out in my Scriptural citations upon the absolution at the beginning of the Service-Book and I love not Actum agere Rubrick Then the People shall say this that followeth after the Minister Turn Thou us O good Lord. Note Here the People as Persons very deeply sensible of their sins and nearly concern'd to beg paâ—don and ask forgiveness are incited to do it after the Minister with unanimous hearts united affections and the highest fervency of devotion in such form of words as is not only consonant with but almost Verbatim taken out of the Scriptures Hos 14.2 Joel 2.17 Joel 2.12 13. Nehem. 1.4 5 c. Rubrick Then the Minister alone shall say The Lord bless us and keep us c. Note This form of blessing is grounded upon Numb 6.23 24 25 26 27. It is pronounced by the Minister as being an Act of Authority Heb. 7.7 Highly esteem'd in the Primitive times and none durst go out of the Church till they had received it Concil Agath Can. 31. Ann. Dom. 472. Concil Orlean 3. Can. 22. The People kneeled to receive it Chrysost Liturg. The Jewes received it after the same manner Eccles 50.23 As God blessed by the Priests then Numb 6.22 23. So we have the promise of his assistance and ratifying the Priests blessing which they are to pronounce with authority under the Gospel Matth. 10.13 Luke 10.5 Where by peace resting upon the party capable and by Blessing returning to the Minister where the House resists and hinders the blessing we may note that there is a vertue goes out from the Minister together with the blessing POST-SCRIPT Reader FOr the removing of all scruples and to give satisfaction to some religious Persons who are perhaps of a different perswasion and whose Consciences may be so tender as to take offence where none is given I have here joyned by way of an Appendix a Paraphrase upon some places of Scripture sorted out for that purpose For truly I would have such Persons dealt with in the most tender and gentle way that can be imaginable I would have the Mote so discreetly pull'd out of their Eye as not to pull out Eye and all but done with so gentle a hand as not to forget the tenderness of an Eye and the nearness of Brethren we should make Christs President our pattern who would not break the bruised Reed nor quench the smoaking Flax. Rom. chap. 14th Vers 1. For the preserving of Christian charity among all who profess themselves to be Christians take these following Directions There are great dissensions and divisions gotten in already amongst us by reason of some different perswasions about some things in their own nature indifferent however all are not so perswaded these have caused animosities sidings and separations amongst us so that the communion and peace of the Church the most precious thing to be preserved is more than likely to be broken Therefore to make up this breach that it prove not incurable by continuance I make this seasonable application and first I admonish those who do not think themselves obliged to the use of those indifferent things not to reject others who think themselves bound up in Conscience to their observance but to receive them to their communion and not to quarrel with other Mens resolutions and perswasions as to such things but to direct their own lives by what in conscience they are perswaded is lawful or unlawful about such matters in case the things indifferent in their nature are left also indifferent in their use Vers 2. For he who is sufficiently instructed in his Christian liberty makes use of his Christian liberty and makes no scruple at all about such things neither doth he place any religion in them further then to express his obedience to lawful Superiors which is not the least part of Christian Religion whereas he who is weak and not sufficiently instructed in the nature of the liberty allow'd him by Christ so long as he remains in that errour reckons of such things as unclean in themselves and not to be conformed to Vers 3. But let not him who discerns his Christian liberty in such matters despise him who is scrupulous and erroneous neither let the scrupulous and erroneous reject and cast out of his communion those who are better instructed in the nature of their Christian liberty seeing God hath admitted them into his Church and received them as Servants into his Family Vers 4. And what commission can any pretend to judg the Servants of God received and owned by him or to exclude them out of the Church touching such matters seeing they must stand or fall be cleared or condemned by God's Sentence and not Man's God is able to clear them if he will and he certainly will having received them into his Family and given them this liberty Vers 5. Some Judaizing Christians observe the Sabbaths and other Rites appointed by Moses others who know their liberty make not that difference of times and things which Moses Law requires in such things Let every Man act by his own Conscience and not by another Mans what he is verily perswaded he ought to do and let not the unity and peace of the Church be broken for such matters Vers 6. 