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
it is no man can tell further then from the negative notion viz. That it is not true Faith and so no Justifying Faith but a shadow of it not the thing but the foremention'd Faiths are or may be real and Good but Hypocritical can never be so as Hypocritical But we shall conclude this Chapter with an other observation we conceive has occasion'd misbelief concerning Justifying Faith For it is too commonly believed That all Justifying Faith must and doth necessarily and actually Justify all in whom it is But that is not so but that is truly Justifying Faith which in its own nature tendeth thereunto though peradventure defeated of its effect For if natural causes have not alwayes their proper effects through outward impediments may it not be much rather the case of spiritual things which work not naturally but freely To the former distinctions of Faith may be well added another and that of Faith Explicite and Implicite much insisted on and therefore here to be considered And it cannot be neither is it denied but really such cases there are in which good Christians have not that plenitude of Faith desirable and in some cases necessarie For otherwise we must condemn the Faith of St. Peter himself so much commended by Christ himself Mat. 16. 16 17 18. when he openly professed the Deitie of our Saviour Christ For not long after Christ sharply rebuked him for his ignorance of this Passion of him Mat. 16. 23 saying Get thee behind me Satan thou art an offence unto me And so were the Disciples ignorant of the Resurrection of Christ and of the Ascension of Christ supposing his Kingdom should be rather a Temporal than Spiritual and eternal as appeareth by their Question Wilt thou at this time restore Act. 1. 6. again the Kingdom unto Israel And I make no doubt after so much evidence from the Histories of the Primitive times that many Eminently holy persons suffering martyrdome for Christ were very meanly seen and setled in divers of those Articles of Faith which have been since imposed as necessarie on the Church and indeed ought to be How this can be allowed is therefore to be inquired into And to this end First it must be determin'd what may be meant by Implicit and Explicit Faith That we call Explicit Faith which clearly distinctly and expresly believs an article of Faith or any divine truth revealed Implicit then must be such a Faith that believs obscurely and confusedly only Secondly it is necessarie to distinguish this distinction it self For Faith may be said to be Implicit either in respect of its object or of its Act. The First Impliciteness consisteth in this That a Christian believing some one material article of Faith clearly and expressly may be said to believe that which is included in that and necessarily follows from it As he that shall believe that Christ consisteth of a divine and humane nature may be said to believe that article contained as it were under it viz. That Christ had a humane will as well as divine though his ignorance be such as never to have particularly considered the same But the Act of Faith I call implicite is when a man being as they say a Christian or Believer at large and liking that Religion very well shall without search without knowledge of the principal points of Faith shuffle all together and conclude all as he thinks sufficiently in this That he believes as a good Christian or Catholick believes as the Church believes The First of these kinds of Faith must necessarily be allowed as good and laudable provided it be not accompanied with an affected ignorance or sloth hindering a mans proficiencie in the Extent and Intention or degrees of it For surely this means the Holy Scripture when it saith I have fed you with Milk and not with meat for hitherto ye were not able to bear it 1 Cor. 3. 2. 1 Cor. 2. 6. neither yet now are ye able And again Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect yet not the wisdom of this world c. Which intimate unto us That the servants of Christ imitating their Master herein did not presently pour forth all the several Mysteries of the Kingdom of God and of Faith but proceeding gradually laid first the foundation Christ Jesus and according to the capacitie of their Converts opened the rest more Explicitly afterward And I make no doubt but the obscure and narrow Faith of the unlearned being generally more sincere and firm than that of the knowing and inquisitive shall lead them to Heaven no less than that more ample Christs equal proceedings being such as not to require the same of all in quantitie of measure but of proportion to their state and his Gifts and Graces conferred on men But that other sort of Faith which satisfies it self with the sincerity and Catholickness of it and that it is of such a sort not attending to or endeavouring after any further illumination or information in the branches arising from that root we cannot see how men can speak reasonably or conscionably in the commendation of it or such who are owners of it can hope to receive any greater benefit than to be numbred amongst true Believers without the reward For it is expresly against Gods word which requireth that the Word of God should dwell in you richly in all wisdom c. And Col. 3. 16. Ignea res fies est ubicunque ociosa est non est Sed quemadmodum in lucerna oleum alit flammam ne extinguatur ita Charitatis opera fidem alunt ne deficiant Fides gignit bona opera Sed illa vicissim nutriunt Parentem Erasmus in Symbolum the reason hereof is because the obedience of Faith of which before is generally proportionable to the Faith it self from whence it springs How then can any man act as all men are tied with an universal obedience who know not nor believe what they are obliged to do but by that Faith which is wanting in them And rudely and effectedly to rest quietly under the immaginarie protection of believing as the Church believes may indeed keep men which is all commonly lookt after here from being Hereticks but it doth not secure them from being Heathens For what ever is said and pretended such ignorant persons do not believe as the Church believes For when the Church believes Expresly and they believe confusedly do they believe as the Church believes When the Church believes she knows what and they believe they know not what do they believe as the Church believes Lastly when the Church believes directly and positively things as they are propounded and these believe negatively that is no otherwise then the Church not oppositely to the sense of it do they believe as the Church believes May not a Heathen believe no otherwise then the Church and yet be an Heathen Nay the more naturally stupid and indocil men are the safer Catholicks they should be because
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
be convicted of moral evil and so unconcernedly to omit the weightier matters of the Law as Judgment Mercy or Charity in Vnity and Faith what can Charity call this but meer Pharisaism and where must such Pharisaism end at length but in Sadducism even denying of the Blessings and Curses of a Future Life For as Drusius hath Si Patres nostri selvissent mâ—râ—â—â—s resurrecturâ— praemia manere â—ustos â—â—st hanc vitam nâ—n tantoperè râ—bellassent Drusius in Mat. c 3. v. 7. Item in c. 22 23. observed it was one Reason alledged by the Sadduces against the Resurrection If our Fathers had known the dead should rise again and rewards were prepared for the Righteous they would not have rebelled so often not conforming themselves to Gods Rule as is pretended by all but conforming the Rule of Sin and of Faith it self to the good Opinion they had of their own Persons and Actions which Pestilential Contagion now so Epidemical God of his great Mercy remove from us and cause health and soundness of Judgment Affection and Actions to return to us and continue with us to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. THE CONTENTS OF THE CHAPTERS Chap. I. OF the Nature and Grounds of Religion in General Which are not so much Power as the Goodness of God and Justice in the Creature And that Nature it self teaches to be Religious Chap. II. Of the constant and faithful assurance requisite to be had of a Deity The reasons of the necessity of a Divine Supream Power Socinus refuted holding the knowledge of a God not natural Chap. III. Of the Unity of the Divine Nature and the Infiniteness of God Chap. IV. Of the diversity of Religions in the World A brief censure of the Gentile and Mahumetan Religion Chap. V. Of the Jewish Religion The pretence of the Antiquity of it nulled The several erroneous grounds of the Jewish Religion discovered Chap. VI. The vanity of the Jewish Religion shewed from the proofs of the true Messias long since come which are many Chap. VII The Christian Religion described The general Ground thereof the revealed Will of God The necessity of Gods revealing himself Chap. VIII More special Proofs of the truth of Christian Religion and more particularly from the Scriptures being the Word of God which is proved by several reasons Chap. IX Of the several Senses and Meanings according to which the Scriptures may be understood Chap. X. Of the true Interpretation of Holy Scriptures The true meaning not the letter properly Scripture Of the difficulty of attaining the proper sense and the Reasons thereof Chap. XI Of the Means of interpreting the Scripture That they who understand Scripture are not for that authorized to interpret it decisively The Spirit not a proper Judge of the Scriptures sense Reason no Judge of Scripture There is no Infallible Judge of Scripture nor no necessity of it absolute The grounds of an Infallible Judge examined Chap. XII Of Tradition as a Means of understanding the Scriptures Of the certainty of unwritten Traditions that it is inferiour to Scripture or written Tradition No Tradition equal to Sense or Scripture in Evidence Of the proper use of Tradition Chap. XIII Of the nature of Faith What is Faith Of the two general grounds of Faith Faith divine in a twofold sense Revelation the formal reason of Faith Divine Of the several senses and acceptations of Faith That Historical Temporarie and Miraculous Faith are not in nature distinct from Divine and Justifying Faith Of Faith explicite and implicite Chap. XIV Of the effects of true Faith in General Good Works Good Works to be distinguish'd from Perfect Works Actions good four wayes Chap. XV. Of the effect of Good Works which is the effect of Faith How Works may be denominated Good How they dispose to Grace Of the Works of the Regenerate Of the proper conditions required to Good Works or Evangelical Chap. XVI Of Merit as an effect of Good Works The several acceptatations of the word Merit What is Merit properly In what sense Christians may be said to merit How far Good Works are efficacious unto the Reward promised by God Chap. XVII Of the two special effects of Faith and Good Works wrought in Faith Sanctification and Justification what they are Their agreements and differences In what manner Sanctification goes before Justification and how it follows 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 Chap. XIX Of the efficient cause of Justification Chap. XX. Of the special Notion of Faith and the influence it hath on our Justification Of Faith solitary and only 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 Chap. XXI A third effect of justifying Faith Assurance of our Salvation How far a man is bound to be sure of his Salvation and how far this assurance may be obtained The Reasons commonly drawn from Scripture proving the necessity of this assurance not sufficient c. Chap. XXII Of the contrary to true Faith Apostasie Heresie and Atheism Their Differences The difficulty of judging aright of Heresie Two things constituting Heresie the evil disposition of the mind and the falsness of the matter How far and when Heresie destroys Faith How far it destroys the Nature of a Church Chap. XXIII Of the proper subject of Faith the Church The distinction and description of the Church In what sense the Church is a Collection of Saints Communion visible as well as invisible necessary to the constituting a Church Chap. XXIV A preparation to the knowledge of Ecclesiastical Society or of the Church from the consideration of humane Societies What is Society What Order What Government Of the Original of Government Reasons against the peoples being the Original of Power and their Right to frame Governments Power not revocable by the people Chap. XXV Of the Form of Civil Government The several sorts of Government That Government in general is not so of Divine Right as that all Governments should be indifferently of Divine Institution but that One especially was instituted of God and that Monarchical The Reasons proving this Chap. XXVI Of the mutual Relations and Obligations of Soveraigns and Subjects No Right in Subjects to resist their Soveraigns tyrannizing over them What Tyranny is Of Tyrants with a Title and Tyrants without Title Of Magistrates Inferiour and Supream the vanity and mischief of that distinction The confusion of co-ordinate Governments in one State Possession or Invasion giveth no Right to Rulers The Reasons why Chap. XXVII An application of the former Discourse of Civil Government to Ecclesiastical How Christs Church is alwayes visible and how invisible Of the communion
But first consider we the silliness of their reasons and weakness of their arguments against a Deity who will yield to nothing but manifest palpable and invincible demonstrations for it and it will be sufficient to confirm any sober mind in the faith of it For how many hath Pride to be thought some body extraordinary in maintaining Paradoxes Singularity to find out somwhat new as Lactantius observed of those Philosophers that were reputed Atheists 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysoft In Hebraeos Ser. 4. that took upon them such opinions because they could find out nothing else to make themselves talkt on and famous How many hath boldness and impudency vain-glory and to appear free and illimited in their opinions and practices How many hath Riot Lust and such like excesses converted to this kind of infidelity more then Sobriety or Philosophie It is alas no wit no choice no freedom or generousness of mind at all If as Chrysostome hath said the nobleness of the mind consisteth in believing the high and noble things but a contracted stupidity or sordid servility and unavoidable necessity to enjoy themselves in their low and base courses which constrain them to these perswasions unnatural to them But I deny not but some of the Learned and for ought we know grave Philosophers have inclined to Atheisin as have many Great Rich and Powerful But first however some Princes have been dogmatical within themselves and Practical Atheists in their unjust dealings towards others yet never dared they to commend or incourage such principles in their Subjects nor discover professedly such to their Neighbours by reason of the visible and monstrous mischiefs presently and naturally rushing out of them to the ruin of themselves and others And can that be a truth which is so pernicious to the Authors and promoters of it all over the World Again Can there be any thing more required to prove a thing to be irrational and absurd then that it should never by all countenance and advantages given to it by Power and Learning be able to prosper into any one Society upon earth That it should never prevail so far as to be generally and publickly owned in any one Land or Nation But like a flash of wild-fire make a noise and a show and presently come to nothing Never could Atheists yet from the Creation to this present unite into a Body or become a Commonwealth but against all endeavours and devices when Religion has for a time been discountenanced and crushed by impious Agents it hath recovered it self again in despite of its adversaries Which shews that it is implanted in Man as a natural principle which may be oppressed but never extinguished For whereas Socinus and his crew of late would prove that Religion is not natural to Man from some remote Indians who he says acknowledg no God It is hard for any to make that good But were it so It doth not overthrow our opinion here which teaches chiefly such a naturalness as upon presentation of the thing to the mind of man outwardly doth meet with such compliance inwardly as may well be called Natural And besides a principal doubt was whether infinite People directly and positively asserting and believing a Deity any one can be found which dogmatically oppose the same None of Socinus his instances reach to this And it is not so improbable but inhumanity it self may have prevailed over some people so far as to have buried all Civility in them And what wonder is it or what weakning to our Cause in hand that they who have ceased to be men should have layd aside Religion I do not think Divinity or the belief of a God more inseparable from Man then common humanity and yet I may hold it natural too CAHP. III. Of the Unity of the Divine Nature and the Infiniteness of God NOthing is so intimate and necessary to the very Being of a thing as the Unity of it as say Philosophers Of the Unity of the Deity therefore as necessary to Faith we shall here briefly speak Where first it is to be noted to the advantage of the Faith holding there can be but one God that though many great Wits have attempted boldly to deny a God yet none of them who have granted a Deity have ever so much as denyed the reasonableness of that Opinion which asserts the Unity of such a Deity All generally looking on it as an Excellency to the Divine Nature to be but One However it is written of some ancient Hereticks what is scarce to be found amongst the wiser sort of ancient Natural Philosophers that there was a God of Evil as well as of Good conceiving indeed so far aright that the most Perfect absolute good cannot produce directly what is evil but erring herein that they either thought that to be evil which was not so in it self as evil Beasts poysonous Plants excessive Tempests and the like or supposing that what was really evil must have some positive and direct Agent to produce it which upon due examination will be found contrary to reason And surely though the first thing and most obvious to common apprehensions is that there is a God absolutely yet this being granted and supposed it is much more easie to convince an adversary who shall call in question the Unity of God that he is but one then that he is simply So immediately and necessarily does it follow from the very subject it self For what does the very notion of God imply and include in it Deum cum audis substantiam intellige sine initio sine fine simplicem sine uâ—la admistione invisibilem incorpoream ineffabilem inestâ—â—abilem in quo nihil â—adjanctum nihil crentum sit sine autore Ruffinus in symbolum but a thing most absolute most perfect most glorious most entire and whatsoever and more then what ever the mind of Man can comprehend of excellency But if there be more then one God and these distinct and separate in nature or space then is there in one what is not in the other and the one is what the other is not for else they were not divers or many but one which is argued against by Doubters And if the properties or perfections of one be not communicated to the other but remain peculiar to each nothing can be more certain and apparent than that all perfections are not united into one Being and so consequently that Being imperfect and defective in something and so not absolutely and simply perfect and so not God whom we suppose to be most perfect or not at all And the general and wise concord and harmony found in the World do strongly convince the unity of the First Cause and mover thereof Athan. cont Gentes p. 41. Tom. 1. True indeed some contrarieties and contentions are seen in particular creatures of opposite natures and qualities but this doth rather argue the Unity of a Sovereign power which doth reconcile them into a commodious
particular defects and exigencies each man is subject unto in a separate condition And this Society thus combining or concurring together is commonly called a Republick the word signifying The common good it being the design and end of all Republicks or Common-wealths for men first in order to seek the common interest and good of the whole Society and so through that to derive particular and private benefit to each member thereof and not as some blindly and brutishly addicted to their private personal profits to begin at home and not to secure the Publick stock These are no better than such Pilferers and Thieves who being in partnership with others pocket up in the first place all that they can lay hold on and contribute no more to the common stock than they are by force constrained unto Now this Society may be divided into three sorts Natural Civil Divine or Ecclesiastical Natural is that Order and Regiment constituted Ordâ— est parium disparium rerum sua cuique loco triâ—uens dispositio Aug. Civ Dei 19. 13. Bernardus Gerson entitiloquio Gubernare est movere aliquos indebitum finem sicut nanta gubernat navem emendo eam ad portum Thomas 22. Q. 102. 2. co by God in every mans soul which consisteth of the Superiority of the Rational faculties and the Subjection and Obedience of the Inferiour or Sensitive Affections For Order as several of the Ancient have described it is nothing else but The Disposition or placing of equal and inequal things into their proper places which Order is the foundation of Government And Government according to Thomas is the moving of men to their due end There being therefore a twofold end of man secular and spiritual Government likewise must be answerable And both agree in this viz. to be the Administration of the Weal Publick to ends agreeable unto them In which we are yet farther to consider these things 1. The Original of Government 2. The Form of Government 3. The Rule and Reasons of Government 4. The Obligation upon Men under Government And of these briefly as a necessary Introduction to the Doctrine of the Church And concerning the first the Cause and Fountain of all Government Some pretending to fetch the Fountain head of all humane Rule from its first rise have quite forgot what they went about and inverting the order of nature have begun at the end which is rather the effect then cause For now we do not enquire why or to what end it is but who made it and whose hand it was that framed this Tool to bring to pass such a work as humane safety and tranquility That this must be the same cause with that of man himself seems reasonable to me to conclude from the necessity of the same and the wisdom of Divine Providence which having given generally such instinct and common prudence unto Creatures to do nothing which shall serve for nothing nor to erect any thing but with competent provision to conserve and continue the same in that being so far as the Supream Wisdom shall not oppose the same How is it credible that God should make that Master-piece of his Man upon earth and not at the same time provide for that subsistance and continuance Sevorum bestiarum inquit Aristoteles Polit. 3. cap. 6 non est Civitas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which are necessary But it is plain that man though as brutish and a sensible creature he may wear out possibly an unhappy ignoble life yet without society and community and unity through the bands and ligaments of sound and reasonable Laws cannot subsist as civil or rational or as easily improvable to perfection of natural state upon earth but must necessarily degenerate into the rank of Brutes Therefore sure Divine Wisdome left him not destitute of such helps as were proper to this end but together with his very nature instills into him an inclination to Society and by his own Act and Ordinance whereby he ordained that man should propagate and multiply prescribed the best and only manner of civil Regiment investing some with a natural right of dominion over others As the man over the woman and the parents over the children from whence it is ready and easie to approach to a community and that with a subordination This is so plain that the perspicuity and simplicity doth rather then any thing else offend the unsatisfied acuteness of rarer wits and move them to pry farther to confound themselves others and the Order God hath set in the world beginning at the feet and ending in the head and putting counsel into the tail to teach the head how it should rule the body and empowring children to enact Laws for Parents how they ought to govern which they certainly do who affirm that the grosser body of the people did first of all agree upon Government and constitute their Ruler which dogmes have no fewer nor higher arguments to confute and oppress them than these First they are Ridiculous Secondly Sacrilegious and Impious Thirdly Impossible Fourthly Pestilential and Pernicious to all Government It is first ridiculous as that opinion which inverts all order and contrary to a much more sound and sober Rule in Politicks viz. That no man can create one greater than himself And if it be said that therefore no single one can confer greater power than he himself is possessed of on another but Many who are greater than one may I answer This is true where the supposition which is here false and taken for true is granted viz. That many men have in such cases as these any more power then one For I wholly deny that any are or altogether have any right whatsoever power they may usurp to create such Powers And it still remains absurd to suppose that any or all whose only place and capacity it is to serve should more then command For 't is a true saying It is more to make a King than to be a King For still I hold this which I have not found shaken by the many attempts of innovating Wits that there is a real Paternal Power in lawful Princes And though we should suppose that which was rarely if ever done that a man should adopt any man into the place of a Father as men usually did some as their sons yet can we not suppose that hereby any paternal Power is really conferred on such an one but only imaginary and impediments removed whereby Paternal power which hath an acknowledged common right to Rule take place over such a person as hath so submitted unto it So in like manner it cannot be denyed against innumerable instances to be given that the People in certain exigencies and faileurs have as it were adopted one man specially as their civil Parent whom we call commonly a King and hereupon absurdly and proudly conclude they have made a King but we know this to be nothing so For 't is not choice but Power that makes a King and
thus spoken of the Political Power of the Church which we so call because it imitates that which is so more properly called in directing the visible Body of the Church to its proper end as the Pilot doth the ship to its proper Haven and hath both Visible Acts and Effects We are now to treat of that Power We in distinction to that other do call Mystical because the End and Effect thereof is not outward or visible but inward spiritual and Mysterious and therefore also call it Sacramental Sacrament and Mystery being the same in the Original Phrase of the New Testament For to the Church as they are more peculiarly called who are Officers in the same doth it of Right appertain to celebrate these Mysteries Wherefore first we shall speak of the Sacraments in General as the manner is and then in Particular The word Sacrament is rather of Gentile than Christian original there being no word in the New Testament proper to it but the vulgar Translation Sacramentum est invisibilis gratiae invisibilis forma ita ut ejus similitudinemgerat et causa existat Gulielmus Antissiodorensis Sum. Lib. 4. Cap. 1. thinking fit to render Mystery Sacrament in Latin the Antienter Latin Church hath made use of it to express certain Mysterious Rites of sacred and necessary use in the Church of God about which word so long since received no contention ought to be had The Nature Number Minister and Use of them deserving principal enquiry A Sacrament is defin'd as is commonly known by St. Augustine a Visible sign of an Invisible Grace which being taken rigorously seemeth not to comprehend the whole nature of it therefore Antissiodorensis would have its defect supplied thus A Sacrament is a visible form of an Invisible Grace whereof it is also the Cause But considering the many and sharp disputes upon this subject I suppose it may be more fully described to be A visible sign ordained by God to produce an invisible effect of Grace in the soul of Man This definition may be collected from the several parts of it contained in the word of God as first from St. Paul to the Romans speaking of Circumcision a prime Sacrament given by God to Abraham and his seed And he received the sign of Circumcision a Seal of the Righteousness Rom. 4. 11. of Faith which he had being yet uncircumcised For there are three special properties of a Sacrament commonly acknowledged To Signifie To Seal To Effect Grace but in strickness of speech these make but two Acts. For either a Thing doth barely signify and declare another or it concurreth to the being of another where things are Related one to another For seals are no more than signs binding more firmly to the fulfilling of the contents of an Instrument or Conveyance For as in such Cases the Free good will of the Donour is the only cause of an inheritance given the Instrument of Conveyance consisting of so many words are the signs of the inward will the seals are but signs of the signs of words that is an assurance that what was signified in the said Instrument should hold good And the Actual Delivery of this is the immediate Cause of entring into possession or enjoyment of this Gift In like manner The word of God promising his Graces to us signifies the will of God to that end The Sacraments superadded do likewise sensibly signifie unto us the earnest God is in when he made promises unto us as Seals And the actual exhibiting of these signs or seals on Gods Part by his Proxy or Ministers and the due receiving of them on our Part do put us into a fruition of those things which were so signified and promised First then They must be a sign that is a Representation of a thing and not the thing it self and that to add to our knowledge and Faith for if there were no agreement between the thing signifying and the thing signified the word of God alone had sufficed to that end Secondly they must be ordained of God For if no man in common justice can give away another mans estate but the true owner of it how should it be possible or equal or credible that any other besides God himself the Owner of his graces should by instruments of his own forging convey such heavenly benefits to mankind which properly belong to God This were supream folly and presumption to attempt Or can any man know Gods mind or methods of working before he hath revealed them Therefore it is said that God gave Abraham the Sign and Seal of Circumcision Thirdly they must rather be ordained Arbitrarily of God and by special Institution then Naturally least the Free Grace of God therein contained should suffer and the effect be ascribed rather to natural than supernatural Causes For though the cutting off of the foreskin of the flesh by explication intimate the cutting off of the filth of the Soul yet naturally it could not be so well understood And God might if he had pleased ordained the cutting off of the tip of the ear to serve the same ends And so in baptism Water doth naturally cleanse bodily filthiness but without notice given of Gods will and grace it could never have been believed possible to affect the soul and purify it Fourthly as there must be some agreement between the thing signifying and signified there must also be a real difference in their nature For nothing in nature or reason can signify it self because nothing can be clearer than it self For when a thing is obvious to our senses or otherwise apparent Sicut Signum et res ipsa aliquando possint esse diversa ita saepenumero et in multis eadem esse possunt Tunstal 9. de Eucharistia fol 16. we do not say we have a sign of such a thing but the thing it self Yet this most certain Rule is sought to be bafled and overthrown by Cavillers who would bring in their false doctrine of the Eucharist and would shew from bread on a Stall or Cloath which signifies bread and Cloath as well as is bread and Cloath that the same body of Christ may be a sign of it self But their attempts in their Instance fail them because that Bread which is exposed to be sold or that Cloath is not a sign of it self viz. That it is cloath or bread but is so only but it is only a sign that either it is to be sold which is quite another thing from Cloath it self or it is a sign of other cloath which doth not appear And so the body of Christ in the Eucharist is not a sign of that Body which doth appear but of that which doth not appear And therefore a Fifth condition of a Sacrament is That it should visibly signify something invisible and spiritual Lastly that Sacraments are to be not only significant or which comes to the same Sealing but efficacious in themselves upon the souls of men which may deserve further explication
a man never was inserted into that Stock is more properly called Atheism or Heathenism or Privative and then is called Apostasie which is a professed renunciation of the Faith once received Or this Division is Partial and so it takes the name of Heresie upon it Schism then must needs be an outward Separation from the Communion of the Church But when we say Schism is a Separation we do not mean so strictly as if it consisted in the Act of Separating so much as the State For we do not call any man a Schismatique who sometimes refuses to communicate with the Church in its outward worship though that done wilfully is a direct way to it as all frequented Actions do at length terminate in habits of the same Nature but it is rather a State of separation and of Dissolution of the continuitie of Church in a moral or divine sense not natural which we seek into at present This Separate State then being a Relation of Opposition as the other was of Conjunction the Term denominating and signallizing both is to be enquired unto And that is insinuated alreadie and must needs be the Church and that as that is united unto Christ or the true Church For there is no separation from that which really is not though it may seem to be It must therefore be a true Church from whence Schismatical separation is made So far do they confute and confound themselves who excuse their Schismaticalness from that which principally constitutes Schism and Schismaticks viz. an acknowledgement of that to be a true Church from which they divide themselves and separate Again We are to note that Separation is either of Persons and Churches in Co-ordination or subordination according to that excellent and ancient distinction of Optatus saying It is one thing for a Bishop to communicate Optatus Mileviâ—â—â— Cont. Parmen Lib. 3. Aldâ— with a Bishop and another for a Lay man or the Inferiour Clergy to communicate with the Bishop And this because what may perhaps justifie a Non-communion with Co-ordinate Persons or Churches which have no autority one over another wil not excuse Subordinate Persons or Churches owing obedience to their Superiours from Schism From whence it is manifest that though all Schism be a Separation yet all Separation is not a Schism And though there may be many and just causes for a Separation there can be no cause to justifie a Schism For Schism is in its nature A studious Separation or State Separate against Christian Charity upon no sufficient Cause or grounds It must be affected or Studious because if upon necessity or involuntary the Diâ—junction of Churches is rather a punishment than a sin and an Infelicity rather than Iniquity as in the dayes of Anastatius the Emperour as Evagrius relates it Who so violently persecuted the Catholick Church in behalfe of the Eutychian Evagrius Hist Eccl. L. C. 30. Heresie that it was crumbled as it were into several parcels And the Governours could not communicate one with another but the Eastern and Western and African Churches were broke asunder Which farther shews that all Criminal Separation which we make Synonimous with Schism must likewise be an Act proceeding from the persons to separated and not the Act of another For no man can make another a Schismatick any more than he can make him a Lyar or a drunkard without his consent For if the Governours of one Church expeâ— out of Communion another upon no just grounds the Church thus separated is not the Schismatick but the other as appears from the words of Firmilianus Bishop of Cappadocia in St Cyprian concerning Pope Stephen advising him he should noâ— be too busie or presumptious in separating others lest he thereby separated himself so that if the Schism had broke out upon no good grounds he who was the Architect of it Separated himself as all others do and it is impossible any man should make though he may declare another a Schismatique any more than he can make him erre without his consent or be uncharitable Yet do they err also that from hence conclude that the Formal reason of Schism consists in Separating a mans self for it is rather the material Cause than formal The formal Cause being as in all other things the very Constitution it self with unreasonableness and uncharitableness No man can make another involuntarily an Heretick And therefore no man can make another a Schismatick All the Guilt redounding to the Agent noâ— Patient in such cases So that it is scarce worth the Enquiring Who began the breach of unity as it outwardly appears but who is actually and Really First divided from Christs Church For they surely are the proper Schismaticks though the name may stick closer to others To understand this we may consider that there is a Vertual Schism and a Formal Schism A Vertual Schism I call real division from Christs Church though it comes not to an open opposition to it or Defiance of it so that where ever is any heresie or considerable Errour nourished or maintained in a Church there is to be found a Schismatick also in reality though not in formality the reason hereof is well expressed by and may best come from the hand of an Adversary to u thus judiciously enquiring It is demanded first saith he Whether Schismaticks be Hereticks Answer The Common opinion Azâ—rius Inst Moral Tom. 1. Lib. 3. C. 20. of the Interpreters of the Canon Law and of the Summists is that the Heretick differs from the Schismatick in that Every Heretick is a Schismatick but not on the contrary Which they prove because the term Shismatick signifies Division But every Heretick turns away separates divides himself from the Church This is very plain and reasonable and so is the consequence from hence That where the Body is so corrupt as to be really infected with notorious errors there it is really so far as it is erroneous separated from the true Church and where it is so far separated from the true Church so far it is Schismatical And when a Church is thus far really Schismatical little or no Scruple is to be made of an outward Separation neither can a guilt be affixed unto it And on the other side if no such real separation and antecedent Guilt can be found in a Church in vain do diverse betake themselves to that specious Shift and evasion that they were cast out and went not out willingly from a Church and that they are willing to return but are not suffered For undoubtedly the very supposition is insincere and faulty that they forsook not the Church before they were ejected And the expulsion followed separation and dissention from it and was not rather the Effect than Cause of them as are all excommunications rightly used For to those that pretend they were turned out do not the doors stand open to receive them and that with thanks if they please to re-enter and re-unite themselves What do they here
