own faces and put upon themselves the reproch of bad builders He is not like to build the house better that hath not entred at the door The influence of the Agent is upon the Patient well prepared and those preparations and previous dispositions are best wrought by familiar and gentle applications humble condescentions meekness of spirit and by being given to Hospitality which are the most proper tools and most effectual Instruments to build with durum durum non faciunt murum and he that shall chuse to make use of the contrary may think to build such a Chamber for himself as Tobias had by the preparation of Eliashib in the Courts of the house of God but he may not hope to build Gods house especially when his Rod takes up almost all the Ark and leaves so little room for the pot of Manna The Halcyon or Kings-Fisher doth onely build his nest in a calm and the Fishers of the King of Heaven are onely like to edifie the Church by calm comportments and gentle applications not by raising such firy and boysterous storms Amphions Musick brought together and laid the stones for building the Walls of Thebes but they are so long and so much knocking and beating of the stones that they break them to pieces and are like the Italian Musicians that were admitted to sound their Airs before Sultan Achmet which were so long a tuning of their Instruments that he thought this their best Musick and sent them away with contempt and indignation and frustrated of their reward SECT VII The Apologists causlesly irritated by an Allegory Quis te tam lene fluentem Moturum tot as violenti gurgitis iras Nile putet WHO would have imagined that the drawing of an Allegory from Nebuchadnezars Image would have been an occasion to bring me into the firy Furnace as St. Augustine calls an Adversaries angry mouth and that quicquid tetigero ulcus erit Bitterly they say but Flagrantior aequo Non debet dolor esse viri nec vulnere major I conclude that I cannot but excuse such as at the sound of such Musick cannot fall down and worship the Image which Nebuchadnezar hath set up I make their holy and Christian way the means antonomasticè of spiritual life though I trust all are not spiritually dead that partake not of these meanes Nebuchadnezars Image and Idolatry and their Exhortations moving soules to their society as tending to Reformation and some rise of order so as it seems they only are of the Reformed Religion whereas they onely reform the Church militant in the Military notion as Troops and Companies are said to be reformed when they are lessened This is Pagan Musick Magnum crimen Caie Caesar ante haec tempora inauditum But are the Apologists in earnest and will they as much blemish their Charity to think I intended this as their discretion to suppose that this can be inferred from my expressions If I seem to conclude bitterly it is because the stomach vitiated the tongue with choler therefore every thing tastes bitter Doth it more imbitter them to hear the same thing drest in a Rhetorical figurative expression than in a rustical and blunt Language Acuto quà m retuso telo vulnerari commodius sit saith the great Physician Celsus A comparison reflects more light and impresseth more complacency than a simple contemplation If I had said I could not but excuse these that could not dance after their pipe would not that have irritated them with the harsh sound thereof And what do I in that other delivery of my self but signifie the same thing in other words Scaliger tells us of a Maid that sounded at the sight of a Rose as Cantharides are killed with smells of sweet flowers and it seems the Apologists are offended with a poor Flower of Rhetorique a Rose that hath no prickles Allegories are but implicit and contracted similitudes which as they must not be wrested beyond their scope and as Heralds say of Bearings the resemblance must be taken from the best of their properties not the worst so he that shall apply all that to the subject of the apodosis which agrees to the subject of the protasis will forfeit as much of discretion as of charity In that Allegory viz. where the dead carcass is there will the Eagles resort the carcass refers unto and shadows out our blessed Saviour but dare any to be so foolishly blasphemous as to apply unto our Saviour other properties of a carcass than that one of conveying his Saints to him as Eagles to a carkass Do not the Apologists in the close of this Section tell us in the phrase of Scripture of Adders stopping their ears to them and of their piping to them that have not danced and shall we have so little wit or ingenuity to say they grant themselves to be Charmers or Fidlers With as much colour of justice do they complain else-where that I lay Magick to their charge in saying their gathering others from their proper Pastors into their Church resembles that Magick which some Romans were slandered with of charming and bringing other mens fruits into their Fields As Socrates said of Heraclitus his Works What I understand is good what I understand not I beleeve is good So when they else-where complain of despiteful Calumnies cast upon them who will not contrariwise be apt to say what I know hath no cause of complaint and therefore I beleeve what I know not is as causless But as it tends nothing to the honour of their patience imbecilla se laedi putant si tanguntur so as little to the repute of their innocence to be so tender Hieron in Is 2. Tom. 4. p. 20. Aug. Tom. 7. p. 69. as to catch fire from every spark for not onely wise Tacitus hath said agnita sunt si irascaris but more reverend Hierom Qui mâ—hi irasci voluerit priùs ipse de se quod talis sit confitebitur and perchance when they suspect I accuse them of Idolatry they re-mind that of Hierom Omne dogma contrarium veritati adorat opera manuum suarum constituit idolum in terra sua SECT VIII In whom the School vesteth the power of Church-censures Whether the Apologists may de jure or doe de facto censure alone How they have restored the Sacrament THE Paper quantum distabat ab illa that otherwhere is too parsimonious is here quanto majora dedisti become very prodigal in granting them more power than they desire and then surely the grant is exceeding large for it impowers the Minister alone to excommunicate which the Learned make an act of jurisdiction belonging to the whole Church the act and exercise of that power none but their late sprung party of Independents do invest the whole Church with though the Church-Representative in general Councils perchance do assume it Or to the Officers of the Church which is not so accurately expressed for the Minister is a Church-Officer too but
