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
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
Justice But to arrive in this doubtful and perplexed way to the right end of this Dispute it will be necessarie to pass briefly through all the several Causes of our Justification and so much the rather because divers before have so done and failed in their Divinity because of a mistake in Logick in miscalling Causes And first we must know otherwise then some have taught That the Material Cause of our Justification is not the graces in us nor the pardon without us nor remission of sins nor obedience of Christ nor of our selves but the person justified is the subject of Justification For who with good sense can say Our sins are justified our good works are Justified Acts. 13. 3â— True it is St. Paul saith by him Christ all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be Justified by the Law of Moses Shewing hereby that we are Justified from our sins but not that our sins are Justified And so where St. James speaks so often of which hereafter that we are Justified by Works he intendeth not to say our Works are Justified For t is the person not the qualities of him that is Justified And if any speak otherwise they must be helpt out by recurring to Figurative not proper speaking In such cases as these if ever we would judge aright we must hold as precisely as can be to propriety of speech About the Final cause of our Justification I find nothing singular but in common with all the Acts of God towards man and all the Actions of Man towards God viz The glory of God Neither is there any difference of parties herein But concerning the Formal Cause of our Justification before God some discord is found yea concerning a Formal Cause in General what it is and wherein it consisteth which is very necessarie to be understood to attain to the true notion of being Formally Justified A Formal Cause then is that whereby a thing is what it is subsists in it self and is distinguished from other things being always essential and intrinsecal to the thing so by it constituted that it cannot be so much as conceived without it and cannot possibly but be with it This whether artificial or not I weigh not much but is a true description of that Cause For instance sake A man is a man properly by his soul and not by his body his soul being his Inward form and as it is impossible that he should be so without it so is it impossible but that he should be so with it whatever outward visible defects or imperfections may appear otherwise So in the present cause it must necessarily be that the Formal Cause of our Justification be intrinsecal to the Justified person and that not being that he should not be justified Contrary to what some have affirmed upon this occasion who from an instance of an Eclipse would show that the formal Cause is not alwayes intrinsecal to that which it formeth For say they as it should seem by the autority of Zabarel In an Eclipse of the Sun the Moon interposing is the formal Cause of the Darkness of the Earth and yet it is not intrinsecal to it but separate But the mistake is plain that the Moon being not the cause of the earth it self but of the darkness of the earth only it is not the Formal Cause of that and so may be extrinsecal to it and intrinsecal to the darkness as the formal cause but whether this be so or not we are here only to show that no cause formal can be external to the thing of which it is the form and by consequence that nothing without us can be the formal cause of our Justification or that whereby we are denominated Just before God So that neither Christ nor his merits do render us so Justified And therefore they who to magnifie the mistery of our Justification do object to themselves How a man can be Just by the justice of another and how righteous by another persons righteousness any more than a man can hear with another mans ears or see with another mans eyes do tie such a knot as they can by no means loose For in plain truth neither the one nor the other can formally be But they may say As it is Christs righteousness indeed and rests only in him so we cannot be said to be justified formally by it but as it is made ours especially by Faith and is applied unto us so we may be formally Justified by it To which I say that if that individual formal Righteousness which is in Christ were by any means so transferred formally unto us and infused into us that we should in like manner possess it as did Christ then indeed the argument would hold very good that by such application we were Justified formally by Christs righteousness but no such thing will be granted neither is any such thing needfull For though the Scripture saith directly that Christ is The Lord our Phil. 3. 9. righteousness and St. Paul desireth to be found in Christ not having his own righteousness which is of the Law but that which is through the Faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by Faith Yet we are not to understand hereby that the formal righteousness of Christ becomes our formal Righteousness but that he is by the Gospel he revealed unto us the teacher of Righteousness and that far different from that Righteousness of the Law which St. Paul calls his own as that which he brought with him to Christ and he is Justification is neither but a certain action in God applied unto us or a certain respect or relation whereby we ar acquit of our sins and accepted to life everlasting Perkins Gal 2. 16. Rom. 8. 30. the Prime Cause of our Righteousness sending his holy Spirit unto us and by his merits appeasing the wrath of God and satisfying his Justice for us all which is not the formal cause of our Righteousness or Justification For neither is that formal righteousness in us which is inherent Righteousness the formal Cause of our Justification But our Justification formal is an Act of God terminating in Man whereby he is absolved from all guilt reputed Just and accepted to Grace and favour with God When God hath actually passed this divine free and gracious sentence upon a sinner then and not before is he formally Justified This is the end and consummation of all differences between God and man and the initiating him into all saving Grace here and Glory hereafter as St. Paul writing to the Romans witnesseth in these words Whom he predestinated them he also called and whom he called them he also Justified and whom he justified them he also glorified CHAP. XIX Of the Efficient Cause of Justification IT remains therefore now that we proceed to the means causes and motives inducing God Almighty thus to Justifie Man a sinner whom he might rather condemn for his unrighteousness And these as
end of all St. Pauls Epistles to the Romans to the Colossians to the Galatians to the Hebrews especially not excluding the other where he most expresly and zealously urges Faith against works and he shall soon perceive that his intention and drift is not absolutely to oppose works of Faith to the doctrine or Grace of Faith but the works of the Law which infirmer Christians newly entred into the Faith of Christ had so venerable an opinion of that they imagined Christ could profit nothing without the works either Ceremonial or Moral of the Law of Moses For whereas they for instance depended absolutely on Circumcision for their Justification and thought that without so sacred and solemn a Rite they could not be profited by Christ himself St. Paul on the other side resolutely and positively determineth thus Behold I Paul say unto you that if you be circumcised Gal. 5. 2. v. 4. Christ shall profit you nothing And presently after Christ is become of no effect unto you whosoever of you are Justified by the Law ye are fallen from Grace Can any thing be more manifest then here it is that Grace is opposed to the Law And that to trust in that is to fall from Christ And when it followeth We through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by Faith is it not v. 5. as plain as need be that Faith is here taken for that doctrine and not Act of Faith whereby men are instructed in Christ believe in Christ adhere to him relinquishing the imperfect and antiquated doctrine of the Law and its practises which by St. Paul are all called Flesh in opposition to the spiritual worship of the Gospel as to the Philippians For we are the Circumcision Phil. 3. 3. which worship God in the Spirit and rejoyce in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh Though I might also have confidence in the flesh c. 4. Rom. 3. 21. And to the Romans But now the Righteousness of God without the Law is manifested that is surely now is the doctrine of Righteousness published through Christ without the Law being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all 22. 20. 27. and upon all that believe And verse the twentieth By the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justified c. And verse the twenty seventh the Anti thesis or opposition doth most evidently declare the Apostles intention Where is boasting then It is excluded By what Law Of Works Nay but by the Law of Faith The Law of Works then is the Law of Moses and the Law of Faith is the Law of Christ And to be Justified by Faith in Jesus of which immediately before is to be understood of the whole Covenant of Grace or Faith which is made to us in Christ Jesus and revealed in the Gospel as contradistinct to that Covenant of Works given by Moses and not of any special Grace or Act of Faith as Faith is sometimes distinguished from other Evangelical Graces It may be said that the works of the Law are excluded expresly and therefore no competition is to be made between them and Faith in the case of our Justification To which my answer is That though I grant that not only the works of the Law though moral do not Justifie but not the works of Faith of themselves yet I may confidently say None of these places commonly alleadged by the Exalters of Faith and Depressors of Good works to null the merits of works done even in Faith of Christ do according to the literal meaning really perform so much yet I rather choose to affirm That the works excluded by St. Paul are not works of the Law moral so much as Mosaical For the morality of the Old Law was not properly of Moses but the Ceremonial only and consequently the Law from these taking its denomination of Mosaical when works of the Law are mentioned in the New Testament we are to understand Mosaical Works rather than Moral but not at all works of Faith So that whatsoever is contended or pretended our being justified freely by Grace and justified again by Faith do Rom. 3. 24. Gal. 2. 16. not at all deny our Justification by works of Faith or that the efficiency of such a Faith is quite of another nature from that of works done in Faith But yet it is plain from the whole design of the Epistle of St. James the Quoniam haec opinio fuerit exerta sine operibus justificari hominem aliae Apostolicae Epistolae Petri Joannis Jacobi Judae contra eum maximâ— dirigunt intentionem ut vehementer astruant fidem sine operibus nihil prodesse c. Aug. de Fide Operibus c. 14. second Epistle of St. Peter the Epistle of St. Jude that divers of Old did so mistake St. Paul as of late dayes he hath been understood which moved St. Austin to say directly that these Epistles were on purpose contrived and published to obviate such a misconstruction of the Blessed Apostle as if he had intended when he often sayes We are Justified by Faith only a separate notion of Faith from works and effects of Faith which was far from him from whence we have a very compendious solid and clear reconciliation of St. James his Epistle especially with those of St. Paul For as is shewed already certain it is that it being his principal end to oppose and void the pretensions of the Jews to Justification without believing in Christ or as a more moderate sort of them weak in the Faith of Christ admitting no sufficiency in Christ to justifie them without a dash as least of Moses's Law he declared freely for an absolute sufficiency in the Faith of Christ to justify and save such as believe in him This doctrine of St. Paul was quite mistaken by some who supposed that the act of believing simpâ—y taken or the Grace of Faith specially used was it whereby they were in a certain way of being justified leaving out the fruits and effects of that lively Faith and making it a dead Faith as St. James calleth it who thus argueth against such a fond and dangerous presumption What doth it profit my brethren though a James 2. 14. 17. man say he hath Faith and have not works can Faith save him Faith without works is dead For the use and end of knowledge and Faith being only obedience and a life according to Faith what a monstrous and ridiculous thing would it be to divide the Cause from the effects proper to it But it is usually replied No God forbid we should divide Faith from good Works Where there is true justifying Faith there will be there must be good works and that for several other reasons but not for our Justification This is most true whereever there is a Justifying Faith there will be good Works but what do they there in order to
