thereby a great deal more effectually then by Positive Laws restrained from doing evil in as much as those Laws have no farther power then over our outward actions onely whereas unto mens inward cogitations unto the privy intents and motions of their hearts Religion serveth for a bridle What more savage wilde and cruel then Man if he see himself able either by fraud to over-teach or by power to over-bear the Laws whereunto he should he subject Wherefore in so great boldness to offend it behoveth that the World should be held in aw not by a vain surmise but a true apprehension of somewhat which no man may think himself able to withstand This is the politick use of Religion In which respect there are of these wise malignants some who have vouchsafed it their marvellous favorable countenance and speech very gravely affirming That Religion honored addeth greatness and contemned bringeth ruine unto Commonweaâ—s That Princes and States which will continue are above all things to uphold the reverend regard of Religion and to provide for the same by all means in the making of their Laws But when they should define what means are best for that purpose behold they extol the wisdom of Paganisin they give it out as a mystical precept of great importance that Princes and such as are under them in most authority or credit with the people should take all occasions of rare events and from what cause soever the same do proceed yet wrest them to the strengthning of their Religion and not make it nice for so good a purpose to use if need be plain forgeries Thus while they study to bring to pass that Religion may seem but a matter made they lose themselves in the very maze of their own discourses as if Reason did even purposely forsake them who of purpose forsake God the Author thereof For surely a strange kinde of madness it is that those men who though they be void of Piety yet because they have wit cannot chuse but know that treachery guile an deceit are things which may for a while but do not use long to go unespied should teach that the greatest honor to a State is perpetuity and grant that alterations in the Service of God for that they impair the credit of Religion are therefore perilous in Commonweals which have no continuance longer then Religion hath all reverence done unto it and withal acknowledge for so they do that when people began to espie the falshood of Oracles whereupon all Gentilism was built their hearts were utterly averted from it and notwithstanding Counsel Princes in sober earnest for the strengthning of their States to maintain Religion and for the maintenance of Religion not to make choice of that which is true but to authorise that they make choice of by those false and fraudulent means which in the end must needs overthrow it Such are the counsels of men godless when they would shew themselves politick devisers able to create God in Man by art 3. Wherefore to let go this execâ—able crew and to come to extremities on the contrary hand two affections there are the forces whereof as they bear the greater or lesser sway in mans heart frame accordingly to the stamp and character of his Religion the one Zeal the other Fear Zeal unless it be rightly guided when it endeavoreth most busily to please God forceth upon him those unseasonable offices which please him not For which cause if they who this way swerve be compared with such sincere found and discreet as Abraham was in Matter of Religion the service of the one is like unto slattery the other like the faithful sedulity of friendship Zeal except it be ordered aright when it bendeth it self unto conflict with all things either in deed or but imagined to be opposite unto Religion useth the Razor many times with such eagerness that the very life of Religion it self is thereby hazarded through hatred of Tares the Corn in the Field of God is plucked up So that Zeal needeth both ways a sober guide Fear on the other side if it have not the light of true understanding concerning God wherewith to be moderated breedeth likewise Superstition It is therefore dangerous that in things Divine we should work too much upon the spur either of zeal or fear Fear is a good Solicitor to Devotion Howbeit sith fear in this kinde doth grow from an apprehension of Deity endued with irresistable power to hurt and is of all affections anger excepted the unaptest to admit any conference with Reason for which cause the Wise man doth say of Fear that it is a betrayer of the forces of reasonable understanding therefore except men know beforehand what manner of service pleaseth God while they are fearful they try all things which fancy offereth Many there are who never think on God but when they are in extremity of fear and then because what to think or what to do they are uncertain perplexity not suffering them to be idle they think and do as it were in a phrensie they know not what Superstition neither knoweth the right kinde nor observeth the due measure of actions belonging to the Service of God but is always joyned with a wrong opinion touching things Divine Superstition is when things are either abhorred or observed with a zealous or fearful but erroneous relation to God By means whereof the superstitious do sometimes serve though the true God yet with needless offices and defraud him of duties necessary sometime load others then him with such honors as properly are his The one their over sight who miss in the choice of that wherewith they are affected the other theirs who fail in the election of him towards whom they shew their devotion This the crime of Idolatry that the fault of voluntary either niceness or superfluity in Religion The Christian World it self being divided into two grand parts it appeareth by the general view of both that with Master of Heresie the West hath been often and much troubled but the East part never quiet till the deluge of misery wherein now they are overwhelmed them The chiefest cause whereof doth seem to have lien in the restless wits of the Grecians evermore proud of their own curious and subtile inventions which when at any time they had contrived the great facility of their Language served them readily to make all things fair and plausible to mens understanding Those grand Heretical Impieties therefore which most highly and immediately touched God and the glorious Trinity were all in a manner the Monsters of the East The West bred fewer a great deal and those commonly of a lower nature such as more nearly and directly concerned rather men then God the Latines being always to capital Heresies less inclined yet unto gross Superstition more Superstition such as that of the Pharisees was by whom Divine things indeed were less because other things were more divinely esteemed of then Reason would the
est it a ejâ—â— patrimonium jugiter servetur illasâ—â— As for the case of publique burthens let any politirian living make it appear that by confiscation of Bishops livings and their utter dissolution at once the Common-wealth shall ever have half that relief and ease which it receiveth by their continuance as now they are and it shall give us some cause to think that albeit we sew they are implously and irreligiously minded yet we mayâ— esteem them at least to be tolerable Common-wealths-men But the case is too clear and manifest the World doth but too plainly see it that no one Order of subjects whatsoever within this Land doth bear the seventh part of that proportion which the Clergy beareth in the burthens of the Commonwealth No revenue of the Crownlike unto it either for certainty or for greatness Let the good which this way hath grown to the Common-wealth by the dissolution of religious houses teach men what ease unto publique burthens there is like to grow by the overthrow of the Clergy My meaning is not hereby to make the state of Bishopricks and of those dissolved Companies alike the one no less unlawful to be removed then the other For those religious persons were men which followed only a special kind of Contemplative life in the Commonwealth they were properly no portion of Gods Clergy only such amongst them excepted as were also Priests their goods that excepted which they unjustly held through the Popes usurped power of appropriating Ecclesiastical livings unto them may in part seem to be of the nature of Civil possessions held by other kinds of Corporations such as the City of London hath divers Wherefore as their institution was human and their end for the most part superstitious they had not therein meerly that holy and divine interest which belongeth unto Bishops who being imployed by Christ in the principal service of his Church are receivers and disposers of his patrimony as hath been showed which whosoever shall with-hold or with-draw at any time from them he undoubtedly robbeth God himself If they abuse the goods of the Church unto pomp and vanity such faults we do not excuse in them Only we wish it to be considered whether such faults be verily in them or else but objected against them by such as gape after spoil and therefore are no competent judges what is moderate and what excessive in them whom under this pretence they would spoil But the accusation may be just In plenty and fulness it may be we are of God more forgetful then were requisite Notwithstanding men should remember how not to the Clergy alone it was said by Moses in Deuteronomy Necum manducaveris biberis domos optimas adisicaveris If the remedy prescribed for this disease be good let it unpartially be applied Interest Reip utre suâ QUIS QUE bene utatur Let all states be put to their moderate pensions let their livings and lands be taken away from them whosoever they be in whom such ample possessions are found to have been matters of grievous abuse Were this just â— would Noble Families think this reasonable The Title which Bishops have to their livings is as good as the title of any sort of men unto whatsoever we accompt to be most justly held by them yea in this one thing the claim of â— B. hath preheminence above all secular Titles of right in that Gods own interest in the tenure whereby they hold even as also it was to the Priests of the Law an assurance of their spiritual goods and possessions whereupon though they many times abused greatly the goods of the Church yet was not Gods patrimony therefore taken away from them and made saleable unto other Tribes To rob God to ransack the Church to overthrow the whole Order of Christian Bishops and to turn them out of Land and Living out of House and Home what man of common honesty can think it for any manner of abuse to be a remedy lawful or just We must confess that God is righteous in taking away that which men abuse But doth that excuse the violence of Thieves and Robbers Complain we will not with S. Ierom that the hands of men are so straightly tyed and their liberal minds so much bridled and held back from doing good by augmentation of the Church-Patrimony For we confess that herein mediocrity may be and hath been sometime exceeded There did want heretofore Moses to temper mens liberality to say unto them who enriched the Church Sufficit Stay your hands lest favour of zeal do cause you to empty your selves too far It may be the largeness of mens hearts being then more moderate had been after more dureable and one state by too much over-growing the rest had not given occasion unto the rest to undermine it That evil is now sufficiently cured the Church treasury if then it were over-ful hath since been reasonable well emptyed That which Moses spake unto givers we must now inculcate unto takers away from the Church Let there be some stay some stint in spoiling If Grape-gatherers came unto them saith the Prophet would they not leave some remnant behind But it hath fared with the wealth of the Church as with a Tower which being built at the first with the highest overthroweth if self after by its own greatness neither doth the ruine thereof cease with the only fall of that which hath exceeded mediocrity but one part beareth down another till the whole be laid prostrate For although the state Ecclesiastical both others and even Bishops themselves be now fallen to so low an ebb as all the World at this day doth see yet because there remaineth still somewhat which unsatiable minds can thirst for therefore we seem not to have been hitherto sufficiently wronged Touching that which hath been taken from the Church in Appropriations known to amount to the value of one hundred twenty six thousand pounds yearly we rest contentedly and quietly without it till it shall please God to touch the hearts of men of their own voluntary accord to restore it to Him again judging thereof no otherwise then some others did of those goods which were by Sylla taken away from the Citizens of Rome that albeit they were in truth malè capta unconscionably taken away from the right owners at the first nevertheless seeing that such as were after possessed of them held them not without some title which Law did after a sort make good repetitio corum proculdubio labefaltabat compositam civitatem what hath been taken away as dedicated unto uses superstitious and consequently not given unto God or at the least-wise not so rightly given we repine not thereat That which hath gone by means secret and indirect through corrupt compositions or compacts we cannot help What the hardness of mens hearts doth make them loath to have exacted though being due by Law eventhereof the want we do also bear Out of that which after all these
overcome by the sword which they were very ready to take into their hands So that those very men that began with tender meek Petitions proceeded to print publick Admonitions and then to Satyrical Remonstrances and at last having like David numbred who was not and who was for their Cause they got a supposed Certainty of so great a Party that they durst threaten first the Bishops and not long after both the Queen and Parliament to all which they were secretly encouraged by the Earl of Leicester then in great favour with her Majestie and the reputed Cherisher and Patron-general of these Pretenders to Tenderness of Conscience whom he used as a sacreligious snare to further his Design which was by their means to bring such an odium upon the Bishops as to procure an Alienation of their Lands and a large proportion of them for himself which Avaritious desire had at last so blinded his Reason that his ambitious and greedy Hopes had almost flattered him into present possession of Lambeth-house And to thse strange and dangerous Undertakings the Non-conformists of this Nation were much encouraged and heightened by a Correspondence and Confederacy with that Brotherhood in Scotland so that here they became so bold that one told the Queen openly in a Sermon She was like an untamed Heyfer that would not be ruled by Gods people but obstructed his Discipline And in Scotland they were more confident for there they declared Her an Atheist and grew to such an height as not to be accountable for any thing spoken against Her No nor for Treason against their own King if spoken in the Pulpit Shewing at last such a disobedience even to Him that His Mother being in England and then in distress and in prison and in danger of Death the Church denied the King their Prayers for Her and at another time when he had appointed a day of Feasting their Church declared for a general Fast in opposition to his Authority To this height they were grown in both Nations and by these means there was distill'd into the mindes of the common people such other venemous and turbulent Principles as were inconsistent with the safety of the Church and State And these vented so daringly that beside the loss of Life and Limbs the Church and State were both forced to use such other severities as will not admit of an excuse if it had not been to prevent Confusion and the perilous consequences of it which without such prevention would in short time have brought unavoidable ruine and misery to this numerous Nation These Errors and Animosities were so remarkable that they begot wonder in an ingenious Italian who being about this time come newly into this Nation writ scoffingly to a Friend in his own Countrey That the common people of England were wiser then the wisest of his Nation for here the very Women and Shop-keepers were able to judge of Predestination and determine what Laws were fit to be made concerning Church Government then what were fit to be obeyed or abolished That they were more able or at least thought so to raise and determine perplex'd Cases of Conscience then the most Learned Colledges in Italy That Men of the slightest Learning and the most ignorant of the common people were mad for a new or Super or Re-Reformation of Religion and that in this they appeared like that man who would never cease to whet and whet his Knife till there was no Steel left to make it useful And he concluded his Letter with this observation That those very Men that were most busie in Oppositions and Disputations and Controversies and finding out the faults of their Governors had usually the least of Humility and Mortification or of the Power of Godliness And to heighten all these discontents and dangers there was also sprung up a Generation of Godless-men Men that had so long given way to their own Lusts and Delusions and had so often and so highly opposed the Blessed Motions of his Blessed Spirit and the inward Light of their own Consciences that they had thereby sinned themselves to a belief of what they would but were not able to believe Into a belief which is repugnant even to Humane nature for the Heathens believe there are many gods but these had sinned themselves into a belief that there is no God And so finding nothing in themselves but what is worse then nothing began to wish what they were not able to hope for That they should be like the Beasts that perish and in wicked company which is the Atheists Sanctuary were so bold as to say so Though the worst of mankinde when he is left alone at midnight may wish but cannot then think it Into this wretched this reprobate condition many had then sinned themselves And now When the Church was pestered with them and with all these other Irregularities when her Lands were in danger of Alienation her Power at least neglected and her Peace torn to pieces by several Schisms and such Heresies as do usually attend that sin When the common people seemed ambitious of doing those very things which were attended with most dangers that thereby they might be punished and then applauded and pittied When they called the Spirit of Opposition a Tender Conscience and complained of Persecution because they wanted power to persecute others When the giddy multitude raged and became restless to finde out misery for themselves and others and the râ—â—ble would herd themselves together and endeavor to govern and act in spight of Authority In this extremity fear and danger of the Church and State when to suppress the growing evils of both they needed a Man of Prudence and Piâ—ty and of an high and fearless Fortitude they were blest in all by Iohn Whitgift his being made Archbishop of Canterbury of whom ingenious Sir Henry Wotâ—on that knew him well hath left this true Character That he was a Man of a Reverend and Sacred Memory and of the Premitive temper A Man of such a temper as when the Church by lowliness of Spirit did flourish in highest examples of Vertue And though I dare not undertake to add to his Character yet I shall neither do right to this Discourse nor to my Reader if I forbear to give him a further and short account of the life and manners of this excellent Man and it shall be short for I long to end this digression that I may lead my Reader back to Mr. Hooker where we left him at the Temple Iohn Whitgift was born in the County of Lincoln of a Family that was ancient and noted to be prudent and affable and gentile by nature He was educated in Cambridge much of his Learning was acquired in Pembroke-Hall where Mr. Bradford the Martyr was his Tutor From thence he was remov'd to Peter-house from thence to be Master of Pembroke-Hall and from thence to the Mastership of Trinity Colledge About which time the Queen made him her Chaplain and not
small thing perswadeth them to change their opinions it behoveth that we vigilantly note and prevent by all means those evils whereby the hearts of men are lost which evils for the most part being personal do arm in such sort the Adversaries of God and his Church against us that if through our too much neglect and security the same should run on soon might we feel our estate brought to those lamentable terms whereof this hard and heavy sentence was by one of the Ancients uttered upon like occasions Dolens dico gemens denuncio sacerdotium quod apud nos intus cecidit foris diu stare non poterit But the gracious providence of Almighty God hath I trust put these Thorns of Contradiction in our sides lest that should steal upon the Church in a slumber which now I doubt not but through his assistance may be turned away from us bending thereunto our selves with constancy constancy in labor to do all men good constancy in Prayer unto God for all men Her especially whose sacred power matched with incomparable goodness of Nature hath hitherto been Gods most happy instrument by him miraculously kept for works of so miraculous preservation and safety unto others that as By the Sword of God and Gedeon was sometime the cry of the people of Israel so it might deservedly be at this day the joyful Song of innumerable multitudes yea the Emblem of some Estates and Dominions in the world and which must be eternally confest even with tears of thankfulness the true Inscription Stile or Title of all Churches as yet standing within this Realm By the goodness of Almighty God and his servant Elizabeth we areâ— That God who is able to make Mortality immortal give her such future continuance as may be no less glorious unto all Posterity then the days of Her Regiment past have been happy unto our selves and for his most dear Anointeds sake grant them all prosperity whose Labors Cares and Counsels unfeignedly are referred to Her endless welfare through his unspeakable mercy unto whom we all owe everlasting praise In which desire I will here rest humbly beseeching your Grace to pardon my great boldness and God to multiply his Blessings upon them that fear his Name Your Graces in all duty RICHARD HOOKER A PREFACE To them that seek as they term it The Reformation of Laws and Orders Ecclesiastical IN THE Church of England THough for no other cause yet for this That Posterity may know we have not loosly through silence permitted things to pass away as in a Dream there shall be for Mens information extant thus much concerning the present state of the Church of God established amongst us and their careful endeavor which would have uphold the same At your hands beloved in our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ for in him the love which we bear unto all that would but seem to be born of him it is not the Sea of your Gall and Bitterness that shall ever drown I have no great cause to look for other then the self-same portion and lot which your manner hath been hitherto to lay on them that concur not in Opinion and Sentence with you But our hope it that the God of Peace shall notwithstanding mans nature too impatical of contumelious malediction enable us quietly and even gladly to suffer all things for that work sake which we covet to perform The wonderful seal and fervor wherewith ye have with stood the received Orders of this Church was the first thing which caused me to enter into consideration Whether as all your published Books and Writings peremptorily maintain every Christian man fearing God stand bound to joyn with you for the furtherance of that which ye term The Lords Discipline Wherein I must plainly confess unto you that before I examined your sundry Declarations in that behalf it could not settle in my head to think but that undoubtedly such numbers of otherwise right well-affected and most religiously enclined minds had some marvellous reasonable enducements which led them with so great earnestness that way But when once as near as my slender ability would serve I had with travel and care performed that part of the Apostles advice and counsel in such cases whereby be willeth to try all things and was come at the length so far that there remained only the other clause to be satisfied wherein he concludeth that what good is must be held There was in my poor understanding no remedy but to set down this as my final resolute perswasion Surely the present Form of Church Government which the Laws of this Land have established is such as no Law of God nor Reason of Man hath hitherto been alledged of force sufficient to prove they do ill who to the uttermost of their power withstand the alteration thereof Contrariwise The other which instead of it we are required to accept is onely by Error and misconceipt named the Ordinance of Jesus Christ no one Proof as yet brought forth whereby it may clearly appear to be so in very deed The Explication of which two things I have here thought good to offer into your own hands Heartily beseeching you even by the Meekness of Iesus Christ whom I trust ye love That as ye tender the Peace and Quietness of this Church if there be in you that gracious Humility which hath ever been the Crown and Glory of a Christianly disposed minde If your own souls hearts and consciences the sound integrity whereof can but hardly stand with the refusal of Truth in personal respects be as I doubt not but they are things most dear and precious unto you Let not the Faith which ye have in our Lord Jesus Christ be blemished with partialities regard not who it is which speaketh but weigh onely what is spoken Think not that ye read the words of one who bendeth himself as an Adversary against the Truth which ye have already embraced but the words of one who desireth even to embrace together with you the self same Truth if it be the Truth and for that cause for no other God he knoweth hath undertaken the burthensom labor of this painful kinde of Conference For the plainer access whereunto let it be lawful for me to rip up the very bottom how and by whom your Discipline was planted at such time as this age we live in began to make first tryal thereof 2. A Founder it had whom for mine own part I think incomparably the wisest man that ever the French Church did injoy since the hour it injoyed him His bringing up was in the study of the Civil Law Divine knowledge he gathered not by hearing or reading so much as by teaching others For though thousands were debters to him as touching knowledge in that kinde yet be to none but onely to God the Author of that most blessed Fountain The Book of Life and of the admirable dexterity of Wit together with the helps of other learning which
Iudges in that Court to be their Ministers others of the people annually chosen twice so many in number as they to be Iudges together with them in the same Court These two sorts to have the care of all Mens manners power of determining of all kinde of Ecclesiastical Causes and authority to Convent to Controll to Punish as far as with Excommunication whom soever they should think worthy none either small or great excepted This device I see not how the wisest at that time living could have bettered if we duly consider what the present State of Geneva did then require For their Bishop and his Clergy being as it is said departed from them by Moon-light or howsoever being departed to chuse in his room any other Bishop had been a thing altogether impossible And for their Ministers to seek that themselves alone might have coercive power over the whole Church would perhaps have been hardly construed at that time But when so frank an offer was made that for every one Minister there should be two of the people to sit and give voice in the Ecclesiastical Consistory what inconvenience could they easily finde which themselves might not be able always to remedy Howbeit as ever more the simpler sort are even when they see no apparent cause jealous notwithstanding over the secret intents and purposes of wiser men this Proposition of his did somewhat trouble them Of the Ministers themselves which had staid behinde in the City when Calvin was gone some upon knowledge of the peoples earnest intent to recal him to his place again had beforehand written their Letters of Submission and assured him of their alleâ—giance for ever after if it should like him to hearken unto that Publick Suit But yet misdoubting what might happen if this Discipline did go forward they objected against it the example of other Reformed Churches living quietly and orderly without it Some of the chiefest place and countenance amongst the Laity professed with greater stomach their judgments that such a Discipline was little better then Popish Tyranny disguised and tendered unto them under a new Form This sort it may be had some fear that the filling up of the Seats in the Consistory with so great a member of Laymen was but to please the mindes of the people to the end they might think their own sway somewhat but when things came to tryal of practice their Pastors learning would be at all times of force to over-perswade simple men who knowing the time of their own Presidentship to be but short would always stand in fear of their Ministers perpetual authority And among the Ministers themselves one being so far in estimation above the rest the voices of the rest were likely to be given for the most part respectively with a kinde of secret dependency and aw So that in shew a marvellous indifferently composed Senate Ecclesiastical was to govern but in effect one onely man should as the Spirit and Soul of the residue do all in all But what did these vain surmises boot Brought they were now to so strait an issue that of two things they must chuse one Namely Whether they would to their endless disgrace with ridiculous lightness dismiss him whose restitution they had in so impotent manner desired or else condescend unto that demand wherein he was resolute either to have it or to leave them They thought it better to be somewhat hardly yoked at home then for ever abroad discredited Wherefore in the end those Orders were on all sides assented unto with no less alacrity of minde then Cities unable to hold out longer are wont to shew when they take conditions such as liketh him to offer them which hath them in the narrow streights of advantage Not many years were over passed before these twice-sworn men adventured to give their last and hottest assault to the Fortress of the same Discipline childishly granting by common consent of their whole Senate and that under their Town-Seal a Relaxation to one Bertelier whom the Eldership had Excommunicated Further also decreeing with strange absurdity that to the same Senate it should belong to give final judgment in Matter of Excommunication and to absolve whom it pleased them clean contrary to their own former Deeds and Oaths The report of which Decree being fortwith brought unto Calvin Before saith he this Decree take place either my Blood or Banishment shall sign it Again two days before the Communion should be celebrated this speech was publickly to like effect Kill me if ever this hand do teach forth the things that are holy to them whom the Church hath judged despisers Whereupon for fear of tumult the forenamed Bertelier was by his friends advised for that time not to use the liberty granted him by the Senate nor to present himself in the Church till they saw somewhat further what would ensue After the Communion quietly ministred and some likelihood of peaceable ending of these troubles without any more aâ—â— that very day in the afternoon besides all mens expectation concluding his ordinary Sermon he telleth them That because he neither had learned nor taught to strive with such as are in Authority therefore saith he the case so standing as now it doth let me use these words of the Apostle unto you I commend you unto God and the Word of his Grace and so bad them heartily Adieu It sometimes cometh to pass that the readiest way which a wise man hath to conquer is to flie This voluntary and unexpected mention of sudden departure caused presently the Senate for according to their wonted manner they still continued onely constant in unconstancy to gather themselves together and for a time to suspend their own Decree leaving things to proceed as before till they had heard the judgment of Four Helvetian Cities concerning the matter which was in strife This to have done at the first before they gave assent unto any order had shewed some wit and discretion in them but now to do it was as much as to say in effect That they would play their parts on a stage Calvin therefore dispatcheth with all expedition his Letters unto some Principal Pastor in every of those Cities craving earnestly at their hands to respect this Cause as a thing whereupon the whole State of Religion and Piety in that Church did so much depend That God and all good men were now inevitably certain to be trampled under foot unless those Four Cities by their good means might be brought to give sentence with the Ministers of Geneva when the Cause should be brought before them yea so to give it that two things it might effectually contain The one an Absolute Approbation of the Discipline of Geneva as consonant unto the Word of God without any cautions qualifications ifs or ands the other an earnest Admonition not to innovate or charge the same His vehement request herein as touching both points was satisfied For albeit the said Helvetian Churches did never as yet
World whereby the one sort are named The Brethren the Godly and so forth the other Worldlings Time-servers Pleasers of Men not of God with such like From hence they are easily drawn on to think it exceeding necessary for fear of quenching that good Spirit to use all means whereby the same may be both strengthned in themselves and made manifest unto others This maketh them diligent bearers of such as are known that way to incline this maketh them eager to take and seek all occasions of secret Conference with such this maketh them glad to use such as Counsellors and Directors in all their dealings which are of weight as Contracts Testaments and the like this maketh them through an unweariable desire of receiving instruction from the Masters of that Company to cast off the care of those very affairs which do most concern their estate and to think that then they are like unto Mary commendable for making choice of the better part Finally This is it which maketh them willing to charge yea oftentimes even to over-charge themselves for such Mens sustenance and relief least their zeal to the Cause should any way be unwitnessed For what is it which poor beguiled souls will not do through so powerful incitements In which respect it is also noted that most labor hath been bestowed to win and retain towards this Cause them whose judgments are commonly weakest by reason of their sex And although not Women loaden with sins as the Apostle St. Paul speaketh but as we verily esteem of them for the most part Women propense and inclinable to holiness be otherwise edified in good things rather then carried away as captives into any kinde of sin and evil by such as enter into their houses with purpose to plant there a zeal and a love towards this kinde of Discipline yet some occasion is hereby ministred for Men to think that if the Cause which is thus furthered did gain by the soundness of proof whereupon it doth build it self it would not most busily endeavor to prevail where least ability of judgment is And therefore that this so eminent industry in making Proselytes more of that sex then of the other groweth for that they are deemed apter to serve as instruments and helps in the Cause Apter they are through the eagerness of their affection that maketh them which way soever they take diligent in drawing their Husbands Children Servants Friends and Allies the same way Apter through that natural inclination unto pity which breedeth in them a greater readiness then in men to be bountiful towards their Preachers who suffer want Apter through sundry opportunities which they especially have to procure encouragements for their Brethren Finally Apter through a singular delight which they take in giving very large and particular intelligence how all near about them stand affected as concerning the same Cause But be they Women or be they Men if once they have tasted of that Cup let any man of contrary opinion open his mouth to perswade them they close up their ears his Reasons they weigh not all is answered with rehearsal of the words of John We are of God he that knoweth God heareth us As for the rest Ye are of the World for this Worlds pomp and vanity it is that ye speak and the World whose ye are heareth you Which cloke sitteth no less fit oâ— the lack of their Cause then of the Anabaptists when the Dignity Authority and Honor of Gods Magistrates is upheld against them Shew these eagerly-affected men their inability to judge of such matters their answer is God hath chosen the simple Convince them of Folly and that so plainly that very children upbraid them with it they have their bucklers of like defence Christs own Apostle was accounted mad The best men evermore by the sentence of the World have been judged to be out of their right mindes When instruction doth them no good let them feel but the least degree of most mercifully tempered Severity they fasten on the head of the Lords Vicegerents here on Earth whatsoever they any where finde uttered against the cruelty of Blood-thirsty men and to themselves they draw all the Sentences which Scripture hath in the favor of Innocency persecuted for the Truth yea they are of their due and deserved sufferings no less proud then those ancient disturbers to whom St. Augustine writeth saying Martyrs rightly so named are they not which suffer for their disorder and for the ungodly breach they have made of Christian Unity but which for Righteousness sake are persecuted For Agar also suffered persecution at the hands of Sara wherein she which did impose was holy and she unrighteous which did bear the burthen In like sort with the Theeves was the Lord himself crucified but they who were matcht in the pain which they suffered were in the cause of their sufferings dis-joyned If that must needs be the true Church which doth endure persecution and not that which persecuteth let them ask of the Apostle what Church Sara did represent when she held her Maid in affliction For even our Mother which is free the Heavenly Ierusalem that is to say The true Church of God was as he doth affirm prefigured in that very Woman by whom the Bond-maid was so sharply handled Although if all things be throughly skanned she did in truth more persecute Sara by proud resistance then Sara her by severity of punishment These are the paths wherein ye have walked that are of the ordinary sort of men these are the very steps ye have trodden and the manifest degrees whereby ye are of your Guides and Directors trained up in that School A custom of inuring your ears with reproof of faults especially in your Governors and use to attribute those faults to the kinde of Spiritual Regiment under which ye live boldness in warranting the force of their Discipline for the cure of all such evils a slight of framing your conceits to imagine that Scripture every where favoreth that Discipline perswasion that the cause why ye finde it in Scripture is the illumination of the Spirit that the same Spirit is a Seal unto you of your nearness unto God that ye are by all means to nourish and witness it in your selves and to strengthen on every side your mindes against whatsoever might be of force to withdraw you from it 4. Wherefore to come unto you whose judgment is a Lanthorn of Direction for all the rest you that frame thus the peoples hearts not altogether as I willingly perswade my self of a politick intent or purpose but your selves being first over-borne with the weight of greater mens judgments on your shoulders is laid the burthen of upholding the cause by Argument For which purpose Sentences out of the Word of God ye alledge divers but so that when the same are aiscust thus it always in a manner falleth out That what things by vertue thereof ye urge upon us as altogether
regard the present State of the highest Governor placed over us if the quality and disposition of our Nobles if the Orders and Laws of our famous Universities if the Profession of the Civil or the Practice of the Common Law amongst us if the mischiefs whereinto even before our eyes so many others have faln head-long from no less plausible and fair beginnings then yours are There is in every of these Considerations most just cause to fear lest our hastiness to embrace a thing of so perilous consequence should cause Posterity to feel those evils which as yet are more easie for us to prevent then they would be for them to remedy 9. The best and safest way for you therefore my dear Brethren is To call your Deeds past to a new reckoning to re-examine the cause ye have taken in hand and to try it even point by point argument by argument with all the diligent exactness ye can to lay aside the Gall of that Bitterness wherein your mindes have hitherto ever-abounded and with meekness to search the Truth Think ye are Men deem it not impossible for you to err sift unpartially your own hearts whether it be force of Reason or vehemency of Affection which hath bred and still doth feed these Opinions in you If Truth do any where manifest it self seek not to smother it with gloâ—ing Delusion acknowledge the greatness thereof and think it your best Victory when the same doth prevail over youâ— That ye have been earnest in speaking or writing again and again the contrary way should be noblemish or discredit at all unto you Amongst so many so huge Volumes as the infinite pains of St. Augustine have brought forth what one hath gotten him greater love commendation and honor then the Book wherein he carefully collecteth his own over-sights and sincerely condemneth them Many speeches there are of Jobs whereby his Wisdom and other Vertues may appear but the glory of an ingenuous minde he hath purchased by these words onely Behold I will lay mine hand on my mouth I have spoken once yet will I not therefore maintain Argument yea twice howbeit for that cause further I will not proceed Far more comfort it were for us so small is the joy we take in these strises to labor under the same yoke as men that look for the same eternal reward of their labors to be enjoyned with you in Bands of indissoluble Love and Amity to live as if our persons being many our souls were but one rather than in such dismembred sort to spend our few and wretched days in a tedious prosecuting of wearisome contentions the end whereof if they have not some speedy end will be heavy even on both sides Brought already we are even to that estate which Gregory Nazianzen mournfully describeth saying My minde leadeth me sith there is no other remedy to flie and to convey my self into some corner out of sight where I may scape from this cloudy tempest of maliciousness whereby all parts are entred into a deadly war amongst themselves and that little remnant of love which was is now consumed to nothing The onely godliness we glory in is to finde out somewhat whereby we may judge others to be ungodly Each others faults we observe as matter of exprobration and not of grief By these means we are grown hateful in the eyes of the Heathens themselves and which woundeth us the more deeply able we are not to deny but that we have deserved their hatred With the better sort of our own our fame and credit is clean lost The less we are to marvel if they judge vilely of us who although we did well would hardly allow thereof On our backs they also build that are leud and what we object one against another the same they use to the utter scorn and disgrace of us all This we have gained by our mutual home-dissentions This we are worthily rewarded with which are more forward to strive then becometh men of vertuous and milde disposition But our trust in the Almighty is that with us Contentions are now at the highest flote and that the day will come for what cause of despair is there when the Passions of former Enmity being allayed we shall with ten times redoubled tokens of our unfeignedly reconciled love shew our selves each towards other the same which Joseph and the Brethren of Joseph were at the time of their enterview in Egypt Our comfortable expectation and most thirsty desire whereof what man soever amongst you shall any way help to satisfie as we truly hope there is no one amongst you but some way or other will The blessings of the God of Peace both in this World and in the World to come be upon him more then the Stars of the Firmament in number WHAT THINGS ARE HANDLED In the following BOOKS BOOK I. COncerning LAWS in General BOOK II. Of the use of Divine Law contained in Scripture Whether that be the onely Law which ought to serve for our Direction in all things without exception BOOK III. Of Laws concerning Ecclesiastical Polity Whether the Form thereof be in Scripture so set down that no Addition or Charge is lawful BOOK IV. Of General Exceptions taken against the Laws of our Polity as being Popish and banished out of certain Reformed Churches BOOK V. Of our Laws that concern the Publick Religious Duties of the Church and the manner of bestowing that Power of Order which enableth Men in sundry Degrees and Callings to execute the same BOOK VI. Of the Power of Iurisdiction which the Reformed Platform claimeth unto Lay-Elders with others BOOK VII Of the Power of Iurisdiction and the Honor which is annexed thereunto in Bishops BOOK VIII Of the Power of Ecclesiastical Dominion or Supream Authority which with us the highest Governor or Prince hath as well in regard of Domestical Iurisdictions as of that other Foreignly claimed by the Bishop of Rome OF THE LAWS OF Ecclesiastical Polity BOOK I. Concerning Laws and their several kindes in general The Matter contained in this First Book 1. THe cause of Writing this General Discourse concerning Laws 2. Of that Law which God from before the beginning hath set for himself to do all things by 3. The Law which Natural Agents observe and their necessary manner of keeping it 4. The Law which the Angels of God obey 5. The Law whereby Man is in his Actions directed to the Imitation of God 6. Mens first beginning to understand that Law 7. Of Mans Will which is the first thing that Laws of Action are made to guide 8. Of the Natural finding out of Laws by the Light of Reason to guide the Will unto that which is good 9. Of the benefit of keeping that Law which Reason teacheth 10. How Reason doth lead Men unto the making of Humane Laws whereby Politick Societies are governed and to agreement about Laws whereby the Fellowship or Communion of Independent Societies stanoeth 11. Wherefore God hath by Scripture
