who will or can think it reasonable that the Church should be thought to avow all that hath been written by any of the Church and is come to the hands of posterity by whatsoever means Or who will think it strange that a Christian should not understand the Rule of his Christianity though the right understanding thereof should have been the condition requisite to the making of him a Christian If the profession made by the writing from which posterity hath it were evidently so notorious to the Church and the maintenance thereof so obstinate that the Church could not avoid taking notice of it and contradicting it without quitting the trust of the Rule of Faith deposited with it then and not otherwise I do admit that the contrary of that which is regularly and ordinarily taught by Church Writers is inconsistent with the Rule of Faith Besides this another presumption or prescription limiting the interpretation or Scriptures in such things as concern the Traditions of the Apostles wee may be confident to have gained from the Society of the Church demonstrated by the premises To wit that if any thing be questionable whether it come by Tradition from the Apostles or not there can no conclusion be made in the negative because it is not expressed in the Scriptures Here I desire all them that will not mistake mee to take notice that I intend not here to conclude or inferre what force those Traditions which I pretend may come from the Apostles though it be not certified by the Scriptures may have to oblige the Church which question I found it requisite to set aside once afore But that which here I affirme onely concerns the question of fact that it is not impossible to make evidence that some Orders or Rites and customes of the Church had their beginning of being brought in for Laws to the Church by the Apostles though not written in the Scriptures Confessing neverthelesse that the proving hereof which no reason can hinder mee to proceed with here will be a step to the resolving of that force which the Traditions of the Apostles whether written or not written in the Scriptures have and ought to have in obliging the Church at present when it shall appear to be common to written and unwritten Traditions to have their authority from the Apostles And the evidence of this prescription depends upon a more general one limiting the interpretation of Scripture in mater of this nature that is concerning the Laws of the Church how far they were intended by the Apostles to tye the Church not to exceed the practice of the Church succeeding the times of the Apostles The demonstration whereof consists in certain instances of things recorded by the Scriptures of the New Testament either evidencing onely mater of fact that is what was then done and therefore importing no precept what was to be done for the future or importing such precepts as no man will stand to be now in force It is manifest that the Scriptures report how the Disciples under the Apostles were wont to assemble themselves to serve God by the Offices of Christianity upon the first day of the week called vulgarly Sunday after the Resurrection of Christ John XX. 19 26. Acts. XX. 7. Con. XVI 2. Apoc. I. 10. Speaking of the banishment of S. John conforming himself to the times of the Church for the service of God and thereupon ravish'd in Spirit Which no man questions It is said indeed in this case as it is said by others in the question of Tithes that the first day of the week is commanded to be kept holy of Christians by the fourth Commandment But I demand of any man that can tell seven whether the first day of the week and the seventh day of the week be the same day of the week or not And if this be unquestionable I demand further whether the Jews were tyed by the fourth Commandement to keep the last day of the week or not Assuring my self that whosoever believes the Scriptures and reads the Commandement that obliges them to rest all that day in which God rested from making Heaven and Earth can no more doubt that they were bound to rest on Saturday than that God rested from making Heaven and Earth upon that day I demand then whether the same precept that obliged them to keep Saturday can oblige Christians to keep Sunday And do conclude that it can no more be said then that the same word signifies both the seventh and the first day So wide an error so small a mistake can cause when faction hath once swallowed it A man would think it a very easie mistake to understand the seventh day of the week which God commands to be hallowed as if it signified one of the seven and no more Which if it were true then were the Jews never tied to rest on the Saturday by Gods Law but might have chosen which day of seven they would have rested on notwithstanding that God rested on the Saturday which is to make the reason of the precept impertinent to the mater of it I intend not to deny that the reason and ground upon which the Christian Church came to be enjoyned to keep the first day of the week is drawn and to be drawn from the fourth Commandment But I say further that the reason and ground of a positive Law makes it not a Law but the act of him that hath power to give Law signifying that hee intends to inact it for a Law whether hee expresse the reason or not And thus I say as I have hitherto said concerning other Ordinances which have the force of Law to oblige the Church that they can no more stand by virtue of such Ordinances as I acknowledge to have been torrespondent to them under the Law of Moses than Christianity by the virtue of Judaisme or the Gospel by virtue of the Law which though it bear witnesse to the Gospel yet hee were a Madman that should say That hee who was bound to be circumcised by virtue of that circumcision should be bound to be baptized supposing him of the number of Christians who agree that Baptisme coming in force circumcision could no more continue in force And surely those simple people who of late times have taken upon them to keep the Saturday though it were in truth and effect no lesse than the renouncing of their Christianity yet in reason did no more then pursue the grounds which their Predecessors had laid and drawn the conclusion which necessarily followes upon their premises that if the fourth Commandment be in force then either the Saturday is to be kept or the Jews were never tied to keep it Besides this particular it is manifest that the Apostles observe the third and sixth and ninth hours of the day for the service of God Acts II. 15. III. 1. X. 3 9 30. And this according to an Order then in force among Gods people according to the Scriptures Psal LV. 18
time the place the maner and form the ceremonies and solemnities whereby the celebration of Church offices is either already determined by Gods Law or remains determinable by the Law of the Church And this I cannot do better then beginning with the times of divine service and considering what Laws of God what Laws of the Church all Christians ought to be tied to in that point whence it may appear what may be the subject of Reformation in it Where I find it requisite in the first place to debate by what right the first day of the week called Sunday is set apart for the service of God under Christianity There is an opinion too well known amongst us that the first day of the week is kept by Christians in virtue of the fourth Commandment which obliged the Jews to keep the seventh day of the week Which opinion if it be true they have some ground for confining the service of God to it But it cannot be maintained without two assumptions The first That the seventh day in the fourth Commandment signifies not the seventh day of the week on which God rested from creating any more but one of the seven dayes The second That the resurrection of Christ upon the first day of the week is a reason that necessarily determines all Christians to do that which they are bound to do on one day of the seven upon the first and none else Neither of which is true though the later have farre the more appearance of truth in it For it is manifest that the will of God may be having obliged the Jewes to keep one day in seven to oblige Christians to keep one day in six or lesse unesse it be otherwise determined by some commandment of Gods Now it appeareth that the first day of the week was kept in the times of the Apostles our Saviour having peared unto them after his Resurrection upon that day Joh. XIX 26. Act. XX. â— 1 Cor. XVI 2. Apoc. I. 10. But of any precept to make this a Law to all Christians nothing appears in the Scriptures of the New Testament Again it may be said That the Gospel requireth more plentiful fruits of obedience then the Law And therefore if the Law required one day of seven for the service of God that the Gospel requires more Nor will it concern me here to prove that this opinion is true It is more then enough that I can say that before this novelty came into England it cannot appear that ever any Christian thought otherwise For I argue no more in this place but that the rising of our Lord upon the first day of the week doth not necessarily determine the Church to keep one day of the seven as the command of God doth For had God commanded one day of seven to be kept under the Gospel as under the Law there had been no room for further consideration But so long as there is onely a reason on the one side That the Resurrection to Christians is as the Creation to Jews And a reason on the other side That it becomes Christians in this as in all to do more then Jews I cannot deny that there is a sufficient reason for him that hath power of determining that which God hath not determined to appoint the first day of the week but I utterly deny that there is any Law of God before the act of this power to determine it And the reason is plain For in maters of this nature there may be sufficient reason for several determinations because it is not the substance but the circumstance of that which is by nature necessarily good and Gods service Again supposing that Christians are bound to keep one day of seven for Gods service may I not ask why the passion of Christ should not determine them to keep the sixth as well as the Resurrection the first day of the week Especially in the sense of them who think they have reason to feast on good Friday and to celebrate their Fasts on the Lords day For if the resurrection of Christ be no reason to make the day thereof Festivall nor his Passion why we should rather fast on the day of it certainly where both cannot be kept the one concerns us as much as the other do and therefore there is as much reason to keep this as that This to the later of the two assumptions But in the former there is no colour of truth Nor do I see how any thing can be more strange then this That so many men professing learning and zeal to the Scriptures alone should read in the Commandment that God resâ—ed the seventh day from making the world and therefore commanded the seventh day to be kept holy And understand by all this onely that God would have one day of seven not that day of the seven on which himself rested Unlesse it be still more strange that men of common sense should believe that the Jews were not tyed by Gods Law to keep the day on which God rested but onely one of seven so that the keeping of the seventh was not by Gods Law but by mans For if it be once granted that God commanded them to keep not onely one day of seven but in particular the seventh how can any common sense understand that Christians by the same command should be tied to keep the first day of the week If prejudice and faction went not under the colour of zeal to the Scriptures it would appear to be zeal towards our selves and ours that offers such violence to our own sense in seeking to impose this sense upon the Scriptures In plain terms there can be nothing more manifest to Christians in the Law of Moses then it is manifest that the precept of the Sabbath is a ceremonial Precept figuring the rest of Christians from the bondage of sin by doing for the future God works here in the Church militant and from the bondage of pain when that rest is become perfect in the triumphant Church of the World to come And all this by the work of this precept that is by resting from bodily labour in the Land of promise in remembrance of the bondage of Aegypt which the Israelites had escaped For in Deutronomy V. 15. this is the reason alleged why they where to rest Ezek. XX. 12. Ex. XXXI 31. I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them that they might know that it is I the Lord their God that sanctifieth them And therefore the Apostle Heb. IV. 4. 5 9 10. showeth the seventh day to signifie the rest of the Land of pâ—oâ—iâ—e For saith he in one place it is said God rested on the seventh day from all his work And here Psalm XCV 11. if they shall enter into my rest For he that is entred into his rest hath ceased from his own works as God from his Therefore there remaineth another rest to the people of God as the Apostle argueth by the same reason as
if the fourth Commandment be in force they cannot be obliged to keep the Lords day Is it not an even wager that not doubting the fourth Commandment to be in force as they are told they shall keep the Saturday which if it be in force they ought to keep rather then the Lords day which finding no reason for it because they are told none they will presently imagine to be a Popish custome I know there is one argument which is very plausible to induce well meaning Christians into that zeal which we see they have for the strict keeping of the Lords day which they call the Sabbath Because this opinion will oblige the world to exercise more works of godlinesse and to abstain from more of those debauches which Festivals occasion in vulgar people then otherwse To which for the present I will say onely this That having showed the truth to be as it is I can oblige all Christians to believe that Gods glory and the advancement of his service cannot be grounded well but upon the truth And therefore I may well demand their patience till I come by and by to show the ground of the mistake which they are carried away with to think that Gods glory and service is not more plentifully provided for by the Laws and customes of the Catholick Church then by strict keeping the Sabbath upon a false ground which hindring the effect of those Laws by consequence hinders Gods service But now all this being setled what is there remaining to alledge why Christians should be bound to keep the Lords day but the act of the Apostles by virtue whereof it came into force among all Christians in all Churches For it would be too ridiculous to allege that it is grounded upon those Scriptures whereby it appeareth that it was kept under the Apostles either as a reason sufficient or as distinct from the authority of the Apostles For these Scriptures being the Scriptures of the Apostles we can derive no authority from them but that which we first suppose in the Apostles I suppose here that no man will say that our Lords appearing to his Disciples after his resurrection upon that day was enough to make it a Law or evidence that it was so made unlesse his Apostles could testifie that he appeared to that purpose As for the rest if it may by circumstance appear that under the Apostles they did assemble to the service of God upon the Lords day will it therefore follow that all Chistians are bound to do the same Or can any more then this appear by that which I alledged out of the Apostles writings If there could the writings of the Apostles being their act as much as any act whereby they could declare an intent to oblige the Church there will be nothing to bind it to keep the Lords day but the authority of the Apostles But he that will give his own common reason leave to speak shall hear it say that it is not their words that oblige us to it but the originall and universall custome of the Church evidencing that they used to celebrate that day with an intent to introduce the obligation of it into the Church For of this original and universal custome having as yet found no question made on any side I hold it superfluous to take pains to make evidence of that which no man questions When Justine the Martyr presenting to the Empire an Apology for all Christans declareth that their custome was to assemble on the Lords day to serve God with the offices of Christianity which there he describeth had it not been to abuse himself and the Empire to declare that for the custome of all Christians which was indeed the custom of some but of others not Whither Easter was to be kept upon the fifteenth day of the first Moon upon which our Lord suffered or upon the next Lords day upon which he rose again was a dispute in the Church as ancient as the Apostles The former custome having been delivered to the Churches of Asia by S. John the later to the West by S. Peter and S. Paul But what ground could there be for this dispute had not the first day of the week been honoured and observed above the rest in regard of our Lords rising again Certainly the Eâ—ionites were one of the ancientest sects thar rose up against the Church and they as Eusebius Eccles Hist III. 27. keeping the Sabbath as the Jews and because the Jews kept it observing also the Lords day because the Christians kept it It is true that among the Eastern Christians the Saturday was observed for the service of God many ages after condescension to the Jews in regard whereof the observation of Moses law was in use after Christ in some parts of the Church more in some lesse was quite out of date But that is no argument that the Lords day was not kept when the Sabbath was kept to them who see S. Paul keep the Lords day Act. XX. 7. within the time of compliance with the Jewes For the offices which God is served with by the Church are pleasing to him at all times as well as in all places whereas the keeping of the Sabbath upon any day but a Saturday would have been a breach of his Law For when the other Festivals of the Jews are called Sabbaths in the Law that is not to say that the Sabbath was kept upon them for I have showed you two severall measures of rest due upon them by the Law but that they participated much of the nature of the Sabbath and therefore may be called with an addition such or such Sabbaths but not absolutely the Sabbath Therefore when Christians afterwards continued the custome of serving God upon the Sabbath that is the Saturday it is to be understood that they served God with the offices of Christianity not with the rest of the Jews Sabbath If it be further demanded whither the obligation of the Lords day do not depend upon the precepâ— of the Sabbath so that it may be called with an addition the Sabbath of Christians though not absolutely the Sabbath because that nâ—me is possessed already by the Saturday in the language of all Christians as well as Jews till men affected an abuse in the name to bring their mistake into mens minds To this I answer that if the Lords day had no dependance upon the precept of the Sabbath we could not give a reason why one day of seven is observed For the choice of the number could not come by chance And I cautioned afore that the Resurrection of Christ was as sufficient a reason why the Church should serve God on the Sunday as the creation of the world was why the Synagogue should serve God on the Saturday But this dependance was not immediate because I showed also that this was not enough to introduce the obligation upon us The act of the Apostles intervening was the means to make the obligation necessary