Justification Just as much as the fair gay train of a Peacock to the bird that draws it after it make a fine show and that is all that we know of But the difficulty is yet very strong behind And that is seeing it is granted that some Faith in Christ is Justifying and some is not Justifying whence comes this about Is it not because one is a lively and operative Faith and the other is drie and unactive and unfruitful So that Faith which is said to Justifie is it self first Justified by its works For though as hath been said Faith doth absolutely produce good Works and not good Works Faith yet good Works are they in which its goodness consists next unto its object Christ and consequently render it Justifying actually And whereas they would evade his and elude St. James's autority by distinguishing the Cause and Sign of our Justification saying That we are Justified only by Faith effectivè effectually but by works as St. James saith ostensivè declaratorily as signs that we are Justified it is a sense meerly obtruded upon the Apostle there being no more grounds or occasion given by St. James why they should understand him that works justifie only declaratorily than are given by St. Paul that I should interpret that Justification which he ascribes to Faith to be only Declaratorily For though Faith received in the mind is not apparent yet when it is professed then it may be said no less to declare our Justification then good works as the Scripture it self testifies saying With the heart man believeth unto righteousness Rom. 10. 10. i. e. to the doing of works of righteousness which proceed from a true Faith and with the mouth confession is made unto Salvation CHAP. XX. Of the Special Notion of Faith and the Influence it hath on our Justification Of Faith Solitary and Onely Of a Particular and General Faith Particular Faith no more an Instrument of our Justification by Christ than other co-ordinate Graces How some Ancient Fathers affirm that Faith without Works Justifie ALL this while we have treated of the complex notion of Faith or at least as it is that first general Grace whereby we are inserted into Christ and justified by it together with its blessed retinue of subordinate Evangelical Graces which are reduced to these three Faith Hope and Charity where Faith standeth by its self and is a peculiar Grace of it self and hath in this acceptation a more then common prerogative attributed unto it in order to our Justification or the bringing us to Christ and partaking of Christ For that is it whereby we are only properly justified and all Graces serve for no other end here than to adopt us for the benefit of Justification through Christ and for Christ's sake alone So that no man can as yet complain That though I derogate somewhat from the vertue and value of Faith in reference to our Justification as it is explained by moderner Divines some I mean I do not in the least detract from the sufficiencies freeness and absolute necessity of Christ's Merits and Grace towards us Yea I establish it nay I augment and commend more the Free Grace of God then do they who have chose another way to express it For all this while I do not compare Works with Christ nor Hope nor Charity nor Obedience with Christ as is plain but I compare now one Grace with another and Faith simply considered with the obedience of Faith For Faith taken as in general for the embracing of the Fundamentum ergo esi justitiae Fides Ambr. Offic. Lib. 1. cap. 29. Lib. 2. cap. 2. Habet vitam aeternam fides quia est fundamentum bonum Habet facta quia vir justus dictis factis probatur c. Id. de Basilicis non Tradendis Fides quae est justitiae fundamentum quam nulla bona opera praecedunt sed ex qua omnia procedunt ipsa nos à peccatis nost◠is purgat c. Prosper Lib. 3. de Vita Contemplativa cap. 21. Fides est omnium bonorum fundamentum humanae salutis initium c. August in Vigilia Pentecostis whole Body of the Gospel hath this undoubted prerogative to be the Grace of all Graces the Mother of all the Fountain from which all flow and as the Fathers generally do justifie because it is the foundation of all access to Christ Which assertion of theirs however later Wits have slighted and contemned as not giving Faith its due in order to our Justification doth in my opinion with much greater perspicuity and simplicity and soundness express its proper office then those newly invented and several distinctions and sub-distinctions confunding rather than setling the judgment of a good Christian And first They ascribe this virtue of Justifying to a special Faith Then they say this Faith doth not justifie as a Work or Act but Grace Then they proceed to affirm That not as a principal cause but only as an instrument created by God in the heart to that end And yet farther Not as an Instrument active and operative but as an Instrument rather receptive and passive as appears by the example given of an Hand which is no true cause of an Alms given but yet it properly receives it But first What a disorder must these multiplyed niceties needs breed in the minds of the simpler sort who are not able to comprehend them and so are brought into great troubles of conscience whether their Faith be directed to Christ under the true relation it ought to bear How much more clear and easie is that Doctrine that teaches First That neither our Faith nor Works proceeding from thence can avail any thing without Christ and that all their sufficiencie is of Christ And next That this Faith and good Works do but qualifie us according to the Free Covenant of Grace for Christ Secondly If it be denyed as in truth it is That Faith is any more an Instrument whether active or passive or a Hand as it is called to lay hold especially in another kind of Christ than Hope or Charity I do not find how they can prove it For I may and do yield a greater degree of vertue in Faith special well founded on God than in other Graces distinct from it but I do not yield that this is the Faith properly by them contended for For It is a mixt compound Grace consisting of Hope and Love which they call Fiducia Confidence and resting upon God This indeed is a special Grace as considered in subordination to the general Grace whereby we assent and submit to the Gospel of Christ but it is not special as distinct from other co-ordinate Graces with it Calvin Inst Petrus Mart. Lo. Com. class 3. cap. 4. num 6. But what manner of Faith say they do we suppose that which goes so ill attended alone First I suppose there is such a Grace distinct from others and that which was set up against
works rites or Ceremonies of the Law delivered them by Moses as Saint Paul hath not only taught us but irrefragably proved against them in several places of his Epistles For the summ of his Argument and force may truly be reduced to this form as it is laid down more largely in his third Chapter to the Galatians Judaizing after the embracing of the Gospel of Christ Galat. 3. That way whereby Abraham Isaack Jacob and the most holy and renowned Patriarchs of the Jewish Line were justified before God must needs be it which God chiefly intended for the Justification of their Posterity to whom all the promises of God were made through them But neither Abraham nor Isanck nor Jacob were Justified by the Law of Moses so religious and rigorously now insisted on The first part of this reason will be easily granted by the Jews because they were the principal of the Jewish nation and honoured by God above any that succeeded them and therefore undoubtedly Justified by God But that this justification could V. 17. not be according to or by the Law of Moses Saint Paul in the forecited Chapter apparently proves where he shews that the Law was four hundred and thirty years after Abraham And how could that which then had no being be a cause of justification of Abraham Again the accounting of Righteous before God is to be justified before God But Abraham was accounted Righteous before God by Faith and Galat. 3. 6. Gen. 16. 6. Gal. 3. v. 7. not by Law For so saith the Scripture Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness Therefore They that are of Faith they are children of Abraham that is They who believed and live as did Abraham are Abrahams spiritual seed and heirs apparent of all the Promises made to him whereby all nations not the Jewish only should be blessed Furthermore No man could ever be Justified by that law but may rather be said to be condemned and cursed by it which he nor no man else did ever Deut. 27. 26. keep And the law saith expresly Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the Gal. 3. 10. words of this Law to do them which Confirming is well explained by the Apostle by Continuing For who ever by disobedience breaketh it cannot be said to confirm it or continue in it Now seeing all flesh failed more or less in the due observation thereof there must be provision otherwise made by God if so be he would have any saved It will perhaps be here said That God in such cases had appointed Sacrifices for expiations and reconciliations with him But against this not so much the Auctority as the Argument of the same Apostle makes in his Epistle to the Hebrews saying In those Sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sins Heb. 10. once every year That is notwithstanding there were daily Sacrifices made according to the Law every day and upon special sins peculiar Sacrifices made by the offendor for an atonement yet every year to shew the insufficiencie of the Precedent Ceremonies mention was made of the sins of the People when the High Priest entred into the Holiest of Holie And the reason of this imperfection is given by the Author to the Hebrews when V. 4. he argueth First from the nature the Sacrifices themselves That it is impossible that the blood of Bulls and of Goats should take away sins or as one of their own Prophets before him intimateth saying Wherewith shall I Mic. 6. 