7. He who makes a difference betwixt days as they were differenc'd by Moses Law this is nothing to our Christian Festivals observed upon another account thinks it is God's will he should do so and he who doth not make that difference thinks it is God's pleasure now under Christ that he should not make it So is it for Meats as well as for Days some who understand not their liberty make a difference from the supposed obligation of Moses Law others who are very well instructed in their Christian liberty make no difference as from Moses Law however from Christian Laws a difference may be made as to the use but not as to the nature of Meats and Days which Christian-Laws Christians who rightly understand their Christian liberty will cheerfully obey certainly when both sides do what they do meerly out of conscience and to do a thing pleasing to God this is well done for no Man is to do what himself likes best but what he thinks to God is most acceptable Vers 8. For our life and death are very inconsiderable but as by them we may serve God so ought we to do it in all other things Vers 9. This being the great end of Christ's death Suffring and Resurrection that he should have power over us all and command and give what liberty he pleaseth but further then he gives we may not take nor pretend to such a Christian liberty as unavoidably destroys Christian duty Vers 10. But why do we condemn our fellow Christians or exclude them from our Communion Why do we vilifie set them at naught or judg them so long as they only use and do not abuse their Christian liberty in conforming to the use of some things which not the
that is a Romish error for all that Rome holds is 〈◊〉 â—oneous let them take the Common-pâ—â—â—â—â—â—ook and Book of xxxix Articles and the â—â—eed look no further for a confutation Truly I never had yet the confidence which some Men have to call the Pope Antichrist and the Church of Rome the Whore of Babylon and yet the very same Men have fastned the same titles of disgrace upon the Bishops and Church of England but I could wish the Pope more l ke the Primitive Bishops and Rome more like her Primitive self that so that Church ours may both be reconciled upon such terms of reconciliatâ—on as is consistent with Christian rules and so upon their union it is to be hoped another party would be disappointed of their foul ends who are for the Church of Rome and England one while and and another while call them both Whores only to destroy both and to set up themselvs Farewel The a ORDER for the Burial of the DEAD Rubrick I. Here is to be noted that the Office ensuing is not to be used for any that die b unbaptized or b excommunicate or b have laid violent hands upon themselves II. The c Priest and Clerks méeting the Corps at the entrance of the Church-yard and going before it either into the Church or towards the Grave shall say or sing Annotat. a ALl Offices to be performed to Christians living or dead are to be done according to the custom of the Church which is the rule of decency and according to the order directions and appointment of our lawful Superiours 1 Cor. 14.40 b These Three are denied Christian Burial The First because they were never visibly received into the bosom of the Church for Baptism is Introitus in Ecclesiam The Second because for some notorious crimes they are by just censure cast out of the bosom of the Church The Third and last because guilty of so foul a crime which is directly contradictory to Christian profession yet ought we to judg charitably of the first especially when born of believing Parents and where there was rather the want than the contempt of Baptism The Second we leave to the mercies of God neither are they absolutely denied the external rites of decent Funeral when repentance for the faults of such offenders is before their deaâ—h signified to those who have power to receive them into the Church upon their repentance as they had power to cast them out in a legal way for their crimes But if they die in a state of impenitency then these and the last who in their life and death would be as Pagans are not judged fit to be as Christians in their Burial All that authority can do to such Persons is to put their Carkasses to shame and to deny them the honour of seemly Sepulture For it hath been the practice of very Heathens Aegyptians Athenians and others to deny Burial to those who were notoriously wicked and self-murderers Athenienses decreverunt ne si quis se interfecisset sepeliretur in agro Attico August de civitat dei lib. 1. This difference God himself made in Jezebel 2 King 9.36 The King of Babylon Isay 14.19 Jehojakim Jerem. 