Whatsoever my Father giveth me shall come to me And No man can come to me unlesse my Father that sent me draw him And the Apostle 1 John VI. 19. We love him because he loved us first Heb. XII 2. Every good and perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights with whom is no change or shadow of turning Gal. VI. 3. If any man think himself something being nothing he deceives himself Heb. XIII 22. God make you of one mind in every good work to do his will working in you that which is acceptable before him through Jesus Christ To wit by the meanes of his Spirit 2 Tim. â— 9 10. It is God that hath saved us and called us with an holy calling not according to our works but his owâ— purpose and grace given us through Christ Jesus before eternall times but now manifested by the appearance of our Saviour Jesus Christ having abolished death but shined forth life and incorruption by the Gospel The abolishing of death and the declaration of eternall life wherein the calling of men to Christianity consists together with the saving of us which is effected by meanes of the Sonne how these things come by Christ we learn from his words John XII 24 31 32 33. Verily verily I say unto you If a graine of wheat fall not into the earth and dy it remaineth alone But if it dy it beareth much fruit And Now is the judgement of this world Now shall the prince of this world be cast forth And I when I am lifted uâ— from the earth will draw all men to me This he said signifying what death he should dy But signifying also what should be the force and effect of that death Then those Scriptures which make charity to be the gift of God and of the holy Ghost John IV. 7. Rom. V. 5. 1 Cor. XII 31. XIII 1. Gal. V. 22. which holy Ghost our Lord Christ by his death hath obtained for us as afore Unto all which I will adde in the last place those which speake of the predestination of God as it signifies no more then the preparation of that grace from everlasting whereby we are saved in time S. Paul indeed when he excludes the presumption which the Jews had of being saved by the Law as the Fathers they thought were distinguishing between the seed of Abraham according to the flesh and according to promise Rom. IX 6-13 which promise he supposes to be the forerunner of Christs Gospel Manifestly declares no more then the question which he is there engaged in requires him to declare To wit that they were not saved by virtue of the Law but by virtue of that Grace which now the Gospel openly tendereth So that Israel and Esau holding the figure of the Jews that expected to be saved by the works of the Law Isaac and Jacob consequently answer the Christians who expect salvation not by their birth but by Gods promise not by works but by him that calleth To wit to the said promise Whereby it appeareth that the words of the Prophet which he alledgeth Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated signify no more according to the spirituall sense of the Old Testament which the New Testament yeildeth but the accepting of the Church in stead of the Synagogue of the Christians in stead of the Jews And that this is the purpose of God according to choice which S. Paul speakes of immediately afore In as much as God purposed from the beginning when first he took the seed of Abraham from among the Nations to place his name among them that his choice ones of Isaacs posterity as well as Abrahams should be those that bore the figure of the Christian Church promised afore and born upon the promise that they should be beloved All this being granted which I count most true and undeniable notwithstanding the purpose of God according to choice as it expresses a declaration of receiving the Church in stead of the Synagogue so it implies and presupposes a purpose of God to make and to build Christs mysticall body which is the Church upon which purpose of God all those prophesies are grounded whereby God foretelleth of his new people Israel according to the Spirit which Christians know to be those children which he raised up to Abraham out of the stones For we cannot think so slightly of Gods providence that by foretelling this secret he obliges himself onely to finde sufficient meanes to convert men to Christianity But also those which should take effect and bring to passe the conversion of the World to Christianity by the Gospel of Christ Seeing then that the Church is nothing but the souls whereof it consisteth and that the foreknowing and the foretelling of the Church which Christians believe to be fulfilled consisteth in foreknowing and foretelling the conversion of those persons who have constituted and shall constitute the number of believers from the preaching of Christianity til the worlds end It followeth that this purpose of God according to election can no way stand without an intent of God to bring the said election that is this multitude of Gods choice ones to Christianity whether by the preaching of the Gospel or by the helps which depend thereupon as it depends upon Christs death And this is most manifest by S. Pauls answer to an objection which followes upon his conclusion of this point That if God hath mercy upon whom he pleaseth and pardons whom he pleaseth he has no cause to complaine of any man to wit of the Jews who believe not because no man can resist his will That is to say because he is able to convert them if he please Which inference S. Paul not denying that God could convert the unbelieving Jews if he pleased thus avoideth Nay O man who art thou that disputest with God shall the pot say to the potter Why hast thou made me thus and afore What shall we say then Is there injustice with God God forbid For he saith to Moses I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I compassionate So it is not in the willing nor in the running but in God that shewes mercy Rom IX 18 19 20. 15 16. Where it is plaine that S. Paul no way denies the truth of the assumption That God may if he please imploy such meanes as shall make any man a Christian How he avoides the consequence is another matter and not belonging to this dispute inasmuch as it is manifest to all that understand learning that it is one thing to prove a truth another to clear the objections that ly against it That I shall indeavour to do before I leave the businesse In this I shall think thus much evidenced by the premises that God who knew from the beginning of the sending of Christ and inabling his Apostles and their successors of the Church to convict the world of it who should obey the Gospel and who
AN EPILOGUE TO THE TRAGEDY OF THE Church of England BEING A Necessary Consideration and brief Resolution of the chief Controversies in Religion that divide the Western Church Occasioned by the present Calamity of the CHURCH of ENGLAND In three BOOKS viz. Of I. The Principles of Christian Truth II. The Covenant of Grace III. The Lawes of the Church By HERBERT THORNDIKE LONDON Printed by J. M. and T. R. for J. Martin J. Allestry and T. Dicas and are to be sold at the sign of the BELL in St PAUL's Church-yard M.DC.LIX A PREFACE To all Christian Readers IT cannot seem strange that a man in my case removed by the force of the Warr from the Service of the Church should dedicate his time to the consideration of those Controversies which cause division in the Church For what could I do more to the satisfaction of mine own judgment than to seek a solution what truth it is the oversight whereof hath divided the Church and therefore the sight whereof ought to unite it But that I should publish the result of my thoughts to the world this even to them that cannot but allow my conversing with those thoughts may seem to fall under the Historians censure Sâ—ipsum fatiganâ—o nihil aliud quâm odium quaerere extremae esse dementiae That to take pains to get nothing but displeasure is the extremity of madness Socrates if wee believe his Apology in Plato could never rest for his Genius alwayes putting him upon disputes tending to convict men that they knew not what they thought they knew The displeasure which this got him hee makes the true cause of his death The opinion which I publish being indeed the fruit of more time and leisure of less ingagement to the world than others are under will seem a charge upon those who ingage otherwise And when besides so much interest of this world depends upon the divisions of the Church what am I to expect but Great is Diana of the Ephesians My Apology is this The title of Reformation which the late Warr pretended mentioned onely Episcopacy and the Service The effect of it was a new Confession of Faith a new Catechism a new Directory all new With chapter and verse indeed quoted in the margine but as well over against their own new inventions as over against the Old Faith of the Church This burthen was as easily kicked off by the Congregations as layed on by the Presbyteries As carrying indeed no conviction with it but the Sword and what penalties the Sword should inforce it with Which failing what is come in stead of it to warrant the salvation of Christians but that the Bible is preached which what Heresie disowneth and by them whom the Tryers count godly men Make they what they can of it I from my non age had embraced the Church of England and attained the Order of Priesthood in it upon supposition that it was a true Church and salvation to be had in it and by it Owning nevertheless as the Church of England did own the Church of Rome for a Church in which salvation though more difficult yet might be had and obtained That there is no such thing as a Church by Gods Law in the nature of a Body which this state of Religion requireth is opposite to an Article of my Creed who alwayes thought my self a member of such a Body by being of the Church of England The issue of that which I have published concerning that title of Reformation which the Warr pretended was this That they are Schismaticks that concurr to the breaking or destroying of the Church of England for those causes And the objection there necessarily starting Why the Church of England no Schismaticks in Reforming without the Church of Rome My answer was that the cause of Reforming must justifie the change which it maketh without consent of the Whole Church For the pretense of Infallibility in the Church on the one side the pretense of the Word and Sacraments for marks of the Church on the other side I hold equally frivolous As equally declaring a resolution never to be tried by reason in that which wee alwayes dispute For what dispute remains iâ— the Decrees of the Council of Trent be Infallible If that form of Doctrine and ministring the Sacraments which the Reformation may pretend be marks to distinguish a Church from no Church If they were where there is no such form there are no such marks And therefore no such thing as a Church Nor is it so easie to destroy these doubts in mens judgments as the Laws by which the Church of England stood And if the salvation of a Christian consist in professing the common Christianity as I show you at large shall not the salvation of a Divine consist in professing what he hath attained to believe when hee thinks the exigent of the time renders it necessary to the salvation of Gods people How shall hee otherwise be ministerial to the work of Gods Grace in strengthening them that stand in comforting and helping the weak in raising them that are fallen in resolving the doubtfull without searching the bottom of the cause Nay how shall hee make reparation for the offenses hee may have given by not knowing that which now hee thinks hee knows The causes of division have a certain dependence upon common principles a certain correspondence one with another which when it cannot be declared the satisfaction which a man intends is quite defeated when it is declared that dissatisfaction which the consideration of particulars of less waight causeth must needs cease Whether it were the distrust of my own ability or the love of other imployment or whatsoever it were that diverted mee from considering the consequence of those principles which I alwayes had till I might come to that resolution which now I declare Neither was I satisfied till I had it nor having it till I had declared it And if I be like a man with an arrow in his thigh or like a woman ready to bring forth that is as Ecclesiasticus saith like a fool that cannot hold what is in his heart I am in this I hope no fool of Solomons but with S. Paul a fool for Christs sake Now the mischiefs which division in the Church createth being invaluable all the benefit that I can perceive it yield is this that the offenses which it causeth seem to drown and swallow up as it were that offense which declaring the truth in another time would produce For Unity in the Church is of so great advantage to the service of God and that Christianity from whence it proceedeth that it ought to overshadow and cover very great imperfections in the Laws of the Church All Laws being subject to the like Especially seeing I maintain that the Church by divine institution is in point of right one visible Body consisting in the communion of all Christians in the offices of Gods service and ought by humane administration in point
I said there can be no sect as communicating in nothing visible as Christians But I need not have recourse to such an obscure Sect as this For the same is necessarily the opinion of all the sect that makes every Congregation Independent and Sovereign in Church maters For if particular Congregations be not obliged to joyn in communion to the constitution of one Church wee may perhaps understand the collection of all Congregations to be signified at once by the name of the Church but wee cannot imagine that the Church so understood can be obliged by any sentence that can passe in it And if this opinion be true it must be acknowledged as of late years it hath been disputed amongst us that there is no crime of Schisme in violating the unity of the Church but when a breach is made in a Congregation obliged to communicate one with another in Church maters For where there is no bond of unity what crime can there be in dissolving it This is then the ground of all Independent Congregations that there is no such thing as the Church understanding by the name of the Church a Society or Corporation founded upon a Charter of Gods which signification the addition of Catholick and Apostolick in our Creed hath hitherto been thought to determine But there is a second opinion in the Leviathan who allowes all points of Ecclesiastical Power in Excommunicating Ordaining and the rest to the Soveraign Powers that are Christian Though before the Empire was Christian hee granteth that the Churches that is to say the several Bodies of Christians that were dwelling in several Cities had and exercised some parts of the same right by virtue of the Scriptures As you may see pag. 274-279 287-292 Making that right which the Scriptures give them for the time to eschete to the Civil Power when it is Christian and dissolving the said Churches into the State or Common-wealth which once Christian is from thenceforth the Church And this I suppose upon this ground though hee doth not expresly allege it to that purpose Because the Scripture hath not the force of a Law obliging any man in justice to receive it till Soveraign Powers make it such to their subjects but onely contains good advice which hee that will may imbrace for his souls health and hee that will not at his peril may refuse Thus hee teacheth pag. 205. 281-287 If therefore the act of Soveraign Power give the Scripture the force of Law then hath it a just claim to all rights and Powers founded upon the Scripture as derived from it and therefore vested originally in it Hence followeth that desperate inference concerning the right of Civil Power in mater of Religion not for a Christian but for an Apostate to publish that if the Soveraign command a Christian to renounce Christ and the faith of Christ hee is bound to do it with his mouth but to believe with his heart And therefore much more to obey whatsoever hee commandeth in Religion besides whether to believe or to do The Reason Because in things not necessary to salvation the obedience due by Gods and mans Law to the Soveraign must take place Now there is nothing necessary to salvation saith hee but to believe that our Lord Jesus is the Christ All that the Scripture commandeth besides this is but the Law of Nature which when the Civil Law of every Land hath limited whosoever observes that Law cannot fail of fulfilling the Law of Nature These things you have pag. 321-330 The late learned Selden in his first book de Synedriis Judaeorum maintaining Erastus his opinion that there is no power of Excommunicating in the Church by Gods Law grants that which could not be denied that the Church did exercise such a Power before Constantine but not by any charter of Gods but by free consent of Christians among themselves pag. 243 244. Which if hee will follow the grain of his own reason hee is consequently to extend to the power of Ordaining and to all other rights which the Church as a Corporation founded by God can claim by Gods Law And upon this ground hee may dissolve the Church into the Common-wealth and make the power of it an eschere to the Civil Power that is Christian with lesse violence than the Leviathan doth Because whatsoever Corporations or Fraternities are bodied by sufferance of the State dissolve of themselves at the will of it and resolve the powers which they have created into the disposition of it And that this was his intent whoso considereth what hee hath written of the indowment of the Church in his History of Tithes of Ordinations in the second book de Synedriis of the right of the Civil Power in limiting causes of divorce in his Vxor Ebraica hath reason to judge as well as I who have heard him say that all pretense of Ecclesiastical Power is an imposture I say not that hee or the rest of Erastus his followers make themselves by the same consequence liable to those horrible consequences which the Leviathan admits But I say that they are to bethink themselves what right they will assign the Civil Power in determining controversies in Religion that may arise And what assurance they can give their subjects that their salvation is well provided for standing to their decrees Besides I was to mention these opinions here that those who take the sentence of the Church to be the first ground of Faith into which it is lastly resolved may see that they are to prove the Church to be a Corporation by divine Right before they can challenge any such power for it For that which is once denied it will be ridiculous to take for granted without proving it And whatsoever may be the right of the Church in deciding controversies of Faith it cannot be proved without evidence for this charter of the Church as you shall see by and by more at large CHAP. III. That neither the sentence of the Church nor the dictate of Gods Spirit can be the reason why the Scriptures are to be received No man can know that hee hath Gods Spirit without knowing that hee is a true Christian Which supposeth the truth of the Scripture The motives of Faith are the reason why the Scriptures are to be believed And the consent of Gods people the reason that evidences those motives to be infallibly true How the Scriptures are believed for themselves How a Circle is made in rendering a reason of the Faith The Scriptures are Gods Law to all to whom they are published by Gods act of publishing them But Civil Law by the act of Soveraign Powers in acting Christianity upon their Subjects IT would not be easie to finde an entrance into such a perplexed Question had not the dispute of it started another concerning the reason why wee believe the Scriptures whether upon the credit of the Church or for themselves or whether nothing but the Spirit of God speaking to each mans heart
supposeth that there is no means but the Gospel to save us But if wee be saved by believing the Gospel wee may be saved not believing that which the Church teacheth without it For that which the Gospel obligeth us to believe unto salvation it is agreed already that wee cannot be saved without believing it Suppose now the Church to continue till the last day not as one visible Body but broken into pieces as wee see it so that alwaies there remain a number of good Christians for whether or no they that communicate not with the Church of Rome may be good Christians is the thing in question not to be taken for truth without proving shall the gates of hell be said to prevail against the Church all that while Besides Grotius expounds those words to signifie no more but this That death and the grave which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Hell in the stile of the Old Testament signifies shall never prevail over Christians That is that they shall rise again And I suppose it is not so evident that this exposition is false as that the Gospel is true As for the Keyes of Christs Kingdom let him that saith they argue Infallibility say also that they cannot be abused But hee will have more shame if not more sense than to say it The Thessalonians received the Gospel as the Word of God because they supposed it to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word which God sent them newes of Would they therefore have received the decrees of the Church with the same reverence not supposing them the Word of God till some body prove it But suppose the promises made S. Peter to import as much as the power of the Apostles is it as evident that the present Pope succeeds S. Peter as that Christianity is from God That hee succeeds him in the full right of that Power which is given the Apostles Certainly wheresoever two or three are assembled in the name of Christ there is not the Infallibility of the Church Therefore it cannot be founded upon the promises made to all Assemblies of Christians as Christians It is very probable that the Council of the Apostles at Jerusalem had a revelation upon the place signifying how they should order the mater in question because there are many instances in the Scriptures of inspirations at the very Assemblies of Gods people as I have showed in the Right of the Church Therefore it is not evident that all Councils may say the like Therefore they cannot presume that the Holy Ghost will lead them into all truth whatsoever they take a humor to determine because it was promised that hee should lead the Apostles into all truth concerning our common Christianity But if the Church be the pillar and foundation that upholdeth the truth then must that truth first be evidenced for truth before the effect of the Churches office in upholding it as pillars uphold an house can appear The exhortations of the Apostles 1 Thess V. 14 15. Hebr. XIII 7 17. to yield obedience to the Rulers of the Church are certainly pertinent to this purpose But it is evident that this obedience is limitable by the grounds and substance of Christianity delivered afore as it is evident that all Power of the present Church presupposeth our common Christianity As for the obedience required in the Old Testament to the Governors of the Synagogue and Priests confirmed by our Lord Mat. XXIII 2. I am very willing to grant the Church all Power in decreeing for truth that can appear to have belonged to the Rulers of the Synagogue because I am secure that those who could put malefactors to death as they could were not therefore able to tye men to believe that which they say to be true But the great subtilty is the Prophesie of Caiaphas John XI 48-52 who because High Priest could not but truly determine that our Lord must die least the people should perish even in resolving to crucifie him Indeed at the beginning God was wont to conduct his people by Oracles of Urim and Tummim in the High Priests brest-plate And though this was ceased under the second Temple as wee have reason to believe the Jewes yet was it no marvail that God should use the High Priests tongue to declare that secret which himself understood not being the Person by whom hee had used to direct his people in former ages But hee that from hence concludes the Church infallible must first maintain that Caiaphas erred not in crucifying our Lord Christ Now if it be said that the consent of all Christians though not as members of the Church because as yet it appeareth not that the Church is a Corporation and hath members determines the sense of these Scriptures to signifie Infallibility which they may but do not necessarily signifie Let him consider the disputes that succeeded in the Church upon the decree of the Great Council at Nicaea the breaches that have succeeded upon the decrees of Ephesus and Chalcedon the division between the Greek and the Latine Church between the Reformation and the Church of Rome For is it imaginable that all Christians holding as firmly as their Christianity that the acts of the Pope and a Council that is the greater part of the present Church is to be believed as much as the Scriptures not onely the decree of Nicaea should be disputed again but breaches should succeed rather than admit their decrees retaining the common profession of Christianity What disputes there have been betwixt the Court of Rome and the Paris Doctors whether it be the act of the Pope or of a General Council that obligeth the belief of the Church is as notorious to the world as that they are not yet decided And yet the whole question is disputed onely concerning the Western Church The East which acknowledgeth not the Pope appeareth not in the claim of this Infallibility were both East and West joyned in one and the same Council Now among them that maintain the Pope it is not agreed what acts of the Pope they must be that shall oblige the Church to believe as it believes the Scriptures For it is argued that Popes have decreed Heresie Liberius Honorius Vigilius and perhaps others And though I stand not to prove I may presume that the contrary is not so evident as our common Christianity or the Scriptures And that some of them have held Heresie seems granted without dispute Is it then as evident as our common Christianity what act of the Pope obliges us to believe That hee cannot decree that error to be held by others which it is granted himself holdeth Besides how many things are requisite to make a true Pope whose Power unlesse it be conveyed by the 〈◊〉 act of those that are able to give it the acts thereof will be void which it does not appear that the present Pope is qualified with as it appeareth that the Scriptures are true And may not the same question be
not to any part but to the whole Body of the Scriptures it would first have been said what Scripture speaking of the whole Body of the Scripture hath established this property or â—rivilege of it For my part upon the best consideration that I can take I am at a stand to finde any text of Scripture any letter or syllable of the whole Bible that sayes any thing at all good or bad of the whole Bible So farre is it from delivering this property or privilege of it So farre further from delivering it as the first truth in termes so clear and unquestionable as to make it a presumption to the deciding of all that is or may become questionable concerning the Scripture The words of S. Paul 2 Tim. III. 16 17. All Scripture inspired by God is also profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness That the man of God may be perfect Being fitted for every good work Cannot be said of the whole Body of Canonical Scripture being written before it was That is when evidently many parts of the New Testament were not written probably all and evidently concernes every part of Gods Word not the whole Body of the Scriptures Therefore with Origen I conceive they are meant of the Scriptures of the Old Testament To this effect That that instruction which is necessary to salvation being had by the Gospel which the Church teacheth those whom it maketh Christians the right understanding of the Old Testament according to the mystery of the Gospel is that which rendereth him whom God imployeth in the propagation of his Gospel and the edification of his Church able to convince those that withstand to edifie those that admit it Which if it be farre short of that which I deny the rest of those pitifull lame consequences which are usually made from the Scriptures to prove the same purpose will easily appeare to come short of it though I take not in hand to determine at present the full meaning of them but onely to show that they import not that all things necessary for the salvation of all Christians are clear to all Christians in the Scriptures The fashion is to allege Deut. IV. 2. XII 32. Yee shall take heed to do all the Word that I command you Yee shall adde nothing to it nor take any thing from it And You shall adde nothing to the Word that I command you nor take any thing from it That you may keep the commandement of the Lord your God which I command you And that it is threatned for a conclusion to the whole Scripture Apoc. XXI 18 19 If any man adde to the words of the Prophesie contained in this Book God shall lay upon him the plagues written in this Book God shall take away his share out of the book of Life and the holy City and the things that are written in this Book For is not all that is requisite sufficiently clear if nothing may be added or taken from the Scriptures Therefore is S. Paul also alleged pronouncing anathema if himself or an Angel from heaven or any man should take upon him to preach any other Gospel than that which they had already received Gal. I. 8 9. And that therefore are the Beraeans commended Acts XVII 11. that they did not admit even those things which S. Paul so great an Apostle preached to them without examining them by the Scriptures whether so as hee said or not To the same purpose John XX. 30 31. Many other miracles did Jesus which are not written in this book But these are written that yee may believe that Jesus is the Christ and that believing yee may have life through his Name Adde hereunto the Psalmists commendations of the Law XIX 7-31 as giving wisedom to the simple as inlightning the eyes and instructing the servants of God which how should it do if it be not first to be understood For the precept is a candle and the Law light saith Solomon Prov. VII 22. And Psalm CXIX 113. Thy word is a candle to my feet and a light to my paths Further the Scriptures tell us how they come to be obscure what makes them clear They shall be all taught by God saith the Prophet Isa LIV. 13. speaking of the times of the Gospel and the children of the Church And Jeremy XXXI 33 34. promiseth that God will put his New Covenant in the hearts of his children and write it in their entrailes so that they shall have no need to teach one another the knowledge of God because they should be all taught by God to know God And is not this that for which our Lord gives thanks to the Father Mat. XI 25. because having concealed the mystery of the Gospel from the wise and understanding hee had revealed it to babes and sucklings Which the Apostle expoundeth 1 John II. 20 21 27. You have an Vnctien from God and know all things I have not written to you because yee know not the truth but because yee know it and that no lye is of the truth And But as for you the Vnction which yee have received of him remaineth in you and yee need not that any man teach you But as that Vnction teacheth you of all things and is true and not false and as it hath taught you so shall you abide in it Whereupon afterwards IV. 1. Believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether of God or not To wit as those who were possessed of that by which they were to be tryed Therefore S. Paul 1 Thess V. 23. Try all things Hold that which is good To wit by that means which hee intimateth 1 Cor. II. 15. The spiritual man is judged by none but himself judgeth all things In fine I must not forget Cartwrights argument from the words of the Prophet Jeremy VII 31. XXXI 35. where hee reproveth the Jewes Idolatries by this argument that it never came into Gods minde to command them any such thing For if the grievousnesse even of their Idolatries consist in this that they were done without warrant of Gods word how can it be questionable that hee hath provided us instruction sufficient to clear us in all that wee are to do by the Scriptures But these Scriptures are as easily wiped away as they are alleged if wee go no further than to show that they inforce no such principle as is pretended for the ending of all Controversies that all things necessary to the salvation of all Christians are clear to all Christians in the Scriptures For what a pitifull inconsequence is it to argue that all things necessary to salvation are clear in the Scriptures because Moses forbideth to adde to or take from his Law For if the Gospel be not clearly contained in the Old Testament containing the Law and the Prophets and therefore much lesse in the Law alone then is it not lawfull to adde to or take from that Scripture in which all things necessary to salvation
from the beginning and therefore lay aside this principle not as false but as uselesse and not to be put in practice Wherein that men mistake not themselves they must take notice That it will not concerne my position That all original Catholick Tradition is to be supposed for unquestionable truth in deciding what is questionable concerning the truth of the Scripture that concerning most maters there is no Catholick Tradition or consent of the Church For I do professe that were not the Church or had it not been one Society one visible Body Communion or Corporation of men from the beginning the communion whereof alwaies confined the profession and conversation of Christians to some certain visible Rule I should think it impossible to make evidence of any common truth received of all Christians But if it can be made to appear that the Church was from the beginning such a Society then may such Rules as reasonably appear to be original and Catholick as it can appear reasonable to any man that hee ought to be a Christian Here I must note that concerning the State of the Church whether it be such a Society as I have said distinct from all Civil Societies of Christian Kingdomes and Common-wealths there may be two questions made The one of Fact whether indeed the Church hath been such a Society since the first being of it and the conversion of believers to Christianity The other of Right whether by the appointment of God or by humane consent of such who being converted to Christianity agreed to live in communion by whatsoever Rule it may appear they have admitted But these two are so near one another that if the question of Fact can be voided and it appear that such was the Church from the beginning it will be a presumption in a maner peremtory of the Churches Title by divine right Though there is difference made between them as appeâ—rs by the opinion related afore that the power of Excommunication was settled in the Church afore Constantine by humane consent not by Gods appointment Which by consequence of like reason extends to all other points wherein the power of the Church consists For my present purpose it were enough to make it appear that the Church was de Facto such a Society from the beginning But the proving of the point of Right will be only making the same inference which hath been alwaies concluded out of that evidence which resolveth the point of Fact And the conclusion thus inferred will be both necessary and effectual to clâ—are the positive right of the Church in deciding Controversies of Faith which will be the best satisfaction why negatively it cannot extend to create the ground upon which wee are to believe I will therefore wrap them up both together in the processe of my discourse In which I finde that difficulty which S. Augustine observeth in proving any of those things which are most manifest to common reason and sense For it shall be hard to bring arguments that are much clearer than that which they intend to prove That the Church had been from the beginning one outwardly by visible Communion as well as one inwardly by invisible Faith and love could not be questioned so long as it prevailed Neither was it foreseen at dissolving the Unity of the Western Church for the Reformation that it would ever come to this dispute whether there had been alwaies and ought to be one Catholick and Apostolick Church For each party hoped well to be so themselves as being perswaded that their adversaries ought to unite themselves unto them upon acknowledgment that the truth was on their side And truly I acknowledge that there is no clear mention of a precrpt of God commanding all Christians to hold the unity of the Catholick Church by outward communion with it For the intent of God to call the Gentiles to Christianity seemeth to be the utmost of that which is clearly declared by the Scriptures That his intent was to unite all Christians in one visible communion of the Church there is evidence by consequence to be had from the Scriptures But what the form should be before the materials were prepared it were as strange to think that the stones and timber particular Christians ought to know as that the Surveyors the Apostles and their fellowes should not know That therefore the Church was from the beginning and ought to be one visible Communion must be showed by the ingredients and principles or elements of all visible Societies Which in the Society of the Church will appear proportionable to the nature and pretense of it Supposing from common sense and experience that all Civil Societies or Common-wealthes unto which the name of Societies or Communities principally because most visibly belongeth are constituted and founded upon certain Rights of Soveraigne Power which some call in Latine Jura Majestatis being indeed the particulars wherein the Right and Power of Soveraignty consisteth For when it is once resolved in what hands that Power is to remaine then is the State and Form of Government constituted and thereby distinguished from other formes of Common-wealth according to the qualitie of those persons in whom this Power is established That being ruled by certain Lawes acknowledging certain Governors being subject to the Power of the Sword by which those Governors execute those Lawes are the effects of Soveraigne Power being the principal of the said ingredients or particulars the certain and necessary marks of a distinct Common-wealth is that which I suppose from common experience There are Societies which subsist by the Law of Nature and Nations As that which Aristotle observes among those that are imbarked in the same bottome for the same voyage That which the Jewes Law supposes among the Caravans of the East consisting of subjects and members of several Common-wealthes There are Communities and Corporations which subsist by the Act of Soveraigne Power in each Common-wealth allowing that Power over the Members to the whole ihat is such persons as are allowed to act for the whole as they think fit If the whole Church from the beginning have acknowledged certain Lawes by which they were governed in those things wherein the Communion of the Church consisteth certain Governors to whom they ought to give respect according to those Lawes a Power of putting out of the Church answerable to the Power of putting to death by the sword into which the coâ—ctive Power of Common-wealths is resolved then is the Church and alwaies was such a Society wherein the same Rule of Faith might be and was alwaies from the beginning preserved by Tradition and Custome which is my present businesse to show And if the Church alwaies was so de Facto then is it so alwaies de Jure If it did alwaies hold unity in the Faith and communion in the service of God by the meanes of certain Lawes certaine Rulers certaine Power of granting or refusing this Communion Then was there a precept of
the Temple to serve God with his then people Acts II. 42 44 46. V. 13. VI. 1 4. And shall wee think that all the Christians in Corinth where God had said to S. Paul that hee had many people Acts XVIII 10. could meet in one room because S. Paul sayes 1 Cor. XI 20. when yee meet together in one place For they must not onely meet together but sup together as the Apostle showes which would require a great room if God had many people there And all the believers at Jerusalem met together and supped together Acts II. 44 46. VI. 1. but not VIM in one room as I suppoâ—e Therefore at Corinth also there might be more Congregations than one where the Church was but one and all might meet together though in several places several assemblies In the mean time I do not hear what they say to that which I have alleged in my book of the Right of a Church in a Christian State pag. 44-50 to show that wee never read of more Churches than one in one City but every where of more than one in one Province in the writings of the Apostles And therefore I will here plead further That from the time of the Apostles to the Reformation which wherein it consisteth my businesse is to inquire and therefore not to suppose that it consisteth in every thing that hath been done all the Independents in the world shall never be able to show mee any thing called a Church but the Body of Christians that lived in one City and the territory of it Indeed at the first preaching of Christianity it must needs come to passe that the number of Christians in a very great City might be so little that they might meet all at once And the name of Cities might be extended to Townes and Villages that could make but few Congregations when the question was made whether they should make several Churches or resort to one As I have instanced there But because wee have yet extant antient lists of all the Churches of the Romane Empire and the Soveraignties into which it is dissolved punctually agreeing with the records of all Church Writers in comprising the whole summe of Christians within and under one City in one Church It may perhaps be found that all the Christians in a whole Nation might resort to one Church which was the Church of the Head City But that ever there were any Christians that took it for a Law that every Congregation is to be a Church before the Reformation it can by no means appear whatsoever hath been done since And therefore I challenge that all reasonable men must allow all Christians that succeeded the Apostles understood the meaning of their writings by their acts when they cast all the Christians in under one City every where into one Church then those who now challenge for a Law of God that all Congregations are to be Churches And thus farre it appears by the same evidence upon which wee accept of our common Christianity that is by the Scriptures and by the consent of all Christians that the Apostles so founded the Churches of their planting that they might be fit to concurre to the constitution of one whole Church CHAP. VII That the Apostles delivered to the Church a Summary of Christianity which all should be baptized were to profess Evidence out of the Scriptures Evidence out of the Scriptures for Tradition regulating the Communion of the Church and the Order of it Evidence for the Rule of Faith out of the records of the Church For the Canons of the Church and the pedegree of them from the Order established in the Church by the Apostles That the profession of Christianity and that by being baptized is necessary to the salvation of a Christian BUt I will grant that this were not evidence enough out of the Scriptures for a point of such consequence as it will appear to be of when it apâ—eares to be true were it not for the general inference that I made afore Here I challenge having proved against the Leviathan that whosoever acknowledges our Lord Jesus to be the Christ must acknowledge whatsoever hee teaches and delivers either by himself or the Apostles his Deputies to be Law to the Church That whatsoever it may appear any way that the Aposâ—lhs delivered to the Church to be observed in it is of that nature I say further it is evident by their writings that they delivered to the Church a certain Summary of Christianity which whosoever was admitted into the Church by Baâ—tisme underto professe and practise Indeed this is the main point now in hand that all interpretation of Scripture is to be confined within this Summary as the Rule of our common Christianity And therefore it may seem that I go about first to prove the Corporation of the Church by this Rule And then to prove the Rule by the consent of the Church whereby I pretend to evidence what the Apostles delivered to the Church for the Rule of our common Christianity But I can easily answer that it is one thing to question whether the Apostles did deliver any such Rule to the Church from the beginning or not Another what it containes and what belongs to it as part of it what not If it may appear by the writings of the Apostles that delivered it and by the acknowledgment of the Church that received it for what othâ—r meane can there be to make it appear that such a sense the Apostles did deliver to the Church it will be a great part of the evidence that they did found the Church for a Corporation wherein the profession of it might be preserved and wherein God mâ—â—â—t be served according to the profession of it And if this may appear then the consent of this Corporation will be as good evidence as the subject mater allowes whether any thing questionable be part of it or not Let us then heare the Apostles Thanks be to God saith S. Paul Rom. VI. 17. that being once slaves to sinne yee have obeyed from your heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you Had hee onely said it was dâ—livered they had not acknowledged themselves obliged but when hee sayes they obeyed it hee shows they were under the obligation that God cast on them by delivering it 2 Pet. II. 21. It had been better for them not to have owned the way of righteousnesse than having owned it to return from the holy commandement delivered What is this holy commandement what is this way of righteousnesse but in one word Christianity Which when hee saith it was delivered hee means by Metonymy that it was received because hee saith further that they had owned it The same is called by another Apostle Jude 3. the Faith once delivered to the Saints And S. Paul 2 Tim. I. 13 14. Hold fast the form of wholesom words which thou hast heard of mee in faith and love which is through Christ Jesus Keep that good
