They are not the next ages before us that we look upon as they odiously insinuate but the most antient and yet I wish that the present times may not ingratiate and endear the former age notwithstanding its corruptions and have the fate which some think Augustus aimed at in adopting Tiberius that the memory of his Government might be more sweetned by the succession of a worse In the 13. Section for we will still endeavour to collect and unite together what they have scattered of one concernment they seek to enervate the testimony of the antient Church by telling us out of the Lord Verulam That they which too much reverence old times are a scorn to new That the Fathers agreed in mistakes and were divided in truths That the Opinion of the Chiliasts taken for an errour is by Justin Martyr referred to the Apostles Irenaeus affirms that Jesus Christ lived fifty years on earth Lubbertus is cited to say it is the manner of the Fathers when they would commend a thing not knowing its original to refer it to the Apostles and primitive Times In the three first Centuries the Learned are perplexed with spurious works of the Fathers which makes uncertain the state of the Primitive Church which some extend not beyond the Apostles days or third Century and it is stretched too far to the age of Chrysostome We know and acknowledge that the Fathers like the Moon never borrowed so much light from the Sun of the Scriptures as to be clear of all spots Stapleton himself grants there is none of the Fathers in which something erroneous may not be observed they are like the Birds hatch'd at Cair by the warmth of an Oven which have every one some blemish and I wish their errours were of no other alloy than such as the Apologists have detected Piscator Alsted Mead Hackwel Gallus c. whereof that of the Chiliasts themselves dare not stigmatize for an errour and therfore unaptly alleage it but only say it hath been taken for one perchance they are more indulgent thereunto because it is a Darling fostered much fawned upon by many of their Brethren and indeed hath divers more learned assertors than them who consent in the thing though with some difference in the manner and for the conceit of Irenaeus it is a Chronological no Dogmatical errour and Chronologers are one of those three things that never agree Id calumniâ carere debebit saith Sulpitius Severus But because the Fathers might or did erre therefore to give no credit to their Witnesses would be in effect destructive to all kind of humane testimony From hence onely can be concluded that they are not infallible and therefore our understanding not to be captivated into any obedience to their Dictates in that sense we call no man Father save the Ancient of days and that iis in enucleandis fidei controversiis non necessarium est consentire tanquā ab omni exceptione veris Chamier tom l. 1. c. 6. p. 4. Aquin. 1. q. 1. art 8. ad 2. aut etiam in se possunt proferri ut quibus ex certa Suppositione certis etiam circumstantiis hic discernendi rectum ab obliquo usu convenire queat saith Chamier and authoritatibus Canonicae Scripturae utitur proprie ex necessitate argumentando authoritate autem aliorum Doctorum Ecclesiae quasi arguendo ex propriis sed probabiliter c. as Aquiaas But the errours of a single Father or their mutual differences cannot lay any obstructions in our way who lay no such great waight on their singular Opinions yet set much by their general consent in what the most and most famous in every age have delivered as received of them that went before them and as practised or beleeved by them What Lubbertus is alleaged to say will not make either scale theirs or ours to move much with the waight thereof the notion Apostles is not alway taken properly Dr. Ham. Resol 6. quae q. 5. p. 351. And see Parker of the Cross part 2. p. 126. de Baptis Contr. Don. l. 4. c. 24. alii Epist 118. c. 1. or strictly to be understood one great learned man hath manifested it that in the Primitive Times Bishops were usually called Apostles and another hath told us that the ancient Church extended the Apostolical Times beyond the age of the Apostles even to the Nicene Council The ignorance whereof perplexed Baronius to reconcile it How Scithianus and Terebinthus are said to live Temporibus Apostolorum who lived in Aurelians time 300. years after Christ and howsoever yet I know it was the rule of Saint Augustine often inculcated and approved by our principal Divines in matters of fact and practice That which the universal Church holdeth and which was not appointed by Councils but always observed is most rightly believed to have been delivered by Apostolical Authority If some Bastard Writings are put upon the Fathers which like Eaglets being brought forth to the sun are not very hard to be discerned by their inability to endure the light of critical examination there are others which the Learned are agreed upon to bear the characters of their true Off-spring which set the antient Church within our light and prospect and it is no argument that because some coyn is counterfeit therefore none must be current let them reject it if we offer to pay them with false money But I doubt their practice will need some counterfeit Writings to support it for the genuine Works of the Antients will lend it no authority They should much have favoured our ignorance to have pointed at those had their authority been worth our notice who confine the Primitive Church within the age of the Apostles or extend it not beyond the second centeury that we might have tryed what weight their reasons or authority carry in the counter-scales against the generality of the polemical Divines who though primitive be a relation and spoken always with respect to another so that what is primitive in reference to one is not so toward another yet they dilate the antient Church Doctoribus Ecclesiasticis 6. priorum saeculorum veterum patrum adscriberemus titulum Rivet tract de patr Author Tom. 2. p. 648. According to one of the Epocha's the time for the measured purity of the Inner Court and that is the visible Church remaining in its primitive purity is 454. years Mede's Remains on Rev. p. 20. whereunto more reverence and esteem is rendred unto the first five hundred years and within which Latitude of five hundred did Bishop Jewel impale the testimonies which he challenged his adversaries to produce in confirmation of several pieces of Popery and sure the age of Chrysostome which was the latter end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth Century was like the eighth Sphere which though not next to the first mover according to the old obsolete hypothesis yet had more bright stars than all the Orbs beside What they
the Conditional Covenant then men are not made Saints by being made partakers of them Indeed the use of them may help to make men Saints by their influence and efficacy but they do not imply or presuppose all those to be absolute Saints that partake them but onely Saints conditional if they seal back their counterpart to God and fulfill that Condition whereupon he makes his grants and conveyances or onely relative and notional not real Saints Saints by calling not by qualification as the Apostle writing to the entire Churches among which especially among the Corinthians many walked inordinately calleth them Saints that is such as are made partakers of Gods Covenant and Members of his Church not Saints actu sed vocatione professione debito as A Lapide called to be Saints taking the word called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and exegetically ut sint Sancti as Paraeus and Aretius and so called charitativè quia cha it as omnes habet pro verè conversis qui fidem et poenitentiam profitentur such Saints as according to the idiom of Scripture are Synonymous with Professours of the Christian Faith for it is not likely to be conceived by any and will be more difficult to be proved by the Apologists who else-where say Professours are visible Saints that all those Saints whose bowels Philemon refreshed and whose feet the Widows had washed and who had share of the Collections and Contributions and Ministrings had all given evidence of their real Sanctity or that Paul when he shut up the Saints in prison did tarry and forbear to do it till he was convinced they were really such but it was sufficient they were professors of Christianity and that was enough to denominate them Saints He that is a member of the Church is within the Covenant and is in Scripture-phrase a Saint though not living altogether conformably to his profession those priviledges which are given to the visible Church in respect of internal essence according to Tychonius his Rule de permixta Ecclesia being attributed to the visible in regard of external existence as to be Saints holy children of God Saints everlasting rest part 4. Sec. 3. p. 105. Gal. 3.26 Christs body 1 Cor. 2.13 branches of Christ Joh. 15.2 and there are many Saints or sanctified men saith Mr. Baxter that yet shall never come to heaven who are onely Saints by their separation from Paganisme into Fellowship with the visible Church but not Saints by separation from the ungodly into the Fellowship of the mystical body of Christ He is therefore as I said a relative though no real Saint and the entring into and the acceptation of the terms of the Covenant is common to very Reprobates and in that notion a grave and learned Divine saith Mr. Balls ans to Can part 2. p. 52. Tom 4. l. 1. c. 12. that Cain was in profession a Saint before he had discommon'd himself And we grant that such an external or as Suarez calls it a Legal Sanctification the Sacraments alwayes indeed do effect so saith the famous Chamier Sanctificationem illam quae pertinet ad externam vocationem in Ecclesiam quomodo Paulus dicebat ramos id est omnes sui temporis Judaeos esse sanctos quòd eorum truncus id est Abraham Sanctus fuisset Rom. 11. et filios fidelium sanctos 1 Cor. 7. Hanc sanctitatem concedimus semper conferri per Sacramenta nimirum quia utrinque in confesso est esse testes professionis Christianae unde sequitur quicunque Sacramentorum sit particeps hunc pertinere ad eum populum qui profiteatur Religionem veram and if they will have none to be made such Saints by profession but those that are Saints in verity I shall desire them to perpend that their Argument is more forcible to forbid the admission of such as are not manifest Saints and approvedly holy to be Church-members then to be partakers of the Sacraments for indeed the former are expresly and in terms called Saints and holy and therefore with more colour might they argue that there ought to be probation made whether they were such before they were admitted into Church-fellowship and what they shall answer to evade the force of the Argument against admitting none but upon tryal to be Church-members may perhaps be catcht up and returned to frustrate the Argument for non admission without tryal to the Sacrament vox tua facta mea 2. Not to question why the Sacraments or indeed this of the Lords Supper and not Baptisme also are made the priviledges of the godly and not other Ordinances also Or how external and sensible Ordinances can be priviledges of an invisible and indiscernable Society Irregenerate men admitted to the Sacraments enjoy no proper priviledges of the godly but as is their Faith such are their priviledges A common Dogmatical or Historical Faith externally professed gives them title to the common external seals of the Covenant External Ordinances are not onely priviledges of the godly in facto esse sed etiam in fieri and either the Apologists must say they are never deceived in these which they admit or else sometimes notwithstanding their caution themselves are not priviledged from communicating the Sacraments to the unregenerate and in so doing they set the seal to a blank and co-operate to their damnation and the act contracts more of guilt in them then it can do in us in whom it is for the impulsive cause onely an errour of charity and for the matter thereof if it should be evil yet is not so formally to us because we are not thereof convinced in our Consciences whereas they impose upon themselves a necessity of acting that which they can have no infallible assurance they shall not fail in doing of and yet are perswaded the failer thereof occasions that which cannot be lawfully done As it is no obvious thing or facile work for any man to obtain an evidence of his own regeneration so it is infinitely more perplext and intricate to acquire such assurance concerning another and therefore upon this principle that the Sacrament appertains to none but the truly regenerate as the doubting soul can never approach and so the sick be cast into an incapacity of a Physitian that most needs him and the weak in Faith be frustrate of that which was instituted for confirming thereof and the humble soul will be most afraid to come and the presumptuous be most forward since baser Mettals soonest run and are most volatile the richer are more fixt and the full ear hangs the head when the empty pricks up and as he that knows most discerns best that he knows little so where there is much grace there often the want thereof is most complained of whereas when the strong man armed keeps the house the things possessed are in peace so also no Minister can admit any man with comfort because not in Faith and therefore with sinne nor without a snare because not in allibly
read it with Gregory and Bede's Spectacles wherewith they saw things that had no existence or else met with it in the Gospel of the Hebrews the Acts of Paul and Tecla the Epistle to the Laodiceans or the Acts of St. John according to Cerinthus Here the Apostle mentions no tryal by others for two Reasons First because the Corinthians to whom he speakes were newly admitted to Church-fellowship by profession of their Faith and needed not to be called to this again but in our Church true discipline hath been neglected and many are unfit I have formerly superseded this answer and shewed the impertinency thereof and shall not actum agere onely since they know that we cannot swallow what they offer without chewing it they should have brought some proof that the Corinthians did make such a profession of their Faith as they require in order to admission to the Sacrament for we finde cause to doubt that there was no such discipline practised in the first times since when three thousand were baptized in one day and added to the Church we cannot imagine it facible that every one of them should make such an explicite verbal profession as they require and there could not sure be such an Evidence of the ability of all those Corinthians that they should be all taken to be such Disciples as they say are not to be examined but the profession of their Faith is sufficient But since the Corinthians were so ignorant not convinced of the Resurrection and so criminous as the Epistle chargeth them to be if yet upon self-examination the Apostle permits them to communicate that liberty cannot rationally be denyed to those who doubtless are not so culpable as they were The Precept Let a man examine himself is universal and catholique and why then should the permission to communicate upon self-examination be peculiar onely to those Corinthians at that time and so to separate what God by St. Paul hath joyned together To restrain and limit Divine Rules to particular times or persons without cogent circumstances sets open a desperate way to evade the force of Arguments deduced from Scripture and to betray or make breaches in the Fortress of Faith and though the Apologists to escape out of a presont strait 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to serve a turn take that way yet when they have soberly re-minded themselves they will finde this path leads to a precipice and that hence some may take the advantage and encouragement to tell them that Excommunication was onely a temporary discipline in joyned while the Church wanted a secular Magistrate If some in our Churches may be suspected to be unfit it may perchance be fit to bring them under tryal by examination but why paucorum crimen should be attended with paena in omnes and the unfitness of some should introduce a necessity of examining all I am not acute enough to discern the consequence 2. The Apostle here eys Christs performances with his Disciples whom he needed not to examine being known to him We are fully reconciled to this assertion that the Apostle reflected upon the actions of Christ as his pattern and delivered onely what he had received of the Lord but then it seems that neither in what he received nor what he delivered is any the least hint of any other save self-examination Cranmer Defence true and Cathol doct of Sacram p. 5. And then the Morning Star of our English Reformation having explicated what the Evangelists and St. Paul in this 1 Cor. 11. have left written of the Institution concludes That things spoken done by Christ and written by the Holy Evangelists and St. Paul ought to suffice the Faith of Christian people as touching the doctrine of the Lords Supper and Holy Communion or Sacrament of his body and blood as Cyprian had long before assured us that in sacrificio quod Christus obtulit non nisi Christus sequendus est so that we are safe enough if we beleeve and practice so much as either in the Evangelists describing Christs Institution of the Sacrament or