22.18 19. And the Church hath frequently done the same by this means if possible to keep others in good courses and to terrify them from committing those horrid acts which have rendred some uncapable of Christian Burial Those Grecian Virgins who feared not death were yet restrained with the fear of shame after Death It hath been a usual practice thus to lay open the faults of Persons notoriously criminal by putting them to exemplary punishments and denying them the solemnity of honest Sepulture So Eusebius calls it Splendidissima Sepultura lib. 7. c. 15. Corah who rebelled against Moses and Aaron died not the common death of Men nor was buried after the manner of Men but went down quick into the ground opening under him Numb 16.32 Baana and Rechab who rose up against their Lord had their quarters set upon Poles 2 Sam. 4.12 Bigthan and Thares were fairly hanged upon a Tree Esth. 2.22 So Absalom came to a strange end 2 Sam. 18.14 So Sheba 2 Sam. 20.22 All the punishments of Rebels and Traytors now in use are collected and drawn together from the several examples we meet with in the Book of God Now these exemplary punishments are inflicted upon some to terrifie many and vengeance is taken in such manner upon such sinners that the just Cum viderit vindictam Psal 58.10 may wash his Feet or Hands in the blood of the wicked And then do the just wash their Hands and Feet when by other Mens punishments they learn to amend their own lives And there is a necessity to make some Persons thus exemplary in their Deaths and Burials 1. For the punishment of the offence for sins not corrected are incouraged 2. For a vindication of the Laws and Authority against which the offence is For such a disrespect unpunish'd would in time breed a contempt of all Law and Authority 3. For a terrour to others that other Mens punishments may be our instruction As David intitles his Psalm wherein he reports Israel's punishments a Psalm to give instruction Psal 78. That Man is desperately a Fool whom other Mens harms cannot make wise The Fox was warned when he saw the tracks of other Beasts leading to the Lyons Den but none returning So the foot-steps of others may be a warning to us to fix us upon firmer and better Principles that we do not fall and perish as they did The Foot-steps of the fallen Angels may check us for our pride The ashes of Sodom admonish us of our filthiness Ex eorum cinere fiat nobis lixivium The Gibbet of Hamman be an allay to our ambition Achans heap of stones in the Vally of Achor give check to our Sacriledge And the fearful examples of Absalom Corah Zimry Sheba Judas and others antidote us against Sedition Rebellion and Treason Miror quorum facta imitamur eorum exitus nos non perhorrescere c By the Priest and Clerks we are to understand the chief Minister of the Congregation and his Assistants who are either Clerici or Ministerialis ordinis candidati These are for the more solemnity to meet the Corps or dead Body at the entrance of the Church-Yard which Church-Yard is the usual and accustomed place of Burial Vid. Mins Diction expressed in the Teutonick German and other Languages by such words which signify Gods Glebe-Land the Churches Orchard or Garden noting unto us that the dead Bodies are there sowne like Seeds in the Furrow of the Grave and shall ripen into a fruitful and joyful Harvest at the Resurrection They are sown in tears but shall be reaped in joy they are sown in dishonour shall be raised in glory sowne in weakness shall be raised in power 1 Cor. 15.43 As Trees and Plants in the Winter they are as dead for a time but shall bud and spring
Tertullian is very plain and full Vid. Melanct. in Evangel domin in loc commun And Mr. Calvin is very express That Christ alone is enter'd into the Sanctuary of Heaven and that he presents unto God the Prayers of the People who remain in a remoter Court till the end of the World Instit lib. 3. c. 20. Sect. 20. lib. 3. cap. 25. sect 6. in Luc. cap. 16. vers 22. vid. Marlorat vid. Calvin lib. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in 1 Pet. 3.19 2 Pet. 2.4 Luc. 23.43 Mat. 8. Genes 5. de raptu Enochi Job 14. Philip. 1.6 2 Cor. 5.1 2 Cor. 12.13 Instit lib. 4. cap. 4. sect 12. in Catechism In all which places he will not define or determine any thing in terminis only holds as we do that they are in bliss but shall not have their perfect consummation and bliss till the Resurrection and Day of Doom The Collect. O merciful God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who is the Resurrection and the Life in whom whosoever believeth shall live though he die and whosoever liveth and believeth in him shall not die eternally Joh. 11.25 26. who also hath taught us by his holy Apostle St. Paul not to be sorry as Men without hope for them that sleep in him 1 Thes 4.13 14. We meekly beseech Thee O Father to raise us from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness Rom. 6.3 4. 