and Beasts neither can there many as different in kind as Man and Beast are distinct nor in number as men differ one from another so neither can there be One differing as it were from it self in Parts or other like composition of nature as man doth For seeing as Boetius hath observed God Boetius Consoâ—â—â— Lib. 3. â—â—os 10. is that which is most absolute and perfect and than which nothing more excellent can be conceived by the mind of man If more than one could be in nature or number there could not be one most absolute but One more absolute and simple might by the Understanding of Man be conceived which necessarily must be thought to be God rather than those diverse ones And if we should suppose the Nature Individual of God to be made up of several sorts of things and naturesas the Body of man then did we not pitch upon the true Notion of God which we must alwayes suppose to be most perfect But we have more than conjectural knowledge that some things in the world are not compounded at least as we are but of a more pure and simple substance such as we call Spirit And we maâ— well believe that all of that nature are not of equal perfection or if possibly they should that still there is a possibility of a more transcendent purity of subsisting than they are of until we come to the most absolute pure and perfect Being than which nothing can be or conceived to be more Pure and Perfect and that must of necessity be God Again such a composition would destroy the nature of God because such it must be that nothing either in act or Cogitation can possibly precede it but where there are distinct parts or humors concurring to make one Entire thing there a real priority at least of nature must needs be because it cannot be supposed but the Cause must in some manner go before the Effect and such supposed compositions have of the nature of a material Cause to such a thing as they so constitute Thirdly all things of a differing nature concurring to make One cannot move themselves nor of themselves meet with such concord as to make one thing without the power and wisdome of some third Superiour Agent bringing them so together So that to suppose such a God is to suppose one Above and before him who should Effect all this which is repugnant to the nature of God Lastly nothing can be so well set together but it may be supposed to be undone and dissolved again either by the nature of things themselves tending to separation or by the same power or if they will fortune as some have called it which brought them together This is yet further confirmed unto us from the Holy Scriptures which were best able to reveal the nature of God unto us so far as was expedient or perhaps for us in this life possible to understand where God most admirably describeth himself thus I am that I am which is his name for Exod. 3. 14 15. ever which no created thing can claim to it The like to which is that name Jehovah whereby he calls himself signifying an absolute essential Being For nothing besides God can define God Every thing but he is defined by another thing which differs in some manner from it but God is defined by himself because nothing can be Higher than he and nothing in him is really distinct from him as in other things And therefore truly may it be said of God The Lord thy God is one Lord i. e. One in number nature Deut. 6. 4. and Simplicity of Being And therefore such definitions of God as Joh. 4. 24. 1 Tim. 1. 25. Psal 90. 2. Jer. 23. 23. 34. Psal 130. v. 7. 1 Tim. 6. 16. this God is a Spirit or Substance Spiritual Uncreated Most Pure Eternal Infinite Incomprehensible Immutable Everliving c. Are rather to be understood Negatively than Positively that is that God is so a Spirit that he is infinitely above the nature of Corporeal Beings though he be not so a Spirit as to be of the Nature of Angels or such like Spirits but much more transcends them in excellency than they do the most gross and earthly Bodies And said to be Infinite because no limitation of his Being or Power or Presence can be supposed which is commonly called the Negative way of attaining knowledg of Gods nature viz by removing or excluding all imperfections of the Creature from God the Creatour And Positively ascribing all things to him which appear to humane understanding most Perfect and Excellent CHAP. III. Of the Vnity of the Divine Nature as to the Simplicity of it And how the Attributes of God are consistent with that Simplicity BUT against the fore said Simplicity seem to make several things ascribed unto God and believed of him as First Attributes of God as Most Holy Most Wise most Just Most Merciful and such like Secondly the descriptions made of God in Holy Scripture Thirdly The Existence of God in a triplicity of Persons Of the first we shall here speak most briefly as no difficulty For we are to understand them not as really distinct things from the Nature of God himself which is most simple but only Relatively and after the manner of mans conception who being able no otherwise than from sensible and natural occasions to understand God must of necessity frame to himself such affections and severally distinguish them for to exercise the several Acts of Service due to God For if Man consider'd God altogether under one manner of Being then could he not sometimes humble himself under his wrath and displeasure conceived for his sins Then could he not at other times rejoyce in his mercy and express his thankfulness for his grace and Goodness received Then could he not implore his aid against unjust dealings and injuries suffered in the world Then could he not Pray unto him to relieve him in his necessities and straits none could crave supply from his bounty and fulness in his wants These distinct conceptions therefore of God are requisite though God be absolutely the same And God having vouchsafed to express himself in such manner in his Word doth thereby give warrant for us to be affected alwayes provided that we proceed not to any gross imagination of him as really so affected and compounded but according to a Metaphorical or Metonymical sense familiarly used in all authors as well as in the Scriptures For it is to be noted the Scriptures do choose to speak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost Homil. 15. in Joann in compliance with mans capacity not according to the dignity of the subject of which it treats nor according to the Splendour and illuminated state of the Understandings receiving divine Revelations but according to the proportion of mens ordinary apprehensions to which they are directed as Philosophy hath observed that All Agents do work agreeable to the condition of the
effect such things as in their general nature they had no tendencie unto The distinction common amongst Philosophers of Fortuna and Casus i. e. Fortune and Casualty and calling that Fortune which contingently falls out to free Intelligent Agents acting and that Casualty which besides natural intention happens to fall out may seem to clear this For if we should affirm that in natural things there were no such indifferencie really but all things were precisely and particularly determined by God in his private counsel however a wide latitude seemeth to us to be left them to move and act or not to act or to move and act thus or not thus but contrariwise no great absurdity or inconvenience would follow For what absurdity could be inferred if a man should say That the Eagle letting fall a Tortoise upon the bald head of the Philosopher of Syracuse walking in the field and so beating out his brains was determined necessarily so to do of God or that the tree that fell down in a wind and killed him that walked out to preserve himself from the fall of his house which he feared was inevitably appointed so to do These effects did not proceed from the nature of these causes themselves but a Superiour hand and yet might be no less necessary than such effects of which the common reason of man can give an ordinary and easie account And if this be granted in some things it doth lye upon them who deny it in all to render a reason of the difference and not on them who affirm a paritie by infinite instances to prove it being sufficient to say There can nothing be shown to the contrary But in things rational and endowed with a power of Election and Rejection it must be confessed that the difficulty is much greater because there seems to be a repugnancie to free will in such tacit necessity and God should seem to take away with one hand what he had given with the other And therefore of this in a more convenient place after we have spoken somewhat preparatory thereunto concerning the Decrees of God which are internal acts of the Providence of God 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 Vnderstanding and Will Of knowledge of Intelligence Vision and the supposed Middle knowledge The Impertinencie 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 certainly in the thing known IF the Holy Scriptures leaving us many precedents have thereby warranted or at least permitted us to speak of God after the manner of Mans body ascribing unto him head eyes mouth hands and feet and the better to perceive the things of God much more may we be allowed if at all to search into Gods nature to regulate our enquiry of God from the nature of mans mind and the more supream acts of his soul The first Act of which is his apprehension and knowledge with judgment following thereupon The next in order is the Act of his will and this Order we may best follow in the enquiry into Gods Providence which is constituted according as we can judge of knowledge and will whose proper act it is to decree And here first It is requisite that we take notice of the folly and gross impiety of Vorstius a late Pragmatick in Divine Mysteries who would needs distinguish God from himself and taking him at his word wherein speaking after the manner of men such diversity is mentioned concludes that God and his Attributes are really distinct in nature one from another And why did he not by the same rule conclude that Gods very Being his Essence was distinct really from it self as well as from the supposed Accidents he Epicurean-like feigns to God For God is no less affirmed to have heart hands and feet than to have Understanding and Will And if it be granted there is a figurative and no proper sense in the one case why may it not be in the other And that God is all these things Eminently but not after the formality of mankind The matter will be cleared better by examining his prime arguments taken from the Decrees of God our present subject First sayes he The decrees of God are various and many but the Essence of God is but one therefore they must be really distinct To which the answer is as obvious as the argument presumptuous That if the Decrees were really many they must of necessity be really distinct as well from themselves as God But their plurality is rather Relative than Absolute All the Acts of God being but one pure simple Act as in him but denominated divers from the event or relation they bear to the Creature This is one of the first principles in his Christian Catechise and why did he pretending to reason leap over this and not first disprove it and then proceed to his arguments It was a great piece of folly therefore in him to prove a real distinction of Gods Attributes before he had proved that the Nature of God was compounded or would admit of any such opposition For they who deny this will certainly deny that Another of his reasons is The decrees of God are free because they might have not been as well as have been But Gods nature is not so Answ There is a twofold freedom in the Decrees of God The one in respect of the Nature of God as God is precisely considered which abstracting from all Acts was indifferent to others as well as those Decrees made And the other in respect of the Creature or object which was capable of other Decrees and therefore were Gods Decrees said to be free but we all know that distinction of Instants in Order and Nature do not infer a necessary distinction in duration but that both Nature and Decrees might be coequal in eternity Now all things that are eternal are in some case necessary And the Schools have such a distinction of Decrees as they have of nature viz. Decretum Decretans and Decretum Decretatum meaning that the Decrees of God are sometimes used for the Act of God decreeing and sometimes for the thing decreed And of this latter it may be said That the Decree of God is produced and made which is a third special argument of Vorstius but of the other it cannot so be affirmed but it may flow from him by an eternal Law or Volition within himself and not at all occasioned by the Creature And it is therefore said to be free because it was not imposed upon him and therefore necessary because not accessary to him or contingent but proceeding from him as a natural and necessary yet voluntary Agent For we must not look upon God as subject to the condition of the
Creature in whom natural necessity is not compatible with voluntary freedom but with God it may because no Creatures natures and wills are the same really or formally but the Nature of the Creatour and his will are formally distinct and admit deservedly of a diverse conception but really are the same so that notwithstanding it is harsh to the apprehension to conceive yet the thing it self may be and really is so Which ground laid doth resolve that doubt also concerning the generation of Christ which is said to be both voluntary and natural and necessary Voluntary and free because not constrained and again necessary because not indifferent or possible to be otherwise for as much as it is not possible that God should not have been and Christ is God Yet must we here put a wide difference between the Decrees of God in reference to the Creature and the Paternal Act in reference to God the Son For in this latter we cannot so much as suppose an antecedent Decree but only a natural Volition In the former we may conceive both a Decree going before and a Prescience anticedent to that Decree Now as to the nature of Gods Decrees themselves we are to consider that a Decree being an Act principally of the Will and the Act of the Will in order of Nature posteriour to the Acts of the Understanding it ought first be enquired what Relation the Knowledge and Decrees of God bear one towards another And here we must resume the received distinction of Knowledge of Simple Intelligence as they call it or pure Understanding and the Knowledge of Vision in God By the first is meant the understanding of all things possible to come to pass by the Divine Power to which nothing is impossible By the Second the understanding of all things future And because things future are so various as we have shown that some are future necessarily and some unnecessarily therefore hath there been invented and with much applause offered to the world a Third kind of Knowledge of God termed Media Scientia the Mean Knowledge as comming between both the former and having for its object neither that which by a simple necessity shall come to pass nor that which is simply uncertain and contingent but though in nature of outward causes contingent upon supposition made certain and infallible to God To all which I offer these exceptions first that this last distinction seemeth altogether superfluous or gives occasion altogether as just to introduce innumerable other no less reasonable than that For if from such small variety in the object as we shall show this to be founded on new distinctions are to be coyned there will never be any end of distinguishing Gods Knowledge For if for conditionate things a conditionate knowledge ought to be invented and acknowledged then likewise according to the discrimination of conditions found in the Object a different knowledge is to be imagined and distinguished in God which were confusion and not distinction Secondly this mean or conditionate Knowledge cannot be entertained by sober men as a distinct Species from the other two more ancient but as a Part of that called the Science of Vision whereby all future things are known to God as being it self about future things though with a condition For all things are either future or not future If they be not future but only possible to come to pass then are they the objects of that Simple Intelligence though very improperly as is said If they be future then are they the object of Vision in God Again if of future things some being absolutely necessary and sâ—me conditional only ought we not rather to conform the Act of Vision to the Object and distinguish Vision into that of things certain and absolute and of things certain only upon a supposed condition then to frame a new nothing to explicate something which was clearer without it The thing we oppose not nor forty such more as might be no less reasonably imposed on the world but the impertinencie vanity fraud of the terms occasioning greater obscurity and contention than the world was acquainted with before Thirdly the very supposition here made to found this distinction will not hold the tryal that is that there is any thing so absolutely future that it should come to pass without a Condition or that there were any knowledge in God not conditional in reference to created things unless we should peradventure except the first matter of all made of nothing and to which no outward or natural Cause did concur but the immediate will and decree of God produced it but to all other effects from the beginning of the world to the end of it somewhat of the nature of a condition was required to bring them to pass even to man was required earth And God did not so absolutely by his Prescience or Vision see man future but a Condition was taken into that knowledge viz. matter preceeding however he might have produced him without it And not to multiply Instances to this purpose God doth not fore-see or see that any natural or necessary Cause should take effect but upon the condition of the due application of Actives and Passives Therefore the sum of all and the best end we can make here seems to me to be this That we distinguish Conditional Knowledge in God into that of Natural Agents and Free Agents For as God sees some things future upon supposition of a capacity nature is put into to Act as that a Stone should move downward upon supposition that it be first removed from the Centre and then that Impediments be with-drawn for otherwise he sees only that it is moveable down-ward so doth he see some things future upon supposition that Free Agents be put into a capacity to exert themselves As that at St. Pauls preaching at Athens Dionysius the Areopagite and Damaris should cleave to him but the far greater number of Auditors should forsake him at his preaching of Christ The main doubt here to be resolved will be this What certainty there can be in Free Agents to found an infallible knowledge in God seeing if they be not certainly known determined they cannot be certainly known as determined for this were to know them a-miss and would be an error And to be determinable is quite another thing from knowing them actually determined Again If they be determined and that certainly For uncertain determination is no determination in truth how can they be said to be free and have the power of Election To this it was wont to be replyed by vertue of Media scientia or middle kind of knowledge in God That God doth not see effects infallibly to flow from such Free Agents because of any antecedent influence inclining certainly the will to one way but by vertue of that general stock of liberty with which he hath endowed Rational Agents to act freely he sees upon such and such circumstances and proposals the Will of it self to move
or equity of it or not saying Nay but O man What art thou that replyest against God Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it Why hast thou made me thus Hath not the Potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour No man that acknowledges and every Christian must acknowledge the like and greater power and prerogative in God over Man than the Potter hath of his clay can deny that God may order the work of his hands as he pleases neither can he deny but the drift of the Apostle in this comparison was to show the absolute power and dominion of God over all Creatures and therefore let them see how they aggravate matters of this nature and multiply fond ratiocinations which they cannot but know agree not with St. Pauls stating and decision of this Question I do freely grant the adverse Party that St. Paul doth not at all concern himself with that kind of Predestination Election or Vocation as very many confidently presume he doth in his Eighth and Ninth Chapters to the Romans I mean not particular or personal Prae-determination and the like the whole letter and the occasion of his discourse there being concerning the Election of the Gentile Church and the uncessant protection thereof against all threatnings and Oppositions and disputing the equity of Gods deserting the Jewish Church yet thus far his argument being general holds good in particular persons that if it be free to God without any just exceptions to choose and leave a Church or Nation at his pleasure and according to the counsel of his own will it is also reasonable and just for him to favour or show disfavour to any single person in like acts of his Providence without being called in question for what he doth or not doth CHAP. XIV Of Sin more particularly And first of the Fall of Adam Of Original sin wherein it consisteth and how it is traduced from Father to children The Proofs of it The Nature and Evils of it And that it is cured in baptism That Natural Concupiscence hath not the Nature of Sin after baptism BY what is said competent satisfaction may be had in that mystery of Gods Providence in the fall and sin of the first Man created as we have shewed in such perfection of natural Faculties and divine Grace the reason absolute and demonstrative whereof cannot be rendred by the witâ— of Man viz. Why God should make such a fine and exquisite piece and deliver it over presently to ruin and loss It may suffice that God was not the direct cause of such his Fall by impelling him though his Free-will embracing the Temptation he was privy to his errour As it was in that memorable case of the death of Benhadad King of Syria in the second of the Kings when Hazael was sent to enquire Whether he should recover 2 Kings 8. 10. of that Sickness The Prophet Elisha answered Go say unto him thou mayest certainly recover how be it the Lord hath shewed me that he shall surely dye And this was the true case of Adam whom God knew to have full power certainly to stand and yet he knew he would surely fall As therefore God in that case spake after the method and manner of mans apprehension so he here acted In that he first said the King might surely recover and this was according to the common order of natural Causes which then were upon him in his sickness which were such as were easily resisted and like to have no such effect But then God withal beholding that which was not seen of man perhaps not thought on by the Actour himself at that time he saw withal a necessary dependencie and connexion between another cause and that effect which followed and so declared surely the contrary to the other In like manner God beholding Adam in that integrity and vigour of gifts and Graces with which he had furnished him saw him in a certain condition to persevere in that state but seeing withal the future outward cause of Temptation he might well see the effect what it would be infallibly So that when we say a thing is contingent we cannot say so in respect of all causes but in respect of some special cause to which in our opinion and observation such an effect may seem properly to belong For it is a true Axiome amongst Logicians All causes accidental are reducible to proper and direct causes So that there was no necessity by Gods appointment of Adams Fall as he was framed of God but somewhat might occurr outwardly which by Gods permission might have as certain effect upon the will of Man though Free of it self and indifferent as had the wet cloath laid by Hazael 2 Kings 8. 15. upon the face of Benhadad this only excepted That what natures simple Act did in this the will of man combining freely against himself with those outward causes suffered in that The thing therefore principally to be here enquired after is rather about the Nature of this Sin in Adam and the Effects thereof And as to the former it is to be observed That what was in him an Actual sin became in us an Original and what was free to him to be subject to it or void of it becomes necessary to us and inevitable It might be called in some sense an Original sin in him as it was the first in nature and time he stood guilty of but not as if his Nature was from the beginning so corrupt as to dispose him unto it Again in him it was of it self purely sinful and a transgression of Gods Law upon which followed evil effects but in us it seems to partake originally of both sin and punishment but chiefly of this latter For though they speak truly in the larger sense who make three things proper and inseparable from Sin Guilt Stain and Punishment yet restraining our selves to the true Nation of it there are these two things only essential to it The matter it self which is the evil act committed against the Law of God or which commeth to the same omitted contrary to the same And the manner or formality of it which consisteth in the perversness and pravity of the will which is so essential to it that it both distinguishes the errours of rational men from them of beasts and mad-men and them of the same Man from one another so that what was done voluntarily and freely differs wholly from that done with incogitancie so not affected for then the will concurs with it and infects it and without any intention so to do as to point of moral Goodness or Evil. And according to the bent or averseness of the will to evil commonly are estimated the degrees of evil But though in Adam all these things concurred to the heightening of his Actual sin yet in those that inherit that evil from him the sin must needs be much less in Nature and lighter because
of no personal concurrence to such deformity Yet not so neither but that it justly is denominated Sin from the very nature and effects of it For seeing whatever is in the Will must be good or evil and if the Will be found crooked perverse or averse to that it ought to incline to this is contrary to Gods institution and Law and whence ever this proceeds from an immediate act of our own or by traduction from others seeing it is found in the Will it must needs be contrary and consequently odious to God and in conclusion sinful Again as the fountain poisons and corrupts all streams flowing from thence so the Will being thus corrupt and naturally thus ill inclined all the other defects even in his body as well as soul contracted by this fall are as so many deformities in man which render him deservedly hated of God seeing such disparity and unlikeness to the worse to that which he first fram'd Thirdly Original sin in Man hath this more of disorder in it that it not only is a corruption of the will and thereby a deformity and vitiosity in the inferiour parts and faculties but it is of ill consequence For if this depravation went no farther than that evil born with us if it stand there and wrought no more evil the nature of it had been less sinful and more tolerable but being of an active nature and having taken up the chiefest room in the soul of Man it disposeth and impelleth to more mischief in actual transgressions As a Garrison held by a Rebel doth not only offend Sacred Majesty by standing out against him it self but when it finds it self strong enough and hath opportunity sallies out and makes invasion upon its proper Soveraign and offers actual and active violence against him So by this Original Evil first possessing the Soul doth Concupiscence stir and act by outward practises contrary to the Law and Will of God And therefore when St. Austin saith alledged by the corrupters of this Doctrine of Original Corruption They are born not properly but originally evil he no wayes contradicts his own Doctrine whereby he most of all farther explained and maintained this Original sin being the first that gave the name Original to that Pravity in man For true it is that that only is called properly Original Sin which Adam and Eve in person committed and were not subject to by nature as their Posterity are because it was the first in respect of mankind as well in order of time as nature and causality Again though this be traduced unto us his Off-spring and be the cause and fountain of all other sins actually committed afterward and for the same causes may rightly be called Original yet considering that this Evil thus vitiating our nature had no consent of our personal will we neither understood it nor any wayes affected it it cannot be so properly called sin as others which we act knowingly and willingly our selves For nothing is in strict way a sin which we do not consent unto in some manner either immediately or in its remoter causes And this doth yet farther appear because no man is bound to repent properly of Original sin Proper Repentance being an Act contrarying and reversing so far as in us lyes some evil by us done and not suffered involuntarily But Original sin is rather suffered than acted by the children of Adam Yet though in the severst sense we cannot be said to repent of Original sin we are bound to exercise some Act of Repentance for the same As grief and sorrow of mind and heart for the evil we lye under Confession and Recognition of our sad state before God Imploration of his mercie and favour to remove the same from us and restore us to our pristine innocencie and integrity For this those many places of Scripture describing this Evil do seem to require at our hand And no where doth the Scripture more fully declare this unto us than in the Fifth Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans which because Socinus and such as plough with his Heifer and are tickled with his pretty phansies in eluding the Apostles meaning and the constant interpretation of the most Ancient and Modern Expositours we shall more particularly consider It is undeniable that St. Paul Rom. 5. amplifying the grace of God and benefits unto mankind even the Gentiles by Christ Jesus doth there make a comparision from the Twelfth verse to the end of the Chapter of the first and second Adam and of the Evil we sustained by the first Man Adam and the benefits we receive by the second Man Christ To this he supposes the ground of his Comparison which is this that By one v. 12. man Sin entred into the world and death by Sin and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned This is made no more of than that Adam being the first Man in the world and sinning Sin must needs enter first into the world by him if he sinned first and that death followed upon that sin of Adam But if this be all how come the effects to exceed the cause and death to extend farther than sin For it is not only said that death entred into the world in seizing upon that single Malefactour Adam but So death passed upon all men for that all have sinned where two things are to be noted First the note of dependance and consequence So. For if St. Paul had meant that Adam by himself and only for himself introduced death wherefore serves the tearm So which is a certain indication of the manner how death came into the world upon all persons and as much as if it had been said Adam first sinning and bringing death into the world so it was that this death fell upon all men for that all have sinned Now it is certain that all that dye have not sinned personally and therefore Secondly the Note So must also ralate to the Cause of that death which was sin and is as much as Adam sinning his Posterity also sinned and became obnoxious to death For to say as some eminently learned and useful otherwise in their Doctrine of Repentance Death passed upon all i. e. say they Upon all the whole world who were drowned in the floud of Divine vengeance and who did sin after the similitude of Adam is as much as if another Scholiaâ—t like him had said That is upon all Senacheribs Armies before Jerusalem in the dayes of Hezekiah or Upon all the Romans in the battle of Canna with Hannibal For it is certain that all men dye and it is no less certain that all men without exception died not in the floud And therefore what is added upon these words In as much as all have sinned that by them is meant All have sinned upon their own account we have already shown that it is not absolutely true and therefore cannot be St. Pauls meaning For all that dye have not as did Adam or following Adams
which Seneca noted but could give no reason of No man saith he is of a good mind before he is of a bad one we are all prevented And in the same place he saith No body is with difficulty reduced to Nature but he that hath made a defection from it Now supposing that God made all things perfect and instituted the nature of man more inclinable to acts agreeable to that perfection than to the contrary whence can it come that contrariwise Man naturally inclineth to that which is base and unworthy and is hardly taken off that corrupt way of acting contrary to reason and vertue and reduced to a perfection becoming his Institution and End but that the very principle of his nature is hurt and the root corrupt And because nothing can be Author of its own Principles by which it subsists no man can be said by his own act to have corrupted them Indeed we say a Man is of corrupt Principles when he hath contracted some evil habits disposing to wickedness but that is accessorie and not innate to him And if it be farther urged That no man can be guilty by anothers fault nor corrupted by anothers principle it is answered as before so long as it is only that others and not his own in some degree For as Thomas hath distinguished There is a Principle of Nature and a Principle of a Person and a Sin of Nature and a Sin of a Person Adam had not only principles whereby he himself subsisted but also was the principle of all his Successours So that Original sin was as well the sin of the one as the other So that from the depraved will of Adam as the first principle of all came the corruption of the Will of all Whereupon speaking strictly as we have said this Original sin is not properly sin in the Infant but a want of Original Justice seizing him and exposing him to destruction as Thomas and Catharinus also have taught which two are the effects of the sin of Adam upon himself and children but the very formal Reason of sin in his Posterity For where as some say It is natural Concupiscence moving to Evil and others That it is the absence of Divine Justice and Grace they differ rather in the niceties of speech than in the matter it self For to me it seems that the loss of Divine Perfection and Grace superadded to the nature of Man whereby he was abundantly able to secure himself and glorifie God in that state of happiness most neerly expresses the nature of it as in the sons of Adam For in Adam himself it was actual disobedience but Concupiscence inordinate doth rather express the consequence of it For upon that desolation in the soul of Man quickly arose a disorder of the inferiour Affections which by a general name is called Concupiscence or Lust by the Apostle in his Seventh Chapter to the Romans And Natural it is called because as out of the cursed ground sprang up briers thorns weeds and thistles where more useful fruit of the earth was intended so upon this curse of mans soul Evil motions arose to the hurrying him to Actual sin being themselves really sinful Again it is observable for the true resolution of the Question That there is commonly an ambiguity in this tearm Concupiscence it being sometimes taken for the act and exercise of that vitious principle in man fallen and sometimes for the Pravitie and degenerate temper of the soul making it prone to actual sins This latter is that which is properly called Original Sin though more properly Original unholiness or want of that instituted Integrity with which man was at first endowed and in it three things are to be considered First the privation of Supernatural Good Secondly Proneness to unnatural Evil against God Thirdly Odiousness and Culpableness before God who must needs be offended at the sight of so much deformity in his Creature contrary to his first Institution of it and Intention though this evil habitude should never break out into actual Rebellion against him by the exercise or putting it in execution by actual Concupiscence against the Law of God St. James seemeth Jam. 1. 14. to justifie this distinction where he saith Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lusts and enticed This gives us the original Lust or Concupiscence which inclines and moves to sin and to this is it to be imputed that a man so easily is withdrawn from truth and righteousness and noble acts becoming his high nature He goeth on Then when Lust hath conceived it bringeth forth Sin c. that is when the Radical Concupiscence or Concupiscibleness in man becomes impregnated and matured by outward opportunities and occasions of sinning it bringeth forth into outward act sin and the event and consequence of this sin is death So that the innate Lust lurking in the Soul and not actuated by outward occasions either inwardly to effect and desire or outwardly to act sin is not properly sin but metonymically only either as it is the effect of Adams sin or the cause of our sins but it is properly odious to God and exposing us to his heavy wrath so far at least as is seen in the deprivation of that be atitude to which man was at first designed And this exactly agrees with the nature of that sin For as that which was in Adam was actual disobedience in his Posterity is only want of that perfection which was due to their nature So Adam not only incurred the loss of that bliss he was capable of and in the ready way to enjoy but likewise the punishment of Sense answerable to his Sin of Commission and his Posterity was made subject to the punishment and loss of Gods favour and that bliss they were in Adam once ordained unto But when their Sins become Actual they are subject to punishment of Pain and torment for the same And by this the way is well prepared to make answer to that common doubt concerning the effect of Baptism and the state of the Regenerate in reference to Original sin and Concupiscence viz. whether Concupiscence remaining after Baptism in the Regenerate be sin or not Scriptures are alledged with great colour on both sides It is observed by Bishop Davenant that St. Paul calls Original Concupiscence sin in fourteen Davenant Deâ—â—rm â— several places in his sixth seventh and eighth Chapter to the Romans which if so Original sin it self must needs be oftner mentioned in Scripture than will be granted by many For mine own particular I see none of those places so exprest in the description of it that the law of Sin the Body Lex Peccati est violentiâ— consuctudinis qua trabit tenetur etiam invitus animus â—â— merito quo in cam volens illabitur Aug. in Confess Lib 3 c. 5. of Sin the Law of the Members the Lust of the Mind and Flesh and some other expressions to the same effect may not be
