved For as hath been said we are not so freely justified by Grace as to be absolved from all conditions but so freely as that the conditions of coming to and receiving Christ by whom we are saved have no proportion with the salvation from him in justice or common equity Now I see nothing against such a satisfaction to be required of every true and faithful Christian whereby he satisfies the conditions of the Covenant of free Grace in Christ and yet never satisfies the Law it self or for his sins which is absolutely effected by Christ which agrees very well with what I find thus set down by one of our Church We believe that Whites way to the Church §. 40. nu 28. though Christ hath satisfied for the fault and punishment both eternal and temporal for our sins yet our selves are bound to satisfie the commands of the Gospel tying us to repentance and amendment and patient bearing of the Cross Though we do not think that the doing of it is that answers or expiates the judgment of God due to our sins but only serves as a Condition subordinately required that we may be partakers of Christs satisfaction Thus the Papists themselves sometimes describe satisfaction out of Augustine To be the cutting off the cause of sin and the stopping of the wayes that suggest them and stick not to grant there is but one satisfaction only to God even that of Christ and we do not properly satisfie but only do something in respect whereof Christs satisfaction is applyed to us Satisfaction to God thus described we confess c. And thus far the Fathers went and generally no farther however they are drawn to speak more derogatorily to the absolute satisfaction of Christ For thus †Isidor Hispalens lib. 6. Orig cap. ult Satisfactio est causa peccatorum suggestiones excludere ultra peccatum non iterare Isidore of Sevil following herein St. Austin expresseth the matter Satisfaction is to exclude the causes and occasions of sinning and no more to reiterate our sins So that all Acts tending to repentance and amendment of life being called Satisfactions we hold Satisfactions to be necessary And therefore Fastings constant Prayers Alms-deeds punishing the Body outwardly and denying things to it which may any way foment sin yea as the Ancients well said * Est quippe ordo necessarius ut qui commisit illicitu ab usu licitorum restiingat In qua restrictione duo sunt considaranda Satisfactio necessitas Purgationis Aelred Abbas Compend Speculi Charitatis cap. 40. Seeing we have offended God in unlawful use of things lawful to deny our selves the lawful use of the same Yea any punishment laid upon us by our selves or others in order to the bringing us to repentance and amending our lives are much to be commended the abuse which is easily separable from them being removed viz. That such things are in themselves satisfactory to God But though these and the like be not satisfactions of the justice but rather the mercy of God Yet there is a satisfaction which is proper and in some sense adaequate to the offence committed
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
be at all or doth God give him possession of Glory before he gives him capacity The summe of what I am to say is this That First Gods Providence ordaineth that man shall be and then ordaineth that he shall be of such a condition and to such an end and then he giveth him an actual Being and then according to the state he is found in brings him to his proper end and not in that unnatural preposterous and irrational method determines him absolutely to an end before he determines his Being at all And those places of Scripture alledged to defend this presumption do rather overthrow it as that amongst others The children being not yet born Rom. 9. 11 12. neither having done any good or evil that the purpose of God according to election might stand not of works but of him that calleth It was said unto her The elder shall serve the younger I readily here grant a parity between Gods electing to spiritual and temporal ends which this argument supposeth but I do not grant That it was Gods purpose that the elder should serve the younger before it was his purpose that they both should be or that the execution of this Decree did not depend upon the execution of means leading unto it So that when it is said God first as man ordains the end and then the means conducing unto it it is true only when it relates to the end of the Ordainer not of the thing ordained which hath its end really distinct from that general one Man propoundeth to himself profit and then ordains some proper means tending to it He purposes to make a Statue and then purposes to make him a Tool proper to that piece of work He purposes indeed first that such work shall be done by a Tool but he doth not purpose that this individual Tool shall do it before it hath a Being So God first purposeth his Glory as the ultimate end next he decreeth that man shall contribute to that end in the several methods of accomplishing it but he doth not purpose that any individual man as Jacob and Esau shall proceed this way or that way before he hath conceived a purpose to give them a Being And thus farre of the first part of Gods Providence in ordaining acts of Grace and Mercy CHAP. XII Of Gods Providence in the reprobation and damnation of Man Preterition is without any cause personal but the corruption of the Mass of humane Nature Damnation alwayes supposes Sin AS the former proceedings of God with mankind declared his Mercy so do these here celebrate his Dominion and Justice in order to the Creature And as St. Chrysostome well observes in a certain Homily As in a well-ordered City it is as necessary there should be Prisons and places of Execution as places of honour and bountiful rewards propounded so is it in the world Gods wisdom nay Chrysostome in another place sayes his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Chrysost Homil. 7. Antioch mercy is as truly seen in ordaining Hell as Heaven in that upon the thoughts of its torments many are reduced to sober and good life whom vertue or promises of happiness would not reclaim But here we are to consider the manner and reason of Gods severity towards his Creature in these two formidable acts of his just Providence Before we can make any tolerable description of which it will be very necessary to distinguish them For the total neglect hereof as with the author of Gods Love to Mankind in the very entrance of his Book confounding miserably these two or the mistake in the due division which error Petavius falls into where he tells us Divines are commonly wont Petavius Dogmat Theolog. l. 9. c. 9. To. 1. to make a two fold Reprobation One negative as they call it which is as much as Praeterition or not electing The other Reprobation is Positive whereby he not only passes by those persons and relinquishes them but also adjudges them to eternal punishment And this displeases him so far as to the ground of it that he strains hard by the help of Tertullian to make this a branch of Marcions Heresie but in vain for the things are in themselves really and worthily by many learned Divines distinguished but who are they that bungle so in the framing of such a distinction I believe he no more can than he doth tell Reprobation we do indeed make Positive and Negative but we make Damnation none of them for we may distinguish a two-fold act in God and in Man the one opposed to good wanting in the object to be chosen and that may be called Reprobation or refusal Negative which refuses the object either upon meer absolute pleasure or some such absence or want of good which might make it eligible The other is more Positive when there is found somewhat in the object which addeth unto the want of good the presence of evil opposite and odious unto the chooser Now taking Reprobation as it is opposed to Predestination as some do then as they say Predestination supposeth nothing in the object to move God to ordain a thing simply or respectively to such an end So may it be said of Reprobation that it necessarily supposes nothing in the object causing God to turn from it whereupon Picus Mirandola determines thus according to Thomas A reason may be Joan. Picus Mirandol Coâ—â—lus 6. secund Thom. given from the divine goodness of the Predestination of some and the Reprobation of others and the divine will is the only reason that those he rejects and chooses others unto glory This may well be allowed from the supream and absolute dominion of G d over all things so far especially as may amount to a denial of beatitude to the Creature capable of it and a withdrawing of not only the Grace but common influence of God from the Creature upon which it should return from whence it came to nothing But it grates hard upon the natural goodness of God to affirm that the divine will should indulge so much to its absolute Soveraignty as no cause preceding to conceive an hatred or indignation against the work of its own hands as to sentence it directly to everlasting or indeed momentany pains seeing God cannot be unjust or properly cruel one moment any more than he can be eternally Neither can he unreasonably afflict the body or damnifie a man in his estate any more than he can punish the soul in Hell Of all these therefore the Question is but one What ground can be assigned of Gods pleasure or rather displeasure herein To this therefore according to the distinction mentioned answer may be That of the negative will of God seen in Preterition or not electing some to some high ends which we also call here negative Reprobation no reason can be given or ought to be sought out of Gods divine will as Picus hath rightly determined But as commonly it is seen when the Master of the
