Auditory Let us a little consider not the weakness of these men but the greatness of the business the manage of which they undertake So great a thing as the skill of Exposition of the Word and Gospel is so fraught with multiplicity of Authors so full of variety of opinion must needs be confest to be a matter of great learning and that it cannot especially in our days in short time with a mediocrity of industry be attained For if in the Apostles times when as yet much of Scripture was scarcely written when God wrought with men miraculously to inform their understanding and supplied by revelation what mans industry could not yield if I say in these times St. Paul required diligent reading and expresly forbad greenness of Scholarship much more then are these conditions required in our times wherein God doth not supply by miracle our natural defects and yet the burden of our profession is infinitely increast All that was necessary in the Apostles times is now necessary and much more For if we adde unto the growth of Christian learning as it was in the Apostles times but this one circumstance to say nothing of all the rest which naturally befalls our times and could not be required at the hands of those who guided the first ages of the Church that is the knowledge of the state and succession of doctrine in the Church from time to time a thing very necessary for the determining the controversies of these our days how great a portion of our labour and industry would this alone require Wherefore if Quintilian thought it necessary to admonish young men that they should not presume themselves satis instructos si quent ex iis qui breves circumferuntur artis libellum edidicerint velut decretis technicorum tutos putent if he thought fit thus to do in an Art of so inferiour and narrow a sphere much more is it behoveful that young Students in so high so spacious so large a profession be advised not to think themselves sufficiently provided upon their acquaintance with some Notitia or Systeme of some technical divine Looke upon those sons of Anak those Giant-like voluminous Writers of Rome in regard of whom our little Tractates and pocket Volumes in this kind what are they but as Grashoppers I speak not this like some seditious or factious spie to bring weakness of hands or melting of heart upon any of Gods people but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to stir up and kindle in you the spirit of industry to inlarge your conceits and not to suffer your labours to be copst and mued up within the poverty of some pretended method I will speak as Ioshua did to his people Let us not fear the people of that land they are as meat unto us their shadow is departed from them the Lord is with us fear them not Onely let us not think sedendo votis debellari posse that the conquest will be gotten by sitting still and wishing all were well or that the walls of these strong Cities will fall down if we onely walk about them and blow rams horns But as the voice of Gods people sometime was by the sword of God and of Gideon so that which here gives the victory must be the grace of God and our industry For by this circumcised narrow and penurious form of study we shall be no more able to keep pace with them then a child can with Hercules But I forbear and pass away unto the second Epithet by which these rackers of Scriptures are by St. Peter stiled Vnstable IN the learning which the world teaches it were almost a miracle to find a man constant to his own tenets For not to doubt in things in which we are conversant is either by reason of exellency and serenity of understanding throughly apprehending the main principles on which all things are grounded together with the descrying of the several passages from them unto particular conclusions and the diverticles and blind by-paths which Sophistry and deceit are wont to tread and such a man can nature never yeild or else it is through a sensless stupidity like unto that in the common sort of men who conversing among the creatures and beholding the course of heaven and the heavenly host yet never attend them neither ever sinks it into their heads to marvel or question these things so full of doubt and difficulty Even such a one is he that learns Theology in the School of Nature if he seem to participate of any setledness or composedness of conscience Either it never comes into his head to doubt of any of those things with which the world hath inured him or if it doth it is to no great purpose he may smother and strangle he can never resolve his doubt The reason of which is this It lies not in the worlds power to give in this case a text of sufficient authority to compose and fix the thoughts of a soul that is dispos'd to doubt But this great inconvenience which held the world in uncertainty by the providence of God is prevented in the Church For unto it is left a certain undoubted and sufficient authority able to exalt every valley and lay low every hill to smooth all rubs and make our way so open and passable that little enquiry serves So that as it were a wonder in the School of Nature to find one setled and resolved so might it seem a marvel that in the Church any man is unstable unresolved Yet notwithstanding even here is the unstable man found too and to his charge the Apostle lays this sin of Wresting of Scripture For since that it is confest at all hands that the sense and meaning of Scripture is the rule and ground of our Christian tenets whensoever we alter them we must needs give a new sense unto the word of God So that the man that is unstable in his Religion can never be free from violating of Scripture The especial cause of this levity and flitting disposition in the common and ordinary sort of men is their disability to discern of the strength of such reasons as may be framed against them For which cause they usually start and many times fall away upon every objection that is made In which too sudden entertainment of objections they resemble the state of those who are lately recovered out of some long sickness qui si reliquias eâ—â—ugerint suspicionibus tamen inquiâ—tantur omnem calorem corporis sui calumniantur Who never more wrong themselves then by suspecting every alteration of their temper and being affrighted at every little passion of heat as if it were an ague-fit To bring these men therefore unto an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and to purchase them a setledness of mind that temper that St. Austine doth require in him that reads his Book tales meorum Scriptorum velim judices qui responsionem non semper desâ—derent quum his quae le guntur
