private reason perswade him That he hath found out the truth and yet at the same time assure him That he is no less fallible than another man and therefore may possibly embrace and hug a false conception with as much fondness as a true and withal That private Judgements are not in themselves so safe as publique nor single as many What violence were this to his reason nay how much more rational than the first simple Act to comply with the Reason of others whom reason also requires to listen to and obey and Scripture much more From hence we may rightly conclude against both extremes in these days who yet agree in this very ill-grounded opinion That there must be an Infallible Director or Judge or we cannot submit to them in matters of Faith and our Salvation This is absolutely untrue both in humane and divine matters Who sees not indeed that it were to be wished for and above all things desired Who sees not the great inconvenience for want of such a standard of opinions as this But can we rationally conclude therefore that so it is Or hath God or ought he of his necessary goodness and wisdom as some have ventured to affirm to grant all things that are infallibly good for man Is it not sufficient that a fair though not infallible way is opened to attain the truth here and bliss hereafter but every one must find it Is it little or no absurditie That infinite never come to means of truth and so great that many who enjoy them do not receive the benefit by them Again Are good manners and virtues no less essential to Salvation than Faith and is there no infallible Judge of manners Is there no infallible Casuist And must there be of points of Faith How many have the infallible Rule of holy Life and yet mistake either in the sense or application of it so far as to perish in unknown Sins And yet none have to prevent that great and common evil call'd for an infallible Censour whose determinations might settle doubtful consciences in greatest safety and silence all apologies which are wont to be made for our sins and errors and so bring us nec essarily to truth or leave us under self and affected condemnation But The Ground of this mistake being farther searched into will be found very weak and fallacious An infallible Faith say they must have an infallible Judge And of these some assume thus There is no man infallible Therefore no man can be Judge of Faith Others assume thus But there is and must be an infallible Faith Therefore there must be an infallible Judge So that we see both would have infallible Judges but differ only in their choice of them For The former would have the Scriptures Judge and Rule which is very honest but very simple The later would have some external Judge which hath much more of reason in it And fails only in the choice of this Judge or in the description of him For There is nothing more unreasonable than to ordain that which is under debate to be Judge of it self besides the great absurdity of confounding the Rule or Law and the Interpreter and Judge And There is nothing more fallacious than to confound Causes and occasions together as the later opinion doth For If the Church or whatever Judge may be supposed were the true direct cause of our Faith then indeed it would necessarily follow That our Faith could no wayes be infallible unless the Judge were also infallible the effect not exceeding the cause nor the Conclusion the Premises or propositions from whence it was deduced But Because the Church is only on Occasion or a Cause without which we should neither believe the Scriptures in general to be the Word of God nor any sentence to be duly drawn from the same there is no necessity at all of such a consequence For The Infallibility now spoken of is either the thing believed which is the Word of God of which the Church I hope is no Cause or the Grace of Faith excited and exercised by us through the Spirit of Grace in us the mynistery of the Church serving thereunto acording to St. Paul saying We therefore as workers together with 2 Cor. 6. 1. him beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain For as in things natural He that applies Actives to Passives that is the Cause proper to the matter about which the Action is is not the proper or natural cause of the Effect but the occasion only yet is said vulgarly so to be as when a man applies fire to combustible matter he may though improperly be said to burn it when it is the fire and not he that burns it So the Church or Judge of Scriptures sense applying the same to a capable subject the effect is true and infallible Faith but it is not the effect of the Church or instrument or mean rather but of the Holy Spirit of Grace which taketh occasion from thence to produce Faith and that infallible For Were this Infallibility we now speak of the Churches then when ever the Church should so propound and urge points of Faith they must needs have an effect in the Soul For if they say The Church teaches in an humane way they say she teaches in a fallible way which overthrows all And from this is cleared that difficulty which opposeth a Judge of Scripture and Faith because none could be found infallible For not making the Judge the cause of Faith but occasion he may be necessarily required to Faith God who is the only principal cause with his holy word seldom or never concurring without those outward means And therefore though I readily enough grant That the Scriptures are so plainly written that a single simple person wanting greater helps to attain to the abstruser sence of them and using his honest and simple endeavour may easily find so much of the Rule of Faith and holy Life as to be saved by them yet I cannot say the same of any men who presuming on Gods power against his promise which includeth the use of outward meanes or mistaking his promise for absolute when it is conditional shall look no farther than their own wits shall lead them Now The outward meanes to which God hath annexed his promise of Grace may be these First That which we have here handled a general and sober submission to the Guides of our youth and our spiritual Fathers and Pastors in Christ which to forsake is the part of a wanton and fornicating Soul according to Solomon This common Reason and nature it self seem to require of all Prov. 2. 17. under Autority by the disposition of Almighty God That they in the first place hearken unto the voice and explication of the Church wherein they are educated until such time as a greater manifestation of truth shall withdraw them unwillingly from the same For so long as Senses are equally probable on both
A Course of Divinity OR AN INTRODUCTION To the Knowledge of the True Catholick Religion Especially as Professed by the CHURCH OF ENGLAND In two Parts The one containing The Doctrine of Faith The other The Form of Worship By MATTHEW SCRIVENER LONDON Printed by Tho. Roycroft for Robert Clavil in Little Brittain MDCLXXIV THE ENTRANCE FOR the better conceiving and judging of this ensuing Treatise I have held it necessary Christian Reader to premise and propound to thy consideration these two things principally viz. The Occasions me thereunto moving and the manner of proceeding in it One Occasion given me was the multitude and variety of the like Books set forth by other Churches whereby not only the persons under them were trained up in the Knowledge and Faith professed there but the minds of many of our Church were prepossessed and their manners swayed by such Doctrines which seemed to me as forreign in nature as place to those of our Church and the Ancient I could have here given the Reader the names of above fourty Tractates of this nature many of which have been translated into the English Tongue to the corrupting of weaker judgments And not so much as the Christians of New-England have been wanting to the Interest of their Religion so far as to â—mit so advantagious a Work but by John Norton Teacher as he calls himself of the Church at Ipswich in New-England have collected certain Principal Heads of Divinity into a Body called The Orthodox Evangelist And as the great number of forreign Books have incited me so the Paucity of the like in and from our Church hath no less emboldened me to undertake this I am prevented by Industrious Mr. Baxter in giving any account of such who have made attempts this way and what hath been done by them without bringing their design to desired issue Only that excellently Learned Person Mr. Thorndyck passed over by him in his declining years hath given greater demonstrations of his zeal and learning in behalf of the English Church than any extant before him in one continued Body purposing a Review in the Latin Tongue wherein he intended to have more clearly expressed his meaning in some things of which it might be said as of St. Pauls writings they were hard to be understood and he himself saw to be wrested to evil ends and senses but his declining body and years would not suffer him to accomplish so good a Work What Mr. Baxer himself hath performed in his late large Volume I shall not give my censure but how well he is qualified for such a Work I may presume to give the Reader in the words of Esâ— Baxterus câ—â—is desiinatis sententiâ—s minimè omnium hominun addictus ut qui non plus faveat Presbyteriants quam Independentibus nec est infensus Hierarchicis sed medius dubiusque partibus nisi in causa Dei sanctitatis vitae Ludovicus Molinaeus Patroni p. 12. a great admirer of him Baxter saith he is of all men least addicted to any resolute opinions being one that favoureth not more the Presbyterians than the Independents neither is he sharp against the Episcopal Party but between them and doubtful what side to take except in the cause of God and holiness of Life The greatest part of which Character is but too true being as much with me as if he had said He were of no Religion at all For however Beza and Cartwrights opinions of a certain and definite Discipline Essentially requisite to a Church as a Church is to Christian Religion be by Puritans laid aside for the present and like embers buried up in the Ash-heap till they shall rise again next day and kindle a new fire and now nothing but Get Christ Purity of Ordinances is notorious amongst them to the Vulgar yet when people are deceived by that they call Pure and Powerful Preaching of Christ into new Societies of their own Manufacture then presently doth most apparent Reason and inevitable Necessity constrain them to invent and impose new Covenants and Bonds to conserve them in their new Fraternities contrary altogether to that General Liberty before propounded and promised them No more than doth the charm of Christian Liberty sound in their ears No more of the free use of Indifferent things so contrary to the Decrees and Practise of a Church but then come into credit again such sayings as these There must be Order There must be Government There must be unity in the Church dealing herein with poor simple Christians as men do with their horse they would take up carrying in one hand provender which they show him and make a great noise with and behind them in the other hand a bridle to hold him fast to them and ride him as they please And if Mr. Baxter be of no regulated determinate Society or Church adheres to no particular Communion submits to no Government nor Governours in special but to all or any as it should seem be must bear it as well as he can when he bears himself not out of passion or envie at his new and singular device of going to heaven but justice and reason censur'd for a man of no Religion at all or if any of his own making which teaches him to persevere in that fond and haughty design he once had when he took upon him to top his Brethren of the Ministery in the Western Parts and to frame Grounds and Aphorisms for both Civil and Ecclesiastical Politie of his own with as little judgment and humility as safety to the Church and State as if he had aim'd at nothing so much as to be according to forreign Phrase and Presidents an Extraordinary Pastor without any Original or Rule but from himself but failing of this he now thinks it best to become an Extraordinary Sheep of all and no fold writing Books as uncertain and contrary as himself on all sides and for all Palates as if he had found out the Universal Character for Religions like to that of Languages in which all men doing as he wou'd have them shou'd agree in going to Heaven And now all that lately and most officious and serviceable method of mounting our selves and crushing and trampling on the necks of others and them our Governours by most unjust and cruel acts most false and bitter language must be laid aside and thrown overboard as the Turks did their Cemiters when they lost the day at the battle of Lepanto not because they liked them not but because they could do them no more service and least they should come into the Christians hands and be used against them So indeed Sectaries now-a-dayes call for modesty and moderation on all hands casting away that unchristian language which stood them in so much stead against them they resolved to destroy not without horrible Success And yet we see while they call so charitably for moderation and would have no revilings of them that differ in opinions only their churlish nature and