to have been a meer humane Law so did it no way concern the service of God which the Excommunicate among the Jewes were not excluded from by it But was a meer civil punishment tending to change and abate the estate and condition of him that was under it in his freedom and intercourse with his own peole By all this hee seemes to fortifie the argument which Erastus had made showing that there is no such thing as Excommunication commanded or established by that Law and therefore that there is no such power in the Church But further seeing that there was no other company of men extant in the world for the Apostles to understand by the name of the Church when our Lord commanded him that was offended among his Disciples Tell it to the Church Mat. XVIII 16-20 hee insists strongly that neither the Church of Christ nor any Consistory or Assembly of men or particular person claiming or acting in behalf and under the title of the Church can be understood by those words of our Lord But that the name of the Church must necessarily signifie the Body of Jewes as well as Christians as unbelievers or that Consistory which was able to act in behalf of them in their respective times and places such as wee must also understand the witnesses there mentioned to be For it is manifest that at the beginning of Christianity onely Jewes were admitted to be Christians in so much that the dispute was hot about Cornelius and his company Acts XI 1. being no Jewes in Religion but yet such as believed in the true God and had renounced the worship of Idols Whereby it seemes the command of our Lord to baptize all Nations Mat. XXVIII 19. was then understood to concern onely those of all Nations that had made themselves Jewes by being circumcised afore Accordingly wee see that by virtue of Claudius his Edict commanding all Jewes to depart from Rome Aquila and Priscilla being Christians came to Corinth Acts XVIII 2. to show that Christians at that time must needs use the Jewes fashions who were therefore reputed Jewes by the Law of the Romanes and injoyed the benefit of their Religion by the Jewes privileges granted or confirmed by the same Claudius in Josephus Antiq XIX 4. Whereupon it seems necessarily to follow that the Excommunication then in force was that which the Jewes had introduced by humane Law confirmed by the Law of the Empire Though it is to be thought that the Christians upon particular agreement among themselves such as wee finde they had by Pliny Epist X. 97. Tertul. Apolog. cap. II. Euseb Hist Eccles III. 33. S. Hierome Chron. 2123. Orig. contr Celsum I. pag. 4. had limited the use of it to such causes and termes as their profession required Therefore when our Lord in the next words commands that hee which will not heare the Church be accounted as an Heathen or a Publicane As it is manifest that hee gives the Church no power but onely prescribes what hee would have the party offended to do So neither Heathen nor Publicane being in the condition of an excommunicate person among the Jewes how can it be understood that our Lord would have him to be excommunicate whom hee commands to be held as a Heathen man or as a Publicane The effect then of this precept of our Lord will consist in limiting the precept of the Law Levit. XIX 17. to the publishing of those offenses between parties the private complaint whereof should be neglected So that if the opinion of Gods people should be no more esteemed by the osfeuder the party offended freely to return his scorn by avoiding his familiarity as Jewes were wont to avoid the familiarity of Heathen men and Publicanes Now when our Lord adds in the next words Whatsoever yee binde on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever yee loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven The sense must either be general to signifie the obligation of all Law and the right and Power which one man may have by the act of his will to tye and limit another mans Or particular to the Law of Moses Whereby what was declared unlawfull by the Doctors and Professors of it was said in their language to be held or bound that which was permitted loose Which signification our Lord also uses Mat. XXIII 4. Luc. XI 46. This later sense concerning things and not persons will be farre from signifying that any man should be excommunicate And though Excommunication be a bond and was so among the Jewes yet how should wee understand that the Church is inabled to tye this bond by a commission the termes whereof containe all that superiors may do to oblige their inferiors This Author then acknowledges that S. Paul threatens Excommunication Gal. I. 8 9. 1 Cor. XVI 22. and that hee wishes himself that estate which it imports Rom. IX 3. Not as it hath been falsly imagined among Christians to be cut off from the communion of the Eucharist and other offices of Christianity But as it was used among the Jewes to inferre the abridgment of a mans freedome in publick conversation as vile and subject to the curses of the Church But when the same Apostle gives order that the incestuous person be delivered to Satan 1 Cor. V. 5. As also when hee saith that hee had delivered Hymenaeus and Philetus 1 Tim. I. 20. when hee ordereth them not to converse with such persons 1 Cor. V. 11. this hee takes no more to concerne Excommunication than those verses of the Psalms Blessed is the man that bath not walked in the counsail of the ungodly Or I have not sate with vain persons nor will have fellowship with the deceitfull That is to say that it is bad counsail towards God but neither ground nor signe of any commission to excommunicate in the body of the Church Whereas the Leviathan to show here out of order his sense of that place though hee acknowledge that both ancient and modern writers have understood it as if by the extraordinary graces which the Apostles then had to evidence the presence of God in his Church the excommunicate became subject to plagues and diseases inflicted by evil Angels to show that they came under the power of Satan when they were put out of the Church yet hee satisfies himself by saying that other learned men finde nothing like the excommunication of Christians in it pag. 209. and that it depended upon the singular privilege of the Apostles These are the grounds upon which the power of the Keyes and by consequence the charter and corporation of the Church and all Ecclesiastical right and power grounded thereupon are taken away in the first book de Synedriis to the same effect as in Erastus his positions But the Leviathan comes up close to the point in general and following the supposition which I have refuted That the Gospel or Christianity and the Scriptures that contain it are not Law till the secular Power that
is Soveraign inact it By consequence must needs deny that any Act of the Apostles could be Law to the Church whose office was onely to publish the newes of the coming and rising again of Christ and to induce men to submit themselves to his kingdome of the world to come Much lesse can there be any Power to give Lawes to the Church but that which is in the Soveraigne of each State which therefore when it is Christian is called the Church of such a Kingdome Though hee acknowledge also that before the Empire was Christian the Body of Christians in every City is called in the Scriptures the Church of such or such a City pag. 275 But denying that there can be upon earth any such universal Church as all Christians are tied to obey because they are lyable to other Powers of this world according to the States of which they are pag. 248. and before pag. 206. As for the Power of bunding and loosing very properly hee understands it to be a consequence of the Apostles commission to baptize unto forgivenesse of sins But so that supposing they have nothing to do either to loose them that repent not or to binde them that do and that no mans repentance is visible but by our outward signes there must be some Power to judge of the truth of those fignes because they may be counterfeit And this Power as it is expresly given by our Lord to the Church Mat. XVIII 16. when hee saith Tell the Church So doth S. Paul 1 Cor. V. 11 12 and 3 4 5. acknowledge the power of casting out the incestuous persons and other finners to be in the Congregation reserving to himself onely the pronouncing of the sentence Supposing this Church to be now the Soveraign Power that representeth the people but when S. Paul writ the Body of Christians in such or such a City pag. 275. In like maner the appointing of Persons either to officiate the Service of God or to wait upon the necessities of the Church hee also gives unto the Church that is then to the respective Bodies of Christians but now to the Soveraign Power into which all Rights of the People resolve by the establishment of it But the consecrating of them by Imposition of hands as to the Apostles for their time so to the worlds end to their Successors For thus were Maâ—thias Paul and Barnabas made Apostles Act. I. 15 23. XIV 1 2 3. XIV 14. Thus the seven Deacons thus the Elders of Churches were constituted Acts VI. 3. XIV 23. the Congregation chusing the Apostles declaring the choice as in binding and loosing As for the maintenance of Persons thus appointed it is no marvail if hee make it meer almes and benevolence without any Law of God to make the purses of Christians lyable to it who acknowledgeth not Christianity to be any Law For how shall hee be bound to contribute towards the maintenance of such persons that is not bound to be a Christian But that Tithes under the Law were due onely by the Civil Power which God had upon the people having made God their Soveraign by their Covenant with him in which right Moses and Aaeron and the High Priests that succeeded him were but his Lieutenants so that when this Power was translated and settled upon their Kings it held meerly by their sufferance this is an imagination that no mans brain ever teemed with till now And truly in the point of giving Law to the Church by determining Controversies of Faith and by interpreting difficulties of Scripture call it what you please as also by deciding that which becomes questionable in any thing that concerns the community of Christians It had been a necessary consequence of this opinion that as hee owneth the Soveraign Powers right to decree so hee should assign the Persons thereby appointed for the Church a Right to declare publish or pronounce the same as in Excommunicating and Ordaining hee doth For which hee hath found no ground no pretense in the Scriptures Besides whereas by the Act of the Apostles laying a burden upon believers Acts XV. 28. and by the practice of their successors practising the holding of Councils which common sense would make ridiculous if they had no effect upon the Church hee is convinced to acknowledge that they were able to binde themselves though not the Church It will be impossible for him to render a reason either why this power should cease or how it should continue when the Soveraign Power becomes Christian and all right in the Church is resolved into it I must not leave this point before I have taken notice of one presumption wherein both these Authors seem to agree For the Leviathan in several places pag. 285 286 282 205 206 322. taketh for granted that there is no Law in the world but the Law of Nature and the Civil Lawes of Commonwealths And therefore that hee which makes Ecclesiastical Power not to depend upon the Civil must indow it both with right and means to constrain men to obey it and thereupon inferrs all the inconvenience which hee so much aggravates That then all Civil Power must of necessity be swallowed up and resolved into the Power of the Church in as much as all Christians even Soveraignes are members of it Which to avoid it is necessary to grant that the Church is nothing else but a Christian Commonwealth and the Clergy ministers of the Soveraign Power deriving all their authority from it pag. 209 249 296. In like maner the first book de Synedriis Ebraeorum in defining Excommunication pag. 105. takes it for granted that those who challenge the power of it in behalf of the Church would have the Civil estate and condition of him that is excommunicate in regard of his reputation of freedom changed and abated by it Which must needs inferre the Church to be indowed with such a power as is able by outward force to constrain obedience For otherwise the estate of no man that is protected in all right by the Civil Power could be changed or abated by it Accordingly in several places hee presumes that those who maintain the Power of the Church and the right of Excommunicating which is a prime part of it to stand by Gods Law are obliged by consequence to maintain the Power of the Church in maters of the world in Ordine ad spiritualia And hereupon follow the reasons whereby these Authors have disputed the one à priori that this constitution of the Church is destructive to the peace and safety of all States Kingdomes and Commonwealthes in as much as a Power not depending upon them may lawfully be used against them by giving the people a title of executing the commands of it by force The other à posteriori from the practice of all Christian States Kingdomes and Commonwealthes Who by limiting the exercise and effect of all kindes of acts which the Church hath done or pretended to inforce by Excommunication have
Be it therefore granted that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with such additions as the place where they stand requires signifie that Body which at the time when our Lord spoke was Gods ancient people This signification if I mistake not descending from the first bodying of them into a Commonwealth in the Wildernesse when they might and were all called and assembled together to take resolution in what concerned their posterity as Commonwealths are presumed to be everlasting Bodies as well as themselves When after the return from the Captivity of Babylon they became dispersed into Aegypt Syria Mesopotamia Asia and elswhere owning still or challenging the same Lawes by owning which they first became one Body such Bodies of them as lived in Alexandria Antiochia Ephesus Nearda Sora Pombeditha or other Cities and their respective territories are by the same reason to be called the Synagogues of Alexandria Ephesus and so forth Being by that name sufficiently distinguished from the Gentile Inhabitants of the same Cities and Territories Neither is it pretended that there is any thing in the original force of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 why they should not both signifie the same But suppose our Lord Christ declare an intent of instituting a New people upon condition of imbracing his Gospel and use the old word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signifie this New people as well hee may use it for the near correspondence between them necessary it is that his hearers understanding him understand by that terme something else than the Law had deâ—clared afore And very convenient it was afterwards that when there fell out not onely distinction but opposition between the two Bodies they should be divided by names as they were by affections As the one is signified in all Church Writers by the name of the Synagogue the other by the name of the Church to signifie the distance which ought not to be between them but is For though nothing is more odious than to quarrel about words Yet as in divers things else the not appropriating the term of Synagogue to the Jewes as of Church to the Church which the Fathers throughly observe is an argument of not well distinguishing between the Law and the Gospel Which gives them a privilege in understanding the Scriptures above our times because as I said afore this is in my judgment the prime point of it notwithstanding all the advantages wee have above them for learning and a means to convey the same confusion to the minds of our hearers When therefore wee reade in the Apostles Writings of the Churches of Judaea and Samaria the Churches of Syria Asia Macedonia and Achaia when wee reade of the Church of Rome of Corinth Ephesus Philippi or Thessalonica And again in other places finde the name of the Church absolutely put without any addition to signifie the whole that containeth all the Churches named in other places so often do wee meet with so many demonstrations to common sense of several bodies signified by those that so speak as intended to constitute one whole Body of the Church After which nothing can be demanded but whether the intention of the Apostles prove them to be so onely in point of fact or in point of right which demand a Christian cannot make Our Lord in particular when hee answereth Mat. XVI 18. Thou art Peter and upon this rock will I build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it cannot be understood to speak of building the Synagogue which Moses had built so long afore Here I would desire him that thinks it so strange that our Lord should understand by the Church something else than the Jewes signified by it to ask the Author of the Leviathan what reason hee had when hee acknowledged that the Church of Corinth Ephesus and Thessalonica is the Body of Christians living in those respective Cities And whether hee had reason to affirm that the Church so signified did do those acts of right which onely Bodies can do and which hee affirmeth the Church under the Apostles did do For if these reasons be not reconcileable it will be worth the considering what truth there is in that position which is maintained by two that cannot agree about the reasons upon which they maintaine it Neither let any difficulty be made from the difference that may arise who they be to whom our Lord conmands there to resort whom hee bids tell the Church one or more or all For when it is resolved that the Church is a Body or a Society it will be by the nature of the subject manifest that the right of acting in behalf of this Body must by the constitution thereof be reserved either to one or to a few or to the whole in some principal acts in others referring themselves to their Deputies as in popular Governments And whosoever they are that this right is reserved to hee that resorts to them is properly said to resort to the Church though our Lord declaring here the purpose of instituting a Church declare not whom hee will trust the power of acting for the Church with Before I go further I must inferre against the Leviathan that seeing the whole Church is signified by the name of the Church absolutely put without addition by the Apostles as the body which all particular Churches constitute therefore the Church is understood and intended by them as a Body capable of right and able to act though not by all that are of it yet by persons trusted for it A thing which hee that had remembred his Creed could not have doubted of For though the name of a Church may be said to rest in a number of men not united by any right into a visible Body yet one holy Catholick and Apostolick Church cannot consist of all persons maintaining the profession thereof in opposition to all Societies claiming that name but not holding the profession requisite but it must be distinguished by something which it acknowledgeth for Law to oblige it they do not Again if the Name of Church in the Apostles rest upon the bodies of Christians in the Cities of Rome Coriâ—th and Ephesus then can it not now as of divine right signifie the several States Kingdomes and Commonwealths wherein Christianity subsisteth Not onely because the bounds of Christendom are not either materially or formally the same with the bounds of those States under which it is now maintained But chiefly because the signification of that name in the Apostles once resting by divine right upon those Congregations can never be transferred upon those Commonwealths which subsiâ—t not by the same right but necessarily descendeth upon those Bodies which derive their succession from them by visible acts of humane right Against both I further inferre that the Church being signified as one by divine right in the Scriptures can never be understood now to consist in all those
easily finde that people were not governed from the beginning by written Lawes but reasonable and lawfull consent in some person or quality of persons whether of Gods designing or mans chusing to govern in chief was a first a Law sufficient to constitute any Commonwealth as being sufficient to produce all other Lawes which dissatisfaction should make requisite for determining cōmon differences either in writing or by silent custome Thus was the Commonwealth of Israel constituted under Moses so soon as that People had received God for their King and referred themselves to Moses for the man by whom they should understand his will and pleasure Neverthelesse because the wisedom of God easily foresaw how lightly those who presently received him for their King would be moved to fall away from him to other Gods that which was as easie for his wisedom to do hee gave them presently such Lawes in writing both for the Ceremonies wherewith hee would be worshipped as held the most particular difference from those which the Nations worshipped their Gods with and for their civil conversation as might best distinguish them from all other Nations that were fallen away to the worship of Idols And all this besides the secret intent of scretelling and figuring the Gospel in and by the same This was the intent of the Decalogue first then of those Lawes which Moses received in the Mount to be delivered to the people Exod. XXII XXIII XXIV and lastly of the ref which Moses received in the Tabernacle from Gods mouth speaking with him as God faith face to face When God the Father had sent our Lord Christ to publicsh his Gospel and to declare the intent of founding his Church upon it when our Lord Christ had declared his intent of leaving the world and the prosecution of his Gospel and gathering of his Church to his Apostles and Disciples then was the Society of the Church founded in as full force of authority as ever can have been in it since Though not yet actually a Church because the materials of it are not men but Christians that is such as by receiving Christianity should come into the communion of it Besides God intending one communion of all that should become Christians out of all Nations And therefore pretending to maintains the State of this World and all the Commonwealths in which the Church standeth on the same termes which it findeth dischargeth the Church of all that power to force men to obedience by harm of this world by which all States maintaine themselves Therefore the Church can pretend no more than to communicate in some certain particulars for which the Society thereof is erected and in the communion whereof it consisteth Suppose wee then the Law of Moses to be ceased as to the outward force of governing the People to whom once it was Law though not as to the inward intent of introducing the Gospel to which it was the Preface Suppose wee the Society of the Church to be ordained in the communion of those things which Christianity introduceth I say those Rules without which the Unity of the Church cannot be maintained whatfoever they be called have no lesse the force of Lawes than any that Secular States either inact or inforce Because as hee that once hath undertaken to take God for his God under a promise of being a free Israelite cannot so long as that prosession stands make question of undergoing the rest of Moses Laws howsoever troublesome they seem So hee that once hath imbraced the communion of the Church in hope of life everlasting is by the fame reason obliged to observe such Rules according to which the communion of the Church is in force and use But the communion of the Church not consisting in anything of this world onely in the Offices of Gods service for invisible communion in the faith and love of Christ and all for Christs take as Christianity requires is presupposed to the visible communion of the Church no reason can require that they should be many at least at the beginning Our Lord Christ having preached and declared unto his Disciples that Prosession of Christianity into which hee appointeth all Chrissians to be Baptized may well be said to have ordained the Sacrament of Baptisme for a Law to all Christians distinguishing the Ceremony by which the Prosession of Christianity is solemnized from the Prosession it self of Christianity which hee that comes to be baptized must have taken upon him for a Law afore As little question there can be that our Lord Christ at his last Supper instituted not his last Supper for what sense can there be in saying that our Lord at his last Supper instituted his last Supper but the Sacrament of his last Supper which is the Sacrament of the Eucharist for a perpetual Law to the Church Here then wee have for Lawes to the Church First the Rule of Faith containing the prosession upon supposition whereof the Corporation of the Church is founded Secondly the Sacraments of Baptisme and of the Eucharist Thirdly other offices of common Prayers and Praises of God together with the Hearing of his Word common to the Church with the Synagogue which God is to be served with And therefore thus farre I have proved that there is a Society of one Catholick Church founded by God upon the precept or the privilege of communicating in the service of God by there offices of Christianity equally charged upon all Christians And consisting in the obligation of maintaining unity in serving God by the said Offices Supposing then a visible authority settled in the persons of our Lords Apostles and Disciples in behalf of the community of Christians Supposing this community efected into a Society visible Body or Corporation of the Church whatsoever can become questionable not concerning mine and thine which Civil Government pretendeth to decide but concerning communion in those Offices which God is to be served with by Christians is virtually and potentially already decided by the right of doing such acts as being done oblige the Church for whom they are done Which therefore are the Laws of the Church Wee see that the intent and meaning of Christianity is many times quessionable in maters of that weight or taken to be of that weight that Christians are not to communicate with those who pretending to be Chistians do believe otherwise Here wee have none but the Apostles themselves to have recourse to None but they have convinced Christendom to believe that their word is Gods word For though Moses and the Prophets and our Lord Christ all spake by the same Spirit in as much as they all intended a secret which was not to be published till the Apostles preached the recourse wee have to them is with intent to argue and discover by their writings the truth of that which may become questionable in the preaching of the Apostles What then may appear to be deter-mined by the act of the Apostles as the writings of the
Christo Deo ad confederandam Disciplinam Homicidium Adulterium Fraudem Perfidiam caetera scelera prohibentes That hee had discovered nothing of their Sacraments or Mysteries besides obstinacy not to sacrifice but assemblies before day to sing praises to Christ and to God and to confederate their Discipline prohibiting Murther Adultery violation of Faith and other hainous deeds For the Eucharist is the Sacrament by which this discipline of Christianity is established But farr from being voluntary to those whom wee suppose Christians As for Origen in Celsum I. pag. 4. It is manifest that those private Contracts which Celsus calumniateth that the Christians made among themselves as against the State are acknowledged by him to have been those that were solemnized at their Feasts of Love That is at the Eucharist which from the beginning was a part of them whether then it were so or not And therefore the confederacy of Christians among themselves whom these Authors speak of was no otherwise voluntary than Christianity and therefore not voluntary supposing it The words of Origen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which I do not admit to be well corrected 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As being too obscure an expression for so clear a Writer as Origen to say that it was of force to do more mischief than the Bacchanalia which for that jealousie were put down as wee understand by Livy besides that hee must have said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not have used a general word for a particular And therefore I suppose hee alludes to the Verse of Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meaning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dissolving by private confederacy that publick League and Bond wherein the peace of every Commonwealth consisteth Thus then saith Origen And hee seeks to calumniate the Love so called of Christians towards one another as subsisting at the peril of the Publick and able to do the mischief of disloyalty If this will not serve the turn but it be demanded that the Communion of the Church was then frequented by voluntary agreement let mee demand whether the authority of the Apostles in the Church subsisted upon no other title For as to the credit of them in delivering the Gospel believing what God had given them to evidence it with it is not possible for any man that pretends to be a Christian to question it If then it be said that they who were tyed to believe them concerning the truth of the Gospel were not bound to receive them as chief Governors of the Church let mee demand how it came to passe that those were received all over the Church whom it was believed that they had granted their authority to or what part soever of it There being no obligation to tye them to receive such afore others and the variety of judgment which all men are subject to being such as never to agree in the same reason where nothing obliges So likewise whereas it is manifest that the Church then both had and must needs have many Rules the general importance whereof was received by all though with particular differences according to times and places I demand how any such could come in force when neither the Jewes deserved that love that all should imbrace them for their sake nor the judgments of all Christians so different in all things could concurr in any thing which their Christianity imported not Especially I demand this concerning the indowment of the Church because it is evident that as Constantine first made good by the Empire all the acts of them that had given whatsoever was ravished away by the persecution of Diocletian then gave much more of his own So all Kingdoms and Commonwealths after the example of that Empire have proceeded to indow it with the first-fruits of their goods in Houses and Glebes and Tithes and Oblations I demand then what imposture could have been then so powerfull as to seduce all the Christian world in a mater so nearly concerning their interest had they not stood convict by the constant practice of Christendom before Constantine that it was no imposture more than the Christianity brought in by the same Apostles Lastly whereas it is acknowledged what strange severity of discipline the Primitive Church was under by the Rules of Penance which then were in force though I have showed in another place that they were yet stricter under the Apostles and that the severity of them necessarily abated as the zele of Christianity under them did abate I demand what common sense can allow that all Christians should agree to make themselves fools by submitting themselves to such Rules which nothing but their own consent could oblige them to imbrace For neither can it be said that they had them from the Jews nor had they been extant among them that the Christians would have received them for their sake CHAP. XIX That Power which was in Churches under the Apostles can never be in any Christian Soveraign The difference between the Church and the Synagogue in that regard The interest of Secular Power in determining maters of Faith presupposeth the Society of the Church and the act of it No man can be bound to professe the contrary of that which hee believeth Every man is bound to professe that Christianity which hee believeth The Church is the chief Teacher of Christianity through Christendom as the Soveraign of Civil Peace thorough his Dominions Why the Church is to decide maters of Faith rather than the State neither being infallible I Shall not now need to say much to those terms which the Leviathan holds beside that which hath been already said to evidence the Society of the whole Church and the foundation thereof by the Scriptures Hee that acknowledges in the Church a Power to judge of true repentance and accordingly to binde and to loose and that upon the same score and therefore to the same effect as it baptizes together with the Power of appointing publick persons in the Church and the Church in which hee acknowledges the Power to be the Body of Christians in each City by what Title doth hee suppose the Church to hold this Power or this Right the evidence whereof hee fetches from the Scriptures whereby hee proveth it For those Scriptures do not import by what Act it is established but onely that it was in force or use at the doing of those things which they relate Can it be imagined to be any thing else than the act of the Apostles declaring the will of God in that behalf If then by divine right that is by Gods appointment and ordinance imported by those Scriptures the Church that is the Body of Christians in each City stands indowed with those rights how shall the Church that is the Soveraign Power of each State stand indowed with the same rights by the same Title that is by Gods appointment evidenced by the same Scriptures How shall Gods Law that inableth the Body of the Church to binde and to
loose to nominate and elect publick persons in the Church but requireth the Apostles and those that hold under them to pronounce the sentence and to impose hands inable the Soveraign Power to do the same and yet require those that claim from the Apostles to execute If Philosophers have the privilege to justifie such contradictions as these then may this opinion passe for a truth In the mean time to men of common reason how reasonable it will sound that the Apostles being imployed by God to order these things in the Church and that for the maintenance of Christianity received should tye themselves to execute those acts which the Body of Christians in each City should determine to be for the maintenance of that Christianity which they knew nothing what belonged to but what they had learned from them the Apostles I am well content to referr my self to judgment But alwayes there remains or may remain a difference between the Bodies of Christians in several Cities and the Soveraign Powers over them So that the rights of both cannot be derived from one and the same Title Sad experience shows that Churches may continue where the Soveraign Powers are not Christians as they subsisted before they were Shall these Soveraign Powers give sentence of binding and loosing and appoint persons to be ordained and those that claim under the Apostles be bound to execute Shall the Great Turk have Power to officiate and minister the Sacraments of divine service in the Church because whatsoever a man may do by his minister hee may do in his own person much more as this opinion pag. 297. 298 299. expresly disputes that the Soveraign may do and that imployment or more publick consequence is the onely reason why hee doth not It is said indeed pag. 299. that hee that had Power to Teach before hee was a Christian being Baptized retains the same Power to teach Christianity And so every Soveraign being the Chief Master to teach all his Subjects whatsoever the peace of his State requires by being Baptized hee gets no new right but is directed how to use that which wee had afore But if the premises be true the assumption is ridiculous A Doctor of the Synagogue duely qualified is not a Doctor of the Church because the Church stands not upon the same terms with the Synagogue Doctors and Disciples being relatives terms of a relation grounded upon the Society of the Church or Synagogue The Soveraign Power teaches by Lawes to keep the Publick peace though that it should do no more than teach were ridiculous The Church teaches the way to heaven and for that reason the bond of Publick peace not the mater of it And therefore as no man by being Baptized getteth the right of teaching by Civil Laws So hee that hath the right of teaching by Civil Laws by being baptized getteth no right to teach Christianity The Law of Moses was given to one people which had covenanted with God to be ruled by it and upon that condition to be maintained in the Land of Promise So the Covenant of the Law and the obligation of that people to it was presupposed before God had declared whom hee would make Soveraign of that people after Moses But in as much as the determination of all things that became questionable concerning the Law was to come from those Powers which were under the Soveraign it is manifest that the act of such Power secured the consciences of Inferiors For the promise of the Law being the temporal happinesse of the Land of Promise and the body of the people being by the Law to depend upon the determination of their Superiors they practising the Law according to such determination the promise thereof must needs remain indefeisible As for the inward obedience to Gods spiritual Law whereupon as I said they might and did ground a firm hope of everlasting life under the Law it concerned not the consciences of the people how the outward Laws were determined seeing howsoever they were determined this inward obedience to Gods spiritual Law received no hinderance Though the consciences of Superiors from whom those determinations proceeded were so much concerned in them that those who should violate that obedience due to the carnal commandement by determining it to an unjust intent could no wayes pretend any inward and spiritual obedience But Christianity covenanting for this inward and spiritual obedience and expressing everlasting life as the consideration of it and particular Churches being constituted upon these terms and constituting the whole Church which is nothing but the Communion of all Churches whatsoever rights are acknowledged to be in particular Churches which the precept of preaching to and the promise of calling the Gentiles shows might be under several Soveraignties being settled in them already by divine right can never accrue to a Soveraignty though constituted by right but such as God onely alloweth by commanding Government in general but appointeth not by revealing it self in particular And therefore necessarily tend to the constituting of the whole Church by the concurrence of all Churches though of several Soveraignties to the maintenance of that Christianity in which all had equal interest before any Soveraign was Christian And now I cannot mervail if hee that believes not the Scriptures to be Law to Christians otherwise than as they are injoyned by Christian Powers acknowledge no Power in the Apostles of obliging the Church or in any body else beside the Soveraign My mervail is that hee who had pretended all this should neverthelesse acknowledge a right in several Churches that is in the Bodies of Christians dwelling within several Cities the Power of Excommunications and Ordinations and that by the Scriptures that is by divine right For whatsoever act it was or whose act soever it was whereby those rights were settled upon those Churches will hee or will hee not was a Law to those that stood bound to acknowledg such right which was really nothing if no man were bound to acknowledg and to yield effect to it Neither is it mervail if hee acknowledg no Law for the indowment of the Church that acknowledgeth not the judgment of the Levitical Priesthood to have been a Law to the Jewes but by the will of the Soveraign under the Kings But those that acknowledg that indowment to be Gods act not to be voided so long as the Covenant was in force will have seen as good an argument for the like provision to be made for the Church as the correspondence between the Law and the Gospel will allow any point of Christianity from the old Scriptures And then as it hath appeared that several Churches are by Gods appointment several Bodies capable of indowment constituting one whole Church which is the Body of all Churches So by the same means it appears that what the Church is once indowed with is as much the Churches as any mans cloak is his own And as the giving of alms in general is not arbitrary
The Word shines upon all and is hid to none saith Clemens to the Gentiles But it is enough for his purpose that they may be convinced of Christianity whether the Scriptures contain it clearly to all understandings or not Tertullian prescribeth that when once wee believe wee are to believe that wee have nothing else to believe because the Gnosticks pretended secrets which our common Christianity they confessed contained not Claudius Apollinaris is afraid that our common Christianity might be thought unperfit if hee should write against Montanus And does not Christians writing one against another cast a mark of imperfection upon it in the opinion of unbelievers though Christians ought to know that God is not tyed to prevent offenses Assuredly the Gospel of which hee speaks is neither any one Gospel nor all four Nor can the word Gospel signifie either the New Testament alone or the Old and New both Nor could hee be thought to adde to them by expounding them and thereby maintaining the Church Therefore hee inferrs a good consequence that because it is forbidden to adde to or take from the Law therefore our common Christianity is not unperfit nor ought wee to do that whereby it may seem unperfit Now as for the sayings alleged out of S. Austine that import as much as the words which wee had afore Ego Evangelio non crederem having showed what is the effect and intent of them I shall not be very solicitous to show how all that is said to the same effect is answered For as there is no head so hard that cannot distinguish between the authority of the Church as it is a visible Body of men that could never have been cozened into the beliefe of Christianity upon pretended motives whether sufficient or not and as it is supposed by Christians to be a Body founded by God So is there no heart so hardned with prejudice as to refuse this demand That the authority of the Church as the Church presupposes the truth of Christianity and therefore proves it not And by consequence no truth that Christianity either containeth or inferreth Which being admitted if any thing be ascribed to the Church which seems not to suppose any part of Christian truth it must be referred to the authority and credit of the Church as a visible Body of men moving others to imbrace the Christian Faith For though this credit contribute to the making of those men Christians which are won to the Church already setled and so the Church is the Church before they are Christians Yet is the ground and reason which makes the Church a Body founded by God to wit the profession of Christianity more ancient in order of reason and nature than the being of the Church And upon supposition of this ground that is that the Church hath true reasons as well as sufficient to believe proceeds all that authority of the Church which S. Austine allegeth to the Manichees upon so high terms that hee would not believe were hee not moved by it to believe Neither was it the authority of the Church vested in the rest of the Apostles that gave S. Paul the authority of an Apostle over the Church though I have said afore that all the authority which the Church can ever have was in the Apostles and disciples of our Lord for the time And though it is manifest that S. Paul could not have had the Authority of an Apostle over the Church had he not been owned by the rest of the Apostles but the Authority of our Lord Christ in the Apostles of the same effect in obliging the Church to receive S. Paul for an Apostle as to receive that which they preached for the Faith Nor is the mater much otherwise in the receiving of any Scripture for Canonital For neither can any mans writing be owned for Canonical Scripture not supposing his person owned by the Apostles And his authority being so owned is necessarily before any authority of the Church and the very being of it That some Scriptures may be received in some Churches and not in others is not because any Church can have authority to reject that which another is bound to receive but because some Church may not know that some Scripture comes from a man so owned by the Apostles though another may know it and yet be a Church and salvation be had in the communion of it such knowledg depending meerly upon evidence in point of fact And therefore the act of the Church in listing the Scripture hath no authority but that which the presumption of such evidence createth As for the rest of that which is alleged for the authority of the Church if S. Jerome resolve to stand to the Church of Rome it is not because hee takes the sentence thereof to be infallible but because hee had reason to presume that it were in vain for an Angel in heaven to preach any other Faith to it than that which once had been received Nor doth S. Cyprian make the not believing the Popes infallibility the sourse of all Heresie and Schism but the neglect of authority derived from the Apostles upon the Heads of particular Churches in the consent of whom the visibility of the true Faith and Church both consisteth For it is meer slight of hand to take the Rock which the Gates of Hell vanquish not in S. Austine for the Church of Rome because hee spoke of it in the words next afore Being meant of the Vine which hee had speech of a little afore that to wit the Christianity which our Lord Christ preacheth For in S. Bernards time I grant the stile was changed and it might passe for good doctrine to say That the Faith cannot suffer any failleur in the Church of Rome As for all those passages of the Fathers which are alleged in recommendation whether of Tradition for the Rule of Faith or of Traditions which are the Lawes of the Church they are all mine own They cannot serve the turn of any opinion but that which I pretend That the Tradition of the Church witnessed and evidenced by the continual exercice and practice of the Church extant in the records of the Church not constituted and created by any expresse act of those that have authority in behalf of the Church as it giveth bounds to the interpretation of the Scripture in such things as concern the Rule of Faith So it discovereth what Lawes the Church received from the Apostles and by consequence what is agreeable and consequent to the intent of the same in future times according to the difference between that and the present state of the Church Let those things therefore which have been produced here be added to that which I alleged in the beginning to make evidence for the Corporation of the Church from the Lawes given it by the Apostles Irenaus shall serve both for the authority of the Scripture antecedent to the authority of the Church and for the Tradition of the Church bounding