St. Paul repeating and explaining it and directing to the right administration and due receiving thereof we finde to have been done or prescribed and we may hope sooner to finde pardon for not advancing beyond what we have their example or precept for than they can to obtain excuse for seeking to lead us farther If the Apostles needed not to be examined because known to Christ then without examination mens fitness may be manifested and such as are known need no farther tryal but if the Apologists would condescend to be as gently and familiarly conversant with their people as Christ was with his Disciples perhaps they might have as much knowledge of them also or infuse so much knowledge into them as to prevent and fore-stall examination Yet according to their model the Apostles howsoever ought to have made a publick profession of their Faith though they were not obnoxious to examination And if they tell us in earnest that for example sake those whose knowledge is elevated above suspicion yet ought to submit to examination I hope they will yeeld there had been far more reason for our Saviour whose practice was to be our pattern and whose example was to pass into a Law to have examined his Disciples though he actively or they passively needed it not yet because we needed it as a standing influential example since that being the first administration in that kinde was to be the rule measure of all to follow And surely it is not easily imaginable that where professedly the Institution is recorded by the Evangelists and repeated by the Apostle with directions for the fit reception of the Sacrament that there being the proper seat of such Doctrine there should be no one word of previous tryal and that it should else-where hang upon a long chain of consequences and by several distillations be extracted from such places of Scripture where is no mention at all of the Sacrament or any preparation thereunto The celebrious name of Zanchy is mentioned not to reflect light but to raise a cloud for they neither produce his words nor direct us where we may take view of them If none of these Reasons were of weight as they cannot but sense enough to distrust for sure they will not turn those very scales at Sedan which Capellus tells us would break with the four hundreth part of a grain yet why may not examination of Pastors and Church Officers stand with that of a mans self these being not contrary but subordinate and the Precept being not exclusive Let a man examine c They are so accustomed to ignoratio elenchi that it is passed into their nature we doe not say those two are so contrary as to be incompatible nor argue that because one is injoyned the other is excluded but we reason thus that the liberty of communicating onely upon self-examination granted by St. Paul so let him eat cannot
never would have made this instance indefinitly and without limitation For First it follows not because they counterfeited old things we may not alleage that which is truly ancient or because some stones are counterfeit therefore none must be precious Jewels Secondly it may be retorted on themselves the Gibeonites would not have simulated that which had it been true would not have been effectual to the ends for which they fained it and had their bread and bottles and shooes been as old as they dissembled Joshuah might and would have accepted and been at peace and in league with them And will it not then be consequent to suit the Apodosis to the Protasis in this Allegory or Similitude that Antiquity is a likely Plea and lends a good Topick and such things as wear her Livery and bear her Character are more receptible than those that want them But if the antiquity the Paper calls for do signifie but Custome as they guess by some passages viz. what is setled by Custome they will be bold to say of such antiquity It is vetustas erroris I shall say with Augustine Quis dubitat veritati manifestatae debere consuetudinem cedere But I add Veritatem non ostendis de consuetudine confiteris De Baptism cont Donat. l. 3. p. 82. Tom. 7. Ibidem l. 7. p. 99. Ibid. l. 4. p. 85. ad Januar. Ep. 119. de Civitate Dei l. 15. c. 16. but abstracting custom from the consideration of the matter either as it is good for goodness will warrant it self without custome yet honum consuetum duo sunt bona and as St. Augustine gravely Cùm consuetudini veritas suffragatur nihil oportet firmius retineri or as it is evil for then custom cannot authorize it for the Philosopher said Omnia mala habenda pro peregrinis and S. Augustine Aut propter fidem aut propter mores vel emendari oportel quod perperà m fiebat vel institui quod non fiebat But only as custom even as such Ad humanum sensum vel alliciendum vel offendendum mos valet plurimùm and upon that other reflections insinuated in the Paper I might without offence conclude with Ulpian In rebus novis constituendis evidens esse debet utilitas and with St. Augustine Non est à consuetudine recedendum nisi rationi adversetur But beside the customs which I chiefly reverence and engage to defend are the customs of the antient Church Ad Casulan Ep. 86. and if the Apologists will be bold to say of such antiquity it is vetustas erroris I shall modestly re-mind them that they are more bold then wise And if they shall sleight the judgement of St. Augustine in his rebus de quibus nihil certi statuit Scriptura Divina mos Populi Dei vel instituta majorum pro lego tuenda sunt nor shall prize the sense of the great Council of Chalcedon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let the ancient custom prevail yet I hope they will grant there was some weight in that Argument of the Apostle 1 Cor. 11.16 We have no such Custom nor the Churches of God The gray hairs of Opinions and Practices are then beauty and a Crown when found in the way of truth and righteousness They are then indeed a Crown more glorious and worthy of double honour but yet aetas per se venerabilis saith Calvin and therefore some suppose that in the Greek an old man is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth honour Willet in Lev. 19.32 Arist l. 19. Ethic. 2. Jansenius in locum C. à Lapide in locum and it is the dictate of the same spirit which Aristotle hath also delivered almost verbatim Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head and honour the face of the old man formally as an old man And some Expositors because the relative is not in the Hebrew thus interpret that of Prov. 16.31 The hoary head is a Crown of glory it is found in the way of righteousness as if old men were commonly righteous as the Chaldee in the late famous Bible renders that of Leviticus Rise before him that is learned in the Law implying old men to be so so as therefore we might turn the allusion against them The light of Doctrine hath long filled our Horizon the light of Discipline was not so forward or successful being a long while held by some men in unrighteousness Nimirum liberanda veritas illos expectabat as Tertullian once said of Marcion but utinam talis status esset in illo Ut non tristitiae causa dolenda foret Fair words cannot perswade us that we are not hurt while we feel the smart of our wounds neither have we been bred up in Anaxagoras his School to beleeve the snow to be of other colour than our eyes discern it What Quintilian and Seneca said of the Common-wealth we may apply to the Church the one Quaedam sunt crimina laesae Reipub. ad quorum pronuntiationem soli oculi sufficiunt The other An laesa sit Respub non solet argumentis probari manifesta statim sunt damna Reipub. The Tree is known by his fruit and we have tasted such bitterness in the fruits of this Discipline and the Principles thereof that as Joab stubbornly said to David Thou hast shamed the face of all thy Servants So even those that could not be satisfied with the topping but wished the cutting down of the former Tree as being grown too high to over-top and drop upon the Paradise of God are truly ashamed to see this Plant spring up in the place thereof which not onely like the Boranetz or Tartar Lamb though it seem to creep low toward the ground and bear wool like the Sheeps cloathing yet destroys all verdancy and suffers nothing to grow or prosper neer it but he also that shall contemplate in what a light flame the whole Wood is will be apt to conclude that the Bramble is become the King of Trees from whom onely this fire could come forth So that some may well cry out as the Constantinopolitans at Arsacius his succeeding of Chrysostom Deus bone quis cui and are afraid to have contracted a suitable guilt to what the Romane Senate incurred toward Drusus of whom Paterculus tells us Qui tanto meliore ingenio quà m fortunâ usus est ut malefacta collegarum quà m ejus optimè cogitata Senatus probaret magìs But I remember Herodotus tells us that Phrinicus was amerced 1000. Drachmes for representing in a Tragedy the loss of Miletus and thereby renewing the sorrow thereof and therefore I shall not farther have unguem in Ulcere having else-where rubbed the sore and also because not onely illè dolet verè but also tute qui sine teste dolet onely in answer to the Apologists expressions I shall say That their Light of Discipline hath proved an ignis fatuus to lead us into Precipices and abysses or a Comet to portend and effect mischief and the
prejudiced the Romane Church nor more helped forward the work of our Reformation than their with-holding of the cup from the Laity which hath made them lately somewhat wiser by their harms so as now in this Nation what is done elsewhere I know not the Laicks are permitted the Wine though not the Cup out of which it is powred into a Glass wherein they drink it for reason of State forbids they should have it in the same manner the Priests receive it that being reserved onely for Kings to be so far made equal with Priests and if they should perfectly reform this sacrilegious abuse they should confess a former error and consequently forfeit their Palladium the infallibility of their Church and since res aetas usus semper aliquid apportat novi aliquid moneat ut illa quae te scire credas nescias quae tibi putaris prima in experiundo repudies it is possible that at length piscator ictus sapiat and those Fishers of men too may change those Nets which drive away most Fish for those that may inclose more and not by alienating hearts forfeit their hands which might help to carry on the work they pretend to As Saracenus Moses to Lucius of Alexandria in Ruffinus Nunquam verior potest esse fides quae auribus capitur quà ne quae oculis pervideâ—ur so let them give us some sensible effects and demonstrations à posteriori of the aptness and energy of their way for reformation they cannot dispute us out of our senses and we see where they set up after eight or nine years among several hundreds they gain scarce so many units and their reformation is like the filings and washings of Gold by false Clippers onely to impair and embase it like Dioclesians deserting the Empire to attend a Garden or like Woolseys destroying forty religious houses as they were then accounted out of the ruins thereof to build two Colleges Nay they do not edifie after that proportion nor to that similitude As whom they admit have liberty given to beleeve what they list liberty in things of the minde being the great bait or philter of Independency so those whom they reject are like enough to take liberty to do what they list little or no care being taken of them and they being cast off without any great crimes may be careless what they do since they can speed no worse though their crimes become greater I know nothing can so much excuse the former frame and temper as the succeeding as Augustus adopted Tiberius to reflect more glory upon his own raign by comparison with his Successors comparatione deterrimâ sibi gloriam quaesivisse saith Tacitus nor any thing that can more endear the present frame and temper of the Church but the like fear which the old woman had that prayed for Dionysius of Sicily It is no new thing to transfer upon others our proper faults Me suo nomine exulem vocat as Nero set Rome on fire and charged it on the Christians and yet all the time of the burning too he sang some of Homers doleful verses but ori digitum for the fore-finger that used to stop the mouth had the attribute of salutaris from antiquity But to revert to the question as stated by the Apologists If there were no other Gulph between us but the necessity of Examination of our knowledge in order to our admission to the Sacraments we might sooner come together but yet first why this should be onely necessary in the reformation of a long corrupted Church and not be of a stable permanent necessity seeing knowledge is always needful in every Communicant and they will be satisfied that every one is knowing and that satisfaction cannot be had without examination as they pretend they have not favoured our ignorance so farre as to tell us and I doubt we shall need not onely some Delian diver but Elias himself to come to resolve us 2. In reformation of a long corrupted Church there may be an obviousness of reason to examine those that are corrupt or suspected to be so but all are not so we hope and why all should then passe under examination our dulness needs to be prompted to apprehend the reason 3. It had had more of rational congruity to examine in reforming an ignorant Church rather than a corrupt for there may be knowledg enough where there are corruptions too many 4. We are left in a mist also and need to have it cleared up to us how they understand the Church to be corrupt whether with the Brownists the comparative degree of this separation they suppose the reformed Churches to be corrupt in the first constitution and in Essentials which though directly they affirm not yet implicitely and by consequence they seem to say it why else do they gather new Churches and separate from the former Congregations Among Heathens they might finde a proper spheare for such activity not here if there be Churches already gathered to their hand and they cannot in my sense stand firm and unshaken upon this degree or stair unless they ascend to the superlative degree of separation and require a farther probation in order to the re-acception of the other Sacrament and so as the Papists upbraid us to have had no Church before Luther they will gratifie them farther confessing that till now gathered by them we had none since 5. If they suppose corruptions onely in Accidentals in doctrines not fundamental but that charge they have seemed to wave or in discipline and manners this indeed is the way to keep the power in perpetual exercise qui velit potestatem perpetuam velit for whatsoever the Donatists may talk of a Church in this world without spot or wrinkle yet as Beda tells us who according to his wont took the hint thereof from Augustine while the Apostle saith Retract l. 2. c. 18. That he viz. Christ might present to himself a Church not having spot or wrinkle he first said glorious sufficiently signifying when she should be without spot or wrinkle to wit when she should be glorious here she may be fair but among women onely by comparison and yet is black still habet aliquid Aethiopici decoris as Origen Since then Corruptions will still be and Reformation thereof ought always to be they need not have limited the necessity of examination in these terms in reformation of a long corrupt Church but have determined it always necessary 6. And of necessity we must cast dirt in the faces of the Churches of God that have preceded us as well in dignity as time if in reformation of a long corrupt Church this examination be necessary The godly Judges and Kings of Israel and Judah with the assistance of the Prophets and Priests oftentimes had a zeal like fire to consume the grown corruptions and purge and purifie the Church yet there is no light that there was any such fiery tryal of those that were to come to the