of the World And elsewhere to this effect CHAP. XVII How Christ was Mediatour according to both Natures Calvin's 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 BUT from the Evidence of the evidence of the Fact that so it was that Christ suffered to satisfie for our sins let us pass to the Manner how it was and the Effects and Extent for whom he so suffered and satisfied because no small stir and contention hath been touching both but briefly For there seems not to me to be such great cause as is apprehended for such differences For first surely Christs mediation was an Act of his Person and not of his Natures either of them separately considered So that there seems the same reason for this as for all other Acts and Attributes given to him some whereof are naturally proper to the Divine Nature and some to the Humane and yet both these predicable of Christ personally considered by that received rule amongst Divines which maintaineth a communication of Idioms or the ascribing the property of one nature to the entire Person and so denominatively to the other In which sense Christ is said to dye to suffer to hunger to thirst to be weary and Christ is said to be Omniscient Omnipotent Omnipresent yet not according to both Natures but as they are united into one Person So that all Acts and Offices of Christ as Mediatour have a twofold consideration Formal and Real or Vertual and Interpretative as they speak Some Acts are so formally Divine in him that they pertain to the Humane Nature only Vertually and some Acts are so formally and properly Humane that they pertain to the Divine Nature only by way of imputation or interpretation and not immediately or properly So that the Word Incarnate Christ is the immediate cause of his Mediation and our Reconciliation but all the Acts in particular tending tending to Christs mediation as his preaching and travelling and Passion did not proceed equally or alike from both Natures For two things are to be distinguished in the Actions or Passion of Christ mediating for mankind The Act it self and the value and vertue of that Action in order to the reconciling of man to God That the Acts conducing hereunto are only proper to the Humane Nature is true according to Stancarus his opinion See Melancthon Epist ad Mathesium though called Heretick for the same and opposed by Calvine and many of his Equals who held that Christ was Mediatour according to his Divine and Humane Nature And that Calvine and his Company must needs erre is proved because they reject Lombard and those that follow him who are the Romanists Lombards Opinion was That Christ was Mediatour as the Word Incarnate but not according to both Natures For they distinguish Principium Quod and Principium Quo That Principle or Cause of mediation from that Whereby he mediated The first they confess to be the Person of Christ consisting of Divine and Humane Nature The second they make the Humane Nature alone And that Calvine and the rest meant any more it is past the power of their Adversaries to make good however according to their wont they strain all they can and more than honestly they can to make their Opinions foul and odious For in substance they speak the same thing with Lombard though not altogether after the same manner but the Deformer suspected him as justly for restraining Christs mediation and the value thereof to his Humanity as the Romanists do them for comprehending the Divinity in it And rightly do they distinguish between the Thing and the Efficacie of the thing and that according to Lombard himself whom they dislike because he restrained to their apprehension the whole business of mediation to the Humane Nature whereas though the Divine Nature did not formally act or suffer to that end yet it was by vertue of the Hypostatical Union with the Divine Nature that the Humane Nature was in a capacity to mediate and merit for man as St. Austin hath taught us in these words It was requisite that the Mediatour between Mediator autem inter Deum homines oportebat ut haberet Aug. Confes 10. c. 42. Nec tamen ob hoc Mediator est quia Verbum maxime quippe immortate Id. Civitat Dei lib. 9. cap. 15. 1 Tim 2. God and Man should have somewhat like unto God and somewhat like unto Men lest being like God in all things he should be too far from men or being like unto Man in all things he should be too far from God And yet indeed in another place he doth determine the mediation more properly to the Humanity of Christ than to the Word thus speaking Yet he is not for this a Mediatour because he is the Word and that especially because he is immortal and the most blessed Word is far from miserable Mortals But he is Mediatour in that he is Man showing thereby that we ought not to seek any other Mediatours to that not only blessed but beatifical Good by whom we should have access c. And to this agrees that of St. Paul to Timothy There is one God and one Mediatour between God and Man the Man Christ Jesus And this is the chiefest place founding this Opinion yet not simply seeing it is an easie matter by a distinction to avoid the same if one would be contentious but if Charity nay if Justice were done to each side the ground of contention might fairly be removed in this But with much more difficulty do we meet in the effect and extent of the mediation of Christ by his Death and Passion viz. Whether it concerns all Mankind in general or Whether all those who are called to the knowledge faith and profession of Christ and Christian Religion or lastly Whether it was properly and specially so designed and intended for such as were to be infallibly saved that others were capable of no benefit of the same but rather were determined to hardness and impenitencie and persistance in unbelief Concerning the last and harshest part of this doubt we have heretofore answered that though the Holy Scriptures which cannot be denyed do ascribe Exod. 4 21. 14. 17. Rom. 9. 18. Isa 6. 10. Deut. 2. 30. Isa 63. 17. unto God in positive tearms hardening of some yet the meaning can be no more than that from certain persons he so withdraws his mollifying and maturing Grace to Repentance and Faith that an effect of Obduration doth thereupon in such manner follow as if God himself were the proper and direct Author of it For all egregious things are according
is exercised it may very properly and truly be said because of the good discerned and affected in the object But if it should be asked How the Will is moved and by vertue of what ability it so moves to that object there could be no greater incongruity than to affirm That the object was the cause of it For here the efficient cause is sought after As when a man goes to Church if doubt should be made why he goes to Church it were easily answered because he apprehends a spiritual good in that act this is the final cause but doth this give his leggs strength and his nerves and sinews power to walk Sure no man will say so This then is that we enquire concerning the wills inclination to and election of spiritual things not why or to what end for the end is the same to all mens wills but by what means it is fitted and enabled to move thitherward rather than the contrary ways The answer to this must if a man will speak appositely be taken from the efficient cause Now this sufficiencie or efficacie in the will is either natural and common to all which all modest Divines explode or adventitious and of free undeserved and undesired Grace and Gift of God Hence another ascent is made towards the Question of the manner of acceptation of grace and mercy objectively taken For as it is plain that God putteth a difference and not Man between the understanding of one man and another revealing that to one which he doth not to another And of those that know the truth putting a difference between the wills of men in that some that have known the saving truth have rejected it and others embraced it as is yet farther manifest from St. Paul to the Romans What Rom. 11. 7. then Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for but the Election hath obtained To some then who know the truth God gives Grace to some he doth not or scarce discernable A third step to this then must be about the degree and essicacie of this first Grace of God preventing and preparing the will to such noble ends which it could never of it self affect or desire And whether God doth give the like Grace at least in proportion to all he hath so far called illuminated and affected as to have spiritual principles of Life and Motion or not It were too curious to enquire here about the Arithmetical proportion or quantity because that all mens constitutions and dispositions are not alike and therefore like more even timber or plyant clay may be wrought into due form by less forcible means but Whether considering all disparities and disproportion in the matter the influence fashioning the same be of it self sufficient to any one called and outwardly elected to the truth Or whether there be any sufficient Grace which is not efficacious and consummative of the end which is the thing denyed by Jansenius against a stream of Adversaries But Thomas who next to Augustine ruled these Disputes most of all and that upon Austin's doctrine and grounds sayes no less and so do such as stick close to him notwithstanding the strong opposition made by a Modern Order who think to change the world and make it take all doctrines from them to the contempt of their Predecessors and the recalling the exil'd Tenets of Pelagians and such as serve though at a distance under him They profess against him and hold for him They deny his Conclusions but approve and justifie his Principles and Premisses from which they certainly follow Neither can they give St. Augustine a good word whom none openly before them ever presumed to confront in that manner Or if they do speak kindly of him yet they take their own course and speak their own upstart sense For do they not place God as an idle Spectatour yea a servile Attender of the wills self-determination first and then bring him in as Auxiliarie to its Actions This is rancide Divinity yea and Philosophy too Do they not fall directly into that Opinion of Origen confuted by Thomas against the Gentiles thus Certain men not understanding Thomas cent Gent. l. 3. c. 89. how God causeth the motion of the will in us without prejudice to the liberty of the will in us have endeavoured to expound these Autorities above-mentioned in his former Chapters amiss as to say God causeth in us To will and to do in that he giveth us power to will but not so as to cause us to do this or that as Origen expounds it in his Third Periarchon defending Free will against the foresaid Autorities And from hence the Opinion of some seemeth to have proceeded who said Providence was not concerned in those things which related to Free will that is Elections but external matters only who are confuted by that one place of Esay Thou Isaiah 26. 12. also hath wrought all our works in us Whether these words of the Prophet may not be eluded I will not dispute but they plainly declare that according to Thomas his mind All our inward motions as well as outward acts and effects are governed by God For the immediate concurse of God being generally granted by Philosophical Divines necessary to the Act of limited and necessary causes whose principle is more certain and operative then Free Agents are What honest or sober doubt can be made of the immediate hand of God in moving the will free and void of such natural Laws and Propentions as irrational Agents are compelled by There seems much less use of it here than there It may be they fear Gods hand should light so heavy upon the will of Man as to hurt the Freedome of it Which were to be feared indeed if God so concurred with Free Agents as with Natural and proportioned not his Influences agreeable to the subject but surely God worketh not so rudely Or if the Act of God being as natural to the Creature as its own yea unseparable from that of the Creature were not a Total cause together with the Creatures of such Elections But as Thomas saith It is apparent that not in the like 〈◊〉 l. 3. c. 70. manner an effect is ascribed to the Natural Cause and to the Divine Power as if it proceeded partly from God and partly from the Natural Agent but it is wholly from both in a diverse respect as the whole effect is attributed as well to the Principal Agent as the Instrument Thus he From whence we conclude the Grace of God is not given in a common manner or competently to leave the will still separately without particular excitations and prae-motions effectually and immutably as Thomas speaks inclining it to embrace Christ exhibited in the Means of Grace And that no man originally causes himself to differ from another in electing good But supposing the like proportion of Grace given to two persons equally otherwise qualified the reason why one refuses the Good and chooses the Evil is not
heart Not he that looketh on a woman but he that looketh on her to lust after her is condemned though all curious studious idle impertinent views of men or women upon which may follow ordinarily the sparks and then the flames of lust are forbidden Again not all lusting of the heart is to be compared to the acts of lusting inwardly with the act outward joyned to that Adultery of the heart our Saviour Christ doth not equal to the Adultery of act but makes it Adultery in a degree inferiour Secondly There is uncleanness of the Tongue too when it breaketh out into impure light foolish lascivious speeches tending to begetting evil thoughts and acts in others against which St. Paul declareth in his Epistle to the Ephesians Let no corrupt communication come out of your mouth but Coloss 4 29. that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace to the hearers Coloss 3. 8. And to the Coâ—ossians But now ye also put off all these anger wrath malice blasphemy filthy communication out of your mouth Thirdly Actual uncleanness which is accomplished in the deeds of the flesh And â—aâ—h several degrees which may be distinguished into Unnatural and Natural Unnatural consisteth in the vile acts a man or woman may commit upon their own bodies perverting the course and end of nature instituting diversity of Sexes for sober and profitable propagation making that void in some manner at least At which St. Paul may seem to strike as Ephes 5. 12. far as modesty would permit when he says It is a shame to speak of those things which are done of them in secret meaning the impurities of Gnostick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theodoret. Haret Fabul cap. 7. and Valentinian Conventicles to the reproach of Primitive Christianity Epiphanius relating how besides those called natural lusts between Sexes distinct they dishonoured and corrupted their own bodies in the highest acts of single uncleanness and made up some of their Mysteries thereby And however single persons do not so prodigiously abuse themselves as did those impure Hereticks pretending greater Sanctity and deeper Mysteries in their Religion then the Catholicks yet must it needs be a great offense to God so to corrupt a mans self in yielding to fleshly temptations condemned by Heathen Poets though themselves were immodest for a violation of the Law of Nature it self which therefore all Christians especially of weak reason strong passions and young years are most watchfully to beware of and resolutely to avoid Another sort of acted rather then actual Uncleanness here prohibited is the foul sin of Sodomie to which the wicked Citizens of Sodom destroyed Gen. 19. 4 5. Rom. 1. 26. by fire gave denomination as may appear in the Book of Genesis And of which St. Paul to the Romans speaketh when he saith that God delivered up the Gentiles to these unnatural Lusts as a punishment of their gross Idolatry For this cause God gave them up to vile affections For even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature And likewise the men leaving the natural use of the women burned in their lusts one towards another men with men working that which is unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompense of their errours which was meet A Third unnatural Lust is that called Bestiality or abusing or being abused Lev. 28. 23. by Beasts in lustful acts against which God hath in his Word as well as by the Light and Law of Nature declared The more natural but yet unchristian Lusts here forbidden are Adultery which is either simple viz. when a married person committeth uncleanness with an unmarried where some make two kinds the one when the man is married but the woman single which they commonly make the less and so indeed it is by reason that it brings no spurious brood to inherit or share the Goods of any other man but him that he knowingly and willingly bestows them on The other is when the woman is married and the man single which is besides the general sin subject to the foresaid mischief And therefore hereby the woman offends in these four respects Incredulity not believing or regarding the Law and Word of God to the contrary 2. Not reverencing the Laws of the Church 3. Treachery against her Faith and Troth given before God to her Husband whereby she delivered unto him 1 Cor. 7. 4. the power of her Body as St. Paul speaketh 1 Cor. 7. as likewise doth the Husband to his Wife upon the same occasion and therefore thus far the Man and Woman transgressing offend equally 4. They say the Woman in such cases is a Thief in that she spoileth her Husband of his goods and giveth them to a false Issue he would knowingly no wayes yield them to But yet saith Thomas the man sinneth no less than the woman however Thomas in decem Praecepta Opusc 3. he may flatter himself otherwise And the sum of his reason is this First Because that the man hath no more power over his Body than the woman over hers Secondly Because the man is stronger naturally than the woman and endued with more reason Thirdly Because the man is the Head of the woman and her teacher as St. Paul saith therefore as it is a greater sin for a Priest than a Layman to offend in that kind so is it for a man who is as it were Gods Minister even in spiritual matters to the woman And in truth we find little or no difference put by the Scripture between the fact James 4. 4. of the one and the other St. James joyning them thus together Ye Adulterers and Adulteresses know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with Levit. 20. 10. God Yet Moses his Law decreed the Adulteress to be put to death but not the Adulterer as offending more against the Civil capacity of Man And perhaps for the hardness of their hearts least they should do it themselves God would have it done in a more orderly and just way Some Laws of Christians at this day granting the man leave to kill his wife himself finding her in actual Adultery Fornication likewise which some calling Simple have legitimated in great measure is condemned by this Commandment St. Paul as it were foreseeing and intending to confound such modern Doctours saith Know ye not 1 Cor. 6 9 10. that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God be not deceived neither Fornicators nor Idolaters nor Adulterers nor Effeminate nor Abusers of themselves with mankind Nor Thieves nor Covetous nor Drunkards nor Revilers nor Extortioners shall inherit the Kingdom of God And to the Hebrews But Fornicators and Adulterers God shall judge And so likewise the Excusers or Extenuaters of them so far as to bring down the guilt of either of them to that of a venial sin only which is as much as nothing Est ergo heresis dicere Fornicationem simplicem
be called Religion And nothing can be more fundamentally Just then for the Creature to refund according to its ability and rank the Fruits 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philo Judaeus Allegoriarum lib. 2. Papin L. Siquis â—f De Religios of those perfections received from the Cause of all Causes especially considering that such retribution is rather an augmentation then diminution of such Perfections in the Creature For not onely are all things thus freely derived from God to the Creatures but by a perpetual act of Providence called Conservation continued to them together with a most various and bountiful supply of all things requisite thereunto to which no Creature could lay any claim either to have or to hold And therefore most just equal reasonable and honourable it is for it to make such a Re-exhibition to God as is called Religion Therefore that famous Heathen Lawyer said well Summa ratio est quae pro Religione facit The highest Reason of all is that which makes for Religion And Tullie in a certain place defines Religion thus briefly and aptly Religio est Justitia erga deos Religion is Justice towards the gods And Macrobius makes Pietie and Religion two of the seven parts into which he divides Justice These not onely truly Christian but natural grounds of sober Men Macrob. Saâ— c. 7. P. 37. may suffice to put to silence the brutish Philosophie of some of late who acknowledge no other grounds of Dominion either Divine or Humane or of Obedience thereunto but Power and Force enabling to exact and extort the same not considering that Protection on the part of the Governing and Profit and Benefit on the part Governed do create a debt of veneration and service And therefore by the same reason should Justice have no place in the Ruler but onely his Power and Pleasure to incline him to govern well as it should have no place in the Governed to obey well And not only from the special benefits derived from God should Man return the mite of his recompence or recognition by Religion but also from a subordination of Creatures serving him should he be moved to pay the like to God The Psalmist tells us that God hath put all things Psal 8. 6 7 8. under Mans feet All Sheep and Oxen yea and all the beasts of the Field The Fowls of the Air and the Fish of the Sea and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the Seas From this example therefore Subjection and subserviency of all inferiour Creatures to Man by the appointment of God doth appear the reasonableness of Mans subjection unto God Neither was this though forfeited by Man upon his first disobedience against God so lost unto him but it was confirmed unto him after the Flood in these words And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon Gen. 9. 2. every beast of the Earth and upon every Fowl of the Air and upon all that Quod non metuitur contemnitur quod contemnitur utique non colitur Ita fit ut Religio Majestas honor metu constet c. Lactant. de Ira Dei c. 8. Psal 111. 10. Prov. 1. 17. moveth upon the Earth and the Fishes of the Sea into your hand are they delivered This Fear therefore and dread of a Divine Majesty is that which God hath in like manner laid upon Man as the ground and cause of all religious worship of him Man being infinitely more inferiour and subject by nature to God then the Beasts are to him For as Lactantius hath it That which is not feared is contemned that which is contemned cannot be worshiped and so it comes to pass that Religion and Majesty and Honour consists of Fear Which the Scripture assures us of also where it saith by David and Solomon both The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdome And notwithstanding all Creatures do exhibit obedience unto Almighty God yet none may properly be said to be Religions but Man For Religion must be a service and a tendency to Perfection and union with God but the Blessed Spirits of Men and Angels are out of their Apprentiship and imperfect state and consummated in that fruition and reward and union with God which they are capable of And the Apostate Spirits though they give obedience to God cannot be said to be Religious because their wills are constantly and utterly rebellious and all is involuntary and forced but Religion must be free and voluntary as is intimated Psalm 110. by the Psalmist Again Irrational Creatures or Beasts cannot be said to be Religious properly though they may be said to be Obedient For Obedience may consist as with necessity in Devils so with ignorance and necessity both as in Beasts But Religion must be rational as St. Paul implieth in these words I beseech you brethren by the mercies of God Rom. 12. 1. that ye present your bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service Whatsoever worship the Creatures give unto God is principally performed by their Head Man Man being as the first born and eldest Son to God in comparison of them So that as it was a natural Law that the eldest of the Family and most worthy should be as a Priest to the rest to offer Sacrifice unto God for all the rest as Cain and Abel are interpreted to bring their offerings to Adam to present them to God so do the Beasts bringing their several tributes to Man through him offer their bounden service unto God CHAP. II. Of the Constant and Faithful assurance requisite to be had of a Deity The reasons of the necessity of a Divine supream Power Socinus refuted holding the knowledg of a God not natural ALL Religion supposeth a Deity as all Arts and Sciences suppose their foundation upon which they are built and not prove it Yet notwithstanding for the more effectual knowledg and perswasion hereof and for the due exercise of that natural notion of a God which many times is very weak for want of use as men sometimes loose the use of their bodily Limbs for want of due exercise of them we shall briefly recount for methods sake some of those many demonstrations of a Divine supream Being which is God and that by these gradations First That there are purer and superiour Beings to Man though not obvious to any of the five gross senses of man may be gathered from the effects supernatural to all corporeal Creatures and ordinarily visible Such are the suddain and rapid translations of Bodies from one place to another Such are likewise voices heard without any notice given to the eye of persons present Such are Apparitions made to diverse in all ages of Spirits to persons in the likeness of Bodies indeed but declaring by their manner of entrance their manner of motions and actions their manner of departure and disappearing that such forms are only assumed to render their presence more obvious
to us Such are lastly the many Predictions and Revelations of closest and deepest secrets of men not possible to be known but by a preternatural subtilty All which are so frequently reported in Histories of all sorts Divine and Humane that who ever will call in question must be judged purposely to have taken on him such incredulity that he might deny this thing seeing there are infinite other things which upon no greater evidence he firmly believeth And what greater absurdity need a man be forced to than this singularity of judging in this cause For can they who resolve to doubt of this matter alledge any sense or demonstration contrary to this If they can Why have they kept it from the World all this while If they cannot Why should they not yield to better grounds for it than they have any against it Viz. the concurrent testimony of so many and sober persons affirming the same from their experience But if this be admitted then by due gradations may we easily ascend unto the most supream Being of all which is God No man being able to determine any point which may not be exceeded until we come to infinity it self And this present visible World being but a draught of that superâ—â—â— God was pleased to ordain Man to bear his Image in a Supremacy over all earthly Creatures that from hence we may learn that as one Creature serves another and all Man so Man is subordinate to Spirits and created Spirits to God as their onely absolute Lord. And therefore in Scripture it is said of them They are all Ministring Spirits i. e. under Hebr. 1. 9. Hebr. 12. 9. God to them that believe And that he is the Father of Spirits Which necessary and harmonious dependence of all things on One is so consonant to the common reason of Man that the contrary introducing a Deity or independence doth withal bring in a manifest Anarchy and confusion in the Universe repugnant as well to nature as reason Furthermore the several Arts and Sciences minister several proofs of this as might be shewn in particular would it not be too long and were it not to be found performed by divers already That taken from the course of Nature may here suffice Nature it self and common observation tell us that there is diversity in Cause and Effect and that there is Generation and Corruption and that nothing in the World can produce it self And for instance he that lived many thousand years ago could no more make himself then he that lived but yesterday or was born this morning So that either Man and if Man other creatures also for there is the same reason made himself or was from eternity or was made by another The first is disproved The second is false First because nothing hath been esteemed more absurd in reason than for to arise to an Infinity of Causes one above another Secondly then certainly would the same man yea all men be eternal consequently as well as antecedently but the contrary to this we daily see and therefore may conclude the contrary to the other Thirdly The very nature of Creatures constituted of divers and contrary natures which are opposite and avers to all union as Fire and Water Wet and Dry Heat and Cold cannot move of themselves to that which is contrary to them but every thing naturally covers to be of it self and in it self Fire making towards Fire and Water to Water and Earth to Earth so that there must be a superiour power as well to bring them and joyn them together in one as to contain and continue them there Which must be the first Cause and that first Cause is God Fourthly That common ground of all Societies humane Justice which is an immoveable and indelible principle in the mind of Man approved of by all doth evince this For Justice supposes and infers a Deity For all Justice doth suppose a Rule according to which it is said to be just and a Law to contradict and oppose which is to be unjust and injurious For otherwise it would be at the pleasure and arbitrement of every man to make a Rule to himself and for another according to which all that pleased should be reputed just But this would be one of the most absurd ridiculous and unjust things in the world Therefore must there of necessity be a common Rule of Right and Just which can proceed from none but the Author of all Beings and humane Society it self without which Meo judiciâ— Pietas est sumdamentum omnium virtutum Cicero pro Plancio it would be as reasonable if it were profitable and safe for any man to murder his Prince or his Father as to kill a Nitt or Flea that troubled him For the Civil Sanction of Laws to the contrary doth not make the foresaid impieties sins neither are they simply evil because they are forbidden thereby But they are forbidden by Man and fenced by humane Laws because they are evil and evil they were absolutely because God had so decreed them And as the Laws of all Soveraigns receive their Original vigour from God so were it not that Gods Law fortified confirmed and secured Kings they and their Laws both would be no better then trifles impertinencies and impostures which every wise man might shake off and confound when ever it lay in his power For where obedience and subjection is due it is for some reason which reason is form'd into a Law But no man can make a Law whereby he of no King should become a King for before he can make any Law he must be a King or Supream And therefore this reason or Law must be Antecedent and being so must have an Author And who can that be but God the King of Kings and Lord of Lords Fifthly Add hereunto that argument which is commonly taken from the common consent and agreement of all Men esteemed most rational all People all Nations concurring hereunto Which must needs be the effect of a Divine power and influence so inclining mens minds so that one saith It is so apparent that there is a God that I can scarce think him to Cicero be in his right mind who denies it And when we speak of Nature and a Law of Nature we would not be so understood as some would needs take them to help them out here for such a necessary and inevitable principle and impulse as none should be able to dissent from for there is no such Law to be found but so natural we make it to all indifferently and equally disposed that the thing once fairly and duly propounded shall not find contradiction without violence offered at first to the mind of man bent to such a truth Sixthly It is no weak argument of an over-ruling and supream Power which may be taken from the contrary attempts the vanity and infelicity of them For it was just now granted that great Wits as they would be called may nay have disowned this truth
which we have shewed they have not as Jews and he will undoubtedly conclude against their antiquated Religion and Innovated Superstitions CHAP. VII The Christian Religion described The General Ground thereof The Revealed Will of God The Necessity of Gods Revealing himself AFTER the consideration of Religion in General and the reasonableness thereof with the Exclusion of the principal false pretenders of worshipping the true God it follows to treat of the Christian Religion and the Reasonableness and several incomparable Prerogatives thereunto proper And first it is to be known what we mean by Christian Religion and what it is Christian Religion is the worship of the only true God in the unity of nature and trinity of persons through one Mediatour between God and man the Man Christ Jesus according to his Will and Laws revealed in his holy Word commonly called the Scriptures This description whether artificial enough I will not contend but full enough I suppose it is to declare as well What it is in it self as Wherein it is distinct from others And therefore omitting to treat of the more curious and formal part thereof we shall here shew briefly What great advantages it hath above any other to the obliging us to a more faithful and devout observation thereof and that this only and no other can truly please God and lead us to him and crown us hereafter with eternal bliss and glory And it having been proved that by the consent of all Nations there is a God and it following more strongly upon that ground supposed that such a Supream and Infinite being is to be worshiped and that this worship is that which we call Religion and that of the Religions pretending to be divine the others have been found vain and deficient the Right of being received as the only proper worship of God must of necessity devolve upon the Christian Religion as that which is least obnoxious to the same or like exceptions and hath many more sober and rational inducements to perswade the same to any equal judgment Which argument might well be drawn from the very Body of this Religion and the several parts whereof it consisteth together with manifold Pregnant Circumstances attending the same But because this would ask a far longer time and more tedious labour both to Writer and Reader then can consist with this intended Compendium it may abundantly suffice to give such probable and credible proofs of the Scriptures That they are the revealed will of God as Christians do believe without question For the summ and substance of all Christian religion so far as it is truly so called and professed being founded on the Holy Scriptures and there expresly contained if it be evinced that they are of divine Original it will follow That what they deliver is so likewise and consequently the Religion built upon them But because it is one Principle which Christian Religion is built upon in common with all Religions that somewhat must so be believed that no natural reason or Mathematical can invincibly demonstrate And the reason hereof is because the ground of all such demonstations is setled upon the order of Nature between Cause and Effect in point of right rather than matter of fact But that the Scriptures are so the word of God as to be revealed by his Holy Spirit to certain select Persons to that end is altogether matter of fact and that not proceeding from such a necessary and natural Agent as that according to the course of Causes and Effects it could be no otherwise but from a free Agent which certainly might have suspended such acts of Revealing his Will And the same Reason holds against all proper Demonstration from Effect For as it cannot be demonstrated that such a Cause must necessarily have such an Effect it cannot be infallibly proved that such an Effect must have such a Cause For unless it could be proved that fire must necessarily burn it could not be proved that what we see burnt must necessarily proceed from fire For before this can be don it must be shewed that nothing in the world has the same virtue but fire and this supposes that we have a perfect and exact knowledg of every thing and the nature of it in the world Take we an instance yet nearer to our present subject It is a common Maxime amongst the Schoolmen That no Creature can work a Miracle of it self but it must have the Supernatural power of God either immediately or mediately and That whatsoever Effects are wrought by any Spirit inferiour to God deserve not the name of a Miracle And yet it is confessed withall that diverse such works which appear to us as extraordinary and above nature are not of God but some perhaps evil Creature Must it not then first be known what those extraordinary acts are and how they are wrought before it can be concluded that they are of God And how can this infallibly be discern'd but by another miracle and this by a third a third by an infinity of which there can be no knowledg So that in truth the received doctrine of the Schools being thorowly examined the contrary will appear the more reasonable of the two and that we must rather first of all acknowledg a Divine Power precedent and effecting this extraordinary stupendious work before we may call it a Miracle than first admit this to be a Miracle and then and thence infer a Divine Power So that it seems very difficult and dubious to make scientifical conclusions of any thing divine And that after all there may be sufficient presumptions to render a thing credible without lightness and rashness yet the Arguments perswading shall not be so pressing and cogent but due place should remain for a Faith or assent which may not be properly humane and natural which it must needs be if it proceeded simply from sense or reason natural but divine and an admirable temperament be found in that we call The true Christian Faith wherein the Grace of God inwardly moving and inclining the Will to embrace that to which it might notwithstanding all reasons to the contrary not altogether unreasonably have dissented and yet with reason doth assent the Grace of God pulling down 2 Cor. 10. 4 5. strong holds casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth it self against the knowledg of God and bringing into Captivity every thought unto the obedience of Christ As St. Paul excellently saith speaking of the carnal warfare of humane ratiocinations either for or against Divine Faith and Doctrine which have no might but through God as he suffers by his justice the reasonings and eloquence of men to take place against his doctrine or to prevail towards the receiving of the truth by the superadded Power of his Holy Spirit as to this end St. Paul speaks in his first Epistle to the Corinthians thus And my speech and my preaching was not 1 Cor. 2. 4 5. with enticing words of mans