Valerianus de Flavigny Professor of the Ebrew in the University of Paris written in opposition to an opinion vented in the Preface to the great Bible lately published there in disparagement of the Ebrew Copy of the Old Testament Where hee shall see that opinion refuted with that eagernesse and the contrary attested by the opinions of so many Divines of so great note in the Church of Rome since that Council that no man that sees them can deny that notwithstanding the decree it is free for every man to maintain the original Copies to be authentick And truly hee that should affirm the credit of the Scripture to stand upon the decree of the present Church or upon the testimony of the Spirit must by consequence have recourse to the same visible decree or to the same invisible dictate whensoever it shall be necessary to accept or refuse the reading of any text of Scripture with that faith which if it be false the whole truth of Christianity will be forfeit What Rushworth and his possession would do to evidence what reading of the Scripture is indeed authentick when as it doth not appear what is the reading which the Church is truly in possession of let him advise For in that case hee must expresly avow the consequence of his position that the Scripture is not considerable in resolving Controversies of Faith Because the Church is not in possession of the certain reading of any Scripture For if hee say hee hath made short work in that question having discharged the Scripture of being necessary to the Church and therefore acquitted himself of any necessity to show how wee may come by true Scripture and in stead thereof and all other means of deciding Controversies in the Church established the tradition presently in possession First it will be easier for mee to verifie the short Rule of Faith by the Scriptures interpreted according to that which by records may appear to have been from the beginning of force in the Church than it will be for him to show what is the Tradition which the Church is in possession of at present And that this being showed I shall not need to fear any great danger that hee may object from the variety of reading which may be found in several Copies the necessity of salvation being secured And then in the next place to say That the Scripture is not necessary though not for the salvation of every Christian yet for the salvation of the Body of Christians which is the Church Though that faction which separation ingenders will suffer no opinion to be plausible but those which are in extreams Yet I hope the malice of Satan hath not yet debauched the ears of Christians to indure And thus as afore it was settled that the whole Scripture is received for the word of God upon the credit of Tradition so of every part and parcel of it wherein the credit of several Copies consisteth it is consequently to be said that nothing can oblige the faith of a Christian to receive it unquestionably for the word of God the Tradition whereof is not unquestionable But thus mâ—ch being settled That what was originally delivered in Greek and Ebrew is to be received for the authentick Word of God What was originally delivered in Greek and Ebrew may still remain questionable That is to say this being agreed it may still remain questionable what Copies they are that do contain that which was originally delivered in Greek and Ebrew How probable it is I need not yet say but any man of common sense must say that it is possible through the changes that time is able to produce that the translations shall prove better than the originals and that the Scriptures shall be truer read among those that have received than among those that delivered them And this is indeed the true state of the question which is now come to be disputed upon due terms as it seems To wit whether the Ebrew Copies which now wee have from the Jews and the Greek Copies of the New Testament now extant contain that Scripture which all Christians are bound to receive upon their Christianity not onely in opposition to the Vulgar Latine which the Council of Trent injoyneth and to the authority of the present Church thinking that it is concluded in that decree but in opposition to that Tradition which other ancient Copies either original or translated may and do contain and evidence In which point I shall in the first place professe as concerning the Old Testament that I finde it no inconvenience but a great deal of reason to grant that at what time those books were made up into a Body and consigned unto the Synagogue the reading which wee have received from them was not delivered as unquestionable so that it should be any prejudice to the Law of God to suspect it but as the most probable and by admitting whereof no prejudiee to the said Law could follow And the safety of this position both Jews and Christians will witnesse with mee For if the Jews rruly acknowledg and insist that their Judaism is sufficiently grounded and witnessed by the leter of the Old Testament which wee have the Christians that their Christianity is as sufficiently to be evidenced by the Copies wee have as Christianity was intended to be delivered by the Scriptures of the Old Testament Is it possible that it should be a mater of jealousie for mee to admit that in that Body of the Old Testament which the Christians have received from the Jews there may be found some passages the reading whereof was not received as unquestionable when the Body of the Old Testament was consigned to the Synagogue from whence the Church receiveth it I say not when this time was nor would I have that which I affirm here to stand upon a circumstance so disputable I do believe the Jews when they tell us of the men of the Great Synagogue after the return from the Captivity from whom and by whom the Scriptures they believe were settled and delivered to their posterity I do also believe that this Assembly might and did indure whilest the Grace of Prophets had vogue and was in force among Gods people For if I believe them when they tell mee that there was such a company of men I cannot disbelieve them that the Prophets Haggai Zachary and Malachi the Scribe Esdras the same with Malachi as they tell us for any thing I know for why should I not believe Malachi being appellative and signifying my messenger to be Esdras his surname given him from that which is prophesied Mal. III. 1 Mordecai Nehemias Josue the son of Josedok and many others of that time were of it But shall I believe that their Prophetical grace was imployed to decide the true reading of the Scripture shall I believe that a new revelation was given to notifie how every leter and syllable was to be read when neither the consequence of the mater required it
of their people that wee have the vulgar Latine and that ancient and worthy Christian translation into the Syriack is there any body will undertake to say Either that having these helps wee cannot assure our selves of the Scripture which God delivered to the Church so farr as the necessity of the Church requireth to be assured of it Or that nothing but the Copy which now wee have from the Jews is to be regarded God having provided us so many helps over and above For suppose the Samaritane Copy of the Law to have been fâ—lâ—ified by Desitheus must it not needs have been falsified upon some certain design And will one certain design require or will it indure that all should be falsified whether it concerned that design or not So suppose those Jews of Alexandria who turned the Old Testament into Greek gave themselves liberty to make the Book of Job the Proverbs more of the Old Testament if more can be alleged not what the original contained but what themselves fansied would be handsom shall wee therefore say the whole work is not a translation but a Romance which wee see stick so close to the original in the most of the Scripture Surely the very great antiquity of both Copies and the experience which all that study the Scriptures with an intent to clear the meaning of them have of the great advantage which the comparing of the Greek advances more and more every day to that design will no way indure that it should be counted no translation of the Old Testament Or that though a man pretend not to build upon the credit of either of those Copies alone in opposition to the Ebrew which wee now use Yet the agreement of them with other Copies together with the reason and consequence or pertinence of sense inforced by the text of the Scripture may give him just ground to assure himself and the Church of the true reading of the Scripture yea though the present Ebrew should not agree with others For I shall not need here to say what or how great faults may be found in our Ebrew Copies who had rather be assured that there were none at all to be found greater or lesse But that wee who neither relye upon the dictate of the Spirit to them that are able to conclude the Church nor much lesse to particular Churches for assuring the true reading of Scripture are not bound to resolve our faith in it into the present Tradition of the Synagogue having over and above so considerable helps to the verifying of the same For magnifying first the providence of God in that the Jews having Christians in utter hatred should neverthelesse neither be willing for their interest nor able for their malice to falsifie those things in their own books which bear witnesse against themselves Seeing God hath given the Church that most ancient Greek Translation which is commonly ascribed to LXX Interpreters sent from Jerusalem but more justly to the Jews of Alexandria besides that Copy of the Law which the Samaritanes still use Since wee have considerable remains of those Greek Translations made by Aquila Symmachus and Theodotion the Bodies whereof to the great losse of the Church have perished with the worthy labors of Origen in joyning them in columes to the Ebrew Since wee have those ancient translations into the Chaldee which the Jews make so much esteem of Since wee have the Syriack and Vulgar Latine made by Christians to say nothing of the Arabick whether made by Jews or Christians or of any other though ancient translations which have not had the like use and credit in the Church So far am I from giving way to that unreasonable demand so destructive to the being of Christianity that wee cannot assure our selves that wee have any Scripture That in all that I have to say or shall have said concerning the dispute on foot in England about Religion I shall neither undertake to assure men that will be content with reason that I allege nothing for Scripture which I cannot justifie so to be or else undertake to resolve that which shall come in debate without the help of that which I cannot assure to be such Not intending in that which follows to allege any more evidence hereof in the particulars than I have done in the premises But building my self upon the resolution premised and intending that there shall be nothing to be objected from the true means of questioning and settling the true reading of the Scriptures that may breed any considerable scruple concerning the truth of those Scriptures which I shall imploy to my purpose As for the part of the difficulty which remains concerning the true reading of the New Testament it is in vain to maintain the decree of the Council of Trent by pretending that the Greek Copy out of which the Vulgar Latine was translated vvas more intire and of better credit than the Greek Copies novv extant Understanding that decree to make that Copy authentick in point of faith by virtue of any gift of Infallibility intailed upon the decrees of the present Church For if it be onely made authentick because the use and credit of it is not allowed to be questioned in the Church it is another question as I have said already vvhich I pretend not to touch in this place For supposing the Copy from which the Vulgar Latine was translated to have been better than any Greek Copy now extant the credit of the Vulgar Latine is not to be ascribed to the decree of the Council that decrees this any more than the fundamental Laws of this Kingdom of England were the fundamental Laws thereof by virtue of any Act of Parliament by which they were not constituted but declared and acknowledged to be such And if the credit of the Vulgar Latine be derived from the Greek Copy out of which it was translated then is it no further authentick than as it expresseth the authentick reading which then was found in the Greek out of which it was translated And so the whole credit of the Scripture is resolved into the credit of the Originals whereof wee stand possest in the translations of them that remain in whatsoever Language So that the question comes to be the very same that remained before concerning the authentick Copy of the Old Testament and the resolution clear that the Original Greek is the authentick the reading thereof being first assured neither by the dictate of Gods Spirit to any persons inabled to oblige the Church by their decrees nor to any never so good Christian much lesse by the Tradition of any particular Copy which the Church stands possest of but by that Tradition which is justified and assured by all Copies wherein the leter of the Scripture is recorded to the Church For though I do for disputation sake suppose yet do I not grant for a truth that the Copy out of which the Vulgar Latine was translated is to be held of better credit than that
man for Communion with the Church by Baptisme but of that which the Church professeth to have received from our Lord and his Apostles And this is the true ground of the foundation of the Church and the Society thereof whereof so much hath been said To wit that God giving his Gospel for the salvation of mankind did think fit to trust the guard and exercise of it to men once instructed by those to whom at the first he had given immediate Commission to publish and establish Christianity Rather then leave them to expect at his hands every day new revelations and miracles for introducing that which had once been sufficiently declared And also rather then leave every man to his own head to make what he can of the Scriptures and think he hath salvation by living according to it For supposing that Christianity which is delivered by the Scriptures once subject to be misunderstood and corrupted of which we have but too much experience an effectual course to preserve it will be to found a Corporation or Society of the Church the members whereof each in his owne ranck should remaine intrusted by God but by the meanes of their predecessors from whom they received Christianity to preserve both the profession of Christian truth and the exercise of Gods service inviolable Nor is it effectuall to say that the unity of the Church may fail being divided by Heresies and Schismes insomuch that that Baptisme which is visibly valide and good shall be void of that invisible effect which it pretendeth For it is not requisite that God should provide such meanes of salvation as may be undefeisible It is enough that they are reasonable He that is Baptized into a profession destructive to that which all Christians are bound upon their salvation to believe perishes for want of Faith setting aside the unity of the Church which his Herisie violates over and above But if the unity of the Church be of such advantage to the maintenance of our common Christianity as it was before the dissolving of it it is no marvaile if the Baptisme of Schismaticks though valide and good for the visible forme become voide of effect to them who by receiving it make themselves parties to the breach of the unity of the Church We agree that the Power of the Church of Rome is the occasion of many abuses in the Church What they are it is my present businesse to enquire He that bounds the interpretation of the Scriptures within the sense of the Catholike Church shall not transgresse the Law of Gods truth in that inquiry He that accepts the bounds of his own fansy in stead of them is it not just with God if he die If once common Christianity and the maintenance thereof depend so much upon the unity of the Church is it not reason that the benefit of it should depend upon the same he who having attained the true Faith and according to the same seeking the unity of the Church faileth of it without any fault of his owne if he who so seeketh it can be supposed to faile of it hath the difficulty of overcoming his own ignorance to pleade for his excuse But for them who have the consent of all Christians from the beginning to oblige them to undertake the profession of Christianity by Baptisme but out of hatred to the present Church the abuses of it neglect baptisme upon presumption that they have the holy Ghost without it or that the reason why the Apostles Baptized is now ceased I say that for them I suppose there remaines no just plea seeing that by the unity of the Catholike Church they ought to have been guided in judging what is of the abuse of the present Church and what is not And thus that consideration which some seeme to be not without cause scandalized at when these effects of Christianity the power whereof must necessarily consist in an unfained heart are made to depend upon an outward ceremony of Baptisme which the Church gives is utterly voided by that reason which the Apostle insinuates when he sayes that Baptisme saves us not the laying down of the filth of the flesh but that profession to God which is made with a good and a sincere conscience Whereas those that distinguish that faith which alone justifieth from the profession thereof which baptisme executeth oblige themselves to make Baptisme a ceremony not whereon the promises of the Gospel depend but to signifie that they are had and obtained without it But to whom signifie not to God who giveth them Not to him that has them and by his faith knows he has them Not to the Church which can never be certified that he hath them indeed and demands onely to be certified that he wants nothing requisite to presume him to be such So that Baptisme being required onely to presume that a man is a Christian and that presumption being legally had by any act the Church or any that call themselves the Church can require as well as by being Baptized If that be all there is no reason to be given the Sociniant why Baptisme should be necessary to the salvation of Christians and therefore why it should not be in their power to use it or not to use it And truly I do much marvel to see the Socinians that have very well seen the truth concerning the twofold meaning of the Law literall and spirituall and the promise of the land of Canaan tied to the carnall observation thereof as that of everlasting life to the spirituall obedience of it I say I do marvel to see that in consequence hereunto they should not inferre that God hath appointed a spirituall people of the Christian Church answerable to Israel according to the flesh and that his spirituall promises should depend upon the visible imtiation of eveâ—â— Christian into the body of that people as the right of his temporal promises depended upon their initiation into the body of carnall Israelites not according to birth but according to promise Onely when I consider on the other side that without regard to the Article of the Catholick Church which Christians make a part of their Creed they rest in such a communion as their private perswasion of the sense of the Scriptures shall be of force to produce I do not marvail to see them not owne the consequence of their own principles when they see it not stand with other prejudices which they have imbraced I know there are two things will be objected here the one is a meer prejudice that by maintaining of free will by maintaining the Covenant of Grace to consist in an act of it we shall incurre the Heresie of Pelagius The other that if the condition of the Covenant of Grace be an expresse profession vow and promise to live as well as to believe according to what Christ hath taught and that without the use of reason no such promise can be of force or take place then infants cannot
served by his Church It is plain enough to all that have the use of reason what that communion of the Church and the Society thereof is able to effect and hath effected in preserving the Rule of Christianity wherein the salvation of Christians consisteth free and intire from the infection of mens devices expresly or by consequence destructive to it as well as the conversation of Christians from unchristian manners But if the Church be trusted to exact the profession of Christianity of all that require by Baptisme to be admitted unto the Communion of the Church It must by consequence be intrusted to exact of them also the performance of that which they have professed that is undertaken to professe For the profession being the condition upon which they are admitted to the Communion of the Church the performance or at least a presumption of the performance must needs be the condition upon which they injoy it Upon this ground the Church becomes not onely a number of men but a Society Corporation and Communion of Christians in those Offices wherewith God hath declared that hee will be served by Christians For upon supposition of such a Declaration or such a Law of God it is that the Church becomes a Body or Corporation of all Christians though under several Common-wealths and Soveraignties of this world As there are in all States several by Corporations subsisting by some act or Law of the Soveraign Powers of the same For if God had not appoâ—â—ted what Offices hee will be served with by his people at their common Assemblies there could be no ground why the Church should be such a Society founded by God there being nothing appointed by God for the members of it to communicate in But were there nothing but the Sacrament of the Eucharist acknowledged to have been delivered by God to his people to be frequented and celebrated by them at their common Assemblies that alone would be enough to demonstrate the foundation and institution of the Communion and Corporation of the Church by God For of a truth the rest of those Offices wherewith God requires to be served by Christians are the same by which hee required to be served by his ancient people before Christianity setting aside that difference with the divers measure of the knowledge of God in this and in that estate must needs produce Though there is no serving of God by the blood of bulls and goats nor by other ceremonies and sacrifices of Moses Law under Christianity Yet were the praises of God the hearing of his Word read and the instructing and exhorting of his people in it and to it together with the sacrifice of Prayer frequented by Gods people under the Law as still God is served and is to be served with them under Christianity And upon this account I have truly said elswhere as I conceive it that the Corporation of the Church is founded upon the privilege which God hath granted all Christians of assembling themselves for the service of God though supposing that the Powers of the world should forbid them so to do For this privilege consists in nothing else but in that command which God hath given his Church of serving him with these Offices Whereupon it necessarily insues that notwithstanding whatsoever command of Secular Powers they are forbidden to serve God in the Communion of them that are not of the Church Seeing they cannot be commanded to serve God in the Communion of the Church but they must be forbidden to serve God in the Communion of them which are not of the Church And upon this ground stands all the Power which the Church can challenge in limiting the circumstances and conditions upon which men may communicate in these Offices Which as it may justly seem of it self inconsiderable to the world and the Powers that govern it So when those Powers take upon them to establish the exercise of it by their Lawes If they maintain not the Church in that Power which of right and of necessity it had from God before they professed to maintain Christianity they destroy indeed that which in word they professe But if they take upon them to maintain it in the right which originally it had to limit the said circumstances by such Rules as by the act of Secular Powers become Lawes to their people then must the Power of the Church become as considerable as it is indeed in all States and Common-wealths that retain the Christianity which they had from the beginning in this point This being the ground and this the mater of Ecclesiastical Lawes and the Sacrament of the Eucharist being that Office proper to Christianity in order to the Communion whereof all Lawes limiting the circumstances and conditions of the said Communion are devised and made It seems requisite to my designe in the first place to void those Controversies concerning the same which all men know how much they have contributed to the present divisions of the Church For the determination of them will be without doubt of great consequence to determine the true and right intent of those Lawes which serve onely to limit those circumstances which are onely the condition of communicating in this and those other Offices Concerning which there is no other controversie on foot to divide the Church but that which concerns the said circumstances Now what differences concerning the Sacrament of the Eucharist are mater of division to the Church I may suppose all the world knows the opinion of Transubstantiation being so famous as it is Which importeth this That in celebrating this Sacrament upon pronouncing of the words with which our Lord delivered it to his Disciples This is my Body this is my Bloud the substance of the elements Bread and Wine ceaseth and is abolished the substance of the Body and Bloud of Christ coming into their stead though under the species of Bread and Wine that is to say those accidents of them which our senses witnesse that they remain In opposition whereunto some have proceeded so farr as to teach that this Sacrament is no more than a meer sign and the celebration and communion thereof barely the renewing of our Christian profession of believing in Christ crucified whom it representeth importing no spiritual grace at all to be tendred by it from God Which may justly seem to be the opinion of the Socinians and properly to give the name of Sacramentaries to all that professe it For in reason and justice wee are to difference it from the opinion of those that hold it for a sign appointed by God to tender the Body and Bloud of Christ spiritually to be received by it of as many as with a lively faith communicate in it Though these also cannot pretend to make it any more than a sign by virtue of that consecration which makes it a Sacrament Seeing it is the faith of him that receives it as they say which makes it the Body and Bloud of Christ spiritually though truly
S. Gregory saith Scholasticus composed whether hee mean a man of that name or as I conceive some Doctor that professed the Scriptures if S. Gregory should tell mee that some other form to the same effect was not in use I could not believe him believing the premises The substance and effect whereof under the name of Eucharistia or the Thanks-giving is that which the Church from the beginning consecrated the Eucharist with by the appointment of our Lord and according to the practice of his Apostles So Rabanus de Institutione Clericorum I. 32. affirms that the whole Church consecrates with Blessing and Thanksgiving the Apostles having taught them to do that which our Lord had done Walafridus Strabus de Rebus Ecclesiasticis cap. XXII relates two several opinions concerning this businesse as it appears by his discourse Et relatio majorum est ità primis temporibus Missas fieri solitas sicut modò in Parasceve Paschae in quo die apud Romanos Missae non aguntur communicationem facere solemus Id est praemissâ— Oratione Dominicà sicut ipse Dominus noster praecepti commemoratione passionis adhibitâ eos Corpori Dominico communicâsse Sanguini quos ratio permittebat And there is a relation of our Predecessors that in the first times Masse was done as now on Good Friday on which day Masse is not said at Rome the communion is wont to be made That is that the Lords Prayer premised and the commemoration of his death applyed those whom reason allowed did communicate in the Body and Bloud of our Lord. The practice of the Church of Rome here mentioned is that which still continues not to consecrate the Eucharist either on Good Friday or the Saturday following For then Masse is said so late that it belongs to Easter day And on Maundy Thursday the Eucharist is consecrated and reserved to be received on Good Friday That any commemoration of Christs death is made at the receiving of it as Rabanus saith I finde not This is certain that no man imagines that the Eucharist is consecrated by any thing that is said or done at the receiving of it but at the Masse on the day before And this in the Greek Church is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Liturgy of the elements that were consecrated afore Which they use on other days besides Therefore this opinion that the Apostles should celebrate so would import that they celebrated the Eucharist without consecrating of it That is that they never appointed how it should be consecrated Which neither Rabanus nor any of these whose opinion he relates can maintain Nor supposing the premises is it tenable And therefore I take the true meaning of S. Gregories words to be laid down in another opinion related afore by Rabanus Quod nunc agimus multiplici orationum cantilenarum consecrationum officio totum hoc Apostoli post eos proximi ut creditur orationibus commemoratione passionis dominica faciebant simpliciter That which wee act by an Office compounded of many and divers Prayers Psalms and Consecrations all that the Apostles and the next after them did plainly with prayers and the commemoration of our Lords passion as it is thought For the consecration may well be understood to be made plainly by prayer with commemoration of our Lords passion in opposition to that solemnity of Lessons Psalms and Prayers which at the more solemn occasions of the Church it was afterwards celebrated with Though wee suppose it to conclude alwaies with the Lords Prayer as S. Gregory requires And herewith the words of S. Gregory seeâ— to agree when hee â—aith Vt ad ipsam â—solummâ—do orationem To consecrate at or with it alone not by it alone But if this opinion cannot passe having indeed no constraining evidence but that S. Gregories words will needs require that they conâ—ecrated the Eucharist by the Lords Prayer alone I will will then â—ay that the Apostles understood the petition of our dayly bread as S. Cyprian upon the Lords Prayer doth To wit of the breâ—d and drink of the Eucharist daily celebrated and received For supposing this intent and meaning there is nothing pretended to be done by the consecration which that Petition signifieth not Praying that God will give us this day the dayly food of our â—ouls by the elements presently provided for that purpose And all this will no way prejudice that which hath been said of the mater and form of the consecration derived by Tradition from the Apostles to be frequented at more solemn occaâ—â—ons of Christian Assemblies For that Assembly which believing that Christians are justified by undertaking to professe the Faith and to live according to it and that our Lord hath left us his body and bloud of the Eucharist to convey the Holy Ghost to our â—ouls that they may be able to perform what they undertake should pray the Lords Prayer over the Elements proposed with that intent I cannot doubt of their receiving the Body and bloud of Christ Provided that where the occasion will bear more solemnity the Order of the Church received from the Apostles be not neglected Whereas supposing Christians to believe that they are justified by believing that they are justified or predestinate in consideration onely of Christs sufferings and that the Eucharist is instituted onely for a signe to confirm this Faith Though they should regularly use that form of consecration which I maintain to come by Tradition from the Apostles I would not therefore grant that they should either consecrate the Eucharist or could receive the Body and bloud of Christ by it Sacrilege they must commit in abusing Gods ordinances to that intent for which hee never appointed it but Sacrament there would be none further then their own imagination And upon these premises I am content to go to issue as concerning the sense of the Catholick Church in this point If it can any way be showed that the Church did ever pray that the flesh and bloud might be substituted instead of the elements under the accidents of them then I am content that this be counted henceforth the Sacramental presence of them in the Eucharist But if the Church onely pray that the Spirit of God coming down upon the Elements may make them the body and bloud of Christ so that they which received them may be filled with the grace of his Spirit Then is it not the sense of the Catholick Church that can oblige any man to believe the abolishing of the Elements in their bodily substance because supposing that they remain they may neverthelâ—sse become the Instrument of Gods Spirit to convey the operation thereof to them that are disposed to receive it no otherwise than his flesh and bloud conveyed the efficacy thereof upon earth And that I suppose is reason enough to call it the body and bloud of Christ Sacramentally that is to say as in the Sacrament of the Eucharist It is not here to be denied that
worthy frequenting of this holy Sacrament that suffers As for the Church of England I referr my self to the very form of those Lawes according to which as many as have received Orders in it have promised to exercise the Ministery to which they were appointed by the same and that before God and his Church at so solemne an occasion that nothing can be thought obligatory to him that would transgresse it For the Offertory which the Church of England prescribeth if it signifie any thing signifieth the dedication of that which is offered as at large to the necessities of the Church so in particular to the celebration of the Eucharist then and there At the consecration the Church prayeth That wee receiving these thy creatures of Bread and Wine according to thy Son our Saviour Christs holy institution in remembrance of his death and passion may be partakers of his most blessed body and bloud And after the Communion Wee thy humble servants intirely desire thy fatherly goodness mercifully râ— accept this our Sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving Most humbly beseeching thee to grant that by the merits and death of thy Son Jesus Christ and through faith in his bloud wee and thy whole Church may obtain remission of our sins and all other benefits of his death and passion All this having premiâ—ed prayer for all States of Christs Church Which whether it make not the Sacrament of the Eucharist by virtue of the Consecration the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Crosse propitiatory and impetratory for them who communicate in it by receiving the Elements whether or no by virtue of this Oblation propitiatory and impetratory for the necessities of the rest of the Church as well as the Congregation present I leave to men of reason but not to Puritanes to judge This I am sure the condition of the Gospel which is the fourth reason for which I have showed that the Eucharist is counted a Sacrifice in the sense of the Church is exactly expressed in the words that follow to the confusion of all Puritanes that would have us expect the blessings promised from such a kinde of faith which supposes it not neither implies â— And â—â—â—e wee offer and present to thee O Lord our selves our souls and bodies to be a reasonable holy and lively sacrifice unto thee humbly beseeching thee that all we which be partakers of this holy Communion may be fulfilled with thy grace and heavenly benediction For the reason which obliges us to professe this at receiving the Eucharist which is the New-Testament in the blood of Christ is because the promises which the Gospel covenanteth for depend upon it as the condition which renders them due And upon these premises I may well conclude that all the reasons for which I have showed that the Eucharist is a sacrifice in the sense of the Church are recapitulâ—ted and comprised in which followeth And though we be unworthy through our manifold sinnes to offer unto thee any sacrifice yet we beseech thee to accept this our bounden duty and service not waying our merits but pardoning our offences CHAP. VI. The reason of the Order by which I proceed brings me to the Baptism of Infants in the next place The power of the Keyes seen in granting Baptism as well as in communicating the Eucharist Why Socinians make Baptism indifferent Why Antinomians make it a mistake to Baptize The grounds upon which I shake off both With answer to some objections WHen I proposed to write of the Laws of the Church that is to say of those controversies concerning the same which are the subject of division in mater of Christian amity to the English at this time I proposed my subject in aeqivocall terms till it be further distinguished that the Laws of the Church may be understood to be those which God hath given the Church to conduct the body of the Church in the exercise of their Christianity And they may be understood to be those which God hath inabled the Church to give themselves according to that which I showed from the beginning That Gods giving such Laws to Christians as are to be kept and exercised by the community of Christians at their respective Assemblies is a demonstration that God hath founded a Society or Corporation under the name of the Church And that supposing the Church to be such a Society or Corporation of necessity inferreth that it is inabled by Gods Law to give Laws unto it selfe in such maters as not being determined by Gods Law become necessary to be determined for preservation of the Body in unity and communion in the offices of Gods service The Laws therefore that God gives his Church are so farre the subject of this inquiry as may make it to appear what is left to the power and duty of the Church to determine And to this purpose it seemed requisite in the first place to determine what the rule of Faith containeth to be believed of the Sacrament of the Eucharist which is the ground of whatsoever can be pretended that he hath injoyned his Church as concerning the frequentation of it having determined the like afore not only concerning the Sacrament of Baptism but also concerning Penance in as much as they contain qualifications requisite by the Gospel to render the promises thereof due to particular Christians Whereas the Sacrament of the Eucharist being as I said afore the most eminent of those offices which God hath injoyned to be celebrated by the Assembles of his Church having first founded his Church upon the duty and the command or upon the charter or priviledge of holding those Assemblies even when the Powers of the world allow it not required a teaâ—y express to determine the true intent why it was instituted that it might the better appear in due time how those circumstances in the celebration of it which are a great part of the subject of that division which prevails among us in point of Christianity may best be determined to the intent of Gods Law And also that the true intent of other Powers given the Church evidently â—ending to the maintenance of Christianity and the purity thereof but alwaieâ— with a respect to the unity of the Church in the communion of those offices whereof this is the chief might the better be estimated by a right understanding of the end which they seek You have then the first that is the original and primitive and also if you demand that the prime and chief power of Gods Church consisting in celebrating the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist Not in washing away the filth of the Body as S. Peter saith that is not in ministring the outward ceremony of washing the body with water or any part of it but in admitting and allowing that professinn of a good Conscience which qualifies a man to be a member of the Church For this allowance is no lesse then a declaration on the part of the Church that he who upon these times
incursions of Satan upon such persons then visible and so I understood it afore But I must not therefore omit that sense of these words which the ancient Church frequeneth understanding this destruction to be the mortification of the flesh by works of Penance For this is that sense which Tertullian then a Moâ—tanist labours to confute but Origen in Levit. Hom. XXIV Pacianus Paraenesi ad Paenitenâ—iam S. Basil ad Aâ—philochium C. VII S. Ambrose de Paenitentià I. 12. S. Austine de fide operibus cap. XXVI suppose and use Neither is it any way inconsequent that the excommunicate believing themselves to come thereby under the power of Satan should betake themselves to those demonstrations of humiliation and mortification whereby the Church might be moved to admit them to the means of their reconcilement And in this there is more then preaching the Gospel or taking away offence There is authority obliging to use the cure and granting reconciliation upon the same Again when S. Paul saith to them again 2 Cor. XII 20. 21. I am afraid least when I come I find you not such as I would and be found of you such as you would not least there be strifes envies animosities conâ—enâ—ions back-bitings whisporings inflasions commotions Least when I come to you again God humble me in regard of you and I mourn for many that have sinned afore and have not repented of the uncleanesse and whoredome and wantonnesse which they have done How should S. Paul be humbled in regard of or mourn for many of them but in regard of the necessity which he feareth to find of putting them out of the Church or to penance in case they adhere to the Church And if by appearance and demonstration of their repentance S. Paul was to be moved not to do this is it not evident that this is the means which he imployes to procure repentance and assure pardon by discharging them of it I do here repetâ— that which I said afore to show that it is the Apostles intent Heb. VI. 4. 5 6. X. 26 27. XII 15. 16 17. to deterre them from falling away from Christianity to Judaism for fear of persecution from the Jews by puting them out of hope of being readmitted to the communion of the Church Not as pronouncing sentence of damnâ—tion against them but as demonstrating it so difficult to be presumed upon in behalfe of him that had once violated the profession of Christianity that the Church was not to become the warrant for it If this be the case of those whose interest in the promises of the Gospel the Church warrants not then the warrant of the Church either in pronouncing sentence of absolution formally or in admitting really unto the communion of the Eucharist proceeds oâ— ought to proceed upon supposition of that disposition which qualifies for pardon wrought in the penitent by the censure of the Church And that this is the case I have further inferred from the words of the Apostle 1 Joh. V. 16. 17. If a man see his Brother sinne a sin â—â—t to death he shall pray and life shall be given to them that sinne not to death There is a sinne to death I say not that ye pray for it All unrighteousnesse is sinne But there is a sinne not to death For seeing it is manifest that the Church is to pray for all sinners be they never so great enemies to the Church it cannot be understood that absolutely the Church is not to pray for the sinne to death but that as he forbiddeth not so he obligeth not the Church to pray for the sinne unto death those prayers which tend to reconcile the sinner to the Church upon supposition and for a warrant of the reconcilement thereof with God If this seem not to agree with the words because S. John seems to speak to particular persons and not to the body of the Church when he sayes If any man see lâ—t him ask Let him consider the words of anoâ—her Apostle James V. 14. 15 16 For when he promiseth forgivenesse of sinnes to him that shall call for the Priests of the Church and they pray over him Adding immediately Confessâ— your sinnes to one another and pray for one another that ye may be healed It is necessary that we make good a reason why this admonition follows upon that which went before Why the Apostle having taken order for the cure of their sinnes who are here ordered to send for the Priests of the Churâ—h proceeds to say Confesse your sinnes to one another Namely because the way of curing sinne is the â—ame when a man confesses his sinne to a Brother that is a private Christian and when hâ— submits it to the authority of the Church For as here the Apoâ—tle maketh the means of obtaining pardon to consist in the prayers of the Priests in whom the authority of the Church resteth â—o there in the prayers of one Christian for another that confesses his sinne to him And hâ—reupon it is necessarily to be presumed both that the Apostle means that the Priests of the Church impose upon him that course of câ—re which his sinne requireth in case he survive And also that a private Christian by his advice reduce his Brother to use the same means Otherwise to what purpose should the one or the other declare his sinne seeing he might be prayed for at large without declaring the same It is therefore no marvail that the words of S. John manifestly concerning particular Christians should extend to the Keyes of the Church and the publick office thereof For though in the beginning when he saith If a man see his Brother sinne a sin not to death he addresseth onely to particular Christians yet the â—nd there is a sinne unto death I say not that ye pray for it manifestly addresseth to the Body of the Church implying that it is to be acquainted therewith by him that sees this if the case require it Whereupon S. Paul thus exhorteth Gal. VI. 1. Brethren if a man be overtaken in any transgression ye that are spiritual restore such a one with the spirit of meeknesse considering your selves least ye also be tempted Here the title of spiritual may extend to particular Christians But there is a presumption concerning publick persons in the Church that they are such because it is the opinion that they are such which qualifies them to be made publick persons in the Church Now when he speaks to the brethren in generall to do this he showes that it may concern the Body of the Church as well as particular Christans But when he speaks of the spirit of meeknesse it is manifest that the intent of his speech concerns those Penances which were imposed upon sinners for trial of their convesions in which he requires that meeknesse which the consideration of a mans own meeknesse recommends And therefore the same thing is taught by S. Iames by and by after the words afore quoted James V. 19. 20.
