were press'd in the Council of Florence by Pope Eugenius and by their necessity how unwillingly they consented how ambiguously they answered how they protested against having that half-consent put into the Instrument of Union how they were yet constrain'd to it by their Chiefs being obnoxious to the Pope how a while after they dissolv'd that Union and to this day refuse to own this Doctrine are things so notoriously known that they need no further declaration We add this only to make the conviction more manifest We have thought fit to annex some few but very clear testimonies of Antiquity expresly destroying the new Doctrine of Purgatory Saint Cyprian saith Quando istinc excessum fuerit nullus jam locus poenitentiae est nullus satisfactionis effectus When we are gone from hence there is no place left for repentance and no effect of satisfaction Saint Dionysius call the extremity of death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The end of all our Agonies and affirms That the Holy men of God rest in joy and in never-failing hopes and are come to the end of their holy combates Saint Justin Martyr affirms That when the soul is departed from the body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 presently there is a separation made of the just and unjust The unjust are by Angels born into places which they have deserv'd but the souls of the just into Paradise where they have the conversation of Angels and Archangels Saint Ambrose saith That Death is a Haven of rest and makes not our condition worse but according as it finds every man so it reserves him to the judgment that is to come The same is affirmed by Saint Hilary c Saint Macarius and divers others they speak but of two states after death of the just and the unjust These are plac'd in horrible Regions reserv'd to the judgment of the great day the other have their souls carried by Quires of Angels into places of Rest. Saint Gregory Nazianzen expresly affirms That after this life there is no purgation For after Christ's ascension into Heaven the souls of all Saints are with Christ saith Gennadius and going from the body they go to Christ expecting the resurrection of their body with it to pass into the perfection of perpetual bliss and this he delivers as the Doctrine of the Catholick Church In what place soever a man is taken at his death of light or darkness of wickedness or vertue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the same order and in the same degree either in light with the just and with Christ the great King or in darkness with the unjust and with the Prince of Darkness said Olympiodorus And lastly we recite the words of Saint Leo one of the Popes of Rome speaking of the Penitents who had not perform'd all their penances But if any one of them for whom we pray unto the Lord being interrupted by any obstacles falls from the gift of the present Indulgence viz. of Ecclesiastical Absolution and before he arrive at the appointed remedies that is before he hath perform'd his penances or satisfactions ends his temporal life that which remaining in the body he hath not receiv'd when he is devested of his body he cannot obtain He knew not of the new devices of paying in Purgatory what they paid not here and of being cleansed there who were not clean here And how these words or any of the precedent are reconcileable with the Doctrines of Purgatory hath not yet entred into our imagination To conclude this particular We complain greatly that this Doctrine which in all the parts of it is uncertain and in the late additions to it in Rome is certainly false is yet with all the faults of it passed into an Article of Faith by the Council of Trent But besides what hath been said it will be more than sufficient to oppose against it these clearest words of Scripture Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth even so saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labours If all the dead that die in Christ be at rest and are in no more affliction or labours then the Doctrine of the horrible pains of Purgatory is as false as it is uncomfortable To these words we add the saying of Christ and we rely upon it He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath eternal life and cometh not into judgment but passeth from death unto life If so then not into the judgment of Purgatory If the servant of Christ passeth from death to life then not from death to the terminable pains of a part of Hell They that have eternal life suffer no intermedial punishment judgment or condemnation after death for death and life are the whole progression according to the Doctrine of Christ and Him we chuse to follow SECT V. THE Doctrine of Transubstantiation is so far from being Primitive and Apostolick that we know the very time it began to be own'd publickly for an Opinion and the very Council in which it was said to be passed into a publick Doctrine and by what arts it was promoted and by what persons it was introduc'd For all the world knows that by their own parties by Scotus Ocham Biel Fisher Bishop of Rochester and divers others whom Bellarmine calls most learned and most acute men it was declared that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is not expressed in the Canon of the Bible that in the Scriptures there is no place so express as without the Churches Declaration to compel us to admit of Transubstantiation and therefore at least it is to be suspected of novelty But further we know it was but a disputable Question in the ninth and tenth Ages after Christ that it was not pretended to be an Article of Faith till the Lateran Council in the time of Pope Innocent the Third one thousand two hundred years and more after Christ that since that pretended determination divers of the chiefest Teachers of their own side have been no more satisfied of the ground of it than they were before but still have publickly affirm'd that the Article is not express'd in Scripture particularly Johannes de Bassolis Cardinal Cajetan and Melchior Canus besides those above reckon'd And therefore if it was not express'd in Scripture it will be too clear that they made their Articles of their own heads for they could not declare it to be there if it was not and if it was there but obscurely then it ought to be taught accordingly and at most it could be but a probable Doctrine and not certain as an Article of Faith But that we may put it past argument and probability it is certain that as the Doctrine was not taught in Scripture expresly so it was not at all taught as a Catholick Doctrine or an Article of the Faith by the Primitive Ages of the Church Now for this we need no proof
the Question in hand and so destructive of the Roman hypothesis that nothing can be said against it His words are these therefore in all regards death is good because it divides those that were always fighting that they may not impugn each other and because it is a certain port to them who being toss'd in the sea of this world require the station of faithful rest and because it makes not our state worse but such as it finds every one such it reserves him to the future judgment and nourishes him with rest and withdraws him from the envy of present things and composes him with the expectation of future things E. W. thinking himself bound to say something to these words answers It is an excellent saying for worse he is not but infinitely better that quit of the occasions of living here is ascertain'd of future bliss hereafter which is the whole drift of the Saint in that Chapter Read it and say afterwards if I say not true It is well put off But there are very many that read him who never will or can examine what S. Ambrose says and withal such he hopes to escape But as to the thing That death gives a man advantage and by its own fault no disadvantage is indeed not only the whole drift of that Chapter but of that whole book But not for that reason only is a man the better for death but because it makes him not worse in order to Eternity nay it does not alter him at all as to that for as death finds him so shall the judgment find him and therefore not purified by Purgatory for such he is reserved and not only thus but it cherishes him with rest which would be very ill done if death carried him to Purgatory Now all these last words and many others E. W. is pleas'd to take no notice of as not being for his purpose But he that pleases to see more may read the 12. and 18. Chapters of the same Treatise S. Gregorie's saying that after this life there is no purgation can no way be put off by any pretences For he means it of the time after death before the day of judgment which is directly oppos'd to the doctrine of the Church of Rome and unless you will suppose that S. Gregory believ'd two Purgatories it is certain he did not believe the Roman for he taught that the purgation which he calls Baptism by fire and the saving yet as by fire was to be perform'd at the day of judgment and the curiosity of that trial is the fierceness of that fire as Nicetas expounds S. Gregories words in his oration in sancta lumina So that S. Gregory affirming that this world is the place of purgation and that after this world there is no purgation could not have spoken any thing more direct against the Roman Purgatory S. Hilary and S. Macarius speak of two states after death and no more True says E. W. but they are the two final states That is true too in some sence for it is either of eternal good or evil but to one of these states they are consigned and determined at the time of their death at which time every one is sent either to the bosom of Abraham or to a place of pain where they are reserved to the sentence of the great day S. Hilary's words are these There is no stay or delaying For the day of judgment is either an eternal retribution of beatitude or of pain But the time of our death hath every one in his laws whiles either Abraham viz. the bosome of Abraham or pain reserves every one unto the Judgment These words need no Commentary He that can reconcile these to the Roman Purgatory will be a most mighty man in controversie And so also are the words of S. Macarius when they go out of the body the quires of Angels receive their souls and carry them to their proper place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to a pure world and so lead them to the Lord. Such words as these are often repeated by the Holy Fathers and Doctors of the Ancient Church I summ them up with the saying of S. Athanasius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. It is not death that happens to the righteous but a translation For they are translated out of this world into everlasting rest And as a man would go out of prison so do the Saints go out of this troublesome life unto those good things which are prepared for them Now let these and all the precedent words be confronted against the sad complaints made for the souls in Purgatory by Joh. Gerson in his querela defunctorum and Sr. Tho. More in his supplication of souls and it will be found that the doctrine of the Fathers differs from the doctrine of the Church of Rome as much as heaven and hell rest and labor horrid torments and great joy I conclude this matter of quotations by the saying of Pope Leo which one of my adversaries could not find because the Princes was mistaken It is the 91. Epistle so known and so us'd by the Roman writers in the Qu. of Confession that if he be a man of learning it cannot be suppos'd but he knew where to find them The words are these But if any of them for whom we pray unto the Lord being intercepted by any obstacle falls from the benefit of the present Indulgences and before he comes to the constituted remedies shall end his temporal life by humane condition or frailty that which abiding in the body he hath not received being out of the flesh he cannot Now against these words of S. Leo set the present doctrine of the Church of Rome that what is not finished of penances here a man may pay in Purgatory and let the world judge whether S. Leo was in this point a Roman Catholick Indeed S. Leo forgot to make use of the late distinction of sins venial and mortal of the punishment of mortal sins remaining after the fault is taken away but I hope the Roman Doctors will excuse the Saint because the distinction is but new and modern But this testimony of S. Gregory must not go for a single Testimony That which abiding in the body could not be receiv'd out of the body cannot that is when the soul is gone out of the body as death finds them so shall the day of judgment find them And this was the sence of the whole Church for after death there is no change of state before the General Trial no passing from pain to rest in the state of separation and therefore either there are no Purgatory pains or if there be there is no â—ase of them before the day of judgment and the Prayers and Masses of the Church cannot give remedy to one poor soul and this must of necessity be confessed by the Roman Doctors or else they must shew that ever any one Catholick Father did teach that after death
not to be supposed that he will snatch Infants from their Mothers breasts and throw them into the everlasting flames of Hell for the sin of Adam that is as to them for their mere natural state of which himself was Author and Creator that is he will not damn them for being good For God saw every thing that he had made and behold it was very good and therefore so is that state of descent from Adam God is the Author of it and therefore it cannot be ill It cannot be contrary to God because it is his work 38. Upon the account of these reasons I suppose it safe to affirm that God does not damn any one to Hell merely for the sin of our first Father which I summ up in the words of S. Ambrose or whoever is the Author of the Commentaries upon the Epistles of S. Paul attributed to him Mors autem dissolutio corporis est cum anima à corpore separatur Est alia mors quae secunda dicitur in Gehennâ quam non peccato Adaepatimur sed ejus occasione propriis peccatis acquiritur Death is the dividing Soul and Body There is also another death which is in Hell and is called the second Death which we do not suffer for the sin of Adam but by occasion of it we fall into it by our own sins Next we are to inquire whether or no it does not make us infallibly naturally and necessarily vitious by taking from us Original righteousness by discomposing the order of our faculties and inslaving the will to sin and folly concerning which the inquiry must be made by parts 39. For if the sin of Adam did debauch our Nature and corrupt our will and manners it is either by a Physical or Natural efficiency of the sin it self or 2. Because we were all in the loins of Adam or 3. By the sentence and decree of God 40. I. Not by any Natural efficiency of the sin it self Because then it must be that every sin of Adam must spoil such a portion of his Nature that before he died he must be a very beast 2. We also by degeneration and multiplication of new sins must have been at so vast a distance from him at the very worst that by this time we should not have been so wise as a flie nor so free and unconstrain'd as fire 3. If one sin would naturally and by physical causality destroy Original righteousness then every one sin in the regenerate can as well destroy Habitual righteousness because that and this differ not but in their principle not in their nature and constitution And why should not a righteous man as easily and as quickly fall from grace and lose his habits as Adam did Naturally it is all one 4. If that one sin of Adam did destroy all his righteousness and ours too then our Original sin does more hurt and is more punish'd and is of greater malice than our actual sin For one act of sin does but lessen and weaken the habit but does not quite destroy it If therefore this act of Adam in which certainly at least we did not offend maliciously destroys all Original righteousness and a malicious act now does not destroy a righteous habit it is better for us in our own malice than in our ignorance and we suffer less for doing evil that we know of than for doing that which we knew nothing of 41. II. If it be said that this evil came upon us because we all were in the loins of Adam I consider 1. That then by the same reason we are guilty of all the sins which he ever committed while we were in his loins there being no imaginable reason why the first sin should be propagated and not the rest and he might have sinned the second time and have sinn'd worse Add to this that the later sins are commonly the worse as being committed not only against the same law but a greater reason and a longer experience and heightned by the mark of ingratitude and deeply noted with folly for venturing damnation so much longer And then he that was born last should have most Original sin and Seth should in his birth and nature be worse than Abel and Abel be worse than Cain 2. Upon this account all the sins of all our progenitors will be imputed to us because we were in their loins when they sinn'd them and every lustful father must have a lustful son and so every man or no man will be lustful For if ever any man were lustful or intemperate when or before he begot his child upon this reckoning his child will be so too and then his grandchild and so on for ever 3. Sin is seated in the will it is an action and transient and when it dwells or abides it abides no where but in the will by approbation and love to which is naturally consequent a readiness in the inferior faculties to obey and act accordingly and therefore sin does not infect our mere natural faculties but the will only and not that in the natural capacity but in its moral only 4. And indeed to him that considers it it will seem strange and monstrous that a moral obliquity in a single instance should make an universal change in a natural suscipient and in a natural capacity When it is in nature impossible that any impression should be made but between those things that communicate in matter or capacity and therefore if this were done at all it must be by a higher principle by Gods own act or sanction and then should be referred to another principle not this against which I am now disputing 5. No man can transmit a good habit a grace or a vertue by natural generation as a great Scholar's son cannot be born with learning and the child of a Judge cannot upon his birth-day give wise sentences and Marcus the son of Cicero was not so good an Orator as his father and how can it be then that a naughty quality should be more apt to be disseminated than a good one when it is not the goodness or the badness of a quality that hinders its dissemination but its being an acquir'd and superinduc'd quality that makes it cannot descend naturally Add to this how can a bad quality morally bad be directly and regularly transmitted by an action morally good and since neither God that is the Maker of all does amiss and the father that begets sins not and the child that is begotten cannot sin by what conveyance can any positive evil be derived to the posterity 6. It is generally now adays especially believed that the soul is immediately created not generated according to the doctrine of Aristotle affirming 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the soul is from without and is a Divine substance and therefore sin cannot descend by natural generation or by our being in Adams loins And how can it be that the father who contributes nothing to her production should contribute to
born to rule over all other creatures and begins his life with punishments for no fault but that he was born In short The body is a region of diseases of sorrow and nastiness and weakness and temptation Here is cause enough of being humbled 83. Neither is it better in the soul of man where ignorance dwells and passion rules 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 After death came in there entred also a swarm of passions And the will obeys every thing but God Our judgment is often abused in matters of sense and one faculty guesses at truth by confuting another and the error of the eye is corrected by something of reason or a former experience Our fancy is often abus'd and yet creates things of it self by tying disparate things together that can cohere no more than Musick and a Cable than Meat and Syllogisms and yet this alone does many times make credibilities in the understandings Our Memories are so frail that they need instruments of recollection and laborious artifices to help them and in the use of these artifices sometimes we forget the meaning of those instruments and of those millions of sins which we have committed we scarce remember so many as to make us sorrowful or ashamed Our judgments are baffled with every Sophism and we change our opinion with a wind and are confident against truth but in love with error We use to reprove one error by another and lose truth while we contend too earnestly for it Infinite opinions there are in matters of Religion and most men are confident and most are deceiv'd in many things and all in some and those few that are not confident have only reason enough to suspect their own reason We do not know our own bodies not what is within us nor what ails us when we are sick nor whereof we are made nay we oftentimes cannot tell what we think or believe or love We desire and hate the same thing speak against and run after it We resolve and then consider we bind our selves and then find causes why we ought not to be bound and want not some pretences to make our selves believe we were not bound Prejudice and Interest are our two great motives of believing we weigh deeper what is extrinsical to a question than what is in its nature and oftner regard who speaks than what is said The diseases of our soul are infinite 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Dionysius of Athens Mankind of old fell from those good things which God gave him and now is fallen into a life of passion and a state of death In summ it follows the temper or distemper of the body and sailing by such a Compass and being carried in so rotten a vessel especially being empty or filled with lightness and ignorance and mistakes it must needs be exposed to the dangers and miseries of every storm which I choose to represent in the words of Cicero Ex humanae vitae erroribus aerumnis fit ut verum sit illud quod est apud Aristotelem sic nostros animos cum corporibus copulatos ut vivos cum mortuis esse conjunctos The soul joyned with the body is like the conjunction of the living and the dead the dead are not quickned by it but the living are afflicted and die But then if we consider what our spirit is we have reason to lie down flat upon our faces and confess Gods glory and our own shame When it is at the best it is but willing but can do nothing without the miracle of Grace Our spirit is hindred by the body and cannot rise up whither it properly tends with those great weights upon it It is foolish and improvident large in desires and narrow in abilities naturally curious in trifles and inquisitive after vanities but neither understands deeply nor affectionately relishes the things of God pleas'd with forms cousen'd with pretences satisfied with shadows incurious of substances and realities It is quick enough to find doubts and when the doubts are satisfied it raises scruples that is it is restless after it is put to sleep and will be troubled in despite of all arguments of peace It is incredibly negligent of matters of Religion and most solicitous and troubled in the things of the world We love our selves and despise others judging most unjust sentences and by peevish and cross measures Covetousness and Ambition Gain and Empire are the proportions by which we take account of things We hate to be govern'd by others even when we cannot dress our selves and to be forbidden to do or have a thing is the best art in the world to make us greedy of it The flesh and the spirit perpetually are at strife the spirit pretending that his ought to be the dominion and the flesh alleaging that this is her state and her day We hate our present condition and know not how to better our selves our changes being but like the tumblings and tossings in a Feaver from trouble to trouble that 's all the variety We are extreamly inconstant and always hate our own choice we despair sometimes of Gods mercies and are confident in our own follies as we order things we cannot avoid little sins and do not avoid great ones We love the present world though it be good for nothing and undervalue infinite treasures if they be not to be had till the day of recompences We are peevish if a servant does but break a glass and patient when we have thrown an ill cast for eternity throwing away the hopes of a glorious Crown for wine and dirty silver We know that our prayers if well done are great advantages to our state and yet we are hardly brought to them and love not to stay at them and wander while we are saying them and say them without minding and are glad when they are done or when we have a reasonable excuse to omit them A passion does quite overturn all our purposes and all our principles and there are certain times of weakness in which any temptation may prevail if it comes in that unlucky minute 84. This is a little representment of the state of man whereof a great part is a natural impotency and the other is brought in by our own folly Concerning the first when we discourse it is as if one describes the condition of a Mole or a Bat an Oyster or a Mushrome concerning whose imperfections no other cause is to be inquired of but the will of God who gives his gifts as he please and is unjust to no man by giving or not giving any certain proportion of good things And supposing this loss was brought first upon Adam and so descended upon us yet we have no cause to complain for we lost nothing that was ours Praeposterum est said Paulus the Lawyer antè nos locupletes dici quà m acquisterimus We cannot be said to lose what we never had and our fathers goods were not to descend upon us
