bread that he giveth us meat to eat and cloaths to put on and yet which of you all will not use the means to get these things because else you cannot look that God should give you his blessing Do you not know when you are sick of a bodily disease that if you be healed God must heal you God must restore you to your former health and yet which of you all will not seek unto the Physician and use all means that can be gotten Do you not know when you are in danger that God must deliver you and yet would you not laugh at him that in such a case should sit still and say God help me and never stir his finger to help himself Are you thus wise in these outward things and will you not be as wise in things spiritual It is needful you should use the means to obtain God's blessing in things concerning your Body and is it needless in things concerning the good of your Soul It is true indeed that of your selves you are not able to turn from your evil ways unto the Lord your God but you are able I hope to use the means whereby God's Spirit works the conversion of the heart This Sun the Lord makes to shine both upon the evil and the good this Rain he showres down upon the just and unjust What though thou canst not believe of thy self yet thou canst use the means of believing What though thou canst not of thy self will or do the thing which is good yet mayest thou use the means whereby God gives the grace of willing and doing good Wouldest thou then have God to enable thee with the grace and power of his Spirit use the means wherein the Spirit of God is lively and mighty in operation sharper than any two-edged sword and entreth through even to the dividing asunder of Soul and Spirit Meditate continually in the Law of God be diligent to hear the Word both read and preached attend to Exhortation to Instruction and as Ioab said unto his army going against the Aramites Be strong and let us be valiant for our people and for the cities of our God and let the Lord do that which is good in his eyes so say thou unto thine own Soul I will firmly resolve and with all the power I have endeavour to use the means appointed by our God and let the Lord do that which is good in his eyes Nay then fear not thou shalt see the salvation of the Lord he will give thee a new heart and put a new spirit within thee he will take away thy heart of stone and give thee an heart of flesh that thou mayest walk in his statutes and keep his Commandments and thou shalt be one of his people and he will be thy God Observe in the second place That a true and unfeigned Faith in Christ which is the knowing him here mentioned brings forth obedience to his Commandments Christ we must know is not only a Priest to reconcile us but also a King to be obeyed by us These two as they are inseparable in him a Priest but a Kingly Priest a King but a Priestly King so must the acknowledgment of them be in his servants Whosoever therefore receives him as a Priest for atonement of his sin must also submit unto him with loyal obedience as a King We can never truly acknowledge him the one but we must also yield him the other For Christ will not be divided by us we must if we will have him take him whole otherwise we have no share in him at all This is that Faith we say justifies and no other but such a Faith as this which adheres unto Christ Iesus both as a Priest and as our Lord and King And therefore do our Adversaries most unworthily and wrongfully charge us That we condemn Good works or hold a man may be in Christ or in the state of grace though his life be never so wicked because we hold as S. Paul does we are justified by Faith and not by the works of the Law Gal. 2. 16. Observe thirdly That the Act of Faith which justifies is the Receiving or Knowing of Christ not as some erroneously conceive an Assurance or Knowing we know him For Assurance of being justified is no way a Cause or Instrument but a Consequent of Iustification A man must be first justified before he can know or be assured he is justified For this Assurance or Certification you may see in my Text comes in the third place not in the first wherein you may observe these three things to have this order 1. Knowing or owning Christ which is Faith 2. Keeping his Commandments which is the Fruit and evidence of a true Faith then in the third place comes Assurance For by this we are sure we do know him if we keep his Commandments The Object must be before it can be known the Sun must be risen before she can be seen So hath every one his interest in Christ before he can know he hath it Nay he may have it long before before he knows he hath it For it is not only a consequent but a separable consequent neither presently gotten and often interrupted For though it be necessary the Sun should be risen before she can be seen yet she may be long up before we see her and often clouded after she hath shined This I observe for the comfort of those who are troubled in mind and tempted to despair because they see not the light of God's countenance shining in their hearts My fourth Observation and the chief in the Text is this That he that walks in the ways of God and makes conscience to keep his Commandments may hereby inâ—allibly know he knows Christ that his Faith is a true Faith and that he shall be saved everlastingly This is the main and principal Scope of the Text and so plainly therein expressed that it needs no other confirmation But the Reason is plain For Good works are the fruits of Faith and a Godly conversation is the work of God's holy Spirit Whomsoever Christ accepts as a Servant he gives the token of his Spirit the Grace which enlivens and quickens the Heart and Will to his Service in a new and reformed conversation Even as the heat of the Fire warmeth whatsoever comes near unto it so the Spirit of Christ kindles this Grace in every Heart that Faith links unto him the Fruit whereof is that infallible Livery whereby every one that wears it may know himself to be his Servant A Tree is known by its fruit the workman is known by his work whosoever them shews these works and brings forth these fruits hath an infallible argument that the Spirit of God the earnest of his Salvation dwells in his heart that his Faith is a true and saving Faith that his believing is no presumption no false conceit no delusion of the Devil but the true and certain motion of God's own
Bitterness their enormous Affections and the Lusts that war in their members howsoever they may vainly conceit and fansy themselves to be upon easier and cheaper terms Kings and Priests to God fit and worthy to reign with Christ though they never suffer'd with him nor was their old man crucified with him that the body of Sin might be destroyed as the Apostle speaks Rom. 6. And thus we have seen that our Author's Notion of the Millennium was both Pure and Peaceable and consequently right and genuine these being the two first Properties of the Wisdom from above in S. Iames's account As for any other representation of it which is Earthly Sensual Devilish the three Properties of the Wisdom from beneath our Author had nothing to do with it nor with the Patrons thereof his Soul came not into their secret And therefore if any ill-temper'd persons men of wild Principles and Practices should abuse his name to the countenancing of any bad purposes and selfish designs as Antinomians have in like manner abused the names of some ancient Protestant Worthies to the gracing of their unwholsome Opinions if any unlearned and unstable souls wrest S. Iohn's Apocalyps and the Prophetical Scriptures as well as some did in S. Peter's time the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in S. Paul's Epistles and do so still they shall bear their own condemnation they do it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to their own destruction But in the mean while S. Iohn S. Paul the Prophetical Scriptures are holy harmless and without fault nor ought our Author and those Protestant Writers to bear the blame of other mens either misapprehensions or misdoings but let every man bear his own burthen It is no new thing but is and hath been an usual artifice of worthless men to derive some reputation to their Opinions and Practices from the pretended authority of some worthy and excellent Writers and we are the less to