which God is giveth Perfection to that he doth Those Natural Necessary and Internal Operations of God the Generation of the Son the Proceeding of the Spirit are without the compass of my present intent which is to touch onely such Operations as have their Beginning and Being by a voluntary purpose wherewith God hath eternally decreed when and how they should be which Eternal Decree is that we term an Eternal Law Dangerous it were for the feeble Brain of Man to wade far into the doings of the most High whom although to know be Life and Joy to make mention of his Name yet our soundest knowledge is to know that we know him not as indeed he is neither can know him and our safest eloquence concerning him is our silence when we confess without confession that his glory is inexplicable his greatness above our capacity and reach He is above and we upon Earth therefore it behoveth our words to be wary and few Our God is One or rather very Oneness and meer Unity having nothing but it Self in it Self and not consisting as all things do besides God of many things In which Essential Unity of God a Trinity Personal nevertheless subsisteth after a manner far exceeding the possibility of mans conceit The works which outwardly are of God they are in such sort of him being One that each Person hath in them somewhat peculiar and proper For being Three and they all subsisting in the Essence of one Deity from the Father by the Son through the Spirit all things are That which the Son doth hear of the Father and which the Spirit doth receive of the Father and the Son the same we have at the hands of the Spirit as being the last and therefore the nearest unto us in order although in power the same with one Second and the First The wise and learned among the very Heathens themselves have all acknowledged some first cause whereupon originally the Being of all things dependeth Neither have they otherwise spoken of that Cause then as an Agent which knowing what and why it worketh observeth in working a most exact Order or Law Thus much is signified by that which Homer mentioneth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus much acknowledged by Mercurius Trismegistus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus much confest by Anaxagoras and Plato terming the Maker of the World an Intellectual Worker Finally the Stoiks although imagining the first cause of all things to be Fire held nevertheless that the same Fire having Art did O 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They all confess therefore in the working of that first cause that Counsel is used Reason followed a Way observed that is to say Constant Order and Law is kept whereof it self must needs be Author unto it self Otherwise it should have some worthier and higher to direct it and so could not it self be the first being the first it can have no other then it self to be the Author of that Law which it willingly worketh by God therefore is a Law both to himself and to all other things besides To himself he is a Law in all those things whereof our Saviour speaks saying My Father worketh as yet so I. God worketh nothing without cause All those things which are done by him have some end for which they are done and the end for which they are done is a Reason of his Will to do them His Will had not inclined to create Woman but that he saw it could not be well if she were not created Non est bonum It is not good man should be alone therefore let us make an helper for him That and nothing else is done by God which to leave undone were not so good If therefore it be demanded why God having power and ability infinite the effects notwithstanding of that power are all so limited as we see they are The reason hereof is the End which he hath proposed and the Law whereby his Wisdom hath stinted the effects of his power in such sort that it doth not work infinitely but correspondently unto that end for which it worketh even all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in most decent and comely sort all things in measure number and weight The General End of Gods External Working is the exercise of his most glorious and most abundant vertue Which abundance doth shew it self in variety and for that cause this variety is oftentimes in Scripture exprest by the name of riches The Lord hath made all things for his own sake Not that any thing is made to be beneficial unto him but all things for him to shew beneficence and grace in them The particular drift of every Act proceeding externally from God we are not able to discern and therefore cannot always give the proper and certain reason of his Works Howbeit undoubtedly a proper and certain Reason there is of every Finite Work of God in as much as there is a Law imposed upon it which if there were not it should be Infinite even as the Worker himself is They err therefore who think that of the Will of God to do this or that there is no Reason besides his Will Many times no Reason known to us but that there is no reason thereof I judge it most unreasonable to imagine in as much as he worketh all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not onely according to his own Will but the counsel of his own Will And whatsoever is done with counsel or wise resolution hath of necessity some reason why it should be done albeit that reason be to us in some things so secret that it forceth the wit of man to stand as the Blessed Apostle himself doth amazed thereat O the depth of the riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God How unsearchable are his Iudgments c. That Law Eternal which God himself hath made to himself and thereby worketh all things whereof he is the Cause and Author that Law in the admirable frame whereof shineth with most perfect Beauey the Countenance of that Wisdom which hath testified concerning her self The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way even before his works of old I was set up That Law which hath been the Pattern to make and is the Card to guide the World by that Law which hath been of God and with God everlastingly that Law the Author and Observer whereof is one onely God to be blessed for ever how should either Men or Angels be able perfectly to behold The Book of this Law we are neither able nor worthy to open and look into That little thereof which we darkly apprehend we admire the rest with religious ignorance we humbly and meekly adore Seeing therefore that according to this Law he worketh Of whom through whom and for whom are all things although there seem unto us confusion and disorder in the affairs of this present world◠Tamen quoniam bonus mundum rector temperat recte fieri
proceedeth not from God himself as from the supream cause of all things and every effect doth after a sort contain at leastwise resemble the cause from which it proceedeth All things in the World are said in some sort to seek the highest and to cover more or less the participation of God himself yet this doth no where so much appear as it doth in Man because there are so many kindes of Perfections which Man seeketh The first degree of Goodness is that General Perfection which all things do seek in desiring the continuance of their Being all things therefore coveting as much as may be to be like unto God in Being ever that which cannot hereunto attain personally doth seek to continue it self another way that is by Off-spring and Propagation The next degree of Goodness is that which each thing coveteth by affecting resemblance with God in the constancy and excellency of those operations which belong unto their kinde The Immutability of God they strive unto by working either always or for the most part after one and the same manner his absolute exactness they imitate by tending unto that which is most exquisite in every particular Hence have risen a number of Axioms in Philosophy shewing How the works of nature do always aim at that which cannot be bettered These two kindes of Goodness rehearsed are so nearly united to the things themselves which desire them that we scarcely perceive the appetite to stir in reaching forth her hand towards them But the desire of those Perfections which grow externally is more apparent especially of such as are not expresly desired unless they be first known or such as are not for any other cause then for Knowledge it self desired Concerning Perfections in this kinde that by proceeding in the Knowledge of Truth and by growing in the exercise of Vertue Man amongst the Creatures of this inferior World aspireth to the greatest Conformity with God This is not onely known unto us whom he himself hath so instructed but even they do acknowledge who amongst men are not judged the nearest unto him With Plato what one thing more usual then to excite men unto the love of Wisdom by shewing how much wise men are thereby exalted above men how knowledge doth raise them up into Heaven how it maketh them though not Gods yet â—as Gods high admirable and divine And Mercurius Trismegistus speaking of the vertues of a righteous Soul Such spirits saith he are never slayed with praising and speaking well of all men with doing good unto every one by word and deed because they study to frame themselves according to THE PATTERN of the Father of Spirits 6. In the Matter of Knowledge there is between the Angels of God and the Children of Men this difference Angels already have full and compleat knowledge in the highest degree that can be imparted unto them Men if we view them in their Spring are at the first without understanding or knowledge at all Nevertheless from this utter vacuity they grow by degrees till they come at length to be even as the Angels themselves are That which agreeth to the one now the other shall attain unto in the end they are not so far disjoyned and severed but that they comest length to meet The Soul of Man being therefore at the first as a Book wherein nothing is and yet all things may be imprinted we are to search by what steps and degrees it riseth unto Perfection of Knowledge Unto that which hath been already set down concerning Natural Agents this we must add That albeit therein we have comprised as well Creatures living as void of life if they be in degree of nature beneath Men nevertheless a difference we must observe between those Natural Agents that work altogether unwittingly and those which have though weak yet some understanding what they do as Fishes Fowls and Beasts have Beasts are in sensible capacity as ripe even as men themselves perhaps more ripe For as Stones though in dignity of Nature inferior unto Plants yet exceed them in firmness of strength or durability of Being and Plants though beneath the excellency of Creatures endued with sense yet exceed them in the Faculty of Vegetation and of Fertility So Beasts though otherwise behinde Men may notwithstanding in actions of Sense and Fancy go beyond them because the endeavors of Nature when it hath an higher perfection to seek are in lower the more remiss not esteeming thereof so much as those things do which have no better proposed unto them The Soul of Man therefore being capable of a more Divine Perfection hath besides the Faculties of growing unto sensible knowledge which is common unto us with Beasts a further hability whereof in them there is no shew at all the ability of reaching higher then unto sensible things Till we grow to some ripeness of years the Soul of Man doth onely store it self with conceits of things of inferior and more open quality which afterwards do serve as Instruments unto that which is greater in the mean while above the reach of meaner Creatures is ascendeth not When once it comprehendeth any thing above this as the differences of time affirmations negations and contradiction in Speech we then count it to have some use of Natural Reason Whereunto if afterwards there might be added the right helps of true Art and Learning which helps I must plainly confess this age of the World carrying the name of a Learned Age doth neither much know not greatly regard there would undoubtedly be almost as great difference in maturity of judgment between men therewith inured and that which now men are as between men that are now and Innocents Which speech if any condemn as being over Hyperbolical let them consider but this one thing No Art is at the first finding out so perfect as Industry may aftermake it yet the very first Man that to any purpose knew the way we speak of and followed it hath alone thereby performed more very near in all parts of Natural Knowledge then sithence in any one part thereof the whole World besides hath done In the poverty of that other new devised aid two things there are notwithstanding singular Of marvellous quick dispatch it is and doth shew them that have it as much almost in three days as if it had dwelt threescore years with them Again because the curiosity of Mans wit doth many times with perswade farther in the search of things then were convenient the same is thereby restrained unto such generalities as every where offering themselves are apparent unto men of the weakest conceit that need be So as following the Rules and Precepts thereof we may finde it to be an Art which teacheth the way of speedy Discourse and restraineth the minde of Man that it may not wax overwise Education and Instruction are the means the one by use the other by precept to make our Natural Faculty of Reason both the better and
applying of them unto cases particular is not without most singular use and profit many ways for mens instruction Besides be they plain of themselves or obscure the evidence of Gods own testimony added unto the natural assent of Reason concerning the certainty of them doth not a little comfort and confirm the same Wherefore in as much as our actions are conversant about things beset with many circumstances which cause men of sundry wits to be also of sundry judgments concerning that which ought to be done Requisit it cannot but seem the Rule of Divine Law should herein help our imbecillity that we might the more infallibly understand what is good and what evil The first principles of the Law of Nature are easie hard it were to finde men ignorant of them But concerning the duty which Natures Law doth require at the hands of Men in a number of things particular so far hath the Natural Understanding even of sundry whole Nations been darkned that they have not discerned no not gross iniquity to be sin Again being so prone as weare â—o fawn upon our selves and to be ignorant as much as may be of our own deformities without the feeling Sense whereof we are most wretched even so much the more because not knowing them we cannot as much as desire to have them taken away How should our festered sores be cured but that God hath delivered a Law as sharp as the two-edged sword piercing the very closest and most unsearchable corners of the heart which the Law of Nature can hardly Humane Laws by no means possibly reach unto Hereby we know even secret concupiscence to be sin and are made fearful to offend though it be but in a wandring cogitation Finally of those things which are for direction of all the parts of our life needful and not impossible to be discerned by the Light of Nature it self are there not many which few mens natural capacity and some which no mans hath been able to finde out They are saith St. Augustine but a few and they endued with great ripeness of wit and judgment free from all such affairs as might trouble their Meditations instructed in the sharpest and the subtilest points of Learning who have and that very hardly been able to finde out but onely the Immortality of the Soul The Resurrection of the Flesh what Man did ever at any time dream of having not heard it otherwise then from the School of Nature Whereby it appeareth how much we are bound to yield unto our Creator the Father of all Mercy Eternal Thanks for that he hath delivered his Law unto the World a Law wherein so many things are laid open clear and manifest as a Light which otherwise would have been buried in darkness not without the hazard or rather not with the hazard but with the certain loss of infinite thousands of Souls most undoubtedly now saved We see therefore that our soveraign good is desired naturally that God the Author of that natural desire had appointed natural means whereby to fulfil it that Man having utterly disabled his Nature unto those means hath had other revealed from God and hath received from Heaven a Law to teach him how that which is desired naturally must now supernaturally be attained Finally we see that because those latter exclude not the former quite and clean as unnecessary therefore together with such Supernatural duties as could not possibly have been otherwise known to the World the same Law that teacheth them teacheth also with them such Natural duties as could not by Light of Nature easily have been known 13. In the first Age of the World God gave Laws unto our Fathers and by reason of the number of their days their memories served in stead of Books whereof the manifold imperfections and defects being known to God he mercifully relieved the same by often putting then in minde of that whereof it behoved them to be specially mindful In which respect we see how many times one thing hath been iterated unto sundry even of the best and wisest amongst them After that the lives of Men were shortned means more durable to preserve the Laws of God from oblivion and corruption grew in use not without precise direction from God himself First therefore of Moses it is said that he wrote all the words of God not by his own private motion and device For God taketh this act to himself I have written Furthermore were not the Prophets following commanded also to do the like Unto the holy Evangelist St. Iohn how often express charge is given Scribe write these things Concerning the rest of our Lords Disciples the words of St. Augustine are Quidquid ille de suis factis dictis nos legere voluit hoc scribendum illis tanquam suis manibus imperavit Now although we do not deny it to be a matter meerly accidental unto the Law of God to be written although writing be not that which addeth authority and strength thereunto Finally though his Laws do require at our hands the same obedience howsoever they be delivered his providence notwithstanding which hath made principal choice of this way to deliver them who seeth not what cause we have to admire and magnifie The singular benefit that hath grown unto the World by receiving the Laws of God even by his own appointment committed unto writing we are not able to esteem as the value thereof deserveth When the question therefore is whether we be now to seek for any revealed Law of God otherwhere then onely in the Sacred Scripture whether we do now stand bound in the sight of God to yield to Traditions urged by the Church of Rome the same obedience and reverence we do to his Written Law honoring equally and adoring both as Divine Our answer is No. They that so earnestly plead for the Authority of Tradition as if nothing were more safely conveyed then that which spreadeth it self by report and descendeth by relation of former Generations unto the Ages that succeed are not all of them surely a miracle it were if they should be so simple as thus to perswade themselves howsoever if the simple were so perswaded they could be content perhaps very well to enjoy the benefit as they account it of that common Error What hazard the Truth is in when it passeth through the hands of report how maimed and deformed it becometh they are not they cannot possibly be ignorant Let them that are indeed of this minde consider but onely that little of things Divine which the Heathen have in such sort received How miserable had the State of the Church of God been long ere this if wanting the Sacred Scripture we had no Record of his Laws but onely the memory of man receiving the same by report and relation from his Predecessors By Scripture it hath in the Wisdom of God seemed meet to deliver unto the World much but personally expedient to be practised of certain men
Christ to violate And what other Law doth the Apostle for this alledge but such as is both common unto Christ with us and unto us with other things Natural No man hateth his own flesh but doth love and cherish it The Axioms of that Law therefore whereby Natural agents are guided have their use in the Moral yea even in the Spiritual actions of men and consequently in all Laws belonging unto men howsoever Neither are the Angels themselves so far severed from us in their kinde and manner of working but that between the Law of their Heavenly operations and the Actions of men in this our state of mortality such correspondence there is as maketh it expedient to know in some sort the one for the others more perfect direction Would Angels acknowledge themselves Fellow-servants with the Sons of Men but that both having One Lord there must be some kinde of Law which is one and the same to both whereunto their obedience being perfecter is to our weaker both a Pattern and a Spur Or would the Apostles speaking of that which belongeth unto Saints as they are linked together in the Bond of Spiritual Society so often make mention how Angels are therewith delighted if in things publickly done by the Church we are not somewhat to respect what the Angels of Heaven do Yea so far hath the Apostle St. Paul proceeded as to signifie that even about the outward Orders of the Church which serve but for comeliness some regard is to be had of Angels who best like us when we are most like unto them in all parts of decent demeanor So that the Law of Angels we cannot judge altogether impertinent unto the affairs of the Church of God Our largeness of speech how men do finde out what things Reason bindeth them of necessity to observe and what it guideth them to chuse in things which are left as Arbitary the care we have had to declare the different Nature of Laws which severally concern all men from such as belong unto men either civilly or spiritually associated such as pertain to the Fellowship which Nations or which Christian Nations have amongst themselves and in the last place such as concerning every or any of these God himself hath revealed by his holy Word all serveth but to make manifest that as the Actions of men are of sundry distinct kindes so the Laws thereof must accordingly be distinguished There are in men operations some Natural some Rational some Supernatural some Politick some finally Ecclesiastical Which if we measure not each by his own proper Law whereas the things themselves are so different there will be in our understanding and judgment of them confusion As that first Error sheweth whereon our opposites in this cause have grounded themselves For as they rightly maintain that God must be glorified in all things and that the actions of men cannot tend unto his glory unless they be framed after his Law So it is their Error to think that the onely Law which God hath appointed unto men in that behalf is the Sacred Scripture By that which we work naturally as when we breath sleep move we set forth the glory of God as Natural agents do albeit we have no express purpose to make that our end nor any advised determination therein to follow a Law but do that we do for the most part not as much as thinking thereon In reasonable and Moral actions another Law taketh place a Law by the observation whereof we glorifie God in such sort as no Creature else under Man is able to do because other Creatures have not judgment to examine the quality of that which is done by them and therefore in that they do they neither can accuse not approve themselves Men do both as the Apostle teacheth yea those men which have no written Law of God to shew what is good or evil carry written in their hearts the Universal Law of Mankinde the Law of Reason whereby they judge as by a Rule which God hath given unto all Men for that purpose The Law of Reason doth somewhat direct Men how to honor God as their Creator but how to glorifie God in such sort as is required to the end he may be an Everlasting Saviour this we are taught by Divine Law which Law both ascertaineth the truth and supplieth unto us the want of that other Law So that in Moral actions Divine Law helpeth exceedingly the Law of Reason to guide Mans life but in Supernatural it alone guideth Proceed we further Let us place Man in some Publick Society with others whether Civil or Spiritual and in this case there is no remedy but we must add yet a further Law For although even here likewise the Laws of Nature and Reason be of necessary use yet somewhat over and besides them is necessary namely Humane and Positive Law together with that Law which is of commerce between Grand Societies the Law of Nations and of Nations Christian. For which cause the Law of God hath likewise said Let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers The Publick Power of all Societies is above every Soul contained in the same Societies And the principal use of that Power is to give Laws unto all that are under it which Laws in such case we must obey unless there be reason shewed which may necessarily inforce That the Law of Reason or of God doth enjoyn the contrary Because except our own private and but probable resolutions be by the Law of Publick Determinations over-ruled we take away all possibility of sociable life in the World A plainer example whereof then our selves we cannot have How cometh it to pass that we are at this present day so rent with mutual contentions and that the Church is so much troubled about the Polity of the Church No doubt if men had been willing to learn how many Laws their actions in this life are subject unto and what the true force of each Law is all these controversies might have died the very day they were first brought forth It is both commonly said and truly That the best men otherwise are not always the best in regard of Society The reason whereof is for that the Law of Mens actions is one if they be respected onely as Men and another when they are considered as parts of a Politick Body Many men there are then whom nothing is more commendable when they are singled And yet in Society with others none less fit to answer the duties which are looked for at their hands Yea I am perswaded that of them with whom in this cause we strive there are whose betters among men would be hardly found if they did not live amongst men but in some Wilderness by themselves The cause of which their disposition so unframable unto Societies wherein their live is for that they discern not aright what place and force these several kindes of Laws ought to have in all their
things escape them and in many things they may be deceived yea those things which they do know they may either forget or upon sundry indirect considerations let pass and although themselves do not erre yet may they through malice or vanity even of purpose deceive others Howbeit infinite cases there are wherein all these impediments and lets are so manifestly excluded that there is no shew or colour whereby any such Exception may be taken but that the testimony of man will stand as a ground of infallible assurance That there is a City of Rome that Pins Quintus and Gregory the thirteenth and others have been Popes of Rome I suppose we are certainly enough perswaded The ground of our perswasion who never saw the place nor persons before named can be nothing but mans testimony Will any man here notwithstanding alledge those mentioned humane infirmities as Reasons why these things should be mistrusted or doubted of yea that which is more utterly to infringe the force and strength of mans testimony were to shake the very Fortress of Gods truth For whatsoever we believe concerning Salvation by Christ although the Scripture be therein the ground of our belief yet the authority of man is if we mark it the key which openeth the door of entrance into the knowledge of the Scripture The Scripture doth not teach us the things that are of God unless we did credit men who have taught us that the words of Scripture do signifie those things Some way therefore notwithstanding mans infirmity yet his Authority may inforce assent Upon better advice and deliberation so much is perceived and at the length confest that Arguments taken from the Authority of men may not only so far forth as hath been declared but further also be of some force in Humane Sciences which force be it never so small doth shew that they are not utterly naught But in Matters Divine it is still maintained stifly that they have no manner force at all Howbeit the very self same reason which causeth to yield that they are of some force in the one will at the length constrain also to acknowledge that they are not in the other altogether unforcible For it the natural strength of mans wit may by experience and stucie attain unto such ripeness in the knowledge of things humane that men in this respect may presume to build somewhat upon their judgement what reason have we to think but that even in matters Divine the like wits furnisht with necessary helps exercised in Scripture with like diligence and assisted with the grace of Almighty God may grow unto so much perfection of knowledge that men shall have just cause when any thing pertinent unto Faith and Religion is doubted of the more willingly to encline their mindes towards that which the sentence of so grave wise and learned in that faculty shall judge most sound For the controversie is of the weight of such mens judgements Let it therefore be suspected let it be taken as gross corrupt repugnant unto the truth whatsoever concerning things divine above nature shall at any time be spoken as out of the mouths of meer natural men which have not the eyes wherewith heavenly things are discerned For this we contend not But whom God hath endued with principal gifts to aspire unto knowledge by whose exercises labours and divine studies he hath so blest that the World for their great and rate skill that way hath them in singular admiration may we reject even their judgement likewise as being utterly of no moment For mine own part I dare not so lightly esteem of the Church and of the principal Pillars therein The truth is that the minde of man desireth evermore to know the truth according to the most infallible certainty which the nature of things can yield The greatest assurance generally with all men is that which we have by plain aspect and intuitive beholding Where we cannot attain unto this thereâ— what appeareth to be true by strong and invincible demonstration such as wherein it is not by any way possible to be deceived thereunto the minde doth necessarily assent neither is it in the choice thereof to do otherwise And in case these both do fail then which way greatest probability leadeth thither the minde doth evermore incline Scripture with Christian men being received as the Word of God that for which we have probable yea that which we have necessary reason for yea that which we see with out eyes is not thought so sure as that which the Scripture of God teacheth because we hold that his speech revealeth there what himself seeth and therefore the strongest proof of all and the most necessarily assented unto by us which do thus receive the Scripture is the Scripture Now it is not required nor can be exacted at our hands that we should yield unto any thing other assent then such as doth answer the evidence which is to be had of that we assent unto For which cause even in matters Divine concerning some things we may lawfuly doubt and suspend our judgement enclining neither to one side or other as namely touching the time of the fall both of man and Angels of some things we may very well retain an opinion that they are probable and not unlikely to be true as when we hold that men have their souls rather by creation then propagation or that the Mother of our Lord lived always in the state of Virginity as well after his birth as before for of these two the one her virginity before is a thing which of necessity we must believe the other her continuance in the same state always hath more likelihood of truth then the contrary finally in all things then are our Consciences best resolved and in a most agreeable sore unto God and Nature setled when they are so far perswaded as those grounds of â—erswasion which are to be had will bear Which thing I do so much the rather set down for that I see how a number of souls are for want of right Information in this Point oftentimes grievously vexed When bare and unbuilded Conclusions are put into their mindes they finding not themselves to have thereof any great certainty imagine that this proceedeth only from lack of Faith and that the Spirit God doth not work in them as it doth in true Believers by this means their hearts are much troubled they fall into anquish and perplexity whereas the truth is that how bold and confident soever we may be in words when it cometh to the point of trial such as the evidence is which the Truth hath either in it self or through proof such is the hearts assent thereunto neither can it be stronger being grounded as it should be I grant that proof derived from the authority of mans judgement is not able to work that assurance which doth grow by a stronger proof and therefore although ten thousand General Councils would set down one and the same definitive sentence
Agent which seeth already what to resolve upon It hath no apparent absurdity therefore in it to think that all actions of men endued with the use of reason are generally either good or evil Whatsoever is good the same is also approved of God and according unto the sundry degrees of goodness the kinds of Divine approbation are in like sort multiplied Some things are good yet in so mean a degree of goodness that men are onely not disproved nor disallowed of God for them No man hateth his own flesh If ye do good unto them that do so to you the very Publicans themselves do as much They are worse then Infidels that have no care to provide for their own In actions of this sort the very light of nature alone may discover that which is so farre forth in the sight of God allowable Some things in such sort are allowed that they be also required as necessary unto salvation by way of direct immediate and proper necessity final so that without performance of them we cannot by ordinary course be saved nor by any means be excluded from life observing them In actions of this kind our chiefest direction is from Scripture for Nature is no sufficient Teacher what we should do that we may attain unto life everlasting The unsufficiency of the light of nature is by the light of Scripture so fully and so perfectly herein supplied that further light then this hath added there doth not need unto that end Finally some things although not so required of necessity that to leave them undone excludeth from Salvation are notwithstanding of so great dignity and acceptation with God that most ample reward in Heaven is laid up for them Hereof we have no Commandment either in Nature or Scripture which doth exact them at our hands yet those Motives these are in both which draw most effectually our minds unto them In this kind there is not the least action but it doth somewhat make to the accessory augmentation of our bliss For which cause our Saviour doth plainly witness that there shall not be as much as a cup of cold water bestowed for his sake without reward Hereupon dependeth whatsoever difference there is between the states of Saints in glory hither we refer whatsoever belongeth unto the highest perfection of man by way of service towards God Hereunto that servour and first love of Christians did bend it self causing them to sell their possessions and lay down the price at the blessed Apostles feet Hereat S. Paul undoubtedly did aim in so far abridging his own liberty and exceeding that which the bond of necessary and enjoyned duty tied him unto Wherefore seeing that in all these several kinds of actions there can be nothing possibly evil which God approveth and that he approveth much more then he doth command and that his very Commandments in some kinde as namely his Prâ—cepts comprehended in the Law of Nature may be otherwise known theâ— onely by Scripture and that to do them howsoever we know them must needs he acceptable in his sight Let them with whom we have hitherto disputee consider well how it can stand with Reason to make the bare mandate of Sacred Scripture the onely Rule of all good and evil in the actions of mortal men The testimonies of God are true the Testimonies of God are perfect the Testimonies of God are all-sufficient unto that end for which they were given Therefore accordingly we do receive them we do not think that in them God hath omitted any thing needful unto his purpose and left his intent to be accomplished by our devisings What the Scripture purposeth the same in all points it doth perform Howbeit that here we swerve not in judgement one thing especially we must observe namely That the absolute perfection of Scripture is seen by relation unto that end whereto it tendeth And even hereby it cometh to pass the first such as imagine the general and main drift of the body of sacred Scripture not to be so large as it is nor that God did thereby intend to deliver as in truth he doth a full instruction in all things unto salvation necessary the knowledge whereof man by nature could not otherwise in this life attain unto They are by this very mean induced either still to look for new Revelations from Heaven or else dangerously to add to the Word of God uncertain Tradition that so the Doctrine of mans Salvation may be compleat which Doctrine we constantly hold in all respects without any such thing added to be so compleat that we utterly refuse as much as once to acquaint our selves with any thing further Whatsoever to make up the Doctrine of mans Salvation is added as in supply of the Scriptures unsufficiency we reject it Scripture purposing this hath perfectly and fully done it Again the scope and purpose of God in delivering the Holy Scripture such as do take more largely then behoveth they on the contrary side racking and stretching it further then by him was meant are drawn into sundry as great inconveniences These pretending the Scriptures perfection infer thereupon That in Scripture all things lawful to be done must needs be contained We count those things perfect which want nothing requisite for the end whereto they were instituted As therefore God created every part and particle of man exactly perfect that is to say in all points sufficient unto that use for which he appointed it so the Scripture yea every sentence thereof is perfect and wanteth nothing requisite unto that purpose for which God delivered the same So that if hereupon we conclude that because the Scripture is perfect therefore all things lawful to be done are comprehended in the Scripture we may even as well conclude so of every sentence as of the whole sum and body thereof unless we first of all prove that it was the drift scope and purpose of Almighty God in holy Scripture to comprize all things which man may practise But admit this and mark I beseech you what would follow God in delivering Scripture to his Church should clean have abrogated amongst them the Law of Nature which is an infallible knowledge imprinted in the minds of all the children of men whereby both general principles for directing of humane actions are comprehended and conclusions derived from them upon which conclusions groweth in particularity the choice of good and evil in the daily affairs of this life Admit this and what shall the Scripture be but a snare and a torment to weak Consciences filling them with infinite perplexities scrupulosities doubts insoluble and extreme despairs Not that the Scripture it self doth cause any such thing for it tendeth to the clean contrary and the fruit thereof is resolute assurance and certainty in that it teacheth but the necessities of this life urging men to do that which the light of Nature common discretion and judgement of it self directeth them unto on the other side this Doctrine teaching
this point Satan took advantage urging the more securely a false cause because the true was unto Adam unknown Why the Jews were forbidden to Plough their Ground with an Ox and an Ass why to cloath themselves with mingled attire of Wooll and Linnen it was both unto them and to us it remaineth obscure Such Laws perhaps cannot be abrogated saving onely by whom they were made because the intent of them being known unto none but the Author he alone can judge how long it is requisite they should endure But if the reason why things were instituted may be known and being known do appear manifestly to be of perpetual necessity then are those things also perpetual unless they cease to be effectual unto that purpose for which they were at the first instituted Because when a thing doth cease to be available unto the end which gave it being the continuance of it must then of necessity appear superfluous And of this we cannot be ignorant how sometimes that hath done great good which afterwards when time hath changed the ancient course of things doth grow to be either very hurtful or not so greatly profitable and necessary If therefore the end for which a Law provideth be perpetually necessary and the way whereby it provideth perpetually also most apt no doubt but that every such Law ought for ever to remain unchangeable Whether God be the Author of Laws by authorising that power of men whereby they are made or by delivering them made immediately from himself by word onely or in writing also or howsoever notwithstanding the Authority of their Maker the mutability of that end for which they are made maketh them also changeable The Law of Ceremonies came from God Moses had commandment to commit it unto the Sacred Records of Scripture where it continueth even unto this very day and hour in force still as the Jew surmiseth because God himself was Author of it and for us to abolish what he hath established were presumption most intolerable But that which they in the blindness of their obdurate hearts are not able to discern sith the end for which that Law was ordained is now fulfilled past and gone how should it but cease any longer to be which hath no longer any cause of being in force as before That which necessity of some special time doth cause to be enjoyned bindeth no longer then during that time but doth afterward become free Which thing is also plain even by that Law which the Apostles assembled at the Council of Ierusalem did from thence deliver unto the Church of Christ the Preface whereof to authorise it was To the Holy Ghost and to us it hath seemed good Which style they did not use as matching themselves in Power with the Holy Ghost but as testifying the Holy Ghost to be the Author and themselves but onely Utterers of that Decree This Law therefore to haue proceeded from God as the Author thereof no faithful man will deny It was of God not onely because God gave them the power whereby they might make Laws but for that it proceeded even from the holy Motion and Suggestion of that secret Divine Spirit whose sentence they did but onely pronounce Notwithstanding as the Law of Ceremonies delivered unto the Jews so this very Law which the Gentiles received from the Mouth of the Holy Ghost is in like respect abrogated by decease of the end for which it was given But such as do not stick at this point such as grant that what hath been instituted upon any special cause needeth not to be observed that cause ceasing do notwithstanding herein fail they judge the Laws of God onely by the Author and main end for which they were made so that for us to change that which he hath established they hold it execrable pride and presumption if so be the end and purpose for which God by that mean provideth be permanent And upon this they ground those ample Disputes concerning Orders and Offices which being by him appointed for the Government of his Church if it be necessary always that the Church of Christ be governed then doth the end for which God provided remain still and therefore in those means which he by Law did establish as being fittest unto that end for us to alter any thing is to lift up our selves against God and as it were to countermand him Wherein they mark not that Laws are Instruments to rule by and that Instruments are not onely to be framed according unto the general end for which they are provided but even according unto that very particular which riseth out of the matter whereon they have to work The end wherefore Laws were made may be permanent and those Laws nevertheless require some alteration if there be any unfitness in the means which they prescribe as tending unto that end and purpose As for example a Law that to bridle theft doth punish Theeves with a quadruple restitution hath an end which will continue as long as the World it self continueth Theft will be always and will always need to be bridled But that the mean which this Law provideth for that end namely the punishment of quadruple restitution that this will be always sufficient to bridle and restrain that kinde of enormity no man can warrant Insufficiency of Laws doth sometimes come by want of judgment in the Makers Which cause cannot fall into any Law termed properly and immediately Divine as it may and doth into Humane Laws often But that which hath been once most sufficient may wax otherwise by alteration of time and place that punishment which hath been sometimes forcible to bridle sin may grow afterwards too week and feeble In a word we plainly perceive by the difference of those three Laws which the Jews received at the hands of God the Moral Ceremonial and Judicial that if the end for which and the matter according whereunto God maketh his Laws continue always one and the same his Laws also do the like for which cause the Moral Law cannot be altered Secondly That whether the Matter whereon Laws are made continue or continue not if their end have once ceased they cease also to be of force as in the Law Ceremonial it fareth Finally That albeit the end continue as in that Law of Theft specified and in a great part of those ancient Judicials it doth yet for as much as there is not in all respects the same subject or matter remaining for which they were first instituted even this is sufficient cause of change And therefore Laws though both ordained of God himself and the end for which they were ordained continuing may notwithstanding cease it by alteration of persons or times they be found unsufficient to attain unto that end In which respect why may we not presume that God doth even call for such change or alteration as the very condition of things themselves doth make necessary They which do therefore plead the Authority of