of the Church But you have also a possibility for the cure of sinne without the authority of the Church in as much as it had been too impertinent for the Apostle to have given a Precept of confessing sinne to one another if no sinne could be pardoned without having recourse to the Church The same is the effect of S. Johns words If a man see his Brother sinne a sinne not unto death For it is manifest that that sinne which one man sees is not notorious to the Church And yet the distinction which S. John maketh between the sinne which he commandeth a private Christian to pray for and the sinnes which he commandeth not the Church to pray for with the difficulties which the primitive Church had about it show that those sinnes which private advice cannot cure he would have brought to the Church And S. Johns meaning is that a man should pray for such sinnes of his Brother as he is sure are not to death Supposing first his Brother disposed by himself or by his advise to take the course that may qualifie him for forgivenesse But if it prove doubtful whether to death or not the Apostle by saying that there are some sinnes which he referreth to the Church whither to pray for pardon of them to wit in order to restoring them to the communion of the Church or not supposeth that they are reported to the Church by him that saw them when the Church saw them not But first supposing that they might possibly have been cured without bringing them to the Church And if these things be true then is the bringing of a sinner back from the error of his way according to that Precept of S. James which followeth an obligation that is to be discharged not onely by the office of a private Christian in convicting a private Christian of his sinne and of the means that he is to use for his recovery but also by bringing him to the Church if the case require it Which obligation will necesâ—atily lie upon the sinner himself in the first place But so that his own skill and fidelity to his own salvation may possibly furnish him his cure at home The tenor of our Saviours words throughly inforceth the same according to that which I observed in the first Book p. 140. that all Christians may be said to bind sinne by showing a Christian his sinne in case he refuse that cure which he that convicts him of his sinne convicts him that is to use And to loose sin in case he imbrace it But this in the inner Court of the Conscience between God and the soul For though the words of our Lord If thy Brother offend thee tell him of it between him and thee extend to private injuries obliging a Christian first to seek reparation by the good will of his party upon remonstrance of the wrong Then not to seek it out of the Church but by the Church yet they necessarily comprehend all sinnes which another man knows which to him are offences And therefore when our Saviour saith If he hear thee thou hast gained thy Brother it is manifest that the effect of his promise which followeth Whosoever ye bind on earth shall be bound in heaven is obtained by the act of a private Christian without recourse to the publick authority of the Church And who will believe that the skill and fidelity of some private Christian may not furnish him as good a cure as he can expect to learn from any private Christian to whom he can have recourse And yet the process of our Lords discourse showes that the intent of it concerns in chiefe the exercise of the Keyes of Gods Church even upon those sinnes which are not notorious Which who so considers cannot refuse to grant that S. Pauls injunction for the restoring of him that is surprised in sinne concerns both the office of private Christiaâ—s and also of a whole Church and the Body of it And truly considering what hath been said concerning Scripture and Tradition it cannot seem strange that the Apostles leaving such authority with the Churches of their founding with generall instructions to those whom they trusted them with writing to the Bodies of those Churches things respectively concerning all Christians should give directions concerning all in generall terms which the visible practice of the said Churches might determine to the respective office of each quality and estate in those Churches No more then that our Lord finding the power of the Keyes not yet visible before Christianity should propose his instructions in that generality which onely his Apostles orders and the practice of their Churches upon their instructions determineth For the power of the Keyes in the Church inables it further untill the worlds end to limit further whatsoever shall appear to require further determination to the end of binding and loosing of sinne which it importeth according as the present state of the Church in every age shall require Let us now consider that though I have made evidence by consequence from the writings of the Apostles that remission of sinnes committed after Baptism may be obtained without the Keyes of the Church yet it is hard to find any expresse promise to that effect in their writings unlesse it be that of S. Johns first Epistle In which notwithstanding a limitation of that confession which the Apostle requires to the Church and to those that are trusted by the Church may reasonably be understood supposing the way of curing sinne by the ministery of the Church to have been customary and therefore known at that time And on the contrary though I do believe these consequences to be unreproveable yet it is to be considered that S. Pauls indulgence seems to be granted upon a particular occasion incident to distemper the ordinary course of the Church Namely the prevailing of some sinne to a faction of some great or the greatest part of the Church Which as it necessarily intercepted the use of the power of the Keyes though provided and ordained by God for the curing of the said sinnes so can it by no means argue that God hath not appointed it for the ordinary means of curing them As for the consequence which was made from the testimonies of the Law and the Prophets and of the Gospels before the establishment of the Covenant of Baptism to show that they take effect also in sinnes after Baptism It may easily be considered that they take place no further then that disposition which is requisite to the forgivenesse of those sinnes whereby the grace of Baptism is violated may be supposed to be produced without helpe of the Church Which as I conceive I have proved to be possible so I conceive no man living can prove to be so easie that all those who stand in need of the remedy can presume upon so good ground as the safety of the soul requires to obtain it or to have obtained it of themselves without that helpe which
they shall be forgiven them For sinnes cannot be forgiven without profession of amendment In which sentence this discretion is to be that we confesse daily and light sinnes to one anothers equalls believing that they are cured by their daily prayers But open the uncleannesse of greater leprosie to the Priest according to the Law and see them reconciled at his discretion how and how long he orders This is the very sense that I give the Apostles according to that strait communion Christians then held with Christians as members of the Church Why not rely upon the advice and prayers of Christians as Christians who are commanded to procure the salvation of Christians next their own in matters whereof they may be thought capable Therefore those sins which S. James directs the Priests to pray for are such as for the weight of them must resort to the Keyes of the Church for their cure But when Bede when Pope Innocent allows all Christians to anoint themselves or theirs with consecrated ovl when the Sermon de Tempore commands them to anoint their bodies when the Book de rectitudine Catholicae conversationis directs them to send for it from the Church it is manifest that they speak of Unction alone whereas S. James speaks of Unction joyned with the Keyes of the Church and that the Priests office is required in that case It is also manifest that Pope Innocent calls that unction a Sacrament which Christians give themselves which though he refuses Penitents yet those whom the Priest shall have given the Communion to could not be refused it Which referres remission of sinne to the Keyes of the Church but the hope of bodily health to the unction with prayer such as the case requires In the Penitentiall of Theodore of Canterbury thus it was read according to Buchardus his collection XVIII 14. Ab infirmis in periculo mortis positis per Presbyteros pura inquirenda est confessio peccatorum non tamen illis imponenda quantitas poenitentiae sed innotescenda cum amicorum orationibus studiis elemosynarum pondus poenitentiae sublevandum Ut si fortè migraverint ne obligati excommunicatione alieni vel ex consortio veniae fiant Aquo periculo si divinitus ereptus convaluerit poenitentiae modum à suo confessore impositum diligenter observet Et ideò secundùm Canonicam authoritatem ne illis â—anua pietatis clausa videntur orationibus consolationibus Ecclesiasticis sacrâ cum unctione olei animati juxta statuta sanctorum Patrum communione vietici reficiantur Of the sick that are in danger of death a clear confession of sins is to be demanded by the Priests yet is not the quantity of Penance to be imposed upon them but to be notified and the waight of it to be eased with the Prayers of their friends and zeal in giving alms That if they chance to depart they be not as bound by excommunication strangers and without the participation of paradox From which danger if God save him and he recover let him diligently observe that measure of Penance which his Confessor iâ—â—posed And therefore according to the authority of the Canons that the door of pity seem not shut upon them being comforted with the prayers and consolations of the Church with the holy ointing of oyl let them according to the constitutions of the Holy Fathers be refreshed with the communion of the Eucharist The same Burchardus XVIII 11. quotes that which follows out of the decrees of Pope Eusebius cap. X. in whose decretals now extant which Isidorus Mercator is thought to have forged I find it not But he who observes how proper the order which he prescribes in the case is to that which the former passage prescribed in that case may perhaps have reason to thinke that it is out of the same Penitentiall of Theodore and that the passage premised is the very order to which he referres Si quis poenitentiam petens dum sacerdos venerit fuerit officio linguae prinatus constitutum est ut si idonea testimonia habuerit quod ipse paenitentiam petisset ipse per motus aliquos suae voluntatis aliquod signum facere potest sacerdos impleat omnia sicut supra circa aegrotum poenitentiam scriptum est id est orationis dicat ungat eum sancto oleo Eucharistiam ei det post quam objerit ut caeteris fidelibus ei subministret If a man that demands Penance while the Priest is in coming be deprived of the office of his tongue it is decreed that if he have competent witnesse that he had demanded Penance and he by some motion is ablo to make some sign of his will the Priest fully do all that is written afore about the sick under Penance That is say the Prayers and anoint him with the consecrated oyl and give him the Eucharist and when he is dead do service for him as for other believers By these remarkable passages you see that even when Penance and the Unction both were ministred and prescribed to be ministred by the Priest bodily health was expected from the Unction remission of sinnes from the Keyes of the Church How much more having showed by Pope Innocent and venerable Bede and others that the anointing of themselves and theirs was referred to particular Christians is there reason to presume that this was done in case when there was no question of binding and loosing sinne by the Keyes of the Church We have lately published at Paris a Leter of Amulo Bishop of Lions under Carolus Calvus next successor to Agobardus concerning some forged reliques pretending that fits of convulsions and Epilepsies were stirred at the presence of them for evidence that they were cured by them as true reliques To which he saith Si autem languores aliqui ac debilitates accidunt juxta Evangelicum Apostolicum praeceptum praesto habet unusquisque ut inducat Presbyteros Ecclesiae orent super cum ungentes eum oleo in nomine domini oratio fidei salvabit infirmum But if any sicknesse or infirmity happen it is ready for every man according to the precept of the Gospell and Apostle to bring in the Priests of the Church that they may pray over him anointing him with oyl in the name of the Lord and the prayer of faith shall save the sick Here because the occasion is publick and notorious to the Church the Prayers of the Priest are directed though without reference to the ministery of the Keyes Certainly Proculus the Christian that cured Antoninus Son of Severus the Emperour by anointing with oyle according to Tertullian ad Scapulam IV. did it not as a Priest which he did to an Infidel but as a private Christian having hope in God by himself to make his presence in the Church appear Onely this difference we find that whereas Proculus did this as a simple Christian indowed with one of those miraculous graces whereby God manifested
to one wife indissolubly as mariage hath alwaies been indissoluble among Christians could have taken effect among all Christians had it not been received from the beginning for a part of that Christianity which our Lord Christ and his Disciples delivered to the Church nor preserved so inviolable as it hath been but by the society of the Church He that will give a reason how this Law could have taken place otherwise must either alledge the Law of Moses or the Law of the Romane Empire There being no other Law extant when Christianity took place For the law of Moses it is evident that at such time as Christianity came into the world it was counted lawfull according to it to have more wives then one and to put away away a mans wife by a Bill of divorce I demand then how this should come to be prohibited by virtue of that Law which was hitherto thought to allow it It will be said by the true interpretaion of the Law which having been obscured by the false glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees our Lord by his Gospel Mat. V. 31. 32. XIX 3-9 Mark X. 11. 12. Luk. XVII 18. clears and injoyns upon Christians for the future But I showed before in the second Book that when our Lord saith so oft in his Sermon on the Mount You have heard it was said to those of old his meaning is that Moses said so to their Fathers when he gave them the Law not that the Scribes and Pharisees said so to their Predecessors when they corrupt it Besides there are two things evident in the Scripture beyond contradiction The first that divers Lawes of Moses either make it lawfull or suppose it lawful to have more wives then one Deut. XXI 15-17 the Law supposes a man to have two wives the one beloved the other not and provides accordingly Ex. XXI 6-11 the Law gives him leave that hath bought the daughter of a Jew to mary her to his Sonne who if he have another is â—bound to pay her the mariage debt of a wife so that if he do not she is to go free Deut. XXI 1-14 the Law inables him that hath taken a captive in the War whom he likes to marry her not conditioning if he have no other wife Call these two later wives or call them Concubines so long as the Law of God allows them evident it is that it allows that which Christians by their Christianity think themselves bound to forbear Adde hereunto that the King is bound not to take too many wives Deut. XVII 16. 17. that David is not reproved as transgressing this Law though Solomon is But on the contrary that God imputes it as a favour to him that he gave him many wives 2 Saâ— XII 8. which he could not do had he not allowed it I say adde the practice as the life of the Law to the leter as the carcase of it and I may justly conclude that Polygamy is not prohibited by the Law of Moses Besides the Law provides that an Ebrue slave who may go free at the seventh year if his Master have given him a slave of his own to wife and he have children by her must part wedlock with his wife and leave her and children to his Master for his goods Exodus XXI 3. 4. nullifying the contract of Mariage by the choice of him who proffers his freedom before his wife and children in bondage a thing utterly inconsistent with the insolubility of Mariage by Moses Law Secondly our Lord in the Gospel saith not onely It was said to them of â—ld He that puts away his wife let him give her a Bill of Divorce But I say unto you as Mat. V. 31. 32. But further when they ask him Mat. XIX 7. Why did Moses then command to give a Bill of divorce and seâ—d her away He answereth Moses for your hard-heartednesse suffered you to put away your wives But from the beginning it was not so Now I say unto you that he that puts away his wife for fornicatioâ— and maries another commits adultery and he that maries her that is put away commits adultery And all this having laid his ground afore He that made them from the beginning made them male and female and said therefore shall a mâ—n leave father and mother and cleave to his wife and they two shall be one flesh So they are no longer two but one flesh Therefore what God hath joyned let no man part Whereby it is evident that he derives not the prohibition of putting away a wife to take another from any interpretation of Moses Law to the provision whereof he opposeth the provision which hereby he introduceth But from the commission which he pretendeth by virtue whereof he restoreth the primitive institution of Paradise which the Law of Moses had either dispensed with or did suppose it to have been formerly dispensed with For he saith not onely You have heard that it was said to them of old which may be thought to be understood of the Scribes and Pharisees But also Moses said and I say opposing his own saying to that of Moses so farre as prohibiting that which he had allowed imports without licensing that which was prohibited by the Law And upon this ground that by mariage man and wife become one flesh he proceeds to prohibite the divorces which Moses Law alloweth so that the reason why mariage is indissoluble is because man and wife are one flesh by the Gospel of Christ according to the first institutions in Paradise This indeed is the difficulty which I here suppose already declared how this first institution lost or may appear to have lost the force of a Law till revived by our Lord Christ though I conceive the evidence of this truth cannot be obstructed by not declaring the reason of it here S. Paul having so fully laid down the effect and intent of his masters Law 1 Cor. VII 1-6 Now of that you writ to me about it is good for a man not to touch a woman Neverthelesse because of fornications sake let every man have his wife and every woman her husband let the man render his wife the benevolence that is due likewise the wife to the Husband The woman hath no power of her Body but the man Likewise the man is not master of his own Body but the wife Defraud not one another unlesse upon agreement for a time that ye may attend to fasting and prayer and come together againâ— least Satan tempt you for your incontinence For here it is manifest that because man and wife are one flesh they have an interess in one anothers bodies not to be disposed of upon any other to the prejudice of it And upon this supposition the mariage of the first Adam in this earthly Paradise being the figure of the mariage between the second Adam and his Church becomes the rule and measure of the Mariages of Christians in the Church as the same Apostle declares at large Ephes V.
to study the reconciling of carnality vvith Christianity Supposing the consent of a body vvhereof they thought themselves to be members it is no marvail that there would not Not supposing that it must needs appear utterly unreasonable As for the insolubility of mariage by divorce I vvill not say there hath been so absolute a consent in it by the practice of Christians as in the mariage of one to one It is argued indeed in the late Book called Vxor Ebraica pretending onely to relate the opinions and practice of Christians in mater of divorce but intending as it should seem by the Authors opinion declared elsewhere that there is no such thing as Ecclesiasticall Power or any society of the Church by Gods Law to inferre that the Church hath nothing to do vvith Matrimoniall causes vvhich it hath nothing to do with if any thing but the lavv of the Church can secure the conscience in point of divorce p. 543. 544. that so long as the Christians vvere mingled with the Jews they observed the judiciall laws of the Synagogue and therefore corrected all divorces good beâ—or God which were according to Moses Lavv. And therefore that vvhatso ever was in force among Christians before Constantine was in force meerly by the voluntary consent of Christians vvhich vvas to give vvay vvhen the secular Power should otherwise provide as in mater of divorce so in other Matrimoniall causes This is thâ—â—â—â—ich seems to be intended p. 559. But this pretence is rooted up by proving the Church to be a society and Body founded by God to communicate in the service of God for the attaining of everlasting life For thereupon it remâ—â—ns evident that the Lavvs thereof came not originally from the voluntary consent of Christians unlesse you understand that consent whereby they submit to the Christian faith that they may be saved and thereupon find themselves tieâ— to submit to them from whom they receive that faith whereby they hope to be saved but from those who first delivered Christianity to the Church that is from our Lord his Apostles And had Christians been left to their own choice it is not possible they should have imposed upon themselves that is that the whole Church should have received that charge of not divorcing which the Rules and Customes of the Church evidence to have been in force through the whole Church as by and by it will appear As for the time when the Christians observed Moses Law that excellent saying of Justine the Martyâ— takes place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They obey the Lawes and by their own lives go beyond the Laws For the Jews Law was then their Civill Law because authorized by the Romanes in as much as they restrained it not So by complying with the Jews they gained the free exercise of their Christianity as well as invited them to admit and receive it But did they therefore renounce the Law of Christ where it restrained them more then the Law of Moses Did they allow themselves more wives then one when Moses allowed it the Jews and they complyed with Moses Certainly the Law that allows a man more wives then one never constrained any man to make use of that allowance So well might the Christians acknowledging Moses Law acknowledge themselves bound not to use the power of putting away their wives when Moses Law allowed it But it is further argued there lib. III. cap. XXVIII XXIX XXX at least it seems upon the same ground to be argued that the Roman Laws from Constantine to the fall of the Eastern Empire in a maner do allow divorce upon such causes as the Soveraign thought fit Which Laws being made by Christian Princes intending to limit that infinite liberty which the former laws of the Empire allowed either party to dissolve mariage at pleasure with all that he brought must needs pretend to secure Christians in point of conscience divorcing upon no other causes then those laws allow Constantine therefore restrains the liberty of divorce to three causes on either side On the wives side if the â—usband should Murther Poyson or Rob graves On the husbands if the wife should be an Adulteress an Impoisoner or a Bawd And this at such time as he advised with Bishops in all that he did granting then an appeal to their Courts by an act dated the same year as it is probable and lately published in Sirmondus his Appendix to Theodosius his Code without date for the year but directed to the same Ablavius P. P. to whom the form is directed Cod. Theod. lib. III. Tit. XVI which Theodosius the younger a very Christian Prince extends to many more Justinian the legislative humour being then predominant limits the mater otherwise as he thought fit His successor Justine goes beyond him in allowing divorce upon consent of parties though at neither parties choice Which Law is not found to have been repealed till it was left out of that collection of Laws called the Basilicae into which Leo the wife about the year DCCCC compiled all the Laws which he meant should stand unrepealed The particulars you may see curiously collected there Which I should make no account of did it not appear also by sundry testimonies of later times there alledged that the Greek Church did proceed according to the said Laws in blessing Mariages made upon such divorces and consequently allowing the communion of the Church to those that made them Balsamon upon Syn. VI. Can. LXXXVIII defines an unreasonable cause of divorce to be that which the Judge to wit according to the Law allows not Noâ— makes he any exception to them from any Canon of the Church writing upon Photius his Nâ—mocanon Tit. XIII 4. 30. And upon Can. Carthag CV alledging Justinian Novel CXVII he saith That the Canon is not in force to wit the Law having provided otherwise referring himselfe to that which he had written upon the VI Synode quoted afore Harmenopulus also in Prochicro sayes plainly that divorces were judged amongst them by the Imperiall Laws And Matthaus Monachus Quaest Matrim Juris Grâ—co-Rom Tomo I. p. 507. So also the Canons of Alexuis Patr. CP about MXXX alledged by our Author out of a written Copy p. 613. And Michael Chrysocephalus upon Can. Apost XLVIII p. 600. Besides Matthâ—us Blastares in Nomocan alledged by Arcudius p. 517. where he being a Greek confesseth that the Greek Church had sometimes practiced according to the Civill Laws Which had they not secured the conscience it could not it ought not to have done And what case can there be in point of mariage wherein the Law of the Land secures not the conscience if in point of divorce it do Or where is the indissolubility of mariage and the Interest of the Church in mariage grounded upon it But because it would be two gross for a Christian to say that mans Law allowing divorce can secure a Christian in conscience against Gods Law forbidding it our Lord having said Whoso puts away his wife
Congregations I do indeed acknowledge that there is difficulty in expounding those texts of the Apostles which speak to this purpose so as to agree them with the Originall and universal practice of the Church And therefore it is no marvail if learned men that have handled this point among us where without affectation I may say that it hath been most curiously and ingenuously disputed have gone several wayes upon severall grounds in assigning the reason why the degree of Deacons is mentioned next to the degree of Bishops in so many texts of the Apostles having the order of Priests between both as the original and perpetual custome of the Church required For it is well enough known that there is an opinion published and maintained by many learned observations in the primitive antiquity of the Church that during the time when those texts of the Apostles were written there were but two Orders of Bishops and Deacons established in the Church though Bishops also are called Presbyters the name not being yet appropriated to the midle order while it was not introduced as afterwards it came to be And this opinion allegeth Epiphanius very fitly confuting Aerius the Heretick or Schismatick objecting the same that at the beginning the multitude of believers in less places being so small that one Governour together with some Ministers to attend upon him in executing his Orders might well serve them it is no marvail if there be no mention of any more Orders in so many texts of the Apostles And it may be said that as there were Churches founded and governed by a certain order from the beginning that we read of them in the Apostles so no Bishop Priest or Deacon was appropriated to any particular Church till after that time by degrees they came to be selled to certain Churches by Ecclesiastical Law and Custome So that during the time of the Apostles themselves and their companions whom they associated to themselves for their assistance were in common the Governours of Churches then founded according as they fell out to be present in these Churches to whom they had the most relation by planting and watering the faith planted in them either by virtue of the agreement taken by the Apostles within themselves or by the appointment of some of them if we speak of their companions and assistances But afterwards when the faith came to be setled then as those which had been Governours of Churches in common before became chief Governours of particular Churches to whom by lawful consent they became appropriated so were they provided of Priests and Deacons to assist and attend them in the execution of their office towards the body of Christians then mulplyed in severall Churches I do confess to have declared an opinion something differing from both of these sayings about the reason here demanded As not being perswaded either that the Order of Presbyters was not yet introduced into the Church during the Apostles time or that chief Governours were not appropriated and setled in some Churches during the same though I have no need to undertake that in all they were believing and maintaining that the Apostles themselves in the Churches of their own planting and watering were acknowledged chief Governours in ordering notwithstanding their extraordinary both Power not confined to any one Church and graces and abilities porportionable In which regard and under which limitation visible to the common sense of all men of their own and the next ages I do maintain Bishops to be their successors Whereupon it follows that I allow the name of Bishops in the Apostles writings to comprehend Priests also because of the mater of their function common to both though with a chief Power in the Bishop in Priests so limited as to do nothing that is to say nothing of consequence to his Power over the whole Church without his consent and allowance But this variety of opinion in expounding these Scriptures draweth after it no further consequence to prejudice the primitive Law of Goverment in the Church then this That there are more waies then one to answer the seeming probabilities pretending to make the evidence of Catholick Tradition unreconcileable with the truth of the Scriptures in the agreement whereof the demonstration of this truth consisteth I conceive therefore I might very well referre my self to the Readers free judgement to compare the reasons which I have produced with those that since have been used Notwithstanding I shall not think much briefly according to the model of this design to express the sense I have of the most native meaning of the most texts alleged in this businesse that I may have opportunity to point out again the peremptory exceptions which â—re visible in them either to the imagination of mungrill Prâ—sbyteries compounded of Clergy and People during the time of the Apostles or of the chief Power of any such Presbyteries in their resepective Churches CHAP. XVII The Power given the XII under the Title of Apostles and the LXX Disciples That the VII were Deacons Of the first Presbyters at Jerusalem and the Interest of the People Presbyters appropriated to Churches under the Apostles S. Pauls Deacons no Presbyters No ground for Lay Flders FIrst then as the name of Apostle in the Originall meaning is very general to signifie any commissary Proxy delegate or Ambassador so the use of it in the Apostles writings is larger then to be confined to the twelve For when S. Paul saith That our Lord appeared to the twelve afterwards to all the Apostles 1 Cor. XV. 5. 7. He must needs understand other Apostles besides the twelve perhaps the same that he meant where he reckoned Andronicus and Junias remarkable among the Apostles Rom. XVI 7. And that in another â—ense then Paul and Barnabas are called Apostles Act. XIV 4. 14. For the name of Apostle intimating whose Apostle he is that is called an Apostle we have no reason to count Paul and Barnabas any mans Apostles but our Lord Christs though they were first sent with the blessing of such Doctors and Prophets as the Church of Antiochia then had Acts XIII 1. 2 3. whose authority cannot in any reason be thought to extend so farre as to constitute an Apostle parâ—llel to the Twelve which S. Paul so oft so expresly challenges For since we see their commission is immediately from the Holy Ghost that is from God we are not to value their right by the solemnity which it is visibly conferred upon them with Unlesse you will say that by virtue of that Imposition of Hands they were messengers and Commissaries of that Church and that they then appeared to be no more then so though afterwards God set on them marks of the same authority with the Twelve Truly those whom S. Paul calls false Apostles transferring themselves into the Apostles of Christ 1 Cor. XI 13. must neâ—ds be understood to have pretended commission from our Lord Christ himself For hereupon they stood upon it that they had
and legall whereof before the ground onely was reasonable But I do not mean this dependance to be the effect of the fourth Commandment onely which prescribeth onely bodily rest as I have showed but of these appendences of it whereby the Assemblies of the Jews and their sacrifices for that day are inacted For because they were to serve God upon the Sabbath it was certainly reasonable in regard of our Lords resurrection that Christians should serve God upon the first day of the Week If any man in this regard will call the Lords day the Christians Sabbath or the like I find no fault with it nay I find it so called by the Christians of Aethiopia in Scaliger VII de Emend Temporum Provided he conne my opinion that thanks which it deserves for leaving no further room to unstable spirits to imagine as some great Masters have done that it is in the power of Churches or of Christian Powers â—rotecting them to chuse another day of seven or of less then seven for Gods publick service For not being out of the reach of such power immediately by virtue of the fourth Commandment as I and they both have shewed it is beyond the reaâ—h of it by virtue of the Apostles authority and the act of it And now it is time to declare the sense of the Catholick Church derived from the doctrine and writings of the Apostles to be this concerning the times of Gods service That the offices thereof being alwayes acceptable to God and seasonable so that they be orderly done it is the duty of the Church to provide that they be as frequently celebrated as the occasions of the world will allow not by particular Christians alone but at the common assemblies of the Church Whereby it may appear how injurious and prejudicial to the service of God the zele of those is who challenging the whole Sunday for the service of God by virtue of the fourth Commandement seem thereupon to take it for granted that there ought to be no order for the publick service of God upon other Festivals and times of Fasting appointed by the Church nor which is more for the dayly celebration of divine service in the Church There hath been a pretense indeed that when the fourth Commandement saith Six dayes thou shalt labor and do all that thou hast to do It forbiddeth the Church to give any Rule of forbearing bodily labor for the exercise of Gods service But so ridiculous that even these who have the conscience to hold the conclusion have not the face to maintain the premises That form of speech manifestly importing no more than this That the present Law requires no more than keeping the first day of the week seeing it is manifest that by other Laws God intended to proceed further and to except other dayes from the bodily labor of his then people for his service Thereupon it is manifest that the Synagogue proceeded likewise to except other dayes for which there rose occasions for the like purpose And truly those who think it a burthen to the duty of working for mens living that there should be an Order for the dayly serving of God in the Church having all them to attend it that are not prevented of it by necessary occasions may look upon the Jews and blush to consider that they as S. Jerome Epiphanius and Justine the Martyr assure us should assemble themselves thrice a day in their Synagogues to curse our Lord Christ which their own Constitutions not mentioning do provide for the service of God nevertheless but that it should be counted superstitious for Christians to meet for Gods service in publick unless it be on the Lords day Certainly the practice of the primitive Christians at Jerusalem signifies no such thing all the contribution there raised tending to no other purpose but that the Church might hold together in the doctrine of the Apostles and the service of God and celebration of the Eucharist Though they went also into the Temple and served God with the Jews whom they then hoped and intended to reduce unto Christianity But I will referr my self in this point as in that which follows to that which I have said in my Book of the service of God at the Assemblies of the Church Chap. VIII having received from no hand any maner of satisfaction in the least of it Whereby it will appear that the Church hath power to limit the times of Gods service upon this ground Because the occasions of the world suffer not Christians alwayes to attend it which so oft as the Church shall finde it possible they are bound to do And that the use of this power as it is justified by the practice of the whole Church so it is necessary to the advancement of godlinesse according to Christianity Nor can the effect thereof be superseded without hindring the service of God whatsoever the strict keeping of the Lords day may contribute to the same Those times of persecution succeeded to the primitive Church wherein it is altogether admirable to consider how it was possible to reduce the whole body of Christians to an orderly course of so frequent service of God as appeareth The difficulties of assembling themselves being so great as under persecution must needs be Therefore when the exercise of Christianity was free and peaceable when all Nations and Languages upon their conversion to Christianity had made it their business and set aside means by which the service of God might be daily celebrated and all men have opportunity to frequent the same so farr either as their occasions would give leave or their hearts to God minde them to frame their occasions to take away this order and to destroy the means of executing it as either superstitious or superfluous what is it else but that curse which the Jews in their Synagogues would have wished Christianity when they met to curse Christ And if all difference of dayes for the service of God being taken away by Christianity so that no office of it is at any time unacceptable as the offices of Judaism were abominable not upon their legal days And the Apostles have notwithstanding for orders sake that there might be a certain time inviolably dedicated to that purpose set aside the first day of the week for it shall wee question whether it was they that instituted the solemnity of Easter Holy-days and consequently of Whitsuntide in remembrance of the resurrection of our Lord and the coming of the Holy Ghost or not For all the Lords dayes in the year have the mark that stands on them from that one on which our Lord rose again And since wee know that the difference about keeping Easter is as ancient as the Apostles and that there could have been no ground for it had not the Lords day born that mark at that time the question being onely when the Fast should end and the celebration of Easter come on can any doubt remain that the solemnity of
which they hear from those that do not profess to Preach within those bounds who can deny that they are guilty to their own death What those bounds are I shall say by and by In the mean time let them take heed whose neglect of the written word or whose zeal to preaching shuts the Scriptures out the Church that they contribute not to the bringing in of the secret and invisible Word of the Enthusiasts It is now no dainty to hear that the word which we have written in our Bibles is not the Word that saveth but that which is secretly and invisibly spoken to us within by Gods Spirit And whosoever attributeth the reverence due to Gods word to any such dictate without dependence upon the Scriptures that is deriving the same from the Scripture by those means which God hath allowed us for the understanding of them according to the premises what shall hinder him to preferre the dictate of his own Spirit under pretense of Gods before that which he admitteth to come from Gods Spirit For he who admitteth the greater contradiction of two parallel Soveraigns why should he not admit a less that the written word is not Gods word in competition with the dictate of his own Spirit when there is so easie a cloke of expounding the written word though against all reason and rule of expounding it yet so as to submit even the substance of Christianty to the dictate of a private spirit We have an example for it in the impostures of Mahomet For doth not the Alcoran acknowledge both our Lord Christ and Moses true Prophets of God besides all other attributes yet in as much as it pretendeth the Spirit given to Mahomet in such a degree as to controle them both it smoothes the way to the renouncing of Christianity when the power of the sword fell out on the side of it Simon Magus and his followers the Gnosticks might have done the like had the like power been on their side as the Manichees did in part if those things be true that we read in Cedronus of a party of them possessed of the Power of the Sword about the parts of Armenia all upon pretense of higher revelations then were granted to the Apostles The same is alleged against the Paraclete of Montanus and perhaps his followers being disowned by the Church might fall to such extremities but at the beginning it doth not appear that he pretended any more then to introduce certain strict orders into the Church as injoyned by his Spirit and those of his fellow Prophets which it was not expedient for the Church to undertake and being so it was requisite for him to conform unto the Church any pretense of the Spirit notwithstanding but otherwise were no way destructive to Christianity Suppose then the reading of the Scriptures to be one of those offices for the which the Church is to assemble the order of reading them which is that which remains is a thing to subject so common reason that there need not much dispute about it If we look upon Tertullianes or before him Justin Martyrs Apologies for the Christians there will appear no more then this that every Church that is every Body of Christians under one Bishop did prescribe themselves that order for reading the Scriptures in the Church which they found requisite And if that primitive simplicity which the Christianity under persecution was managed with had continued what fault could have been found with it But when the World was come into the Church which he that injoyes his right senses will not believe did come into it all with the like affections to the professions which they undertook it was in vain to hope that differences would not rise or might not rise about this as well as other points in which the exercise of Christianity consisted Differences arising the greater authority is that to which the ending of them obliges all men to have recourse The greater authority you have seen is that of the greatest Churches whither in Synods or not requiring Synods to oblige the less by reason of the exigence or reasonableness of the case The order of reading the Scriptures and of singing or saying the Psalms and Hymns of Gods praises being grounded upon no other reason nor tending to any other end then that of exercising and improving the Christianity of Gods people I need noâ— dispute that the Order which the power of the Church of Rome hâ—d introduced here as well in the rest of the West was such as made the Assemblies of the Church fruitlesse to that purpose For what could those shreds of Psalms and Lessonâ— which that order prescribeth contribute that might be considerable to that purpose Nor need I argue how considerable the order of the Church of England is to the same For to finish the Psalter once a year the New Testament thrice a year the Old once besides for reverence to the ancient Ordinance of the Church another Order for beginning the Prophet Esay at Advent and Genesis at Septuagesima to be prosecuted on Festival days is an Order from which the Church hath reason to expect a good effect in the instruction of Gods people And the interweaving of the Lessons with Hymns as it is agreeable to the rules and the practice of the ancient Church so it is in reason a fit mean to preserve attention and quicken devotion in them who use it In the mean time supposing there were considerable objections to be made against this or that order yet Order in generall being a thing so requisite to the preservation of Unity in the Body of the Church there is no reason to be given why any body should be admitted to dispute any Order received that cannot advance another Order which he can pretend to be more effectual to the purpose in which the parties must needs agree I am here to answer that part of the question concerning the Canon of Scripture which I said in the first book concerneth the Law not the faith of the Church whither the reading of those Scriptures which S. Jerome calls Apocryphall Ruffinus upon the Creed Ecclesiasticall for part of the Church office be for the ediâ—ication of the Church or not And a few words shall serve me to answer it with The very name of Ecclesiastical serves him that admits the Church to be one Body the unity whereof requires some uniformity in the order of those offices the communion whereof is one part of the end for which it subsisteth For it is manifest that the whole Church hath frequented the reading of them and that they are called Ecclesiastical for no other reason but because the reading of them hath been frequented by the Church in the Church And whosoever makes this any title of separation from the Church of Rome will make his Title Schismatical separating for that which is common to the present Church of Rome with the whole Church But because the repute of the Church is so slight