wonder at it since they have not spared in the same kind to abuse the divinely-inspired Prophets and Apostles Yet should not this or the like abuse of S. Iohn's Apocalyps and other Prophecies be deem'd a sufficient ground to disswade from the study of the Prophetical Scriptures no more than the abuse of some passages in S. Paul's Epistles to Antinomianism and evacuating of the Law should be of force to take men off from the study of S. Paul's Writings Nay rather should all serious and judicious persons out of an holy indignation against such wrongful perverting of the Holy Oracles of God excite and oblige themselves unto a more studious enquiry and diligent search into the genuine meaning of those Scriptures that thereby they may be the better enabled to detect the falshood of those Glosses which men of corrupt minds have for their own ends put upon them and by discovering the true importance and scope of such Prophecies put to silence those men of Noise and Confidence rather than of Reason and Iudgment And certainly this would be the happy effect of such studious diligences For they should find that S. Paul's Epistles afford no favourable countenance to Antinomian principles nor do in the least disparage the indispensable necessity of internal Righteousness and uniform obedience to the Divine Law It would also appear to them that S. Iohn's Apocalyps contains nothing that may in the least encourage to disobedience and disorder but on the contrary represents Christian Kings and Princes those that are Defenders of the Holy Apostolical Faith under a fair Character as Friends to the Holy and Beloved City the New Ierusalem but Enemies to the Whorish City the mystical Babylon which they shall hate and make desolate They shall do it not the People without their Princes but Kings with the help of their Subjects so hard a work requiring many hands and the concurrence of several aids These Three Considerations and more such might have been added may amount we hope to a full Answer to the second Exception And these severals being laid together may be available through God's blessing to recover some from their inward malady of an Uncharitable Censorious humour and to sweeten others who have some disgust against the Author and particularly upon the score of this Exception Nor was this an unnecessary Digression if any Digression at all it being of so grand importance for the vindicating of the Author in whose Story and Character we are now concerned as also of those Holy and most Ancient Fathers of the Church and withal of their sober and harmless Notion of the Millennium yea and for the vindicating of the Holy Scriptures themselves from all unworthy misconstruction 23. Having thus somewhat largely though not without good cause evinced both the great Exquisiteness and the no less Usefulness of Mr. Mede's Labours in that Master-piece of his his Key and Commentary upon that mysterious Book of the Apocalyps a well-chosen Object for his great Understanding to exercise itself upon we proceed now to observe to the Reader That besides these his Endeavors were happily employ'd in other though neither easie nor ordinary undertakings For his noble Genius leading him on to encounter difficulties he ever seem'd most delighted with those studies wherein he might strain the sinews of his brain And as if he accounted them but Half-scholars that did only ex commentario sapere and knew only so much as taken up from others they held in memory he was not wont to take Expositions of Scripture upon the credit of any Author how great or plausible soever nor to look upon their Resolves as if they were Hercules's Pillars with a Nè plus ultrà upon them And therefore he used as occasion offer'd itself to set upon those difficult places of Scripture which seem'd to be of more use and concernment and much time did he spend that way to give light to those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and dark places in Holy Writ so that scarce could the question be propounded to him about any obscure and knotty passage therein whereabout he had not bestowed many serious thoughts before-hand He was taken notice of by many for his singular faculty in this kind and sent too by several Learned men for his resolution of such Doubts which was usually so clear that there was no person who loved Truth and was not addicted to jangling but would be satisfied with his Answers if not as certain and unquestionable yet as ingenious and very probable insomuch that Strangers of other Universities who had never seen him gave him this high Elogy That for assoiling of Scripture-difficulties he was to be reckoned amongst the best in the world It is agreeable to this which the learned Mr. Alsop spake of him in his Funeral Commemoration before the University That if he had been encouraged to write in difficiliora loca Scripturae and that God in mercy to the world had been pleased to lengthen out his days assuredly he would have out-gone any Author then extant and
Christ were not where the Name of God is call'd upon in publick through the Mediation not of Saint or Angel but of the One Mediator Christ Iesus and where the Word of Christ not unwritten and uncertain Traditions and fabulous Legends is publickly read and preach'd and hath prosper'd through God's blessing to the conversion and salvation of many thousand Souls But our Author being a strong and adult Christian one that could see into the nature and reasons and consequences of things one that had look'd into the perfect Law of liberty and was establish'd with a free spirit well knew the slight insignificancy of what is pretended by some for their uncharitable Separations and that their way was not Perfection but Weakness an argument of a low narrow and Iewish spirit that would engross Messias only to themselves and confine him to their particular modes and no less an argument of a weak servile and really Superstitious spirit to be unreasonably scrupulous about things of an indifferent nature to forbid themselves such things as God hath no-where forbidden and to put a greater stress upon the doing of some things and the not-doing of other things than either the Scripture hath or the nature of the things will bear And therefore the Scripture represents those of this temper as Weak in the faith in opposition to the Strong who as they manifest themselves to be such in a not being over-sollicitous about those little things though in the mean while most mindful and strictly observant of the necessary and substantial things of Religion which are all clearly declar'd in the H. Scripture so likewise in that they can better bear the censurings and sometimes unhandsom dealings of those that are Weak and find it more easie to treat such civilly and to look upon them with a more benign and clear aspect than the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do at least some of them if we may judge of men by their behaviour But of that better temper was our Author a person that did not proudly or passionately despise or behave himself unseemly to those that dissented from him for then of Strong he had become Weak nor would he do any thing that was uncivil or unhumane unto any he could say in a very good sense to borrow that of the Comoedian Homo sum humani à me nihil alienum puto 45. Before we conclude this argument it may be Operae-pretium to superadde one useful Observation and Notion of our Author's not impertinent to the present business There were some in his time who thought themselves excused for non-compliance with the establish'd Liturgy and Orders Ecclesiastick by a vulgar yet false notion of Scandal as if To Scandalize were To displease or aggrieve others or To occasion the dislike or anger of others as of such particularly who had formerly entertain'd a good opinion of them and their Ministery Now as these things came sometimes to be mention'd in discourse he was wont to express his Thoughts concerning the right and genuine notion and importance of that word to this sense That the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being Verbum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and having a Transitive signification as words in the Conjugation Hiphil have in Hebrew and therefore well render'd To make to offend 1 Cor. 8. 