a truth but in the Church who formerly had with too much facility admitted a conclusion so justly subject to exception And let this suffice for our third part Now because it is apparent that the end of this our Apostles admonition is to give the Church a Caveat how she behave her self in handling of Scripture give me leave a little in stead of the use of such doctrines as I have formerly laid down to shew you as far as my conceit can stretch what course any man may take to save himself from offering violence unto Scripture and reasonably settle himself any pretended obscurity of the text whatsoever notwithstanding For which purpose the diligent observing of two rules shall be throughly available First The litteral plain and uncontroversable meaning of Scripture without any addition or supply by way of interpretation is that alone which for ground of faith we are necessarily bound to accept except it be there where the holy Ghost himself treads us out another way I take not this to be any peculiar conceit of mine but that unto which our Church stands necessarily bound When we receded from the Church of Rome one motive was because she added unto Scripture her glosses as Canonical to supply what the plain text of Scripture could not yield If in place of hers we set up our own glosses thus to do were nothing else but to pull down Baal and set up an ephod to run round and meet the Church of Rome again in the same point in which at first we left her But the plain evident and demonstrative ground of this rule is this That authority which doth warrant our faith unto us must every way be free from all possibility of errour For let us but once admit of this that there is any possibility that any one point of faith should not be true if it be once granted that I may be deceived in what I have believed how can I be assured that in the end I shall not be deceived If the Author of faith may alter or if the evidence and assurance that he hath left us be not pregnant and impossible to be defeated there is necessarily opened an inlet to doubtfulness and wavering which the nature of faith excludes That faith therefore may stand unshaken two things are of necessity to concur First That the Author of it be such a one as can by no means be deceived and this can be none but God Secondly That the words and text of this Author upon whom we ground must admit of no ambiguity no uncertainty of interpretation If the trumpet give an uncertain sound who shall provide himself to battel If the words admit a double sense and I follow one who can assure me that that which I follow is the truth For infallibility either in judgment or interpretation or whatsoever is annext neither to the See of any Bishop nor to the Fathers nor to the Councels nor to the Church nor to any created power whatsoever This doctrine of the literal sense was never grievous or prejudicial to any but onely to those who were inwardly conscious that their positions were not sufficiently grounded When Cardinal Cajetan in the days of our grandfathers had forsaken that vein of postilling and allegorising on Scripture which for a long time had prevailed in the Church and betaken himself unto the literal sense it was a thing so distasteful unto the Church of Rome that he was forc'd to find out many shifts and make many apologies for himself The truth is as it will appear to him that reads his writings this sticking close to the literal sense was that alone which made him to shake many of those tenets upon which the Church of Rome and the Reformed Churches differ But when the importunity of the Reformers and the great credit of Calvin's writings in that kind had forced the Divines of Rome to level their interpretations by the same line when they saw that no pains no subtlety of wit was strong enough to defeat the literal evidence of Scripture it drave them on those desperate shelves on which at this day they stick to call in question as far as they durst the credit of the Hebrew text and countenance against it a corrupt translation to adde Traditions unto Scripture and to make the Churches interpretation so pretended to be above exception As for that restriction which is usually added to this Rule that the literal sense is to be taken if no absurdity follow though I acknowledge it to be sound and good yet my advise is that we entertain it warily St. Basil thought the precept of Christ to the rich man in the Gospel Go sell all that thou hast and give unto the poor to be spoken as a command universally and eternally binding all Christians without exception And making this objection how possibly such a life could be amongst Christians since where all are sellers none could be buyers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Ask not me the sense of my Lords commands He that gave the Law can provide to give it possibility of being kept without any absurdity at all Which speech howsoever we may suppose the occasion of it to be mistaken yet it is of excellent use to repress our boldness whereby many times under pretence of some inconvenience we hinder Scripture from that latitude of sense of which it is naturally capable You know the story of the Roman Captain in Gellius and what he told the Ship-wright that chose rather to interpret then to execute his Lords command Corrumpi atque dissolvi omne imperantis officium si quis ad id quod facere jussus est non obsequio debito sed consilio non desiderato respondeat It will certainly in the end prove safer for us to entertain Gods commandments obsequio debito then to interpret them acumine non desiderato Those other ways of interpretation whether it be by allegorising or allusion or whatsoever the best that can be said of them is that which S. Basil hath pronounced 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We acount of them as of trim elegant and witty speeches but we refuse to accept of them as of undoubted truths And though of some part of these that may be said which one said of his own work Quod ad usum lusi quod ad molestiam laboravi in respect of any profit comes by them they are but sport but in respect of the pains taken in making of them they are labour and travel yet much of them is of excellent use in private either to raise our affections or to spend our meditations or so it be with modesty to practise our gifts of wit to the honour of him that gave them For if we absolutely condemn these interpretations then must we condemn a great part of antiquity who are very much conversant in this kind of interpreting For the most partial for antiquity cannot chuse but see and