distinction between the several Ordinances of the Word and Sacraments we shall onely grant 1. That the Sacraments are no converting Ordinances in relation to men out of the Church and to turn men from Ethnicisme to Christianity although they be such to men within the Church Prae festi Morat p. 392. and to convert them from an Historical or Dogmatical to a lively-active-saving faith when Mr. Tombes inferres then breaking of bread is a converting Ordinance Mr. Baxter answers If you mean that it may convert who ever denyed it Yea or it may be useful to convert unsound Christians to sincerity 2. That perhaps appropriately rather than properly by a denomination taken from the more frequent and more ordinary effect thereof the Sacraments may be called confirming Ordinances and so contradistinguish'd to the Word 3. Though as seales obsignating and assuring conditionally they are not without some efficacy toward conversion as shall be shewed yet seeing in that way they convert onely by confirming converting to a true special faith by confirming and quickning a common general faith therefore as seals they may be said to be primarily confirming Ordinances and though also as seals actually and absolutely confirming relative grace and exhibiting the benefits and privileges of the Covenant they suppose faith either in fieri or facto esse Faith being the Condition of the Covenant whereupon those benefits and privileges are bestowed Art 45. or though as conjoyned to the Word for more ample confirmation thereof as the Confession of the French Churches hath it they in that respect are also called confirming Ordinances Quomodo enim duo vincula dicuntur uno fortiora duo testes fortiores solitario sic proculdubio longè plùs valeat ad confirmationem fidei Tom. 4. l. 2. c. 9. S. 32. promissionis obligatio Sacramentorum pignoratio quà m alterutra seorsim nimirum quia intellectus per se movetur in verbis per sensus in sacramentis as Chamier discourseth yet as they are signes shewing forth and representing the death of Christ and salvation thereby unto beleevers so they are means and moral instruments to beget that real grace which converts the heart in like manner as the Word doth those two the Word and Sacrament not having different effects and operations in relation to Faith but onely a different manner of efficiency and the one assisting and confirming the other toward the same effect But in their sense though this distinction this their Palladium as the old Heathens fabled of theirs may be pretended to have fallen from Heaven yet as other Images it was the work of mens hands and of a late framing and whosoever shall hotly strive to preserve it shall like Metellus rescuing the Palladium at Rome hazard in such flames the loss of his eyes But if we should by hypothesis allow the distinction in their sense yet it brings nothing pertinent in answer to our Argument for who hath so little of natural Logick if he have no artificial to judge that because the Sacrament is onely a confirming and the Word a converting Ordinance therefore it can possibly be consequent that pre-examination is requisite in order to right partaking of the former not the latter Who would not rather without any Prompter suppose that such examination were rather to be required for disposing men to be partakers of the Word whose effects are more general gracious and profitable as I have elsewhere manifested and where the hazard and danger both of damnum emergens lucrum cessans is more to such unpreparedness and indisposition and either due preparation is necessary to no Ordinances save such as confirm Faith and then men may come to the Word unprepared or else men may come to some Ordinances duly prepared without pre-examination Like Iphilus treading on the tops of Corn without any pressing them they tenderly insist upon this point and doe rather knock at this door than enter but let us survey their discourse Fatale aggressi sacrato avellere templo Palladium Some have contested against this difference but with small success It may probably be so in respect of perswading such as according to what Stapleton adviseth Look who speakes not what is spoken or such who are like Peleus Cedere nescius or like the Canes of China which are but hollow Reeds yet are as hard and impenetrable as Iron and like the Luciferians easier to be overcome than perswaded being perswasion-proof to all that checks with their Interests and therefore adde the many grains of their affection to supply the weight of reason and to turn the ballance their way Quod valdè volumus hoc facilè credimus We know the Spartans out-faced their great Defeat at Mantinaea set up their Trophees and arrogated the Victory besides the good Cause may not always have the best advocate Tully against Oppiaricus prevailed in a bad Cause and Aeschines against Ctesiphon miscarried in a good and some Advocates are like Pericles in the Theater who being vanquished by Thucydides will by their bold eloquence perswade that they are Victors But it shall as much intrench upon discretion as modesty for me to enter upon odious comparisons between the persons they mention or their Writings Vivorum ut magna admiratio ità censura difficilis one of those whom they so magnifie and I shall not strive to open wider the Pupil of their Eye to make either of them seem less is with one or two more of his Nation as the Tower of David builded for an Armory where hang all the Shields of mighty men they are I confess Stars of great Magnitude and perchance my Astralobe takes their Altitude at no lower Elevation than doth that of the Apologists and though I cannot move Concentrick with them in this Circle nor make them my Cynosure or such Stars whereby I guide my course yet the Apologists are more Anomalous to other of their motions and less follow their light For Mr. Prinne although perchance as he said of the Macedonians Quis non in hoc potest esse eloquens Yet I shall not dishonour him by my poor Desence which like Incense will more cloud than perfume his praise Frigida â—aus species est vituperationis although I shal only say that he being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 magnus in omnibus it could not be expected that he should be non minor in singulis and being no less eminent for the multitude of his Writings than for the magnitude of his Learning and so much curious workmanship may not be looked for in a great Colosse as in a small Statue and that notwithstanding his Adversary encountred him in that subject which he had chosen as his Sparta to adorn and to make it his Master-peece as Apelles did the Table of Venus wherein to display all his Artifice and Pontice rem solam qui facit ille facit Yet notwithstanding all these advantages I may truly say Nec retulit praedas nec palmam victor