13. and so in the Margin Matth. 5. 29. doth according to the Syle of the Scripture generally import thus much By our actions to induce another to sin in imitation of our evil example and so to put a Stumbling-block in the way of piety and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is fitly render'd Stumbling-block in Rev. 2. 14. where Balaam is said to have taught Balak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel c. or when it is joyn'd with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Stumbling-block it is as fitly render'd an occasion of falling Rom. 14. 13 Nor is this sense much distant from the Etymon of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 à claudicando and accordingly To Scandalize is to make or to occasion one to fall or some way or other to hinder one from walking evenly steddily and regularly as he ought And agreeable to this sense is that observable description of Scandal given by Tertullian Scandalum ni fallor non bonae rei sed malae exemplum est aedificans ad delictum This our Author did apprehend to be the proper notion of the word rather than that which the other did pretend viz. To do that which may displease or grieve or vex others For some are angry without a cause and are offended and displeas'd sometimes at that which is not in itself evil yea are grieved and vexed when another is doing his duty and being so affected are therefore far from being induced and emboldened to the practice of that which the other accounts his duty and consequently far from being Scandaliz'd according to the general sense of the word in Scripture only they are displeas'd offended and angry but without any just cause and therefore not to be justified in that humour as neither are the Ministers upon that score to think themselves excus'd from their duty For a man to neglect his Duty and such as the performance whereof is accompanied with the advantage of being instrumental to the best good of others is plainly to displease and offend God who is never displeas'd but justly But to offend man is not always to sin against our Brother and to do that which may displease or dislike others and how is it possible in such a contradiction of humours and vast contrariety of fancies not to be displeasing unto some is not necessarily to Scandalize in the Scripture-idiom Besides what the great Apostle saith would be seriously consider'd Do I seek to please men For if I yet pleas'd men I should not be the Servant of Christ To this purpose has our Author been known to express himself in familiar discourse with some Friends And much-what like the Notion did the Learned Dr. Hammond happily light upon as appears by his elaborate Tract of Scandal 46. HITHERTO we have endeavour'd though in a rude and imperfect draught to represent the rich Endowments of his Mind together with those Vertues and Graces that adorn'd and beautified his Inward man and made his Soul a meet Habitation for the Divine Shechinah which loves to rest in such Souls as are Holy Humble and Meek full of Charity and Good will towards men It remains now before we conclude this Narrative that we add something concerning the Frame and Temper of that Body wherein this excellent Soul dwelt that Earthen Vessel wherein these Heavenly Treasures were deposited and which only of him was capable of Mortality and thence pass to the last Scene and Epilogue of his Life His Body was of a comely proportion rather of a tall than low stature In his younger years as he would say he was but slender and
obnoxious to the rage of troublesome times being looked upon aâ— a booty by such as are able and find advantage to seise upon them Only the Mean estate is most free from such perillous Extremities being as below Envy so above Contempt If then our good and gracious God hath given us a convenient measure of means to maintain our condition let us think our line hath fallen unto us in a pleasant place as the Psalmist speaks Psal. 16. 6. and that we have a goodly heritage He that hath once a Competency let him be assured he hath all the Contentment which is to be found in these temporary things and Experience will tell him Though Riches may encrease yet after a Sufficiency once attained Contentment will encrease no more though Riches encrease never so much THUS much of that which Agur requested Now follows The Reason of his Request Lest I be full and deny thee and say Who is the Lord c. Out of which before we come to handle them particularly let us make this General Observation That the Rule of our desires and endeavours in the getting and enjoying of these outward things ought to be our Spiritual welfare and the bettering of us to God-ward This was Agur's Rule He desires such a measure of outward means as might neither through fulness make him forget God nor through want tempt him to sin both against him and his neighbour This is the Compass we ought to sail by if we would avoid shipwrack This is the Pole-star and Heavenly mark whereon our eyes in all our thriving courses should be fixed and by it our desires and aims measured That proportion of outward things and provisions for this life which may the besâ— stand with our improvement to God-ward which may the most further and enable us and the least endanger and hinder us in our religious devotions to God and charitable duties to our neighbours this should be the stint of all our worldly desires and endeavours under the Sun More than may stand with this is so far from being wished or sought for that we ought with Agur to pray against it and say Lord lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil But alas we set the Cart before the Horse we make not the Worship of God and our Spiritual advantage the Rule of our aims in getting and enjoying of these Temporal things But on the contrary we use to serve God and keep his Commandments so far as may stand with our profit with our covâ—tous and ambitious desires and no farther And this was Ieroboam's sin who forsooth would serve the God of his Fathers so as he thought might stand with the safety of his kingdom but no farther But alas what would it profit a man to win the whole world and lose his own soul But Ieroboam lost his kingdom too which else God had promised to entail unto his posterity But let us be wiser and as S. Paul bids us whether we eat or drink or whatsoever we do else let us do all to the glory of God Let this be the End of all our actions and then we shall be sure to thrive here and be blessed for ever in the world to come So much for the General Observation Now to the particular handling of the words Lest I be full and deny thee and say Who is the Lord The words are plain and their meaning of Impiety and Irreligion Give me not Riches lest I become ungodly and irreligious For as to know God in Scripture is to worship and serve him with fear and reverence so to deny him is to be devoid of Religion toward him to live as if there were no God So it is said of the sons of Eli that they were sons of Belial they knew not the Lord that is they acknowledged him not by love fear and obedience but lived as if they had said Who is the Lord Now that men who abound in Wealth and Superfluity are much subject to this malady is so manifest by other places of Scripture that Agur's fear was not without a cause Deut. 6. 12. is a Caution given to Israel when God should bless them with Prosperity When thou shalt have eaten and be full them beware lest thou forget the Lord which brought thee out of the Land of Egypt Again Deut. 8. 10 c. When thou shalt have eaten and be fullâ— Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God in not keeping his Commandments and Iudgments and his Statutes Lest when thou hast eaten and art full and hast built goodly houses and dwelt therein And thy herds and thy flocks multiply and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied and all that thou hast is multiplied Then thine heart be lifted up and thou forget the Lord thy God which brought c. Vers. 17. And thou say in thine heart My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth Whence it appears not only how dangerous Prosperity is to Piety but what it is to forget God which is in my Text to deny him and to ask Who he is namely to break his Commandments Statutes and Iudgments to be unthankful for his Blessings and to attribute all to our own power and wisdom Again in Deut. 32. 