that none can without another extraordinary confirmation rest satisfied that so it is really with him Lastly for our clearer proceeding We are herein to distinguish between the attaining to the true sense of Scripture and the decision or determination of Controversies according to the Scripture And that the most important Query is not so much Whether a man hath the Spirit or not or whether he hath the truest and most genuine meaning of the Spirit speaking in the Scriptures or not but how this should be made known and manifested so far unto others as that they should rationally and soberly rest satisfied in the opinions of the said pretenders to such truths For it s well and smartly said in this doubt The Question is not Whether the Spirit in a Man or Church or the Scripture though this last way is very improperly expressed be the best Judge of the Sense of Scripture but where it resides to such purposes And what a great stir is made to little purpose while the former is so easily granted on all sides and there is nothing done at all to convince a sober man or Christian That such or such persons are they we ought expect the dictates of Gods Spirit from For Judgement properly so called can never be separated from Autority or lawful presiding over others joyned with power to oblige to such sentence as shall be passed but how this should be competible to single or many Persons agreeing in the same thing in their private capacity yea though enabled with the spirit more than ordinary cannot well be understood So that at most they can be judges of controversies only for themselves and that at their own peril and can do no more than perswade advise and exhort not oblige others to think as they do But Judges must and ought to do more or they had as good do nothing So that that which hath found great acceptance and applause by too many doth upon examination prove very insignificant and impertinent to the resolution of the difficultie in hand viz. That things that are necessary are obvious in Scripture and Every man is Judge to himself granting I say This which is yet really untrue yet scarce any thing is said to the purpose which enquired not so much How a man might perswade himself but how and with what influence he may proceed to the conviction and reducing of others so that the essential to a Church be not destroyed as it certainly must be where no communion is and there will infallibly cease all communion where it is meerly arbitrary for Christians to believe and judge and walk and worship as they please For this it is for every man to judge for himself Will it be yet farther said That we should bear with one another and live peaceably and charitably one with another and not molest each other for his Judgement If it be as I know it is I reply first That this plausibility without possibility is not true according to the opinions of them who use it For they certainly hold That Heresie and Schism are not to be endured or born withal Christ and God must not be blasphemed by unsound opinions or prophane or superstitious actions and this diversity yea contrariety of judging must needs find these faults in one another very often and consequently be of opinion That they are not to be suffered and Charity must not be so far mistaken or abused as to licentiate such enormities But What if after all this contention for the Spirit it be not judge at all as in truth it is not in any proper sense For the Spirit is only the due qualification of the Person or Persons not simply to judge for that descends upon them by being ordinarily and orderly constituted over the Church of Christ but to judge aright and to give faithful and unerring sentence in matters under debate and question And the same may be in proportion affirmed of Reason termed by some who would seem to excell others in reason most improperly as well as unreasonably Judge of Controversies For all judgement disquisition and expositions are made by Persons not by things Reason indeed is the Instrument whereby a Person is enabled to judge or find out the truth unto which unless there be a due accession of Autority and Power such reason though very exquisite and happy must keep within its own doors and judge at home for it self and not for others nor contrary to more publick and autoritative determinations without the peril of being taxed of Arrogance and it self justly condemned if not for the Inward errours of the mind for the outward errors in ill managing truths If it were so That Reason in men were infallible we ought not to stand upon nicities of terms or improper language But for men to deny others the Seat and Power of Judicature because they may err and to take it to themselves as if the spirit of Error had no power over them is at the same time a grievous though pleasing error both against Reason and common justice too And if it be said That every man is bound by the Law of nature being indued with reason to use that reason and not bruitishly to suffer himself he knows not or cares not whether to becarried by others Reasons and not his own I retort And every man is obliged by the Law of Nations which is a more refined principle than that of gross Nature properly taken to contain himself in the order of Community he is placed and to submit to the reason of common Judgement no less than his own For undoubtedly until every man in private and particular be unerrable which is not to be expected on this side heaven there will diverse inconsistent judgements prevail and divide one from another and cause such a breach as the society whether divine or humane will soon perish and come to nothing But granting what was before demanded That every man must act according to his reason above the nature of beasts this doth not conclude That therefore he must be let alone and not brought even by force to submit to others against such reason First Because it is not resolved by any but a mans own deceitful opinion That it is really reason which is so presumed to be Secondly Because he that is so constrained to submit his reason is not thereby denyed either the nature or use of his but still much transcendeth the capacity of beasts For He discusses he discourses he judges rationally after the manner of men even when the effect of all these Acts are contrary to reason And lastly In wise men and good humble Christians there is a superior principal of reasonableness to that of meer direct nature For That he that has most reason on his side and when that it self is controverted he that according to appearance of Circumstances may lay the fairest claim to that is to be followed no rational man can deny Therefore should a Mans
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
faithful servants For in truth this latter sense is scarce maintained or allowed by any Good Christian or if it be we shall not account it worth the expence of so much paâ—ns and time to refute them any further than the thing it self doth rightly considered For merit as is said effect is the just right that a man hath to a thing in possession of another there being no difference in such cases between what man enjoys and what he doth not enjoy but that the one is in the possession of himself and the oâ—her of another both being of right his own the one by ancient and the other perhaps by moderner purchase And this is founded upon the equity of Commutative Justice whereby one thing is exchanged for anoâ—her as about for reward such a commensurateness of the Action of a Christian being never to be found in order to the end promised For alâ— that we can do is our duty to God and not our desert And though God may have seem'd to have receeded in some manner from his original Râ—ght over us in that he stipulates with his servants and Covenants with them for such imâ—ense â—ecompence for such light labours yet this doth not extinguish his dominâ—on absolute over us nor extenuate or bring down the vaâ—ue of the reward it self so far as to ballance the account between God and man so that they should relate to one another as do Debtor and Creditor Because whether man contracts or not whether he promises or not Justice in behalf of the Servant claims a proportionable reward and a Debtor he is really though perhaps Legally he be not But between God and man theâ—e is no such natural mutual obligation before a free promise on Gods part issued out And therefore after such promise made impossible it is that any or many Acts on mans part should be commensurate to the goodness of the reward expected but it must all depend upon favour and grace For who hath pâ—evented Job 41. 11. me saith God in Job that I should repay him And St. Paul to the Romans Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of Grace but Rom. 4. 4. of debt The principal enquiry then is about the works of such as acknowledge a Freeness of promise in God as most or all Christians do what proportion they may bear to the reward so freely promised And in truth there seems no less then a contradiction after an acknowledgement of the freeness of a promise infinitely exceeding the labour or work made to impute the reward rather to the work than to the promise For he that cannot merit the cause absolutely required to the effect cannot be said to merit the Effect so that he who protests against the sufficiency of his work to merit the promise can have no tolerable pretension to merit the effect Hence it is that Paul saith against such as may glory in their works Where is boasting Rom. 3. 27. then It is excluded By what Law Of works Nay But by the Law of Faith And yet in the two more favourable and less proper senses above specified may a man without prejudice to Gods free Grace or Faith on Christ be said to merit there being more exotiqueness to Scripture Phrase and harshness to ears tender of Gods free Grace than guilt in that word For first who can denie that he is the servant of God that he is according to the vow in baptism a Souldier of Jesus Christ that he serves under him in the work of the Gospel against the world and flesh and Devil to the encrease of Grace and vertue according to Godliness This is to merit many times with the ancient without any implication of obligation upon God or Christ towards us for our service The second acceptation then is cheifly to be discussed which allows not only a service but an efficacie to Good works so far as to render them capable of such a term as Merit For there is a wide difference between a sufficiencie of a work to obtain a thing and the efficiencie The former indeed is absolute The latter not so St. Paul saying to the Corinthians 2 Cor. 6. 1. We therefore as workers together with him i. e. God doth certainly impâ—ie somewhat of activeness and efficiency by way at least of Instrument subordinate to that of God towards the great work of advancing the Gospel but he disavows a sufficiencie when he saith Who is sufficient for these 2 Cor. 2. 16. 1 Cor. 3. 5. things and when he saith Who then is Paul and who is Apollos but Ministers by whom ye believed even as the Lord gave to every man and so then neâ—ther is he that planteth any thing neither he that watereth but God that giveth the 7. increase No man can be a minister or instrument to another but he must act Non est tamen alienum nâ—c arrogans si etiam David remunerâ—tionem à Domino Deo suo pro egregiis latoribus posâ—ulet Praerâ—gativa est fâ—dâ—i atque justitiae de Domini favore mercidem usurpare Ambros in Psal 119. 1. Et tamen si bene cogites ipse dedit fidem primò qua cum promeruisii non enim de tuo promeruisti ut tibi aliquid deberetur c. Aug. Tract 3. in Joan. Ipsa vita aeterna quae utique in fine sine fine habebitur ideo meâ—itiâ— praecedentibus redditur quia ea merita quibus redditur non a nobis parata sunt per nostram suffâ—cientiam sed in nobis facta per gratiam etiam ipsa Gratia nuncupatur non ob aliud nisi quia gratis dâ—tur Aug. Ep. 105. â— together with him Again No man that is an instrument or minister to another can intitle himself absolutely or principally to the effect So then supposing that upon works evangelical reward certainly follows of course of Gods promise vet this glory is not to be assumed to the Instrument but Principal causes moving thereunto which are three principally arising and over-ruling a Christian The inward Grace of Gods spirit in respect of man working The Indulgence of God in remitting the rigour of the Law according to whose exactness the work is to be but seldom or never is performed And the promise of God condescending to such low and favourable terms in bestowing his rewards So that notwithstanding as is said there be certainly an efficacy which sometimes the holy Fathers call merit in Good works there is never found a sufficiencie or such a worth in the best Christians actions which may be commensurate to our Salvation For though as many of the reformed have truly spoken we be saved by our Good works we are not saved for our Good works no more then being saved and Justified by our Faith we are Justified for our Faith as shall be seen by and by So then all the merit of a true Christian consists in this That being by Faith built upon that sure and
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
his Benefits before he be in some manner actually in Christ For if all our works are Sanctified by Gods Spirit and acceptable to God only as they are done in Christ how can any such Acts lead us unto Christ or make us capable of him seeing it is one of the greatest perfections and excellencie of good Works or Faith for unless it and we be in Christ it cannot be a saving Faith i. e. leading us to Salvation to make us effectual partakers of and one with him These difficulties constrain us to distinguish both Faith and being in Christ into I cannot say properly two kinds as two eminent Periods and Degrees of Faith and being in Christ The one is initial and preparatory as a foundation which is not a distinct building from the house finished and furnished but a part of it and material Cause thereof The other is consummate and formed yet not so but addition of perfection though not of Parts may be made all mens Faith being capable of farther degrees in this life And from hence that mystical sense of our Saviours words in St. Johns Gospel may both give and receive illustration For in the sixth of John Christ hath these words No man can come unto me except the Joh. 6. 44. Father which hath sent me draw him And in the fourteenth of John he saith I am the way and the truth and the life no man cometh unto the Father but by Joh. 14. 6. me Teaching us That notwithstanding God is the First cause to bring us to be in Christ and that by his Predestination before time and his Calling and Electing us in time to the knowledge and Faith in Christ yet he is not reconciled unto us he doth not pardon us nor justify us before Christ brings us unto him and offers us to him as a new lâ—mp and as capable of his grace and favour which obtained we are then truly justified by Christ And as there are two distinct acts of God the one of his good Providence in bringing us to the Covenant made with mankind in Christ and the other of his special Grace in accepting us through Christ being in the Covenant So are there two principal Periods as I said of being in Christ and the First is when we are taken within the Covenant of the Gospel of Grace by baptism whereby we are made members of Christs mystical Body and inheritours of the Kingdom of Heaven Not that immediately and necessarily All baptized persons are sure to go to heaven but all baptized persons are thereby put into a capacity and Right to heaven To this St. Paul Gal. 3. 27. to the Galatians gives us his fair suffrage saying For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ And the same is implied in this his salutation Salute Andronicus and Junias my kinsmen and my Rom. 16. 7. fellow Prisoners who are of note among the Apostles who also were in Christ before me Where doubtless these persons are said to be in Christ before St. Paul because they were baptized and made profession of Christ before St. Paul And so when he speaks of the Churches of Judea which are in Christ Gal. 1. 22. he meaneth no more than such who were become of Jews Christians in Judea not intending that every one who so professed Christ should be infallibly Justified and saved by Christ as they shall who are arrived to the more perfect state of being in Christ of which the Apostle thus speaketh to the Colossians Whom Christ we preach warning every man and teaching every Col. 1. 28. man in all wisdome that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus Now what is or wherein this perfection in Christ doth consist is I suppose past any mans apprehension or Judgement precisely to determine that is what degree of holiness in Christ God will accept to our Justification but in general these two States of a Christian are plainly deseribed thus by St. Paul to the Corinthians If any man be in Christ Jesus he is a new creature 2 Cor. 5. 17. Where being a new Creature and being in Christ are distinguished as Cause and Effect our being in Christ Jesus being the reason and cause of becoming New creatures So that we may well observe in this case a twofold Conversion requisite to make a man truly in Christ A conversion to Christ by renouncing false Religions and false opinions of a Deity and assenting to and embracing the doctrine according to Godliness This every man doth who takes on him the name profession and mitiating Sacrament of a Christian of this is to be understood what is spoken of the conversion of the Gentiles And this conversion is rather to speak properly Acts 15. 3. a conversion to the truth of Godliness than to true Godliness Or a conversion to the Truth of Faith rather then to the life of Faith of which St. Paul to the Galatians The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the Faith Gal. 2. 20. of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me The summ then of all this is this That to be in Christ effectually to our Justification and Salvation is so to be converted unto him as to believe the Faith of Christ and to Live the life of Christ This being cleared nearer access is made unto the solution of the prime Doubt which is What is that which so farr and fully enstateth us in Christ that thereupon God doth freely justifie us For it is now supposed and granted that our so being in Christ making us partakers of the merits mediation and Righteousness of Christ doth immediately and absolutely qualifie to Justification and secondarily that which brings us into Christ may properly enough be said to be it whereby we are Justified And here comes in the grand dispute about the vertue of Faith Whether that only and wholly performeth this For in what sense Faith may be said to bring us unto Christ or thus to lay hold as they say of Christ in the same may it be truly affirmed that next under God and Christ we are Justified by it This I know not how it can be effected better then by the help of a most obvious and necessary but most neglected distinction of the use and notion of Faith in holy Scripture omitting that threefold Faith above-mentioned and several others impertinently invented and ill imployed in this case For Faith is taken in Scripture either Complexly and Generally for the whole Body of Christian divinity and Graces contained in the New testament Or it is taken Simply and distinctly for a special Grace separate I mean in nature not in Operation from Hope and Charity which together constitute the three Theological Graces Instances of the former have been given already in the twelfth Chapter and need not here be repeated in particular For let any man of common equity and understanding weigh the subject and
Tim. 2. 1 2. prayers and intercessions and giving thanks for all men For Kings and all that are in authority c. which hath been so understood by some as if he had intended here to distinguish and establish a co-ordination of Governours over the same people but there is no necessity at all of such a consequence and St. Peter expresly distinguisheth their relations 1 Pet. 2. 13 14. not to be co-ordinate but subordinate saying Submit your selves to every ordinance of man that is not as some weakly and presumptuously would interpret the Apostle as if Kings and Princes were mens creatures and by them constituted but humane Creature which is the word in the Original doth signifie such Persons as have authority over men as men and not as Christians such as were then Civil Governours amongst the Gentiles which the phrase of the Jews commonly called Creatures barely and Humane as having no such Divine Graces conferred on them as had the Jews for the Lords sake whether it be unto Kings as Supream or unto Governours as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers and for the praise of them that do well Here Governours are said to be of two sorts not co-ordinate and subordinate but Supream and Subordinate such as have authority immediately and absolutely in themselves without dependence upon others and such as are of an Inferiour order and under the said Supream rule and execute Justice So that nothing can be more absurdly and sediciously taught than to make such as are constituted by another to have any authority at all over their Founder and Lord the author of their power I know infinite instances may be brought of Common-wealths which have admitted and been governed by such a Co-ordination or at least a power reserved in store in the hands of certain persons whose proper office and care it should be to regulate and reduce to a safe mean the extreams which single and absolute Monarchs may easily fall into But all these varying so exceedingly from the natural form of Government sway not much with me For that which is natural and of Divine Ordinance and Institution cannot possibly be uncertain and mutable so that no man shall be able to know where to place his duty of Obedience which God requires to be paid to such as are in Authority And obedience being due only to the Supream himself immediately or to those that derive authority from him how is it possible to understand but by the sad effects of power pressing and afflicting a man where he is to yield his obedience Therefore surely God can have no hand in such modellings of States which shall perplex a man in rendring his subjection For it is not a great empty and ridiculous Title which maketh a Supream but entire power and absolute freedom at least from subjection to others especially of his own Dominion All Titles without this are honourable Mockeries but the real Supremacy is actual I say not how justly or injuriously in those Tutours of Princes and Keepers of the Liberties of the people as is commonly given out and in this case supposing that Right and Power are not separated not these Proveditors or Senatours who thus chastise Princes are rebellious but they who bearing the name of Kings and Princes being in truth but meer subjects refuse to submit to the decrees of their Superiours But if possession giveth not Right which is the most Christian as well as rational opinion it may be doubted how a just title can be acquired by any Persons in co-ordination to the Supream power when as we have shown the People never had any such themselves and therefore can transferr none nor such select persons had any of themselves who assume this nor is it to be conceived how any natural Right should descend upon many persons as the Paternal power doth upon one from whence Monarchical Power and Right may flow And If Senatours as they call them or suck like States-men cannot regularly found their title in nature or Divine Writ or revelation It was no act of Rebellion that greatest act of Hostility in Julius Caesar to reduce the Roman Common-wealth to Monarchy For there are two things to be considered in Civil Authority The Government it self in its form and kind and the Governour invested with this The Person Governing may doubtless offend notoriously though I dare not say forfeit to any other his Authority but the Government it self being abused cannot be in fault or for any miscarriages of the Person lapse to other The Government is religiously to be observed and secured from adulterations and corruptions even when the Monarch is irreligiously discarded and dethroned So that the Tyranny of a single person invading the Government administred by States and arrogating the Supremacy to himself alone must needs be less criminal than for many conspiring into a Common-wealth to change both Person and Government from the Natural to the Artificial and meerly of Humane invention and pleasure Now that Possession doth not alwayes include a Title nor Might Right in Civil Affairs is both most reasonable and Christian to believe Reasonable from several heads First from the notoriousness of the mischiefs which croud in upon all Societies of Men where this Tenet is received For what a powerful motive will it be to all discontented persons to invade others and dispossess them when there lies no other difficulty before them but the means to attach successfully whom they intend to destroy but having overcome that by whatever villanies they shall be reputed as legal owners of what they are become Masters as the most innocent and just person of all But can ever any peace or security be expected by that Society wherein it shall be lawful for any man to intrude himself into Power No say some Power acquired and possessed doth give Right to hold but not justifie the Act of inordinate acquiring the same But if it be true in Logick That the Conclusion doth alwayes partake of the weakness of the Premisses and in Nature That an evil cause be it but of the nature of a Circumstance corrupteth the whole effect is it not altogether as rational that such an hainous act in the acquiring such Power here should quite marr the effect Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean not one saith holy Job 14. 4. Recte factum est ut id quod male caeptum est Autoritate publica destrucretur Damasus Epist Acholio Eurydico c. apud Holstennii Collectionem pa. 40. Part. 1. Job So not one can by an unrighteous Act produce a righteous effect Neither can the inveterateness of an Evil any wayes mitigate the same nor tract of time wipe away that Guilt which was at first acquired For prescription in such cases never gives just Title but where other Titles are extinguished which is by accident Then indeed Possession it self giveth not a good Title but hath less evil and inconvenience
with Christians denying them all outward conversation as well as spiritual in matters of Religion Now this seems to be a branch of the Old Greater Excommunication and not in all places disusâ—d And sometimes is unlawful and otherwhile lawful according to the extent and application of them For to inflict the same to the dissolving of ties of nature is not agreeable to the simplicity of the Gospel And Natural Ties we call such as are between Subjects and Soveraign Parents and Children Husband and Wife which by no Ecclesiastical Excommunication can be broken or nulled The reason whereof besides the monstrous effects ensuing upon their evacuation not here to be treated of is this That Ecclesiastical Power can take away no more than it gave nor Christianity destroy what it never builded But Christianity did never simply confer such Rights on men but the Law of Nature only it regulated and directed the same therefore can it not null it It is therefore unchristian for any pretending Ecclesiastical Power to absolve subjects from obedience Civil or Children from natural and the like But every Christian in that he is adopted of God by baptism and admitted into the Society of Christians doth receive thereby certain Rights and power to communicate with it in all things which power may be forfeited and lost by breach of Covenant as well with the Body of the Church to live and believe according to the Received Faith and practice thereof as with the Head Christ And this being so judged by those who are over the Church in the Lord it is very consonant to Christian Religion to deny such of what order or rank soever they be the signs of outward communion Prayer and Communication of the Holy Sacraments of Christ The Church hath power to declare even soveraign Princes uncapable of such Communion and deny it them which we call the Lesser Excommunication Yet because as we said No natural Right can be extinguished upon unchristian misdemeanours If a Supream Prince of a Place should disdain to be denied or opposed in such cases and would make his entrance into the Church by vertue of his Civil Right to all places under his Dominion the most that the Church could do justly in such cases were to diswade him but by any force to resist his entrance into any Church were unlawful as it would be also to minister in a Christian manner in his presence for this cannot be commanded by him but in such cases suffering must be put in practice as for the Faith it self sought to be destroyed Some there are yet who call in question the peculiar and incommunicable Right of decreeing this Censure of Excommunication to those called the Clergy which is very strange seeing this Power is part of that of the Keys delivered by Christ himself to such only as he constituted Governors of the Church and that in Christs days their was a distinction between the Members of his Body as to Inferiority and Superiority Obedience and Command Teacher and Learner and much more in the Apostles days after Christs Assention and much more yet after their days according as the matter of the Church Christians encreasing and improving became more capable of a more convenient form and fashion For as it is in the production of natural things though the Form be certain and constant and the very same at the first production as in its perfection yet it doth not appear so fully and perfectly as afterward So was it with the Body of Christs Church It is certain therefore that from the beginning this Act of Excluding from the Communion was never executed but by the Rulers and Presidents of Congregations though the people might concurr thereto Now that these Rulers whom we may call Bishops or Presbyters were not created by the People nor by the Prince we have shewed already and therefore did nothing in their Right but in the Power of Christ whose Ministers alone they properly were And this being essential to right Administration of the Church how can it be supposed either to be separable from the Church in General or from those persons who are the proper Administrators of it For to say with some It is needless Selden de Jure Gentium apud Bibliander apud Erastum wholly where Christian Magistrates rule whose proper office it is to rebuke and punish vice and scandalous misdemeanors which say they can only be just cause of Excommunication is to destroy the subject of the question which supposes it needful and upon this enquires after the Persons which should Execute the same And spitefully to defeat the Church of all Authority from Christ doth indeed translate this Power to the Civil Magistrate And is not the absurdity the very same which endowes the Christian Governor with Civil Power and which endows the Civil Magistrate with Christian If it be not absurd for a King to be a Philosopher it is not absurd for a Philosopher to be a King If it be not absurd for a Civil Magistrate to have Priestly power it is not absurd for him that hath Priestly power to be a Magistrate There is certainly no inconsistency on either side For things of a far different nature and intention may easily meet in the same person though the things themselves can never be the same Here therefore the things differing so egregiously it is no more than nacessary that a different cause be acknowledged necessary which not appearing the Effect must be denied Now the Cause of all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction as Ecclesiastical must needs come from him from whom the Church it self hath its Original and being And it is a certain Rule that a man is born to nothing that comes from Christ as Head of his Church but is made and instituted Which whoever is not cannot lay any just claim to any Office under him I know it is objected that Preaching being an Ecclesiastical Act hath without contradiction been practised by diverse and to this day may be no ordination preceeding To which I thus answer by distinguishing first between doing a thing Ex Charitate and Ex Officio out of Charity and out of duty Preaching was ever permittedin the Church especially taken in the larger sense wherein it signifies all declaration of the Gospel out of Charity But the office of Preaching was never suffered but upon antecedent qualifications And these two differ yet farther For he that doth a thing out of Office doth it so that it is not lawful for him absolutely to omit it but he that doth it out of Charity and only by connivance not by commission may cease at his pleasure and as he made may suspend himself when he will Again he that teaches without Autority upon bare permission nay be silenced without any other cause renderd but the will of him that hath the Jurisdiction or if a reason be given because He hath no autority is sufficient But he that is orderly instituted to that end cannot without
injustice and Tyranny be denied the exercise of that which pertains to him Now the Key of Knowledge and the Key of Jurisdiction of which the Power of the Keys delivered by Christ consists and into which it is commonly divided are very different For the first doth but open the door to the others and prepares and qualifies a person for the other but doth no more actually give power or autority than the great skill and experience of a Souldier makes him a Captain to command others or knowledge in the law makes a man a judge actually It is therefore the Key of Jurisdiction or a Right given by Christ to administer the Church and every member thereof that is principally to be acknowledged in this Case And which not being found to descend orderly from Christ no effect of that affected power can be acknowledged But as is said doth not descend naturally or by birth but Judicially from others In which manner who ever receives it not sacrilegiously murps what belongs not to him But they who would wring this power out of the hands of the Church Selden de Synedriis Lib 1. Cap. 9. do give us certain Presidents as well from the Jewish Church wherein there was it should seem a custom that one Person might excommunicate another when he pleased But the same Antiquaries tell us also that it was in use amongst them for a man to excommunicate himself And this I take to imply an answer to the former For it is in the power of any man to separate himself from the Church or any other Society materially and Really but Judicially and Formally he cannot neither can he separate another otherwise than by absenting himself from the Communion of the Church he may indeed as formally pronounce such a censure against himself or an other as the most Canonical Judge in the world but intrinsique power being wanting the outward Act turns to smoak as to others but as to himself has no other effect then he that is in a boat hath upon the earth against which he sets his oar and thrusts hard but puts himself off not the earth as our neighbouring Ministers did when with intollerable and incredible presumption they took upon them to Excommunicate their own Bishops and some of the transmarine Churches of the same Platform were so wise as to allow their Fact And to the Instances of some Princes whom Histories affirm to have Excommunicated Id. ibid. certain persons the Answer is That the word Excommunication hath deceived the reporters and appliers thereof to this Case For according to signification of that word both in the Latin and Greek language Excommunication or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the declaration by Publick Herauld Suidas in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Item 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of any guilty Person to be excluded or banished the Princes Court or Company or perhaps Dominions Thus many have been Excommunicated by Soveraign Princes But can any instances be given of such as without any further Act of the Church have been thereupon denied Communion with the Church And what we say of Excommunicating holds good likewise in the Power of Absolution which the same Persons allow to meer secular Powers and would prove from an Act of Constantine the Great his absolving Eusebius Bishop of Nicomedia Constantine we all know had but little knowledge in the Rites of the Church at that time and might attempt he knew not what as soon as any other man whose affection to Christianity far exceeded his Judgement But what is affirmed of Constantines Act That he Restored that Excommunicated person to the Communion of the Church which only is properly Absolution No surely but he might restore him to his See and that is all Or if more were done he might be said to do it who caused by the interposition of his Power some Bishop of the Church to free him from those Eonds But questionless that is none of the least corruptions which the Church of Rome stands guilty of and which our Church hath but too much connived at that the Power of Excommunication should be in the hands of Lay men To mend this a little they of the Roman Law distinguish that which by no means should be separated curing one absurdity by another Anastafius Germbnius de Sacrorum Immunitat For they distinguish Episcopal Order from Episcopal Jurisdiction and say a man that hath not Episcopal Order but Episcopal Jurisdiction may Excommunicate a vile and corrupt imagination brought in on purpose to serve the turns of ambitious secular and sacrilegious Drones who would drive two trades of secular advantage and Ecclesiastical Profits For there is nothing so Essential unto Episcopacy as Jurisdiction I mean an Habitude and Right to Preside and Rule and there can be no Episcopal power without that nor that without Episcopal Charactar Officers indeed there may be under him void of that Charactar or any Priestly because though the Court be properly Ecclesiastical yet all things are not so which are acted therein Judicial Acts and Acts of Notaries and of Executions are competible to unordain'd persons because Gifts of nature and Learning may capacitate a man to them but that of Jurisdiction properly so called is the intrinsique Right of the Pastour of the Church and this of Excommunication annext thereunto or rather a part of it And therefore he is not a Bishop that hath it not and he that hath it is a Bishop It is not indeed necessary that this should be denounced by a Bishop but that this power which is likewise inherent in a Priest as a Priest be committed to him after the decree made by the Bishop For the Priest having a Jurisdiction within himself by vertue of his place and office but restrained by the Superiour Power to him the Jurisdiction and Autority of the Bishop is seen sufficiently in this that it enables a Priest to do that which of himself he ought not to do and this is rather exciting an old power in the Priest then infusing a new giving right to it to exert it self which before it had not But Lay-men having no Ecclesiastical Charactar inherent in them cannot by any such general commission given them from the Bishop act effectually to that end for want of the due Principle this Licence of the Bishop being nothing else but removing of that Obstacle which hinders it to work where it was For to deliberate debate and Judge of causes and persons subject to Excommunication may possibly be better performed by such who have attained to that science without any order in the Clergy but the fact it self is quite of another nature CHAP. XXXIII Of the second branch of Ecclesiastical Power which is Mystical or Sacramental Hence of the Nature of Sacraments in General Of the Vertue of the Sacraments Of the sign and thing signified That they are alwayes necessarily distinct Intention how necessarie to a Sacrament Sacraments Effectual to Grace HAving