Superstition that riseth voluntarily and by degrees which are hardly discerned mingling it self with the Rites even of very Divine Service done to the onely true God must be considered of as a creeping and incroaching evil an evil the first beginnings whereof are commonly harmless so that it proveth onely then to be an evil when some farther accident doth grow unto it or it self come unto farther growth For in the Church of God sometimes it cometh to pass as in over-battle grounds the Fertile disposition whereof is good yet because it exceedeth due proportion it bringeth forth abundantly through too much rankness things less profitable whereby that which principally it should yield being either prevented in place or defrauded of nourishment faileth This if so large a discourse were necessary might be exemplified even by heaps of Rites and Customs now superstitious in the greatest part of the Christian World which in their first original beginnings when the strength of vertuous devout or charitable affection bloomed them no man could justly have condemned as evil 4. But howsoever Superstition doth grow that wherein unsounder times have done amiss the better ages ensuing must rectifie as they may I now come therefore to those accusations brought against us by Pretenders of Reformation the first in the rank whereof is such That if so be the Church of England did at this day therewith as justly deserve to be touched as they in this cause have imagined it doth rather would I exhort all sorts to seek pardon even with tears at the hands of God then meditate words of defence for our doings to the end that men might think favorably of them For as the case of this World especially now doth stand what other stay or succor have we to lean unto saving the testimony of our Conscience and the comfort we take in this that we serve the living God as near as our Wits can reach unto the knowledge thereof even according to his own will and do therefore trust that his mercy shall be our safeguard against those enraged Powers abroad which principally in that respect are become our Enemies But sith no man can do ill with a good Conscience the consolation which we herein seem to finde is but a meer deceitful pleasing of our selves in errour which at the length must needs turn to our greater grief if that which we do to please God most be for the manifold defects thereof offensive unto him For so it is judged our Prayers our Sacraments our Fasts our Times and Places of Publick meeting together for the worship and service of God our Marriages our Burials our Functions Elections and Ordinations Ecclesiastical almost whatsoever we do in the exercise of our Religion according to Laws for that purpose established all things are some way or other thought faulty all things stained with Superstition Now although it may be the wiser sort of men are not greatly moved hereat considering how subject the very best things have been always unto cavil when Wits possessed either with disdain or dislike thereof have set them up as their mark to shoot at safe notwithstanding it were not therefore to neglect the danger which from hence may grow and that especially in regard of them who desiring to serve God as they ought but being not so skilful as in every point to unwinde themselves where the shares of glosing speech do lye to intangle them are in minde not a little troubled when they hear so bitter invectives against that which this Church hath taught them to reverence as holy to approve as lawful and to observe as behoveful for the exercise of Christian duty It seemeth therefore at least for their sakes very meet that such as blame us in this behalf be directly answered and they which follow us informed plainly in the Reasons of that we do On both sides the end intended between us is to have Laws and Ordinances such as may rightly serve to abolish Superstition and to establish the service of God with all things thereunto appertaining in some perfect form There is an inward reasonable and there is a solemn outward serviceable Worship belonging unto God Of the former kinde are all manner of vertuous Duties that each man in reason and conscience to God-ward oweth Solemn and serviceable Worship we name for Distinction sake whatsoever belongeth to the Church or Publick Society of God by way of External adoration It is the later of these two whereupon our present question groweth Again this later being ordered partly and as touching Principal matters by none but Precepts Divine only partly and as concerning things of Inferiour regard by Ordinances as well Human as Divine about the substance of Religion wherein Gods only Law must be kept there is here no controversie the Crime now intended against us is that our Laws have not ordered those inferiour things as behoveth and that our Customs are either Superstitious or otherwise amiss whether we respect the exercise of Publick duties in Religion or the Functions of Persons authorised thereunto 5. It is with Teachers of Mathematical Sciences usual for us in this present question necessary to lay down first certain reasonable demands which in most Particulars following are to serve as Principles whereby to work and therefore must be before-hand considered The men whom we labour to inform in the truth perceive that so to proceed is requisite For to this end they also propose touching Customs and Rites indifferent their general Axioms some of them subject unto just Exceptions and as we think more meet by them to be farther considered than assented unto by us As that In outward things belonging to the Service of God Reformed Churches ought by all means to shun conformity with the Church of Rome that The first Reformed should be a Pattern whereunto all that come after might to conform themselves that Sound Religion may not use the things which being not commanded of God have been either devised or abused unto Superstition These and the rest of the same consort we have in the Book going before examined Other Canons they alledge and Rules not unworthy of approbation as That in all such things the glory of God and the edification or ghostly good of his People must be sought that nothing should be undecently or murderly done But forasmuch as all the difficulty is in discerning what things do glorifie God and edifie his Church what not when we should think them decent and fit when otherwise because these Rules being too general come not near enough unto the matter which we have in hand and the former Principles being nearer the purpose are too far from Truth we must propose unto all men certain Petitions incident and very material in Causes of this nature such as no man of moderate judgment hath cause to think unjust or unreasonable 6. The first thing therefore which is of force to cause Approbation with good conscience towards such Customs
receive due honour by whose Incitement the Holy Ordinances of the Church endure every where open contempt No it is not possible they should observe as they ought the One who from the Other withdraw unnecessarily their Own or their Brethrens Obedience Surely the Church of God in this Business is neither of Capacity I trust so weak noâ— so unstrengthened I know with Authority from Above but that her Laws may exact Obedience at the hands of her own Children and injoyn Gain-sayers silence giving them roundly to understand That where our Duty is Submission weak Oppositions betoken Pride We therefore crave Thirdly to have it granted That where neither the Evidence of any Law Divine nor the Strength of any Invincible Argument otherwise found out by the Light of Reason not any Notable Publick Inconvenience doth make against that which our own Laws Ecclesiastical have although but Newly instituted for the Ordering of these Affairs the very Authority of the Church it self at the least in such Cases may give so much Credit to her own Laws as to make their Sentence touching Fitness and Conveniency weightier than any bare or naked Conceit to the contrary especially in them who can owe no less than Childe-like obedience to her that hath more than Motherly Power 9. There are Antient Ordinances Laws which on all sides are allowed to be Just and Good yea Divine and Apostolick Constitutions which the Church it may be doth not always keep nor always justly deserve blame in that respect For in Evils that cannot be removedâ— without the manifest danger of Greater to succeed in their rooms Wisdom of necessity must give place to Necessity All it can do in those Cases is to devise how that which must be endured may be mitigated and the Inconveniences thereof countervailed as neer as may be that when the Best things are not possible the best may be made of Those that are Nature than which there is nothing more constant nothing more uniform in all her ways doth notwithstanding stay her Hand yea and change her Course when That which God by Creation did command he doth at any time by Necessity countermand It hath therefore pleased himself sometime to unloose the very Tongues even of Dumb Creatures and to teach them to plead This in their Own Defence lest the Cruelty of Man should persist to afflict them for not keeping their wonted Course when some invincible Impediment hath hindred If we leave Nature and look into Art the Work-man hath in his Heart a Purpose he carrieth in mind the whole Form which his Work should have there wanteth not him Skill and Desire to bring his Labour to the best effect only the Matter which he hath to work on is unframable This Necessity excuseth him so that nothing is derogated from his Credit although much of his Work 's perfection be found wanting Touching Actions of Common Life there is not any Defence more favourably heard than theirs who alledge sincerely for themselves That they did as Necessity constrained them For when the Mind is rightly ordered and affected as it should be in case some external Impediment crossing well-advised Desires shall potently draw Men to leave what they principally wish and to take a Course which they would not if their Choyce were free what Necessity forceth Men unto the same in This Case it maintaineth as long as nothing is committed simply in it self evil nothing absolutely sinful or wicked nothing repugnant to that Immetable Law whereby whatsoever is condemned as Evil can never any way be made Good The casting away of Things profitable for the sustenance of Man's Life is an unthankful Abuse of the Fruits of God's good Providence towards Mankind Which Consideration for all that did not hinder Saint Paul from throwing Corn into the Sea when care of saving Mens Lives made it necessary to loose that which else had been better saved Neither was this to do Evil to the end that Good might come of it For of Two such Evils being not both evitable the choyce of the Less is not Evil. And Evils must be in our constructions judged inevitable if there be no apparent ordinary way to avoid them Because where Counsel and Advice bear rule of God's extraordinary Power without extraordinary Warrant we cannot presume In Civil Affairs to declare what sway Necessity hath ever been accustomed to bear were labour infinite The Laws of all States and Kingdoms in the World have scarcely of any thing more common use Should then only the Church shew it self inhuman and stern absolutely urging a rigorous observation of Spiritual Ordinances without relaxation or exception what Necessity soever happen We know the contrary Practise to have been commended by him upon the warrant of whose Judgement the Church most of all delighted with merciful and moderate courses doth the ostner condescend unto like equity permitting in cases of Necessity that which otherwise it disalloweth and forbiddeth Cases of Necessity being sometime but urgent sometime extream the consideration of Publick Utility is with very good advice judged at the least equivalent with the easier kinde of Necessity Now that which causeth numbers to storm against some necessary tolerations which they should rather let pass with silence considering that in Polity as well Ecclesiastical as Civil there are and will be always Evils which no art of man can cure breaches and leaks moe than man's wit hath hands to stop that which maketh odious unto them many things wherein notwithstanding the truth is that very just regard hath been had of the Publick good that which in a great part of the weightiest Causes belonging to this present Controversie hath insnared the Judgments both of sundry good and of some well learned men is the manifest truth of certain general Principles whereupon the Ordinances that serve for usual practise in the Church of God are grounded Which Principles men knowing to be most sound and that the ordinary practise accordingly framed is good whatsoever is over and besides that ordinary the same they judge repugnant to those true Principles The cause of which Error is Ignorance what restraints and limitations all such Principles have in regard of so manifold varieties as the matter whereunto they are applyable doth commonly afford These varieties are not known but by much experience from whence to draw the true bounds of all Principles to discern how farr forth they take effect to see where and why they fail to apprehend by what degrees and means they lead to the practise of things in show though not indeed repugnant and contrary one to another requireth more sharpness of Wit more intricate circuitions of Discourse more industry and depth of Judgment than common Ability doth yield So that general Rules til their limits be fully known especially in matter of Publick and Ecclesiastical affairs are by reason of the manifold secret Exceptions which lye hidden in them no other to the eye of man's
understanding than Cloudy mists cast before the eye of Common sense They that walk in darkness know not whither they go And even as little is their certainty whose opinions Generalities only do guide With gross and popular Capacities nothing doth more prevail than unlimited Generalities because of their plainness at the first fights nothing less with men of Exact Judgment because such Rules are not safe to be trusted over-farr General Laws are like general Rules of Physick according whereunto as no Wise man will desire himself to be cured if there be joyned with his Disease some special Accident in regard whereof that whereby others in the same Insirmity but without the like Accident recover health would be to him either hurtful or at the least unprofitable So we must not under a colourable commendation of holy Ordinances in the Church and of reasonable causes whereupon they have been grounded for the Common good imagine that all men's cases ought to have one measure Not without singular wisdom therefore it hath been provided That as the ordinary course of Common affairs is disposed of by General Laws so likewise mens rarer incident Necessities and utilities should be with special equity considered From hence it is that so many Priviledges Immunities Exceptions and Dispensations have been always with great equity and reason granted not to turn the edge of Justice not to make void at certain times and in certain men through meer voluntary grace or benevolence that which continually and universally should be of force as some men understand it but in very truth to practise General Laws according to their right meaning We see in Contracts and other dealings which daily pass between man and man that to the utter undoing of some many things by strictness of Law may be done which equity and honest meaning forbiddeth Not that the Law is unjust but unperfect nor Equity against but above the Law binding mens Consciences in things which Law cannot reach unto Will any man say That the vertue of private Equity is opposite and repugnant to that Law the silence whereof it supplieth in all such private Dealing No more is publick Equity against the Law of publick Affaires albeit the one permit unto some in special Considerations that which the other agreeably with general Rules of Justice doth in general sort forbid For sith all good Laws are the Voyces of right Reason which is the Instrument wherewith God will have the World guided and impossible it is that Right should withstand Right it must follow that Principles and Rules of Justice be they never so generally uttered do no less effectually intend then if they did plainly express an Exception of all Particulars wherein their literal Practise might any way prejudice Equity And because it is natural unto all men to wish their own extraordinary Benefit when they think they have reasonable Inducements so to do and no man can be presumed a competent Judge what Equity doth require in his own Case the likeliest Mean whereby the wit of man can provide that he which useth the benefit of any special benignity above the common course of others may enjoy it with good Conscience and not against the true purpose of Laws which in outward shew are contrary must needs be to arm with Authority some fit both for Quality and Place to administer that which in every such particular shall appear agreeable with Equity wherein as it cannot be denyed but that sometimes the practise of such Jurisdiction may swarve through errour even into the very best and for other respects where less Integrity is So the watchfullest Observers of Inconveniences that way growing and the readiest to urge them in disgrace of authorized Proceedings do very well know that the disposition of these things resteth not now in the hands of Popes who live in no Worldly awe or subjection but is committed to them whom Law may at all times bridle and Superiour power controll yea to them also in such sort that Law it self hath set down to what Persons in what Causes with what Circumstances almost every faculty or favour shall be granted leaving in a manner nothing unto them more than only to deliver what is already given by Law Which maketh it by many degrees less reasonable that under pretence of inconveniences so easily stopped if any did grow and so well prevented that none may men should be altogether barred of the liberty that Law with equity and reason granteth These things therefore considered we lastly require That it may not seem hard if in Cases of Necessity or for Common utilities sake certain profitable Ordinances sometimes be released rather than all men always strictly bound to the general rigor thereof 10. Now where the Word of God leaveth the Church to make choyce of her own Ordinances if against those things which have been received with great reason or against that which the Antient practise of the Church hath continued time out of mind or against such Ordinances as the Power and Authority of that Church under which we live hath in it self devised for the Publick good or against the discretion of the Church in mitigating sometimes with favourable Equity that rigour which otherwise the literal generality of Ecclesiastical Laws hath judged to be more convenient and meet if against all this it should be free for men to reprove to disgrace to reject at their own liberty what they see done and practised according to Order set down if in so great varietie of ways as the wit of man is easily able to finde out towards any purpose and in so great liking as all men especially have unto those Inventions whereby some one shall seem to have been more inlightned from above than many thousands the Church did give every man licence to follow what himself imagineth that Gods Spirit doth reveal unto him or what he supposeth that God is likely to have revealed to some special Person whose Vertues deserve to be highly esteemed What other effect could hereupon ensue but the utter confusion of his Church under pretence of being taught led and guided by his Spirit the gifts and graces whereof do so naturally all tend unto Common peace that where such singularity is they whose Hearts it possesseth ought to suspect it the more in as much as if it did come of God and should for that cause prevail with others the same God which revealeth it to them would also give them power of confirming it unto others either with miraculous operation or with strong and invincible remonstrance of sound Reason such as whereby it might appear that God would indeed have all mens Judgments give place unto it whereas now the errour and unsufficience of their Arguments doth make it on the contrary side against them a strong presumption that God hath not moved their hearts to think such things as he hath not enabled them to prove And so from Rules of general Direction it resteth that now we
the Sacred Authority of Scriptures ever sithence the first publication thereof even till this present day and hour And that they all have always so testified I see not how we should possibly wish a proof more palpable than this manifest received and every where continued Custom of Reading them publickly as the Scriptures The Reading therefore of the Word of God as the use hath ever been in open Audience is the plainest evidence we have of the Churches assent and acknowledgement that it is his Word 3. A further commodity this Custom hath which is to furnish the very simplest and rudest sort with such infallible Axioms and Precepts of Sacred Truth delivered even in the very letter of the Law of God as may serve them for Rules whereby to judge the better all other Doctrins and Instructions which they hear For which end and purpose I see not how the Scripture could be possibly made familiar unto all unless far more should be read in the Peoples hearing than by a Sermon can be opened For whereas in a manner the whole Book of God is by reading every year published a small part thereof in comparison of the whole may hold very well the readiest Interpreter of Scripture occupied many years 4. Besides wherefore should any man think but that Reading it self is one of the ordinary means whereby it pleaseth God of his gracious goodness to instill that Celestial Verity which being but so received is nevertheless effectual to save Souls Thus much therefore we ascribe to the Reading of the Word of God as the manner is in our Churches And because it were odious if they on their part should altogether despise the same they yield that Reading may set forward but not begin the work of Salvation That Faith may be nourished therewith but not bred That herein mens attention to the Scriptures and their speculation of the Creatures of God have like efficacy both being of power to augment but neither to effect Belief without Sermons That if any believe by Reading alone we are to account it a miracle an extraordinary work of God Wherein that which they grant we gladly accept at their hands and with that patiently they would examine how little cause they have to deny that which as yet they grant not The Scripture witnesseth that when the Book of the Law of God had been sometime missing and was after found the King which heard it but only read tare his Cloaths and with tears confessed Great is the wrath of the Lord upon us because our Fathers have notâ— kept his Word to do after all things which are written in this Book This doth argue that by bare reading for of Sermons at that time there is no mention true Repentance may be wrought in the hearts of such as fear God and yet incurr his displeasure the deserved effect whereof is Eternal death So that their Repentance although it be not their first entrance is notwithstanding the first step of their re-entrance into Life and may be in them wrought by the Word only read unto them Besides it seemeth that God would have no man stand in doubt but that the reading of Scripture is effectual as well to lay even the first foundation as to adde degrees of farther perfection in the fear of God And therefore the Law saith Thou shalt read this Law before all Israel that Men Women and Children may hear yea even that their Children which as yet have not known it may hear it and by hearing it so read may learn to fear the Lord. Our Lord and Saviour was himself of opinion That they which would not be drawn to amendment of Life by the Testimony which Moses and the Prophets have given concerning the miseries that follow Sinners after death were not likely to be perswaded by other means although God from the very Dead should have raised them up Preachers Many hear the Books of God and believe them not Howbeit their unbelief in that case we may not impute unto any weakness or insufficiency in the mean which is used towards them but to the wilful bent of their obstinate hearts against it With mindes obdurate nothing prevaileth As well they that preach as they that read unto such shall still have cause to complain with the Prophets which were of old Who will give credit unto our Teaching But with whom ordinary means will prevail surely the power of the World of God even without the help of Interpreters in God's Church worketh mightily not unto their confirmation alone which are converted but also to their conversion which are not It shall not boot them who derogate from reading to excuse it when they see no other remedy as if their intent were only to deny that Aliens and Strangers from the Family of God are won or that Belief doth use to be wrought at the first in them without Sermons For they know it is our Custom of simple Reading not for conversion of Infidels estranged from the House of God but for instruction of Men baptised bred and brought up in the bosom of the Church which they despise as a thing uneffectual to save such Souls In such they imagine that God hath no ordinary mean to work Faith without Sermons The reason why no man can attain Belief by the bare contemplation of Heaven and Earth is for that they neither are sufficient to give us as much as the least spark of Light concerning the very principal Mysteries of our Faith and whatsoever we may learn by them the same we can only attain to know according to the manner of natural Sciences which meer discourse of Wit and Reason findeth out whereas the things which we properly believe be only such as are received upon the credit of Divine Testimony Seeing therefore that he which considereth the Creatures of God findeth therein both these defects and neither the one nor the other in Scriptures because he that readeth unto us the Scriptures delivereth all the Mysteries of Faith and not any thing amongst them all more than the mouth of the Lord doth warrant It followeth in those own respects that our consideration of Creatures and attention unto Scriptures are not in themselves and without-Sermons things of like disability to breed or beget Faith Small cause also there is why any man should greatly wonder as at an extraordinary work if without Sermons Reading be sound to effect thus much For I would know by some special instance what one Article of Christian Faith or what duty required unto all mens Salvation there is which the very reading of the Word of God is not apt to notifie Effects are miraculous and strange when they grow by unlikely means But did we ever hear it accounted for a Wonder that he which doth read should believe and live according to the will of Almighty God Reading doth convey to the Minde that Truth without addition or diminution which Scripture hath derived from
the Holy Ghost And the end of all Scripture is the same which Saint Iohn proposeth in the writing of that most Divine Gospel namely Faith and through Faith Salvation Yea all Scripture is to this effect in it self available as they which wrote it were perswaded unless we suppose that the Evangelists or others in speaking of their own intent to instruct and to save by writing had a secret Conceit which they never opened to any a Conceit that no man in the World should ever be that way the better for any Sentence by them written till such time as the same might chance to be preached upon or alledged at the least in a Sermon Otherwise if he which writeth doth that which is forceable in it self how should he which readeth be thought to do that which in it self is of no force to work Belief and to save Believers Now although we have very just cause to stand in some jealousie and fear lest by thus overvaluing their Sermons they make the price and estimation of Scripture otherwise notified to fall nevertheless so impatient they are that being but requested to let us know what causes they leave for mens incouragement to attend to the reading of the Scripture if Sermons only be the power of God to save every one which believeth that which we move for our better learning and instruction-sake turneth unto anger and choler in them they grow altogether out of quietness with it they answer fumingly that they are ashamed to defile their Pens with making answer to such idle questions yet in this their mood they cast forth somewhat wherewith under pain of greater displeasure we must rest contented They tell us the profit of Reading is singular in that it serveth for a Preparative unto Sermons it helpeth prettily towards the nourishment of Faith which Sermons have once ingendred it is some stay to his minde which readeth the Scripture when he findeth the same things there which are taught in Sermons and thereby perceiveth how God doth concurr in opinion with the Preacher besides it keepeth Sermons in memory and doth in that respect although not feed the Soul of man yet help the retentive force of that stomack of the minde which receiveth ghostly â—ood at the Preachers hands But the principal cause of writing the Gospel was that it might be preached upon or interpreted by publick Ministers apt and authorized thereunto Is it credible that a superstitious conceit for it is no better concerning Sermons should in such sort both darken their Eyes and yet sharpen their Wits withall that the only true and weightly cause why Scripture was written the cause which in Scripture is so often mentioned the cause which all men have ever till this present day acknowledged this they should clean exclude as being no cause at all and load us with so great store of strange concealed causes which did never see light till now In which number the rest must needs be of moment when the very chiefest cause of committing the Sacred Word of God unto Books is surmised to have been lest the Preacher should want a Text whereupon to scholie Men of Learning hold it for a slip in Judgement when offer is made to demonstrate that as proper to one thing which Reason findeth common unto moe Whereas therefore they take from all kindes of teachings that which they attribute to Sermons it had been their part to yield directly some strong reason why between Sermons alone and Faith there should be ordinarily that coherence which causes have with their usual effects why a Christian man's belief should so naturally grow from Sermons and not possibly from any other kinde of teaching In belief there being but these two operations Apprehension and Assent Do only Sermons cause Belief in that no other way is able to explain the mysteries of God that the minde may rightly apprehend or conceive them as behooveth We all know that many things are believed although they be intricate obscure and dark although they exceed the reach and capacity of our Wits yea although in this World they be no way possible to be understood Many things believed are likewise so plain that every Common Person may therein be unto himself a sufficient Expounder Finally to explain even those things which need and admit explication many other usual ways there are besides Sermons Therefore Sermons are not the only ordinary means whereby we first come to apprehend the Mysterys of God Is it in regard then of Sermons only that apprehending the Gospel of Christ we yield thereunto our unfeigned assent as to a thing infallibly true They which rightly consider after what sort the heart of man hereunto is framed must of necessity acknowledge that who so assenteth to the words of Eternal life doth it in regard of his Authority whose words they are This is in man's conversion unto God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first step whereat his race towards Heaven beginneth Unless therefore clean contrary to our own experience we shall think it a miracle if any man acknowledge the Divine authority of the Scripture till some Sermon have perswaded him thereunto and that otherwise neither conversation in the bosome of the Church nor religious Education nor the reading of Learned mens Books nor Information received by conference nor whatsoever pain and diligence in hearing studying meditating day and night on the Law is so far blest of God as to work this effect in any man how would they have us to grant that Faith doth not come but only by heating Sermons Fain they would have us to believe the Apostle Saint Paul himself to be Author of this their Paradox only because he hath said that it pleaseth God by the foolishness of Preaching to save them which believe and again How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard How shall they hear without a Preacher How shall men preach except they be sent To answer therefore both Allegations at once The very substance of what they contain is in few but this Life and Salvation God will have offered unto all his will is that Gentiles should be saved as well as Jews Salvation belongeth unto none but such as call upon the Name of our Lord Iesus Christ. Which Nations as yet unconverted neither do not possibly can do till they believe What they are to believe impossible it is they should know till they bear it Their Hearing requireth our Preaching unto them Tertullian to draw even Painyms themselves unto Christian Belief willeth the Books of the Old Testament to be searched which were at that time in Ptolemics Library And if men did not lift to travel so far though it were for their endless good he addeth that in Rome and other places the Jews had Synagogues whereunto every one which would might resort that this kinde of Liberty they purchased by payment
wisely considered that the Body is of far more worth than the Rayment Whereupon for fear of dangerous inconveniences it hath been thought good to adde That sometimes Authority must and may with good conscience be obeyed even where Commandment is not given upon good ground That the duty of Preaching is one of the absolute Commandements of God and therefore ought not to be forsaken for the bare inconveniency of a thing which in the own nature is indifferent That one of the foulest spots is the Surplice is the offence which is giveth in occasioning the weak to fall and the wicked to be confirmed in their wickedness yet hereby there is no unlawfulness proved but only an inconveniency that such things should be established howbeit no such Inconveniency neither as may not be born with That when God doth flatly command us to abstain from things is their own Nature indifferent if they offend our weak Brethren his meaning is not we should obey his Commandement herein unless we may do it and not leave undone that which the Lord hath absolutely commanded Always provided That whosoever will enjoy the benefit of this Dispensation to wear a scandalous Badge of Idolatry rather than forsake his Pastoral charge do as occasion serveth teach nevertheless still the incommodity of the thing it self admonish the weak Brethren that they be not and pray unto God so to strengthen them that they may not be offended thereat So that whereas before they which had Authority to institute Rites and Ceremonies were denyed to have power to institute this it is now confest that this they may also lawfully but not so conveniently appoint they did well before and as they ought who had it in utter detestation and hatred as a thing abominable they now do well which think it may be both born and used with a very good Conscience before he which by wearing it were sure to win thousands unto Christ ought not to do it if there were but one which might be offended now though it be with the offence of thousands yet it may be done rather than that should be given over whereby notwithstanding we are not certain we shall gain one the Examples of Ezechias and of Paul the Charge which was given to the Jews by Esay the strict Apostolical prohibition of things indifferent whensoever they may be scandalous were before so forcible Laws against our Ecclesiastical Attire as neither Church nor Common-wealth could possibly make void which now one of far less authority than either hath found how to frustrate by dispensing with the breach of inferiour Commandments to the end that the greater may be kept But it booteth them not thus to soder up a broken Cause whereof their first and last discourses will fall asunder do what they can Let them ingenuously confess that their Invectives were too bitter their Arguments too weak the matter not so dangerous as they did imagin If those alleged testimonies of Scripture did indeed concern the matter to such effect as was pretended that which they should inferr were unlawfulness because they were cited as Prohibitions of that thing which indeed they concern If they prove not our attire unlawful because in truth they concern it not it followeth that they prove not any thing against it and consequently not so much as uncomeliness or incoveniency Unless therefore they be able throughly to resolve themselves that there is no one Sentence in all the Scriptures of God which doth controul the wearing of it in such manner and to such purpose as the Church of England alloweth unless they can fully rest and settle their mindes in this most sound perswasion that they are not to make themselves the only competent Judges of decency in these cases and to despise the solemn judgement of the whole Church preferring before it their own conceit grounded only upon uncertain suspicions and fears whereof if there were at the first some probable cause when things were but raw and tender yet now very tract of time hath it self worn that out also unless I say thus resolved in minde they hold their Pastoral Charge with the comfort of a good Conscience no way grudging at that which they do or doing that which they think themselves bound of duty to reprove how should it possibly help or further them in their course to take such occasions as they say are requisite to be taken and in pensive manner to tell their Audience Brethren our hearts desire is that we might enjoy the full liberty of the Gospel as in other reformed Churches they do elsewhere upon whom the heavy hand of Authority hath imposed no grievous burthen But such is the misery of these our days that so great happiness we cannot look to attain unto Were it so that the equity of the Law of Moses could prevail or the zeal of Ezechias be found in the hearts of those Guides and Governours under whom we live or the voyce of God's own Prophets be duly heard or the Examples of the Apostles of Christ be followed yea or their Precepts be answered with full and perfect obedience these abominable Raggs polluted Garments marks and Sacraments of Idolatry which Power as you see constraineth us to wear and Conscience to abhor had long ere this day been removed both out of sight and out of memory But as now things stand behold to what narrow streights we are driven On the one side we fear the words of our Saviour Christ Woe be to them by whom scandal and offence cometh on the other side at the Apostles speech we cannot but quake and tremble If I preach not the Gospel woe be unto me Being thus hardly beset we see not any other remedy but to hazzard your Souls the one way that we may the other way endeavour to save them Touching the the offence of the Weak therefore we must adventure it If they perish they perish Our Pastoral charge is God's most absolute Commandment Rather than that shall be taken from us we are resolved to take this filth and to put it on although we judge it to be so unfit and inconvenient that as oft as ever we pray or preach so arrayed before you we do as much as in us lyeth to cast away your Souls that are weak-minded and to bring you unto endless perdition But we beseech you Brethren have a care of your own safety take heed to your steps that ye be not taken in those snares which we lay before you And our Prayer in your behalf to Almighty God is that the poyson which we offer you may never have the power to do you harm Advice and counsel is best sought for at their hands which either have no part at all in the Cause whereof they instruct or else are so farr ingaged that themselves are to bear the greatest adventure in the success of their own Counsels The one of which two Considerations maketh men the less respective and the other the more
so many Prayers and Psalms read day by day as do equal in a manner the length of ours and yet in that respect was never thought to deserve blame is it now an offence that the like measure of time is bestowed in the like manner Peradventure the Church had not now the leisure which it had then or else those things whereupon so much time was then well spent have sithence that lost their dignity and worth If the reading of the Law the Prophets and Psalms be a part of the Service of God as needful under Christ as before and the adding of the New Testament as profitable as the ordaining of the Old to be read if therewith instead of Jewish Prayers it be also for the good of the Church to annex that variety which the Apostle doth commend seeing that the time which we spend is no more than the orderly performance of these things necessarily required why are we thought to exceed in length Words be they never so few are too many when they benefit not the Hearer But he which speaketh no more than edifieth is undeservedly reprehended for much speaking That as the Devil under the colour of long Prayer drave Preaching out of the Church heretofore so we in appointing so long Prayers and Readings whereby the less can be spent in Preaching maintain an unpreaching Ministry is neither advisedly nor truly spoken They reprove long Prayer and yet acknowledge it to be in it self a thing commendable For so it must needs be if the Devil have used it as a colour to hide his malicious practises When Malice would work that which is evil and in working avoid the suspition of any evil intent the colour wherewith it overcasteth it self is always a fair and plausible pretence of seeking to further that which is good So that if we both retain that good which Saran hath pretended to seek and avoid the evil which his purpose was to effect have we not better prevented his malice than if as he hath under colour of long Prayer driven Preaching out of the Church so we should take the quarrel of Sermons in hand and revenge their Cause by requital thrusting Prayer in a manner out of doors under colour of long Preaching In case our Prayers being made at their full length did necessarily inforce Sermons to be the shorter yet neither were this to uphold and maintain an unpreaching Ministery unless we will say that those antient Fathers Chrysostom Augustine Leo and the rest whose Homilies in that consideration were shorter for the most part than our Sermons are did then not preach when their Speeches were not long The necessity of shortness causeth men to cut off impertinent Discourses and to comprize much matter in few words But neither did it maintain inabilitie not at all prevent opportunitie of Preaching as long as a competent time is granted for that purpose An hour and an half is they say in reformed Churches ordinarily thought reasonable for their whole Liturgy or Service Do we then continue as Ezra did in reading the Law from morning till mid-day or as the Apostle Saint Paul did in Prayer and Preaching till men through weariness be taken up dead at our feet The huge length whereof they make such complaint is but this that if our whole form of Prayer be read and besides an hour allowed for a Sermon we spend ordinarily in both more time than they do by half an hour Which half hour being such a matter as the age of some and infirmity of other some are not able to bear if we have any sense of the common imbecillity if any care to preserve mens wits from being broken with the very bent of so long attention if any love or desire to provide that things most holy be not with hazard of mens Souls abhorr'd and loathed this half-hours tediousness must be remedied and that only by cutting off the greatest part of our Common Prayer For no other remedie will serve to help so dangerous an Inconvenience 33. The Brethren in AEgypt saith St. Augustin Epist. 121. are reported to have many Prayers but every of them very short as if they were Darts thrown out with a kinde of sudden quickness lest that vigilant and erect attention of minde which in Prayer is very necessary should be wasted or dulled through continuance if their Prayers were few and long But that which St. Augustine doth allow they condemn Those Prayers whereunto devout mindes have added a piercing kinde of brevity as well in that respect which we have already mentioned as also thereby the better to express that quick and speedy expedition wherewith ardent affections the very wings of Prayer are delighted to present our suits in Heaven even sooner than our tongues can devise to utter them they in their mood of contradiction spare not openly to deride and that with so base terms as do very ill beseem men of their gravity Such speeches are scandalous they savour not of God in him that useth them and unto vertuously disposed mindes they are grievous corrosives Our case were miserable if that wherewith we most endeavour to please God were in his sight so vile and despicable as mens disdainful speech would make it 34. Again for as much as effectual Prayer is joyned with a vehement intention of the inferiour powers of the Soul which cannot therein long continue without pain it hath been therefore thought good so by turns to interpose still somewhat for the higher part of the minde the understanding to work upon that both being kept in continual exercise with variety neither might feel any great wearinesse and yet each be a spurre to other For Prayer kindleth our desire to behold God by speculation and the minde delighted with that contemplative sight of God taketh every where new inflammations to pray the riches of the Mysteries of Heavenly wisdom continually stirring up in us correspondent desires towards them So that he which prayeth in due sort is thereby made the more attentive to hear and he which heareth the more earnest to pray for the time which we bestow as well in the one as the other But for what cause soever we do it this intermingling of Lessons with Prayers is in their taste a thing as unsavoury and as unseemly in their sight as if the like should be done in Suits and Supplications before some mighty Prince of the World Our speech to worldly Superiours we frame in such sort as serveth best to inform and perswade the mindes of them who otherwise neither could nor would greatly regard our necessities Whereas because we know that God is indeed a King but a great King who understandeth all things before-hand which no other King besides doth a King which needeth not to be informed what we lack a King readier to grant than we to make our requests therefore in Prayer we do not so much respect what Precepts Art delivereth touching the method of perswasive utterance
