decision I wish with all my heart so far am I from an evil eye or niggardly affection towards Scripture they could make their words good when they tell us all things are contained in Scripture It is a perfect Rule of all emergent doubts and acts in the Church It is Judge and Law both of Controversies but alas they cannot For they take away from it more then by this rank kindness they give to it Gods word is Perfect as a Law and so far as he intended it but it must cease to be a Law and take another nature upon it if it were a Judge too in any proper sense And the Canon of Scripture must be it self variable and mutable if it could particularly accommodate it self to all occasions and exigencies of Christians But this is not only absurd but needless For God when he made men Christians did not take away from them what they before had as Men but required and ordained that humane judgement and reason should be occupied and sanctified by his divine Revelations He in brief gave them another and far better Method Aid and Rule to judge by and did not destroy or render altogether useless their Judgement even in matters sacred To the Law and Esay 8. 20. to the Testimonie saies the holy Prophet if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them This indeed plainly declares the Rule by which we are to walk and Judge but it doth not tell us that the Law it self doth speak but men according to it And this is to Judge Now because no one man no one age no one Church should judge for all no nor for it self contrary to all doth the necessity and expediencie of Tradition not to affront or violate but secure the written word of God and that in two special respects appear First as giving great light and directions unto the Rulers of the Church and limiting the uncertain and loose wit of man which probably would otherwise according to its natural pronitie flie out into new and strange senses dayly of holy Scripture The Records of the Church like so many Presidents and Reports in our Common Law giving us to understand Low Consuetudo etiam in Civilibus rebus pro Lege suscipitur cùm deficit Lex nec differt Scripturd an ratione consistat quando Legem ratio commendet Tertul. de coron mil. cap. 4. such places of Scripture were formerly understood and on which side the case controverted passed And why this course in divine matters should not be approved I see not unless unquiet and guilty persons shall seek under colour of a more absolute appeal to Scripture which is here supposed to be sincerely appealed unto before to wind themselves into the seat of Judicature and at length not only as fallibly but also usurpingly decree for themselves and others too This event hath so manifestly appeared that there is no denying of it or defending it They therefore who professedly introduce Tradition to the defeating and nulling of Scripture deal indeed more broadly and in some sense more honestly as being what they seem than they who give all and more then all due to it in language but in practise overthrow it But we making Tradition absolutely subordinate and subservient to Scripture and in a word of the nature of a Comment and not of the Text it self we are yet to seek not what deceitfully and passionately for we know enough of that already but soberly can be objected against it For if it be said Tradition is it self uncertain it is obscure it is perished it contradicts it self and so can be of little use we readily joyn with them so far as to acknowledge that such traditions and to them to whom they so appear can with no good reason be appealed to But we deny that there are none but such and that such as prove themselves to be true and honest men upon due trial and examination ought to be hang'd out of the way because they were found in company with thieves and Cheats Supposing then That such honest Traditions are to be found in the Church another great benefit redoundeth to the Church from thence in that it doth in some cases supply the defects of the Law it self the Scripture But here I must first get clear of this reputed Scandal given in that I suppose the Scriptures defective or imperfect I have already and do again profess its plenitude and sufficiency as far as a Rule or Law is well capable of Now what God by his infinite wisdom and power might have done I cannot question in contriving such an ample Law as should comprehend all future and possible contingencies in humane affairs but this I say That he disposing things by another Rule viz. to act according to humane capacity and condition never did or so much as intended to deliver such an infinite Law Is not Moses and Gods dealing to him and his ministry to God and the people frequently alledged as a notable argument to convince us of the amplitude of the New Testament Moses say they was faithful in all his house And therefore much Heb. 3. 2. more was Christ Very good and what of all this As much as comes to nothing For wherein did the faithfulness of Moses consist In powring out unmeasurably all that might be said touching divine matters Or rather in delivering faithfully and exactly all that God commanded him This truly did Moses and therefore was very true and faithful to him that sent him and gave him his charge This did Christ and this did the Apostles of Christ and his inspired servants and therefore were all no less faithful to God than Moses But did not Moses leave more cases untouched in the Administration of the Jewish Policie then were litterally expressed Yes surely judging it sufficient that he had laid down general Rules and Precepts according to which Emergencies which might be infinite should by humane prudence be reduced and accordingly determined And so choose they or refuse they must they grant did Christ and his Instruments leave the Law of the Gospel which yet not wanting all that can be expected from a Law cannot modestly be pronounced imperfect notwithstanding as is said manifold particulars are not there treated of Now those are they we say Tradition doth in some measure supply unto us and the defect of Tradition it self which hath not considered all things is made good by the constant power of the Church given by the Scriptures themselves in such cases which require determination of circumstances of time place order and manner of Gods service according to the Edification of the Church of Christ CHAP. XIII Of the nature of Faith What is Faith Of the two general grounds of Faith Faith divine in a twofold sense Revelation the Formal reason of Faith Divine Of the several senses and acceptations of Faith That Historical Temperance and Miraculous Faith are not in nature
without blame before him in love And it hath been shewed before how that when in the New Testament we read of Gods Calling and choosing and electing we are not so much to understand the eternal purpose or decree of God but the execution thereof in Gods actual calling and electing certain persons to the profession and belief of the Faith of Christ which he effected by the fulfilling of the Prophesie made by Christ in St. Matthews Gospel relating to the Matth. 24. 31. destruction of the Jewish Polity and Church and erecting of the Christian instead thereof viz. And he shall send his Angels that is his Messengers and Ministers with a great sound of a trumpet i. e. the Gospel preached and published and they shall gather together his elect i. e. such as he shall make choice of from the four winds i. e. from all quarters of the world from one end of heaven to the other Now these persons by Gods word and good-will called from such vanities ignorances and vices are in the Scripture called Saints not so much because they were all so throughly or absolutely sanctified from their former natural or moral impieties contracted in their state of Nature and Gentilism as that they should retain no sin and none of them should fail of heaven hereafter But first either from the better part the whole was denominated actually holy which is not unusual in all speech Or because having made renunciation of the World and Flesh and Devil in Baptism they were called and consecrated to Holiness Or lastly because they made open and solemn profession thereof however some so called might be and did appear to be reprobates And names and appellations are given not from any inward affection or quality which sense cannot judge of but from such things as are visible and apparent And thus in the Old Testament as well as New it is used As in the Psalmes Gather my Saints Psalm 50. 5. together unto me those that have made a Covenant with me by Sacrifice which imply the whole body of the people of Israel as the words going immediately before do also declare And wherever in the Book of Psalms which is in divers places we find the Congregation of the Saints is meant the Israelites in general And in Daniel Chap. 7. v. 8. 21 22 25 27. is the word necessary taken Now it being most customary with the Penmen of the New Testament to borrow the phrase of the Old this tearm Saints was translated from the Jewish Synagogue to the Christian Church by St. Paul expresly to the Romans saying To all that be in Rome beloved of Rom. 1 7. God called Saints so the original better then the insertion of to be made in the translation As likewise in his first Epistle to the Corinthians To the Church of God which is at Corinth to them that are sanctified in Christ 1 Cor. 1. v. 2. Jesus called to be Saints withall that in every place call upon the name Jesus Christ their Lord and ours And the like salutation we shall find in most of St. Pauls Epistles as also most frequently in the body of them as may be obvious to any reader though I deny not but sometimes in the New Testament it is taken in a more restrained sense signifying especially the victorious and triumphant not Militant Saints From all which it doth sufficiently appear in what sense the Church may and ought to be described a Society or Collection of Saints And withal how miserably and mischievously they err who giving that title to a Party hold themselves bound to gather a certain select number out of Christians not accusable of any notorious errour from the Faith of Christ as the Apostles of Christ did out of Heathens and Jews and to constitute and call them Saints Another thing requisite to the constitution of a Church is That it be a Communion of Saints it sufficing not that persons elected or selected as above-said be many in number but holy by nature or institution as God ordained of old in the forming of the Jewish Church Deut. 7. 6. Thou art Deut. 7. 6. 26 19. 18 9. an holy people unto the Lord thy God The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself above all the people that are upon the face of Earth Which words are with advantage applyed unto the Christian Church by St. Peter Whence it is that the same St. Peter maketh it an 1 Pet. 2. 9 10. 2 Pet. 1. 4. end of calling this company together That they may be partakers of the Divine Nature or as it is otherwise more plainly render'd Of a Divine Nature Holiness drawing us near unto the Nature of God himself As the Wiseman also writeth The giving heed unto her Laws is the assurance Wisdom 6. 18 19. of Incorruption and Incorruption maketh us near unto God And not only must they be holy but to that end must of necessity hold a twofold communion The one Invisible with one Head Christ The other Visible and external with one another For the Apostle tells us speaking of Christians The head of every man is Christ And to the Ephesians The 1 Cor. 11. 3. Ephes 5. 23. husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the Church and and he is the Saviour of the world There can therefore no question be made but it is most essential as well to the Church in general as every particular Christian or Member of the same that Christ be the Head of his Church as St. Paul yet more clearly expresseth it to the Colossians excepting against such Professors of Christian Religion as held not the Head from which all the Body by joynts and bands having nourishment ministred and knit 2 Col. 2. 19. together encreaseth with the increase of God Therefore leaving that as on all hands granted we come to the external communion of the Church CHAP. XXIV A Preparation to the knowledge of Ecclesiastical Society or of the Church from the consideration of humane Societies What is Society What Order What Government Of the Original of Government Reasons against the Peoples being the Original of Power and their Right to frame Governments Power not Revocable by the People IN the outward Communion of the Church two things are to be enquired into First the Nature of it wherein it consisteth Secondly the Adjuncts or Affections thereof First we shall treat Civitas à conversatione multorum dicta est pro eo quod plurimorum in unum constituat contineat vitas Origin Homil. 5. in Genesim briefly of the Nature of this Communion To understand which clearly it will be expedient to begin with the definition of Communion in General or Society humane For Communion is nothing else but Humane Society And Humane Society is nothing else but a conversation of men out of natural reason inclining and moving them thereunto for the mutual supply of the
may be a falling away It could never appear which is the true Church if judgment were to be made not from the outward Forms and Faith professed but from the affection and inclination of Persons or from the invisible decrees of God of granting or denying persevering Grace to persons in the Church So that it is manifest from hence how lurious frivolous vain and sophistical disquisitions must needs be which are founded and managed upon the ground of an invisible Church properly so called The improper acceptation then of Invisible can only occasion a just controversie i. e. as it is taken comparatively and in relation to a much more conspicuous and glorious Society and that either of Infidels who may by numbers much exceed in outward glory much out-shine it in power over-rule it and by persecution and oppression so far straiten lessen and crush it that it may be termed obscure and invisible Or otherwise compared with the Societies of much more publick and outwardly glorious Hereticks and Schismaticks pretending the Catholick Church And truly if acute and exact Geographers computing the several professions of Religion and their possessions of the earth deceive us not the Church of Christ may comparatively with other superstitions Mahometan Jewish and Gentile be not unaptly said to be invisible Christian Religion being allowed but Five parts of Thirty Mahometan six and Idolaters nineteen parts of the earth But if we shall divide Christian again into Catholick according to the Judgment of several See Brerewoods Inquiries Chap. 14. Writers there will not remain at present above two parts of all the Thirty parts of the earth to be possessed by the Catholicks and if so what will become of the visibility of the Church thus understood And if a moderate sense of visibility be admitted signifying a real and apparent being only of the Church though inferiour in pomp and number unto others how doth the great end and benefit for which chiefly the Church is to be maintained Catholick and Visible shrink up into little or nothing when it cannot commend it self for any such glory to the beholder nor signalize it self to the doubter of the true Faith in the Church as may hereafter appear more fully when we shall come to speak of the Notes of the Church It may suffice to conclude this Point with these two First That Christs Church is essentially and so long as it is at all must necessarily be a Society or a communion of many For so we are taught to believe out of the Apostles Creed which speaking of the Catholick Church exegetically interpreteth what we are to understand by that term viz. The Communion of Saints And therefore we are to distinguish between being of the Catholick Church and being Christians A man may be a Christian and yet not be of the Church For no man can be of the Church who doth not hold communion with it For to deceive himself and say though he be not of the visible Communion or visible Church he may be or is of the invisible and mystical is to take for granted that which he ought to prove but never can be able but from somewhat external and the ordinary method and most effectual means of being mystically united unto Christ is by being Politically united which must be visibly unto the Body of Christ the Church It hath been therefore ever matter of greatest wonder to me to hear and read how freely all struglers and Factions of Christians how inconsiderable soever do assert to and confidently to assert that common Rule Without the Church there is no salvation and are so obscure nice or absurd in their sense of it having very little or nothing to secure themselves from self-condemnation besides an ill grounded presumption that they are inwardly united to Christ and are of the invisible Church which in truth is no Church but a certain state wherein there is no administration or order that we can learn now all Society must necessarily have order and administrations for their regulating but none such do we read of to be in Christs invisible Body Christ himself being all in all and therefore improperly called a Church And therefore all such being infallibly saved who are so of Christs Body they that so abruptly and peremptorily assure themselves they are of that invisible State do in effect contradict themselves and mean they shall be saved without being of the Church For surely the Authour of that saying meant nothing else but that before one could be according to Gods ordinary dispensation revealed in his word of Christs mystical Body called abusively the Invisible Church he must belong to the visible communion of Christs Political Body or Church So that it is not sufficient to comfort our selves with an opinion that we are good Christians and hold the same Faith entirely and purely that is required of us unless we hold outward communion And therefore secondly as Christs Church must necessarily be a Society communicating so must it be a visible communion and outward For how is it possible that such communion which constitutes a Society should be entred into unless it be visible There shall therefore as well out of the very nature of the Design God and Christ had to establish a Church as from the many promises fortifying that Resolution and perfecting that Design be evermore an outward visible company of Professours of Christian Religion in the world which shall retain the Faith of Christ and the necessary effects of it in Worship to that degree of perfection which shall or may lead a Believer certainly to Salvation as will more plainly appear from what is now to succeed viz. the outward Form of the Church CHAP. XXVIII Of the Outward and Visible Form of Christs Church Christ ordained One particularly What that was in the Apostles dayes and immediately after The vanity of such places of Scripture as are pretended against the Paternal Government of the Church FOR the Church to be and to be visible or appear to be I reckon the same thing and therefore thought good to speak of that and premise it to what in order follows on this subject viz. The Visible Form 2. The Adjuncts or Affections And 3. the Power of the Church of Christ By the Form of the Church we mean that frame and outward constitution whereby the Society of Christian believers are not only united mystically and inwardly to Christ as their proper Head and universal nor as agreeing in the substance of one Faith and Worship but as conventing and consenting in one outward Discipline or Administration of this Body so collected So that Discipline otherwise called Government is by principal Sectaries themselves rightly affirmed to be an essential ingredient into the nature of a Church which will manifestly appear if we distinguish between the nature of a Christian or many Christians separate in themselves from any Jurisdiction and the nature of a Church For a Christian or a true Believer differeth from
determined to any one Province or Nation is very groundless and injurious to the whole design Christ had in propagating the Faith For the said commission of Christ given to his Apostles was not Lex but Jus a Right to Act not a Precept indispensably enjoyning the execution according to the full extent of the Letter Again It was not said to each singly Go and teach all nations but to all conjoyntly So that to all it was a direct Precept which was fulfilled if all Nations were by all the Apostles not all by each of them instructed in Christ But the interpretation which taks All nations to be rather understood negatively in opposition to the Jewish Church which enviously denyed the like Priviledges of salvation to the Gentiles which they claimed proper to themselves rather then positively as if by virtue of Christs injunction they were necessitated to pass all the world over which it is certain that neither any one nor all ever did the intention of Christ being to open a wide door of Grace to all Nations so far as humane ability could ordinarily promote the work quite disables that argument As it was lawful therefore for all the Apostles and every one of them to pass into any Part of the world so was it not unlawful to make choise of some one considerable portion wherein to move and officiate according to his Place For otherwise how should it be lawful for them to continue in some one City two three or seven years as 't is as certain as any thing in History can be that some of them did taking a peculiar and pastoral care thereof and its Appendages Now because as their Presence was finite in reference to place so their lives were to time therefore when in any one large Province they could not manage immediately themselves every City of note and command they assigned certain Substitutes to continue and promote what they had begun even during their lives in many Countries And departing this life left them to succeed in a perpetual line to all ages not by intrusion and spontaneous invasion possessing themselves of Rule and Authority over others but according to the same form that themselves were sent by Christ For Christ not only sent his Apostles but enabled them to send others in the like Pastoral charge And these Apostolical Pastours together with that personal Power given them to be exercised by them had also a real paternal Power to constitute others of the like or inferiour order as necessary emergencies required upon the increase of the Professours of Christian Religion as may in due place be more cleerly proved From hence a reason may be rendred of the Opinion of some very sober Bilson and learned Defenders of Episcopal Government who seeing neither the Apostles alone to govern the Church nor Bishops alone have said It is very hard to determine what was the Discipline of the Church in the very Primitive times of all For surely while the Apostles lived the Government of the Church was Apostolical and not properly Episcopal because those Elders otherwise called Bishops said in Scripture to be set over Cities were themselves wholly at the beck and disposal of the Apostles ordaining them and governed and taught under them no otherwise than a Priest may be under a Bishop in all subjection But the Apostles dying and their intire power also with them part of it devolved unto that Person who before in their Right presided over such a Church the Apostolicalness excepted which consisted in an immediate Ordination to that Office by Christ and illimitedness as to the exercise thereof with other signal gifâ—s and graces not here to be insisted on and was properly Episcopal which consisted in an Authority derived from the Apostles and consequently from Christ to govern the Church and not only present for their dayes but because it was to continue to all Ages which it could not without Governours and Teachers to ordain such who should ordain others without interruption for ever And these not only such who should succeed them in the like Pastoral care but who might together with them though under them by their counsel and labours as the common Fathers of the Church take part of his charge upon them in teaching and governing such a portion of that Church as was allotted them And these were called Priests or Presbyters And as the Bishop was constrained Christians multiplying to ordain an assistent Presbyter to him so when the People under that Presbyter increased so far that it was too difficult for him to discharge all Offices of publick and private ministration it was found expedient to ordain an inferiour Officer in the Church to him for his assistance called a Deacon or Minister Not that these two last Orders themselves were of humane or moderner Institution than the Apostles dayes but that they might be likewise undetermined in the place of their Function to any particular Person until the consummation of the Apostolical age But in truth it is hard to determine what the Scripture intends speaking of Deacons and therefore I offer this mean opinion as not inconsistent with theirs who hold them of Apostolical Institution nor with theirs who make them much later For the first may be true as to the Office which was a degree Ecclesiastical as St. Paul intimateth and the other as to the manner of exercise in reference to one place and one presiding there And the like seems most probable concerning the Evangelists who were persons commissioned by the Apostles to preach the Gospel under them without any determination to a certain place or people and saving this large Licence were in no higher degree than simple Presbyters the Apostles themselves presiding in all such places as Pastours But when they were by their farther Authority fixt to one City and Country with a power to create Successours or Co-adjutors in the Government of that Church then they became formal and proper Bishops For the allegation of them is most frivolous who would elude the express testimonies of Scripture affirming that Timothy and Titus were Bishops by saysaying they were Evangelists For by the same reason they may deny they were Presbyters because probably they were Evangelists and so make them of no order in the Church or of another which is yet unknown to the world which whatever it may please men to call it certainly it must be founded on Priestly Power or else they could not have regularly acted as they did Neither was it as some may phansie to degrade such Evangelists whose faculty extended to all places to be confined to one afterward as Bishop First because such power was more truly indetermined to one than extending actually to all For it depended on the pleasure of the Apostles to send them to what place they thought fit Secondly this fixing of them to one place was not without the accession of power of Government as well as preaching which is no where found to
be in them before and which doth more than countervail such antecedent liberty of simply teaching as was then in some manner fixed Thirdly there was in such cases as this added a Power and Right of instituting others as occasion offered which is unknown to have been in them as Evangelists From it follows that of all the forementioned kinds of Government that of the Church approached neerest to that call'd Monarchical which was only absolute and universal in Christ the Soveraign Head thereof but Ministerially under him and over the Church under their circuit Politically as proper Heads and Rulers and whatever power after extraordinary Callings by Revelation from God ceased any one dispartake of in the Church was ctrtainly at first derived from such single Persons alone however to the solemnity of such ordination others of an inferiour Order concurred thereto And as the Government of the civil World was originally without exception so far as search can be made by the most curious Antiquaries Monarchical though it were not governed by one man alone but by Civil Supream Princes of several Dominions into which the earth was parcelled So though no one Father or Bishop ever presided over all the Christian world yet several single Persons in their respective Provinces governing the Church as Principal the Government of the Church may rightly be termed Monarchical in Particular but Aristocratical as to the whole For as the Apostles were all Monarchs compared with their Proselites Converts and Churches by them founded but were but Peers compared one with another So was it with the Bishops and Patriarchs of the Church succeeding them whereby the Prophesie of Christ in St. Matthew was verified spoken not so much as some mistake it of his Heavenly Kingdome but earthly his Church and its ensuing glory Verily I say unto you that ye which M … â—â— have followed me in the regeneration when the son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel That when the Church of Christ should flourish then there should be such as in lieu of the twelve Tribes of Israel should Rule as in Thrones the Church of God under the Gospel They who object against this the words of Christ in Saint Matthew Ye know that the Princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them and Mâ—tt 20 25. 26. they that are great exercise autority upon them But it shall not be so among you Do declare no less against Aristocratical then Monarchical Government yea all Government over the Church And their favourable gâ—osS in behalf of one will be as valid for that which they reject For as it was not at all the mind of Christ that there should be no Governours at all over his Church so doth it not at all appear that what was lawful for many to do was not lawful for one But here the old cheat again takes place to suppose that the Government of one is in it self tyrannical and of many free but neither Christ nor nature ever taught them how to prove this presumptuous imagination And to this may we add another such mistake from St. Peters words That men should not be Lords over Gods heritage And what then Must there be more 1 Pet. 5. 3. than one over a Church and not onely one May a company of Presbyters oblige Christians to do or believe such things and not Lord it but if by a principal Person bearing Rule this same thing be done then is the Precept violated Besides who sees not that hath not a mind to be blind That the Apostle speaks nothing at all in these words of the kind of Government but the exercise of it and abuse Surely if Episcopal Government could not choose but tyrannize and Presbyterial could do nothing but according to Scripture and equity this Objection were unanswerable otherwise not worth the mentioning much less answering as common as it is and as confidently urged And as to that Pretense intended to overthrow our prime ground of Christs institution taken from what was first actually found in the Church viz. That Imparity of Christs Ministers was not found in the Church till about an hundred and forty or fifty years after Christ when it is confessed by the Enemies of Ecclesiastical Hierarchies that it prevailed Let the Huggers of this Device First consider what a pitiful addition is made to their cause from hence seeing that it is undenyable there was a disparity all the Apostles dayes who in order excelled all Ecclesiastical Persons and that almost one hundred years were spent of the said tearm in their time So that about fifty or sixty years only this imaginary Government had its being and then was lost again for fourteen hundred and then was better lost then found and taken up again But a far worse inconvenience spoils this jest as being founded and raised only from conjecture and that conjecture upon the obscurity of those ages not so clearly known as afterwards CHAP. XXIX Of the necessity of holding visible Communion with Christs Church Knowledge of that visible Church necessary to that Communion Of the Notes to discern the true Church how far necessary Of the Nature or Condition of such Notes in General IT being so necessary as we have above shewed to be in communion with the visible Church of Christ and the Nature of things themselves being more intrinsick many times than to characterize sufficiently them to the Enquirer into them it hath been thought necessary to explain them farther by more apparent and observable notices given of them And in the Doctrine of the Church these seem to be of greatest consequence Visibility Universality or Catholickness Sanctity and Perpetuity Of all which we shall briefly speak in order yet first premising somewhat concerning Notes in General For seeing as we have said it is necessary to know the true Church from the false and the Natures of things are often-times so abstruse and hidden from us that we cannot discover them from their own Light therefore it hath been judged very reasonable to pitch upon certain outward Notes eading us unerringly to the knowledge of the thing it self And in truth I cannot wholly approve of that course chosen to certifie us and point out to us the-true Church taken from the very being of it such as are Faithful and sincere Doctrine taught therein Sacraments duly administred Worship purely performed and Discipline rightly constituted because these are rather of the very intrinsick nature and definition it self of the Church than notes and characters outward whereby the nature it self should be certainly known We all indeed without exception consent that that Church is the true Church which is thus qualified and affected believeth aright is governed aright administreth the Sacraments aright and worshippeth aright and in one word which followeth most exactly the Rules of Holy Scripture but in the Assumption and Application is all the doubt and infinite