A thing may be said in its self efficacious though it doth not attain the proper end of its working it misses of its effect because the conditions required are not kept For fire it self as active and operative an Element as it is doth not work effectually upon any thing but its proper matter nor upon that at too great a distance So may it be with the Sacraments which though indeed they are the power of God and not of nature unto salvation yet through some defect in the object or indisposition may fail of their proper and wonted Effect but not from any insufficiency in themselves or indignity of the Minister of them For if in this sense that old barbarous Rule be taken viz. That Sacraments have their virtue Ex Opere Operato viz. From the work done i. e. that they are Efficacious means of Grace in themselves and their vertue doth not depend upon the Ministers unworthines or worthiness provided he doth work according to Christs institution and intention it is true For what St. Paul speaks of the Ministers of the Gospel is true of the Ministers of the Sacraments Not that we are sufficient of our selves to think 2 Cor. 3. 5. any thing as of our selves but our sufficiency is of God The Officers of God in the delivering of these means of salvation not swerving from the Rule and Prescription given by God these Instruments themselves have their due and proper effect As when a King of his Free Grace sendeth by a leud and vain fellow a Grant of some great Favour to any of his subjects whom he pleaseth to raise out of a poor and base estate to riches and honour 't is not the unworthiness or wickedness of the bearer so long as he is true in his Office that can void the Grant so neither can the evil manners of the Ministers of the word and Sacraments null the power and promises of God made in them But though evil manners and vitiousness of the person do not corrupt or destroy the nature and end of the Sacrament yet it is believed that the actual aversation of the mind of him who consecrates and administers not only not intending actually to Consecrate but actually intending not to consecrate may evacuate the whole Action But this is shown by the former example to be very false because still God hath inserted his will and annexed his promises to the thing it self and not to the Persons disposition or indisposition either of understanding or manners It is true some of the Antients have said that Intention is necessary to a Sacrament and this hath given occasion to that gross Error in the Church of Rome which hath mistaken the intention of such Fathers as have spoken of Intention For Intention is twofold The Intention of Christ or God and the Intention of Man or the Minister They may say that Intention is necessary to a Sacrament taking their Intention for the will and mind of God which if it be not observed in all necessary thing at least the Sacrament is not perfect or valid but if it be whatever mans intention be it hinders not the Sacrament is the same And whereas they would sosâ—en this harsh and moderate this erroneous doctrine by distinguishing of Intention in the Priest into Actual Habitual and Vertual First we may well except against this distinction it self because they are forced in the explication of it to make Habitual and Vertual Intention the same in all material things only they cause them to differ in that Habitual is only a general intention without any actual consideration at the time of Consecration of what they are about Vertual that there is at the entrance upon that Action an actual purpose to do what Christ and the Church intended should be done at that time but this passeth a way suddenly and all the remaining Action is performed by vertue of that first good thought But this cannot serve the turn For the form of the Sacrament consisting chiefly in the words of Consecration according to their own doctrine if such an Intention be wanting at that time there can be no consecration and if no consecration no Sacrament So that there are two notorious inconveniences following upon this Error the one that the most sacred and Comfortable Instruments of Gods Grace and our Salvation are left to the lusts of malitious and vain man to be bafled at his pleasure and the Communicant defeated of the blessings God hath consigned to him thereby Another that upon supposition that the Sacraments were duly administred and so by consequence effectual to their proper ends yet this being not certainly known to the Partaker thereof his mind must be in perpetual disturbance and conflict fearing that the Priest had an inward intention contrary to the outward appearance But they say there is at least a Moral certainty And what is a Moral certainty Can they tell They have not yet And all I suppose they can say is no more then to make it a good degree of Probability which will not serve this Case But in truth many Cases fall out so that there is that they call a Moral Certainty on the contrary when spite and malice boll high in the breasts of men and their happiness consists in doing all the mischief they can to them they malign which we know by several Instances is not seldom found in those Countryes where this doctrine flourishes most And to what they are wont here chiefly to oppose That there can be no probability of an effect where the cause is not real but jocular ludicrous and Histrionical as it must be where there is no intention but only a fiction of doing a thing as if one in mockery upon the Stage should baptize one in derision of the Faith and Church of Christ We answer That if this Ludicrous Action be so fictitious and false that the thing only seems to be done but is not done and one seems to be baptized but is not It matters not what his intention may be For we now suppose the thing to be done as Christ and the Church intends For if this be wanting surely nothing is really performed But the question is whether when the thing is really done saving the due intention this defect voids all the rest For let an Officer of a King mock what he pleases and act what he pleases in scorn and derision of the thing he hath in Charge to deliver and declare it is contrary to his resolution to deliver it yet if he really doth deliver it his contrary purposes and actions cannot hinder the effect nor the benefit accruing from thence For as St. Paul saith Neither he that 1 Cor. 3. 7. planteth is any thing nor he that watereth is any thing but God who giveth the encrease We see this in marriage more apparently than in other Sacraments if we may call this a sacrament of which by and by that let the Minister intend what he pleases
nay the Parties Jest with that Sacred Rite never so lightly if there be a performance of such things as are outwardly required to that solemnity it holds good to all intents and purposes even against the resolutions of the persons principally concerned therein Yet must we acknowledge a vast difference between those two most properly called Sacraments Baptism and the supper of the Lord. For undoubtedly where in either of these there is a repugnancy of the will to them their effect is nothing upon the person receiving them because this is the principal obstacle of all to the efficacy yet is the Sacrament never the less valid and truly performed as to the Nature of it And concerning the Efficacy of the Sacraments it is worth our enquiry especially for their sakes who ascribing very injudiciously and injuriously the Grace of Sanctification and Justification absolutely to a special Faith thought of but lately amongst Christians or to the unsearchable Decree of Almighty God to justifie and save such persons as are ordained to Life and Salvation affirm this Decree and good purpose of God to effect all things necessary to salvation and that the Sacraments are received only as so many pledges and seals of the good will of God in our Justification and Salvation long before concluded immutably towards us but are of no efficacy or vertue to bring them about This though Calvin Cartwright Perkins plainly and directly asserted by some eminent Reformers is no better than a pestilent Errour contrary to all Antiquity of Ecclesiastical and Scriptural Writers Of which latter it suffices to instance in those obvious places which directly inferra necessity of them and ascribe a vertue to them of effecting and not only signifying Grace or sealing it unto us For Matthew the 3. v. 11. St. John distinguishing his Baptism Mat. 3. 11. from the Baptism of Christ assureth that Christ should Baptize with the Holy Ghost and not only with Water Now if water alone signifies or seals for there is no such great difference between these as commonly is supposed and therefore the Baptism that Christ used having more in it than so it follows that it must be the efficacy and grace of the Holy Spirit And they who take notice of this argument to answer that the difference between Johns Baptism and that of Christ here prophesied of consists in this That Johns was an outward washing Christs an inward doth confirm what I said For surely this inward being invisible can be no outward sign or seal whose natures are to be visible and apparent And therefore it must be that Baptism of Grace wrought in the inward man And doth Christ when he saith Mark 16. 16. He that believeth and is Baptized Mark 16. 16. shall be saved doth he mean no more than It is a sign he shall be saved Or he hath his salvation which came onely by believing sealed unto him Or are they not rather equally conjoyned to the same effect Salvation So that no more can a man expect to be saved by believing without being Baptized than he can by being Baptized without believing And this is manifest from the Baptism of Infants which puts tham into a state of salvation even before actual faith in them Again Being born of Water and the Holy Ghost of which Christ John 3. 5. speaks in St. John meaning thereby Baptism must needs be more than certain indications and signs of life Christ sayes there expresly we are born by Water and not that we are known to be born by Water only And where as Calvin with diverse followers of the Reformation presume to interpret this Water as elswhere Fire of the Holy Ghost and not of the proper Element Water I make no scruple to accuse them of extreme insolence for so doing as well because they needlesly and more immodestly oppose the unanimous consent of the Ancient Interpreters expounding it of Water-Baptism than I do contradict them whom I alwayes set in a lower form to them as also because the thing it self declares the contrary sense to be more agreeable to the mind of the Holy Ghost For Water and the Holy Ghost are put here not exegetically as they speak but distinctly as two several things concurring to the same end For though John in St. Matthew addeth to the Holy Ghost Fire as Water is in S. John Acts 2. 3. seeing there is found a real and proper verification of this baptism of fire which was at the day of Pentecost when the Apostles and Disciples were visited with fiery Tongues from above there is no necessity of fleeing to a meer metaphor and if there be none here there is none in that place where water is joyned with the Holy Ghost And reading no where that even the Holy Ghost appeared in the likeness of water we are constrained to take this properly of external water Furthermore when an effect is ascribed to a thing why should we make doubt to ascribe an efficacie or agencie to that reputed Cause But to Baptism is ascribed remission of sins as Acts 2. 38. Repent ye saith St. Peter Acts 2. 3â— and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins c. And elsewhere in the Acts God commandeth St. Paul Arise Acts 22. 16. and be baptized and wash away thy sins Can any thing but a fond partiality to the new glosses of Modern Divines incline any man to think otherwise of Baptism here than of force to take away sins Here they demand with a Passion What Ex Opere Operato From the work of Baptism done I answer The work done of it self is not thus efficacious as is said but the Co-operation of the Holy Spirit which God hath set over that work and its influence effecteth thus much Lastly The Introducers and Defenders of this opinion of the ineffectualness of the Sacraments allowing an efficacie to excite and nourish Faith which with them does all things why should they be so nice and timorous in granting another effect of the same nature For to encrease and confirm Faith being a spiritual effect is as much in nature as washing away sins or communicating new Graces I see no difference worth the noting besides that from themselves and an illaudable pronity to vary from Tradition expounding holy Writ where wit and wantonness of Judgment can find the least footing to stand out against Antiquity But whereas some argue for the efficaciousness of Baptism and the other Sacraments out of Reason and some out of Reason argue against it it is hard to see how either side can attain their ends seeing whatever efficacy the Sacraments have they derive from the Institution of God which Institution can be no otherwise known to us then from his word and therefore as Divine reason proceeding upon Scripture grounds may inform us we may conclude and no otherwise Wherefore they argue very prophanely and according to Scripture grounds ridiculously
fruits on Gods part signifying his favour towards such truly penitent Persons by the comfortable testimony of his Spirit of Grace in their Consciences witnessing the remission of sins and reconciliation to God in the face of Jesus Christ The Parts of Repentance are commonly made these three Contrition Confession and Satisfaction which to speak properly cannot so be called For of all these only Contrition is of the very nature of Repentance but Confession and Satisfaction to which we may adde Reformation or Renovation are rather the Effects than Parts of Repentance but these two are never the same in proper language And therefore in vain do they go about to justifie that description as proper of Repentance which both Chrysostome and Ambrose do give us That it is such a change which committeth not the same things again And an act whereby we lament sins passed and commit not sins to be lamented There can be nothing done more indiscreetly against a mans self or injuriously against the Fathers than to make every true saying of theirs a definition or to deny them the liberty of their Rhetorical pen sometimes when they write what is true though not so accurately as the laws of Logick may require If we mistake not this abuse of the Fathers hath done great mischief in the Schoolmens works and especially Thomas's as may appear in his Summes where a bare and secure asseveration of some Father is taken for a very sufficient definition and turns the controversie quite another way then reason according to Scripture would have it go We all know that the Fathers as all other Writers even the Scriptures themselves spake not alwayes Definitions and the Definitions they gave were not alwayes according to the Rules and Practise of Logicians but Rhetoricians with whom it is most frequent to describe a thing from the proper and most commendable effect If a man should say he is a Souldier indeed who never yieldeth till he hath gotten the victory should speak very true but this were no true definition of a Souldier For a Souldier may loose the Victory And so Repentance is that which repeateth not former sins before sorrowed for but this doth not prove that to be no repentance which ceasing a man returns to his former evil course or that repentance persever'd in which was broken off might not have carryed him to heaven For who knows not that all habits moral and graces spiritual such as are Faith and Repentance have their proper seat in the inward man affect the mind and heart immediately and from thence are known primarily and described Outward acts are but the effects and the effects may illustrate but cannot be of the essence of the Cause Therefore Repentance exactly considered is nothing more than a thorow change of the mind and heart from things contrary to Gods will and to the obedience of the same This is true repentance and if it be not effectual it is because it is not that is perseveres not in that good nature It were ridiculous to say A man never went towards London it was no real motion because he turned back again and never came at that place And no less that a man never truly repented because he gave over and reaped not the fruits of Repentance For the nature of Repentance might be the same though vastly different as to the end Once true Grace and alwayes true Grace say they but what word of God what judgment of the wisest and holiest Christians have they to bear witness to their presumptuous assertion Their own authority is too inconsiderable and their argument most vain which is taken from the event and begs the question when they thus talk If it be true Grace it will persevere and if it persevere it is true So that give the highest instance that ever was or any mans mind can imagine possible to be of Grace which failed they answer very safely if as wisely It was not true for it faild But this is no place to argue this point We except not against the things themselves in Repentance Contrition Confession Satisfaction but against the order they are set in though Mr. Bradford that holy and learned man sticks not at that accurateness in his former Sermon speaking thus We say penance hath three parts Contrition if you understand it for an hearty sorrow for sin Confession if ye understand it for faith of free pardon in Gods mercy by Jesus Christ and Satisfaction if you understand it not to Godwards but to Manwards in restitution of things wrongfully and fraudulently gotten of name hindred by our slaunders and in newness of life And Perkins makes our consent with the Roman Perk. Reform Cath. Church to consist in this That Repentance stands especially for practise in Contrition of heart Confession of mouth Satisfaction in work or deed Of these therefore we shall speak briefly and distinctly CHAP. XXXVIII Of the Proper affections of Repentance Compunction Attrition and Contrition Attrition is an Evangelical Grace as well as Contrition Of Confession Its Nature Grounds and Vses How it is abused The Reasons against it answered COmpunction is a general word comprehending Contrition and Attrition the proper parts of Repentance and according to Bernard is an humiliation of the mind proceeding from the remembrance of sin and the fear of Gods Judgment c. But Bernard de modo bene vivendi Serm. 10. if we take Compunction generally it may be rather described An humiliation of mind proceeding from an apprehension of the Evil of sin Now the Evil of sin being twofold doth divide this Compunction into two kinds Contrition and Attrition Contrition being according to the most received distinction of it from Attrition A sincere and hearty sorrow of mind upon the sight and sense of the Evil of sin in it self and the offence thereby committed against Almighty God his goodness chiefly But there is another mischief in sin and that doth principally concern the Offender himself who thereby having violated Gods most just and holy Laws and incurred his displeasure has made him self obnoxious to the curses denounced against the breakers thereof and therefore is a Terrour of Conscience conceived upon the apprehension of Gods wrath justly due to him and impending over him These by some are made not only different as in truth they are but contrary too so that Attrition should be rather an addition to former Guilt than a method of evading Gods wrath and being reconciled unto him and their reason is because it is not done in Faith Hence they distinguish between Legal and Evangelical humiliation Perkins making the former quite distinct from the latter and opposite to it Legal contrition say they which is Attrition is nothing but a remorse of Conscience for sin in regard of the wrath and judgment of God and it is no grace of God at all nor any part or cause of Repentance but only an occasion thereof and that by the mercy of God for
me meaning by that sin dwelling in him the pronity natural which impelled him to sin with such particular dissent and reluctancy of judgment that he could scarce be accounted the principal author of it To these we may add a fourth general event of this original pravity Viz. An hatred and indignation conceived in God against the person so depraved contrary to his institution and mind Now Baptisms efficacy may have relation to all those but not in like manner For it washes away the filthiness of the soul original and actual Secondly It reconciles to God and obtains remission of sin Thirdly It doth not remove or wholly redress the depravation of the soul and the evil tendencies and disposition of it to sin which is the effect of Adams sin and cause of our own actual transgressions This is not destroyed by Baptism but lurks in the soul and like fewel is apt to take fire upon the least spark of temptations which shall be cast into it from outward objects and occasions And though it be so far done away that until such new risings and agitations of the mind it be not imputed yet upon such kindlings it putteth on a new guilt Another effect it hath in reference to actual sins For first by weakning though not destroying absolutely the principle of sin in us a stop and curb is put to sin in its future progressions And not only so but proper means of which by and by are provided in Baptism for the resisting and putting away all actual sins too For repentance being according to the Doctrine of the Ancients a second Plank to save such as are shipwrackt after Baptism either in their holy Faith or holy Life doth effect this no otherwise than by vertue of that principle of life remaining in the soul infused at first by Baptism For as Baptism hath no power to procure mercy at the hands of God towards them that sin after they are so washed and sprinkled without repentance So neither hath repentance sufficient vertue to restore us to innocency and Gods favour unless Baptism goes before because all remission of sins depends upon the Covenant made in Baptism which on our part is either to absolute holiness without sinning after Baptism or to true Repentance for the same A third Effect of Baptism is our Regeneration and new birth or being born again by this Water and the Holy Ghost For as St. Paul saith According Joh. 3. Tit. 3. 5. to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renuing of the Holy Ghost A fourth Effect is an incorporating into the body of Christ as well visible as invisible which together with the former is declared in the form of baptism contained in our Liturgy where it is said Seeing now dearly Beloved that this Child is regenerate and grafted into the body of Christs Church let us give thanks c. Which the Apostle intimates when he saith For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Gal. 3. 27. Christ And upon both these followeth a Fifth Effect which is an intitling the Baptized unto an inheritance in heaven For as St. Paul saith If Children Rom. 8. 17. then heirs heirs of God and joint heirs of Christ Lastly As we in baptism are all baptized into one body of Christ so are we into one Spirit For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body saith St. Paul And again There is one body and one Spirit 1 Cor. 12. 13. Eph. 4. 4. 5. even as ye are called in one body of your calling One Lord One Faith One Babtism For the Baptism of our Saviour Christ being the Patern of ours what in a more glorious and visible manner followed upon his Baptism in an inferiour manner attendeth our Baptism It is said by St. Mark And straitway coming up out of the water he saw the Heavens opened and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him Which Spirit doth likewise upon the moving of those waters of New Life descend and inspire the person Baptized In which sense is St. Paul to be understood when he saith If any Rom. 8. 9. man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his That is if he be not partaker of the Spirit given in common to all Christians at the time of their Baptism From the foresaid necessity of Baptism is inferred the opinion of the Minister of Baptism making it a work in it self common to all Christians For all things most necessary as in Nature so in Grace are most easie and common As therefore Water is the most necessary thing in the world next to air without which no man can live so long as without water to mans natural substance and therefore is made by God most common to all persons and cheapest of all things to mans Life so doth it agree well with Gods divine Goodness in Religion to make that most common and freest to be attain'd which he hath made so necessary to Life and Salvation The first thing that is necessary to our Salvation is the breath of Gods mouth as the Scripture teaches us to speak the word of God which Psal 33. 6. sanctifies both the person and the Element of Baptism Water which is the Second Therefore I make no great question but as it was free at the very first Publication of the Gospel and so at this day is still in some Cases and in some manner for those called Lay-men to declare the word of God and instruct Unbelievers in the truth of the Gospel which afterward it was restrained to the Sacerdotal Office So upon the foundation of Faith before laid by preaching in all capable persons and incapable by others in whose power they are that it is lawful for them who are no Priests to baptize And the answer to this doth rather explain and confirm than deny it For the Opposers of Lay-mens baptizing say That Preaching is twofold Private and Ministerial and that a man may in Private as Master of a Family instruct others but not Ministerially The distinction it self is ill set together for surely both are Ministerial Acts and more especially that which is denied to be so Private Baptism as having less of Visible power so to do or authority and therefore of an inferiour Ministration But this is just the Case of Baptism For we say not that Lay-men may baptize as Publick and Legal Ministers out of Office but as Private ministers and in extraordinary Cases We bring the example of Zipporah circumcising Moses his son justifying the like power Exod. 4. 28. of Baptizing under the Gospel And they reply nothing hereunto but what makes more against themselves For if she did it as they say in the presence of her husband when there was no need she did it in haste that she might prevent her husband she did it in anger And yet this Circumcision held good and was accepted How much more might it have been
defines it 1. Qu. 8. Ar. 1. 2. The communication of one thing with another so many waies as a Body imparts it self to another so many may it be said to be Present to it And these ways are commonly resolved to be two First by immediate contact and conjunction Secondly by a Virtual or Effectual communication with it the Substance it self continuing remote So that though Christs body should be determined to one certain place in Heaven yet may it by its vertue communicate it self to us in the Sacrament and be said to be Present really though not Corporally after the manner of bodies in their natural state by contiguity And what we now say of the Subject of this Sacrament will hold no less in the Case of Participation of Christs Body and Blood in the Eucharist For as Christs Body may be said to be really though not Corporally Present and immediately So may it be said to be received Really and not Phantastically only though not Corporally after the manner that other bodies are received For they that affirm that Christs body is Corporally Sacramentally received do say if not what they know not themselves yet what no body but themselves can apprehend For either these terms are really distinct or Not. If they be not then are they either superfluous or at most explicatory one of another but this latter cannot be said because Sacramentally is more obscure than Corporally and Corporally signifies a much grosser degree of Presence than the Framers of this distinction will admit to agree with these Divine Mysteries If they be distinct whence shall we fetch the nature of this Sacramental Presence whenas there is nothing to be found in Nature to resemble or explain it but it must be described by it self And Sacramentally Present is no more than to be present in the Sacrament But what it is to be present in the Sacrament or how a thing may be said to be present in the Sacrament otherwise than in other Cases we shall ever be to seek and consequently never learn Therefore we must be constrained at length to reduce this large and unintelligible Presence Sacramental to one of the two old sorts of the Presence of Influence only or Presence of Substance it self or Suppositum So that either the Influence only of Christs Body and Blood should be found in the Eucharist and the vertue of them be therein communicated unto us or the very natural Substance also We have hitherto spoken of the Presence it self precisely taken from its Causes and manner external For according to Philosophers there is a Modus Essentialis and a Modus Accidentalis The Essential manner is simply to be after the intrinsique natureof a thing as the intrinsique nature and manner of a Body is to be Corporally and of a Spirit to be Spiritually that is As a Body and as a Spirit But as a Body ordinarily and naturally palpable and visible may remain a true real Body and yet not be seen or felt so may a Spirit remain a Spirit in substance and yet appear as a Body So that it is possible Christs Body may be present corporally in the essentials and formal nature of a Body and yet not appear in the accidental or separable formalities of a Body which are actually to be seen and felt at a competent distance These I call accidental because they may be wanting as well by reason of the defect of the senses which should perceive them as of the sensiblenes of such objects For a Divine power may take away the one as well as the other by impeding the sense though seeing the very nature and essence of a Body consisteth in being extended and quantitative it cannot be conceived how a Divine Power can divide them which mutually constitute one another though it may render them imperceptible to outward sense And so Christs Body may be in the Eucharist so far corporally as to have all real and essential modifications of a Body but not so Corporally as to appear in the proper forms of a Body But granting or supposing rather that Christs Body were in this Latter sense present in the Sacrament there appears no great reason why this should be called a Sacramental Presence more than that presence when he was with his Disciples at Supper and as the Scripture saith Vanished out of their sight Luk. 24. 31. that is as the word and sense import not translating his Body suddainly to another place but disappearing in that place or ceasing to be seen by them answerable to the contrary power shewn in his sudden appearing without any previous Act and standing in the midst of them before they V. 36. could be aware of it or suppose any such thing which was occasion of their great Affrightment and amazement supposing him to be a Spirit 37. But it is one thing to be Possibly and another Actually so to be And yet farther Actually for Christs Body and Blood so to be present and to be so Present as there should remain nothing substantial or material besides them and the Signs to be changed into the things signified by them absolutely and totally the shew or Accident only excepted So that the Question is double First Whether those Substances of Bread and Wine remain after consecration really the same they were before or be totally abolished Secondly It is inquired not so much whether Christs Body and Blood be really present in the Sacrament but whether it be really the Sacrament it self as it must necessarily be if so be that they be in such manner really present as there remains no other substance besides them For the former of these the knowledge of the Real Presence of Signs Bread and Wine do exceedingly conduce to the understanding of the Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ under or through those Signs And it should seem that the Roman Advocates of the New sense of a Real Presence of Christs Body and Blood proceed not in the proper and natural method rightly to found their Doctrine For as according to them there must be in order of nature though not of time a Desition or abolition of the Elemental substances before there can succeed those Divine substances so should they have first by sound and sufficient arguments proved the destruction of the preceeding Bodies and then have inferred the succeeding But on the contrary They first presume on the Second upon what grounds we shall hereafter see viz That Christs Body is so really subsisting there and then conclude that the Elements are not there subsistent For he that holds that the Sacramental Signs do not exclude the Body and Blood of Christ doth likewise hold that the Body and Blood of Christ are not inconsistent with the Real Presence of the Elements It must not be denied that those texts of Scripture which are commonly alleadged to Parallel Christs words and consequently to give a more favourable sense than that of Transubstantiation do not exactly
freely to conclude with them But until this be better evinced what make they with so many zealous professions of their believing of Christ or protestations against others that herein they believe not Christ It becomes then the principal doubt of all not what were Christs words but what was the drift and purpose of them And surely they must needs grant this to be worthily doubted of when they consider how sundry of their eminent Doctors do yield such an Indifferency in the words as that they are capable of both senses as might easily be made apparent But saying that We ought to take the Scriptures always literally where it will consist with the analogy of Faith they say no more than we But if it happens as here it doth that our Analogy of Faith differs from theirs what are we the neerer For our Faith tells us Christs words were spiritual as well here as in St. John where he expresly testifies so much saying Joh. 6. 63. The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life that is spiritually and not properly to be understood And Literal sense we understand two ways First as being the same as the prime signification of the words according to common use And this Literal sense we deny of these words But affirm them literally to be taken taking Literal for that which by the same words was immediately and primarily intended by the speaker in which way all Metaphorical speeches are Literally to be taken For he that says of a vicious man He is a Beast doth literally mean that he is of beastly qualities and not the very nature of a Beast So that Metaphorical and Literal are not opposite but Metaphorical and Natural and Natural and Spiritual We say then That this Proposition as in the Eucharist is Metaphorical and yet Literal But it is a weak and spiteful slander to say That because we say this therefore we hold that Christs Body is only Metaphorically and Figuratively in the Eucharist For we profess it to be really and properly and really and properly received in the Sacrament and not as they would fain perswade the World of us imaginarily only But the figurativeness is not so much in the Presence of Christ as the Predication of Christ of the visible Elements We say plainly the Elements are Christ only Figuratively and improperly and as St. Ambrose hath Ambros de Sacrament Lib. 4. C. 4. it or rather had it before a false Cause here as elswhere constrained men to foul practises After Consecration that which was remains and yet is changed into another It retains its nature it is changed to its name to its use and ends and effects and these are sufficient The Fathers who are alledged to prove Christ spake here properly do speak of many changes made in the Elements but then they do as often deny the substance to be changed sometimes they say The Nature is changed but we know Nature is somtimes used more largely than to imply the very Being and Essence it self We say commonly Such a man is quite of another nature from what he was We do not mean his very Essence or Being is changed but his condition It is said in the first Book of Samuel 1 Sam. 10. v. 9. that after his anointing to the Kingdom God gave Saul another heart I hope not in substance but in disposition But it is neerer to our Case what St. Paul saith of Christ and us in his Epistle to the Ephesians We Eph. 5. 30. are members of his body of his flesh and of his bones Can any thing be more expresly affirmed than this to signifie a corporeal unity and identity with Christ if the Verb Copulative Are must here be taken Substantively as they say Is must in these words This Is my Body As they profess with much ardour and zeal they will believe Christ say he what he please and be the thing never so contrary to our common sense and reason so do we And no less do we believe St. Paul speaking by the same spirit This he hath said and therefore we must not dispute but believe He hath said as plainly as words can make it that we are the very flesh of Christ and the bones of Christ and that he cannot be understood of the same in Kind but number is manifest from his argument when he saith No man ever hated his own flesh but as his flesh is anothers in nature we know there is nothing more common Now the like if not same interpretation will satisfy the Scripture in one place and other And not only so but the Fathers who are urged for the literal signification of the words rather than Literal sense of the Author of them speak diverse times of a Real change of the foresaid Elements but saying the same in other cases as in the holy Chrysm after Benediction and specially the water of Baptism we would have one give meaning to the other And the Modern Greeks who are arrived at higher expressions and sense than their forefathers yet when occasion serves can affirm the substance of Bread and wine to remain and would never fully receive the term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Transubstantiation as the Latins do which declare how much they suspect an Evil sense in the Roman Church Again as they are defective in their characterizing this change to that degree so are they excessive according to the Latins opinions in ascribing too great a change upon Consecration For they make no such distinction as the other between Nature or substance and the Accidents And they deny as much there remains any Accidents as any substance of Bread wherein they seem to take Christ more Literally than the Papists For if as they give out we must take Christ at his word and hold him hard to the Letter we must and ought to do it no less in reference to the Accidents than the Substance For Christ made no distinction and then why should we By vertue therefore of his words the Accidents must be changed as well as the Substance And so in truth we believe and to make our meaning clear will allow no effect of Christs words upon the one which we will not upon the other And if they oppose sense to discriminate the Cases saying that we see and feel that the Specieses and Accidents are the same We must tell them in their own words and that without fraud or dissimulation that we believe Christ rather than our own senses And were it not so yet we cannot teil that they are the same individual Accidents which were before consecration though like them and appearing so to be And I could never as yet meet their reason worth the noting 〈◊〉 remembring which should move them to be lead by their senses to interpret Christs words when he saith Positively and with the same Verb Suâ—â—â—an â—â—ve This Cup IS the New Testament in my blood and commands them to drink the Cup
alledge in there excuse and Defence They are readie to return but they cannot be admitted but upon unreasonable Terms and conditions How does this appear if it should be denied as without all peradventure it will Must not the Defendents be here forced to take their grounds of Apologie and Justification from the very things themselves under debate and put in their exceptions against the terms upon which they are to be receiv'd or condemn themselves Neither will it suffice to say We shall be hardly used or beaten if we return to such severe Masters and therefore we will keep out For they may deserve it and though nature teacheth a man as it did Hagar to flee from her Mistris Sarahs Tents for fear of blows yet God and Justice and Christian Charity advise us to return to our Duty It must then be necessarily alledged and made good That we deserve not to be so ill used or rather that it is ill usage which we fore-see shall befall us and that the case so standing it is not our duty to return and all this can no waies possible be made good but by examination of the matter it self And that which will Justifie us from not returning will also warrant our free Separation at first T is the cause then that makes the Separation Schism or not An Instance whereof we have in the famous Schism of the Donatists which almost all Christians now adays confess to have been notorious Schismaticks because they could not make good their Reasons which induced them for could they they had not been Schismaticks as a sober Author notes upon Optatus thus If those things were true which Albaspinus Observat In Optat pag. 3. the Donatists laid to Caecilianus and Mensurius and Caecilianus had polluted themselves with Idolatry The Donatists had offended nothing against the Discipline and Canons of the Church refusing to communicate with Caecilianus and his Companions That is they had not been Schismaticks if so be they could have made good their Principal Charges against the Church And this we may bring home to our selves as now we stand devided from other Churches and particularly that of Rome For if the Corruptions in doctrine and Practice be not sufficient to justifie our present posture of opposition if they had not before we left them departed from the true faith if they were not really and materially Schismatiques before we were divided from them then surely we were at our separation and so continue For to say We have a willing mind to unity we have Charity so great that we earnestly desire Reconciliation with them is to deceive the world and our selves and encourage and justify Schism in others who no doubt will all pretend to so much charity as to declare themselves willing to embrace unity upon their own terms But in such cases we cannot be said to go to them though in outward apparence we may seem so to do as they come to us The question therefore is to be put under the circumstances as now they are and as the Case is now with them And in that it ought and may be roundly and resolutely answer'd We neither can nor ought nor will re-unite and yet well enough free our selves from Schism upon the account of the Justness of the occasions and Causes there found and given us to divide from them Then ought it to be enquired for this they passionately call for what are those errors which that Church is subject to for which a Separation may be Legitimated and not participate of the nature of Schism It is commonly and with general consent averted and that even by leaving Schismaticks amongst us That Corruption in Act or manners is not sufficient to warrant a Separation from a Church subject to them and so infected no not perhaps though Idolatry it self should be too common amongst them in it when no necessity lies upon the particular Members to be obnoxious to the same the doctrine of Christ bearing up its head above it and obeyed truly by others But when Evil actions and notorious errours in Fact shall come to that height as to be reduced to doctrine and formed into an heretical or Idolatrous proposition as in time it must of necessity be it being natural as well to all Churches as persons to defend by argument what they choose to practise and be taught publickly then doth that Church become truly Heretical and Idolatrous and from that Church which hath so far departed from the Faith any Church or person may lawfully depart without Scruple of Schism though such separation be not absolutely necessarie because though the infection be common it is not necessarily so general that all should be obliged to espouse it and be corrupted by it but when to this degree of doctrine shall be added a third which is of Precept and such unsound and pernicious opinions shall be imposed on others and exacted of all there it is not only lawful but necessary to salvation to divide from such a pretended Church of Christ I mean a necessity of Precept though not of Means as if it were not possible that a man should be saved who liveth in an Heretical or Idolatrous Church though with those many circumstances of a general Right Intention humble walking with God and invincible ignorance of the more pure and Christian Faith and worship For there is undoubtedly a Mean between these two Necessity to Salvation and Necessity of Damnation Well might Athanasius say Whosoever will be saved it is necessary that he hold the Catholick Faith and add yet farther Which Faith except a man do keep whole and undefiled without doubt he shall perish everlastingly and so give us the particulars of that Faith so necessary For he means no more than that such Errors are in themselves damnable But heresies do not work after the manner of such natural Causes which have such effects infallibly but may be said notwithstanding naturally to tend to such events which yet may be prevented by various Allayes of Circumstances both inward and outward impeding such Effects The Consideration of which possibility of escaping the ordinary danger can no ways excuse a man or confirm him in such errours but the common and as you may say natural tendence of them to ruine and perdition strongly oblige him to relinquish that Church wherein it is only possible by vertue of some extraordinarie indulgence of God to come to salvation and whose errours are of themselves damnable So if the Question be put as generally it is Whether for example a man may not be saved in the Roman Church The answer is abundantly sufficient within Religion and Divinitie though perhaps not so formal in Logick That they certainly may be damn'd and that for holding the Faith and worship there commanded and received with full approbation And this is sufficient to call any sober Christian off from that communion though there may occur so many mitigating Circumstances as to a Person of