6. come before the Lord and bow my self before the High God Shall I come before him with Burnt offerings and Calves of a year old Will the Lord be pleased 7. with thousands of Rams or with ten thousands of Rivers of oil Shall I give my first born for my transgression The fruit of my body for the sin of my Soul And so again in the book of the Psalms Sacrifices and offerings thou Psal 4. 6 7. didst not desire mine ears hast thou opened Burnt-offerings and sin-offerings hast thou not required Then said I Lo I come in the volume of the book it is written of me c. All which with many such like places do declare what esteem Good and Godly men had of the Legal Sacrifices that were but in themselves insufficient and unacceptable to Almighty God for either the expiating and satisfying for sins or the appeasing of God offended by the same and therefore some further remedie some more excellent means of reconcisiation were necessary And this appears from the ends of such Sacrifices instituted which principally were these First to declare a right that God had in all those Creatures which he had given man for his use and service Secondly to represent to man the guilt and punishment unto which he was subject by his sins as verily as that beast so slain and sacrificed before his eyes Thirdly to insinuate unto him the true means of becoming reconciled unto God offended which was A Second general end of the Old Law which was to prefigure the Messias and only true Saviour of the world who related not only to Abrahams seed but to all to whom the promise made to Abraham related viz. Gen. 22. 18. Galat. 3. 10. In thy seed shall all the Nations of the earth be blessed And therefore if such an objection be made Wherefore serveth the Law if not to such Ends Saint Paul answereth thus It was added because of transgressions to whom the Promise was made Because of Transgression First by reason that the Oral Covenant made with Adam and renewed to Abraham suffice not of it self to contain man in his dutie without the additional statute committed to writing by Moses called signally The Law Secondly this became to them under it a rule and direction until such time as the seed to whom it was promised should come i. e. The fulness of the Gentiles to whom through Adam and Abraham both the Messias was promised Whence appeareth the vanitie of the Jews imagination supposing that God by an immutable decree had affixed the priviledges and benefits of the Gospel entirely to the Jews And this inferrs another argument used by Saint Paul against the perfection and perpetuity of the Jewish Law For nothing was promised to Abraham and his seed peculiarly but upon the Covenant of Circumcision But Abraham was not reputed righteous before God by vertue of Circumcision but being Righteous was Circumcised and all the principal Promises made to Abraham as the Father of the Faithful were before Circumcision as the historie in Genesis assures us and Saint Paul to the Romans argueth and concludes against the Jews They which are the children of the Flesh are not the Children of God that is in that respect or for that cause because they were lineally descended from Abrahams flesh and blood but the Children of the Promise are counted for the Seed i. e. They were the persons comprehended in the Covenant and promises made to
alledged more pregnantly proving the power of that fiducial Faith as I may so call it in order to the Justification of a man before God and yet it must here be granted That this trust is much different from the Faith contended for And that from hence or the like Texts not a different vertue in nature or kind though peradventure more effectual and prevalent is ascribed to it above other Graces in order to our Justification All which is no less true of our Sanctification than our Justification For we are altogether as much sanctified by Faith alone as we are justified by Faith alone or only as appeareth from the Scripture which saith That our hearts are John 15. 3. Acts 15. 9. purified by Faith So that in this much disputed Question I know no readier way of satisfying the fearful and dubious mind than by taking a due estimate of the power of a General or Particular Faith in reference to Fides nos à peccatis omnibus purgat mentes nostras illuminat Deo concliat Prosper ubi supr our Sanctification and judging alike of our Justification thereby For we are sanctified as freely by Grace as we are justified and as much by Faith too as Prosper before cited saith And therefore lastly in answer to divers places of the Ancients which are produced to confirm the modern sense of Justification by Faith alone I answer in a word That it is true their words seem to attest so much but their meaning was plainly no more than this That Faith many times doth justifie without Works that is any outward manifestation of their Faith by such fruits but never without inward acts of Repentance and Charity distinct from this special Faith nor without such a devotion to good Works which wants nothing but opportunity to exert them which is by an extraordinary Clemencie and Grace of God accepted for the thing it self This appears by the example by them given to manifest their meaning of the Thief on the Cross who was so justified and saved by Faith alone without good Works answerable thereunto because his sudden faith was prevented by sudden death Nevertheless That his Faith was so much alone as to exclude Repentance and such Graces as were competible to one in his condition from a proportionable concurrence to that effect is no where said nor intended by any of the Fathers whose judgment is of account in the Church of God 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. ANother effect of Faith or at least consequence upon it hath the certainty or assurance of our Justification and Salvation been commonly reputed The better to understand which we must take as supposed and granted the difference between the Truth of a thing and Evidence of it or the Certainty that such a thing is and the knowledge that so it is So that the doubting of our Justification or Salvation doth not make the thing infallibly so but leaves us under fears and sometimes disconsolations But a competent remedy seems to me to be ready at hand if we consider that our opinion of our selves is no good conclusion against our selves but rather being founded in humility and disowning of our worth and righteousness an introduction to a comfortable hope in Gods mercy who hath begun at least the work of Grace in us by rendring us studious and anxious about his service and our salvation unless it could be proved which we shall see presently whether so or not out of the word of God that it is his will and direct command that we should have this assurance in us For as saint John saith Hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assurt 1 John 3. 19 20. our hearts before him For if our heart condem us God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things i. e. the hearts and consciences of the children of God do frequently condemn them but their comfort is that God is greater than their hearts and doth not judge according to what opinion good or evil we have of our selves but according to his own Wiâ—dom and Grace So that it is no just inference at all I do not believe I shall be saved therefore I shall not be saved Nor this I do believe I shall not be saved therefore I shall not be saved Only they have great cause thus to argue and conclude against themselves who are wont on the contraâ—y to reason I believe I shall be saved therefore I shall be saved abusing and corrupting the Doctrine of Faith two wayes most dangerously First In making it the simple and direct cause or means unto Justification and then a reason of a Reflex act whereby they stand assured that they are so acquitted and justified before God But St. John in the former words cited reasons much otherwise For having in the 18. verse exhorted to and urged the duty of mutual Christian Charity he inferreth from thence in the 19. verse Hereby we know that we are of the truth c. i. e. from the Indication of Love and Charity to the Brethren â—ere is then an assurance and that before God and yet as we have seen there resteth and consisteth withall a diffidence and doubting as we have shewed The reconciliation of this seeming opposition doth lead us to a necessary distinction tending to the resolving of the principal Querie and it is between the State of Justification and the Act of Justification And again as to Assurance here spoken of It is one thing to be assured of our Justification and another of our Salvation as shall hereafter appear First then I hold it sufficiently demonstrable out of Scripture That a man may and every good Christian ought to be assured that he is in a state of being justified and saved likewise This we teach well in our Church Catechise in answer to this Question Doest not thou think that thou art bound to believe as they have promised for thee thus Yes verily and by Gods help so I will and I heartily thank our heavenly Father that he hath called me to this State of Salvation through Jesus Christ our Saviour Every Christian that in Baptism hath put on Christ and is entred into a Covenant of Grace with God is bound to believe assuredly that thereby he is in a state of Salvation and Justification For thereby God hath especially elected him to salvation of which Election the Scriptures chiefly if not only speak which are drawn to signife the Eternal Decree of God choosing not only men estranged from God to the Covenant of Grace but such as are first within the Covenant to an infallible Justification and Salvation This I say is rarely if at all intended by any of those many Texts of Scripture alledged to
many and divers in kind as they are may all be reduced unto the Efficient causes so often mistaken for the formal And truly to proceed herein regularly and clearly we must begin with the Cause of all Causes God himself For though Christ be the Cause of all Causes visible and in the actual administration and execution yet he is not the first but subordinate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys Hom. 27. in Joan. Cause of Mans reconciliation to God his Justification and Salvation For as holy Chrysostom divinely and sublimely enquiring into the reason that might incline God to restore Man being fallen and lost by his Apostasy from God unto a state of bliss again to admit of any terms of Reconciliation with him determines it it is nothing but the divine Philanthropie of God his free undeserved unscrutable love towards man springing as it were from his own breast beginning within himself and of himself absolutely irrespectively to any outward motives but to show as St. Paul saith He would have mercie on whom he would have mercie and he Rom. 9. 15. would have compassion on whom he would have compassion and because as the Psalmist hath it Whatsoever the Lord pleased that did he in heaven Psal 135. 6. and in earth in the seas and in all deep places He pleased to leave the fallen Angels and he pleased to restore fallen man and that because it so pleased him For not so much as any consideration of Christ could dispose him to decree so favourably on the behalf of man but first this decree passed and then followed the determination of the means most convenient thereunto which was to send his son to give him to be Incarnate and to be the great and powerful Mediator between God and Man mighty to save Christ then was that which in general moved God Externaly to the Justification of Man after he had conceived of himself a purpose to reconcile man to himself as S. Paul clearly asserteth in his second Epistle to the Corinthians All things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself 2 Cor. 5. 