office either the affaires of Church or State which they are not called to dâ—sturb the order of Gods House and subvert the Discipline thereof and so become unworthy to be counted servants to so wise an Housholder But God is not an Housholder only and no more then so though so translated in my Text The Lord is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lord of the soyle as well as Master of the House the House being such as hath good store of Land and a fair demesne belonging to it Ager est mundus totus non ecclesia The whole World is the Field of God and therefore called Ager suus his Field v. 24. and Ager tuus thy field the servants speaking to their Master v. 27. The Earth is the Lords and the fulness of it the whole World and all that dwell therein as the Royal Psalmist hath it Satan was but a silly braggard when he said to Christ Haec omnia tibi dabo all these will I give thee The Kingdoms of the Earth and the glories of them are of Gods disposing And all the Princes of the World even the Mahometan and Heathen hold their Crowns of God though they do service for them to the Devil The enemy is so far from being Lord in chief of all the Universe that he hath no propriety in the smallest part No Field no not the corner of a Field which he can challenge to himself or say to any of his servants that 's mine own go plough and fallow and manure it and then sowe my seed If he be so inclined at any time as to be sowing of his tares it must be done in agro Domini some part or other of the Lords Field And then he comes but on the post fact neither after the Field was sowen with good seed before For howsoever Heresies may be antiqua yet they are not prima Heresie may be very ancient but never primitive Truth was first sowen though many times it hapneth by the Devils practises that Heresie doth overcome it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wholsom Doctrines had first of all been planted in the Church of Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 other Doctrines as the Apostle calls them 1 Tim. they came in after as the fruits of a latter sowing So much of ille he the relative as it stands marshalled in my Text and what did he Et ait illis He said unto them And it was no small grace to his poor servants that he vouchsafed to look so low as to hold conference with them and admit of parlies in matters which himself alone knew how to remedy But being it was a matter which concerned his Church and in the which the servants did address themselves unto him with so great affection he thought it no disparagement to hearken to their information and return an answer Nor stops he here as if he had done too much for them but he permits them also to propose their counsels vis imus colligimus ea in the words next following and to that also he replies Such conferences between the heavenly Husbandman and his Houshold-servants God and the Prophets Christ and his Disciples are no rare matters in the Scripture Not that God either stood in need of their intelligence or was made wiser by their counsels but leaving thereby an example unto Kings and Princes and such as are in authority from and under them not to despise the information or undervalue the advice of the meanest person how much soever ranked below them both in place and power Such men as are inquisitive in asking questions or prompt in giving their advise in emergent difficulties however they may seem unseasonable yet if they do it on good grounds as the servants here are not to be rejected as unserviceable Certain I am my Housholder conceived it so He neither blames his servants for their curiosity with nolo nimiùm curiosos nor taxeth them of indiscretion in the delivering of their opinions with nolonimiùm diligentes For howsoever to their counsel he returns a non yet he acquaints them fully with those weighty reasons which did incline him thereunto And as unto the unde to the point proposed to that he makes such answer as removed the doubt which is the quid respondet and my second general inimicus homo hoc fecit Where first we must consider who it was that did this mischief and that was inimicus an enemy Dicuntur in Scripturis inimici Dei qui non naturâ sed vitiis ejus imperio adversantur It is a Maxime of St. Austins That those are called Gods enemies in holy Scripture which are not such by nature in their first creation but only by their own corrupt affections His reason is naturam non esse contrariam Deo sed vitium because that nature of it self is not contrariant unto God but subservient rather Sin is the instrument which first made the breach between God Almighty and those who in the Book of God are called his enemies So was it also with the enemy which is mentioned here God made him good though not unchangeably good By nature he created him a living and immaculate spirit inferior unto none but to God himself But he would needs aspire beyond his nature and so as many times it hapneth unto proud usurpers lost both the Crown he aimed at and his own Inheritance For whereas God professeth of the Angels that they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and were by him created to be ministring Spirits Lucifer so the Scriptures call him did not like of that He thought himself a creature of too glorious a composition to be sent on errands or to be ready at command and therefore aimed at higher matters et ero similis Altissimo said the proud Aspirer He must be equall to the Almighty both in place and power This pride and blind ambition cast him out of Heaven and made him of an Angel and a Friend of God to become an enemy an enemy unto the Lord and to all his Saints This is the enemy which I am to speak of the enemy that took such pains to destroy Gods Harvest We met with him before in the 25. but there we found him with his clogge There he is styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inimicus ejus his enemy the enemy of God alone and there we did consider him accordingly To God an enemy ex professo on the ancient quaâ—rel upon the sentence passed against him for his first aspirings To man an enemy no further then he weares Gods Livery and retains unto him and therefore in that place inimicus ejus Gods enemy But here we finde him more at large an enemy or inimicus quispiam some enemy as Beza reads it An enemy to God and to Man Gods Image and the Church Gods Spouse to each of these an enemy in their several places In the first to God to God indeed an enemy but an harmless
this particular of the Author but that it will admit of some exceptions for there were very many Heresies in the primitive times acknowledged and avowed for such in the Church of Rome as viz. of the Gnosticks Nazarenes Ophites Cainites Sethians cum multis aliis mentioned in Epiphanius Austin and Theodoret and many other antient Writers of which it would extremely puzzle Bellarmine and all his followers in that Church to produce the Authors So is it also with the circumstances of time and place in which those heresies began which neither he nor any of the best Philologers in the Church of Rome can assigne precisely but wander up and down in the search thereof as their blinde fancies and conjecture lead them and so the wonder is the more that not being able to assigne the certainty of time and place in publick and notorious Heresies which came in with clamor they should expect the same from us in the detecting of those errors which came in by stealth In their authentick vulgar Latine there are many errors corruptions transpositions barbarismes which are by Cajetan Senensis Oleaster and the English Rhemists ingenuously confessed published Isidore Clarius a Spanish Monke professeth that he found no fewer then 8000 errors some of them very grosse and palpable And should we turn the scale and demand of Bellarmine when in whose time by whose neglect all the said errors and corruptions crept into the Text I trow he would be fain to answer cum dormirent homines that it was done when as the Watchmen were asleep and looked not to the publick safety of the Church of God So for the circumstance of place all that we know or possibly can know at so farre a distance is that these tares were sowen in agro domini not in this part alone or that but in medio tritici even in the middle of the Wheat as well in one place as another Dic quibus in terris were too hard a taste for the best Apollo in the Conclave and we may say Qua terra patet when they ask that question A more particular designation of these two last circumstances in all the points debated between them and us is a thing impossible The Text informs us that these tares were sowen cùm dormirent homines when all the servants were asleep and would you have them give accompt of time and place in matters which were done when they were asleep Such an accompt indeed they might haâ—e given as did the Souldiers in the Gospel of our Saviours body who gave it out and stood to it like brave men of arms that his Disciples came by night and stole it whilst they were asleep A very likely tale I promise you for if they were asleep as they said they were how could they tell that either any body came to steal him or that the Lords Disciples were the men that did it Adeo mendaci rum natura est ut cohaerere non possunt said Lactantius truly Besides those errors which we note in the Church of Rome as they came in privily so they grew up insensibly And first of all they came in privily there being not only many errors but even damnable heresies which came in privily and by stealth as St. Peter tells us There shall arise saith he false Teachers in those dayes that privily shall bring in damnable Heresies sectas perditionis as the Latine reads it The Devil in this point is like the Peacock as he is Angelus in penna and can transform himself into an Angel of light when he thinks it necessary so is he pede latro too a creature of a silent and a theevish gate when he sees occasion It is no easie tracing of him in his private paths Secondly those errors as they came in privily so they grew insensibly like to the finger of a Diall which we finde varied from the place where before it was and yet we do not see it vary for so do private mens opinions if they be but probable gain by degrees we know not how on the affection and good liking of particular persons and after on the approbation of the Church it self till in the end of Paradoxes they became to be counted School-points then taken or mistaken rather for the traditions of the Church and finally received as Articles of the Christian faith The holy Ghost hath said of Christ that he is a Rock Petra autem erat Christus in St. Pauls Epistles and Christ hath told us of the Confession of his faith that it is a Rock super hanc petram in St. Matthews Gospel Now one of those four things which seemed so wonderful and unsearchable in the eyes of Solomon is via serpentis super petram that of a Serpent on a Rock or if you like the Application that of the Devil in subverting the faith of Christ nor is it thus only in the points of faith but in that of Ceremonies which by degrees insensibly and without observation have very much declined and varied in the Church of Rome from what they were in their original institution there being many things ordained of a good intent as one amongst themselves complaineth quae nunc videmus partim in abusum partim in superstitionem verti which are now changed into abuse and altered into superstition But yet the Cardinal stayes not here we must enquire quis eam oppugnaverit what men opposed these new opinions and made head against them at their first appearance or else all is lost A Quere not more capable of resolution than the others were for if the Authors were not known the opinions private and that there is no Constat of the time or place when and wherein the seeds were sowen then certainly to look for an opponent were an excellent folly And it is plain that in the sevit no man saw them they were all asleep in the crevisset no mâ—n knew them they looked so like unto the Wheat but when they came to fructifie to fecissent fructum and that the fruits did yield the least suspicion to the vigilant servants of an ensuing mischief to the Church of God then did God stir up some to take notice of them and to give warning to the rest of the common danger if not tell me what Caveats had been entred in the Churches name by Gregory the Great against the Doctrine of the Popes supremacy by Berengarius against that of the carnall presence by Charles the Great and all his Clergy in the Synod of Frankford against the worshipping of Images by Huldrich B. of Ausburg in defence of the married Clergy by the Waldenses Pauperes de Lugduno Clemanges Petrus de Alliaco Wiclif Hus and others though men that had I grant their own personal errors against the severall corruptions of the Church of Rome both in faith manners Nay if we thought that that would please him we could tell the Cardinall out of Rainerius one of the Popes Inquisitors that there have
hill which shewes it self unto the eye of each beholder We may affirm thereof as doth St. Ambrose of the Sun deficere videtur sed non deficit the light thereof cannot be possibly extinguished although sometimes darkened Opprest sometimes it is as it hath been formerly by errors Heresies and false opinions supprest it cannot be for ever For magna veritas great is the truth and it prevaileth at the last however for a while obscured by mens subtile practises That Heresies shall arise St. Paul hath told us and he hath brought it in with an oportet oportet esse haereses in the Epistle And that there must be scandalls Christ himself hath told us and he hath told it too with a necesse est ut scandala veniant in the holy Gospel The reasons both of the oportâ—t and necesse we shall see hereafter when we shall come to scan those motives which might induce the Lord to permit these tares Sinite utraque crescere usque ad messem v. 30. Mean while it doth concern us to take special notice that as it pleased the Lord to give way to error and suffer sometimes heresies of an higher nature and sometimes false opinions of an inferior quality to take fast footing in his Church yet he did never suffer them to destroy his harvest but brought them at the last to apparuerunt The comfortable beams of truth dispersed and scoured away those Clouds of error wherewith the Church before was darkened and by the light thereof the foulness and deformity of falshood was made more notorious so that from hence two special Queres may be raised first why these tares or errors were so long concealed and secondly how they were at last revealed And first they were concealed as it were of purpose to let the Church take notice of her own condition how careless and how blinde she is in the things of God did not the eye of God watch over her and direct her goings Her carelesness we had before in dormirent homines when as we found her sleeping and regardless of the common enemy that time the tares were in their Sevit and no man would hold up his head to look unto the publick safety Her blindness we may note in this that being left unto her self she could not see them in crevisset when they put forth the leaf and the blade sprung up and that they did begin to spread abroad and justle with the truth for the preeminence If either no false Doctrines had been sowen at all or had they all been noted at the first peeping forth the Church might possibly impute it to her own great watchfulness pleaded some special priviledge of infallibility and so in time have fallen into presumption God therefore left her to her self that falling into sin and error and suffering both to grow upon her by her own remisseness she might ascribe her safety unto God alone whose eyes do neither sleep nor slumber The Church is then in most security when God watcheth over her when he that keepeth Israel hath his eye upon her Gods eye he being â—culus infinitus as the learned Gentile and totus oculus as the learned Father is her best defence Which if it be averted from her she walketh forthwith in darkness and the shadow of death subject to every rising error obnoxious to the practises of her subtile enemies And in this state she stands in this wretched state till he be pleased to shine upon her and blesse her with the light of his holy countenance the beames whereof discover every crooked way and bring them to apparuerunt to the publick view And to apparuerunt all must come every false Doctrine whatsoever there 's no doubt of that for Idem est non esse non apparere No Tenet is erroneous in respect of us till it appear to us to be so and till it doth appear to be so we may mistake it for a truth imbrace it for a tendry of the Catholick Church endeavour to promote it with our best affections and yet conceive our selves to be excusable in that it is amoris error not erroris amor In thâ—s regard our Fathers might be safe in the Church of Rome and may be now triumphant in the Church of Heaven though they believed those Doctrines which were therein taught or possibly maintained them with their best affections The errors of that Church were not then discovered nor brought to their apparuerunt and being taken or mistaken for sound Orthodox Tenets were by them followed and defended in their several stations So that we may affirm of them as once St. Peter of the Jewes novimus quia per ignorantiam fecerint we know that through ignorance they did it or if we know it not so clearly as St. Peter did yet we may charitably hope that it was no otherwise in those particular points and passages wherein we know not any thing unto the contrary He that makes any doubt of this what faith soever he pretends to shewes but little charity and makes no difference between an accidentall and a wilful blindness There are some errors in the Church like some Diseases in the body when they are easie to be cured they are hard to be known when they are easie to be known they are hard to cured but every error disease is of that condition that it must first be known the true quality thereof discovered or else it is impossible to prescribe a remedy But so it is not now with us nor any of our Masters in the Church of Rome as it was anciently with our fore-fathers in and of that Church Those errors which in former times were accounted truths or not accounted of as errors are now in the apparuerunt we see them plainly as they are and by comparing them with Scripture the true rule of faith are able to demonstrate the obliquity of those opinions and false Doctrines which they have thrust upon the Church in these latter ages And we may say of them in Tertullians Language Ipsa Doctrina eorum cum Apostolica comparata ex diversitate contrarietate sua pronunciabit neque Apostoli alicujus essâ— neque Apostolici The difference which appeares between the Doctrines of the Church of Rome delivered in the new Creed of Pope Pius quartus and those which were delivered once unto the Saints in the old Creed of the Apostles shewes plainly that they neither came from the Apostles nor any Apostolical Spirit so that in case we shut our eyes against the sacred beames of truth which now shine upon us or if they so long after the apparuerunt will not see those tares which are discovered to their hands both we and they are all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 utterly uncapable of excuse in the sight of God If any man will be so obstinately wedded to his own opinion as to take up his Lodging in a Pest-house after he hath been made acquainted with the present danger
be true and faithful members of the Church of God whether it be under the Law or under the Gospel shall all be drawn into one Synagogue or Congregation in the day of the Lord and all together with the holy Patriarchs before Moses time shall make up that one glorious Church which is entituled in the Scriptures Universalem Congregationem the general Assembly the Church of the first-born whose names are written in the Heavens We have the word thus used as in other places so in the 24. of St. Matthews Gospel where it is told us of these Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 congregabunt electos that they shall gather the Elect out of every corner of the world i. e. that they shall gather them in sacram Synaxin in sanctam congregationem into an holy Congregation a religious Assembly So that the gathering of the Saints together in the day of Judgement is but a Translation of them from one Church to another or rather from that part of the same one Church which is here militant on the Earth to that which is triumphant in the Heaven of glories The Saints both here and there make but one Communion we praising God for manifesting his great power and Grace on them they praying unto God to send his choycest blessings of grace and mercy upon us The difference is no more then this that here it is exposed to disgrace and ignominy sorrows age have ploughed deep wrinkles on her face too many spots there are in her feasts of charity and sometimes she takes cold in her affections like the Church of Ephesus starting aside from her Redeemer like a broken bow but there shall Christ present her to himself a most glorious Church without spot or wrinkle and marry her to himself for ever Here we have Tares amongst the Wheat more Tares perhaps then Wheat in too many places but there shall be no place in Heaven but for Wheat alone no unclean thing shall enter into the new Hierusalem no Tares into the Barn of the heavenly Husbandman that was provided for the Wheat only and for none but that For so it followeth in the Text Congregate triticum in horreum meum Gather the Wheat into my Barn the place designed by all good Husbands for the disposing of the Wheat their best sort of grain Not in a Barn according to the literal sense we shall have too many Congregations held in Barns if this world go on but according to the mystical meaning In horreum meum into my Barn i. e. as he expounds himself in the 25. in gaudium Domini into the joy of the Lord regnum à constitutione mundi paratum the Kingdom prepared for the righteous from the foundations of the World i. e. as the Apostle tells us in requiem Domini into the rest of the Lord in civitatem Dei viventis the City of the living God So then it is a rest a joy a glorious City an eternall Kingdom and all of these may serve in part to set forth the condition of this heavenly dwelling A rest for them which die in the Lord in which they rest from all their labours And this sit of which St. Paul speaks in the 4th to the Hebrews There remains therefore a rest for the people of God a joy of so divine and sublime a nature that no tongue is able to express it nor heart so large as to conceive it for in his presence is the fulnesse of joy and at his right hand there is pleasure for evermore Et nunquam turbata quies gaudia fiâ—ma A City of pure Gold and as clear as Chrystal the Walls of Jasper-stone and the Gates of Pearl watered with the most pleasant Rivers of the waters of life according as it is described in the Revelation the man of God describing the full glories of the new Hierusalem in such a manner and by such materials as he conceived to be most estimable in the sight of men And finally a Kingdom an eternall Kingdom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Kingdom as it is called by way of excellency in which each true believer shall receive his Crown according to the eminency of his faith and piety a Crown of martyrdom for those who patiently submit themselves to the hands of the persecutors in maintenance of Gods Church and the true Religion a Crown of Virginity for those who subdue concupiscence and give no entertainment to prohibited lusts a Crown of chastity and fidelity for those who have faithfully kept the vow of wedlock and the bed of Marriage undefiled a Crown of charity for those who have exhausted their estates in the works of mercy and the acts of piety in founding Temples for the Lord or Hospitals for relief of the poor and needy and finally a Crown of righteousness for all those who walk unblameably in their Conversation before God and man When all the Monarchs of the Earth have laid down their Scepters at the feet of Christ God shall be still a King of Kings a King to speak the truth of none but Kings Rex Regum Dominus dominantium alwayes but most amply then Never was corn so housed so laid up before Thus as before we brought the Tares the worst sort of weeds unto the fire of condemnation so have we brought the Wheat the best kind of grain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Galen calls it to the barn of glory A grain which as it doth require a ground well tilled and cultivated so lieth it longest buried in the earth of any before it spring into a blade and being sprung into a Blade doth endure much hardness congealed sometimes with snow sometimes nipped with Frost before it grow into a stalk and when the stalk is grown the ear is formed it is exposed to many hazards drencht with unseasonable showres and scorched with as intemperate heats laid flat upon the ground by tempestuous winds some of the grains thereof being scattered by those blasts over all the field before t is brought into the Barn Ecce jam seges cana imbre corrumpitur grandine caeditur as Cecilius noted in the Dialogue And so t is also with the just with the righteous person He doth require much Husbandry great care and Tillage in fitting him to receive the seeds of faith and piety and lyeth long strugling in the womb of regeneration before he doth come forth a spiritual man and is renatus born again advanced unto the state of a man regenerate Multa tulit fecitque puer Much must be suffered and much done before it come to that there 's no question of it Suppose him brought so farre in his way to Heaven as that he hath received the Seal of his regeneration and adoption the testimony of the Spirit that he endeavoureth nothing more then the advancement of Gods glory and increase of piety shall he not be reviled and howted at like the Owl among the wanton birds forsaken by his old acquaintance