1 Cor. 15.34 That when we shall depart this life we may rest in him as our hope is this our _____ doth and that at the general Resurrection in the last day we may be found acceptable in thy sight and receive that blessing which thy well beloved Son shall then pronounce to all that love and fear Thee saying Come ye blessed Children of my Father receive the Kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the World Mat. 25.34 Grant this we beseech thee O merciful Father through Jesus Christ our Mediator and Redeemer Amen Note This Collect sums up all the remarkableness of the Burial Office in a short devout prayer and brings all home in pious application Herein we declare our hope concerning all who depart this life in the bosom of the Church for so long as we are in the bosome of the Church we are in the state of pardon however if we are sometimes mistaken in our hope as to particulars yet it is ever a testimony of our charity It is Error amoris in case it happen at any time to be an errour 2 Cor. 13.14 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with us all ever more Amen Viz. The charity of God the Son the love of God the Father and the bounty or liberal effusion of the graces of God's Holy Spirit be in us with us and upon us now and ever Amen POSTSCRIPT Christian Reader IN the first place I am to desire thee to have so much charity for our reviving Mother the Church of England as not to think her any way addicted to an affected singularity in her prescribed Office for the Burial of her dying Children for as in her other Offices so in this she holds exact conformity with her other Sisters the Reformed Churches beyond the Seas so far as they may be permitted to hold conformity with her Vid. Mr. Durel Touching the conformity of other reformed Churches with the Reformed Church of England pag. 34. sect 38. pag. 48. sect 60. Besides take notice of the words of the most judicious Hooker Take away saith he these prayers praises and holy Lessons which were ordained at Burials to shew the peculiar hope of the Church touching the Resurrection of the dead and in the manner of the dumb Funerals what one thing is there whereby the World may perceive that we are Christians Hook Eccles Pol. lib. 5. sect 75. Some few Rites more I shall add observed at Funerals together with their Reasons annexed only to give satisfaction to those better sort of weak Christians who quarrel at their use more out of tenderness of conscience than out of turbulency or any contentious spirit as for such who are contentiously given who are ill-willers to Sion who are enemies to the peace of the Church who delight in nothing but dreadful confusions and make it a great part of their Religion to quarrel the ancient practises of the Church and just Orders of Superiours I leave them to the severest execution of the Laws of the Land and the power of those who are invested with Jurisdiction to punish them as schismatical and seditious Persons and as the nature of their offence shall deserve and truly I think Superiours may be blamed for their indulgence in such cases as well as for their severity Our Church will never be at peace and our State never at quiet from the working of some Mens spirits and intemperate zeal Si vitiis Principum irasci liceat insidiari bonitati But enough of this I proceed now to speak of the few other Rites rather practised at Funerals than by Law or Canon prescribed and to account for them with what brevity and perspicuity I can 1. The ringing of the Passing-bel or Soul-bell as we call it is not intended to help the passage of the Soul when departed out of the Body but only to stir up devout Christians to pray for its happy passage out of its Body and to move those who are living to make reflexions upon their own mortality and seriously to consider of their later end This Bell is like St. Paul's Trumpet 1 Cor. 14.8 which gives such a certain sound that all within the hearing of it may prepare themselves to the Battel which is to be fought in the Field of Death 2. It was an ancient custom and is still practised to bury the Dead with their Faces turning towards the East to shew that they were as sure of an uprise as the Sun that comes forth of his Eastern Chamber and that they lie waiting for that Sun of Righteousness Malach. 4.2 who shall at the last day return with his healing Wings and quicken and revive all the dead Bodies of his Servants by his healing and life-giving influence when he comes with his Prodi Lazare or Surge qui dormis then the Graves shall set open their Marble Doors and restore their deposita When the Arch-Angel shall sound the Trump of Collection then the scattered bones of Gods Saints shall be gathered together with sinews and those sinews incorporated with flesh and that flesh covered over with skin all mortality being purged away and by a new 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Pythagoras never dreamed of the same Soul shall re-enter the same Body These and the like Ceremonies the Church hath practised in her Funerals to be as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so many significant emblems to strengthen and confirm her living Children in the hopes of a joyful resurrection 3. It was an