eo usque in Adam censetur donec in Christo recenseatur tamdiu immunda quamdiù recenseatur Peccatrix a. quia immunda recipiens ignominiam suam ex carnis societate And this which he here calls a reproach he otherwhere calls an imperfection or a shame saying by Sathan man at first was circumvented and therefore given up unto Death and from thence all the kind was from his seed infected he made a traduction of his sentence or damnation to wit unto death which was his condemnation and therefore speaking of the woman he says the sentence remaining upon her in this life it is necessary that the guilt also should remain which words are rough and hard to be understood because after Baptism the guilt does not remain but by the following words we may guess that he means that women still are that which Eve was even snares to men gates for the Devil to enter and that they as Eve did dare and can prevail with men when the Devil by any other means cannot I know nothing else that he says of this Article save only that according to the constant sence of antiquity he affirms that the natural faculties of the Soul were not impaired Omnia naturalia animae ut substantiva ejus ipsi inesse cum ipsâ procedere atque proficere And again Hominis anima velut surculus quidam ex Matrice Adam in propaginem deducta genitalibus foeminae foveis commendata cum omni sua paratura pullulabiâ— tam in intellectu quam in sensu The soul like a sprig from Adam derived into his off-spring and put into the bed of its production shall with all its appendages spring or increase both in sence and understanding And that there is liberty of choice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which supposes liberty he proved against Marcion and Hermogenes as himself affirms in the 21 Chap. of the same Book S. Cyprian proving the effect of Baptism upon all and consequently the usefulness to Infants argues thus If pardon of sins is given to the greatest sinners and them that before sinned much against God and afterwards believed and none is forbidden to come to baptism and grace how much more must not an infant be forbidden qui recens natus nihil peccavit nisi quod secundum Adam carnaliter natus contagium mortis antiquae primâ nativitate contraxit qui ad remissam peccatorum accipiendam hoc ipso facilius accedit quod illi remittuntur non propria sed aliena peccata Who being new born hath not sinned at all but only being born carnally of Adam he hath in his first birth contracted the contagion of the old death which comes to the remission of sin the more easily because not his own sins but the sins of another are forgiven him In which it is plainly affirmed that the Infant is innocent that he hath not sinned himself that there is in him no sin inherent that Adam's sin therefore only is imputed that all the effect of it upon him is the contagion of death that is mortality and its affections and according as the sins are so is the remission they are the infants improperly and metonymically therefore so is the remission But Arnobius speaks yet more plainly Omne peccatum corde concipitur â—re consummatur Hic autem qui nascitur sententiam Adae habet Peccatum verò suum non habet He that is born of Adam hath the sentence of Adam upon him but not the sin that is he hath no sin inherent but the punishment inflicted by occasion of it The author of the short commentaries upon the Epistles of St. Paul attributed to S. Ambrose speaks so much that some have used the authority of this writer to prove that there is no Original sin as Sixtus Senensis relates His words are these Mors autem dissolutio corporis est cum anima à corpore separatur est alia mors que secunda dicitur in gehenna quam non peccato Adae patimur sed ejus occasione propriâ—â— peccatis acquiritur Death is the dissolution of the Body when the Soul is separated from it There is also another death in Hell which is called the second death which we suffer not from Adam's sin but by occasion of it it is acquired by our own sins These words need no explication for when he had in the precedent words affirmed that we all sinned in the Mass of Adam this following discourse states the Question right and declares that though Adam's sin be imputed to us to certain purposes yet no man can be damned to the second Death for it it is a testimony so plain for the main part of my affirmation in this Article that as there is not any thing against it within the first 400 years so he could not be accounted a Catholick author if the contrary had been the sence or the prevailing Opinion of the Church 22. To these I shall add the clearest testimonies of S. Chrysostome It seems to have in it no small Question that it is said that by the disobedience of one many become sinners For sinning and being made mortal it is not unlikely that they which spring from him should be so too But that another should be made a sinner by his disobedience what agreement or consequent I beseech you can it have what therefore doth this word Sinner in this place signifie It seems to me to signifie the same that lyable to punishment guilty of Death does signifie because Adam dying all are made mortal by him And again Thou sayest what shall I do by him that is by Adam I perish No not for him For hast thou remained without sin For though thou hast not committed the same sin yet another thou hast And in the 29 Homily upon the same Epistle he argues thus What therefore tell me are all dead in Adam by the death of sin How then was Noah a just man in his generation How was Abraham and Job If this be to be understood of the body the sentence will be certain but if it be understood of justice and sin it will not But to sum up all he answers the great Argument used by S. Austin to prove infants to be in a state of damnation and sin properly because the Church baptizes them and Baptism is for the remission of sins Thou seest how many benefits there are of Baptism But many think that the grace of baptism consists only in the remission of sins But we have reckoned 〈◊〉 honours of baptism For this cause we baptize infants although they are not polluted with sin to wit that to them may be added sanctity justice adoption inheritance and the fraternity of Christ Divers other things might be transcribed to the same purposes out of S. Chrysostome but these are abundantly sufficient to prove that I have said nothing new in this Article Theodoret does very often consent with S.
because they could not put to death Sejanus's daughters as being Virgins defloured them after sentence that by that barbarity they might be capable of the utmost Cruelty it makes God to be all that for which any other thing or person is or can be hated for it makes him neither to be good nor just nor reasonable but a mighty enemy to the biggest part of mankind it makes him to hate what himself hath made and to punish that in another which in himself he decreed should not be avoided it charges the wisdom of God with solly as having no means to glorifie his justice but by doing unjustly by bringing in that which himself hates that he might do what himself loves doing as Tiberius did to Brutus and Nero the Sons of Germanicus Variâ fraude induxit ut concitarentur ad convitia concitati perderentur provoking them to rail that he might punish their reproachings This opinion reproaches the words of the Spirit of Scripture it charges God with Hypocrisie and want of Mercy making him a Father of Cruelties not of Mercy and is a perfect overthrow of all Religion and all Laws and all Government it destroys the very being and nature of all Election thrusting a man down to the lowest form of Beasts and Birdâ— to whom a Spontaneity of doing certain actions is given by God but it is in them so natural that it is unavoidable Now concerning this hoâ—rid opinion I for my part shall say nothing but this That he that says there was no such man as Alexander would tell a horrible lie and be injurious to all story and to the memory and same of that great Prince but he that should say It is true there was such a man as Alexander but he was a Tyrant and a Blood-sucker cruel and injurious false and dissembling an enemy of mankind and for all the reasons of the world to be hated and reproached would certainly dishonour Alexander more and be his greatest enemy So I think in this That the Atheists who deny there is a God do not so impiously against God as they that charge him with foul appellatives or maintain such sentences which if they were true God could not be true But these men Madam have nothing to do in the Question of Original Sin save only that they say that God did decree that Adam should fall and all the sins that he sinned and all the world after him are no effects of choice but of predestination that is they were the actions of God rather than man But because these men even to their brethren seem to speak evil things of God therefore the more wary and temperate of the Calvinists bring down the order of reprobation lower affirming that God looked upon all mankind in Adam as fallen into his displeasure hated by God truly guilty of his sin liable to Eternal damnation and they being all equally condemned he was pleased to separate some the smaller number far and irresistibly bring them to Heaven but the far greater number he passed over leaving them to be damned for the sin of Adam and so they think they salve Gods Justice and this was the design and device of the Synod of Dort Now to bring this to pass they teach concerning Original Sin 1. That by this sin our first Parents fell from their Original righteousness and communion with God and so became dead in sin and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body 2. That whatsoever death was due to our first Parents for this sin they being the root of all mankind and the guilt of this sin being imputed the same is conveyed to all their posterity by ordinary generation 3. That by this Original corruption we are utterly indisposed disabled and made opposite to all good and wholly inclined to all evil and that from hence proceed all actual transgressions 4. This corruption of nature remains in the regenerate and although it be through Christ pardoned and mortified yet both it self and all the motions thereof are truly and properly sin 5. Original sin being a transgression of the righteous Law of God and contrary thereunto doth in its own nature bring guilt upon the sinner whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God and curse of the Law and so made subject to death with all miseries spiritual temporal and eternal These are the sayings of the late Assembly at Westminster Against this heap of errors and dangerous propositions I have made my former discoursings and statings of the Question of Original sin These are the Doctrines of the Presbyterian whose face is towards us but it is over-against us in this and many other questions of great concernment Nemo tam propè proculque nobis He is nearest to us and furthest from us but because I have as great a love to their persons as I have a dislike to some of their Doctrines I shall endeavour to serve truth and them by reproving those propositions which make truth and them to stand at distance Now I shall first speak to the thing in general and its designs then I shall make some observations upon the particulars 1. This device of our Presbyterians and of the Synod of Dort is but an artifice to save their proposition harmless and to stop the out-cries of Scripture and reason and of all the World against them But this way of stating the Article of reprobation is as horrid in the effect as the other For 1. Is it by a natural consequent that we are guilty of Adams sin or is it by the decree of God Naturally it cannot be for then the sins of all our forefathers who are to their posterity the same that Adam was to his must be ours and not only Adams first sin but his others are ours upon the same account But if it be by the Decree of God by his choice and constitution that it should be so as Mr. Calvin and Dr. Twisse that I may name no more for that side do expresly teach it follows that God is the Author of our Sin So that I may use Mr. Calvins words How is it that so many Nations with their Children should be involved in the fall without remedy but because God would have it so And if that be the matter then to God as to the cause must that sin and that damnation be accounted And let it then be considered whether this be not as bad as the worst For the Supralapsarians say God did decree that the greatest part of mankind should perish only because he would The Sublapsarians say that God made it by his decree necessary that all we who were born of Adam should be born guilty of Original Sin and he it was who decreed to damn whom he pleased for that sin in which he decreed they should be born and both these he did for no other consideration but because he would Is it not therefore evident that he absolutely decreed Damnation to these Persons
here also they are not to be confuted and as for the particular Scriptures unless we have the advantage of essential reason taken from the Divine Attributes they will oppose Scripture to Scripture and have as much advantage to expound the opposite places as the Jews have in their Questions of the Messias anâ— therefore si meos ipse corymbos necterem if I might make mine own arguments in their Society and with their leave I would upon that very account suspect the usual discourses of the effects and Oeconomy of Original sin 8. For where will they reckon the beginning of Predestination will they reckon it in Adam after the Fall or in Christ immediately promised If in Adam then they return to the Presbyterian way and run upon all the rocks before reckoned enough to break all the world in pieces If in Christ they reckon it and so they do then thus I argue If we are all reckoned in Christ before we were born then how can we be reckoned in Adam when we are born I speak as to the matter of Predestination to salvation or damnation For as for the intermedial temporal evils and dangers spiritual and sad infirmities they are our nature and might with Justice have been all the portion God had given to Adam and therefore may be so to us and consequently not at all to be reckoned in this enquiry But certainly as to the main 9. If God looks upon us all in Christ then by him we are rescued from Adam so much is done for us before we were born For if this is not to be reckoned till after we were born then Adams sin prevailed really in some periods and to some effects for which God in Christ had provided no remedy for it gave no remedy to children till after they were born but irremediably they were born children of wrath but if a remedy were given to Children before they were born then they are born in Christ not in Adam but if this remedy was not given to Children before they were born then it follows that we were not at first looked upon in Christ but in Adam and consequently he was caput praedestinationis the head of predestination or else there were two the one before we were born the other after So that haereâ—leâ—hâ—lis arundo The arrow sticks fast and it cannot be pulled out unless by other instruments than are commonly in fashion However it be yet methinks this a very good probable Argument As Adam sinned before any child was born so was Christ promised before and that our Redeemer shall not have more force upon children that they should be born beloved and quitted from wrath than Adam our Progenitor shall have to cause that we be born hated and in a damnable condition wants so many degrees of probability that it seems to dishonour the mercy of God and the reputation of his goodness and the power of his redemption For this serves as an Antidote and Antinomy of their great objection pretended by these learned persons for whereas they say they the rather affirm this because it is an honour to the redemption which our Saviour wrought for us that it rescued us from the sentence of damnation which we had incurred To this I say that the honour of our blessed Saviour does no way depend upon our imaginations and weak propositions and neither can the reputation and honour of the Divine goodness borrow aids and artificial supports from the dishonour of his Justice and it is no reputation to a Physician to say he hath cured us of an evil which we never had and shall we accuse the Father of mercies to have wounded us for no other reason but that the Son may have the Honour to have cured us I understand not that He that makes a necessity that he may find a remedy is like the Roman whom Cato found fault withall he would commit a fault that he might beg a pardon he had rather write bad Greek that he might make an apology than write good Latin and need none But however Christ hath done enough for us even all that we did need and since it is all the reason in the world we should pay him all honour we may remember that it is a greater favour to us that by the benefit of our blessed Saviour who was the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world we were reckoned in Christ and born in the accounts of the Divine favour I say it is a greater favour that we were born under the redemption of Christ than under the sentence and damnation of Adam and to prevent an evil is a greater favour than to cure it so that if to do honour to Gods goodness and to the graces of our Redeemer we will suppose a need we may do him more honour to suppose that the promised seed of the woman did do us as early a good as the sin of Adam could do us mischief and therefore that in Christ we are born quitted from any such supposed sentence and not that we bring it upon our shoulders into the world with us But this thing relies only upon their suppositions For if we will speak of what is really true and plainly revealed From all the sins of all mankind Christ came to redeem us He came to give us a supernatural birth to tell us all his Fathers will to reveal to us those glorious promises upon the expectation of which we might be enabled to do every thing that is required He came to bring us grace and life and spirit to strengthen us against all the powers of Hell and Earth to sanctifie our afflictions which from Adam by Natural generation descended on us to take out the sting of death to make it an entrance to immortal life to assure us of resurrection to intercede for us and to be an advocate for us when we by infirmity commit sin to pardon us when we repent Nothing of which could be derived to us from Adam by our natural generation Mankind now taken in his whole constitution and design is like the Birds of Paradise which travellers tell us of in the Molucco Islands born without legs but by a celestial power they have a recompence made to them for that defect and they always hover in the air and feed on the dew of Heaven so are we birds of Paradise but cast out from thence and born without legs without strength to walk in the Laws of God or to go to Heaven but by a power from above we are adopted in our new birth to a celestial conversation we feed on the dew of Heaven The just does live by faith and breaths in this new life by the spirit of God For from the first Adam nothing descended to us but an infirm body and a naked soul evil example and a body of death ignorance and passion hard labour and a cursed field a captive soul and an imprisoned body that is a soul naturally apt to comply with the