15. Moses prophetically sings of Israel Iesurun waxed fat and kicked Thou art saith he waxed fat thou art grown thick thou art covered with fatness Then he forsook God which made him and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation Vers. 16. They provoked him to jealousie with strange gods with abominations they provoked him to anger And Hosea 13. 6. the Lord complains of the event of this prediction According to their pasture saith he so were they filled and their hearts were lifted up therefore they have forgotten me Rarae fumant felicibus arae I think it is sufficiently proved and Experience doth every where make it good 1. The cause hereof is the weakness of our Nature through sin not able to wield the Blessings of God if they abound Even as the Physitians say that a Plethora or full state of body is dangerous in respect of health even though it be without impurity of bloud because Nature if weaker then it cannot wield it or if a while she be of equal strength yet is soon and sometimes suddenly overturned Even such is the case here with our life and health spiritual 2. Religious Devotion springs from Humility and Lowliness of mind but Abundance usually pusseth up with pride as the Lord even now complained in Hosea that the heart of his people was exalted and therefore they forgot him So in the quotation Deut. 8. 10 c. Lastly A full belly is unfittest for Devotion and Prayer and therefore in our devoutest Supplications we use Fasting Even as it is in plenteous feeding so is it in the very outward injoyment of plenty whence ye heard even now the Spirit of God to express this Abundance of outward things by Feeding
kingdoms of the countries Vulg. Vt sciant distantiam servitutis meae servitutis regni Terrarum That they may know the difference between my service and the service of the kingdoms of the lands And certainly if we look into the condition of the Church since Christ's time we shall find the way of God's dealing in this case to have been the same The Saracens who spoiled and subdued so great a part of Christ's Church were never heard of till six hundred years after Christ even at the time when Christians began generally to fall to Idolatry and to worship Images Saints and Angels Then God first gave us over to serve other Nations when we began to serve other Gods besides the Lord our God The Turkish fury could never be stayed from casting more and more this yoke of bondage upon our necks until Iudah I mean the now Reformed Churches began to put away her Idols some one hundred years since From that time unto this that God which would have spared Sodom for ten righteous sakes hath spared the remnant of Christendom for their sakes who have turned again to the Lord their God to serve him as he would be worshipped But to go on Solomon when he divided that worship which was due unto the Lord alone between him and the Idols of Zidon Moab and Ammon the Lord to give him the same measure divided his kingdom and that allegeance which was only due to him and his posterity between himself and his servant Ieroboam Because he served God with an imperfect heart God left him an imperfect kingdom Because he bestowed divine honour upon the vassals of the Lord of heaven the Lord also bestowed his honour upon his vassal Ieroboam Nebuchadnezzar who had lived like a Beast in his Palace God made him to eat grass like an Oxe in the field till he knew the most High ruled in the kingdoms of men Dan. 4. 25 32 34. Otho Bishop of Mentz in a time of famine shut up a great number of poor people in a Barn promising to give them some relief But when he had them fast he set the Barn on fire and hearing then the most lamentable and piteous cries and shreekings of the poor in the midst of the flames he scoffingly said Hear ye how the mice cry in the Barn But the Lord the just revenger of cruelty sent a whole Army of Mice upon him which haunted him a great deal worse than the Frogs did King Pharaoh not only coming into his bed-chamber and upon his bed but following him into a Tower which he had built for his last refuge in the midst of the River Rhene never leaving him till they had quite devoured him Soâ—rates hath a memorable story of one Cyricius Bishop of Chalcedon who in a meeting of many Bishops inveighed very bitterly against good S. Chrysostom and amongst other spiteful language called him often 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a kneeless fellow because in a good cause he would never be gotten to bow and crouch to obtain the favour of men which Cyricius accounted a stubborn and obstinate disposition But when he had thus uttered his malice Marathas another Bishop by chance trod upon his toe which being at the first esteemed as it was indeed a very small hurt yet afterwards so ranckled that for the safety of the rest of the body his leg was fain to be cut off which done the other leg also was in like manner affected and that so that being otherwise incurable it was fain to feel the same remedy the other had done Thus he who called the holy man a kneeless fellow in one sense God made him a kneeless Bishop in another By which and the former Examples we see how God in punishing requites men with that which hath some resemblance with their Sin And so much for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I come now to the third kind which is Conformitas subjecti The Conformity of subject When though we suffer not the same nor perhaps like unto that we have done unto others yet are we punished in that subject wherein and whereabout we have sinned Thus Adam our first Parent sinned in eating the fruits of the earth and he and all his posterity are punished in the curse of the same in that now in sorrow we eat of them all the days of our life Touching God's dealing with Israel in this kind see Wisdom chap. 11. verse 7 13. Korah and his company sinned in offering strange fire unto the Lord and were punished by a strange destruction The earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up quick and there came out a fire from the Lord and consumed the men that offered incense Numb 16. verse 32 and verse 35. The Levites wise in Iudges sinned in the Commission of Fornication and therefore died by the same being forced to death by the men of Gibeah Eli by too much indulgence towards his sons sinned against God and was punished in them being slain by the Philistines and the Ark of God taken which they had carried with them David gloried in the number of his people and was punished in the Consumption of seventy thousand of them by the pestilence 2 Sam. 24. 1 15. Hezekiah who sinned in shewing by way of ostentation his treasures and riches unto the Ambassadors of the King of Babylon had his punishment threatned by the same things that all he had thus gloriously shown should one day be carried unto Babylon 2 Kings 20. 13 17. Lastly The Iews who crucified our Saviour by the hands of the Romans had their City and Temple rased by the same hands Now I come unto the last kind of Conformity which I call Conformity of circumstance When the Time and Place of Punishment agrees with the Time and Place of the Sin Of the agreement of Place I find these Examples The first of Ahab and Iezebel in the place where the dogs licked the bloud of Naboth they licked the bloud of Ahab and Iezebel 1 Kings 21. 19. and 2 Kings 9. 36. In the place where Baal's Priests had committed Idolatry were their bones being dead and the bodies of those who were alive flain and burnt by Iosiah upon the Altar of Bethel 2 Kings 23. 16. Examples of concurrence of Time I find these At the same time of the year wherein the Iews crucified Christ hapned that fatal and final siege by the Romans when that heavy curse fell upon them His bloud be upon us and our children The Spies which brought an evil report upon the land had spent forty days in searching it and therefore God for this sin that Time might agree with Time made them wander up and down forty years in the wilderness They are the words of God himself According unto the number of days saith he in which ye searched the land even forty days each day for a year shall ye bear your iniquities Last of all because I will not be tedious