communicate every day Though it were easy to show how the rest of the Fathers agree or disagree therewith For that supposeth the dayly celebration of the Eucharist whereas who ever heard of daily preaching all over the ancient Church For that the order thereof was to assemble for the praises of God Prayer and for instruction by reading the scripture more frequently then the boldest pulpit man could preach Neither is it questionable for mater of fact nor for the consequence in obliging them that would reform and not destroy to follow the example supposing the premises One thing more I desire may be considered All the affectation of preciseness in keeping the Lords day willnever induce any people indued with their senses to doe that which the Jewes by the Law of the Sabbath whilst it was in force stood obliged to doe Namely to dresse their meate the day before that so neither themselves nor their servants might he obliged to violate the rest of the Sabbath If this precept oblige Christians to heare preaching for the means of salvation how are servants dispensed with to be absent from preaching who cannot be dispensed with for resting on the sabbath For though Christian servants may dresse meate on the Lords day Yet as they are not dispensed with for serving God on the Lords day so if the service of God on the Lords day necessarily requires preaching they must be also preached to on the Lords day But if being catechized in their Christianity they may serve God by praying and Praising God and by heareing the instruction of the scripture read advance in the duties of Christianity then may they doe the duty of Christans to God at Church as well as to their masters at home the duty of Christian servants without heareing sermons on the Lords day In a point so unlimited wherein a private mans opinion is not to be Law I find no better ground for reasonable termes then that which the practice of the Chatholike Church reported by Gennadius intimates For it is not to be gathered from Gennadâ—uâ— that there was meanes to receive the Eucharist every day every where because neither can it be imagined that there was ever any time since the Empire turned Christian when there was meanes for all Christians to be present at it much lesse to communicate On the other side the relation of Gennadius supposing that the celebration of the Eucharist was maintayned when preaching neither was nor could be maintained it followeth that by the Custome of the Catholike Church Lords days and festivals the celebration whereof all Christians were alwaies concerned in are to be kept by celebrating the Eucharist when they cannot be kept by preaching and hearing sermons And that there can be no better order that God may be served by all sorts of Christians then where there is provision and where the custome is that all Christians may communicate on Lords daies and Festivales and when for reasons left to themselves they doe not communicate they may with their spirits as well as their bodies asist the celebration of it Remitting the custome which Gennadius his resolution supposes the celebrating the Eucharist every day to the greater Churches of the more populous Cities and Places But whereas the Apostolicall forme of divine service makes the sermon a part of it And at Corinth S. Paul orders many of those spirituall Graces to concurr to that worke which at assemblies on extraordinary occasions was somtimes practised by the primitive Churches as I have showed there it were too great wrong to common sense to extend this to all assemblies of Christians in villages and not consistent either with the necessities of the world or the interest of Christianity in frequenting those offices most which are principall in Gods service Laying downe then that tyranny which constraines all that have cure of soules to speake by the Glasse every Lords day twice which shuts all the service of God out of dores saving a prayer to usher it in and out The interest of Christianity will require that at and with the celebration of the Eucharist all Christians be taught the common dutys of Christians by them who are to answer for their Soules Not to please the eare with sharpnesse in reasoning or eloquence in language but to convince all sorts what conversation the attaining of Gods kingdome requires of them who believe that he made the world that he sent our Lord Christ to redeem it that by his spirit he brings all to confesse and show themselves Christians and in fine that by our Lord Christ he shall adjudge those that doe so to everlasting life and those that doe otherwise to everlasting death For the rest it is not my purpose to undervalue the labours of S. Chrysostome S. Austinâ— Origen S. Gregory or whosoever they are ancient or moderne that have laboured the instruction of their people even by expounding them the Scriptures out of the Pulpit supposing they expound them within the rule of our common faith But upon the account in hand onely I say that if they withdraw Christian people from serving God by those offices which the order of the Church makes requisite according to the premises which I am sure enough none of the ancients ever did their laboures are not for the common edification of the Church but for maintayning of parties in the Church The celebration of Lords daies and Festivales and times of fasting necessarily furnishes opportunitie both for all Curates to furnish their people with that instruction which they owe them as answerable for their soules and for those whom God hath furnished with more then ordinary graces of knowledg or utterance to advance our common Christianity by advancing the knowledge of Christians in the scriptures But the office of a Pastor necessarily requireth an exact understanding of the nature of humane actions in maters of Christianity whether concerning believing or working not to be attained without the study as well as the experience of a mans whole life And therefore to oblige them who are to provide necessary foode for the soules of their flock to be alwaies gathering the flowers of the scripturers to make them nosegayes of will be to starve them for the want of that knowledge which the common salvation of all necessarily requires that the more curious may have entertainement of quelques choses And therefore for the rest Christian people are to think themselves obliged to come to Church to serve God by prayer and the prayses of God to learn instruction out of the scriptures by hearing meditating upon the lessons of them on far many more houres and daies and occasions then there can be for preaching of Sermons CHAP. XXV Idolatry presupposeth an immagination that there is more Gods then one Objections out of the scripture that it is the worship of a true God under an Image the Originall of worshipping the elements of the world The Devil And Images Of the Idolatry of the
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
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
But hee that complaineth of that will be bound to advance some other meaning of those texts which may be free from contradiction both to the Rule of Faith and to Historical truth which common sense justifieth And yet admit no mention of publick Penance in the Church no intent to speak of it in all the Scriptures there alleged Which perhaps will be too hard to do Further I labor not I will suppose no man so wilfull as to dispute the right of excluding from the Communion of the Church granting a power of limiting the conditions upon which it is to be restored to them who forfeited it And this is visible It was but a mater of LXX years after the decease of S. John according to Eusebius his Chronicle that Montamis appeared to demand that Adulterers might not be readmitted to the communion of the Church upon Penance That those that had married the second time might not communicate That the rule of Fasting might be stricter than was in use That it might not be lawfull to fly from persecution for the Faith It is manifest that these were his pretenses by Tertullian that maintaines them being seduced with the opinion of inspirations and revelations granted him and his partizans to that purpose These pretenses were afterwards in part revived at Rome by Novatianus to get himself the Bishoprick there by excluding from Penance and reconciliation those that had fallen away in the persecution of Decius It appeareth also that those men alleged for themselves the very passages of the Apostles which I allege to my intent Neither can it appear that ever any son of the Church did contradict them by saying that the Apostles meant nothing of Penance as they imagined And now let all men judge whether the Church have reason to hold this evidence of Penance and by consequence of its own being a Church Was Epiphanius and all that writ against the Novatians troubled to no purpose at the VI of the Ebrews when those Schismaticks alleging it for themselves might have been silenced by denying that it concerned Penance Why did not the Church allege that the sin unto death 1 John V. 17. is no such thing as Apostasy from Christianity when the Novatians alleged it to prove that Apostates were not to be reconciled to the Church How came it to passe that there was so much doubt made in the Church of Rome of admitting the Epistle to the Ebrews for Canonical Scripture witnesse S. Jerome Epist ad Dardanum as thinking that it did absolutely contradict the re-admitting of Apostates which had been practised in that Church before Montanus Tertullian of all men was troubled without cause that the incestuous person whom hee supposes to be excommunicated at Corinth by S. Pauls Order 1 Cor. V. should be re-admitted by his Indulgence 1 Cor. VII De Pudicitiâ cap. XIII XIV XV. because hee saw this was a peremptory exception against Montanus that a crime equal to Adultery should by S. Paul be admitted to Penance How easie a thing it had been for him to say that there is nothing of Penance nothing of Excommunication which Penance presupposes and therefore inferres in delivering to Satan the incestuous person in commanding them not so much as to eat with those that are called brethren that is Christians but are indeed such as the incestuous But hee being some fourteen hundred years nearer the beginning of Christianity than wee and being satisfied by his five senses of those things which new Heresies and Schismes oblige us to argue by consequences found that his Patriarch Montanus could not answer so And therefore thinking that the Church could not answer their arguments forces an answer to this by saying it was not the same man that is excommunicated by the Apostles Order 1 Cor. V. and restored by his Indulgence 2 Cor. VII Because hee saw the reconciling of a sinner to the Church by Penance as lively described and signified by S. Pauls Indulgence there as by any record of the Church at such time as it was most in use And can there remain any doubt of this Excommunication because the Church cannot now deliver to Satan for destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus Surely all the writings of the Apostles do bear witnesse that the miraculous graces of the Holy Ghost which they had then but all Christians see the Church hath not now served not onely to witnesse the truth of Christianity but the authority of the Apostles in behalf of it This authority having taken effect by those Ordinances which the Church hath received at their hands It is no longer requisite that God should bear witnesse to his own Ordinances by such miraculous effects seeing hee doth no longer bear witnesse to the truth of Christianity by the like Hee that believes that whosoever is not in the Church is in the power of Satan needs no reason why hee is delivered to Satan that is put out of the Church Hee that believes it not is not to be perswaded that there is a power of Excommunication granted the Church But that the Christian saith which the Church preacheth is true for that without peradventure preached the Church At least till some body show us that this reason is insufficient hee must not demand that wee give an Article of our Creed and all the help to salvation which the communion of the Catholick Church pretendeth for such an objection as this Chuse now whether you will say as I say That under the Apostles difficulty was made of re-admitting some sorts of sins but never any peremptory order against it and so that Montanus and Novatianus were Schismaticks for seperating from the Church when the whole Church was agreed that there was a necessity of it or look about for a more reasonable sense to assoile the great difficulties of these passages Provided that you offer not violence to common sense and historical truth by imagining that so near the Apostles time there could be so much question about Penance they having neither meant nor ordained any thing about it To this argument all the most ancient records of the Church wheresoever mention is made of reconciling by Penance all the Penitential Canons of later ages will bear witnesse For who can undertake to answer or rather to obscure the evidence made in the place aforenamed that some sins were refused Penance and reconcilement in the first ages of the Church When wee have a whole book of Tertullian contending with Montannus to impose a Law upon it of re-admitting no Adulterers When wee know a whole sect of Novatians that left the Church that they might re-admit no Apostates As for the Penitential Canons of later ages it is manifest to any man that shall peruse and compare them with that which hath been said of the primitive times that they are nothing else but the abatement of that rigor of Discipline which during the primitive heat and zele of
that was ordained true Bishop of Antiochia And the sending of them from the Bishops of Italy and Rome the Emperor Aurelian maketh the condition upon which the decree of the Synod was to be executed by secular force In like maner Optatus lib. II. having brought down his Catalogue of the Bishops of Rome to Damasus Damaso Syricius hodie saith hee cum quo nobis totus orbis commercio Formatarum in unâ commuuionis societate concordat To Damasus succeeds this day Syricious with whom the whole world together agreeth with us in one fellowship of communion by the intercourse of leters of mark These leters of mark which wee speak of concerned not onely the publick businesse of Churches but were usually given to private Christians whether of the Clergy or people that when they travailed into forrain Countries they might certifie of what rank rhey were at home and to be received and communicate accordingly whatsoever Church they came to all over the world A thing so manifest by all records of the Church that it were injury for the Reader to go about to evidence it I said nothing afore in order of time concerning the sect of the Dohatists The reason was because they broke out of the Unity of the Church upon that quarrel which had been debated before in S. Cyprians time concerning the baptizing of Hereticks and by the Christian moderation of that time had been appeased without dissolving the Unity of the Church But I showed you before that S. Augustines refutation of them proceeds very much upon supposition of that Unity of the Church which wee are now put to prove Neither said I any thing of the Schisme of Meletius in Aegypt because it proceeded upon the same ground with that of the Novatians that those who had fallen away in the persecution of Diocletian ought not to be re-admitted to communion with the Church again But hee that shall consider the decree of the Council of Nicaea for the uniting of them to the Church again shall finde that they held themselves obliged to abate of their right to regain the Unity of the Church So farre they were from imagining that God had not commanded it For to incourage them to return they allowed those who had been ordained under Meletius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the title rank and ministery competent to their respective orders and to succeed into the places as those that should die In the mean time not to act in Ordinations of those of the Clergy should do This you have in Theodoret and Socrates Eccl. Hist I. 9. in Sozomenus I. 24. And thus I conceive I have demonstrated the Unity of the Church by the same reasons for which wee hold our Christianity That is by the Scriptures interpreted by the consent of all Christians Having showed by the proceedings in the Arian persecutions under Constantius and Valens that this Union was of force to defeat all the designes of those Apostates who having the power of the Empire on their side sought the way to introduce their own Faith For what appearance is there that succeeding Emperors should not acknowledge that which had preserved their Faith in despite of their predecessors Or that Constantine from the beginning of his Christianity did not acknowledge the Church in that quality which manifestly defeated the deâ—â—gnes of his successors to poison Christianity But the Lawes of the Empire are extant and so are the Lawes of most of those Soveraignties into which the Empire stands divided and I shall have occasion to say something of them in the processe of my discourse where I shall finde something objected for mee to dissolve Which when I have answered then shall I make account to have completely demonstrated my purpose In the mean time I desire those that have seen what hath been alleged for and against the Infallibility of the Church to tell mee whether ever they found it alleged that there never was any such thing as the Church in the nature of a Corporation of Gods founding Which had it been the ground of Reformation as now Erastians and Independents are founded upon it there had been no such barre to all pretense of Infallibility in the Church as to say that there is no such thing as a Church in the quality of a Corporation that is with power in some to oblige the whole On the other side having demonstrated that all things necessary to the salvation of Christians are not clear in the Scriptures to all whom they concern I have also showed how necessary it was that the Corporation of the Church should be provided as well to preserve that Faith upon the profession whereof I have showed it was founded as to maintaine that service of God in unity which is the end for which it subsisteth CHAP. XI Vpon what grounds the first book de Synedriis holds that the Church cannot excommunicate Before the Law there was no such Power nor by it Christians went for Jewes under the Apostles His sense of some Scriptures What the Leviathaâ— saith in general concerning the Power of the Church Both suppose that Ecclesiastical Power includeth Temporal which is not true Of the Oxford Doctors Paraenesis TO much of this great opposition is made by the first and second book de Synedriis Judâ—orum and the Author of the Leviathan The first pretending to maintain the position of Erastus that ExcoÌ„munication may be a temporal punishment if secular Powers think fit to use it but that the Church hath nothing to do to exclude from the communion of the Eucharist those who professing Christianity live not according to it To this purpose hee produces all the evidence that can be made to show that under the Law of Nature as Ecclesiastical Writers call it that is from the beginning of the world to the Law of Moses there was no precept no practice of Excommunication for the Jewes under the Law to receive it from thence No precept of the Law upon which it can be thought to have been established by divine Right so as to take place under the Gospel upon that Title Here hee showes at large That when the precept of Circumcision is inacted by this sanction That the male childe which shall not be circumcised on the eight day shall be cut off from his people When many precepts of Moses Law have this penalty of being cut off annexed to the transgression of them the intent is not that they shall be excommunicate But that their lives shall be forfeited to Gods vengeance in case hee please to exercise it Inferring that when the Soveraign Power was taken away from that people in their captivity and dispersions being neverthelesse privileged to live by their own Lawes By their own consent they submitted to this penalty as the means to inforce the sentences of their own Governors by whom their Lawes were dispensed This being that Excommunication whereof wee have remembrance in Esdras and in the Gospels As it appears by the original
the Original is a Kingdome of Priests in 1 Pet. II. 9. where hee challengeth the effect of the promise to the Church of Christ a Royal Priesthood in S. John Rev. I. 6. Kings and Priests But chiefly pag. 253. from that text of Numbers XXVII 21. where it is ordered that Josue stand before Eleazar the Priest who shall ask counsail for him before the Lord At his word they shall go out and and at his word they shall come in both hee and all the children of Israel with him For saith hee unlesse wee understand them to be a kingdom of Priests because the High Priests succeeded one another in the Kingdom it accordeth not with S. Peter nor with the exercise of the High Priesthood the High Priest onely being to declare the will of God to them by entring into the Sanctum Sanctorum pag. 218. Though after the death of Josua and Eleazar when a generation was risen that knew not the Lord Jud. II. 10. it came to passe as it is said divers times in that book that there was no King in Israel The High Priests not being obeyed according to Law and the power of the Judges depending upon the voluntary submission of the people to the graces and the successe God gave then for their deliverance Till rebelling against Gods appointment they desired a King As God expresly construes it 1 Sam. VIII 7 8. pag. 253 254. For thenceforth God having given way to them when God was to be consulted the High Priest put on the holy Vestments and inquired of the Lord as the King commanded according to the examples which hee allegeth pag. 228. This kingdom of God saith hee so cast off by the choice of Saul is that which our Lord Christ accorâ—ing to the promise of God by the Prophets came to restore And the Gospel nothing else but the good newes that God would give them that should believe our Lord Jesus to be the Christ and submit to Gods government by him immortal life in that kingdom which Christ after the general Judgment should restore upon earth pag. 219 234 240 241. and so Christs kingdom is said not to be of this world John XVIII 36. because it comes not till after the general Judgment that this world is past pag. 262 263. This monstrous conceit is reproveable upon the same grounds as Christianity is receivable upon from the Scriptures of the Old Testament upon which the difference between the Law and the Gospel is stated and the Old Testament admitted for a figure representation and introduction to the New So that the Law being admitted to proceed from God the Gospel is inferred so soon as the true meaning and purpose of God in providing it for the time as an introduction to the Gospel is understood If the maintenance of Christianity require that the ancient people of God their Kings their Priests and their Prophets be taken for figures of our Lord Christ and of his Church and Christian people as the Covenant of the Law promising civil and temporal happinesse is a figure of the New Covenant of Grace promising forgivenesse of sin and evâ—rlasting happinesse in being freed from it and the punishment thereof and perfectly subject to God by perfectly knowing God Then is the kingdome of Christ though not of this world yet in this world as taking place in them who living in this world neverthelesse acknowledge the inward and spiritual obedience of their soules to be due to him who having ransomed them from the bondage of sin and maintaining them here against it will one day make them raigne with him in the world to come Which all Christians untill the Leviathan alwaies took to be Christs Kingdome For though there be those that believe that Christ is to come and raign again upon earth for a thousand years after the worlds end and would astonish us into an expectation to see it come to passe within these very few yeares whose opinion as I am farre enough from allowing so I cannot think this the place to say any thing to it Yet is it not their intent to say that this raign of Christ upon earth is either his kingdom of Grace which is begun here by the obedience which wee yield to his Gospel Or his kingdom of Glory which is consummate in the world to come by the accomplishment of that subjection and our happinesse in it For after the thousand yeares aforesaid are past then do they expect the general Judgment which all Christians believe not afore the raign of Christ upon earth and the kingdom which hee shall resign to the Father 1 Cor. XII 24-28 It had been worth this Philosophers wit to tell us what kinde of Immortality wee are to expect in a civil government under Christ When our vile bodies are made like his glorious body according to the working whereby hee is able to subdue all things to himself Phil. III. 21. When wee are neither to marry nor to be given in marriage but shall be like the Angels of God in heaven Mat. XXII 30. And when wee shall have been caught up in the clouds to meet our Lord in the aire 1 Thess IV. 10. what shall bring us down to live upon earth again But to leave this singularity to the father of it I must needs stand astonished to see an imagination of such consequence to all Christianity advanced upon such imaginary grounds For my part truly I fully believe Josephus that the Jewes after the Captivity were governed by the High Priests in chief so farre as by sufferance of their Soveraignes the Persians and after them the Macedonians they were governed by themselves For this must be the reason why the sons of Mattathias having been the means to free them from the monstrous tyrannies of Antiochus Epiphanes and thereupon by degrees seizing into their hands the Soveraign Power found it necessary to make themselves High Priests which by lineal succession from Aaron they were not intitled to be After which time being reduced under the dominion of the Romanes that power which they allowed them over themselves was in the High Priest so often as they allowed them not a King of their own as will easily appear by the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles compared with Josephus For first indeed after the return from Captivity it seems to mee that there was a Governor over them for the King of Persia For Zerobabel is stiled Governor of Judah Hag. I. 1. And Nehemiah who wee know had his Commission from the King of Persia qualifieth himself by the same stile making mention also of others besides Neh. V. 14 15. and it is to be observed that the word or title 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is elswhere reckoned among the stiles of the Lieutenants or Governors of the Chaldean and Persian Empires Dan. III. 2 3 27. VI. 8. Ezra V. 3. VI. 7. VIII 36. Nehem. VII 7 9. Esther VIII 9. IX 3. When as therefore they obtained of their Soveraignes to be