virulent tongues cannot forget their wonted strains of dishonesty and extream spite and railings witness one for all the foresaid Ludovicus Molinaeus who as civilly and reverently as he carries himself towards Mr. Baxter for none of his vertues we may be sure as exorbitantly in the old Puritans language and on their Grounds flies in the face of the Greatest and Best of the Rulers of the Church and State too who have at any time resolutely opposed the designs and Schismatical devices of such unchristian Reformers as himself only I must confess he is favourable to his late Sacred Majesty whose invincible Piety and unparallel'd innocency of Life and Ignominious yet Glorious Death hath not only struck Sectaries dumb who once opened so loudly and perniciously against him but extorted cold commendations from them not much unlike that approbation given by that Parricide Antonius the Emperor who when he understood how the people of Rome magnified and even deâ—fied his virtuous Brother Geta whom he had wickedly murdered said Sit Divus modò non sit vivus i e. Let him be Divine so he be not living But whom doth he or his Fellows occasion serving spare Hath he not raked the stinking Canal of all â—ld lyes and feigned rumors invented to imbroyl the Church in Schism and Kingdome in Sedition and Bloud and indeavoured to put new life into them and Authentize them to other Countries as well as ours It was soberly and seasonably said by that excellent Arch-bishop Speech Delivered in the Star Chamber p. 2. whom he would traduce in basest manner were not his merits above the Calumnies of such wretched Fellows in his Speech in the Star-chamber at the Charge of Prin Burton and Bastwick viz. There were times when Persecutions were great in the Church even to exceed Barbarity it self Did any Martyr or Confessor in those times Libel their Governors Surely no not one of them to my best remembrance yet these complain of Persecution without all shew of cause and in the mean time libel and rail without all measure so little a kin are they to those who suffer for Christ or the least part of Christian Religion This witness is most true of these Cretians And it is my great glory not only to be named among such eminent persons as lately but at present are living in our Church whom this Molinaeus traduceth And why so because of my rude usage of Mr. Daillee whom I spit on if any will believe him Lud. Molin Antidure Epist p. 54. rather then dispute against That I spare not the memory of Diodate That I am no fairer to Mr. Bochartus And why doth be forget my railing too against his Brethren the Puritans This he might better say But neither he nor any man else can say that I imitate Puritans in railing against my Betters or Governors that 's their peculiar and inseparable virtue and hath been from the first founding of the Discipline by Penrie Whittingham Goodman and Cartwright with others to the confounding of the Church so far as lay in their power I ever was not only an approver but an admirer of the personal Gifts of Calvin and Beza of Monsieur Daillee and Monsieur Bochart c. but I owe them no more respect in the cause of Religion than they do me or any man else of our Church but I profess I owe more Reverence to the least of the Bishops and Fathers of the Church whom Puritans have so basely treated then to the greatest of them and so do Sectaries too as ill as they are galled to hear of it But what do I speak so irreverently after all against Mr. Daillee Not a word hath this Zelote found in my whole Book against him nor in that Action against our Schismaticks whom I confess to have severely treated in that I give them their own some mens dealings being so foul as theirs have been that the very bare recitation of them is lookt on as railing though never so faithfully done If any of them or their friends can tell me wherein I have done them wrong in misreporting their Facts I do here assure them I will make them all the satisfaction I am able in retracting and acknowledging my Error and that as publickly as I have injured them with the next opportunity Cyprian Optatus Hierom Austin Nazianzen and Chrysostom as holy and sober persons as they were in their Generations made no great scruple to paint Schismaticks out in their Colors with language which cuts where it goes and I am sure these upon no better grounds than they have or can possibly offer of departing from and dividing our Church are no better Nay in this hath the Puritan Sectary transcended all Hereticks and Schismaticks that ever went before them For though divers Factions were raised and fomented to a great height in the Church of God of old and Altar was erected against Altar and Chair against Chair i. e. Worship against Worship and Governor against Governor of the Church yet do we find none through all the Histories of the Church that ever became so presumptuous and desperate as to endeavour the total subversion of the Government of the Church in it self and to set up another in the room of it quite of another nature which we read not that Aerius himself ever attempted though he preacht up the equality of Bishops and Presbyters And so far am I from such a spirit of meekness I confess that I shall never smooth them or their cause over so civilly as to imply the contrary until they bethink themselves without their customary frauds and dissimulations of their duties and return to the Peace and Unitie of the Church which I shall not cease to pray for But one of the most material things charged on me is That I liked Dailee's Book the worse because it pleased the Puritans so much which says my Accuser is to be of the spirit of Maldonate the Jesuite But he is mistaken For Maldonate indeed rejected a sense of Scripture which otherwise he approved because it was Calvins If I disliked Dailees opinions only because they were Dailees or our Puritans he had been somewhat near the matter but no such thing hath fallen from me I disliked indeed his Book because it so far pleased the Puritans that they were thereby notably confirmed in their obstinate Opinions against the Authority of the Ancient and our Present Church Here were evil effects also to be disliked Next let us bear how I abuse Diodate of Geneva in that I rehearse this saying of him against King Charles the first viz. That Christ in the Gospel commands us to forgive our enemies but not our friends This he calls Crassum mendacium A gross lye in me whereas the lye if there be any must necessarily be in himself or his brother Puritan Cook the Sollicitor against King Charles the first at his Sentence in that monstrous Court. For I no where say of my self that Diodate said those words
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
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
inconditionate and absolute on mans part is to blaspheme the immutable Justice of God and withall destroy the use of Faith in order to our Justification For it is impossible any thing bearing the name of a cause or condition as Faith certainly doth when we say We are Justified by â—aith should be posteriour to the thing it so relates unto The promise indeed of pardon and Justification of a sinner is actually made to those who do not actualâ—y believe and repent but promise answerably and covenant to believe and repent Non enim ut fâ—â—â— eat ignis cal facit sed quia fervet Nâ—c ideo benâ— currit roâ—a ut rotunda sâ—t sed quia rotunda Aâ—g ad Simplic Qu. 1. but the Execution and performance of this promise is not made before there be an actual fulfilling of our Covenant with God But then on the other side there must be perfect Justification before there can be that perfect Sanctification which we all aspire unto and God expects from us For then are we truly Sanctified when our works are holy and acceptable unto to God which they are not untill they proceed from a person so far Justified as to be accepted of God Whence may be resolved that doubt about Gods acceptation of the person for the works sake or the work for the persons sake For wisely and truly did the wife of Manoah inferr Gods acceptation of their sacrifice from the favour and grace he bore unto their persons and at the same time prove the favour God bore to their persons from the Acceptance of their sacrifice saying If the Lord were pleased to kil us he Judg. 13. 23. would not have received a burnt-offering and a meat-offering at our hands neither would he have shewed us all these things nor would as at this time have told us such things as these That God therefore accepted their Burnt-offering it is a sign he approved their persons but the reason antecedent of Gods acceptation of their sacrifice was because he first approved their persons And yet notwithstanding the goodness of the person is the original of the goodness of the work nothing hinders but the goodness of the work may add value favour and estimation unto the person As to use Luthers comparison and others after and before him the tree bears the fruit and not the fruit the tree And the goodness of the tree is the cause of the goodness of the fruit and not the goodness of the fruit the cause of the goodness of the tree Yet the fruit doth procure an esteem and valuation from the owner to the tree and endears it to him to the cultivating the ground and dressing it and conferring much more on that than others In like manner the Person Sanctified and Justified produces good works and not those good works him but some actions accompanied with Gods grace antecedent and inferiour to the fruit it self Yet doth the fruit of good Works add much of esteem and honour from God to such a person and render him capable of an excellent reward for St. Paul to the Philippians assureth them and us when he saith I desire fruit that may abound to your account Phil. 2. 