purpose are your sacrifices and burnt-offerings saith the Lord your oblations and incense are abomination Your New Moons Sabbaths calling of Assemblies even the solemn meeting I cannot away with it is iniquity Would you know what was the matter see the words following Learn to do well seek judgment relieve the oppressed judge the fatherless plead for the widow Lo here a want of the duties of the second Table Such is that also of Hosea 6. 6. I desired mercy and not sacrifice which is twice alledged by our Saviour in the Gospel against the Pharisee's hypocritical scrupulosity in the same duties of the first Table with a neglect of the second But here perhaps some may find a scruple because that if Sacrifice in this or the like places be opposed to the duties of obedience required in the second Table it should hereby seem that the duties of the second Table which concern our neighbour should be preferred before the duties of the first which concern the Lord himself forasmuch as it is said I desired mercy and not sacrifice that is rather Mercy which is a duty of the second Table than Sacrifice which is of the first I answer The holy Ghost's meaning is not to prefer the second Table before the first taking them singly but to prefer the duties of both together before the service of the first alone Be more ready to joyn mercy or works of mercy with your sacrificing than to offer sacrifice alone To go on The duties of the first Table are by a special name called duties of Religion those of the second Table come under the name of Honesty and Probity Now as a man can never be truly Honest unless he be Religious So cannot that man what shew soever he makes be truly religious in God's esteem who is not honest in his conversation towards his neighbour Religion and Honesty must be married together or else neither of them will be in truth what it seems to be We know that all our duty both to God and our neighbour is comprehended under the name of Love as in that Summe of the Law Love God above all things and thy neighbour as thy self This is the Summe of the whole Law contained in both Tables But S. Iohn tells us 1 Ep. 4. 20. If a man say I love God and hateth his brother he is a liar which is as much as if he should say He that seems religious towards God and is without honesty towards his neighbour he is a liar there is no true religion in him If you would then know whether a man professing Religion by diligent frequenting Gods service and exercises of devotion keeping sacred times and hearing Sermons be a sound Christian or not or a seeming one only this is a sure and infallible note to discover him and for him to discover himself by For if notwithstanding his care of the duties of the first Table he makes no conscience to walk honestly towards his neighbour if he be disobedient to Parents and lawful Authority if he be cruel and uncharitable if he be unjust in his dealings fraudulent an oppressor a falsifier of Covenants and Promises a backâ—â—ster a slanderer or the like his Religion is no better than an Hypocrite's For such was the Religion of many of the Pharisees whom therefore our Saviour termeth Hypocrites Wo unto you Scribes and Pharisees hypocrites They were scrupulous in the duties of the first Table they paid tithe even of mint and anise they fasted twice a-week they were exact observers of the Sabbath and other ceremonies of Religion but judgment mercy and saith in their conversation towards men our Saviour tells them they regarded not Besides our Saviour's woe denounced against such there are Two dangerous Effects which accompany this evil disease which should make us beware thereof 1. Those who are addicted to Religion without any conscience of Honesty are easily drawn by the Devil to many intolerable acts under colour and in behalf thereof as they imagine We see it in the Papists and Iesuits whose preposterous zeal to their Religion makes them think Treasons Murthers Rebellions or any other such wicked acts are lawful and excusable so they be done for the good of the Catholick cause as they call it And if we search narrowly amongst our selves we shall light upon some examples of indirect and unlawful courses undertaken otherwhile on the behalf of Religion and all through want of this conscionable care of maintaining Honesty towards our neighbour together with our zeal for Religion towards God Even as we see an Horse in some narrow and dangerous passage whilest he is wholly taken up with some bugbear on the one side of the way which he would eschew and in the mean time mindeth not the other side where there is the like danger he suddenly slips into a pit or ditch with no small danger to himself and rider So is it here with such as look only to the first Table and mind not the second whilest they go about as they think to advance the duties of the one they fall most foully in the other 2. The second evil is a most dangerous Scandal which follows profession of Religion without honest conversation towards men It is a grievous stumbling-block and stone of offence making men out of love with Religion when they see such evil Effects from it and those who seem to profess it Those who are not yet come on are scared from coming resolving they will never be of their Religion which they see no better fruits of Those who are entred are ashamed and discouraged forsaking the duties of Religion that they might shun the suspicion of hypocrisie and dishonesty But woe be unto them by whom scandal cometh Let us all therefore take heed to adorn and approve our profession by bringing forth fruits not only of Piety and Devotion towards God but of works of Righteousness and Charity to our neighbour DISCOURSE XL. GENESIS 3. 13. And the Lord God said unto the woman What is this that thou hast done And the woman said The Serpent beguiled me and I did eat THE Story whereof the words I have read are part is so well known to all that it would be needless to spend time in any long Preface thereof Who knows not the Story of Adam's Fall who hath not heard of the Sin of Eve our Mother If there were no Scripture yet the unsampled irregularity of our whole nature which all the time of our life runs counter to all order and right reason the woâ—ul misery of our condition being a Scene of sorrow without any rest or contentment this might breed some general suspicion that ab initio non suit ita from the beginning it was not so but that he who made us Lords of his creatures made us not so worthless and vile as now we are but that some common Father to us all had drunken some strange and devilish poison wherewith the whole race
I approve your Reasons for not proceeding to publish any more at this present but as Mariners provide against a storm so may we for a calm I have heretofore observed how after Civil Wars in Christendom many excellent things came forth which were studied in the time of Trouble Did not Cicero the like in times of like condition I am glad your thoughts reflect and I hope ever and anon on the same subjects that your friends in private may enjoy the benefit of your labours and talents In the matter of Gog and Magog you have acquainted me with new Mysteries that I never thought of Yet to one who first embraceth your way so I call it because God hath made you his Minister to bring it to light but I account it the way of Truth and so carried by you that in no particular I find just cause of exception concerning Regnum Sanctorum such light you bring to justifie your Conjecture that he will be driven to confess that you deliver nothing without fair ground fair probability and that in such a degree that any other way seems to me for the present nothing capable of the like Your grounds are very fair and clear to every one but never I think taken into consideration by any before your self to that end and purpose whereunto you direct them You cannot easily conceive what content you give me herein and what refreshing it is to my spirit First I perceive that Expedition of Gog against the Land of Israel is reckoned by you after their calling unto Christ and thereupon possessing themselves of the Holy Land the Prophecies of the Old Testament leading thereunto though Iews in former ages have joyned themselves with the Christian Churches of the same Countrey amongst whom they conversed Secondly Also that now you are