wherein the Woman is to return her praise and thanks to God for her deliverance when the pain is ovâ—r and the danger is past Had the Church never enjoyn'd this our own reason may tell us this is fit to be done First to pray to God for his mercy we would receive and then to praise God for his mercy received That so our duty may keep pace with God's bounty and our grateful devotions answer in some proportion God's gracious deliverances Certainly as the Apostle speaks this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A very rational Service a Service that hath very much of reason in it Rom. 12.1 and none but such who have little reason and less religion in them can be against it No Christian who hath grace and gratitude in him but will blush at that pitiful and poor Objection which is made against it as if forsooth in returning thanks for every one thus delivered and vouchsafed this mercy we should be like the Messilian Hereticks who do nothing else but pray Indeed I think of the two it is better being like such Heretiques who do nothing but pray than to be like such Schismatiques and disquiet Spirits who do nothing but rail and quarrel at whatever is so prudently ordered and established by lawful Authority and this is the judgment of a very reverend Man Hook Eccles Polic. lib. 5. sect 74. David tells us it is a good thing a thing very well becoming the just and religious Persons to be thankful Psal 92.1 Psal 33.1 I like not that godliness which teacheth any Man to be unthankful Among the Ten Lepers which were cleansed our Saviour took notice but of one that returned to acknowledg the mercy Luk. 17.17 18. Christ in commending of him condemned the other Nine Yet we read not of any special command injoyning one or other to return back and to give thanks only the nature of the benefit received did in all reason require it By which it is evident that when God is merciful to us we are bound up by reason as well as Religion to be thankful to him And where can a Woman express her thanks to God for so great a mercy better than in the Congregation and that for these reasons 1. To evidence her own thankfulness 2. To provoke others to the like thankfulness by her example 3. To excite all to make some reflexion upon the first sin which laid so heavy a curse exposing them to so great a danger upon Woman-kind 4. To work in Children an impression of love duty and obedience towards those Mothers of theirs who did undergo so much pain and sorrow to bring them into the World Neither know I how or which way Children can ever make amends or sufficiently requite their Parents Now in regard this return of Thanks is to be performed in the publick and in the Face of the Congregation it is intitled The Churching of Women For so soon as God gives them strength and they have retired themselves so long time as is consistent with the Christian rules of modesty and sobriety it is very fit they should come in decent and humble manner and make a publick acknowledgment of Gods great mercy to them in the presence of God's People then met together in Gods house neither do I conceive how the great end of this Office according to the Churches intention can be exactly performed and discharged to have it hudled up in silence and obscurely in their private houses nor indeed done at all unless the Ordinary grant forth a dispensation in a case of apparent necessity which it concerns the Church to be very wary in granting in regard as I have observed in this irreligious Age we have so many gross and dead-hearted Christians that they are apt to pretend a necessity where really none is and Midwifes in such cases made too often guilty of the midwifery of lies by which means the publick Offices of the Church are too much abused and scandalously slubber'd over in private Houses Rubrick The Woman at the usual time after her delivery shall come into the Church decently apparelled and there shall knéel down in some convenient place as hath béen accustomed or as the Ordinary shall direct And then the Priest shall say unto her Note 1. By usual time we are to understand so soon as ever she shall be able Statim post partum Ecclesiam ingredi non prohibetur Canon Law Dist. 5. c. Haec quae Levit. 12. Decretal lib. 3. Tit. 4. And yet by the civil Law and according to the Tradition of the Church in case the Woman be like to live the usual time is Forty Days after her delivery not as if the Woman were so long time to be adjudged unholy or lying under any uncleanness mentioned in the Levitical Law which Law so far as Ceremonial we hold utterly abolished but only upon a ground of Christian modesty and to chastize intemperance and the like are Women so long restrained from the carnal delights of the Matrimonial Bed as appears by the Canon Law Dict. 5. c. and the Constitution 17th of Leo. Neither can any modest or sober Christians cavil at this unless they will cavil also at that prudent advise given by the Apostle for married Persons upon occasion by mutual consent to abstain from those things which are lawfully enjoyed at other times 1 