will and that they came no farther shall be their own fault and it is not his readiness to admit such nor the opening of the door of the visible Church that makes men hypocrites but their own wickedness Christ will not keep men out for fear of making them hypocrites but when the Net is drawn unto the shore the Fishes shall be seperated c. And in the precedent page he saith Their being baptized persons if at age or members of the Universal Church into which it is that they are baptized is a sufficient evidence of their interest to the Supper till they do by heresie or scandal blot this evidence and this after much doubting dispute and study of Scripture he saith he speaks as confidently as almost any truth of equal moment The way of pell-mell blinds men in their wretchedness very like blindes them with light and poysons them with the antidote just as the means is destructive to the end Light may indeed some-while a little blind some weak eys yet it is the proper means of seeing and to keep them in the dark will perpetuate their blindness not make them see better Doth it not argue blindness of understanding to think by any argument to evince that it shall either blind men in their wretchedness or impede their conversion by sealing to them an assurance that if they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ they shall be saved by his death which is the sum of the Covenant of Grace whereof the Sacraments are Seals To raise our Structure the higher and make it stand more firmly we should perchance dig the Foundation deeper and because this erroneous principle is the Fountain of those bitter Waters of strife our Marah and Meribath it might seem expedient to cast a little Salt into the Spring of those Waters to heal them A Covenant is a mutual compact or bargain between God and Man consisting of mercies on Gods part granted over to man and of conditions on mans part required by God it results from Gods antecedent and voluntary love that he entred into paction with man and performeth his absolute promise of giving Faith and perseverance to his Elect to which promise no condition is imaginable to be annexed which is not comprehended in the promise it self but to Gods Covenant of conferring other mercies which flows from his consequent love which is a natural property in God whose proper nature inclines to reward good and evil is a restipulation and condition of duty annexed Of this conditional Covenant onely the former being indeed rather a promise then a Covenant being onely Gods act without any mutual act of man the Sacraments are divine external seals and I suppose it is no such just cause as may legitimate a war whether it be more proper to say they are conditional seals of the Covenant to testifie and confirm unto us that we shall surely acquire what God hath promised if we seal back as it were our counterpart unto God and performing the condition render unto him what he requires as a conditional promise is made absolute by performance of the condition which otherwise obligeth not That the Sacraments are not Seals of the absolute Covenant nor set to without respect to the condition carries the stamp or seal of the Corporation of Protestants and those which have set their hands to any Writing against Bellarmine in that controversie of the efficacy of the Sacraments have attested this truth And some others of the Luminaries of our own Sphaere have reflected much light upon the point I therefore whose harvest cannot attain to their Gleanings shall not light my Candle in the Sun nor in the worse sense bring an Owl to Athens Tu sequere à longe et vestigia semper adora It may seem as much delirous to discourse of Military Glory after Hannibal as it was for Phormio to do it before him and a Smith may seem already to have run mad in undertaking as he of old did to have effected the amendment of an instrument of Archimedes Onely I shall say that whatever some rather odiously then ignorantly insinuate this is yet neither the language of Ashdod nor carries any stamp or holds any affinity with Semi-Pelagianisme or if you will call it so Arminianisme which is Synonymous for Arminius and Socinus have had the fortunes to have these bastard and illegitimate Doctrines put upon them which had other elder Fathers as Sextus 5. his Obelisk and Farnezi his Bull and other Monuments though formed and erected by the old Romane Emperours are now denominated from those that of late times have redeemed them from rubbish and restored their beauty but the Doctrine we hold forth hath no Analogy therewith For beside that we assert Faith to be absolutely and infallibly infused by God per modum creationis and nothing to concurre to conversion ex parte voluntatis causativè sed tantum subjectivè and ut credamus to be wrought passively in nobis sine nobis although actively ipsum credere be produced nobiscum simul tempore consentientibus et co-operantibus whereas the Arminians symbolizing with the Jesuits affirm Faith to be purely an elicit act of Free-will through a moral perswasion onely upon an object congruously proposed alliciens consensum non efficiens and Grace whose name they have antiquated as well as destroyed the Nature substituting the word help or motion in stead thereof to be a general and indifferent influxe terminable by mans good or evil free-will Besides this we are now disputing of Gods Covenant and Promise in time not of his Decree before all time If thou believe thou shalt be saved is not of the nature of a practical decree but of a promise and is onely doctrinal and enunciative neither do we as they do make Gods Decree conditional but onely the execution thereof and not the will of God to save but the salvation of man Gods eternal purpose in saving being absolute in respect of any cause or condition impulsive in the object not in regard of the means in the execution and order to the end Gods promises for their form correspond not with his purposes his promises being according to the manner of his executions but his purposes have a different method What he purposes he performs for the matter but not as he purposed for the manner he saves in the same manner that he decreed to save but in executing or saving doth not follow the same order which he did in decreeing this which is last in execution is first in intention Dr. Kend. Vndicat part 2. c. 7. and that which is performed on a condition was absolutely intended the intention was to perform it upon condition but upon no condition was it so intended We do not therefore say God intended upon condition of Faith to give Salvation but that he intended to give Salvation upon condition of Faith intending to give Faith absolutely and Salvation conditionally But the Sacraments therefore being onely Seals of