in his power so to do but that he hath so done actually to the fairest Pretenders we shall deny until better demonstrations than can be made from their own asseverations or appealings to the extraordinary effects of their Ministry Christ sayes in the Tenth of John Verily verily John 10â— 1. he that entreth not by the door into the sheep-fold but climbeth up some other way the same is a thief and a robber That the Sheep-fold is the Church that the door is the ordinary way of entring into office in that Church that the Shepheard is Presider over the Church I find none to doubt nor that climbing in at the windows is extraordinary thrusting ones self into Office in the Church nor that such as do so though they be never so conscionable painful and orthodox otherwise are not thieves and robbers if not shearing abusing the Flock yet taking that upon them without ordinary grant which belongs not to them This evil is only remedied by a successive and ordinary transmission of that Power which Christ left with certain peculiar persons he called Apostles with authority to communicate the same to others to the worlds end according to the several ranks and orders of his Ministers of which his Church consisteth So that succession not of Doctrine only but Officers in the Church is no less essential to a Church properly so called than Officers themselves or Discipline And as for the distinction invented without any precedent in antiquity without any warrant from Scripture without any justice or reason humane or divine to stop mens mouths and blind their eyes who are very simple of Vocation internal and external it is utterly rejected as a vain frivolous impertinent phansie For internal Vocation as they called it is nothing but an ability competently serving to such an end but this is no Vocation at all properly any more than it is for me to take anothers purse because God hath given me strength power and opportunity to do so It may be an exception will here be put in against the comparison from the unlawfulness of this latter and not of the former but I suppose as well an unlawfulness in the former though not so notorious as in the latter And adde That however considered in it self it be unlawful for me to spoil another yet if God calls me to it it is not and according to the new Doctrine of Vocation a man is then inwardly called when he is enabled to do a thing But an Outward call too is commended and that ordinary too when things are setled to our mind otherwise extraordinary calling must suffice And truly an extraordinary calling will suffice at any time but then very much better proofs are expected to make such extraordinary Vocation apparent to equal judges than we can any where find in the Apologies of them that rest wholly upon that as their safest Anchorage in this unhappy fluctuating Vocation By what therefore we can judge from the description the Scriptures give us of a formed Church and sentence of the Ancient no Society a Nibilâ—lind est quantum ego quidem intelligo Ordinaria Dei ad altquod munus vocatio quam ab his penes ques est plena legitima de ejusmodi rebus statuendi potestas personae ipsâ—rum judicio non in-idâ—nâ—ae nullo intercedente prava ambitione dolo malisve artibus designatio Sander sonus Praefat ad Tract de Juramento Church can be truly and formally called which wants lawful and ordinary Pastours and Priests and no ordinary Pastours or Priests without due Ordination and no due Ordination but from such who have that power in a right Line communicated unto them in a succession of mortal Persons to an immortal faculty in the Church as may hereafter in convenient place be farther proved So that it may well be admitted that Succession not when one steps up unappointed or illegally appointed into the place and office of another but thus explained is necessary to the Being of a true Church of Christ And yet I do not say it is necessary to Christianity or simply to salvation where it is not despised or scornfully rejected For we may well suppose that Gods promises will notso far fail as to leave a Christian people destitute of such ordinary means of becoming a Church without notorious forfeitures of his grace on their parts or will remit of the general rigor of his Laws requiring Unity of a Church as well as Unity of Faith to the being good Christians and true believers And for these who are most troublesome and loud in demanding Succession or rejecting all Churches defective therein as scarce in saveable condition though I hold it an high temptation of God and provocation of highest displeasure to flock to such Societies as are not known to have this succession of Pastors without such interruption that the Renewal and restitution thereof were meer Laical and consequently void yet where invincible ignorance through education or incapacity natural of judging hath subjected a Christian to that unhappiness who dares exclude him from salvation And the greatest boasters and magnifiers of succession should do well to consider how they can better than hitherto they have quit and secure themselves from the retort of want of succession For however a numerous a glorious Roll is shown of succeeders in their principal See yet we find unanswerable difficulties in their due succession and ordination of which these two will take them up more time and cost them more care and pains than their lives length may suffice to viz. The uncertainty of Succession from Intention necessary to that Sacrament of Ordination which can never be sufficiently known to have been present at that time no though the Ordainer should swear solemnly to it more than Morally which amounts to no moâ—e upon tryal than Probably And the more then probable suspicion of Simoniacal contracts in ascending the Pastoral throne which the common Law declareth nulling such indirect Invasions and voiding Ordinations For the third sign of the true Catholick Church Unity the more I look into it the less I find considerable in it It being necessary according to common Philosophy That every thing which hath a â—eing should be but one and not many and if the Catholick Church be so in this sense what great matter is acknowledged in it above other things For when a thing is divided into many parts it ceases to be what it was before but still there is unity in the Parts severally considered And so if we suppose the Universal Church divided schismaticaâ—ly into distinct and opposite societies it can scarce be supposed but the Parties so divided are though infinite yet in unity with themselves And how then can that which is common to so many be a specifick character of one especially By this separation therefore it may be concluded That one or perhaps both are in fault and guilty but agreeing within themselves equally as well they may
themselves For though infinite Instances may be given of Cities and Nations which have wrung the Civil Power out of the hands of their Princes and Magistrates and pretended they would be ruled by their own Counsels and power yet could they never effect this but were constrained after all devices used to no purpose to let go their hold if not Pretensions and suffer the assumed Power to return to a more capable subject Which incapacity of using such Power is no less then an unanswerable Demonstration to me that it was never there placed by any divine Will or Right but somewhere else Now though some eminent Reformers of the Late Age have been so superfluously and in truth superstitiously nice and as is pretended jealous for Christs honour and absolute Headship over his Church that would not so much as allow the name of Government to the Church or any in it least Christ should suffer loss but administration must be the Junius de Ecclesia name signifying power and Rule exercised in the Church yet in truth all this is no better then a Superstitious fear where there is no fear For they are not names but things that are so much to be heeded And if these men in their Charge had not acted the part of Governours as well as others we might have allowed this invention for tollerable but the truth is the honour pretended to Christ and the Gentle usage of the People have ended in the same thing which the other more openly and honestly professed to do the difference being only in the Hands so acting But 't is no new thing to beguile dissetled people with new words into new orders neither will it ever be left off as common a Stratagem as it is so long as the People are people and Craft and Ambition shall spurrmen of Fortune to currie and scratch that unruly beast to the end that when they find it convenient they may get up of them and ride them at their pleasure This incapacity of all Christians to rule themselves being the same with the other necessarily inferreth a more proper subject of that Power which not being assumed but delivered any more then the Faith it self founds a distinction of Christians and the Church as ancient as the Church it self not unknown to Civil Societies For as hath been said a Kingdom or Commonwealth is said to decree and act such a thing when not the thousand part thereof so much as know any thing of it till it be done so that clearly there is a Nation Real and Representative and Formal and proper This consisteth of all Persons in that Society and every member of that Political Bodie The other of such Principal Parts of that Bodie as are in Possession of autority and power to Rule the rest and whose Acts are interpreted to be the Acts of the whole State And that the Church consisting of infinite Persons uncapable of consulting or acting Decretorily must and alwayes had certain Select Persons representing the whole which it should conclude the thing it self together with Precedents of all Places and Ages do prove The greatest arguments and most colourable are taken from the Infancy of the Church to the contrary For both Hereticks and Schismaticks endeavour at contrary conclusions from the Scripture Patrons of the Popes absoluteness argue from a Superiority or Primacy of order in St. Peter when the Church consisted it may be of twenty persons to make good the Popes pretensions to supremacy over the universal Church when it consisteth of so many Nations But to this our answer is ready First that the like power was never in St. Peter over his fellow Apostles and the Rest that is claimed by the Present Bishop of Rome Secondly That if such a Power as is asserted to St. Peter for the Popes sakehad ever been in him really yet it could be no good ground of his Successors claiming the same over the Catholick Church And that First because there is no probability of the like Gifts and Graces requisite to such Autority in the Popes of Rome as were given by Christ to St. Peter yea there are more instances to be given of the Ignorance and horrible vitiousness of Persons possessing that Chaiâ— then in any other Patriarchal See in Christendom Secondly There is no Rule of Certainty setting aside the Personal incapacities and imperfections how far the Apostolical power was derived to their Successors but what may be taken from the end of such power which was to conserve the Church in due order of Government Devotion and Faith and this may as well and better be performed without one Persons engrossing to himself the Disposal of all things Primarily though not in the Execution Thirdly the difference is vast between the Church consisting of so few and contracted into so narrow a circuit as at the first founding of it when one man might have with great facility taken the whole management of the Church upon him and in following Ages when it was diffused into so many and far distant quarters of the Universe not to be inspected or managed by one man though an Apostle On the other side Persons of Democratical Principles and purposes finding in holy Writ that the whole Church without distinction of Persons were often assembled together and that during their such meeting matters concerning the due administration of the Church were treated of collect from thence that in right and not rather occasionally they concurred to Publick Acts of the Church but this likewise is a fallacy without any necessity of consequence as will appear from the original and orderly search made into the first Constitution and the gradual Progress of Ecclesiastical Persons and functions First then That Christ is the Head of the Church and under that General notion of Power life and motion doth communicate his influence unto his Body the Scripture is so manifest and it is so generally and willingly by all assented to that it were lost time to insist on it He is then by immediate consequence the fountain of all Power resting in that Body as doth appear from the several Appellations subordinate to that of Head attributed unto him in Scripture For Hebrews the third and first he is called The Apostle of our profession And in the Book of the Acts he is stiled that Prophet Heb. 3. 1. Acts. 3. 22. Deut. 18. 15. Luk. 4. 18. which was in Deuteronomie promised to the true Israel And an Evangelist he is made to us by his own words verifying the Prediction of Esaias upon himself Saying The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel And St. Peter calleth him our 1 Pet. 2. 25. Mat. 23. 10. Bishop Doctour or Master he claims as proper to himself in St. Mathew And to the Hebrews as before he is called a Priest an High priest yea lastly a Deacon or Minister for the words properly used signify the same Rom. 15. 8. thing
such as were Christians without any autority in the Church and therefore we read often of the Apostles and their Party on the one side and Brethren on the other But the Officers and Rulers of the Acts. 11. 1 12 17 15 23 16. 2. Church are not found to have any general name distinguishing them from others but were by their particular charges and Offices known to men as Apostles Elders Bishops Evangelists Deacons But afterward compendiousness of speech general cemprehension of them so distinct requiring they received their several Names not as Socinus Salmasius and some such presumptuous traders for Anarchy in the Church would have it the things themselves or being For it is granted that at first all true believers Clerus dicimur quia sors Dei sumus Hieron Item Praefat. ad Enarrat August Psal 1 Pet. 5. 3. were called indifferently 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Gods Portion or Clergy as we now speak For it is very probable that St. Peter using that word which we render Clergy doth intend to comprehend thereby all Christian People as well as they who as St. Hierome saith are the Lords portion more peculiarly But with good advice afterward they who were more especially dedicated to Gods service and attended his Altar were signally called the Clergy and the other the Laity or people very agreeably to the phrase of the Old Testament where we find not only a distinction in the things themselves but in the names of such as served any ways in Gods house and those who were only Israelites at large For these were called simply 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sons of the People or the Laity as we now adayes speak 2 Chron. 35 7 12. Vid. Vatab. in Locum in opposition to the Levites which discrimination in terms was thought to be introduced in Josiah's time Secondly From what is said we may conclude that even before and after this distinction all the administration of Church affairs passed through the hands of these Persons of the Clergy or Ecclesiastical Functions and that their Votes and Acts ever went under the name of the Church it may be that in the beginning of the Church when Christians had not so many advantages as after they had and their convenience of assembling was not so great but they were constrained to teach and pray and determine controversies and ordain Laws for the Church that the Laity as we now call them were present at all these but that this fortuitous presence should inferr a right nothing appears A third Conclusion may be That observing the orderly Rites used to invest any person with a Clerical Power it must necessarily follow that they who wanted them never attained the thing it self For the Author to the Hebrews asserts plainly the sacredness of Evangelical Ministring Heb. 5. 4. from the Prescriptions and practise of the Levitical saying No man takes this office upon him but he that was called of God as was Aaron and least it might be presumed that this strickness concerned the Old Law only he proceedeth to that greatest of Precedents Christ himself who though he needed not any Institution being absolutely free to all such purposes of himself yet was called of God in signal manner to shew that all that exercise such Sacred function should much more be thereunto orderly called Now to understand what this ordinary and orderly call is the better it is worth the observing how Aaron was called for so in proportionable manner ought all under the Gospel be ordained to the Ministry And here first we may note there is not the least intimation given of such a Call as is Internal upon which many vainly rest But Aaron was called not only internally by certain proper and sufficient Gifts to that Office but externally and that not of himself but of another He was called by God Now least it should be here suspected that a bare and bold presumption of being called of God without some outward evidence prooving the same might suffice to justify an Intruder of himself into the Ministry the Scripture tells us how Aaron was called of God and that is not only of God and immediately but mediately by man that is by Moses Nay farther because many content themselves with such an Ordination as comes from another not examining much what power or Right such persons have so to ordain others the Scriptures tell us that Aaron was called by another and him appointed specially by God so to do as we read Exodus the 28. 1. where Exod. 2. ◠God commandeth Moses saying And take thou unto thee Aaron thy Brother and his sons with him from among the children of Israel that they may minister unto me in the Priests Office Here is their Election or Vocation Their consecration or ordination followeth afterward described particularly according to its several Ceremonies in the next chapter So that we see the great Example or Figure of Evangelical ordination directeth to such a form as ought to be of God by the hands of some who are thereunto appointed And if any should here interpose that Moses himself was no Priest properly himself though he were of the Tribe of Levi and yet he consecrated Priests being himself rather a Civil Magistrate and from hence argue a power in Lay-men especially Magistrates to do the same now adayes I answer here indeed doth Calvins defence of himself and such as are in like condition take place of an Ordinary call and an Extraordinary For before God had setled a Rule and Order in his Church the extraordinary and immediate hand of God did appoint persons to minister before It was therefore first of all an Extraordinary Act in God to call Moses rather than any others to direct and Rule his Church it was next an Extraordinary Act in him to separate the whole Tribe of Levi to Minister before him but from that time forward there was no such thing heard of as an Extraordinary Call Secondly I answer that God prescribing to us Rules and Precedents doth not thereby so tie his own hands as he doth ours but when he pleaseth he may create Persons in Extraordinary manner to what ends he will And his Autority infallibly granted to those we call now Lay-men is altogether sufficient to make a Priest of what Order or dignity soever he shall be But until such infallible Proofs of either Gods immediate Calling which is Extraordinary indeed or his immediate enabling or empowring any other Person not having in the ordinary Course established in his Church received such a power be given all such Extraordinary assuming of the Ministery on a mans self is more then one way Extraordinary and to be rejected as void And with such no good and conscientious Christian ought to Communicate as with Priests that is as Offering the Spiritual Sacrifice of Prayer and Praise unto God as a Legitimate and Publick Minister of God or Mediatour of the People or that Mistical Sacrifice in the
Eucharist and especially going upon the grounds of Luther Calvin Perkins and some others of Great note that all Sacerdotal they may call them if they please Ministerial Acts done by him who is no true Minister are really null and void Fourthly we conclude that seeing all Ecclesiastical power as Ecclesiastical doth proceed from Christ and his Successors and that by Ordinary and visible means they who have not received the same by such Ordinary Methods are usurpers of the same whether Political or Mystical And that to deny this to the Church is to deny that which Christ hath given them and such a Principle of the Churches well Being without which it cannot subsist and it not subsisting neither can the Faith it self And to the reason above given we may add Prescription beyond all memory For from Christs time to this day a perpetual and peculiar power hath ever been in the Clergy which hath constantly likewise born the name of the Church to assemble define and dispose matters of Religion And why should not Prescription under Unchristian as well as Christian Governours for so many Ages together be as valid sacred and binding to acknowledgment in the Case of Religion as Civil Matters will ever remain a question in Conscience and common Equity even after irresistible Power hath forced a Resolution otherwise It is true such is the more natural and Ancient Right Civil Power hath over the outward Persons of men than that which Religion hath over the Inward man that it may claim a dominion and disposal of the Persons of even Christian subjects contrary to the soft and infirm Laws of the Church because as hath been said Men are Men before they are Christians and Nature goeth before Grace And Civil society is the Basis and support to Ecclesiastical Yet the grounds of Christianity being once received for good and divine and that Religion cannot subsist nor the Church consist without being a Society and no Society without a Right of counsel and consultation and no consultation without a Right to assemble together the Right of assembling must needs be in trinsique to the Church it self Now if no man that is a Christian can take away the essential ingredient to the Church how can any deny this of Assembling For the practise of it constantly and confidently by the Apostles and brethren contrary to the express will of the Lawful Powers of the Jews and Romans and the reason given in the Acts of the Apostles of obeying God rather then man do imply certainly a Law and Charter from God so to do and if this be granted as it must who can deny by the same Rule necessity of Cause and constant Prescription that they may as well provide for the safety of the Faith by securing the state of the Church as for the truth and stability of the Church by securing the true Faith by doctrine and determination The Great question hath ever been Whether the Church should suffer loss of power and priviledges upon the Supream Powers becomming Christian Or the Supream power it self loose that dominion which it had before it became of the Church For if Christianity subjected Kings necessarily to the Laws of others not deriving from them then were not Kings in so good a Condition after they were Christians as before when they had no such pretences or restraints upon them and so should Christs Law destroy or maim at least the Law of God by which Kings reign But there may be somewhatsaid weakning this absurdity For Granting this That there is a God and that he is to be worshipped and that as he appointeth all which we must by nature believe it seems no less natural to have these observed than the Laws of natural Dominion Now granting that at present which if we be true to our Religion we must not deny viz. That Christian Religion is the true Religion and that God will be worshipped in such sort as is therein contained For any Prince absolute to submit to the essentials of that Religion is not to loose any thing of his Pristine Rights which he had before being an Heathen for he never had any Right to go against the Law of God more then to go against the Law of Nature but it doth restrain his Acts and the exercise of his Power And if the Supream after he hath embraced Christianity shall proceed to exert the same Authority over the Church as before yet the Church hath no power to resist or restrain him Civilly any more than when he was an Alien to it Now it being apparent that Christian Faith and Churches had their Forms of believing and Communion before Soveraign powers were converted and that he who is truly converted to a Religion doth embrace it upon the terms which he there finds not such as he brings with him or devises therefore there lies an Obligation upon such powers to preserve the same as they found it inviolate And truly for any secular Power to become Christian with a condition of inverting the orders of the Church and deluting the Faith is to take away much more than ordinary accrues unto it by such a change It is true the distinction is considerable between the Power of a Christian and unchristian King exerted in this manner because taking the Church in the Largest sense in which all Christians in Communion are of it what Christian Kings act with the Church may in some sense bear the name of the Church as it doth in the State acting according to their secular capacity but much more improperly there than here because there are no inferiour Officers or Magistrates in such a Commonwealth which are not of his founding and institution whatsoever they do referr to him and whatsoever almost he doth is executed by them But Christ as we have shewed having ordained special Officers of his own which derive not their Spiritual Power at all from the Civil and to this end that his Church might be duly taught and governed what is done without the concurrence of these can in no proper sense bear the name of the Church But many say the King is a Mixt person consisting partly of Ecclesiastical and partly Civil Authority but this taken in the ordinary latitude is to begg the Question and more a great deal than at first was demanded For who knows how far this Mixture extends and that it comprehends not the Mystical Power of the Church as well as the Political And how have they proved one more than the other by such a title It were reasonable therefore first to declare his Rights in Ecclesiastical matters as well as Civil and thence conclude he is a Mixt Person and not to affirm barely he is a Mixt Person and from thence inferr they know not what Ecclesiastical power themselves And if he hath such power whether it is immediately of God annexed to his Natural Right or by consent of the Church is attributed unto him For by taking this course we
with Christians denying them all outward conversation as well as spiritual in matters of Religion Now this seems to be a branch of the Old Greater Excommunication and not in all places disusâ—d And sometimes is unlawful and otherwhile lawful according to the extent and application of them For to inflict the same to the dissolving of ties of nature is not agreeable to the simplicity of the Gospel And Natural Ties we call such as are between Subjects and Soveraign Parents and Children Husband and Wife which by no Ecclesiastical Excommunication can be broken or nulled The reason whereof besides the monstrous effects ensuing upon their evacuation not here to be treated of is this That Ecclesiastical Power can take away no more than it gave nor Christianity destroy what it never builded But Christianity did never simply confer such Rights on men but the Law of Nature only it regulated and directed the same therefore can it not null it It is therefore unchristian for any pretending Ecclesiastical Power to absolve subjects from obedience Civil or Children from natural and the like But every Christian in that he is adopted of God by baptism and admitted into the Society of Christians doth receive thereby certain Rights and power to communicate with it in all things which power may be forfeited and lost by breach of Covenant as well with the Body of the Church to live and believe according to the Received Faith and practice thereof as with the Head Christ And this being so judged by those who are over the Church in the Lord it is very consonant to Christian Religion to deny such of what order or rank soever they be the signs of outward communion Prayer and Communication of the Holy Sacraments of Christ The Church hath power to declare even soveraign Princes uncapable of such Communion and deny it them which we call the Lesser Excommunication Yet because as we said No natural Right can be extinguished upon unchristian misdemeanours If a Supream Prince of a Place should disdain to be denied or opposed in such cases and would make his entrance into the Church by vertue of his Civil Right to all places under his Dominion the most that the Church could do justly in such cases were to diswade him but by any force to resist his entrance into any Church were unlawful as it would be also to minister in a Christian manner in his presence for this cannot be commanded by him but in such cases suffering must be put in practice as for the Faith it self sought to be destroyed Some there are yet who call in question the peculiar and incommunicable Right of decreeing this Censure of Excommunication to those called the Clergy which is very strange seeing this Power is part of that of the Keys delivered by Christ himself to such only as he constituted Governors of the Church and that in Christs days their was a distinction between the Members of his Body as to Inferiority and Superiority Obedience and Command Teacher and Learner and much more in the Apostles days after Christs Assention and much more yet after their days according as the matter of the Church Christians encreasing and improving became more capable of a more convenient form and fashion For as it is in the production of natural things though the Form be certain and constant and the very same at the first production as in its perfection yet it doth not appear so fully and perfectly as afterward So was it with the Body of Christs Church It is certain therefore that from the beginning this Act of Excluding from the Communion was never executed but by the Rulers and Presidents of Congregations though the people might concurr thereto Now that these Rulers whom we may call Bishops or Presbyters were not created by the People nor by the Prince we have shewed already and therefore did nothing in their Right but in the Power of Christ whose Ministers alone they properly were And this being essential to right Administration of the Church how can it be supposed either to be separable from the Church in General or from those persons who are the proper Administrators of it For to say with some It is needless Selden de Jure Gentium apud Bibliander apud Erastum wholly where Christian Magistrates rule whose proper office it is to rebuke and punish vice and scandalous misdemeanors which say they can only be just cause of Excommunication is to destroy the subject of the question which supposes it needful and upon this enquires after the Persons which should Execute the same And spitefully to defeat the Church of all Authority from Christ doth indeed translate this Power to the Civil Magistrate And is not the absurdity the very same which endowes the Christian Governor with Civil Power and which endows the Civil Magistrate with Christian If it be not absurd for a King to be a Philosopher it is not absurd for a Philosopher to be a King If it be not absurd for a Civil Magistrate to have Priestly power it is not absurd for him that hath Priestly power to be a Magistrate There is certainly no inconsistency on either side For things of a far different nature and intention may easily meet in the same person though the things themselves can never be the same Here therefore the things differing so egregiously it is no more than nacessary that a different cause be acknowledged necessary which not appearing the Effect must be denied Now the Cause of all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction as Ecclesiastical must needs come from him from whom the Church it self hath its Original and being And it is a certain Rule that a man is born to nothing that comes from Christ as Head of his Church but is made and instituted Which whoever is not cannot lay any just claim to any Office under him I know it is objected that Preaching being an Ecclesiastical Act hath without contradiction been practised by diverse and to this day may be no ordination preceeding To which I thus answer by distinguishing first between doing a thing Ex Charitate and Ex Officio out of Charity and out of duty Preaching was ever permittedin the Church especially taken in the larger sense wherein it signifies all declaration of the Gospel out of Charity But the office of Preaching was never suffered but upon antecedent qualifications And these two differ yet farther For he that doth a thing out of Office doth it so that it is not lawful for him absolutely to omit it but he that doth it out of Charity and only by connivance not by commission may cease at his pleasure and as he made may suspend himself when he will Again he that teaches without Autority upon bare permission nay be silenced without any other cause renderd but the will of him that hath the Jurisdiction or if a reason be given because He hath no autority is sufficient But he that is orderly instituted to that end cannot without