that offence may come to all whereof the penalty hath fallen upon one and as it fares in the Church so it falls out alike in a Christian Common-wealth if the Laws be not duely executed in the punishment of Malefactors good men are scandalized and evil are encouraged by impunity and not onely the Justice of the Nation but the honour of Religion also is left obnoxious to obloquy yet however no man contradicts the moderating of civil punishments by clemency or approves the excess of Justice which is cruelty such as the Poet reproved in Sylla Ille quod exiguum restabat sanguinis urbi Hausit dúmque nimis jam putrida membra rescidit Excessit medicina modum nimiúmque secuta est Quà morbi duxere manus He must be more than a Cherubin that deignes not to looke to the mercy-seat Nec quisquam est cui tam valdè innocentia sua placeat Seneca de Clem. lib. 1. ut non stare in conspectu clementiam paratam humanis erroribus gaudeat It may fall out also in many cases what Livy tells us to have happened in that of Q. Maximus Nec minùs firma est disciplina militaris Q. Fabii periculo quam Titi Manlii miserabili supplicio and it is as consentient to prudence as the practice of States where there is a multitude of Delinquents to chuse out the fattest for Sacrifices to justice and with Tarquin to lop off the heads onely and where by a partial or negligent execution of Laws and administration of Justice offenders suffer condigne punishment it cannot yet warrant or excuse a denying of subjection or a raysing of sedition or an erecting and constituting new Common-wealths in the Commonwealth as if men could not live with a good and undefiled Conscience where were any bluntnes in the Sword or inequality in the Scales of Justice and why those considerations may not have some place and the reasons thereof be in some measure applicable to Ecclesiastical censures I confess I cannot apprehend but am yet to be instructed When the Church had no Civil Magistrate and very many sinnes there were which the Lawes took no cognisance of nor prescribed punishments for the Ecclesiastick Censures recompenced that defect Now when Municipall Lawes under Christian Magistrates are multiplied and extended to the correction of most offences the execution thereof might in some degree supply the neglect of Ecclesiastical censures and comply with the greatest part of the ends thereof as to humble and by shame to reclaime offenders to inhibit the contagious spreading of the example and to remove the scandall which Religion might contract by permitting offences to passe unpunished for as for pollution of others without society in sinne false testimony and sealing of blanks and the like I think the prevention thereof to be no proper end of censures 1 Cor. 5. nor finde any such thing intimated by the Apostle where he argueth and reasoneth for the putting away of that wicked person from among the Corinthians nor suppose them to be any more effectual meanes to that end than anciently in Eclipses the resounding of those aera auxiliaria mentioned in the Poets were to ease the ignorantly fained solis lunaeque labores Or the torches that were then held up were to reflect light on these great Luminaries I say the Laws of the Common-wealth might in some degree supply the neglect of Church censures which are to be exercised in palà m facinorosos maximè si circa hos magistratus officium non faciat saith Paraeus so farre In 1 Cor. 5. p. 14. 67. as to restrain and withhold men from separation or which is the moderne Periphrasis and new notion to blanch and palliate separation from gathering new Churches And this is that which to me seemes cardo negotii and that which I must insist on that though Excommunication be obstructed or laid asleep or culpably exercised and so there be a mixture of good evil in one Communion yet there must be no separation into the new gathered Churches The contrary opinion and practice was the very spirit and extract of the heresy of the Donatists Calvin tells us Instit. l. 4. c. 12. sect 12. that because the Bishops onely reproved some evils which they thought not profitable for the Church to punish with Excommunication therefore they made invectives against the Bishops and raised a schisme against the Churches of Christ Morton grand impost cap. 15. sect 25. Martyr loc com part 4. c. 5. p. 61. Parae in 1 Cor. 5. p. 467. Augustin contra Parmen l. 3. c. 1. 2. p. 12. 13. tom 7. And Dr. Morton shewes us that they separated from the other constituted Churches in Africa especially because of the mixture of Godly and wicked professors in one Communion and Peter Martyr and Paraeus both tell us out of Augustine that the Donatists objected to the Catholiques that they had no Church because they wanted Excommunication but St. Augustine answers them Dicant ergo si possunt meliorem se atque purgatiorem habere nunc ecclesiam quà m erat ipsa unitas beatissimi Cypriani temporibus who yet held communion of Sacraments with men notoriously culpable in una congregatione paria Sacramenta tractantes and though saith he siat hoc scil excommunicatio ubi periculum schismatis nullum est salvâ dilectionis synceritate custoditâ pacis unitate adhibitâ prudentiâ obedientiâ in eo quod praecipit Dominus ne frumenta laedantur yet as he instances in the case of Cyprian Quia non poterant ab iis corporaliter separari ne simul eradicent triticum sufficiebat iis talibus corde sejungi vitâ moribusque distingui propter compensationem custodiendae pacis unitatis propter salutem infirmorum veluti lactentium frumentorum ne membra corporis Christi per sacrilega schismata laniarent and to this truth his whole books are but one continued testimony and for this we have better even infallible and authenticke witness for when the incestuous Corinthian was not censured yet neither did any how much soever they might pretend to purity 1 Cor. 5. separate themselves into a gathered Church nor had any check from the Apostle for not doing so or command to doe it no not if in case as he had judged already that wicked person should not have been put away from among themselves And when the Angel of the Church of Thiatyra suffered that woman Jezabel to teach and to seduce Revel 2.20 and 24. to commit fornication to eat things sacrificed to Idols those which had not that Doctrine nor known the depth of Sathan were onely commanded to hold fast what they had and had no other burden put upon them because they had not separated Jezabel from the Church either of command to separate or of calamities and threatnings for not separating and for being defiled with such communion To conclude this discourse the thred whereof I have spun into some
eat or drank himself yet his speech no more obstructs that drinking than his saying It is finished was incoherent with his dying soon afterward In the one he said he would doe no more what from a little afterward he would not doe in the other he said that was done which waâ— instantly to be done Deodate thereof interprets it thus This is the last meaâ— I shall make with you and notwithstanding this expression he did eat also after the resurrection by a certain dispensation which was not egestatis but potestatis and not to nourish his body but to feed our Faith in his resurrection and of this comestion after he was risen Chrysostom and Beda understand this to be meant untill I drink it new c. To that which Matthew and Mark say That the discovery of the Traytor was as they did eat and Luke speakes of the taking of the Cup after Supper and then followed the detection of the Traytor I answer That as St. Matthew saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they did eat when Christ discoursed of the Traytor verse 21. so he useth the same words at the Institution of the last Supper vers 26. as they were eating Jesus took bread therefore it seems that as they were eating which Matthew useth is not at great difference with after Supper as Luke expresseth it otherwise there could be no Harmony between the Evangelists reconcile therefore the 26 verse of Mathew with that of Luke and the 21. verse will soon come into the same agreement The truth is at the Passeover there were several Suppers or more properly according to our English idiom several courses As now among the modern Jews first the unleavened cakes are set on the Table then the pultiâ—ula or Pap which represents the straw and mortar in Egypt next the acetaria or Sallet of bitter herbs and then lastly the Lambe and discourses or prayers are interposed between the one and other as Buxtorfius relates Synag Judai cap. 13. and therefore the disclosing of the Traytor might be after one Supper and yet as they were eating of another Nevertheless I doe not think that at the first Institution of the last Supper or mention of the Traytor properly and in strictness of Speech any thing was eaten but manducantibus illis is well interpreted by Deodate while they were at the Table and by Maldonat Statim ut coena peracta est antequà m surgerent antequà m mensae ciborum rel quiae removerentur And whereas it is argued that it appears by Matth. 26.23 he that dippeth c. as also by giving the Sop John 13. that they were eating at the time when the Traytor was discours'd of it may be readily answered In locum that the dipping non notat praesentem actum sed consuetudinem as Paraeus Notatur non una certa singularis actio sed agendi consuetudo as Piscator It denoted no present action for that had signally discovered the Traytor without more inquiry of whom yet the Disciples remained ignorant and Judas himself did afterwards aske Is it I but those words did onely obumbrate one of those that usually did eat together with him and Jansenius observes that the Greek in St. Matthew is in the pretertense hath dipped 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though Marke hath it in the present and he addes that our Lord intended not to shew what Judas did at present but to what familiarity he had admitted him that was about to perpetrate such a crime Sylvius in 3. q. 81. art 2. p. 331. not as a signe to discover the Traytor but to exaggerate his treason as Sylvius and it doth not prove that Judas at that time had his hand in the dish more than that David's familiar friend did eat of his bread at that instant when he said he lift up his heele against him Psal 41.9 Of the Sop we shall speak more amply anon But to prevent more altercation about the order of things in the several Evangelists we finde that Judas sate down among the Twelve Apostles who were not twelve without him our Lord gave to his Disciples and they did eat he bad all drink and all did drink where is there any mention of Judas his going forth before all was ended De non apparentibus non existentibus eadem est ratio in lege etiam divina We pursue our Quare impedit and ask what should cause a writ of Ne admittas to be sued forth against Judas who as Maldonat observs had he risen from Table before all had been ended he had bewrayed that treason which he laboured to conceale Here therefore are interposed two Arguments whereof the first seems to be raised de jure that he ought not the other de facto that certainly he did not communicate the first pleads That all those that then did partake of the Sacrament for them Christs body was broken and blood shed and they all were to drink new Wine with him in his Fathers kingdome But neither of these can be verified of Judas Ergo. Hereunto what if I should answer as Calvin doth to that of Matth. 11.21 a response which I confess I have heretofore asmuch acquiesced in as in any other solution rendred either by our Divines or the Dominicans That the Speech of Christ is applyed to the common conceit of mens minds and he speaks after the manner of men that is as men might morally think or judge and not out of his heavenly Sanctuary Themselves say that in case Judas were admitted Christ dealt as a man therein And indeed a man might morally have thought and judged that one of the chosen Apostles conversing so long with Christ taught by him and publickly teaching him and now eating the Passeover and his last Supper with him had his share in the prementioned privileges and then these words can be no more exclusive to Judas at the first Institution than now they be to any reprobate when by a charientisme and according to the judgement of charity like words are used in the subsequent Administrations But I neither will nor need to fix upon or to adhere unto the Answer The rule of Tychonius the Donatist De doctrina Christiana l. 3. tom 3. p. 13. which is the Second of his Seven Rules and which he calls de Domini Corpore bipartito but St. Augustine better names de permixta ecolesia will sufficiently satisfie this Argument viz. Quando Scriptura cùm ad alios jam loquatur tanquam ad eos ipses ad ques loquebatur videtur loqui vel de ipsis cùm de aliis jam loquatur tanquam unum sit utrorúmque corpus propter temporalem cemmixtionem communionem Sacramentorum What agrees to one part is often affirmed of the whole especially when it is the greater part and beside that the Apostles here represented the whole Church and that Christ in some respect interpretatively at least tasted death for every man propter susceptam communem
any other than self-examination is not onely efficacious in general concerning the necessity of things to be done or beleeved but in this place and upon this very account is specially approved by Interpreters and urged as conclusive to the excluding the necessity of any other examination Another tells us that the Corinthians were a Church lately planted a people newly called out of the world and converted to the Faith and therefore it was to be presumed they were sufficiently qualified both for knowledge and sanctity and needed no other but the proper examination of their own hearts But I shall reply First if they were newly converted and so late begotten of the seed of the Word they were then lefs grown in explicite knowledge and less perfectly instructed in the mysteries of the Faith and therefore did more need to be put under probation in the notion of the Catechumeni but in truth the Church of Corinth had been divers years planted and the Apostles baptizing whole Families Yonglings as well as aged as other Texts warrant us to assert against the Anabaptists in all probability besides the first Converts there was now since the first constitution of that Church a second rise and growth sprung up to be adult and capable of the Sacrament Secondly the Rule of the Apostle is written for our instruction catholique and extensive to all times places and persons not limited or restrained to the Corinthians and to confine and appropriate general precepts to special times and particular persons is artificium haereticum to expilate and exhaust the Armory of the Church and imbezill the Weapons of the Faith and tends to defeat the standing Forces of Scripture Thirdly ex concesso this will then consequently exempt from examination verbal or real such as may well be presumed to be sufficiently qualified and so it is not of necessity that the probation should be general Fourthly the whole Epistle sheweth how culpable those Corinthians were and how many were their errors in faith and spots in manners so that for ought I know our Congregations generally abstracting them from these dismal Heresies which have lately spawn'd from and been fostered by men of like principles to those we dispute against and which for ought I see obstruct no mans access to the Sacrament if his Seraphical Elevation can vouchsafe a condescension to Ordinances are not more guilty or obnoxious Even in this very concernment of their qualifications for the Communion it appears by 1 Cor. 11.20 30. that many of them received unworthily and discerned not the Lords body from common meat and had taken too much drink before they came to partake of the mystical Cup Yet neither doth the Apostle command nor encourage the intermission of the Lords Supper nor reprehend those that were better qualified and conditioned for communicating in a mixt Congregation or among the Rout as they phrase it with somewhat too strange a spice of the old Pharisee as if it had been either a stain to their holiness or a pollution to their persons or an obstacle to the fruit and efficacy of the Sacrament neither doth he charge or caution the Elders thenceforth to admit no more without a pre-examination Another thus answers That this self-examining is onely meant of that judging which prevents the judgment of God mentioned ver 31. which no mans examining of another can doe but onely his examining of himself But if this were granted yet then it follows however that no other but such self-examination is required by the Apostle for he prescribes no other but this and that is as much as we contend for But when that learned man tells us in the same place that the Pastors and Elders of Corinth had admitted some to the Lords Table whom they judged fit and worthy Communicants but God judged otherwise of them it was no impudence nor presumption in us to expect that he would have shewed us where there is one syllable at least that mentions the admission onely of such as were by them thought fit or of any probation made of their fitness that were not notorious and scandalous sinners and if self-examination be sufficient to prevent Gods judgement it must be enough to prevent all sinne every sinne being waited on by judgment and consequently to prevent a sinful receiving there needs none but a self-examination Another takes this bone in hand and would crush and break it with this interposition That to the right examination of a mans self such dispositions and graces are requisite as no unconverted man is capable of so as though upon self-examination a man might be admitted yet no man not having manifest signs of being in the state of grace can hereupon ground any title or claim to the Sacrament as being not susceptible of self-examination Whereunto I shall say not to reflect that it carries a spice of Socinus to hold that onely persons converted are capable of the Sacraments that it is a supposition suitable to their principles that they assume a power to judge the secret things of the heart for it was wont to be an indubitable maxime De occultis non judicat Ecclesia and of that nature is the right discharge of the duty of self-examination They can pretend but to make judgment onely of externall actions and such as may give scandal and offence those they can take cognizance of and they lye within a judicial Sphear but the other viz. the secret things of the heart fall within none but a divine Horizon and none can be scandalous onely for such things because no others can take notice of them I shall still retreat to my first Fortress I reade Let a man examine himself not that any should examine his examination Nay positively I finde that upon self-examination he may so eat which liberty cannot consist with a necessity of having self-examination examined by another Men are commanded not onely to examine themselves in order to receiving the Eucharist but also generally to try their ways Lam. 3.4 and their works Gal. 6.4 and if unconverted men cannot doe this they may upon like account bring them under examination for their whole life give a new name to the same thing of auricular confession And if unconverted men cannot examine themselves how shall they know themselves to be unfit and unworthy that they may repent and better dispose themselves and in the interim abstain Who gave them liberty or means to search the heart who are not proper Masters to whom men must stand or fall But they tell us that there is a two-fold knowledge Intuitive which is by an immediate looking on and Arguitive or according to the more usual Scholastick term Discursive which is by comparing one thing with another and reasoning from one thing to another in the first way God onely knows the hearts of men in the second sense we may know the condition of mens hearts by their outward actions as a tree by his fruits Whereunto I shall answer