in the first three hundred years did theirs we can serve God in our houses and sometimes in Churches and our faith which was not built upon temporal foundations cannot be shaken by the convulsions of war and the changes of State But they who make our afflictions an objection against us unless they have a promise that they shall never be afflicted might do well to remember that if they ever fall into trouble they have nothing left to represent or make their condition tolerable for by pretending Religion is destroyed when it is persecuted they take away all that which can support their own Spirits and sweeten persecution However let our Church be where it pleases God it shall it is certain that Transubstantiation is an evil Doctrine false and dangerous and I know not any Church in Christendom which hath any Article more impossible or apt to render the Communion dangerous than this in the Church of Rome and since they command us to believe all or will accept none I hope the just reproof of this one will establish the minds of those who can be tempted to communicate with them in others I have now given an account of the reasons of my present engagement and though it may be enquired also why I presented it to You I fear I shall not give so perfect an account of it because those excellent reasons which invited me to this signification of my gratitude are such which although they ought to be made publick yet I know not whether your humility will permit it for you had rather oblige others than be noted by them Your Predecessor in the See of Rochester who was almost a Cardinal when he was almost dead did publickly in those evil times appear against the truth defended in this Book and yet he was more moderate and better tempered than the rest but because God hath put the truth into the hearts and mouths of his successors it is not improper that to you should be offered the opportunities of owning that which is the belief and honour of that See since the Religion was reformed But lest it be thought that this is an excuse rather than a reason of my address to you I must crave pardon of your humility and serve the end of glorification of God in it by acknowledging publickly that you have assisted my condition by the emanations of that grace which is the Crown of Martyrdom expending the remains of your lessened fortunes and increasing charity upon your Brethren who are dear to you not only by the band of the same Ministery but the fellowship of the same sufferings But indeed the cause in which these papers are ingaged is such that it ought to be owned by them that can best defend it and since the defence is not with secular arts and aids but by Spiritual the diminution of your outward circumstances cannot render you a person unfit to patronize this Book because where I fail your wisdom learning and experience can supply and therefore if you will pardon my drawing your name from the privacy of your retirement into a publick view you will singularly oblige and increase those favours by which you have already endeared the thankfulness and service of R. R. Your most affectionate and endeared Servant in the Lord Jesus JER TAYLOR A DISCOURSE OF THE REAL PRESENCE OF CHRIST In the Holy Sacrament SECT I. State of the Question 1. THE Tree of Knowledge became the Tree of Death to us and the Tree of Life is now become an Apple of Contention The holy Symbols of the Eucharist were intended to be a contesseration and an union of Christian societies to God and with one another and the evil taking it disunites us from God and the evil understanding it divides us from each other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And yet if men would but do reason there were in all Religion no article which might more easily excuse us from medling with questions about it than this of the holy Sacrament For as the man in Phaedrus that being asked what he carried hidden under his Cloak answered it was hidden under his Cloak meaning that he would not have hidden it but that he intended it should be secret so we may say in this mystery to them that curiously ask what or how it is Mysterium est it is a Sacrament and a Mystery by sensible instruments it consigns spiritual graces by the creatures it brings us to God by the body it ministers to the Spirit And that things of this nature are undiscernable secrets we may learn by the experience of those men who have in cases not unlike vainly laboured to tell us how the material fire of Hell should torment an immaterial soul and how baptismal water should cleanse the spirit and how a Sacrament should nourish a body and make it sure of the resurrection 2. It was happy with Christendom when she in this article retained the same simplicity which she always was bound to do in her manners and entercourse that is to believe the thing heartily and not to enquire curiously and there was peace in this Article for almost a thousand years together and yet that Transubstantiation was not determined I hope to make very evident In synaxi transubstantiationem serò definivit Ecclesia diù satis erat credere sive sub pane consecrato sive quocunque modo adesse verum corpus Christi so said the great Erasmus It was late before the Church defined Transubstantiation for a long time together it did suffice to believe that the true body of Christ was present whether under the consecrated bread or any other way so the thing was believed the manner was not stood upon And it is a famous saying of Durandus Verbum audimus motum sentimus modum nescimus praesentiam credimus We hear the Word we perceive the Motion we know not the Manner but we believe the presence and Ferus of whom Sixtus Senensis affirms that he was vir nobiliter doctus pius eruditus hath these words Cum certum sit ibi esse corpus Christi quid opus est disputare num panis substantia maneat vel non When it is certain that Christs body is there what need we dispute whether the substance of bread remain or no and therefore Cutbert Tonstal Bishop of Duresme would have every one left to his conjecture concerning the manner De modo quo id fieret satius erat curiosum quemque relinquere suae conjecturae sicut liberum fuit ante Concilium Lateranum Before the Lateran Council it was free for every one to opine as they please and it were better it were so now But S. Cyril would not allow so much liberty not that he would have the manner determined but not so much as thought upon Firmam fidem mysteriis adhibentes nunquam in tam sublimibus rebus illud Quomodo aut cogitemus aut proferamus For if we go about to think it
second or third remove if here Christ begins to change the particulars of his discourse it can primarily relate to nothing but his death upon the Cross at which time he gave his flesh for the life of the world and so giving it it became meat the receiving this gift was a receiving of life for it was given for the life of the world The manner of receiving it is by faith and hearing the word of God submitting our understanding the digesting this meat is imitating the life of Christ conforming to his doctrine and example and as the Sacraments are instruments or acts of this manducation so they come under this discourse and no otherwise 18. But to return This very allegory of the word of God to be called meat and particularly Manna which in this Chapter Christ particularly alludes to is not unusual in the old Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Philo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Moses said unto them This is the word which the Lord hath given us to eat This is the word which the Lord hath ordained you see what is the food of the soul even the eternal Word of God c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Word of God the most honourable and eldest of things is called Mana and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The soul is nourished by the Word qui pastus pulcherrimus est animorum 19. And therefore now I will resume those testimonies of Clemens Alexandrinus of Eusebius S. Basil S. Hierome and S. Bernard which I wav'd before all agreeing upon this exposition that the word of God Christs doctrine is the flesh he speaks of and the receiving it and practising it are the eating his flesh for this sence is the literal and proper and S. Hierom is express to affirm that the other exposition is mystical and that this is the more true and proper and therefore the saying of Bellarmine that they only give the mystical sence is one of his confident sayings without reason or pretence of proof and whereas he adds that they do not deny that these words are also understood literally of the Sacrament I answer it is sufficient that they agree in this sence and the other Fathers do so expound it with an exclusion to the natural sence of eating Christ in the Sacrament particularly this appears in the testimonies of Origen and Saint Ambrose above quoted to which I add the words of Eusebius in the third book of his Theologia Ecclesiastica expounding the 63. verse of the sixth of Saint John he brings in Christ speaking thus Think not that I speak of this flesh which I bear and do not imagine that I appoint you to drink this sensible and corporal blood But know ye that the words which I have spoken are spirit and life Nothing can be fuller to exclude their interpretation and to affirm ours though to do so be not usual unless they were to expound Scripture in opposition to an adversary and to require such hard conditions in the sayings of men that when they speak against Titius they shall be concluded not to speak against Cajus if they do not clap their contrary negative to their positive affirmative though Titius and Cajus be against one another in the cause is a device to escape rather than to intend truth and reality in the discourses of men I conclude It is notorious and evident what Erasmus notes upon this place Hunc locum veteres interpretantur de doctrinâ coelesti sic enim dicit panem suum ut frequenter dixit sermonem suum The Ancient Fathers expound this place of the heavenly doctrine so he calls the bread his own as he said often the word to be his And if the concurrent testimonies of Origen Tertullian Clemens Alexandrinus S. Basil Athanasius Eusebius S. Hierom S. Ambrose S. Austin Theophylact and S. Bernard are a good security for the sence of a place of Scripture we have read their evidence and may proceed to sentence 20. But it was impossible but these words falling upon the allegory of bread and drink and signifying the receiving Christ crucified and communicating with his passion in all the wayes of Faith and Sacrament should also meet with as allegorical expounders and for the likeness of expression be referr'd to sacramental manducation And yet I said this cannot at all infer Transubstantiation though sacramental manducation were only and principally intended For if it had been spoken of the Sacrament the words had been verified in the spiritual sumption of it for as Christ is eaten by faith out of the Sacrament so is he also in the Sacrament as he is real and spiritual meat to the worthy Hearer so is he to the worthy Communicant as Christ's flesh is life to all that obey him so to all that obediently remember him so Christ's flesh is meat indeed however it be taken if it be taken spiritually but not however it be taken if it be taken carnally He is nutritive in all the wayes of spiritual manducation but not in all the wayes of natural eating by their own confession nor in any by ours And therefore it is a vain confidence to run away with the conclusion if they should gain one of the premises But the truth is this It is neither properly spoken of the Sacrament neither if it were would it prove any thing of Transubstantiation 21. I will not be alone in my assertion though the reasonableness and evidence would bear me out Saint Austin saith the same Spiritualiter intelligite quod loquutus sum vobis Non hoc corpus quod videtis manducaturi estis Sacramentum aliquod commendavi vobis spiritualiter intellectum vivificabit nos That which I have spoken is to be understood spiritually ye are not to eat that body which ye see I have commended a Sacrament to you which being understood spiritually will give you life where besides that he gives testimony to the main question on our behalf he also makes sacramentally and spiritually to be all one And again Vt quia jam similitudinem mortis ejus in baptismo accipimus similitudinem quoque sanguinis carnis sumamus ita ut veritas non desit in sacramento ridiculum nullum fiat in Paganis quod cruorem occisi hominis bibamus That as we receive the similitude of his Death in Baptism so we may also receive the likeness of his Flesh and Blood so that neither truth be wanting in the Sacrament nor the Pagans ridiculously affirm that we should drink the blood of the crucified Man Nothing could be spoken more plain in this Question We receive Christ's body in the Eucharist as we are baptized into his death that is by figure and likeness In the Sacrament there is a verity or truth of Christ's body and yet no drinking of blood or eating of flesh so as the Heathen may calumniate us by saying we do that which the men of Capernaum thought Christ taught
elevation of it must of themselves fall to the ground it will also follow that it is Christ's body only in a mystical spiritual and sacramental manner 4. Secondly By what Argument will it so much as probably be concluded that these words This is my body should be the words effective of conversion and consecration That Christ used these words is true and so he used all the other but did not tell which were the consecrating words nor appoint them to use those words but to do the thing and so to remember and represent his death And therefore the form and rites of consecration and ministeries are in the power of the Church where Christ's Command does not intervene as appears in all the external ministeries of Religion in Baptism Confirmation Penance Ordination c. And for the form of consecration of the Eucharist S. Basil affirms that it is not delivered to us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The words of Invocation in the manifestation or opening the Eucharistical bread and cup of blessing which of all the Saints hath left us for we are not content with these which the Apostles and the Evangelists mention but before and after we say other things which have great efficacy to this mystery But it is more material which Saint Gregory affirms concerning the Apostles Mos Apostolorum fuit ut ad ipsam solummodò orationem Dominicam oblationis hostiam consecrarent The Apostles consecrated the Eucharist only by saying the Lords Prayer To which I add this consideration that it is certain Christ interposed no Command in this case nor the Apostles neither did they for ought appears intend the recitation of those words to be the Sacramental consecration and operative of the change because themselves recited several forms of institution in Saint Matthew and Saint Mark for one and Saint Luke and Saint Paul for the other in the matter of the Chalice especially and by this difference declared there is no necessity of one and therefore no efficacy in any as to this purpose 5. Thirdly If they make these words to signifie properly and not figuratively then it is a declaration of something already in being and not effective of any thing after it For else est does not signifie is but it shall be because the conversion is future to the pronunciation and by the confession of the Roman Doctors the bread is not transubstantiated till the um in meum be quite out till the last syllable be spoken But yet I suppose they cannot shew an example or reason or precedent or Grammar or any thing for it that est should be an active word And they may remember how confidently they use to argue against them that affirm men to be justified by a fiducia and perswasion that their sins are pardoned saying that saith must suppose the thing done or their belief is false and if it be done before then to believe it does not do it at all because it is done already The case is here the same They affirm that it is made Christ's body by saying it is Christ's body but their saying so must suppose the thing done or else their saying so is false and if it be done before then to say it does not do it at all because it is done already 6. Fourthly When our blessed Lord took bread he gave thanks said Saint Luke and Saint Paul he blessed it said Saint Matthew and Saint Mark 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 making it Eucharistical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that was consecrating or making it holy it was common bread unholy when he blessed it and made it Eucharistical for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the word in Justin and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bread and wine food made Eucharistical or on which Christ had given thanks Eucharistia sanguinis corporis Christi so Irenaeus and others and Saint Paul does promiscuously use 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in the same place the Vulgar Latin renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by benedictionem and therefore Saint Paul calls it the cup of blessing and in this very place of Saint Matthew Saint Basil reads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 instead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either in this following the old Greek Copies who so read this place or else by interpretation so rendring it as being the same and on the other side Saint Cyprian renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word used in the blessing the Chalice by benedixit Against this Smiglecius the Jesuite with some little scorn sayes it is very absurd to say that Christ gave thanks to the bread and so it should be if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 blessing and giving of thanks were all one But in this he shewed his anger or want of skill not knowing or not remembring that the Hebrews and Hellenist Jews love abbreviature of speech and in the Epistle to the Hebrews Saint Paul uses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to appease or propitiate our sins instead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to propitiate or appease God concerning our sins and so is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only that by this means God also makes the bread holy blessed and eucharistical Now I demand what did Christ's blessing effect upon the Bread and the Chalice any thing or nothing If no change was consequent it was an ineffective blessing a blessing that blessed not if any change was consequent it was a blessing of the thing in order to what was intended that is that it might be Eucharistical and then the following words this is my body this is the blood of the New Testament or the New Testament in my blood were as Cabasilas affirms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of history and narration and so the Syriack Interpreter puts them together in the place of S. Matthew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 blessing and giving of thanks when he did bless it he made it Eucharistical 7. Fifthly The Greek Church universally taught that the Consecration was made by the prayers of the ministring man Justin Martyr calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nourishment made Eucharistical by prayer and Origen calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bread made a body a holy thing by prayer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Damascen by the invocation and illumination of the Holy Ghost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are changed into the body and blood of Christ. But for the Greek Church the case is evident and confessed For the ancient Latine Church Saint Hierom reproving certain pert Deacons for insulting over Priests uses this expression for the honour of Priests above the other Ad quorum preces Christi corpus sanguisque conficitur by their prayers the body and blood of Christ is in the Sacrament