7. CHAP. XVIII Of Justification as an Effect of Faith and Good Works Justification and Justice to be distinguished and How The several Causes of our Justification Being in Christ the Principal Cause What it is to be in Christ The means and manner of being in Christ. TO the informing our selves aright in the much controverted point of Justification which whether it be a proper effect of Good works or not doth certainly bear such a relation â—o them as may well claim this place to be treated of it seemeth very expedient after we have distinguished and illustrated it by Sanctification explained to proceed to distinguish it likewise from Justice For as Righteousness or holiness the ground of Sanctification is to be distinguished from Sanctification it self so is Justice the ground to be distinguished from Justification its complement and perfect on This being omitted or confusedly delivered by diverse hath been no small cause of great obscurities For Righteousness or Justice seems to be nothing else but an exact agreement of a mans actions in general to the true Rule of Acting and that Rule is the Law or word of God For he that offends not against that is undoubtedly a Just man of himself by his own works and needs nothing but Justice to declare and ackowledg him for such no mercy nor favour As that thing which agrees with the square or Rule is perfect But notwithstanding such supposed perfect conformitie to the Law of God be perfect righteousness yet is not this to be Justified Neither can any man in Religion be said more to Justifie himself than in civil cases where it is plainly one thing to be innocent and to be an accurate unreproveable observer of the Law in all things and to have sentence pronounced in his behalf that so indeed he really is For this is only to Justifie him though in pleading his own case in clearing and vindicating himself a man is vulgarly said to Justifie himself And no otherwise if we will keep to the safe way of proper and strict speaking is it in Religion Supposing that which never happen'd since Christ that a man should have so punctually observed every small as well as great precept of Gods Law that no exception could be taken against him yet is he not hereby Justified though he may be said to be the true Cause of his Justification and that he hath merited it Which St. Paul seems to implie unto us saying For I know 1 Cor. 4. 4. nothing by my self yet am I not hereby Justified For in truth Justification is an act of God only as Judge no less then author of his own Laws upon the intuition of due Conformitie to it or Satisfaction of it And as a man may possibly be just and yet never be Justified taking things abstractly so may a man be unjust and guilty and yet be justified doth not the word of God as well as common reason and experience certifie so much He that Justifieth the wicked and he that condemneth the Just even Prov. 17. 15. they both are abomination unto the Lord. This then surely may be No man then can be justified by himself or any Act or Acts of him no not through Christ But though he cannot thus Judicially and formally Justifie himself it is not so repugnant to reason or Scripture to be said Materially and Causally to act towards his Justification Nay he cannot come up to the rigour of the Rule nor excel so far in Justice and holiness as to demand at Gods hands his absolving sentence yet that he cannot contribute towards it is not only false but dangerous doctrine leading men into a sloathfull despondencie and despair so that they shall do nothing at all because they cannot do all that is required of
Justification Just as much as the fair gay train of a Peacock to the bird that draws it after it make a fine show and that is all that we know of But the difficulty is yet very strong behind And that is seeing it is granted that some Faith in Christ is Justifying and some is not Justifying whence comes this about Is it not because one is a lively and operative Faith and the other is drie and unactive and unfruitful So that Faith which is said to Justifie is it self first Justified by its works For though as hath been said Faith doth absolutely produce good Works and not good Works Faith yet good Works are they in which its goodness consists next unto its object Christ and consequently render it Justifying actually And whereas they would evade his and elude St. James's autority by distinguishing the Cause and Sign of our Justification saying That we are Justified only by Faith effectivè effectually but by works as St. James saith ostensivè declaratorily as signs that we are Justified it is a sense meerly obtruded upon the Apostle there being no more grounds or occasion given by St. James why they should understand him that works justifie only declaratorily than are given by St. Paul that I should interpret that Justification which he ascribes to Faith to be only Declaratorily For though Faith received in the mind is not apparent yet when it is professed then it may be said no less to declare our Justification then good works as the Scripture it self testifies saying With the heart man believeth unto righteousness Rom. 10. 10. i. e. to the doing of works of righteousness which proceed from a true Faith and with the mouth confession is made unto Salvation CHAP. XX. Of the Special Notion of Faith and the Influence it hath on our Justification Of Faith Solitary and Onely Of a Particular and General Faith Particular Faith no more an Instrument of our Justification by Christ than other co-ordinate Graces How some Ancient Fathers affirm that Faith without Works Justifie ALL this while we have treated of the complex notion of Faith or at least as it is that first general Grace whereby we are inserted into Christ and justified by it together with its blessed retinue of subordinate Evangelical Graces which are reduced to these three Faith Hope and Charity where Faith standeth by its self and is a peculiar Grace of it self and hath in this acceptation a more then common prerogative attributed unto it in order to our Justification or the bringing us to Christ and partaking of Christ For that is it whereby we are only properly justified and all Graces serve for no other end here than to adopt us for the benefit of Justification through Christ and for Christ's sake alone So that no man can as yet complain That though I derogate somewhat from the vertue and value of Faith in reference to our Justification as it is explained by moderner Divines some I mean I do not in the least detract from the sufficiencies freeness and absolute necessity of Christ's Merits and Grace towards us Yea I establish it nay I augment and commend more the Free Grace of God then do they who have chose another way to express it For all this while I do not compare Works with Christ nor Hope nor Charity nor Obedience with Christ as is plain but I compare now one Grace with another and Faith simply considered with the obedience of Faith For Faith taken as in general for the embracing of the Fundamentum ergo esi justitiae Fides Ambr. Offic. Lib. 1. cap. 29. Lib. 2. cap. 2. Habet vitam aeternam fides quia est fundamentum bonum Habet facta quia vir justus dictis factis probatur c. Id. de Basilicis non Tradendis Fides quae est justitiae fundamentum quam nulla bona opera praecedunt sed ex qua omnia procedunt ipsa nos à peccatis nost◠is purgat c. Prosper Lib. 3. de Vita Contemplativa cap. 21. Fides est omnium bonorum fundamentum humanae salutis initium c. August in Vigilia Pentecostis whole Body of the Gospel hath this undoubted prerogative to be the Grace of all Graces the Mother of all the Fountain from which all flow and as the Fathers generally do justifie because it is the foundation of all access to Christ Which assertion of theirs however later Wits have slighted and contemned as not giving Faith its due in order to our Justification doth in my opinion with much greater perspicuity and simplicity and soundness express its proper office then those newly invented and several distinctions and sub-distinctions confunding rather than setling the judgment of a good Christian And first They ascribe this virtue of Justifying to a special Faith Then they say this Faith doth not justifie as a Work or Act but Grace Then they proceed to affirm That not as a principal cause but only as an instrument created by God in the heart to that end And yet farther Not as an Instrument active and operative but as an Instrument rather receptive and passive as appears by the example given of an Hand which is no true cause of an Alms given but yet it properly receives it But first What a disorder must these multiplyed niceties needs breed in the minds of the simpler sort who are not able to comprehend them and so are brought into great troubles of conscience whether their Faith be directed to Christ under the true relation it ought to bear How much more clear and easie is that Doctrine that teaches First That neither our Faith nor Works proceeding from thence can avail any thing without Christ and that all their sufficiencie is of Christ And next That this Faith and good Works do but qualifie us according to the Free Covenant of Grace for Christ Secondly If it be denyed as in truth it is That Faith is any more an Instrument whether active or passive or a Hand as it is called to lay hold especially in another kind of Christ than Hope or Charity I do not find how they can prove it For I may and do yield a greater degree of vertue in Faith special well founded on God than in other Graces distinct from it but I do not yield that this is the Faith properly by them contended for For It is a mixt compound Grace consisting of Hope and Love which they call Fiducia Confidence and resting upon God This indeed is a special Grace as considered in subordination to the general Grace whereby we assent and submit to the Gospel of Christ but it is not special as distinct from other co-ordinate Graces with it Calvin Inst Petrus Mart. Lo. Com. class 3. cap. 4. num 6. But what manner of Faith say they do we suppose that which goes so ill attended alone First I suppose there is such a Grace distinct from others and that which was set up against