ideo in hac ipsa causa graviter monebat videndum esse ne à Sathana occupemur cujus machmationes nemo Christianus ignorat It hath been the ill hap of all the Arguments hitherto alleaged to dash upon that rock ab authoritate Scripturae negativè It hath been their ill hap to be guilty of a palpable and gross mistake for the Argument collected from the admission of Judas was not such nay this very Argument in hand is not such for though we say we finde a precept Let a man examine himself none that he should passe the examination of another yet we do not argue that because the Apostle hath onely commanded the one therefore the other falls not under precept but we thus reason the Apostle requires a man to examine himself and permits him having done so to receive the Sacrament which is the natural analysis and genuine paraphrase of the Text and if any other examination were to intervene then having examined himself Answer to chall Josuit p. 8. Senensis biblioth l. 6. p. 527. For denying the necessity of Confession before receiving of the Sacrament Cajetan his Commentary on 3. q. 80 art 4. is left out of the Roman Edition Sylvius in 3. q. 80. art 4 p. 311. yet So nevertheless he could not be permitted to eat and drink and thereupon not onely the glory of this Nation and our Age Bishop Usher doth from hence extract this Porisma That in the Apostles dayes when a man had examined himself he was admitted to the Lords Table but the great Cardinal Cajetan though cross to the interest of his Church and his fellows are angry for it especially his constant evil genius Catharinus was sensible of the force of this consectary and concludes Dicendo Sic c. by saying and so he signifieth that to a worthy receiving of the Eucharist it is sufficient that a man have examined himself and useth this as a medium to conclude against necessity of confession and is therein applauded by one of his party viz. Petrus Soto Secondly had they been all such Negative Arguments I think they had not dashed upon a rock but been built upon it being founded upon the perfection of Scripture as I have formerly asserted Thirdly in the controverting of this question I am for the negative and Ponenti non infâ—cianti incumbit onus probandi per rerum naturam factum negantis probatio nulla sit saith the Law I had complyed with my part if I had shewed their model of Discipline had no foundation in Scripture to shew there was no necessity thereof that was enough for the Scripture denieth what it noteth not saith Hilary and we beleeve it not because we reade it not addes Hierom Fourthly would I use such wanton and licentious Arguments as the Apologists doe setting the Scripture upon a rack and violently forcing it to speak what is not in it not giving but making the sense of Scripture and so ex Evangelio Christi facere Evangelium hominis as Hierom and Scripturarum verbis pro esca uti as Athanasius we could not want superfluity of Arguments from Scripture authority affirmativè perhaps we might bring forth some of theirs as apt for our purpose as applicable to theirs if not more and might make such Idoll Mercuries of most of the Trees in the Paradise of God but God forbid we should so take his Word in vain and abuse both Scripture and our Readers as it is sadly evident to me the Apologists have done which we shall hereafter manifest and whereof if they shall not take shame we shall be ashamed in stead of Cato That nothing can be necessary about the practice of the Sacrament which is not there express'd they see no reason to yeeld but they should have spoken more rationally if they had shewed reason why they should deny but though they fall short of that yet they go too farre another way when they talk of no other thing necessary which they should limit to no other probation They are sure there is elsewhere which is not there that is certain but they should have said of this concernment and all is necessary that is revealed redundancy being a blemish to the word as well as deficiency although I am not willing to fall into Parerga's and to contract Pyrrhus his fault to be diverted by every petty occasion from the main and shall not therefore insist on rectifying this sorry expression yet I must touch upon it All that is revealed in Scripture is not necessary to be known or explicitly beleeved as that Paul left a cloak at Troas yet all that is known and sufficiently declared and particularly offered to consideration is necessary to be beleeved for the necessity of beleeving results not from the matter great or small but the formal reason or object and objectum formale quod est Deus in essendo sub quo Deus revelans say the Schools and this is the same toward all the material objects so as the smallest matters revealed and sufficiently propounded are to be beleeved necessitate praecepti although not medii and though not revealed because necessary yet are necessary because revealed and particularly declared consequently and accidentally necessary as secondary objects of Faith though not of themselves pertinent to the object of Faith Aquin. 22. q. 2. art 3. for Nihil per se pertinet ad objectum fidei nisi per quod homo beatitudinem consequitur but without this particular declaring and propounding all that is revealed is not necessary to be beleeved but in preparation of mind and by Faith implicite tanquam particulare in universali by a general virtual negative Faith not to gainsay it and therefore sure it was not so clearly and accurately delivered that all that is revealed is necessary Besides though the Scripture be more than sufficient as Lirinensis not prescribing more things than are necessary to be beleeved or practised Antonius Perez but in frequent repeatings and deliveries of those things more than had been simply necessary yet I will not say as a Papist doth which is the more strange that the Scripture is superfluous and redundant much lesse that the knowledge of most things in the same are unnecessary quia instractionis varii sunt gradus ut alia sit plena alia uberior amplior disertiùs quaedam explicata as Chamier observes Tom. 1. l. 8. c. 2. S. 3. p. 104. But if they mean onely that some other tryal is elsewhere prescribed besides self-examination though not here mentioned and therefore necessary because by Divine Revelation commanded as they do not bring it forth nor point us where we may finde it so I know they cannot finde it for Scripture being most perfect truth cannot contradict it self and if some other probation were injoyned him that had examined himself he could not so eat which would check with St. Paul's direction and therefore if they have found such a command I doubt they
cas consci l. 4. c. 10. c. 2. l. c. 12. c. 18. as they speak although they doe it not for the manner with obligation to the particular enumeration of all sinnes nor for the matter with any absolute necessity of doing it and therefore Luther used to say that he sometime communicated without confession to shew it was not necessary and other times confessed himself for the comfort of absolution and the Church of Rome also bottoms her rigid practice carnificinam animarum as their own Cassander calls it upon the same grounds that these men do their probation because say they It is the duty of the Priest to repell the unworthy and admit the worthy which is best done upon the Penitents estate manifested in confession Valentia Tom. 4. disp 6. q. 8. punct 3. p. 931. and Time the Mother of Truth may discover whether these principles be not some previous dispositions to the generation of such a practice of confession and that as necessary In the ancient Church were excluded from the Communion the Catechumeni energumeni persons excommunicate and Penitents and such as lapsed into Heresie until they repented and that any other save under these notions and capacities were shut out and debarred the Monuments thereof in Ecclesiastick History have not fallen within my angust Horizon Homil. 3. ad Ephes c. 1. Tom. 4. p. 356. Hom. 50. Tom. 10. p. 115. de medicina poenitentiae super illum 1 Cor. 5. si qui frater nominatur Tom. 9. c. 3. p. 210. ad 4. senten distinct 9. in 3. Aquin. q. 50. art 6. Duran Biel Estius Cajetan Valentia Suarez Vasquez Nugnut Sylvius c. Biel in 4. distinct 9. q. 2. Lessius de justit jure l. 2. c. 16. dub 4. S. 55. p. 158. Baldwin l. 4. c. 9. cas 1. Ursin Catechis part 2. q. 81. p. 578. He that partakes not is a Penitent saith Chrysostome We can saith Augustine repell no man from the Communion although this prohibition be not yet mortal but medicinal but one that by his own conscience or the sentence of the Ecclesiastical or civil Judicatory shall be accused and convicted of some crime And in another place which Gratian cites under the name of Hilary but it is St. Augustines in his 118. Epistle Si peccata tanta non sint ut excommunicandus quisquam homo judicetur non se debet à quotidiana medicina Dominici corporis separare And the School if it have any regard left it doth generally hold as also doe the Casuists Baldwin Navar Lessius Filiacius c. and besides divers reasons they cite the authority of St. Augustine to fortifie their opinion That the Communion is not to be denyed to a secret sinner that is not notorious if he openly desire it lest he be thereby diffamed and lest the minister be as saith Biel Proditor criminis inferens poenam ante criminis probationem poenam publicam ob peccatum occultum and he is not a Casuist minorum gentium amongst his Partizans who tells us that aliquis in peccato occulto licèt jus petendi Eucharistiam non habet petendo peccat tamen habet jus ne à parocho infametur neither is it enough that the Minister know the offence Per scientiam privatam nisi etiam per publicam notoriam much less si rumor aliquam de iis su spicionem moverit nam si nondum sit apertè reus nec satis convictus aut confessus admittendus est ne tam pretioso animi sui thesauro per nos defraudetur saith a reformed Casuist and though as Lessius would have it it were indeed sinful in these to demand the Commun on yet notwithstanding it may not be righteous for the Minister to deny it them for they are two questions in the judgment of a grave Divine Qui debeant accedere Et qui debeant admitti ad coenam prior est angustior posterior latior generalior quia tantùm pii debent accedere sed non tantùm pii verùm etiam hypocritae nondum patefacti sunt ab Ecclesia admittendi In those first times they generally communicated daily which St. Augustine saith he neither approves nor reprehends afterward twice or thrice a week at length constantly on the Lords day as appears by Justins Apology and others of the Ancients but the fervour of devotion rebating it was ordained that generally every one pubertatem excessus which was about the 15. or 16. year should communicate thrice a year thus decreed Fabianus Bishop of Rome as also did the Agathon Councel This Decree is found under the name of the Apostles Canons being the tenth in common account and the ninth in Zonaras which though I am not ignorant are not rightly fathered upon them yet are ancient and not contemptible As many of the faithful as come into the Church and hear the Scripture and continue not out the prayers nor receive the Holy Communion let them be put from the Communion as men that work the breach of order and it is noted in the Margin upon the same Canons in old times all that were present did communicate and consonantly the Councel of Antioch decreed That all that come into the Church of God and hear the holy Scriptures and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Zonaras interprets upon pretext of reverence and humility Chamier the violation of religious order refuse the receiving of the Lords Sacrament let them be put from the Church and to like effect determines the Bracharen Councel Quid causae est De verbis Domini secundum Johan Serm. 2. saith St. Augustine ô Audientes ut mensam videatis ad epulas non accedatis In vain saith Chrysostome we stand at the Altar when none will participate c. If thou stand by and doe not communicate thou art wicked thou art shameless thou art impudent I would not onely have you to participate but to be worthy partakers thou wilt say I am unworthy to partake of the holy mysteries then art thou unworthy to be partaker of the prayers not onely by those things set before us Homil. 3. ad Ephes c. 1. Tom. 4. p. 356. but by Hymnes also doth the Holy Ghost descend you that are under penance depart c. He that partaketh not is a Penitent Why therefore saith he depart ye that cannot pray c Neither onely was the participation of the Eucharist injoyned as a common duty and the omission thereof complained of but the common right thereof asserted by the Ancients That which is the Lords they make proper to themselves In 1 Cor. 11. Homil. 27. Tom. 4. p. 110. In 1. ad Cor. c. 11. Tom. 8. p. 494. saith Chrysostome those things which are the Lords are not this servants and not that servants but common to all he permits it not to be the Lords that permits it not to be common to all It is not the Lords saith Hierom but mans when every one invades it as
the Work of faith and to make an external Profession without any real Conversion of the inward Man they were pricked at the heart but compuncti fuerunt Cain Judas saith Calvin As the denunciation of judgement struck Ahab into a low posture of Humiliation so it is possible many of those Ultorem metuunt regnantem quem occiderunt benedicentem as Erasmus Their continuing stedfastly in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and breaking of Bread and Prayers Calvin saith is the form of the Church but all that are of the visible Church are not of the invisible a man may continue in the Doctrine of the Apostles yet not in the practice of that Doctrine he may be no speculative Heretick nor Apostate yet may be a practical Heretick there may be a pure light without heat or influence as in Glow-worms or Cucuija he may give all his Goods to feed the Poor and not have Charity parting with the Substance to catch a shadow for honor est umbra virtutis he may perform external duties without the hidden Man of the Heart like Architas Dove and Regiomontanus Eagle make a brave flight without a Principle of life carried by other wheels and engines most of this if that fellowship be Communicatio ad mutuam conjunctionem eleemosynas aliáque fraternae communionis officia as Calvin may be verified of many of those whom they suspend save that the Breach they have made keeps them from breaking of Bread and though desirous of the ways of Salvation they find this way obstructed But thirdly do they soberly opine that all those were real and perfect converts I suppose then they are solitary in that opinion not onely these three thousand but the rest about that time coming into the faith found present Baptism a door into the Church among these first converts were Ananias Saphira and Nicholas and yet these first Blades of the seed of the word were blasted and withered without sound fruit But fourthly whatsoever they were it was not the truth and reality of their faith that admited them to Baptism but the external profession of the faith their continuance stedfast in the faith what ever it importeth was a thing subsequent they had not continued when they onely began to believe and then were they Baptized and brake bread and the Apostles suspended not their Baptism till probation had whether they would so continue and their continuance was in breaking bread also When the Eunuch had made a draught of his faith by profession thereof Philip did not suspend the seals when he came to water there was no haeret aqua though there was not time enough to verifie the unfainedness of his profession yet nothing hindred him to be Baptized and when the prisoner of Jesus Christ had brought into captivity the thoughts of his jaylor to the profession of an obedience to Christ although he immediately before resolved to have given himself a wicked kinde of Baptismus sanguinis by killing himself with his own sword yet without suspending him for such a desperate resolution he received the Baptismus flaminis and that straightways which is a word of no more Latitude than their immediately 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here being equivalent to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 John 