his natural body then it was naturally broken and his bloud was actually poured forth before the passion for he gave 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his body was delivered broken his bloud was shed Now those words were spoken either properly and naturally and then they were not true because his body was yet whole his bloud still in the proper channels or else it was spoken in a figurative and sacramental sence and so it was true as were all the words which our blessed Saviour spake for that which he then ministred was the Sacrament of his Passion 3. Secondly If Christ gave his body in the natural sence at the last Supper then it was either a sacrifice propitiatory or it was not If it was not then it is not now and then their dream of the Mass is vanished if it was propitiatory at the last Supper then God was reconciled to all the world and mankind was redeemed before the Passion of our blessed Saviour which therefore would have been needless and ineffective so fearful are the consequents of this strange doctrine 4. Thirdly If Christ gave his body properly in the last Supper and not only figuratively and in sacrament then it could not be a representment or sacrament of his Passion but a real exhibition of it but that it was a Sacrament only appears by considering that it was then alive that the Passion was future that the thing was really to be performed upon the Cross that then he was to be delivered for the life of the world In the last Supper all this was in type and sacrament because it was before and the substance was to follow after 5. Fourthly If the natural body of Christ was in the last Supper under the accidents of bread then his body at the same time was visible and invisible in the whole substance visible in his person invisible under the accidents of bread and then it would be inquired what it was which the Apostles received what benefits they could have by receiving the body naturally or whether it be imaginable that the Apostles understoood it in the literal sence when they saw his body stand by unbroken alive integral hypostatical 6. Fifthly If Christs body were naturally in the Sacrament I demand whether it be as it was in the last Supper or as upon the Cross or as it is now in Heaven Not as in the last Supper for then it was frangible but not broken but typically by design in figure and in Sacrament as it is evident in matter of fact 2. Not as on the Cross for there the body was frangible and broken too and the blood spilled and if it were so now in the Sacrament besides that it were to make Christs glorified body passible and to crucifie the Lord of life again it also were not the same body which Christ hath now for his Body that he hath now is spiritual and incorruptible and cannot be otherwise much less can it be so and not so at the same time properly and yet be the same body 3. Not as in Heaven where it is neither corruptible nor broken for then in the Sacrament there were given to us Christs glorified body and then neither were the Sacrament a remembrance of Christs death neither were the words of Institution verified This is my body which is broken besides in this we have Bellarmines confession Neque enim ore corporali sumi potest corpus Christi ut est in coelo But then if it be remembred that Christ hath no other body but that which is in Heaven and that can never be otherwise than it is and so it cannot be received otherwise properly it unanswerably follows that if it be received in any other manner as it must if it be at all it must be received not naturally or corporally but spiritually and indeed By a figure or a sacramental spiritual sence all these difficulties are easily assoiled but by the natural never 7. Sixthly At the last Supper they eat the blessed Eucharist but it was not in remembrance of Christs death for it was future then and therefore not then capable of being remembred any more than a man can be said to remember what will be done to morrow it follows from hence that then Christ only instituted a Sacrament or figurative mysterious representment of a thing that in the whole use of it was variable by heri and cras and therefore never to be naturally verified but on the Cross by a proper and natural presence because then it was so and never else at that time it was future and now it is past and in both it is relative to his death therefore it could not be a real exhibition of his body in a natural sence for that as it could not be remembred then so neither broken now that is nothing of it is natural but it is wholly ritual mysterious and sacramental For that this was the sacrament of his death appears in the words of Institution and by the preceptive words Do this in remembrance of me And in the reason subjoyned by S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For so often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye shew the Lords death till he come Therefore when Christ said This is my body given or broken on my part taken eaten on yours it can be nothing else but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sacramental image of his death to effect which purpose it could not be necessary or useful to bring his natural body that so the substance should become his own shadow the natural presence be his own Sacrament or rather the image and representment of what he once suffered His body given in the Sacrament is the application and memory of his death and no more that as Christ in Heaven represents his death in the way of intercession so do we by our ministery but as in Heaven it is wholly a representing of his body crucified a rememoration of his crucifixion of his death passion by which he reconciled God and man so it is in the Sacrament after our manner This is my body given for you that is This is the Sacrament of my death in which my body was given for you For as Aquinas said in all sciences words signifie things but it is proper to Theology that things themselves signified or expressed by voices should also signifie something beyond it This is my body are the sacramental words or those words by which the mystery or the thing is sacramental it must therefore signifie something beyond these words and so they do for they signifie the death which Christ suffered in that body It is but an imperfect conception of the mystery to say it is the Sacrament of Christs body only or his blood but it is ex parte rei a Sacrament of the death of his body and to us a participation or an exhibition of it as it became beneficial to us that
these 4. Origen says that the Christian people drinketh the blood of Christ and the flesh of the word of God is true food What then so say we too but it is Spiritual food and we drink the blood Spiritually He says nothing against that but very much for it as I have in several places remarked already 5. But how can this expound the other words Christian people eat Christs flesh and drink his blood therefore when Origen says the material part the Symbolical body of Christ is eaten naturally and cast into the draught he means not the body of Christ in his material part but the accidents of bread the colour the taste the quantity these are cast out by the belly Verily a goodly argument if a man could guess in what mood and figure it could conclude 6. When a man speaks distinctly and particularly it is certain he is easier to be understood in his particular and minute meaning than when he speaks generally But here he distinguishes a part from a part one sence from another the body in one sence from the body in another therefore these words are to expound the more general and not they to expound these unless the general be more particular than that that is distinguished into kinds that is unless the general be a particular and the particular be a general 7. Amalarius was so amus'd with these words and discourse of Origen that his understanding grew giddy and he did not know whether the body of Christ were invisibly taken up into Heaven or kept till our death in the body or expired at letting of blood or exhal'd in air or spit out or breath'd forth our Lord saying That which enters into the mouth descends into the belly and so goes forth into the draught The man was willing to be of the new opinion of the Real Presence because it began to be the mode of the Age. But his folly was soberly reproved by a Synod at Carisiacum about the time of Pope Gregory the Fourth where the difficulty of Origens argument was better answered and the Article determined that the bread and wine are spiritually made the body of Christ which being a meat of the mind and not of the belly is not corrupted but remaineth unto everlasting life 8. To expound these words of the accidents of bread only and say that they enter into the belly and go forth in the draught is a device of them that care not what they say for 1. It makes that the ejectamentum or excrement of the body should consist of colour and quantity without any substance 2. It makes a man to be nourished by accidents and so not only one substance to be changed into another but that accidents are changed into substances which must be if they nourish the body and pass in latrinam and then beyond the device of Transubstantiation we have another production from Africa a transaccidentisubstantiation a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. It makes accidents to have all the affections of substances as motion substantial corruption alteration that is not to be accidents but substances For matter and form are substances and those that integrate all physical and compound substances but till yesterday it was never heard that accidents could Yea but magnitude is a material quality and ground or subject of the accidents So it is said but it is nonsence For besides that magnitude is not a quality but a quantity neither can it be properly or truly said to be material but imperfectly because it is an affection of matter and however it is a contradiction to say that it is the ground of qualities for an accident cannot be the fundamentum the ground or subject of an accident that is the formality and definition of a substance as every young scholar hath read in Aristotles Categories so that to say that it is the ground of accidents is to say that accidents are subjected in magnitude that is that magnitude is neither a quantity nor quality but a substance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An accident always subsists in a subject says Porphyrie 9. This answer cannot be fitted to the words of Origen for that which he calls the quid materiale or the material part in the Sacrament he calls it the Symbolical body which cannot be affirmed of accidents because there is no likeness between the accidents the colour the shape the figure the roundness the weight the magnitude of the host or wafer and Christs body and therefore to call the accidents a Symbolical body is to call it an unsymbolical Symbol an unlike similitude a representment without analogy But if he means the consecrated bread the whole action of consecration distribution sumption manducation this is the Symbolical body according to the words of S. Paul He that drinks this cup and eats this bread represents the Lords death it is the figure of Christs crucified body of his passion and our redemption 10. It is a strange expression to call accidents a body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Aristotle a body may be called white but the definition or reason of the accident can never be affirmed of a body I conclude that this argument out of the words of our blessed Saviour urged also and affirmed by Origen do prove that Christs body is in the Sacrament only to be eaten in a Spiritual sence not at all in a Natural lest that consequent be the event of it which to affirm of Christs glorified body in the natural and proper sence were very blasphemy 2. The next argument from Scripture is taken from Christs departing from this world his going from us the ascension of his body and soul into Heaven his not being with us his being contained in the Heavens So said our blessed Saviour Vnless I go hence the Comforter cannot come and I go to prepare a place for you The poor ye have always but me ye have not always S. Peter affirms of him that the Heavens must receive him till the time of restitution of all things Now how these things can be true of Christ according to his humane nature that is a circumscribed body and a definite soul is the question And to this the answer is the same in effect which is given by the Roman Doctors and by the Vbiquitaries whom they call Hereticks These men say Christs humane nature is every where actually by reason of his hypostatical union with the Deity which is every where the Romanists say no it is not actually every where but it may be where and is in as many places as he please for although he be in Heaven yet so is God too and yet God is upon earth eodem modo says Bellarmine in the same manner the Man Christ although he be in Heaven yet also he can be out of Heaven where he please he can be in Heaven and out of Heaven Now these two opinions are concentred in the main impossibility that is that Christs body can
if he had foreseen he should have been written against by so learned an adversary But to let them agree as well as they can the words of Eusebius out of his last chapter I translated as well as I could the Greek words I have set in the Margent that every one that understands may see I did him right and indeed to do my Adversary right when he goes about to change not to mend the translation he only changes the order of the words but in nothing does he mend his own matter by it for he acknowledges the main Question viz. that the memory of Christs sacrifice is to be celebrated in certain signs on the Table but then that l may do my self right and the question too whosoever translated these words for this Gentleman hath abused him and made him to render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and hath made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be governed by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is so far off it and hath no relation to it and not to be governed by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with which it is joyn'd and hath made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be governed by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when it hath a substantive of its own 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and he repeats 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 once more than it is in the words of Eusebius only because he would not have the Reader suppose that Eusebius call'd the consecrated Elements the symbols of the body and blood But this fraud was too much studied to be excusable upon the stock of humane infirmity or an innocent perswasion But that I may satisfie the Reader in this Question so far as the testimony and doctrine of Eusebius can extend he hath these words fully to our purpose First our Lord and Saviour and then after him his Priests of all Nations celebrating the spiritual sacrifice according to the Ecclesiastick Laws by the bread and the wine signifie the mysteries of his body and healing blood And again By the wine which is the symbol of his blood he purges the old sins of them who were baptized into his death and believe in his blood Again he gave to his Disciples the symbols of the divine Oeconomy commanding them to make the image figure or representation of his own body And Again He received not the sacrifices of blood nor the slaying of divers beasts instituted in the Law of Moses but ordained we should use bread the symbol of his own body So far I thought fit to set down the words of Eusebius to convince my Adversary that Eusebius is none of theirs but he is wholly ours in the doctrine of the Sacrament S. Macarius is cited in the Disswasive in these words In the Church is offered bread and wine the Antitype of his flesh and blood and they that partake of the bread that appears do spiritually eat the flesh of Christ. A. L. saith Macarius saith not so but rather the contrary viz. bread and wine exhibiting the Exemplar or an antitype his flesh and blood Now although I do not suppose many learned or good men will concern themselves with what this little man says yet I cannot but note that they who gave him this answer may be asham'd for here is a double satisfaction in this little answer First he puts in the word exhibiting of his own head there being no such word in S. Macarius in the words quoted 2. He makes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be put with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of apposition expresly against the mind of S. Macarius and against the very Grammar of his words And after all he studies to abuse his Author and yet gets no good by it himself for if it were in the words as he hath invented it or some body else for him yet it makes against him as much saying bread and wine exhibite Christs body which is indeed true though not here said by the Saint but is directly against the Roman article because it confesses that to be bread and wine by which Christs body is exhibited to us but much more is the whole testimony of S. Macarius which in the Disswasive are translated exactly as the Reader may see by the Greek words cited in the Margent There now only remains the authority of S. Austin which this Gentleman would fain snatch from the Church of England and assert to his own party I cited five places out of S. Austin to the last of which but one he gives this answer that S. Austin hath no such words in that book that is in the Tenth book against Faustus the Manichee Concerning which I am to inform the Gentleman a little better These words that which by all men is called a sacrifice is the sign of the true sacrifice are in the tenth book of S. Austin de C. D. cap. 5. and make a distinct quotation and ought by the Printer to have been divided by a colume as the other But the following words in which the flesh of Christ after his assumption is celebrated by the Sacrament of remembrance are in the 20. book cap. 21. against Faustus the Manichee All these words and divers others of S. Austin I knit together in a close order like a continued discourse but all of them are S. Austins words as appears in the places set down in the Margent But this Gentleman car'd not for what was said by S. Austin he was as well pleased that a figure was false Printed but to the words he hath nothing to say To the first of the other four only he makes this crude answer that S. Austin denied not the real eating of Christs body in the Eucharist but only the eating it in that gross carnal and sensible manner as the Capharnaites conceiv'd To which I reply that it is true that upon occasion of this error S. Austin did speak those words and although the Roman error be not so gross and dull as that of the Capharnaites yet it was as false as unreasonable and as impossible And be the occasion of the words what they are or can be yet upon this occasion S. Austin spake words which as well confute the Roman error as the Capharnaitical For it is not only false which the men of Capernaum dreamt of but the antithesis to this is that which S. Austin urges and which comes home to our question I have commended to you a Sacrament which being spiritually understood shall quicken you But because S. Austin was the most diligent expounder of this mystery among all the Fathers I will gratifie my Adversary or rather indeed my Unprejudicate Readers by giving some other very clear and unanswerable evidences of the doctrine of S. Austin agreeing perfectly with that of our Church At this time after manifest token of our liberty hath shin'd in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ we are not burdened with the heavy operation of signs
expiation of them they fancy and consequently give what allowance they list to those whom they please to mislead For in innumerable Cases of Conscience it is oftner inquired whether a thing be Venial or Mortal than whether it be lawful or not lawful and as Purgatory is to Hell so Venial is to Sin a thing which men fear not because the main stake they think to be secured for if they may have Heaven at last they care not what comes between And as many men of the Roman perswasion will rather chuse Purgatory than suffer here an inconsiderable penance or do those little services which themselves think will prevent it so they chuse venial sins and hug the pleasures of trifles warming themselves at phantastick fires and dancing in the light of the Glo-worms and they love them so well that rather than quit those little things they will suffer the intolerable pains of a temporary Hell for so they believe which is the testimony of a great evil and a mighty danger for it gives testimony that little sins can be beloved passionately and therefore can minister such a delight as is thought a price great enough to pay for the sufferance of temporal evils and Purgatory it self 3. But the evil is worse yet when it is reduc'd to practice For in the decision of very many questions the answer is It is a venial sin that is though it be a sin yet there is in it no danger of losing the favour of God by that but you may do it and you may do it again a thousand thousand times and all the venial sins of the world put together can never do what one mortal sin can that is make God to be your enemy So Bellarmine expresly affirms But because there are many Doctors who write Cases of Conscience and there is no measure to limit the parts of this distinction for that which is not at all cannot be measured the Doctors differ infinitely in their sentences some calling that Mortal which others call Venial as you may see in the little Summaries of Navar and Emanuel Sà the poor souls of the Laity and the vulgar Clergy who believe what is told them by the Authors or Confessors they chuse to follow must needs be in infinite danger and the whole body of Practical Divinity in which the life of Religion and of all our hopes depends shall be rendred dangerous and uncertain and their confidence shall betray them unto death 4. To bring relief to this state of evil and to establish aright the proper grounds and measures of Repentance I shall first account concerning the difference of sins and by what measures they are so differenc'd 2. That all sins are of their own nature punishable as God please even with the highest expressions of his anger 3. By what Repentance they are cur'd and pardon'd respectively SECT II. Of the difference of sins and their measures 5. I. SINS are not equal but greater or less in their principle as well as in their event It was one of the errors of Jovinian which he learned from the Schools of the Stoicks that all sins are alike grievous Nam dicunt esse pares res Furta latrociniis magnis parva minantur Falce recisuros simili se si sibi regnum Permittant homines For they supposed an absolute irresistible Fate to be the cause of all things and therefore what was equally necessary was equally culpable that is not at all and where men have no power of choice or which is all one that it be necessary that they chuse what they do there can be no such thing as Laws or sins against them To which they adding that all evils are indifferent and the event of things be it good or bad had no influence upon the felicity or infelicity of man they could neither be differenc'd by their cause nor by their effect the first being necessary and the latter indifferent * Against this I shall not need to oppose many Arguments for though this follows most certainly from their doctrine who teach an irresistible Decree of God to be the cause of all things and actions yet they that own the doctrine disavow the consequent and in that are good Christians but ill Logicians But the Article is sufficiently cleared by the words of our B. Lord in the case of Judas whose sin as Christ told to Pilate was the greater because he had not power over him but by special concession in the case of the servant that knows his Masters will and does it not in the several condemnations of the degrees and expressions of anger in the instances of Racha and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou vain man or Thou fool by this comparing some sins to gnats and some to Camels and in proportion to these there are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in S. Luke many stripes a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in S. James a greater condemnation * Thus to rob a Church is a greater sin than to rob a Thief To strike a Father is a higher impiety than to resist a Tutor To oppress a Widow is clamorous and calls aloud for vengeance when a less repentance will vote down the whispering murmurs of a trifling injury done to a fortune that is not sensible of smaller diminutions Nec vincit ratio tantundem ut peccet idémque Qui teneros caules alieni fregerit horti Vt qui nocturnus Divûm sacra legerit He is a greater criminal that steals the Chalice from a Church than he that takes a few Coleworts or robs a garden of Cucumers But this distinction and difference is by something that is extrinsecal to the action the greatness of the mischief or the dignity of the person according to that Omne animi vitium tanto conspectius in se Crimen habet quanto major qui peccat habetur 6. II. But this when it is reduc'd to its proper cause is because such greater sins are complicated they are commonly two or three sins wrapt together as the unchastity of a Priest is uncleanness and scandal too Adultery is worse than Fornication because it is unchastity and injustice and by the fearful consequents of it is mischievous and uncharitable Et quas Euphrates quas mihi misit Orontes Me capiant Nolo furta pudica thori So Sacriledge is theft and impiety And Apicius killing himself when he suppos'd his estate would not maintain his luxury was not only a self-murtherer but a gluttonous person in his death Nil est Apici tibi gulosius factum So that the greatness of sins is in most instances by extension and accumulation that as he is a greater sinner who sins often in the same instance than he that sins seldom so is he who sins such sins as are complicated and intangled like the twinings of combining Serpents And this appears to be so because if we take single sins as uncleanness and theft no man can tell which is the greater sin neither