sunt ad nihilum as the Latine hath it And when we once come to annihilation there 's no resurrection You see here 's ground enough for a Vigilate and that as well à parte ante to prevent these risings as afterwards à parte post to quiet and appease them when they once are up Both necessary though the first more safe as commonly preventing Physick stirs the humors lesse then when the sickness is confirmed by some long delay And yet though this be ground enough for a vigilate the duty is farre more necessary in reference to the unde whence the danger riseth which is ex vobis ipsis from amongst your selve As long as Christ our Saviour did foretell his followers Exurget gens contra gentem That Nation should rise up against Nation and Kingdom against Kingdom in the latter dayes the matter seemed not very great the World had long been used to the like hostilities and therefore it is said of those warres and troubles that they were initium dolorum the beginnings of sorrows But when it came to this exurgent filii in parentes that Children should rise up against their Parents and Brother should betray his Brother then could not any thing be added to the Churches miseries but the abomination of desolation spoken of by the Prophet Daniel It was not bella per Emathios that made Rome complain she had before advanced her Standards in the field of Macedon with success and honour plus quâ—m civilia was the thing which did all the mischief the cruelty and the unnaturalness of the civill Warres which consumed her forces and at last brought her unto bondage The damage which the Church hath sustained by Wolves hath indeed been great yet not to be compared unto those calamities which she hath drawn upon her self by her own dissentions And this St. Chrystome confesseth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the danger here is greater then it was before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in that it was a civill Warre which is here forespoke of Ex vobis ipsis from your selves from men of holy Church that do partake with you in the same profession and have given up their names to Christ and do wear his Livery Were it not for ex vobis ipsis the danger were not great from exurgent viri The time was when the Kings of the Earth rose up and the Rulers took counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed But what became of them and their machinations He that dwelleth on high laughed them to scorn and the Lord had them in derision bruïsing them with a rod of iron and breaking them in pieces like a Potters Vessel Non posse Romanos nisi suis armis vinci The Church was never overcome but by the Church nor Christ betrayed by any but his own Disciples Our Saviour read his own and the Churches destiny in that general speech inimici hominis sunt domestici ejus that a mans enemies are those of his own house That this hath alwayes been the destiny of the Church of God is St. Cyprians note Inter initia mundi Abel justum non nisi frater occidit c. Abel saith he had none to kill him Jacob none to persecute him nor Joseph any to make sale of him but their Fathers Children Which said he adds how Christ foretold us in that generall Maxime before delivered ipsâ—s qui sacramento unitatis copulati fuerint se ipsos invicem tradituros that those who had been joyned together in the holy Sacraments should betray each other So that as well in this regard as in that of sin we may take up the saying and complaint of the Prophet Esay Perditio tua ex te est Thy destruction is from thy self O House of Israel Ex vobis ipsis from your selves What from the Elders of the Church the Overseers of the flock should men arise from them to pervert the people No question but it was so meant by the Apostle For to the Elders to the Overseers did St. Paul give this charge and direct this Caveat Attendite vobis ipsis universo gregi Take heed unto your selves and to all the flock There have we vobis ipsis vobis ipsis here which makes it manifest and apparent that even from them should men arise speaking perverse things to draw away much people after them The Elders here were Priests there 's no doubt of that Pastors and Teachers of the people Nor is it any miracle that such men as those should have their hands or heads in those publick quarrels wherewith the Church hath been distracted The first disturbance which befel the Church was by certain men which came down from Judaea and taught the people And what did sollow thereupon but disputations and dissentions as the Text informs us and those so great and followed with such heat and violence that the Apostles had no small adoe to compose the business Our Saviour Christ foresaw this mischief and therefore hath repeated no one caution more then Cavete à Pseudoprophetis Beware of false Prophets and of false Apostles For they and such as they as they teach false Doctrines so are they too indulgent to their own affections too easily inclined to foment a party and contribute their utmost to those frequent quarrels which have afflicted and disquieted the Church of God Examples of which I could shew you many both in our dayes and in the dayes which were before us did I conceive the Elders mentioned here were but simply Priests But sure as I shall shew anon the Elders which assembled here were of an higher rank a superior order Bishops or Overseers call them which you will And shall we think that any of the holy Hierarchy could take so little heed unto themselves and to the flock as either openly or covertly to foment a faction and to hunt counter to the Church and her publick Ordinances I would be very loth they should And yet I cannot chuse but tell you that I have met in my small reading with some of them Meletius had his name from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Greek word signifying care but he was not Episcopus sui nominis not a true Meletius for he shewed little care of the Churches peace but his whole designes were to increase his party to draw Disciples after him as dangerous for the time but not of such a long continuance as that of the Novatians before remembred Novatus had no sooner received the Episcopal Order but presently he set himself upon Cornelius his chief Bishop the Patriarch at the least of the Roman prefecture professing a more rigid kind of piety then the Church allowed of making himself the head of a Schismatical faction and drawing many Disciples after him not only in Italy it self but in Greece and Asia But as Novatus was his name so Innovation was to be his business and he plyed it well being the founder of the Cathari as they in some
THE PARABLE OF THE TARES EXPOVNDED APPLYED In TEN SERMONS Preached before his late Majesty KING CHARLES The Second MONARCH of Great BRITAIN By Peter Heylin D. D. To which are added three other Sermons of the same Author LONDON Printed by J. G. for Humphrey Moseley at the Prince's Arms in St. Pauls Church-yard 1659. To his ever Honoured Cousin LAVRENCE BATHVRST Esquire Eldest Son of Sr. Edward Bathurst of Lerhlad in the County of Gloucester KNIGHT and BARRONET IT was the Saying of St. Gregory surnamed the Great that the holy Scripture was nothing else but an Epistle sent from Almighty God to his Creature man by which he might be rightly informed in all those points which were fit or necessary to be known and trained up in the practise of all those duties which were fit and necessary to be done Quid enim est Scriptura sacra nisi epistola Omnipotentis Dei ad creaturam suam as that Father hath it According to which great example though possibly not in reference and relation to it it hath been the custom of men in all times and nations not extremely barbarous when they could not personally expresse their minds to one another to mannage intelligence in the way of Letters of Epistles in which they comprehend all such particulars as were expedient to be known to either party Inventae erant epistolae as Tully tels us ut certiores faceremus absentes si quid esset quod eos scire aut nostrum aut ipsorum interesset And to say truth they are our ordinary Messengers of love and friendship our extraordinary Posts for dispatch of busines◠By them we commonly receive advice counsel in our affairs of greatest moment and to them we commit the close conveyance of such secrets as cannot with like confidence be trusted to friends or servants His arcana notis terra pelagoque feruntur as Ovid's passionate Lady writeth to her dear Hippolitus In which respect considering that God hath placed us at a distance so that I cannot personally acquaint you with some particulars touching the publishing of these Sermons which I think fit for you to know that you may make them known to others I am compelled in a manner to expresse them in this present Epistle In which I shall first present you with those impulsives which have induced me contrary to my former custom and resolutions to commit these Sermons to the Press and then to let you know the reason why I have made choice of your name in this Dedication And first I must needs say and I may say it very truly that I never did any thing in this kind of which I found my self more obliged to render a just account then of the publishing the ensuing Sermons which seems like the adding of fresh leavs to a well grown tree in the midst of Sommer of stars to a cleer firmament in a Winter night or finally of water to a full and unfathomed Ocean and you may justly say to me in the Poets words Quid folia Arboribus quid pleno sidera Coelo In Freta collectas alta quid addis aquas That is to say Why dost thou adde fresh leaves unto the Trees Stars to the Heavens or Water to the Seas In answer to which objection I can neither plead the importunity of friends the command of superiors nor the preventing of false Copies from being brought unto the Press which I observe to be the common pretences for printing Sermon upon Sermon most of the which without any sensible losse to Learning or disadvantage to the Church might have been buried in the Studies of them that made them And yet I would not have it thought but that I have some reason for what I do more then the vulgar desire of being in print there having been so much of mine on the Press already as might have satisfied the folly of that desire were I guilty of it and therefore I shall let you know and in you all others who shall read them thas these Sermons are now published on the same occasion on which they were first penned and preached which was briefly this It was about the Year 1636. in which the Press began to swarm with libellous and seditious Pamphlets destructive of the publick peace and tending to a manifest desertion of the received Government and Formes of Worship by Law established in this Kingdom In most of which the Bishops generally were accused for having a design to bring in Popery the regular Clergie of this Church my self more frequently then any of my ranck and quality traduced and defamed for subservient instruments I had before and sometimes after been cast upon the managing of some of the puritan Controversies as they then called them particularly in writing the History of the Sabbath the Answer to the seditious Sermon and Apologie of Mr. H. B. of Friday-street the book entituled A Coal from the Altar the defence thereof called Antidotum Lincolniense touching the ancient most convenient scituation of the holy Table which so exasperated the spirits of those bitter men who then disturbed both Ch. and State with their venemous libels that hardly any of that numerous litter had crept into the world in which I was not openly accused of Popery or at the least of being an Under-factor unto those who had the chief managing of that design For the decrying of which scandal so unjustly raised for actū est de homine ubi actum est de nomine as the old rule was I fell upon a resolution of preaching these ensuing Sermons before the King whose Chaplain for Ordinary I then was and had been many years before upon the Parable of the Tares and giving in them such an assurance of my Orthodoxie in Religion and averseness from Popery as might declare me for a true son of the Church of England And this I did at such a time when the inclinations unto Popery were thought but falsly thought to be most predominant both in Court and Clergy a course which gave such satisfaction unto a great part of the auditors who before did seem to be otherwise perswaded of me that some of the more moderate sort did not stick to say not to touch here on some comparative expressions which were used by others that in the third and fourth of these Sermons I had pulled up Popery by the very roots and subverted the foundations of it Not much unlike to which was the expression of a great Peer of the Realm who being present at the sixth Sermon was pleased to say that it was generally affirmed in the Country that no Sermons were preached before the King but such as might be preached in the Popes Chapel but that if the Doctor had preached the said Sermon before the Pope what breakfast soever he had made for himself he would have found but a sorry dinner This as it was the occasion which moved me at that time to make choice of this parable for the
constant argument of my Sermons before the King so on the like occasion I am now induced I may not unfitly say compelled to make them publick unto others For notwithstanding that I have so fully declared my self against the errors and corruptions of the Church of Rome in my late Comment on the Creed yet on a sudden whither I will or no I must be a Papist a Jesuit or some Agent for the See of Rome suspected at the least for such by Dr. Bernard and as he tells us by others for which consult the book entituled The Judgement of the late Lord Primate c. pa. 115. The author of the History of the Life and Reign of King Charles ecchoeth the words of Dr. Bernard which like an Eccho he reiterateth vocesquè refert iteratque quod audit as it is in ovid in his scurrilous pamphlet called the Post-Hast Reply c. It was accounted for a prudent part in Sophocles as indeed it was when he was once accused of madness to produce one of his Tragedies then newly written to read the same before the people of Athens and then to ask his Judges Num illud carmen videretur esse hominis delirantis whether they thought it like to be the work of a man distracted And I hope it will be counted no imprudence in me being again accused of popery or at the least suspected of it to commit these Sermons to the Press to offer them to the reading of the people of Engl. then to put this question to them Whether they think such Sermons could proceed from the pen of a Papist som Jesuit or Agent for the See of Rom Adde hereunto that finding it wondred at in print that so many of my books do so little concern my profession though I know none that do so little concern the same as the Pamphlets hath it I hope the printing of these Sermons will take off the wonder that they will be looked upon as in which my profession is concerned Such being the reason of bringing these Sermons to the publick view I shall observe in the next place with what injustice the Court-Chaplains have been accused for flatterie and time serving for preaching up the Kings prerogative and derogating from the property and liberty of the English subject in which if one or two were faulty it stands not with the rules of Justice and much less of Equity that for the fault of one or two unius ob culpam furias in the Poets words a general blemish should be laid on all the rest Certain I am no flatterie or time-serving no preaching up the Kings prerogative or derogating from the propertie of the English subjects will be found in these Sermons nor could be found in any other of mine had they been sifted to the bran In confidence whereof when some exceptions had been made against some passages in one of my Sermons preached at VVestminster by a mistake of some that heard it I offered the Committee for the Courts of Justice before whom that exception had been started to put into their hands all the Sermons which I had either preached at Court or in Westminster Abbie to the end that they might see how free and innocent I was from broching any such new Doctrines as might not be good Parliament-proof when soever they should come to be examined and had they took me at my offer certain I am it might have redounded very much to the clearing of my reputation in the sight of those Gentlemen and nothing to my hurt or disadvantage at all In the digestion of these Sermons I made it my chief care rather to inform the understanding then to work on the affections of them that heard me For having for seven or eight years before felt the pulse of the Court and finding that many about the King were not well principled in the constitution of the Church of England and thereby gave occasion to others to think as sinisterly of it as they did themselves I thought that course most fit to be followed in my preaching which was like to be most profitable to them that heard me for the Understanding being well informed and the Judgement of men well setled on so sure a bottom I doubted not but that their affections would be guided by the light of their Understanding and bring them to be all of one mind and of one soul like the Christians in Acts 4. 32. Voluntas sequitur intellectum is a maxime of undoubted truth in the schools of Philosophie and holds good in all the practical duties which concern Religion Which way of preaching had it been more generally followed as it might have been I think it probable enough that we might better have kept the unity of the spirit in the bond â—f peace then by striving to stir up the affections with little or no improvement to the understanding Knowledg without Zeal may be resembled to a candle carried in a Dark-lanthorn or hid under a bushel which wasts it self without giving light to others and is uuprofitably consumed without any benefit to the publick but on the other side zeal without knowledg or not according to knowledg may be compared unto the meteor which the Philosophers call an Ignis Fatuus which for the most part leads men out of the way and sometimes draws them on to dangerous precipices or to a brush-Bavine-faggot in a Country Cottage more apt to fire the house then to warm the chimney So much being said as to the Motives which induc'd me to print these Sermons upon the parable of the Tares and to my handling and accomodating that Parable to the use of the Church as then it stood established by the Laws of the Land I am in the next place to let you know the reason why I have made choice of you name in this Dedication And herein I can make as little use of those common aims which are so frequent in Dedications of this nature that is to say protection profit or preferment as I did before of those common pretences which are so frequently alledged for publishing many of those books which without any loss to Learning or disadvantage to the Ch. as before was said might have been reprieved from the Press Protection I expect none from you in these perilous times in which without a prudent care of your life and actions you will be hardly able to protect your self nor is this dedication made in the way of gratitude for any benefit or profit formerly received from you in which respect I dedicated my book called Ecclesia Vindicata to my kind and honoured Schoolmaster Mr. Edward Davies or out of any covetous hopes of being gratified by you with any profit or preferment in the Church for time to come of which if I were capable I might by the same capability return again unto my own and being made uncapable can receive none from you or from any other though my present condition be
progeny The Devil sowed in man the first seeds of Lust and lust conceiving brought forth sin God had no hand therein at all more then in executing justice for the sinne committed and imposing death upon the sinner Therefore let no man say when he is tempted I was tempted of God for God cannot be tempted with evill neither tempteth he any man but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed So the Apostle hath resolved it And well it is that it is so resolved by the Apostle otherwise one might happily have met with some who not considering that whatsoever God made was good and that the Seed he soweth is also good would take upon them to make him guilty of all the sinne and mischief which lewd men commit Florinus taught so once in the primitive times one of the Scholars of Montanus and the Cataphrygians Thereupon Irenaeus published a Discourse with this Inscription 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that God was not the Authour of sinne And he gave this Inscription to it as the Story tells us because Florinus with great violence and earnestnesse had taught the contrary opinion It seemes Florinus was an Heretick of no common aimes and would not satisfie himself with these vulgar follies which had been taken up before him but was resolved ponere os in coelum to strike at Heaven and plant his battery against the very Throne of Almighty God And therefore it is said of him by Irenaeus that he had spread abroad those blasphemous tenets which never any of the former Hereticks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had once dared to broach Yet bold and venturous though he were we do not finde that he became the head of any faction in the Church or that his followers if he had any ever attained unto the height of their Masters impudence Some therefore of the ensuing Hereticks who in their hearts had entertained the same opinions did in their writings recommend them to the world in a different habit for they had cloaked and clothed this blasphemy with the more plausible and specious titles of destiny and of the Starres the most inevitable decrees of the one and unresistible influence of the other necessitating men unto those foule actions which they had committed Thus are we told of Bardesanes Quòd fato conversationes hominum ascriberet that he ascribed all things to the power of fate And thus it is affirmed of Priscillianus fatalibus astris homines alligaâ—os esse that men were governed by the Starres which last St. Austin hath affirmed also of one Colarbas save that he gave this power and influence to the Planets only But these if pondered as they ought differ but little if at all from the impiety of Florinus before remembred only they were expressed and published in a better Language and seemed to savour somewhat of the Philosopher for if the Lord had passed such an unevitable and irreversible Law of Fate that these and these men should be guilty of those foul transgressions which they so frequently committed it were all one in the true sense and meaning of it as if he were proclaimed the Author of those sins which they had committed and then why might not every man take unto himself the excuse and plea of Agamemnon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was not I that did it but the Gods and Destiny or if the Lord had given so irrefistible a power unto the Starres as to inforce men to be wickedly and lewdly given what differs this from making God the Author of those vicious actions to which by them we are inforced and then why might not every man return his sins upon the Lord and say as did some such in St. Austines time accusandum potiùs authorem syderum quà m commissorem scelerum which granted we might passe an Index Expurgatorius on the holy Creed and quite raze out the 7th Article that viz. of our Saviours comming unto judgement for how could God condemn his creatures to unquenchable flames in case the sins by them committed were not so properly and truly theirs as his in them or punish them for that whereof he is Author or unto which he doth inforce them So excellently true is that which Fulgentius tells us Deus non est eorum ultor quorum est autor But were Florinus and those other Hereticks in the former times the only men that broached these Doctrines and have these latter dayes think we been free from so great impiety certainly I could wish they were though I dare not hope it finding the same blasphemous follies charged upon the Libertines a late brood of Sectaries These taught as did Florinus in the dayes of old Quicquid ego et tu facimus Deus efficit nam in nobis est and so made God the Author of those wicked actions which themselves committed The founders of the Sect Coppinus and Quintinus Flemmings both and these Prateolus affirms for certain to be the Progenie of Calvin and other leading men of the Protestant Churches Bellarmine somewhat more remissely Omnino probabile esteos ex Calvinianis promanasse and makes it only probable that it might be so but neither rightly for Staphylus reckoning up the Sects that sprung from Luther however that in other things he flies out too farre yet makes no mention of these fellows Paraus on the other side in his corrections on the Cardinal assures us that they both were Papists acquaints us with the place of their nativity and the proceedings had against them Calvin who writ a tract against them makes one Franciscus Poquinus a Franciscan Frier a principal stickler in the cause And we may adde ex abundanti that the said Sect did take beginning Anno 529. when Calvin yet was very young and of no credit in the world no not amongst those very men who have since admired him and made his word the touchstone of all Orthodox Doctrine So that for the reviving of this Heresie in these latter Ages so farre forth as it is delivered positively and in expresse termes which was the blasphemy of Florinus we are beholding for it to the Church of Rome or some that had been members of it how willingly soever they would charge it on the Protestant Doctors Yet true it is for magna veritas praevalebit that some and those of no small name in these forraign Churches which think themselves a pattern unto all the rest have given too just a ground for so great a scandall And well it were they had observed that caution in their publick writings which Caesar looked for from his Wife and that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they had been as free from the suspicion as the crime it selfe for howsoever they affirm it not in termes exprest which was the desperate boldness of Florinus yet can it hardly be denyed that they came too near it to a tantamont by way of necessary consequence and