promises though with some more particular and appropriate application upon performance of the condition Chamier Tom. 4. l. 2. c. 9. S. 18 Easdem res confirmare quae prius erant solis verbis conceptae est enim ea signorum natura ut quae Diplomata in membranis sunt fiant efficaciora sortianturque effectum suum Sacraments having some analogy with an Oath wherewith God confirms the promise willing more abundantly to shew unto the Heirs thereof the immutability of his counsel non suam naturam spectans sed nostram infirmitatem and therefore Paraeus calls our Sacraments In Hebr. c. 6. v. 17. p. 888. God's visible Oaths as the very words saith he manifests for Lawyers call a solemn Oath a Sacrament and therefore they are Gods Oaths in confirmation of his Promises Si verbum meum non sufficit ecce signum do addes Chrysostome but then even in confirming Faith objectivè they consequently not onely strengthen but beget Faith subjectively as a Seal in confirming the Writing begets a beleef of the validity of the assurance and so are meanes of Conversion producing a firmer assent to the truth of those Promises which before were not effectually laid hold of Dico sacramenta saith Chamier esse notiora efficaciora fidei faciendae Ubi supra S. 24. p. 42. observe he saith faciendae non tantùm confirmandae ipsa promissione codem modò quo sigilla regia sunt notiora â—fficaciora ipso diplomate nimirum quia solent apud nos esse cognitiora certioraque quae in oculos cadunt quà m quae auribus admoventur As then he that is not satisfied with a bare single promise may credit an oath and then that oath is properly the means whereby he is perswaded into a beleef and as when a naked Writing is not held a good Conveyance until it become a Deed sealed and delivered that sealing and delivery makes good the assurance and is that which invests the right and interest so when the Word preached doth not profit being not mix'd with Faith in them that hear it the Sacrament that superadds to the Dogmatical or Historical Faith a fiducial assent doth not onely confirm but cause that Faith which justifieth and brings peace with God And to say it cannot properly be said to doe this because it doth it not without precognition of the word is as if they should say that because a Deed is a writing sealed and delivered that it doth not therefore become of force from the sealing and delivery but from the writing read or that an incorporal estate did alwayes pass when the grant alone was read and was onely confirmed by the sealing and delivery Though most of their cunning lye in such generalities yet I shall not insist on it that Christ hath promised to be with us in all his Ordinances unto the end of the world And that there are general promises that their hearts shall live that seek God Psal 6.9.32 Prov. 8.17 Matth. 7.7 Lam. 3.25 Psal 75.4 that the Lord will be found of them that seek him and is good to them that wait for him and to the soul that seeketh him and they that dwell in his Courts shall be satisfied with the goodness of his house and that this is extensible and accommodable to seeking and waiting on him in all his wayes and Ordinances and as a general rule extends to and comprehendeth all particulars not specially and expresly excepted so they must shew by direct and explicit proof that the grace of conversion is denyed to this particular ordinance or else it is included in the affirmation of such grace to be annexed to ordinances in general As the generative faculty for propagation of the species is still supported and enlivened by influence of Gods benediction Be fruitful and multiply semel quidem dicta est semper autem fit saith Chrysostome so the converting power in the Sacrament for continuance and dilatation of the Church is maintained and verified by the power of Christ's blessing of the Elements to the remembrance of him which commemoration is efficacious to the engaging of the heart to him The Sacramental Elements are the Body and Blood of Christ and the Blood of the New Testament shed for many for remission of sins as well by signification as by obsignation and the obsignation is but an higher kind of signification they are the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ In locum signifying and sealing them accompanied with their effect and spiritual reality saith Deodate by virtue of the Holy Ghost And why should not the signification be really effectual in production of reall grace as the sealing to the causing of relative or the signification have no such effect in the Sacrament which is so efficacious when made in the Word Beside every promise made to the Word Homil. 3. aâ—â— Ephes c. 1. is extended to the Sacraments which are but visible words And when Chrysostome in his Exhortations to frequent communicating affirms not onely by these things set before us viz. the Sacrament but by Hymnes also doth the Holy Ghost descend he implyes that by the Sacrament the Holy Ghost more evidently came into mens hearts than by the other means and whether that of 1 Cor. 12.13 of drinking into one spirit which the Syriack Ambrose Augustine and others render drinking of one spirit and which Calvin thus expounds Participationem calicis huc spectare ut unam Christi spiritum hauriamus and Piscator Etsi verbi auditionem sacramentor legitimam c. brationem spiritus consolans sanctificans sequitur remunerationis ergo potiores â—amen esse in eo sacramentorum partes neque sane leviter praetereundum est quod Paulus dixit nos spiriâ—â— potari eui nihil unquam simile protulit cum de verbi praedicatione locutus est Thes Salmur part 3. p. 40. Calvin in loc Piscator in loc Gerhard loc com tom 6. c. 20. p. 173. Chrys in homil moral 24. Ut regenerentur ab uno spiritu viz. Sancto and Gerhard Ex uno calice bibimus ut unum spiritum accipiamus refer not to the conferring of real grace as well as relative and so whether those Testimonies of Chrysostome and other Fathers which if I should muster up for my defence I might like that Romane Vestal be oppress'd with the multitude of such Bucklers concerning the Sacrament calling it Fundamentum salus lux vita medicamentum immortalitatis antidotum non moriendi the saying of Ignatius Renovationis regenerationis causa which is Nyssen's vivificatio spiritûs which is Cyril's Saint as mentis which is Cyprians c. relate onely to confirming not begetting of Faith let men more learned judge but truly I cannot beleeve Can they deny that the Sacrament by shewing forth and signifying the Lords death and putting us in remembrance of him and his Body broken and his Blood shed for the remission of sins is a part of the Gospel or good