advices with the saying of Josephus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is as damnable to indulge leave to our selves to sin little sins as great ones A man may be choaked with a raisin as well as with great morsels of flesh and a small leak in a ship if it be neglected will as certainly sink her as if she sprung a plank Death is the wages of all and damnation is the portion of the impenitent whatever was the instance of their sin Though there are degrees of punishment yet there is no difference of state as to this particular and therefore we are tied to repent of all and to dash the little Babylonians against the stones against the Rock that was smitten for us For by the blood of Jesus and the tears of Repentance and the watchfulness of a diligent careful person many of them shall be prevented and all shall be pardoned A Psalm to be frequently used in our Repentance for our daily Sins BOW down thine ear O Lord hear me for I am poor and needy Rejoyce the soul of thy servant for unto thee O Lord do I lift up my soul. For thou Lord art good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee Teach me thy way O Lord I will walk in thy truth unite my heart to fear thy Name Shall mortal man be more just than God shall a man be more pure than his Maker Behold he put no trust in his Servants and his Angels he charged with folly How much less on them that dwell in houses of clay whose foundation is in the dust which are crushed before the moth Doth not their excellency which is in them go away They die even without wisdom The law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul the testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple Moreover by them is thy servant warned and in keeping of them there is great reward Who can understand his errors Cleanse thou me from my secret faults keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins let them not have dominion over me then shall I be upright and I shall be innocent from the great transgression O ye sons of men how long will ye turn my glory into shame how long will ye love vanity and seek after leasing But know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself The Lord will hear when I call unto him Out of the deep have I called unto thee O Lord Lord hear my voice O let thine ears consider well the voice of my complaint If thou Lord wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss O Lord who may abide it But there is mercy with thee therefore shalt thou be feared Set a watch O Lord before my mouth and keep the door of my lips Take from me the way of lying and cause thou me to make much of thy law The Lord is full of compassion and mercy long-suffering and of great goodness He will not alway be chiding neither keepeth he his anger for ever Yea like as a Father pitieth his own children even so is the Lord merciful unto them that fear him For he knoweth whereof we are made he remembreth that we are but dust Praise the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits which forgiveth all thy sin and healeth all thine infirmities Glory be to the Father c. The PRAYER O Eternal God whose perfections are infinite whose mercies are glorious whose justice is severe whose eyes are pure whose judgments are wise be pleased to look upon the infirmities of thy servant and consider my weakness My spirit is willing but my flesh is weak I desire to please thee but in my endeavours I fail so often so foolishly so unreasonably that I extreamly displease my self and I have too great reason to fear that thou also art displeased with thy servant O my God I know my duty I resolve to do it I know my dangers I stand upon my guard against them but when they come near I begin to be pleased and delighted in the little images of death and am seised upon by folly even when with greatest severity I decree against it Blessed Jesus pity me and have mercy upon my infirmities II. O Dear God I humbly beg to be relieved by a mighty grace for I bear a body of sin and death about me sin creeps upon me in every thing that I do or suffer When I do well I am apt to be proud when I do amiss I am sometimes too confident sometimes affrighted If I see others do amiss I either neglect them or grow too angry and in the very mortification of my anger I grow angry and peevish My duties are imperfect my repentances little my passions great my fancy trifling The sins of my tongue are infinite and my omissions are infinite and my evil thoughts cannot be numbred and I cannot give an account concerning innumerable portions of my time which were once in my power but were let slip and were partly spent in sin partly thrown away upon trifles and vanity and even of the hasest sins of which in accounts of men I am most innocent I am guilty before thee entertaining those sins in little instances thoughts desires and imaginations which I durst not produce into action and open significations Blessed Jesus pity me and have mercy upon my infirmities III. TEACH me O Lord to walk before thee in righteousness perfecting holiness in the fear of God Give me an obedient will a loving spirit a humble understanding watchfulness over my thoughts deliberation in all my words and actions well tempered passions and a great prudence and a great zeal and a great charity that I may do my duty wisely diligently holily O let me be humbled in my infirmities but let me be also safe from my enemies let me never fall by their violence nor by my own weakness let me never be overcome by them nor yet give my self up to folly and weak principles to idleness and secure careless walking but give me the strengths of thy Spirit that I may grow strong upon the ruines of the flesh growing from grace to grace till I become a perfect man in Christ Jesus O let thy strength be seen in my weakness and let thy mercy triumph over my infirmities pitying the condition of my nature the infancy of grace the imperfection of my knowledge the transportations of my passion Let me never consent to sin but for ever strive against it and every day prevail till it be quite dead in me that thy servant living the life of grace may at last be admitted to that state of glory where all my infirmities shall be done away and all tears be dried up and sin and death shall be no more Grant this O most gracious God and Father for Jesus Christ his sake Amen Our Father c. CHAP. IV. Of Actual single Sins and what Repentance is proper to them SECT I. 1. THE
instance but regular and certain in the prevarication Vetuleius Pavo would be sure to be drunk at the feasts of Saturn and take a surfeit in the Calends of January he would be wanton at the Floralia and bloody in the Theatres he would be prodigal upon his birth day and on the day of his marriage sacrifice Hecatombs to his Pertunda Dea and he would be sure to observe all the solemnities and festivals of vice in their own particulars and instances and thought himself a good man enough because he could not be called a drunkard or a glutton for one act and by sinning singly escap'd the appellatives of scorn which are usually fix'd upon vain persons that are married to one sin * Naturally to contract the habit of any one sin is like the entertaining of a Concubine and dwelling upon the folly of one miserable woman But a wandring habit is like a Libido vaga the vile adulteries of looser persons that drink at every cistern that runs over and stands open for them For such persons have a supreme habit a habit of disobedience and may for want of opportunity or abilities for want of pleasure or by the influence of an impertinent humour be kept from acting always in one scene But so long as they choose all that pleases them and exterminate no vice but entertain the instances of many their malice is habitual their state is a perfect aversation from God For this is that which the Apostle calls The body of sin a compagination of many parts and members just as among the Lawyers a flock a people a legion are called bodies and corpus civitatis we find in Livy corpus collegiorum in Caius corpus regni in Virgil and so here this union of several sins is the body of sin and that is the body of death And not only he that feeds perpetually upon raw fruit puts himself into an ill habit of body but he also does the same thing who to day drinks too much and to morrow fills himself with cold fruits and the next day with condited mushromes and by evil orders and carelesness of diet and accidental miscarriages heaps up a multitude of causes and unites them in the production and causality of his death This general disorder is indeed longer doing but it kills as fatally and infallibly as a violent surfeit And if a man dwells in the kingdome of sin it is all one whether he be sick in one or in twenty places they are all but several rooms of the same Infirmatory and ingredients of the same deadly poison He that repeats his sin whether it be in one or in several instances strikes himself often to the heart with the same or with several daggers 3. Having thus premised what was necessary for the explication of the nature of vicious habits we must consider that of vicious habits there is a threefold capacity 1. A Natural 2. A Moral 3. A Relative as it denominates a man in relation to God 1. Of the Natural capacity of sinful habits 4. The natural capacity of sinful habits is a facility or readiness of the faculty to do the like actions and this is naturally consequent to the frequent repetition of sinful acts not voluntary but in its cause and therefore not criminal by a distinct obliquity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Aristotle Actions are otherwise voluntary than habits We are masters of our actions all the way but of habits only in the beginning But because it was in our choice to do so or otherwise therefore the habit which is consequent is called voluntary not then chosen because it cannot then be hindred and therefore it is of it self indifferent an evil indeed as sickness or crookedness thirst or famine and as death it self to them that have repented them of that sin for which they die but no sin if we consider it in its meer natural capacity * Nay so it may become the exercise of vertue the scene of trouble indeed or danger of temptation and sorrow but a field of victory For there are here two things very considerable 5. I. That God for the glorification of his mercy can and does turn all evil into some good so to defeat the Devils power and to produce honour and magnification to his own goodness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For so God uses to do if we sin we shall smart for it but he turns it into good And S. Austin applies that promise that all things shall work together for good to them that fear God even to this particular etiam ipsa peccata nimirum non ex naturâ suâ sed ex Dei virtute sapientiâ if all things then sins also not by their proper efficacy but by the over-ruling power and wisdom of God like that of Phocylides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that will be a good man must be often deceiv'd that is buy his wit at a dear rate And thus some have been cur'd of pride by the shames of lust and of lukewarmness by a fall into sin being awakened by their own noddings and mending their pace by their fall And so also the sense of our sad infirmities introduc'd by our vicious living and daily prevarications may become an accidental fortification to our spirits a new spur by the sense of an infinite necessity and an infinite danger 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For whoever repents after such sad intervals of sorrow and sin either must do more than other men or they do nothing to purpose For besides that an ordinary care cannot secure them who have brought tempters home to themselves a common industry cannot root out vicious customes a trifling mortification cannot crucifie and kill what hath so long been growing with us besides this for this will not directly go into the account for this difficulty the sinner must thank himself he must do more actions of piety to obtain his pardon and to secure it But because they need much pardon and an infinite care and an assiduous watchfulness or they perish infallibly therefore all holy penitents are to arise to greater excellencies than if they had never sinned Major deceptae fama est gloria dextrae Si not erasset fecerat illa minùs Scaevola's hand grew famous for being deceived and it had been less reputation to have struck his enemy to the heart than to do such honourable infliction upon it for missing And thus there is in heaven more joy over one repenting sinner than over ninety nine just persons that need it not there is a greater deliverance and a mightier miracle a bigger grace and a prodigy of chance it being as S. Austin affirms a greater thing that a sinner should be converted than that being converted he should afterwards be saved and this he learn'd from those words of S. Paul But God commended his love to us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for
habit can equally in the merits of Christ be the disposition to a pardon as an act can for an act and is certainly much better than any one act can be because it includes many single acts of the same nature and it is all them and their permanent effect and change wrought by them besides So that it is certainly the better and the surer way But now the Question is not whether it be the better way but whether it be necessary and will not the lesser way suffice To this therefore I answer that since no man can be acceptable to God as long as sin reigns in his mortal body and since either sin must reign or the Spirit of Christ must reign for a man cannot be a Neuter in this war it is necessary that sins kingdom be destroyed and broken and that Christ rule in our hearts that is it is necessary that the first and the old habits be taken off and new ones introduc'd For although the moral revocation of a single act may be a sufficient disposition to its pardon because the act was transient and unless there be a habit or something of it nothing remains yet the moral revocation of a sinful habit cannot be sufficient because there is impressed upon the soul a viciousness and contrariety to God which must be taken off or there can be no reconciliation For let it be but considered that a vicious habit is a remanent aversation from God an evil heart the evil treasure of the heart a carnal mindedness an union and principle of sins and then let it be answered whether a man who is in this state can be a friend of God or reconcil'd to him in his Son who lives in a state so contrary to his holy Spirit of Grace The guilt cannot be taken off without destroying its nature since the nature it self is a viciousness and corruption 39. VI. Either it is necessary to extirpate and break the habit or else a man may be pardon'd while he is in love with sin For every vicious habit being radicated in the will and being a strong love inclination and adhesion to sin unless the natural being of this habit be taken off the enmity against God remains For it being a quality permanent and inherent and its nature being an aptness and easiness a desire to sin and longing after it to retract this by a moral retractation and not by a natural also is but hypocrisie for no man can say truly I hate the sin I have committed so long as the love to sin is inherent in his will and then if God should pardon such a person it would be to justifie a sinner remaining such which God equally hates as to condemn the innocent He will by no means acquit the guilty It was part of his Name which he caused to be proclaimed in the Camp of Israel And if this could be otherwise a man might be in the state of sin and the state of grace at the same time which hitherto all Theology hath believ'd to be impossible 40. VII This whole Question is clear'd by a large discourse of S. Paul For having under the person of an unregenerate man complain'd of the habitual state of prevailing sin of one who is a slave to sin sold under sin captive under a law of sin that is under vile inclinations and high pronenesses and necessities of sinning so that when he is convinc'd that he ought not to do it yet he cannot help it though he fain would have it help'd yet he cannot obey his own will but his accursed superinduc'd necessities and his sin within him was the ruler that and not his own better choice was the principle of his actions which is the perfect character of an habitual sinner he inquires after a remedy for all this which remedy he calls a being delivered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the body of this death The remedy is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the grace of God through Jesus Christ for by Christ alone we can be delivered But what is to be done the extermination of this dominion and Empire of concupiscence the breaking of the kingdom of sin That being the evil he complains of and of which he seeks remedy that is to be remov'd But that we may well understand to what sence and in what degree this is to be done in the next periods he describes the contrary state of deliverance by the parts and characters of an habit or state of holiness which he calls a walking after the Spirit opposed to a walking after the flesh It was a law in his members a law of sin and death Now he is to be made free by a contrary law the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus That is as sin before gave him law so now must the Spirit of God whereas before he minded the things of the flesh now he minds the things of the spirit that is the carnal-mindedness is gone and a spiritual-mindedness is the principle and ruler of his actions This is the deliverance from habitual sins even no other than by habitual graces wrought in us by the spirit of life by the grace of our Lord Jesus And this whole affair is rarely well summ'd up by the same Apostle As ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness If ye were servants before so ye must be now it is but justice and reason that at least as much be done for God as for the Devil It is not enough morally to revoke what is past by a wishing it had not been done but you must oppose a state to a state a habit to a habit And the Author of the Book of Baruch presses it further yet As it was your mind to go astray from God so being returned seek him ten times more It ought not to be less it must be as S. Chrysostom expresses it A custom against a custom a habit opposed to a habit that the evil may be driven out by the good as one nail is by another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Procopius In those things where you have sinned to profit and to increase and improve to their contraries that is the more comely way to pardon 41. VIII Either a habit of vertue is a necessary disposition to the pardon of a habit of vice or else the doctrine of mortification of the lusts of the flesh of all the lusts of all the members of the old man is nothing but a counsel and a caution of prudence but it contains no essential and indispensable duty For mortification is a long contention and a course of difficulty it is to be done by many arts and much caution and a long patience and a diligent observation by watchfulness and labour the work of every day and the employment of all the prudence and all the advices of good men and the