18. by Jesus Christ and hath given to us the ministery of reconciliation To wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing 19. their trespasses unto them and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation And more particularly elsewhere he describeth unto us the several parts of our reconciliation to God saying But of him are ye in Christ Jesus 1 Cor. 1. 30. who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness Sanctification and redemption Therefore it is that so often in Scripture Christ is called a Gal. 3. 20. Heb. 8. 6. 1 Tim. 2. 5. Heb. 9. 15. Heb. 12. 24. Mediator between God and man for the bringing to pass and causing to take effect the General decree of God for the redemption of Mankind For through Christ we were by God predestinated as is taught us by St. Paul to the Ephesians Having predestinated us unto the adoption of Children by Jesus Christ unto himself according to the good pleasure of his will Where Eph. 1. 5. we see plainly that Christ was not the Cause that we were predestinated in Christ but the Good pleasure of his Absolute will Again we were called in Christ as St. Jude implieth saying To them that are sanctified Jud. 1. by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called And as we are called and sanctified so certainly are we justified freely by Christ And there is nothing more requisite for us to be fully justified in the presence of God then to be made partakers of Christ and as St. Paul saith To be found in Christ not having our own righteousness which is of the Law Phil. 3. 9. whether of Nature or Moses but that which is through the Faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by Faith From whence and several other texts of Holy Scripture testifying the absolute necessity of Christ to the Justifying and saving of us it appeareth that nothing can be more contrary to the Eternal purpose of saving man through Christ yea nothing indeed more tidiculous then to but imagine that there can be any Act in man contradistinct from Christ and not receiving all its worth and vertue from Christ which can avail any thing towards the salvation or Justification of him Or that a man being grafted into Christ and partaking of his graces and merits can fail of being accepted of God unto Justification and salvation For as St. Paul saith to the Romans All have sinned and come short Rom. 3. 23 24 25. of the glory of God Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through Faith in his blood to declare his Righteousness for the Remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God c. Now there are three things in General which truly denominate us to be in Christ and partakers of him To be partakers of the benefit of his Passion satisfying for us To be partakers of his spirit and graces thereof renewing and sanctifying us and thirdly to be partakers of his Intercession before God on our behalf For as the Scripture tells us He ever liveth to make intercession for us And this Heb. 7. 25. his intercession an Act of his Sacerdotal office is it whereby Christ properly meriteth for us For the Passion of Christ doth sufficiently discharge us of our former Obligations and obnoxiousness to the Law of God and the punishments therein denounced against the contemners and violaters thereof and so may be said having fully satisfied all the Law justly demanded of us to have merited pardon and remission of what is passed doth not thereupon entitle us to any graces or blessings from God but yet putteth us into a capacity of them but the actual collation of them is rather owing unto the uncessant mediation of him before God in behalf of us And this the Scripture intends when it saith We have a great high Priest Heb. 4. 14. that is passed into the Heavens Jesus the son of God And thus we have made a second step towards the clearing our Justification in its Efficient Causes viz That it is wholly effected by Christ made righteousness sanctification and Redemption unto us But a third thing and that of no mean necessity and difficulty both is behind how we come to be so entirely partakers of Christ how Christ so becomes ours as that God should upon the intuition hereof freely Justifie us For as St. Austin hath observed of the giving of the Holy spirit of God to those that ask aright whereas none can ask aright but by the Holy spirit herein is a great mysterie that a man can be said to be capable of the Spirit before he hath the Spirit In like manner can no man be said to be capable of Christ and
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
to the world Upon this Innovating Hereticks were forced to seek subterfuge from revelations and extraordinary discoveries promised as they corruptly understood Scripture by Christ in St. John saying I have yet many things to say unto you but ye Joh. 16 12 13. cannot bear them now Howbeit when the Spirit of truth shall come he will guide you unto all truth c. Hence they collected That Christ communicated not all to his immediate Disciples but reserved diverse things to be imparted extraordinarily to them and the phansie of such extraordinary favours from God is such a bewitching device that few not soundly setled in Faith can chose but expect and thirst after and at last conceit that so God doth deal with them when there is no such matter And of this Sacrilegious and Heretical folly are those Churches no less than simple single persons guilty which under pretense of power in the Church which must not be denyed of declaring the sense of Scripture and Faith do in very deed invent and introduce new Articles of Faith and absurd Scholies unheard of before either in substance or form and say They do but explain only what was before implyed and included in holy Writ For all Articles of Faith all necessary and due Discipline all true Administration of Sacraments wherein the truth of Christian Churches are generally affirmed to consist must long since have been discovered from the Rule of all these or otherwise they who were ignorant of or defective in these could not lay any just claim to be true Churches of Christ So that in truth Antiquity thus understood is an excellent Note of the true Faith and the true Faith not contradicted in worship as is possible more than a Note or Sign of a true Church it is the very Being it self But where Antiquity it self is obscure the condition of a Note according to the Canvasers of this point being to be more cleer than that which is in question it cannot do this good office for us And to argue backward as too many do very incongruously endeavouring to prove that which should prove is to discover the fondness of their opinions and falsness of their cause at the same time For instance to say the Church cannot err in Doctrine therefore we must believe this to be most ancient And to affirm that no man can precisely declare the time and place when such a Doctrine entred the Church taxed for innovation is very absurd as commonly and confidently as it is used For St. Augustine on whose grounds they seem to build this supposition supposed that First no time could be instanced in when such an usance was not in the Church but many times this can be done against pretences to Apostolicalness though the direct time when it began may not be instanced in For whenas most Doctrines of Faith have some practical worship proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristoteles Polit Lib 5. 8. 175. to them and evidencing them such as are the form the matter the rites of prayer none of which recorded in the Church insinuate any such opinions in that age of the Church especially of publick approbation is it not an argument more than conjectural there was then no such thing believed in the Church though we be not able to determine when it first sprung up Again it is very weak and frivolous which is presumed as unquestionable that all abuses and corruptions in the Church had some proper period wherein they must needs show themselves according to that formality as afterwards they appeared in and became notorious No doubt is to be made but points of Doctrine had their conceptions augmentations and progressions insensible as infinite other things in nature and manners have had and daily have A man may better demand the hour in which an Apple began first to rot or the week in which an old Groat began first to be defaced and loose its form than require a determinate point of time or perhaps the year in which such a Doctrine began to be corrupted into an heretical sense and practise But many of these are very exactly and faithfully set down and found short of immemorialness of Tradition as they term it For Succession another note of the Church I find it by some divided into Succession Doctrinal and Personal meaning better than they speak For I know nothing properly succeeding but where something is departed or lost Now the Doctrine of the Church being incessant and perpetual and not diverse from it self cannot be said so properly to succeed it self as to persevere in the Church But if we should pass that order and allow this language yet the thing it self seems here quite to be mistaken it being not at present enquired into the Faith of the Church which if it were granted to be sound and Catholick doth not of it self necessarily and fully infer a true Church and upon the reasons before agreed to viz. Due administration of Discipline to be essential to a true Church but into the Form constituting it a Visible and Formal Church to which is indispensably required proper Pastors and that by the appointment of Christ as St. Paul thus witnesseth speaking of Christ leaving Ephes 4. 11 12 the earth and ascending into heaven and deputing thereupon certain Officers in his stead in a visible ministration which he ceaseth now to exercise He gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers For the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ Now it is not necessary here to determine the quarrel about the kind of Officers here mentioned it sufficing to our purpose what is very evident that they who are Governours of the Church must be given to the Church by Christ But Christ acting no longer politically or visibly as hath been said and must be yielded but mystically he cannot be said to ordain any immediately in his own person but by the ministry of others Now how is it possible to distinguish them whom Christ hath appointed to constitute others in the Church from them to whom he hath given no such order but by this succession we now speak of namely a traduction of that faculty which is in one deriving it originally though by many intermediate hands from Christ himself to another succeeding him because as the Apostle to the Hebrews speaks the Priests are not suffered to continue by reason of Death This Hebr. 7. 23. surrogation then of Pastors and Priests is not to be at the pleasure or arbitrement of men to institute but must be by the will of Christ and this will of Christ must be revealed unto us either by the ordinary line and course from himself and Apostles or else must by some extraordinary and miraculous way be made known to men For though we deny it to be Christs practise to commission men to these ends we do not deny it to be
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