in the first book de Synedriis p. 214. acknowledges that it is not in use among the Jewes And the correspondence between the Law and the Gospel requires that those things which are prophesied in the Old Testament concerning the coming of God be understood to be completed in the second coming of Christ According to that of S. Paul Rom. XIV 10 11. Wee shall all be presented before the Judgment seat of Christ as it is written As I live saith the Lord To mee shall every knee bow and every tongue shall give glory to God Where that which the Prophet had said of the appearance of God in former judgments concerning his people Esa XLV 23. that the Apostle affirmeth to be fulfilled in the coming of our Lord Christ to judgment Therefore when S. Paul sayes Let him be anathema maranatha hee means let him expect vengeance at the second coming of Christ At which S. Jude sayes that the Prophesie of Enoch against the old world shall be accomplished upon those that hee writes against For how can hee say otherwise Enoch prophesied against these And can it be thought that a Jewish Excommunication can proceed upon supposition of the coming of our Lord Christ to judgment That were as much a jest as that of the History of Don Quixote where hee saith That the original Historian in the Arabick being a Mahumetane protests the truth of it upon the faith of a good Christian So when S. Paul saith again Rom. IX 3. I my self could wish to be anathema from Christ for my brethren my kindred according to the flesh I will not dispute that ingenious interpretation of Grotius which this Learned person with others allows That hee wishes in stead of an Apostle and Chief in the Church to be counted a man unfit for any Christian to converse with For it punctually agrees with S. Pauls stile 1 Cor. XII 12. For as the body is one and hath many members and all the members of the body being many are one body so is Christ That is to say the Church And so Gal. III. 27. Wee are baptized into Christ because into the Church But admitting this interpretation how can it be imagined to signifie a Jewish Excommunication that cuts of a Christian from the Church Hee that is put out of the Synagogue in as much as hee is put out of it is made Anathema to Moses not to Christ That is hee is cut off from the privileges of a Jew from the hope of returning into the Land of Promise and freedom in it from the yoke of forrain Nations Not from the hope of life everlasting which they indeed promise themselves by the Law of Moses but Christians know they cannot have unlesse they renounce the holding of it from the Law of Moses And therefore S. Paul when hee bids Anathema to whosoever shall preach another Gospel than that which hee had preached Gal. I. 8 9. must needs mean the same as a Christian which hee signifies to be meant by him that calleth Jesus anathema 1 Cor. XII 3. Hee that calleth Jesus anathema defieth him as rejected by God Anathema indeed signifieth that which is consecrated to God But it answers the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in Levit. XXVIII because consecration was a profession of abandoning for ever that which was consecrated implying a curse upon all that should lay hands on it to any other use And when the Jewes said to their Fathers or Mothers Be it Korban whatsoever thou mayest be the better for of mine They cursed themselves if ever their Father or Mother were the better for any goods of theirs as much as if they should give them things consecrated to eat or to drink Supposing that if they did so no man was to touch or come near them more than consecrated things So when God made Jericho anathema or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whatsoever was not for the use of Gods service was to be destroyed whatsoever might be for his service hee that laid hands on it to any other use became himself of the condition of that which was not for Gods service And such the Apostle professeth to hold him whosoever should preach any other Gospel besides that which hee had preached For I must not allow that the Church when it excommunicateth or the Apostle when hee biddeth anathema intendeth to curse that is to say to pray to God actually to bring those curses upon them which they are liable to Though I confesse this is not the place to dispute such a question because the resolution of it will suppose something which can neither be proved nor supposed without proof in this place where my purpose is to settle the Principles of Christian Truth by which Principles this is to be resolved It shall be enough to say here that it is evident that the Greek Church following an order or sentence of S. John Chrysostomes doth for the most part insist that Christians are not to curse Christians Whatsoever be the practice of the Church of Rome in the Bull of Maundy Thursday at this time And yet the very present practice of that Church doth not seem necessarily to import praying for Gods vengeance upon Hereticks and others who are then cursed Because it is their custome to pray for their conversion the very next day that is on Good Friday Therefore it may very well seem that all their Solemnities of cursing do not amount to signifie that the Church prayes for mischief upon them whom they declare to be accursed but by these solemnities expresse how they would have them esteemed by Christians Though by that corruption of Christian charity which time hath brought to passe it be now generally understood no otherwise than as a Prayer for Gods vengeance And there may be great reason to think that the ancient Fathers and Councils did not pronounce anathema against Hereticks in any other sense or to any other purpose Nay the words of Vincentius Lirinensis which I quoted afore make it most evident that the ancient Christians understood nothing else by Anathema when hee expounds S. Paul Gal. I. 8 9. Anathema sit inquit Id est separatus segregatus exclusus nè unius ovis dirum contagium innoxium gregem Christi venenatâ permistione contaminet Let him be anathema saith hee That is let him be severed set aside shut out least the direfull contagion of one sheep with any mixture of venene stain the innocent flock of Christ Which is enough to show that therefore it ought not to have been put into the definition of that Excommunication which is pretended to be made by the Power of the Church that it containeth a curse or curses against them on whom it is inflicted as you shall finde the first book de Synedriis doth in the place quoted afore Because those that agree in challenging that right for the Church do not appear to agree in that point And this will serve for an argument of difference between
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
yet to all within the compasse of it So that if Christianity onely inable Christian Soveraigns to determine maters of Religion right the Power of determining will be the same in the Great Turk supposing him a lawfull Prince as in any Christian Soveraign And if his act oblige the Christians under him being well used why not ill used the Power being the same But though I commend him as a Philosopher for charging his own opinion with the greatest difficulties When hee answers that a Christian in that case shall stand bound to reserve the belief of his Christianity to himself for satisfaction of his conscience but to professe or act outwardly as his Soveraign commands I must so much detest this answer for a Christian that I cannot conceive any thing so destructive to the foundation of Christianity hath been published among Christian people since the time of Simon Magus and the Gnostiaks who when Christianity was not protected would do this and yet pretend to be Christians Onely the difference is that hee does it not but declares himself free to do it if the Soveraign commands it Which though it may seem to preserve him the quality of a Christian yet it is to be considered that by so declaring himself hee recalleth that solemn vow promise profession upon which hee was admitted to Baptisme or made a Christian in the Church of England For hee that is free to renounce the Faith at the command of his Soveraign cannot be bound by the promise of professing it unto death If therefore it prove that this promise is the substance of our whole Christianity hee will prove an Apostate if onely part of it an Heretick But I perceive hee is well enough aware of the Interest of his opinion for love whereof hee waives the Interest of Christianity For as all Divines have made the profession of Christianity the outward act of Faith the inward act whereof is to believe So upon this profession the visible act of Christianity the visible Society of the Church is built which there is no pretense for if this be not commanded nor against if it be This profession solemnized by the visible though mystical act of Baptisme that is signifying more to the understanding than the meer sight of the eyes can evidence being as S. Austine argues nothing else but the entring or dedicating of a Christian unto God in that visible body of Religion which the profession of Christianity designs Which consideration sets right the mistake that is commended to us from a true Principle that Soveraign Powers are the chief Teachers of their People For the relation Offices and Interests of Teachers and Scholars do not subsist but upon supposition of some certain Society contracted between Masters and Scholars as may appear by the instance of Masters and Apprentices the society between whom is grounded upon a contract of learning the Trade And no man denies that there is a Society between Soveraign Powers and their People lawfully to be contracted And that this Society makes the Soveraigns Masters and Teachers and the People their Scholars if it be rightly understood Though that it should make them no more would be an imagination so absurd that hee is not farr from that absurdity who takes notice of no more seeing all Teachers cannot make their Scholars learn as Soveraigns can do But this relation must be limited by the ground of civil Society which is of necessity no more than civil life though the grace of God by Christ addeth unto it a capacity of advancing everlasting life by maintaining the profession of Christianity which is meerly accessory to it as appears by all those Common-wealths that never were Christian And therefore that which civil Society teacheth is no more than that civil conversation which the maintenance of civil Society requireth If therefore there be any such thing as a Relation of Teacher and Scholar in Christianity which this argument supposeth that there is seeing that the common quality of Christian is no ground at all of that difference which the different denominations of Teacher and Scholar suppose of necessity it followeth that there must be a Society of the Church upon supposition whereof the qualities and relations of Teachers and Scholars in Christianity are grounded and subsist Which relations which Society did they not suppose Christianity to come from God but to be a religion either invented by the Soveraign as Mahumedisme by the first founder of that Power under which Mahumetane Princes now claim or inforced by the Powers that professe it as Heathenisme then were it essentially a Law of that civil Society the act whereof is all that obligation by which it standeth And truly hee that should believe Christianito be no more than a Religion taken up as a means to govern people in civil peace which is not onely the opinion of Machiavillians if any such there be who by believing no more of that Religion which they professe signifie that they believe no more of God or of Religion at all but also of those Philosophers if any such there be who do admit a Religion of all maxims which nature and reason hath taught all men to agree in but that which supposeth revelation from above onely as the Religion of their Countrey not as true I say hee that should believe this must necessarily believe nothing of the Church more than the Soveraign Power shall make it But as hee that makes outward Profession to be no part of it can never give account how the inward belief of it could be maintained and propagated to the worlds end as I suppose all Christians agree that God would have Christianity So hee that leaves the determination of all maters questioned in Christianity to the Secular Power that is Soveraign by dissolving the Society of the Church into the Common-wealth that is Christian and that without limitation because by Gods Law hee must by consequence oblige men to professe that as the means of Salvation which the Interest of State shall oblige every Soveraign to think necessary for the preservation of it And that is the answer that I shall make to him who shall object the same inconvenience to mee that the determinations of the Church are subject to fail To wit that there are three points of difference between it and the Secular Power in consideration whereof it is reasonable to believe that God should provide a Society of the Church for the maintenance of Christianity notwithstanding that hee leaves them subject to fail The first because this right cannot be said to be assigned the Soveraign Power by the Scriptures For in the Scriptures of the New Testament there is no mention made of Soveraign Powers that were Christian And as for the Old Testament if any man argue That the Power which the Kings of Gods ancient people had in marais of Religion the same Christian Princes have in Church maters not onely â—â—â—wer hath been made by denying the consequence
cloth and the moon like bloud that the starrs fell to the earth as a fig-tree shaken with a great winde casts her figs that the heavens passed away as a book folded up and the Mountains and Islands were removed out of their places if ever such things could justly be said by the Prophets to expresse great alterations to fall out in the world then when those Tyrants and by consequence all their ministers for shame that they were not able to root up Christianity gave up the design with their power and left the Empire to strangers which in a few years fell into the hands of Constantine and the Christians his Ministers When could it be moÌ„re justly said that the Kings and great Ones of the earth the rich the Captains and the Nobles the bond and the free hid themselves in caves and rocks of the Mountains saying to them fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sits on the Throne and from the wrath of the Lamb for the great day of his wrath is come and who can stand Then when the Persecuters some gave up the design others proclaimed the hand of God upon them and all their Ministers saw Christianity which they had persecuted to flourish and their powers possessed by Christians Which how strongly it inferreth especially if you take the premises along that the Trumpets sounding the vengeance taken upon the Jews the Viols must signifie the like upon the Empire for the ten persecutions raised upon the same pretense of rooting out Christianity not by those that professe Christianity though indeed they corrupt it I leave to all the world to judge Especially if wee consider that which is often repeated from the beginning of the Prophesy that the mater of it must come to pass shortly that they are happy that shall read and observe it and that to that purpose it is sent to the seven Churches of Asia as concerning them deeply Which if it concern vengeance to be taken of the blood of those that suffered by the Papacy by consequence of the premises is yet to come at least the vengeance prophesied and ten thousand chances to one if ever it do come while those that rack the Prophesy to signifie it are forced to prophesie themselves without evidencing any commission for it and the seven Churches in a maner suppressed by Infidels far enough from being any thing of the effect of it or any of those to whom S. John can be supposed to speak when hee sends it And truly supposing that the sound of the Trumpets concernes the Jews which no reason refuses no modesty denies and supposing again that S. John was not banished into Patmos till Domitians dayes which is the original and more probable report of Irenaeus though some suppose hee was sent thither afore when Claudius his Edict commanded all Jews to depart from Rome because Epiphanius sayes that hee prophesied under Clandius and the Pro-consul of Asia might as it was ordinary command the same for that Province which the Prince had at Rome For what probability can there be that S. John should be forbidden Asia when S. Paul was permitted Achaia as wee find by the Acts I say supposing this a very good reason is to be given why the calamities of the Jews then past are represented to S. John by the vision of the Trumpets to wit for the assurance and incouragement of the Christians for the terror and conversion of their Persecuters who knowing that which was come upon the Jews prophetically described by the sounding of the seven Trumpets might both the better understand that part of it and better inferre the meaning of the seven Vials together with that which goes afore to prepare the way for the pouring of them forth and follows to show the consequence of it And I must adde farther that though I say that the destruction of Jerusalem was past when S. John was banished into Patmos yet this Prophesy of it and of the seven Trumpets might be revealed to him before according to Epâ—phanius affirming that hee prophesied in Claudius his dayes For what hindreth that which concerned the Jews onely to be revealed while Jerusalem stood the visions of the seven Seals and seven Vials concerning the Gentiles either in part or onely being reserved to the persecution under Domitian in which S. John is commanded to write that Letter to the seven Churches which hee is commanded to send the whole Prophesy with Let mee now desire the Reader to look upon that interpretation which I have given in the Review of my Book of the Right of the Church in a Christian state to that which is prophesied of the Raign of the Saints that is the Christians with their Lord Christ for a thousand years Apoc. XX. which they they that referre the seventh Trumpet and the seven Viols in which it is accomplished to the judgments to come upon the Papacy cannot avoid to inferre the opinion of the Millenaries condemned long since and suppressed in the Church in so much that the most learned of them hath professedly set up the Standard to revive it I will not here suppose any thing how prejudicial this opinion either is or as it is held may be to Christianity This I will say that those which read the History of the Successors of Alexander Kings of Syria and Aegypt so expresly prophesied Dan. XI that many particulars of it might have been buried in oblivion had not the exposition of it inforced S. Hierome and his Predecessors to have recourse to those Histories which now are lost and out of them to relate such passages as the Prophet points at I say I shall count them strange men if seeing the rest agree with the Story when they come to Antiochus Epâ—phanes and those things which the Prophet foretells of his acts in a continued Narrative they can perswade themselves that they were not fulfilled under him but must belong to the coming of Antichrist I know S. Jerome is chargeable with it But it is one thing for him to follow some Predecessors in expounding that which hee knew not how to expound otherwise another thing to impose such a doctrine upon the Church upon no ground but such an interpretation as that I must say farther that the Visions of the VII and VIII Chapters of Daniel of the four Beasts and the ten horns of the fourth and the little horn that blasphemed God and made war against the Saints VII 8 9. Of the Ramâ—e and the Goat and the little horn thereof which made war against God and his people Dan. VII 9-14 must of necessity be understood of Antiochus Epiphanes because of the taking away of the daily sacrifice so expresly foretold That Nebucchadnezzars vision of the Statue which represents four Kingdomes the last whereof is evidently that of Syria and Aegypt whereof both in their turns had the command of the Jews Dan. II. seemeth to have no other aim but to introduce the Prophesie of