himself should suffer To say He knew not what weight of sufferances his Heavenly Father had measured unto him is somewhat hard harder that although he knew them notwithstanding for the present time they were forgotten through the force of these unspeakable pangs which he then was in The one against the plain express words of the holy Evangelist He knew all things that should come upon him the other less credible if any thing may be of less credit then what the Scripture it self gain-sayeth Doth any of them which wrote his sufferings make report that memory failed him Is there in his words and speeches any sign of defect that way Did not himself declare before whatsoever was to happen in the course of that whole tragedy Can we gather by any thing after taken from his own mouth either in the place of publick judgment or upon the Altar of the Cross that through the bruising of his Body some part of the treasures of his Soul were scattered and slipt from him If that which was perfect both before and after did fail at this onely middle instant there must appear some manifest cause how it came to pass True it is that the pangs of his heaviness and grief were unspeakable and as true That because the mindes of the afflicted do never think they have fully conceived the weight or measure of their own wo they use their affection as a whetstone both to wit and memory these as Nurses do feed grief so that the weaker his conceit had been touching that which he was to suffer the more it must needs in that hour have helped to the mitigation of his anguish But his anguish we see was then at the very highest whereunto it could possibly rise which argueth his deep apprehension even to the last drop of the Gall which that Cup contained and of every circumstance wherein there was any force to augment heaviness but above all things the resolute determination of God and his own unchangeable purpose which he at that time could not forget To what intent then was his Prayer which plainly testifieth so great willingness to avoid death Will whether it be in God or Man belongeth to the Essence or Nature of both The Nature therefore of God being one there are not in God divers Wills although the God-head be in divers persons because the power of willing is a natural not a personal propriety Contrariwise the Person of our Saviour Christ being but one there are in him two Wills because two Natures the Nature of God and the Nature of Man which both do imply this Faculty and Power So that in Christ there is a Divine and there is an Humane will otherwise he were not both God and Man Hereupon the Church hath of old condemned Monothelites as Hereticks for holding That Christ had but one Will. The Works and Operations of our Saviours Humane will were all subject to the Will of God and framed according to his Law I desire to do thy Will O God and thy Law is within mine heart Now as Mans will so the Will of Christ hath two several kindes of operation the one Natural or necessary whereby it desireth simply whatsoever is good in it self and shunneth as generally all things which hurt the other Deliberate when we therefore embrace things as good because the eye of understanding judgeth them good to that â—â—d which we simply desire Thus in it self we desire health Physick onely for healths sake And in this sort special Reason oftentimes causeth the Will by choice to prefer one good thing before another to leave one for anothers sake to forgo meaner for the attainment of higher desires which our Saviour likewise did These different inclinations of the Will considered the reason is easie how in Christ there might grow desires seeming but being not indeed opposite either the one of them unto the other or either of them to the Will of God For let the manner of his speech be weighed My Soul is now troubled and what should I say Father save me out of this hour But yet for this very cause I am come into this hour His purpose herein was most effectually to propose to the view of the whole World two contrary Objects the like whereunto in force and efficacy were never presented in that manner to any but onely to the Soul of Christ. There was presented before his eyes in that fearful hour on the one side Gods heavy indignation and wrath towards mankinde as yet unappeased death as yet in full strength Hell as yet never mastered by any that came within the confines and bounds thereof somewhat also peradventure more then is either possible or needful for the wit of man to finde out finally Himself flesh and blood left alone to enter into conflict with all these On the other side a World to be saved by One a pacification of wrath through the dignity of that Sacrifice which should be offered a conquest over death through the power of that Deity which would not suffer the Tabernacle thereof to see corruption and an utter disappointment of all the forces of infernal powers through the purity of that Soul which they should have in their hands and not be able to touch Let no man marvel that in this case the Soul of Christ was much troubled For what could such apprehensions breed but as their nature is inexplicable Passions of minde desires abhorring what they embrace and embracing what they abhor In which Agony how should the tongue go about to express what the soul endured When the griefs of Iob were exceeding great his words accordingly to open them were many howbeit still unto his seeming they were undiscovered Though my talk saith Iob be this day in bitterness yet my plague is greater then my groaning But here to what purpose should words serve when nature hath more to declare then groans and strong cries more then streams of bloody sweats more then his doubled and tripled Prayers can express who thrice putting forth his hand to receive that Cup besides which there was no other cause of his coming into the World he thrice pulleth it back again and as often even with tears of blood craveth If it be possible O Father or if not even what thine own good pleasure is for whose sake the Passion that hath in it a bitter and a bloody conflict even with Wrath and Death and Hell is most welcome Whereas therefore we finde in God a will resolved that Christ shall suffer and in the Humane will of Christ two actual desires the one avoiding and the other accepting death Is that desire which first declareth it self by Prayer against that wherewith he concludeth Prayer or either of them against his minde to whom Prayer in this case seeketh We may judge of these diversities in the Will by the like in the Understanding For as the intellectual part doth not cross it self by conceiving man to be
just and unjust when it meaneth not the same man nor by imagining the same man learned and unlearned if learned in one skill and in another kinde of learning unskilful because the parts of every true opposition do always both concern the same subject and have reference to the same thing sith otherwise they are but in shew opposite and not in truth So the Will about one and the same thing may in contrary respects have contrary inclinations and that without contrariety The Minister of Justice may for publike example to others virtuously will the execution of that party whose pardon another for cousanguinities sake as virtuously may desire Consider death in it self and nature teacheth Christ to shun it Consider death as a mean to procure the salvation of the World and mercy worketh in Christ all willingness of minde towards it Therefore in these two desires there can be no repugnant opposition Again compare them with the Will of God and if any opposition be it must be onely between his appointment of Christs death and the former desire which wisheth deliverance from death But neither is this desire opposite to the Will of God The Will of God was that Christ should suffer the pains of death Not so his will as if the torment of innocency did in it self please and delight God but such was his Will in regard of the end whereunto it was necessary that Christ should suffer The death of Christ in it self therefore God willeth not which to the end we might thereby obtain life he both alloweth and appointeth In like manner the Son of Man endureth willingly to that purpose those grievous painsâ— which simply not to have shunned had been against Nature and by consequent against God I take it therefore to be an error that Christ either knew not what himself was to suffer or else had forgotten the things he knew The root of which error was an over-restrained consideration of Prayer as though it had no other lawful use but onely to serve for a chosen mean whereby the Will resolveth to seek that which the Understanding certainly knoweth it shall obtain Whereas Prayers in truth both unto are and his were as well sometime a presentation of meer desires as a mean of procuring desired effects at the hands of God We are therefore taught by his example that the presence of dolorous and dreadful objects even in mindes most perfect may as clouds over-cast all sensible joy that no assurance touching future victories can make present conflicts so sweet and easie but nature will shun and shrink from them nature will desire case and deliverance from oppressive burthens that the contrary determination of God is oftentimes against the effect of this desire yet not against the affection it self because it is naturally in us that in such case our Prayers cannot serve us as means to obtain the thing we desire that notwithstanding they are unto God most acceptable sacrifices because they testifie we desire nothing but at his hands and our desires we submit with contentment to be over-ruled by his Will and in general they are not repugnant unto the Natural Will of God which wisheth to the works of his own hands in that they are his own handy-work all happiness although perhaps for some special cause in our own particular a contrary determination have seemed more convenient finally that thus to propose our desires which cannot take such effects as we specifie shall notwithstanding otherwise procure us his Heavenly grace even as this very Prayer of Christ obtained Angels to be sent him as comforters in his Agony And according to this example we are not afraid to present unto God our Prayers for those things which that he will perform unto us we have no sure nor certain knowledge St. Pauls Prayer for the Church of Corinth was that they might not do any evil although he knew that no man liveth which sinneth not although he knew that in this life we always must pray Forgive us our sins It is our frailty that in many things we all do amiss but a vertue that we would do amiss in nothing and a testimony of that vertue when we pray That what occasion of sin soever do offer it self we may be strengthned from above to withstand it They pray in vain to have sin pardoned which seek not also to prevent sin by Prayer even every particular sin by Prayer against all sin except men can name some transgression wherewith we ought to have truce For in very deed although we cannot be free from all sin collectively in such sort that no part thereof shall be found inherent in us yet distributively at the least all great and grievous actual offences as they offer themselves one by one both may and ought to be by all means avoided So that in this sense to be preserved from all sin is not impossible Finally concerning deliverance it self from all adversity we use not to say men are in adversity whensoever they feel any small hinderance of their welfare in this World but when some notable affliction or cross some great calamity or trouble befalleth them Tribulation hath in it divers circumstances the Minde sundry faculties to apprehend them It offereth sometime it self to the lower powers of the Soul as a most unpleasant spectacle to the higher sometimes as drawing after it a train of dangerous inconveniences sometime as bringing with it remedies for the curing of sundry evils as Gods instrument of revenge and fury sometime sometime as a rod of his just yet moderate ire and displeasure sometime as matter for them that spightfully hate us to exercise their poysoned malice sometime as a furnace of tryal for vertue to shew it self and through conflict to obtain glory Which different contemplations of adversity do work for the most part their answerable effects Adversity either apprehended by Sense as a thing offensive and grievous to Nature or by Reason conceived as a snare an occasion of many mens falling from God a sequel of Gods indignation and wrath a thing which Satan desireth and would be glad to behold Tribulation thus considered being present causeth sorrow and being imminent breedeth fear For moderation of which two affections growing from the very natural bitterness and gall of adversity the Scripture much alledgeth contrary fruits which Affliction likewise hath whensoever it falleth on them that are tractable the grace of Gods holy Spirit concurring therewith But when the Apostle St. Paul teacheth That every one which will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution and by many tribulations we must enter into the Kingdom of Heaven because in a Forest of many Wolves Sheep cannot chuse bat feed in continual danger of life or when St. Iames exhorteth to account it a matter of exceeding joy when we fall into divers temptations because by the tryal of Faith Patience is brought forth was it suppose we their meaning to frustrate
man doubt how God should accept such Prayers in case they be opposite to his Will or not grant them if they be according unto that which himself willeth our answer is That such suits God accepteth in that they are conformable unto his general inclination which is that all men might be saved yet always he granteth them not for as much as there is in God sometimes a more private occasioned will which determineth the contrary So that the other being the rule of our actions and not this our requests for things opposite to this Will of God are not therefore the less gracious in his sight There is no doubt but we ought in all things to frame our wills to the Will of God and that otherwise in whatsoever we do we sin For of our selves being so apt to err the onely way which we have to streighten our paths is by following the rule of his Will whose footsteps naturally are right If the eye the hand or the foot do that which the will commandeth though they serve as instruments to sin yet is sin the commanders fault and not theirs because Nature hath absolutely and without exception made them subjects to the will of man which is Lord over them As the body is subject to the will of man so mans will to the Will of God for so it behoveth that the better should guide and command the worse But because the subjection of the body to the will is by natural necessity the subjection of the Will unto God voluntary we therefore stand in need of direction after what sort our wills and desires may be rightly conformed to his Which is not done by willing always the self-same thing that God intendeth For it may chance that his purpose is sometime the speedy death of them whose long continuance in life if we should not wish we were unnatural When the object or matter therefore of our desires is as in this case a thing both good of it self and not forbidden of God when the end for which we desire it is vertuous and apparently most holy when the root from which our affection towards it proceedeth is Charity Piety that which we do in declaring our desire by Prayer yea over and besides all this sith we know that to pray for all men living is but to shew the same affection which towards every of them our Lord Jesus Christ hath born who knowing onely as God who are his did as Man taste death for the good of all men surely to that Will of God which ought to be and is the known rule of all our actions we do not herein oppose our selves although his secret determination haply be against us which if we did understand as we do not yet to rest contented with that which God will have done is as much as he requireth at the hands of men And concerning our selves what we earnestly crave in this case the same as all things else that are of like condition we meekly submit unto his most gracious will and pleasure Finally as we have cause sufficient why to think the practice of our Church allowable in this behalf so neither is ours the first which hath been of that minde For to end with the words of Prosper This Law of Supplication for all Men saith he the devout zeal of all Priests and of all faithful Men doth hold with such full Agreement that there is not any part of all the World where Christian people do not use to pray in the same manner The Church every where maketh Prayers unto God not onely for Saints and such as already in Christ are regenerate but for all Infidels and Enemies of the Cross of Iesus Christ for all Idolaters for all that persecute Christ in his followers for Iews to whose blindness the Light of the Gospel doth not yet shine for Hereticks and Schismaticks who from the Unity of Faith and Charity are estranged And for such what doth the Church ask of God but this That leaving their Errors they may be converted unto him that Faith and Charity may be given them and that out of the darkness of ignorance they may come to the knowledge of his truth Which because they cannot themselves do in their own behalf as long as the sway of evil custom ever-beareth them and the chains of Satan detain them bound neither are they able to break through those Errors wherein they are so determinately setled that they pay unto falsity the whole sum of whatsoever love is owing unto Gods Truth Our Lord merciful and just requireth to have all men prayed for that when we behold innumerable multitudes drawn up from the depth of so bottomless evils we may not doubt but in part God hath done the thing we requested nor despair but that being thankful for them towards whom already he hath shewed mercy the rest which are not as yet enlightned shall before they pass out of life be made partakers of the like grace Or if the Grace of him which saveth for so we set is falleth out over-pass some so that the Prayer of the Church for them be not received this we may leave to the hidden Iudgments of Gods Righteousness and acknowledge that in this Secret there is a Gulf which whole we live we shall never sound 50. Instruction and Prayer whereof we have hitherto spoken are duties which serve as Elements Parts or Principles to the rest that follow in which number the Sacraments of the Church are chief The Church is to us that very Mother of our New Birth in whose Bowels we are all bred at whose Brests we receive nourishment As many therefore as are apparently to our judgment born of God they have the Seed of their Regeneration by the Ministery of the Church which useth to that end and purpose not onely the Word but the Sacrament both having Generative force and vertue As oft as we mention a Sacrament properly understood for in the Writings of the Ancient Fathers all Articles which are peculiar to Christian Faith all Duties of Religion containing that which Sense or Natural Reason cannot of it self discern are most commonly named Sacraments our restraint of the Word to some few principal Divine Ceremonies importeth in every such Ceremony two things the Substance of the Ceremony it self which is visible and besides that somewhat else more secret in reference whereunto we conceive that Ceremony to be a Sacrament For we all admire and honor the holy Sacraments not respecting so much the Service which we do unto God in receiving them as the dignity of that Sacred and Secret Gift which we thereby receive from God Seeing that Sacraments therefore consist altogether in relation to some such Gift or Grace Supernatural as onely God can bestow how should any but the Church administer those Ceremonies as Sacraments which are not thought to be Sacraments by any but by the Church There is in Sacraments to be observed their Force and
that which ordereth his Work is Wisdom and that which perfecteth his Work is Power All things which God in their times and seasons hath brought forth were eternally and before all times in God as a work unbegun is in the Artificer which afterward bringeth it unto effect Therefore whatsoever we do behold now in this present World it was inwrapped within the Bowels of Divine Mercy written in the Book of Eternal Wisdom and held in the hands of Omnipotent Power the first Foundations of the World being as yet unlaid So that all things which God hath made are in that respect the Off-spring of God they are in him as effects in their highest cause he likewise actually is in them the assistance and influence of his Deity is their life Let hereunto saving efficacy be added and it bringeth forth a special Off-spring amongst men containing them to whom God hath himself given the gracious and amiable name of Sons We are by Nature the Sons of Adam When God created Adam he created us and as many as are descended from Adam have in themselves the Root out of which they spring The Sons of God we neither are all nor any one of us otherwise then onely by grace and favor The Sons of God have Gods own Natural Son as a second Adam from Heaven whose Race and Progeny they are by Spiritual and Heavenly Birth God therefore loving eternally his Son he must needs eternally in him have loved and preferred before all others them which are spiritually sithence descended and sprung out of him These were in God as in their Saviour and not as in their Creator onely It was the purpose of his saving Goodness his saving Wisdom and his saving Power which inclined it self towards them They which thus were in God eternally by their intended admission to life have by vocation or adoption God actually now in them as the Artificer is in the Work which his hand doth presently frame Life as all other gifts and benefits groweth originally from the Father and cometh not to us but by the Son nor by the Son to any of us in particular but through the Spirit For this cause the Apostle wisheth to the Church of Corinth The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Ghost Which three St. Peter comprehendeth in one The participation of Divine Nature We are therefore in God through Christ eternally according to that intent and purpose whereby we are chosen to be made his in this present World before the World it self was made We are in God through the knowledge which is had of us and the love which is born towards us from everlasting But in God we actually are no longer then onely from the time of our actual Adoption into the Body of his true Church into the Fellowship of his Children For his Church he knoweth and loveth so that they which are in the Church are thereby known to be in him Our being in Christ by Eternal fore-knowledge saveth us not without our Actual and Real Adoption into the Fellowship of his Saints in this present World For in him we actually are by our actual incorporation into that Society which hath him for their Head and doth make together with him one Body he and they in that respect having one name for which cause by vertue of this Mystical Conjunction we are of him and in him even as though our very flesh and bones should be made continuate with his We are in Christ because he knoweth and loveth us even as parts of himself No man actually is in him but they in whom he actually is For he which hath not the Son of God hath not Life I am the Vine and ye are the Branches He which abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much Fruit but the Branch severed from the Vine withereth We are therefore adopted Sons of God to Eternal Life by Participation of the onely begotten Son of God whose Life is the Well-spring and cause of ours It is too cold an interpretation whereby some men expound our Being in Christ to import nothing else but onely That the self-same Nature which maketh us to be Men is in him and maketh him Man as we are For what man in the World is there which hath not so far forth communion with Jesus Christ It is not this that can sustain the weight of such sentences as speak of the Mystery of our Coherence with Jesus Christ. The Church is in Christ as Eve was in Adam Yea by Grace we are every of us in Christ and in his Church and in his Church as by Nature we were in those our first Parents God made Eve of the Rib of Adam And his Church he frameth out of the very Flesh the very wounded and bleeding side of the Son of Man His Body crucified and his Blood shed for the Life of the World are the true Elements of that Heavenly Being which maketh us such as himself is of whom we come For which cause the words of Adam may be fitly the words of Christ concerning his Church Flesh of my Flesh and Bone of my Bones a true Nature extract out of my own Body So that in him even according to his Manhood we according to our Heavenly Being are as Branches in that Root out of which they grow To all things he is Life and to men Light as the Son of God to the Church both Life and Light Eternal by being made the Son of Man for us and by being in us a Saviour whether we respect him as God or as Man Adam is in us as an original cause of our Nature and of that corruption of Nature which causeth death Christ as the cause original of Restauration to Life The person of Adam is not in us but his nature and the corruption of his nature derived into all men by Propagation Christ having Adams nature as we have but incorrupt deriveth not nature but incorruption and that immediately from his own Person into all that belong unto him As therefore we are really partakers of the body of Sin and Death received from Adam so except we be truly partakers of Christ and as really possessed of his Spirit all we speak of Eternal Life is but a dream That which quickneth us is the Spirit of the Second Adam and his Flesh that wherewith he quickneth That which in him made our Nature uncorrupt was the Union of his Deity with our Nature And in that respect the sentence of Death and Condemnation which onely taketh hold upon sinful flesh could no way possibly extend unto him This caused his voluntary death for others to prevail with God and to have the force of an Expiatory Sacrifice The Blood of Christ as the Apostle witnesseth doth therefore take away sin because through the Eternal Spirit he offered himself unto God without spot That
should be derogated from the Baptism of the Church and Baptism by Donatists be more esteemed of then was meet if on the one side that which Hereticks had done ill should stand as good on the other side that be reversed which the Catholick Church had well and religiously done divers better minded then advised men thought it fittest to meet with this inconvenience by Rebaptising Donatists as well as they Rebaptized Catholicks For stay whereof the same Emperors saw it meet to give their Law a double edge whereby it might equally on both sides cut off not onely Hereticks which Rebaptized whom they could pervert but also Catholick and Christian Priests which did the like unto such as before had taken Baptism at the hands of Hereticks and were afterwards reconciled to the Church of God Donatists were therefore in process of time though with much ado wearied and at the length worn out by the constancy of that Truth which reacheth that evil Ministers of good things are as Torches a Light to others a Waste to none but themselves onely and that the soulness of their hands can neither any whit impair the Vertue nor stain the Glory of the Mysteries of Christ. Now that which was done amiss by vertuous and good men as Cyprian carried aside with hatred against Heresie and was secondly followed by Donatists whom Envy and Rancor covered with shew of Godliness made obstinate to cancel whatsoever the Church did in the Sacrament of Baptism hath of latter days in another respect far different from both the former been brought freshly again into practice For the Anabaptist Rebaptizeth because in his estimation the Baptism of the Church is frustrate for that we give it unto Infants which have not Faith whereas according unto Christs Institution as they conceive it true Baptism should always presuppose Actual Belief in Receivers and is otherwise no Baptism Of these three Errors there is not any but hath been able at the least to alledge in defence of it self many fair probabilities Notwithstanding sith the Church of God hath hitherto always constantly maintained that to Rebaptize them which are known to have received true Baptism is unlawful that if Baptism seriously be administred in the same Element and with the same form of words which Christs Institution teacheth there is no other defect in the World that can make it frustrate or deprive it of the Nature of a true Sacrament And lastly That Baptism is onely then to be re-adminstred when the first delivery thereof is void in regard of the fore-alledged imperfections and no other Shall we now in the case of Baptism which having both for matter and form the substance of Christs Institution is by a fourth sort of men voided for the onely defect of Ecclesiastical Authority in the Minister think it enough that they blow away the force thereof with the bare strength of their very breath by saying We take such Baptism to be no more the Sacrament of Baptism then any other ordinary Bathing to be a Sacrament It behoveth generally all sorts of men to keep themselves within the limits of their own vocation And seeing God from whom mers several degrees and pre-eminences do proceed hath appointed them in his Church at whose hands his pleasure is that we should receive both Baptism and all other publick medicinable helps of Soul perhaps thereby the more to settle our hearts in the love of our ghostly superiors they have small cause to hope that with him their voluntary services will be accepted who thrust themselves into Functions either above their capacity or besides their place and over-boldly intermeddle with Duties whereof no charge was ever give them They that in any thing exceed the compass of their own order do as much as in them lieth to dissolve that Order which is the Harmony of Gods Church Suppose therefore that in these and the like considerations the Law did utterly prohibite Baptism to be administred by any other then persons thereunto solemnly consecrated what necessity soever happen Are not many things firm being done although in part done otherwise then Positive Rigor and Strictness did require Nature as much as is possible inclineth unto validities and preservations Dissolutions and Nullities of things done are not onely not favored but hated when other urged without cause or extended beyond their reach If therefore at any time it come to pass that in reaching publickly or privately in delivering this Blessed Sacrament of Regeneration some unsanctified hand contrary to Christs supposed Ordinance do intrude it self to execute that whereunto the Laws of God and his Church have deputed others Which of these two opinions seemeth more agreeable with Equity outs that disallow what is done amiss yet make not the force of the Word and Sacraments much less their nature and very substance to depend on the Ministers authority and calling or else theirs which defeat disannul and annihilate both in respect of that one onely personal defect there being not any Law of God which saith That if the Minister be incompetent his Word shall be no Word his Baptism no Baptism He which teacheth and is not sent loseth the reward but yet retaineth the name of a Teacher His usurped actions have in him the same nature which they have in others although they yield him not the same comfort And if these two cases be Peers the case of Doctrine and the case of Baptism both alike sith no defect in their vocation that teach the Truth is able to take away the benefit thereof from him which heareth Wherefore should the want of a lawful calling in them that Baptize make Baptism to be vain They grant that the Matter and the Form in Sacraments are the onely parts of Substance and that if these two be retained albeit other things besides be used which are inconvenient the Sacrament notwithstanding is administred but not sincerely Why persist they not in this opinion when by these fair speeches they have put us in hope of agreement Wherefore sup they â—up their words again interlacing such frivolous Interpretations and Glosses as disgrace their Sentence What should move them having named the Matter and the Form of the Sacrament to give us presently warning that they mean by the Form of the Sacrament the Institution which Exposition darkneth whatsoever was before plain For whereas in common understanding that Form which added to the Element doth make a Sacrament and is of the outward substance thereof containeth onely the words of usual Application they set it down lest common Dictionaries should deceive us that the Form doth signifie in their Language the Institution which Institution in truth comprehendeth both Form and Matter Such are their fumbling shifts to inclose the Ministers vocation within the compass of some essential part of the Sacrament A thing that can never stand with sound and sincere construction For what if the Minister be no circumstance but a subordinate
lest the sense and signification we give unto it should burthen us as Authors of a new Gospel in the House of God not in respect of some cause which the Fathers had more then we have to use the same nor finally for any such offence or scandal as heretofore it hath been subject unto by Error now reformed in the mindes of Men. 66. The ancient Custom of the Church was after they had Baptized to add thereunto Imposition of Hands with effectual Prayer for the illumination of Gods most holy Spirit to confirm and perfect that which the Grace of the some Spirit had already begun in Baptism For our means to obtain the Graces which God doth bestow are our Prayers Our Prayers to that intent are available as well for others as for ourselves To pray for others is to bless them for whom we pray because Prayer procureth the blessing of God upon them especially the Prayer of such as God either most respecteth for their Piety and Zeal that way or else regardeth for that their place and calling bindeth them above others unto this duty as it doth both Natural and Spiritual Fathers With Prayers of Spiritual and Personal Benediction the manner hath been in all ages to use Imposition of Hands as a Ceremony betokening our restrained desires to the party whom we present unto God by Prayer Thus when Israel blessed Ephraim and Manasses Iosephs sons he imposed upon them his hands and prayed God in whose sight my Fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk God which hath fed me all my life long unto this day and the Angel which hath delivered me from all evil bless these Children The Prophets which healed diseases by Prayer used therein the self-same Ceremony And therefore when Elizeus willed Naaman to wash himself seven times in Iordan for cure of his foul disease it much offended him I thought saith he with my self Surely the man will come forth and stand and call upon the Name of the Lord his God and put his hand on the place to the end he may so heal the â—â—eprosie In Consecrations and Ordinations of Men unto Rooms of Divine Calling the like was usually done from the time of Moses to Christ. Their suits that came unto Christ for help were also tendred oftentimes and are expressed in such forms or phrases of speech as shew that he was himself an observer of the same custom He which with Imposition of Hands and Prayer did so great Works of Mercy for restauration of Bodily health was worthily judged as able to effect the infusion of Heavenly Grace into them whose age was not yet depraved with that malice which might be supposed a bar to the goodness of God towards them They brought him therefore young children to put his hands upon them and pray After the Ascension of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ that which he had begun continued in the daily practice of his Apostles whose Prayer and Imposition of Hands were a mean whereby thousands became partakers of the wonderful Gifts of God The Church had received from Christ a promise that such as believed in him these signs and tokens should follow them To cast one Devils to speak with Tongues to drive away Serpents to be free from the harm which any deadly poyson could work and to cure diseases by Imposition of Hands Which power common at the first in a manner unto all Believers all Believers had not power to derive or communicate unto all other men but whosoever was the instrument of God to instruct convert and baptize them the gift of miraculous operations by the power of the Holy Ghost they had not but onely at the Apostles own hands For which cause Simon Magus perceiving that power to be in none but them and presuming that they which had it might sell it sought to purchase it of them with money And as miraculous Graces of the Spirit continued after the Apostles times For saith Irenaus they which are truly his Disciples do in his Name and through Grace received from him such works for the benefit of other men as every of them is by him enabled to work Some cast one Devils in so much as they which are delivered from wicked spirits have been thereby won unto Christ and do constantly persevere in the Church and Society of Faithful Men Some excel in the knowledge of things to come in the grace of Visions from God and the gift of Prophetical Prediction Some by laying on their hands restore them to health which are grievously afflicted with sickness yea there are that of dead have been made alive and have afterwards many years conversed with us What should I say The gifts are innumerable wherewith God hath inriched his Church throughout the World and by vertue whereof in the Name of Christ crucified under Pontius Pilate the Church every day doth many wonders for the good of Nations neither fraudulently nor in any respect of lucre and gain to her self but as freely bestowing as God on her hath bestowed his Divine Graces So it no where appeareth that ever any did by Prayer and Imposition of Hands sithence the Apostles times make others partakers of the like miraculous gifts and graces as long as it pleased God to continue the same in his Church but onely Bishops the Apostles Successors for a time even in that power St. Augustine acknowledgeth That such gifts were not permitted to last always lest men should wax cold with the commonness of that the strangeness whereof at the first inflamed them Which words of St. Augustine declaring how the vulgar use of these Miracles was then expired are no prejudice to the like extraordinary Graces more rarely observed in some either then or of latter days Now whereas the Successors of the Apostles had but onely for a time such power as by Prayer and Imposition of Hands to bestow the Holy Ghost the reason wherefore Confirmation nevertheless by Prayer and Laying on of Hands hath hitherto always continued is for other very special benefits which the Church thereby enjoyeth The Fathers every where impute unto it that gift or Grace of the Holy Ghost not which maketh us first Christian men but when we are made such assisteth us in all vertue aimeth us against temptation and sin For after Baptism administred there followeth saith Tertullian Imposition of Hands with Invocation and Invitation of the Holy Ghost which willingly cometh down from the Father to rest upon the purified and blessed Bodies as it were acknowledging the Waters of Baptism a fit Seat St. Cyprian in more particular manner alluding to that effect of the Spirit which here especially was respected How great saith he is that power and force wherewith the minde is here he meaneth in Baptism enabled being not onely withdrawn from that pernicious hold which the World before had of it nor onely so purified and made clean that no stain or blemish of
the Enemies invasion doth remain but over and besides namely through Prayer and Imposition of Hands becometh yet greater yet mightier in strength so far as to raign with a kinde of Imperial Dominion over the whole Band of that roming and spoiling Adversary As much is signified by Eusebius Emissenus saying The Holy Ghost which descendeth with saving influence upon the Waters of Baptism doth there give that fulness which sufficeth for innocenty and afterwards exhibiteth in Confirmation an Augmentation of further Grace The Fathers therefore being thus perswaded held Confirmation as an Ordinance Apostolick always profitable in Gods Church although not always accompanied with equal largeness of those External Effects which gave it countenance at the first The cause of severing Confirmation from Baptism for most commonly they went together was sometimes in the Minister which being of inferior degree might Baptize but not Confirm as in their case it came to pass whom Peter and Iohn did confirm whereas Philip had before baptized them and in theirs of whom St. Ierome hath said I deny not but the Custom of the Churches is that the Bishop should go abroad and imposing his hands pray for the Gift of the Holy Ghost on them whom Presbyters and Deacons far off in lesser Cities have already â—aptized Which ancient Custom of the Church St. Cyprian groundeth upon the example or Peter and Iohn in the Eighth of the Acts before alledged The faithful in Samaria saith he had already obtained Baptism onely that which was wanting Peter and John supplied by Prayer and Imposition of Hands to the end the Holy Ghost might be poured upon them Which also is done amongst our selves when they which be already Baptized are brought to the Prelates of the Church to obtain by their Prayer and Imposition of Hands the Holy Ghost By this it appeareth that when the Ministers of Baptism were persons of inferior degree the Bishops did after Confirm whom such had before Baptized Sometimes they which by force of their Ecclesiastical Calling might do as well the one as the other were notwithstanding Men whom Heresie had dis-joyned from the Fellowship of true Believers Whereupon when any Man by them Baptized and Confirmed came afterwards to see and renounce their Error there grew in some Churches very hot contention about the manner of admitting such into the Bosome of the true Church as hath been declared already in the question of Rebaptization But the generally received Custom was onely to admit them with Imposition of Hands and Prayer Of which Custom while some imagined the reason to be for that Hereticks might give Remission of Sins by Baptism but not the Spirit by Imposition of Hands because themselves had not Gods Spirit and that therefore their Baptism might stand but Confirmation must be given again The imbecillity of this ground gave Cyprian occasion to oppose himself against the practice of the Church herein laboring many ways to prove That Hereticks could do neither and consequently that their Baptism in all respects was as frustrate as their Chrism for the manner of those times was in Confirming to use Anointing On the other side against Luciferians which ratified onely the Baptism of Hereticks but disannulled their Confirmations and Consecrations under pretence of the reason which hath been before specified Hereticks cannot give the Holy Ghost St. Ierome proveth at large That if Baptism by Hereticks be granted available to Remission of Sins which no man receiveth without the Spirit it must needs follow that the reason taken from disability of bestowing the Holy Ghost was no reason wherefore the Church should admit Converts with any new Imposition of Hands Notwithstanding because it might be objected That if the gift of the Holy Ghost do always joyn it self with true Baptism the Church which thinketh the Bishops Confirmation after others Mens Baptism needful for the obtaining of the Holy Ghost should hold an error Saint Ierome hereunto maketh answer That the cause of this observation is not any absolute impossibility of receiving the Holy Ghost by the Sacrament of Baptism unless a Bishop add after it the Imposition of Hands but rather a certain congruity and fitness to honor Prelacy with such pre-eminences because the safety of the Church dependeth upon the dignity of her chief Superiors to whom if some eminent Offices of Power above others should not be given there would be in the Church as many Schisms as Priests By which answer it appeareth his opinion was That the Holy Ghost is received in Baptism that Confirmation is onely a Sacramental Complement that the reason why Bishops alone did ordinarily confirm was not because the benefit grace and dignity thereof is greater then of Baptism but rather for that by the Sacrament of Baptism Men being admitted into Gods Church it was both reasonable and convenient that if he Baptize them not unto whom the chiefest authority and charge of their Souls belongeth yet for honors sake and in token of his Spiritual Superiority over them because to bless is an act of Authority the performance of this annexed Ceremony should be sought for at his hands Now what effect their Imposition of Hands hath either after Baptism administred by Hereticks or otherwise St. Ierome in that place hath made no mention because all men understood that in Converts it tendeth to the fruits of Repentance and craveth in behalf of the Penitent such grace as David after his fall desired at the hands of God in others the fruit and benefit thereof is that which hath been before shewed Finally Sometime the cause of severing Confirmation from Baptism was in the parties that received Baptism being Infants at which age they might be very well admitted to live in the Family but because to fight in the Army of God to discharge the duties of a Christian man to bring forth the fruits and to do the Works of the Holy Ghost their time of ability was not yet come so that Baptism were not deferred there could by stay of their Confirmation no harm ensue but rather good For by this means it came to pass that Children in expectation thereof were seasoned with the principles of true Religion before malice and corrupt examples depraved their mindes a good foundation was laid betimes for direction of the course of their whole lives the Seed of the Church of God was preserved sincere and sound the Prelates and Fathers of Gods Family to whom the cure of their Souls belonged saw by tryal and examination of them a part of their own heavy burthen discharged reaped comfort by beholding the first beginnings of true godliness in tender years glorified him whose praise they found in the mouths of Infants and neglected not so fit opportunity of giving every one Fatherly encouragement and exhortation Whereunto Imposition of Hands and Prayer being added our Warrant for the great good effect thereof is the same which Patriarks Prophets Priests Apostles Fathers and Men of God have had
for such their particular Invocations and Benedictions as no Man I suppose professing truth of Religion will easily think to have been without Fruit. No there is no cause we should doubt of the benefit but surely great cause to make complaint of the deep neglect of this Christian duty almost with all them to whom by tight of their place and calling the same belongeth Let them not take it in evil part the thing is true their small regard hereunto hath done harm in the Church of God That which Error rashly uttereth in disgrace of good things may peradventure be sponged out when the print of those evils which are grown through neglect will remain behinde Thus much therefore generally spoken may serve for answer unto their demands that require us to tell them Why there should be any such confirmation in the Church seeing we are not ignorant how earnestly they have protested against it and how directly although untruly for so they are content to acknowledge it hath by some of them been said To be first brought in by the seigned Decretal Epistles of the Popes or why it should not be utterly abolished seeing that no one title thereof can be once found in the whole Scripture except the Epistle to the Hebrews be Scripture And again seeing that how free soever it be now from abuse if we look back to the times past which wise men do always more respect then the present it hath been abused and is found at the length no such profitable Ceremony as the whole silly Church of Christ for the space of these Sixteen hundred years hath through want of experience imagined Last of all Seeing also besides the cruelty which is shewed towards poor Country people who are fain sometimes to let their Ploughs stand still and with increble wearisome toyl of their feeble bodies to wander over Mountains and through Woods it may be now and then little less then a whole half score of miles for a Bishops blessing which if it were needful might as well be done at home in their own Parishes rather then they is purchase it with so great loss and so intolerable pain There are they say in Confirmation besides this Three terrible points The first is Laying on of hands with pretence that the same is done to the example of the Apostles which is not onely as they suppose a manifest untruth for all the World doth know that the Apostles did never after Baptism lay hands on any and therefore Saint Luke which saith they did was much deceived But farther also we thereby teach men to think Imposition of Hands a Sacrament belike because it is a principle ingrafted by common Light of Nature in the Mindes of Men that all things done by Apostolick example must needs be Sacrament The second high point of danger is That by tying Confirmation to the Bishop alone there is great cause of suspition given to think that Baptism is not so precious a thing as Confirmation For will any man think that a Velvet Coat is of more price then a Linnen Coyf knowing the one to be an ordinary Garment the other an Ornament which onely Sergeants at Law do wear Finally To draw to an end of perils the last and the weightiest hazard is where the Book it self doth say That Children by Imposition of Hands and Prayer may receive strength against all temptation Which speech as a two-edged sword doth both ways dangerously wound partly because it ascribeth Grace to Imposition of Hands whereby we are able no more to assure our selves in the warrant of any promise from God that his Heavenly Grace shall be given then the Apostle was that himself should obtain Grace by the bowing of his knees to God and partly because by using the very word strength in this matter a word so apt to spred infection we maintain with Popish Evangelists an old forlorn distinction of the Holy Ghost bestowed upon Christs Apostles before his Ascension into Heaven and augmented upon them afterwards a distinction of Grace infused into Christian men by degrees planted in them at the first by Baptism after cherished watred and be it spoken without offence strengthned as by other vertuous Offices which Piety and true Religion teacheth even so by this very special Benediction whereof we speak the Rite or Ceremony of Confirmation 67. The Grace which we have by the holy Eucharist doth not begin but continue life No man therefore receiveth this Sacrament before Baptism because no dead thing is capable of nourishment That which groweth must of necessity first live If our Bodies did not daily waste Food to restore them were a thing superfluous And it may be that the Grace of Baptism would serve to Eternal Life were it not that the state of our Spiritual Being is daily so much hindered and impaired after Baptism In that life therefore where neither Body nor Soul can decay our Souls shall as little require this Sacrament as our Bodies corporal nourishment But as long as the days of our warfare last during the time that we are both subject to diminution and capable of augmentation in Grace the Words of our Lord and Saviour Christ will remain forceable Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood ye have no life in you Life being therefore proposed unto all men as their end they which by Baptism have laid the Foundation and attained the first beginning of a new life have here their nourishment and food prescribed for continuance of life in them Such as will live the Life of God must eat the Flesh and drink the Blood of the Son of Man because this is a part of that diet which if we want we cannot live Whereas therefore in our Infancy we are incorporated into Christ and by Baptism receive the Grace of his Spirit without any sense or feeling of the gift which God bestoweth in the Eucharist we so receive the gift of God that we know by Grace what the Grace is which God giveth us the degrees of our own Increase in holiness and vertue we see and can judge of them we understand that the strength of our life begun in Christ is Christ that his Flesh is Meat and his Blood drink not by surmised imagination but truly even so truly that through Faith we perceive in the Body and Blood sacramentally presented the very taste of Eternal Life the Grace of the Sacrament is here as the food which we eat and drink This was it that some did exceedingly fear lest Zwinglius and Occolampadius would bring to pass that men should account of this Sacrament but onely as of a shadow destitute empty and void of Christ. But seeing that by opening the several opinions which have been held they are grown for ought I can see on all sides at the length to a general agreement concerning that which alone is material namely The Real Participation of Christ and of