13.30 Which leaves no proportionable time to take any evidence of the soundness of the work of grace in his conversion and what ever probable signs thereof himself might give yet nothing is recorded of those of his house but that the word of the Lord was spoken to them which doubtless they professed to receive with faith and without more adoe all his were Baptized too being upon that profession taken to be of the houshold of faith Primus haeresiarcharum as the Fathers call him and primogenitus Sathanae as Ignatius stiles him Simon Magus whose fresh sorceries and witchcrafts were such as might have justly put his profession under a suspicion of counterfeit and if ever to have brought any to the tryal now to have done it and to have expected some signs that he that was to be washed were also sanctified and as they say of Lapis Armenius that it must be often washed ere it be approved so on the contrary he should have been often proved ere once washed yet we find notwithstanding that without suspension or probation upon his profession to believe though he were still in the gall of bitterness which poison he suck'd from the old Serpent and therefore there was no hope that the Spirit which appeared at Christs Baptism in the likeness of a Dove which is without gall should descend upon him who onely in Ecclesiam ut Corvus ingressus est quaerens quae sua sunt saith Augustine probatus est ad aquam contradictionis as St. Hierom accommodately quia in hypocrisi accepit baptismum Yet he was admitted to Baptism which there was an active right in the Apostles to give without examining whether he had a passive the receive Quem prodidit orbi Poena sequens nescisse fidem sings Arator It might appear by prolix induction but that longum iter per exempla that the first profession of faith gave a right to Baptism whereof Livery and Scisin was thereupon taken and when any deserteth the tents of Paganism and comes into the quarters of the Christian Church before he be entred into the Muster-Roll take his Sacramentum Militiae and march under their ensigns or be otherwise received than as an enemy he ought to shew wherefore he is come and profess himself to be for that party and therefore that a profession of faith is requisite antecedently to Baptism In Act. c. 9. v. 37. is not contradicted Est regula universalis saith Calvin Non ante recipiendos esse in Ecclesiam qui ab e◠fuerant prius alieni quam ubi testati se fuerint Christo credere for it were saith he an impious and too gross profanation of Baptism to administer it to an infidel to one that assents not to the faith objective and hath not faith subjectivè viz. a Dogmatical and Historical faith wherein is founded a title to the Sacraments and how else shall we know that they are become Christian believers unless they profess to be so and make it known but as that great Divine addeth inscitè perperam fanatici homines Paedobaptismum hoc praetextu impugnant so I may say that irrationally and ilfavoredly shall they seek to conclude an equal necessity of the like profession previously to the Eucharist for the same reasons which Mr. Calvin produceth evince to there is no such necessity that the Baptism of infants should be suspended until they are capable to make profession of their faith are as apt and applicable to prove that it is not necessary that such as are baptized should profess or be examined of their faith before their admission to the Lords Supper those who once were aliens when they were made Denisons of the Church made this profession at their
restituendae conducat consulo nè posthac edas bibas hoc ipsum consilio non curat restituit sed perdit etenim non restituitur valetudo non edendo ac bibendo sed competentèr pro qualitate morbi edendo bibendo consimili modo non correxisset Apostolus malum hoc Corinthiorum consulendo nè in posterum de pane ederent c. hoc Apostoli exemplum sequatur Minister Christi sicubi viderit esse quosdam qui coenâ dominicâ abutuntur neque suspendat institutionis dominicae usum neque jubeat ut ab illo abstineant sed urgeat potiùs ut in seipsos inquirant gratiae Dei sacramento se competenter accommodent Though when as a single person had perpetrated and persisted in such a notorious and execrable crime as appeared horrible to the Gentiles who yet beheld it by a Dim light then liberiore correptione excommunicatione judicat dignum the Apostle strikes and blasts him with the thunderbolt of his censures ut poena ad unum terror ad omnes then cum inter dissimiles peccavit cum congregationis ecclesiae multitudo ab eo crimine quo anathematizatur aliena est as St. Augustine speaks But when the corruptions were great and Epidemical then the Apostle both suitably to the Aphorisms of Physick which prescribe that in statu morbi non est purgandum sed praestat quâ—escere and also si sanguis nimìs corruptus est Hippoc. 2. Apboris 29. Sennertus Instit ratione causae cùm hoc modo in cacochymiam exquisitam degeneraverit ratione signi cùm vires imbecilles denunciet venae sectio non convenit and also agreeable to the practice of Physicians who in a Tympany dare not let out at once all that corrupt water of the Belly whence death would follow in stead of health so this Spiritual Physician doth not drive them all at once from the Communion nor as if to the reformation of that Church it had been necessary make them probationers for some time until they were readmitted to a Church-fellowship upon demonstrations of Sanctity but to his reproofs his doctrine his exhortations he only adds his mourning Epist 64. Tom. 2. p. 61. Cum multos jam comperisset immundâ luxuriâ fornicationibus inquinatos ad eosdem Corinthios in secunda epistola scribens non itidem praecipit ut cum talibus ne cibum sumerent multi enim erant nec de his poterat dicere si quis frater c. sed ait nè iterum cùm venero ad vos Contra Parmen l. 2. c. 3. Tom. 7. p. 13. humiliet me Deus lugeam multos c. per luctum suum potiùs eos divino flagello coercendos minans quà m per illam correptionem saith the same Father and this patern he commends to the imitation of every pious and prudent Christian in like cases patienter ferat ex dilectione gemat lugeat donec ille desuper emendet corrigat atque usque ad messem deferat eradicare zizania c. And it is upon this account that a judicious Divine observeth Mr. Balls answer to Canne part 2. p. 57. that the Apostles tolerated great abuses in private persons which they could not redress doubtless they condemned the having many wives at once but when that Custom prevailed amongst Jews and Gentiles they gave no command for the casting such out of the Church but onely prohibited them to be chosen Bishops so as it is evident that what St. Augustine professeth hath been practised in all ages Toleramus quae nolumus ut perveniamus quò volumus If the Apologists could meet such an example or finde such an argument to condemn promiscuous Communions as might be fetch'd from Corinth to defend them cuivis licuit adire Corinthi they would speak thunder and look lightning and in decrying mixt Communions would mix Heaven and Earth or rather set them farther asunder and yet at what distance soever sublimi ferient sidera vertice Yet notwithstanding all their courses togather and constitute a pure and unmixed Church and Communion will be like the course of the eighth Sphear which shall be finished onely at the end of the World in the mean time as the Chymists tell us the lesser fire the purer Distillation and this fire must not be such a purging fire as the School-men say the fire of the last Conflagration shall be thorough which all alive must pass to be purified the best aswel as the worst this fiery tryal ought neither to be so violent nor Universal fire mollifies and hardens Steel according to the varieties and intensions of heat and so Rheubarbe if gently decocted purgeth if overmuch it bindeth and Galen tels us that quaedam medicamenta pulverizata exlguâ quantitate ulceri inspersâ cicatricem inducunt eadem vero si largiùs usurpantur carnem absumunt ulcus cavum efficiunt et contra cathaereticorum quaedam si parciùs usurpentur in cicatricem inducunt et fiunt epulotica so in Purgative Discipline a little may do much and too much nothing leniter castigatus reverentiam exhibet castiganti asperitatis autem nimia increpatio nec increpationem recipit nec salutem Concil 3. Can. 6. saith the Bracaren Council What Arnoldus in his Aphorisms adviseth the Corporal Physician is as proper for the Spiritual Prudens et pius Medicus morbum ante expellere satagit cibis medicinalibus quà m puris medicinis nunquam properabit ad pharmaciam nisi cogente necessitate and especially ought he to be sparing of Purgatives Galen himself assuring us Omne purgans medicamentum corpori purgato contrarium c. succes et spiritus abducit substantiam corporis aufert of them therefore that are so much for Purgatives when alteratives might do the Cure that drive out so much of the pure Blood to expel the evil which being left mixt with the other might be perhaps concocted and assimilated we may say truely plus periculi à Medico quà m à morbo the injustice of this repulse makes those sad that ought not to be sad and the commonness thereof strikes less shame into those that should be ashamed and while they are not convinced to merit it they will despise the censure et contra audentiùs ibunt and by degrees may some of them grow to disesteem the Ordinance which they are perswaded it is not their fault that they cannot have and will little fear to wax worse since if they should do so they cannot fare much worse But they say it is an unsound position that a previous exhortation on the Ministers part frees his soul more is required of him suspension is an effectual means and he must suspend such as he knows or may know to be wicked or he defiles his own soul with other mens sins more is also required of the people praying and informing and declaring among them Chrysostom bids them to deny the Sacrament to some
Eudemon boasted of the Jesuits Penes se esse imperium literarum so these mens opinions and practises were the rule and measure and touchstone of things and they had the monopoly and mintage of godliness and nothing must pass for currant but what flowes from them Sedul Apol. pro libro conform l. 1. c. 20. c. 13. l. 2.1.6 and carries their stamp The Book of conformities blasphemously tells us that St. Francis was deified that he was made one spirit with God and that God did obey him at a beck in every thing and that he knew the secrets of all hearts but I will not nor dare not so to aggravate the greatness of their presumption nor yet at all urge how bold they make with God that set his stamp upon all they coyn without his Letters patents and vouch him to warrant all their deeds and make him their second in all their duels without his leave or consent but I shall onely say as that Spartan did before the approaching battel of Lectra the day is coming that will shew who is good or a godly man in the mean time it shall more suit with godliness to make an arrest of judgment But vir bonus est Sejus sed tantum Christianus the Waldenses are without blame and unrebukable onely they blaspheme the Church of Rome the inflexibleness of some men to move along with them in these excentrick orbes is the onely rotten grain in their Pomegranates would they but strike in and be carried about with them for that onely stamp sake without any melioration or refinement of their mettals perchance they might pass currant too for pretious pieces now they are onely bitten because none of theirs As they say the Snakes in Syria sting all forrainers but never any of the Inhabitants and the Hedg-bore hath sharp prickles without and is smooth and soft within so they have pondus pondus and ballance their own party and their opposites with several weights and in divers scales Let me add also that the pretence of godliness cannot give things their pass port for Luther tells us of a proverb In nomine Domini incipit omne malum nor can the reverence and esteem due to some mens persons seal all their opinions and practices for the same man hath a smart saying Nunquam periclitatur religio nisi inter reverendissimos neither can the aim and intention of doing some good or greater good to some protect or countenance a consequent train of greater evils intensive or extensive for the Apostles rule checks with such designes and Salvian tells us of some that do errare bono animo Lactantius of others that honesta voluntate miscri sunt The Church therefore according to the Italian proverb had need to pray especially to be defended from her friends and it is no new thing to receive wounds in the house of friends Zachary 13.6 and for the Spouse to complain that the Watchmen that went about the City have smitten her have wounded her the Keepers of the walls have taken away her vaile from her Cant 5.7 And surely such as are Heteroclites to their rules and Anomala's to their waies would more patiently bear the harsh censures they are asperst with did not the Church of God suffer but as when Alchymists under pretence of multiplying mettals and improving and transmuting them into Gold do decoct consume and turn Gold into nothing and as the Woman in the Greek Fable that was mortally sick telling her Physitians her symptoms who answering her all was good she cried out That good had undone her so the Church is in danger of being ruined under the Notion of being better built and not onely hereby that utque ante hac flugitiis ita nunc legibus laboratur but some are like Pompey gravior remediis quam delicta erant and as if things were like the Hebrew to bespeld backward instead of Godliness prophaness and not neglect alone but contempt of Ordinances Schismes and Heresies not onely creep but break in grow and spread among us and while we hear all will be now well we see and feel that stark naught could scarce be much worse pudet haec opprobia nobis Et dici potuisse non potuisse refelli And although the effect hereof like those of an eclipse are like to be more felt long after yet we are already but too sensible of the fruits which these grounds bring forth wherein some men have prepesterously thought so great a part of Gods husbandry doth consist fruits indeed wherewith our teeth are so set an edge that we can have no great stomack to them and I dare say with some confidence that were the Laws of this Church Government whereunto some perhaps will shrewdly apply that of Demonax quibus boni non egerent mali fierent nihilo meliores to receive a comitial rogation more Romano the farre greatest part of Intelligent men except such as are biassed by interest jurati in verba sua so as to sacrifice Troy to their Helena and as Demetrius of the table of Protogenes to be more tender of the draughts of their own pencil than of the City would give their suffrage with A. rather than V. R. As the Wolf said in Plutarch when the Shepheard slaughtered a Lamb At si ego id fecissem if I had done it the whole Country had been raised against me But it falls out sometime sutable to what happened at the battle of Montlchery where Comines tells us that some lost their places for running away which were conferred upon others that fled much further And sadly while some men of one sort of principles have shut up the Church door by intermitting or restraining and contracting Baptisme the Sacrament of Institution januam Ecclesiae as one calls it and some of other principles have walled up or new railed in the Communion table and either omit or confine and inclose the Eucharist which hath almost lost its name of Communion and Synaxis and by a denomination taken from the greater part may be rather called an Excommunion or Apaxis the greatest part of men are left excommunicate and made as heathen and Publicans and being not added to the Church become such as shall not be saved and God onely knows for who else can give a stop unto or predefine the bonds of fancy and singularity Quo teneam vulius mutantem Protca nodo whether as the Chymists also by frequent sublimations separations reduce the substance of things in a manner to nothing so whether these separations and gatherings out which may perchance to grow one out of another like a line which is divisibilis in semper divisibilia and the later pretend to be upon as good reason as the former may not reduce the Church unto a very small cantel and really expose the greatest part unto a kind of paganisme and so the zeal of those men may become antipodes to that of David and eat up the house of God