to range themselves among their own respective Sectaries So that to impute the corruption of their damnable inventions to the Church because they mixed themselves with the Church till they were discovered is the same justice that the Gentiles did the Christians in charging them with those horrible incests and vilainies which the Gnosticks only were guilty of because they so farr as it was for their turn affected to shelter themselves under the profession of Christians I shall have occasion in another place to inquire further concerning the riâ—ng of the Gnosticks during the time of the Apostles In the mean time because I see those who know not how to yield to the truth when it is showed them stand in the justification of the wrong that is done the Church by expounding of the corruptions of the Papacy that which Hegesippus saith of the Gnosticks it shall be enough to give you his own words in Eusebius Eccles Hist III. 32. R. Steph. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hegesippus saith That till that time the Church remained a pure Virgin and undefloured Those that indeavored to adulterate the true Rule of that preaching which saveth the Rule of Faith which I said so much of afore lurking in obscure holes of darknesse till then if any such there were But the sacred quire of the Apostles having found the several ends of their lives And that generation of men being past that were vouchsafed to hear the wisedom of God with their own ears then did the confirmation of atheistical error receive beginning through the deceit of false Teachers Who now none of the Apostles remaining undertook bare-headed for the future to preach that Knowledge which is falsly so called in opposition to the preaching of the truth For here you have in expresse terms that Knowledge falsly so called from whence the Church after S. Paul calls all those Hereticks Gnosticks as pretending to have got it by such means as our Lord had not discovered to his Apostles You have also the difference between their lurking under the Apostles and their open preaching after their death in terms so expresse that hee must have a good will to it whoever oversees I shall be obliged to referr my self to these same words in another place Now to that which is objected concerning the opinion of the Millennaries I answer first that it cannot be thought ever to have been Catholick For Iustine the Martyr who first mentions it in his dispute with Trypho the Jew not many years after the Apostles expresly testifies that it was the opinion of the most orthodox Christians to wit in his judgment but withall that it was contradicted by others who were neverthelesse Christians even in his account that is of the Communion of the Church Which as it is a peremptory exception against the Universality so is it a reasonable presumption against the Originality of it Seeing that in so few years between him and the Apostles those that believed not all which they had delivered for the common Christianity can in no probability be thought to have injoyed the Communion of the Church And truely had it not been contradicted elsewhere that excellent Prelate Denys of Alexandriae that suppressed it in Egypt about CXXX after as you may see in Eusebius Eccles Hist VII 23 24 25. would have found a hard text of it For the intelligence and correspondence then in use between all parts of the Church would easily have confirmed those of his charge even against him The reason of atchieving the work was because the rest of Christendom insisted not on it Neither is the number or repute of Writers extant the reason to conclude any thing Catholick if the premises be true But the evidence which may be made sometimes from the disputes of able Writers but much more from the acts which past in the Church according or against that which they dispute that their doctrine was received or not received by the Church in whole or in part as necessary or not And therefore secondly I say that the mater of this position concerneth not the Rule of Faith commonly obliging all Christians but the interpretation of a true Prophesie indeed but the true understanding whereof whoso would make necessary to the salvation of all Christians should tye all Christians upon their salvation to understand the Apocalypse which who does To justifie this opinion it hath been showed that the Jewes have this opinion that their Christ shall raign M years when hee comes which seeing they cannot be supposed to have received from the Christians it makes a just presumption that they had it even in S. Iohns time The Jewes have a Tradition which they attribute to the School of one R. Elias mentioned in many of their writings by name in Baal haturim upon Gen. II. and which is also the conceit not onely of Lactantius VII 14. Tychonius the Donatist in his V Rule for expounding the Scripture and the Epistle anciently intitled to S. Barnabas and lately published but also as you may see in the late Lord Primates Latine Discourse of Cainan That as there passed II M years before the Law under the Law counting from Abraham II M years so the dayes of Christ should be II M years and after that the everlasting Sabbath But whether or no the Jews of S. Iohns time could expect this thousand years for the complement of the Sabbath or work of VIIM years which this Tradition promised Whether or no Christians may expect the end of the World at the end of VII M years the Sabbath that shall succeed being eternity according to that of S. Peter and of the Psalm that M years are as a day in Gods sight let them that have nothing else to do inquire Certainly it will not concern the meaning of the Apocalypse unlesse it could be said that the M years there fore-told are to begin after II M years of our Lord are finished Indeed this wee see that the Jewes whom King Alphonsus imployed to make the accounts of the Celestial motions in appointing the motion of the fixed Starrs from West to East to come rome round in XLIXM years the irregularity of that motion to come round in VII M years and that not being obliged to it by any observations made the like account of Sabbaths of thousands of years and VII thousands as the Law doth of dayes or years or Sabbaths of years But if these Jewes be pitifully put to it when to excuse their not believing in Christ who came when the World was about IVM years old according to their own Tradition they are fain to say that it hath failed a small mater of almost XVII C years for their sins Among the Christians what can be said more but that it pleased God to promise them M years of prosperity and raign which the Jews forsaking Christ promised themselves to no purpose Seing the beginning of them cannot be tyed to the end of VIM years from the beginning of the
the Christian Faith The one forfeiteth his interest in Heaven by the inward act of his soul refusing the common faith which saveth all Christians though outwardly holding communion with the Church The other by the inward act of the soul proceeding to the outward act of dissolving the communion of the Church which the common charity of Christians in the first place is to maintain If both these crimes may come under the the common name of Heresie because inward misbelief naturally tendeth to make a sect of such as shall profess to live according to it no marvail if all divisions of the Church be commonly called both Heresies and Schisms whatsoever be the cause upon which they divide If meer schisms that is where the cause is not any thing necessary to the salvation of all to be believed be also Heresie in the Language of the Apostles Neverthelesse there being so much difference between the two crimes and the grounds of them it is necessary to understand setting aside all aequivocation of terms that there is a crime consisting in mis-believing some Article of the faith which if you please may properly be called Heresie And another consisting in dissolving the unity of the Church which is properly called Schism when there is no further pretense for it then some Law which the Church being able to make the other part will rather depart then admit There may divisions in the Church upon pretence of such doctrines as are not necessary to the salvation of all and so no part of the rule of faith but so evidently to be deduced from it and from the rest of the Scriptures that the Church may have cause to determine the same and yet others may choose rather to depart from the Church then suffer the determination thereof to take place Which divisions that memorable observation of S. Jerome seems to call Heresies which said that all Schisms naturally devise to themselves some Heresie that is some doctrine extravagant from the doctrine of the Church that they may seem not to have departed from the Church for nothing Which is very well exemplified by S. Austine in the Donatists But whether such divisions are to be counted Heresies or Schisms both names properly signifying all divisions of the Church and only that crime which consisteth in mis-believing some Articles of faith appropriating the name of Heresie because common use hath given it no peculiar name of its own I leave to him that shall please to determine it Supposing these things it will not be requisite for me to say much to that which hath been published concerning the nature of Schism of late That being to be had onely out of the Scripture it is no where there to be had but in S. Paul to the Corinthians That there was at Corinth when S. Paul writ onely one Congregation of Christians which he calleth the Church of Corinth That therefore there is no crime of schism but in breaking one Congregation into more As for any visible society of the Catholick Church acknowledging the materials men that professe Christianity which he that sees cannot believe to the form which is that unity which is visible he is as great a stranger as if he had never heard of the Creed acknowledging notwithstanding an invisible unity in the common faith and love of Christians upon perswasion whereof he challenges as great freedom from schism as ever any member of the Catholick Church could claim For having showed how a thing which God made visible for many ages may reasonably be expected to be found in the Scriptures I am not to yield to try it by any part of them knowing that whosoever evidenceth a society of the Church by Gods Law evidenceth the crime that consists in the dissolving of it And it were fit we were told how all the Christians in a City where God had much people should sit at one Table or at least sup in one room before we believe that there was then no more Christians at Corinth then could assemble at once Which if I did believe I would notwithstanding alledge Iustine the Martyrs words Apol II. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 On the day called Sunday all that dwelt in Cities or in Countries assemble themselves in one And supposing that then there were more Christians in Rome and the Territorie thereof for example for he writes to the Emperour Antoninus then could meet together in one place As Iustine means not when he saies That all in Cities or Countries meet in one that all made one Assembly but met all in common assemblies I would thereupon argue that no more does S. Paul say when he gives these rules to the Corinthians 1 Cor. XI 14. which serve any assembly that there was then but one Congregation at Corinth If in Iustines time if afore if after he can show me any Church of Rome or any City beside Rome that contained not all the Christians of that City and the Territory thereof I will believe that when Clemens writ the Letter lately published from the Church of Rome to the Church of Corinth there were no more Christians at Rome or at Corinth then could meet all at once But if in all the Scripture as well as in all the Records of the Church a Church signifie the university of Christians which one City and the Territory thereof containeth it is an affront to common sense for him to deny that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the Church that is contained in the City and Territory of Rome or Corinth Let the learned Publisher of that Epistle take 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there for Inquilinus or Peregrinus in Inmate or Pilgrim because his Greek gave him leave he that hath been showed so plentiful mention of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the subject in question for that which we now call a Diocese can have no reason to see with his eyes but because he is resolved not to use his own For in the very address of Polycarpus his Epistle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To the Church of God dwelling beside Philippi The dative case quite spoils the construction of the words to his sense If the Church of the Philippians dwelt near Philippi then the Christians of the Territory belonged to the Church of the City As for the visible unity of the Catholick Church it was not so easie for me to evidence that which could not be questionable till the difference between Catholick Church and true Church came to be questionable As it is not hard for any Christian to question whither the Church which was Catholick for so many ages ought now to be Catholick or not For till he have destroyed the evidence which this abridgement hath been able to advance and when that is done new evidence will not be wanting so long as the records of the Church are Historically true and men continue possest of common sense it is in vain to alledge the dictate of his own
the Father but of the World But what is there between God and the world but the old serpent and the leaven which he hath poisoned man with And this is that venim which we read of Psal LVIII 4 5 6. The wicked are estranged from their mothers womb as soon as they are born they go astray and speak lies They have venime like the venime of a serpent like the deaf addar that stoppeth his eare That will not hear the voice of the inchanters that inchant with charmes cunningly For if it be said that all this speakes onely of the wicked which of their own choice have addicted themselves to sinne and that by being bred to it by their Fathers and predecessor and so debauched from their own natural innocence I shall presently appeale to David himself and his confession with which he pretends to grace Psal LI. 7. 8. Behold I was formed in wickednesse and in sin did my mother conceive me But behold thou requirest truth in the intrailes and shalt make me to understand wisdome secretly I know it is said that this is nothing but an hyperbolicall expression of the Prophet whereby he chargeth himselfe with sinne even before he could understand what sinne was and that from the time of his conceiving in the womb were that possible he hath been liable to sinne and so left without mercy And to this purpose is alledged that of the Pharisees to the blind man John IX 34. Thou wast wholly born in sinne and dost thou teach us To argue that among the Jews it was an ordinary expression to aggravate a mans sinne by saying That he was borne in sinne And truly what the Jews of that time might conceive of the coming in of sinne is not alltogether so cleare in regard of the Apostles words to our Lord upon the occasion of the same man when they askt our Lord whether he was born blinde for his owne sinne or for the sinne of his parents John IX 2. Which our Lord answering for neither but for a particular intent of shewing a particular work of God upon him Denies not the common taint of our nature when he affirmes That particualr workes of providence upon particualr persons have particular reasons and ends for which God will have them come to passe But shews that there were severall opinions in vogue at that time through the nation and that there might be a conceit of mens soules sinning in other bodies or before they came into these bodies according to the position of Pythagoras or the conjecture of Origen Though the opinion of Herod concerning John the Baptist that he should be alive againe in our Lord Mat. XIV 2. doth not appeare to proceed from any such presumption as this but from an imagination that dead mens soules might come and live againe in the world whether in the same or other bodies From this opinion then the reproach of the Pharisees to this man that he was born in sinne may well seem to proceed And their error will not prejudice the truth that all men are indeed born in sinne But I observe further that the people of God as they were totally divided from the worship of Idols so from the consequences thereof which Paul in the first of the Romanes sheweth to have been all sorts of uncleanness in the first place and then the rest of those evils which towards the end of the Chapter he qualifies the Gentiles with For it is manifest that uncleannesse which contained no civil in justice was counted but an indifferent thing with all the Gentiles Let him that would be satisfied of this peruse what the Wise man hath said of the seed of the Gentiles which he compareth with the Jews whom they persecuted all along his whole work Wisdom III. 12-IV 1-6 Where it is manifest that he setteth forth the posterity of the Gentiles as defiled with the uncleannesse wherein they were bred and born And this is most certainely the reason why S. Paul saith of Christians married to Gentiles 1 Cor. VII 14. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband Else were your children uncleane but now are they holy To wit that a heathen husband or wife consenting to dwell in wedlock with a Christan is sanctified by a Christian husband or wife by whose meanes he is brought to this ingagement For when S. Paul adviseth the Christian party to continue in wedlock contracted with an Idolater before Christianity he presupposeth that the Gentile shall be willing to forbear the vulgar uncleannesses of the Gentiles for the love of a Christian yokefellow Otherwise it could not be honest nor for the reputation of a Christian among the Gentiles having power of divorcing as both parties had in the Romane Empire to continue in wedlock with him that acknowledged not Christian but onely civil wedlock That is the wife to be tied in regard of the issue but the man free to all uucleannesse which the Romane Lawes no way restrained And therefore their children so farre from being unclean according to the manners of heathen parents that they are holy upon presumption that they shall be bred in the instruction of Christianity by the meanes of that party which was Christian I observe againe that the Prophet David speaking of his wicked enemies the figure of the Jewes whom thereby he designeth aforehand to be the enemies of our Lord and his Church applieth the same expression to them being of the carnall people of God but farre from Jewes according to the spirit which the people of God other whiles use concerning the Gentiles when he saith that they are estranged from the wombe and as soone as they are born go astray and speak lies For it is manifest that he calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psal LIX 6 9. which by the title appeares to be written of the Jewes his enemies And so Psal XLII 2. Which word commonly stands in as ill a sense with the Jewes as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gentes Nationes to the Christians not for people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but for Ethnicks or Gentiles that is to say Idolaters And so to this day the Jewes call us Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Gentiles And upon these observations I am induced to believe that the Pharisees and those of the Consistory out of the confidence they had of their own holinesse which they presumed of upon the Curisity which they kept the Law with did judge of those that pretended not to the same as of people once removed from Gentiles and so sinners from their birth by the grossenesse of those manners in which they were bred But when David comes to confesse of himself that he was altogether born in sinne and conceived by his mother in wickednesse It is not possible that any such reason should take place but rather such a one as may make good whatsoever