they say Hunters lay glasses for the Panther that staying to behold himself in them they may the better overtake and destroy him so he that knows that the contemplation of his own excellency with too great complacency was that which cast him down from heaven useth the same snare as most effectuall to intangle others And to despise our brethren in our eyes makes us most desplcable in the sight of God in other things we ought to imitate God but in this he imitates us in this respect is made in the likeness of Men. Facilius parcit his qui in ipsum offendunt quà m qui in proximum saith Chrysostome Lines the neerer they approach the center come the neerer to each other and they are at greatest distance from God who are farthest off from each other in pride and uncharitableness But neither is the beam so upright between tenderness of conscience and love of holiness and an over-weening conceit of purenesse or betwixt humility and wariness in society in Gods ordinance as that a cast of charity may turn the scale to to the better part Conscience saith Aquinas is the order or application of our Science to somewhat or it being to be taken intransitively our science or knowledge applied to particular acts but truly we have yet seen no scientificall demonstrations for this way which may beget such a firm and certain assent to the goodness or truth thereof ex mero motu it may be but not ex certa scientia and what principle soever it be that directs our actions in good or evill if it have not the force of some law justly obligatory whereof it is but the cryer or proclaimer it is not conscience but fancy it may be which is an irrationall animall conscience fancy in bruit creatures being as Aristotle tells us that which supplies the place of reason or humor it may be and then according to the Hebrew proverb behold it is Leah or consonantly to the Greek it is to court the maid in stead of Penelope or passion it may be and that is as in an Aegyptian Temple a beast instead of a Deity We doubt if that be true which they say That in Peru is a plant called Drakena whose root is alexi-pharmacous and the leaves venemous but it is impossible that so sweet a root as conscience and love of holiness should give spring to so bitter and intoxicating a fruit as Separation True morall vertue and the grace of holiness have onely some formall difference and a right Conscience is neer allied to both and vertue to which the Synteresis Quae est notitia principiorum moralium Lessius de justit jure l. 3. c. 1. dub 3. Sect. 20. Malderus in 1 2. q. 55. dub 2. memb 3. p. 182 1. 2 disp 5 q. 1 punct 2 p. 405. Vasquez in 1.2 disp 84 c. 2. Sect. 12. p 579 praescribet fines so as vertue considered according to her essence supposeth no other dictamen of Prudence than that of the Synteresis is that quâ nemo tanquam principio malè utitur and if an act be thought good which indeed is evill vertue concurres not to that act because being materially evil it remains also formally evil in that case neither can prudence dictate it to be done because that is not circumspectly enough judged to be good whose evill may be deprehended by a just indagation for vertue tends to no act but prudently and formally it ought to be good that it may be within the latitude of the object of vertue As in naturall things saith Valentia we animadvert that the cause produceth no effect but such as is indued with the persection thereof so vertue which is sometime defined to be dispositio perfecti ad optimum can be productive of nothing either formally or materially which bears not its image in perfection And Vasquez observes that vertue can never be a principle of an evill operation because it is an habit of doing things promptly and delectably but when a man doth an evill thing ignorantly supposing it to be good since no vincible ignorance can be with ful inconsideration but it must needs be attended with some doubting of the lesse safer part wherein is sin in this respect that such a dubitation emerging yet nevertheless he judgeth that not to be sin which he ought so to judge and so the affection is retarded and prosecutes not its object promptly and defectably De bapt contra Donatist l. 1. c. 13. epist 162. But then Separation is such an evill that Augustine can scarce finde colours black enough to paint it out suitably Separationis immanissimum scelus and again levati altaris horrendo scelere maculati and more prepter ipsam separationis sacrilegam iniquitatem innocentes esse non possunt And he rather assures us Contra ep Parmen l. 1. c. 4. that origo pertinaciae scismatis nulla sit alia nisi odium fraternum And however they may blanch it yet in the very notion of gathering a Church out of another is a separation implied from those whom they gather not De bapt contra Donat l. 1. c. 11. as Divines argue that even in the decree of electing some there is included the negative reprobation of others Besides to say that their rejecting of so many from the communion results from the love of holiness insinuates that to communicate with them will not suit with but pollute or blemish their holiness And this is the very spirits and extract of the Pharisee which they therfore hugg closer to them while they seem to thrust him off and are like Ovid who when he said he would make no more verses made one in saying so It cannot spring from wariness of their society in Gods ordinances for then they would be as cautious of their company in other ordinances since as we have elswere argued Quod dicitur per se dicitur de omni They admit those men to fellowship in other ordinances whom they separate from in this of the Sacrament nay to a communion in the other Sacrament And to say it may flow from humility though they give it forth without the least colour of reason which yet had been very necessary to perswade us that the course and stream of that vertue should be upwards which was not wont to come down to the lower grounds St. Augustine will stop or turn that current as well as the other of holiness by saying Qui si verè justi essent Contra Epist Parmen l. 3. c. 4. tom 7. p. 15 Filiucius Cas Tract 21. c. 4. Sect. 124. Vasques 1.2 tom 1. disp 60. q. 19. c. 3 p. 421. humiles essent si autem humiles essent etiam si verè malos in su evicinitat is congregatione paterentur quos ab unitate Christi expellere non valerent charitate Christi tolerare diligerent From an erroneous conscience probably it may proceed and such a conscience the impurest and most