for scruples are there understood to be leviuscula argumenta fundamenta as Azorius and Filiu ius leves rationes as Balwin but we are not perswaded the reasons and arguments alleaged are of that kind Filiucius tract 21. c. 4. Sect. 175. p 11. Baldwin Cas cons l. 1. c. 10. p. 24. De Instit jure l. 2. c. 29. Dub. 2. Navar. Manual c 27. Sect 280. p. 1037. though by a Meiosis or Charientisme we stiled them so until they have better convinced us therof and scrupulus est tenuis suspicio mali circa rem bonam vel adiapheram saith Lessius and onely makes the conâ—cience assâ—nâ—ing and adhâ—ring to one part of the question lightly to recede and a little to doubt thereof but the judgements which we desired might be satisfied are rather more fully perswaded by other reasons and not a little by those not to assent or adhere to this way which seems evill though they affectionatly wish for some of their sakes that trace it that it were not so evill as upon these reasons it seems or may be suspected to be so as whereas Conscientia scrupulosa contra id quod judicat habet argumenta as Navar these arguments are rather contra id quod non judicat But whereas they say Scruples are mens doubts in their own way where sure they use the word Doubts as improperly and incuâ—iously in respâ—ct of the Theologicall sense as they suppose we do Scruples for a doubt and a scruple are different noâ—ions amongst Casuists we shal grant in Ames his words Scrupul messe formidinem animi circa suam praxim but we cannot yeeld that we used the notion in any other sense for that which by exâ—enuation we called Scruples â—ut we shall not from henceforth use so much indulgence and compliance among those that have not learned inter bonos bene agier are arguments which though opposed to â—he way of the Apologists yet make men more searfull and sollicitous to concurre and co-operate with them in that way and so are concerning their proper wayes and actings likewise But that you may see the Apologists are not unlike some fierce men Ames Cas Consc l. 1.6 p. 15. which they say will sight with their own madow and that they quarrell with an expression which is but the shadow or image of their own cast back your eyes but upon the close of the precedent Section and see if the word Scruple be not used by them in the like sense which they carp at here in us for expressly they say While we are scrupulous of others which necessantly inferres that scruples may be in their conception as well of other mens wayes and actings as of their own Yet for my part let them call them what they please Nihil apud me distat in verbo quod non distat in sensu as Ambrose I shall not strive in words to no purpose which is as Augustine interprets Non curare quomodo error veritate vincatur sed quomodo tua dictio dictioni praeseratur alterius for I have also learned from Plato Nos ditiores ad senectutem perventuros fi nomina neglexerimus and if they think I have been guilty of a misnomer and this Scruple which is but the third part of a grain can adde to their weight I shall readily put it into their Scales yet I doubt it will not much ponderate where any other thing is in the Ballance or discretion holds the Beam DIATRIBE SECT XVIII Rom. 14.1 10. discussed Whether they judg or despise their brethren Psa 15.4 vindicated No other qualifications required in order to communicating in a Church member having a Dogmaticall Faith but to be without scandall Whether they reject onely the wicked Whether their way render them not guilty of temerarious judgement Of judging the heart Of bearing infirmities of morall men THe first Quâ—re which the paper sprung from Rom. 14 1. 10. they think as light as the paper ludibrium venti easiâ—y blown away with the least wind of their breath But though we did not pretend to fetch those arguments from the Peripatum but rather from the Academy and brought them forth not as demonstrative but considerable for their probability and as arguments minorum gentium senatores pedarii yet how weak soever they may seem in the faith or beliefe of any we shall strive they may be received and will seek to fetch them off from doubtfull disputations They say The Apostles scope is far from the business in hand he speaks of eating herbs not the Sacrament and it is onely a not receiving the weak to doubtfull disputations But may not the same arrow that is shot to one scope or mark be aptly aimed and sent forth toward another If they have forgotten that the same principle is pregnant with many conclusions and by the vertue and officacie of the same middle term or probative medium may sundry conclusions be inferred or if they recognize not that natural notion and principle of discourse one of those two feet whereupon all syllogismes stand and move de omni nullo viz. quodcunque affirmatur aut negatur de toto genere affirmatur aut negatur etiam de parte de specie and therefore consequently any truth derived out of another truth must be therein contained or if they remember not that Canon in Divinity quod particulariter dictum est universaliter applicandum yet we must remind them that neither the Sacrament nor any preparation or trial in order thereunto is the scope or subject of those places of Scripture from whence they have laboured to draw and form all the arguments for defence of their Church way that one of 2 Cor. 11.27 onely excepted as without any further light held forth by us will be obvious to any that shall make inspection into the texts which in due place shall be considered We do not pretend that this precept of the Apostle doth directly or expressly command a receiving to the Sacrament yet according to Diodate and Hammond it enjoyning a receiving of the weak in faith to the Communion of the Church we opine that it consequently requires the reception to the Sacrament Church-fellowship chiefly consisting in and being described by a communion of Sacraments as hath been declared and Church-Communion being comprehensive of all other special acts and parts of common and publick Christian duties or privileges if that be prescribed to be afforded in general the other are so commanded as being included under and contained in that and we do propound that by force of this Canon it is clearly enjoyâ—ed that qui robustiores sunt operam impendant insirmis sublevandis qui magis profecerunt safferendis rudibus as Calvin theâ—e is câ—mmanded nolite ahjiâ—ere cujus nondum confirmata est fides as Gagnaeus qui nondum erant in fide satis instructi as Menocbius and Tirinus Fraterne agendum cum rudioribus caveantque ne eos a professione
concernment can it hâ—ld with duty to take Physick enforced upon them when they are not sick and to receive a Salve that is proper for another sore that which may be a wholesome medicine for curing a disease in one may cause it in another this may be a proper recipe for an ignorant person but renders a man of knowledge interpretatively ignorant like as Myrth stops a bleeding vein makes a sound to bleed and Trifolium laid to a wound made by a Viper heals it but put to whole flesh causeth the same pain that the stinging of a Viper doth What obligation of duty can it have to give proof of that which cannot be doubted to satisfie those that are already convinced and to translate the Stage into the Church making some Histrionically to personate that which they are not and a knowing man to play the part of an ignorant only for a shew and in a kind of pageant And the Marcionites who used to give Baptisme to men after they were dead that had not received it in their life and set one under the bed to answer interrogatories for him might have defended their pageant which Chrysostom and Epiphanius so deride with this specious pretence that it served to set forth the necessity of Baptisme in respect of the Precept and to excite others that were alive to partake it as well as the Catechizing of men grounded in and approved for knowledge is here supported by this counterfeit colour that it conduceth to supple others that may need to undergo this tryal They cannot by overmuch Charity be prodigal of Church Priviledges and therein of Christs blood Aquinas 22. q. 119. art 3. I shall not remember them that it is determined not only in the Ethicks but in the School that the Covetous man is more deteriorate than the prodigal and that upon this score of reason because prodigality is beneficial to many and more approximate to liberality a more plausible and endearing habit and more easily to be rectified though these circumstances perchance might not ineptly be applyed to this case but I shall first deny that there is any inordination of giving beyond the measure of reason to whom and for what and as it ought not for time place or manner which carries the definition of prodigality when the Sacrament is exhibited to those that are not cast out for notorious wickedness but is rather an act of justice as it respects their debt and of charity as it regards anothers good and to prove this this whole discourse is a medium 2. It seems then that Baptisme is no Church privilege Dr. Morton Cathol appeal for Protest l. 2. c. 22. sect 15. p. 108. and that Ambrose affirming that in Baptisme there is the invisible blood of Christ and Augustine saying that every one Baptised before he eat of the Bread of the Eucharist is notwithstanding by vertue of Baptisme partaker of the body and blood of Christ were both grosly mistaken though our Divines have alleaged those testimonies against the Papists to shew the Fathers spake the same of the Sacramental Element of Water which they did of those Bread and Wine Or else in Baptizing all the Infants of their Congregations they have a commission to be prodigal only of such Church privileges and of Christs blood also in such manner as they shall think fit and expedient and as it shall be subservient to their ends and interests 3. Not to insist on here what hath been considered elsewhere how farre the partaking of the word and prayers is a Church-privilege yet the blood of Christ is as well held forth and offered to us in the word preached as in those visible and tangible words the Sacrament and we drink the blood of Christ when we hear his word as Origen expresseth it it is the same thing in both though in a different manner as hath been formerly demonstrated Paul was jealous and afraid Diodat Annot. in utrumque locum In locum Ardenter vos in Deum depereo Menoc annot in loc yet not uncharitable Paul had indeed a jealous care of the Corinthians 2 Cor. 11.2 but it was not so much a distrust as a desire to keep them in union with Christ Ambio vos Dei zelotypia metaphora à zelo parauymphi pro gloria sponsi salute sponsae saith Piscator non patier aemulos pseudo-apostolos qui vos quasi virginem meam ambiunt as A Lapide and consonantly Aquinas and Estius and Ostendit saith Calvin cur desipiat gloriando nam hominem zelotypia quasi transversum rapit and he was afraid of the Galatians Gal. 4.11 for declarat pro iis suam solicitudinem saith Estius and solicitudo is onely rationabile sludium ad aliquid consequendum but let it be properly fear which is any expectation of an impendent evill or ex imaginatione futuri mali corruptivi 〈◊〉 dolorem inserentis perturbatio quadam ac dolor there was evident ground and cause sufficient for such a fear and we do not dream that a just fear cannot be compatible with charity but nevertheless that fear did onely move to an admonition or reproof and there did rest it did not transport him to divine of their estate and suspend them from the Sacrament we impugne not all doubtings or suspitions of others if the signes from whence they result be not light nay we have conceived that in order to cautell or admonition for avoiding a detriment or applying a remedy even doubtful things may be interpreted in the worst part Silvius in 22. q. 60. art 4. p. 317. not definitively judgeing another to be ill but suppositively fearing he may be such and demeaning themselves externally in these respects as if he were such for such acts neither are nor include a judgement of another as evill but involve onely a judgement that they ought to be cauâ—ious and wary and tender of them but we only limit prescribe them to abstain from what may be defamatory and poenall for else they will goe farther than the Apostles example or any line of Scripture will reach or extend unto What they say of the Angel of the Church of Ephesus his trying some we have elswhere made triall of and shewed it can be no Angel tutclar for them or their course Charity they say is not blind but sure it is so dul-sighted in nothing as in prying into and censuring other mens faults and especially their state and condition it hath eyes clear from all vitiating humors which receive the species according to their tinctures and dispositions it hath no close nor contracted pupill whereby according to the Opticks mens faults seem bigger than they are but large and dilated whereby they rather appear less and is contrariwise affected toward their graces They are not bound to hope contrary to their knowledge and experience then it seems they have broken the bands in sunder that Charity laid on them for it is the property and Eulogy thereof to
every one be culpable and multis minatur qui uni fâ—cit injuriam and have obtained what Caligula wisht that all their people have but one neck which they cut off at once nor do they like Chirurgions onely launch tumors or cut off dead flesh but like Mountebanks do wound and flash the whole and sound flesh upon pretence to heal it again and to bring themselves and their salves into more request and practice and whereas the terror onely should come to all they make the punishment proper for a few to be universal not punishing onely those that are necent but like Theodosius at Thessalonica for which Ambrose thought he merited excommunication cut off all promiscously without discrimination the innocent as well as the guilty that when one man perhaps hath sinned they are wroth with the whole Congregation and then notwithstanding Irae suum stimulum Zelum vocant so as the generality and commonness of the punishment taking away the sense of shame and fear thereof frustrates the end of it as it is no odious deformity to be black among Negroes where all are of that colour a white man and some such they have born there is more monstrous to them and therefore as Physitian say that the disease which all or most men commonly have must spring from the same common cause and our Divines tell us that the corruption of the Masse cannot be the cause of reprobation negative because that is commen but that which makes to differ is peeuliar so it cannot be any crime or incapacity in the persons wherein their exclusion is rooted for all are not incapable or criminous but there is some cause that is common to all and that can be no other but that they may have a preheminent power over all whereinto this is their Inauguration Fourthly they exercise not this power onely occasionally and upon an exigent but make a common and continuall trade thereof and consequently making the Church such a meddow as Lewis 11. said France was which he mowed not onely when it was rank grown but as often as he pleased nor do proceed as Arnoldus saith a wise and a modest Physitian ought to doe which is never to use medicines but upon urgent necessity and that sparingly too but their constant practice is to keep men under this purging physick which were it cordial would ferfeit its virtue by too frequent use but being purgative medicines must not be used as familiar as meat when there is no purgative as â—hysitians confess but is contrary to nature and consumes the very substance of our bodies so as qui medicè vivit miscrè vivit and this is to make the Church as he said of the State of Thuscany under the Medices like a body exhausted with continual purgings the blood and spirits consumed and nothing left but weakness and melancholly and we may say of them as Seneca did of others Moverer si judicio hoe farerent nure morho faciunt faciunt non quod mercor sed quod solent and judge of their course as Demosthenes did of calumny Aliquantisper audientium opinionem confirmare progressu verò temporis nihil eá imbecillius Upon these considerations that which they call ministerial power is Tempestas non potestas as the Lawyers speak potentia ruinae et incendii as â—eneca Cornâ—a sunt ista ventilantis non mansuetudo pascentis as Augustine And if this do not border upon that of Ifidor which he saith of some that they bear themselves upon their Priesthood as if they had a tyranny yet whether it be not the second part of Diotrephes and the playing over again his ambition of preheminence and whether these probations and suspensions be not a kind of hunting of men thereby to make themselves mighty ones in the earth and instead of the old paternal government to introduce a Lording In 1 Pet. 5.3 which is the same thing which Diotrephes practised as Aretius alios vobis imperiose subjectos esse volentes as the Commentary asscribed to Aquinas to be imperious masterly persons ruling roughly and harshly as Hammomd by which prohibition the Apostle reprehends severity tanquam ab ecclefiastica mansuetudine alienam as Iustinian and lessoneth Parstors and Governours in the Church magis apparere humilitatem et mansuetudinem quà m potestatis ostentationem ac severitatem et amorem magis quà m terrorem as Estius and if their course clash not with this precept so interpreted yet whether it check not with that which he thereby prescribeth ut absit non solùm animus sed species dominandi in plebem subjectam as Estius the Apostle saying Neque ut deminantes non solùm non dominantes quia nihil debent exterius praetendere per quod possit de iis opinari ut videantur velle dominari as Aquinas Though they may be somewhat in passion to hear the quaere yet we shall not be much out of reason to make it and we are sure without question that this rejecting of all till they be proved and approved by them as Musculus ranks it with the with-holding of the cup from the Laity by the Popish Priests so it is that dominion which if otherwise it cannot be redressed â—he saith God will restrain And whereas they say To Lord it over Gods heritage is to infringe the liberties and priviledges of the Saints Whosoever is a Church-member I have formerly demonstrated to be in Scripture ideom and generall acceptation a Saint and to debarre any intelligent member of the Church of communion in the Sacrament is to infringe his liberties and his priviledges in the crown whereof that communion is a rich jewell but the learned â—unius tells them Vtriusque communionis cum Deo inquam Ecclesia ad sanctos omnes promiscue pertinentis I might setâ— an asterisck on that for the observation indici à Deo data certáque E. clesiae verae documentá eculis omnium exposita sunt ea quae communis usus Sacramenta nuncupavit atque haec quidem communionis genera quà sunt spiritualia semper ubique ab hominibus sanctis percipiuntur quà autem sunt â—orporalia coluntur in templo id est ad to um Ecclesiae corpus conjuâ—â—ctè pertinent neque ullus ex Ecclesia Dei esse putandus est qui se ab ullo istius communionis genere ultro subtraxeri a passage like the pillar of a cloud and fire which gives light to us and casts them under darkness To keep away ignorant and scandalous persons exceeds not Ministeriall power is no Lording imperious thing But first were they whom they keep away such delinquents yet the number of the guilty should manacle the hands of the Judge and periculum schismatis send an injunction from the Court of equity If the one member be gangrened the excision thereof may be just and necessary potiùs pereat unus quà m unitas as Bernard but if the body be infected with a scab other medicines may be