been quite wanting to his Church The Arians grown so insolent that they made open profession of their Heresie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if they had been authorized and licensed to it The Macedonians so presumptuous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that they were formed into a Church and had a titulary Bishop of their own Sect. The Apollinarians held theâ—r Conventicles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with as much safety and esteem as the Orthodox Christians And for Eunomius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the bosom-mischief of those times he thought so poorly of a general connivence that at last nothing would content him but to have all men else to be his Disciples Of all which scandalls and disorders the said Nectarius then being Patriarch of Constantinople the greatest Prelate of the East is there affirmed to be the cause A man as the Historian saith of him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of an exceeding faire and plausible demeanor and very gracious with the people one that chose rather as it seemes to give free way to all mens fancies and suffer every mans proceedings then draw upon himself the envy of a stubborn Clergy and a factious multitude A pregnant evidence that possibly there cannot be a greater mischief in a Christian Church then a popular Prelate If so if by the negligence connivence of one man alone so great a spoil was made in the Church of God how busie think we was the enemy in sowing tares when as this negligence was epidemical and in a manner universal over the people The second kind of sleep which did invade the Church of God was the sleep of ignorance a sleep of such a generall latitude that neither Priest nor people were able to hold up or to look abroad The Priests lips destitute of knowledge the people so regardless that they did not seek it both so defective in their duties that at the last the Priest like those in Irenaeus veritatis ignorantiam cognitionem vocant taught that the safest knowledge was to know nothing and as they preached even so the people did believe if not tell me who can what was become of the gift of tongues is it not noted to our hands Quòd Graecè nosse suspectum foret Hebraicè propè haereticum that it was Heresie almost to be seen in Hebrew and a misprision of Heresie to be skilled in Greek And for the Latine the Books still extant of those times will inform us easily that there was nothing left of it no not the words Or of the Arts doth not Sabellicus complain how totally they were forgotten in the middle Ages Quanta bonarum artium per id tempus oblivio invaluerit Or of the Lawes do we not read how they were buried in a manner with the great Emperour their Collector till in the latter dayes Lotharius Emperour of Germany found an old Copy of them at Amalphi in the Realm of Naples Or of the Scriptures was not the Book sealed up for many Ages and had not worldly policy so farre prevailed above true piety that it was made unlawful if not capitall to look into it Nor was this ignorance only in the people but as the Prophet said in another case Aâ— is the people such was the Priest and as the Priest was such were the people nay even the Cardinal complaineth of an infelix seculum an unhappy age in which was neither famous Scholar nor Pope that cared much how Religion went which being so Divinity it self and all the Arts and helps unto it layed to so long and dead a sleep no question but the enemy was exceeding diligent both in the ripening of his old tares and in sowing new There is a kinde of sleep yet left as hurtful â—o the Church as the other two the sleep of sensuality and of immoderate ease and pleasures a sleep like that described in the sixth of Amos They lie saith he upon benches of Ivory and stretch themselves upon their couches they carouse wine in bowles and anoint themselves with the chief oyntments Did not the Prophet think you reflect a little on the last Ages of the Church or may not his description with good reason be applyed unto them if not why did St. Bernard in a pious anger upbraid the Clergy of those times with their Stage-like gestures their meretricious neatness their pompous habits and retinue Incedunt nitidi ornati circumamicti varietatibus more like saith he unto a spruce and Court-like Bridegroom then the severe Guardians of the Spouse of Christ Could it be thought that men so neat and complete as those drowned in effeminacy and ease and surfeited with too much fullnesse would leave the pleasures of the world to minde the business of the Church or shake away their pleasant slumbers to entertain so sowre a Mistress as the perplexities of learning and the severities of Discipline Nunquam putabam fore I never thought said Cicero that such a curious youth as Caesar one that so smoothly comb'd his hair and rnbbed his head with his fore-finger would either have the happiness or the heart to vanquish Pompey Though Tully was deceived in the event of that great action yet his conjecture had good grounds And we may well apply it to them that sure such men as in those dayes had the sole managing of the Church when as these tares were sowen and had brought forth fruit were never like to crosse the enemy in that purpose or disappoint him of his hopes or overcome him at the last in the main encounter not that the Priests and Prelates were all such without exception for the worst times have brought forth brave and vertuous men and such as stand upon record for their eminent piety but that they were thus for the most part 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus have I shewn unto you three several kindes of sleep which had not only seized the people but also had surprized the Watchmen and made blinde the seers and laid up the Guardians and hard it is to say which of the three gave most increase to the Devils Harvest The Pastors careless of their duties aimed at this especially that they themselves might live in peace and die if possible in the generall love and good opinion of their people Here were the tares first sowen and neither noted in the seed nor in the blade for either the opinion taken up was but the fancy of some few eminent like enough in point of learning or some such innovation in the Churches orders as seemed not in it self to violate the sacred truth or threaten any present danger to the common quiet And then what was it but a vain and faulty curiosity either to quarrel with a man so much renowned in point of knowledge or to enquire into their meaning and intentions who loved the Lord too well to disturb his Church By which connivence this plausible and popular beheaviour of the Watchmen the enemy first entred upon Gods
inheritance and having sowen his tares departed went away in good assurance of success Afterwards when this negligence was lulled into an ignorance the tares were grown into a stalk and began to sprout but who was able to discern them Bellarmine counts it an especial happiness in those dayes of darkness ut nullae novae surgerent haereses that there arose not in the Church any upstart Heresie And why so great an happiness but because that wretched Age neither afforded learned Scholar to confute them nor publick Councel to condemn them How much more happy had it been had not those seeds of error which were sowen before then took advantage to spring up had not the darkness been so great like that of Egypt that one scarce saw another neither rose any from his seat to look unto the publick safety But in the end when as the Priest and Prelate became luxurious and wanton stretched on their beds of case and lulled asleep with too much plenty then came the tares to bring forth fruit and to appear in their own likeness yet was there then lesse hope then ever Did those that dwelt upon the Nile and were accustomed to the noise ever observe the fall and roaring of the waters Or grant we that they saw these tares and took notice of them shall we conceive that men so drowned in ease and pleasure would undertake a restitution of the ancient Discipline Was any thing more odious to the Court of Rome then the attempts that some of the more pious Popes had made of a Reformation rather like the Amyclae an Italian people they passed a Law Ne quis de hostium adventu famam spargeret that no man should presume from that time forwards to give them notice of these tares or of the neer approach of the common enemy Nay at the last this Bastards Reign shall be legitimated by the Common-Councel proclaimed to be good seed of the Lords own sowing and then what man is he that dare call them tares In which so long a night of several and distracted sleepes in what a wretched state had the Church been think we had not the Lord awakened some to have a care unto his field and to take notice of these tares Once the affaires of Rome were brought unto so low an ebbe that there was nothing of the City left them but the very Capitoll and that too in a possibility to have been surprized ni anseres Diis dormientibus vigilassent had not their Geese been better to them then their Gods Hus as my Books inform me in the Bohemian Language of which Land he was doth signifie a Goose had not this Hus this Goose and such men as he Hâ—erome of Prague Wâ—clif and Luther and the rest though men which had I grant their own several errors discovered by their noyse and cackling the neere approches of the enemy and so awakened all the World out of that dull security in the which it was how easie had it been for Satan to have gained the Capitoll yea to have rooted all the Wheat out of the field of our Redeemer But at the last the World awakened and being throughly awakened some discerned those tares which had so long been sowen by this subtile enemy and having once discerned them took a speedy order in many places of Gods field to weed them out a thing of great offence to the Court of Rome which took it very ill to be so awakened and startled from their pleasant slumbers Marvel it is that like unto the sensual Sibarites their Italian Neighbours too they banished not all cocks the verge and territory of their Church ut mollùs viz. cubarent nulloque illorum strepitu interpellarentur for fear their sleepes should be disturbed and themselves called on to repentance For our parts as we are a parcel of this common field it cannot be denied by our greatest adversaries that from the sleep of ignorance and sensuality we have been very well awakened and we begin to be awakened also from the sleep of negligence And certainly it is high time that it should be so standing besieged as we do by two several enemies both labouring to subvert our Church and to advance their own in the ruines of it For to speak truth the present quality of our Church may with most fitness be resembled unto that of the Primitive times when both the powerful Arians and the popular Donatists were both at once in Arms against it or if we will we may compare it no lesse fitly to the State of Rome during the second Punick Warre We have the Macedonians upon all the skirts and quarters of our Empire calling to minde the Reputation of their Ancestors the great Dominion they have lost and watching all advantages to enlarge their border And there is Annibal ad portas a neerer enemy at hand at our very Gates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Father called Eunomius a bosom Traytor which grindeth upon our very entrails like Prometheus vulture One side assailes openly and profess their enmity and by a signe distinctive as they please to call it give us to understand that they are but tares These like the wild Bore in the Psalms endeavour in a publick way to destroy our Vineyard Secretior Pompeius Caesare non melior The other a more close and secret enemy doth not so much assault the Church as undermine it but they aim both of them at the same mark the subjugating of the Church and the chief Soveraignty of the State and have the same end of their journey although they travel diverse wayes Is this a time think we to sleep and slumber and stretch our hands in negligence and a carelesse sloth Did ever any Mariner permit his eyes to sleep or eye-lids to slumber sailing betwixt Sylla and Charibdis Or can we think the Romans looked not then about them assailed at once by Greece and Carthage or that the primitive Christians stood not on their Guard when both the subtile Arian and Saint-seeming Donatist did oppose her Doctrine Assuredly when men are compassed round with dangers and that they have not only forraign but domestick enemies they have good reason to be watchfull Thus as we see our dangers are alike on both sides though we perhaps are not alike or equally affected in apprehension of those dangers On the one side we think there never can be watch enough that all those Lawes and Proclamations which are out against them are not sufficient to secure us and dispossess us of our feares And now that his most sacred Majesty hath given new life unto those Lawes and by his royall Edict declared his pleasure that no man shall presume hereafter to practise on his weak and unsetled subjects for the reduction of them unto the superstition of the Church of Rome we think as true indeed it is that he hath shewn his zeal to the House of God and that we cannot magnifie him as we ought to do But
And yet I would not be mistaken as if I thought there were no Heresie to be found in the Church of Rome or that their errors which they teach were neither positively dangerous in themselves nor possibly pernicious and destructive to them that hold them without true repentance That which was first an error only when first taken up in them that taught it may by an obstinate pertinacy become an Heresie in them that hold it It s true that every deviation from the truth or opposition made against it doth not denominate an Heretick nor doth the voluntary taking up of a false opinion create such mischief to the Church as the unwillingness to lay it down Were it not for pertinaciter defensa sponte electa would beare no great stroke in the definition of an Heresie This was the case between St. Cyprian and the Donatists S. Cyprian and some other holy Bishops of the African Churches conceived rebaptization to be necessary in some certain cases but modestly and with submission to the Church of God determining according to his word in Scripture The Donatists maintained the same opinion but they did it obstinately refused to hearken to the Church or to admit of any Judges but themselves to decide the controversie The error was the same in both the Doctrine false alike in both and yet the Donatists stand branded for it by the name of Hereticks whereas St. Cyprian and his Associates are accounted Catholicks Why so because of pertinaciter defensa because the Donatist maintained it with so great perverseness that there was no reclaiming of him to the sound Doctrines of the Church And this is that which Lerinensis speaks of with such admiration O mira rerum conversio Authores opinionis Catholici sectatores haeretici judicantur absolvuntur magistri condemnantur discipuli This also is the case of the Church of Rome the enemy had sowen his tares in agro domini and they sprung up in medio tritici When they were sowen they were not noted and having taken root and put forth the blade they looked so like the wheat with so fair a shew that very few if at all any did suspect them And so long these of Rome were in the same condition and estate with the African Prelates either their ignorance or inadvertency might have salv'd the sore but when the fruit discover'd them to be tares indeed and that they notwithstanding would defend and countenance them proclaim them to be wheat of the Lords own sowing sell them for such to simple people in the open markets and make them eat as one may say their own damnation then fell they into the condition of the desperate Donatist and that which was an error only in the first broachers of the Doctrine is in them made Heresie And here I may repeat that of Lirinensis Authores opinionis Catholici sectatores haeretici They which first set on foot the opinion whatsoever they were might have no ill intention in it conceiving that which they delivered not to be contrary to the Churches tendries though perhaps besides them And so it might be with them also which took them upon trust and assented to them not having meanes or opportunity to come unto the knowledge of the truth in those particulars But so it is not with our Masters in the Church of Rome who have not only means to know them and opportunity to consider of the fruit they bear but having been informed of that long mistake in which their Predecessors lived and of the dangers which those tares do threaten to the Church of God do obstinately shut their eyes against the sacred light of truth and will not see the beames thereof shine they never so brightly In which estate if they continue wilful without true repentance let them take heed lest that befall them which my Authour speaks of Absolvuntur magistri condemnantur discipuli and so I leave them to Gods mercy with them the first point of this Discourse viz. the kind or nature of the Doctr. which are here intended proceeding hence unto the 2d the difficulty to discern them in the seed or blade until they came to bring forth fruit to fecissent fructum Nil magis curant quà m occultare quod praedicant Tertullian notes it of the Valentinians that they did use to hide their tenets and conceal their Doctrines A Lesson taught them by their sire the Devil who when he had a purpose to destroy Gods Harvest not only did it at a time when the servants slept and in so quick a manner that he was not noted but sowed Gods field with such a seed as could not easily be discerned from the wheat it self until the very fruits proclaimed it In all his other projects to subvert the Gospel the Watchmen of the Church so traced him and kept so vigilant an eye upon him that all his machinations were detected and his hopes made frustrate he is resolved to cheat the very Watchmen and therefore sets on foot such Doctrines in which was no apparent danger and much lesse any visible impiety that whilest the Watchmen let them passe neither examining from whence they came nor to what they tended he might by them effect his purpose with the greater safety and by degrees endanger and subvert Religion And certainly it is no marvel that they should passe without discovery and prevail so farre considering how closely the design was carried how little noyse it made abroad and by what leisure and degrees it did gather strength For howsoever it be true which the Cardinall tells us that in omni insigni mutatione religionis in every notable change and alteration of Religion a man may easily discern both the change it self and all the circumstances that pertain unto it yet in the sowing of these tares it was not so We neither know the Authors time or place by whom when where the said false tenets were first broached nor finde we any that opposed them at their rising up or whether any did take notice of them when the blade sprung up And yet it is most manifest that such tares there were and that they had almost corrupted and destroyed the wheat before the servants had espied them The Cardinalls Rule holds good in all sudden changes which are made publickly and professedly and all at once in publick and notorious Heresies which come in with violence and aim at the foundation of the House of God And any man of common reading can tell as well as he when and by whom and where the Macedonian Arian Valentinian Heresies or any of the rest of so high a nature did at first begin but between those and these in the body mystical the difference is as great and signall as between open Arms and Clandestine conspiracy in the body politique whereof that may be easily discerned this not or an outragious burning Feaver and a dull Consumption in the body naturall of which that comes with fury this
however we in charity may say Lord have mercy upon him yet he hath reason to believe that God in justice will inflict that judgement on him which usually doth befall those men which do wilfully and perversly tempt the Lord their God Nor was it only necessary in regard of us of private and particular men that the tares should come to their Epiphanie their apparuerunt God did it most especially for his Churches sake whom he had promised to conduct in the wayes of truth and to be with her alwayes to the end of the world The tare is in it self as the Poet calls it infelix lolium a wretched and unlucky weed and frugum pestis the bane and plague of other grains as the learned Herbalist And of the mischief which it brings to Gods holy Husbandry either by eating up the wheat the Lords own good seed or over-running all the field in the which it growes I have at large discoursed already Suffice it that the Devil sowed them with a devillish purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that so he might destroy the labour of the Heavenly Husbandman And doubt we not but that he had in fine effected his malicious ends had not God brought them in due time to apparuerunt had he not made a plain discovery of their noxious nature and called upon his servants to take notice of them We may conceive what reputation they had gained by a longer sufferance how ill it would have gone with the Church of God in the attempt of reformation in that being so long since detected and brought to their apparuerunt so many in the world are not yet perswaded that there was any thing in point of Doctrine fit to be reformed It is with errors now as with temples anciently the more antiquity they have the greater sanctity Tantumque sanctitatis tribuerunt quantum vetustatis as Minutius Felix God therefore took his time to detect these errors and to give notice to the world that they were but tares before they could prescribe to truth or challenge such an interest in antiquity as was not possible to be disproved And this the Lord did partly for his own sake too that so he might acquit himself of those gracious promises which he had made unto his Churches and by that meanes became her debtor He promised to be with her alwayes and therefore could not possibly forsake her in her greatest need He promised to conduct her in the wayes of truth and therefore could not leave her as a prey to error He promised that the gates of Hell should not prevail against her and therefore could not give her over to the snares of Satan God never doth forsake his Church though he sometimes leaves her to her self for her further trial nor turn away his face though he look aside for her correction and chastisement for should he utterly desert it and leave it as a prey unto sin and error the Church indeed were in a very sory taking but in the mean time where were all Gods promises Might not the enemy rejoyce and advance his head and say that either God did not see his practises or was not able to prevent them that he was only rich in promises promissis dives but when it came to the performance then Quid dignum tanto And might not his most trusty servants have complained with David Ut quid Deus repulisti in finem O God wherefore art thou absent from us so long we see not our tokens there is not one Prophet more no not one is there among us that understandeth any more This the Lord heard but would not suffer And therefore when he had made trial of his Church and let her see her own infirmities he brought those errors and false Doctrines which did seem to threaten it to their apparuerunt to the open light And of false Doctrines many are of that condition that being once discovered they are soon confuted majorque aliquanto labor est invenire quà m vincere How this was done and when we must next consider which for the time thereof was tunc and for the manner of it in fecissent fructum my next particular and next in order to be handled Rectum est sui index obliqui There is no better way to discern any thing that 's crooked then by laying it to a right line or to discover errors and erroneous Tenets then to compare them with the truth Truth doth not only justifie it self but by the light thereof we are made more able then before to judge of falshood And howsoever many false opinions have passed and still may passe for currant in the conceit of those which have took them up yet by comparing them with Scripture which is truth it self or with the Catholique tendries of Gods holy Church the best Expositor of Scripture their folly and their falshood will at once appear Thus was it with the tares in the present Parable They seemed so lovely to the eye in the blade or stalk that few were able to discern them Most took them to be Wheat of the Lords own sowing a very excellent piece of Wheat and such as might have recompenced the labour of the heavenly Husbandman but when they came unto fecissent fructum when both the Wheat and tares came to bring forth fruit and that the fruits of each were balanced in the scale of the holy Sanctuary then was it no great difficulty to determine of them to say that this was Wheat and that these were tares that this was truth and that was error that this was seed of Gods own sowing the bonum semen mentioned in the 24. and for the others unde haec they could proceed from none but ab inimico So true is that which Christ our Saviour tells us in another case igitur ex fructibus eorum cognoscetis eos by their fruits you shall know them As for example The Doctrine of the Popes supremacy as it is represented to us in the fairest colours how specious seemes it to the eye how necessary for the preservation of peace and unity in the Church of God how excellent a piece of Wheat would a man suppose it at first looking on Nature pleads for it in regard that all living Creatures as Bees and Birds and Sheep and all other Cattel love to have some chief by which the rest may be directed Rex unus apibus dux unus gregibus in armentis rector unus as St. Cyprian hath it St. Hierome adds grues unum sequuntur literato ordine that the Cranes also have some Prince whom they love to follow The Politicks stand up in defence of Monarchy as the most excellent form of Government 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith our Master Aristotle And that they may not stand alone against those popular Estates which the world then cherished they bring the Poets in for seconds for whom in the name of all the rest it is said by Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that there is never any unity without one supreme The Theologues or Divines have affirmed as much in that the monarchie of all forms of