blasphemous of all hereticks even the Gnosticks and the wildest and most desperate even the Circumcellions might have pleaded and pretended to In such a notion conscience is become the greatest malefactor or Sanctuary for malefactors in the world and a tender conscience playes the part of Davus in the Comedy and I wish it acted not in Tragedies too It is the Saviour which inordinate men have set forth in the likeness of their sinfull flesh who must justifie them and beare and answer for all their irregularities But as it was the law of Pittacus That he which offended in his drunkenness should suffer double punishment one for his offence and another for his drunkenness so it seems as rationall that he that perpetrates any fault by an erroneous conscience which is a spirituall drunkenness should incurre a twofold penalty one for his error another for the fault but however if it d ee not aggravate the evill yet error in the conscience cannot make the matter commence good For every vincible error is voluntary and he acts imprudently that follows it and he that is imprudent is not good and that an action be good the cause ought to be integrous but the cause cannot be intire although the object be apprehended as good but it is also necessary that in the understanding there be an integrous reason of the apprehension of it as good that is that it be judged good in the understanding and that in no manner it may be judged or ought to be judged evill which cannot be as long as the error is voluntary because vincible But because Jam tua res agitur paries cum proximus ardet And as in the Taliecotion rules when the man dies whose flesh was cut off to be fitted and fastned on another to supply and repair a mutilated member forthwith the new part corrupts and perisheth and as in Burgravius his pretended Lampe composed and kindled of the blood of a man when he expires the Lampe also goes out so therefore as Moncaeus undertook to purge Aaron from Idolatry because the golden Calf and popish Images of God made to that pattern must stand or fall together so the Apologists seek to reverse the judgement against the Pharisee by a Writ of Error doubting it seems if he be attainted as principal that they may be indited as accessory they tell us therefore that Esay 65.5 Touch me not for I am holier than thou is spoken by the people to the Prophets who had reproved them for their corrupt worship and this the best think but they quote onely Musculus for this interpretation who though a good one is but one Expositor neither Des nominis hujus bonorem that he should be as Scaliger said of Aristotle Unus super omnes singulis qui omnes fuit Yet I shall not deny that there are some others that go in consort with that sense but it hath little verisimilitude that persons so abominably should conceit themselves so much holier than the Prophets as to be in danger of being polluted by their contact and it carries farre more probability that this referred unto and was directed to the Gentiles as Sanctius a Lapide Sa Menechius Tirinus c. whom those Jewes contemned though themselves were more contaminated which interpretation suits aptly with the context the Prophet foretelling the conversion of the Gentiles in the first verse as Sanctius saith is the common judgement of Interpreters and then upbraiding the Jewes in the following verses who notwithstanding their odicus defilements had such proud opinions of their own sanctity and detestable thoughts of those Gentiles But however it were as we should not fail of our end so neither did we miss our direct way for the paper did not quote nor referre unto this place of Isaiah to prove this was the supercitious humor of Pharisee Many indeed both ancient and modern conceive that the Pharisee was the mark against whom that shâ—t was directed but it seems the Pharisee is not of so ancient descent and extraction for the great learned Scaliger affirmes that the Hasidees had their originall but from the times of Ezra and the Pharisees were the issue of those Hasidees Dogmatists who reduced their formerly free and voluntary observations unto Canons and necessary injunctions Ipsi impuri cum essent alios ase ut impuros arcebant sicut Samaritas Geographus Arabs clamasse ait ne attingas Grotius Annot. in locum and thereupon called themselves Peruschim separated both from the other Hasidim and from the vulgar And besides it is observable that those here inveighed against are charged to eat Swines flesh which to the Pharisee was abominable but like enough it is saith Sanctius they were guilty to do the same quod postea feccrunt hypocrita illi qui cum bonamente pudorem deposucre et ingredi praetorium noluerunt ne gentilium consuetudine contaminati c. But though these were not formal and profest Pharisees who thought their holiness would contract a stain by a society with those whom they looked upon as sinners and that which they hold forth were the more genuine sense yet it cannot set us at any loss if we find this doctrine from thence however to result that they are fastuost arrogantâ—sque hypocritae to whom not onely the sincere Prophets but also Germana ecclesiae membra praeipsis fordent as Junius delivers iâ— Late Annotat. so whether they were Pharisees or not yet the Pharisees were like them and Interpreters take notice of it upon the place and though it be not colligible from this text Origen Tertullian Epiphanius Ambrose Scaliger Drusius Pagnin Montanus c. yet it is otherwise evident that the Pharisees thought their sanctity in danger of being defiled by any commerce with or contact of these whom they thought not so holy as themselves and therefore had their name as the learned carrie it by vote from Perushim because of that separation they made from the vulgar tanquam egregii Judaeorum saith Augustine and they were called by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Separatists That they held it piacular to eat with sinners appears Matt 9.14 Luke 19.7 It was one of their Canons He that eats a Samaritans bread be as he that eats Swines flesh and it was one of those six approbries to be avoided by the Disciples of the wise viz. eating with the vulgar populus terrae That they held the touch of a sinner pollutive is manifest Luke 7.39 Camero ad Matt. 19.3 p. 175. Hall pharis and Christ Purchas pilgri l. 2 c. 8. Sect. 3. And therefore when they came from the market they washt because having there to do with divers sorts of people they might unawares be polluted they baptized themselves as the word is Mark c. 7.4 which implies washing the whole body upon this account it seems the more zealous did constantly wash themselves before dinner and this occasioned the wonder of the Pharisee toward our Saviour for not