jugulatus confutatus error eorum qui Catherorum Anabaptistarum recentium imitatione ad S. Domini coenam accedere detrectant si eandem flagitiosis sua opinione peccatoribus administrari videant But whereas in the score of these corruptions wherein Christ separated they set down washings and misobservation of the Passover First they cannot but know though perchance they could be content that others were ignorant that there is a vast disparity and unsuitableness between superstitions or humane traditions and divine Ordinances Secondly when those that keep themselves pure doe partake of that sacrament whereof they also participate that in some thing are corrupt they do not communicate with the evill men but with the Altar and Sacraments of God as Augustine speaks Thirdly that there may be a communion without uniformity and Church-fellowship without a social compliance in accidentall Rites and Circumstances Fourthly that to differ in things speculative or practicall is not to separate as there may be variety in a garment yet no rent In illa veste varietas sit scissura non sit Then secondly for Christ his not washing among other reasons rendred by Interpreters why he declined and omitted those lotions these also are recounted 1. To shew that things though decent yet ought not to be imposed as necessary or holinesse be constituted therein And 2. That no pollution could be contracted by a necessary converse with those whom they supposed sinners if there were no consortship in sin the contrary superstitious conceit whereof was that which occasioned the Pharisees often washing And as the former reason may excuse us for non-complying with their institutions which some of them may perhaps be conformed to without sin yet none of them ought to be injoyned of necessity so the later may convince them that no communion with such as they are not convinced to be righteous can defile them unless it be a society in unrighteousness 3. But whereas they Magisterially and Dictator-like affirm that Christ observed not the Passover at the same time with the Jewâ—s I see Qui ad pauca respiciunt de facili pronunciant When the Churches of Christendom as the Greek and Latine for from this difference about the time it comes to passe that the Greek Church celebrates in leavened and the Roman in unleavened bread and the best learned men in the Churches both ancient and modern for there were indeed some of the Fathers that supposed Christ and the Jewes did eat the Passover at different times though not upon that reason whereupon the later Writers do assert it viz. the translation of Feasts Exer. 16. Sect. 13. p. 335. whereof Paulus Burgensis was the first authour as Casaubon opineth and he flourished so lately as 1430. but upon this account that it was defer'd by the Jewes through their solicitude and incumbrance about the crucifying of our Lord When I say the Senate of the learned have divided themselves and stand at difference about it and Casaubon though himself be of the contrary judgment yet confesseth it is the common opinion of the Roman Church that Christ and the Jewes did keep the Passover the same day and houre and three Evangelists seem to minister arguments in favour of that opinion and but one that checks therewith and that Enantiophany or seeming opposition between them is very plausibly to be reconciled without receding from this opinion and the arguments whereby it is supported which on that and the other side whereunto he propends are very hand somly drest and trickt up by Maldonat are so considerable for weight and number Hammond annot in Mark 14.12 And Resolut of â— Quaries p. 223. that even those learned men who settle in the other scale do it not without some vacillation And besides all this some very learned meâ— as Grotius Hammond supposing that Christ kept not at all the Passover by eating of the Lamb which was to be slain as they suppose by the Levites 2 Chron. 35.6 and sacrificed in the Temple Deut. 16.2 6. but onely a commemorative Passover which they that were not able to come up to Jerusalem to sacrifice were wont to eat at home as a memoriall of the afflictions and deliverance out of Egypt such as was eaten in the time of the captivity of Babylon being onely unleavened bread and bitter herbs and nothing else and eaten alwaies at the beginning of the Paschal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and which the other was to follow and to be eaten the next evening therefore I suppose it might have been a greater honor to their modesty than disparagement to their learning to have less confidently shot their bolt Verum nihil securius est malo poeta But Ludovicus Vives relates of a Jew that going over a dangerous bridge in the dark next day fell dead when he had light to see the hazard he was in so when they have better considered the knots and intricateness of the question they will have some resentment of their praecipitous determining it and holding this forth as a principle that needed no proofe Omnes in admonendo sapimus said Euripides sed cum ipsimet aberramus haud advertimus The Apologists are like men in the dark they can see nothing about themselves but discerne what others do in the light they have here good principles and they can apply them to conclude against others but they are not aware that in some measure they are applicable to condemne themselves Sciunt vera esse sed furor cogit sequi Pejora vadit animus in praeceps sciens Remeatque They declaime against renouncing Congregations destreying and confusion of Churches scattering flocks forsaking Assemblies which God hath not forsaken and they decry and protest against Schisme and rigid separation and say they tremble at the destruction and confusion of tree Churches But are they not like that Hannonian faction at Carthage which still complained of those miseries which their onely Counsells had brought upon the State If they can see a beame in the eyes of others they should not be so blind as not to see a rafter in their own and though they are but little theeves upon the Bench to invert that proverb yet they cannot with a just confidence condemne the greater at the barre They maintain the same principles of Schisme from whence all the particular conclusions are deduced though some extract them in a gresser threed and spin it out farther they think mixt communions unlawful and make separations in the Church from those that are not cast out from it And whereas in their preface they tell us that they are deceived if ever Church reformation and constitution prove comfortable and successful unless holding communion with other Churches come to be a matter of more weight nevertheless they deny to hold communion with their own Churches yea they have renounced their Congregations interpretatively while they have gathered another which by appropriation they call their Church and in part have directly forsaken
reflection it is that they deny that those humane lawes doe properly bind the conscience which obliege not in respect of the matter thereof because they bind not primò per se sed secundariò atque mediatè per accidens ab ordinatione Dci not in their proper nature but in another viz. that principle Let every soul be subject c. Fifthly this is an itinerant Topick and a common argument and may be imprest to serve me against them and will muster among my Forces who am as certain to have made it evident that their way is not decent nor orderly as they are confident to have proved it to be so Eccles l. 3. c 4. And if order be as Iunius out of Augustine Per quem aguntur omnia quae constituit Deus and the rules directions which now or at other times had or should be given by the Apostle and the Rule of Decency be the custome of the Church as Dr. Hammond noteth not the singularities or innovations of privat or particular men then we are yet to seek of any such rule or direction of Scripture and by no search can we find that the Churches of God had any such custome Sixthly if they had evidenced their way to be decent and orderly yet that could onely rise to justifie it selfe not reach to condemn another it might warrant the setting up thereof not condemn the pulling down of all beside another way might be as orderly and decent as that for these have some latitude and consist not in a point though unum verum convertuntur yet one and orderly or decent are not so convertible In locum and Ordo Ecclesiasticus aliis atque aliis locis non modo diversus sod saepe contrarius ad aedificationem facere potest saith Paraeus Every lawfull or good thingis not by and by necessary as was before recited out of Camero qui salubres cibi sunt non continuò necessarii there is no necessity incumbent on any man to eate all or any one determinate meat that is wholsome especially when he hath no stomack to it or is already satisfied with it Seventhly when this text was produced by the Episcopall party to warrant some ceremonies I know who denyed the argument T.C. and asked why we should hang our judgment upon the Churches sleeve and why in matters of Order more than in matters of Doctrine But however this be a rule by which things belonging to the policy of the Church are to be regulated in Discipline and Rites and things indifferent not specially determined by Scripture yet the matters that fall under such regulation bind not the conscience of themselves and with such constitutions God is not worshipped saith Paraeus In locum ibid. and they are left free and alterable to the will and pleasure of the Church to constitute or abrogate and that also which this power determines is not de re aut substantiâ sed rei externa precuratione Camero de verbo Dei p. 463. Contr. 4. de Eccles q. 7. tom 2. p. 715. and the determination binds only quia oportet unumquemque stude epaci and they are to be observed non ut his conscientia implicetur nisi propter scandalum contemptum legitimae authoritatis alià s res ipsas esse medii generis as Whitaker affirmeth And therfore though they bravingly avow That this text well managed will justifie against all the world such courses as have an excellent and holy use in the Church which use that their course hath is a principle that needs no proof for want of better managery that which they have setcht to fight for them doth convert its arms against them and surrenders up that strength which they set it to keep for now their Discipline which they held out for the expresse will of God so great a part of the kingdom of Christ and so essential and necessary to reformation and for the introducing of this their order have put the Church so much out of order is yet become onely a matter of Decency and Order which owes its spring to the Churches will and may take its fall at her pleasure sic transit gloria mundi And thus like the Dolphins in an eager pursuit of their prey they dash themselves upon the râ—cks They conceive and say it is confessed That it were a glorious and comfortable thing if none but holy persons did draw neer to this holy table and they assume A general Rule will bear up a glorious and comfortable practice in the Church And if that be the Proposition and this the Assumption what I beseech you is like to be or what is likely they intend should be the conclusion which among so many terms we can upon no terms make out This may be some of Chrysippus his Logick which the Gods would have used but men were too dull to understand the use thereof If they intend that a glorious and comfortable practice will be born up by this command to do all things decently and in order I suppose it would be better supported by its proper strength formally as it is a glorious and comfortable practice more than as decent and orderly but then what is this practice viz. that onely holy persons draw near the holy table Be it so let that be a glorious and comfortable practice as they can take no glory so neither can we any comsort if they should thence infer therefore they may debarre from coming all those of whose holinesse they are not convinced We have elsewhere shewed they are severall questions and of sundry latitudes who should come and who ought to be admitted none may be excluded but for crimes notorious but it is enough that they are not scandalous to make them capable to be received And I hope we have sufficiently demonstrated that al that having a Dogmatical faith are members of the Church which is Christs family have a right to eat at his Table and common sense will shew that those that are not cut off from Ecclesiasticall communion cannot be kept off from the main part thereof communion in Sacraments If then none but holy persons shall draw to the holy table all Church members must be holy really I mean for relatively they are so but all the whole visible Church collectively shall be sincerely holy when any the parts thereof distributively are perfectly holy and that shall be onely when we come to eat and drink at his table in his Kingdome An holy and blameless Church without spot or wrinkle is indeed glorious but it is gloriae patriae non viae a glory reserved for the triumph not bestowed during the warfare and it is now so glorious onely in the hope it shall be here her falrness is but comparative among Women in respect of the rest of the world inter animas terrenas non autem inter evangelicas beatitudines saith Bernard The subject matter therefore of glory and comfort beares
from an unnecessary pleasing and intimate familiarity There are many persons saith Mr. Baxter Saints everlasting rest part 4. p. 106. De Eccles p. 316. whom we may not avoid or excommunicate out of the Church no nor out of our private society judicially or by way of penalty to them whom yet we must exclude from our too much familiarity in way of prudence for preservation of our selves And Camero reminds us of another case also Saepenumero accidit ut illius consortio privatim abstinendum sit cujus consortio in communione sacra non erit abstinendum nempe nos eorum fratris pecatorum aliquando conscii sumus quorum Ec lesia nâ—n est conscia But they finally deny the hypothesis that hereby is understood familiar and intimate fellowship and they will not swallow that opinion or have company with those of this judgement and they reason for sacramental eating 1. From the Context the whole Chapter concerns Church Censures and begins and ends therewith Suppose it did so yet it is not consequent that the eating forbidden can be only eating at the Lords Table it may rather be a prohibition of convict and commerce which is a part or appendage of excommunication And though that also be a Church censure yet seeing so great a part of the Chapter concerns the delivering over the incestuous person to Satan if but one thing can be the subject of the Chapter then sacramental eating is not treated of formally and immediately as sacramental eating there being a great disparity between that and tradition to Satan 2. How usual is it with the Apostle especially in the Epistles to the Romars and the Hebrews to enter upon a special subject and then by a real kind of hyperbaton to transfer his discourse to some other that occasionally emergeth and afterward to revert to his first matter so oftentimes chequering his writings and especially when there is some affinity between the things though not the same And to abridge and confirm the research we may find an instance hereof in the 7. verse of this Chapter where we have shewed that from a particular occasion he passeth to a general exhortation c. This saith Paraeus is illatio generalis ex superiori hortatio in thefi ad puritatem vitae And Estius affirms auforte malum ex vobis ipsis diversum esse ab ea quae paulò ante dixerat Si quis c. cum ejusmodi nec cibum sumere and the abandoning the conversation of some offending brethren was prescribed by the Apostle and may be by the Church though they judge it not expedient to cast them out of communion which makes it cohaerent and apposite enough to follow what have I to do to judge them that are without 2. They pretend to prove it by the text 1. If meant of common bread they may not then dine or sup at an Ordinary if an ungodly man be present and this would be a snare to mens consciences No more sure than that prohibition 2 Joh. 10. not to salute an heretick neither did the ancient Councels intend to twist snares out of their Canons when they decreed not only That none should take meat or partake of banquets with Jewes as did the Councel of Eliberis Elib can 50. Constant 6. can 11. Matiscon can 15. Ilerdens can 14. 