according to the judgment of many of the Ancients it was Christs intention we should have but two Sacraments when he shed from his Divine side water and blood insinuating thereby Baptism and the Sacrament of his Blood And another argument intimating 1 Cor. 10. 1 2 3 4. that Christ ordained but two Sacraments in the New Testament is taken from the due conformity between the Shadows and Types of the Law and the Substance of the Gospel The Law had but two Sacraments proper Circumcision and the Passover and therefore that these two should prefigure only two in the Gospel is most probable But not only the Fathers of old but Schoolmen did alwayes acknowledge a due proportion to be observed between these And it makes nothing against this That the Fathers do often call some at least of the other five Sacraments because then they spoke at large as we said before A second general Reason may be That as they have no precept so have they no promise from Christ of Grace or favour Spiritual For Ordination indeed hath an ordinary Gift of Ecclesiastical Power but no assurance of special Grace belonging to it Confirmation hath a good and laudable end but no special Promise to it Repentance hath a promise but hath no outward visible sign upon which the word is built to make it a Sacrament for this is a Third Reason of the equality of Sacraments Because all true and proper Sacraments must consist as well of outward signs to which the word and Grace are annext as of the Grace it self therein given But all these Sacraments have not these Signs and they which have an appearance of visible signs have them not by Gods institution Fourthly The Sacraments of the Gospel are of concernment to all true Christians according to their Capacities but all Christians are not by the confession of the Patrons of seven Sacraments bound to marry or to be in Holy Orders Nay some are absolutely interdicted the use of some of the reputed Sacraments as are women from Holy Orders therefore whatever may possibly be said concerning the not circumcising of Women under the Law under the Gospel there being neither Male nor Female as St. Paul affirmeth that cannot be a Sacrament equal in sacredness or necessity of which Women are not capable Fifthly The general Nature of Sacraments is such as renders the due Partakers of them more holy than they are who receive them not but no man saies that marriage faithfully observed doth make any person more holy then Virginity therefore it cannot be a Sacrament If they here say That Marriage is not a Sacrament absolutely but only as it is Christian and a representation of Christs conjunction with his Church and as it is blessed by the Priest I answer First to this latter That blessing doth not alter the kind of the thing but only sanctifies the thing it self and therefore Marriage in Heathens and Christians is the same in nature but not in the circumstances of Holiness And whenas St. Paul saith in his Epistle to the Ephesians having before treated of solemn Marriage This Eph. 5. 31 32 is a great mystery from whence commonly is drawn an argument of a Sacramentalness in Marriage of Christians the reply is easie which quite nulls the conclusion First Because it is as manifest as a thing need be that St. Paul doth speak rather of Heathens marriage than Christian as appears from his citation of the first institution of Marriage which comprehends all and therefore according to themselves could not intend to make a Sacrament of it seeing it is no Sacrament but as Christian Secondly The word being Mystery doth not properly signifie a Sacrament however the Vulgar Translation might be allowed to translate it so but not men upon that tearm given at large to draw it into the number of Sacraments St. Paul saith to the Corinthians Behold I show you a mystery 1 Cor. 15. we shall not all dye but we shall all be changed Is this a Sacrament also But many of the Fathers have so called it It may be so in the sense before spoken of in which many more things may so be called But lastly The Apostle in that Place to the Ephesians doth expresly remove that tearm Mystery from the natural or civil conjunction of Man and Woman Eph. 5. 27 29. in Matrimony and restrain it to Christ and his Church and doth not so much as say that Marriage is a mystery For having drawn an Argument for the due observation of Wedlock and its Rights that seeing Christ loved his Church man should love his Church he addeth afterward This is a great mystery but I speak of Christ and the Church which is as 32. if it had been said Here is a great Mystery but this Mystery I mean not So much of external Marriage but internal between Christ and his Church But after all this seeing we grant with many of the Ancients That the name Sacrament is communicable to more than two it is not much worth the contending whether we make more or fewer than seven while we reserve a peculiar sacredness to these two above others Let us rather touch upon them in their nature than name as best worthy to be rightly understood And first of Orders briefly as having spoken thereof in treating of the Political Power of the Church and there shown the necessity of them according to Christs intention and institution which was to make a discrimination between Persons and the several Members of that Body the Church of which he is the Head as is also sufficiently insinuated by St. Paul to the Corinthians saying But now hath Göd set the Members every one of 1 Cor. 12. 18. them in the Body as it hath pleased him where he doth not speak of moral but Political excellency and order of Inferiour and Superiour From whence the name of the Function is taken For as St. Augustine defines it Order is Civ Dei Lib. 19. 13. the disposing or ranking of equal and unequal things in their proper places And therefore sometimes the Church is divided by the Ancients into Clergy and Laity as two Orders Again The Clergy by the Ancienter into three only Bishop Priest and Deacon as Optatus Afterwards some made Isidorus Hispalens Orig. Lib. 7. c. 12. six some seven some nine as Hispalensis who likewise subdivideth the Bishop into four Orders Patriarch Metropolitane Arch-Bishop and simple Bishop So that it were not worth the labour to strive about words here and especially in distinguishing Order from Degree in the Church For though the distinction in nature be manifest between the first importing a diversity in kind and the other in condition of the same kind yet the Church cannot be though to speak so circumspectly at all times and so precisely as not to use them promiscuously divers times so that because she sometimes speaks of Degrees they should deny the Order of the same thing Neither
are we to mutiny against the Constitutions of Eastern and Western Churches which in progress of time added some inferiour Orders to those most anciently received in the Church viz. of Bishop Priest and Deacon For I take it to be no invasion of Christs Right to call to the assistance of such as he had constituted such as he did not ordain to that end but to retrench of the number to dissolve that Order which he appointed that is sacrilegious What then may we call Orders but The Collation of an Ecclesiastical Faculty or Power to serve God and the Church by such as are authorized by God using the necessary Forms of Words and Rites thereunto required according to his order of Ministration Now we have already shewed That as no man can create himself a secular neither can he an Ecclesiastical Officer and as no man in that Politv can be created but by one in Authority rightly derived to him so can none in Spiritual matters be ordained to Ecclesiastical Ministration but he that is thereunto called by some in Lawful or at least real Power And therefore such who are chosen and appointed by the common people are but common people after such vainly affected callings and they who are of an inferiour Order were never acknowledged to have power to create one of a Superiour to them As it was never endured in the Church till of late dayes that Priests should appoint Bishops or Priests because though Power of the Keys were communicated to them in reference to the two Principal and necessary Sacraments yet never as to the whole complex notion of the same which consists of Jurisdiction as well as Knowledge and Intercession And the School argument which at least hath given occasion to confound the Order of Bishop and Priest is very false and frivolous supposing all Ecclesiastical Orders to be so denominated in or dine ad consecrandum from their relation to the Power of Consecrating the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist because they suppose that to be the supream Mystery and End of Priestly Office but the distinction of Power Political and Mystical in the Church quite overthrows that For the Power of Jurisdiction is greater in its kind than that of celebrating and therefore not so vainly to be taken Again the Orders of the Church are so called from the Relation they have to the Body Ecclesiastical or outward Form and Constitution of it which is made up of all of them by a gradual ascent from the lowest to the highest which make that Hierarchy without which a Church has but very little to show that it is a Church but is forc'd to shroud it self under the obscure priviledges of being an invisible Church though not visible Orders therefore thus duly administred though they be not a Sacrament for then must there be seven Sacraments subordinate to the other famous seven because generally seven sorts of Orders are administred in the Church yet are they Sacramental things that is Sacred and no less necessary to the constituting a Visible Body of Christ than are the others to the Invisible And though that cannot presently be concluded to be a true Church of Christ which hath them I do not see how that can be a true Church which hath them not And for that which is commonly called Extream Unction being the Anointing of the Infirm of Body or such as are despaired of as to this Life I see no great matter to be objected against it no more did Luther nor Bucer nor some other eminent Reformers for a good while after they left Rome provided it be done with that solemnity and soundness of invocation of God and Benediction of the deceasing Party as may comfort and strengthen him in his last Agonies It being ancient though not so old as is pretended nor ministred in the same manner as now For in the beginning not one but many Presbyters of the Church were called according to the advice of St. James to pray over the sick and to anoint James 1. 14 15 him with common not compounded or artificial Oyl and that not without a miraculous event But because the Miracle is now ceased it is no good reason the thing it self should be detested For Primitively a Miracle did accompany Baptism too which ceasing no man will declare the Sacrament it self ought to cease likewise The Superstitions of Prayer and some other Rites added of late whereby the simplicity of it hath been corrupted is a more reasonable ground of laying it down Neither is the want thereof in that formality to be charged upon a Church where there is commanded and continued due Ministration to the Sick answerable to the necessities of Body and Soul But though the use hereof be ancient yet the name Sacrament hath not so anciently been ascribed to it in the sense at this day Current And Innocent the first who is reported to have so called it doth permit others besides Priests to minister the same to the Sick the Chrism or Oyl being made by the Bishop CHAP. XXXVII Of Confirmation What it is The Reasons of it The Proper Minister of it Of Vnction threefold in Confirmation Of Sacramental Repentance and Penance The Effects thereof BUT of Confirmation much greater esteem hath ever been and ought still to be had though not so much as some of the Ancients and divers Modern Schoolmen would exalt it to unless a favourable interpretation be made of their judgments delivered concerning it For they make it more useful than Baptism it self and impute the efficacy of Baptism in great part unto this Sacrament To judge the better of which Opinion it is to be consider'd what this Confirmation is Confirmation may be said to be a solemn Act of Invocation of God and Benediction of a Person upon his publick Profession of that Christian Faith into which he was before baptized First It was required that the Person capable of this Ceremony should have first been baptized For he was not hereby made a Christian but as the word importeth confirmed in that Faith into which he had been baptized And the Reasons hereof were such then as do to this day commend exceedingly the use of it viz. Because some were baptized in their minority or infancy when wanting common judgment they could not discern the nature use and end of Baptism and therefore very requisite it was that they should after due and sober information in the mysteries and principles of Christian Religion make in their own person such a publick Profession of the same as they were bound to do at the time of their baptism according Catechismus Argentoratensis p. 36. D. Cum nos pueri instituti sumus in fide Christiana debemus eam palam aperte profiteri c. as the Church Catechism of Strasburgh since the Reformation well thus expresses it by Scholar and Master Schol. We that are children and instructed in the Faith of Christ ought to profess the
purpose or to their advantage to say for instance sake as the more sober especially when they would gain upon the good opinion of men That Images may be worshipped relatively and as instruments to devotion and helps but when there are found and generally known to be such doctrines as teach a veneration of Images for their own sakes and directly and that with the same sort of worship that the things they represent are capable of though perhaps they upon a pinch can insert a distinction which neither can be understood nor profit such a doctrine as this known to be delivered by the Principal Doctors of their Churches and maintain'd not being condemned by that Church however not generally embraced may subject a Church to a censure of Heresie and Idolatry of both and so in other things whereof tolerable senses are given in the Church of Rome or else they could not be said so much as to be a Church at all but intolerable and Heretical are also uncondemned and so are no true Church and so may be separated from without Schism but not without peril of damnation united to And do not our brethren for such they were before they professed Schism and I hope may be after they have renounced it see now plainly enough the vaniâ—y and spitefulness of their Evasion Are not the Cases infinitely different and that in their own eyes Hear they what Perkins saith to our and their purpose So long as a Church Perkins on Gal. C. 5. V. 20. or people do not Separate from Christ we may not separate from them 2 Pro. 24. 21. Fear the King and meddle not with them that vary i. e make alterations against the Laws of God and the King Indeed Subjects may signifie what is good for the State and what is amiss but to make any alteration in the State either Civil or Ecclesiastical belongs to the Supream Magistrate And â—n another place the same Author hath these words Great therefore is the rashness Id. Galat 1. V. 2. and want of moderation in many that have been of us that condemn our Church for no Church without sufficient conviction going before If they say we have been admonished by books published I say again these be grosser faults in some of those books than any of the faults that they reprove in the Church of England and therefore the books are not â—it to convince especially a Church Thus we see how the cases in the matter difier And no less may we see the difference in the manner For 't is apparent that Schismaticks against the Church of England never had any Legal autority to warrant their vile and Scandalous practices but were forced to give names to things uncapable of them to excuse themselves or else by an unnatural course to entitle the People to a Power Supream who have none at all but what is given them from another fountain neither did the people concurr with such misdemeaners as was pretended they did But thirdly another difference is to be noted from the Rights of a Patriarchal Power over a Provincial Church not properly of its Diocess and that of a Metropolitan with his Suffragans over the members of the Church which they altogether make For according to the constitutions of the Church though a Patriarchs Power was Intensively equal to Episcopal over his proper and immediate Diocess and Extensively much greater than the Metropolitans or Bishops in relation to other Diocesses yet was it never so Intensive i. e. so particular and great in those Bishops Diocesses over which he had only an Order of Unity rather than Intrinsick power to dispose matters therein though in process of time this also was invaded much by him and might be recovered to the proper Bishop by the Laws of the Church But the Bishops of this Church had the sole and immediate disposing of the affairs of it and nothing could be concluded without obligation of obedience out of Conscience without their Concurrence as desparately as Schismaticks then did and still do rage at this truth But then as Hinderson saith with others They would never reform themselves It is very likely so meaning as they would have them but that not to the better Rule of the Ancient Churches and the Scriptures is more than they knew or would acknowledg when they saw because still they would have done otherwise and invented a new Rule of their own But seeing the grounds and Cause of separation are they upon which the Guilt of Schism is avoided or contracted according to the nature of them and obscure and difficult and tedious is the method leading to the tryal of the sufficiency of them to justifie a Separation therefore it were well contrived if as in the search of a true Church they may being very long and uncertain and grievous to most proceeding upon the points of Faith and Parts of worship themselves certain infaâ—lible obvious and plain Characters could be produced to convince the Schism and distinguish it from simple and innocent Separation A Fair attempt to which hath been made by Austin who dispuâ—ing against the Donatists denies that any man can separate from the Universal Church innocently So that although it should be doubtful as most things are managed by Learned Partisans whether considering the grounds of Separation in themselves the Separation be Schismatical or lawful and laudable yet by such an outward Characteristick it might be competently discerned And so farmust I needs comply with that Judicious and Holy Father and such as urge this out of him against us as to yield it a most probable outward Note of Schism for any man or number of men not a Church but in Fieri as they speak only and in breeding to divide from the Universal Church not only as comprehending all Ages but of any one Age the weight and evidence of which Concession will appear from the esteem of the Church Catholick and the wrath and extent of Christs promises to preserve it in All truth For this is certain That Christ directed his promises and restrained them to no one time or Age. And it is not probable there should be such an Intercession or intermission of Faith or Christianity that the universal Church should mortally err in any one thing necessary to salvation nay though we take it not in such a large sense as sometimes it is wont to be used for all individual persons in it as well as Churches of which the whole is constituted And therefore to desert the communion of all Churches not of persons for this is scarce to be supposed to happen at any time doth argue shrewdly That the separation hath much of Schism in it without examination of particular grounds which are pretended sufficient For it will be said That it ought not to be supposed that Christ should deliver over his whole Church to such heretical errours which only can exempt a Separation from Schism From such notorious suspicions as these we
given of Christ by the Apostles and so St. Peter speaks 1 Pet. 3. 1. Likewise ye wives be in subjection unto your own Husbands that if any obey not the word i. e. believe and receive it not but continue in infidelity they also may be wun by c. So that it is one part of Obedience to believe the truth revealed by receiving it with an humble and ready mind But this is no more than the root to the Tree or the Tree to the Fruit which is the end and perfection of all Therefore our Saviour Christ Parabolically John 15. 1 2. or Metaphorically saith in St. John I am the true Vine and my Father is the Husbandman Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit By Faith every true believer is inserted into Christ and abides in his mystical body as the branches do in the stock of the Tree and this is the Act and Effect of Faith but every branch that thus abides in Christ is to proceed to Facts or Fruits of that Faith and this is meant by bearing more fruit the first no wayes John 6. 28 29. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Chrys Ser. 56. Tom. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex. p. 380. Mar. 22. 36 37 38 39. sufficing And Christs disciples asked him What shall we do that we may work the work of God he answered This is the work of God that ye believe in him whom he hath sent That is The proper and effectual means to work the work of God is to believe in him whom he hath sent And infinite other places in holy writ are there which describe and require this obedience at our hands as believers For as Chrysostom well hath noted It is no benefit at all to us to be Orthodox so long as our lives are corrupt as there is no profit of an exact Conversation our Faith not being sound And Clemens Alexandrinus defines Piety to be a Practise following and waiting on God Now there are two Principal Branches or Parts of a Religious and Holy life according to our Church Catechism and consent of all good Christians Our Duty towards God and our Duty towards our Neighbour or as our Saviour in the Gospel expresseth it in reducing all the Commandments to two Our Love of God and Our Love of our Neighbour upon which hang all the Law and the Prophets Love being here put for such Acts of Love as justice service honor charity and obedience according to the place and capacity we are in as the Scripture requires at our hands And to attain to this we are to have before our Eyes the things wherein both do principally and more specially consist And secondly the means leading and moving us hereunto which because they are such copious subjects that they require a proper treatise to enlarge upon I shall not handle here any further than offering these few heads and grounds of our holy and obedient walking with God first and that as I find them without any great Art set down by Suidas who I suppose Suidas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 collected them as his manner was in other things from the Holy Servants of God before him Apostolical Conversation saith he consisteth in these Acts and hath these signs 1 Strictness over the Eyes 2 Government of the tongue 3 Subduing the body 4 An humble opinion 5 Purity of Mat. 5. 41. Mind 6 Exclusion of anger 7 Being compelled yield 8 Being smitten offer thy self farther 9 Being wronged avenge not thy self 10 Being hated love 11 Being persecuted endure it 12 Being reproached pray for him 13 Be dead unto Sin 14 Be crucified to Christ 15 Place all thy love on the Lord. Now the means to exercise these divine and Christian vertues and to practise them may be these amongst many other 1. To have a constant and clear eye of Faith in the presence of God believing and being throughly assured that he beholds and observes and notes and weighs our thoughts words and actions as surely had Enoch who walked with God 5. 24. And Abraham Gen. 17. 1. And more especially holy David Psal 139. v. 1 2 3 4 5 c. 2. A Recognition and owning of the Power Majesty Justice and Mercy of God 3. A free and total Resignation and submission of our selves to the will of God 4. Patience and silence under the Providence of God 5. Constant and servent Invocation of God as well for his helping as healing and pardoning Grace 6. A constant exerting and exercising of Gods Grace given unto us by the proper action of Faith Hope and Charity And these seven by having a constant regard to the commands and precepts of God To the Promises of God To the Threatnings of God to all To the Judgments of God executed upon others for their wickedness and disobedience To the Mercies of God singularly and plentifully conferred upon our selves and lastly to the Torments of Hell and Joyes of Heaven These are principally the things every good Christian is to attend that would add to his Faith vertue as St. Peter advises and devout walking with God to his sound knowledg of him 2 Pet. 1. 5. And as Christ hath taught us The second Part of our Obedience to him is like unto it consisting in Love of our Neighbour Which divideth it self into two Parts Doing him justice in all things for as St. Paul saith to the Romans Love worketh no ill to its Neighbour therefore Love is the Rom. 13. 10. fulfilling of the Law Secondly doing him all brotherly and truly Christian Offices either in respect of body soul or estate which Christian Faith obliges us unto But of all Justice that is principally to be attended to which ungodly hypocrites most contemn and violate and that is of Obedience to our Superiours For whereas Christian Religion obliges us to mutual offices Eph. 4 2. Eph. 4. 21. Rom. 15. 1. of Love and Charity one towards another to forbear one another in love with all lowliness and meekness and long suffering And again to submit our selves one to another in the fear of God And that the strong should bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please themselves certain Sectaries not having the Knowledg of God aright or understanding in the Scriptures in which they flatter themselves they know more than any other or the true fear of God before their eyes do so corrupt and pervert the sense of the Holy Ghost as indeed to destroy all that order of Government Christ hath established in his Church as necessary to the being of the true Faith it self though in some Formal language they would seem to allow of it But this is only kept by them as a reserve to relieve and fortifie themselves when the time shall happen that they shall get the Sceptre of power into their hands and the Face of Autority to shew to others For then all their petty
A Course of Divinity OR AN INTRODUCTION To the Knowledge of the True Catholick Religion Especially as Professed by the CHURCH OF ENGLAND In two Parts The one containing The Doctrine of Faith The other The Form of Worship By MATTHEW SCRIVENER LONDON Printed by Tho. Roycroft for Robert Clavil in Little Brittain MDCLXXIV THE ENTRANCE FOR the better conceiving and judging of this ensuing Treatise I have held it necessary Christian Reader to premise and propound to thy consideration these two things principally viz. The Occasions me thereunto moving and the manner of proceeding in it One Occasion given me was the multitude and variety of the like Books set forth by other Churches whereby not only the persons under them were trained up in the Knowledge and Faith professed there but the minds of many of our Church were prepossessed and their manners swayed by such Doctrines which seemed to me as forreign in nature as place to those of our Church and the Ancient I could have here given the Reader the names of above fourty Tractates of this nature many of which have been translated into the English Tongue to the corrupting of weaker judgments And not so much as the Christians of New-England have been wanting to the Interest of their Religion so far as to â—mit so advantagious a Work but by John Norton Teacher as he calls himself of the Church at Ipswich in New-England have collected certain Principal Heads of Divinity into a Body called The Orthodox Evangelist And as the great number of forreign Books have incited me so the Paucity of the like in and from our Church hath no less emboldened me to undertake this I am prevented by Industrious Mr. Baxter in giving any account of such who have made attempts this way and what hath been done by them without bringing their design to desired issue Only that excellently Learned Person Mr. Thorndyck passed over by him in his declining years hath given greater demonstrations of his zeal and learning in behalf of the English Church than any extant before him in one continued Body purposing a Review in the Latin Tongue wherein he intended to have more clearly expressed his meaning in some things of which it might be said as of St. Pauls writings they were hard to be understood and he himself saw to be wrested to evil ends and senses but his declining body and years would not suffer him to accomplish so good a Work What Mr. Baxer himself hath performed in his late large Volume I shall not give my censure but how well he is qualified for such a Work I may presume to give the Reader in the words of Esâ— Baxterus câ—â—is desiinatis sententiâ—s minimè omnium hominun addictus ut qui non plus faveat Presbyteriants quam Independentibus nec est infensus Hierarchicis sed medius dubiusque partibus nisi in causa Dei sanctitatis vitae Ludovicus Molinaeus Patroni p. 12. a great admirer of him Baxter saith he is of all men least addicted to any resolute opinions being one that favoureth not more the Presbyterians than the Independents neither is he sharp against the Episcopal Party but between them and doubtful what side to take except in the cause of God and holiness of Life The greatest part of which Character is but too true being as much with me as if he had said He were of no Religion at all For however Beza and Cartwrights opinions of a certain and definite Discipline Essentially requisite to a Church as a Church is to Christian Religion be by Puritans laid aside for the present and like embers buried up in the Ash-heap till they shall rise again next day and kindle a new fire and now nothing but Get Christ Purity of Ordinances is notorious amongst them to the Vulgar yet when people are deceived by that they call Pure and Powerful Preaching of Christ into new Societies of their own Manufacture then presently doth most apparent Reason and inevitable Necessity constrain them to invent and impose new Covenants and Bonds to conserve them in their new Fraternities contrary altogether to that General Liberty before propounded and promised them No more than doth the charm of Christian Liberty sound in their ears No more of the free use of Indifferent things so contrary to the Decrees and Practise of a Church but then come into credit again such sayings as these There must be Order There must be Government There must be unity in the Church dealing herein with poor simple Christians as men do with their horse they would take up carrying in one hand provender which they show him and make a great noise with and behind them in the other hand a bridle to hold him fast to them and ride him as they please And if Mr. Baxter be of no regulated determinate Society or Church adheres to no particular Communion submits to no Government nor Governours in special but to all or any as it should seem be must bear it as well as he can when he bears himself not out of passion or envie at his new and singular device of going to heaven but justice and reason censur'd for a man of no Religion at all or if any of his own making which teaches him to persevere in that fond and haughty design he once had when he took upon him to top his Brethren of the Ministery in the Western Parts and to frame Grounds and Aphorisms for both Civil and Ecclesiastical Politie of his own with as little judgment and humility as safety to the Church and State as if he had aim'd at nothing so much as to be according to forreign Phrase and Presidents an Extraordinary Pastor without any Original or Rule but from himself but failing of this he now thinks it best to become an Extraordinary Sheep of all and no fold writing Books as uncertain and contrary as himself on all sides and for all Palates as if he had found out the Universal Character for Religions like to that of Languages in which all men doing as he wou'd have them shou'd agree in going to Heaven And now all that lately and most officious and serviceable method of mounting our selves and crushing and trampling on the necks of others and them our Governours by most unjust and cruel acts most false and bitter language must be laid aside and thrown overboard as the Turks did their Cemiters when they lost the day at the battle of Lepanto not because they liked them not but because they could do them no more service and least they should come into the Christians hands and be used against them So indeed Sectaries now-a-dayes call for modesty and moderation on all hands casting away that unchristian language which stood them in so much stead against them they resolved to destroy not without horrible Success And yet we see while they call so charitably for moderation and would have no revilings of them that differ in opinions only their churlish nature and