Family is gone out the house falls into disorder and so finding it he sentences his servants to their several punishments or may turn them out of doors So God having the liberty to depart from his Creature at his pleasure in this way of Preterition whether Supralapsarian or Sublapsarian there doth upon that spring up from it evil and disorder in the soul contrary to Gods will revealed which he reflecting upon may safely and justly decree to entertain it in his favour no longer but reprobating it adjudge it to the punishment deserved God doth not therefore primarily as some have boldly delivered propound to himself the positive pains and ruine of any Creature no inducement no grounds going before but he may very well in a negative sense be said to reprobate it not affording those preservatives needfull to its security This doth sufficiently appear in the first act of his Reprobation of men and Angels whom without all doubt he could have preserved in their original state but he freely refused and they both freely chose to leave him and expose themselves to his severest judgement which was by this positive Reprobation to bring them under the effects of their sins damnation So that they who deny any cause out of God of his first Reprobation do not deny a cause sufficient of his second and positive but the Devils and those men as are signaliz'd Reprobates are undoubtedly the free and full authors of Gods reprobating them and condemning them in this manner Of the Angels St. Peter and Jude speak expresly rendring 2 Pet. 2. 4. their offences a reason why God proceeded so against them and not the simple will of him God spared not the Angels that sinned but cast them down to Hell and delivered them to chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment And the same is repeated by St. Jude And when God saith Jude 6. Gen. 2. 17. in hie Covenant with Adam In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely dye he implyeth the reason of his Decree to punishment to be sin And when the Wise man exhorteth saying Seek not death in the error of your life Wisd 1. 12. and pull not upon your selves destruction with your own hands he doth necessarily imply a direct cause in Man of his own ruine And the words 13. following exempt God from any hand in such things as the Author For God saith he made not death neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living And here come in that in its due place though it were not intended of a spiritual or eternal destruction O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self For though without any supposition taken from the Creature God may pass him over and deny him grace and glory yet doth he not design any man directly to damnation but upon supposition of sin going before And from this state of things may competent reconciliation be made to the seeming oppositions of Scripture and to St. Austin himself The Scriptures say Because thou hast rejected knowledg I will also reject thee And Hos 4. 6. Mat. 23. 37. Luk. 8. 18. by St. Matthew How often would I have gathered thy children together even as a Hen gathereth her chickens under her wings and ye would not And Whosoever hath not from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have And St. John Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life And in the Joh. 5. 40. Act. 13. 46. Acts Paul and Barnahas It was necessary that the Word of God should first have been spoken unto you but seeing ye put it from you and judge your selves unworthy of everlasting life And St. Peter God is not willing that any 2 pet 3. 9. Isa 5. 3 4. should perish c. And amongst others that of the Prophet Esay must not be forgot And now O Inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah judge I pray you betwixt me and my Vineyard What could I have done more to my Vineyard that I have not done in it All which places and divers more do charge man altogether with his own misery On the other side in that Gen. 1. 26. the Scriptures tell us how God made man according to his own image whereof freedom of will was no small portion And in Deuteronomy Ye Deut. 29. 2. have seen all that the Lord aid before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharoah and unto all his servants and to all Land Yet the Lord hath not 4. given you an heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear unto this day And in Jeremy Turn thou me O Lord and I shall be turned And Ezekiel Jer. 31. 18. Lam. 5. 41. Ezek. 36. 26. I will give you a new heart also and a new spirit will I put into you and will take away the stony heart of your flesh and will give you an heart of flesh And St. Matthew All men cannot receive this saying save they to whom it Mat. 19. 11. Joh. 6. 44. Joh. 12. 39 40. is given And Christ in St. John saith No man can come unto me except the Father who hath sent me draw him And elsewhere Therefore they could not believe because Esaias said again He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts And the whole ninth Chapter to the Romans mightily Rom. 9. 16. favours this side of which the substance seems to be contained in this one Verse So then it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of God that sheweth mercy And to the Philippians To will and to do is of Phil. 2. 13. God These with others seem to deny liberty of will to man and to ascribe the reason of good and evil to which man is subject to God as the author making man rather passive under both To that of Free-will we may speak by and by To the present case taking in also what St. Austin saith God doth not forsake but where he is forsaken which may ill consist with what he so largely and often delivers on the other side we answer by the help of the former distinction of simple Preterition and direct Reprobation and the effect of it damnation viz. That the foresaid places suppose an evil affection in the parties so rejected by God and are to be interpreted of his just determination to punish sin and hard-heartedness in them But the incapacity of Grace and Conversion and Salvation are meant by the latter Texts proceeding from the sole Preterition of God refusing to prevent the evil and malignity of mens wills which for want of that preventing Grace do certainly tend to evil and are incurable of themselves But upon this I see divers shrewd Objections to arise as First That by this with-holding of Gods Grace his Preterition there is brought a necessity upon mans will to evil and his indifferency to life and death quite taken away as all use of the means of Grace To this