resolved concerning the place of New Ierusalem namely the land of Iury. Thirdly I guess also you conceive the destruction of Gog and of Antichrist shall be at once by the coming of Christ. Fourthly And that the restoring of the Temple in the latter end of Ezechiel following upon the destruction of Gog is a Type of New Ierusalem Fifthly And that Gog is the Turk For which light that you have given me in all these particulars I most heartily thank you NOW I beseech you let me know what your opinion is of our English Plantations in the New world Heretofore I have wondered in my thoughts at the Providence of God concerning that world not discovered till this old world of ours is almost at an end and then no footsteps found of the knowledge of the true God much less of Christ. And then considering our English Plantations of late and the opinion of many grave Divines concerning the Gospel's â—leeting Westward sometimes I have had such thoughts Why may not that be the place of New Ierusalem But you have handsomely and fully clear'd me from such odd conceits But what I pray shall our English there degenerate and joyn themselves with Gog and Magog We have heard lately divers ways that our people there have no hope of the Conversion of the Natives And the very week after I received your last Letter I saw a Letter written from New England discoursing of an impossibility of subsisting there and seems to prefer the confession of God's Truth in any condition here in Old England rather than run over to enjoy their liberty there yea and that the Gospel is like to be more dear in New England than in Old and lastly unless they be exceeding careful and God wonderfully merciful they are like to lose that life and zeal for God and his Truth in New England which they enjoyed in Old as whereof they have already woful experience and many there feel it to their smart I am ashamed to urge you unto that which I do extremely desire that you would afford me your interpretation of the last verses of Dan. 11. concerning the Fourth Kingdom For I am confident by that you make of the first of them you have in like manner considered it throughout and your fetching the matter off from Epiphanes and the Greeks to the Fourth Kingdom gives great light to the whole Thus over shoes over boots I am run so far in your debt and withall I am so much in love with it that I care not how deep I plunge my self thereinto I commend me heartily unto your love which I prize more than I can express I shall rest Newbury March 2. 1634. Yours ever to love and honour you W. Twisse Post-script I had almost forgotten a special Argument against Regnum Sanctorum whereof I should crave the solution which is this All the Saints departed this life are with the Lord Christ 2. Cor. 5. 8. If all at his coming be not brought with him they shall be divided from Christ and consequently in worse condition than they were before Though he bring all with him yet in that Kingdom there may be place for different degrees of glory and that 1 Cor. 15. Every one in his own order is applied there only to Christ and them that are Christ's EPISTLE XLIII Mr. Mede's Answer to Dr. Twisse his Fourth Letter touching the First Gentile Inhabitants and the late Christian Plantations in America as also touching our Saviour's proof of the Resurrection from Exod. 3. 6. with an Answer to the Objection in the Post-script of the foregoing Letter SIR COncerning our Plantation in the American world I wish them as well as any body though I differ from them far both in other things and in the grounds they go upon And though there be but little hope of the general Conversion of those Natives in any considerable part of that Continent yet I suppose it may be a work pleasing to Almighty God and our Blessed Saviour to affront the Devil with the sound of the Gospel and Cross of Christ in those places where he had thought to have reigned securely and out of the dinne thereof and though we make no Christians there yet to bring some thither to disturb and vex him where he reigned without check For that I may reveal my conceit further though perhaps I cannot prove it yet I think thus That those Countries were first inhabited since our Saviour and his Apostles times and not before yea perhaps some ages after there being no sings or footsteps found amongst them or any Mounments of older habitation as there is with us That the Devil being impatient of the sound of the Gospel and Cross of Christ in every part of this old world so that he could in no place be quiet for it and foresecing that he was like at length to lose all here bethought himself to provide him of a seed over which he might reign securely and in a place ubi nec Pelopidarum factaneque nomen audiret That accordingly he drew a Colony out of some of those barbarous Nations dwelling upon the Northern Ocean whither the sound of Christ had not yet
put in mind thereof by those monuments set before him wherein we testified our own mindfulness thereof to his sacred Majesty that so he would for his sake according to the Tenour of the New Covenant in his Bloud be favourable and propitious to us miserable sinners In which words upon better and more serious consideration I observe you acknowledge 1. A Commemorative Sacrifice of Christians continually performed in ancient times 2. This hath been miserably corrupted by the Papists and transformed by the Papists into that Service which is called their Mass in distinction from their Mattins 3. That Protestants have justly abolished this prodigious and blasphemous Sacrifice of theirs 4. But they have not done well in that they have not reduced that ancient Commemorative Sacrifice of Christians save implicitly and obscurely Now in two things I am to seek for the understanding of your meaning 1. How we have reduced it in that implicite and obscure manner you speak of 2. How you would have it reduced in conformity to the Ancients and wherein this Conformity doth consist I remember what you alledged out of Clemens of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which were to be performed in times prescribed by Analogie to the courses of Devotion commanded in the Old Testament Now this I guess you deliver not so much in respect unto the Sabbath-Service as unto the daily Sacrifice of a Lamb every morning I imagine you would have the celebration of that Service which we call the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper to be daily but I presume not in a private manner but in the way of a Communion but unless it be twice a-day it is not congruous to the daily Sacrifice which was of a Lamb every evening as of a Lamb every morning And then again I find amongst the Ancients no small difference For a time it was celebrated in the evening only at least in some places and that with some difference for some celebrated it after they had eaten some fasted all the day before that they might come jâ—juni thereunto Now I would hear your judgement both of the practice of the Ancients in this particular wherewith I am not so well acquainted Our Saviour saith Do this in remembrance of me this prescribes nothing concerning the frequency of it S. Paul adds This do as oft as ye drink it in remembrance of me Where also we find no certain time prescribed Act. 2. 42. We read that they continued in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and breaking of bread and prayers here likewise is no signification that this breaking of bread which I understand of the celebration of that Sacrament was performed daily And whereas vers 46. it is said that they continued daily with one accord in the Temple and breaking bread at home did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart I have conceived it to be spoken of refreshing natural not Sacramental and Spiritual And Act. 20. 7. their meetings for breaking of bread seem to have been restrained to the First day of the week that being the day of their assembling themselves as it seems by 1 Cor. 16. 