because it seems fitly to open my meaning I will not refrain to speak it Lucian when Priam's young son was taken up into heaven brings him in calling for milk and cheese and such countrey eates as he was wont to eat on earth Beloved when we first come to the Table of God to heavenly Manna and Angels food it is much with us as it was with Priam's young son when he came first into Heaven we cannot forget the milk and cheese and the gross diet of the world Our Saviour and his blessed Apostles had great and often experience of this errour in men When our Saviour preach'd to Nicodemus the doctrine of Regeneration and new birth how doth he still harp upon a gross conceit of a re-entry to be made into his mother's womb When he preach'd unto the Samaritan woman concerning the water of life how hardly is she driven from thinking of a material Elementary water such as was in Iacob's well When Simon Magus in the Acts saw that by laying on of hands the Apostles gave the Holy Ghost he offers them money to purchase himself the like power He had been trafficking and merhandizing in the world and saw what authority what a Kingdom money had amongst men he therefore presently conceited coelum venale Deumque that God and Heaven and All would be had for money To teach therefore the young Courtier in the Court of Heaven that he commit no such Solecisms that hereafter he speak the true language and dialect of God our Saviour sets down this as a principal rule in our Spiritual Grammar That his Court is not of this world Nay Beloved not onely the young Courtier but many of the old servants in the Court of Christ are stain'd with this errour It is storied of Leonides which was Schole-master to Alexander the great that he infected his non-age with some vices quae robustum quoque jam maximum Regem ab illa institutione puerili sunt prosecuta which followed him then when he was at man's estate Beloved the world hath been a long time a Schole-master unto us and hath stain'd our non-age with some of these spots which appear in us even then when we are strong men in Christ. When our Saviour in the Acts after his Resurrection was discoursing to his Disciples concerning the Kingdom of God they presently brake forth into this question Wilt thou now restore the Kingdom unto Israel Certainly this question betrays their ignorance their thoughts still ran upon a Kingdom like unto the Kingdoms of the world notwithstanding they had so long and so often heard our Saviour to the contrary Our Saviour therefore shortly takes them up Non est vestrum your question is nothing to the purpose the Kingdom that I have spoken of is another manner of Kingdom then you conceive Sixteen hundred years Et quod excurrit hath the Gospel been preached unto the world and is this stain spunged out yet I doubt it Whence arise those novel and late disputes de notis Ecclesia of the notes and visibility of the Church Is it not from hence they of Rome take the world and the Church to be like Mercury and Sofia in Plautus his Comedies so like one another that one of them must wear a toy in his cap that so the spectators may distinguish them whence comes it that they stand so much upon State and Ceremony in the Church Is it not from hence that they think the Church must come in like Agrippa and Bernice in the Acts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Luke speaks with a great deal of pomp and train and shew and vanity and that the service of God doth necessarily require this noise and tumult of outward State and Ceremony Whence comes it that we are at our wits ends when we see persecution and sword and fire to rage against the true professours of the Gospel Is it not because as these bring ruine and desolation upon the Kingdoms of the world so we suppose they work no other effect in the Kingdom of Christ All these conceits and many more of the like nature spring out of no other fountain then that old inveterate errour which is so hardly wiped out of our hearts That the State of the Church and Kingdom of Christ doth hold some proportion some likeness with the state and managing of temporal Kingdoms Wherefore to pluck out of our hearts Opinionem tam insitam tam vetustam a conceit so ancient so deeply rooted in us our Saviour spake most excellently most pertinently and most fully when he tells us that his Church that his Kingdom is not of this world In which words of his there is contained the true art of discovering and knowing the true nature and essence of the Church For as they which make Statues cut and pare away all superfluities of the matter upon which they work so our Saviour to shew us the true proportion and feature of the Church prunes away the world and all superfluous excrescencies and sends her to be seen as he did our first Parents in Paradise stark naked As those Elders in the Apocryphal story of Susanna when they would see her beauty commanded to take off her mask so he that longs to see the beauty of the Church must pull off that mask of the world and outward shew For as Iuda in the Book of Genesis when Thamar sate veil'd by the way-side knew not his daughter from an whore so whilst the Church the Daughter and Spouse of Christ sits veil'd with the world and pomp and shew it will be an hard matter to discern her from an harlot But yet further to make the difference betwixt these Kingdoms the more plainly to appear and the better to fix it in your memories I will breifly touch some of these heads in which they are most notoriously differenced The first head wherein the difference is seen are the persons and subjects of this Kingdom For as the Kingdom of Christ is not of this world so the subjects of this Kingdom are men of another world and not of this Every one of us bears a double person and accordingly is the subject of a double Kingdom The holy Ghost by the Psalmist divides heaven and earth betwixt God and man and tells us as for God He is in heaven but the earth hath he given to the children of men So hath the same Spirit by the Apostle St. Paul divided every one of our persons into heaven and earth into an outward and earthly man and into an inward and heavenly man This earth that is this body of clay hath he given to the sons of men to the Princes under whose government we live but heaven that is the inward and spiritual man hath he reserved unto himself They can restrain the outward man and moderate our outward actions by Edicts and Laws they can tie our hands and our tongues Illa se jactet in aula AEolus Thus far they can go and when they are