unless they were his at his death If therefore they be confiscated before his death ours indeed is the inconvenience too but his alone is the punishment and to neither of us is the wrong But concerning the second I mean that which is superinduc'd it is not his fault alone nor ours alone and neither of us is innocent we all put in our accursed Symbol for the debauching of our spirits for the besotting our souls for the spoiling our bodies Ille initium induxit debiti nos foenus auximus posterioribus peccatis c. He began the principal and we have increas'd the interest This we also find well expressed by Justin Martyr for the Fathers of the first ages spake prudently and temperately in this Article as in other things Christ was not born or crucified because himself had need of these things but for the sake of mankind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which from Adam fell into death and the deception of the Serpent besides the evil which every one adds upon his own account And it appears in the greatest instance of all even in that of natural death which though it was natural yet from Adam it began to be a curse just as the motion of a Serpent upon his belly which was concreated with him yet upon this story was changed into a malediction and an evil adjunct But though Adam was the gate and brought in the head of death yet our sins brought him in further we brought in the body of death Our life was left by Adam a thousand years long almost but the iniquity of man brought it quickly to 500 years from thence to 250 from thence to 120 and at last to seventy and then God would no more strike all mankind in the same manner but individuals and single sinners smart for it and are cut off in their youth and do not live out half their days And so it is in the matters of the soul and the spirit Every sin leaves an evil upon the soul and every age grows worse and adds some iniquity of its own to the former examples And therefore Tertullian calls Adam mali traducem he transmitted the original and exemplar and we write after his copy Infirmitatis ingenitae vitium so Arnobius calls our natural baseness we are naturally weak and this weakness is a vice or defect of Nature and our evil usages make our natures worse like Butchers being used to kill beasts their natures grow more savage and unmerciful so it is with us all If our parents be good yet we often prove bad as the wild olive comes from the branch of a natural olive or as corn with the chaff come from clean grain and the uncircumcised from the circumcised But if our parents be bad it is the less wonder if their children are so a Blackamore begets a Blackamore as an Epileptick son does often come from an Epileptick father and hereditary diseases are transmitted by generation so it is in that viciousness that is radicated in the body for a lustful father oftentimes begets a lustful son and so it is in all those instances where the soul follows the temperature of the body And thus not only Adam but every father may transmit an Original sin or rather an Original viciousness of his own For a vicious nature or a natural improbity when it is not consented to is not a sin but an ill disposition Philosophy and the Grace of God must cure it but it often causes us to sin before our reason and our higher principles are well attended to But when we consent to and actuate our evil inclinations we spoil our natures and make them worse making evil still more natural For it is as much in our nature to be pleased with our artificial delights as with our natural And this is the doctrine of S. Austin speaking of Concupiscence Modo quodam loquendi vocatur peccatum quòd peccata facta est peccati si vicerit facit reum Concupiscence or the viciousness of our Nature is after a certain manner of speaking called sin because it is made worse by sin and makes us guilty of sin when it is consented to It hath the nature of sin so the article of the Church of England expresses it that is it is in eâdem materiâ it comes from a weak principle à naturae vitio from the imperfect and defective nature of man and inclines to sin But that I may again use S. Austins words Quantum ad nos attiâ—et sine peccato semper essemus donec sanaretur hoc malum si ei nunquam consentiremus ad malum Although we all have concupiscence yet none of us all should have any sin if we did not consent to this concupiscence unto evil Concupiscence is Naturae vitium but not peccatum a defect or fault of nature but not formally a sin which distinction we learn from S. Austin Non enim talia sunt vitia quae jam peccata dicenda sunt Concupiscence is an evil as a weak eye is but not a sin if we speak properly till it be consented to and then indeed it is the parent of sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so S. James it brings forth sin 85. This is the vile state of our natural viciousness and improbity and misery in which Adam had some but truly not the biggest share and let this consideration sink as deep as it will in us to make us humble and careful but let us not use it as an excuse to lessen our diligence by greatning our evil necessity For death and sin were both born from Adam but we have nurs'd them up to an ugly bulk and deformity But I must now proceed to other practical rules 86. II. It is necessary that we understand that our natural state is not a state in which we can hope for heaven Natural agents can effect but natural ends by natural instruments and now supposing the former doctrine that we lost not the Divine favour by our guilt of what we never did consent to yet we were born in pure naturals and they some of them worsted by our forefathers yet we were at the best born but in pure naturals and we must be born again that as by our first birth we are heirs of death so by our new birth we may be adopted into the inheritance of life and salvation 87. III. It is our duty to be humbled in the consideration of our selves and of our natural condition That by distrusting our own strengths we may take sanctuary in God through Jesus Christ praying for his grace entertaining and caressing of his holy Spirit with purities and devotions with charity and humility infinitely fearing to grieve him lest he leaving us we be left as Adam left us in pure naturals but in some degrees worsted by the nature of sin in some instances and the anger of God in all that is in the state of flesh and blood which shall never inherit the
or successors of the injur'd person for in those sins very often the curse descends with the wrong So long as the effect remains and the injury is complained of and the title is still kept on foot so long the son is tied to restitution But even after the possession is setled yet the curse and evil may descend longer than the sin as the smart and the aking remains after the blow is past And therefore even after the successors come to be lawful possessors it may yet be very fit for them to quit the purchase of their fathers sin or else they must resolve to pay the sad and severe rent-charge of a curse 98. VI. In such cases in which there cannot be a real let there be a verbal and publick disavowing their fathers sin which was publick scandalous and notorious We find this thing done by Andronicus Palaeologus the Greek Emperor who was the son of a bad Father and it is to be done when the effect was transient or irremediable 99. VII Sometimes no piety of the children shall quite take off the anger of God from a family or nation as it hapned to Josiah who above all the Princes that were before or after him turned to the Lord. Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal In such a case as this we are to submit to Gods will and let him exercise his power his dominion and his kingdom as he pleases and expect the returns of our piety in the day of recompences and it may be our posterity shall reap a blessing for our sakes who feel a sorrow and an evil for our fathers sake 100. VIII Let all that have children endeavour to be the beginners and the stock of a new blessing to their family by blessing their children by praying much for them by holy education and a severe piety by rare example and an excellent religion And if there be in the family a great curse and an extraordinary anger gone out against it there must be something extraordinary done in the matter of religion or of charity that the remedy be no less than the evil 101. IX Let not the consideration of the universal sinfulness and corruption of mankind add confidence to thy person and hardness to thy conscience and authority to thy sin but let it awaken thy spirit and stir up thy diligence and endear all the watchfulness in the world for the service of God for there is in it some difficulty and an infinite necessity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Electra in the Tragedy Our nature is very bad in it self but very good to them that use it well Prayers and Meditations THE first Adam bearing a wicked heart transgressed and was overcome and so be all they that are born of him Thus infirmity was made permanent And the law also in the heart of the people with the malignity and root so that the good departed away and the evil abode still Lo this only have I found that God hath made man upright but they have sought many inventions For there is not a just man upon earth that doth good and sinneth not Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me Purge me with hysop and I shall be clean wash me and I shall be whiter than snow create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me The fool hath said in his heart There is no God they are corrupt they have done abominable works there is none that doth good The Lord looked down from Heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek after God They are all gone aside they are all become filthy There is not one that doth good no not one O that the salvation of Israel were come out of Sion when the Lord bringeth back the captivity of his people Jacob shall rejoyce and Israel shall be glad Man dieth and wasteth away yea man giveth up the ghost and where is he For now thou numbrest my steps Dost thou not watch over my sin my transgression is seal'd up in a bag and thou sewest up iniquity Thou destroyest the hope of man Thou prevailest against him for ever and he passeth thou changest his countenance and sendest him away But his flesh upon him shall have pain and his soul within him shall mourn What is man that he should be clean and he that is born of a woman that he should be righteous Behold he putteth no trust in his Saints yea the Heavens are not clean in his sight How much more abominable and filthy is man which drinketh iniquity like water Trouble and anguish shall make him afraid They shall prevail against him as a King ready to battel For he stretcheth out his hand against God and strengthneth himself against the Almighty Let not him that is deceived trust in vanity for vanity shall be his recompence Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean thing no not one I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin and defiled my horn in the dust My face is foul with weeping and on my eye-lids is the shadow of death Not for any injustice in my hand also my prayer is pure Wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death I thank God I am delivered through Jesus Christ our Lord. But now being made free from sin and become servants of God ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life For the wages of sin is death But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof For sin shall not have dominion over you for ye are not under the law but under grace The PRAYER O Almighty God great Father of Men and Angels thou art the preserver of men and the great lover of souls thou didst make every thing perfect in its kind and all that thou didst make was very good only we miserable creatures sons of Adam have suffered the falling Angels to infect us with their leprosie of pride and so we entred into their evil portion having corrupted our way before thee and are covered with thy rod and dwell in a cloud of thy displeasure behold me the meanest of thy servants humbled before thee sensible of my sad condition weak and miserable sinful and ignorant full of need wanting thee in all things and neither able to escape death without a Saviour nor to live a life of holiness without thy Spirit O be pleas'd to give me a portion in the new birth break off the bands and fetters of my sin cure my evil inclinations correct my indispositions and natural averseness
the image of the Earthly we shall also bear the image of the Heavenly Now this I say That flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven neither doth corruption inherit incorruption This Discourse of the Apostle hath in it all these propositions which clearly state this whole Article There are two great heads of Mankind the two Adams the first and the second The first was framed with an earthly body the second had viz. after his resurrection when he had died unto sin once a spiritual body The first was Earthly the second is Heavenly From the first we derive an Earthly life from the second we obtain a Heavenly all that are born of the first are such as he was naturally but the effects of the Spirit came only upon them who are born of the second Adam From him who is earthly we could have no more than he was or had the spiritual life and consequently the Heavenly could not be derived from the first Adam but from Christ only All that are born of the first by that birth inherit nothing but temporal life and corruption but in the new birth only we derive a title to Heaven For flesh and blood that is whatsoever is born of Adam cannot inherit the Kingdom of God And they are injurious to Christ who think that from Adam we might have inherited immortality Christ was the Giver and Preacher of it he brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel It is a singular benefit given by God to mankind through Jesus Christ. 3. Upon the affirmation of these premises it follows That if Adam had stood yet from him we could not have by our natural generation obtained a title to our spiritual life nor by all the strengths of Adam have gone to Heaven Adam was not our representative to any of these purposes but in order to the perfection of a temporal life Christ only is and was from eternal ages designed to be the head of the Church and the fountain of spiritual life And this is it which is affirmed by some very eminent persons in the Church of God particularly by Junius and Tilenus that Christus est fundamentum totius praedestinationis all that are or ever were predestinated were predestinated in Christ Even Adam himself was predestinated in him and therefore from him if he had stood though we should have inherited a temporal happy life yet the Scripture speaks nothing of any other event Heaven was not promised to Adam himself therefore from him we could not have derived a title thither And therefore that inquity of the School-men Whether if Adam had not sinned Christ should have been incarnate was not an impertinent Question though they prosecuted it to weak purposes and with trifling arguments Scotus and his Scholars were for the affirmative and though I will not be decretory in it because the Scripture hath said nothing of it nor the Church delivered it yet to me it seems plainly the discourse of the Apostle now alledged That if Adam had not sinned yet that by Christ alone we should have obtained everlasting life Whether this had been dispensed by his Incarnation or some other way of oeconomy is not signified 4. But then if from Adam we should not have derived our title to Heaven though he had stood then neither by his Fall can we be said to have lost Heaven Heaven and Hell were to be administred by another method But then if it be enquired what evil we thence received I answer That the principal effect was the loss of that excellent condition in which God placed him and would have placed his posterity unless sin had entred He should have lived a long and lasting life till it had been time to remove him and very happy Instead of this he was thrown from those means which God had designed to this purpose that is Paradise and the trees of life he was turned into a place of labour and uneasiness of briars and thorns ill air and violent chances nova febrium terris incubuit cohors the woman was condemned to hard labour and travel and that which troubled her most obedience to her Husband his body was made frail and weak and sickly that is it was leâ—t such as it was made and left without remedies which were to have made it otherwise For that Adam was made mortal in his nature is infinitely certain and proved by his very eating and drinking his sleep and recreation by ingestion and egestion by breathing and generating his like which immortal substances never do and by the very tree of life which had not been needful if he should have had no need of it to repair his decaying strength and health 5. The effect of this consideration is this that all the product of Adam's sin was by despoiling him and consequently us of all the superadditions and graces brought upon his nature Even that which was threatned to him and in the narrative of that sad story expressed to be his punishment was no lessening of his nature but despoiling him of his supernaturals And therefore Manuel Pelaeologus calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the common driness of our nature and he adds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by our Fathers sin we fell from our Fathers graces Now according to the words of the Apostle As is the earthly such are they that are earthly that is all his posterity must be so as his nature was left in this there could be no injustice For if God might at first and all the way have made man with a necessity as well as a possibility of dying though men had not sinned then so also may he do if he did sin and so it was but this was effected by disrobing him of all the superadded excellencies with which God adorned and supported his natural life But this also I add that if even death it self came upon us without the alteration or diminution of our nature then so might sin because death was in re naturali but sin is not and therefore need not suppose that Adam's nature was spoiled to introduce that 6. As the sin of Adam brought hurt to the body directly so indirectly it brought hurt to the soul. For the evils upon the body as they are only felt by the soul so they grieve and tempt and provoke the soul to anger to sorrow to envy they make weariness in religious things cause desires for ease for pleasure and as these are by the body always desired so sometimes being forbidden by God they become sins and are always apt to it because the body being a natural agent tempts to all it can feel and have pleasure in And this is also observed and affirmed by S. Chrysostom and he often speaks it as if he were pleased in this explication of the Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Together with death entred a whole troop of affections or passions For when the body became mortal then of necessity it did admit desires
as to agree with Scripture and reason and as may best glorifie God and that they require it I will not pretend to believe that those Doctors who first fram'd the Article did all of them mean as I mean I am not sure they did or that they did not but this I am sure that they fram'd the words with much caution and prudence and so as might abstain from grieving the contrary minds of differing men And I find that in the Harmony of confessions printed in Cambridge 1586 and allowed by publick Authority there is no other account given of the English confession in this Article but that every Person is born in sin and leadeth his life in sin and that no body is able truly to say his heart is clean That the most righteous person is but an unprofitable servant That the Law of God is perfect and requireth of us perfect and full obedience that we are able by no means to fulfill that Law in this worldly life that there is no mortal Creature which can be justified by his own deserts in God's sight Now this was taken out of the English Confession inserted in the General Apology written in the year 1562 in the very year the Articles were fram'd I therefore have reason to believe that the excellent men of our Church Bishops and Priests did with more Candor and Moderation opine in this Question and therefore when by the violence and noises of some parties they were forced to declare something they spake warily and so as might be expounded to that Doctrine which in the General Apology was their allowed sence However it is not unusual for Churches in matters of difficulty to frame their Articles so as to serve the ends of peace and yet not to endanger truth or to destroy liberty of improving truth or a further reformation And since there are so very many Questions and Opinions in this point either all the Dissenters must be allowed to reconcile the Article and their Opinion or must refuse her Communion which whosoever shall inforce is a great Schismatick and an Uncharitable Man This only is certain that to tye the Article and our Doctrine together is an excellent art of peace and a certain signification of obedience and yet is a security of truth and that just liberty of Understanding which because it is only God's subject is then sufficiently submitted to Men when we consent in the same form of words The Article is this Original Sin standeth not in the following of Adam as the Pelagians do vainly talk 28. THE following of Adam that is the doing as he did is actual sin and in no sence can it be Original sin for that is as vain as if the Pelagians had said the second is the first and it is as impossible that what we do should be Adam's sin as it is unreasonable to say that his should be really and formally our sin Imitation supposes a Copy and those are two termes of a Relation and cannot be coincident as like is not the same But then if we speak of Original sin as we have our share in it yet cannot our imitation of Adam be it possibly it may be an effect of it or a Consequent But therefore Adam's sin did not introduce a necessity of sinning upon us for if it did Original sin would be a fatal curse by which is brought to pass not only that we do but that we cannot choose but follow him and then the following of Adam would be the greatest part of Original sin expresly against the Article 29. But it is the fault and corruption of the Nature of every Man The fault vitium Naturae so it is in the Latine Copyes not a sin properly Non talia sunt vitia quae jam peccata dicenda sunt but a disease of the Soul as blindness or crookedness that is it is an imperfection or state of deficiency from the end whither God did design us we cannot with this nature alone go to Heaven for it having been debauch'd by Adam and disrobed of all its extraordinaries and graces whereby it was or might have been made fit for Heaven it is returned to its own state which is perfect in its kind that is in order to all natural purposes but imperfect in order to supernatural whither it was design'd The case is this The eldest Son of Craesus the Lydian was born dumb and by the fault of his Nature was unfit to govern the Kingdom therefore his Father passing him by appointed the Crown to his younger Brother But he in a Battail seeing his Father in danger to be slain in Zeal to save his Fathers life strain'd the ligatures of his tongue till that broke which bound him by returning to his speech he returned to his title We are born thus imperfect unfit to raign with God for ever and can never return to a title to our inheritance till we by the grace of God be redintegrate and made perfect like Adam that is freed from this state of imperfection by supernatural aides and by the grace of God be born again Corruption This word is exegetical of the other and though it ought not to signifie the diminution of the powers of the soul not only because the powers of the soul are not corruptible but because if they were yet Adams sin could not do it since it is impossible that an act proper to a faculty should spoil it of which it is rather perfective and an act of the will can no more spoil the will than an act of understanding can lessen the understanding Yet this word Corruption may mean a spoiling or disrobing our Nature of all its extraordinary investitures that is supernatural gifts and graces a Comparative Corruption so as Moses's face when the light was taken from it or a Diamond which is more glorious by a reflex ray of the Sun when the light was taken off falls into darkness and yet loses nothing of its Nature But Corruption relates to the body not to the soul and in this Article may very properly and aptly be taken in the same sence as it is used by S. Paul 1 Cor. 15. The body is sown in Corruption that is in all the effects of its mortality and this indeed is a part of Original sin or the effect of Adams sin it introduc'd Natural Corruption or the affections of mortality the solemnities of death for indeed this is the greatest parth of Original sin Fault and Corruption mean the Concupiscence and Mortality Of the Nature of every man This gives light to the other and makes it clear it cannot be in us properly a sin for sin is an affection of persons not of the whole Nature for an Universal cannot be the subject of circumstances and particular actions and personal proprieties as humane Nature cannot be said to be drunk or to commit adultery now because sin is an action or omission and it is made up of many particularities it cannot be