great matter Finally Seeing that both are Ordinances were devised for the good of Man and yet not Man created purposely for them as for other Offices of Vertue whereunto Gods immutable Law for ever tieth it is but equity to wish or admonish that where by uniform order they are not as yet received the example of Victors extremity in the one and of Iohns Disciples curiosity in the other be not followed yea where they are appointed by Law that notwithstanding we avoid Judaism and as in Festival days mens necessities for matter of labour so in times of Fasting regard be had to their imbecillities lest they should suffer harm doing good Thus therefore we see how these two Customes are in divers respects equal But of Fasting the use and exercise though less pleasant is by so much more requisite than the other as grief of necessity is a more familiar guest then the contrary passion of mind albeit gladness to all men be naturally more welcome For first We our selves do many â—o things amiss than well and the fruit of our own ill doing is remorse because nature is conscious to it self that it should do the contrary Again forasmuch as the world over-aboundeth with malice and few are delighted in doing good unto other men there is no man so seldom crost as pleasured at the hands of others whereupon it cannot be chosen but every mans Woes must double in that respect the number and measure of his delights Besides concerning the very choice which oftentimes we are to make our corrupt inclination well considered there is cause why our Saviour should account them the happiest that do most mourn and why Solomon might judge it better to frequent mourning then Feasting-houses not better simply and in it self for then would Nature that way incline but in regard of us and our common weakness better Iob was not ignorant that his Childrens Banquets though teâ—diÌ„g to amity needed Sacrifice Neither doth any of us all need to be taught that in things which delight we easily swerve from mediocrity and are not easily led by a right direct line On the other side the Sores and Diseases of mind which inordinante pleasure breedeth are by Dolour and Grief cured For which cause as all offences use to seduce by pleasing so all punishments endeavour by vexing to reform transgressions We are of our own accord apt enough to give entertainment to things delectable but patiently to lack what flesh and blood doth desire and by Vertue to forbear what by Nature we covet this no man attaineth unto but with labour and long practice From hence it riseth that in former Ages abstinence and Fasting more then ordinary was always a special branch of their praise in whom it could be observed and known were they such as continually gave themselves to austere life of men that took often occasions in private vertuous respects to lay Solomons counsel aside Eat thy bread with joy and to be followers of Davids Example which saith I humbled my soul with fasting or but they who otherwise worthy of no great commendation have made of hunger some their Gain some their Physick some their Art that by mastering sensual Appetites without constraint they might grow able to endure hardness whensoever need should require For the body accustomed to emptiness pineth not away so soon as having still used to fill it self Many singular Effects there are which should make Fasting even in publick Considerations the rather to be accepted For I presume we are not altogether without experience how great their advantage is in martial Enterprizes that lead Armies of men trained in a School of Abstinence It is therefore noted at this day in some that patience of hunger and thirst hath given them many Victories in others that because if they want there is no man able to rule them not they in plenty to moderate themselves he which can either bring them to hunger or overcharge them is sure to make them their own overthrow What Nation soever doth feel these dangerous inconveniences may know that sloth and fulness in peaceable times at home is the cause thereof and the remedy a strict Observation of that part of Christian Discipline which teacheth men in practice of Ghostly warfare against themselves those things that afterwards may help them justly assaulting or standing in lawful defence of themselves against others The very purpose of the Church of God both in the number and in the order of her Fasts hath been not only to preserve thereby throughout all Ages the remembrance of miseries heretofore sustained and of the causes in our selves out of which they have risen that men considering the one might fear the other the more but farther also to temper the mind lest contrary affections coming in place should make it too profuse and dissolute in which respect it seemeth that Fasts have been set as Ushers of Festival days for prevention of those disorders as much as might be wherein notwithstanding the World always will deserve as it hath done blame because such evils being not possible to be rooted out the most we can do is in keeping them low and which is chiefly the fruit we look for to create in the minds of men a love towards a frugal and severe life to undermine the Palaces of wantonness to plant Parsimony as Nature where Riotousness hath been studied to harden whom pleasure would melt and to help the tumours which always Fulness breedeth that Children as it were in the Wool of their Infancy dyed with hardness may never afterwards change colour that the poor whose perpetual Fasts are of Necessity may with better contentment endure the hunger which Vertue causeth others so often to chuse and by advice of Religion it self so far to esteem above the contrary that they which for the most part do lead sensual and easie lives they which as the Prophet David describeth them are not plagued like other men may by the publick spectacle of all be still put in mind what themselves are Finally that every man may be every mans daily guide and example as well by fasting to declare humility as by praise to express joy in the sight of God although it have herein befallen the Church as sometimes David so that the speech of the one may be truly the voice of the other My soul fasted and even that was also turned to my reproof 73. In this world there can be no Society durable otherwise then only by propagation Albeit therefore single Life be a thing more Angelical and Divine yet sith the replenishing first of Earth with blessed Inhabitants and then of Heaven with Saints everlastingly praising God did depend upon conjunction of Man and Woman he which made all things compleat and perfect saw it could not be good to leave men without any Helper unto the sore-alledged end In things which some farther and doth cause to be desired choice
God's House not onely for uses wherein the exercise of Religion presently needeth them but also partly for supply of future casual necessities whereunto the Church is on earth subject and partly to the end that while they are kept they may continually serve as testimonies giving all men to understand that God hath in every Age and Nation such as think it no burthen to honour him with their substance The riches first of the Tabernacle of God and then of the Temple of Ierusalem arising out of voluntary Gifts and Donations were as we commonly speak a Nemo scit the value of them above that which any man would imagine After that the Tabernacle was made furnished with all necessaries and set up although in the wilderness their ability could not possibly be great the very metal of those Vessels which the Princes of the twelve Tribes gave to God for their first Presents amounted even then to two thousand and four hundred shekels of Silver an hundred and twenty shekels of Gold every shekel weighing half an ounce What was given to the Temple which Solomon erected we may partly conjecture when over and besides Wood Marble Iron Brass Vestments Precious Stones and Money the sum which David delivered into Solomon's hands for that purpose was of Gold in mass eight thousand and of Silver seventeen thousand Cichars every Cichar containing a thousand and eight hundred shekels which riseth to nine hundred Ounces in every one Cichar whereas the whole charge of the Tabernacle did not amount unto thirty Cichars After their return out of Babylon they were not presently in case to make their second Temple of equal magnificence and glory with that which the enemy had destroyed Notwithstanding what they could they did Insomuch that the building finished there remained in the Coffers of the Church to uphold the fabrick thereof six hundred and fifty Cichars of Silver one hundred of Gold Whereunto was added by Nehemias of his own gift a thousand drams of Gold fifty vessels of Silver five hundred and thirty Priests vestments by other the Princes of the Fathers twenty thousand drams of Gold two thousand and two hundred pieces of Silver by the rest of the People twenty thousand of Gold two thousand of Silver threescore and seven attires of Priests And they furthermore bound themselves towards other Charges to give by the Pole in what part of the World soever they should dwell the third of a shekel that is to say the sixth part of an ounce yearly This out of foreign Provinces they always sent in Gold Whereof Nithridates is said to have taken up by the way before it could pass to Ierusalem from Asia in one adventure eight hundred talents Crassus after that to have borrowed of the Temple it self eight thousand at which time Eleazar having both many other rich Ornaments and all the Tapestry of the Temple under his custody thought it the safest way to grow unto some composition and so to redeem the residue by parting with a certain beam of Gold about seven hundred and an half in weight a prey sufficient for one man as he thought who had never bargained with Crassus till then and therefore upon the confidence of a solemn Oath that no more should be looked for he simply delivered up a large morsel whereby the value of that which remained was betrayed and the whole lost Such being the casualties whereunto moveable Treasures are subject the Law of Moses did both require eight and twenty Cities together with their Fields and whole Territories in the Land of Iury to be reserved for God himself and not onely provide for the liberty of farther additions if men of their own accord should think good but also for the safe preservation thereof unto all Posterities that no man's avarice or fraud by defeating so vertuous intents might discourage from like purposes God's third indowment did therefore of old consist in Lands Furthermore some cause no doubt there is why besides sundry other more rare Donations of uncertain rate the Tenth should be thought a Revenue so natural to be allotted out unto God For of the spoils which Abraham had taken in Warr he delivered unto Melchisedeck the Titles The vow of Iacob at such time as he took his journey towards Haran was If God will be with me and will keep me in this voyage which I am to go and will give me Bread to eat and Cloaths to put on so that I may return to my Father's house in safety then shall the Lord be my God and this Stone which I have set up as a Pillar the same shall be God's House and of all thou shalt give me I will give unto thee the Tythe And as Abraham gave voluntarily as Iacob vowed to give God Tythes so the Law of Moses did require at the hands of all men the self-same kinde of Tribute the Tenth of their Com Wine Oyl Fruit Cattel and whatsoever increase his heavenly Providence should send In so much that Painims being herein followers of their steps paid Tythes likewise Imagine we that this was for no cause done or that there was not some special inducements to judge the Tenth of our Worldly profits the most convenient for God's Portion Are not all things by him created in such sort that the formes which give them their distinction are number their operations measure and their matter weight Three being the mystical number of God's unsearchable perfection within himself Seven the number whereby our own perfections through grace are most ordered and Ten the number of Nature's perfections for the beauty of Nature is Order and the foundation of Order Number and of Number Ten the highest we can rise unto without iteration of numbers under it could Nature better acknowledge the power of the God of nature than by assigning unto him that quantity which is the continent of all she possesseth There are in Philo the Jew many Arguments to shew the great congruity and fitness of this number in things consecrated unto God But because over-nice and curious speculations become not the earnestnesse of holy things I omit what might be farther observed as well out of others as out of him touching the quantity of this general sacred Tribute whereby it commeth to passe that the meanest and the very poorest amongst men yielding unto God as much in proportion as the greatest and many times in affection more have this as a sensible token always assuring their mindes that in his sight from whom all good is expected they are concerning acceptation protection divine priviledges and preheminencies whatsoever Equals and Peers with them unto whom they are otherwise in earthly respects inferiours being furthermore well assured that the top as it were thus presented to God is neither lost nor unfruitfully bestowed but doth sanctifie to them again the whole Mass and that he by receiving a little undertaketh to bless all In which consideration the Jewes were
so great unto them whose deserts are very mean that nothing doth seem more strange than the one sort because they are not accounted of and the other because they are it being every man's hope and expectation in the Church of God especially that the onely purchace of greater rewards should be alwayes greater deserts and that nothing should ever be able to plant a Thorn where a Vine ought to grow Fourthly that honourable Personages and they who by vertue of any principal Office in the Common-wealth are inabled to qualifie a certain number and make them capable of favours or Faculties above others suffer not their names to be abused contrary to the true intent and meaning of wholsom Laws by men in whom there is nothing notable besides Covetousness and Ambition Fifthly that the graver and wiser sort in both Universities or whosoever they be with whose approbation the marks and recognizances of all Learning are bestowed would think the Apostle's caution against unadvised Ordinations not impertinent or unnecessary to be born in minde even when they grant those degrees of Schools which degrees are not gratia gratis data kindnesses bestowed by way of humanity but they are gratiae gratum sacientes favours which always imply a testimony given to the Church and Common-wealth concerning mens sufficiency for manners and knowledge a testimony upon the credit whereof sundry Statutes of the Realm are built a testimony so far available that nothing is more respected for the warrant of divers mens abilitie to serve in the affairs of the Realm a testimony wherein if they violate that Religion wherewith it ought to be always given and thereby do induce into errour such as deem it a thing uncivil to call the credit thereof in question let them look that God shall return back upon their heads and cause them in the state of their own Corporations to feel either one way or other the punishment of those harms which the Church through their negligence doth sustain in that behalf Finally and to conclude that they who enjoy the benefit of any special Indulgence or Favour which the Laws permit would as well remember what in duty towards the Church and in conscience towards God they ought to do as what they may do by using of their own advantage whatsoever they see tolerated no man being ignorant that the cause why absence in some cases hath been yielded unto and in equity thought sufferable is the hope of greater fruit through industry elsewhere the reason likewise wherefore pluralities are allowed unto men of note a very soveraign and special care that as Fathers in the antient World did declare the preheminence of priority in birth by doubling the worldly portions of their first-born so the Church by a course not unlike in assigning mens rewards might testifie an estimation had proportionably of their Vertues according to the antient Rule Apostolick They which excel in labour ought to excel in honour and therefore unless they answer faithfully the expectation of the Church herein unless sincerely they bend their wits day and night both to sow because they reap and to sow so much more abundantly as they reap more abundantly than other men whereunto by their very acceptance of such benignities they formally binde themselves let them be well assured that the honey which they eat with fraud shall turn in the end into true gall for as much as Laws are the sacred Image of his wisedom who most severely punisheth those colourable and subtile crimes that seldome are taken within the walk of human Justice I therefore conclude that the grounds and maxims of Common right whereupon Ordinations of Ministers unable to Preach tolerations of absence from their Cures and the multiplications of their Spiritual Livings are disproved do but indefinitely enforce them unlawful not unlawful universally and without exception that the Laws which indefinitely are against all these things and the Priviledges which make for them in certain cases are not the one repugnant to the other that the Laws of God and Nature are violated through the effects of abused Priviledges that neither our Ordinations of men unable to make Sermons nor our dispensations for the rest can be justly proved frustrate by vertue of any such surmised opposition between the special Laws of this Church which have permitted and those general which are alledged to disprove the same that when Priviledges by abuse are grown in commodious there must be redress that for remedy of such evils there is no necessity the Church should abrogate either in whole or in part the specialties before mentioned and that the most to be desired were a voluntary reformation thereof on all hands which may give passage unto any abuse OF THE LAWS OF Ecclesiastical Polity BOOK VI. Containing their Fifth Assertion That our Laws are Corrupt and Repugnant to the Laws of God in matter belonging to the Power of Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction in that we have not throughout all Churches certain Lay-Elders established for the Exercise of that Power THE same Men which in heat of Contention do hardly either speak or give ear to reason being after sharp and bitter conflicts retired to a calm remembrance of all their former proceedings the causes that brought them into quarrel the course which their striving affections have followed and the issue whereunto they are come may peradventure as troubled waâ—eâ—s in small time of their own accord by certain easie degrees settle themselves again and so recover that clearness of well advised judgment whereby they shall stand at the length indifferent both to yeild and admit any reasonable satisfaction where before they could not endure with patience to be gain-said Neither will I despair of the like success in these unpleasant Controversies touching Ecclesiastical Polity the time of silence which both parts have willingly taken to breathe seeming now as it were a pledge of all Mens quiet Contentment to hear with more indifferency the weightiest and last remains of that Cause Jurisdiction Dignity Dominion Ecclesiastical For let any Man imagin that the bare and naked difference of a few Ceremonies could either have kindled so much fire or have caused it to flame so long but that the parties which herein laboured mightily for change and as they say for Reformation had somewhat more then this mark whereat to aim Having therefore drawn out a compleat Form as they suppose of publick service to be done to God and set down their Plot for the Office of the Ministry in that behalf they very well knew how little their labours so far forth bestowed would avail them in the end without a claim of Jurisdiction to uphold the Fabrick which they had erected and this neither likely to be obtained but by the strong hand of the people not the people unlikely to favour it the more if overture were made of their own Interest right and title thereunto Whereupon there are many which have conjectured this to be the cause
other saith That the old did onely shadow Grace which was afterward to be given through the passion of Iesus Christ. But the after-wit of latter daies hath found out another more exquisite distinction That Evangelical Sacraments are causes to effect Grace through motions of signes legal according to the same signification and sense wherein Evangelical Sacraments are held by us to be God's Instruments for that purpose For howsoever Bellarmine hath shrunk up the Lutherans sinews and cut off our Doctrine by the skirts Allen although he terms us Hereticks according to the usual bitter venom of his first style doth yet ingenuously confess That the old School-mens Doctrine and ours is one concerning Sacramental efficacy derived from God himself assisting by promise those outward signes of Elements and Words out of which their School-men of the newer mint are so desirous to hatch Grace Where God doth work and use these outward means wherein he neither findeth nor planteth force and aptnesse towards his intended purpose such means are but signes to bring men to the consideration of his Omnipotent Power which without the use of things sensible would not be marked At the time therefore when he giveth his Heavenly Grace he applyeth by the hands of his Ministers that which betokeneth the same nor only betokeneth but being also accompanied for ever with such Power as doth truly work is in that respect termed God's Instrument a true efficient cause of Grace a cause not in it self but onely by connexion of that which is in it self a cause namely God's own Strength and Power Sacraments that is to say the outward signes in Sacraments work nothing till they be blessed and sanctified by God But what is God's Heavenly Benediction and Sanctification saving onely the association of his Spirit Shall we say that Sacraments are like Magical signes if thus they have their effect Is it Magick for God to manifest by things sensible what he doth and to do by his most glorious Spirit really what he manifesteth in his Sacraments The delivery and administration whereof remaineth in the hands of mortal men by whom as by personal Instruments God doth apply signes and with signes inseparably joyn his Spirit and through the power of his Spirit work Grace The first is by way of concomitance and consequence to deliver the rest also that either accompany or ensue It is not here as in Cases of mutual Commerce where divers Persons have divers acts to be performed in their own behalf a Creditor to shew his Bill and a Debtor to pay his Money But God and Man doe here meet in one Action upon a Third in whom as it is the work of God to create Grace so it is his work by the hand of the Ministry to apply a sign which should betoken and his work to annex that Spirit which shall effect it The Action therefore is but one God the Author thereof and Man a Co-partner by him assigned to work for with and under him God the Giver of Grace by the outward Ministery of man so farr forth as he authorizeth man to apply the Sacraments of Grace in the Soul which he alone worketh without either Instrument or Co-agent Whereas therefore with us the remission of Sinne is ascribed unto God as a thing which proceedeth from him only and presently followeth upon the vertue of true Repentance appearing in man that which we attribute to the vertue they do not only impute to the Sacrament of Repentance but having made Repentance a Sacrament and thinking of Sacraments as they do they are enforced to make the Ministry of the Priests and their Absolution a cause of that which the sole Omnipotency of God worketh And yet for my own part I am not able well to conceive how their Doctrine That human Absolution is really a cause out of which our Deliverance from Sinne doth ensue can cleave with the Council of Trent defining That Contrition perfected with Charity doth at all times it self reconcile offenders to God before they come to receive actually the Sacrament of Penance How it can stand with those Discourses of the learned Rabbies which grant That whosoever turneth unto God with his whole heart hath immediately his Sinnes taken away That if a man he truly converted his Pardon can neither be denyed nor delayed It doth not stay for the Priest's Absolution but presently followeth Surely if every contrite Sinner in whom there is Charity and a sincere conversion of Heart have Remission of Sinnes given him before he seek it at the Priest's hands if reconciliation to God be a present and immediate sequel upon every such Conversion or Change It must of necessity follow seeing no man can be a true Penitent or Contrite which doth not both love God and sincerely abhor Sinne that therefore they all before Absolution attain Forgivenesse whereunto notwithstanding Absolution is pretended a Cause so necessary that Sinne without it except in some rare extraordinary Case cannot possibly be remitted Shall Absolution be a Cause producing and working that Effect which is alwayes brought forth without it and had before Absolution be thought of But when they which are thus before-hand pardoned of God shall come to be also assoiled by the Priest I would know what force his Absolution hath in this case Are they able to say here that the Priest doth remit any thing Yet when any of ours ascribeth the Work of Remission to God and interpreteth the Priests Sentence to be but a solemn Declaration of that which God himself hath already performed they scorn at it they urge against it that if this were true our Saviour Christ should rather have said What is loosed in Heaven ye shall loose on Earth then as he doth Whatsoever ye loose on Earth shall in Heaven be loosed As if he were to learn of us how to place his words and not we to crave rather of him a sound and right understanding lest to his dishonour and our own hurt we mis-expound them It sufficeth I think both against their constructions to have proved that they ground an untruth on his speech and in behalf of our own that his words without any such transposition do very well admit the sense we give them which is that he taketh to himself the lawfull proceedings of Authority in his Name and that the Act of Spiritual Authority in this case is by Sentence to acquit or pronounce them free from sinne whom they judge to be sincerely and truly penitent which Interpretation they themselves do acknowledge though not sufficient yet very true Absolution they say declareth indeed but this is not all for it likewise maketh innocent which addition being an untruth proved our truth granted hath I hope sufficiency without it and consequently our opinion therein neither to be challenged as untrue nor as unsufficient To rid themselves out of these Bryars and to make Remission of Sinnes an effect of Absolution notwithstanding that which hitherto hath been said
they have two shifts At first that in many Penitents there is but Attrition of heart which Attrition they define to be Grief proceeding from Fear without Love and to these they say Absolution doth give that Contrition whereby men are really purged from Sinne. Secondly that even where Contrition or Inward Repentance doth cleanse without Absolution the reason why it commeth so to passe is Because such Contrites intend and desire Absolution though they have it not Which two things granted The one that Absolution given maketh them contrite that are not the other even in them which are contrite the cause why God remitteth Sinne is the purpose or desire they have to receive Absolution we are not to stand against a sequel so clear and manifest as this that alwayes remission of Sinne proceedeth from Absolution either had or desired But should a reasonable man give credit to their bare Conceit and because their Positions have driven them to imagine Absolving of unsufficiently-disposed Penitents to be a real creating of further vertue in them must all other men think it due Let them cancel hence forward and blot out of all their Books those old Cautions touching Necessity of Wisdome lest Priests should inconsiderately absolve any man in whom there were not apparent tokens of true Repentance which to do was in Saint Cyprians Judgement Pestilent Deceit and Flattery not only not available but hurtful to them that had transgrest a frivolous frustrate and false peace such as caused the unrighteous to trust to a lye and destroyed them unto whom it promised safety What needeth Observation whether Penitents have Worthiness and bring Contrition if the words of Absolution do infuse Contrition Have they born us all this while in hand that Contrition is a part of the matter of their Sacrament a Condition or Preparation of the Minde towards Grace to be received by Absolution in the form of their Sacrament And must we now believe That the Form doth give the Matter That Absolution bestoweth Contrition and that the words do make presently of Saul David of Iudas Peter For what was the Penitency of Saul and Iudas but plain Attrition horrour of Sinne through fear of punishment without any long sense or taste of God's Mercy Their other Fiction imputing remission of Sinne to desire of Absolution from the Priest even in them which are truly contrite is an evasion somewhat more witty but no whit more possible for them to prove Belief of the World and Judgement to come Faith in the Promises and Sufferings of Christ for Mankinde Fear of his Majestie Love of his Mercy Grief for Sin Hope for Pardon Suit for Grace These we know to be the Elements of true Contrition suppose that besides all this God did also command that every Penitent should seek his Absolution at the Priests hands where so many Causes are concurring unto one effect have they any reason to impute the whole effect unto one any reason in the choyse of that one to pass by Faith Fear Love Humility Hope Prayer whatsoever else and to enthronize above them all A desire of Absolution from the Priest as if in the whole work of Man's Repentance God did regard and accept nothing but for and in consideration of this Why do the Tridentine Council impute it to Charity That Contrites are reconciled in Gods sight before they receive the Sacrament of Penance if desired Absolution be the true Cause But let this passe how it will seeing the Question is not What vertue God may accept in penitent Sinners but what Grace Absolution actually given doth really bestow upon them If it were as they would have it That God regarding the Humiliation of a Contrite Spirit because there is joyned therewith a lowly desire of the Sacrament of Priestly Absolution pardoneth immediately and forgiveth all Offences Doth this any thing help to prove that Absolution received afterward from the Priest can more than declare him already pardoned which did desire it To desire Absolution presupposing it commanded is Obedience and Obedience in that Case is a Branch of the vertue of Repentance which Vertue being thereby made effectual to the taking away of Sinnes without the Sacrament of Repentance Is it not an Argument that the Sacrament of Absolution hath here no efficacy but the virtue of Contrition worketh all For how should any Effect ensue from Causes which actually are not The Sacrament must be applyed wheresoever any Grace doth proceed from it So that where it is but desired only whatsoever may follow upon Gods acceptation of this desire the Sacrament afterwards received can be no cause thereof Therefore the further we wade the better we see it still appears That the Priest doth never in Absolution no not so much as by way of Service and Ministry really either forgive them take away the uncleanness or remove the punishment of Sinne but if the Party penitent come contrite he hath by their own grant Absolution before Absolution if not contrite although the Priest should seem a thousand times to Absolve him all were in vain For which cause the Antients and better sort of their School Divines Abulensis Alexander Hales and Bonaventurt ascribe the real abolition of Sinne and eternal punishment to the mere pardon of Almighty God without dependency upon the Priests Absolution as a cause to effect the same His Absolution hath in their Doctrine certain other effects specified but this denyed Wherefore having hitherto spoken of the vertue of Repentance required of the Discipline of Repentance which Christ did establish and of the Sacrament of Repentance invented sithence against the pretended force of Humane Absolution in Sacramental Penitency Let it suffice thus far to have shewed how God alone doth truly give the vertue of Repentance alone procure and private Ministerial Absolution but declare remission of Sinnes Now the last and sometimes hardest to be satisfied by Repentance are our Mindes and our Mindes we have then satisfied when the Conscience is of guilty become clear For as long as we are in our selves privy to our own most hainous Crimes but without sense of God's Mercy and Grace towards us unlesse the Heart be either brutish for want of Knowledge or altogether hardned by wilful Atheisme the remorse of Sinne is in it as the deadly sting of a Serpent Which point since very Infidels and Heathens have observed in the nature of Sinne for the disease they felt though they knew no remedy to help it we are not rashly to despise those Sentences which are the testimonies of their experience touching this point They knew that the eye of a Man 's own Conscience is more to be feared by evil doers than the presence of a thousand Witnesses in as much as the mouths of other Accusers are many wayes stopt the ears of the accused not alwayes subject to glowing with contumely and exprobation whereas a guilty Minde being forced to be still both a Martyr and a
for so many years approved and betake our selves unto a Regiment neither appointed of God himself as they who favour it pretend nor till yesterday ever heard of among men By the Jews Festus was much complained of as being a Governor marvellous corrupt and almost intolerable Such notwithstanding were they who came after him that men which thought the publique condition most afflicted under Festur began to wish they had him again and to esteem him a Ruler commendable Great things are hoped for at the hands of these new Presidents whom Reformation would bring in Notwithstanding the time may come when Bishops whose Regiment doth now seem a yoke so heavy to bear will be longed for again even by them that are the readiest to have it taken from off their necks But in the hands of Divine Providence we leave the ordering of all such events and come now to the Question it self which is raised concerning Bishops For the better understanding whereof we must before hand set down what is meant when in this Question we name a Bishop II. For whatsoever we bring from Antiquity by way of defence in this cause of Bishops it is cast off as impertinent matter all is wiped away with an odd kind of shifting Answer That the Bishops which now are be not like unto them which were We therefore beseech all indifferent Judges to weigh sincerely with themselves how the case doth stand If it should be at this day a controversie whether Kingly Regiment were lawful or no peradventure in defence thereof the long continuance which it hath had sithence the first beginning might be alleadged mention perhaps might be made what Kings there were of old even in Abrahams time what Soveraign Princes both before and after Suppose that herein some man purposely bending his wit against Sovereignty should think to elude all such allegations by making ample discovery through a number of particularities wherein the Kings that are do differ from those that have been and should therefore in the end conclude That such ancient examples are no convenient proofs of that Royalty which is now in use Surely for decision of truth in this case there were no remedy but only to shew the nature of Sovereignty to sever it from accidental properties to make it clear that ancient and present Regality are one and the same in substance how great odds soever otherwise may seem to be between them In like manner whereas a Question of late hath grown whether Ecclesiastical Regiment by Bishops be lawful in the Church of Christ or no In which Question they that hold the Negative being pressed with that generally received order according whereunto the most renowned Lights of the Christian World have governed the same in every age as Bishops seeing their manner is to reply that such Bishops as those ancient were ours are not There is no remedy but to shew that to be a Bishop is now the self same thing which it hath been that one definition agreeth fully and truly as well to those elder as to these latter Bishops Sundry dissimilitudes we grant there are which notwithstanding are not such that they cause any equivocation in the name whereby we should think a Bishop in those times to have had a clean other definition then doth rightly agree unto Bishops as they are now Many things there are in the state of Bishops which the times have changed Many a Parsonage at this day is larger then some ancient Bishopricks were many an antient Bishop poorer then at this day sundry under them in degree The simple hereupon lacking judgement and knowledge to discern between the nature of things which changeth not and these outward variable accidents are made beleeve that a Bishop heretofore and now are things in their very nature so distinct that they cannot be judged the same Yet to men that have any part of skill what more evident and plain in Bishops then that augmentation or diminution in their precincts allowances priviledges and such like do make a difference indeed but no essential difference between one Bishop and another As for those things in regard whereof we use properly to term them Bishops those things whereby they essentially differ from other Pastors those things which the natural definition of a Bishop must contain what one of them is there more or less appliable unto Bishops now than of old The name Bishop hath been borrowed from the Grecians with whom it signifieth One which hath principal charge to guide and Oversee others The same word in Ecclesiastical writings being applied unto Church-governors at the first unto all and not unto the chiefest only grew in short time peculiar and proper to signifie such Episcopal Authority alone as the chiefest Governors exercised over the rest for with all Names this is usual that in as much as they are not given till the things whereunto they are given have bin sometime first observed therefore generally Things are antienter then the Names whereby they are called Again sith the first things that grow into general observation and do thereby give men occasion to find Names for them are those which being in many Subjects are thereby the easier the oftner and the more universally noted it followeth that names imposed to signifie common qualities or operations are ancienter then is the restraint of those names to note an excellency of such qualities or operations in some one or few amongst others For example the name Disciple being invented to signifie generally a learner it cannot choose but in that signification be more ancient then when it signifieth as it were by a kind of appropriation those Learners who being taught of Christ were in that respect termed Disciples by an excellency The like is to be seen in the name Apostle the use whereof to signifie a messenger must needs be more ancient then that use which restraineth it unto Messengers sent concerning Evangelical affairs yea this use more ancient then that whereby the same word is yet restrained farther to signifie only those whom our Saviour himself immediately did send After the same manner the Title or Name of a Bishop having been used of old to signifie both an Ecclesiastical Overseer in general and more particularly also a Principal Ecclesiastical Overseer it followeth that this latter restrained signification is not so ancient as the former being more common Yet because the things themselves are always ancienter then their names therefore that thing which the restrained use of the word doth import is likewise ancienter then the restraint of the word is and consequently that power of chief Ecclesiastical Overseers which the term of a Bishop importeth was before the restrained use of the name which doth import it Wherefore a lame and an impotent kind of reasoning it is when men go about to prove that in the Apostles times there was no such thing as the restrained name of a Bishop doth now signifie because in their writings
wonder at the handy-work of Almighty God who to settle the Kingdom of his dear Son did not cast out any one People but directed in such sort the Politick Councils of them who ruled farr and wide overall that they throughout all Nations People and Countries upon Earth should unwittingly prepare the Field wherein the Vine which God did intend that is to say the Church of his dearly beloved Son was to take root For unto nothing else can we attribute it saving only unto the very incomprehensible force of Divine providence that the World was in so marvellous sit sort divided levelled and laid out before hand whose work could it be but his alone to make such provision for the direct implantation of his Church Wherefore inequality of Bishops being found a thing convenient for the Church of God in such consideration as hath been shewed when it came secondly in question which Bishops should be higher and which lower it seemed herein not to the civil Monarch only but to the most expedient that the dignity and celebrity of Mother-Cities should be respected They which dream that if Civil Authority had not given such preheminence unto one City more than another there had never grown an inequality among Bishops are deceived Superiority of one Bishop over another would be requisite in the Church although that Civil distinction were abolished other causes having made it necessary even amongst Bishops to have some in degree higher than the rest the civil dignity of place was considered only as a reason wherefore this Bishop should be preferred before that Which deliberation had been likely enough to have raised no small trouble but that such was the circumstance of place as being followed in that choyce besides the manifest conveniency thereof took away all show of Partiality prevented secret emulations and gave no man occasion to think his Person disgraced in that another was preferred before him Thus we see upon what occasion Metropolitan Bishops became Archbishops Now while the whole Christian World in a manner still continued under one Civil Government there being oftentimes within some one more large Territory divers and sundry Mother-Churches the Metropolitans whereof were Archbishops as for Order's sake it grew hereupon expedient there should be a difference also amongst them so no way seemed in those times more fit than to give preheminence unto them whose Metropolitan Sees were of special desert or dignity for which cause these as being Bishops in the chiefest Mother-Churches were termed Primates and at the length by way of excellency Patriarks For ignorant we are not how sometimes the Title of Patriark is generally given to all Metropolitan Bishops They are mightily therefore to blame which are so bold and confident as to affirm that for the space of above four hundred and thirty years after Christ all Metropolitan Bishops were in every respect equals till the second Council of Constantinople exalted certain Metropolitans above the rest True it is they were equals as touching the exercise of Spiritual power within their Dioceses when they dealt with their own flock For what is it that one of them might do within the compass of his own precinct but another within his might do the same But that there was no subordination at all of one of them unto another that when they all or sundry of them were to deal in the same Causes there was no difference of first and second in degree no distinction of higher and lower in authority acknowledged amongst them is most untrue The Great Council of Nice was after our Saviour Christ but three hundred twenty four years and in that Council certain Metropolitans are said even then to have had antient preheminence and dignity above the rest namely the Primate of Alexandria of Rome and of Antioch Threescore years after this there were Synods under the Emperour Theodosius which Synod was the first at Constantinople whereat one hundred and fifty Bishops were assembled at which Council it was decreed that the Bishop of Constantinople should not only be added unto the forme Primates but also that his Place should be second amongst them the next to the Bishop of Rome in dignity The same Decree again renewed concerning Constantinople and the reason thereof laid open in the Council of Chalcedon At the length came that second of Constantinople whereat were six hundred and thirty Bishops for a third confirmation thereof Laws Imperial there are likewise extant to the same effect Herewith the Bishop of Constantinople being over-much puffed up not only could not endure that See to be in estimation higher whereunto his own had preferment to be the next but he challenged more than ever any Christian Bishop in the World before either had or with reason could have What he challenged and was therein as then refused by the Bishop of Rome the same the Bishop of Rome in process of time obtained for himself and having gotten it by bad means hath both up-held and augmented it and upholdeth it by acts and practises much worse But Primates according to their first Institution were all in relation unto Archbishops the same by Prerogative which Archbishops were being compared unto Bishops Before the Council of Nice albeit there were both Metropolitans and Primates yet could not this be a means forcible enough to procure the peace of the Church but all things were wonderful tumultuous and troublesome by reason of one special practise common unto the Heretiques of those times which was That when they had been condemned and cast out of the Church by the Sentence of their own Bishops they contrary to the antient received Orders of the Church had a custom to wander up and down and to insinuate themselves into favour where they were not known imagining themselves to be safe enough and not to be clean cut off from the body of the Church if they could any where finde a Bishop which was content to communicate with them whereupon ensued as in that case there needs must every day quarrels and jarrs unappeasable amongst Bishops The Nicene Council for redress hereof considered the bounds of every Archbishop's Ecclesiastical Jurisdictions what they had been in former times and accordingly appointed unto each grand part of the Christian World some one Primate from whose Judgement no man living within his Territory might appeal unless it were to a Council General of all Bishops The drift and purport of which order was That neither any man opprest by his own particular Bishop might be destitute of a remedy through appeal unto the more indifferent Sentence of some other ordinary Judge not yet every man be lest at such liberty as before to shift himself out of their hands for whom it was most meet to have the hearing and determining of his cause The evil for remedy whereof this order was taken annoyed at that present especially the Church of Alexandria in Egypt where Arianism begun For which cause the state