and for ought appears the Schismatical may be in greater unity within it self than the Catholick how can any man discern from unity which is the Catholick or true Church The Unity therefore which may any wise describe or distinguish the sounder part of Christs Church from the heretical must not be taken from that which it holdeth within it self but with some other which is acknowledged for Catholick wherein comes the use of Antiquity again because the Ancient Churches of Christ were saved by the same Faith and Worship that all succeeding Churches must be therefore if it may appear that a Church doth not agree in all necessary or considerable points of Faith Worship and Government with them of former ages supposed to be truly Catholick it self cannot be Catholick or a true Christian Church But they who look no higher than one Age or two and no farther then one place or two and finding convenient agreement amongst themselves do characterise themselves for Christs Church fall into the censure of St. Paul to the Corinthians who measuring themselves by themselves and comparing 2 Cor. 10. 12. themselves among themselves are not wise And in the Revelation of St. John we read of some Nations into whose heart God hath put to fulfill Revel 17. 7. his will and to agree and give their Kingdom unto the Beast until the word of God should be fulfilled I hope this unity of consent will not be taken for any argument of the faithfulness of their consent or Catholickness But more we shall have occasion to speak of Unity in the treating of Schism In the mean time I see no force at all in the places alleadged out of the Old Testament to prove so much as may be well allowed to the unity of the Church as where it is said My Beloved is but one and to the Cantic like purpose For such places taken in relation to Fact and not to Precept and counsel rather that Gods Church should be so and endeavour to keep the Spirit of Unity in the bond of peace as the Apostle speaks can Ephes 4. 3. be understood strictly only of that single Nation of the Jews which was alone chosen so peculiarly to himself Or of the future Coalition of Jew and Gentile into one Body as the same Apostle in the same Epistle speaketh of Christs Passion That he might reconcile both unto God in one Chap. 2. 16. Body by the Cross having slain the enmity thereby i. e. between Jew and Gentile These difficulties and uncertainties in this Note of Unity have constrained the Patrons of the Roman Cause to find out such an Unity which indeed is more apparent and certain to him that commits his Faith to be guided by some outward sign but so much repugnant to all ancient Churches so wholly strange to them and unheard of that it may seem to do them much more mischief than advantage as that which excludes all Antiquity from having any suffrage in this cause And this their Note is Unity Bellarm. de Notis Eccles lib. 4. cap. 10. init with the Bishop of Rome as boldly said and as weakly proved as their enemies could wish St. Hierom indeed saith to Damasus he is resolved to hold as He and that See believed in one particular of the Trinity and used not simply and abstractly consider'd this as a probable argument of Orthodoxness and preserving the peace of the Church but with the concurrence of other Circumstances rendring his Opinion probable But doth he or any ancient Author deserving with themselves the name of a Father teach as they would perswade indefinitely That to hold communion with the Bishop of Rome is to be assured you are of the true Catholick Church Christs Charter much stood upon to St. Peter and the Rhetorical flourishes many times of the Holy Fathers extolling St. Peter and his Successors but never categorically affirming or soberly determining so will not amount to this Hence they proceed to Universality too as a sign of the true Church and an help to Unity it self For it profitteth nothing that there be some one Church and that in one Age and Place which is at unity with it self if it be not universal Christs Church is said to be universal but so many senses are given of Universality it self that it is hard to apply it positively to any pretending to it For nothing so plain as that the Christian Faith doth not and never did possess all Nations nor all the persons of those Nations where it hath flourished No man therefore can know the true Church by that which is not true of it And therefore I make no doubt but the most anciently genuine and proper sense of that expression in the Apostles Creed where it is said I believe the Catholick Church Vide Augustinum Epistolâ— 50. aimed at no more than to cause us to believe that Christs Church was from that time forward no longer to be of one Nation or one Denomination as it was before Christs Incarnation but Catholick that is Universal and indifferently to extend to all People For at that time when the Creed was composed the secondary sense wherein Catholick and sound Believer signified the same thing was scarce at all heard of no not before the Councel of Nice under Constantine Afterwards it was applyed to particular Sees as well Alexandrian Antiochian and some others as Roman In Theodosius the second his dayes which above 400 years after Christ a Sozomenus Ecclesiast Hist lib. 7. cap. 4. Law was made that none should call themselves Catholicks but such as believed aright concerning the Holy Trinity the rest should be termed Hereticks Afterward notwithstanding every Sect and Heresie usurped that name as may appear from that very place corruptly cited out of Austin August Epist ad Epistolam Fundamenti by some to prove the true Church from the Title of Catholick it self For saith he however all Hereticks desire to be called Catholicks yet if any enquired for a Catholick Church they were directed to the Orthodox and not Heretical Churches But if we take the word Catholick in a more restrained sense not for that which is all over the world actually but so far as it doth extend passeth generally through all and that not Places but Ages too where shall we find a Catholick Church Christians never for fourteen or fifteen hundred yeers not conspiring into one belief no not in things held very important to Faith and I mean not only single persons but Societies of Christians Therefore neither from hence can we conclude directly of the true Church in opposition to Heretical And therefore the Patrons of this opinion of the Universality finding themselves harder pursued with difficulties than they can evade being taken in their own snares are forced according to their very vain custom to leave off the tryal of the truth from matter of Fact which is most plain and ready and proceed to say It ought so
Eucharist and especially going upon the grounds of Luther Calvin Perkins and some others of Great note that all Sacerdotal they may call them if they please Ministerial Acts done by him who is no true Minister are really null and void Fourthly we conclude that seeing all Ecclesiastical power as Ecclesiastical doth proceed from Christ and his Successors and that by Ordinary and visible means they who have not received the same by such Ordinary Methods are usurpers of the same whether Political or Mystical And that to deny this to the Church is to deny that which Christ hath given them and such a Principle of the Churches well Being without which it cannot subsist and it not subsisting neither can the Faith it self And to the reason above given we may add Prescription beyond all memory For from Christs time to this day a perpetual and peculiar power hath ever been in the Clergy which hath constantly likewise born the name of the Church to assemble define and dispose matters of Religion And why should not Prescription under Unchristian as well as Christian Governours for so many Ages together be as valid sacred and binding to acknowledgment in the Case of Religion as Civil Matters will ever remain a question in Conscience and common Equity even after irresistible Power hath forced a Resolution otherwise It is true such is the more natural and Ancient Right Civil Power hath over the outward Persons of men than that which Religion hath over the Inward man that it may claim a dominion and disposal of the Persons of even Christian subjects contrary to the soft and infirm Laws of the Church because as hath been said Men are Men before they are Christians and Nature goeth before Grace And Civil society is the Basis and support to Ecclesiastical Yet the grounds of Christianity being once received for good and divine and that Religion cannot subsist nor the Church consist without being a Society and no Society without a Right of counsel and consultation and no consultation without a Right to assemble together the Right of assembling must needs be in trinsique to the Church it self Now if no man that is a Christian can take away the essential ingredient to the Church how can any deny this of Assembling For the practise of it constantly and confidently by the Apostles and brethren contrary to the express will of the Lawful Powers of the Jews and Romans and the reason given in the Acts of the Apostles of obeying God rather then man do imply certainly a Law and Charter from God so to do and if this be granted as it must who can deny by the same Rule necessity of Cause and constant Prescription that they may as well provide for the safety of the Faith by securing the state of the Church as for the truth and stability of the Church by securing the true Faith by doctrine and determination The Great question hath ever been Whether the Church should suffer loss of power and priviledges upon the Supream Powers becomming Christian Or the Supream power it self loose that dominion which it had before it became of the Church For if Christianity subjected Kings necessarily to the Laws of others not deriving from them then were not Kings in so good a Condition after they were Christians as before when they had no such pretences or restraints upon them and so should Christs Law destroy or maim at least the Law of God by which Kings reign But there may be somewhatsaid weakning this absurdity For Granting this That there is a God and that he is to be worshipped and that as he appointeth all which we must by nature believe it seems no less natural to have these observed than the Laws of natural Dominion Now granting that at present which if we be true to our Religion we must not deny viz. That Christian Religion is the true Religion and that God will be worshipped in such sort as is therein contained For any Prince absolute to submit to the essentials of that Religion is not to loose any thing of his Pristine Rights which he had before being an Heathen for he never had any Right to go against the Law of God more then to go against the Law of Nature but it doth restrain his Acts and the exercise of his Power And if the Supream after he hath embraced Christianity shall proceed to exert the same Authority over the Church as before yet the Church hath no power to resist or restrain him Civilly any more than when he was an Alien to it Now it being apparent that Christian Faith and Churches had their Forms of believing and Communion before Soveraign powers were converted and that he who is truly converted to a Religion doth embrace it upon the terms which he there finds not such as he brings with him or devises therefore there lies an Obligation upon such powers to preserve the same as they found it inviolate And truly for any secular Power to become Christian with a condition of inverting the orders of the Church and deluting the Faith is to take away much more than ordinary accrues unto it by such a change It is true the distinction is considerable between the Power of a Christian and unchristian King exerted in this manner because taking the Church in the Largest sense in which all Christians in Communion are of it what Christian Kings act with the Church may in some sense bear the name of the Church as it doth in the State acting according to their secular capacity but much more improperly there than here because there are no inferiour Officers or Magistrates in such a Commonwealth which are not of his founding and institution whatsoever they do referr to him and whatsoever almost he doth is executed by them But Christ as we have shewed having ordained special Officers of his own which derive not their Spiritual Power at all from the Civil and to this end that his Church might be duly taught and governed what is done without the concurrence of these can in no proper sense bear the name of the Church But many say the King is a Mixt person consisting partly of Ecclesiastical and partly Civil Authority but this taken in the ordinary latitude is to begg the Question and more a great deal than at first was demanded For who knows how far this Mixture extends and that it comprehends not the Mystical Power of the Church as well as the Political And how have they proved one more than the other by such a title It were reasonable therefore first to declare his Rights in Ecclesiastical matters as well as Civil and thence conclude he is a Mixt Person and not to affirm barely he is a Mixt Person and from thence inferr they know not what Ecclesiastical power themselves And if he hath such power whether it is immediately of God annexed to his Natural Right or by consent of the Church is attributed unto him For by taking this course we