virulent tongues cannot forget their wonted strains of dishonesty and extream spite and railings witness one for all the foresaid Ludovicus Molinaeus who as civilly and reverently as he carries himself towards Mr. Baxter for none of his vertues we may be sure as exorbitantly in the old Puritans language and on their Grounds flies in the face of the Greatest and Best of the Rulers of the Church and State too who have at any time resolutely opposed the designs and Schismatical devices of such unchristian Reformers as himself only I must confess he is favourable to his late Sacred Majesty whose invincible Piety and unparallel'd innocency of Life and Ignominious yet Glorious Death hath not only struck Sectaries dumb who once opened so loudly and perniciously against him but extorted cold commendations from them not much unlike that approbation given by that Parricide Antonius the Emperor who when he understood how the people of Rome magnified and even deâ—fied his virtuous Brother Geta whom he had wickedly murdered said Sit Divus modò non sit vivus i e. Let him be Divine so he be not living But whom doth he or his Fellows occasion serving spare Hath he not raked the stinking Canal of all â—ld lyes and feigned rumors invented to imbroyl the Church in Schism and Kingdome in Sedition and Bloud and indeavoured to put new life into them and Authentize them to other Countries as well as ours It was soberly and seasonably said by that excellent Arch-bishop Speech Delivered in the Star Chamber p. 2. whom he would traduce in basest manner were not his merits above the Calumnies of such wretched Fellows in his Speech in the Star-chamber at the Charge of Prin Burton and Bastwick viz. There were times when Persecutions were great in the Church even to exceed Barbarity it self Did any Martyr or Confessor in those times Libel their Governors Surely no not one of them to my best remembrance yet these complain of Persecution without all shew of cause and in the mean time libel and rail without all measure so little a kin are they to those who suffer for Christ or the least part of Christian Religion This witness is most true of these Cretians And it is my great glory not only to be named among such eminent persons as lately but at present are living in our Church whom this Molinaeus traduceth And why so because of my rude usage of Mr. Daillee whom I spit on if any will believe him Lud. Molin Antidure Epist p. 54. rather then dispute against That I spare not the memory of Diodate That I am no fairer to Mr. Bochartus And why doth be forget my railing too against his Brethren the Puritans This he might better say But neither he nor any man else can say that I imitate Puritans in railing against my Betters or Governors that 's their peculiar and inseparable virtue and hath been from the first founding of the Discipline by Penrie Whittingham Goodman and Cartwright with others to the confounding of the Church so far as lay in their power I ever was not only an approver but an admirer of the personal Gifts of Calvin and Beza of Monsieur Daillee and Monsieur Bochart c. but I owe them no more respect in the cause of Religion than they do me or any man else of our Church but I profess I owe more Reverence to the least of the Bishops and Fathers of the Church whom Puritans have so basely treated then to the greatest of them and so do Sectaries too as ill as they are galled to hear of it But what do I speak so irreverently after all against Mr. Daillee Not a word hath this Zelote found in my whole Book against him nor in that Action against our Schismaticks whom I confess to have severely treated in that I give them their own some mens dealings being so foul as theirs have been that the very bare recitation of them is lookt on as railing though never so faithfully done If any of them or their friends can tell me wherein I have done them wrong in misreporting their Facts I do here assure them I will make them all the satisfaction I am able in retracting and acknowledging my Error and that as publickly as I have injured them with the next opportunity Cyprian Optatus Hierom Austin Nazianzen and Chrysostom as holy and sober persons as they were in their Generations made no great scruple to paint Schismaticks out in their Colors with language which cuts where it goes and I am sure these upon no better grounds than they have or can possibly offer of departing from and dividing our Church are no better Nay in this hath the Puritan Sectary transcended all Hereticks and Schismaticks that ever went before them For though divers Factions were raised and fomented to a great height in the Church of God of old and Altar was erected against Altar and Chair against Chair i. e. Worship against Worship and Governor against Governor of the Church yet do we find none through all the Histories of the Church that ever became so presumptuous and desperate as to endeavour the total subversion of the Government of the Church in it self and to set up another in the room of it quite of another nature which we read not that Aerius himself ever attempted though he preacht up the equality of Bishops and Presbyters And so far am I from such a spirit of meekness I confess that I shall never smooth them or their cause over so civilly as to imply the contrary until they bethink themselves without their customary frauds and dissimulations of their duties and return to the Peace and Unitie of the Church which I shall not cease to pray for But one of the most material things charged on me is That I liked Dailee's Book the worse because it pleased the Puritans so much which says my Accuser is to be of the spirit of Maldonate the Jesuite But he is mistaken For Maldonate indeed rejected a sense of Scripture which otherwise he approved because it was Calvins If I disliked Dailees opinions only because they were Dailees or our Puritans he had been somewhat near the matter but no such thing hath fallen from me I disliked indeed his Book because it so far pleased the Puritans that they were thereby notably confirmed in their obstinate Opinions against the Authority of the Ancient and our Present Church Here were evil effects also to be disliked Next let us bear how I abuse Diodate of Geneva in that I rehearse this saying of him against King Charles the first viz. That Christ in the Gospel commands us to forgive our enemies but not our friends This he calls Crassum mendacium A gross lye in me whereas the lye if there be any must necessarily be in himself or his brother Puritan Cook the Sollicitor against King Charles the first at his Sentence in that monstrous Court. For I no where say of my self that Diodate said those words
but I said that Cook reports them as heard from Diodates own mouth and I there give him the very Page where those words are to be found and this simple Quarreller and Vindicator of Puritans hath no other way to evade this then by a bold and sensless denial of the thing so apparent Now to that excellently learned person Bochartus what is it I say against him but that he would needs be medling where it concerns him not as the too common practise hath constantly been both of French and Dutch Divines What have they to do to interpose so often and uncharitably in behalf of Puritans as they have Is it not sufficient that they are not disquieted by us in their singularities and inconformities to the perpetual constitution and orders of Christs Universal Church but they must needs seek all occasions pragmatically to animate Sectaries to give them counsel and assistance to give them Communicatory Nisi me mea fallat opinio afhâ— mare auâ—â—â— quamum familtaris congress is gratiâ lâ—pâ—re vâ—nour à Duâ—â—llor antua illum à me superari crationis scriptae nitâ—re utilitate cun ejus scriptio â—â—ta prolixitate ariditate pariat fastidium taedium lectori hand dubium mea etiam ad aperturam libri detmebit cum amaena fincifera voluptate capietque desiderio alteriora legendi nullis offuciis Strephis paralogismis imprimis diverticulis cum à proposiio tum à 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cardine litis quaestioniquâ— quae inter Hiâ— raâ—chic â—â— Puritanos vertitur deterritus conâ—â—â—sâ—â— ad aljiciendas chartas ut in lectione vindiciarum Durellianarum Lud. Molin ante Durel Patroni p. 2. 3. Letters in the height of their Seditions and Schisms to write Apologies and Vindications for them as Bochartus hath In which besides this I think he was in an error to suppose that that great Truth he defends of Subjects not to take up Arms against their Soveraign can be made good from the Cabbalistical and Talmudical sayings of the Rabbies upon which that Thesis is chiefly built and may be as easily pull'd down by rejecting such Ornaments rather then Arguments of Speech And this is all he objects against me in that bold Work of his saving several reproachful tearms which I will not trouble any body with Only concerning the Canina facundia i. e. Dogged Eloquence he taxeth me with I may tell him I am not fit to be his or his Brethrens Scholar in such Speeches And yet as * Turpe est contra ardenter perversa assâ—rentes 〈◊〉 pra veritaâ—â— frgidi res inveno i. Rusâ—ic Diac. Advers Acephâ—l Rusticus Diaconus hath it against the Acephali or headless Schismaticks in his days It 's very absurd for us to be found more cool for the Truth when we write against such as vehemently assert the contrary And concerning the barbarousness and unevenness of my stile though I want not matter of defense from several heads I shall pass them over and also his most polite and elegant stile for which he praises himself so worthily and wisely and only refer the Reader to that one instance which he may find Page 2 and 3 of his Patronus against Monsieur Durell where this great and vain-glorious Latinst while he magnifies his singular Talent of Elegance in the Latin Tongue offends in his tedious and ill-joynted Period against the Rules of Rhetorick and in worse concordance against the common Rules of Grammar So unluckie is this man and that in more ways then I will object to him And now I must touch a farther occasion of my present undertaking and that was the many errors vented by dissenting persons in our Church with which our Adversaries commonly revil'd us as shall be seen by and by in the mean time least any should suppose I go out Perkinsius qui in Aâ—li◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—he legiae 〈◊〉 â—xiulâ—â— â—ujus 〈…〉 〈…〉 〈…〉 〈…〉 Vortius Biâ—lioth l. 2 c. 3. of the common road of forreign Reformers so much trod by many Dissenters amongst us because I was not well skill'd in Calvins Bezas and Ursins Works I must tell them they were the Authors first of all recommended unto me and read by me more then those of our own Church And because I knew well of what great account as well abroad as at home Mr. Perkins his works were I would be no stranger in them but finding in them a servile and credulous spirit so far addicted to such Modern Divines that scarce any thing so new harsh or inconsistent with the judgment of Antiquity fell from them but Perkins presently took it up for Scripture and Catholick Doctrine and transcribed the same into his Works I have here collected in brief what I observed as Heterodox in his Works apt to corrupt young and injudicious Readers But here I shall say nothing of his known monstrous sense of Gods Decrees and Predestination but what a Learned Person his great friend and defender hath said before me Bishop * Abbot in Thompson Diâ—â— c. 1. Perkinsius vir alt quin eruditur pius 〈…〉 quam ille centra 〈◊〉 câ—ntra veteris Ecclesiae fidâ—m cura lâ—psâ—â— Alani absoluâ—â— dâ—cretam 〈…〉 non levem erravit Perkins on Gal. 3. v. 12. Abbot Perkins saith he otherwise a very learned and godly man in describing Divine Predestination which contrary to our and the Ancient Church he hath determined to be decreed without the fall of Adam hath committed no small Error 1. The first I observe is his sense of Justification by Faith thus expressed The Gospel promiseth life to him that doth nothing in the cause of his Salvation but only believeth in Christ and promiseth Salvation to him that believeth yet not for his Faith nor for any Works but for the Merits of Christ The Law then requires doing unto Salvation and the Gospel believing and nothing else Both ends of this sentence are utterly false and scandalous to Christianity it self and most of all as he there explains Non apprehendi potest quod promittitur nisi custoditu a fucrit 〈◊〉 jubetur Leo M. Ser. 9. ad jejun 7. Mensis V. 18. himself thus Believing and doing are opposed in the Article of Justification in our good conversation they agree Faith goeth before and Doing follows but in the work of our Justification they are as fire and water To the same effect he speaketh afterward All which we have refuted shewing that in no place of Scripture are the works of Faith opposed to Faith in Christ in any consideration but only the works of the Law as opposite to or not done in Christ nor in Faith 2. Secondly he saith A third benefit to them that believe in Id. ib. cap. 3. p. 320. Christ is That they have liberty to live and serve God without fear of damnation or any other evil 3. Thirdly God never gave to any man power to effect a Chap. 3. 5. Miracle
only to signifie how Christ was lifted up on the Cross but as practised in the Roman Church to the intent direct and divine Worship be given it 7. Wicked men eat not the Body of Christ Sure enough in a proper sense not denominatively only as the consecrated Elements are called the Body of Christ very often and currently 8. That they who communicate not are to be put out of the Church This is such an Error as the Ancient Church was guilty of as well as we as your own Vicecomes sheweth at large Vicecomes Vol. 3. l. 1. c. 18. 9. The Keys of the Church consist only in opening the Word of God No such thing is held by us 10. Private Confession is to be taken away Not so much as Sectaries say this absolutely 11. The Ceremonies of the Church are to be abrogated Simply and falsly said and directly contrary to the Articles of our Artic. 20. Church 12. Prayers in the Latin Tongue are barbarous and against St. Pauls Precept Very true where they are at first so instituted and understood by very few or none and so are they in the English Tongue or any other 13. No man can fulfill the Law This is true or false as it may be taken 14. More Masses then one cannot be said in one day in one Church Here our Accuser saith he knows not what For neither doth our Church inhibit more then once to officiate Liturgically neither did the Ancient Church practise if permit it for above four hundred years after Christ as appears from Dioscorus Bishop of Alexandria consulting with Leo the first Bishop of Rome what he should Leo 1 Epist 79 or as some So. See also Grecian consecr Dist c. 51. do when Christians were so numerous that they could not all be received into the Church at once who answered In such cases he might safely reiterate the office And the Council of Antisiodorum or Auxere held about the Year 578 decreed that but one Mass should be said upon one Altar in one day which is as much observed by the Church of Rome now-a-days as other Canons of Councils which lye in their way thrown out And where in the Ancient Church do you read of above one Altar in one Church 15. Unity is no Note of the Church Discords and Divisions are certain signs of Errors but Unity is no certain sign of Truth nor so much as of a Church how then can it be of a true Church 16. Universal Councils may be repeal'd by Particular This See Petrus Gregorius Syntagm l. 15. c 3. is nothing he might have said by particular persons as the Popes who may according to that Church null Acts of Councils Oecumenical But we only hold that in things mutable according to the condition Article 34. of Time Place and other Circumstances rendring some Decrees prejudicial to some Churches contrary to the intention of the first Ordainers of them a Provincial Church may make alterations 17. The Church may erre in Faith And what of that meaning any one Individual single Church as the Roman hath according to our Articles 18. The Precepts of the Church concerning set Fasts are A Doctrine of Devils It is rather a Doctrine of Devils to teach so 19. Peter was not the Prince of the Apostles Peter was A or if you will The Principal Apostle but he was not the Prince of any one of them much less of all 20. The Bishop of Rome is Antichrist We are not so much agreed about this point as to give in a full verdict but we agree he is Antichristian 21. The difference concerning Leaven and Easter is inconsiderable Where no danger of Schisms or confusions may alter the case it is true 22. It is Heathenish to invoke Saints that reign with Christ Whether heathenish or no may be doubted they never worshipping any relating to Christ But for all that it may be and is superstitious and idolatrous in the sense very current in the Roman Church 23. The Reliques of Saints are not to be worshipped We hold so indeed though we hold they are to be respected relatively 24. The Saints in Heaven have no merits It is true taken strictly and properly 25. Indulgences of the Church are vain They are not only vain but wicked and generally blasphemous and ridiculous as mangâ—ed by the Church of Rome contrary or at least without all Precedents of the Christian Church for many hundred years viz. in remitting Sins or Punishments after this life and that divers times before they are committed Is not this fine and wonderful ancient and Catholick 26. Nothing is to be read in the Church besides Canonical Scripture This is rank Puritanism contradicted by themselves in their practise who read their Sermons as well as others and pray which is aequivalent to reading in this case out of their own heads rather than Scripture 27. In Oecumenical Councils and Private for the explaining of the Doctrine of Faith the consent of Lay-Princes is necessary It is necessary for the orderly assembling of such Councils It is necessary for the giving any Secular enforcement unto them 28. That it is lawful for Lay-men alone the Clergy opposing to introduce the Ancient Religion This is true no farther then that of Gerson which is alledged to this purpose A Lay-man with Scripture on his side is to be preferred before a Council without it Supposing a monstrous Proposition no wonder if a monstrous conclusion follows 29. He is no Bishop that teacheth not This is also a Puritan strain It being only true that he is no faithful conscientious Pastor but either proud or treacherous or sloathful or basely prudent who doth not in person discharge his Office so far as he is able without turning the care of his flock over to others using that for an argument of keeping close in his Cabin which is rather an argument of appearing in his charge viz. storms on the Church Opposition the Faith and Orders of the Church meet withal and difficulties obstructing the truth It being both shameful and ridiculous both in Bishop and Priest to censure others for enemies to the Church and for them so to wast it in all mens esteem in deserting it and delivering it up to the care of others themselves seeking little else then their temporal Harvest and case These men are over the Church indeed but 't is as the Extinguisher is over the Candle to put it out They pretend for themselves they have been sufferers for the Church and so it should seem indeed by their carriage to it in that through their scandalous negligence as to their charge they take a course to revenge themselves of it by making it suffer as much or more for them 30. Faith alone justifies How this is held we have even now as also we shall hereafter more fully explain 31. There are no Merits in Good works There are none properly so called 32. Priests and Monks may marry 'T is true where the
a Church in two things principally First in the matter The material part of a believer as he is a Christian not as he is a man is his Faith consisting of its several Articles and Branches But the matter of the Church is the Christians themselves whereof it consisteth Secondly they differ in their Form too For no man is properly a Christian though he believes all the Articles of a Christian and lives accordingly unless he be formed and fashioned Formale autem Ecclesiae Catholicae est professio fi dei Christi intâ—gra sub suis Legitimis Rectoribus à Christo institut â—â— ministris cum Sacramentorum obsignatione participatione Sec. Marcus Anton. Spalat Lib. 7. cap 10. §. 26. by the Sacrament of Regeneration which is Baptism But the Form of Christs Church doth consist in that outward disposition and order of Superiour and Inferiour communicating mutually in all Christian Acts and Offices necessary to the conservation of the whole Body and the edification and encrease of every Member thereof This Description of Christs Church is warranted us from St. Paul to the Ephesians who expresly maketh * Eph. 4. 15 16. Colos 2. 19. Christ the Head of his Church From whom the whole Body fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplyeth according to the effectual working in the measure of every Part maketh increase of the Body unto the edifying its self in Love The like words to which we find to the Colossians chap. 2. 19. It must therefore from hence be granted That there is to be Government in Christs Church and that the Government ought to be proportionable to the Body thereby ordered and ruled To the Internal Body of Christ or Mystical Church not visible to us an Internal Mystical and Invisible administration is very agreeable and sufficient from Christ the Head and by the influence of the Holy Spirit but the external Church standeth in need necessarily of external Rule and Direction as much as it doth of external Doctrine Instructions and Sacraments though it be inwardly informed by the Spirit of Christ Now if it be enquired what that Government is whereby Christ would have his Church directed which is the most famous Question of late dayes though scarce ever call'd in question for some hundred years after Christ the resolution will be facilitated from what we delivered concerning Government civil For first if Government Ecclesiastical be so essential to the subsistence of a Church that without it it cannot be of any continuance without a Miracle it cannot be imagined with any probability of Reason that God or Christ should make one part of his Church and leave it to the liberty and pleasure of Man to make the other but least of all can they be of this opinion who think so sacredly of all Ecclesiastical Orders that to admit any of humane invention or prudence is to prophane the whole Systeme Again upon the grounds laid down in civil Government If Christ be the Author of Government Ecclesiastical in General he must also be the Cause of some one Government in Particular otherwise he could not be the Authour of any at all seeing Institution Political as well as Creation Natural must of necessity have some Object to terminate it as its effect Generals in all cases following Particulars in the things themselves though the way of knowledge or learning these things is to begin with the General and so to descend to Particulars Thirdly to understand what kind of Government Christ instituted in his Church what more certain and compendious way what more equal than to judge rather from matter of Fact than long and uncertain Disputations built on Arguments which are subject to diverse casualties from mans Passion and Interests prosecuted thereby whereas there is evidence sufficient from the thing it self to settle belief in that Point Fourthly we are here to note That when we speak of Government we intend not to comprehend therein all Accruments Ornaments or Additions which happened after the thing it self For these may be and doubtless oftentimes have been the effects of humane Prudence regulated by general Precepts but we speak of the Form it self or the Kind of Government For though we said God was the Author of All well grounded Government and do not mean that every particle thereof or inferiour additional Grace must proceed from the same hand For God having permitted if not ordered that every nation should conform it self in outward matters to the condition of the time and place God must have made for several Ages and several Places several Regiments which no man hath presumed to affirm the Divine Right or Institution extending only to those things wherein all at first agreed So that as children receive from the Nature of man at first created by God in Adam their fouls and bodily shape with the several parts necessarily thereunto belonging but their behaviours gestures gates favour and complexions are commonly derived from their immediate Pareâ—â—s So doth every true Body of Christ every Church receive common forms and shapes from the first Institution of Christ extant in the Primitive times but their particular modifications and customes are owing to to their Spiritual Fathers whether mediate or immediate Which frowardly and peevishly to reject or disobediently to oppose without higher warrant what is it else but to imitate such graceless and unnatural children who are ashamed of their own Parents Fifthly A distinction ought to be put between the nature and degrees of any thing and especially of the Church which had its conception in the womb of the Jewish Church its infancy during our blessed Saviours Tum maxime Deus ex memoria hominum labitur cum beneficiis ejus fruentes honorem dare divinae indulgentiae deberent Lactantius lib. 2. cap. 1. de Origine Erroris 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nazienz Orat 1. contra Julianum abode upon the earth its minority during the Apostolical Age of One hundred years its perfect state soon after the first Christian Emperours advanced it and augmented it with secular strength and glory And it is certain that as the Roman Empire became more corrupt and declined so Christs Empire degenerated in many things contracting deformities in Doctrine and Discipline even from secular advantages granted unto it by the Devotion and Bounty of the best Wishers to it We are not then to be so narrow in our judgment of the Churches state to allow no more to it then when it but just crept out of the womb or when having gathered a little strength it could stand alone but not act according to the prime Institutours intention but as it was habited and affected in its riper years when we may behold that in more conspicuous manner which at first was obscurer yet essentially the same For as nothing is more evident to all but such as resolve they will understand nothing that they dislike than that in nature the Father is made before
the children and not the children before the Parents so is it as plain according to the course of Christs Church and the history of the Scriptures that the people at the first did no more make or appoint their Government or Governours in Christ than they did teach or instruct them For by the word of God were Christians at first begotten to 1 Cor. 4. 15. Philem. 10. a new and spiritual life The method which Christ used in procreating and prosecuting his Church is therefore thus made plain First he himself as the Father and Head of us all under God immediately according to that of St. Paul The 1 Cor 11. 3. Ephes 5. 23. Head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man and the Head of Christ is God did by his divine Doctrine and Miracles beget unto himself his twelve Apostles his children these being first consummated by Christ unto a capacity of Fathers also and enabled to multiply into spiritual children of Grace when Christ ceased visibly and politically for he never ceases spiritually to assist and direct his Church were by him as so many Princes of his Ecclesiastical Monarchy commissioned and authorized to dilate the same and amplifie it according to the Power Prescriptions and Grace given them to that end And Christ foreseeing his Kingdom to be of that vast extent that it would surpass the strength and ability of any one man to administer the whole did not leave any Delegate so plenarily endued with Power Ecclesiastical as that all should derive from him as they did from himself For then it had appeared by some Act of Christ and some instance in them in their receiving subordinate power from that eminent Person during his abode on earth which could have been no more derogative from Christ than it is thought to be now by any But the Twelve were alike called by Christ immediately and not the least intimation of any prae-eminence unless in order which cannot be avoided where there is found never so great and just equality Now because they were rather inhabitude and Right than Act Rulers and Fathers of the Church and the whole Earth was to be their Diocess therefore it behoved and was most just that they should set in Common-councel together touching the general design of reducing the whole World to the knowledge and obedience of Christ as we read they did in the Second to the Acts and in the Fifteenth and elsewhere But being enjoyned to depart from Jerusalem and every one to betake himself to such peculiar Quarters of the World as fell to them by Gods Providence and Assignation it was no longer so absolutely necessary to hold assemblies for the special management of each ones proper Cure but full power resided in every Apostle of Christ and accordingly was by them exerted to ordain matters necessary to the Flock collected by them So that notwithstanding what was of publick concernment to the whole fell under the cognizance of all the Apostles as Peers of Christs Kingdom yet were limited Districts or Diocesses disposed of by the councel and authority of one presiding there And if there were called more to consult of that portion of the Church it was rather of humane reason than divine Institution For it was ever far from Gods intention in appointing extraordinary Methods and Rules for his Church utterly to extinguish or evacuate humane Reason which his own hand had planted in mans soul before but it was to be subject to the Superiour Law given by him and where that which was never intended to be of that unnecessary and immense latitude as to take in all contingencies prescribed not otherwise Gods will we may be sure it was that that other help of reason should not be denyed its office and right of ministring to our uses And what is more agreeable to reason then That In the multitude of counsels there is Prov. 11. 14. safety many being able to discern more than one alone and more willing and ready to execute when their head in determining goeth before their hand in executing And on the other side That For the transgression of a Prov. 28. 2. Land many are the Princes thereof Nature it self teacheth us that many Counsellers and few Commanders is the most rational and secure course to prevent discords and confusions But I am far from disputing or arguing this Question any farther than the ground I have laid already will allow and that is only to enquire after matter of Fact in the Government of Christs Church thinking it most reasonable and pious to conclude that to be the only Divine which Christ instituted and that Christ only instituted that which only appeared in the World at his being upon earth and his Apostles after him who though they brought not Ecclesiastical Government to that visible Form and Order as it afterwards shewed it self in to the world increasing with the number and magnificence of professours of Christ yet gave the Idea and Patern in all the main substantial parts of it For as the Father hath sent me even so send I you saith Christ Christ faith John 20. 21. not to any one of his Disciples So send I thee for then it might have been understood so as if he had endowed some single person with such a plenitude of power whereby he might succeed him in presiding over all his other Disciples and consequently over the universal Church but so send I you signifying the imparting of his absolute and entire power unto all his Apostles so far as might consist with the co-ordination founded amongst them and conduce to the benefit of the future Church Between Christ then and his Apostles there was a likeness but no parity or equality of power Between the Apostles themselves there was an equality But upon the raising of a Church and multiplying of Christians immediately sprang up discrimination of Persons and Officers in the Body of the Church Neither can any argue from the Parity of Christs Apostles that there ought to be a Parity also among all that succeed in the Ministerial Office any more than that this Parity should extend it self to the whole Body of the Church For so it was with the Church first of all not only all the Ministers but Members were equal And whether it were simple necessity or humane prudence or divine Inspiration that first moved the Apostles to limit that General Right which Christ had given them indefinitely to Go and teach all Nations and each of them to be universal Pastours in assuming to themselves the special care and tuition of some one place Province or Country it matters not much to enquire For the supposition which some make of an Obligation upon every Apostle to keep himself so strictly unto the commission of Christ empowring him to minister to all Nations that it was not lawful for him of himself nor by general and mutual counsel and consent amongst themselves to be