digladiations of Sects are sometime as eager among themselves as against the truth the Maximinianists did virulently contest with the Primianists yet both were under the denomination of Donatists they may be all in the same way which yet run faster and go further one than another As the Schooles say that every Angel is a several species so if some difference or singularity might constitute a several form we should have among Independents almost as many Religions as men It is like enough they render no complacency to the rigid Independents and do yet find no pleasing reception among the right Presbyterians such a Catastrophe is the result of a midling indifference and it fares with men of that temperament as with the hypocrite the world hates him because he seemes good and God abhors him because he is not truly such They leave the rigid Independents to answer that charge of confounding Churches and then it seemes they depend upon them to be Advocates for them also aswell as to plead their own cause For however self love may transfer the guilt and censure that in others what it will not see in it self as Demosthenes said nothing was so hard as to know or so easie as to deceave ones self yet this charge hath a thou art the man for them also for he is somewhat confounded in his judgement that cannot discern or will not confesse that to constitute as they do Polydor. Virgil de inventoribus rerum l. 4. c. 9. p. 268. Quo quisque suis finibus limitibusque contentus esset Platina in vita Dionys Selder Histor of tythes c. 6. p. 8. one Church of persons gathered and extracted out of twenty or thereabout is to introduce a confusion of Churches and what is that else but to defeat that ancient and laudable constitution of dividing parishes into several Presbyteries as proper cures and making them definite and appropriate which if not instituted by Dionysius about the year 260. in the Roman Patriarchate and soon after in other Diocesses by his example or rather the institution by him revived after the disturbances of persecution as having been first setled by Euaristus at Rome within little of the first Century yet profound Antiquaries acknowledge that in the very first times Parishes were divided to several Ministers according to the conveniences of Country Towns and Villages which division and distribution hath been constantly ratified and supported by our municipal Lawes as necessary to order and subservient to many expediences And also the violation of this order and such appropriation was forbidden by the Canons of ancient Councils neque confundito Ecclesias decreed the first Council of Constantinople Constant can 2. neparochiam cujustibet Episcopi alterius civitatis Episcopus Canonum temerator invadat Avern 9. was the determination of the Synod of Averne And this is also to remove those ancient land-marks bounds which was not onely piacular among the Romans Si quis transerre ausus fuisset aut aâ—tollere Rosin Antiq. Rom l. 2. c. 19. lege terminali caput ejus his diis devovit interfectori ipsius tanquam sacrilegi impunitate promissâ puritate à scelere but obnoxious to a curse by the Law of God Deut 27. 17. In Prov. 22.28 and coming under frequent prohibitions Deut. 19.14 Prov. 22.28 23.10 Sub hoc autem literali sensu parabolicè intelligendum est ne quis rectae vitae praescripta à patribus laudabiliter constituta pro concordia ordine ac politia inter homines conservanda violare immutare novâ doctrinâ impio contemptu praesumat saith Jansenius And if it hath not much of confusion yet not little of irregularity to communicate with one Church in the Word and Prayer and onely with another in the Sacrament to be common hearers of the Word among those with whom they deny to have communion in the Sacrament and to partake of the Sacrament with them amongst whom they do not constantly hear the word to pay their Tythes to them who serve not at the Altar whereof they partake and to yeeld no Tythes whatsoever offerings they bring to those that officiate at those Altars where they participate And yet Ignatius tells of the ancient Christians Omnes ad orandum in idem loci convenere quemadmodum ad unum Altare they had not then severall Altars that had one common place of prayer and a Bishop and an Altar were made correlatives Mead hCurches in and since the Apost p. 50. so that every Bishop had an Altar and but one and not one Altar among many Bishops which interfeers with their practice Those aspersions wherewith they complain to be bespattered were not the most of them cast by the paper neither were they so blotted by any drops shed there yet let us try whether it fall not out with them as we have not onely read in story but seen by experience to have happened to some who commenced suits and brought actions of slander and upon the traversing thereof have been convicted of those crimes which they sought to clear and to get recompence for being accused of and have contracted those penalties whereas they might have been quit if they could have been quiet They say they are falsly impeached First For disorder against Law And we suppose indeed this confounding of these Parish Churches whereof Law hath determined the limits and made the appropriation comes under that denomination Our lawes have forbid and do inflict penalties for using any artifice to intice and withdraw Pigeons out of anothers Dove-house and Bees out of others Buts and therefore doublesse cannot allow the tolling and seducing other mens naturall sheep from their folds Secondly For Magick I think it will rather prove to be for sillinesse or uncharitablenesse the paper onely said that their tempting and withdrawing the fruits of other mens labours and those committed to their culture to make up their Churches did carry some analogy with that magicall transferring of other mens corn into their fields wherof some Romans were falsly accused A man might suspect that they were indeed passive in Magick and thereby fascinated hereupon to think that this Allegory layes Magick to their charge and therefore while they suppose that we question them properly for that crime they cannot but leave not onely their wit and temper but their charity and innocence under greater question Vlcera ad levem tactum etiam ad suspitionem tactûs condolescunt nunquid sine querela aegratanguntur Thirdly For Schisme Though their way be not schisme in the achme yet it is more then in the Embryo and though it be not ripe in all the fruit yet it is more than in the seed and if not schisme yet somewhat schismaticall They separate from a communion in part of the ordinances and so it is in part schismaticall but the part is of the same nature with the whole They refuse to communicate or associate as they speak with