presumption that they are so as God hath provided they should be they are not to be accepted for Gods word though they who preach them would make men believe it And this is now the condition of the people of England It is well enough knowne indeed that the Presbyterians have propounded a new forme of doctrine according to which had it been received there would have been reasonable persumption for plaine Christians that their sermons must needs procede But it is as well known that it is excepted against in every part of it by those who joined with them against the Church of England as he that wil take the paines to compare that which I write here with it may know what it is that I except against in every point of it How they satisfie their people to pay them for preaching upon a supposition which they know is contested on both these hands as well as by the Church of Rome let them see to it whom I have thus warned As for those that are not Presbyterians it is plaine that the people have no other ground to presume that they preach the word of God but onely that they maintain the Bible to containe Gods word and that they are taken by those that send them for godly persons The one whereof is common to all Hereticks The other requires a ground whereupon those that send them may be taken for godly persons themselves and then how they come to be satisfied of those whom they send Both liable to more peremtory difficulties then their life time will serve to void Whereupon I inferr that there is no ground to presume that it is Gods word that is preached where the authority of the Church interposeth not And therefore it is lamentable to see how this miserable people are intoxicated with the conceite that they want not the word of God nor the meanes of salvation so long as they can goe and heare a man preach in a Pulpit without consideration what he professeth to teach for Christianity One thing I desire here may be considered It hath been not onely commonly said â—ut maintained by the writings of sober and knowing persons that very many Jesuites have been are still imployed in preaching the extravagant positions of this time on purpose to gaine oportunity and meanes to infuse into mens minds what they find effectuall to make them their Proselytes I confesse it is none of my sense For I conceive I show the principle upon which all these extravagances have a naturall and reasonable dependence But I demand where is the provision for simple soules when wise men are not satisfied that Jesuits are not admitted to preach It is to be considered that preaching is necessarily an office that requires a facility in speaking which all the world knowes goes not alwaies along with a right understanding Where there is both good understanding and a faculty of speaking it is manifest if there be not a good intention they are both as a sword in a madmans hand instruments to doe mischeife with I will silence the mention of all that we have seen The warres of the league in France the troubles of the united Provinces in the businesse of Arminius who can deny that the Pulpit inflamed both Whatsoever the Apostle S. James in the third Chapter of his Epistle hath ascribed to the tongue for good or for bad belongs to it in the Pulpit as elsewhere And therefore it is in it selfe an institution of doubtfull effect to set men up to show their eloquence in the Pulpit though under pretense of making our common Christianity recommendable by the meanes of it And that supposing them to admit the sense of the Church for the bounds of that which they are to deliver for the sense of the Scripture But supposing no bounds utterly pernicious For seeing no caution can exclude controversies from rising neither is there any such mischiefe as division to the Church nor any such meanes as Preachers tongues to inflame it And will any common sense allow that all audiences of Christians can be provided of men of understanding and eloquence rightly informed of the whole interest of Christianity If any such thing could be supposed it would not be for the best The satisfaction indeed of the more civile audiences requires no lesse For to appoint men to goe to Church to heare a sermon by heareing whereof a man neither learnes that which he knew noâ— afore or can be moved by otherwise expressing that which he knew afore to delight in it more then he did afore what is it but that which the Sons of Eli did to make the offering of God stink in the nostrills of the people For the time of seduction and errour they may have such a stroke with their people as to perswade them that the lothing of bad sermons is a fruite of the corruption of our nature which opposes Gods truth But whom God gives Grace to consider what I pretend to be Gods truth they finding that to be true which I shall say by and by must find the name of God to be onely the pretense of faction and interest In the meane time the satisfaction of the more civile andiences will not stand with the edification of the maine body of Christians The condition of the world changeth not by mens being Christians There are idiots and there are civile men and men of learning among Christians as well as Divines and a waies will be That which satisfies the lesser part will not edifie the greater part And that is it the Church ought to aime at Better the more refined should want their curiosities then the whole body their necessaries The plaine sort of Christians who for number how much they exceede the rest I refer my self to common sense for weight their souls being as precious to God as the souls of Princes cannot edifie by that which satisfies the more learned They understand no deduction of reason no figures of language Tell them the grounds of Christianity they are convicted Tell them what these grounds oblige them to doe for the end which they evidence they are convicted Tell them that for the interest of our common Christianity they are to come to Church to heare the same said againe in more eloquent termes or more curious conceits they have no reason to be convicted of it they have reason to suspect that there is some interest besides the common interest of Christianity in it Tell them that which remaines that they are to come to Church for the grounding for the inlarging of their Christianity by the understanding of the scriptures Supposing that that they know what is necessary to save all Christians by the Church and by being made Christians by the Church well and good If they think not that they are to give eare to whatsoever instruction may advance them in the knowledg of our common Christianity I think them not good Christians This for the whole Bible And
answer to the Jesuites Challenge Pag. 308-326 that the spoiling of Hell is attributed by the Fathers to the rising of our Lord Christ from the grave whereby the law of death was voided Which if it be true what Tradition can there remaine in the Church that our Lord Christs soule should harrow hell and ransacke it of the soules of the Fathers there detained or in the Verge of it Saint Basil de Sp. S. cap. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How then do we go down to Hell aright Imitating the buriall of Christ by Baptisme For the bodies of these who are Baptized are as it were buried in the water Saint Chrysostome in 1 ad Cor. Hom XL. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For to be baptized and first to sink then come up againe is an Embleme of going down into Hell and coming up againe And truly if the force of Christs death in voiding the dominion of death stood by the merit of his sufferings Then was the descent of his flesh into the grave of force to that effect without any descent further of his soul into the lower parts thereof And if the death of Christ and his continuing in death for the time that God had appointed was declared by God to be accepted by him to that effect then was his rising from death his triumph over hell and death whereby the title of his rising againe being declared it must needs appear that neither death nor hell nor the devil hath any more interest in Christians Nor is it so strange that the descent of Christ into hell should be mentioned by the Apostles Creed after his buriall if it signify not the descent of his soul as it would be that it should be left out of other Creeds if it did signify that it is necessary to the salvation of all so to believe For neither is it expressed in the Creed of Nicaea or Constantinople nor was it found in that which the Church of Rome or that which the Churches of the East used saith Ruffinus upon the Creed who notwithstanding expoundeth it because the Church of Aquileia which he belonged to used it Which had the signification of it been a distinct truth necessary to the salvation of all to be believed the Churches could by no meanes have connived at one another in not delivering it And truly seeing the dominion of death intimating the second death to which those who belong not to the New Testament are accursed is signified in the Old Testament by going under the earth The signification of going down into Hell in the Creed can by no meanes be thought superfluous though our Lord neither went thither to rescue the Fathers soules nor to triumph over the Powers of darknesse For as thereby the common curse from whence we are redeemed so is also the reason and meanes of our deliverance from it intimated And seeing there is appearance from that which hath been said that the divell himself did not understand the secret of Gods intent to dissolve his interest in mankind by the death of Christ untill it appeared by what right our Lord resumed his body which he had Laid downe this being declared in the other world by his rising again and in signe thereof the soules of the saints that slept rising againe with him and resuming their bodies there is no reason why the mention of his resurrection following immediately upon the descent into Hell in the Creed should not sufficiently expresse that triumph which this declaration importeth Which triumph being effected by the Godhead though in his flesh it will be no marvaile to meet with some sayings of the Fathers that ascribe it to his Godhead Now the common doctrine of the Schoole maketh it no matter of Faith to believe the descent of Christs soule into that Hell where the damned were but onely to the Verge of it where the souls of the Fathers were It is enough with them that the effect of this Power reached to the place of the damned Cardinall Bellarmine when he published his controversies held it probable that the soul of Christ descended to the place of the damned But upon better consideration in the review of them thinks that the other opinion of Thomas and the rest of the Schoole is to be followed And yet it is not possible to distinguish between this Verge and the lowest hell by any Tradition of the Church Nay Durandus goes so farre out of their rode as to maintaine that the soul of Christ went not to hell that is to Lymbus but onely by the effect of it in making the soules of the Fathers happy Which is in my opinion declaring to them the reason of their happinesse And the opinion of Suarez the Jesuite is remarkable That taking an Article of Faith for a truth necessary for the salvation of all Christians to be known the descent of Christ into hell is no Article of Faith For that is not very necessary for single Christians to know And for that cause perhaps it is not in the Nicene Creed which whoso believeth believes enough to save him And that perhaps for this cause some Fathers expounding the Creed to the People make no mention of it In III. Disput XLIII Sect. II. and IV. I may adde for the advantage of my opinion That if it be not necessary for single Christians to believe much lesse is it necessary for the Church as a body to believe it For those things which the Church believeth as a body it imposeth to be believed upon them who are of the body But it cannot be reasonable for the Church as a body to impose upon the members thereof the beliefe of that which it is not necessary to their salvation as single Christians to believe And therefore allowing the conscientiousnesse of S. Augustine who having presumed that he who believes not the descent is no Christiane doubts not that by the descent as many were delivered as Gods secter justice thought fit Epist XCIX And of Saint Jerome in Eph. II. allowing some work of God to be managed by it which we understand no more then what good our Lords death did the good Angels I allow also the reservedness of those of the Confession of Auspurg or of Suisse who acknowledging the literall sense of this Article find not themselves bound to maintaine for what reason it was I am not offended with those in the Church of England that assigne the triumph of our Lord for the reason of it But believing with Saint Gregory Nyssene in Pascha Resurrect Christi Epist ad Eustath that our Lord by the descent of his body into the grave abolished him that had the power of death by his soul made way for the thiefe into Paradise where it self was count this enough for the salvation of all Christians to be believed And therefore that the Church cannot impose upon them as the necessary meanes of their salvation to believe any more I do not intend to say much more
which it is ministred under such an unhallowed opinion as that In the meane time neither is the promise of Grace annexed to the solemnity thereof in which there hath succeeded so vast a change as I have signified by Gods choice of any visible creature in which it is exercised as in Baptisme and the Eucharist but by that common reason for which it is a solemnity fit for the Church to execute it with nor is the promise of grace annexed to the office of the Churth any otherwise then as it becomes the meanes to retrive the condition of baptisme qualifying for the promise by the Covenant of Grace In fine the name and notion of a Sacrament as it hath been duly used by the Church and writers allowed by the Church extendeth to all holy actions done by vertue of the Office which God hath trusted his Church with in hope of obtayning the grace which he promiseth Baptisme and the Eucharist are actions appointed by God in certaine creatures utterly impertinent to the effect of Grace setting aside his appointment But apt to signifie all the Grace which the Gospell promiseth by vertue of that correspondence which holds between things visible and sâ—nsible and things intelligible and invisible Both antecedent for their institution to the foundation of the Church the Society whereof subscribeth upon condition of the first and for communion in the second The rest are actions appointed to be solemnized in the Church by the Apostles not alwaies every where precisely with the same ceremonies but such as alwaies may reasonably serve to signifie the graces which it praies for on the behalfe of them who receive them The hope of that Grace being grounded upon Gods generall promise of hearing the prayers of his Church which the constitution thereof involveth Nor am I solicitous to make that construction which may satisfie the decrees of the Councils of Florence and Trent who have first taken upon them to decree under Anathama the conceite of the Schoole in reducing them to the number of seven But seeing the particulars so qualified by ancient writers in the Church and the number agreed upon by the Greeke Church as well as the Latines I have acknowledged that sense of their sayings which the primâ—ive order of the Chatholike Church inforceth For though I count it a great a buse to maintaine simple Christians in an opinion that the outward works of them not supposing the ground upon which the intent to which the disposition with which they are done secures the salvation of them to whom they are ministred Which opinion the formall ministring of them seemeth to maintaine Yet is it a far greater abuse to place the reformation of the Church in abolishing the solemnities rather then in reducing the right understanding of the ground and intent of those offices which they serve to solemnize CHAP. XXX To worship Christ in the Eucharist though believing transubstantiation is not Idolatry Ground for the honour of Saints and Martyrs The Saints and the Angels pray for us Three sorts of prayers to Saints The first agreeable with Christianity The last may be Idolatry The second a step to it Of the Reliques of the Saints Bodies What the second Commandement prohibiteth or alloweth The second Councile of Nicea doth not decree Idolatry And yet there is no decree in the Church for the worshiping of Images ANd now I come to that resolution which I have made way for by premising these conclusions for assumptions to inferr it onely by the way I have resolved against those prayers which the Church of Rome prescribeth to deliver the soules of the dead from Purgatory paines I say then first that the adoration of the Eucharist which the Church of Rome prescribeth is not necessarily Idolatry I say not what it may be accidentally by that intention which some men may conceale and may make it Idolatry as to God I speak upon supposition of that intention which the profession of the Church formeth and which alone is to my present purpose I suppose them to beleive that those creatures of God which are the elements of that sacrament are no more there after the consecration having ceased to be that there might be roome for the body and blood of our Lord to come into theire stead I suppose that the body and blood of Christ may be adored wheresoever they are and must be adored by a good Christian where the custome of the Church which a Christian is obliged to communicate with requires it For that which wee see is enough for to certifie us that peremptorily to refuse any custome of the Church is a step to division and the dissolution of it which is the greatest evill that can befall Christianity next to the peremptory profession of some thing contrary to that truth wherein christianity consists and which the being of the Church presupposeth But I suppose further that the body and blood of Christ is not adored nor to be adored by Christians neither for it self nor for any indowment residing in it which it may have received by being personally united with the God head of Christ But onely in consideration of the said God-head to which it remaines inseparably united wheresoever it becomes For by that meanes whosoever proposeth not to himselfe the consideration of the body and blood of Christ as it is of it selfe and in it self a meer creature which he that doth not on purpose cannot do cannot but consider it as he believs it to be being a Christian And considering it as it is honor it as it is inseperably united to the God-head in which by which it subsisteth in which therefore that honour resteth and to which it tendeth So the God-head of Christ is the thing that is honoured and the reason why it is honoured both The body and blood of Christ though it be necessarily honored because necessarily united to that which is honoured yet is it onely the thing that is honored and not the reason why it is honoured speaking of the honor proper to God alone I suppose further that it is the duty of e-every christian to honour our Lord Christ as God subsisting in humane flesh whether by professing him such or by praying to him as such or by using any bodily gesture which by the custome of them that frequent it may serve to signifie that indeed he takes him for such which gesture is outwardly that worship of the heart which inwardly commandes it This honour then being the duty of an affirmative precept which according to the received rule ties alwaies though it cannot tye a man to doe the duty alwaies because then he should doe nothing else What remaines but a just occasion to make it requisite and presently to take hold and oblige And is not the presence thereof in the Sacrament of the Eucharist a just occasion presently to expresse by the bodily act of adoration that inward honour which we alwaies cary towards our Lord Christ as
it under the knowledge of his Church And when those that have spent their time in this kind of life out of their experience and knowledge undertake to direct others the way of governing themselves in it when others joyning themselves to them undertake to order their life according to such directions neither hath the Church any thing to do in the matter of them further then to take account that they be according to Christianity nor do the parties enter into any new obligation but that of performing that profession which is become notorious The consequence whereof is this that the profession being â—ransgressed by an act that creates a new state as that of mariage the bond whereof is insoluble the obligation which is violated being to God and not to the Church the Church shall have no power to free him from the obligation contracted whatsoever censure the transgression of his profession may require John Cassians who lived in the Monasteries of Aegypt wherein this exercise seems to have received first that forme with other parts according to their capacities imitated mightily justifies the Apostolicall originall of the profession by the antiquitie of their Monasteries and the Traditions by which they lived received from age to age without expresse beginning But above all the three severall formes of them extant in Aegypt during his time seems to demonstrate by what degrees it came to that height The first of them called in his time Sarabaitae professing no communion with others but at each mans discretion seems to him a defection from the common profession But signifies that at the first the profession did stand without living in comon though it could not stand so long without abuse To avoid which abuse first Convents began then Anchorites left them to live alone in the wildernesse You may see what he writeth De Instit Mâ—n II. 3 5. Collat. XVIII 3-7 The orders of their Convents which he describes as also Saint Basils instructions make the work of their life to be the service of God by prayer and fasting with the praises of God But so that labouring with their hands in some bodily work and living in so much abstinence they were able to contribute the greatest part of their gaine for almes to the poor Though not at their own discretion but at the discretion of their superiours to whose guidance they had once given up themselves How farre this is distant from any form of this profession extant in the West is easie enough to imagine For all this while they remaine meer Laies without all pretense of that superiority over the people in the Church which the Clergy signifieth That superiority which they have one over another standing onely upon that voluntary consent and profession the solemnizing whereof signifieth that it is approved by the Church Nor is there any thing of indowment in all this their profession to give almes of their labours rendring them uncapable of any such But it must not be denied that the Monasteries of the West have been the meanes to preserve that learning which was preserved alive during the time at least the knowledge of the Scriptures and other records of the Church upon which the knowledge of the Scriptures depends And certainly the knowledge of the Scriptures is more dangerous then a sword in a mad mans hand unlesse it be joyned with that humility which onely Christianity teacheth A thing more rare in them that think themselves guilty of learning then pearles or diamonds A thing so difficult for them to attaine that it ought to be counted a sufficient price for all the exercise a man can bestow in this profession all his life long That sobriety of mind that gravity of manners that watchfullnesse over a mans thoughts and passions which is absolutely requisite for the discharge as of all Christians so especially of them that are liable to the temptation of spirituall pride for knowledge in matters of God is a competent reward for all that retirement from the world which this profession can require This being the designe of Monasteries it cannot be denied that the goods which they may be indowed with are consecrated to the service of God as estated upon his Church But not therefore upon the Church of Rome The pretense of allowing the Rule of Monasticall Orders which ought indeed to be approved of by the Church and of reducing them into severall bodies under one Government in severall dominions and the Churches of them a thing no way concerning the foundation of the Church or any right thereof derived from the same hath been the means for the Church of Rome to exempt them from the government of their Ordinaries and to reduce them to an immediate dependence upon it by whose Charter each Order subsisteth But there is no manner of ground in the profession for this nor was it so originally but is come to be so by the swelling of the Regular Power of that See to that height which the pretense of Infallibility speaketh For why should not every Church or every Synode to which any Church belongs and the respective heads of the same be capable of visiting regulating or correcting whatsoever may concerne the common Christianity in bodies of meer Lay people as I have showed all Monaâ—â—eriâ—s or Convents of Monkes originally to be subsisting within the respective Diocesse of every Church Unlesse the case of a Monke falls out to be a cause that concerns the whole Church as that of Pelagius For then there will be no marvaile that it should resort to the same triall that determines the like causes of other Christians And upon these terms though the Church of England hath no Monasteries as not essentiall to the constitution of the Church but advantagious for the maintainance of that retirement from the world in the reasons of our actions wherein our common Christianity consisteth by that visible retirement wherein this profession consisteth For the constitution thereof succeeding that horrible act of abolishing the Monasteries under Henry VIII it is no marvaile if it were difficult to agree in a forme which the Reformation might allow and cherish yet is no son of the Church of England bound to disown the whole Church in maintaining Monasticall life as agreeable with Christianity and expedient to the intent of it They that understand the intent of Monasticall life to be contemplation do not seem to consult with the Primitive custome and practice of it in the Church For when bodily labour was by the Rule to succeed in the intervals of Gods service and as soon as it was done I cannot conceive how a man should imagine a more active life That the activity thereof is exercised not in any businesse tending to advantage a man in this world but to keep him imploied so as to live free to serve God maketh it not the lesse active though not to the ordinary purpose The case is the same supposing that in stead of bodily labour men give
which it stands upon other termes But this I say that when the extremity of one party occasions the other to fall into the opposite extreme neither party seemes clearely excusable of the fault which the other commits in betaking it selfe to the opposite extreme And then I say further that when secular force was applyed to impose a burthen which the experience of more in corrupt times had showed that they could not bear the issue must needs be the treading down of Christianity for maintaining of the â—edge that should sense it And therefore the proceedings being voide in all reason of Law it is no marvaile if that moderation which the argeement of both sides might have preserved could not take place I am yet indebted to those of the congregations in a short account of the right of the people in Church maters I have acknowledged that during the time of the Apostles they were present at ordinations at inflicting of penance at Councils that the resolution of maters in debate passed under their knowledg that their consent concurred to put them in force But I have also maintayned that the unity of the Church is the soveraine Law to which all other Lawes though never so much inacted by the Apostles never so evidenty couched in the scriptures are necessarily subordinate as tending onely to maintaine unity by maintaining order in the exercise of those offices for communion wherein the Church subsisteth That in order hereto every Church is a body tending to constitute one body of all Churches consisting of all Christians contayned in one city and the territory of it howsoever cities and their territories may be distinguished as some times meerely upon this account and to this intent and purpose they have been distinguished And by this means I have prescribed that the consent of the people of each Church was never requisite in this consideration because they usually meet together for the service of God â—ut as part of the people of that Church who were to be acquainted with proceedings concerning their Church that they might have reason to rest satisfied in the same I have provided in due place that Lawes expressely provided by the Apostles and recorded in the scriptures for that state of the Church which they saw may and ought to be superseded by the Church in case they prove uselesse to that purpose for which they were provided by that change which succeeds in the state of the Church For how should the soveraign Law of unity take place how should the Church continue one and the same body from the first to the second coming of Christ otherwise Now this interest of the people in maters concerning their Church though related in the scriptures and known by them in point of fact to have had the force of law during the time of the Apostles and accoâ—ingly in the primative Church of the ages next the Apostles yet cannot be said to be any where commanded in point of right for a Law of God to take place in all ages I must therefore prescribe upon this account and doe prescribe That when the world is come into the Church and the whole people of England for example have declared themselves Christians it cannot be any more for the unity of the Church that the consent of the people be required to the validity of those acts which concerne the community of their respective Churches For then would it be no lesse unpossible to constitute one Church of all Churches then it is for all Independents to constitute a Body that may be called the Church of all their congregations each whereof they call a Church And therefore there is no cause why they should demand the same regard to be had to each one of the people when all the people of a City and the bounds thereof concur to constitute the Church of a City and when the chiefe part of Christians within the boundes of a City assembling at once for the service of God might also be acquainted with the proceedings of maters concerning their Church But all this while I am not so simple as to grant that the consent of the people then required to the validity of things done in the Church did consist in plurality of votes having easily huffed out that ridiculous imagination that S. Paul and Barnabas created Elders by votes of the people testified by lifting up their hands the action of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being attributed to themselves not to the people But the consent of the people I meane in body as the people that is a quality distinct from the Clergy in the Church as their superiours and guides in maters concerning the community of it For is there any example in the Scripture that ever they went to the poll or counted noses in passing of maters concerning the Church which the people were acquainted with Is there any such example in all the practice of the primitive Church in which it is acknowledged the same course continued as under the Apostles Ordinations were held in presence of the people that if there were cause they who knew every mans person might object against those who were in nomination if not they might consent by one vote of all that was called their suffrage This being the maner upon this occasion they might did sometimes step before their leaders and demand such as liked them best But so that if they forgot themselves the Clergy was bound not to admit their demand And in case of a Bishop the neighbour Bishops were bound by S. Pauls instructions to Timothy not to lay hands on any for whom they could not answer Tertullian testifieth that mater of excommunication was handled at the assemblies of the Church that is with the knowledge of the people as the case of the incestuous person at Corinth in S. Paul is But neither were all maters handled before the people if the mater of S. Pauls communicating with the Jewes were handled with the Elders before the people were acquainted with it Acts XXI nor is it posible to imagine supposing a Church not to be a congregation but that which I have said that the people can have satisfaction in all maters of that nature when all the world is come into the Church As for Councils it is a thing ridiculous to demand because the people concurred to the resolution of that at Jerusalem Acts XV. therefore that the acts of Councils should passe the people For when the Church of Jerusalem and the whole Church were both the same thing it was no marvaile that the people was to be satisfied in the conclusion of it And by the forme of holding the Spanish Counciles which you have at the begining of the Councils â—â—t appeares that there was provision made for the people to assist and see what was done at their Councils But so unreasonable is it to demand that the people consent to the acts of Councils that it is manifest that there can be no
bodies the holy Ghost that dwelt in them here raiseth This is that precious pearle and that hid treasure this is that grain of mustard seed that leaven which being purchased at the price of all we have and sowed in the heart and layd up in the past of our thoughts makes all our actions fruitfull to the riches of everlasting happinesse This is that little spot of truth for the maintaining whereof so many bloudy fields of Controversies in Religion are and have been fought by soules that perish by maintaining division in the Church to the prejudice if not the losse of that truth for which they fight As the country alwaies suffers by the warre that is made for it All this while it is to be remembred that Baptisme tieth not onely to professe this faith unto death but to live according to Christianity Whether it be by virtue of Moses Law cleared by our Lord of the false glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees or by the New Law of Christ clearing the spiritual intent of the Old it is not necessary to salvation for a Christian to know For Irenaeus briefly distinguishing mater of Faith from mater of Knowledge in the Scriptures 1. 2 4. makes all that which concerns the reason of the difference in Gods proceeding under the Law and the Gospel to be mater of abundant knowledge not of necessary faith But it is necessary for the salvation of a Christian to know that by being a Christian he undertakes to suppresse mortify and prevent as far as in him lies even the first motions of concupiscence whether in the lusts of the flesh or the lust of the eyes or the pride of life as our Lord in the Gospel hath clearly laid forth howsoever the Law have expressed or intimated the same And this is that warre with the devil the world and the flesh for the keeping of Gods commandments which our Baptisme undertaketh For there is no difference in things to be done concerning a private Christian as a private Christian that seems to be any considerable ground of division in the Church The substance of our common Christianity in that part seems to remain without dispute In things that are to be believed it were well if it could be said so truly that there is no part of the rule of Faith in dispute In the meane time the substance of Christianity containing whatsoever it is necessary for the salvation of all Christians to know whether in matter of Faith or of maners whereof to speak properly the rule of Faith signifieth onely the first part consisteth onely in that which concerns a particular Christian as such whether to be believed or to be done But what then shall the beliefe of one holy Catholicke and Apostolicke Church in our Creed signify Onely that there are Christians in the world Shall a Christian be saved by believing that which all Christians see that there is a company of men that call themselves Christians Or shall it therefore be necessary to the salvation of all Christians to know that God hath founded the whole body of the Church consisting of all Churches for a Society and Corporation subsisting by his Law shall it concern the salvation of simple Christians to understand the nature of Corporations and to know how visible communion in Christian Offices makes the Church such a one believing that this comes by Gods appointment I do not imagine any such thing Indeed whosoever allowes no ground of difference between true Christians on the one side and hereticks and schismaticks on the other side cannot admit the belief of one Catholicke Church for an article of his Creed For had there never been heresie or schisme the communion of all Christians with all Christians going forwards without interruption the Church had been no lesse Catholicke then now that it is called Catholicke to distinguish it from heresies and schismes which prevailed sometimes in some places but never spread nor lasted with the Church But had there been no profession qualifying for communion with the Church Had there been no power in the Church to limit the Order and circumstance of Communion in the Offices of Christianity it could never have been visible whom a Christian was to communicate with professing himself bound by believing one Catholicke Church to communicate with it Because by this meanes it was visible and because being visible an obligation was acknowledged of communicating with it the profession of this obligation was to be part of the common Christianity which the Creed was to signify But when it is no more visible whom a Christian is to communicate with by reason of division in the Church what is it then that resolves whom a Christian is to communicate with That is indeed the question which this whole businesse intends to resolve For the Reformation having occasioned division in the Church the parties are both visible but which is the true Church remaines invisible so long as it remaines in despute For though it be not invisible to that reason which proceeds aright upon due principles yet that is not required of all Christians that would be saved And therefore if it be not visible to the common reason of all men it is invisible This I alledge to no further purpose then to show how much all parties stand obliged to procure the reunion of the Church as answerable for the soules that may miscarry by chusing amisse in that which Gods ordinance makes visible but mens disorder invisible to common sense For the more difficult the way of salvation proves by this meanes the more shall all estates stand obliged to clear it Let us then see wherein the difficulty of the choice consisteth let us see what satisfaction the parties tender common sense that salvation is to be had by leaving of them The Word and the Sacraments are the markes of the true Church So say the Doctors of the Reformation so say perhaps their confessions of Faith It were too long to dispute that But how are these markes distinctive For I suppose they pretend not to make known the Reformed Churches to constitute the true Church in opposition to the Church of Rome by markes common to both And will any common sense allow that the Church of Rome will grant that they have not the word of God or the Sacraments which they allow the Reformed to have If you adde the pure preaching of the Word and the pure ministring of the Sacraments you advance not a foot For is common sense able to judge that the Reformed way is pure that of the Church of Rome impure It judgeth that they who call it so think so Whether it be so or not it must come under dispute And appealing to the Scriptures it appeareth that common sense is not judge in the meaning and consequence of them upon which the resolution depends It is therefore manifest that the preaching of the word and the ministring of the Sacraments is no mark of the Church unlesse
who create the parties by heading the division have to look about them least they become guilty of the greatest part of soules which in reason must needs perish by the extremities in which it consisteth And the representing of the grounds thereof unto the parties though it may seem an office unnecessary for a private Christian to undertake yet seemeth to me so free from all imputation of offense in discharging of our common Christianity and the obligation of it that I am no lesse willing to undergoe any offense which it may bring upon me then I am to want the advantages which allowing the present Reformation might give me In the mean time I remaine obliged not to repent me of the resolution of my nonage to remaine in the communion of the Church of England There I find an authority visibly derived from the act of the Apostles by meanes of their successors Nor ought it to be of force to question the validity thereof that the Church of Rome and the communion thereof acknowledgeth not the Ordinations and other Acts which are done by virtue of it as done without the consent of the whole Church which it is true did visibly concurre to the authorizing of all acts done by the Clergy as constituted by virtue of those Lawes which all did acknowledge and under the profession of executing the offices of their severall orders according to the same For the issue of that dispute will be triable by the cause of limiting the exercise of them to those termes which the Reformation thereof containeth which if they prove such as the common Christianity expressed in the Scriptures expounded by the original practice of the whole Church renders necessary to be maintained notwithstanding the rest of the Church agree not in them the blame of separation that hath insued thereupon will not be chargeable upon them that retire themselves to them for the salvation of Christian soules but on them who refuse all reasonable compliance in concurring to that which may seem any way tollerable But towards that triall that which hath been said must suffice The substance of that Christianity which all must be saved by when all disputes and decrees and contradictions are at an end is more properly maintained in that simplicity which all that are concerned are capable of by the terms of that Baptisme which it ministreth requiring the profession of them from all that are confirmed at years of discretion then all the disputes on both sides then all decrees on the one side all confessions of faith on the other side have been able to deliver it And I conceive I have some ground to say so great a word having been able by limiting the term of justifying faith in the writings of the Apostles according to the same to resolve upon what termes both sides are to agree if they will not set up the rest of their division upon something which the truth of Christianity justifieth not on either side For by admitting Christianity that is the sincere profession thereof to be the Faith which onely justifyeth in the writings of the Apostles whatsoever is in difference as concerning the Covenant of Grace is resolved without prejudicing either the necessity of Grace to the undertaking the performing the accepting of it for the reward or the necessity of good works in consideration for the same The substance of Chrianity about which there is any difference being thus secured there remaines no question concerning Baptisme and the Eucharist to the effect for which they are instituted being ministred upon this ground and the profession of it with the form which the Catholick Church requireth to the consecration of the Eucharist Nor doth the Church of England either make Sacraments of the rest of the seven or abolish the Offices because the Church of Rome makes them Sacraments Nor wanteth it an order for the daily morning and evening service of God for the celebration of Festivalls and times of Fasting for the observation of ceremonies fit to create that devotion and reverence which they signify to vulgar understandings in the service of God But praying to Saints and worshipping of Images or of the Eucharist Prayers for the delivery of the dead out of Purgatory the Communion in one kind Masses without Communions being additions to or detractions from that simplicity of Gods service which the originall order of the Church delivereth visible to common reason comparing the present order of the Church of Rome with the Scriptures and primitive records of the Church there is no cause to think that the Catholick Church is disowned by laying them aside It is true it was an extraordinary act of Secular Power in Church maters to inforce the change without any consent from the greater part of the Church But if the matter of the change be the restoring of Lawes which our common Christianity as well as the Primitive orders of the Church of both which Christian Powers are borne Protectors make requisite the secular power acteth within the sphere of it and the division is not imputable to them that make the change but to them that refuse their concurrence to it Well had it been had that most pious and necessary desire thereof to restore publick Penance been seconded by the zeal and compliance of all estates and not stifled by the tares of Puritanisme growing up with the Reformation of it For as there can be no just pretense of Reformation when the effect of it is not the frequentation of Gods publick service in that forme which it restoreth but the suppressing of it in that form which it rejecteth So the communion of the Eucharist being the chiefe office in which it consisteth the abolishing of private Masses is an unsusticient pretense for Reformation where that provision for the frequenting of the communion is not made which the restoring of the order in force before private Masses came in requireth Nor can any meane be imagined to maintaine continuall communion with that purity of conscience which the holinesse of Christianity requireth but the restoring of Penance In fine if any thing may have been defective or amisse in that order which the Church of England establisheth it is but justice to compare it in grosse with both extreames which it avoideth and considering that it is not in any private man to make the body of the Church such as thâ—y could wish to serve God with to rest content in that he is not obliged to become a party to those things which he approves not conforming himself to the order in force in hope of that grace which communion with the Church in the offices of Gods service promiseth For consider againe what meanes of salvation all Christians have by communion with the Church of Rome All are bound to be at Masse on every Festivall day but to say onely so many Paters and so many Aves as belong to the hour Not to assist with their devotions that which they understand not much lesse