to the world Upon this Innovating Hereticks were forced to seek subterfuge from revelations and extraordinary discoveries promised as they corruptly understood Scripture by Christ in St. John saying I have yet many things to say unto you but ye Joh. 16 12 13. cannot bear them now Howbeit when the Spirit of truth shall come he will guide you unto all truth c. Hence they collected That Christ communicated not all to his immediate Disciples but reserved diverse things to be imparted extraordinarily to them and the phansie of such extraordinary favours from God is such a bewitching device that few not soundly setled in Faith can chose but expect and thirst after and at last conceit that so God doth deal with them when there is no such matter And of this Sacrilegious and Heretical folly are those Churches no less than simple single persons guilty which under pretense of power in the Church which must not be denyed of declaring the sense of Scripture and Faith do in very deed invent and introduce new Articles of Faith and absurd Scholies unheard of before either in substance or form and say They do but explain only what was before implyed and included in holy Writ For all Articles of Faith all necessary and due Discipline all true Administration of Sacraments wherein the truth of Christian Churches are generally affirmed to consist must long since have been discovered from the Rule of all these or otherwise they who were ignorant of or defective in these could not lay any just claim to be true Churches of Christ So that in truth Antiquity thus understood is an excellent Note of the true Faith and the true Faith not contradicted in worship as is possible more than a Note or Sign of a true Church it is the very Being it self But where Antiquity it self is obscure the condition of a Note according to the Canvasers of this point being to be more cleer than that which is in question it cannot do this good office for us And to argue backward as too many do very incongruously endeavouring to prove that which should prove is to discover the fondness of their opinions and falsness of their cause at the same time For instance to say the Church cannot err in Doctrine therefore we must believe this to be most ancient And to affirm that no man can precisely declare the time and place when such a Doctrine entred the Church taxed for innovation is very absurd as commonly and confidently as it is used For St. Augustine on whose grounds they seem to build this supposition supposed that First no time could be instanced in when such an usance was not in the Church but many times this can be done against pretences to Apostolicalness though the direct time when it began may not be instanced in For whenas most Doctrines of Faith have some practical worship proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristoteles Polit Lib 5. 8. 175. to them and evidencing them such as are the form the matter the rites of prayer none of which recorded in the Church insinuate any such opinions in that age of the Church especially of publick approbation is it not an argument more than conjectural there was then no such thing believed in the Church though we be not able to determine when it first sprung up Again it is very weak and frivolous which is presumed as unquestionable that all abuses and corruptions in the Church had some proper period wherein they must needs show themselves according to that formality as afterwards they appeared in and became notorious No doubt is to be made but points of Doctrine had their conceptions augmentations and progressions insensible as infinite other things in nature and manners have had and daily have A man may better demand the hour in which an Apple began first to rot or the week in which an old Groat began first to be defaced and loose its form than require a determinate point of time or perhaps the year in which such a Doctrine began to be corrupted into an heretical sense and practise But many of these are very exactly and faithfully set down and found short of immemorialness of Tradition as they term it For Succession another note of the Church I find it by some divided into Succession Doctrinal and Personal meaning better than they speak For I know nothing properly succeeding but where something is departed or lost Now the Doctrine of the Church being incessant and perpetual and not diverse from it self cannot be said so properly to succeed it self as to persevere in the Church But if we should pass that order and allow this language yet the thing it self seems here quite to be mistaken it being not at present enquired into the Faith of the Church which if it were granted to be sound and Catholick doth not of it self necessarily and fully infer a true Church and upon the reasons before agreed to viz. Due administration of Discipline to be essential to a true Church but into the Form constituting it a Visible and Formal Church to which is indispensably required proper Pastors and that by the appointment of Christ as St. Paul thus witnesseth speaking of Christ leaving Ephes 4. 11 12 the earth and ascending into heaven and deputing thereupon certain Officers in his stead in a visible ministration which he ceaseth now to exercise He gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers For the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ Now it is not necessary here to determine the quarrel about the kind of Officers here mentioned it sufficing to our purpose what is very evident that they who are Governours of the Church must be given to the Church by Christ But Christ acting no longer politically or visibly as hath been said and must be yielded but mystically he cannot be said to ordain any immediately in his own person but by the ministry of others Now how is it possible to distinguish them whom Christ hath appointed to constitute others in the Church from them to whom he hath given no such order but by this succession we now speak of namely a traduction of that faculty which is in one deriving it originally though by many intermediate hands from Christ himself to another succeeding him because as the Apostle to the Hebrews speaks the Priests are not suffered to continue by reason of Death This Hebr. 7. 23. surrogation then of Pastors and Priests is not to be at the pleasure or arbitrement of men to institute but must be by the will of Christ and this will of Christ must be revealed unto us either by the ordinary line and course from himself and Apostles or else must by some extraordinary and miraculous way be made known to men For though we deny it to be Christs practise to commission men to these ends we do not deny it to be
to be for certain reasons they draw at their pleasure out of Scripture and the necessity of our knowledge of it which is as solid a way of proceeding as if I finding my self by natural sense cold another should attempt to demonstrate the contrary because it is Midsommer But this use we may yet make of Universality to jude of Catholickness of Faith taking it for the most constant for time place and persons according as all humane account requires to ascribe that to the more numerous and eminent which is strictly proper only to the whole entire Body as a Councel or Senate is said to decree a thing when the chiefest do so some dissenting surely this is a very probable argument of the Catholickness of that Faith and consequently that Church so believing But what we before observed must not be forgotten here viz. That in all such enquiries as these the Estimate must be taken from the whole Church passed as well as Present and that there is as well an Eminency of Ages as Persons to preponderate in this Case Lastly the advantage Negative from Universality is very considerable to discern the true Faith and Church from false because it is most certain if any Doctrine or Discipline shall be obtruded on the Church which cannot be made evident to have been actually received in the Church and not by colourable and probable conjectures and new senses of Scripture invented to that purpose in some former Age that is Heretical and Schismatical and in no good sense Catholick The last Note which we shall mention is Sanctity which we hold very proper to this end taken abstractedly from all Persons as considered in Doctrine and Principles For if any Church doth teach contrary to the Law of nature of moral vertues of Justice or the like we may well conclude that to be a false Church though it keeps it self never so strictly to the Rule of Scriptures in many or most other things For it is in the power of mans wit and may be in the power of his hands to devise certain Religious Acts and impose them on others which shall carry a greater shew of severity and sanctity than there is any grounds for in Scripture or Presidents in the best approved Churches and yet this is not true Holiness of Believers For to this is principally required that it be regulated and warranted by Gods holy Word Yet neither so directly and expresly as if it were unlawful to act any thing in order to Holiness without special precept from thence For I see no cause at all to reject the ancient distinction found frequently with the Fathers of the Church of duties of Precept and duties of Councel For there ever was and ought to be in Christs Church several ranks of Professours of Christs Religion whereof for instance some live more contemplative some more active lives But if all commendable and profitable States were under Precept then should all sin that do not observe the same but God hath taken a mean course in not commanding some things of singular use to the promoting of Piety in true Believers but commending the same unto us Such are Virginal chastity Monastick life Travelling painfully not only towards the salvatian of a mans own soul but of others likewise and certain degrees uncommanded of Duties commanded as of charity towards our Christian neighbours Watchings unto Prayer and spiritual Devotion which being prescribed no man can determine to what degree they are by God required of us precisely some therefore are left to the Freewill-offerings of devouter persons who thereby endeavour either to assure themselves more fully of their salvation or increase of the glory afterward to be received For as Christ tells us in the Gospel Much was forgiven to Mary because she loved much so shall much be given upon the same reason They therefore that teach contrary to such wholesome and useful means of Holiness as these or the like under perhaps vain suspicion of too great opinion may be had of their worthiness incur at least with me the censure of being enemies to the holiness of Christs Church and render their Churches more suspected for the opposing of them than others for approving or practising them The Holiness then of the Church commending it to the eye and admiration of the World doth consist in the divineness and spiritualness of its Doctrine and Ecclesiastical discipline in use in it exceeding moral civility For it may be that such a severe hand of civil Justice may be held over a people that they may live more orderly and inoffensively to the world than some true Christian Churches but if this be done as often it is out of civil Prudence natural Gravity or a disposition inclined rather to get an estate than riotously and vainly to spend on which brings such scandal to Religion then is not this a sign of a true Church or Christian because it proceedeth not from principles proper to Christian Religion but secular interest how specious soever it may appear to the World CHAP. XXXI Of the Power and Acts of the Church Where they are properly posited Of the Fountain of the Power denyed to the Church Neither Prince nor People Authour of the Churches Power But Christ the true Head of the Church The manner how Christs Church was founded Four Conclusions upon the Premisses 1. That there was alwayes distinction of Persons in the Church of Christ 2. The Church was alwayes administred principally by the Clergy 3. The Rites generally received in the Church necessary to the conferring Clerical Power and Office 4. All are Vsurpers of Ecclesiastical Power who have not thus received it In what sense Kings may be said to be Heads of the Church AFter the Church found and founded as abovesaid the special Acts thereof claim due consideration and the Power or Right of so acting And this Power we make two-fold in General Political and Mystical or Sacramental Of both which we must first enquire after the proper Subject before we treat of the proper Acts thereof That all Power which is given by Christ doth reside in the Church as its subject no man can or doth question But because the Church it self being as is said a Society united in one Faith and administred outwardly by Christian Discipline according to Christs mind admitteth of several senses and acceptations therefore it must be first understood which and in what sense is according to Christs intention the proper seat of this power And before we come to Scriptural grounds we take no small help in this Enquiry from the common state of all Government which we have already shown to be such as is not ascending but descending It cometh not originally nor can from the multitude or people who are the object of this power i. e. the Persons properly to be governed and not governing all the Examples of former Ages confirming not only the unnaturalness and unreasonableness but impossibility of the People governing
From all which we may gather both the Efficient and Exemplary cause of the several orders in Christ For first we read how he called unto himself twelve Apostles as well to minister under him during his abode upon earth as to Preside and inform his Church after his departure out of this World which according to St. Hierome were prefigured by the twelve fountains the twelve Patriarchs the twelve Tribes the twelve Princes of Exod. 15. 27. Mark 3. 14. the Tribes There he not only elected but ordained also as St. Mark testifieth that they should be with him and that he might send them out to preach naming them Apostles as St. Luke writeth After the choice and Luk. 6. 13. Mat. 10. 1. Luk. 9. 2. Math. 10. 1. Math. 10. 10. Ordination of them he gave them actual Mission as it appeareth by St. Mathew and Commission to preach and to work miracles to the confirmation of his Doctrine and to receive a reward for their pains And when the Harvest was too great for so few Labourers as twelve St. Luke tells us he added Adjutants to them seventy Disciples answerable to Luk. 10. 1. Numb 11. 10 the seventy Elders by Gods appointment set over the children of Israel and the seventy Souls that went with Jacob into Egypt These two orders Gen. 46. Eph. 3. 5. are thought to be intended by St. Paul to the Ephesians where he maketh mention of Apostles and Prophets by Prophets meaning such who bare that part of the Prophetical office which consisted in ordinary instruction of the People of which in other places likewise he speaketh Now adding to these the common sort of Christians or Disciples which were if not at the time of Christs abode upon earth yet afterward Christians as St. Paul intimateth where he affirmeth Christ was seen after his resurrection of 1 Cor. 15. 6. above five hundred brethren at once We have three distinct orders of Christians First Apostles secondly Evangelists or the seventy Thirdly simple Believers or Christians And it is most certain that as the Apostles did not so much as choose their Lord nor the Evangelists the Apostles so the Common sort did not then constitute or choose their Preachers or Evangelists but while Christ continued on earth he kept the power of Ordination of whom he pleased in his own hands and never is it so much as insinuated that upon his departure he left any power in their hands to dispose Ecclesiastical Affairs or Persons therein but that with his Apostles as succeeding him in visible Administration he deposited this power many arguments are offer'd us out of Scripture For in the Person of St. Peter he gave power to all the Apostles saying Feed my sheep And that this same power Joh. 21. 15 resting in them was by them transmitted unto others the very same form of words almost used by St. Peter himself to be the Governours of the 1 Pet. 5. 2. Church do prove where he saith Feed the Flock of God which is among you taking the oversight thereof not by constraint but willingly And St. Paul in the Acts of the Apostles likewise And that the whole Ecclesiastical Acts. 20. 28. Jurisdiction was entirely in the Apostles and Apostolical Persons doth appear from the enumeration of the most principal parts of which such Jurisdiction doth consist which may be these as we find them in Scripture recorded 1. Power of determining Controversies of Religion as appeareth from the Question agitated about keeping the Law of Moses Acts. 15. and concluded by the Apostles and Elders which were of the second Order after the Apostles And in the eleventh of the Acts the same resolved Acts. 11. the doubt concerning the Conversing with Gentiles 2. Of imposing Laws and orders for the due and sober conversation in matters of Moral nature as may be gathered from St. Paul to the Thessalonians where he adviseth That Christians study to be quiet and to do their own business and to work with 1 Thes 4. 11. their own hands as we commanded you And so in the second Epistle he thus writeth Now we command you brethren in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ 2 Thes 3. 6. that ye withdraw your selves from every brother that walketh disorderly and not after the tradition which he received of us And so verse the twelfth of the same Chapter Thirdly Censurings and Punishments of the refractory and disorderly and that of two sorts First of suspension and interdicting as did the Disciples of Christ suspected Preachers of him in St. Luke John answered Luk. 9. 49. and said Master we saw one casting out Devils in thy name and we forbade him because he followeth not with us And so others they restrain who preached without their command or exceeded their commission as may be read in the acts of the Apostles by vertue of the same censuring Power St. Paul Acts. 15. 24 25. 1 Tim. 2. 12. interdicts women from preaching in the Church Secondly the Censure of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and separation of 〈◊〉 and notorious offendors in the Church from communion in the Church For St. Paul writing to the Corinthians in this manner What will ye shall I come unto you with a rod or in Love and in the spirit of meekness doth evidently distinguish a twofold 1 Cor. 4. 21. power resident in him of severity to chastise and meekness to comfort and support And this power is more plainly expressed in the exercise thereof upon the scandalous offendor in incestuous marriage As also 1 Cor. 5. 3 4 5. in the formidabâ—e proceedings against Hymeneus and Alexauder whom St. Paul delivered unto Satan that they might learn not to blaspheme and several other things more proper for some other place A Fourth instance of Jurisdiction is seen in the power of Ordination pertaining to the Apostles by imposition of hands For they did ordain those Deacons mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles And St. Paul to Timothy exhorting Acts. 6. 5 6. 2 Tim. 1. 6. him to Stir up the gift of God which is in thee by the putting on of his hands doth declare the Act of Ordination used by himself From alâ— which these four conclusions do necessarily follow First that by Christ and his Apostles intention there were alwayes in their dayes distinction of persons in the Church some having the power of Rule and some being subject according to the Comparison of St. Paul to the Corinthians of the natural order and superiority of and subjection of the 1 Cor. 12. Members in a natural Body to one another and coming to application v 28. be saith And God hath set some in the Church First Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers after that Miracles And by demanding and Questioning v. 29 30. doth vehemenâ—ly deny a Parity in the Church And this distinction of Persons was no otherwise known at first but by the common name of Brethren given to
autority he had it was for the edification and not destruction 2 Cor. 10. 8. of the Church The argument therefore taken from an Hereditary Right in the Crown of England of being Governour and Defendor of our Church to the apparent ruine and destruction of it we know very well from whence it proceedeth and whether it tendeth but where it will end as yet God only knows This we know that Papists are mad when that scoff and reproach which they have constantly put upon both King and Church from that Title upon due enquiry makes so little to their purpose And therefore they will fight with us with the name only CHAP. XXXII Of the Exercise of the Political power of the Church in Excommunication The grounds and Reasons of Excommunication More things than what is of Faith matter sufficient of Excommunication Two Objections answered Obedience due to Commands not concerning Faith immediately Lay-men though Princes cannot Excommunicate Mr. Selden refuted NAture in all Bodies that have Life casts out of it what ever corrupts afflicts or oppresseth the same and by Struglings and contentions endeavours to deliver it self from such noxious humors as would destroy it And this is the reason men take Vomits Purges and Sudorificks that the deadly humour being expelled the wholesome may prevail and the Whole be preserved There can then be nothing more reasonable or Christian than to put this in practice in Bodies Political or Ecclesiastical We see how Thieves Robbers Murderers and such like malefactors who are enemies to humane Society be denied and that justly the benefit of that Society against which they have so offended by confinement in Prison or deprivation of Life it self forfeited justly in seeking or acting the ruine of another And can any that grants the Communion of Christians to be a Body knit together by its several joints and nerves and consisting of several Members deny but the like Evil may befal in its kind to it what doth happen to others in another viz that some noxious humor of Heresie corrupting the Faith in which as the Scripture saith of the Blood is the life of a Christian and the Church it self may poison it And some violence of Schism may dissolve or dismember it And shall not it be allowed the like remedy or means of Cure which are held necessary in like cases No opinion how heretical or immoral so ever is more pernicious to Christian Society than that which absolutely denyes power to the Church to eject unsound and tainting members out of it and to provide for the security of the Body even by the abscission and destruction of any one Part infesting it For this opinion strikes not at one part of the Body but all neither at one point of Faith but all though not immediately and directly but indirectly and by consequence For as upon the fall of the House the persons within must needs be crusht to death so upon the dissolution of the outward Frame of the Church the Faith itself must of necessity in a short time perish and be reduced to nothing And therefore those men of reason as they would be accounted give us but little cause to think them better men than Christians who affirm rawly and loosely without qualification or due explication of their mind that no man is to be cast out of the Church but for something which is necessary to salvation or which Christ doth not require or forbid absolutely either denying or not considering a man can scarce tell which by their works hereby that Christ and St. Paul and our Creed it self require conservation of the unity of the Church both as a thing admirable in its self and necessary to the Faith it self For any man therefore to broach or publish such an opinion as this That every man may use what Ceremonies he pleases in the publick service of God or if he pleases he may use none and this That the Church hath no power to command or forbid any thing which is not expressed in the Scripture when as Rules general and several Examples in Scripture justify the contrary These I say being contrary not only to some one Church but all even those they would by no means have touched thereby do no less in their consequence mischief to the Church than the denial of the Mystery of the Trinity it self or of Christs incarnation however I grant they in their form are nothing so foul And therefore I presume to conclude them matter of Excommunication and so I judge St. Paul doth where he advises nay commands in the name of the Lord 2 Thes 3. 6. Jesus Christ the Thessalonians to withdraw themselves from every one that walketh disorderly and not after the tradition he received of us These traditions were as it is here implied concerning orders of the Church and manners of Worship which in all probability are most of them lost to us St. Paul therefore requiring that whoever did not walk according to those prescriptions delivered by him should be separated doth not warrant the like proceedings now For t is the very same thing whether the Church withdraws it self or whether it expells another When the Israelites warned by Moses departed from the tents of the wicked Corah Dathan Num. 16. 26 and Abiram who only walked disorderly not erroneously in the matter of worship that we read of and their complices and touched nothing of theirs they Anathematized them no less than if they had set them packing into remoter parts from the Congregation Nay if now-adayes as lately Sectaries should prevail so far as to possess themselves of all the Publick and Lawful places of Worship and eject the true Church they might stand no less legally and Really Excommunicate than if they were thrust formally from thence themselves For'tis not the place but the Cause and the Body from which they are cut that makes the Excommunication just and valid This we are confirmed in by the same Apostle afterward And if any man obey not our word by this Epistle note that man 2 Thes 3. 14. and have no company with him that he may be ashamed Now St. Paul in this Epistle had delivered many things not essential in themselves to salvation And where the company of Christians was not great and their society not formed and their outward power little or nothing as in the beginning of all Churches there it sufficed in liew of Formal excommunication to withdraw themselves from such troublers of the Church And this we read further of in St. Paul to the Romans saying Now I beseech Rom. 16. 17. you brethren mark them which cause Divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them St. Paul generally in his Epistles not only insists upon unity of Faith but unity of Charity and outward communion they therefore that were Authors of unnecessary divisions are they whom he would have noted and avoided which when it is done with Publick
same in publick and clearly in the Church seeing we could not do this when we were baptized Mast How are ye confirmed Schol. By publick blessing intercession of the Church with imposition of hands Mast But how art thou assured of this Schol. We have Word of God when he sayes Let little Children come unto me c. Thus that Catechise Another reason may be the danger from the multitude of Hereticks which possibly might have corrupted such young beginners in the Faith therefore as well for the better securing such persons as for the satisfaction of the Church that they who were once enter'd into communion with it did so persevere inviolate in the same this excellent Rite was instituted And surely because it notably discriminates Schismaticks and Erroneous persons from sober and faithful Members of Christ and his Church it is by vain ignorant and ungodly persons scoffed at railed at and contemned A third Reason respecteth the time to come wherein a man foreseeing the many and great temptations of the World Flesh and Devil which he had renounced in Baptism to increase upon him as he converses more with the World doth thereby fortifie himself by a renewed profession of his Faith and Obedience to Christ Fourthly to this conduceth very much the Benediction of his Ghostly Father the Bishop and the joynt prayers of all the Congregation which ought devoutly to be put up to God for the descent of his Grace to preserve the persons so confirmed in that holy profession which should be most earnestly desired by every pious heart that likes his Religion and fears his own frailties And it is to me an infallible argument of desperate unchristian prophaneness or a new superstition instilled into men alienating them from the truth of that Religion in which they were educated who carp at this so godly Constitution their best ground being that which is to all their frivolous reasonings Because no express place of Scripture commands it directly and because it is possible to be saved without it It is possible that we may be saved without many things which we daily use in Religion and yet they contemptuously and wilfully omitted may be a just and certain cause of our condemnation the Scriptures having not limited God to those means of saving us which they have if we would be saved And yet again they have not so particularized our duties that there should be nothing accepted by God from us which they have not expressed I find it disputed on both sides whether this Rite be of Divine Institution or not and shall not determine it but in this both Ancient and Modern Eastern and Western Churches are agreed that it is of Divine use and therefore I may determine it to be pious and profitable and them who oppose it to speak evil 2 Pet. 2. of the things they understand not for which they may utterly perish in their own corruption But I suppose the proper Minister of this Solemnity who alwayes was the Bishop of the Church hath much turned the stomach of those who very unhappily have none or most wickedly endeavour to have none against it For considering how little is to be said against it how much for it the principle ground why they are bent against it must be to defend themselves from notorious defects To understand this as likewise the manner of performing this Sacramental Rite it is to be noted there was a threefold use of Unction called also Chrism in the ancient Church whereof one pertained to the Presbyter or Priest who in the time of Baptism was wont to anoint the party baptized on the crown of the Head The other two were properly belonging to the Bishop the one being done presently Hieremias Patr. Cap 7. Censure O. rieâ—tal after Baptism on the forehead after the Priest had anointed him on the crown of the Head which custom the Greek Church retain to this day as their Patriarch Hieremias witnesseth and when this was done I suppose there followed no other Confirmation but after the deferring of Baptism ceased and the appointed times of Easter and Pentecost for that Sacrament were laid aside and children and that at all times and in all places of Divine worship were admitted to Baptism and not alwayes as most anciently in the presence of the Bishop then it became necessary that a peculiar time and proper services should be appointed to this Solemnity wherein the Party to be confirmed was signed in the forehead by the Bishop only as before in substance but with variation of circumstances In Gregory Gregor M. Epist Lib 3. 9. the Great 's days it should seem the brest was anointed by the Priest What need we trouble ourselvs in such things aswere alterable in that unalterable solemnity our Churches moderation endeavouring to prevail upon the modesty of some dissatisfied persons in it have incurred the censurre of other Churches in paring that Ordinance to the Quick from unnecessary excrescencies without any effect upon her own undutiful children but pertinacy and petulancy in their private morosities which at length may teach us how vain such charms of Charity are used upon such deaf Adders and unnatural Vipers whom nothing will satisfie but the tearing to pieces the womb that conceived them And that they may do with it what they list they make the Church speak what they list many times And therefore though it hath wisely declared and plainly but for two Sacraments ordinarily necessary to salvation they are wont to exclaim against it thereby inferring contumeliously that she holds more though not so necessary which had been no slander if they at the same time had used that candour which became them in stating the mind of the Church as they might and ought but to do this here or in other cases were to do themselves or Cause wrong and to be just to us were to be cruel to themselves A fifth pretended Sacrament is that of Repentance sometimes also called Penance with us For so I read Mr. Bradford in his Sermon on the Fourth of Matthew and the seventeenth to speak saying Penance is a sorrowing or forethinking of our sins past an earnest purpose to amend or turning to God with a trust of pardon Which description may suffice us at present For the first thing in Repentance is a sound judgment of the evil of the Facts committed or omitted the next is a belief and sense of the evil of punishment incurred by such enormities A third degree or act of the mind is a change of the resolution for the time to come to act more reasonably and faithfully A fourth is an apprehension of the Grace and Mercy of God towards him upon his humiliation and return A fifth the real execution and putting in outward practise the good purposes of heart in effects proper to Repentance A sixth is not to repent of Repentance or return to the offenses for which he was so grieved and which he renounced A seventh is the