alledge in there excuse and Defence They are readie to return but they cannot be admitted but upon unreasonable Terms and conditions How does this appear if it should be denied as without all peradventure it will Must not the Defendents be here forced to take their grounds of Apologie and Justification from the very things themselves under debate and put in their exceptions against the terms upon which they are to be receiv'd or condemn themselves Neither will it suffice to say We shall be hardly used or beaten if we return to such severe Masters and therefore we will keep out For they may deserve it and though nature teacheth a man as it did Hagar to flee from her Mistris Sarahs Tents for fear of blows yet God and Justice and Christian Charity advise us to return to our Duty It must then be necessarily alledged and made good That we deserve not to be so ill used or rather that it is ill usage which we fore-see shall befall us and that the case so standing it is not our duty to return and all this can no waies possible be made good but by examination of the matter it self And that which will Justifie us from not returning will also warrant our free Separation at first T is the cause then that makes the Separation Schism or not An Instance whereof we have in the famous Schism of the Donatists which almost all Christians now adays confess to have been notorious Schismaticks because they could not make good their Reasons which induced them for could they they had not been Schismaticks as a sober Author notes upon Optatus thus If those things were true which Albaspinus Observat In Optat pag. 3. the Donatists laid to Caecilianus and Mensurius and Caecilianus had polluted themselves with Idolatry The Donatists had offended nothing against the Discipline and Canons of the Church refusing to communicate with Caecilianus and his Companions That is they had not been Schismaticks if so be they could have made good their Principal Charges against the Church And this we may bring home to our selves as now we stand devided from other Churches and particularly that of Rome For if the Corruptions in doctrine and Practice be not sufficient to justifie our present posture of opposition if they had not before we left them departed from the true faith if they were not really and materially Schismatiques before we were divided from them then surely we were at our separation and so continue For to say We have a willing mind to unity we have Charity so great that we earnestly desire Reconciliation with them is to deceive the world and our selves and encourage and justify Schism in others who no doubt will all pretend to so much charity as to declare themselves willing to embrace unity upon their own terms But in such cases we cannot be said to go to them though in outward apparence we may seem so to do as they come to us The question therefore is to be put under the circumstances as now they are and as the Case is now with them And in that it ought and may be roundly and resolutely answer'd We neither can nor ought nor will re-unite and yet well enough free our selves from Schism upon the account of the Justness of the occasions and Causes there found and given us to divide from them Then ought it to be enquired for this they passionately call for what are those errors which that Church is subject to for which a Separation may be Legitimated and not participate of the nature of Schism It is commonly and with general consent averted and that even by leaving Schismaticks amongst us That Corruption in Act or manners is not sufficient to warrant a Separation from a Church subject to them and so infected no not perhaps though Idolatry it self should be too common amongst them in it when no necessity lies upon the particular Members to be obnoxious to the same the doctrine of Christ bearing up its head above it and obeyed truly by others But when Evil actions and notorious errours in Fact shall come to that height as to be reduced to doctrine and formed into an heretical or Idolatrous proposition as in time it must of necessity be it being natural as well to all Churches as persons to defend by argument what they choose to practise and be taught publickly then doth that Church become truly Heretical and Idolatrous and from that Church which hath so far departed from the Faith any Church or person may lawfully depart without Scruple of Schism though such separation be not absolutely necessarie because though the infection be common it is not necessarily so general that all should be obliged to espouse it and be corrupted by it but when to this degree of doctrine shall be added a third which is of Precept and such unsound and pernicious opinions shall be imposed on others and exacted of all there it is not only lawful but necessary to salvation to divide from such a pretended Church of Christ I mean a necessity of Precept though not of Means as if it were not possible that a man should be saved who liveth in an Heretical or Idolatrous Church though with those many circumstances of a general Right Intention humble walking with God and invincible ignorance of the more pure and Christian Faith and worship For there is undoubtedly a Mean between these two Necessity to Salvation and Necessity of Damnation Well might Athanasius say Whosoever will be saved it is necessary that he hold the Catholick Faith and add yet farther Which Faith except a man do keep whole and undefiled without doubt he shall perish everlastingly and so give us the particulars of that Faith so necessary For he means no more than that such Errors are in themselves damnable But heresies do not work after the manner of such natural Causes which have such effects infallibly but may be said notwithstanding naturally to tend to such events which yet may be prevented by various Allayes of Circumstances both inward and outward impeding such Effects The Consideration of which possibility of escaping the ordinary danger can no ways excuse a man or confirm him in such errours but the common and as you may say natural tendence of them to ruine and perdition strongly oblige him to relinquish that Church wherein it is only possible by vertue of some extraordinarie indulgence of God to come to salvation and whose errours are of themselves damnable So if the Question be put as generally it is Whether for example a man may not be saved in the Roman Church The answer is abundantly sufficient within Religion and Divinitie though perhaps not so formal in Logick That they certainly may be damn'd and that for holding the Faith and worship there commanded and received with full approbation And this is sufficient to call any sober Christian off from that communion though there may occur so many mitigating Circumstances as to a Person of
it implies as much as to say Give us but our demands and then we will be quiet by which Rule no man should defend his own right in lesser matters which to part with perhaps would not utterly undo him but he must be lookt on as accessary to and guilty of his own destruction if the Invader shall have power enough to bring it upon him because he will not peaceably satisfie his unjust desires A man may be and our Saviour in the Gospel saith expresly Luk. 16. 10. is unjust in the least as well as in much And so undoubtedly are they who having no Autority but what they frame to themselves shall by violence and aggressions attempt to extort the least thing belonging of right to another though haply better spar'd than kept For it is a Case of Justice rather than Christianity In justice and common equity the inferiour members of a Church and state owe obedience to their Superiours in all things not contrary to the Law of God the Church or the Nation but at most they can claim such things that are as they say indifferent to be granted them out of Courtesie or Charity only And whoever was so wilfully stupid as not to perceive that Injustice is much more a sin than Uncharitableness and so whatever mischief or guilt shall fall out in such contentions must necessarily light upon the heads of the unjust Aggressour and not indiscreet Resister were it indiscretion to withstand to deny such bold and insolent demanders or uncharitableness both which are denied in the present Case For there can be nothing more unjust on the one side and unwise on the other than so rudely and unrighteously to require of another all that may be granted or to grant all such things as are so demanded And if they urge still The peace of the Church to require such concessions I shall answer Let them first as all good Christians ought to do observe the Peace of Nature and the Peace of Nations which is not to offer violence nor to be unjust nor to go out of their Rank and Order but with good Autority and then take care for the Peace of the Church But what can be more absurd than that men should break the Peace of Nations and Nature it self yea the Law of God and Scriptures which require to obey all that are in autority over us as well Ecclesiastically as Civilly and then so much as to mention the Peace of the Church especially calling that only the Peace of the Church which puts them into quiet possession of their desires But to this we add that it is also very false which is here supposed to be true For there is nothing more manifest than that with diverse things of indifferent nature they mix many things of indispensable use to a Church and such is that so much reproached and derided Hierarchie which all the earth sees they have made it their business to Destroy utterly And when we plainly see as we do that those things in nature indifferent are demanded chiefly as an introduction to a farther abolition of things we hold necessary we hold them no longer indifferent nor can we in common prudence or Christianity part with them to such person any more than we can in a neighbourly manner lend away an Ax or Hammer when we are assured they will be made use of to break open our houses and spoil us though we know they may possibly be made use of to other purposes The Second Obstacle rather than Objection cast in our way is the parity of their Case with the Church of England with that of the Church of England with the Roman wherein whether they show more Spite or Policy may be a question Their Policy imitates them who finding the war to lie heavy upon them at their own doors contrive by all means possible to translate it into another Country as was particularly seen in Hindersons Letter to his late Sacred Majesty who finding the ability of his pen and weight of his discourses advised him rather to turn himself against the common enemy the Papist And thus these men would needs oblige us to make our quarrel good against the Romanists that they may be the les molested in the pursuance of their most Schismatical designs against the Church in which they were educated And this being discovered we might well excuse ourselves from such a task as they would set us But this we have before resolved in good part and had we not might and shall in a very few words dispatch as somewhat out of its proper place We grant then there is a Schism between us and the Romanists And we grant that there can be no cause to be Schismaticks though for a Separation there may and that they are truly Schismaticks who have ministred just Cause of Separation Some we know out of an ancient Father have urged against us That there can be no cause to divide the Church which is true in two senses only First when that Church is not before really divided from other Churches of unquestion'd integrity Realy I say by deserting some considerable point of Faith or introducing some unchristian manner of worship though not Openly and Formally as hath been said Again it is true only in such junctures as the Father spake those words in which was an apt and orthodox agreement within itself both in Faith and manners in such Cases there can be no cause to divide the Church as did the Novatians and Donatists But it was never his purpose to say that no case could happen in which it was not lawful for one Church to leave the Communion of another when it was so often done So still the point is wholly whether cause was given or not and not whether such outward and wilful Separation was made For undoubtedly however some would mince the matter Separate we did and that wilfully from the Church of Rome and chose rather than were forced to go out And upon those very grounds we still stand out and refuse to return The gross corruptions there maintained and not lurking and the fear of the loss of our souls in there continuing and much more thither returning What those are hath been even now touched and we here add that notwithstanding 't is confessed such senses are found of their doctrine and superstitious worship in some private authors amongst them which they offer at first to them they would seduce which may put persons into a possibility of their continuing without incurring damnation yet the Publick autority of that Church which I suppose they will call their Church having evermore of late years censur'd purged and expunged such more tollerable constructions and appeared for the most harsh and uncatholick there can be no great regard had to the fairer opinions Again it is not sufficient that a Church hath a true sense of Christian Faith if it alloweth and commendeth a false and a wicked sense 'T is little to the