Church which they corrupted by denying these attributes to the man Jesus attributed the same things to him which they denying were therefore excluded out of the Church When S. John proceedeth saying We saw his glory as the glory of the onely begotten Sonne of God he refers to that which went afore he dwelt among us Now seeing it is so ordinary for the Jewes to call the majesty of God dwelling among men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the very word that S. John uses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we are obliged thereby to understand that the majesty of God dwelling among us in the tabernacle of Christs flesh bodily as figuratively it had done in the Tabernacle or Temple of the Jews declared it self notwithstanding by those glorious works which it wrought in his flesh to be what it was For the title of Sonne of God is given in the Old Testament to the Angels first and to the Messias when David saith Ps LXXXIX 18. I will make him my first born higher then the Kings of the earth Whereby it is evident that this title in the Literall sense belonged first to David Of whom also he that will maintaine the difference between the literall and the Spirituall sense upon that ground which I setled before must maintaine those words of David Psal II. 7. Thou art my Sonne this day have I begotten thee To be said Now I suppose that those who expected the Messias to come as a temporall Prince to deliver the people of Israel from the yoke of their oppressors into the free use of that Law which they had received from God as did not onely the rest of the world when Christ came but even his own disciples before his rising againe could by no meanes be informed of that Spirituall kingdome which by the dwelling of the Word in our flesh was intended to be raised Which if it be true though they called the Messiah the Sonne of God as well as the Sonne of David yet is it impossible that they should conceive the same ground for which he is so called and by consequence understand the title in the same sense as we do And this difference of signification is necessary even in the understanding of the Gospel For when the Centurion saith at our Lords death Mark XV. 39. Of a truth this man was the Sonne of God It is not reasonable to imagine that he who dreamed not at all of his rising againe but was a meer heathen should call him the Sonne of God in that sense which we believe But either as Heathenisme allowed Sonnes of the Gods as some thinke or as by conversing with the Jews they had understood them to hold the Messias whom they expected to be the Sonne of God as Prince raised by God What shall we say then of the Apostles demand Vnto which of the angels said he at any time Thou art my Sonne this day have I begotten thee When we find the title of Sonnes of God in the Old Testament attributed to Angels Surely it is necessary to have recourse to that sense in the which it was then known that Christians attributed this title to our Lord Still known by the honour which then and now the Church tendereth him according to it For what will all that Socinus acknowledgeth availe to make good the Apostles assumption when he saies that our Lord is the Sonne of God because conceived without man by the holy Ghost in the womb of a Virgine Is this any more then Adam may challenge for which he is called the Sonne of God Luke III. 38 For the effective cause entereth not into the nature of that which it produceth Neither importeth it any thing to the state of our Lord that he was conceived of the holy Ghost if we suppose nothing in him but a soul and a body which those that are born of man and woman have How then is the title of the Sonne of God incompetible to the Angels which Adam thus farre challenges If you look back upon the premises there remaines no doubt nor any way to escape it otherwise The holy Ghost overshadowing the blessed Virgine not onely workes the conception of a Sonne but dwells for ever according to the fullnesse of the Godhead in the manhood so conceived as by the nature of the Godhead planted in the Word which then came to dwell in the manhood so conceived Therefore that holy thing which is borne of the Virgine being called the Sonne of God is made so much above the Angels as the esteem which this name imports is above any thing that is attributed to them in the Scriptures Therefore is this Sonne of God honoured as God during his being upon earth by them that were instructed to understand the effect of it though they that were not disciples but took it onely for a title of the Messias which they knew he pretended to be perhaps conceived not so much by it Therefore our Lord himself poses the Pharisees how they would have David to understand the Messias to be his Lord whom they knew to be his Sonne Mat. XXII 42 45. Mark XII 35 37. Luke XX. 41 44. This is then that which S. Paul saith Col. I. 19. For in him it pleased God that all the fullnesse should dwell And Col. II. 9. 10. For in him dwelleth all the fullnesse of the Godhead bodily And Ye are filled through him Speaking of Christ I shewed you before that the heresies of that time some whereof it is manifest were then seducing the Colossians did all agree in preaching God the Father of all things to be unknown together with all that belonged to the compleating of the Godhead till they made him known And all this contrived by the devil to subvert the Faith of Christ by counterfeiting something like it in sound like false coyne to cozen the simple with Whereas therefore S. Paul here saith that the fullnesse of the Godhead dwelleth bodily in Christ And our Lord so often in S. Johns Gospel that the Father dwelleth in him and he in the Father And the fullnesse of the holy Ghost dwelleth in the Word incarnate as I shewed even now It is manifest that they laboured to introduce a counterfeit Fullnesse of the Godhead of their own devising into that esteem and worship which the fullnesse of the Godhead contained in the Father Sonne and holy Ghost preached by our Lord Christ and his Apostles challengeth And therefore that the fullnesse of the Godhead challenged by S. Paul to dwell in the flesh of Christ must stand in opposition to that fullnesse which these sects worshipped Being challenged by S. Paul as vindicating the Christian Faith from that corruption wherewith these Sects pretended to adulterate it And being challenged by those Sects in opposition to S. Paul and the Christian Faith which he vindicateth to rest in those whom they severally preached not in the Sonne and holy Ghost together with the Father as he maintaineth For when the fullnesse of
absolute of punishing respective The end to which God predestinates is not the end for which he predestinates Grace the reward of the right use of Grace How much of the question the Gospell determines not That our indeavours are ingaged no lesse then if predestination were not it determineth Of the Tradition of the Church and of Semipelagians Predestinatians and Arminians I Am now come to the upshot of the controversy concerning the covenant of grace and free will in imbraceing and performing of the covenant of grace which is the dispute about Gods predestination whether it proceeds upon the absolute will of God or in consideration of mans being qualified as the gospel requires Which though of it selfe never so intricate the premises being supposed must of necessity be thus resolved That predestination being the appointment of grace and glory as reprobation on the other side the decree of not giving effectuall grace and of condemning to paine the appointment of glory and misery cannot be absolute but the appointment to actuall grace and perseverance or not necâ—ssarily is The reason supposing the premises is not liable to be contradicted in either part of it For it cannot stand with the wisdome and truth of God to execute his counsailes upon other reasons and in other considerations then from everlasting he purposed to do Therefore for what reason and in what consideration God shall in due time give life and death to them whom he shall give it to for the same reason he did resolve to give it from everlasting But nothing is more evident in Christianity then this that God at the last day shall give sentence of life and death according as men shall be found to have behaved themselves as Christians or not And all that I have premised to manifest the condition of the Covenant of grace makes good the same For the state of life or death cannot become any mans owne upon other termes then the right and title to it becomes his Therefore God from everlasting determined to give life oâ— death to every man in consideration of his being found qualified for this or for that according â—o those termes which the covenant of grace proposeth On the other side it being resolved that man as he is borne into the world is not able to do any thing that can oblige God to grant him those helps of grace which onely will be effectuall to inable him to imbrace and goe through with that condition which the gospell tendreth It is manifest that the reason why he provides effectually sufficient helps for some which others have not why he tenders them to some in those circumstances in which he knowes they will be effectuall to others not must take rise and begin at his owne free choice in granting maters of free grace to whom he pleaseth and not to others Though of each mans proceeding or not proceeding in the way of Christianity a reason is to be given from the good or bad use of those sufficient helps which he had been prevented with For seeing it was in the meere appointment of God to have caused any man to be borne or after to live where he should have met with sufficient helps to convict him of the truth of Christianity and those so presented to him as he best knew they would not be refused there is nothing more manifest then that it was onely in the meere will of God that it was appointed so as it is and not otherwise But this is no hinderance why the sufficient helps of Gods grace should not proceed from the Will of mans happinesse in God though they take no further effect through mans fauâ—â— And the having or not having of further helps which God either doth or might have seconded them with be imputed to the good or bad use of those which went afore Because it hath been made manifest by the premises that the end of Gods gifts is the happynesse of his creature though it come not to passe But the reason of the particulars which he actually bestowes or refuses is to be resolved into the quality of the persons that receive them or not but so that the order of all depending upon the first helps of free grace which every man is prevented with there is no reason to be given for the whole in the nature of a meritorious cause Against the two parts of this resolution there are two objections one against each which so far as we shall be able to resolve so far shall we be able to leave the businesse cleare For seeing that the end is fiâ—st desiâ—ed and then the meanes the reason why the meanes are desired being derived from the desire of the end and referred to it And that the end of all grace is glory the end of all the meanes of salvation the salvation intended by it It seemes that Gods predestination must of force appoint salvation to them that are to be saved in the first place from thence proceeding to designe the way and order by which the person designed to it may be induced of his owne free choice to accept the meanes of it This slight mistake seemes to have been the occasion of many horrible imaginations which even Christian divines have had of Gods designe from evarlasting to create the most part of men on purpose to gloâ—â—fie himselfe by condemning them to everlasting torments though in consideration of the sins which they shal have don That which had been granted in Gods predestination to life upon this mistake seeming necessarily to extend it selfe to his reprobation signifying the decree of condemning to everlasting torments But the mistake is that the end of the creature by Gods appointment is taken for Gods end Which though it be his end because he appointeth it for his creature yet it is not any end that he seeks for himselfe The reason is so punctually laid downe in the premises that it can be but repeated here That God being of himselfe sufficient for himselfe can have no end upon his creature Because nothing accrues to him nothing goes from him whatsoever accrues to his creature or goes from it And though God having now resolved to make the world for himselfe that is for his owne glory it is necessary we suppose him to designe the government of it so as it may be a fit meanes to obtaine that end yet is it to be much considered that God having once given a Law to his understanding creatures tendring happinesse as the reward of abiding by his Law it can no longer stand with that tender that it should be a fit meanes of Gods glory to give happynesse to his creature not considered as qualified by his law and therefore not to resolve to give it Whether we consider the interest of Gods justice in requiring that Law it cannot be imagined that the love of any creature can move him to waive it Or whether we consider his truth in making it good being once declared it is
chargeable with adultery when the wife maries again being not put away for adultery why is he chargeable with it that put her away for adultery If because he maries again not putting his wife away for adultery putting her away for adultery why is he chargeable with it The difficulty will be Then is the knot of wedlock tied to the one party and loose to the other which seems a knot more indissoluble then that of wedlock but is indeed none at all if we distinguish between the metaphor of a knot tied and the obligation signified by it For though the act of consent to the contract of wedlock is the act of two parties whereof a third that is God is depositary to discharge the innocent and to charge the guilty yet the bond or obligation which is contracted by it is answerable severally by each party in the judgement of God And is there the same reason that God should call him to account for adultery who thinks himselfe free of that contract which he stood to till his party transgressed it as her that gave him cause to think himselfe free by transgressing it The difficulty then rests in the meaning of S. Paul when he châ—rgeth the wife not to depart from her Husband If she do to abidâ— unmaried or to be reconciled to her Husband And the Husband not to put away his wife 1 Cor. VII 12. And that having before charged maried people not to part even for devotion but for a time for fear of temptation by concupiscense For can it then be imagined that he allows them to part upon any occasion but that of adultery Therefore those that are parted for adultery he forbids to marry again And these are the Texts that have moved S. Jerome Epist XLVII to be of this mind But S. Austine further expounding the Sermon in the mount upon this supposition as he himselfe professes in the beginning of his books de adultrinis conjugiis written expresse to maintain it and desiring to show how our Lords Law injoyns the same with his Apostles imagines that our Lord might mean spirituall fornication or adultery according to which the Psalme saies Thou hast destroyed all that commit fornication against thee when he gave it Which sense compriseth all sinne that carieth with it a construction of departing from our Covenant with God both in truth and according to S. Austine de Sermone domini in monte I. 16. Whereupon the Mileritane Canon XVII speaks thus Placuit ut secundum Evangelicam Apostolicam disciplinam ueque dimissus ab uxore neque dimissa à marito alteri conjungantur sed ita maneant auâ— sibi reconcilientur Quod si contempserint ad poenitentiam redigantur In qua causà legem Iâ—perialem petendam promulgari It seemed good that according to the discipline of the Gospel and the Apostles neither he that is dimissed by his wife nor she that is dimissed by her husband be wedded to another but remain so or be reconciled to one another which if they neglect that they be put to Penance and that request be made for an Imperial Law to be published in the case Where alleging the Gospel and S. Paul both it is plain the Canon proceeds upon the opinion of S. Austine For he was at this Council and in all probability had the penning of the Canons That which moved them to be of this opinion I confesse moves me to be against it I cannot be perswaded that S. Paul in this place and our Lord in the Gospel speak both to one and the same purpose All subjects of the Romane Empire when S. Paul writ had power to leave their wives or their husbands at pleasure without giving the Law account But supposing them Christians were they not to give God account were they not to give the Church account Certainly if they maried again they must give the Church account because our Lord hath said He that leaveth his wife but for adultery and marieth again committeth adultery For of adultery account is to be given the Church And truly who parts with a wife it is great odds does it out of a desire to mary another which all the Church agrees he cannot do unlesse she be an adulteresse part of it sayes further though she be he cannot do it But if he mary not another but part with his wife he must give God account whether he be bound to give the Church account or not And this account S. Paul instructs how to give He will not have Christians to part bed and bord much less to repudiate to part families to send one another a way with that which they brought but if they will needs try how good it is living unmarried he would have them know that they could not mary elsewhere because of our Lords Law which in case of fornication he silently excepteth For to me it seemeth manifest that our Lord in case of fornication provideth for the reparation of the party wronged whose bed and issue is concerned restraining the divorce which the law allowed onely to the transgression of mariage inâ—cted by the institution of Paradise when two continue not one flesh But S. Paul for the conscience of particular Christians upon what terms they may or ought to forbear â—ohabitation to wit so as they mary not again Which is exhortation enough to set aside animosities and return to bed and bord again S. Austine and Venerable Bede upon the Gospel following him confesse that according to their interpretation our Lord permits to part not for the fornication which the other party hath done but for that which himselfe may do To wit which by the company of an ill disposed yoke-fellow he may be moved to do So divorce according to this opinion is grounded upon the precept of the Gospel If thine eye offend thee pluck it out and is that which the Church of Rome at this day maintaineth by the XXVI Session of the Council of Trent Can. VIII and that as I think according to S. Paul onely that he leaves it to the Conscience of particular Christians without interessing the Church the interest whereof I conceive cannot be excluded though S. Paul here provide not for it as Cardinall Bellarmine de Matrimoniâ— I. 14. disputeth But in case of adultery it never was nor ever could seem questionable so as S. Paul to decide it whither a man might so put away his wife or no all Civill Law that then was counting him accessory to the stain of his bed and issue that did not And thereupon the ancient Canons of the Church imposing penalties upon any of the Clergy who being allowed to dwell with their wives should indure an adulteresse And therefore I conclude that S. Paul though he allow not either husband or wife to part with wife or husband as to cohabitation without renouncing the bond of wedlock no not for the state of continence as S. Austine very well argues if not for continence then for no