must note withal that because the body of the Church continueth the same it hath the same Authority still and may abrogate old Laws or make new as need shall require Wherefore vainly are the antient Canons and Constitutions objected as Laws when once they are either let secretly to dye by dis-usage or are openly abrogated by contrary Laws The Antient had cause to do no otherwise than they did and yet so strictly they judged not themselves in Conscience bound to observe those Orders but that in sundry cases they easily dispensed therewith which I suppose they would never have done had they esteemed them as things whereunto everlasting immutable and undispensible observation did belong The Bishop usually promoted none which were not first allowed as fit by conference had with the rest of his Clergy and with the People Notwithstanding in the case of Aurelius Saint Cyprian did otherwise In matters of Deliberation and Counsel for disposing of that which belongeth generally to the whole body of the Church or which being more particular is nevertheless of so great consequence that it needeth the force of many Judgements conferred in such things the common saying must necessarily take place An Eye cannot see that which Eyes can As for Clerical Ordinations there are no such reasons alledged against the Order which is but that it may be esteemed as good in every respect as that which hath been and in some considerations better at leastwise which is sufficient to our purpose it may be held in the Church of Christ without transgressing any Law either Antient or Late Divine or Human. which we ought to observe and keep The form of making Ecclesiastical Officers hath sundry parts neither are they all of equal moment When Deacons having not been before in the Church of Christ the Apostles saw it needful to have such ordained They first assemble the multitude and shew them how needful it is that Deacons be made Secondly they name unto them what number they judge convenient what quality the men must be of and to the People they commit the care of finding such out Thirdly the People hereunto assenting make their choyce of Stephen and the rest those chosen men they bring and present before the Apostles Howbeit all this doth not endue them with any Ecclesiastical Power But when so much was done the Apostles finding no cause to take exception did with Prayer and imposition of hands make them Deacons This was it which gave them their very being all other things besides were only preparations unto this Touching the form of making Presbyters although it be not wholly of purpose anywhere set down in the Apostles Writings yet sundry speeches there are which insinuate the chiefest things that belong unto that Action As when Paul and Barnabas are said to have fasted prayed and made Presbyters When Timothy is willed to lay hands suddenly on no man for fear of participating with other mens sins For this cause the Order of the Primitive Church was between Choyce and Ordination to have some space for such Probation and Tryal as the Apostle doth mention in Deacons saying Let them first be proved and then minister if so be they be found blameless Alexander Severus beholding in his time how careful the Church of Christ was especially for this point how after the choyce of their Pastors they used to publish the names of the Parties chosen and not to give them the final act of Approbation till they saw whether any lett or impediment would be alledged he gave Commandment That the like should also be done in his own Imperial Elections adding this as a Reason wherefore he so required namely For that both Christians and Iews being so wary about the Ordination of their Priests it seemed very unequal for him not to be in like sort circumspect to whom he committed the Government of Provinces containing power over mens both Estates and Lives This the Canon Law it self doth provide for requiring before Ordination scrutiny Let them diligently be examined three dayes together before the Sabbath and on the Sabbath let them be presented unto the Bishop And even this in effect also is the very use of the Church of England at all Solemne Ordaining of Ministers and if all Ordaining were Solemne I must confesse it were much the better The pretended disorder of the Church of England is that Bishops Ordain them to whose Election the People give no voyces and so the Bishops make them alone that is to say they give Ordination without Popular Election going before which antient Bishops neither did nor might do Now in very truth if the multitude have hereunto a right which right can never be translated from them for any cause then is there no remedy but we must yield that unto the lawful making of Ministers the voyce of the People is required and that according to the Adverse Parties Assertion such as make Ministers without asking the Peoples consent do but exercise a certain Tyranny At the first Erection of the Common-weals of Rome the People for so it was then fittest determined of all affairs Afterwards this growing troublesome their Senators did that for them which themselves before had done In the end all came to one man's hands and the Emperour alone was instead of many Senators In these things the experience of time may breed both Civil and Ecclesiastical change from that which hath been before received neither do latter things always violently exclude former but the one grawing less convenient then it hath been giveth place to that which is now become more That which was fit for the People themselves to do at the first might afterwards be more convenient for them to do by some other Which other is not thereby proved a Tyrant because he alone doth that which a multitude were wont to do unless by violence he take that Authority upon him against the Order of Law and without any publick appointment as with us if any did it should I suppose not long be safe for him so to do This Answer I hope will seem to be so much the more reasonable in that themselves who stand against us have furnish'd us therewith For whereas against the making of Ministers by Bishops alone their use hath been to object What sway the People did bear when Stephen and rest were ordained Deacons They begin to espy how their own Plat-form swerveth not a little from that example wherewith they controul the practices of others For touching the form of the Peoples concurrence in that Action they observe it not no they plainly profess that they are not in this point bound to be followers of the Apostles The Apostles Ordained whom the People had first chosen They hold that their Ecclesiastical Senate ought both to choose and also to Ordain Do not themselves then take away that which the Apostles gave the People namely the priviledge of chusing Ecclesiastical Officers They do But behold in what sort
they answer it By the sixth and the fourteenth of the Acts say they it doth appear that the people had the chiefest power of chusing Howbeit that as unto me it seemeth was dine upon special cause which doth not so much concern us neither ought it to be drawn unto the ordinary and perpetual form of governing the Church For as in establishing Common-weals not only if they be popular but even being such as are ordered by the power of a few the chiefest or as by the sole Authority of one till the same he established the whole sway is in the Peoples hands who voluntarily appoint those Magistrates by whose Authority they may be governed so that afterward not the multitude it self but those Magistrates which were chosen by the multitude have the ordering of Publick Affairs After the self-same manner is fared in establishing also the Church When there was not as yet any placed over the People all Authority was in them all but when they all had chosen certain to whom the Regiment of the Church was committed this power is not now any longer in the hands of the whole multitude but wholly in theirs who are appointed Guides of the Church Besides in the choyce of Deacons there was also another special cause wherefore the whole Church as that time should chuse them For inasmuch as the Grecians murmured against the Hebrews and complained that in the duly distribution which was made for relief of the poor they were not indifferently respected nor such regard had of their Widows as was meet this made it necessary that they all should have to deal in the choyce of those unto whom that care was afterwards to be committed to the end that all occasion of jealousies and complaints might be removed Wherefore that which was done by the People for certain Causes before the Church was sully settled may not be drawn out and applyed unto a constant and perpetual form of ordering the Church Let them cast the Discipline of the Church of England into the same scales where they weigh their own let them give us the same measure which here they take and our strifes shall soon be brought to a quiet end When they urge the Apostles as Precedents when they condemn us of Tyranny because we do not in making Ministers the same which the Apostles did when they plead That with us one alone doth ordain and that our Ordinations are without the Peoples knowledge contrary to that example which the blessed Apostles gave We do not request at their hands allowance as much as of one word we speak in our own defence if that which we speak be of our own but that which themselves speak they must be content to listen unto To exempt themselves from being over-farr prest with the Apostles example they can answer That which was done by the People once upon special Causes when the Church was not yet established is not to be made a rule for the constant and continual ordering of the Church In defence of their own Election although they do not therein depend on the People so much as the Apostles in the choyce of Deacons they think it a very sufficient Apology that there were special considerations why Deacons at that time should be chosen by the whole Church but not so now In excuse of dissimilitudes between their own and the Apostles Discipline they are contented to use this Answer That many things were done in the Apostles times before the settling of the Church which afterward the Church was not tyed to observe For countenance of their own proceedings wherein their Governors do more than the Apostles and their People less than under the Apostles the first Churches are found to have done at the making of Ecclesiastical Officers they deem it a marvellous reasonable kinde of Pleading to say That even as in Common-wealt when the multitude have once chosen many or one to rule over them the right which was at the first in the whole body of the People is now derived into those many or that one which it so chosen and that this being done it is not the whole multitude to whom the administration of such Publick affairs any longer appertaineth but that which they did their Rulers may now do lawfully without them After the self-same manner it slandeth with the Church also How easie and plain might we make our defence how clear and allowable even unto them it we could but obtain of them to admit the same things consonant unto equity in our mouths which they require to be so taken from their own If that which is truth being uttered in maintenance of Scotland and Geneva do not cease to be truth when the Church of England once alledgeth it this great crime of Tyranny wherewith we are charged hath a plain and an easie defence Yea But we do not at all aske the Peoples approbation which they do whereby they shew themselves more indifferent and more free from taking away the Peoples right Indeed when their Lay-Elders have chosen whom they think good the Peoples consent thereunto is asked and if they give their approbation the thing standeth warranted for sound and good But if not is the former choyce overthrown No but the People is to yield to reason and if they which have made the choyce do so like the Poeples reason as to reverse their own deed at the hearing of it then a new election to be made otherwise the former to stand notwithstanding the Peoples negative and dislike What is this else but to deal with the People as those Nurses do with Infants whose mouths they besmear with the backside of the spoon as though they had fed them when they themselves devour the food They cry in the ears of the People that all mens consent should be had unto that which concerns all they make the People believe we wrong them and deprive them of their right in making Ministers whereas with us the People have commonly farr more sway and force then with them For inasmuch as there are but two main things observed in every Ecclesiastical function Power to exercise the duty it self and some charge of People whereon to exercise the same the former of these is received at the hands of the whole visible Catholick Church For it is not any one particular multitude that can give power the force whereof may reach farr and wide indefinitely as the power of Order doth which whoso hath once received there is no action which belongeth thereunto but he may exercise effectually the same in any part of the World without iterated Ordination They whom the whole Church hath from the beginning used as her Agents in conferring this power are not either one or moâ— of the Laity and therefore it hath not been heard of that ever any such were allowed to ordain Ministers Onely Persons Ecclesiastical and they in place of Calling Superiours both unto Deacons and unto Presbyters only such Persons
consisteth in the matter about which the actions of each are conversant and not in this that Civil Royalty admitteth but one Ecclesiastical Government requireth many Supreme Correctors Which Allegation were it true would prove no more than only that some certain number is necessary for the assistance of the Bishop But that a number of such as they do require is necessary how doth it prove Wherefore albeit Bishops should now do the very same which the Antients did using the Colledge of Presbyters under them as their Assistants when they administer Church-Censures yet should they still swerve utterly from that which these men so busily labour for because the Agents whom they require to assist in those Cases are a sort of Lay-Elders such as no antient Bishop ever was assisted with Shall these fruitless jarrs and janglings never cease shall we never see end of them How much happier were the World if those eager Task-masters whose eyes are so curious and sharp in discerning what should be done by many and what by few were all changed into painful doers of that which every good Christian man ought either only or chiefly to do and to be found therein doing when that great and glorious Judge of all mens both deeds and words shall appear In the mean while be it One that hath this charge or be they Many that be his Assistants let there be careful provision that Justice may be administred and in this shall our God be glorified more than by such contentious Disputes XV. Of which nature that also is wherein Bishops are over and besides all this accused to have much more excessive power than the antient in as much as unto their Ecclesiastical authority the Civil Magistrate for the better repressing of such as contemn Ecclesiastical censures hath for divers ages annexed Civil The crime of Bishops herein is divided into these two several branches the one that in Causes Ecclesiastical they strike with the sword of Secular punishments the other that Offices are granted them by vertue whereof they meddle with Civil Affairs Touching the one it reacheth no farther than only unto restraint of liberty by imprisonment which yet is not done but by the Laws of the Land and by vertue of authority derived from the Prince A thing which being allowable in Priests amongst the Jews must needs have received some strange alteration in nature since if it be now so pernicious and venomous to be coupled with a Spiritual Vocation in any man which beareth Office in the Church of Christ. Shemaia writing to the Colledge of Priests which were in Ierusalem and to Zâ—phania the principal of them told them they were appointed of God that they might be Officers in the House of the Lord for every man which raved and did make himselfe a Prophet to the end that they might by the force of this their authority put such in Prison and in the Stocks His malice is reproved for that he provoketh them to shew their power against the innocent But surely when any man justly punishable had been brought before them it could be no unjust thing for them even in such sort then to have punished As for Offices by vertue whereof Bishops have to deal in Civil Affairs we must consider that Civil Affairs are of divers kindesâ— and as they be not all fit for Ecclesiastical Persons to meddle with so neither is it necessary nor at this day haply convenient that from meddling with any such thing at all they all should without exception be secluded I will therefore set down some few causes wherein it cannot but clearly appear unto reasonable men that Civil and Ecclesiastical Functions may be lawfully united in one and the same Person First therefore in case a Christian Society be planted amongst their professed enemies or by toleration do live under some certain State whereinto they are not incorporated whom shall we judge the meetest men to have the hearing and determining of such mere civil Controversies as are every day wont to grow between man and man Such being the state of the Church of Corinth the Apostle giveth them this direction Dare any of you having business against another be judged by the unjust and not under Saints Do ye not know that the Saints shall judge the World If the World then shall be judged by you are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters Know ye not that we shall judge the Angels How much more things that appertain to this life If then ye have judgement of things pertaining to this life set up them which are least esteemed in the Church I speak it to your shame Is it so that there is not a wise man amongst you us not one that can judge between his Brethren but a Brother goeth to law with a Brother and that under the Infidels Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you because ye go to Law one with another Why rather suffer ye not wrong why rather sustain ye not harm In which Speech there are these degrees Better to suffer and to put up Injuries than to contend better to end contention by Arbitrement then by Judgement better by Judgement before the wisest of their own than before the simpler better before the simplest of their own than the wisest of them without So that if judgement of Secular affairs should be committed unto wise men unto men of chiefest Credit and Account amongst them when the Pastors of their Souls are such Who more fit to be also their Judges for the ending of strikes The wisest in things divine may be also in things humane the most skilful At leastwise they are by likelihood commonly more able to know right from wrong than the common un-lettered sort And what St. Augustin did hereby gather his own words do sufficiently show I call God to witness upon my Soul saith he that according to the Order which is kept in well-ordered Monasteries I could wish to have every day my hours of labouring with my hands my hours of reading and of praying rather than to endure these most tumultuous perplexities of other men's causes which I am forced to bear while I travel in Secular businesses either by judging to discuss them or to cut them off by intreaty Unto which toyles that Apostle who himself sustained them not for any thing we read hath notwithstanding â—yed us not of his own accord but being thereunto directed by that Spirit which speaks in him His own Apostleship which drew him to travel up and down suffered him not to be any where settled for this purpose wherefore the wise faithful and holy men which were seated here and there and not them which travelled up and down to preach he made Examiners of such Businesses Whereupon of him it is no where written that he had leisure to attend these things from which we cannot excuse our selves although we be simple because even such he requireth if wise men cannot be had rather than
we that no publick detriment would follow upon the want of honorable Personages Ecclesiastical to be used in those Cases It will be haply said That the highest might learn to stoop and not to disdain the advice of some circumspect wise and vertuâ—us Minister of God albeit the Ministery were nor by such degrees distinguished What Princes in that case might or should do it is not material Such difference being presupposed therefore as we have proved already to have been the Ordinance of God there is no judicious man will ever make any question or doubt but that fit and direct it is for the highest and chiefest Order in God's Clergy to be imployed before others about so near and necessary Offices as the sacred estate of the greatest on earth doth require For this cause Ioshua had Eliazer David Abiathar Constantine Hosius Bishop of Corâ—nba other Emperors and Kings their Prelates by whom in private for with Princes this is the most effectual way of doing good to be adminished counselled comforted and if need were reproved Whensoever Sovereign Rulers are willing to admit these so necessary private conferences for their Spiritual and ghostly good inasmuch as they do for the time while they take advice grant a kinde of Superiority unto them of whom they receive it albeit haply they can be contented even so farr to bend to the gravest and chiefest Persons in the Order of God's Clergy yet this of the very best being rarely and hardly obtained now that there are whos 's greater and higher Callings do somewhat more proportion them unto that ample conceit and spirit wherewith the minde of so powerable Persons we possessed what should we look for in case God himself not authorizing any by miraculous means as of old he did his Prophets the equal meaness of all did leave in respect of Calling no more place of decency for one then for another to be admitted Let unexperienced wits imagin what pleaseth them in having to deal with so great Personages these Personal differences are so necessary that there must be regard had of them 4. Kingdoms being principally next unto God's Almightiness and the Soveraignty of the highest under God upheld by wisdom and by valour as by the chiefest human means to cause continuance in safety with honor for the labors of them who attend the service of God we reckon as means Divine to procure our protection from Heavens from hence it riseth that men excelling in either of these or descending from such as for excellency either way have been enobled or possesing howsoever the rooms of such as should be in Politick wisdom or in Martial prowess eminent are had in singular recommendation Notwithstanding because they are by the state of Nobility great but not thereby made inclinable to good things such they oftentimes prove even under the best Princes as under David certain of the Jewish Nobility were In Polity and Council the World had not Achitophels equal nor Hell his equal in deadly malice Ioab the General of the Host of Israel valiant industrious fortunate in Warr but withal head-strong cruel treacherous void of Piety towards God in a word so conditioned that easie it is not to define whether it were for David harder to miss the benefit of his War-like hability or to bear the enormity of his other Crimes As well for the cherishing of those vertues therefore wherein if Nobility do chance to flourish they are both an ornament and a stay to the Common-wealth wherein they live as also for the bridling of those disorders which if they loosly run into they are by reason of their greatness dangerous what help could thereever have been invented more Divine than the sorting of the Clergy into such Degrees that the chiefest of the Prelacy being matched in a kinde of equal yoke as it were with the higher the next with the lower degree of Nobility the reverend Authority of the one might be to the other as a courteous bridle a mean to keep them lovingly in aw that are exorbitant and to correct such excesses in them as whereunto their Courage State and Dignity maketh them over-prone O that there were for encouragement of Prelates herein that lactimation of all Christian Kings and Princes towards them which sometime a famous King of this Land either had or pretended to have for the countenancing of a principal Prelate under him in the actions of Spiritual Authority Let my Lord Archbishop know saith he that if a Bishop or Earl or any other great Person yea if my own chosen Son shall presume to withstand or to hinder his will and disposition whereby he may be with-held from performing the work of the Embass age committed unto him such a one shall finde that of his contempt I will shew my self no less a Persecutor and Revenger than if Treason were committed against mine own very Crown and Dignity Sith therefore by the Fathers and first Founders of this Common-weal it hath upon great experience and fore-cast been judged most for the good of all sorts that as the whole Body Politick wherein we live should be for strengths sake a three-fold Cable consisting of the King as a Supreme Head over all of Peers and Nobles under him and of the People under them so likewise that in this conjunction of States the second wreath of that Cable should for important respects consist as well of Lords Spiritual as Temporal Nobility and Prelacy being by this mean twined together how can it possibly be avoided but that the tearing away of the one must needs exceedingly weaken the other and by consequent impair greatly the good of all 5. The force of which detriment there is no doubt but that the common sort of men would feel to their helpless wo how goodly a thing soever they now surmise it to be that themselves and their godly Teachers did all alone without controulment of their Prelate For if the manifold jeopardies whereto a people destitute of Pastors is subject be unavoidable without Government and if the benefit of Government whether it be Ecclesiastical or Civil do grow principally from them who are principal therein as hath been proved out of the Prophet who albeit the people of Israel had sundry inferior Governors ascribeth not unto them the publick benefit of Government but maketh mention of Moses and Aaron only the Chief Prince and Chief Prelate because they were the well-spring of all the good which others under then did may we not boldly conclude that to take from the people their Prelate is to leave them in effect without Guides at leastwise without those Guides which are the strongest hands that God doth direct them by Then didst lead thy People like Sheep saith the Prophet by the hands of Moses and Aaron If now there arise any matter of Grievances between the Pastor and the People that are under him they have their Ordinary a Judge indifferent to determine their Causes and to end their strife
But in case there were no such appointed to sit and to hear both what would then he end of their quarrels They will answer perhaps That for purposes their Synids shall serve Which is as if in the Common-wealth the higher Magistrates being removed every Township should be a State altogether free and independent and the Controversies which they cannot end speedily within themselves to the contentment of both parties should be all determined by Solemn Parliaments Mercipul God! where is the light of Wit and Judgement which this age doth so much vaunt of and glory in when unto these such odd imaginations so great not only assent but also applause is yielded 6. As for those in the Clergy whose Place and Calling is lower were iâ— not that their eyes are blinded lest they should see the thing that of all others is for their good most effectal somewhat they might consider the benefit which they enjoy by having such in Authority over them as are of the self-same Profession Society and Body with them such as have trodden the same steps before such as know by their own experience the manifold intolerable contempts and indignities which faithful Pastors intermingled with the multitude are constrained every day to suffer in the exercise of their Spiritual Charge and Function unless their Superiours taking their Causes even to heart be by a kinde of sympathy drawn to relieve and aid them in their vertuous proceedings no less effectually than loving Parents their dear Children Thus therefore Prelacy being unto all sorts so beneficial ought accordingly to receive honor at the hands of all But we have just cause exceedingly to fear that those miserable times of confusion are drawing on wherein the people shall be oppressed one of another inasmuch as already that which prepareth the way thereunto is come to pass Children presume against the Antient and the Vile against the Honorable Prelacy the temperature of excesses in all Estates the glew and soder of the Publick weal the ligament which tieth and connecteth the limbs of this Bodie Politick each to other hath instead of deserved Honor all extremity of Disgrace the Foolish every where plead that unto the wise in heart they owe neither service subjection not honor XIX Now that we have laid open the causes for which Honor is due unto Prelates the next thing we are to consider is What kindes of Honor be due The good Government either of the Church or the Common-wealth dependeth scarcely on any one external thing so much as on the Publick Marks and Tokens whereby the estimation on that Governours are in is made manifest to the eyes of men True it is that Governors are to be esteemed according to the excellency of their vertues the more vertous they are the more they ought to be honored if respect be had unto that which every man should voluntarily perform unto his Superiors But the question is now of that Honor which Publick Order doth appoint unto Church-Governors in that they are Governors the end whereof is to give open sensible testimony that the Place which they hold is judged publickly in such degree beneficial as the marks of their excellency the Honors appointed to be done unto them do import Wherefore this honor we are to do them without presuming our selves to examine how worthy they are and withdrawing it if by us they be thought unworthy It is a note of that publick judgement which is given of them and therefore not tolerable that men in private should by refusal to do them such honor reverse as much as in them lyeth the Publick judgement If it deserve so grievous punishment when any particular Person adventureth to deface those marks whereby is signified what value some small piece of Coyn is publickly esteemed at is it sufferable that Honors the Character of that estimation which publickly is had of Publick Estates and Callings in the Church or Common-wealth should at every man's pleasure be cancelled Let us not think that without most necessary cause the same have been thought expedient The first Authors thereof were wise and judicious men they knew it a thing altogether impossible for each particular in the multitude to judge what benefit doth grow unto them from their Prelates and thereunto uniformly to yield them convenient honor Wherefore that all sorts might be kept in obedience and awe doing that unto their Superiors of every degree not which every man 's special fancy should think meet but which being before-hand agreed upon as meet by publick Sentence and Decision might afterwards stand as a rule for each in particular to follow they found that nothing was more necessary than to allet unto all degrees their certain honor as marks of publick judgement concerning the dignity of their Places which mark when the multitude should behold they might be thereby given to know that of such or such restimation their Governors are and in token thereof do carry those notes of excellency Hence it groweth that the different notes and signs of Honor do leave a correspondent impression in the mindes of common Beholders Let the people be asked Who are the chiefest in any kinde of Calling who whost to be listned unto who of greatest account and reputation and see if the very discourse of their mindes lead them not unto those sensible marks according to the difference whereof they give their suitable judgement esteeming them the worthiest persons who carry the principal note and publick mark of Worthiness If therefore they see in other estates a number of tokens sensible whereby testimony is given what account there is publickly made of them but no such thing in the Clergy what will they hereby or what can they else conclude but that where they behold this surely in that Common-wealth Religion and they that are conversant about it are not esteemed greatly beneficial Whereupon in time the open contempt of God and Godliness must needs ensue Qui bona fide Dcos colit amat Sacerdotes saith Papenius In vain doth that Kingdom or Common-wealth pretend zeal to the honor of God which doth not provide that his Clergy also may have honor Now if all that are imployed in the service of God should have one kinde of honor what more confused absurd and unseemly Wherefore in the honor which hath been allotted unto God's Clergy we are to observe how not only the kindes thereof but also in every particular kinde the degrees do differ The honor which the Clergy of God hath hitherto enjoyed consisteth especially in prcheminence of Title Place Ornament Attendance Priviledge Endowment In every of which it hath been evermore judge meet that there should be no small odds between Prelates and the inferior Clergy XX. Concerning Title albeit even as under the Law all they whom God had sesevered to offer him Sacrifice were generally termed Priests so likewise the name of Pastor or Presbyter be now common unto all that serve him in the
the Christian Clergy likewise Priests for their maintenance had those first-fruits of Cattel Coin Wine Oyl and other Commodities of the Earth which the Jews were accustomed yearly to present God with They had the price which was appointed for men to pay in lieu of the first-born of their Children and the price of the first born also amongst Cattel which were unclean They had the vowed Gifts of the People or the prices if they were redeemable by the Donors after vow as some things were They had the free and un-vowed Oblations of men They had the remainder of things sacrificed With Tythes the Levites were maintained and with the tythe of their Tythes the High-Priest In a word if the quality of that which God did assign to his Clergy be considered and their manner of receiving it without labour expence or charge it will appear that the Tribe of Levi being but the twelfth part of Israel had in effect as good as four twelfth parts of all such Goods as the holy Land did yield So that their Worldly Estate was four times as good as any other Tribes in Israel besides But the High-Priest's condition how ample to whom belonged the Tenth of all the Tythe of this Land especially the Law provicing also that as the people did bring the best of all things unto the Priests and Levites so the Levite should deliver the choice and flower of all their Commodities to the High-Priest and so his Tenth-part by that mean be made the very best part amongst ten by which proportion if the Levites were ordinarily in all not above thirty thousand men whereas when David numbred them he found almost thirty eight thousand above the age of thirty years the High-Priest after this very reckoning had as much as three or four thousand others of the Clergy to live upon Over and besides all this lest the Priests of Egypt holding Lands should seem in that respect better provided for than the Priests of the true God it pleased him further to appoint unto them forty and eight whole Cities with Territories of Land adjoyning to hold as their own free Inheritance for ever For to the end they might have all kinde of encouragement not onely to do what they ought but to take pleasure in that they did albeit they were expresly forbidden to have any part of the Land of Canaan laid out whole to themselves by themselves in such sort as the rest of the Tribes had forasmuch as the will of God was rather that they should throughout all Tribes be dispersed for the easier access of the People unto knowledge Yet were they not barred altogether to hold Land nor yet otherwise the worse provided for in respect of that former restraint for God by way of special preheminence undertook to feed them at his own Table and out of his own proper Treasury to maintain them that want and penury they might never feel except God himself did first receive injury A thing most worthy our consideration is the wisdom of God herein for the Common sort being prone unto envy and murmur little considereth of what necessity use and importance the sacred duties of the Clergy are and for that Cause hardly yieldeth them any such honor without repining and grudging thereat they cannot brook it that when they have laboured and come to reap there should so great a portion go out of the fruit of their Labours and he yielded up unto such as sweat nor for it But when the Lord doth challenge this as his own due and require it to be done by way of homage unto him whose mere liberality and goodness had raised them from a poor and servile estate to place them where they had all those ample and rich possessions they must be worse than Brute beasts if they would storm at any thing which He did receive at their hands And for him to bestow his own on his own Servants which liberty is not denied unto the meanest of men what man liveth that can think it other than most reasonable Wherefore no cause there was why that which the Clergy had should in any man's eye seem too much unless God himself were thought to be of an over-having disposition This is the mark whereat all those speeches drive Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his Brethren the Lord is his inheritance again To the Tribe of Levi he gave no inheritance the Sacrifices of the Lord God of Israel an inheritance of Levi again The tyths of the which they shall offer as an offering unto the Lord I have given the Levites for an inheritance and again All the heave-offerings of the holy things which the children of Israel shall offer unto the Lord I have given thee and thy sons and thy daughters with thee to be a duty for ever it is a perpetual Covenant of salt before the Lord. Now that if such provision be possible to be made the Christian Clergy ought not herein to be inferior unto the Jewish What sounder proof than the Apostles own kinde of Argument Do ye not know that they which minister about the holy things eat of the things of the Temple and they which partake of the Altar are partakers with the Altar So even So hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel Upon which words I thus conclude that if the People of God do abound and abounding can so farr forth finde in their hearts to shew themselves towards Christ their Saviour thankful as to honor him with their riches which no Law of God or Nature forbiddeth no less than the antient Jewish people did honor God the plain Ordinance of Christ appointeth as large and as ample proportion out of his own treasure unto them that serve him in the Gospel as ever the Priests of the Law did enjoy What further proof can we desire It is the blessed Apostles testimony That even so the Lord hath ordained Yea I know not whether it be sound to interpret the Apostle otherwise than that whereas he judgeth the Presbyters which rule well in the Church of Christ to be worthy of double honor he means double unto that which the Priests of the Law received For if that Ministry which was of the Letter were so glorious how shall not the Ministry of the Spirit be more glorious If the Teachers of the Law of Moses which God delivered written with Letters in Tables of Stone were thought worthy of so great honor how shall not the Teachers of the Gospel of Christ be in his sight most worthy the Holy Ghost being sent from Heaven to ingrave the Gospel on their Hearts who first taught it and whose Successors they that teach it at this day are So that according to the Ordinance of God himself their Estate for worldly maintenance ought to be no worse than is granted unto other sorts of men each according to
is exceedingly worth the noting which Plato hath about the means whereby men fall into an utter dislike of all men with whom they converse This sowreness of minde which maketh every mans dealings unsavoury in our taste entereth by an unskilful over-weening which at the first we have of one and so of another in whom we afterwards find our selves to have been deceived they declaring themselves in the end to be frail men whom we judged demi-gods When we have oftentimes been thus begailed and that far besides expectation we grow at the length to this plain conclusion That there is nothing at all sound in any man Which bitter conceit is unseemly and plain to have risen from lack of mature judgment in humane affairs which iâ— so be we did handle with art we would not enter into dealings with men otherwise then being beforehand grounded in this perswasion that the number of persons notably good or bad is but very small that the most part of good have some evil and of evil men some good in them So true our experience doth find those Aphorisms of Mercurius Trismegistas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To purge gooddness quite and clean from all mixture of evil here is a thing impossible Again To 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When in this World we term a thing good we cannot by exact construction have any other true meaning then that the said thing so termed is not noted to be a thing exceeding evil And again Moros 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Amongst men OEsclapius The name of that which is good we finde but no where the very true thing it self When we censure the deeds and dealings of our Superiors to bring with us a fore-conceit thus qualified shall be as well on our part as theirs a thing availeable unto quietness But howsoever the case doth stand with mens either good or bad quality the verdict which our Lord and Saviour hath given should continue for ever sure Qua Dei sunt Deo let men bear the burthen of their own iniquity as for those things which are Gods let not God be deprived of them For if only to withold that which should be given be no better then to rob God if to withdraw any mite of that which is but in purpose only bequeathed though as yet undelivered into the sacred treasure of God be a Sin for which Ananias and Sapphyra felt so heavily the dreadful hand of Divine revenge quite and clean to take that away which we never gave and that after God hath for so many ages therewith been possessed and that without any other shew of cause saving only that it seemeth in their eyes who seek it to be too much for them which have it in their hands can we term it or think it less then most impious injustice most hainous sacriledge Such was the Religious affection of Ioseph that it suffered him not to take that advantage no not against the very Idolatrous Priests of Egypt which he took for the purchasing of other mens lands to the King but he considered that albeit their Idolatry deserved hatred yet for the honors sake due unto Priesthood better it was the King himself should yield them relief in publique extremity then permit that the same necessity should constrain also them to do as the rest of the people did But it may be men have now found out that God hath proposed the Christian Clergy as a prey for all men freely to seize upon that God hath left them as the fishes of the Sea which every man that lifteth to gather into his net may or that there is no God in Heaven to pity them and to regard the injuries which man doth lay upon them Yet the publique good of this Church and Commonwealth doth I hope weigh somewhat in the hearts of all honestly disposed men Unto the publique good no one thing is more directly availeable then that such as are in place whether it be of Civil or of Ecclesiastical Authority be so much the more largely furnished even with external helps and ornaments of this life how much the more highly they are in power and calling advanced above others For nature is not contented with bare sufficiency unto the sustenance of man but doth evermore cover a decency proportionable unto the place which man hath in the body or society of others For according unto the greatness of mens calling the measure of all their actions doth grow in every mans secret expectation so that great men do always know that great things are at their hands expected In a Bishop great liberality great hospitality actions in every kinde great are looked for And for actions which must be great mean instruments will noâ—serve Men are but men what room soever amongst men they hold If therefore the measure of their Worldly habilities be beneath that proportion which their calling doth make to be looked for at their hands a stronger inducement it is then perhaps men are aware of unto evil and corrupt dealings for supply of that defect For which cause we must needs think it a thing necessary unto the common good of the Church that great Jurisdiction being granted unto Bishops over others a state of wealth proportionable should likewise be provided for them where wealth is had in so great admiration as generally in this golden age it is that without it Angelical perfections are not able to deliver from extreme contempt surely to make Bishops poorer then they are were to make them of less account and estimation then they should be Wherefore if detriment and dishonor do grow to Religion to God to his Church when the publique account which is made of the chief of the Clergy decayeth how should it be but in this respect for the good of Religion of God of his Church that the wealth of Bishops be carefully preserved from further dimination The travels and crosses wherewith Prelacy is never unaccompanied they which feel them know how heavy and how great they are Unless such difficulties therefore annexed unto that estate be tempered by co-annexing thereunto things esteemed of in this World how should we hope that the minds of men shunning naturally the burthens of each function will be drawn to undertake the burthen of Episcopal care and labour in the Church of Christ Wherefore if long we desire to enjoy the peace quietness order and stability of Religion which Predacy as hath been declared causeth then must we necessarily even in favour of the publique good uphold those things the hope whereof being taken away it is not the meer goodness of the charge and the Divine acceptation thereof that will be able to invite many thereunto What shall become of that Commonwealth or Church in the end which hath not the eye of Learning to beautifie guide and direct it At the length what shall become of that Learning which hath not wherewith any more to encourage her industrious followers And finally what shall become