2. And Iustin Martyr makes relation of their Christian meetings when the Sunday comes 2. I would gladly know how far you think fit that custom of the Ancients you speak of whatsoever it be should be reduced and that clearly not implicitly and obscurely For I assure you I am much to seek in the meaning of this yet I have read in some sort Mornay upon the Mass and Bishop Morton too and somewhat in Baronius concerning this And I am in doubt whether the Papists themselves were it not for their Doctrine of Transubstantiation would not be as much to seek herein as we are That which you touch concerning the German War and the Causes of it and the Sin-mark I willingly profess doth make me melancholick for I cannot but sympathize with them Yet although as I understood when I was in the Palatinate none was more free from such Sacrilegious courses than the Palatine not only Bishopricks but even Monasteries continuing there of his Ancestors foundation yet have they suffered as much as any both first and last if not much more In the close of that large Letter of yours you signifie that you reserve one thing lest it might undergoe censure which otherwise you would communicate Good Sir you have no cause to distrust my censure I hear by Mr. B. it is concerning Cornelius whom you take to have been no Proselyte in any degree the contrary whereunto supposed in our Divinity-Schools was one of the first things I was acquainted with upon my coming to Oxford and since I find confessed by Schindler on the root 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the interpretation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yet I pray let me see your Discourse thereon and let me know how you salve it for I am confident you are no Arminian The Text acknowledgeth him to be not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and one of good report amongst all the Iews and Act. 11. they that opposed Peter's going to him and his are said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I heartily desire to know the most and worst that can be said against any Tenet of mine I shall be no loser by Truth Veritas magna est praevalebit against all opposition For that is from God Error and Falshood is from the Creature You may see by this I make you a great if not the greatest part of my study especially considering my infirmity at this time which requires I should rather be lying upon my Bed than either going or sitting up Your Answer to these particulars Zachary in two places the Prophecy of the fourth Chapter and that other of the 9 10 11. The sight of Cornelius and your explicating the Practice of the ancient Churches in their continual celebrating of that Commemorative Sacrifice in distinction from that which we do implicitly and obscurely will be a great refreshing to my spirit and consequently may prove some ease to my bodily infirmity also And I hope I shall trouble you no more unless it be to excite you to go on upon the Revelation The Lord give a blessing to all your studies and in good time perfect them to the consolation of his Church in these sorrowful days of Christendom Newbury 3. Aug. 1635. Your loving friend in the surest bond W. Twisse Post-script It is time to return that of yours ad Ludov. de Dieu which herewith I do Mr. B. knows him well and he desires to be heartily remembred unto you with many thanks for your kind and free entertainment of him EPISTLE LXI Mr. Mede's Answer about the seven Lamps in the Temple signifying the seven Archangels as also about the Pluscula in Zach. 9. 10 11. with an intimation of his purpose to perfect his Discourse on Dan. 12. 11 12. THE seven-lamped Candlestick in the Temple before the Veil signified the
determination Besides that which was spoken was done as it were obiter and in few words without insisting thereupon and that too with premised caution and nothing so much by a great deal nor so punctual as I had discoursed in the same place Sixteen years ago in a Concio ad Clerum for my Degree upon another Text. The Text now was that of Solomon Eccles. 5. Look to thy feet when thou comest to the House of God and be more ready to obey for so I rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than to offer the Sacrifice of Fools c. The Parts 1. A Precept of reverent and awful demeanour and accommodation when we come to God's House in the first words 2. A Caution not to prefer the secondary Service of God before the first and principal in the latter words Be more ready to obey c. I discoursed of the Condition of Places dedicated to Divine worship or God's House 2. What the Ratio was or wherein consisted the specification of the Divine Presence when he is said to be in one place more than another The Precept Look to thy feet I understood and interpreted as an Allusion to that Rite of Discalceation used by the Iews and other Nations of the Orient when they came into Sacred Places and still to this day continued amongst them Concerning which I produced divers Testimonies the ancientest that of God to Moses in the bush and to Ioshua together with that Symbole of Pythagoras 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Discalceato pede sacrificato adoratóque c. Hence I made the sense of these words of Solomon to be as if we inflecting them to our manners should say Look unto or Be observant of thy Head when thou comest into the House of God meaning that he should put off his Hat and use any other Reverence wont to accompany it as a leading Gesture For so was this Rite of Discalceation among the Iews a leading Ceremony to other Reverential guises then used as the putting off of the Hat in civil use is wont to be with us Hence I inferred It was not only lawful but fit and a Duty commended to us in Scripture to use some kind of Reverence yea some Reverential guise and gesture when we come into God's House Where after a very few words of the thing in general in the close I had these words For should we come into God's House as we do into a Barn or Stable It was not good manners once so to come into a man's house Therefore our Blessed Saviour when he sent forth his Disciples to preach the Gospel Matth. 10. would not have them to enter into a man's house without salutation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When ye enter into a house salute it Why should we not think it to be a part of Religious manners to do as much when we come into the house of God But if any shall ask me here what other Gesture besides the Uncovering of the Head I would require in this case because I intimated that even now to be a leading Gesture I answer This belongs to the discretion of our Superiors and the authority of the Church to appoint not to me to determine For here as in all other Ceremonies the Church is not tied but hath liberty to ordain that which she shall think most suitable and agreeable to the time place and manners of the people where she lives Yet if I may without offence or presumption utter what I think then I say That Adoration or the Bowing of the Body together with some short Ejaculation which the Church of Israel used in her Temple together with Discalceation and which the Christians of the Orient at this day use in their Churches and time out of mind have done so is of all others the most seemly ready and fitting to our manners were it once by uniform order and practice established namely according to that of Psal. 132. 7. Introibimus in Tabernacula ejus incurvabimus nos Scabello pedum ejus or to that of Psal. 5. 