that communion which may detain any man of Christian modesty and Charity from pronouncing such an one to be infallibly damn'd or out of possibility to salvation And if it be hereupon demanded What difference we put between Infidels and such corrupt Christians seeing diverse have undertaken to assert a Possibility of salvation to them also living exactly to the Light and Rule of Nature in them I answer not absolutely at present dashing the argument a-pieces by denying the supposition and their colourable proofs thereof but demonstrating a vast discrimination between the one and other condition For commonly where Heresies which are so properly called and not Gentilism as they are which destroy the first Principles of Christianity are taught and maintained there are to be found all truths necessarie to salvation in a Christian sense For the Holy Scriptures we suppose are there received and submitted unto which are able to make a 2 Tim 3. 16 17. man wise unto salvation and thorowly to furnish him unto all good works And the Records of the Church and ancienter practise good guides against the rocks way-laying a man in his course to Heaven And the want of actual communion with a Church doth then only expose our souls to Perdition when it is wilfully and causelesly slighted and contemned And then only doth Separation visible 〈◊〉 less Visible alienation of mind and affection put on the nature of Schism And there are two general defects in a Church which justify Separation according to those two things we have shewed do constitute a Church Doctrine of Faith and Divine Regiment called commonly Discipline If a Church errs notoriously in the former no Separation can be called Schism oâ— if defective not in Government absolutely for without some Government it could not be so much as a Society but in the Government oâ—dained for it because then it should not be a Christian Society For the faith of Christians held do not make a Christian Society but the Christian Regiment Christian Regiment also I call that not whereby Christians are Governed for Civil Governments are common to Heathens and Christians but that which is Proper to Christians as Christians and was instituted by Christ for Christians and not invented out of mens wise brains and accommodated to the Church and perhaps called Divine to give it greater credit and place amongst Christians Of which we have alreadie spoken It being a common rule amongst the Ancients Clemens Alexand Stromal immutable with me There can be no true Flock without true Pastours And there can be no true Pastours where they are not set over the Flock according to Christs known and received will but some presumed tacit and extraordinary Vocation as they term it when there is an entrance by the Window and not by the Door From hence it doth appear how uncertain and confused their notion and position is who without any more adoe conclude all those to be Schismaticks and that upon their own Principles and Concessions who separate from a Christian Societie which they acknowledge to be a true Church For very great is the ambiguity both of Separation and True Church First Separation is as we have before noted either of Subordinates or Co-ordinates And of Subordinates either simply or with Restriction Simply subordinate I call them not comparitively with Christs Imperial Power but with all External power who by divine Right of Providence owe direct obedience to their Pastours in all things not inhibited by the Law of God to which all Spiritual Pastours are to be no â—ess subject than the sheep themselves And thus every Bishop is true Head and Governor of that Flock which under Christ is committed to his Care and Custodie But in like manner is not that Bishop subject to the Metropolitane and much less that Metropolitane to his Patriarch For these are but Ecclesiastical Constitutions and of no distinct Order though Degree According to which obligations of obeying the refusing to obey and dis-uniting ones self from the Governours of the Church doth aggravate or extenuate the Division and the guilt thereof And without all peradventure may one Church divide from another upon less grounds then the Members of one Church separate from the more immediate Head of the same How thick do instances stand in Ecclesiastical History of Churches who by vertue of their Respective Governours have been divided and yet both remain true Churches Again a True Church is said so to be more than one way viz. As to Being absolutely and Being perfectly We know that every Errour in Doctrine though great nay though heretical doth not presently destroy the nature of a Church absolutely though it takes away from the perfection of a Church How that opinion was delivered by the Fathers viz. That Heresie destroyes the Church we have Cyprianus Epistola 52. â— gat Novatianos eâ—â—e Christianosâ— shewed in part speaking of Heresie and now may add farther that the the same persons of old or their Co-equals denied an Heretique to be a Christian also and therefore they are to be understood of the such foul and unchristian Heresies which rased the foundation of faith it self as did the Valentinians the Gnosticks the Marcionites and such like For t is now agreed to That unless a man be a Christian he cannot be an Heretique Or if at any time they spake of more tolerable Heresies not wholly inconsistent with Christianity it self then they laid the burden of Damnation upon that accessorie but separable Aggravation Uncharitableness which alone and especially conjoined with such errours exposed to damnation But as it is with the Natural Man it is with the Spiritual There are some parts Essential and Vital which cannot be wanting or corrupted but the Whole must loose its nature and denomination and there are others not absolutely Essential which are called Integral without which the Body may possible subsist but not be perfect in its material Parts And so it is with the Body of Faith consisting of so many Articles or members as Parts some Vital and essential some necessarie to its perfections but not its Being absolutely And a Church may be called a true Church which is defective or Excessive in these though not in them And yet we need not betake our selves to that explication by some used of a True-man and a Thief to express how a Church may be a True Church and an erroneous one at the same time For the nature of this truth we ascribe unto the Church consisting only in Morality If the Church failes in that the Nature of it failes as it doth not in a man when he is corrupted with falsness and vice But this we say That although all Truths are equally true as to the nature of Truth it self they are not of equal importance and use to us or to a Church Therefore such a Latitude being in the notion of a True Church how can any man so confidently say that No Church can separate from the Church
is so defended as to call in question the truth of Christs divine nature and to commend and command the direct worship of those objects so mistaken then certainly it is Heresie and somewhat more And so their doctrine of Communicating in one Kind contrary to all the mention we have of celebrating the Eucharist in the Scriptures and those deserving the name of Fathers in the Church may rightly be termed Heretical when it shall be drawn into such a Proposition as this as of necessity it must viz. That it is of equal vertue and use to receive the Sacrament in one kind alone as both Kinds whereas only to deny the use of it is no more than an unjust and sacrilegious piece of Tyranny over the Laicks To these it were easie to add more of like natures as sufficient Grounds to leave such a Church as maintains them But for those who are not in Episcopal nor yet so much as Metropolitan subordination and subjection to that Church but only Patriarchal which obliges cheifly if not only to a recognition of a Remote Right of Order and Principle of unity when the Church is united in bringing them to Councels and keeping them to those Laws which are prescribed by General Consent of the Church and this not originally by first planting and forming a Christian Church in a Nation but restoring and augmenting it the case is yet more plain that it is free for such Churches to relinquish communion of any Church subject to less Errours than are properly called Heresies But for persons educated in a Church and thereby subject to it and owing Canonical obedience not only as they most weakly and wickedly imagine to the Rule of Faith therein asserted and maintained but to the Rule of Unity and Communion outward for such I say to divide from that Church which hath not by falling into notorious Heresies or Idolatrous practices first fallen from Christian Faith is to profess Schism For to alledg that they would incorporate with the Church if certain things which may possibly be parted with without destroying the Faith at least immediately were granted to them is to demand that their Superiors should bow to them rather than they to their Superiors and in effect to make the condition of their obedience and uniting with the Church to be this That first the Church should be of their Religion the difference between them consisting in things in their own nature mutable For though Faith consisteth in those things which are judged necessary in themselves to be received Yet Religion is made up as well of the manner of serving God as the material grounds of it And therefore it is according to the manner of their treaties of peace in other Cases to require the thing in debate to be granted them before they will bear of a commodation or reconciliation This senseless Charity is that of most Desperate Schismaticks Yet not absolutely to despair of reducing some few of them and much less of preventing the like ruine of souls in others we shall now conclude with a few words concerning the Second thing in the beginning of this Point viz. The guilt of Schism Supposing then what is above said that Schism is a Causeless Separation from the Church of Christ meaning by Causeless not want of all reasons or causes but Sufficient as are errours now mention'd in Faith we farther understand by Separation not that of the inward and hidden man but outward and Visible answerable to that we have called and acknowledged to be properly called a Church i. e. Visible For possible we grant it is what we do scarce believe to be actually true though we hear such things sometimes spoken that dissenters may have a tolerable good opinion of a Church as that it is a true Church in their private senses they may pretend some general kindness and Charity to the Members of it Nay they may hold it no grievous sin to communicate with it for some persons especially and yet for all this be rank Schismaticks For Schismatizing in its remoter Cause may spring from evil opinions and dispositions of the inward man but its formality is altogether in outward profession of averseness separation and opposition to a Church This is it which hath raised so much just clamour of the Ancient and even of those very modern Persons who stomach nothing more than to be reduced to their own general Rules and have worthily brandished their swords and pens to bring people to the unity of that Cause which never was the true Faith and to that Visible Company which never was a Church and yet cannot understand their own language nor receive their own reasons and arguments in Cases infinitely more capable of such vindications than the Party they created and asserted Herein surely they have exceeded all other Factions in immodesty and undauntedness that whereas those have been very scrupulous and sparing in delivering doctrines of coercion and constraint to unity and therefore may though with no reason with some little colour stand out against Unity and oppose all Coaction thereunto They of the Presbyterian Sect have preach'd spoken and written so much and expresly against Schism and the Liberty which tends necessarily to it that it is beyond not only reason but admiration they should neither be affected with what other men have said against them nor what they have unanswerably said against themselves but proceed no otherwise than brutishly to hold their Conclusion and stick to their invet eraâ—e errours as if they could find no Church to unite to or had no souls to save or did not even according to their own principles run the apparent hazard of loosing them by that sin which they confess is one of the Greatest Size viz unnecessary division And unnecessary division themselves call what is not for to avoid Idolatrous practises or Heretical errours and yet in their Apologies for themselves alledge none but frivolous instances tending as they judge to Superstition wherein they prove themselves much more superstitious by such religious opposition as they make against them and deeply concerning their best Consciences than they possibly can be who for order sake solemness of worship and conformity to the ancient Customs of Christs Church and to avoid offence unto other Churches sticking inseparably unto them retain rather than invent such adjuncts to Divine Religion It is hard to search out any new Topick from whence to draw out reasons against this hainous sin of Schismatizing wherein I am not prevented by them disputing upon the false suppositions that they at any time were a Church and if they had been that they who opposed them could be said to Divide Schismatically from them of whose communion they never were nor ever were obliged to be They are therefore with others to consider How solemn and severe a command of Christ they slight and contemn who divide from a Church without more weighty exceptions than hitherto have been offered by them or heard
it implies as much as to say Give us but our demands and then we will be quiet by which Rule no man should defend his own right in lesser matters which to part with perhaps would not utterly undo him but he must be lookt on as accessary to and guilty of his own destruction if the Invader shall have power enough to bring it upon him because he will not peaceably satisfie his unjust desires A man may be and our Saviour in the Gospel saith expresly Luk. 16. 10. is unjust in the least as well as in much And so undoubtedly are they who having no Autority but what they frame to themselves shall by violence and aggressions attempt to extort the least thing belonging of right to another though haply better spar'd than kept For it is a Case of Justice rather than Christianity In justice and common equity the inferiour members of a Church and state owe obedience to their Superiours in all things not contrary to the Law of God the Church or the Nation but at most they can claim such things that are as they say indifferent to be granted them out of Courtesie or Charity only And whoever was so wilfully stupid as not to perceive that Injustice is much more a sin than Uncharitableness and so whatever mischief or guilt shall fall out in such contentions must necessarily light upon the heads of the unjust Aggressour and not indiscreet Resister were it indiscretion to withstand to deny such bold and insolent demanders or uncharitableness both which are denied in the present Case For there can be nothing more unjust on the one side and unwise on the other than so rudely and unrighteously to require of another all that may be granted or to grant all such things as are so demanded And if they urge still The peace of the Church to require such concessions I shall answer Let them first as all good Christians ought to do observe the Peace of Nature and the Peace of Nations which is not to offer violence nor to be unjust nor to go out of their Rank and Order but with good Autority and then take care for the Peace of the Church But what can be more absurd than that men should break the Peace of Nations and Nature it self yea the Law of God and Scriptures which require to obey all that are in autority over us as well Ecclesiastically as Civilly and then so much as to mention the Peace of the Church especially calling that only the Peace of the Church which puts them into quiet possession of their desires But to this we add that it is also very false which is here supposed to be true For there is nothing more manifest than that with diverse things of indifferent nature they mix many things of indispensable use to a Church and such is that so much reproached and derided Hierarchie which all the earth sees they have made it their business to Destroy utterly And when we plainly see as we do that those things in nature indifferent are demanded chiefly as an introduction to a farther abolition of things we hold necessary we hold them no longer indifferent nor can we in common prudence or Christianity part with them to such person any more than we can in a neighbourly manner lend away an Ax or Hammer when we are assured they will be made use of to break open our houses and spoil us though we know they may possibly be made use of to other purposes The Second Obstacle rather than Objection cast in our way is the parity of their Case with the Church of England with that of the Church of England with the Roman wherein whether they show more Spite or Policy may be a question Their Policy imitates them who finding the war to lie heavy upon them at their own doors contrive by all means possible to translate it into another Country as was particularly seen in Hindersons Letter to his late Sacred Majesty who finding the ability of his pen and weight of his discourses advised him rather to turn himself against the common enemy the Papist And thus these men would needs oblige us to make our quarrel good against the Romanists that they may be the les molested in the pursuance of their most Schismatical designs against the Church in which they were educated And this being discovered we might well excuse ourselves from such a task as they would set us But this we have before resolved in good part and had we not might and shall in a very few words dispatch as somewhat out of its proper place We grant then there is a Schism between us and the Romanists And we grant that there can be no cause to be Schismaticks though for a Separation there may and that they are truly Schismaticks who have ministred just Cause of Separation Some we know out of an ancient Father have urged against us That there can be no cause to divide the Church which is true in two senses only First when that Church is not before really divided from other Churches of unquestion'd integrity Realy I say by deserting some considerable point of Faith or introducing some unchristian manner of worship though not Openly and Formally as hath been said Again it is true only in such junctures as the Father spake those words in which was an apt and orthodox agreement within itself both in Faith and manners in such Cases there can be no cause to divide the Church as did the Novatians and Donatists But it was never his purpose to say that no case could happen in which it was not lawful for one Church to leave the Communion of another when it was so often done So still the point is wholly whether cause was given or not and not whether such outward and wilful Separation was made For undoubtedly however some would mince the matter Separate we did and that wilfully from the Church of Rome and chose rather than were forced to go out And upon those very grounds we still stand out and refuse to return The gross corruptions there maintained and not lurking and the fear of the loss of our souls in there continuing and much more thither returning What those are hath been even now touched and we here add that notwithstanding 't is confessed such senses are found of their doctrine and superstitious worship in some private authors amongst them which they offer at first to them they would seduce which may put persons into a possibility of their continuing without incurring damnation yet the Publick autority of that Church which I suppose they will call their Church having evermore of late years censur'd purged and expunged such more tollerable constructions and appeared for the most harsh and uncatholick there can be no great regard had to the fairer opinions Again it is not sufficient that a Church hath a true sense of Christian Faith if it alloweth and commendeth a false and a wicked sense 'T is little to the
in general concerned himself in the marriage of others And to declare how that state was not at all inconsistent with a state Clerical of twelve Disciples John 2. 1 2. which Christ chose to minister for him Eleven are supposed to be married persons or at least to have been married formerly To answer which by saying that after they were chosen they forsook their wives is to evade and not really to answer First because it had been as easie for Christ surely to have picked out a dozen persons free from the knowledge of women as to make choice of such as were wedded had he judged any incapacity in these to the Evangelical Ministery But secondly do we find any thing in special prescribed by Christ for such separation from wives more than for other Christians who were not Ministers of the Gospel For of all faithful Christians it is spoken in certain junctures that whoever forsaketh not Father and Mother and Brethren and Sisters and Wise and Children for Christs sake cannot be his Disciple And there is no rule but common necessity and prudence not Divine prescription which requires any man for the Gospels sake to forsake his Wife rather than his Father and Mother Yet that the Apostles did actually absent rather than separate themselves from their Wives and that others who enter'd into the ministration to the Church under the Apostles foreseeing what St. Paul expresseth the present distress of the Church as well in regard of the 1 Cor. 7. 26. persecutions of the Church as the paucity of Preachers the greatness of the Harvest and the small number of Labourers did decline the state of marriage is very probable because they were required by Christs Injunction to Go and teach all Nations which travelling life ill could consist with cohabitation with Wives And therefore it must be given them Gratis and not by the merits of any reason oâ— grounds they can show that that such relinquishing of their Wives was either total or upon conscience made of the thing it self Doth not St. Paul say expresly in the words before those now touched Concerning Virgins I have no commandment of the Lord If such as served at the Altar were to be excepted surely he 1 Cor. 7. 25. would not have left the Rule so general as we find speaking only according to humane prudence And though they search with their best eyes they shall not be able to find in any other writings of the Apostles one Text o Scripture obliging Bishops or Priests to singleness of life more than those of the Laity unless they argue from reason That Virginal Chastity is more severe more pure more spiritual than conjugal which is yielded and therefore more obliging the Clergy who should be more spiritual persons then others all which I deny not but say that this binds them no more from marriage than it doth from wine and strong drink which if none of the Clergy ever used they were the more to be commended unless in such cases as St. Paul advises Timothy For their stomachs sake and often infirmities And thus is Bellarmin's first proof laid Bellarm. de Clericis l. 1. c. 19. The sole grounds then of unmarried state of Priests must be fetch'd from Tradition and Reason of both which we shall presume to speak a word or two Apostolical Tradition is pretended but not trusting much to that recourse is had to the Old Testament from certain allegorical interpretations made of some Rites in Moses's Law which may do well in the Church where they used them to perswade but ill in the Schools to prove the same as a necessary duty The argument taken from the custom of the Priest abstaining from their Wives during the time of their ministration I do really 1 Chron. 24. believe to have had an influence upon Primitive Christians Judaizing in many other things of like nature to restrain them from the use of their Wives upon solemn ministrations But this was without Law or Canon freely undertaken and embraced as was Celebacie it self at first until about the year 385. Siricius Bishop of Rome made a constitution that it should and ought to be and that on that ground And that the inferiour Orders such as Ostiaries Readers Exorcists and Acolythites should only be permitted to marry But Alexander the third about the year 1160 proceeded according to the method of that Church to shut them also out the doors of Orders that should presume to marry But all that was done against those in greater or sacred Orders in the Church for more than three hundred years after Christ was to deny such as were married access to the Altar by way of ministration who from that time abstained not from their Wives as did the Council of Arles and some in Spain Only a custom prevailed very generally and anciently to suffer none who were in those called Sacred Orders such as were Bishops and Priests and Deacons to marry after they were so ordained for if they did they were dismissed of their Office or their Wives The Eastern Church ever accepted of married persons into the Clergy and at length understanding the Apostle Let the Bishops be the husbands of one wife as a Precept rather than a Caution that they should be husbands of no more then one which in all likelyhood the truest sense in the Sixth Council In Trullo decreed they only should be received into Priestly Orders who were married And therefore all antiquity for twelve hundred years together fails them in this that it was otherwise then voluntary that married Priests lived from their Wives who had before orders or that married Men might not be made Priests though 't is confessed they preferred unmarried Persons before them until that Sixth Council which for that reason amongst others Bellarmine calls a Profane Synod and Baronius impious such a great veneration have they for the Autority of the Church when it speaks not their sense Yet as we are far from giving an exact and full account of this long controversie here so are we so far as I can Divine at the judgment of our Church willing to accommodate the matter with others that can digest any thing but their own stout devises to acknowledge a Power in the Church to bind or loose her sons of the Clergy to an unmarried state or to leave them free For to aggravate matters to that height as to make it absolute tyranny or Antichristian and to be against the word of God which saith Marriage is honourable in all things and the like implyes more of the weakness of the Arguer than strength in the Argument more of spite and passion than ingenuity or soberness For 't is answered very sufficiently marriage is not condemned but virginity commended before it Marriage is not at all declared to be evil when Celebacie is said to be much better Marriage is not condemned when certain persons are condemned for marrying Doth a Father that should cast off
Place where their Site was And to this purpose is there express provision made by a Council of Ments in the middle age of the Church under Charles the Great in the ninth Chapter that the Monks of Religious Houses should be subject to their proper Bishop and do nothing without his approbation But it is one thing to plead in general for the lawfulness and expediencie of Monastick Life and that of both sexes and another to deliver laws and due prescriptions for the well disciplining of them which is the work of the wisest heads and sincerest hearts to Religion to be here passed over There may yet seem somewhat due to an objection against the said state taken from the vow exacted from such as enter themselves into it which no wonder that they who oppose so blindly the thing it self should much more oppose But they who approve of it can find little reason to quarrel at that bond And that first because such Monastick Life is not alwaies in Society which they call Convents but may be undertaken at a mans own pleasure both for time and place and other circumstances every Christian having power to dispose of himself not prejudicing the general right and inteâ—â—â—t of his Governours over him to what life he pleases and with what â—â—â—cumstances But if a man resolves to become a member of some special Society already formed by certain Rules and Laws to desire to be matriculated into that Body and not to be willing to conform to the constitutions of it is unjust and unreasonable And so Pikewise not to give that outword and common assurance of faithful submission unto the same by an Oath of Vow For do men think it reasonable that Prentises should be bound to be true faithful and keep their Masters secrets even before they know them and when they know them to be none of the justest or honestest or shall men that enter but into civil Companies be it but of Merchant-Taylers or Barber-Surgeons be constrained by Oath to be true and faithful to them but they who are admitted into Religious Societies be left to do and live as the please What were this but to seek an occasion under colour of friendliness and good affection to divide and destroy it as is apparent in the seemingly modest pretenses of dissenters and disaffected persons to our Church who upon condition that they may give and reverse certain orders and laws offer themselves to become one with it Thus the Vulgar take it but in truth it is for the Church to be one with them And is not this a notable piece of modesty condescension and complyance But here let that rest as also what we have to say of the second thing generally to be consider'd in the Worship of God viz. The state of serving God CHAP. VII Of Religious Worship the third thing considerable in it viz. The Exercise of it in the several kinds of it And first of Prayer the chiefest Act of Gods Worship contrary to Sectaries who are Enemies to it in three respects And first by their vain conceit of Preaching wherein consisteth not the proper Worship of God as in Prayer THE third thing wherein the worship of God may be said yet more properly to consist is the Kinds of Worship And these we shall reduce to three Prayer Preaching and Obedience in the due exercise of all Christian Graces and Vertues wherein the Life of Faith properly consisteth And first we shall begin with prayer as that wherein was ever thought the worship of God principally to consist be that Religion Christian or Unchristian unless we be forced to except some modern and immodest pretenders to Reformation For though they keep within such bounds as a grave and judicious defender of our Church says none ever exceeded not to deny prayer absolutely yet have they brought it to that pass so humbled and diluted it that there is little place found for it and less value And surely were they but true to their own principles and arguments no use at all would they acknowledge of prayer more then certain Heathens and Hereticks whose arguments must needs be accepted by them if they will believe conformable to themselves St. Hierome upon Matthew tells us There is sprung up here a certain Hieronymus in Matth. cap. 6. 8. Heresie and Dogme of Philosophers who say If God knows what we pray for and that we have need of such things as we desire before we ask in vain we speak to him who knows all before To whom saith he we answer That we do not so much tell God what we would have as begg of him Clemens Alexandrinus likewise tells us that one Prodius was Clemens Alexa Strom. 7 Authour of that Opinion Thus far profane Sectaries amongst us have not generally proceeded though we have been credibly informed that some have However they unanimously conspire to debase prayer and corrupt Christian worship it self in these three Respects First in advancing preaching much inferiour to it in a Church become Christian infinitely before it Secondly by opposing Set or Prescribed Forms of Prayer And thirdly in expunging the Lords Prayer out of their uncertain and wild Liturgies Which the Presbyterian Sect the Sire of all others was not a little guilty of and so seldome used it that being demanded why they left it out in their prayers thought good to give such a modest reason as this They feared they should be out in the recitation of it so had they accustomed their tongues to liberty and variety of words But they had other reasons which they were ashamed to utter but to their trusty friends But let us first see how preaching transcends prayer and hath insulted and trampled over it For such have been the extreams of late that whereas formerly the Proverb was No Penny no Pater Noster now No Preaching no Pater Noster No Sermon no Prayer in Gods House And whereas it was said by our Saviour Christ of old and by the Prophet before him My House shall be called which almost every ordinary man knows accord-to Matth. 21. 3. the Hebrew Idiom is the very same with shall be the House of Prayer unto all Nations and never was it called or accounted a preaching house but by them that called it a Steeple-house and little otherwise judged of it now have things been so reformed with a witness ot rather a vengeance that Sermoning carries all afore it bears all down to little or nothing But what if all this while preaching be not the worshipping of God at all Will they continue so obstinate as to make it almost the only thing in Gods house That they who with strange boldness profess and in constant practise declare they will have nothing to do with Gods house as Gods house but only as a Vestry-house when they are to take the Parish Accompts unless there be a Sermon do hold that Sermoning active and passive preach'd and heard is the main matter of Religion