government comes neerest to the Government of Almighty God who as he hath alone created all things by his Almighty hand so he alone doth govern all things by his mighty power Multoque facilius ab uno regi potest quod est ab uno constitutum said Lactantius truly which being so as so it is and that the Church is the most glorious State of all bodies aggregate good reason that it should be ordered according to the most complete and best kind of Government and be obedient to the voyce of one supreme Judge This being taken pro confesso what can follow next but that this supreme Government ought to have been in some one or other of the Lords Apostles And of that glorious company who so proper for it as divine St. Peter whom the Evangelistâ— alwayes make the Marshall in one constant place and that is primus Simon Petrus to whom our Saviour said Tâ—bi dabo claves super hanc petram pasce oves and whatsoever else might seem to intimate that he designed him for a Chief over all the rest Now being that these priviledges and prerogatives were not conferred on Peters person but upon him and his Successors as 't is said they were where should we look to finde them but in Peters See the Renowned City of Rome the Imperial Seat the Queen and Lady of all Nations Good reason that the Bishops of that most famous Church whose faith was spoken of through all the world Et quae dominaâ—i in caetera possit and had sufficient power to command the rest should sit chief amongst them chief President in all general Councels chief Justice in all publick controversies yea and Lord Treasurer too to dispense all indulgences and other graces of the Church Nay the commodities which the Christian world enjoyes by the sole benefit of the Popes Supremacie are said to be so great and weighty that they are able to bear down all cavils and objections which are made against it for what a signal blessing is it to have one common Father over all the Church to whom as to a Catholick Moderator and indifferent Umpire all Christian Kings and Princes may refer their quarrels one supreme head to whom as to a visible and infallible Judge the Prelates of the Church and other learned men may refer their controversies unity must begin from one and who more fit to be this one then he that can derive unto himself so faire a title And a faire title t is indeed and hath been so well pleaded by the Advocates of the Court of Rome that for long time together there was no suspicion that it would ever come in question whether true or false So fair a field could bring forth nothing but the purest Wheat the bread of life even manchet for the Lords own Table He that had thought or given it out that there was any tare amongst it much lesse tares all over might possibly have had some hearers but few believers The reason was because that all this while the Doctrine was but in crevisset herba in the blade or stalk not come unto the height to fecissent fructum But when it came to that and that the fruits thereof appeared in their proper likeness it proved to be so grosse a tare such an infelix lolium such a frugum pestis that a more dangerous was never sowen by Satan in the Church of God For then it was discovered plainly that the Popes in a manner had forsook the claim of being successors to Peter and would be Vicars unto Christ that they had changed Quodcunque ligaveris in terra into Omnis potestas data est mihi in coelis the Priestly and Prophetical power into the Kingly and built their rise not on the priviledges which Christ gave to Peter but upon those which God the Father gave his Christ and what did follow thereupon but that his Courtiers honoured him with the title of Vice-God or Vice-Deus as in the Inscription of Paulo Quarto Vice-Deo others with that of Dominus noster Deus â—apa our Lord God the Pope some giving him authority to make vertue vice and vice vertue as did Card. Bellarmine others to make a new Creed and coin new Articles of Faith as did Thomas Aquinas and finally some of them having gone so farre as to condemn our Saviour Christ of great indiscretion nisi unum post se talem vicarium reliquisset had he not left behind him such a Vicar so absolutely endowed with all manner of power as did Peter Berhardus So for the Popes themselves when they had layed the foundation of their Grandeur on those words of Christ Omnis potestas data est mihi how quickly did they turn that primacy which before they had in point of order into a soveraignty or supremacy in point of power with what subtile blasphemy did they shift the Scriptures to make them serviceable to their wicked and ambitious ends Instead of Tibi dabo claves one findes out ecce duos gladios behold here two swords the one spiritual the other temporall And thereupon Pope Julius passing over Tiber drew out his sword and threw his keyes into the River affirming openly that since St. Peters keyes would not serve his turn St. Pauls Sword should Instead of super petram hane a second brings in super aspidem basiliscum and that Pope Alexander useth to justifie his treading on the neck of the Emperor Frederick Instead of Pasce oves meas a third hath found out Surge Petre occide manduca Arise Peter kill and eat and this Pope Paul the Fifth alledged for an Authority that he might kill assassinate and murder disobedient Princes and by the same Authority for ought I can see he may eat them too And finally to mend the matter the Popes Supremacy thus founded and promoted by such wretched shifts mnst be reputed as an Article of the Christian Faith and that too primus praecipus Romanensium fidei articulus the first and principal Article of the Church of Rome certain I am that so it was defended in the time of Pope Clement the Eighth hath been since so ranked and marshalled in the new Creed of Pius Quartus Add unto these their practise in the points aforesaid proclaiming errors to be truth and publickly condemning truth for errors making new Articles of Faith and misinterpreting the old deposing Kings disposing of their Kingdoms and bringing them to be at their devotion and tell me if the ordinary fruits of the Supremacy do not discover it most manifestly for a dangerous tare Next for the single life of Priests when it first sprung up how lovely seemed it to the eye how few had reason to suspect that it was a tare Paul seemes to advocate the cause wishing that all men were as he
gift of continency is become more eminent in them that have it without reproch to them that want it The freedom which the Church hath given in the use of chastity makes the vertue greater no vertuous action being commendable if it be not voluntary And since the granting of this liberty in the point of marriage how many of each order hath this Church produced Bishops Priests and Deacons that have embraced the single life out of choyce not force with far more honour to themselves and greater lustre to the Church and a more gracious acceptance with Almighty God then if it were imposed upon them by a positive Law Of whom we may affirm with safety as did Minutius of some Christians in the primitive times perpetua virginitate fruuntur potiâ—s quà m gloriâ—ntur But of this â—are enough what is that comes next let it be the religious Worship ascribed unto the blessed Virgin which by a name distinct is in the Schools entituled hyperdulia being a kind of veneration inferior unto that of God but greater then may be communicated to the other Saints The Church in the beginning had been exercised with many Heresies touching the incarnation of our Lord and Saviour The Valentinians hold that he took not from her his humane nature but brought it with him from the Heavens with whom concurred Apollinaris and the Secundiani Nestorius on the other side affirmed that he who was born of her was the Sonne of Mary but by no meanes the Sonne of God and therefore he allowed not that she should be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Mother of God but only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Mother of Christ Helvidius and the Antidico-Maritan had a further reach and envied her the glorious title of the Virgin Mary affirming with like impudence and ignorance eam post Christum natum viro suo fuisse commixtam that after our Redeemers birth she was known by Joseph In which respects both to restore her to her rights and to depress those Hereticks that had so debased her the Fathers have conferred upon her many glorious attributes but yet no more then she deserved Hence is it that we finde the Titles of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mother of God perpetual Virgin Hence is it that St. Cyril a most zealous persecutor of the Nestorian faction calls her pretiosum totius orbis thesaurum c. the most rich Treasure of the World a Lamp that cannot be put out the Crown of Chastity and very Scepter of true Doctrine sceptrum rectae Doctrinae and not the Scepter of the Catholick Faith as our Rhemists render it Which honorarie attributes not being given nor possibly appliable to any of the other Saints in true antiquity as they proceeded then from a just necessity so were they afterwards continued without just offence For who could reasonably conceive but that a greater reverence must be due to her then any other of the Saints whom God had sanctified and set apart for so great a blessing as to be the Mother of her Saviour Hitherto omnia bene for what hurt in this what soul so dull in her devotions so cold in her affections to our Lord and Saviour as not to magnifie the Womb which bare him and blesse those papps that gave him suck Who could suspect that possibly there should be any tare in so fair a Field who could suppose that any warrantable honor done or tendred unto the Mother of our Lord as Elizabeth styled her did not redound unto the Sonne And certainly as long as those of Rome contained themselves within the limits of the ancient Fathers and that O quà m te memorem virgo their pious flourishes Rhetorical Apostrophes and devout Meditations went no higher then a Religious commemoration of her life and piety they did not more then what had warrant from the Scripture and the Angel Gabriel Benedicta tu mulieribus would have born all that nor had it done much hurt had they ventured further even to nec vox hominem sonat and made her somewhat more then mortal had they tarried there But when they could not stop in the full careire and would needs hold it out to the Dâ—a certè as Mantuan and Antonius in plain termes have done and to create her Queen of Heaven and call her by the name of Regina Coeli then drew they very neere to the old Idolaters mentioned in the Prophet Jeremy in case they did not go beyond them This that we may the better see and so discern withall what a tare it proved let us look next upon the fruits and we shall finde that there is nothing lesse in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this Virgin-Worship if I may so call it then true Wheat indeed Let us but look upon the fruits and we shall see that Anselm gives this reason why Christ when he ascended into Heaven left his Mother here Ne curiae coelesti veniret in dubium c. for fear the Court of Heaven might have been distracted whom they should first go out to meet their Lord or their Lady that Bernardin Senensis one of her especial votaries doth not fear to say Mariam plura fecisse Deo quà m fecit Deus toti generi humano that she did more to Christ in being his Mother then Christ hath done to all Mankind in being their Saviour That Gabriel Biel a School-man of good note and credit hath shared the Government of the World betwixt God and her God keeping justice to himself miscricordia matri virgini concessa and left to her the free dispensing of his mercies That Petrus Damian tells us that when she mediates for any of her Supplicants with our Saviour Christ non rogat ut ancilla sed imperat ut domina she begs not of him as an Handmaid but commands as a Mistress that Bonaventure in composing of our Ladies Psalter hath applyed to her what ever was intended by the Holy Ghost for the advancement of the honour of our Lord and Saviour and finally that Bellarmine hath made no difference between the veneration due to her and that which doth of right belong unto Christ as man Add unto these their usage of the vulgar sort in point of practise saying so many Ave Maries for one single Pater Noster hearing so many Masses of our Lady and not one of Christs decking her Images with all cost and cunning that mans wit can reach when his poor Statues stand neglected as not worth the looking after These and the rest if we should add what could be imagined but that the Apostles were mistaken when they made the Creed and that it was not Jesus but the Virgin-Mother that suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified dead and buried for the sin of man You see then what most monstrous tares have grown up in the Church of Rome under the new devise of Hyperdulia Let us next see what their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 carrieth
with it what a strange multitude of tares that one word doth carry The Cardinall makes this difference between the termes hanc sanctis caeteris that that belongs indifferently to all the Saints illam humanitati Christi matri ejus but this alone to Christs humane nature only and his blessed Mother The ground of the distinction and how they differ from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or indeed rather how they differ not we shall not canvasse for the present Suffice it that in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they comprehend both prayers to Saints and adoration of their Images And first for prayers unto the Saints the Fathers taught according to the word of God that the Saints departed pray for us as fellow-members with them of that mystical body whereof Christ Jesus is the head Which as it is unquestionably true of the Saints in general so was it thought by Maximus Taurinensis and that not improbably that of the Saints none were more constant in it then the holy Martyrs qui supplicia pro nobis pertulere who suffered death for our incouragement and confirmation In this regard the faithful of the primitive times used to repair unto their Tombs and did there offer up their supplications to the Lord their God next ventured to implore the Lord to grant them their desires and prayers even for the blessed sake of those Saints and Martyrs at whose Tombs they kneeled and in the end began to implore the Martyrs to recommend their prayers to the Lord Almighty for their more quick dispatch in the Court of Heaven By which degrees came in the invocation of the Saints and ther with that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Religious worship of them which the Schools maintain and is defended for good Doctrine in the Church of Rome This Doctrine of what sort it is whether wheat or tare must be determined by the fruits and if we bring it once to fecissent fructum the true condition of this Doctrine will at full appear For what did follow hereupon but that the Saints were made our Mediators at the Throne of Grace every man choosing some or other of those blessed Spirits to be his Advocate and Intercessor with Almighty God our Saviour Christ meanwhile neglected or but little thought of Nay they went so far at the last that Christ was fain to mediate with the Saints as if their passions and not his had been the meritorious causes of Redemption as in that prayer of the Portuice touching Thomas Becket Christe Jesu per Thomae vulnera quae nos ligant relaxa scelera Nor stayed they there but as they made their prayers unto them so did they come at last to make their vowes not by but to the Saints departed and finally to dedicate unto their proper and immediate service Temples and Festivalls and Altars and set forms of worship which being all materiall parts and circumstances of religious adoration and so confessed to be even by those of Rome hath so plunged poor ignorant people into grosse and palpable Idolatry it having been the constant Doctrine of Antiquity that all religious worship of what sort soever is so peculiar unto God that without manifest Idolatry it cannot be communicated unto any creature And howsoever those of wit and learning have found a mentall reservation to deceive themselves yet that will prove no plaster for the general sore nor save the common people from the downâ— right sins The Cardinall indeed thus resolves the case Licet dicere S. Petre miserere mei c. that it is lawful for us men to pray unto S. Peter to have mercy upon us to save us and set open to us the Gates of Heaven to grant us health and patience and what else we want modò intelligamus his precibus meritis if so we understand it thus Do all these things that I request by thy prayers and merits But this I would fain know of Bellarmine with all his wit how many of the vulgar sort have ever learnt or practised such a reservation or if they have how farre it may extenuate and excuse the sin So it is also in the point of Images first introduced into the Church for Ornament history and imitation Sic defunctis praemium posteris dabatur exemplum as Minutius hath it Had they stayed there it had been well and no fault found with them They might have used them so sans question and therewithall have given them that respect and reverence which properly belongs to the similitude and representations of celestiall things Posterity had never questioned them or their proceedâ—ngs in the point had they gone no further But when the Schools began to state it that idem honor debetur imagini exemplari that the same veneration was to be afforded to the Type and Prototype then came the Doctrine to the growth to fecisset fructum When and by whom and where it was first so stated it is not easie to determine and indeed not necessary It is enough that we behold it in the fruits And what fruits think you could it beare but most grosse Idolatry greater then which was never known amongst the Gentiles witness their praying not before but to the Crucifix and calling on the very Crosse the wooden and materiall Crosse both to increase their righteousness and remit their sins Auge piis justitiam reis dona veniam as the Portesst had it Nor could we look for better fruit from so lewd a Tenet it being defended in the Schools that the Image of Christ is to be worshipped with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the highest kind of worship in their own opinion cum Christus adoretur adoratione latriae because that kind of Adoration doth properly belong to Christ our Lord. And for the Images of the Saints they that observe with what laborious Pilgrimages magnificent processions solemn offerings and in a word with what affections prayers and humble bendings of the body they have been are worshipped in the Church of Rome might very easily conceive that she was once again relapsed to her ancient Paganisme It s true the better to relieve themselves in this desperate plunge they have excogitated many fine distinctions as terminative and objective propriè impropriè per se per accidens which howsoever they may satisfie the more learned sort are not intelligible to poor simple people What said I that perhaps they may give satisfaction to the learned No such matter verily for Bellarmine himself confesseth that those who hold that any of the Images of Christ our Saviour are to be honoured with that kind of worship which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are fain to find out many a nice distinction quas vix ipsi intelligunt nedum populus imperitus which they themselves much lesse poor ignorant people could not understand which makes me think that sure the Cardinall was infatuated with the spirit of dotage himself defining positively in the self-same page Imagines
vizards even whilest he was about this deed of darkness By them a question is demanded of poor ignorant servants who either weary of their labour or inclined to ease or careless of their Masters business had been fast asleep and knew not what was done till they were well wakened If they must needs be further satisfied in these curious cavills let them repair to their own Master and enquire of him who being conscious to himself of his own lewd acts can give them a more punctuall answer We are no servants of the enemy nor ever were imployed in sins dark designs and therefore unacquainted with his plots and counsels To us according to this Parable the asking of the question appertains not to the answer of it But put the case the worst that may be and let it passe for granted that our adversaries may pervert and change the question as they list themselves yet why should we return them any other Answer then the Lord made unto his servants Why may not we make this reply to all their Queries inimicus homo hoc fecit that the enemy did it The Lord out of his infinite wisdom thought it not improper to give a general answer to a particular demand And why should we be wiser then our Master The servants ask in special unde haec zizania the Lord returns in generall inimicus fecit But as for the particulars of time place and persons wherewith our Adversaries presse and charge us against right and reason those he reserves unto himself and conceales from us And 't is a learned ignorance not to know those things which God endeavours to keep secret Ea nescire quae magister optimus non vult docere erudita est inscitia as mine Authour hath it Some things the Lord reserves to the day of judgement when all hearts shall be open all desires made known and no secrets hid And then we shall be sure to know what times the enemy made choyce of to sowe his tares what instruments he used in the doing of it what place or Country he selected for their first appearance with all the other curious circumstances which are so much insisted on by the common Adversary If this suffice not we must finally return that Answer which once Arnobius made to some foolish questions propounded by the enemies of the Christian faith Nec si nequivero causas vobis exponere cur aliquid fiat illo vel illo modo sequitur ut infecta sint quae jam facta sunt In case we are not able to declare unto them when by what persons in what Countries the Doctrines by us questioned were first set on foot it followeth not that therefore none of them are tares of the enemies sowing I have no more to say for the Explication most of the points having bin treated of before in our former discourses on this Argument And for the Application I must give you notice that it relates not to the matter only at this time delivered but to the whole intent and purpose of the present Parable I have already layed before you those tares and errors which have been noted and observed in the Church of Rome Our own turn is next and it comes in agreeably to the Text it self in which it is supposed as granted that there was good feed sowen by the Heavenly Husbandman however afterwards the field became full of tares According unto which Proposall I shall first shew you in the Thesis what speciall care was taken in our Reformation that all things might be fitted to the word of God and the best ages of the Church Next I shall make a true discovery of those several tares wherewith this Field is over-grown and Gods seed indangered So doing I am sure I shall not be accused of partiality or respect of persons And therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 encouraged by your Christian patience let us on in Gods name Si de interpretatione legis quaeritur inspiciendum est inprimis quo jure civitas retro in ejusmodi casibus usa suit It is a Maxime in the Lawes that if a question do arise about the sense and meaning of some Law or Statute the best way is to have recourse to the decisions of the State in the self-same case An Axiome no lesse profitable in Divinity then it is in Law The State Ecclesiastical hath her doubts and changes as great and frequent as the civill the body mystical as subject to corruptions as the body politick In which condition either of distractions or of distempers no better way to set her right to bring her to her perfect constitution then to look back upon her primitive and ancient principles Ad legem testimonium was the rule of old And this the Church of Christ hath thought fit to follow when she hath found her self diseased with plain and manifest corruptions or otherwise distracted with debates and doubtful disputations as St. Paul calls them The Law of God the Gospel of our Saviour Christ for points of Doctrine the usage and testimony of the primitive Church for points of practice hath alwayes been her rule and Canon in such desperate plunges In the observance of which rule as generally the Church of God hath discharged her duty as may appear by the inspection of her ancient Coâ—ncels and other Monuments and Records of her acts and doings so aut me amor suscepti negotii fallit either I erre through too much filiall piety to the Church my Mother or else there never was a National Church in what Age soever that hath more punctually observed this rule then this Church of England For in that great business of the Reformation those Worthies here whom God had raised and fitted for the undertaking were not possessed for ought we finde with any spirit of contradiction or humour of affecting contrarieties That which they found before established which either was agreeable to the word of God in point of Doctrine or to the usage of the primitive Church in point of order and devotion they retained as formerly so farre endeavouring a conformity with the Church of Rome that where she left not Christ and the Primitive Church there they left not her Luther and Calvin however honoured and admired in the World abroad were here no otherwise considered then as learned men whose works and writings possibly might be counted useful but not thought Authentick Our Prelates here that were engaged in this great business Cranmer and Ridley and the rest of these brave Heroes were of as able parts as they but more moderate spirits They knew the Church had first been founded upon the Prophets and Apostles our Saviour Christ being the Corner-stone and therefore would not build their reformation on the names of men Christianus mihi nomen est Catholicus cognomen was Pacianus's Speech of old but they made it theirs and still we keep it as our own But what need more The fair succession of the