7. I will enter into thine House in the multitude of thy mercies in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy Temple Which is the Form the Iews use at this day at their ingress into their Synagogues and so for ought I know might we too This was the whole passage verbatim as I spake it Whence I passed immediately to the Second part of my Text Be more ready to obey c. where my chief Observation wherewith I concluded was The Condition of all External Service of God in general in the eyes of God which was such as he accepted no otherwise than secundariò namely as issuing from a Heart respectively affected with that Devotion it importeth That as the Body without the Soul is but a Carcass so is all Bodily worship wherein the pulse of the Heart's devotion beats not Now Mr. Doctor what was there in all this that an honest discreet and moderate man being so perswaded as I am might not speak But you will say What need had I to say any thing at all I 'le tell you My opinion in these things was well known to many in the University Our Pulpit had a long time been inflamed with such Discourses My obstinate silence having had more than once opportunity to declare my self and being studied in these matters was imputed to me by some to proceed either ex malitioso affectu toward such as furthered these things or out of too much addition and tenderness to the Puritan faction which is a crime here if it be once fastened upon a man nullo Oceano eluendum I thought good therefore to declare my self which yet I did with that caution and tenderness which might not give any just cause of offence to those who were contrary-minded who yet now I perceive deserved it not by their over-lavish report of what was spoken Besides I observed both out of Books daily printed and out of such Discourses as I had heard upon what dangerous Grounds some defended these things namely such as would in time infer the lawfulness of Image-worship I thought good therefore in more private Discourses to set them upon safer Principles and such as might if it were possible prevent such an Evil. And in all this why may I not say What have I done was there not a cause Yea but I am a great Practiser and Prosecuter of such ways Yet for all this I bowed not to the Altar when I came out of S. Marie's Pulpit as others commonly use to do I have urged no man at any time to use any of these Ceremonies nor conformed my self to any of them till I saw them prevail so generally as I should have been accounted singular Our own Chappel is very regular yet was not any thing introduced by me but others I confess I had no scruple to follow them besides I took occasion by my Chappel-exercises to inform them of
But enough of this You long you say to hear my Answer to the particulars of your Letter Which do you mean I suppose chiefly that of Fundamental Articles But if such great Prelates and learned Doctors as you mention detrect the defining of the Ratio of a Fundamental Article or designing the Number of them as a matter not only difficult but inconvenient and dangerous Quid ego miser homuncio facerem I confess I am in part guilty of advising Mr. Dury to urge men to think of such a Definition as a ground to examine the points of difference by of what nature they are But I intimated withal how likely they would be to detrect it and wherefore namely lest by that means they might either declare some darling Opinion of their own not to be Fundamental and thereby prejudice their own cause or else exclude out of that number some Articles formerly determined by the Church and so incur a suspicion or be liable to be upbraided with favouring some condemned Heresie But what if to avoid the aforesaid Inconveniences we should go this way to work Make two sorts of Fundamental Articles Fundamentals of Salvation and Fundamentals of Ecclesiastical Communion one of such as are necessarii cognitu creditu ad Salutem simply and absolutely and therefore no Christian soul that shall be saved uncapable to understand them another of such as are necessarii creditu ad Communionem Ecclesiasticam in regard of the predecision of the Church The first not to be of such Truths as are merely Speculative and contained only in the Understanding but of such only as have a necessary influence upon Practice and not all those neither but such as have necessary influence upon the Act and Function of Christian life or whereon the Acts without which a Christian lives not necessarily depend Such namely as without the knowledge and belief whereof we can neither invocate the Father aright nor have that Faith and reliance upon him and his Son our Mediator Iesus Christ which is requisite to Remission of sins and the hope of the Life to come How far this Ratio of a Fundamental Article will stretch I know not but believe it will fetch in most of the Articles of the Apostles Creed And by it also those two main Errors of the Socinians the one denying the Divine Nature the other the Satisfaction of Christ may be discerned to be Fundamental For without the belief of the first the Divine Majesty cannot be rightly that is incommunicably worshipped so as to have no other Gods besides him For he that believes not Christ to be Consubstantial with the Father and yet honours him with the same worship worships not the Father incommunicably which is the Formalis ratio of the worship of the true God from whom we look for eternal Life And without the belief of the Second the Satisfaction of Christ there can be I suppose no saving Faith or reliance upon Christ for Forgiveness of sin After this manner may other Articles be examined Thus much of the first sort of Fundamental Truths measured by the necessitude they have with those Acts which are required to Salvation Concerning the second sort of Fundamentals viz. necessary ad Communionem Ecclesiasticam It is not fit that the Church should admit any to her Communion which shall professedly deny or refuse their assent to such Catholick Truths as she hath anciently declared by universal Authority for the Symbol and Badge of such as should have Communion with her And this sort of Articles without doubt fetches a greater compass and comprehends more than the other as being ordinate and measured by another End to wit of Discipline and so contains not only such Truths the knowledge whereof and assent whereto is necessary unto the being of Christian life but also to the well-being thereof and therefore not needful to be understood of every one distinctly and explicitely as the former but implicitely only and as far as they shall be capable or have means to come to the knowledge thereof This is the Sum of my thoughts concerning Fundamentals If I have not expressed my self so dilucidly as I should I pray help it with some intention of your conceit in the reading For the Book you speak of I like it not I knew by hear-say much of the Author and his condition some years before the High-Commissiâ—n took notice of him and wondred he escaped so long For in every company he came he took an intolerable liberty of Invectives and Contumelies against the Ecclesiastical State when no occasion was offered him Such Books as these never did good in our Church and have been as disadvantageous to their Party who vent them as they have been prejudicial to the common Cause I durst almost affirm that the alienation which appears in our Church of late from the rest of the Reformed hath grown for a great part from such intemperancy and indiscretion as this is and will be still increased more and more if those who seem to be the chief favourers of them go on in this manner He hath too ready a Faculty in expressing himself with his pen unless he would employ it better For who can excuse him from a malignant disposition towards his own Mother thus to publish her faults in Latin of purpose to discover her shame to strangers and to call her Sisters to see it as Cham did his Brothers Think what kind of crime it is for a man that is Civis and a Member to traduce the Rulers of his people among foreiners and what little good affection they are like to expect from ours who are made partisans in such a kind Thus with my best affection I rest and am Your assured Friend Ioseph Mede Christ's Coll. Febr. 6. EPISTLE LXXXIV Mr. Mede's Letter to Mr. Hartlib expressing his Opinion touching Mr. Streso's Book and his distinguishing of Three sorts of Fundamentals Mr. Hartlib I Read over your Streso with some attention and find many learned and considerable passages and discourses therein But for my Animadversions which you look for it were against my Genius for I am one that had rather give my opinion by much though the world hath taught me even there to be somewhat nice than censure another man's But in general I conceive his way to be somewhat ambiguous and intricate more than needs He distinguisheth Three sorts of Fundamentals One he calls Fundamentum ipsum The other two he measures by their relation to it either à parte antè and such he terms Sub-fundamentales or à parte Pòst which may be called Super-fundamentales The one of such Truths quae substernuntur Fundamento the other such as follow by immediate consequence from the same This I take to be the Sum of his opinion Now for that which is his Fundamentum ipsum or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I make no doubt but the acknowledgment of the truth thereof is Fundamental ad Salutem So I believe also are his