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
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
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
apud Laertium in Vita diffused acts thereof considerable in all his Creatures we shall confine our selves to those specially concerning Man the measure of all other Creatures as the Philosopher said and as Christian doctrine tell us the Head and Crown of all and these as to the religious capacity of Man chiefly In which are eminent Predestination Election Vocation Salvation And Reprobation and Damnation on the other side Predestination and the Decree of God if in any thing they differ it may seem to be chiefly in this that use hath made Decree of a more large signification conteining the act of Gods supream Providence over all his Creatures but Predestination is more properly appertaining to Man Some have thought good yet farther to proceed in limiting the tearm Predestination to the Elect only and such as shall be saved but St. Austine and others that follow him make it common to both the Saved and Damned And Augustine speaking of the two Cities in the world that of God and that of Aug. in Civ Dei lib. â—5 c. 1. the Devil saith One is predestinated to reign for ever with God the other to endure eternal punishment with the Devil And so in several other places which here I omit Calvine is famous for the like freedom of speech in the Predestination of men to Damnation and to Beza and Martyr and Aretius and almost who not that were of that Reformation but the opinion of these must not pass for Austins opinion without this remarkable distinction Austine and such Fathers as followed him and it was some hundred of years before any Father of repute in the Church presumed to confront him in his known doctrines in this point affirmed an infallible Predestination to Life and Death but he did not so affirm it that this should be done absolutely without any consideration of the way and means leading thereunto this those Divines now named held and those of Dort generally called the Supralapsarian way very irrationally and impiously Their main reason is this That God could not be subject to so much inconsiderateness and imprudence as no man of ordinary reason could be guilty of viz. To make a thing before he knows what to do with it First therefore they conclude That God must propound to himself a certain end and that not common and general which is his Glory but special to each man in the last state of all and thence infer That he must as men call for several tools or instruments for several works and ends predestinate the means thereunto This argument was used long before Calvine by Scotus and in effect the same though minc'd a little by him who declares plainly that God must first propound to himself an end and then order the means agreeable to that end Yet is Scotus suffer'd to pass and little said to him But Calvine bears all the blame And surely blame-worthy he is As on the other side that later rank and careless Pen which would by no means suffer that there should inevitable destruction attend any man of Gods making because forsooth this were to make God like to a foolish workman who should make a curious work only to destroy it and break it to pieces But setting aside the odiousness of the comparison the thing it self supposed is false and that many wayes First that it would be such a piece of impardonable folly in a man to make a thing which he resolved to destroy again when he had done his will with it It is indeed hard to conceive that any man should be so stupid as to have no end of a thing but that it might not be so soon as it hath a beginning for surely either profit or delight intermediate was the principal and rational Motives thereunto and therefore secondarily he might ordain the very dissolution of his work as a man doth who having made a curious mould breaks it to pieces and so at first intended before it was made so soon as he had perfected his more principal intention But were it so that this could not be done without extream folly on mans part yet the same might be done without the least just suspicion of mistake on Gods part For man is certainly a fool who studieth or laboureth about a thing which bringeth him no real advantage or destroyes a thing which doth But God receiving no such advantage from the saved or such disadvantage from the damned where is the imprudence But last of all Damnation is indeed destruction in the vulgar but not proper sense The Person of the damned is as entire as to his Si enim de nihilo creavit omnia non idcirco fecit ut perderet quae creavit sed ut illius miserecordid quae creata sunt salvarentur Hieronymus in cap. 12. Zachariae state of natural being as is that of the saved And God may have his ends of glory and certainly hath from the misery of the Creature But both this opinion and that of Calvine seem to make the ultimate tearm of Man the ultimate end of God though it be but for this arguments sake and cannot do it generally or really But the contrary is plainly the truer that God propoundeth no other ultimate end than himself in his acts of Creation and Providence And therefore though God hath revealed himself an act of his free Grace in his holy Word that he willeth not the death of a sinner and much less of a person that is innocent before him and it were most blasphemous to Gods truth and mercy to affirm That as the case stands between him and man he will or may condemn to everlasting pains Man not justly deserving them yet there appears not any reason considering the absolute dominion of the Creature belonging to him that of himself he might not so have disposed of him They may say That God in justice can take away no more than he gave to his Creature be it so The capacity of the beatifical Vision God gave man and therefore may take it away And what is that but extream misery Chrysostome makes the loss of Gods glorious presence to be greater than the pains of sense suffered by the damned And do we not see thus much before our eyes frequently That God causes many to come into this world who wear-out a miserable life without any good day in continual languishings and sicknesses Surely this is not without cause going before But yet no more cause then is common to others living in prosperity and ease This may be disputed and perhaps better omitted but not so that opinion which makes irrespective Predestination to glory and misery because God must first propound his end making no great difference between the Predestination to the means of a good end and the means towards a bad one but that God to bring about this as well as that doth with like concurse and will design evil means to evil ends as he doth good to good ends or that he
That grace is the cause of such special acts of God Neither doth any prevision in God of acceptation of grace of complyance with and obedience to Gods will move to Elect or Call any man and that upon that sure ground of Thomas because Thom. 3. Q. 2. 11. c. there can be no possible way of meriting without Grace for Grace is the first Principle or beginning of all merit and nothing can be a cause or so much as conduce to its own being But the inclining of God to such a thing must come under the notion of meriting or to speak more agreeably to our ears doing well before God And therefore they much more truly may be said to be the direct cause of Grace And this not as some Pelagian Hereticks supposed at last by constraint of argument for the more ready and easie operation of mans will but simply to will that which is good Nay St. Austine saith and that truly the same of mans Understanding De Spir. Litera ca. 7. as Will. For he holds forth his mercy not because they do know but to the end they may know Neither because they are of a right heart but that they may be right of heart doth he hold forth his Righteousness whereby he justifieth the ungodly So that provision of good Works or Faith as the reason inclining God to confer Grace simply is altogether inconsistent with the Holy Scriptures and the freeness of Gods grace asserted plentifully therein But there is another and farther tearm of Gods Predestination Election and Vocation which is to his Kingdome of Glory and the Reward not of the merit but work of Faith and Holiness And to these no doubt but we are ordained and elected and called as the end by those means This is that St. Paul intended in that place to the Romans above quoted and in the second chapter telling us God will render to every man according Rom. 2. v. 6. 10. to his deeds and glory honour and peace to every man that worketh good to the Jew first and also to the Gentiles Christ tells us in the twentieth chapter of St. Matthew that to set on his right hand and on his left in Matth. 20. 23. Matth. 25. 34 35 36 37 38. his Kingdom shall be given to them for whom it is prepared and in the 25th who they are for whom it is so prepared from the foundation of the world viz. the Righteous and moreover who are the Righteous namely such who abounded in good works there particularly mentioned And to this may be referred most of those speeches at large falling from the most eminent Fathers of the Church before the time of Austine wherein they affirm that God elected some and not others upon the fore-sight of good works in them and obedience others rejecting for their disobedience Thus spake Origen thus Chrysostome Nazianzene Ambrose and Hierome too who wrote as expresly as Austine against such a freedom of the will which should give any occasion to God to confer his first Grace on man all meaning no more than the election of man to glory upon the intuition of Grace Now if this opinion should be strained to the highest it would not rise to this that God did choose any man simply and primarily for his works sake or his faith fore-seen for as is shewed God elected simply to that and not for that but the most may be wrung out of it is too great a propinquity to Merit But neither doth this follow seeing they who say God in such an order i. e. after grace upon such an occasion as those good works of which God is no less a principle cause than Man doth choose to confer glory on a man or ordain him to life do not say that such fore-seen works bear a proportion to such glory or reward The Scriptures which plainly affirms the former exclude the latter making it a matter of free promise in the original and the gift of God together with mans work as especially to the Romans St. Paul doth Now being made free from sin and become Rom. 6. 