that is grown amongst us to the very height and in the points and parts thereof in which the life and essence of Popedom doth consist especially The time was when as Kings and Emperors had the sole power of calling Councils of moderating or presiding in them by themselves or Deputies and finally of confirming their Acts and Canons This power the Popes have long usurped and think it a great favour unto secular Princes if they vouchsafe to give them notice of their purposes or trust them with the execution of their Lawes and Ordinances The time was too when Princes thought themselves supreme in their own Dominions accomptable to none but God But now the Popes have challenged a disposing power both of their Persons and Estates as being the Vice-gerents of Almighty God the Vicars general of Christ our Saviour To produce Authors for the proof of such evident truths especially in such a knowing and discerning audience were a foul impertinency and indeed sensibile super sensorium ponere to light a Candle to the Sun In these two points which are the very life and essence of the Popedom as before I said the Puritan is no lesse Popish then the Pope himself The power of calling the Assembly that appertains no longer unto Kings and Princes it belongs only to the Church that is themselves God was mistaken sure when he said to Moses Fac tibi duas tubas argenteas that he should make to or for himself two silver Trumpets t is well if Dathan Corah and Abiram will allow him one And for the civill power to command that one according to the Doctrine now it is originally in the people too and in the King by way of derivation only and that too cumulativè not privativè as they please to word it the people having still a liberty inherent in them to reassume the Government as they see occasion There is much talk indeed of Solomon and all his wisdom think we he was not out when he broached this Doctrine per me Reges regnant by me Kings reign or speaking as he did in Parables and Proverbs which are hard to construe his words may brook some other meaning then they seem to signifie Buchanan was a learned man too but speaks plainer farre Populo jus est imperum cui velit deferat The people have a power saith he to dispose of Kingdoms from man to man and line to line as they list themselves Nor stood he single in it neither Goodman and Knox the two Apostles of the Sect led the way to him and they first brought it to Geneva The Kings and Princes of the Earth must change their styles and tenures if this Doctrine hold It is no longer Dei Gratia that they hold their Scepters but Populi clementia by the peoples courtesie And Tenant at the will of another man is the worst tenure or estate in all my Littleton The greatest Kings and Princes by their opinion are but as Bayliffs and sworn Officers of the Common-wealth and therefore to be called to a publick reckoning either upon pretence of mal-administration or any popular dislike or disgust whatsoever nor will there want some Tribunitial Spirit when occasion serves to take them by the throat and say unto them Redde rationem villicationis tace that is to say as our last Translations read Give an account of thy Stewardship for thou shalt be no longer Steward This is indeed the Doctrine proper to the Sect for which they have no precedent nor pattern in the former times and is withall the true foundation of that disobedience and desire of liberty which is become so Epidemical amongst us There are none so blind but may discern this for a tare of the enemies sowing It is already come to fecissent fructum I could now to these points of Popery add a point of Judaisme in the imposing of a Sabbath on the Church of Christ and that to be observed with so great severity that they have gone beyond the Jewes and shewed themselves more Pharisaical then the very Pharisees But hereof I have spoken more at large elsewhere and cannot now contract it in a narrower compasse I could say somewhat also of those Pharisees both for their Doctrine and their practise their Doctrine in maintaining Fate and Destiny as the Stoicks did and setting up their own traditions above the word of God and the Churches Ordinances their practises in the compassing of Sea and Land to increase their Proselytes the ostentation of their zeal and piety to the publick view the absolute command they attained unto both on the purses and the consciences of the common people and on the strength thereof their disobedience and contempt of all Authority but these I only glance at and so passe them over Nor shall I now insist on the Nazaraei excluding the necessity of good works out of the Covenant of grace nor on the Heresie of the Anomaei or Eunomians who for themselves and their Disciples had cancelled the Obligation of the morall Law nor of the Apostolici who had all things common or rather common stocks and contributions for the promoting of the Sect. I should be endless in this tedious and ungrateful search should I present you all those tares which have been scattered in Gods Field since the Reformation Tares then there are we see in our Churches too not only in the Church of Rome those I discovered to you at my last being here these I reserved untill this present with promise then that if you would have patience I would pay you all and now I hope I have discharged my self of that Obligation And in this way I went the rather for the performance of my duty to Almighty God and to your sacred Majesty as Gods Vice-gerent in these Kingdoms and unto those who under God and you have the chief ordering of this Church These tares I saw not in the Sevit I was then unborn nor in crevisset herba when the blade sprung up for if born then I was then too young But being now a servant though the meanest of the heavenly Husbandman and having noted and observed them in fecissent fructum I have made bold to come before you as did the servants of my Text saying Sirs There was good seed sowâ—n in the Field of God but unde haec zizania but behold these Tares And having said this I have done my duty God so direct your royall Counsels and the aviso's of your Pâ—elates for the Churches peace for the averting of those mischiefs which these tares do threaten that so not any of them no nor all together may either prove infectious to the Wheat the Lords own good Seed or any way destructive to the Field it self And let all good Christians say Amen SERMON VI. At WHITE-HALL Jan. 21. 1639. MATTH 13. v. 28. Et ait illis Inimicus homo hoc fecit He said unto them An enemy hath done this FAcilius est in contubernalibus disputare
enemy His malice unto God doth consist much more in a continual purpose to resist his will then a power to hurt him non potestate laedendi sed voluntate resistendi as the Father hath it The mischiefs which he meanes to God are but like Arrowes shot against a Rock of Adamant which rebound back on him that shot them nihil illi valentes nocere sed sibi The hurt he doth is to himself in filling up the measure of his own iniquities and thereby adding to the weight of his just damnation Things not succeeding to his wish with Almighty God his next design is upon man With him he had a quarrel too at his first Creation It grieved him at the very heart to see poor man composed of such vile matter as dust and ashes adopted unto those celestiall glories whence himself was fallen and therefore he resolves to work him to the like Apostasie This onset he then gave and hath since continued endeavouring nothing more then the fall of man that he might triumph on his ruines For being alienated from the love of God he hath been labouring ever since the World began to fill mens mindes with false opinions touching God and to bring in strange forms of worship which the Lord abhors Et alienati à Deo inductis pravis religionibus non desinunt homines à Deo segregare as mine Author hath it Hence came the monstrous dotages of the antient Gentiles concerning God the infinite and innumerable multitude of the Gods themselves their most ridiculous and sometimes most obscene and filthy ceremonies at many of their publick Festivals their barbarous and unnatural sacrifices not of the flesh of strangers only as in Gaul Pontus Egypt yea and Rome it self but making their own Children passe through the fire to Moloch as amongst the Israelites If Socrates or any of the Learned and more noble souls oppose these manifest impieties and seek to vindicate and restore the true knowledge of God him he will first disgrace with the common people deprive him of his fame and substance and at last his life If Job or any pious and religious spirit live not according to the will of Satan and the wicked multitude him he will labour to accuse before God himself that getting him into his hands to spoyl and plague him to the utmost he may inforce him in the end to curse God and die So then we see the difference of the Devils enmity unto God and man To God he is an enemy affectu only in his minde and purpose to man an enemy affectu and effectu too not only seeking whom he may devoure but devouring many Thus deales he also with the Church with the united body of Gods chosen servants Christ had no sooner raised himself from the bonds of death and placed himself at the right hand of God in the heavenly places but presently the Woman the Church of God however cloathed with the Sunne and crowned with Starres was by the Great Dragon brought into distress and forced to flie into the Wilderness Nor was it long before there was a Warre in Heaven Michael and his Angels against the Devill and his angels And howsoever the Arch-angel had the better then and that the Dragon was cast out and vanquished to the great comfort of the Saints yet hath he never left to persecute and afflict the Church The case stands so between the Devil and the Church of God as it was once 'twixt Rome and Carthage Semper inter eos populos aut bellum aut belli praeparatio aut infida pax fuit as the Story hath it Either they were in open Warre or preparing for it or if at any time in peace it was a peace more dangerous then the Warre it self For in the infancy of the Church what persecutions did he raise against her what monstrous Heresies did he raise within her what havock did he make of the Saints of God what a red Sea did he create of the blood of Martyrs If that at any time his wretched Instruments grew weary of their own tyranny as sometimes they did he then prepares the way unto new afflictions by charging those poor innocent souls with incestuous mixtures and drinking the warm blood of a new slain Infant which were those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so oft confuted and retorted by the antient Fathers Nay when the Church was setled in a perfect peace by the hand of Constantine yet was it still infida pax a peace but ill observed by the treacherous enemie intent on all occasions watching all advantages if not to cut it down at once by open violence yet to supplant it at the last by his subtile practises This to perform he was to deal in other manner and by other instruments then before he did more like a cunning practiser then an open enemy Before we finde him styled inimicus simply or inimicus quispiam as Beza here But in this place he comes in with a speciall adjunct 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in the Greek or inimicus homo in the vulgar Latine wherewith agree Castellio and Erasmus in their translations of the Text. Our English versions do somewhat differ in the point The Bishops Bible as they call it reads it a malicious man that of Geneva an envious man the Rhemists literally an enemy man All of them keep themselves unto the homo as well as to the inimicus except our last Translation therein following Beza But what the reason is why Homo should be superadded unto inimicus that 's not yet agreed on St. Hierome is of this opinion Diabolum propterea inimicum hominem appellari quod Deus esse desiit that Satan is here called inimicus homo because he left off to be God But this I can by no meanes like of the Devil in the height of his ambition aspired not to be God but like him It was not ero Deus but ero Deo similis that procured his downfall Lupoldus in his Book de vita Christi tells us that homo is here joyned to inimicus as Africanus was to Scipio to denotate that Conquest which he gains on man when he subjects him to his will Others conceit that he is therefore called inimicus homo to shew that correspondence and affinity which is between the Devil and the wicked man the Devill in this place being called a man and Judas in the sixth of John being called a Devil but these as I conceive it are but tricks of fancy and come not home unto the point For my part I should rather think that Satan is here called inimicus homo because in sowing of his tares he used the help of envious and malicious men whom he had fitted for that purpose When he first set upon the Church by violent and bloody persecutions he made use of Beasts The Tyrants all from Nero down to Dioclesian what were they else but Beares and Wolves and
pieces Envy and ignorance sometimes go together Sure I am ignoratio recti invidia are so placed in Tacitus This we account not as a passion or affection in the minde of man unless it be a voluntary and affected ignorance but as weakness or defect And yet of this the enemy hath raised himself a greater fortune then out of any of the rest There was a time when ignorance was in request the tenth Age from Christ the very next to that wherein hell brake loose a dark and sullen night of ignorance in which the servants of the Husbandman did not only slumber but slept and snorted A seculum obscurum as Baronius a seculum infelix an unhappy Age wherein was little reading and lesse writing saith the Cardinall Bellarmine An age quite destitute of eminent men both for wit and learning as their Bishop Genebrard Can we conceive the enemy let slip the opportunity of so dark a night and slept for company or that he would not husband it to his best advantage when there was either none so vigilant as to watch his doings or so industrious as to commit to writing what they had observed What fitter time then this to sowe the seeds of transubstantiation and adoration of the Host with all those severall points and Articles those uncouth Ceremonies and gesticulations which depend upon it when all divine and humane learning were laid up in silence What fitter time then this to seal up the Bible and take the Scriptures from the Laity when there was such a fair pretence that few or none could understand it What fitter time then this to captivate mens understandings to the Churches dictates and to advance their own traditions into the Chair and Throne of the Word of God when men were taught to the great obloquy and contempt of learning that ignorance was the mother of devotion And in a word what fitter time then this to open and bring forth the tares of Image-worship and invocation of the Saints and prayer for the dead and restraint from marriage the seeds whereof were sowen in those slumbring times which usher'd in this Epidemicall and dismall darkness when men had wilfully sealed up their eyes and professed blinde obedience to the Popes decrees Here was a season for the nonce to spread abroad false Doctrines and unsound opinions The Devill had been an Asse indeed if he had not spyed it And yet it is not easie to determine neither whether the negligence both of Priest and people did not as much promote the purpose of the enemy as did their ignorance Now for this double kind of negligence that which we charge upon the people is circa custodiam personae suae touching the looking to themselves that which we charge upon the Priest circa custodiam gregis sui touching the looking to his Flock â— The people I find faulty in these two respects 1. In not doing of their duties and 2dly In not claiming of their dues The Church in the first Ages of it used every day to celebrate the blessed Sacrament which thereupon St. Ambrose calls quotidianum cibum our daily bread The times were then severe and quick the people pious and devout and few there were that failed to be present at it But when the Sun of peace and liberty shined upon the Church the people grew remisse and careless took cold in their devotions and forbare the Church and left the Priest who by the ancient Canons was to do this Office to say his lesson to himself By this meanes and no other came in private Masses wherein the Priest participates by himself alone not upon any positive constitution which debarres the people but for defect of piety and devotion in them Harding other learned men in the Church of Rome so excuse the matter and not perhaps without just reason But certainly the Priest was to blame the while who either did not call upon them to attend their duties or in default thereof did not proceed against them as he should have done according to the ancient Discipline But more to blame no doubt was the Church of Rome who on complaint of the abuse not only hath ordained no remedy for the recalling of the people to the primitive custom but hath established and confirmed these private Masses maugre all opposition and resistance inflicting an Anathema upon every one that dares dâ—sprove them As then the people were first faulty in the not doing of their duties so we shall finde them as deficient in the second point for the not claiming of their dues For if the question should be asked how and by whom the Laity were first denied the Cup in the blessed Sacrament It must be answered the People lost it by degrees for want of putting in their claim to assert the title for not demanding the performance of our Saviours will delivered and declared in his holy Testament That it was instituted in both kinds by Christ administred by St. Paul in both kindes at Corinth and that it was so used in other places during 600 years and upwards is confessed by Harding in his reply to B. Jewell When and upon what Motives and by whose Authority this innovation was first made is not yet agreed upon among themselves Greg. de Valentia who took much pains in the examination of this business returns an Ignoramus or a minimè constat unto all these Queries and at last is fain to father it upon the usage of the Church and consent of the faithfull For the consent or at the least the not gainsaying of the faithful there is no doubt of that for ought I can finde and that 's the point we now complain of But for the usage of the Church which also he pretends to make up the matter that came in of late Thomas Aquinas who lived about 300 years ago no more hath delivered plainly calicem in quibusdam locis populo non dari that the Cup was not then administred unto the people in some certain places An undeniable Argument that it was universally received then in all places else Nor was it ever otherwise determined that I can hear of till the Assembly held at Constance for I can hardly think that it was a Councel decreed it against Christ himself with a non obstante which after was confirmed and ratified in that of Trent Now as the Prophet once complained as was the People then such was the Priest and as the Priest was then such were the People both ignorant alike and both alike negligent The negligence incumbent on the Priests was of two sorts also first in not teaching of the People as they ought to do and 2dly in not applying speedy and peculiar remedies to emergent mischiefs The Priests lips by the Lords appointment were to preserve knowledge and at their mouthes the people were to seek the same so the Prophet Malachi But when the Priest became quite destitute of
Ecclesiae as before I told you out of Hierome to whom our Saviour gave the keyes and the Church afterwards the Crozier or the Pastoralls Staffe the badge and emblem of their Office But neither our Saviour nor the Church gave them any power to take the Sword into their hands or to proceed in ore gladii when they found any thing amisse in life or Doctrine which stood in need of Reformation Look upon which of these you will either upon the Servants or upon the Tares and we shall quickly finde that the Sword and Warre are never more unfitly used then by such men and in such cases For the Tares being sowen in medio tritici amongst the Wheat v. 25. and growing intermingled with it in the blade or stalk v. 26. if the Sword chance to mow them down down go both alike And should the Field be weeded by the hand of Warre impossible it is but that in gathering up the Tares eradicetur simul cum eis triticum the Wheat must needes be rooted up at the self-same time Bonorum malorumque fata mixta merita confusa The wicked and the righteous person the Schismatick and conformable man the Heretick and Orthodox Professor are all alike subject unto those calamities which the Warre brings upon a Nation their Persons their Estates their Families all comprehended in the masse of the same perdition which as they are the ordinary consequents of the Sword and Warre so do they fall most heavily on the Church of Christ when the Sword is put into unskilful hands who neither have a right unto it nor the Art to use it or when the Warre is undertaken and pursued under the mask and colour of Religion When once the Successors of St. Peter as they claim to be laid aside the keyes and betook themselves unto the Sword what havock did they make in the Christian Church how often have they died their Robes in the blood of the Saints And when the Warre begun by the Christian Princes on the Turks and Saracens was turned upon the Albigenses by the Popes of Rome and that the Cruciata was proclaimed against those poor souls only because they differed in some points of Doctrine from the opinions of that Church how many hundred thousands of well-meaning men who made a conscience of their wayes and erred not if they erred at all out of pride but ignorance were rooted up and made a sacrifice to the offended Deities of the Roman Conclave The miseries of those Warres and the nature of them are but a Glasse wherein we may behold the troubles and distractions of these latter times in which the Sword hath been so often made the Judge of controversies almost all the States in Christendom have been imbroiled in Warres under pretence of Reformation That Maxime of Illyricus the Father of the rigid Lutherans as they use to call them terrendos Principes metu seditionum that Princes must be frighted into Reformation by the fear and threatning of seditions that of Gesselius a more rigid Calvinist that if the Prince and Clergy did neglect their duties in the reforming of the Church the people then must undertake it licèt ad sanguinem usque pro eo pugnent although they have no other way to effect the same then by raising Warres and stirring up the Subjects against their Soveraigns that of some zelots of our own who now the Sword is drawn would not have it sheathed till it be fully glutted in the blood of Malignants what ruine and destruction hath it brought on the Church of God defiled the Sanctuaries of the Lord and defaced his Temples laid desolate the beauties of our dwelling-places and made us Christians both a derision and a prey to the Turks and Gentiles Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum Such mischiefs have the Sword and the Warre produced under pretence of imus colligimus of gathering up such Tares as have been thought to grow in the Field of God and rectifying such abuses as in long tract of time had risen in his publick worship With how much better judgement was the Question stated in the Heroick times of Christianity when as it was both taught and practised Defendendam esse Religionem non occidendo sed moriendo that the Gospel was to be defended not by blood and slaughter nor by destroying those who opposed the same or harboured any Tenets which agreed not with it but by submitting our own lives to the hand of death in testimony of the truth and a good conscience whensoever the necessities of the Church shall require it of us With how much greater love to the Church of Christ did the good Father give this Comment on the present text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God saith he would not let the Hereticks be destroyed by Warres for fear the righteous person and the true believer should also suffer with them in the same destruction But what will some men say Is there no use of the Sword at all in the confounding of the Heretick or the reclaiming of the Schismatick or the correction of the wicked and flagitious person I say not so the Sword may have its use in all these particulars and Warres be serviceable in some of them But then the Sword must be committed to the hands of the proper Minister not to the Servants of my Text or any Minister of the Gospel of what rank soever and Warres must be denounced and pursued by those in whom the supreme Government of the State is vested to whom it appertains of right Parcere subjectis debellare superbos to be indulgent to the quiet and obedient subject but to pull down the stomach of the proud and rebellious person Each of them hath their several way and their severall weapons in the effecting of this work but each of them must stay the time The Heretick is first to be attempted by the power of the word by which Apollos mightily convinced the Jewes and which St. Paul assures us is exceeding profitable not onely for Doctrine but reproof It is the faithful word as he elsewhere tells us by which the Prelate is inabled not only to exhort but convince gainsayers The same course must be also taken in the recovery of the Schismatick in reduction of the stray-sheep to the Fold of Christ it being the duty of the diligent and careful Shepherd to seek out that which was lost and bring back that which was driven away Which meanes if they should prove to be ineffectual and that the word and Doctrine will not work the cure it then pertains unto the Pastor to have recourse unto the censures of the Church Et flagellorum terroribus vel etiam doloribus revocare to fetch them back again by the Rod of Discipline and if that faile to excommunicate them and deliver them to the hands of Satan Further then this they may not go t is beyond their