purpose or to their advantage to say for instance sake as the more sober especially when they would gain upon the good opinion of men That Images may be worshipped relatively and as instruments to devotion and helps but when there are found and generally known to be such doctrines as teach a veneration of Images for their own sakes and directly and that with the same sort of worship that the things they represent are capable of though perhaps they upon a pinch can insert a distinction which neither can be understood nor profit such a doctrine as this known to be delivered by the Principal Doctors of their Churches and maintain'd not being condemned by that Church however not generally embraced may subject a Church to a censure of Heresie and Idolatry of both and so in other things whereof tolerable senses are given in the Church of Rome or else they could not be said so much as to be a Church at all but intolerable and Heretical are also uncondemned and so are no true Church and so may be separated from without Schism but not without peril of damnation united to And do not our brethren for such they were before they professed Schism and I hope may be after they have renounced it see now plainly enough the vaniâ—y and spitefulness of their Evasion Are not the Cases infinitely different and that in their own eyes Hear they what Perkins saith to our and their purpose So long as a Church Perkins on Gal. C. 5. V. 20. or people do not Separate from Christ we may not separate from them 2 Pro. 24. 21. Fear the King and meddle not with them that vary i. e make alterations against the Laws of God and the King Indeed Subjects may signifie what is good for the State and what is amiss but to make any alteration in the State either Civil or Ecclesiastical belongs to the Supream Magistrate And â—n another place the same Author hath these words Great therefore is the rashness Id. Galat 1. V. 2. and want of moderation in many that have been of us that condemn our Church for no Church without sufficient conviction going before If they say we have been admonished by books published I say again these be grosser faults in some of those books than any of the faults that they reprove in the Church of England and therefore the books are not â—it to convince especially a Church Thus we see how the cases in the matter difier And no less may we see the difference in the manner For 't is apparent that Schismaticks against the Church of England never had any Legal autority to warrant their vile and Scandalous practices but were forced to give names to things uncapable of them to excuse themselves or else by an unnatural course to entitle the People to a Power Supream who have none at all but what is given them from another fountain neither did the people concurr with such misdemeaners as was pretended they did But thirdly another difference is to be noted from the Rights of a Patriarchal Power over a Provincial Church not properly of its Diocess and that of a Metropolitan with his Suffragans over the members of the Church which they altogether make For according to the constitutions of the Church though a Patriarchs Power was Intensively equal to Episcopal over his proper and immediate Diocess and Extensively much greater than the Metropolitans or Bishops in relation to other Diocesses yet was it never so Intensive i. e. so particular and great in those Bishops Diocesses over which he had only an Order of Unity rather than Intrinsick power to dispose matters therein though in process of time this also was invaded much by him and might be recovered to the proper Bishop by the Laws of the Church But the Bishops of this Church had the sole and immediate disposing of the affairs of it and nothing could be concluded without obligation of obedience out of Conscience without their Concurrence as desparately as Schismaticks then did and still do rage at this truth But then as Hinderson saith with others They would never reform themselves It is very likely so meaning as they would have them but that not to the better Rule of the Ancient Churches and the Scriptures is more than they knew or would acknowledg when they saw because still they would have done otherwise and invented a new Rule of their own But seeing the grounds and Cause of separation are they upon which the Guilt of Schism is avoided or contracted according to the nature of them and obscure and difficult and tedious is the method leading to the tryal of the sufficiency of them to justifie a Separation therefore it were well contrived if as in the search of a true Church they may being very long and uncertain and grievous to most proceeding upon the points of Faith and Parts of worship themselves certain infaâ—lible obvious and plain Characters could be produced to convince the Schism and distinguish it from simple and innocent Separation A Fair attempt to which hath been made by Austin who dispuâ—ing against the Donatists denies that any man can separate from the Universal Church innocently So that although it should be doubtful as most things are managed by Learned Partisans whether considering the grounds of Separation in themselves the Separation be Schismatical or lawful and laudable yet by such an outward Characteristick it might be competently discerned And so farmust I needs comply with that Judicious and Holy Father and such as urge this out of him against us as to yield it a most probable outward Note of Schism for any man or number of men not a Church but in Fieri as they speak only and in breeding to divide from the Universal Church not only as comprehending all Ages but of any one Age the weight and evidence of which Concession will appear from the esteem of the Church Catholick and the wrath and extent of Christs promises to preserve it in All truth For this is certain That Christ directed his promises and restrained them to no one time or Age. And it is not probable there should be such an Intercession or intermission of Faith or Christianity that the universal Church should mortally err in any one thing necessary to salvation nay though we take it not in such a large sense as sometimes it is wont to be used for all individual persons in it as well as Churches of which the whole is constituted And therefore to desert the communion of all Churches not of persons for this is scarce to be supposed to happen at any time doth argue shrewdly That the separation hath much of Schism in it without examination of particular grounds which are pretended sufficient For it will be said That it ought not to be supposed that Christ should deliver over his whole Church to such heretical errours which only can exempt a Separation from Schism From such notorious suspicions as these we
prophesieth Isa 61. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me for that he hath annointed me to c. which Christ himself applied to himself Luk. 4. 18. Secondly The Attributes of the same Spirit infer a Deity as Omniscience 1 Cor. 2. The Spirit searcheth all things yea the deep things of God 1 Cor. 2. 10 11. And lest this should be understood of a search without success or full knowledge it followeth For what man knoweth the things of man save the spirit of a man which is in him Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God Creation The Spirit of God hath made me and the Job 33. 4. breath of the Almighty hath given me life saith holy Job And Christ casting out Devils by the Spirit of God and the Apostles miraculous acts demonstrating Mat. 12. 28. 1 Cor. 2. 4. the Spirit of God in them the preaching of St. Paul being in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power i. e. being so powerful in outward acts and miracles that it was sufficient conviction that he spake and wrought by the Spirit but miracles cannot be wrought by any thing less than a divine Power And by St. Peter it is called The Spirit of Glory 1 Pet. 4. 14. 1 Cor. 3. 16 17 and of God By St. Paul it is called God himself where he saith Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you If any man defile the Temple of God him shall God destroy for the Temple of God is holy which Temple are ye Here we plainly see how the Temple of God and the Temple of the holy Ghost are the same thing And thus we see confirm'd what St. John very plainly and positively 1 Joh. 5. 7. asserteth of this Mystery That there are three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the holy Ghost and these three are one And this may suffice to have spoken according to our purpose compendiously as well of the Unity as Trinity of these Persons in the God-head only adding without any long or curious enquiry the several Notions and Idioms whereby they are distinct in our Faith The Property of the first Person is to be the Fountain and after the manner of first Principle of the other to whom therefore some ascribe a dignity of order above the other two though not of time or duration being all co-eternal and the one not to be conceived anterior to the other Nor of Nature as if the divine Nature were unequally communicated to them but that they are coequal in Being and in Power or Acting externally Another Property of the first Person is to be a Father in respect of the Son the second Person and together with the Son to bear such a relation to the third the holy Spirit for which no proper name hath been yet found out and whether it be possible to express the same aptly in one word I much question It is commonly called Procession on the part of the holy Ghost and in general on the parts of the other two Persons Production which yet is â—imited to the excluding of such a Production as answers Generation and much more of Creation besides which natural Reason can comprehend no other But Christian Faith obliges us to contain our selves modestly in the general Notion of Proceeding Some have indeed presumed to distinguish the production of the Son by the Father from the production of the holy Ghost by the Father and the Son in that the Son proceeds from the Father Intellectually as a word is conceived in the mind but the holy Spirit as act of the joynt will of Father and Son by way of Love Of which explication I shall suspend all sentence leaving others to judge 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 inferior Creatures the Angels of God Their Nature and Office towards Man especially THAT God is the proper Object of Christian Faith or Divinity not only as principal but as all other things therein treated relate to him is before shewed Now therefore we proceed from the Creator to the Creature to which the two hands of God are more visibly and eminently extended or stretched out The first In the Creation it self The other In the Providence of God over the works of his hands as the Scriptures phrase is And first Of Creation we understanding it to be after the nature of an Act must find out the proper term or object of it which is contained in that received definition thereof Creation is the production of a thing out of nothing or more plainly a making something of nothing In which we are not so grosly to conceive of Gods Act as if he made the world so of nothing as a man makes a Statue of something but of nothing or out of nothing is as much as from nothing or nothing concurring by way of pre-existent matter to produce such an effect For if any thing had been which had not its first Being from the first Cause of all God that must have been God also or there could not be said to have been any God at all because there could be no order where was no first and second and where matter is supposed to have been eternal there no priority of time can be admitted So that either such thing must have been God as we have seen in the Relations in the Trinity or no God at all because that is not God to which an equal in any respect distinct in nature from him may be found for Gods Nature is to be above all Neither can any reason be possibly alledged whereby it should appear that if simple matter as some call it might have subsisted before it was made simply by God the Sun and Moon and other compound bodies in Nature might not have pre-existed and prevented Gods workmanship or why an imperfect Being should have the dignity denied to a more perfect but at the pleasure and will of the supream Agent disposing all things For that which was not at all produced by another must necessarily 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athanasius dâ— Incarnat spring out of nothing or of it self And why might not a Man or Horse or any other thing do so as well as infamous Matter Furthermore Unless there were a productive Power in God of something out of nothing the Power of God would not answer the Nature of God The Nature of God is infinite so therefore must his Power be but the Power of God could not be known to be infinite if such an infinite effect were not producible by him Lastly This denial of Gods Power to produce even the first imaginable matter would also destroy his Power in creating any thing not consisting of such matter and so should the production of Spirits utterly be
God himself is his Knowledg or Omniscience which the better to judge of we may distinguish according to the Object of it into knowledg of it into knowledg of things within himself or of himself which is more Internal and things without himself external For if we should speak more Properly God knoweth nothing by an ababsolute direct knowledg but himself and all other things Relatively rather according as they bare relation to him in being or not being in being â—ike him as that which is Good or dislike him by which manner he understandeth Evil. And nothing but God himself can perfectly know God no not the highest and most divine Spirits attending him more immediately in the state of Glory because perfect knowledg doth not consist in an Apprehension that God is or that he is infinitely glorious and Perfect but in comprehension to know him as he is True St. John saith 1 Joh. 3. 2. We shall know him as he is meaning that in the state of glory we should have a much nearer and clearer access unto his divine nature than we can have here by the Organ of our Faith And that so we shall see him that there will be no more use of Faith or outward information from revealed doctrines but Inward Revelations and illuminations shall immediately flow into us from God to the fuller apprehension of him and satisfaction of the restless mind of man But to know him as he is is the Property of himself incommunicable to any Creature For to comprehend a thing saith Austin is nothing else but so to know it that nothing of it should be unknown to the Knower As a Vessel is said to contain such a quantity of liquor that nothing should be left out And thus God only and no Created being conceiveth God comprehensively The Relative knowledg of God in order to things external is to be estimated according to the Variety of things so known by him yea not only the knowledg but even the very Being of God is described unto us according to the manner of outward things All things of reality and not merely imaginary are by general consent divided into three sorts according to the three distinctions of time Into things Past Future and Present And therefore God is said to be He which is and which was and Rev. 1. 4. 8. which is to come Therefore surely the distinction of Gods knowledge most agreably to the nature of God and things known too is into that of things Past Present and to Come And there being no great difficulty or difference among Christians concerning the two former viz. Knowledge of things past and present all concurring that the knowledge of things passed never passes with God nor of things present nor of future but the Knowledge of all these being immediately and immoveably present with God so that many more warily will have all understanding in God to be rather Science than Prae-science and Knowledge rather than fore-knowledge It were needless as well as endless to enlarge thereupon The third about things to come deserves more accurate enquiry For as to the distinction of Gods knowledge into that of Vision whereby he beholds all really existent things whether in themselves past present or future And that of Intelligence it may be questioned as common as it is For we speak not of possible but actual knowledge but that which may possibly be but never shall be the object of the supposed Intelligence of God is only a possible knowledge and not a real and therefore not to be matched with real knowledge For to say God knows the possibilities is no more than to say not that he knows the things but himself in whom and to whom all things are possible Therefore confining our Discourse only to things future we are to observe such to be either necessary or contingent there being no mean between these two And here first What is that which denominates a thing necessary and what contingent or accidental and then in what respect they are so called and distinguished And here first we are to distinguish of necessity it self with the Schools For there is a simple and absolute Necessity the contrary to which is altogether impossible and so nothing but God is of Necessity For God being absolute and supream over all things as nothing can by way of anticipation lay a necessity upon him so neither can any thing afterward obstruct or necessarily impede his will For as St. Paul saith Who hath resisted his will It neither hath been at any time nor can possibly be That Gods resolute Will should be opposed so as not to obtain its designed end But there is a conditional Necessity which they call Hypothetical which hath no such simple and original certainty but dependent upon somewhat else And this Dependance or Conditionalness is either upon The first Cause which is God or some second Cause the Creature For there was no such absolute Necessity that this visible world should have a Being but this Being depended upon the Will and Pleasure of God And this world being there was no necessity that it should consist of so many parts or several kinds of things but this depended upon the wisdome and pleasure of God also The other Hypothetical Necessity was founded by the First Cause God in the Creature upon supposition that it had a Being that such should be the nature of it As that supposing the Sun it necessarily followed it should give light and supposing there be such a thing as Fire in the world there is a necessity it should heat and burn Of all which there can no other reason be render'd but that which Scotus gives Because this is this and that is that And because the Creatour of them and all things else hath imposed such a Law unalterable upon the very natures of things themselves that upon supposal they have a Being such and such it should be And this I take to be that Necessity which Philosophers call a Necessity of Consequent viz. that which is immediately consequent to the being of a Thing that of Consequence as they call it being nothing else but a rational Inference following upon some Particular supposed As the Genus is alwayes supposed to the Species and not on the contrary For example He that runs must of necessity move and he that moves must of necessity be but not on the contrary And the ground of these and all such things Necessity is taken from the immutable decree of God who hath so determined that things should be And not only is this true in things apparent and visible to us but must necessary be no less true in things invisible and to us obscure and uncertain viz. That upon supposal Nihil est adâ—o contingens quin in se aliquid necessarium habe it Thom. 1. Q. 86. art 3. co of such a peremptory Decree and Cause from God that which seems to us most contingent and casual must have a
possible reason being to be found why a thing should so infallibly be to him but because he hath resolved decreed that so it shall be From whence may be reconciled the frequent sayings of the Ancient and some Modern Divines who have said That God fore-sees a thing because it is to be and not that it is because God sees it For the seeing of a thing absolutely and the seeing it to be are vastly distinct notions And most true is that observation to be found as I remember amongst Philosophers concerning the difference between the Understanding of God and its Object and the Understanding of Man or Angel and its object For in the Intellectual Part for I use the word Understanding now and not for the Act as even now of the Creature Understanding is caused from and by the Object to the faculty represented and the Object makes the knowledge and not the knowledge the Object But on the contrary the Understanding of God is many times operative and makes its object A Second capital Doubt will be How such a perpetual and infallible Causation in the Creatour upon the very Understanding and Will of the Creature Rational can consist with the native Prerogative of Liberty of Will given by the same hand to it The Answer to this hath cost many a Volume with no great satisfaction and therefore how little may be expected from this Compendium every equal Judge will easily see I shall forbear Citations of other mens opinions and autorities for brevity sake And endeavour first by a description of Liberty of Will and next by a Distinction of Necessity which is commonly lookt on as the cut-throat of Liberty to contribute something to the easing this difficulty And first we are to distinguish of Free-will as in Mankind in General from that which may be found in any one Individual man For when the noted place of Ecclesiasticus which I will not quarrel at because it is only Ecclesiasticus tells us God made man from the beginning and Eccles 15. 14. left him in the hand of his Counsel What doth it more say Then that God dealt not so straitly with mankind as with other kinds of Creatures inferiour to him He left it undetermined in the nature of man to do this or that And humane nature had such a measure of Wisdom Understanding Reasâ—n and Counsel put into it of God that there was such a power of choosing and refusing as no other Creature could claim and there was not the like natural restraint upon Mans will as upon Beasts will considered still in the general Notion And surely this is no small difference whereof man may glory above beasts which is not wholly lost to man though in particular there should be found a determination of Mans will to one Secondly Liberty is made up of two things necessarily the Acts of Reason and the Acts of Will If any such determination were made of Mans actions in the Individual that Reason were lockt up and could not stir or move in man or when reason out of its native power remaining did argue and debate things variously there were no power left in the Will to follow the Dictates of it but was driven like an horse in a Cart by the fierce voice and whip of the stander-by then indeed all pretense to true Liberty must needs perish because here were a Co-action of the Agent moving him to one thing Co-action as hath been granted by the strictest defenders of Grace is against Liberty and they show by most numerous Autorities and sufficient Reasâ—ns that this is the only enemy to Freedom For as St. Austin hath it This a man is said to have in his Power which if he wills he may do Aug. de Spiritu Litera cap 31. If he wills not he may not do And Hugo de Victore doth yet more expresly define Liberty to be An Ability of the Rational Will whereby through the Co-operation of Grace it chooseth Good and it deserting it Evil. By which it should appear that there is no inconsistencie with the Co-operation of God though infallibly moving to one and the Election of the Will as will yet be more clear in the second thing here principally to be distinguished viz Necessity which I make either in Co-ordinate or Subordinate Causes and directly deny That Necessity in Causes subordinate one to another doth quite destroy Liberty or Free-will especially if we subdivide Necessity of things in subordination into subordination to the first Cause of all and of second Causes I grant that in Causes co-ordinate as Man and Beast or Man and Man acting upon distinct principles and ends Necessitation from the One quite ruins the Freedom of the other and is unnatural and violent being purely an external cause giving no power to the Will to move but exciting and impelling it against the judgment and more rational conclusion of the understanding to accept the terms given But Necessity proceeding from the First and Supream Cause God himself to whom all inferiour Causes are subordinate doth not take away the native Freedom of Man The Reason whereof is because the concurse of the First Cause is not extrinsecal to the Natural Agent but really intrinsecal to it and essential And therefore the division of Causes by Logicians into Internal as Matter and Form and External Efficient and end holds good only in secondary Efficients and not in the first and universal Agent For though it be most true that the Absolute nature and Being of God is quite distinct from created being and extrinsecal yet it is not so as he is a Cause The reason of this will make it undenyable because as is agreed by Christian Philosophers the act of Creation in God is essential to the Creature so produced and the act of Conservation is a perpetuation of that act creative in God and therefore also must needs be intrinsecal to the Creature and the act of Gods concurse moving the Creature and so determining it is no other but a branch of that conservative act in God and so is intrinsecal to the Creature that what the Creature doth by vertue of such influence it may no less be said to do of it self there being a Coalition of both acts created and increated in one than it may be said to subsist of it self by its matter and form of which it consists And this St. Pauls doctrine declares to us where he puts no difference between our living moving and having our being in God all alike depending on him Acts 17. 28. and be equally intrinsecal to all And therefore Gods action terminated in man becomes his as much as those which we conceive to proceed from his own being and notwithstanding to this act of God primarily may be ascribed the turning as it were of the Scales of the Will yet may man also be said herein to determine himself the reason whereof is That both the first Cause and the second are
here total Causes But here I call to mind a Maxime amongst Logicians and others teaching of Natural Causes That it is not possible that Two total Causes should be subordinate as principal and instrumental Cause one to the other but must alwayes be Co-ordinate as two horses moving a Chariot no otherwise than one might well do alone and two Candles giving but one light to the same place I might question this Axiome and the Instances both because in the first though both Horses are the Causes equally of such a motion and so total yet the immediate causes are not total For it is certain that the same force which is used by one not rising to that of both would not in like manner move the Chariot that both actually do though there be nothing more easie then for one so to move it Neither are two Candles total Causes of that degree of light which is in the Room though of light they may be But whethen these mine exceptions against the presumed Rule be rational or not it matters not at present it being to me certain that it holds only in secondary Causes jovntly working and not in the concurrent motions of first and secondary Causes because of the essential dependence the second Cause hath upon the first So that St. Basil saith highly and truly The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bas in Hexaen Hom. 8. Divine word and that is here as much to say as the Divine vertue is the nature of things produced There remains yet one more difficulty to be here touched to which many may be reduced and that is That Man being thus determined and lying under this necessity of Acting he cannot in justice be responsable for his Actions whether good or evil He cannot be the subject of praise or dispraise All preaching by Exhortation and Dehortation All reward of Punishment and Benefits Lastly All Prayers and the use of it must needs cease To these in order briefly And first in general denying the reasonableness or validity of such consequences upon this common ground That if indeed this were a necessity from a Co-ordinate Cause not natural to the Agent moved by it then it were to be lookt on as no act proper and free in the Creature but strange to it and violent and by consequence refunding all praise and dispraise upon the unresistible impulse of that external Cause but this is internal natural and one act really of the first and second Mover and so properly principally as any Creature can be said to be principal Agent under the Creature and totally is the act of the second Cause which in external motions otherwise than from God it is not And if it be said that from hence would follow The Creature acting evilly that this Evil might be equally imputable unto God and to the Creature It may be replayed that two things are to be consider'd in Actions the nature of the Action it self and the morality of it And that all things being good in nature the act it self is good and may be imputed to God though the morality of the act be otherwise But it may be demanded yet further Have not this morality it self a Nature and consequently upon the grounds laid imputable to God as well when the act offends against justice and honesty as when it agrees with both To this Nature indeed as hath upon another occasion been shewed is sometimes taken very largely for any thing that hath a being but here we take it only in the physical sense whereby things are said to have a proper being But Good and Evil are rather modi reales as they speak in Metaphysicks then res Manners of Being rather than proper Beings of themselves Again we must and do hold with Austine that Evil morally taken hath not such a real being as Good hath but is only the absence or privation of Good being no real Entity and we pity rather than fear such an argument as we have found against this that if Evil be nothing then God should be angry for nothing when he is offended at sin For surely there is a great difference between Gods being angry for nothing and Gods being angry with nothing What would they say I marveil when the Father in the Gospel commanded his Son to go work in his vineyard and he would not go might he not be angry even because there was nothing done And must this be called being angry for nothing So surely God may be angry with mans doing nothing Here in order to a more full account may be given of the objection we leave in pawn this distinction of the Act of Sin and the Sin of the Act And that God may concur to the former constantly and never have a singer in the latter which is properly the sinfulness Now to the matter of praise or dispraise of which they are only said to be capable who act freely and upon election and not upon necessity I make no seruple directly to deny the truth of it as famous as it is amongst the Fathers Philosophers absolutely taken Nothing is more plain than the contrary every day For we praise handsome Horses and handsome Men and infinite other things when there was not the least concurrence of the will but God and Nature did all to such a laudable state much less any act conducing thereunto And do we not in our Judgments discommend the disproportions of natural monsters and creeples though we out of affection and pity declare not so much to their reproach And this seems to have deceived Aristotle in his Ethicks who laid it down for a current Rule that he distinguished not these two For certainly Commendation and Discommendation rightly used are the effects of our Judgment and Will and Affections But more nearly to the case we answer That such Praise and Dispraise are only vacated by such a necessity as is extrinsecal to and contrary to the will but where the Act is affectedly done there a supposed necessity doth not exempt from such Rewards of Praise and Dispraise or Punishment or Benefits But it is certain a man may strongly affect that which he cannot choose but do And the like may be answered to that of Instruction Exhortation and Dehortation all which they say ought to cease and would become unnecessary if mans will were so immoveably determined to one thing Yea all Prayers and Deprecations were to no purpose And why so because it is not in mans power to relieve himself and whatever he saith believeth or doth nothing can do any good if the Decree be so against him and nothing of all these omitted or the contrary committed hurt or endanger him such a Decree being for him And what grounds of comfort to a troubled mind may be laid the Case thus standing This is the sum of all we are here at least bound to take notice of And this were much more than it seems to be were it so that they who hold the contrary opinions were
indifferently Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift 39. of the Holy Ghost For the promise is unto you and your Children and to all that are far off even as many as the Lord your God shall call And St. Paul to the Romans Now the Righteousness of God without the Law is manifested Rom. 3. 21 22. being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets Even the Righteousness of God which is by Faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe for there is no difference And to these many other like places of Scripture may be added declaring no man destined to incredulity or impenitency aforehand until such time as he hath declared against both and that to the end of his Life But on the other side rather that God puts no difference Now if St. Pauls argument held good as certainly it did that a wife should not put away her husband who was an Infidel nor the believing husband his wife upon the grounds of ignorance of a good event Should a man put away his Soul For what knowest thou O wife Rom. 7. 16. whether thou shalt save thy husband Or how knowest thou O man whether thou shalt save thy wife So what knowest thou O man who doubtest of Gods Decrees whether thou shalt save thy soul Whence we may conclude That it is no ground of discomfort that the event is determined for it is equal on our side as much as against us but it is the ground of all reasonable satisfaction from the General Law requiring obedience Evangelical and from the Promises made without any discrimination which a man cannot apply to his disadvantage or discouragement without being first guilty of unreasonableness and unnaturalness to himself Now Religion and the designs thereof do suppose a man a true natural man to himself before it attempts to draw him to an higher good or nobler ends So that if a man will deny his own natural reason and self-love due to himself such a man is indeed no fit person to be treated with any more than a direct mad man but this natural reason suggests to him that where he knows it not to be an invincible Evil which he is to contend with and knows not but that the way is as easie the door as open the means as effectual to him as any man living to attain happiness he is to take heart and courage and resolution to effect his desires For to omit a certain duty of Faith and Hope upon an obscure and uncertain ground is monstruous and ridiculous I conclude therefore that as almost all the actions of mans life yea and his life it self which are no less determined with God then the state of Grace or Wickedness Glory or Misery do not cause him to suspend endeavours leading to the end propounded to himself so neither in the Concernments of his soul keeping his natural Reason to himself entire can he obstinately refuse to act according to the ends of Religion Yet I might adde this also which is most true that if it were revealed to a man that he should never escape damnation do he what he can or what he will yet that desperate carelesness and loseness could not be but greatest stupidity because God doth certainly proportion salvation and damnation as to the degrees of them to the degrees of Holiness and Sins in this Life and therefore it were more than worth a mans time and diligence by a more restrained and Christian conversation to obtain a mitigation of the evil he so fears And yet that part of the argument commonly used which saith That it is in vain for a man who is so determined to strive to free himself and to abound in religious acts is directly false and to be denyed For no good works shall go unrewarded And this is no less infallibly true That to him that hath shall Matth. 13. 20. Rom. 2. 8 10. more be given and to him that doth righteousness and to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life And that the external acts and means are effectual to these great ends Christ tells us saying To you that hear shall more be given than Mark 4. 24. that Gods Grace is necessarily required to all true Conversion and Holyness I know those of Dort following Calvine and Peter Martyr and such of eminencie in Reforming answer otherwise But in truth their Reply is no Answer For granting an invincible state of unregenerateness and a total insufficiencie in Man to free himself without the effectual Grace of God yea and an irreversibleness in Gods Decrees so that all endeavours and acts should be frustrated to the obtaining the blessed end generally promised and the terrour of those under this Necessity they oppose only good counsel to this and much more and reprove them lightly at least that meditate too much on the severer part of Gods Decrees the abstruser Counsels of him and determinations to the taking them off from those good duties which God without exception requires of all But all this and the like to this is very little or nothing to the purpose For they certainly hereby betray their Cause and grant the whole argument to be good and duly to infer all that is intended by it only they oppose barely the Conclusion and would not have it take place though they can find no fault with that it is grounded on What a miserable shift is it for any who are not able to deny that upon their own reason such a thing follows to say Yea but this ought not to be and to perswade contrary to conviction of themselves as well as others But occasion will be given of these matters more fully in what follows 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 praedestinates no man simply to Death without consideration of Evil fore-going as Calvin and some others would have it GOD having in his secret mysterious Counsels ordained all things according to his Divine will and pleasure without being lyable to that saucie expostulation of any Creature Why hast thou made me thus or What doest thou For 't is as certain Rom. 9. 20. Job 9. 12. as there is a God that God neither doth nor can do any injury to the Creature though man may and often doth injure him and himself too in mis-representing him he proceedeth next to the execution of his Decrees and Counsels which are so many acts of his Providence And because it would be much too long and extravagant to turn to the more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Protagoras