a greater number of persons at Pyworthy fit and willing to receave the Sacrament than might have been found at Holsworthie and it will seem strange to us that where there hath been a succession of topicall Starrs of greater magnitude that there should be still less light and less effects of a quickning and fructifying influence neither can it but eclipse the dignity of those Starrs seeing causes are best judged by their effects But perchance they were only not so fit or willing to come to the Sacrament in their way and to leave their liberty behind them surrendring up that right which they had to the Sacrament by the character of Baptisme and being Church members with a Dogmatical faith to take a new grant thereof by the copy of their countenance and a tenancy at their wills and when the Statute Quia emptores terrarum forbids the creating of new civill tenures to suffer them to erect new holdings in Spirituals Their pulpit discourses were directed onely to dispose them for this way of subjection and for their ends not for the right end the Sacrament But secondly If they at Pyworthie were more malleable free stones and easier to be wrought yet seeing the stones whereof this Church was to be built and constituted were drawn forth out of several places and were brought first to be formed and fashioned at Holsworthie and some of them hewed out of that rock why should they be carried thence to be laid in Pyworthie Quod petis hic est Ut U lubris animus si te non deficit aequus As St. Hierom said Heaven was as neer Britain as Jerusalem so they had been as neer to Christ in the Sacrament in the one place as in the other He was the master Architect of the frame at Pyworthie who first prepared for the edifice at Holsworthie Ubi Imperiator ibi Roma Vejas habitante Camillo Illic Roma fuit that was the more signal place why should Pyworthie be the Patriarchal or Metropolitan Church and as I may say the Rome from which Church all must be denominated of what place soever they were and Catholique must be joyned to Roman or else it is not right so they must be named of the Church of Pyworthie of whatsoever Congregation else they be and why should this be so especially seeing the Pontisex maximus that hath the greatest influence upon the members of the Church was the proper Pastor of another place unless also that be here applicable in the resemblance which Bellarmine tell us that the Apostolical seate may be separated from the Bishoprick of Rome and what Cameracensis saith that the Papacy and Bishoprick of Rome are two distinct things and not so necessary conjoyned but that they may be separated There might be some reasons of thrift in the conduct thereof which is a principle that hath more influence upon those of the Independent principles than on the more hospitable Presbyterians or of Policy that their own peculiar Churches might be kept for a reserve and to be modelled according to the mode of the time and exigence of emergencies for whereas they talk of their being a Church formed at Pyworthie in the choice of a Pastor c. as they were the efficients by whom and the matter of which it was formed so though at their first sitting down there was a Pastor duly I think ordained yet when he removed his quarters the phrase is not improper he that next assumed that charge was not for divers years after in Orders and all that while sure they had no Church formed there according to the rules of Gods Word in the choice of an appropriate Pastor c. and therefore then not to have reverted to their proper Congregations and rechurched them is without excuse Thirdly Since there are some of every of their own peculiar Congregations aggregated into their catholick Church at Pyworthie had it not been not onely more orderly and decent but more just and necessary to have modelled them into special and proper Churches at home where their proper work lay and which was the spheare wherein they ought to move and the Sparta which they should adorne and though by a figurative polygamy â—hey have taken another wife and the later is beloved and the former hated yet since the first borne sonne was hers that was hated he should not have been disinherited but have had his double portion and If these Churches would perchance at first have been diminutive yet should they have been augmentatives of their honor and peace which as they complaine doe suffer for neglect hereof I fuge sed poteris tutior esse domi and those little Churches have been likelier to grow by apposition of parts contiguous the corporeal contact facilitating the agents in assimilating and the sticks lying in the same pile easily kindling one the other which they cannot do being separated As opportunity sometime tempts to evill so also often doth it prompt to good and though Bellarmine have falsely thought That the only efficacy of discriminating grace consists in the annexed congruity or as Fonseca the due application thereof yet it is a truth that the external means of grace are more effectual by the congruous and fit application thereof and the circumstances of convenient place and facility of resort have some conducency to that congruity and fitness for wise men have been taught by experience to conclude that what is little in the cause may be great in the effect and consequent and the day of small things is not to be despised They deny that they had a competent number for the work but they leave us to divine what they judge to be a competency Suarez 3 q. 8. art 6. disp 67. sect 5. Item Vasquez Junius Eccles l. 1 c. 4. tom 1. p. 1936. Maimonides saith Where ten men of Israel were there ought to be built a Synanagogue for they determine it not The Schoole tells that ten suffice to make up a Parochial Church and this is also the judgement of the Canonists the Independents contract it to seven and think so few may constitute a Church Ecclesia saith Junius Grammaticis quoque testibus vox est sylleptica quae non unum aliquem spectat sed plùres complectitur divinitus in unum Caetum in privatis quoque domibus Ecclesia ita vocat Apostolus Rom. 16.5 1 Cor 16.19 sed ea constat ex familia justa in qua non minùs tribus animis esse oportere omnes noverunt Oeconomi ac omnes Philosophi Jurisconsulti docuerunt Correspondently Tertullian Vbi tres sunt ibi est Ecclesia neither of them unsuitably to what the Lord Christ hath promised Where two or three are gathered together in his name that he will be in the midst of them There was a Church in Paradise where there were but two persons and they had Sacraments there for such was the Tree of Life and I suppose that to help forward the