are so intermingled that there is no perfection to be looked for here and 2. That there want not great and weighty reasons why it should so be of which some relate unto the Tares some unto the Wheat some to God himself whose glory is most chiefly aimed at These are the points to be considered and of these I shall discourse in order beginning with Gods sufferance and the season of it and therein with the first enquiry What is here meant by messis the approching Harvest and what use we may make thereof for our own advantage Priùs dividendum quà m definiendum It was the Orators Rule of old First to distinguish of the termes before we take upon us to state the question A Rule exceeding necessary in the present business and much conducing to the Explication of the points in hand For the word messis is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word of various significations according to the scope of the severall places where it doth occur And first not taking notice of it in the literall sense in the 9th Chapter of St. Matthew it signifieth the times and seasons fit for the preaching of the Gospel There read we messem esse multam that the Harvest was great i. e. that there were many people whose mindes were cheerfully prepared to receive the word And there 's another Harvest which the Baptist speaks of the bringing forth of fruits meet for repentance fruits worthy of the Preachers pains and the hearers diligence the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Harvest of good works which we finde in Chrysostom But we have other Corn to thresh and therefore must look out for another Harvest an Harvest not of hearing nor of fructifying but of receiving the reward of our severall labours an Harvest in the which each workman shall receive his wages according to the works which he hath wrought in the flesh whether good or evill And this again is either taken for the day of Gods temporall judgements upon particular Men or Sects or Collective bodies or for the day of generall judgement when all flesh shall appear before the Lord to receive its sentence In this last sense the word is taken in the 14 of the Revelation where the Angel said to him that sate upon the Throne mitte falcem mete Thrust in thy sickle and reap for the time is come and the Harvest of the Earth is ripe i. e. all Nations were now ready to receive that judgement which God in his just anger should pronounce against them And in the other sense it is said by the Prophet Jeremy The Daughter of Babylon is a threshing-floore the time of her threshing is come yet a little while and the time of her Harvest will come Tempus messionis ejus veniet and what time was that even that wherein she had made up the measure of her iniquities and abominations and was to be given up for a prey to the Medes and Persians I know that most Interpreters as well old as new do take the Harvest in my Text for the generall judgement that which our Saviour doth describe in the 25. of this Gospel And they expound it thus for this reason chiefly because our Saviour gives this descant on his own plain song v. 39. Messis est consummatio seculi the Harvest is the end of the World A man would think the sense must be very obvious even to the vulgar wits when he that writ the Text made the comment also But then a question may be made what our Redeemer meanes by consummatio seculi or the end of the World or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greek Text hath it Assuredly not alwayes the last day precisely but the last times generally or the particular time appointed by Almighty God for the effecting of some speciall and particular purpose For in the 9 Chapter to the Hebrews the same words occur where the Apostle treating of the passion of our Lord and Saviour saith it was done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in consummatione seculi in the end of the World Ask Beza what is meant there by the end of the World by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and he will tell you that it is the same which the Apostle calls in another place plenitudinem temporis or the fulness of time i. e. saith he and so both Caietan and Ribera do expound the Text Seculorum perfectionem complementum the full perfection and accomplishment of some time appointed So then upon this disquisition we have gained thus much that though the Harvest in my Text be for the most part understood of the general judgement of which hereafter in the next yet may it also mean the time of Gods temporal punishments upon particular men or Sects or Collective bodies Whom though God suffereth for a while till their sins be ripe and lets them flourish and grow mighty both in power and wickedness yet have they all their severall Harvests in which they shall be mowed and threshed and winnowed to his greater glory The sickle of the Lord is alwayes ready and his van alwayes in his hand And when his Harvest-time is come and the fruits of wicked men be ripe he shall not only mowe them down as when the Harvest-man gathereth the corn and reapeth down the eares with his arme in the Prophets language but he will throughly purge his floore and make them like the chaffe in the Psalmists words which the wind drives away before it But for the just and righteous person he either shall be saved from the day of trouble or preserved in it Or if he fall as fall he may sometimes into the hand of the Reapers like a good eare of corn well grown or Grapes fully ripe he shall be congregatus in horreum gathered into the barn of the heavenly Husbandman In execution of which acts of his will and justice he many times makes use of Angels literally and properly so called which are the Reapers of this verse and the 39 and many times of other Ministers who do supply the place of Angels and may be called so in a borrowed metaphoricall sense as Attila the Hun the scourge of the impenitent Western Christians was in the Stories of those times called Flagellum Dei That there have been such Harvests in former times and that such Harvests are in the compass of our Saviours meaning the Stories of Gods Book and all the Monuments of the Church do most clearly evidence And to say truth did not the Text admit such Harvests all the seditious aggregations of unquiet men all the Idolatries of Rome Heathen and superstitions of Rome Christian the Pride of Babylon and the filths of Sodom with all the rabblement of pernicious Hereticks and factious Sectaries which have disturbed the Church in foregoing Ages must be still extant and unpunished to this very day But they have had their severall Harvests and the Lord hath reaped them
reserving them with the Apostate Angels in eternall chains to the judgement of the great and terrible day And though this be a truth so clear that it needes no proofs yet we will instance in some few the better to set forth the necessary truth of this together with the longanimity and justice of Almighty God In the old World the sinnes of men were very great all the imaginations of their hearts corrupt and evill so that the very Sonnes of God were tempted to go in to the Daughters of men and yet God spared them a long time and added 120 yeeres unto the dayes of their repentance But when their sins were grown so ripe that God repented him at last of Mans creation he brought the flood upon them and destroyed them all but saved righteous Noah and his Houshold with him The Citizens of Sodom had long swelled in pride and surfeited on fulness of bread and abundance of idleness as the Prophet tells us and yet God suffered them to live and fulfill their lusts But when the voyce of their sins became so loud as to cry unto the Heavens for vengeance and to occasion God himself to come down and see majorne infamia vero whether their sins were answerable to the cry which was come unto him then were they ready for the sickle 't was high Harvest then and the Lord sent his Angels to consume their City and rained down fire from Heaven upon them but delivered Lot and his small Family like a fire-brand snatched out of the flames Passe we on forwards into Egypt and we shall finde how patiently the Lord expected that the proud Egyptians would at the last dismisse his people with peace and safety but when that did no good upon them when they had added tyranny unto oppression and unto both a proud contempt of his Word and Messengers he brought his people out with a mighty hand the Angel of the Lord going before the Camp of Israel but overwhelming Pharaoh and his Host in a second deluge And if God did not presently invest his people in the possession of the Land so often promised it was not only for their disobedience or their unbelief nor for their murmuring against God and groundless exclamations against Moses and Aaron though these did all concur to retard their entrance The Scriptures give another reason and questionless the true reason of that long suspension nondum completa est iniquitas Amorrhaeorum the wickedness of the Amorites was not yet full 't was not Harvest yet and therefore God had not given order to the Land to spew out her Inhabitants Thus do we read in holy Scripture of the Harvest of Babylon and of the Harvest of Damascus i. e. of those appointed times in which for their Idolatries and abominations they were to be delivered over to the hands of their severall enemies And for those very Jewes themselves though God spared them long notwithstanding all their provocations and only visited them sometimes with Warre or thraldom yet he stayed not there for when they had made up the measure of their Fathers sins and added to the same the blood of the Sonne of God more precious then the blood of Abel and of all the Prophets then did the Lord destroy their City and disperse their people making them that they were no longer to be called a Nation but a poor scattered remnant of what once they were But for the persecuted Saints of Christ which lived amongst them the Lord withdrew them from that plague warning them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a Dream or Oracle to remove thence to Pella a small Town of Syria before the first approch of the Roman Armies Thus was it also with the Church since the time of the Gospel The Princes of the Earth sometimes raged against it and harried it with fire and sword and all kinde of torments And though the souls of them which were slain for the word of the Lord had cryed unto their God for vengeance yet was it said to them from above ut requiescerent adhuc modicum tempus that they should rest yet for a season and tarry till their Brethrens blood was cast into the ballance also to make up the weight Which time being come the Lord did plague the persecutors with such grievous plagues that in the anguish of their souls and guilt of conscience they cryed unto the Rocks to fall upon them on the hills to hide them Never Dog barked against the Crosse but he grew mad after it saith the Author of the Book of Martyrs So for those vile and wretched miscreants which did afflict the Church of Christ with Schismes and Heresies they did exalt their horns a while and bare all before them the Arians especially being so predominant ut jam non portiunculam quandam that they thought scorn to be confined to one Church or Nation but like a generall scab or Leprosie had invaded almost all the parts of the body mysticall yet when their pride was greatest and their power most formidable when their impieties and blasphemies were so strongly backed that these few Orthodox Professors which were left untainted did tremble at the apprehension of the present danger God then conceived them fit for vengeance and put in his sickle the time being come for him to reap and the Harvest ready so that of all those Sects and Heresies which did afflict the Church in her purest Ages there is scarce any thing remaining but the name and infamy And though the Christians of those times being delivered from the fear of their deadly enemies had surfeited on peace and prohibited pleasures yet God reprieved them a long time from the hand of punishment but when their sins were grown so publick and so full of scandall ut pateretur lex Christiana maledictum that even the Gospel grew to be ill reported of by the Jew and Gentile then poured he out the Nations of the North upon them who sacked their Cities and laid waste their Palaces and in conclusion dispossessed them of their Countries also Now by this Standard we may take the measure both of Gods patience and his justice in all parallel Cases If we see Sects and Heresies rise up to disturb the Church and not to rise up only but grow strong and prevalent and in a way like Pharaohs seven lean Kine to devoure the fat if we see wickedness grow successful and rebellion prosperous and the best men become a prey to the cruel spoylers we must not think that God is all this while asleep and regards it not not so the Lord that keepeth Israel neither sleepes nor slumbereth But when the sins of men be ripe and the time of wrath is come that they should be judged the God that dwelleth in the Heavens shall scourge them with a whip of Scorpions and break them into pieces like a Potters vessel And though some of them
edge on the temporal Sword though even in these it be a remedy to be last applied and more to be commended where it may not then where it may possibly be spared In other cases where the error lieth in the understanding although most commonly backed with obstinacy and perverseness in the will and affections the adverse parties in the Church have been too farre transported beyond their bounds and drawn too much blood from one another though both pretend the Lawes for their justification For who seeth not how little it doth savour of the spirit of Christ to hale young boyes and silly women and poor ignorant Tradesmen to the Funeral-Pile because they could not fathom the deep Mystery of transubstantiation or thought it not an acceptable sacrifice to devoure their God or found not Purgatory in the Scriptures or did not think it fit to invocate the Saints their Brethren when as the way lay open unto God their Father or durst not give that honour to a painted Crucifix which properly belonged to their crucified Saviour And on the other side it wants not reprehension amongst moderate men that Christians should be dragged unto the Scaffold for no other reason then taking sacred Orders from a forreign hand or treading on prohibited ground not being otherwise convicted by sufficient evidence either of practising against the State or labouring to seduce the Subjects from their natural duties The Christians of the Primitive Ages had lost the most effectual part of their Apologies if difference in Religion only had been a crime sufficient without further guilt to draw those fiery storms upon them under which they suffered And though I say not of these Lawes to which each parties do pretend for their justification that they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like unto Draco's Lawes of old which were written in blood yet one might say and say it without just offence that they were neither made nor executed within these Dominions but either when the Dragon was a chief Supporter of the Arms Imperiall or else on those unfortunate wretches who have since fallen in regionem Draconum into the place of Dragons as the Psalmist calls it Certain it is that by those bloody executions both sides have rather been confirmed then weakned and both have given advantage to the growth of Heresies Just as Sulpitius hath observed that by the execution of Priscillian which before I spoke of non tantùm non repressa est ejus haeresis sed propagata his Heresie was so farre from being suppressed that it grew the faster for the cutting Christs Sinite stands not here for nothing but shewes that till the time of the general Harvest there will be tares amongst the Wheat do we what we can Which leads me to my last particular to the condition of the Church here militant delivered in the Simul crescere in that the tares and Wheat are ordered to grow up together Of which and of the reasons of that intermixture I shall crave leave to insist a little and so commend you unto God Perplexae sunt istae duae Civitates in hoc seculo invicemque permistae It was the saying of St. Austin that the two Cities which he was to write of the City of the Lord and the City of Satan were so intermingled that there was little hope to see them separated till the day of Judgement The same may we affirm of the Church of Christ it is of such a mixt condition compounded so proportionably of the good and evil the Heretick and true Professor that neither of the two is likely to suppress the other till God take up the controversie in the day of doom And therefore not without good reason is the Church compared to a threshing-floore on which there is both wheat and chaffe and to a Fold wherein there are both Sheep and Goats and to a casting-net which being thrown into the Sea drew up all kind of Fishes whether good or bad and to an House in which there are not only vessels of honour as of gold and silver but also of dishonour and for unclean uses and in my Parable to a field wherein besides the good seed which the Lord had sowen Infelix lolium steriles dominantur avenae the enemy had sowed his tares And this is thought by some of good note and learning to be the chief intention of our Saviours Parable who tells us that he meant not by the Sinite so farre to patronize the Heretick or protect the wicked as to respit either of them from the censure of the Church or State under pretence of calling them to an account at the general Audit but to set forth the true condition of the Church here militant in which the wicked person and the righteous man are so intermingled that there is no perfection to be looked for in this present World and therefore very well said a modern Authour Docetur hic non quale sit officium nostrum aut magistratus aut Pastorum sed tantùm quae futura sit Ecclesiae conditio Christ doth not here inform the Minister or the Civil Magistrate or any private person what they are to do but onely represents unto his Disciples the true condition of his Church till the end of the World which can be never so reformed and purified but that some errors and corruptions will continue in it But whether it be so or not certain it is that such is the condition of the Church in this present World that it is subject to corruptions and never absolutely free from sin and error There is much drosse amongst her gold and although that her foundations be of precious stones yet there is wood and hay and stubble in the superstructure which are so intermingled made up together that nothing but a general fire can exactly part them I mean the fire of conflagration not of Popish Purgatory Were it not thus we need not pray for the Church militant but glory as in the triumphant And yet the Church is counted holy and called Catholick still this intermixture notwithstanding Catholick in regard of time place and persons in and by which the Gospel of our Saviour is professed and propagated Holy secundum nobiliores ejus partes in reference to the Saints departed and those who are most eminent in grace and piety And it is also called Ecclesia una one holy Catholick and Apostolick Church though part thereof be militant here upon the earth and part triumphant in the Heavens the same one Church both now and in the world to come The difference is that here it is imperfect mixt of good and bad there perfect and consisting of the righteous onely according to this determination of St. Austin eandam ipsam unam sanctam Ecclesiam nunc habere malos mixtos tunc non habituram For then and not till then as Hierome Augustine and others do expound the place shall Christ
present her to himself a most glorious Church without spot or wrinkle and marry her to himself for ever Till that day come it is not to be hoped or looked for but that many Hypocrites false Teachers and licentious livers will couch themselves under the shelter of the Church and passe for members of it in the eye of men though not accounted such in the sight of God The eye of man can possibly discern no further then the outward shew and mark who joyn themselves to the Congregation to hear the Word of God and receive his Sacraments Dominus novit qui sunt sui the Lord knowes only who are his and who are those occulti intus whose hearts stand fast in his Commandements and carefully possess their souls in truth and holiness And yet some men there are as here hath been formerly who fancy to themselves a Church without spot or blemish and dream of such a field as contains no tares of such a house as hath no vessels but of honour sanctified and prepared for the Masters use And where they finde not such a Church they desert it instantly and cry Go out of her my people be not partakers of her sins The Cathari in the East the Donatists in the South the Novatians in the West which made one faction only though of several names were anciently of this opinion and set up Churches of their own of the new Edition for flattering themselves with a conceit of their own dear sanctity they thought themselves too pure and pious to joyn in any act of worship with more sober Christians and presently confined the Church which before was Catholick to their own private Conventicles and to them alone or intra partem Donati as they phrased it then Who have succeeded them of late both in their factions and their follies we all know too well The present ruptures in this State do declare most evidently that here is pars Donati now as before in Africa A frenzy which gave great offence to the ancient Fathers who laboured both by speech and pen to correct their insolencies and of such scandall to the Churches of the Reformation that Calvin though a rigid man did confute their dotages and publickly expose them to contempt and scorn The Ancients and the Moderns both have agreed on this that though the Church of Christ be imperfect alwayes and may sometimes be faulty also yet are not men rashly to separate themselves from her Communion and make a rupture for poor trifles in the Body mystical It argues little faith lesse charity saith renowned Cyprian if when we see some tares in the Church of God de Ecclesia ipsa recedamus we presently withdraw our selves and forsake her fellowship And here we might bring in St. Austin and almost all the ancient Writers to confirm this point but that they are of no authority with the captious Schismatick and now of late disclaimed by our neater Wits Therefore for further satisfaction to the stubborn Donatist let us behold the constitution of the Church in the Book of God and take a view of the chief types and fortunes of it to see if we can sinde such a spotless Church as they vainly dream of In Adams Family which was the first both type and Seminary of the Church of God there was one Cain a murderer that slew his Brother and in the Ark the next and perhaps the greatest a Cham which wretchedly betrayed the nakedness of his aged Father In Abrahams house there was an Ishmael which mocked at Isaac though the Heire and the Heire of promise In Isaac's a prophane Esau who made his belly his God and sold Heaven for a break-fast In Jacob's there was Simeon and Levi Brethren in evill besides a Reuben who defiled â—is old Fathers bed And in the Church of Israel when more large and populous how many were mad upon the worship of the golden Calf more mad in offering up their Children to the Idol Moloch thousands that bowed the knee to Baal ten thousands which did sacrifice in the Groves and prohibited places yet all this while a Church a true visible Church with which the Saints and Prophets joyned in Gods publick worship Let us next look upon the Gospel and we shall find that when the bounds thereof were so strait and narrow that there were few more visible members of it then the twelve Apostles yet amongst them there was a Judas which betrayed his Master When it began to spread and inlarge it self to the number of one hundred and twenty there were among them some half-Christians such as Nicodemus who durst not openly profess the Gospel but came unto the Lord by night and some false Christians such as Demas who out of an affection to the present world forsook both the Apostle and the Gospel too See them increased to such a multitude that they were fain to choose seven Deacons to assist the work and one of them will be that Nicolas the founder of the Nicolaitans whom the Lord abhorred Follow it out of Jewrie to Samaria and there we find a Simon Magus as formall a Professor as the best amongst them yet full of the gall of bitterness within Trace it in all its progress through Greece and Asia and we shall see the factiousness of the Corinthians the foolishness of the Galatians and six of the seven Asian Churches taxed with deadly sinne Good God! into what corner of the Earth can the Donatist run to finde a Church without corruption free from sin and error It must be sure into the old Utopia or the new Atlantis or some fools Paradise in Terra incognita which no Mapp takes notice of unless as Constantine once said unto Acesius a Novatian Bishop 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they can erect a Ladder of their own devising and so climb up unto the Heavens whilest they are here upon the Earth they have no such hopes God better knowes then we what he hath to do and he already hath determined of a Simul crescere that both the Tares and Wheat shall grow up together Nor wanted his eternal wisdom some especial reasons which might incline him thereunto First in relation to the wicked who owe their preservation chiefly to this intermixture For certainly the note is true Deum propter bonos sustinere malos That God gives many temporal blessings to ungodly men because they live so intermingled with his faithful servants and respites them sometimes from the hand of punishment not for their own but for the righteous persons sake amongst whom they dwell The Lord we know blessed Laban for the sake of Jacob and prospered the whole house of Potiphar out of the love he bare to Joseph If Sodom stood so long unpunished it was in part because of righteous Lot who sojourned with them and possibly it might have stood to this very day but certainly have