discriminating note made between the incorrigible reprobates destined to destruction and the corrigible offender ordained to life then indeed much more colour would appear to justifie the refusal of dispensing the means of salvation to such and the denial in the reprobate to give ear to such offers but flesh and bloud cannot reveal this to us and the Spirit of God hath not Doth not God send his Prophet Ezekiel with Ezek. 3. 4. 7. express commission to warn the house of Israel though he expresly assures him They will not hearken unto thee for they will not hearken unto me If the child in the womb being certainly determin'd to one sex long before it is brought forth yet this certainty being hid from our eyes though but for such a small time is thought by Parents a matter of prayer many times that it may be a Son How should not we much rather take the just occasion of applying our selves to acts of Religion though possibly the event with God is determined The summe then of this Chapter comes to this That God by his soveraign dominion and by his inscrutable counsels doth out of the corrupted and forlorn mass of fallen man elect whom he pleases to effectual Grace and from thence brings them to infallible Glory but never without their own acts of embracing his offers and persevering faithfully in his service So that though he purely chooses them to the means of Grace without consideration of their worth or fruitfulness yet he never ordains any or elects them to Glory but upon an intuition of faith and obedience to his will And on the other side he passes by others leaving them in great part as he found them from whence spring works of wickedness freely invented and acted and tending infallibly unto damnation So that God doth not in like manner influence the wicked as he doth the righteous that is for no other cause but his own will taking occasion justly from that common deformity wherein he finds them but never simply destinates any man to damnation but upon beholding the deserts of their sins But how it can come to pass that God thus ordaining the end damnation should not also appoint the means sin without which he condemns no man shall be answered in a more proper place Here only I add for their sakes who measure opinions by famous Patrons to which they are addicted that as I have said nothing to comply with or spitefully to oppose Calvin and his followers so neither to cross Arminius But this I must say that though I look upon Arminius as a much more modest man and more judicious Disputant than Calvin in these deep points yet in their followers we shall easily see a great disparity to the disadvantage of the Remonstrants For very many of Calvins followers have mitigated and fairly interpreted his too harsh and scandalous expressions and opinions and I think none have gone beyond him But on the other side what Arminius with much modesty and gravity delivered erroneously his abettors and followers have pursued and improved many of them to such an intollerable height that they fall often into direct Pelagianism and from thence which is much worse into Socinianisin as experience plainly sheweth And to that Dutch Physician Emperick in this part of Divinity who Beverovicius protested against all ministration of Physick to sick persons unless he could be assured of a mutability in the term of his Patients life for I must openly profess the same reason of Gods Providence and pre-determination to temporal life and death as spiritual and eternal and they are equally fixt and moveable both of them it suffices to answer Then he may let it alone and no absurdity follows But because a very learned and grave Divine of ours seemeth to have given some weight to the argument by citiug him to our present purpose I answer further That no such thing is said to be so precisely and simply â—ecreed â—ut it is as necessary the means should be determined as the end God hath determined no effect but he hath determined the proper cause thereto conducing And it is as false that God hath determined that such a man should recover his health as that he shaâ—l do it without such proper means The means comming under the decree as well as the end It will be said that this takes away all liberty from man as well in the way as to the end And probably Beverovicius if he had thought on this though he had been assured that the tearm of mans life was moveable but the means-thereto unmoveable would never have read book about physick nor stir'd off his seat to any patient because whatever he did or not did the means should have been applyed and succeeded to the sick party But because we are sure we cannot go out of our Island on foot shall we not stir out of doors at all Because we cannot do what we would and go as far as we would shall we not do any thing at all Because our Liberties do not reach beyond Gods Mannor and priviledge the second cause from the autority and influence of the first shall we be sulle in and dogged and refuse that which we Certainly whatever plausible suggestions may of late have been instilled into the common peoples minds of a free subjection it can never be rightly and honestly understood of a freedom from the Supream Power and Justice And so whatever liberty of will may be claimed to man in his actions must be interpreted rather in relation to his fellow creatures and subjects and outward causes which cannot impose upon his will but the first cause may in that cannatural way we before mentioned and in the next place shall have occasion offered farther to explain CHAP. XIII The Occasion of treating of Sin here What sin is What Evil. Monstrousness in things natural and Evil in Moral things illustrate each other Sin no positive or real Thing God the direct Cause of Evil. St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans makes nothing for the contra Remonstrants literally and primarily taken THE near respect that Sin hath to what is passed and the aspect it hath to what is before us concerning the Providence of God in the Fall of Man from his native Righteousness oblige us here to enquire farther into the nature of it And slightly passing over that doubt of some Philosophers and Ancient Hereticks How if there were a God who is supreamly and infinitely good and no more but one Evil should find any being amongst the beautiful works of God its nature being so foul monstrous and contrary to God because it is touched above and in truth do adde rather a greater beauty and lustre to God works than if no such thing were to be found and because as the glory so the power of God is much more manifested thereby in that he curbs and checks its excess and exorbitancie at his pleasure and forces it by his providence to
real being as a ruinous and crased house resteth upon a sound foundation And it is distinguished from it as the matter from the form for though evil hath no such proper matter as other real Beings have for if it had it should it self also be real in nature and of it self yet hath it somewhat proportionable and answerable thereunto in that it affecteth such a Person immediately as sins of omission or such an act as proceedeth from him whereupon Aristotle saith well in a certain place Privation is a certain habit though taken properly nothing is more contrary to habit than Privation whose nature it is to be the absence and want of Habit and nothing by that Philosopher opposed more to habit than Privation I might here set down the opinions and testimonies of diverse Philosophers and Fathers expresly declaring against the positive nature of sin but I shall rather compose the disputation by giving Anselmes judgment of the case than whom none have disputed the matter more acutely of his Age. In his eleventh Chapter of his Dialogue concerning the fall of the Devil he asks How Nothing and Evil should signifie any thing whereas Evil is altogether Privative and there he answers Although Evil and Nihil signifieth something yet that which is signified is not Evil or Nothing but some other manner whereby they signifie something And that which is signified is somewhat but yet not really somewhat but as it were somewhat Many things are spoken after a certain form which are not in very deed And to fear according to the form of the word doth signifie somewhat Active when as it is Passive according to the thing it self And so Blindness c. And afterward in the 26th Chapter of that Treatise he speaketh thus Evil which is called unrighteousness is alwayes Nothing But Evil which is Incommodiousness sometimes without doubt is Nothing as Blindness Aliquando est aliquid Sometimes is something as Sadness and Pain And Chapter the 27th He gives the general reason why Evil cannot be Any thing viz. Because if it were any thing it must be of God Thus he who we see distinguisheth Evil first into that of sin and that of punishment or Incommoditas as he calls it And that of punishment he again distinguishes into meerly Privative as blindness and Positive which is in suffering Pâ—â—na Damni and paena Sensus pains which is the same with the common distinction of Punishment of dammage or loss and punishment of sense so well known in the Schools And we may easily yield that all Evil of Punishment is positive though it be not and yet retain our opinion which runs only upon the Evil of Sin I know Augustine than whom it is well known no man speaks more expresly for the privative nature of all Sin and Thomas and Cajetane and others are alledged to have asserted a real Being of Concupiscence in man which undoubtedly is Sin But they may be interpreted according to our former ground where we allowed all sins to have a subject in which they are and when this subject is somewhat active and positive as such acts of Original Concupiscence are and of our other