that is in the sense even now Jude 4. explained given over to condemnation by God If we may make humane methods of any use to us in arriving at the knowledge of Gods proceedings as hath been generally received why may we not judge thus of Gods order of Causes Especially having the consent of the Scripture which thus speaks frequently according to the several occasions given And if it be said to be absurd thus to judge of God as unsetled in his knowledge and judgment and being regulated by emergencies We can well answer as in other points of Anthropapathie or Gods complyance with Mans capacity in speaking after humane manner And if God condescends on purpose that we should understand something of him to our edification shall we transcend unnecessarily the limits of modesty and content our selves with no other order or less knowledge than God himself hath of himself and wayes Gods acts several in respect of us may be simple in respect of himself and one but denominated and discriminated variously from the divers habitude of the Object The simple eternal Will and Law of God is this that the Righteous shall be saved and the Unrighteous damned This is his Predestination in general of all mankind subordinate to this are the several intermediate changes the first being immutable And it concerneth not to enquire What kind of Righteousness this is or whence or how man comes by it Whether he hath it as original Justice given him immediately of God at his first institution or whether he hath it superadded and derived from Christ This is certain which St. John saith He that doth righteousness is righteous even as he is â— John 3. 7. righteous whether this Righteousness comes by Nature or Grace And this is another infallible Rule which St. Peter delivereth in his Sermon to Acts 10. 34 35 Cornelius That God is no respecter of Persons But in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh Righteousness is accepted of him Which is his most immutable Counsel and Decree of saving men and the consideration whereof we should firmly and immoveably stick to and put in practise But because it is one principal part of our Righteousness to agnize the Author and ground of it that famous doubt ought here to be touched Whether Righteousness be an effect of Predestination and Election or the Cause thereof with God The answer to this doth require that we be first satisfied in these three things Predestination Election and Vocation and the importance of them and principally to note in order hereunto that however later Authours especially from St. Austins time downward have invented and that usefully and reasonably enough several significations and importances of them which are not to be neglected yet the Scriptures use them promiscuously as may be seen from these instances amongst many Ephesians the first the fourth and fifth the Apostle saith According as he hath chosen i. e. Elected us in him before the foundation Ephes 1. 4 5. of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will Where Beza himself in his Annotations will allow Election in the fourth verse to signifie the same as doth Predestination in the fifth And that Vocation is taken for both 1 Pet. 1. 10. may be gathered from St. Peters words saying Who hath called us unto his eternal glory And it is as certain that St. Austine also so confounds them diverse times nevertheless they have their distinct conceptions which may be these For first Predestination or Fore-ordination according to Scripture it self will admit of a contrary object And there is a Predestination to Evil as well as to Good but in a different sense For as we have shown when God is said to ordain to Evil it must be rather understood in the Negative sense when he ordains not to Good but delivers over men to the commission of sin But Election is alwayes in a good sense as is also Vocation and are but so many progressions of Divine Providence in the salvation of the Faithful and not specifically distinct Species or kinds of acts as doth appear from St. Pauls accurate use and Rom. 8. 25 30 placing of them in his Epistle to the Romans Whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to Moreover whom he did predestinate them he also called and whom he called them he also justified and whom he justified them be also glorified Where the Apostle explaining the order of Gods proceeding in the saving of man makes a commutation of tearms expressing it For here Fore-knowledge is not that simple Intuition whereby he knows all things but that effectual knowledg founded on a precedent Decree which is the same with Predestination as now commonly used And that Predestination here is the same with Election is probable from that it is added to be conformed to the image of his Son and Calling is actuating of that Election and Predestination So that Predestination is alwayes understood as an act of Gods counsel and Election when taken properly as distinct from that is an act outward whereby it pleaseth God to take to his special favour certain persons and pass over others And Vocation seemeth to be nothing else strictly taken than that outward means or ministry whereby such are chosen to God As a man first propounds several objects to himself next he pitches upon one and determines to take it thirdly he actually makes choice of the same by some special signal of his will And this God commonly doing by word of mouth calling him to him hath given ground to that form of speech in Scripture of being called and calling the publication and ministration of the Gospel of Grace being that word of Gods mouth by which a man is selected from the rout and refuse of the World to the means of Grace Justification and Glory This I take to be the simplest and soberest state of this perplexed mystery In which I suppose it necessary to be advised how we stick too religiously to the tearms Predestination Election and Vocation because of their mutable signification in Scripture which must needs confound an immutable adherer to any one sense precisely and that such words must be understood rather from the relation they have one to another and the matter treated of as also the occasions than according to any simple sound of them And therefore to return to the Question moved concerning Righteousness as an effect or cause of Predestination Election and Vocation it must be answered from the distinct consideration of these tearms For when all these as sometimes are Synonymous and the same with that Pre-determination of Almighty God to Grace For there is a Predestination and Election and Vocation to Grace as the means as well as to Glory the End then it can be in no tolerable sense said
be at all or doth God give him possession of Glory before he gives him capacity The summe of what I am to say is this That First Gods Providence ordaineth that man shall be and then ordaineth that he shall be of such a condition and to such an end and then he giveth him an actual Being and then according to the state he is found in brings him to his proper end and not in that unnatural preposterous and irrational method determines him absolutely to an end before he determines his Being at all And those places of Scripture alledged to defend this presumption do rather overthrow it as that amongst others The children being not yet born Rom. 9. 11 12. neither having done any good or evil that the purpose of God according to election might stand not of works but of him that calleth It was said unto her The elder shall serve the younger I readily here grant a parity between Gods electing to spiritual and temporal ends which this argument supposeth but I do not grant That it was Gods purpose that the elder should serve the younger before it was his purpose that they both should be or that the execution of this Decree did not depend upon the execution of means leading unto it So that when it is said God first as man ordains the end and then the means conducing unto it it is true only when it relates to the end of the Ordainer not of the thing ordained which hath its end really distinct from that general one Man propoundeth to himself profit and then ordains some proper means tending to it He purposes to make a Statue and then purposes to make him a Tool proper to that piece of work He purposes indeed first that such work shall be done by a Tool but he doth not purpose that this individual Tool shall do it before it hath a Being So God first purposeth his Glory as the ultimate end next he decreeth that man shall contribute to that end in the several methods of accomplishing it but he doth not purpose that any individual man as Jacob and Esau shall proceed this way or that way before he hath conceived a purpose to give them a Being And thus farre of the first part of Gods Providence in ordaining acts of Grace and Mercy CHAP. XII Of Gods Providence in the reprobation and damnation of Man Preterition is without any cause personal but the corruption of the Mass of humane Nature Damnation alwayes supposes Sin AS the former proceedings of God with mankind declared his Mercy so do these here celebrate his Dominion and Justice in order to the Creature And as St. Chrysostome well observes in a certain Homily As in a well-ordered City it is as necessary there should be Prisons and places of Execution as places of honour and bountiful rewards propounded so is it in the world Gods wisdom nay Chrysostome in another place sayes his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Chrysost Homil. 7. Antioch mercy is as truly seen in ordaining Hell as Heaven in that upon the thoughts of its torments many are reduced to sober and good life whom vertue or promises of happiness would not reclaim But here we are to consider the manner and reason of Gods severity towards his Creature in these two formidable acts of his just Providence Before we can make any tolerable description of which it will be very necessary to distinguish them For the total neglect hereof as with the author of Gods Love to Mankind in the very entrance of his Book confounding miserably these two or the mistake in the due division which error Petavius falls into where he tells us Divines are commonly wont Petavius Dogmat Theolog. l. 9. c. 9. To. 1. to make a two fold Reprobation One negative as they call it which is as much as Praeterition or not electing The other Reprobation is Positive whereby he not only passes by those persons and relinquishes them but also adjudges them to eternal punishment And this displeases him so far as to the ground of it that he strains hard by the help of Tertullian to make this a branch of Marcions Heresie but in vain for the things are in themselves really and worthily by many learned Divines distinguished but who are they that bungle so in the framing of such a distinction I believe he no more can than he doth tell Reprobation we do indeed make Positive and Negative but we make Damnation none of them for we may distinguish a two-fold act in God and in Man the one opposed to good wanting in the object to be chosen and that may be called Reprobation or refusal Negative which refuses the object either upon meer absolute pleasure or some such absence or want of good which might make it eligible The other is more Positive when there is found somewhat in the object which addeth unto the want of good the presence of evil opposite and odious unto the chooser Now taking Reprobation as it is opposed to Predestination as some do then as they say Predestination supposeth nothing in the object to move God to ordain a thing simply or respectively to such an end So may it be said of Reprobation that it necessarily supposes nothing in the object causing God to turn from it whereupon Picus Mirandola determines thus according to Thomas A reason may be Joan. Picus Mirandol Coâ—â—lus 6. secund Thom. given from the divine goodness of the Predestination of some and the Reprobation of others and the divine will is the only reason that those he rejects and chooses others unto glory This may well be allowed from the supream and absolute dominion of G d over all things so far especially as may amount to a denial of beatitude to the Creature capable of it and a withdrawing of not only the Grace but common influence of God from the Creature upon which it should return from whence it came to nothing But it grates hard upon the natural goodness of God to affirm that the divine will should indulge so much to its absolute Soveraignty as no cause preceding to conceive an hatred or indignation against the work of its own hands as to sentence it directly to everlasting or indeed momentany pains seeing God cannot be unjust or properly cruel one moment any more than he can be eternally Neither can he unreasonably afflict the body or damnifie a man in his estate any more than he can punish the soul in Hell Of all these therefore the Question is but one What ground can be assigned of Gods pleasure or rather displeasure herein To this therefore according to the distinction mentioned answer may be That of the negative will of God seen in Preterition or not electing some to some high ends which we also call here negative Reprobation no reason can be given or ought to be sought out of Gods divine will as Picus hath rightly determined But as commonly it is seen when the Master of the
Family is gone out the house falls into disorder and so finding it he sentences his servants to their several punishments or may turn them out of doors So God having the liberty to depart from his Creature at his pleasure in this way of Preterition whether Supralapsarian or Sublapsarian there doth upon that spring up from it evil and disorder in the soul contrary to Gods will revealed which he reflecting upon may safely and justly decree to entertain it in his favour no longer but reprobating it adjudge it to the punishment deserved God doth not therefore primarily as some have boldly delivered propound to himself the positive pains and ruine of any Creature no inducement no grounds going before but he may very well in a negative sense be said to reprobate it not affording those preservatives needfull to its security This doth sufficiently appear in the first act of his Reprobation of men and Angels whom without all doubt he could have preserved in their original state but he freely refused and they both freely chose to leave him and expose themselves to his severest judgement which was by this positive Reprobation to bring them under the effects of their sins damnation So that they who deny any cause out of God of his first Reprobation do not deny a cause sufficient of his second and positive but the Devils and those men as are signaliz'd Reprobates are undoubtedly the free and full authors of Gods reprobating them and condemning them in this manner Of the Angels St. Peter and Jude speak expresly rendring 2 Pet. 2. 4. their offences a reason why God proceeded so against them and not the simple will of him God spared not the Angels that sinned but cast them down to Hell and delivered them to chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment And the same is repeated by St. Jude And when God saith Jude 6. Gen. 2. 17. in hie Covenant with Adam In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely dye he implyeth the reason of his Decree to punishment to be sin And when the Wise man exhorteth saying Seek not death in the error of your life Wisd 1. 12. and pull not upon your selves destruction with your own hands he doth necessarily imply a direct cause in Man of his own ruine And the words 13. following exempt God from any hand in such things as the Author For God saith he made not death neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living And here come in that in its due place though it were not intended of a spiritual or eternal destruction O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self For though without any supposition taken from the Creature God may pass him over and deny him grace and glory yet doth he not design any man directly to damnation but upon supposition of sin going before And from this state of things may competent reconciliation be made to the seeming oppositions of Scripture and to St. Austin himself The Scriptures say Because thou hast rejected knowledg I will also reject thee And Hos 4. 6. Mat. 23. 37. Luk. 8. 18. by St. Matthew How often would I have gathered thy children together even as a Hen gathereth her chickens under her wings and ye would not And Whosoever hath not from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have And St. John Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life And in the Joh. 5. 40. Act. 13. 46. Acts Paul and Barnahas It was necessary that the Word of God should first have been spoken unto you but seeing ye put it from you and judge your selves unworthy of everlasting life And St. Peter God is not willing that any 2 pet 3. 9. Isa 5. 3 4. should perish c. And amongst others that of the Prophet Esay must not be forgot And now O Inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah judge I pray you betwixt me and my Vineyard What could I have done more to my Vineyard that I have not done in it All which places and divers more do charge man altogether with his own misery On the other side in that Gen. 1. 26. the Scriptures tell us how God made man according to his own image whereof freedom of will was no small portion And in Deuteronomy Ye Deut. 29. 2. have seen all that the Lord aid before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharoah and unto all his servants and to all Land Yet the Lord hath not 4. given you an heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear unto this day And in Jeremy Turn thou me O Lord and I shall be turned And Ezekiel Jer. 31. 18. Lam. 5. 41. Ezek. 36. 26. I will give you a new heart also and a new spirit will I put into you and will take away the stony heart of your flesh and will give you an heart of flesh And St. Matthew All men cannot receive this saying save they to whom it Mat. 19. 11. Joh. 6. 44. Joh. 12. 39 40. is given And Christ in St. John saith No man can come unto me except the Father who hath sent me draw him And elsewhere Therefore they could not believe because Esaias said again He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts And the whole ninth Chapter to the Romans mightily Rom. 9. 16. favours this side of which the substance seems to be contained in this one Verse So then it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of God that sheweth mercy And to the Philippians To will and to do is of Phil. 2. 13. God These with others seem to deny liberty of will to man and to ascribe the reason of good and evil to which man is subject to God as the author making man rather passive under both To that of Free-will we may speak by and by To the present case taking in also what St. Austin saith God doth not forsake but where he is forsaken which may ill consist with what he so largely and often delivers on the other side we answer by the help of the former distinction of simple Preterition and direct Reprobation and the effect of it damnation viz. That the foresaid places suppose an evil affection in the parties so rejected by God and are to be interpreted of his just determination to punish sin and hard-heartedness in them But the incapacity of Grace and Conversion and Salvation are meant by the latter Texts proceeding from the sole Preterition of God refusing to prevent the evil and malignity of mens wills which for want of that preventing Grace do certainly tend to evil and are incurable of themselves But upon this I see divers shrewd Objections to arise as First That by this with-holding of Gods Grace his Preterition there is brought a necessity upon mans will to evil and his indifferency to life and death quite taken away as all use of the means of Grace To this
we have in good degree answered before and there shewed how that the fore-knowledge in God of mans fixed estate whether by his own will electing as they say freely or Gods will determining which fore-knowledge is yielded to God by these Objectors doth oblige them as well as me to shew what profit it would be to man to move or endeavour towards Grace and Life when he is already determined only this is the difference between them The one seems to hold That God by an antecedent act drives the nail whereby man is immoveably fastned to one thing and the other holds That by a subsequent act of knowledge he clincheth it which man himself drove so that it can never stir St. Augustine Aug. Civ Dei l. 5. c. 5. confuting Tullies opinion of Fate impending over all things doth notwithstanding confess and affirm plainly They are much more to be tolerated who hold a Sydereal Fate than he that takes from God the praescience of things future for says he it is most apparent madness for to grant there is a God and to deny he foresees things future And they that put the cuestion to this issue have mended the matter very little or reliev'd themselves all necessity and certainty being a direct enemy to their design of setting man free to do what he list and change his fortune as we say at his pleasure I find in a very grave and learned Author a distinction which I find no where else designed to ease this doubt between Inevitable and Infallible which in truth are not distinct and therefore he is constrained contrary to the agreed way of speech to make Infallible the same with Necessary whereas the distinction is between Necessity and Infallibility or Inevitability which is the very same For what is infallible but that whose act or object shall have a certain event and this event not to be avoided or declined is called Inevitable But whether the Necessity of Causes be such that this event must in nature succeéd is the question and that notwithstanding the Inevitableness or Infallibility of the event there may not be free motions in the Cause tending to that event So that for instance a man may freely choose and will to do that which he certainly shall choose and consequently be properly and truly said to be author of the same be it his damnation or salvation But you will say If Gods Preterition be such that a man is unable to move himself to saving good without it then must he infallibly fall into sin and necessarily and after this all counsels and commâ—nations and exhortations come to nothing and are in vain Nay unless there be unrighteousness with God man cannot be judged for not doing that which he cannot do is not in his power To this St. Augustines Answer is this Because the whole Mass was Aug. Epist 105 sixte damned deservedly in Adam God repays its deserved reproach and bestows an undeserved honour by Grace not by any prerogative of merit not by necessity of Fate not by the unsteadiness of fortune but by the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God which the Aposile doth not open but admires concealed crying out O the depth of the wisdom c. But if this yet doth not absolutely satisfie as I know it doth not some because say they it is to delude man to offer that and exhort to that which it is impossible to attain to so that though God by his absolute and divine Prerogative might have deserted man yet it stands not with his natural equity or simplicity towards his Creature to exhort and threaten when there is such inevitable necessity upon him and condemn him for not doing that which he knows he cannot do without him refusing effectually to assist him I answer It might very well call in question the fair dealing of God towards his Creature if so be he should make an act for him after he was disabled to observe and perform the same not assisting him to the performance of his will But God doth not so for though the Command stands in force against him yet it was not prepared for him in his destitute condition and no reason that Gods right of ruling should change with the vanity of the Creature It suffices that once it was proportionable to him and that the impotency now pleaded is owing to himself and that Gods Laws now are rather recited and propounded to him than made for him in the condition he is in But secondly Gods Commands indeed though but urged anew should be ludicrous and in vain did they totally miss of their ends in being thus repeated and inculcated if they had no success But so it is not as though the Word of God had taken no effect For they are Rom. 9. 6. not all Israel wh are of Israel as St. Paul hath it that is the case is not the same with all men For as St. Paul afterwards What then Israel Rom. 11. 7. hath not obtained that which he seeketh for but the election hath obtained it and the rest were blinded It sufficiently answers the purpose of God in giving his Law and admonishing and threatning and promising thereupon that it obtaineth its ends upon the election For how many things else might we accuse God and Nature for sending us when they do no good at all that we can perceive but rather mischiefs As deluges of waters in a wet time and in droughts great showers of rain emptying themselves into the Sea or sandy deserts from whence nothing springs answerable to such divine bounty But we are taught that God and Nature made things and ordained them in their kind useful for the Universe and never by a particular purpose that every single act or part should have the same visible and proportionable effect that the whole hath And so in the dispensations of his spiritual Graces it suffices to acquit and justifie divine providence that they have their due ends though not the same that man may expect who certainly would never have it rain might he order matters and choose but at such times and in such places as he thinks fit and then alwayes Again It would go harder against this opinion if so be that the only end why God published his Word and gave his Laws weâ—e to convert men that they might be saved This is indeed a principal but not the only intent God hath but the publication of Gods holiness and justice and righteousness and mercy and the like glorious attributes in which publication God is much more known admired and glorified by wicked men and reprobates than otherwise though they oppose and dislike the same even against their own wills giving such like glory to God on earth as they shall in Hell hereafter And we know that no accession of real good being possible to be made to God the outward manifestation is of principal concernment Last of all Could there be an infallible
discriminating note made between the incorrigible reprobates destined to destruction and the corrigible offender ordained to life then indeed much more colour would appear to justifie the refusal of dispensing the means of salvation to such and the denial in the reprobate to give ear to such offers but flesh and bloud cannot reveal this to us and the Spirit of God hath not Doth not God send his Prophet Ezekiel with Ezek. 3. 4. 7. express commission to warn the house of Israel though he expresly assures him They will not hearken unto thee for they will not hearken unto me If the child in the womb being certainly determin'd to one sex long before it is brought forth yet this certainty being hid from our eyes though but for such a small time is thought by Parents a matter of prayer many times that it may be a Son How should not we much rather take the just occasion of applying our selves to acts of Religion though possibly the event with God is determined The summe then of this Chapter comes to this That God by his soveraign dominion and by his inscrutable counsels doth out of the corrupted and forlorn mass of fallen man elect whom he pleases to effectual Grace and from thence brings them to infallible Glory but never without their own acts of embracing his offers and persevering faithfully in his service So that though he purely chooses them to the means of Grace without consideration of their worth or fruitfulness yet he never ordains any or elects them to Glory but upon an intuition of faith and obedience to his will And on the other side he passes by others leaving them in great part as he found them from whence spring works of wickedness freely invented and acted and tending infallibly unto damnation So that God doth not in like manner influence the wicked as he doth the righteous that is for no other cause but his own will taking occasion justly from that common deformity wherein he finds them but never simply destinates any man to damnation but upon beholding the deserts of their sins But how it can come to pass that God thus ordaining the end damnation should not also appoint the means sin without which he condemns no man shall be answered in a more proper place Here only I add for their sakes who measure opinions by famous Patrons to which they are addicted that as I have said nothing to comply with or spitefully to oppose Calvin and his followers so neither to cross Arminius But this I must say that though I look upon Arminius as a much more modest man and more judicious Disputant than Calvin in these deep points yet in their followers we shall easily see a great disparity to the disadvantage of the Remonstrants For very many of Calvins followers have mitigated and fairly interpreted his too harsh and scandalous expressions and opinions and I think none have gone beyond him But on the other side what Arminius with much modesty and gravity delivered erroneously his abettors and followers have pursued and improved many of them to such an intollerable height that they fall often into direct Pelagianism and from thence which is much worse into Socinianisin as experience plainly sheweth And to that Dutch Physician Emperick in this part of Divinity who Beverovicius protested against all ministration of Physick to sick persons unless he could be assured of a mutability in the term of his Patients life for I must openly profess the same reason of Gods Providence and pre-determination to temporal life and death as spiritual and eternal and they are equally fixt and moveable both of them it suffices to answer Then he may let it alone and no absurdity follows But because a very learned and grave Divine of ours seemeth to have given some weight to the argument by citiug him to our present purpose I answer further That no such thing is said to be so precisely and simply â—ecreed â—ut it is as necessary the means should be determined as the end God hath determined no effect but he hath determined the proper cause thereto conducing And it is as false that God hath determined that such a man should recover his health as that he shaâ—l do it without such proper means The means comming under the decree as well as the end It will be said that this takes away all liberty from man as well in the way as to the end And probably Beverovicius if he had thought on this though he had been assured that the tearm of mans life was moveable but the means-thereto unmoveable would never have read book about physick nor stir'd off his seat to any patient because whatever he did or not did the means should have been applyed and succeeded to the sick party But because we are sure we cannot go out of our Island on foot shall we not stir out of doors at all Because we cannot do what we would and go as far as we would shall we not do any thing at all Because our Liberties do not reach beyond Gods Mannor and priviledge the second cause from the autority and influence of the first shall we be sulle in and dogged and refuse that which we Certainly whatever plausible suggestions may of late have been instilled into the common peoples minds of a free subjection it can never be rightly and honestly understood of a freedom from the Supream Power and Justice And so whatever liberty of will may be claimed to man in his actions must be interpreted rather in relation to his fellow creatures and subjects and outward causes which cannot impose upon his will but the first cause may in that cannatural way we before mentioned and in the next place shall have occasion offered farther to explain CHAP. XIII The Occasion of treating of Sin here What sin is What Evil. Monstrousness in things natural and Evil in Moral things illustrate each other Sin no positive or real Thing God the direct Cause of Evil. St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans makes nothing for the contra Remonstrants literally and primarily taken THE near respect that Sin hath to what is passed and the aspect it hath to what is before us concerning the Providence of God in the Fall of Man from his native Righteousness oblige us here to enquire farther into the nature of it And slightly passing over that doubt of some Philosophers and Ancient Hereticks How if there were a God who is supreamly and infinitely good and no more but one Evil should find any being amongst the beautiful works of God its nature being so foul monstrous and contrary to God because it is touched above and in truth do adde rather a greater beauty and lustre to God works than if no such thing were to be found and because as the glory so the power of God is much more manifested thereby in that he curbs and checks its excess and exorbitancie at his pleasure and forces it by his providence to
to him as were his Disciples for whom he there particularly prays the argument would be of the greater force but it is not so any more then it is true in all respects what Christ saith of himself in St. Matthew I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel So Matth. 15. 24. that as Christ before his resurrection shewed himself very nice how he dealt the Word of Life to the Gentiles so might he at the same time declare a more special desire of the salvation of his elected Servants than of others For we know which is another answer how the Scripture frequently by a note of Denyal doth not intend an absolute exclusion of a thing but comparative only as where God says I will have mercy and not sacrifice Christ prayed not for the world so intensly and particularly or at that time Therefore he prayed not at all is no good consequence And no more is that which is made from an adequateness of the Death of Christ to the actual application of the merits of the same death by such intercession as Prayer So that though Christ did not actually pray for all yet he might dye for all according to the distinction of a twofold Quantum in Medico est sâ—nare merit aegrotum Ipse se interimit qui pâ—aecepta Medici â—â—servare non vult Aug. in Joan. cap. 3. 17. Exhibition of Christ abovesaid For Christ was exhibited as an efficacious Means of Salvation and as an efficacious Cure A precious Antidote or Salve is in its own nature and the intention of the Compounder equally operative and effectual to all Persons in like manner affected All men naturally were involved in the same evil alike affected and infected And Christs Death and Passion alike soveraign to all persons and ordained for all And the difference in the first Case and the second is only in the actual Application thereof For as many as receive that are certainly cured And the Scripture tells us As many as receive him Christ to them gave John 1. 12. he power to become the Sons of God to them that believe in his name Therefore the main enquiry is much more about the difference and variety outward then in the means it self And how and whence it comes to pass that the Death and Passion of Christ are so applyed to one above another that to one they become actually efficacious and to another in aptitude and general institution only If in answer to this doubt we shall say That by Faith and Repentance we are made partakers of Christ we shall answer most truly but not sufficiently because the same difficulty returns upon us How some believe and embrace Christ and are made partakers of his benefits and not others seeing so great salvation is tendered to all Here it is absolutely necessary to take in the Grace of God and his free love towards Mankind in some sense at least by all that will be accounted Christians and not by wisdome make void the Cross of Christ For supposing that God hath made a free and general Covenant with Mankind which Covenant neither is nor can as it is a Covenant be simple and inconditionate so far as nothing should be required thereby of Man to the being capable of the benefit of it it will of necessity follow that the knowledge of this Covenant of Grace must be had by such as receive any benefit thereby For else how is it possible that they should fulfill in any manner the Condition required were it no more than some will make it to receive it by Faith without any more ado then to believe themselves into Gods Grace and Favour by a tacite internal act And this and no more being supposed that such love and gracious purpose for which no natural Cause can be found out to certifie or satisfie any man in the truth thereof were ordained for any specially it must be known by Revelation and not Ratiocination And all extraordinary Revelations besides and above what Nature can discover are purely Acts of Grace and not of Work And therefore why God doth reveal his Gospel to one people or person and not to another can have no other original Cause then the Beneplacitum Good pleasure of God as is plainly Matth. 11. 27. affirmed by Christ himself Neither knoweth any man the Father but the Son and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him And before I thank v. 25. thee O Father Lord of Heaven and Earth because thou hast hid those things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes And in St. Peters Matth. 16. 11 1 Cor. 2 14. case Flesh and bloud hath not revealed this unto thee And St. Paul saith The Natural man cannot know the things of God because they are spiritually discerned From whence it is manifest that though God hath decreed the Salvation of a man by Christ yet this general intention cannot possibly take effect without a super-added Act of Free Grace whereby this Reparation is made known Again it follows That there is no obligation upon God antecedent to his own will and inclination moving him to reveal the same and that only out of Congruity not of Justice or Necessity as supposing a decree given to Man which would be wholly unprofitable and vain without such revelation But why one Man or Nation should be blessed with this gift rather than another there is not so much as congruity to be fairly alledged or reasonably offered And as this is the first act of God on the understanding of Man towards his restitution so is the second act of Man flowing mixtly from his Will and Understanding both altogether owing to Gods Grace and that is believing what before he knew For that this is necessary no doubt can be made or that this is the true cause of being profited or not by Christ St. Paul thus writing For unto us was the Gospel preached as well as unto them Hebr. 4. 2. but the word preached did not profit them not being mixed with Faith in them that heard it This diversity is very great but what is the cause of it is not agreed upon For if any shall say It comes from the difference found in Christ as Mediatour he is known to be mistaken by what is said If any one shall say It proceeds from the will and free Election of Man he falls into a worse absurdity for the will of man as free acts or works nothing at all but as determined either by its self or by some other And if by it self either simply and absolutely or joyntly with another cause And this cause must be either taken from somewhat outward as the object duly propounded or inward by way of efficiencie But it cannot be any outward object presenting it self only as a final cause which hath only a moral and not natural influence For if it be demanded to what end such an inward act of the will