meant to take The servants were hot upon the spur had not patience to defer the action till a fitter time but would have fallen upon it instantly with more hast then speed Vis imus colligimus in the present Tense without deliberation or delay at all And they intended to have gone in so sharp a way which in the heat and violence of ungoverned zeal must of necessity have been dangerous to the Lords good Seed and pulled up many a man for suspected Tares which either were right Wheat of the Lords own sowing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or in due time according to the course and seasons of the heavenly Husbandry might have been changed unto the better and become good grain How did the Lord approve this project What comfort did he give them to pursue their Counsels No saith the Lord as to the time there is no such hast Sinite utraque simul crescere let both grow together till the Harvest till their fruits be ripe until they may be gathered up in a safer way more to the glory of the Lord and lesse unto the hurt of his faithful people If they desired to have these Tares destroyed as no doubt they did and to destroy them in a way which should bring neither wrong nor danger to the Wheat it self as was fit they should 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they must expect a fitter and more proper time which the Lord had not yet bin pleased to make known unto them And No saith he as to themselves whom he intended not to use in so great a business knowing full well that if they did go on according to the proposition which they made unto him how much they would be biassed by their own affections what dammage might redound to his Church thereby We must saith he have care and patience towards these Tares of which you have complained in such sensible termes and let them grow until the Harvest in hope they may prove better then you are aware of But if this do no good upon them if they make no more use of this longanimity then to bring forth the fruits of customary unrepented sins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vengeance and Hell shall overtake them at the last there 's no other remedy For then in the conjuncture of those circumstances in the time of Harvest I will cause the Ministers whom I mean to use to appear before me and say unto them being come My Reapers Colligite primum zizania Gather ye together first the Tares c. These words contain the full and finall resolution of the heavenly Husbandman in the disposing of the Tares so much so earnestly complained of In which we must behold him in the quality of a Judge or Magistrate pronouncing his determinate sentence in an open Court upon the pleadings and debate of the point before him And here we have two genenerall parts to be considered the Judgement and the Executioners The Executioners the Ministers rather of the Court are the Heavenly Angels though here represented to us by the name of Reapers to whom it appertaineth to bring forth the Prisoners and to see justice done upon them in the form pronounced The Judgement doth consist especially of these two Acts tâ—â— condemnation of the wicked the exaltation of the just The condemnation of the wicked the sentencing of the Tares to the fâ—re of Hell we finde delivered briefly in these three particulars Colligite colligate comburite Gather them first for they shall be no longer suffered in the field of God 2. Binde them and binde them in the chains of eternal darkness to let them know there is no hope no possibility to escape their punishment 3. And having bound then cast them presently into the everlasting flames to fire unquenchable This is the Judgement of the Tares of the wicked man In that which doth concern the Wheat we have these two parts an Action first and that is congregate gather Gather the several corns thereof in a Body or a Congregation next the Repository the place it self in which they are to be disposed of Horreum meum the Lords Barn the House or Habitation of his Heavenly glories There 's the condition of the Wheat of the righteous soul Of these I â—hall discourse in order as they lie before me beginning with the Executioners or the Ministers rather of the Court the Angels And in the time of Harvest I will say unto the Reapers Dicam messortbus that 's the first Eminentes viri magnis adjutoribus usi sunt The greatest persons have commonly the most able Ministers whether it is in point of Counsel or of execution And he that is well studied in the art of men will so imploy his Ministers and their abilities as may be fittest to advance the business which he hath in hand Every mans Talent lieth not in the Camp or Senate some are for the Ministerial or more servile Offices but yet as useful to the publick in their several places though not so honourable in themselves and these too have their proper and distinct Activities beyond the bounds whereof if they be commanded they become dull and sluggish and unprofitable and rather do incumber then promote the service Thus it is also in the Oeconomy of the Heavenly Husbandman The Lord hath several sorts of Ministers some for cultivating and manuring of his holy Field others for bringing in the harvest That the imployment of the Prelates and inferior Clergy this of the holy Angels of the Hosts of Heaven Messores autem Angeli sunt the Reapers are the Angels v. 39. And 't is an excellent Rule which St. Hierome gives us in this business Quae exposita sunt à Domino his debeo accommodare fidem That in those things which are expounded by our Saviour it were absurd to look for any clearer Commentary Which makes me wonder by the way that Hierome should so easily forget himself and his own good rule as to expound the Servants of the 27. of the Angels also Assuredly the Servants of the 27. with whom the Master doth discourse throughout this Parable must needs be different from the Reapers of this present Text of whom he speaks unto those Servants as distinct Ministers designed to their severall Offices So then the Reapers are the Angels there 's no doubt of that And they we know are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ministring spirits saith the Scripture imployed by God as often as he sees occasion in his affaires of greatest moment in none more frequently then such as do relate to the Sonnes of men either in point of punishment or preservation We told you not long since of a double Harvest within the compasse and intention of the present verse an Harvest of Gods temporal judgements upon particular men and Nations and collective bodies an Harvest of Gods general judgement when all flesh shall appear before him to receive their sentence And in both these the Angels are the Ministers of
and familiar friends like a Pellican in the desert Wilderness Shall not he presently be exposed unto the heats of persecution and colds of poverty and drowned in the Waves of cruel and unprosperous fortune Shall not the storms of trouble and affliction shew their fury on him till they have laid him flat on his very back and scattered his dispersed and mangled members over all the Earth yet shall this man this faithful and religious man that hath endured so great a measure of affliction such a sâ—oâ—m of tyranny be gathered at the last in horreum Domini into the Barn the safe Repository of the Heavenly Husbandman Not one of all those scattered limbs not a broken bone but shall be recollected by the Angels when they go a gathering made up into the same one body which before it was and laid up in the Lords Barn with joy and triumph that the body which fell in dishonour may be raised in honour and the bones which have been broken may rejoyce together Come then thou blessed Soul into the place of thy rest Thou hast been long a wearied Pilgrim on the face of the earth tossed from one station to another spent with continual travel and worn out with labours yet all this while couldst find no rest for the sole of thy foot Here is an everlasting rest provided for thee Enter thou good and faithful Servant into the joy of the Lord Thou hast been faithful in a little employed thy Masters Talent to the best advantage and for so doing hast been reviled and beaten by thy fellow-servants wounded and shamefully intreated by those Husbandmen to whom the Lord let forth his Vineyard and slain in fine in hope the Lords Inheritance would be shared among them Here is a joy a perfect everlasting joy made ready for thine entertainment Welcom thou glorious Citizen of the new Hierusalem to the continuing City thou hast so long looked for in which thou shalt enjoy after all thy troubles the Beatifical vision of Almighty God the goodly fellowship of Prophets the glorious company of the Apostles the noble Army of the Martyrs the dear society of those who have died before thee in and for the Lord. Mount mount victorious Soul into the Throne prepared for thee where thou shalt presently receive the immarcessible Crown of glory which Christ the righteous Judge shall give thee in that joyful day with great pomp and triumph millions of the celestial spirits attending on the solemnities of thy Coronation and the harmonious quire of Angels singing with thee and with the residue of the Saints departed Allelujah Gloria in excelsis Deo and all the holy Anthems extant in the Book of God And for our parts although we are not worthy in this humane frailty to sing in quire and consort with those blessed spirits yet let us bear the burden of those heavenly ditties which are chanted there singing with heart and voice all with one accord All honour praise and power and glory be unto him that sitteth in the highest Throne and to the Lamb and to the blessed and eternal Spirit now and evermore And let all the people say Amen SERMON I. At LAMBETH Jan. 13. 1638. ACTS 20. 30 31. Also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away Disciples after them Watch therefore I Might here shut the Book and end and say as did our Saviour in another case Impleta in nostris haec est Scriptura diebus this day is this Scripture fulfilled in our eyes So many are there of our selves that rise up continually whose lips speak proud words and pervert good meanings that so they may be followed and cryed up and draw away much people after them St. Paul foresaw this mischief and forewarns us of it and of a Preacher instantly becomes a Prophet He doth begin his charge with an Attendite Take heed unto your selves and to all the flock and he concludes the same with a vigilate Watch therefore and remember that you have been warned Reason enough there was for both as well for the attendite as the vigilate Wolves grievous Wolves were entring in and such as would not spare the Flock that follows close on the attendite and perverse Fellows rising up to make a rupture in the Church and draw away Disciples after them that goes immediately before the Vigilate Attendite vigilate are two good Caveats and entred here by the Apostle in the name of Christ that so he might preserve that interest in the Church of God which he had purchased to himself with his own dear blood In one of these he arms his Prelates contra saevitiam persecutorum against the fury of the persecutors which assault without and in the other he prepares them contra fraudulentiam deceptorum against the fraud of the perverters and other secret sicknesses which infect within In both he layes before them the Churches dangers that so they may bethink themselves of convenient remedies As for the words now read unto you we may consider in them these two generals the sickness of the Church and the cure thereof The sickness is a swelling or a rising up of certain ill-affected humours in the body mystical which we shall first consider in the thing it self Exurgent viri then shall men arise Secondly in the unde from what part or place Ex vobis ipsis from our selves Thirdly in the effect what they do being risen loquuntur perversa speaking perverse things And lastly what it is they aim at ut abducant discipulos post se to draw away Disciples after them In the next general the Cure we have these particulars 1. The Physician that 's the Prelate to whom the charge promised is given And 2. The Medicine here prescribed which is the care and vigilancy of the Prelates Vigilate igitur Watch therefore Of these c. Exurgent viri that 's the first And sure it might be well supposed comparing these two dangers with one another that the poor Church were in no mean degree of safety having escaped those grievous Wolves to fall into the hands of men for homo homini fit Deus as the Proverb hath it But if considered as it ought the danger is no lesse then before it was for homo homini fit lupus is a Proverb too There we had men who for their rage and cruelty were entituled Wolves here Wolves who for their seeming gentleness and humanity are entituled men But here and there their purpose is the same to subvert the Church there openly by force and violence here secretly by fraud and cunning and therefore here the danger greater because lesse suspected as undermining is more dangerous to beleaguered Cities then an open battery As long as Satan had no other instruments to subvert the Church then those grievous Wolves he took great pains to lose his labour The Tyrants all from Nero down to Dioclesian when they made havock of the faithful what did they but confirm them
respects of our English Puritans The like may be affirmed of Meletius also an Egyptian Bishop raising a long and tedious Schisme against the Patriarch of Alexandria to whom the Canons of the Church had made him subject The like of many of the African or Southern Prelates so wedded to the cause and faction of the ancient Donatists that they confined the whole Church intra partem Donati within the pale and limits of the faction of these Donatists only and in some points were not unlike the Anabaptists of these latter times drawing so many Disciples after them that in the end they grew a terror to the Orthodox party Assuredly the Church was most unhappy in these popular Prelates how fortunate soever they conceived themselves in the multitude of their Disciples in being countenanced and abetted by the common people And so she is in those who pursue their courses who being placed as Overseers in the Church of God do not alone neglect their duties in the attendite and the vigilate which are here prescribed but have their part in the exurgunt a principal and leading part in the rising up Great pity 't is that either they or any other of the flock of Christ that ought to speak peace to the Church should rise up against it and being risen up in so soul a manner should spend their tongues and talents to so lewd a purpose as speaking perverse things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to draw away much people after them and be the leaders of a party Yet this the humour and the aim of these rising men loquuntur perversa ut abducant discipulos post se my next particular and next in order to be handled David complains of a vexatious people in his dayes which used to say that with their tongues they would prevail and that they were the men which ought to speak without regard to any power that was above them Quis noster dominus est Who is Lord over us say they or shall command us not to speak when opportunity is given us to advance our selves and draw away Disciples after us Such lawless Tongues as these doth St. Paul here speak of who that they might be sure to possess the people cared not what they said whose actions they traduced whose good name they slandered or whose good meaning they perverted The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used in the Original doth signifie perverse or froward as in the 17th of Matthew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O faithlesse and perverse Generation And in the 2d to the Philippians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the middle of a froward and perverse Generation This shewes us that these exurgentes are a perverse and froward people very hard to please and such as will take nothing in good part how real and sincere soever A sullen and unsociable race of men quorum superbiam frustra per obsequium modestiam effugeris whom when we strive to please we lose them being still further off the more sought after A stubborn and untractable Generation quos nunquam persuadebis etiamsi persuaseris that will adhere to the conclusion though they be beaten off the premises and will not yield to reason although vanquisht by it And yet this sad and froward humour would not hurt any but themselves did they keep it in but here is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that brings all to nought This froward humour must be vented and break wind in speech and having broken out in speech is as full of frowardness as was the stomach whence it came The perverse humour which affects them would else eat them up and gnaw upon their entralls like Prometheus vulture This makes them seek out such as are like themselves or easily inclined to give eare unto them to whom they powre out their complaints and bemoan the times as if the Church were like to fall did not they support it St. Paul and they so equal in their jurisdiction that it is very hard to say which of them hath the greatest care of all the Churches Hence is it that they fill the heads of poor ignorant people with most groundless feares of innovation in Religion and changes in Gods publick worship the Church continually traduced as if she were unsound in her intentions towards Christ the Prelates generally accused as Factors for the mystical strumpet and the inferior Clergy which submit themselves to the Commands of their superiors in the Lord what are they counted but the wretched instruments to usher in those innovations which are so much feared And certainly this is perversa loqui in the proper sense in the true meaning of the word when men are grown to such a measure of perverseness that we pervert the words and purposes of all publick persons and wrest them to a meaning which they never dreamt of For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek is properly and truly to distort and wrest as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to wrest a matter from the truth in the famous Orator A thing not seldom used by these perverse speakers who to set off their projects and promote their cause not only wrest the words and actions of their innocent Brethren beyond their true intent and meaning but too too often wrest the Scripture even the most blessed Word of God to make it serviceable to their factious and seditious ends The Scribes and Pharisees of old when they watched our Saviour seeking occasion to betray him what did they else but wrest and pervert his actions reporting that he cast out Devils by the help of Devils that all his miracles were forged and his Doctrine false tending to introduce a new Religion and annul the old And what conceit you was their aim but to animate the people by those perverse speeches that in a zeal unto the preservation of Religion they might combine together with them unite themselves in some strict Covenant against the Lord and his anointed and cry out nolumus hunc regnare with the better stomach This is indeed the utmost mischief which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 carries with it the word not onely signifying to distort or wrest but by so doing to seduce and pervert poor people Thus read we Luke 22. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We found this fellow perverting our Nation and so of Elymas the Sorcerer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that that he endeavoured to pervert the Deputy and turn him from the faith of Christ This is the thing they aim at in their perverse speakings to captivate seduce and bewitch the people and make them fit for any mischievous attempt which they shall please to animate and excite them to We find in Ovid that when â—allas had commanded Cadmus to sowe Vipers teeth motae supponere terrae vipereos dentes as the Poet hath it there presently rose up an Army very well appointed crescitque seges clypeata virorum Nor have we reason to expect any better Harvest when these men sowe their Vipers Tongues
when by calumniating and traducing both the Church and State they do not onely stir up envy and great thoughts of heart which were the wonted strifes of Reuben but lay a ground-work also for sedition which is the ordinary consequent of the gain-saying of Corah The holy Leagues Covenants and Associations which this age hath bred and the like combinations against lawful Government and lineall succession unto Crowns and Scepters what are they but the natural though sad effects of these perverse speakers Certain I am that by these male-contented and seditious artifices they augment their numbers and increase their followers and draw away Disciples after them which is the only thing they aim at To draw away Disciples after them This is strange indeed Hath there been any age so happy in which the people need be drawn to imbrace new fancies to hearken after factious risers and lend too credulous an ear to their perverse speeches I cannot tell I would be loth to brand all preceding times though in my slender reading I have met with none of so composed and fine a temper no Age wherein men were not prone enough to hearken to perverse and seditious talkers Sponte sua properant the people commonly are too hot of their own accord to follow after such pursuits and need little drawing But drawing in this place is no word of force unless it be of forcible and strong perswasions as when it is affirmed in Scripture That no man commeth unto the Sonne except the Father please to draw Except the Father draw him how not by compelling of the will or forcing men to Heaven whether they will or not or drawing them velut inanimatum quoddam as men draw after them a Log or Stone as sometimes Luther pleased to phrase it Not so but by inviting men to their salvation calling upon them to accept it by his holy word and working on them by the operations of his holy Spirit So the word traho hath been used in best Latine Authours Trahit sua quemque voluptas in the Poet Virgil me trahit invitam nova vis in the Poet Ovid. What by applying any outward violence No but by hearkening to the motions of our own desires and giving way to our affections for so it followeth in the Poet aliudque cupido mens aliud suadet Our understanding and our lusts draw two several wayes and we may properly be said to be drawn by either when either we submit our selves to the rule of Reason or follow the dictamen of our lusts and passions And such and none but such is the present drawing the drawing of weak men by more subtile wits to hearken to their perverse speakings and thereby to become their followers and be accounted their Disciples Nor do they only ducere but they do abducere not only draw but draw away the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Original must be so interpreted and is so used in other Texts of holy Scripture Drawes them away from whence from the main body of the Church the Congregation of Gods chosen The Church is often called in Scripture the body of Christ of which each faithful Christian is a speciall member Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular as said St. Paul to those of Corinth They therefore which withdraw a Christian from the Church of Christ not only pierce his side as the Souldiers did but teare a member from his body which the Souldiers durst not And therefore Beza reads the word ut abstrahant and gives this reason why he doth so read it Loquitur Luca◠ut de membris crudeliter corpore suo avulsis But it would little profit these perverse speakers to draw poor people from the Church to make them disaffected to the present Government and so give them off what should they get if any or if every man were so misperswaded There 's a post eos in the Text which they chiefly aim at to make men so leave the Church as to follow them Not one amongst them but will be a leader and must have followers of his own some fair retinue to come after him for the greater state Such men as these stand more upon post eos then upon abducunt and be their Proselytes what they will noble ignoble rich or poor they must come behind Post nos bonus mos is the best rule in all their Ethicks and primus ibi ante omnes magna comitante caterva accounted by them the most heroick verse in all Virgils works The Scholar must not be above his Master there 's no sense in that And therefore that they may be sure not to lose post eos their Scholars shall be Scholars still still learning like St. Pauls old women but never comming unto the knowledge of the truth And certainly there is good reason why the holy Spirit doth not entitle those which are drawn away by the name of followers or dependents but by that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Disciples Men commonly reward their followers but they take pay of their Disciples and something hath some favour as the saying is Dignus est operarius mercede sua The Labourer is worthy of his wages And he that is taught ought to communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things so saith the holy Scripture Administer in all good things that 's true but in what proportion In omnibus bonis in all his good things saith the true Apostle omnia bona sua even all his goods say these false Apostles The better pay the better Scholars while you live A matter out of which the Pharisees sucked no small advantage becoming so much master of the peoples purses that being once fined by Herod for their disobedience a principal Lady of their faction mustred up her store 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and payd the fine down for them without more adoe Besides the Disciple is obliged to believe his Master oportet discentem credere as the old rule is and if he yield up his belief to his Masters dictates his Master may dispose of him as his own creation Hence is it that these exurgentes have attained such credit that their words passe for Oracles with their credulous followers And when they once have misperswaded them of their superiors in the Lord whether Prince or Prelate it is not in the power of men or Angels to bring them to a right opinion Josephus tells us of the Pharisees that they had gotten much footing in the affections of their followers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that whatsoever they pleased to say either of the high Priest or the King himself how false and scandalous soever it was received for truth without further question And now I am fallen upon the Pharisees I shall add this further that the great pains they took in compassing both Sea and Land to increase their Proselytes and add unto the number of their dear Disciples shewed plainly