Passions and Affections then is the Evil of them taking its denominations from its matter to which it relates said to be positive for distinction sake from those sins we call Sins of Omission From these grounds laid we may now adventure farther into the causality God may be said to have in reference to the Evil of Sin for as to that of Punishment the difficulty is not great There are two Parties in the Roman Church which go contrary wayes making two several Propositions which joyned together do make God directly the Authour of Sin So that a man may with better Reason make it a reason against communion with the Roman Church than Companion against the Reformed one of whose ten Reasons against the Reformed that they made God the Authour of sin For this by the confession of some of the Romanists must follow For the Dominicans do directly profess That God doth concurr to the act of Evil and with the Will not only determined by it self but determining it self to an evil On the contrary The Jesuits affirm that God awaiting and expecting the inclination and self-determination of the will doth not concurr to the very act of sin but follows that motion which is evil adding and professing as in particular doth Suarez That if God should first according Suarez in Thom. 22dâ—â— Disputat 6. Tract 4. to nature move and apply the will to an act which is sin before it had determined it self He should then in very deed be the Authour of sin This we make the major Proposition The Assumption is made by the Dominicans who constantly affirm That God doth concurr to a sinful act as doth Medina Medina in Thom. Quaest 79. Art 2. Therefore by these two joyned together God should be the Author of Sin Nay Medina goes farther and of himself will do the work before he is aware He denies I grant that God is the Authour of Sin and so will Calvine and Beza and Zuinglius and such others who are so warmly charged by their Enemies with that pernicious Errour But he by consequence and they do no more doth thus plainly inferr so much in the place cited saying When God is the cause of any act he is also the Cause of the Privation which naturally follows upon that Act. But yet saith he concurreth not to the deformity of sin Here is a mystery if any man could find it out The deformity of Sin consisteth only in the privation of the act or which is the very same want of conformity to the Rule of Actions and the will of God And yet it is here said That God may be the Author of the Act and the Author of the Privation that is found in that act which Privation is nothing else but a want of due conformity and yet not the Author of the deformity of that Act. This is a contradiction The true and simple account then of this matter may be this That God is never any direct cause of Privations or Deformity of any Act though he be the true Cause of the Act it self And his not willing to prevent by his effectual concurse such an Evil in the Act is all can be imputed unto him and that is far from being the Cause of sin unless it could be proved that there lay an obligation any time upon God as many times there does upon man That he should exert his Divine power to the utmost for the preventing all the mischiefs he can and hindring sin And here if querulous man as 't is often seen doth repiningly reply upon God for hard dealing towards him in that he punishes him for that sin which he foresees cannot be avoided by him Gods grace withdrawing it self from him St. Paul commands him silence whether he understands the reason Rom. 9. 20 21.
fishes some were taken in one haven and some in another and eaten of others And again these men that have eaten these fishes which devour'd the man happen to dye in other Countries and that perhaps devoured by wild beasts Such a confusion and dissipation being made how shall that man rise again Who is he that reduces the dust again But why O man dost thou thus speak and patches a long train of tales together and offerest it as insoluble For answer me What if that man doth not go to Sea and be not drownd If no fish eat him nor the fish be afterward eaten of infinite men but that he be laid decently in his Coffin and neither worms nor any thing else molest him How shall that dust and ashes be compacted together again Whence shall that body flourish again Is not this unanswerable If they be Greeks Heathens who doubt of these things We can answer a thousand things But what Because there are some amongst them who put souls into Plants and Fruit-trees and Doggs Tell me which is easier for a soul to recover its own body or another Again there are others who says that fire shall catch them that their garments shall arise and their shooes and no body laughs at them And some introduce Atomes But we have nothing to say to them But to Believers if we may call them believers who thus doubt we shall say with the Apostle All life is subject to corruption all plants all seeds Seest thou not c. Here that eloquent Father expatiates in the mysteries and subtilties of nature shewing how little we understand of them and concludes this point thus But these things humane reason is to seek in But when God works all things yield to him In another place he doubts whether he be an Infidel or Christian who calls in question the Resurrection and the reason hereof is because as the power of God is infinite so infinite wayes there are for his infinite wisdome to bring to pass his own pleasure and to make good his words in which he hath caused his servants to trust CHAP. XIX Of the most perfect effect of Christs Mediation in the Salvation of Man Several senses of Salvation noted That Salvation is immediately after death to them that truly dye in Christ And that there is no grounds in Antiquities or Scripture for that midde state called Purgatory the Proofs answered Of the Consequent of Roman Purgatory Indulgences the novelty groundlesness and gross abuse of them The Conclusion of the first Part of this Introduction SAint Paul where he disputes the manner of Gods free Election of his people to the grace of the Gospel doth also declare unto us the end of such Election to be another Election and that to glory as in these words That he might make known the riches of his glory Rom. 9. 23. of Grace on the vessels of mercy which he had before prepared unto glory This is yet more fully expressed by St. Peter in this order Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again to a lively hope by the Resurrection 1 Pet. 1. 3. of Jesus Christ from the dead To an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time But before we engage far in this subject of Salvation it is requisite we observe a twofold Salvation frequently mentioned and promised in Scripture A Temporal and Eternal For herein common mistakes have surprised many who willing to amplifie and extend all the promises of Gods deliverance equally to us of this last Age of the Church and to them of the former and Apostolical do willingly interpret many places of Scripture peculiar to them as concerning us to which cannot be literally done though figuratively it may For the Church of Christ being in those first Ages in continual conflicts with her enemies Jewish and Gentile and most violent persecntions harrassing and wasting the tender body of the Infant-Church many weak Christians were of desponding minds and looked upon the same as Job upon natural man as having a short time to live and full of sorrows Which moved the Apostolical Writers to confirm the Hope and Faith of them by the assurances of deliverances and salvation And none can deny this to be the literal meaning of St. Paul in his eighth Chapter to the Romans from whence so many draw an Argument to prove the innumerable purpose of God towards particular persons in predestinating and electing and glorifying them when upon faithful examination nothing more was primarily intended then assurance of Gods temporal preservation of the Church and making it outwardly glorious in despight of all its adversaries so that none should separate the flook of Christ so far from the love of Christ by persecution tribulation distress or famine or nakedness or peril or sword but that at length it should be more than conquerer through him that loved it And that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come c. should cause God to forsake it And no other is the meaning of the same Apostle in his thirteenth Chapter to the Romans where he saith And that knowing the time that now it is high Rom. 13. 11. time for us to awake out of sleep for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed i. e. having continued thus long in the faith the time now draweth near we should be secured and saved from our enemies And the Salvation to be revealed in the last times spoken of by St. Peter was the Deliverance which at last should be manifested to the Church in constant expectation of which they were kept by Faith and confidence of Gods mercy And if we shall consult the Apocalypse we shall scarce find the word Salvation used in any other sense then that of temporal deliverance Rev. 7. 10. 12 10. 19 1. of Gods Church But withal most certain it is that by Salvation is very often indended by Gods word the deliverance from the miseries of sin and suffering in this world into a state of such perfect bliss as man is capable of in which sense St. Paul saith The Gospel is the power of God unto Rom. 1. 16. salvation And that with the mouth confession is made unto Salvation which salvation was in those dayes the destruction of them that confessed Christ For St. Paul to animate the weak Believers to a stout and resolute profession of Christ against the terrors of death threatning those that were known to be Christians tells them that if they so boldly confessed Christ with their mouth as to dye in that profession they should be saved And when St. Paul advises the Philippians to work out their salvation Phil. 2. 12. with fear and trembling he means without