and to deny Luk. 22. 20. V. 17. their senses when he saith This is my Body And as reasonles and frivolous are their Answers to St. Augustine who 1 Cor. 11. 27. affirms it to be a Prophane and blasphemous sense to understand Christ of Aug. de Doctrina Christ his proper Body and to eat it For can any thing be more Elusorie and ridiculous than to Scholie on him with a That is As meat is bought and sold in the Shambles Nam Sacramentum Alâ—ptionis suscipere dignatus est Christus et quando circumeisus est et quando baptizatus est et potest Sacramentum adoptionis Adoptio â—uncupari sicut Sacramentum coâ—poris et sanguints jus quod est in pane poculo consecrate Corpus jus sanguinem diciâ—us Non quod proprie corpus ejus sit panis poculum sanguinis Sed quod in se Mysterium coâ—poris ejus et sanguinis ejus contineant Hinc ipse Dominus Benedictum panâ—m Calicem quem Discipulis tradidit corpuaae sanguinem ejus voâ—â—vit Quocirea sicut Christi fideles sacramentum Corporis sanguinis ejus accipientes Corpus et sanguinem ejus recte dicuntur accipere c. Facundus Hâ—rmianensts Pro. 3. Capitulis Lib. 10. Cap. 5. But if it be possible to express any thing more clearly Facundus Hermianensis and that as set forth by Syrmondus doth both expound St. Austins meaning and our Saviour Christs yet more irrefragably writing against the Eutichians in these words For Christ vouchsafed to take on him the Sacrament of Adoption both at his Circumcision and at his Baptism and the Sacrament of Adoption may he called Adoption as the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ which is the Bread and Cup Consecrated we call his Body and Blood not that properly his body is Bread or his Blood the Cup but that they contain in then the Mystery of the Body and Blood of him Whence our Lord himself called the Blessed Bread and Cup which he delivered to his Disciples his Body and his Blood Wherefore as Christian believers taking the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of him are said truly to take the Body and Blood of Christ So Christ when he took the Sacrament of Adoption of Children might truly he said to take the Adoption of Children Thus he and Syrmondus in his notes upon this place doth confess these to be very harsh expressions like unto some of St. Austins there mentioned And to our urging the name fruit of the Vine given to the Consecrated substance and thence concluding that the real nature of Wine remains they answer that it is not unusual to give the name to a thing as a little before it was or seems to be Which we deny not And by the parity of reason return upon them to their loss For we know it is not unusual for a thing to be called by the name not which is proper to its nature but which it represents And to the eye of Faith the consecrated Elements Heb. 5. are the Body and Blood of Christ and so may not unaptly be so called by those whose senses are exercised as the Apostle speaks to discern both good and evil though in nature they be farr otherwise Some indeed as I conceive have been but too free of the Figures in this question supposing that the very word Est or Is must not be taken in its proper sense but stand for as much as Significat Signifies but this is without ground in Grammar or Divinity For he that saith as St. Paul 2 Tim. 4. 17. is interpreted to speak Nero is a Lion doth not lay the agreement upon Est or Is but upon the subject Nero For the Verb Substantive is equally indifferent to Comparative and Proper Speeches and continues so applied to any thing The Signification or Similitude lies in the two Terms Nero and a Lion and Bread and Wine and the Body and Blood of Christ Now there being no difference between a Similitude and a Metaphor but that the one is at large and in many words what the other is in one To say Christ is a Lamb or This which is bread is Christ is no more than to say Christ is as a Lamb and Bread is as Christs Body For the many agreements between the natural and Spiritual senses The one and that principal is that of Sacrifice which ought here to be briefly explained CHAP. XLIV Of the Sacrifice of the Altar What is a Sacrifice Conditions necessary to a Sacrament How and in what sense there is a Sacrifice in the Eucharist GREAT contentions have been about the Sacrifice of the Altar and perhaps though with just Cause yet not so great as is generally believed For these two Terms do much illustrate one the other For neither is the Altar upon which Christians offer properly an Altar any more then as is said before the Lords-Day now observed is properly a Sabbath nor is the Sacrifice thereon performed properly a Sacrifice Some will have that only truly called a Sacrifice which consisted of living Creaturs slain and offered to God Dixerunt aliqui quia Sacrificium non est nisi de Animalibus et erraverunt in hoc c. Guliel Parisien de Legib. Cap. 3. and to this sence do I most incline For there must be in all things some one thing which is as a Rule and Law and gives denomination to others according as they agree with it Now if all offerings to God as fine Flower and fruits of the Earth be called a Sacrifice in an equal sence to the most proper then have we no Rule to go by in Judging of Sacrifices And therefore Gulielmus Parisiensis who rejecteth the former acceptation because we Read in Leviticus 20. of a Sacrifice of fine Flower and Exodus 31. Sweet Smell seemeth himselfe to erre as he saith others do in the Notion of a Sacrifice For either these things and such-like were more properly called Oblations than Sacrifices or when they were called Sacrifices they were so called because of the Proper bloudy Sacrifice as the principal thing to which they were adjuncts Five things are said to be required to constitute a Sacrifice 1 A Proper Lessius de Ju. Just it Minister who is the Priest Heb. 5. Secondly the Matter must be sensible 3. The form of that matter must be changed and that after the nature of it Thirdly It must be directed and devoted to a Good end God And fiftly It must be offered in a proper place But not all these are certain and constantly true For Cain and Abel and Noah and Abraham and the rest under the Law offered proper Sacrifices but that they had peculiar Temples or Altars is not true For until that injuction of God in Deuteronomie Take heed to thy selfe that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in Deut. 12. 13. 14. every place that thou seest But in the place which the Lord shall
most certain and inevitable event even not inferiour to any of those necessities we have touched and the reason is plain because here is supposed the same will and same power to effect this as them and the variety and uncertainty of the means whereby a thing is brought about makes nothing at all against this because this proceeds only form the relation such means have to our understanding and apprehension which not being able to descern any connexion natural between the Cause and the Effect do look upon the effect as meer chance For instance that a fly should kill a man by choking him is as contingent a thing as can ordinarily happen And who could believe it that should be told that such a fly moving lightly and wildly it knows not whether it self perhaps a mile off from the place where this falls out and many dayes before the fact should certainly be the death of such a man yet no man of reason and conscience can deny but Gods providence and decree may impose an inevitable necessity upon this creature so opportunely and fitly to move as that it should certainly kill him and that at such a time and in such a place And if any should hereof doubt the express asseveration of our Saviour Christ in the Gospel may satisfie him herein saying One Sparrow shall not fall on the ground without your Father If any should so Matth. 10. 29. contrive our Saviours words as to understand without Gods will to be contrary only to Gods will and not of Gods will concurring and his knowledge noting the same St. Luke will instruct him otherwise who renders Luke 12. 6. the same speech Not one is forgotten which implies Observation and Providence That therefore those things which seem to us most free irregular and contingent may have a tacit and unknown determination from God which should fix and infallibly limit them to some special ends I may presume no man can piously doubt and especially after that great Opposer of Gods Providence over humane actions hath been constrained to acknowledge so much I mean Socinus who granteth God the liberty and power so to determine Praelâ—ct car 6. the Salvation as well as the acceptation and improvement of Grace offered to Peter and to Paul that the effect should inevitably follow which being allowed all the arguments usually brought by him and others not of his rank of the inconsistency of such inevitable decrees with the freedom of Mans will will lie as heavy upon him to solve or answer in his cases as on any other who should extend the same to many more than he pleases to do For can we any more conceive that Gods good will to them should first make them brutes before it made them Saints in limiting their choice and determining the same to one side rather than others or that he should extinguish a natural humane principle in them to bring them to salvation but secure it to others I hope not Therefore if a necessity destroyed not their humane Liberty how can it be concluded that it doth it in others Oâ— that there is no possible concord between Necessity and Contingencie Indeed in the same respect it must necessarily be true whether we regard God or Man For neither to God nor to Man can the same thing be allowed to be necessary and contingent at the same time but there appears no reason why the same thing which is necessarily to follow on the part of God may not be said on the part of man to be fortuitous free and chance as it is called For we indeed vulgarly call that only necessary where there appears a necessary connexion in nature between cause and effect and according to the degree of evidence and assurance to us we hold a thing necessary or contingent in which sense we hold it necessary that an heavy body out of its natural place should left to it self descend to it and possess it And we hold it not so necessary that the Sun going down in a cleer red evening towards the West should portend the day following to be fair and cleer Our Saviour when he affirmed this spake after the observations and opinion of men which generally herein fail not So that the being of a thing reaâ—y and the appearing of it so to be being so far different in nature it follows not at all that so it is intrinsecally and of it self because we can make no other judgment of it than in such a manner and that because we perceive no natural connexion between the cause and effect necessitating it therefore there neither is nor can be any Some things God hath ordained so openly inseparable one from the other that we easily and readily infer the one from or by the other and this is all we call necessity in nature But if God more covertly and subtilty hath likewise ordained the like connexion not by a Law of constant Nature but his singular will for which we can find out no reason this we presently call Contingent though it be as certain as the other And names being given to things by man according as they are apprehended the distinction of things into Necessary and Contingent is very reasonable and serviceable to man as signifying to him such a diversity of Effects in the world that some have apparent natural necessary cause to produce them and these things we call Necessary and some things have no such natural causes but more immediately are ordered by God bringing causes by his special Providence together besides their nature to produce such an Effect and that certainly though not naturally and this we call Contingent That this manner of proceeding of the Providence of God is possible is impossible to be desired And in many things seeming to us as casual as may be that actually they are all granted For to us considering all circumstances it was a thing meerly indifferent and undetermined whether Peter should believe unto Salvation or not but considering the resolute Providence of God disposing certainly outward causes it was certain and infallible The great question must then be about the General viz. Whether God hath two immutable Laws whereby a necessity doth attend all effects as well such as we tearm free and contingent as such as are necessary with this difference only that on some things he hath laid a Law natural which ordinarily and necessarily moveth to one certain effect and end as are seen in natural generations and corruptions as that as St. Paul saith Every seed should have its own body i. e. produce it And 1 Cor. 15. that whatever is so generated should by a Law of Nature also incline to dissolution again And that by a private invisible Law which reserves to him or particular decree he certainly bringeth to pass even those things of which we can give no reason and there appears to us no connexion or order of causes but causes are by his special hand brought to