God delivered to the Church by the Apostles commanding them so to live For that which was as difficult as impossible to have been introduced without conviction of the will of God as the rest of Christianity of necessity must go for a part of it But that in such variety of mens fannies reasons and inclinations the Church consisting from the beginning of all Nations and dispersed all over the world should of their own inclination not swayed by any information of Gods will received with Christianity agree in the same Lawes and Rulers submitting to the exercise of the same Power upon themselves is as impossible as that the world should consist of the casual concurse of atomes according to Democritus and Epicurus The name of the Church without peradventure was first used to signifie the whole body of Gods people in the Wildernesse when they might be and were called together and assembled upon their common occasions which the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies After which time the people continuing still one and the same by virtue of the same Lawes then received and the Powers placed in their Ruler Not onely the whole people but such parts of it as resorted to the same Government have still born and do bear the same name The Synagogue of Libertines Cyrenaeans Alexandrians Cilicians and Asians by example Acts VI. 9. which name first belongs to the respective Bodies of Jewes that subsisted at Rome Cyrene or Alexandria in Cilicia or Asia And consequently by Metonymy to the Places where such of those Bodies as chanced to be at Jerusalem might assemble themselves And to so many of those Bodies as being at Jerusalem did assemble at those Places Now no Christian can doubt that the Body of Christians succeeds in the stead of Gods ancient people And therefore the name of Gods Church when it stands without limitation signifies no lesse As when our Lord saith Mat. XVI 18. Vpon this rock will I found my Church Whatsoever the Disciples then conceived the Church should be our Lord that knew all by the name of it meant all that duly beares the name And therefore when hee saith once again Mat. XVIII 17. Tell it to the Church It is strange there should be Christians that should think hee means the Jewes and their Rulers And that the precept concernes Christians no longer now they have left the Jewes Though it is true a man cannot tell his cause to the whole Church but to that part of it to which hee can resort which is called by the name of the Whole as I said even now of the Synagogue S. Paul to the Colossians II. 24 25. calling the Church the Body of Christ saith That hee by the dispensation of God towards them which hee is trusted with is become the minister of the Church to wit as Angels are ministers of the Church because ministers of God towards it And therefore minister of the whole Church which is the Body of Christ not of any particular Church as if an Apostle could be bound to execute his office according to the discretion of any Church which for Gods cause hee attends As all Ministers are bound to execute their Office according to the will of them whose Ministers they are It is therefore the whole Church in which God hath set Apostles Evangelists Prophets and the use of the Graces rehearsed 1 Cor. XII 28. Eph. IV. 11. Because the Office of these Graces can by no means be confined either to any particular Church or to any part of the whole Church The name of the Church signifies the same thing again Eph. I. 22. III. 21. V. 23-32 While all Christendome was contained in the Church at Jerusalem the name of the Church is so used Acts II. 47. V. 11. VIII 1 3. that it is no mater whether wee understand by it the whole Church or the Church of Jerusalem The reason Because all right and power that can at any time be found vested in the whole Church was then as fully in the Church at Jerusalem as it can be at any time in the whole Church though in respect of a Body never so much greater than it As a childe is as much a man the day of his birth as the day of his death and a tree as much as a tree when it growes one as when it is come to the height But Christianity being propagated among Jewes and Gentiles as wee reade of the Churches of Judaea Samaria and Galilee Acts IX 31. and must needs understand the Epistles to the Ebrewes to have been written to Churches consisting onely of Ebrewes as those of S. Peter and that of S. James which mentions the Elders of the Church James V. 14. So the Churches of the Gentiles in S. Paul Rom. XVI 4. wee easily understand to be the Churches of Asia 1 Cor. XVI 9. Apoc. I. 11. the Churches of Galâ—â—ia 1 Cor. XVI 1. the Churches of Macedonia 2 Cor. VIII 1. and the rest that were visible in S. Paâ—ls time Now suppose for the present that these Churches mentioned by the Apostles were no more than so many Congregations as our Independents would have it Seeing they deny not so many Churches to be so many Bodies what reason can they give why the name of the Church when it stands for the whole Church should not signifie the like There is a prerogative attributed to the whole Church by S. Paul 1 Tim. III. 25. when hee calls it the base and pillar of Truth For that this should be said of any particular Church it were too ridiculous to imagine Can the Church bear this attribute if it be not capable of doing any act that may verifie it And if it be not a Body what act can it do In fine the correspondence between Gods ancient people and his new Israel according to his Spirit seems to require That as the Religion of the Jewes and not any Civil Power of the Nation makes them all one Body at this day in point of fact by sufferance of Soveraignes because they were once so in point of right So the Religion of Christians should make them one Body in point of right how many Bodies soever they are burst into in point of fact by their own wantonnesse For the Independents exception which I spoke of can be of no force unlesse they will make it appear that all those Churches that are mentioned in the writings of the Apostles did assemble in one place Not that if this could be made to appear they had done their businesse But because if it do not appear their plea is peremptorily barred Wee reade then of M M M soules added in one day to CXX of the Church at Jerusalem Acts I. 15. II. 41. To these were added or with these they became VM Acts IV. 4. To whom were added multitudes of men and women Acts II. 47. V. 14. These assembled daily in private to serve God as Christians as well as in
sufficiently demonstrated that they grant the Church no Title to any part of the Power it challengeth but their own grant thinking fit to execute their will in Church maters by Church men no otherwise than they execute their will in military maters by souldiers in maters of publick or private right by Judges and Lawyers As you may see at large in the first book de Synedriis cap. X. By which it may appear that I do this Author no wrong when I inferre That the Church is no Corporation nor hath any Power but from the State according to his opinion because it hath no Power to excommunicate For if those diâ—ferences of persons whereby some are qualified to act in behalf of the Church are grounded originally upon the act and will of the State imploying them to that purpose then can no act that they do be referred to any Power estated upon the Corporation of the Church founded by God upon any charter of divine right Now it is well enough known that there is such an opinion maintained in the Church of Rome And it is manifest to him that shall peruse what hath passed in the Scottish Presbyteries that the effect of the same position hath been practised by them when the ground of it hath been disclaimed which is to my judgment the more dishonest course of the two But it mvst be acknowledged because it cannot with truth or sincerity be either denied or dissembled that there are very many of that Church that think otherwise and think that the Church allows them so to think and to professe And it is reported with likelyhood enough that Cardinal Bellarmine himself though then a Jesuite and imployed to dispute all Controversies upon the highest termes that are tenable was not of his own choice willing to have maintained it had hee not writ under an Imperious Pope Sextus V that refuted passeport to his books de Romano Pontifice till hee had added the fift concerning this point Which what contradiction it hath found from those of his own profession ought to be notorious to all that give a judgment in this point and would not judge of they know not what It is therefore manifest that there are enough of those that believe the Church to be by the Charter of God a Society Corporation or visible Body And yet by this Charter not protected by the power of the Sword but exposed to be persecuted by the same That is to say called by God to the profession of Christianity part whereof is to believe the Catholick Church and by consequence to be a member of it but to maintain this profession not by force but by suffering rather than renounce it Thereupon it follows that by the original institution of the Church to be excommunicate inferres no manner of losse in this world unless it be to the Church that excoÌ„municates as the Leviathan very truly and pertinently observes pag. 276 In as much as by being excommunicate a man may be moved to seek a course of revenge upon the Church that did it And yet neverthelesse upon supposition of Christianity it may well be counted the punishment of not performing that Christianity which a man professeth For hee that does not believe Christianity to be true or submits not to it cannot think it any penalty for himself to be shut out of the Church But hee that professeth Christianity and liveth not according to it though the penalty which hee incurres by transgressing that profession is already incurred in respect of God yet hoping that God will not take the forfeiture which hee may take may count his Excommunication as indeed it is the losse of the meanes of salvation which the communion of the Church importeth If then it be demanded whether the Church by the original Charter of God have power to constrain men by punishment to obedience The answer is that absolutely it hath not but upon supposition it hath For to him that thinks the Communion of the Church no gain ExcoÌ„munication is no punishment And therefore no censure tending to Excommunication which is the utmost constraint that the Church can use But to him that believes the Communion of the Church to be the means that God hath ordained for the salvation of particular Christians as the losse of it is necessarily a punishment so is the expectation of that losse a constraint to imbrace the condition of retaining it But as this constraint depends not upon outward force but upon a perswasion of the minde which goes afore So doth it not originally inforce any punishment of this world but onely upon supposition of privileges granted by secular Powers to the profession of it or penalties upon not professing it Which being accessory to the original constitution of the Church because all the world knowes that from our Lord to Constantine there were no such privileges or penalties it is manifest to all understandings that hee who pretendeth the Church to be a Society or Visible Body by Gods appointment is not obliged to grant that it is indowed with any temporal Power of this world to constrain those who are of it by outward force because hee pretends that it hath Power to refuse the communion of those offices which God is to be served with by Christians to those that performe not their Christianity Which it granteth to those who undertake it As therefore whatsoever is a condition of obtaining salvation under Christianity is Gods Law so whatsoever by virtue of Gods Law is a just condition of obtaining or holding Communion with the Church that is a Law of the Church supposing the Church to be a visible Society of Christians by Gods appointment though wee grant not that the losse of this Communion imports any change in the worldy quality of any man by the original constitution of the Church as it was founded by our Lord and his Apostles but by the privileges necessarily accruing to it when the Powers of the world professing Christianity undertake the protection of it But having named these two Authors for my adverse parties in this dispute I am obliged to take notice of the Oxford Doctors late Paraenesis ad aedificatores Imperii in Imperio published since the penning of this For the whole book proceeds upon the same oversight which the other two have made and the very Title of it contains I demand of any man in his right senses whether hee can be said to build the Church into an Empire within that Empire or Soveraignty which maintains it that challenges no maner of temporal effect for that Excommunication which is the utmost means the Church hath to inforce the sentence of it They that oblige Subjects to depose their Soveraignes if the Pope excommunicate them I confesse make both Soveraignes and Subjects the Popes Vassals them to rule and these to obey at the discretion of him that can excommunicate them if they do not That the Scottish Presbyterians have done the like it were easie to
as the Evangelist and our Lord both affirm that these things were prophesied concerning the cures which our Lord did upon their bodies so can it not be doubted that the cure of our soules is spiritually signified by the same whether you consider the promises whereby the ground of this correspondence is settled or the expresse words of the Apostle 1 Pet. II. 24. where that which S. Matthew expoundeth of the cures which our Lord did upon their bodies is referred to the taking away of sâ—nne by the sacrifice of Christ upon the Crosse Which if it cannot be denied I shall make no difficulty to inferre that the words of the Prophet Esay VII 14. Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son and yee shall call his name Emmanuel which the Evangelists referreth to our Lord Mat. I. 22. and by the premises were fulfilled when they were first said as in the figure are still accomplished in the children which by Gods grace are still â—orn of the holy faith of his Church by grace Nor that the words of the Prophet Osee XI 1. Out of Egypt have I called my Son which being manifestly said of the Israelites coming out of Egypt the same Evangelist II. 15. affirmeth to be fulfilled in our Lords coming back out of Egypt are still accomplished in those which out of the darknesse of this world are brought to Gods Church which is spiritually the Land of Promise Nor that the words of the Prophet Jeremy XXXI 15. which the same Evangelist expoundeth of the Innocents which were slaine by Herod at Bethlehem but the correspondence hitherto established requireth us to understand of the captive Jewes at Ramah in that Prophets time are still fulfilled in all that suffer persecution and death for Christianity Nor lasâ—ly that the words of the Psalmes XXII 8 18. Hee trusted in God that hee would deliver him let him save him seeing hee loveth him They pierced my hands and my feet And They part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture XLI 9. Hee which did eat of my bread hath lift up the heel against mee XLIX 9 21. The zeale of thine house hath eaten mee up And They gave mee gall to eat and in my thirst they gave mee vineger to drink VIII 2. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise CIX 8. His Office let another take XVI 10. Thou shalt not leave my soul in Hell nor suffer thine holy One to see corruption which the New Testament will have to be fulfilled in those things that befell our Lord Christ in the flesh in his crucifying Maâ— XXVIII 18 35 43. Mark XV. 22 23 24. John XIX 17 29. in Judas betraying him John XIII 18. in his purging the Temple John II. 17. in the children that praised him Mat. XXI 16. in Matthias chosen in Judas stead Acts I. 20. in the resurrection of Christ Acts II. 31. XIII 35. But the correspondence premised and the reason of it require us first to understand of those things which befell David and Gods ancient people are still spiritually verified and accomplished in those things which befall the children of God and his Church under the state of Grace Neither shall I make any question that the correspondence between the Law and the Gospel which wee have settled being supposed it will not follow neverthelesse that all the Old Testament ought by virtue thereof to be so fulfilled in the life of our Lord Christ But that the Spirit of God in the Evangelists showeth that the Spirit in the Prophets so directed their words that they were intended to be farre more properly fulfilled in our Lord Christ than in those whom they were spoke of in the literal sense For wee do not finde that the Text that is to say that which went before and that which followes after those words which the Gospels say were fulfilled in our Lord Christ is answered by any thing which wee reade to have befallen him in the flesh And the general correspondence between Israel according to the flesh in the Old Testament and Israel according to the Spirit in the New being sufficient to justifie our Lord to be the Christ whom they expected and by consequence that twofold sense of the Old Testament which here wee maintaine there is no cause why they should be said to be impertinently alleged though by ordinary reason supposing this correspondence that could not be proved from those Texts which the Gospels say that they signifie Indeed such of them as are used by our Lord and his Apostles to prove him to be the Christ must be said and well may be maintainâ—d to do it by the perpectual correspondence of Gods earthly promises made good to his carnal people through the meanes of their Kings Priests and Prophets with the promises of the world to come made good by the means of our Lord Christ to the Church Therâ— is yet another kinde of our Lord Christs sayings and of things that befell him in the flesh in which there appears at the first view that difference of literal and mystical sense which hath been settled between the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments The Parable of the Prodigal childe for example seems not onely to contain a plain song of Gods earnest desire to be reconciled with penitent sinnerâ— but also a descant of the rejection of the Jewes and the calling of the Gentiles figured by it In like maner the Parable of him that fell among theeves as hee went down to Jericho Luke XI seemeth not onely to instruct who is the neighbor that wee are to love as our selves but also to figure the fall of man and the sending of our Lord for the restoring of him intimated as the ground of it So the acclamations of them that went afore and them that came after our Lord at his entrance into Jerusalem Mat. XXI agreeing in the same note of Hosanna to the Son of David I cannot tell whether any Christian could be so moroâ—e as to doubt but that it fell out on purpose to signifie the agreement of the Old and New Testament concentring in our Lord Christ But as it cannot be reasonably denied that these Parables and the like are mystical significations of the purpose of God in sending Christ or the event of it in the rejection of the Jewes and calling of the Gentiles So is all this nothing to the two senses of the Old Testament in which it is twice fulfilled once according to the Leter and again according to the Spirit I have thus farre inlarged this point concerning the correspondence and difference between the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament between the Ancient and New people of God to show how I conceive the scruples are to be resolved which may be made against an assumption of more efficacy and consequence than any other wheresoever any point of Christianity is to be showed from the Old Testament Yet so much more protection I owe the
governed by their own Nation shall wee imagine that this power was trusted with the High Priests because God had made them Soveraignes by the Law Or because after the King whom in that estate they could not have the High Priest was regularly the second person in the Kingdom For what a ridiculous thing is it to imagine that because Josue and the people to goe in and out at the word of the Lord by Eleazar the High Priest therefore the High Priest was alwaies Soveraigne Was it any more for Josue to be ruled by Elâ—azar the High Priest and his answer by Urim and Tummim not by going into the Sanctum Sanctorum than for Saul or David to be directed by the answer of the High Priest in those dayes when as our Author saith the right of the High Priest was by Gods permission though against Law seized in the Kings hands As for the Judges they that reade In those dayes there was no King in Israel every man did what was right in his own eyes with their eyes in their head do thereby understand that though the stories of the Idol in Dan and of Gibea are last in the book of Judges yet they are first in order of time before any Judge had succeded Josue the Judges having the same power for which Moses is called King in Israel Deut. XXXIV 5. For God being their King by the Covenant of the Law while hee raised up no Judge to be his Vicegerent in Moses stead hee governed theâ— by the Elders of the people to whom therefore Clemens and Eusebius and other Chronologers impute the time between Josue and Judges When this Government proved not of force to rule so stiff-necked a people and that God had raised up a Judge to refuse him was to refuse God who by manifest operations of his Spirit in him had declared him his Vicegerent Which is the plain reason why God pronounces that in refusing Samuel they had refused him and not Samuel For it is manifest that they might by the Law demand a King Deut. XVII 14 15. so ridiculous a thing it is to imagine that by demanding a King as other Nations had they rebelled against God who had made the High Priest their Soveraign For God expresseth their rebellion to consist in refusing Samuel whom hee had declared his Vicegerent who being once declared they were no more free do demand a King by the Law till his death Neither doth a Royal Priesthood or a Kingdome of Priests signifie that the High Priests were their Kings But that they who came out of bondage should now make a Kingdom themselves to be governed by their own Nation and Lawes which Lawes should consist much in offering sacrifices to God And those sacrifices though for the future special persons were to be appointed to offer them yet in regard they were offered in the name and on the behalf of the people whose offerings they were the body thereof are justly called Priests As all Christians to whom S. Peter challengeth the effect of this promise are ftiled by him a Royal Priesthood and by S. John Kings and Priests though nothing hinder them to have their Priests whose functions cannot be intermedled with by those who are no Priests without sacrilege In fine the effect of these words is that of the Prophet Esay LXI 5 6. that when the people shall be restored the Gentiles shall be their laborers and Vine-dressers while they in the mean time attend upon keeping holiday by offering sacrifices and feasting upon the sacrifices which they had offered It will now be easie to maintain that the Church when our Lord saith tell it the Church is not nor can be understood but of the Congregation of Christians though at that time in common speech it signified no more than the Congregation of Gods people For supposing that our Lord Christ came to contract a New Covenant with those that received him whereby they became his people on other termes and to other purpose than the people whom hee had before That hee conditioned with them to leave all things and take up his Cross That hee appointeth those that imbrace this condition to be baptized in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost I say this being supposed they that before were the Congregation of Gods people are no more the Congregation of his people upon the same termes not by the same right or title though the same persons The one being his people under a Covenant for the Land of Promise and the condition of living by Moses Lawes The other under the promise of life everlasting which the former were not excluded from though not expresly included in it upon condition of receiving the Christian Faith and continuing in it Suppose wee that when our Lord Christ commanded them to baptize all Nations in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost his Disciples understood no more by all this than that those who should become Proselytes to this new and true Judaisme which our Lord preached should be initiated unto the same by Baptisme as Proselytes then by custome were unto the Law because wee see after the resurrection of our Lord how strange it was to them that the Gospel should be preached to the uncircumcised as such Suppoâ—e wee further that all the Nation of the Jewes whether in Jewry or wheresoever dispersed and none but Jewes had received the Gospel of Christ so as the ancient and New people of God to consist of all the same persons I say all this supposed shall make no maner of difference in the case But there shall be as much difference between the Old and New people of God considered as Societies and Bodies constituted and therefore distinguished by the several Covenants upon which they subsist as if they consisted of all several perâ—ons Should a man judge onely by his bodily eyes and see the people of Rome as it was when the Soveraign Power was in the people and again after it had been seized by Augustus I could not blame him to say that it was the same people But hee that should look upon that people with his understanding as a Civil Society State and Commonwealth and â—ay it was the same all men of understanding would laugh at him for it how much soever the interest of Augustus required that it should seem the same to grosse people Apply this instance to the case in hand and I shall need say no more Several things must either have several names or the same name in several notions or significations If our Lord took upon him to teach his Disciples the New Covenant hee came to introduce to make them the New people of God which hee came thereby to constitute such is the correspondence between the Old and the New the old Name served best to signifie the New thing But in the same sense it could not serve to represent to his hearers the several termes upon which Jewes and Christians are Gods people
probable and have still much reason to believe that the Christians at Rome lived at first divided into two Bodies one of Jewes under S. Peter the other of Gentiles under S. Paul For the Jewes as in the Land of Promise they were bound by the Law to protect strangers such as renouncing Idols should professe to serve the true God but not to suffer Idolaters to live in it So in their dispersions they must needs finde themselves bound proportionably to cherish those that should make the like profession whom they called the Godly of the Nations But the Empire and the Ministers thereof whether they intended to comprise them in the right and privilege of Jewes because joyned to their Religion or of Gentiles because uncircumcised the text of that Scripture decides not I confesse considering the words of Suetonius Claud. XXV Judaeos impulsore Chresto assiduè tumultuantes Roma expulit The Jewes raising continual tumults at the moving of Chrestus hee drove out of Rome I cannot give a better reason for the tumults which hee saith occasioned the Edict than the difference between them and the Christians part of whom were Jewes others adheered to them as Gentiles converted to the true God Whether his meaning be to lay the fault upon the Christians supposing that it is our Lord Christ whom hee calls Chrestus no difference in found being discernable Or whether hee meant to say that one Chrestus a Jew in Rome was author of those tumults as some would have it no reason can be given for those tumults so probable But whether so or not to our purpose it will be of no consequence For as well Gentilish as Jewish Christians being forced from Rome and seeking shelter among Christians elswhere would easily accomodate themselves with the Jewes of other parts upon the same terms as Christians did otherwise and yet continue to preserve themselves Christians and thereby members of the Church upon such terms as all Christians understood It should seem by the Epistle to the Ephesians I. 11 12 13. II. 2 3. 11-20 III. 1-6 that the first foundation of that Church was meerly of Gentiles the Jewes that may have been converted being so few that S. Paul held them not considerable to be taken notice of in his Epistle A thing that agrees punctually with that which S. Luke relates Acts XIX 8 9 10. that S. Paul perceiving hee could not prevail with the Jewes by his discourses in the Synagogue departed and separated the Disciples that is the Christians from them disputing dayly in the School of one Tyrannus And this for two years till the Gospel was known to all Asia Jewes and Gentiles This Tyrannus neverthelesse holding a School seems to have been a Doctor of the Jewes Law so that all Jewes refused not the Faith These I suppose no man will argue that they used Excommunication as the Jewes did because they had departed from the Jewes And yet it is agreeable to the case under Gallio to conceive that they were looked upon by the Romanes as a sort of men that had broke from the Jewes whose Religion they had professed afore and indifferently protected by them as not concerned in the difference while no Law was made against Christianity The coming indeed of S. John into Asia seems to have inned a very great harvest of Jews into the Church by that compliance which his successors at Ephesus and in the rest of Asia held with the Jewes for the winning of them to Christianity But this was afterwards In fine before the separation of Christians from the Jewes the Church seems to have been as it were a childe unborn in the mothers womb which though it draw the means of subsistence from the mother yet is it complete in all the same faculties of life which it shall exercise afterwards So whatsoever it was fit for the Church to do while it held communion with the Synagogue it was able then by the Power of conducting as well as founding it in the Apostles to do whatsoever it did afterwards onely the Body was strangely changed which it was to govern CHAP. XVIII The difference between S. Pauls anathema and that of the Jewes It is not necessary that the Christians anathema should signifie cursing That the incestuous person at Corinth was Excommunicated by S. Paul Jurisdiction of the Church Telling the Church binding and loosing holding him that is bound for a Heathen or a Publicane signisie the same The coherence of our Lords discourse Of Excommunication and Indulgence by private persons in the Ancient Church That Excommunication and the Power of the Church could not come in force by the voluntary consent of the first Christians How it may be said to be voluntary Of the confederacy of the primitive Christians ANd here I cannot chuse but mervail that the Anathema which S. Pauls Epistles mention sometimes should be made an argument that the Excommunication which hee means by it is the same which the Jews used because theirs was called by the same name For the answer is the same that I said afore of the name of the Church but there is more particular evidence for the reason here in the words of the Apostle I do for my part believe them that conceive the name by which the Jewes call anathema that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signifie the same that S. Paul means by maranatha For the Jewes use to call God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the Name And this I conceive they compound with the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying to come and to make of both the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying maledixit or execravit hee cursed by the coming of God Though they use it to signifie the least degree of Excommunication whereas to curse a man by the coming of God seems to leave him to God to take vengeance of as incurable and desperate For every man knows how much difference there is between the original and use of words Now it is evident by the writings of the Prophets every where that they use to describe the appearance of God to punish sin in the stile of Gods coming And in that stile the passage which S. Jude referreth to proceedeth Jude 14 15. Behold the Lord cometh with his holy myriads to execute vengeance on all and to reprove all their wickednesse for all the wicked works that they have done and for all the hard words which they have stoken against him as wicked sinners For these are the words which Enoch the seventh from Adam is brought in speaking in that place to the old world whom hee preached to to recall them from that wickednesse which in the end was punished by the deluge Now when S. Paul saith 1 Cor. XVI 22. If any man love not the Lord Jesus let him be anathema maranatha It is plain that Maranatha signifies our Lord comes And so referrs to the second coming of our Lord Christ which the Gospel preaches For this learned person
de Virginibus velandis Wherein hee disputes whether they were priviledged against S. Pauls order I Cor. XI 5-15 of vailing their faces in the Church of the rank of Marryrs and Consessors that is those who had abondones themselves to whatsoever the prosession of Chrissianity should inferre howsoever they escaped I need say nothing The esteem of them being known to have been such that it is no mervail if their desire or their sentence were counted a Prejudice or Prerogative to the Church As thus At the elections of the Romane Magistrates the Century of the Tribe that voted first was counted to have a Prerogative the Vore thereof being a kinde of Prejudice to them that followed to vote the same So that it was found that whose carried this Prerogative commonly carried the whole Vote Such was the effect of that absolution which Consessors in their durance did sometimes grant Penitents in the Primitive Church To wit a confidence grounded upon the esteem of their merit towards Christianity that their act would not be made void by the Body of the Church Whereupon S. Cypr. Epist XII Qui libellos à Martyribus acceperunt eorum Praerogativâ apud Deum adjuvari possunt Those who have received billets from the Martyrs and may finde help before God by their Prerogative The Monks Excommunication proceeded upon the same ground That is to say upon a confidence that whom hee by that sentence declared to have forfeited the Communion of the Church in his judgment those who had his Holinesse in esteem would not communicate with The Emperors proceeding shows it was not for nothing Who being absolved by the Ordinary rested not content till hee had satisfied the Monk The reason because even then it might be evident that the preservation of Unity in the Church obliged to grant the Communion thereof to such as there was no reasonable assurance that Gods pardon did go before it which otherwise the restoring of that Communion ought to suppose Which might move a tender conscience to do more than the Church injoyned him to do But I intend not hereby to justifie maters of fact in the Primitive Church It shall serve my turn to argue that the reason inferred appears not by this practice because another reason doth appear Onely I say further that nothing of primitive institution can be argued from a custome which they that relate it Tertullian and S. Cyprian do mark for an abuse tending either to abate the severity of discipline or to dissolve the unity of the Church And therefore hee that observes all this must not forget to observe the reasons whereby S. Cyprian protests that the courses whereby those of his time went about to force the consent of the Church by the credit of the Martyrs were seditious Ep. IX XXII And also the course that hee takes to referr the mater to the debate and common sentence of other Churches equally concerned in the cause Ep. XVII For to have recourse to the Unity of the Church to cure the distemper of a particular Church had been against common sense for him that had not known that those whom hee had to do with acknowledged the same And that being acknowledged it will be more against common sense to imagine that Martyrs or Confessors of one Church could give Law to the whole as they must do if wee suppose that absolution granted by them in the Church of Carthage was of it self of force and valid which by the same right and title must extend to all that were in the same case But there remains a second reason or plea how a Communion of the Church might be and so a Power to Excommunicate and by consequence other Rights in which it hath been showed that the Society of the Church subsisted before Constantine without any title of divine Right which Princes and States professing Christianity are bound to maintain For it is alleged that Excommunication and Penance which is the abatement of it was in force in the Primitive Church by virtue of the voluntary consent of Christians consederating themselves upon such terms as wee finde to have been in use into a discipline taken up of their own free resolution Which by consequence must be said of the rest of those rights wherein the Communion of the Church and the Unity thereof did consist at that time To which I must except generally in the first place That this plea whether true or false for the present is not receivable so much as into consideration untill it be qualified and limited so that it may be consistent with the former now refuted For no man can pretend to advance such a plea for his cause as consists of two parts whereof the first destroyes the second Now it was pretended afore that there was no Excommunication in use under the Apostles but that which was in force in the Synagogue by virtue of Moses Law and the Power erected by it of introducing such Penalties as the maintenance thereof should require And here it is pretended That Excommunication and other effects of Ecclesiastical Power came in force upon the voluntary agreement of Christians Therefore the whole plea if you will have it hang together must be this That the whole Body of Christians did voluntarily agree among themselvs to receive that Excommunication which was in force by virtue of the Law and by consequence such other Rights already in force by virtue of the Law as they agreed to be no lesse usefull for maintaining the Communion of the Church than they found Excommunication to be And on these termes I admit the two parts of this plea not to be inconsistent For the effect of the whole will be this That there was indeed a Society and Corporation of one visible Church from the beginning of Christianity to Constantine such as I now challenge that there ought to be But not by any order of the Apostles or title of divine right but by the free consent of all Christians which being the consent of subjects and subsisting by sufferance of the Soveraign resolves into his will when hee pleases to seize it into his hands But then I will appeal to the common reason of all men whether it be consistent therewith in two regards The first shall be that which I alleged before out of Irenaeus whether it be consistent with common sense to imagine that neither the Churches planted in the Germane Provinces or Spanish or Ganlish of the Romane Empire nor those in the East nor in Aegypt or Africk nor those that were planted in the middle parts of the world should practice or observe otherwise than the Communion which de facto I have already showed to have been maintained among them did require and all this have no other beginning than their own free and voluntary consent prevented by no obligation at all but the dictate of common reason pronouncing what would be best for the maintenance of that common Christianity to which wee suppose