of the dead Secondly St. John in the Revelations clears this saying Write blessed Rev. 14. 13. are the dead which dye in the Lord from henceforth for they rest from their labour and their works follow them Their works follow them without the least mention or insinuation of being vegetated and enabled so to do with the prayers of the living And they rest from their labours without being toyled wasted and tormented with worse miseries than ever they suffered upon earth The evasion which is here borrowed from Anselme upon the words which yet in truth are no more Anselm's than the Comments under his name upon the Epistles but Herveus Natalis his living above two hundred years after Anselme that here we are to understand the time of the Resurrection might be accepted for true it is then shall the due reward be rendered to every mans works if this excluded the other For let our adversaries say whether all consideration of good works be deferred until the Resurrection Is it not in reference to them that some men are committed to Purgatory only while others immediately go to hell That some mens pains in Purgatory are gentle and light others more grievous and some mens shorter and some longer even of themselves without the help of their friends upon earth Why then must we needs understand this following of good works to be at the day of Judgment only and not in just proportion the whole time going before And therefore is that elusion we touched of being meant of perfect Men and Martyrs only rested on as the surer of the two and that from De Victore and Haymon It is true he doth speak of such but it can only be said and not proved that he speaks of such only Dying in the Lord being of far greater extent and not upon mens pleasures and the exigencie of a corrupt cause limited But distrust that these devises will not satisfie hath driven a great Champion of this Purgatory into another plainer but much more absurd answer of his own viz. That some men dye absolutely in the Lord as Martyrs c. and some men partly in the Lord and partly not in the Lord This is congruous indeed to the opinion resolved to be maintained and belike St. Augustine gives ground hereunto who in a certain Epistle saith that some men in this life are partly the Sons of Christ and partly the Sons of this world This Augustine might speak in reference to the imperfection of the state of Grace and Sonship here which will admit of some mixture of worldliness and weakness with Grace and Sanctification but doth St. Austine any where say that upon this any man is partly the child of God and partly the child of the Devil at the same time or that at the same time he is in a state of Grace and a state of Sin or reconciled to God and not reconciled This is a new invention but very suitable to the third state after this life Purgatory and both of equal truth The place of Ecclesiastes Where the tree falleth there it shall be brought against a middle state I confess hath besides the most natural sense a sense which may be aimed at besides the denyal of any middle state but that by indifferent interpreters it hath been applyed to the immutableness of mans state at his death is certain For in truth Purgatory as commended to us is a quite different state from that of bliss as a state of torment must be from a state of bliss Fourthly The Holy Scriptures teach us that The bloud of Jesus Christ 1 John 1. 7. John 5. 24. cleanseth us from all our sins and that He that heareth Christs word and believeth on him that sent him hath everlasting life and shall not come into death but is passed from death unto life And we may note that Life simply taken is never used for any other state but that of happiness in holy Scripture and therefore these two states only being mentioned in Scripture it is sufficient to conclude that no more are to be added For were it so that nothing in Scripture were directly spoken against this opinion it would no more avail the defenders of it then it would any other Heretical Invention which might be yet framed without any direct opposition from thence Now the Scriptural reasons against this we make to be these in brief First that as well Scripture as Philosophy to which they assent who introduced these Purgative Flames truly hold that all spiritual purgation and sanctification must have the consent and co-operation of the will to produce any spiritual effect in the soul but the Will after death elects not merits not nor demerits i. e. deserves neither good nor evil but is fixed to the state in which it is But if sin be remaining in the separate soul it must necessarily have its seat principally in the will which is the formal principle of all good and evil And there can be no change in the will of the deceased as to the choise of good or evil simply but only as to the more full and absolute captivating of the same in the admiration of good or pertinacie in evil Therefore the Prayers of the living not having any influence upon the will or affections at that time to change them for the best or correct the pravity of them cannot avail to the meliorating of the soul in reference to its sanctity or impurity Again No corporeal cause can be effectual upon the spirit of Man immediately while it is disjoyned from the body to the cleansing of spiritual stains But the relicts of sin are spiritual and not corporal pollutions and therefore no flames of Purgatory can mundifie the soul so as to render it more innocent and fit for heaven But the flames of Purgatory are sensible and properly material And it is not said that the suffrage of the living obtain remission of sins for the afflicted in Purgatory but only deliver them from punishments there suffered Thirdly All sins being committed in the person of a Man consisting of body and soul must be accounted for as they were acted in the Person and not only in the one Part of him neither can any sin be said to be forgiven the soul without the body which was committed in soul and body together nor can the soul be purged and not the person nor the person and not the body but the body lies unconcerned untouched all this while by such tormenting remedies and therefore there is no probability of any such semi-purgation of the soul which should avail to the benefit and salvation of the whole And therefore the souls of the damned suffering the pains of Hell fire immediately after their departure from the body are not awhit the better for what they suffer Neither can this be alledged to invalidate the other because that in God punishing the souls of the Reprobates without their bodies is no unjustice but rather a