gifted as to speak in unknowntongues they should either be altogether silent or speak by one or two Interpreters and this is all they can make of these words as the words going before and after plainly demonstrate But to Ecclesiastical antiquity they have recourse next and from Justin Martyr they argue a Liberty to Priests to model the worship of God because he saith the place is known well enough that the President of the Assemblies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according as he is able prays But that this publick Officer was a Presbyter or Priest and not the Bishop himself is more than they can prove though it lyes upon them For I make no scruple to grant but it was free for the Bishop who is the highest power in the Church to alter several things in the form of worship and to make forms of Prayer according to the exigence of that Church he presided over but never was any such thing allowed to the Presbyter and no longer to the Bishop than a form of publick Worship was agreed to and received which we confess was not until the Gifts of Miracles were ceased and then not all at an instant but by degrees and by orderly consultation and good autority as occasion offered There might also be some Liberty even after such provision made for the solemn service of God by some presumptuous Priests taken to deviate from such Prescriptions but that ever it was left free to them to use or not to use the same or to add or detract from them no where appeareth The Council of Milevis in Affrica provideth by a Canon against such perhaps growing presumption but not then first made it absolutely unlawful as it is cited to that purpose by Sectaries And as for Tertullian who affirmeth it to have been the custom in Christian Apolog. ◠39. assemblies for certain persons to come forth and sing Hymns to God out of the Holy Scriptures or their own Wits I understand him rather of the Actions in the Agape or Love-Feasts which were wont to be distinct from and kept after the more solemn and proper Ecclesiastical service And in such cases spending the time religiously also it might be lawful for private men whether Ecclesiastical persons or otherwise for his words make no more for Priests than Laymen and upon that very ground can avail them but little that draw them to their Ministers only to show their Poetical Gifts whether extempore or premeditate no matter or mention is made in the praising God But finding in Philo Judaeus Philo Judaeus de Vita Contemplat a description of the Ascetical Jews which were mostly of the Sect of the Essens to have such practises amongst them also I make no doubt but such things might be first drawn from them as many ancient Ceremonies of the Christians were and that by the countenance of the Apostles themselves however simpler Zealots will scarce endure to hear so much and continued without prejudice to the more solemn and publick worship For scarce do the leading Sectaries pretend to such Gifts of the Spirit as should enable their wits to make Hymns extemporary or so much as bring in a new Psalm or Hymn into their Assemblies unknown or unheard of to the commoner sort Surely their modesty herein that they have not dared as yet to offer any new Sonnet though of praise and prayer to God to their people as they call them by vertue of this gift of the Spirit doth condemn their boldness in offering every day new prayers whereas there is the very same ground for the one as the other both in Antiquity and the Scriptures Tertullian speaks only of singing out of their own heads St. Paul speaks as expresly of singing as praying by the Spirit yet we hear nothing they have done to declare their spirituality in publick by way of singing or causing any thing of their own devising to be sung But surely singing is no less a duty then praying And if they find it difficult and inconvenient for the people to take the ditty so set by them from their mouths or hands and from thence infer that it is not necessary We reply That is as necessary and accordingly was ever practised in Churches that people should concur with the Priest in prayer too and therefore such ill-form'd forms as are made and used at the same time are not fit for solemn service because though they may be tacitly followed yet are they so ordered and invented that the common sort should have no more to do with them than they may with musical prayers and praises which in heart they may consent to but in act can only say Amen to as is permitted to the people in their extravagant prayers Would the one be scandalous to those of their Party so is the other actually offensive to us and therefore we desire to hear no more of such matters nor should they expect to find relaxation of Duties from those they are bound in Justice to obey before they remove such obstacles of communion with them to those that owe them nothing but charity and this principally in reducing them from such a fond admiration of themselves and gross infatuation of others by the colour of such false gifts It would be too long and tedious to take notice here of all their reasons against Set forms which are of two sorts the one General against All enjoyned forms the other against the English Liturgy in Particular Of this latter we shall speak least and not much of the former because we will take them at their word when they say they are not absolutely against Liturgies prescribed though we know they contradict themselves sufficiently Bishop Whitgift hath of old told them home of this their double dealing For in the Puritans Admonition they directly oppose all forms Cartwright Cartwrights Reply p. 105. Whitgifts Defens p 488 in his Reply to Whitgift endeavouring to bring them off says they explain themselves afterward But they are truly told that such their Explication is a meer retractation and contradiction all their arguments formerly being level'd directly against forms in General And to this day they are always at that game still until they be beaten off and then forsooth 't is only the Liturgies as ill-framed they complain of as Cartwright hath taught them to dissemble upon occasion and shuffle Nevertheless I hold it not amiss to transcribe here a Case of Conscience out of Mr. Perkins thus doubting Perkins Cases of Conscience l. 2. c. 6. Whether it be lawful when we pray to read a Set form of prayer Answer It is no sin This is better then nothing But a man may lawfully and with good conscience do it Reasons First the Psalms of David were delivered to the Church to be used and read in a Set form of words and yet the most of them are prayers Secondly To conceive a form of prayer requires gift of memory and knowledge utterance and the gifts
not Composito viz. before some one place be determined and dedicated especially to his worship and not after or from the contempt of Gods house or from dislike of the Publique worship or from admiration of our own Gifts and a delight to show them or lastly a design to breed a faction in private against the publique profession I know likewise and grant that several just Impediments there are to the publique service and in such Cases most necessary it is that Gods service should be performed within doors But it is not necessary that this should be performed as the affected manner is in a service quite distinct from the publique yea often quite contrary What men speak in prayer and spiritual devotion between God and their own souls privately they are the only proper judges of and Christian not Liberty only but piety requires they should so be But surely when Men speak before others as well as God and there is nothing so much as the Place which diversifies the worship in a Family from that in the Church that of the Church is most proper And not to say any thing of the Laity no Priest or Minister of our Church ought upon common occasions to officiate in Prayers in Private Families any otherwise than he is bound to do in Publique especially if they to whom he officiates and himself have not performed their duties in that manner before in Publique which when they have then only is the proper place for another free-will offering unprescribed I shall not here insist on the obligation all Priests have to recite their Office as I could but only give this general reason That every Priest is ordained of God by man as a constant intercessour between God and Man in behalf of the People and especially them of whom he hath a Pastoral charge and not only the nature of his Office but condition of his Benefice requires that this he doth constantly or daily twice the old rule being very reasonable viz. Beneficium requirit officium the temporal benefits received by the Clergy require spiritual office The first is daily and so should the second also be And this is no such innovation as the contrary that the Priest should have nothing to do but when he preaches or that he should pray and offer to God as liketh best every single Christian which is impossible and ridiculous and an intolerable presumption in any man to prescribe to their Minister how he should minister to them when he is lawfully prescribed his duty before and if he were not he ought to prescribe to others not of the same order with himself and not take Laws from them which is the corruptest and modernest of all Innovations But the Recitation of the Office by the Priest is a constitution of above a thousand years standing according Barthol Gavantus in Rubricam Brev. Tom. 2. Sect. 2. c. 5. Tit. 1. Compilatio Chronolog ad An. 490. to the account of them who set it Jowest Sigebert in his Chronicle affirmeth it began in the year 540 as Gavantus out of him But I find another Chronologer to place it in the year 490 saying Anastasius the fifty second Pope ordained that no Clergyman should omit his Divine Office the office of the Mass or Eucharist only excepted And therefore with excellent wisdom and advice it is in these words prescribed by the Church before the Liturgy All Priests and Deacons are to say daily the Morning and Evening Prayer either privately or openly not being let by sickness or some other urgent cause And surely as there is an Obligation upon Priests to use these prayers there must be implied an obligation in all the true sons of the Church to be present at them and to joyn with the Priest Which because it cannot be expected that all men well inclin'd should be always in a capacity to do the Priest doubtless may comply with the exigencies of others so it be not to the pre judice of the Publique And now considering also the many extraordinary days of Festivals and ordinary days of Fasting wherein especial obligation lies upon all Good Christians so far as they can without justifiable impediment to appear in the house of God and worship him not omitting their personal and private devotions at home and comparing the same with the practice of Puritans who are so strangely deluded with the great vertue of a Sermon and extemporary prayers at home that it goes quite against the hair if not conscience of them to visit Gods house upon the account of prayers and adoration only let it be fairly judged whether they have such cause to insult over our Religion and not be ashamed of their gross defects and dissonancy from all that ever professed Christianity before their days Will their bold pretences to Giftedness think they in their rare way of worship cover these foul blemishes from God when they do not from men But this upon the occasion of the contrary abuse of times in order to Religion wherein the Româ—n Church hath exceeded and departed from the practice of the Ancient Church which indeed had some other solemn times of worship before the fourth Century besides Sundays and Easter day but very Erasinus in Matth. 11. v. 30. Id. in Romanos cap. 14. 5. few Truly and learnedly saith Erasmus upon Matthew The Age of Hieromne knew very few Feasts except the Lords day And in another place he writes thus With the Jews some days were prophane and some days holy but with the Christians every day is equally this he speaks according to the sense of Origen not excepting the Lords day holy Not that Festivals are not to be observed which the holy Fathers instituted afterward to the more commodious assembling of Christian People and to the worship of God but that they were very few to wit The Lords day Easter and Pentecost and some such like reckoned up by Hieromne But I know not whether it be expedient to add Feast upon Feast especially since we see the manners of Christians to come to that pass that so much reason as there was of old to institute them for pieties sake so great seems there to be to antiquitate them Thus he And this hath been the opinion of the Church of England and the course taken in the Reforming the abuse in the number of them And a second abuse hath been pared off by us seen in the end of them which is rather to the honour of Saints than of God or Christ among Papists I know at the long run as we may so speak they ascribe in their doctrine all to God but not half of them have this sense and little or nothing many times comes from them but what is directed to the Saint they then worship Bishop Whitgift doth distinguish ours from theirs many ways This one shall suffice at present out of him Neither Whit gifts Answer to the admonition pag. 175. are they Holy days called by the name
There is no necessity of this and yet may be unlawful by vertue of that Precept For saith he nothing void of Reason is capable of adoration that is Veneration external nor worship that is Internal Veneration And when he saith If a man kiss the Crucifix without superstition he offendeth not but as the Case standeth now a dayes and as worship is described by Romish Authors and as they expound the definitions of their Councils upon this subject it cannot be done without superstition And himself seems to be of my mind in these words following That Images should be in Churches no human order requires And as it is easier it is safer also to take away all Images out of Churches than to prevail that no excess should be committed nor superstition mingled therewith And how dull and damnable superstition is constantly committed yea publiquely tolerated yea countenanced and encouraged in the use of Images I could easily and undeniably evidence were it my business For however I am not ignorant there is a warier and soberer sense given of the use of Images yet this is chiefly in the ears of such as will not be gained to them but by drawing the sense current of that Church with Azor. Instiâ— Mor. l. 9. c. 6. Thomas Sum. Par. 3. Quaest 25. artic 3. a fairer face but this we find in their writings It is the common opinion of Divines Imagines in eodem honore c. That the Image is to be worshipped and honoured with the same worship and honor wherewith the thing it self is to be worshipped And he that sayes this should know the mind of that Church as well as any other and the rather because he hath many of the same mind with himself Thomas the Great leading them But I had almost forgotten the mad or merry conceit of Baronius to Baron Ann. 34. §. 275. draw Image worship from Gods own institution He says God appointed the use of Images by Peters shadow whereby he cured sick persons I marvel much seeing such great use might be made of it that among so many rare and curious Reliques of Saints retrived or secured perpetually by the Church of Rome they could never happen upon a limb of the shadow of St. Peter whereby sick folk were cured to be shown for Images and worshipped For until that I shall not trouble my self to answer Baronius his argument for them and then I wil profess I cannot Now for the ancient use of Images it is certain out of St. Austin quoting Aug. Civit. Dei. Varro to that purpose that the Heathen Romans had no Images which they worshipped for the space of an hundred and seventy years and that Varro's opinion was that the Gods were more purely worshipped before the use of Images was introduced then afterwards And it is evident that until Origens dayes Christians made no religious use of Images And Origen cont Celsum l. 5. p. 255. l. 7. p. 374. See Fox Act Mon. Vol. 3. p 464. in Gregory the Great his dayes who commended Images in some sense they were prohibited and that by himself as objects of worship though not as helps which Bishop Latimer approved in this manner Images of Saints are called Saints and so are not to be worshipped taking worshipping of them for praying to them For they are neither Mediators by way of Redemption nor yet of Intercession And yet they may be well used when they may be applyed to that use they were first ordained for to be Laymens books for remembrance of heavenly things About the year 700 unto the year 800 of Christ many and bitter contentions arose amongst the Grecians concerning the use of Images then receiving another construction than former ages approved of Many turns happened for and against them till at length that ambitious and unnatural Beast Irene who put out her own son Constantines eyes for standing up for his right upon which he died and then to fortifie her self took in with the Popes Faction of the West and calling that numerous but sacrilegious Synod called the second of Nice concluded the point for ever â—fter and so grosly That Charles the Emperor in a Synod of the West-Bishops when the Popes Legates were also present condemned their decisions about Images Which hath so galled the greatest defenders of them that it is a pitiful thing to see what shifts and evasions directly false in themselves and contradictory one to another are invented by them The most current is that the Synod of Francfort mistook the meaning of them at Nice and this surely for no good end is received by some of the Reformation as Grotius who was the first that was not of that Church who could flatter the Church of Rome so far as to accept that answer for good Another of our Church of no less knowledg in divinity hath since him I cannot say from him owned that excuse but by their leaves upon very ill advice and no sufficient grounds at all as I could make appear but there needs nothing more though much more might be said than the Incredibleness of the thing it self that so many of them should not be able to understand the meaning of that Synod of Nice which spake plain enough that they worshipped the Image not for its own matter and form but for its sake which it represented But neither did this Synod decree so grosly as is commonly taught and practised by the Church of Rome which though diverse in it of late dayes do condemn for Idolatrous in that point some of late among us would have spared for no other reason than that by all means and as it should seem in all senses they must be maintained a true Church the latter of which is as stoutly denyed as affirmed and more easily proved And that from another head viz. Their opinion and use of Reliques Concerning which We as Dr. Rainolds hath observed all agree that honor Rainold de Roman Eccles Idolat l. 1 c. 9. §. 1. is due unto the bodies of Saints yea even the Calvinists and this especially in decent interrment of them And upon certain and well grounded information of any Relique of Saints or Martyrs Body sound with all civil respect we commit it to its proper place or reserve it in much esteem But what that esteem ought to be may be and much is controverted This the Church of Rome saith conformable to their doctrine of Images that the supposed Parts of Saints are no less to be worshipped then the Saints to whom they belong and that any Part of Christs garment and especially his Cross is capable of divine worship as that which received we know not what divine vertue from thence And lastly that the blood of Christ shown in many places and believed to be such is to be adored with the same worship that Christ himself is And here we may convict them of flat Idolatry out of their own confessions supposing this to be Idolatry
to them not only because it is a Liturgy prescribed but because it is too long and painful or that which prayes what it pleases and as long and short as it pleases and with what lazy crude matter it pleases never more troubling themselves or being sollicitous what or how they shall pray extemporary than he is or needs be that reads all out of the book And surely it is less trouble thus to pray without book than with it to any man that will give his mind to it or will boldly enough offer at it And for their Sermons what have they in them to commend them for elaborate or the Speaker of them for laborious Have they not fallen into admiration of one kind of order and method in preaching and which with so much Superstition they cleave to as neither to care nor dare to vary that half their Sermons are made before they begin For the Form they have constantly by them and that shall serve for all texts and occasions whatever and that brings the matter in naturally almost and so neither their invention nor memory are so pained or hard put to it that they should need to boast much of their painful Preaching Surely then it must be their preaching twice a day that they have to trust to for being accounted deservedly painful Preachers But if we consider how they that preach twice spread and beat out their metal and so slip it into two pieces we shall perceive we have but two Six pences for a Shilling which may make more noise and number but weigh no more than one And in truth upon tryal considering likewise what constant Repetitions and Introductions they make to their second Sermon it will be found that to pass to a new subject on Afternoons by Catechizing and treating for half an hour on the principal heads of Christian doctrine and worship as it is more profitable and to the edification of the Generality who are not puff'd up in their fleshly mind with the name of preaching and the place from whence it comes the Pulpit which is their High Altar so is it more difficult to the Performer of it Now these things being so that there is as much work cut out by order of the Church for Ministers to finish as ordinarily one mans strength of Body and Spirit can go through with not prejudicing the health of him which God no ways requires how spiteful and groundless is that charge viz. That we have a lazy Ministry which they promise to out do when they are uppermost If these Rules and Prescriptions of the Church which will certainly keep him from Idleness that observes them more than their Discipline will be not practised as becometh themselves that accuse are in fault chiefly who have shamefully traduced and opposed the same and to gratifie whom negligence hath been countenanced too far in these things And so are they whoever they be that can content themselves with the titles dignitys and profits of Governors of the Church and withdraw themselves from their bounden duty and service to it in seeing better execution done I know their Apology is the strong hand of the Adversary opposing their endeavors in that behalf which would have justifyed and vindicated them much more than now it doth if they had not given evidence of their little sincerity and zeal for Religion in those things which were free and easie for them to do and for which they might have thanks on all sides But Prudence forsooth hath been so infinitely cryed up and magnified and that consisting chiefly in doing nothing and offending no body but God Almighty that Piety and zeal are no better then incivility and Pragmatiqueness the Rule most sacredly observed by them being this We do not do it therefore it ought not or need not be done And thus while we are doubting what Government we should have and how we should be ruled are we made subject to the Triumvirate of Pride Folly and Laziness nothing being done without their consent and approbation But this belongs more properly to the next place CHAP. XVII The Fifth General head wherein the Exercise of the Worship of God doth consist Obedience That Obedience is the end of the Law and Gospel both That the service of God principally consisteth therein Of Obedience to God and the Church The Reasons and Necessity of Obedience to our Spiritual as well as Civil Governors The frivolous cavills of Sectaries noted The Severity of the ancient and latter Greek Church in requiring Obedience The Folly of Pretenders to Obedience to the Church and wilfully slight her Canons and Laws more material than are Ceremonies THE Third and last General head wherein consisteth the proper worship of God is Obedience The distinction of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristot the Philosopher of Practise into Acts and Facts holdeth very good in Religion as well as Nature or Morality For besides the Contemplative part which imploies it self in the knowledg and consideration of the doctrine of Faith there must of necessity be a Practical or Operative Part which is the end of the former as is apparent out of holy Scriptures as well as books of Philosophers For we read in Deuteronomy how that Obedience was the end of the Deut. 4. 5. Commandments given to the Israelites Behold I have taught you Statutes and judgments even as the Lord my God commanded me that ye should do so in the Land whither ye go to possess it Keep therefore and do them for this 6. is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of all Nations And in the beginning of the fifth Chapter propounding the Law and Commandements given them by God it followeth That thou mightest fear the Lord Chap. 6. 1 2. thy God and keep all his Statutes and Commandements which I command thee Thou and thy Son and thy Sons Son all the dayes of thy life and that thy dayes may be prolonged Hear therefore O Israel and observe to do it that it may be well with thee Which condition and injunction is constantly annexed unto the Promises of Life and Salvation in the Gospel We read indeed frequently of being justifyed by Faith and saved by Faith and in what sense we have explained in its proper place viz. as it implies the works and fruits of Faith together with the acts of believing and no otherwise which is plainly affirmed by the Apostle to the Hebrews speaking Heb. 5. 9. of Christ our High Priest who being made perfect he became the author of Salvation to all them that obey him Sometimes Obedience is in Scripture put for believing it self because Faith is a principal act of the will bowing and yielding to God assent as in the Acts of the Apostles We are his witnesses of these things and so is also the Holy Ghost whom God Acts. 5. 32. hath given to them that obey him That is surely to them that did believe that testimony
assaults by such arguments as above said are disown'd and rejected as inconsistent with all Order in Christs Church and more severe exactions of obedience maintained than they groaned under before Then are these texts of force which otherwise signifie nothing or are eluded with a sigh a wry look sad complaint and a profession that they would submit but that their Consciences will not suffer them their consciences being so stated as never to accept of any Rule but their own Christ saith He that heareth you heareth me and he that heareth me heareth him that sent Heb. 13. 17. me And to the Hebrews Obey them that have the Rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls as they that must give an account c. And our Saviour Christ in St. Matthew alloweth so much uncharitableness if we may so call it and not justice rather to them that shall not hear the Church which is certainly to stand to the determinations of the Church as to number them among Publicans and Heathens Mat. 18. 17. And this obedience is much illustrated by that required in civil Matters in the Scriptures Children obey your Parents in the Lord saith St. Paul And honor your Father and Mother saith the Decalogue which the Ephes 5. 1. greatest opposers of obedience in practise cannot choose in their expositions of that commandement to extend to Civil and Ecclesiastical as well as Natural Parents And St. Paul to the Colossians saith farther Children obey your Parents in all things And Servants obey your Masters in all things But the misery and mischief is that what St. Paul in his sixth Chapter to the Ephesians v. 1. used and intended as an argument to induce Col. 3. 20 21. men to obedience is with wonted boldness and violence perverted against obedience St. Paul saith Obey in the Lord that is for Gods sake and because God doth more require this of Christians as they have greater and sounder knowledg of God than have other men For thus St. Peters words corresponding with St. Pauls advise Submit your selves to 1 Pet. 2. 13. every ordinance of man for the Lordssake that is as we have shewed before Humane Creature in authority by God And the reason hereof is rendred presently after For so is the will of God These obligations 15. and enforcements of this duty of obedience are from this Restriction they are pleased to understand here In the Lord and for Gods sake quite nulled and baffled to nothing For every thing that comes into their mind contrarying the degrees and commands of their Superiors are presently made Canonical Scripture with them and so an absolute dispensation from all obligatoriness as to their persons at least of the Precepts of their Superiors And whereas we have heard the Law of God so general and express for honouring and obeying our Governors that very rarely and then only upon very weighty Causes and Grounds a good Christian fearing to displease God in one law of his as well as another would scruple nothing more than disobedience Now innumerable and those most empty and frivolous exceptions are framed to our selves for the qualifying us for disobedience For what can be more monstrous and ridiculous at the same time than when we are pressed so hard with the innocency at least of the thing lawfully required which was ever looked upon as sufficient ground of Obedience to lawful Powers that we have no more to oppose we shelter our selves under this umbrage My mind and conscience is set against it though it cannot be said why but only So it is therefore I cannot do it and therefore you may look for subjection and obedience where you can get it which is just no where and in nothing if this be good reason or religion But there is much worse and unbeseeming a tollerable heathen behind which out of Principles of disorder ruine and confusion professes that no Obedience is due to Ecclesiastical Superiors in such things as you cannot bring proofs of Scripture that God requires them So that they will obey God and who but they with a vengeance but man not at all For if you bring Scripture for what you require and they cannot pick a hole in it nor evade it which were very strange and unheard of in these dayes then they will most freely submit and obey but not you notwithstanding but God who requires it But if you come only with the general Rules and Precepts of Obedience and argue from the Power God hath given those in authority to order and dispose all things extrinsecal to the Faith for the more uniform and charitable walking with God in doctrine and worship then think they themselves absolved from any duty but that of resisting such attempts upon them And which was never in the heart of any Heathen Heretique or Schismatique before late dayes and much less in the mouth a Principle directly contrary to nature as well as Grace is wickedly taken up and impudently professed That because a thing is commanded and that by their lawful Superiors they must not do it otherwise possibly they might and would And now is the matter no longer a Mystery of iniquity but such Impudency as though the Devil be not ashamed to put these men upon such unnatural and un-Christian dogms yet I question whether he would not blush to profess so much himself openly For surely to him that hath any fear of God or reverence to men this is and ought to be a firm and constant principle To obey all that are in authority over him not usurping that Power in all things which are not expresly contrary to the word of God And the questions wherein these mens Religion and learning lye chiefly are quite from the purpose when to withdraw obedience they ask Whether such a thing is necessary to Salvation or not which is required thinking they are free if it be answered No. For though the thing it self be not necessary to Salvation the obedience may And disobedience may certainly damn those whom in such Cases Obedience would not certainly save Again we see no reason to lay aside that excellent and ancient distinction of things necessary and profitable to Salvation or if not absolutely to Salvation to Charity and Edification mentioned by Ivo Carnotensis And even these are to be observed and Vid. Ivonem Caâ—not Praef. ad Decret that for their own sake and Churches sake requiring them as well as the others though not in the same degree of obedience or necessity It is received as part of the Greek Churches Canon-Law what Nicephorus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Juris Graec. Rom. l. 5. P. 344. answered to the demand of Theodosius a Monk objecting that men generally could not endure so much as to hear of the Canonical Precepts of the Church This ill becomes your Vertue For they who will not admit of such are no wayes of the Party of Christians And it was of old