in dealing is tyed unto the soundest perfectest and most indifferent Rule which Rule is the Law I mean not only the Law of Nature and of God but the National Law consonant thereunto Happier that people whose Law is their King in the greatest things then that whose King is himself their Law where the King doth guide the State and the Law the King that Common-wealth is like an Harp or Melodious Instrument the strings whereof are turned and handled all by one hand following as Laws the Rules and Canons of Musical Science Most divinely therefore Archytas maketh unto publike felicity these four steps and degrees every of which doth spring from the former as from another cause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The King ruling by Law the Magistrate following the Subject free and the whole Society happy Adding on the contrary side that where this order is not it cometh by transgression thereof to pass that a King groweth a Tyrant he that ruleth under him abhorreth to be guided by him or commanded the people subject unto both have freedome under neither and the whole Community is wretched In which respect I cannot chuse but commend highly their wisdom by whom the Foundations of the Common-wealth hath been laid wherein though no manner of Person or cause be unsubject unto the Kings Power yet so is the Power of the King over all and in all limited that unto all his proceedings the Law it self is a rule The Axioms of our Regal Government are these Lex facit regem The Kings Grant of any favour made contrary to the Law is void Rex nibil potest nisi quod jure potest Our Kings therefore when they are to take possession of the Crown they are called unto have it pointed our before their eyes even by the very Solemnities and Rites of their Inauguration to what affairs by the same Law their Supream Power and Authority reacheth crowned we see they are enthronized and annointed the Crown a Sign of a Military Dominion the Throne of Sedentary or Judicial the Oyl of Religious and Sacred Power It is not on any side denied that Kings may have Authority in Secular affairs The Question then is What power they may lawfully have and exercise in causes of God A Prince or Magistrate or a Community saith Doctor Stapleton may have power to lay corporal punishment on them which are teachers of perverse things power to make Laws for the Peace of the Church Power to proclaim to defend and even by revenge to preserve dogmata the very Articles of Religion themselves from violation Others in affection no less devoted unto the Papacy do likewise yield that the Civil Magistrate may by his Edicts and Laws keep all Ecclesiastical Persons within the bounds of their duties and constrain them to observe the Canons of the Church to follow the rule of ancient Discipline That if Ioash was commended for his care and provision concerning so small a part of Religion as the Church-treasure it must needs be both unto Christian Kings themselves greater honour and to Christianity a larger benefit when the custody of Religion and the worship of God in general is their charge It therefore all these things mentioned be most properly the affairs of Gods Ecclesiastical causes if the actions specified be works of power and if that power be such as Kings may use of themselves without the fear of any other power superior in the same thing it followeth necessarily that Kings may have supream power not only in Civil but also in Ecclesiastical affairs and consequently that they may withstand what Bishop or Pope soever shall under the pretended claim of higher Spiritual Authority oppose themselves against their proceedings But they which have made us the former grant will never hereunto condescend what they yield that Princes may do it is with secret exception always understood If the Bishop of Rome give leave if he enterpose no prohibition wherefore somewhat it is in shew in truth nothing which they grant Our own Reformes do the very like when they make their discourse in general concerning the Authority which Magistrates may have a man would think them to be far from withdrawing any jot of that which with reason may be thought due The Prince and Civil Magistrate saith one of them hath to see the Laws of God touching his Worship and touching all Matters and all Orders of the Church to be executed and duly observed and to see every Ecclesiastical Person do that office whereunto he is appointed and to punish those which fail in their office accordingly Another acknowledgeth That the Magistrate may lawfully uphold all truth by his Sword punish all persons enforce all to their duties towards God and men maintain by his Laws every point of Gods Word punish all vice in all men see into all causes visit the Ecclesiastical Estate and correct the abuses thereof Finally to look to his Subjects that under him they may lead their lives in all godliness and honesty◠A third more frankly prosesseth That in case their Church Discipline were established so little it shortneth the Arms of Soveraign Dominion in causes Ecclesiastical that Her Gracious Majesty for any thing they teach or hold to the contrary may no less then now remain still over all persons in all things Supream Governess even with that full and Royal Authority Superiority and Preheminence Supremacy and Prerogative which the Laws already established do give her and her Majesties Injunctions and the Articles of the Convocation house and other writings Apologetical of her Royal Authority and Supream Dignity do declare and explain Possidonius was wont to say of the Epicure That he thought there were no Gods but that those things which he spake concerning the Gods were only given out for fear of growing adious amongst men and therefore that in words he left gods remaining but in very deed overthrew them in so much as he gave them no kind of Action After the very self same manner when we come unto those particular effects Prerogatives of Dominion which the Laws of this Land do grant unto the Kings thereof it will appear how these men notwithstanding their large and liberal Speeches abate such parcels out of the afore alleadged grant and flourishing shew that a man comparing the one with the other may half stand in doubt lest their Opinion in very truth be against that Authority which by their Speeches they seem mightily to uphold partly for the avoiding of publike obloquie envie and hatred partly to the intent they may both in the cad by the establishment of their Discipline extinguish the force of Supream Power which Princes have and yet in the mean while by giving forth these smooth Discourses obtain that their savourers may have somewhat to alleadge for them by way of Apologie and that such words only sound towards all kind of fulness of Power But for my self I had rather construe such their contradictions in the better
part and impute their general acknowledgment of the lawfullness of Kingly Power unto the force of truth presenting it self before them sometimes above their particular contrarieties oppositions denyals unto that errour which having so fully possest their minds casteth things inconvenient upon them of which things in their due place Touching that which is now in hand weare on all sides fully agreed First that there is not any restraint or limitation of matter for regal Authority and Power to be conversant in but of Religion onely and of whatsoever cause thereunto appertaineth Kings may lawfully have change they lawfully may therein exercise Dominion and use the temporal Sword Secondly that some kind of actions conversant about such affairs are denyed unto Kings As namely Actions of Power and Order and of Spiritual Jurisdiction which hath with it inseparably joyned Power to Administer the Word and Sacraments power to Ordain to Judge as an Ordinary to bind and loose to Excommunicate and such like Thirdly that even in those very actions which are proper unto Dominion there must be some certain rule whereunto Kings in all their proceedings ought to be strictly tyed which rule for proceeding in Ecclesiasticall affairs and causes by Regal Power hath not hitherto been agreed upon with such uniform consent and certainty as might be wished The different sentences of men herein I will now go about to examine but it shall be enough to propose what Rule doth seem in this case most reasonable The case of deriving Supream Power from a whole intire multitude into some special part thereof as partly the necessity of expedition in publick affairs partly the inconvenience of confusion and trouble where a multitude of Equals dealeth and partly the dissipation which must needs ensue in companies where every man wholly seeketh his own particular as we all would do even with other mens hurts and haply the very overthrow of themselves in the end also if for the procurement of the common good of all men by keeping every several man is order some were not invested with Authority over all and encouraged with Prerogative-Honour to sustain the weighty burthen of that charge The good which is proper unto each man belongeth to the common good of all as part to the whole perfection but these two are things different for men by that which is proper are severed united they are by that which is common Wherefore besides that which moveth each man in particular to seek his own private good there must be of necessity in all publick Societies also a general mover directing unto common good and framing every mans particular unto it The end whereunto all Government was instituted was Bonum publicum the Universal or Common good Our question is of Dominion for that end and purpose derived into one such as all in one publick State have agreed that the Supream charge of all things should be committed unto one They I say considering what inconveniency may grow where States are subject unto sundry Supream Authorities have for fear of these inconveniencies withdrawn from liking to establish many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the multitude of Supream Commanders is troublesome No Nan saith our Saviour can serve two Masters surely two supream Masters would make any ones service somewhat uneasie in such cases as might fall out Suppose that to morrow the Power which hath Dominion in Justice require thee at the Court that which in War at the Field that which in Religion at the Temple all have equal Authority over thee and impossible it is that then in such case thou shouldst be obedient unto all By chusing any one whom thou wilt obey certain thou art for thy disobedience to incur the displeasure of the other two But there is nothing for which some comparable reason or other may not be found are we able to shew any commendable State of Government which by experience and practice hath felt the benefit of being in all causes subject unto the Supream Authority of one Against the policy of the Israelites I hope there will no man except where Moses deriving so great a part of his burthen in Government unto others did notwithstanding retain to himself Universal Supremacy Iehosaphat appointing one to be chosen in the affairs of God and another in the Kings affair's did this as having Dominion over them in both If therefore from approbation of Heaven the Kings of Gods own chosen people had in the affairs of Jewish Religion Supream Power why not Christian Kings the like also in Christian Religion First unless men will answer as some have done That the Jews Religion was of far less perfection and dignity then ours our being that truth whereof theirs was but a shadowish prefigurative resemblance Secondly That all parts of their Religion their Laws their Sacrifices and their Rights and Ceremonies being fully set down to their hands and needing no more but only to be put in execution the Kings might well have highest Authority to see that done whereas with us there are a number of Mysteries even in Belief which were not so generally for them as for us necessary to be with sound express acknowledgement understood A number of things belonging to external Government and our manner of serving God not set down by particular Ordinances and delivered to us in writing for which cause the State of the Church doth now require that the Spiritual Authority of Ecclesiastical persons be large absolute and not subordinate to Regal power Thirdly That whereas God armeth Religion Iewish as Christian with the Temporal sword But of Spiritual punishment the one with power to imprison to scourge to put to death The other with bare authority to Censure and excommunicate There is no reason that the Church which hath no visible sword should in Regiment be subject unto any other power then only unto theirs which have authority to bind and loose Fourthly That albeit whilst the Church was restrained unto one people it seemed not incommodious to grant their King the general Chiefty of Power yet now the Church having spread it self over all Nations great inconveniences must therby grow if every Christian King in his several Territory shall have the like power Of all these differences there is not one which doth prove it a thing repugnant to the Law either of God or of Nature that all Supremacy of external Power be in Christian Kingdoms granted unto Kings thereof for preservation of quietness unity order and peace in such manner as hath been shewed Of the Title of Headship FOr the Title or State it self although the Laws of this Land have annexed it to the Crown yet so far◠we should not strive if so be men were nice and scrupulous in this behalf only because they do wish that for reverence to Christ Jesus the Civil Magistrate did rather use some other form of speech wherewith to express that Soveraign Authority which he lawfully hath overall both
respect of their bad qualities their wickedness in it self a deprivation of right to deal in the affairs of the Church and a warrant for others to deal in them which are held to be of a clean other Society the Members whereof have been before so peremptorily for ever excluded from power of dealing for ever with affairs of the Church They which once have learned throughly this Lesson will quickly be capable perhaps of another equivalent unto it For the wickedness of the Ministery transfers their right unto the King In case the King be as wicked as they to whom then shall the right descend There is no remedy all must come by devolution at length even as the Family of Brown will have it unto the godly among the people for confusion unto the wise and the great by the poor and the simple Some Kniper doling with his retinue must take this work of the Lord in hand and the making of Church-Laws and Orders must prove to be their right in the end If not for love of the truth yet for shame of grosse absurdities let these contentions and stifling fancies be abandoned The cause which moved them for a time to hold a wicked Ministery no lawful Ministry and in this defect of a lawful Ministery authorized Kings to make Laws and Orders for the Affairs of the Church till it were well established is surely this First They see that whereas the continual dealing of the Kings of Israel in the Affairs of the Church doth make now very strong against them the burthen whereof they shall in time well enough shake off if it may be obtained that it is indeed lawful for Kings to follow these holy examples howbeit no longer than during the case of necessity while the wickednesse and in respect thereof the unlawfulness of the Ministery doth continue Secondly They perceive right well that unlesse they should yield Authority unto Kings in case of such supposed necessity the Discipline they urge were clean excluded as long as the Clergy of England doth thereunto remain opposite To open therefore a door for her entrance there is no remedy but the Tenet must be this That now when the Ministery of England is universally wicked and in that respect hath lost all Authority and is become no lawful Ministery no such Ministery as hath the right which otherwise should belong unto them if they were vertuous and godly as their Adversaries are in this necessity the King may do somewhat for the Church that which we do imply in the name of Headship he may both have and exercise till they be entered which will disburthen and ease him of it till they come the King is licensed to hold that Power which we call Headship But what afterwards In a Church ordered that which the Supream Magistrate hath to do is to see that the Laws of God touching his Worship and touching all matters and orders of the Church be executed and duly observed to see that every Ecclesiastical Person do that Office whereunto he is appointed to punish those that fail in their Office In a word that which Allain himself acknowledgeth unto the Earthly power which God hath given him it doth belong to defend the Laws of the Church to cause them to be executed and to punish Rebels and Transgressors of the same on all sides therfore it is confest that to the King belongeth power of maintaining the Laws made for Church-Regiment and of causing them to be observed but Principality of Power in making them which is the thing we attribute unto Kings this both the one sort and the other do withstand Touching the Kings supereminent authority in commanding and in judging of Causes Ecclesiastical First to explain therein our meaning It hath been taken as if we did hold that Kings may prescribe what themselves think good to be done in the service of God how the Word shall be taught how the Sacraments administred that Kings may personally sit in the Consistory where the Bishops do hearing and determining what Causes soever do appertain unto the Church That Kings and Queens in their own proper Persons are by Judicial Sentence to decide the Questions which do rise about matters of Faith and Christian Religion That Kings may excommunicate Finally That Kings may do whatsoever is incident unto the Office and Duty of an Ecclesiastical Judge Which opinion because we account as absurd as they who have fathered the same upon us we do them to wit that this is our meaning and no otherwise There is not within this Realm an Ecclesiastical Officer that may by the Authority of his own place command universally throughout the Kings Dominions but they of this People whom one may command are to anothers commandement unsubject Only the Kings Royal Power is of so large compass that no man commanded by him according to the order of Law can plead himself to be without the bounds and limits of that Authority Isay according to order of Law because that with us the highest have thereunto so tyed themselves that otherwise than so they take not upon them to command any And that Kings should be in such sort Supream Commanders over all men we hold it requisite as well for the ordering of Spiritual as Civil Affairs in as much as without universal Authority in this kinde they should not be able when need is to do as vertuous Kings have done Josiah parposing to renew the House of the Lord assembled the Priests and Levites and when they were together gave them their charge saying Go out unto the Cities of Judah and gather of Israel money to repair the House of the Lord from year to year and haste the things But the Levites hastned not Therefore the King commanded Jehoida the Chief-priest and said unto him Why hast thou not required of the Levites to bring in out of Judah and Jerusalem the Tax of Moses the Servant of the Lord and of the Congregation of Israel for the Tabernacle of the Testimony For wicked Athalia and her Children brake up the House of the Lord God and all the things that were dedicated for the House of the Lord did they bestow upon Balaam Therefore the King commanded and they made a Chest and set it at the Gate of the House of the Lord without and they made a Proclamation through Judah and Jerusalem to bring unto the Lord the Tax of Moses the Servant of the Lord laid upon Israel in the Wilderness Could either he have done this or after him Ezekias the like concerning the celebration of the Passeover but that all sorts of men in all things did owe unto these their Soveraign Rulers the same obedience which sometimes Iosuah had them by vow and promise bound unto Whosoever shall rebel against thy Commandments and will not obey thy words in all thou commandest him let him be put to death only be strong and of a good courage Furthermore Judgement Ecclesiastical we say is
necessary for decision of Controversies rising between man and man and for correction of faults committed in the Affairs of God unto the due execution whereof there are three things necessary Laws Judges and Supream Governours of Judgements What Courts there shall be and what causes shall belong unto each Court and what Judges shall determine of every cause and what Order in all Judgements shall be kept of these things the Laws have sufficiently disposed so that his duty who sitteth in any such Court is to judge not of but after the same Law Imprimis illud observare debet Iudex ne aliter judicet quam legibus constitutionibus aut moribus proditum est ut Imperator Iustinianaus which Laws for we mean the positive Laws of our Realm concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs if they otherwise dispose of any such thing than according to the Law of Reason and of God we must both acknowledge them to be amiss and endeavour to have them reformed But touching that point what may be objected shall after appear Our Judges in Causes Ecclesiastical are either Ordinary or Commissionary Ordinary those whom we term Ordinaries and such by the Laws of this Land are none but Prelates onely whose Power to do that which they do is in themselves and belonging to the nature of their Ecclesiastical calling In Spiritual Causes a Lay-Person may be no Ordinary a Commissionary Judge there is no lett but that he may be and that our Laws do evermore referr the ordinary Judgement of Spiritual Causes unto Spiritual Persons such as are termed Ordinaries no man which knoweth any thing of the Practice of this Realm can easily be ignorant Now besides them which are Authorized to judge in several Territories there is required an universal Power which reacheth over all imparting Supream Authority of Government over all Courts all Judges all Causes the operation of which Power is as well to strengthen maintain and uphold particular Jurisdictions which haply might else be of small effect as also to remedy that which they are not able to help and to redress that wherein they at any time do otherwise than they ought to do This Power being sometime in the Bishop of Rome who by sinister Practises had drawn it into his hands was for just considerations by Publick consent annexed unto the Kings Royal Seat and Crown from thence the Authors of Reformation would translate it into their National Assemblies or Synods which Synods are the onely helps which they think lawful to use against such Evils in the Church as particular Jurisdictions are not sufficient to redress In which Cause our Laws have provided that the Kings supereminent Authority and Power shall serve As namely when the whole Ecclesiastical State or the Principal Persons therein do need Visitation and Reformation when in any part of the Church Errours Schismes Herusies Abuses Offences Contempts Enormities are grown which men in their several Jurisdictions either do not or cannot help Whatsoever any Spiritual Authority and Power such as Legates from the See of Rome did sometimes exercise hath done or might heretofore have done for the remedies of those Evils in lawful sort that is to say without the violation of the Laws of God or Nature in the deed done as much in every degree our Laws have fully granted that the King for ever may do not onely be setting Ecclesiastical Synods on work that the thing may be their Act and the King their Motioner unto it for so much perhaps the Masters of the Reformation will grant but by Commissions few or many who having the Kings Letters Patents may in the vertue thereof execute the premises as Agents in the right not of their own peculiar and ordinary but of his supereminent Power When men are wronged by inferiour Judges or have any just cause to take exception against them their way for Redress is to make their Appeal and Appeal is a present delivery of him which maketh it out of the hands of their Power and Jurisdictions from whence it is made Pope Alexander having sometimes the King of England at advantage caused him amongst other things to agree that as many of his Subjects as would might have appeal to the Court of Rome And thus saith one that whereunto a mean Person at this day would scorn to submit himself so great a King was content to he subject to Notwithstanding even when the Pope saith he had so great Authority amongst Princes which were farr off the Romans he could not frame to obedience nor was able to obtain that himself might abide at Rome though promising not to meddle with other than Ecclesiastical Affairs So much are things that terrifie more feared by such as behold them aloof off than at hand Reformers I doubt not in some Causes will admit Appeals but Appeals made to their Synods even as the Church of Rome doth allow of them so they be made to the Bishop of Rome As for that kinde of Appeal which the English Laws do approve from the Judge of any certain particular Court unto the King as the onely Supream Governour on Earth who by his Delegates may give a final definitive Sentence from which no farther Appeal can be made Will their Plat-form allow of this Surely forasmuch as in that estate which they all dream of the whole Church must be divided into Parishes in which none can have greater or less Authority and Power than another again the King himself must be but a common Member in the Body of his own Parish and the causes of that onely Parish must be by the Officers thereof determinable In case the King had so much favour or preferment as to be made one of those Officers for otherwise by their positions he were not to meddle any more than the meanest amongst his Subjects with the Judgement of any Ecclesiastical Cause how is it possible they should allow of Appeals to be made from any other abroad to the King To receive Appeals from all other Judges belongeth to the highest in power of all and to be in power over All as touching Judgment in Ecclesiastical Causes this as they think belongeth onely to Synods Whereas therefore with us Kings do exercise over all Things Persons and Causes Supream Power both of voluntary and litigious Jurisdictionsâ— so that according to the one they incite reform and command according to the other they judge universally doing both in farr other sort than such as have ordinary Spiritual power oppugned we are herein by some colourable shew of Argument as if to grant thus much to any Secular Person it were unreasonable For sith it is say they apparent out of the Chronicles that judgement in Church-matters pertaineth to God Seeing likewise it is evident out of the Apostles that the High-Priest is set over those matters in Gods behalf It must needs follow that the Principality or direction of the Iudgment of them is by Gods ordinance appertaining to the High-Priest and
the web of Salvation is spun Except your Righteousness exceed the Righteousness of the Stribes and Pharisees ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven They were rigorous exacters of things not utterly to be neglected and left undone washing and tything c. As they were in these so must we be in judgement and the love of God Christ in Works Ceremonial giveth more liberty in moral much less than they did Works of Righteousness therefore are added in the one Proposition as in the other Circumcision is 31. But we say our Salvation is by Christ alone therefore howsoever or whatsoever we adde unto Christ in the matter of Salvation we overthrow Christ. Our Case were very hard if this Argument so universally meant as it is proposed were sound and good We our selves do not teach Christ alone excluding our own Faith unto Justification Christ alone excluding our own Works unto Sanctification Christ alone excluding the one or the other unnecessary unto Salvation It is a childish Cavil wherewith in the matter of Justification our Adversaries do so greatly please themselves exclaiming that we tread all Christian vertues under our feet and require nothing in Christians but Faith because we teach that Faith alone justifieth whereas by this speech we never meant to excluded either Hope or Charity from being always joyned as inseparable Mates with Faith in the man that is justified or Works from being added as necessary Duties required at the hands of every justified man But to shew that Faith is the onely hand which putteth on Christ unto Justification and Christ the onely Garment which being so put on covereth the shame of our defiled natures hideth the imperfection of our Works preserveth us blameless in the sight of God before whom otherwise the weaknesse of our Faith were cause sufficent to make us culpable yea to shut us from the Kingdom of Heaven where nothing that is not absolute can enter That our dealing with them he not as childish as theirs with us when we hear of Salvation by Christ alone considering that alone as an exclusive Particle we are to note what it doth exclude and where If I say Such a Iudge onely ought to determine such a case all things incident to the determination thereof besides the Person of the Judge as Laws Depositions Evidences c. are not hereby excluded Persons are not excluded from witnessing herein or assisting but onely from determining and giving Sentence How then is our Salvation wrought by Christ alone Is it our meaning that nothing is requisite to man's Salvation but Christ to save and he to be saved quietly without any more adoe No we acknowledge no such Foundation As we have received so we teach that besides the bare and naked work wherein Christ without any other Associate finished all the parts of our Redemption and purchased Salvation himself alone for conveyance of this eminent blessing unto us many things are of necessity required as to be known and chosen of God before the foundation of the World in the World to be called justified sanctified after we have lest the World to be received unto glory Christ in every of these hath somewhat which he worketh alone Through him according to the Eternal purpose of God before the foundation of the World Born Crucified Buried Raised c. we were in a gracious acceptation known unto God long before we were seen of men God knew us loved us was kinde to us in Jesus Christ in him we were elected to be Heirs of Life Thus farr God through Christ hath wrought in such sort alone that our selves are mere Patients working no more than dead and senseless Matter Wood Stone or Iron doth in the Artificers hands no more than Clay when the Potter appointeth it to be framed for an honourable use nay not so much for the matter whereupon the Craftsman worketh he chuseth being moved by the fitness which is in it to serve his turn in us no such thing Touching the rest which is laid for the foundation of our Faith it importeth farther That by him we are called that we have Redemption Remission of sins through his blood Health by his stripes Justice by him that he doth sanctifie his Church and make it glorius to himself that entrance into joy shall be given us by Him yea all things by him alone Howbeit not so by him alone as if in us to our Vocation the hearing of the Gospel to our Justification Faith to our Sanctification the fruits of the Spirit to our entrance into rest perseverance in Hope in Faith in Holinesse were not necessary 32. Then what is the fault of the Church of Rome Not that she requireth Works at their hands which will be saved but that she attributeth unto Works a power of satisfying God for Sinne yea a vertue to merit both Grace here and in Heaven Glory That this overthroweth the foundation of Faith I grant willingly that it is a direct elenyal thereof Iutterly deny What it is to hold and what directly to deny the foundation of Faith I have already opened Apply it particularly to this Cause and there needs no more adoe The thing which is handled if the form under which it is handled be added thereunto it sheweth the foundation of any Doctrine whatsoever Christ is the Matter whereof the Doctrin of the Gospel treateth and it treateth of Christ as of a Saviour Salvation therefore by Christ is the foundation of Christianity as for works they are a thing subordinate no otherwise than because our Sanctification cannot be accomplished without them The Doctrine concerning them is a thing builded upon the foundation therefore the Doctrin which addeth unto them the power of satisfying or of meriting addeth unto a thing sabordinated builded upon the foundation not to the very foundation it self yet is the foundation by this addition consequently overthrown forasmuch as out of this addition it may be negatively concluded He which maketh any work good and acceptable in the sight of God to proceed from the natural freedom of our will he which giveth unto any good works of ours the force of satisfying the wrath of God for sinne the power of meriting either earthly or heavenly rewards he which holdeth Works going before our Vocation in congruity to merit our Vocation Works following our first to merit our second Justification and by condignity our last Reward in the Kingdom of Heaven pulleth up the Doctrin of Faith by the roots for out of every of these the plain direct denial thereof may be necessarily concluded Not this onely but what other Heresie is there that doth not raze the very foundation of Faith by consequent Howbeit we make a difference of Heresies accounting them in the next degree to infidelity which directly deny any one thing to be which is expresly acknowledged in the Articles of our Belief for out of any one Article so denied the denial of
men And fearing left that such questions as these if voluntarily they should be too farr waded in might seem worthy of that rebuke which our Saviour thought needfull in a case not unlike What is this unto thee When I was forced much beside my expectation to render a reason of my speech I could not but yield at the Call of others and proceed so farr as Duty bound me for the fuller satisfying of mindes Wherein I have walked as with Reverence so with Fear with Reverence inregard of our Fathers which lived in former times not without Fear considering them that are alive 38. I am not ignorant how ready men are to feed and sooth up themselves in evil Shall I will the man say that loveth the present World more than he loveth Christ shall I incurr the high displeasure of the mightiest upon Earth Shall I hazard my Goods endanger my Estate put my self into jeopardy rather than to yield to that which so many of my Fathers imbraced and yet found favour in the sight of God Curse ye Meroz saith the Lord curse bar Inhabitants because they helped not the Lord they helped him not against the Mighty If I should not onely not help the Lord against the Mighty but help to strengthen them that are mighty against the Lord worthily might I fall under the burthen of that Curse worthy I were to bear to bear my own Judgement But if the Doctrine which I reach be a flower gathered in the Garden of the Lord a part of the saying Truth of the Gospel from whence notwithstanding poysonous Creatures do suck-venom I can but wish it were otherwise and content my self with the lord that hath befallen me the rather because it hath not befallen me alone Saint Paul taught a Truth and a comfortable truth when he taught that the greater our misery is in respect of our Iniquities the readier is the mercy of God for our release If we seek unto him the more we have sinned the more praise and glory and honour unto him that pardoneth our sinne But mark what sewd Collections were made hereupon by some Why then am I condemned for a Sinner And the Apostle as we are blamed and as some affirm that we say Why doe we not evil that good may come of it he was accused to teach that which ill-disposed People did gather by his teaching though it were clean not onely besides but against his meaning The Apostle addeth Their Condemnation which thus doe is just I am not hasty to apply Sentences of Condemnation I wish from mine Heart their Conversion whosoever are thus perversly affected For I must needs say Their Case is fearful their Estate dangerous which harden themselves presuming on the mercy of God towards others It is true that God is merciful but let us beware of presumptuous sinnes God delivered Ionah from the bottome of the Sea will you therefore cast your selves head-long from the tops of Rocks and say in your Hearts God shall deliver us He pitieth the Blinde that would gladly see but will he pity him that may see and hardeneth himself in blindenesse No Christ hath spoken too much unto you to claim the priviledge of your Fathers 39. As for us that have handled this Cause concerning the condition of our Fathers whether it be this thing or any other which we bring unto you the Counsel is good which the Wise man giveth Stand thou fast in thy sure understanding in the way and knowledge of the Lord and have but one manner of word and follow the Word of peace and righteousnesse As a loose tooth is a grief to him that eateth so doth a wavering and unstable word in speech that tendeth to instruction offend Shall a wise man speak words of the winde saith Eliphaz leight unconstant unstable words Surely the wisest may speak words of the winde such is the untoward Constitution of our nature that we doe neither so perfectly understand the way and knowledge of the Lord nor so stedfastly imbrace it when it is understood nor so graciously utter it when it is imbraced not so peaceably maintain it when it is uttered but that the best of us are over-taken sometime through blindenesse sometime through hastinesse sometime through impatience sometimes through other passions us the minde whereunto God doth know we are too subject We must therefore be contented both to pardon others and to crave that others may pardon us for such things Let no man that speaketh as a man think himself while he liveth alwayes freed from scapes and over-sights in his speech The things themselves which I have spoken unto you are sound howsoever they have seemed otherwise unto some at whose hands I have in that respect received Injury I willingly forget it although indeed considering the benefit which I have reaped by this necessary speech of Truth I rather incline to that of the Apostle They have not injured me at all I have cause to wish them as many Blessings in the Kingdom of Heaven as they have forced me to utter words and syllables in this Cause wherein I could not be more sparing of speech than I have been It becommeth no man saith Saint Ierom to be patient in the crime of Heresie Patient as I take it we should be alwayes though the crime of Heresie were intended but silent in a thing of so great Consequence I could not beloved I durst not be especially the love which I bear to the truth of Christ Jesus being hereby somewhat called in question Whereof I beseech them in the meeknesse of Christ that have been the first original cause to consider that a Watch-man may cry an Enemy when indeed a Friend commeth In which Cause as I deem such a Watch-man more worthy to be loved for his Care than mis-liked for his Errour So I have judged it my own part in this as much as in me lyeth to take away all suspition of any unfriendly intent or meaning against the Truth from which God doth know my heart is free 40. Now to you Beloved which have heard these things I will use no other words of admonition than those that are offered me by St. Iames My Brethren have not the Faith of our glorious Lord Iesus in respect of Persons Ye are not now to learn that as of it self it is not hurtful so neither should it be to any scandalous and offensive in doubtful cases to hear the different judgments of men Be it that Cephas hath hath one interpretation and Apollos hath another that Paul is of this minde and Barnabas of that if this offend you the fault is yours Carry peaceable mindes and you may have comfort by this variety Now the God of Peace give you peaceable mindes and turn it to your everlasting comfort A LEARNED SERMON OF THE NATURE OF PRIDE HABAK. 2. 4. His mind swelleth and is not right in him But the Iust by his Faith shall live THE nature of Man being much more delighted to
be led than drawn doth many times stubbornly resist Authority when to Perswasion it easily yieldeth Whereupon the Wisest Law-makers have endeavoured always that those Laws might seem most reasonable which they would have most inviolably kept A Law simply commanding or forbidding is but dead in comparison of that which expresseth the reason wherefore it doth the one or the other And surely even in the Laws of God although that he hath given Commandment be in it self a reason sufficient to exact all obedience at the hands of men yet a forcible inducement it is to obey with greater alacrity and chearfulnesse of minde when we see plainly that nothing is imposed more than we must needs yield unto except we will be unreasonable In a word whatsoever be taught be it Precept for direction of our Manners or Article for instruction of our Faith or document any way for information of our mindes it then taketh root and abideth when we conceive not onely what God doth speak but why Neither is it a small thing which we derogate as well from the honour of his Truth as from the comfort joy and delight which we our selves should take by it when we loosely slide over his speech as though it were as our own is commonly vulgar and trivial Whereas he uttereth nothing but it hath besides the substance of Doctrine delivered a depth of wisdom in the very choice and frame of words to deliver it in The reason whereof being not perceived but by greater intention of brain than our nice mindes for the most part can well away with fain we would bring the World if we might to think it but a needless curiosity to rip up any thing further than extemporal readness of wit doth serve to reach unto Which course if here we did list to follow we might tell you that in the first branch of this Sentence God doth condemn the Babylonian's pride and in the second teach what happiness of state shall grow to the righteous by the constancy of their Faith notwithstanding the troubles which now they suffer and after certain notes of wholsome instruction hereupon collected pass over without detaining your mindes in any further removed speculation But as I take it there is a difference between the talk that beseemeth Nurses among Children and that which men of Capacity and Judgment do or should receive instruction by The minde of the Prophet being erected with that which hath been hitherto spoken receiveth here for full satisfaction a short abridgement of that which is afterwards more particularly unfolded Wherefore as the question before disputed of doth concern two sorts of men the Wicked flourishing as the Bay and the righteous like the withered Grass the one full of pride the other cast down with utter discouragement so the answer which God doth make for resolution of doubts hereupon arisen hath reference unto both sorts and this present sentence containing a brief Abstract thereof comprehendeth summarily as well the fearful estate of iniquity over-exalted as the hope laid up for righteousness opprest In the former branch of which Sentence let us first examine what this rectitude or straitness importeth which God denieth to be in the minde of the Babylonian All things which God did create he made them at the first true good and right True in respect of correspondence unto that pattern of their Being which was eternally drawn in the Counsel of God's fore-knowledge Good in regard of the use and benefit which each thing yieldeth unto other Right by an'apt conformity of all parts with that end which is outwardly proposed for each thing to tend unto Other things have ends proposed but have not the faculty to know judge and esteem of them and therefore as they tend thereunto unwittingly so likewise in the means whereby they acquire their appointed ends they are by necessity so held that they cannot divert from them The ends why the Heavens do move the Heavens themselves know not and their motions they cannot but continue Only men in all their actions know what it is which they seek for neither are they by any such necessity tyed naturally unto any certain determinate mean to obtain their end by but that they may if they will forsake it And therefore in the whole World no Creature but onely man which hath the last end of his actions proposed as a recompence and reward whereunto his minde directly bending it self is termed right or strait otherwise perverse To make this somewhat more plain we must note that as they which travel from City to City enquire ever for the straightest way because the streightest is that which soonest bringeth them unto their journeys end So we having here as the Apostle speaketh no abiding City but being always in travel towards that place of joy immortality and rest cannot but in every of our deeds words and thoughts think that to be best which with most expedition leadeth us thereunto and is for that very cause termed right That Soveraign good which is the eternal fruition of all good being our last and chiefest felicity there is no desperate Despiser of God and godliness living which doth not wish for The difference between right and crooked mindes is in the means which the one of the other eschew or follow Certain it is that all particular things which are naturally desired in the world as Food Rayment Honor Wealth Pleasure Knowledge they are subordinated in such wise unto that future Good which we look for in the World to come that even in them there lyeth a direct way tending unto this Otherwise we must think that God making promises of good things in this life did seek to pervert men and to lead them from their right minds Where is then the obliquity of the minde of man his minde is perverse cam and crooked not when it bendeth it self unto any of these things but when it bendeth so that it swerveth either to the right hand or to the left by excess or defect from that exact rule whereby Human actions are measured The rule to measure and judge them by is the Law of God For this cause the Prophet doth make so often and so earnest suit O direct me in the way of thy Commandments As long as I have respect to thy Statules I am sure not to tread amiss Under the name of the Law we must comprehend not only that which God hath written in Tables and Leaves but that which Nature also hath engraven in the hearts of men Else how should those Heathens which never had Books but Heaven and Earth to look upon be convicted of Perverseness But the Gentiles which had not the Law in Books had saith the Apostle the effect of the Law written in their hearts Then seeing that the heart of man is not right exactly unless it be found in all parts such that God examining and calling it unto account with all severity of rigour be not able once to charge it with