4. Estius in 1 Cor. 11.27 Grotius annot in Joh. 13.18 Alii in loc Alexand Dier Gen. l. 3. c 5. L. Gyrald Pythago symb tom 2. p. 479. Mr. Balls tryal of grounds tending to separate c. 20. p. 200. De pastor c. 15. and the sixth Councel of Constantinople when reassembled by Justinian and also that of Matiscon but also not to eat with any persons rebaptized or new dipt as now the phrase is as did the Ilerden Councel and the same Synod forbidding to take meat with the incestuous according to the Apostles command declares they took not eatiag here for not eating common bread and not sacramental But we understand the words rather Tropically than literally and eating synechdochically or symbolically to signifie a familiar friendly society and indearment the Table being a symbol of friendship as Bullinger and Eplius among the ancients and a note of intimacy as Paraeus Etiam apud genies sacrum amicitiae signum saith Grotius and Alexander ab Alexandro instances in very many Nations whose leagues and covenants were concluded and ratified by the ceremony of eating together and Lilius Gyraldus inteprets that symbol of Pythagoras break no bread to intend break no friendship for saith he our of Jamblicus and Diogenes ad panem veteres amici coibant and the learned in the Hebrew tell us that in that language a Covenant is derived from a word that signifieth to cat which is also a token of love and friendship in phrase of Scripture adds Mr. Ball as Psa 41.9 not to partake of or to be shut from the Table being a sign of familiarity broken off and therefore those esserae hospitales which were the pledges of friendship gave those that had them a right to comestion and entertainment and fellows or associates had their name among the Latins from eating together Latina lingua sic dicti sodales quasi simul edales quia simul edunt saith Augustine but it they were retrenched from sitting at an Ordinary with wicked men yet they need not borrow Novatus they might have said Acesius the Novatian his Ladder to go to heaven alone for the way to heaven doth not lye by an Ordinary but the Lords Table is in the way and there indeed they would take a ladder to go to heaven alone or else turn that table into a ladder whereby to mount up to some other height above others 3. He writes to the Church and therefore intends Church eating Quà m arguto faciunt verba diserta sono Not with-drawing off civil socieâ—y by particular persons in a private way Videte quà m multa dicunt non habendo quod dicant It seems then the Apostle writing this Epistle to the Church nothing thereof concerned any particular persons distributively but the whole Church collectively or else virtually viz. the Elders and in the 7. and 8. verses of this very Chapter when he dehorteth them from malice and wickedness and perswades them to sincerity and truth this duty hath no reference to or concernment with particular persons by them to be done privately but only belongeth to the Church in publick 4 The nature of the recited sins shewes he intends scandals calling for Discipline and comming under like censure with incest Whether covetousness not pregnant with or waited on by other sins for explering the desires thereof may merit either excommunication the greater or the lesser I shal not now discuss with any Arguments ad rem but I shall propound one ad hominem that their Prolocutor hath publickly determined that worldliness which is consignificant with covetousness is one of the spots of Gods children and therefore cannot of it self
deserve those censures But 2. Though all those crimes might render obnoxious to such censure meritoriously yet the persons might not be effectively censured the Church might have no publick and notorious knowledge thereof yet many might have private notice and if the Church had such evidence yet some obstacles from the number of the offenders or the danger of schisme and the like might send a prohibition to proceedings and yet in such cases the avoiding of voluntary familiar commerce with such may be necessary or expedient And whatever censure the offences might merit it doth not follow that in this place the Apostle must needs lay down his command for censuring the offenders neither is it likely that incest which the Ecclesiastical Canons have censured with excommunication without hope of absolution was only sentenced by the Apostle unto suspension from the Lords Table 5. He had spoken of keeping company before This last Argument is like the top-stone which children set on the Castles they build too high whose weight casts down all the pile and it self falls with them for if the Apostle spoke of keeping company before then the whole chapter doth not concern Church censures This defeats the 1. Reason drawn from the context 2 He then also writes not only of what is to be done by the Church but by particular persons in a private way this nuâ—lifies the second reason extracted from the text And yet as this Sampson pulls down the house upon the Philistims above so it self fals under the ruines also and this Argument cannot stand For 1. If the Apostle had formerly spoken of keeping company may he not again second and reenforce that exhortation 2. Doth he not in this very chapter prescribe the taking away from among them the incestuous person vers 2. and 4. and in their judgement also verse 7 and yet ingeminates that command vers 13. put away from you that wicked person and might he not vary his phrase and deliver the same matter under sundry forms or explane what kind of company he meant even contubernium aut interiorem convictum as Bullinger whereof eating together was a symbol as was shewed before SECT XXIX Matth. 7.26 The sense thereof enucleated and shewed not to be subservient to their purpose but odiously abused Whether Ministers may act in Censures alone and upon their own knowledge VVE have elswhere taken off the sting of the Argument raised upon Matth. Sect 15 7.6 so as though it hisse here it cannot hurt and in truth they cast us no pearles here they dive not deep enough to fetch them but onely gather us a few Cockle-shels which not onely bordure but fill up the current of their Discourse throughout which we cannot like the filly Indians take for fine things such is that of their keeping pure the Ordinance and not prostituting it and of exclading the scandalous c. Which fallacies of petitio princi ii fallacia consequentis ignorantia clenchi they cannot part with nor live asunder from but are bewitcht to dote upon as much as Charles the Great was upon his old Hagge We looked they should have demonstrated that the holy things and pearles here spoken of were meant of the Lords Supper and that all those whom they admit not to partake thereof are dogges and swine but here vox faâ—cibus haesit we expected Rachel and behold it is Leah according to the Hebrew Proverb The Divines of our part disputing against the Papists argue that the eating of the flesh of Christ John 6. cannot be understood of Sacramentall eating because the Sacrament was not then instituted and by congruity of like reason the holy things and pearles here mentioned cannot be meant of the Sacrament because it was not yet ordained nor were the Disciples likely to be cautioned to whom they should administer that which was not yet in actuall being non entis nulla sunt accidentia neither had they yeâ— been disciplined what was the nature or end of the administration There is a Diapason among Interpreters striking harmoniously together in one sound that the doctrine of the Gospel is properly signified by these holy things and pearles the mysteries of the holy or Christian saith or truth so Dionysius Chrysostome Euthymius Eucherius of Lyons the Author of the imperfect work on Matthew De adult conjun c. 27. Estius in 4. Sentent d. 9. sect 4. p. 123. Aug. de serm Dom in monte l. 2. tem 4. p. 259 all cited by Barradius so Aquinas and Estius also so Hierom expounds it of the pearles of the Gospel and Paraus of the treasures of heavenly wisdome and because the Sacraments are also among such mysteries and usually so denominated therefore Augustine contracts and limits it to the doctrine of the Gospel Euthymius specifies them to be pretiosa dogmatae Estius and Janscuius define it to be onely the doctrine of the Gospel exclusively to the Sacraments The holy and pretious truth saith Diodate the excellent unsearchable riches of Christ opened in the Gospel and those spoken as the English Annotations And Augustines reason of the Metaphor manifests it that he onely understood the word by these mysteries Margaritae saith he quia in abdito lateut tanquam de profundo eruuntur allegoriarum integumentis quasi apertis conchis inveniuntur Annot. in locum The learned Grotius informs us Quod autemin universum de omnibus sapientiae praeceptis dici solebat apud Hebraos id Christus suae sapientiae praeceptis praesertim interioribus applicavit docens qua cautione ea aliis sine impertienda And since Interpreters explain the sum of the command to be thus hoc loco vult ne prodige effundantur etiam infidelibus abstrusissima mysteria sed pedetentim instillentur ne mysteriorum sublimitate deterreantur Quistorp annot in locum Doctrinam divinam non evulgantes as Augustine de mysteriis sidei non propalandis and ne pandite ut occultentur as Barradius out of the Fathers if the Sacraments be the holy things and pearls intended here then neither they comply with the command onely by excluding men from partaking for by admittting them to see and hear at the administration they publish and reveale the mysteries which clasheth with non evulgantes non propalandis ne pandite That this place appertains not to the administration of the Sacrament but onely or chiefly at least to doctrine and the dispensation of the word of God Jansenius saith is apparent by that which precedes Quoniam mox superius docuit qui non debent alios judicare corripere docere hîc etiam docet qui non debent â—orripi doceri and also by what follows for there is subjoyned ne fortè conversi disrumpant vos but saith he non est periculum ne si petentibus peccatoribus dentur sacramenta converst disrumpant largitorem sed contra potius periculum ne disrumpant negantem It cannot be denied nevertheless that many learned men have
it cannot give them interest in the things signified and though it will not be accepted by God yet it should satisfie the Church who only may judge of what is scandalous not take cognizance of what is secret de occultis non judicat Ecclesia 5. Whatever this unworthinesse were yet the Apostle gives neither command nor caution for any other save self-examination he bids not the Ministers of Corinth to examine nor wills them to admit no more without examination though that Church were now corrupt and he set about the reformation thereof and when as Gualther saith there was great occasion for injoyning thereof had it been necessary when professedly he discoursed of the right administration of the Sacrament to them who were polluted with numberlesse errours and vices and had prophaned the Sacrament with horrible abuses But because men must examine themselves therefore they must be examined since for lack of knowledge and grace unconverted men neither can nor will examine themselves and that such ignorant and impenitent persons may be excluded therefore they ought to examine them for upon this ground infants fools and madmen are not admitted because unable to examine themselves 'T is well those whom they exclude have gotten one stair higher to be ranked with infants fools and madmen for that is a degree above dogs and swine But infants fools and madmen have a natural incapacity whereby we know they are not able to examine themselves the rest we know may be able and we are to presume they have that ability unless their converse and comportment manifest the contrary it being a rule among the Casuists Quisque apud omnes debet esse bonae existimationis quandocunque manifestè malum de ipso non constat But as to discover fools and madmen we do not bring all to a special examination so mens gresse ignorance and incapacity to discern the Lords Body may be detected by their conversation or at least violently suspected and then only may be reduced under examination But the Apologists are miraculous disputers pro miraculo crit ipsos audire loquentes as he said of Amalasunta that can derive a conclusion from contrary means as from a command to examine himself and so to eate to infer a precept that he must be exâ—mined by another and if not so not to eat This is a kind of Antichristianisme to exalt their sense above Gods turning the active into a pâ—ssive and himself into another We find a command for a man to examine himself none that self examination must come under anothers examination though here had been the proper seat of that Doctrine but there is not only a silence thereof but an expression of that which cannot consist therewith for liberty of communicating upon self-examination cannot stand with a necessity of being examined by another Let a man examine himself and so let him eate if any other examination were requisite then he that had examined himself could not so eate this were not enough somewhat else must be done which the Apostle thought not of An unconverted man cannot perform they say this duty of self examination and should we consent with them yet so neither can he hear or pray as he ought nor take heed to his feet when he goes to the house of God about any part of divine Worship why then should they not by parity of reason research into mens abilities in order to the discharge of these duties and the excluding them from partaking thereof that are insufficient But if unconverted men cannot examine themselves they are set under a perplexity that they can neither approach nor refrain the Lords Table nor come there nor yet stay away for they may not refrain unlesse they find themselves unworthy and they cannot so conclude of themselves if they cannot examine themselves neither can they be warned to stay away upon want of Faith and Repentance if they be under an incapacity of discerning this want Besides all men lye under the command to search and try their wayes and turn to the Lord Lament 3.4 to prove their own works Gal. 6.4 to prove all things 1 Thess 5.21 unconverted men are not more susceptible of this task that is requisite to repentance which is a grace necessary to qualifie men for the Sacrament may they not then upon the like cogency of this reason reduce men under a necessity not only of seeing all with their eyes and ballancing every thing by their weights so as they must in effect prove all things for them and they shall hold fast onely what these shall think good because themselves cannot sufficiently judge of it but also of unlocking their consciences to them to make confession of all their wayes as well as their faith that they may make judgement of their fitnesse for the Sacrament and repel the unfit Do not the Papists set the necessity of auriâ—ular Confession upon this bottom Doth not that bitter water of jealousie flow from the same fountain However they may be startled or enraged to hear it those are but hidden seeds which fomented by success and quickned by any superiour influence will in the end bear such fruit Did they not do their own work in this they would sense the proper duties of their Ministery that Ars artium Scientia scientiarum as Gregory calls it of such incumbency as being scarce idoneous for them they would not fetch in and make perergaes and heterogeneal work to themselves Suspension is a punishment which ought not to be inflicted but in judicial wayes self-examination is a secret work of the heart who authorized them to set up any judicatory there or to usurpe that which the Church ever disclaimed to judge of viz. occult things They are open scandals only which they ought to proceed upon but whereas they say unconverted men have not knowledge to examine themselves we shall concede they have not so as to approve themselves to God but they may have so much as to acquire an applause from men and many truly regenerate Christians also may sense that in the heart which they cannot yet make out plausibly through the mouth as they say one kind of Cedars bears fruit but no flowers and another brings forth blossoms but no fruit and some may be like the Sentida which seems withered if you touch or come neer it and others like that Plant at Sombrero which above ground is verdant and the root but a Serpent and this may tend to set up the best talkers for the best Christians and put those out of countenance that are less bold and talkative For that of Jude the 23. Where they say is a duty toward them that are apt to run into this danger I suppose it cannot suit with any pertinency to their purpose unless to save with fear were to be afraid that men should use the means of salvation to pull out of the fire be to repel from the Sacrament and the garment sposted by the flesh