that worthily and gravely and not all Rites introduced ordinarily and orderly into the Church by good Councels and autority as many vainly have imagined and drawn his words with wonted ignorance or spite against the use of Ceremonies But what we were saying is this that all Reverence and gravity and decency are wholly such by humane agreement and opinion and that of the Region wherein they are used For if any posture or gesture or Habit were naturally good or Evil decent or indecent it would be so to all countries and people the contrary to which is most certain viz. That what one people judgeth grave and decent another esteemeth ridiculous and uncomely To bare the Head in the Western parts of the world is a token and Act of Reverence to whom it is done but absurd and grievous to the Eastern Parts Again in the Western Parts for Men to move their hats and to bend the Knee to one is Reverence but for women to do so is foolish and ungrateful to any Black clothes and habit in the European Parts and amongst Christians are generally looked on as comely grave and decent for persons of the soberest rank but odious to the Turks and so might instances be given in many things of like nature Which are not for any intrinsick worth in them or natural received into the service of God but for that they are partly by consent of men where we live acknowledged for proper notes of Reverence or else are by express constitution declared to be such which are designed by the Church to signifie and express veneration and esteem of what we do and upon that become such For neither do words themselves naturally signifie what we mean by them nor do letters naturally give such a sound to a word compounded of them but altogether by human agreement and appointment no more do these signs and ceremonies of themselves but by consent and institution imply reverence and devotion Where then do these frivolous and quarrelsome fellows appear who resolving to undo something done before them and do somewhat that better suits with their own humours and unchristian tempers devise monstrous things in such rites malitiously apply them zealous enforce the contrary upon such absurd errours And will take no denial when they are pleased to utter such slanders as these That we urge them as of absolute necessity We prefer them before the more material service of God We make them conditions of Communion with us The first and second of which are directly false and never can be made good The Third is indirectly true For by consequence indeed they become conditions of Communion in all Churches and their mouths are opened directly and expresly according to their manner only against our Church yet all are no less concerned than ours yea their own Conventicles are in as much danger of this argument as our Churches For I appeal unto themselves whether they would not thrust out from among them such as should dare against their Orders to do what they list amongst them Would they suffer one amongst that should constantly take the Communion kneeling while the rest sat or stood Would they not severely censure and being obstinate eject such an one as should bow at the name of Jesus against their will and perhaps him that should own he makes a conscience of being covered in the house of God Must they not here interpret themselves better in their famous modern Maxime Of making outward Rites conditions of Communion and so that their adversaries shall come off as well as they Or they suffer as much mischief by their own weapon as any else But what they will say we regard not no more than what they have said in that Rule it self frivolous and fallacious That which we say to it is the quite contrary That we do not make such Orders or customes conditions of our communion so much as they make them causes of non-communion and Separation Let the matter then be brought fairly before all equal Judges who are to be blamed they who have no autority either to appoint or put down any Ceremonie and yet upon that which they can never prove to be forbidden or unlawful but as it likes them not by which they argue us out of all but their own inventions refuse communion with that Church to which they have all general obligations to joyn themselves Or they who being over them in the Lord whether they will or not do form outwardly by such Ceremonies and Rites the more intrinsick parts of Gods Worship requiring under the sin of disobedience and pain of Ecclesiastical censures following thereupon submission unto them In fine We accuse them and believe we are much better able as we are always ready to prove it of making innocent I do not say inoffensive for where shall we find that thing that offends not some body rites and orders the only ground of Schism rather than we make them conditions of Communion And so what they will get by this justification of themselves they may and hope will at length put in their eyes and cause tears of repentance to fall from them for their many groundless prevarications and slanders of both Powers God had set over them 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 Vows 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 Vows explained THE Second thing wherein religious worship doth consist in general is the special state which a true Believer chooseth to serve God in The state of any thing doth import in it Inde est quod etiam in actionibus humanis dicitur negotium habere aliquem statum Secundum ordinem propriae dispositionis cum quadam immobilitate seu quiete Thomas 2 dae Qu. 183. c. 1. constancie and subtilty as Thomas hath not amiss described it in general saying In humane actions a matter is said to have a state according to its particular constitution with a certain immutability and rest Whatever therefore is by nature uncertain and mutable and becomes determined and fixed may be said to be in such a state in which it is so fixed And though by the vanity and natural wantonness of Mans will he is too often unresolved and fickle in his due Obligations towards God yet by Reason and much more Religion every man is bound to God and his liberty is to serve God in the common state of Religion which restrains his irregular motions and confines him to the will of God And under this due subjection is every man especially brought by being baptized and therein vowing faith and Christian obedience unto God But as Religion in general is the stating and establishing a man towards God and as Christian Religion is yet an higher stricter and holyer obligation
wonderful dangerous abuse of the Old Testaments Autority not to be content to admit an invalidity of proofs drawn from thence to confirm Evangelical Duties but to make it no small presumption against the Evangelicalness of any duty that it is first found in the Old Testament which is a gross abuse of Scripture especially by them who would be held enemies to Antimonians They ought therefore first of all to show that such things are purely Legal that is as the Law it self is Mosaical and Typical and Ceremonial before they can damn them there for no better reason but there they find them Add to this when we challenge them to the most ancient and manifold Presedents of the Christian Church who constantly made Vows of various natures to God they presently betake themselves to their common subterfuge pretence of appeal to the Word of God as a Rule and that without any respect to any not truly divine Guides otherwise directing And this they do as confidently as if it had been concluded out of Scripture to the contrary For in such cases indeed their appeal would be most just and reasonable but until that little better then ridiculous especially Scripture being before advised about and appearing not definitive in the case Antiquity and Holy precedents consulted with the better to know the mind of Scripture For instance that text of St. Paul to Timothy saith of young Widows They have damnation in themselves because 1 Tim. 5. 12. they have cast off their first Faith Many of late dayes interpret the Apostle to mean only the Faith of Christ in general Others understand him to speak of a Faith particularly made to Christ by the Order of Widows vowing singleness of life and in all reason this seems to be most favoured by the context But besides this appeal is made by the one party to the judgment of the ancient and holy Christians interpreting this both by their writings and practise as relating specially to the dedication of Widowhood to God After this fair dealing for men to declare they will be tryed by none but that which they know is the main thing in question is very vain and somewhat more They having no special text so interdicting such Vows as this is to commend them But the worst of it is this that if there were any way more perfect then that they have pitched on they should be sufferers in the good opinion of the world but that must by no means be endured And this at the end of all is the great absurdity they bring us to but surely not so great but both the Cause and Defenders of it may well show their face after all this granted and owned The second thing now in the third place to be touched is concerning the Nature of a Vow in it self viz. That so it is no proper act nor any proper part of Gods Service but the manner of it For to vow to God is an indifferent thing to Good or Evil. A man may as well vow to Gods dishonour as his glory It is therefore good or evil in relation to the matter about which the Vow is made For to vow Sacrifices under the Law and to vow Alms under the Gospel or Virginity or such like is no farther part of the Service of God then the thing it self tends to the worship of God and its nature and office is to bind to the true and due performance of a thing but not absolutely a duty in its self The principle doubt on the contrary may be that which is taken from that which a man devotes to God as an ingredient to all vows For when a man vows he of a free man makes himself servile and limited to one of those things to which formerly he was free And this we have shewed is an argument of some against vowing because it takes away the liberty God had given On the other side the contrary party may in my judgment turn it against them and make it an argument of worth and excellencie because it gives to God that which is to us most precious For when St. Paul saith If you may be free use it rather and stand fast in the liberty where with Christ hath made you free he undoubtedly means only in reference to man and then only when we really have and not presume only that we have such a liberty and when this liberty is that which pertaineth to the substance of the Gospel as most of those places alledged to found a liberty do aim at But do they think as it should seem that either Natural Civil or Evangelical Liberty is such a thing and so given unto us of God that we may not render it to him nor part with it again to him Is it too good or sacred to give him it from whom we received it Nay the more dear and precious it is to us the more acceptable it should be to him When we deny our selves the liberty he hath given us the better to serve him surely it is no less pleasing to God than to part with meat drink money and the time which he hath given us dedicating the same to him It is strange therefore next to monstrous that Christians should stumble so at the Scriptures and they especially who will scarce allow any man to be cunning in the Scriptures besides themselves or to be governed by them as they pretend to be as to make such fond conclusions from them the contrary to which is much the truer To give away our liberty to God is an excellent Sacrifice to him and they would prove out of Scripture we ought not to give it him at all For if they prove not this they prove nothing when they say we ought not to make vows to him because it takes away our liberty And therefore to the argument viz. that by this it should follow that vowing is in it self an act or part of Gods worship I answer That if any thing here be an act of worshipping God it is the giving up it self of our liberty and not the vowing to give it up for this is but the means and manner so to serve and worship God and not the worship it self And thus much Perkins Perkins Cases of Conscience Chap. 14. Lib. 2. acknowledges in vows about bodily exercises such as Fasting Prayers and Alms but likes not it so to be in other matters Indeed as he confusedly and crudely touches the point passing from the nature of a Vow in it self which was his question unto the matter he might very well write against some vows and prove them unlawful when the thing it self is unlawful to be done whether with or without a vow such as are ceremonial acts of the Law of Moses and moral evils against truth justice or piety it self And thus much of the form of vowing the lawfulness and uses in general CHAP. IV. Of the Matter of Vows in particular And first of the Virginal state that it is
years since saith Austin in another Epistle there arose at Rome one Jovinian who is said to have perswaded certain holy Nuns even grown into years to marry not enticing them so far as to take any of them to wife but by arguing that Virgins devoted to holiness found no greater reward from God than faithful married persons For such his opinion Jovinian fared never the better amongst the primest Fathers of the Church and still we hold to this Rule not easily to lend an ear to modern Reformers how eminent soever against the torrent of more eminent Fathers of the Church There are three things specially to be observed in Monastick Life according to which we may judge of the reasonableness and piety of the same 1. The Original 2. The Form or Manner of Living 3. The End and Effects of it Surely the Original was very ancient though not to be fetched so far backward as Elias or John the Baptist though Sozomen Sozomenus Hist Eccles lib. 1. cap. 12. would from thence derive it And no wonder if others of laters years have been of that mind It is generally agreed amongst Writers that the Hermites or Anachorets of Aegypt first professed such separations from men partly out of pure Devotion and partly not wholly as some suppose upon the violent persecutions raised in those parts in those early dayes But afterward those dispersed persons began to gather together in companies and societies St. Chrysostome in a certain Homily assures us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys Serin 25 in Hebraeos Polyd. Virg de Invent. lib. 7. c. 2. Schafnaburg de Rebus Germ. Ann◠1025. that in St. Paul's dayes not the least foot-step of a Monk was to be found Before St. Basil's time saith Polydore Virgil Monks were left to their own liberty and so were Nuns too to continue in or relinquish that state as they pleased as appears from many instances might be given But such as had once professed or pretended such a state and after deserted it were judged by all most infamous and fear of shame had the force of a Vow upon them nevertheless St. Basil brought them into a Society propounded Rules unto them and brought them under that threefold Vow of Chastity Obedience and Poverty which hath continued unto this day Yet there are not wanting some as Lambertus Schafnaburgensis who complaining of the new Orders of Monks brought in by Dominick and Francis have thought it safer to be free from such bonds as have been cast upon men beyond their ability to endure But what should I add to what upon this subject hath been so largely and learnedly treated of by others Only the Popery of this state of Life is it which has brought an ill name upon the thing it self But the exception is too general trivial and trite to move knowing and sober Christians though it may go far with such as have nothing from their Lecturer with whom the Scripture it self is of no other use than such shall please to apply it unto Who can deny but Popish corruptions have tainted the purity and simplicity of former Ages in the regiment of Monks But those most of them which Perkins instances in are too light to bring the thing into disgrace and utter dislike And such are Copes and Cowles and other Monkish Habits as also Quire-singing Vowed Fasts and choice Meats Against which Mr. Perkins his pains had been better spar'd than spent For Perkins Denonstration of the Probiem p. 594 595. as it is necessary that all orders in the Common-wealth should be distinguished accordingly and their Habits are proper cognizances for that purpose and none but Artisans and such persons that are neither Gentlemen nor in any place of Honour or Power malign such a distinction So should the several orders and professions be preserved and appear distinct by their outward garb to advertise them of their duty and profession and a we them before the eyes of all men to a walking conformable to their profession others to be subject to just censures and reprehension of men and none but low and ignoble Christians do malign and oppose them And that it should be indecent or as they would fain but in vain quarrel with such outward Habits unlawful is ridiculous to affirm and a greater argument of more superstition lurking in the souls of these scandalized persons than can be found in the thing accused But to except against Quire-singing is not only frivolous but impious without limitation And choice of meats and especially Fastings vowed are as far out of their power to disprove soberly as it is out of their will to pretend to or imitate But there are some things here called fundamental differencing ancient Perkins ibid. Monks from the present First They lived solitarily of necessity to be safer from persecution This is not true in all Secondly They were not constrained to give all that they had to the poor But where lyes the accusation here In constraining or being constrained We now speak of the Monastick person and I hope it is no sin in him to suffer such or greater violence as to the Injurer let him look to it And in truth I do not determine any thing in this case To the Fourth that Monks were not then bound to any certain Rules it is answered in part already that while they lived separate and were not form'd into a Society it was not so requisite But St. Basil doth show how much better it is to live in caenobio in company with Basilius M. Regul Fus Disput 7. others than Hermite-like to skulk in holes or wander up and down in deserts And that first because there is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he calls it a self-pleasingness in such free solitariness and Secondly such keep shut up without exercise that ability they have being ignorant as well of their own defects as of others proficiencie There are causes enough besides such pitiful exceptions above mentioned to condemn the most irregular constitutions of such Regulars as are thick sown in the Roman Church I might begin with the excessive number of them to the prejudice of such states where they are planted I might proceed to the nature of them and horrible loosness tolerated in them of which so many Authors have too justly complained and continue to declare the intolerable strictness of some either requiring a gross Dispensation to the voiding of the express will of their Founder or to the shortning the dayes of many persevering in the rigorous observation of them The very rules likewise themselves are many times most superstitious And above all the foul usurpation the Pope of Rome hath over them to the disobliging them from their proper Bishops and thereby making them Schismaticks and himself a Tyrant it being certain that of old both by course consequence custome and Canons of the Church all Monasteries and Religious Societies were and still ought to be subject to the Bishop of that
and for ought doth appear accepted well the said Commemorations of his signal mercies and deliverances at the Jews hands until the coming of Christ when the case was wholly altered as that Service but not so as to all future For an invincible argument it is to the contrary that one day of the week is still continued to serve God in a peculiar manner notwithstanding after the strong attempts made especially of late and never before later days either by Eastern or Western Christians or by Reformed or Unreformed to make the Lords day a Sabbath and obliging Christians by vertue of the fourth Commandment in the Decalogue nothing to that end is effected Indeed if men will tenture and extend Gods word to that extream as thereby to draw every thing out of any thing they may reduce all moral duties unto the Ten Commandments according to the custom of expounding them viz. That where the Effect is commanded or forbidden there the Cause likewise and where the Outward act the Inward and where the Genus there the Species and where the Thing there the Circumstances and where one kind there all of like kinds are forbidden or commanded then were there some colour for what they say of all moral duties to be found in the Decalogue and sins interdicted But there is no more ground for the expounding of this so than any other part of Scriptures And if there were this would make Eight of the Ten Commandments superfluous all sins and all duties being reducible at this rate to those two our Saviour in the Gospel refers to viz. Love of God and Love of our Neighbours And surely most essential to all actions are the circumstances of time and place and nothing can be done by Man in Religion or out of it without them therefore it should seem superfluous expresly to enjoyn a time to serve God in and distinctly from the act which unavoidably implyes it And if it be said that not so much a time simply as a time precisely so determined viz. to a Seventh Day and that in such and such manner to be observed is instituted of God then do fall to the ground the supposed naturalness and morality of the time there commanded and that by natural light or law no more is commanded then time or at most a day but not a Seventh Day Now if we are being Christians under the Law no farther than in these two respects First as some of it is repeated and enforced by the Law of the Gospel given us by Christ Secondly as it is consonant to the Law of Reason or Nature And that a seventh part of our time should be dedicated constantly to God is no where so positively delivered in the New Testament as it was in the Old nor doth the light of Nations or Nature suggest any such determinate time for that only and not of time in general is all the question How can a Seventh Day be commanded of God It is not to be denyed but some of the ancient heathen Philosophers and Poets did talk of somewhat of sacredness in the Seventh Day But first whence had they such opinions from the thing it self No surely it was a superstitious and blind admiration of the number Seven of which we find so much in their writings and especially the consideration of the Seven Planets in the Heavens which made them think better of the Seventh Day or cause the week to consist of so many days and no more But what real opinion they had of that above other days doth appear in their practise Philo In Decalog pag. 585. Id. De Opificio Mundi pag. 15 16. 21. Genevae which no monuments declare to have been in more sacred or solemn esteem than any other And the reputed sacredness of the number seven is that which Philo Judaeus playeth upon so handsomly in his commendation of the Jewish seventh day as may be seen in his works And Chrysostome from thence takes a better argument to prove that a Seventh day is not moral from whence several have endeavoured to prove that it is and that in a more sacred manner than any other of the Commandments For to perswade to a precise observation of it these say that God hath set a Memento a Remember upon it such as upon no other Commandment Therefore there should be somewhat extraordinary in it And so there is indeed For saith Chrysostome whereas all other Commandments are very agreeable to the Reason of man and are in some degree known to him by natural light and so need not the like intimation and advice this of a Seventh Day to be kept holy to God cannot be discerned by Natures light at all and therefore needeth such a Memento and Remembrancer as this to bring that to his mind which is so apt to slip out 'T is granted moderner Jews in despight of Christ and Christians have asserted a naturalness and immutability of this Command and an extent of it to all Nations but this concludes not Christians knowing from whence such Antichristian Dogmes proceed Now here lyes the labour to infer a Seventh Day from the Law obliging Christians I say from the letter of the Law and not from the reasonableness of the thing it self to which they flee who find their other proofs too weak and here I will not contend much with them But all their Old Testament testimonies being more easily evaded and nulled then they are alledged by this one answer That they speak only of Jewish Sabbaths and so have no force at all upon us or the same in all respects that they have upon the Jews they must be constrained to repair only to Gospel for the Confirmation of any day separate from civil affairs and dedicate to God And here they are altogether to seek for any one direct or positive Precept not one in all the New Testament can be found for any either Seventh or First Day of the week Whereupon they are compelled to betake themselves to the uncertain way of arguing from Example to a Rule viz. That because they read several instances in the New Testament of things done on the first Day of the week in reference to Religion and the Service of God therefore that day ought specially and religiously to be observed they will perhaps say That the infinite blessing of our Redemption by Christ and his Resurrection is the ground of our observation as the Creation was of theirs This I grant to be a just and sufficient cause but it doth not from thence follow that therefore actually it was so constituted upon that ground We now are in quest of the Constitution it self and not of the Reason why it should be so ordained For many things that seem to us very reasonable are not certainly actually ordained And many things for which in the New Testament we may find presidents of the Apostles or Apostolical persons do not necessarily infer a Rule or Precept But in the New Testament there
and examine themselves whether that be the only cause The first of these is Custom which hath made the Laws and Canons more favourable And what is this custom A direct violation of the Laws of the Church and Orders and Precepts of it and then a bold reply to an objecter of this to them It is not kept i. e. They do not keep themselves to such prescriptions therefore they ought not and therefore it is as well as it is For custom what is it they mean by it If a Custom of an hundred years hath confirmed a Law a Custom of one year when it lets in the said Graces of Idleness ease and profit shall prescribe and prevail against it If infinite persons backed by Laws have done or not done such things and one or two indulgers to themselves have transgressed on the contrary these are the Presidents we choose for us these we alledg for our defense This is that we call a Custom and soon by the flattery and temptation of the foresaid vertues will the infection spread and the party become so numerous strong and bold as to condemn those who make doubt of being Customed by them and to deride them as Hyperbolical Conformists to the Canons and Laws of the Church So that without some stop and fence against this encroaching and daring mischief all things will be sum'd up briefly into these two things First that there be a Custom to make Laws and Rules for the modelling of the Church and regulating the worship of God therein And another far greater and more prevalent custome that none of them should be kept which agrees not with the conscience of the Sectary and the convenience of the Church Party themselves as well Rulers as obeyers Another Grand Salvo against observation of any Ecclesiastical Canons to our temporal prejudice is taken from Dispensations obtained to the contrary And then conscience may be as secure as might the Disciples when Christ going towards his Passion said to them Sleep on now and Mat. 26. 45 take your rest and upon the same reasons too Behold the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of Sinners Much here might be said concerning the nature reasons end and effect of Dispensations but this place cannot contain it Only thus much of the nature and use of Dispensations That it being not possible for the wit of Man to invent a Law which will not sometimes bring mischief and inconvenience contrary to the Definitur Dispensatio quod sit juris communis relaxatio cum causae cognitioone in co qui potestatem habet Dispensandi Barb. de offic Pat. Epist Al. 33. num 3. Part. 2. Institutor of it it is necessary there should be a Power of judging wherein it is inconsistent with the true ends and intention of the Law and Author of it and therefore Dispensation saith Barbosa is defined to be a Relaxation of the Law with the knowledg of the Reason or Cause in him that hath power to dispense From whence it follows that unless the cause be so just and reasonable that it is probable that the author of the Law or Canon himself never intended they should bind in such cases both the Dispenser and Dispensed incurr the guilt of the violation of that law so dispensed with which causes are so rare That perhaps in the very judgment of them that find the benefit of them it were much better that particular inconveniences should befall some men then such a door be opened as is commonly to the ambition Covetousness and Laziness of men to baffle the rule it self and make it ridiculous And therefore Ib. num 7. Est quid Odiosum Sine causâ— est Dissipatio in the Church of Rome it self where Dispensations abound most of all and most notorious yet the Canonists cannot chuse but call them Odious and a Dissipation when just cause is wanting And where Personal advantage sometimes to the Dispenser or his Retinue and most commonly to the Dispensed is the chief or only Ground of Dispensations they can never be good unless this benefit relates chiefly to nature as bodily health and not Fortune For t is so grand and general a mistake of the effect of them that it is to be feared it is affected in many to think that Dispensations ought to be ordained to relieve from the penalties and not the guilt of the Law For that is truly and alone an effectual dispensation which exempts us from the obligation to perform it and not that which only excuses from the Punishments we should otherwise incur And doth declare and satisfie a man that in not observing the Letter of the Law he doth not go contrary to the intention of it which in such cases would not that it should be rigorously observed Now if a man be soundly satisfied in his conscience first that the Law it self would if it could speak acknowledg the reason to be good of not keeping to the letter of it then a dispensation would stand him in good stead in securing him from the penalties belonging to the same But if men look no farther than that which is least considerable in Dispensations and meerly accidental viz. the saving themselves harmless under the breach of it they are notoriously deceived in the vertue of them For no dispensation can avail any man which doth not make the thing just and reasonable to be done or not done I shall give but one instance of this error and the Evil of procuring dispensations whereas they should rather be injoyned than sought for out of private ends out of Nicholas de Clemangis But perhaps saith he some will say that it is dispensed Nicholaus de Clemangis de Studio Theolog aped Pacherium To. 7. Sed forte dicent secum c. with them by the Bishop his Superior that he should reside with his Sheep Why didst thou seek for that dispensation will the Judg say Why with importunity didst thou extort that liberty of not doing that which thou knowest thou wert bound to do Wherefore didst thou retain the name of that Office if thou wouldest not officiate To this end wert thou made a Rector that thou mightest govern therefore a Shepheard that thou mightest feed Were your Studies such that my Sheep must perish for which I shed my bloud Why wouldest thou asume the place of a fit Pastor and not discharge the work Another would have fed my flock preserv'd it attended it lead it and been resident with it and have gained to me out of it Doest thou think thou wert made a Shepheard for this that thou mightest neglect my flock and leave it in the wilderness and wander about through Towns Citys and High-wayes with the wanton and idle while the wolves scatter my flock c. This and much more that zealous Person who now would be accounted discontented and envious and troublesome But here I end this only with this reasonable request that men pretending to true Religion and
to do another a mischief must he necessarily speak conformably or do conformably and make good his bad intentions If a man intends to do one a kindness and give him an estate may he not carry himself towards him and all others as if he never intended any such thing But it may be he would restrain this to positive Speeches and Acts which he would have alwayes conformable to inward conceptions And so they are when a man intends to deceive and doth deceive But that the general appearances must conform to the reality of the Intention his own concessions above-noted will not admit It is true therefore only when it is justly required And this suffices to cut the throat of all as they are now called deservedly Jesuitical Aequivocations and Mental Reservations and External dissimulations viz. because none of their real or pretended Superiours can give them any power not to answer according to the serious intention and expectation of legal Enquirers and legal Enquirers they are who have legal Authority in that Nation Again unless their Superiours can give them power of Life and Death as it is an opinion amongst them they may especially the Pope over free Princes and their Subjects they can give them no power to deceive by positive acts or words lawful Powers contrary to the common and received sense and meaning of Enquiries and Answers Thirdly neither of a mans self nor by any Civil Authority how great or good soever nor upon any Case how important soever can a man lawfully use the Name of God in attestation of what is false or confirmation of what his Conscience and Judgment assures him is otherwise than he declares it to be Neither can any man give instance that God ever permitted it or any good or holy man in Scripture presumed to do so And therefore oequivocation in any oaths whether lawfully or unlawfully administred is directly unlawful and to be detested of all men as it is of God The Vertue then which this Commandment requires in opposition to bearing false witness is first a love and veneration of Truth as the sacred daughter of God himself and that in all things and at all times not excepted but more especially Authority and publick Justice requiring it The Inducements hereunto abbreviated Perkins hath collected thus to my hands in the forementioned place 1. Gods command James 3. 14. 2. Lying is a conformity to the Devil 3. We are sanctified by the word of truth John 17. 17. 4. Truth is a Fruit of Gods Spirit Galat. 5. A mark of Gods children Psalm 32. 2. and 15. 2. 5. Destruction is the reward of a Lyar Psal 5. 6. And thus far of the Ninth Commandment The Tenth is Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours house Thou shalt not covet § X. thy neighbours wife nor his servant nor his maid nor his Ox nor his Ass nor any thing that is his Which the modern Roman Church having carefully turned the second out of doors as a quarrelsome and troublesome companion are necessitated to divide into two to make up the compleat number of Ten For which fact they have no ground but St. Austin and them who precisely followed him But none of these or any ancient proceeded on their grounds viz. because the Second Commandment gave offence Now seeing many more in number and antiquity have otherwise than Austin considered this Commandment as one entirely The Reasons why they so judge of it are worth enquiring For some eminently learned among them especially in the Scriptures have declared expresly against it as Oleaster and Mercerus Petrus Galatinus inclining that way as Buxtorf hath observed Buxtorf de Decal num 74. 59. And as a little before he hath noted the Jewish Doctours who are to sway much in this Case unless the Papists please to distinguish the Decalogue as they have audaciously the Canon of the Scriptures of the Old Testament into Jewish and Christian or Ecclesiastical have unanimously conspired to make this but one Commandment Aben Ezra and Abarbenel mentions indeed such an opinion as the Roman Church maintains but rejects the same as a very fond and vain conceit And the like may be said Estius in Sentent l. 3. Dist 40. §. 3. of Estius his answers and evasions of the reasons on our side which are First That the object of the sin here forbidden is not to distinguish the Command so much as the Act Concupiscence of the mind or heart united in one because then we should have more than two One prohibiting lusting after another mans wife another lusting after his Servants another lusting or coveting his cattle and a fourth his possessions and moveables But St. Paul speaking of this Concupiscence maketh it but one where he Rom. 7. saith I had not known lust except the Law had said Thou shalt not covet The other Precepts therefore having provided against the Acts outward of sin This in the Conclusion goeth as it were over all of them again and interdicteth all inward motions towards any of the sins before forbidden To say therefore with Estius St. Paul saith Thou shalt not lust is as much as if a man should say Thou shalt love which doth not make all the Commandments but one is very idle seeing the word Lust is there taken in an evil sense and may reasonably extend to all the Negative precepts at least as Love doth concern them all and is the sum of the Decalogue But we find no such particular Precept as Love indefinitely taken And besides we are not so much to enquire after matter of Right what might be or ought to be but of fact what is And to collect what is done we are not so much to consult the holy Writ of the New Testament which uses no precise or determinate speech in reference to the number or order of these Commandments but the thing it self which ever amongst the Jews was thus distinguished as we do and generally the Greek Church and the Latin likewise until Austin's dayes And it is certain the Holy Spirit here doth not affect Logical Divisions or Rhetorical Partitions or Methods but delivers things grosly to a rude people inculcating the same thing under diverse forms of speech For according to one of the Rules of expounding the Decalogue viz. That where the outward act is forbidden the inward act is also forbidden and where the Effect there the Cause is also forbidden this should rather seem to be none other Precept than what went before in the seventh and eighth Commandments forbidding Adultery and Theft and by Implication the inward acts of Lusting after the Persons or Possessions of others For that is the beginning and cause of those outward Effects and scandalous sins Another Reason for the entireness of that we call the Tenth Commandment is the order observed in Exodus where Lusting after our Neighbours House is set before Lusting after his Wife or other Persons and then again follow his Goods which shows that