of Christians that is of the whole Church occultae quoque conjunctiones id est non priâ—s apud Ecclesiam professae juxta maechiam fornicationem judicari perclitantur Among us even clandestine mariages that is not professed before the Church are in danger to be censured next to adultery and fornication And therefore Ad uxorem II. ult Unde sufficiamus ad senarrandam faelicitatem ejus matrimonii quod Ecclesia conciliat How may we be able to declare the happinesse of that mariage which the Church interposeth to joyn de Monogamiâ cap. XI Quale est id matrimonium quod eis a quibus postulas non licet hahere What maner of mariage is that saith he speaking of marying a second wife which it is not lawfull for them of whom thou desirest it to have Because it was not lawful for the Clergy who allowed the people to mary second wives themselves to do the same Ignatius Epist ad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It becometh men and women that mary to joyn by the consent of the Bishop that the mariage be according to the Lord and not according to lust It hath been doubted indeed whether we have the true Copy of Ignatius his Epistles or not whether this be one of them or not But that Copy being found which Eusebius S. Jerome and others of the Fathers took for Ignatius his own and hath all that the Fathers quote just as they quote it nothing of that which stood suspected afore to refuse them now is to refuse evidence because it stands not with our prejudices Not that this power of the Church stands upon the authority of two or three witnesses These were not to be neglected But the Canons of the Church and the custome and practice of the Church ancientâ—r then any Canons in writing but evidenced by written Law which could never have come in writing had it not been in force before it was written suffer it not to remain without evidence In particular the allowance of the mariages of those who were baptized when they were admitted to Baptism evidenced out of S. Austine the Constituions and Eliberitane Canons evidenceth the Power of the Church in this point unquestionable And therefore against the Imperiall Lawes I argue as against the Leviathan that is if any man suppose that they pretend to secure the conscience of a Christian in marying according to them upon divorce Either the Soveraign Power effects that as Soveraign or as Christian If as Soveraign why may not the Christians of the Turkish Empire divorce themselves according to the Alâ—oran which is the Law of the Land and be secure in point of conscience If as Christian how can the conscience of a Christian in the Eastern Empire be secured in that case wherein the conscience of a Christian in the West cannot be secured because there is no such Civil Law there the Christianity of both being the same For it cannot be said that the Imperiall Lawes alleged were in force in the West after the division of the Empire I argue again That they cannot secure the conscience but under the Law of our Lord as containing the true interpretation of fornication in his sense And can any man be so senselesse as to imagine so impudent as to affirm that the whole Church agreeing in taking the fornication of maried people to signifie adultery hath failed but every Christian Prince that alloweth and limiteth any other causes of divorce all limiting severall causes attaineth the true sense of it Will the common sense of men allow that Homicide Treason Poysoning Forgery Sacriledge Robbery Mans-stealing Cattle-driving or any of them is contained is the true meaning of Fornication in our Lords words That consent of parties that a reasonable cause when Pagans divorced per bonam gratiam without disparagement to either of the parties can be understood by that name For these you shall find to be legall cause of divorce by those acts of the Emperours Lastly I argue If these causes secure the conscience in the Empire by virtue of those Laws why shall not those causes for which divorce was allowed or practiced amongst the ancient French the Irish the Welch the Russes do the like For that which was done by virtue of their Lawes reported there cap. XXVI XXX is no lesse the effect of Christian power that is Soveraign He that could find in his heart to tell Baronius reproving the Law of Justine that allowed divorce upon consent that Christian Princes who knew their own power were not so easily to be ruled by the Clergy p. 611. can he find fault with the Irish marrying for a year and a day or the Welch divorcing for a stinking breath Had he not more reason to say that knowing their power they might chuse whether they would be Christians or not The dispute being What they should do supposing that they are Christians And therefore it is to be maintained that those Emperours in limiting the infinite liberty of divorces by the Romane Law to those causes upon which dowries should be recoverable or not being made for Pagans as well as for Christians did as it were rough hew their Empire to admit the strict law of Christianity in this point And that this was the intent and effect of their acts appears by the Canons which have been alleged as well in the East as in the West made during the time when those Laws were in force For shall we think the Church quite out of their senses to procure such Canons to be made knowing that they could not take place in the lives and conversations of Christians to the effect of hindring to mary again If we coulde so think it would not serve the turn unlesse we could say how S. Basil should testifie that indeed they did take place to that effect and yet the Civill Law not suffer them to take effect From our Lord Christ to that time it is clear that no Christian could mary again after divorce unlesse for adultery some not excepting adultery In the baseâ— times of that Empire it appears by the Canons of Alexius Patriarch of C P. and by Matthaeus Blastares alleged by Arcudius p. 517. that those causes which the Imperiall Lawes allowed but Gods law did not took place to the effect of marrying again But that so it was alwaies from Constantine who first taxed legall cause of divorce nothing obliges a man to suppose For though the Emperours Law being made for Pagans as well as for Christians might inable either party to hold the dowry yet the Christian law might and did oblige Christians not to mary again The Mileuitane Canon showes it which provideth that the Emperour be requested to inact that no Christian might mary after divorce For this might be done saving the Imperial Laws But when we see the Civil Law inforce the Ministers of the Church to blesse those Mariages which the Civil Law allows but Gods Law makes adulteries the party that is put away
Soveraign over the Churches of these Cities For that were inconsequent to the power of the Apostles whence it proceedeth who as I have proved were equall among themselves and the authority of their companions and successors into whom it stood immediately divided But that it should have that eminence ovâ—r them and by consequence much more over the Churches of inferiour Cities as is requisite to the directing of such maters as might come to be of common interesse to the whole Church to such an agreement as might preserve the unity thereof with advantage to the common Christianity Now when I name these Churches of Antiochia and Alexandria for examples sake supposing that the Churches of the chief Cities of other Provinces of the Empire had also their eminence over the Churches of inferiour Cities within the said Provinces I suppose also that they accordingly approached to the dignity and priviledges of that at Rome the power of obliging the whole which for the State under God rested then in the Emperour alone within the Empire rosting for the Church in the successors of the Apostles according to this weight and greatnesse of their Churches For though Tertulliane de praescrip Haerct cap. XXXVI challengeth that the very Chairs which the Apostles sate in the very authentick leters which they sent to the Churches of Corinth Thessalonica Philippi and Ephesus were extant in his time in the said Churches yet doth it not therefore follow that the priviledges of those Churches should be all the same with all Churches wherein the Apostles sate which would necessarily follow if nothing were to come into consideration but that they were founded by the Apostles themselves For supposing that the Apostles themselves or their companions and successors indowed with the same Power as not confined by any act of the Apostles under whom they claimed to the contrary appointed that regard should be had to the priviledge of the Cities wherein they were planted it follows of reason that S. Peter for the Jews and S. Paul for the Gentiles at least principally should make it their businesse to plant Chistianity and to found the Church of Rome And that the eminence of these Apostles one chief by our Lords choice the other eminent for his labours may very well be alleged for the priviledges of that Church and yet the consequence not hold in other Churches for which it may be alleged that they were the seats of Apostles because the reason for which these Apostles bestowed their pains there hath a reason for it to wit the eminence of that City Here you easily see that deriving the pre-eminence of the Church of Rome not from S. Peters personall pre-eminence onely which it would be impossible to show how it comes intailed upon that Church the pre-eminence of the Apostles not resting in all their Churches but from an Order given out by the Apostles advancing the priviledges of Churches according the secular eminence of Cities I say you easily see that the concurrence of S. Paul with S. Peter to the founding of it is a confirmation of that ground whereupon the preeminence thereof standeth whereas that opinion which derives it onely from the personal eminence of S. Peter admits not the concurrence of S. Paul to the constitution of this pre-eminence Wheresoever therefore you find S. Peter and S. Paul acknowledged joynt founders thereof in the writings of the Fathers all that must be understood to setle the opinion which I here advance and to destroy that plea which derives it from the Soveraign power of S. Peter over the rest of the Apostles And Epiphanius is not the onely author where you find it the disputes of these times will afford you more then this abridgement can receive But I conceive I have made a fair way to the ground for it by observing some probabilities that S. Paul should be head of those that turned Christians of Jews as S. Peter of Gentiles at Rome Which I will here confirm by expounding the inscription of Ignatius his Epistle to the Romanes according to it othâ—rwise not to be understood It addresseth to the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which governeth in the place of the fields at Rome The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is here used as many times besides speaking of those places which a man would neither call Cities nor Towns as Act. XXVII 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being to sail by the places of Asia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is plain signifies the Country 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then must necessarily signifie here the Vaticane lying in the fields as a suburbe to Rome and being the place where S. Peter was buried and where the Jews of Rome then dwelt as we learn by Philo Legatione ad Caium speaking of Augustus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He knew that great quarter of Rome which is beyond the River Tiber to be held and inhabitated by Jews most of whom were Romanes and Libertines For being brought captives into Italy they were set free by their Masters without constraining them to adulterate any of their Countrie Laws Hereupon the Synagogue of the Libertines Act. VI. 9. is the Synagogue of the Romane Jews Now S. Peters Church we know is to this day in the Vaticane as S. Pauls in the way to Ostia as from the beginning we understand by Caius in Eusebius Hist Eccles II. 25. the places of their burials were Which circumstance points them out Heads the one of the Jewish Christians at Rome the other of those that were converted being Gentiles For that the Vaticane was then the Jewry at Rome we learn also by Tully in his Oration pro Flacco where he complains that his cause was heard in the fields of M ars prope gradus Aurelios that the Jews who were offended at Flaccus for prohibiting them to send their oblations to Jerusalem when he was Governour of Asia might come in and discountenance the cause For plainly this was hard by the Bridge that passed out of those fields into the Vaticane where the Gate called Porta Aurelia stood hard by S. Peters Church to which Gate it seems there were steps to go up which he calleth there gradus Aurelios It is also easie to see that this supposition draweth the ground and reason of the Superiority of Churches originally from the act of Temporall Power which constituteth the eminence of Cities over other Cities But neverthelesse immediately from the act of the Church or of those that have authority to oblige the Church taking the Superiority of Cities as it is for the most reasonable ground of planting in them the most eminent Churches but by their own authority providing that so it be observed Therefore it is to be considered that the Church is by Gods command howsoever by his promise to continue one and the same till the coming of our Lord unto judgement But the dominion of this World upon which the greatnesse of Cities is founded changes as Gods providence appoints Besides that
the carnal rest of the Jewes is a figure of the spiritual rest of Christians in grace here in glory in the world to come And therefore when he is afraid least he should have laboured in vain upon the Galatians IV. 10. because they observed days and moneths years when he teacheth the Colossians II. 16. not to be over-ruled in the mater of new Moons or Sabbath When he sheweth the Romanes XIV 5. that they who esteemed on one day before another were weak Christians He did not mean to remove the obligation of the seventh day upon the first but to show that Christians may as well think themselves bound in conscience to be circumcised as to be under the precept of the Sabbath And let me understand how we can be bound by the precept of the Sabbath and not be bound to that measure of rest which the precept of the Sabbath limiteth For the constitution which the Jews go by this day is so grounded in the Text that it is not possible to imagine that ever it was practised otherwise the leter of the Law manifestly distinguishing between worke and servile workâ— and permitting the dressing of meat upon the first and last dayes of the Passovâ—r Pentecost and the feast of Tabernacles but forbidding servile work that is to say such work as slâ—ves were imployed about for their Masters advantage but upon the Sabbath and day of atonement forbidding all work that is not onely servile work but the dressing of meat upon those days whereupon comes the express prohibition of kindling fire on the Sabbath not for the time that they lived in the wildernesse but as the Law expresseth in all their habitations Ex. XII 16. XXXV 30. XVI 23. Levit. XXIII 3. 7 8 21 25 28. Numb XXIX 1 7. And therefore Deut. XVI 8. where for brevities sake he saith of the Passover No worke shall be done in it The Greek adds out of Exodus and Leviticus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Besides what shall be dressed for meat And therefore when our Lord goes to dâ—ne with a Pharisee Luc. XIV 1. it is no marvail that he is invited upon a Festivall on which they hold themselves still bound to eat the best meat and drink the best wine and put on the clothes they have But he knew his entertainment must be upon meats dreâ—t the day before And therefore he not onely reproveth the hypocrisy of the Pharisees who for their own profit to draw their Oxe or their Ass out of the pit could bâ—lâ— it and in a charitable cause of healing a man stood upon it But further he showes it to be a meer positive precept of the Law when by the right of a Prophet he commandeth the lame man whom he had cured to cary away his bed upon the Sabbath Joh. V. 10. the Prophet of the old Law having forbidding to cary any burthen upon the Sabbath Jer. XVII 21. 22. And the reason my Father still worketh and so do I worke inâ—erreth that as the rest of God was not from bodily labour so neither is it the rest from bodily labour which he or his Gospel intendeth I conclude therefore that which will seem strange to unskilful people That the onely thing commanded by the leter of the fourth Commandement is to rest from bodily labour upon the seventh day of the week on which God rested from whence it is called the Sabbath But by the mysticall sense of it under the New Testament to rest from our own works of sinne here that we may attain to the rest of God in the world to come And I cannot see how a more evident argument can be expected for this then the extending of the precept to cattel and strangers not onely to children who otherwise are not under the precept For strangers in the Law that is those that worshipped the true God alone but were not circumcised who are therefore alwayes translated Conuerts in the Syriack to wit from Idols were onely tyed to seven precepts which all the Sons of Noe had received from him Whereof that of the Sabbath was none And therefore it is not they that are commanded to rest but Gods people are commanded that they shall not work as they are commanded that their Cattel shall not work I know there is a strong Argument against this in vulgar esteem which to me makes no difficulty at all that they are commanded to sanctifie or keep holy the Sabbath But he that admits the true difference between the Law and the Gospel must admit a legall as well as a spirituall holinesse And I would know what holinesse there is in offering a brute beast to God in sacrifice that is not in sitting still on the seventh day Both being stamped with Gods command and the rest of the Body signifying the rest of the soul from sinne which is very holy as the sacrifice is holy because it signifieth the holinesse of our Lord Christ or of them whom he sanctifieth The Apostle teacheth us thus to distinguish when he saith Heb. IX 11. If the blood of Bulls and Goats and the ashes of a red cow sprinkling the purified sanctifieth to the purity of the flesh For the holiness it procureth is but the capacity of free conversation amongst the people of the true God as to the leter of the Law And bodily rest upon the Sabbath is a full profession of the true God which made heaven and earth and brought his people out of Egypt I do not deny that the service of God was commanded by the Law upon the Sabbath But not by this precept You have an order for publick Assemblies on the Sabbath as well as on other Festivals Levit. XXIII you have an order for what sacrifices should be offered on each of them Num. XXVIII But had the Law gone no further then the fourth Commandment the Jews had not been tied to those precepts I acknowledge further that they were bound to serve God with other offices such as are common to them and us both upon the Sabbath as upon other Festivals when they had Synagogues or means to assemble themselves otherwise as Abenezra observes out of 2 King IV. 23. For had it not been the custome to resorâ— to the Prophets at the Festivals he would not have said Why wilt thou go to the Prophet It is neither new Moon nor Sabbath And the order for this which we see by the acts of the Apostles and the Gospels as well as by the Jews Constitutions no man will deny to have obliged them by virtue of the Law But not by the leter of it which had it been precisely followed the objection of Origen and other of the Fathers must have taken place and no man must have stirred out of the place where he should be found at the coming in of the Sabbath But in regard there was alwayes in that people a sense of that spiritual service of God which these carnal precepts tended to therefore was there provided a power
to limite the extent of the leter so as not to destroy duties of greater consequence And it seems they pitched upon a reasonable ground for a reasonable measure when they made a Sabbath dayes journey so much as the distance of the utmost camp from the Tabernacle in the wildernesse But he that was not within that distance of a Synagogue by going to a Synagogue must violate the Law that saith Thou shalt not stirre out of thy place on the Sabbath It was therefore holinesse to sit still otherwise the service of God must not have been omitted for it Therefore the service of God by those offices which Christians serve him with is no otherwise intimated rather then provided for by the Law then as the Gospel is witnessed rather then inacted by it And it is truly said that God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it in that he appointed his rest in the world to come for those who had rested from their own works here But consequently in that he appointed the rest of the seventh day in the Land of promise to be a figure of it For I take not upon me to say That God hallowed not the seventh day till he gave the Law understanding that which is said at the creation that he blessed and sanctified it by a Prolepsis because he did it when he gave the Law because I need not The designing of the thing signified by it which is more properly the rest of God then not working reflecting the attribute of holinesse upon the day which he designed for the sign of it For in that God rested the seventh day from making all his works he signified that he appointed rest for them that do his work here in the world to come In that delivering his people out of Egypt he appointed them to rest from bodily labour upon the seventh day he signified that he appointed them whom he had given the rest of the promised Land a shadow of resting from their own works to do his the substance whereof is the conversation of Christians in the Church which the Land of promise â—igureth as well here as in the world to come The former appointment is that which the blessing and hallowing of the seventh day at the creation the second that which the hallowing of the same at giving the Law signifieth Nor do I make it my business that the Fathers before the Law did ever keep or not keep the seventh day for Gods service because I neither see evidence for this nor for that For though the remembrance of the seven days of the week is so ancient and so general among all Nations as you may see by that very learned Work de Jure naturae Gentium secundum Ebraeos that you may well conclude it to be a mark and impress of the creation in seven days yet will this argue no observation of it under the Patriarches Because the appropriating of them to the seven Planets though conâ—rived by the Devill to divert that truth to superstition which is the ground of Religion according to the Scripture disables us to argue the creation it selfe from it to those that know it not otherwise much more any rule of Gods service grounded upon it But he that should say that the Sabbath was kept under the law of Nature as it was to be kept under the law of Moses must first answer Tertullian cont Jud. cap. IV. and Justine from whom he hath it and all Fathers that have used it after them and understood the interess of Christianity better then we do Quis legit Abrahamum Sabbatizantem For why should he think to perswade us to such a ridiculous imagination if he have no Scripture for it And therefore though I agree not with Philo that the Jews had forgot which was the seventh day till God recalled the remembrance of it by sending down Manna and therefore said Remember to keep holy the Sabbath yet I do not allow this to be said because they had forgot it by their Apostasy in Egypt where it is plain they forgot their God as I shewed you afore But because they forgot Gods first command at the giving of Manna therefore it is reason they should be charged to remember it for the future As little do I esteem of that meere voluntary presumption that being part of the Decalogue the precept of the Sabbath must needs be part of Gods perpetual Law whither naturall and morall or positive For is it not the Decalogue that saith That thy dayes may belong in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee Or doth the Land of promise in the leter belong to any but Israelites Again the tenth Commandment forbiddeth to covet another mans wise adultery being forbidden afore And therefore to covet another mans wife in the tenth Commandement is to compasse another mans wife which might be done where the Law alloweth divorces as Moses his Law doth If therefore the first and last Commandment of the second Table are by the terms of them appropriated to Gods ancient people is it strange that the precept of the Sabbath should not be thought perpetual to oblige all mankind but Ceremonial to oblige onely the same That there should be a Ceremoniall precept in the first Table of the Decalogue Nay seeing to all mankind it can import no more then a circumstance of time for the publick service of God what reason can be imagined why a precept of that consequence should make one in the first Table of the Decalogue whereas importing to that people the creation of all things by the true God and their deliverance out of Aegypt and by consequence the obligation of his whole Law it is worthily reckoned by the Jews Doctors among the very principall precepts of it As for Christians the literal sense of it is no lesse unlawful for them to observe then it is for them to be circumcised or to undertake the Law of Moses to the which the Sabbath next to circumcision obligeth And by consequence the spirituall sense of it importeth no lesse then the whole duty of a Christian which all ceremonies do figure that is to say resting from our works of sinne and consequently busying our selves about the works of Gods service And therefore I do marvel that those who so obstinately promote this Doctrine are not sensible of the scandall they give to them who have visibly been seduced to keep the Saturday by grounding themselves upon it And may by the same reason be seduced to be circumcised and turn Jewes If yet it be a thing to do and that divers English in these unstable times not distinguishing between that which did and that which doth oblige when they find both in the Scriptures have not hereby been moved to make that change For when they are told that by the leter of the fourth Commandment they are obliged to keep the first day of the week And by common sense discovering a great part of the premises discern that