Cor. 7.5 Note 2. By decent apparel is doubtless meant some distinguishing habit by which the Woman who is to give her thanks is to be taken notice of from other Women No such habit either commanded or forbidden but left as an indifferent thing Vid. Haman L'estrange neither can any conscience which is not scandalously and shamefully weak so weak indeed as it may rather be interpreted stubbornness of will than weakness of conscience take any just offence at this for according to the judgment of Tertullian I cannot conceive what hurt can possibly be in a Vestment where the wearers are not faulty Tertul. lib. de pall And St. Paul hath fully determin'd in the case touching all indifferent things That to the pure all things are pure Tit. 1.15 that is they who strictly abstain from unlawful freedom may with a safe Conscience use any lawful liberty But the usual Vestment worn for distinction at this time by the Woman was a comely Veil to be as a token of her modesty and subjection for the use of the Veil had that meaning in it in the Apostles time 1 Cor. 11.10 So Photius tells us in his Epist 210. The Woman ought to be subject to the Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and to bear the sign of her subjection a covering on her Head Such kind of covering every Woman ought to wear in the Congregation 1 Cor. 11.5 But if the Woman be singled out from the rest to joyn with the Minister in discharging any Christian duty as in this case Then questionless she ought to have a Veil not only for decency but for distinction too
well be for we who live in this age cannot be ignorant how many good Laws have been made for the correcting of vice and how few executed either we love vice so well that we will not or we have indulged it so much that we dare not bring it to open Penance But God who was neither pleased with it nor afraid of it did for when Adam the first of Man-kind and King of the whole World under God had transgressed his positive Law and committed a great sin in breaking an easie Commandement he brought him to his confession his open and full confession though he came unwillingly to it and used many evasions and equivocations which the Tempter taught him to use who first taught him to sin he gave him an Ash-Wednesday Lecture for the Ceremony of Ashes from whence this Day derives the name came from his Pulvis es Dust thou art Gen. 3.19 and he put him to his Penance In moerore in sudore In sorrow shalt thou eat and in sweat He who abused his indulged innocent pleasures should live with afflictions thorns and thistles Gen. 3.17 18 19. The promised Seed gave him hopes of pardon Gen. 3.15 but he must pass this Penance first and that he might pass it he must quit his Paradise be driven for a time from the presence of the Lord. So He drove out the Man c. This was the first great Specimen of Church Discipline it is Primitive and ancient enough as ancient as the Church it self and it is authentick and authoritative enough for God himself was the author of it and it was practised in the Church before the Law till sin was so imperious that nothing could reform it but a Deluge and under the Law till wickedness was so predominant that nothing could quell its power but a Babylonian captivity in the time of the Messias till Vice was so prevalent amongst the Jews that nothing could check the rage of it till the Roman Eagles fell upon Jerusalem like Birds of Prey upon a Carkass and in the Christian Churches of the Apostles planting till sin was grown so much in defiance of the light that God was pleased not only in Justice but in Mercy too to withdraw the Candlestick and in all Churches of the Christian World was this Christian Discipline used this godly Discipline and where it was most used there Christianity most flourished till corruption had gotten the start of Christianity and Christianity and Covetousness or something worse had made a match But now it is every where either too much abased or else almost totally abandoned so that it is no wonder Christians in name should be worse than Heathens in manners when the Christian Church is without Discipline when the Tares and the Wheat the Goats and the Sheep the Chaff and the good Corn the Dross and the Gold the Unclean and the Clean the Vile and the Precious must all promiscuously make up one communion in the participation of most holy things and no Judicial Discipline is used to make so much as a tolerable separation so that in the Church Militant here on Earth sin is only the Triumphant part But in Heaven where no unclean thing shall ever enter it shall not be so For flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God neither corruption inherit incorruption 1 Cor. 15.50 God hath here in the History of the first original of all our humane race opened to us this great truth wherein there is a History as well as a Mystery what is spoken of Adam and Paradise of Adam placed in Paradise whilst he remained innocent and of Adam brought to confession penance