them obliged If there were no more in question but the uniting of seven persons into one of our Independent Congregations or as many more as may all hear any man preach at once I should grant that such Bodies might subsist for such a time as the cōmon batred of the Church restrains the peevishnesse of particular persons from breaking that Communion which no tye of conscience obliges them to maintain But if the experience of divers years hath not brought forth any union betwixt any two such Congregations in England so farr as I can learn what was it that united all Christians from East to West into that one Communion visibly distinguished from all Heresies and Schisms which till about the Council of Chalcedon remained inviolable supposing no obligation of our common Christianity delivered by the Apostles to maintain it Is it possible for any man to imagine that with one consent they would have cast themselves into such a form of observation and practice as all to acknowledge the direction of the same persons in several parts to acknowledge those Rules which Generally were the same though in maters of lesse moment differing in several parts to intertain or refuse communion with them that were intertained or refused by the Church where they dwelt for a common cause had there been nothing but their own fansy to tell them not onely what was requisite to intertain such communion but whether it were requisite to intertain such communion or not If such a thing should be said the processe of my discourse were never a whit the more satisfied unlesse some body could show mee how the truth of Christianity can be well grounded upon those motives the evidence whereof resolves into the consent of all Christians And yet that which all Christians have visibly made a Law to their conversation from the beginning to wit the communion of one Catholick Church not belong at all to the mater of our common Christianity And therefore this plea is no lesse ruinous to our common Christianity the ground whereof it undermineth than to common sense For that in such difference of judgments as mankinde is liable to the whole Church should be swayed to unanimity herein by the Prerogative as it were of the Synagogue uniting themselves by imbracing the Ordinances thereof the evident state of the times whereof wee speak will not admit to any pretense of probability The division between Jews and Christians being then advanced to such a hatred on the Jews part that it would have been a very implausible cause to say that Christians ought to follow the Jewes whose curses they heard every day whose persecutions they felt in the tortures which at their instance were inflicted by the Gentiles A thing so evident both by the Writings of the Apostles and the ancientest records of the Church that I will not wrong the Readers patience to prove it True it is that at times and in places great compliance was used by Christians to gain them who elsewhere were so ready to persecute their fellow Christians As at Jerusalem under and after S. James at Ephesus and in Asia under S. John there is great appearance to believe In the mean time hee that can make a question whether the separation between Jewes and Christians and the hatred ensuing upon it were formed under the Apostles must make a question of the truth of S. Pauls Epistles to the Galatians to the Colossians to the Philippians to Titus and especially that to the Hebrews Besides that during the time whereof Irenaeus speaks Christianity was extended so farr beyond Judaisme that a great part of the Church could not be acquainted with the conversation of the Jewes much lesse learn and imbrace their orders And therefore as I do admit and imbrace the diligence of those learned men who bestow their paines to show how the Rules and Customes of the Church are derived from those of the Synagogue So I prescribe one general prejudice concerning all orders that may appear to be so derived that they are all to the Church Traditions of the Apostles and by their act came in force in it And that upon the premises that neither they had any force from the Law of Moses not could be admitted by common consent of Christians after the separation was formed that is after the Apostles time And therefore by their authority were introduced into the Church Having excepted thus much it will notwithstanding be time to distinguish that the orders and customes and observations of the Church may be said to be voluntary as nothing is more voluntary than Christianity it self though there be nothing to which a man is so much obliged For though the will of God and our salvation and whatsoever God hath done to show that salvation depends upon Christianity oblige us to it yet they oblige us also to imbrace it voluntarily so that whatsoever should be done in respect of it without an inward inward inclination of the will would be abominable In which regard whatsoever our Christianity obliges us to is no lesse voluntary than it is And in this sense I grant that the confederation of common Discipline which prevailed in the primitive Church was by the free and voluntary consent of Christians who be freely and voluntary consenting to the profession of Christianity consented freely to maintain the Communion of the Church which they knew to belong to that profession as a part of it But then this consent which is voluntary in regard that the choice of Christianity is free becomes necessary upon the obligation of making good the Christianity which once wee have professed the Communion of the Church professed by all obliging every one for his part to maintain it So when Pliny reports to Trajan of the Christians Ep. X. Solitos Sacramento se obstringere ne Furta ne Latrocinia ne Adulteria committerent nè fidem fallerent ne depositum negarent That they were wont to tye themselves by a Sacrament to commit no Thefts Robberies or Adulteries not to fail of their faith or deny that which was deposited in their trust being demanded It is manifest that all this is the profession of all Christians and that the Sacrament of Baptisme is properly the Vow of observing it And though I dispute not here that the Eucharist is called a Sacrament and Sacramentum in Latine signifies an Oath yet in as much as it is the meaning of the Sacrament of Baptisme I conceive I understood not Pliny amisse when I conceived that hee speaks in this place of the Eucharist when hee reports that they were wont before day to sing Psalms in praise of Christ as God and to tye themselves to the particulars hee names by a Sacrament And the same Tertullian understood by Pliny when hee saith hee reports to Trajan Apolog. II. Praeter obstinationem non sacrificandi nihil aliud se de Sacramentis as Heraldus truly reads it eorum comperisse quà m coetus antelucanos ad canendum
by the Scriptures and by the primitive Records of the Church many revelations made to Gods people at their publick Assemblies by the means of such as had the Grace And thereupon do inferre that such a revelation was made to that Assembly upon the place directing the decree which there follows and is signified according to that brevity which the Scriptures use in alleadging that whereof no mention is premised in the relation that went afore by these words it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us Now the words of our Lord Mat. XXVIII 20. Behold I am with you to the worlds end are manifestly said to the body of the Church and therefore do not promise it any priviledge of the Apostles And truly seeing it is a promise immediately insuing upon a Precept Go preach and make Disciples all Nations baptizing them in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you I find it a matter of no ill consequence but very reasonable to say that the Precept is the condition of the Promise seeing no act so expressed can reasonably be understood otherwise But in regard it is otherwise manifest that the continuance of the Church is absolutely promised and foretold till the world end by name in those other words of our Lord The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Mat. XXI 18. I shall easily admit that God absolutely promises to be with his to the worlds end so as to preserve himselfe a people in the manifold distractions and confusions that fall out by the fault of those that professe themselves Christians as well as by the malice of Infidels But I shall deny that this inferres the gift of Infallibility in any person or quality in behalfe of the Body of Christians For supposing the visible profession of Christianity to continue till the worlds end so that under this visible profession there is sufficient means to conduct a true Christian in the way to salvation And that by this means a number of men invisibly united to our Lord Christ by his Spirit do attain unto salvation indeed These promises of our Lord will be evidently true though we neither acknowledge on one side any gift of Infallibility in the Church nor deny on the other side the visible unity of the Church instituted by Gods Law It will be evidently true that our Lord Christ is with his Disciples that is Christians till the worlds end who could not continue invisibly united to him without the invisible presence of his Spirit It will be evidently true that the Gates of Hell prevail not against his Church in the visible society whereof a number of invisible Christians prevail over the powers of darknesse For though granting the Church to be subject to error salvation is not to be attained without much difficulty And though division in the Church may create more difficulty in attaining salvation then errour might have done yet so long as salvation may be and is attained by visible communion with the Church so long is Christ with his nor do the Gates of Hell prevail against his Church though error which excludeth infallibility though division which destroyeth unity hinder many and many of attaining it But if the consequence that is made from those words of our Lord be lame that which may be pretended from the power of the Keyes or of remitting â—â—d retaining sins both one by the premises granted S. Peter the Apostles of the Church will easily appear to be none at all For no man can maintain the power of remitting and retaining sins to be granted to the Church but he must yield it to be communicated to more then those in whom the gift of Infallibility can be pretended to reside Neither can the greatest of the Apostles remit oâ— retain any mans sinne without inducing him to imbrace profession of Christianity or if having imbraced it he fall from it in deed and in effect without reducing him to the course and study of performing the same and upon due profession thereof readmitting him into the Church on the other side excluding those that cannot be reduced to this estate Nor can the least of all that are able to bring any man into the Church fail of doing the same upon the same terms And did ever any man ascribe the gift of Infallibility to all them that should have power and right from the Church and in the Church to do this What meaneth then the exception of clave non errante which is every where and by every body cautioned for that with any reason challenges the power of the Keyes for the Church To me it seems rather an argument to the contrary that seeing this power is challenged for the Church under this general exception without limiting the exception to any sort of maters or subjects And that the act of it is the effect of the decrees of the greatest authority visible in the Church as whether Arias should communicate with the Church or not was the issue of as great a debate as the authority of the Church can determine that therefore the sentence of his excommunication proceeded not from the gift of Infallibility in any authority concurring to the decree of Nicaea whence it proceeded granting generally the power of excommunication to be liable to the exception of clave non errante Indeed it cannot be denyed that something requisite to the exercise of this power was in the Apostles infallible or unquestionable as presupposed to the being of the Church For what satisfaction could men have of their Christianity if any doubt could remain whether the faith which they preached were sent from God or not whither the Laws of Ecclesiastical communion which they advanced were according to their Commission or not But the causes upon which the Church is obliged to proceed to imploy this Power being such as depend many times upon the rule of faith and the Laws given the Church by the Apostles by very many links between both The dependance whereof it is hard for all those that are sometimes to concur to these sentences to discern I conceive it now madnesse to maintain the gift of Infallibility from the power of the Keyes in the exercise whereof so many occasions of failing may come to pass As for the exhortations of the Apostles whereby they oblige the Churches of the Thessalonians and Ebrues diligently to obey and follow their Governors 1 Thes V. 14. 15. Heb. XIII 7. 17. these I acknowledge to be pertinent to the question in debate as concerning such Governours as had in their hands the ordinary power of the Church saving that when he saith Remember your Rulers which have spoken to you the word of God And considering the issue of their conversation imitate their faith It is possible he may speak of those that first brought them the Gospel and those were the Apostles and Disciples of Christ either of the first rank of the XII or
the Godhead is said to dwell bodily in the Sonne it is to be understood that the holy Ghost also dwells in him without measure which with the Father makes up that fullnesse that S. Paul understands in opposition to those which the heresies preached For as it is plaine that the Valentinians worshipped their thirty Aeones or intellectual worlds so it is certain that the rest of their Sects worshipped that fullnesse which they preached Nay those that held the world to be made by Angels that fell away from the fullnesse worshipped also those Angels which the Christians call devils as the heathen did and all Magicians do as all ages witnesse This also is the reason why S. Paul saith further that the fullnesse of the Godhead dwelleth in Christ bodily because in the Temple and Sanctuary and Ark of the Covenant and Sacrifices and Ceremonies of that people all pledges of Gods presence it is certaine to Christians that the fullnesse of the Godhead dwelt as the body in the shadow equally correspondent to it For so I shewed you afore that the ark of the Covenant which in the XXIV Psalme is called the Lord of glory is by the Apostle said to be our Lord Christ But this reason is imployed by S. Paul to make opposition against them who pretended the Law to be given by those Angels the worship of whom together with the observation of the Law or at least of such precepts thereof as they might pretend the said Angels to have revealed to them they undertook to revive that by this counterfeit Christianity they might avoid that persecution which the Jewes out of their zeal for the Law brought upon true Christians For if it were the fulnesse of the Godhead which dwelt figuratively in the ark of the Covenant as now bodily in the flesh of Christ then were not those Angels authors of the Law nor the observations thereof to be renewed together with the worship of those Angels And therefore it is not to be omitted that when S. Paul addes And ye are filled through him who is the head of all principality and power Through whom ye are also circumcised with that circumcision which is done without hands by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh through the circumcision of Christ He withdraweth them from the observations of the Law by declaring that the intent of them is fulfilled in good Christians from the fullnesse of the Spirit that is of the Godhead that dwelt in Christ Which is that which S. John intendeth when he saith That we saw his glory as of the onely begotten Son of God full of grace and truth That is to say Of that grace which contained the truth of those figures and shadows As it followeth by and by Of his fulnesse we all have received and grace for grace Because the Law was given by Moses but grace and peace came by Jesus Christ For the Grace of the Gospel of Christ as it comes in stead of the grace of Moses Law and both from the fullnesse of Christ which as I said afore was resident for the time in that Angel that delivered the Law to Moses in Gods Name In fine so manifest are those words that Grotius himself who otherwise in expounding this Epistle hath warped to the Socinians could not forbear to avow the bodily dwelling of the fullnesse of the Godhead in Christ to signify that which the Church calls the hypostaticall union of the natures Here I argue that when S. Paul saith Phil. II. 6 7. that our Lord being in the form of God emptied himself taking the form of a slave this emptinesse which he took is directly opposed by S. Paul to that fullnesse of the Godhead which he had and dissembled by the emptinesse of that state which he assumed For here it is much to be observed that as S. Paul affirmeth the fullnesse of the Godhead to dwell bodily in Christ because the holy Ghost is understood alwayes to be resident in the Word incarnate So by the same reason the Father also is contained in the Sonne as the Sonne in the Father likewise God the Father being so called in the New Testament where the Sonne is revealed in respect of the Sonne who revealed it and whom it revealeth And that in opposition to that fullness from which each of the aforesaid Sects pretended the Revelation of the Father otherwise unknown It is not therefore to be doubted that our Lord when he saies as many times in the Gospel he does John X 38. For my works sake believe that the Father is in me and I in him XIV 7-11 If ye had known me ye would have known my Father also And henceforth ye know him and have seen him Philip saith unto him Lord shew us the Father and it shall suffice us Jesus saith to him So long am I with you and knowest thou not me Philip he that hath seen me hath seen the Father and how sayest thou shew us the Father Believest thou not that I am in the Father and the Father in me the words that I speak to you I speak not of my self but the Father that abideth in me he doth the works Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me If not believe me for the very works sake I say it must not it cannot be doubted that our Lord meanes by these words not that he said nothing did nothing but by commission from God which every Prophet could say so farre as a Prophet And the Jews need not to have taken up stones to throw at him when he said John X. 10. I and the Father are one had he meant no more but that it was his Fathers will which he declared But of necessity these sayings must import that as the Word containeth the Holy Ghost and is contained in it So is the Son contained in the Father and the Father in the Son who revealeth him as the Gnosticks hereupon took occasion to pretend that the unknown Father was contained in that Fulness by which the severall Sects of them pretended that he was made known And therefore when S. John saith That the glory of our Lord was seen to be the glory of the onely begotten Son of God though it be granted that the title of onely begotten implyeth and insinuateth by way of elegancy dearly beloved because every onely Son is so as you may see it shewd by testimonies both of the Scripturs and other writers in Grotius yet if this be the reason of that elegance in the word the ground of it therefore cannot be denied And so the question will have recourse why the only begotten Son and if not because conceived by the Holy Ghost then because in him dwelleth bodily the fulness of the Godhead To which sense the words of the Apostle John I. 18. are very pertinent No man hath seen God at any time The onely begotten Son that is in the bosome of the Father he hath declared him Hear
the consent of the Church But what joy they can have of S. Augustine may easily be judged by his opinion of the VII to the Romanes and the difference which I have observed betweene it and theirs For what can any man imagine to be the reason why he should understand S. Paul to speake onely of the surprizes which the regenerate are subject to remaining regenerate but because he was assured that they remaine not such when they fall away to these grosse sinnes which no man is surprized with And he that shall take the pains to peruse what S. Augustine hath written in his bookes de correptione gratia And de predestinatione sanctorum may justly mervaile how any man could come to have such an opinion of S. Augustine Besides in his worke de Civitate dei and in many other places he hath so clearly expressed himselfe that unlesse a man resolve not to distinguish betweene the state of grace and the purpose of God to bring a man to everlasting life which he that useth the common reason of all men cannot but distinguish it is a mervaile how S. Augustine should be taken to say that the state of grace cannot become voide because it is true he sayes so often that the decree of predestination cannot become voide S. Gregory is taken for one of the same opinion because expounding the words of the Prophet Jeremy Lament IV. 1. How is gold obscured the pure masse changed The stones of the Sanctuary scattered in the head of every street Concerning Christians that fall from theire profession according to the true reason of the mysticall sense he hath these wordes Aurum quod â—bscurari potâ—it aurum in conspectu dei nunquam fuit That gold which could be darkned was never gold in Gods sight But is it not easy to understand that the sight of God is that freeknowledge which the decree of predestination either supposeth or produceth And that those whom God â—oreseeth to fall from theire Christianity were never gold in his esteeme in regard of it As I said afore that he never knew them whome he ever knew that they would not ever continue his And seeing S. Austine expressely distinguished between sonnes of God according to that which they are at present and according to Gods foresight and purpose it will be necessary consequently to distinguish upon the attributes of members of Christ and of his Body ingrafted into Christ and his disciples That those are truly called such according to S. Austine that shall continue such for everlasting though those that shall not so continue are so for the present according to S. Austine As it is peremtorily evident by one exception in that he maketh the difference between some of them who have the gift of perseverance and others that have it not to consist in this That some are cut of by death while they are in that estate others are suffred to survive till they fall from it A thing many times repeated in the bookes aforenamed and which could not have been said but by him that held both for the present to be in the state of Grace Nor could he indeed dispute of perseverance not supposing the truth of that in which he requireth Grace to persevere I acknowlege to have seen the Preface to one of the Volumâ— that I spoke of and in it some pretense of making S. Austine and S. Gregory especially for the contrary purpose But I doe not acknowlege to have found any thing at all alleged there that had not been fully answered before it was alleged there in Vossiâ—â— his Collections Historiâ— Pelagianae libro VI. Thâ—sâ— XII-XV And therefore I will discharge my selfe upon him in this point rather then repeate breifly in this abridgement that which he hath fully said there For you shall find also there upon what termes and by what means Christians may and doe overcome that anxiety of mind which the possibility of falling from Grace may affect them with according to the Fathers Even the same as according to S. Paul whose assurance needed no revelation of Gods secret purpose but the knowlege of that resolution which Gods spirit had settled in his spirit which beeing assured that God will not forsake while he forsakes not God assureth him that by Gods helpe he will not forsake God And not onely he but all whom S. Paul comprises in the plurall us as grounded like S. Paul Otherwise that a Christian from the first instant of his conversion should be able to say so that whosoever is saved before death must say so out of the same confidence knowing by faith that he is predestinate as it is meere frenzy once to imagine so never did any of the Fathers maintaine Onely whereas the author of that Preface acknowledging that the Dominicans and Jansenians who hold up the Doctrine of S. Austine concerning the Grace of Preseverance suppose neverthelesse them to be regenerate that are not predestinate nor shall be saved imputes it to the abominable fictions of implicite saith and the efficacy of the Sacraments in exhibiting and convaying the Grace which they seale I would not have him thinke the efficacy of Baptisme can be counted a fiction by any but fained Christans Of the Sacraments I say nothing in this place For I need not so much as suppose what a Sacrament is And whether Baptisme be a Sacrament or not though a thing that no man questions is nothing to my present purpose That God contracteth with man for the promises of his Gospell upon condition of Christianity and that this contract is not onely solemnized but inacted by receiving Baptisme is not now to be proved having been done from the beginning of this book And he that would be free of that which he contracteth for by his Baptisme whereby he holdeth his title to all that the Gospell promiseth would make that step to the renouncing of his Christianity What implicite Faith should pervert the understanding of Doctors whose Faith is explicite in all maters of Faith I understand not unlesse he meane to acknowlege that which is most true that there never needed any expresse decree of the Church in this point as in other points questioned by Pelagius because never any man held otherwise If this be the implicite Faith which he means because the whole Church allwayes held it but never decreed it I shall agree to it but not that any Christian can be seduced by following it Jovinian we reade onely of confuted in this opinion by S. Jerome not condemned by the Church because he could never make it considerable and so dangerous to the Church But in very deed implicite Faith here signifies nothing being onely imployed to make a noise for a reason of that for which no reason can be rendred How that can be thought to be the sense of S. Austine which never any of his followers all zelous of his Doctrine in the matter of Grace could find in his writings And therefore the whole
Advocate with the father Jesus Christ the righteous and he is the propitiation for our sins And when David who had the spirit of God upon the same termes as Christians have it excepting that which hath been excepted prayeth Psalm XIX 13 14. Who understandeth his errours Clense me from hidden sins Keep thy servant also from presumptuous sins that they beare not rule over me Then shall I be upright and cleane from great transgressions He showeth sufficiently the difference between veniall and mortall sins as to Christians which in case of invincible ignorance and meere supprize comes to no sin as to Christians But he showeth also that Christians neglecting themselves may come to fall into sins of persumption which he prayeth against For the rest the same S. Iohn incouraging Christians to pray for the sins of Christians with this limitation as I surppose if by their advice they appear to be reduced to take the cours which may procure pardon at Gods hands acknowledgeth further that there is a sin unto death I say not that yee pray for it saith he 1. John V. 16. 17. And the Apostle to the Hebrews VI. 4 5 6. speaketh of some sin which he acknowledgeth not that it can be admitted to penance for the obtaining of forgivenesse which he protesteth again Ebr. X. 26 -31 XII 16 17. It is commonly thought indeed that to deny the true faith against that light which God hath kindled in a mans conscience is hereby declared to be a sin that repentance cannot cure Or rather that God hereby declareth that he will never grant in repentance And truly that blasphemy against the Holy Ghost which our Lord saith shall never he pardoned neither in this world nor in the world to come Mat. XII 31 32. Mark III. 28 29. Luke XII 10. manifestly consisteth in attributing the works which the holy Ghost did to convert men to Christ to the devill being convinced that our Lord came from God by the workes he did for that purpose Just as Saint Steven reproaches the Jewes for resisting the holy Ghost as their Fathers had done Acts VII 51. And that there is no cure for this sin it is manifest because it consisteth in rejecting the cure And apostasy from Christianity which is manifestly the sinne which the Apostle to the Hebrews intendeth differeth from it but as the obligation to Christianity once received differeth from that Christianity which being proposed with conviction a man is bound to receive But otherwise not onely the Church but the Novatians themselves supposed that those who had denied the Faith might recover pardon of God by repentance Nor can it become visible to the Church what is that conviction which whoso transgresseth becomes unpardonable because God hath excluded him from repentance In the meane time how difficult the Primitive Church accounted it to attaine pardon of such sinnes appeares by the excluding of the Montanists and Novatians first then by the long Penance prescribed Apostates Murtherers and Adulterers least the admitting of them to Penance might seem to warrant their pardon upon too light repentance Saint Paul admits the incestuous person at Corinth whether to Penance or to Communion with the Church But upon what termes Least the offender should be swallowed up with extream sorrow and least Satan should advantage himself against them should he refuse it And because having written out of great anguish of heart with teares for them who presumed to bear him out in it he had found them moved with sorrow according to God to repentance with all satisfaction and desire of peace with the Apostle 2 Cor. II. 1-8 VII 7-11 For we understand by Saint Paul 1 Cor. V. 2. 2 Cor. XII 21. that even the Church themselves when they shut a sinner out of the Church did make demonstration of sorrow for his case And therefore himself much more was put to mourning and to professe by his outward habit that he thought his sinne incurable without sorrow answerable to it And when Saint Paul commands the Collossians III. 5. Mortify your members that are upon earth fornication uncleannesse passion evill desire and covetousnesse which is idolatry For which the wrath of God cometh upon the children of disobedience It is manifest that he placeth the mortifying of these vices in the afflicting and humbling of our earthly members wherein the lusts of them reside Therefore he serves his own body no otherwise but striving for the prize of Christians like one of their Greekish Champions that would not beat the aire he beates his own body black and blew to bring it under servitude Least having preached to others himself should become reprobate 1 Cor. IX 26 27. And certainly if Christianity require this discipline over Saint Pauls body least he should fall into sinne it will require very great severity of them that are fallen into sinne to be exercised upon their bodies the lusts whereof they have satisfied by those sinnes to regain the favour and appease the wrath of God and to settle that hatred of sinne and that love of goodnesse in the heart which the preventing of sinne for the future necessarily requireth The practice of the Old Testament sufficiently signifieth the same Though David in the Psalme that I mentioned afore seem to make the pardon of his sin a thing easily obtained at Gods hands as it is indeed a thing easily obtained supposing the disposition which David desired it with but not that disposition a thing easily obtained yet you shall find the same David elsewhere wetting his bed and watring his couch with his teares so that his beauty is gone with mourning his flesh dried up for want of fatnesse and his bones cleave to his flesh for the voice of his mourning Indeed he alwayes expresseth his affliction to be the subject of his mourning But alwayes acknowledging his sins to be the cause of those afflictions which he therefore takes the course to remove by taking this course for his sinnes The Prophet Esay I. 15 16. thus calleth the Jewes to appease Gods wrath Wash ye make ye clean remove the evil of your workes from before mine eyes cease to do evil learn to do good seek righteousnesse Sure this was never intended to be done by the meer thought of doing it But the Prophet Joel having threatned a plague what doth he prescribe for the cure And now saith the Lord return to me with all your heart with fasting weeping and mourning and rent your hearts and not your garments and turn to the Lord your God for he is gracious and mercifull long-suffering great in mercy and repenteth him of evill Blow the trumpet in Sion sanctify a fast invite the assembly gather the people sanctify a Congregation make the old and young and the sucking infants meet let the bridegroom come forth of his chamber and the bride of her closet let the Priests the ministers of the Lord weep between the Porch and the Altar and say Spare Lord thy people and
this cup unmorthily should be guilty of the body and bloud of Christ as not discerâ—ing it according to S. Paul 1 Cor. XI 27 28. unlesse wee suppose the same Sacramentally present by virtue of that true Christianity which the Church professing and celebrating the Sacrament tendâ—eth it for spiritual nourishment to a living faith for mater of damnation to a dead faith For if the profession of true Christianity be as of necessity it must be mater of condemnation to him that professeth it not truly that is to say who professing it doth not perform it shall not his assisting the celebration and consecration of the Eucharist produce the effect of rendring him condemned by himself eating the body and bloud of Christ in the Sacrament out of a profession of Christianity which spiritually hee despiseth for not fulfilling what hee professeth Or that living faith which concurreth to the same as a good Christian should do be left destitute of that grace which the tender of the Sacrament promiseth because the faith of those who joyn in the same action is undiscernable Certainly if the Sacramental presence of Christs body and bloud tendring the same spiritually be a blessing or a curse according to the faith which it meets with it can by no means seem unreasonable that it should be attributed to that profession of Christianity which makes it respectively a blessing or a curse according to the faith of them for whom it is intended As for that opinion that makes this presence to proceed from the Hypostatical Union passed so long before it stands upon those Scriptures which seem to signifie that those properties wherein the Majesty of Christs God-head consists are really communicated to this Manhood in the doing and for the effecting of those works wherein that assistance and grace and protection which hee hath promised his Church upon his Exaltation consisteth S. Paul writeth to the Colossians that It pleased that all fulnesse should dwell in Christ in whom dwelleth all the fulnesse of the God-head bodily as hee expresseth himself more at large Col. II. 9. that they by him might be filled and by him to reconcile all things tâ— himself making peace by the bloud of his Crosse by him I say whether things on earth or in the Heavens And you being once estranged and enemies in your mind through evil works yet now hath hee reconciled through the body of his flesh by death to present you holy and without spot and blamelesse before him Here it is plain enough that our Reconciliation is ascribed to the flesh of Christs body as to his bloud after in whom wee have Redemption even the remission of sins by his bloud Col. I. 14 19-92 to wit for the fulnesse of the God-head dwelling bodily in Christ When our Lord saith all things are delivered mee by my Father Mat. XI 27. in order to the revealing of his Gospel that is to the making of it effectual When hee saith All power in heaven and earth is given mee Mat. XXVIII 18. a question is made how given if a necessary conâ—equence of the Hypostatical Union I answer Because the exercise thereof was limited by the appointment of God and the purpose for which hee caused the Word to dwell in our flesh which though of force to do all things should not have had right in our flesh to execute that which God had not appointed And therefore is our Lord Christ justly said to receive that power of God which by degrees hee receiveth commission to exercise The sitting of Christ at the right hand of God I have showed that the Apostle makes an argument of divine power and authority dwelling in our flesh in the person of Christ Heb. I. 3. Acts II. 33. V. 31. Eph. I. 20-22 where S. Paul ascrbies the filling of the Church a work of God alone to it And as hee sits on Gods own Throne so he shall judge all as man saith our Lord John V. 21 22 23 26-30 and raise them up and quicken them to that purpose For the Throne of God on which Christ is set down is the Seat of his Judgement And therefore as I live saith the Lord God in the Prophet Es XLV 23. Christ in the Apostle Rom. XIV 11. to mee shall every knee â—ow and every tongue shall give glory tâ— God To the same purpose is all that you read of anointing our Lord Christ with the Holy Ghost given him by God without measure saith the Baptist John III. 34. if you understand it not of the habitual graces poured forth upon the Manhood of Christ from the fulnesse of the God-head dwelling bodily in it of the truth whereof neverthelesse there is no disputes but of the very Majesty of the God-head communicated unto it in the person of Christ as of a truth I have said that they are to be understood In fine not onely the â—erit but the applâ—cation thereof that is the effecting of the cleansing of our consciences from sin is ascribed unto the bloud of Christ Ebr. IX 14. 1 John I. 7. How or in what regard but because by the eternal Spirit hee offered up himself blamelesse to God as the Apostle saith In which regard onely it is that our nature in Christ is honoured with the worship due to God because being for ever inseparable from the God-head of the Word it is not to be appreheâ—ded or figured so much as in the imagination but as the flesh of the Word This is a brief of the Scriptures which they allege to inferre that seeing hee hath promised to feed his Church with his flesh and his bloud in the Sacrament of the Eucharist which cannot be unlesse they be there And seeing the like works are performed and executed by the flesh that is the Manhood of Christ through the virtue of the God-head united unto it Therefore it is to be believed that by communication of the Majesty of the God-head to the flesh of Christ it becomes present wheresoever his promise and the comfort and strengthening of his Disciples which is the work of his Mediators Office whereunto by sitting down at Gods right hand heâ— is installed requires the presence of it If it be said that by this position the attributes and properties of the God-head are placed in the Manhood as their own proper Subject into which they are transferred by the operation of the God-head not devesting it self of them but communicating them to the Manhood to be thenceforth properties really residing in it and therefore truly to be attributed to it I must do them right and acknowledge that they utterly disclaim this to be their meaning Confessing thereby that if it were they could not avoid the imputation of Eutyches his Heresie condemned by the great Council of Chalcâ—don the confusion of the natures remaining unavoidable when the properties of the God-head being communicated to the Manhood in this sense can be no more said to remain the properties of it I undertake not thus much
fiat dilectissimi filii tui Domini nostri Jesu Christi Which oblation thou O God wee pray thee vouchsafe to make in all respects blessed imputable accountable reasonable and acceptable That it may become to us the body and bloud of thy well-beloved Son our Lord Christ Jesus Then after the Institution Jube haec perferri per manus sancti Angeli tui in sublime altare tuum in conspectu divinae Majestatis tuae Ut quotquot ex hoc altaris participatione sacrosanctum filii tui corpus sanguinem sumpâ—erimus omni benedictione coelesti gratia repleamur Command them to be carried by the hands of thy holy Angel unto thine Altar that is above before thy divine Majesty that as many of us as shall receive the holy body and bloud of thy Son by this communion of the Altar may be filled with all heavenly benediction and grace These two parts of this Prayer are joyned into one in most of those Forms which I have named whether before the rehersal of the institution or after it Onely in those many Forms which the Maronites Missal containeth the rehersal of the institution comes immediately after the Peace Which was in the Apostles time that Kisse of Peace which they command going immediately before the Deacons warning to lift up hearts to the Consecrating of the Eucharist Though those words are not now found in any of these Syriack forms For after the institution is rehearsed it is easie to observe that there followes constantly though not immediately but interposing some other Prayers a Prayer to the same effect with these two But in two several formes For in all of them saving two or three which pray that the Elements may become the body and bloud of Christ to the Salvation of those that receive by the Holy Ghost coming down upon them Prayer is made that this body and this bloud of Christ may be to the Salvation of the Receivers Which may be understood to signifie the effect of both these Prayers in so few words But it may also be understood to signifie that whosoever framed them conceived the consecration to be made by the rehersal of the institution premised Which if I did believe I should not think them ancient but contrived at Rome where they are printed upon the doctrine of the School now in vogue For in all formes besides the effect of these prayers is to be found without excepting any of those which wee may have any confidence of that they are come intire to our hands I demand then whether I have reason to attribute the force of consecrating the Eucharist upon which the Sacramental presence of the body and bloud of Christ depends to the recital of what Christ said or did at his celebrating the Eucharist or instituting it for the future Or to the Prayer which all Christians have made and all either do make or should make to the expresse purpose of obtaining this Sacramental as well as spiritual presence Hear how Justine describes the action Apolog. II. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Having done our Prayers wee salute one another with a kisse Then as I said that the Peace was next before the Consecration is offered to the cheif of the Brethren bread and a cup of water and wine mixed Which hee takes and sends up praise and glory to the Father of all through the name of the Son and Holy Ghost Giving thanks at large that wee are vouchsafed these things at his hands To wit the means which God used to reclame Man-kind under the Law of nature and Moses and lastly the coming of Christ and his death and the institution of the Eucharist Who having finished his Thanks-giving and Prayers for the making of the Elements the body and bloud of Christ by the Holy Ghost all the people present follow with an acclamation saying Amen Afterwards hee calls the Sacrament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The food which thanks hath been given for by the prayer of that word which came from him That is which our Lord Christ appointed the Eucharist to be consecrated with when hee commanded his Disciples to do that which hee had done So Origen in Mat. XV. calls the Eucharist Panem verbo Dei per obsecrationem sanctificatum Bread sanctified by the Word of God and Prayer And contra Celsum VIII Oblatos panes edimus corpus sanctum quoddam per preces factos Wee eat the bread that was offered made a kinde of holy body by prayer Not that which is grounded upon that Word of God by which his creatures are our nourishment as Justine saith afterwards that Christians blesse God by the Son and Holy Ghost for all the food they take but that Word of Christ whereby hee commanded to do that which hee had done S. Cyril of Jerusalem Catech. Mystag III. saith That the bread is no more common bread after the calling of the Holy Ghost upon it Because hee saith afterwards Cat. Myst V. that the Church prayes God to send the Holy Ghost upon the Elements to make them the body and bloud of Christ As I said So S. Basil calls the form of Consecration which I showed you hee affirms to come by Tradition from the Apostles as here I maintaiu it doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The words of invocation To wit whereby wee call for the Holy Ghost to come upon the elements and consecrate them de Spiritu Sancto cap. XXVII S. Gregory Nyssene de vitâ Mosis saith the bread is sanctified by the Word of God which is his Son But to say further by what means hee adds in virtue of the blessing To wit which the Church consecrates the Eucharist with as our Lord did Optatus describes the Altars or Communion Tables which the Donatists broke For they were of wood not of stone Quo Deus omnipotens invocatus sit quo postulatus descendit Spiritus Sanctus On which almighty God was called to come down On which the Holy Ghost upon demand did come down S. Jerome describes the dignity of Priests Epist LXXXV Ad quorum preces corpus Christi sanguisque conficitur At whose prayers the Body and Bloud of Christ is made To wit by God And in Sophoniae III. Impiè agunt in legem putantes Eucharistiam imprecantis facere verba non vitam Et necessariam esse tantùm solennem Orationem non Sacerdotum merita They transgresse the Law of Christ thinking that the Eucharist is made by the words not the life of him that prayes over it And that only the customary prayer not the works of the Priest are requisite In fine as often as you reade mysticam precem or mysticam benedictionem when there is speech of the Eucharist in the Fathers be assured that which here I maintain is there understood True it is Irenaeus V. 2. affirmeth that the Bread and the Wine receiving or admitting the Word of God accipientia become the Eucharist of the Body and Bloud of Christ But what word this is hee