one way which such self-determination being known to God renders him truly Prescient and Omniscient and that without errour But this will not stand the encounter For Gods knowledge about the Creature being wholly conditional as we have shewed supposing the application of natural Causes in natural Effects and free Causes to free Effects there will be no Cause to be found or imagined in nature why two equally by nature Free shall extreamly differ in their choice of the same object How can that be known which neither hath a being in it self nor its Causes But the Case in hand is such For the Object being the same to both and the Subject being the same in both Freedom of Will to chose it is not intelligible how it should be fore-seen that one will certainly tend this way and the other the Contrary And if there be a difference in the Wills St. Augustines question so often and pressingly urged against the Pelagians out of St. Paul will put them hard to it to answer viz. Who made thee to differ and what hast thou that thou hast not received Comes it from a mans self as free If so then it should come from all alike where all are alike free and if all be not alike free then there is difference made to their hand and not by themselves Again the common Argument will be of no ordinary force upon them which layeth this undeniable and unshaken foundation That God is the Cause of all Causes and the First mover in all natural actions and motions but here as some of the Schoolmen and amongst others Suarez by name hath it God should stand still look on Suarez in 1. 2dâ— Thom. Disput 6. Tract 4. and await for a time the first self-motion of the Creature without any prae-moving vertue effectual to the end and see whether he will turn to the right hand or to the left before he knows any thing of certainty concerning that But they proceed farther and say That God having indued the Free Agent with sufficient abilities to Act the original cause of Acting must be himself and so his universasity of Cause â—aâ—ved to him But to this we reply That three things are to be considered in indifferent Actions The Power to Act which is indifferent The Determination of this power to one which takes off the indifferencie and the Action it self which in the execution is necessary because as the Axâ—ome hath it Every thing when it is necessarily is Now the latter indeed may be ascribed to God as likewise the first as the true Author upon general concessions of power but the second cannot because what I think hath not been considered there is a distinction to be made between the power of Acting or not Acting and Acting this or the contrary to it and the power of determining it self to one rather than the other For if as in an equal ballance the two Scales of mans Free-will are so evenly posited that they are no more propense to one than the other side the Affirmative or Negative doth it not necessarily follow there must be the help of a finger or such thing to make a difference though the least touch will do it So that the power of moving up or down is plainly one thing and the power of determining the same quite another here and so likewise in mans Free-will made free and thus indifferent by Grace which they call sufficient though this will not be allowed by such as require a particular and immediate converse of God to all Actions as did likewise the most Philosophical Heathens as I could show From whence we may collect that God seeing nothing but what has a real being in it self or Causes and the Power of Acting being not sufficient to give a being to an effect but the Execution of that Power if this Execution hath no cause it cannot be known and it hath no immediate cause until man hath actual being according to that opinion that makes man the absolute cause of determining his actions and not God For surely man cannot determine before he hath existence and therefore it cannot be and therefore neither known to be so much as future For man before he is can give no causality to this determination and they say God doth give none Therefore it is not at all and cannot at all be known of God Neither can it be said That things future are Real Beings though not Actual and Present and so may be known of God because that which is future cannot be actually known but as it is actual and not simply future and therefore is the knowledge of God by more accurate speakers truly called Vision rather than Praevision And those things that are future as to their proper Existence are present as to their Causes in Gods counsels but if there be no such to be found with God then can there be no such Causes at all For that cannot be said to be the Cause of a thing which at the same time is the Cause equally of the contrary or contradiction to that thing but the undetermined will of Man is indifferent to both sitting still or walking at the same time no cause inclining to one more than other which should found a certain knowledge of one and not of the other 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 TO the vindicating the former Discourse from just reprehension it will here be expected that we explain our selves in answer to these following Quaeries First Whether the knowledge of God be the Cause of things future or things future the Cause of his knowledge or otherwise Whether God knows a thing because it shall come to pass or It shall come to pass because God knows it In answer to which we must distinguish a twofold knowledge in God An Ideal knowledge and a Real knowledge as we may be allowed to speak after the manner of Men reserving still to God his absolute simplicity The Ideal knowledge of God is that whereby he perfectly knows all things in their proper forms which are possible and intelligible And this doth not depend at all upon his Decrees which we make the Cause of all Existence in the Creature but the Decrees of God depend upon this God decreeing nothing to be future which he first by simple intuition beholds not in its proper Nature and Circumstances as men of Contemplation first weigh the nature means and ends of things before they resolve upon them But the Real knowledge which we signally so call because it relates to the Real Existence of the thing so known does certainly depend upon the antecedent Decree of God no possible reason being to be rendred why God should know a thing to be but because it is certainly and not fallibly to him to be And no
apud Laertium in Vita diffused acts thereof considerable in all his Creatures we shall confine our selves to those specially concerning Man the measure of all other Creatures as the Philosopher said and as Christian doctrine tell us the Head and Crown of all and these as to the religious capacity of Man chiefly In which are eminent Predestination Election Vocation Salvation And Reprobation and Damnation on the other side Predestination and the Decree of God if in any thing they differ it may seem to be chiefly in this that use hath made Decree of a more large signification conteining the act of Gods supream Providence over all his Creatures but Predestination is more properly appertaining to Man Some have thought good yet farther to proceed in limiting the tearm Predestination to the Elect only and such as shall be saved but St. Austine and others that follow him make it common to both the Saved and Damned And Augustine speaking of the two Cities in the world that of God and that of Aug. in Civ Dei lib. â—5 c. 1. the Devil saith One is predestinated to reign for ever with God the other to endure eternal punishment with the Devil And so in several other places which here I omit Calvine is famous for the like freedom of speech in the Predestination of men to Damnation and to Beza and Martyr and Aretius and almost who not that were of that Reformation but the opinion of these must not pass for Austins opinion without this remarkable distinction Austine and such Fathers as followed him and it was some hundred of years before any Father of repute in the Church presumed to confront him in his known doctrines in this point affirmed an infallible Predestination to Life and Death but he did not so affirm it that this should be done absolutely without any consideration of the way and means leading thereunto this those Divines now named held and those of Dort generally called the Supralapsarian way very irrationally and impiously Their main reason is this That God could not be subject to so much inconsiderateness and imprudence as no man of ordinary reason could be guilty of viz. To make a thing before he knows what to do with it First therefore they conclude That God must propound to himself a certain end and that not common and general which is his Glory but special to each man in the last state of all and thence infer That he must as men call for several tools or instruments for several works and ends predestinate the means thereunto This argument was used long before Calvine by Scotus and in effect the same though minc'd a little by him who declares plainly that God must first propound to himself an end and then order the means agreeable to that end Yet is Scotus suffer'd to pass and little said to him But Calvine bears all the blame And surely blame-worthy he is As on the other side that later rank and careless Pen which would by no means suffer that there should inevitable destruction attend any man of Gods making because forsooth this were to make God like to a foolish workman who should make a curious work only to destroy it and break it to pieces But setting aside the odiousness of the comparison the thing it self supposed is false and that many wayes First that it would be such a piece of impardonable folly in a man to make a thing which he resolved to destroy again when he had done his will with it It is indeed hard to conceive that any man should be so stupid as to have no end of a thing but