move as frighted men out of their places what Cave shall receive them What Mountain or Rock shall they get by intreaty to fall upon them What covert to hide them from that wrath which they shall neither be able to abide or avoid No man's misery therefore being greater than theirs whose impiety is most fortunate much more cause there is for them to bewail their own infelicity than for others to be troubled with their prosperous and happy estate as if the hand of the Almighty did not or would not touch them For these causes and the like unto these therefore Be not troubled Now though the cause of our heaviness be just yet may not our affections herein be yielded unto with too much indulgency and favour The grief of Compassion whereby we are touched with the feeling of other mens woes is of all other least dangerous Yet this is a leâ—â— unto sundry duties by this we are apt to spare sometimes where we ought to strike The grief which our own sufferings do bring what temptations have not risen from it What great advantage Satan hath taken even by the godly grief of hearty contrition for sins committed against God the near approaching of so many afflicted Souls whom the conscience of sinne hath brought unto the very brink of extreme despair doth but too abundantly shew These things wheresoever they fall cannot but trouble and molest the minde Whether we be therefore moved vainly with that which seemeth hurtful and is not or have just cause of grief being pressed indeed with those things which are grievous our Saviour's Lesson is touching the one Be not troubled not over-troubled for the other For though to have no â—eeling of that which meerly concerneth us were stupidity nevertheless seeing that as the Authour of our Salvation was himself Consecrated by affliction so the way which we are to follow him by is not strewed with rushes but set with thorns be it never so hard to learn we must learn to suffer with patience even that which seemeth almost impossible to be suffered that in the hour when God shall call us unto our trial and turn this honey of peace and pleasure wherewith we swell into that gall and bitterness which Flesh doth shrink to taste of nothing may cause us in the troubles of our Souls to storm and grudge and repine at God but every Heart be enabled with divinely-inspired courage to inculcate unto it self Be not troubled and in those last and greatest Conflicts to remember that nothing may be so sharp and bitter to be suffered but that still we our selves may give our selves this encouragement Even learn also patience O my Soul Naming Patience I name that vertue which onely hath power to stay our Souls from being over-excessively troubled A vertue wherein if ever any surely that Soul had good experience which extremity of pains having chased out of the Tabernacle of this Flesh Angels I nothing doubt have carried into the bosom of her Father Abraham The death of the Saints of God is precious in his sight And shall it seem unto us superfluous at such times as these are to hear in what manner they have ended their lives The Lord himself hath not disdained so exactly to register in the Book of Life after what sort his Servants have closed up their dayes on Earth that he descendeth even to their very meanest actions what meat they have longed for in their Sicknesse what they have spoken unto their Children Kinsfolks and Friends where they have willed their dead Carkasses to be laid how they have framed their Wills and Testaments yea the very turning of their Faces to this side or that the setting of their Eyes the degrees whereby their natural Heat hath departed from them their Cryes their Groans their Pantings Breathings and Last-gaspings he hath most solemnly commended unto the memory of all Generations The care of the living both to live and dye well must needs be somewhat encreased when they know that their departure shall not be foulded up in silence but the ears of many be made acquainted with it Again when they hear how mercifully God hath dealt with others in the hour of their last need besides the praise which they give to God and the joy which they have or should have by reason of their Fellowship and Communion of Saints is not their hope also much confirmed against the day of their own dissolution Finally the sound of these things doth not so passe the ears of them that are most loose and dissolute of life but it causeth them sometime or other to wish in their hearts Oh that we might dye the death of the Righteous and that our end might be like his Howbeit because to spend herein many words would be to strike even as many wounds into their mindes whom I rather wish to comfort Therefore concerning this vertuous Gentlewoman onely this little I speak and that of knowledge She lived a Dove and dyed a Lambe And if amongst so many Vertues hearty Devotion towards God towards Poverty tender Compassion Motherly Affection toward Servants towards Friends even serviceable kindness milde behaviour and harmless meaning towards all if where so many Vertues were eminent any be worthy of special mention I wish her dearest Friends of that sex to be her nearest Followers in two things Silence saving only where duty did exact speech and Patience even then when extremity of pains did enforce grief Blessed are they that dye in the Lord. And concerning the dead which are blessed let not the hearts of any living be over-charged with grief over-troubled Touching the latter affection of Fear which respecteth evil to come as the other which we have spoken of doth present evils first in the nature thereof it is plain that we are not of every future evil afraid Perceive we not how they whose tendernesse shrinketh at the least rase of a Needle 's Point do kisse the Sword that peirceth their Souls quite thorow If every Evil did cause Fear Sinne because it is Sinne would be feared whereas properly Sinne is not feared as Sinne but onely as having some kinde of harm annexed To teach men to avoid sinne it had been sufficient for the Apostle to say Flye it But to make them afraid of committing sinne because the naming of Sin sufficed not therefore he addeth further That it is as a Serpent which stingeth the Soul Again be it that some nocive or hurtful thing be towards us must fear of necessity follow hereupon Not except that hurtful thing doe threaten us either with destruction or vexation and that such as we have neither a conceit of ability to resist nor of utter impossibility to avoid That which we know our selves able to withstand we fear not and that which we know are unable to deferr or diminish or any way avoid we cease to fear we give our selves over to bear and sustain it The evil therefore which is feared must be in our perswasion
and the Church of Christ in this present World 57. The necessity of Sacrament unto the Participation of Christ. 58. The Substance of Baptism the Rites or Solemnities thereunto belonging and that the Substance thereof being kept other things in Baptism may give place to necessity 59. The Ground in Scripture whereupon a necessity of outward Baptism hath been built 60. What kinde of necessity in outward Baptism hath been gathered by the words of our Saviour Christ and what the true necessity thereof indeed is 61. What things in Baptism have been dispensed with by the Father respecting necessity 62. Whether Baptism by Women be true Baptism good and affected to them that receive it 63. Of Interrogatories in Baptism touching Faith and the purpose of a Christian life 64. Interrogatories proposed unto Infants in Baptism and answered aâ— in their names by God-fathers 65. Of the Cross in Baptism 66. Of Confirmation after Baptism 67. Of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. 68. Of faults noted in the Form of Administring that holy Sacrament 69. Of Festival days and the natural ceases of their convenient Institution 70. The manner of celebrating Festival days 71. Exceptious against our keeping of other Festival days besides the Sabbath 72. Of Days appointed as well for ordinary as for extraordinary Fasts in the Church of God 73. The Celebration of Matrimony 74. The Churching of Woman 75. The Rites of Burial 76. Of the Nature of that Ministry which serveth for performance of Divine Duties in the Church of God and how happiness not eternal onely but also Temporal doth depend upon it 77. Of Power given unto Men to execute that Heavenly Office of the Gift of the Holy Ghost is Ordination and whether conveniently the Power of Order may be sought or sued for 78. Of Degrees whereby the Power of Order is distinguished and concerning the Attire of Ministers 79. Of Oblations Foundations Endowments Tithes all intended for Perpetuity of Religion which purpose being chiefly fulfilled by the Clergâ—es certain and sufficient maintenance must needs by Alienation of Church-Livings be made frustrate 80. Of Ordinatious lawful without Title and without any Popular Election precedent but in no case without regard of due Information what their quality is that enter into holy Orders 81. Of the Learning that should be in Ministers their Residence and the number of their Livings FEw there are of so weak capacity but publick evils they easily espie fewer so patient as not to complain when the grievous inconveniences thereof work sensible smart Howbeit to see wherein the harm which they feel consisteth the Seeds from which it sprang and the method of curing it belongeth to a skill the study whereof is so full of toyl and the practise so beset with difficulties that wary and respective men had rather seek quietly their own and wish that the World may go well so it be not long of them them with pain and hazard make themselves advisers for the common good We which thought it at the very first a sign of cold Affection towards the Church of God to prefer private case before the labor of appeasing publick disturbance must now of necessity refer events to the gracious providence of Almighty God and in discharge of our duty towards him proceed with the plain and unpartial defence of a Common Cause Wherein our endeavor is not so much to overthrow them with whom we conted as to yield them just and reasonable causes of those things which for want of due consideration heretofore they misconceived accusing Laws for Mens over-sights importing evils grown through personal defects unto that which is not evil framing unto some Sores unwholsome Plaisters and applying othersome where no sore is To make therefore our beginning that which to both parts is most acceptable We agree That pure and unstained Religion ought to be the highest of all cares appertaining to Publick Regiment as well in regard of that aid and protection which they who faithfully serve God confess they receive at his merciful hands as also for the force which Religion hath to qualifie all sorts of Men and to make them in publick affairs the more serviceable Governors the apter to rule with Conscience Inferiors for Conscience sake the willinger to obey It is no peculiar conceit but a matter of sound consequence that all duties are by so much the better performed by how much the Men are more Religious from whose Abilities the same proceed For if the course of Politick affairs cannot in any good sort go forward without fit Instruments and that which sitteth them be their Vertues Let Polity acknowledge it self indebted to Religion Godliness being the chiefest top and Well-spring of all true vertues even as God is of all good things So natural is the Union of Religion with Justice that we may boldly deem there is neither where both are not For how should they be unseignedly just whom Religion doth not cause to be such or they Religious which are not found such by the proof of their just actions If they which employ their labor and travel about the publick administration of Justice follow it onely as a trade with unquenchable and unconscionable thirst of gain being not in heart perswaded that Justice is Gods own Work and themselves his Agents in this business the Sentence of Right Gods own verdict and themselves his Priests to deliver it Formalities of Justice do but serve to smother right and that which was necessarily ordained for the common good is through shameful abuse made the cause of common misery The same Piety which maketh them that are in authority desirous to please and resemble God by Justice inflameth every way Men of action with Zeal to do good as far as their place will permit unto all For that they know is most Noble and Divine Whereby if no natural nor casual inability cross their desires they always delighting to inure themselves with actions most beneficial to others cannot but gather great experience and through experience the more wisdom because Conscience and the fear of swerving from that which is right maketh them diligent observers of circumstances the loose regard whereof is the Nurse of Vulgar Folly no less then Solomons attention thereunto was of natural furtherances the most effectual to make him eminent above others For he gave good heed and pierced every thing to the very ground and by that means became the Author of many Parables Concerning Fortitude sith evils great and unexpected the true touchstone of constant mindes do cause oftentimes even them to think upon Divine power with fearfullest suspitions which have been otherwise the most secure despisers thereof how should we look for any constant resolution of minde in such cases saving onely where unfeigned affection to God-ward hath bred the most assured confidence to be assisted by his hand For proof whereof let but the Acts of the ancient Jews be indifferently
weighed from whose magnanimity in causes of most extream hazard those strange and unwonted resolutions have grown which for all circumstances no people under the Roof of Heaven did ever hitherto match And that which did always animate them was their meer Religion Without which if so be it were possible that all other Ornaments of Minde might be had in their full perfection nevertheless the minde that should possess them divorced from Piety could be but a spectacle of commiseration even as that Body is which adorned with sundry other admirable Beauties wanteth Eye-sight the chiefest Grace that Nature hath in that kinde to bestow They which commend so much the felicity of that innocent World wherein it is said That men of their own accord did embrace fidelity and honesty not for fear of the Magistrate or because revenge was before their eyes â— if at any time they should do otherwise but that which held the people in aw was the shame of ill-doing the love of equity and right it self a bar against all oppressions which greatness of power causeth They which describe unto us any such estate of happiness amongst men though they speak not of Religion do notwithstanding declare that which is in truth her onely working For if Religion did possess sincerely and sufficiently the hearts of all men there would need no other restraint from evil This doth not onely give life and perfection to all endeavors wherewith it concurreth but what event soever ensues it breedeth if not joy and gladness always yet always patience satisfaction and reasonable contentment of minde Whereupon it hath been set down as an Axiom of good experience that all things religiously taken in hand are prosperously ended because whether men in the end have that which Religion did allow them to desire or that which it teacheth them contentedly to suffer they are in neither event unfortunate But lest any man should here conceive that it greatly skilleth not of what sort our Religion be in as much as Heathens Turks and Infidels impute to Religion a great part of the same effects which our selves ascribe hereunto they having ours in the same detestation that we theirs It shall be requisite to observe well how far forth there may be agreement in the effects of different Religions First By the bitter strife which riseth oftentimes from small differences in this behalf and is by so much always greater as the matters is of more importance we see a general agreement in the secret opinion of men that every man ought to embrace the Religion which is true and to shun as hurtful whatsoever dissenteth from it but that most which doth farthest dissent The generality of which perswasion argueth That God hath imprinted it by nature to the end it might be a spur to our industry in searching and maintaining that Religion from which as to swerve in the least points is error so the capital enemies thereof God hateth as his deadly foes aliens and without repentance children of endless perdition Such therefore touching mans immortal state after this life are not likely to reap benefit by their Religion but to look for the clean contrary in regard of so important contrariety between it and the true Religion Nevertheless in as much as the errors of the most seduced this way have been mixed with some truths we are not to marvel that although the one did turn to their endless wo and confusion yet the other had many notable effects as touching the affairs of this present life There were in these quarters of the World Sixteen hundred years ago certain speculative Men whose Authority disposed the whole Religion of those times By their means it became a received opinion that the Souls of Men departing this life do slit out of one Body into some other Which opinion though false yet entwined with a true that the Souls of Men do never perish abated the fear of death in them which were so resolved and gave them courage unto all adventures The Romans had a vain superstitious custom in most of their enterprises to conjecture before hand of the event by certain tokens which they noted in Birds or in the Intrails of Beasts or by other the like frivolous Divinations From whence notwithstanding as oft as they could receive any sign which they took to be favorable it gave them such hope as if their gods had made them more then half a promise of prosperous success Which many times was the greatest cause that they did prevail especially being men of their own natural inclination hopeful and strongly conceited whatsoever they took in hand But could their fond Superstition have furthered so great attempts without the mixture of a true perswasion concerning the unresistable force of Divine Power Upon the wilful violation of Oaths execrable Blasphemies and like contempts offered by Deriders of Religion even unto false gods fearful tokens of Divine Revenge have been know to follow Which occurrents the devouter sort did take for manifest Arguments that the gods whom they worshipped were of power to reward such as sought unto them and would plague those that feared them not In this they erred For as the Wise man rightly noteth conning such it was not the power of them by whom they sware but the vengeance of them that sinned which punished the offences of the ungodly It was their hurt untruly to attribute so great power unto false gods Yet the right conceit which they had that to perjury vengeance is due was not without good effect as touching the course of their lives who feared the wilful violation of Oaths in that respect And whereas we read so many of them so much commended some for their milde and merciful disposition some for their vertuous severity some for integrity of life all these were the fruits of true and infallible principles delivered unto us in the World of God as the Axioms of our Religion which being imprinted by the God of Nature in their hearts also and taking better root in some them in most others grew though not from yet with and amidst the heaps of manifold repugnant Errors which Errors of corrupt Religion had also their suitable effects in the lives of the self-same parties Without all controversie the purer and perfecter our Religion is the worthier effects it hath in them who stedfastly and sincerely embraceit in others not They that love the Religion which they prosess may have failed in choice but yet they are sure to reap what benefit the same is able to afford whereas the best and foundest professed by them that bear it not the like affection yieldeth them retaining it in that sort no benefit David was a Man after Gods own heart so termed because his affection was hearty towards God Beholding the like disposition in them which lived under him it was his Prayer to Almighty God O keep this for ever in the purpose and thoughts of the heart of this people But
had they known how Is it tolerable saith Saint Ambrose that to sue to God thou shouldst be ashamed which blushest not to seek and sue unto Man should it grieve thee to be a Suppliant to him from whom thou canst not possibly hide thy self when to open thy sinnes to him from whom if thou wouldst thou mightest conceal them it doth not any thing at all trouble thee This thou art loath to do in the Church where all being Sinners nothing is more opprobrious indeed than concealment of sinne the most humble the best thought of and the lowliest accounted the justest All this notwithstanding we should do them very great wrong to father any such Opinion upon them as if they did teach it a thing impossible for any Sinner to reconcile himself unto God without confession unto the Priest Would Chrysostom thus perswaded have said Let the enquiry and punishment of thy offences be made in thine own thoughts Let the Tribunal whereat thou arraignest thy self be without witness Let God and only God see thee and thy Confession Would Cassianus so believing have given counsel That if any were withheld with bashfulness from discovering their Faulis to men they should be so much the more instant and constant in opening them by supplication to God himself whose wont is to help without publication of mens shame and not to upbraid them when he pardoneth Finally would Prosper settled in this Opinion have made it as touching Reconciliation to God a matter indifferent Whether men of Ecclesiastical Order did detect their crimes by confession or leaving the World ignorant thereof would separate voluntarily themselves for a time from the Altar though not in affection yet in execution of their Ministry and so bewaile their corrupt life Would he have willed them as he doth to make hold of it that the favour of God being either way recovered by fruits of forcible repentance they should not only receive whatsoever they had lost by sinne but also after this their new enfranchisement aspire to the endless joyes of that supernal City To conclude We every where finde the use of Confession especially publick allowed of and commended by the Fathers but that extream and rigorous necessity of Auricular and private Confession which is at this day so mightily upheld by the Church of Rome we finde nor First it was not then the Faith and Doctrine of God's Church as of the Papacy at this present Secondly That the onely remedy for Sinne after Baptisme is Sacramental Penitency Thirdly That Confession in secret is an essential part thereof Fourthly That God himself cannot now forgive Sin without the Priest That because Forgivenesse at the hands of the Priest must arise from Confession in the Offenders Therefore to confesse unto him is a matter of such necessity as being not either in deed or at the least in desire performed excludeth utterly from all pardon and must consequently in Scripture be commanded wheresoever any Promise or Forgivenesse is made No no these Opinions have Youth in their countenance Antiquity knew them not it never thought nor dreamed of them But to let passe the Papacy For as much as Repentance doth import alteration within the minde of a sinful man whereby through the power of God's most gracious and blessed Spirit he seeth and with unfeigned sorrow acknowledgeth former Offences committed against God hath them in utter detestation seeketh pardon for them in such sort as a Christian should doe and with a resolute purpose settleth himself to avoid them leading as near as God shall assist him for ever after an unspotted life And in the Order which Christian Religion hath taught for procurement of God's mercy towards Sinners Confession is acknowledged a principal duty Yea in some cases Confesion to man not to God onely It is not in Reformed Churches denied by the Learneder sort of Divines but that even this Confession cleared from all Errors is both lawful and behoveful for Gods people Confession by man being either Private or Publick Private Confession to the Minister alone touching secret Crimes or Absolution thereupon ensuing as the one so the other is neither practised by the French Discipline nor used in any of those Churches which have been cast by the French mould Open Confession to be made in the face of the whole Congregation by notorious Malefactors they hold necessary Howbeit not necessary towards the remission of Sinnes But only in some sort to content the Church and that one man's repentance may seem to strengthen many which before have been weakned by one man's fall Saxonians and Bohemians in their Discipline constrain no man to open Confession Their Doctrine is That whose Faults have been Publick and thereby scandalous unto the World such when God giveth them the Spirit of Repentance ought as solemnly to return as they have openly gone astray First for the better testimony of their own unfeigned Conversion unto God Secondly the more to notifie their Reconcilement unto the Church And Lastly that others may make benefit of their Example But concerning Confession in private the Churches of Germany as well the rest as Lutherans agree that all men should at certain times confesse their Offences to God in the hearing of Gods Ministers thereby to shew how their Sinnes displease them to receive instruction for the warier carriage of themselves hereafter to be soundly resolved if any scruple or snare of Conscience do entangle their mindes and which is most material to the end that men may at Gods hands seek every one his own particular pardon through the power of those Keys which the Minister of God using according to our blessed Saviours Institution in that case it is their part to accept the benefit thereof as Gods most merciful Ordinance for their good and without any distrust or doubt to embrace joyfully his Grace so given them according to the Word of our Lord which hath said Whose Sinnes ye remit they are remitted So that grounding upon this assured Belief they are to rest with mindes encouraged and perswaded concerning the forgiveness of all their Sinnes as out of Christ's own Word and Power by the Ministry of the Keyes It standeth with us in the Church of England as touching Publick Confession thus First seeing day by day we in our Church begin our Publick Prayers to Almighty God with Publick acknowledgement of our Sinnes in which Confession every man prostrate as it were before his glorious Majesty cryeth against himself and the Minister with one Sentence pronounceth universally all clear whose acknowledgement so made hath proceeded from a true penitent minde What reason is there every man should not under the general terms of Confession represent to himself his own Particulars whatsoever and adjoyning thereunto that affection which a contrite spirit worketh embrace to as full effect the words of Divine Grace as if the same were severally and particularly uttered with addition of Prayers imposition of hands or all
the Ceremonies and Solemnities that might be used for the strengthening of men's affiance in God's peculiar mercy towards them Such Complements are helps to support our Weaknesse and not Causes that serve to procare or produce his Gifts as David speaketh The difference of general and particular Formes in Confession and Absolution is not so material that any man's safety or ghostly good should depend upon it And for private Confession and Absolution it standeth thus with us The Minister's power to absolve is publickly taught and professed the Church not denyed to have Authority either of abridging or enlarging the use and exercise of that Power upon the People no such necessity imposed of opening their Trangression unto men as if Remission of Sinnes otherwise were impossible neither any such opinion had of the thing it self as though it were either unlawfull or unprofitable saving onely for these inconveniences which the World hath by experience observed in it heretofore And in regard thereof the Church of England hitherto hath thought it the safe way to referre men's hidden Crimes unto God and themselves onely Howbeit not without special caution for the Admonition of such as come to the Holy Sacrament and for the comfort of such as are ready to depart the World First because there are but few that consider how much that part of Divine Service which consists in partaking the Holy Eucharist doth import their Souls what they lose by neglect thereof and what by devout Practise they might attain unto therefore lest carelesnesse of general Confession should as commonly it doth extinguish all remorse of mens particular enormous Crimes our Custome whensoever men present themselves at the Lords Table is solemnly to give themselves fearfull Admonition what woes are perpendicularly hanging over the heads of such as dare adventure to put forth their unworthy hands to those admirable Mysteries of Life which have by rare Examples been proved Conduits of irremediable Death to impenitent Receivers whom therefore as we repel being known so being not known we cannot but terrifie Yet with us the Ministers of God's most Holy Word and Sacraments being all put in trust with the custody and dispensation of those Mysteries wherein our Communion is and hath been ever accounted the highest Grace that men on earth are admitted unto have therefore all equally the same power to with-hold that sacred Mystical Food from notorious Evil-Livers from such as have any way wronged their Neighbours and from Parties between whom there doth open hatred and malice appear till the first sort have reformed their wicked Lives the second recompensed them unto whom they were injurious and the last condescended unto some course of Christian Reconciliation whereupon their mutual accord may ensue In which cases for the first branch of wicked Life and the last which is open Enmity there can arise no great difficultie about the exercise of his Power In the second concerning Wrongs there may if men shall presume to define or measure Injuries according to their own Conceits depraved oftentimes as well by Errour as Partialitie and that no lesse to the Minister himself then in another of the People under him The knowledge therefore which he taketh of Wrongs must rise as it doth in the other two not from his own Opinion or Conscience but from the evidence of the Fact which is committed Yea from such evidence as neither doth admit Denyal nor Defence For if the Offender having either colour of Law to uphold or any other pretence to excuse his own uncharitable and wrongful Dealings shall wilfully stand in defence thereof it serveth as barr to the power of the Minister in this kinde Because as it is observed by men of very good Judgment in these Affairs although in this sort our separating of them be not to strike them with the mortal wound of Excommunication but to stay them rather from running desperately head-long into their owne harm yet it is not in us to sever from the Holy Communion but such as are either found culpable by their own Confession or have been convicted in some Publick Secular or Ecclesiastical Court. For who is he that dares take upon him to be any man 's both Accuser and Judge Evil Persons are not rashly and as we lift to be thrust from Communion with the Church insomuch that if we cannot proceed against them by any orderly course of Judgement they rather are to be suffered for the time then molested Many there are reclaimed as Peter Many as Iudas known well enough and yet tolerated Many which must remain un-deseryed till the day of appearance by whom the secret corners of Darknesse shall be brought into open Light Leaving therefore unto his Judgement them whom we cannot stay from casting their own Souls into so great hazard we have in the other part of Penitential Jurisdiction in our Power and Authoritie to release Sinne joy on all sides without trouble or molestation unto any And if to give be a thing more blessed than to receive are we not infinitely happyer in being authorized to bestow the Treasure of God than when Necessitie doth constrain to with-draw the same They which during Life and Health are never destitute of wayes to delude Repentance do notwithstanding oftentimes when their last hour draweth on both feel that sting which before lay dead in them and also thirst after such helps as have been alwayes till then unsavoury Saint Ambrose his wordstouching late Repentance are somewhat hard If a man be penitent and receive Absolution which cannot in that case be denyed him even at the very point of death and so depart I dare not affirm he goeth out of the world well I will counsel no man to trust to this because I am loath to deceive any man seeing I know not what to think of it Shall I Iudge such a one a Cast-away Neither will I avouch him safe All I am able to say is Let his Estate be left to the will and pleasure of Almighty God Wilt thou be therefore delivered of all doubt Repent while yet thou art healthy and strong If thou defert it till time give no longer possibility of sinning thou canst not be thought to have left Sinne but rather Sinne to have forsaken thee Such admonitions may in their time and place be necessary but in no wise prejudicial to the generality of God's own high and heavenly promise Whensoever a Sinner doth repent from the bottom of his heart I will put out all his iniquity And of this although it have pleased God not to leave to the world any multitude of Examples lest the carelesse should too farr presume yet one he hath given and that most memorable to withhold from despair in the mercies of God at what instant so ever man's unfeigned conversion be wrought Yea because to countervail the fault of delay there are in the latest Repentance oftentimes the surest tokens of sincere dealing Therefore upon special Confession made
doubted but many of the Fathers were saved but the means I said was not their ignorance which excuseth no man with God but their knowledge and Faith of the Truth which it appeareth God vouchsafed them by many notable Monuments and Records extant in all Ages Which being the last point in all my Sermon rising so naturally from the Text I then propounded as would have occasioned me to have delivered such matter notwithstanding the former Doctrine had been sound and being dealt in by a general speech without touch of his particular I looked not that a matter of Controversie would have been made of it no more than had been of my like dealing in former time But far otherwise than I looked for Mr. Hooker shewing no grief of Offence taken at my speech all the week long the next Sabbath leaving to proceed upon his ordinarie Text professed to preach again that he had done the day before for some question that his Doctrine was drawn into which he desired might be examined with all severitie So proceeding he bestowed his whole time in that discourse concerning his former Doctrine and answering the places of Scripture which I had alledged to prove that a man dying in the Church of Rome is not to be judged by the Scriptures to be saved In which long speech and utterly impertinent to his Text under colour of answering for himself he impugned directly and openly to all mens understanding the true Doctrine which I had delivered and adding to his former Points some other like as willingly one Error followeth another that is That the Galatians joyning with Faith in Christ Circumcision as necessary to Salvation might not be saved And that they of the Church of Rome may be saved by such a Faith of Christ as they had with a general Repentance of all their Errors notwithstanding their opinion of Iustification in part by their works and merits I was necessarily though not willingly drawn to say something to the Points he objected against sound Doctrine which I did in a short speech in the end of my Sermon with protestation of so doing no of any sinister affection to any man but to bear witness to the Truth according to my Calling and wished if the matter should needs further be dealt in some other more convenient way might be taken for it wherein I hope my dealing was manifest to the Consciences of all indifferent Hearers of me that day to have been according to Peace and without any uncharitableness being duly considered For that I conferred with him the first day I have shewed that the Cause requiring of me the Duty at the least not to be altogether silent in it being a matter of such consequence that the time also being short wherein I was to preach after him the hope of the fruit of our communication being small upon experience of forme Conferences my expectation being that the Church should be no further troubled with it upon the motion I made of taking some other course of dealing I suppose my deferring to speak with him till some fit opportunitie cannot in Charity be judged uncharitable The second day his unlooked for opposition with the former Reasons made it to be a matter that required of necessity some Publick answer which being so temporate as I have shewed if notwithstanding it be sensured as uncharitable and punished so grievously as it is What should have been my punishment if without all such cautions and respects as qualified my speech I had before all and in the understanding of all so reproved him offending openly that others might have feared to doe the like which yet if I had done might have been warranted by the rule and charge of the Apostle Them that offend openly rebuke openly that the rest may also fear and by his example who when Peter in this very Case which is now between us had not in Preaching but in a matter of Conversation not gone with a right foot as was fit for the truth of the Gospel conferred not privately with him but as his own rule required reproved him openly before all that others might hear and fear and not dare to do the like All which reasons together weighed I hope will shew the manner of my dealing to have been charitable and warrantable in every sort The next Sabbath day after this Mr. Hooker kept the way he had entred into before and bestowed his whole hour and more onely upon the Questions he had moved and maintained wherein he so set forth the agreement of the Church of Rome with us and their disagreement from us as if we had consented in the greatest and weightiest Points and differed onely in certain smaller matters Which Agreement noted by him in two chief points is not such as he would have made men believe The one in that he said They acknowledge all men sinners even the blessed Virgin though some of them freed her from sinne for the Council of Trent holdeth that she was free from sinne Another in that he said They teach Christ's Righteousness to be the onely meritorious cause of taking away sinne and differ from us onely in the applying of it For Thomas Aquinas their chief Schoolman and Archbishop Catherinus teach That Christ took away onely Original sinne and that the rest are to be taken away by our selves yea the Council of Trent teacheth That Righteousness whereby we are righteous in God's sight is an inherent Righteousness which must needs be of our own Works and cannot be understood of the Righteousness inherent onely in Christ's Person and accounted unto us Moreover he taught the same time That neither the Galatians nor the Church of Rome did directly overthrow the foundation of Iustification by Christ alone but onely by consequent and therefore might well be saved or else neither the Churches of the Lutherans nor any which bold any manner of Errour could be saved because saith he every Errour by consequent overthroweth the Foundation In which Discourses and such like he bestowed his whole time and more which if he had affected either the truth of God or the peace or the Church he would truly not have done Whose example could not draw me to leave the Scripture I took in hand but standing about an hour to deliver the Doctrine of it in the end upon just occasion of the Text leaving sundry other his unsound speeches and keeping me still to the Principal I confirmed the believing the Doctrine of Justification by Christ onely to be necessary to the Justification of all that should be saved and that the Church of Rome directly denieth that a man is saved by Christ or by Faith alone without the works of the Law Which my Answer as it was most necessary for the service of God and the Church so was it without any immodest or reproachful speech to Mr. Hooker whose unsound and wilful dealings in a Cause of so great importance to the Faith of Christ and salvation of the Church
notwithstanding I knew well what speech it deserved and what some zealous earnest man of the spirit of Iohn and Iames â—irnamed Boanerges Sons of Thunder would have said in such a case yet I chose rather to content my self in exhorting him to revisit his Doctrine as Nathan the Prophet did the device which without consulting with God he had of himself given to David concerning the building of the Temple and with Peter the Apostle to endure to be withstood in such a Case not unlike unto this This is effect was that which passed between us concerning this matter and the invectives I made against him wherewith I am charged Which rehearsal I hope may clear me with all that shall indifferently consider it of the blames laid upon me for want of Duty to Mr. Hooker in not conferring with him whereof I have spoken sufficiently already and to the High-Commission in not revealing the matter to them which yet now I am further to answer My Answer is That I protest no contempt not wilful neglect of any lawful Authority stayed me from complaining unto them but these Reasons following First I was in some hope that Mr. Hooker notwithstanding he had been ovencarried with a shew of Charity to prejudice the Truth yet when it should be sufficiently proved would have acknowledged it or at the lest induced with Peace that it might be offered without either offence to him or to such as would receive it either of which would have taken away any cause of just Complaint When neither of these fell out according to my expectation and desire but that he replied to the Truth and objected against it I thought he might have some doubts and scruples in himself which yet if they were cleared he would either embrace sound Doctrine or at lest suffer it to have its course Which hope of him I nourished so long as the matter was not bitterly and immodestly handled between us Another Reason was the Cause it self which according to the Parable of the Tares which are said to be sown among the Wheat sprung up first in his Grass Therefore as the Servants in that Place are not said to have come to complain to the lord till the Tares came to shew their fruits in their kinde so I thinking it yet but a time of discovering of it what it was desired not their fickle to cutt it down For further answer It is to be considered that the conscience of my Duty to God and to his Church did binde me at the first to deliver sound Doctrine in such Points as had been otherwise uttered in the Place where I had now some years taught the Truth Otherwise the rebuke of the Prophet had fallen upon me for not going up to the breach and standing in it and the peril for answering the blood of the City in whose Watch-Tower I sate if it had been surprized by my default Moreover my publick Protestation in being unwilling that if any were not yet satisfied some other more convenient way might be taken for it And lastly that I had resolved which I uttered before to some dealing with me about the matter to have protested the next Sabbath day that I would no more answer in that Place any Objections to the Doctrine taught by any means but some other way satisfie such as should require it These I trust may make it appear that I failed not in Duty to Authoritie notwithstanding I did not complain nor give over so soon dealing in the Case If I did how is he clear which can alledge none of all these for himself who leaving the expounding of the Scriptures and his ordinarie Calling voluntarily discoursed upon School-Points and Questions neither of edification nor of Truth who after all this as promising to himself and to untruth a Victory by my silence added yet in the next Sabbath day to the maintenance of his former Opinions these which follow That no additament taketh away the Foundation except it be a Privative of which sort neither the Works added to Christ by the Church of Rome nor Circumcision by the Galatians were as one denieth him not to be a man that saith he is a Righteous man but he that saith he is a dead man Whereby it might seem that a man might without hurt adde Works to Christ and pray also that God and Saint Peter would save them That the Galatians Case is harder than the Case of the Church of Rome because the Galatians joyned Circumcision with Christ which God had forbidden and abolished but that which the Church of Rome joyned with Christ were good Works which God hath commanded Wherein he committed a double fault one in expounding all the questions of the Galatians and consequently of the Romans and other Epistles of Circumcision onely and the Ceremonies of the Law as they doe who answer for the Church of Rome in their Writings contrary to the clear meaning of the Apostle as may appear by many strong and sufficient reasons The other in that he said the addition of the Church of Rome was of Works commanded of God Whereas the least part of the Works whereby they looked to merit was of such works and most were works of Supererogation and works which God never commanded but was highly displeased with as of Masses Pilgrimages Pardons pains of Purgatory and such like That no one sequel urged by the Apostle against the Galatians for joyning Circumcision with Christ but might be us well enforced against the Lutherans that is that for their ubiquity it may be as well said to them If ye hold the Body of Christ to be in all places you are fallen from grace you are under the curse of the Law saying Cursed be he that fulfilleth not all things written in this Book with such like He added yet further That to a Bishop of the Church of Rome to a Cardinal yea to the Pope himself acknowledging Christ to be the Saviour of the World denying other errours and being discomforted for want of Works whereby he might be justified he would not doubt but use this speech Thou holdest the foundation of Christian Faith though it be but by a slender thred thou holdest Christ though but by the hem of his Garment why shouldst thou not hope that vertue may pass from Christ to save thee That which thou holdest of Iustification by thy Works overthroweth indeed by consequent the foundation of Christian Faith but be of good chear thou hast not to do with a captionus Sophister but with a merciful God who will justifie thee for that thou holdest and not take the advantage of doubtful construction to condemn thee And if this said he be an Errour I hold it willingly for it is the greatest comfort I have in this World without which I would not wish either to speak or to live Thus farr beng not to be answered in it any more he was bold to proceed the absurdity of which Speech I need not