grasped Church possessions great usurpations of this kind serving no farther and doing no more good than a Jugg of Beer doth a good Fellow I will favour mine own Country so far as to forbear all instances might here be given and only mention that I find in Paggius Petrus de Vineis an Italian and prudent Counseller and Secretary to Frederick the Emperour called Barbarossa who had wars with Pope Alexander the Third and advanced far into Italy against him was by the calumnies of the Barbaria Faction intimate and prevalent with the Emperour turned out of office and had for his punishment both his eyes put out But the Emperour afterward being convinced of the wrong he had done him received him to favour again and being at Pisa onwards of his way against the Pope and much pressed with straits how to pay his Army took this Peter into Counsel what he should do to raise moneys Peter answered Your war being against the Church it is good policie and reason to make use of the wealth of it against it self and therefore should do well to seize on the rich plate and wealth of the Churches of Pisa and convert them to your service The Emperour liked the advice very well and accordingly spoiled the Churches of their riches and so raised an Army Which when Peter heard he came boldly to the Emperour and said Now I am revenged sufficiently of you for my two eyes You stirred up to your self the hatred of men but I have made God your enemy through your Sacriledge From this time forward all things will go worse and worse with you And so it fell out for Alexander at length brought down his pride and him to great shame and misery even to be kicked by the Pope But thirdly he that would understand the heinousness of the sin of Theft and the heinousness of all Thefts Sacriledge may for his satisfaction find infinite examples of saddest nature of Gods vengeance against it and the Scriptures thus declareth against them Ecclesiasticus 34. 11. Habakkuk 2. 6. Proverbs 10. 2. Esay 61. 8. Habakkuk 2. 9. c. There yet remains one more abomination to God under this Commandment and that is abuse and injustice in weights and measures contrary to the Law of Nature God and common Commerce which is thereby destroyed God saith in Deuteronomie Thou shalt not have in thy bagg diverse Deut. 25. 13 14 15. weights a great and a small Thou shalt not have in thine house divers measures a great and a small But thou shalt have a perfect and a just weight a perfect and a just measure shalt thou have that thy days may be lengthened in the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee For all that do such things and all that do unrighteously are abomination unto the Lord thy God And so in Leviticus Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment in meteyard in weight or Lev. 19. 35. in measure Just weights just balances c upon which words Paulus Fagius notes out of Jewish Doctours a fivefold iniquity committed by him that offends in weights and measures 1. He pollutes the Land 2. He abuses or prophanes the name of God 3. He causes Gods Majesty Glory and Presence to forsake the place 4. Causes Israel to fall by the Sword 5. Causes them to be driven into Exile in a strange Land Adde hereunto what Solomon saith against this wicked practise Proverbs 11. v. 1. and Prov. 20. 23. as abominable in the eyes of God above other sins This kind of cheating hath more aggravations of villany than I can stand here to enumerate It is worse then downright common filching stealing and robbing upon the High-way because it extends to innumerable persons more than they do and is seldomer a great deal repented of and consequently more damnable For as the Psalmist saith he flattereth himself in his own eyes till his iniquity Psal 36. 2. be found to be hateful And being infatuated with the stupifying charm of present gain supposeth too often that if he civilly hears Sermons and hath recourse at the last to the Doctrine of Justifying Faith all scores between him and God will be quitted But how much happier how much honester how much holier are they who loose their ears in the publick Pillory than such solemn and grave Cheats in their Shops who loose their souls customariness and commonness extenuating the sin and the course of trading and art of growing rich apace as requiring so almost justifying such abominations But no more though not enough of this We are now briefly to touch and recommend to the true Christian practise not only justice in doing right to all men but doing good to all men Gal. 6. 10. as the Apostle exhorteth and the Rule of Contraries in expounding the Commandments which is that where a Sin is forbidden expresly there implicitly is a vertue commanded as where a vertue is enjoyned there the contrary vice is much more interdicted And surely the first place is here to be given to repentance and repentance of such sin as this doth indispensably require restitution or satisfaction without which if men did not tacitly hold they might be saved by the common false notion of Justifying Faith so many would not shipwrack their Souls and Consciences in acting living and dying in such unjust wayes as are above mentioned Of Satisfaction and Restitution we have already spoken as necessary to Repentance as Repentance is necessary to Salvation and this satisfaction not as relating to God but unto Man wronged And therefore I shall more fully give Saint Augustine's judgment in the Case and so leave it In his Epistle to the Macedonians he writeth thus If what belongs to another Aug. Ep. 54. ad Macedon the ground of the sin be not restored when it may be restored Repentance is counterfeited and not real But if it be real the sin will never be forgiven unless there be a restitution of the thing ill gotten but as I said where it can be restored But besides and above this acts of Mercy and Charity are here required of all good Christians and not only to keep our hands from any open or clandestine violence to others but to extend and open our hands to the benefit and comfort of others Not only are we forbidden to take what is not our own but to keep what is our own so to our selves that the exigencies of our brother and neighbour requiring we should withhold it from him Withhold not good from them to whom it is due saith God when it is in Prov. 3. 27. the power of thine hand to do it And in case of the distress of thy brother that thou hast is in some measure due to him in the eyes of God and by his Law of Charity though not by the Law of the Land In the Ninth Commandment it is said Thou shalt not bear false witness against § IX Luâ—e 1â— thy Neighbour What is meant by Neighbour
to do another a mischief must he necessarily speak conformably or do conformably and make good his bad intentions If a man intends to do one a kindness and give him an estate may he not carry himself towards him and all others as if he never intended any such thing But it may be he would restrain this to positive Speeches and Acts which he would have alwayes conformable to inward conceptions And so they are when a man intends to deceive and doth deceive But that the general appearances must conform to the reality of the Intention his own concessions above-noted will not admit It is true therefore only when it is justly required And this suffices to cut the throat of all as they are now called deservedly Jesuitical Aequivocations and Mental Reservations and External dissimulations viz. because none of their real or pretended Superiours can give them any power not to answer according to the serious intention and expectation of legal Enquirers and legal Enquirers they are who have legal Authority in that Nation Again unless their Superiours can give them power of Life and Death as it is an opinion amongst them they may especially the Pope over free Princes and their Subjects they can give them no power to deceive by positive acts or words lawful Powers contrary to the common and received sense and meaning of Enquiries and Answers Thirdly neither of a mans self nor by any Civil Authority how great or good soever nor upon any Case how important soever can a man lawfully use the Name of God in attestation of what is false or confirmation of what his Conscience and Judgment assures him is otherwise than he declares it to be Neither can any man give instance that God ever permitted it or any good or holy man in Scripture presumed to do so And therefore oequivocation in any oaths whether lawfully or unlawfully administred is directly unlawful and to be detested of all men as it is of God The Vertue then which this Commandment requires in opposition to bearing false witness is first a love and veneration of Truth as the sacred daughter of God himself and that in all things and at all times not excepted but more especially Authority and publick Justice requiring it The Inducements hereunto abbreviated Perkins hath collected thus to my hands in the forementioned place 1. Gods command James 3. 14. 2. Lying is a conformity to the Devil 3. We are sanctified by the word of truth John 17. 17. 4. Truth is a Fruit of Gods Spirit Galat. 5. A mark of Gods children Psalm 32. 2. and 15. 2. 5. Destruction is the reward of a Lyar Psal 5. 