the opinion of Tertullian They who tranâ—gress the Rule of Discipline cease to be reckoned among Christians And as Clemens Alexandrinus saith As it behoveth a person of Equity to falsifie in nothing and to go back from Qui excedunt dâ— Reculâ— disciplinâ— dâ—sinunt hâ—berâ— Christiani Tertul. Clem. Alex. Strom. 7. p. 753 764. nothing that he hath promised although others should break Covenants so it becometh us to transgress the Ecclesiastical Canon in no manner And to convince any man of conscience or fear of God of this Balsamon's reasons may suffice demonstrating a greater reverence and respect to be due to the Constitutions of the Church than to the Laws of the State For saith he the Canons being explained and confirmed by Kings and Holy Fathers are received as the Scriptures But the Laws of the State were received and established by Kings alone and therefore do not prevail against See Photius's Nomocanon Tit. 1. c. 2. cum Palsamone p. 817 818. the Scriptures nor the Canons And this I rather instance in from the Greek than Latin Church because the ignorant and loud clamors of Sectaries have had nothing more to alledg against the Sacredness of Ecclesiastical Constitutions than that which serves their turns in all things Popishness of Canonical Obedience But may they judg what they please according as design and interest sway them this we constantly and confidently affirm that whoever despises the Rules of of Obedience and Laws of the Church cannot rise higher in that Part of Christian Religion which we call Worship of God than may meer Moral men Because that which chiefly distinguishes good Christians from good honest Heathens next to the doctrine of Faith is proportionable Obedience as well to those God hath substituted under him to ordain things omitted in the Scriptures for the security of the Faith regulating devotion and worship and peace of the Church none of which can long subsist without such a Power acknowledged and obeyed in the Governors of the Church And this â—pparently is at the bottom of the deceitful pretences of Christian Liberty and Conscience for disobedience of them who are designed thereby to ruine and overthrow as matter of fact hath demonstrated But it is not only the Puritans intollerable dogms against obedience but the contrary practise of no small persons of place and esteem in the Church who can heartily and with zeal even to indignation prosecute Sectaries inconformity to the Discipline and Rites of the Church glorying and boasting that they are Sons of the Church and yet do more mischief to the Church by their ill govern'd persons as to common honesty sobriety and gravity and more advance and bring into credit and reputation the enemies of the Church than all their fair and fallacious pretences could otherwise possibly do If such persons who have not attained to common Moral prudence or Philosophy bear such kindness as they flourish with to the Church let them shew it as that lewd Fellow in the Athenian Senate was advised who notwithstanding his vitious life had somewhat very beneficial to the Common-wealth to propound in the Senate and commend it by the mouth of another For what can be more absurd and ridiculous than for any such person to profess esteem to that Church which condemns him more than any other Society And whereas it supposes as a foundation natural justice continence and temperance and the like moral vertues to the divine Precepts and Institutions of Perfection what may turn the stomach and raise laughter more at a man then for such an one to discover his offense at an unceremonious Puritane the matter of whose Crime is nothing comparable to his If thou beest a Christian saith a holy Father either speak as thou livest or live as thou speakest What evil spirit hath set thee on first to abuse thy self with scandalous practises and then the Church by taking Sanctuary in it Can stupidity so far accompany vice as first to break the known and common Laws and Rules of good conversation which is affront enough to the Church and then to add to that affront by professing a special duty to that which thereby is destroyed There is no Sect or Schism whose Orders and Laws of Christian walking with God can be compared with those of the Church of England there being nothing amongst them besides Faith which an Heathen may not do that never heard of Christian Perfection accounting nothing needful to be done nothing unlawful to them which is not punishable by the Law of man or against the light of nature Christ they say hath purchased for them a liberty to do what they please in eating drinking sleepping and other matters so that they wrong not their own bodies nor injure their Neighbors And shall there be that protect themselves under this Churches shelter in such light loose foolish and vitious courses to the degrading of it beneath her inferiors Is this to be sons of the Church and not only so but to brag that such they are in open hostility to it I confess notwithstanding all this in comparing the enemies to the true Faith together we are to distinguish between the doers of evil simply and the teachers of men so to do And that though drunkenness and uncleaness be greater sins by far in their nature than is dissent from a ceremony or Rite not necessary in its nature Yet for any man with a spirit of opposition and contention to take upon him to declare against such an unnecessary order and teach men against the unity and peace of the Church otherwise than becomes him is no less criminal in the consequence before God yea probably much more than those other more scandalous before men and will more endanger his Soul But concerning such persons as are in profession really Sons and perhaps Fathers of the Church and yet wilfully and studiously violate the Laws Constitutions Rubricks or Canons of it no necessity compelling them no reason being to be alledged defending them but what is taken from their ease which otherwise would be much interrupted or their benefit and profit which would be much hindred I leave their own hearts and Consciences to condemn them until God himself doth which certainly without repentance he will and that out of their own consciences and mouths their consciences which witness that these are the true causes of their negligence and contempt of their Duty in their proper stations and their mouths and professions in that they pretend obedience and are much offended at the disobedience of Puritans as if God and the Church would be sufficiently satisfied with their Anger against them while they themselves regard it no farther than is for their turn Two vulgar apologies I shall here take notice of only For as for that which is also commonly said that evil times hinder them from their duty I shall say no more but humbly advise them to deal sincerely with God and their own consciences in such cases
to be cordially addicted to the Good of the Church or Glory of God would use more civility and common Ingenuity if not conscience towards both then purposely and industriously to involve and cumber themselves with multiplicities of inconsisting Cares and Cures and then use it as sufficient excuse for their ill discharge of their Duty in all or most of them That they have so many occasions as that they cannot attend on them all as they confess they should and say they would For this is plainly to mock God and the Church too But experience proveth this to be too true that they who are most engaged in multitude of imploiments or charges seldom perform so much service to all of them put together as he that hath but one single Charge doth to it alone Chap. XVIII Of Obedience to the Church in Particular in the Five Precepts of the Church common to all viz. 1. Observation of Festival Dayes 2. Observation of the Fasts of the Church Of the Times Manner and Grounds of them Exceptions against them answered 3. Of the Customs and Ceremonies of the Church 4. Frequentation of the Publick Worship 5. Frequent Communicating and the due preparation thereunto IT was well said by a Reverend Person of our Church even where he argues against the blind obedience of the Roman Church Certainly Donnes Pseudomartyrs chap. 6. p. 180. the inestimable benefits which we receive from the Church who feeds us with the Word and Sacraments deserves from us an humble acknowledgment and obedient confidence in her yea it is spiritual treason not to obey her And though I dare not say with Catharinus against Cajetan The In eâ—dem gradu habenda sunt pracepta Ecclesiae si bona sunt quo ipsius Dei quoad hoc quod similiter ligant c. Catharinus Annotatin Com. Cajet lib. 2. Precepts of the Church are to be received with the same degree of honor yet I may say with as real reverence as the Precepts of God if they be good thus far that they both bind alike under pain of eternal damnation So that there could scarce any doctrine be devised more pestilent to the Church or pernicious to the souls of Men then that which infuses into mens heads to obey the Church as little as they can possibly without danger from the Civil Magistrate or express and particular violation of some text of Holy Writ alwayes excepted that more then Antichristian Dogme That men should refuse to do any thing enjoyned by any lawful Authority because it is commanded least forsooth their Christian liberties should be invaded But Bernard was certainly a much better Christian in this subject then these men to whom none in their own opinions are to be compared who tells us Whatever of Obedience is yielded unto them that are set over us is given Bernard de Virtute Obedientiae unto him who saith He that heareth you heareth me c. especially when the things so injoyned tend so directly to the service of God as doth those particularly commended unto our practise by our Church against which the Adversaries arguments are taken from the general quarrel they have against such Governours whom they would not have to rule at all but come under them or from the things themselves which they give out are against the Word of God because against their Negative Superstitions When we therefore propound to them and all faithful servants of God and true obedient and humble children of the Church the Five Precepts of the Church we suppose them to whom they are directed to be free from the leven and infection of Schism and Stubbornness we suppose them to be bred and educated in the bosome of the Church and to have no other Fathers in Christ than the Fathers of the Church For when they have made defection from that body of which they are or were Members either in heart and affections or outward declaration against it then no wonder if a thousand malicious reasons be at hand to enervate the commands upon them and defie all Authority But they who hold to their sound profession and have any honour for their spiritual Parents as well as natural or respect 〈◊〉 the Fifth Commandment which themselves generally interpret to extend to Religious as well as Moral Obedience and Offices whose interest will not suffer them to observe it cannot boggle at the reasonable use of Power in requiring such things nor at the Piety of the Precepts themselves Now the Five Precepts of the Church are these which have been with long continuance as to time and with great conscience as to all good Christians observed drawn out of our Liturgy by the Authour of the Collection Church Calendar of Private Devotions or Hours of Prayers First to observe the Festival or Holydayes appointed Of the reasâ—nabless whereof we have before spoken The manner of keeping them is by suspending all humane businesses wherein Justice and Mercy which are to be preferred before Sacrifice do not principally consist inconsistent with that due service of God on that day celebrated It is plain that before distinction of days set apart in special manner to the praise of God which we now call Holidayes there was a daily publick worship solemnly used by the Church and Christians held themselves bound to be present at the same For Origen upon Leviticus affirms That to Christians every day was an Holiday and Festival And to Chrys To. 5. Serin 88. p. 602 603. the same purpose St. Chrysostome in whose age the special Memory of Saints was frequent saith that Every day is a Feast to a Christian And out of Austin and others it is manifest that there was wont to have been a daily communication by Christians of the Eucharist But this so solemn and constant attendance on Gods worship ill agreeing with mens daily civil imployments it was the wisdom and piety of the Church to restrain the more solemn Service of God to some special days which was signalized with the memory of Christ or his eminent Servants and Saints So that if Sectaries would but keep to the grounds of Christianity rather than natural Policie and Interest they might find the contrary to that Calumny against the Church viz. That it restrains men in their callings For the Church hath rather made a Relaxation and Indulgence to men in order to their worldly affairs than laid any new restraints upon them in that it hath much lessened the number of Festivals to what they were twelve or thirteen hundred years ago and much more in the later days of the Roman Church It is a gross and prophane Errour of modern Sectaries to imagine that there is no obligation upon Christian people to repair to the house of God every day whether to publick or private Devotion as we have said before but much greater to imagine that the obligation is not yet stronger when the Authority of the Church determines the time and place though
Christians to such sort of Meats as are now allowed For it was rather her act of Grace and Lenity to remit the one half of that ancient Severity commonly submitted unto in the earlier days of Christian Religion And who but ignorant and ill natur'd and nurtur'd children could turn her Lenity into Tyranny and make her curtesie a matter of calumny Nay which hath more disingenuity and absurdity while they fret and complain grievously that the Yoke as it is lyes too heavy upon them and presses them too hard to invert their spite and malice against it by arguing from the lightness and contemptibleness of such Fastings as consists only in abstinence from flesh saying It is no Fast which abstains not absolutely from all Meat This were indeed somewhat to the purpose if so be that the Church did at the same time command any man to eat fish or so much as hearbs or bread when she forbids flesh to be eaten Or that they who were able and did wholly abstain from Meats at such seasons did not more fulfill the intention of the Church then they who took the liberty left them of eating in some manner What temper and spirit do these men discover to themselves to be of who are alwayes in readiness to charge their Superiours either with folly or tyranny or impiety upon the same occasion and never been able to prove any one them Scotus and Biel Scotus lib. 4. Distinct 8. Biel Lect. 8. in Canon Missae after him distinguish of a Fast of Nature which is a total abstinence from all eating and drinking and of a Fast of the Church when a man eats but once a day and that according to the precept and mind of the Church Now if the Church hath invented a favourable distinction and sense to gratifie murmurers at the rigour of her Laws do they not requite her ingenuously who turn that also to her reproach Nay if another distinction be found which makes a Fast a Toto a Tanto and a Tali from the Whole from the Quantity and from the Quality of the Meats eaten hereby willing to condescend and bring down her Rules so low that all men may have somewhat to exercise themselves in according to their ability in the graces of Abstinence and Obedience who but such whose Religion impels them to be the worse for good usage and resolve to hear of nothing but their own inventions would clamour against their Governours for such moderation But when they are disappointed in their arguments and expectations to reduce all men and things to their own model their last Effort is to humble this kind of Fasting into a civil Constitution only and for a civil End according as an Act of Parliament misconstrued as hath more plainly and fully been declared by others hath misled them conceiving that the Fastings of our Church tend only to the encrease of Navigation or are intended for the good of beasts not of men But what hinders that the Church may have one end in her decrees and the Common-wealth another and that which the Church designed for the exercise of Christian vertues may be embraced by Secular Politicians to promote Secular benefits to the Publick Nothing is so manifest to him that knows any thing in Church History as that such a reason was never dreamt of by the Propounders of such Fastings in our Church nor in any part of the Christian world before that Act. And if the words of that Act were intended for an ease to the tender Consciences as those of dissenters are mis-called and to draw them by little and little upon consideration of Civil ends which they less hated than the Ecclesiastical to some good order and submission this is not to be drawn to a perpetual Rule nor made the only universal end of such a Constitution For the Church still keeps to the most ancient and general sense received amongst Christians A third Precept of the Church is The Observation of the Ecclesiastical Canon 6. Preface of Ceremonies c. Customs and Ceremonies of the Church and that without frowardness and contradiction as appears from her Canons and the Preface before the Common-Prayer Of which obligation that which we have before spoken of the Power of the Church and even now of Fasting may here be applyed and suffice A fourth Precept is Constantly to repair to the Publick Service of the Preface to the Book of Common-Prayer Church for Mattens and Evening Song with other holy Offices at times appointed unless there be a just and unfeigned cause to the contrary And this we have before also treated of extending it to the worship of God in his House especially when there is an assembly of Christian people together to that purpose though there be no Sermon and also to the humbling a mans self and putting up his private Devotions there alone when occasion and opportunity shall be offered so to do according to the most ancient and godly custom of good Christians ever since there were Temples built for Gods Service For the disuse of which excellent acts not the least reason hath been or can be alledged by those that would be thought to be the only Rule of Reformation which we have not sufficiently refuted before Lastly To receive the blessed Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ Second Exhortation to be read before the Communion with frequent Devotion but at least Thrice a year whereof Easter is to be one And in order hereunto as occasion shall be to open our souls by due Confession and disburden and quiet our troubled Consciences by some learned and discreet Minister of God from whom Ghostly counsel and comfort may be received with the benefit of Absolution Of the use of which we have also before spoken where we shewed that such Confession was not of such absolute Divine Right either of Precept or Means that Salvation could not be otherwise obtain'd but as an Ecclesiastical Expedient very effectual as well for the bringing Impenitent sinners to repentance as for the due restoring of them that are Penitent to a comfortable assurance of Gods favour towards them and direction and encouragement in holy living which the foul abuses in those Churches where it is excessively magnified should by no means abolish For besides them above noted doubtless it is no mean abuse to make that which undoubtedly should be an act of Judgment in Gods Minister discerning between the hopeful state of some and desperate of others and accordingly suspending or applying the Free Grace of the Gospel and the Power left by Christ to his Church an act of custom formality and course or perhaps common civility which kind of rashness and profuseness the ancient Churches were altogether ignorant of When grievous offenders against God and the Church had fallen justly under the censures of the Church it was permitted to absolve them at the point of death so far as concerned their restitution to the Communion of
to do another a mischief must he necessarily speak conformably or do conformably and make good his bad intentions If a man intends to do one a kindness and give him an estate may he not carry himself towards him and all others as if he never intended any such thing But it may be he would restrain this to positive Speeches and Acts which he would have alwayes conformable to inward conceptions And so they are when a man intends to deceive and doth deceive But that the general appearances must conform to the reality of the Intention his own concessions above-noted will not admit It is true therefore only when it is justly required And this suffices to cut the throat of all as they are now called deservedly Jesuitical Aequivocations and Mental Reservations and External dissimulations viz. because none of their real or pretended Superiours can give them any power not to answer according to the serious intention and expectation of legal Enquirers and legal Enquirers they are who have legal Authority in that Nation Again unless their Superiours can give them power of Life and Death as it is an opinion amongst them they may especially the Pope over free Princes and their Subjects they can give them no power to deceive by positive acts or words lawful Powers contrary to the common and received sense and meaning of Enquiries and Answers Thirdly neither of a mans self nor by any Civil Authority how great or good soever nor upon any Case how important soever can a man lawfully use the Name of God in attestation of what is false or confirmation of what his Conscience and Judgment assures him is otherwise than he declares it to be Neither can any man give instance that God ever permitted it or any good or holy man in Scripture presumed to do so And therefore oequivocation in any oaths whether lawfully or unlawfully administred is directly unlawful and to be detested of all men as it is of God The Vertue then which this Commandment requires in opposition to bearing false witness is first a love and veneration of Truth as the sacred daughter of God himself and that in all things and at all times not excepted but more especially Authority and publick Justice requiring it The Inducements hereunto abbreviated Perkins hath collected thus to my hands in the forementioned place 1. Gods command James 3. 14. 2. Lying is a conformity to the Devil 3. We are sanctified by the word of truth John 17. 17. 4. Truth is a Fruit of Gods Spirit Galat. 5. A mark of Gods children Psalm 32. 2. and 15. 2. 5. Destruction is the reward of a Lyar Psal 5. 6. And thus far of the Ninth Commandment The Tenth is Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours house Thou shalt not covet § X. thy neighbours wife nor his servant nor his maid nor his Ox nor his Ass nor any thing that is his Which the modern Roman Church having carefully turned the second out of doors as a quarrelsome and troublesome companion are necessitated to divide into two to make up the compleat number of Ten For which fact they have no ground but St. Austin and them who precisely followed him But none of these or any ancient proceeded on their grounds viz. because the Second Commandment gave offence Now seeing many more in number and antiquity have otherwise than Austin considered this Commandment as one entirely The Reasons why they so judge of it are worth enquiring For some eminently learned among them especially in the Scriptures have declared expresly against it as Oleaster and Mercerus Petrus Galatinus inclining that way as Buxtorf hath observed Buxtorf de Decal num 74. 59. And as a little before he hath noted the Jewish Doctours who are to sway much in this Case unless the Papists please to distinguish the Decalogue as they have audaciously the Canon of the Scriptures of the Old Testament into Jewish and Christian or Ecclesiastical have unanimously conspired to make this but one Commandment Aben Ezra and Abarbenel mentions indeed such an opinion as the Roman Church maintains but rejects the same as a very fond and vain conceit And the like may be said Estius in Sentent l. 3. Dist 40. §. 3. of Estius his answers and evasions of the reasons on our side which are First That the object of the sin here forbidden is not to distinguish the Command so much as the Act Concupiscence of the mind or heart united in one because then we should have more than two One prohibiting lusting after another mans wife another lusting after his Servants another lusting or coveting his cattle and a fourth his possessions and moveables But St. Paul speaking of this Concupiscence maketh it but one where he Rom. 7. saith I had not known lust except the Law had said Thou shalt not covet The other Precepts therefore having provided against the Acts outward of sin This in the Conclusion goeth as it were over all of them again and interdicteth all inward motions towards any of the sins before forbidden To say therefore with Estius St. Paul saith Thou shalt not lust is as much as if a man should say Thou shalt love which doth not make all the Commandments but one is very idle seeing the word Lust is there taken in an evil sense and may reasonably extend to all the Negative precepts at least as Love doth concern them all and is the sum of the Decalogue But we find no such particular Precept as Love indefinitely taken And besides we are not so much to enquire after matter of Right what might be or ought to be but of fact what is And to collect what is done we are not so much to consult the holy Writ of the New Testament which uses no precise or determinate speech in reference to the number or order of these Commandments but the thing it self which ever amongst the Jews was thus distinguished as we do and generally the Greek Church and the Latin likewise until Austin's dayes And it is certain the Holy Spirit here doth not affect Logical Divisions or Rhetorical Partitions or Methods but delivers things grosly to a rude people inculcating the same thing under diverse forms of speech For according to one of the Rules of expounding the Decalogue viz. That where the outward act is forbidden the inward act is also forbidden and where the Effect there the Cause is also forbidden this should rather seem to be none other Precept than what went before in the seventh and eighth Commandments forbidding Adultery and Theft and by Implication the inward acts of Lusting after the Persons or Possessions of others For that is the beginning and cause of those outward Effects and scandalous sins Another Reason for the entireness of that we call the Tenth Commandment is the order observed in Exodus where Lusting after our Neighbours House is set before Lusting after his Wife or other Persons and then again follow his Goods which shows that
answer by demanding Why they shorten and straiten Christian Liberty naturally stretching it self to the Positive as well as the Negative part of our Religious Acts This seems to me to be both Sacrilegious and Superstitious too And why they make it shorter then Jesus Christ hath made it But I return to a second Instance of precise Superstition by the same Author defended That it is unlawful to salute with a kiss a Matron at first meeting her or departing from her because it is the foretaste of Lust yea to kiss is a very ill custom And so after the English fashion to salute all women they meet with Thus the superstitious Precisian not distinguishing between a thing contrary to a sober mans Judgment and his Conscience Whatever is indecent or unprofitable may be against the Judgment of a sober man but it is not therefore against his Conscience for only that can be said to be against Conscience which either is or appears at least to be morally evil Doubtless a grave and sober person may abhor the endless and witless fashions refuse to follow them but not out out of conscience because they are of themselves unlawful but because vain useless indecent and perhaps incommodious and so out of judgment and if the consequents be apparently evil I shall conclude all with one instance more of the Superstition of Sectaries the great cryers out against Superstition taken from Thomas Cartwright They commonly describe Superstition to be a rigorous exacting that at the hands of Christians which is not necessary to be done which is likewise to take away Christian Liberty according to their estimation And with this Querie they suppose they come up so close to you as you shall not be able to deliver your self out of their hands Is it which you require necessary to Salvation If it be answered No then again they come upon you with another expostulation Why then do you enjoyn it Hath not God left us many and those difficult Laws and Precepts and do you make the way to heaven more strait and the yoke of Christ more heavy by multiplying Superstitious Inventions To the latter part we have already made answer in effect denying absolutely what is taken here for granted that by such moderate Ceremonies both for number and nature as are of force and in use in our Church fewer and clearer than any Church of Christ hath used for twelve hundred years before the Reformation lately made the way to heaven is not at all straitned or stopped or the Precepts of God rendred more difficult and burdensome and not rather more light and easie to be observed and the truly labouring Christian helped and defended by them in his rode to heaven but where ignorant heads and evil tongues have cast infinite snares and horrible stumbling blocks in their way and so it is not the superstitious Ceremonies but the Enemies to such Ceremonies which have no other Superstition in them but what they have with much study and art and ill will we thank them devised and traduced all things not of their own invention yet double guilt with the glorious pretexts of Gods Word and pure Spiritual Worship which if you chance to be so profane and incredulous as to call in question and bring to the Touch you spoil all presently Again farther it is as necessary to Salvation as abstaining from notorious sins can make it to obey those that are over us in the Lord in all things against which no more but general and foul language which are solid and godly proofs with the vulgar can be brought nor hath been But to come to our intended Instance Are all things not necessary to Salvation not only superstuous but superstitious What will these Objectours answer to Baptism of Infants which many of them I here aim at do hold useful indeed and profitable but not necessary to Salvation or to exempt from the pains of damnation yet they are due observers of it They say there is a special Precept of God for the same and therefore perhaps though the thing be not of it self so necessary it may become necessary by vertue of such a Precept Granting all this liberally which if we would contend with them we might put them harder to it than they will be known of But where will they find any such direct or positive Precept that these Infants ought to be brought necessarily to Church and be baptized in the publick Congregation We commend their zeal and much approve their resolution so to have Baptism administred that seeing one end of it is to enter and as it were matriculate them into Christs Visible as well as Invisible Body the Church assembled they severely require this But if nothing can be needful which is not absolutely necessary and nothing so expedient as to be commanded by Man which God hath not before required who can without trembling read their horrible Superstition who under such grievous Obligations endeavour to enforce this as Cartwright doth in these words And I will farther say that Cartwright against Whitgift page 14. though the Infants which dye without Baptism should be assuredly damned yet ought not the order which God hath set in his Church Publick Baptism be broken after this sort Now that the Order which he calls indeed Gods is but the Order of the Assemblies so decreeing is manifest from the impossibility of proving this out of Scripture and the easiness of proving the contrary out of Reason thus from his own speech For is it possible for any man to conceive that God should require any thing of any man the observing of which should damn him He therefore that supposes that the Infant or any other person to be baptized must by Gods severe command be brought to Church to be baptized if he be baptized at all cannot so much as suppose that God will damn him for not being baptized at home in private But this is here supposed by him though I know not granted that a child may be damned for want of baptism and yet this child must no where be baptized but in the solemnities of a Congregation What is Tyranny and Superstition in the height if this be not What is it to advance humane Constitutions and Orders to an equality with Divine Precepts if this be not to suffer a poor soul to be damn'd rather than the Orders of their Church should be broken and to threaten and terrifie with damnation them that shall observe conscienciously the Orders of other Churches Or how come the Orders of their Churches which have no Scripture to confirm them as this for instance hath not to be more of Gods setling than they of other Churches no less consonant thereunto than theirs Where is the Fear of God Reverence and Justice Equity and common Ingenuity wanting to Man if not here Such dealings as this do really deserve our pity and prayers for them as well as for our selves tormented by them That God of his great mercy to them and us would vouchsafe to open so their eyes and affect their hearts with such a sincere and sober fear of God that they may like lost sheep straying into wild Desarts and in untrodden paths at length be reduced to the Great Shepheard of their and our souls making one Flock and in one Fold of the Church to the Glory of God the Safety of themselves and the unspeakable joy of the Church here and the salvation of us all hereafter FINIS ERRATA PAg. io lin 33. â— next for neat p. 43. In the title of the Chapt. 1. Temporarie p. 44. 1. 36. r. supposing p. 48. l. 37. r. affectedly p. 60. l. 38. r. vulgar use p. 73. l. 14. dele not p. 74. l. 30. dele â—ere p. 82. l. 26. 1. sure p. 83. l. 33. 1. as p. 93. l. 12. r. lighter ib. l. 51. r. people p. 95. l 25. add poâ—â—er p. 104. l. 48. 1. Collatinus p. 114. l. 12. 1. Iudicrous p. 115. l. 6. straglers ib. l. 7. r. assent p. 117. l. 41. 1. we p. 130. l. 6. 1. over p. 136. l. 4. poiâ—â—â—lus after Political p. 139. l. 25. deie be p. 140. l. 2. dele of p. 147. l. 35. dele not p. 149. l. 12. r. relaxing p. 158. l. 44. r. there p. 161. l. 42. r. illimirable p. 167. l. 45. r. limitation p. 17â— l. 20. put in us after have p. 185. l. 2. r. is instead of being p. 198. l. 16. dele which sort of â—â—gnâ— are not distant from the thing signified p. 200. l. 4. dele it p. 219. l. 29. â— us p. 230. l. 14. r. leading p. 233. l. 28. r. hold ib. l. 43 r. ward ib. l. 49. r. abuseth p. 234. l. 16. make after Church p. 242. l. 5. r. or ib. l. 23. r. there ib. l. 45. r. with p. 243. l. 21. 1. worth p. 249. l. 2. add accordingly p. 253. l. 31. r. Pugio p. 265. l. 32. r. wild p. 269. l. 9. r. good p. 275. l. 39. â—â—â—nied p. 281. l. 19. r. concourse p. 296. l. 19. l. prevision p. 309 l. 19. l. Campian p. 321. l. 29. r. grieve p. 333. l. 20. r. Reformed p. 335. l. 29. r. Restriction p. 339. l. 31. r. comminations p. 341. l. 17. dele of after wills p. 343. l. 19. add intended p. 347. l. 3. r. immutable p. 352. l. 19. r. Christ for And. p. 355. l. 23. dele are p. 357. l. 30. r. â—ut â—here p. 389. l. 9. r. thou nor p. 392. l. 5. r. nothing but. p. 443. l. 40. dele not p. 446. l. 20. r. unintelligible p. 455. l. 47. dele no. p. 456. l. 16. r. that P. 485. l. 30. r. should not p. 493. l. 36. r. derided p. 503. l. 51. r. contradistinction