and removed out of Paradise when he became notoriously criminal is historical but it is written 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of a type and ensample in respect of us and so is mystical shewing that all notorious criminals who live in the bosom and bowels of the Christian Church and are a reproach to the Christian name and a scandal to Christian profession are to be removed are to be brought to their confession penance and to remain sometime separate from the community of Christians whose holy Laws and Lives they will not conform to This was God's Law and this was Gods practice but as godly as we pretend our selves to be I do not see that we transcribe God's Copy and draw his practise into imitation We suffer many scandals in the Church seek no removing of them suffer Vice to be accounted Vertue and Vertue to be accounted criminal and seek no redressing of it Adam innocent and Adam a transgressor is all one to us he shall remain in Paradise though the curse of briars and thorns grow up and remain with him he may eat of the tree of sin and when he hath done so come without any controul to the Tree of Life if it was possible without doing his penance so little do we regard who comes or what is done in the Church which is the Paradise of God Church Officers are much to be blamed as to this particular who do not duly and truly present such Criminals But God would not have it so would not suffer it to be so For He drove out the Man c. That I may give you an exact model of the godly Discipline which the Primitive Christian Church used at the beginning of Lent or much about this time of the Year I shall take my Scheme from this first pattern of it set by God himself in his severe dealings with lapsed Adam 1. Adam so long as he kept his integrity remained innocent and had done nothing notoriously criminal to deface that divine and glorious Image which God his Maker had stamped upon him had all Paradise at his command he might freely take the fruition of God's Creation and enjoy his Creator in a happy and a contemplative life Thus he was In statu instituto in his first and innocent estate but when he became a delinquent and a Transgressor and stood convicted of a notorious sin against his Maker when the Serpent in subtilty had beguiled Eve and Eve in simplicity had deceived Adam and under the specious pretence of being like unto God and wise in knowing good and evil he made himself a sinner against God lost that wisdom which he had by refusing the good and choosing the evil then God took a severe course with him to humble him for his pride and to mortify him for his presumption Paradise the Garden of his pleasure was turned into a place of his penance and punishment and he lost the liberty of those fruitions which he had made a forfeiture of by a too great licentiousness God put upon him his Penance Robes cloathed him in skins the badges of his sin and the covers of his shame Gen. 3.21 So in imitation of this practise of God the Church in the Primitive times did deal with her criminals such as apostatized from Christianity in times of Persecution or such as
were convicted of heresie Schism Contumacy Perjury Adultery Drunkenness or any other notorious crimes which were a scandal to the Christian name or a reproach to Christianity and they were the stricter and severer in this Discipline not to magnify the power of the Keys and Authority of the Church above the mercies of God for his mercies are inexhaustible and all our sins to them are but as a drop to the Ocean but they were the more severe in it because Christianity was but then in the bud and the profession of it was thinly dispersed in the crowd of Pagans where the least moral scandal would have been a great blemish to the whole party and consequently have impeded the gaining of Proselites For it is an infallible rule that no Sect whatever can thrive and prosper whose Professors do not exhibit a fair front of moral Vertues in their outward actions Upon this account it was and it was expedient too that the Church under the penalty of the deepest of her censures required from all her subordinates such a practical and exemplary purity as might render her most resplendent even in the opinion of her greatest enemies Neither was the Church Catholick so severe but the Novatians the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Puritans in Affrick as they stiled themselves were much severer for they when they excluded criminals out of their communion did shut them for ever out which severity Cyprian condemned in them and so did Ambrose and wrote several Books and Epistles against them as being too over-rigid and cruel in their Discipline towards their lapsed Children exercising rather the authority of a Step-Mother than of a natural and indulgent Mother Yet though Affrica was always very fruitful of Monsters this severe Discipline of theirs did keep out vice and scandalous crimes from their Churches And when the Church ceased to carry a strict hand of Discipline over her delinquent Children grew remiss and relax and every day more and more gentle towards notorious criminals sin did quickly get the head of sanctity and vice justle out vertue and debauchery driv out this very Discipline it self so that for want of it now we may take up the complaint of Isaiah How is the faithful City become an Harlot it was full of judgment righteousness lodged in it but now murderers Thy Silver is become dross thy Wine mixed with Water Isay 1.21 22. 