Scripture sustained the person of the Church Et cum ci dicitur ad omnes dicitur pasce oves meas And therefore when our Saviour said unto him feed my Sheep he said the same in him unto all the rest So then the rest of the Apostles have as much interest in this weighty charge as St. Pâ—ter had they being all equally invested pari consortio potestatis honoris with an equall measure both of power and honour as Cyprian and generally all the Fathers tell us The next enquiry will be this whether that all the Ministers of our Saviours Gospel be equally intrusted with a power of feeding and may all equally take upon themselves the name of Pastors Some would fain have it so indeed for seeing that the word of God is the food of the soul non video cur Pastor non dicatur qui pabulum hoc subministrat we see no cause say they that those who preach the Word of God should not be honoured also with the name of Pastors And Pastors let them be if the name will please them though ab initio non fuit sic it was not so from the beginning for anciently the Prelates only had the name of Pastors St. Austin knew no other Pastors in the Church of God then the Apostles and the Bishops in the 47. Tract on John Our learned Andrews is resolute upon the point neminem veterum sic locutum that the Antients never otherwise understood the word And Binius in his notes upon the Councils excepts against a fragment of the Council of Rhemes as being not of that Antiquity which is there pretended quod titulum Pastoris tribuat Parâ—cho because the name of Pastor is communicated to the Parishâ—Priest contrary to the usage of those elder times But Pastors let them be in Gods name if the name will please them so they usurp not on the power Pastors as Pasco is derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth to feed but not to govern For whereas there are divers acts of the Pastoral charge as viz. to beat down the body of sin to warn the unruly comfort the feeble-minded support the weak to infuse balm into the sick and wounded soul and with all care and industry to call the sinner to repentance all these do equally belong to those who are invested by the Church with holy Orders The Parish-Presbyter would very ill be called a Rector did we not grant him this authority And for the power corrective let him take that too so farre as he may do it with the sword of the spirit Et virga oris sui and with the rod of his mouth as the Prophet calls it But for the power of correction by the Rod of Dâ—scipline or the staffe of punishment or by the censures of the Church that pertains only to the Prelate the superior Pastor and it concerneth him highly that he use it well For many times it hapneth that the stragling sheep will not be brought into the Fold by fair perswasions or by the Ministery of the Word What then Ad diligentiam Pastoralem pertinet it then belongs unto the Pastor Flagellorum terroribus vel etiam doloribus revocare to fetch him back again by the stripes of Dâ—scipline by the coercions of the Church Which power were it committed to the hands of each several Minister would doubtless prove the greatest tyranny that ever the poor Church of Christ did suffer under This is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and pertains solely to the Prelate as an act of Government Who therefore anciently was armed with his Crozier or Pastoral staffe and by the Law of England he may use it still that by the same he might reduce the stragler and correct the stubborn and rouze up the affections of the sluggish person According to the good old verse Attrahe per primum medio rege punge per imum A perfect Embleme of his duty for howsoever that of Nazianzen be exceeding true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the good Shepherd should oftner use his Pipe then his Shepherds-staffe yet the Sheep become unruly and will not hear the Shepherds-pipe pipe he never so sweetly he must needs take his staffe in hand there 's no other remedy But I touch onely on these Controversies and so passe them by The third and last duty which pertains unto the Shepherd is that he guard his sheep and keep them safe from the devouring malice of the enemy In which regard it is the Custom of those Countries which are plagued with Wolves to lodge their sheep at night in defossis specubus in some strong Caverns under ground and free from violence In which regard the Poet Virgil doth advise his shepherd to provide himself of some fierce Mastives acres molossos as he calls them by whom the flock may be defended during his own necessary absence And finally in this regard the faithful Shepherd doth expose his person unto much peril many inconveniences and several assaults of enemies Thus Jacob tells us of himself that when he kept the sheep of Laban the drought consumed him by day and the Frost by night and that sleep departed from his eyes And in the Story of Gods Book we are told of David that when he kept his Fathers sheep and that a Bear and a Lion had surprized a Lamb he set himself against the fury of those ravenous Beasts and delivered the poor Lamb out of their pawes and in a single combat slew them both So is it with our Saviour Christ in the protection of his Church in the defence of those who are the sheep of his Pasture It was his glory as it was his comfort that of all those whom God had given him he had lost not one And 't was his comfort as it was his care that he had lodged them in a place of such strength and safety even in his strongest hold his holy Tabernacle against the which the Gates of Hell shall never be able to prevail A place in which if we continue we need not fear the violence of Satan that roaring Lion who walks about the Fold continually seeking out whom he may devoure And it is well said that he walks about for get into the Fold he cannot and therefore doth he walk about it that so if any of the flock do forsake the Fold him he may make his prey and ravish him into his Den. T is true that Christ hath sent us out like sheep among the Wolves as himself hath told us But then it is as true withall that he hath furnished us with doggs and placed them round about his Church in each corner of it that by their fierceness and their watchfulness and continual barking they may keep farre aloof the common enemy by whom the straglers are endangered Vigilant enim latrant boni Canes pro Pastore pro Grege as St. Austin
let us look upon the sheep as they are a flock as they are Oves first in the plural number and secondly as Oves meae my sheep the sheep of Christ a multitude or number under the command of one supreme Sheepherd First Oves in the plural number otherwise Christ could have no Church and the great Sheepherd would have never a Flock One sheep can no more properly be called a Flock then one Swallow may be said to make a Summer and on the other side a multitude of sheep without rule or Government is no more a flock then several shreds of Cloth may be called a Garment So is it also with the Church one man though never so replenished with celestial Graces cannot so properly be called a Church as a Chappel of Ease and multitudes of men that live not under one Lord one Faith one Baptisme cannot with such propriety be termed a Church as a confusion of opinions To the making therefore of a Church a Flock there is a number first required and next an union or consolidation of those numbers It s true this number hath not been at all times eminent nor equally conspicuous in all places and yet there have been still a number Seven thousand knees there were in Israel which Elijah knew not that had not bowed themselves to Baal and infinite numbers in the Realm of Judah who never offered sacrifice to that wretched Idol visible Professors of Gods saving truths and devout worshippers of his holy name Nor ever was the Church so destituâ—e of the grace of God as not to hold those necessary fundamental Doctrines which are required unto salvation and those professed and taught in some place or other according to the will and pleasure of Almighty God Since God first had a Church there have still been numbers of Professors though more or lesse according unto times and seasons more in some places then in others although not alwayes in such whole and sound condition so free from erroâ— and corruptions as it ought to be But number simply is not so great a strength to the Church of God as is the unity thereof For as the holy Ghost in the Book of Psalms compares the Church not unto men but to a City a City at unity in it self and in the Canticles not unto Souldiers but an Army an Army terrible with banners so doth he liken it not unto sheep but to a flock a flock new come from washing in the same Song of Solomon a little flock as himself calls it in St. Luke And if a flock it must be then united and collected into one Fold under the leading and command of the same one Sheepherd unum â—vile and unus Pastor being joyned together in this Chapter v. 16. To finde this one Sheepherd who it is we need seek no further then my Text it is Christ our Saviour who therefore calleth them oves meas his own sheep his as the chief sheepherd and proprietary the Lord and owner of the flock And this supreme and universal sheepherd we acknowledge gladly and should account our selves in an ill condition were we not under his command fed by his blessed Word and Sacraments and safely sheltered under the wings of his protection There is indeed another who pretends to this this universal Empire over all the Flock one who cries out with Polyphemus in the Poet Hoc pâ—cus omne meum est that all the sheep upon the Downs are his or like the sheepherd in the Eclogue Mille meae Siculis errant in montibus Agnae and so are all the Lambs on a thousand Hills And whereas antiently it was conceived to be a perfect definition of the Church of Christ viz. that it was a body of men professing one Lord one Faith one Baptisme our Masters in the Church of Rome have now added this sub unius Christi in terris Vicarii Romani Pont. that this collected body must be under the command of the Bishop of Rome A patch subjoyned to the old definition of a Church much like the piece of new Cloth put to an old Garment which our Saviour speaketh of That which is added to it to make up the rent takes from the beauty of the Garment Et scissura fit pejor saith the Text the Schisme or rupture is made worse then before it was For by this patch this new addition the Churches of the East which are large and numerous those of the Moscovites and Aâ—thiopians which are farre more entire though not so populous and all the Churches also of the Reformation are cut off for ever from having any part in David or hope of an inheritance in the sonne of Jesse But with this new Divinity we have nought to do We know but one chief Sheepherd onely even the Lord Christ Jesus whose voyce we are to hear whom we ought to follow If it be asked whether the number or the unity of the flock be the more considerable no question but we must determine it in behalf of unity A small flock if it hold together are lesse obnoxious to the Wolf then multitudes of sheep dispersed and scattered without rule and order Luporum insidiis oves minus patent quod ita catervatim incedant à reliquis non aberrent as mine Authour hath it When the sheep keep together in a flock a Body the Wolf dare hardly meddle with them for it were madness in him to attempt a flock But if he meet them single or in scattered Companies divided from the main Body of their fellows or otherwise stragling from the Fold then takes he his advantage of them and destroyes them utterly As long as Dinah kept her self within the Sanctuary of her Fathers House fenced by the valour of her Brethren and guided by the counsels of a careful Parent it went well with her she preserved her honour But when the gadding humour took her and she must needs abroad to see the Daughters of the Land she forthwith met with Sichem the Sonne of Hamor who seized upon her and defiled her And so it also is with the stragling Christian such as do peevishly divide themselves from the Communion of the Church and wander from the rest of that sacred Body They either fall into the jawes of the roaring Lion who walkes about in expectation of his prey seeking out whom he may devoure or else by hearkening to the voice of strangers whom they should not follow they make themselves a spoyl unto Theeves and Robbers Keep we then all together in one Fold one Flock and so we need not fear the violence of Satan nor the power of Hell nor any mischievous design of malicious men And if we would preserve the spirit of unity in the bond of peace we cannot do it with lesse hazard nor with more assurance then if we hearken diligently to the voyce of Christ and tread with patience in his steps which are the duties to be done
affirming also that for the present distresse it were good for all men so to be that the unmarried cares more for the things belonging to the Lord how he may please the Lord then the married doth The Fathers many of them are exceeding copious if not hyperbolicall in commendation of Virginity especially after that Jovinian seemed to undervalue it fideliumque matrimoniorum meritis adaequabat and made it of no greater merit then a vertuous Wedlock Which general Rules of the Apostle became appropriated to the Clergy first by conforming thereunto of their own accord as a matter voluntary next by the Authority of the Fathers who recommended it unto them for a more perfect state of life then that of marriage but left it howsoever as a matter arbitrary But after-ages finding out further motives to endure the business as viz. that being freed from domestick cares they might more readily attend Gods service more constantly pursue their studies more bountifully cherish and relieve the poor but specially that they might more chearfully infeoffe the Church with their possessions it came at last insensibly and by degrees to be imposed upon them as a matter necessary By meanes whereof the single life being generally imbraced by Clergymen in these Western parts it grew in time to be disputed whether ever it had been otherwise in the Church of God And in conclusion it was determined that however in some cases the Clergy were permitted to retain those Wives which they had taken before Orders yet that the Examples of men married after Orders were exceeding few if at all any could be found Thus was it in the blade or stalk no fault found with it But when it came to bring forth fruit to fecissent sructum then the case was otherwise and it appeared that howsoever continency and virginity were the gifts of God yet the restraint of marriage was a tare of Satans for what did follow hereupon but that the Clergy grew infamous by their frequent lusts Panormitan complaining plerosque coitu illi cito commaculari Cassander publickly affirming ut vix centesimum invenias that hardly one amongst a hundred did contain himself within the limits of his Vow the Canonists withall maintaining that Clerks were not to be deprived for their incontinency cùm pauci sine illo vitio inveniantur the mischief being grown so universal that it was thought uncapable of any remedy I willingly passe by their unnatural lusts for which they stand accused in the Poet Mantuan venerabilis ara cynaedis servit and that which followeth after nor will I tell you of the Fish-pond in Pope Gregories time wherein were found the skulls of 6000 Infants ex occultis fornicationibus adulteriis sacerdotum conceived to be the tragical effects of their loose affections And notwithstanding that these things were known and bitterly complained of by such devout and consciencious men as observed the same yet to so high an impudencie did they come at last that John the Cardinal of Cova preaching at noon against the marriage of Priests was the night following taken in adultery and Cardinal Campegius in the Diet of Norimberg did not shame to say that it was more lawful for a Priest to have many Concubines quà m vel uxorem unam ducere then one lawful Wife And why was all this suffered think you upon grounds of piety no but in point of policy to uphold the Popedom For when this matter was debated in the Coâ—ncel of Trent and that the Prelates there did not seem unwilling to ease the Clergy of that heavy but more scandalous yoke the Pope returned his absolute Negative and was much offended that they had suffered it to come in question Why so because that Church-men having Wives and Children to be as Hostages or pledges for their good beheaviour would become more obnoxious to the secular powers and more obedient to the pleasure and Command of their natural Princes adeoque Pontificem redigere ad solius Romae Episcopatum which would in fine prove prejudicial to the Popes Supremacy and limit his Authority to the Walls of Rome The fruits thus palpably discovering the true condition of the Doctrine begat withall a shrewd suspicion that possibly the reasons commonly alledged in defence thereof might be weak and wrested And upon search it did appear that the directions of St. Paul were general and did no more concern the Clergy then all people else some of them being only fitted to the present time and therefore not to make a rule for all future Ages that though the Fathers magnified and extolled the single life they imposed it not or if they did it was not more upon the Clergy then upon the Laicks and finally that Pope Siricius who imposed it first could find no Text in Scripture whereupon to ground it and therefore most prophanely wrested and abused that place Qui in carne sunt non possunt placere Deo to make it serviceable to his wretched ends And it was also found on further search into antiquity that this restraint of marriage being proposed unto the Fathers of the Council of Nice was by Paphnutius and the sounder part of that great Synod openly rejected that it was neither new nor strange to marry after holy Orders Eupsychius a Bishop of the Cappadocians whom Althanasius highly praiseth taking a Wife after he was advanced unto a Bishoprick and of a Bridegroom instantly become a Martyr dum adhuc quasi sponsus esse videretur saith the Tripartite History The like as to the point of marrying after holy orders Vincentius tells us of one Phileus an Egyptian Prelate The same may also be made good not only in the Eastern Church where the Priests are not yet debarred from marriage after Orders taken as it is noted on the Glosse on Gratian but for 1000 years together in these Western parts So lately it was before the Clergy were generally minded to yield to that slavish tyranny nor was it manifest on more mature deliberation that marriage in and of it self did any way disable men from Gods publick service the studying of the holy Scriptures oâ— the works of charity Greg. Nazianzen affirming of some friends of his which lived in Wedlock 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That they were every way as eminent in all acts of godliness as those that did professe virginity Which with the wretched consequents before remembred being taken into consideration by our first Reformers and being it was observed withall that the restraint depended upon positive Lawes no Divine Commandement the wisdom of this State thought fit to take away those positive lawes on the which it stood and leave it arbitrary as at first And this they were the rather induced to do by reason that the rigorous necessity of a single life had formerly affrighted many a man of parts and learning from entring into holy Orders and filled the Church with ignorant and infamous persons By meanes of which indulgence granted as before the
even in the middle of our sins and shall we wrest the Sword out of his hands to execute judgement on our selves Doth he expect the reformation and conversion of the sinner till the eleventh houre of the day and will not we tarry for him till the sixth or ninth Is God so patient towards the tares as to expect whether they will prove wheat or not to lay ne fortè as a barre in the way of those who came prepared to go and gather them up without more delay and are we men so inconsiderate of their case and our own condition as to be all for imus colligimus for ne fort◠nothing May we not say in this case with the great Apostle inexcusabilis es O homo Thou art inexcusable O man whosoever thou art that judgest another thou condemnest thy self or if thou wilt be judging take this rule along which the Apostle gives thee in another place Nolite judicare ante tempus Judge nothing before the time till the Lord cometh c. 1 Cor. 4. 4. Assuredly it argues little Christianity but farre lesse charity to condemn them to death whom God meanes to save to go about to cut them off and bring them unto execution whom God is purposed to reprieve to a further triall to cast them out of the house as Vessels of wrath who in due time though not so soon as thou expectest may be vessels of mercy Therefore take heed of imus colligimus be not too hasty and precipitate in acting thine own Counsels or in pursuit of those designes which thou hast in hand towards the reformation of the Church of God the extirpation of those tares which thou hast an eye on and by the which thou thinkest Gods Field to be so indangered but let ne forte hold the reines and make thee look with care and circumspection on the work before thee At least refer it all to Vis to the Masters pleasure and then proceed according unto his directions So doing thou shalt more promote thy Masters business then by following the devices and desires of thine own heart for so doing thou shalt be entertained in the Court of Heaven with Euge bone serve Well done thou good and faithful Servant enter into thy Masters joy Which Christian care and moderation God of his goodness grant us all that we may all be made partakers of the like reception in Gods glorious Kingdom Amen SERMON III. At CHRIST-CHURCH Jan. 5th 1644. MATTH 13. v. 30. Sinite utraque simul crescere usque ad messem Let both grow together till the Harvest QUantum inter opera divina humana interest tantum necesse est distare inter Dei hominisque sapientiam It was the observation of Lactantius an ancient Writer That look how great the difference was between the visible works of Almighty God and the poor undertakings of us mortall men so great or greater was the difference between his Heavenly Wisdom and our deepest Counsels Which rule if it be true as no doubt it is how infinitely short must we needes conceive that Solomons wisdom though the wisest of the Sonnes of Adam or Moses knowledge though well trained in all the learning of the Egyptians or the Prophetick spirits of Isaiah Daniel and the rest of the ancient Seers was of the wisdom knowledge foresight of Almighty God For alas what proportion hold the Worlds seven Wonders so celebrated in the Writings of the elder dayes or any of the most heroical achievements of the greatest Potentates with the Creation of the World nay with the composition of the meanest creature in which there is not any thing but what may breed both wonder and astonishment in the mightiest Monarch The wisdom of the wise is it not foolishness with God saith the great Apostle Doth not the same Apostle tell us that our knowledge is imperfect and our fore-sight blinde seeing no more then in Aenigmate through a dark Glasse or a broken Perspective We know saith he in part and in part we prophesie And if in part onely then is neither perfect A clearer instance of this truth we can hardly finde then in the process of this Parable comparing the advice of the Houshold-servants with the decree and finall resolution of their heavenly Master The servants thought there was no safer way to secure the Harvest then an eradication of those dangerous tares which had been sowen during their negligence and security by the crafty enemy To this end they made offer of their help and service vis imus colligimus ea Wilt thou that we go and gather them up v. 28. and they expected thanks at least for the proposition if not an approbation of their course and Counsel But contrary their Master seeing further then the servants could and being apprehensive of the dangers which might follow on it had their advice been entertained first countermands their offer with an absolute Negative Et ait Non but he said Nay he did not like of their intention the gathering of the tares in the way proposed would have procured more mischief to the Field of God then the tares themselves did seem to threaten And more then so he lets them see which all the wisdom of the world would have never thought of that the best way to save the Harvest and preserve the Wheat was to permit the tares and wheat to grow up together till they were ready for the Reapers and then to gather them and dispose them in their proper places according to the will and pleasure of the Lord their God This the coherence of the Text with the former passages this the Text it self Sinite utraque c. In these words we have these two general parts to be considered the sufferance of Almighty God and the season of it 2ly the condition of the Church and the causes of it the sufferance of Almighty God towards sinful man in the first word Sinite suffer them both to grow together the season of it in the last usque ad messem till the Harvest The condition of the Church represented to us in the intermixture of the Wheat and Tares both which are here permitted simul crescere to grow up together till the Harvest the causes of this intermixture not expressed in terminis but to be found if sought for without much adoe In the first generall we shall examine these three points 1. What is meant by messis the approching Harvest and the use thereof 2. What induces the Heavenly Husbandman to give so long a sinite to the Tares when meanes and opportunity was offered for their extirpation And 3. Whether the sinite of the Text delivered in the Imperative mood be so strong and binding that in no case the tares are to be rooted out till the Harvest come In the next generall we shall shew you 1. That the Church here militant is of such condition that good and bad the Orthodox Professor and the Heretick