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
Easter was then in use And if it can be said that the keeping of Easter for seven dayes from whence in stead of the Heathen names the Christians called the dayes of the week feriam primam secundam septimam and the use to pray standing from Easter to Whitsuntide were not original nor universal customs of the Church but accessory and local yet can it never be said that there was any time or any part of the Church that did not fast before Easter that Fast which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek and quadragefimam in Latine Though I cannot say for forty days as the name seems to import 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying a summ of fifty days in the language of all Jews or Christians that write in Greek For I have not on any hand any satisfaction in the words of Irenaeus the true reading whereof there maintained seemeth to import that in some places they fasted but forty hours before the Feast of the Resurrection Tertullian de Jejuniis cap. XIII objecteth to the Catholicks that they Fasted the Easter Fast citra dies quibus ablatus est sponsus On this side the dayes on which the Bridegroom was taken away More dayes than our Lord was in the grave But that is farr from forty That which is alleged for the forty dayes Fast out of Ignatius is not found in the true Copy Thus farr the solemnity of Easter and the Fast before it appear original But not forty days This will scarce allow that to be true which the learned Selden in his book de Anno Jud. c. XXI produceth of his Eutychius which saith that the Christians after the Ascension of our Lord though they kept Easter when our Lord suffred and rose again yet kept the Fast of forty days immediately after the Epiphany as our Lord after his Baptism which they supposed fell on the day of his birth and that when Demetrius was Bishop of Alexandria by many leters and messages that passed between him and Victor of Rome and the then Patriarchs of Jerusalem and Antiochia it was agreed that the order which hath since prevailed should take place Much less will the said passages of Irenaeus and Tertullian allow that which the book of the Popes lives compiled by Anastasius but out of the records of that Church reports of Telesphorus that hee ordered the Lent Fast for VII weeks afore Easter rather signifying that hee ordered something about it which later authors report according to that which was later in debate For that there was dispute in the time of Pius about keeping Easter that is ending the Fast on the Lords day or according to the Jews may appear by the revelation which Hermes his Pastor pretendeth to that purpose Which Anastasius allegeth to that purpose Therefore though I can allow Eutychius no credit of historical truth when hee agreeth not with authors which have that credit yet in a case where intelligence is wanting I must needs think his relation considerable It is well enough known what Socrates hath discoursed for his opinion that the Lent Fast came in by meer custom not by any Order of the Apostles what hee hath alleged of the visible practice of the Church in his time to that purpose Eccles â—ist V. 21. Sozomenus VII 19. more particularly that the Montanists fasted two weeks some three continual weeks others as much or more weeks as came to three weeks which perhaps may save Socrates his credit reporting that at Rome three weeks if it be true which Peitus hath observed that Leo and S. Austine say that they fasted not the the Tuesdayes and Thursdayes of Lent in their time others in five six or seven More he might have said For the Christians of Syria Aethiopia and the Coptites begin their Ninive a week before Septuagesima That is their forty days fast because Jonas prophesied Yet forty dayes and Ninive shall be destroyed The variety seemes to argue that it came by degrees to this certain number of dayes by the example of the Clergy the freedom of the people and the authority of the Church Which though I shall be glad to be informed further in whether so or otherwise yet having setled from the beginning that the chief difference between the Apostles Orders and those of the Whole Church is the mater of them determinable by common sense and the state of times to conduce or not to conduce to the end of Gods service for which it stands To mee it makes not much difference whether instituted by the Apostles or received by the whole Church the power of the Church manifestly extending to it And the solemnizing thereof being of such inestimable use though not for the instructing of them that stood to be Christians as in the primitive times yet alwayes for the profession and practice of Penance and for the reconciling of sinners to the Communion of the Eucharist at Easter And therefore if I do not apply unto the Forty days Fast as to the Fast before Easter I do apply the rule of S. Austine that those things which the whole Church observeth having no remembrance of the beginning of them must be ascribed to the Tradition of the Apostles yet I do apply unto them that other saying of S. Austine which importeth That to dispute against those things which the whole Church observeth is the height of madnesse Nor is there any thing in that Law unsurable to Christianity but that which the coming of the world into the Church necessarily inforceth That all are constrained to keep it and so good Christians notwithstanding the exception of the sick and impotent may suffer for the refractory and prophane among whom they live Who when it came first in use no doubt were left to themselves and to that which the good example of the Clergy moved them in conscieâ—ce to undergo The Church of England I see for the prejudices which that time was possest with could not undertake to restore the ancient custome of publick Penance at the beginning of Lent But when the Church professeth withall how much it were for the souls health of all that Penance were restored when it prescribeth a Commination against sinners to charge upon particular Consciences to exercise that themselves which for preserving of Unity it undertaketh not to impose upon all when it ordereth those Prayers for the service of that season which cannot be said with a good conscience but by those who in some measure apply themselvs to these exercises well may we grant that the tares of false doctrine springing up with the Reformation have made these wholsome orders of litle effect but it must never be granted that the Church of England maketh either the Lent Fast or other times of fasting superstitiosu As for the difference of meats true it is that S. Paul hath marked those that sorbid mariage that injoyn abistnence from meats which God hath made to be received with thanksgiving by those that believe and
found that our Lord was born about the feast of Tabernacles with the Jews in September being a figure of the Tabernacle of his flesh Though this was ingeniously argued yet had it proved true it had been an unsufferable levit in any man to inferre the dissolution of order in the service of God and the peace of his Church upon the supposition of it For who ever heard the Church declare that the celebration of our Lords birth on the XXV of December proceeds upon supposition that he was indeed born that day So that supposing it uncertain on what day he was born it was to be celebrated on no day What reason what sense can justisie such a consequence when the circumstance of time is not considerable towards the end of Festivals which is the service of God but onely as an occasion for the Church to take of assembling Christians Not as among the Jews whose solemnities having dependence upon the Land of promise and the temporal promises thereof if they kept not the due season of the year were indeed abominable Those therefore that would perswade us that there is any fault in solemnizing the remembrance of Christs birth ought first to shew us if they mean any good to our common Christianity that the birth of Christ is not a â—it occasion of assembling Christian people to serve God with the offices of Christianity Which if they should go about they might well blush to remember that having been so zealous to cry up Market days for fit occasions of Gods service wherein there is so much appearance of worldly profit by increase of Trade and commerce of people they should have so litle regard to that consideration upon which all mater of all Christian assemblies depends as not to think it a just occasion of assembling Gods people It is true indeed there hath been some difference in the observation of the Church about the day the VI of January having heretofore been observed in some parts of the Church for the day of Christs birth as well as of his baptism Which probably came from the Gospel saying that our Lord was baptized at thirty years of age Luk. III. 23. and giving thereby occasion to place both upon one and the same day This you shall find in Cassiane Collat. X. 1. And where Ammianus XXI relateth of Juliane that not willing as yet to declare himself Apostate he came forth to Church die Epiphaniorum upon the Epiphany Zonaras reporting the same saith upon the Nativity Not because it was so held and observed in the West but because Zonaras a Greek relates it as the East accounted it And this was the ground for the XII days when the XXV of December prevailed over the East which was lately come to pass in S. Chrysostomes time as it is well known that Scaliger hath observed But what will half-sighted ignorance plead for the great boldnesse which it taketh of innovating in the orders of the Church upon a supposition always conjectural and we acknowledged false by all Chronologers For could ever any man assure but upon probable conjecture that Judas Maccabaeus did begin the service of the Temple rather with the first order then with that at which it left off three years afore which every man remembred But time having since discovered that it was not the true year of Christs birth upon which Scaliger thought he was born so farr is this ignorance from any plea for it self that it may well be a warning to the like boldness to be beter informed before they undertake to reform For now they are to advise how to answer Bucherius the Jesuit who by counting the courses of the Priests from the dedication under fudas to the true year of Christs birth hath found the time of it to fall near the XXV of December from the annunciation of Zachary being of the course of Abia. And the L. Primates late Annals maintain the XXV of December for the true day of our Lords birth delivered by S. Peter to the Church of Rome upon the credit of the records of the Taxes then extant at Rome and alleged by Tertullian Though the same Tradition was not preserved in the Eastern Churches in so much that till S. Chrysostomes time all the Churches agreed not in the day upon which they solemnized it Now if there be so great reason why the Lent Fast should go before the Feast of Easter to prepare all the world to renew the purpose and profession of their Christianity by the exercise of devotion and Penance as well as to prepare those that stood for their Christianity to their Baptism at Easter which was ror many ages the custome of the Church how can it be denied that the solemnity of Advent before the celebration of Christs birth is an order fit to provide the like means and opportunities and advantages for the advancement and improvement of Christianity by the like exercises Nor shall I need further to dispute for the observing of Wednesdays and Fridayes or Saturdays with those that have admitted the premises that the Church may and ought to set asâ—de certain days for the service of God in fasting and Penance for our own unworthinesse as well as in feasâ—ing and rejoycing for Gods goodnesse For â—â—nce our transgressions have their recourse as sure as the remembrance of our Lords rising again is it for the advantage or for the disadvantage of Christianity that the Friday should be observed for the service of God by humbling out selves in the sight of our â—â—nnes as the Lords day for his service by setting forth his praises in the sight of his mercies And seeing the Jews from before our Lords time observed Mundays and Thursdays for their private and publick huâ—â—liations and the moâ—â— solemn days of assembling in their Synagogues as I have showed there And that the Christians have always observed Wednesdays and Frydays to the like purposes It seems to remain certain thereby that the translation of the days is the act of the Apostles seeking those days which were alike distant from the Lords day as those which the Jews observed were from the Sabbath Because no reason will allow that after the time of the Apostles the breach between the Church and the Synagogue being completed Christians should imitate the orders of the Jews and all agree in it It must therefore be concluded that the observation of Wednesdays and Thursdays is from the Apostles Though the fasting upon Saturday which the West observeth come from the custome of the Church of Rome which the rest of the West hath conformed it self to in succeeding ages Of the observation of the Saints memories and the days on which the Martyrs suffered which the ancient Church called their birth-days to wit into a beter world I shall not say much for the reason alleged before Onely this that those who think not so eminent accidents sufficient occasions for the Church to meet upon for the service of God in the
offices of that Christianity which they either died in or for whatsoever they may pretend of their zeal for Christianity cannot pretend towards that Christianity in and for which they either lived or died For to what purpose rendeth that Christianity the seeds whereof were sown in their lives and examples or in their deaths and sufferings but that God may be glorified in the service of his name by those that do study to imitate those paterns thereof which they have set us I deny not that there may come a burthen upon the Church by multiplying the number of Festivall days and that there might be and was reason why it should be abated But never that there is superstition either in the service of God or in the circumstance of it and occasion of celebrating it upon the remembrance of Gods Saints Neither will I say any more for the Fasts of Ember weeks and of the Rogations since I understand not what quarel there can be to the occasions of them in particular if it were agreed that there is due ground for the setting apart of certain times for the service of God whither as Fasts or Festivalls Nor of the Hours of the day or the deputing of them to the service of God whither in publick or in privivate For what wil those that pretend so much to the Scriptures answer to those testimonies of the Old and New Testament whereby I have proved that the people of God did set aside the third sixth and ninth hour of the day for that purpose That the Apostles of our Lord followed the same custome That the Church hath alwayes done the same All this while supposing morning and evening Prayer over and above as brought in by Adam or by Abraham as the Jews will have it whereupon the Christians in S. Cyprianes time as appears by his Book de Oratione had recourse to God five times a day Till afterwards as it is fit that Christianity go beyond Judaism in the service of God the custome being taken up by the more devout whereof S. Cypriane makes mention in the same place of rising by night to praise God according to the Prophet David Psalm CXIX 64. At midnight I will rise to praise thee because of thy righteous Judgements And the evening service requiring some exercise as well at going to bed as in closing the evening which was called the Compline as the complement of the days service the service of God whither publick or private became divided into seven Houres which upon these grounds were very reasonably counted Canonical according to the same Pâ—ophet David Psalm CXIX 164. Seven times a day will I praise thee because of thy righteous Judgements In fine there can no question be made that the Law oâ— regular Hours of the day for Prayer is evidently grounded upon the Scriptures evidently authorized by the practice not onely of the Church but of Gods ancient people And therefore to make the Reformation to consist in abolishing that Law is to make the Reformation to consist in abolishing Gods service And this I think enough to be said in this abridgment seeing I am no further to entâ—â— into debate of the particulars then the justifying of the generall ground requires onely remembring that which I have said already that the obligation is the same whither the particulars may appear to have been established by the Apostles or received into the generall practice of the Church The power of the Apostles supposing the being of Christianity which their work was to preach and extending no further then the setling of it in the community of the Church by the order of Gods service which the alteration of the sâ—ate and condition of the Church must needâ— make changeable as well as that which the whole Church should introduce So that whither the Apostles or the Church authorized by the Apostles have introduced an order within the compass of Gods Law that is the substance of Christianity in the observation whereof the unity of the Church in the service of God which is the end of all order in the Churâ—h consisteth it shall equally oblige every Christian to maintain and cherish it upon the criâ—e of Schisâ— to be incurred in case any breach fall out by violating the same CHAP. XXII The people of God â—ied to build Synagogues though not by the leter of the Law The Church to provide Churches though the Scripture command it not Prescribing the form of Gods publick service is not quenching the Spirit The Psalter is prescribed the Church for Gods Praises The Scriptures prescribed to be read in the Church The Order of reading them to be prescribed by the Church NOw as for the determination of certain places for the service of God I cannot see how there is or can be generally and absolutely any dispute whether or no there ought to be places set apart for that purpose so that all Christians may know where to resort to serve God The mater being so evident to the common reason of all men that to make any scruple about it in regard that there is no precept of God Law for it written either to the Jews in the Old Testament or the Christians in the New were to make a doubt whether God gave his Law to reasonable creatures or not Indeed in the Old Testament there is a Precept for all Gods people to resort to the place where he should chuse to place his name for the offering of their burnt sacrifices and oblations which he thereby makes abominable any where else to be offered But this might have been a colour to have pretended that God had forbidden so fart from requiring all other religious Assemblies of his people or any places to be set apart for that purpose had not his Prophets and the Governors of his people understood from the the beginning the difference between his spiritual and carnall Law answerable to the difference between the Kingdom of Heaven and the Land of promise And that though the ceremoniall service of God in the Temple could not be so parted from his spiritual service that the place to which the one was confined should exclude the other yet the spiritual service of God was to extend to those places from whence his figurative and ceremoniall service stood excluded by the Law It is no marvail then if for a time the acts where of we read in the Books of Josua Judges Ruth and Samuel Sacrifices were offered in the High Places that is in other places deputed to the service of God besides that where the Ark of the Covenant stood Whither we suppose that the choice which God by the Law had intimated that he would make of a place where he intended to settle his service were not executed all the while before the bringing of the Ark to Jerusalem and the building of the Temple there Or whither there was a conditionall purpose of God of setling his service in the Tribe of Ephraim at Shiloh declared