that it might not be so soon as it hath a beginning for surely either profit or delight intermediate was the principal and rational Motives thereunto and therefore secondarily he might ordain the very dissolution of his work as a man doth who having made a curious mould breaks it to pieces and so at first intended before it was made so soon as he had perfected his more principal intention But were it so that this could not be done without extream folly on mans part yet the same might be done without the least just suspicion of mistake on Gods part For man is certainly a fool who studieth or laboureth about a thing which bringeth him no real advantage or destroyes a thing which doth But God receiving no such advantage from the saved or such disadvantage from the damned where is the imprudence But last of all Damnation is indeed destruction in the vulgar but not proper sense The Person of the damned is as entire as to his Si enim de nihilo creavit omnia non idcirco fecit ut perderet quae creavit sed ut illius miserecordid quae creata sunt salvarentur Hieronymus in cap. 12. Zachariae state of natural being as is that of the saved And God may have his ends of glory and certainly hath from the misery of the Creature But both this opinion and that of Calvine seem to make the ultimate tearm of Man the ultimate end of God though it be but for this arguments sake and cannot do it generally or really But the contrary is plainly the truer that God propoundeth no other ultimate end than himself in his acts of Creation and Providence And therefore though God hath revealed himself an act of his free Grace in his holy Word that he willeth not the death of a sinner and much less of a person that is innocent before him and it were most blasphemous to Gods truth and mercy to affirm That as the case stands between him and man he will or may condemn to everlasting pains Man not justly deserving them yet there appears not any reason considering the absolute dominion of the Creature belonging to him that of himself he might not so have disposed of him They may say That God in justice can take away no more than he gave to his Creature be it so The capacity of the beatifical Vision God gave man and therefore may take it away And what is that but extream misery Chrysostome makes the loss of Gods glorious presence to be greater than the pains of sense suffered by the damned And do we not see thus much before our eyes frequently That God causes many to come into this world who wear-out a miserable life without any good day in continual languishings and sicknesses Surely this is not without cause going before But yet no more cause then is common to others living in prosperity and ease This may be disputed and perhaps better omitted but not so that opinion which makes irrespective Predestination to glory and misery because God must first propound his end making no great difference between the Predestination to the means of a good end and the means towards a bad one but that God to bring about this as well as that doth with like concurse and will design evil means to evil ends as he doth good to good ends or that he
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
And that Oraculum by notice whereof the Bishop of Rome with the Senate of Cardinals granted to the Sclavonian Nation that they should use the tongue of their Country in sacred actions seemeth to pertain to all Nations named Christians Omnis spiritus laudet Dominum omnis lingua confiteatur ei Let every spirit praise the Lord and every tongue confess to him And Thomas Cajetane a man doubtless most learned and acute wrote in a certain place It were better for the edification of the Church publick prayers to be said in the vulgar tongue in the Church which the people may hear than in the Latin tongue And when he was for this reproved by some he answered He built upon the foundation of the Apostles in his fourteenth Chapter of his first Epistle to the Corinthians c. Thus far and much more followeth out of that grave man to this purpose So that in one of those things which convince the Church of Rome of Innovation and obstinacie in novelties as nothing need more be said against it to that end nothing being said more for it in the upshot of all Disputes but that for some time it hath been in use there and the Trentine Convention hath Azorus Institut Mor. l. 8. c. 26. Salmer in 1 Cor. 16. Disp 30. made all sure according to their manner by decreeing it inconvenient that Divine Offices should commonly be in the vulgar tongue as Azorius writeth and as Salmeron It anathematizes such as will not be content with the three tongues in which the super scription was written upon the Cross of Christ Which is a fansie without any firmness at all it being certain no such thing was intended thereby and evident that the Hebrew tongue was scarce ever used in Christian services though the Syriack hath been And it is not agreed whether of the two was the Language but this we rest not on nor can the Romanists But when they have turned every stone to little purpose they come to that which will never fail them in this or any other point the determination of their Church and practise of the same which upon no accounts must be violated for that were to loose or hazard all as Azorius in the place fore-cited doth with little modesty and less advantage to his cause profess and answering this question Whether the vulgar tongue might not be indulged to Hereticks petitioning for it and for the peace of the Church saith I answer Councils and Fathers and the Church were never wont to yield to such like Hereticks demands But this he proves in matters quite of a different nature as if when the Fathers would hear of no accommodation with Arius Eutycheus Nestorius holding notorious heresies against Christ even when they would have introduced some verbal agreement they could be precedents to oppose that wherein if it were false can consist no heresie but is true and most generally was practised by all the Fathers and Churches at first and so continued for eight hundred years And therefore he speaks more to this purpose in these words following If it should be granted to Lutherans and Calvinists that they should celebrate Divine Service in their vulgar tongue they would afterward give out that they had got their wills yea that the Church had changed her opinion and left off her ancient custom as contrary to Scripture and so charge the Church with erring and would exult with incredible joy and gladness over it c. This is in truth the very same reason which our grave Puritans render why they conform not to the Church in her Service whenas they confess they have nothing of sin to object against the thing it self viz. They should be judged of mutability and levity should thereby weaken their Ministry in the esteem of their people which in all probability they borrowed from their Father Calvin one of whose reasons against the moderation Calvin Epist of Melancthon was that if they should make any correction in that Reformation which was so hastily hudled up they should weaken their Ministry The reasonableness of which I leave to others to judge of But rejecting the common reasons all of which we are not here to examine of Papists we shall freely oblige them to give better grounds of the Liturgies in unknown tongues than may be ordinarily found amongst them though no sufficient can be given And one is the great veneration had to the traditions of the Ancients in worshipping God not that anciently any instance can be given that may be a precedent to the corruptions of these times but that having with sober grave and holy advice framed a Liturgy in any one tongue they were very scrupulous how they made any alteration therein though of words only and therefore that which is vulgarly spoken altering daily and that which was written remaining altogether unchanged in words tract of time bred a diversity between the one and the other But this we demand of our Adversaries what one president for many hundred years together they can produce where at the first institution of publick Service it was so contriv'd that nothing of the vulgar language should be taken into it There is a vast difference between a passive and an active and purposed inconvenience The ancient predecessours of the Roman Church never intended that their Latin Service should be hid or unknown from the common people which many generations after followed yet so it must needs fall out in time But they who at this day plant Churches in both Indies and obtrude their Latine tongue upon the people there and who deny liberty to other Provincial Churches in Europe and elsewhere to celebrate in their known Language do purpose mischief unto such Christians and become Schismatical in not only not redressing themselves according to the Rule of their fore-fathers whom they should much more imitate in ordering their service so that the Common Christian might understand the same as primitively and for a long time they did than in sticking so severely to the bare Letters and Syllables they used not making conscience of far more scandalous practices in altering the service it self in matter by absurd additions and detractions but with denunciation of Excommunication against such Churches as shall presume to redress that evil of ignorance and render Christians intelligent of what they do But I have been of opinion that the vulgar have been no small cause of this great superstition and inconvenience to themselves In that in process of time their devotion slacking in timely repairing to the Church and in due demeanor in the Church neglecting to concur with the Minister of God and to reciprocate with him and almost deserting the Service by coldness sloth and indevotion the Priest was constrained perhaps with a Deacon or Clerk only to perform the service alone And truly let such people look to their modern teachers who have instilled such ungracious opinions into them as to take them off