22 23. servants to God ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ There is nothing therefore more consonant to reason nothing better reconciles the seeming jarrs of the ancient Fathers before and about the time of Austin with that more wary and exact state and defence of the Question concerning Gods election of man upon pre-vision of Faith and Obedience alwayes including Christs obedience and merits and the freeness of his Grace in electing And nothing reconciles the Scriptures more clearly than the opinion which allows God to be the sole reason of his own will and the author of his Grace of Sanctification and Salvation also and yet holdeth such an order between these that God doth not choose any man to his free and immerited Grace of Salvation but through and upon consideration I do not say valuable and proportionable in weight and worth but in nature of the state of Sanctification going before Does not St. Paul render it as a reason why God was to be glorified in his Saints when he came to take vengeance of his adversaries Because our testimony among you was believed And did not the Master of 2 Thes 1. 10. Mat. 20. 2. the Vineyard who is Christ fore-ordain a penny to the Labourers in consideration of their labour foregoing Doth not St. James say the very Jam. 1. 12. same in these words Blessed is the man that endureth temptations for when he is tried he shall receive the Crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him Surely that which man promiseth upon a condition he doth not ordinarily bestow before that condition be performed but ordains it to follow upon it And to the same purpose speaks St. John too in the Apocalypse Be thou faithful unto death and I will Rev. 2. 10. give thee a Crown of life But perhaps they think there remains some force in Calvins argument still against this and that God must be obnoxious to that imprudence that ordinary men are not if he did not first propound the end and then make all means to conform and conduce to it so that man should first be ordian'd to his end of glory or misery before he is All this I grant and yet grant them nothing and this is all they are like to get from confounding the inward and secret acts of God with his outward or the Decrees of God with the execution of them as Twiss notoriously doth in Twissius Animadvers in Collat. Arm. cum Jun. p. 1 2. his entrance to the Animadversions on the Conference between Arminius and Junius It is certain that God doth decree a man to his end before he is but doth he ordain him to such an end before he ordains him to
a good event in general if not particular we are now to satisfie our selves What that we call Evil and Sin is And what relation God hath to it First then we are to note that Evil and Sin differ only as Genus and Species so that all Sin is Evil but all Evil is not Sin Evil is that which is contrary to nature or natural Good Sin is that which is contrary to grace and moral good And that which is contrary to the order rule and form of Nature is called Monstrous that which is contrary to the Rule of Justice and Holiness is called Sin And as monstrosity in nature is divided into defects and excesses So Sin in morality is divided into Omissions and Commissions And of neither of these can God be said to be the Authour or Nature under him For if Nature according to Philosophers which is but Gods Instrument doth not intend monstrous effects much less may God be said so to do whose acts are alwayes more constant and steady the higher they are and nearer to himself For to give an instance when we see a want of a limb in a monstrous birth it may so far be imputed to Divine Providence that it could not so happen without the knowledge and consent of the Supream Cause in whose power it was to have disposed outward and second causes to the effecting of a regular and perfect work yet directly and with a positive purpose to have assisted in the production of such a Monster we cannot safely nor wisely say seeing the denyal of that ordinary and more necessary concurrence to such an end is altogether sufficient to it and such defects arise not from Gods positive Will to have them so but from his not willing to have them otherwise There may seem somewhat more difficulty in Monsters in excess when any Creatures have more parts than are naturally proper to them as four hands or three leggs and the like But this proves not any direct intention to this but only an intention not to keep things in their proper limits and to their Rule A Master or Father when he holds not a severe hand over his child or servant cannot but by inference and consequence be said to be the cause of the exorbitant carriages of them because though he wills not to prevent such mischiefs he doth not will they should be God in like manner willeth redundance of matter as a thing real and positive but that it should meet together as to constitute such an unnatural effect is rather the suspence and with-holding his Providence then the exercising of the same This I premise as leading to the due apprehension of Moral Evil which to hold as such to have a positive Existence in the world is inevitably to become Manichean and to make God the Authour of sin as St. Austin in these words declareth Here we are to be careful that we fall not into the Herisee of the Manichees who said there was a certain Nature of Evil and a certain people of darkness with their Princes And afterward So they erre so they are blinded so they make themselves the people Gentem Tenebrarum of darkness by believing that which is false against him who created them for every Creature is good but it is corrupted by the depraved will of Man Thus he and were it so that Evil had a positive being from whom could it proceed but from God And it is repugnant to the Nature of the good God to be the Author of any thing simply Evil so far the Manicheans were in the right therefore they that hold this must with the Manichees invent and introduce another God I know the modern defenders of the positive nature of sin alledge several Schoolmen and some Fathers for the same but I know there are more express testimonies of the Ancient against it and the Modern of any account had either another sense than we now state the doubt in or must be rejected with their Relater It is not a place here to examine and encounter all nor to alledge the Reasons or Authorities to the contrary which might easily be done Only that Argument taken from the distinction of Sins of Omission and Commission deserves to be considered For say they if Sins of Omission consist only in defect of duty and are thereby distinguished from of Commission which are such as not only fall short of what is due but act the quite contrary as when a man instead of praying and praising God contumeliously abuses his Name and Worship this hath more in it than a meer negation or privation of good Thus indeed it seems but thus it is not For both these are evil upon the account of privation and the absence of good the difference only is in this that in sins of Omission the privativeness or negation is immediately seated in the Subject owing such an Act and in such a manner and here in no Action at all but the absence of it which renders a man and denominates him immediately evil or defective But in sins of Commission the case is far otherwise for here privation or defect relateth not immediately to the Subject as the Man himself but to the Action it self and by that is the Man made guilty and evil because though the act be in its nature positive yet is defective as to its circumstances according to which it ought to be performed For when God hath appointed and Justice and Reason directeth that a man should observe in his action such a time and season and such a place and have respect to such a person such a manner and measure and he neglecteth all or any of these doth he not plainly offend in the negative though the act it self be in nature positive But in the case we are about the Nature as we said of things is not to be valued but the Morality and the Morality may be evil when the Nature is good and the Morality may be privative when the Act is positive Hatred of God is an act of Man than which none can be instanced in to contain more evil or malice Therefore as this is an act Natural and Vital it is good and hath God for its direct and first cause but as this act is directed to God and so relates to a wrong object so it is evil and hath neither countenance nor concurrence from him For as is above-touched we are to distinguish Omne bonum viva substantia est vita est Vita autem Christus Omne autem malum sine substantia est nihil est tamen perdere protest Opus Imperf in Matth. Hom. 41. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost Homil 2. in Act. Apost Anselmus de Casu Diaboli Tom. 3. the Act of Sin from the Sin of the Act and that upon the received Maxime amongst the Philosophers That all Evil is in somewhat that is Good for having no subsistence of it self it must rest upon some other thing that hath a
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
Heaven and Hell But we deny not that the Ancients prayed for the Dead nor do we dissent much from them in that pious act our selves however there are quarrellers amongst us well known by their other affected and morose follies who oppose it because they have no express Scripture for it but we deny they ever prayed for the pardon of their sins or ease of torments so anciently but for an happy rest and restauration in a Resurrection So that we peremptorily deny and well may notwithstanding all proofs brought to the contrary that Prayer for the Dead necessarily infers Roman Purgatory And for the Consequence of this Opinion of Roman Purgatory Indulgences it is so rank a Corruption such a novel and impudent invention as the Church of Rome under that defection it now is never did so great a miracle as to get it any place in sober and knowing mens minds both thing it self and the abuse of it being such as alone may suffice to disgrace the Authours of it and make their pretenses to infallibility alwaies false very ridiculous We know indeed that scarce any thing was of ancienter use in the Church then some Indulgences but no more like these than Earth is like Purgatory Indulgences were made by such who were in autority in the Church towards Penitents who had their Penances allotted them for scandalous Crimes committed against the Faith and Church which Penances were often relaxed and mittigated by the favour and indulgences of the Fathers of the Church good cause appearing for to do so But that ever it was in the power of the Church to give ease to such as were punished in that other Life to come was never heard of for above a thousand years after Christ Alphonsus de Castro is worth the Alphonsus de Castro lib. 8. Adv. Haer. de Indulg reading upon this who is positive for Indulgences but going about to prove them prepares his Reader with a long Preface for