whereby they thought they held their estate whether of this world or the hope they might have of the world to come For my opinion obligeth me not to say that Idolatry was commanded by this law of Jeroboam or practised by all that conformed to it But that though not expresly commanded yet it followed by necessary consequence upon the introducing of the Law Not by consequence of naturall necessity from that which the terms thereof imported but by that necessity which the Schoole calls morall when the common discretion of men that are able to judge in such matters evidences that supposing such a Law it must needs and will come to passe CHAP. XXVI The Place or rather the State of happy and miserable Soules otherwise understood by Gods people before Christs ascension then after it What the Apocalypse what the rest of the Apostles declare Onely Martyrs before Gods Throne Of the sight of God I Come now to the nicest point if I mistake not of all that occasions the present Controversies and divisions of the Western Church the state of soules departed with the profession of Christianity till the day of Judgement The resolution whereof that which remaines concerning the publick service of God the order and circumstances of the same must presuppose This resolution must procede upon supposition of that which the first book hath declared concerning the knowledge of the Resurrection and the world to come under the Old Testament and the reservation and good husbandry in declaring it which is used in the writings of it The consideration whereof mightily commendeth the wisdome and judgment of the ancient Church in proposing the bookes which we call Apocrypha for the instruction of the Ca echumeni or learners of Christianity For these are they in which the Resurrection and the world to come and the happy state of righteous soules after death is plainly and without circumstance first set forth I need not here repeat the seven Maccabees and their mother professing to dy for Gods Law in confidence of Resurrection to the world to come 2 Mac. VII 9 11 23 36. nor the Apostle Ebr. XI 35-38 testifying the same of them and the rest that lived or died in their case But I must not omit the Wisdom of Solomon the subject whereof as I said afore is to commend the Law of God to the Gentiles that in stead of persecuting Gods people they might learn the worship of the onely true God For this he doth by this argument that those who persecute Gods people think there remains no life after this but shall find that the righteous were at rest as soone at they were dead and in the day of judgement shall triumph over their enemies Wisdome II. III. 1-8 V From hence proceeding to show how the wisdome of Gods people derives it selfe from Gods wisdome who so strangely delivered them from the persecutions of Pharaoh and the Egyptians for a warning to those that might undertake the like In particular the Kings of Egypt under whom this was writ and the Jewes most used the Greek The Wisdome of Jesus the sonne of Sirach pretending to lay down those rules of righteous conversation which the study of the Law the off-spring of Gods Wisdome had furnished him with is not so copious in this point though the precepts of inward and spirituall obedience and service of God from the heart which he delivers throughout can by no meanes be parted from the hope of the world to come being grounded upon nothing else And he proposeth it plainly from the beginning when he saith He that feareth God it shall go well with him in the end and at the day of his death he shall be blessed The very additions to Daniel are a bulwarke to the Faith of the Church when it appeares that the happinesse of righteous soules after death is not taken up by any blind tradition among Christians but before Christianity expressed for the sense of Daniels fellows in those words of their hymne O ye spirits and souls of the righteous blesse ye the Lord praise him and magnify him for ever And whatsoever we may make of the second book of Maccabees the antiquity of it will alwayes be evidence that the principall author of it Jason of Cyrene could never have been either so senselesse or so impudent as to impose upon his nation that prayers or sacrifices were used by them in regard of the resurrection if they believed not the being and sense of humane souls after death 2 Mac. XII 43. Proceed we to those passages concerning this point which the Gospell afford us and consider how well they agree herewith I will not here dispute that our Lord intended to relate a thing that really was come to passe but to propose a parable or resemblance of that which might and did come to passe when he said Luke XVI 19 There was a certaine rich man that was clad with fine linnen and purple and made good chear every day But I will presume upon this That no man that meanes not to make a mockery of the Scriptures will indure that our Lord should represent unto us in such terms as we are able to bear that which falls out to righteous and wicked soules after death if there were no such thing as sense and capacity of pleasure and paine in souls departed according to that which they do here I will also propose to consideration the description of the place whereby he represents unto us the different estate of those whom it receiveth And in Hell lifting up his eyes being in torments he sees Abraham from afarre and Lazarus in his bosome And afterwards And besides all this between us and you there is a great gappe fixed so that those who would passe from hence cannot nor may they passe from thence to us For I perceive it is swallowed for Gospell amongst us that Dives being in Hell saw Lazarus in the third heavens Whereas the Scripture saith onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the invisible place of good and bad â—oules For so the processe of the Parable obliges us to understand it Sâ—â—ing it would be somewhat strange to understand that gappe wherewith the place of happy soules is here described to be parted from the place of torments to be the earth and all that is between the third heavens and it The Jewes at this time as we see by the Gospell believing according to the testimonies alleged that righteous soules were in rest and pleasure and happinesse wicked in misery and torments called the place or state of those torments Gehenna from the valley of the sonnes of Hinnom neer Jerusalem where those that of old time sacrificed their children to devils burnt them with fire The horror of which place it appears was taken up for a resemblance fit to represent the torment of the wicked soules after death In like manner Gods people being sensible of Gods mercy in using meanes to bring them back to the ancient inheritance
his Temple and there were lightnings and thunders and flashes and earthquakes and great haile For if opened then then shut afore neither was the Throne seen which the arke of the Covenant signifyeth And Apoc. XIV 17 18. One Angel comes out of the Temple in Heaven with a sharpe sickle another out of the Court where all this appeares hitherto called there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Sanctuary as also Apoc. XI 2. in opposition to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Temple out of which came the seven Angels with the seven viols Apoc. XV. 5. so also XIV 1 17. And you shall see by all this what reason wee have to thinke that those who are described before Gods Throne by this vision are not admitted to see his face And therefore if to know God as we are knowne in S. Paul to see him as he is in S. Iohn be our happinesse there is nothing to show us that it is accomplished before the generall judgement For if S. Iohn when he sayeth we shall know him as he is speakes of the resurrection the same wee must needs think is meant by S. Paul when he sayes we shall see him face to face know him as we are known for S. Paul not expressing whether he speak of the resurrection or of the meane time betweene death and it must needs be limited by S. Iohn speaking of the time when our Lord shall be manifested or when it shall be manifested what wee shal be And therefore though Moses spake with God mouth to mouth though he see him by sight not in a riddle yet is this but the highest degree of propheticall vision which notwithstanding no man shall see Gods face and live and therefore Moses himselfe sees but his back Exod. XXXIII 20-23 And notwithstanding that the Martyrs are before Gods Throne in the third Heaven yet for all this they are but in the inward Court and the Holy of Holies appeared not open to S Iohn but upon occasion of judgements the execution whereof comes from thence where the sentence must be understood to passe So that to knowe God as he is knowne according to S. Paul and to see him as he is according to S. Iohn is that which is reserved for them that shall feast after the resurrection in his presence For seeing S. Iohn sees the Throne of God in vision of Prophesy which the same vision describeth the Martyrs soules in heaven to see It cannot be concluded that the Martyres soules doe see God as he is and know him as they are knowne because they are before Gods Throne or because they see him sitting upon it For Moses also communed with God mouth to mouth that upon his Throne in the Holy of Holies the Arke of the Covenant overshadowed by the Cherubines unto whom God said neverthelesse no man shall see my face and live The Apostle indeed to the Ebrewes XII 23. when he sayes We are come to the assembly and Church of the first borne registred in the heavens and to God the judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect seemes to speak of this meane time For though some would have those sprits of just men made perfect to be the soules of living Christians as when S. Peter saith 1. Peter IV. 19. 20. that our Lord Christ being put to death in the flesh was made alive by the spirit in which departing he preached to the spirits in prison Which is necessarily to be understood of the Gentiles whom the spirit of God in the Apostles won to repentance though the same spirit in Noe could not effect it as it followes yet it seemes more consequent to the rest of the text to understand it here of the souls of Christians made perfect upon their departure hence But if just men made perfect may be understood to signifie no more then Christians because our Lord distinguishing that righteousnesse which the Gospel requireth from that which the Law was content with concludes Be yee therefore perfect as your heavenly father is perfect Mat. VI. 48. Certainely the perfection of Christian soules in the meane time between death and the resurrection cannot be concluded to be such as nothing shall be added to because it is said that they are made perfect The same we have from the Apostle 1 John IV. 17. Herein is love perfected in us that we have confidence in the day of Judgement because as he is so are wee in this world For I beseech you how can there be any thing added to his confidence at the day of judgement who hath received his full reward from the day of his death But Saint Paul 2 Thessalonians I. 6-9 Seing it is just with God to render tribulation to them who afflict you and to you that are afflicted rest with us at the revealing of the Lord Jesus from heaven with his Angels in flaming fire rendering vengeance to them who know not God Who shall indure the punishment of everlasting destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his strength when he cometh to be glorified among his Saints at that day Where you see he referreth as well the rest of them who are afflicted as the punishment of everlasting destruction from before the Lord to the last day of the generall judgment when he cometh to be admired among his Saints Who shall then be as well glorified Christians as the Angels and that in heaven according to the spirituall sense of the Old Testament as upon earth according to the literall sense the Prophet Esay saith that after the destruction of Senacherib The Lord of hosts shall raigne in mount Sion and Jerusalem and be glorified in the sight of his Elders Esay XXIV 23. Here then all those scriptures which referre the torments provided for the devil and his angels unto the generall judgement come in to bear witnesse in the same cause For therefore the words of the sentence bear Go ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels Mat. XXV 41. to wit against that time And S. Paul 1 Cor. VI. 2. know ye not that we shall judge the angels to wit the evil angels And the possessed to our Lord Mat. VIII 29. Art thou come to torment us before the time And the Apostle 2 Pet. II. 4. For if God spared not the angels having sinned but delivered them to be kept for judgement in the dungeon with chaines of darknesse And S. Jude 6. And the angels that kept not their originall but left their own habitation he keeps in everlasting chaines under darknesse to the judgement of the great day For though there can be no reason why the devils having rebelled against God should not taste the fruits of their rebellion immediately as there is a reason to be given why man is not to be judged till he be tried Especially the Parable of Dives and Lazarus showing that wicked souls are in torment upon their departure Yet seeing
him who believes it not so present as in my opinion the ancient Church did believe Both must worship the body and blood of Christ because incarnate and therefore as the body and blood of Christ is inseparable from the consideration of his God-head which every Christian intends to worship And how can then a mans mistake in thinking the elements to be away which indeed are there make him guilty of honouring those creaturs as God which we know if he thought that they were there he must needs take for creatures and therefore could not honour for God I doe believe it hath been said by great Doctors of the Church of Rome that they must needs think themselves flat Idolaters if they could think that the elements are not abolished That showes what confidence they would have the world apprehend that they hold their opinion with But not that the consequence is true unlesse that which I have said be reprovable For what reason can be given why that bodily gesture which professedly signifieth the honour of God tendred to Christ spiritually present in the Eucharist should be Idolatry because the bread and wine are believed to remaine there Which according to their opinion supposing them to be abolished their accidents onely remaining is no idolatry but the worship of our Lord Christ for God In the next place as concerning prayer to Saints I must suppose that the termes of prayer invocation calling upon and whatsoever else we can use are or may be in despite of our hearts equivocal that is we may be constrained unlesse we use that diligence which common discretion counts superfluous to use the same words in signifyng requests made to God and to man Which are not equivocall according to that equivocation which comes by meere chance but by that for which there is a reasonable ground in that eminence which out conceptions and therefore our words which signifie them expresse unto us For all the apprehensions that we have of God all things intelligible coming from things sensiâ—le we can have no proper conceite of Gods excellence and the eminence thereof above his creatures which necessarily appeares to us under attributes common to his creatures removing that imperfection which in them they are joyned with This is the reason why all signes of honour in word or deed may be equivocall when they need not be counted so being joyned with signes either of other words or deeds which may serve to determine the capacity of them Adoration worship respect reverence or howsoever you translate the Latine cultus are of this kind as I said afore Ingressus scenam populum saltator adorat coming upon the stage to dance he adores or worships the people or as an othersaies jactat basia he throwes them kisses He does reverence to the spectators by kissing his hand and saluting them with it So prayer invocation calling upon God is not so proper to God but that whether you will or not every petition to a Prince or a Court of justice is necessarily a prayer and he that makes it invocates or calls upon that Prince or that Court for favour or for justice Now the militant Church necessarily hath communion with the triumphant believing that all those who are departed in Gods Grace are at rest and secure of being parted from him for the future though those who have neglected the content of this world the most for his service and are in the best of those mansions which are provided for them till the day of judgement whom here we call properly Saints injoy the neerest accesse to his presence To dispute whether we are bonnd to honour them or not were to dispute whether we are to be Christians and to believe this or not Whether this honour be Religious or civill nothing but equivocation of words makes disputable and the cause of that equivocation the want of words vulgar use not having provided words properly to signifie conceptions which came not from common sence If we call it Religion it is manifest that all religion is that reverence which the conscience of our obligation to God rendreth If civil the inconvenience is more grosse though lesse dangerous For how can we owe civill respect where there is no relation of members of the same city or Common wealth Plainely their excellence and the relation we have to them being intelligible onely by Christianity must borrowe a name from that which vulgar language attributes to God or to men our superiours I need say nothing in particular of Angels whom if we believe to be Gods ministers imployed instructing his children upon earth we must needs own their honour though the intercourse between us be invisible It were easy to pick up sayings of the Fathers by which religious honour is proper to Christ and others in which that honour that reverence which religion injoines is tendred Saints and Angels And all to be imputed to nothing but want of proper termes for that honour which religion injoyneth in respect of God and that relation which God hath setled betweene the Church militant and triumphant being reasonably called Religious provided that the distance be not confounded between the religious honour of God and that honour of the creature which the religious honour of God injoines being neither civill nor humane but such as a creature is capable of for religions sake and that relation which it setleth I must come to particulars that I may be understood He that could wish that the memories of the Martyrs and other Saints who lived so as to assure the Church they would have beene Martyrs had they been called to it had not beene honoured as it is plaine they were honured by Christians must find in his heart by consequence to wish that Christianity had not prevailed For this honour depending on nothing but the assurance of their happinesse in them that remained alive was that which moved unbelievers to bethinke themselves of the reason they had to be Christians What were then those honours Reverence in preserving the remaines of their bodies and burying them celebrating the remembrance of their agonies every yeare assembling themselves at their monuments making the daies of their death Festivals the places of their buriall Churches building and consecrating Churches to the service of God in remembrance of them I will adde further for the custome seemeth to come from undefiled Christianity burying the remains of their bodies under the stones upon which the Eucharist was celebrated What was there in all this but Christianity That the circumstances of Gods service which no law of God had limited the time the place the occasion of assembling for the service of God alwaies acceptable to God should be determined by such glorious accidents for Christianity as the departure of those who had thus concluded their race What can be so properly counted the raigne of the Saints and Martyrs with Christ which S. Iohn foretelleth Apoc. XX. as this honour when it came to