authorities to the same purpose may find them in S. Basil Theodoret S. Cyril Macarius S. Ambrose S. Hierom and Theophylact The words of the Apostle the very purpose and design the whole Oeconomy and Analogy of the sixth seventh and eighth Chapters do so plainly manifest it that the heaping up more testimonies cannot be useful in so clear a case The results are these I. The state of men under the law was but a state of carnality and of nature better instructed and soundly threatned and set forward in some instances by the spirit of fear only but not cured but in many men made much worse accidentally II. That to be pleased in the inner man that is in the Conscience to be convinc'd and to consent to the excellency of vertue and yet by the flesh that is by the passions of the lower man or the members of the body to serve sin is the state of Unregeneration III. To do the evil that I would not and to omit the good that I fain would do when it is in my hand to do what is in my heart to think is the property of a carnal unregenerate man And this is the state of men in nature and was the state of men under the law For to be under the law and not to be led by the Spirit are all one in S. Paul's account For if ye be led by the Spirit ye are not under the law saith he And therefore to be under the law being a state of not being under the Spirit must be under the government of the flesh that is they were not then sanctified by the Spirit of grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ they were not yet redeemed from their vain conversation Not that this was the state of all the sons of Israel of them that liv'd before the law or after but that the law could do no more for them or upon them Gods Spirit did in many of them work his own works but this was by the grace of Jesus Christ who was the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world this was not by the works of the law but by the same instruments and grace by which Abraham and all they who are his children by promise were justified But this is the consequent of the third proposition which I was to consider 27. III. From this state of evil we are redeemed by Christ and by the Spirit of his grace Wretched man that I am quis liberabit who shall deliver me from the body of this death He answers I thank God through Jesus Christ so S. Chrysostom Theodoret Theophylact S. Hierom the Greek Scholiast and the ordinary Greek copies do commonly read the words in which words there is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and they are thus to be supplied I thank God through Jesus Christ we are delivered or there is a remedy found out for us But Irenaeus Origen S. Ambrose S. Austin and S. Hierom himself at another time and the Vulgar Latin Bibles instead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gratia Domini Jesu Christi the grace of God through Jesus Christ. That is our remedy he is our deliverer from him comes our redemption For he not only gave us a better law but also the Spirit of grace he hath pardon'd all our old sins and by his Spirit enables us for the future that we may obey him in all sincerity in heartiness of endeavour and real events From hence I draw this argument That state from which we are redeemed by Jesus Christ and freed by the Spirit of his grace is a state of carnality of unregeneration that is of sin and death But by Jesus Christ we are redeemed from that state in which we were in subjection to sin commanded by the law of sin and obeyed it against our reason and against our conscience therefore this state which is indeed the state S. Paul here describes is the state of carnality and unregeneration and therefore not competent to the servants of Christ to the elect people of God to them who are redeemed and sanctified by the Spirit of Christ. The parts of this argument are the words of S. Paul and proved in the foregoing periods From hence I shall descend to something that is more immediately practical and cloth'd with circumstances SECT V. How far an Vnregenerate man may go in the ways of Piety and Religion 28. TO this inquiry it is necessary that this be premised That between the regenerate and a wicked person there is a middle state so that it is not presently true that if the man be not wicked he is presently Regenerate Between the two states of so vast a distance it is impossible but there should be many intermedial degrees between the Carnal and Spiritual man there is a Moral man not that this man shall have a different event of things if he does abide there but that he must pass from extreme to extreme by this middle state of participation The first is a slave of sin the second is a servant of righteousness the third is such a one as liveth according to Natural reason so much of it as is left him and is not abused that is lives a probable life but is not renewed by the Spirit of grace one that does something but not all not enough for the obtaining salvation For a man may have gone many steps from his former baseness and degenerous practices and yet not arrive at godliness or the state of pardon like the children of Israel who were not presently in Canaan as soon as they were out of Egypt but abode long in the wilderness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they begin to be instructed that is their state Thou art not far from the Kingdom of Heaven said our blessed Saviour to a well disposed person but he was not arrived thither he was not a subject of the Kingdom These are such whom our blessed Lord calls The weary and the heavy laden that is such who groan under the heavy pressure of their sins whom therefore he invites to come to him to be eased Such are those whom S. Paul here describes to be under the law convinced of sin pressed vexed troubled with it complaining of it desirous to be eased These the holy Scripture calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ordained disposed to life eternal but these were not yet the fideles or believers but from that fair disposition became believers upon the preaching of the Apostles 29. In this third state of men I account those that sin and repent and yet repent and sin again for ever troubled when they have sinn'd and yet for ever or most frequently sinning when the temptation does return 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They sin and accuse and hate themselves for sinning Now because these men mean well and fain would be quit of their sin at their own rate and are not scandalous and impious they flatter
and not Man first by Baptism and then by Confirmation first by Water and then by the Spirit The Primitive Church had this Notion so fully amongst them that the Author of the Apostolical Constitutions attributed to S. Clement who was S. Paul's Scholar affirms That a man is made a perfect Christian meaning Ritually and Sacramentally and by all exterior solemnity by the Water of Baptism and Confirmation of the Bishop and from these words of Christ now alledged derives the use and institution of the Rite of Confirmation The same sence of these words is given to us by S. Cyprian who intending to prove the insufficiency of one without the other says Tunc enim plenè Sanctificari esse Dei filii possunt si Sacramento utroque nascantur cùm scriptum sit Nisi quis natus fuerit ex aqua Spiritu non potest intrare in regnum Dei Then they may be fully Sanctified and become the Sons of God if they be born with both the Sacraments or Rites for it is written Vnless a man be born of Water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God The same also is the Commentary of Eusebius Emissenus and S. Austin tells That although some understand these words only of Baptism and others of the Spirit only viz. in Confirmation yet others and certainly much better understand utrumque Sacramentum both the Mysteries of Confirmation as well as Baptism Amalarius Fortunatus brings this very Text to reprove them that neglect the Episcopal Imposition of Hands Concerning them who by negligence lose the Bishop's presence and receive not the Imposition of his Hands it is to be considered lest in justice they be condemned in which they exercise Justice negligently because they ought to make haste to the Imposition of Hands because Christ said Vnless a man be born again of Water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God And as he said this so also he said Vnless your Righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven To this I foresee two Objections may be made First That Christ did not institute Confirmation in this place because Confirmation being for the gift of the Holy Ghost who was to come upon none of the Apostles till Jesus was glorified these words seem too early for the consigning an Effect that was to be so long after and a Rite that could not be practised till many intermedial events should happen So said the Evangelist The Holy Ghost was come upon none of them because Jesus was not yet glorified intimating that this great Effect was to be in after-time and it is not likely that the Ceremony should be ordained before the Effect it self was ordered and provided for that the Solemnity should be appointed before provisions were made for the Mystery and that the outward which was wholly for the inward should be instituted before the inward and principal had its abode amongst us To this I answer First That it is no unusual thing for Christ gave the Sacrament of his Body before his Body was given the Memorial of his Death was instituted before his Death 2. Confirmation might here as well be instituted as Baptism and by the same reason that the Church from these words concludes the necessity of one she may also infer the designation of the other for the effect of Baptism was at that time no more produced than that of Confirmation Christ had not yet purchased to himself a Church he had not wrought remission of sins to all that believe on him the Death of Christ was not yet passed into which Death the Christian Church was to be Baptized 3. These words are so an institution of Confirmation as the sixth Chapter of S. John is of the blessed Eucharist It was designativa not ordinativa it was in design not in present command here it was preached but not reducible to practice till its proper season 4. It was like the words of Christ to S. Peter When thou art converted confirm thy Brethren Here the command was given but that Confirmation of his Brethren was to be performed in a time relative to a succeeding accident 5. It is certain that long before the event and Grace was given Christ did speak of the Spirit of Confirmation that Spirit which was to descend in Pentecost which all they were to receive who should believe on him which whosoever did receive out of his Belly should flow Rivers of Living Waters as is to be read in that place of S. John now quoted 6. This predesignation of the Holy Spirit of Confirmation was presently followed by some little antepast and donariola or little givings of the Spirit for our Blessed Saviour gave the Holy Ghost three several times First 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 obscurely and by intimation and secret vertue then when he sent them to heal the sick and anoint them with Oil in the Name of the Lord. Secondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more expresly and signally after the Resurrection when he took his leave of them and said Receive ye the Holy Ghost And this was to give them a power of ministring Remission of sins and therefore related to Baptism and the ministeries of Repentance But Thirdly he gave it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more perfectly and this was the Spirit of Confirmation for he was not at all until now 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says the Text The Holy Ghost was not yet So almost all the Greek Copies Printed and Manuscript and so S. Chrysostom Athanasius Cyril Ammonius in the Catena of the Greeks Leontius Theophylact Euthymius and all the Greek Fathers read it so S. Hierom and S. Austin among the Latines and some Latin Translations read it Our Translations read it The Holy Ghost was not yet given was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in them as some few Greek Copies read it but the meaning is alike Confirmation was not yet actual the Holy Spirit viz. of Confirmation was not yet come upon the Church but it follows not but he was long before promised designed and appointed spoken of and declared * The first of these Collations had the Ceremony of Chrism or Anointing joyned with it which the Church in process of time transferred into her use and ministery yet it is the last only that Christ passed into an Ordinance for ever it is this only which is the Sacramental consummation of our Regeneration in Christ for in this the Holy Spirit is not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 present by his power but present 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Gregory Nazianzen expresses it to dwell with us to converse with us and to abide for ever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so S. Paul describes this Spirit of Confirmation the Spirit which he hath poured forth upon us richly or plentifully that is in great measures and to the full consummation of the
invalidity of their first pretended Baptism or their not using at all Confirmation in their Heretical Conventicles But the repetition of Confirmation is expresly forbidden by the Council of Tarracon cap. 6. and by P. Gregory the Second and sanctum Chrisma collatum altaris honor propter consecrationem quae per Episcopos tantùm exercenda conferenda sunt evelli non queunt said the Fathers in a Council at Toledo Confirmation and Holy Orders which are to be given by Bishops alone can never be annulled and therefore they can never be repeated And this relies upon those severe words of S. Paul having spoken of the foundation of the Doctrine of Baptisms and Laying on of hands he says if they fall away they can never be renewed that is the ministery of Baptism and Confirmation can never be repeated To Christians that sin after these ministrations there is only left a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Expergiscimini that they arise from slumber and stir up the Graces of the Holy Ghost Every man ought to be careful that he do not grieve the Holy Spirit but if he does yet let him not quench him for that is a desperate case 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Holy Spirit is the great conservative of the new Life only keep the Keeper take caâ—e that the Spirit of God do not depart from you for the great Ministery of the Spirit is but once for as Baptism is so is Confirmation I end this Discourse with a plain exhortation out of S. Ambrose upon those words of S. Paul He that confirmeth us with you in Christ is God Repete quia accepisti signaculum spirituale spiritum sapientiae intellectûs spiritum consilii atque virtutis spiritum cognitionis atque pietatis spiritum sancti timoris serva quod accepisti Signavit te Deus Pater confirmavit te Christus Dominus Remember that thou who hast been Confirmed hast receiv'd the Spiritual Signature the spirit of wisdom and understanding the spirit of counsel and strength the spirit of knowledge and godliness the spirit of holy fear keep what thou hast receiv'd The Father hath sealâ—d thee and Christ thy Lord hath confirmed thee by his Divine Spirit and he will never depart from thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless by evil works we estrange him from us The same advice is given by Prudentius Cultor Dei memento Te fontis lavacri Rorem subiisse Sanctum Et Chrismate innotatum Remember how great things ye have received and what God hath done for you ye are of his Flock and his Militia ye are now to sight his battels and therefore to put on his armor and to implore his auxiliaries and to make use of his strengths and always to be on his side against all his and all our Enemies But he that desires Grace must not despise to make use of all the instruments of Grace For though God communicates his invisible Spirit to you yet that he is pleas'd to do it by visible instruments is more than he needs but not more than we do need And therefore since God descends to our infirmities let us carefully and lovingly address our selves to his Ordinances that as we receive Remission of sins by the washing of Water and the Body and Blood of Christ by the ministery of consecrated Symbols so we may receive the Holy Ghost sub Ducibus Christianae militiae by the Prayer and Imposition of the Bishops hands whom our Lord Jesus hath separated to this Ministery For if you corroborate your self by Baptism they are the words of S. Gregory Nazianzen and then take heed for the future by the most excellent and firmest aids consigning your mind and body with the Vnction from above viz. in the Holy Rite of Confirmation with the Holy Ghost as the Children of Israel did with the aspersion on the door-posts in the night of the death of the first-born of Egypt what evil shall happen to you meaning that no evil can invade you and what aid shall you get If you sit down you shall be without fear and if you rest your sleep shall be sweet unto you But if when ye have received the Holy Spirit you live not according to his Divine principles you will lose him again that is you will lose all the blessing though the impression does still remain till ye turn quite Apostates in pessimis hominibus manebit licèt ad judicium saith S. Austin the Holy Ghost will remain either as a testimony of your Vnthankfulness unto condemnation or else as a seal of Grace and an earnest or your inheritance of eternal Glory THE END A DISCOURSE OF The NATVRE OFFICES and MEASVRES OF FRIENDSHIP WITH Rules of conducting it In a Letter to the most Ingenious and Excellent M rs KATHARINE PHILIPS Madam THE wise Ben-Sirach advised that we should not consult with a Woman concerning her of whom she is jealous neither with a coward in matters of War nor with a Merchant concerning Exchange and some other instances he gives of interested persons to whom he would not have us hearken in any matter of Counsel For where-ever the interest is secular or vicious there the â—iass is not on the side of Truth or Reason because these are seldom serv'd by profit and low regards But to consult with a Friend in the matters of Friendship is like consulting with a Spiritual person in Religion they who understand the secrets of Religion or the Interior beauties of Friendship are the fittest to give answers in all inquiries concerning the respective subjects because Reason and Experience are on the side of interest and that which in Friendship is most pleasing and most useful is also most reasonable and most true and a Friends fairest interest is the best Measure of the Conducting Friendships and therefore you who are so eminent in Friendships could also have given the best answer to your own inquiries and you could have trusted your own Reason because it is not only greatly instructed by the direct notices of things but also by great experience in the matter of which you now inquire But because I will not use any thing that shall look like an excuse I will rather give you such an account which you can easily reprove than by declining your commands seem more safe in my prudence than open and communicative in my Friendship to you You first inquire How far a Dear and a perfect Friendship is authoriz'd by the principles of Christianity To this I answer That the word Friendship in the sence we commonly mean by it is not so much as named in the New Testament and our Religion takes no notice of it You think it strange but read on before you spend so much as the beginning of a passion or a wonder upon it There is mention of Friendship with the world and it is said to be enmity with God but the word is no where else named or to any other purpose in
precepts given of any duty and comport which Brothers that is the descendents of the same Parents are to have one towards another in that capacity and it is not because their nearness is such that they need none For Parents and children are nearer and yet need tables of duty to be described and for Brothers certainly they need it infinitely if there be any peculiar duty Cain and Abel are the great probation of that and you know who said Fratrum quoque gratia rara est It is not often you shall see Two Brothers live in amity But the Scripture which often describes the duty of Parents and Children never describes the duty of Brothers except where by Brethren are meant all that part of mankind who are tied to us by any vicinity and indearment of religion or country of profession and family of contract or society of love and the noblest friendships the meaning is that though Fraternity alone be the endearment of some degrees of friendship without choice and without excellency yet the relation it self is not friendship and does not naturally infer it and that which is procured by it is but limited and little and though it may pass into it as other conversations may yet the friendship is accidental to it and enters upon other accounts as it does between strangers with this only difference that Brotherhood does oftentimes assist the valuation of those excellencies for which we entertain our friendships Fraternity is the opportunity and preliminary disposition to friendship and no more For if my Brother be a fool or a vicious person the love to which nature and our first conversation disposes me does not end in friendship but in pity and fair provisions and assistances which is a demonstration that Brotherhood is but the inclination and address to friendship And though I will love a worthy Brother more than a worthy stranger if the worthiness be equal because the relation is something and being put into the scales against an equal worthiness must needs turn the balance as every grain will do in an even weight yet when the relation is all the worthiness that is pretended it cannot stand in competition with a friend for though a friend-Brother is better than a friend-stranger where the friend is equal but the Brother is not yet a Brother is not better than a friend but as Solomon's expression is There is a Friend that is better than a Brother and to be born of the same Parents is so accidental and extrinsick to a mans pleasure or worthiness or spiritual advantages that though it be very pleasing and useful that a Brother should be a friend yet it is no great addition to a friend that he also is a Brother there is something in it but not much But in short the case is thus The first beginnings of friendship serve the necessities but choice and worthiness are the excellencies of its endearment and its bravery and between a Brother that is no friend and a friend that is no Brother there is the same difference as between the disposition and the act or habit a Brother if he be worthy is the readiest and the nearest to be a friend but till he be so he is but the twi-light of the day and but the blossom to the fairest fruit of Paradise A Brother does not always make a friend but a friend ever makes a Brother and more And although nature sometimes finds the tree yet friendship engraves the Image the first relation places him in the garden but friendship sets it in the Temple and then only it is venerable and sacred and so is Brotherhood when it hath the soul of friendship So that if it be asked which are most to be valued Brothers or Friends the answer is very easie Brotherhood is or may be one of the kinds of friendship and from thence only hath its value and therefore if it be compared with a greater friendship must give place But then it is not to be asked which is to be preferred a Brother or a Friend but which is the better friend Memnon or my Brother For if my Brother says I ought to love him best then he ought to love me best if he does then there is a great friendship and he possibly is to be preferred if he can be that friend which he pretends to be that is if he be equally worthy But if he says I must love him only because he is my Brother whether he loves me or no he is ridiculous and it will be a strange relation which hath no correspondent but suppose it and add this also that I am equally his Brother as he is mine and then he also must love me whether I love him or no and if he does not he says I must love him though he be my Enemy and so I must but I must not love my Enemy though he be my Brother more than I love my Friend and at last if he does love me for being his Brother I confess that this love deserves love again but then I consider that he loves me upon an incompetent reason for he that loves me only because I am his Brother loves me for that which is no worthiness and I must love him as much as that comes to and for as little reason unless this be added that he loves me first But whether choice and union of souls and worthiness of manners and greatness of understanding and usefulness of conversation and the benefits of Counsel and all those endearments which make our lives pleasant and our persons Dear are not better and greater reasons of love and Dearness than to be born of the same flesh I think amongst wise persons needs no great inquiry For Fraternity is but a Cognation of Bodies but Friendship is an Union of Souls which are confederated by more noble ligatures My Brother if he be no more shall have my hand to help him but unless he be my friend too he cannot challenge my heart and if his being my friend be the greater nearness then Friend is more than Brother and I suppose no man doubts but that David lov'd Jonathan far more than he lov'd his Brother Eliab One inquiry more there may be in this affair and that is Whether a Friend may be more than a Husband or Wife To which I answer that it can never be reasonable or just prudent or lawful but the reason is because Marriage is the Queen of friendships in which there is a communication of all that can be communicated by friendship and it being made sacred by vows and love by bodies and souls by interest and custom by religion and by laws by common Counsels and common fortunes it is the principal in the kind of friendship and the measure of all the rest And there is no abatement to this consideration but that there may be some allay in this as in other lesser friendships by the incapacity of the persons if I have not