such a short Discourse telling him that He ought not to expect for all points of Faith Antiquity or express Scripture For many things are known to the moderner which those ancient Writers were altogether ignorant of For seldome any mention is made in ancient Writers of the transubstantiation of the Bread into Christs Body of the Spirits proceeding from the Son much rarer of Purgatory almost none at all especially among Greek Writers for which reason Purgatory is not believed of the Greek to this day c. The ancient Church caused men to satisfie in this life and would leave nothing to be punished in the Life to come and therefore there is no mention of Indulgences Thus he But adds Amongst the Romans the use of them is said to be very ancient as may in some manner be collected from their stations And it is reported of Gregory the First of whom we even now spake that he granted some in his dayes It is said and reported by where and by whom he could not tell us But he tells us indeed how Innocent the Third that great Innovator and Corrupter of the Church constituted it in the Latherane Council and the Council of Constance after that much which was not before the Year 1200. Judge we from hence what great account is to be made of the many sayings of the Fathers pretended to approve this devise And judge we farther what great Reason or Scripture there is for the Popish faction to derogate so far as they do from the efficacy of Gods Holy Spirit of Grace in the repenting sinner though straitened of time in the exercise and demonstration of his true Conversion and from the fullness of Christs mediation and merits which are ordained for the remission of all sins upon true Repentance For the bloud of Christ cleanseth from all sin saith St. John and so say they understood as in this Life and the Life to come but St. John nor any other holy Writer of Scripture gives us the least intimation of any other season of pardon then that of this Life Therefore here to end this First Part with the end of Man in this world seeing Gods Promises are so liberally revealed unto penitent sinners in this Life without exceptions of matter time or place of venial or mortal sins Seeing Christs merits are absolutely sufficient to acquit the sinner and no limitation is to be found upon Faith and Repentance in Scripture Seeing lastly that Gods Spirit of Grace is of vertue sufficient to sanctifie to the washing away of all filthiness both of flesh and spirit and this life is only mentioned in Scripture for the exerting of this work and perfecting this cure of the soul Let us rather thankfully embrace so great salvation and work it out for St. Paul supposes we may with fear and trembling in this life that so as St. Peter hath 2 Pet. 1. 11. it An entrance may be ministred abundantly unto us into the everlasting Kingdem of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ The End of the First Part. THE Second Part OF THE INTRODUCTION To the Knowledge of the True Catholick Religion CHAP. I. Of the worship of God wherein the Second Part of Christian Religion consists Of the Necessity of worshipping God It is natural to worship God Socinus holding the contrary confuted Of the Name of Religion the Nature of religious worship wherein it consisteth REligion we have defined to be A due Recognition and Retribution made by the Creature to God the Fountain of all Being communicating himself freely to inferiour Beings And this description we have in substance given us by David in his last and most serious charge to Solomon his Son saying And thou Solomon my Son know thou the God of 1 Chron. 28. 9. thy Fathers and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind c. From whence we take the ground of our distinction of Religion into two Parts The true knowledge of God which is attained by the Doctrine of Faith revealed in Gods holy Word and the worship of him there in likewise contained Of the former having already spoken we now proceed more briefly to treat of the second The worship of God And that God is to be worshipped is such an inseparable notion from the acknowledgment of God as nothing can follow more necessarily then that doth from this And it were more reasonable though that be brutish for to deny God absolutely then to deny him worship and service And therefore Seneca saith well The first worshipping of God is to believe there is a God The next to yield to him his Majesty to yield him Sen. Epist 95. his Goodness to understand that he or they governs the world And afterward He sufficiently worships God who imitates him And Tully The Cicero de Natura Deor. lib. 2. worship of God ought to be most excellent and pure and holy and full of piety so that we may constantly worship him with a pure intire and uncorrupt mind and voice
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
that little For they may say that in prayer we offer not so much to God as we receive from him For prayer is a begging of favour and benefits of God To which our Answer is that taking prayer strictly and precisely for that one part of prayer which consisteth in craving a supply of our wants or deprecation only then indeed this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Cremens Alexand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Asterius apud Phoetum not so properly a Sacrifice But we are to take prayer in its usual latitude for all the parts of it such as Confession Deprecation of Evil Petition of Good Agnition and Profession of Mercies received Thanksgiving Praise for all Gods hand of Grace towards us and thus prayer is the offering up of a spiritual Sacrifice to God An offering of our heart and an assent of the soul to God as some devout men and learned have defined it And not so only but in effect and intention it by acknowledging of the free mercie of God in outward or inward blessings received from him is the rendring of them all to him again and a Sacrifice of that back again which once he conferred on us Thirdly prayer and worship so properly called bear the name of Sacrifices from the ground of all prayers though some parts of prayer be not so expresly such For he that acknowledges the Omnipotence of God the Omniscience Omnipresence the Alsufficiencie doth thereby render unto God his due but he that prayeth unto God supposeth and confesseth and implicitly offers all these as his duty to God But whoever heard of Offering up the Sacrifice of a Sermon unto God For Lastly If there be any thing of worship or the nature of a Sacrifice in Sermons certainly great Idolatry is committed by them it being most manifest that preaching is offered to Man and not to God and if it be a Divine worship what can it be less For what is more true and common then this That in prayer men speak to God but in preaching they speak to man So that from hence we may safely conclude that that Religion which hath nothing to commend it but preaching or nothing so much as preaching is quite contrary to the Apostle Whose praise is not of God but of Men and in truth deserves not so much the Name of Religion as of Superstition unheard of unthought of until of late years and coming nearest to that grossest part of truly Popish Superstition or as some call it Sacriledge communicating in one kind But here it will be warmly interposed and replyed God forbid they should oppose praying it is a manifest slander For these good people have prayers in private and prayers in publick too It is no proper place now by and by it will be to examine what manner of prayers worship these they mean are insufficient God knows to the constituting of a Church in true Christian communion But here we tell them that we have not disputed against them as having no worship of God at all But first that at all they make preaching and hearing Sermons a proper part of Gods service Secondly that they make it the most eminent and chief against both which our reasons stand good still And that they so do is demonstrated from their practise no less than Doctrines in that they never amongst us pray in publick never enjoy Christian communion but by vertue of a Sermon And though being pressed hard they confess with much ado as Cartwright against Bishop Whitgift that it is possible and valid to celebrate the Sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist without a Sermon yet it seems so notoriously inconvenient and incongruous as it ought never to be done where the Sermon is possible to be had A foul and ungodly mistake So that we have done them no wrong as yet CHAP. VIII A second Corruption of the worship of God not espicially in Prayer by opposing Set-forms of Publick Worship Reasons against Extemporary Prayers in Publick The Places of Scripture and Reasons and Antiquity for Extemporary Prayers answered A Second thing whereby they have abused both the holy duty of prayer and well-meaning Christians is in their traducing and prophanation of all prescribed forms of prayer wherein they forget not to shew themselves in their arts and colours For when the power is in their hands and their Faction can domineer then do they condemn directly in word by preaching printing and covenanting solemnly against Set-forms in publick and there hath been nothing under heaven acted by them more industriously than the utter abolition of all such Divine Offices And when they can go no farther their Chariots wheels are taken off and they begin to find themselves to sink that they bethink themselves how possibly they may stand in need of that moderation that they contemned and that indulgence they condemned their study is not how to repent and retract absolutely their former ungodly counsels and practises as all good Christians that meant seriously to be saved ought to do but with what artifices they may at the same time hold to their old principles of mischief to others and save themselves from harm from others For we must not say now they did any thing so disorderly good people that they are and innocent against Set-forms Province of London but the Parliament as they are obstimately bent to grace their cause without any ground for such a title say they call'd them to it when of the two they if we may distinguish them from their pretended Parliament for which there is no ground rather called their Parliament to such counsels and pranks as they after play'd as appeareth by their early Smectymnuus and their incessant instances with them to pursue those Schismatical Dogms to the subverting of all received Discipline and forms of Worship And that they have disowned their principles upon which they then proceeded we find not though we have more than enough of tricks and turnings and windings and straining them to the fairest sense they can possibly bear and sometimes farther too For instance they say now their Covenant was not against Episcopal Government but an Hierarchy They say They are not against Set forms for they suffer them in private Nay they say they are no enemies to publick Forms nor many other Rites but they would not have them imposed upon any But we shall presume to tell them we neither believe the one nor other until they as publickly retract what they have done in deposing all Set forms and taught and writ and imposing Unset forms upon all that would live by them And in that they would not have them now imposed they imply more strongly they are against them wholly than they express they any wayes favour them when God be thanked as ill as at present it is it is not in their power to oppose and damn them as formerly Can there be any thing more ridiculous than for men to do as much mischief as