exposed to any other actions than for which they were consecrated nor should any go unpunished who in them shall not accommodate himself altogether to such sacred religiousnesses And must that odious name of Papist render such excellent acts and customs odious as all the Christian world for many hundred years before Popery prevailed frequented be blasted with the slaunder of Popery and no more objected against it but they defend and practise it Away with such fond to speak more moderately than the case requires inferences out of Christians sober mens mouths It is no better than prophaneness all this For proof hereof saith Perkins they alledge the practise of some particular persons in Scriptures which is much more then can be alledged against the practise Of Anna who prayed privately in the Temple Luke 2. 37. Of David who in his exile desired greatly to have recourse unto the Temple And of Daniel who is said to look out of the window towards the Temple and pray Dan. 6. 10. Of these likewise we have spoken above and shown in what sense they oblige to imitation For that the Temple of Jerusalem and the prayers and worshippers in it may be in some case Presidents to us Bertram himself a Genevan doth grant drawing a determinate place for Gods worship in peculiar manner from the dayes of Adam himself and not only from Solomons Temple writing thus It is manifest that a place is due in peculiar manner Bertram de Rep. Judaeor cap. 2. Constat locum debitum esse c. to Divine worship And some of the ancient Expositours of the Jews do not unfitly draw from Gen. 4. 3 4. that the Sacrifices of Cain and Abâ—â— were brought to Adam for there was a place to that purpose c. But let us hear how Perkins comes off from the allegations of Papists as he calls them to the advantage of his Cause These places saith he are abused by the Popish Church For there is a great difference between the Temple of Jerusalem in the Old Testament and our Churches in the New That was built by particular commandment from God so were not our Churches That was a type of the very body and Manhood of Christ Heb. 9. 11. and of his mystical body Again the Ark in the Temple was a pledge and signification of the Covenant a sign of Gods Presence a pledge of his mercy and that by his own appointment for it was his will there to answer his people but the like cannot be shewed of our Churches or Chappels And whither tends all this so much as to shew that the Jews Religion was a better Religion than the Christian For surely that Religion which hath God nearest and most of his holy presence is better than that which wants it And if it be said That this was the outward presence of God chiefly and not so spiritual and therefore inferiour to the Christian which is true Then will I say that notwithstanding the said instances of Gods presence be not to be found with us in our Churches yet the more spiritual and properly divine is in a greater degree in our Churches then that Temple And therefore those places of Scripture are not abused by Papists 2. It doth no where appear in Scripture that they were commanded to build a Temple to God as is there supposed but when David entertained the thoughts of it and Solomon prosecuted the same design they had special directions how they should build it 3. There needs no Evangelical precept to enjoyn that which both by the light of nature as we have seen and such a President of the Law was propounded sufficiently to Christians without a new Revelation 4. The Temple of the Jews was not a proper type of Christs body Christ indeed in the Gospel compares his body to a Temple but every similitude is not to be held a type for then should every common shepheard have been a type of Christ as well as David and the Vine should have been a type of Christ and what not that bears any similitude unto Christ But properly they only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys Serm. 3. in Judaeos can be called types of Christ which were ordained and instituted of God to prefigure and shadow out Christ to come And the Temple had not this for its end but only it was a thing meerly incidental to it 5. Our Temples or Churches are no less types of Christs mystical Body then was the Jewish And the presence of God is more eminently though not sensibly in ours than in them Nay that Temple as the worship in it seemed to be a type of our Temples and Religion as our Temples are a type of Heaven the Holy of Holiest As their Sabbath is granted by all to be but a type of our Evangelical and our Evangelical of the Celestial Of which Evangelical Sabbath we are in the next place to speak CHAP. XII Of the Second Circumstance of Gods Worship Appointed times Of the Sabbath or Seventh Day how it was appointed of God to the Jews but not by the same Law appointed to Christians Nor that one day in seven should be observed The Decalogue contains not all moral duties directly Gentiles observed not a Seventh Day The New Testament no where commands a Seventh Day to be kept holy THE Question and Scruple moved by ignorant unquiet and superstitious persons against observation of Days in order to Gods Service is propounded and well answered by the wise Man in Ecclesiasticus saying Why doth one day excel another whenas all the light of every day in the year is of Eccles 33. 7. the same By the knowledge of God they were distinguished and he altereth 8. Seasons and Feasts Some of them hath he made high days and hallowed them 9. and some of them hath he made ordinary days I make no doubt but here it will be answered presently That God did this and appointed solemn days and seasons to the Jews and to them only which things as St. Paul speaks Gal. 4. 10 11. are to be done away in Christ And this is very true in great part For those Judaical days were appointed by Gods immediate order and by his will again evacuated and revers't at the coming of Christ But then all days in use among the Jews were not so ordained by God as the Feast of Purim and the Feast of Dedication but by humane prudence which when they would disgrace sufficiently and acquit themselves from they are wont to call Humane Inventions as if because God hath in his Word signaliz'd for evil such humane inventions as were quite contrary to his institution none other agreeable to his word and subservient to it were to be patiently endured St. Paul then when he saith Which things are done away in Christ doth undoubtedly mean the Jewishness and figurativeness of them and not absolutely the days and times instituted to the service of God in Christ God suffered God approved
have from the matter it self divided the Commandments so that Four which relate principally to God should be placed in the First Table and Six in the Second which seems to be most rational though no less arbitrary than the other There are likewise among the Jews who agree not in the very matter it self of the Ten Commandments For some as the Talmudists and others following them do make that we call properly The Proaem or Preface I am the Lord thy God to be part of the First Commandment which is denyed by Aberbenel and others of them as well as most of us For this Proposition or Sentence I am the Lord thy God is as we say properly Enunciative or Indicative or purely affirmative and not Imperative or Commanding as all Precepts must be which are so properly called The First Commandment therefore is this Thou shalt have no other Gods §. I. but me Where it is first to be observed that almost thorow the whole Decalogue some variety in words is to be found in Exodus and in Deuteromy the Fifth where it is repeated The Reason whereof Grotius thinks to be this That here Moses did set down or rather took precisely what was spoken or written by the Angel but in Deuteronomy he rehearses the same himself without such absolute Punctualities of words or expressions and yet must we not dare to say or believe that Moses transgressed his own Rule given by God in the Fourth Chapter before viz. Ye shall not adde unto Deut. 4. 2. the word which I command you neither shall ye diminish ought from it that ye may keep the Commandments of the Lord your God which I command you So that it is a vain Scholie some would give us upon that and such like Texts of Scripture that nothing at all must be added to Gods word more than we find the Letter to require For undoubtedly such speeches mean no more than that we should do or say neither more or less to overthrow the intention of God in his Commandments For otherwise all the large and far fetched senses devised and applyed by the precise Masters and Mistakers of that Rule to each particular Precept in the Decalogue would be found either Superstitious or Sacrilegious inventions though not inconsistent with the Analogy of Faith Furthermore Laws are of two sorts generally Affirmative or Negative In the Negative of which this is one the ordinary method of explication is first to declare those sins of Commission which are prohibited and then the Duties Graces and Vertues which are there implicitly required on the contrary this being one general Rule of expounding the Decalogue that where any vice or sin is forbidden there the contrary vertue is commanded And on the other side Where any vertue or holy act is required there the contrary vice or evil is interdicted As for Example Here it is forbidden that we should have or make or worship any other God but the one true God therefore on the contrary there is an implicite injunction duly and faithfully to serve that one true God And though the sense Negative is most current and general through the whole Decalogue yet were the Affirmative duties they which God principally aimed at and intended For Negatives do not make us holy to God in themselves but only as they are necessary introductions and good beginnings to the more perfect performance of Positive Duties It would avail a man very little towards the fulfilâ—ing of this First Commandment not to worship more Gods than one for so he mâ—ght worship none at all and be a greater offender than the Idolater that worships many We are therefore in the first place to enquire what are those Vertues and Graces God commands and so shall we more readiâ—y and easily conceive what errours and sins we are hereby commanded to avoid Some of both sorts we shall here instance in to make more compleat that rude and imperfect account given above of the Acts of Obedience and Holiness owing from every good Christian to God but as in a Table rather than in a Treatise The Supposition then that this first Precept requires of us the true worship of God doth infer all that train of Graces thereunto necessary which are commonly reduced to these three Theological Vertues Faith Hope and Charity Of the nature of Faith as well in General as Particular have we spoken largely in the first Part Yet rather in a speculative than practical or obediential way which is proper to this place By the duty of Faith then it is first required that we should have a competent knowledge of God and of his will for some knowledge must of necessity go before Faith There is a twofold knowledge One of simple apprehension or intelligence and this must go before Faith For how Rom. 10. 14. saith St. Paul shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard It is impossible a man should worship God before he believes there is a God And impossible he should believe there is a God before he hath some notion or apprehension of a God either by hearing which is the ordinary way or by some inward suggestion And therefore we read that Paul inquiring of the Acts 19. 2. Novices in Christianity at Ephesus Have ye received the Holy Ghost they answered We have not as yet heard whether there be an Holy Ghost or no. And there is another knowledge of Assurance which assurance is caused in Humane Sciences by an orderly and necessary connexion of natural causes one with another but in Divine matters by Faith which causes that or greater perswasion than any outward artificial Demonstrations And therefore both the encrease of our knowledge and the encrease and strengthning of our Faith are much required by this Precept according as we have the Scriptures more particularly advising us and that by St. Peter 2 Pet. 1. 5. And beside all this giving all diligence adde to your faith vertue and to vertue knowledge and to knowledge temperance c. And so in his first Epistle 1 Pet. 2. 3. 1 Tim. 2. 4. Taste and see how good the Lord is And St. Paul to Timothy God will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth And infinite other places Next to knowledge of God seems to be the fear of God according as Acts 9. 39. the Scripture hath it And the Churches were edified walking in the fear of the Lord. Next to Fear comes Repentance and Sorrow for sins past then Renovation or that properly called Obedience in Newness of Life with many others not here to be insisted on The second Grace is Hope which excites to walk and act according to the Gospel from the consideration of the many Promises and upon the intuitiâ—n of an excellent reward to follow certainly the fulfilling the will of God Of which we have spoken in treating of Gods works Lastly Charity with its retinue of Divine Graces is required