can be produced to depose for the Sacrifice of the Eucharist than the sense of those Scriptures of the New Testament already handled which are in a maner all that have any mention of it will inferr and allow There is much noise made with the Priesthood of Melchisedeck of whom wee reade Gen. XIV 19 24. And Melchisedeck King of Salem brought forth bread and wine for hee was the Priest of the most High God And hee blessed him saying Blessed be Abraham of the most High God which owneth heaven and earth In reference whereunto the Psalmist speaking of Christ Psal CX 4. The Lord sware and will not repent thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedeck And the Apostle taking for granted that hee is a figure of Christ in the mystical sense Ebr. VII 13. argueth the voiding of the Levitical Law from the purpose of setting up another Priesthood declared by the Psalm But no where in all that Chapter which is all spent about the Exposition of it so much as intimateth the Priesthood of Christ to consist in any thing but in offering up to God in heaven his own body and bloud sacrificed upon the Crosse to make expiation for the sins of his people and to obtain of God that grace and assistance that comfort and deliverance which their necessities from time to time may require Be it granted neverthelesse that seeing of necessity Melchisedeck is the figure of Christ those things which Melchisedeck is related to have done are also necessarily figures of things done by our Lord Christ For otherwise were not the mystical sense of the Old Testament a laughing stock to unbelievers if it should hold in nothing but that which the Spirit of God hath expounded in the New Testament by our Lord and his Apostles I have therefore to the best advantage translated the words of Moses For not and hee was the Priest of the living God That whoso will may argue thereupon that his bringing forth bread and wine was an act of his Priesthood Which if I would deny no man can constrain mee by virtue of these words to acknowledg But I cannot therefore allow that Translation which sayes Obtulit panem vinum that as Priest hee offered bread and wine in sacrifice to God The Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so evidently signifying protulit not obtulit hee brought forth not that hee offered that hee brought forth bread and wine to refrâ—sh Abraham â—nd his people returning weary from the slaughter of the Kings not that hee offered them in sacrifice to God as his Priest the mention of his Priesthood râ—ther advancing the reason why hee blessed them than why hee fed them As both Moses in the words next afore and the Apostle also Ebr. VII 1. intimateth or declareth the intent why hee brought them forth Though if I should grâ—nt that custome which was common to all Idolaters to have been in forâ—e under the Law of nature because wee see it retained and inâ—cted by the Law of Moses not to taste of any thing till some part of it had been dedicated to God in the nature of first-fruits to the sanctifying of the whole till when it was not to be touched I say though I should grant this for a reâ—son why hee may be thought to have offered bread and wine to God not why 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should be translated protulit hee brought forth no man would have cause to thank mee for any advantage from thence For still the correspondence between Melchisedeck â—nd our Lord Christ would lye in this that our Lord by appointing this Sacrâ—ment brings forth bread and wine to strengthen the peoâ—lâ— of Abraham in their warfare against the powers of darknesse as in the dayes of his flâ—sh hee fed those that attended upon his doctrine least they should faint in their travail Now this will first inferr that it is bread and wine which our Lord feeds us with in the Eucharist And again that it hath the virtue of sustaining us by being made the body and bloud of Christ as in a Sacrament by virtue of the consecration past upon it Which is all that which I say to a hair that by being made a Sacrament it becomes the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Crosse to be feasted upon by Christians In like maner be it granted that the words of the Prophet Malachy I. 11. From the rising of the Sun to his going down my name shall be great among the Gentiles and in every place incense shall be offered to my name and a pure meat offering For my name shall be great among the Gentiles saith the Lord of Hosts is a Prophesie of the institution of this Sacrâ—ment because it is contained in those kindes of breâ—d and wine which served for meat and drink offerings in the Law of Moses But this being granted what shall wee do with the incense and the meat offering which the Prophet speaks of unlâ—sse wee say that they signifie that which corresponds to the meâ—t and drink offerings of the Law and their incense under the Gospel And will not thâ—t prove to be the spiritual sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving which God under the Gospel is served with by all Nations Though those prayers and prâ—â—es of God being by the institution of the Eucharist limited and determined to be such as the celebration thereof requires it is no inconvenience nay it will be necessâ—ry to grant that the sacrifice thereof is fore-told by these words not signifying neverthelesse the nature of it to require any thing more thâ—n is exprâ—ssed by the premises Be the same therefore said if you please of all the Sacrifices of the Old Law of all the Prophesies in which the service to be rendred to God in the New Testament is described by the offering of Sacrifices As for the words of our Lord to the woman of Samaria John IV. 23. The hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth For the Father seeketh such to worship him God is a Spirit and those that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth Though I grant as afore that this is fulfilled by the celebration of the Eucharist when once wee suppose our Lord to have limited the worship of God under the Gospel to the form of it yet there can be no consideration of a sacrifice signified by these words which neither suppose nor expresse the sacrifice of Christ upon the Crosse the Eucharist no way bearing the nature of a sacrifice but as it is the same with it But for the same reason and by the same correspondence between the sacrifices of the Law and that of Christs Crosse it may be evident that it is not nor can be any disparagement to the Sacrifice of our Lord Christ upon the Crosse to the full and perfect satisfaction and propitiation for the sins of the world which it hath made that the Eucharist should be
because though it have the stamp of primitive Christianity upon it yet it makes nothing to that purpose And yet the Mâ—sse is never celebrated but they heaâ— the Oblations of the faithfull called Sacrifices in the words quoted afore and that for the redemption of their souls for the hope of salvation for the discharge of their vowes All which understanding the renuing of the Covenant of grace by the Communion is properly true in order to it As for the sayings of the Fathers whereby the Eucharist is declared to be a Sacrifice in regard of the Consecâ—ation I do no way doubt that they are utterly innumerable For wheresoever the whole action including the propitiation which the Church intends to procure by it is called a Sacrifice which is most ordinary in the language of the Fathers there the Consecration cannot be excluded though referring it to the Communion not the Communion to it as some would have For if it be conâ—idered on the other side that they were all said at such time as the Communion was no lesse usual than the Consecration thereof that is to say when it was a strange thing to hear of the Eucharist celebrated and none but the Priest to receive it will not be strange that I demand it to be understood in order to the communion of the same Especially when the Liturgies themselves that is the form of Consecration used in the most eminent Churches from whom the lesse must necessarily be thought to have received their pattern do limit the being and presence of Christs body and bloud in the Elements to the benefit of them that shall communicate As it appears by the forms of Consecration that have been alleged And though the Fathers divers times â—all the celebrating of the Eucharist the death and passion of our Lord which it commemorates and the Sacrifice of his Crosse S. Cyprian Epist LXIII S. Chrysostome in Mat. Hom. LXXXIII in Aâ—la Hom. XXI in Epist ad Heb. Hom. XVII S. Austine in Psal XXI yet the addition of words which they use of reasonable and unbloudy oâ— commemorative of symbolical of signe and image are necessary evidence of an abarement in the property of the words according to their meaning Constitutiones Apost VI. 23. S. Cyprian Ep. LXIII Eâ—sebius demonst Evang. VIII 1. S. Ambrose de Oâ—â—ic I. 48. Macariuâ— Hom. XXVII S. Aâ—stine Quâ—st LXI ex LXXXIII contra Faâ—stum XX. 21. de Civ X. 5 20. XVII 17. Dionysius Hierar Eccles cap. III. and even the Canon of Mâ—â—sse calling it a Sacrifice of Praise for the redemption of souls that pay their vowes And therefore S. Ambrose de iâ—s qui initiantur mysteriis cap. VIII sayes that Christians then seeing the Altar prepared cried out Thou hast prepared â— Table before mee And in the Fathers that which is sometimes called an Altar is other while called a Table especially with the additions of mystical holy spiritual divine and others All abating the property of a Sacrifice or rather the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Crosse when speech is of the Eucharist The words of S. Austine Epist XXIII are expresse Nonne semel immolaâ—us est Christus in sâ—ipsâ— Eâ—â—amen in Sacramento non solâ—m per omnes Paschâ— solemnitates sed omni dis populis imâ—olaâ—â—r nec utique menâ—itur qui interrogatus â—um respondet immâ—laâ—â—â— Was not Christ in person sacrificed once and yet in mystery not onely all the Easter Holidayes but every day is he sacrificed for the people Nor shall hee lye who being asked answers that hee is sacrificed That truth of a Sacrifice which serves but to â—â—vâ—â—â—lye makes not a proper Sacrifice And the words of S. Chrysostom in Epist ad Heb. Hâ—â— XVII are not to be oâ—itted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What then do wee noâ— offer every day Wee offer indeed but making commâ—moration of his death And this is one and not many How one and not many Because he was once offered not as that which was carried into the Holy of Holies That is the figure of this and this of that For wee offer alwaies the same not now one Lamb and another to morrow but alwaies the same Therefore the Sacrifice is one Otherwise by that reason being offered in many places there should be many Christs But by no means But there is one Christ every where here full and there full One Body As therefore being offered in many places hee is one Body and not many Bodies So is hee one Sacrifice Hee is our High Priest who offered the Sacrifice that cleanseth us The same wee also offer that then was offered that is invincible This is done in remembrance of that which was then done For dâ— this saith hee in remembâ—ance of mee Wee make no other Sacrifices as then the High Priest but the same alwaies or rather the remembrance of a Sacrifice Now that in the sense of the Catholick Church the Sacrament of the Eucharist is a Sacrifice propitiatory for the Church and impeâ—ratory of the necessities thereof in regard of those prayers wherewith it is offered and presented to God in virtue of the Sacrifice of the Crosse which it is mystically that is representeth and commemorateth a few words will serve to persuade him that knowes the practice and custom of the Church in all ages at the solemn and regular times and occasions of celebrating the Eucharist to make mention of all states and qualities belonging to the Church And not only so but upon occasions incident of going to God for the necessities either of the Church or of particular Christians to celebrate the Eucharist with an intent of presenting and offering the Crosse of Christ there present for their necessities You had afore out of Tertul de Cor. cap. V. Oblationes pro defunctâ—s pro natalitiis annuâ die facimus Wee make Oblations for the dead for the birth of Martyrs on the anniversary day And further de Exhor Castit XI speaking of him that had maried a second wife Neque enim pristinam poteris odisse cui etiam religiosiorem reservas affectionem ut jam receptâ— apud Dominum pro câ—jus spiritâ— postulas pro quâ Oblationes annuas â—eddiâ— Stabis ergo ad Dominum cum tot uxoribus quot in oratione commemoras Et offeres pro dâ—abus commendabis illas duas per sacerdotem de monogamiâ ordinatum aâ—t etiam de virginitate sancitum circundatum virginibus ac univiris Et ascendet sacrificiâ—m tuum liberâ fronte Et inter caeteras voluntates bonâ— mentis postulabis tibi uxori tuâ— castitatem For the former thou canst not hate for whom thou reservest a more religious affection as received already with the Lord for whose spirit thou makest request for whom thou rendrest yearly oblations Wilt thou then stand before the Lord with as many wives as in thy prayers thou mentionest And wilt thou offer for two And commend those two by a Priest ordained after one wife or confirmed of a virgine compassed
guilty of those excesses which they are charged with by Epiphanius S. Jerome and others Of these particulars you may see in S. Augustine de Haeresibus and Sirmondus his Praedestinatus both of them Haeresi XXVI and LXXXVI But all the while the subject of this separation is the discipline of Penance received by the whole Church as from the Apostles the limitation of the practice thereof being the ground upon which the difference is stated And for the ground of this ground Whether it could then be pretended that the Keyes of the Church could do no more then cure the scandall of notorious sinne on the one side Or whether it could then be pretended on the other side that the Keyes of the Church import any Power to pardon sinne immediately not supposing that disposition which qualifieth for pardon visible to the Church and procured by those actions which the authority of the Church injoyneth All this I am content to referre to that common sense which is capable to understand these particulars I shall not need to say much of the Novatians at Rome and elsewhere the Donatists in Africk of the Meletians in Aegypt having said this of the Montanists all of them if we regard the subject of the separations which they made in severall parts of the Church being nothing else but branches of the same sect and forsaking the unity of the Church for their part of that cause which ingaged Montanus The Novatians because they would not indure that those who fell away from the Faith in the persecution of Decius should be readmitted to the communion of the Church upon demonstration of repentance The Meletians for the same cause in Aegypt under the persecution of Diocletiane The Donatists upon some appertenâ—nce of the same cause Onely they serve to evidence the discipline of Penance to have been as universall as the Church of Christ when no part of it is found free from debates about the terms liâ—iting the exercise of it They serve also to evidence the ground and the pretenâ—e of the Power of the Keyes in the discipline of Penance by the same reason which I alledged afore After these times when the customes of the Church which from the beginning was governed by un-written Law delivered by word of mouth of the Apostles but limited more and more by the Governours of several Churches began to be both reduced into writing and also more expresly determined by the Canons of severall Councils greater and lesse it were too vain to prove that by dicourse which of it selfe is as evident as it is evident that there are such Rules extant which in their time had the force of Law to those parts of the Church for which they were respectively made Onely I do observe the agreement that is found between the originall practice of the Church in this point and that order which I have showed you out of the Apostles writings evidencing that interpretation which I have given of them by that rule which common sense inforces that the meaning and intent of every Law is to be measured by the primitive practice of it For we see so much doubt made whether those three great crimes of Idolatry Murther and Adultery were to be reconciled by Penance that is by the visible and outward demonstration of inward repentance to the Church not onely by Montanus but partly by Novatianns that that great Church of Antiochia remained doubtfull a great while whether Cornelius or Novatians should be acknowledged the true Bishop of Rome We see the Eliberitane Canons which were unquestionably made divers years before the Council at Nicaea and therefore may be counted as ancient as any that the Church hath exclude some branches of those sinnes from reconciliation with the Church We see this vigor abated by the succeeding discipline of the Church It is indeed said in the Church of Rome at this time that the ground of the Heresie as without ground they call it of the Montanists and Novatians was this that acknowledging the Church to have power to forgive lesse sinnes they the Novatians denied it the Power to forgive Apostasy or Idolatry To which the Montanists added Murther and Adultery But I have showed in my Book of the Right of the Church p. 17-27 that within the Church also as well as among the Montanists and Novatians some of these sinnes were not admitted to communion no not at the point of death And that there never was any opinion in the ancient Church that the Church hath any Power to forgive sinne immediately but onely by the medicine of Penance which it injoyneth I referre my selfe to that which here followeth Now it is plain that neither those parts of the Church nor the Novatians did hold those sinnes desperate but exhorted them to Penance as their cure in Gods sight agreeing in not readmitting them whither for the maintenance of Discipline or for fear the Church warranting their pardon who might prove not qualified for it should become guilty of their sinnes according to S. Paul 1 Tim. V. 22. Lay hands suddenly on no man nor partake in other mens sinnes For S. John and the Apostle to the Hebrews had authorized the Church to make difficulty of it though S. Paul had readmitted a branch of one of them the incestuous person at Corinth whether for the unity of that Church then in danger to be divided upon that occasion or as reasonably satisfied of the truth of his repentance But when the zeal of Christianity decreased as the number of Christians increased within and persecution without withdrew so many that there was no means left to preserve the Body without abating this severity the number of Apostates in some persecutions being considerable to the number of Christians we need seek no other reason why the Montanists and Novatians should be Schismaticks not properly Hereticks then their separating from the Church rather then condescend to that which the Body of the Church found requisite to be granted Let us see what crimes they are which the Eliberitane Canons that is the Canons of the Council of Elvira in Spain exclude from the communion even in case of death As if a man at age after Baptism commit adultery in the Temple of an Idol cap. I. If an Idol Priest having been baptized shall sacrifice again II. If such a one after Penance shall have committed adultery III. If a Christian kill a man by Witchcraft wherein there is Idolatry VI. If a Christian commit adultery after Penance VII If a Woman leaving her Husband without cause mary another VIII If a Father or Mother sell a child into the Stews or a child it selfe XII If a professed Virgine shall live in uncleannesse XIII If a man marry his daughter to an Idol Priest XVII If a Clergy-man commit adultery XVIII If he who is admitted to communion upon adultery in danger of death shall commit adultery again XLVII If a Woman kill the childe which she hath conceived of adultery
shall be of force to void mariage contracted afore upon wich ground the opinion which I propounded last would justifie the divorces which the Imperiall Laws make to the effect of marrying again will be a new question Seeing that if any thing bâ— to be accepted it will be in any mans power to dissolve any mariage and the law of Christ allowing no divorce but in case of adultery will be to no effect Neither will there be any cause why the same Divines should not allow the act of Justine that dissolves mariage upon consent which they are forced to disclaim allowing the rest of those causes which the Imperial Laws create Indeed whither any accident absolutely hindring the exercise of mariage and falling out after mariage may by Law become of force to dissolve it I need not here any further dispute For so the securing of any Christian mans conscience it is not the act of secular Power inacting it for Law that can avail unlesse the act of the Church go before to determine that it is not against Gods Law and therefore subject to that civil Power which is Christian The reason indeed may fall out to be the same that makes impotence of force to do it and it may fall out to be of such force that Gregory III Pope is found to have answered a consultation of Boniface of Mence in the affirmative XXXII q. VII c. Quod proposuisti But this makes no difference in the right and power of the Church but rather evidences the necessity of it For though as Cardinall Cajetane sayes the Canon Law it selfe allows that Popes may erre in determining such maters cap. IV. de divortiis c. licet de sponsa duorum which every man will allow in the decree of Deuededit Pope Epist unicâ yet the ground of both Power witnessing the Constitution of the Church as a necessary part of Christianity as it determines the true bounds of both so it allows not the conscience of a Christian to be secured by other means And were it not a strange reason of refusing the Church this Power because it may erre when it must in that case fall to the secular Powers who have no ground to pretend any probable cause of not erring For he that proceedeth in the simplicity of a Christian heart to use the means which God by Christianity hath provided for his resolution may promise himselfe grace at Gods hands even when he is seduced by that power which is not infallible But he that leans upon that warrant which God by his Christianity hath not referred him to must answer for his errors as well as the consequences of the same CHAP. XVI Of the Power of making Gouernours and Ministers of the Church Upon what ground the Hierarchy of Bishops Priests and Deacons standeth in opposition to Presbyteries and Congregations Of the Power of Confirming and the evidence of the Hierarchy which it yieldeth Of those Scriptures which seem to speak of Presbyteries or Congregations NOw are we come to one of the greatest Powers of the Church For all Societies according as they are constituted either by the act of Superiors or by the will of members are by their constitution either inabled to give themselves Governours or tied to receive them from those by whose will they subsist The Society of the Church subsisting by the will of God is partly regulated by the will of men voluntarily professing themselves Christians If God having limimited the qualities and the Powers by which his Church is to be Governed do referre the designing of persons to bear those qualities and powers to his Church it must needs appear one of the greatest points that he hath left to their choice Therefore I have made it appear from the beginning that the originall of this Power was planted by our Lord Christ in his Apostles and Disciples to whom immediately he committed the trust of propagating it And now that I may further determine within what bounds and under what terms those his immediate Commissaries did appoint it to be propagated to the end of the world I say that by their appointment the bodies of Christians contained in each City and the territory thereof is to constitute a several Church to be governed by one cheif Ruler called a Bishop with Presbyters or Priests subordinate to him for his advice and assistance and Deacons to minister and execute their appointment The said Bishops to be designed by their Clergy that is their respective Priests and Deacons with consent of neighbour Bishops ordaining them and by the assent of the people whom they are to govern I say further That the Churches of greater Cities upon which the Government of the lesse dependeth are by the same Rule greater Churches and the greatest of all the Churches of the chiefe Cities So that the chief Cities of the Christian world at the planting of Christianity being Rome Alexandria and Antiochia by consequence those were by this Rule the chief Churches and in the first place that of Rome This position excludeth in the first place that of Independent Congregations which maketh a Church and a Congregation to be all alone so that the people of each Congregation to be able first to give themselves both Laws and Governours then to govern and manage the Power of the Keyes according to Gods word that is according to that which they shall imagine to be the intent of it For whatsoever authority they allow their Ministers or Elders seeing they are created out of the people by the meer act of the people and that the consent of the People is required to inact every thing that passeth it will be too late for them to think of any authority not subordinate to the people upon whom they have bestowed the Soveraign On the other extreme this position excludeth that of the Romanists who will have the fulnesse of Ecclesiasticall Power to have been first setled upon S. Peter as sole Monarch of the Church and from him derived upon the rest of the Apostles as his Deputies or Commissaries So that the Power which other Bishops Priests and Deacons have in their respective Churches being granted by the successors of S. Peter Bishops of Rome is therefore limitable at their pleasure as no otherwise estated by divine right then because God hath setled it in S. Peter and his successors as the root and source of it Between these extremes there remain two mean opinions whereof one is the platform of the Presbyteries in which every Congregation is also a Church with a Consistory to rule it consisting of a Minister with his Lay-Elders whom now they call Triers referring to them the â—riall of those who come to communicate and Deacons Of these Congregations so many as they without Rule or Reason so farre as I know think fit to cast into one resoâ—t or division they call a Session or Class and as many of those as they please a Synod and of Synods a Province So that as the
requiring of those who acknowledge the same absolute conformity in things altogether needlesse to the unity of the Church the true end of all due Power in the Church For were conformity in this point necessary to the unity of the Church had the Power of the Church of Rome and of the Pope in behalf of it been such by virtue of the first instituting of it as might have required it why then was it not required from the beginning that the service of God through the whole Empire should be celebrated in Latine being the language which the mother Church of the mother City did use and farr more frequented then in Greece than now in the West which is forced to use it Seeing then it appeareth that there is nothing at all to be alleged for so great an inconvenience but that which I have alleged for it and which I acknowledge to be truly alleged and justly but not justly admitted it remaineth that the Church is provided by God of other Laws the observation whereof is and would be a cure to the danger alleged from the change of the publick service of God into the vulgar languages For this danger proceedeth from nothing but from the false pretense of absolute and infallible authority in the Church which is indeed limited by the truth of that Christianity whereupon the Church is grounded and for the maintenance whereof it subsisteth For though this pretense may be a mean to contain simple people in obedience to any thing which shall be imposed so long as they know not any thing better that they ought to have yet if conscience be once awaked with reasons convincing that the authority instituted by God in his Church is abused to the prejudice and hinderance of the salvation of Gods people it is no marvail either that they should neglect all their interest of this world to seek themselves redress or that they should mistake themselves in seeking it and think the redress to be the destroying of all authority in the Church So that the preventing of danger by the necessary reformation of abuses in Church maters must not be thought to consist in pretenses as inconsistent with the common good of the Churches as with the truth of Christianity But in submitting to those bounds which the grounds of Christianity evidently establisheth And which unlesse Christianity make people more untractable then all the rudenesse which they are born and bred with makes barbarous Nations and wilde Beasts the sense of those mischiefs which difference of Religion hath brought in and maintained in Christendome must needs have disposed them to imbrace and to cherish for the future avoiding of the same In the next place supposing the Eucharist as the rest of the service to be celebrated in a language vulgarly understood we are to debate whither the Eucharist require Communion or whether the private Masses now allowed and countenanced in the Church of Rome be of the institution of our Lord and his Apostles Nor shall I need to use many words to free the term of private Masses from the exception which is sometimes made That all Masses are publick actions of the Church repeating the Sacrifice of Christ crucified to the benefit of his Church For seeing the term of a private Mass signifieth a thing visible The celebration of that Eucharist whereof no body but the Priest that consecrates it doth communicate I ask no man leave to use the term signifying no more by it but putting the rest to debate whither as de facto in the Church of Rome so de jure according to the institution of our Lord and his Apostles the sacrifice of Christ crucified is and ought to be either repeated or represented and commended by celebrating the Eucharist so as no body but the Priest that consecrates to communicate or whether the institution of our Lord require that Christians communicate in the Eucharist which they celebrate A dispute wherein nothing that is said in the Scripture concerning the order and practice of our Lord and his Apostles can leave any doubt For though there may be mention of celebrating the Eucharist where there is no mention of communicating in it which is an argument meerly negative not from the Scripture but from this or that Scripture and of no consequence to say S. Paul 1 Cor. XIV 14-17 1 Tim. II. 1-6 mentioneth the celebration of the Eucharist not mentioning any Communion therefore no body did communicate yet are we farr from the least inckling of any circumstance to show that there was this Sacrament celebrated when there was none but he that consecrated it to communicate Nay if we regard the institution Do this in remembrance of me referring as much to take eat and drinke as to the blessing or thanksgiving whereby I have showed that our Lord did consecrate If we regard S. Paul affirming that the bread which we bless and the cup which we drinke is the communion of the body and blood of Christ 1 Cor. X. 16. and reproving the Corinthians because the rich prevented the poor and suffered them not to communicate in their Oblations out of which the Eucharist was consecrated as I showed afore We shall be bold to conclude that so farr as appears by the Scripture all that did celebrate did communicate as all that assisted did celebrate if that be true which I proved afore that the Prayers of the Congregation is that which consecrates the Eucharist to wit supposing Gods Ordinance The same appears by Justine Martyr and other the ancientest Records of the Church that describe this office But I canot better express the sense of the Church in this point then by alleging the decretall Epistles of the Popes before Innocent the I. or his Predecessor Syricius which being forged by Isidore Mecater some DCC years after Christ as hath been discovered by men of much learning do notwithstanding contain this Rule that he who communicates not be not admitted to the service of the Church Which he that forged them would never have fathered upon the ancient Popes had it not been evident to all that were seen in the Canons of the Church that it was of old a mater of censure to be present at celebrating the Eucharist and not to communicate in it A thing evident enough by many Canons of Councils yet extant and foisted into those decretals to no other purpose but to make men believe in after ages that those Canons were made to prosecute and to bring to effect those things which the Popes had decreed afore as if their authority had been always the same as it was at the time of this forgery Now it is well enough known what pretenses have been made and what consequences drawn from the speculation of the sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross repeted or represented by this Sacrament to perswade Christendom that the benefit thereof in remission of sinnes and infusion of grace and all the effects of Christs Passion is derived upon Gods
be counted Sacraments for the same reason and in the same nature and kind for which any thing else is or can be counted a Sacrament No not though they may all in their proper sense be truly called Sacraments of the Church because the dispensing of them all is trusted with the Church For Baptisme by the premises enters a man into the Covenant of Grace as the visible solemnity whereby it is contracted with the Church in behalfe of God which unlesse in case of peremptory necessity cannot be invisibly contracted So it intitleth to all the promises which the Gospel pretendeth And so also doth the Eucharist being the visible ceremony which God hath appointed for the renewing of it and of our profession to stand in it and to expect the promises which the Gospel pretendeth upon supposition of the condition which it requireth not otherwise And truly the flesh and bloud of Christ mystically received by our bodies necessarily importeth his spirit received by our soules supposing them qualified as the Gospel requireth and in and by the Spirit whatsoever is requisite to inable a Christian to performe his race here or to assure him of his reward in the world to come And yet the necessity thereof not so undispensable but that supposing a man cannot obtaine the communion thereof from the Church but by violating that Christianity which it sealeth neither can a man obtaine it by the Sacrament nor without the Sacrament need he faile of it that is standing to his Christianity as well in all other things as in not transgressing his Christianity for communion in the Eucharist with the Church And this is the case of those which are unjustly excommunicate Seeing in matters indifferent he that yeilds not to the Church that is to them who have the just power to conclude the Church when they judge it for the common good for him to do that which otherwise he is not obliged to do must needs seem justly excommunicable So these two Sacraments have the promise of grace absolutely so called that is of all the grace which the Gospel promiseth which it is to be acknowledged and maintained that no other of those actions that are or may be called Sacraments of the Church doth or can doe upon the like terms as they doe For of a truth it is granted that both these Sacraments are actions and consist in the action whereby they are either prepared or used though with so much difference between the two For Baptisme is of necessity an action that passes with the doing of it Whereas in the Eucharist there is one thing done in the preparing another in the using of it insomuch that the effect of consecrating it which I suppose here to be signified in the Scriptures as well as the most ancient of the Fathers by the name of Eucharistia or Thanksgiving remaines upon the thing consecrated so that the bread and the wine over which God was praised and thanked are metonymically called the Eucharist And yet in regard the consecration in reason tends to the use of receiving it and that the Church is not trusted or inabled to do it with effect but to that intent the totall of both is necessarily understood by the name of that Sacrament For supposing the ancient Church might have cause to allow the use of receiving this Sacrament to them who were not present in body though in spirit at the celebrating of it which I for my part in point of charity find my self bound to suppose even when I am not able to alledge any reason why my self would have done the same in the same case So long as by reasonable construction which the practice of the Church alloweth or groundeth the consecration tendeth to the use of receiving it is reasonably called the Sacrament or the Eucharist in order to that use If it be consecrated to any other intent either expressed or inforced by construction of reason upon the practise of the Church such practice bordering upon sacriledge in the abuse of the Sacrament the Church hath nothing to do to answer for it Nor is it my meaning that the Sacrament of Baptisme or the Eucharist doth or can consist in the outward action of washing of the body or of praying over the elements and reciting the Institution of our Lord. It is true the very bodily action were able in a great part to interpret the intent of doing it to those who are already Christians and know what Christianity requireth But seeing that can never be enough much lesse allwayes It is necessary that the intent be declared by certain words signifiying it But these words with the bodily action which they interpret will by this discourse concurre to make but one part of the Sacrament which containing the solemnizing of the Covenant of Grace will necessarily containe that which all this signifieth of invisible and spirituall grace conveighed to those who are qualified for it by that which is said and done in virtue of Gods promise He that will speak properly of these two Sacraments must make the matter of them to consist in one of these two parts The form of them being not the signification which is the same in all ceremonies but the promise which tieth to them the whole effect of the Covenant of Grace to which purpose it were well if the world would understand them to be seals of it This createth a vast difference between these two and any of the rest which are called Sacraments Which whether the Councile of Trent sufficiently expresse by providing an Anathema for those who shall say that the seven Sacraments are so equall one to the other that none is more worthy then another Sess VII Can. III. or not let them look to it I dispute not Thus much we see a difference is hereby acknowledged But the difference is vast in this regard that whereas both these Sacraments take effect in consideration of every particular mans Christianity and the promises annexed to that end the rest all of them take effect in consideration of the Communion of the Church and that which it is able to contribute towards the effect of Grace Which necessarily consists in that which the Church is able to contribute toward the effecting of that disposition which qualifieth for it So whereas these two immediately bring forth Gods grace as instruments of his promise by his appointment the rest must obtaine it by the meanes of Gods Church and the blessing annexed to communion with it He that believeth not Gods Church in the nature of a Society grounded upon profession of the true faith and consisting in that communion which separateth it not from the whole may promise himself the benefit of his Baptisme and of the Eucharist whomsoever he communicateth with professing himself a Christiane He who believeth every Church to be a part of the whole Church as he must acknowledge it requisite to the effect of Baptisme and the Eucharist that they be ministred neither
the same effect there is no cause why he should be excused of Idolatry for his paines But withall he cannot be excused of contradicting himselfe as grossely as he that maintaines those Saints or Angels to be that one true God whom he acknowledges not to be that God but his creatures If there be reason to presume that they who acknowledge Saints or Angels their Mediators Intercessors or advocates to God intend to commit Idolatry by contradicting themselves thus grossely there may be reason to thinke that they count them their Mediators Intercessors or Advocates to God to that effect to which Christ alone is our Mediator Intercessor or Advocate But if whosoever is accepted to pray for an other is necessarily by so doing his Mediator Intecessor or Advocate to him with whom he is admitted to deal on his behalfe by his prayers then will it be necessary to limite the worke of mediation to that effect which may be allowed to the intercession of the Saints or Angels for us if we will have them to be to purpose Certainely neither could Iob intercede for his friends nor Samuel for the Israelites nor Abraham for Abimelech or Pharao nor any of Gods Prophets for any that had or were to have recourse to them for that purpose but they must be by so doing Mediators intercessors and Advocates for them with God For neither can the mediation of Saints or Angels nor of any prophet or other that can be persumed to have favour with God be to any effect but that which the termes of that reconciliation which our Lord Christ hath purchased for us doe settle or allow But he that saith the Saints and Angels pray for us saith not that we are to pray to Saints or Angels nor can be say it without Idolatry intending that we are to do that to them which they do to God for us On the other side though that which we doe to them and that which they doe to God be both called praying yet it wil be very difficult for him that really and actually apprehendeth all Saints and Angels to be Gods creatures to render both the same honour though supposing not granting the same Christianity to injoyn both But to come to particulars I will distinguish three sorts of prayers to Saints wheâ—her taught or allowed to be taught in the Church of Rome The first is of those that are made to God but to desire his blessings by and through the merits and intercession of his Saints I cannot give so fit an example as out of the Canon of the Masse which all the Westerne Churches of that communion do now use There it is said communicantes memoriam venerantes omnium Sanctorum tuorum quorum meritis precibusque concedas ut in omnibus protectionis tuae muniamur auxilio Communicating in and reverencing the memory of such and such and of all thy Saints by whose merit and prayer grant that in all things we may be guarded by thy protection and helpe There is also a short prayer for the Priest to say when he comes to the Altar as he findes opportunity Oramus te Domine per merita sanctorum tuorum quorum reliquia hic sunt omnium sanctorum ut indulgere digneris omnia peccata mea We pray thee Lord by the merits of the Saints whose reliques are here and all Saints that thou wouldest vouchsafe to release me all my sins And on the first Sunday in Advent mentioning the Blessed Virgin they pray Vt qui vere eam matrem Dei credimus ejus apud te intercessionibus adjuvemur That we who believe her truely the mother of God may be helped by her intercessions with thee The second is that which their Litanies containe which though I doe not undertake to know how they are used or how they ought to be used by particular Christians that is how far voluntary how far obligatory yet the forme of them is manifest that whereas you have in them sometimes Lord have mercy upon us Christ have mercy upon us Holy Trinity one God have mercy upon us You have much oftner the Blessed Virgine repeated again and againe under a number of her attributes you have also all the Saints and Angels or such as the present occasion pretends for the object of the devotion which a man tenders named and spoken to with Ora pronobis that is Pray for us The blessed virgine some saie with te rogamus audi nos We beseech thee to heare us One thing I must not forget to observe that the prayers which follow those Litanies are almost alwaies of the first kind That is to say addressed directly to God but mentioning the intercession of Saints or Angels for the meanes to obtain our prayers at his hands The third is when they desire immediately of them the same blessings spirituall and temporall which all Christians desire of God There is a Psalter to be seen with the Name of God changed every where into the Name of the blessed Virgine There is a book of devotion in French with this title Moyen de bien seruir prier adorer la Vierge Marie The way well to serve pray to and adore the blessed Virgine There are divers forms of prayer as well as excessive speeches concerning her especially and other Saints quoted in the Answer to the Jesuites Challenge pag. 330-345 Of those then the first kind seems to me utterly agreeable with Christianity importing onely the exercise of that Communion which all members of Gods Church hold with all members of it ordained by God for the meanes to obtaine for one another the Grace which the obedience of our Lord Jesus Christ hath purchased for us without difference whether dead or alive Because we stand assured that they have the same affection for us dead or alive so farre as they know us and our estate and are obliged to desire and esteem their prayers for us as for all the members of Christs mysticall body Neither is it in reason conceivable that all Christians from the beginning should make them the occasion of their devotions as I said out of any consideration but this For as concerning the terme of merit perpetually frequented in these prayers it hath been alwawes maintained by those of the Reformation that it is not used by the Latine Fathers in any other sense then that which they allow Therefore the Canon of the Masse and probably other prayers which are still in use being more ancient then the greatest part of the Latine Fathers there is no reason to make any diffficulty of admitting it in that sense the ground whereof I have maintained in the second Book The third taking them at the foot of the leter and valuing the intent of those that use them by nothing but the words of them are meer Idolatries as desiring of the creature that which God onely gives which is the worship of the creature for the Creator God blessed for evermore And were we bound to make