2. When Adam had sinned Adam and Eve both for Eve was the first transgressor and was first in the transgression 1 Tim. 2.14 God did not presently separate them and cast them out of Paradise but he called them first to a strict account and interrogated them touching their sin of which they were convict in their own consciences as appeared by the covers which they made for to hide their nakedness Gen. 3.7 and by their hiding themselves from God when they heard his voice in the Garden Gen. 3.8 9 10. GOD summons them to appear before Him with all their sin and guilt about them Gen. 3.9 And although they used many wryings and turnings from the matter minsings and shiftings translating and passing off their faults from one to another Adam confessing his nakedness but not his sin Gen. 3.10 And when he could not hide his sin laying it not upon himself but upon his Wife as his Wife did upon the Serpent Gen. 3.11 12 13. Yet God by his strict examination brought them to such a sense of it that they could not choose but see how notoriously criminal they were and unworthy to abide any longer in that Garden of God wherein they had injured the Majesty of so glorious a God and abused the mercy and goodness of so gracious a Creator So in the Primitive Church of Christians before the notorious sinners and criminals were cast out of the bosom of it they were assigned their Confessors who were to examine them to take cognizance of their crimes to lay open their sin and their danger and to make them throughly sensible of the injuries and indignities they had offred to Christ and to make them see clearly how unworthy they were to live in the society and communion of Christians and to partake of the Prayers Sacraments and Priviledges of the Church who by their hainous sins and notorious crimes had so much defamed Christ scandalized the Christian community and brought a reproach even amongst Heathens upon the Christian Name Now this business of confession or taking confession was not intrusted to any but to those who were most eminent in the Church for their prudence piety sanctity and integrity and such as could be as Christianly sensible of the faults of others as if they were really their own who had the wisdome of the Serpent to discern and the innocency of the Dove to determine in such cases and knew how to distinguish betwixt weak and wilful sinners 3. When Adam Eve and the Serpent whose shape the Devil had abused to deceive them both had passed their examination and confession but it is to be observed the Serpent was not examined neither did make any confession Gen. 3.14 Then God promised to Adam and Eve a gracious Pardon in the promised Seed Gen. 3.15 But he brought them to do Penance first the Serpents punishment rather than his Penance was to go upon his Belly and to feed upon dust all the days of his life Gen. 3.14 15. The Womans Punishment and Penance both was to bring forth Children with sorrow and to be in subjection to her Husband whom by her imperiousness she had deceived Gen. 3.16 being assured of hopes of salvation through a Child that should be born of Woman-kind that is the Messias if she and her Sex continued in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety 1 Tim. 2.15 The Man's punishment and penance was to eat his Bread in sorrow all the days of his life to live amongst thorns and thistles and to spend his days in a kind of mortification for his intemperance Gen. 3.17 18 19. And when God had pronounced them this Penance he cloathed the Man and the Woman like Penitents in Coats of Skins Gen. 3.21 So in the Primitive Church when scandalous Christians had passed their examination and confession then they were assigned their Penance by their Penitentiaries 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the rate and assize of their crime and offence which Penance they were to perform exactly and to give some clear evidences of their reformation and amendment before they were to be readmitted to Christian communion but in some cases to those especially who were in extremes the Church was indulgent and did deal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more favourably Now when the Penance was assigned them and they became Canonice poenitentes then as God cloathed Adam and Eve with Skins so they were cloathed in silicio sordibus in sack-cloth and ashes to testify to the World that they were fallen and by sin become as the vilest things Fourthly and Lastly When Adam and