chosen my friend wisely or fortunately he cannot be the correlative in the best Union but then the friend lives as the soul does after death it is in the state of separation in which the soul strangely loves the body and longs to be reunited but the body is an useless trunk and can do no ministeries to the soul which therefore prays to have the body reformed and restored and made a brave and a fit companion So must these best friends when one is useless or unapt to the braveries of the princely friendship they must love ever and pray ever and long till the other be perfected and made fit in this case there wants only the body but the soul is still a relative and must be so for ever A Husband and a Wife are the best friends but they cannot always signifie all that to each other which their friendships would as the Sun shines not upon a Valley which sends up a thick vapour to cover his face and though his beams are eternal yet the emission is intercepted by the intervening cloud But however all friendships are but parts of this a man must leave Father and Mother and cleave to his Wife that is the dearest thing in Nature is not comparable to the dearest thing of friendship and I think this is argument sufficient to prove friendship to be the greatest band in the world Adde to this that other friendships are part of this they are marriages too less indeed than the other because they cannot must not be all that endearment which the other is yet that being the principal is the measure of the rest and are all to be honoured by like dignities and measured by the same rules and conducted by their portion of the same Laws But as Friendships are Marriages of the soul and of fortunes and interests and counsels so they are Brotherhoods too and I often think of the excellencies of friendships in the words of David who certainly was the best friend in the world Ecce quà m bonum quà m jucundum fratres habitare in unum It is good and it is pleasant that Brethren should live like friends that is they who are any ways relative and who are any ways social and confederate should also dwell in Unity and loving society for that is the meaning of the word Brother in Scripture It was my Brother Jonathan said David such Brothers contracting such friendships are the beauties of society and the pleasure of life and the festivity of minds and whatsoever can be spoken of love which is God's eldest daughter can be said of vertuous friendships and though Carneades made an eloquent Oration at Rome against justice yet never saw a Panegyrick of malice or ever read that any man was witty against friendship Indeed it is probable that some men finding themselves by the peculiarities of friendship excluded from the participation of those beauties of society which enamel and adorn the wise and the vertuous might suppose themselves to have reason to speak the evil words of envy and detraction I wonder not for all those unhappy souls which shall find Heaven-gates shut against them will think they have reason to murmur and blaspheme The similitude is apt enough for that is the region of friendship and Love is the light of that glorious Country but so bright that it needs no Sun Here we have fine and bright rays of that Celestial flame and though to all mankind the light of it is in some measure to be extended like the treasures of light dwelling in the South yet a little do illustrate and beautifie the North yet some live under the line and the beams of friendship in that position are imminent and perpendicular I know but one thing more in which the Communications of friendship can be restrained and that is in Friends and Enemies Amicus amici amicus meus non est My friends friend is not always my friend nor his enemy mine for if my friend quarrel with a third person with whom he hath had no friendships upon the account of interest if that third person be my friend the nobleness of our friendships despises such a quarrel and what may be reasonable in him would be ignoble in me sometimes it may be otherwise and friends may marry one anothers loves and hatreds but it is by chance if it can be just and therefore because it is not always right it cannot be ever necessary In all things else let friendships be as high and expressive till they become an Union or that friends like the Molionidae be so the same that the flames of their dead bodies make but one Pyramis no charity can be reproved and such friendships which are more than shadows are nothing else but the rays of that glorious grace drawn into one centre and made more active by the Union and the proper significations are well represented in the old Hieroglyphick by which the Ancients depicted friendship In the beauties and strength of a young man bare-headed rudely clothed to signifie its activity and lastingness readiness of action and aptnesses to do service Upon the fringes of his garment was written Mors vita as signifying that in life and death the friendship was the same on the forehead was written Summer and Winter that is prosperous and adverse accidents and states of life the left arm and shoulder was bare and naked down to the heart to which the finger pointed and there was written longè propè by all which we know that friendship does good far and near in Summer and Winter in life and death and knows no difference of state or accident but by the variety of her services and therefore ask no more to what we can be obliged by friendship for it is every thing that can be honest and prudent useful and necessary For this is all the allay of this Universality we may do any thing or suffer any thing that is wise or necessary or greatly beneficial to my friend and that in any thing in which I am perfect master of my person and fortunes But I would not in bravery visit my friend when he is sick of the plague unless I can do him good equal at least to my danger but I will procure him Physicians and prayers all the assistances that he can receive and that he can desire if they be in my power and when he is dead I will not run into his grave and be stifled with his earth but I will mourn for him and perform his will and take care of his relatives and do for him as if he were alive and I think that is the meaning of that hard saying of a Greek Poet. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To me though distant let thy friendship fly Though men be mortal friendships must not die Of all things else there 's great satiety Of such immortal abstracted pure friendships indeed there is no great plenty and to see brothers
utramque substantiam praesentium munerum alimento tribue quaesumus ut eorum corporibus nostris subsidium non desit mentibus The present gifts were appointed for the nourishment both of soul and body Who please may see more in Macarius 27. Homily and Ammonius in his Evangelical harmony in the Bibliotheca PP and this though it be decryed now adays in the Roman Schools yet was the doctrine of Scotus of Durandus Ocham Cameracensis and Biel and those men were for Consubstantiation that Christs natural body was together with natural bread which although I do not approve yet the use that I now make of them cannot be denied me it was their doctrine that after consecration bread still remains after this let what can follow But that I may leave the ground of this argument secure I add this that in the Primitive Church eating the Eucharistical bread was esteemed a breaking the fast which is not imaginable any man can admit but he that believes bread to remain after consecration and to be nutritive as before but so it was that in the second age of the Church it was advised that either they should end their station or fast at the communion or defer the communion to the end of the station as appears in Tertullian de Oratione cap. 14. which unanswerably proves that then it was thought to be bread and nutritive even then when it was Eucharistical and Picus Mirandula affirms that if a Jew or a Christian should eat the Sacrament for refection it breaks his fast The same also is the doctrine of all those Churches who use the Liturgies of S. James S. Mark and S. Chrysostome who hold that receiving the holy communion breaks the fast as appears in the disputation of Cardinal Humbert with Nicetas about 600 years ago The summ of all is this If of bread Christ said This is my body because it cannot be true in a proper natural sence it implying a contradiction that it should be properly bread and properly Christs body it must follow That it is Christs body in a figurative improper sence But if the bread does not remain bread but be changed by blessing into our Lords body this also is impossible to be in any sence true but by affirming the change to be only in use virtue and condition with which change the natural being of bread may remain For he that supposes that by the blessing the bread ceases so to be that nothing of it remains must also necessarily suppose that the bread being no more it neither can be the body of Christ nor any thing else For it is impossible that what is taken absolutely from all being should yet abide under a certain difference of being and that that thing which is not at all should yet be after a certain manner Since therefore as I have proved the bread remains and of bread it was affirmed This is my body it follows inevitably that it is figuratively not properly and naturally spoken of bread That it is the flesh or body of our Lord. SECT VI. Est corpus meum 1. THE Next words to be considered are Est corpus This is my body and here begins the first Topical expression Est that is significat or repraesentat exhibet corpus meum say some This is my body it is to all real effects the same to your particulars which my body is to all the Church it signifies the breaking of my body the effusion of my blood for you and applies my passion to you and conveys to you all the benefits as this nourishes your bodies so my body nourishes your souls to life eternal and consigns your bodies to immortality Others make the trope in Corpus so that Est shall signify properly but Corpus is taken in a spiritual sence sacramental and Mysterious not a natural and presential whether the figure be in Est or in Corpus is but a question of Rhetorick and of no effect That the proposition is tropical and figurative is the thing and that Christs natural body is now in heaven definitively and no where else and that he is in the Sacrament as he can be in a Sacrament in the hearts of faithful receivers as he hath promised to be there that is in the Sacrament mystically operatively as in a moral and divine instrument in the hearts of receivers by faith and blessing this is the truth and the faith of which we are to give a reason and account to them that disagree But this which is to all the purpose which any one pretends can be in the sumption of Christs body naturally yet will not please the Romanists unless Est Is signifie properly without trope or metonymie and corpus be corpus naturale Here then I joyn issue It is not Christs body properly or naturally for though it signifies a real effect yet it signifies the body figuratively or the effects and real benefits 2. Now concerning this there are very many inducements to infer the figurative or tropical interpretation 1. In the language which our blessed Lord spake there is no word that can express significat but they use the word Is the Hebrews and the Syrians always joyn the names of the signs with the things signified and since the very essence of a sign is to signifie it is not an improper elegancy in those languages to use Est for significat 2. It is usual in the Old Testament as may appear to understand est when the meaning is for the present and not to express it but when it signifies the future then to express it the seven fat cows seven years the seven withered ears shall be seven years of famine 3. The Greek interpreters of the Bible supply the word est in the present tense which is omitted in the Hebrew as in the places above quoted but although their Language can very well express signifies yet they follow the Hebrew Idiom 4. In the New Testament the same manner of speaking is retained to declare that the nature and being of signs is to signifie they have no other esse but significare and therefore they use est for significat The Seed is the word the Field is the World the Reapers are the Angels the Harvest is the End of the World the Rock is Christ I am the Door I am the Vine my Father is the husbandman I am the way the truth and the life Sarah and Agar are the two Testaments the Stars are the Angels of the Churches the Candlesticks are the Churches and many more of this kind we have therefore great and fair and frequent precedents for expounding this est by significat for it is the style of both the Testaments to speak in signs and representments where one disparate speaks of another as it does here the body of Christ of the bread which is the Sacrament especially since the very institution of it is representative significative and commemorative For so said our
blessed Saviour Do this in memorial of me and this doing ye shew forth the Lords death till he come saith S. Paul 3. Secondly the second credibility that our blessed Saviours words are to be understood figuratively is because it is a Sacrament For mysterious and tropical expressions are very frequently almost regularly and universally used in Scripture in Sacraments and sacramentals And therefore it is but a vain discourse of Bellarmine to contend that this must be a proper speaking because it is a Sacrament For that were all one as to say he speaks mystically therefore he speaks properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the Greek for a Sacrament and all the Greek that is for it in the New Testament and when S. Paul tells of a man praying in the spirit but so as not to be understood he expresses it by speaking mysteries The mysterious and sacramental speaking is secret and dark But so it is in the sacrament or covenant of circumcision 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is my Covenant and yet it was but the seal of the Covenant if you believe S. Paul it was a Sacrament and a consignation of it but it is spoken of it affirmatively and the same words are used there as in the Sacrament of the Eucharist it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in both places 4. And upon this account two other usual objections pretending that this being a Covenant and a Testament it ought to be expressed without a figure are dissolved For here is a Covenant and a Testament and a Sacrament all in one and yet the expression of them is figurative and the being a Testament is so far from supposing all expression in it to be proper and free from figure that it self the very word Testament in the institution of the holy Sacrament is tropical or figurative est Testamentum that is est signum Testamenti it is that is it signifies And why they should say that a Testament must have in it all plain words and no figures or hard sayings that contend that both the Testaments New and Old are very full of hard sayings and upon that account forbid the people to read them I confess I cannot understand Besides this though it be fit in temporal Testaments all should be plain yet we see all are not plain and from thence come so many suits of Law yet there is not the same reason in spiritual or divine and in humane Testaments for in humane there is nothing but legacies and express commands both which it is necessary that we understand plainly but in divine Testaments there are mysteries to exercise our industry and our faith our patience and inquiry some things for us to hope some things for us to admire some things to pry into some things to act some things for the present some things for the future some things pertaining to this life some things pertaining to the life to come some things we are to see in a glass darkly some things reserved till the vision of Gods face And after all this in humane Testaments men ought to speak plainly because they can speak no more when they are dead But Christ can for he being dead yet speaketh and he can by his Spirit make the Church understand as much as he please and he will as much as is necessary and it might be remembred that in Scripture there is extant a record of Jacobs Testament and of Moses which we may observe to be an allegory all the way I have heard also of an Athenian that had two sons and being asked on his deathbed to which of his two sons he would give his goods to Leon or Pantaleon which were the names of his two sons he only said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but whether he meant to give all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Leon or to Pantaleon is not yet known And in the Civil Law it is noted that Testaments have figurative expressions very often and therefore decreed Non n. in causâ Testamentorum ad definitionem strictam sive propriam verborum significationem saith the Gloss utique descendendum est cum plerumque abusivè loquantur nec propriis vocabulis ac nominibus semper utantur Testatores l. non aliter Sect. Titius F. de legat fidei com And there are in Law certain measures for presumption of the Testators meaning These therefore are trifling arrests even a commandment may be given with a figurative expression and yet be plain enough such was that of Jesus Pray ye the Lord of the Harvest that he would send Labourers into his Harvest and that Jesus commanded his Disciples to prepare the Passeover and some others so Rent your hearts and not your garments c. And an article of faith may be expressed figuratively so is that of Christs sitting at the right hand of his Father And therefore much more may there be figurative expressions in the institution of a mysterie and yet be plain enough Tropica loquutio cum fit ubi fieri solet sine labore sequitur intellectus said S. Austin l. 3. de Doct. Christ. c. 37. Certain it is the Church understood this well enough for a Thousand years together and yet admitted of figures in the institution and since these new men had the handling of it and excluded the figurative sence they have made it so hard that themselves cannot understand it nor tell one anothers meaning But it suffices as to this particular that in Scripture doctrines and promises and precepts and prophecies and histories are expressed sometimes figuratively Dabo tibi claves and Semen mulieris conteret caput serpentis and The dragon drew the third part of the Stars with his tail and Fight the good fight of faith Put on the armour of righteousness and very many more 5. Thirdly And indeed there is no possibility of distinguishing sacramental propositions from common and dogmatical or from a commandment but that these are affirmative of a nature those of a mystery these speak properly they are figurative such as this Vnless a man be born of water and the Spirit be cannot enter into the kingdom of Heaven The proposition is sacramental mystical and figurative Go and baptize that 's a precept therefore the rather is it literal and proper So it is in the blessed Sacrament the institution is in Jesus took bread and blessed it and brake it and gave to his disciples saying Take eat In these also there is a precept and in the last words Hoc facite this do in remembrance of me But the Sacramental proposition or the mystical which explicates the Sacrament is Hoc est corpus meum and either this is or there is no sacramental proposition in this whole affair to explicate the mysterie or the being a sacrament But this is very usual in sacramental propositions For so baptism is called regeneration and it is called a burial by S. Paul for we are buried with him in baptism then baptism