6. And thus far of the Ninth Commandment The Tenth is Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours house Thou shalt not covet § X. thy neighbours wife nor his servant nor his maid nor his Ox nor his Ass nor any thing that is his Which the modern Roman Church having carefully turned the second out of doors as a quarrelsome and troublesome companion are necessitated to divide into two to make up the compleat number of Ten For which fact they have no ground but St. Austin and them who precisely followed him But none of these or any ancient proceeded on their grounds viz. because the Second Commandment gave offence Now seeing many more in number and antiquity have otherwise than Austin considered this Commandment as one entirely The Reasons why they so judge of it are worth enquiring For some eminently learned among them especially in the Scriptures have declared expresly against it as Oleaster and Mercerus Petrus Galatinus inclining that way as Buxtorf hath observed Buxtorf de Decal num 74. 59. And as a little before he hath noted the Jewish Doctours who are to sway much in this Case unless the Papists please to distinguish the Decalogue as they have audaciously the Canon of the Scriptures of the Old Testament into Jewish and Christian or Ecclesiastical have unanimously conspired to make this but one Commandment Aben Ezra and Abarbenel mentions indeed such an opinion as the Roman Church maintains but rejects the same as a very fond and vain conceit And the like may be said Estius in Sentent l. 3. Dist 40. §. 3. of Estius his answers and evasions of the reasons on our side which are First That the object of the sin here forbidden is not to distinguish the Command so much as the Act Concupiscence of the mind or heart united in one because then we should have more than two One prohibiting lusting after another mans wife another lusting after his Servants another lusting or coveting his cattle and a fourth his possessions and moveables But St. Paul speaking of this Concupiscence maketh it but one where he Rom. 7. saith I had not known lust except the Law had said Thou shalt not covet The other Precepts therefore having provided against the Acts outward of sin This in the Conclusion goeth as it were over all of them again and interdicteth all inward motions towards any of the sins before forbidden To say therefore with Estius St. Paul saith Thou shalt not lust is as much as if a man should say Thou shalt love which doth not make all the Commandments but one is very idle seeing the word Lust is there taken in an evil sense and may reasonably extend to all the Negative precepts at least as Love doth concern them all and is the sum of the Decalogue But we find no such particular Precept as Love indefinitely taken And besides we are not so much to enquire after matter of Right what might be or ought to be but of fact what is And to collect what is done we are not so much to consult the holy Writ of the New Testament which uses no precise or determinate speech in reference to the number or order of these Commandments but the thing it self which ever amongst the Jews was thus distinguished as we do and generally the Greek Church and the Latin likewise until Austin's dayes And it is certain the Holy Spirit here doth not affect Logical Divisions or Rhetorical Partitions or Methods but delivers things grosly to a rude people inculcating the same thing under diverse forms of speech For according to one of the Rules of expounding the Decalogue viz. That where the outward act is forbidden the inward act is also forbidden and where the Effect there the Cause is also forbidden this should rather seem to be none other Precept than what went before in the seventh and eighth Commandments forbidding Adultery and Theft and by Implication the inward acts of Lusting after the Persons or Possessions of others For that is the beginning and cause of those outward Effects and scandalous sins Another Reason for the entireness of that we call the Tenth Commandment is the order observed in Exodus where Lusting after our Neighbours House is set before Lusting after his Wife or other Persons and then again follow his Goods which shows that
fruits on Gods part signifying his favour towards such truly penitent Persons by the comfortable testimony of his Spirit of Grace in their Consciences witnessing the remission of sins and reconciliation to God in the face of Jesus Christ The Parts of Repentance are commonly made these three Contrition Confession and Satisfaction which to speak properly cannot so be called For of all these only Contrition is of the very nature of Repentance but Confession and Satisfaction to which we may adde Reformation or Renovation are rather the Effects than Parts of Repentance but these two are never the same in proper language And therefore in vain do they go about to justifie that description as proper of Repentance which both Chrysostome and Ambrose do give us That it is such a change which committeth not the same things again And an act whereby we lament sins passed and commit not sins to be lamented There can be nothing done more indiscreetly against a mans self or injuriously against the Fathers than to make every true saying of theirs a definition or to deny them the liberty of their Rhetorical pen sometimes when they write what is true though not so accurately as the laws of Logick may require If we mistake not this abuse of the Fathers hath done great mischief in the Schoolmens works and especially Thomas's as may appear in his Summes where a bare and secure asseveration of some Father is taken for a very sufficient definition and turns the controversie quite another way then reason according to Scripture would have it go We all know that the Fathers as all other Writers even the Scriptures themselves spake not alwayes Definitions and the Definitions they gave were not alwayes according to the Rules and Practise of Logicians but Rhetoricians with whom it is most frequent to describe a thing from the proper and most commendable effect If a man should say he is a Souldier indeed who never yieldeth till he hath gotten the victory should speak very true but this were no true definition of a Souldier For a Souldier may loose the Victory And so Repentance is that which repeateth not former sins before sorrowed for but this doth not prove that to be no repentance which ceasing a man returns to his former evil course or that repentance persever'd in which was broken off might not have carryed him to heaven For who knows not that all habits moral and graces spiritual such as are Faith and Repentance have their proper seat in the inward man affect the mind and heart immediately and from thence are known primarily and described Outward acts are but the effects and the effects may illustrate but cannot be of the essence of the Cause Therefore Repentance exactly considered is nothing more than a thorow change of the mind and heart from things contrary to Gods will and to the obedience of the same This is true repentance and if it be not effectual it is because it is not that is perseveres not in that good nature It were ridiculous to say A man never went towards London it was no real motion because he turned back again and never came at that place And no less that a man never truly repented because he gave over and reaped not the fruits of Repentance For the nature of Repentance might be the same though vastly different as to the end Once true Grace and alwayes true Grace say they but what word of God what judgment of the wisest and holiest Christians have they to bear witness to their presumptuous assertion Their own authority is too inconsiderable and their argument most vain which is taken from the event and begs the question when they thus talk If it be true Grace it will persevere and if it persevere it is true So that give the highest instance that ever was or any mans mind can imagine possible to be of Grace which failed they answer very safely if as wisely It was not true for it faild But this is no place to argue this point We except not against the things themselves in Repentance Contrition Confession Satisfaction but against the order they are set in though Mr. Bradford that holy and learned man sticks not at that accurateness in his former Sermon speaking thus We say penance hath three parts Contrition if you understand it for an hearty sorrow for sin Confession if ye understand it for faith of free pardon in Gods mercy by Jesus Christ and Satisfaction if you understand it not to Godwards but to Manwards in restitution of things wrongfully and fraudulently gotten of name hindred by our slaunders and in newness of life And Perkins makes our consent with the Roman Perk. Reform Cath. Church to consist in this That Repentance stands especially for practise in Contrition of heart Confession of mouth Satisfaction in work or deed Of these therefore we shall speak briefly and distinctly CHAP. XXXVIII Of the Proper affections of Repentance Compunction Attrition and Contrition Attrition is an Evangelical Grace as well as Contrition Of Confession Its Nature Grounds and Vses How it is abused The Reasons against it answered COmpunction is a general word comprehending Contrition and Attrition the proper parts of Repentance and according to Bernard is an humiliation of the mind proceeding from the remembrance of sin and the fear of Gods Judgment c. But Bernard de modo bene vivendi Serm. 10. if we take Compunction generally it may be rather described An humiliation of mind proceeding from an apprehension of the Evil of sin Now the Evil of sin being twofold doth divide this Compunction into two kinds Contrition and Attrition Contrition being according to the most received distinction of it from Attrition A sincere and hearty sorrow of mind upon the sight and sense of the Evil of sin in it self and the offence thereby committed against Almighty God his goodness chiefly But there is another mischief in sin and that doth principally concern the Offender himself who thereby having violated Gods most just and holy Laws and incurred his displeasure has made him self obnoxious to the curses denounced against the breakers thereof and therefore is a Terrour of Conscience conceived upon the apprehension of Gods wrath justly due to him and impending over him These by some are made not only different as in truth they are but contrary too so that Attrition should be rather an addition to former Guilt than a method of evading Gods wrath and being reconciled unto him and their reason is because it is not done in Faith Hence they distinguish between Legal and Evangelical humiliation Perkins making the former quite distinct from the latter and opposite to it Legal contrition say they which is Attrition is nothing but a remorse of Conscience for sin in regard of the wrath and judgment of God and it is no grace of God at all nor any part or cause of Repentance but only an occasion thereof and that by the mercy of God for
of it self it is the sting of the Law and the very entrance into the Pit of Hell Evangelical Contrition is when a repentant sinner is grieved for his sin not so much for fear of Hell or any other punishment as because he hath offended and displeased so good and merciful a God This Contrition is caused by the Ministry of the Gospel c. In this vulgar account of Attrition and Contrition or the two Parts of Contrition Legal and Evangelical is a twofold errour committed not to be passed lightly over The one is a rude and common misapprehension of the state of the Gospel as if it were all made up of Mercy and consisted not at all of Justice and Vengeance to be executed upon sinners breaking the Law of the Gospel but whatever we can reasonably suppose of mercy must be owing altogether to the Gospel but if any threatning and severities of Justice be feared that must be borrowed from the Law And what Law I pray do they mean The Old Law I doubt not But the Law before Christ had its moralities or perpetual Duties and its Mosaicalness which was transient and is now actually ceased as all the Obligations and Penalties belonging thereto It cannot be that then which moves to this Legal Contrition but if any thing the moral and perpetual part consisting of Justice and Equity which are no less an ingredient into the Gospel than into the Law properly so called And because there is nothing more absurd and ridiculous than to have a Law consisting of just and holy Precepts and Rules which shall not also consist of proportionable Rewards of the Observers and Breakers thereof returning as St. Paul teaches us at large in his Epistle Rom. 2. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. to the Romans to the Jew and to the Gentile doing well honour and glory and shame and wrath to the evil doer speaking of the present state of the Gospel And we have before shewed That so far is the Gospel from being made up of all mercy that the judgments and punishments therein decreed against Sinners are more grievous than they in the Law and therefore the Gospel is called a Book of Good tidings or News not because the Sinner impenitent shall sind any more favour or so much as he might under the Old Law but because the Salvation here published is of greater extent comprehending all Nations and states of men which the Law did not And also offering full and free means of Repentance and reconciliation to God through Christ and a treasure of Grace as well to assist in the performing of the condition of the Gospel as to pardon and remit what is committed against it upon humiliation and repentance So that the Gospel has a Legal part as the phrase is and Evangelical And the terrours of the Gospel or Legal Part of it have just influence upon the Consciences of men to humble and affright them though there should be O Soror nulla res sic nos ab omni peccato custodit immunes sicut timor inferni et amor Dei Bern. de modo bene vivend Serm. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Chrys Serm. 7. Antioc◠pag. 512. To. 6 no such thing extant as the Old Testament and therefore the Attrition of a Sinner under the guilt and sense of his sins is much more an effect of the Gospel than of the Law And therefore is not so the entrance into the Pit of Hell as if directly it lead to Hell For 't is security and presumption that lead thither rather then the sorrow of Attrition This is certainly a direct occasion of going to Heaven and is an inferiour degree of more ingenuous sorrow and true contrition For this Legal as it is called Contrition is caused by the ministry of the Gospel too and is an effect of Evangelical Faith whereby a Christian having thorowly assented to and been affected with the severe and holy Doctrine thereof becomes humbled under it and is brought to the sight and admiration and affection of the other Part of it which to the truly broken and penitent offereth Grace and Pardon That which seems to have mislead so many into a false notion of the Gospel is the term Gospel or Evangel it self which sounds nothing so much as mercy though the English or Saxon word we know signifies originally no more than Gods Speech which is indifferent Rom. 4. 15. to Mercy and Justice both And such places as this of St. Paul The Law worketh wrath as if he had meant to say thereby that the Gospel did not work wrath as did the Law but that was far from his purpose intending only to shew the difference between the Law and the Gospel as they stood opposed to be in this That the Law without the Gospel which St. Paul preached wrought wrath without remedy but the Gospel though it propoundeth and threatneth wrath too to the unbelieving and disobedient yet continued in it also a sufficient and proper remedy against all those Evils And thus far of the very intrinsick nature of Repentance Attrition and Contrition which are the two proper Parts of it The two most noted acts or effects for Parts they are not are Confession and Satisfaction And first we shall explain this Confession by these degrees First Out of the Abundance of the heart it must necessarily be that the mouth should speak whether good or evil truth or falshood joy or sorrow How then can it reasonably be supposed that no outward expression should appear of so great anguish of mind as is supposed to affect the soul truly humbled and penitent No sober man much less good Christian can choose but commend such Acts as this of true Repentance For as the comparison of an ancient Father hath it well As it is with him that hath almost surfeited himself with ill digested or unwholesome meat lying heavy upon his stomach must cast it forth before he can well be eased or cured even so he whose soul is oppressed with the filth guilt and weight of his sins must vomit them up by due Confession before he can reasonably expect remedy and forgiveness Many and very pressing are the advises and precepts of Holy Scripture to confess our sins and many promises to such as do confess annexed which not intending at present so much a Paraenetical or hortatory Discourse as Dogmatical for the settlement and information of the Judgment and Consciences I shall pass over as agreed to on all hands in the general But Confession of sins being so variously taken viz. for confession to God and confession to Man for confession private and confession publick for confession to our brother whom we have offended particularly and confession to the Church to which we have given scandal none ever took the boldness on them to deny absolutely the use of Confession Nay I cannot find any seriously and positively denying the lawfulness or usefulness of private or auricular